Roman" element, represented in the civil law, the municipal traditions, and forms of constituted authority, and the Barbarian element of individual liberty or of feudal rule. This struggle has been slowly decided in favor of the former, -the Græco-Roman,— as seen in political institutions more and more highly organized, State authority more distinctly recognized, and national life established in more intricate, complete, and enduring forms. In illustration and carrying-out of this, France, the most highly organized State, is at this day the heart of European civilization, England and the rest revolving about her as their centre, bitterly against their will; while Greece, the inheritor of the Byzantine tradition, is sure to overcome the barbaric Turkish element in less time, reckoning from the fall of Constantinople, than it has required for the new empire to rise from the ruins of the barbarian conquest of the fifth century. The coincidence of this style of political philosophy with the aspirations of Dante, with the argument of Vico, with the philosophy of Gioberti, will be seen at first glance: the new application made of it is to the political life and the constitutional authority of our own country. Here, it was the barbarian, personal, feudal, disintegrating element, in revolt against the national authority, that attempted the rebellion, and was so signally overthrown. It is the same barbaric element, in the crude theories of a radical democracy and a vague philanthropy, which makes the chief political danger threatening our country now. But this danger also is sure to be overcome, not only because the clear sense of our people has been enlightened by the war, and the necessities of the time will compel them into a truer political wisdom; but because the destiny of this nation is providential: it has a mission to fulfil on the grandest scale, a wholly new plan of political society to develop, in strict accordance with the appointment and the will of God.

It should be said, however, that Dr. Brownson does not regard this destiny, or mission, as a fixed, fated, inevitable thing. It may be missed by ignorance, or forfeited by crime and error. It had well-nigh failed in the war of the rebellion, and is in equal danger of being lost through crude "humanitarian" theories, which

recognize no State, no civil authority, and are therefore as much out of the order of civilization, and as much in that of barbarism, as is the slaveholder himself. Wendell Phillips is as far removed from Christian civilization as was John C. Calhoun; and William Lloyd Garrison is as much of a barbarian and despot, in principle and tendency, as Jefferson Davis"!

But Dr. Brownson has always held a genuinely noble and patriotic faith in the future of the republic; and he expresses a clear religious recognition of that truer instinct, that unconscious intelligence, that loyalty to a divine principle, in the people at large, which makes it wiser than its governors and teachers, and steadies its course among opposite perils.

The second marked feature of the book, as we have said, is its exposition of our form of government, and the nature of the American Union. The "solidarity" of the republic is not conventional, resulting from a simple political compact and the acceptance of a Constitution it is essential, transcendental, providential. From 1848 till 1861, as he informs us, Dr. Brownson held to the Calhoun theory of the sovereignty of States. Driven from this heresy by the storm of that period, and choosing his part with the uncompromising defenders of the nation, he yet did not abandon the logical ground on which that theory rested. Webster's argument, that the sovereignty of the States was merged in that of the Union by constitutional compact, he considers to have been fully refuted by Calhoun, on the ground that sovereignty is a thing which, from the nature of the case, can no more be surrendered than one's personality: a mere compact among equals can, of course, be forsaken by any party to it. So far, the secessionists, he holds, are clearly right, whatever may be thought of the policy or the morality of their way of enforcing that right. Nor is their argument sufficiently met by the statement, that the theory of the founders of the Constitution was that expounded by Mr. Webster undoubtedly it was so, as Mr. Madison makes clear in a letter to Edward Everett, printed in the "North American Review.” But this was because the philosophy these men held was the revolutionary, individualizing philosophy of the eighteenth century. In truth, "they builded wiser than they knew." It was as a nation that the United States won the acknowledgment of their independence; it was as a nation that the country at large was recognized in the writings of that period; the exercise of sovereignty was had only by the Confederation or the Union, never by the several States: nay, in adopting their State constitutions, they acted under authority of a Resolution of Congress, — equivalent to the "enabling act" under which a Territory now becomes a State (p. 225). The nationality is not created, but assumed: it rests on deeper grounds than a political arrangement; it is, in truth, a transcendental or religious fact, to be recognized in our Christian philosophy respecting the nation's

life. The real Constitution of the American Union is an unwritten constitution: the document which goes by that name is simply the outline defining the form of government.

This doctrine of a Union, or nationality, behind the written Constitution, and making the real object which laws and constitutions are but meant to serve, has become tolerably familiar during the discussions that have grown out of the war. It is the theory, essentially, we suppose, which was struggling for clear recognition and expression in the mind of Mr. Lincoln, when he had to justify himself for saving the nation by measures which his predecessor justly qualifies as "extra-constitutional." It is the theory which is compelling his successor's reluctant assent, through the obstacle of more rigid prejudgments and a less yielding temper. It is the theory which the people themselves have unconsciously clung to, till it gets wrought into clearer consciousness through the effectual working of events. But it has not been stated before with so clear intelligence, or with so deep a religious and philosophic interpretation. And we consider that the work before us does a valuable service by challenging the political intelligence of the nation to view the doctrine in its larger bearings, and accept it as the only solution of our great controversy,the only justification of the nation's heroic self-defence.

The inferences from this ground-doctrine are rapid and clear. States are the units of which the national organism is framed. State rights and State sovereignty are special functions, or derivatives, of the national sovereignty: they cannot be exercised outside of the national organization; they are forfeited or extinguished, not maintained, by the act of secession. "A Territory, by coming into the Union, becomes a State; a State, by going out of the Union, becomes á Territory" (p. 308). Such of its laws as still remain valid are so by the understood ratification or sufferance of the nation. The war of the Union was fought for a cause deeper and grander than the special issues of philanthropy which were involved in it. It was a war of opinions equally honest on both sides; and the defeated in it have committed no "moral crime" of treason. "Their defeat, and the failure of their cause, must be their punishment. The interest of the country, as well as the sentiment of the civilized world, it might almost be said, the law of nations, demands their permission to return to their allegiance, to be treated according to their future merits, as an integral portion of the American people" (pp. 332, 333).

We have been the more full in our notice of this volume, because its place and style of publication may perhaps keep it a little aside from the main stream of our literature, and because of the interest which always attaches to Dr. Brownson's clear, strong, nervous utterance of his thought. We easily enough overlook his dogmatism and his prejudice, shown in his astounding assertion, that all which is sound and durable in modern thought derives from the Church fathers; in his slur at his old friends, the Unitarians; in his bitter hostility to modern humanitary reform, - for the sake of the satisfaction we find, that a political doctrine on the whole so sound, so patriotic, and so liberal, should be addressed to that large and important class of our countrymen with whom he gallantly associates himself.

MISCELLANEOUS.

J. H. A.

CHILDREN'S books make now a literature apart. And, with all that are poverty-stricken in thought and style, there are yet many that are worth while and fit to their purpose. Of this sort was the first series of "Hymns for Mothers and Children;"* and it is good to know that editor and publisher have found the first so well used, that a second is needed.

To those who have to do with little folks, it will be most welcome. Here are hymns for the littlest and for the older children; hymns of nature, of loyalty, and of fairies; hymns of religious trust and of home pleasure, with many more. The needs of mothers and the moods of children are well served. The selection is various, from many sources, as is right for a book which will go into many sorts of homes. That the selection is guided by good taste, the name of the editor is guarantee enough; and, better than good taste, or rather as part and parcel of good taste, a true simplicity has guided. Without that grace, what forlorn work is made of children's books! But this is thoroughly childlike. Some of the hymns, to be sure, are for mothers; but there are none which, for simplicity, do not belong to the children. We hope this volume does not close the series.

* Hymns for Mothers and Children. Second Series. Compiled by the Editor of "Hymns of the Ages." Boston: Walker, Fuller, & Co. 1866.

THE

CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

MAY, 1866.

ART. I.-THE UNITARIAN MOVEMENT.

THE word "sect" is thus defined in Webster's Dictionary:

"SECT. 1. A body or number of persons united in tenets, chiefly in philosophy or religion, but constituting a distinct party by holding sentiments different from those of other men; a denomination.

"2. A denomination which dissents from an established church. "3. A cutting or cion."

The last definition indicates the origin of the word from the Latin secta, a cutting, or thing cut off from a main body.

The usage of this word, in the ecclesiastical or religious world, has been different at different times; but it has always carried with it, until recently, something like reproach, as applicable to deserters, dissentients, eccentrics, -or, at any rate, to persons holding sentiments different from those of other men, which is commonly felt to be a sign of imperfect influence and transitory importance.

Our Saviour and his earliest followers were Jews, and, as they strictly fulfilled the letter and spirit of the Jewish law, they were regarded, not as introducing a new religion, but only as establishing a new sect, when they preached the gospel. How different a relation the new faith bore to Judaism, from that which the various existing sects of Judaism bore to each other, was not at all understood at the time when the Jews in Rome came to Paul, and said, "We desire

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