day drilling, its necessity would be established. The very act of the legislature, however, on which the practice professes to be founded has admitted, that Sunday drilling is not essential to the attainment of this object, for it declares that parts of two, or at most of three, days in the week will be sufficient, in general, for the purposes of drilling. But had it even required seven drills in the week, while a possibility existed of drilling twice on any one week day, Sunday drilling could not have been justified on the plea of necessity.

"From what principle then does this pretended necessity really originate? From a principle of worldly advantage, of political expediency. If the practice of Sunday drilling be not adopted, some additional expence must be incurred by the public; some trivial loss or inconvenience must be sustained by individuals; some slight interruption must be occasioned in trade, in commerce, in agriculture. Sift the matter to the bottom, and the more closely it is investigated the more plainly it will appear, that the necessity of training men on the Lord's day results, not from the intervention of a divine command superseding, in this instance, the general law of the sabbath, but from the imperious demands of interest in opposition to duty, of covetousness in opposition to conscience, of Mammon in opposition to God." (p. 10.)

We perfectly concur with Mr. Cooper in thinking that Sunday drilling not being founded on necessity, the longer continuance of the practice is indefensible.

"For what can be urged in defence of an unnecessary violation of a divine command? To persist in such a violation is presumptuously to set God at defiance, to call down his just indignation, and that too, in the present instance, at a time when, beyond all others, to conciliate his favour, and to secure his protection, is our first and most important interest." (p. 12.)

Mr. Cooper having shewn that Sunday drilling is unnecessary, proceeds to argue against it on the ground of expediency; and here he is no less successful in proving, that the probable effects of Sunday drilling on the interests of religion constitute of themselves an unanswerable objection to its introduction. One effect will be, as he justly argues, an increase of that disrespect and that irreverence for the sabbath which already so alarmingly prevail. Sunday drilling tends to alter the very face of Sunday, and

silently to undermine that powerful barrier, which a veneration for the sabbath opposes to the inroads of infidelity. It likewise directly tends to counteract the good effects which the sabbath is intended to produce. The whole spirit, temper, and feelings which drilling excites, are, in the highest degree, repugnant to an humble, tender, contrite, spiritual frame of mind; while, as he ably shews, encouragement is afforded to the increase of impiety and vice by the concourse of idle spectators.

But it is urged by some, that Sunday drilling will produce a more general attendance at Church. Let it be admitted that the congregation is thus increased: but if the men are drilled before the service begins, will not weariness of body and distraction of thought, occasioned by the nature and novelty of the exercise in which they have been engaged, unfit them for the solemn worship of God? Or if after divine service, "what more effectual means could be devised for aiding the designs of the wicked one, who watcheth to catch away the seed which has been sown in the heart? Such a transition must rapidly dissipate every serious thought, and obliterate all the good impressions which have been received."

But admitting that Sunday drilling were productive of the beneficial consequence ascribed to it, the question would still recur, "Is the prac tice itself lawful? Is it not an unnecessary violation of a divine command? Till this question be satisfactorily answered, no argument, drawn from the seeming good effects of the measure, could palliate its adoption. The Christian's statute book expressly enjoins him not to do evil that good may come."

This judicious divine and sound moralist further argues against the practice of Sunday drilling, not only from the immediate and local, but from the general and remote effects to be apprehended from it. "The principle," as he satisfactorily shews, "which the process of Sunday drilling shall have contributed to establish, will not expire when the process is discontinued, but may prove the source of incalculable evils, and even extend its baneful influence to the latest posterity." We cordially agree with Mr. Cooper, in wishing

Infant Baptism was all along practised from the very life-time of the apostles themselves; and we can, as has been already observed, challenge the opponents of Infant Baptism to produce one single well established instance, for the first thousand years of christianity, of any writer who has left it upon record as his opinion, that Infant Baptism is not lawful to be practised, some few declared heretics excepted, who rejected baptism altogether. Is it then too much to say that it is only not demonstrated, that Infant Baptism was the practice of primitive Christians from the first? Could we expect such a custom of the Church to be better established? Can we then reasonably entertain a doubt whether Infant Baptism is sanctioned by apostolic authority, when we have traced back its actual and undisputed existence from the eleventh century to the very times in which the apostles lived.

From the whole, then, this conclusion follows. The antient infant privileges are not revoked by Christ, they therefore continue under the Christian dispensation. Infant Baptism, to say the least, is strongly countenanced and implied in the writings of the New Testament, no where, directly or indirectly, condemned. Under these circumstances, we might confidently expect to find the practice prevail in the primitive Church. We have found it to be so. Again, in the unanimous usage and judgment of Christians, through the first eleven centuries we find one continued precedent for Infant Baptism, in the practice of all orthodox Christians without one single well supported instance to the contrary; such a fact might strongly dispose us to believe, before we searched the scriptures, that divine authority would sanction the admission, by baptism, of the infants of believers, as well as of be lievers themselves, into the Church of God. Such a practice we find solemnly instituted under the Old Testament, and never repeated, but recognized and implied in the New. Thus, then, the directions of the word of God, and the general practice of the Church of Christ, concur in establishing it to be the Christian parent's duty to BAPTIZE HIS INFANT." (p. 30-32.)

The remaining chapter is chiefly devoted to the consideration of the objections, which have been frequently urged against Infant Baptism. The first objection is thus strongly stated, "Faith and repentance,' say the Baptists, "are necessary conditions in the subjects of baptism; such persons, therefore, only as are capable of repenting and believing ought to be baptized." In replying to it, our author very properly admits, that faith and repentance are indispensable prerequisites in all adults who are baptized.

"But," he adds, "if Baptists will contend that infants, by their inability to believe and repent, are necessarily incapable of receiving baptism, let them try the soundness of their reasoning in' a point of infinitely greater importance. The scriptures are much more express and unqualified in declaring, that except we repent we must all perish,' than they are in commanding us to repent and believe before baptism. They positively and repeatedly affirm, that whosoever believeth not shall perish. No exception is made in favour of infants and idiots. Are we then to conclude that the child of the most holy parent, dying in infancy, cannot be saved, because faith and repentance are declared necessary to salvation, and an infant can exercise neither? No. All orthodox baptists, I think, who have mentioned the subject, seem unanimously to conclude favourably in the case of the departed infants of supposed believing parents at least; and hereby expose the fallacy of this their favourite argument against Infant Baptism. They are obliged to concede in one case, that, though faith and repentance are absolutely necessary unto salvation, these pre-requisites are, notwithstanding, only required of such as are capable of believing and repenting, others being admitted to the same privilege without the exercise of faith and repentance, In the other case we ask them to concede no more." (p. 33, 34.)

We are at a loss to conceive by what means the force of this reasoning can be evaded.

The remaining objections, noticed by our author, arise from the form of administering baptism used in the Church of England, and we think he has been very successful in obviating them. He then concludes with calling upon his readers to reflect, whether, under all the circumstances of the case, it can possibly be their duty to separate from the Church of England in order to be re-baptized. We work with an unprejudiced mind will are persuaded, that all who read this decide in the negative.

We strongly recommend, to all who desire information on the subject of Infant Baptism, the perusal of this pamphlet, which contains, in a small compass, a lucid and convincing statement of the grounds of that practice.

CXX. An Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers. By HENRY BROUGHAM, Junior, Esq. F. R. S. Edinburgh, Balfour and Co. London, Longman and Rees. 2 vols. 8vo, pp. 1176.

IN the lists of literary fame Mr. Brougham, though a young, is not an unknown, competitor. The powers of his pen are already celebrated, and, unless we are misinformed, he has added to the praise of original composition the censorial honours of an acute and intelligent critic.

The work of which we are now to give some account to our readers, is not entitled to unqualified praise; yet is likely, on the whole, rather to augment than diminish the reputation of its author.

The colonial systems of the different powers of Europe are branches of their national policy of which the delineation is not easy, or the prudential or moral estimate obvious; for, with the exception of one or two leading principles, they have been formed upon no determinate plan, and in practice are deeply involved both in the obscurity of distance and the disguise of misrepresentation.

In the new world, especially, colonies have been rather formed by the fortuitous concretion of private adventures, than built up by national foresight upon a fixed and regular system. The parent state, content with securing to herself the benefits of their rising commerce, has left them to form and to alter, at discretion, their own municipal institutions, without any reservation in favour of moral or political principle, or any national view more enlarged than the interests of navigation and trade.

The colonists, on the other hand, have for the most part proceeded with a regard as exclusive to the acquisition of individual wealth; and in the pursuit of that favourite object have, in many places, admitted establishments, or fallen into usages, not less repugnant to true political wisdom and social happiness, than to the dictates of humanity and justice. Yet when these abuses have been divulged in Europe, and felt in their calamitous effects, their true nature has been a subject of difficult enquiry, and the interior system of a British island has been found as hard to develope in its real practical character as the civil institutions of China.

To delineate, therefore, with accuracy, the colonial policy of the European powers, must be admitted to be a work of considerable magnitude and difficulty. But Mr. Brougham's plan is of still more arduous execu

tion. He has undertaken not only to give a map of this broken and illknown country, but to fix all its relative bearings and proportions, as well exterior as internal. Indeed, to des scribe the nature of the colonial institutions is but an incidental part of his work. His main purpose is to examine the tendency and effects of these establishments, in relation to their own collective welfare, to the colonizing states to which they respectively belong, and to the commonwealth of Europe.

The work is divided into four books, of which the first treats "Of the Relations that subsist between a State and its Colonies;" the second, "Of the Foreign Relation of Colonies;" the third, "Of the Foreign Relations of States as influenced by their Colonial Relations;" and the last, which is by no means the least interesting and important, "Of the Domestic Policy of the European Powers in their Colonial Establishments."

In the first section of the first book the author takes a brief but comprehensive view of the history and principles of colonization in general, in the ancient as well as in the modern world.

He shews that the colonial establishments of Greece and Rome had little or no similitude to those of modern Europe. In the colonizing policy of Carthage alone, our author perceives a resemblance to that of modern nations; and he even aflirms, that an exact conformity is discoverable between them, in the important point of the monopoly by the parent state of the trade of its colony, and in the progress of that restrictive principle. Here, and in other parts of his work, Mr. Brougham seems to suppose that the restrictions imposed by the states of Europe upon the trade of their colonies in America, have not been coeval with the exist ence of those settlements, but have been systematically abstained from during their infancy, as being adverse to their growth and prosperity, and only imposed when their commerce had arrived at maturity. But this, as far as the policy of other colonizing powers of Europe, has agreed with that of England, (and we believe it will be found that the agreement is universal), is clearly a mistake; for our navigation laws, with all their

restrictions, attach upon a colony from the moment of its first settlement by British subjects, or acquisition by British conquest; and this has been the case, as far back at least as the time of the commonwealth.

Nor are these laws considered as restrictions burthensome on the colonies, but rather as encouragements friendly to their growth. Such, at least, are the views which the legislature has recorded in the recitals of the acts themselves.

The notion that Carthage, at first left free, and afterwards monopolized the trade of her colonies, seems to be built by Mr. Brougham upon a very slight foundation. Indeed it appears to us, that the facts adduced by our author rather militate against than support his hypothesis.

Passing from ancient to modern times, Mr. Brougham marks, with precision and discernment, the motives private and public which have produced migration, and the settlement of distant colonies, by the natives of modern Europe; together with the principles of policy upon which their general relations to the parent state have been formed and maintained; and in the sequel of this investigation, he takes occasion to break a lance with Dr. Adam Smith and other political economists, who have depreciated the value of these remote possessions to the state by which they are acquired.

Our author is a strenuous advocate for distant colonization; and, among other benefits which he ascribes to it, he chiefly insists upon the diversion they create of those belligerent efforts, of which Europe itself would otherwise be the unhappy theatre.

Here he anticipates and labours to obviate an objection to these establishments, which he foresaw would more than counterpoise the supposed advantage. He stoutly maintains, that the colonial interests of the powers of Europe have very seldom been the real occasions of their quarrels with each other; though that they have been often ostensibly such, was too notorious to be disputed.

In this, as in other parts of his ingenious and elaborate work, our author wields the weapons of controversy with considerable force; but a disputatious spirit, and an ambition of singularity in opinion, are more conspicuous in many of his reasonings

than correctness of judgment or consistency of principle.

Neither the limits of this review, nor the nature of our work, will admit of any analysis or distinct account of the whole remainder of this publication, which is very copious and various in its topics, and is throughout highly interesting and important. But there are two subjects of pre-eminent interest and practical consequence upon which Mr. Brougham has employed great industry, and which seem to demand from us particular notice. These are the trite but momentous subject of the African slave trade, and the new political views which have arisen in the West Indies from revolutions in the colonies of France.

We begin with the former topic, though it is the last in Mr. Brougham's order, because we are in haste to give to the intelligent author the praise which he here deserves; and because his opinions on the slave trade will assist in the appreciation of his political views on a subject less known, and involving considerations more novel as well as more various and complex.

Mr. Brougham has treated this verata questio of the abolition of the slave trade, in a manner at once perspicuous, succinct, and decisive."

Having considered the plan of cultivating the West India colonies by free negroes, and having upon premises, to the truth of which we can by no means subscribe, rejected that plan as impracticable, he discusses in the last section of his work the nature of the slave system, and the means of its melioration. "The first and greatest of those evils which," as he justly observes, "call loudly for correction; the radical vice of the whole West India system is, beyond all doubt, the oppressive treatment of the negro slaves."

In illustrating this proposition he first shews, that even the quantum of productive labour itself is diminished by severity.

"There are certain bounds," he remarks, "prescribed even to the power of the lash. It may force the unhappy victim to move, because the line of distinction between motion and rest, action and compel the labourer to strenuous exertion, repose, is definite; but no punishment can

because there is no measure nor standard

of activity. A state of despair, not of industry, is the never failing consequence of severe chastisement; and the constant