moved by the facilities for intercommunication through railways. The principal denominations of Christians in the United States are as follows:-Presbyterians, Old School 2400 churches, New School 1700 churches; Wesleyan Methodists, 5000 ministers; Regular or Calvinistic Baptists, about 7900 churches; Orthodox Congregationalists, 1750 churches; Roman Catholics, 900 churches; Protestant Episcopalians, 1300 churches. There are, besides, many small sects, e.g. Dutch Reformed, 276 churches; Evangelical Lutheran, 800 clergymen, rapidly increasing; several sects of Baptists, Presbyterians, &c.

The whole number of theological schools is forty-one. Of these four are patronized exclusively, or nearly so, by the Orthodox Congregationalists; four or five by the New School Presbyterians; five or six by the Old School Presbyterians; three by the Protestant Episcopalians; ten by the Baptists, and one by the Methodists. The lastnamed denomination have but recently begun to educate their ministry at regularly established seminaries. It should be stated that, in one of the Presbyterian seminaries—the Union Seminary, in the city of New York, of which Dr. Robinson is one of the professors-many congregational students acquire their education. Six or eight of these seminaries have a connexion more or less intimate with the colleges established in their respective localities. The others are entirely independent institutions. The whole number of students or undergraduates now belonging to these forty-one seminaries is about 1300. The largest number is found at the Princeton seminary, Old School Presbyterians, viz. 150; at the Union seminary, 91; at Andover, 90. The number at the other institutions varies from 4 to 64. The course of study in nearly all occupies three years; the young student is fitted for college in the elements of Latin, Greek, mathematics, &c., in schools, called academies, classical schools, Latin schools, &c., in two or three years. He then repairs to one of the colleges, of which we have from 100 to 120, where he occupies four years in the study of the sciences, languages, &c. He then enters upon his strictly professional course at the law, medical, or theological school. Thus the time spent in study before one enters on the active duties of life is nine or ten years.

The course of study at most of the theological schools is substantially the same; the whole or the greater part of the first year (junior year) being occupied with the exegetical study of the Old and New Testaments in the originals; the second, or middle year, in natural and Christian theology; and the last, or senior year, in ecclesiastical history and sacred rhetoric, the composition and delivery of sermons, &c. In some institutions exegetical study is pursued more or less throughout the three years; a small portion of the first year being devoted to natural theology. In the seminaries attached to some of the denominations, church government occupies a somewhat prominent place. In all, or nearly all, the schools, the studies are exclusively professional, there being not more than two or three institutions of a mixed character, like the dissenting academies in England. The members of the senior class are allowed to preach during the whole or

the

the greater part of the year, being licensed for that purpose by the Association, Presbytery, &c. The members of Baptist seminaries are accustomed to preach during the entire course.

I will subjoin some particular statements in regard to the Andover Theological Seminary, as I am more conversant with its history and condition. It is the oldest of the theological seminaries iu this country, having been founded in 1807. It is situated in the state of Massachusetts, twenty miles north of Boston. It is liberally endowed by several distinguished Christian merchants and others in the vicinity, who gave several hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of establishing four foundations for professorships, for erecting three seminary buildings of brick four stories in height, for providing a fund for paying the board of the student in part, for building dwelling-houses for the professors, for establishing a library, &c. The most distinguished of these benefactors was William Bartlet, Esq., who may be truly regarded as one of the benefactors of his race. About one thousand students have completed their course at this institution, and about five hundred additional have been members of it for longer or shorter times; not far from one hundred of these are labouring or have laboured as missionaries in heathen lands. The institution is equally open to Protestants of all denominations. The Professors-now four in number-must be Congregationalists or Presbyterians; with two or three exceptions they have been Congregationalists. A printing-press, furnished with types in most of the Oriental languages, has been in operation near the seminary for many years. The academical year is divided into two sessions of six and three months, separated by vacations of five and seven weeks. During the first term of six months, the junior class pursue the exegetical study of the four Gospels in Dr. Robinson's Harmony; mostly by verbal recitations, but partly by lectures from the professors on the more difficult topics. Some attention is also given to Biblical geography and antiquities. Each student is required to read one or more dissertations on prescribed topics; there are also extemporaneous discussions occasionally. Simultaneously the class pursue the elementary study of Hebrew. During the last month of the term the easier portions of the Hebrew Bible are read and interpreted. In the summer term of three months one or two of St. Paul's Epistles, the more difficult portions of the Hebrew Prophets, of Job, the Messianic Psalms, &c., are studied. At the close of the two terms a public examination is held, which is attended by Committees of the Guardians of the seminary. Voluntary classes are formed among the students for the study of Chaldee, Arabic, &c. Many of the students are able to avail themselves of the German helps which are now so bountifully provided. Throughout the middle year the study of systematic theology is pursued, mainly by lectures from the professor; the students taking copious notes, being subsequently examined upon them. Extemporaneous discussions are also held on some of the more difficult points; mental and moral philosophy in its bearings on theology is also taken up. In the senior year a course of lectures in pastoral theology is delivered; church history is studied both by

L 2

lectures

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lectures and recitations. The text-book hereafter is to be Davidson's translation of Gieseler; in sacred rhetoric, Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric' and Whately's Rhetoric' are studied. Great attention is bestowed on the preparation and criticism of plans of sermons; each student is required to present for criticism four sermons, at least, written out in full. The public speaking of original essays, by the students in rotation, is attended by all the classes once a week; an assistant teacher in elocution and another in Hebrew are employed.

ON THE MIRACLE OF JOSHUA.

SIR,-Being utterly unknown to you, I have felt much hesitation in making up my mind to send you the following remarks in reply to Mr. von Gumpach's dissertation in your fifth number On the Miracle of Joshua.' I choose rather to incur the risk of being considered intrusive, than that the opinions advanced in that article should remain unquestioned.

Its reasoning is of three kinds, arranged chiefly in the following order. There is, 1. A principle laid down à priori, respecting the necessary qualification of a miracle,' fitted to create the wish that the miracle related in the 10th chapter of Joshua had not been related there at all. There are, 2. Arguments intended to show, that the supposition of a real miracle would render the narrative inconsistent with itself. There are, 3. Critical and exegetical remarks in favour of a proposed new translation and interpretation of the passage. It is perhaps not unnecessary to observe, that the above arrangement of arguments does not seem to be favourable to an impartial investigation of the truth. It does not appear to be in general a safe method of interpreting even uninspired writings, to commence by an attempt to determine, on à priori grounds, what the writer ought, or what he was likely to say; far less is this admissible in the study of the Holy Scriptures. It is a sound principle of inductive philosophy, that we must base our theories on previously ascertained facts, instead of attempting to square facts into accordance with pre-conceived theories. Now the words of Scripture in their unforced grammatical meaning are the facts of the Bible interpreter, to which all pre-conceptions must give way. The writer of the article does indeed limit the application of his own à priori principle to cases of doubtful interpretation; but it is not clear that the interpretation of the present passage would ever have been considered doubtful, but for the previous (and perhaps unconscious) application to it of the principle in question. Under shelter of this protest, let us proceed to consider the most important arguments, in the order nearly in which they have been advanced.

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I. We must altogether demur to the assertion, that the necessary qualification of a miracle is its answering some grand, lasting, and ostensible purpose,' if by this be meant that every miracle which God enables His servants to perform must have an ostensible purpose, of

Tried by

which the grandeur and duration shall be apparent to us. this rule, not a few even of our Saviour's miracles would become incredible. We are no competent judges in the matter. The incom

prehensible One, whose counsels embrace eternal ages, and whose works, for aught we know, are linked into one connected system through infinite space, may have more and greater purposes to answer by a single miracle, than he may see fit to reveal to us, or 'than are dreamt of in our philosophy.' What though the ostensible purpose of the miraculous prolongation of the light of day, in answer to Joshua's prayer, may have been nothing more important in our eyes than to enable the Israelites to complete their victory over their Amoritish foes; there may have depended on that day's victory, in a greater degree than we are now in a condition clearly to perceive, the ultimate conquest of the Land of Promise, the settlement of the chosen people therein, and their consequent isolation from the world for the purposes of the theocracy, until the fulness of the time when the Son of God should become flesh; and were we able to trace its consequences in their successive development and in their full extent, we might possibly find that it possessed all the grandeur of an essential step in the progress of the kingdom of God on earth, and that its results are to have a duration commensurate with eternity. Or (if additional suppositions be needful), God may have seen that the Israelites were in danger of attributing their victory to their own prowess, or to the happy accident of a storm of hail, and may have purposed to convince them that the honour of the work was His: or perhaps He designed, by the manisfestation of His glory in the heathen's sight, to demonstrate to some even of them the folly of their idolatry, so as to lead them to take hold of His covenant;' and in either view, were the issue but the everlasting salvation of a single soul, who can estimate the magnitude or the duration of that result? Conjectural possibilities are endless; and how then can WE, ignorant and short-sighted as we are, be entitled to determine that the occasion was an unfitting one for the exercise of the mighty power of God? Nay, suppose we were unable to assign any probable reason whatsoever worthy of the divine wisdom, what then? Are we to deny the reality of the miracle? To do so, would be as if some theorist should argue, that because no use has yet been discovered for the spleen, it would be derogatory to the wisdom of God to suppose that he had really created it, and that all the anatomists from the beginning of the world till now must have been mistaken in thinking they had found it in the human body at all. Enough for us, if God has clearly revealed all that is necessary for our salvation; we may surely be contented to allow that He may have done many things of which he has not seen it meet to tell us all the reasons; humbly trusting that if we be willing to submit to the truth, 'what we know not now, we shall know hereafter.'

II. It will be unnecessary to dwell at equal length on the several arguments which have been adduced to show that the supposition of an actual miracle would render the Bible narrative inconsistent with itself.

1. We cannot see that Joshua's prayer for the miraculous staying of

the

the sun and moon was at all inconsistent with the most assured faith in the divine promise of victory which he had previously received; any more than Paul is to be regarded as lacking in faith, when, after having first stated that God had promised him the life of all who were with him in the ship, he subsequently declared that the abiding of the mariners on board was the necessary means in order to that result, and that otherwise the passengers could not be saved. Shall we not on the contrary say, that Joshua, seeing with a general's eye and a divinely enlightened mind that a prolongation of day was necessary in order to the utter scattering of the hostile forces, found in the promise he had received his very warrant believingly to ask that miracle from God?

2. The fighting of the Lord for Israel' appears to us to be an expression quite as applicable to the miraculous staying of the sun in his course, as to the destructive storm of hail.

3. The statement that the presumed miracle rests upon an erroneous view of the mighty mechanism of God's creation,' is an old objection, which was long ago repudiated by Sir Isaac Newton. I regret that, not having the Principia at present beside me, I am obliged to quote from memory. Treating of Real and Apparent Motions, he says (if I remember well) in substance, that they err who suppose that the sacred writers should have framed their language in accordance with the real motions of the heavenly bodies, and not according to those apparent motions which alone men understood. How utterly unintelligible would Joshua's language have been until a few centuries ago, had he commanded the earth to pause in its rotation! He desired the continuance of the sun and moon in those spots of the firmament where they then were neither Israel nor he himself, as I suppose, knew how this was to be accomplished; enough for them that God heard the request, and that accomplished it was. But should it be objected, that nothing but ignorance of the stupendous magnitude of the supposed miracle could have permitted the belief that it had really happened, we may call attention to the remarkable circumstance, that the narrative represents Joshua as commanding not the sun only, which would have been sufficient for his purpose, but the moon also, to stand still; a fact not easily explicable save on one of two suppositions: either that the ancient Israelites believed that the whole vault of heaven revolved round the earth, carrying the sun and moon along with it, so that if one of these bodies was to be stopped, the other must necessarily be stopped at the same moment,—a miracle this, that must have appeared to them at least as stupendous as a pause in the rotation of the earth; or that Joshua's words, and the historian's record, were both framed by divine inspiration to accord with that very character which, by the constitution of the solar system, though unknown to them, the miracle must necessarily present. Objectors may be allowed to choose which term of this dilemma they like.

4. The negative objection, drawn from the want of express references to this miracle in the later portions of Scripture, cannot prove, in opposition to the obvious meaning of this narrative, that it is not recorded here.