From the Equator.

THE TRUTH OF GOD.

TRUTH is either logical or moral. The opposite of logical truth is error; of moral, a lie. Or, to explain the distinction more familiarly, when a person makes a declaration not according to the real state of the case; at the same time honestly believing it himself, he declares On the other hand, were a what is logically false, yet morally true. person to make a statement which is really in conformity with the nature of things; at the same time not believing it himself, his statement would be logically true, yet morally false.

God, who is a being infinitely wise, cannot make a statement logically false; and, as he is infinitely good, he will not make one that is morally so. Neither error nor duplicity can be imputed to an infinitely perfect being, Where futurity is concerned, as in the case of promises and predictions, a species of falsehood, somewhat different from both these already mentioned, may arise from fickleness or a want of power. A person may very sincerely declare his purpose to do a thing to-morrow, and before the time arrives he may change his purpose, either because some obstacle to its execution may arise which he did not foresee; or, upon further deliberation, he may view the matter in a different light. He may also declare his purpose, and attempt to execute it, and yet fail for want of power. Neither of these things are attributable to God. No event can arise that he did not foresee. He gains no new views of things by deliberation; for his knowledge is intuitive. No obstacle can lie in the way of his omnipotence. In the beautiful language of scripture, "He is not a man, that he should lie; nor the son of man, that he should repent. Hath he said it, and shall he not do it? Hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?"

The truth of God, according to the foregoing analysis, is based upon his holiness, his omnipotence, and his omniscience. The last of these Dr. Adam Clarke has denied. The amount of what he says on the subject is, that because the omnipotence of God signifies not that he actually does all things, but only that he can do all things; therefore his omniscience must mean that he can know all things, not that This is the greatest piece of nonhe actually does know all things. sense that I recollect ever to have met with in the writings of any great author, and scarcely deserves a refutation. According to this doctrine knowledge means not what a man actually knows, but only what a man can know if he will; making his actual knowledge dependent, like his actions, upon the state of his will. This is to introduce a strange confusion into our thoughts. Knowledge, in its very nature, is independent of power and will. What I know it is impossible for me, by a mere act of will, to not know. I cannot command my knowledge away from my mind. I cannot command myself to know, Between knowledge and ignorance there is no medium. If there is any thing which God does not actually know, he is ignorant of it; and if he is ignorant of any thing, his declarations are not to be depended on. For, wherever there is ignorance there is liability to error; and wherever there is liability to error, there error may sometimes actually exist. All this is self-evident. "Known unto God are all his works: he seeth the end from the beginning."

T.

LITERARY INSTITUTIONS.

UNDER the head of "Review of Addresses delivered by Governor Wallace and President Simpson, at the Indiana Asburry University, September 26, 1840," the following valuable extracts from President Simpson's address are taken from the "Equator," Bloomington, Ind., of the 28th ultimo:—

"Colleges, or high institutions of learning, have always been the precursers of great improyements, whether in government or in the arts of civilized life. In every land remarkable for intellect we find them in existence. Even in the captivity of Babylon the Jews sustained high institutions for that age of the world. Shortly after Constantine a University was established at Constantinople which served as the depository of eastern literature; but colleges resembling those at present in existence were not established until a much later period. In the 9th century Europe produced two distinguished individualsCharlemagne in France, and Alfred in England. Each used every means to encourage education, and seminaries were founded where were the swelling buds that afterwards unfolded into the Universities of Paris and Oxford. And is it not remarkable that the land of Alfred and Charlemagne, after a lapse of 1000 years, still retains a proud preeminence over the rest of Europe. At what period college honors were devised and degrees conferred it is now difficult to determine; but their origination is by many ascribed to Irnerius, a distinguished jurist of the 12th century, and a Professor of Bologna. Mention of them was made by Robert de Courcon in 1215, and the term Bachelor of Arts occurs in the bull of Pope Gregory XII. in 1281. At this period a new impetus was given to collegiate instruction, and in the same century in addition to the Universities of Paris and Oxford, we find those of Toulouse, Bologna, Naples, Padua, Salamanca, and Cambridge; and in the next two centuries between twenty and thirty additional ones were established. Shall we ask, Was their establishment followed by any remarkable events? History points to those centuries as the time of the awaking of mind and the formation of those very systems now completely developed. That age was a dark one in political relations. Tyranny was absolute and unrelenting. The common people were in a state of abject slavery, attached to the soil, and responsible as goods and chattels, by the power of the nobility. The code of jurisprudence was lamentably defective: but in it the first great change was produced. The Roman law was revived and intreduced into the Universities. The youth crowded to the lectures, and by their means correct notions were generally diffused. Trials by single combat, by signs and charms, by the judgments of God,' as they were termed, were gradually abandoned, and order and regularity were established in the courts of judicature. As ideas of justice prevailed, the condition of the peasantry was ameliorated. Princes enfranchised their serfs and exhorted their nobility to do the same.

Cities and villages acquired freedom and a spirit of enterprize and industry became widely diffused. Notions of individual rights were soon extended to national, and the claims of the monarch were regarded with jealousy by his subjects. Even Louis X., as early as 1315, declared publicly when manumitting his serfs, that all men by birth should be free and equal.' Such sentiments exercised a powerful influence, and republics sprang up throughout Italy, Spain, and other parts of the south of Europe. But principles were not sufficiently settled, and morals were grossly defective. These infant republics were soon torn with factions, and gradually immerged into monarchies. In the 14th century the cantons of Switzerland founded their government, and have since been independent of regal power. The same sentiment spread rapidly in England, and early in the 13th the memorable Magna Charta was signed as an acknowledgment of popular rights. Since that period liberty has been progressive, and has but developed the same principles in greater maturity and beauty in the formation of the American constitution, that noblest work of man. Yet some there are, even in this favored land, so ignorant of history and so grovelling in their conceptions, that they publicly declaim against colleges as fostering aristocracy. Such men, had they lived in other days, would have been the first to strangle Liberty in her cradle; and, bowing their own neck to the foot of the despot, to swear allegiance to his throne.

Colleges are not only thus useful in furnishing such individuals to act their part in community, but they also elevate the standard of professional attainments. How many men rush unqualified into all our responsible professions! Scarcely has a young man completed the acquisition of the simplest elements of an ordinary education, when he assumes a title, and the lives or property of his fellow-creatures are entrusted to his care; and, when once entered upon the profession, 90 far from developing his powers, he looks around and finds associates as ignorant as himself. They measure themselves by themselves,' and aspire to no higher excellence. While they are yet grovelling in the basement they fancy they have attained to the summit of the temple; because, from the obscurity of their vision, they can see nothing above them. There is scarcely a more pernicious influence operating against our learned professions. The young man fancies he can gather laurels to decorate his brow, and that unless he hastes they will all be won by others. He counts the days as years until he engages in active life. And even sometimes, by a strange mixture of self-esteem and benevolence, he imagines the world will plunge into ruin unless he springs to the rescue. The ancient Athlete could spend years in preparation; every muscle was developed, every expedient tried, a long course of training endured; and when admitted to the lists, instead of entering hastily, they deliberately commenced the contest. All this was for a fading laurel. But when property and life-when the dearest interests of men are at stake, our youth rush unprepared upon the course; and, as might be expected, fall exhausted ere they reach the goal. If young men but knew the advantages of a full preparation, they would count themselves happy if at 25 or 30 they were prepared to commence a public career."

FAMILY CULTURE.

CONVERSATIONS AT THE CARLTON HOUSE.

No. XIV.

THE 11th chapter of Genesis being slowly, audibly, and emphatically read, Olympas thus began:

Tell me, Thomas, why became it necessary that human language should be shattered into so many dialects?

Thomas. To break in pieces the power of the people-as it reads, "They have all one language, and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do."

Olympas. Unity of language is, then, a mighty power, not easily to be subdued. The strength of the heavenly city will in part consist in the unity of language of all its inhabitants. In the Millennium there will be but one language spoken in all the earth, according to some of the ancients; and that will be a portion of the social strength of the people of that day.

Reuben. Is that the meaning of the Greek verse at the bottom of the title of the Polumicrian Testament?

Olympas. You allude to "Pollai men thneetois, gloottai, mia d'Athanatoisin."

Reuben. Yes.

Olympas. That refers to the celestial state, and simply means, The times indiMortals speak many tongues—the immortals but one. cate a return to one language. Protestant England will send her language and her religion to every land and nation under heaven, wheresoever her merchants seek for wealth or her soldiers fight for glory. The cupidity of her merchants traverses all the ends of the earth, and pioneers the way for her armies and her navies to subdue the idolators that oppose her interests or her honor; while her missionaries, with the Sword of the Spirit, follow in their train and assail the idolatries of her colonies, and prepare the way for their submission to the King of the world. This honor seems to await England and her language because of the prayers and devotion of a larger remnant of the faithful in her realms than is found in any country in the four quarters of the globe. But this is rather prophetic than didactic, and we shall proceed to the sequel of the chapter. Let` us have, Eliza, the names of the antediluvian progenitors of the Messiah.

Eliza. Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah.

Olympas. How old was Noah, James, the year of the flood?

James. Six hundred years.

Olympas. Sarah, how long from Adam to the flood?

Sarah. Sixteen hundred and fifty-six years.

Olympas. Name the patriarchs from Noah to Abraham.

Sarah. Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Heber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, Abraham.

Olympas. How many years from the flood to Abraham?

William. The flood occupied one year. Arphaxad was born two years after the flood; Salah, thirty-five; Heber, in thirty more; Peleg, in thirty-four; Reuben, in thirty; and Serug, in thirty-two more; Nahor, in thirty more; and Terah, the father of Abraham, in twenty-nine Hence Abraham's father was born just two hundred and years more. twenty-two years after the flood; which, added to the one year the flood continued, and the sixteen hundred and fifty-six years before the flood, makes Terah's birth eighteen hundred and seventy-nine years from the creation. But I cannot tell how long after this it was before Abraham was born, because it is said Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abraham, Nahor, and Haran. But which of them was the first born I know not.

Olympas. Is not Abraham placed first, and does not that prove he was born first, according to a theory which proves that the fellowship should precede the breaking of the loaf, and the breaking of the loaf the prayers, because narrated in that order, Acts ii. 42?

William. That theory is exploded from facts already stated in the narrative of Shem, Ham, and Japhet; for the sacred historians often place the most renowned persons first. And it is farther disproved from the fact now before us; for if Abraham was born seventy years after Terah his father, he was born in the year of the world 1949, fifty-nine years before the established chronology of the world!! Hence if that theory be true, the world is counted almost three score years older than it is; and Jesus, instead of being born in the year of the world 4004, was born in 3944!

Olympas. You have certainly proved that Abraham was not the first born of Terah, or that the world is sixty-six years younger than it is. We are then to choose between the theory in question and the popular chronology. How do you explain this matter, Thomas?

Thomas. I confess I do not understand it. It will not help the matter to suppose that Abraham, Nahor, and Haran were all born at the same time, and therefore I am unable to expound it.

Olympas. Can any of you explain it?-What! all silent! It is, indeed, a difficult passage. We usually expound it thus: Haran, the