have too much of the conservative spirit. Youth, and hope, and joyous strength, are the natural characteristics of such a state of society. Properly guided and wisely directed, these all may result in great achievements in scholarship and independent thinking. But left with imperfect appliances, they will be sure to go astray, through the very elation of their own intellectual excite

ment.

We know it is said by many that a college library exerts but little influence on students when in college. Their principal business at college, it is said, is to study and not to read. They ordinarily do not, and ought not, to have much to do with books, except those of the class room. If the college library is large, it will do them little good; if it is small, they will not suffer. Some go even farther than this, and say that they would prefer that the library of their college should not be very large.

These views keep out of sight the important fact, that a college library exerts a powerful influence by its extent, and its insensible influence, whether it be consulted often or but rarely. It is to the young student a representative of all science. If science be well represented in it; if the great works of the great authors in each department are there, then will the youth know and feel, every time he enters its alcoves, or gazes at its shelves, that to be a scholar he has a great work to do; that to be idle is madness, and to be self-conceited is folly. But if, on the other hand, all history, criticism and the sciences, are judged of by the meagre array of works which an impoverished library can furnish, then will the young man feel that his work is brief and may be soon accomplished; and with the merest smattering of knowledge will he suddenly swell into a very marvel of self-conceit. For selfknowledge comes by the comparison of one's self with others; and hence, if you wish to see a self-conceited scholar, you must look for him in one who has had little opportunity to measure himself with other scholars, among the living or the dead. We attach no slight importance to the mere presence and silent influence of a really good library within the precincts of every college. Especially is its presence required in every Western college; for it may be reasonably asked, if a scholar at the West cannot find a real library at his college, where may he be expected to see one?

The silent influence of a library is not, however, its most important agency. What if it be true that a college library is rarely consulted by the undergraduate, it is sometimes so consulted; and on that sometimes may turn the most important consequences to him. An aspiring and enterprising student is prompted to pursue his inquiries in some particular direction, to which his tastes incline him; or he desires some author of whom he has heard, as likely to give him important knowledge, or to clear up painful perplexities. A good library enables him to pursue these inqui

ries or to read this author, and his whole life receives a new direction. His history and his influence are all determined by this single circumstance. His mind is quickened to the pursuit of a congenial study; his powers all find their appropriate field of effort, and he becomes eminent and honored in the world of letters. He is useful on a grand scale in the field of scientific discovery, or in the application of science to the arts of life; or he is delivered from distressing doubts in respect to the reality and evidences of revealed truth, the excellence of holiness, or the righteousness of God's administration, and he becomes a man of faith in God and Christ. For the want of such stimulus, such encouragement, and such a light, furnished at the critical moment, by the free use of books when he needed them, many a student has been a discouraged, indolent, and disappointed votary of knowledge; or perhaps has abandoned the truth and the God of truth, for the want of the needed lights. In this view, a sufficient library is not only important, but it ought to be thought indispensable to every well-furnished college. Not a day passes in which it may not give a stimulus to some noble spirit, and wake his intellect and his heart to a new and glorious life.

Libraries are absolutely necessary to train and furnish men who shall be able to contend with ancient and formidable systems of error.

The two great antagonists against which the preacher at the West must contend, are Infidelity and Romanism. Both of these are ancient. They are strong, not merely in the skill and ability which the active mind of the present day can bring into the field, but in all the gathered strength which has been transmitted from the able men of other generations. Both of these systems profess to great learning, and often make great use of learning in their opposition to the Bible and to Protestantism. Infidelity attacks the Bible on the ground that it is inconsistent with geology, with the records of ancient history, and with the dates of the received chronology. It asserts that the Old Testament is inconsistent with itself; that the Divine authority of its books is not confirmed by any well-ascertained canon; that the Evangelists contradict each other in their lives of Jesus, and that the supernatural and miraculous claims of each are fast being dissipated before the light of modern illumination, as the mists of the night are scattered by the look of the morning sun. What

is worse than either, it blots out of being a personal God, and breaks the admonitions and reproofs of conscience, refining the one into a lifeless abstraction, and linking all men's feelings and acts to each other and to nature by bands of iron. Romanism professes to trace the line of its Apostles, and by its annals to go back through link, up to the source of light and authority.

succession to the each successive It pretends to a

perpetual miraculous interposition, as the seal of God's sanction, and as confirmed by witnesses of high credibility. It can falsify, and alter, and suppress profane history. It can deny the testimony of God's Providence against its own system, in the ignorance and brutality of its priest-ridden people, and audaciously asserts that Spain and Italy contain a happier and more favored population than Scotland and New England. It has its own editions of the classics, its mutilated versions of important authors, its own translation of the Scriptures, which claims to be infallibly inspired of God.

And what is of still greater consequence, Infidelity and Romanism understand how to use their learning so as to produce a strong and deep impression on the people. They do not lock it up in libraries, nor confine it to books which scholars and recluses only will read; but they can make it intelligible and attractive to the common people. Audacious theories which turn the Old Testament into ridicule, and the New into a mythic nothing, translated into English as vigorous as Cobbett's, and so illustrated and enforced that they sink deep into the minds of men of plain but strong sense, and half shake the faith of the devout believer. The Rationalism of Germany is served up in forms which make it attractive to the American mind, with enough of logic to satisfy its fondness for argument, enough of learning to flatter its self-complacency, and enough of sneering to please a coarse and vulgar taste. The stuff out of which these strong and invidious snares are woven, is furnished by profound and extensive reading in philosophy, in history, in criticism and in the learned languages. The places where this stuff is originated, and whence this raw material is derived, are the libraries of continental Europe. The materials out of which the answers to their works are to be framed, must come from similar quarters. Learning must cope with learning. We have at this moment on our table a pamphlet written in English by a German immigrant, which was prepared in Missouri and printed in Boston, and which was evidently designed for general circulation at the West. This tract was clearly designed for the common mind, and is admirably fitted to influence and sway that mind; but it can be answered thoroughly by no man who does not know the sources from which its arguments are brought, and who is not a master of the same sort of learning out of which its web of sophistry is woven.

D'Aubigné's History of the Reformation was prepared, and has been circulated as a powerful agent, learned and eloquent, in the service of Protestantism. No sooner did it appear, however, than an answer to it was immediately prepared which has the aspect of acute criticism, and of profound and extensive reading. Lives of Luther and Calvin are issued, which contradict

all the pre-conceived opinions which Protestants hold concerning their character and principles, and which by an artful suppression of certain facts, and an unfair prominence given to others, leave a clear and strong impression on the mind. Hardly a fact can be appealed to by a defender of Protestantism, which is not denied in some book made ready for popular circulation. The Romish Church circulates its own histories, both of the State and of the Church. The Romish child is taught from his infancy to believe that Luther was nothing but a sensual monk, Calvin only a stern and bloody bigot, and that the massacre of St. Bartholomew's was an accidental outbreak for which "the heretic," and not the Church, is solely responsible. Let uneducated or half-educated Protestants think as they may, the learning and the logic of Romanism is not an antagonist that is to be despised, or that sleeps at its post.

Error

But

The Western mind is peculiarly fitted to be influenced by learning enlisted in the service of error; especially is superficial erudition, when worked up with art, and urged home with declamatory force, an influence that is mightier at the West, than it is at the East. At the East, the whole structure of society, and even the atmosphere of public sentiment, is formed and fixed by established opinions, which, whether right or wrong, are not easily shaken. The truth is secured, not merely by sound argument and accurate knowledge, but is also defended by old recollections, by long established habits, and even by inveterate prejudices. often meets with a cold reception, simply because it is new. it is not so at the West. There the motto is always, " we will hear both sides." If the freest discussion is not allowed, men will become infidels and Romanists, nay, even fanatics and fools, in the name of freedom of opinion. Nothing is to be held as settled in government or religion, only till the next debater comes upon the stage; but everything is perpetually to be argued over again, from its very foundation principles. Such a community is especially exposed to be led astray by the show of knowledge, To the tastes and habits of such a community, the friends of error are far more ready to adapt themselves than the friends of truth. They are more unscrupulous, more artful, and more energetic. As they are well aware that their resources are few, they know how to make the most of each. Often, too, they have the art and cunning in the use of these resources, which have been taught by the controversies of past generations. The success of error depends on a one-sided exhibition of a few facts; while the truth is to be learned from the comparison of a greater number and variety, slowly gleaned from a more extended field. Hence the defenders of error have in all this a means of power with a population that is rapid in its inferences, hasty in its conclusions, and impetuous in its partisanship. Of all the communities on the face of

the earth, the one most exposed to sophistry and superficial knowledge, is such a one as is growing up into an army of millions, with minds half-informed, and worse disciplined, and yet intensely active, and self-relying. Ignorance is likely to be despised, stupidity cannot be endured; but a little learning with great parade is exactly adapted to flatter, to delight, and to control its active, self-confident and bold population. The bold, but cunning infidel, and the mild, but crafty Jesuit, can here find ready hearers and make ardent proselytes.

Now we do not assert that great learning furnishes the only or the most powerful weapons against such antagonists. All that we claim is that these are indispensable. We freely grant, nay, we contend as earnestly as any one, that it is true in a sense most important, that the Bible and Protestantism furnish their own evidence; and that this evidence is so clear and so convincing, that it is more than a match for the violence and craft of its foes, even when aided by learning, when the question is tried by a community of sober men, who know nothing but the simple gospel, and have felt nothing but its power upon their own hearts. But on the other hand, the artful and accomplished apostles of error can be silenced and put to flight, only as their influence is destroyed, and their arts are exposed by men who understand how to use the same weapons which they wield, and are an overmatch for them in learning. If this agency is withheld, nay, if it be not vigorously exerted, no man can compute the evil consequences. If in every city and large village, historical statements are to be made by infidel and Romish scholars, and there shall be no Protestant scholar who has the training or the knowledge by which to refute them; if false assertions are to be hazarded, on the ground that no keen-sighted critic will detect and expose the lie; if all the craft of an imposing logic, and the splendor of a showy declamation shall be used to dress up the cause of error in attractive colors, and if the feeble attainments or the deficient cultivation arrayed against them, shall only serve to set off the attractions of error to greater advantage ;-then will it certainly happen that leading young men will be gained over to the wrong side, and a fearful bias will be given to public opinion in the wrong direction. Against this strong current in the active and thinking mind in the community, the faithful preacher must contend with striking disadvantages. However single-hearted may be his aims, and bold and untiring his labors, he will find that a plastic energy is shaping against him the youthful society about him; that it mocks his hopes by its subtle influences, and will disappoint his plans of good.

But on the other hand, let the defender of the truth have the advantages which we contemplate, and let him also be a bold, single-hearted, believing preacher of the gospel; let him be