turned to the United States to procure new instruments, and subsequently made a second journey across the Andes. A narrative of these two journeys, and numerous tables showing the results of the different observations, fill the first eighty-two pages of the second volume. The remainder of the volume comprises a series of reports upon the specimens in natural history and other interesting objects, brought home by Lieutenant Gilliss, or sent to him since his return. These reports have been very carefully prepared by competent scientific gentlemen, under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, and are illustrated by numerous engravings executed in the highest style of the art, and many of them beautifully colored. We cannot close these remarks without referring to the great injustice which was done to the accomplished officer whose labors we have been considering, by the action of the Naval Board, created by Congress in 1855, for the purpose of revising the Navy List. In virtue of the authority conferred by this law, the Board, after a session of about six weeks, reported that, of seven hundred and twelve officers belonging to the specified grades, two hundred and one were "incapable of performing promptly and efficiently all their duty both ashore and afloat," and recommended that their names should be placed upon the Reserved List. Among the officers thus declared to be "ineligible to further promotion" are Lieutenants Maury and Gilliss. Into the general merits of the controversy which has been waged upon the floor of the Senate in regard to the course followed by the Naval Board, we have no disposition to enter. That controversy has been pursued at needless length. But we do most earnestly protest against a decision which rewards the long-continued, devoted, and important services of such men as Maury and Gilliss by striking their names from the active list of our naval officers. It is discreditable to the country, and dangerous to the real interests of the navy. These officers entered upon the discharge of the scientific duties in which they have been engaged for many years under the authority of Congress and by the express orders of the Navy Department. If the faithful discharge of these duties on shore has incapacitated them 1856.] Unitarianism and Orthodoxy on the Scriptures. 235 for the discharge of any of their duties at sea, as would seem to be implied, the fault is certainly not theirs. Nor is it probable that Congress contemplated any such interpretation of the act as has been given to it, and by which an attempt is made to justify this and similar decisions of the Board. C. C. S. ART. VI.-UNITARIANISM AND ORTHODOXY ON THE SCRIPTURES. No controversial discussions concerning the doctrines of Scripture can be thoroughly pursued without involving sooner or later an incidental controversy upon the authority of Scripture, and the right principles of its interpretation. At whatever point an issue bearing upon this subject is raised, it leads on step by step to all the questions opened by biblical criticism. The character and composition of the Bible as a whole; the nature of its contents; its age, sources, and authors; its natural and its supernatural, its historical, prophetic, and spiritual elements; its relations to other literature and to the demonstrative and physical sciences; its exposure to assaults upon its credibility; and its means and methods of defence,-all these large and perplexing themes present themselves for treatment by the aid of such powers as belong to the human mind under the guidance of a various and progressive culture. does even this specification of some of the more important elements of a necessary task exhaust all the incidental topics which enter into it. The more thorough and deliberate and microscopic the criticism, the more abundant and suggestive appears the material of it. Delicate questions about the exact meanings of words. in ancient languages, and even in our own, and about the translation of words and phrases from dead into living tongues, are to be debated by scholars, who must afterwards set forth the results of their study in a style intelligible to the unlearned. The figurative uses of language, idioms, Orientalisms, and metaphors, compli Nor cate the discussion. And crowning all comes the great theme of Inspiration, the meaning of the word, the evidence of the thing, the compass and extent of its influence, - whether it covers all the contents of the Bible or only a part of them, and what part, — whether it was confined to the original writing, and so has been impaired by the risks of time, of manuscripts and their translation into various languages, or whether the gift is of such a nature that its fruits are essentially preserved in every faithful transcript and version of the record. Some unreflecting persons complain, at the very outset, that such a multitude of questions of such a nature should be opened at all, to perplex simple understandings, to impair in any way the confidence with which people love to read the Bible, to peril the authority, or to bring under debate the truth or value, of any of its contents. The same persons are apt to charge these consequences upon the Unitarian Controversy, and to hold Unitarians answerable for an unfair dealing with the Scriptures, tending to unsettle their Heaven-authenticated claims. In this topic of controversy between those once brethren, as well as in the discussion of the great doctrinal questions to some of which we have devoted many pages, the leading aim and purpose of Unitarians was in part misunderstood and in part misrepresented. The views of Scripture, and of the proper way of treating it, to which they were brought in the exercise of their best intelligence, as honest thinkers and careful students, were represented by their opponents as wanton and daring results of a spirit of pride and unbelief. Unitarians adopted their opinions from the compulsory influence of facts and arguments, whose force they could not resist. They did not hold and advance their views because their inclinations misled them, for they felt that they were yielding to the simple force of truth, the straits and necessities of the case. We have therefore first of all to remind ourselves how such questions as relate to the authority and the right interpretation of the Bible were naturally and necessarily opened in the controversy, how just the grounds of them were and are still, and how, when they have been opened, candor and truth require that they should be met. Wise and considerate men have often been per 1856.] Idolatrous Estimate of the Bible. 237 plexed when confronted with the consequences of their own theories; and though it may be a token of courage, it is certainly no proof of wisdom, to regard such consequences, when of a very perplexing or alarming character, with entire indifference, and as wholly without force against our theories. Whether in the adoption of a principle or a theory we should have in view the inevi table consequences, the practical effects, which will follow from it, is a question on which those who have concerned themselves with it have been divided; the dividing line being generally drawn so as to commit all mere theorists to a disregard of consequences, while those who have been compelled to face consequences have insisted that they should be had in view in the formation of theories. It will be found at the close of our present discussion, that the main issue between the Unitarian and the Orthodox views of the Scriptures, and the proper way of treating them, centres around this question: Shall we start with a theory about the inspiration, the authority, and the infallibility of the Scriptures, which recognizes the qualifications and abatements and embarrassments that will be sure to confront us as we meet the trial of that theory,— or shall we assume the very highest position possible, and then ingeniously contest, or grudgingly allow, the various objections of a fair and reasonable character which invalidate our position? Shall we form our theory in view of certain facts which we must sooner or later deal with in verifying our theory, or shall we adopt a theory which will compel us to deal uncandidly or unsatisfactorily with facts that are plainly inconsistent with it? -- When the Unitarian Controversy commenced here, it found prevailing in the popular mind, so far as that was in subjection to the popular theology, an almost idolatrous estimate of the Bible. This popular view of it allowed no discrimination in the value or authority of its various contents, and would scarcely tolerate any debate which went beyond the apparently literal meaning of the English version. In their use of the Bible, the people recognized no right of choice, no range for discrimination. It was all Bible. Indeed, a reader of the old tracts and sermons of our fathers is led to the persuasion, that they spent the hardest toil upon the least profitable portions of the Scriptures. That they found those portions edifying, only proves how diligently they wrought upon them. Very many of their devoted ministers are known to have spent years of industrious zeal in writing extended expositions or commentaries upon the whole Bible, or upon its larger or smaller compositions. A few specimens of such comments on books or chapters are in print, but no complete work of the kind from their pens has ever been published. Cotton Mather's voluminous exposition still lies in manuscript in the cabinet of our Historical Society. Several generations of ministers, in the full sincerity of their own earnest faith, had inculcated a view of the Bible which modern opinions regard as superstitious. They had fostered this view, and insisted upon it as vital to faith and the ends of edification. To what extent this estimate of the Bible in the minds of believers was balanced by, or even accountable for, a lurking or a full developed scepticism and unbelief in the minds of others, we of course cannot know. Our knowledge of the workings of human nature and the facts which experience presents us in our own day of free, outspoken dissent from the popular belief, would warrant the inference that multitudes of the inquisitive and the restless in mind entertained misgivings, though they might keep silence about them. It would seem that the common rule applied here as in other matters, that when the standard of belief made an excessive and arbitrary exaction, a readiness to recognize it on the part of some was offset by an immoderate rebellion to it on the part of others. Much of the confessed and latent unbelief of our day is the costly penalty paid by a grown-up generation for the austerities and exactions with which faith was connected in the training of their childhood. But as the popular view of the Bible was made the standard for belief, all who for any reason could not accept it were left to make such abatements of it, or to find such a substitute for it, as they could, practising meanwhile such reserve of tongue as prudence or fear might dictate. It is a remarkable fact, that, in all the voluminous and unfinished discussions which have been pursued on this high theme of the authority of the Bible, the witness |