6 surface, and, where necessarily left open, planted entirely out of view. No brief description can convey an adequate idea of this great work. It is sufficient to say that enormous sums have already been spent upon it, and that the estimated cost of finishing it is at least twenty millions of dollars. While thus noting the progress of public pleasure-grounds, we are not less delighted to find a new feature in private possessions, enabling each builder to have free use of very extensive plantations without heavy expense. At Orange, New Jersey, Llewellyn Park has been formed by an association of gentlemen, each one having a house and private grounds within it. About three hundred and fifty acres were selected and enclosed, having views of New York and its bay, the Hudson highlands, and the New Jersey country. The park proper is most beautifully embellished with plantations, ornamental water and cascades, carriage drives of five miles' extent, and numerous walks. “ Around the central tract, especially termed “The Park,' the remainder of the property is divided into about fifty villa sites of from three to ten acres each, the proprietors of which have a joint interest in, and common access to, the Park, possessing, however, the sole and unrestricted right to the lot which each may have selected. The fund for the purchase and embellishment of the Park is derived from an assessment on the surrounding sites of one hundred dollars per acre; and for the maintenance of the Park and future improvements, an annual assessment is made by the proprietors, not to exceed ten dollars per acre.” This plan, perfectly successful, we shall doubtless see followed in other parts of the country, and, indeed, several of the kind are already springing into existence about New York, In closing this article, we would urge upon every one to cultivate a taste and love for refined country life. The great places, of which many are noticed in Mr. Sargent's appendix, are exclusively for the rich; but, as we have shown, abundant delight for mind and eye is fully within the reach of all. The charms of rural life are among the purest and most lasting pleasures which gladden the human heart. Let one fully enter into the spirit of nature, although restricted to the smallest limits, and he will at once feel within him the truth and nobleness of Milton's immortal verse : “ I am the Power round ART. III. - OLD FAITH AND NEW KNOWLEDGE. Recent Inquiries in Theology, by English Churchmen. Edited, with an Introduction, by Rev. F. H. HEDGE, D. D. Being “ Essays and Reviews” recently published in England. Boston: Walker, Wise, & Co. 1860. An impressive and on the whole edifying portion of the liturgical service of the Episcopal Church is that of the rehearsal of the Ten Commandments as a part of the ante-communion service at the altar. Certainly, if any selection from the old Hebrew Scriptures might appropriately be taken, word for word, as it stands, without any allowance for abatement or accommodation in its transfer, and be used as of unimpaired authority for Christians in the solemnities of their worship, it must be the Decalogue. Those solemn edicts of the Heavenly Lawgiver seem to retain, in their depths and resonance, the sanctity which faith has associated with them; and when we hear them, it is as if they had been echoing grandly in the holier spaces of the air ever since they were first given to it in smoke and flame from the rocky heights of the Mount of God. How grand is the concise brevity of those three of the ten which express so positively what they forbid as if nothing but a No, without reason or explanation given, were all that is to be said about the greater sins of man against man! 66 Thou shalt do no murder.” “Thou shalt not commit adultery." 6. Thou shalt not steal.” Five words are enough for two, and four words are enough for the other, of these great laws of Jehovah. They are shorter yet as they stand in the Hebrew original; for two words, one of them in each case of but two letters, serve to express each of these three commandments. The other commandments are slightly, with a single exception, lengthened in statement, only for the sake of enforcing them by a reason, or defining their compass. How wide is the sweep, how exhaustive the range, how sublime the dignity, how self-ratifying the authority of that Divine code! It would seem as if in the services of all Christian sanctuaries there should be a place for its repetition, and that that place was fittingly midway in the order of the temple rites. No objection is to be urged against the pause between the distinct reading by the minister of each of the commandments, nor against the responsive petition sent up during each pause by the petitioners, or chanted in a subdued symphony by the choir, -“Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law." But we are coming, through this introduction, to something that troubles us, – at least to the extent of sensibly impairing our sympathy with this part of the liturgical service. And what we are now to say will be of itself but introductory, as a specimen and illustrative matter, of the transcendently serious and comprehensive subject with which we have afterwards to deal. This solemn rehearsal of the Ten Commandments is made on the Lord's Day, as a part of the exercises of public worship, for the disciples of Christ. One of those commandments is regarded and is used as defining the authority and purpose of the holy day which it thus helps to make and keep holy. The commandment, as given in the Prayer-Book, substantially as in Exodus xx. 8-11, is as follows: “ Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. Six 66 days shalt thou labor and do all that thou hast to do: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no manner of work, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, thy cattle, and the stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it.” Some embarrassing questions - which, however serious they are in themselves, or may be made to be in the treatment of them, are comparatively trivial in view of the paramount question to which we are coming — present themselves as we study the meaning and contemplate the use made of this commandment. It is taken as the basis of the Divine institution of the weekly Sabbath. Though nothing is said or implied about the holding of assemblies for public worship, and for religious instruction on that day, the commandment is regarded as constructively or impliedly covering such a use, or at least as eminently and consistently in harmony with such a use. The day is to be made holy and kept holy; and what is better and surer for that end, than rest during a portion of the day at home, and frequenting, during another portion of it, the temple of worship and edification ? But embarrassment for some literalists, for many cavillers, and for a few of scrupulous consciences, is found in such questions as these :- By what authority was the Lord's day substituted for the old Jewish Sabbath? or, with more emphasis and earnestness, How is it that Christians, even of the rigid sort, content themselves with keeping only one part of the commandment? What right have they so quietly and graciously to take for granted that the injunction for the absolute cessation of all household cares, and for the entire abstinence from all manner of work by cook, and groom, and coachman, and horses, has become obsolete? What right have they thus fearlessly to strike out the prohibition from the commandment, and thus to impair, by a willworship and preference and carnal indulgence of their own inclinations, the whole integrity and authority of the statute ? These questions, however, and others like them, are disposed of with great facility and with tolerable satisfaction; and they SCENSIOL ferred comma hallow on a se the he son is Sota infinit are m cates to ad will be advoc lofty the or It for e are as but straws for lightness in comparison with the grave issue we are now to open,- and to open, as we must again intimate, not so much for its own single contents, as for its specimen and illustrative character. The reader, whether he has anticipated our intent or not, cannot have failed to have noted, with some arrest of attention, however familiar the experience may have become to him, that the obligation for keeping holy the Sabbath day is grounded upon a Reason, - a cause why. This reason is of no dubious or vague character. It is as explicit, distinct, positive, and intelligible as language can convey. It is also a reason which, if it shall stand as a reason and carry with it the force of the authority to which it appeals, cannot for a moment be questioned or debated, so august, so overwhelming is the purport of it. The commandment bids us keep holy the seventh day, after we have worked during six days, because God himself did the same. He worked six days, six successive periods of time, measured by us in twenty-four hours each. In these six days he “made HEAVEN, and EARTH, the SEA, and everything that is in heaven, earth, and sea ;” and when the Almighty Worker — not necessarily fatigued, but having completed his own design — had thus occupied six days, he rested on the seventh day: and because he did rest on that seventh day, he blessed it as a Sabbath day, and hallowed it. The commandment exceeds its own due province of simply making an injunction. The Divine Lawgiver might command, without condescending to argue. It is for him to choose whether he shall connect a reason with any one of his injunctions, telling us not only to keep it, but also why we are to keep it. If he does thus base a commandment upon a reason for his giving it, and upon a reason for our obeying it, he seems to proffer to us the invitation put into his lips by the prophet Isaiah: “ Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord.” If our nurture or our educated conviction persuades us to read the Bible with an humble, reverent docility, we are under equal obligation to regard and treat Bible reasoning as reasoning, that we are to regard Bible commandments as commandments. It would be but a poor sort of reverence to render as tribute to God, while acknowledging his conde i actio Foul |