CONDUCTED BY
ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
CO-EDITORS:
W. K. PENDLETON, R. RICHARDSON AND A. W. CAMPBELL.
I saw another messenger flying through the midst of heaven, having everlasting good news to proclaim to the inhabitants of the earth, even to every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people; saying, with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him, for the hour of his judgments is come; and worship Him who made heaven, and earth, and sea, and the fountains of water.-JOHN.
Great is the Truth, and mighty above all things, and will prevail!
SERIES IV.--VOLUME I.
BETHANY, VA.:
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY A. CAMPBELL.
1851
Reprinted and distributed by
College Press Publishing Company, Inc.
Joplin, Mo. 64802
1987
PREFACE.
THREE series, of seven volumes each, are now completed under the title of the Millennial Harbinger. Preceding these, seven volumes were offered, and favorably received by the reading and thinking public, under the title of the Christian Baptist. In these eight and twenty volumes, each and every one of the distinguishing tenets and positions of the current Reformation has passed through a severe--I might say a fiery--ordeal. The result has been, that, in the judgment of a great community, extended over all Protestant Christendom, amounting, at least, to more than two hundred thousand persons in our own country, of mature age and reason--of at least a medium intelligence and learning--equal, in all intellectual and moral endowments, to the same number of persons in any other professing community in Europe or America, the great essential issues formed and canvassed, with a fair show of all the learning, talent and zeal of the age, have, each and every one of them, been triumphantly carried and demonstrated to be in harmony with the Oracles of Eternal Truth. This is a result which, without any secular aid, or any adventitious advantage, has seldom, if at all, occurred in any age or community since the great apostasy of Papal Rome from the Christian church.
Nor has this triumph been achieved by any appeal to human passion or human prejudice, but through the naked and unadorned force of divine truth, rationally, morally, and religiously propounded to the understanding, the conscience, and the hearts of the people. It is, in truth, as we most religiously believe, "the doings of the Lord," and "it is wondrous in our eyes." We, therefore, most humbly and gratefully thank God and take courage Still, the work is not finished: indeed, it is but begun.
A community of intelligent, responsible believers, united in "one Lord, one faith, and one baptism," animated with one hope, sanctified and comforted by one Spirit, enlisted in the service of one God and Father, separated unto time gospel of God, has immense power in heaven and earth, which, when wisely and piously wielded, can achieve much for the glory of God, and the honor and happiness of mankind.
Connected with, and much influenced by this community, are at least one million of persons in the great American family, not yet converted to God. Their destiny is committed to us, as much as were the Oracles of
4 PREFACE.
God formerly committed to the Jews. If "wise as the serpent, and harmless as the dove;" if diligent in our calling, and devoted in our lives to the work of faith, the labor of love, and the patience of hope, what a revenue of glory to God, and of happiness to man, may we annually yield! And that it is our duty and our privilege, cordially to consecrate ourselves and our substance to the work of the Lord committed to us, I need not argue, as there is not one amongst us that does deny or doubt it.
Still, it is pertinent and apropos to call forth, direct, and encourage the efforts of our brotherhood in this great and mighty enterprize. We have as much health, wealth, and discretion, as any papistical or protestant association in our land; and why not be equally, nay, more than equally zealous, indefatigable and self-sacrificing, in this our calling and mission to this our age and nation?
The harvest is truly great, and, with the mass of our country before our eyes, to say nothing of lands remote and realms abroad, may we not say, "the laborers are few?" How much is yet to be done for the glory of our Redeemer and the salvation of our world, within the bosom of our beloved country! Nor are we legally, morally, or evangelically confined to these United States, as the field exclusively demanding our aids and efforts, "The field," nay, our field "is the world," because it is our Master's world, and our common humanity. In the economy of man, the blood in his heart is carried through every channel which God has opened to the utmost extremity of our individual personalities. So ought our Christian charity, the heart's blood of our corporation, in its reviving, consoling, and vivifying warmth and efficacy, to carry life and health to the farthest domicil of fallen man on the face of the broad earth.
But this is not our present theme. We all have yet much to do. The ground taken from error and delusion, is to be retained and defended, and its present boundaries still farther and farther extended. In this divine service the pen and the press are mighty agencies, and we must not leave them out of our premises. God has put them into our hands, and we must not lay them down and sleep upon our arms.
We are asked for a thousand preachers, and cannot furnish, for the new and increasing demand, five per cent. We can send out written Harbingers equal to the demand, but living, talking, and self-moving harbingers, are not so soon fledged, nor so easily pinioned, as our monthly missionaries. Still, they do a good work, and frequently strengthen the things that remain, and are sometimes "ready to die." A whole church has been builded by the monthly visits of one of these cheap and rapid heralds of reform.
We concede to the living voice of a Christian living man, whose head is full of light, and whose heart is full of love, a superlative agency and power in this great work of preaching and teaching Christ. But there are three degrees of comparison, and, of these, the positive and the comparative are not to be despised. The Messiah taught his apostles and evangelists to write as well as to preach--to write to churches, as well as to teach Christ-
PREFACE. 5
And Paul wrote words both of exhortation and consolation, as well as spoke them. Printing is better than writing. It is read with more ease, and considered with more calmness and concentration. And by the impulse of steam and electricity, it flies, angel-like, all over the land.
We advocate all the means which God in his providence has vouchsafed to us. We, therefore, ask our friends, and the friends of God and man, to give us space and room in their hearts, and to send us to their neighbors and friends once a month, with their prayers, to carry on the work which our monthly messengers have, so early and so late, so untiringly and so successfully carried forward to the present time.
We are full of good designs. Will our brethren and fellow-laborers amplify our commission, or at least enlarge our parish and fields of labor' The present volume is designed to elaborate, in the form of essays and conversations, Bible truths; to develop the treasures of wisdom and knowledge contained in the apostolic writings especially. There is now
demand for controversy. The great questions and debates called forth by our opponents are disposed of. There is little more to be called for in the form of controversy. The cannons of our adversaries are dismounted, if not spiked. It is conceded, we have got the vantage ground. We shall, therefore, have more space for Bible translation and Bible interpretation; and it is equally a concession, not to be recalled, that in this department. we may do more than in any other, to convince, persuade, and please the lovers of truth, and righteousness, and peace.
Still, I would not lead any of our readers to imagine that a cessation of hostilities is to be expected or desired, while error is enthroned in many temples of sectarian institution, and while its unconscious friends are indefatigable in their efforts to wield its leaden sceptre over a slumbering world. A purely philological and grammatical exposition of some portions of God's own book, we doubt not, however, will do more, at this stage of the controversy, to emancipate the slaves of tradition and human authority, than any formal attempts in verbal combat or controversial style, to unmask its haggard countenance or to disrobe its ungraceful person. Nothing is more beautiful than truth in its own simplicity: nothing more unsightly than error in its naked and native deformity. To present the former in its own attractions, and to expose the latter in its meretricious attire, shall always he regarded as our duty, when formally and providentially summoned to the work. Our "Conversations on the Epistle to the Romans," shall now be resumed, as well as upon other portions of the Inspired Writings. This, with his letter to the Hebrews, we have long regarded as the two most profound and grand compositions in the Christian Scriptures; the comprehension of which does more to enlighten the understanding and to enlarge the heart, than any other two compositions gifted to the Christian church.-
The plan commenced and prosecuted to the seventh chapter of the letter to the Romans--diffuse and popular though It be--we regard as better adapted to the present condition and taste of the Christian profession than
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 1*
6 PREFACE.
any other which we could at this crisis, and under present circumstances, adopt. Such we have learned, from numerous sources of high respectability, to be a prevailing opinion; and as it better suits our desultory employment, we shall continue it through the present volume.
But beside this, we have essays of some importance on sundry topics, which, at the present crisis, do engage, and which will still more engage, the attention of our particular brotherhood. These we shall from time to time furnish, as our opportunities admit and the times demand.
But we do not like to promise much. We must in the future, as in the past, act as the crisis demands, and be more or less controlled by circum- stances, which we can neither anticipate nor control. We are set for the defence of the gospel, the edification of the brotherhood, the conversion of the world, and must, therefore, appear both offensive and defensive, as the times demand. We ask the aid of our brotherhood in extending the field of our operations; by giving us wings to fly and facilities to enlighten their children, their friends and neighbors, by putting into their hands the offerings of our pen. We ought to have, and we might have without detriment to any one, and with much greater advantage to many, a much greater number of readers, and, consequently, a much more abundant harvest. The more active, zealous, and faithful they are in their professed benevolence and efforts to enlighten and sanctify the world, the more successful we shall be in our endeavor to gather fruit unto eternal life. As they lead we must follow. We will only add, that our steadfast aim and effort shall be to keep pace with their devotion and their benevolence. We will endeavor to be as near to them as possible, in the onward, upward, heavenward career of glory, honor, and immortality. As many as be thus minded, peace be on them, and on all the Israel of God!
DECEMBER 3, 1850. A. CAMPBELL.
Vol. I.] BETHANY, VA., JANUARY, 1851. [No. I.
THE LIFE OF FAITH.
"Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?"--Luke xviii. 8.
THIS question of the Saviour suggests, to the reflecting mind, an important inquiry with respect both to himself, and the age in which we live. The exercise of faith is, indeed, essential to the very existence of our race, and we can conceive of no possible way, consistent with the present order of things, by which the present operations of society, the progress of nations, and the intercourse of friends, could be carried on and perpetuated, were we to discard from our system the principle of faith. It is the sun of our moral and intellectual nature, affording warmth and light to both. The learning and wisdom of the past are its treasures of light, and over the dreary wastes of the unexplored future, it sends its genial and inviting warmth. It whispers in our ears the encouraging story of the days that are gone, arms us for the conflicts and labors of each passing moment, and urges us to eager, hopeful efforts for the years to come. By it we lay our head upon the pillow of experience, and, unstartled by fear, dream of joys to come, sweeter than those that sleep in memory. Most full in the pure-hearted, we see it personified in the gentle-eyed infant, looking into its mother's face without a fear, trusting in her protection and love, and clinging, with its little arms, closer around her neck when she chides, than when she caresses.
But is this the faith of which the Saviour speaks!" If so, he scarcely would have expressed this doubt of its being found in the
8 LIFE OF FAITH.
world when he shall come; for, as long as man exists in the world, and his nature remains as it is, we can hardly imagine any want of this principle in its ordinary action. But there is a faith which acts upon that, which human experience did not ascertain, nor human reason discover; a faith which confides in promises, that do not even relate to this state of being in which we now exist; but which, willingly and undoubtingly, looks for not only a fountain of joy, from which mortal never drank, but for a change in the very theater of our being and the mode of our existence; new heavens and a new earth; spiritual bodies and eternal joys; a faith, indeed, which admits, and fully relies on, that which is not only contrary to the little human experience of such inhuman monsters as flume and his parasites, but in what is, truly and in fact, above, and contrary to, all human experience, in the broadest, fullest, largest sense of the expression; for what eye has seen the heavens rolled up as a scroll, what ear has heard them passing away with a great noise, and whose heart has thrilled, save in imagination, to the heavenly tones of seraphic harmony! No. This faith claims from us something altogether beyond experience and above the discoveries of reason; and the question is, Shall it be found in the earth when the Son of Man shall come
If we admit that, so far as the virtue of faith may avail us, the Son of Man comes to us at our death; that no change can or will be wrought in us, by any means, for our salvation, after we die; then this question may become a solemnly impressive one to all who live; for in this sense, it is also most true, that the Son of Man cometh in an hour that we know not of. That the Saviour has asked this question in a manner so impressive, challenges our consideration, and, indeed, creates the suspicion that faith will be found with but few. Nor, if we judge by the test of the Evangelist James, and look for its manifestations in the works of professors, shall we find much to relieve us of our fear. Christians do not walk as seeing Him that is invisible. On the contrary, whilst they would honor God with their lips, their hearts appear to be far from Him. The most explicit precepts of the word are disregarded by many; the works of the flesh are not mortified nor suppressed; the graces of the spirit are not cultivated; soberness, righteousness and godliness, are not made the characteristic qualities or habits of life; the model of Christ. is admired, but not imitated; his morality, in its purity and excellency, is extolled, and placed above all contrast with that of any other code, but it is not adopted in the practice of those who delight to expatiate upon its superiority; his wisdom is
LIFE OF FAITH. 9
hailed as divine, yet the children of men are wiser than His disciples; the rewards and punishments of a future state are fully set forth as a conceded item of faith, yet but few, like Moses, seem to have respect to the recompense of reward. Truly, how few do show their faith by their works! Almost may we ask, Is faith in the world?
There is, doubtless, a great deal of ignorance among professors, as to what constitutes a life of faith; and thousands, we fear there are, who have no higher conception of it than to think that it consists in looking back to the fact that they were, years past, baptized for the remission of sins. But this is almost as great a delusion as that which rests its hope upon the dim recollection of some far off dream or vision of a distempered brain. There are some who seem to be, indeed, pretty well trained in the catechism on this point, and who will tell us, with a great deal of flippancy, that it is to believe what God says, and to do what he bids us, yet they give no evidence of a true spiritual life; they have, indeed, the form of godliness without the power thereof. They have mistaken some of the characteristics for the vital essence, and gaze at the shadow and the foot-prints, rather than the divine reality itself. Like a young miss who had been to a fashionable boarding school, studying, among other useful branches of education, the science of Botany: a friend to whom she was paying a visit during vacation, asked her, "What is Botany?" she replied very promptly, "It is pressing flowers in a book." This was, in fact, all she had been taught of it, and she honestly thought that this simple operation constituted the science. There is too much reason to fear, that many professing Christians have no more adequate conception of a true spiritual religion, than this young girl had of the science of Botany. Their life of faith is the dry bones, the skeleton of works; the flesh and life of the truly spiritual man are wanting. Their religion is a task, undertaken, perhaps, with a sense of duty, or, it may be, only a hope of reward, and prosecuted without one realizing emotion of the presence of the spirit in the heart. There is no warmth, no fervor, no enjoyment; no responsive inward experience that God is with us and in us, testifying to the consciousness that they are the children of God.
May we hope to be understood, when we say, that no man can enjoy God without knowing it; that in the true and literal sense of the term every real Christian can say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth;" that there is, with all such, a testimony of experience in spiritual union and communion, that is as certain knowledge to the consciousness of him who enjoys it, as the knowledge which we
10 LIFE OF FAITH.
derive by our senses from contact with material nature; that we do not more surely know that we are in contact with the objects of sense, when they impress us through their appropriate organs, than we do that we are in union and connection with the great spring and fountain of our spiritual life, when, in prayer and devotion fervent, the Spirit of God broods upon our spirits, making us feel in harmony with itself, and awakening in us kindred sympathies and emotions. Nor in saying this do we affirm any thing more difficult to believe, than that God does, now and always, hold connection with and control over nature.
We are startled at the bold scepticism that would reduce the universe to the analogy of a clock, wound up for a six-thousand-years' run, and then left by its Maker to the movements and regulations of its own machinery; we shrink back with a shudder, at the atheistic refinement which reduces organization, motion and life, to the primordial necessities of nature--the inherent and eternal laws of atomic attractions; we revolt at the idea that God is not in the universe, controlling and preserving it with a prescience that allows not even a sparrow to fall unnoticed--a power that poises in perfect harmony its vast and unnumbered parts, and a ubiquity which baffles even imagination to conceive of the space, where his presence is not always manifest: yet, whilst we are thus enlightened with respect to the material universe, how many there are who are so spiritually dark as to run into a precisely similar scepticism and atheism, when the phenomena of the spiritual system are to be accounted for Here they are willing to concede that there is, in fact, no present God; here they can admit that nothing exists but machinery; that, in respect to our spiritual nature, we are left altogether to the cold appliances of secondary means, and that there is around our inner man a material case, which is impenetrable, even to the Spirit of God, and which forever isolates us from such spiritual union and communion with that spirit as may be felt, and become as much the subject of knowledge, as the pressure of the hand we love, or the vibration of the voice we revere.
Now it is, perhaps, on this point, more than any other in the religious experience of the day, that there is a want of faith. Professing Christians do not seem to regard it as true, that the Spirit of God can and does, in fact, take up his residence in the purified heart, as the temple of the Holy Spirit, (1 Cor. vi. 19;) that he dwells with us and in us, to comfort and console us, (Jno. xiv. 17;) that to those who live and walk in the Spirit, he is the fruitful source of "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meek-
LIFE OF FAITH. 11
ness, temperance," (Gal. v: 22;) that "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given unto us," (Rom. v: 5;) that after we believe, we are sealed with it, as the Holy Spirit of promise; that it is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession," (Ep. i: 14;) and that by its power we are made to "abound in hope," even "the hope of righteousness by faith," (Rom. xv. 13.) Yet all this is scriptural, and, better still. it is realized to be true by the sincere believer in Christ. This promise, however, is confined to such only, and, therefore, only such can ever have knowledge of it.
It is in this that Christian experience consists, and, we may add, this is the highest attainment of Christian enjoyment. But how far short of this does the dry formalist come! He may look to the catalogue of duties, and, counting over the works of the day, as the papist does his beads, compare his conduct with the standard to which he acknowledges it to be his duty to conform. He may feel some little compunction of conscience at the detection of a fault-- the discovery of a duty omitted or an obligation violated; or, it may be, that he will enjoy a momentary pleasure in the consciousness of well-spent time--the calm satisfaction of conscious rectitude--the mens conscia sibi recti; and this is all very well, as far as it goes, most excellent, but a disciple of Seneca might have done as much, and enjoyed as much, and, perhaps, have been as spiritual and truly religious in his nature and feelings. In all this there may have been a total absence of all communion with God; no spiritual interchange between the spirit of the man and the Holy Spirit; no realization of a restored union and harmony between the creator and the creature; and an absence, altogether, of the knowledge of salvation. The enjoyment consists in the admiration of one's self; the examination is a comparison of one's self with some standard admitted to be excellent, and the pleasure--nothing more than self-gratulation--at the discovery that the subject I, is quite equal to the excellent mod el set forth for imitation, and declared worthy!
The obvious reason of this, perhaps, is the neglect of a habit of prayer and meditation. A deeper, but less manifest reason, no doubt, is in the state of mind which leads to a neglect of these high and delightful sources of Christian enjoyment; in the fact that the moral nature has never been thoroughly transformed by the truth; that the heart has not been truly and radically changed. Religion has been embraced, not so much from a cordial love of it, as from the fear that its doctrine of future retribution may be true. It has been laid hold of as at least a safe and judicious speculation, which may
12 LIFE OF FAITH.
stand one in good stead some future day, but which, in the meantime, should give us no farther concern than simply to render a formal compliance with its preceptive conditions. This radical misconception will, of course, produce an indifference to those religious exercises, the pleasure and utility of which it completely prevents; for, in reducing prayer and meditation to a cold and useless formality, it abstracts from them their life-giving fervor and heavenly peace, and, with these, almost all motive to resort to them. Still, in many cases, the obvious reason of this mere formal Christian existence, is the neglect of a regular and earnest habit of fervent prayer and deep meditation. This cause, at least, lies on the surface, and we would fain hope that it is not, in all cases, the effect of that other and deeper reason of which we have spoken. It may be that these means of life, and growth, and strength, are neglected simply for the want of appetite; because of the sickly state of the Christian life within us, and not because there is, in fact, no such life, quickened and growing in the heart. If so, there is hope; we need not despair, for the remedy is obvious and at hand. It is an immediate and faithful resort to those very means of enjoyment and strength, which we have habitually neglected.
This is in the power of the will, and must, from the very constitution of our nature, and the promises of the gospel, bring the desired result. We cannot meditate often and deeply upon the word of God--the cheering and consoling sayings of the Saviour--with an appropriating faith, without feeling that these words are spoken, also, to us. We cannot draw near to God, in prayer, without feeling that we are in direct audience with our Father in heaven, who graciously hears our petitions, and is well pleased with our praises; and the realization of this gives us confidence and encouragement to renew the exercise, till the pleasure excites to the habit and the habit contributes to the pleasure, in a mutually increasing and reciprocal ratio, perfecting our spiritual growth, and making us more and more fit for the higher communion of the eternal life.
Beloved brethren, we are beginning a new year: let us also set out with a fixed resolution to live more near to God; let us live the life of faith, and not that of sense only. Persevere in good works, but neglect not prayer, praise, and holy meditation upon the word and benevolence of God. Forsake not the means divinely appointed for our spiritual growth and enjoyment, and we shall as surely be blessed in them, and through them, as we are by those provided for our physical preservation and health. Nor will our knowledge of their influence be less in the one case than in the other; but if, in
TOUR OF FORTY DAYS. 13
the full assurance of faith, we draw nigh to God, we shall as surely know that He is with us spiritually, as that our friends are around us bodily. Thus shall our faith grow stronger with our experience, our hope glow brighter with our faith, and our enjoyments expand and sweeten with our hope. W. K. P.
TOUR OF FORTY DAYS
IN THE STATES OF OHIO, KENTUCKY, AND INDIANA.
NUMBER I.
HAVING enjoyed one week's repose at Bethany, in discharge of my college and editorial duties, after my tour through Ohio and New York, with a short visit to Canada, a call at Philadelphia and Baltimore--making a circuit of fourteen hundred miles--I left home, accompanied by my daughter Virginia, to attend the anniversaries in Cincinnati and Lexington.
Detained by low water and one day's repose on a sand-bar in the Ohio river, we arrived at Cincinnati on Thursday morning, October 24th. After some refreshment at Dr. Joseph Ray's, our kind and hospitable host during our sojourn in that city, we directed our steps to the church, corner of Eighth and Walnut, where we found our brethren in session on the affairs of our benevolent institutions.
We continued with them till Monday, the 28th of October, participating with them, more or less, in all their deliberations. Of the important matters which passed in revision before us, there were two in which we and the brotherhood felt a paramount interest. These were the divesting of life-membership and life-directorship of a pecuniary basis. It always seemed to me as imprudent--as anti-evangelical--to give to any man, not a confirmed saint, a power for life, to direct the action, perhaps to control the action, of a christian community, or a christian association, in its deliberations and acts in conducting or extending the operations peculiarly affecting its vital interests.
Two prerequisites are essential, as it seems to me, to such life-directorship: The first, that the life-director be a saint; and secondly, that we believe, on undoubted evidence, that he will persevere to the end. I have, indeed, purchased two such life-directorships--one in the American Bible Society, and one in the American and Foreign Bible Society. I bought them because they were in the
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 2
14 TOUR OF FORTY DAYS.
market, and because I wished, if need should be, that I might have a voice in their direction and action. But I would not sell such a right to any man, so far as now advised on all the premises.
I had the pleasure, at both these meetings, of witnessing much good sense, much sound Biblical knowledge, much well-directed zeal and much piety; consequently, an unusual degree of harmony and unanimity in all matters of importance. I had, also, the pleasure of delivering several addresses on sundry grand themes, to very large and crowded assemblies of christians and fellow-citizens, at these meetings, and of hearing very edifying discourses from sundry brethren. On my way, I had also the pleasure of addressing several large and interested congregations at Wellsburg, Va., Covington and Georgetown, Ky., and of enjoying the christian hospitalities of our brethren in these places--sojourning on my way with Bro. Mooklar, at Covington; Bro. Mitchel, at Georgetown; Bro. Allen and Mr. Bell, at Lexington, Ky.
On Tuesday, the 5th November, we sailed to Madison, Indiana, and we next day addressed the citizens of that place, assembled in the Methodist Chapel, the largest room in the city, on the subject of the Advocacy of the Holy Spirit, as commissioned by the glorified Messiah.
During my short stay in that place, we partook of the hospitalities of Father Bramwell, of the Christian Church, an aged brother, of long tried worth; of Gen. Stapp, now Mayor of the city, a member of the Baptist Church, and of Mr. Fitch, of the world, and his excellent lady, Sister Fitch, formerly of the Christian congregation in Baltimore.
From Madison, next morning, via Columbus, Ia., on the railroad, we proceeded towards the State capital, Indianapolis. On our way we addressed a very large assembly of brethren and friendly aliens at Columbus, some forty miles in the interior of the State. Here we met with Bro. Love Jameson, of Indianapolis, whose praise is in all the churches in Indiana, and with sundry other brethren, who labor in the word and doctrine of Christ. Our topic was the superlative personal and official grandeur of the Lord Jesus, as the oracle of God.
That same evening, and next morning at 9 o'clock, we spoke on the proper education of man, as a son of earth and an heir of heaven. Bro. Jameson, also, during the evening, delivered a very sensible, practical, and eloquent discourse, on christian piety. From Bro. Pidgeon's, with whom we abode, after our morning discourse, we immediately repaired to the railroad depot, but, no sooner had we
TOUR OF FORTY DAYS. 15
got under way, than the engine and some part of the train ran off the track, and gave to myself and several others who were standing up, a very severe shock, but, narrowly escaping the back of my seat, I received no harm. This accident, which detained us some five or six hours, was occasioned by the recklessness of an attendant on the freight train that preceded us, in not replacing the switch. While I traveled through England, a similar accident occurred from a similar neglect, which cost some lives, and several broken limbs and bruises; but the occasion of it was severely visited by the civil authorities for his neglect of duty. So ought it to be in this country, "for a terror to evil doers, and a praise to them that do well." But here it is too lightly treated, and, consequently, human life is too frequently placed in imminent danger through this criminal indifference.
From Columbus, in the afternoon, after dining with Bro. Crittenden, we proceeded, with more caution, through a very rich and beautiful country, to Indianapolis. From Madison to Columbus, after we ascend the river hill, the country, though all arable, and handsome to the eye, is not very rich: but all at once, on leaving Columbus, we travel through one of the richest and finest regions of the west. It is, indeed, exuberantly fertile, abounding in corn, and meadows of large dimensions, equalling any thing I have seen in any part of the Valley of the Mississippi.
Arriving at Indianapolis past the hour of meeting appointed, and supposing the congregation was dispersed, we were taken immediately by Bro. Jameson to his residence. But no sooner had we sat down, than Bro. Butler's son and carriage were at the door, informing us that the congregation was yet awaiting our arrival, and that Bro. Bacon was holding them in abeyance, momentarily expecting our coming. Of course, cold and fatigued though we were, at almost 8 o'clock in the evening, we hied away to the great hall of the city, some ninety by sixty feet in its dimensions, and found a very large assembly in attendance. Bro. Bacon immediately giving way, we rose and read a passage in one of Paul's Epistles, from which I addressed the audience on the trial, condemnation, and justification of the Messiah.
Next evening we addressed a still larger congregation, in the same hall, on the foundation which the justified and glorified Messiah had laid for his great empire in this fallen world; and next day, (Lord's day morning,) to the largest concourse that could assemble in any one house in the State, we had the pleasure of unfolding the grand scheme of heaven's philanthropy, now consummated in the death,
16 TOUR OF FORTY DAYS.
burial, resurrection and glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. We elaborated this subject for some two hours, to a deeply interested auditory, and were sorry to learn, afterwards, that many citizens could not find a place in the hall, and that a portion of the vast assembly could not satisfactorily hear all that was said on these rich premises. My vocal powers were, indeed, somewhat impaired by an incipient cold and too much speaking.
We had, one might say, the whole State in attendance, in the person of its Governor, and a State Convention of one hundred and fifty persons, then in session, new modling its constitution.
Early next morning I received an invitation from the convention, expressed in the following words:
"INDIANAPOLIS, November 9, 1850.
"Messrs. Badger and Wolfe: The following is a copy of a resolution adopted by the Constitutional Convention, On this day:
'Resolved, That Messrs. Badger and Wolfe be appointed a committee to wait upon Elder Alexander Campbell, and request him to visit the Hall and open the Convention by prayer, on Monday morning next.'
"Very respectfully, WM. H. ENGLISH, Prin. Sec'y.
"P. G. L. SITES, Assistant."
Accordingly, on Monday morning, Bro. Jameson and myself visited the capitol, and, after reflecting on the important interests lodged in the hands of this great body for the present, and probably for future generations, affecting their whole interests in all their relations of life, and being informed that a respectable proportion of its members were members of different religious communities, our own being largely represented in it, we addressed the Throne of Grace in reference to the occasion and the work on hand.
While sitting a few minutes in the hall, after the business of the day commenced, I observed Robert Dale Owen, son of my old antagonist on the claims of christianity, sitting in his place amongst the representatives of the sovereign people. When about leaving the hall, lie came round to give me his hand, arid to inquire after my health. After an exchange of the usual civilities of life, we retired, having learned that his father yet resides in London, and enjoys his philosophical visions of a future golden age, even in down-trodden, sectarian, and papistical Europe.
Robert Dale, as years leave their footsteps on his face, shows more and more his paternity. The same placid and romantically furrowed face, visionarily grotesque and benevolent, a little deeper chisseled, and with a finer instrument than that which furrowed the forehead and sculptured the placid cheeks of his far-famed sire, is
TOUR OF FORTY DAYS. 17
Itself a truthful preface to all that he has written and said of human nature and human advancement.
Alike true to nature and his peculiar education, he is still in quest of a new order of society, adapted to man without religion and its conscience; both of which have had, by far, too much influence and sway, both in the old world and in the new, to suit the optimism which he propounds as his beau ideal of human bliss. He made a tine speech the other day on the rights of women, defrauded though they have been, by his work on moral philosophy. He makes them amends in goods and chattels, in the advocacy of new rights for old wrongs. He will honor the matrimonial compact made a sort of copartnery concern, with two sets of books--Dr. and Cr.--between man and wife, each in his and her way making a little something for themselves and their beams, with full right, when death dissolves the covenant, each to his and her own avails, to use, will, and dispose of them as in their separate wisdom may seem fit. This might have been a good provision in his special case in Scotland, some fifty years ago, inasmuch as a magnificent maternal estate was benevolently, philosophically, and rather whimsically, alienated from Miss Dale, of Lanark, and her heirs, by Mr. Robert Owen and his and her heirs. But it is, I presume to say, a species of romantic oscillation between conjugal, paternal, and maternal attachments and interests, which no form of legislation could prevent or remedy.
Still, benevolence and justice are such beautiful words and ideas, that it always affords me pleasure to see any man do them homage, however eccentric and whimsical he may be. Even with all the visionary and imaginative aberrations of Robert Owen and Robert Dale Owen, I cherish for them both a melancholy benevolence, along with a deep conviction, that neither of them will leave the world as good and as happy as they found it.
From Indianapolis, after a promise to visit it again, on my return from Bloomington, we set out next day for the seat of the Indiana University. Accompanied by Bro. Jameson and Bro. O. Kane, we had a very pleasant day in traveling through a rich and beautiful country. We dined at Bro. G. Stafford's, midway between Indianapolis and Bloomington. The road, running almost parallel with White river all the way to Bloomington, affords a fine display of the exuberant fertility of this section of the State. Our Bro. Stafford lives on a farm of four hundred and eighty acres, of exuberant fertility enough to satisfy any reasonable man, whose aim is to have for himself and family a liberal competence of all the precious fruits of a generous soil and a genial climate. He asks no more. The
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 2*
18 TOUR OF FORTY DAYS.
only man I met in my late tour that said so. Seven miles from his residence we found ourselves in Martinsville; and after tea at Bro. Tucker's, we hastened to the meeting-house, into which, with great difficulty, we forced our entrance through a well-packed crowd, standing in the avenues between the seats and around the doors. We found room to stand no where but in the pulpit.
After worship, we commenced a discourse, but so illy ventilated was the house that we felt, in such a crowd, more like fainting than speaking.
To increase our difficulties, the babies of Martinsville, as if all simultaneously inspired with one spirit of remonstrance, raised a song which no one could interpret, and which no eloquence or argument could allay. The unhappy mothers were at their wit's end. I remonstrated, far the first time in my life, against infant wailings, but in vain. Cried down, I sat down, and confessed myself fairly vanquished.
Meantime, I urged Bro. O. Kane--a speaker of great strength and command of voice, and of great mental vigor and point--to make an effort. He did so.. And by the charming potency of his voice, and his fine intonations, he allured the innocent wailers into a sort of speculative silence. Wonder-struck, their remonstrance died away, and, on his motion, I resumed my subject.
But, alas! no sooner had I rallied and propounded my thesis, than they began to murmur; and finally, a grand climax of some fifteen parts was rending the air, and filling the vaulted roof, but, as the indulgent and aggrieved mothers could find no way of escape, by door or window, no one willing to give way, I confessed myself wholly vanquished, drew to a close, and dismissed the assembly. It was here that I became acquainted with Bro. Blankenship, a very successful preacher, of great stature, and strength of body and mind. From the great number of his converts, and his untiring energy, I should judge that he is one of the most mighty men of the evangelical core in that region. He is, indeed, indefatigable, zealous, ardent, and devoted to the great work of converting men.
Next day we proceeded to Bloomington, and were very cordially received by our excellent and amiable Bro. James M. Mathes, Editor of the "Christian Record," and his excellent lady. After a refreshment, we went to the spacious and tasteful hall of the University, and there met with a very large audience in solemn stillness, awaiting our arrival. Bro. 0. Kane, after apologizing for my hoarseness and fatigue, delivered an eloquent and forcible address to a very attentive and much interested auditory. I had the pleas-
TOUR OF FORTY DAYS. 19
ure of renewing my acquaintance with my old friend Dr. Andrew Wiley, the learned and worthy president of the institution. Long accustomed to the duties of his office, Dr. Wiley is one of our most eminent western teachers officiating as president of a State institution. In his youth he was president of Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, Pa. Afterwards president of Washington College, Washington, Pa.; in both of which institutions he deservedly stood high. While there, some thirty years ago, he and myself had a metaphysical controversy, of much excitement, on certain matters and things connected with the Presbyterian movements of that day, in behalf of a compulsory observance of the Sabbath a la mode Scotland. He wrote over the signature of Timothy, I over that of Candidus, a long series of articles, prose and verse, on sundry topics connected with the movements of "The Moral Associations" of that day--enforcing, by civil statutes and fines, the sanctification of the Lord's day somewhat in Jewish style. The result was, the associations died away, and our good and more generous feelings of mutual respect rose as they waned. So that we have ever since cherished for each other a sincere and high respect. He has, as well as myself, much modified his views on men and things, in the lapse of forty years' thinking; and, I believe I may say it without flattery or vanity, that we are not very far apart in our present views, on all that enters into the elements of original apostolic christianity. In his ecclesiastical politics he has become more Episcopal than Presbyterian; more catholic than sectarian; more inquisitive than dogmatical. I am, therefore, not without hope, that we may yet approximate still nearer to each other, as his reverence for human authority wanes, and as he rises to the purer air and the brighter sky of original and unsophisticated christianity. We both agree that all synods and councils have erred, and that no true christian can be a sectarian; nor true sectarian a real follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.
From Bloomington, next day, we proceeded to Springvale, where I delivered a discourse on the New Institution, in contrast with the Old, and was succeeded, after night, by Bro. Jameson, who gave a very animated and instructive lecture on the necessity of yielding prompt obedience to the requisitions of the gospel. We supped with Bro. Judah, of Springvale, and spent the night with our much esteemed and devoted Bro. Milton Short, who labors with good effect- in the good cause of Reformation.
Next day we proceeded to Bedford, and addressed, in the Presbyterian church, a large and most attentive auditory, on the grounds
20 TOUR OF FORTY DAYS.
and reasons of one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, going at some length into the aberrations of the age on these and other great elementary principles. Having enjoyed the christian hospitalities of Bro. Williams and Bro. Gilwick, next day we departed for Bloomington, some fourteen miles distant.
At Bloomington we spoke twice--once on Saturday evening, and once on Lord's day. On Saturday night our subject was the promised advocacy of the Spirit, after the return and coronation of the Messiah in heaven; the commencement of his kingdom, and the peculiarities of the Christian dispensation, in contrast with the Patriarchal and Jewish institutions. We gave the reasons why Christianity, or the kingdom of Christ, could not be developed till he received all authority in heaven and earth--till he received the kingdom and government of the universe. The coming of his kingdom, called Basileia toon Ouranoon, we demonstrated to be generally misconceived. A striking proof of this is found in the retention, in the Protestant church of England, of the Lord's prayer in the weekly, and often in the daily, services of that church, as if it were in accordance with the genius and character of the present dispensation of that kingdom. John's ministry was to announce the near commencement of that kingdom, and to identify and point out "the new born King of the Jews," and also of the Gentiles. He taught his disciples to pray, according to his preaching, for that kingdom. Jesus of Nazareth did not begin to announce his kingdom till John was imprisoned. He then, also, begun to announce the new kingdom as near at hand, and, after the manner of the Harbinger, taught his disciples to pray in accordance with his preaching: "Thy kingdom," rather thy reign come." He sent seventy heralds to proclaim it in every house in Judea and Galilee, charging them to spend no time in saluting any one by the way, for that they would not have more than time to make the announcement till that reign would commence.
Jesus, while on earth, though born to empire, was not a king, and could not legally be a priest. Here he acted the part of a prophet, a "teacher sent from God." But after he had given himself a sacrifice, rose from the dead, and entered the heavens, he received the kingdom or government of the universe--" angels, authorities," hierarchies and "powers, being subject to him." He was crowned "LORD OF ALL." This fact was publicly announced in Jerusalem, at Mount Zion, the city of David, his-royal ancestor, on the fiftieth day after his sacrifice, and one week after his ascension into heaven. Peter, who had been promised "the keys of the kingdom," pro-
TOUR OF FORTY DAYS. 21
claimed it in these words: "God had sworn with an oath" (to David,) "that of the fruit of his loins he would raise up the Messiah, to sit on his throne." "This Jesus," (the son of David,) "God has raised up from the dead, and set him at his own right hand," and given to him the promise of the Holy Spirit. "Let, therefore, all the house of Israel assuredly know that God hath made this same Jesus" (this legitimate son and heir of David) "Lord Messiah." We quote freely, but quote accurately, the facts of the coronation, and the annunciation of it on Pentecost, in Jerusalem.
Who, then, enlightened in the Christian Religion, can pray, "thy reign come," or "thy kingdom come I" I want no other proof of the darkness that yet covers much of Protestant Christendom, than the papal ceremonious hebdomidal abuse of "the Lord's prayer," as it is named in many hundred synagogues in this so-called "Bible enlightened land."
The kingdom has come, and the King has been on the throne of David now more than 1800 years; still, myriads are yet praying "thy kingdom come!"! Some qualify it by such awkward phrases" thy kingdom come into the hearts of this people;" "thy kingdom come in its ultimate glory." But this is to desecrate and mystify the scripture style. "The Lord's prayer," properly so called, is written in John, chapter xvii.; before offering up which, he said to his disciples: "Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name." Whatsoever you ask in my name," henceforth "I will do."
Christ could not be our intercessor till he became our sacrifice. Aaron, the type, never entered into the divine presence, as an intercessor, till he had made a sin offering. Then he carried with him his sacrifice into the Holiest of all. Thus Jesus, after he had expiated our sins on earth, entered heaven, and basing his intercession, as our high priest, upon his own sacrifice, he sat down a priest upon his throne, "after the order of Melchisedek;" a high priest forever, "according to the power of an endless life."
This, as above set forth, is a leading doctrine of this current Reformation, and forms, so far as I am informed, no part of the pulpit or periodical religious press developments of this day, beyond the precincts of our brotherhood, that challenges the investigation of this greatest and grandest of christian topics. It is pregnant with great revolutionizing and regenerating principles.
On the day following, being Lord's day, we lectured on Gal. iv., on the two institutions--the old and the new--represented allegorically by Paul, under the figures of Hagar and Ishmael, of Sarah and Isaac--the children of the bond woman and the children of the free
22 TOUR OF FORTY DAYS.
woman. "The bond woman and her son," representing all sectarian churches--Rome, England and Scotland--with their national, animal and sensual hierarchies, and all their children scattered up and down in these thirty United States. "The child of the free woman," represented all that are horn supernaturally, as Isaac was, by faith in God's promise, and who are free from guilt, and the slavery of pedobaptism or national birthrights, in all its modern or antique forms. This is the substance, and a meagre outline it is, of the substance of a discourse of more than an hour and three-fourths. It, as well as the preceding, was delivered in the spacious hall of the University of Indiana, in the presence of a very large, attentive, and deeply interested auditory, embracing its students and faculty.
In the afternoon, the church met in her own spacious and comfortable house. to attend on the Lord's supper and her own worship. At night, the same house was again crowded, to hear Bro. Jameson still farther on the doctrines of the Kingdom.
At the close, we added a few remarks on natural, moral, and positive institutions, asserting the superlative importance of the positive institutions of christianity, frequently called its ordinances of grace. These are the treasuries of divine grace, and the best means infinite wisdom and benevolence could devise for man as he is, and as he first was, for the enjoyment of special grace, and high and happy communion with God.
During our sojourn at Bloomington, we very much enjoyed the christian hospitality of our amiable and devoted Bro. Mathes, Editor of the Christian Record, whose praise is in all the surrounding churches; also that of President Wiley, and others, by whose company we were much refreshed and edified.
Next morning, (Monday, November 18th,) before the sun rose, accompanied by our fellow-laborers, O. Kane and Jameson, we bade adieu to Bloomington, intent on making Indianapolis, fifty-two miles distant, during the day. The day was bracingly cold, the road fine, our hordes in good plight, the country beautiful, (much of it exuberantly fertile,) and our conversation mutually interesting; so that time and the distance passed pleasantly away. We dined at Bro. Stafford's, rested two hours, and reached Indianapolis in good time.
We spent a pleasant evening around the social hearth of Bro. Jameson and his amiable consort, retired early, (an important fact in human health and comfort,) slept soundly, and arose renovated and invigorated for the labors of another day. But here we must lay down our pen for the present. A. C.
BIBLE UNION. 23
THE BIBLE UNION.
THAT our readers may be informed of the greatest movement of the age--a faithful, exact, and perspicuous version of the Living Oracles of God in our own tongue, now spoken in "the four quarters of the globe," and by seine seventy millions of our race--we will occasionally post up the movements of the Bible Union corporation, now consecrated to this grandest of human achievements. We received per last mail, (December 10th,) the first Annual Report of the American Bible Union, presented October 3d, 1850, in the meeting-house of the Tabernacle Baptist Church, Mulberry street, New York city, with the constitution, minutes of the annual meeting, anniversary addresses, correspondence, &c.; together with a list of books, life-directors and members. A. C.
FIRST ANNUAL REPORT.
The American Bible Union was organized on the 10th of June, 1850.
The period immediately preceding had been one of profound gloom. Error and prejudice seemed to have prevailed over the light of truth, and clouds and mists darkened the horizon of popular opinion. Beyond the present scene, faith could discern a God of light, but mere human speculation saw only in passing events the prevalence of the doctrines of expediency, and a regard for the traditions of men.
Incipient Meeting.--The first faint gleam of a fairer prospect and a brighter hope, was manifest at the meeting of friends of the Bible on the 27th of May.* Summoned together to consider the propriety of organizing an association to procure and circulate the most faithful versions of the Sacred Scriptures in all lands, they felt that on them and their deliberations devolved a momentous responsibility. It was then, that, as they knelt in silence around the throne of the heavenly grace, their hearts swelling with emotion, and their eyes suffused with tears, they found encouragement in the sense of the divine presence, and their souls were knit together in the firm resolution, depending on God, to do their duty, and trust the consequences with Him.
Period of Organization.--The hope inspired on that occasion was not disappointed at the season of organization. A growing expectation was then discernible, that God was about to vindicate his truth. Through the vast assembly congregated on the 10th of June,
The proceedings of this meeting, and also those of June 10th, when the American Bible Union was organized, are recorded in a pamphlet entitled "Constitution of the American Bible Union, organized by a convention of friends of pure versions of the Bible in all languages."
24 BIBLE UNION.
one sentiment seemed to prevail. Lying as it did at the basis of the constitution, being embodied in the Address of the Union, and rendered prominent in every speech, it was permanently engrafted in the hearts of all present who loved the truth:
That the word of God should be translated in every language among men, in just such terms as will most unmistakably convey the mind of the Spirit.
It was clearly seen and felt, that no doctrines of worldly expediency, no fears of denominational injury, no apprehensions of reproach or opposition, ought to be permitted to interfere with the endeavor faithfully to discharge this solemn duty. A sentiment so indisputable, involving consequences of incalculable importance to the whole human race, took hold upon the heart of the believer, and awakened his zeal for the glory of the God of the Bible. The immediate result was a contribution, which stands almost unrivaled in the history of such organizations. Fifty-one life-memberships, and forty-seven directorships, were constituted on the occasion. Nearly all the money has been paid into the treasury, and of the remainder no portion is doubtful.
A New Era.--From that period a new era commenced. No friend of the American Bible Union has since supposed that the enterprise was doubtful. The dawn of a brighter day was hailed by hearts overflowing with thankfulness to the Father of Lights, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift. The full assurance of hope infused a corresponding energy into every department of the new organization. In a very little while additional sources of strength and encouragement were developed in the correspondence of the Union. Letters, breathing zeal and pledging effort, flowed in from every direction. Some of these were selected and published, in connection with the report of proceedings at the founding of the institution. But the great number received compelled a limited selection, and precluded the publication of many powerful arguments and thrilling appeals presented in them, on the necessity of a revision of the English Scriptures.
Re-action.--A marked re-action in public opinion began to take place. This has since rapidly progressed, and is now distinctly denoted by several indubitable indications.
The Press.--The public press, which in this part of the country was arrayed in decided opposition, now begins to speak in mellowed tones of our enterprise, occasionally acknowledging that the object is good, and that the hand of the Lord may be in the movement, and generally refraining from those expressions of asperity and bitterness which formerly characterized the hostility of some of our religious journals.
Views of individuals.--Many individuals who heretofore were understood to advocate "the Bible as it is," that is, the common version without correction of its errors, now speak decidedly in favor of correction, and assure us, that their only lingering doubts regard the mode of accomplishing the object. Indeed, so prevalent are our sentiments becoming, that those who still cherish the disposition to oppose, are obliged to change the character of their objections, and
BIBLE UNION. 25
to base them upon doubts of the necessity of our peculiar form of organization.
Change of Views Acknowledged.--More direct and positive evidences of the growing change, are furnished by many who have identified themselves with the Union. They frankly acknowledge that, as they have been led to a better understanding of the question at issue, their views have undergone a complete alteration, and they most cordially favor and support that which before they strenuously opposed. Our correspondence teems with such acknowledgments. Our agents are encouraged by them wherever they go.
Substantial Tokens.--Ministers and churches, associations and ministerial conferences, listen with respect and attention to those who advocate the cause of the American Bible Union, and, in many instances, give the most substantial tokens of their favor and approbation. One of our agents, Bro. A. Maclay, has, since the middle of July, obtained one hundred and twenty-five life-members, and fourteen life-directors, at a distance from the city of New York. This single fact annihilates the report, for a time industriously circulated, that all interest in the objects of the Union was confined to this city.
Receipts and Subscriptions.--Although the Union has not yet closed the fourth month of its existence, our subscription list already amounts to $13,301 92, of which $5,595 50 has been paid, and nearly all the remainder is payable during the ensuing winter: 233 responsible persons have subscribed life-memberships, and 65 life- directorships.
The Real Change.--It would be a mistake to suppose, that the re-action to which we have referred, embraces in most cases a radical change of principle. Real christians must, in their hearts, favor the cause of truth. But false issues may be started, and facts mystified, so that men may imagine themselves to be advocating the cause of truth, when they are actually arrayed on the side of error. Such we apprehend to have been the case in the present instance. The public press had so obscured the real question at issue, that few understood it. But as light has been diffused through our publications, the understanding of many has become clear, and their consciences have immediately decided in favor of what is right. This process, we believe, will continue as light spreads more widely and brightly, until all who love God and desire to do His holy will, shall be found sustaining the principles and the purposes of the American Bible Union.
Assurance of Prosperity and Success.--The strongest assurance of our present prosperity and ultimate success, is derived from the conviction that these principles and purposes PLEASE GOD. Nothing can be more in unison with the character of Jehovah and His great designs for the reclamation of a lost world, than the humble endeavors of His people to circulate His truth, as free from error and indistinctiveness as can be attained by human scholarship and christian principle. He is a Being of immaculate purity, dwelling in light unapproachable and full of glory. Those who are born of His Spirit are declared to be children of the light. To them is entrusted the Lamp of Life. It is their highest privilege and their bounden
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 3
26 BIBLE UNION.
duty to let its rays shine without obstruction. Whatever obscures its light, must be displeasing to Him in whom is no darkness at all; but whatever conduces to exhibit it in its native clearness, and brightness, and purity, will most assuredly have His approbation and blessing.
A Sure Foundation.--The liberal and comprehensive views that characterize our Constitution and Address, afford a sure foundation for perpetual usefulness and prosperity. A more restricted policy could never accomplish the large objects which we have in view. All persons are welcomed to co-operate with us who desire to procure and circulate the most faithful versions of the Sacred Scriptures, and our field of operations is THE WORLD. The English language is intimately connected with others; and the principle of univocal translations pertains to the world.
New York Weekly Chronicle --We may not close this report without alluding to a circumstance that is likely to have a permanent effect upon the prosperity of the Union--the establishment of a religious paper at the seat of operations, which, it is understood, will be free to publish our communications, and, when occasion requires, to sustain the advocacy of our principles. In consequence of the want of such facilities, the expenses during the short four months of our existence, have been uncommonly great. It was absolutely necessary to make our principles known, and to explain and vindicate them. Being cut off from all the usual facilities of the press, we were obliged to have recourse to the issue of pamphlets and circulars to an extent which, we trust, will never again be necessary. It is gratifying to know that the circulation of the publications alluded to, has been blessed to the enlightenment of many minds, and has been a chief agency in producing that extraordinary change in public opinion, to which we have alluded as being in rapid progression. But the advantages of a weekly paper in the support of such an institution, are immeasurably superior. Many facts and incidents, that have a bearing on our interests, can therein be published, which, though highly beneficial in their immediate effects, would not justify the permanent record of a pamphlet. Errors and mistakes of the press can be corrected, and timely arguments adduced to meet occasion; interesting letters can be published as they are received; and individuals can be allowed to express their sentiments in weekly communications, whose favorable opinions might otherwise never be known to the public. These and various other items incident to a weekly newspaper, collectively constitute that continual dropping, which cannot fail to wear away the stones of prejudice. Numerous and urgent were the solicitations from friends abroad, and especially from our agents, that some organ should be established, through which the condition and circumstances of the Union might every week be known; but we take pleasure in stating that the New York Weekly Chronicle has originated entirely from private enterprise, and that it is in no way whatever connected either in its pecuniary support, or the responsibility of its management, with the American Bible Union.
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 27
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
MAJ. NOAH, a learned Israelite, is thus interrogated: "The second coming of Christ is believed by a large portion of Christians. Would the Jews believe in his spiritual and temporal messiahship, if he should again appear on earth?" The Major, in his paper, the New York Sunday Times, thus answers:
"He would, we think, be less welcome to the Christians than to the Jews. He could not, we think, recognize the reformed religion which is carried out in his name. He who preached against pride, ostentation, and arrogance; who was the friend of the poor, and rebuked the rich and worldly-minded; who preached "peace on earth and good will to men;" who ordained obedience to the laws and submission to rulers; who would not brook the desecration of the christian pulpit, occupied by some men who endeavor to stir up rebellion and division among the people; who falsely quote the scriptures to carry out their fanaticism on slavery; who openly defy the laws, and wickedly recommend opposition to them; who are sowing division and misery throughout the land. He would say, I had trouble with the Scribes and Pharisees, who were my own people-- they did not recognize my mission; but here are my followers--as they represent themselves to be--who ought in my name to carry out my principles, but who do not--who consider that there are many of my orders, directions and doctrines which they cannot carry out, alledging that they do not conform to the spirit of the age!' He would find his own people as he left them two thousand years ago--with one faith and one God; but the church which he established he would find divided into numerous sect-., one arrayed against the other, preaching all kinds of doctrines, and understanding better what he meant to establish than he did himself. The question is not, How would the Jews receive him?' but How would he be received by those professing to be Christians?' This is not the age for such a visitation."
No law passed by Congress for many years, if at any time since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, has caused so much excitement as the Fugitive Slave Law. Large and respectable meetings, ecclesiastic and political, have denounced it as unconstitutional and immoral, and have been advising, or at least countenancing, resistance and insubordination to its requirements. This, indeed, might have been, more or less, expected from those who are not well informed, either on the Constitution of the United States Or on that of Christ's Kingdom. But that any one well-instructed in the christian religion could recommend violence, or insubordination to a law, passed by a Congress that merely represents and reflects the will of the sovereign people, is, to me, rather an unexpected development.
Waiving, in the first place, the character, the spirit and bearings of this or any other statute, constitutionally enacted by our representatives, what an example to the civilized world of our law-abiding
28 FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
spirit? What an exemplification of our respect for the christian religion and its divine founder, do we furnish to the world, in the violent spirit of resistance and insubordination manifested on this occasion? If the law be unconstitutional, have we not a Supreme Court judicial, before which its constitutionality can be at once decided? And if approved by that court as constitutional, have we not, in the event of its unpopularity--its general unacceptability to the American people--the power to elect new representatives, and have it repealed? And certainly it will be repealed, if the good sense of the great majority so direct.
But I speak to the christian public, and not to the sovereign people in their mere citizen character; and I solemnly and affectionately ask them, "Have you, my christian friends, so learned Christ Is this a fair expose of your reverence for his authority and that of the Holy Spirit, who inspired the Christian Apostles?"
Is it not written by his authority: "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained by God. Whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist, shall receive to themselves condemnation." "Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou, then, not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same; for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid," of the power, "for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath," or vengeance, "upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but for conscience sake. For this cause you pay tribute," or taxes, "also; for they" (the governors and lawgivers) "are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very service. Render, therefore, to all their dues--tribute, custom, fear, and honor." So speaks Paul to the Christians under Pagan Rome. If this was christian wisdom, prudence, justice, and humanity, in those days, and under a Roman emperor and his suit of provincial governors, is it not so now amongst christianized American citizens, under the men of their own choice?
Is Paul not adequate authority? Then hear Peter, the great apostle to the Jews: "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of many for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king, as supreme, or unto governors, as those sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. Honor all men; love the brotherhood; fear God; honor the King. Servants, be subject to your masters; not only to the good and gentle, but even to the
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 29
froward." Will not these two oracular men--prime functionaries in setting up Christ's Kingdom, promulgers of his laws in a Pagan world--suffice in point of authority?
But some christians are conscientious about giving up a servant-- a runaway servant--to his master. So was not Paul, when he sent the runaway Onesimus home to his master? So was not an angel of God, when he commanded the runaway Hagar to "go home to her mistress? "In this our day of high wrought sentimentalism, we have some very romantic and imaginative philanthropists!
But it is alledged against these divine statutes, that we the sovereign people--the free citizens of these United States--have all power in our hands to create laws and lawgivers; to judge and make judges; to execute and to create executors of our laws; and that we are responsible to no superiors, only to our own good sense, our consciences, and our God. True, comparatively few speak in these identical words; but in actions sometimes, in words often, and in thinking always, a majority feel pretty much in this spirit. But on a little calm reflection, we all concede that we cannot retain and delegate the same power. We cannot both hold and give, at the same time, the same rights. We cannot, simultaneously, represent ourselves and be represented by others. When, therefore, our representatives have made laws, we cannot ourselves, individually, annul them. This is not our form of government. The power that creates, is the only power that can destroy. The power that gives the law, is the only power that can annul it.
We, the citizens and people of the United States, owe allegiance to the laws of the United States. We also, as citizens of a particular State, owe allegiance to the laws of that State. This is a portion of the peculiar genius of our government. It is, therefore, presumable, from this conceded fact, that in no case can there be an intentional, real conflict between the laws of our own special State and those of the United States, for that would be subversive of the rights and obligations of conscience, and of allegiance to both.
This allegiance, or obligation of submission to the laws of the United States, is, by general concession, both political and moral. It is politically an ordinance or law of the State, and because of the political benefits accruing from such obedience. It is also moral, and even religious, because political government is an ordinance of God, as already proved, and is as much to be obeyed, for conscience sake, as for profit's sake. God having prescribed no one form of political government, has equally sanctioned every form which society chooses to assume.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 3*
30 FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
There is as clear a jus divinum, or divine warrant, for monarchy, or aristocracy, or oligarchy, or democracy, limited or absolute, as there is for our own republican system, and for it as much as for any other form, so far as christianity suggests, legislates, or enacts. The genius, character, and condition of a people, is the only supreme law in the choice of a form of government. A tailor, with one standard measure in his shop for every customer, would be as discreet and popular as he who has for all mankind, in all circumstances, one and the same form of government. Hence the apostolic doctrine is, "Let every soul be subject to the powers that be, for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God."
In the affairs of this life--in all temporal and earthly matters--the civil law, the social compact, is our rule of action. In religion, in faith, in piety, God alone is Lord of the conscience. In these we recognize no human authority. In matters purely moral and religious, God alone is the supreme legislator. But this is not the precise case before us. The case before us is a law for the recovery of a runaway servant. He may be a servant for life, or for a term of Years, the principle is the same, whatever the term of service may be. Our Federal Constitution, the supreme law of our nation, article 4th, section 2d, says: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." This is a precise, definite, and perspicuous article of our constitutional law, unanimously enacted September 17, 1787--the twelfth year of our independence and finally adopted by the people of these United States as the supreme law of these United States.
The law in question, for reclaiming fugitive servants, is, to any ordinary mind, most obviously and perfectly constitutional, and is so, declared by the most learned and able judges of the nation.
As to the manner of proving such property, the laws are explicit, and when such judicial proceedings as are necessary to the identification of such persons have been carried through, the Constitution of the United States is equally explicit in the 1st section of the same- 4th article, and in the following words: "Full faith and credit shall be given in each State, both to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State: and the Congress relay, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof."
With these premises before the mind of any christian man, what-
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 31
ever may be his private opinions on the subject of servitude or American slavery, I ask how can he, in allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, throw any obstructions in the way of the execution of this law for reclaiming runaway servants His conscience must, indeed, be very weak and imperfectly enlightened, if he is, in such acts, pleasing the Lord or promoting the welfare of man. He is not responsible to heaven or earth for the after treatment of such runaway. It is no part of his duty to become his guardian in the hands of his master. Nor will the Lord condemn him for his after-treatment. He has done his duty, and let the owner of that servant take care, on his own responsibility, how he does his. There is one that will judge and reward him according to his works. To his own master he stands or falls.
But, in the last place, it is argued by some of our contemporaries that there is a Jewish law that justifies resistance to the law now before us. It is in these words:
"Thou shalt not deliver to his master the servant which is escaped from his master to thee. He shall dwell with thee, among you in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him."--Deut. xxiii, 15-16.
In the first place, this is one of the special laws of the Jewish nation, and for a special object. It is not a general law, and not a law of christianity. Had it been, Paul himself would have violated it, in sending home the servant Onesimus to his master Philemon.
It was a law for a special object. The context, and the code to which it belongs, explains that object. The 2nd chapter of Deuteronomy defines who may and who may not enter into the congregation of the Lord. Several nations and people are inhibited from entering into the Jewish community. Some are inhibited to the tenth generation, some are forever inhibited from entering it. The Amorite and the Moabite are never to be adopted into the nation. An Edomite and an Egyptian are debarred only to the third generation.
"A servant escaped from his master was not debarred from the congregation. He was not, therefore, to be returned, coming with that intent." That this is the meaning, is farther evident from the fact, that this is not the servant of a Hebrew, but of an alien or stranger, coming over to the Hebrews.
Some of the English interpreters, beyond the atmosphere of our laws and influence, interpret it thus: "A heathen servant or soldier, who deserted and came over to the Israelites, with intent of turning proselyte to their religion."--Dr. Pyle. Dr. Adam Clark farther confirms this view: "That is, a servant who left an idolatrous mas-
32 FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
ter, that he might join himself to God and his people. In any other case it would have been injustice to have harbored the runaway." So far Adam Clark. This case, then, has no bearing whatever upon the subject before us. It can, therefore, afford no salvo to the conscience of any intelligent man who will entice, aid, or allure a servant to run away from his master.
But, in my judgment, it is as lame philanthropy as morality. There is a christian respect for vested rights, that more effectually prevents, and more expeditiously redresses alledged wrongs, than acts of violence, or aggressive movements of any kind.
The conviction but deepens with my years of experience and observation, that the spirit which animates this crusade against southern institutions by northern men, but exasperates the masters, exacerbates the slaves, extends the territory, and prolongs the existence of this obnoxious institution. Let them alone, and, whatever interested demagogues or generous philanthropists may say or think to the contrary, the evil will sooner cure itself, than all the nostrums of all the regular and irregular doctors, from Baffin's Bay to the Isthmus of Panama.
But we have almost forgotten Major Noah's apology for his nation, by a too happy hit at the christian profession. The Major is a very clever son of Abraham, and liberally endowed with a good measure of the Jewish talent. It is a misfortune to himself and his people, that he can so easily spike the cannon of all the christian batteries engaged in this movement. I am, therefore, not at all gratified with the weapons put into his hands by the unchristian, impolitic, and anti-American onslaught against a law which is only the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the United States, according to its legitimate construction, and the well-ascertained sense of the convention that framed and commended it to the adoption of the American people.
But that the christian pulpit, so called, should preach up rebellion and violence, and seek to generate or increase a spirit of resistance to the powers that be--to the ordinance of God--is what I never expected to hear from men at the north, so long declaiming against the south for its doctrines of nullification and secession, and denouncing the unpatriotic and profane hand that would offer an act of violence to the ark of the covenant of our great and mighty nation. A.C.
From the Washington (Pennsylvania) Reporter
Mr. White: I send you a paper containing the construction of the Fugitive Slave Bill, by Judge Grier, of Pennsylvania, one of the ablest of the
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 33
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United states. A great deal has been published in the public presses, well calculated to keep alive the agitation between sections of our country, which Congress and the great mass of our citizens have endeavored to quiet. I deeply regret that a number of presses have been, and are still engaged in this effort to give a degree of respectability to a faction, which itself has brought about the necessity for, and the passage of the law in question. In the resolves and declarations of this faction, it is not avowed that they will seek to obtain a repeal of the law, as an unconstitutional one, but that no fugitive slave shall be reclaimed; they avow that a law of the land shall not be enforced. Thus the "black and white chivalry" of the north, like the "chivalry" of the south, are threatening to nullify a law of Congress! I feel as much confidence in the patriotism and good sense of the great body of the people of the north, as I do in the same qualities of those of the south to control, and, if need be, to punish this impudent and treasonable spirit.
Regretting, as deeply as any one, that occasion for such laws as the Fugitive Slave Law exists in our country at all, I am indignant at the conduct of those whose whole career has been well calculated (as it has, in fact, done) to do incalculable injury to the colored race in this country.
I wish you, Mr. Editor, to publish Judge Grier's opinion of the provisions of the present law, so that your readers may have full light on the subject. This is due to them and to the authority of the great precept, "Hear both sides."
If some law on the subject of fugitive slaves must and will be made, I would like to see one pointed out, which, if Judge Grier's construction be true, will give better protection to the party claimed, and which would not designedly defeat the claimant. Let it be recollected that Judge Grier has acted judicially on the present law, and released the fugitive slave. L.
OPINION OF JUDGE GRIER, OF PHILADELPHIA.
In the case of Garnett, the warrant issued by the court was founded on the affidavit of the alledged owner of the fugitive. But, "on the trial or hearing" before the court, after the arrest, this affidavit was not received in evidence, nor did the counsel for the claimant insist that it should be received. The claimant had wholly neglected to make the proper proof, before some court or judge in Maryland, to establish the fact that he was owner of a slave, or person held to labor, and what was the name, age, size, and other marks, of such person; and that the person so described had escaped. Not having availed himself of the privileges and facilities given him by the act of Congress for this purpose, we decided that he must be hound by the common law rules of evidence, as in other cases, where a title to property has been established before a court. We refused to receive the parties in interest as witnesses, and wills, and other documents of title, unless properly proved.
The act contemplates a trial and decision of the court or judge, involving questions both of law and fact; and unless the rules of the common law, as to evidence, be followed, when not changed by a statute, the tribunal would be without rule, governed only by caprice, or undefined discretion, which would be the exercise of a tyrannical, not a judicial power. It is the duty of the judge who exercises it, to render equal justice both to the claimant and the person claimed. If evidence were heard on one side only, and that, too, without regard to any rule or principle known to the law, gross oppression and wrong would flow from it. Free men and citizens of Pennsylvania might be kidnapped into bondage, under forms of law, and by the action of a legal tribunal, sworn to do equal and exact justice to all men. This
34 FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
much-maligned law not only gives a "trial" before a legal tribunal, before the claimant can be authorized to carry the alledged fugitive out of the State, but it takes away from the prisoner no right which he would have enjoyed before this act of Congress was passed.
In all cases of extradition, the evidence establishing the offence and escape of the persons demanded, is usually made in the country from which the person demanded has escaped, and is necessarily ex parte; and the chief question to be decided by the tribunal before whom he is brought, previously to making an order for his extradition, is only the question of identity. The party demanded has a right, of course, to show that he is not the person described But, if he be the person described, he has no right to claim a jury trial as to the question of his guilt, in the country to which he has escaped. The question of identity, and whether the person claimed is such a one as the treaty between the two countries requires to be delivered up, has always been tried summarily and without the intervention of a jury. No complaint has ever been made when white men have been sent to Europe, on a demand for their extradition, without giving them a jury trial; and why greater privileges in this matter should be granted to colored persons, is not easily perceived.
The State of Pennsylvania guarantees a jury trial to her own citizens, or to persons who are charged with committing an offence within her borders. Fugitives from another State have no such rights. The government to which the fugitive belongs, it is to be presumed, will do justice to its own subjects or citizens; and whether they do so or not, is no concern of ours. However individuals may fancy they have a mission to rectify all wrongs on the face of the earth, the State of Pennsylvania does not feel herself hound to the Quixotic enterprise of avenging the oppression of 'serfs in Russia or slaves in Georgia. This act of Congress does not require that a judge should, without trial, surrender a citizen of Pennsylvania to a kidnapper. The provision, "that in no trial or hearing, under this act, shall the testimony of such fugitive be admitted in evidence," is no more than the enactment of an established principle of the common law, that no man shall be a witness in his own cause. If this provision were not in the act, I would not receive the testimony of the prisoner to prove that he was not the person described, or that he was a free man. It would be a temptation to perjury, which no tribunal should permit to be presented to any man.
No lawyer would urge, before a court, such an absurd construction of the act of Congress, as that it means that no evidence should be heard on the part of the alledged fugitive. If such were the intention of the Legislature, it was easy to express it in unequivocal terms. In truth, there is nothing equivocal in the act: it forbids the judge to hear the testimony of the fugitive, but not the testimony of disinterested witnesses. It almost seems that nothing but a desire to render the law odious for the sake of political agitation, could ever have led to so gross a misconstruction, and so great a libel on our national legislature.
It has been objected, also, to this law, that it suspends the /minas corpus act--inasmuch as it enacts that the certificate of the judge or commissioner "shall be conclusive of the right of the person in whose favor it is granted, to remove such fugitive, and shall prevent all molestation of such person or persons, by any process issued by any court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever." But this is a mistake. The truth is, that this provision of the law, forbidding the testimony of the fugitive to he received, and forbidding interference by other process, after a certificate, is but an enactment of an established principle of the common law, added through extreme caution, but wholly unnecessary.
"The writ of habeas corpus is undoubtedly an immediate remedy for every illegal imprisonment; but no imprisonment is illegal when the process is a justification of the officer; and process, whether by writ or war-
LETTER FROM BRO. BARCLAY. 35
rant, is legal whenever it is not defective on the face of it, and has issued, in the ordinary course of justice, from a court or magistrate having jurisdiction of the subject matter."--(Com. vs. Lacky, 1 Watts, 67.)
A person held as a fugitive under the certificate of a judge or magistrate, under this act, is legally imprisoned under process "from a court or magistrate having jurisdiction," and cannot be released by any other court or magistrate on a writ of habeas corpus or homine replegiando. The act of 1793 has no such provision as that which is the subject of complaint in the present case; yet in the case of Wright vs. Deacon, (5 Sergt. and Rawle, 62,) the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania decided that a certificate under that act was a legal warrant to remove the fugitive to the State of Maryland, and no writ of homine replegiando would lie from a State Court to try the question of freedom; and that a writ issued under such circumstances was "in violation of the constitution of the United States."
LETTER FROM BRO. J. T. BARCLAY, MISSIONARY TO
JERUSALEM.
IT will doubtless be very gratifying to all our readers, as it is to me, to hear from our much esteemed and much beloved Bro. Barclay, our missionary to Jerusalem, now on his way to that most interesting field of labor. We shall endeavor to furnish them, as' early as possible, with all his communications relative to his travels, labors, and success in the great cause. The following letter, addressed to the Secretary of the Missionary Society, is filled with interesting incidents, which may be of good service, as premises for future operations. We have always something to learn from the experience of others, as well as from our own. We cannot expect to hear from him again till he arrives at the theatre of his operations. We intend (soon as we hear of his arrival) to mail for him, monthly, the Harbinger, and hope to receive communications direct from him, touching all matters of interest to our readers. The brethren will, no doubt, often remember him and his beloved family, when they appear before the King, under whose guidance and protection he goes to the land of his birth. May that eye that never slumbers nor sleeps, watch over him by day and by night, on the sea and on the land, guide him safely to the haven he desires to see, and crown his labors with success! A. C.
LONDON, October 28, 1850.
My Dear Brother Challen: "The good hand of the Lord our God being upon us," we, reached this city on the 4th inst., after an unusually short passage of twenty-one days, which, though so rough as to cause us much
36 LETTER FROM BRO. BARCLAY,
sea-sickness, and deprive me of the privilege of preaching more than once, was yet, through the great kindness of Capt. Hovey, (the excellent commander of the Devonshire,) a very pleasant one.
I thankfully acknowledge the receipt of your prompt and kind favor of tire 7th tilt., which came to hand a few days after my arrival.
Anxiously desiring to enter the field of my future labors, and wishing to tarry here barely long enough to accomplish the object of my visit, one of the first matters that engaged my attention was to secure a passage to Beyroot, or some of the neighboring ports. But finding, for the first few days, no vessel destined to any port nearer than Alexandria, I applied at the office of the Oriental and Peninsular Steam Company, in hopes of being able to engage our passage in one of their Southampton steamers, two or three of which ply regularly every month between that city and various ports of the Mediterranean. I found the rates of charge, however, so exorbitantly high, that I was compelled to decline taking passage in that line: nor are the Liverpool and Alexandria steamers materially lower in their charge. I therefore took the cheapest lodgings that could be found, of a respectable character, and determined to wait awhile, in the hope of obtaining a more reasonable, and, perhaps, direct conveyance; nor was it long before I had the pleasure of finding a vessel advertised to sail directly for Jaffa, (the ancient Joppa,) and though I learned on application that it was not to leave for about a month, yet the accommodations were tolerable, and the fare so moderate, that we deemed ourselves very fortunate in finding it; and though so anxious to he voyaging Zionward, made up our minds to wait patiently the appointed day of sailing. Judge of our disappointment, a day or two ago, on learning from the ship-broker, that the merchant who had chartered the vessel had decided to send his son as a passenger, and would permit no others to go. There being, however, two vessels in port loading for Alexandria, the one to sail on the 10th prox., and the other day after to-morrow, I succeeded in engaging our passage in the Hebe, of Glasgow, a little brig of only one hundred and eighty-four tons burthen, in which, by the blessing of a kind Providence, we hope to reach Alexandria by the close of the year, stopping two weeks at Malta on the way.
For the passage and fare on board the Scotch brig, the captain asks £75, or £37 10, if we do our own victualing, &c., he supplying fuel and water. Being able to buy provision, &c., for about eighty or ninety dollars, we have concluded to accept the latter offer, which is certainly much the lower You must not, for a moment, suppose that any of us deem this adventure any hardship. So far from it, we are all anxious to start, and anticipate the voyage with feelings of delight.
If, on arriving in Alexandria, I can ascertain that the monthly steamer for Beyroot will start in a short time, I will await its departure, unless deterred by high charges; in which event we will either take an Egyptian smack, for Jaffa, or, (which is more probable, if the cholera shall have disappeared, and the fifteen days quarantine at Arish can be avoided,) we will engage a fleet of "ships of the desert," and pursue the route that the emancipated Israelites were forbidden to go, on account of the warlike Philistines, as far as Gaza, and then take the back-track of the Ethiopian grandee--" the way that goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza, which is desert." The most of my articles are left here in the Queen's Warehouse, subject to the order of Messrs. Ollin and Clemention, ship-brokers, who will forward them to Jaffa about two weeks hence, by the vessel in which we are denied passage.
To our most estimable minister, Mr. A. Lawrence, I am under the deepest obligations for his kind offices. The interest he manifests in behalf of the mission is quite unaccountable.
But for his kind interposition, I would have sustained a heavy expense at the Custom-House, on account of dutyable articles, and an irreparable loss
LETTER FROM BRO. BARCLAY. 37
in the way of American re-prints of English works, to say nothing of injury done to my apparatus, by the ruthless examination to which every article is subjected by the vandal-like examiners at the dock. On representing the matter to Mr. Lawrence, he very promptly interposed, and addressed such a letter to the Lords of the Treasury as induced them to pass an order to forbid the inspection of the articles at all, and to have them "roped, taped and sealed," until I should be ready to leave the kingdom, when they are to be delivered to me, duty free, except the usual rent for storage in the Queen's Warehouse.
To Mr. Lawrence, and his son, (who has lately been to Jerusalem,) I am also indebted for valuable letters, which they have been kind enough, unsolicited, to favor me with.
I trust the very flattering reception given the Turkish envoy, in the States, will tend materially to allay Musselman intolerance of Christians, and secure for Americans a hinder reception than it has generally been their good fortune to enjoy.
Thus far we have received the most unexpected kindness, from persons whence it might least be expected.
I availed myself of an early occasion to present to the British and Foreign Bible Society, the commendatory letter of the American and Foreign Bible Society, and though their donation is quite small, (consisting of only twenty-five volumes,) yet I was much pleased in my various interviews with its officers. The reason assigned for making so small an appropriation, is that Bishop Gobat has drawn on them so heavily for Bibles, Testaments, Psalters, &c., for distribution in the Holy Land, that justice to other more destitute portions of the world, requires that they should not be too lavish in their donations, even to that interesting part of the "field."
This society has now established depositories at Malta and Smyrna; and inasmuch as they authorize the depositories at those places to sell to me on the same terms as the parent society, I thought it best, in the absence of exact information as to the best versions to distribute amongst the inhabitants of Judea and the Pilgrims resorting to Jerusalem, to purchase here only about one-third of the amounts appropriated by the American Christian Bible Society, and the co-operation of Eastern Virginia, and order the balance from Smyrna, after a personal examination of the field shall have enabled me to form a more correct estimate of its wants.
I have purchased, and received a donation, from the Church of England Jewish Society, and from the British (Dissenters) Society, for the propagation of the gospel among the Jews, a good many small works, such as "the prophecies relating to the Messiah," portions of the gospel, &c., in Hebrew and Judeo-Spanish, which, with upwards of two hundred and fifty volumes of the entire Bible and the New Testament, will require some considerable time judiciously to distribute. Should an effort be made to dispose of any of them by sale, or must they all be given without money and without price? Please favor me with your opinion, if you cannot speak officially.
I had the pleasure of receiving, a few days ago, your esteemed letter, forwarded from New York, containing a substantial proof of the regard entertained by the superintendent and pupils of the Sunday School attached to the Christian congregation of the First Chapel, Cincinnati, for the children of the Jerusalem Mission.
Be so good as to convey to Dr. Leslie and his interesting charge, our thanks for this flattering proof of ther interest in the mission, and assure them that their offering is highly appreciated. Our best endeavors shall be made, so to apply it as shall seem most promotive of the interests of the erring young lambs of the House of Israel and the juvenile followers of the false prophet, and most likely to impress their minds with a sense of the superior excellence of Christian instruction over Rabbinical and Mohammedan.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 4
38 CONVERSATIONS.
I have not yet been able to obtain my consent to the arrangement you suggest, in relation to the $25, for constituting my son Robert a life-member of the American Christian Bible Society. Just let the matter remain as it is. I trust the Lord will enable me not only to make all my children life-members, by annual subscriptions, but to continue my contributions afterwards. The effect, therefore, will only be to postpone the membership of each of them for one year. Many thanks, however, for the intended kindness.
1n relation to your inquiry about the future transmission of funds, allow me to say, that I know of no place more expeditious or safe, than the remittance of Bills of Exchange to the house of Messrs. Baring, Bros. and Co.
I had an interview with one of the firm a few days ago, and lie informed me that whenever such a bill is transmitted to them, they will immediately advise me of the fact, and send me a letter of credit, which will be available at Joppa, Beyroot, and Alexandria, and probably at Jerusalem. Such an arrangement I found it impossible to effect at New York; and hence the absolute necessity of visiting London. It will, however, always be a somewhat losing business. When I came over I had to pay 10 1/2 per cent. for a sixty-days draft, and then to submit to a further discount of about one-half per cent., in order to have the draft cashed. Nor would the operation have resulted more favorably, had I purchased sovereigns in New York, all things considered. Learning that the Hebe has nearly cleared, I must abruptly conclude, as I }et have some business to transact.
With love unfeigned, yours in the good bone,
JAMES T. BARCLAY.
P. S.--Direct your letters to me, for the present, at Beyroot. Syria.
FAMILY CULTURE.
CONVERSATIONS AT THE CARLTON HOUSE--No. XII.
DURING the year 1850, we did not enjoy our Conversations at the Carlton House. We have been abroad during much of the last year. And although we enjoyed many conversations in many families, and on many topics, we did not hear one on the Epistle to the Romans, nor on any other Epistle. There is, I might say, a general, almost a universal neglect, of rational, scriptural, family culture. Family worship, as it is called, is very common. I cannot say, however, that it is universal, amongst our brethren. A chapter is read, a hymn sung, and a prayer offered for the household, or for some part of it, for all are seldom present. But it generally wants interest, and, consequently, is not edifying. Perhaps it is more edifying than it appears to me, on most occasions, as the presence of a stranger may interrupt the regular routine. But, generally speaking, the families are not supplied, each individual, with a hook, and there is
CONVERSATIONS. 39
not a regular, systematic training of the household in the knowledge of the scriptures.
Often, too, I find families without any other than the Common Version of the Bible. Seldom do I meet with even a Family New Testament in the New Version. In such cases, one cannot expect much progress in sacred learning. The Family Testament (New Version) is not, except in a few cases, read or consulted, and, consequently, such families arc not much interested in understanding the Living Oracles--in the advanced state of christian knowledge amongst us.
The Family Testament, regularly read in any family, is always, to my mind, an indication of superior intelligence and advancement in christian erudition. No one need say, because he cannot sustain it by satisfactory evidence, that either himself or household can as well understand the mind of the Spirit from a version made two hundred and fifty years ago--not long after the commencement of an English Hierarchy--in the attainments of a courtly priesthood. They could not, and they did not, then give a correct, lucid, and popular version of a book which they themselves did not understand. If a person had both the Greek and Hebrew lexicons and grammar:, in his head, he could not perspicuously and correctly translate a book which he does not understand, either in his own vernacular or in the original text. We, living at the nineteenth century, possess innumerable advantages over the ecclesiastics at the beginning of the seventeenth century. And why, then, constantly read, even a comparatively imperfect version, when we can read one, if not absolutely faultless, possessing thousands of emendations, great and small, compared with King James' Version! But this only in passing on to report the conversations at the Carlton House, where all helps are introduced, common and spiritual, to teach and to learn the Holy Oracles.
One addition has been made to the Carlton Family during the last year. A converted Jew, named Aquila, of considerable learning, and much devoted to the study of the New Testament, has, by invitation, become a regular resident of the Carlton House. He takes a great interest in the investigation of the Epistle to the Romans. The junior members have made a very decided progress in christian knowledge, since last I met with them. On my return, Father Olympas ordered that the family would return to the seventh verse of the seventh chapter, six verses of it having been before considered. James read as follows:
Do you not know, brethren, (for I speak to them who know law,) that
40 CONVERSATIONS.
the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound, by law, to her husband as long as he lives; but if the husband be dead, she is released from the law of her husband. If, then, indeed, while her husband lives, she be married to another, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from the law; so that she is not an adulteress, though married to another husband. Thus, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law, by the body of Christ, that you may be married to another, who rose from the dead, that we may bring forth fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, our sinful passions which were through the law, wrought effectually in our members, to bring forth fruit to death. But now, having died with Christ, we are re- leased from the law, by which we were held in bondage; so that we may serve God in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.
"What shall we say, then? Is the law sin?
"By no means. Indeed, I had not known sin, except by the law. For I had not known even inordinate desire, unless the law had said, You shall not lust.' But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of inordinate desire; for without the law sin is dead. For I was alive, once, without the law; but when the commandment came, sin revived, but I died. Yes, the commandment which was for life, the very same was found to be death to me. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore, the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good."
Olympas. --We shall, before entering upon this passage, have a few remarks from our Bro. Aquila, on the general scope and contents of this invaluable epistle. I request this because, from my recent conversations with him, I have learned that he has been, for a considerable time, deeply engaged in studying it. As he was not at our former conversations, and as he is well read in the Jewish Scriptures, and now much absorbed in studying Paul's Epistles, we will all be much interested in hearing something from him on this epistle, with special reference to the lesson for the day.
Aquila.--Father Olympas, I would much rather hear from yourself and family on this invaluable treatise on the christian doctrine, for, indeed, I have been exceedingly intent on comprehending it, if I possibly can; but so recent has been my conversion--only two years since--that I have not made much proficiency in these writings. True, this letter, more than any other, has captivated my heart and my thoughts, and I have read it over more than a hundred times since, by the grace of God, this great apostle convicted me of my sin of unbelief, and that of my unfortunate countrymen, whose hearts are yet uncircumcised, whose ears are stopped, and whose eyes are closed against Paul, more than against any other writer in this book.
On this account, since discovering my error, I have read him more than any other; and chiefly this fetter, and that to the Hebrews, command my admiration and delight my soul. I have not sought much extrinsic aid, because I did not know which of the christian
CONVERSATIONS. 41
sects to prefer, nor who of their Rabbis I should choose to instruct me. I have, therefore, relied too much upon myself, to be enlightened on the premises. Still, I will expose my ignorance, at your solicitation, and suggest, for your correction, my general distribution of this epistle into' parts, with a few remarks upon the first and second of them; for we are now reading the second part of the epistle, so far as I can embrace it as a whole.
I have discovered, as I think, five natural divisions in this epistle. The first, which may be called the introduction, ends with the 15th verse of the first chapter, in which there is no one subject discussed. Beginning at the 16th verse of the first chapter, there appears to be one main subject discussed to the end of the fifth chapter. That subject seems to be a development of the impartiality of divine grace, as respects Jews and Gentiles. Paul demonstrates that they were equally liable to the condemnation of God. He develops the enormities of the Gentiles, without a written law, to the end of the first chapter; and in the second, demonstrates that the Jews, with a written law direct from heaven, were as obnoxious to divine reprobation as they. Still, in the third chapter he admits the superior advantages the Jews possessed in having that law; and yet, from their transgression of it, he makes them more guilty than the Gentiles, and concludes that both Jews and Gentiles were equally without righteousness and without hope. He then proceeds to show that now, under the reign of Christ, a righteousness--without law, written or oral--was revealed, and tendered by him equally, through faith, to Jew and Gentile, and that God is now revealed equally the God of Jews and Gentiles, and has, through the propitiatory offering of his Son, tendered pardon and righteousness, or justification, to both.
In the fourth chapter he then addresses himself to the Jews, and meets and repels their plea, founded upon the faith or righteousness of Abraham, showing that it was not upon the Jewish peculiarity of circumcision, or the law, that Abraham was justified and accounted righteous before God, but by faith in God's promise. He then develops his faith, as the model faith of all who are now justified under Christ; that righteousness is imputed, and not obtained, through works of law.
In the fifth chapter he expatiates on justification by faith, and its fruits; magnifies the love of God, as developed in the atonement accomplished by the Messiah, showing that, as by Adam sin entered into the world, so by Christ a righteousness has entered and passed to the credit of all related to him, as death, the wages of sin, had
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 4*
42 CONVERSATIONS.
passed to all connected with Adam; with this difference, that for one offence of one man all died, whereas, through one righteousness of one man, grace had triumphed, and abounded to the justification of all related to him, notwithstanding their innumerable offences. Thus he concludes, "As by one man's offence" are multitude related to him are constituted sinners, so by one man's righteousness the multitude connected with him are constituted righteous. Thus, as sin has reigned to death, so grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. Thus ends the second division of the epistle.
The next, or third division of this letter, commences with the sixth chapter, and ends with the eighth. In this section of the epistle he discourses upon the obligations laid upon believing Jews and Gentiles to consecrate themselves to the Lord that redeemed them. In this he pursues the same method, first addressing himself to the Gentiles, in the sixth chapter, and in the seventh and much of the eighth to the Jews--at least to the end of the twelfth verse. Embracing both Jews and Gentiles, in their new relation to God through Jesus Christ, to the end of the eighth chapter, he tenders to them arguments and motives to personal consecration to him that redeemed them, and holds up to them the most sublime and glorious motives, as a stimulous and inducement to their perseverance, in the Lord, terminating in a glorious climax of privileges and honors, as the destiny of those who hold fast their boasted hope unshaken to the end.
From the beginning of the ninth to the end of the eleventh chapter, he develops the causes of the defection and repudiation of the Jews according to the flesh, as tending to confirm the Gentiles, and as cautions to them against apostacy. This is the most recondite and profound development of the scheme, both of divine providence and grace, and tends immediately to the establishment of the Gentiles, and as a frightful warning against the dangers of apostacy. Still, he concludes with some consoling intimations, that the repudiation of the Jews is yet to have an end, and that God will yet have mercy upon them.
From the close of the eleventh chapter to the end of the epistle, he abounds in exhortations to holiness and righteousness in all the relations of life, and concludes with salutations to and from distinguished citizens of the kingdom of grace.
Such is my synopsis of the grand divisions and subjects discussed in this letter. At least in my numerous readings of it, my mind reposes at the close of each one of these five sections, as if' that
CONVERSATIONS. 43
subject on which it treats was finished, and I proceed, as it were, to a new one.
Olympas.--Bro. Aquila, we are all much gratified with your comprehensive views of this admirable epistle, manifested in the distribution which you have made of it. In this classification of its contents you have the concurrence of some two or three of our most distinguished commentators and critics. One of the present century, and one of the last, have almost altogether concurred with you as to the distinct metes and boundaries of thought developed by the author of this letter, in the arrangement of it. Still, epistolary communications, ancient and modern, differ from essays and treatises in one great point: they are not so methodical and distinct in their subjects, or manner of treating them, as professional orators or essayists usually are. I fully, however, concur with you, that this great apostle had different and distinct items in his own mind when he commenced it, although severally dependent on each other, and all subordinate to one and the same grand end. It would, indeed, be difficult to find any one letter of that age more distinct in its prrts, or more unique in its design.
Being, then, in the third section of the letter, we shall hear from some of our young students what they have learned from the passage read.
Clement.--I propose a retrospect on the first section of the seventh chapter; and would desire from Susan, James, and Henry, in turn, their several recollections and reflections on the first six verses of the chapter.
Susan.--The apostle, in the commencement of the sixth chapter, teaches that the reason why any one is baptized into the death of Christ, is that he has previously, through faith and repentance, died to sin; and that after the death to sin, he was baptized into Christ's death, and therein raised, also, with him, to lead a new life. The old man is, therefore, to be crucified, as Christ was crucified, that our bodies, so full of evil passions and lusts, may be continually mortified, and kept under the dominion of Christ, that henceforth we may not be the servants of sin, or of these evil passions--just as one who is really dead, is freed from the tyranny of sin working in his members. The instruments of sin--the members of our bodies--are now to become instruments of righteousness; and thus sin shall not tyrannize over us, not being under law to condemn, but under grace to forgive.
Olympas.--You very judiciously begin with the sixth chapter, to understand the beginning of the seventh. So far, you confirm the
44 CONVERSATIONS.
distribution of the epistle proposed by our Bro. Aquila. I then ask James to connect what you have said with the question, "Shall we sin, not being under law, but under favor?"
James.--I do not see how grace, or forgiveness of past sins, could be an inducement to any one to sin who loves the Lord. Indeed, the meaning of the exclamation, "God forbid," or, as it has been explained to us, "Let it not be!" or, "Far be it!" would seem to teach its impossibility. In that case, we should be the servants of the Devil, and not the servants of the Lord; for Paul says, "his servants ye are whom ye obey."
Olympas.--And this he argues to the end of the sixth chapter. But one of his main points you have not quoted. What, Henry, think you is that?
Henry.--Unless it be, "Sin shall not reign over you, for you are not under law, but under grace," I cannot tell.
Olympas.--That is, indeed, the great enunciation, which makes all easy, when properly understood.
James.--I see it now more clearly. That is the reason, I presume, why the seventh chapter opens with the discussion of the nature and extent of the dominion of the law.
Olympas.--You are right, and that is the lesson on hand. The dominion of the law, or its power to condemn, can only extend to those under it. If christians are under the law, they are, of course, under the reign and power of a guilty conscience as often as they transgress, in letter or spirit, its pure and holy commands, or come short of its just and reasonable requisitions, when convicted of the one or the other.
Now, the all-absorbing point of interest, to every awakened mind, is, How shall I enjoy uninterrupted peace with God, and a living, cheering, triumphing hope in Christ, while seeing the exceeding sinfulness of sin, as still dwelling in me l Would you, Bro. Aquila, state to these young disciples, with their youthful companions here present, in your pleasant style, you views of this important subject?
Aquila.--More pleased to hear than to speak on this all-important theme, so thrillingly interesting to us all, I comply, with some degree of reluctance, to your request, hoping, however, to elicit more light than I can impart, by my remarks.
In the sixth chapter, as aforesaid, Paul assures his readers, that when any sinner heartily obeys the christian doctrine, he is like melted mettle cast into a new mould. He bears a new impression and character. As an English "sovereign," when re-cast and pressed
CONVERSATIONS. 45
by an American die or mould, receives a new image and superscription, and becomes an American "eagle."
At conversion, or transformation, the sinner is freed from the guilt of his former sin, and becomes the "servant of righteousness." He is also freed from the tyranny of sin, and, having become a servant of God, he has his present fruit (his works) to holiness, and at the end, he enjoys everlasting life, and all this by his new connexion with Jesus Christ our Lord.
While, then, death is the true and proper "wages of sin," eternal life is not the wages of his righteousness, but "the generous gift of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Here, most appropriately, the apostle introduces the figure of the married woman. as bound, by the marriage covenant, to her husband for life. Nothing can free her from his sovereignty while he lives. But, having died, she is free to marry another.
Exactly so in this case. All Jews and Gentiles under any divine law, oral or written, so soon as converted to Christ, are married to him--" have died to that law, by the body of Christ," that they may be married to him who rose from the dead, and by this new marriage have a new issue, worthy of God; and they themselves enjoy everlasting life.
It is, indeed, unimportant to the argument, whether the man or woman die. It is here used as a mere figure, and, therefore, I see no necessity for the minuteness of some critics, in protecting the law from being killed by the death of Christ. I frame no argument on such mere verbal criticisms.
One point is incontrovertibly evident--that all in Christ are out of Moses, as a lawgiver or king. The church is the spouse of Christ, and not of Moses. Still, the law of Moses is holy, just, and good, and requires holiness, justice, and goodness, absolute and perpetual, on the part of those who would live under it with acceptance to God. It manifests sin as a very great sinner--a monster, in opposing a beautiful, good, and perfect law. Here, then, our great apostle gives the experience of every enlightened Jew under that law. I can attest the truth of Paul's reasonings by my own experience. It was with me, under that law, exactly as Paul says it was with him.
My own experience, in my more enlarged vision of the law, was this: I felt that it was spiritual--that it required a spiritual mind-- which I had not. That which I did, I did not, on reflection, approve, because, what I did was not exactly what I desired to do. Nay, I did that which, on retrospection, I hated. I thus approved the law
46 THE NUMBER SEVEN.
and condemned myself. Thus I acknowledged the goodness and rectitude of the law.
I found, indeed, that I myself, and my sinful heart, or my fleshly heart--called by our Master Paul the flesh, or sin--I willing, and I desiring, was not I doing: but my fallen and corrupt heart was doing wrong, while I, willing and approving, could not, by this sinful frailty, execute my own purposes, nor even please myself. To desire to do good, was always easy, but to do it sccording to my own approbation, I found impossible. So that, in truth, it was as a law to me to violate, or come short of, the good, and holy, and perfect law of God. With our apostle, I could say, and as a christian I can say: When desirous to do good, that evil is near me."
In truth, I as a Jew, and now much more as a Christian, can say, that I take pleasure in the law of God, as respects the inner or spiritual man; but I perceive a principle, sinful and fallen, in every member of my body, still conflicting against this law and purpose of my mind, and making me a captive to this evil principle, this impulse or law to sin, which is in my members; and with Paul exclaim, What a wretch I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death, this mass of corruption in my fallen nature! I thank God, that such now is my faith and hope in God, that through the merits and through the spirit of Christ Jesus my Lord, I shall be delivered. Wherefore, then, I myself prefer the new man, with my mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin.
Olympas.--We shall resume this subject in our next. A. C.
THE NUMBER SEVEN.
ON the 7th of the 7th month a holy observance was ordained to the children of Israel, who feasted 7 days and remained 7 days in tents, the 7th year was directed to be a Sabbath of rest for all things; and at the end of 7 times 7 years commenced the grand jubilee; every 7th year the land lay fallow; every 7th year there was a grand release from all debts, and bondsmen were set free. From this law may have originated the custom of binding young men to 7 years' apprenticeship, and of punishing incorrigible offenders by transportation of 7, twice 7, and three times 7 years. Every 7th year the law was directed to be read to the people. Jacob served 7 years for the possession of Rachel, and, also, another seven years. Noah had 7 days' warning of the flood, and was commanded to take fowls of the air into the ark by sevens, and the clean beasts by sevens. The ark touched the ground on the 7th month, and in 7 days a dove was sent out, and again in 7 days after. The 7 years of plenty and the 7 years of famine were foretold in Pharaoh's dream, by the 7 fat and the 7 lean beasts, and the 7 ears
THE NUMBER SEVEN. 47
of full and the 7 ears of blasted corn. Miriam was shut up 7 days to be cleansed of her leprosy; the young animals were to remain with the dam 7 days, and at the end of the 7th to be taken away. By the old law man was commanded to forgive his offending brother 7 times; but the meekness of the last revealed religion extended his humility and forbearance to 70 times 7. "If Cain shall be revenged 7 fold, truly Lamech 70 times 7." In the destruction of Jericho 7 priests bore 7 trumpets 7 days. On the 7th they surrounded the walls 7 times, and after the 7th time the walls fell. Balaam prepared 7 bullocks and 7 rams for a sacrifice; 7 of Saul's sons were hanged to stay a famine. Laban pursued Jacob 7 days' journey. Job's friends sat with him 7 days and 7 nights, and offered 7 bullocks and 7 rams as an atonement for their wickedness. David, in bringing up the ark, offered 7 bullocks and 7 rams. Elijah sent his servant 7 times to look for the cloud; the ark of God remained with the Philistines 7 months. Saul was ordered by Samuel to tarry at Gilgal 7 days; the elders of Jabesh requested Nahash the Ammonite 7 days respite. Jessee made 7 of his sons pass before Samuel; the men of Jabesh Gilead fasted 7 days for Saul. The Shunamite's son raised to life by Elisha sneezed 7 times! Hezekiah, in cleansing the temple, offered 7 bullocks, and 7 rams, and 7 he-goats for a sin-offering. The children of Israel, when Hezekiah took away the strange altars, kept the feast of unleavened bread 7 days. King Ahasuerus had 7 chambermaids, 7 days' feast, sent for the queen on the 7th day. Queen Esther had 7 maids to attend her; in the 7th year of 1ds reign Esther was taken to him. Solomon was 7 years building the temple, at the dedication of which he fasted 7 days. In the tabernacle were 7 lamps; 7 days were appointed for an atonement upon the altar; and the priest's son was ordained to wear his father's garments 7 days. The children of Israel ate unleavened bread 7 Jays. Abraham gave 7 ewe lambs to Abimelech as a memorial for a well. Joseph mourned 7 days for Jacob. The Rabbins say, God employed the power of answering this number to perfect the greatness of Samuel, his name answering the letters in the Hebrew word, which signify 7, whence Hannah, his mother, in her thanks says, "that the barren had brought forth 7." Solomon mentions 7 things that God hates, and that the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than 7 men that can render a reason. The house of wisdom in Proverbs has 7 pillars. The vision of Daniel was 70 weeks. The fiery furnace was made 7 times hotter for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Nebuchadnezzar ate the grass of the fields 7 years, the elders of Israel were 70; the blood was to be sprinkled before the altar 7 times; Naaman was to be dipped 7 times in the Jordan; Apuleius speaks of dip- plug the head 7 times in the sea for purification. In all solemn rites of purgation, dedication, and consecration, the oil or water was sprinkled 7 times. Out of Mary Magdalene was cast 7 devils. The apostles chose 7 deacons. Enoch, who was translated, was the 7th after Adam, and Jesus Christ the 77th in a direct line. Within the number are connected all the mysteries of the Apocalypse revealed to the 7 churches in Asia; there appeared 7 golden candlesticks, and 7 stars in the hand of him that was the midst; 7 lamps being the 7 spirits of God, the book with 7 seals, the lamb with 7 eyes and 7 horns, 7 angels with 7 seals, 7 kings, 7 thunders, 7 thousand men slain, the dragon with the 7 heads and 7 crowns, the beast with 7 heads, 7 angels bringing 7 plagues and phials of wrath. There are also numbered 7 heavens, 7 planets, 7 stars, 7 wise men, 7 champions of christendom, 7 notes of music, 7 primary colors. Perfection is likened to gold 7 times purified by water. Anciently a child was not named before 7 days, not being accounted fully to have life before that periodical day; the teeth sprung out in the 7th mouth, and are shed (renewed) in the 7th year, when infancy changes to childhood. At thrice 7 years the faculties are developed, manhood commences, man becomes legally competent to all civil acts; at four times 7 a man is in full possession of his strength, at five
48 A WORD TO LAWYERS.
times 7 a man is fit for the business of the world, at six times 7 he becomes grave and wise, or never, at seven times 7 he is in his apogee, and from that day decays, at eight times 7 he is in his fullest climateric, or year of danger, and ten times 7, or three score years and ten, has by the royal prophet been pronounced the natural period of human life, and the 7th thousand year is believed by many to be the Sabbatical thousand or Millennium, and on the 7th day God rested from his labors, after creating the heavens and the earth.--Baptist Banner.
The creation of the heavens and the earth in 6 days, and the rest of the 7th, is the divine and original cause of the consecration of this number in Holy Writ. A. C.
A WORD TO LAWYERS.
BAPTISM in water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as commanded and instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ, answers a similar purpose in the Christian Religion, when properly administered to a believing penitent or person of contrite heart, that "Livery of Seisin" did under the old Common Law of England, in the conveyance of estates of freehold--namely, a perfection of title, by corporal delivery of possession through symbol. It is a corporal delivery by symbol the most striking and significant--the mind and heart being right through faith and repentance--of the great freehold, viz: remission of sins, by God the grantor, to man the grantee, and an actual investiture of the individual in the righteousness of Christ, with the promised in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit and hope of eternal life, to be retained and attained by a faithful continuance in well-doing; walking by faith, and not by sight, or hearing, or human conceit, or animal impulse; in the sure and well-attested promises of the Sacred Word, by which, through the Holy Spirit, we are made partakers of the divine nature, and rejoice in the glory of God after death. So I understand the Living Oracles; which, unlike those of the Cumae or Delphi, are not ambiguous, or hard to be understood, on this important subject.
See Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. ii. pp. 311-12--original conveyances, feoffment, &c.--and then consult the following scriptures, where the design of baptism is spoken of as first administered by John the Baptist, to prepare a people for the Lord; to give knowledge of salvation unto said people, by the remission of their sins, and to make known the Lord to Israel. The re-enactment of the same by the Lord himself, after his resurrection, and just before he ascends on high, to be crowned King of the Universe, and Priest forever, after the order of Melchisedek, at the right hand of God; and the interpretation the apostles gave said commission, and the manner in which they carried it into execution after the Lord's assumption: Matthew iii. 5-6; Mark i. 4-5; Luke 1. 77, iii. 3; Matthew xxviii. 19; Mark xvi. 15– 16; Acts of Apostles ii. 38, xxii. 16; Romans vi. 3-4; Galatians iii. 26-27; Colossians ii. 12, 13-14; Titus iii. 5; 1 Epistle of Peter iii. 20-21.
DISCIPULUS.
AMERICAN SLAVERY. 49
OUR POSITION ON AMERICAN SLAVERY.
HACIENDA OF PALESTINE, O., December 12, 1850.
Brother Campbell: I have come to the conclusion that I will neither patronize priest nor paper, that is not strictly anti-slavery. Your position to American Slavery I very much dislike. (1) I suppose you must be aware, that our brethren generally on the Western Reserve, and particularly in this section of it, also disagree with you on this subject. (2) I know of many that would take the Harbinger, did they consider you orthodox on the doctrine of human rights. (3) I understand you to teach that one man may hold property in his fellow-man, by physical force; or, in other words, make merchandise of him. (4) I also further understand you to teach, that a minister of the gospel may be a slave-holder, and that that should be no bar to christian union and communion. This platform I think you will not deny, and I regard it as very heretical. (5) I most sincerely believe American slave-holders to he the vilest thieves and hypocrites that ever lived. I regard the ancient Pharisees altogether better than our southern slave-holders; (6) and if I am correctly informed, our brethren generally in the slave States are slave-holders, and that you fellowship them as christian brethren. I think this altogether wrong. (7) Every slave-holder that has crept into the church, that, after proper admonition, should refuse to let the captive go free, should be dealt with, in my humble opinion, as we would with a horse-thief, or any other notorious villain. I regard the slave-holder or master (and I believe the terms to be synonimous) to be as much worse than a horse-thief, as I regard a man to be better than a horse or a sheep.
I take it for granted that, from your silence, you are in favor of the recent Fugitive Slave Law passed by Congress; and if I had no other objection than this, I would not take your paper; and whether you are or are not, I would not take, read, nor patronise any paper, religious or political, whose Editor did not lift up his voice and his pen against such a fiendish and ungodly statute. And he must go farther, he must denounce the govern-
(1) Not more than I dislike yours.
(2) And so do they with Paul.
(3) So would many sceptics, if I flattered their errors. But I have not yet learned to flatter men to subscribe, nor to flatter them to continue
(4) I cannot give any man eyes to see, nor ears to hear. If, then, you cannot understand what I have said, I fear I could not, on those subjects, make you understand any thing that I might say.
(5) So do many slave-holders regard Abolitionists But what do these sincere beliefs" and opinions prove?
(6) And so think they of modern Abolitionists.
(7) And so think they of those who fellowship Abolitionists.
Now, what do all these dogmatic assertions prove? or whom do they convince, propitiate, or reconcile? There is neither argument nor morality, neither humanity nor religion, in thus treating the subject. A. C.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 5
50 AMERICAN SLAVERY.
meat that would have the brasen effrontry, in the noon of the 19th century, to enact a law that so directly conflicts with every precept of both the Old and New Testament Scriptures. Very respectfully, JOHN KIRK
Friend Kirk: I wish you were emancipated from the tyranny of opinionism. Were I to form my opinion of you from this communication, I would say that you are a very good miniature Pope. You are infallibly right, and every one that differs from you is infallibly wrong. You would annihilate the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Christ's own Kingdom, under the frenzied impulse of a perverted mind, to carry out your notions of political rights and wrongs. You would place us all under a law as tyrannical as that by which a Salem witch was tried some hundred years ago--who, manage the case as she might, must infallibly lose her life. If, on attempting to cross a river on a rope she fell, she was drowned; but if she succeeded in making the shore, she was convicted of witchcraft, and condemned to die the death of a witch.
If I remain silent, I must be condemned as unworthy to be read; and if I should reprove your mode of resisting the laws of the 'United States, and call it rebellion, I must fall under the doom of your excommunication. When, then, you assume the Pope, I will act the Protestant, and deny your authority thus to put to torture, because I presume to think and speak without either your frown or your smile before my eyes. If you please, you may examine my remarks upon the "Fugitive Slave Law," and read the following article from Elder Samuel Church, of Pittsburgh. A. C.
"I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men. For kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty."-1 Tim., ii. 1-2.
Brother Campbell: The above direction of the Apostle Paul, is peculiarly appropriate at the present time. God has blessed us above every other nation on the globe. We have long been united, happy, peaceful, and prosperous. History fails to furnish a parallel to the United States, in the excellence of its political institutions and the rapidity of its march to national greatness. Clouds, however, begin to darken our skies. To whom shall we look for all that is requisite to preserve us safe, and carry us unharmed through the impending storm? To Him who is the governor among the nations. It strikes me that the perpetuity of our Union, internal peace, and political institutions, must be exceedingly dear to every man who loves
BETHANY COLLEGE. 51
his kind. If I know myself, I would be willing to purchase them for my children with my life. What a privilege, then, to be not only permitted, but positively commanded, to pray for all in authority! If God tells us to pray for any thing, it is conclusive proof that he means to grant our request. Could I speak to every sincere christian throughout our country, I would say, Brother, Sister, pray for our President and his constitutional advisers (his Cabinet;) pray for our National Legislature; pray for the Governors of the several States, and our State Legislatures. Let us wrestle with God in our closets--in our families--in our prayer meetings, and more public assemblies on the Lord's day. Let us be fervent and importunate. No one can sufficiently deprecate the unheard of evils which must inevitably result from a disunion of the States. I contemplate the results of such an experiment with dismay and horror. Its train of evils to all parties--north and south, bond and free--cannot be anticipated. Some one may say I am weak: well, be it so, if to be strong means to think on such things with composure. There are those, no doubt--and I could weep when I admit they are numerous--both north and south, who have permitted themselves to become, I must say, demented on this subject. They even desire this catastrophe. Let us pray for them.
Bro. Campbell, permit me to say to you, that I think you ought to speak out on this subject, and urge the brethren every where to their duty at this crisis. A word from you would do a great deal. For my part, as long as I live I will not cease, in private and in public, to pray for my country. You will join me, I know. May the Lord have mercy on us all!
SAMUEL CHURCH.
BETHANY COLLEGE.
BETHANY COLLEGE still grows in public favor, as appears from the annual catalogues. In the College Proper, as well as in the Primary Department, we have, this year, more than a proportional advance, both in the number and character of our students. Still, we have reason to complain that the college is much wanting in funds, and in that sort of patronage which would enable it to be useful, in any just proportion, to the wants of society. The same Faculty could instruct, as well, twice the number in attendance; and could have many more in attendance, had we funds equal to the calls upon us for aid, or for a reduction of the prices of tuition. Our brethren are numerous, and, in the aggregate number, we think, as wealthy as any other community in the country. And were the value and importance of this institution to the cause of public
52 SUMMARY.
advancement, and especially to our own community, as well understood by our brotherhood as it is by us, and our fellow-citizens of other denominations, they could not possibly but arise, like one man, and place it on a footing with other institutions, and in a capacity to exert its full influence upon society at large.
Kentucky has undertaken the endowment of the Chair of Sacred History, and has almost accomplished it. Indiana, also, though erecting a North-Western University, has consented to endow the Chair of Ancient Languages in Bethany College, simultaneously with her own institution. She regards Bethany College as belonging to no State--as the property of the United States, of the brotherhood every where, in Europe and America. Indeed, scholarships have been taken in Great Britain, as well as in this country.
But this work goes forward too languidly, too slowly--not as stocks are taken in banks, railroads, and other wordly enterprizes for worldly wealth. But it is long since the children of this world, in their affairs, were wiser, more active and enterprising, than the children of light. Friends of God and man, of wisdom, learning, and piety, why is it so? Our zealous, talented, eloquent, and devoted brother, 0. Kane, agent for the North-Western University in Indiana, is also agent for Bethany College and for the Millennial Harbinger, to obtain subscribers and collect our dues on all accounts. We would commend him to all our brethren and friends in Indiana, if they did not know him better than we do. A. C.
SUMMARY.
SUNDRY communications, demanding our attention to the Fugitive Slave Law, received since writing the article on that subject in the present number, have come to hand. Important resolutions on the part of our brotherhood, touching their duties in this crisis, received too late for insertion in the present number, are lying on our table.
The crisis is a serious one--a solemn one in our country. Our brethren shall be heard, and we will give them our opinion in all candor and godly sincerity. In this great crisis in human affairs, "He that walks slowly walks surely, but he that hasteth in his movements erreth." So said Solomon, and we, of course, endorse for the King of Israel, dead or alive.
Conscience is not a safe guide in human affairs; but an enlight-
SUMMARY. 53
ened conscience always is. Let every reader be cautious how he reads this last sentence.
We are a free people--a constitutional, law-abiding people. We are United States--the wonder, the admiration of the world; a bright example; the brightest and the best on time's colored chart ever given of a rational, moral, law-abiding, self-governing community. Let us, then, calmly, deliberately, with perfect self-possession; in homage to the supremacy of the law, the Bible, conscience, and the Supreme Judge and Governor of the world, so conduct ourselves as never after to reproach ourselves. And if we cannot all subscribe the law of '93, as the immortal Washington did, let us show good reason for our course, and a due respect to those who dissent from us, and we shall then, doubtless, ride the storm, control the waves, and finally anchor in a sure and safe haven.
WESTERN RESERVE ECLECTIC INSTITUTE.--This Academy, located in Hiram, Portage county, Ohio, has commenced its career under auspicious circumstances. It has some ninety pupils. Bro. A. S. Hayden, so well known in Ohio, under whose presidency this institute has commenced, will, no doubt, employ all his powers in making it a popular and useful institution to its friends.
Bro. Thomas Munnell, A. B., of Bethany College, teaches the languages, and other branches of learning. From his attainments, great energy, and good didactic powers, associated with Bro. Hayden, we augur that his labors in that institution will be most acceptable to its friends and the public.
CHURCH EDIFICE IN WASHINGTON CITY.--We call the attention of the whole christian brotherhood to the astounding fact, that we have not a single place of public worship in Washington City, the great metropolis of this great nation. A few disciples are there, meeting in private rooms--a noble little band, truly--but without much of this world's goods. The public interest felt in having a fair hearing in the great centre, by prominent persons from all the States of this confederacy, annually in attendance at the seat of government, is certainly such as to elicit one quarter of a dollar from every member of every church in the Union. Let, then, the elders of every particular church forward to this office, in conformity with the wishes of the brethren who have originated this grand and good work, addressed to me, a sum equal to twenty-five cents for every
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 5*
54 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
member, male and female. Let this be done within six months, more or less, (the sooner the better,) and the work will be done in such style as the wants of that community demand. In this summary way can all the great principles of the present Reformation be annually laid before all at the metropolis as may desire to know them. I acknowledge the receipt, per last mail, of foray dollars, from the church at Baltimore, which shall be by me deposited in bank, for said object.
We are obliged, for want of room, to defer the publication of the letter of our Baltimore brethren. A. C.
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
DANBURY, Ct., September 24, 1850,
Bother Campbell: I have the pleasure to inform you that we have enjoyed the benefit of Bro. J. T. Lowell's labors among us for about two months, during which time we had the heartfelt joy of hearing 18 persons make the good confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and were buried in the liquid grave of water, "into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," and 2 added to the congregation who had been immersed; some of these were from the Methodists, Baptists, and from what we are apt to call the world. We now number about 84 members, and have a comfortable house to meet in. JOHN ABBOT.
POMPEY HILL, N. Y., October 1, 1850.
Brother Campbell: The New York State Meeting of Disciples was held, according to appointment, at Pompey Hill, and characterized by a general unanimity of good feeling--2 immersions. H. KNAPP.
NORTH BLOOMFIELD, O., December 15, 1850.
Brother Campbell: I spent the months of September and October, in company with Bro. Wm. Hayden, in visiting a number of churches in Western New York. Seven weeks passed pleasantly away in constant, and sometimes arduous, but still joyful labors in the gospel. We were affectionately welcomed and heartily sustained in our labors in the different churches we had the pleasure of visiting. The brethren generally seem very earnest in their devotion to the cause of Christ, and, in most places, quite an enterprising spirit is manifested. At Clarksville, one mile from Auburn, a new and commodious house had just been completed; and in Throopsville, they are making arrangements to build a new house, in a more favorable location than the building they now occupy. The prospects of the churches generally are bright, and growing brighter. There is no difficulty in obtaining a large hearing; and could you again visit that State, and cheer the brethren with your presence and labors, there would be immense throngs assembled to hear you. The following are the number of baptisms at the different churches during the period of our labors: Williamsville, Erie county, 7; Clarence, Erie county, 4; Auburn, (or Clarksville,) Cayuga county, 17; Throopsville, Cayuga county, 9; Cato, Cayuga county, 5; Butler, Wayne county, 15; in all, 57. Several backsliders reclaimed, and 3 or 4 immersed persons from other denominations added. ISAAC ERRETT
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 55
CENTREVILLE, Ky., October 4, 1850.
Brother Campbell: I suppose you have, ere this, heard from the Annual Meeting in Clintonville, in this county, (Bourbon,) last month; some 37 became obedient to the faith, nearly all new converts. A meeting which closed just before, attended by Bros. John Tompkins, Sam'l Rogers, and John Smith, (probably other preachers, also.) at Somerset, Mont'y county, resulted in 72 additions. Several were baptized at Cooper's Run, in this county, last (4th) Lord's day. Yours, JNO. A GANO.
PLEASANT GROVE, Ky., October 5, 1850.
Brother Campbell: At every point of my labors for the month of September, save one, we have had some additions. First Lord's day, at Felicity, we had 2 from the Methodist ranks, one of whom was an exhorter, and had been immersed; the other was a lady, who had been sprinkled, whom we, of course immersed, upon the profession of her faith in the Saviour. Second Lord's day at Bethel, I was added, who had been immersed a few week's before. Third Lord's day at Unity meeting-house, Brown county, O., six miles north-west of Georgetown, we had 2 additions We need more efficient laborers. Yours, JOHN T. POWELL.
PARIS, Mo., October 9, 1850.
Brother Campbell: At a meeting held at Middle Grove, in this county, embracing the 4th Lord's day in August, we had 10 additions. At Madison, embracing the fifth Lord's day in August and the first in September, we had 31. At Antioch, embracing the second Lord's day, we had 11. At Dover, embracing the third Lord's day, we had 15; and at our State Meeting in Fayette, embracing the fourth Lord's day, we had 5 additions; making, at the above places, 73. Yours, &c., HENRY THOMAS.
NEAR BROWNSBURG, Ia., October 18, 1850.
Brother Campbell: Since the first of August last, there have been added to the Disciples within the bounds of Bro. Thomas Lockhart's labors, above 90 persons. He has been occasionally assisted by other laborers or teaching brethren. He is certainly one of the most untiring laborers we have in this part of Indiana, and is doing a large amount of good.
Yours, in the one hope, JOHN BLACK.
GREENWOOD, Mo., October 23, 1850.
Brother Campbell: Bro. Allen recently reported 80 additions, as the result of a tour I made through some counties on the Mississippi, in Au,, gust and September. Since then I visited Canton, in Lewis county, and labored twelve days. The result was 61 accessions. Our cause is rapidly advancing in Lewis, under the faithful labors of our devoted Bros. Shanks and Frary, who reside there. Bro. Henderson recently had 20 additions in Callaway. Affectionately yours, S. S. CHURCH.
ASHLAND, O., October 28, 1850.
Brother Campbell: We have just closed a meeting of seven or eight days' continuance. We had a most glorious time-12 most noble souls obeyed the gospel, and were buried with their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in baptism, and rose again, as we trust, to wail: in newness of life. They were all young people, in the bloom of youth and in the morning of life. One old lady united from the Baptists, making 13 in all. We enjoyed the labors of Bro. Hartzel, of Marion county; Bro. Chase, of Adrain, Michigan, who fortunately happened in with us; Bro. Vanvoorhes, of Knox county, and Bro. John St. Clair, of Carrel county, who was passing through our place and tarried with us a few days; besides Bro. A. Burns, Jr., who labors with us most of the time. They are all most excellent brethren. May the Lord bless them! We were all greatly edified and encouraged, and separated with the best good feelings towards one another.
56 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
The brethren here would esteem it a great treat if they could have a visit from you, at any time that suits your convenience.
Yours, in the Christian's hope, HUGH BURNS.
LOUISVILLE, Ky., October 30, 1850.
Brother Campbell: Within a few weeks, in this county, (Jefferson,) 60 have been added to the cause of the Redeemer-37 at Chinoworth's Run; 10 at Goose Creek, and 13 at Newburg. Many more might have been gained could our efforts have been continued. The prospects for good are improving in this region. To the Lord be all the praise forever! Also, at Middleton, about 27 were added to the church recently; making, in all, 87. And again at Jeffersontown, about 10 more; all within two months, in this county. Thus you see how much has been done in so short a time--about 97 confessions for Jesus our Saviour. Again we say, To the Lord be everlasting praise! W. CRAWFORD.
MONMOUTH, Ill., October 30, 1850.
Brother Campbell: With feelings of gratitude to our Heavenly Father, I now take my pen to inform you of the glorious results of a meeting which our beloved Bro. Creath has just closed in this place. He labored faithfully for seventeen days. The result was 63 additions-17 from the Baptist church, 4 reclaimed, 4 united from other congregations, and 48 by confession and immersion. ELIJAH DAVIDSON.
WILLIAMSBURGH, Pa., November 5, 1850.
Brother Campbell: The cause we are pleading is steadily onward and upward, in South-Western Pennsylvania. Our Annual Meeting, which commenced on the 23d and closed on the 26th of August, was one of the best "Big Meetings" we have ever had here. The general marked attention on the part of the whole audience, the christian love beaming forth in the countenances of the brethren, and demonstrated in their friendly greetings, contributed much in rendering the appropriate teaching of our brethren effective. The teaching brethren present were A. Campbell, W. K. Pendleton, Va.; A. S. Hayden, Ohio; James Darsie, F. B. Lobengier, Fayette county, Pa; David While, Greene county, Pa.; and Shidler, Teagarden, Milligan, and Streator, of this county. On Monday, 5 made the good confession, and were immersed at the close of the meeting. Since then, we have had meetings at Pennsville, 9 additions; Cookstown, 2; Redstone, 6, in Fayette county; and at Williamsburgh, 2; West Finley, 3, in this county. There is a growing interest in this community to hear the word of the Lord. Yours, in the labor of love, L. P. STREATOR.
DEER ISLAND, Parish of West Isles, N. B., Oct. 12, 1350.
Brother Campbell: Will you be kind enough to give publicity in the Harbinger to the encouraging prospects of the Lord's cause, in this corner of the Lord's vineyard? In the first part of the month of September, Bro. Charles Berry, from Boston, on a visit to see his parents, (who reside in the Parish of St. Andrews, N. B.,) on his way home called to see us, and to ascertain the state of the Lord's cause, and to form a further acquaintance with the brethren residing in this vicinity. After some considerable deliberation on the present state of religious affairs, we thought it advisable to notify such of the brethren and sisters (believing in the ancient order of things) of our intention to organize them into gospel order; and accordingly we did so. And on Lord's day, (the 15th of September,) after two addresses had been delivered on the object for which they had been previously notified, Bro. Berry and I gave out the notification--" That all who were willing to unite to walk in gospel order, would come forward and give in their names, or signify the same by rising up"--and sixteen unitedly agreed t!) live according to the order of the ancient gospel.
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 57
In the vicinity of St. Andrews, also, the prospects for doing good, by the force of truth, are very encouraging on the side of the apostolic gospel.
By giving this a place in the Harbinger, you will confer a favor on the newly organized church in this place. JAMES B. BARNABY.
MINOR'S NURSERY, October 12, 1850.
Brother Campbell: The co-operation meeting for the country south of Green River, commenced last Saturday, at Corinth, near Trenton, and closed the following Monday. Besides the good accomplished in bringing so many brethren together--messengers from sixteen congregations, and their harmonious deliberations, which we trust will result in the spread of the gospel in distant regions-10 volunteers were obtained to the cause of our Saviour. We were happy in having with us Bro. Enos Campbell, Bro. Street, and Bro. Enoch Brown, who, from the force of circumstances, were compelled to leave at an early stage of the meeting, after delivering each one discourse. Father Ferguson remained long enough to deliver two discourses, and Bro. Mulky remained till the close of the meeting. The exhibition of Messiah's Kingdom, the conditions of pardon, and the duties and privileges of the Disciples, were set forth scripturally and powerfully. They all acted as though the cause and the glory belonged to Jehovah, and that their business was to set forth his cause with earnestness and sincerity, and leave the result between Him and those who heard. Bro. Sims, Bro. Billingsly, and Sister Sebill, long known as members of the church, witnessed each a lovely daughter bowing to the authority of Christ.
On the fourth Saturday and Lord's day in last month, I had the pleasure of speaking at Salubria, in the Methodist meeting-house, and felt refreshed in spirit, in witnessing such a pleasant and joyful time-4 young men were added to the 25 or 30 Disciples already in that place. On the Saturday before the 5th Lord's day in September, Bro. Day and myself commenced a meeting at Bethlehem, (another house opened by the kindness of our Methodist brethren,) which terminated on Lord's day night with 9 confessions; and the next day, at the water's edge, 2 more were added to the number, making 11 who were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
I learn from Bro. Day, that 4 became obedient to the faith at Philippi, a congregation near Elkton, on the 4th Lord's day in September.
God grant that the Disciples may take as their model the Lord Jesus, the "shepherd and bishop of their souls." And may the proclaimers turn "many to righteousness," and "shine as the stars forever and ever!"
Your brother in the best of bonds, J. D. FERGUSON.
CONNELLSVILLE, Pa., November 16, 1850.
Brother Campbell: The cause of the Lord in this region is onward. The Disciples, walking together in the fear of the Lord and the comforts of the Holy Spirit, are edified and multiplied. There have recently been added-- at Washington 7, Pleasant Valley 11, Cookstown 3, Redstone 11, Jacob's Creek 9, and prospects for further additions encouraging. The brethren who labor regularly in this field are L. P. Streator, F. B. Lobingier, and myself. Yours, in the bonds of peace. JAMES DARSIE.
CARROLLTON, Ky., October 23, 1850.
Brother Campbell: I have again taken my seat to tell you of the success, in this part of our State, of that cause for which you have labored with unwearied dilligence for so many years, and which I believe to be dear, indeed, to you. When I wrote your last I had but just removed from Paris to this place. Since that time I have been preaching in Carrollton and its vicinity, and have had, in all, over 50 additions, when I was alone, or nearly so, so far as public speaking was concerned. A few weeks ago we were favored with a visit from our good Bro. J. T. Johnson, who spent some days with us; and while he was laboring with us, we had, in all, 13 additions to the
58 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
churches at Carrollton and Ghent. Bro. Johnson, although sixty-two years of age, appears, in his preaching, to possess all the vigor of thirty. He often preaches twice a day for weeks, without the least apparent exhaustion, or without growing hoarse, although he speaks with great earnestness. Indeed, he is a remarkable man; for although sixty-two years old, "his eyes are not dim," nor does his natural "force seem to be abated." His praise is in all the churches. He contemplates visiting us again in November, and remaining a much longer time.
From every part of the surrounding country the news is cheering. Many are turning to the Lord from the world, and some from the sects are coming over to "the foundation of apostles and prophets;" and among them, an occasional one who promises more than ordinary usefulness. I received a letter a short time since, from our good Bro. Stemons, of Paris, from which I will give you a short extract, which speaks for itself:
“Myself and wife have just returned from a visit to Lincoln county. We were last Lord's day at a District Meeting at Hustonville. Bros. Kendrick, Steel, and Despain, were the principal speakers. There were 10 additions-8 by confession and 2 by letter. Two of the former class were Logan Williams and wife. He was raised near that place, by Presbyterian parents, and educated for the ministry; a graduate of Centre College; a young man of unblemished character, tine intellect, a fine scholar and orator. lie arose in the church and spoke some ten or fifteen minutes, explaining why he dissolved his connexion with that, and joined this church. He was convinced that immersion only is baptism; and the only creed authorized of heaven is the Bible; on this only can all God's people be united. This was thrilling, indeed. We were made to rejoice in the Lord and take courage."*
Bro Stemons also tells of 36 additions at Clintonville, during the Annual Meeting a short time ago; of some 20 additions at two meetings conducted recently by Bro. Raines. Thus, from all quarters, the news is cheering.
But while our prospects are bright, and brightening every day, we are not getting along without a usual amount of opposition. No sooner did the people, in this part of Kentucky, begin to turn to the Lord, than a furious opposition began to be waged against us. The preachers in the opposition, it seemed to me, were more reckless in dealing out abuse upon us than I had ever known the same class of men to be before; but the result has been, that some of their good brethren have abandoned them and come over to the Bible. Thus has their envy punished itself.
One thing has been to me a matter of great surprise, and that is to see the Missionary Baptists uniting in a protracted meeting with the most uncompromising sprinklers, for the sake of keeping up an opposition to us. At New Liberty, in Owen county, some eighteen miles from this, during the past summer, and when the Baptist preachers were weary, they called in a Methodist preacher to assist them, whom I have heard declare that, "in the christian world, not one in a hundred ever learned immersion from the Bible," and in a like reckless way, oppose immersion for near two
*Cases of this kind are becoming more frequent than formerly. Another trophy gained by my quondam friend N. L. Rice, D. D., in the Lexington debate, was the loss of one of the most intelligent elders of his church in Kentucky, the last season. Having sat under the ministry of N. L. Rice, D. D., and officiating in his congregation, and after reading the debate, and maturely investigating both sides, I learned he corresponded with Mr. Rice on some of his alledged strong points But feeling less and less satisfied the more the Doctor reasoned, argued, and proved his point, this elder became perfectly assured that the Doctor was on the wrong side, and finally buried his doubts and his reasonings in christian immersion, and now rejoices in the light and freedom of the gospel. A. C.
OBITUARY. 59
hours; and where they had closed their doors against us, I have known the Baptists here to cheerfully open their meeting-house to the same intolerant sprinkler. Men who hold the most antagonistic doctrines, and who formerly could not unite in any way. now, Pilate and Herod like, are made friends, and unite against us. But, "Blessed are the peace makers," &c None of these things, however, disturb us seriously. The people see the madness of the preachers, and some are leaving their ranks almost every month; and in proportion to the effort made, or persons in the character of preachers to make an effort, our increase here exceeds theirs at least four-fold.
One thing with me, I fear, will always be a matter of burning regret, and that is, that I was so foolish, when young, as to be ensnared by Universalism, and that I have spent seven years of the prime of my life in preaching a doctrine which never had any effect but to turn men away from God, from morality, and religion. I will here relate an incident which actually occurred in Bourbon county, Ky.
An old man, whose hoary head, and pale and wan countenance tells too plainly that he is standing on the verge of the grave, and who had been near a quarter of a century a pious member of a Baptist church, became the victim of that baneful heresy; joined the church; and in a few weeks after, was known to be engaged in swapping horses on the Lord's day; and what was worse of all, he spoke of it to me (who was then their preacher) as a trivial matter. Never did any thing sting my very soul more keenly. It was such wounds as that, which I received in rapid succession, which slew me as a Universalist preacher, and caused me to examine the system closely, and which resulted in my abandoning it.
Often has my very heart been wrung with anguish, during the present fall, when I have been inviting the people to obey the Lord, and one after another came forward, when the thought would rush upon my mind, that seven years of my life had been spent in advocating that demoralizing heresy. But I will atone for it as well as I can, and humbly pray that God and all christians will forgive me. I have no excuse to offer, only that I did it ignorantly, in unbelief.
Bro. Campbell, I feel under great obligations to you. I know not what I should have been, but for your works. I have yet many things to tell you, if we should ever meet, and hope that day is not far distant. May God long preserve your life, that you may be the instrument in turning others from the error of their ways!
Yours in the best bonds, C. B. THARP.
Total number reported since last month, 875.
OBITUARY.
CONNELLSVILLE, Pa., November 16, 1850.
Brother Campbell: Our beloved sister, MARGARET NORTON, (daughter of Sister L. Norton, of Connellsville,) is no more! She calmly and triumphantly fell asleep in Jesus, on the evening of the 28th of October, aged 25 years. She had been a member of the Church of Christ for about six years, and, by the spotless purity of her life and character, she exhibited the highest evidence that she had learned of him who is meek and lowly in heart In fervent piety and entire consecration to God, she had few equals. She lived for heaven. Christ was her example; his word her study; his people her associates; his house her resort; and his worship her delight. She has exchanged faith for sight; hope for fruition; sorrow for joy; time
60 OBITUARY.
for eternity; earth for heaven; the church below for the general assembly and church of the first born. She is present with the Lord.
Yours, in the bonds of peace, JAMES DARSIE.
MARION, O., November 2, 1850.
Our much beloved brother, Dr. JAMES WISEMAN, has closed his earthly pilgrimage. He died at his residence in Kenton, Hardin county, on the 10th of September, in the 31st year of his age. He obeyed that gospel which afforded him rejoicing in life, and support in death, in the morning of life, and was justly esteemed as a man and a christian, and was an eminently useful physician. What a breach has death made in removing this excellent husband and father from the family, and a worthy elder from the church! Precious, in the sight of the Lord, is the death of his saints. JONAS HARTZEL.
BREWERTON, N. Y., November 28, 1850.
Died, at Brewerton, N. Y., on the evening of the 18th of November, of Consumption, Sister JULIETT A. EASTWOOD, aged 20 years The deceased was a person of great promise. Gifted with mental and moral powers of a high order, combined with superior beauty and gracefulness of person, she was truly an ornament of the society in which she moved. She was a most worthy christian, and died under the influence of those triumphant hopes which the Christian Religion is so eminently calculated to inspire. Our trust is, that we shall meet her in that world where disease is never known, and death has no power to harm! J. M. SHEPARD.
Departed this life, on the 27th of November, in the hope of eternal life, Bro. WM. GILCREST, of Green county, Ohio, formerly of Washington county, Penn.'a. Bro. Gilcrest was a prominent member of the first church in Pennsylvania constituted on the New Testament alone, as now taught amongst us. He was an exemplary christian from that time till his death. I have known him more than thirty-five years. He died an old man, full of faith and good works, and has entered into rest. A. C.
NOTICE TO EVANGELISTS.
CHENEYVILLE, Parish of Rapids, La., Nov. 5, 1850.
Brother Campbell: It is known to you that there has existed a church of Christ at this place for five or six years. There have been but few additions to its numbers during the last year or two; but I believe, that if an Evangelist would come amongst us, the church might be revived, and members added to it. There is now $350 subscribed. for the compensation of a minister, either in the capacity of an Evangelist or Bishop, as may be agreed upon after his arrival. And by the time that fund is exhausted, as much more can be obtained. I have thought, by giving this publicity, some proclaiming brother might be induced to come amongst us, or address me for further particulars. Yours, in the love of the gospel, W. P. FORD.
THE DISCIPLES IN WASHINGTON CITY, now worship every Lord's Day in the Medical College, corner of F and Twelfth streets. Please notice this fact in the Harbinger, for the information of visiting brethren. R. G. CAMPBELL
Vol. I.] BETHANY, VA., FEBRUARY, 1851. [No. II.
CHRISTIANITY EXPERIENCED AND ENJOYED.
NUMBER I.
CHRISTIANITY is not a mere science. It is, indeed, scientific. It is the classified knowledge of Christ, as Mediator between Jehovah and fallen man. It is pot, however, a mere speculative view of God, of man, and of a Mediator, however correct and Biblical that speculative view may be. It is neither orthodoxy nor heterodoxy. Satan and his confederate fallen angels, are more orthodox than the Pope of Rome or the Prelate of England; more learned in Biblical lore, more profound antiquarians, than any Christian philosopher or sage. They could say, and they did say, "Jesus, we know thee whom thou art--the Holy One of God." Demons believe the gospel, and they tremble, too. Do not many professed Christians believe the gospel and tremble I Both believe the same facts, precepts, and promises. But neither of them do appropriate them. The demons cannot, and many professors do not.
Christianity has its theory and practice. But it has, also, that which is far better: It has its enjoyments. And this is, indeed, by far much better; for both its theory and its practice are for its enjoyment. These three, however, comprehend it all. The first two are means, the last its end. It must first be understood before it can be received, and it must be obeyed before it can be enjoyed.. These are as inseparably associated in every real Christian man, as body, soul and spirit, in every real man.
Men live by eating, but not by eating alone. However good the food eaten, it must be assimilated and appropriated by the system,
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 6
62 CHRISTIANITY EXPERIENCED AND ENJOYED.
before it can give either health or life. Millions, indeed, die by eating that which they ought not to have eaten; and, no doubt, millions perish forever, by believing that which they ought not to have believed. Still, it is only he that eats that can live. The Messiah carried this figure very far when he said, "He that eateth me, even lie shall live by me." Many, no doubt, will still ask: How can this be? "Will this man give us his flesh to eat I" We will respond as he did: "Verily I say to you, the words that I speak to you are spirit and life." They have a spiritual meaning, and require a spiritual discernment. But the imagery is both correct and beautiful. Faith is to the inner man what the hand is to the outer man. Faith apprehends, receives, and appropriates the spirit's food, and conveys it to the soul, as the hand receives and conveys to the mouth the bread of this life. Hence, we may say with a venerable saint of sacred story, "I found thy word and I did eat it." This process we usually call "appropriation." And I hesitate not to say, that evangelical faith is neither more nor less than an appropriation el the gospel promises, which have been understood and believed to be true.
But a question will arise in some minds, and has already risen in many minds. It is this: "Why do not all that believe the gospel to be true, appropriate its promises to themselves?" Aye, this is a question that needs a very profound consideration. It. might, indeed, be argued, that all that do really believe the gospel to be true, do really appropriate its promises to themselves. But the facts, it is alledged by many, do not fully warrant the conclusion.
To assent to the gospel on what is sometimes called "mere probable evidence," is, perhaps, not easily contradistinguished from real faith. Some incline to be on the safer side, and, on the whole, conclude, that it is more prudent to be in the church than out of it. They are not fully assured that the gospel is unquestionably true, bat, thinking it most probably true, prefer to make a public profession of it and join the church. They reason thus: Men invest large 'ands in stocks, on mere probable evidence, and why may I not, on the same amount of faith, profess Christianity, and make the sacrifice; not, indeed, a very great one, which it requires. "If," as said one of our contemporaries, "I have taken ten thousand dollars of stock in banks, and an equal amount in railroad shares, may I not risk a thousand or two dollars in church rates, and my Sundays to meeting, on the more than equal probability that there is a heaven to gain and a hell to escape?" In some such way as this, and upon the same peradventure, that it may all be true and right, it is to be
CHRISTIANITY EXPERIENCED AND ENJOYED. 63
feared many make the Christian profession. Such professors cannot enjoy the Christian hope, or have the joyful anticipations and prelibations of everlasting blessedness. So true it is, "that he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him." We must have a full and unwavering assurance that the gospel is true--not that we are of the elect, but of the invited to partake of the salvation of God. Then, indeed, coming to Christ fully persuaded that he is all that apostles and prophets affirmed of him; that we are personally invited, in the proclamation of mercy and eternal life, to come to him; and, placing ourselves under his auspices and authority, we shall realize the truth as it is in Jesus, enjoy the pleasures of hope, and the smiles of the Lord.
This is, then, in our view of the premises, to enjoy Christianity or the gospel. This is to rejoice in the Lord, and in hope of eternal glory. Christianity, then, has its theory, its practice, and its enjoyments. It has its earnest here, and its full-orbed glory and blessedness hereafter. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom we have had introduction, also by faith, into this favor in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God; and not only so, but we rejoice even in afflictions; knowing that affliction produces patience, and patience approbation, and approbation hope; and this hope makes not ashamed, because the love of God is diffused in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that is given us.
God is infinitely happy, because he is infinitely holy. Angels are, each one in his own capacity, perfectly happy, because perfectly pure. Man, as God made him, was also, in his capacity, perfectly and completely happy, because absolutely perfect in his whole constitution--body, soul, and spirit. Ransomed and redeemed man under the Second Adam, will hereafter, to the full extent of all his powers and capacities, be perfectly, completely, and immutably happy, because absolutely holy. As thus we advance in Christian knowledge, faith, hope, love, joy, and peace--celestial fruits of the Holy Ghost dwelling in us--we rise in beauty, holiness, and happiness. The path of life is, then, the path of peace, holiness, and happiness. In this path may the Spirit of God guide us, the hand of Jehovah lead us from glory to glory, now, henceforth, and forever! Amen. A. C.
64 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE--No. I.
MATTER and spirit are familiar words. But who can compass either of them in his mind? All that we call visible, sensible, or material nature, is but a partial development of matter in its untold and incomprehensible modes and forms of existence. It suffices not to talk of it as school boys do--as being solid, fluid, or gaseous-- developing the ideas of length, breadth, and thickness--or assuming the attitudes and bearings of suns, moons, planets, comets, with all their tenantry, moving in illimitable space, without top or bottom; without beginning or end. All this suffices not to unfold the secrets-- the worlds, and wonders of a material or a spiritual universe, and satisfies not the desires of man. And could we examine every form and mode of its existence, wherever found in the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal kingdoms, still we comprehend not one of its atoms in all its essence, laws, and modes of existence. Still, we presume to negative all its essence, all its laws, accidents and properties, and to conceive of spirit as of a still more sublime, wonderful, and mysterious creation. We feel, too, that it is susceptible of personality--of an infinite variety and number of personalities--as distinct from each other in spiritual, in intellectual and moral peculiarities, as are the innumerable forms, modes, and characteristics of matter. So that we can conceive of as many families of spiritual personalities--of as many ranks, orders, and individualities, in a spiritual as in a material universe. No philosopher, sage, or christian, however elevated in genius, or cultivated in reason and imagination, could, from all that human observation declares--from all that human science teaches--ascertain whether God, the unoriginated and unwasting fountain of this universe, delights more in magnitude than in number; more in number than in variety; more in variety than in utility; more in utility than in beauty, in its untold forms and modes of existence. But that he delights more in the happiness of his own dear children, than in all these,. is evident from the fact that he has given to man a capacity to understand, a mind to discriminate, and a taste to enjoy them all--all that he has created or made in heaven, earth, or sea, and presented to man as a portion of his present inheritance--as a mere earnest and antepast of all that is to come.
But sin has been born, and misery has followed in its train. Hence, there is shade as well as brightness; pain as well as pleasure; sickness as well as health; death as well as life, and pain as
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 65
well as pleasure, in our portion of creation, in our planet, and among all its tenantry.
But sin was not born on earth: neither came it to our planet from heaven. It was concealed in the heart of a fallen seraph, and secretly conveyed from outer darkness to Paradise, the primeval abode of our most noble and illustrious ancestor. Thus are we lead to erect a tower of observation hard by the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, planted by God himself in primeval Eden. And at this point we shall place our telescope, erect our observatory, and endeavor to survey the spiritual, as well as the material universe.
But the Star of Bethlehem is, in this science of spiritual astronomy, our polar star; and in our own system, the "Sun of Righteousness" and Mercy, scattering his divine radiance over the history of man, and revealing to him worlds unseen by sense, unknown by reason, revealed from faith to faith, extending from the heaven of heavens to Tartarus Gehenna, and the realms of eternal desolation.
We are curious to know the number, variety, character, and condition of the tenantry--rational, spiritual, and immortal--that now fill the worlds that are, and that shall hereafter fill the 'worlds to come. And this, indeed, comprehends all that we shall propound on the present occasion, in reference to worlds above and to worlds below. But, on such themes as these, we must rein up and curb the winged steeds of imagination, and be content to listen to the oracles of heaven-inspired truth.
"What saith the Scriptures," is, then, the only question; for when the Scripture developments are understood, all that can be known of man is known. We shall, then, take an inventory of what the Scriptures teach and contain on the subject of the tenantry of the universe--supernal, terrestrial, and infernal; leaving the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms of earth, to the philosophers, the geographers, geologists, and the political economist. We shall confine ourselves to man, as the lord of earth and the heir of all its treasures. But it is not man in his physical or animal constitution, as the mere tenant or proprietor of earth, but as a rational, moral, spiritual, and everlasting being. In this view of him he is an heir of more than earth and time, of more than our solar system--an heir of God, in all his infinite realms of riches and glory, of beauty and blessedness.
The inspired inventory of the universe comprehends many ranks and orders of existence. There are angels, demons, authorities, principalities, powers. There are the ZOOA, or Living Ones; the CHERUBIM, or Knowing Ones; the SERAPHIM, or Burning Ones; the
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66 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE,
ELOHIM, or Gods; there are, also, the THRONES, DOMINIONS, and PRINCES, celestial as well as terrestrial.
Some imagine that these themes are not designed for mortal tongues, and are not to be taught, preached, or discussed by man. Then why are they written? why are they a portion of the revelation of God? These are Bible themes and Bible words, and are, more or less, intelligible. And ought not Christian knowledge to be commensurate with Christian revelation I So we opine, and, therefore, we will hazard a few thoughts on the spiritual universe, as opened to our vision by Him, who came down from heaven to teach man the way to heaven and immortality.
I embark on no sea of conjectures. I explore no terra incognita. We have no theory to establish--no point to carry--no New Foundland to wage war about. Let us, then, with profound reverence, open our Bibles, and learn what is taught concerning spirits, good and bad--whether called angels, demons, dominions, thrones, principalities, powers--whether named Cherubim, Seraphim, or Elohim.
Here stands before us an awful and glorious universe, arranged and governed by grand Hierarchies and Thrones, placed around one radiating flaming central throne, filled by the peerless Prince Messiah, now crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Supreme Monarch of all the sovereignties, dominions, and territories of his own awful, glorious, boundless, everlasting universe.
'Tis well for us--for our weak eyes and dim vision--that these celestial glories are dimly veiled and figured forth in the costume and livery of earth, and time, and sense, in condescension to our intellectual infirmities. We shall, therefore, gently raise the curtain, and admit into our dark cell a few rays of this supernal light, to dispel its gloom, and to lead us out into a brighter and a better world.
There are two of these spiritual agencies, of the lowest rank, that, from their number, and vigilance of man, first engage our attention. They are ANGELS and DEMONS. But who and what are these? A. C.
NUMBER II.
ANGELS AND DEMONS. No. I.
THE question last propounded, is, Who and what are angels and demons? It is easier to say what they are, than to show who they are. They are both official titles--an ANGEL is a messenger; a
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 67
DEMON is a knowing one, a leader, or teacher. Etymology and history alike teach that a DAIMOON, or demon, (from daein scire, to know,) indicates a knowing one; figuratively, a teacher, or a guide. Angellos is a messenger, an ambassador, a missionary--one sent to announce, or bear a message.
But who are they, is a question still more curious and interesting. They are, by appropriation, made to indicate, in their highest sense, spirits. Hence, demons are often called "spirits," and "unclean spirits." Angels, in the celestial acceptation of that word, are also spirits. True, the word is often applied to man, as well as to spirits, when acting as agents for others. Still, they are primarily, both in etymology and history, knowing, or intelligent spirits. Before we can either understand the scriptures, or teach them to others, on these two grand themes of ancient and modern controversy, we must be able to show the causes or reasons of distinction and difference between the spirits called demons, and the spirits called angels. They are different orders of spirits, apart from their character, office, or work. Such is my conclusion, for reasons hereafter to be set forth.
But to ascertain, with all evidence and authority, the proper and essential difference between these two orders of spirit, it will be necessary to take a broad view of the use of the word demon, both in classic and sacred use. Thus we may, inductively, come to a very satisfactory result, as to the New Testament acceptation of the term demon.
First, then, its Pagan and classic use. We may say, in general terms, that the Pagan philosophers, one and all, so far as I am informed, regarded demons as holding a middle rank between gods and men, and were a sort of internuntios between them, carrying up the prayers of men and bringing down the blessings of the gods, in answer to them. Some of them were regarded as angels of destruction, to execute the wrath of the gods upon the impious. They had two classes of demons--" the agathon daimoon, or eudaimoon--the good demon, the guardian spirit, or tutalary genius, assigned to every one at his birth, to guard himself and fortunes through life; and also, the kakodaimoon--a malignant demon, who seems to have delighted itself in vexing or tormenting men. "All demons," says Plato, "are an intermediate order between God and mortals."* "And who has not read of the demon of Socrates!"
The Jewish usage is still more important, to assist us in ascertaining its Christian acceptation, than the Pagan writers. In the
*Παν το δαιμονιον Μεταξυ εστι Θεου τε χαι Θνεετον.
68 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
Septuagint version it would seem that demons were regarded as the souls or spirits of dead men.
We need not go back to Deuteronomy, to accuse the Jews of demononolatry--to show that they "sacrificed to demons, and not to gods, to new gods that came newly up, whom their fathers feared not;" or to show that they regarded demons as the souls of deceased wicked men, since Josephus himself, a cotemporary witness with the apostles, testifies "that the spirits of wicked men deceased, were by the Jews called demons."
Indeed, according to the Grecian and Roman Apotheosis, or god- making power, by which they not only placed the statues of great men, especially heroes, living and dead, amongst their gods in their temples, but occasionally reared temples and altars to living heroes, really offering sacrifice to them. So find we the Pagans at Lystra, converting Paul into Mercury, and Barnabas into Jupiter, bringing decorated oxen to the gates of their city, to sacrifice to them as gods.
But the New Testament itself suffices to indicate that the demons, or (as they are called in the Common Version) devils, were the spirits of deceased wicked men. To sustain and elucidate this view of demons, we shall state a few facts, and offer a few remarks upon them.
1st. We have, in the New Testament, but one Devil, and many demons. Diabolos, or Devil, is found in the Christian Scriptures only thirty-eight times. Of these, thirty-four are applied to him we call "the Devil," and "Satan," and are, in every case, preceded by the definite article THE.
Of the remaining four cases--the first John vi. 7--Jesus calls one of the Twelve a Devil, not the Devil; and Paul, using it in the plural form three times, (the only times it is found in the plural number, and without the definite article,) applies it to men and women: but only to those that do not restrain their tongue. They are the only Devils named in the plural form in all the New Testament Scriptures. Thus counting, one by one, we have ho Diabolos thirty-four times; Diabolos, without the article, applied to Judas as a slanderer, or false accuser, once; and thrice with reference to candidates for the diaconate, or deacon's office, translated "slanderers, false accusers"-I Tim., iii. 11; 2 Tim., iii. 3; Titus, ii. 3. Thus the matter is briefly disposed of. We have Devil, or Diable, as a proper name, thirty-four times, applied to one otherwise called Satan, or Ho Satanas.
We find the word Satan, thirty-seven times in the New Testament.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 69
Twice, without the article, it is applied to Peter, as an adversary. But with the definite article, it is applied to the Adversary, called the Devil, or the false accuser.
To exhibit to our readers our whole premises, we shall state, that we have the term Beelzebub eight times, but not once translated. It is sometimes read Baalzebub, and though in the New Testament he is called the prince of the demons, was regarded as the chief object of Pagan worship. Baal, or the sun personified, was the supreme divinity of Phenician or Canaanite idolatry. Baal, or the sun, and Ashtaroth, or Astarte, the moon, were worshipped from time immemorial. This idolatry of the sun and moon, as the generative and conceptive powers of nature, was originally introduced to Northern Europe from India. Taken in malem partem, it was finally translated Satan, the rival of God and prince of the demons.
But these imaginary divinities being disposed of, we have yet remaining only the family of demons, on which a few remarks may suffice. Daimoon, which is the parent of this large and powerful family, is, with a single exception, in the Common Version always translated Devil. The other branches of the family are Daimonion, Daimonizomai, Daimonioodees, in all occurring seventy-nine times in the New Testament; and, with one exception, were always translated Devil, or Devils. That exception, found Acts xvii. 18, is "gods." Because, indeed, a majority of all the gods of Pagan superstition were the ghosts, real or imaginary, of departed heroes or great men.
As to these demons, they may, perhaps, accomplish missions, as %yell as those properly called angels, and may be a portion of those fallen spirits that are called "the angels of the Devil." But, with all the lights the Bible affords on this subject, we still must rather regard them as the spirits of deceased wicked men. An induction of all the places where this word occurs is not called for, as logically necessary to such a conclusion. If it is only once shown to represent such a personage, it will suffice, in the absence of any contradictory testimony.
Amongst the facts and documents from which we make up our opinion or judgment in this case, the following are chief:
1. DIABOLOS, translated Devil, and DAIMONION, properly translated Demon, are never confounded in the New Testament. The one is never, in any case, substituted for the other; though the former occurs thirty-four times and the latter sixty times, in the New Testament.
70 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
2. In the second place, Diabolos, or the Devil, is never, in Sacred Scripture, said to take possession of any one.
3. Daimonion is as constantly indefinite, as Diabolos is definite. Devil is always preceded by the; Daimoon never, except when some particular one is named in reference to a special case.
4. Demons are exhibited as malignant and unclean spirits; and to their influence "Dumbness, deafness, madness, palsy, epilepsy," &c., are ascribed.
5. Demons are not yet in misery, but living in the dread and anticipation of misery. In the days of the Messiah, they exclaimed, "We know thee, the Holy One of God; art thou come hither to torment us before the time'!" This is never said of the Devil, nor of any of his angels, and seems to intimate a characteristic difference between evil angels and demons.
Again: Paul affirms that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God. We know that the Gentiles did not sacrifice to God, nor to the angels of God, but to hero gods--to the spirits of dead men.
At Athens, they supposed that Paul was a setter forth of "strange gods"--not of strange Devils, (as King James' translators ought, in their uniformity, to have rendered it,) because he preached to them Jesus and the anastasis, or the resurrection. They supposed that the anastasis was a goddess, and that Jesus was a new god, in the Gentile sense; reasoning, no doubt, from what Paul had said of his death and resurrection.
It is conceded, on all hands, "that a great portion of the Pagan worship was avowedly paid to the ghosts of departed heroes, of conquerors, and potentates, and even to the inventors of the useful arts." Jews and Gentiles, with one consent, agreed in calling these spirits of great men daimonia, or demons. The Gentiles regarded the demons which they worshipped as the ghosts of good men--as public benefactors.
The Papal church has long been devoted to demon worship. They pray to the Virgin Mary, and to the spirits of her registered saints; and therefore, when her downfall and total ruin are prefigured in the Visions of the Apocalypse, her city, her temple, are represented as converted into an habitation of demons; the prison of every foul spirit--the cage of unclean birds." But we shall reflect on these premises for another month. A. C.
A REVIEW EXTRAORDINARY. 71
A REVIEW EXTRAORDINARY.
[From the Presbyterian.]
FOR the last three quarters, the radical Westminster Review has been taking a decidedly anti-religious, certainly anti-evangelical, direction. It is even affirmed that a party has bought the right of publishing an article in each number assailing the faith of Christians. The course has been more and more undisguised in some of the last numbers; but in the October issue, the disguise becomes so thin that all concealment may be thrown aside at once, and the Review may avow itself as the champion of infidelity. The closing paper in this number is upon "Septenary Institutions," and the design is to show that a Sabbath for worship and observance of religious duties exclusively, is not a divine appointment; that the observance of such days was introduced from the practice of celebrating certain changes of the moon; and hence, four of them came in a month, with an interval of seven days; and that there is no authority whatever for regarding the first day of the week in any sense, as a day fur religious worship. But not contented with thus making war upon the Sabbath, the writer denies the divine authority of the Old Testament; thinks the books of Moses are a collection of miscellaneous writings, put together by Ezra or somebody else; the story of Eve and the serpent is an allegory, and of Joshua and the sun a fable; that Christ commanded his disciples to search the Scriptures, that they might distinguish the part to be believed from the rest; and thus he expressly taught them that some things said by them of old time in the Bible were not of divine authority, and this writer thinks it is high time that the public should be taught to regard the books of the Old Testament in their true light.
This article has been called out by the recent agitation of the Sabbath postoffice question of Great Britain. 1t shows that there, as in this country, infidelity regards the Sabbath as the great Obstacle in the way of its success. Once break down the distinction of days, and persuade the nation that it is folly to devote one day in the week to religious worship, and you have struck a blow at the nation's heart. There is no religion without a Sabbath.
We have been thus particular in defining the present position and character of this Review, that its mischief may be lessened by the foreknowledge of the public as to its aims. That it is now under the control of an infidel corps, there can be little doubt; and the publication of such an article as this on septenary institutions, is an open and malignant assault upon Christianity, that deserves the rebuke of every Christian in the old world and the new. It serves to show that the enemies of our holy religion are becoming more bold. The contest of the day is to be between Rationalists and Scripturalists; between those who claim to be guided by human reason, and those who submit to divine authority in Holy Scripture. To this, all logical controversy is now tending. The friends of God's truth have nothing to fear but their own indifference.
72 SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE, CAUSE, AND CURE,
OF SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY--No. II.
IN the inquiry which we have instituted, we may be thought, by some, to be guilty of an error, not uncommon to writers, and from which, indeed, not even professed logicians are always clear, viz: That of begging the question, or taking for granted what needs to be proved. Such may gravely ask, How do you know that there is such a moral ailment as you have been pleased to style Spiritual Dyspepsy?
But stop, my friend, ere you proceed farther, till I shall have answered your question, by proposing another. Do you profess to be a spiritually-minded person! Or, in other words, Are you a Christian? You have never, then, felt your spiritual zeal to cool, or even to become lukewarm. You have always relished that spiritual aliment--the bread of life and the water of life. You have never hungered or thirsted after the pleasures of sense, since you have eaten of the spiritual manna. Your affections have never since been set upon earthly things. Business has never so occupied your attention as to prevent you from retiring, for an hour, from the world, to read and meditate upon the things of eternity. You have never so relaxed your vigilance or circumspection, as to give the Adversary an advantage over you, in the temptation. If such has been your happy condition, you certainly have no experimental knowledge of the things after which we are inquiring. And we should be equally happy in finding that you are not included in our category. All, indeed, that we could regret in your case, is, that you are not in such circumstances as permit you to sympathize so well with the class for whom we write, as are those who are encompassed with like infirmities.
While, then, we admit the novelty of the name by which we have chosen to designate certain things as they occur in the development of character, we contend that the things themselves are positive entities. We are inquiring after no ignis faluus, but after what has given more discomfort and pain to the possessor, than all the bodily ailments he has ever experienced. What are the diseases of our physical nature, compared with those of our moral nature! Who will presume so to heighten the anguish of the body, as to make it equal that of the mind g Vain attempt! How obtuse and transient the former, compared with the poignancy of the latter, which is
SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY. 73
eternal! Why is it, then, that the diseases of our spiritual nature are so difficult of detection? How is it, that we can live full threescore years, and not perceive the disease which has all that time afflicted us--a disease, too, fraught with the materials of everlasting anguish? The object of our inquiry, then, is to ascertain the symptoms of that moral malady, which, like a wide-spreading epidemic, has infected the fairest portions of the great community of Christendom.
The term which we have chosen to designate this spiritual disease, suggested itself to us because of the points of resemblance which we had discovered between it and physical dyspepsy. These points of resemblance, as to its symptoms, we sketched, though imperfectly, in our first number.
In the present number, we propose to trace the resemblance, also, between their cause and cure. If asked for the reason of our delay in furnishing the present number, our apology may be found in the nature of our subject. We write upon spiritual ailments, than which no class of diseases are more difficult of detection by those who are the subjects of them; and it is for them we write. To delineate, or even fully describe, a spiritual malady, is no very difficult task. It is often done, and well done, within the limits of a short discourse. But how long is it, oftentimes, before the subject of the malady makes the application, or realizes himself to be serously and dangerously ill? To offer the remedy before he discovers his diseased condition, avails him nought; for it is an axiom in spiritual therapeutics, That until the patient realize his condition, and desire a remedy, his case is incurable.
We, therefore, conceived it due to the reader, that he should have time for a calm, deliberate, and serious examination of his own case, with reference to this spiritual epidemic. And if, upon examination, he shall have found himself the subject of this malady, we hope that we shall now be able to present him with an infallible remedy.
We are, first, then, to inquire briefly into the causes of this disorder. They may be regarded as either immediate or remote. Remote causes produce the changes; which changes, as the immediate causes, excite the symptoms. We cannot, however, understand the remote cause, without some knowledge of the digestive process; as we cannot tell that any series of events has been changed, unless we first know what that series is. The digestive process consists of a series of actions or events. There is, first, prehension of the food by the mouth, then mastication, next insaliva-
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74 SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY.
tion, deglutition, chymification in the stomach; chylifaction, absorbtion, and circulation by the heart, through its great vessels to the lungs, where it becomes, as it were, vitalized; and thence the vital fluid is carried to all parts of the body. Such is the process by which the aliment is assimilated to, and incorporated with, the various tissues or parts of the human body; and by which the health, growth, and vigor of the system are promoted and maintained. And such, we regard, as the archetype of a similar process, carried on in the spiritual, or inner man.
The mind is the great organ of apprehension. It may be said to perform functions similar to half the organs of the outward roan. Figuratively speaking, we may say that it completes the first stage in the process of spiritual digestion. Spiritual ideas compose the pabulum vitae--the spiritual aliment of the inner man.
The mind receives them, and the understanding operates upon them. They are revolved in the mind; examined, compared, analysed. They are thence conveyed to the conscience, the seat of moral sensation; and to the heart, the seat of the moral affections. The spiritual aliment being thus received, digested, assimilated to, and incorporated with, the spiritual nature of the inner man, health and vigor are produced throughout the whole moral system. His spiritual sensibilities are delicate and active. His moral discriminations are acute and clear, and they evince a conscience sensitive and healthy. His moral health is manifest in the approval and high relish for whatever accords with the laws of the moral economy. He perceives what is right and wrong: never confounds them. He chooses the good, and refuses the evil. He loves whatever is holy, just, and good, because they are in accordance with the healthy operations of his conscience and affections. He hates and fears evil, because its nature is to injure his spiritual health, and to endanger his life. As he desires to be holy and happy, he loves supremely the Author of holiness and happiness. He loves Him, because. when he was sick, nigh unto death, he healed him of a mortal malady. As he loves health and life, he loves the great Physician who restored him. His love is evinced by conforming to the spiritual regimen and exercise of his Physician. His gratitude often obliges him to speak of the great benevolence of the Physician, who so graciously healed him of all his diseases, and who bestowed upon him so incalculable a treasure as the little Directory, which he always carries about his person, and which he calls, "A guide to spiritual health and long life." His spiritual sensibilities admonish him, that his health depends upon a daily compliance with
SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY. 75
the preceptive directions of his little Directory. He feels the need of it, while breathing the impure moral atmosphere that surrounds him. His endeavor to counteract its chilling and hurtful influence is mostly successful. He feels its tendency to be to impair his spiritual sensibility; but he eats freely of his spiritual aliment, and is warmed and strengthened thereby. And thus he maintains that harmonious action of all parts of the system, as manifested in the sobriety, temperance, righteousness, and piety of his life. Such is the hasty and imperfect sketch of the digestive process of the inner man, in connection with some of its outward manifestations, with which, for the present, we must dismiss this part of the subject.
From the sketch now given, it will be seen that, whatever prevents, or interferes with, a proper supply of spiritual nutriment, must predispose to spiritual dyspepsy. We might enumerate some. of them, as causes predisposing: 1st. Occupations that engage so much of our time and thoughts as to leave but little time for partaking of our spiritual repast, with proper rumination and social conversation. 2d. Often negotiating with men on secular affairs, without any reference to the spiritual maladies of these persons. 3d. Having the thoughts much occupied with laws and regulations that take cognizance of, and have respect to, the outward actions and temporal condition of men in a social or national capacity, which constitute the politics of a community. These causes mostly impair the appetite, unless where the digestive powers are strong and healthy, when the mind may so comprehend and assimilate them as to convert them into spiritual nutriment. 4th. Pursuits of life that are of questionable morality, or of doubtful reputation. 5th. The fear of man and the love of popularity, both of which, when inordinate, bring a snare. 6th--Conformity to a fashionable style of life, which endangers spiritual health, especially the healthful manifestations of humbleness of mind and singleness of heart. Their tendency is always to injure the appetite, and diminish the relish for spiritual food, and also to dim the spiritual vision of the inner man, so as not to see distinctly the things that are afar off. A. W. C.
POWER will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough, to be entrusted with unlimited power; for, whatever qualifications he may have evinced to entitle him to the possession of so dangerous a privilege, yet, when possessed, others can no longer answer for him, because he can no longer answer for himself.
76 TOUR OF FORTY DAYS.
TOUR OF FORTY DAYS
IN THE STATES OF OHIO, KENTUCKY, AND INDIANA,
NUMBER II.
AFTER our return to Indianapolis, the next day was spent in making visits to our brethren and friends in the city and its environs. We felt as returning home to the bosom of old acquaintances, having, during our sojourn there, enjoyed, as touch as we could, the hospitalities of the brotherhood and citizens: amongst whom, we must name his Excellency, Gov. Wright, Mr. Duncan, Elder J. B. New--whose brother, Elder Hickman New, met me at Madison, and accompanied me to Columbus--Butler, Taylor, Sulgrove, Weir, and their families.
Our meeting with the church, on Lord's day evening previous to our departure for Bloomington, was one of the most interesting and edifying meetings which I enjoyed during my whole tour. The order and manlier of reading the Sacred Scriptures by several brethren, intermingled with prayers and exhortations, together with the all-pervading solemnity and beautiful order of attending upon the Lord's Supper, and the peculiar appositeness to the occasion of all that was read, said, and done, were at least equal to any thing of the kind that I have met with for a long time.
The meeting-house is antiquated and inconvenient, like ours at Bethany; but the brethren and citizens are determined to improve it, by building a new one, in a more central part of the city and population. Should the new house be in good keeping with this infant city in neatness, large dimensions, and good taste, it will be no common affair.
Indianapolis is one of the most convenient and beautiful infant cities in the west. Congress voted four sections of land as a permanent seat of government, in one of the most convenient and suitable places in the State, being central, and surrounded with one of the finest countries in the world. These four sections, or four square miles, containing 2,560 acres, and forming a perfect square, affords streets two miles long, which are judiciously and tastefully laid off one hundred feet wide, intersecting each other at right- angles, with four diagonals, terminating at the centre of the city. The lots are corresponding in size; and the good sense and taste of the citizens have filled the city with trees and ornamental shrubbery, equally contributing to its salubrity and beauty.
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The public buildings are convenient, capacious, and durable, but not elegant in their external proportions, nor in their architectural finish. The capitol is too deeply embedded in the soil, and rather resembles a hooded Friary than a political state-house. The Governor's house, unfurnished, is no palace, and too expensive to be tenantable by a Plebean Governor; and is, therefore, better employed as a house of records and an ornament to the public grounds.
The State Library and Museum, at which I glanced in passing, are highly respectable for a new and infant State, being already better furnished than some of its surrounding sister States of an older date.
Upon the whole, this great infant centre of all the great railroad thoroughfares in the Valley of the Mississippi, surrounded, as it is, with the richest soil, watered with the limpid streams of White River, equally the centre of the interior commerce, as of all political attraction and radiation, is destined to be no inconsiderable city in the great confederation of States, and cities, and capitals, and people, and languages--elements of a nation of nations, an empire of empires, alike the hope and the wonder of the world, as well as an object of the jealousy and fear of all the despotisms and tyrannies of earth.
But the moral tone of its citizens, associated with their industry and energy of character, cannot fail, we think, to give to Indiana. polls a conspicuity and influence second to no other State capital at the same distance from the sea, in all the valley watered and washed with the tributaries of the great Mississippi.
On the next evening after our return to the city, we addressed a very large and deeply interested audience in the Wesleyan Chapel, the largest meeting-house in the city, very courteously tendered to us by its owners. But of this discourse I do not remember so much as I do of a very interesting discourse which I had the pleasure to hear from Bro. Bacon, in our church at Indianapolis, on the eve of my leaving for Bloomington. He gave us, on that occasion, a very argumentative discourse on the celebrated case of Jacob and Esau, in which he made a very strong effort to free it from the extremes of Calvinism and Arminianism. It was one of the best efforts, on that subject, that I have heard, yet, still Jacob remained Jacob, and Esau continued Esau; and the purpose of God concerning them has not yet changed, for the elder still serves the younger, and still God prefers faith to flesh, and spirit to letter, and those who serve in newness of spirit, to those who servo in the oldness of the letter.
Having spent. a very pleasant evening, before meeting, with a
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 7*
78 TOUR OF FORTY DAYS.
large company of brethren assembled at Bro. Butler's, next morning, (November 20th,) we moved at an early hour from Bro. Jameson's to the Station, accompanied by our kind host and other friends, to whom, with mingled emotion, we gave the parting hand, and, in a few moments, were in the steam chariots, on our way to Rushville, via Edinburg. Soon as we arrived at Rushville, we were carried by Bro. Flinn to his residence, where we found -ourselves immediately at home, in the enjoyment of Christian hospitality. There is no passport, no sign manual, that opens the heart like faith in Christ, and the sentiment of a spiritual brotherhood, under a divine paternity, enduring as eternity.
We had no appointment for the evening, and anticipated a social requiem around the Christian hearth. But no! The lawyers, and the doctors, and the merchants, wished for a lecture, on the principle of pure gallantry On the next Lord's day, they affirmed the conviction, that they could not hear, for the ladies would fill the house, and they, of course, would give place to them; and unless I could address them that evening, they must be wholly disappointed. Although broken down, and mentally and physically disqualified, the appeal was irresistible, and, in some hour after, the meeting-house
as comfortably filled with gentlemen, and a few ladies; to whom we spoke for some hour and a hail on the genius and character of the fifth monarchy.
Next morning, accompanied by Bro. George Campbell, Bro. Goodwin, from Madison, and Bro. 0. Kane, of Connersville, we set out for Fairview, distant eleven miles. When arrived, it was with difficulty we got nigh the door, and, with still greater effort, that we got into the house at all. We addressed, in the house and through the windows, a very attentive auditor?, which, notwithstanding the coldness of the day, gave their attention to the last word. The subject of this address was Christ, the Oracle of Cod; through whom, alone, Jehovah reveals his will to roan. Here we first met with our much esteemed and much beloved Bro. Hoshour, whose praise is in all the churches of Indiana. Bro. Hoshour is one of our best educated teachers in the west. A classmate, if I mistake not, with Rev. Dr. Kurtz, of Baltimore; in the Lutheran Theological School, and well read in German and general literature, he deservedly holds a very high place in the esteem of the whole community, and in the affection of all the brethren who know him. His labors are, as I am informed, at all times, and in all places, highly acceptable. While at Fairview, we enjoyed the Christian hospitalities of Bro. George Campbell, Bro. Thresher, and Sister Clifford. This is the seat of
TOUR OF FORTY DAYS. 79
the Fairview Academy, now occupied by Bros. Geo. Campbell and A. R. Benton, a graduate of Bethany College, of high reputation here for his scholarship, and gentlemanly and Christian deportment. After the discourse, the school was assembled in the Academy, a very neat and tasteful building, we attended a very satisfactory recitation in mathematics, grammar, and some of the facts and arguments in natural theology. We propounded a few questions, which were correctly answered with much-promptitude; and from all the evidence before us, as well as from the talents and moral worth of the brethren who teach and manage this institution, we cannot but anticipate much advantage from it to the State, and to the great cause of literature, religion, and morality. Bro. Goodwin, of Madison, delivered in the meeting-house, that same evening, an excellent practical discourse.
From Fairview, next morning, we hastened to Connersville, some thirteen miles distant, the residence, at that time, of Bro. O. Kane. Here we had one of the most pleasant houses we addressed in the State. A spacious meeting-house, well lighted, well heated, and well filled, all seated, and all attentive. After our discourse on some of the fundamental principles of the Kingdom of Heaven, Bro. O. Kane's family being sick, we dined at Bro. Scofield's, and thence hastened on to Bro. E. Frazee's, at Fayetteville, near Flat Rock, where we spoke on the next day.
Bro. Frazee lives on one of the finest sections of land I saw in the State. There yet stand some of the most stately black walnut trees I have seen. Some that had been felled near his residence, measured some seven feet diameter, and rose to the height of fifty or sixty feet without a branch. But, indeed, all round Flat Rock meeting-house, and through Rush county generally, the land is exuberantly rich and productive, lying almost too well, yet well watered, and adapted to all sorts of grain.
While there, we enjoyed the hospitality of Bro. Frazee, Sister Robinson, and Bro. Reeves. At Flat Rock we had a fine hearing, a very pleasant visit, formed divers very agreeable and interesting acquaintances, and on Lord's day morning returned to Rushville, to spend the day with the citizens of this rich, populous, and, (if hospitality were not commensurate with all of the State that I have visited, I should add,) this hospitable county. In its population, Rush county is rich and flourishing--a cion from Mason county, Kentucky. Its produce this year is immense. The railroad which terminates here (pro tempore) was not able, in its daily operations at that sea-
80 TOUR OF FORTY DAYS.
son, to carry off the enormous amount of produce daily arriving at this great centre of breadstuffs.
On our return to Rushville, on Lord's day morning, we had, as before intimated, an immense gathering of the people. Only a portion of them could get within hearing. We spoke in the Methodist meeting-house. The new and spacious house now erecting by our brethren, not being finished, we were hospitably and courteously invited to the denominational houses in the place.
For convenience to the citizens, a meeting was held at night, in the court-house--a very large edifice--where Bro. Geo. Campbell and myself addressed a very large and attentive audience, for some hour and a half. Bro. George Campbell is a true Boanerges--a real son of thunder. His arguments are pointed, strong, convincing, and, withal, persuasive; and his voice, when animated, wild, methinks would almost shake the cedars of Lebanon. I have scarcely ever heard a more powerful exhortation than that delivered by him in the court-house in Rushville.
Early next morning, conducted by Bro. Pond, of Metamora, a zealous and indefatigable brother, we set out, in his carriage, for the place of his residence, and arrived there in due time to attend a quarterly meeting in progress, conducted by the Methodist society. Soon as I entered the house, the Methodist brother gave way; and in five minutes after my arrival, I found myself in his pulpit, with a mixed auditory around me. We spoke to the congregation for an hour or mere, on Christian union on Christian principles, on the broad, deep, and comprehensive facts and principles of Bible Christianity. We had the cordial amen and the "God speed" of our good Methodist elder.
After dining with Bro. Pond and family, we hastened on to Brookville, some ten or twelve miles distant. And there, too, the same evening, we held a meeting in the large and commodious Methodist Chapel, and addressed, to a late hour in the evening, a very prepossessing and attentive congregation, containing almost all the citizens of this flourishing village. We drank tea with Mr. Pond and his amiable consort, the daughter of Bro. Hoshour, of Cambridge, and hastened off to meeting, and enjoyed the kind hospitality of the Rev. Mr. Potter and his accomplished lady, during the night.
Mt. Potter is the pastor of the Presbyterian church of Brookville, a graduate of Princeton, and a gentleman of catholic and liberal views. We enjoyed his company very much; and, after an early
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breakfast, we hastened off to Harrison, our last appointment in Indiana.
This flourishing town is part in Indiana and part in Ohio. Our congregation was large, attentive, and deeply interested in the great theme before us. The development of the Christian institution, in its grand rudimental elements and bearings on heaven and earth, on time and eternity.
After partaking of the Christian hospitalities of Sister Leonard, and forming rather an introductory acquaintance with Elder Sadler, and other brethren of that vicinity, we were constrained to give the parting hand, and take our seat in an Omnibus, for Cincinnati, distant some twenty-two miles. We safely arrived, at 7 o'clock, in Cincinnati, and, in a few minutes, found ourselves at the place of starting, comfortably seated around the social hearth of Brother and Sister Ray.
Next morning (November 27th) we sailed from Cincinnati on board the Buckeye State, and, on the evening of the 29th, safely arrived at home, after an absence of forty clays, and an excursion of 1600 miles.
Our tour was exceedingly agreeable; weather generally fair and beautiful; roads every where dry and smooth; our health and spirits good; our labors arduous, not merely in public speaking, but in conversations and discussions around the hearth, around the table, along the way, and, sometimes, after we had retired to repose.
The ears of the people are greedy; and were the desire to do equal to the desire to know, we would certainly be the most exemplary people in the world.
The State of Indiana, if we may judge from the extent and quality of its territory; its various and numerous resources; the industry, morality, and enterprize of its citizens; its position for trade by the river, and the many railroads that are destined to pass through it in all directions, must, as we reason, in some half a century, be the second, or at least the third, State in the Union, for population and wealth, and all the elements of secular greatness and glory. This' however, is but a small matter, compared with her great and enduring interests.
Our Indiana brethren have much in their power. They are second only to the Methodists in number, wealth, and influence; and with the good and plain cause they have to argue, ought certainly, in a few years, to possess the largest moral and evangelical influence of any people in the State. The staple is, indeed, good. They are intelligent, liberal, hospitable, and remunerate their effective minis-
82 CAMPBELLISM.
try with commendable zeal and liberality. They would not allow me to be at any expense, from the day that I put my foot upon the s ail till the day I left it. I do not, generally, allow it to be so done to me; but in this case I was anticipated at every point, and could not have the privilege of bearing, either in whole or in part, my traveling expenses.
I do not speak thus, either because it was so done to me, or because I desired it to be so done, but because it ought to be so done in many cases where it is not, and because this fruit of Christian faith is most acceptable to the Lord and to all his people. Such sacrifices are, indeed, most honorable to the brotherhood, because most expressive of the estimate which they put upon the gospel itself, and upon those who devote their lives to its dissemination and success. They are, therefore, grateful to those who receive them, as a pledge of the estimate in which their labors are held, and of the love of the contributors to the character and cause of Him who laid down his life as a sacrifice for us. They are "an offering of a sweet savor, most acceptable to GA, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
And on as many as think and act so, let there be peace and mercy, and upon the Israel of God! A. C.
From the Watchman of the Prairies.
CAMPBELLISM.
IT is estimated that there are in the three States of Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, about eight thousand professed Christians, bearing the name of Campbellites, sometimes denominated Disciples or Reformers. These are chiefly in Southern Illinois and Southern Iowa. The States in which they have been most successful, have been Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, in the south, and the States of Ohio and Indiana, in the north. They have grown up within the past thirty years, and owe their existence to the peculiar views of Alexander Campbell, an Irishman by birth, but educated in Scotland a Presbyterian. While a young man and a Presbyterian minister, he came to this country and settled in Western Virginia, and married the daughter of a wealthy planter. He soon adopted the views of Baptists, on the mode of baptism, and united with them. More distinguished for his oratory, wit, and talent, than for his piety, he very soon acquired considerable celebrity, as a public speaker, by his debates, first with Pedobaptist clergymen, on baptism, and afterwards with Robert Dale Owen, on the subject of infidelity, and with Bishop Purcell, on Romanism.
The present system of Campbellism has been gradually developed from those of its author. At first, baptism was the great centre of his system, without which there could be no forgiveness, regeneration, or good hope of salvation. Soon the agency of the Holy Spirit in the conversion of sinners was discarded. All conversion and sanctification of the soul are efiected by
CAMPBELLISM. 83
the belief of the word, independent of the influence of the Divine Spirit. This agency being repudiated, the depravity of the human heart, as a natural consequence, at length began to be denied. The sovereignty of God, and the doctrine of the atonement, as necessary to the salvation of sinners, soon became very lightly esteemed. These doctrines being thus set aside, the personal distinction of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, declared in Scripture, has become to be regarded in the system very much as it is viewed by Unitarians. Discarding all articles of faith, and taking great pride in being liberal, the followers of this system present so great diversity that it would be difficult to tell what they do believe.
When these doctrines began to be broached, thirty years ago, the condition of the Baptists in the south and west presented a very fine field for a division in their ranks. In those quarters, Baptists were then leaning to the most rigid extreme of Calvinism. This fact gave him an opportunity to ridicule whatever he chose to make appear absurd, and thus gained the reputation of a theological reformer among a portion of Baptists. At the same time he ridiculed the benevolent efforts which were then beginning to be made among Baptists, such as the missionary effort, Sabbath schools, revivals, the ministry, pastors, theological schools, textual preaching, sermons, salaries; in short, every thing which has since been an efficient instrument in the advancement of Christianity, and the rejection of which has been a curse to his followers, or an obstacle to the success of his doctrines. In fact, his teachings and efforts were vastly better calculated to. demolish than to build up. He made a wreck of many a Baptist church, hat seldom succeeded in building a church of his own cast which has stood long and prospered. A large share of the opposition which Baptist have been subjected to in their efforts for the spread of Christianity at home and throughout the world, has arisen from the prejudices excited, or strengthened by the ridicule and satire which he has dealt out over the laud, through a long and industrious life.
Few persons have ever possessed more of the qualities of a religious demagogue than Alexander Campbell Eloquent in speech, adroit in argument, witty, ambitious, unscrupulous, and fond of public notoriety, he succeeded, under the most favorable circumstances, in acquiring a popularity which is given him considerable influence over the minds of many, some of them pious people. He published a monthly called the "Christian Baptist," in which he belabored the doctrines and efforts rejected by him above alluded to, with pungent satire, and all the strength which he could command. He traveled from State to State, and place to place, and every where charmed the multitude, and hurled among the flock words of discord and schism. He was a thorough going disorganizer, who delighted in the ruins, but has never had wisdom or power enough to reconstruct a permanent building on the old foundation.
Campbellism, as a system, lacks unity and coherence. It is devoid of that life which is from above. The charms of oratory alone can never melt hearts. Paul may plant, and Apollos may water, but God must give the increase. Without the agency of the Holy Spirit, the soul cannot be converted, nor can the hearts of Christians be melted together. Without this they will not he constrained to live and act as the followers, not of men, but of Christ. The practical influence of such a system will be sure to fail in accomplishing among men the objects contemplated by the gospel, the discipline of Christians and the salvation of the world. Such a system may make a noise and gain some adherents, but it is practically dead.
A "Watchman of the Prairies," it seems from the case before us, very much differs from a "Watchman of Zion." A watchman
84 FINISHED EDUCATION.
of Zion first sees a danger--a foe approaching--before he cries, "the thief or the wolf is coming;" but a Watchman of the Prairies first cries a wolf 'or an enemy is coming, before he knows whether it be a sheep or a wolf, a friend or an enemy!
Without note or comment, I give the above extract from the "Watchman of the Prairies" to my readers, to whom I need not say, that it is a gross libel on our views: false in its facts, wanton in its imputations, reckless of the reputation of its author for truth and candor outside of his own wigwam, and a sin against the age, not easily to be atoned for. I could refer him to many of the most orthodox clergy in the east and in the west, who have given a very different history of our views, and who admit that, in what they call "the essentials," we are just as orthodox as themselves.
I will send him this Harbinger, and, of course, if he responds, he will send me his "Watchman of the Prairies." I opine lie will not treat his readers as I do mine, by allowing them to hear both sides. We will, however, see how far his theory of religion influences his practice, and how much better is his assumed orthodoxy than my alledged heterodoxy, as respects the Golden Rule, of doing to others as he would wish them to do to him. I will only add, that we repudiate the obnoxious dogmata, which he imputes to us, as much as he can do; and yet condemn his theory, as a whole, as much as he affects to do ours. A. C.
FINISHED EDUCATION.
GIBBON truly says that the best and most important part of man's education, is that which he gives himself.
Many of our youth, of both sexes, feel that their education is finished when their school days are over. No idea can be so destructive to the progress of true improvement. Our education is never finished till we are in our graves. The discipline acquired in college or school, is given to us only that we may be better able afterwards to educate ourselves. We have only then crossed the threshhold of a course of improvement that must last us our lifetime. Such discipline is important; indeed, is absolutely essential to start us in the life-toil before us; but to suppose that it completes all that must be done for our intellectual or moral welfare, is absurd. The best part of man's education is, then, to come, and upon the manner in which each one uses for himself the arrangements made for him in his early life, will depend the character of his future. Much, too,
OUR NEW YEAR'S GIFT. 85
is said about man's mind having reached maturity, and that he needs no further discipline or education. A false idea, productive of much mischief to real mental improvement. There is no period in the history of the mind, in which it is incapable of any further progress, as long as the body retains its health. No man who has lived to the age of sixty, in the constant employment of his mental faculties, but sees that he is every day acquiring greater control over what he does know, and an accumulation of new ideas.
OUR NEW YEAR'S GIFT.
THE following discourse on the "Proper use of Time," is presented to our readers under circumstances which require some explanation. It was entirely extemporaneous, and unpremeditated by its author. The occasion, however, being so interesting, I concluded that, for my own gratification and improvement, I would take notes of what might be said. This was done without the consent or knowledge of the speaker. Though no Stenographer, much use of the pen has given me a rapid hand, and, long familiarity with the style of Mr. Campbell, sonic power to recall his exact phraseology. Thus I have been enabled, in the first place, to preserve a pretty correct sketch, or outline of the discourse, and afterwards to fill it oat and clothe it in such a manlier as to make it, at least, appear like the original. That some words may not have been recalled, or have not been replaced by others, I cannot pretend to deny; but I feel assured that no idea, essential to the development and enforcement of this subject, has been lost. Having thus secured it for myself, I thought it would not be an unacceptable New Year's Gift to our readers. It seems rather late to print it now, but it will be remembered that the January number of our paper was printed before the discourse was delivered, and we could not, therefore, offer it sooner. Such as it is, then, we present it, by permission of its real author, as Our New Year's Gift to the readers of the Harbinger. If it shall afford you, beloved friends, the pleasure it has given to me, and lead your hearts, as I trust it shall mine, to a wise use of time, I shall be more than repaid for the little labor I have been at in reproducing it. W. K. P.
THE PROPER USE OF TIME:
A SERMON BY A. CAMPBELL--DELIVERED ON 1ST JANUARY, 1851.
Lord, teach us so to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.--Psalm xc. 12.
WE did not announce, on last Lord's day, our intention to address you to-day. It did not then occur to us, that we should improve
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 8
86 OUR NEW YEAR'S GIFT.
the occasion of this important epoch, by a public address, appropriate to the occasion and suited to our circumstances. Since that time, however. we have been reminded of our custom, of devoting a part, at least, of the first day of each recurring year, to the solemn duty of considering our position with respect to time and eternity; of renewing our vows to God, and, by a wise retrospect of the past, to fortify our minds for the duties of the future. Still, we do not expect, nor feel prepared, to give you a formal discourse on the occasion, nor, by any premeditated order, to present to you a systematic arrangement of arguments or motives, bearing upon the solemn relations which the beginning of a new year might recal to our consideration; but, simply, to impress upon your minds, and my own, this deeply suggestive admonition and prayer contained in our text, and delivered by Moses or David to the God-fearing portion of Israel, solemnly calling upon them to dedicate all that they had and were, to Him to whom all belongs; for the heavens, and all their hosts, are his, and all the blessings which we enjoy, or hope for, are of his infinite mercy. We can ask nothing, claim nothing from him, as matter of right. This, even the angels cannot do, for, though their obedience is perfect, and their service always loyal and true, yet the very p01.1; e TS by which they are enabled to obey and serve, are the free and gracious endowment of God, and bring a fruition of joy, of bliss ineffable, in their very exercise, which makes that exercise itself a reason for gratitude towards God. So that He is debtor to none, but all to Him, who is the inexhaustible fountain of life and blessedness to the entire universe--to angels and to men. Therefore, we can never make him our debtor: "Who," says Paul, "bath first given to God, and it shall be recompensed to him again; for of him, and through him, and to him, are all things; to whom be glory forever."
God has given us time; but what is time I believe it is Dr. Franklin, who very sententitiously says, "Time is the stuff of which life is made." We should, therefore, take note of it. Its influences are, indeed, deeply and intimately blended with our very nature; we are conceived and fashioned in it; cast and moulded under its influences; and measure, and regulate, and order by it, all our actions. The past and the present are embosomed in it; wrapped up in its cycles and its years, and the very future is almost bounded by the narrow conception we have of time. Yet, after all, what is it? We are taught to measure it by other means than observations on itself--by calling into our aid the motions which take place in it, among the heavenly bodies above and around us;
OUR NEW YEAR'S GIFT. 87
but no one ever saw time move. It comes and goes, in its silent, restless, and rapid flight, unobserved, voiceless, ceaseless--stealing upon us, and by us, like youth and old age, giving us no warning, that with every breath we draw, and every pulse that vibrates, it is itself hastening into eternity, and carrying us, and all our busy concerns, along with it.
None of us ever ask, What is time? We do not lay it on the table and dissect it, to discover what are its elements, its parts; and hence, to most minds, the question is yet to be answered, What is time?" In one point of view, it is mere motion. Suppose God were to lay his hand on the mainspring of the universe, where would time be? If all these revolving spheres--this harmonious and unjarring motion by which we measure and record it--were stopped, what would there be left that we could call time? Eternity, and he that inhabits it, are beyond; but we can form no just conception of Him who inhabits eternity. Time has no relation to Him; for with Him, there is no succession. He inhabits eternity, and eternity has been defined to be "an always now." Time, then, succession, can have no relation to Him whose habitation may be declared to be an eternal now. Our conceptions on these subjects are most limited; time, both in its lapse and in its essence, eludes our powers, when we would grasp it, and we fall back upon our own weakness, competent to feel, yet impotent to escape from our ignorance. Still, whether we have right conceptions of time or not, of one thing we are assured: We are constantly under its influence, and our very thoughts are reduced to its motion. Some ancient philosophers contend that, if we had no other means of arriving at the notion of time, we could come at it by consciousness--the consciousness we have of succession in our ideas. But succession is, itself, a term cast in the conception of time. So far as the reality is concerned, it is simply motion--motion onward, to some great destiny or goal.
As is time, so is life--motion, progress onward, towards something in the future. When a child is born, we notice that its whole career is one series of developments--a progress from one stage to another--each for the one which succeeds it, but no one for itself. Trial after trial, experiment after experiment, is made, each to obtain something and something else; so that we are still laboring, never for the present, but always for the future--the acquisition of one period being employed to gain something else, yet ahead. This is the uniform, the invariable law of nature--of our nature--and we are, therefore, compelled to note the fact, that time is given to man, not for the present, but for the future--for a higher, and a higher
88 OUR NEW YEAR'S GIFT.
purpose still--rising and growing in its magnitude, to the noblest possible conception of exaltation and glory.
What, then, is this purpose--for what has time been given to man? Not for its own sake, demonstrably. It is carrying us onward, ever and always onward; but whither, as a vessel on, perhaps, a shoreless ocean, or, it may be, but a narrow sea, we must still inquire, What is the goal? Some think time was given us lo spend. The phrase is common, "We are spending our time very pleasantly--the hours are quickly and delightfully disposed of--and the foot of time falls lightly and noiselessly upon our pathway;" indeed, the consummation of practical philosophy, with some, is to be able to spend time pleasantly. But the Divine Philosopher teaches differently. Paul says, time should be redeemed, not spent. This is an invaluable lesson--an oracle fraught with the true philosophy of happiness, and in consonance with the high and noble destiny of man. It is drawn from a thorough insight into our entire relations, both to time and to eternity, and, therefore, claims a respect and attention commensurate with the interests involved in them both. Redeem lime, says Paul; but how? This is the question which every one should ask himself, and ponder well the answer.
A certain portion of time, it must be admitted, has to be given to the development and preservation of the body, for it is the case of instruments by which the mind acts--a bundle of tools, arranged with the most ingenious skill, and working with the most consummate art, yet only as instruments. As such, however, they must be kept in order, strengthened and sharpened. This is the great business of education. The education of the body, therefore, whether it have respect to morality, religion, or the intellect simply, is nothing more than the preparation of these instruments for the use of the mind. But what was time given for Not to riot in; not to laugh and trifle away; not to spend in feeding and pampering these mortal tenements; not that we might spend our days as a tale that is told, as the Psalmist says. No "Catch time by the foretop, he is bald behind," as one of our poets says. It will not linger for the idler nor the slothful; it is constantly rushing on, like a noiseless but mighty river, to the great ocean of eternity. Thither, it is bearing upon its broad bosom, all the generations of earth, and, as it disembogues in this vast and boundless ocean, so it points us to it for the answer to the question, Why was it given? Yes, it is here that it brings man to that glorious and vast destiny for which God has designed him: and what is that?: The moment we have shuffled off these mortal coils, divested ourselves, or been divested of these
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clayey tenements, which we must soon lay in the dust, we shall be launched into a boundless eternity--thrown upon the wide bosom of a universe which, for the variety, number, and magnitude of its creations, it bath not entered into the imagination to picture, which the power of numbers fails to tell; for it is in these that God, the almighty Architect, delights. He but develops these, in all the universe; so that, in the sublime study of creation, we every where discover these great ideas. Thus, the Psalmist speaks no less like a philosopher than a sage, when, enraptured in the contemplation of the universe, he exclaims:
"O Lord, how manifold are thy works!
In wisdom hast thou made them all; The earth is full of thy riches.
So is this great and wide sea,
Wherein are things creeping innumerable,
Both small and great beasts."
The question still recurs, What was time given for Not to pimp and pander to our appetites. A wise man once said, "0, sir, only consider the body as the servant of the soul, and so manage it as that it shall the better serve its master." This is sound doctrine. Man must restrain his animal desires; he must put a rein upon his passions; curb them up, and say to them as God says to the ocean, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and here let thy proud waves be staved." He is not to indulge them as the beast that perisheth--as the ox, fattening for the slaughter. This is the oracle of philosophy; better still, it is the oracle of religion.
Time, then, is given to us to enable us to prepare for eternity; to train and discipline our spirits for the high and noble destiny which God would have us to enjoy, in his presence, forever. But how few of us seem to realize this truth! It is not Epicureans alone, who regard the sole use of time to be for the enjoyment of this earthly life. The philosophers of this school find those who agree, practically, with them, even among Christians- Many there are, who, though they wear the name of Christ, nevertheless, act as if the only end for which time is given, and their earthly existence prolonged, were to feed and gratify the carnal desires of our nature. With them, the man who has the most of those means by which these desires may be gratified, is the truly rich and great man. Though, in every thing which constitutes true nobility--a high and lofty moral nature, and the divine elements of Christian character-- one may be as destitute as a savage, yet, if he have what the world calls wealth; that is to say, an abundance of the means which minister to the flesh and the pride of life, he is regarded as great and
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90 OUR NEW YEAR'S GIFT.
rich. But how mistaken is this estimate! In the sight of God, and of him whose mind has been enlightened by the light which cometh from above, he may be but a pigmy; who, in the eye of the world, seems a Goliah of Gath--a worm, a wretch, poor, and blind, and miserable, and naked--instead of the great, and rich, and favored child of fortune, a blinded and deluded world regards him.
Now, suppose for a moment, that a man spends his life simply in living; that he eat, and drink, and dance, and die, and go to ruin-- sink into the grave, and sleep forever; or, worse, rot, and be lost in combination of other forms--what is the use of all this order of the universe--the philosophy of all this progress and decay, recurring in endless rounds of succession? What has the great Architect gained by it? Crop after crop springeth up, and is cast down by the frosts of winter, or moulders under the hand of revolving years; generation follows generation, and the places which know us to-day, will then know us no more forever. Where are the cedars of Lebanon? and Leviathan, monarch of the deep--where is he? and all the myriad myriads of tenants of the earth--where are they now? and what has God gained by the life and living of them all? I would leave you to pause upon these questions, my fellow-citizens, and, in connection with them, consecrate an hour to the consideration and answer of the question, Why has time been given to man?
I answer, it was given to him in subordination to the development of that destiny to which God designs and proposes to exalt him; for the purpose of raising him to honor and glory forever; to fit and enable him to honor God and enjoy himself eternally; to prepare him, in short, to enjoy God himself. This is a phrase we do not sufficiently understand. I am persuaded many of us have but a very inadequate conception of the sublime significance of these simple words--enjoy God. We speak of enjoying the bounties of the earth; we say we enjoy a good harvest, good health, &c. We speak, too, of enjoying the Bible, but is this enjoying God? These are, it is true, gifts of God, and, to a grateful heart, who acknowledges them as his gifts, graciously conferred, they may be the occasions of joy in God; yet the question remains, What is the meaning of the phrase, "enjoy God?" "In thy presence," says the Psalmist, "there is fullness of joy; and at thy right hand, there are pleasures forevermore." Now, to enjoy God, is to know him as he is; to love him, as he is altogether lovely; and to obey him, as the great proprietor and ruler of the universe: to attain to something like a comprehensive knowledge of his glorious, eternal, and immutable attributes; to appreciate, admire, and love him, for his infinite
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beauty and perfect loveliness, and to feel our hearts subdued, by a sympathy divine, into a harmonious agreement and concord with his will, till our obedience shall be not from a sense of duty; not because of a written law; but the spontaneous outburst of a desire to please him, and to be like him; an expression, in fact, of our own highest pleasure, because of the perfect responsive sympathy between our every emotion and his holy and adorable will. This is to enjoy God. But in enjoying God, we participate in all that is his; and thus, the universe, and all the high and holy beings of the universe, shall be ours to enjoy. When there are many heirs to an earthly estate, the portion to each one is lessened; but it is not so with the inheritance beyond the Jordan. There, the heirs themselves will be a part of the possession to be enjoyed by each and, the more numerous the multitude, the wider and fuller the sphere of enjoyment. There are great spirits to enjoy; such as Gabriel, Uriel, or he whom our poets call Raphael. What a rapture it would be, to sit for a few centuries and listen to the heavenly eloquence of one of these lofty, pure, and holy beings, discoursing of the time when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy! Nothing is more delightful, than to sit at the feet of sages, and listen to their lessons of wisdom. Men will travel round the earth, sometimes, to enjoy the presence and converse of one such. But here, we shall meet with all the great of all time; yea, it may be, with those who burned in the presence of Jehovah, before time itself was born.
Now, the end of time is to lead us to this grand development. All time is, indeed, but the preface to the great volumes of man's glorious, and eternal destiny. Its mighty events, its wonderful revolutions, all its countless tomes of history, point us to something future; to a destiny higher and nobler than time can confer, upon which we are to enter, when time itself shall be no more. In the law and in the gospel we have both the way prepared, and the end pointed out and made accessible. Both point to something not in themselves, and teach us that the true use of time is to fit and prepare us for that future good--that joy and happiness prospective-- which they invite us to labor for. And in any other view, must not every reflecting mind ask itself, What is man's life worth, if he have no destiny higher than that of earth; no prospect more cheering, than that of living a few uncertain days of sorrow and toil here, and then to perish, as the pitcher at the fountain broken, or to vanish, like that vapor, which the sun no sooner makes visible, than it melts and dissipates forever I Yet how few of us live as though we appre-
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ciated the true use of time! Truly do we need to pray, "Lord, so teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."
With respect to the subdivisions of time, I have only to remark, that we have various epochs of time given and arranged for convenience, as well as for instruction and enjoyment--millenniums, centuries, decades, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. Some of these are natural, and some are supernatural, and, in both, the arrangement is simple and beautiful. God makes the year, the month, and the day, by the periodic motions of certain of the heavenly bodies, and these are, therefore, natural. The year is measured off by the motion of the earth in its orbit, and is the period of one complete revolution of our sphere in its career around the sun. The month is determined by a similar periodic motion of the moon around the earth--her controlling centre; and the day, by the revolution of the earth upon its own axis, once every twenty- four hours, by which we and all its tenantry are, imperceptibly, whirled through space, at a velocity of one thousand miles per hour. All these are subdivisions, dependent upon operations or motions taking place according to uniform laws, and are, therefore, properly designated as natural divisions of time. But whilst we see the physical causes of these, we discover that God has other divisions of time, which are not marked by any natural phenomenon, but which He has pleased to ordain for religious purposes. Nature discloses no reason for these. The philosopher searches in vain for their explanation in nature. He may scale the universe, and he cannot find, in all the arena of its vast and sublime motions and laws, any thing which he can lay as the foundation of the week. Man never invented it; it is the period of the creation--a period of God's own appointment. Moses, in his sublime cosmogony, discloses to us the mystery of its institution. "By the seventh day," says he, "God had completed his works which he had made; and he ceased, on the seventh day, from all his works which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that on it he had ceased from all his works which he had created and made." Thus, we discover, that it records and commemorates operations anterior to the creation of man, and, therefore, beyond the reach of his observation and memory. But, whilst this is the wonderful Origin of this subdivision; whilst it points us back to the beginning of creation, it may be designed to symbolically represent its duration also. A day, with God, is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, and, therefore, the six days of operation in creation, may represent
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six thousand years of operation in duration. There is an ancient tradition among the Jewish Rabbis of this kind, and it is a very generally received opinion among the most learned expounders of the Bible. It has, at least, the sanction of analogy, and I, therefore, myself, concur in thinking it highly probable that there is, in this division of time, a mystical significance as to the duration of the present order of things, with respect to man and his present habitation--the earth. The idea is beautiful, and suggests many important and valuable reflections. We are, according to this view, living in the evening of the sixth day--the Friday evening of the week of time--and, therefore, approaching the winding up of its great drama. Many things seem to indicate that this is the fact, but I only state it here as a strong probability.
Fifty-two weeks make a year; but besides this division of time, God has made the first of every thing sacred. Let me impress this important and significant "fact upon your attention. God created light, the first born or the material creation, and made it the symbol of that life and immortality which were brought to light by the gospel. He has claimed a peculiar right over the first born, and granted to them special and peculiar honors and privileges; and, when he separated from the nations of the earth the Jewish people, in order to make a volume of types, whereby to picture forth the glorious developments of his benevolence to be made under the gospel, he took to himself the first born of every thing--of man, of beast, and of the fruits of the field. All the arrangements of the Jewish institution seem to have been made upon this plan. Their year of release was a Sabbatical year, and their consecrated symbols were of the first born. Thus God, through all the dispensations of his providence, points us to a day of deliverance and rest, and to the advent into our world of him who is the first born of the whole creation; and now, in harmony with the whole drama of time, and in fulfilment of these ancient symbols, he has made the first day of the week sacred to the first born from the dead. It becomes us, therefore, though not tied down to the rigid forms of the law, to consecrate it to him; to make it a day of solemn rejoicing, and of grateful recollection of, and devotion to, him, who has made it ever memorable by his resurrection from the dead, and hallowed it as the epoch of that new creation of which he is the author, and which shall never pass away. The earth shall be burned up; the elements being on fire, shall melt with fervent heat; and these lofty heavens shall be rolled up as a scroll, and, with a great noise, pass away; but on their ruins, this new creation shall rise, beautiful as the morning, and eternal as
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the days of God. This is the glorious consummation for which time has been given, and to enjoy this new creation, the high and sublime destiny of man. But who can realize it What created power can comprehend a destiny so vast? Truly it is said, "Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, what God hath prepared for those that love him." 'Who, then, would not be a Christian!
In view of all these considerations, I would impress upon your attention how important it is to take note of time, to watch its progress, and take care that it be not squandered and trifled away, to the neglect of those high ends for which it has been given. No matter what may be our aim, it cannot be successfully pursued unless we husband our time, and improve each fleeting moment to the best advantage. I never knew a great man that was not penurious of time; who did not count the ebbing sands in his glass, and ask himself, every time he turned it up, 'What- have I done in the hour that is past? What progress have I made towards attaining the high ends for which I labor Unless you mean, by a great man, a great prodigal--a mere wanton--who revels in the sports of imagination, and wastes his time upon the frivolities of a sickly fancy; who lives and riots in the dissipations of passion and appetite, and expends his powers upon trifles light as air, and often as noxious as the poisonous vapor which exhales from a putrid bog; unless you call him great, then do I say, that no man ever rose to true greatness who did not systematize his labors, and improve, with scrupulous watchfulness, every passing hour. The idea is beautifully alluded to in the sacred style. Whenever any important work is to be done-- any great and solemn duty to be performed--we read that such an one "rose up early in the morning;" not to waste the day in worthless frivolities, but to devote it to some high purpose of duty; not to play the buffoon, but to act the man.
The rule applies alike to temporal and to spiritual relations. All thrifty merchants cast up their accounts once a year, at least; and never knew a man to succeed in any thing, who did not keep note of his progress, mark down the labors and profits of each passing day, and keep his mind constantly informed as to the real state of his affairs. It is reported of Stephen Girard, that a minister of the gospel, who sought to awaken in him an interest in spiritual things, and to direct his attention to the solemn duty of preparing for death, once asked if he felt prepared to die? "O yes, sir," said he, "I am prepared to die every night. I have my books posted up every night, and all my affairs so arranged that I am always prepared to
OUR NEW YEAR'S GIFT. 95
die." Such was the highest conception that this devotee to avarice, and to the wealth of this world, had of a preparation for death. It shows us, however, his habits with respect to the economy of time, and gives us a key to the reason of his eminent success in the pursuit of wealth. We may spiritualize the example, and apply it to our moral and spiritual relations, with great profit. Let us have our spiritual relations posted every night, and we shall be thus ever ready to die; not simply to leave our temporal affairs in such a condition as to give our executors no trouble in settling up our estate, but ready to appear before the great tribunal of Him who judgeth righteously, to give an account of our stewardship; ready, in short, to ascend up to God; for this, as we learn from the style of the Apocalypse, is the true meaning of a Christian's dying. It is to be absent from the body, that we may be present with the Lord.
May I not, then, my young friends, ask you, What report have you of the year that is past? Nay, rather, I would have you to ask yourselves, each one his own conscience, "How would I like the story of my life, for the past year, to be made public--to be read out in the presence and in the hearing of the assembled universe 1" And, do not deceive yourselves, God will do it. All your most secret sins shall be made public, and the secrets of all hearts disclosed--laid bare before the gaze of angels and of men. How feel you prepared for this searching and important ordeal? Think not that time will be wanting. God will have time enough. Through the countless ages of eternity he will be reading out these stories, and we shall all hear them. We are now sowing the seeds of the harvest we shall then reap. As we scatter here, so shall we gather there. I call upon you all, therefore, and upon myself also, to inquire wherein we have alienated in thought, word, or deed, from the path of duty, to ourselves, to one another, to society, or to God. Let us, in the beginning of this new year, make the inquiry honestly, confess our faults, and ask forgiveness for the past, and mend our ways for the future.
It is important to begin this new year aright. I have thought it, in my earlier life, important to keep a diary--a daily record of my life--and I have found it of great value. It makes us penurious of time, by showing us how we waste it. It is easily done: a few minutes before retiring to bed, will suffice for all that the busiest of us shall find worth recording. Lay it by for seven years, and, like old wine, it will be the better for its age. It will teach us many a needed, many a useful lesson, concerning ourselves. Many a man lives out his days and never knows himself. When the prophet of
96 OUR NEW YEAR'S GIFT.
God told Hazael of the evil that he would do unto the children of Israel, he was indignant at the imputation. "What! is thy servant a dog, that lie should do this great thing I" The prophet's only response was, "The Lord hash showed me, that thou shalt be King over Syria." Hazael did not know his own heart, nor the power of circumstances to develop its latent cruelty. He spurned the very thought of such barbarities as Elisha imputed to him, yet he did them to the letter. And so, many a man never reads his own heart; he takes no note of his own history. He sees his neighbor, and scans, perhaps, with too severe an eye, the actions of his fellows; but lie does not see himself. He is too near himself; but he may learn to push himself off from himself, and thus make his own actions and life objects of contemplation, of examination, of criticism, of approbation or of censure, just as though he were regarding another person. For this purpose, one of the most important of the duties of life, I advise you to keep notes of the way in which you spend your time; say it will take one-fourth of an hour per diem, it w ill be time well spent, and you will find it fruitful of good in after years.
But, whether you follow my advice in this particular, affectionately and earnestly tendered as it is, at least let me persuade you to note well the commencement of this new year--to make it the occasion of a solemn examination of the past--that you may learn to apply your hearts unto wisdom for the future; that you may be led to a right apprehension of the true use of time, and feel that to live without the hope of the Christian, is to live in vain; to lose all for which time has been given, and to leave yourselves exposed to misery and torment forever. 0, it is a noble thing to be a Christian, and to make all the passions of our nature subordinate to reason, to conscience, and to the will of God! It will enable us to live happily and usefully, to die fearlessly and hopefully, and, in the life to come, secure to us the benediction, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
ADHERE rigidly and undeviatingly to the truth; but while you express what is true, express it in a pleasing manner. Truth is the picture; manner is the frame that displays it to advantage. "There is nothing," says Plato, "so delightful as the hearing or speaking of truth." For this reason, there is no conversation as agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive.
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FAMILY CULTURE.
CONVERSATIONS AT THE CARLTON HOUSE--No. XIII.
Olympas.--We shall first propound a few questions on the terminology of the seventh chapter of this epistle. There are a few forms of speech in this chapter, which have been somewhat perplexing to commentators. I will name a few of them: "Dead to the law by the body of Christ;" "free from the law;" "fruit to God;" "when we were in the flesh;" "fruit to death;" "newness of spirit;" "oldness of the letter." Would you, Bro. Clement, give us your understanding of these expressions?
Clement.--Most of these seem to me to arise from a figure, which the author of the epistle has introduced to explain himself. It is an allusion to the marriage covenant. The error of some commentators appears mainly to consist in converting this figure into a parable, and in making the parties in marriage correspond to the case iv ail the formalities of such a relation. A woman twice married, bearing issue to two successive husbands, is supposed to represent the Jews under Moses and under Christ--under the law and under the gospel--with all reference to an exact and rigid coincidence in all the particulars of such relationships. This is being exact over much. Hence, with them, Jews are the wife; the law, or Moses, is the husband, and sins the children. This is, indeed, childish over much, and unworthy of Paul as a sound thinker, and, much more, as an inspired apostle. Paul but alludes to the marriage relation, and does not institute such a broad parallelism as they imagine.
He addresses the Jewish brotherhood at Rome as conversant with the law, and with the relation which they had sustained to it. They had been under it, as a woman under her husband. While "in the flesh," or in their unconverted state, under that law, they brought forth fruit only to death. They did not, and could not, perfectly obey it, and, consequently, were condemned by it. But having espoused Christ, they ceased to be under its condemnatory power. He was now their husband, and, having bought them off from its curse, by his death, as a sin offering, they could not again fall under its condemnation. It was to them under the new covenant, in their new relation to Christ, as though it had been abolished. They now served God with a new heart, through the sacrifice of Christ, and not in the oldness of the letter. For while in their fallen and degenerate condition, their sinful passions tyrannized over them, and
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caused them to bring forth fruit to death, being now released from the curse of the law, they serve God from a new spirit; hence their fruit to holiness, and the end everlasting life.
But if the law thus worked condemnation to them under it, a question might arise, Is, then, the law sin? Nay, verily. It only develops and condemns sin. The inhibition of the law working on the fallen nature of man, rouses it into rebellion. So that, as Paul says, "Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived and slew me; for without the law, sin was dead," or inactive. "Where there is no law, there is no transgression;" but when a man feels that he is under its penalty, "sin revives, and he dies." It possesses the power of a living tyrant, and he becomes a prey to its unrelenting condemnation. "For if a man should keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." And what does this prove, but that "the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good?" But, Bro. Olympas, I seem to myself as though I had wandered from the question proposed.
Olympas.--Not at all, my good brother. You have only connected together, in one view, all these phrases, and made them explain, one another. Let me propound to the children here some of those phrases, and we shall soon see that you have made the subject plain. Susan, what do you understand by "the body of Christ," in this passage?
Susan.--His incarnation and sacrifice; or, rather, his humanity-- the body prepared for him to offer for us.
Olympas.--What, James, do you understand by the phrase, "dead to the law?"
James.--Not under the law, in its power to condemn, any more than is a dead citizen of Virginia under the laws of Virginia.
Olympas.--And what, Henry, is meant by being married to one rose from the dead?
Henry.-I suppose that Christians are said to be married to a living Lord, in his present spiritual state, and not in his fleshly state. as when he was upon the earth.
Olympas.--Very well said, Henry. Jesus was made a sin offering for us while on earth, and we could not, in any sense, be said to be married to him in that position; but now that he is risen from the dead, we are espoused to him as the living, reigning, triumphant Lord--having obtained deliverance from death for as--having magnified the holy law of God, released us from its penalty, taken us into a new union with himself, and freed us from the curse of the law, or the punishment of our sins. Neither the bridegroom nor the
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bride are now encumbered with debt, and we owe nothing but love to him, because he first loved us, died for us, rose for us, lives for us, and has betrothed us to himself. And what, Susan, means Paul by the "oldness of the letter?"
Susan.--The old law, as propounded on Sinai, written and engraven on stones, with its curses annexed.
Olympus.--And what, James, by "newness of spirit?"
James.--A new spirit; not of fear of penalty, but a spirit of love and gratitude.
Olympus.--And why, Henry, asks Paul, "Is the law sin, then?"
Henry.--I know not, unless freeing us from its penalty would seem to indicate that its curse was unrighteous, or uncalled for; which, I think, could not be entertained.
Olympus.--And how, Susan, does Paul respond to the question
Susan.--He not only denies the imputation; but affirms that sin was revealed by the law. The law, you once told us, was, in one sense, a revelation of sin, and the gospel a revelation of righteousness.
Olympas.--True. The purity of the law developed our impurity; its righteousness our unrighteousness; its holiness our unholiness; and its goodness our wickedness.
And why, Henry, are we delivered from so good a law? Henry.--We are only delivered from its curse, because we broke it and dishonored it.
Olympus.--Is it not, then, as dispensed by Jesus, a rule of life to us? I mean the law of ten commandments.
Henry.--I think you have taught us, not exactly in the letter of it, because you say the fourth commandment is not a rule of life to us, but the spirit of it, or the requirements of love being the fulfilling of its precepts. We are, in that sense, still under its requisitions.
Olympas.--You have, I perceive, not fully comprehended my exposition of it. "Love is," indeed, "the fulfilling of the law;" and all that pertains to that principle is re-enacted by Jesus Christ, but with new motives, and with stronger arguments, than the law contained. But now the precepts of the law are not given to us with the threatening of the annexed curse. "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all the things written in the law, to do them." Christ was made a curse for us, and died accursed on the cross. It is not given to us to bring us to heaven. Would you, Susan, repeat those beautiful lines from Dr. Watts, which I have so often commended to your attention?
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Susan.--"'Tis not the law of ten commands,
On holy Sinai given,
Or sent to man by Moses' hands,
Can bring us cafe to heaven.
'Tis not the blood that Aaron spilt,
Or smoke of sweetest smell,
Can buy a pardon for our guilt,
Or save our souls from hell.
Aaron, the priest, resigns his breath,
At God's immediate will,
And in the desert yields to death,
Upon the appointed hill.
And see, on Jordan's yonder side,
The Tribes of Israel stand,
While Moses bowed his head and dies,
Short of the promised land.
Israel rejoice! Now Joshua leads;
He'll bring your tribes to rest:
So far the Saviour's name exceeds
The ruler and the priest."
Olympas.--That is sound doctrine and good poetry. Joshua, or Jesus, and not Moses, gives to Christians the rule of life. Still, the law of love, or the sum of the ten precepts, is the supreme constitutional law of the realms of Messiah, our lawgiver and our judge.
"Without the law sin was dead." The law, then, gave life and power to sin to condemn. It never justified nor saved one sinner. It quickened sin and killed the sinner. Yes, says Paul, the commandment which was a rule of life, became death to every one under it; because, if once broken, it killed for ever. Still, "the law is holy," and "the commandment holy, just, and good." Now, the making of this good law death to those to whom it was given, is the best proof of its inadequacy to save any sinner. Sin, indeed, manifests itself in all its hideous deformity, in making that holy, just, and good law, death to every man that seeks pardon or life by keeping it; or, to quote Paul, "sin manifests itself an exceeding great sinner"--a most wicked and abominable thing--a monster of most hateful mien--" working death in us" by a law so reasonable, so beautiful, so holy, just and good. Sin is dead in every man ignorant of the requisitions of the divine law. Hence, says Paul of himself, "I was once alive without the law." He did not understand it. But when the commandment came, or when he understood the spirit and purport of the law, sin revived and he died. The precepts of the law, when brought to his conscience, condemned him to death. Even the sin of his nature, excited by the sentence and the spirit of the law, first deceived him and then slew him. Such were the
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workings of the law upon fallen humanity, in the person of Paul, before his conversion to Christ, and such will it always be in those who are not enlightened and sanctified by the gospel.
Susan will read the remainder of the chapter, which will shed still more light on this subject.
Susan.--"Has, then, that which is good become death to me?
By no means. But sin becomes death, in order that it might manifest itself, causing death to me by that which is good; so that sin, (through the commandment,) might be an exceedingly great sinner. Besides, we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I do not approve; since it is not what I desire that I do; but I do that which I hate. If, now, I do that which I do not desire, I consent to the law that it is good. But now it is no longer I myself who do this; but sin which dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is. in my flesh, there dwells no good thing; for to desire what is good, is easy for me; but to do it, I find difficult. For the good which I desire, that I do not; but the evil which I desire not, that I do. Now, if I do that which I do not desire, it is no longer I who do it; but sin, which dwells in Inc. I find, then, that it is a law to me, when desirous to do good, that evil is near me. For I take pleasure in the law of God, as to the inner man; but I perceive another law, in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and making me a captive to the law of sin, which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! Wherefore, then, indeed, I myself serve, with my mind, the law of God; but, with the flesh, the law of sin.
Olympas.--Our Bro. Aquila will please give us his views on this very interesting, and yet somewhat difficult, passage. The style, indeed, is plain, and the language intelligible; but you are aware that much debate and strife have occurred amongst Christian interpreters on this passage.
Aquila.--I am not well read in the controversy to which you allude; nor, indeed, in any one of the prominent questions on Paul's writings. I have read Paul himself, much more than I have read his expositors. The conclusion to which I have come, as to the meaning of this passage, is briefly this:
Paul states a question, and answers it by an illustration. The question is, "Has the law"--the good, the holy, and the just law of ten commandments--" become death to met" To which he responds, "By no means." But sin itself, under a law holy, just, and good, has become death to me; and thus it is manifested to be a most hideous and frightful thing, in killing me under a law which my understanding, my conscience, and my heart approve. It proves, then, by its divine spirituality and excellency, that I am carnal, worldly and sensual, as a man--sold under sin, or enslaved to it of which this is the proof--I approve the law, and yet transgress the law; for that which I do, I do not approve; but, on the contrary, I do that which I hate. It is not, indeed, my proper self, "but sin,
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 9*
102 CONVERSATIONS.
that dwells in me," that so works. I am assured that, in my flesh-that is, in my fallen and degraded nature, now under the control of animal and instinctive appetites and passions--there is nothing good. In my new heart--my present proper self--I easily desire to do good; but to do it, I find no easy task. For, notwithstanding my desire to do what is perfect, I cannot accomplish it; but the evil which I reprobate, that I involuntarily do. I find, then, a principle or law in me, insubordinate to my volitions; for I take pleasure in the law of God, as to my inner or spiritual man; but I perceive, that while thus willing, intending, and endeavoring to do what my heart approves, there is another principle, or bias, or law--I know not what to call it--in my animal members, and in the constitution of my passions, warring against this law of my mind, which approves and delights in the law of my God, enslaving me to this evil bent or law, which is in my members, and causing in me many a groan, and sigh, and agony, which I cannot express. So that I occasionally exclaim, "Wretch that I am, who shall deliver me from this body" and its tumultuous passions, sown with the seeds of all insubordination! Such are the thoughts and conclusions of my own mind on the passage, which I have read at least a hundred times.
Olympas.--And such, too, Bro. Aquila, after many a thought and inquiry on the whole premises, are mine.
Aquila.--Soon after my conversion, sundry treatises were put into my hand on this letter to the Romans, and dissertations, also, on the perfectability of human nature, on sinless perfection, on the essential elements of the new man in Christ, and the old man under a covenant of works. But amongst such learned Christian controversialists--so many Lutherans, and Calvinists, and Wesleyans--I could not decide. I was, indeed, for a time, much in favor of the Christian perfection doctrine, as set forth by Wesley, and Law, and Clarke; but on the presumption that Paul was as nearly perfect as any other Christian man, I laid them all aside, not very well pleased, indeed, with their attempts to explain away the chapter. I for a time read the other epistles, in order to understand them, and especially this one; and the result was, a full formed conviction that Paul teaches us that there is an "old man" and a "new man," flesh and spirit;" an inward and a perpetual warfare in every sane and well-informed Christian man, similar to that which Paul alledges in this passage, and because of which he exclaimed, "O wretched man that I am, Ns ho shall deliver me from this body of sin and death!"
Olympas.–-And such, substantially, is my conclusion of the whole
A KENTUCKY BAPTIST--THE BIBLE UNION. 103
matter. The flesh never gets any better; the old man is never killed while the body lives. Hence, the struggle will continue till the last breath, in the greatest saint that lives. Hence, to the latest moment of his life, the Christian must "fight the good fight of faith," "deny himself," "crucify" and "mortify" the flesh, with its affections and lusts. And the highest Christian perfection attainable in these mortal bodies, is to keep under the body; to restrain, with bit and bridle, its evil propensities; to put off the old man, which is corrupt, and to put on the new, which is renewed after the image of him that has created us unto good works, that we should walk in them.
I have still some farther questions to propound on this seventh chapter, but we must defer them for the present. A. C.
A KENTUCKY BAPTIST AND THE BIBLE UNION.
THERE never has been, I presume to say, any attempt at improvement or reformation, especially in religious institutions, doctrines, or practices, that has not had to encounter opposition and abuse on the part of the professed friends of these institutions, doctrines, and practices. It is, too, not unfrequently commenced under fictitious names, and sometimes under false pretences, with some show of candor and assumed zeal for truth and piety.
The Bible Union, and its grand object--an amended version of the Holy Scriptures--is subjected, as a matter of course, to the same ordeal. This may be, upon the whole, a great good. The enemies or opponents to all reformations have, under an all-wise and benevolent moral government, been, though unblessed themselves, great blessings to the human race. It is a monumental fact, that will speak to all eternity, that the sacrifice of Christ, by which a world has been redeemed, was the fruit of an orthodox and zealous defence of religious truth and divine ordinances, on the part of a very sanctimonious priesthood.
Protestantism, itself, as the word intimates, was an opposition to pretended sanctity, and a justifiable zeal for long venerated institutions. Baptists, too, owe their rapid progress, in the present century, to the bold assaults made on their tenets, under the guise of great zeal for true religion, divine covenants, and the "dear rights of dear infants" of believing parents.
104 A KENTUCKY BAPTIST--THE BIBLE UNION.
Every Protestant translation of the Scriptures since the Papal defection, has been got up in the face of violent opposition, and prosecuted through the fiery furnace of Papal hostility, arrogance, and infallibility.
We, too, known as the Disciples of Christ, have been made to grow and spread over Protestant Christendom, in less than an ordinary active life time, wherever our vernacular obtains, and that through the fiery ordeal of a long and fierce controversy, on great fundamental propositions.
And now, an improved version of the Word of Life, in our vernacular, and in the currency of the present day, is no sooner proposed, than the same spirit of opposition and contumely scowls, with portentous fury, on any one that will presume to meddle with the time- honored and consecrated errors of King James' Version and generation, although the book, so regarded, has been altered in many points, by whom, probably, not one of the opponents of this great undertaking can name.
I was called to take some interest in this movement, and have done so; and for this, I am now rudely assailed by a disguised and masked Kentucky Baptist, whose readings and mine, it seems, on some matters very remotely connected with the subject, have not been just the same; or, perhaps, my old recollections, and their recent readings, happen to be at isuse on some historical matters, that have as much to do with the contents of the New Testament, as the sheep skin and lettering on the cover has to do with the 119th Psalm or the ninth commandment. True, the Greek article has greatly interested this very learned and profound sciolist--nay, rather, grammarian; and that being the first part of speech, it was in good taste and style that he should commence with it. He has, indeed, given to Dr. Macknight and myself a very gratuitous lesson on I Co., xiv. 27, for which I must thank him, as the Doctor cannot at present, being on a visit to Paradise. But as we are before the public in our proper person, naked and unmasked, and as the "Kentucky Baptist" has very modestly concealed himself, we cannot, of course, approach him, not knowing whether he is in the lion's den, with the motto over its entrance, Nulla vesligia relrorsum; or, in a mouses nest, under the appropriate enigma, Allis curril in campis sine pedants suis. Let this very profound critic come out in his own real and proper personality, and we shall look at him, with all the respect and admiration due to his great genius and profound critical attainments.
I stand prepared to maintain my position on this great subject,
AMERICAN SLAVERY. 105
although I might have read off the tablet of my memory matters somewhat dim by years, and have placed St. Xavier among western, rather than amongst eastern Indians, which, I presume, the Kentucky Baptist may have read since 1845, or, perhaps, heard some Roman Priest descant upon it in Kentucky, in proof that Bishop Purcel was more profoundly read in popish saints than I was, or expect ever to be.
I have only to stipulate, that this Kentucky Baptist will, when unmasked, have some mercy, amidst his much learning; and so much justice, as to stipulate with some organ of the anti-Bible Union, east or west, that my responses shall go with his allegations against the Bible Union, and my position on that subject, as propounded in my address before that Union. I invite any gentleman of the denomination to assail my positions on that subject, and promise him page for page in my monthly, he guaranteeing column for column in some anti-Bible Union paper of respectability, in the east or in the west.
The anti-Bible Union party will, we hope, show that they are not afraid to maintain the position which they have assumed, and, in good fraternal feeling and Christian benevolence, stand up to the work which they have begun, until they see cause, if reasons good and satisfactory can be urged, why they should cooperate in the great work proposed. It is not to be put down by mere vaporing gasconade or ridicule; nor even by ecclesiastical dogmatism and authority, but by good and solid argument and proof. We respectfully request the Editors of the Baptist Banner to copy this article into their very popular journal--a favor which we will, at any time, cheerfully reciprocate. A. C.
OUR POSITION ON AMERICAN SLAVERY.
Brother Campbell: In last month's Harbinger I see a letter from our Bro. John Kirk. Permit me to say, that I regret its publication. I do so for two reasons: The first of which is, that the weakness of our excellent brother is exposed; and the second, that it will be quoted and referred to by the hotspurs of the south, as a fair exhibition of northern feeling.
From a long and intimate acquaintance with Bro. Kirk, I feel strongly attached to him, on account of his many estimable qualities. There are few better men. Like many other good men, however, he has permitted his humane and benevolent feelings to lead his judgment in all matters
106 AMERICAN SLAVERY.
connected with slavery. His eye is never, for one moment, lifted from the contemplation of the odious features of the institution--the breaking up of families and the whipping of women; so that his feelings have become wound up to a condition bordering on frenzy. With him, slavery is a sin-- an unmitigated sin--essentially and necessarily, under any and all circumstances, a sin. Hence the exceedingly harsh and severe character of his denunciations. He does not understand, and, indeed, it is almost impossible for a northern man to understand, the difficulties that surround the subject in the States where slavery exists. I do not pretend to understand more than a tythe of these difficulties myself; still, I know enough to be fully persuaded that Bro. Kirk's bitter and abusive language is not only unbecoming, but unsound. Slavery is a relation neither sinful or otherwise, in itself considered. Like all other relations, it has its peculiar duties and obligations, which, when faithfully discharged, relieves it from all moral objections. I cannot see any thing in the relation itself, necessarily incompatible with the purity of the Christian Religion; and feel no more difficulty in uniting, in all the acts of religious worship, with a slave-holder, than I would in uniting with my over-heated but excellent Bro. Kirk:
Slavery, be it good or bad, is not the voluntary choice of the present generation in the south. They inherit it, and all their established habits of thinking and acting, individually and socially--morally, politically, and religiously--are, more or less, identified with it. If its existence be sinful, they are not conscious of it, and are unlikely to be enlightened by calling them horse thieves and villains. If any change is to be accomplished, it must be brought by cooler heads and wiser ones, to say no more, than sit on the shoulders of some of our fierce Abolitionists of the Reserve. For my own part, I am satisfied to read Don Quixotte, without enacting it. I have no quarrel with any man, north or south, bond or free, slave-holder or abolitionist, who will keep the commandments of God. There is a day coming, when the secrets of all hearts will be revealed. Let us, therefore, forbear these hard speeches and proscriptive denunciations, and await, with meekness, the righteous judgment of God. I expect to meet many slave- holders in heaven, and slaves, too, and am preparing for it by meeting them here. I want to meet Bro. Kirk there, too. I hope, however, that, in the meantime, the Lord will teach him that he does not belong to that dispensation which called down fire from heaven, on those who differed from them, It would be a pity to have the quiet of Paradise disturbed by this "stand aside, I am holier than thou," sort of behavior. The Saviour has many "little ones," even in the south, of whom he is exceedingly tender, and it would be wise not to offend them. Zeal is good; but zeal at the expense of charity, will carry its possessor where I don't want to go. I dislike slavery; all my habits and associations are averse to it, and I firmly believe that it would be better for our country--our whole country--were we honorably and safely rid of it. But my sympathies are not all with the slave, for, in many instances, the master is the one oppressed. Neither am I willing to join in a wild, reckless, and fruitless crusade against my fellow-
AMERICAN SLAVERY. 107
citizens and fellow-christians, who have the misfortune, as I regard it, to be connected with the system. If kindness will do nothing, violence will do less.
I would say, then, to our brethren on the Reserve, of whom Bro. Kirk speaks--and I say it in all kindness--drop the style of Abby Kelly; adopt the style of our Master, and his illustrious servant Paul. Require no more from slave-holding brethren than Paul required. Be content to restrain your views of Christian character within the limits of the New Testament.
In the hope of eternal life, SAMUEL CHURCH.
I adopt, with much pleasure, the following eloquent passage from the conclusion of the late annual message of Gov. Wright, of Indiana, presented to the State Legislature at the present session, as fully expressive of my views on the subject of our proper position as patriots, philanthropists and Christians, at the present crisis. A. C.
"Above all, Indiana recognizes the imperative duty, by every good citizen, of obedience to the laws of the land.
"Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the late compromise measures enacted by Congress; however ultra men in the north or in the south may oppose or denounce them, there is but one course of action for the true patriots to pursue; and that is, unhesitatingly and in good faith to carry out their enactments.
"There is no safety for property, for liberty, nor for life, except in the absolute supremacy of the law. There is no higher duty of the citizen than to maintain, by word and deed, that supremacy. As we value the heritage, Hell beyond all price, purchased not with silver or gold, but with the life's blood of the good and the brave--that heritage bequeathed to us by our fathers, and which we, in turn, must bequeath inviolate to our descendants--let us bear in mind the great truth, that the first public act of disobedience to law is the first fatal step on the downward road to anarchy.
"The constitution of this great confederacy, written on parchment, may be rent assunder, if it be not written also on the hearts and affections of the people. It is written on ours. We love, we respect it. we give it our highest sanction, alike for the sake of the sacred principles, guardian of human liberty, embodied in its provisions, as for the unnumbered blessings we have enjoyed under its rule, and in memory of that band of great and good men who conceived and established it. This truth should be understood by our people, that this Union cannot be preserved by force If it could, it would not be worth preserving. The bonds and ligaments that bind us together are moral, and not physical. Our glorious Union is one of consent, and not of force. It is a Union of confidence, of trust, of love, and of affection. When these are gone, the Union loses all its attraction and value.
"At no hour of our history have we required, more than at present, an infusion into our councils of that spirit in which the articles of our confederacy were first conceived. As representatives, as citizens of Indiana, as citizens of the United States, we have difficult, delicate, important duties to perform. Foremost amongst these is the obligation to oppose, by every lawful means, that spirit of factious fanaticism, alike suicidal wherever it
108 THE LAST CENTURY.
has birth, which insidiously assumes the garb in one section of philanthropy, in another of State rights. By speech, by action, by concession, by forbearance, by compromise, by the influence of moral suasion, and the strong power of kindness--by each and all of these means, let us seek to allay the spirit of lawless misrule; that spirit which instals each man's opinion the arbiter of constitutional rights, or which coolly estimates the value of the Union, and looks with steady eye on a separation of these States, the certain herald of bloodshed and a thousand horrors; a separation to be surely and speedily followed by war in its most odious form--servile, perhaps, as well as civil--war among those of the same race, the same name, the same blood--war that shall bring together, in hostile array, neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother, son against sire.
"To avert calamities so direful, Indiana will cast, even to the last, the entire weight of her influence. She will be just to each and every member of the confederacy--just to the constitution--just to the laws. She will abide by the constitution, abide by the laws; and, and above all, she will abide by the compromises made by our fathers--the compromises made by the great and good men of this day. She will hope, she will pray, that the same hind and overruling Providence which watched over our fathers at the adoption of the constitution, and has sustained in every crisis and cheered in every hour of darkness since, will direct their sons also in the paths of wisdom and peace, and enable us to transmit to posterity that sacred instrument, a guide and a blessing in the future, as it has ever been in the past.
"Indiana takes her stand in the ranks, not of Southern destiny, nor yet of NORTHERN DESTINY. She plants herself on the basis of the Constitution, and takes her stand in the ranks of AMERICAN DESTINY."
DISCOVERIES OF THE LAST CENTURY.
THERE has been no period since the commencement of the world in which so many important discoveries, tending to the benefit of mankind, were made, as in the last half century. Some of the most wonderful results of human intellect have been witnessed in the last fifty years. Some of the grandest conceptions of genius have been perfected. It is remarkable how the mind of the world has run into scientific investigation, and what achievements it has effected in that short period. Before the year 1800, there was not a single steamboat in existence, and the application of steam to machinery was unknown. Fulton launched the first steamboat in 1807. Now there are three thousand steamboats traversing the waters of America, and the time saved in travel is equal to seventy per cent. The rivers of every country in the world, nearly, are traversed by steamboats. In 1800 there was not a single railroad in the world. In the United States alone there are now 8,797 miles of railroad, costing $286,000,000 to build, and about 22,000 miles of railroad in England and America. The locomotive gill now travel in as many hours, a distance which in 1800 required as many days to accomplish. In 1800 it took weeks to convey intelligence between Philadelphia and New Orleans; now it can be accomplished in minutes through the electric telegraph, which only had its begin.
A VOICE FROM ENGLAND. 109
ning in 1843. Voltaism was discovered in March, 1800. The electro magnet in 1821. Electrotyping was discovered only a few years ago. Hoe's printing press, capable of printing 10,000 copies an hour, is a very recent discovery, but of a most important character. Gas light was unknown in 1800; now every city and town of any pretence are lighted with it, and we have the announcement of a still greater discovery, by which light, heat, and motive power, may be all produced from water, with scarcely any cost. Daguerre communicated to the world his beautiful invention in 1839. Gun cotton and chloroform are discoveries but of a few years old. Astronomy has added a number of new planets to the solar system. Agricultural chemistry has enlarged the domains of knowledge in that important branch of scientific research, and mechanics have increased the facilities for production, and the means of accomplishing an amount of labor which far transcends the ability of united manual effort to accomplish. The triumphs achieved in this last branch of discovery and invention are enough to mark the last half century as that which has most contributed to augment personal comforts, enlarge the enjoyments, and add to the blessings of man. What will the next half century accomplish! We may look for still greater discoveries, for the intellect of man is awake, exploring every mine of knowledge, and searching for useful information in every department of art and industry.--Philadelphia Ledger.
A VOICE FROM ENGLAND.
From the British Millennial Harbinger.
Dear Sir: I was glad to see announced on the cover of your last Harbinger, that an invitation for Mr. Campbell to visit this country, at his earliest convenience, had been given. I hope he will make it a point to be present at the Great Exhibition next year, and to familiarize himself with all the Baptist ministers in London and elsewhere, especially with Baptist deacons and Baptist churches. It will do more for the cause of the Reformation in the British Isles, than any one is at present able to conceive. It would break down existing prejudices, and be the means of opening a wide door for the Millennial Harbinger, and of cementing both sections into one glorious community, just at the expense of avoiding all sectarian peculiarities, and laying down the standard of divine truth alone as our confession of faith, viz: "I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God."
Should Mr. Campbell come over, allow me to drop a hint in this way--that if he would visit some of the chief towns, and some of the populous villages on the line between England and Wales, it would be still more effectual than simply to confine his visits to England, and the Reformers already there. For instance, from Newport to Cardiff, from Cardiff to Swansea, from Swansea to Caermarthen;
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 10
110 A VOICE FROM ENGLAND.
from there back to Merthyr Tidvil, then to Brecon, and from thence to Rhydden, Llanildoes, Caerws, Newport, Welshpool, Oswestry, Chester, &c. By these means he would be able to spread abroad the original gospel among Englishmen and Welshmen; and his last discourse, in each place, should be on the design of baptism. This, indeed, would promote the Reformation to an unknown extent. Please pardon me in all this. A BAPTIST MINISTER.
[The above is a most excellent programme for Bro. Campbell. We ask no greater honor from man, than to be permitted to serve him through the entire journey.--J. WALLACE.]
IT would afford me the greatest pleasure to meet the wishes of all our brethren in England, whether called Baptists or Reformers. We have much interest in, and much affection for, both. The English mind is not perverted on the subject of the Reformation for which we are pleading, because the same efforts to defame and calumniate our views have not been made. The charge of gross heterodoxy, for a time so successfully and artfully managed, by a weak, enthusiastic, and uneducated Baptist ministry in the United States, has not been adopted nor prosecuted in Britain. Some of their leading and eminent, ministers having heard with their own ears, and examined for themselves, are disposed to acquiesce in our views as scriptural, and all-important to the comfort of Christians and the influence of the gospel, and are cordially disposed to give us a full and impartial hearing. The above invitation from a Baptist minister is highly appreciated, and will have a very considerable influence on nay decision as to the propriety of a second visit to England, and as to the time when.
The unjust and ungenerous imputations of "baptismal regeneration"--in its partizan and technical import--of "denying Spiritual influence," and the divinity and atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, are now, and always were, unchristian, false, and malicious imputations, by cunning and selfish men, who had little conscientiousness, much self-conceit, and an inordinate vanity. We are daily assured that there is a continual increasing conviction of the truth and scriptural authority of our views, on the part of all enlightened Baptists, and leading minds in other evangelical denominations, for which we thank the Lord and take courage. All spiritually-minded and well informed men of the Baptists, are more and more penetrated with the conviction, that our cause is the cause of God and his anointed and must prevail. A. C.
WALNUT GROVE ACADEMY. 111
EUREKA COLLEGE.
Dear Sir: I ant now residing at Richland, Miss., and am occupying the Chair of the Professorship of Ancient and Modern Languages in Eureka College, being elected to fill that department during last summer. Our school is in quite a flourishing condition. We pursue, without much material difference, in the department of languages, the same course as that at Bethany. Since I left Bethany, I have been pursuing my studies with untiring energy, knowing that nil mortalibus datur sine magno opere. My anticipated theater of action will be the legal forum.
I have also a large class of young men, whom I meet every Sunday, and give them instructions in the Bible. I have found your Lectures to be very profitable.
Not longer trespassing upon your time, and hoping to hear from you, I remain your friend, WM. H. CLARK.
WE are glad to be informed that our much esteemed friend, Prof. Wm. H. Clark, is now so usefully employed. He is possessed of a clear and vigorous mind, and of very handsome literary and scientific attainments, and will, no doubt, give ample satisfaction in the department assigned him. He was on the eve of graduating, when, in a moment of excitement, he chose to be a soldier in the Mexican war, and preferred to act the patriot and the warrior, rather than the student and the Christian. I am truly gratified to learn that he is now devoted to the teaching of Sacred History, and desire that he may find in his present position so much pleasure as will induce him to devote his whole life to literature, science and religion, rather than to the mere worldly and secular pursuits of meum and tuum-- in the wranglings and entanglements of the law. A. C.
WALNUT GROVE ACADEMY.
WALNUT GROVE, Ill., October 8, 1850.
THE citizens of this vicinity, appreciating the great blessings that result from a liberal and scientific education, and being unwilling to patronize institutions under the baneful influence of sectarianism; and in view of the fact that, in the entire State, the Christian brotherhood have no school adapted to their wants, resolved, during last winter, on the establishment of an institution in which their offspring might be instructed under the direction of Christian influence. And through the indefatigable labors of our beloved Bro. Wm. Davenport, as solicitor, in this and the neighboring congregations, means were obtained for the erection of a suitable building. These means were placed in the hands of an association, to be
112 EDITORIAL NOTICES.
known as the "President and Trustees of the Walnut Grove Academy."
A large and substantial brick building is now in progress, that will be finished by the middle of November, for the reception of the school now in successful operation, under the immediate care of Bros. A. S. Fisher and John Lindsey, the latter a graduate of Bethany College, Va.
We propose to educate gratis all indigent young men, who will pledge themselves to preach the gospel. And we hope to be able, at some future period, to train up, free of charge, indigent orphans. One of our cardinal points will ever be, to induce more of cur young brethren to embark in the proclamation of the ancient gospel, and to render it possible for them to be qualified with the necessary education, at those high schools now conducted by our brethren. That we may be enabled successfully to prosecute our begun enterprise, we want aid in procuring Apparatus and a Library. And conscious that we have been prompted by philanthropy and Christian benevolence, we feel free in soliciting means from our brethren, and believe that every benevolent heart will sympathize with us in this praiseworthy effort, by lending us their means and their prayers. Therefore, we have appointed our old and well-tried Bro. Wm. Davenport, one of the pioneers of the ancient gospel in Northern Illinois, to make an appeal to the brethren of Cincinnati, and throughout the State of Kentucky.
Done by order of the Board of Trustees. J. T. JONES, President.
ASA S. FISHER., Secretary.
Trustees--W. Davenport, John T. Jones, B. Major, E. B.. Myers, A. M. Myers, E. Dickinson, R. M. Clark, B. J. Rudford. Will. M'Garrity, Wm. P. Atterberry, D. Deweese, Wm. T. Major, Geo. W. Mineir, James A. Lindsey.
[This communication having come to hand during my absence from home, has recently come to light. I regret that it was delayed to this date. We wish all success to this benevolent enterprise.-- A. C.]
EDITORIAL NOTICES.
CLUBS, AGENTS, &c.--We are, and the cause we plead is, much indebted' to the energy and activity of our agents, in increasing the lists of our subscribers. I marked out some names for publication, as pre-eminent in their exertions to send us large lists, but their number has become so large--and it would be rather invidious to name a few, without naming all--that we prefer to thank them all, known to us and to themselves, for their efforts, and to inform them that, through their activity, our readers are much increased, and our opportunities, this year, of doing good, are greater than before. We infer, from these liberal efforts, that it is in the power of our
EDITORIAL NOTICES. 113
friends to double our readers, even yet, if they please to do it; for if one or two hundred active agents have done so much, double that number, and proportionably more, could be achieved.
To correct two errors--one in addition, and one in subtraction--we will state, that those added to any club, (say of sixteen,) going to the same office, sent by the same agent, can be supplied as the club, on the same terms; but some one or two have thought, that if they fell short of sixteen, and sent only fourteen, that they should have them at the price of a full club. Subtraction, in this case, is not just; but addition is both just and generous.
OUR COLLEGE LECTURES.--Under some such heading appears, in the Christian Age, notes of our Lectures in College, daily delivered to the students. These are from the notes taken by one of our students; and they are, indeed, good evidence of the attention which he paid to these lectures, but they are meagre outlines, and, without my consent, ought not to have been given to the public. They are neither just to me nor the subjects, and yet there are many of my positions, arguments, and illustrations in them. But we demur at such a naked, meagre, and, consequently, inadequate presentation of them to the public.
THE CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE.--This handsomely printed and very ably edited magazine, conducted by J. B. Ferguson, (J. Eichbaum, assistant editor,) and published by the Christian Publication Society of Tennessee, Nashville, is a valuable auxiliary in the cause of Reformation. Its profits, after paying the printers, publishers, and editors, is devoted to certain evangelical laborers in the State. If I mistake not, it netted $100 clear profit during last year. By increasing its readers at its present profits, it would divide still more to the ministry of the word. A popular and good argument for an increased subscription.
We hope it may double its readers in the current year. We editors wish for many readers; and most, if not all of us, for the same reasons. I know one of our periodicals that netts more per annum than the Magazine, and, consequently, can give, and does give, a much larger sum per annum to the raising up and sending out evangelists. If all our editors would pursue this course, how much might be achieved to the good cause of human enlightenment! They ought all to imitate the Magazine, and, perhaps, ought to publish the amount of their annual donations.
ECCLESIASTIC REFORMER.--The Ecclesiastic Reformer is now issued from Lexington, Ky., and edited by Bros. L. L. Pinkerton, J. Jackson, and J. Henshall, assisted by S. W. Irvin. It contains many interesting communications from the pen of Bro. Henshall, as well as from his associates, and merits a liberal patronage from our brethren in Kentucky. Bro. Henshall, in his excursions through Kentucky, is requested to collect arrears due for the Millennial Harbinger.
THE WITNESS OF TRUTH --This is a well conducted and useful cooperant in the cause of Reformation, issued from Oshawa, Canada West. It
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 10*
114 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
is not patronized according to its merit. Bro. D. Oliphant, for some time a student at Bethany College, writes, with a vigorous hand, many valuable articles. We will, from time to time, remind our readers of the claims of the editorial corps.
THE CHRISTIAN RECORD.--This is a very instructive periodical, published at Bloomington, la., and edited by Elder James M. Mathes. It contains many choice articles, and not only merits, but enjoys, a liberal patronage in that State It is conducted with great prudence and much intelligence on the part of its amiable and excellent editor. It, as well as the others named, merits a much larger circulation.
THE PROCLAMATION AND REFORMER, owned and conducted by Elders D.S. Burnet and B. Franklin--L. H. Jameson and A. Hall, being Corresponding Editors--is also a well-known auxiliary in the dissemination of light among the people. It preserves, in pamphlet form, the choice essays first printed in the Christian Age; and where that useful weekly is not taken, gives to its readers its marrow and fatness.
THE CHRISTIAN INTELLIGENCER.--Last, though not least, is the Christian Intelligencer, edited by Bro. R. L. Coleman, and published by J. L. Brady, Scottsville, Va. This journal contains not only excellent essays from the pen of its editor, but other good writers in Virginia contribute frequently to its columns much interesting matter. It is worthy of a much larger circulation, and the cause demands that it should have it in Virginia.
I have on my table several new books, which have been accumulating during the past year, not one of which I have found time to read, or event cursorily examine. My frequent absence from home during the year past, and my great labors at home to keep up with my duties, is my apology. I have to eat thrice a day, and to sleep six hours in every twenty-four, to get along somewhat comfortably. I hope to take up these volumes in detail. The first of them on hand is a Treatise on Christianity, by Zaccheus Onion M'Comas, of Maryland. A. C
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
Elder James A. Butler, of Mississippi, informs me under date of 30th December, that one hundred have taken refuge under the blood-stained banner, in that portion of the floral south, in the last ninety days. A. C.
SOMERSET, Pa., November 18, 1850.
Brother Campbell: We are all very busy in our evangelical labors in this county. I am holding meetings every week among the hills, and every thing is encouraging. I have to speak often in German, which I find is absolutely necessary in many regions, where almost all the preaching is done in that language. The German brethren (Dunkards) have invited us in all directions to preach for them. They are very numerous here, numbering some 2,000 or more in Somerset count:-. They have. the largest- and most commodious meeting-houses I have seen in America.
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 115
I returned, a few days since, from a short tour into Preston county, Va.,. where there are a large number of Baptists, and where none of our brethren ever preached. We preached among the Baptists, calling upon them to lay every vestige of sectarianism aside, and take God's word alone for their guide. We were rejoiced to see an almost unanimous wish and willingness to do so. One was immersed, and all unanimously solicited us to come back and hold a meeting of two weeks, or longer. In a certain part of that country the Baptists have lately stopped one of their members from preaching, on the charge of heresy--alias, Campbellism--and are now proceeding to slander his character. I have this from their own preacher. He is a man named Cook, from Greene county, Pa.
Bros. Lanphear and Macdougal are both in the missionary field of Pennsylvania. C. L. LOOS.
SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn., October 18, 1850.
Brother Campbell: I am using my best efforts in spreading the truth in this portion of the Lord's vineyard. I speak on each Lord's day, and have spoken to many audiences besides those to whom I regularly speak; have immersed a few during the year, and removed some prejudice. We have a better prospect for ministers among us. Two brethren in the ministry are likely to be here during the next year- There has Lot been one residing nearer me than some forty miles, since I have lived in Tennessee. I should be pleased to have you visit Memphis B. F. Hall was there a short time since. When I left, he had added some 35, and was continuing his meetings. My kindest regards to your dear father; and accept my best wishes for your health, happiness and usefulness. M. W. WEBBER.
VALPARAISO, Ia., November 13, 1850.
Brother Campbell: We are still trying to defend the truth in this county, and, thanks be to God, we seem to have some success. Since last March, Bros. Lewis Comer and Simeon Jessup, and myself, have baptized some 25, mostly on Morgan Prairie, in this county.
Yours, lathe hope of eternal life, WILLIAM. W. JONES.
ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky., November 16, 1850.
Brother Campbell: We have had, in the course of the present year, 3 additions by confession and baptism, and in the different churches round here near 40. Truly yours, S. L HODGEN.
MOUNT STERLING, Ky., December 26, 1850.
Brother Campbell: Our beloved Bro. Walter Scott has just closed a most delightful meeting, in the Christian church in this place. He had a large and patient hearing. The good Lord blessed his labors, and we do feel to praise his holy name for what we learned and felt during the happy season of soul-cheering refreshment, which occupied some ten days. Bro. Scott had no aid in conducting the meeting, but was unusually interesting, powerful and pathetic. Much interest was excited in the community on the subject of our holy religion. This interest continued, and seemed to increase, to the last, and 12 noble additions were made to the church-8 by confession and 4 by letter. We sorrowed when the time arrived, when, in consequence of Bro. Scott's having to leave, our meeting had to close. Our separation from him was reluctant and painful, and, in giving him the parting hand, many tears were shed May the Lord preserve his health, and bless him abundantly!
Much love, seal, and devotion to the cause of Christ, are manifested among the members of the church, for which we do feel to bless our Heavenly Father. We think that seed was sown during our meeting which will soon produce much more fruit. Fraternally yours,
H. B. TODD,
ENOCH SMITH, Elders
WM. MITCHELL,
116 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
LEXINGTON, Ky., December 14, 1850.
Brother Campbell: On the second Lord's day in September, I went to the Annual Meeting at Clintonville, in Bourbon county, and enjoyed a rich feast of brotherly affection with the veterans, Thomas Smith, and John and Samuel Rogers; together with Bros. J. A. Gano, A. Raines, J. G. Tompkins, J. Dearbourn, G. Moore, Rousee, and many elders and brethren. Some of these were with us for a short time, and others longer, during the meeting. Being new in the place, they kept me hard at the laboring oar, and at the close of the meeting, 37 good accessions were made to the cause in that vicinity.
On Monday after the fifth Sunday in September, I went to Keene, in Jessamine county, and there met Father Jacob Creath and Bro. Raines. We labored hard, and gained 12 accessions. Keene being a watering-place, is devoted to the fashionable ways of the world, and, therefore, hard to move Zionward.
Bro. P. S. Fall and myself exchanged labors on the second Lord's day in October. After preaching in Frankfort, I went out, on Monday morning, to Grassy Springs, in Woodford county, where I met Father Creath, Bros. Wm. Moreton and C. Kendrick. We had a pleasant meeting of two or three days, and 6 additions.
On the fourth Lord's day in November, I went, in the afternoon, to Nicholasville, to aid Bro. R. C. Ricketts. We had a good hearing, but not much interest until the last day, when at night 4 young men came up to confess the Lord. Having to leave the next morning, it looked like a pity, the interest on the part of many eminent citizens being much awakened.
On the Monday after the first Lord's day in December, I went to Georgetown, to meet Bro. Gano. On arriving, I found Bro. J. T. Johnson also there, and with their co-operation, we continued the meeting for ten days. Bro. Gano was called off twice, two days each time, and we had the hardest weather of winter during almost all the time; but, notwithstanding these draw-backs, the attendance increased to the last, and 20 additions crowned the efforts of the church through the preached word. Georgetown was stirred up considerably, the church very much revived, and many of all parties better informed upon the great heresy of modern times! J. HENSHALL.
BALTIMORE, Md., December, 1850.
Brother Campbell: On last Lord's day, (15th inst.) we baptized 5 persons, on confession of faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the Saviour of lost man. Our congregation in the morning, when the immersion was attended to, was the lagest we have had since you were with us. Our prospects are, indeed, encouraging. „The Lord be praised for his mercies." F. D. DUNGAN.
SHALERSVILLE, O., January 4, 1851.
Brother Campbell: Since I last wrote you, there have been added to the brotherhood, through the instrumentality of my feeble efforts, something over 100, besides many others, within the range of my labors, by other brethren. The best meeting of days I attended was at Wheeling, Va; and I must say, that the kindness and benevolence of the little band of brethren in that place, manifested to me, shall ever give them a place in my most fond affections. They are laboring under many difficulties for want of a house large enough to accommodate the people who would gladly come out to hear the ancient gospel. I saw, sometime since, a notice of this matter in the Harbinger. Will you urge this subject again upon the attention of our noble and generous-hearted brethren? Nothing is wanting to make the cause of our blessed Master prosper there, but the continued effort of the faithful few who are already engaged in the good work, and the assistance of a few of the congregations surrounding them, to build a decent house for worship. During my short stay with them 18 persons were baptized, 3 reclaimed, 1 united from the so-called Bible Christians, and 1 by
OBITUARY. 117
letter; making, in all, 23. The brethren were much strengthened, and I believe intend trying to build a house in the spring. To the Lord be all the praise! W. A. BELDING.
NEW PHILADELPHIA, O., December 28, 1850.
Brother Campbell: We number at present about 40 members, and all walking worthy of their high calling. We have built a brick meeting-house 42 by 32 feet. Had it not been for our friend Job Lisiter, I doubt not our number would, by this time, greatly exceed what it is; but, withal, our prospects are flattering. JOSHUA PEPPER.
Total number reported since last month, 378.
OBITUARY,
FRIDAY EVENING, January 10th, in the 30th year of her age, after a protracted illness, borne with the utmost Christian resignation, fell asleep in Jesus, my much esteemed and beloved daughter, CLARINDA PENDLETON, wife of Professor W. K. Pendleton. She left behind her an only son, in his second year, and an infant daughter of seven weeks, that survived her but twelve days. She put on Christ at an early period of life, and so walked in him as to have the Christian esteem and affection of a very large and widely extended acquaintance, both at home and abroad. So far as my recollections extend, she never merited, nor received from me, a frown or a reproof. From the day of her baptism to the day of her death, she seemed to have but one supreme aim in all that she designed and in all that she undertook; and that was, to honor her Redeemer in her station and relations in life, in the discharge of every personal and social duty. That I may not appear to have exaggerated her excellencies, I shall only add an extract from a letter received on the occasion of her death, from Bro. Samuel Church, of Pittsburgh:
"PITTSBURGH, Pa., January 17, 1851.
Dear Brother Campbell: It has pleased our all-wise and all-kind Father, to visit you and your dear family once more. I am, indeed, sorry to learn it. My wife and myself sincerely sympathize with you, in the bereavement of your excellent daughter Clarinda. There is reason, however, to bless the name of our God, that in this affliction there is mingled all that is calculated to relieve its severity and reconcile us to it. Your dear child sleeps in Jesus. She lived for heaven, and has gone there. She loved the Lord, and now enjoys him She delighted in his worship here, and in the society of the saints, and now unites with the spirits of the just made perfect, in their unceasing and enrapturing ascriptions of praise to Him that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb. What more could you ask? Is not the possession of heaven, and the society of the blessed, the great object of human existence? This gained, all is gained; this lost, all is lost. You, yourself, were it not for family considerations and the cause of God, I am persuaded, would gladly 'depart and be with Christ.' There is a melancholy satisfaction in committing to the bosom of mother earth all that is mortal of those that we love, when, as in your case, we have a reasonable scriptural assurance that their spirits have been borne, by the angels, to Abraham's bosom. I think that I have felt this consolation in my own case, and I am confident that you have been sustained under your numerous and severe afflictions by the steadfast belief, that those who sleep in Jesus, God will bring with him. What a joyful meeting you will have on the bright shore of immortality, with those endeared to you by a three-
118 OBITUARY.
fold tie! It is by dispensations like the one we are contemplating, that the Christian is brought gradually to feel that the day of one's death is better than the day of his birth. Surely, if all that we love is gone, and going to heaven, we can have no other wish than to go there too. In some instances, no doubt, the desire to die is nothing more than an effect of discontent and fretfulness. With Paul, however, and with the humble-minded Christian, it results from a paramount love for God and heaven, holiness, truth, and love.
"Out of fourteen children, if my recollection is right, ten are in heaven. What a treasure! May I indulge an imagination, when you meet, how joyous! Methinks I can see them clustering about you. 0, Bro. Campbell, then your cup will be full--running over! The Lord grant it!
"Be kind enough to present my sincere condolence to Bro. Pendleton and to your dear wife. The Lord sustain and comfort you under all your trials! Yours, in the one hope, SAM.'L CHURCH."
Dear Brother Church: I thank you much for the consolation which your kind epistle has afforded us. It is only they who have drunk largely of the cup of affliction, that can effectually administer consolation to others. I have buried one whole family--a mother, the wife of my youth, and her eight children--three of whom died in infancy, and five lived to be mothers themselves, and members of the church of God, and all died in the faith and hope of the gospel. Of my second family of six children, two, also, have died in the faith of Christ, and I rejoice to think that they are all with the Lord, amongst the trophies of his cross and the glory of his crown. I do, indeed, humbly hope to meet them all in heaven.
But while you and I hope to meet those of whom we are now bereaved, so dear to us in the flesh and in the Lord--where sorrow, pain, and death, shall neither be felt nor feared forever--we also hope to rejoice, with infinite joy and pleasure, in all the ransomed sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty, who, with us, have been redeemed by his beloved Son, and will be his joy and crown of glory, that fadeth not away. That this may he our happy lot, at the end of our pilgrimage, is the prayer of your brother in the Lord. A. C.
[In examining old files of letters which came in my absence from home, (during vacation and at other times,) I find one from Bro. Thomas M. Allen, of Missouri, together with some others of public interest, which I should have been pleased to have laid before our readers. True, indeed, I have received remonstrances from many readers, against protracted obituaries, long details of evangelical labors, unnecessarily protracted and minute, and other ephemeral matters; to the propriety of which, I am not insensible Of such documents, not a few are filed in my study. I extract from Bro. Allen's letter referred to, the following obituary.--A. C.]
I regret to inform you, that while I was absent at Lexington, our esteemed and lamented brother, STEPHEN BEDFORD, Sr., of this county, departed this life. He was an ornament in the Church of Christ, and one of the elders of the church in Columbia. Bro. Bedford was born and raised in Bourbon county, Ky., where he embraced Christianity and obeyed the gospel in 1828, and became a member of the church at Union, in Fayette county. Soon thereafter he removed to Missouri, and settled in Boon county, where he has exerted a most salutary influence in favor of the Bible cause. His widow, the companion of his early life, and seven children, mourn his loss. T. M. ALLEN.
Died, on the 23d May, 1850, MARY H., wife of John P. Scott, of Allegheny, Pa. She was a pious Christian, a kind friend, a dutiful daughter, an affectionate mother, and a most devoted wife. Her natural sensibility was very great. Her sympathy for others, in their sickness, sometimes so
OBITUARY. 119
overwhelmed her as to make the other members of the family apprehensive of her safety. To Mrs. Scott, the needy never appealed in vain. Her ear, her heart and hand, were ever open to their claims. In her devotions, she was exceedingly exact and regular for one of her years. She never, either morning or evening, forgot the Throne of Grace; nor, from the time she learnt to lisp the Lord's prayer at her mother's knee, did she ever omit secret prayer. She read at least one chapter in the Bible a day; and in this way, during her short life, she succeeded in reading it through repeatedly. She had committed nearly all of the New Testament to memory. And so particular was she in the performance of these pious duties, that she has been known, after retiring to rest, to arise and read the chapter in order, which some other duty had caused her to omit or forget, at her regular hour of reading. She never invented or framed an excuse for not going to meeting, when it was possible for her to go. Her place there was always filled.
This lovely Christian wife and youthful mother died as she had lived. Dying and living in the fear of the Lord, was the jewel of her soul. So, as it is written, we may say of her: "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them."
[The example of so amiable and excellent a sister--of one whose Christian virtues shone so brightly--is better than an essay on the personal and relative virtues of a Christian wife and mother. My own personal acquaintance with this excellent sister confirms my assurance, that in all this there is no exaggeration.--A. C.]
On the 27th December, 1850, aged 17 months, MARY C., daughter of John and Mary Scott, of Allegheny, Pa. This dear babe, and heir of the Kingdom of Heaven, had just learned to lisp the name of its surviving parent, when death suddenly laid his hand upon her. After four days' sickness, she fell sweetly and calmly asleep. She struggled not with the King of Terrors; not a muscle gave evidence of pain. To the eye of the beholder, it was but a lovely infant dropping placidly into temporary repose. It was her last sleep. Her undefiled soul passed away to the spirit land-- to the bosom of our God. We are glad to say with the Redeemer: "Of such is the Kingdom of God."
Death has made a heavy draught upon the family of our Bro. Samuel Church this year. There have died of his kindred as follows, viz:
1. Mary H. Scott, his daughter, as above;
2. Win. Church, his father, a singularly gifted Christian;
3. Charles Church, his son, a lovely infant boy;
4. Mary C. Scott, as above.
Prosperity was the blessing of the law, and adversity is the blessing of the gospel. But how gladdening to the heart to know that our "affliction cometh not forth of the dust; that our trouble springeth not out of the ground." How rejoicing to the soul to he assured that all our sorrows arise from a rational source--all all-wise God--by whom they are ministered and meted out to us with infinite wisdom and mercy; and made, both in matter and measure, to meet the necessities of our nature and character. All our afflictions point to our particular improvement in the life and conversation of the gospel, that we may at last inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. "When I cried unto thee thou answeredst me and strengthtendst me with strength in my soul." WALTER SCOTT.
[Will the Christian Age please copy?]
HILLSBOROUGH, King and Queen Co., Va., Oct. 21, 1850. Died, suddenly, on the morning of the 13th inst., Elder WM. SOUTHWOOD, at the residence of Thos. Fauntleroy, Esq., of this county. Elder
120 CHURCH IN WASHINGTON.
Southwood was one of the most intelligent preachers of the Baptist denomination in this section; and, better than all, he was a godly man. He was proverbial for his candor and the transparency of his character. Such men are not appreciated by the deceitful and unjust world. In the demise of such a man the whole community have sustained a loss. He was in the 65th year of his age. He leaves a lonely and deeply afflicted widow. May the God whom he so faithfully served, be her husband and friend--" a present help in every time of need." R. Y. H.
[Bro. Southwood was a native of England--a brother Baptist, with whom I had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance, and for whom I cherished a high respect. He was frank and independent, and when he differed from his Baptist brethren, he did not hesitate to avow it. I had the pleasure of a letter from him not long before his death. Little, then, did I expect so soon to hear of his translation from earth to Paradise. While I am sorry that he is taken from us, I rejoice in the hope that he has entered into rest.--A. C.]
CHURCH IN WASHINGTON CITY.
BALTIMORE, Md., December, 1850.
Brother Campbell: The congregation of Disciples in Baltimore, believing that the honor of their Divine Master would be promoted by a co-operation effort on the part of all his followers in Maryland, addressed circulars to all the churches, inquiring whether they would agree to, and be represented in, a general meeting, to be held in our city, to devise the ways and means of carrying out the above object. Among the rest, we addressed a circular to the congregation in Washington, D. C. After responding in the affirmative to our inquiry, they call our attention to the fact, that they are without a suitable place of worship, and direct our attention to the announcement of the fact in the Harbinger, and the appeal to the brotherhood for assistance and sympathy. Whereupon, our congregation determined to make an effort in their behalf, according to the plan proposed below. The result of which was the $40 which we herewith enclose, (and the receipt of which you will please acknowledge,) with y our consent, to be the receiver of what may hereafter be collected.
Our plan has been to take a contribution of twenty-five cents from each member of the congregation, for this purpose. The amount would scarcely be felt by any one, and yet it would easily be perceived, that if the plan was adopted by all our churches, the brethren in Washington would soon have a comfortable house to meet in; the brethren from a distance, visiting the city, would enjoy the blessings and advantages of the Lord's institutions, and good might, in this way, be accomplished, beyond our most sanguine expectations. The only difficulty that could possibly occur in relation to the matter, would he the trouble it would give the Elders of the different congregations, and we trust there are none of our brethren, occupying such a position, that would hesitate, for one moment, to engage in so laudable an enterprise.
Respectfully asking your aid and assistance in this matter, we submit it to your consideration and attention.
Signed on behalf of the congregation.
WM. M'CLENAHAN,
GEO. AUSTIN, Elders.
FRANCIS D. DUNGAN,
Vol. I.] BETHANY, VA., MARCH, 1851. [No. III.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE--No. III.
ANGELS AND DEMONS--No. II.
MUCH has been said and much written on a spiritual world, and yet comparatively few have thought much on the subject, in the amplitude of its bearings upon our behavior and destiny in this world, with special reference to that which is to come. Mankind have more sense than faith--more of the animal than of the spiritual--in their constitution; and are so much more engaged in the things that are seen than in the things that are not seen--in the things that are temporal, than in the things eternal--that it is with difficulty they can be aroused from their carnal lethargy and supineness, to a due consideration of the most vital of all their interests.
We are, therefore, the more disposed to dwell on this topic, and to handle it a new way, and have now set out on a grand excursion into things, as well as times and places, far remote from the common places and common things of our every-day cravings, after some transient entertainment. I am going to sea, on a long voyage, across both the Atlantic and the Pacific, and am determined to find the headwaters of the Nile, and of the Ganges, too, if not the top of the mountains in the moon. I had some thoughts of visiting the Delphic Oracle, and propounding some questions to that revealer of secrets. Still, I will not implicitly receive any response, or, with a blind credulity, surrender my understanding to either priest or prophet--to philosopher or sage. I do not thus incur the risks and perils of so long and so dangerous a voyage, as if I had not enough to live on, for my own satisfaction; for, in this respect, I am already
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 11
122 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
well provided for; but I have a great many craving readers, of huge appetite and little means, and nothing will satisfy them on this subject less than all the treasures of foreign realms, and lands remote for, like the horse leeches two daughters, they are still crying, give, give us more light on the subject of souls and spirits. They are even willing to familiarize themselves with ghosts and spectres, for the sake of assurance that they themselves have souls and spirits that cannot die.
We need nothing but the New Testament, or the Jewish and Christian oracles, to satisfy us as Christians; but we have many readers that are not Christians, and they demand evidence beyond the Bible, and beyond the realms of their own research. Well, then, we shall launch into the deep, and make our voyage to Asia, the old homestead of our venerable Father Noah, and our Grandfather Adam. We will make a trip up the Ganges and the Burampooter, and visit the radiating centres of Hindooism, and the ancient oracles consulted by the Greek philosophers.
We had thought of only visiting the Grecian philosophers--the Pythagorases, the Socrateses, and Platos, of the schools of mythologic orthodoxy--but I have found them all to be a set of plagiarists from Asiatic oracles and sages, back as far as some of the contemporaries of Abraham. While, then, we shall have their embellishments of the materials by them imported from distant shores and times more ancient, we shall at once go up to the fountains of their philosophy. We will only promise, that we will build on nothing that is not well authenticated; and, in matters of faith, rely only on divine oracles. But there were oral, before there were written, traditions in the East, and the great ideas given in charge to the Shemic and Abrahamic line were by them orally communicated, long before written characters seem to have been originated. We shall, then, hear something from these ancient traditions.
We cannot write a volume on this subject, and shall be obliged to utter materials for a volume in a few sentences. We will then, in the first place, rather allude to some matters, which must be assumed by all writers and readers on such subjects. We assert, then, on the highest authority, that all the superstitions of Asia, or forms of religion, show a common origin. So that it is agreed, that the Fo, or Foe, or Fohi, of the Chinese, the Lama of the Asiatic Tartars, and the Brahma of the Hindoos, are ramifications of one superstition.
"Foe was born in Cashmere, 1027 years before the Christian era. While his mother was in travail, the stars were hid in darkness, and nine dragons descended to the earth. Soon as he was
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 123
born his mother died, and instantly standing erect on earth, pointing one hand to the heavens and the other to the earth, he exclaimed, None in heaven or earth is to be worshipped besides me.' Confirming his doctrine by alledged miracles, at thirty he was deified by his disciples, and spread his doctrines over all the east. His priests were called Sow, in China; in Tartary, Lamas; in Siam, Talapoins; and in Europe, Bonzes. In his 79th year, death approaching, he informed his disciples that hitherto he had spoken in parables and enigmas, but would now unveil his mysteries. Know, then,' said he, that there is no other principle of all things but the void and nothing; that from nothing all things have sprung, and to nothing all things must return; and there all our hopes end.' His disciples, soon after his death, divided into three sects, on their interpretation of his last words. His great principle was, 'annihilate thyself; and as soon as thou (lost this, thou returnest to God, and becomest one with him.' This religion is called, in India, Brahminism."*
Lamaism is the religion of Thibet. The Grand Lama is both the God and the High Priest of this people, of the Wandering Tartars, and of the prodigious population of China. He resides at Patoli, in an immense palace, on a mountain, near to the banks of the Burampooter, seven miles from Lahasse. The base of the mountain is guarded by 20,000 Lamas, or Priests, in attendance upon the sovereign pontiff, regarded as the Vicegerant of the Deity; while the more remote Tartars regard him as the Deity himself, adoring him as God, "the everlasting Father of heaven." Every year they worship, and present rich offerings at his shrine. Even the Emperor of China, a Mantchou Tartar, acknowledges his pontifical power, and receives annually, at his court at Pekin, an inferior Lama, deputed as his nuncio from Thibet.
When he dies, or seems to die, the orthodox of the Thibetians believe that his soul only leaves a crazy body for a new habitation in some vigorous child, and is discovered in his new residence by infallible tokens. This is the true doctrine of the Metempsychosis, or transmigration of the soul--the essential article of their faith. In this faith, the people of Burmah, Thibet, and Anan; the Siamese, Chinese, and Japanese; the Monguls and Kalmucks, are one and unshaken. This theocracy extends to things temporal, spiritual, and eternal; and is the prominent belief in China, affirmed to be 3,000 years old.
The religion of Thibet, the most pure in this faith, is said to be the counterpart of Roman Catholicism. They, too, have their holy
*Hend. Buck. Encyclopedia of R. Knowledge.
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water, and their solemn sprinklings. They offer alms, prayers, and sacrifices, for the dead. They, too, have their innumerable convents, filled with monks and friars, amounting to thirty thousand, and confessors chosen by their superiors. They use beads, wear the mitre like the bishops, and their Grand Lama is but a most stately Pope. It is said that when the first Roman missionary visited Thibet, he came to the conclusion that the Devil had set up there an imitation of the rites of the Catholic church. A missionary Lama, on visiting Rome, might, with as much philosophy, have said that the Devil had set up at Rome an imitation of the rites of the Grand Lama.
I opine, with some of the authorities from which I make these extracts, that this religion of Thibet is but the offspring of the Hindoo superstition, deriving its origin from a disciple of Bouddhu. The same object of worship here is under numerous other names, acknowledged good throughout all Tartary, and in all nations east of the Burampooter.
Hindooism, or Brahminism, in its various forms, is professed by more than half the human race: Its essential doctrines are found in the Veda, comprehending its four sacred books, all of which are sometimes called the Vedas. These four are denominated the Rig, the Yajust, the Saman, and the Atharvan. They contain the alledged revelation of the God Brahma, the presiding divinity of the Indian nations. Indeed, the Divinity Brahma is regarded as the first person in the Trinity; Vishnoo, or Vishnu, the second person, regarded as the preserver and redeemer of man; and Siva the destroyer of man. But besides this chief divinity in three personalities, they also acknowledge a host of angel gods and subordinate divinities.
Hindooism and Brahminism, are but two names for the same idolatrous superstition, and under this name, and some other corruptions of it, is the prevailing superstition of more than half the human race. It has in it, however, evident traces of a corruption of a true religion, and is of a common origin with Lamaism, or Fohiism. In Hindoo, Brahme, the Great Being, is the supreme, eternal, and uncreated God; Brama is the first created being, by whom he made and governed the world, and is prince of beneficent spirits. He is assisted by Veeshnu, the great preserver of men, who nine times appeared on earth, and in a human form, for the most beneficent purposes. Veeshnu is often called Creeshna, the Indian Apollo, and, in his character, greatly resembles the Mithra of Persia. This is the prince of the benevolent Dewlas, or Demons, and has for a co-
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adjutor Mahadeo, or Seeva, the destroying power of God. This three-fold divinity, armed with the terrors of almighty power, pursue, through the whole extent of creation, the rebellious Dewlas, or Demons, headed by Mahasoor, the great malignant spirit, (or Satan,) who seduced them, and darts upon their flying bands the fiery shafts of divine vengeance.
According to Sir William Jones, the supreme God Brahme, in his triple form, is the only self-existent divinity acknowledged by the philosophical Hindoos. In different attitudes or characters, they give him different names--as creator, he is Brahme; as destroyer or changer of forms, he is called Mahadeo, or Seeva; as the preserver of created things, he is Veeshnu, or Vishnoo.
Following the leading idea of Sir William Jones, Mr. Maurice asserts that there is a perpetual recurrence of the Triad in Asiatic mythology, and the doctrine of a Trinity was promulgated in India, in the Geeta, fifteen hundred years before the birth of Plato; for of that remote date are the Elephanta Cavern, in which a triad of deity, or the union of three, is alluded to and designated. Now, as Plato was born 426 years before Christ, this would show that the idea of triad was bodied forth in the East, in the lifetime of Abraham-- about the time of his calling out of Ur of the Chaldees.
The Hindoo system teaches the existence of good and evil genii; or, in the language of Hindoostan, debats, or dewtas, or devitas. They are represented as eternally conflicting with one another, and the incessant conflict which subsisted between them, filled creation with uproar, and all its subordinate classes with dismay.
The doctrine of the metemsychosis, or transmigration of souls, is universally believed in India, from which country it is supposed to have originated, many centuries before the birth of Plato, and was first promulgated in the Geeta Uyasa, the Plato of India. This doctrine teaches that degrees of spirits, fallen from their original rectitude, migrate through various spheres in the bodies of different animals.
The Hindoos suppose seven spheres below, and as many above the earth. Of the seven supernal spheres, the highest is the residence of Brahma, and his particular favorites. After the soul transmigrates through various animal mansions, it ascends up the great sideral ladder of seven gates, and through the revolving spheres which are called in India the bobuns of purification.
It is the invariable belief of the Brahmins that man is a fallen creature. The doctrine of the transmigration of the soul is built upon this foundation. The professed design of the metempsychosis
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was to restore the fallen soul to its pristine state of perfection and blessedness. The Hindoos represent the Deity as punishing only to reform his creatures.
It is supposed that Pythagoras derived his doctrine of transmigration from the Indian Brahmins; for in the institutes of Menu, said to have been completed many centuries before Pythagoras was born, there is a long chapter on transmigration and final beatitude. Pythagoras flourished 500 years before the Christian era.
The doctrine so universally prevalent in Asia, that man is a fallen creature, gave birth to the persuasion that, by severe sufferings, and a long series of probationary discipline, his soul might be restored to its primitive purity. Hence the origin of their costly oblations and most sanguinary sacrifices. They had regenerating sacrifices, properly stained with blood. The ultimate destruction of the existing world, by fire, is another tenet of the Brahmins, the interpreters of the divine will concerning man.
In brief, the well-attested and long existing tenets, manners, customs, religious rites and usages of the Hindoos, Tartars, Chinese, indicate that, from times immemorial--as far back as all written and traditional evidence exists--the whole remedial economy, founded on the fall of man, with the spiritual world; fallen angels; demons, good and bad; future judgment and retribution, were in their possession, and religiously taught and believed by innumerable millions of mankind-- more than half the human race.
I refer the curious reader to the English and American Encyclopedias; the reports of missionaries; the researches of Dr. Buchanan; Ward's Hindoos; Dr. Robinson's reports while resident at Calcutta, &c., &c.
The doctrines concerning demons and demoniacs--a spiritual universe--stand, in all true antiquity, on the same footing with the fall of man, the flood, sacrifice, atonement, future judgment, and the ultimate destruction of the visible heavens and earth. One uniform Asiatic tradition, more or less clear, distinct, and intelligible, attests them all. We shall leave these documents with our readers for another moon. A. C.
HE that is too proud to vindicate the affection and confidence, which he conceives should be given without solicitation, must meet with much, and perhaps deserved disappointment.--Scott.
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THE MINISTRY.
DEVOTION, to any cause, is the pledge and reward of success. This is a universal law, and admits of no exception. Genius may send up an occasional rocket, but its light will soon be extinguished, and nothing left but the bare rod which accompanied it. It is the practised wing of the eagle which sustains its flight, e'en up to "heaven's gate." In every department of science and of art, it is only the man who patiently toils and yields himself up to his particular study, who excels. This, it is, that makes the profound mathematician, the linguist, the philosopher, the finished historian, the sculptor, and the painter. Who succeeds well as a physician and lawyer I Is it not the man who makes his profession his care? And is it not equally the condition of success and power to the preacher of the word? Does any one need more leisure for study, a larger stock of learning, and greater resources of thought and language, than the minister of righteousness, especially one whose position is conspicuous, and who is compelled to appear before the same congregation on every Lord's day? Genius, talent, and address--the suavier in modo, the fine voice, the honied words, and the meretricious appendages of the orator--may serve a purpose for a time; but the public eye and ear will soon become familiar with it all, and the public taste will turn away from it with loathing, unless accompanied with new and well digested truths. "Therefore, every scribe instructed in the Kingdom of God, is like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." Some things, which are old, may be new; and the new may be old; but both the new and the old, the scribe well instructed must have in his treasure, and, as occasion requires, he must bring them forth. To do this, he must spend much of his time as a recluse, poring over his Bible, and every other book that may be tributary to the great work in which he is engaged. Besides, there is no office which requires more of the esprit du corps, than this; and the only way to obtain it, is to give himself wholly to its duties, that his profiting may appear to all who hear him.
Was there ever such an age of progress as this? The human mind is stimulated to its utmost powers of endurance. To meet its demands, it requires courage, strength, and hope, and toil, both patient and unremitting; and as certain as there is increasing light in the community, the man who expects to gain influence, and keep
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it, he must catch the spirit of the age, and not only keep up with it, but, if possible, be in its advance.
Progress is as quenchless as the eternal fires, and as certain as doom. No step that has been taken can be retrenched. The porch but anticipates the temple; and he who has reached that, will not fail to enter. As well might we think that the school-master of the past century will now fill the office with respectability; or the tailor, in the days of Cromwell, suit the taste of the present age, as the preacher who has lived half a century, that of his hearers.
All the energies of matter and spirit are taxed to their utmost, and are at work within the serene compass of that circle which bounds our present life; and while humanity, ever progressive and active, is moving on for truth, and conquest, and liberty, over the illimitable fields of nature and of art, can we think that the ministers of truth and of righteousness--the great torch-bearers--need no fresh oil to replenish their lamps, many of which are going out Verily, I say unto you, the vessels must be kept well supplied.
The preacher needs now, if ever, the spear of Ithuriel, so delicate and fine as not to be seen, and yet so pointed and powerful as always to be felt, if he would pierce the rind of Leviathan.
But I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not find fault with the choice spirits who have achieved so much for God and truth, in the brief struggles they have had with error and darkness, since the commencement of this Reformation. They have done a herculean task. But they have had associated with them "burning and shining lights;" men whose impress will be world-wide; heroic men, not made for a party or an age, but for all coming time; stars of the first magnitude, whose orbits describe the cycles of eternity, and whose light will be unquenched, because it is the light of heaven. And this, with truth on their side, and the blessing of God, has been the secret of their success.
A great part of the work has been to destroy the fabrics which others have erected; but a sublimer task now lies before us, and a far more difficult one--to build, with all the perfection of art, a temple of more beauty, and symmetry, and permanence, than that which the wisest of men erected. There lie around us the beams of the cedars of Lebanon, marble from the quarries of Judea, the gold of Ophir, and the silver of Tarshish, in perfect finish, by the hands of the original builders, but, under the eye of the great Master, the materials must be joined together--" A habitation of God through the Spirit." Let us be cautious, lest we mar the work by introducing into the building "wood, hay, and stubble." We need
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finished workmen, whose life is devoted supremely to the work; not apprentices, but full grown men; not babies, but "able ministers of the new institution." And this will never be, so long as one is for his farm, and another for his merchandize; some hewers of wood and drawers of water, and all, more or less, secularized in life and spirit.
It behooves those who are thus entangled with the business of the world, and who cannot consecrate their whole time to the work of the Lord, to use all dilligence, to husband their resources, to improve every moment, to wash out every grain of gold from the placers, and to write holiness to the Lord upon the "bells of their horses," and that the most insignificant vessels of the Lord shall be as bowls before the altar. Some we have known, of this class, who, by their industry in the daily study of the scriptures, and by their unblemished life in the practice of righteousness, have gained to themselves a good degree, and have done, and are still doing, great service to the cause of truth. But, to them, it is a cause of unspeakable regret, that the cares of a family, the limited means or penuriousness of the church, have not furnished them with leisure to improve their minds, and thus better prepare them for the work assigned them. Many are fondly hoping, when success in business will enable them to devote their whole time to the cause. Vain delusion! When will they have enough! And in getting it, are they not spending their working days, and encrusting their souls with shells so thick and cumbrous, that, like the oyster, they will be compelled to fasten themselves to the rock, having lost all power of locomotion! There are some who will read this piece, who have enough, and more than enough, for all the purposes of life. Besides, it is but cultivating the spirit of avarice in the churches, to labor without reward. The best preachers are those who go without "scrip or purse," and who are maintained by the churches. The benevolence that cost us nothing, is of a doubtful stamp. I can give, says one, and not feel it; you had better give until you feel it. So the Saviour gave, and so the apostles, and so the truly beneficent have always given.
There needs now an advanced corps, to meet the exigencies of the present age, and that corps will yet be seen. One here, and another there, are coming to fill up the ranks, and the beckoning spirit of progress hails their advent. And what if they shall take a higher stand than we have made; and what if they eclipse those of us who have struggled into the light, and at every step have felt the benumbing influence of the superincumbent darkness? We gladly
130 SOCIETY IN GOD.
bequeath them the "armor of light," and the garnered treasures of a quarter of a century, as their capital to work on, with the remembrancer, "That to him that hath, more shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that bath not, (improved) shall be taken away even that which he hath."
CINCINNATI, O. JAMES CHALLEN.
SOCIETY IN GOD.
Brother Campbell: In reading, recently, a little work on "The Person and Work of Christ, by Ernest Sartorius, D. D., General Superintendent and Consistorial Director al Konigsburg, Prussia, translated by Rev. Oakman S. Stearns, A. /IL," I was much struck, not only with meeting in it some rather original views, which, in your writings, you have expressed, but nearly in your identical language. For example, that there is society in God, Dr. Sartorius, in the second chapter of his book, commits himself thus:
"And first of all, what is meant by the Son of God? God the Father and God the Son--is not this simply a human relation, which is merely transferred to God in thought, without any actual resemblance to it, in the character of God Many have so decided respecting this and other similar points, but it is a groundless conclusion, since it pretends that the Holy Scriptures describe the divine relations in accordance with human imagery, forgetful of the fact that the human relations are portrayed according to divine ideas. God has created man in his own image. The inverse proposition is not true. The creation is a copy, a fac-simile of God, and the inverse of this is not true. The simple fact that there exists among men the parental and filial relation, is no proof at all that there is the relation of Father and Son in God; much less that this absolute, eternal, and necessary relation exists in God by degrees, and then develops itself externally, in similar relations to his creatures, on account of whose finiteness that is divided and separated, which, in the original nature, was eternally united. If the divinity were merely shut up in himself, as an exclusive I, solitary, egotistical, without any internal community of love, which should eternally bind together the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, his creatures also would have existed, each one by himself, a dismembered, egotistical individual, without any connection with a higher
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unity, by which he is bound to his race; and without the hope that his existence will be repeated and continued in his own. God alone is the love, as the scriptures say--the almighty, ever-producing love; and he is so, not simply in relation to that which is external to him, or from the world, but is so in his immanent nature, from eternity; and as he is in himself, so he reveals himself. It is, therefore, impossible that he should be a mere I, without a Thou--a mere subject, without an object--the entire fulness of the Godhead, surrounded by himself, and deriving his gratification from himself alone. He would then become a dead selfishness, not a living love, whose most peculiar characteristic is a community of benevolence, and the communication of happiness; so that he is, in reality, a perfect communicator--yes, perfection itself. If God is entire and perfect love, he must impart the same, entirely and perfectly. But this cannot be in the creatures--they are too small, too inferior, and too weak, to receive the perfect fulness of God into themselves; they can comprehend the emitted sparks, but not the fire itself. The fire would destroy them. Consequently, they know not how to be satisfied with the eternal, never-ending love, because they are too far beneath him. God alone can satisfy God. The eteral Son alone can satisfy the eternal Father. Therefore, there must have existed from eternity, with God the Father, through his omnipotence and love, God the Son; who is, however, no other God than the Father. Especially is he so, by virtue of the divinity itself, of which he is a partaker, and which the Father has eternally appointed to him. There is, there can be but one, united, unending divine nature. A united, indivisible divinity, belongs to the Father and to the Son, and, through both these, to the Holy Spirit, as the third person, wherein the Trinity is completed as one and immutable. It cannot be divided or diminished, increased or multiplied, but is ever and pre-eminently one in number, degree, and kind. The difference is only this that there is attributed to the Father an absolute self-existence by himself alone; to the Son the same, by an eternal communication to the Father; and to the Holy Spirit the same, by an eternal communication with the Father and the Son; as when a light before it is doubled or trebled, shines in the first place by itself, and in the *second place reflects contemporaneously with it out of a mirror; and thirdly, with the reflection shines, also, again upon another mirror, and yet is only one light. There is afforded to us, also, the simplest explanation, under the figure of a triangle, since these three angles, in various ways, make up one and the same space.
"Without going any further into a speculation concerning the
132 SOCIETY IN GOD.
doctrine of the Trinity, it is sufficient to prove our doctrine from the Holy Scriptures. They are decisive and emphatical in teaching the unity of God, and yet never describe it as an abstract, simple, inert unity; on the contrary, they represent him as the living, ever-active God, who has next to himself the eternal word, the eternal idea, the eternally essential type of himself, in the Son creator; and that by him, and through him, all things, seen and unseen, were created. The heavens were made by the word of the Lord, and all their hosts by the word of his mouth.' In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.' All things were made by him, and without him, nothing was made which was made.'"
I except, in the above, "eternal Father," "eternal Son," and "Trinity;" and yet, if I understand the Doctor and yourself, there is no difference between you here. He is no advocate, more than you, for the dogmas of the "eternal generation" of the Son of God, and the "eternal proceeding" of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, as taught by old divines; but for the co-eternity and co-equality of all three. The "eternal Son," with him and with you alike, is the "eternal word--the eternal idea, the eternally essential type of himself, or the Son creator." Is it not so?
Yours truly, F. W. EMMONS.
NEAR SOUTHBRIDGE, Mass., October 20, 1850.
I THINK, with Bro. Emmons, that there is a remarkable similarity in the views and reasonings of this Prussian Doctor, on this awfully sublime subject, to those to which I gave expression in the Christian Baptist, some twenty-five years ago. His terminology differs from mine; but the rudimental conceptions are the same. At the hazard of my orthodoxy with that class of writers and teachers that bound themselves down, and their fraternities, to the jargon of words without ideas--such as "eternal generation," "eternal procession," "co-equality," and "consubstantiality," &c.--I presumed to affix ideas to the terms of inspiration, corresponding with their proper import, and then to trace the analogy which these terms institute in man, according to the laws of language and of the human mind. There is, however, too much abstraction in the triangular idea above expressed; nor is that figure peculiar to Dr. Sartorius. It is an antiquated conception of a very old school of rather mystic reasoning on the term Trinity, which nothing on earth resembled but a Magic.
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The beautiful conception of the word, and its corresponding idea, and of the embodiment of the same idea in flesh--a new term, a form, distinct from its pre-existent attitude and relations, or a translation of it from the language of heaven into the language of earth-- is what the emergency of man's apostacy required, and God's philanthropy vouchsafed. And therefore, the word became incarnate and dwelt amongst men, and we beheld his glory in this form of speech, and, in the form of a servant, condescending to raise our ruined race into a new form of glory, alter the image of him that created and redeemed us, and for whose glory we are and were created; who condescended to become like us in humanity, that we might be like him in partaking of a divine nature, even of immortality and eternal life. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift: A. C.
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By which, also, he went and "reached unto the spirits in prison.--I Pet., iii. 19.
"IN which," says Peter, speaking of Paul's epistles, "are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." What those things were, here alluded to, as we are not informed by Peter, though we might conjecture, there is no certainty of our conjecturing right: for some things, hard to be understood by the untaught and unstable primitive disciples and men of the world, in the apostles' times, may be easy to us; and other things, easy to them, hard to us--hard, not only to the unlearned and fickle minded, but to the learned--to many who are considered, and have been considered, as pillars of our churches. This is owing to our different circumstances--to the agitation of some questions among the ancients and the commonly diffused answer to them, and to other allusions to things known and understood, which among us, and to us, are lost. In order for us, therefore, to understand the scriptures--all the scriptures, and especially the epistles, we must inform ourselves, so far as practicable, of those questions, and answers, and things. Little, we suppose, did Peter, when making the remark above quoted of Paul's writings, suppose, that the same might be made of his. And, perhaps, at that time, it might not truly have been said of them. The passage placed at the head of
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134 THE SPIRITS IN PRISON.
this article, and its connection there, might be, and probably was, to "the elect sojourners," to whom it was originally addressed, perfectly plain and intelligible. Of the spirits in prison, they had probably learned before--of how and when our Lord preached to them--of the death, also, which they had suffered. They, we have also reason to believe, from the mouth of Peter, or other apostles or evangelists of Jesus-Christ, had heard the whole story. But to us, this passage comes under the head of the difficult ones. How we understand it, or how it has been understood by some of our great and good men, whose expositions of scripture have been oracles for the many, may be learned from the following extract of an essay in the London Christian Messenger, under the caption of "SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES, No. X," by "J. D.:"
Our early translators seem to have adopted the Roman Catholic notion of the gospel being preached to departed souls--' For whi for this thing it is preeched also to deed men.'--Wickliff. For unto thys purpose verely was the gospel preached also unto the deed:-- Cranmer. Later translators have entertained very various opinions. Whitby, Macknight, and Wakefield, consider the dead' to be the Gentile world, dead in sins.' Wesley understands the apostle to say, the gospel was preached ever since it was given to Adam, to them that are now dead, in their several generations.' Scott thinks the gospel had before this been preached to those (righteous persons) who were dead when the apostle wrote, either as martyrs fur the truth, or dying in the course of providence.' Knatchbull, by giving the words a scarcely justifiable construction, makes easy sense: For this cause was the gospel preached to them that were dead, that they who live according to men in the flesh may be condemned; but they who live according to God in the spirit may live.' Boothroyd regards the dead as being martyrs, who, though they were condemned as to men in the flesh, yet lived as to God in the spirit. Adam Clarke takes the dead to be antedeluvians, who, although dead in sins and condemned to death by the righteous judgment Of God, yet were respited and preached to, that they might live a blessed life in eternity.'"
"J.D." having all these lights before him, and having consulted such authorities as were within his reach,' thinks that the whole connexion of the passage may be fairly rendered thus: "Who, (evil speakers) shall give account to him that is ready to judge the living and the dead; for, fur this purpose, hath the gospel been preached also to the dead, that (although) they might be condemned according to men in the flesh, yet (might) live according to God in the spirit; but the end of all (these) things is at hand."
The "all things," the end of which is here declared to be at hand, he considers to be "the destruction" [then] "coining upon Jerusa-
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lem and the Jewish people;" and from his reasoning and proofs under his first head, establishing, to his satisfaction, this view, he considers, "Second. It follows that the living and the dead' were the believing and the infidel Jews." The believing, the "living;" and the infidel, the "dead." "Third. It is now obvious," he says, "for what end the gospel had been preached to the dead' or unbelieving Jews; namely, that the judge might stand just in judgment, as not seeking to reap where he had not sown," &c., &c.
O, Peter! Which--who of all these doctors is right? "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." To these, therefore, let us come:
"For Christ also bath once suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. By which, also, he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. * * * Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and dead I For, for this cause, was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."-I Pet., iii., 18, 19, 20, and iv., 5, 6.
So reads the passage and its connection--the text and context-- in our Common Translation; and so in the New Version, also, received by the "current reformation," with this difference--that the latter gives "made alive" for "quickened," "living" for "quick," "who," as the relative pronoun following "spirits," for "which," "indeed," twice, (a translation of men in the original,) which in the Old Version is omitted; and "made proclamation" for "went and preached."
Now for the meaning of this passage--the facts it declares, the doctrine it teaches. "Christ," says Peter, "once suffered for us, the just for the unjust." When? How? Where? "Being put to death in the flesh." But how "put to death 1" To what death? How did, how could Christ die? "In the flesh." And what is the import of this? Did Christ, being a just and righteous Jew, become an unjust and infidel one, and so suffer and die for us? Was this the death of Christ, which he suffered that he might bring us to God? Does "in the flesh" here mean in sin, or in a carnal mind? Had we never seen or heard of the Testimonies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and there were no narrative extant of the life, sufferings and death of Christ--had we of Christ only the information which
136 THE SPIRITS IN PRISON.
this passage in Peter contains, as we depend on him in what follows for knowledge of the spirits in prison; we might, perhaps, conclude that Christ suffered and died for us, in being changed from a just into an unjust and infidel Jew or Gentile. We might understand the import of "put to death in the flesh" here to be "made a sinner:" hut, with the light which has beamed on us from the sacred Testimonies, above referred to, we understand that Peter here speaks of the crucifixion of our Lord Christ, on Mount Calvary--that "in the flesh," means in the body--the same in which he dwelt among us, and displayed his glory--the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. "In the flesh" here, we understand Peter to mean the same as Job meant by "in the flesh," when he said, "And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." And by "death" here--the death Peter speaks of Christ suffering for us--we understand the same as Job speaks of in the destruction of his body. It was a dissolution of soul and body--a putting off of this tabernacle--he expired, he yielded up his spirit.
If such be the fact declared--such the import of the Apostle Peter's teaching here, by "put to death in the flesh," of the death of Christ; "dead" and "in the flesh" must have the same import in the following 4th and 5th verses, chap. iv. By the "quick," or living, "and the dead," is meant the living in the flesh, and the dead from it; and by "to them that are dead," is meant persons who have departed this life and are disembodied spirits. It hence follows, that the spirits in prison, to whom our Lord went and preached the gospel, were not infidel Jews nor Gentiles of the apostles' times; but the antedeluvian dead, "who were formerly disobedient, when the long- suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, in which few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water." They were in hades--the unseen world--the receptacle of all the dead; and in prison there. Christ being put to death in the flesh, because then like them, a disembodied spirit, and then conducted by the spirit which afterwards quickened him--made him alive again in the flesh, by re-uniting his soul to the body he left upon the cross--he visited their dark abodes--he preached deliverance to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that were bound. Why he did so, is very plainly declared in the words following: "For, for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." Now for the import of this. "To be judged according to men in the flesh," Vi e understand was, as living
THE SPIRITS IN PRISON. 137
men in the world, possessed of a body, soul and spirit, after hearing the gospel are to be judged--justified or condemned, as they believed and obeyed, or disbelieved and rejected it; and "to live according to God in the spirit," was obeying the gospel and living a life of holiness, as disembodied spirits could obey and live, till the general resurrection, when the souls and bodies of all the just are to be reunited and glorified.
That the above is the true exposition of this passage in Peter, I am confirmed in my convictions by the following additional PROOFS:
1. To the thief, who believed in Christ, and confessed and prayed to him on the cross, our Lord said, "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Both died that day.
2. The patriarch David uttered a prediction, which the Apostle Peter quotes and applies in his discourse on the day of Pentecost, thus: "Being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he seeing this before, spite of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hades, (the unseen world--not hell,) neither did his flesh see corruption." It hence appears that the soul of Christ was to go, and went to hades. Hence, the first clause, art. 6, of the apostle's creed, "He descended into hades."
3. On the morning of the first day of the week, the third after the crucifixion, in the recorded appearance of our Lord to Mary, he said: "Touch me not, for I an not yet ascended to my Father." From Friday till Sunday morning the body of our Lord was a lifeless lump of clay, and his soul was in the unseen world. It was not dead. What was it doing there!" This, we suppose, to have been the question which was asked by the primitive disciples of Christ, and in which they felt much interest; for they were not Sadducees they believed, and had been taught by their Lord to believe, in the existence both of angels, and of departed, living, conscious, disembodied human spirits. And this question was answered to them. The passage in Peter which we have been considering, tells us what that answer was.
4. The testimony of Celsus, "the famous Epicurean philosopher of the middle or latter part of the second century." He wrote against the Christians; and was answered by Origen. After these
things, says Origen, he speaks to us in this manner: Surely you will not say, that when he could not persuade those that were here,
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 12*
138 THE SPIRITS IN PRISON.
he went to hades to persuade those who are there.' B. 2, S. 43, p. 85. See I Peter, iii., 19-20.*
5. "The gospel of Nicodemus, formerly called the Acts of Pontus Pilate." This gospel, by some among the learned,' we are informed, is supposed to have been really written by Nicodemus, who became a disciple of Jesus Christ, and conversed with him; while others conjecture it was a forgery towards the close of the third century. Whether it be canonical or not, it is of very great antiquity, and is appealed to by several of the ancient Christians.' In this gospel we have the narrative of Charinus and Lenthius, the two sons of Simeon, said to have been raised from the dead at the time of our Lord's resurrection, and to have been seen by many in Jerusalem. It occupies nearly half the book, from the beginning of the 13th to the middle of the 21st chapter, the great subject of which is the visit of Christ to hades; and what he did and said, and what others did and said while he was there. It begins thus:
"O Lord Jesus and Father, who art God, also the resurrection and life of the dead, give us leave to declare thy mysteries, which we saw after death belonging to thy cross; for we are sworn in thy name. For thou hast forbid thy servants to declare the secret things which were wrought by thy divine power in hell," (hades.)†
The sum of this testimony is, that Christ our Lord, after his crucifixion and before he arose from the dead, went to hales; and that the belief of Christians in the apostles' times, and for some two or three hundred years afterwards, was, that while there, he preached to the spirits in prison.
OBJECTIONS.--This exposition cannot be true; because,
1. It is contrary to the text, "And if the tree fall towards the south, or towards the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be;" and to the comment, "As death leaves us, judgment will find us."
2. It contradicts the poet:
"There are no acts of pardon pass'd,
In the cold grave to which we haste."
3. It is Romish and not Protestant, giving support to the doctrine of a purgatory, bridging over the impassable gulph, which our Lord, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, declared was placed between the wicked and righteous dead.
To all which, I ANSWER: Not at all. The spirits in prison, of which Peter speaks, were not all the dead; but only they who were
*Christian Preacher's Companion, p. 91.
†Apocryphal New Testament, Boston stereotype edition, p. 68.
THE SPIRITS IN PRISON. 139
disobedient in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing. And he speaks of only one preacher to them--Christ; one visit and one proclamation. This passage, therefore, as we understand and have expounded it, alters not the position of any tree which has fallen to the earth since the flood; nor the state of any human being, who has since died, in or out of Christ. And as for the Romish doctrine of purgatory, it gives it just about the same support, as our Lord's address to Peter, calling him a stone, does to the Romish doctrine, Peter is the foundation rock of the church;' certainly no more.
ADELPHOS.
NEAR SOUTHBRIDGE, Mass., January 22, 1851.
FROM this laborious dissertation, I am only the more confirmed in the justness of the views I have long since given of this passage, which, through the ungrammatical, illogical, unscriptural, and preposterous gloss put upon it by interested Roman Priests, has been converted into a gold mine, richer far than the mines of California, stolen, too, from Pagan Rome, and its demoniacal worship.
How straightforward the sense of Peter in this passage, from the 18th verse to the end of the 20th--" He (Jesus Christ) was made alive by the Spirit (hoo pneumati.) By which, also, he went and preached to the spirits (pneumatois) in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when the patience of God waited once (for all) in the days of Noah, while an ark was preparing, in which few, that is, eight souls (psuchai, not spirits, but persons) were saved through water."
To interpret this of Christ's personal preaching, is the first error; to make the spirits in prison the spirits of those who lived while Noah was building an ark, is the second error; and to preach to disembodied spirits in purgatory, or any where else, after death, in order to repentance, is the third and consummating error. Let us listen to the sacred style. Those to whom Christ was to preach, according to Isaiah xlii. 7, are represented as prisoners--" I give thee for a light to the Gentiles, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house." Isaiah xlix. 9--"That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves." Why not, then, in this style, contemplate the wicked antedeluvians, as persons still more in prison than these, for their bounds were limited to a definite space. Those to whom Christ was to speak, are described by the Jewish
140 THE ROMISH CHURCH.
prophets as being "in prison," and not in prison only, but in the region and shadow of death and darkness.
Again: it was not in person only that he was to preach, but by his Spirit also. He did not, in person, ever preach to the Gentiles; but it was said that he should "be a light of the Gentiles, to open their eyes." Certainly this was by the same Spirit, in the apostles, by which in Noah he preached to the antedeluvians, while in prison, during the 120 years, but not in prison when Peter wrote. It was by his Spirit, and not in person. he preached to the antedeluvians, as it is by his Spirit he has for centuries been preaching to the Gentiles. In both cases, as in many others, he is figuratively spoken of as doing in person what he did only literally by angels, or prophets, or apostles.
Figuratively, the antedeluvians were in prison-bounds one hundred and twenty years; after which, unless they repented, they were to be destroyed. During this time Noah, by the Spirit of inspiration and prophecy--the same Spirit that was in Jesus Christ-- preached, "unless you repent, you shall be drowned." They repented not, and were drowned. Peter's allusion to this, for the sake of introducing baptism in a very strong light, and for pressing the claims of the gospel on the attention of his contemporaries, although in the style of all the Jewish preachers, has been, in this case, subjected to a most licentious, ungenerous, and unchristian interpretation, to which, were he here, he would doubtless administer a severe reproof. A. C.
THE ROMISH CHURCH,
IF INFALLIBLE IN HER DECISIONS, IS BOUND TO KILL PROTESTANTS,
PROVED BY A CONDENSED ARGUMENT.
THE Romish church claims infallibility for all her ecclesiastical decisions; but these decisions must be made by a General Council. All decress made by a General Council, relating to doctrines and morals, and other matters of general interest to the church, are infallibly right, as acknowledged by Bishop Hughes, in debate with Mr. Breckenridge.
Now, the Fourth General Council of Lateran decreed, not only that it is right for civil rulers to kill all heretics devoted by the
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church, but that it is their religious duty to do so; that they shall bind themselves most solemnly, by an oath, "for the defence of the faith; that they will study, in good earnest, to exterminate, to their utmost power, from the land subject to their jurisdiction, all heretics devoted by the church." So imperative was the duty to kill all heretics, that the temporal lord who refused to execute the decree, was to be forthwith excommunicated; and if he did not repent, and begin to kill them within one year, he was to be reported to the Pope, who was to absolve his subjects from the oath of allegiance, and expose his country to be seized by Catholics, who would kill them. Mark, too, the reward offered those Catholics who, "taking the badge of the cross, should gird themselves to the work of exterminating heretics," viz: the same plenary indulgence granted those who went to take the holy land. But is this decree genuine, or is it a forgery upon the Roman Catholics, by an enemy? Dr. Breckenridge read it in oral debate with Bishop Hughes, and the Bishop admitted it to be genuine.
Did, then, the Fourth General Council of Leteran decide this great moral question correctly or incorrectly l If incorrectly, the claim of the Church of Rome to infallibility, must be forever abandoned. If Roman Catholics say the council decided correctly, then we know what to expect, if ever they come into power in this country. But we shall now copy the decree., lest we may be supposed to have garbled it, for improper purposes.
"We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy extolling itself against the holy, orthodox, Catholic faith, which we before expounded, condemning all heretics, by whatsoever name called, having, indeed, different faces, but having their tails bound together by a common agreement in falsehood, one with another. And being condemned, let them be left to the secular powers present, or to their bailiffs, to be punished with due animadversion; if clergymen, let them be first degraded from their orders, so that the goods of persons thus condemned, if of the laity, may be confiscated; if of the clergy, they may be devoted to the churches from which they have received their stipends. And let the secular powers be warned and induced, and, if need be, condemned by ecclesiastical censures, what offices soever they are in; that as they desire to be reputed and taken for believers, so they publicly take an oath for the defence of the faith, that they will study, in good earnest, to exterminate to their utmost power, from the land subject to their jurisdiction, all heretics, devoted by the church; so that every one that is henceforth taken unto any power, either spiritual or temporal, shall be bound to confirm this chapter by an oath. But if the temporal lord, required and warned by the church, shall ne-
142 CONVERSATIONS.
glect to purge his territory of this heretical filth, let him, by the metropolitan and the provincial bishops, be tied by the bond of excommunication; and if he scorn to satisfy within a year, let that be signified to the pope, that he may denounce his vassals thenceforth absolved from his fidelity, and may expose his country to be seized by Catholics, who, exterminating the heretics, may possess it with. out any contradiction, and may keep it in the purity of the faith; saving the right, of the principal lord, so be it he himself put no obstacle thereto, nor impose any impediment; the same law, notwithstanding, being kept about then: that have no principal lords. And those Catholics that, taking the badge of the cross, shall gird themselves for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy that indulgence, and be fortified with that holy privilege, which is granted to those that go to the help of the Holy Land." A. W. C.
FAMILY CULTURE.
CONVERSATIONS AT THE CARLTON HOUSE--No. XIV.
ROMANS VII.
Olympas.--I now specially call your attention to the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses of the seventh chapter, so much a matter of debate amongst good and great men. The passage reads in the New Version thus: "Besides, we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I do not approve; since it is not what I desire that I do, but I do that which I hate. If, now, I do that which I do not desire, I consent to the law that it is good." In the Common Version it is still more difficult, for it is there translated: "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good." The difficulty is, how one and the same person could truthfully represent himself as doing what he willed not to do; or as willing one thing and doing another; or as doing what he hated, and hating what he did.
Clement.--I am glad that you have brought this subject again before us. It has been a hard nut for some commentators to open. Some affirm it to be irreconcilable. Others regard it as equivalent to representing a person having two souls.
Aquila.--I, indeed, have found it a difficult passage; but, on all the premises before me, have given the view of it which I deemed,
CONVERSATIONS. 143
from my own experience, the most consistent with the main drift of the apostle. But if there be any error in my views, I will be most thankful to any of you who convicts me of it. I simply desire to understand the apostle, nothing caring how it may stand with my views and opinions on this or any other subject.
Olympas.--Men of renown, and of well earned reputation for talent and learning, have differed much in their interpretation of it. Still, they were not infallible, nor always consistent with themselves. We often feel that reason and conscience are on our side of a proposition, while interest and passion are on the other side. In such cases, there is apt to be an inward conflict, and one principle must yield--passion to interest, or interest to passion. They cannot both be of equal power.
Aquila.--What seemed to settle my mind on this subject, is the fact that the two I's must be one and the same person; because, at the end, he exclaims, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death!" The good I, willing to do, is the wretched man that I am, in view of the agony which is expressed. If the good I, willing to do what his reason and conscience approved, had not been hindered by another I, in himself opposing, whence this wretchedness--this agonizing exclamation!
Again: the new man is always good, and the old man is always evil. The good I, became no worse; and the bad I, became no better. The one, indeed, is spirit, and the other is flesh, and these are real controversies.
Every enlightened man, philosopher or moralists, feels in himself such an antagonism between his conscience and his passions. The Christian, too, must daily deny himself. Now, if there were no evil in himself, denial would be a sin, and the want of it a virtue. But self-denial, as preached by the Saviour, is to be daily and constant; so that the old man is never extinct in the present life. Hence, Christians are always to mortify the flesh, with its affections and its lusts, and to agonize, or "tight the good fight of faith," in order to enter into the kingdom of glory.
But it is objected, that the Pagan Euripides, in his Media, could say as much as Paul said of himself:
Manthano men oia draan mello kaka
Thumos de kreissoon toon emoon bouleumatoon.
"I know, indeed, that such things as I am about to do are evil; but my mind is better than my inclinations."
This, although not so much as Paul says, is similar to it, and at least evinces a conviction, that the good approved is not always
144 CONVERSATIONS.
practised, without an inward conflict between reason, conscience, and inclination.
I will only add, that to love and to hate, in the Hebrew style, are sometimes placed in contrast, when only a less degree of love for the one than for the other is intended. Thus, it is said, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Jacob was preferred, and Esau was slighted, but not absolutely hated. A Christian, sometimes, does that which he loves less, rather than that which he loves more. And, in Jewish style, he might be said to do what he hates, and not to do what he loves.
But it is not mere conscience on one side, and passion on another. It is a new man against an old man, in full character, and not one part of the same man against another part of himself. It is the whole new man against the whole old man, in one. Hence the question, What is the new man proper, and the old man proper?--the former is called spirit, and the latter flesh. It is not a part of the spirit against a part of the flesh, nor a part of the flesh against the whole of the spirit, nor the whole of the spirit against a part of the flesh; but the whole flesh against the whole spirit. Hence, the capital point is, What does Paul mean by the flesh and by the spirit?
Olympus.– -That, Aquila, is indeed the correct view of the question, and, that disposed of, Paul is understood. But on this broad question, as both the old and some of the modern theologians have made it, much may be said. Alexander Crude, in his very valuable Concordance, not yet supplanted by any book of the present century, gives no less than eleven scripture acceptations of this word. And while he makes it, sometimes, denote "the whole nature of man," body, soul, and spirit, "as it comes into the world corrupt, vile, and infected with sin," yet, in such passages as the present, he says: "Where flesh is attributed to converted persons, and set against the spirit, it signifies the remainder of natural corruption; even so much of that vicious quality of sin as is still unmodified in regenerated persons;" and in proof of this, quotes Rom. viii. 18-28, Gal. v. 17-24.
Thus making flesh in Christians, much less than flesh in the unconverted. This appears to me wholly gratuitous. It is just as wicked and vile in Christians, as in sinners, and applies as fully to the intellect, the imagination, and affections in them, as in the vilest of men; as much in Paul the apostle, as in Saul of Tarsus, persecuting the Christians.
Aquila.--This is rather a startling view of it; yet it strikes me with much force. For really, I have seen in some perfectionists-- especially amongst some of our over-zealous and over-inflated
CONVERSATIONS. 145
Methodistic brethren, when they attained to something called "Christian perfection"--as much spiritual pride, and what I might, perhaps, call substantial carnality, as in any other profession-- seekers after this beau ideal of the Wesleys.
Olympas.--Yes, indeed, so have I; and I verily believe, Paul being my guide, that there is just as much of the Devil in spiritual pride and boasted perfection, as there is in theft, lying, and the grosser sensualities of Pagandom. There are decent, polite, and fashionable, as well as indecent, impolite, and unfashionable sins. The polished literary and accomplished poet, revelling in the gifts and attainments of a fine imagination; the eloquent orator in the pulpit and in the forum; the beautiful and attractive moral philosopher, in the splendid offerings of his exalted genius, and gilded encomiums on the moral excellencies that adorn and elevate society; and the shrewd, learned, and orthodox expositor of the Christian mysteries, are, not unfrequently, as much under the guidance of pride, vanity, and avarice--as much in the flesh, and under the control of Satan-- as the libertine, the rake, the prodigal--as much in the flesh as Cesar, Pompey, or Herod.
Clement.--These, though startling, and somewhat astounding avowals, are, it strikes me, so much in harmony with what I have experienced and seen, and what I have learned from this volume. that I, too, must, however reluctantly, give them my assent.
Olympas.--I own I prefer the Pharisee, as a neighbor, to the Sadducee; the moral, orderly, decent citizen, to the lustful, profane, and debauched Sadducee; but when asked which of them is farthest from God and heaven, I am reminded of a splendid character which the Saviour drew of a very accomplished and worthy Pharisee; yes, a decent, devout, praying Pharisee. He makes him stand before God and say, "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are--extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this Publican;" and yet the Publican, with all his Publican sins, was nigher the kingdom of heaven than he-
Aquila.--On such views, Father Olympas, I can reconcile many difficulties to some minds, in Bible saints, which I could not otherwise reconcile. Such as Abraham's, Isaac's, Jacob's, David's, Josiah's, and Peter's sins. I would not assign them to some few grains of alloy of remaining corruption, called figuratively, "the flesh;" but to the old man, as large as life, when unchained and unrestrained by the Spirit, or by the new man, under the strength and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Olympas.--And without this view, as illy could I explain Paul,
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 13
146 CONVERSATIONS.
saying, "Wretch that I am! who shall deliver me from this BODY of sin and death;" this mass of corruption and vile affections, with which I have continually to conflict.
While, then, the flesh, or the old man, is evil, and only evil, and that continually, the new man, the spirit, is good, and only good, and that continually; for while "the flesh" is all from Satan, "the spirit" is all from God. Hence, again I say, the Christian must daily and constantly deny himself, no less the last day than the first day of his new life--" for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that we cannot do the things that we would."
Clement.--But, Bro. Olympas, we have the consolation, that while the old man gets no better, the new man, or the spirit, gets stronger, and the flesh weaker, and thus we grow in grace, and in the savor of our Lord and Saviour.
Olympas.--True, my good brother; but this growth in grace is the fruit of mortifying the flesh; of not making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof; of crucifying the flesh, with its affections and lusts; of doing what Paul did, when he said, "I keep under my body," and die unto sin that I may live to God.
Aquila.--1 must confess that I am, more than ever before, confirmed in my views, and see more clearly than before, the difference between the Christian warfare and the occasional and spasmodic fits of good purposes formed for amendment. of life, in those whose consciences occasionally assert its supremacy and condemn the rebel passions, for their appalling outbreaks and insubordination to the dictates of reason and the oracles of God. In all men, according to their education, there is, more or less, an inward quarrel between reason and passion--between inclination and duty; and this, I fear, is sometimes--nay, often--imagined to be the Christian warfare. But this is common to the Jew and to the Pagan, to the Indian and to the philosopher, to the rudest barbarian and the most accomplished gentleman.
Olympas.--True, very true; but the Christian, in his in ward man, delights in the law of the Lord, and all his fleshly aberrations he regrets; not because of the curse, but because he thereby dishonors and wounds the kind feelings of his Lord and Saviour, whom he delights to honor and obey, and in whose approbating he rejoices more than in life itself. While he rejoices that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit, he exclaims with the sweet Psalmist of Israel, "Blessed the people that know the joyful sound! They
SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY. 147
shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance. In thy name shall they rejoice all the day, and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted, for thou art the glory of their strength, and in thy favor our horn shall be exalted; for the Lord is our defence, and the Holy One of Israel our King." A. C.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE, CAUSE, AND CURE,
OF SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY--No. III.
FROM what we have previously said, upon the immediate and remote causes of this malady, it would appear that they all act, either directly or indirectly, by producing--
First, an impairment of the spiritual sensibility generally, and of the conscience in particular.
Secondly, and consequently, a perverted action of the moral affections of the heart.
Thirdly, a deficient spiritual appetite, evincing a deranged condition of the spiritual digestion.
The indications of treatment are, therefore, such as are calculated-- First, to improve the spiritual digestion, and thereby to restore a healthy spiritual appetite.
Secondly, to correct the perverted action of the moral affections.
Thirdly, to give tone to the whole system, and thereby to restore the healthy condition of the spiritual sensibility generally, and of the conscience in particular.
And first, with respect to the improvement of spiritual digestion. The first object in the cure of all diseases, is to remove the remote causes as far as they still continue to operate.
Among those of spiritual indigestion, we have seen, that whatever occasions an inordinate fondness for the mere objects of sense, holds a chief place. And, indeed, it unfortunately happens that there is a continual tendency, in this disease, to produce these fleshly desires. However well we may succeed in removing them, it requires constant attention to prevent their recurrence. It also appears, from what has been said, that these observations apply, with almost equal force, to some of the other causes of this disease, particularly to that inactivity of the spiritual man, and to that irritable, anxious, and desponding state of mind which so frequently cause, and are caused by, spiritual indigestion.
148 SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY.
The first part of the treatment, therefore, which falls under our attention, relates to diet and exercise, both of the inward and outward man; or, in other words, of mind and body. Attention to these will, indeed, in most cases, be found sufficient to effect the cure.
The objects to be kept in view, in regulating the diet in this ailment, as appears from what has just been said, are, that the articles of spiritual diet shall be such as are best calculated to counteract the noxious effects of whatever tends to increase the disorder of the organs of spiritual digestion; such as the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life. This calls for such a regulation of the diet as shall constitute a sound and judicious spiritual regimen.
But, that we may perceive the operation of the causes just mentioned, in deranging the spiritual health of the inner man, and that we may also be impressed with the necessity of a proper spiritual regimen to restore and preserve the health of the dyspeptic, la e shall, by way of illustration, select a case of this disease, as found in that celebrated treatise of Dr. Evangelicus, formerly professor of Christ's College, Antioch; which, though written many years ago, is yet a standard work upon the Pathology and Therapeutics of spiritual diseases. The case we shall select is that of James Conformitas, as it is one which, in our humble opinion, is well adapted to illustrate the ordinary form assumed by this disease in its various stages:
The health of James Conformitas, remarks the Doctor, was apparently good, till within a year prior to the time that I was first called to examine his case. He had now attained his thirty-fifth year. The inner man appeared to be about of the the medium stature, of spare habit, and complexion somewhat sallow, as though there had been, from infancy, some hereditary taint of his moral constitution or spiritual man. The leanness that was now very apparent, was owing to an active form of the disease, the effect of which was to impair his appetite for spiritual aliment; which, though daily used in some manner, had evidently not nourished his spirituality: consequently, the symptoms of spiritual disease were but too apparent in the loss of that love, joy, peace, &c., &c., which never fail to denote a diseased constitution of the conscience, heart, and affections; those vital and controlling organs of the spiritual system.
The pulse corresponded with the affections of the heart, in relation to the general state of the system--all showing great spiritual languor and feebleness of the inner man. The head, also, was found disturbed with a kind of spiritual vertigo or dizziness, accompanied with dimness of vision. I inquired, adds the Doctor, when
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this impairment of the spiritual discernment began to manifest itself, and found that it was first observed by the patient about the time that his appetite for spiritual aliment began to fail. As to the exact time when this failure of the appetite began to show itself, I learned from James Conformitas the following facts, which, as they had a decided influence upon his health, I shall now give in his own words: One year ago, while my health was as good as usual, I paid a visit to the family of my friend, Wm. Superbus, Esq., whose lands join my own. He had just got himself comfortably fixed in his new and splendid mansion, which he had built at much cost, and furnished at great expense and in the finest style. As the good 'Squire and lady received our visit with much politeness, treating us with all attention, they were at no small pains to show us the style and furniture of their elegant mansion. We were introduced into the several rooms and compartments. Mrs. Conformitas and myself, could not but express our admiration of the fine taste displayed in the finish and furniture of each apartment. The hangings of the walls, the paintings, the mouldings, the venitian doors, the grotesque ceilings, the paladian walls and stucco floors, the marble mantles, furniture of the richest mahogany and the most gorgeous tapestry, all contributed to display the taste of its lordly possessor. Having finished our visit, and as we NA ere returning to our comparatively humble mansion, Mrs. Conformitas and myself could think or talk of little else than the splendid mansion of Mr. Superbus. Our own little dwelling, though hitherto deemed neat, and of sufficient size for our little family, now began to appear so plain and common, in every thing that pertained to it, as to put us quite out of conceit of such a plain style of living. We, therefore, concluded that we must improve our style of life, if we would be thought genteel, or fit for the society of such persons as Mr. Superbus, Col. Loveshew, and our good friend Sir John Highstyle.
It was the next day after this our conversation, as we sat down, as usual, to partake of our morning spiritual repast, that we perceived our appetite impaired. The bread of life seemed to have lost much of its sweetness; nor could we relish the sincere milk of the word, as formerly. It was not long after this that I felt my spiritual vision becoming weak, and my spiritual discernment so much impaired, as with difficulty to see "the things afar off." The objects of sense, such as I had lately looked upon with much admiration, being near me, and the impression being vivid, I seemed to see very clearly. The more I looked upon such subjects, the more they engaged my desires. Here, the Doctor requested him to state how he
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150 SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY.
felt as to the inner man, while thus engaged with the objects of sense. As to the inner man, said James, I have always felt some uneasy feeling in the region of the heart and conscience, as though all was not right within. At times, indeed, I would feel a severe lancinating pain shooting from the conscience to the heart, and thence towards the head, accompanied with strange sounding in the ears, whispering in a still small voice, Look not at the things seen., which are temporal, but at things unseen, which are eternal.
What were your feelings, again inquired the Doctor, when you attempted to partake of your accustomed portion of spiritual aliment?
Though the food did not taste as pleasant as it used to do, I felt that it was my duty to try to eat. But little of it, however, seemed to be digested, and the only sensible effect it appeared to have, was to make me feel that my spiritual health was far from being good.
Doctor.--Why did it not improve your strength, seeing you ate of it daily?
Mr. Conformitas.--I know not, unless it was that I seldom found time to eat with sufficient leisure. Formerly, when my health was good, and business less pressing upon my time, and less engrossing my thoughts, I could spend sufficient time at my meals to secure the perfect digestion of what I had eaten. It then tasted most pleasant, and always seemed to strengthen the inner man.
Doctor.--The change has certainly been against your health, and as you value life, you should well consider the consequences of your present course of living. But proceed with your interesting narrative.
Mr. Conformitas.--I am pleased that my narrative does really interest you, my dear Doctor, for I entertain serious fears with regard to my spiritual health, and shall, therefore, go on with my narrative. As, then, we e were not pleased with our plain mansion and simple style of living, we determined to dispose of our plain furniture, and fit up our little mansion in more fashionable style. About this time, Mr. and Mrs. Loveshew paid us a friendly visit; for they had heard that Mr. Conformitas had got his eyes open to see like his neighbors, that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; that there is nothing like enjoying the present life; fur surely, as Mr. Highstyle says, if we are to live hereafter in splendid mansions, why should we not desire to live in splendid mansions now; and who is more worthy of a fine house than our friend James Conformitas Mr. and Mrs. Loveshew having entered, we introduced them into the best room of our plain mansion; not, however, without many apologies for the homely style of our unfashionable furniture. This we felt due to
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our very tasteful and fashionable guests. As we were very desirous to entertain our visitors with agreeable conversation, it immediately turned upon our late visit to the splendid mansion of Esquire Superbus.
Mr. Loveshew.--Esquire Superbus is a gentleman of the finest and most cultivated taste. I have known him for the last twenty years. Three years ago he honored me by laying before me the diagram of a new building, which he was then preparing to erect, stating, at the same time, that if I could suggest any improvement as to the plan or style of the building, he would feel much pleased to receive the suggestion. I accordingly examined the diagram with much care, and was happy to find that the few improvements I suggested were cordially complied with; and as he has often told me since, they certainly have added much to the convenience and elegance of his mansion.
Mr. Conformitas.--I then intimated to Mr. L. that I had almost determined to set about improving my little mansion. My means, however, being rather limited, I dare not attempt, Mr. Loveshew, to make your stately mansion, nor that of our mutual friend, 'Squire Superbus, my model.
Mr. Loveshew.--As to means, permit me to say, Mr. Conformitas, a man is not always the best judge of his own means. I, for my part, am accustomed to rate a man's means by his rank in society. Many men there are, however, who are deserving of a higher rank than they occupy. Their character for probity and industry entitle them to it. And I hope you will pardon me, when I say, that your character, in these respects, cannot fail of commanding the requisite means of building a mansion equal to that of any of your neighbors. My doctrine is, that a man increases his means by elevating himself to that rank of society that is always supposed to have the means of maintaining itself. The rank itself often creates the means.
Mr. Conformitas.--All you have said, Mr. Loveshew, may be so, yet the doctrine which our good minister teaches us is, That having food and raiment, we should therewith be content; and the reason he assigned, in order to impose its observance, appears good and relevant; "for as we brought nothing into the world with us, it is certain we can carry nothing out."
Mr. Loveshew.--That is all certainly true, if we rightly understand the minister. I presume you have reference to Parson Fairspeech, Mrs. Loveshew's brother. I think I have heard the Parson myself make the same remarks, and offer an explanation similar to what you have just stated. I have always, indeed, regarded Parson Fair-
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speech as a very consistent minister. His manner of life, he doubtless intends, shall set forth to his hearers, how he understands such sayings as you have just quoted. I know not a more consistent man than your Parson, Mr. Fairspeech--(you will please excuse my speaking thus in praise of my near relative)--but, Mr. Conformitas, you also know that his style of life is equal to that of any of his parishoners. If it were wrong or sinful to live in so fine a mansion, and in so fashionable a style, as that of your good parson, would he not preach against it, and avoid it as he would any sinful extravagance? Surely you would not, though a deacon of his church, censure your pious parson for so doing. I doubt not but he is very conscientious in all that he does. His influence will certainly be felt and acknowledged by his pious flock. They will appear genteel in church, and wait with great decorum upon his pious ministrations.
Mr. Conformitas --As you have just spoken of the pious ministrations of our good parson, permit me to ask you, as I had the pleasure of seeing you out at church last Sunday, how you liked his discourse 1
Mr. Loveshew.--If I recollect right, his text was, "Be not conformed to this world." He spoke with much eloquence, and his gestures appeared to be, indeed, very graceful. As to his exposition of the text, it was, no doubt, in accordance with what he thought to be its true meaning. I do not, however, profess to be a competent judge of such matters. I seldom, indeed, read much upon theological subjects. They are subjects upon which our learned divines differ much amongst themselves. There is one remark I now remember Parson Fairspeech to have made, with which I cordially concur. He stated that some there were amongst the old divines, who taught, from this text, that Christians ought not to conform to the manner of genteel and fashionable society. That if they did so, the consequence would be, the church could not be distinguished from the world, nor the world from the church. Nor could the church then be a light or a guide, to show men the error of their ways. This view of the matter, your good pastor, I was pleased to learn, regarded as one of the antiquated errors of the first century. Society, he observed, was at that time in a rude and semi-barbarous state. Christianity was then but in its infancy. It had not time, as yet, to polish and refine the manners of society. It, however, aimed at it, and, in time, would produce this most desirable result. The apostle, the parson observed, would not have Christians to conform to the rude and uncultivated manners of that age, which, in our text, he cans the world. He, on the contrary, exhorted them to
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be courteous and gentle--that is, to be genteel. In short, I regard Parson Fairspeech as a gentleman and a Christian, of refined and liberal views.
Mr. Conformitas.--I should be pleased to have you relate the views, if it be agreeable, which Parson Fairspeech gave, in the conversation you alluded to, when speaking upon the meaning of the scripture, which says, Having food and raiment, be therewith content. With whom had he the conversation!"
Mr. Loveshew.--The person you well know, Mr. Conformitas. It was Mr. Singlemind, whose views, you know, are always singular upon such subjects, and are seldom adopted by sensible people. This gentleman, in that conversation, took the singular position, that the words are to be taken in their literal sense, and that they apply to all men, high and low, bond and free, rich and poor. He argued with Parson Fairspeech, that it applied to all ranks of men--that all should be content with food and raiment, because it is all that a man can really enjoy, and because, if he acquire any thing more than these necessary things, he must lose it at last, and cannot but regret the time uselessly spent in heaping up that which he can never hereafter enjoy. To which it was answered by
Mr. Fairspeech.--Your views, Mr. Singlemind, are, in my humble opinion, decidedly ultra on this subject. Upon this view of the text, you must expect to stand alone, for all of cur most intelligent Christians, whether of the clergy or laity, are certainly on my side of the question. You will also find, that if there be any of the class I now refer to, not affluent and fashionable in their style of life, they approve it, by courting the smiles of such, and hope, through their influence, to promote the best interests of society. And be assured, my good sir, that any other view of this subject must involve those good Christians in an inconsistency of conduct too glaringly inconsistent, and wholly incompatible with that good sense for which they are distinguished on every other matter. You would not, I am persuaded, Mr. Singlehead, impute to such the the character of dissemblers. The opinion would be most uncharitable, as well as unfounded. I hope, however, my courteous friend Mr. Singlemind, will pardon me, if I have spoken at all with any undue zeal upon these matters, as I should much regret to carry any topic of discussion so far as would tend, either by its manner or matter, to hurt the feelings of a kind friend. We shall, therefore, at present, with your consent, not decide the merits of the question, but, till we see each other again, would it not, in the meantime, be agreeable to present the views already given for the consideration of our friends, by handing them over, for publication, to our mutual friend, A. W. C.
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THOUGHTFUL HOURS--No. I.
Surety every man walketh in a vain show.--Psalm xxxix. 6.
THE man of the world passes through life in the midst of a continued illusion. By a species of malign enchantment, like that related in Eastern fable, the fading leaves and crumbling dust of earth are made to appear in his eyes as pure and shining coin, fresh from the mint of heaven. He looks at nature--at society--at himself, through a medium which imparts false colors and unreal forms to every object. He lives in a world which God has not created--a world which is clothed with deceitful charms and false allurements-- a world from whose annals all truthful history is blotted out; where there is no experience of the past, and where the over-wrought imaginations of the present are rendered the more specious, because they are compared alone with the still brighter visions of the future. This is, emphatically, that world which "is not of the Father"--that world of unreality, of empty phantoms, of glare and glitter and vain parade, of giddy joys and fleeting hopes, the seeming power and deceitful glories of w hose many kingdoms Satan exhibits to deluded mortals from the lofty eminence of human pride, and freely proffers to those who will fall down and worship him. It is that world without by which man is enchanted, because it corresponds with that world within, which the soul, cut off from Eden and separated from God, has constructed for itself with materials of falsehood and glittering fragments of glorious hopes forever ruined.
It is in this world of pleasure and of passion, that unregenerate man lives, and moves, and acts his busy part. He guides himself by its principles alone. Its enjoyments, its customs, its laws, the duties it imposes, the rewards it promises, the penalties it threatens, bound his horizon and limit his aims. It is painful to perceive how utterly the affairs of the spiritual world escape his observation. He perceives no regions beyond those material barriers which circumscribe his feeble vision, and dwells amidst the transitory scenes of the present life, as though these narrow precincts were to be his permanent abode. His thoughts, his affections, his plans, his labors, his hopes, are all concentrated upon the perishing things of time. He covets the applause of men, and the honor of lofty station. He grasps, with avaricious eagerness, the glittering hoards of mammon. He builds, with costly magnificence, mansions of enduring marble, and prepares for himself chambers of imagery, for which he has found a model in his own heart's idolatries. Or, with keenest zest,
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he revels amidst the luxuries of sensual desire, and endeavors to seize, by every fibre of his sensitive nature, the base earth to which he clings, and from which he derives his enjoyment and his life.
Among the great men of the land--the nobles, the senators, the rulers of earth, the opulent, the renowned--how many seem thus to spend their allotted time on earth in this wild delirium of "life's fitful fever!" How vast their projects! How unlimited their ambition! How incessant their efforts! With what infatuation they pursue their schemes of worldly pleasure or aggrandizement, until the very moment when they are summoned away by the angel of death! How especially true of them the declarations of the Psalmist, "Surely every man at his best estate, is altogether vanity. Surely every man walketh in a vain show: surely they are disquieted in vain."
There is no boon which the mass of mankind would more joyfully receive than the power to live forever in the present world. Such is the avidity with which most men pursue the fleeting enjoyments of life, and such the frenzied passion which impels them to rush headlong into ruinous excesses, in defiance of all the existing restraints of enfeebled powers; of short-lived vigor and premature decay, that they would eagerly accept a gift which would enable them to plunge fearlessly into the whirlpool of giddy pleasure, and tempt, with impunity, the fearful depths of unlimited indulgence. It was, indeed, the corruption and carnality of the antedeluvian world that induced the Creator to shorten the period of human existence, and to engraft humanity upon a feebler stock, so as to check the progress of crime, and dwarf the gigantic growth of evil. "My spirit," said he, "shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years." Still, not even the brevity of life--a brevity since greatly increased--nor the uncertainty of life's duration, nor the diminished capacity of enjoyment, nor the history of the past, nor the experience of the present, nor the fear of the future, can arouse the mass of mankind to hear the voice of reason and religion, or induce them to pause in their eager pursuit of the perishing vanities of the world. How much less likely would they be to hear that gentle voice amidst the loud shouts of joy, and the wild revellings with which they would celebrate their emancipation from feebleness, from pain, disease and death! their privilege to sin without rebuke; to enjoy without restraint, and to riot without fear!
Such was precisely the state upon which fallen man was prohibited from entering, when God debarred him from the tree of life.
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The simple fact, that ever-watchful cherubims and a sword of flame were deemed, by the all-wise Creator, necessary to guard each avenue by which man could approach it, evinces how eagerly the latter would have availed himself of the privilege, had it been allowed him, to eat and live forever in this fallen state; this mixed condition of good and evil; this world of light and darkness; joy and sorrow; pleasure and pain. For this tree of life had, like every thing else in Eden, respect to this present world alone. It could perpetuate natural, but could not impart spiritual life or vigor. It would, accordingly, have been man's first effort to secure its pos. session, as it was that of the Creator to anticipate and prohibit the attempt. For it is this life alone that the unrenewed heart desires, and it is for this alone that anxious longings spring in every bosom. And it is now on this vain and fleeting phantom, that men rely as though it were an enduring substance! It is upon this thin, intangible vapor, which appears for a little time and then vanishes away, that deluded mortals rest their happiness and their hopes!
The judicial sentence, "Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return," is sufficient to certify to every mind the destiny of man. The inevitable fate which awaits him, is also abundantly evident to every one from daily observation of the event which is common to all. But, in this remarkable incident, man's exclusion from that tree of life by which his existence here could have been easily and certainly perpetuated, there is, if possible, a still more striking expression of the divine will, and a more affecting confirmation of human mortality. A just conformity to the eternal and immutable principles of justice, may exact the appointed penalty of disobedience. From the established order of things, or course of nature, a result may follow, as an effect from its appropriate cause. But when the means by which the penalty may be avoided, and the effect prevented, are actually provided, and quite as ready to the hand as were the means of death, to be debarred by a new and special enactment, enforced by armed celestial hosts, from the use of those means, exhibits, in the strongest possible light, the solemn truth, that it is not the will of God that man should live forever in this present world.
Whatever may be affirmed to the contrary, it is most evident that there is no part of the divine will to which man is, with so much difficulty, reconciled as this. Whenever this truth is realized, how the inmost soul revolts! how the heart is chilled by the iron fetters which this fear imposes! how the mind, dismayed and shocked, is ready to charge the Deity with cruelty and injustice! And this is
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true, not only of those who are emphatically styled the men of this world, but unhappily, also, to a great extent, of those who profess to have renounced the love of the world, and to have become, in all things, reconciled to God. Else, why these mourning weeds--these tears--this hopeless despondency--this sorrow that refuses consolation.? Why this transformation of character which we sometimes witness, as though nature had devised a new calamity, or religion had betrayed her sacred. trust? Alas! it is too true that men can become reconciled to the divine will in regard to pain and sickness; to poverty and wretchedness; to blindness and ignorance, or any other ills of life, far more readily than in respect to this particular, concerning which that will is far more clearly and emphatically expressed.
This love of life--this horror of death, is one among many proofs that man was made to live forever. That God created a tree of life, is another evidence that man was destined for immortality. He is still immortal! It is but the material frame that perishes--the man himself survives! He lives forever--but not here! This world is not his proper home. It is but a field of conflict, in which he may form and display his character. It is a mixed condition of good and evil, and God loved man too well to suffer him to remain in it forever. That he had fallen into this condition, is the very reason assigned why he was debarred from the tree of life, and condemned, as to his material nature, to return to dust. "Behold," said God, "the man is become like one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden." Ah! how dreadful would be man's lot, could he but reverse this will of heaven, and obtain the anxious wish of his alienated and perverted heart--the wretched boon to live forever on the earth!
But God has not permitted so noble a being, created in his own image, to grovel forever amidst the abject wretchedness in which the introduction of evil has involved him. From this crowded nursery he selects the plants which are to be transferred to a more congenial clime, that they may there flourish in perennial bloom and heavenly beauty. From the desert wastes of earth, and the deep vales of human depression and contempt, he culls the precious gems, which, tried by truthful tests, and polished by the attritions of life, shall sparkle in his diadem with an unfading brilliancy. From amidst the mingled good and evil of the world he chooses the good, approved in trial, and perfected by suffering, to share his glory and dwell with him forever.
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That men should reject the honor that comes from God alone, and refuse to consider the eternal consequences which await their actions here, is one of the marvels which can be fully explained only when the secrets of eternity are revealed. It is not because they cannot "consider their latter end;" neither is it because they are not naturally disposed to look into the future. On the contrary, it is in the future especially that man lives. To this all his thoughts and aims refer, and he is capable of forming far-reaching plans, which demand, for their accomplishment, more than the brief period of the longest life. It is not that he does not desire his own happiness, or that he does not pant for honor, glory, and immortality. It is from no natural obstacle, no inherent ineptitude of the faculties with which he is endowed. It is not that he should, from his relations as creature, forbear to seek the presence and approbation of his Creator. Formed in his image, and possessed of moral sensibilities which fit him for such a divine and holy fellowship, we should expect this to be the most ardent aspiration of his nature. And that it is not, only shows that there is some great moral and spiritual obstacle--that man has undergone a change from his first state, since lie could not have been an alien by creation; and that he seeks not divine honor, glory and immortality, because it is to be attained by a patient, and, o him, uncongenial "continuance in well-doing," and desires not communion with the Author of his being, because he is alienated in heart, and unholy in conduct. Such, indeed, is precisely the character and condition in which he is presented in the Sacred Oracles, and such is the truthful account they furnish of the great facts of his history. How pertinent, then, the exhortations with which that inspired word solicits him to seek a reunion with God! How well fitted to his powers the method it propounds! How appropriate to his circumstances the salvation it reveals--an all-sufficient sacrifice to atone for guilt, and a sanctifying Spirit--to renew the affections-- to shed abroad the love of God in the heart, and become an earnest of an unfading inheritance--" a well of water springing up unto everlasting life!" It is when man is thus renewed, that there is established within the soul a heavenly kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy. It is then that, loving no longer the world, nor the things that are in the world, he longs for that state of unmixed good; those heavenly mansions which his Redeemer has prepared; that world of holiness and bliss which corresponds with that within his heart. For this he toils and suffers here as a pilgrim in a foreign land. For this he contemns the present life, with all its vanities, and joyfully anticipates the day when he shall be admitted to the
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true Paradise of God, and be permitted to partake forever of that celestial tree of life, but dimly shadowed forth by that of Eden, which "bears twelve kinds of fruit, and whose leaves are for the healing of the nations." R. R.
A TREATISE ON CHRISTIANITY:
Vindicating the Protestant declaration: "The Holy Scriptures are the only, and a sufficient rule of a Christian's faith and pram ice;" and demonstrating that the indissoluble unity, and the infallibility of the "Christian Church," are clearly taught in the Scriptures as a vital doctrine of Christianity, and as essential to the progress and perpetuity of the "Kingdom of God;" and that the "order of clergy" is a remnant of the Papal apostacy; hostile to Christianity, and destructive of the purpose of God, in giving a revelation to the world. By ZACCIIEUS ONION M'COMAS. Hagerstown: Printed by Heard and Durdy--1850.
Tins is a handsome octavo of 352 pages, in clear type and on good paper, handsomely trot up, and prepossessing in its whole contour.
The first part "exhibits indubitable facts, demonstrative of the absolute necessity for a special revelation, to instruct mankind in the knowledge of the one true God, and their accountability to him." This is clearly and forcibly sustained. The second part treats of "the advent of the Son of God, or the Messiah, and the evidences on which he predicated (established) the divinity of his mission to the world, and on which he challenges (claims) the faith of mankind." This is highly satisfactory and conclusive. In this division he sustains, with ample evidence, that "discipleship, or obedience to Christ," is the only way of salvation. it would have been important, had the author more fully stated what enters into the entire constituency Of a true Disciple of Christ. This may, indeed, be gathered from the essay, out it is worthy of a more explicit delineation for a great portion of his readers, and of the reading public, who are very defective in this branch of Christian knowledge and learning. They talk of faith and penitence, but comprehend not what enters into the constituency of a disciple of Jesus Christ, either in theory or practice.
The third part presents the 'Christian Church" as simply an assembly of the disciples of Christ, associated in his own name, and in that name only to be instructed by him, and to worship God as by him
160 A TREATISE ON CHRISTIANITY.
directed." This is a simple and valuable exhibition of its essential and differential characteristics.
To this is annexed a few passing remarks on Christian worship-- on the unity, invisibility, and infallibility of the Christian Church, as established by God. In this there is one valuable position, worthy of great emphasis. So long, says the author, as believers associate in the exclusive name, and obey only the voice of Christ, their one and only teacher, they will present to the world the same aspect, every where and at all times. This is a valuable and edifying article, and alone, to those who have discrimination, worth more than the price of the whole volume. This part of the treatise is an irrefragable argument against sectarianism.
There is also a vivid and graphic sketch of the leading sectarian churches. If my recollections are not at fault, our author, though bred to the law, was for sometime a teacher and preacher of Methodism. His sketch of both Episcopal and Protestant Methodism is very startling. It is in the words following:
"There is, also, the Methodist Episcopal Church--she is composed of the disciples and followers of an Englishman, named John Wesly. His interpretations of the scripture are, by 'hem, received as the truth of Christianity! All her members are baptized into his faith, and obedience to his expositions! Her government is a pure, irresponsible hierarchy. Her ministers claim to govern their followers by divine right,' and openly declare this in America, and in the nineteenth century! and their disciples believe it! These men have subjected their membership, under strong inducements, to obedience to their wills, by holding possession in their own right, of all the property of the connexion, embracing churches, parsonages graveyards, books, and very extensive printing establishments, besides other investments, amounting to two millions of dollars, all of which have been purchased and collected by their followers, and made over to their exclusive control! All are deeded to trustees, selected by the clergy, in trust for them. Every office in the church is at the absolute disposal of the clergy, and none of the property can be touched without their consent. They are absolute dictators by 'divine right,' over all things, whether property or conscience!
"The last example we shall give, is called 'the Methodist Protestant Church.' She was originally composed of such as 'protested' against the divine right' of the clergy of the Methodist E. Church to absolute control. For this offence, and for no other, they were arraigned under the fatal charge of 'speaking evil of God's ministers.' They were tried by men selected by the clergy themselves--creatures of their own, and, of consequence, condemned and expelled. And of others, who, seeing the sword coming, and no hope of escape, but by humble submission to clerical authority or expulsion, they accepted of the gracious boon of mother church,' and withdrew. These formed an association of their own, retaining, however, John Wesly as their leader and guide in matters of faith."
Is this a true portraiture in its bold outlines?--!
After noticing these and other prominent Protestant parties, he justly observes: "All these associations lack the elementary materials of a Christian Church, which is discipleship."
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The government of the church constitutes the fourth part of this treatise. The first proposition is, "The Lord Jesus has settled a permanent form of church government for his church, and placed all authority in the hands of disciples, when associated in his exclusive name and under his control." This is well sustained.
2d. The duties of a Christian Bishop,
3d. Should Bishops of Christian Churches receive pecuniary compensation for their services? or, is manual labor incompatible with any permanent station of the church I In this section of the volume there is much to repay the reader.
The fifth part is "The Clergy, their rise, and the progress of their vain and ruinous assumptions." The author does not think very highly of the clergy, and places their divine right on the same footing with that of kings. The Papal and Protestant clergy, in his view, are brotherhoods of their own creation, and alike terminating in one and the same absolute despotism. He regards the Methodistic priesthood as giving a demonstration of this, and quotes Dr. Bangs, of New York, as follows:
"But if any doubts should still linger about our Protestant minds, as to the extent of their claims as an order, it must be removed, however unwillingly, when we present to them other facts and illustrations. These are contained in a book on Methodist Episcopacy, written by Rev. Nathan Bangs, 'D. D.,' of New York. He was a member of the General Conference of 1828. The book was written since that, and was intended to defend and sustain the declarations there made; and the language that we shall quote, was pointed directly at the memoralist. These are his words: Those ministers whom God has selected to be shepherds over his flock, and guardians of his people, possess the right of government over themselves and all those committed to their care, in religious matters. Called of God as his ministry evidently is--like the primitive evangelists, they went in His name, and were made successful in raising up a people, who were no people, to become the people of God, after having demonstrated the divinity of their mission, in awakening and converting souls. As long as these officers move in obedience to God's will, (and that will be always.) so long the people are bound to submit to their authority in all matters of church government and discipline.' Those restless spirits, prompted by pride and vain conceit of their own abilities, (not being inspired, as are Methodist preachers,) rebel against the order that God has established, (Methodism or clerical rule) rebel against God, and shall receive their punishment.' This is not pleading for the authority of man, it is the authority of God.' `This is the order (Methodism, or supremacy of clergy,) that God has established for the peace and prosperity of his church.' This is the deliberate, premeditated declaration of a Protestant preacher, of the year of grace 1830! It is in all respects equal to any thing claimed by the Papal church, from the days of Boniface III. down to Leo X! What can surpass it? Ministers selected by God.' The people are bound to submit to their authority.' And to rebel against their authority is to rebel against God, and shall receive their punishment!'"
We do not endorse for every position in this volume, not having had time to read it with attention to all its details, and may admit
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 14*
162 THE BIBLE UNION.
it not to be infallible, and yet say, that it will certainly well repay a careful perusal of it to all not well taught or established in the Christian religion. Its author, not long since, was himself baptized into the faith of original Christianity, and is giving strong proofs of his devotion to the Christian institution, as found in the New Testament. A. C.
THE BIBLE UNION.
THE Bible Union is continually growing in favor with the lovers of God and of his holy Bible. The spiritually-minded of the Baptist denomination, that have been properly approached on the question of a new version, are becoming more and more in earnest and zealous in the cause. It is a noble, generous, magnanimous cause. In other words, it is God's own cause, inasmuch as he "has magnified his word above all his name." He commanded Moses, his oracle, to ancient Israel, "to speak all that he commanded him." If he put words into the mouth of his prophets, and said to them severally. "Whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak;" and if, in the course of time, when the language of Canaan was corrupted with foreign and barbarous words, and the people spake a mixed dialect, the great reformer Ezra, and his twelve co-operants, were instructed to open the book of the law, and to cause the people to listen to it, and "distinctly to give the sense, and to cause them to understand the reading"--shall we, who live at the close of a long and more grievous captivity in mystic Babylon --shall we, I say, not awaken to our duties, and imitate the examples given for our instruction and direction? Shall we not obey the calls, and follow the openings of Divine Providence, and cause the people, the Lord's people, the whole people, to understand what God has spoken, and restore to them a purer speech, by giving them a perspicuous, precise, and faithful version of his holy word Tell it not in Rome, publish it not in the streets of Constantinople, lest the daughters of Babylon rejoice--lest the daughters of the unbaptized triumph!
Immersionists, Baptists, Disciples, Christians, or what else the world may call us, we have but one and the same Bible--one book of God, one revelation of his will to man. Why not, then, arise like one man, like one people, one elect people, and give to the church and the world an improved version--alias, a true, a just, a correct version of God's own book?
THE BIBLE UNION. 163
Why be zealous for faithful versions in foreign dialects, and neglect our own! What answer can we give to God, to angels, or to men, for this partiality!
Are we afraid of our sectarian neighbors, who stand around our walls and bulwarks? Shall we quail in the presence of Sanballat, because of the fury of his wrath! Shall we abandon our begun efforts, because Tobiah, the Ammonite, scoffingly may say: "Even that which they build, if a fox go up on their begun work, he shall even break down their stone wall!" Should Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, conspire against us, and hold our labors in derision, what can they do? Why care for them? We have with us Zerubbabel, Joshua, Ezra and Nehemiah, and Israelites innumerable. These Sanballats, Tobiahs, and Ashdodites, may conspire against us, by the man-fearing, cowardly, temporizers of the day; but what can they achieve against almighty truth and its divine author!
We all confess that the Bible is more precious than all the gold of Ophir, and, consequently, every word of it is precious. If there be only a hundred, or a thousand errors in it, or what may be called inapposite, unintelligible, erroneous renderings, is not the correction of these of transcendent value and importance?
As for the cry of innovation, unsettling public opinion, or changing, for partizan purposes, the received version, were they not as weighty, and as worthy of the regard of the authors of the current version, as at this day? Had not every improved version in all the languages of Christendom, to encounter and overcome the same obstacles which entrammel the present effort? What has truth to fear from error, light from darkness, or good from evil?
All the reasons that justified the Common Version, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, will justify an improved one in the middle of the nineteenth century. We have one reason, and a very weighty one, too, more than they had: Bible literature, and the original tongues, are much more, and much better, cultivated now than then.
Again: Christianity, as a whole, is better understood now than then, in America than in Europe, for one good reason: We have no secular religious establishment--no by law established orthodoxy, with penal sanctions annexed. The mind and conscience are, therefore, less entrammeled. We have our own literature, superadded to the literature of Europe, and circumstances are all more favorable to mental independence than in the times of King James, or at any period in the history of Great Britain.
164 THE BIBLE UNION.
As for ephemeral orthodoxy, Baptists, of all ranks and colors, care but little. If I might speak in the first person, and in the singular number, I would say, that I have, in my own life-time, satisfactorily proved to myself, and demonstrated to others, that it is a very airy, light, fantastic thing. We have endured all the anathemas of self- created orthodoxy, until our heterodoxy has itself been transmuted into sound doctrine. And not a single tenet, judged by the self- dubbed orthodox to be essential to salvation, by grace, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, ministered by the Divine Author and Founder of the Faith, by his Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, through the infinite, eternal, and immutable love and grace of God our Father, to his fallen offspring, is endangered, undermined, or impaired; but, on the contrary, is confirmed and illustrated by the stand we have taken for the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, and especially the New Testament, as the only foundation of Christ's church; the rule of its faith, the basis of its hopes, the source of its vitality, and the unwasting fountain of its holiness and happiness.
Baptists have been afraid of us; but we were never afraid of them. Some of them had a little book, a little Benjamin, the child of their old age, of which they were exceedingly tender. They seemed to think that this their little darling was, in one point, a little better than the Bible; that it was its very essence and spirit; and that it could keep out little heretics, that could creep through crevices of the Bible, but who were infallibly strangled in the portals of the confession. But since the Pedobaptists themselves have been constrained to acknowledge that we are right in the main--sound in the essentials--even these have been willing to enroll us as among the living in Jerusalem.
And why should we fear to have the sacred writings of the apostles and prophets soot out in our modern Anglo-Saxon--in the current style of this generation--and thus rendered intelligible to our contemporaries? The Pedobaptists will say that cur idol (immersion) has constrained the undertaking. Well, let them say it. What then? Their own parties have, themselves, affirmed that it should have been immersion, if properly translated.
But we deny the charge. If the word had been so translated, a century ago, we would still plead the cause of a new version. Nay, if all the world were Baptists, I would, with all zeal and dilligence, argue the duty of a new version on the part of the true church of God. Every genuine, unsophisticated Christian, desires to understand the whole counsel of God. He desires to stand perfect and
NEW YORK WEEKLY CHRONICLE. 165
complete in the whole will of God. He pants after the comprehension of all that God desires him to know, to believe, to do, and to enjoy. His prayer is: "Open thou mine eyes that I may see wondrous things in thy law!" "May he that commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shine into my heart, to give me the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ!" "My soul breaketh for the longing it hath unto thy judgment at all times." "Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage." "The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver." "0, how love I thy law--it is my meditation all the day." "I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation." "Thy testimonies I have taken as a heritage, for they are the rejoicing of my heart!" "The entrance of thy words giveth light--it giveth understanding to the simple." "Mine eyes anticipate the night watches, that I might meditate in thy word." "I have longed for thy salvation, O Lord; and thy law is my delight."--David.
The cause of "The Bible Union" is a glorious cause. Our brethren cannot, when they understand it, withhold from it their countenance and their aid. Let us, then, espouse it as worthy of our best endeavors, and freely contribute to its prosperity and success. A. C.
THE NEW YORK WEEKLY CHRONICLE.
THE New York Weekly Chronicle is devoted to the interests and prosperity of "THE BIBLE UNION." It costs but one dollar a year, and is ably conducted by Elders Orrin B. Judd and M. Eastwood, its Editors. It gives the following statement of the principle of Bible translation adopted by the Bible Union:
"The exact meaning of the inspired text, as that text expressed it to those who understood the original scriptures at the time they were first written, must be expressed by corresponding words and phrases. so far as they can be found, in the vernacular tongue of those for whom the version is designed, with the least possible obscurity or indefiniteness."
This is, in substance, our view of it, and one for which we have been pleading for a quarter of a century, as indicated in our prefaces to the first edition of the Family Testament, printed in 1826. Though not in these identical words, in substance and spirit we have argued this as the true principle of translating the Holy Scriptures.
166 NEW YORK WEEKLY CHRONICLE.
We desire a free circulation of the Weekly Chronicle amongst our brethren in the United States. I copy the following article from the 7th December number; from which our readers may see with what manner of spirit the friends of the Bible Union are assailed, and how we are defended by an independent and able minister of that denomination, from imputations we have always denied:
MT. HOLLEY, N. J., November 29, 1850.
Brother Judd: I am constrained to notice a most malicious slander uttered by the editor of the Christian Chronicle, in this week's paper. His heart seems boiling with venom at the success of the "Union," and he seizes every opportunity to display the impotency of his wrath- His condition is certainly to be pitied. lie reminds one of the old fable, 4' The Viper and the File." But while we contemn his folly and disregard of truth, and feel disposed to leave him to the gnawings of that inward monitor, which it is hoped may not be totally callous and seared, we are not willing his misrepresentations shall go unrebuked and unexposed.
In noticing a gratuitous and unfounded report concerning Professor Shannon, of Missouri, whom he stigmatizes as a Campbellite, he says: "As the Campbellites reject the doctrine of the Trinity, and advocate baptismal regeneration, these views, of course, will tinge the NEW VERSION." "Of course" lie knew this assertion to be false, without mitigation, or he is too contemptibly ignorant for a public instructor. Ha KNOWS, if he knows any thing as he should, that the Christians .whom he maliciously calls "Campbellites," do, as a body, hold the doctrine of God's word concerning Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, most firmly and tenaciously. This charge is too stale, and has been too often exploded to he revived by a tyro, with any hope of success. The veterans of an exclusive orthodoxy have long since ceased to believe it, and the young ones may as well let it alone.
Again: he knows, or he should know, that the Campbellites believe, and hold, and teach, that sinners "must be born of the Spirit," as well as of the water, and "of the water as well as of the Spirit," and that no man may, with impunity, separate what the Lord has thus indissolubly joined. If he calls this 't baptismal regeneration," I, for one, admit the impeachment, and call for a more scriptural "view." I believe his notions of "baptismal," and of spiritual "regeneration," to be the coinage of a Babylonish mint, the figments of a disordered intellect, addled by pouring over the musty lore of monks in Theological Schools, instead of "searching the scriptures, which are able to make wise unto salvation."
Again: he says, "These views, of course, will tinge the NEW VERSION." Verily he must be prematurely a sage, a seer, or both. "Of course!" profound indeed:
What views can tinge a faithful translation of God's word?
A puerile effort to enlist the sympathy of the Baptists, as a denomination, as a SECT, in support of a darling theory, and against the very object, on account of which they separated from the Pedobaptists of the American Bible. Society a few years ago, pervades his whole effusion; part of which a school boy might condemn, for the awkwardness of its construction. We notice only the distortions of truth under his manipulations.
He insinuates that the Unitarians are to be invited to take part in the new translation, "and all other Pedobaptist denominations, for all these believe more or less in baptismal regeneration."
If he had been an honest man, as well as a Christian Chronicle, he would have despised himself for the inception of such a thought; much less would Ire have penned the base insinuation.
NEW YORK WEEKLY CHRONICLE. 167
We are glad to know, and thank our heavenly Father for the truthful fact, that thousands of the Baptists repudiate the inuendoes and slander of interested divines and editors; and are determined to aid in the holy enterprise of presenting to the WHOLE human family the revelation of God to man, as it was delivered to the prophets and apostles. They know, that if there were no "tinge" connected with the present version, there would be neither Unitarian nor Pedobaptist in the world. They know, and so does the editor of the Chronicle know, and every school boy knows, that "baptize" is not "a stronger and more specific word than the substitute," immerse. The Methodist says he has been baptized, the Presbyterian says that he, too, has been n baptized: and does the Christian Chronicle admit that either of them has been baptized? What hardihood, then, in the face of all observation, and contrary to the teaching of dictionaries and divines, and his own practice, to assert that the word "baptize" is more specific than the word immerse! Shame on such gross perversions of the truth to accomplish a sinister end!
He says the "society is now proceeding on principles to call in the aid of all denominations, and adopt their most pernicious heresies!!" Solomon says, "He that uttereth a slander is a fool." The writer knew he was uttering a slander, but forgot that "for every idle word he will have to give account in the day of judgment "He forgot, also, to the fervor of his sectarianism, the command, "Thou shalt not bear false testimony against thy neighbor."
Who would believe. that after all the vituperation that has been noticed, this most "Christian" editor would condescend to admit, "We need a better version than we now have!!” But such is the perversity of human foresight and wisdom. The wise are taken in their own craftiness."
Here I nut leave this gentleman for the present. I pray that God may give him repentance, to the acknowledgment of the truth, that he may he saved. J. LOXLEY RHEES.
Elder Judd, the principal editor of the Weekly Chronicle, was distinguished for his manly, bold, and magnanimous efforts at the last meeting of the "American and Foreign Bible Society," and for his consistent course in the pursuit of the great object Of that society with regard to new and correct versions of the Living Oracles.
Life memberships in "The Bible Union" society, are being sold with much rapidity, at $30 each. Life-directorships are also being sold at $100 each. I have been so fortunate as to have purchased one of these. Still, there are some left; and yet there is room. I trust our brethren will take an equal interest in life-directorships. We desire, as a people, to have a correct and perspicuous version of the Book of Life. And why not put our hand to the work? I still regard our Family Testament as the most faithful and intelligible version in Christendom. Still, I know it can be very much improved. I have not forgotten to read my testament during these last twenty- five years, and I am one of those who can see my own faults, in part, and the imperfections of my own works. I freely own it. I have many emendations to offer, and have had some on file for many years. But I would not, and will not, give them till after this effort
168 LETTER FROM BRO. SHANNON.
is consummated. I am willing to sacrifice all my interests, of whatever sort they be, for such a version as I can conscientiously approve. Let our brethren, who have always been forward to encourage improvements in this department of Christian enterprize, duty, and privilege--I say, let them come up to the work like men, Christian men, full grown men, with heart, and hand, and purse, and we will never repent that we did not (la it, nor be ashamed that we had not done it in time. Be neither jealous of our Baptists brethren, nor vengeful because we have been treated somewhat cavalierly by a few little souls amongst a great people.
Are we not a magnanimous people! Let us show it. We have no party pride. Let us show that we can be strong and powerful, and yet humble, and courteous, mid forgiving. We fear nothing beneath the throne of God but the Devil. We stand up for truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Let us, then, come up to this great work with becoming zeal and self respect. And if, when the best version that can unitedly be agreed upon, is given to the world, if we can make any improvement upon it we have an open sea, a fair wind, and the Lord our pilot. This is an event I have prayed for, if not in form, in fact and in spirit. I will sacrifice all my interests for the public good, and will gain what is better than either wealth or fame--a good conscience and an approving heart. "Buy the truth and sell it not;" and buy life-directorships and life-memberships, and use them for the glory of God and the good of mankind. A C.
LETTER FROM BROTHER SHANNON. UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI
Columbia, January 20, 1851.
Dear Bro. Pendleton: In the December number of the Harbinger, I find an article from your pen, in commendation of my Inaugural Address. For the kind things which you were pleased to say about the document in question, allow me to tender you my unfeigned thanks; and, at the same time, to call your attention to some remarks, which, I fear, will be misunderstood, and, consequently, have a tendency to do us causeless injury.
Near the beginning of the article you express your gratification at "the very high esteem in which 'the reading of the Bible and prayer' arc held by Bro. Shannon, as college exercises;" but you regret that I did not go a little further--" because the Book of God is less honored than the Odes of Horace," &c.
In this connexion you remark: "Tile mere reading of a chapter in the
LETTER FROM BRO. SHANNON. 169
scriptures, and the uttering of a prayer, has been an exercise in many colleges and universities, from time immemorial; but it has proved, in most cases, little more than a cold formality, which students soon come to disrelish; and, at best, but a barren ceremony, fruitless of good."
The mass of your readers will, most probably, understand you as affirming, or, at least, intimating, that I advocate nothing more than "the mere reading of a chapter in the scriptures, and the uttering of a prayer."
The intelligent, however, provided they will take the trouble to examine and think for themselves, may easily discover that I hold a very different doctrine. So far from honoring "the Book of God less than the Odes of Horace," I ascribe to it a paramount value in the business of education. affirm, as plainly as I know how, that "Every seminary of education should be conducted with an abiding regard for the paramount authority of the Sacred Scriptures. The evidences that Christianity is from God, should be thoroughly examined and taught. Its morality, also, and its motives, its precepts and its promises, should be habitually and distinctly impressed upon the minds of the students. Reading the scriptures and prayer, should form a part of the daily exercises."
I go even farther, and affirm, that no seminary of learning can flourish-- none ought to flourish--that aids in propagating the miserable delusion, that the proper training of the moral sentiments is not the chief business of education; or that this training can be successfully conducted. except in harmony with the sublime, the heavenly precepts and promises Of the Christian religion.
I gave utterance to these sentiments in the most emphatic manner of which I was capable; and in the same spirit that prompted me to write to the Curators of the University, that "I would not accept the Presidency of the United States, if it were offered to me, with the slightest restriction of my right to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ;' nor would I expect God to bless me if I did."
I am happy to inform you, that we have had an unprecedented increase in the number of students since I took charge of the University. And, although I have been connected with Colleges and Universities for nearly the whole of the last thirty-five years, I have never known a more orderly set of young men collected in any literary institution, either in Europe or America. Their praise, in this respect, is as well merited as it is generally awarded.
By giving the foregoing remarks a place in the Harbinger, you will oblige your friend and brother, JAMES SHANNON.
REMARKS.
THOUGH we scarcely think that any of our renders, who take an interest in such matters, can have misunderstood, either the address
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170 LETTER FROM BRO. SHANNON.
of Bro. Shannon or my remarks in connection with it, as published in the December number of the Millennial Harbinger, yet we cheerfully give place to the foregoing explanation, coming, as it does, from one whose character and reputation we so highly respect. I never meant to intimate that Bro. Shannon does not hold the Book of God in higher esteem than the Odes of Horace, nor have I so said. I did mean to say, however, that any institution which makes the Odes of Horace a text-book, and does not require the Bible to be studied as such, also, does give a place and importance, practically, whatever it may preach in theory, to those productions, which is denied to the Bible. I regretted that Bro. Shannon did not go a little farther than he did, and "urge the importance of making the Bible a regular college text-book, to be studied and digested by the student," as are other text-books. I certainly did not understand that it was proposed to do this in the Missouri University, nor do I so understand now, with Bro. Shannon's letter of explanation before me. It was to this point, particularly, that my remarks were directed; and until I am assured that the Bible is so employed, I must continue to feel regret, that one who has so well and forcibly set forth the value and importance of the Sacred Scriptures in college education, as has Bro. Shannon, in his Inaugural Address, does not also resort, for the only practicable means of employing them, by making the Bible, as we do in Bethany, not a book to be read simply. nor yet as a fountain from which to draw topics for lectures, or theological argument, but as, in itself and of itself, a text-book, to be studied and examined upon, in daily recitation, with as much minuteness and regularity as any other book in the entire college course. It is well known, I presume, that this is not done in the colleges of this country. If any other college in this country, but Bethany, does thus employ and honor the Bible, I have not been able to learn the fact. If the Missouri University does it, then have I been misinformed, and Bro. Shannon's address has failed to announce this Important, radical, and, we regard, vital reformation in its instruction and discipline. Respectfully and fraternally, W. K. P.
THE world is so constituted, that all necessary and really advantageous gratifications of the propensities, are compatible with the dictates of the moral sentiments and intellectual powers, when acting in harmonious combination.--George Combe.
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 171
SLAVERY AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
WE have received several communications on the subject of slavery, and the late law of Congress for reclaiming fugitive slaves. We have already given our opinion on the duty of Christians to submit to the laws of the land, and to this law, as being consonant to the fundamental law of our social system, according to our views of the constitution, and the expressed judgment of its constitutional interpreters.
About an equal number of our readers at the North have, in the same manner, expressed their approbation and disapprobation of our views on the premises. So far, then, as editors in general are presumed to act, I stand On neutral ground. But, as I judge, I owe it to myself and to my readers, North and South, to place myself before them in my true and real position on this very interesting and exciting subject. I have read much of what has been written by others, on the moral and Christian attitude of the subject of American servitude, or, as it is technically called, American slavery, and regret to say, that I have never yet met with a discussion of the question exactly, according to my judgment, harmonizing with the revealed law of God in the premises. I may do no better than those that have preceded me, but I will, at least, give my opinion and best judgment on the subject, and thus place the matter on tile for the gratification, if not for the benefit, of my numerous and various readers, and that, too, with a reference to a higher tribunal than public opinion or the award of my contemporaries. This I will attempt to do in as short a space as possible.
In evidence of the necessity of more light on this subject, I give the following specimen of the attitude and spirit of some very conscientious brethren at the North:
The congregation of Disciples at Berrien, Mich., in fall assembly, unanimously resolved-
1. That Christians are required by their Lord and Master to yield a cheerful obedience to the "powers that be," provided their laws do not contravene the "higher law-"
2. That the Fugitive Slave Law, passed by Congress at its last session, does obviously conflict with the Divine Law in several particulars.
3. That it is not only not the duty of Christians to obey the said law, but a positive dereliction of duty to their Divine Master, to regard it as of any authority over them.
4. That choosing to "obey God rather than man," we will not assist the master in recapturing "the servant that has escaped from his master," but will feed the poor panting fugitive, and point him to the North Star, abiding the penalty of the law.
5. That we have long borne with slavery, for the sake of the Union, as
172 QUERIES.
Christians ought to do; but when called upon to aid and abet in perpetuating the institution, we beg to be excused.
6. That as citizens of the United States, we will petition our National Legislature for the immediate and unconditional repeal of this oppressive law, so very repugnant to a radical principle of our political magna charta--liberty of conscience.
7. That we will discountenance all violent measures of opposition to the said law, or to any other, but will pray for our rulers, and suffer persecution at their hands with patience and forbearance, giving glory to the Lord of all
8. That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to the President of the United States.
9. That the Millennial Harbinger, the Proclamation and Reformer, the Christian Age, and the National Era, be requested to publish these resolutions for the encouragement of our brethren every where, in their approaching sufferings for the Lord's sake. Signed in behalf of the church.
A MASA PRESTON, BENJAMIN DAVIS,
B. R. FISHER, WM. HORTON.
We all respect a conscientious man, even hen his conscience is weak or unenlightened. It will not suffice to call it "fanaticism," arrogance, abolitionism. We must enlighten him. Now, we have many, very many, churches and brethren, that are as conscientious in sustaining the aforesaid law, as these brethren are in threatening or promising insubordination, and that obedience to a "Higher law" is incompatible with obedience to a lower law, as if the one was from God and the other from the Devil. More light is wanting somewhere, as well as conscientiousness elsewhere. I will, therefore, offer some considerations and arguments to the candid and conscientious, and await the issue. "He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God." A Christian, with a sword in hand, resisting the "Powers that be," might have been endured in the light of Cromwell's day, but not in the light of the 19th century. A. C.
QUERIES.
1. Did John the Baptist ever baptize in the name of Christ? E- H., Orange Springs,
Answer.--Never. He neither baptized in the name nor by the name; neither to the name nor into the name of Christ. He was sent by God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to prepare a people for him, and to baptize them into the fact that he was soon to become both Lord and Christ.
2. What ought to be done with a brother who will buy a barrel of spirits nr brandy, and will drink and sell it to his neighbors?
QUERIES. 173
Answer.--If, on remonstrance and admonition, he does not reform, put him away from the church.
3. What ought a congregation to do with an Elder, who keeps a public house and drinks, gives away and sells ardent spirits?
Answer.--Divest him of his office, and then put him out of the church, unless he repents.
4. Is it right for a brother to erect a distillery and manufacture liquor, but promises that he will not sell it in his own neighborhood? W. J., Brownsborough, Ky.
Answer.--Very far from it. Any thing but right. Better witness the fruit of his labor at home, than hide it from his own eyes.
5. Ought a unanimous vote of a church to be taken, or expected, in order to the reception of a person who has just been immersed into the profession of faith in Christ, either as to his baptism, or reception, after baptism, into the church? Georgetown, Ky.
Answer.--There is neither precept nor example for such a custom in the New Testament.
6. Please give me an exposition of the 20th verse of the 1st ch. of the Ep. to the Romans. Rev. A. D., Collinsville, N. Y.
See Conversations in the Carlton House, M. H., vol. vi. 3d series, and yet in progress. In addition to what has been said on that subject, we remark, that the invisible attributes of God, even his eternal power and godhead, are clearly seen from the creation of the world--the things that are made being considered and properly reflected upon. But another question arises here of a speculative, and perhaps somewhat of a practical nature. It is this: Does Paul teach, in this place, that the works of nature originate the idea of God and his attributes, or only demonstrate them? Is nature, in other words, both the proposition and the proof We are decidedly on the side that tradition, oral or written, propounds "that God is," or exists, and that the material universe only proves or demonstrates the truth of the oracle, "God is." The best and most laconic demonstration that God is, will, as I conceive, be found in the two words, WE ARE. We did not make ourselves- And as to his nature, we argue, that whatever is in the effect, was in the cause. But it follows not that all that is in the cause is in the effect. For many effects may be in one cause, and yet the cause may not be exhausted. But this only by the way. This is a grand lesson, and would furnish thoughts and arguments for a volume. Verbum sat. A. C.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 15*
174 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES:
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
MARTINSBURG, Ohio, December 10, 1850.
Brother Campbell: A co-operation in Central Ohio, embracing the churches in Knox, Licking, Muskingum, Coshocton, Tuscarawas, and Holmes counties, was held with the Dennis congregation, on the 7th inst. Thirteen congregations were represented by messengers. The following resolutions were unanimously adopted, viz:
Resolved, That the preaching of the primitive gospel in Central Ohio, is of the first importance.
Resolved, That this co-operation employ three evangelists, to travel within the bounds of this co-operation, for one year, commencing January. 1851.
Resolved, That this cooperation choose a committee of thirteen, one from each congregation, whose business it shall be, from time to time, as a standing committee, to have the supervision over the evangelists; to suspend, dismiss for improper conduct, and to supply vacancies thus created or otherwise; and the said committee shall receive reports of the labors of the evangelists, and report to the congregations.
Resolved, That each congregation pays into the hands of its treasurer quarterly, and the treasurer to pay to the evangelists, who shall receipt the same.
Resolved, That this co-operation pay an evangelist, with a family, three hundred dollars for one year's preaching, and an evangelist without a family, one hundred and fifty dollars.
Resolved, That this co-operation employ Charles E. Vanvoorhis, Josephus Porter, and David G. Mitchell, to travel and preach one year.
Resolved, That the proceedings of this co-operation be published in the Millennial Harbinger and Christian Age.
John Dodson, Evan Lovett, Josephus Porter, Charles E. Vanvoorhis, John M'Elroy, Abner Lemert, David Weaver, Samuel B. Struyfellow, David G. Mitchell.-
HAZEL GREEN, Grant County, Wis., Nov. 27, 1850.
Brother Campbell: I have just finished a course of lectures on the Christian Religion in this town-8 confessed the Lord publicly, and were baptized into his death; 2 faithful sisters, also, united with us from the Baptists. Among the number were some of great moral and pecuniary worth, who gave their hearts to the Lord. The brethren feel to praise the Lord for the power of his truth. There is peace and love among the brotherhood, and they are increasing in moral and spiritual worth. May the Lord bless them! L. I. CORRELL.
BARNESVILLE, O., November 25, 1850.
Brother Campbell: The cause in. Barnesville is gaining ground. Some two years ago we numbered only about 30 members; but now number near 70- Prejudice is giving way amongst our Methodist friends, many of whom have submitted to the gospel. A. G. II ALL
HUMILITY, Va., November 23, 1850.
Brother Campbell: In a trip which I made last September, 45 accepted the Saviour. At our co-operation meeting 15 obeyed the call. At a two- days' meeting in Floyd county, (a first effort,) 9 broke away from the ranks, which my almost desponding Bro. Shelor, who lives there, thought impervious to the Saviour's winning overtures. One of my neighbors was baptized yesterday, and sundry others recently. I have rarely spoken to sinners since my recovery without a response, though they trace Weir way
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 175
through snow and sleet to the now cold streams of our valleys. O what a privilege, 'to publish among the people the unsearchable riches of Christ!' Yours, C. BULLARD.
CARTER'S STORE, Ky., Nov. 30, 1850.
Brother Campbell: I still continue to preach to the poor destitute churches of our country. Since the 1st of last May, I have added to the church near 300 members. Bro. Geo. Hon has been with me part of the time. I feel much rejoiced to see the people so much concerned about their sinful condition, and turning from the error of their ways. Yours, truly, PETER HON.
NEW LONDON, Chester County, Pa., Nov. 29, 1850.
Brother Campbell: I am happy to be able to report, that since I saw you in Baltimore, I have immersed 6 penitent believers into Christ. The little church here is increasing in numbers, intelligence, and piety; and if they continue thus to increase, are destined to exert a powerful and salutary influence in Eastern Pennsylvania. It is situated about an equal distance from Philadelphia and Baltimore. Yours, truly, E. E. ORVIS.
SAVANNAH, Andrews County, Mo., Dec. 25, 1850.
Brother Campbell: I have, as yet, seen no report from the churches in this county. At the beginning of the year we had five congregations, numbering about two hundred and fifty in all; but they have been alive to the good cause the present season, and they have more than doubled their numbers. We have six congregations, and between 500 and 600 members, and, blessed be the name of the Lord, the cause is still advancing, and all the brethren and sisters seem to be engaged in the great work. 0 that the good Lord may help us to do more every succeeding year, until the good cause shall over all prevail! P. L. HUDGENS.
REDSTONE, Pa., December 23, 1850.
Brother Campbell: Since the middle of August, there has been 10 persons immersed at this place, and 1 united from the Baptists; for all which we thank God and take courage. HENRY B. GOE.
FREEDOM, O., December 16, 1851.
Brother Campbell: Within a few weeks past, there have been added to the congregations on the Reserve some 70 individuals, principally through the labors of our efficient and devoted evangelist, Bro. Calvin Smith, of Trumbull county. At Eagleville 13; Freedom 7; Garrettsville 7; Lords- town 35 by immersion, and 3 reclaimed; Solon 6. To the Lord, who gives the increase and causes us to rejoice, be all the praise! B. F. PERKY.
SHELBY COUNTY, III., December 16, 1850.
Brother Campbell: The good cause is onward in this county--about 50 have been added this year. B. W. HENRY.
BOONSBORO', Md., December l1., 1850.
Brother Campbell: I gave you an account of a successful meeting we had at Hyattstown, in this State; two more, both young gentlemen, have since made the good confession and been immersed. One of the young gentlemen was studying Methodist theology, in order to the ministry; but he heard the ancient gospel, and is now studying the Bible, untrammeled by creeds, and I hope he will be a useful citizen of the kingdom.. These make 12 persons in all that I immersed there since September last, and the prospect favorable. I immersed 2 at a place called Smoketown, in Washington county, Lot long since. So you see the good cause is onward in this region. I have immersed 20 persona since I came to this State; and if we only had competent evangelists in the field, doubtless many would be converted to the Lord. At the solicitation of the brethren in Washington county, I have located
176 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
here as an evangelist. A visit from you would be very acceptable and profitable in this region. The brethren somewhat expect you to visit them sometime this winter or in the spring. Yours, J R. FRAME.
BLOOMINGTON, III., December 13, 1850.
Brother Campbell: Our brother in the Lord, James E. Gaston, of Warren, Trumbull county, O., spent a few days with us on his way to Monmouth, III., and delivered seven discourses at this place, much to the edification and encouragement of the brethren. W. F. M. ARNY.
GARRETTSVILLE, O., January 7, 1851.
Brother Campbell: We have had 9 added to our congregation, by baptism, since the 15th November. On last Lord's day we had a joyful meeting. After my brother was done preaching, a Congregationalist preacher, who was present, gave notice that he would preach a discourse for us in the evening, if we were willing. To which we consented. After preaching a good discourse, he gave a short history of his standing, and some of his reasons for leaving that church. He offered to unite with us, and, as he had been immersed, we gave him a hearty reception. He is a man that wishes to walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. Yours, as ever, JOHN RUDULPH.
BEDFORD, Ky., January 15, 1851.
Brother Campbell: I am happy to say that the cause of truth appears prospering among us. Not that we can record any great increase to the church, but that the brethren seem to be awakening up to a sense of their duty, and becoming more intelligent in the scriptures. We have considerable opposition to contend with; but, instead of retarding, I feel convinced it will ultimately have the effect of accelerating our progress. At our last protracted effort, the Methodist preacher could fall upon no means more likely to preserve his congregation than by calling round and warning them all against attending our meetings. We may be certain of re-action, when the human mind is bent under restrictions, just as we know that a spring, when bent, will tend to regain its position as soon as the pressure is taken off. I intend to act as quietly and industriously as I can, in the way of instructing the brethren, and leading them forward to the duties of their profession, knowing that the influence of a holy life and conversation will soon be felt with power in the neighborhood.
In Bedford, the number of Disciples is small, only about 30 to be counted upon; and their resources, in a pecuniary point of view, are very limited; nevertheless, they have a good meeting-house, and are well assisted by the brethren at Mount Bird, where the number, influence, and means, are pretty considerable.
I minister at the two places above named. Mount Bird is on the opposite side of Madison, about ten miles distant from this. It is always a misfortune, in my opinion, when a congregation cannot have preaching every Lord's day; but we are necessitated, sometimes, to yield to the force of circumstances. We meet regularly, both here and at Mount Bird, every first day of the week, to break bread, but there is a marked difference in the attendance when preaching occurs. In the adjoining county there are five or six congregations without a preacher among them; and in Oldham county they are in the same condition. They would willingly sustain a man of the right stamp in Henry county, and are making considerable effort to secure one. Could you not recommend any one to the work from your quarter? Yours, in the best bonds, WM. THOMSON.
CLOVERDALE, Ia., January 1, 1851.
Brother Campbell: After my respects to you, I will hasten to give you an account of my travels, and the success of the cause of our Master at those points which I have visited, since I saw you in Martinsville, Ia. At
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 177
Cloverdale, on the 3d Lord's day in November, 1 by confession and 1 reclaimed; at Mt. Meridian, we hell two meetings--the result of which was 15 immersions, and several others reclaimed. This is a new point, which none of our brethren had visited previously to these meetings. The preaching was done through the co-operation of the brethren at Cloverdale. The truth, at this point, seems to have been received into good and honest hearts, and has been instrumental in uniting a little band of brethren and sisters in heart and mind, to keep the ordinances of our heavenly Master. The fifth Lord's day in December, we visited the brethren at Manhattan, Putnam county. We remained five days, and the result of the meeting was 6 immersions. More or less accessions have been obtained at almost every point we have visited, P. M. BLANKENSHIP.
NORTH BLOOMFIELD, O., January 9, 1851.
Brother Campbell: I was present, last Lord's day, in company with Bro. Cyrus Bosworth, at the organization of a church in Green township, in this county. Walter Bartlett was chosen Elder, and Wm. D. Morris Deacon. Eleven disciples pledged themselves to the Lord, and to each other, to meet regularly as a church, and strive to walk in the ordinances and commandments of the Lord. The following Tuesday 4 converts were baptized, and the most encouraging indications of a sincere regard for, and deep interest in, this infant church, are witnessed in the conduct of many who, we hope, will soon be numbered with the saved. ISAAC ERRETT.
WASHINGTON, Ia., January 24, 1851.
Brother Campbell: Brethren Noyes and Slider, of New Albany, Ia., have just closed a meeting four mites east of this place, at a Christian church called "Bethany;" at which meeting there were 59 souls added to the church, which now numbers near 200 members. The day the meeting closed (yesterday) 5 were added, and many more would have confessed their faith in Christ, no doubt, but these two brethren were worn down. Fraternally yours, ALFRED DAVIS.
MOUNT ROCK, Pa., January 31, 1851.
Brother Campbell: We have recently had 8 valuable additions to our church in this place-4 by immersion and 4 by letter, mostly from the sects, and of the very best materials that can be found in this community. Through the labors of Bro. Charles M'Dougall, of Ohio, these results have been wrought- To the ever blessed Captain of our Salvation, be everlasting praise for his goodness! GEO. ZINN, Jr.
DUNNSVILLE, Va., January 21, 1851.
Brother Campbell: We had a delightful meeting at the Rappahannock last week, attended by our general Evangelists, Bros. G. W. Abell, R. Y. Henly, and H. F. M'Keney, (the latter a student of Bethany College.) They are the right kind of men--discreet, zealous, and efficient. The work of the Lord, I trust, will greatly prosper in their hands. We had 6 additions, (among them my eldest daughter.) They are all in the bloom of youth but one, and he is in the prime of life. May they walk worthy of their high calling, and at last wear that crown that is promised to the faithful! Yours, in the best of bonds, E. M. WARE.
CANTON, Bradford County, Pa., January 31, 1851.
Brother Campbell: Brethren T. Miller, L. B. Hyatt, and myself, have made the congregation in this place a visit. We delivered a series of discourses to the community, and had the pleasure of seeing 18 persons submit to the troth A subscription is being circulated for building a house, and some $900 are already signed.
The brethren at Troy, are now engaged in building a house, at a cost of some $1600 The cause of truth is gaining strength in all this section of
178 NEWS PROM THE CHURCHES.
country. The Christians and Disciples are beginning to cooperate, through the influence of Bros. Miller and Hyatt. J. M. SHEPARD.
SOMERSET, Pa., January 29, 1851.
Brother Campbell: In the "general field" we have Bros. Lanphear and Macdougal, and intend to send forth Bros. Bevins and Lobengier. The good effects of our movement are beginning to be felt; and although there has not yet been many additions, there has been much good seed sown, which we hope will germinate and bring forth fruit to the honor and glory of God.
We had a meeting here about the holydays, which resulted in 6 additions, 4 by immersion, and 2 that had been immersed elsewhere. Our congregation is in a healthy state. Yours, J. J. SCHELL.
STEAMER PENNSYLVANIA, Feb. 7, 1851.
Brother Campbell: Early in September last I left Kentucky for Texas, by laud. The second Lord's day in the month I preached, in the morning, in Nashville, Tenn.-1 lady, made the good confession, and was immersed. In the evening I preached at Franklin College-4 Confessed the Lord, one of them a Professor in the College. He had been a Presbyterian.
Thursday evening before the fourth Lord's day, I commenced a Meeting in Memphis, which continued eighteen days, and resulted in the addition of 46 to the church there--several were from the Methodists and Baptists
I spent ten days at Little Rock, Ark. A few were added to the church.
The next Lord's day I spoke for the Baptist brethren in Boston, Texas. The Lord's day following I spent, (together with a few days before and Monday following) at Oak Grove, Texas-73 were added to the saints.
The next Lord's day (1st Lord's day in November) I was in M'Kenny, Collin county, Texas-1 was immersed. The second Lord's day in same month was at old Bro. Collin M'Kenny's, in same county-I immersed.
The first Lord's day in December I spent in Dallas county. Met many of the brethren; had pleasant meetings; and, taking leave of them, started back to Kentucky.
On my return stopped a short time in Memphis. To my great joy, found Bros. Johnson and Dearborn there-16 lied united when I left, and 9 others, I am infomed, joined before the brethren left the city. Yours, in hope, B. F. HALL.
P. S.--A Bro Polly has removed from Arkansas to Texas. During the last season be immersed upwards of 100 persons, in the counties of Dallas, Collin, Grayson, Lamar, &c. He is a good man, a powerful preacher, and should be sustained. B. F. H.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 6, 1851.
Brother Campbell: The third Lord's day in January, I held a meeting at George's Creek, and organized a church of 22 members-8 persons confessed the Lord, and were immersed in his name. There was considerable interest manifested, and I trust much good will be done. Yours, &c., JAMES B PYATT.
MARION COUNTY, O., January 15, 1851.
Brother Campbell: Perhaps many of the Disciples in Ohio do not know that they have a little band of brethren in Columbus. They have met in a church capacity for some ten months past, in the Council Chamber. to keep the ordinances of worship as they were delivered. Bros. W. F. Pool and Bedwell are their Elders.
These dear brethren solicited my aid. I submitted their call and condition to our meeting for cooperation, whose primary object is to send the gospel beyond the region of the churches; and, with one consent, they said go.
We commenced a meeting in the Hall of Representatives on Saturday
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 179
evening, December 24th, where we continued to assemble until Wednesday evening, when we were respectfully invited to the Senate Chamber, where we continued our meeting until Lord's day night. On Friday, our beloved and faithful Bro. Andrew Burns, came to our aid, who delivered two discourses, which were listened to with much interest. We delivered, in all, thirteen addresses, with a view to set forth the gospel as delivered by the apostles of Jesus Christ, and its superior claims over those versions and modifications of it as advocated by those who know not the difference between the gospel which began at Jerusalem, and that which began at Oxford or Geneva. Some of the members of both Houses were in constant attendance. and a goodly number of citizens, of different orders and professions. From what we saw and heard, we trust that some of the seed sown has fallen into good ground; which may the Lord cause to grow!
By request and a sense of duty, let me now call the attention of our brotherhood to this rapidly growing city. Columbus has many attractions, not simply because it is the seat of legislation for Ohio, but because it is a general point of rendezvous. Here statesmen, the blind, the deaf, and the insane, with the culprit, are all thrown together, and found in their respective institutions. These, with their doings, invite both the curious and the interested.
The prison and asylums are receiving crowds of visitors; and it is well they should, for here the most stupid can see the difference between crime and misfortune. On beholding the contrast, we asked, From whence came these? In answer, we said. Paganism could invent a prison for the punishment of crime, but Christianity alone could conceive of and erect an asylum to compensate misfortune; and so far as its influence, extends, an occasion for the farmer is removed, and the latter is provided fur.
Now, brethren, these public institutions, with the new State House (a splendid piece of State pride) now in course of erection, all combine to give consequence to the capital of your State. You, in common with others, have built these massive walls, and are now sustaining their superintendents and inmates. You have, then done much for Columbus, and we call upon you to do a little more. The different orders of professors are awake to the interest and wants of this place, which the number of their meeting-houses, with their imposing exteriors and fascinating interiors, fully prove.
Now I ask, dear brethren, Shall the true gospel--the apostolic gospel-- be shut out of this city for the want of a meeting-house? for little can be done here until we have one. We want, then, a respectable house of worship in Columbus, where its citizens may be convened, and our brethren, engaged in the advocacy of primitive Christianity, may feel themselves at home. Is not this a loud call, an imperious call, to the brethren to whom the Lord has given ability, to appropriate sonic of their surplus wealth, and make this a radiating point from which to spread the gospel over this great State. Doubtless the brethren in Central Ohio, from their proximity, should be first to move in this noble enterprize, and then call upon those more remote to help. If the brethren view the subject as the writer does, some one will second this call, perhaps by calling a convention to inquire into the practicability of this suggestion, and devise ways and means for execution, if approved. All of which is respectfully submitted. Yours, in the common faith, J. HARTZEL.
SCRAPS GATHERED FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.
December 15, 5 persons were immersed on the opening of the new baptistery in the Church of Christ in Baltimore. Bro. Patrick H. Murphy, writes me from Cold Brook, Warren county, Ill., January 10, 155], that Bro. Gaston, of Ohio, is laboring for the church in Monmouth. He is an
180 OBITUARY.
approved and highly appreciated brother. Bro. Murphy reports that matters pertaining to the Kingdom are improving in the section of his labors. Their next annual meeting is to be held at Walnut Grove, Woodford county, III., commencing on Friday before the 1st Lord's day in Sept.
Since 15th September to 30th December, Bro. Wade has immersed some 20 persons, in Camden, Ark., where a church, not long since, was organized. Bra. Wm. S- Gardner, under date of December, 1850, gives an interesting account of the labors of brethren on portions of the Western Reserve. Speaks much of the labors of Bros Jones, J. T. Smith, and of the power of the truth in that direction. I could wish for room to give his letter on the importance of placing the Bible in the proper attitude before young men in schools and colleges, with some remarks of Martin Luther, on the Word and the Spirit. They may appear hereafter.
At Oceola, Crawford county, O., Bro. Burns, Jr., informs me a Quaker lady, and a Lutheran gentleman, of fine attainments, were lately immersed- The church there numbers 50 members. He has been traveling with Bro. Hartzel. At one of their meetings, at Bucyrus, a Presbyterian gentleman and his wife were baptized. At Washington, also, 6 confessed and were baptized. John T. Powel reports some baptisms at Bethel, Clermont county, and at Hamersville.
Bro. Alex. Anderson, and Bro. A. Kilgour, I am informed by Bro. James Black, of Canada West, have been very successful in their labors. Besides teaching the churches, they have immersed over 80 persons during the last year in their travels. The brethren in Canada are much devoted to the original gospel and its institutions. I would be glad to visit them, could I find a favorable opportunity; but this is very uncertain. am. J. Creath, Jr., I learn from a letter from Elder J. E. Gaston, has been laboring, with good success, at Monmouth, Ill. Bro. E. A. Smith, under date of Athens, Tenn., 13th November, 1850, says: "We have had many good meetings this year. Under Bro. Rudolph's and Oyer's labors, upwards of 100 have been baptized." Bro. Wm. Bruce, of Bruceville, Ia., says: "I am writing to you in my 75th veer, without spectacles, and am glad to say the good cause prospers. Our congregation moves on harmoniously--over 100 members in number; and there have been considerable ingatherings in the churches around. Our worthy brother, J. W. Wolf, labors amongst us, once every month this year." Bro. Richard Hawley, of Detroit, says: "Michigan is a neglected State. Can you not send us some effectual laborers in the New Covenant?" I still hope to visit Detroit- A. C.
Total number reported since last month, 1525.
OBITUARY.
DEERFIELD, O., February 4, 1851.
The Deerfield congregation has experienced a great loss of late, in the death of Bro. HORACE ROGERS. He died on the 3d day of November, 1850. He was a kind husband and father. As a Christian, he manifested his faith in Christ by his labors of love. To the extent of his means, he did good to all within the sphere of his influence, as tins congregation, of which he was an overseer, and the poor and needy, both in and out of the congregation, will abundantly testify. Through a painful struggle, in which death finally triumphed, his conduct was characterized by patient resignation to the chastening of the Lord. And his unwavering faith in the promises of God, in the gospel of his Son Jesus Christ, enabled him to triumph over the fear of death, when he approached him clothed in all his terrors. "Blessed be the dead that die in the Lord." E. B. HUBBARD.
Vol. I.] BETHANY, VA., APRIL, 1851. [No. IV.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE--No. IV.
ANGELS AND DEMONS. No. III.
IN the preceding essay we endeavored to sustain, by well established authorities, That the whole remedial system founded on the fall of man; together with a spiritual world, fallen angels, and demons good and bad; future judgment and retribution, were in possession of the most ancient Hindoos, Chinese and Tartars, and of the most remote people known to history, and were believed and acknowledged by more than half the human race, and especially by that portion of mankind from which both Jews and Christians have descended.
From these sources the conclusion is legitimate, that the doctrines concerning demons and a spiritual universe, stand, in all true antiquity, on the same footing with the fall of man, sacrifice, atonement, future judgment, and the final destruction of the visible heavens and earth. One uniform Asiatic tradition, more or less clear, distinct, and intelligible, attests them all.
But to confirm the conclusions above stated, and also to expand our horizon on the great subject of a spiritual universe, we must, at least, allude to that much venerated class of men called philosophers, to whom so many look up as oracles of God, antecedent to, and independent of, the Jewish and Christian revelations.
It has sometimes been debated, whether the world gained or lost more by the destruction of five grand libraries of the ancient world of letters--the Ptolemain, enriched with all the accumulations of the Egyptian Ptolemies, consumed by the enraged and maddened soldiery of Julius Caesar; the grand Roman library, placed in the
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 16
182 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
temple of Apollo, in the palace of the Caesars, stricken and consumed by the lightnings of heaven; the "Heathen, writings" gathered in Rome, but consigned to the flames by his holiness Pope Gregory; the Alexandrian library, containing the accumulations of ages, and all the Egyptian philosophy, converted into ashes by Omer, the Saracen Cailiph, whose immense parchment tomes furnished fuel for heating the baths six full months; and finally, the Grecian manuscripts, consumed by the Arabian Al-Mamon, which, to give value to his versions of them, he caused to be destroyed.
Notwithstanding these great conflagrations of the learning and philosophy of ages, there escaped the ravages of the flames enough for our present purpose. There are still the traditions of the seven wise men, not only of Greece, but, still beyond them, the wisdom of Lycurgus, Ulysses, and Nestor. These, indeed, all lived before the proper era of philosophy, so far as the name now indicates, or is technically employed.
Pythagoras, not assuming to himself the name of a wise man, as they were then called, modestly preferred to be called a philosopher for, with him, a philosopher was not a wise man, but only one who wished to be wise; one who sought after knowledge.
Having spent twenty-two years in Egypt, and having visited the Persian Magi, he returned to his native Samos enriched with the traditions of Egyptian and Persian lore. He died some five hundred years before the Christian era. This most venerable and authoritative of the Greek philosophers, believed and taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, usually called, in the olden time, the metempsychosis--the passing of the soul after death into some animal. He is not ascertained to have been the author of this theory. He imported it from some parts of India and China.* He was, indeed, no dogmatist, but chose rather to become a wise man, by learning from others, than to assume a place amongst those magi, or wise men, who presumed to be the oracles of their age.
The history of philosophy is, therefore, merely the history of the doctrines and opinions of men, and is but the history of the progress of the human understanding in the acquisition of truth. Philosophy, indeed, delights in tracing the origin, causes, and tendencies of things--of human opinions--the traditions of former times, and their bearings upon the future. It has, consequently, always more or less intermeddled with religion, and the ultimate destiny of man-- the final cause of this mundane system.
*The term metempsychosis indicates, according to its etymology (meta beyond, psuchoosis animation or life,) living beyond dissolution in some other state.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 183
Enfield, in his history of philosophy, very logically and appropriately distributes the subject into ancient, middle, and modern; and distributes the subject into three periods. The first of these includes the Barbaric and Grecian philosophy, including the remotest antiquity down to the establishment of the Roman Empire. The second represents its state among the Heathen, down to the sixth century of the Christian era. The third relates the attempts which have been made for its reformation and improvement, describing the various forms which it has assumed, down to the present century.
The Barbaric embraces all the opinions and traditions current in all other languages than the Greek. Its literal progress was round the world in the direction of east, south, west, and north. Among the eastern nations, the order was Hebrews, Chaldeans, Persians, Arabians, or Sabeans, Phoenicians, and the Indians. The southern Barbaric nations include the inhabitants of Egypt and Lybia. The west embraces, especially, the Celts, or Gauls, the Germans, the Britons, and the ancient Romans; while the north, especially, includes the Scythians, Thracians, and their neighbors.
We notice this very rational arrangement with reference to our special subject, and can merely glance at one grand topic, as developed in this scheme, and that is, that the Hebrews, who were not called Jews, till after the return from their captivity, had no philosophy, but merely religion and morality, based upon a clear, authentic, and well delineated revelation from God. But their religious views and institutions became familiar to other nations, and furnished materials for their philosophy, so far as that philosophy had any foundation in history or in facts. The three great sages, or wise men of the Hebrews, as regarded by the Chaldeans, were Moses, Solomon, and Daniel.
The Chaldeans take precedence of the Egyptians in antiquity and philosophy, but their philosophy consisted in handing down knowledge from father to son, rather than in originating new theories or speculations of their own. Their great oracle was Zoroaster, the founder of she Chaldean philosophy. This Chaldean Zoroaster, if contradistinguished at all from the Persian Zoroaster, is known as the father of the Chaldean astrology and magic, rather than of any system called philosophy. But waiving all discussion on the merits of either his astrology or his magic, one thing is certain, that his magic was but the performance of certain religious ceremonies, by means of which "good demons were supposed to be prevailed upon to communicate supernatural properties and powers to herbs, stones, and other natural bodies, or to afford assistance in other miraculous
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ways, to those who invoked them." Armies were routed and victotories won, by their supposed instrumentality. The Kings of Persia and Chaldea were all instructed in the art, and by it mainly governed the minds of their subjects. Amongst these philosophers, Belus and Berosus hold distinguished rank.
From the testimony of Diodorus, and other ancient documents collected by Eusebius, it appears incontrovertible that the Chaldeans believed in God, as the parent and Lord of all. But they, also, believed in a "race of spiritual beings, called demons, whose existence could not have been imagined without conceiving the idea of a Supreme Being;" and "the whole Heathen world, from the most remote times, believed in a Supreme Deity, the fountain of all the divinities which they supposed to preside over the several parts of the material world--the true origin of all religious worship, however idolatrous, not excepting even that which consisted in paying divine honors to the memory of dead men. Besides the Supreme Being, the Chaldeans supposed spiritual beings to exist of several orders--gods, demons, heroes. "The ancient eastern nations in general--and among the rest, the Chaldeans--admitted the existence of several evil spirits, clothed in a vehicle of grosser matter; and in subduing and counteracting these, they placed a great part of the efficacy of their religious incantations."*
"These doctrines were the mysteries of the Chaldean religion, communicated, as was usual amongst the ancients, only to the initiated. Their popular religion consisted in the worship of the sun, moon, planets, and stars, as divinities after the general practice of the East." "The religious system of the Chaldeans," continues Enfield, "gave rise to two arts, that have long been celebrated-- magic and astrology." But the magic of the Chaldeans is not to be confounded with witchcraft, or a supposed intercourse with evil spirits. It consisted in the performance of certain religious ceremonies or incantations, which were supposed, through the interposition of good demons, to produce supernatural effects. Their astrology was wholly founded upon the chimerical principle, that the stars have an influence, either beneficial or malignant, upon the affairs of men, which may be discovered, and made the certain ground of prediction in particular cases.
This philosophy was well known to the Greeks and to the Romans. Plutarch and Vitruvius quote Berosus as giving the Chaldean opinion of eclipses, and of the end of the world. "An eclipse of the moon happened when that part of its body, which is destitute
Plutarch, as copied by Enfield.
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of fire, is turned to the earth." And according to Seneca, they taught "that when all the planets shall meet in Cancer, the world will be consumed by fire; and that when they shall meet in Capricorn, it will be destroyed by an inundation." Their doctrine of the human mind was, that it is an emanation from the divine nature. Belus, they taught, divided the darkness and the humid mass called chaos, and thus formed the world.
As for the Persians and their Zardhust, called by the Greeks Zoroaster, and their holy Zeda, we only know, with some degree of certainty, that their magi, long before the times of Zoroaster, were the guardians of their religion and learning. They worshipped the sun, or fire, as a representation of divinity, and sacrificed to him horses. But their worship mainly terminated upon two demons-- the good and the evil demon--one the spirit of a good man, a public benefactor; the other the spirit of a wicked man, or malefactor. Zoroaster, denominated the good divinity, Oramasdes; the bad divinity, Ariminus. Mithras was a divinity that acted as moderator between them, and him the Persians called the mediator. Through his instrumentality, they alledged, the good demon would ultimately triumph over the evil one, and that universal happiness would finally prevail. They were the primordial Universalians.
"According to Zoroaster, various orders of spiritual beings--gods, or demons--have proceeded from the Deity, which are more or less perfect, as they are at a greater or less distance in the course of emanation from the eternal fountain of intelligence; amongst which the human soul is a particle of divine light, which will return to its source and partake of its immortality."
Passing from the philosophy or theology of the Persians, to that of the Indians, we observe, that their wise men, called Gymnosophists, or Brachmans, taught that God is light; not such as is seen like the sun, or fire, but intelligence and reason; that principle through whose agency the mysteries of knowledge are understood by the wise. He never produced evil, but light, and life, and souls, of which he is the sole Lord. The former and governor of the universe pervades it, and is invested with it as with a garment. He is immortal, and sees all things--the stars, the moon, and the sun, are his eyes. He is beneficent, and preserves, directs, and provides for all. The human mind is of celestial origin, and has a near relation to God. When it departs from the body, it returns to its parent, who expects to receive back the souls which he has sent forth. Besides this supreme divinity, other divinities, proceeding from him, are to be worshipped.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 16*
186 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
The Celtic philosophy, which includes that of the Gauls, Britons, Germans, and Northern nations, is to be acquired from the history of the Driuds.* These were the priests and the prophets of the Celtic nations. "The Driuds rank with the Magi of the Persians, the Chaldeans of Babylonia, and the Gymnosophists of the Indians." Before the Romans knew Great Britain, the Driuds presided over its religion, its schools, and its tribunals of justice. They held their worship in groves, delighted in bloody rites and sacrifices, inflicted punishment upon transgressors and delinquents, and expounded fables. They shared a common origin with the Medes and Persans, and boasted of Scythian fathers lost in Sarmatians and Germans. Like all the other ancient Asiatic nations, they had their public and vulgar doctrine, for those without, and their concealed and more recondite philosophy, for the initiated.
The divinities were numerous, but the principal were, Odin, Thor, Tueseo, and chief of all THE EARTH. Their divinities all resided in natural bodies, but they acknowledged one God as supreme. Under the name of Odin, or the FATHER OF ALL, they did him homage. With them, the human soul is of divine origin, rational and immortal. All antiquity concurs in giving this as the creed of our Celtic ancestors of Asiatic descent. Caesar himself, the founder of the dynasty, asserts this faith. They magnanimously contemned death. Births were celebrated with tears, and deaths with joy. With Solomon they sang, "The end of a thing is better than the beginning, and the day of our death is better than the day of our birth." After death, with some of them, the soul commenced a series of transmigrations from one body ascending to another; with others, it passed immediately into the invisible world. Their creed was to worship the gods, to do good, and to exercise fortitude.
Ten thousand pages of the style and character of Enfield's History of Philosophy, or of Cudworth's Intellectual System, but multiply evidences that the philosophers, sages, lawgivers, founders of States, and the great ancestors of mankind, one and all, had the same rudimental ideas of creation, the same conceptions of a spiritual system, above, beyond, and independent of, a material creation. Their mythologies, fables, fictions, metamorphoses, traditions, show a common fountain of spiritual conceptions, views, and antecedent revelations. And as certainly as a shadow implies a substance, an effect a cause, or that something is, because something always was, do they all demonstrate the great truths of revelation. They all prove that Abraham was before they were; that Moses was more learned
*So called from Deru, the Celtic name of an oak.
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than all the sages of the world; that God had spoken to man before man himself spoke; that the spiritual universe preceded the material; that in it are angels, spirits, demons, authorities, principalities and powers, supernal and infernal; and that things above, around, and beneath us, are in constant, ceasless progress towards a new goal--a more sublime, awful, and glorious destiny, than human imagination can conceive, or human language express; and that man's wisdom and happiness alike essentially depend upon believing what God says, and in doing what God commands. A. C.
APOSTOLIC BAPTISM.
"Facts" and "Evidences" on "the subjects and mode" of Christian Baptism, by C. Taylor, editor of Calmets Dictionary of the Bible. Stereotype edition. New York, 1850. Published by M. W. Dodd."
THIS is a boastful and boasted performance. It is affirmed by the publisher that "the American Baptists, like their British brethren, have not ventured, either to dispute the FACTS,* or to invalidate the EVIDENCES."
Again: it is affirmed "that an erudite polemic cannot be found, who will seriously convert Mr. Taylor's oracular position. Baptism, from the day of Pentecost, was administered by the apostles and evangelists to infants, and not by submersion. Therefore, the subsequent FACTS and EVIDENCES are as irrefutable as the truth in Jesus."
Such is the frostispiece to this learned duodecimo of 236 pages. And so confident is the author of his positions, that he says, "for his facts and evidences he desires neither grace nor favor," p. 7. Aagain: he says that the more learned Baptists now confess that infants are included in the term oikos family, as used in the New Testament; while it is curious to observe the difficulties to which they are reduced, who contend that infants are excluded from the term "family,"† and that the word must be restricted to adults. If our translators had' employed the term FAMILY, instead of the worth
*The "Facts and Evidences," is the title of a pamphlet published by the editor of Calmets Dictionary, in 1815, "on the mode of baptism," and addressed to a Deacon of a Baptist Church, with two plates, "showing some ancient baptisms in the porticos of churches."
†No Baptist author, known to me, has ever affirmed that infants are excluded from the terms oikos or oikia, bat only from the families, so called, in which baptism is named.
188 APOSTOLIC BAPTISM.
HOUSE and HOUSEHOLD, the sect of Baptists never would have existed! What a misfortune, that the English word "family" had not been adopted by the Greeks, Romans, French, Germans, and all other nations, since its mere "adoption" by our translators, would have forever prevented the existence of that deluded sect called Baptists!
This disquisition on oikos and oikia, with no less than twelve pictures, (hallowed number!) engravings of ancient baptisms in the porticos of Roman cathedrals or Greek churches, exhibiting some water or oil being poured on the head of the subject, is the sum total of the volume.
As to the disquisition on oikos and oikia, we have already demonstrated that it is wholly gratuitous. If we should admit that oikos and oikia meant family, and always family, and nothing but family, unless it was proved that every family must necessarily have infants in it, it is of no logical force whatever. It is mere mockery of reason and argument--a puerile assumption, of which any scholar ought to be ashamed. We will most cheerfully concede, that some families were baptized in the apostolic age, even many more than reported. What then! We still have amongst us family baptisms. But two family baptisms are reported in the New Testament--Lydias and the jailors. Other households of baptized persons are named-- the household of Stephanes; that of Cornelius, the Centurion; that of Onesiphorus; the house of Chloe; the house of Philip; the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus; the house of Priscilla and Aquila. In not one of which there is the slightest evidence that there was an infant; but, on the contrary, we have all the internal and circumstantial evidence in each, that in all the points in which they are considered or alluded to, there was not an infant in one of them. No man that has a proper respect for his head and his heart, or his education, can, so far as we ought to judge, argue from oikos, oikia, family, house, or household, in favor of infant baptism. This argument from oikos or oikia, was very satisfactorily disposed of almost thirty years ago, in my debate with Dr. M'Calla. This was proved, as Christianity itself is sometimes proved, not merely by the first acclamation, but by the thousands and the myriads of intelligent Pedobaptists that have, in our own time, repudiated it, and, by overt acts, have renounced family and infant baptism, and voluntarily put on Christ, by an immersion into his death.
But, besides the argument in favor of infant baptism, deduced from the family baptisms alluded to, we have no less than twelve pictures on the subject, collected from the vestibules and domes of the Greek and Roman Catholic Churches. The first is that of the
APOSTOLIC BAPTISM. 189
baptism of Christ, placed at the entrance of the great church at Pisa. Pisan tradition says this marble ornament was carried from Jerusalem by the Crusaders, about the commencement of the twelfth century. The Baptist stands with his hand upon the Saviour's head. The second is the baptism of the same subject in Jordan, taken from the church on the Via Ostiensis at Rome. The door which it covers is dated 1070. The third is from the door of the church at Beneventum, in Italy. Here Jesus is standing in a bath up to the middle, and the Baptist is pouring water on his head. The fourth is that of Jesus standing in the Jordan, with the Baptist pouring water, in streams, on his head. There is a centre piece in the dome of the baptistery at Ravenna, A. D., 454. Here the Baptist stands on the bank of the river, pouring water out of a shell on the Saviour's head. Over his head is a crown of glory, and a dove, personating the Holy Spirit, descending from heaven to his person. The fifth is a representation in Mosaic, of the Saviour's baptism in Jordan. Here, again, a patera, or a shell, is employed in pouring water on his person. This stands in the church in Cosmedin, at Ravenna, erected A. D. 401. The sixth is a representation of a bath, or baptismal fount, standing in the baptistery of Constantine, in Rome, near the Lateran. This is too shallow for immersion. The seventh argument is the baptism of a heathen King and Queen, in a family bath at Chigi, near Naples, with a priest standing as if taking aim at the King's head, with a pitcher in his hand, A. D., 591. The eighth proof is that of a kneeling candidate, with a priest holding a vase, or pitcher, at his head. He seems to be on the dry ground. The ninth is that of a boy, unclothed, receiving a stream from a pitcher. This is found in Rome, though the work of a Greek artist. The tenth is Laurentius in the church of St. Lawrence, in Rome, or near it--extra muros--receiving a stream from a vase. The eleventh that of Constantine the Great, Emperor of Rome, being immersed in a bath, but also receiving a stream of oil or water falling upon his head from a vial, held by a long robed priest. The twelfth is that of Jesus Christ, baptized by John in the Jordan, standing on the bank, with one hand on, or near to, his head. No shell nor vial is seen in the picture. Probably the baptizer had dipped his finger in the Jordan. This stands in the chapel of the baptistery, in the small church of the Catacomb Pontianus, with a lamb at his foot. The baptizers, though I have called them priests, from their costume, are said to have been laymen, and Mr. Taylor admits the allegation, and quiets all scruples by the concession, that in all extreme cases, baptism by the hand
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of laymen is of divine authority, and, consequently, canonical and valid.
Now, the grand and solemn question is, What does all this prove? It proves not when this custom began, nor when these pictures were made; and if it did, they are all hundreds of years too late to prove primitive apostolic baptism. No one can, with any measure of self- respect, deny this. And this admitted, places these twelve arguments on the shelf, lettered, "OLD WIVES' FABLES!"
In the next place, statuaries, sculptors, and painters, are always fond of catering to public taste and fashion, and will make to order any number of marble, or other ornaments, just as Mr. Sartain, in his pictorial magazine, or as printers do in the Family Bible--make such representations of angels, men, costumes, and customs, as will command the highest admiration, secure the largest sale, and the most liberal price.
Thus we see in one New Testament, in an orthodox pulpit, quite as sacred as the vestibule of St. Peter's, or the dome of St. Paul's, a pictorial representation of Paul's conversion. The admiration and taste of the artist conceived that it would be more pleasing to present Paul as a fine athletic looking man, mounted on a fiery Arabian courser, on his way to Damascus. And when arrested on his journey by a glance of the Lord and the majesty of his voice, the affrighted steed, springing like a deer from its lair, in frenzied mood plunging in the desert, unsaddles his rider and flings him over his head, while the unhorsed apostle, pertinacious of his hold of the bridle, brings him to the ground, and appears as if about to rise, whip in hand, with full intent, in sad distraction, wildly looking hither and thither, as if to lay upon him the weight of his indignant arm. How suitable to such an event is such a scene, however well executed and elegantly decorated by the hand of a gifted artist!
Again: open our elegant Family Bibles of the nineteenth century, and what idea do they give of the Saviour's baptism in the Jordan! You will see opposite to the account of his baptism, or on the frontispiece of the volume, John the Immerser, alias, John the Baptist, standing upon a bluff bank of the Jordan, or, in other pictures, standing ankle deep in its margin, lifting up a handful, or pouring a horn full, of the water of the river upon his head, while a dove, on its wing, is descending from an open sky, in the direction of the imposing scene. Now, what does this prove, but the ignorance or impiety of painters of the present day? And just so much, neither more nor less, do these twelve pictures, the twelve unanswerable arguments of C. Taylor, in favor of the Pagan rite of
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sprinkling holy water, under the imposing name of Christian baptism, alias, Roman rantism! It is a fearful deception, practised upon the credulity of an untaught and unteachable population. "O my people, they which lead thee (or call thee blessed) cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths!"* "They have spoken lying words in my name, which I have not commanded them; even I know and am a witness, saith the Lord."† A. C.
THE RESURRECTION.
This term is sometimes used in the Holy Scriptures figuratively, as in Ezekiel xxxvii., when the prophet is contemplating the return of his countrymen from their seventy years' captivity. Sometimes it is used spiritually; an instance of this kind is found in John v. 26, where the Saviour evidently refers to the conversion of sinners. Similar instances are to be met with in the Epistles and Apocalypse. It is used, also, in a literal sense. The Saviour arose literally; so did many of the saints after his resurrection; and so will all that are in their graves, just and unjust, finally. We shall confine our remarks to the literal resurrection, and, in the first place, notice what we regard as mistakes on the subject.
The first of these, is the view entertained by the followers of Emanuel Swedenbourg. That distinguished scholar, and equally distinguished enthusiast, denies that there is to be a resurrection of the dead, a general judgment, and a final destruction, by fire, of our present mundane system. His views, if we understand them, are that the dead are raised immediately after their decease, and clothed at once with spiritual bodies; that the judgment takes place at the same time, and that our present heavens and earth will continue forever.
The second mistake is one into which the great mass of professing Christians, teachers and taught, together with the bulk of non- professors, in nominally Christian countries, have fallen. It consists in supposing that the natural body, with its flesh, and blood, and bones, is to be revived. Hence we sing-
"This body shall be raised again,
And all this dust shall live."
And hence, speakers generally, following, I think it is, Harvey,)
*Is. iii. 12
†Jer. xxix. 23.
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when describing the scene of the resurrection, represent the air as filled with fragments of human bodies, flying in all directions to meet their fellows, and make up again the same bodies of which they once were component parts. This may be poetical, but is certainly not scriptural, as we shall see by-and-by.
A third mistake consists in regarding the doctrine of resurrection as one of but little importance. The mass of church members appear to be so entirely carried away with the immortality of the soul, that they speak of the resurrection as a matter scarcely to be desired. They care but little about it.
In regard to the first of these mistakes--that of Baron Swedenbourg--let it be observed, that it is entirely fanciful. The Baron himself, relies mainly for its truth on his own visions, and we are at liberty to consider it more in the light of a revelation, than that of a scriptural deduction. Efforts, however, have been made, not only to reconcile it with the Bible, but to show that it is positively the doctrine of that book, when correctly expounded. Of these efforts, every reader will judge for himself; suffice it to say, that every sacred writer, from Enoch, the seventh from Adam, to John in the isle of Patmos, whenever they allude to this subject, invariably, without one single exception, speak of it as future. It never could have been said of Christ that he was the first to rise from the dead, or the first fruits of them that sleep, if every human being is raised immediately after death.
The second mistake results from inattention to the teachings of the Apostle Paul, especially in chap. xv. of first Corinthians.
The same remark will apply to the third mistake. As, however, in giving our views on this subject, in the sequel, we shall necessarily furnish an answer to these last two mistakes, it is unnecessary further to notice them at present.
I proceed, then, to say, that God is a God of order. All his works bear ample testimony to the universality of this truth. He has made nothing in vain. From the loftiest seraph to the small dust of the balance, every creature and every thing has its own use, its own name and its own place, in the wide-spread works of his Almighty hand. His redeemed creature man, is destined to a glorious eternity; and even the lost sons of Father Adam, are to share in a universal resurrection. The former shall be raised to everlasting life; the latter to shame and everlasting contempt. All shall be raised, but every one in his own order. Christ the first fruits; afterwards, they that are Christ's at his coining; then cometh the end. This is God's order in the resurrection. Let us look at it. First,
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Christ the first fruits; second, they that are Christ's at his coming; third, the end, viz: the resurrection of the ungodly. The first is past, and become matter of history and faith. The second approaches, and constitutes the Christian's hope.- The third will follow at a suitable interval, and wind up the drama of human existence, and close up with the conflagration of the world. Christ has arisen and gone to heaven. The resurrection of the saints, then, as it is the next in order, demands our consideration.
Our first question is, When shall the resurrection take place? The answer, at the coming of Christ. See 1 Cor. xv. 23, Col. iii. 4, Heb. ix. 18.
But when shall Christ come! In answering this question, it is proper for us to say, in the first place, that it has never been revealed, and, consequently, cannot be precisely ascertained--the day and hour knoweth no man. Still, while this, in all its truth and in all its force, is freely confessed, we contend that a good deal, both reliable and satisfactory, can be gleaned by the diligent student of the Bible, on this question. The mariner finds it safe, now and then, to take an observation, in order to ascertain certainly his precise latitude. The Christian can do the same. The prophecies of the Old and New Testament Scriptures furnish all that is requisite for this purpose. The first of these that we shall refer to, is Nebuchadnezzar's Vision, as recorded in chap. ii. of Daniel's Prophecy; and for the sake of brevity, we remark, that the successive empires symbolized in the image, whose head was of fine gold, and whose feet were part of iron and part of clay, have arisen, flourished, and fallen. The stone, cut out of the mountain without hands, has smitten the image; and the gold, the silver, the brass, the iron and the clay, have become as the small dust of the summer threshing floor, and the wind has carried them away. One item, only, of this prophecy remains to be accomplished, and that is, the stone became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. We infer, therefore, that the next event to be looked for, according to this series of prophecies, is the millennial glory of the universal Christian church.
The second prophecy that we would look at, is that of the four Monsters, as recorded in chap. xvii. of the same prophecies. These four great beasts, or monsters, symbolize the same powers that were previously represented by the gold, silver, brass and iron of the image, viz: the Assyrian, Medo-Persian, Grecian and Roman empires. But, in addition to these four universal empires, the prophet speaks of a division of the last--namely, the Roman empire--into
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ten kingdoms; and after this, the rise of a fifth power, which he symbolizes by a little horn, growing out of the head of the ten- horned beast, and destroying three horns to make room for itself. This horn can be interpreted of no other power than that of the Papacy, and corresponds with the two horned beast, seen by John in Revelations xiii. Well, all this has become matter of history. We have seen the division of the Roman empire into ten kingdoms; we have seen the subsequent rise of the Papacy; and, blessed be God, we have seen his dominion taken away. Now, then, where are we l Certainly close to the coast of the millennium. We can see its lighthouse. For the next event in this series of prophecies, is that the kingdom, and dominion, and greatness of the kingdom, under the whole heaven, was given to the people of the saints of the Most High. The time to favor Zion is come; the time which thou last appointed.
Our third prophecy is from Paul, 2 Thes. ii. 1-12. The coming of the Lord personally, a second time, is the matter in hand, and the apostle interposes the rise of Antichrist, or the Papacy, as an intervening event. That day 'will not come, except there come a falling away, and that man of sin to revealed, etc. Now, that falling away has taken place; that man of sin has been revealed; the Lord has been, and is consuming him, with the spirit of his mouth. There remains, only, that he should destroy him with the brightness of his coming. The coming of the Lord, therefore, appears to be the next event to be looked for in this series of prophecies.
Fourthly, we look at the book of Revelations, and what do we see! We seethe rise of the dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads; we see the rise of the beast with seven heads and ten horns, and ten crowns upon his horns; we see the beast coming up out of the earth, with two horns like a lamb, but who speaks like a dragon; we see the image of the beast; we see his power waning. All these are past. Now, what remains, but his final destruction, and, simultaneously with this, the events recited in chapter xx. of the Apocalypse?
This brings us to the resurrection of the saints, or, as the sacred writer calls it, the first resurrection. Perhaps, however, it will be objected, that the resurrection spoken of here is a spiritual, and not a literal, resurrection; that it is a resurrection to the church of the spirits of the ancient martyrs. In reply to this objection, it may be said, that it is a little out of place to restore the spirit of the ancient martyrs to the church, after all occasion for its exercise has been removed, by the destruction of the dragon--the beast--the false
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prophet, and the removing and binding of Satan in the bottomless pit. Certainly, it would seem more in accordance with our views of propriety and necessity, to restore this spirit to the church during the period when she needed it, in her warfare with these antagonistic powers. For a man to be brave when the battle's over, is rather out of place. This exposition of the passage in question is, therefore, inadmissible.
But again: the resurrection must always correspond with the death. If the one is figurative, the other must be figurative; if the one is literal, the other must be literal; if the one is- spiritual, so will the other be. Is, then, the resurrection spoken of in this chapter spiritual, figurative, or literal Certainly not spiritual, for they were not spiritually dead. Certainly not figurative, for they had been beheaded. They had been put to a cruel death, for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, and they are to enjoy a glorious resurrection. This, then, is the first resurrection--the resurrection of the saints; that for which Paul suffered and labored, if by any means he might attain it. And why should it be thought incredible or strange, that the saints raised from the dead should reign with Christ on the earth a thousand years, when we remember, that Christ himself, and the saints who came out of their graves after his resurrection, tarried here forty days, before they ascended on high Let it, likewise, be remembered, that they remained in a polluted world, and in the midst of pollution; while, on the other hand, the saints are to be raised to enjoy a purified world--purified from evil, and the presence of the parents of evil. Blessed and holy is he who hath part in the first resurrection.
But let us review. We set out to ascertain, as nearly as possible, the period of Christ's second advent. Well, what have we found I We have found, first, that the vial of prophecy is nearly exhausted. Second, that we are in the vicinity of the millennium, the coming of the Lord, and the resurrection of the saints. These events are the next in prophetic order; and, as all the other events in the scriptures referred to have been fulfilled, and become matters of historic record, we have the fullest assurance that these will be accomplished, too. Blessed be God!
Having thus ascertained that the saints are to be raised at the coming of Christ, and that his coming is at the door, we proceed to inquire, With what body will they come? Here we have solid ground. The apostle tells us, It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown a natural body, it
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is raised a spiritual body. What a change! Our vile body changed and fashioned like the glorious body of our ascended Lord! It is raised a spiritual body--incorruptible, powerful, and glorious--unlike that which is sown, in every particular. The seed cannot be more unlike the stalk; the acorn, the oak; the grain of corn, the tall, plumed, and feathered stalk, than is the raised body of the saint-- his present body. What a rich cluster of the happiest associations crowd the mind, in view of a resurrected spiritual body! All our labor, anxiety and care, are for this natural body; it is the source of all our physical, and nearly all our mental diseases; it is the occasion of a majority of all our sins. Free us, then, from flesh and blood, and we become exempt, at once, from toil, sickness, and sin. This, however, is the least important view of the change. It fits us for the society of angels--of God and the Lamb--for all these are spirits. Possessed of these dull, heavy, inert, clay tabernacles, while we might excite the pity of angels, we never could enjoy their company. Even the meanest insect, when elevated in the scale of being, is first fitted for it. The vile worm that spends days, perhaps years, in making its way out of the earth, and gaining the limb of a bush three feet high, when it leaves its body is furnished with wings to soar aloft, and a song, it may be, to give vent to its joy. Look at all the heavenly bodies: with what fearful velocity they move; what is railroad speed to theirs! yet light travels faster still. But could we know the swiftness of an angel, when sent in haste, it would probably as far exceed the speed of light, as this exceeds the motion of our own earth. We will require, therefore, bodies more enduring, light, elastic, and active, in order to become as well acquainted with the works and ways of God, as every son of God desires and expects to be. We must travel as fast as thought; and even then, eternity will exhaust itself before we can know the Most High, or even his works, to perfection. Blessed be my Father, for the hope of a spiritual body!
Some one, however, may ask, What is a spiritual body? The answer is, we not only do not, but we cannot, know. One thing we do know, that it is just as easy for God to make a spiritual as a natural body. Another thing we know, is, that he has done so in the creation of angels, and that, in the case of his redeemed children, he will do so at the resurrection of the just.
Of the saints who rose after Christ's resurrection, it is said that they APPEARED to many in Jerusalem; and of Christ it is said, that he APPEARED first to Mary Magdalene; afterwards, at different times and in different places, to various persons. Now, we never speak
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of men appearing. We speak so of angels or spirits. Before the death of the Saviour, he was naturally a visible being; after his resurrection, he was as naturally an invisible being. Before his crucifixion, he rendered himself invisible on two occasions, by a miraculous effort; after his resurrection, by a similar effort, he became visible.
Again: spirits possess the power, not only to render themselves visible to mortal eyes, but tangible to human hands. Indeed, the power to do the one, is the same as that required to do the other. We have examples of this, in the case of the three angels who visited Abraham; and likewise, in that of the two angels who visited Lot. In the first instance, it is fair to suppose, that in washing the feet of the angels, the person who did it, felt and handled human feet. In the case of Lot, when the angels took hold of the hands of Lot, and his wife, and daughter, these persons felt the grasp of human hands. Other cases might be cited, but these will suffice. This, then, is another attribute of a spiritual body. Human beings possess no similar power. Still, after all our gleaning, our knowledge on this subject is extremely defective. That spirits possess identity, form, locality and office, is as certain as that men possess them. But their homes, and manner of living and acting, as well as their peculiar occupations, are all, with a thousand other things, matters with us altogether conjectural. Here we have five senses, and these constitute the measure, as well as the media, of all earthly enjoyment; there we may have fifty senses, and be proportionably happy. One thing is certain, that all our powers will be very greatly enlarged, and then filled to overflowing.
In view, then, of all the premises, What sort of persons ought we to he in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! SAMUEL CHURCH.
I commend to the grave consideration of all my readers the preceding thoughts, on the great and grand subjects on which the writer treats. He is neither an enthusiast nor a visionary; he is neither precipitant nor non-committal; but thoughtful, grave, and transparent. He has taken his latitude and departure from a proper point, makes his observations at meridian altitude, keeps his log-book carefully, and sails for Jerusalem. A. C.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 17*
198 THE BIBLE QUESTION.
VIEWS OF DR. LYND ON THE BIBLE QUESTION.
Review of arguments employed at the Annual Meeting of the American and Foreign Bible Society, against a Revised Version of the English Scriptures.
WHEN the resolution was offered by Bro. Armitage, "That it is the duty of the American and Foreign Bible Society to circulate the Scriptures in the most faithful versions that can be procured," Dr. Dowling- remarked: "You perceive, if persisted in and brought to vote, it will entrap us. It will go out to the public, that we have voted not to circulate the best version." Dr. Colver added: "There is something in the face of this resolution, that must startle every person present." The resolution was lost by a large majority.
Truly, it has gone out to the world, by the vote of a large majority, at that annual meeting, that it is not the duty of Christians to circulate the Scriptures, in the most faithful versions that can be procured. That vote denies a great fundamental principle, that commends itself to the judgment and the conscience of every godly man upon the face of the earth. It will stand upon record till the judgment day. Well might Dr. Dowling be afraid to have such a vote go forth to the world. Well might the resolution startle those who had made up their minds to vote against it. Will Dr. Dowling, or Dr. Colver, undertake to show, that it is not the duty of the A. and F. Bible society to circulate the scriptures in the best versions that can be procured? They know better. They know that it is the duty of the society. Every one in that annual meeting knew it. Without a moment's discussion, the resolution could have been unanimously carried, the vote being according to their own convictions of truth. The original resolution could then have been discussed, restricting the managers, in the circulation of the English scriptures, to the commonly received version. But could it have been carried after they had entrapped themselves, by their own affirmative vote, on the resolution of Bro. Armitage? Certainly not; and hence, in Order to justify the restricting resolution, they were compelled to negative the truth. I would as soon have voted against a resolution declaring that it is the duty of all men to love God. I would not have negatived that resolution for the wealth of the world. I would not for ten thousand worlds have that negative stand against me in the day of judgment.
When the original resolution came up, and was opposed by Bro. Wyckoff, who offered arguments in favor of an amended version, were his arguments answered? Even the attempt to answer them was not made. The Rev. Dr. Hague lifted up his hand to God, and protested against the amendment of our common version. But what were his arguments? We have always regarded Dr. Hague as an educated man, and we supposed that in the first principles of Biblical interpretation he could not be deficient. We have always given him credit for scholarship. We do not now impugn his qualifica-
THE BIBLE QUESTION. 199
tions, but we are at a loss to ascertain how he could have committed the gross blunders which characterize his arguments.
He says: "When the apostles wrote and preached, they quoted from a version called the Septuagint, made by a heathen king, confessedly erroneous, the errors of which you and I can point out; but if that version, made years before the Christian era, was good enough for the apostles, then I say, that a version honored by the martyrd dead, and defended at the stake, is good enough for you and me."
Will Dr. Hague maintain that Christ and his apostles, when they quoted from the Septuagint, in all cases, took the words as they found them in that version? Did they always quote the very words of that version, when those words did not give the idea of the original Hebrew Mr. Horne counts in the New Testament eighty-eight verbal quotations from the Alexandrian version, sixty-four others borrowed from it, but with some variation, thirty-seven which adopt its meaning, but change the language, sixteen which translate the Hebrew more accurately, and twenty-four in which they have paraphrased the Old Testament, in order to make the sense in which they quoted the passage more obvious. Here, then, are three different modes of quotation. When the Septuagint version was accurate, they quoted literally. When they were not satisfied with its accuracy, they translate the Hebrew more accurately. And when no translation could express fully the sense of the original, they made a paraphrase. They never followed the Septuagint version so as to interfere with the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures. They did not consider this version good enough for them.
But even if Christ and his apostles had thought the Greek version good enough for them, it is not logical to say that our present version is good enough for us. Suppose this argument had been made when the design of our present version was originated, would it have had any weight Had such an argument prevailed, we should not have had our present version. If the argument is good against an amended version now, why would it not have been equally good in the reign of James? Besides the Septuagint version then, and the English version now, are not analagous cases. The circumstances of Christ and the apostles did not justify them in the preparation of a new version. They were persecuted, and driven from city to city. Their labors in establishing the new economy prohibited such an effort. We might with as much reason contend, that, because they did not establish Bible Societies and Theological Institutions, and succeeded very well without them, we might also do without them.
His next argument is worse than this. He says: "Even if we should accomplish the proposed purpose, and change the word baptize into immerse, and should win the suffrages of the world, in a few years we should have to do the same thing again, and make new changes. * * The meaning of a word is one thing, and its application is another thing." He then refers to the words "board," and "house," showing that the one is sometimes applied to a deliberative assembly, and the other, to a commercial firm. "So," he adds, "with the word baptize. It literally means to dip, but it may
200 THE BIBLE QUESTION.
be applied in many different ways, according to customs, or laws of rhetoric."
In defining the first two words, he refers us to the English dictionary to ascertain their literal meaning, and gives us to understand that we are to derive his definition of baptize from the same source. He says, "it literally means to dip." Every one may know that it is not so defined; and every scholar knows that this is not its literal meaning in the use of our language.
But let us examine his principle. A word has a literal meaning, say, for example, the word immerse; but its meaning is one thing, arid its application is another thing. It may be applied in many different ways, according to customs, or laws of rhetoric; that is, it may have several figurative, or accommodated meanings, founded upon the literal. Therefore, if we should translate baptizo by immerse, we should, in a few years, have to make another change. Now, let the reader mark the principle upon which changes are effected in the literal meaning of words. By applying any word in our language figuratively, the literal meaning undergoes a change in a few years. As every word in the English language is more or less used figuratively, therefore, every word in the English language has changed its literal meaning within the last five years. I choose to put this into plain language for the use of plain readers, and I ask them whether the words "board," and "immerse," have changed the literal meaning within their memory? I ask, has the word immerse changed its literal meaning since it came into our language?
The Rev. Mr. Turnbull said he was prepared to maintain that the word baptize does mean to immerse. Did he fulfil his pledge? Very far from it. He thought the question might be left to any Sunday School scholar. He did not say whether he was a child of Presbyterian or Baptist parents. But this is no proof. He remarked further, that "it does not follow that the word baptize is not an English word, because it is a transferred word." Upon this he enlarged at some length. Admit that it is an English word, still there is no proof that it means to immerse. He then proceeded to give the history of the word, stating that the word baptize was in the Italic version, which can be traced back to nearly the second century. It thus became a Latin word, and the meaning of that Latin word, in the 4th and 5th down to the 15th century, was to immerse. Here is the climax of the argument. But should he admit all this to be true, it only proves that down to the 15th century baptize meant to immerse. The argument does not carry him a step further. He set out to prove that the word baptize now means to immerse. If, according to Dr. Hague, the literal meaning changes every few years, surely the literal meaning of baptize may have changed in four centuries. Only a little over two centuries ago, the literal meaning of the word "prevent," was "go before." Does it. mean "go before" now? The brother is four centuries behind the age. He assumes the very point to be proved. Can he show by the usus loquendi, that the literal meaning of baptize is immerse? The dictionaries are all against him. The whole religious literature of our language is against him. Concluded next month.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 201
SLAVERY AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
THIS subject is engrossing much attention, and calling forth much inquiry in every direction. It is, with many humane persons of no religious profession, and with professors of all parties, a very exciting subject. It is being pressed on my attention by many correspondents, and I am frequently called upon to open my pages to a full discussion of the subject, or to give my opinion on the whole premises. I, therefore, conceive it to be a duty which I owe to myself, my Christian brethren, and my fellow-citizens at large, to deliver myself fully upon the subject, so far as the Bible arguments, pro and con, are alledged by both parties, and, once for all, place the subject upon our pages.
With us, the Bible is the only infallible standard, both of religion and humanity. The God of the Bible is the Lawgiver of the Universe, and he has, by his inspired and commissioned teachers, fully revealed his will touching all the duties arising from all the relations in which man stands to man, in the church and in the world.
God is the author of all human relations. He has created the relation of husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant, magistrate and subject. He has also prescribed the duties of husbands and wives, of parents and children, of masters and servants, of governors and governed, towards each other. Our moral righteousness, as well as our piety, is to be approved or condemned by his statutes and precepts.
There is false religion, as well as true religion, in the world. There is also false, as well as true humanity. There is a healthful, as well as a morbid sensitiveness, on almost every question which may be mooted on human relations and obligations. Moderation, candour, and charity, are, therefore, always in good keeping with our position, when any one of these grand subjects is agitated with unusual earnestness and zeal. I, therefore, with all deference to the opinions of others, will attempt to express my own, on the subjects now pressed and pressing upon our attention.
The idea of master and servant is as old as the Bible, and has existed since the days of Cain and Abel. It was said to Cain, being the first born of mankind, that if he did well, "he should rule over his brother" Abel, and unto him his brother would look up. The younger shall serve the elder, is one of the most natural and ancient oracles in the world. It was said by the inspired Noah, that Canaan should be a servant to his brethren. From this I only argue,
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that the idea of servitude is coeval with society, antediluvian and postdiluvian.
Two thousand years before the Christian era, the patriarchs were generally masters, and some of them great masters, over their fellow-men. Was it voluntary or involuntary, is not now the question. There was a necessity, in the very essence of society, for this relation. Orphans and unfortunate persons must be served, and they must serve in return. Such was, and is, and always will be, the irremediable condition of mankind.
It is of the essence of benevolence, that widows, orphans, and the destitute, be provided for; and it is of the essence of justice, that when practicable, they should voluntarily, or involuntarily, serve in return.
But these are only suggestions or reflections growing out of the nature of society. The divine law is promulged in harmony with this condition of society, and based upon the recognition of it. And to this we especially invite attention.
There is but one divine and absolutely perfect code of social duties; one absolutely perfect constitution of society in the world. The civilized world, without an exception, without a dissenting voice, assents to this law as the standard of moral perfection in the social system. It was written, and it is the only law ever literally written, by the hand of God. I need not say, that it was the magna charta of the only nation ever God placed under a theocratic form of government. It is, sometimes, emphatically called the Lou, or "the law of ten commandments." Its preamble is, "I am the Lord thy God that brought thee out of the land of Egypt--out of the house of bondage." "Therefore, hear 0 Israel!"
To one section of it we emphatically invite attention. It is the consummating statute of the divine constitution: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's" property. This is our first argument in demonstration of the divine recognition and acknowledgment of the relation of master and servant, or of one man having a rightful property in another. It is, therefore, all important that we understand the meaning of the word servant, as used by the Supreme Lawgiver and Judge of the word, in this case. That a man is here as fully recognized as property as a house, an ox, an ass, is indispuble. The term selected is as fully defined as any other term in the precept--as the term wife, and the term house. This, to some minds, may demand a word of explanation.
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Suffice it, then, to state, that there is in the Hebrew language, as there was in Hebrew society, two classes of servants, represented by two distinct words, indicative of different positions or relations. These are hired servants and bondmen. The former is represented by one word, and the latter by another. These are of different origin and meaning.
A hired servant, in the law of Moses, is called sacheer; a bondman, or bondservant, is uniformly denominated gehved. The latter is never called sacheer, nor the former gehved. Like doulos, in the Septuagint and in the New Testament, gehved includes divers sorts of servants not receiving wages; but sacheer indicates simply a hired servant.
They are sometimes found in the same verse, in contrast. Leviticus xxv. 39: "It' thy brother that dwelleth by thee becomes poor and be sold to thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as (a gehved) a bondservant, but as (a sacheer) a hired servant." Again, verse 42: "He shall not be sold as (a gehved) a bondman;" verse 4: "Of the heathen thou shalt" (or mayest)" buy bondmen," (gehved.)
Again: Leviticus xxv. 53: "As a y early hired servant (a sacheer) he shall be with thee." So, again, in Deuteronomy xv. 18: "He hath been worth double a hired servant;" xxiv. 14: "Thou shalt not oppress a hired servant." In both these cases it is sacheer. But when Moses says, (Dent. xv. 15,) "remember thou vast a bondman in Egypt," he does not say thou vast a sacheer, but a gehved; not a hired servant, but a slave.
This I give in evidence, and much more, to the same effect, could be given in evidence, to show that the tenth precept of the law of ten commandments--the standard of moral perfection, universally so acknowledged--recognized and sanctioned the idea of servitude, absolute and unlimited in duration, by not using the word sacheer, but the word gehved--the same word used in the malediction against Canaan: "A servant of servants," or a gehved gehvedim, "shall he be to his brethren." This, then, I assume to be a settled point. Its value is hereafter to be considered.
In the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, the contrast between the bond and the hired servant, is kept up by the terms oiketees and misthootos. The former, as well as doulos, being originally applied to bondservants, and the latter to hired servants. The oiketees was one that belonged to the house, or family; the misthootos was one that served for wages, whether the period was long or short: the other served as a bondman, and had the privileges of the family protection and support.
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It is worthy of remark, in this place, that the term servant, in our language, when applied to apostles, prophets, or workers for Christ, is never misthetos, because they were not hirelings, or free servants: they were the Lord's bondmen, and are, therefore, called douloi, or oixetai. They held no property in themselves; they were, while free in one sense, the Lord's bondmen in another. But we return to the moral law and Jewish dispensation, for Biblical and rudimental ideas of the subject of servitude.
The last precept of the decalogue, and the first precept of the judicial or political code, must be compared, in order to decide the proper interpretation of both. We shall, therefore, place them in juxtaposition, side by side, that they may reciprocally define and illustrate one another. They read as follows: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's."--Ex. xx. 17. "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, (gehved,) six years he shall serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he come in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons and daughters, the wife and children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free, then his master shall bring him to the magistrates; he shall also bring him to the door, or to the door post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever."
Here, then, commences the institution of servitude among the Jews, under a theocracy. I need not say that the sun gives light. As little need to say, that the law of servitude was "holy, just, and good." This is Hebrew servitude, and neither Greek nor Roman, neither Anglican nor American slavery. The Hebrew servant, here rendered by the SEVENTY into Greek, by paida (from pais, a boy) was likely a young man. Being, it is presumed, a minor, he is sold for six years. Meantime, he falls in love with one of his master's female servants, and is constitutionally married while yet a gehved-- a bond servant. The day of his freedom arrives! What a dilemma! He has a wife and children; his by nature, and his master's by right--by a jure divino. Which shall he choose--freedom or slavery'!
A modern Abolitionist would say, "Runaway, my good sir, and take your dear wife and children with you. God has made all men
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free and equal. Your master took the advantage of you, and now, heartless tyrant that he is, he will keep your wife and your dear babes in perpetual slavery, which, I am sure, you love as much as he loves his. There is no moral wrong in this. You were not of mature age and reason when you got married, as very few such slaves as you are. Take up your couch, sir, and walk. You are getting no wages here: you will be a slave all your days. Can you have your ears bored to the door post, and carry to your grave the brand of your cowardice and infamy! Will you make yourself a slave forever! If bored, your doom is fixed."
His master having treated him with all humanity, being one that feared God and wrought righteousness, he thanked his new friend for his benevolence, and said, "I cannot leave my wife; she was given me by her master, and he has done well for her, for me, and for our children. I cannot leave him--I cannot leave them." His ear was bored with as little pain as a lady suffers for the admission of a golden ring, and he and his offspring became servants "forever."
Such was the first statute of the political code of the commonwealth of Israel, enacted Anno Mundi 2513; before Christ, 1492. And such is the first commentary on the tenth commandment--the first law of the new constitution, under which God placed the elect nation of Israel.
Such will be called the bright side of the picture. There is, however, no picture of one color: that is physically and morally impossible. Nor is there any picture without shade. And such is the present picture of all society--the best that exists on the earth.
It will be said, and said with truth, that this is a case of voluntary servitude. But only as I have presented it. It is, indeed, a choice of evils.
Suppose this said slave had been married the first year after his master bought him to a young female servant, the property of his master, and that he was a forward, energetic, independent, and noble minded slave. What then! He asks his wife and children at the commencement of the Sabbatical year. His master refuses to give him his wife and children. Too hard, indeed--tyrannical, cruel! Is it not Yes, say A, B and C. But, responds his master, his wife was mine, and I cannot part with her. Her mistress loves her, and cannot do without her. I cannot afford it. His labor has not countervailed my expenditures upon him and her, and their children. I do no wrong, either on the score of humanity or of justice. God enacted the law. He made me master, and him my bondservant. I can do better for him and them than they can do
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206 THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
for themselves, and serve myself, too, better than without them. We are all happier together than we could be apart. I am the slave, he the freeman. I have to care for him; he has no care for himself, his wife, or children. If he were able to compensate me, I might give him his wife and his children; and if he chooses to do so, he will sooner obtain the means under my direction, and by my capital, than he could otherwise do. It is a benevolent and a just law, and I will abide by it. Such was the first law of the kingdom of Israel under the theocracy, and such would be a rational and moral view of it. Other statutes on this subject, found in that law. will prepare our minds for the consideration and comprehension of the Christian law, the higher law, and the Fugitive Slave Law of the present crisis.
But it is neither my duty nor my inclination to defend it. It is enough to say, that it was God's own enactment, as much as the law of ten commands, but it is not of the same compass nor perpetuity. It was a local and temporary arrangement. Its value to us consists, chiefly, in the recognition of what may, in the judgment of God, be consistent with moral rectitude and the purity of the divine law. The God of the New Testament is the God of the Old. It is a maxim, universally conceded, that "what is just in little, is just in much." That which may be done rightfully for a day, a month, or a year, may he done for a longer period. It is theft to steal one cent, as essentially theft, as to steal ten thousand dollars. A person who can rightfully hold property in a man for one year, or five, may rightfully extend the term indefinitely. Christianity is not more just than Judaism. But it is yet premature, to apply the principle developed in this statute, as it would be to defend it being a divine enactment. We have the whole Bible open, law and gospel, too.
We greatly respect an intelligent, conscientious, and generous philanthropy. We will ever do homage to a pure philanthropist. But there may be a morbid, sickly philanthropy, as well as a rational and sound philanthropy. The religious sometimes become superstitious: the generous are not always just. And professed philanthropists have not unfrequently been more fanatical than benevolent. and more in love with their own opinions than with the rights of man.
But, with the patient and generous charities of my readers, I will endeavor to develop the Christian duties and obligations on the whole premises. now being laid before the public on the higher law, the Fugitive Slave Law, and every other law allied to the present question--the great question of the age, so far as our national interests and honor are concerned. A. C.
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THOUGHTFUL HOURS--No. II.
Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.--Ps. li. 6.
THAT self-examination is a most important duty, is a proposition which is at once admitted by the Christian. With him, indeed, it is much more than a duty, for it has become a fixed habit of his mind, and its exercise is not only, as it were, an indispensable necessity of his being, but an essential element of his happiness and peace. Hence it is not his wish, if it were even within his power, to abandon the practice; nor does he deem it at all possible for him to maintain his character, or enjoy the high privileges of his profession, should he permit himself to cherish desires which he had never subjected to scrutiny, or to perform actions without regard to the motives which induced them. Poor, indeed, must that individual he in faith, and bankrupt in hope, so far as Christianity is concerned, who, in the language of Archdeacon Paley, "cannot afford to keep a conscience."
The necessity for self-examination arises from man's liability to self-deception. It does not spring from his liability to be deceived by others. From deception by others, it is not self-examination that can defend him, but a just view of the character and moving principles of those with whom he has to deal. It is because he is prone to err in regard to the real motives of his own actions, and disposed to place a false estimate upon his own conduct and character, that he is so earnestly entreated to examine himself, in order to prove the sincerity of his faith and the rectitude of his practice. It is because of his own ignorance; his own feebleness; his own sinful nature, that he is urged to watchfulness, and warned against the delusive peace of spiritual insensibility. Nothing, indeed, but the possession of an absolute infallibility, could release any one from the imperative obligation to weigh continually his thoughts, his words, his actions; in short, his whole moral and religious character and conduct, in the accurate balance of eternal truth.
It may be truly said, however, that every man has three distinct and independent characters. One of these is the estimate which, in his own mind, he forms of himself. Another is, the view which other men take of him; and the third is, the light in which he appears before the eye of God. It requires but little discrimination to distinguish which one of these three characters it is most impor-
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tant for man to consider, and which of them it is that is most likely to be the true one.
It is seldom, if ever, that these three characters correspond. The view which the public take of a particular individual is sometimes more favorable, but often less so than that which he is disposed to take of himself. The humble-minded may place a lower estimate upon his merits than his friends would willingly award to him; but it is far more common to find a man ready "to think more highly of himself than he ought to think"; to exaggerate the good qualities he may possess, and to extenuate or conceal defects of character, which are detected and measured by a reversed rule in the hands of a censorious world. And oh! how different from both of these may be that character which the same individual bears before Him who looks upon the heart, and from whom no secret can be hidden!
This, however, is the character which it is so important for a man to consider, since it is that in which he will appear in the great day of account. It is before the tribunal of an omniscient, righteous, and infallible Judge, where neither the partialities of friends, the prejudices of enemies, nor the infatuations of self-love, can have the slightest influence, that he will be seen and known by an assembled universe, and by himself also, as he is seen and known of God. And he will appear in this character, because it will be his true one, revealing the secret qualities of the heart--the fixed and distinctive lineaments of the soul. Hence, it is this character alone on which it is worth man's while to dwell, since it is this alone which determines his true position here, and fixes his future destiny forever.
But, it may be asked, is it possible for man, in this present life, to ascertain his standing in the sight of God? Most undoubtedly it is, since otherwise, self-examination would be futile, if not impossible; progressive advancement in the divine life impracticable, and Christian perfection wholly unattainable. In that holy revelation which God has given of his own perfections, he has also revealed man to himself, and placed before him those standards of comparison and rules of judgment which enable him, at once, to decide upon his own condition. He, then, who would desire to know his real character, must seek this knowledge through that divine word, which is "quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." A glass may present to a man a representation of himself; but this heaven-descended mirror, discloses to man not only
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what he is, but, also, what he ought to be. An earthly mirror gives but the reflection of the outer man, but this the image of the soul.
Doubtless, it is necessary that a proper use be made of this divine instrument. There are many who fail to see themselves therein, because they do not place themselves directly before it. They stand a little to one side, and from this position they see, as in an ordinary glass, not themselves, but such of their neighbors as may have placed themselves in a corresponding angle on the further side. And this it is which many mistake for self-examination; so that instead of beholding themselves stedfastly, and scrutinizing their own deficiencies, they see only those of their neighbors, and proceed to contrast these with the superior attributes of that character which they themselves possess in their own esteem. This is to misuse the sacred talisman of heaven; to prostitute its powers to the base purposes of vanity, and willingly to deceive the heart by the flimsiest artifice of falsehood.
But he who comes directly to the divine mirror, and continues to gaze upon the image which it presents, will have no difficulty in determining his true position. He will be exhibited there in no false guise, but his true character in the sight of God will be revealed to him, as well as the glorious standard to which he is invited to aspire. He will behold himself there, by nature ignorant and depraved, but enlightened and sanctified by truth. He will there discover himself lost and ruined, in a universal apostacy, but, through the divine grace, saved, justified, and redeemed. He will be revealed to himself there in all the relations he sustains to the universe, and in all the attributes of his own individual nature. As before a mirror each one sees his own, and not another's image, so, before the divine word, each one beholds himself. It is there that he stands before God, and perceives himself to be, as it were, alone with that Eternal One who is to judge him, and with that word by which he is to be judged. He there realizes that it is in proportion as he is conformed to that word, and changed into that divinely glorious image which it exhibits, that he will be accepted of God here, and enjoy, hereafter, the blessedness of heaven. By the obedience by which love is perfected, his fears are dissipated, his heart is assured, and, relying on the divine faithfulness and truth, he anticipates, in confidence, the eventful day in which God shall judge the secrets of the world. R. R.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 18*
210 SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE, CAUSE, AND CURE,
or SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY--No. IV.
THE history of the case of James Conformitas, as far as we have traced it, observes Dr. Evangelicus, illustrates the following points, which should be kept in view, in order to the proper treatment of this spiritual malady:
1st. Its contagious character.
2d. The influence of temperament, in rendering the application of the proper remedy often difficult, if not impossible.
3d. Confidence in the remedy, and decision of character on the part of the patient, as indispensable to a cure.
As to the contagious nature of this disease, the Doctor remarks, that, though in this feature of its character, its resemblance to physical dyspepsy may not be traced, it is nevertheless, in the opinion of the most eminent writers upon spiritual maladies, considered one of a highly contagious character. Indeed all history, which is but the recorded experience of all ages, so far as it speaks of such diseases, goes to show that spiritual diseases have ever spread themselves by their contagiousness. And especially do we see it verified in those great thoroughfares and haunts of the children of men, in towns and cities, where their pestilential and pestiferous character is beheld in all their awful malignancy. The moral atmosphere of those haunts of society, like the circumambient air of our earth, is often surcharged with, and carries in it, the malarious seeds of disease and death. Hence the aggravated forms which all moral or spiritual maladies assume in our crowded towns and cities. Who can contemplate that moral pestilence which swept over the cities of the Plains, where every man became, as it were, a walking pestilence, poisoning his neighbor by the fumes of that moral turpitude proceeding from his inward parts, without feelings of horror, at the awful malignancy of the epidemic?
Experience has taught, as indeed reason would also conclude, that men thus circumstanced are, when thus diseased, with greater difficulty restored to spiritual health; and when restored, they are more subject to relapses.
He, therefore, who would attempt to heal this ailment, without respect to this prominent feature of its character, reekons without his host, must be foiled in the attempt, and, in the end, mortified and disappointed. Hence the practical wisdom of the maxims that in-
SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY. 211
culcate the eschewing of evil: "Avoid the appearance of evil;" "Keep thy heart with all diligence."
We have now reached the goal, from which, as at the proper angle of vision, we desire to view the disease of James Conformitas, as to the manner of its invasion. Unfortunately for the patient, he had, but a short time before leaving home, taken a spiritual opiate, the effect of which was to lull, for a time, the conscience, and to close the inward eye, so that by the time he reached the mansion of 'Squire Superbus, his spiritual discernment was observed to be very dull. It was at this unhappy stage of spiritual apathy, while the outward eye was dazzled with the glitter of that splendid mansion, and the natural appetite was feasting upon the delicious and costly viands which had been furnished for the entertainment--it was, I say, at this crisis of things, that he felt a feeling of strong desire come over him, which was soon followed by a resolve, that he would henceforth endeavor to conform, as far as he could, to the style of life with which his natural eye was now delighted. His ear, also, was charmed with the conversation upon titled nobility and worldly grandeur. He returned home to his once happy and peaceful mansion. But his happy and peaceful emotions of spiritual health returned not. It was no longer the abode of piety and contentment. In an unguarded hour, he had looked and listened with desire, and had resolved to barter life and health for animal enjoyments and earthly glory. He had thus caught the contagion, and the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, had continued to prey upon the vitals of his spirituality.
The case of James Conformitas has thus been dwelt upon, remarks the Doctor, to show not only the contagiousness of his disease, but also the readiness with which, under favorable circumstances, it may be propagated. A mere look, or a listening, with desire, is to catch the contagion, when the object of sight, or the thing heard, is forbidden, or in its nature injurious.
James Conformitas transgressed a law of spiritual health, in neglecting to "Avoid the appearance of evil," and to "Keep the heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life and health."
The nonobservance of these laws of health spiritual, has ever been a most fertile source of spiritual disease. It brought disease upon the great progenitor of our race, and in consequence of which a feeble spiritual constitution has been entailed upon all his offspring.
In his preternatural state, man inherits a variety of temperaments, of both a moral and physical kind, each of which predisposes the
212 SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY.
individual to a particular class of diseases. In a moral point of view, according to the temperament, some are predisposed or inclined to covetousness--a spiritual ailment, which is manifested by inordinate self-love or selfishness; some, to vanity--a disease which shows itself in self-admiration; some, to envy and detraction--a distemper of a malignant character, that indicates a moral cancer of the heart; others, to hypocrisy and lying, which inclines the patient to dissemble and disown, according as it may suit his selfish ends; others, to a proud and haughty spirit, which induces, the patient to imagine himself superior to every other person, and is denoted by ingratitude, and' a want of sympathy for the ills of others; some, to the indulgence of the animal appetites, as the lusts of the flesh; others, to acts of cruelty and inhumanity; others, to self- aggrandizement, and to the indulgence of a towering ambition for dominion over their fellow-men. The various temperaments, as they indicate the kind and degree of spiritual ailments to which the individual is most disposed, may be useful as a guide to direct us in the proper application of the remedy, as well as in some measure to enable us to predict the probable success of the remedy applied. As, however, there is but one remedy to meet every possible case of spiritual disease, the only variety of which the treatment is susceptible must be in the form or manner of applying it. And in this, the success of the remedy often depends.
That, observes Dr. Evangelicus, I have always found to be the best manner of using the remedy which inspires the patient with confidence of cure. When I have gained this point, I feel as though the patient was half cured. Indeed, when I have gained the full confidence of the patient in the remedy, I am bold enough to insure the cure, provided he uses it as I shall direct.
Since I have occupied the Chair in this University, I have always expressed my entire confidence in the remedy, when skilfully used. I have always argued from the fact, that when properly used, it has never failed to cure. It is, therefore, I contend, an infallible remedy. I argue, also, from an admitted truth, that as the Author of this remedy is also the Author of cur life, he has adapted it in his infinite wisdom, to the spiritual nature or economy of the inner man. I therefore proclaim it, not only from my professional chair, but every where, and to every spiritual invalid I meet with, to be an infallible remedy for the whole class of spiritual diseases, numerous and aggravated as they may be. And all the condition that I impose is, that after I have described the disease and the remedy, that the patient shall have entire confidence in it. All, then, who sin-
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cerely desire to be satisfied as to the power of the remedy, I invite to test it. And surely, candor and honesty alike require, that the authority which has instituted it, should not be disclaimed by the patient before he has complied with the condition of using it. I sometimes present the remedy in this form; the experiment which its Author has proposed is this: Yield to the remedy, and observe the result. Now, he who despises this remedy before he has fulfilled the conditions, which alone can qualify him to judge of its power, acts most inconsistently in condemning it- Has any such tried this remedy, and experienced its salutary power in the love, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness and temperance, which it bestows? There is assuredly no spiritual disease where these feelings exist. Whoever will try this remedy, shall know whether it proceeds from the Author of life and blessedness or not, for no one can use it according to his directions, without enjoying spiritual life, health, and happiness; and he can no more doubt the divinity of the remedy, than he can the reality of his own life and happiness. A. W. C.
RE-BAPTISM--ONCE MORE.
Brother Pendleton: The November Harbinger contains some views from me, and your reply, on the subject of re-baptism. You manifest a strong repugnance to taking up the subject, seeming to apprehend bad effects from its "agitation." Under the influence of this hint, I beg leave to throw before you a few reasons for asking a farther hearing, before your door be closed. 1. It is a subject, to many minds, merged in deep obscurity. 2. Owing to this perplexed aspect, our churches (some of them, at least) would receive and acknowledge Pedobaptist immersion, without inquiring; thus placing light and darkness--truth and error--right and wrong, on the same footing. 3. Many among us seem not yet to perceive, on this subject, the difference between opinion and faith; or perceiving, would place both on the same level. 4. Many are taught to think that this question cannot be scripturally settled, no matter how important it may be to harmony or Christianity. These four reasons I urge in apology for prosecuting what I deem a most important inquiry, and humbly trust, as I but seldom trouble you, that your general courtesy will be extended to a fair hearing. I will endeavor to be brief. "Pedobaptist Immersion--Is it Christian Baptism?" This is the inquiry on which I started in the Intelligencer, and to which I wish now more fully to call the serious consideration of the reader, as well as yourself. I will review your remarks in your own order of paragraphs.
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I gave you seven, and you have returned me rather more than common good measure--a little heaped. You pour into my lap eleven, and then cap the whole with the decision of the question by the Council of Nice.
1. You say, "The case proposed for decision is, manifestly, one to which no similar case is to be found in the New Testament." Again: "The most we can do is to draw rational inferences, and these being, of course, subject to errors of human judgment, ought not to be regarded as conclusive." Thus we find that you place the whole matter in the great category of opinionism. Yet, after all, we find it most satisfactorily adjusted by the Council of Nice, which declares, "that the efficacy of the rite [baptism] depends upon the divine power accompanying it, not upon the character of him who administers it." You frankly declare that the New Testament cannot settle a question, which you are willing to lay on the shelf, on the authority of the Council of Nice. You appear to be utterly unable to give this most prominent doctrine, except the gospel itself, a more elevated position in the divine scale, than the ground of inference. You appear to associate the ordinance of Christian baptism, with "meats," and "days," and "moons," things indifferent to the Christian, when you say, as quoted from the 14th of Romans, "Let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind,' and act accordingly." But I would ask, Bro. Pendleton, how we are to be persuaded in our own minds? You say the New Testament is silent--" it is just here where the scriptures fail us." Yon urge that the scriptures fail to point out who shall immerse. But to return: If we cannot be persuaded of the truth by the scriptures, must we not fly for help to Nice? I see no alternative; and this leaves us in all the freedom that ignorance could desire. But I feel persuaded that the scriptures are clear and rich upon this point, which shall appear under another head.
2. On this paragraph a few words will suffice. You admit that my criticisms on immersed, baptized, and the prefix re, are correct. Why not, then, adopt the right, and drop the wrong? But this error is deeply rooted in the human mind and heart, and hence it is, that so many among us have suffered under the desire of re-baptism, verily believing that such cases were to be found on the sacred page. Set this matter right, and we shall have no more Christian re-baptisms. Bro. Bagby, in his remarks touching the disciples of Ephesus, does not say they were re-immersed with Christian baptism, but lie says this case "directly relates to this subject:" hence, he proves that there must be a similarity of cases, at least so far as re-baptism is involved. It being perfectly clear that the case and course of these disciples is quite another matter to our subject, I pass on.
3. "We agree further with Dr. Du Val, that if he could show plainly what Christian baptism is. then no difficulty could remain as to what it is not; and we regret that a development, so important to the inquiry before us, is not attempted in the essay he has written for its elucidation." "He has not given us a single paragraph in response to the question, ‘What is Christian baptism?’ " "If he could show that it is essential to the institution that the administrator must be an immersed person, then the question
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before us would be at once settled, and we should not attempt to argue it further But this he has not even attempted; and, so far as I can remember them, it is just here where the scriptures fail us. On this point, I do not remember that they present to us one specific and direct oracle. The promise is not, 'He that believeth and is baptized by an immersed person,' but simply, ' He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.'"
This is a paragragh which demands the most grave consideration. It is astounding--it is humiliating--and in this last sense I find its great and chief virtue. I feel sanguine that you, sir, would be among the last to desire quarters from a feeble opponent, in a cause like this--nor would I dare boast, except in the Lord our righteousness. I remember the solemn warning of the inspired one, to take heed on the subject of "knowledge," even of divine things; but I remember, also, that the same man has written, "All scripture, given by divine inspiration, is indeed profitable for doctrine, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect--completely fitted for every good work." Here I take my stand, and, with all Christian regard and courtesy, would ask of you if it be possible, that the teaching of Paul, as here laid down, can be harmonized with your unqualified declarations? Paul declares the scriptures able to make the man of God perfect, as to doctrine, conviction, correction, instruction in righteousness--the way by which men are made righteous, so as to be completely qualified for every duty: while you declare that these Very scriptures "foil us" just at the point where we would learn what Christian baptism is, but especially, as to the administrator. You seem to shudder at the idea of a "clergyman;" and would he perfectly satisfied if I could only prove that an immersed person was essential, as I had not made any such attempt. [I felt confident that you had read but one side of the controversy in the Intelligencer, as soon as I saw your answer to your Mississippi correspondent.] Instead of repeating my views in the Intelligencer, I will endeavor, with the help of God's word, to make good my text, as above quoted from Paul. But before I proceed, I would beg leave to couple your fourth paragraph with the third, as it is difficult to answer one without implicating the other. In the fourth paragraph you remark, "Were I to attempt to answer the question, What is Christian Baptism?' I do not know that I should feel warranted, by the scriptures, in saying any thing more specific than that It is the immersion of a penitent believer, upon the confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.'" All besides, you say, would be "treading upon the regions of inference," not knowing "where to find a thus said' the Lord, in my justification." And need I ask my keen-sighted Bro. Pendleton for his scriptural justification for the answer which you have given? It seems to me, that your answer would constitute a most objectionable formulary for baptism indeed. Inasmuch as you give it not in the words of scripture, I must beg leave to place your answer upon inferential grounds--thus making your answer, if correct, proof that the scriptures are silent, much farther than touching the administrator. But I read not so. Let me state
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clearly my position. I contend for a sound administrator--a penitent believer as the subject, who is able and willing to confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God--immersion in water, into the name of the Father, and- of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. This is what constitutes what I shall denominate the scripture rule; in which we have administrator, subject, action, authority, and results. As to the divine exceptions to this rule, whether they be constituted of those who would be baptized If they could, as persons dying suddenly between confession and baptism, or of persons in Roger Williams' condition, I need have nothing to say, especially while God says he requires of a man "according to what he hath, and not what he hath not." Your answer and mine, are very unlike; and it becomes my duty to make good my position, as far as controverted, at any rate. You will hardly deny the balance. Feeling strongly entrenched amidst the walls of Zion, the first battery that I shall open upon you, if you will bear the figure, is that which the Saviour himself mounted against a certain teacher, who had not learned all that he was required to know, and who labored under great doubts and uncertainty. "Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
Now, sir, I would ask you whether this was not the rule of naturalization for the approaching kingdom? Is not baptism, the use of water, here alluded to? Few dissenting voices can be found. The almost uniform testimony of mankind, will go to prove that Christian baptism is here set up to the consideration of Nicodemus. The conclusion, then, at which I arrive legitimately, from the premises, is, that all who ever formally entered the kingdom, according to this declaration of Christ, were immersed. This was uttered during the prevalence of John's baptism, which was itself immersion, and of divine appointment, use, and continuance. Immersed persons, who should believe in Christ, might be, and were, on the day of Pentecost, endued with spiritual power to open, and to induct, by a birth of water and Spirit, into this kingdom And here let me add, that it was to men who had received John's baptism, that the great commission was given, and which constitutes my second battery; which appears to me to he utterly invulnerable.
"And he said unto them [these immersed disciples] go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth [the gospel preached by these immersed men] and is baptized, [shall we say by unbeliever, infidel, Jew, or heathen? or, riot rather, and necessarily, by these immersed persons who bore the gospel?] shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." But you say the promise is not "He that believeth and is baptized by an immersed person," but simply, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Is not this precisely like the efforts of our Pedobaptists, on the last part of the commission? "He that believeth not, shall be damned;" ergo, infants are lost! My dear sir, put off such miserable armor, and meet me like a true man of God. I should
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feel not a pang of disgrace, in falling by the hand of the man who bears the "sword of the Spirit." Were the men to whom the commission was given, all immersed? Can there be found a doubt upon the subject? No man could be considered friendly to God, much less obedient to him, who would not be immersed. Hear Luke on this fact: "And all the people that heard him [John] and the Publicans justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of them." To justify God, men were required to submit to John's baptism. Is it presumable that God would justify or approve of men, who had refused thus to regard his authority? But another difficulty presents itself. Who baptized the persons who yielded to the first gospel sermon; or rather, the first exhibition of the gospel? the disciples, Peter and the rest, to whom the commission was given, or some of the unbelieving Jews? If the apostles baptized on Pentecost, there can be no further controversy on the question of the immersion of the administrator, at least on that occasion. And is not this exhibition our model? We find in this general rule of the kingdom of Christ, that there are certain things overt required, as well as certain things unseen. Among these, the administrator was required to bear certain overt marks or signs of citizenship and corresponding authority, as a servant of Jesus Christ the King, whether apostle or layman; amongst which, he was bound to the "one baptism," as well as the "one hope," or the "one spirit." On the part of the subject of baptism, he, too, was called to an overt confession of faith in Christ: "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." Here we have a deacon--not an apostle--an immersed deacon, administering to a stranger, concerning whose heart and mind he knew, and could know, nothing with unerring certainty, any more than the Eunuch knew of baptism; nor were they required by God's rule to know more than they did, in order to a proper and valid baptism Is more required of either party, than is here exhibited?
But, sir, you are afraid of imposition, and argue that if the administrator is bound to be immersed, the subject of conversion is called to assurance on this point before he can submit: far from it; nothing but a spurious Christianity could be the mother of such an idea. Was it not so on Pentecost^ Was it not so in Solomon's portico? Was it so in Corinth? In Philippi? In Ephesus? In Samaria? Or in the case of Philip and the Eunuch, just cited? But suppose the Eunuch had deceived Philip--what then? Had Philip not done his duty? On the other hand, suppose Philip had deceived the Eunuch, who believed, and would be baptized, and thought he was baptized authoritatively by a servant of Jesus Christ, properly qualified, but found afterwards that he had not been so baptized--how would the case have stood with him? I answer: before he discovered the cheat, he would have occupied the ground of the "will for the deed," as did Abraham, in offering his son Isaac; but on detecting the mistake, he should have sought Christian baptism from Christian hands.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 19
218 RE.BAPTISM.
Now, sir, if I have not scripturally shown, most clearly, that the administrator of baptism, even from the introduction of John's ministry, (he being the only exception known to me, who was otherwise qualified for his mission,) was always contemplated, not merely as a matter of good order, or as being discretionary with the church, or the world, but authoritatively required to be an immersed person--then, I have also failed, or should unavoidably fail to prove, should you controvert other points asserted, that the subject is a penitent believer; or, that such should confess that Jesus is the Christ; or, that such, so confessing, should be immersed into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, by the authority of Jesus Christ. I feel bound to declare the most clear conviction, that all these facts, as so many links of one chain, must stand forever, or fall together, according to the scriptures
Thus believing, I now hold you, Bro. Pendleton, responsible for the full and fair performance of your promise, which stands at the head of your third paragraph; which is, "We agree further with Dr. Du Val, that if he could show plainly what Christian baptism is, then no difficulty could remain as to what it is not." "If he could show that it is essential to the institution that the administrator must be an immersed person, then the question before us would be at once settled, and we should not argue it farther." I have shown plainly what is God's general rule, in opposition to all human exceptions or objections; which clearly excepts Pedobaptist immersion, as much so, as did the schismatic worship as devised by Jeroboam, find itself condemned by the true worship of God, as practised under Rehoboam. go heartily for the repudiation of all modern innovations, (no matter how much they may resemble the ancient order of things,) and a perfect and clear establishment of the faith once delivered to the saints, on every point, as far as practicable. With interest, I shall await your fulfilment of this pledge.
Expecting this to be the last time I shall have to handle this subject, I should here add a few more difficulties in the way of Pedobaptist immersion. It is not only utterly barren as to the administrator generally, but it is equally destitute of subject and design. I speak of the system as it is practically exhibited. I know that much scriptural truth is to be found in many Pedobaptist creeds and formularies; but their practice, their actions, are what I am dealing with. Look at the subjects of Methodist immersion, for instance. Who are they--what are they, when they demand immersion? Are they penitent believers, coming now to Christ, for that salvation-forgiveness which he promised to such only as would obey him? Surely not They spurn the idea. They come without penitence--without fear; in peace, not to "enter into the kingdom of God," but because they are now there; not for forgiveness, but because they have been forgiven, and they know it, because they have felt it! Now, sir, I ask in all candor, how much more proper is this subject of baptism, than the infant? Will you say "such are believers?" Should you, if I am not egregiously mistaken, you will find the "scriptures just here to fail" you. I have read of just such
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persons in the scriptures, who believed, but not to the "saving of the soul." As a general rule I would say, Pedobaptists are generally improper subjects of baptism. We generally admit that baptism bestows, through faith, love, repentance, and confession, not only remission of sins, but also a change of state. If so, and our Pedobaptist converts are already in the kingdom and saved, is not the effect of baptism rather deplorable than advisable? I know your great ingenuity in argument, and am prepared to hear you talk of the "errors of the head," while the heart may be right. But the Master would say, "away with your speculations and apologies, and follow thou
"I cannot perceive fitness for Christian baptism in application to Pedobaptist converts, in reference either to subject or design; hence I argue, that their immersion is but a blank, unmeaning nullity, and cannot be fairly and scripturally considered Christian baptism; and therefore, honestly contend that such persons ought not to be received into our congregations, unless they will give up their errors and be baptized.
As your third and fourth paragraphs contained the pith and marrow of your remarks--the grand pivot upon which all the rest turned--and in support of which you made so large a development; and believing that I have fairly done what you challenged me to do, I feel excusable, and think you will cheerfully exonerate me from further labor on the remaining paragraphs, as I expected at first to exhibit. And this is the more desirable, inasmuch as duty would compel me to resist your arguments by scripture facts, which would either demolish, or be demolished, between us. But I feel ready, if you deem any thing said in said paragraphs to be unanswerable, as standing against my position, to try again.
Under these impressions, I will now close by reminding you of only one fact more, to wit: from the giving of the commission by Christ, down to the date of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, but more especially from the day of Pentecost, all the subjects of Messiah's Kingdom--the administrators of baptism, as well as the subjects of baptism--were recognized as "one body, having one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, [administered by those within the kingdom, whether apostles, elders, deacons, or evangelists, to those without the kingdom, who believed, repented, and confessed faith in Jesus Christ, (and not that their sins were pardoned,) in order to "baptism for the remission of sins,"] one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."
P. S.--Let the reader keep in mind that I am defending primitive Christianity, as founded on primitive practice. Fraternally yours, J. DU VAL.
REMARKS.
IT is not necessary for me to commend to the attention of the reader the postscript to the foregoing communication. Bro. Du Val has long been celebrated as a champion of "primitive Christianity, as founded on primitive practice," and the work before us, will be
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readily recognized as in keeping with his former zeal. He has, before this, erected many a "battery" in this warfare, and thrown many a bomb, and, no doubt, done much, I will not say mischief, but much good. Long may his labors survive to his own honor, to the edification of his brethren, and to the glory of God, whose faithful servant, through evil and through good report, he has so long proven himself.
In the article which the reader has just perused, several "batteries" are opened upon me, with the hope that I will "bear the figure." I hope I shall not only bear the figure, but the batteries also. I see no good reason why I should "put off my miserable armor," though so gently admonished to do so, but- I shall endeavor to "meet you," Bro. Du Val, "like a true man of God," with it on. I trust, in any event, neither of us will "feel one pang of disgrace," as I am satisfied we are both contending, with equal sincerity, for the truth on this subject. I shall be very brief; and as I had the advantage of you in the number of paragraphs in the commencement, I shall give you a like advantage in the conclusion of our discussion. The state of the controversy enables me to do so, without any sacrifice. Before I proceed to notice your main position, allow me to advert to a few smaller matters, which seem to invite a passing notice. We often do a writer injustice, by the loose way in which we express his sentiments; and, by substituting words of our own, not only destroy the precision of his style, but make him say what he does not think, and, in fact, never designed to say. For example, you represent me as "willing to lay this question on the table, upon the authority of the Council of Nice," when I have not said one word about the "authority of the Council of Nice." No one has less respect for the authority of councils than I have; but perhaps I am not so much alarmed at the mention of them as some others. I gave my reasons for my own opinions, and merely concluded with a "sentiment" of the Council of Nice, because it exactly and very appositely expressed the conclusion to which my previous reasonings had led me. I merely adopted their language as my own, as we all do, when we make a quotation from an author who has appositely expressed a sentiment which we wish ourselves to utter.
Again: You say I "seem to associate Christian baptism with 'meats,' and 'days,' and 'moons,'" simply because I use the expression, "Let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind, and act accordingly," as quoted from the 11th of Romans. Now, in the first place, I did not mark this expression as a quotation, and, in the second place, I did not use it with reference to "Christian baptism,"
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but with respect to the question of re-immersion, in the case, and under the circumstances, suggested by your proposition. How wide the difference between "Christian baptism," and your opinions about the validity of immersion by a Pedobaptist administrator! Yet in the loose manner in which you refer to my sentiments, and express them in words of your own substitution, you make me say of Christian baptism what I never designed to say, what I did not say, and what I never thought.
Once more: Because I said that the scriptures fail to give us any explicit preceptive rule, as to the necessity of an immersed administrator, you would make it appear that I entertain sentiments on this subject the most "astounding" and "humiliating," and that cannot be harmonized with the teaching of Paul, when he says that "all scripture, given by divine inspiration, is indeed profitable for doctrine, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, completely fitted for every good work:" and you "take your stand here." Well, it is certainly very poor ground to stand upon! I believe in the profitableness of the scriptures for all these purposes, as fully as you do. There is no controversy between us on this point. The question is not about the sufficiency of the scriptures to fit the man of God for every good work, but it is whether or no this requisition of yours, about baptism, is a good work at all; it is not whether they are profitable for doctrine, on the questions they discuss, but whether or no this question of re-baptism, in the case proposed, is not an untaught question; nor is it whether they teach us "the way in which men are made righteous," but whether or no they include the immersion of the administrator, as an essential part of that way. See how differently we reason: You first assume that a penitent believer, who has been immersed by a Pedobaptist, must be baptized again, and then, because Paul says the divine scriptures are profitable for doctrine, for instruction, &c., ergo, the scriptures must contain instructions on this subject. On the contrary, I search the scriptures and do not discover any such precept, and just because Paul has declared them sufficient for instruction in all things pertaining to faith and practice, since I do not find any rule requiring that the penitent believer, who has been, upon a sincere profession of his faith, baptized into Christ by a Pedobaptist, shall be baptized again; ergo, say I, the doctrine is not taught. Whose method is inductive? But I am spending more time on these points than I intended. I think it due, however, both to you and myself, to point out the very great tendency there is in this mode of conducting an argument, to
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222 RE-BAPTISM.
the misrepresentation of another's views and positions, even when it is not, as I am sure it is not by you, intended.
But you think the scriptures do afford a rule on this subject, as determinate as that for faith or repentance, and challenge me to give a scriptural justification of what you denominate "a most objectionable formulary for baptism." I must again object to the change you make in my language. I did not give "a formulary for baptism," but a scriptural answer to the question, "What is Christian baptism?" This I defined to be, "the immersion of a penitent believer, upon the confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God," and does Bro. Du Val ask me for a "scriptural justification" of this! "Repent and be baptized," says Peter on the day of Pentecost; "If thou believest, thou mayest," says Philip to the Eunuch; and he replies, "I believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God;" and is not this scripture justification of the rule--faith, repentance, and a confession of Jesus as the Messiah But where is there to be found any thing pointedly preceptive, like this, as to the administrator of baptism? I say the scriptures do not afford it, and the effort of Bro. Du Val to find it is a failure. This I now proceed to show.
The result of this effort is this: You have shown that all the immersions of which we have any account in the scriptures, were by the hands of immersed administrators, save those of John the Baptist only. Your induction of cases to establish this position, is a work of supererogation, since no one would think of denying it, upon the bare statement. It was so from the very necessity of the case, as Pedobaptism had not yet been invented. But whilst this is most readily conceded, you will bear with me for a moment, while I show you, according to your own criticism upon the word re-baptize, Sic., the larger number of these immersions were performed by administrators who had never been baptized with ' Christian baptism." They were, in fact, in the sense in which you define baptism, never baptized at all, for if it is wrong to say that the disciples mentioned in Acts xix., were re-baptized, because they had never before been baptized, so must we conclude that these first administrators, though immersed, had not, in fact, ever submitted to the institution which they administered to others. Your induction, then, is suicidal. Your object is to show that Pedobaptist immersion is not Christian baptism, because the Pedobaptist has not himself submitted to Christian baptism, and yet the principal cases you adduce, are cases in which the administrator, according to your own just distinctions, had not one of them ever submitted to Chris-
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tian baptism themselves! Now, let us suppose for a moment, that, in order to make Christian baptism valid, it had been preceptively declared that it must be administered by one who had himself submitted to it, do you not see, that all the apostles, save Paul, would have been precluded from performing it until they had themselves been baptized again and is it not equally evident, that the larger portion of all the cases of baptism recorded in the New Testament would be made invalid? But there was no such rule then, there is none such now, and we have no authority for restricting the blessings of a sincere and faithful obedience, to the accidental merit or demerit, formal or real, of the administrator.
In further objection to this restrictive policy, I suggested several consequences, which I thought showed its impropriety. Amongst others, I showed that it would render it necessary that every candidate for immersion should have as good evidence of the immersion of the administrator, as he had for his faith in the Messiah; and to this you say, Far from it; nothing but a spurious Christianity could be the mother of such an idea." In this we are perfectly agreed, and it was just because your opinion involved, necessarily and logically, this very difficulty, that I pronounced it erroneous. That it does involve this difficulty, I yet most unhesitatingly affirm. You certainly have succeeded in showing that the primitive practice did not require such a rule, but you have as certainly failed to show, that your opinion does not require it. I must, therefore, adopt your own language, and call your Christianity (if, indeed, this be a proper use of the term Christianity) "a spurious Christianity," so far, at least, as the doctrine in controversy is concerned.
In many things you have said as to Pedobaptist immersion, I perfectly agree with you. I am no admirer of it. I desire to do nothing, to encourage its practice, but I cannot agree to the establishment of a rule which I find not in the Bible, and which will prevent from uniting with us those sincere penitent believers who have been thus immersed, and %%ho, walking in the love and fear of God, adorn the profession of the same faith which we cherish. I have resorted to no ingenuity in talking, as you anticipated, about "errors of the head, while the heart may be right," but as briefly as possible noticed such points in your communication as I thought had not been already anticipated in my article in the November number. I am content to let the matter rest where it is, because I do not anticipate any very useful results from its further discussion, and trust that what has now been said, will be satisfactory both to us and our readers. Very fraternally, yours in the Lord, W. K. P.
224 QUERIES--THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
QUERIES TOUCHING THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, &c.
Brother Campbell: I am living in a region of country where the people are proverbially inquisitive. And although we may have so far lost our reputation for good sense, by our warm sympathies with the panting fugitive, as to be obnoxious to the charge of "high-wrought sentimentalism," at Bethany, still we may, I trust, have the privilege of asking a few questions, hoping that our beloved brethren S. Church and A. Campbell, who seem to occupy a position midway between the "demented" ones of the north, and the "hotspurs" of the south, and sustain a relation to both extremes, which may be styled, in Bro. Church's language, "neither sinful nor otherwise," will kindly afford us needful illumination.
1st. When Bro. Campbell says, in the January number of the Harbinger, page 30, "In religion, in faith, in piety, God alone is Lord of the conscience," does he include humanity in these terms? I conclude so, from a following sentence, "In matters purely moral and religious, God alone is the supreme legislator." If so, then how can the Harbinger adopt Gov, Wright's views of "the absolute supremacy of the law?"--the laws of the laud? If the editor means no more than that we should obey the laws of the land, excepting where they require us to act contrary to the laws of God, I assure him the brotherhood in this region, "demented" as they may be supposed to be, have no controversy with him. Their opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law, arises from the conviction that it is contrary, in some of its features and requirements, to the law of God. But if Bro. C. takes the broadest ground for "the absolute supremacy of the law," and looks towards such a revival of despotic power, that the citizen is no longer to decide for himself, on a question of right and wrong, then we have a controversy with him, and shall ask to be heard in the Harbinger.
2d. When "the powers that be" in Egypt, ordained the destruction of all the male Hebrew children, and the midwives "feared God, and did not as the King of Egypt commanded," did they not need to have a lecture read to them, on the necessity of preserving a "law-abiding" character? If the Governor of Indiana had been there to instruct them as to "the absolute supremacy of the law," would Bro. Campbell have "adopted, with much pleasure," his views, and told said midwives that they should "dismiss their romantic and imaginative philosophy," and that they were not responsible for the murder of the children, when obeying the King's command?
3d. When Obadiah hid a hundred of the Lord's prophets in a cave, (1 Kings, xviii. 13,) did he do right? If so, what becomes of all this talk about the "absolute supremacy of the law?" If it be said that Ahab and Jezebel's demands were unconstitutional, I ask, Who Is to judge? Are we not bound, in the adopted language of Gov. Wright, to "allay that spirit which instals each man's opinion the arbiter of constitutional rights?"
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"Honor the King." Was not Obadiah guilty of "high-wrought sentimentalism," and "romantic and imaginative philanthropy?"
4th. What kind of a relation is that which is "neither sinful nor otherwise, in itself considered?"
5th. Were our good brethren ever alarmed as to the safety of the Union, till it became necessary to use that plea in favor of southern measures? When Abolitionists were robbed, again and again; when presses were destroyed and life taken; when buildings devoted to public, and, in some cases, to religious uses, were burnt down; when Catholics and Native Americans made Philadelphia a scene of riot and bloodshed; when citizens of Massachusetts were imprisoned in South Carolina, and the commissioner of the former State was treated with gross indignity in Charleston; when the Methodist Episcopal Church divided into north and south; when disunion meetings were held all over the south, and the Nashville Convention assembled, (before which body, I believe, one of our public teachers offered prayer)--the Harbinger was not alarmed about the Union, nor do I remember that any call was made upon us to pray for our rulers. If I recollect aright, it was subsequent to most of these occurrences that Bro. Campbell said to some of his inquiring friends in the old country, theta love of the Union was one of the deepest and strongest feelings in the hearts of the American people. Why all this alarm now, when there is a simple refusal, on the part of many conscientious persons in the north, to obey what they regard as unrighteous requirements?
6th. Would it not be quite as fair to argue that runaway concubines, or secondary wives, should be sent back to their masters, as to contend that runaway slaves should be sent back; so far, at least, as the case of Hagar bears on the present controversy?
7th. If Paul were now living in any of the States of the Union, and were to "harbor" Onesimus, and treat him kindly, and feed him with the bread of life, would he not, under the fugitive law, be liable to a fine of $1,000, and six months' imprisonment?
8th. Did not the "immortal Washington" lead armies to the fight? Is that any argument for war?
9th. If the heritage of freedom we enjoy was, as Gov. Wright says, "purchased with the life-blood of the good and the brave," what kind of an argument does that furnish for the "absolute supremacy of the law?" And how can we, in turn, bequeath inviolate to our descendants, that heritage, by tamely approving of, and submitting to, unrighteous and oppressive laws, which throw down every safe-guard of personal liberty? Does it not smack a little of "high-wrought sentimentalism," to talk about a heritage "purchased with the life's-blood of the good and the brave," when seeking to enforce the lesson that "the first public act of disobedience to the law, is the first fatal step in the downward road to anarchy?" Is it not still true, Bro. Campbell, that "the legs of the lame are not equal?"
Pardon my inquisitiveness. I would dearly love to sit down and talk with you an hour. I have many questions to ask, and some objections to
226 QUERIES--THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
file against your article on the Fugitive Slave Law. But enough for the present. With pity for the hunted fugitive, Yours, ISAAC ERRETT.
OF many communications upon our table, on this subject, I have selected the preceding as the best we have received. It is, indeed, not only ingenious, but excellent, "after its kind." Our motto long has been, "Hear both sides, and then judge." We do not, of course, say hear all on one side, and all on the other side, but the most able and intelligent on both sides. We select the preceding communication as, in our opinion, possessing more merit than any one we have, as yet, received.
But, however appropos the preceding questions and remarks may be to the positions assumed or defended by others, they are not relevant to my views or position, on either the subject of slavery or the Fugitive Slave Law. From what as yet appears, we may differ as to the import and bearing of the Fugitive Slave Law, and perhaps on the abstract question of the morality of slavery, in any of the forms it may assume, so far as the Bible question of one man holding property in another, by a divine right, may be involved in the pending controversy.
We do not, indeed, intend to fill our pages with a protracted discussion of the subjects involved in the present excitement, of which we have received so many specimens. We have commenced a short series of essays on the whole premises. When that is closed, and our views properly developed, should any position we may have assumed be thought vulnerable, by any respectable correspondent, we will hear him with candor, and answer him with proper respect.
We are already sufficiently misrepresented and abused by a portion of the politico-Abolition presses of the Western Reserve. Its partizans weaken my influence, as they suppose, while, in my opinion, they are but weakening their own. Some seem to think it prudent, on their part, to discontinue the reading or hearing of what they do not like; and while, in severe terms, condemning the south for not reading, but reprobating their productions, they, in fact, approbate its policy, by refusing to read any thing that wars against their own opinions. But in this they but weaken their own power of doing what they call good, while they strengthen the hands of those who, in their opinion, do evil.
But Christians, as such, know nothing of north or south. In the Kingdom of Grace there are no degrees of latitude or longitude.
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We know no man in Christ's church as a northern or a southern man. We have rich and poor, learned and unlearned, parents and children, masters and servants, bond and free, in the Kingdom of Christ; and while in this world, and in the flesh, we should treat each other with a respect due to our station in life, and with an affection due to our moral standing as citizens of the Kingdom of God.
Indiscriminate slaughter is universally reprobated by all good men. Arid he that condemns first, and asks for the proof afterwards, is, by common consent, better qualified to be a tyrant than a judge.
Of the preceding questions, and of the principles contained in them, proper notice will be taken in a proper place. I am very far from imputing to our excellent brother Errett, any design of playing upon the imagination, or of exciting the passions of our readers, by any deliberate form of the ad captandum logic--by instituting comparisons with things equivocal--alike in sound, in color, or in form but not in truth and in fact. Yet, in my opinion, he virtually, if not formally, does it in the preceding communication. In what point does the slaughter of Hebrew boys resemble the Fugitive Slave Law or American slavery Is the comparison just? or, does Hebrew servitude in Egypt, resemble negro servitude in America?
Shall we, therefore, apply to both of these whatever can be affirmed of either of them? This is not true in logic, in reason, or in fact. And it is what I am sure our correspondent did not intend. Yet he alludes to Hebrew servitude in Egypt, and negro servitude in America, as though they w ere one and the same. He does not do it formally; for then it would have been as apparent to himself as to any one of his readers. But he alike conceals it, involuntarily I doubt not, from both himself and them, by asking the question, Would it have been obligatory on Moses and Aaron to have obeyed, rather than disobeyed, Pharaoh's bloody decree.?
He designed no sophism. It is a mere inadvertency. Or, to change the terms, it is, in logic and in truth, "begging the question." It is assuming that which neither is, nor can be, proved. But of this more particularly when, in the course of my essays, I arrive at that chapter. I will only add that, as it appears to me, this is as applicable to some other of his interrogatories as to the case we have selected.
There is much danger to truth and virtue, even though undesignedly, on the part of him who suggests or insinuates into the mind of an inquirer an illogical comparison.
It is a fact, that when Queen Jezebel enacted the immolation of
228 AN APOLOGY.
the Lord's prophets, Obadiah hid them by fifty, and fed them in a cave. But does this fact authorize a citizen of Ohio to hide in a cave and feed fifty fugitive slaves, who happened, with or without cause, to take it into their heads to runaway from their masters?
I presume not to think, much less to say, that our correspondent so understands the subject. But may not even an allusion to the case, by one so enlightened and distinguished for acumen and good sense, suggest to minds less gifted, less educated, and more excitable, a false precedent, and, perhaps, to acts alike at variance with both the law and the gospel?
There is the sophism of suggestion, as well as the sophism of comparison, which equally perverts the judgment, excites the conscience, and induces to unwarrantable action, the impulsive and inconsiderate. But if my readers will hear me with candor, I trust they will understand me, as I wish to be understood, on this very interesting, and, to many, all-absorbing question. A. C.
AN APOLOGY.
THE following reasons contain my apology, to all whom it may concern, for refusing to adopt a human creed:
1st. I am not expert in detecting errors of doctrine, especially when made by good and great men, who often, without intending it, give to error the semblance of truth.
2d. By taking the scriptures alone for my creed, I have no errors to look for, except in myself.
3d. I feel that it is safe for me to spend the time which others spend in examining church creeds, in examining my own heart and conduct, in the light of what the scriptures plainly teach.
4th. As the scriptures teach me my frailties and failings, I feel that I have in them a sovereign remedy for all my spiritual diseases.
5th. As I am frail and weak, I feel daily need of strength; and as the Lord has promised to be the strength of my life, I know that He can only be so, by my taking good heed to my ways, according to His word.
6th. These being my reasons, and feeling, as I do, the sufficiency of the scriptures for all necessary correction and instruction, I could not betray my confidence in the word of my Lord, and thus sin against God, in doing that which would be to exalt the authority and wisdom of man, above the authority and wisdom of God. A. W. C.
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FAMILY CULTURE.
CONVERSATIONS AT THE CARLTON HOUSE--No. XV
ROMANS VIII., 1-17.
There is, then, no condemnation, now, to those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of Life by Christ Jesus, has freed me from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not accomplish in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, accomplished; and by an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled by us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Now, they who live according to the flesh, mind the things of the flesh; and they who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. But the mind of the flesh is death; and the mind of the Spirit is life and peace: because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for, to the law of God it is not subject, neither indeed can be. Those, then, who are in the flesh, cannot please God. Now, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; because the Spirit of God dwells in you. But, if any one have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none aids. And if Christ be in you, the body, indeed, is dead, with respect to sin; but the Spirit is life, with respect to righteousness. For, if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in von, he who raised up Christ from the dead will make even your mortal bodies alive, through his Spirit who dwells in you. Well, then, brethren, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. Wherefore, if you live according to the flesh, you shall die; but if, through the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you shall live. Because, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage, again, to fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption, by which we cry, Abba, Father. Also the Spirit itself hears witness, together with our spirit, that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs; heirs, indeed, of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if, indeed, we suffer with him, that with him, also, we may be glorified."
Olympas.--There is more force and directness in reading the first verse of this chapter, as Prof. Stuart renders it, than in any version if it that we have considered. It naturally connects with the thanks of deliverance from condemnation, expressed in the conclusion of the seventh chapter. "I thank God, through Jesus Christ," I am "delivered from this body of death," or "'this body that causeth death." Consequently, "Now there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus;" or, as he renders it, "But now there is no condemnation" to such. The following clause is, most probably, spurious. It is repudiated by our best critics. It appears to have been taken out of the fourth verse, where it is properly found. 'What think you, Aquila'?
Aquila.--The clause to which you allude is, "Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." It appears to me, that if we read this clause in the first verse, it would make our justification from
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230 CONVERSATIONS.
sin, or freedom from condemnation, depend upon our not simply being in Christ, but upon our manner of life, or conjointly on both; supposing that a man might be in Christ, and yet not walk according to the Spirit. And this would contradict the apostle in another passage, which affirms, that "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." I, therefore, concur with Knapp, Mill, and Griesbach, in regarding it as an interpolation.
Olympas.--So I conclude. But as the children present are not much interested in our criticisms, we shall look at this passage rather practically than critically. It is a joyful conclusion to which our apostle leads us, after his exclamation in the preceding chapter. There, in one view of himself, he exclaims, "O wretched man that I am;" while, in this view of the gospel, he exclaims, "I thank God I am delivered by it from condemnation; for in Christ there is, to me, now no condemnation;" the new law of grace, or of the "Spirit of Life," by the interposition of Christ, has freed me from condemnation.
Aquila.--What cause of exultation in Christ, in this view of the subject! For since the law could not justify any man, because of its weakness in the case of sin, none but the innocent and unoffending being capable of legal justification, God, by the mission of his Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, becoming one of us in nature, only without sin, and yet making himself a sin-offering for us, condemned sin, dethroning it and divesting it of all power to condemn the believing sinner, relying upon Christ's oblation, or sin-offering for us, to free us forever from its curse.
But, may I ask you in return, Should we understand the apostle as stating that the righteousness of the law is to be fulfilled by us, or only in us?
Olympas.--If only in us, it would indicate simply a conformity of our spirit to him; but if by us, it would be equivalent to our being so renewed as in the inner man doing, in our aims and volitions, the things which the law requires. In the latter view, the new man virtually does the things which the law requires; though through the weakness of the flesh, or old man, he does them not. If, as our Lord taught, a man may commit a crime by cherishing an impure desire, or a sinful passion, why should it be thought strange that by cherishing a pure desire, or a good intention, he may be regarded as performing that act of righteousness or of holiness, which the law demands. I, therefore, prefer, of the two meanings Of the Greek preposition in and by, the latter to the former, as being not only true in itself, but necessary to the context, as the sequel
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say show; for the apostle immediately adds, Who walk not after, or according to, the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Aquila.--To this agrees the description following: "They who live according to the Spirit, mind the things of the Spirit;" just as they who live according to the flesh, or old man, mind the things of the flesh.
Olympas.--What think you, Bro. Clement, is indicated by the mind of the flesh," and "the mind of the Spirit?"
Clement.--Mind, in this connexion, as it seems to me, must intimate what we call minding, or bent of the mind; that is, the minding of the flesh is equivalent to the carnal mind, and terminates in death; while the minding of the Spirit, terminates in life and peace. To this the apostle, as a reason, adds, "Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God," and cannot be otherwise.
Aquila.--The inference, then, is, the fleshly mind, or the minding of the flesh, yielding to the impulses of our animal and fallen nature, is enmity, hatred, or rebellion against God, and never can be otherwise than opposed to him.
Olympas.--Yes; and the fearful consequence is, that "they who are in," or under the flesh, "cannot please God."
Clement.--Consequently, the phrase, "being in the flesh," does not simply mean being in the body, but being under the influence of its passions and lusts.
Olympas.--And is it not, therefore, a fearful thing to allow ourself to be under the dictation or control of the flesh, or old man! Christians, thank God, are not in the flesh, (though in the body,) but in the Spirit, or under its influence; and the reason of all this is, that the Spirit of God dwells in them. Again: the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ; hence the inference of its equality in nature, both to the Father and to the Son.
Aquila.--And hence, also, the inference, that the Spirit of God truly dwells or resides in the Christian man, as in a temple. Hence, Christians are exhorted so to walk as not to "grieve the Holy Spirit," by which they are sealed to the day of redemption.
Clement.--Of this fact we find a beautiful illustration and evidence in the fact, that when the Jewish tabernacle was reared and consecrated to God, the glory of the Lord, sensible and visible, filled that ancient and venerable type of the Church of Christ, in this present wilderness of sin. And to this effect the promise is, "I will dwell among them, and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be to me a people."
Olympas.--So Paul quotes a Jewish oracle-2 Cor. vi. 16; and
232 CONVERSATIONS.
to the same effect says here, "Now you, Romans, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, because the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any one have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."
Clement. --What stronger proof of the personality and divinity of the Holy Guest, or Holy Spirit, than this interchange of the Spirit of God with the Spirit of Christ!
Olympas.--And what stronger incidental proof that Christ and the Holy Spirit are equally divine; since the apostle immediately adds, in the same breath, "And if Christ be in you," as must be the case if the Holy Spirit be in you, according to the argument.
James read this passage again, marking emphatically, with your voice, the indications of this great truth. I mean the interchange, or substitution, of "Christ," "the Spirit of Christ," and the "Spirit of God," for one another.
James.--Which verses?
Olympas.--Verses 9, 10, 11.
James.--" Now, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, because the SPIRIT OF GOD dwells in you; but if any one have not the SPIRIT or CHRIST, he is none of his; and if CHRIST be in you, the body is, indeed, dead with respect to sin, but the spirit is life, with respect to righteousness."
Olympas.--You did well not to emphasize the term spirit, in the clause which uses it in antithesis with the body, inasmuch as the spirit there is the human, and not the divine spirit. By whom Susan, is the resurrection from the dead to be effected?
Susan.--By God. It is God who will raise the dead. Olympas.--True. But in what personality? In his own proper person, or in the person of his Son?
Clement.--That question is too deep for Susan. It is but lately hat I, myself, thought upon the subject.
Olympas.--And, Bro. Clement, what have you thought upon this subject?
Clement.--It was forcibly impressed upon my mind, when, not long since, reading the history of man's original creation with the fact, that the Spirit of God was the immediate agent in inspiring man with spiritual life. We would infer this from the 2d chapter of Genesis. God created the heavens and the earth--the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. So God wrought by his Spirit in the drama of creation. An older than Moses has said, "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty has given me life." Job uses the sublime name Almighty, more frequently than all the inspired men of both Testaments. He drew
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nothing from Moses; for of him he knew nothing at all. He alludes not to the Exodus of Israel, and, in recounting the works and the ways of the Almighty, he would, had he heard of it, certainly have alluded to it, living, as he did, in Idumea. Nor does he even allude to the judgments on Sodom and Gomorrah; all of which would have suited the design and the contents of his book.
But even Moses represents a special agency, in animating Adam. "He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," after he had raised his body out of the dust of the ground. And here the apostle assigns to the Holy Spirit the re-animation of the dead; even the self-same Spirit that dwells in the Christian temple; the "habitation of God through the Spirit," will be the immediate agent in raising the dead at the commencement of the new creation. God will again say, "Let there be light," and light shall break forth out of the darkness of the grave. The Holy Spirit that now dwells in the Christian's heart, his true and only earthly sanctuary, will raise to life again the fallen tabernacles of his saints. This Paul here announces. "God," says he, "who raised up Jesus from the dead, shall make alive your mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwells in you.
Olympas.--We thank you for these beautiful and refreshing reminiscences. They are as the dew of God's grace upon Israel, according to the Spirit. We may, then, conclude this lesson with the reflections which occurred to our apostle from this point, from this Mount Pisgah, which so beautifully overlooks the promised land. "Well, then, brethren," says he, "we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh"--the animal promptings of our fallen humanity. For if refusing to be led by the Spirit, and following the bent of the flesh in all its deflections from the standard of Christian holiness, he assures us, though on the way to Canaan, we shall die in the wilderness of sin, and never reach the Holy Land. But if, through the Spirit, we mortify and subdue the flesh, we shall live in the presence of God, and enjoy the eternal sunshine of his love.
Aquila.--Theorists of all schools have occasionally to make a strong, or an ungenerous effort, to harmonize their systems, their perpendicular and rectangular theories, with the oracles of God and the patterns of things sent down from heaven. There is none of that systematic stiffness in Paul, none of that squaring and plumbing on the part of the great apostle to the Gentiles. He, therefore, speaks as one that had a mature and infallible mind, and assures the Roman church that, with all their professed zeal and devotion, if they would live after the flesh they should die; but if they would
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234 BETHANY COLLEGE.
mortify the impulses of the flesh and its fruits, they should live. For the true sons of God are they, and only they, who are led by the Spirit of God; who cheerfully submit to its suggestions, and subordinate the flesh, with all its passions and lusts, to the dictates of the Spirit of God.
Clement.--True, very true; because, after all professions and confessions of faith and of hope are made, it is only they who are influenced and guided, or, to use Paul's words, led by the Spirit, that are, in fact, the sons or children of God. And these are they who have been exorcised, or dispossessed, of their fearing, doubting, trembling spirit of bondage, and who filially, and with a spirit of adoption into the family of God, exclaim, Abba, Father! This Holy Spirit within us, bears witness to the truth without us, confirms its divine original, and proves to ourselves that we are the children of God; and that proved, then comes the glorious climax, "If children, then heirs; heirs, indeed, of God, and joint heirs with Christ."
Olympas.--And what a blissful heritage! Joint heirs, we say, heirs in common with Christ, the first born. Heirs of what? "All things are ours"--Paul, Apollos, and Peter, are ours. Yes, Saint Peter is ours, and the true Saint Peter's rights, titles and honors. with "the world, and life, and death, and things present and things to come--all are ours; we are Christ's, and Christ is God's" own Son, and heir of all worlds. And here we shall conclude our lesson for the present. A. C.
BETHANY COLLEGE.
BETHANY COLLEGE is annually growing in favor with the community. A larger number of students is now in attendance than in any former year. A very large number of them are, not only in profession, but in fact, students--hard students--and these are giving character' to the institution. Its graduates are, many of them, doing good service in their respective fields of labor; and, we are happy to say, doing honor to their Alma Mater. They are, indeed, exerting a good influence in favor of the College, and are steadily contributing to its increased, and increasing influence. Still, we could do much more to promote the cause of literature, science and religion, had we the means, which we think our brethren and the
BETHANY COLLEGE. 235
public could very easily and speedily put in our power. Bethany College is not endowed.
Kentucky has, indeed, nobly come forward to endow the Chair of Sacred History, and has so pledged herself to it, as to authorize the confidence that she will do it. Some have paid, and others are about to pay, their subscriptions. The first of those who have paid, is sister Tub man, of Georgia, one of Kentucky's noblest daughters, who, instead of taking one-thirtieth of the amount stipulated, has actually paid one-fifteenth of the Chair.*
Her brother, L. A. Thomas, of Frankfort, Ky., was the second to pay his subscription; and Father Thomas, one of the first Reformers in Kentucky, now an octogenarian, has paid his thirtieth part, These three persons, though not of one family, were originally of one name. So that there is something in a name.
We have not, indeed, as yet, notified all the subscribers to said Chair, that we desire them to forward their subscriptions at their earliest convenience, that the whole may be immediately invested in the best stocks now in market.
Those not formally addressed by letter, are hereby requested to send us certificates of deposit in Kentucky banks, payable to the Treasurer of Bethany College, or drafts on New York or Philadelphia, for the amount of their respective donations to the College. Their prompt attention to this notice will be important to the College.
The brethren in Indiana have their agent in the field for the North-Western University, and for the endowment of the Chair of Ancient Languages in Bethany College; and, from reports, they are acting nobly in the great cause of education.
When these Chairs are endowed by these brethren, there will yet remain three others to endow, which have not yet been taken, because, I presume, not tendered to any State in particular. A hint, a word, indeed, to the wise, and especially to the benevolently wise, is sufficient. We will not add, at present, a word farther on these premises.
I will only say, that I know in our brotherhood, both brethren and sisters, on whom the Lord has bestowed wealth enough, had they the views we entertain of the value of education, and especially to the gospel ministry, and a heart to give to the Lord as he has given to them, to endow, at $10,000 each, the College for all coming time; and by so doing, could enable its Faculty to educate, from year to year, as many approved students as would make a host of champions for the great work of human enlightenment on the eternal
*Sister Tubman donated $100 to build the College.
236 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
interests of the world. But, perhaps, they have not thought upon the subject as they ought to have thought, or, having thought upon it, do not wish to engross all the honor or reward to themselves. We can, however, assure them, that yet there is room--abundant room for their liberality.
Our calls and applications for aid, in the work of assisting young men devoted to the Lord, so far transcend our means, as to constrain us to decline many such applicants. We cannot efficiently aid a tythe of those who ought to be aided in their endeavors to prepare themselves for extensive usefulness. Shall we, brethren, have our means enlarged? or, in other words, Are you willing to co-operate in this great and good work? A word to the wise is sufficient. A. C.
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
SOMERSET, Pa., January 24, 1851.
Brother Campbell: The brethren here have decided to invite the brethren generally in Pennsylvania, to a conventional meeting at Somerset, some- time in the latter part of the coming spring or in the summer. The chief object of this meeting is to further the cause of the Pennsylvania Home Mission, to which there is now a general interest awakening all over this State. The brethren, both here and elsewhere over this State, are determined, by the help of God, to push this important part of Christian philanthropy forward with redoubled vigor, the coming missionary year. We intend to address an urgent invitation to all the brethren in Pennsylvania, to meet at Somerset, as above stated, with a special reference to this object; and from all indications, we are justified in saying, that we shall have a very large attendance. Our brethren from Philadelphia and Baltimore intend to be present with us. The brethren universally have expressed a desire to have your presence at this meeting, and especially the brethren at Somerset. They have, therefore, unanimously requested me to address you to this effect, so as to secure, if possible, your attendance with us. As I am aware that your time is generally secured beforehand, I thought I would thus timously write to you about the matter. The brethren, as yet, have not appointed any special time for our meeting, lest it might not suit your other engagements. They, therefore, requested me to state to you, that if yon can attend with us any time in June or July, to state the time that would suit you best, and we will announce the meeting accordingly. The brethren requested me especially to urge the matter upon you, as they are all exceedingly anxious to have you here. I told the brethren that I thought it would not be convenient for you to come earlier than July. They said that you could appoint any time in July, and it would suit them; and that they did not wish you to spend your time here in constant speaking, although this would be very agreeable to them, but they desire to have your presence and advice. The sisters, also, send a cordial invitation to Sister Campbell to accompany you. The brethren would be very glad, if you could spend at least two or three weeks here.
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 237
The brethren engaged in the general State mission have, so far, done very well. Bro Lanphear is preaching west, and Bro. Macdougal east, of the Alleghenies. Each one has selected several points of labor, to which they expect to give their whole attention for the present Our faith in these matters is, that we can only expect any result by continued reiterated efforts at the same points. The coming year, the brethren expect to send at least six missionaries into the field.
My labors are entirely confined within the limits of Somerset county. I am itinerating the county from one end to the other, speaking alternately in German and English. In some regions I speak altogether in German. There is a general interest awakening all over the country here in behalf of Primitive Christianity. I am convinced that there is nothing to prevent the triumph of the truth in these regions, but the want of efficient laborers. I was surprised at the character of sectarian preachers in this part of Pennsylvania. The mass of them, besides an utter want of any thing like education, are as ignorant of the Bible as a Russian lay priest. It is utterly surprising. We can scarcely form any idea of the spiritual darkness, even yet, reigning over this so-called Christian country. Our work, I am convinced, is but just begun. We want active and well qualified laborers. Would to God that our brethren would awaken to a proper sense of their abilities and their imperative duties.
The brethren sympathize with you in your bereavement. They were all deeply affected at the news of Sister Pendleton's death. She was the beloved of all who knew her, and her memory will long be cherished by all her friends. The Lord sustain you in your many afflictions and labors! Your affectionate brother, C. L. LOOS.
[I thank Bro. Loos for his sympathy, and am sorry to say, that I cannot make any promise, at present, as to my attending said meeting.--A. C.]
SOLON, O., February 12, 1851.
Brother Campbell: Again, by a kind Providence, I am permitted to report through the Harbinger the result of a meeting just closed here, conducted by our most excellent and much esteemed brother, A. B. Green, of eleven days, which resulted in 19 additions-14 by confession and baptism, and 5 from the sects. Also, of a meeting held here by Bro. B. F. Perkey, in December last, of eight evenings, which resulted in 7 additions--making 103 additions, within ten months, to the cause of Christ in Solon, although we were never more persecuted and misrepresented by the sects, than at this time. But the cause of Christ will triumph over all opposition, as the success of the cause all over the Western Reserve fully proves. We feel to rejoice for the triumphs of the gospel, and give God all the praise. Yours, in hope of future happiness, L. S. BULL.
SYNOPSIS OF NEWS.
OHIO.--Bro. Enoch Dye, of M'Connellsville, O., writes us that he lately attended a meeting at Deavertown, held by Bro. Asberry Gardner, where he witnessed the immersion of 6 persons. The brethren of this place have been much opposed and calumniated by the Methodists and Presbyterians, notwithstanding they have succeeded in erecting a commodious house and growing in the confidence and esteem of the community, adding to their numbers, occasionally, from the best portion of the citizens.
Through Bro. J. Rossel we are requested to say, that the brethren at Flushing, Belmont county, O., desire to be visited by the preaching ministry- Through the Christian influence of Bro. John Cardner, who came to Bethany to be baptized in 1828, and that of one or two others, the reformation has been commended to the people, and within the course of three months, Under the preaching of Bro. Rossel, 36 have been added to the Lord in
238 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
that place. As is usual, they had to contend against much opposition from Baptists, Methodists and Quakers.--Bro. James Porter, in connection with Bro. Hunt, have had a joyful time with the Stillwater church-23 were baptized and 1 reclaimed.--Bro. Andrew Burns, Jr., Milton, 0., informs that 14 have bowed to the Prince Messiah, under his ministration, since we last heard from him.--Bro. Isaac Errett, of North Bloomfield, 0., writes as follows: "Since I last wrote you I have held two meetings in Portage county--one at Franklin, where there were 8 baptisms, and 5 or restored to the fellowship of the church; and one at Ravenna, where the church rejoices over the conversion of 9 persons. At both these meetings there were very encouraging evidences of increased regard for the gospel and its author, on the part of very large assemblies--and although the number of converts is not large, the result of the meetings is, to the brotherhood in these places, most cheering."
KENTUCKY.--Through Bro W. H. Robertson, of Minerva, Ky., we are informed of the very successful labors, in that place, of W. P. Clark, of Harrodsburg. During the meeting 31 additions were made to the church, 24 by confession and 7 restored. Great interest prevailed and much prejudice was overcome.--Bro. W. B. Mooklar, of Covington, Ky., informs of 2 additions to the church in that place. From Bro. E. Fisk, the principal of the Commercial College of Covington and an Elder in the church, we learn further that under the pastoral labors of Bro. J. H. Haven the prospects are fair for better times in their congregation. "The brethren and sisters manifest a better state of feeling one towards another, and brotherly love abounds."-- Bro. Amos Dixon, Winchester, Adams county, Ky., informs us that their church numbers about thirty. They have preaching once a month, and are located on the regular daily stage-line from Maysville, Ky., to Wheeling, Va., twenty-four miles from Maysville. Preaching brethren are invited to call.--From Flemingsburg, Ky., Bro. Samuel Maguire writes as follows: "The church in this place has outlived very many of the prejudices which in time past retarded its growth. We have a large, respectable and intelligent congregation, walking in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, and have cause to rejoice that during the winter some 15 or 20 have been added to the number, and an increasing interest is manifest among all the brethren for the prosperity of our Lord's kingdom."
MISSOURI--Bro. M. Summers, speaking of the progress of the gospel in Upper Missouri, says: "I know not why the brethren from the churches in the Upper Missouri fail to report to you the success of the ancient gospel, for a considerable number have been added to the different congregations last summer and fall. In the month of July Bros. Wright and Lard held a protracted meeting in Liberty, Clay county, and 45 were added to the congregation in that place. In the same month, Bros. Payne and Hudson preached at Smithland, Clay county, and some 10 or 12 were added at that place; and at Mt. Gilead, in the same county, a short time afterwards, there were about 20 additions to that congregation, under the labors of Lard and Gaines, and previous to that time, under the labors of Bro. Payne, a number were added to the church. Also, in the counties of Platte, Buchanan, Andrew and others a considerable number have obeyed the gospel. There is a Bro. Hugins, a lawyer, near Savanna, Lawrence county, armed himself with the old Jerusalem blade and has been sweeping things. He has, in the last twelve months, immersed 100 or 200 in the name of the Lord Jesus."-- Bro. Absalom Rice writes, that the cause of truth is still onward in Callaway county, Mo. He witnesses the confession of some almost every Lord's day, and reports 8 on the third Sunday in January and the day following, among whom was a venerable old lady of the Baptist church.--Bro. P. L. Hudgins reports the result of a meeting at Savanna, held by Bro. 0. C. Steele in February. Fourteen additions were made, and a favorable impression
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 239
left an the community. "More laborers are needed in this region."-- In St. Louis the brethren are erecting a commodious house for worship. The basement, a room 54 by 65 feet, is completed and accommodates about 600 persons. Our zealous brother, S. S. Church, who has charge of the congregation, writes as follows: "On the 2d of January I commenced a protracted meeting. During the first week of the meeting our beloved Bro. Patton, who resides in the city, and was pastor of the congregation two years, came to my aid. We labored faithfully and earnestly for about twenty-five days, and, we thank God, not without encouragement. During this period there were 60 additions to the church. At this juncture, Bro. James Challen, of Cincinnati, came to the help of the Lord and his cause. He preached with his accustomed earnestness, vigor and effect until last night. Long will the church, and many of our citizens who, by the way, gave him a generous hearing, remember his powerful appeals, his cogent and convincing reasonings out of the scriptures, which not only addressed the intellect, but the heart and conscience of his hearers. The number of additions was swelled to 81. Truly, we have had a joyful and refreshing time. The truth has most gloriously triumphed, and triumphed, too, by virtue of its own native energy and power. That we should all feel greatly encouraged by such unexpected success in this busy, time-serving, money-making, pleasure-seeking metropolis, is by no means strange. May the Lord give us grace, and carry on the work so gloriously commenced, to a still more glorious consummation."--Bro. James Spencer informs us that a church was organized in Warsaw, Benton county, Mo., in December last. It numbers 25. Elder Jones, of Miller county, preaches for them once a month, and the labors of Elder Hopson, the evangelist sent to this portion of the Stale by the churches north of the Missouri river, are anticipated during the coming summer. At a protracted meeting, held by him and Elder Jones, in December last, 15 were immersed.
PENNSYLVANIA.--Bro. S. A. Marshall, writing from Kittanning, Pa., says: "We have had reason to bless the Lord for the success of the truth in this place during the last year. As a church we are but about thirteen months old, and have been exposed to fierce opposition during our existence. We have had 10 additions by baptism-3 of them from the Methodists, 1 from the Presbyterians, 1 from the Lutherians and 5 from the world. Two have united from the Baptist church. 1 has been reclaimed, and 5 have united by letter."--The brethren have had a very successful meeting in Pittsburg. Our beloved brother, Samuel Church, writing under date of Feb. 21st, says: "Brethren J. H. Jones and J. P. Robison closed a most happy and successful meeting, in Allegheny, on Lord's day evening last. In all 44 were baptized, and the church was greatly refreshed. Previous engagements forced them to leave us, contrary to the wishes and earnest entreaties of all the brethren."
NEW YORK.--Bro. Benjamin Summy, of Lancaster, Erie county, N. Y., writes as follows: "We have had a few additions to the congregation of late. Bro. J. M. Bartlett, of Cayuga county, spent some time with us last fall, immersed 1 and 2 united-1 from the Methodists, 1 from the Winebrenarians. On new year's day he commenced another series of meetings here and immersed 1; thence he went to Newstead, Erie county, spent two weeks and immersed 4, removed a great deal of prejudice, left a good impression and the prospects good for more."
INDIANA.--From this enterprising State, where the brethren are so numerous and zealous, we know not why we have but one letter of church news. Its facts are so interesting, we publish it in full:
"NEW ALBANY, Ia., Feb. 12, 1851.
"Brother Campbell: Having occasion to go as far as Washington, Davis county, in this State, on business, I was prevailed upon, in company with Bro. Slider, to hold a meeting at Bethany church and Mount Pleasant. It
240 MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.
was one of the most animated meetings that was ever witnessed in that section of country. The meeting lasted fourteen days at Bethany, during which time, 55 made the good confession that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, and were immersed into his name for the remission of sins, 2 from the Baptists, and 1 restored. We went to White River four times (a distance of eight miles) to attend to the institution of baptism. We then moved the meeting to Mount Pleasant, and continued there five days. We constituted a church-29 were added, 9 of whom were immersed, some from the Baptists, Methodists, and Universalists. Perhaps on no occasion was the power of truth more manifested than on this. The most intense interest was exhibited by all classes of society, from the commencement of the meeting to the close. ELD. J. E. NOYES."
TENNESSEE.--Bro. J C. Nowlin informs us that he has located in Fredonia, Montgomery county, Tenn., where he is laboring to introduce the ancient order of things. The first meeting ever held by any of our brethren at this point, was by Bro. Nowlin, in July last, and though he has not been able to do much more, as yet, than scatter the good seed, the prospect for a rich harvest is favorable and increasing. The Lord give him prudence and strength, faithfully and successfully to work out his mission.
GEORGIA.--In Georgia, the Baptists are discarding the authority of creeds and all human inventions in religion, and uniting with us on the Bible alone. Bro. G. W. Comwell, of Jasper county, writes as follows: "The good seed that you have been sowing through this county, is bringing forth fruit in abundance. The church of Old Bethlehem, Jasper county, Ga, met in conference two or three months back, and, with one united voice, discarded all human confessions and creeds. Thank the Lord, the Bible, and the Bible alone, is our creed. The Flint River Association is greatly alarmed. Many of the churches are about passing the same resolutions. We have but three preachers among all the Baptists that will preach for us, because the Bible is our creed. But if God be for us, who can be against us."
ILLINOIS.--Bro. Benj. N. Humphrey, who is the Corresponding Secretary of the co-operation of Morgan, Scott, and Cass counties, in Illinois, writes: "The labors of our evangelists, (W. W. Happy and A. M'Collum,) for the last quarter, have resulted in 93 additions to the churches in the counties of Morgan, Scott and Cass. This makes, for the last year, in the above named district, 208. The experiment has succeeded far beyond the most sanguine expectations of the brethren. They therefore resolved, at the annual meeting, to continue the labors of the evangelists for another year."
Total number reported since last month, 980.
MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.
So great has been the demand for the Harbinger, the present year, that the whole edition of the January and February numbers are exhausted. We have in press these numbers, and, as soon as possible, will forward them to such new subscribers as have not received them. Subscriptions may still be made at the club rates. Our present list could easily be doubled, if v11 our agents and friends would exert themselves, as some have done during a few months past. This is a subject on which we have not spoken as we ought, nor as the editors of contemporary periodicals have done.
The number of our periodicals is more than keeping up with the demand. No community, known to me, is more fruitful in scribes than our community. We prefer Scribes to Pharisees, and, therefore, while deprecating the latter, we greet the former. Still, we think that if /our editors would rather coalesce in a few periodicals than create so many centres of radiation, the reading community would have snore light, more warmth, end more life, with less expense, than at present. A. C.
Vol. I.] BETHANY, VA., MAY, 1851. [No. V.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE--No. V.
ANGELS AND DEMONS. No. IV.
WE have heard the traditions of Polytheism, the oracles of the most hoary antiquity, as retained in the Hindoo, Chinese, and Tartar superstitions; we have, also, glanced through the ages of philosophy, so called, and find in their reasonings and speculations one uniform and constant reference to a spiritual system--to gods, demons and spirits, good and evil, as more or less partaking in the government of the universe, and presiding over the fortunes and destinies of nations and individuals; and all concurring in the belief, more or less clearly expressed, that there is a spiritual, as well as a material universe; We have not, indeed, availed ourselves of all the advantages we might derive, in support of our cardinal object, from these excursions through the spacious fields of Egyptian, Persian, Chaldean, Celtic, Grecian, and Barbaric tradition, philosophy, poetry, and mythology; but it were easy to fill a volume, to accumulate monuments and proofs to satiety, in evidence of the fact, that so far back as we can learn any thing of man, from the same sources we discover that he never was without ideas and conceptions, however mishapen and romantic, of a spiritual system, possessing agents good and evil, more or less concerning themselves in man, his fortunes and destiny.
But what need is there for such evidences to any one who admits the antiquity, inspiration, and authority of the Bible? And what do Moses and Job, the oldest writers in the world, depose on these premises? Satan appears in the first chapter of Job, as well as in
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 21
242 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
the beginning of Genesis, acting the same part, and true to his title, as the Adversary of man. The primitive liar and murderer appears in Paradise, plotting mischief and ruin against mankind.
Sabianism, the most ancient form of idolatry, is alluded to in Job, (chap. xxxi. 26, 27) and regarded as "denying the God that is above." Again: chap. iv. 15, "A spirit, too, stood before his face, and the hair of his flesh stood up." "It stood still," but he "could not discover the form thereof," an image was before his eyes; there was silence, yet he heard a voice." And did not Moses enact laws against necromancers, familiar spirits, wizzards and witches, and attest the existence of demons, worshipped by Gentiles! And did Moses enact laws against phantoms and spectres The Bible, Old Testament and New, recognizes necromancy, witchcraft, demons, and unclean spirits, and inhibits any familiarity with them or use of them. I again ask, do prophets and apostles, in the name of God, enact laws against nonentities! It cannot be. There is, therefore, as much wisdom and reverence in denying the Bible, Moses, and the Messiah, and Satan, as in denying a spiritual universe; the existence and acts of demons, unclean spirits, or the wicked arts of divination, sorcery, witchcraft, and necromancy; for these all are recognized in it as solemn and awful realities. Not as mere pretences, not as frauds perpetrated on human credulity, not as idle pretences, but as solemn and awful realities.
And why should it be otherwise! Are Satan and his angels demons and evil spirits, phantoms, priestcraft, and imposition! Then the Messiah, and his angels, too, are phantoms, imaginations, priestcraft, and imposture! Was the pythoness of Endor, and the spirit of Samuel, a chimera Did God command a man to be stoned to death (Levit. xx. 27) because he acted the hypocrite! Are the ancient and the modern arts of conversing with the dead rank imposture, or well ascertained facts in sacred and profane history Are the spells, invocations, rappings, recorded in Lucan, in his Pharsalia, and revered in modern times, rank delusions and impostures, practised on human ignorance and credulity Believe it who may, he disbelieves the Bible.
The truth can do no harm, and they are vain, or proud, or both, who, under the pretence of either philosophy or religion, or great penetration, assume to deny it. We honor the Bible and its Author, by believing all that it reveals of worlds unseen and unknown. And who does most honor to God, to man, and to the Bible? He that implicitly believes in spirits, angels, demons, possessions, and dispossessions; or he that awards to man all the infamy and crime
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 243
that is in the world! Whether more creditable and honorable to man to admit the Devil and his angels, or to make man the first cause of all evil--the inventor of all frauds, impositions and cruelties, inscribed upon the dark pages of his own sad history!
But tell me, you pretended Christian sceptic, was Paul a sorcerer, when he dispossessed a Philippian damsel of her spirit of divination, and thus robbed her masters of their gain, accruing from her services? Or were they, miserable witches, so bewitched by Paul's eloquence as only to imagine that the truth speaking sorceress had lost her power, and they their money, by Paul's pretended dispossession of the demon "If weak thy faith, why choose the harder side!" Why believe a great lie and strangle upon a little one!
If, in the seen. and known, and tangible present world, we have good men and bad men, children of God and children of the Devil, why should it be thought a thing incredible, that in an unknown spiritual and invisible world there should be evil spirits as well as good spirits, with all the powers to bless and curse, in ministries of mercy or of wrath!
We of the nineteenth century are a sensual, worldly, and sceptical people; engrossed, too, in the carnal, temporal, worldly, and material, much more than in the spiritual, heavenly, and eternal. And to suit the spirit of the age, the Evil One, the grand and original liar and murderer has, in his deep and malignant counsels and policies, endeavored to annihilate the fear of his devices and stratagems, by denying his own existence, annihilating all faith in his own being and malignancy, and in that of his legions of fallen spirits, his evil demons, and their devices.
The materialists, his chosen ambassadors, his Sadducean counsellors, regard demons and evil spirits in the light of spectres, ghosts, and hobgoblins, fairy tales and old wives' fables; and thus make the calling and reprobation sure of millions of professors, feigned believers of the Christian Scriptures.
Those who renounce papal authority; who refuse human dictation and all homage to philosophy, falsely so tailed; who take the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, seeking for the old paths, that they may walk in them, have to combat, "not against flesh and blood only, but against principalities and powers"--ecclesiastic potentates--" against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against malign and wicked spirits in the upper regions" of Satan's kingdom, marshaled against Messiah and his kingdom. These, therefore, are obliged to study "the wiles of the Devil;" and while seeking to restore the original faith in God, must seek to restore
244 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
the true knowledge and real belief of fallen hierarchies, of apostate spirits, of "the Devil and his angels." These must be shown to be real entities, not chimeras; literal truths, not phantasies; positive agents, and not figures of speech. They must not be modestly sceptical, in certain portions of revelation, but bold and fearless believers up to the full standard of revelation. They must not only believe in angels "who keep their first estate," but in angels, messengers of Satan, that have fallen, and that "are reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day." In repudiating purgatory, they must not deny Tartarus. They must not imagine that the Devil is converted into "an angel of light," and no longer walketh up and down the earth "seeking whom he may devour," as a lion ravenous for his prey.
We must not fear the scoffings of real infidels, under the guise of processed rationalists. We must put to silence and to shame "the ignorance of foolish men," and boldly avow our belief that Satan yet is. We must not prove recreant to our profession of believing and teaching the Bible, the whole Bible, as the book of God and the rule of faith--the measure of Christian knowledge and of Christian duty.
Satan is not yet "bound for a thousand years," nor his angels asleep. And we must not feel as though we were out of that world that yet "lies under the dominion of the Wicked One;" but we must arm ourselves for the good combat--" put on the whole armor of God; the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit, the helmet of salvation, having our feet shod with the preparation of the "gospel of peace," that we may quench the fiery javelins, the poisoned arrows, from Satan's quiver. "Praying always, with all prayer and supplication of the spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints," our fellow-soldiers in the camp of Israel. Let us fight the good fight of faith, that we may lay hold of eternal life. A. C.
"KNOW THYSELF," was written in golden capitals upon the splendid temple of Delphos, as the most important maxim which the wise men of Greece could hand down to unborn generations. The scriptures require us to "search our own hearts, and try ourselves," and the entire experience of mankind bears testimony that SELF- knowledge is the most important of all knowledge.
THE BIBLE QUESTION. 245
VIEWS OF DR. LYND ON THE BIBLE QUESTION.
Review of arguments employed at the Annual Meeting of the American and Foreign Bible Society, against a Revised Version of the English Scriptures. [Continued from page 200.]
THE Rev. Dr. Ide, of Philadelphia, proposed three reasons in favor of the restrictive resolution, and, of course, against an amended version. The first was his opinion that we have no need of a revised English version. The second was, that we could not accomplish it, if we should try. And the third was, that we ought not to attempt it. Let us try this logic on the opposite side. It is my opinion that we need a revised version. We can accomplish it if we try. We ought to do it.
In his speech he stated that the Greek word baptizo means to dip in, and take out again; that immerse means to sink, and you may immerse and never take out again. I have seen this statement once by a very small critic, but I did not expect to see it from Dr. Ide. The word is used in classical writings, where it is applied w things which are never taken up, as well as to things which are immediately taken up. The word means to dip, but it can neither include the taking out, nor the remaining under. The same application is as true of the English word immerse, as it is of the Greek word baptizo. Let Dr. Ide sustain his position by plain examples of specific terms, and he will greatly oblige those who have thus far labored in vain to find even one example. In order to excite him to this effort, we will kindly provoke him, by asserting that his position is the most perfect nonsense that ever proceeded from human lips.
Deacon Colgate spoke in favor of a new version. He presented thirty-one questions, but no attempt was made to answer even one of them, notwithstanding those in opposition were confessedly speaking to the merits of the question.
The Rev. Russel Jennings made a few remarks which are worthy of record. He said, "I have preached as well as I knew how, and then have gone home, and taken down the original text, and found I had been perverting God's word. Finally, I came to the conclusion that I dare not preach without comparing my text with the original." Very few ministers of the gospel would dare to preach from a text without doing the same thing, for their experience has taught them that it is unsafe.
Bro. Jennings further remarked, "I don't believe the time has come for a change, but I believe it will come."
This is doubtless the sentiment of many of our brethren, in all parts of the country, as it appears to me, that it is the only question that can rationally arise in the premises. But how is the proper time for this enterprise to be ascertained? Will it be the proper time when all evangelical denominations unite in the work? How many generations may pass away before this union occurs? It would be desirable to have all Christians unite in this work, but is this absolutely necessary? Besides, upon what ground do we main-
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 21*
246 THE BIBLE QUESTION.
tarn that evangelical Christians, and they alone, shall prepare air amended version? Are there not thousands of Roman Catholics, and of denominations not regarded as evangelical, who use the English language? Shall they be excluded from participation? It may be said, that they would not unite in this measure. True, but they have their reasons for this, which they consider sufficiently good. And if Pedobaptists evangelical will not unite in this work, it is because they have reasons which they consider sufficiently good. Upon what principle are we to wait for the concurrence of evangelical denominations, and not wait for the concurrence of all who are interested in an amended version? Every one can perceive that if we wait (oral/ to concur, the work must be indefinitely postponed. If we wait for a part to concur, what part shall it be? If one sect will not agree to it, because no foundation would remain for diocesan bishops, and all other denominations would oppose it because it would have no ground for sprinkling or pouring, is the work, therefore, never to be done? If the union of all denominations that are considered evangelical is essential to this work, when will it be done? Will the time ever arrive? Such a union is utterly impracticable. If, then, it must, in any event, be done by a part of the Christian world, why not by the Baptists! How is the right time to be ascertained?
In any enterprise of great magnitude, to which powerful opposition may be created, or, which involves, on the part of those to be engaged in it, almost overwhelming responsibility, the time to commence, in most cases, would never arrive, but for special interpositions of divine providence. God determines the proper season for such enterprises. How did the Baptists in this country arrive at the conclusion, that the time had arrived for them to engage in the Foreign Mission work God settled the precise time, by bringing Judson and Rice to the acknowledgment of Baptist views and practices. In relation to this revision movement, many of us throughout the country, members and officers of the American and Foreign Bible Society had thought for many years upon the desirableness of the measure. But the time did not appear to have arrived.
During the year 1849, brethren Cone and Wyckoff prepared and published, on their own responsibility, an amended version of the New Testament, that the denomination might have an opportunity of determining what could be done in this matter. They proposed to give the plates to the Society for their use. It produced great excitement throughout our denomination, and mainly for the reason that the design was not understood. The Society at their Annual Meeting in 1850, not only put a stop to this measure, but absolutely restricted the managers, in the circulation of the English scriptures, to the commonly received version, declaring that it was not their duty, or their province to attempt on their own part, or to procure from others, an amended version of the English scriptures.
The Society did not restore the restriction, which had been removed at the previous annual meeting, in the words, "until otherwise directed by the Society-," and thus leave the question open as to the proper time for a revised version; but so constructed their resolutions that thousands of Baptists, in this country, cannot co-operate
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 247
with them, and maintain a clear conscience. To defend a great fundamental principle, we have been driven to the necessity of forming a Bible Union upon the principle of giving the Bible, in the most perspicuous and faithful versions that can be procured, to all nations. This principle appeals to the Christian heart and conscience; and thus God, by His providence, has fixed the time. The time has arrived, and God smiles upon the enterprise. The voice comes up from thousands on thousands throughout our land, in favor of an amended version. Thousands more are only waiting to see that the plan for accomplishing the end is a wise and safe one, to add their voice to the demand.
The time has arrived. There never will, in all probability, be a period more favorable to this enterprise. Look at the added millions to our population, that, in a few years, will read and speak the English language, whose Bible will be the English Bible, and who will unquestionably adopt that version which is most perspicuous and faithful. These millions will come from the old corrupt hierarchies, to the light of primitive Christianity. Let no word be in our English version for them which will detain them to the wrong side of Christianity, or which will allow them to come short of the whole truth.
It is desirable that we should have an amended English version, and God, by his providence, seems to say, "the day has arrived." What more do we need? Let us go forward in the name and in the fear of God, and we shall accomplish a great work in our generation; yea, future generations will bless the hour when this enterprise originated. S. W. LYND.
COVINGTON, January 9, 1851.
SLAVERY AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW--No. II.
THE growing importance of this subject constrains me to engross, in a short compass, my views on the whole premises, pressed upon my attention by so many solicitations from all quarters and from all sides of this all-exciting subject. I will, therefore, in as short a space as possible, and with as much perspicuity as I can, comply with the wishes of many friends. The questions proposed are:
1. Is not what is usually called American Slavery, disallowed by the Christian moral law?
2. Can a Christian man, enlightened in the New Testament, religiously hold in perpetual servitude a human being?
3. Does not the golden rule require a Christian man to succor and relieve a brother man, when in distress?
4. Can, therefore, a Christian man, with the fear of God before his eyes,
248 THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
sustain or comply with the requisitions of the Fugitive Slave Law, enacted at the last session of our Congress?
A precise and perspicuous answer is most respectfully and earnestly solicited to these four questions, BY MANY.
RESPONSE.
1. Is not what is usually called American Slavery, disallowed by the Christian moral law?
To be as precise and as perspicuous as the authors of these queries desire, I must premise a few thoughts on the terms of the first question: 1. American slavery is not so easily conceived. There may be much more embraced in American slavery, inasmuch as America is a large country, than I am aware of, or a majority of all who may read this query and my response. There is no uniform system, known to me, in America. Slave States have not all the same laws and usages in reference to slavery. The essential feature, or features, may be the same, and yet there may be very striking differences in its practice or use. But to come as near as possible to the views and wishes of the querists, I will state what I understand to be the essential attributes of American slavery:
1. American slavery, as a system, gives to an American citizen the legal right to purchase a black or colored human being, of African blood, and to hold him, during his natural life, in a state of bodily servitude, having no property in himself, but to be obedient to his master in all things compatible With the moral law of his Creator; and should he possess a wife belonging to his master, their issue, born during that relationship, belong to his master, as other living property.
In the 2d place, I will state what I mean by the Christian moral law; not, perhaps, what the querists might indicate by those terms.
The Christian moral law differs in nothing moral, from the la w of ten commandments. That law is summed up, by the highest Christian authority, as being all comprehended in doing to another, what, in similar circumstances, we would desire him to do to us.
Preliminary to a direct and specific response to the preceding four questions, we must lay down certain propositions, as essential to correct scriptural views on the premises:
1. All the relations which one man may lawfully sustain to another, are laid down and established by divine authority.
2. The divine authority is published in documents collected into one volume, called, by way of pre-eminence, THE BIBLE.
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3. This volume having, in its miracles and prophecy, the imprimatur of divine authority, is the only infallible standard by which all the relations of human life, and all the duties and obligations growing out of them, are to be adjudicated, so far as morality and religion are concerned.
4. To it, therefore, not as "the higher law," but as the highest law, all questions of moral right and wrong are to be brought for final adjudication.
5. Every relation of life may be abused, as well as lawfully used.
6. The proper use of a relation, and the abuse of it, are, therefore, always to be separated and distinguished from each other, in the mind of any one who desires to he governed by the law of God.
7. Dispensations, both of law and religion, may be changed, but morality and religion are, in their essence and nature, immutable.
8. Hence, what a Patriarch, a Jew, or a Christian, may morally do, they all may do.
9. Religion, distinguished from time, place, circumstance, is also essentially and immutably the same. It is essentially the knowledge, the love, the admiration, the adoration, and the service of God, according to special precepts. While the nature or character of the precept may differ, according to times and circumstances, the obedience of the precept is, while it lasts, the rule and measure of our piety and devotion.
10. The relation of husband and wife, of parent and children, of master and servant, are natural and necessary relations, and, as such, have been ordained and sanctioned by God. They are, therefore, lawful relations.
11. There are servants of numerous and various characters; public and private servants, bondservants and free servants; servants for a day, a month, a year, seven years, and for life. All, however, are entitled to remuneration.
12. But remuneration, as to its specific form and value, is matter of public or of private arrangement. The divine law requires that it be "just and equal," or equitable.
These propositions being laid down, and, we presume, intelligibly submitted, we now proceed to answer, more specifically, the queries submitted to our consideration.
In attempting this, we shall again glance at the history of the relation of master and servant, so far as the moral character and use are involved and set forth in the highest law--the Bible.
It is conceded that God allowed his own people--those under his special government, during every form and dispensation of religion-
250 THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
Patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian--to have hired servants and bondservants.
We shall again allude to a few clear and unequivocal cases. First, in order, the Patriarchal dispensation claims our attention. This engrossed about 2500 years.
Of these patriarchs we shall name but two--Abraham and Job. They are amongst the most venerable, if not the most venerable and venerated saints, before the times of Moses.
Abraham, when 75 years old, was divinely called to leave his own country and relations, and to become, for a time, a pilgrim. At the time of his departure, though not a father, he was both a husband and a master. On leaving Haran and proceeding to Canaan, according to a divine call and promise, he took with him his wife, his nephew, (Lot,) "with all his substance," even "the souls" or persons he had purchased or "gotten" in Haran. Driven thence, by famine, into Egypt, he continued there for a time, but again returned to Canaan, rich "in flocks and herds, in silver, and in gold." Lot, who accompanied him, was also rich, in the same forms and variety of property, so that they were compelled to separate, to find pasture for their flocks and herds, and employment for their households. When his nephew, Lot, got into a controversy with neighboring princes, so large was Abraham's household that he took with him 318 young men, well armed and trained for the conflict. These were all home born slaves, as we call them, or servants for life. When in Egypt, they are enumerated amongst his goods and chattels: Pharaoh treated him as a Prince; and it is added, "He had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and men servants, and maid servants, and she asses, and camels." He could not have had less than a thousand servants. Three hundred and eighteen home born young men, fit for war, would, according to the laws of population, have given three hundred and eighteen maid servants; of the same ages; and it is fairly inferable that the other two classes, below and above young men--minors and superanuated--would, at least, in all, have made one thousand; much more likely, 1500 servants. One will rarely find, in any community, 318 soldiers, in 1500 of the aggregate population. His faithful steward, Eleazer, of Damascus, was, indeed, an officer of Abraham's household of great responsibility.
Job, too, a prince, according to many, contemporary with Abraham, was also a prince of probably much larger estate than Abraham himself. "He had 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 she asses, and a very great household." His household, to say the least, may be presumed to have equaled that of Abraham.
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Here, then, we have, in these venerable and distinguished servants of God, a demonstration, that nothing was morally wrong in the relation of master and servant, home born or bought. Of Abraham, God said, "Shall I hide from Abraham that which I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him; for he shall command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, that I might perform that which I promised him." And of Job it is said, "He was a perfect and upright man--one that feared God and eschewed evil;" and yet, as a prince, he was "the greatest of all the men of the East."
Need we more clear, more striking, more invincible proof, that the holding property for life in man, or the owning of man, or the relation of absolute master and slave, is neither immoral nor irreligious, in itself. And that the Hebrew term gehved, used in the case of Abraham's servant, also by Job, as before shown, denotes a slave for life, we want no other proof than Job's description of the grave, where," said he, "the servant (gehved) is free from his master." Job's servants would, then, according to his own definition, never be emancipated till death severed the bond. Such was the Patriarchal servitude.
In a former essay, we noted that the moral law, as it is usually called, announced on Sinai, enacted the right of property in a limn servant and a maid servant, by positively inhibiting the coveting, of one or the other, on the part of any man. And also, it was shown, that the first statute of the political law, in the case of Hebrew servants, allowed the Hebrew servant to sell himself till the year of Jubilee, or for life, as the case might be, and even authorized his master, a Hebrew, to hold him so long.
Besides these provisions, another law was enacted, by divine authority, in the civil law of Israel. If a Jew desired to purchase servants for life, and thus to have bondmen, the Lord enacted the following law: "Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the Heathen round about thee; of them thou mayest buy. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall you buy; and of their families that are with you, which they shall beget in your land, and they shall be your possession. And you shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever; but over your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule one over another with rigor." Other
252 THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
bondservants of their brethren might be redeemed or bought back again. A brother, a cousin, or an uncle, might redeem him. Still, while the Jubilee would ultimately release him, he must, if redeemed, be paid for according to the years intervening; and his brother is authorized to receive money for him, according to the time of service due.
This institution gave a feature to the whole criminal code of Israel. Suppose a master, in correcting his servant, should seriously injure him--indeed, strike him so that he might die in consequence of the blow--he was not, as in other cases, to pay the penalty of death. Why? Simply "because he was his money," or property. If he only lived a day or two after the correction, the divine law made the loss of the servant itself a sufficient temporal punishment to the master.--Exodus xxi. 21.
The law of circumcision was, moreover, to bear upon Abraham's property, whether children or servants. But upon the bodies of his servants it was essentially a property mark, entitling them, however, as such, to the religious privileges of the Jewish institution.
So far, therefore, we must regard Patriarchal and Jewish servitude for life, and man owning man, as not immoral, or as contrary to the law of God, as governor of the world.
I am fully aware, that there is a text in some Bibles that is not in mine. Professional Abolitionists have made more use of it than of any passage in the Bible. It came, however, as I trace it, from Saint Voltaire, and was baptized by Thomas Jefferson, and since almost universally regarded as canonical authority--" All men are born free and equal."
This is genuine coin in the political currency of our generation. I am sorry to say, that I have never seen two men of whom it is true. But I must add, I never saw the Siamese twins, and, therefore, will not dogmatically shy that no man ever saw a proof of this sage aphorism. We intend to examine the New Testament in our next essay. A. C.
LET us all so artier our conversation in the world, that we may live when we are dead, in the affections of the best, and have an honorable testimony in the conscience of the worst. Let us oppress none; do good to all, that we may say when we die, as good Ambrose did--" I am neither ashamed to live nor ashamed to die."
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FAMILY CULTURE.
CONVERSATIONS AT THE CARLTON HOUSE--No. XVI
ROMANS VIII., 18-25.
Olympas.--James will read our lesson for the evening.
James.--,, However, I esteem not the sufferings of the present time, as worthy of comparison with the glory which is hereafter to be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature, is waiting for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creature was subject to frailty, (not of its own choice, but by him who has subjected it,) in hope, that it may be liberated, from the bondage of a perishing state, and brought into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Besides, we know that the whole creation sigh together, and travail in anguish till the present time. And not only they, but ourselves also, who have the first fruit of the Spirit; even we ourselves, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption; namely, the redemption of our body. For even we are saved by hope. Now, hope that is attained, is not hope; for who can hope for that which he enjoys? But if we hope for that which we do not enjoy, then, with patience, we wait for it."
Olympas.--We must view this passage with what precedes it. The sonship of Christians, as adopted into the family of God, is the Errand theme of this lesson. At the close of our last lesson, the apostle says: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, are the sons of God." The proof of this declaration is found in the fact, that they have received the spirit of adoption, crying, Abba, Father!
Abba, said to be the first breathing of an infant, in its earliest effort to speak, and, in all the ancient languages, indicating father, is beautifully prefixed to the word father by our apostle; thereby intimating that the first breath of the new born children of God is an indication of its possessing a filial spirit. Because they are sons, they cry Abba, which means Father. What a change! From being enemies of God, we become sons of God, by the reconciliation we enjoy through Christ, the only begotten of the Father--the Son of the Living God. He makes all his brethren his brothers, and joint heirs with him. What a change! Sons and heirs of God! But we must, and well we may, suffer with him in a wicked world, seeing, with him, we also shall be glorified.
Aquila.--The spirit of bondage is then cast out; for, indeed, it is an unclean and a tormenting spirit. An accusing guilty conscience, is the greatest plague we can endure. We cannot flee from it. It enslaves, pollutes, debases man. Peace with God is heaven upon earth. The richest promise that Christ bequeathed was expressed in these words: "My peace I bequeath to you," my friends! "Not
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254 CONVERSATIONS.
as the world gives, do I give." Its bequests are not rich legacies. But the sufferings of the Christian are all blessings in disguise. The sufferings of earth and time are not worthy to be compared to the glory, the bliss, and the beauty, to be revealed, developed, and enjoyed in us. What think you, Bro. Clement, of "the creature," and "the earnest expectation of the creature," here spoken of.
Clement.--By the creature, I have been led to think the apostle alludes to the body, or mortal portion of our present personality; and by vanity, its frailty.
Olympas.--This is, Bro. Clement, a difficult passage, and largely debated by our most profound critics and commentators. Volumes have been written on it. It belongs to the passages called, by critics, loci vexatissimi; vexatious, perplexing, intricate passages. The drift of the passage is easy and definite; but what means this ktisis--creature, or creation? What precise idea should we attach to it is the question. It occurs but nineteen times in the New Testament, and is, in the Common Version, once rendered ordinance, once building, six times creation, and eleven times creature.
Prof. Stuart, after writing twenty-five octavo pages on this passage, leaves it as he found it--a perplexing passage.
I concur with him, that ktisis means either the act of creation, or the thing created. It means the creating, and the thing created; the action and its effect. It means the human race, and it may mean the human body--the mortal part of man. We sometimes use the word creature in contempt. This would meet your view of the passage. The mortal part of man, his body, is subjected to frailty and corruption; and the passage might be safely construed to suit this view. The human body is doomed to corruption, not as a matter of choice, but it has been, to the Christian, made acceptable, in the hope of being raised incorruptible. Indeed, the whole creation-- that is, the whole human race, as Stuart, and some other interpreters understand it, mankind universally--have been longing after a higher and happier state. Even Christians, too, in their highest state of present perfection and happiness, are groaning, being burthened, for the manifestation of the sons of God in their incorruptible and glorified bodies; not, indeed, that they might be divested or unclothed, but invested, or clothed upon with their house or spiritual body, which is to be from heaven.
Aquila.--That sounds very harmonious in my ear. It is in accordance with what the apostle elsewhere says, as you have quoted, and suits, in my judgment, the spirit and scope of this passage. We are all waiting, in hope, for the adoption, namely, "the redemp-
CONVERSATIONS. 255
tion of our body;" not for the redemption of the soul, for that we now have, but for the redemption of the body. What an argument this, clear and invincible, for the separate state! The body returns to its origin, the earth; the spirit returns to its origin, God, at death. How accordant with the words, "Absent from the body, present with the Lord." But now we (our spirits) present with the body, are absent from the Lord. Here we walk by faith, hereafter by sight, for then we shall see him as he is. We patiently must wait that day.
Olympas.--And, Bro. Aquila, "the spirit helps our infirmities," for we often sigh for what we know not. We are like an afflicted child, we cry, and know not for what we cry. But the Spirit of God rightly interprets these cries and groans, and makes intercession for us. We, therefore, wait patiently for the adoption, for the apokalupsis--the revelation of the sons of God. Here our sonship is invisible and unappreciated, even by ourselves. Hence, we look forward to the full development of that glorious relation, when we shall appear to ourselves, and one another, as the sons or children of God.
Aquila.--Truly we are well said to be saved, or sustained in our present trials, by hope. Let us, then, patiently wait for the day of our deliverance. But let me ask the question, Does the Holy Spirit, in person, act the part of an intercessor for us? Is not Jesus our intercessor?
Olympas.--The Spirit of God is said to do for us what he has, in bearing witness to the truth which he imparted, inclined, and enabled us to do for ourselves. Hence, the Spirit of God being the cause of those desires in us, when our spirits express them to God in harmony with his teachings, he is figuratively said to intercede for us. That this is not a personal, or official intercession of the Holy Spirit, is indicated in the words, "He that searches the hearts of believers, knows that the desires arising in them, and expressed by them, are the fruits of the Spirit of God, and not the offspring of their own spirits." Our unutterable feelings, emotions, and desires, are properly interpreted by the Holy Spirit, for he knows what we mean, and what we desire and ask, infinitely better than we'd°. Hence there is a meaning in the inarticulate groans of a saint, which he himself cannot express. He knows not what he wants. But the Spirit of God having, by the truth and promise of the gospel, occasioned these desires, comprehends them; and God the Father, to whom all prayer is ultimately directed by the Spirit, and through the Son, understands, receives, and answers these inar-
256 CONVERSATIONS.
ticulate signs, and groans, and desires of the saints, being in accordance with his will.
Olympas.--I am pleased to say, that in this view of the passage you have the concurrence, if not of the multitude, certainly of the most ancient and celebrated interpreters, from the Greek Chrysostom down to the present day.
"All things," then, "work together for good, to them that love God;" and these are they whom he purposes to save--those both of Jews and Gentiles, whom he has called according to purposes and promises announced from the earliest annals of the world. God's eternal purpose and counsel is, that his people shall finally be conformed to the image of his Son, as like to him as the younger members of a family are to the first born. And those so predestined, he has called, is calling, and will call till time shall end; has justified, is justifying, and will justify; has glorified, is glorifying, and will glorify. The apostle places all in the past tense, with reference to the time he wrote. But only with reference to that time, because the family is still a growing family. And as he had done so he is doing, in calling, justifying, sanctifying and glorifying, with high rank, dignity and honor, all who obey the gospel; all who are really the called of God through Jesus Christ; for none are effectually called but those who obey the gospel.
Since, then, God has done so much for his people, who can be against them, to harm or destroy them! He sent his Son, his dearly beloved and only begotten Son, the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person, and the upholder of all things. He came into our world, lived, died, rose again, and ascended into heaven for us, and now intercedes for us. Who, then, shall, or who can, separate us from the love of Christi His love is almighty, immutable, and eternal. Shall trials or afflictions on his account, to which we are now exposed; shall distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword!" Nay. In all these we more than triumph, through him that loved us.
Hence, every enlightened, sanctified, and devoted Christian may say, and will say, "I am persuaded that neither death nor life; neither angels, good or bad, nor principalities, nor powers, spiritual and antagonistic; neither things present nor things to come; neither height nor depth, nor any created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is (revealed to us) by Christ Jesus our Lord!"
As soon might we attempt to adorn the lily of the valley or the rose of Sharon; to perfume the aloes, myrrh, and cassia of Arabia
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Felix; to beautify the ruby, the sapphire, or the diamond, that glowed on the breastplate of Aaron, as to present in more appropriate, more intelligible, or more impressive terms, the sublime and glorious climax with which the apostle concludes this section of the epistle. A. C.
CHRISTIAN BAPTISM, WITH ITS ANTECEDENTS AND
CONSEQUENTS.
SUCH is the title of our book on baptism, now being stereotyped.
The important question of Christian Baptism is yet, with many, an undecided question. With many, too, it has been decided wrong, because decided on human authority, or on partial evidence, without personal and proper examination. Neither Christian faith nor Christian character can be inherited, as the goods and chattels of this world. There is no royal or ancestral path to faith, piety, or humanity. Whatever truly elevates, adorns, or dignifies a human being, must be, more or less, the fruit of his own efforts.
Five points are necessarily involved in this discussion, essential to a rational and scriptural decision of the question. These are: 1. The action, called baptism. 2. The subject of that action. 3. The design of that action. 4. The antecedents; and 5. The consequents of that action. These are distinct topics, each of which must be scripturally apprehended in its evangelical import and bearings, before this solemn and sublime symbol can be truly enjoyed in its spiritual influences and importance. And such is the prominent and imposing attitude in which its Author placed it, when, in giving a commission to his apostles to convert the nations of the earth to him, he makes this the consummating act of their preaching Christ--of converting and evangelizing the world. "Go," said he, "into all the world, convert the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."
Misconceptions of this institution are, it has been often remarked, more or less connected with misconceptions of the whole Christian institution, and lay as the sub-basis of the present apostacy from original Christianity. By the grand "Mother of Harlots" and delusions, it has been degraded to the rank of a mere rite or ceremony,
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258 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM.
and made a door of admission, wide as the whole world, into the bosom of what is impiously called "The Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Christ."
In view of this, the following treatise discusses the whole subject, in what its author esteems its natural and logical order, placing before the mind of the reader each and every point in its proper position and relative importance to the whole institution. This gives a somewhat miscellaneous appearance to the volume; but, in view of the whole premises, will, he hopes, make it more really useful and satisfactory to every reader, so much interested in the subject as to give it a candid and careful perusal.
The author regards the antecedents and consequents of Christian Baptism, as furnishing not only much material for profitable reflection, on the part of every earnest inquirer after the truth and design of Christianity, but as also furnishing arguments in support of the divine origin, authority, and value of Christian Baptism, necessary to an intelligent and satisfactory decision of the much litigated questions, What is Christian Baptism? and What are the benefits thereof?
He has condensed a very large amount and variety of materials on the special questions, What is Christian Baptism Who are its legitimate subjects? and What its specific design? into as small a space as possible, not desiring to say even a moiety of what he might say on the premises. Much of what is said is designed to be suggestive to the mind of the reader, rather than to leave him nothing to do but to read what is written; to open to his mind the unwasting fountains of light and knowledge contained in the Divine Records of eternal wisdom and providence, that he may see, in the clear, full, and certain light of God's own book, the glorious scheme of redemption, as indicated in the precious and sublime symbol of Christian Baptism.
The continual agitation of this subject is important and benevolent, so long as unscriptural views of it are not only entertained, but made the bitter root of discord amongst good men, and of schism in the Christian profession. Truth ever gains, and error uniformly roses, by discussion. The results of the discussions of this subject during the last thirty years, are at least the addition of a hundred thousand persons to the profession of "one Lord, one faith, and one baptism;" and, so far, has contributed to the triumph of truth, the union of Christians, and the conversion of the world. We, therefore, commend to the blessing of the Lord, this new offering on our part to the advancement of truth in the world, and as an humble means of promoting the cause of Christian union and co-operation amongst all who love Zion, and seek the peace and happiness of Jerusalem. A. C.
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A CHRISTIAN MINISTER'S LIBRARY.
To that portion of the Christian ministry who can read the Sacred Scriptures, in their original tongues, and who, from their education, must frequently stand on the walls of Zion, to defend the Ark of the Covenant from the assaults of Infidels and Heresiarchs, we recommend the following library, as a portion of their armor and munitions of war, offensive and defensive:
1. The Hebrew Bible--Simonis Biblia Hebraica.
2. Analysis Critica Practice, Psalmorum. This valuable work gives a critical analysis of every word in the Psalms of David. 3. Gesenius' Hebrew and English Lexicon, or Baxter's Analytic Dictionary. 4. Leigh's Critica Sacra. 5. Septuagint, Leipsic edition. 6. The London Polyglott, containing eight languages--Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and common English version. This is a great luxury. It may be purchased for $70, neatly bound. 7. Campbell's Four Gospels. 8. M'Knight's Epistles. 9. Stuart's translation of the Romans, with critical notes. 10. Stuart's translation of the Hebrews, with critical notes. 11. Robinson's Harmony of the Four Gospels, in Greek. 12. The Englishman's Greek Concordance of the New Testament. 13. Robertson's Greek Lexicon, Canterbury edition, 1676, if it can be found; if not, Scapula. 14. Bretschneider's Lexicon. 15. The English Hexapla, London, 1841. This valuable work contains the Greek text, after Scholz, with the various readings of the received text, and the principal Constantinopolitan and Alexandrine manuscripts, and a complete collection of Scholz text, with Griesbach's edition of A. D. 1805. The six versions are Wickliffe's, Tyndal's Cranmer's Genevan, Anglo-Rhemish, Authorized, 1611. There is in it a valuable historical account of the English translations. 16. For every day use, Greenfield's Greek New Testament, with a Greek and English Lexicon annexed. 17. Bloomfield’s do. 18. The Critical Greek and English New Testament, with the Greek text of Scholz; readings textual and marginal, of Griesbach, with the variations of Stevens, Beza, and Elzivir, London edition. These last constitute the itinerating Christian preacher's vale mecum.
For the evangelists and elders of churches, who read only the English tongue, we commend the following. [Such of those in our first class who have not the following works, had better, if convenient, add them to their library.]
1. The Common. English Version of the Polyglott Bible, London.
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edition. 2. The Holy Bible, containing the authorized version, with some 20,000 emendations or alterations, plates and maps. It is, indeed, in itself, a condensed and valuable commentary on the Common Version. 3. Cruden's English Concordance. 4. Townsend's Bible. 5. Coit's Bible. Horne's Introduction, 4 volumes. 7. Anderson's Annals of the English Bible, 2 vols., London. 8. Prideaux Connections. 9. Shuckford's Connections. 10. Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible. 11. Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Ed. by J. Newton Brown. 12. Giesler's Text Book of Ecc. History, 3 vols. 13. Jones' Church History. 14. Neander's Church History. 15. Waddington's Church History. 16. Neal's History of the Puritans. 17. Josephus. 18. Lord King's Primitive Church. 19. Cave's Primitive Christianity. 20. Campbell's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History. 21. Campbell's Pulpit Eloquence. 22. Taylor's "Ancient" (not Primitive) Christianity. 23. Paley's works, in 1 vol. 24. Sherlock on Providence. 25. Ernesti on Interpretation. 26. Greenleaf on Evidence. 27. Taylor's Manual of Ancient History. 28. Barrow on the Supremacy of the Pope. 29. Campbell and Purcell's Debate on Popery. 30. D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation. 31. Guizot's Modern Civilization. 32. Campbell and Owen's Debate on the Evidences of Christianity. 33. Campbell and Rice's Debate on Baptism. 34. Gaussen on Interpretation. 35. The Christian Baptist, Burnet's edition, stereotype. 36. Christian Baptism, with its Antecedents and Consequents, now in press. 37. Infidelity refuted by Infidels. 38. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. 39. All the Bridgewater Treatises on the Being and Perfections of God in Nature. 40. Whewell's Elements of Morality. [His Bridgewater Treatise on the cosmical arrangements of the Universe, with Bell's on the Human Hand, are enough on these subjects.] 41. Comprehensive Commentary of the Bible. 42. As a work of literature, Clark's Commentary.
To these I might add, out of my library, many miscellaneous works and treatises, but these are the best works I have found in many hundred volumes. As Virgil said of farms, I say of libraries: Praise large libraries, but study, or cultivate, small ones. And as a regular hearer of the debate between Luther's party and their opponents, on seeing a reformer, who read no book but the Bible, always routing his opponents, said, so say I, Cave homini unius libri-Take care of the man of the one book. A. C.
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UPPER CANADA BIBLE SOCIETY.
THE following is from the pen of our devoted brother, Ex Consul Buchanan, of Canada West. Its moral is very much in season, even in this latitude. The Lord works no miracles now in carrying out his great work of human redemption from ignorance, guilt, and bondage. He has left it to the church until he come. May she realize her glorious and awful responsibilities! A. C.
TO THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE UPPER CANADA BIBLE SOCIETY, AND TO
ALL WHO PROFESS TO REGARD THE BIBLE AS THE WORD OF GOD.
My Fellow-Sinners: I submit, for your consideration, sentiments chiefly taken from a work of a clergyman of the Church of Scotland, delivered in London. I have no reason to doubt but you believe the Bible to be from God, and that all who will obey it will partake of the pardon of their sins, through faith in the death of Christ upon the cross, and that there is no other sure way to obtain happiness hereafter, nor indeed in this life, if the Bible is not the source we look to for guidance. In the fear of the Lord, in view of death and judgment to come, I ask you to measure how you value that blessed book, and how others are to judge--God alone knows your hearts and motives, while all who read the report of the Bible Society, delivered last March, will see from the sums subscribed, how the contributors value that blessed book, as it respects their souls, and the souls of those to whom they contribute to send it. The Apostle James says, "faith without works is dead," and the blessed Saviour says, "every tree is known by its own fruit." By the following abstract, taken from the report, exhibits the value placed on the Bible: 61 contributed 7 1/2d., 46 each at 1s., 23 at 2s. 6d., 23 at 5s., 24 at £1, and one at £2. Think of this fruit of your faith the next time you kneel down in prayer; if you rise at ease, with your estimate before God, as to your love for your souls and your fellow-sinners. may the merciful God lead us all to repentance, and may it be proved by our future course, if the Lord spares us another year. Recollect that the Lord "loves a cheerful giver;" can we expect a blessing upon our labors without fruit! Let us not plead poverty; the widow that had but a little meal, and two sticks to make a fire, to bake her last cake for herself and son, yet divided it with a poor old man, and see how she was blest in this life, and is held forth in the Bible for an example. Only in proportion as we value the salvation revealed in the Bible, can we have hope in death. May the Lord bless the Bible to all our souls! Beginning a new year, may we all be led to begin a devoted course of faithfully reading the Bible, and in judging our actions by what the Lord enjoins, for "if we judge ourselves we shall not be judged." We believe just as we feel, and we feel so far as we act, "doing, instead of intending, is all essential." I am aware, to many, these observations will not be
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pleasing; they may be regarded as an exposure. I am not aware that faithful dealing as to our soul's interest is ever acceptable exposure, and faithfulness in love to our souls, may lead to repentance, but the day is coming, that every penny we have withheld or devoted to the Lord will be revealed, and shall be condemned or approved, as we were moved thereto; when condemned the day of repentance will be past. The awful sin of the present day is lukewarmness and want of faithfulness, in those who profess to he authorized servants or ministers of Christ; yet blessed be God, the terms of mercy and forgiveness is held forth in the Bible to all sinners, who will flee to the Lord Jesus for pardon, and seek to the Lord to be upheld by the Holy Spirit in rendering obedience to the blessed Bible. If I offend herein I pray to be pardoned, having alone in view to call the attention of my fellow-sinners to the way of mercy. May the Lord bless these imperfect efforts for Christ's sake--Amen. One who works and feels in the spirit of THE PUBLICAN.
FALLS OF NIAGARA, Dec. 25, 1850.
CHURCH EDIFICATION--No. II.
BROTHER PENDLETON--Dear Sir: In considering the subject at the head of this article, it may not be amiss to take some notice of the subject of church organization, as a proper organization is indispensable to capacitate a church to minister properly to its own edification, as also to attend to cases of discipline that may occur in the body; indeed, the discipline of the church, when properly administered, is an important means of edification. A church, in its most simple organization, is a body composed of a number of believers, who, having submitted themselves to the government of the Lord, solemnly agree and covenant with each other to live together in that capacity, and to meet together in one place, for the purpose of keeping the ordinances of the Lord's house, and to "edify one another;" but when this is done, its organization is still imperfect: to perfect which, there must be selected and ordained suitable persons to fill the offices of elders and deacons--a plurality of each class--for such, we learn, was the case in the primitive churches, and we have professed to take them for our models. The epistle to the church at Philippi, (a church more highly commended, perhaps, than any of the apostolic churches, and against which not a word of complaint is uttered,) was addressed to all the saints in Christ Jesus at that place, "with the Bishops and Deacons." Is it not, then, evident, that this church had a plurality of both these classes
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of officers!" We are, therefore, led irresistibly to the conclusion, that they were necessary; not only to the perfection of its organization as a church, but that they were necessary to the objects of that organization; the keeping the ordinances of the Lord's house and the edifying of the body; and hence it follows, that without such organization, a church is not capacitated scripturally to attend to these important duties, as we cannot suppose that the Lord would institute supernumerary offices or officers, or that he would perform or enjoin works of supererogation; and with the views advanced above, agrees the general teaching of the scriptures. We read, Acts xiv. 23: "And when they had ordained them Elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, in whom they had believed." And again, Tit. i. 5: "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain Elders in every city." And again, Heb. xiii. 24: "Salute all them that have the rule over you," &c. The organization, therefore, of no church, an apostle being judge, was complete, without a plurality of both Bishops and Deacons; and whatever was necessary to perfect the organization of an apostolic church, is equally necessary to that object in the present day. This we presume no one is prepared to gainsay. It is true, however, that in prophetic imagery, we read of a little horn that came up among ten horns, looking more stout than its fellows, in which "were eyes like the eyes of man," shadowing forth him that should "speak great words against the Most High," and "think to change times and laws;" but we, as a people, profess to have renounced the authority of this personage, and to have escaped out of his dominions. But we think it would be well for us carefully to examine our whereabouts, and see if we have, in fact, altogether emerged out of the smoke of the great city; and examine our practice, as well as our principles, that we may ascertain whether we may not be still catering to some of her traditions or customs; and also to watch the tendency of things, lest haply it may be found, that we are building again some of the things which were destroyed, and thus make ourselves transgressors.
We would here remark, that in our opinion, the great desideratum with us, at this time, is an efficient and devoted eldership in each congregation--one that fears God, and is willing to labor for the promotion of his cause, enjoying the confidence of the brotherhood, and which shall be honored by the congregation as the scriptures require; not only in being very highly esteemed in love for their work's sake, (for this is right and proper, and, indeed, is indis-
264. CHURCH EDIFICATION.
pensable to the success of their labors,) but shall also be sustained or supported while so employed, or receive, at least, a fair remuneration for the time devoted to the service of the church. But in order to the efficiency of the eldership, that democratic feeling so rife in many of our congregations, (that would subject every question to popular vote in the church, and thus make the elders mere cyphers, and their decisions nothing more than simple recommendations, to be approved or annulled at pleasure, by a bare majority of the congregation present, composed of men, women, and children, influenced, perhaps, by sympathy, or urged forward possibly by some factious leader,) must give place to a more healthy and scriptural view of things. The congregations must remember, that while it is said that the elders must not be "Lords over God's heritage," that the same book also says, "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account." These commands are not antagonistic, but are in perfect accordance with each other--both the rulers and the ruled being under law, which neither may violate with impunity.
Although these sentiments may not square so well with our notions of democratic equality, we should bear in mind that God has ordained this order of things in his church, and has commanded obedience and submission on the part of his people; and this should be sufficient to secure a hearty acquiescence on the part of every loyal subject of the King. And it does seem not a little strange to us, that some of our good brethren should be so much more jealous, and less confiding even than politicians; for they apprehend no danger to their liberties, so long as their rulers are chosen by, and are amenable to, themselves. And have we not all the safeguard that they have, and additional ones, besides? We select our own rulers and they are amenable to us, and, moreover, they must be selected from among our elderly and most approved brethren, for such only as have been first proved, are eligible to office. We would then ask, is not the idea that such men, under such circumstances, would arrogate to themselves unwarrantable power, worse than chimerical Such notions may answer as a "raw head and bloody bones" with which to alarm the timid, but it does seem to us that the day cannot be far distant when they must give place to more just and scriptural views, at least with every Bible student, and, indeed, with every one who desires to see peace, and order, and good government, maintained in our churches.
Much has been said and written, of late, by our brethren, upon the subject of educating young men for the ministry, and in reference to
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the support of our evangelists; and there seems to be a disposition manifested on the part of the brotherhood, to respond favorably to these calls upon their liberality; and this is all right, for the consecration of education and talent to the Lord, is an offering, we doubt not, well pleasing and acceptable in his sight; and that those who preach the gospel should live off the gospel, is one of the ordinations of Heaven, which none, we hope, are disposed to disregard. But while there has been so much said and written upon these subjects, it has been a matte' of some surprise to us, that so little has been said upon the subject of the best method of developing and improving the talents of the church, in order to its growth in knowledge and in grace, and as a means of qualifying persons to fill the elders' office; and upon the subject of remunerating them for their services, as this is as positively enjoined as that the evangelists shall be sustained; for it is said, 1 Tim. v. 17: "Let the elders that rule well, be counted worthy of double honor, especially they that labor in word and doctrine"--that is, in publicly teaching the word. Here it is declared, that the elders that rule well, though they may not labor in word and doctrine, shall be honored by the church; and this term carries with it the idea of a support, or proper remuneration, as is evident from the scriptures themselves. Our Saviour upbraided the Scribes and Pharisees for making void the law of God by their traditions, in releasing the child from the command to honor his father and mother, upon the condition that he would say to them, (Mat. xv. 5,) "It is a gift, (a thing devoted to God,) by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;" and again it is said, (1 Tim. v. 3,) "Honor widows that are widows indeed;" v. 16, "If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, (honor them,) and let not the church be charged, that they may relieve (honor) them that are widows indeed." It is, therefore, evident, that in the scripture use of the term, the word honor includes the idea of support or maintenance. We are at a loss, therefore, to account why it is that so much has been said by our scribes upon the subject of the education and support of evangelists, and so little in reference to the qualification and support of elders, when it must be manifest to all, as we think, that the great want of the churches, at this time, is a proper eldership; and that without that want is supplied, the labors of the evangelists will, in all probability, result in but little good, as it is perhaps more than problematic, whether large accessions to the churches, in the absence of the proper oversight and training, would, in the end, be of any advantage, either to the cause or to those proselyted. There are many instances that have
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fallen under our own observation, where we are satisfied that injury has resulted to both; as it is much easier to make a proselyte from the world than to reclaim an apostate, and the cause always suffers by every apostacy.
How, we would ask, then, is this evident want of the church--a scriptural eldership--to be supplied! for As cannot be that this cherished feature of the Reformation is to be abandoned. Can it be within the contemplation of any, to supply the churches with elders from our present corps of evangelists? This could not be done, for we have not-as many evangelists as churches; and if there were enough to supply every church with a plurality of elders, it is very far from being the case, that every man that has the power of oratory or declamation, or is gifted with speech, has the qualification to govern a church; and if such an eldership could be obtained, but few of our churches would be able to avail themselves of it, for the want of the means of sustaining those so employed. And if that order of things was to obtain, what would become of the world Who would go and preach the gospel in destitute portions of the country? Or can the idea be entertained by any, of merging all official authority in the churches into the hands of the evangelists-- those that may be itinerating, and those that may he selected and located as elders? We cannot suppose this, as it would be a state of things against which we, in times past, have not only loudly declaimed, but it would be clearly unscriptural; for then, as a matter of necessity, one evangelist, in many instances, would have to be bishop, at least de facto, to some three or four churches, thus perverting the order of heaven; for we have seen that, in the apostolic days, instead of one bishop presiding over several churches, each church had a plurality of these officers. There is, perhaps, one exception to this, in the case of Diotrephes, of whom it is said, "he loveth to have the preeminence;" "and who continues," adds the apostle, "prating against us with malicious words; and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbideth them that would, and casteth them out of the church."
If the state of things alluded to above should ever obtain in our churches, then would this Reformation itself need reforming. J, however, hope better things, though I thus speak. Though I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, I would nevertheless venture the opinion, that if the but too evident tendency of things to a retrograde movement, is not speedily arrested, the time is not far distant when language, much less equivocal, will express the true condition of things, than that embodied in the resolution offered by
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our venerable Bro. Scott, and adopted by the Kentucky State meeting, copied in our former number, in which it is said, "There is amongst the baptized a slow and doubtful progress in the literature of the Holy Oracles--perhaps, consequent decadence or falling away." If the scriptures are not more clearly adhered to, both in the organization of our-churches and in the manner of their edification, we opine that a decadence so palpable will be manifest, that no room will be left for doubt or uncertainty upon the subject.
Fearing that we have already taxed the patience of yourself and readers unreasonably, we will here close the present number. ANCIENT ORDER.
SEPTENARY INSTITUTIONS AND THE WESTMINSTER
REVIEW.
OUR attention has been called, from several sources, to the sceptical and learned, and very ingenious article, in the Westminster Review for October, 1850, titled "Septenary Institutions;" and it is no less from respect to the wishes of our brethren, than from a sense of duty to truth, that we undertake to review it. The article is long, and the subject important, and we can scarcely hope to treat them as they deserve, without trespassing too much, both upon our space and the patience of the general reader. Still, the occasion justifies us in claiming unusual license, and we shall prosecute the work, if not to the full extent we could wish, at least so far as to show the shallow sophistries and baseless assumptions of this most ingenious attack upon some of the most settled doctrines and customs of our holy religion. The writer of the article before us is manifestly one of those "free-thinkers," (?) who regard the word of God as only binding, or, indeed, inspired, so far as it may tally with reason, (and, of course, their particular reason,) but, in other respects, to be rejected, as the traditionary legends of a vague and fluctuating superstition, gathered, in its scattered fragments, from the drift of the unhistoric past, and thrown together as a sort of patch-work or calico-quilt, to cover and decorate the idols of Rabbinical or Pharisaical invention. He does not scruple, therefore, to point his weapons against any thing, whether in or out of the word of God, which stands in the way of his own particular opinions, or to reject, as a corruption or a superstition, every passage which goes to establish
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the doctrine which he opposes, or which tends to throw into the shade the clearer light of his own divine reason!
We might here, with great propriety, suggest a few thoughts which occur to us, with respect to the proper sphere of reason, in relation to things revealed, but we must defer them for another opportunity, with the single hint, that if reason is to decide, not the fact of revelation itself; not whether the thing has been revealed; not whether the Bible is the word of God; but whether that proved to be a revelation; whether the things contained in the book, proved to be the word of God, are, indeed, rational and true; that, if each one may, for himself, decide so much to be true as suits him, and reject, as false, so much as suits him, then not only may the whole Bible, like the Musselman's pig, be consumed by these rational objectors, but all revelation is rendered utterly useless, since its rational things could have been discovered without it, and its superrational may be, and should be, rejected, as superstitious or false. With this single caveat against this dangerous doctrine, of some popular writers of the present day, let us proceed to the main work before us.
The author of the article we are reviewing, sets out by stating that "The septenary division of time has been frequently urged by theological writers, as a proof of the divine origin of the Sabbath," and this is true; but instead of directing his blows against this position, he very artfully changes the issue, and, enlarging upon the argument which is really urged in favor of a Sabbath, changes it from the assertion that the septenary division of time was generally observed in the ancient Eastern world, which can be proved, to the broader position, that it was universally observed, which cannot be proved. He then proceeds to the very easy task of showing that several ancient nations had no such general custom; and having thus disproved the broad and universal position, which none of those whom he opposes ever made, and upon which their argument is not based, he would have his readers to conclude that he has completely refuted the whole argument drawn from the antiquity and general prevalence of this observance in the ancient Eastern world! Before assuming this position for his opponents, and proceeding to spend so much learning in its refutation, the author should have first clearly established the fact, that the advocates of a Sabbath observance do, indeed, base their argument upon it. But has he done so In the body of his article, it is simply asserted. He says, "It is known that the week of seven days is an institution of great antiquity; one familiar to many Eastern nations at the earliest period
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of which we have any record; but its universality, which is essential to the argument, has been too hastily assumed." In a note, however, to this statement, he adds, "The erroneous views which are still entertained on this subject, extend to our best works of reference. The Encyclopedia Britannica, which ought to have been better informed, observes in the article Sabbath,' that ' The septenary division of time has, from the earliest ages, been uniformly observed all over the Eastern world. The Israelites, the Assyrians, Egyptians, Indians, Arabians, and Persians, have always made use of a week consisting of seven days. Many attempts have been made to account for this uniformity, but a practice so general and prevalent could never have taken place, had not the septenary division of time been instituted from the beginning, and handed down by tradition.' This is the only authority cited in proof of the assertion, that the advocates of a Sabbath observance base their argument for its divine origin upon the universality of the custom; yet this quotation asserts no such proposition. It is true, that it speaks of the very general prevalence of this custom in the ancient Eastern world, as the ground of an inference as to its divine origin, but, at the same time, it is particular to mention the nations among whom it prevailed: "the Israelites, Assyrians, Egyptians, Indians, Arabians, and Persians." That it did prevail among these nations, the author does not deny. He says, "The people of India, Syria, Arabia, and probably Egypt, observed weeks of seven days;" and thus, with the exception of the Israelites, whose custom, in this particular, is of course admitted, he concedes the point, that the custom was as general as the Encyclopedia Britannica affirms it to have been, save that he does not mention Persia, concerning whose custom, in this respect, there is but little historically certain.
NOT only has the author assigned this false position to the Encyclopedia Britannica, but he says that "the erroneous views still entertained on this subject extend to our best works of reference." But is this correct? Has it not, on the contrary, been generally conceded, that some ancient nations did not observe weeks of seven days, as a national custom, at least, that we have no positive evidence of the fact I We know that some very ancient writers went to extremes on this subject, but their errors have been as freely and fully admitted and exposed by "theological writers" as by sceptics. Aristobulus, an Alexandrian Jew, who lived about 145 years before Christ, and Clemens Alexandrinus, who lived and wrote about the beginning of the third century, have both contributed to corrupt the Bible doctrine on several points; and in their zeal to harmonize
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 23*
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Grecian philosophy, the one with the principles of the Jewish religion, and the other with the doctrines of Christianity, they took, unquestionably, very unwarrantable liberties with the facts, both of history and philosophy, and their authority has, in some instances, been unguardedly, and, perhaps, ignorantly, relied upon, in cases where it was deserving of no credit; but "theological writers" have done as much to detect these errors, and to expose them, as have the captious objectors to the truth of revelation. This it would be easy to show, from "our best works of reference." Playfair, in his great work on Chronology, published in Edinburgh, 1784, says, "Gouget observes, that the ancient Greeks were almost the only people who were unacquainted with it, (the week.) They divided the month of thirty days into three times ten, and reckoned the days according to this division; so that the 15th day of the month was called the second fifth, i. e. the fifth day of the second tenth; the 24th day was called the third fourth, i. e. the fourth day of the third tenth, &c. This method was practised in the days of Hesiod. Several ages elapsed before the Greeks received the week from the Egyptians, (Herod. 1. ii. c. 82, Dio Cassius, 1. xxxvii.) A few more nations were ignorant of this division of time. The Khataians, or inhabitants of Northern China, divided the year into six parts, or months, every one of which consisted of sixty days. They had also a cycle of fifteen days, which they used as their week, (Herbelot Bibl. Orient. V. Giou and Haftak.) The ancient Persians had no week, but had a particular name for every day of the month, (Epochae Celeb. Ulugh Beigi, p. 102.) When the religion of Mohamed was established among them, they reckoned the days of the week after the manner of the Arabs, which corresponds to that of the Hebrews. The Mexicans computed time by a cycle of thirteen days, and knew no other week. These, and a few more exceptions notwithstanding, the week of seven days was generally adopted. The Chaldeans, Assyrians, and almost all the oriental nations, were acquainted with it." I might quote similar concessions from other standard work, of reference, but it is unnecessary. Suffice it to say, that the position which the Westminster Review opposes, is not that upon which the advocates of a Sabbath observance base the argument, that it is a divine and primeval institution.
Still, although it is not asserted by them that this custom was universal among the ancients, it is claimed by the author that it is essential to the argument, that its universality be established. The truth of this general declaration we cannot well see. It is equivalent to saying, that no institution, of divine appointment, ever ex-
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isted among a people that has not been, and must not of necessity be, perpetuated forever, and universally among their descendants. This is surely claiming for man a degree of reverence for the ordinances of the Lord, which it would be hard to show has ever characterized his rebellious and backsliding spirit. It were easy to adduce examples to the contrary, from the history of the Jews even, notwithstanding they were the subjects of the direct government of God, and, therefore, under the most favorable circumstances for a steadfast adherence to every divine law. They were not, as other nations, left to the feeble, and far off, and very uncertain voice of tradition, but were favored with frequent and most impressive admonitions against any departure from, or corruption of, the laws and institutions of the Lord. So that it was only from the most rebellious wilfulness that they could have turned away, yet we find them often forgetful and disobedient, neglecting the things which were commanded, and indulging in habits and observances which were not only forbidden, but with which were associated denunciations and threatnings the most awful and dire, which human language could depict. With respect to this very institution of the Sabbath, it appears they were frequently forgetful, and it is evident they would have abandoned it altogether, on several occasions, had it not been for the most frequent and explicit, as well as authoritative, reiteration of the command to keep it holy, by God himself.
Is it to be marveled at, then, that among all the nomad and idolatrous tribes into which the human family were divided after the confusion of tongues, we should, after the lapse of many centuries, find all traces of this institution lost among a few nations, whose early history is involved in inextricable mystery, and of whose primitive customs we have no record, not even a tradition, that is not incredibly fabulous or grossly false. Would it not rather be the most natural conclusion to which a candid reasoner could come, that the same spirit of wickedness which projected and undertook the building of the Tower of Babel, would lead to a total disregard, on the part of some, at least, of every divine institution; and that when the isles of the sea (Greece) were inhabited by the wandering and scattered descendants of the sons of Javan, they should, in the idolatrous worship which they there established, neglect and despise an institution which rested simply on the command of Him whose authority they refused, and under whose severe displeasure they were scattered from their kindred races. So far from it being necessary to the argument, that the custom should have been universal, does it not rather appear that its absolute universality would be an argu-
272 SEPTENARY INSTITUTIONS.
ment against it, since it is more reasonable to suppose, that amidst the prevalent spirit of rebellion and disobedience which led to the confusion of tongues, some among the scattered rebels would totally disregard this institution, which, while it commemorated a great fact, yet rested for its authority upon the simple command of Jehovah, than that all, without a single exception, should have continued to "remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy?" That the Greeks, then, and the Romans, and a few other nations, who forgot the only true God, should also have abandoned this institution, is to me, indeed, no matter of wonder, much less of serious objection, against a practice which, while it claims to be sanctioned as divine, by the general custom of ancient eastern nations, rests immovably upon other, and totally distinct foundations, for its claims upon our observance. We conclude, therefore, that it is not only untrue to say that the advocates of a Sabbath observance base their argument upon the assertion of its universality among the ancients, but that it is also a logical error to affirm, that the universality of the custom is essential to the argument; and this we think our author himself felt, for after showing exceptions to the universality of the rule, he has still found it necessary to expend much scientific learning in attempting to account for the origin of the custom and its general prevalence.*
There is, unquestionably, an argument in the general prevalence of a custom among the ancient nations of the earth, inclining us to believe that it had a common origin; and when that custom comes to us across the lapse of many centuries, observed in all time, and
*Whilst we are free to admit that the universality of this custom cannot be proved, we are not satisfied that the author has proved that it did not exist, even in Greece and Rome. That it did not form a part of their national civil calender, we will concede; yet the learned Grotius has shown it to be more than probable that traces of it remained among almost all the nations of antiquity. Hesiod says, Eldomon ieVov hmaV--"The seventh day is holy." Homer says, Eldomata d hpeita cathlntev ieVon hmaV--"Then came the seventh day, which is sacred or holy." Callimachus gives it the same title. Theophilus, of Antioch, speaking of it, says, "The day which all mankind celebrate." Porphory says, "The Phoenicians consecrate one day in seven as holy." Linus says, "The seventh day is given to schoolboys, as a holy- day." Eusebius says, "Almost all philosophers and poets acknowledge the seventh day as holy." Clemens Alexandrinus says, "The Greeks, as well as the Hebrews, observe the seventh day as holy." Josephus says, "No city of Greeks or Barbarians can be found, which does not acknowledge a seventh-day's rest from labor." Philo says, "The seventh day is a festival to every nation." Tibullus says, "The seventh day, which is kept holy by the Jews, is also a festival of the Roman women," &c., &c. With such records as these before us, we think it modest to pause a little before we assert, with absolute confidence, that these people did not observe this custom!
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by almost all nations, and declared, in the oldest records in the world, to have been of divine origin, we may well demand of him who would strive to overthrow our faith in this ancient belief, some satisfactory solution of its rise and general introduction and sanctity among the nations of the earth. Our author, we repeat, has felt the force of this argument, and, like a valiant and zealous enemy of all superstition, he hath set himself for its overthrow.
Let us consider his explanation. It is borrowed from the moon; not primarily, however, for, as the moon herself gives but a borrowed light, so this explanation is but a reflexion of suggestions to be found in the works of sceptics long since dead. But though we have frequently met with it, we do not remember ever to have seen it analyzed and tested upon scientific principles. It may be that our scientific writers have not thought it worthy of an exposure. That this is the author's explanation of this origin of this division of time, is most distinctly stated. Speaking of the Chinese, he says, "Chinese days are considered fortunate or unfortunate, &c.; but the constellation falling upon our Sundays [of which there were four in a year] marks no religious or other Sabbath usages, that are not common to every other four of the series.* The divisibility, however, of the sidereal path of the moon into four equal periods of seven days, shows the origin of septenary observances among other nations." And again, "That the hebdomadal week originated in the lunar festivals, there can be no doubt." It is here affirmed most distinctly, 1st. That the sidereal month, divided by four, gave rise to the division of weeks; 2d. That weeks "originated in the lunar festivals." It is further stated, with the air of historical authority, too, though there is not a word of history on record for it, that "new moon days, and full moon days, were days on which the Sabae pre-sided, and were, therefore, Saba, or Sabbath days; and when the Sabae began to assemble at the intermediate periods marked by the horned moon, those periods became Sabbath periods, or weeks."
To show the confusion and recklessness of this explanation, the astronomical reader need only be reminded of the difference between the sidereal (lunar) month, (the interval between two successive conjunctions of the moon with the same star,) which is twenty-seven days, seven hours, forty-three minutes, and the synodic (lunar) month, (the interval between successive conjunctions or oppositions of the moon with the sun,) which is twenty-nine days, twelve hours,
*There were but twenty-eight of these lunar constellations in a year, according to the Chinese astronomy, and, of course, only four of them could fall on Sundays.
274 SEPTENARY INSTITUTIONS.
forty-four minutes. As the moon receives her light from the sun, her position relatively to that luminary and the earth, gives rise to her phases, and the synodic month of twenty-nine days, twelve hours, forty-four minutes, must be the month regulating the recurrence of new and full moons. The origin of the division of time into weeks, is thus referred, by this very learned writer, to two distinct periods of time, differing very nearly two days and a fourth in one month, and neither of which divides by seven without a remainder, which, in a few revolutions, would have completely deranged the whole system.
Let us look a little deeper into this cunning artifice, by which we are to be deluded from our faith in a Sabbath. Let us try the first hypothesis, that the divisibility of the sidereal (lunar) month into four periods, of seven days each, gave rise to the division of time into weeks. The sidereal (lunar) month was not twenty-eight days; it lacked sixteen and a quarter hours of it. Now, suppose the Saba; had noted the conjunction of a new moon with a particular star, at its first appearance on Monday evening, just after sunset. If the sidereal month were twenty-eight days, the next conjunction would have occurred on the same evening, and at the same hour; but no, it occurs sixteen and a quarter hours sooner: and hence, supposing his first observation to have been made at six o'clock, and the day to have commenced in the evening, as it anciently did, this conjunction would have occurred in the morning of Sunday, four and a quarter hours before sunrise.* The second conjunction would lave fallen back sixteen and a quarter hours more, and would have occurred on Saturday, about two and a half hours before our noon, or nine and a half o'clock A. M., (and so on through the whole round of days.) Let us suppose that these observations were made with the view of finding out some sub-division of the sidereal month, by which the religious festivals could be regulated so as to have them to commence and recur regularly with the conjunction of the moon with the star. Let the reader remember that we are trying an hypothesis, not an historical fact; but an hypothesis by which the origin of weeks of seven days is accounted for, upon the principle that the sidereal month is divisible by seven. In order to test the probability of this hypothesis, we must imagine ourselves in the place of the Saba. We must imagine ourselves without any number of days fixed upon as our divisor, but, with the knowledge that the sidereal
*We need not advise the reader, that in writing for the popular mind, we do not, in cases taken for the sake of illustration simply, enter into exact computations, or stop to express ourselves in the terms of ancient chronology.
SEPTENARY INSTITUTIONS. 275
month is twenty-seven days seven hours, searching, for the first time, for the numbers that will most nearly divide this period without a remainder. Need we say, that if the principle of divisibility were the only determining influence, that the merest tyro in arithmetic would have selected three and nine, instead of four and seven; as the numbers by which the number of weeks, and the days in each week, should be determined! Is it not evident, then, that this could not have been the origin of septenary divisions of time. This explanation appears unsatisfactory, not only from the fact that the sidereal lunar month is not as nearly divisible by seven as by nine; but also, from the consideration that there is no fixed connection between the visible changes of the moon and her sidereal period, that could be taken as the ground of such a division; and if we suppose, as our learned author does, that their lunar changes were the occasions of these periodical observances, is it not absurd to say, that the period of a sidereal month, which had no visible or chronological connection with these changes whatever, was, nevertheless, taken as the period for their determination! May we not say of the learned author, as he has said of the Encyclopedia Britannica "He ought to have been better informed" than to have jumbled together explanations so heterogenious, as the two he has given!
Discarding, then, as not only unsatisfactory, but upon every principle of nature and of reason, as absolutely absurd, the: first hypothesis, let us look a little into the second. But do not let me, by treating the author's explanations as two hypotheses, mislead the reader into the impression that he has himself thus propounded them. By no means. He gives them as in fact one and the same, without appearing to see the difference, or the incongruity of the two methods, as I have shown them to be. It ought to be noted, that the sidereal (lunar) month had nothing to do with the practical relations of ancient life, and never was employed in connection with the religious ceremonies of the people, and, indeed, could not have been particularly noted till astronomy had advanced to some degree of refinement. On these accounts, it is still further evident, that it could not have been the origin of the septenary division of time. The lunar festivals, however, appear to have been of very ancient origin, and a bold assertion that they gave rise to the hebdomadal arrangement, is calculated, at first hearing, to produce some little confidence, especially with those who are uninformed with respect to these ancient customs. To give our refutation of this more plausible hypothesis the greater prominence, we shall affirm, without any qualification what ever, that the lunar festivals never had, and in the very nature of
276 SEPTENARY INSTITUTIONS.
things could not have, any connection with the septenary division of time. It was, and is astronomically and arithmetically impossible; as astronomically impossible as to change the periods of the moon's phases, and as arithmetically impossible as to divide 29d. 12h. 44m. into 4 periods of 7 days each without a remainder! Let us consider the case for a moment, my respected reader, and if you have read the learned article in the Westminster Review, and felt your senses bewildered, by the ugly looking symbols of eastern languages, and your faith confused, amidst the rubbish of Egyptian or Indian astrology, come along with me into the open moonlight, and let us look upon her face, the same face that the Pharaoh's saw, that Moses saw, that shone upon our first parents in the garden of Eden. Let us ask her if she gave to religion, to the priest, the astronomer, or the astrologer, the division of weeks. If we watch her patiently, she will tell us no; she has no concern with days nor weeks; she rises and sets upon all hours, and changes upon all days. The period of her revolution is 29d. 12h. 44m., and if she begins her course anew on Monday this month, she must, of necessity, begin it Tuesday the next month, on Thursday the month after, &c. Changing her day of new moon, with each revolution, by a regress of one day and a half, and, of course, fluctuating in all her other phases by the same rate. If the Sabbath day, then, was every seventh day, is it not evident that it could not have been the period of the lunar festivals, since, even admitting there were four of these every synodic month, they could not have occurred at intervals of seven days, or on these Sabbath days, even for a single revolution, without an error of one whole day and a half! It is worse than fanciful, it is ignorant, or wicked, to assign such a cause as this for the origin of the hebdomadal division of weeks.
But it is conjectured that these errors were corrected by reckoning the weeks, "not as seven days of precisely 24 hours each, but seven days of more or less sunlight." But this does not help the matter, for, at the end. of the first revolution, supposing it to have commenced with the beginning of Monday at sunset, we should have the new moon appearing during no part of Monday, neither in the daylight nor the darkness--but on Tuesday morning about sunrise, and at the end of the second month, it would leap one entire day (Wednesday) and appear shortly after sunset, in the beginning of Thursday! Thus, in the short period of two revolutions, the moon-day, or Monday, as determined by new moon, would become Thursday as determined by weeks! Yet, to make it answer the lunar festivals, Monday of the week and moon-day, or the day of new moon, must
BLESSEDNESS OF AFFLICTION. 277
be kept synchronous, indentical in monthly recurrence. This, even allowing the conjecture of our author, which is purely fanciful, could not be done for a single month, and the error would be constantly cumulative. Is it not singular, that one who has undertaken so unwelcome a task as to shake our confidence in the long cherished articles of our faith, should have given himself so much trouble to support a conjecture, which is without the shadow of foundation in history, which is unphilosophic in its nature, and which, when conceded in its fullest latitude, does not answer the purpose for which it is employed! Such are the lame and miserable shifts to which they are compelled to resort, who would attack the wisdom and the truth of the sacred writings! They are unworthy of a clear head, or an educated mind; and they can only emanate from a bad heart, a heart unreconciled to the revealed will of Jehovah, and in search of excuses for its willful rejection of that which addresses itself, with convincing potency, to our moral nature not only as true but worthy of all acceptation.
But we must, for the present, draw our remarks, on this subject, to a close. We have not, however, done with it, but will resume our comments in another number. W. K. P.
THE BLESSEDNESS OF AFFLICTION AND THE HOPE
OF THE MOURNER.
"Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy word." Ps. cxix. 67. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 1 Peter, i. 3.
Brother Campbell: Will you permit me to submit to you, and the readers of the Harbinger, a few thoughts which have been pressed upon me by the circumstances which surround me. I have been made to pass through a most severe trial, this fall, in the death of my companion and only child, a son of nine months old--a notice of whose death I should have sent you, had I not felt that my sorrow was too much my own--too sacred to be shared with others. Seeing that all are partakers of the afflictions to which our present sinful state subjects us, me may, also share in common the lesson they teach. One of the most precious promises of our holy religion is,
"That all things shall be made to work together for good, to those who love God; to them who are the called, according to his purpose." It is, truly, a most joyous privilege to feel that we are prepared to make even the afflictions of this changeful life, which would otherwise be more than we are "able to bear," contribute to our own good. Such, truly, will be
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278 BLESSEDNESS OF AFFLICTION.
the case when, as they did David, they make us to "keep thy word." It is, then, that we can say, with Paul, that though "no affliction, for the present, is joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them who are exercised thereby.', Before we can feel how "frail we are," or truly appreciate the world, its vanity and emptiness, it is necessary that we take a few lessons in this high school of experience. Not until we have tasted of its bitter fruits are we prepared to realize how hateful a thing is sin; how entirely it embitters the cup of earthly bliss, turning all its pure waters into gaul and wormwood.
To the christian truly is it good to be afflicted. It softens his spirit, calms his passions, subdues his soul, and gives to him a cheerful resignation to the ways of providence. With David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, lie can say: "Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou bats caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my afflictions; for thy word bath quickened me. Thou art my portion, O Lord: I have said that I would keep thy word: I have entreated thy favor with my whole heart: be merciful, unto me, according to thy word. I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments: I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are righteous, and that thou in faithfulness host afflicted me. Let, I pray thee, thy merciful kindness be for my comfort: according to thy word, unto thy servant. Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live: for thy law is my delight. Unless thy law had been my delight, I should then have perished in my afflictions- I will never forget thy precepts: fur with them thou host quickened me. I am thine: save me, for I have sought thy precepts."
But "tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience. and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost which was given unto us," so that the "blessedness of affliction and the hope of the mourner'` are inseperably united, and we are permitted to look through the means to the end, to Him who has given us "strong consolation" and "everlasting comfort," which is as an anchor to the soul, both sure end steadfast." Without the hope of the gospel, the sorrows of this life would be altogether insufferable; but now we are able to look beyond the "cross to the crow and the pain of separation is alleviated by the blissful anticipation of re-union
"The land where no sorrow nor sadness
Can dim, for a moment, the light of the skies;
The land, where the deep tones of gladness
Ne'er melt into tears, nor are echoed in sighs;
Where music, sweet music, forever is flowing,
And flowers, ever springing, waft fragrance around;
And zephyr's soft wings, (for no rough winds are blowing,
Are laden with sweets from the balm breathing ground;
Where the weary repose all their troubles at rest,
'Tis the Canaan above, 'tis the land of the blest."
Through faith in Christ death is spoiled of its sting, and the grave of its victory. Blessed be his holy name forever. Amen. Yours, in the bonds of affliction, C. M'DOUGALL-
MT. Roca, Pa., December 4th, 1850.
THE MILLENNIAL HARBINGER. 279
CLAIMS OF THE MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.
Pears, Tenn., February 5, 1851.
BROTHER CAMPBELL-Dear Sir: Since I discontinued the publication of the "Bible Advocate," in St. Louis, and returned to this place, I have not had the pleasure of reading the "Harbinger" but very little, there being but two copies taken at this office. For some time I had been thinking of getting up a small club, and sending on for it, but still neglected; and a short time since, I was more fully impressed with the propriety of so doing, by an expression of a very intelligent Baptist preacher, of Kentucky, who visited this place. In conversation with him, he remarked that he was taking fourteen papers, and that the Harbinger was worth the whole of them; for, said be "whenever I open the Harbinger, I know there is something worth reading." I thought if those who are not exactly "of us," could speak in such high terms of the Harbinger, surely our own brethren ought to take an interest in extending its circulation.
I turned out, and, in a short time, obtained forty subscribers, all of this county, and thirty-two at this post office, for whom I now enclose you the money-$50. The terms upon which you now propose the Harbinger to clubs, being so very low, certainly many may be induced to take it. From the little effort which I have made, I am well convinced that your subscription list could be greatly increased by a proper effort on the part of the brethren. Let some efficient brother ill each congregation or neighborhood, take it upon himself to make a personal application to those whom he might think could be induced to take it, and no doubt your list could be swelled to three, five, or ten times its present number; and by this means, incalculable good be effected.
I am aware there are some who oppose religious periodicals, but I must think it is because they have not weighed the matter well; for there is no doubt (with me, at least,) but they do much good, when properly conducted. As one proof of this, I will give you an incident which occurred a short time since. A gentleman living in an adjoining county, who had been trained in the school of Methodism--his father being a class-leader, and he being quite an efficient member himself for some several years-- like thousands of others, was ignorant of our teaching; and from the misrepresentations of our views and doctrine, was much prejudiced. Some eight or ten years since, he heard three discourses (and the only ones he had ever heard) from our brethren--one from Father Mulky, and the other two from Bro. Gist; both of whom have long since gone to the "land of rest." These discourses, at the time, made rather a favorable impression on his mind, yet he continued a warm and zealous Methodist. Sometime after this, a number of the "Bible Advocate" fell into his hands, containing an article or two which 'particularly arrested his attention: "The Mourner's Bench and Baptism;" "Misconception and Misrepresentation of our Religious Views," by Bro. Howard. This put him to reflecting and
280 THE MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.
investigating. Sometime after this he got hold of "Sin and its Cure," by Bro. Raines; and after that, a number of the "Proclamation," containing an article on the design of baptism, by Bro. Hall. He commenced talking to his brethren upon these important matters, but they opposed the doctrine violently. But the more they opposed, the more he investigated, and the more he became confirmed in the truth for which we contend. Meantime, he had a little child, some twelve months of age, who had not been sprinkled. He reproached himself for the neglect of this duty, as he then regarded it, and commenced an examination of the scriptures in reference to the importance of the institution. Many queries, pro and con, suggested themselves to him, not only in reference to his child, but to himself also, he having been sprinkled in infancy, as he was told.
The result of his examinations was, that he became satisfied in regard to the safety of his child, and much dissatisfied in regard to his own; that sprinkling was unauthorized by the word of God, and that nothing short of immersion was baptism. He, therefore, determined to obey the Lord in this institution; and having learned that there was a congregation of disciples in this place, some sixteen miles distant, he set out, and reached here Lord's day evening; but it had rained so incessantly that day, we had not met at church. He tarried all night, and the next day was buried with his Lord in baptism, and the day following returned home, rejoicing in the truth which had made him free.
His quondam brethren seem to look upon him with great distrust. He has endeavored to get the privilege of a house for our brethren to preach in, but none is granted. They say they have had difficulties enough in that neighborhood, and don't wish to be disturbed any more. Our brethren intend, however, when the weather will justify speaking under an arbor, or in a grove, to give the citizens of that vicinity an opportunity of hearing the gospel one time, at least.
Bro. Campbell, it would afford us great pleasure for you to give us a call, in some of your tours. This you might easily do, as it is but twenty miles from the Tennessee river, and sixty or seventy from the Ohio and Mississippi, and stages running to the Tennesse and Mississippi rivers. Fraternally yours, S. B. ADEN.
WE publicly acknowledge the receipt of this communication and its contents, with our thanks to Bro. Aden for his very successful efforts to increase our usefulness, by giving us immediate access to so many persons, and through them, doubtless, to many others. In this way, a benevolent and zealous brother may not only immediately, but for a long time to come, be a benefactor to many. We must add our conviction, that very many brethren could do as much as Bro. Aden has done, if they would as earnestly, as industriously, and as perseveringly make the effort.
THE MILLENNIAL HARBINGER. 281
No periodical that comes to our office, occupies less space in urging its claims upon the public than the Harbinger. We have, however, an innate aversion to be frequently pressing the matter upon the attention of our readers. Still, we cannot but think that it is due to the cause we plead, that the Harbinger should have double, or treble, its present number of readers, and that probably we should be a little more neighbor-like in calling upon its friends to open for it and the cause a much wider door of access to the religious and thinking public. The monthly bills of fare which it exhibits, cost more thinking, more labor, more research, than most of its readers and patrons imagine. It is easy to fill pages, with even interesting matter, from the numerous ephemeral sources of intelligence with which our country and the age abounds. But we do not calculate so much upon pages, square feet, or square yards, as upon the materials furnished, as respects intrinsic value and importance. But, perhaps, our readers in general need no information on this subject, and we shall not dwell upon a topic that might, in all probability, be easily misconstrued. Sufficient to say, that sixty such pages per month as we furnish, we cannot but think, ought to be read by many more thousands than those whose names are now, and many of them long have been, upon our lists.
We want, at least, some five thousand new readers, to enable us to make the Harbinger as interesting and as profitable to our community as we could wish, and as we think we have the power to make it. To sustain it at its present club rates, we require a larger subscription, and a more punctual and prompt payment, than we have heretofore received. But, as this is one of our most unpopular themes, we will not dwell upon it, but leave it to the discretion of our brethren, with the example of Bro. Aden, and a few more such zealous and indefatigable brethren, whom we may yet name, who have, during the present year, been inspired with a large portion of his spirit.
It will afford pleasure to the readers of the Harbinger, to the advocates of the great cause of Reformation, as it does to myself, to state, that Bro. Aden is not the only indefatigable agent in giving wings to the Harbinger. We could make out a considerable list of such enterprising and successful agents. Amongst these we should name Bro. Milton Short, of Indiana, who has sent from sixty to seventy new subscribers this year; Absalom Rice, of Missouri, for many years a very active and attentive agent, has this year greatly increased his energies; of the same State, Bros. Dr. Morton, Prince L. Hudgins, and Mason Summers; of Kentucky, Bro. Dr. Adams, of
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282 PROVIDENCE DEFEATING PAPAL DESIGNS.
North Middleton; of Ohio, Bro. Isaac Errett, Bro. Green, and Bro, E. H. Hawley, of Bedford; of Michigan, Bro. R. Hawley, of Detroit; and, passing into Canada, Brethren James Black and W. A, Stephens, have greatly increased our readers in their respective vicinities. I cannot name the very many brethren who have sent us their clubs of sixteen and twenty, and more. We can only say to them all, that we will endeavor to make the Harbinger still more useful and interesting, and spare no labor, on our part, that they may never have cause to regret their exertions in this work of faith and labor of love. A. C,
PROVIDENCE DEFEATING PAPAL DESIGNS.
How came this to be a Protestant nation? A few historical reminiscenses will answer this question, and illustrate the wonder. working providence of God in respect to our national origin.
In 1493, a year after the discovery of the continent, the Pope granted to the crown of Spain, the whole of North America! Between 1510 and 1340, Spain fitted rut our different expeditions for settling the country and establishing missions of the Roman Church. They all proved disastrous. The last and most important was under Hernando de Soto. He was a nobleman of distinction, the companion of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. With a company of 900 men, splendidly equipped, he landed in Florida in 1539, and penetrated the wilderness as far as the present western boundary of Arkansas. He was probably the first x‘ bite man who saw the Mississippi river, and the first. who was buried beneath its turbid waters. Most of his splendid escort perished by Indian cruelties or by disease. All subsequent attempts of Spain to colonize and Romanize her transatlantic possessions met a like rate. God had kept this continent through ten centuries of Papal usurpation in Europe, for other purposes than to make it over to the "Man of sin" at last.
Early in the seventeenth century, both France and England commenced colonies in the north and east. The French claimed possession of the north-west as a part of Canada Champlain conducted a French colony up the St. Lawrence, and founded Quebec and Montreal. He employed Jesuit priests to conciliate and convert the Indian tribes; and, in 1634, they had penetrated the wilderness as far as the straits of St. Mary and the southern shore of lake Superior. "Not a river was entered," says Bancroft, "not a cape was turned, but a Jesuit led the way." This enterprising order gave whatever of strength the French colonies possessed. and extended their influence westward to the Mississippi. But Providence was stronger than the emissaries of Rome, and hemmed them in by Indian hostility and Dutch and English jealousy, so as to prevent their incursion below the lakes.
PROVIDENCE DEFEATING PAPAL DESIGNS. 283
In 1673, Marquette, the head of the mission at Mackinaw, and Joliet, a Quebec trader, sought the Mississippi river, of which the Indians had informed them; and which they supposed to empty into the Pacific, furnishing a new route to China- They passed up the Fox river and down the Wisconsin to the Mississippi, and down that river 1,100 miles to the mouth of the Arkansas, and returned by the Illinois and lake Michigan. Canada was filled with rejoicing over the alleged new-found route to China.
In 1678, La. Salle explored for the mouth of the Mississippi, reached the gulf of Mexico, and took formal possession of the country, which he named Louisiana, in honor of his king. France and the Papacy thus entered the valley of the Mississippi hand in hand. In 1684, La Salle again sought the mouth of the Mississippi by sea, at the head of a fleet of four ships, with a full compliment of soldiers and priests; but the attempt at colonization was providentially defeated. They lost their reckoning, one ship was wrecked, and their landing was effected at Matagorda bay, in Texas. After a year's delay and hardships, La Salle started with twenty men through the forests, to find the lost river. He was killed by one of his own men, and this formidable enterprise to establish Popery on the Mississippi name to naught.
Meanwhile, God was preparing a chosen people in England, by the joint baptism of suffering and of the Holy Spirit, to lay on this continent the foundations of a new empire of freemen. In 1608, the colony in Virginia was commenced, and 1620, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. With the rise and progress of these colonies, every American is, or should be familiar- We need not repeat the story. At last the sifted wheat of the Old World found congenial soil- It was as "the handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shakes like Lebanon "
As the English colonial power increased, France strengthened her alliances and defences. A chain of forts was stretched down from Canada into the Mississippi valley. A merciless war raged along the Alleghenies between the French and the Indian tribes on the one side, and England and the colonies on the other, until, in 1763, Providence, by a single battle on the plains of Abraham, at Quebec, decided the contest by giving. the Canadas to England, and thus placing the whole country, except Louisiana and Florida, under the protection of the great Protestant power of Christendom. At the close of the revolutionary war, the United States entered by treaty into the territorial rights of England, excepting as to the Canadas and Nova Scotia.
In 1803, the United States purchased of France, for $15,000,000, the vast territory of "Louisiana," extending from the Mississippi to the Rocky mountains, and from the gull to the lakes. Thus ended the dominion of France in North America. The valley was thus opened to the ocean, and the subsequent introduction of steam navagation promoted its rapid settlement and unrivaled development.
In 1821, Spain ceded Florida to the United States for $5,000,000, and Papal dominion in America ceased--we hope forever.
It is, perhaps, useless to speculate on the consequences, had this country been left to the control of Spanish or French Papal policy.
284 OUR MISSIONARY.
Unhappily, there are illustrations, in the condition of the habitants of Canada and the hombres of Mexico, of the blighting influence of priestly rule, from which Providence has delivered us; and the contrast in the political character and position of these states and the neighbouring provinces and republics is such as to impress the world.
How wonderful are these providences! How marked for their design! How glorious their issues! Read in such a light, a succession of wars, treaties, and purchases, extending through a period of three centuries, from the first discoveries of Spain, France, and England, is seen to have been directed by the divine hand, to rescue this country from the dominion of the Papal Church, that it might be intrusted, under God, to the guardianship of a great, free, Protestant nation. Such a trust can never be rightly discharged without the widest, freest employment of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in all the forms in which saving truth may be diffused. Thus alone can Papal despotism, infidel socialism, political demagoguism, and ignorant indifferentism be defeated or dispelled, and our free institutions be perpetuated.--American Messenger.
OUR MISSIONARY.
THE following is an extract of a letter from our beloved Bro. Barclay. The letter was addressed to Bro. Tyler, of Scottsville, who has kindly furnished us with a portion of it for publication. Although it was not intended for publication, we feel constrained to lay it before the brethren, knowing, as we do, their anxiety to hear from those, for whose safe deliverance from the storm and tempest they have daily petitioned the throne of grace.-- Christian Intelligencer, Scottsville, Va.
VALETTA, (Island of Malta,) January 13, 1851.
My Ever Dear Brother: We arrived here three days ago--" the Lord being merciful to us;" and understanding that there is a vessel in port which will sail in the morning for Boston, I have returned to my lodgings in great haste, to scribble a few lines to you and several others, late as it is. I have despatched a few letters by the steamer that sailed yesterday, but had to pay as much as sixty-seven cents on some of them. By the present private opportunity, however, my portion of the postage will be only two cents, and yours five or ten cents. But fearful lest I shall not be able to reach the vessel before she is under sail, I shall not be able to give a quarter of a dime's worth of epistolary matter.
It would delight you to see how healthy and flourishing we all appear, after encountering so many trials and perils of the deep. We experienced another dreadful storm after leaving Falmouth, in which our ship suffered extensive, though, as the event has proved, not very serious injuries, which are now being repaired. *
OUR MISSIONARY. 285
We took Paul's plan, and went ashore to "refresh ourselves" for a few days, but will return to the ship in a day or two. It may yet be eight or ten days before we set sail. We trust in about two weeks thereafter, by the blessing of the Lord, to set foot on the land of the Pharaoh's.
I have never yet visited any place better worth seeing than this city. There is no part of London, or any city in the United States, that will at all compare with it in point of architectural adornment or picturesque beauty. It is, indeed, a city of palaces. St. John's Church exceeds any thing I have ever heard or read of. Its exquisite statuary and paintings, elaborate sculptures, and Mosaic work, rich gilding and tapestry, but, above all, the absurd and grotesque mummery and foolery of its priests, surpass all conception, and can scarcely be credited, even on ocular demonstration. There are a great many curiosities on the island, (amongst which is a subterranean necropolis, or city of the dead, extending more than eight miles under the ground!) But I have not time to mention them by name, much less describe them. Such a medley of languages as one hears, in this Babel of a place, is really astonishing. Arabic, Italian, French, Greek, Turkish, Moorish, and what not! My spirit is stirred within me, when I see its inhabitants so given to idolatry, for it is one of the strong holds of Romanism, and they often consecrate a wafer god and fall prostrate before it, or, rather, bow down before it! I tried to converse with a priest this evening. in Latin; but he was even too ignorant to speak in the vernacular of his own church! They profess to be the true disciples of Paul, and verily believe that all their forefathers were converted by him in one night. I have not yet visited St. Paul's bay, as they call the inlet where tradition reports that the apostle was shipwrecked; but we sailed close enough to it, to perceive that it answers all the indications required by Luke's narrative of that event; and unlike most Romish traditions, seems incapable of disproof, though there are several other places fulfilling equally as well all the required indications.
We had on our table to-day tomatoes, green peas, radishes, winter melons, (a luscious kind of musk melon,) strung figs, fresh oranges at three pence per dozen. * * Such a delightful climate I never felt. Persons are walking about every day with umbrellas over their heads, to protect them from the heat of the sun! We have just returned from Floriana, just outside of the fortifications, where we saw flowers and fruits in abundance. * * *
Oh, when shall the light of truth irradiate this benighted isle!
But I am forgetting that I have several other letters yet to write to-night. Love to all the brethren, especially to Bro. Harris and his good lady, whose highly appreciated contributions to the cause of missions, I believe I entirely neglected to acknowledge. My dear brother, "feed the flock over which the Holy Spirit hath made you overseer;" watch, pray, and labor.
Love to Bro. Coleman when you see him. I wrote him a hasty scrawl from Falmouth, and left it with a lady to mail, but fear he never received it. Greet every one of the brethren, and especially the sisters, by name.
286 BIBLE QUESTION IN TENNESSEE.
Julia is unwilling to let this hasty scratch depart without lading it with her love (the children ditto) to yourself and family, (including our dear old sister Tyler,) and --, but I have neither time nor space to mention, nor is it necessary, for they all know full well that we love them.
Give to dear Molly and Emma a petal a piece of a rose we plucked this evening, in the neighborhood of the spot where it is thought the apostle was wrecked.
Grace, mercy, peace, and every blessing be yours! Most sincerely yours, with Christian and personal affection, JAMES T. BARCLAY.
THE BIBLE QUESTION IN TENNESSEE.
Written for the New York Chronicle, by the President of the Tennessee
Bible Society.
BROWNSVILLE, Tenn., February 7, 1851.
THAT we ought to have such an English Bible, is as clear as that those speaking the English language, are under obligation to make the Bible the "man of their counsel;" to look to it as the light from heaven to dispel the darkness front all the road that leads us back from earth to God; to search it for all things which pertains to eternal life and heavenly bliss; and that holy men of God, who understand Hebrew, Greek, and English, and may be otherwise qualified, can be found, and are anxious to undertake the blessed work of a pure translation.
The failure to translate some words in the common English Bible, (but transferring,) and the mistranslation of others, induce many men (no doubt frequently honest) to teach heresy.
From the same source, arises the adhesion of many warm hearted and ardent persons to the traditions and doctrines of men, for the commandments of God; bitterness and between professed disciples of Christ. From which citadel of Satan, infidels cast the shaft, ever inflicting a deep wound in the cause of Christ, "that his disciples are more divided than they;" and the wide and unnatural separation of those for whom Christ our elder brother, prayed "they might all be one." Will any one deny that these direful effects are produced? And will any one be so bold as to charge that God gave a Bible, with the desire of producing such unholy fruits! That a comparison between, even only a better translation, to say nothing of one that may be pure, and the present version, will tend greatly to remove these things that are so much deplored by all good men, is as certain as the principle established, both in philosophy and chemistry, "that the weak roust submit to the more powerful," as certain as light is preferable to darkness, the whole truth to only a part, or that "truth is more powerful than error, and will prevail."
In preferring the charge of transposing some words, and mis-
BIBLE QUESTION IN TENNESSEE. 287
translating others, I am sustained by the testimony of numerous theologians of the present and several former generations, as it is well known to every man who is partially familiar with theological discussions of the present day. The translators of the present version were compelled, to too great an extent, to respect the opinions and wishes of King James of England, rather than the will of Jesus Christ, King of Earth and Heaven, to give a correct rendering of any thing that would militate against the theology, or the civil government, of their earthly master.
Let those who place so high an estimate upon James' version, as to consider the translators so nearly inspired as to make their production the only good one in English; though the language may have changed so much in 200 years, as that a writing of that date can scarcely be recognized as belonging to English; so nearly inspired, that their Bible cannot be made better; so much nearer speaking the mind of God, than that of man; procure from the British Museum, where it is preserved as a curiosity, a correct copy of the interdiction of King James to his men, chosen to translate the Bible into English, and place it along side the testimony furnished by Mosheim, that if James had lived a few months longer, he would have united with the Roman Catholic Church.
Let them take the history of England, and judge whether the morals of that Prince should induce any God-fearing man to look to him for a pure Bible. Grimshaw says of James: "He was possessed of considerable virtues; but scarcely any of these were pure, or free from the contagion of the neighboring vices. His generosity bordered on profusion, his learning on pedantry, his pacific disposition on pusillanimity, his wisdom on cunning, his friendship on light fancy and boyish fondness."
I would here ask all, who believe that the Bible in its purity teaches and maintains a republican form of government, was James the man, all things considered, to give us such a Bible, or would he rather give us one that would favor that, religions sect which he believed would strengthen his monarchy, and his power as the Sovereign of England? It matters not how strong may be our prejudice, the history of the man drives us all to the conclusion, that he would make the Bible, to a great extent, subservient to his own aggrandisement. He must have it to enforce his DIVINE right to rule the nation under him Hence the leaning of the work, by mistranslation, to Episcopacy. Admitting that the translators were disposed to act honestly, where is the evidence of their qualifications as translators? Surely not in their Bible given to Englishmen. Their production hears too much evidence of their rather having followed existing translations, than their own independent rendering, to become a witness in favor of their ability to translate accurately. What proof have we that they were profound Hebrew and Greek scholars I doubt whether evidence can be furnished that these languages were taught but indifferently in any of the colleges of England in that day.
But the Bible as we have it, has effected good, and done wonders which nothing short of eternity can unfold to us. It has been the instrument of converting millions unto God, that are now glorified
288 BIBLE QUESTION IN TENNESSEE.
in heaven. This, by many, is considered a sufficient reason to oppose every effort at revision. Saying, "it has been good enough for our fathers, and why not for us?" One grand difficulty in receiving the above teaching is, the gospel is declared to be "the power of God unto salvation," and it has not been made clear as yet, that Gon can, and does save better, through a part of the gospel than the whole. Neither is it evident, that the human mind is more powerfully affected by a part of the truth than the whole; that our moral constitution compels us to receive more readily that which is wrapped up in mystery, than that which is made manifest. Or that men more readily believe through the weakness of doubtful testimony, than the force and power of that which is clear and definite. All, all men, even those who oppose revision, admit the numerous defects of our English Bible. And though nearly every babbler, whether with or without A.M. or D.D., attempts a correction of the book in preaching; and though many who murder the Queen's English try to look very ]earned, and say to their hearers, "The original justifies a different rendering from the text under consideration. It should read thus and so;" yet we are told "the book is good enough, and so nearly inspired in every phrase, that no man can be found who can possibly, all things considered, make it any better."
Since it has become so fashionable to translate the Bible, in almost every sermon, those who oppose the revision of the English Bible, that we may have a standard Bible in our language, have assuredly fallen upon the most certain plan to flood the world so far as the gospel may be preached in English, with translators qualified and not qualified, to the end of time.
The position that because "the Bible as it is, has done so much good, it should be let alone," is like the old exploded doctrine, "that because some men preached so well without education, none ought to be educated."
The Americans fought well at Bunker's Hill with pitch forks, clubs, bricks, stones, and such weapons as they could get; but would they not have done better with well charged muskets? What though the Bible has done such incalculable good? Is this good attributable to the errors it contains? Or do those errors retard its heavenly influence? It is certain that the errors contained have done no good, but much evil. Consequently it is the duty of every servant of God, of every man who reveres his will, to advocate the revision of our commonly received Bible, at as early a date as we possibly can have it done by competent men. From the above premises, there can be no possible reasoning that will, from expediency or any thing else, justify the continuance of errors that are already, or may hereafter become evident. Those who advocate the Bible's remaining as it is, ad infinitum, and y et admit that it presents only a part of the truth, would do well to look to the legitimate results of their position. Luke gives a part of the truth. In sending the gospel to the heathen nations, why do they not restrict their missionaries in their distribution to that book of the New Testament. Yea, why not carry it further, and say the first chapter of Luke is a part of the truth, therefore, none but that chapter shall be given to the heathen. That the Bible, as it is, has done so
TESTIMONY OF BRO. CLARK. 289
much good, rather than being any part of a reason for its remaining untranslated (for if any word fails to be translated, it certainly is not a translation,) becomes one of the most satisfactory and indisputable reasons why we should attempt a revision promptly, that, if possible, we may procure a pure English Bible.
TESTIMONY OF THE VENERABLE BROTHER, ELDER
WM. CLARK, OF MISSISSIPPI.
Brother Campbell: I regret, exceedingly, that the publication of notes on your lectures at Bethany, does not meet your approbation. They must be, of course, but a meagre outline of what you did say, yet I, for one, am unwilling to lose even that little. They make suggestions to my mind which, but for them, might never reach it. Although I am now mole than three score years old, yet my thirst for divine knowledge was never greater, if as great, as at present. I have now but little to do but to grow in knowledge, and impart that knowledge to others, so far as my physical ability will permit. Like a poor laborer, I have toiled through my day, and now the evening shades appear, and soon I shall lay me down to rest in my grave, until the Lord comes. As to this world's goods, I have enough for myself and family: thanks to my gracious Lord, who has so abundantly blessed my efforts in life! My business concerns are nearly closed, and as to this world, am ready to die; and did I know that I had to die before night, I think there is nothing remaining to be done.
As to the next life, I know in whom I have trusted, that he will deliver me, from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Yes, my brother, if the earthly house of this my tabernacle were dissolved, I have a building with God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. There is one thing, however, that concerns me greatly, and it is this, that I have so little treasure there. I have laid up so little in heaven, but I intend to add to it what I can whilst I yet remain on the earth. I have beer, a preacher for between twenty and thirty years, and I have never yet entertained one thought of abandoning that holy calling. All that I regret is, that I have not abounded more and more in it. At first I was a Baptist preacher, of the strict Calvinistic order; my only brother was also a preacher of that denomination, and most of my relations were of that order. My father and mother lived and
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290 TESTIMONY OF BRO. CLARK.
died in that church. I am sure in my mind, that no similar struggle can await me in this life, as the one that I encountered in departing from them. As a Baptist preacher, I had been very successful, was the pastor of several churches, and was happy in the confidence of my brethren, whom I loved dearly; and never shall I forget the struggle of soul that I had when I went into my pulpit and said, "My brethren, I have been wrong." The shock, too, upon them, was very great. Never, whilst I have consciousness, shall I forget that solemn moment. I had become fully convinced, and, if possible, am, after a lapse of many years of critical investigation, more fully convinced that the London, Philadelphia, and Kentucky Confessions, or articles of faith, were wrung, with scarcely one redeeming article. I examined Fuller's doctrine, and found that even worse than Calvin's, for to the objectionable features of Calvin and Gill, he had added that of hypocrisy and mental reservation; for to my mind, it made no difference as to the sinner, whet-her the limitation was in the atonement or in its application; for if those who were elected before this world or themselves were in existence, were, by an irrevocable decree, to be the only beneficiaries, then the condition of the non elect was precisely the same.
Renouncing these fooleries and speculations, I stood alone for some time. I knew not what to do, or where to go. Finally, I resigned my pastoral office in the church where I had my membership. I think that there were one hundred or more members in that church. The church insisted that I should take the charge of them again. To this I agreed, upon the following condition: "That they should enter upon their church book a renunciation of every thing of human origin, written since the close of the Sacred Scriptures, and that I should be permitted to preach what I understood the scriptures to teach, irrespective of the writings, or creeds, or confessions of faith, before alluded to." In other words, we renounced human authority of every description whatever, in matters of religion. We sent a copy of what we had done to some of the churches adjoining us, and I think seven churches adopted them. It was just in this state of affairs that your venerable father visited us. We rejected him, (for which I have heartily repented,) and refused to come into the Reformation. We were ignorant of your writings. I had taken the Harbinger for but a short time, and I do not know that any other person took it. We were almost entirely ignorant of your views; and all that we had done, was to renounce human dictation in matters of religion, and owe allegiance to God and his word alone. One of my brethren said to me one day, "Bro. Clark,
TESTIMONY OF BRO. CLARK. 291
I do not know what to preach or how to pray; but upon one thing I have determined--that I will study the scriptures, and learn them, so that I may know what to preach and how to pray." These very sentiments had passed through my own mind only a few days before, and I had also adopted the same resolution.
About this time Elder John P. Dunn, Abraham Congleton, and myself, were denounced and published by the Naise Association, as being Campbellites, and holding the fundamental doctrines of a certain A. Campbell. This was not true, for we did not know what you taught. We had adopted the Bible as being alone sufficient for us as Christians, and this, I suppose, was the heresy charged upon us, and against which the world was cautioned, as being Campbell- ism. At this period the Harbinger became more generally read by us, and we profited greatly by it. The subject of faith was, with me, of very difficult solution. How it could be the gift of God, and yet the duty of man, I could not for my life perceive. I wrote to you upon the subject. In some short time I saw an article on the subject in the Harbinger, that faith was produced by evidence. As soon as I read the article, the whole subject matter was plain to my mind, and I wondered why I could not perceive this plain and simple truth before. Our brethren having learned it they taught it, and other denominations, also, learned it, and now teach it. Before this I had never heard it from another, nor thought of it myself. Your other teaching is just as plain and simple as the one alluded to, when understood. I have heard some persons say that they had read your writings for twenty years or more, and yet denounce them. I was sorry to hear them say so, for either they must possess a strangely organized mind, inclined strongly to the disbelief of the scriptures, or they must be insincere. I am the only preacher of our denomination in this section of the State, and we have four or five churches. We have, for years past, kept an evangelist in the field, but last year employed one to preach to those congregations. This year we have none, which leaves me alone. Bro. J. E. Matthews is-now employed in business in the Northern portion of this State. We got Bro. J. T. Johnson to spend about a month with us, hoping, from his well- known reputation, that he could produce an interest. He labored faithfully, but obtained no accessions, either in this city or in Brandon. In Raymond he labored about two weeks, and only obtained three, I think, by baptism. It is generally believed, that were you to come, that you could give a start and overcome all obstacles. We, perhaps, are as needy as any poor souls can be. The few of us here have toiled and stemmed the current, but at present we seem
292 CHRISTIAN CHAPEL.
to be at a stand. I do not ask you to come: this I have done so often, without success, that I have decided not to teaze you again with my importunities; but this I will beg you to do, to publish your lectures yourself. If you will, you may put me down for one dozen copies--more, if necessary. The good that they would do is, in my opinion, invaluable. I want them. Oh, how rich you must be in heaven, when you get there The value of the work that you have done, can never be fully appreciated until the Lord comes. Good by. May the Lord protect your useful life yet many years, and I believe he will. My love to your father and family. Your friend and brother in Christ, W. CLARK
THE CHRISTIAN CHAPEL,
CORNER OF CAMP AND MELPOMERE STREETS, NEW ORLEANS.
SUCH is the name of a meeting-house, or chapel, erected by our brethren in New Orleans, during the last year. We much regretted our inability to attend with them at the opening of their house in this great Southern emporium, agreeably to their request: but on receiving the Delta report of a discourse delivered by our Brother Ferguson, of Nashville, Tenn., on that occasion, we were, except in our desire to see them, relieved from any regret on the account of any apprehended disappointment which they might suffer from our failure.
The discourse is highly commended by the public press, for its literary character, its very popular style, and its appropriateness to the occasion. We see that some of the most important propositions discussed in the current Reformation, were clearly propounded and very ably enforced and sustained by our brother.
We are happy to learn that, by great exertion and liberality on the part of our brethren, this commodious building has been reared; and that our many brethren from abroad, visiting that great theatre of commerce, will now enjoy, on the Lord's day, the worship of his family, and the means kindly ordained for their sanctification and comfort.
THE CHRISTIAN UNION, edited by our young brother Orvis, at Baltimore--co-editors, Austin Craig, J. M. Shepard, N. J. Mitchell, and J. R. Frame--has reached its third or fourth number, and has recently fallen under my eye. It is better to have jive editors to
IRVINE GROVE ACADEMY. 293
one periodical, than five, or even two, periodicals to one editor. Having hastily glanced over these numbers, in the midst of the piles that crowd our table, and having some knowledge of almost all the brethren above named, I have no doubt that they may make a very interesting monthly visit to the families of its patrons, and cannot but wish them many such pleasing and interesting visits. Its readers will find full value for their one dollar, in perusing its thirty- two pages per month, and we must solicit for them a candid and attentive hearing. A. C.
IRVINE GROVE ACADEMY.
THE first regular session will commence on the first Monday of September, and end the last Friday of January, 1852. And as the number must be limited, application had better be made to me as soon as possible. Boarding can be had in families at $1 50 per week. The tuition agreed upon is $30 a session. A library and suitable apparatus will be obtained as soon as circumstances will admit. H. HENDERSON.
WE are glad to learn that our most estimable brother, Henry Henderson, has located himself in Decalb county, Mo., and has, in part, devoted himself to the very useful and important employment of teaching and training youth in useful learning and moral excellency. For this he is well prepared, both in theory and practice. While at Bethany College, he was not only engaged in College studies, but also a portion of his time was employed in teaching several classes, much to the satisfaction of the Faculty, and the pupils under his care.
We should not, indeed, be gratified to learn that he has wholly devoted himself to the education of youth. We think that he ought to spend a portion of his time in a still higher sphere of action--in teaching and preaching the gospel, and in thus promoting the highest interests and happiness of man. We have no doubt that his location will afford him many such opportunities. We cannot but congratulate our friends in that portion of Missouri, in having located amongst them one so well qualified to meet their interests and their wishes, as a teacher of whatever he undertakes, and whose example as a gentleman and a Christian, cannot but have a most salutary influence upon the youth committed to his care. A. C.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 25*
294 PUNCTUALITY.
PUNCTUALITY.
Brother Campbell: Enclosed I send you $2, my subscription for the Harbinger, for the present year. This is about the twentieth year that I have been a subscriber for your monthly periodical--and strange to say, in all that time, 240 months. it has never one month failed to pay me a visit. Howbeit, let me boast a little; my subscription money has visited you with equal promptness, if it has not, it has not been my fault, neither have you in all that time apprised me to the contrary. How stands this matter with your numerous subscribers? Something singular and strange (at least to me) has been the cause of these last remarks. I will give a brief statement of facts.
A brother in this State, who publishes a religious periodical, fell in arrears with me. I wrote to him for the money. He sent me a list of delinquent subscribers (all receiving their papers from the same Post Office, and we have two in this county,) to the amount of $125, requesting me to employ an agent to collect the money and place it to his credit, &c. &c. I employed the agent accordingly, and yesterday I had an interview with him. He named that about one third of those delinquents say they have paid, though but few can produce receipts--though he credits all money received in his periodical. A large portion say they have paid the former editor, but no receipts from him, and he is gone out of the world as you may say, as respects these small matters (for he has moved to Texas.) The balance, pretty generally are determined to take the paper no longer, for no other reason, as I could understand, than that he should doubt their varacity and punctuality, so far at to send an agent to ask them personally, though civilly, for money due him for years, at least a good part of it. It can't be that they object to the paper, for it is acknowledged on all hands, that it is a most excellent work, well worthy the patronage of all good men. Now, this is what presses my mind, if all the brethren that take religious papers, in America, act as unfaithful as this half of our little county, what amount of sin will be committed by professors of christianity, and that against one of the plainest commands of scripture, "owe no man nothing but love." I know it is very common, and it is nothing but right for publishers of periodicals, to call their readers attention to their wants, but never did I think the evil extended this far; if it does, truly we may say, poor editors.
It is expected you will receipt for my subscription money, publicly or privately. You will confer a favor on myself and others, in answering in the same way, the following queries:
It is somewhere asserted by an inspired apostle, that "if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law," and "where no law is, there is no transgression;" and that "sin is the transgression of law;" and that "sin is not imputed where there is no law." Now for the questions-1st Is sin imputed to any man that is led by the Spirit? 2d. What is it to be led by the Spirit?
I remain your brother in hope of a better state of things. A. P.
[Our very punctual brother is as much entitled to our thanks, as respects punctuality, as we are to his. During twenty-eight years, our whole editorial career, we have never lost one mouth. Including our extras, we have issued some 360 numbers. And had all our subscribers been as faithful and punctual as he, we would have been able to endow a chair in Bethany College forever, from that single virtue. For we are much more than that minus our dues. We will respond to his questions when we have space for a response. A. C.]
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 295
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
MISSOURI.--We have from Bro. Taylor Jones, of New London, Rails county, Mo., an account of a very interesting meeting held in that place, by Bro. Levan, which continued about ten days, in the month of February. There were 60 additions-3 from the Methodists, 2 from the Baptists, and 1 from the Presbyterians.
OHIO.--From Bro. J. Dowling, of Letimberville, O., we have an interesting account of the progress of the truth in the churches in Marion and Crawford counties They sustain in the field of evangelical labor, our well known and long approved brother, Jonas Hartzel, who is doing efficient service for his Master. At a meeting held in Letimberville, of four or five days, in March, he immersed 13; and subsequently, at a meeting near Bucyrus, he immersed 5 other choice spirits. The brethren are greatly encouraged by this success, and rejoice in these fruits of their labor of love. The annual meeting for the churches in this region, will be held at Letimberville, commencing on the Friday before the 1st Lord's day in October, when the brethren expect to have a large and comfortable meeting-house completed.--Bro. C. E. Vanvoorhis, writing from Bladensburg, 0., says that he has, for the last three months, been preaching as an evangelist of the Central Ohio Co-Operation, in company with Bro. D. Mitchel and E. Porter. They found many of the churches cold or lukewarm on their first visit, but have succeeded in stirring them up to more zeal in the discharge of their duties. The result of their exertions, so far, is encouraging, much greater interest having been awakened among the brethren, and about 70 additions made, mostly from the world.
WISCONSIN.--Bro. L. J. Carro'l, of Grant county, Wis., has had good success. Since his last communication, he has introduced 25 into the kingdom. The harvest is ripe, but the laborers are few!
CANADA.--In Toronto, C. W., the prospects of the church are improving. Within the last two years, Bro. Robt. Beaty informs us, they have had 25 additions. Many have dispersed to different parts of the country, and thus the word has been sounded abroad. The church now numbers 38 members. Our traveling speakers are invited to call and see them.
MISSISSIPPI.--The following letter from Bro. J. T. Johnson, will be read with interest:
FAYETTE, Miss., March 31, 1851. Brother Campbell: I have been here for the last three weeks, with Bro. T. J. Edmonson, the resident preacher of Columbus, Ia., being urged by him to make an effort to reinstate the small church in this place, and reform the community. Yielding to his entreaty, we came on from Port Gibson, where I had labored several days in conjunction with Bro. Barbee, of Jackson, and Bro. Baxter, with 4 additions.
There were a few valuable materials here, male and female, ardently desiring an effort; but no one had hope of success but Bro. Edmonson and myself. We entered on the work, and gained upon the attention and feelings of the people as we advanced. Sinners began to yield, until public sentiment is wholly in our favor, so far as the unprejudiced have listened to us. To the astonishment of all, we have thus far gained 50 noble additions; among the number are two lawyers and two clerks We have had a most glorious and happy time. It is a noble community, and I have high hopes that the church will bear down all opposition, by a godly life. We have organized the church temporarily, with the materials on hand, and Bro. Edmonson has been engaged to superintend and labor for the brethren during the coming year. I believe I wrote you of success at Memphis ,20 additions.
I had pleasant meetings at Jackson, Brandon, and Raymond, before I
296 AN APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS.
came here. Our veteran Bro. Clark, about my age, is a host at Jackson. Through the abundant liberality of the brethren at that city, I have been enabled to labor at other points. At Raymond we had 4 additions, and organized a small church resolved to carry out the primitive worship. We are to immerse some 10 candidates in a few minutes, and to-night we may make our last effort for this time. Next winter I expect to come south again, the Lord willing, and I hope you will take a tour. I will accompany you. Affectionately yours, J. T. JOHNSON.
Total number reported since last month, 282.
AN APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS.
[FOR THE MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.]
1.-If meanest insects wisely join,
In summer hours, to gather grain,
On which in harmony to feed,
While chilling winds their toils impede,
Then should not saints united be,
In labors for eternity?
2.--If birds unite at break of day,
To greet the morn with gladsome lay,
And thus, in mild and merry glee,
Pour forth their untaught melody,
Should not our tongues, with one accord,
Be tuned to praise our risen Lord?
3.--Do rays of light, from yonder sun,
Unite to chase from earth its gloom,
To warm and fructify the soil,
That it may bless the laborer's toil;
And will not Heaven-born souls unite,
To bless the world with purer light?
4.--If moon and stars their rays entwine,
And joy in union thus to shine,
And shed o'er earth their silver light,
To cheer the dreary hours of night,
Should we not thus in union join,
To fill the world with light divine?
5.--Shall drops of rain, from clouds descend
To water earth, then wisely blend;
And form those streams whose bosoms bear
The treasures, earth rewards our care;
And shall we not unite to bless
The world with peace and righteousness?
6.--If holy martyrs, side by side,
United stood, and bled, and died;
If flames and faggots could not make,
Those holy men their union break,
Should party zeal and names divide,
The laurels for which the Saviour died?
OBITUARY. 297
7.--If angels, round the throne above,
Are bound by golden cords of love;
If no discord can there be found,
But all with joy and peace are crowned,
O! should we not delight to meet,
Around one common mercy seat?
8.--Has God the Father and the Son,
And Spirit in sweet unison,
Put forth their energies and breath,
To rid the world of sin and death?
And now, shall those by blood made free,
Refuse to thus united be?
9.--Did Jesus pray? Ali! yes he prayed,
In that sad night he was betrayed,
That union might his people crown--
That they on earth should be but one.
O! then, should we not live and love,
As angels do in realms above?
10.--If Jesus once for union died,
No more let party names divide;
The middle wall was broken down,
That peace might Jew and Gentile crown;
O then! let those who love the Lord,
United be upon his word!
11.--Say not you would, but can't be one;
The Lord commands, it must be done:
Oh let us fast, and weep, and pray,
Throw party names and creeds away;
And then the glorious work is done,
The saints on earth again are one. R.
OBITUARY.
Died, on Friday evening, the 13th of September, 1850, after a very short illness, in the 53d year of tier age, Mrs. REBECCA W. ALLEN, consort of Elder T. M. Allen, of Boon County, Missouri.
The sudden and unexpected death of this amiable and excellent lady has caused a gloom and melancholy over the whole community. She was enclosed in the icy arms of death, a few hours after the first intimation of danger. It was but the Lord's day preceding this incident, that she worshipped with the church of which she was a member, in Columbia, as cheerful, and apparently as healthful as usual;--as also on the previous day, when she visited and generously dispensed her charity to a poor widow and her orphan children, which had been her practice for many years.
Mrs. Allen was the daughter of the late Gen. R. S. Russell, and was born in Fayette county, Ky., where she lived until the fall of 1836, since which time she has resided in Boon county, Missouri.
It is due to her personal and christian worth to say, that she was a fond and devoted wife, a kind and affectionate mother, a warm and generous friend, and a meek, humble and devoted christian. She leaves the companion of her early life as well as declining years,--her three children, (all
298 OBITUARY.
grown,) numerous relations and many friends to mourn her loss. In her death the family circle has been deprived of one whose place can never be filled,--society has lost one of its sweetest and brightest ornaments,--and the church of Christ one of its pious, zealous, and valued members. Let her mourning husband--weeping children,--and sorrowing friends, be consoled with the reflection, that she practically exhibited in her life what is "pure and undefiled religion;" and as she lived the life of the righteous, being "faithful until death"--the promise is a crown of life in Heaven. M.
[I had the pleasure of au acquaintance with the excellent sister whose demise we now record, and can appreciate the great loss which her family and the church have sustained in her removal. But in such cases, the reflection of the short interval of separation between the living and the dead-- that we shall soon be with them, greatly alleviates our sorrows and reconciles us to the hand of the Lord. 'Tis well for us, the survivers, to reflect, how soon we shall be with them, and what a joyful meeting then, if found worthy to enter into the joys of our Lord, where sin and death, and separation shall be no more.
The preceeding obituary, we were sorry to find, had escaped our hands for some months, and this fact, we hope will apologize for its late appearance. A. C.]
Fell asleep in Jesus, on the morning of Lord's day, November 10th, 1850, Sister ANNE FOSTER, of Nashville, Tennessee, relict of Robert C. Foster, Esq., in the 81st year of her age; full of the fruits of righteousness as of years.
Born in Farquar county, Va., April 27th, 1770, she removed to Kentucky, in 1788. In her 16th year she became a member of the Baptist Church, and was regarded, for nearly 40 years, as one of its chief ornaments. And when, in 1826, the necessity of a return to primitive Christianity began to he urged in Nashville, she at once approved, and zealously commended, both by precept and example, the "more excellent way."
The conviction of a present God, was, in her, the great principle of action, and to fear Him, and love Him, her delight. All her domestic duties were performed as a part of her religion; and in the exercise of hospitality--she was careful to entertain strangers--the cheefulness of her spirits, and the kindness of her manners, drew around her, as by a charm, even the thoughtless of the young. No young married lady ever heard her remarks upon conjugal duties, seconded by so bright an example of the truth of all she. said, without resolving to be a good wife. She "neglected no opportunity of doing good" thus.
Sister Foster was not only, for twenty-four years, one of the most steadfast advocates of the Reformation; but during that time, she omitted no occasion of countenancing by her presence in the House of God, the propagation of its truths. Her hightest enjoyment was found in the institutions of the Gospel, and truly, under their influence, she came to her "grave in a full age, like as a ripe shock of corn cometh in his season;" rejoicing in the blessed hope, and anxious to "go home."
She was married to Brother Foster in March, 1790. For fifty-four years they lived together. They sleep, now, with the Goodwins, the Ewings, &c. &c., who, with them, and with some yet living, bore the heart and burden of the day, in the vineyard of the Lord. Rarely has it fallen to the lot of woman to be blessed more fully with the affection and esteem--even veneration--of her husband and her children; to say nothing of that circle of admiring and devoted friends, who, with her numerous descendants, mourn her departure.
The language of simple truth, which the writer, who knew her well, has studied to observe, may appear to be that of the too common eulogy of the dead. It is, indeed, but a very feeble tribute of affection to one whose con-
OBITUARY. 299
stant friendship he long enjoyed; and whose efficient encouragement gave him strength while defending "the faith once delivered to the saints," in its earliest struggles for life in Tennessee. Her long, earnest, and consistent career as a christian, is, however, for her, an ample and enduring monument.
FRANKFORT Ky., January 1, 1851. P. S. F.
MECHANICSBURG, Ill., February 1, 1851.
Died, November la, at his residence, 10 miles east of Springfield, Ill., in the 59th year of his age, JOHN DAWSON, formerly of Ky., but for many years a worthy citizen of this state. For many years he had been an active member in the christian church, and died as he had lived, in full assurance of faith. For many weeks before his death he was sorely afflicted with a very lingering disease, which he bore with christian fortitude.
Near this place, some weeks since, in the 35th year of his age, T. D. BAKER. Being thrown from his buggy, was dragged some considerable distance, and lay for some two days on the ground undiscovered, during which, he suffered immensely. After he was found, he lived some 9 days, experiencing the most severe pain, which he bore patiently. He was a worthy member of the christian church, and is gone to reap his reward. W. S. PICKRELL.
FRANKLIN COLLEGE, Tennessee, February 25, 1851.
Brother Campbell: Our Brother PETER HUBBARD, of Smith county, Tennessee, is no more. He died at his late residence, Tuesday, January 28, 1851, after a severe affliction of some four weeks continuance.
Brother Hubbard was amongst the first advocates of the christian religion, in Sumner county, Tennessee. He submitted to the authority of the king some 18 or 20 years since, and was an intelligent and zealous advocate of truth till his death. There are few better classical scholars, and more successful teachers of youth than was Brother Hubbard. Unfortunately for him, and the cause of our Master, difficulties originating from a misunderstanding of the word, were the fruitful source of bitterness with Bro. H. and some of the members of Sylvan church, in Sumner county, which he was mainly instrumental in planting, for several years before his death; but be the facts as they may, Bro. H. was an unwavering friend of what he conscientiously conceived to be the truth. With his deeply afflicted family many of the saints sincerely sympathize. T. FANNING.
Brother Campbell: It has recently been my lot to sustain one of the greatest, most melancholy and afflicting bereavements that can happen to man, in the death of my beloved, affectionate and devoted wife, MARTHA S. HOWARD, leaving myself and two children, one of them quite young, to mourn her early fate and untimely loss. She breathed her last at about half past 2 o'clock, on Lord's day morning, the 23d of March. She was about 33 years of age; was born and raised in Mecklenburgh county, Va., and was the third daughter of Wm. W. V. Clausel, of that county and state, who emigrated to Henry Co., Tenn., and died there about 18 years since. She expired at my residence, near Sulphur Well Academy, Henry Co., Tenn.
She was baptized into Christ, about 17 years since, by brother Allen Kendrich, and lived and died a disciple of Christ. She was remarkable for her hospitality to the brethren, her zeal and devotion to the cause of primitive christianity, and her fulfilment of all the various duties of life. devolving on her. She was beloved, esteemed and respected by a large circle of friends, acquaintances and neighbors; and most devotedly attached to her husband and children. Her disease was a complication of bronchial consumption and chronic diarrhea, under which she had been laboring for some two years. She died resigned and triumphant. A few days before her death, she exhorted those about her to endeavor to make preparation to meet her in heaven, by acquiring that character which should fit them for it She
300 OBITUARY.
said she had no dread of death--did not fear its sting--that it had no terrors for her; and the day before she died, expressed her anxiety to go, and asked if we thought she would have to stay all day. And a short time before she expired, she expressed herself as feeling no pain, not suffering any, and as easy or happy. She enjoined me to bring up our children in the correction and instruction of the Lord. Thus she had been baptized into Christ--lived in Christ--and died in Christ. "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord--they rest from their labors and their works do follow them." Your brother in the hope of eternal life. JNO. R. HOWARD.
SULPHUR WELL ACADEMY
Henry Co., Tenn., March 26th, 1851.
Died, on the 26th day of December, 1850, in Lenoir county, N. C., Elder WALTER DUNN, in the 63d year of his age. Bro. Dunn was a member of the church of Christ, at Kinston, and was greatly devoted to the cause of our Redeemer. He united himself with the church of Christ years ago, and lived a very exemplary life until his death, leaving a testimony with his children that he would be clothed with a building of God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. N.
Departed this life, on the evening of the 27th March, 1851, in the town of Barnesville, Belmont county, O-, Mr. JOHN BUCHANAN, in the 26th year of his age.
The subject of this notice was the son of George and Margery Buchanan. He was born near this place. He was taken with a hemorrhage of the lungs on the 29th December, 1850. Previous to which time he was deeply concerned for his soul, and believing, as he did, that without an interest in the blood of Christ he could not be saved, I am happy to say, that without delay, he humbled himself at the foot of the cross. From this moment to the close of his pilgrimage, he ever entertained an nnwavering confidence in his blessed Redeemer, knowing that what he had promised he was able to perform. I never witnessed, in any person before, so much composure of mind in conversing on the solemn subject of death. A short time before his exit from time to the spirit world, he said to me, "Don't call Mary Catharine," (his wife,) "I don't wish her to see me die;" assigning as a reason for this, that it would grieve her to see him. But a short time after he again looked into my face and asked, "Is this death?" On being told that it was, he exclaimed, "Lord take me home, for heaven is better than this;" and expressed himself thus, "0 how happy I am." He said to his beloved wife, "Do not weep for me; and when I am gone, try to take all the pleasure you can in the society of your friends." His last request was to call in the friends; to each of whom he reached out his hand and bid them all an affectionate farewell, begging them, as long as he could articulate, to prepare for heaven. Truly, then, may it be said, "Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace."
Departed this life March 31, 1851, in the town of Barnesville, O., ELIZABETH MARGERY, daughter of John and Mary Catharine Buchanan, aged 9 months.
"Thy gentle spirit passed away,
Midst pain the most severe;
So great, we could not wish thy stay
A moment longer here." J. N. HUNT.
ERRATUM.--In reference to Mrs. Tubman's donation to Bethany College, (note at bottom of page 235,) for $100 read $1,000.
Vol. I.] BETHANY, VA., JUNE, 1851. [No. VI.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE--No. VI.
TEMPTATION.
WE have occasionally said, and often thought, that the most consummate policy of Satan, when about to act the tempter, would be to suggest that his very being, his positive personal existence, is itself a delusion; that there is no such personality, no such agent of evil in the universe; and, consequently, no such realities as evil suggestions, thrown by him into the 'human heart. Hence wicked men, when confirmed in infidelity and wickedness, affirm that priests or fanatics invented the fable of the Devil and Satan, that they might find employment for themselves in casting him out. But as good men would not, and wicked men could not, make the Bible, and as the Bible assigns to him the origin and authorship of all the guilt, misfortune, and misery in the world, we have all the reason we could have, and all the evidence which the condition of the human race could possibly afford, that he was, and is, the origin and cause of all the moral evils and disasters that have befallen the human race, and which are still experienced and developed in the world.
Where the Bible begins, and where it ends, all true knowledge of the origin, condition, and destiny of man, begins and ends; and with it, too, begins and ends all our knowledge of moral good and moral evil, and of the agents that gave them being. There is no preface to the book of Genesis, and no appendix to the revelations of the New Testament, to the Apocalypse of John.
From the whole volume of revelation, we learn that evil had a beginning, but God had none, that goodness preceded evil, as necessarily as a creator preceded creation. We could as easily
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 26
302 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
conceive of the eternity of nonentity, as of the eternity of moral evil. Something always was, and eternity is but a mode of its existence. Hence, the highest pinnacle to which reason or imagination can soar is God himself, being and inhabiting eternity. There is neither time nor space, matter nor spirit, beyond the Self- Existent and Omnipresent Jehovah. One of the Hebrew names of God is, "THE ETERNITY OF ISRAEL," (Sam. xv. 29.) By Isaiah he says, Thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, I dwell in the high and holy place." But "the heaven and the heaven of heavens" cannot contain him that is infinite.
The finite cannot comprehend the infinite. He alone, then, who is infinite, can develope the secrets of eternity; but man, the atom of a day, in all his boasted grandeur, cannot pass the bourne of time and revelation. God alone can, and he alone does, inform us that Satan once was "in the truth," but he continued not in the truth. He became a liar, and a deceiver, and a murderer. The Scriptures of Truth assign to him the origin and authorship of all human misery and misfortune. He fell supremely in love with himself, alienated his adoration away from God to himself, fell into condemnation, became a rival, an enemy of God. He envied man created in God's own image, successfully plotted his ruin, brought sin into the world and all our woes, and has ever since carried on his work of seduction, enmity, and murder. He succeeded in making a party among the angels of light, and, after sentenced to eternal infamy, and banished from the immediate presence of Jehovah, at their head has ever since busied himself in carrying on the work of temptation and moral desolation over the whole earth--this once fairest province of the universe.
Hence, our faithful friend Paul, has kindly taught us, and by divine inspiration, too, that the Christian community, as a body politic, has to wrestle, not merely against flesh and blood, and all their evil impulses and passions, but also against principalities and powers of another order--against the rulers of this present darkness; "against wicked spirits in the regions of the air." Peter, too, gives us a hint on these premises as to the residence of these evil angels expelled from heaven. "God did not spare the angels that sinned," the aristocracy of the demons, "but cast them down to Tartarus," or "outer darkness," regions far beyond the reflected rays of light, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for a yet future and ultimate judgment. No wonder, then, that Satan's title should, like that of other monarchs, be derived from his dominions. They are as much larger than the earth, as is the circ m ambient
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 303
space around our planet and between it and the atmosphere of any other world, either above or beneath us. What a dark crown environs the head of "the Prince of the Power of the Air;" that FALLEN SERAPH that now heads the armies of hell and desolation, reigning and rioting in the hearts of the sons of disloyalty and disobedience--children of wrath, rebellion, and ruin.
Need we not, then, the sword of the Spirit to withstand our foes, and the shield of faith, on which to catch and "quench the fiery javelins"--the poisoned arrows--from Satan's quiver, launched at us! And even in the midst of apparent security and victory, to watch and pray that we fall not into the snare of the adversary; that we may be successfully aided in "the good fight of faith," and triumphantly lay hold on the crown of righteousness and life, and of the." glory that fadeth not away?"
How often does the Holy Spirit teach us, that our "Adversary, the Devil, goeth about like a hungry lion" ravening for his prey, "seeking whom he may devour!" It was he that withstood Paul, by spiriting up his adversaries. It was he that tempted the Messiah, but in vain. It was he that entered into Judas, seized his ruling passion, and induced him "to betray his Master for thirty pieces of silver." It was he that raised up the persecution against the first Christians--that afterwards corrupted Christianity--created "the man of sin," and raised up "the son of perdition." It was "the Devil and his angels"--fallen spirits--conspirators with him at the beginning, and confederate with him in all the plagues and calamities inflicted upon prophets and apostles, saints and martyrs, in every age, that gave the dragon his throne and power, and crimsoned the earth with the blood of slaughtered millions.
Demons, too, the disembodied spirits of wicked men, in increasing legions, have, by unanimous suffrage, acknowledged his sway, and made him "the prince of demons." They have possessed abandoned men, and even tormented them, as a reward for their services in his cause.
These legions of tormenters and seducers become incarnate, and send out their missionaries of evil in all the forms of error and deceit; hold their councils in Pandemonium style, in spreading moral ruin over the whole earth; so that the very sacrifices of the Pagan world are offered to these demons, and not to the true and living God, as the Holy Spirit, speaking by Paul, attests.
Christians, therefore, ought to be warned against these devices of Satan, and take counsel together against him and his legions of deceivers and tormenters. Hence our Saviour, in this spirit of divine
304 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
benevolence, on one occasion addressing Peter, said, "Simon, Simon, Satan desires to have you, that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."
For what did he pray? That Peter's faith would not yield to the temptation. And what does this imply? At least two things: that he needed help, and that help would come in answer to prayer. This is a great lesson. While it is true that no man is above temptation, it is equally true that there is aid against temptation, in answer to prayer. What is that aid I Divine, most certainly divine. None else than the Holy Spirit himself. "For the Spirit maketh intercession for the saints, according to the will of God." And this is a part of his office. For "he maketh intercessions for the saints according to the will of God." Besides, God promises to "strengthen us by his Spirit in the inner man." But his Spirit operates by the Truth. Sometimes, too, God sends angels to our aid.
When the Lord himself was, in his human nature, assaulted by Satan through his emissaries, "an angel appeared and ministered to him." (Luke xxii. 43.) And this, too, in answer to prayer. God, also, in answer to prayer, released Peter by an angel. Many such cases, doubtless, there are.
Thus are we, step by step, led to the important conclusion, that while there are evil angels under Satan, aiding him in the work of destruction, there are good angels, as well as the Spirit of God, aiding and defending us from the wiles of the enemy.
These conclusions are not idle speculation, but matters of fact, well established and sustained by many unequivocal evidences found in the book of. God, and well ascertained in Christian experience. We, therefore, pray, "Lord, abandon us not to temptation_"
Thus we have the Holy Spirit and the angels of God ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to us as heirs of salvation. And while wrestling against principalities and powers, and against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against evil spirits, we are not left to our own strength and resources, but have on our side strong and efficient allies and friends.
As to the modes operandi, or the manner of this operation, we are not left wholly in the dark. The doctrine of suggestion is a Bible doctrine. It is, therefore, a safe and a comfortable doctrine, and worthy of our consideration. We have reason, experience, and revelation, on our side: and although we may not comprehend, we may at least apprehend, so much of his influence as sufficeth for comfort and safety.
Nor is there, in all this, any necessity compelling the admission
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that spirit acts on spirit, without any instrumentality, or any medium whatever, beyond actual contact. No moral change whatever can be effected without motive. Temptations are not contacts, but addresses through some medium adapted to our understanding, appetites, or passions Words, looks, gestures, passions, one or all, may be made arguments, motives, or suggestions-to good or evil thoughts, volitions and actions. Wicked men, as well as good men, operate upon kindred characters by looks, gestures, and other symbols, without words or secret impulsions. The Messiah once looked on Peter, and Peter wept. Paul only said, "I am a Pharisee, and the son of a Pharisee," and a tumult ensued.
Much in nature and society is suggestive. A man may be sure that Satan or his angels are not far off, when be is inclined to evil by his lusts and passions. And as there are good and evil spirits. there are good and evil suggestions and temptations. Every man is tempted by the Devil, when he is led away by his passions and enticed to do evil; and every Christian man is led by the Spirit, when he denies the impulsions of his flesh to think, to speak, or to do evil.
They reason ill, who imagine that either the Spirit of God or the angels of God, that the Devil or his angels, are ever far from any one of us. The most puissant agents in nature are inappreciable by any one or all of our senses: No man hath at any time seen the cholera, but in its effects. And like the pestilence that walketh in darkness secretly, or like the oxigen which we inhale, that imparts health, life, and beauty, good and evil spirits exert their influences upon us unseen, unheard, and unappreciated. A. C.
CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS--No. I.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with me.
The AMEN, the faithful ant true WITNESS, the beginning of tile creation of God.--Rev. iii. 14, 20.
AT the present moment, when "Spirit Knockings" attract so large a share of public attention, it may not be unprofitable to consider, from those points of view which popular delusion furnishes, the knockings and the calls of "the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God." And this we propose to do without questioning, meanwhile, the propriety of applying the
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epithet "spiritual" to those mysterious knockings which, it is said, first saluted mortal ears in the State of New York, not far from the spot where, as is also reported, were formerly disinterred the golden plates of the Mormon Bible. We are willing to take it for granted, however palpable and contemptible the fraud, that these knockings are spiritual; but we affirm, with regard to those to which we invite attention, that they are not only spiritual, but divine. Nay, we shall proceed further, and insist that they only are divine; that they only are Christian, and that Christians should hear and respond to them alone.
It is truly a great mistake to suppose, as many seem to do, that every thing spiritual is necessarily divine. There are plenty of spirits and spiritual agencies, which are demoniacal and devilish. There are wicked spirits in terrestrial and infernal, as well as in aerial, regions. There are lying spirits, as well as truth-telling ones; spirits of the just, as of the unjust; spirits of devils and spirits of God. Alas for the ignorant credulity which will receive every response from the invisible world as an oracle of Heaven, and open the heart as readily to a messenger of darkness as to an angel of light!
Man seems to possess an unlimited capacity, as well as an earnest desire for communication with the world of spirits. His spiritual habitability, if we may so speak, is apparently unlimited. The only restriction, indeed, seems to be that his society, like the communion of a Roman Catholic layman, shall be all in one kind: so that he may he possessed with one, or seven, or a legion of spirits, provided, only, they be of similar character--all devilish or all divine. This, however, is but reasonable, and quite in accordance with the nature of things. That "a spirit has not flesh and bones," is a divine negation. It cannot be seen nor handled. It consists not of material substance, and we cannot suppose it to be subject to material laws, nor can we connect with it ideas of impenetrability or extension. Space, then, can never enter into our calculation in regard to spiritual beings; and although a man may be figuratively regarded as a house which may be, at one time, "empty swept and garnished," and at another, the abode of one or many spirits, we can, in point of fact, set no limits to his ability to receive spiritual guests, since the capacity to receive is relative always to the dimensions of that which is to be received.
It is not to be doubted, that spirits love to dwell in bodies, and this, perhaps, not so much because they have there an abode or dwelling place, as because the body furnishes the means or instru-
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ments through which spirits can act or operate. The disembodied spirit in the parable, sought, but found not rest, until he returned to the person from whom he had been expelled; and when the legion of demons were to be cast out, being aware that they would not be allowed to enter again into any human being, they earnestly sought permission to go into the bodies of the swine. It may be said, however, that this power, as well as this desire to enter and possess the body, are restricted to demons, which being the souls of dead men, would naturally seek thus to re-unite themselves with the animal organization.* But it would appear that it is the desire, as it is perfectly within the power of other spiritual beings to enter into man; to assume the direction of his thoughts and actions, and to fix, if possible, his future destiny. As Satan "entered into" Judas, and longed "to have" Peter, so even does he yet "rule in the hearts of the children of disobedience," and seek to lead away the righteous from the paths of truth and holiness. On the other hand, God imparts his Holy Spirit to sanctify and to renew the human soul, and, in the language of our motto, "the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God," represents himself as earnestly desiring admission to the heart. "Behold," says he, "I stand at the door and knock: if any will open to me I will come in and sup with him, and he with me."
There are, however, professors of Christianity, who, in regard to spiritual influences, have much more faith than feeling, and far more philosophy than faith and experience conjoined, and who, in entire harmony with their constitution or state of mind, endeavor to restrict all literal spiritual possessions and direct influences, to apostolic times, and seek-to explain away, by the moral philosophy of the schools; by the power of motives and arguments, and the significancy of words, all the spiritual operations of modern days. They seem to think that- spiritual agencies are reserved entirely for great occasions, such as we read of only in ancient story; or that spirits have become uncommonly scarce in latter days. To hear
*To this rule our new-fangled catechistical spirits seem to be exceptions, since they as yet only hover around the favored individuals through whom they make responses They are, it appears, without exception, dumb, and manifest a partiality for the female sex quite remarkable in beings not of flesh and blood, for it is through females almost exclusively, I believe, they suffer themselves to be addressed. When thus addressed, however, and suitably invoked in the name of mammon, it is found that although dumb, they are not DEAF, which is a new phenomenon in spiritual nosology. These approximate sibyls, nevertheless, would do well to take heed Jest their familiar spirits should become too familiar, and, resuming their ancient custom, take up their abode in houses so agreeably garnished. Such a case would require exorcism in a name more powerful even than that of MAMMON.
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them reason upon the subject, one would almost suppose that the affairs of the world are now managed entirely by mechanical forces, and that, like some huge clock duly wound up long ago., things will continue to move on with perfect regularity, without requiring so much as a little oil to be put upon the wheels. Leaving it to these philosophers (who have such a horror of mysteries that they will believe nothing which they cannot explain,) to unfold the mysteries of matter, which will be found, perchance, as great as those of spirit; and entrusting especially to them the question of its inherent power of motion, we may also venture to inquire of those who believe in the active agency of spirits in apostolic times, what has become of all these agencies? And why is it, that when they deny to spirits the power now to have direct communication with mortals, they always make so unfortunate an exception as the devil? While awaiting these explanations, we may be suffered to believe that spirits, both good and evil, though, perhaps, less physical in their operations, may be as active, and at least as numerous, as ever; for, while none of any class have, as yet, been subjected to the "second death," must there not have been, in the nature of things, during so long a period, a vast increase in the number of demons?
As to embodied spirits, if there be a spirit in every man, as is generally admitted, they are at least as numerous as men, and as familiar to us as any thing material can be. Each one is internally conscious of its own movements. We address ourselves not to the persons, but to the spirits of others; and spiritual influences and operations are really as much matters of everyday experience, as eating and drinking. True, it may be said that cur embodied spirits must act through bodily organs. But it is not the less evident, that it is spirit which is the moving and controlling power. And there are not a few who suppose that the spirits of particular individuals can obtain entire control over those of others by the simple power of volition, and, as in mesmerism, assume complete government over their thoughts. and even over their bodily sensations.
Leaving, however, these particular questions to future development, we may here rest upon the undisputed ground of man's spiritual susceptibility. It is enough for our present purpose to know, that Satan can obtain complete mastery over the human soul and body, and that, on the other hand, a man may become a holy temple, in which God himself delights to dwell. We may, accordingly, direct our thoughts to that wonderful creation of divine power, the human nature, which is so great an object of regard to spiritual beings. How astonishing, indeed, is that interest which all ranks
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and orders of spiritual nature take in man! How coveted an abode is the human heart! It is for man that the loftiest heights of heaven are moved and the deepest caverns of hell. It is for him that there is war in heaven, and fierce encounters between angelic hosts. It is upon him that ministering angels wait, and for him that malignant spirits spread their snares. To obtain possession and entire control of man, seems, indeed, to be the great ultimate aim of the mighty efforts of the innumerable hosts which people the vast domain of the invisible universe. Allied, as man is, to the material system, it would appear as though the spiritual world sought, through him, to acquire new dominion over matter, and, in his final glorification or degradation, to present to the view of all created intelligences the mightiest achievement of spiritual power.
We may not, then, speak irreverently of man, nor think lightly of that humanity of which God himself condescended to become a partaker, that by his quickening Spirit he might animate the sleeping dust of mortality, and, clothing it in the imperishable beauty of spiritual organization, transport it in triumph to the skies. It is this humanity which admits of being thus renovated, transformed, and glorified, or, under the baleful influence of malign and fallen spirits, of being dragged down the dark steep of eternal ruin, and converted into a cage for every unclean and hateful bird. How necessary, then, that man should appreciate his position, and realize that he is thus placed in the midst of the most active spiritual agencies, and between those immeasurable extremes, the one or the other of which must become his eternal destiny And how important that he should hear the knock and listen to the voice of the Amen; the true and faithful Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, and open to him the entrance of the- heart, that he may enjoy that elevating and ennobling fellowship to which he is so earnestly invited R. R.
SLAVERY AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW--No. III.
BEFORE presuming to dogmatize on the attitude in which the apostles of Christ place themselves before us on the subject of servitude, or slavery, we must be informed of the nature, character, and extent of slavery, as then existing in the countries and communities in which they planted churches. We shall, then, in the first place, state a few facts, which will enable us more satisfactorily to under-
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stand what they have written, for our admonition, on this very interesting theme. We are, happily, in possession of all necessary information on the subject of Grecian and Roman slavery, and will select a few well-established facts for the edification of those who may not be in possession of the same means.
But one German writer has written largely on the subject, whose work we have not seen. But from innumerable references to Grecian authorities which are available, we have abundant information as to its extent in Greece, before and during the age in which Christianity was there introduced. From these sources we shall make a few selections.
From the time of Hesiod and Homer, of Plato and Aristotle, down to the Christian era, all writers of all classes--poets, philosophers and historians--more or less allude to it, comment upon it, and develop its character and extent. In Crete, say Plato and Aristotle, Minos enacted that "all freemen should be equal, and that they should be served by slaves." In Sicyon, Corinth and Argos, the same policy early obtained. Slaves "were there doomed to rigid and irredeemable slavery." In the Odyssey, Homer presents Penelope's house-keeper ordering twenty slaves, at one and the same time, to execute the following order, "Go quickly, some of you, sweep the house and sprinkle it, and let the crimson carpets be spread on the seats; let others rub well the tables with sponges, and wash carefully the bowls and cups. Some of you go instantly to the fountain for water."* Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, have not yet, in their civilization, surpassed the elegance and style of ancient Greece, nor assumed a more aristocratic authority over negro slavery than that which the old democracies wielded over, not Africans, but over as beautiful females as ever walked on Grecian ground, of whom Penelope had no less than fifty to wait upon her own person. Such was the style in which lived the lady of Ulysses, mother of Telemachus, Queen of Ithica a thousand years before Christ.
The Ionian colonies, on the coast of Asia Minor, were a great slave market as early as we know any thing about them, and were celebrated for the admirable qualities of their slaves. Aristotle says that the Island of Aegina contained 470,000 slaves. Timaeus asserts that Corinth had 460,000 slaves, before Athens had obtained possession of Greece. Under the iron reign of Lycurgus, the Lacedemonians had innumerable slaves. They outnumbered the freemen.
The cruelty of the Lacedemonians to their slaves, was proverbial.
*Odyssey 20, I. 149.
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"They wore dog-skin bonnets and sheep-skin vests, and were forbidden to learn any liberal art, or to perform any act worthy of their masters." The Spartan youthful freemen occasionally armed themselves with daggers, and sallied out by night into the 'roads, to kill all that they could find. It is said 2,000 were destroyed at one massacre. It is alledged that, at one time, the actual number of the Helots was about 400,000.
Reitemeier, in his history of slavery in Greece, makes the number 800,000. Freemen were in the ratio of 27 to 100 slaves. Free born citizens, reduced to poverty, might serve for wages in Athens, and recover their cast if possible; but the title to slaves was as strong as the title to lands, and gave the masters absolute dominion over them.
"In the Grecian cities and states, there were three ways in which slavery was propagated: 1. Those deeply involved in debt were forced to yield themselves slaves to such as were able to maintain them. 2. Vast numbers were reduced to slavery by the chances of war--by which the vanquished became wholly the slaves of their conquerors. 3. By the perfidiousness of those who traded in slaves. Persons of ingenuous birth and education were kidnapped and sold for slaves." Plato and Diogenes were sold for slaves. The Thessalians were notorious for this species of villainy. We might add, that free persons were sometimes sold, for slaves, by public authority. The father of Bion, the philosopher, together with his whole family, were sold for an offence against the laws of the customhouse.
"In all countries, slaves were bought and sold like other commodities. The Thracians are particularly remarkable for purchasing slaves for salt." The Chians were the first who gave money for slaves. Homer's heroes are often said to have bartered their captives for provisions.
In Athens, the laws were very rigid. It was enacted that "no person, a slave by birth, should be made free of the city." "No slave, or woman other than free born, shall study or practice physic." "He shall be looked on as illegitimate, whose mother is not free." "No slave shall caress a free born youth; he who does so, shall receive publicly fifty stripes." "All emancipated slaves shall pay certain services and due homage to their masters who gave them liberty, choosing them only for their patrons, and not be wanting in the performance of those duties to which they are under obligation by law." "The Greeks kept their slaves at a great distance, not condescending to converse familiarly with them, instilling into their
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minds a mean opinion of themselves, debasing their natures, and extinguishing in them, as far as possible, all feelings of generosity and manliness, by an illiberal education, and accustoming them to blows and stripes, which they thought would be very disagreeable to high born souls."
It would be an offence against good taste--almost an outrage against our humanity--to detail the horrible cruelties inflicted upon slaves under Grecian and Lacedemonian despotism. "Slaves were often branded by a hot iron on the forehead, and ink poured into the furrows. They were examined by scourging or upon the rack. The tongue of a tatler was cut out."
The Samians, when they emancipated many slaves, and admitted them to any office in the State, were branded with the infamous name of literati. Among the Thracians, Scythians, and Britons, the stigma was accounted a mark of honor. To prevent running away, they were also stigmatized with a brand. When convicted of theft, they were bound to a wheel and unmercifully beaten with whips. Other punishments we cannot name.
They were at times very valuable, notwithstanding this rude and cruel treatment. Lysias and his brother, who were proscribed by the Thirty Tyrants for their riches, had only sixty slaves each. Demosthenes says of himself, that he was left rich, possessing only fifty-two slaves. Nicias had one thousand slaves employed in the mines. He was the richest slave-holder in Athens. Slaves were not to learn the use of arms, to wear them, or to serve in the wars.
Despite of slavery, there were some noble specimens of human nature found among them. Yes, as some one has said, in the form of slaves "there were noblemen toiling on the farms of Laconica, chained to the oars of the fleets, or delving into the mines of Laurion." It was AEsop, Alcman, Epictetus, Terence, who were slaves, while many a brainless demagogue was haranguing in the forum, or squandering the hard earned produce of the poor slave, in the house of some fair Milesian.
Notwithstanding all this, neither Socrates nor his pupil Xenophon, not even Plato In his Republic, though once a slave himself, raises an objection to slavery. He speaks highly, too, of the fidelity of some slaves to their masters and to their master's children; yet, on the other hand, he says there is nothing in the soul of a slave a safe foundation for trustworthiness; verifying the saying of Homer, that "in the day when Jupiter makes slaves of men, he deprives them of half their reason." With Aristotle he agrees, "that in the treatment of slaves, to preserve the proper medium between
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severity on the one hand, and indulgence on the other is very difficult."
Strange to add, that the Grecian Republics amidst this iron handed slavery were pleading for democracy and free government. "While Demosthenes was uttering his words of fire to a few thousands free Athenians, stimulating them to rise up against the aggressions of the Northen Tyrant, as he called Philip; there were in their midst 400,000 human beings whose life and liberty were at the mercy of a most despotic democracy." So that it became a saying, even in those days, that "those men most jealous of their own liberties, were most willing to take it from others."
I have not yet told half my tale of woes, attendant on Slavery in the Cities and States in which christianity was planted. But those desirous of the whole story may consult the works in the margin, from which I have drawn a few facts.*
Such then, was the state of things in the provinces of the Roman Empire, when christianity made its appearance. Such was Corinth, the capital of Achaia; such were Ephesus of Ionia; the Island of Crete, where Paul placed Timothy; Thessalonica and Phillippi of Macedonia; Calosse, Laodicea, and Hierapolis of Phrygia Minor; and in every place where Paul or Peter names servants in their epistles. And such essentially were the communities, and such the servants out of which he and his associates made their converts, and builded their churches. And, certainly, such were the masters and the servants to whom he gave instructions, and tendered exhortations on their reciprocal duties in that new relation into which he and his associates had instrumentally inducted them.
The great question, then, on the subject now pressing itself upon our attention is;--what instructions did the apostles give, what precepts did they tender to such masters and servants as we have described, who had been introduced to the churches planted by their labors? We hope to be excused if we should not attempt to prove that Peter and Paul were Philanthropists, that they were Divinely inspired and furnished for their work. We shall, therefore, hear all that they have said first to the masters, and then to the slaves.
"And you masters, (kurioi, lords,) do justice to your servants, (douloi, slaves,) as they do justice to you, moderating threatening; knowing also that your master (kurios, Lord) is in heaven, neither
*Potter's Greek Antiquities, Mitford's Greece, vol. 1, 179, vol. 7, 191. Blane's Enquiry into Slavery amongst the Romans, Edinburg, 1833. Dun- lap's History of Roman Literature, and Gibbon's History Decline and Fall, chap. 44.
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is there respect of persons with him." Ephesians vii. 9. "Masters (lords) give unto your servants (slaves) that which is just and equal, knowing that you also have a master (lord) in heaven." Col. iv. 1.
These are the only precepts given to masters in the apostolic epistles. Their entire import, in one imperative, is simply. "Be just and kind to your servants." The former, Eph. vi. 9, in the original is periphrastic, and in the Common Version is rendered, "Do the same things to them," that they do to you; equivalent to Reward them according to their works.
We shall now quote all that is said to servants in the New Testament. 1. "Servants, (douloi, slaves) be obedient to them that are your masters (kuriois, lords) according to the flesh, with fear and trembling in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eye service, as men pleasers, but as the servants, (slaves) of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will (eunoice, benevolence) doing service as to the Lord, and not to men; knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive from the Lord, whether he shall be bond or free, (master or slave)-" Eph. vi. 6, 7, 8.
Again, 2. "Servants, (douloi, slaves) obey in all things your masters, (kurioi, lords) according to the flesh, not with eye service, as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God; and whatsoever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not to men; knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ, but he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong that he hath done, and there is no respect of persons," Col. iii. 22, 23, 24.
3. "Exhort servants (douloi, slaves) to be obedient to their own masters, (despotais, despots) and to please them well in all things; not answering again, not purloining, (secretly stealing,) but chewing all good fidelity (faithfulness) that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things," Titus ii. 9.
4. "Servants, (oiketai, household servants,) be subject to your masters (despotais, despots,) with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy; if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully: for what glory is it, if when you be buffeted for your faults, you take it patiently; but if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God," 1 Peter ii. 18, 19, 20.
5. Art thou called being a servant (doulos slave,) care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free use it rather: for he that is called by the Lord, being a servant, (doulos slave,) is the Lord's freedman,
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likewise also he that is called being free, is Christ's servant, (doulos, slave). You are bought with a price, become not the servants (douloi, slaves) of men. Brethren, let every man in what state he has been called, therein abide with God," 1 Cor. vii. 22, 23. That those servants were all slaves will appear farther evident from Paul. For, says he, "We are all baptized into one body (or church,) whether bond or free;" masters or servant, 1 Cor. xii. 13.
6. "Let as many servants (douloi, slaves,) as are under the yoke, count their own masters (despotas, despots,) worthy of all honor, that the name of God, and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, (despotas, despots,) let them not despise them because they are brethren: but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit" of their labors, 1 Tim. vi. 1, 2.
In reviewing all that is written in the Christian Scriptures on the subject of Christian masters and Christian slaves, we may sum up the whole in a very few words. To masters, the Lord commands the duties of justice and humanity. These are always necessarily dependent on times, places, and circumstances. They, therefore, change in their forms with time, place, and circumstances. Public opinion, providential dispensations, accidents and contingencies, numerous and various, necessarily change the forms of justice and humanity. The Golden Rule, therefore, is the invariable and immutable standard, by which we must ascertain in difficult cases, what is right and expedient. Let the master place himself in the relation of the slave, and ask himself, in all the circumstances of the case, how he would like to be treated. And let the servant place himself in the relation of the master, and ask himself, with all the light he has, how he would like, in any given case, to' be served. Let the parties, in all the mutations of the forms of justice and humanity, act according to this rule; and the system will work well for the good of both.
But there is yet one case in the New Testament to which our attention in the present crisis is specially called. I need scarcely say that it is the case of a runaway slave. Onesimus was the name of the slave, and Philemon that of his master. The history of this case is very valuable, because it establishes a very useful precedent.
Onesimus, as the letter of Philemon shows, had run away while a pagan or an infidel. He had gone to Rome, and fallen in with Paul, then a prisoner at Rome. He was converted from paganism to the faith of Christ. Paul having learned that he had run away from his master, Philemon, who was a brother in Christ, and also a convert,
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made by Paul, at Colosse, sent him home to his master, as in duty bound, both as a brother and a teacher of the law of Christ, and with him he sent a letter of introduction, containing a special request. He introduces Onesimus now as a brother, and Philemon, being a brother of noble degree, Paul asks him to receive him not merely as a servant, but above a servant--a christian brother, therefore, now, as he tells Philemon, he had two interests in Onesimus; he was dear to Philemon, first, in the flesh as a slave, and in the second place, as a brother in Christ. Paul waives his apostolic rights, and his personal rights in the service of Philemon, because he was his son in the Lord, and asks as a personal favor that he would forgive Onesimus his wrongs for remaining away, and for having previously wronged his master: for he could not have run away because of the cruelty of his master. He even assumes his debts, if Philemon would make out his account of damages, sustained before, or during the absence of Onesimus, and gives his bond to satisfy him, a copy of which we have in the epistle.
What a clear, and what a strong and striking case! But, farther, so fully does he recognize Philemon's rights to the life and labors of Onesimus, that although Paul needed his services, he would not keep him, much less secrete him, although he stood in need of a servant at that time. Yet Philemon owed himself as a Christian to Paul, and he might have presumed it morally right to make Philemon pay him some of his debts by the service of his slave. But, noble and generous man that he was! he says much as I need his services, and much as you owe to me, "without thy consent I would do nothing" of this sort: for if I did the benefit received would rather have been extorted than voluntarily tendered on your part. "Receive him, then, Philemon for ever," as your own man, and more than a man or a servant, a brother. If any man could invent a stronger case than this to stultify and abash that morbid and visionary humanity professed or felt by some of our contempories, I can only say, I must envy his ingenuity.
Assuredly from these promises we may confidently say that the Gospel institution as clearly, as fully, and as authoritatively sanctions the relation of master and slave, as that of matrimony or civil or ecclesiastic polity; and that no Christian man can censure another Christian man, because he is a master, and owns a man, any more than because he owns a wife, a son, or a daughter; but he may and ought to censure him for any act of cruelty or injustice to a wife, a son, a daughter, or a servant.
I am not defending any form or code, or existing institution of
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slavery;--European, Asiatic, African, or American. But I am defending the Bible from the assaults of infidels, sceptics, visionary theorists, and political demagogues.
Annihilation is not reformation, nor reformation annihilation; nor is every thing called philanthropy either humanity, or christianity.
That there are good and benevolent men amongst professed philanthropists, abolitionists and visionary theorists of every form and color; I doubt not. But that in all parties and under all banners, there are the rankest infidels, the most covetous, oppressive, and avaricious tyrants, I am sorry to say, I have not only some misgivings, but alas! irrisistable evidence.
The positions propounded in these essays, I hold to be invulnerable before the tribunal of Scripture, reason, and philanthropy. I will not because of Auto Da Fes--Inquisitorial Tribunals, Star Chamber Arbitriments, and infernal conclaves denounce religion or humanity; nor will I, because of the abuses of Slavery, Civil government, Ecclesiastic courts, Matrimony schools and Colleges, say that we must annihilate slavery or servitude--abolish every form of State government, have no Synods, Councils or Ecclesiastical meetings beyond a certain locality, no Schools, Colleges, nor Seminaries of learning. Again, I say, annihilation is not reformation, any more than is destruction salvation.
Having then hastily surveyed the patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian dispensations of law, religion, and civil polity; having seen that the best men in the world, amongst patriarchs, Jews, Christians--stood in the relation to each other, of master and slave; and that God in his laws, providences, and moral government, recognized and allowed it, punishing only the infractions upon right, and transgressions of law, occurring under it; regulating it by special enactments, and punishing only the unrighteousness and inhumanity of those insubordinates to his law; and, consequently, that no Christian man, properly instructed in his duty, and allegiance to Jesus Christ, can censure any man for being a master, and owning servants or slaves, any more than for hiring a day laborer, while he may at the same time justly censure all tyranny, oppression, robbery, and cruelty, and uses measures constitutional to punish and prevent them; I purpose, in my next essay, on the premises, to consider specially, the Fugitive Slave Law; and will endeavor to show that, be it right or wrong, resistance or rebellion, such as certain recent demonstrations defended and patronized at the North, is neither in reason nor according to law or gospel, or modern civilization, a rational, moral, honorable nor scriptural method of opposition or of reformation. A. C.
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318 JUSTIFICATION.
BOOK ON BAPTISM.
This work now in preparation, being stereotyped in Philadelphia, in arranging the consequents of Christian Baptism, gives the following views of Justification by Faith.
JUSTIFICATION.
If any man be in Christ," says Paul, "he is a new creation, old things have passed away; all things have become new." By the special favor of God, Jesus Christ "is made unto us wisdom, justification, sanctification, and redemption." Hence, as saith the Prophet. "In him shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and in him shall they glory." "He that boasteth," therefore, "let him boast in the Lord."
What, then, is justification, the first fruit of this heavenly cluster of Divine graces? It is, indeed, a trite but a true saying, that the term justification is a forensic word; and, therefore, indicates that its subject has been accused of crime, or of the transgression of law. It also implies that the subject of it has not only been accused and tried, but also acquitted. Such, then, is legal or forensic justification. It is, indeed, a sentence of acquittal announced by a tribunal, importing that the accused is found not guilty. If convicted, he cannot be justified; if justified he has not been convicted.
But such is not justification by grace. Evangelical justification is the justification of one that has been convicted as guilty before God, the Supreme and Ultimate Judge of the Universe. But the whole world has been tried and found guilty before God. So that, in fact, "there is none righteous; no not one." Therefore, by deeds of law no man can be justified before God. "For should a man keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." He has despised the whole authority of the law and the Lawgiver. It is, then, utterly impossible that any sinner can be forensically or legally justified before God, by a law which he has in any one instance violated.
If, then, a sinner be justified, it must be on some other principle than law. He must be justified by favor, and not by right. Still it must be rightfully done by him that justifies a transgression, else he will be liable to the charge of injustice to the law and the government. This is the emergency which must be met by evangelical justification. The mission and mediation of the Messiah was primarily to meet this emergency; though, indeed, he has done much
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more than to meet it. Evangelical justification is, therefore, a justification by favor as respects man; and it has been made just also on the part of Gad, by the sacrifice or obedience unto death of his Son. Still it must be regarded as not a real or legal justification. It is, as respects man, only pardon, or forgiveness of the past; but the pardoned sinner being ever after treated and regarded as though he were righteous, he is constituted and treated as righteous before God. He is as cordially received into the favor and friendship of God, as though he had never at any time offended against his law. This, then, is what is peculiarly and appropriately called "evangelical justification." Still, legally contemplated, God, in fact, "justifies the ungodly." And so teaches the apostle Paul.
Still every one of reflection will enquire, how can the justification of the ungodly be regarded as compatible with the justice, the purity, the truthfulness of God? How can he stand justified before the pure and holy, and righteous peers of his celestial realm--the hierarchs and princes of heaven I This is, indeed, to very many, a profound mystery. And "great," truly "is the mystery of Godliness." Standing at this point, and viewing it in all its bearings, heaven is always in rapture, while contemplating this new and grand and glorious revelation of the manifold wisdom of God. It is, however, a revealed mystery. One there is, and was, and evermore will be, who, by his obedience to that violated law, even unto death, has so magnified and made honorable that law and government, as to open a channel through which truth, righteousness, and mercy can harmoniously flow together and justify God, while justifying the sinner, by pardoning him and then treating him as though he never had sinned against his throne and government.
His death was, therefore, contemplated as the one only true, real, and adequate sin-offering ever presented in this universe, in the presence of God, angels, men, and demons, that does for ever justify God in justifying man. It will forever silence all demur, and fill the universe--heaven and eternity, with the praise of the Lord. Hence, in perfect harmony with all the types of the law, the oracles of the prophets and the promises and covenants of God, he is truly, rightfully, and, with the emphatic seal of God, surnamed--" JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." Therefore, as saith Isaiah--" By the knowledge of him shall my righteous servant justify many, whose iniquities he shall have borne."
How then is it dispensed? or rather, how is it received and enjoyed? "It is through faith," says Paul, "that it might be by grace," to the end, that the promise of eternal life" might be sure to all the
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seed;" whether by nature, Jews or Gentiles. It is through faith, and not on account of faith, as though there was in faith some intrinsic merit.
It is worthy of remark, that if faith were a work of the head or of the heart, or of both, possessing inherent and essential merit, it would be as much a work to be rewarded as any other exercise of the understanding or of the heart. Love is said "to be the fulfilling of the whole law," and covetousness is called idolatry. Were then justification to be founded on faith, hope, or love, as works of the understanding or affections; it could be no more of grace than any other blessing received on account of any thing done by us or wrought in us.
Hence, in the evangelical dispensation of justification it is in some sense connected with seven causes. Paul affirms, that a man is justified by faith, Romans v. 1; Gal. ii. 16: iii. 24. In the second place, he states that "we are justified freely by his grace," Romans iii. 24; Titus iii. 7. In the third place, on another occasion he teaches that "we are justified by Christ's blood," Romans v. 9. Again, in the fourth place, he says that "we are justified by the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God," 1 Cor. vi. 11. To the Galatians, in the fifth place, he declares that "we are justified by Christ," Gal. ii. 16. In the sixth place, Isaiah says "we are justified by knowledge," Isaiah liii. 11. And James, in the seventh place, says "we are justified by works," chap. ii. 21. Thus, by Divine authority, faith is connected as an effect, in some sense, of seven causes, viz: Faith, Grace, the Blood of Christ, the Name of the Lord, Knowledge, Christ, and Works. May it not, then, be asked why do so many select one of these only, as essential to justification. This is one of the evidences of the violence of sectarianism.
Call these causes or means of justification and they may severally indicate an influence or an instrumentality in the consummation of this great act of Divine favor. He that assumes any one or two of them, as the exclusive or one only essential cause of a sinners justification, acts arbitrarily and hazardously rather than discreetly or according to the oracles of God. We choose rather to give to them severally a Divine significance, and consequently a! proper place in the consummation of evangelical justification. We feel obliged to use the same reason and discretion in ascertaining the developments of this work of Divine grace, that we m Ay employ in searching into the works of God in nature and in moral government. How many agents and laws of nature co-operate in providing our daily bread Suns rise and set, moons wax and wane, tides ebb and flow, the
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planets observe their cycles, morning, noon, and night perform their functions, the clouds pour their treasures into the bosom of the thirsty earth, the dews distil their freshness on the tender blade, and the electric fluid unobserved, in perpetual motion, as the anima mundi, ministers to life in every form of vegitable, animal and human existence.
Why then to reason's ear should it sound discordant, or to reason's eye appear uncouth, that, in the scheme of redemption and regeneration, God's instrumentalities should be as numerous and as various, yet as co-operative as those in outward and sensible nature
Again, let us survey the works of man to man, his modes and forms of action in the consummation of some grand scheme of human benefaction. Take for example, that philanthropist, who standing on the sea-shore descries a ship-wrecked crew clinging to a portion of the wreck tossed to and fro among the foaming billows of an angry sea. He calls to his son, and commands him to seize a boat and hasten to their rescue. He obeys. Cheerfully he plies the oars, and fearlessly struggles through many a conflicting wave, till he reaches the almost famished and fainting crew. He commands them to seize his arm and let go the wreck, and he will help them into his boat. They obey, and all aboard, he commands them to grasp each his oar and co-operate with him in seeking the port of safety. They cheerfully co-operate and are saved.
The spectators and the narrators of this scene, form and express very different views of it. One says, the perishing crew were saved by a man on the shore; another, by his son; another, by a boat; another, by getting into a boat; another, by rowing themselves to shore; another, by a favorable breeze.
They all told the truth. There is no contradiction in their representations. But a Philosopher says, they were saved by all these means together. Such is the case before us.
These means may be regarded as causes co-operating in the result, all necessary, not one of them superfluous. But some one of them to one person, another to a second person, another to a third person, and another to a fourth, appears more prominent than the others; consequently, in narrating the deliverance he ascribes it mainly to that cause which, at the time, made the most enduring impression on his own mind.
But the calm contemplative thinker thus arranges these concurrent causes. The original or moving cause was the humanity and kindness of the father, that stood on the shore and saw them about to perish. His son, who took the boat and imperiled his life, was the
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efficient or meritorious cause. The boat itself was the instrumental cause. The knowledge of their own condition and the kind invitation tendered to the sufferers was the disposing cause. Their consenting to the condition was the formal cause. Their seizing the boat with their hands and springing into it was the immediate cause. And their co-operative rowing to the shore was the concurrent and effectual cause of their salvation.
Had any one of the apostles been accosted by captious, inquisitive and speculative partizans for a reconciliation of all he had said, or that his fellow laborers had said in their narratives, or allusions to particular persons, scenes, or events happening in his presence, or under his administration of affairs; had he been requested to explain or reconcile them with what he, or others of equal authority, had, on other occasions said, or written, concerning them, doubtless in some such way he could, and would have explained them. Indeed, in the common experience of all courts of enquiry and tribunals of justice, where numerous statements are made on questions of facts, by a single witness, and still more when a plurality are examined, such diversified representations are made rather to the confirmation than to the detriment or disparagement of the import, or the credibility of these statements. How often, and by how many cavillers have the Four Gospels been subjected to such ordeals, on such pretences? But who has yet found good reasons to disparage or discredit these narratives on account of such assaults or misunderstandings
No question agitated since the era of Protestantism has occupied so much attention, or concentrated a greater amount of learning and research, than the question of justification by faith; not, indeed, because of the inherent difficulties of the subject, but because of the defection and apostacy of the papal hierarchy--and the thick pall of darkness and error with which it had enveloped the whole Bible. One extreme generates another. Hence the terminology of the most orthodox schools on this subject is neither so scriptural nor so intelligible as the great importance of the subject demands.
To harmonize the seven statements found in the Bible, on this subject, we know no method more rational or more scriptural than that indicated in the illustration given. We are pardoned and treated as righteous, or in other words, we are justified by the grace of God the Father, as the original and moving cause; by Christ his Son, and by his blood, or sacrifice, as the meritorious cause; by faith and knowledge as instrumental causes, by our convictions of sin and penitence as the disposing cause; and by works as the concurrent
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or concomitant cause. This, however, as justifying God in justifying us. "You see," said the apostle James, "how faith wrought by works," in the case of Abraham, when he offered up his son upon the altar; "and by works his faith was made perfect." Indeed, true faith necessarily works; therefore, a working faith is the only true, real, and proper faith in Divine or human esteem.
Faith without works is no more faith than a corpse is a man. It is, therefore, aptly by high authority regarded as "dead." Faith alone, or faith without works, profits nothing. But as Romanists taught works without faith, Protestants have sometimes taught faith without works. The latter quote Paul, and the former quote James, as plenary authority. But the two apostles have fallen into bad hands. Paul never preached faith without works, nor James works without faith. Between these parties the apostles have been much abused.
Controversies generate new terms or affix new ideas to words. The question between Calvin and Arminius--or between their followers is not the identical question between Paul and the Jews, or James and nominal christians.
The works of the law and the works of faith are as different as law and gospel. Works, indeed, are to be considered as the embodiments of views, thoughts, emotions, volitions, and feelings. They are appreciable indications of the states of the mind, sensible exponents of the condition of the inner man. For example, he that seeks justification by the works of the law is not in a state of mind to be justified by the blood of Christ, or by the grace of God; he is ignorant of himself, ignorant of God; consequently, too proud of his powers to condescend to be pardoned or justified by the mere mercy and merits of another. Rich and independent in his views of himself, he cannot think of being a debtor to the worth and compassion of one, who contemplates him as ruined and undone for ever He is too proud to be vain, or too vain to be proud of himself. In either view he cannot submit to the righteousness of faith. For this purpose, Paul says of the Pharasaic Jews, "They being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God," or to that righteousness which God has provided for the ungodly.
On the other hand, the works of him that is justified by faith are exponents of an essentially different state of mind. He is humble, dependent, grateful. Feeling himself undone, ruined, a debtor without hope to pay, he sues for mercy and mercy is obtained, he is grateful, thankful, and humble before God. In this view of the matter, to
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justify a man for any work of which he is capable, would be to confirm him in carnality, selfishness and pride. But convinced, humbled, emptied of himself, and learning, through faith in the gospel, that God has provided a ransom for the ruined, the wretched, and the undone, he gladly accepts pardon through sovereign mercy, and humbles himself to a state of absolute dependence on the merits and mercy of another. Justification by faith in Christ is, then, the embodiment of views in perfect harmony with truth--with our condition, with the whole revealed character of God, and necessarily tends to humility, gratitude, piety and humanity, while justification sought by works as naturally tends to pride, ingratitude, impiety and inhumanity.
Such being the true philosophy of justification by faith, and of justification sought and supposed to be obtained by works of law, we need not marvel that the God of all grace after having sent his Son into our world to become a sacrifice for us--to die for our sins. and to rise again for our justification, should have instituted faith in him--in his death, burial and resurrection; as the means of a perfect reconciliation to himself, commanding us not only to cherish this faith in our hearts, but exhibit it by a visible death to sin; a burial with Christ to sin, and a rising again to walk in a new life, expressed and symbolized by an immersion in water into the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, not as a work of righteousness, but as a mere confession of our faith in what he did for us, and of our fixed purpose to walk in him. Hence it is the only suitable institution to such an indication, as being not a moral work of righteousness, but a mere passive surrendering of ourselves to die, to be buried, and to be raised again by the merit and aid of another.
Baptism is, therefore, no work of law, no moral duty, no moral righteousness, but a simple putting on of Christ and placing ourselves wholly in his hand and under his guidance. It is an open, sensible, voluntary expression of our faith in Christ, a visible embodiment of faith, to which, as being thus perfected, the promise of remission of sins is Divinely annexed. In one word, it is faith perfected. Hence, when Paul exegetically developes its blessings, he says--" But you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our Lord.* Thus justification, sanctification, and adoption --the three most precious gifts of the gospel are evangelically connected with faith in the Lord Jesus, and baptism into his death.
*1 Cor. vi. 11.
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The immediate baptism of the first converts, after faith is satisfactorily explained in this view of it; three thousand, in one day, believed and were baptized. The jailor and his family were enlightened, believed, and were baptized the same hour of the night. Paul himself, so soon as he had recovered from the influence of the supernatural brightness which deprived him of sight, and before he had eaten or drank any thing, was commanded, without delay, to be forthwith baptized." And he arose and was baptized." Baptism, with them. was the perfecting or confession of their faith. The Ethiopian Eunuch, on his journey in the desert, is as striking an example of this as are the cases named. It was "putting on Christ," as their righteousness.
Baptism, without faith, is of no value whatever; for, in truth: baptism is but the actual and symbolic profession of faith. It is its legitimate embodiment and consummation. And whatever virtue there is in it, or connected with it, is but the virtue of faith in the blood of Christ applied to the conscience and to the heart. The burial in water is a burial with Christ and in Christ. "For in him shall all the seed of Israel," the believing children of Abraham. "be justified," and in him, "and not in themselves, shall they glory." It is, then, the sensible and experimental deliverance from both the guilt and the pollution of sin; and for this reason, or in this view of it, believing penitents, when inquiring what they should do, were uniformly commanded by the ambassadors of Christ to be "baptized for the remission of sins," as God's own way, under the New Institution. of receiving sinners into favor, through the death, burial, and resurrection of his Son, into whose name especially, as well as by whose mediatorial authority, they were commanded to be, on confession. buried in baptism.
Salvation, in the aggregate, is all of grace; and all the parts of it are, consequently, gracious. Nor do we, in truth, in obeying the gospel, or in being buried in baptism, make void either law or gospel. but establish and confirm both. A. C.
TRUTH and reason never cause revolutions on the earth; they are the fruit of experience, which can only be exercised when the passions are at rest; they excite not in the heart those furious emotions which shake empires to their base. The revolutions which occur during the progress of truth are always beneficial to society, and are only burthensome to those who deceive and oppress it.
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CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS--No. II.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with me.
The AMEN, the faithful and true WITNESS, the Beginning of the creation of God.--Rev. iii. 14, 20.
WE have already adverted to man's spiritual susceptibility. We have found that they who deny, in general, the existence of direct spiritual communication in these our days of philosophical refinement, admit, at least, that Satan still retains this power. And well they may, for the proofs of it are abundant. To what other source, for instance, shall we attribute it, that a man in the night watches, in the midst of silence and darkness, where there is neither word, nor look, nor gesture, to suggest ideas: that a man, I say, under these circumstances, as it appears in confessions of criminals, shall have thrown into his mind suggestions of crime; that he shall then form conceptions of atrocious iniquity, and in these seemingly solitary communings with himself, digest and arrange his nefarious purposes, and nerve himself to carry them into execution? The questions here are simply these: Does man himself originate evil? If not, Is not Satan, in the case supposed, just as present in the individual thus cogitating and resolving, as is the soul of this individual itself? And again, on the other hand, when a man, under similar circumstances, devises plans of beneficence; when he feels his heart burning with desire to accomplish good, and with love to God and men; when he is filled with inexpressible happiness in the contemplation of the divine character, and with earnest desires and fixed determinations to fulfil the obligations of duty, is not the Holy Spirit of God just as present to that man as is his own spirit? How is it possible for any one to make a difference? Are we to refer such reflections to re-awakened memories of the past, or explain their cause away, as a simple association of ideas'! The question will then recur, Who awakened these memories? Who associated these ideas, so as to lead to such results? Are human affairs fortuitous? Is man ruled and directed by chance? or is there a plan in his destiny and a method in his progress?
But it is not necessary to take cases where individuals are wholly secluded from external avenues of communication, and where it is manifestly impossible for them to receive any suggestions through the bodily senses. We hold it to be impossible for any mortal to trace always to words, gestures, looks, or any other external modes of exciting mental action, the thoughts and reflections which pass through
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the mind in the midst of day and in the usual pursuits of life. It is in the city, amidst the crowd, in the busiest mart of commerce, that we would willingly select the example, and we should in vain call upon our mental philosopher to trace to external circumstances each thought that presented itself to the mind during the brief period of a single day. It is true, indeed, that the general current of thought may be found connected with the particular matters in which the individual is engaged. It may be shown that the words, looks, gestures, &c., of his associates, have suggested various ideas to his mind. But this will not be enough. It will fairly devolve upon the propounder of the theory in question, to show that it is applicable to all the workings of the mind, and that it can account for the origin of every thought and of every impulse that may have been communicated to it.
It is perfectly natural, that the general train of a man's ideas should be directly connected with the impressions made on his senses by the things around him. Every such impression is a knock at a door of the mind, which opens readily at the summons. But the mind must have more doors than the senses furnish, else inspiration would be impossible, and revelation incredible. It is doubtless the well known general connection of thought with the things around, that has led many to suppose all thought to be thus connected, and man to be thus a mere creature of circumstances; a shapeless mass, fashioned by the plastic power of accident; a fragile bark, without captain, crew or pilot, impelled by every wind, and the sport of every wave. By nothing, however, in the wide-spread domains of nature, has the suggestion ever been made to the minds of these philosophers that there may be a great difference between the ordinary working of the mind's machinery, and the forces by which that machinery is moved, and between both of these and the influences by which the course of an individual is directed. However powerful the apparatus which propels a missile, it is not to be confounded with the force that moves, much less with the circumstances, often slight and imperceptible, which give direction to that which is propelled. It is not by the blustering winds or bellying sails; by the noisy crew or the bustling and vociferous commander, that the stately ship is made to take a particular direction amidst the watery waste, but by the unobserved action of the rudder, moved only at intervals by the silent and solitary steersman at the wheel. As well might we attempt to account for the ship's track by the working of the sails and the force of the winds alone, as to explain the course of any individual by mere motivity, in its common acceptation.
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The general connection, indeed, of the thoughts with sensation and with present objects, is not to be doubted. By this the mind is crowded with images and set in motion, and it is this very movement which enables the spiritual pilot to vary the course at pleasure, by the gentlest action of the helm. That the pressure of external circumstances will often drive the mind from the intended track, is also true, but it will speedily be brought back again to the course prescribed. It is not these transient and accidental influences which shape man's destiny; neither is this accomplished by the busy throng of sensations which crowd the mind in the common pursuits of life. On the contrary, we presume that every observing and intelligent mind will be able to trace to its periods of solitary musing, those guiding suggestions which have directed its future course. It is when the soul is most abstracted from the bustle of the world, that it is most susceptible of communion with the spiritual system; and hence it is made an important duty, on the part of the Christian, to retire often to solitude, to pray in secret, and seek the holy spiritual fellowship of the gospel in silent meditation.
How very slight, how imperceptible to man himself, may be the occasional impulse which gives direction to thought! How often is it the case that a single idea will revolutionize the whole mind and character of an individual! How easy, one would think, for a spirit, present with the soul, and familiar with its workings, to give, at the proper moment, the necessary impulse to direct its course! And it is direction that is needed, rather than new revelations to the mind. It is the grouping together of particular ideas, the awakening of particular memories, the fixing of the attention upon particular circumstances, which lead the mind to new resolves, and even to new discoveries and applications of truth. Surely man's spiritual habitability, and the laws of the human mind itself, would render it not only possible, but altogether probable, that spiritual beings, in attempting to influence his conduct, would not only dwell in him, but touch with skill those chords of his nature which might best suit their purposes--whether memory, or imagination, or intellect, or passion. They would act in harmony with the organization of the mind itself, and without even indicating, in many cases, their presence to the consciousness of the individual himself, assume, from behind, the guidance of his heart and the direction of his hands.
But it may be urged by those Who oppose the doctrine of direct spiritual agency in modern times, that the demoniacal possessions, as well as the "out-pourings of the Holy Spirit" recorded in scripture, were miraculous, and restricted entirely to the period of the
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introduction of Christianity. As respects the demoniacal possessions, there seems here to be a confusion of thought on the part of these objectors, since it was not possession that was the miracle, but dispossession. From the scripture account of these matters, it is manifest that possession by a demon was regarded as an affair quite in accordance with the laws both of the spiritual and of the human nature, and that the miracle consisted in controlling or suspending those powers or privileges which spirits possessed in accordance with these laws. Demons seem to have had no difficulty, at any time, in entering into men, and not the slightest wonder is any where expressed at such an occurrence. Having once entered, the difficulty was to get them out again, and this it was that required miraculous power, and excited the astonishment of the Jews. For our own part, we are quite content to leave the matter where the scriptures thus place it, and to believe that spirits may dwell in the human body, and actuate, by a direct agency, the human mind. It is to our philosophical objectors, that we may legitimately leave the performance of those mighty miracles of logic by which these spirits are to be expelled.
With regard to the "gift of the Holy Spirit," the "out-pouring of the Spirit," &c., if from the use of the terms "out-pouring," "gift," &c., any one regards these manifestations as miraculous, or as at any time necessarily connected with the exhibition or impartation of miraculous powers, we would merely remark, that one or two phrases afford a very slender foundation for so weighty a conclusion, and would recommend to him a closer examination of the scriptures upon this subject. He will there find that Peter expressly applies the promise (Acts ii. 39) to ALL that were to be called, whether amongst the Jews or the Gentiles. He will also find that Paul, in speaking of the common salvation, (Tit. iii. 4, 5, 6,) distinctly affirms it to be effected by "the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, which," adds he, "he shed on us abundantly,*
that we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."* And to this agrees the language of the same apostle, in the Epistle to the Romans, (viii. 9-17,) where it is shown that the possession and indwelling presence of the Spirit of God is essential to sonship; sonship to heirship, and heirship to a well founded hope of eternal glory. While the objector, then, in the former case, confounds
*To prevent cavil, we will state, that the verb here translated "shed," is the very same in the original (ekcew) as occurs in the prophecy of Joel, quoted Acts ii. 17, and that it might be rendered in both cases "poured out," with equal propriety.
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things that are different, he attempts, in the present instance, to make a distinction where there is no difference; all the phrases in question, the "gift," the "shedding," "the pouring out" of the Spirit, having reference to the same grand fact--the great characteristic of the Christian institution--the impartation of the Holy Spirit to every believer; a matter which is to be regarded as independent of the miraculous powers, or any other accidents connected with Christianity.
After all, indeed, it may have been unnecessary to refer to these objections, since they who make them do admit man's spiritual habitability at the present day, so far, at least, as respects the Spirit of God, and the Adversary of God and man. This admission is, as respects the main subject before us, quite sufficient for my present purpose, and I have been led to make the preceding remarks, not because this admission is not broad enough to cover the ground on which we design to build, but because, on the part of some, it seems to be nothing but an admission, and not a matter of lively faith and earnest affirmation; a guarded, and, as it were, a reluctant assent to a loose, general proposition, rather than a cordial reception and zealous support of an important practical truth. It is easy to admit, in general terms, a general, or even a special Providence, yet explain away each particular case by the doctrine of circumstances and the laws of nature. It is easy to admit the existence of ministering angels, yet, by the timely aid of accident and luck, accomplish their work, and leave nothing for them to do. It is easy to assent to the proposition that the Spirit of God dwells in the heart of every true believer; yet, at the same time, by a theory of his mode of action, restrict his influences entirely to external media, and while he dwells within, deny to him the power to act, except from without. Such admissions amount to nothing. They grant to the ear what is afterwards denied to the understanding, and render the whole subject confused and dark, from their incompatibility with the philosophical menstruum in which men vainly endeavor to dissolve them.
I desire not, however, to run a tilt at the wind-mill machinery of theoretical religionists or metaphysical abstractionists, or to controvert the received or modern philosophy of the various forms of insanity or monomania, but it is not easy to perceive why direct interference with the mind should be restricted to so few cases, or why it should be supposed that Satan, rather than his subordinates, should be, in every case, the active agent in creating the moral, intellectual, and even physical disturbances and distractions of life.
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In all these matters, it seems to me best to look at philosophy through the Bible, rather than at the Bible through philosophy; and to be, even if it be so, superstitious with the former, than sceptical or infidel with the latter. Certain it is, that the Bible presents far different views from those often entertained on these subjects, and that the professing Christian makes a poor exchange, when, for the rationalism, motivity, and frigidness of philosophy, he barters away the very soul of religion; the chief joys which the Bible presents to faith; the ministering angels of the divine covenant, and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit of promise, the only earnest of a future inheritance. R. R.
SEPTENARY INSTITUTIONS AND THE WESTMINSTER
REVIEW.
[Continued from page 277.]
IN our last number, we had so far examined the article in the November number of the Westminster Review, on Septenary Institutions, as to show that the writer had not only assigned a false position to the advocates of a Sabbath observance, in representing them as asserting that the hebdomadal division of time was universal among ancient Eastern nations, but that he had also totally failed in attempting to account for the admitted general prevalence of such a division in the earlier periods of history, upon the hypothesis that it grew out of the lunar festivals. We showed, that whether we take the synodic or sidereal lunar month, it is altogether impossible that either could have given origin to the division of time into weeks. The week, in fact, has no fixed relation, either to the lunar or the calendar months, nor any other astronomical period, not even the year, and is a division of time which must have had its origin, as the Bible represents it to have had, in a positive enactment of acknowledged authority.
But there are other positions of this writer, which have a tendency to throw doubt upon the Bible account of the origin of the Sabbath, and we shall now proceed to notice them. It is claimed that the names given to the days of the week, by some very ancient nations, indicate an astronomical origin. It is sufficiently shown, indeed, that, in the ancient Sanscrit, the language of the holy writings of India, and in the various dialects of India and Hindostan,
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as well as in other ancient Eastern languages, the names given to the seven days of the week were borrowed from the seven planets, as then regarded, of the solar system; but as the division of time into weeks was anterior to the naming of the days, we do not see how these names can throw any light upon the origin of the week itself, especially as it is not claimed that the number of planets had any influence in the origin of this division. If it were contended, that the fact that there were seven planets in the solar system, as known to the ancients, had given rise to the hebdomadal division of time, then it might serve to make the hypothesis plausible, to show that the days of the week were named from these planets. But this position is not taken, and will not, we apprehend, be taken by any one acquainted with the difficulties which would attend its application. On the contrary, nothing is easier than to account for the appropriation of these names to the days of a week already introduced and observed. In the primitive Hebrew style, these days were designated by the ordinals first, second, third, &c., to indicate the order of creation; but when the nations departed from the pure worship, and bowed down to the "hosts of heaven," it was most natural that they should not only appropriate to the worship of certain deities particular days, but that they should also, in process of time, call these days by the names of the divinities to whose service they were specially set apart. Thus, when the idolatrous worship of the ancient people of India had reached such a degree of system as to have the first day set apart to the religious services of the sun, it was most natural that they should call it Aditya-var, (Sun-day.) The second day was dedicated to the moon, and called Sona-var, (Moon-day;) the third to the planet Mars, and called, therefore, Mangala-var, (Mars-day;) the fourth to Mercury, called Buddha-var, (Mercury-day;) the fifth to Jupiter, called Vrihaspatetvar, (Jupiter-day;) the sixth to Venus, called Suba-var, (Venus-day;) and the seventh to Saturn, called Sani-var, (Saturn-day.)* It would
*It will be observed, that the order of these days has no relation to that of the planets themselves, neither if we regard their apparent magnitude. nor their real position with respect to the earth. The order of their apparent magnitude is--1 Sun; 2. Moon; 3. Venus; 4. Jupiter; 5. Mars: 6. Saturn; and 7. Mercury. The order of their real position, according to the Ptolomaic system, is--1. Moon; 2- Venus; 3. Mercury; 4. Sun; 5. Mars; 6. Jupiter; and 7. Saturn. The order of their real magnitudes is different from both these. So that the appropriation of certain days of the week to these planets was wholly arbitrary or superstitious, having no respect to any natural relation of apparent or real magnitude, nor yet of distance or place. Ought we not rather to say, then, that this use of these names had a superstitious, not an astronomical origin, since religion, not science, assigned them?
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appear, therefore, that the use of these names originated in the idolatrous worship of the planets on certain days of the week, and not in any astronomical relation between the planets and the week itself. So strong is the propensity of the human mind to name days from the object to which they are consecrated, that we have, in the Catholic superstition, almost every day in the year named, either after some festival or calendared saint; and among the Protestants, many days, besides their regular week-day name, have specific designations, borrowed from the use to which they are devoted; such as Christmas-day, New Years-day, Easter-day, Whitsun-day, &c., &c. We have adopted the Saxon names* for the days of the week, which appear to have descended through the Teutonic races, from the mythology of Western Asia and Africa; but we do not attach their ancient significance to the terms, nor regard the hebdomadal division of time as having originated in the mythology of those remote ages. It appears evident, that the origin of weeks, and that of the names by which the days of the week may happen to be called, have no necessary connection, either in science or religion. Suppose, when popery became firmly established, the Pope had decreed, that inasmuch as six of the apostles of our Saviour are writers in the canon of scripture, therefore, one day of every week should be not only consecrated to the special worship of one of these apostles, but that it should also be called in honor of his name; that next to the Lord's-day should stand Peter's-day, then Paul's- day, John's-day, Matthew's-day, James'-day, and Jude's-day, does any one doubt that the custom would have been introduced throughout Christendom; yet, cannot any one see that it would be absurd for a learned sceptic in the nineteenth century, to say that because these names of the days of the week originated in a papal bull, or from saint worship, that, therefore, the hebdomadal division of time, the week itself, had a similar origin Yet this is exactly the parallel of that logic by which this writer would shake our faith in the divine origin of a Sabbath.
We pass to an examination of the criticism on the etymology of the word seven, which is supposed "to throw some light upon the origin of the institution of Sabbaths." He says, "The Hebrew seven, (שבע) written Saba, or Shaba, and by modern Jews Shebang, signifies age; Sab (שב) is grey-headed. Sabbath, (שבה) which we translate by the word rest, also means old age, and is, doubtless,
*By our Saxon ancestors, the seven days of the week were called Sondaeg, Mon-daeg, Tues-daeg, Woden's-daeg, Thurres-daeg or Thorre's-daeg, Friga's-daeg, and Saterne's-daeg.
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derived from the same root. S. B. O., in the Egyptian Coptic, signified erudition. Sabe, in Coptic, is a sage; (French, Savant.) The Druidical priests were called Sabs. Saboeanism was the religion they taught. The Celtic Sab-aith, was the day on which the Sabs assembled; whence the term Sabbat, an assembly: in modern history, a name confined to the nocturnal assemblies of witches and sorcerers."
"The Saba day was, therefore, the day on which the grey-headed men,' or aged fathers' of a tribe were in the habit of assembling for council or sacrifice. The intervals of their meetings, if hebdomadal--and they would necessarily be so, for the observance of the lunar festivals of India--would be Saba-day periods. Saba, therefore, became a term of computation, standing for the numeral seven, just in the same way as the moon became identified with the period of a lunation, which we still call a moon or month. The public business transacted, and the religious solemnities observed on the Saba-day, caused that day to be regarded as a more important day than any other, and necessarily gave to the number Saba, or seven, a marked significance, which made it an appropriate name of any thing that was complete or perfect; afterwards, with the assistance of astrological priests, it grew into a fortunate' number and a sacred number."*
This is the most extraordinary passage, to come from one professing to be learned, that we remember to have met with. It violates the soundest and most established principles of interpretation, not only in attempting to ascertain the original meaning of terms in the ancient Hebrew worship, by the significance which they had in the comparatively modern superstition of the Druids, thus making the vitiated speech of superstition and corruption the key to the interpretation of the true and pure religion, but if with any difference, even worse in seeking to establish, upon a remote resemblance in sound, an identity between a comparatively modern term in the Celtic language, and one of the most ancient, certainly the most ancient written terms in the Hebrew language; when nothing is more clearly established, than that these languages are not cognate --the former belonging to the great Indo-Germanic family, and the latter to the Semitic family; the one (the Hebrew) the oldest written language in the literature of the world--spoken, written, and reduced to an accurate grammatical structure, as far back, to say the least, as the times of Moses, and most definitely understood and interpreted, and translated by the students and critics of the Bible; the
*West. Rev., Nov., 1850--p. 81-2.
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other, the Celtic, comparatively unknown, we may say, so far as the terms of the Druidical worship are concerned, totally unknown to the literary world beyond the invasion of Britain by the Romans, under Caesar, and then existing but to a very limited extent, in a written form, and this in the characters of the Greek alphabet! We are thus dragged across the lapse of nearly 1500 years, from the times of Moses to the invasion of Britain under Julius Cesar, in search of the meaning of the Hebrew term שבע, (seven:) and though we discover through all this period that the term had a most definite meaning, and that the origin of its sacred import is most clearly pointed out and explained in the monumental institutions, both religious and civil, of the Jewish people; yet we are asked to give up all this light, as in fact nothing more than the ignis fatuus of super-stition, and to sit down, like children, before the feet of the old Druids, whom the power of the Roman armies drew from their obscurity only about fifty years before the commencement of the Christian era, and there, and from them learn, why it was that Moses used the term שבע (Shebang) to express the numeral seven, and שבק (Shabbath) to express the ordinance of the Sabbath!! The Druidical priests, we are told, were called Sabs, and the days on which the Sabs assembled, were called Saba-days, or Sab-aith. Now, admitting all this to be so, there is not the shadow of evidence that these Saba-days were seventh days; and it is certain, that neither Sab, nor Sab-aith, was the Celtic term for seven. The word for seven was secht or saith, which has no resemblance, in sense or in sound, to Sab, or Sab-aith. How, then, can the fact that the Druidical priests were called Sabs, and the days on which they met Sab-aith days, throw any light upon the Hebrew term שבע, (Shebang,) seven.
But our author thinks that these Saba-days would necessarily be hebdomadal periods, for the observance of the lunar festivals of India! His is, indeed, a most convenient system of interpretation. He first sweeps over the lapse of near fifteen centuries, from the time of Moses in Asia, to that of the Druids in Britain, to discover that the Druidical priests were called Sabs, and their days of assembling Saba-days; and then, with as vigorous a rebound, returns over about an equal period, to the origin of the lunar festivals in India, to prove that these Saba-days were necessarily seventh days! Thus the name of the Druid priests furnishes him with the origin of the term Sabbath, and the lunar festivals of the ancient Indians, with the fact that these Sabbaths were hebdomadal; and from these, two, he draws the satisfactory conclusion, that Moses borrowed from idolatry, not only the division of time into weeks, but the very terms
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seven and Sabbath, and, therefore, that these arrangements among the Jews were superstitious, mythological, or any thing but divine! Of the first of these facts, it is sufficient to say that Moses could not have borrowed his terms from the Druids; and of the second, we have previously shown that the septenary division of time was not, and could not have been employed in the observance of the lunar festivals, since the lunar changes do not recur at intervals of seven days.
It is further asserted by our author, that the Hebrew seven (שבע) signifies age; that Sab (שב) is grey-headed, and Sabbath (שבה) means old age. These assertions are made to prepare the way for the inference, that, inasmuch as the Druidical priests were called Subs, and their days of meeting Sab-aith, therefore, the terms seven and Sabbath, even as used by Moses, originated in the titles of the priests, who officiated at the lunar festivals. These assertions involve a simple question of fact. Is it true that the Hebrew term for seven (שבע) signifies age? The decision of this question is to be made by reference to the usage of the Hebrew Bible; and we hesitate not to say, that there is not an instance of its being so used within the lids of the volume--not one! Though it occurs some four or five hundred times, it is not in a single place translated age. No matter what the vowel pointing may be, still it is universally true that the radicals (שבע) S or Sh B A, or O, used for seven, are never rendered by the word age. The same is true with respect to the radicals(שבה) S, or Sh B Th, used for the word Sabbath; no matter how pointed, it never means old age in a single case to be found in the Bible. It is, of course, used very often, but never, as asserted, in the sense of old age! As for the assertion that Sab (שב) means grey-headed, it is true we have this term occurring once or twice in the Hebrew books in this sense; but this is a different form, and is evidently no way connected with the words seven and Sabbath. It is, besides, a metaphorical, and not the primary meaning of the term, and cannot, therefore, be relied upon as bearing upon the inquiry before us. The common term among the ancient Hebrews for old, aged, an old man, &c., was זקן (zah-kehn.) This was also the official title of the elders of Israel; but neither they nor the Jewish priests were ever called Sabs; on the contrary, their priests were called בקן, (kah-hehn,) the primary signification of which is not age, but ministry or service; the verbal form in the infinitive being frequently rendered, "to minister in the priest's office."
How can it be explained, then, that the title of the Druidical priests, Sab, is identical with a Hebrew term rendered grey-headed?
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The identity is only a seeming one, arising from the changes which we make in the Hebrew radicals, when expressing them in English equivalents. The superstition of Saboeanism, the priests of which religion, our author tells us, were called Sabs, was not originally spelt with an ש (S.) but with a צ (Tz.,) as the initial consonant. The primary idea of צבא (tzah-bah,) from which Tzabaean is derived, is an assemblage or host, and because they worshipped the hosts of heaven, as did the Israelites under their wicked kings, contrary to the express command of Jehovah, they were called Tzabaeans, or, as we now write it, Saboeans, or worshippers of the hosts of heaven. Their priests would be called Tzabs--a term different, both in its sense and its etymology, from the Hebrew שב (Sab.) Their days of assemblage would be Tzaba-days, or host-days; and as the worship of the hosts of heaven included, as objects of idolatry, other luminaries besides the moon, it is begging the whole question to say that the Saba, or Tzaba-days, were only at the periods of the lunar festivals. Is it not almost beyond a question, that the Tzaba-days, or host-days, were the religious days of Tzaba-ism, or host-worship, and that they occurred as often as the ceremonies of any of the hosts of heaven--the sun, moon, or stars, were celebrated? No one has any reason for saying that the term was confined to the ceremonies of the lunar festivals alone.*
We have thus far presented only a negative argument against the conclusions drawn by our author from his verbal criticisms respecting the original terms Savang (שבע) and Sabbath (שבה) It is proper that we should, also, point out the true history of these words, as ascertained by a more certain light.
The primary signification of the term seven (שבע) in Hebrew, is fulness; and as the terms employed in the earlier stages of all languages are mostly significant of some fact, quality or accident, belonging to, or connected with the thing named, we naturally inquire, what was the peculiarity of this day, which caused it to be
*The reader will perceive that we allow the author the full advantage of his assertion, that the Druidical religion and Tzabatism were the same. But this is far from being generally conceded by the learned; many supposing, and with good show of reason, too, that the Druid's superstition was not transported from the East, but that it was original to Britain. We will not enter upon the discussion of this point, on which, indeed, we could not offer any thing conclusive; but would only suggest, that if this superstition be not derived from the East, and is not, in fact, ancient Saba-ism, then the lunar festivals of India cannot be appealed to in support of the conjecture that Saba-days were at hebdomadal periods. This is the proof and the certainty of scepticism--a proof drawn from assumptions, and a certainty based upon the most doubtful and indeterminate historical conjectures.
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called seven, or the day of fulness, completeness? The solution of the question which may be drawn from the writings of Moses, is most reasonable and satisfactory. It was the day when the work of creation stood forth, full, perfected, and satisfying to the Divine Author. On this day he could survey all the works of his hands which he had made, and see that every purpose of the universe was provided for, and that all his own- designs were accomplished, and, at the same time, feel that the great motive for which he had been induced to create it, was satisfied. Hence, this day was most fitly and significantly called seven, (שבע) or the day of creation's fulness. The term was evidently employed, primarily, in this significant sense, and in this sense it is frequently used in the Hebrew Scriptures. Abraham is said to have been gathered to his fathers when "old and full of days;" literally, "seven (שבע) of days;" and the Psalmist sings, "In thy presence there is fulness of joy;" literally, "seven (שבע) of joy."
From these facts, we see why it was that seven became a symbolic number, and was employed, by perhaps all the ancient Eastern nations, to indicate perfection, completeness--a satisfying fulness. How much more honorable to man is this solution, gathered from the authentic and most ancient records of Moses, than the conjectures of our author, based upon the vague teachings of tradition, and the far-fetched inferences of a vain and deceitful philosophy.
In his criticisms upon the words seven and Sabbath, it is evident that this writer attempts to refer them both to the same origin; but in the sacred style, they are not so used. The reason why the seventh day was called Sabbath-day, is distinctly stated: It was because on this day, God rested or ceased from all his works which he had created and made. Gen. ii. 3. The term employed by Moses, as a specific name for the seventh day, was a term which signified the occasion of its consecration. It was hallowed and blessed for a particular reason, and that reason was expressed in the name by which it was designated--Sabbath (שבה) means--cessation, as from work or labor, rest; and that God ceased from all his works and rested on this day, is the uniform reason assigned, throughout the Old Testament, for its being observed as a day of rest. Other reasons are sometimes superadded, and special providences are urged as arguments addressed to the gratitude of the people, for a faithful observance of an institution which was always regarded as a mark of homage to God; still the fundamental and original idea is that of a monumental rest, typical, also, of that rest which awaits the people of God. The term was so understood by all the paraphrasts and
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translators of the Hebrew Scriptures, and is always so rendered in the Common Version. Why any one should turn away from this most definite, long established, ancient, and universally admitted signification of the term Sabbath, as used by the Hebrews, and attempt to discover in the rubbish of idolatry and the mists of mythology, some strange sense for it, by which to prove Muses a mere manufacturer of a new superstition out of the materials of the heathen nations around him, is a question which must find its explanation in something else than the good sense or sound learning of him who does so. It is beyond a plausible cavil, either of literature or science, certain that the Mosaic account of the origin of these terms, and the authority of this usage, is more rational, authentic and ancient, than any other that has ever been offered. No other, indeed, can claim any thing more than a confusion of much learning, or a perversion of exact science. A sound and comprehensive view of the antiquities of the world, has always been found to corroborate the statements of Moses; and science, in all its wondrous developments, is as harmonious with the history of things as recorded by this distinguished servant of God, as with that of our most approved popular and scientific authors on astronomy. The student and lover of the Bible as the word of God, need have no fear that its authority can ever be overthrown by truth, and error is only formidable when truth is not free to combat it.
We have other strictures to offer on this production in the Westminster Review, but have we not, already, wearied out the patience of the reader? If so, and he has fallen into a doze while reading my argument, we beg leave to wake him up, to hear a brief recapitulation of what we have done: 1st. We have shown, that the fact that many ancient people called the days of the week by the names of planets in their system of astronomy, or of divinities in their mythology, does not at all effect the question as to the origin of the week itself, as this was anterior to the naming of the days, and especially as these names are not used in the Hebrew Scriptures. 2d. That the attempt to discover the origin of the words seven and Sabbath, as well as of the hebdomadal division of time in the terms and customs of the Druid worship, Saba-ism and the Indian lunar festivals, not only violates the soundest principles of interpretation, and forces the facts of science to an application which they will not bear, but is, in fact, based upon a total mistake as to the etymology of the words in question, and a consequent error in supposing them to be equivalent, either in their form or in their meaning. 3d. That the Mosaic account of these terms and this custom is not only
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the only rational one that has ever been offered, but that it is also the most ancient, the best authenticated, and the most widely received, among the more enlightened portion of the civilized world. W. K. P.
JERUSALEM MISSION.
WE copy from the Christian Intelligencer the following article, from the pen of Bro. J. W. Goss, of Virginia, concerning the best means of supporting our missionaries, and commend it, especially, to the attention of the brethren, not only in the different States mentioned, but also in other States, where their numbers or their wealth may be sufficiently great to justify their adopting the scheme which he proposes:
Dear Brother Coleman: The last Intelligencer furnishes the gratifying intelligence of the safe arrival of Dr. Barclay and suite in Valetta, the capitol of Malta, an island in the Mediterranean.
His safety, after storms so numerous and perilous as those which he and his family encountered, should be a source of devout thanksgiving to the Great Preserver of imperilled missionaries. The cheerful and hopeful spirit which seems to have animated our missionaries amid their sufferings and dangers, evinces an adaptedness to the work in which they are engaged, which augurs favorably for success. May the great Head of the Church safely conduct them to their destined field of labor, and give them wisdom, courage, and zeal to prosecute their great work!
But the chief object we had in writing, was to stir up the minds of the Virginia Disciples with regard to their honor and duty, touching this enter- prize. Dr. Barclay and lady, and daughter, and two sons, the members which compose this legation, have all been chosen from our midst. We know them; their disinterestedness; their zeal; their aim. Now, it seems to me, that Virginia ought to sustain this mission herself. I do not mean that she should act independently of the Cincinnati Society, but through that body. That Society, with fraternal deference, has heard all our objections, and promptly and fully wiped them from its constitution. Let us, then, in the spirit of confidence and fraternal love, send to that Society funds enough to sustain that mission. Let Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, follow suit, and they are all able (if willing) to do so; and instead of one, we shall have six foreign stations, with their suites of missionaries. Is not this both desirable and practicable? Yea, should not a community numbering from two to three hundred thousand, and comprising as much intelligence, energy and wealth, as any other community of like members, sustain six foreign and important missionary stations? Having the means, more than any other people, we are compelled by our principles, to give the word and the missionary to the heathen. The Bible is not a dead letter with us, but Heaven's two-edged sword, ordained for the conversion of the world. Then let us send it to the heathen. With us, the Spirit converts not without the Word. Then let us send to heathendom this great instrumentality.
But some may question the ability of Virginia to sustain this mission
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alone. She is fully able. The cis-Afleghany churches, numbering not less than sixty, can raise for this mission $900, by contributing $15 each. Is $15 more than the average ability of these churches? Hardly. But few are unable to give that much, and many can and will treble it.
The expenses of the Jerusalem mission are estimated, I believe, at $1200. This will leave $300 to be raised by the trans-Alleghany churches of Virginia; and our zealous and indefatigable Bro. Bullard will see that $150 are raised in South-Western Virginia; and Bro. Wm. K. Pendleton will see that the remaining $150 are raised in North-Western Virginia.
If Virginia would promptly claim the privilege of standing by and sustaining this mission herself, what a noble example of Christian benevolence and enterprize would she set to the wealthier sister States!
In order to accomplish this end, I suggest to the churches the propriety of immediate action. On next Lord's day raise the funds, and let them be sent to the Spring Meeting, which convenes at Smyrna, in King and Queen, the Friday before the 3d Lord's day in May. Will the elders lay this matter before their respective congregations on next Lord's day? Or, as too many of them think their duties fully discharged by meeting with a few disciples on Lord's day and attending to the weekly routine of worship, I would suggest that any brother or sister who has a heart to feel for the perishing heathen, should stir up the pure minds of their fellow-disciples to come forward in this work. "Let us work while it is day, the night cometh when no man can work." J. W. G.
Bro. Goss has ventured to pledge me for the raising of $150 in North-Western Virginia, without consultation, but I acknowledge the obligation, and hereby bind myself, with the divine aid, to raise, for the purpose designated, the sum for which he has pledged me. Will not Bro. Bullard do likewise? I doubt not that he will; nor do I doubt that the whole plan may be easily reduced to practice, if our evangelists and elders will give their attention to the collection of the money. I am much pleased with this proposition, and think that it may be made productive of much good. It cannot be objected, that it proposes State divisions from sectional or anti-catholic feelings, for it recognizes, in the most cordial terms, (our) "the Christian Missionary Society" as the common medium through which the contributions shall be applied. It only distributes the work to be done, with a view of creating a more immediate and personal sense of responsibility, and thus a more efficient effort in the great and noble cause of foreign missions. We know the truth of the old adage--" What is every body's business, is no body's business"--and it does appear that, scattered as our brethren are over such an immense extent of territory, unless we do resort to sectional or State divisions, by which to determine the respective parts that the brethren must bear in this benevolent enterprise of foreign missions, it will die of neglect. Each one is awaiting and expecting some one else to take care of it, and provide for it, and thus it perishes, not because there are not enough who would willingly help to keep it alive, but because they have not been person-
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ally called upon for aid, nor made to feel that it looks to them for at least a certain quantum of its support; that, in fact, it cannot live without it.
We need plans of operation more practical than any we have hitherto adopted, not only for sustaining the missionary enterprise, but for many other good works, of common interest and duty, projected among us. If the plan proposed by Bro. Goss is favorably responded to, we have no doubt that Virginia will raise the $1200 necessary to support Bro. Barclay; but if it is not acted upon, and this State is left only to the private promptings of individual benevolence, we venture the prediction that she will not raise the half of it. Sister States of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee, will you not take this matter into pratical consideration, and let us hear from you generously on the subject? Do not let our Missionary Society prove an abortion, and all our benevolence but an empty echo of Pharisaical words. Here is a proposition to covenant with the Lord, who is faithful, and will richly repay. He loveth a cheerful giver, and will prosper the hands of the liberal. There are a few brethren in each of these States, whom I could name, in whose power God has put it to introduce and carry out this arrangement. There are, doubtless, many, and they should commune with their consciences on the subject. If any one feels that he could contribute to the getting up of a plan of operations so widely benevolent and useful as this; if he is conscious, from the position and influence to which God has raised him, that it is in his power, if he will but direct his energies to the work, to induce the brethren in his State to undertake for the support of one missionary, either home or foreign, to be under the direction of our Society, then I will ask him, since God has given him the influence, whose fault is it, if it is not exerted, and upon whom must fall the responsibility of that moral waste and spiritual desolation which he might have caused to be cultivated and cheered by the love and light of the gospel? As faithful stewards of the manifold riches of God, let us labor for his cause, with the capital he has given, whether moral, intellectual or pecuniary, and the walls of our Zion will go up, and the day of the Lord be hastened. W. K. P.
TIME tries the characters of men, as the furnace assays the quality of metals, by disengaging the impurities, dissipating the superficial glitter, and leaving the sterling gold bright and pure.
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BROTHER BARCLAY IN JERUSALEM.
WE take pleasure in laying before our readers the gratifying intelligence, that our first missionary, with all his family, has arrived in health and safety, at the ancient city of David. The following communication from him, addressed to the Secretary of the Society, will be read with the deepest Christian interest by all who desire the progress of gospel truth. We have, all along, been convinced, that Bro. Barclay's field of labor was one, hitherto regarded as difficult and unpromising, and we fervently pray that he may have grace to sustain him in his arduous and self-sacrificing labors. He desires, and should enjoy, the intercessions of all the saints every where, for his protection and success. He and his tender family are environed by many dangers and exposed to many hardships; but they went forth humbly but fearlessly relying upon Him in whose service they are enlisted, and let us not doubt, but always pray that he will not desert them, and, shall we add it, Brethren, let us not desert them ourselves. W. K. P.
JERUSALEM, February 28, 1851.
My Dear Brother: At length, after encountering so many dangers and delays, I have the happiness (" the Lord being merciful unto us,") of addressing you from this ancient city, the bourne of my travels. Learning, unexpectedly, that we could reach our destination more expeditiously and cheaper by a steamer, which touched at Valetta, while we were there awaiting the sailing of the Liebe, than by pursuing our intended route via Alexandria, we took passage in her, and, in six or seven days, had the pleasure of lauding at Beirut.
It was with much regret, however, that we left the Hebe, for great preparations were just being made to assemble, on the next day, the English and Americans, then very numerous in Valetta, to hear the ancient gospel proclaimed under the "Bethel flag." It was all, however, unknown to me until the hour of my departure, as was also the fact, that the captain and second mate had decided to be baptized; of which I was not apprised until our fare had been paid, and the very moment of our embarkation arrived, when it was certainly too late to administer the ordinance. One of the sailors had previously requested me to baptize him; but such was his ignorance of "the truth as it is in Jesus" (Episcopalian though he was) that I had come to the conclusion not to administer the ordinance until we should reach Alexandria, by which time he would have been sufficiently well "instructed in the way of the Lord" to obey intelligently and satisfactorily, and, as I confidently believe, would be accompanied by others. I have seen so much evil, both to the cause of truth and to the preacher, result from hastily thrusting into "God's building" improper materials of "wood, hay, stubble," that I am perhaps too much afraid of precipitancy, and acted with too much caution in this instance.
But still, whether or not we should "baptize the same hour" that application is made, must, in my opinion, depend somewhat upon circumstances. Will you favor me with your views upon this subject?
344 BRO. BARCLAY IN JERUSALEM.
It was five days after our arrival at Beirut, before arrangements could be matured for prosecuting our journey to Jerusalem. For it unfortunately so happened, that the usual regularity of the steamers was just at that time interrupted, and we were compelled either to take the land route, or remain there at heavy expenses awaiting the arrival of the next onward bound steamer, which was not expected for some weeks. We, therefore, selected that course which promised to be attended with the least delay and expenses, and starting from Beirut on horseback, on the 30th ult., we traveled along the sea coast via Sidon, Tyre, Ptolemais and Jaffa; thence by Romly and Lydda to the Holy City, where, notwithstanding rains and bad roads, we arrived in nine days, exclusive of Lord's day, which we spent in Sidon. We were treated with no little consideration and kindness by the American consulate at Beirut, and at other places where our country is represented. We are also under great obligations to Mr. Eli Smith, Mr. Whiting, Mr. Thompson, Dr. Vandyke, Dr. De Forest and Mr. Williams, Missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, at or near Beirut; to Dr. Kelly, who has been much persecuted by the Roman Catholics, and to many of the American and English residents at Beirut, but especially to Mr. Manning, a "Friend" indeed, long a missionary of the Jews of Palestine, who, though a Quaker, is under the patronage of the London Society for the Propagation of Christianity among the Jews. Indeed, wherever we have been, we have met with the kindest of friends, and in gratitude to the "Author and Giver of all good," I desire to record the fact. To Mr. Murad, our consular agent at Jaffa, and his excellent brother Lazarus, who happens to be spending some time in this city, we are under the deepest obligations for valuable services. After spending three days at the Latin Convent, I succeeded in renting the upper story of a house near the Damascus gate, where we are now quite comfortably situated, and assiduously studying Arabic, under the tuition of au excellent teacher, who also serves us, when occasion requires, as dragoman.
We are all in good health, and highly delighted with the City of the Great King; but if I may credit what I am told on all hands, there is no worse missionary ground on all the earth than this same city; but I forbear particularizing at this time, lest the Board should be needlessly discouraged. I can assure you, however, that I am not the least disheartened, knowing, as I do, that the "truth is mighty and will prevail;" and surely, if there is a spot on earth where the Lord will be pleased to bless the means of his own appointment in answer to prayer, that place is Jerusalem! 0 that all the holy brethren would strive together with us in prayer, that the word of the Lord may again go forth in Jerusalem in its primitive purity and power!
I yearn over this benighted people, and ardently long for the time when I can proclaim to them, in their own language, the truth as it is in Jesus; and I cannot bring myself to believe that it will be two years, according to the unanimous opinion of the missionaries and others, before we can converse freely in their native language, confessedly difficult as it is. Could I believe that half that time would be required to speak their vernacular, I would earnestly beg the Board to furnish the means of speaking to them through a dragoman, who would also assist in the judicious distribution of the scriptures, &c. So high is the estimate put upon colporteur operations, that the Episcopalians, although they have several ordained missionaries here who speak the language fluently, have also here and in other parts of Palestine, some half dozen native colporteurs, whom they give from 150 to 200 pounds sterling per annum, simply to distribute tracts and the scriptures--a sum, however, entirely too high- But surely there is no place on earth--strange as it may seem--where the diffusion of truth is more needed, than this very spot where it first emanated. I was prepared to find all the ignorance, superstition and bigotry, which I have witnessed among the
BRO. BARCLAY IN JERUSALEM. 345
Mohammedan portion of this people; but for the bitter hatred of every thing called Christian, on the part of the Jews, and for the groveling superstition and degraded idolatry (for what else can their Maryolatry and other saints, and demonolatry be termed?) which I am constantly pained to see among all the lapsed churches of the East, I was by no means prepared, and still less was I prepared to find such a wide departure from the simplicity and purity of the faith once delivered to the saints, on the part of those not only styling themselves Protestants, but claiming succession from the apostles! Believe it if you can--for it is even so--that there are those here whom "it grieves exceedingly that there is come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel!!" Now, were those persons of the same category with Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem or Gashmu, I could make some allowance on the ground of ignorance and prejudice; but they are "Protestants," professing the greatest regard for the welfare of the Jews--men, too, whom I told, in answer to their inquiries, that the great Protestant principle, as avowed by Chancellor Chillingworth, was our grand motto, and, strictly construed, would give them a perfectly correct view of our theology.
By another clerical friend--not a Protestant though--I have been seriously advised to join the Anglican church if I would escape persecution! But that precept which enjoins the "wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove," admonishes me to forbear; nor would I drop these few hints, but to stimulate your prayers and efforts in behalf of this interesting and important spot, over which the blessed Saviour wept and lamented so pathetically, and where, I think, it has been so wisely determined to make our first effort for the foreign propagation of the truth. I have not had the pleasure of hearing from you since last October, and so you may well imagine I am not a little anxious to be greeted with a sight of your ever welcome autograph. The postal arrangements of this country, I fear, are neither very ample nor reliable.
A mail, I am told, will be forwarded to-morrow to Beirut, per post- walker; and it is for this mail that I am hastily addressing you to-night. Had I time and space at disposal, I have many facts and incidents to communicate, but straitened and restricted as I am at present, I must necessarily omit their relation. Dr. Bacon, of New Haven, who, together with his son, is on a tour of visitation to the Missions of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, has just called to see us, and expresses the opinion that the safety of Franks, (and especially missionaries,) in every part of Turkey, is much endangered by the late disturbances in the divan at Constantinople, which have necessitated the flight of the liberal minded Sultan (it is reported) from his capital to Cairo. But I hope better things, and feel every thing but fear, trusting, as I do, in him who is Ruler among the nations, and will not permit to fall unnoticed a single hair from the head of those who put their trust in him.
Please address me by way of Beirut, to the care of the American consulate of that place. By-the-way, Mr. J. Horford Smith, our estimable consul at that place. is a member of a commercial house in New York; and I was told by Dr. Vandyke, who called to see me a few days ago, that instead of making remittances through the round-about medium of the Barings, the most economical, direct, and, in every respect, best way would be to remit through that firm. It is in that way that the American Board accomplishes its remittances to its Syrian missions. I do not know the exact style of the firm, but will communicate with Mr. Smith, and let you know the result.
Our articles shipped from London, per Susanna, I am happy to inform you, arrived safe at Jaffa, notwithstanding the great peril to which, I learn, the ship was exposed, and our fears, in relation to our trunks, furniture, etc., shipped from Beirut, per Arab vessel Ibrahim, are also at last happily relieved by letter from the British consul at Jaffa, stating that after consuming twenty-one days in a passage which ordinarily occupies two or
346 POWER OF FAITH.
three days, they are at last safely landed at that place, and, together with the other packages, will forthwith be forwarded here by camels or mules. Great, indeed, would have been our loss, had this vessel, as was believed, been lost; for, having to bring along with us our tent, canteen, etc., in our overland journey, we were only enabled to take one small trunk, and a few carpet bags. Will you do me the favor to present to the holy brethren of Cincinnati, as well as accept for yourself, my warmest Christian salutation? My wife and children also desire to send their best greetings.
The fervent intercessions of the brethren, in behalf of our incipient labors, I must earnestly invoke, striving together with ns, that "our hand may be strengthened for this good work."
With love and esteem that gather strength, rather than suffer abatement by lapse of time and space, believe me, my dear brother, Most sincerely yours, JAMES T. BARCLAY.
THE POWER OF FAITH, WHEN FULLY TESTED.
It has been justly said, that although perfect conformity in thought, word, and deed, to the revealed will of the Author of the Christian faith, may not be attainable in the present life, yet he who most nearly approximates this point, has the best and most satisfactory test of its truth. In the words of its Author, "He has the witness within himself." But this being true, must it not necessarily follow, that he who does not always aim at this high standard of moral perfection, betrays in his faith a defect, that may justly lead him to question its justifying and saving power?
The Author of this faith thus puts it within the power of every one who professes it, to ascertain and determine the quality and degree of his faith. The experiment which He proposes is this: Yield to my will, and see the result. The test of its truth will thus be open to all who sincerely desire to be satisfied.
All are invited, both friends and scoffers, to make the experiment. And it must be made. Not to make it, is to perish forever. To make it, is to live forever. Now, who among the scoffers has fulfilled the conditions--made the experiments, which may qualify them to judge Christ? Have any of them worked out, in their lives and thoughts, the results of its truth and divinity in the fruits of its spirit--love, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, temperance? There is no law against these qualities. Whoever will practice, shall know whether He is the Author of Christianity or not, for no one can practice them without living and walking in the spirit of Christianity, and then the reign of Heaven
POWER OF FAITH. 347
is within him, and he can no more deny the divinity of the doctrine, than he can the reality of his own life and happiness.
The theory of divine morals is no more capable of making men pure in heart, than the theory of sounds can make them musicians.
In order to excel, or even to understand excellence, we must practice what we know. The test is simple and perfect. That must be a bad religion which does not teach charity, and we must be bad at heart if we obey not that which enjoins it.
Apply this to Christianity. It, and it alone, stands the test. Its Founder demands faith in its purity, faith working only by love-- love to God as the supreme good, and to mad, because he is God's. Evil is to be overcome by good, cursing by blessing, malignant treatment by benevolence and prayer. In short, universal good will, exemplified in the life, is the only consistent Christianity, and that alone is Christ's spirit; and therefore, intolerance and persecution, in every form, can spring from him only who has not His spirit.
We see, then, that the rule is perfectly fair, because obedience must end in blessedness, and the only objection to the required submission, must arise from aversion to all that deserves the name of virtue, or else why not be patient, good, gentle, faithful, temperate, charitable, in the divine sense? He that would be great in soul, must endure all that seems contrary to himself, from some mighty love, which shall enable him., with its unconquerable hopes, to stand unshaken as a rock amid the billows.
True self-love, as taught by the teachings of divine love, is, with respect to its strength, just in the ratio of our hatred of error. True self-love Is, therefore, but the love of truth. This is the living principle of faith. But absolute truth, is the divine will. The creature's will it cannot be; but faith, that is, spiritual strength, is given to conquer self. This strength is acquired and called into action by insight into the developments of the divine love, which causes him to hunger and thirst for conformity thereto; for he who is instructed by Heaven, sees that the happiness fit for man is completed only in fellowship with God.
The true believer always connects the moral attributes of God with his conceptions of divine power; and with him, therefore, Providence is but another name for the Creator's faithfulness to his creatures. Faith everywhere beholds the evidence that goodness regulates might; so that all her expectations are raptures, because all futurity, all eternity, can be nothing but the unfolding of love.
"Hence, death is no longer the King of Terrors, with uplifted
348 SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY.
hand, ready to strike the trembling heart; but like an angel at the bed of a slumbering innocent, fanning it to sleep with a lily plucked in Paradise, and filling the soul with visions of Heaven, by blending in brightness before its eyes the sweetest images of earthly beauty and affection. A. W. C.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE, CAUSE, AND CURE,
OF SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY --No. V.
AFTER this digression, Dr. Evangelicus returns to the narrative of James Conformitas, relative to the circumstances of his nativity and education, in order to show their influences upon his spiritual health in after life.
I was bred and born, says he, in the town of Vainshow, and in the State of Carnality, where I lived to the age of manhood. Shortly after I became of age, I entered into the service of Mr. Oldman, a near relative, with whom I spent several years as an assistant in the mercantile business. Mr. Oldman being the first settler in the State, he, with a view to the settlement and aggrandizement of his family, obtained from the Founder of the State, one Diabolos, grants of settlement so extensive as to engross its entire territory.
At the time of my entering into his service, Mr. Oldman had determined to establish, in other parts of the State, a number of mercantile houses, for the more easy, cheap, and expeditious supply of whatever the market might demand.
Mr. Oldman, being a gentleman of enlarged experience and great knowledge, considered that a correct policy should ever have in view the wealth and prosperity of the entire State. Home manufactures, home consumption, and, consequently, home trade, constituted his favorite theory and practice for the prosperity of the State. The native productions of the soil are, however, said to have been much changed from what they once were. Ancient tradition relates, that the soil itself has undergone a change for the worse, though it is still very fruitful. This change in the character of the soil, and of its present productions, is related to have been owing to an inundation of wrath which overspread the whole territory, by which were deposited over its surface the seeds from which have grown its present productions. This flood, it is said, was occasioned by an
SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY. 349
act of rebellion, on the part of the Founder of the State, against its original proprietor, Prince Emmanuel. This unnatural rebellion of a distinguished subject against his rightful Sovereign, resulted in the expulsion of the former, by the latter, from his dominions. Diabolos, for so the rebel was called, enraged against his Sovereign, was permitted, for wise reasons, to persuade the former occupants of the soil to take sides with him in a grand rebellion. Since this event, he has claimed the dominion of the soil, and has erected the greater part of the territory into a sovereign State, since known as the State of Carnality. Upon its eastern boundary, there is a portion of territory called the land of Beulah, which, though formerly claimed by this Usurper, has been taken from him by Prince Emmanuel, to which he has given laws, and has erected it into a province of his empire, and which is since known as the Kingdom of Grace, because it was founded by its gracious Sovereign, for the benefit of penitent rebels, who may be induced to desert the standard of the enemy and return to their rightful and gracious Sovereign.
Little, indeed, did I know of the danger to health and life to which I was exposed, while I lived in the State of Carnality. None, indeed, can fully realize his perilous condition, who does not know the character of the government under which he lives, as a citizen of the State of Carnality. While I lived in the State I was ignorant of the fact, that most of my ancestors, as far back as I could trace them, had perished in the army of Diabolos; in that division of it which was commanded by Col. Oldman.
My ancestors were, indeed, brave men, and fought valiantly; but as madly as valiantly. They were on the wrong side. Both might and right were against them. And had it not been for new recruits continually sent in by those recruiting officers, Mr. Vainself, Mr. Proudlook, and Mr. Selflove, the Colonel would have been totally routed, and every man destroyed.
But of these facts I was wholly ignorant, while living in Vain- show and in the service of Mr. Oldman, the brother of the Colonel's. And as I was observing, Mr. Oldman being about to enlarge his mercantile concern, determined to take some of the best and wealthiest men in the State into a copartnery with himself, and establish firms throughout the State. So soon as his intentions were known, that he was about to enlarge his concern, many applications were made for situations deemed so eligible. He made choice of those who had formerly been most faithful in his service. The house which he established at Vainshow, was advertised as the firm of Oldman, Simpleone, Loveshow and Co. His next house was estab-
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 30
350 SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY.
lished at Simpleton, under the firm of Oldman, Vainthought, Haughtyman and Co. His third house was situated in the eastern part of the State, near the line which separated it from the Kingdom of Grace, in the town of Fairshow, and was known as the firm of Oldman, Fairspeech, Wilyman and Co. His fourth and last house he determined to locate at Pridesville, on the southern borders of the State, and to be known as the firm of Oldman, Proudlook, High. style and Co. Having established these houses with a view to supply every part of the country with articles of its own manufacture, on the lowest and most accommodating terms, I was employed to travel between these marts, and engage the custom and patronage of the different mechanics, manufacturers, and retail merchants and grocers throughout the State. Mr. Oldman believed I had a peculiar talent for conforming to the tastes and habits of the people, and was, therefore, a fit agent for the business. And, indeed, he praised me no little for the success with which I met in procuring him the favor and patronage of the people. The most difficult part of the State to gain over to the interests of our great concern, was that bordering on the land of Beulah, the territory- of the Kingdom of Grace. Mr. Fairspeech and Mr. Wilyman, were, indeed, accomplished men for the business in which they were engaged. These gentlemen assumed manners the most pleasing and winning, to such as knew them only as public men in business. With their affected manners, they still professed much regard for their former patrons and friends, who had left the State and become citizens of the Kingdom of Grace. They, indeed, occasionally visited Christiansville, a bordering town of the kingdom, and spoke highly of the good order, kindness, and hospitality of its citizens. They would even join in speaking of Prince Emmanuel as a most gracious Prince, and expressed a hope that a reconciliation, ere long, would be effected between the subjects of the two governments; that the citizens of the State of Carnality would cordially embrace, in the arms of true friendship, the citizens of the Kingdom of Grace, and be one and undivided in all the great interests of the State. Mr. Wilyman expressed a wish that a better state of feeling might be cultivated between the two countries, and gave it as his opinion, that nothing would so much conduce to it as a reciprocity of trade, commerce, and manufactures. Mr. Fairspeech remarked, that he concurred in opinion with his partner, Mr. Wilyman, though he was aware that Mr. Oldman's policy differed somewhat from theirs, in making the prosperity of the State to depend upon home manufactures and home consumption. He presumed that the policy of Mr. Dittman better
SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY. 351
suited the condition of the State, as it was in former days, when the population was sparse, and people wanted but few things, and these plain, and such as merely the lusts of the flesh would demand, which the soil, with but little cultivation, produced abundantly. Besides, the great age of Mr. Oldman, has tendered him rather selfish. And indeed, I must acknowledge that it has been owing to his possessing a large share of this kind of feeling, that he has been able to amass so great an amount of wealth. As avarice is, however, the possession of old men, I presume he will not now change his views.
But the age in which we live demands a more liberal policy. If, for example, the policy of a city or state has amassed for its citizens wealth sufficient to supply fully all the lusts of the flesh, all the lusts of the eyes, and every thing desirable for gratifying the pride of life, that policy should, in the spirit of a true liberality, be extended, till it shall embrace, in the arms of its philanthropy, the people of every State and Kingdom.
Dr. Evangelicus.--With whom had Mr. Wilyman and Mr. Fair- speech this conversation!
James Conformitas.--With Mr. Lovetruth and Mr. Singlemind, in the store of the former, who was a merchant in the town of Christiansville.
Dr. Evangelicus.--Did these gentlemen approve the policy advocated by those merchants from the town of Fairshow!
James Conformitas.--Not at all. So far, indeed, was he from approving it, that he pronounced it, at once, a short-sighted and ruinous policy, at war with the best interests of the Kingdom of Grace. He further showed, that the interests of the Kingdom were antagonistic, and diametrically opposed to what they were pleased to call the best interests of those who lived in the State of Carnality. Mr. Lovetruth finally addressed these men in the following style: "Gentlemen, I regard you as enemies in disguise. You attempt to introduce a hateful and detestable policy. As a revenue officer of the government, I am authorized, by the authority of my King, to brand every commodity brought into our market from the State of Carnality, as contraband goods. You have often attempted to smuggle your goods into our ports, that they may be used by our citizens, in direct rebellion to the statute of our Sovereign. They are, sirs, easily detected by our officers. They are but base imitations, and are like your garments, spotted with the flesh. Your connexion with Oldman is a most unfortunate one, and if it be not broken up, bankruptcy and ruin is your portion. He is, and I know him well, the most noted rebel in all the State of Carnality. I, too, was once
352 QUERIES ON DISCIPLINE.
in his service. There is nothing too mean, low, corrupt, or filthy. for him to do. Diabolos, the founder and ruler of your State, and the declared enemy of our Sovereign, has had him in his service since he was able, indeed, to serve; and for the sake of filthy lucre, he has been the veriest drudge in his service. You, Mr. Fairspeech, he has now in his service, that he may through the deceitful lusts, with goodly words and fair speeches, deceive the hearts of the simple. And you, Mr. Wilyman, are also his most humble servant, seeking, by your wiles and cunning stratagems, to entangle us again in the net of the old Adversary. But be it known unto you, we have, through the gracious aid of our good King, put off the old man, with his practices. We counsel you, therefore, by all that is sacred and dear, if you would love our King aid be happy, to put away the old man, and have no longer any partnership with him, and buy of us wisdom and understanding; for the merchandize of it is better than the merchandize of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. Then abjure allegiance to Diabolos, and take the oath of loyalty to Prince Emmanuel. Take off the regimentals of the Adversary, with all their frippery--those garments spotted with the flesh--and put on the armor of righteousness and be clothed with the garments of humility, and join the standard of our King, live in his fear, and be forever happy." A. W. C.
QUERIES ON DISCIPLINE.
1.--What ought a congregation to do, when a brother, who has been excluded, presents himself, confessing the sin for which he was excluded, and a brother notifies them that he is guilty of an indictable offence, which lie can prove?
Answer.--They should investigate the matter, and settle it according to the scriptures.
2.--If a person thus accused, is received into the congregation without an investigation of the matter, would those having personal knowledge of the fact, or believing it on good testimony, be justifiable in going to the table with such a person?
Answer.--Abstaining from "the table," is not the scriptural mode of settling difficulties. The preparation for the Lord's table consists in self-examination, not in the examination of others. 1 Cor., xi. 28. To abstain from the Lord's table, when it is scripturally spread
CHURCH AT WASHINGTON CITY. 353
in his house, because some unworthy intruder may be there, is no where commanded, nor, that I can see, authorized in the Word of God. We might as properly forsake the church itself'.
3.--Under these circumstances, would a brother, having knowledge of the fact, be justifiable in entering a complaint before a legal tribunal?
Answer.--If the offender does not stand in such a relation to the church as to have his offence tried and settled by her, then, of course, the only resort is to the civil authority. If the nature of the offence is such as to justify a Christian man in going to law with an alien, (which is not always the case,) then this is his proper remedy; but "what have we to do with them that are without;" and if the indictable offence is not in injury of our own rights, of person or property, what law calls us to volunteer in the forbidden work of a "busy body?" W. K. P.
THE CHURCH AT WASHINGTON CITY.
Report of the contributions received at this office, for the erection of a Meeting-House at Washington City, on the scheme of 25 cents per member:
J. W. Barker, Clarksville, Tenn., - - - - $1 00
Church at Columbus, Ia., - - - - 20 00
Church at Baltimore, - - - - 40 00
Rachel and H. Mills, Braddock's Fields, Pa., - - - - 1 00
A. S. Hibler, Paris, Ky., - - - - 2 50
B. Hurt, Owingsville, Ky., - - - - 2 50
II. Blackstone, (per Geo. E. Tingle,) - - - - 2 00
S. F. Miller, for the church at Jeffersontown, Ky., - - - - 5 00
W. S. Gitner, Moreland, Ky., (for a few friends of the cause of Christ,) - - - - 3 00
Josiah Scott, for the church at Cheneyville, Lai., - - - - 7 50
North Street Church, Lexington, Mo., per Elds. Vancamp and Bledsoe., - - - - 35 00
A. H. Best, Salona, Pa., - - - - 2 00
Church at Bethel, per M. G. Elkins, Alexandria, Tenn., - - - - 7 00
Church at Antioch, per Pichegrew Woolfolk, of Bowling Green, Va., - - - - 26 00
Dr. A. Adams, North Middletown, Ky., - - - - 1 00
Church at Clear Creek, Ky., per Joseph H. Stone and T. G.
Maddox, - - - - ($15 50
Friendly alien, per same persons, - - - - 1 50) 17 00
Robert Hawley, for church at Detroit, Mich., - - - - 7 00
Z. Carpenter, for Liberty Church. Ky., - - - - ($0 75
For himself, - - - - 1 25) 2 00
Bethany Church, - - - - 22 00
BETHANY, Va., May 20, 1851. $204 00
Hitherto we have been, and still are, ashamed to make a report on this subject. But for two reasons we should still continue silent, and
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 30*
354 CHURCH AT WASHINGTON CITY.
yield to that humiliating feeling called shame. It would be derogatory to our reputation as a people professing Christian liberality, were it not for two reasons, which we shall now name. A majority of our churches are absolutely without meeting-houses, or in meeting-houses behind the age, and the growth of the churches. This is the case with us at Bethany. We have aided sundry infant and weak churches to erect houses, and are now, in common with very many of our communities, endeavoring to raise a house equal to our wants. The second reason is, that no one, in a great majority of our churches, has assumed, in good earnest, the work of raising this small contribution, and brethren do not generally create an officer for the express purpose of soliciting them to give money. Hence, unless the elders of the churches urge the matter, it cannot be accomplished. Whenever the proper officers employ the proper means, it will be done. The brethren, by thousands and tens of thousands, would give their twenty-five cents each, to erect one large and commodious house of worship at the very attractive and radiating centre of this great nation. We ought to have the largest meeting-house in Washington City, and there, also, a stationed advocate of the great cause we plead; a master spirit, that would neither be ashamed of himself nor a shame to others--to stand up in the presence of Kings and earth's nobility, and proclaim the Unknown Gospel, as Paul did the Unknown God, in a city which had more temples than palaces, and more gods than men. Forty thousand dollars would be a moderate offering from so great a people, for so great a cause, at so grand a point as the capital of this New World.
We do not want wealth, nor do we want liberality. We only want to put them in motion, or call them into action; and some one master spirit in every community, that will make a personal appeal to the second class, the third class, and even to the fourth class of liberals.
The first class will, on hearing of the grandeur of the object, present their own offerings. Ancient Kings were generally Priests; and earth's noblemen generally have so much of the Priest, or its grand import, as to embolden them to contribute, or make their own offerings, without any solicitation.
If the few noble-minded brethren at Washington, would only allow a monopoly in this grand scheme, or allow a company of brethren--say of one, two, or three hundred persons--to have the exclusive privilege of taking stock in this branch-bank of Heaven, I, indeed, would be glad to be one of a hundred, rather one of
REV. N. L. RICE, D. D. 355
three hundred brethren, who would take four hundred shares each, of the scheme now before the people. But I do not desire to monopolize such riches or such honor; and unless there were such a company formed, I would prefer the present scheme, because the stockholders in Heaven's grand Saving's Bank would be more numerous, and the glory and honor would be more reciprocal, and the pleasure more enhanced, by the number and variety of the participants. Will the brethren remember this grand and urgent call upon their interests and honor, and show how much they prefer the stocks in the rich and unfailing Bank of Heaven, and thus enrich many by enriching themselves? A. C.
REV. N. L. RICE, D. D.
This gentleman, notwithstanding all that I have done to promote him to honor, as if conscious that his position was a mere ecclesiastico-political measure, still feeling that he is unworthy of it, and endeavoring to do more good service to reward the church that has so gratuitously honored him, will condescend from his lofty station to gather up and endorse any fable, however ridiculous and absurd, that might be regarded as doing service to his church, however it might indicate a rankling hostility or virulence of feeling towards myself.
On my late visit to Zanesville, I learned that he had endorsed, as worthy of all credit, a reported dialogue held by one of his clerical brethren and myself, in Belmont county, Ohio, only forty years ago, touching my ministerial ordination. I saw only a part of the article, it being defaced; and on taxing my recollections, I could only gather so much as that I spent an evening with a clergy man, some where in said county, about that time, and that I never was, in all my pilgrimage, treated with the same rudeness and incivility, by any clergyman of any denomination, which I in part attributed to the evident embarrassment and confusion of the gentleman. The gentlemen with me remarked, that they had not witnessed the like before, and were as much astounded at his rudeness as myself.
From Mr. Rice's own showing, the gentleman acted the boor in his own house, while I am made to speak and act like a simpleton or child; much more than as a young man of more than one and twenty years. Indeed, my memory reacheth not back to a time
356 UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES.
when I could have spoken and acted as this nameless Reverend setteth forth, as endorsed by his worthy Bro. Rice, D. D.
I am made to assume a false position and a false fact, respecting my ordination, and then to fail, most signally, in defending it; and, still worse, to speak and act like a clown. It is not a fact that I was ordained by my father alone, or by one minister, and, therefore, I never did defend that system. This stultifies all that he makes me say. I was ordained on the license of a congregation, and, by their request, by the imposition of the hands of a presbytery--a plurality of ordained ministers--and therefore, ecclesiastically, have as much authority as the Rev. N. L. Rice, D. D., or his Belmont brother.
But the Lord takes the wise in their own craftiness; and these two Reverend gentlemen, between them, have so outraged the facts of this interview, and have manufactured a conversation so ridiculous and suicidal, between a big child and a Reverend clergyman, that no one who knew me forty years ago, or at any period since, can believe it; and with all the frailties, moral or physical, of the Presbyterian of the Went," I candidly confess my conviction, that Mr. Rice himself does not, cannot, and never will believe it. A. C.
UNIVERSITIES, COLLEGES, &c., IN GREAT BRITAIN.
IN England, besides the University of Oxford, which has 24 colleges, (each having its head or rector,) and 35 professors; and the University of Cambridge, which has 17 colleges, (each having its head,) and 24 professors, there are 9 colleges, having in their various departments 160 professors. In Scotland, there are 4 Universities, including 7 colleges, and having 110 professors, lecturers, etc. In Ireland, there is Dublin University, having 25 professors; the College of St. Patrick, at Maynooth, with 13 professors; and a collegiate institution at Belfast, having 10 academical, and 7 medical professors. The endowments of the University at Oxford are about $700,000, and those of the University of Cambridge about $550,000 per annum. And in addition to this, the colleges of Oxford have within their patronage 468 livings, the annual value of which is $390,000; and the colleges of Cambridge 313 livings, valued at $469,500 per annum. On the 1st of January, 1849, the number of attendants on the books of the various colleges of Oxford, was 5,890; members of the convocation, 3,190. On the books of the colleges of Cambridge, 6,906; members of the convocation, 3,786.
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 357
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
MISSOURI.--Bro. Thomas Pitt informs us that about 70 were added to the church at New London, a short time since.--Bro. S. Swinford, writing from Pleasant Hall, says that Bro. Wilmot had immersed 8 persons in the neighborhood of that place, and Bro. Wright, of Lexington, 3 spore; 1 was reclaimed, and 5 received by letter.--Bro. Morton, writing from Hannibal, under date of April 22d, says: Within the last three months we have had between 25 and 30 additions to our congregation.
OHIO.--Bro. James Porter, of New Philadelphia, gives us an interesting account of his successful labors. He is subject to occasional severe attacks of physical disease, on account of which we sympathize with him; yet he is not deterred from laboring in the cause of our Master. At Stillwater, ho has recently immersed 3 persons, and at Nottingham 12; 5 others, who had been previously baptized, were received into fellowship. On Wills Creek he has baptized 16, and procured the appointment of an eldership.
WISCONSIN.--Bro. C. A. Mils gives us further particulars of the labors of Bro. L. J. Correll, about Hazel Green. In addition to the 25 reported last month, some 35 or 40 have since been added; some from the Methodists, some from other denominations, but mostly from the world.
MISSISSIPPI.--Bro. E. H. Baker, of Middleton, says they have, within the last six months, gathered a little church of 17, with fair prospects for an increase. They meet every Lord's day and attend to their own duties, and, what is worthy of all praise, "let others alone!" They have no minister.
TEXAS.--Dr. M'Call sends us news from Texas. Within the last three months they have had some 50 odd additions. Recently, he and Bro. Strickland, formerly of Arkansas, held a meeting, at which they immersed 8, and constituted a church of 28.
TENNESSEE.--Bro. S. B. Aden, writes: Our beloved brother, H. T. Anderson, of Louisville, Ky., has recently paid us a visit. He spent nine days; delivered some thirteen discourses, in his usually clear and argumentative style, and 9 were added to the Lord. We trust much of the good seed sown may yet spring up and bring forth abundantly.
CANADA WEST.--We extract the following from a letter by Bro. James Black, of Eramosa: "Mr. Burchart, the celebrated American revivalist, visited Canada last winter, and created great religious excitement at Bowmanville, where there is a church of Disciples. He found that the influence of their teaching was so far in his way as to make it necessary for him to "expose Campbellism," in which he did great injustice to our views. Daniel Stewart happened to be there and hear him, and, with characteristic zeal and perseverance, urged that justice should be done to Bro. Campbell and the cause of truth which he pleads. The result was, that all the manaeuvering and trickery of the revivalist and his friends, to evade his just demand, were perceived by the community, and a very favorable opportunity was afforded to present the gospel to them. Bro. Kilgour was sent for, and by their labors 30 or more were added to the church."
MT. JACKSON, Pa., May 8, 1351.
Brother Campbell: A meeting of ten days, commencing on the fast day of February, was held at the Centre of Fowler, Trumbull county, O., by Bro. Calvin Smith, in company with myself, which resulted in the addition of 15 persons by immersion, and 2 immersed members of the Congregationalists united with us. A congregation of Disciples was then and there organized, consisting of 32 members. Bro. Wilson Porter and Milo Dugan were chosen elders.
I was present, also, on the 22d of March, in company with Bro. C. Smith, at the organization of a congregation of Disciples in Meta township,
358 OBITUARY.
Trumbull county, O. Bros. D. Hossiford and S. N. Jones, were chosen elders. Fourteen persons pledged themselves to the Lord, and to each other, to assemble together as a congregation of Disciples, and endeavor to "walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless." Two of these came from the Methodists and two from the Free Will Baptists. Since that time, ten, formerly Disciples, have united there. May the Lord prosper his cause! The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Yours, J. T. PHILLIPS.
SPRING MILLS, Pa., April 22, 1851.
My youngest son, my brother and his wife, were lately immersed. We have had some accessions lately of weight of character. Amongst these is the only single daughter of Ex-Governor Ritner. The old gentleman conducted his daughter some five miles to my residence, and attended to her, on the occasion of her immersion, in a fatherly manner. JOHN LEFEVER.
[My old friend Gov. Ritner, with whom I have had the pleasure of a very intimate acquaintance of many years' standing, has, on this occasion, done himself great honor. His large and comprehensive mind, so well filled with political learning, and whose services as a statesman, both in the legislative and executive departments of the government of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, have been charaterized by great ability, is also well furnished with Christian knowledge, having frequently attended our ministrations for many years. It would greatly promote his happiness, and in no respect derogate from, but rather do honor to his good sense, should he follow the example of his daughter, and bow to the sceptre of the great King. It would give me no little pleasure, from the interest I take in him, to learn that he had done both his understanding and his heart this honor. A. C.]
Total number reported since last month, 343.
OBITUARY.
Fell asleep in Christ, Sister MARY MORRISON, of Johnstown, Penn.'s, on the 20th April last. Sister Morrison, with two other sisters--all called Mary, and known as the three Marys--were the neucleus of the church at Somerset, Penn.'a, more than thirty years ago. Two of the three, Sister Ogle, Sr., and Sister Graft, of Somerset, yet survive, strong in faith and ardent in hope of the eternal inheritance. These three sisters, mothers in Israel, have greatly honored their profession. Sister Morrison was much afflicted for some years before her death, but she has found the home of health and peace eternal, in which sickness and death are never felt nor feared. It is some forty years since these sisters became Christians; and my correspondent informs me she is now in her 78th year, longing for the day of her deliverance. A. C.
Died, at New Lexington, Morgan county, III., on the 22d of October, 1850, Sister LUCINDA MORRISON, wife of Dr. James Morrison, in the 49th year of her age. She obeyed the gospel early in fife, and was an exemplary Christian while she fived, and died in the confident expectation of a glorious resurrection to eternal life. H.
Brother Campbell: The recent death of my mother-in-law, Mrs. MARY YATES, consort of Daniel Yates, of Utica, Hinds county, Miss., has caused great sadness and regret. A deep gloom passed at once upon the community; while a bereaved family, and the brethren in Christ, were comforted and sustained only by faith in God. Her spirit fled to the world of fruition,
OBITUARY. 359
suddenly, without any previous illness, in an apoplectic fit, on the 28th of March, in the 50th year of her age. She has left to mourn her loss a most interesting and amiable family, consisting of a bereaved husband and nine children, five of wham, together with her husband, have followed her example in obeying the Lord, and live in the bright and cheering hope of a re-union with her, where death will be no more. She had been a devoted and exemplary member of the Christian Church upwards of twenty years; during which time, her confidence in the Redeemer remained unshaken. She had a confiding hope of enjoying unalloyed felicity in shouting hosannahs to God and to the Lamb, with Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, and all the sanctified hosts of Heaven. She was a fond and devoted wife, a kind and affectionate mother, and generous friend. While her works of faith and labors of love are remembered, she will need no one to speak of her praise. Well may she be called a mother of Israel. All who knew her loved her. Henceforth she will rest from her labors, and her works do follow her. May we all, by the imitation of her virtues, like her be prepared for the solemn change, though it come at an hour when we look not for it.
"With us thy name shall honored live.
Through long successive years.
Embalmed in all that we can give--
Our praises and our tears." R. V. W
MARION, Alabama, April 25, 1551.
Brother Campbell: It becomes my painful duty to announce to our brethren, through the Harbinger, the melancholy intelligence of the fate decease of-our much beloved brother, ALEXANDER GRAHAM. 4
Bro. Graham was taken sick on Friday, and died on the next Thursday evening, 17th inst., at precisely 2 o'clock. His disease was inflammation of the stomach and bowels; the last bitter dregs of that horrible dyspepsia, under which he had suffered for years. He suffered the most excruciating pain during the whole time of his illness, but retained his senses perfectly, with very slight exceptions, until his last breath. On Wednesday evening he requested me to dress him, and send for his friends; said he wished to see and talk with them, and then he was ready to die. This being done, he conversed with each one separately, and bid them adieu. He then called the young ladies of the school, and delivered them a calm, and most lucid and feeling address. They each took his hand for the last time. He called to his bed a Methodist minister, with whom, December 25th, 1849, he had a debate. "Bro. Hammel," said he, "I consider you a gentleman and a Christian brother. We have differed, and, in the heat of discussion, something may have escaped me calculated to wound your feelings; but if so, it was unintentional. We are both aiming at Heaven, and agree as to the great fundamental principles of Christianity. I trust in Jesus Christ's blood for salvation. There is no other name given under heaven by which we can be saved." After this he addressed his wife in the most affectionate and feeling manner, and then requested us to let him die; not to prolong his existence, as he was certain he must go. He lived, however, under the effects, perhaps, of stimulants, until next afternoon at 2 o’clock, during which time he gave ns marry exhortations; many assurances of his readiness to depart and be with God.
"Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long,"
was the close of one of his exhortations. Just before he expired, his wife, Sister G., asked him if he could speak? If he could, to do so once again. "Do you doubt me, Mary?" he remarked. "I am just as I nave always been--a firm reliance on Jesus, and a strict adherence to his commands, there is no danger. My trust is in him." Many other incidents, evincive
360 LINES ON THE DEATH OF MRS. PENDLETON.
of his perfect readiness for death, might be mentioned, but I deem it unnecessary to extend the limits of this sketch further. Your brother in the hope of eternal life, P. B. LAWSON.
[I sympathize with the relatives, friends, and brethren of our deceased Bro. Graham, in their irreparable loss, and regret that the narrative of the remarkable and eventful life of this much gifted brother, communicated by our Bro. Lawson, is, with many such communications, reluctantly, but necessarily, excluded from our pages. Were we to give space to the documents of this sort sent us, we would have to fill many pages per month; which, however interesting to a few, would not be so to the thousands. We shall yet have to abbreviate many such communications. A. C.]
LINES ON THE DEATH OF MRS. CLARINDA PENDLETON.
Dear Brother Campbell: I trust the verses below need no explanation. I never have known any one, of whom they could have been more truthfully written, than your daughter Clarinda. W. BAXTER.
O, MOURN HER NOT.
O, mourn her not! for she is happy now,
Since she hath left this world of care and sin,
The pearly gates have opened, and with joy,
While angels welcomed, she hath entered in.
There she hath found the Lord she loved in life;
She swells the number of the blood-washed throng;
A golden harp now graces her glad hands,
And she hath joined the everlasting song.
O, mourn her not! the desert now is passed,
And she bath gained the bright and sinless land;
She was too pure for this dark, sin-stained world,
And God hath called her up to his right hand.
She dwells where sorrow never may invade,
Where tears come not, and sighing is unknown;
The soul's deep thirst is quenched; for now she drinks
From that pure stream that flashes near the throne.
O, mourn her not! the victor's fadeless wreath
Is bound upon her pure and spotless brow;
Trial is passed, and on her bright reward
The one you mourn has gladly entered now.
Then strong in hope, and trust, dry up your tears;
Her God is thine; and oh! it will be sweet,
With her you loved, and lost, on earth below,
Around the throne of God above to meet.
Vol. I.] BETHANY, VA., JULY, 1851. [No. VII.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE--No. VII.
SATAN'S KINGDOM.
THIS is no hallucination--no blunder of the pen--no figment of the imagination. It is a solemn and awful reality. The great Revealer of the secrets of eternity--the Light of the World--has himself so denominated a portion of this universe. It is, on his own declaration, as much a fact as Christ's Kingdom. Both are Princes. Nay, they are both Kings; and as Kingdom and King are correlate terms, the one implies the other. But does any one ask for the proof? Here it is. I presume the Lord Jesus Christ will be admitted as competent authority in this case. He not only admits the fact of such a kingdom, but argues from it as from any generally established and conceded fact. "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city and house divided against itself, shall not stand. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself. How, then, SHALL HIS KINGDOM STAND?"*
The Jews, as indicated by their Scribes and Pharisees, equally with the Christian people, recognized "the Prince of Demons," and his kingdom, and very foolishly represented the Messiah as casting out demons by the power of their own King, Beelzebub, one of the appellatives of Satan.
But we need not argue the case as though any one doubted it. The territory of his kingdom is more extensive, on this earth, than the Messiah's present kingdom. It is, also, a well ordered kingdom. Satan has his armies--his hosts and agents--as well as the Lord
*Matthew, Mark, and Luke, report this statement--Mat. xii. 25; Mark iii. 24; Luke xi. 17.
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362 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
our King. "The Devil and his Angels," are a well compacted government. Hence, Christians have not to wrestle merely against flesh and blood, "but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in the regions of the air." Hence this Prince Beelzebub, this Prince of Darkness, this Prince of the powers of the lower heavens, or the air, works with or by men--" the children of disobedience" --in extending his empire and in assailing that of the "Prince of Righteousness and Peace."
But we must attend to his names and titles. His most ancient and most common official characteristic name is that of Satan. He had that title in the days of Job, whose nativity, according to Hales and our best chronologists, antedates that of Abraham one hundred and twenty-two years. Job's extreme age of 280 years, corresponds with the era of Serug, the grandfather of Abraham. He was familiarly known by the name of Satan when Moses, in all probability, found the book of Job in the land of Midian.
He is never called Devil, in the sacred canon, from Adam to the birth of the Messiah. 1t is first found in the history of the temptation of the Lord Messiah; and as the term indicates, he appears there as a Devil, or an accuser, a calumniator, a tempter. He was, in his moral character, known and designated as the original LIAR, DECEIVER and MURDERER, from the commencement of our race. His titles are, "Prince of this World," "Prince of Darkness," "Beelzebub," "Belial," "Serpent," "Tormentor," "Prince of the Power of the Air," "The God of this World," &c., &c.
"Satan" is, par eminence, his most comprehensive, as well as his most common and most ancient name. We find it in the first chapter of Job, the oldest book ever written known to the world. We also find it in the last chapter of the Apocalypse. It is found sonic forty-four times in the Old and New Testaments, and indicates, that from the creation of this world to the end of it, he is the immutable enemy or adversary of God and men. Literally, he is Ho SATANAS--"The Adversary." "Your Adversary, the Devil, goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour."
He is as certainly a fallen spirit, as we are fallen men. The Messiah informs us that "he abode not in the truth;" that he was the original liar. That he was at first a celestial prince of very high rank amongst the angelic peers, is a logical inference from sundry hints and allusions found in the New Testament. But he alienated his admiration and love from God, to the admiration of himself. His sin was essentially an undutiful, an inordinate selfishness, and
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 363
seeking of his own glory insubordinate to the glory of God. On his expulsion from the Divine Majesty, his selfishness grew into a perfect enmity against God and his former kindred spirits, and now his hatred of God and of man is intense, implacable, commensurate with his whole power.
He and his angels that participated, or even sympathized with him, were driven from the lofty heavens--from the divine presence--and confederated against God, not in his personality, but in his works. Hence originated our fall and expulsion from Paradise, and all the ills and evils consequent thereupon. By one man, seduced by him, sin, with all its woes, came into our world.
The two, the only two active principles in our nature, in all rational nature, are love and hatred. These are two all-controlling, all-pervading influences in the moral universe. The heart, and not the head, is the fountain of life and the spring of all moral actions. 1t is, indeed, the fountain of all animal and moral life. Our volitions and our actions are but the issues of the heart. Well and truly spoke the wise man when he said, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." Love is the great centripetal law of the moral universe, and hatred the centrifugal.
Love is, in truth, the all conservative principle in the empires of Jehovah. God himself is infinite, eternal, and immutable love; and hence originated the universe and all its order, grandeur, beauty, and happiness. Creation but found a vent for Infinite benevolence. In communicating so much of grandeur and glory--so much of beauty and blessedness--to his creatures, his spiritual and moral offspring, divine benevolence graduated rank above rank of being, from the mere vegetative animal up to the angelic hierarchies, burning in intellectual and moral splendor and blessedness, to such an eminence as made pride, ambition, and rebellion, merely possible; and in order to infinite and eternal blessedness, made voluntary subordination essential to glory and creature happiness. Hence sin was born. Satan and sin will, therefore, he associated in eternal infamy.
His love, when his aspirations were frustrated, was converted into absolute and immutable hatred. Hence, to the fulfilment of all his power, he became the adversary of God and of all who did not sympathize and coalesce with him in his rivalry and ambition. Many angels took part with him in his rebellion; and with him those ranks "that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation," (proper position in the universe,) "he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness"--the awful hiding of his face-
364 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
"unto the judgment of the great day." Here revelation closes on this catastrophe; and here, to us, the curtain falls.
Meantime, Satan the tempter, has also become the accuser of the brethren. Hence he asked, most impiously, "Does Job serve God for nothing? Hast thou not made a hedge around him, about his family, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased. But put forth thy hand now and touch all that he hath, and see if he will not curse thee to thy face." The Lord gave Satan power against him, and though commencing with all his malice and stratagem, he failed in every assault. Job was tempted, but sinned not. So commences the history of Statan under this his appropriate name.
The empire of Satan is immensely large and powerful. He is "the god of this world." He is the prince of innumerable legions of demons; he has all the spirits of those that died in their sins, together with all the fallen angels, under his reign and government. His is the second great empire in the universe. How true it is that Christians wrestle not against mere flesh and blood, "but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against wicked spirits in the regions of the air."
But the great and important question is, How carries he on this government? how influences he the children of men Paul, indeed, gives us some light on this subject, and informs us that he was not ignorant of his devices. As we sometimes say, he does not always show his cloven foot, nor make himself sensibly and visibly present with us.
We may, from all the developments of the Bible, learn that he tempts not by actual contact, but by argument and motive, direct and indirect. He has studied human nature more than all the living sons of men. He comprehends man, every man, more than any one man comprehends himself, and addresses him in perfect harmony with his nature.
Our premises, indeed, are more than sufficient for these conclusions. We have many instances of his temptations detailed in the Holy Scriptures. A few of the more prominent must and will suffice to satisfy every reasonable and intelligent inquirer. Take the case of Mother Eve, of Job, of David, in numbering Israel; of the Saviour in the wilderness; of Ananias and Sapphira; of Peter, in the last scenes of the Messiah's life.
In analysing these, we observe that the temptations were in words, actions, or suggestions, suited to the prevailing passions, infirmities, or exigencies of the tempted.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 365
The ancient familiar companion of man, once more subtle and Ingenious than any other species of the brutal race, now, since its metamorphosis into a serpent, much fallen and degraded, was wisely selected as the medium of communion with woman. Eve, already as familiar with that creature as any lady since has been with a parrot or a lap-dog, would not be startled at such a conversation as was opened by Satan, through that beautiful companionable creature. Had they been strangers to each other before, Satan would but have defeated himself by employing a dumb brute, that for the first time it ever spoke, only uttered the suggestions of Satan incarnate. It was, indeed, most probably an incarnation, but the policy was to select a well known and companionable animal, whose person and language were so familiar as to be listened to without a single suspicion of guilt, of fraud, or fiction, in the case. I need not say, that Satan had already become a proficient in the study of human nature, in the person of both Adam and Eve. He, therefore, sought an opportunity in the absence of Adam, and in harmony with the delicate sensibility and inquisitive curiosity of a woman of fine imagination and great impressibility, most eloquently addresses her on the unreasonableness of her construction, of the inhibition touching "the Tree of Knowledge of God and Evil."
He pays a due respect to the natural love of novelty--to the goodness of God in all other respects--and only questions the meaning of the oracle, insinuating a doubt not as to the goodness and truthfulness of God, nor as to the certainty and authority of the inhibition, but merely as to her construction of it. "Yea! hath God said you shall not eat of this most beautiful and charming tree! Impossible! God knows that in the day you eat thereof you shall be as a god, discerning both good and evil!!"
Suiting his action to his speech, he puts forth his hand, and, snatching the fruit, began to eat himself. On seeing him delight in the luxury, and no harm following, under the impulse of her own curiosity, beguiled by the tinsel of false eloquence, and allured by the smiles of the tempter, she hastily put forth her hand, plucked and eat. But alas! how soon her eyes were opened, and with what shame she saw the halo of glory, in which she was enveloped, fading away, and herself standing like the wick of a suddenly extinguished lamp, divested of the glory and beauty of light.
I need not dilate upon the catastrophe. She was doomed to sorrow and anguish--to travail and death; and the medium of delusive eloquence through which she parlied with Satan and ruin, is transformed into a serpent, and prostrated to wallow in the dust. Such
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366 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
was the first temptation of this fallen adversary of God and of man.
The next we shall note is the case of Job. He envied and hated this good and perfect man--one that feared God and hated evil. He was the greatest of Eastern princes, and the most prosperous of all his contemporaries. A renowned patriarch and a model saint, he was peculiarly an object worthy of his enmity.
He had also studied his character, but saw no prospect of success in any ordinary temptation. He felt himself as if challenged to assail him. His natural affection for his family, and his large estate, were the most likely means of his success, and, therefore, he machinated the ruin of these. He showed himself possessep, not only of the most crafty wiles, but of immense power over all the agents of destruction. He successfully availed himself of all these. Misfortunes and calamities are made to tread on the heels of one another, but Job maintains his piety and integrity. A deep and all. pervading sense of his own unworthiness- and original poverty, with a profound veneration for the justice and goodness of God, were all- sufficient to his triumph over all his losses. While the temptation of Satan was superlatively crafty and wicked, the patience of Job, and his resignation to the will of God, made him triumphant in the midst of a long series of unprecedented calamities. In all his trials, "he sinned not nor charged God foolishly."
The next case is that of David. It is differently reported. In 2 Samuel, chap. xxiv. 1, it reads, "And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go number Israel and Judah." To which Joab responded, "Now, the Lord thy God add unto the people, how many soever they be, an hundred fold, and that the eyes of my lord the king way see it; but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing I And David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. Arid David said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly in that I have done, and now I beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly."
God, for this, sent a message to David by Gad the prophet, offering him the choice of three evils: Seven years famine throughout the land; three months fleeing before his enemies pursuing him; or three days pestilence in his land.
But we have another representation of this matter. 1 Chron. xxi. I, "And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel." "Joab answered, The Lord make his people an hundred times so many more as they be; but, my lord the king, are they
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 367
not all thy servants? Why cloth my lord require this thing Why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel? Nevertheless, the king's words prevailed against Joab. And Joab gave the number of the people to David." Israel had 1,100,000 warriors, and Judah 470,000 warriors; in all, one million five hundred and seventy thousand warriors.
Be it remembered, that there was no sin in numbering the people, abstractly from the motives which dictated it. In Exodus xxx. 11, it was allowed, indeed commanded. "And the Lord said to Moses, When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, after their number, then they shall give every man a ransom for his soul to the Lord, when thou numberest them, that there be no plague among them when thou numberest them."
But in this case it is said, "God was displeased with this thing, therefore he smote Israel." Indeed, we are told that "the king's word was abominable to Joab." So that he did not number all the tribes. 1 Chron. xxi. 6-7.
To reconcile these statements to all minds, it is necessary to remark, that God, in the first statement, is represented as hostile to Israel, and as moving David to number them; and in the second statement, that "Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number them." Both God and Satan are represented as co-operating in this thing--therefore, there is no contradiction. Both are true. God withdrew his protection from the nation, and left David and them to their own counsels. But why was it so? The passage is translated by some of the moderns to indicate that "the anger of the Lord was again kindled against Israel, because an adversary stood up against Israel." Boothroyd and some others so translate this passage and 1 Chron. xxi. 1: "An adversary stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel." This is not relieving the passage from any difficulty. The Lord would not have so punished David, simply because an adversary stood up against Israel. It is Satan, and so understood the seventy, and translated the Hebrew Satan by the Greek Diabolos, Devil, or calumniator.
There was sin in this matter on the part of David and Israel. Joab, his great captain, saw that it was pride. If, then, the man Joab could see his uncle David sin in this affair, it must, indeed, have been palpable. "It was abominable" in Joab's eyes, and the work was performed imperfectly and reluctantly on his part. Satan's hand was in it. He hated David; and God, to chasten David, gave him into his hands. David was vulnerable in one point, and Satan saw it. He had risen to great eminence, as we say, by his
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great talents. He had a long, a prosperous, a glorious reign, more than most men could endure. Satan suggested, in harmony with his condition, that he ought to know the greatness of his kingdom, and the number of the men of war within his realm; and immediately David set about it. God was justly offended at his pride and self-glorification in this way, and punished him in the very point in which he had sinned; so that in a single day he lost, of the pride of his kingdom, seventy thousand men.
So far, then, we have been tracing the wiles of Satan in carrying on his treasonable projects and malignant purposes against the sons of men. His temptations are numerous, various, and malignant.
In another essay, we may develop still farther this important subject, too much neglected and too little appreciated by the great multitude of professors. There is a silent, reserved, growing, scepticism in this age, on the whole subject of spiritual influence. With many, angels, demons, Satan, and even the Holy Spirit, are mere phantasies--creatures of fiction or of superstition. Hence the growing servility to the world that now is, to the earthly, sensual, and animal wants and enjoyments of our corruptible bodies. How axiomatic and evident it is, that "they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh;" while those "that are after the Spirit, are minding the things of the Spirit." It is a solemn and awful truth, that "the minding of the flesh is death, while the minding of the Spirit is life and peace." A. C.
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY THE TRUE PRINCIPLE
OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT.
Is man an immortal being? This question, involving man's accountability, as necessarily growing out of his immortality, is one of great moment. The decision of this question depends not upon the deduction of human reason; although it is thought to be abundantly evident, from the light of reason, as taught by a sound philosophy. Much, indeed, may be plausibly inferred from what is seen and known of the things around us and within us, as to man's existence hereafter and forever; but nothing so satisfactory as to make the notion a principle of conduct sufficient to influence us to deal out what is just and right to all men. In a moral point of view, the torch of philosophy would afford but a very dubious and uncertain
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 369
light upon man's immortality. It never was clear enough to enable man to pursue it with confidence of success. His immortality could not be reasoned out of the analogy of nature, beyond a doubt. To doubt it, was so to impair the feeling in the human mind, as to destroy its motive power. The most enlightened men of the most enlightened nations of heathendom, were never able to refrain from the vices of the age in which they lived. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Diogenes, were more or less guilty of the vices, from the influences of which they sought in vain to reclaim their countrymen. They speculated much upon ethics; and delineated theories, in themselves so plausible of advantage to the practitioner, that they thought to attract men, by the charms of their utility, to the practice of virtue. But long and repeated trials of their theories upon morals, urged from considerations of religious obligation, too, as affording additional, if not the stronger motive, proved only their weakness and inefficiency. It was, therefore, no hasty conclusion to which that sage and accurate observer of the principles of human actions arrived, when, in view of all they had done in reclaiming men from the dominion of their appetites and passions, he pronounced them systems of vain and deceitful philosophy. The lives of their founders prove them as void of motive power to reclaim men, as they were false in theory.
He must, indeed, have studied the lives and theories of those philosophers but very imperfectly, who has not discovered them to have been as unsatisfactory to their authors, as they were to those to whom they were delivered. They not only prove that men, by mere human reason, unaided by a clear revelation, cannot think and act according to the capabilities of their entire nature, but as clearly show that traditional truth, divine in its origin, passing through the channels of an unchaste and corrupt imagination, and superadded to the deductions of human reason, leave men still the sport and victim of their passions.
The wisest of the heathen philosophers wanted he knew not what, but it was something to which he had not attained. Had he discovered it, what think you it would have been? He would have found it, say you, in what would have filled up the measure of his intellectual and moral capacity. He wanted, then, the impersonation of truth, goodness and love. To love and to adore such a Being, required a clear revelation of his character. But this could not have been made, without clearly revealing to man his relations to such a Being. The secret of his wants will thus be discovered, and he will make its discovery obvious to all, by seeking for eternal life, and truth, and
370 THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY.
good, to live upon forever. He will as evidently show, that there is no reasonableness in reasoning so long, as men seek nothing more than daily amusement, occupation, and aliment. He exclaims, as did one of classic memory, "I have found, I have found!" The grand secret is happiness, without death. And its daily enjoyment is loving God supremely, the author of his being and his bliss.
But tell him he is to perish to-morrow, and forever, and in vain do you exhort him to love God. The hope, alone, of an imperishable existence, as an irrevocable boon, is that only upon which he can found his gratitude to his Maker, and who thus becomes the author of his felicity.
But need we say, that no such assurance and hope, as the foundation of present and future bliss, is any where to be found, save in the Bible; for, however ready men may be to felicitate themselves upon the acquisition of their desires, they find, in the end, self- deception, and that they have rested only in that which is no better than the Rhadamanthine dreams of natural heathenism, if they found not their morality upon the revealed will of God.
The question of man's immortality, is one which comprehends much more than the mind of Plato ever conceived, in his argument for the immortality of the soul. He had but half the idea, and that he obtained from Jewish tradition, rather than from abstract reasoning upon spiritual existence. The Bible alone gives us the whole idea. The immortality of the spirit, or soul, was never the subject of a special revelation. But that man in his entire nature--in body, soul, and spirit--shall live again and forever, is a revealed truth, and the burthen of the Christian revelation. It is there taught us, not in word, but in fact. The Author of immortality, in the fact of his resurrection, brought to light the immortality of body, soul, and spirit. From this fact the Apostle Paul argues for the immortality of man in his entire nature. The argument runs thus: If Christ be not raised, the believer is not raised--he is perished. This negative argument, had it been true, would have proved the mortality alike of soul and body. They who are fallen asleep in Christ are perished, if Christ be not raised. But the apostle carries his argument triumphantly, from the fact that Christ arose from the dead, and has become the first fruits of them that slept. The argument, then, for the revival and deathlessness of the body, is thus stated by the apostle: If the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall make even your mortal bodies alive by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.
Many sceptics, like Plato, may have professed to believe in the
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 371
immortality of the spirit of man; but the apostle argues that, if the body be not raised to life, the man has perished in body, soul, and spirit. The revival of the latter he makes to depend upon that of the former. The future life of the spirit is consequent upon the future life of the body.
We repeat, then, that all true morality and religion are based upon the hope of immortality; and not only so, but the very desire to regulate his moral and religious conduct by a given rule, does, indeed, indicate an intense feeling of deathlessness. And what are our notions of right and wrong, but an evidence of our belief in a future state, where good and evil are to find their proper results.
With the consciousness of our immortality, we feel ourselves bound to right conduct, seeing the laws of heaven are the laws of eternity; and with the apostle, we feel that we cannot escape the sentence already against us, if we neglect our salvation.
The great line of demarcation that separates the two great classes of society, we have now drawn.
On the one side, are those who, from an ever-present consciousness of their immortality and consequent accountability, feel themselves bound to right conduct. Their motto is, "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole happiness of man." On the other side, are those who are devoid of such consciousness, and do not look beyond a present life; whose motto, strange as it may appear, is, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
May we not say, with a modern writer, that "indifference to results, is all the ethics of ignorance?"
The profanum vulgus of all conditions are those who, practically believing in death as their finale, endeavor to pass their lives in desperate disregard of the coming event; and lest it should abbreviate their guilty pleasure before its time, even by its shadow, they resolve to look another way. What, then, is the philosophy of repentance, and why is it demanded? Is it not because immortality is revealed, and a day of judgment appointed, the certainty of which is known to all who have received the pledges of God and examined the evidence--Christ is risen.
Piety and humanity cannot but be productive of present happiness, either in the enjoyment of what is passing, or in the hope of what is to come. They must give a warrant of future bliss, not from a possibility of merit, but from the assurance which a mind must feel that is walking in the way that wisdom appoints. This may be styled virtue, because it is not in merely pleasing ones self that is the motive, but because it is an obedience to a law acknow-
372 FAMILIES OF LITERARY MEN.
ledged by the mind, as good in itself; for both the motive and the joy of virtue consist in conscious fulfilment of duty. But duty depends on relationship between the mind that yields obedience in love, and the mind that commands in love. Without love, there is neither authority nor duty.
In conclusion, then, we ask for the reasonableness, for the righteousness, for the benevolence, in the Omnipotent, if he grant only a short lease of life and enjoyment to his reasoning and confiding creature, that in love submits to his will. Surely He cannot forget the works of faith and the labors of love which such a one has performed, in the truest devotion of his soul, to the will of Him whom to love and to adore was his chief delight. A. W. C.
FAMILIES OF LITERARY MEN.
MEN distinguished for extraordinary intellectual power, of any sort, very rarely leave more than a very brief line of progeny behind them. Men of genius have scarcely ever done so; men of imaginative genius, we might say almost never. With one exception, of the noble Surrey, we cannot at this moment point out a representative, in the male line, even so far down as the third generation, of any English poet, and we believe the case is the same in France. The blood of beings in that order, can seldom be far traced in the female line. With the exception of Surrey and Spencer, we are not aware of any great English author, of at all remote date, from whose body any living person claims to be descended
There is no other English poet prior to the middle of the eighteenth century, and we believe, no great author, of any sort, except Clarendon and Shaftsbury--of whose blood we have any inheritance among us. Chaucer's only child died childless. Shakspeare's line expired in his daughter. None of the other dramatists of that age left any progeny; neither Raleigh, nor Bacon, nor Cowley, nor Butler. The grand-daughter of Milton was the last of his blood. Newton, Locke, Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Hume, Gibbon, Cowper, Gray, Walpole, Cavendish, and we might greatly extend the list, never married. Neither Bolingbroke, nor Addison, nor Warburton, nor Johnson, nor Burke, transmitted their blood. Poor Goldsmith might have been mentioned in the above list. The theory is illustrated in our own day. The greatest names in science and literature, of our time, were Davy and Sir Walter Scott. The first died childless. Sir Walter left four children, of whom three are dead--only one of them, Mrs. Lockhart, leaving issue; and the fourth, his eldest son, though living, and long married, has no issue. These are curious facts.--Quarterly Review.
CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 373
CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE--No. I.
THE abuse of any creature of God, is no argument against the use of it. Nor is the abuse or improper application of a word or phrase, any reason or argument against its proper use and application. The word experience, was not in popular favor in the reign of James I., when our commonly received version of the Sacred Writings was made. They gave it to us only five times in all the whole volume, and the word experiment but once.
But it may be said that the Greek dokimee, was not in much more favor with the apostles of Christ, for none but Paul ever used it, and he but seven times in all his epistles; and for it, in these passages, King James "authorized" the English word experience twice; proof, three times; experiment, once; and trial, once.
Its pedigree is remarkable. It is the first-born of Patience, and the mother of Hope, whose descendents are Love, Peace, and Joy. The family is illustrious, and yet, like many illustrious families, it is of rather ignoble and obscure origin. It is lineally and naturally descended from Tribulation, and, farther than this, its genealogy is not known. Strange, indeed, that Joy, one of the most noble creatures in the heraldry of earth, should be a remote descendent of Tribulation. The whole family known on earth, in all the records of time, are Tribulation, Patience, Experience, Hope, Joy. This grand descendent of Tribulation was, unfortunately, first miscalled Experience, till, on its baptism, it was changed into Approbation, its most natural and appropriate name. Hence, the true line, properly traced and legally named, are entered on the church records--Tribulation, Patience, Approbation, Hope, Joy. But Joy is the youngest of this noble family. The eldest sister is called Love, the second is called Peace, and the youngest Joy. I can assure all my readers, that I have consulted the ancient and true heraldry of this noble family, and can affirm, with all confidence, that so they are enrolled, each having its own signature and seal, witnessed by two of the Apostles of Christ, living and being present when they were recorded, as I have reported them, by a scribe wearing the King's signet.
Now, then, on the highest authority, we shall always think of them, speak of them, and write of them, as so descended, and endeavor to treat them with all due respect and decorum. For a long time past--time out of mind--the history of this family has been in perpetual litigation, some claiming Approbation to be the parent of the whole family, and Joy to be the mother of Hope. But it
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374 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE,
would be an unprofitable and interminable discussion, to investigate the numerous and various suits entered in the high courts of metaphysico-theological chancery, and the reports of innumerable lawyers, and doctors of law, on the premises. We have found the true roll of their lineage, and shall hereafter regard the matter as most satisfactorily settled. But we shall, for our edification and comfort, occasionally refer to some interesting scenes in the history of this ancient and venerable family.
With regard to Tribulation, it must be noted, that IA hen Christian Faith was yet in its infancy, it was, like Moses in his infancy, exposed to persecution by some of Pharaoh's wicked legitimate descendents, who suspected, from some remote tradition, that it was to take possession of his throne and kill off all his children. For this reason, it, with all its kindred, was cruelly treated, and finally banished from his empire. During these days of adversity, Tribulation was born and nurtured in the furnace of Affliction. But though degraded, it rose, through its connections, to a degree of respectability, and Faith, falling in love with her, entered with her into holy wedlock, the first born of which was appropriately named Patience. She was a beautiful creature, though of a tender constitution, and, when grown to maturity, was exceedingly amiable, and married Self-Denial, from whom Approbation was born. The family began to rise in esteem, and, soon as Approbation came to maturity, was led to the altar and honorably married to Truth; from whom, in due time, Hope was born, the mother of three of the most beautiful children that ever descended from one person, who, in the order of their birth, were named Love, Peace, and Joy.
From this parable we may learn the true history of what is commonly called Christian Experience." It is a real entity--a positive being--of well ascertained character, and of noble and divine origin; but it is very improperly conceived of by many of its warmest friends and advocates. No one can enjoy Christian experience until he is a Christian. Therefore, to call any thing preceding conversion, or conversion itself, or regeneration, Christian experience, is a very great mistake, and frequently of serious consequences. Hence, the relations or details of "Christian Experience," sometimes very uncouthly and improperly called "the experience of religion," formerly required, and even yet, in some portions of the Baptist brotherhood, still required, as necessarily antecedent to the privilege of Christian baptism, is as unphilosophical--that is, as irrational--as it is unscriptural and unapostolic. No one can have the evangelical experience of a Christian before faith and baptism.
AMERICAN CENSUS. 375
He may, indeed, believe with all his heart the gospel, and repent of all his sins, and ardently desire baptism and the privilege of the Christian church, and this he may orally and unequivocally avow to an individual minister or church, and yet not have Christian experience, or, rather, Christian approbation; which is the evangelical, the scriptural, and apostolic name and representation of this thing. No one can have the experience of any thing on which he has not yet entered, whether personal or social, civil or religious. Who, before marriage or naturalization, can have the experience of 'those who have entered into these important and well known relations of life I No more can any man have the experience of a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, whether in its present earthly form and character, or in its heavenly form and character, till he has entered into it. We are sorry to learn that this delusion still obtains in some portions of the Baptist churches, and that it is still necessary for a candidate for immersion to attend a meeting of the church, be examined, and his Christian experience related, heard, and approved, before he can be admitted to baptism--a custom as irrational as unscriptural, and not merely of very questionable, but of dangerous tendency. A. C.
AMERICAN CENSUS ABROAD.
THE London Athenaeum makes some comments upon the extraordinary growth of this country, which, though true, would have possessed much less interest had they appeared in any American journal:
Men in the habit of reading daily newspapers, may sometimes observe, in small type, and carefully packed away in spare corners of the broad sheet, queer looking paragraphs, one half names and the other half figures. Often enough these paragraphs are the result of much labor and skilful arrangement, but too frequently the reader hurries past them to the more exciting police reports or foreign correspondence. Yet some of them are well worth pondering. In one, for example, we have just read a few returns of the American census, of such unusual significance, that we doubt whether farseeing men will not regard them as more interesting than the finest revolution abroad, or the foulest murder at home.
The American census is not yet complete; but the returns already received point to conclusions far beyond hope or expectation. Look at New York, for instance. 1n 1820, it had a population of 123,000; in 1830, 130,000; in 1840, 312,000. This rate of increase was un-
376 AMERICAN CENSUS.
paralleled in the history of statistics. But the population is now said to have risen to the astonishing number of 750,000! There are but two larger cities in Europe; in ten years more, at the same rate of progress, it will be larger than Paris. In thirty years from this date New York will, on the same terms, be larger than London.
And it must be considered that the commercial capital of America is not fed like our Manchester and Liverpool, at the expense of the country; its advance is the type of that entire continent. In 1810 the population of St. Louis was 1,600; in 1830, 6,600; in 1840, 16,400; in 1850 it numbered 90,000! So far as the general nature of the returns can be inferred from the data at hand, the population of the Union will be about 25,000,000. From 1800, when the number was a little more than 5,000,000, to 1840, when it had advanced to 17,000,000, the decennial rate of increase was about 33 per cent. This rate would have given for 1850 a population of 22,000,000 only.
Material power has been developed equally with population. Great Britain alone excepted, no state in Europe could now maintain equal armaments in the field for any length of time. This marvellous growth is deranging all the old tradition of balances of power.' America is not only a first class state--in a few years, if no internal disorder shall occur, she will be the greatest of all. Should the 1840-50 rate of increase be maintained for fifty years, the population will then amount to 190,000,000--nearly equal to that of the whole continental Europe! Were it possible to conceive the same ratio maintained for fifty years more, the census of 1950 would give the astounding number of 1,696,000,000! German wars and French revolutions sink into complete insignificance by the side of considerations like these.
With such a comment, how well we may understand the 'roars of laughter' with which the American Senate recently received the menaces of Austria! When the United States shook of the yoke of England, their people numbered no more than 3,000,000; when they were last measured against a European power, they were not more than 8,000,000. Ten years hence they will be equal to France and Austria. There hardly seems to be a limit to their growth. The valley of the Mississippi would alone support the whole population of Europe. In its vast basin, nations are now growing up as if at the bidding of enchantment.
The valley already contains about thirteen millions of inhabitants; at the beginning of this century it did not contain as many thousands! There is a moral as well as a material, marching on from conquest to conquest, absorbing into itself less energetic stocks, and planting from ocean to ocean the freest institutions ever adopted by a nation. America is destined for its sole inheritance; the Spaniard and the Portuguese will disappear as surely as the Gaul, the Dane, and the Hollander have disappeared; and two centuries hence the English tongue will no doubt be spoken from the Cape f Storms to the Frozen Oceans of the North.
FAITH AND REASON. 377
THE TWO COMFORTERS, FIDO AND LOGOS: OR,
FAITH AND REASON.
Logos.--I am weary with the world and myself, dear Fido. I thought not so soon to lose the glowing hope of my youth and the strong faith of my manhood; but affliction, like a wave, yea, in successive waves, hath dashed over me, and I feel myself a wreck, powerless and aimless, on the still, dull bosom of a rayless sorrow. The performance of my duties no longer brings the sweet rewards of self-approbation, and the society of happy friends rather agitates than settles the bitter elements so largely mingled in my life-cup.
Fido --You will not be surprised when I tell you, that many dear friends have marked in your countenance the deep sorrow in which your spirit seems wellnigh buried. You have striven to hide from the world what you have but just now confessed even to me, your most intimate friend; but you have not succeeded. Your friends know you are unhappy--weighed upon by a heavy and oppressive grief; and they feel for you--deeply and sincerely feel for you. No one knew the worth of your loss better than I did, and no one can more fully sympathize with you.
Logos.--Truly hath a great thinker said, Every man carries, written upon his countenance, either a prophecy or a history. There may well be on mine both, since they must needs be the same. If, as I believe, our faith and our hope fashion our course through life, then must my future be, even as my past--transient joys, pure and sweet as dreams, but around them, and infused with them, the long, dull, dead stagnancy of a formless void, spreading itself like an eternity of emptiness before the imagination, and consuming, as with the maw of annihilation, every germ of hope or of peace. You will tell me this is but the shadow of memory, but it is a shadow that hath power to darken and to blight; and to the heart, therefore, a grave reality. Besides, is not the past the type of the future? That which hath been, is it not that which shall be On what, then, can I ground a reasonable, a philosophical hope for the future I
Fido.--The intimacy of our friendship has emboldened me to seek this interview with you, for the very purpose of conversing with you on the subject which you have so fortunately and characteristically introduced. So far as philosophy is concerned, our doctrine, I believe, is as nearly the same as we could desire it to be. As to its sufficiency for all the ends of happiness, we have ever differed. It is, indeed, a subject on which you discourse much more freely and
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378 FAITH AND REASON.
confidently than I ever do; and on this account, it is matter of some surprise to a portion of your friends, that you should manifest the weakness of an unmanly, or, as you were wont to say, an unphilosophic sorrow. Others, who scoff at philosophy as mere jargon, seem to exult, not, I would believe, at your dejected bearing under affliction, but rather, let us in charity say, at the refutation of your philosophy, which they find in your example.
Logos.--The principles of my philosophy do, indeed, require that I should sustain an unyielding fortitude, under even the weightiest afflictions to which we can be subjected. I have felt that my friends expected as much of me, and that the enemies of my philosophy would triumph over my weakness. I have, therefore, striven, both from principle and the love of consistency, to conceal what my own heart has but too bitterly felt. But you say I have not succeeded, and in truth, I have lost all desire to succeed. The power of my grief is greater than that of my philosophy; and in yielding, as must, to the one, I lose even the desire to honor the other. Indeed, my faculty for pleasure seems to he paralyzed; and even if I could illustrate and prove, by my example, the precepts of my philosophy, it could not afford me any gratification. The chord, which once vibrated in unison with all joyous things, has lost its tension--the music of my soul is hushed--its harp is hung upon the willows, and it weeps--weeps evermore--for the dead. What more hath life!
Fido.--It grieves me to see you so much moved, and both my nature and my faith teach me to "weep with those that weep."
Logos.--My cherished friend, your sympathy soothes, but it cannot heal my sorrow. We will be calm.
Fido.--Grief is natural to the human heart, and is forbidden neither by a sound philosophy nor by religion. But the Christian "sorrows not as those who have no hope"--as the philosopher does; and it is on this difference between the man who humbly relies upon Christ, and the self-sufficient philosopher, that I desire to submit a few thoughts for your consideration. I hope our friendship will excuse my liberty.
Logos.--I shall hear you with respect: I would it could be with profit. Proceed.
Fido.--With respect to the interpretative power of reason, we do not differ. We both regard it as the function in man to which all truth is addressed, and by which it is understood and received. We also believe that it possesses the ground forms, or ideas, into which all things connected with our present relations are cast, and thus moulded or fashioned into knowledge. But it is when you claim for
FAITH AND REASON. 379
reason the power of independent direction--a self-informing and self-sufficient potency, by which it can, unaided by revelation, discover all that is necessary to our guidance through life, and elaborate from its own resources all that we need to satisfy our desires and soothe our griefs--then it is that I am constrained to differ from you, and to say, that for these ends, reason must turn to revelation for help.
Logos.--You state correctly the radical difference in our sentiments on this subject. You have, indeed, often called my attention to it before, but not feeling that insufficiency of which you speak, I, of course, was not in a situation to weigh with interest your reasoning. On the contrary, I felt myself sustained by the example of many ancient philosophers, who did not enjoy the light of Christianity, and who, therefore, could not derive their strength from revelation, but from philosophy. I reasoned thus: "These ancient sages passed through the severest afflictions of human experience, and sustained and comforted themselves by their philosophy, and why shall not I, when afflictions come, find in my philosophy like strength and comfort?" I certainly expected to do so, but my experience is as you too well know, bitter disappointment.
Fido.--You will grant me, that our happiness consists of possession and hope. The past, except so far as it has contributed to our present possessions, or laid the foundation for future hopes, can contribute nothing whatever to our happiness. Stoicism is not happiness, else the man who could most nearly reduce himself to insensuous matter, would be best entitled to be called happy. Happiness is positive enjoyment, and must arise from the possession or anticipation of realities. Hence it would appear reasonable to conclude, that a system of philosophy which does not replace our losses by some present possession or future hope, cannot be suited to make us happy. Accordingly, if we look closely into the cases among the ancients, to which you appeal, we shall find that all their comfort under affliction, was derived from their belief in a future state of happiness, under the just reign of the gods.
Logos.--But you will agree with me, that this was but the blindest superstition. Their philosophy I admire and retain; their superstition I despise and reject.
Fido.--That their mythology, as a system, was superstitious, I agree, but their belief in a future state I would rather say was traditional, borrowed, perhaps, from the Jews, or still more primitive sources. Plato, in "The Apology for Socrates," makes him, in referring to the doctrine of a future state, speak of it as a tradition.
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"For to die," says he, "is one of two things; for either the dead may be annihilated, and have no sensation of any thing whatever; or, as it is said, there is a certain change and passage of the soul from one place to another." And again, "But if, on the other hand, death is a removal from hence to another place, and what is said be true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing can there be than this, my judges 1" But however this may be, the part of their creed which you reject, was the only part from which the ancient philosophers drew any comfort under their afflictions.
Logos.--I have not so understood it. On the contrary, I have rather regarded them as deriving their highest pleasure from the pursuit of virtue, and the consciousness of a just and well spent life. In the lofty contemplation of truth, beauty and goodness; in admiration of the variety, magnitude, and number of nature's forms, and the delightful converse and interchange of philosophic spirits, I have ever regarded these sages of hoary antiquity as seeking and finding all their enjoyment in prosperity, and their sufficient comfort and solace in adversity.
Fido.--Your present experience must prepare you for discerning the radical mistake into which your hitherto uninterrupted enjoyment of your philosophy has led you; for you must now feel that something essential to our happiness may be taken from us, and that hope, also, must shine upon our path, to make it cheerful. But let me fortify my statements by the language of the greatest philosopher who ever lived. Plato makes Socrates say, "Those who pursue philosophy rightly, study to die; and to them, of all men, death is least formidable. Judge from this, since they altogether hate the body, and desire to keep the soul by itself, would it not be irrational if, when this comes to pass, they should be afraid and grieve, and not be glad to go to that place, where, on their arrival, they may hope to obtain that which they longed for throughout life; but they longed for wisdom, and to be freed from association with that which they hated? Have many, of their own accord, wished to descend into Hades, on account of human objects of affection, their wives and sons, induced by this very hope of there seeing and being with those whom they have loved; and shall one who really loves wisdom, and finally cherishes this very hope, that he shall no where else attain it in a manner worthy of the name, except in Hades, be grieved at dying, and not gladly go there I We must think that he would gladly go,- my friend, if he be in truth a philosopher; for he will be firmly persuaded of this, that he will no where else but there obtain wisdom in its purity; and if this be so, would it not be very
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irrational, as I just now said, if such a man were to be afraid of death?"
Logos.--It must be conceded, that Plato represents Socrates as solacing himself while under the sentence, and in the immediate prospect of death, with some vague hopes of future enjoyments. In anticipation of meeting in Hades with certain admired ancients, he seems, indeed, enraptured, and exclaims to his judges, "At what price would you not estimate a conference with Orpheus and Musaeus, Hesiod and Homer? I, indeed, should be willing to die often, if this be true. For to me the sojourn there would be admirable, when I should meet with Palamedes, and Ajax, son of Telamon, and any other of the ancients who have died by an unjust sentence. The comparing my sufferings with theirs, would, I think, be no unpleasing occupation. But the greatest pleasure would be to spend my time in questioning and examining the people there, as I have done those here, and discovering who among them is wise, and who fancies himself to be so but is not. At what price, my judges, would not any one estimate the opportunity of questioning him who led that mighty army against Troy, or Ulysses, or Sisyphus, or ten thousand others, whom one might mention, both men and women? with whom to converse and associate, and question them, would be an inconceivable happiness. Surely for that the judges there do not condemn to death; for in other respects, those who live there are more happy than those that are here, and are henceforth immortal, if at least what is said be true." This I remember to have read in "The Defence of Socrates," but I have always regarded it as purely superstitious, and unworthy of philosophy.
Fido.--It is not for the purpose of deciding whether these hopes were superstitious or not, that I have referred to them; but it is to show that whatever these systems afforded of solace to grief, of comfort to affliction, of hope to bereavement, or of retribution to injury, was derived from that part of them which you reject--from the belief which their advocates cherished of a future state of happiness for the virtuous and pure. It is to this point that I wish particularly to fix your attention, as I think it will enable you to explain the reason of your present despondency, and why it is that your philosophy does not afford you the same support and comfort under your present sore bereavement, which the ancient philosophers, under trials equally heavy, derived from theirs.
Logos.--You present this point to me with a prominence, under which I never before observed it. Still, as I regard the hopes which these philosophers cherished as altogether supertitious, I
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cannot, after all, see what advantage it can prove to me to view it as you do.
Fido.--I shall have gained much, if I can lead you to see that no system has proved adequate to the wants and desires of our nature, which does not include some hope of future being and bliss. I shall then have prepared your mind for a favorable consideration of the philosophy of Christianity, and have conducted you to a position from which you can regard, with proper appreciation, the hope of the gospel. But an engagement at this hour compels me, for the present, to leave you. May I ask you to reflect upon the point which I have made till we meet again, and, from the rich stores of your varied learning, test its correctness?
Logos.--Your friendly earnestness interests me, and I will do so. Perhaps the interest of the investigation will repay the labor, but more than this my heart tells me is impossible. Farewell. W. K. P.
SACRED LITERATURE.
HAVING attended a meeting of the "American Literary Society of Bethany College," a few evenings since, and being very much gratified with the literary entertainment prepared for the occasion, and especially with the following blooming eulogy on the value and importance of Sacred Literature, very handsomely pronounced by Mr. A. G. Thomas, of Georgia, I requested a copy of it to present to the junior readers of the Harbinger.
I had not the pleasure of being present at a similar meeting of the "Neotrophian Society," a few evenings before, but was gratified to learn that it, also, furnished sundry performances of very considerable merit.
Literary Societies in Colleges, under proper regulations and good parliamentary order, are very important auxiliaries in obtaining a good and practical collegiate education. These societies in Bethany College have, from its foundation, been generally conducted with much propriety, and are annually increasing their libraries and means of improvement. A. C.
Ladies and Gentlemen: The pages of Sacred Literature are decked with flowers, studded with gems, and laden with a mental harvest
SACRED LITERATURE. 383
from which minds of every order can be beautified with perennial blooms, emblazoned with priceless rubies, and supplied with a rich and lasting store. They are fruitful in hoarded wisdom and virtue of the past, and transcendent in sublimity upon the future. Their treasures are inestimable: more desirable than the glittering dust of California, and more precious than the diamonds which sparkle with effulgence in the gaudy diadems of Eastern princes. Is it not deeply affecting to every feeling heart, when we witness the salutary bearing that Sacred Literature has upon the destiny of man Here we behold ignorance and superstition, the legitimate friends of despotism and wo, dispelled by the bright rays which emanate from THE BOOK. This alone tells to man his high origin, and reveals to him the true nature of his being. How many of the great and good who have blessed the world, have learned wisdom from its pages of inspiration! How many have filled their minds from its stores of thought, and have been warmed into extacies at its sacred tires! And who will assay to tell the myriads who have steeped their care-worn spirits in the laver of eternal truth! Every pap of the Bible bears the impress of mind; but more, the burning signature of inspiration. The story of its triumphs has embalmed the most magnificent page which the hand of time has registered in the chronicles of the world. Its monuments of peace and love shall stand out in bold relief untarnished, when time shall have mouldered to the dust the noblest works of genius. And even when the Egyptian pyramids shall have been leveled to the plain and have ceased to live, even in the burning strains of the poet, the golden trophies which the Bible has erected shall be clad in the bright habiliments of truth. Its victories are deathless. Its triumphs are destined to be universal, and its benefits eternal.
Man may read the works of men of genius with much interest and profit; but here alone he gains that knowledge which elevates the man in the rank of moral intelligence. By perusing the productions of men, man may dive into the chrystal fountains of literature, and gain lore of much value. Here he may rove over the liquid fields, enkindled by bright rays of intellect; glide over the landscape and sip the nectar from a thousand blooms; soar upon the winged flight of rhyme, or amble in the humble walks of prose. He may mingle pi the midst of carnage, pause upon the field of tears and blood, repose upon the pillow of ease, walk by moonlight with the cupids of romance, or listen to the heart-stirring eloquence of the patriot; yet all these influences combined have not the power to change the moral nature of man, and stamp upon his being the impress of his
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deathless origin. But when the man studies the volume of Sacred Literature, sentence after sentence scathes his heart like lightning, changes like leaven, and, as the noon-day sun, gilds the pathway of immortality. The study of the Bible has been the delight of the greatest men that have ever lived. Among these are enrolled the names of Locke, Newton, and Bacon. From this source Barson gained much of the overwhelming tide of thought which gained for him such high eclat. Hence Milton gathered those sentiments so near akin to inspiration. This is the spring from which flow those chrystal streams unequaled in purity. Here Chatham procured those truths with which he shook a nation to its centre, and gained for himself lasting fame.
But we need not consider individual character, to show the influence of Sacred Literature upon man's happiness. We see its effects, written as in letters of fire, on the contrast between those nations where the Bible is the book of the people, and those who have it not, or where the people are not permitted to read it. Look to Asia, the most favored portion of the earth in all natural resources. Yet how imbecile, in all that pertains to national greatness, when compared to Bible-enlightened Europe. But if possible, the picture is still darker, when we survey the land of Ham. Here mental night and degradation reign supreme, and scarce one solitary ray of light gilds the dark horizon. All is deep and wide mental night. Thus generation after generation pass away, without one solitary star to cheer. In contemplating these scenes, the philanthropist is constrained to exclaim--
Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
Let us contrast Protestant England with Priest-ridden Spain; Germany with Portugal; the United States of America with Roman Catholic Mexico, and the benign influence of the Bible is not only seen to exert a salutary bearing upon every department of life, but is felt and enjoyed.
The once proud and chivalrous Castalians, formerly the ruling geniuses of Europe, have fallen, being deprived of the Bible. Semi- barbarism beclouds their mental sky; Vandalism sweeps their plains and desolates their fields. Look to Catholic Ireland, emphatically the home of misery and the land of starvation. Her wretched fate is revealed to the world in this momentous truth--she is deprived of the Bible. The Bible is the only book that professes to teach the philosophy of the life to come. Here alone are delineated the
SACRED LITERATURE. 385
moral attributes of the Maker and Benefactor of all. Here every page glows with universal love: the only authenticated source of all our knowledge of pangless and seraphic bliss, of universal intelligence, and eternal life.
Fancy, in her most daring flight upon her magical pinions, would attempt in vain to sketch upon her golden canvas the inestimable treasures of the Bible. The pages of the Bible are also embalmed with the holy name of woman. Though we learn from THE BOOK itself that man was led by woman out of the garden of terrestrial Paradise, yet it is only woman, such as Columbia's fair daughters, by whom we are surrounded, who can strew his chequered pathway through this cold and heartless world, with never-dying flowers of patience and love, and aid him to that celestial paradise above.
Sacred Literature is to the moral world just what the sun is to the natural. For as by the light and heat of the sun the cedars of Lebanon shoot their giant branches into the air, the mild violet blooms in the valley below, and we are guided in our sublunary occupations, so this is a light to guide amidst the darkness of intellectual night. Let, then, every child demand of his parents to place in his hands the magnetic needle of eternal truth; without which he, like the bewildered traveler amidst Sahara's wide, burning, and desolating sands, must fall beneath the burning and withering influence of that moral Sahara through which he is destined to pass; and he that refuses, let him be anathema maranatha.
Does the parent desire his daughter to be the gem and rising star of her age--to throw a halo of glory around her peculiar sphere--a solace at home, and the gem of society--her mind must be studded with diamonds culled from this sacred casket. Does he wish his son to be a beacon to warn the misguided soul off the damned strands of sin, he must be thoroughly indoctrinated in those truths which the Bible alone inculcates. If, then, the rising generation of America are to create a new epoch in the history of the world's virtue, elevate the blood-stained banner of Emmanuel, and bear it onward till all the nations of the earth have rallied around it, their minds must be thoroughly imbued with the ennobling truths of Sacred Literature; taught to reverence its pages and obey its precepts; and then will the gazing world be constrained to exclaim--
Columbia! Columbia! to glory has risen,
The Alma Mater of freedom's and liberty's children.
Long may thy proud spangled banner wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 33
386 THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
SLAVERY AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW--No. IV.
HAVING shown, from the Living Oracles of Eternal Truth and Righteousness, that the relation of master and servant, for life, or for a term of years, has existed in all ages, as far back as all Sacred History goes, amongst Patriarchs, Sews, and Christians, by Divine permission, by Divine regulation, and with the Divine approbation, it must legitimately follow, that there is nothing in the relation necessarily either immoral or irreligious. It is, however, to be regulated by human laws, and it has been so regulated by very clear and explicit precepts, propounded by those commissioned by High Heaven as God's ambassadors to our world. Like every other relation in social life, it is subject to abuse. Hence the necessity of civil, moral, and religious statutes, and of the faithful observance and administration of them, adapted to the numerous and various forms, circumstances, and abuses of servitude, in the ever changing conditions of society.
I have already been much abused by portions of the political and religious press, for the avowal of these views and convictions, and more especially, for presuming to show that the Bible sustains every position I have stated or propounded on the premises. Indeed, the conviction that the Bible has sanctioned, and does sanction, as far as I have shown, this institution, is already so general that very many abolitionists doubt its Divine origin and authority, and would rather question the inspiration and authority of the Bible, than the correctness, evidence, and infallibility of their own "Rights of Man," and notions of human equality and liberty.
It is well known that the Bible is spoken of in no very complimentary forms of speech--with no very explicit reverence for its authority--by many of the warmest and most benevolent advocates of resistance to the laws protecting the rights of masters to recover those who have, from any cause, or by any means, escaped from their service. Indeed, there fell into my hands the other day some references to the Koran, as more in harmony with the views of abolitionists than the Bible; and that, too, from high authority, as represented and respected over the Union.
It is no secret in this community, that some of the master spirits of immediate abolition, in pleading the cause of universal emancipation, candidly avow that the Bible is opposed to their views; and, therefore, they conscientiously and cordially disavow its authority, and refuse any special regard to its doctrine or precepts. But this
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 387
only in evidence, that in the calm and sober judgment of the more thoughtful and considerate abolitionists, the Bible recognizes and allows the relation and regulates it; and consequently, that I am sustained in the positions that I have taken on the premises.
Still, we are not at all insensible to the fact, that slavery in the United States has been so conducted, on the part of very many professors of Christianity, owners of large and small estates, as to outrage both humanity and the Bible, Old Testament and New. But who so destitute of reason and observation, as not to perceive and admit that the abuse of any thing, human or divine, is no valid objection -against the thing itself. Have not husbands, by thousands and tens of thousands, abused, degraded, and every way maltreated their wives? Have not many even murdered them I Have not many parents oppressed, and even tortured their children to death? Shall we, then, in a fit of passion and sympathy--in a paroxism of humanity--denounce, abjure, and annihilate matrimony and paternal authority?
We desire to be impartial on this subject, being neither in love with slavery nor abolitionism, as they both stand before us. We can see great aberrations from propriety, religion, and humanity, on both sides; and, therefore, claim the right of expressing our views clearly, fully, impartially, and respectfully, on the subject, so far as duty--or, in other words, Christianity and humanity-- dictate.
But we are entreated and urged, on both sides, to express our ideas and views of the "Fugitive Slave Law," now the standing topic--the burthen of the year 1851. Both citizens and brethren, at the North and at the South, have requested it, and urged it upon our attention. We shall yield to their importunities.
The first question that I propound to myself on this subject, in sustaining my position, and to those who oppose it, is--What does the Constitution of the United Slates itself require of me and of them, as citizens of the United States, in reference to American slavery? To which I answer, in the words of the Constitution--" No person held to service or labor in one Slate, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, BUT SHALL BE DELIVERED up, on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor shall be due." This is riot the statute of ninety-three nor of fifty-one, but the Constitution of the United States. Every officer in this government is sworn to support it. Every naturalized citizen in the United States is sworn to support it. I am sworn to support it; and it is presumable that every
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natural born citizen of the United States is religiously and morally bound to support it.
How, then, can any enlightened American citizen, native or naturalized, be held guiltless by the Judge of all, of perjury or of rebellion, while endeavoring to prevent a fellow-citizen of another State, from recovering one "held to his service by the laws" of his own State, under the sanction of the Constitution of the United States, which he is most solemnly bound to sustain
The second question is, What is the law of the United States on the subject for I am bound, as well as every other citizen of the United States, to obey all the constitutional laws of this nation, according to the true interpretation and intent thereof.
The law of Congress passed in 1793, and that passed in 1851, obviously agree in the following items: 1. It is declared to be a criminal offence to resist the due execution of the law; to "knowingly and wilfully obstruct or hinder the claimant in the arrest of the fugitive; to rescue such fugitive from the claimant when arrested; to harbor or conceal such person after notice that he or she is a fugitive from labor."
And here let me emphatically note, that the construction which certain lecturers frequently put upon this law, very much resemble the interpretations put upon the Bible by sectarian preachers and commentators.
It is taught and believed in most of the free States, by many opposed to this law, that it inhibits, on civil pains and penalties, any citizen of a free State from showing any act of sympathy or kindness to a runaway slave; such as feeding, clothing, lodging him, or giving him any directions, suspecting or knowing him to be a runaway; and thus virtually forbids the charities due to suffering humanity. I do not so interpret or understand the law, and neither so understands it any one whose calm and deliberate judgment I respect. The law, as I read it, only says, "Thou shalt not harbor or conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and arrest of such person, after notice or knowledge of the fact that such person is a fugitive from service or labor aforesaid." The "notice and knowledge of the fact" is neither rumor nor suspicion, but legal notice and knowledge. And as stated by some of those who enacted this law, "This deprives no one of the privilege of extending charities to the fugitive. You may feed, clothe, and lodge him, provided you do not harbor or conceal him, so as to prevent discovery and arrest, after notice or knowledge that he is a fugitive.'" And this I learn to be "the construction put upon a similar provision in the old law, by the highest judicial
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 389
tribunal in the land." "The only difference between the old law of ninety-three, and the new law of fifty-one, in respect to obstructing its execution, is to be found in the amount of the penalty, and not in the principle involved." So says a Senator of the United States. The law of '93, as well as the law of '51, provides that "the penalty may be recovered by and for the benefit of such claimant by action of debt, in any proper court to try the same; serving, moreover, to the person claiming such labor or service, his right of action for, or on account of, the said injuries or either of them."
I cannot, from all that I have heard or read on the whole premises, see any valid reason or cause for resisting the present law, any more than for resisting that law "passed by the patriots and sages who framed our glorious constitution," and cordially approved by the "Father of his country," A. D. 1793. Besides, this law is but an amendment of that of '93, and neither a rescinding nor an abrogation of it. That law still remains in force; and should the late amendment be rescinded, we simply fall back under the law of '93, which is morally and religiously, to all intents and purposes, the same with the recent act of Congress. Such are my views, after a candid consideration of all that I have read and heard from both sides, in the present discussion and excitement.
Such being my convictions, I cannot but remonstrate with those who profess, with me, to love the authority of the great King, to submit ourselves to "the Powers that are ordained by God," and that, too, with our own consent and by our own suffrage. As Christians, we are not called to create discords, to excite wars and tumults at home or abroad. By what warrant from our King care our brethren at the North, or at the South, kindle the flames of union or civil war, on such premises, or for such objects, as are now before the people? Every principle of Christianity, every law of God, is at war with such a spirit and with such proceedings. I am sorry to see ministers of the gospel of the Protestant denomination --especially those of the Baptists at the North--in the late movements at Boston, so outraging their own profession as ministers of peace, and every Christian principle, by condescending to come down from their sacred desks into the streets, to inflame a tumultuous mob, and to inspire an unlawful assembly to resist the government of our own, as well as that of our Lord's, creation and ordination. This union with political demagogues, most of whom have their own aggrandizement and elevation incomparably more at heart and in their eye, than the emancipation or elevation of their alledged down-trodden brethren at the South, is most revolting.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 33*
390 THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
The most humiliating spectacle in my horizon is that of Northern, Central, and Southern disunionists, under pretence of patriotism, religion, and humanity, conspiring to pull down and annihilate the fairest fabric of social prosperity, of national greatness, glory, and happiness, ever reared on earth by the hand of man; and that, too, under the benignant providence, direction, and blessing of the Lord Messiah--the present reigning monarch of earth and heaven; by whom all the kings of earth do reign, and all the governors thereof decree justice.
Nothing of human incongruities and inconsistencies is, to my vision, more unseemly, more repugnant to good sense, good taste, and good morals, than to see Christian ministers and avowed Infidels, standing side by side, on the same stage, sowing the seeds of disunion, insubordination, and insurrection, among the people.
Every word in the Bible reprobates such a course of action, and inhibits such connections and co-operations to pull down and destroy any form of government--Pagan, Papal, or Mohammedan; and, still more, a government and institutions which have blessed the past and the present with the largest benefits ever enjoyed by man, and which are yet pregnant with brighter hopes and richer promises to human kind, than God in his providence and philanthropy has ever yet vouchsafed to fallen man.
No one regrets, more than I, the existence of slavery in the United States, nor the means which are employed to break it down. It is not enough to remonstrate against it, by showing a better way, but we must chide and denounce our less fortunate brethren, who happened to be born and brought up in the midst of it, and under laws which, were they ever so unanimous, they could not annul. They should not be held up to public scorn, and treated as man-stealers and robbers, because they are not able, nor, under present circumstances, willing, to encounter all the responsibilities consequent upon an indiscriminate and universal emancipation of those providentially placed under their care and protection, and in which no free State seems willing to cooperate, so far as to permit them to locate and settle amongst them, or to send back to Africa the descendents of those whom their fathers imported, we know not on w hat condition, nor by what authority, and for whom, in most cases. they received a full remuneration.
Still, there are as pure and disinterested brethren at the North as I know any where at the South, who conscientiously think it their duty, according to their standard of Christian morality, to plead the cause of universal emancipation, and to declaim incessantly against
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 391
slavery, as if it were the sum total of all evils, and no one could make them think otherwise. Some of them have become men of one idea, and it has grown so luxuriantly as to choke all other ideas that ever entered their heads or their hearts.
But although no prophet, and having no ambition to be accounted a prophet, I have long felt a growing conviction, now amounting to a moral assurance, that both the theory and practice of American abolitionists is based upon a grand delusion--a radical mistake of human nature, as developed in these United States, which will ultimate in their mortification and defeat.
Interference between a man and his wife, in any misunderstanding between them, it is said by them of old time, is certain to terminate in the concentration of their indignation, not of their gratitude or affection, upon that too officious neighbor. Experience, therefore, has decreed and enacted--let them alone; let them settle their own affairs and adjust their own troubles amongst themselves. Experience, too, has demonstrated that this is the true philosophy. So in this case. Let the South manage its own institutions, and the North theirs until they are invited to assist them with their counsels. Let the Southern family settle its own affairs, and let the Northern family settle its own affairs, and let them, in matters common to both, unite to aid and comfort one another.
There was, to my certain knowledge, before an abolition society was formed in New England, (more than twenty-five years ago,) much more likelihood that the South would adopt some system of colonization, or find some approved outlet for the constantly accumulating evils growing out of the system, than there ever has been since. And exactly in the inverse ratio of Northern interference, has that disposition diminished. Right or wrong, politic or impolitic, this is a law of human nature as it now is, and long has been. Should any one attempt to melt an iceberg by kindling a fire under it, however plausible to himself his theory might be, his experience will prove that the iceberg will extinguish his fire long before the iceberg is dissolved by it. Let him wait for the balmy breath of spring and the genial rays of a vernal sun, and, in the meantime. keep his own hearth warm, and be sociable with his less comfortable neighbors. Invite them to see how he lives at home, and let them learn from his well-directed industry and economy how to emulate him in personal and social enjoyment.
To conclude for the present, as a philosopher and a Christian I would say to the North, let the South have their slaves, and throw no impediment in the way. Let them, on the present compromise,
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fill up their own territory, or emancipate them, as they please; and rather sympathize with them than upbraid them on account of misfortunes which they have inherited, rather than superinduced upon themselves and their children. A. C.
CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS--No. III.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with me.
The AMEN, the faithful and true WITNESS, the Beginning of the creation of God.--Rev. iii. 14, 20.
IT is frequently the case, that the intelligent contemplate popular delusions in contemptuous silence. Being themselves able to discern the frightful features of imposture through the thin veil of pretended philanthropy, by which it is usually attempted to conceal them, they suppose that the deception must be equally visible to others, and that it would be quite unnecessary to undertake its exposure.
This, however, is a most unfortunate mistake. It is itself one of those delusions to which the intelligent alone are liable, and a skilful device by which Satan lulls the proper guardians of truth into a supine indifference, while he leads away the unthinking and unresisting multitude, unconscious of their chains. There is, in fact, no imposture so base, as to be undeserving of notice; no fraud so palpable, as not to require exposure. Whatever a man can have the audacity to offer, a man may have the credulity to receive. Whatever a human mind can fabricate, a human mind may sanction. There has never been, in the history of the world, a falsehood too evident for belief; a theory too absurd to find adherents, or a deception too gross to be palmed upon mankind.
Take, for instance, the idolatries and superstitions of the world; or, if it be objected that these occur chiefly in an uncivilized and degraded condition of society, take amongst the most enlightened and Christian people on the earth, any of those notorious and wild delusions which, in defiance of the light of truth, the influence of refinement, and the power of religion, have penetrated through all ranks and conditions of men, and overleaped all the barriers of common sense and reason. Look, for example, at the case of Mormonism, where, in the midst of the intelligent population of the States of
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New York and Ohio, and amongst a people who professed to be guided by the Bible alone, Spaulding's paltry romance, without the slightest spice of fancy, poetry or probability to make it attractive, and with a thousand falsehoods, puerilities and solecisms to render it contemptible, could, nevertheless, be imposed upon the community as a new revelation from heaven! However ridiculous this fabled offspring of the now famous "Bible Hill," the result has proved it to be possessed of greater power of delusion than any thing that has appeared in the world since the Koran. The diffusion of Mormon. ism, indeed, thus far, has been much more extensive than that of Mohammedism, at the same early period of its history. Community after community has been established; magnificent temples have been reared in various places; missionaries have traversed the distant regions of the earth, and one of the most enlightened of foreign nations has witnessed thousands of converts forsaking their native shores to join the myriads who, amidst our western wilds, have erected an empire of fanaticism, and laid the foundations of a city and a temple which are to surpass the greatest wonders of the world.
That man may be easily misled by delusions which address themselves to his passions, is well known; but it would seem that he is still more readily deceived by those which affect his instincts. Among these instincts may fairly be classed the sentiment of religion--the disposition to communicate with the unseen spiritual world--to fear and to adore a mysterious and incomprehensible Power--a sentiment universally diffused, and so characteristic of man in all lands, in all ages, and in all conditions, as manifestly to belong to the very constitution of his nature. Hence the number and rapid spread of delusions which have to do with the spiritual system. Hence the well-defined superstitions; the cherished traditionary beliefs; the mishapen and fantastic religions of the unenlightened; and, as cultivation of the intellect enfeebles the mere instinctive powers, the sceptical philosophy; the vague spiritual theories, and refined and sublimated theology of the learned. Hence, too, the success which the bolder and grosser forms of delusion have among the masses of the population, which, even in the most civilized countries, are yet comparatively ignorant, and in whom natural instinct predominates over reason.
From these considerations, and many others which might be stated, we do not wonder at the stir which has been created in many places by the "Spirit Knockings," to which we have already adverted; nor should we be at all surprised if they should attract a still larger share of public attention, and, finally, in the hands of skilful
394 CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS.
managers, assume a fixed and definite form, as a new system of spiritual communication, and a permanent addition to the already extensive list of neologisms and so-called rationalisms of the present age. We are pleased to see, meanwhile, that they are, in many places, undergoing the investigation which such pretensions naturally challenge, and rest patiently in the hope, that the true philosophy of the whole matter will, in due season, be presented to the world.
Were we ourselves disposed, contrary to the intention already expressed in these papers, to go into such an investigation, we should have undoubtedly a great many inquiries to propound, and would feel inclined to institute a variety of comparisons between these spiritual communications and those of former ages of the world. We would feel especially disposed, from some resemblances in the mode of communication, to compare these modern oracles with those of ancient Delphi. A female* being chosen as a "medium," we are reminded irresistibly of the Pythian priestess, through whom alone the responses could be given; nor is the analogy sensibly weakened by the fact that, while the "medium" is seated at a table, the Pythia was placed upon a tripod mounted upon the covercle of a brazen vessel. We find, too, a similar ambiguity often in the responses in the two cases, and a similar incongruity in the style or method of communication. For although at first, in harmony with the office of Apollo as the god of poetry, the Pythia gave her answers in verse, she fell at last to prose, upon the people's laughing at the poorness of the versification. So, in like manner, these catechistical spirits, who have ears to hear every question asked, seem to be wholly deprived of the power of speech; and while they can create no vibrations in our atmosphere by their spiritual vocal organs, are, nevertheless, able to produce, by other means, those sounds known as spiritual rappings, and are obliged to content themselves accordingly, with this awkward and clumsy method of communication.
It must be confessed, however, that in one respect there is a striking dissimilarity between the ancient and the modern oracles, if we may credit one of the reasons that Plutarch assigns for the cessation of the former. For while he alleges that the Delphian oracles ceased in consequence of Apollo's chagrin, who took it in dudgeon to be interrogated about so many trifles, we find our modern
We are not certain that these female "mediums" are, of necessity,
virgins, as was the case at Delphi, until an unfortunate accident led to the choice of women above fifty years of age.
CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS. 395
spirits infinitely more accommodating, and ready to answer almost any question which an accepted votary may propound. It is possible, nevertheless, that Plutarch was mistaken, and that his third reason for the cessation of the Grecian oracles was the true one, viz: the forlorn state of Greece, ruined and desolated by wars. For this necessarily so reduced the gains of those concerned in the delivery of the oracles, that they fell into poverty and contempt. This being so, and this reason not having as yet obtained in the case of the spirit rappings, our analogy between them would not, in this case, be at all invalidated.
We might be disposed to trace some further resemblances; such, for instance, as occurs in the remarkable fact, that neither the ancient nor the modern oracles have ever, as yet, favored the world with a single new truth respecting man's spiritual relations or his moral duties. Thus, while the ancient oracles contained not the slightest glimmering of light in regard to these matters, our modern revelations are equally destitute of originality--presenting not a single thought heretofore unknown to the world; and in their most minute and elaborate expositions of the unseen world, affording not one single new conception of its vast and mysterious things.* It is remarkable, also, that believers in the "spiritual rappings" can
*By an amalgamation of Animal Magnetism with this new method of spiritual communication, it appears that vivid and elaborate visual representations are sometimes made, which, if they have not the splendor and originality of those of the Apocalypse, have at least the advantage of being easily comprehended, in consequence of their presenting what every body knew before. One of these is detailed in the following extract from a published letter of Mr. Courtney, who is a lawyer in good practice, in Western Pennsylvania, and said to be a gentleman of "fair intellectual powers" and "high moral character." It will be seen by the extract, that he regards this a great improvement upon what he terms the "dilatory and tedious process of communicating by the alphabet," as heretofore used by the spirit rappers:
"How far into the future this prevoyant power reaches, I am unable to state, because I have not yet experienced the future; but it has been drawn out and portrayed in living colors by visual representations made to Mrs. Bushnell in the spiritual trance, induced by Mr. Austin. When any important instruction or information was to be imparted, the dilatory and tedious process of communicating by the alphabet was superseded, Mr. A. magnetising Mrs. B. (a thing of daily occurrence) and inducing upon her a vision representative of the information he wished to impart. Those familiar with the visions or Memorable Relations' of Swedenborg, will understand this picture, or correspondential language. Then, after thus representing it to her, and making her describe it, he would look at my mind to see if I had got an adequate and accurate idea of it, and then, by means of the alphabet, spell out an affirmation, correction, emendation, &c., of it, as
396 CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS.
see, nevertheless, as well as the ancient votaries of the Pythian god, the utility of spiritual visitations which have no moral purpose, and the absolute necessity for a revelation which makes no secret known, but, like the fire in an antique Roman urn, concerns the dead alone, and serves, in Butler's phrase,
--------to light
Those only who see nothing by't.
We could not, however, we confess, in such an investigation, bring ourselves seriously to contrast, much less to compare, these "spirit rappings" and the female "mediums," or answer-jobbers who expound them, or these necromantic disclosures themselves, with the Living Oracles of Heaven, or with the holy men of old, who spoke by the Holy Spirit--the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and teachers of the Bible. This, indeed, would be as great a moral impossibility the case may be. I have many of those representative visions, highly instructive and edifying. In order that you may have a clear idea of them, I have copied one, with the circumstances under which it was given. One evening I had magnetised a young gentleman at my house, with Mrs. B., in order to develop his spiritual vision, and directed his perception to Mr. Austin. He described him accurately, though never having seen or known him, and talked with him in thought. After many other experiments, I requested him to ask Mr. Austin to make him see a vision. He said he would, and that he would make him see a vision representative of the frailty of human life.' Mr. Austin then stood before him, looking healthy, cheerful and happy. Suddenly he commenced to swell hideously and look horrid--his face became flushed and red, choked and crimsoned, (representing apoplexy, of which Mr. A. died;) his body continued to swell until it burst, when it was found full of worms, eating and destroying it; during which time a beautiful bird of paradise (representing his spirit) was seen to hover over and around the body; the worms continued eating his body until nothing was left but a dry skeleton, which was blown to the four winds. On looking after the bird he found it flying on--and on--and on, until it entered a warm and balmy climate, and a roost delightful country, when it perched and rested upon a tree, bearing, at the same time, the most fragrant blossoms and the richest fruit. On looking beneath the tree, he was surprised again to see Mr. Austin looking brighter and happier than ever; and on watching him, he commenced to ascend, with others, a smooth and flowery mountain, (representing progression,) up whose fragrant ascent thousands and millions of happy spirits were slowly progressing; and now as they ascended, circle by circle, they became fewer and brighter, until they were lost to his view in the distant and sunny summit."
This is, truly, a most edifying vision of human "frailty" and celestial beatification! It is a thousand pities that so much time should be lost without learning any thing of eternity; and that we should have so much mental excitement, and so many "spirit knockings" and "spiritual trances," without having a single new idea added to those which the Bible reveals concerning the spiritual world. We do not, however, wonder at the sincerity and readiness with which Mr. Courtney appears to receive these communications, since we have understood that he has been already a believer in the visions of Swedenborg. Qui Bavium non edit, amet tua carmina Maevi. R. R.
SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY. 397
as it would be a physical one, to compare the glimmer of the glowworm, which appears only in darkness, with the light of the meridian sun; or visibly to contrast the nonentities of a midnight apparition, with the flesh, blood and bones of a living, breathing man. Ah! no: as the sun in his strength banishes at once from his presence the shades of uncertainty and the flitting spectres of darkness, and consigns the glimmering insects of night to obscurity and contempt; so the Bible, radiant with the heavenly light of life, disperses the vain phantoms of ignorance, and obscures the false, delusive lights which can shine only amidst the darkness of the world. Holy and priceless volume! which reveals God to man and man to himself; which has given to man every truth in his possession concerning his origin, his spiritual relations, and his destiny; and whose brilliant light alone can guide the lost to the blissful abode of everlasting joy. Sacred and truthful Testimony! which has been given by the pure; confirmed by miracles, and sealed with the blood of martyrs. Living and life-giving word! Inspiration of the Divine Spirit! which quickens, sanctifies and saves the soul. Alas! what would man be, deprived of this precious revelation; this spiritual sun-light, which, beaming forth from heaven, dissipates the darkness of the past, the present and the future, and which alone has power to cover with verdure the waste places of the earth, and prepare for celestial reapers a harvest of immortality! R. R.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE, CAUSE, AND CURE,
OF SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY--No. VI.
Dr. Evangelicus.--And will you please inform me, James, how Mr. Fairspeech and his friend, Mr. Wilyman, appeared to receive the admonition and advice of Mr. Lovetruth
James Conformitas.--So far as I could judge from their countenances, I thought that they were not a little displeased at the plainness of the language used by Mr. Lovetruth, and also at the warmth of manner with which he delivered himself. Being myself, at that time, connected with these gentlemen in business, I remember well the plain and pointed manner of Mr. Lovetruth's address to us; and though I was not disposed to question his sincerity, I considered him a gentleman much too impolitic to succeed well in the business in which he had embarked. As to the advice which he
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 34
398 SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY.
gave us, I, indeed, at that time, felt myself so much devoted to the interests of my employers that I paid but little attention to it.
Dr. Evangelicus.--Will you be so good, James, as to relate what these gentlemen said in their defence of the charge alleged against them by Mr. Lovetruth
James Conformitas.--As to the charge of their being enemies in disguise, Mr. Fairspeech spoke, if I remember right, in the following style: Gentlemen, I would fain hope that such is not the opinion which your good citizens are generally disposed to form or entertain of those who may be pleased to visit Christiansville, or any other of your flourishing towns in your kingdom. It is certainly an opinion much too uncharitable for gentlemen of your profession and business, and more especially, to hold it in relation to those who were formerly your fellow-citizens of the town of Vainshow, and of the State of Carnality, in which yet reside many of your relatives and old acquaintances. We conceive it to be a sufficient recommendation, and a testimonial quite satisfactory as to the integrity of our motives and character, for you to be assured that we are of the same firm to which you had the honor formerly to belong. I refer to that of Messrs. Oldman, Carnalmind and Co.
Be assured, gentlemen, we are prompted by nothing but the most friendly feelings, in thus visiting the flourishing towns and institutions of your kingdom; and in so doing, we have also enjoyed the pleasure of renewing our acquaintance with many of our former citizens, who have now become residents of your kingdom, and who appear to enjoy much happiness under the wise and gracious administration of your prince. And we are pleased to have it to testify in favor of many of your good citizens, that they have not forgotten their old acquaintances from the State of Carnality, but have met them with much cordial feeling, and most hospitably entertained them upon some of the good old leaven, procured especially for the entertainment of such as are pleased to visit them from the land of their nativity.
We are, indeed, not a little gratified to find that your good citizens, many of them at least, are disposed to reciprocate with us in these matters. We find, too, that many of our delicious viands, the native products of Carnality, are still in demand in your kingdom. Many of our former citizens we have found among you, who, though they have left our State and become citizens with you in the Kingdom of Grace, have yet much relish for the products of their native State. But this, indeed, is not to be thought strange, seeing their constitutions have been long nourished, and we might say formed, upon such
SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY. 399
aliment as our State affords. And as our good old friend and citizen, the venerable Mr. Carnalmind, has often said, "It is but natural that our former citizens should occasionally revisit us from the Kingdom of Grace, and indulge their tastes upon the desirable fruits and delicious aliments in which they had once so much delighted to indulge "And as our soil produces them in all their freshness and vigor, they are perfectly adapted to the tastes of our citizens. Many of our good people spend much of their labor and time in cultivating their fruits; but none has them in such perfection as Mr. Carnal- mind. His large refectory is abundantly supplied out of his well stored granaries and cellars. His style of living is truly sumptuous; nor is he, by any means, churlish of his abundance, as his numerous guests can truly testify. His table is alike easy of access by all ranks and conditions of society. They all alike feast upon his liberality. And none are ever sent away from his hospitable mansion without having all the desires of the flesh fully satisfied. Nor is his commendable munificence confined to those of his own State. Many of the citizens of your own kingdom have tasted of his bounty, and spoken highly of his munificence. Not long since I had the pleasure of dining at his table, in company with several of your worthy citizens; amongst whom were Mr. Lukewarm, Mr. Pliable, Mr. Littlegood, Mr. Talkative, and Mr. Weakman, all from Littlelight, a town, if I mistake not, situated on the western limits of your kingdom. And latterly, we had the honor of a visit from Parson Clericus, of your town, in company with his estimable and amiable family, consisting of two sons and as many daughters, the eldest being a son approaching the age of manhood; the next an amiable and beautiful daughter, some two years younger; the rest, consisting of a son and daughter, equally promising, but much younger. The good Parson visited our town by special request, in order to lay before its citizens a prospective view of the institutions of our State in general, and of those of the town of Vainshow in particular; in connection, also, with its manners and customs.
Dr. Evangelicus.--Did Mr. Fairspeech attempt to give an outline of Parson Clericus' lecture to Mr. Lovetruth
James Conformitas.--Yes, he did; but not till requested to do so by Mr. Lovetruth, and his friend Mr. Singlemind.
Dr. Evangelicus. --Be so kind as to give me his outline, if you remember it.
James Conformitas.--The Parson, he observed, spoke first with reference to the origin of the State of Carnality. On this head he spoke, indeed, very learnedly, and showed himself a profound anti-
400 SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSY.
quarian. He gave our State a much more ancient chronology than I had supposed. He asserted, that with the exception of the first dynasty, it was the oldest government in the world. This was, as you perceive, giving our State a very high antiquity. But what was to us truly startling, he attempted to show that it was founded in blood, and upon the ruins of the best form of government ever established amongst men. This fact being established, and being clearly apprehended in all its bearings, said the Parson, it will throw much light upon the nature and design of your institutions and of the destiny of the State of Carnality. The progress of things, as they have appeared for many generations, has no conceivable or rational finale or end in view, unless the origin or formation of the State be clearly apprehended and well understood. Be not startled, my candid hearers, said the Parson, when I state the fact, with its proof, that your State was founded in rebellion; and the rebel claims the State for his own, as the price, not of a victory, but of a defeat. But had he maintained his pristine honor and glory, you had had a truly great and excellent prince, had he been appointed by the King of Kings to rule the children of men.
I have said that he claims to be the founder, proprietor, and ruler of your State, on the principle of indemnity, as all he could obtain in lieu of what he had lost by his defeat. But what was his defeat, may you ask? The aspiration to a higher seat resulted in the loss of the Viceroyalty of a principality in the Kingdom of Glory. Being now filled with malice and rage against his Almighty Sovereign, he determined, if possible, to indemnify himself for the loss he had sustained, by subjecting your great and good ancestor to his dominion, and then to seize upon his territory, of which he was, by his Sovereign, made the rightful lord and proprietor. And in this nefarious design the rebel was permitted, for wise reasons, to succeed, in party in order to his final and complete overthrow and ruin.
And now brethren, children of your illustrious ancestors, permit me to declare to you the solemn and awful fact, that that same rebel who tempted, through his subtlety, your great and illustrious ancestor to rebel against his rightful and Almighty Sovereign, you have chosen to be your ruler. By so doing, have you not permitted him to establish his usurped authority over you, and yourselves thus to become the willing victims of his malice and envy?
From these facts, for facts they are of the most indubitable and awful kind, you cannot but perceive the character of your government and its institutions. Viewed in the light of the character of
THE MINISTRY. 401
their Founder, can you regard them otherwise than as a deep laid scheme, an artful contrivance, a grand system of deception, devised and consummated by the wisest, most subtle, and dangerous enemy? A. W. C.
THE MINISTRY.
THE life of a faithful minister is one of toil and trial. His office being more important than that of any other, demands of him the entire consecration of his time and abilities. And if we consider the limited nature of our faculties, the labor and time requisite to learn any thing well, and the great multitude of subjects necessary for him to consider, it would seem to be enough to disparage all attempts at success. The business he is called to attend to is momentous and difficult; the time to accomplish it is limited and narrow, and the obstacles to contend with serious and formidable. Surely, if any labor should summon all the energies of the mind, tax all its powers of judgment, memory and invention, it is that to which his life is devoted. Habitual and daily study, meditation and prayer, are indispensable to success. In the absence of these, the powers of his mind will act but feebly. To give freshness and vigor to his faculties, these are required at his hands. The wheels will drive heavily without this discipline. It is by the constant attrition of thought that the powers of the mind are kept bright and furbished, and are hightened to perfection.
It is not enough that the best of books lie on our tables: they must be read and studied, and their contents incorporated with our minds. A preacher should be a man of varied and extensive learning; and all his knowledge should be laid under requisition in the duties of his calling. Such is the relationship existing among the members of the great families of art and of science, that an acquaintance with one member serves as an introduction to all the brotherhood. We should not disparage the talents or the abilities of the feeblest of the servants of our King. Would that all the Lord's people were prophets. But no cause can long sustain itself with a feeble and doubtful advocacy; it is even ridiculous to think that it would. Some disclosures might be made on this head which would seem to awaken the fears of some, and dampen the hopes of others, and which should open. the eyes of all.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 34*
402 THE MINISTRY.
In the opinion of many, our churches are retrograding in knowledge and piety, in zeal and efficiency, under the present ministry among us. How can it be otherwise, when the same lessons are repeated every Lord's day; the same notes sung at every session, it may be to a very pleasant song; but even the genius of the "Swedish Nightengale" would fail to keep up the interest, if the same notes were perpetually sung. Shall we never get beyond the gamut or a single octave, in the ascending and descending line? Some, to be sure, are more skilful than others; have more compass of voice and melody in their constitution; but it is the same dull, premeditated strain, whoever may be the singer. And yet what themes are so varied and grand as those found in the gospel of Christ?
"Chorus hymeneal,
Or triumphal chaunt;
Match'd with thee, would be all
But an empty vaunt:
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want."
I was pleased to see, in the last Harbinger, a programme of a "Christian Minister's Library." A glance at which will serve to show how vast the field over which the Scribe, who would be well instructed in the doctrine of the Kingdom, should traverse. In the catalogue given, there is matter enough to engage the time, and challenge the attention, of any one for life. And who can say that the plan of study is too extensive, and the labor too onerous? To equip one for so important and responsible a work, such a course is needed; but how can it be accomplished, while the working days of the week are spent in secular pursuits? There was some apology for Peter, not knowing that the Saviour had arisen; and when all hopes of the anticipated kingdom were blasted, to say, "I go a fishing." Imagine the true state of his mind, and hear him thus addressing his brethren, "I once thought it had been he who would have redeemed Israel. I early espoused his cause, and gave up all on his account-- my boat I left on the sands of the Galilee; my fishing tackle has been thrown aside, and now is so old and tattered that it is almost useless. I shall go back to my old profession. I have lost already much time in following this stranger, and I even love him yet; but I have sacrificed enough--my money and means are all gone--my worldly prospects are blighted; so you may du as you please, as for me, ' I go a fishing.'" This was just like Peter, and it was a true utterance given to our common nature, under the disappointment of a long-cherished hope. But he acted ignorantly and in unbelief. But what shall we say of those among us who, with the certain and superior light of the gospel to direct them, and who, in former times,
WHAT IS EDUCATION? 403
have given full proof of their ability for usefulness, and whose labors are now urgently demanded, and who have every reasonable assurance of support in the ministry of the word, have laid aside their armor, their breast-plate and their shield; have put their swords into the scabbard; have hung the trump of the jubilee in their splendid halls, and refuse to do battle for their King--to the help of the Lord against the mighty
Let each one say, Shall such an one as I give up the contest, when the shout of the King is in the camp! When the enemy is still in the field, and the victory seems to be doubtful, shall I sleep upon the post, when watchfulness and prayer are the only pledges of success? Oh, who would be recreant to a cause like this, when courage and toil will yield such trophies--and when, upon each moment, hangs a crown and waits a kingdom! And what if the danger be great and the task be difficult? And what if the reward be distant and the battle sore? The conqueror shall inherit all things. The day of the Lord corneal: a day of thick darkness and clouds --a day of wrath and of fire upon the world of the ungodly; but a day of gladness and of triumph to the faithful soldiers of the cross. Let the example of Joshua and Caleb, of Samuel and of David, of Ezra and Nehemiah, of Peter and of Paul, of Timothy and of Titus, stimulate you to action--to heroic deeds in the cause of the Redeemer; and forget not Him, the leader and perfecter of the faith, whose meat and drink it was to do the will of his Father who sent him, and to accomplish the work assigned him to do. JAS. CHALLEN.
WHAT IS EDUCATION?
EDUCATION is every thing that influences the mind, and it embraces the consideration or all circumstances and all affections. Education may, therefore, be either good or bad. It may qualify us for doing and enjoying much good, or it may fit us for doing much evil, and rendering ourselves and others both wretched and miserable.
As to the subject matter of what we are to learn, it is all contained in one volume. This volume, like most others, has its chapters and sections; its first and second parts; and has that, also, which is to all books indispensable--its title page. The title page of this volume is, indeed, very appropriate to its contents, and, when read by the student, he ceases to marvel at the magnitude of the book.
404 WHAT IS EDUCATION?
Its title page gives such interest to the student in the work, as to enable him to overcome all discouragements arising from its magnitude. As the volume is large and its contents valuable, it must, of course, command a high price. The currency of our country will not, however, purchase it; nor, indeed, can gold and silver be weighed as the price of it. The knowledge of its contents is more precious than rubies, and the gain thereof than fine gold. Yet costly as is this volume, all may, all, indeed, do, possess it. But as with other volumes, so, also, with this. The progress of those who study it, and all do study it, is by no means equal. All, however, make real progress in the knowledge of its contents. Lessons are learnt, and so well learnt, as never to be forgotten. The topics which it embraces are but two, which, though distinct in their nature, necessity has connected them practically, as they are inseparable in the experience of all who study the volume.
From what we have said, it will not be difficult to ascertain the title of the book. It will be found to read thus: "The knowledge of good and evil, embracing its theory and practice." From this volume men have acquired all their learning, since they have been capable of reading it. It is not, as a whole, an inspired volume. Our Maker is not its author. Man has furnished much of its materials. It, indeed, contains that which is inspired and divine, but its larger portion is furnished by human experience. From this volume, then, all deduce their theory and practice. Few, however, are found who can read it intelligently, or even apprehend its grand leading truths.
The contents of the volume being facts, furnished by divine wisdom and human experience, the dilligent student acquires from its perusal much of the knowledge of both good and evil.
We have said that every one must be educated in this volume-- he must read and learn something of its contents. This knowledge is always influential and practical. And according to its tendency to what is good or evil, is his training or education good or bad. He who so reads it as to cause him to desire the good, is in the way of a correct understanding of the whole volume; has been, so far as he has gone, rightly educated. But another reads and meditates, and yet pursues that which is evil. He refuses the good, and is influenced by the evil. He also is being educated, no less than the former, who chooses the good. The great facts of the volume are alike before both, but, unhappily, men are rather disposed to learn of one another than of the All wise; consequently, the world abounds with deception.--life becomes a. lie, and history a romance. That
WHAT IS EDUCATION? 405
portion of the volume of which our Maker is the author, is so arranged as to be set over against the evil, as the antidote is to the poison.
It is of his arrangement, as it is of his providing. Human experience, without it, is false, deceptive, and bewildering. The good apprehended gives the student the key that unlocks and opens to him all the mysteries of evil, as it exists within and around him. Mural good and moral evil being thus set before him, he perceives their opposite nature and tendencies, and he wills, in view of the results of both, to choose the good and refuse the evil. His mind, his will, and his affections, are all powerfully affected by the choice which he has made. Hence, we perceive his words and his actions to accord with his understanding and affections, and thus to prove the reality of the choice and of the change.
None can object, then, to our definition of education, when thus exemplified and illustrated.
The great end of education, in its highest sense, he has attained; which is to form habits of mental fellowship, which associate him, in spirit, with that company of holy intelligences which have fellowship with God. Such a person, in the language of scripture, may be said to have been translated out of darkness into His marvellous light.
Man's understanding, will, desires and affections, are, in his preternatural state, confused and chaotic, and darkness covers his intellectual and moral nature; so that he can neither see, nor desire what is truly good. The Spirit of God must move again upon the face of the deep, and, by His Almighty fiat, bring forth light and dissipate the darkness of ignorance. The entrance of Thy word gives light. His word is still the instrument of His power. It dispels darkness moral, as it did darkness physical.
We labor, then, in vain to be learned, unless we also aim at being wise. But wisdom is not acquired by dint of study; it is, as we have shown, the gift of God. As Ile is the Truth and the Light, we of course must be taught by Him. He alone is capable of instructing us in the truth, since he made it and possesses it, and He alone knows what we need, and how we can bear the impartation of knowledge. Whom He instructs and enlightens, he humbles. But humility is never an attribute of the self-taught man. He has not, with all his learning, the knowledge that reproves and humbles. But he who is taught of God, comes before the Searcher of Hearts sensible that His eye is upon him, and his petition is, "Open thou mine eyes, that light may enter--I come to be reproved. Search,.
406 CONVERSATIONS.
purity, lead me, O Thou Way, Truth and Life. I dread the darkness, and would escape into light--the light of thy revealing word."
Need we say, in conclusion, that he is badly educated, let his attainments be what they may in classical literature, in the arts and sciences, who, after all, remains undelivered from the power of darkness, and, consequently, a slave to divers lusts and pleasures? A. W. C.
FAMILY CULTURE.
CONVERSATIONS AT THE CARLTON HOUSE--No. XVII.
ROMANS VIII. 26-39.
"In like manner, also, the Spirit helps our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; however, the Spirit himself intercedes for us, in sighs which cannot be uttered. But he who searches the hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit; that, according to the will of God, he makes intercession for the saints. Besides, we know that all things work together for good, to them who love God; to them who are called according to his purpose. For, whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son; that he might be the first born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestinated, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we say, then, to these things? Since God is for us, who can be against us? He, certainly, who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not, with him, also, graciously give us all things? Who will bring an accusation against the elect of God? Is it God who justifies them? Who is he who condemns them? Is it Christ, who died; or rather, who has risen; who, also, is at the right hand of God, and who makes intercession for us? Who will separate ns from the love of Christ? Will affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, Truly, for thy sake, we are put to death all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.' Nay, in all these things we do more than overcome, through him who has loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life; neither angels, nor principalities; nor powers; neither things present, nor to come; neither height, nor depth; nor any created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is by Christ Jesus our Lord."
Olympas.--" The first fruits" of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and lives of the Christian family, exhibited by the apostle as the common portion of all its members--such as "love, joy, peace, hope"-- do not preclude the sigh, the groan, the lunging for release from this body of sin and death, though waiting, with much assurance, "for the redemption of our body" from the grave, and, consequently, from the power of all the seeds and elements of contamination and corruption sown in our fallen constitution. In this long conflict and
CONVERSATIONS. 407
agony we are sustained, he affirms, by the hope of deliverance and by the intercession of the Spirit for us, "with groans which cannot be uttered." We are, then, at best, only sustained under the pressure from within and from without, in the hope of a final victory and release. And with the apostle we sympathize in saying, "But if we hope for what we do not see, with patience we wait for it."
Meantime, not knowing exactly what we want, nor for what we should pray, the Spirit complains for us by inarticulate groanings.
What, Bro. Aquila, do you understand by these inarticulate groanings
Aquila.--They are the sighs and longings of the soul, expressed in groans, without words. There is a peculiar eloquence in groans, which the Spirit of God understands, and by them complains for us in a language understood in heaven.
Olympas.--I concur with you, and with some other Bible students, in preferring complain to intercede. We have entunkano, in its simple form, but five times in the New Testament, and huperentunkano only in this one place. In its simple form, the first time found (Acts xxv. 24) it is translated, "The Jews complained to me concerning Paul;" and in this epistle, chap. xi. 2, it is translated to "intercede against Israel;" which is, virtually, to "complain." Macknight also adduces a passage from the Maccabees, viii. 32, in which it is found, and is translated, "If they complain any more against thee." It would seem to be more congenial with the work of the Holy Spirit to convict, to complain, to comfort, as the case may be, than to "make intercession for." The Lord Jesus is the only intercessor, because his obedience to death for us, gives him a right to intercede for us; but no such idea is found in the Bible, as that of the Spirit interceding for us. Dr. Chalmers, with other free expositors of scripture, regards the motions of our spirits, under the influence of the Divine Spirit, as fairly attributable to the Spirit of God, as the cause of them. If so, then it will be in harmony with such a theory to say that the Spirit complains for the saints, as much as to say that it intercedes for them. Then the simple question is, which of these better suits the facts of the case before us, and the history of the work of intercession. Doubtless to complain for us, is more apposite than to intercede for us, inasmuch as these complaints suggested by the Spirit, if any one pleases, are virtually intercessions, while formally they are but complaints, being groans of dissatisfaction with ourselves.
There is, indeed, often more eloquence and argument in a deep groan, than in any of the most beautiful forms of speech, however
408 CONVERSATIONS.
appropriate to the occasion. And these being prompted by the teachings of the Holy Spirit breathing upon our spirits, through the words and ideas of the oracles of God, may be regarded as his complaints; when a prophet once said, "Wo is me, for I am undone!" This complaint against himself--borne to heaven, or sanctified by the Holy Spirit, that prompted it by his light and his love--is more effectual than the longest and most appropriate formula of speech which he could have uttered. Many a long prayer, even of faith, falls far short of the eloquence and power of one exclamation. Like the widow's mite, compared with the offerings of the rich, it is more than all the eloquence of the Scribe.
Clement.--I see in this passage new beauties. We are sustained, indeed, by hope, in all the dark scenes of earth's tribulations, and are thus taught the great virtue of patience; for as infants cry without knowing what they want, so young Christians, and sometimes old ones, cry not knowing what they want. And as the nurse knows the wants of an infant by its crying, when it cannot express them, so the Good Spirit knows the meaning of our inarticulate groans and sighs, and gives expression to them, as well as sanctifies them, in the sight of God.
Aquila.--From this passage, how is it that the apostle so rapidly ascends to Predestination'! I have often studied it, to ascertain the connecting link in these premises, with the golden chain which he here displays. There is no question that there is in the apostle's mind, indicated here, a regular series of links in the golden chain that binds the sinner's heart to the throne of God. And must evident it is, that of this chain, the first is the love of God to man. We love him because he first loved us. Now, as man was created a miniature image of God, he must study the divine character--the. mind and operation of God--in what he discovers in himself, and in what he discovers in his word. The Bible and man are both revelations of God. To beings above us, we are one of the volumes of divine revelation; as the beings below us, are a volume of divine revelation to us. But neither creation nor divine providence, apart nor together, even when fully opened to our understanding, constitute an adequate guide to man in reference to his whole being or to his entire destiny.
In contemplating ourselves, we readily discover that our active and moving powers are neither our intellectual nor our animal powers. Both of these are but instruments of operation. There is an inner man, a moral or spiritual agent, that works by these. And so God works.
CONVERSATIONS. 409
Love was the active and efficient attribute of God, that called into action his understanding, his wisdom, and his power, and gave birth to this stupendous and incomprehensible universe. Gravitation in inert matter, instinct in vegetable, in animal, and in all the forms of living or active matter, are the conservative principles--the laws or the volitions of God emanating from his infinite, eternal, and immutable benevolence, and guiding all the involutions, evolutions, and revolutions in nature, and in angelic or human society.
Volition itself, in a perfect being, is but an embodiment, an impersonation of love. The perceptive, reflective, and active powers of our nature, are but the instruments--the mere machinery--by which it operates in pleasing and enjoying itself. And what is hatred? It, too, is active. Hatred is the opposite of love. It is love frantic; love perverted; love inebriate. Strange definition!*
It is some way, by lawful or unlawful wedlock, descended from the parentage of envy and jealousy. In scripture style, it is sometimes equivalent to love less. Hatred, with men, is oft but the fury of outraged love; with God it is no passion, but an infinite, intense, and eternal opposition to, or resentment of, moral evil, because it must forever torment those whom he loves--whom he created in his own image, and redeemed by the voluntary sacrifice of his only begotten Son.
Our Heavenly Father necessarily, eternally, and immutably hates sin, while loving the sinner, because sin must ultimately and forever ruin those whom he loved so much, as for them to create a world; and to redeem them when deceived, made a sacrifice of his own love, in sacrificing his only begotten and well beloved Son.
So far we have erected our observatory and graduated our telescope, that we may have a favorable view of this sublime passage. But there are yet some clouds passing over our heavens--there are the words foreknew and predestinate. Both of these belong to the lowest of the seven heavens--the region in which our clouds are seen moving.
Foreknew is a word of time, and belongs not to God. With him there is no time--past, present or future. With him, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Eternity is an everlasting, immutable NOW. "GOD INHABITS ETERNITY." Time,
*Lexicography confesses itself bankrupt in defining this word. Brainless lexicographers find no trouble in defining it. Not so such men as Webster. He makes the following sagacious remarks on it: "In all languages except the Saxon, hate and heat are distinguished in orthography, but the elements of the word are the same, and probably they are radically one word--denoting to stir, to irritate, to rouse."
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 35
410 CONVERSATIONS.
in his vision, is an atom moving in infinite space. It is no part of eternity.
It is but an attribute of matter--a creature in motion. Eternity never began to be, has no progress, was not created, cannot be annihilated--an everlasting now. Jehovah is beautifully, poetically, yet literally, styled "TEE. KING OF ETERNITY; the "Eternity of Israel," "whose goings forth have been from the ages of ages."
Know, in Jewish style, has at least four principal acceptations; to perceive, to make known, to acknowledge, and to approve. An instance of each must suffice. "She rose up before one could know (perceive) another." Ruth iii. 14. The Proverbs of Solomon: "To know wisdom and instruction"--to make known or to teach, ch. i. 2. "I will set the man on high because he hath known (acknowledged) my name." Ps. xci. 14. "For the Lord knoweth (approveth) the way of the righteous;" "God forbid that I should know any thing among you but Christ"--approve, acknowledge, or make known any thing among you, &c., 1 Cor. ii. 2. These will suggest many such passages.
Now, when our Apostle Paul, whose mind was cast in the mould of Jewish literature, uses this term in an argument, or in discursive reasoning, we must consider in what sense--we must examine the context, the scope, the design of the passage.
When, then, he says whom he did foreknow, it cannot mean whom he did before perceive, for he perceived all persons, a}1 things, from of old--from everlasting. It cannot mean whom he before approved or acknowledged he called, for this would make the calling depend upon a previous moral worthiness. It must, then, have respect to a previous purpose announced or made known.
But was there such a purpose made known before the foundation of the Christian Church Most unquestionably there was. Early in this epistle its author affirms that the God of Abraham is also the God of the Gentiles, and that he justifies the circumcision and the uncircumcision by faith. It was, moreover, declared to have been the purpose of God before the days of even Abraham himself, the Father of the Jews, to bless all nations; all races, ranks and orders of men, in and through his seed, which is Christ.
Such was the burthen of many a glorious prophecy--of many a rich and gracious promise. He admits that the Jews had many advantages, through divine favor, over the Gentiles. They had chiefly circumcision, the oracles and ordinances of God; but, in these oracles, there were charters of blessings on deposit for the Gentiles--for all the nations of the earth. No man of learning and
DISTINGUISHED MEN HARD WORKERS. 411
of truth can, or will deny, that before the law, before the Jews, God had made known that he would bless all nations in Christ. I shall, therefore, call and consider this as a settled point. This conceded, and the apostle is understood to say, that those that were called-- not merely those who had been invited, but who had been effectually called--that is, those who had obeyed--for such, only, are entitled the called. The visible family of God, composed of Jews and Gentiles baptized into Christ, on whom his name had been called, who were baptized into Christ; these called ones had been previously marked out in the promises, prophecies, and types of the Jewish institution, and some of them were at Rome, members of that society or congregation to whom Paul addressed this letter. These were the called according to a purpose promulged ages before, and made known in the Holy Scriptures. These he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son--making him the first born amongst many brethren. These had obeyed the gospel, or were the called of Jesus Christ. They were also "justified," forgiven, "sanctified," separated to God; and they were "glorified"--actually glorified with a name, a title, a place in the church of God. You must bear in mind that all these are in the past tense. Their predestination, their calling, their justification, their sanctification, their glorification, are all expressed in the past tense. But we must reserve this sublime passage for further consideration, till our next lesson. A. C.
DISTINGUISHED MEN ALWAYS HARD WORKERS.-" When we read the lives of distinguished men in any department, we find them cerebrated for the amount of labor performed. Demosthenes, Julius Caesar, Henry the Fourth of France, Lord Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Franklin, Washington, Napoleon, different as they were in their intellectual and moral qualities, were all renowned as hard workers. We read how many days they could support the fatigues of a march; how early they rose, how late they watched; how many hours they spent in the field, in the cabinet, in the court; how many secretaries they kept employed; in short, how hard they worked."
Let no youth flatter himself that he can succeed in any undertaking, or rise to eminence in any employment, without persevering labor, temperate habits, and special care of his physical constitution.-- Water Cure Journal.
412 IN MEMORY OF CLARINDA.
IN MEMORY OF CLARINDA.
"The righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance."--Ps. cxii.
NOTTINGHAM, Eng., February 14, 1851.
Beloved Brother Pendleton: Two days ago the "Christian Age," of January 20th, reached me from Bro. Burnet. I was, indeed, surprised and grieved, to learn by it, the announcement that your beloved CLARINDA has been taken from you by the hand of death. This monster is under the control of our Heavenly Father, and has been conquered and forever destroyed on our behalf, in the person and work of his beloved Son, the Lord of life and glory. This is our consolation and our hope. Still the grim monster, whenever he appears amongst us, strikes a deep pang into the tender heart of love and affection.
I took the paper (the Christian Age) up to Park House with me at noon. It was sent round the table, and the paragraph read in silent grief and sympathy, both for you, and Bro. Campbell and family. We all sympathize with yon; and I am desired by my wife and Sarah Ann, with two sons, to express this in a few lines by the first steamer leaving Liverpool, and which, cordially joined with my own, I now send. We were all glad at the recollection of having once seen the dear departed sister in the Lord, in Nottingham. Her presence, manner, spirit, and conversation, all passed in revision before us. But she is gone! yet we hope to see her again, and that, too, where death or distance can never separate us more. When thus assembled with all the redeemed, in that state of glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life, there can be no question but we shall cheerfully unite in giving unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, glory and wisdom, strength and salvation, forever and ever. Amen.
"In such society as this, my weary soul would rest,
The man that dwells where Jesus is, must be forever blest."
As we may hope that you will be continued many, many years, to become a blessing to the church and the world, will it be too much to ask if you are arranging to visit England this year? It might do you much good, both in body and mind. The World's Fair will be a grand display. The Crystal Palace, made of glass and iron, covets twenty acres of ground, and eighteen miles of tabling have been erected. It is said that 20,000 persons tan pa=s through it at once, and that one million of visitors, from all nations, will be constantly in London, above its usual population, during the summer. Will you come? Yours, affectionately, J. WALLIS.
REMARKS.
I LAY this letter before our readers, not from any desire to elicit for it, or its subject, notoriety, but because I think it will be grateful to the feelings of many who knew, and thousands who have
IN MEMORY OF CLARINDA. 413
favorably heard of Clarinda. I use this name, not because it is dearest to me, as it is, but because by it she is most familiarly known to those who have read her father's "Letters from Europe." I select this letter from the many, I may say the scores, that have, directly or indirectly, come to me, from sympathising friends, acquaintances and strangers, in order that I may, with it, publicly acknowledge my gratitude for them all. I feel this to be a duty I owe to those who have taken so much interest in me, as to offer me, unsolicited, the comfort of their sympathy. I can truly say that I have been filled with emotions, not to be uttered by words, at the discovery that my solitary grief has been shared by other hearts; and that tears, which I could not always suppress, have flowed unrestrained over the cheeks of my friends. We cannot but grieve when we are afflicted: Christianity does not forbid it. It acknowledges the law of our nature, and meets it, not with a precept, but a comfort--yea, with many comforts; and among not the least, such as is afforded in the letter before us. This is, practically, "communion of saints," and its influence is salutary as it is sweet. I have felt both its need and its power; for whilst I have long since thought with the Roman philosopher, "that no man, who possesses a proper firmness of mind, will suffer his misfortunes, how heavily so ever they may press on his heart, to interrupt his duties of any kind;"* yet I have sometimes felt almost forced to yield to the pressure of my afflictions, when a few words kindly written, and coming to me from afar, have seemed like the sustaining power of a ministering angel, sent to strengthen me in my weakness, and to comfort me in my despair. God be thanked for the timely aid so affectionately and suitably given!
I have a desire to say something concerning the dead, but I hesitate to do so, lest I should overrate the kindness and interest of our readers. Yet I know there is a kind of personal attachment between a writer and his readers, which warrants, besides the ordinary workings of the intellect, an occasional introduction of the feelings of the heart; and if I mistake in supposing, that memories so dear to me, will also prove of interest to my friends, then, reader, just turn over this leaf, and pass to something else more engaging to your tastes. If you will excuse my obtrusiveness, I shall contentedly suffer your neglect. But I know that what I shall say of Clarinda, will not be coldly received by many on my account; by more on account of her father; and, within the circle of her acquaintance,
*Cie. de Anacitia.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 35*
414 IN MEMORY OF CLARINDA.
by a still greater number on her own account. Let me speak, therefore, what I feel, and what I shall be the happier for uttering.
I do not intend to write an eulogy. I could, perhaps, do so under other circumstances, for such performances are reduced to an art, and may be executed as one would paint a tree. We have only to decide what kind of a tree it shall be--whether a pine, an oak, or a cypress, and all the rest is a matter of course. Mark Anthony came "to bury Caesar, not to praise him;" he spoke "in his funeral" because "he was his friend, faithful and just to him," and such is my motive. I shall feel that I have done a service to virtue, when I show how beautiful it was in her whom I have lost; that I have embalmed affection, when I commit to record her filial and conjugal love; and commended even religion itself, when I show how the graces of purity and humanity were exhibited by it, in her public and private character.
It is a blessed thing to be born with a virtuous soul--a soul in harmony with all truth, attuned to all excellence, and in sympathy with every thing that is beautiful, lovely, and good. It moves through the world like a life-giving light, and throws its joy upon every thing in its way. It loves the truth from an innate congeniality, and delights in goodness, because its nature is peace. It turns from the noisy haunts of human dissipation, and pauses in- the hovel of want, over the bed of suffering or by the side of affliction. Its tears refresh the arid wastes of despair, and paint a rainbow for hope. The accidents of fortune or of fame are alike indifferent to it. It looks beyond the form to the essence, and, in love only with the true and the good, finds in their immutability no disappointment. Stayed upon these, which change not, it is as an house built upon a rock--the storms may come and beat upon it, but it falls not. Such is a virtuous soul; such was Clarinda's. As such she lives in the admiration of her companions, in the gratitude of the afflicted, and for the imitation of all.
Her filial feelings were so mingled with veneration, that they assumed rather the form of piety, than of mere natural affection. Few daughters have lived to her age, of whom a father could truthfully say, "She never merited, nor received from me, a frown nor a reproof." Her obedience sprang from admiration and love, and in it she was happy. The offices of duty, under the warmth of her affection, quickened into life, and became a delight and a joy. The youngest and last of five sisters, fair and lovely as herself, she strove to embalm their loveliness in her admiring heart; and out of its abundance were ever acted or uttered, deeds or words graceful and
IN MEMORY OF CLARINDA. 415
gracious, as they were benevolent and kind. Their examples seemed ever before her, pictured to the mind like present spirits, with whom she might commune through the sense of faith, as with the living. And are they not around us, in our waking and sleeping thoughts, as the lightning in the cloud moving and guiding it; yet invisible till the crash in which it mingles and is one! So she believed; and her faith became as knowledge, shaping the current of her life and sweetening its sorrows. Of her love for me, it is scarcely fitting that I should speak. To say that it was single, true, deep; superior to all opinion, and pure as virtue's essence, would be saying much, yet how little towards the full expression of my heart's whole estimation! A love like hers, can only be understood by one who has enjoyed and lost it: it cannot be pictured in words. I knew its power--enjoyed its triumphs, but alas, now no more, save in memory! I must utter my gratitude and suffer my loss. God give me strength!
Her religion was older than mine. She never knew the time when she did not feel herself a child of her father's and her mother's God. If it was not natural, it was her second and her stronger nature, ere she knew, or thought, or felt otherwise. No cloud of disbelief ever darkened her soul; no vacuum of unbelief ever opened it to the invasion of doubt, but, seeing all things through parental eyes, heaven, and God and Christ were a reality to her faith, before the meaning of the terms was half apprehended by her reason. From a child she knew the scriptures; knew not only the words, but the things they symbolized, by a faith which actualized every precept and substantialized every hope. It has been my good fortune to know many pious Christians, but I have known none in whom there was more to satisfy the mind of the certain indwelling presence of the Spirit of God. It was seen in her countenance, heard in her conversation, and manifested in her good works, so that others seeing her, were led to glorify God.
I said her religion was older than mine. 'Twas more perennial, too, for her soul had not upon it the impress of early impiety, as mine had; and thus, while the thoughts of other days would sometimes come luringly across my mind, and old ambitions wake, as from slumber, to tempt me back to the world; before her vision there always beamed the steady light of celestial scenes, and honors unfading in the heavens. Ought I not to acknowledge, with gratitude, the sustaining aid which her faith ever gave to mine?
"And pray, lest the stroke, which has torn us apart,
From the faith of a Christian may sever my heart:"
416 REPORTED CHALLENGE.
I may not prolong these grateful memories. It would be a pleasing theme for me, to tell how,
"From infancy through childhood, up to youth,
And thence to prime of womanhood she pass'd--blest
With all the sweet and sacred ties of life;--
The prayerful love of parents, pride of friends,
Prosperity, and health, and ease; the aids
Of learning, social converse with the good
And gifted, and her heart all-lit with love,
Like the rolling sea with living light;--
Hopeful, and generous, and earnest; rich
In commune with high spirits, loving truth
And wisdom for their own divinest selves:
Conning the words of wisdom, Heaven-inspired,
As on the soul, in pure effectual ray,
The bright, transparent atoms, thought by thought,
Fall fixed for evermore: how thus her days,
Through sunny noon, or mooned eve, or night
Star-armied, shining through the deathless air,
All radiantly elapsed, in good or joy."
But I must pause, to feel she is no more! no more to me in time! to look upon her as now with another, whose love, with mine, she shared on earth, and still enjoys in heaven. They are gone--both of them gone from me--but, that they feel an interest in me still, I will bind as a buckler round my faith, and cherish with my life. W. K. P.
REPORTED CHALLENGE.
ALLEN'S SETTLEMENT, La., February 18, 1851.
Brother Campbell: I have one request to make of yon at present. I have been credibly informed that you did accept a challenge thrown out by the famous Clapp, of New Orleans; and after you accepted it, he backed out rather dishonorably. Now, my request is, that if such was the fact, please give us the particulars in the Harbinger, as we have a particular interest in having that report fully set forth or substantiated. Universalism is quite prevalent in this community, and we have not yet hit upon any successful means of combating it. In haste, T. I. HARVEY.
I NEVER received a challenge from Mr. Clapp, of New Orleans, nor sent to him a challenge, to debate the claims of Universalism. I had, indeed, a conversation with him last year, in New York city, and once aboard the "Cambria," returning to the United States
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 417
from Liverpool. We had some conversation on that subject on the Atlantic Ocean. From the developments of these conversations, I should conceive, if there could be a proper issue formed between us respecting our tenets on that subject, the question would more appropriately be, Is the Bible the book of God or of man? Has God ever spoken to man on the subject of his eternal destiny A. C.
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
INDIANA.--Bro. E. A. Frazee reports 12 additions at Middleton, 11 at Andersonville, 7 at Newbern, 5 at Ben. Davis' Creek, and 5 at Greensburg, all under the labors of Bro. Roberts; also, the result of a meeting held at Fayetteville, on the 16th May, by Bros. Roberts, Butler, Smith, and H. R. Pritchard, at which 15 made the good confession.--Bro. J. B. New preached six days near- Rising Sun, and immersed 4; thence he visited Rising Sun, gave eighteen discourses, and added 11. The church was edified and comforted, and the public favor propitiated.
OHIO.--Bro. A. Burns' labors have resulted in 10 confessions, since his last report, in the vicinity of Olivesburg.
PENNSYLVANIA.-Bro. J. M. Shepard reports, since his last letter, 12 additions in the vicinity of Troy, Bradford county. There are about 500 Disciples in that county, distributed among the following churches: Le Roy, Canton, Alba, Troy, Columbia DC Roads, Smithfield and Warren. Prejudice is yielding, and the Disciples are growing more zealous. "More efficient evangelists greatly needed and desired."
IOWA.--Bro. J. H. Bacon, of Fort Madison, reports a church of 75 members at that place, doing well, and making preparations to build a suitable house of worship.
ARKANSAS.--Bro. C. Carlton has assisted in organizing a church at Van Buren, of 8 members, and added 2 since. Prospects cheering in this region.
VIRGINIA.--Bro. C. B. Jones reports the result of a protracted meeting at Independence, in Hanover county, at which there were 8 additions to the church of the first born; and mongst them, his oldest daughter.
MISSISSIPPI.--Since Bro. J. T. Johnson's report of progress in Fayette, Bro. Edmonson has gained 5 others. The church now numbers about 70, and is in a prosperous condition.
MISSOURI.--The following interesting items were sent us by our beloved Bro. T. M. Allen, sometime since, but the fetter was unfortunately mislaid:
APRIL 1, 1851.
We have, within a few days past, had 4 additions in Columbia. Bro. W. H. Hopson, in a letter dated "Hannibal, March 19, 1851," says: "Since I commenced my duties as State Evangelist, on the first of January, I have preached more than one hundred sermons, and have had 80 additions. Bros. Ross and Harriss, of Pittsfield, Ill., have had over 80 additions, at a meeting just closed at Quincy, Ill.; and Bro. Levan had 60 additions at a meeting just held at New London, Mo. I go from here to Palmyra." In a subsequent letter, dated the 27th of March, at Hannibal, Bro. Hopson says: "My meeting closed at this place with 17 additions, some of them from the Methodists."
Bro. Hopson, and the Rev. W. G. Caples, of the Methodist Episcopal
418 OBITUARY.
Church South, are to debate the following propositions in Hannibal, commencing on Monday, the 7th of April, viz:
1. Sprinkling or pouring water on a believer, by an authorized person, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is Christian Baptism. Mr. Caples affirms. Dr. Hopson denies.
2. To the penitent believer, baptism is for the remission of sins. Dr- H. affirms. Mr. C. denies.
3. The infant children of believing parents are proper subjects of Christian Baptism. Mr. C. affirms. Dr. H. denies.
4. The Holy Spirit, in conviction and conversion, operates only through the word. Dr. H. affirms. Mr. C. denies.
"If the Lord will," I expect to be at the debate. I fear not the result, with so able and talented a defender of the gospel of Christ as Bro. Hopson. In haste, your brother, T. M. ALLEN.
Total number reported since last month, 431.
OBITUARY.
COLUMBUS, O., April 27, 1851.
Dear Brother and Sister Campbell: To you, who have been so often called to pass through such severe trials for some months past, I neeed not say any thing of my task this morning, when you learn that it is no less than that of informing you that the tenderest earthly ties have again been severed; that death has entered our peaceful dwelling, and borne away, as his prize, my dear husband--Dr. W. F. POOL.
I cannot give all the particulars of his illness, and peaceful exit from time to eternity. Suffice it, at present, to say, that he was taken ill at Cincinnati, Where he lay one week, when he returned home, and was confined to his bed for nearly seven weeks. During hits: long and painful illness, (of congestive fever) which affected his brain from the first, and, consequently, his nervous system severely, I never heard a murmur escape HIS lips, but the most perfect calmness and resignation to the will of the Lord in all things.
He had made every arrangement for devoting his entire time and talents, the remaining portion of his life, in preaching, and often, during his illness, Would say to me, that "If the Lord thought he had labored long enough in his vineyard, he would call him home; if not, the Lord knew his heart, and he would restore him; and if permitted to rise from his bed again, he would die in the field of battle." He continued in this heavenly state of mind until the last; and when his tongue had ceased to perform its office in speaking to us, he would answer to our interrogatories by a nod; that the faith which had supported him in life still cherished him in death, and his hope grew brighter and brighter as he drew near his close. His anxiety for the little congregation here continued until his last moments; and the last Lord's day but one of his life, he had the brethren called to his room on purpose to commemorate the Saviour's death. He gave us quite an exhortation as he lay on his bed, telling us, that if never permitted to again partake with ns on earth, to be prepared to meet him around his Father's table, &c. He lingered until Thursday night, April 17th, at 11 o'clock, when, in answer to the prayer of his friends, "that if taken from us, his passage over Jordan might be an easy one," without a struggle, a moan, or even a sigh, he fell asleep in the arms of the Saviour.
Before his death, he had selected the passage of scripture from which he desired Elder Cheney to preach at his funeral, which was this: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth, saith the Spirit; yea, they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them."
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Before his death, he requested me to give you the particulars, and left you to write an obituary to suit yourself, as it would be the best way of letting his friends know of his death.
I need not say to you that I have lost an affectionate and doating husband, and my children a kind father. Your afflicted sister, ANN E. POOL.
[We profoundly sympathize with our Sister Pool in this, to her, sad bereavement; but have reason to rejoice with her in the cheerful resignation and triumphant hopes with which her husband bowed to the will of the Lord.
I have known Bro. Pool for many years, and have witnessed with pleasure, on many occasions, the zeal and the devotion with which he sought to be valiant for the truth, and to be useful in the kingdom of our common Lord. We have much to assure us that his labors in the Lord were not in vain. We trust that our sister will always derive consolation from him that said: "Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me." Jer. xlix. 11.--A. C.]
ELLERSLIE, Boon County, Mo., March 27, 1851.
Dear Brother Campbell: I have just returned from Fayette, Mo., where I went on yesterday to attend, with many other brethren and friends, the funeral of our late brother, Elder HAMPTON L. BOON, who died about 4 o'clock on the morning of the 25th inst., in the glorious hope of immortality and eternal life. He was in the 49th year of his age, and leaves a widow and nine children, with numerous relatives and friends, to mourn his loss. But we are confident that while they sorrow, it is not as those who have no hope. Bro. Boon was an able minister of the gospel, and had but a few months since withdrawn from all secular pursuits, and entered the field of active labor as an evangelist, with a determination of devoting all his energies and time to the work of the ministry; but it pleased the Lord to have him cease from his work of faith and labor of love, and enter into the rest remaining for the people of God.
On the 3d Lord's day of this month, at night, he gave his last discourse in Glasgow; after which he was taken with a congestive chill, followed by a violent fever, from which he never recovered. On the Tuesday following he was brought home, remaining in the bosom of his family for one week, when he calmly and peacefully, without a groan or struggle, died a most triumphant and rejoicing Christian. He was conscious, from the commencement of his disease, that he would not recover, and soon were his family and friends convinced of the same fact. He conversed almost constantly with his weeping companion and children, and sorrowing friends, on the subject of his approaching death, with all the calmness, resignation, and faith of a Christian--declaring that his only regret was in leaving his wife and little children; aside from that, he desired to depart and be with the Lord. He rejoiced in the bright and glorious prospect of heaven, and exhorted his family and friends to be faithful, and meet him there.
On the night of his death he partook of the Lord's Supper, with his wife, obedient children, his sister, brother, and other sisters and brethren present: his happy soul rejoiced, and his tongue moved in praise to God. He retained his reason, and even his speech, almost to the last breath, and closed his eyes in death peacefully praising his Maker.
He was a fond and affectionate husband; a kind, tender-hearted father; a warm and generous friend; a zealous and devoted Christian, and an able minister of the gospel. He was for many years a member of, and an efficient preacher in, the Methodist Episcopal Church; but about eleven years ago he united with the Church of Christ in the town of Fayette, his wife and two oldest children taking their stand with him upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, (three others have since obeyed the gospel.)
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May the Lord enable them to imitate the faithfulness of their departed friend! He soon became an able advocate and defender of the faith once delivered to the saints. The vast crowd at his funeral evinced the deep feeling of the community in which he had principally lived for more than thirty years. I addressed them from 1 Thes. iv. 13.
Pardon the length of this communication. I have felt the above due to Bro. Boon, and have omitted much I could say to his praise, that would doubtless interest both yourself and readers. In his happy and triumphant death, let us thank God and take courage. Affectionately your brother, T. M. ALLEN.
MEMPHIS, Tenn., May 13, 1851.
Brother Campbell: I write to inform you that our beloved sister, Mrs. ELIZABETH LITTLEFIELD, has been called home to her eternal rest. She died last Lord's day about 11 o'clock, A. M., at the house of her son- in-law, Mr. James Junkins, in this city, aged 53 years.
She was born in Brunswick, Maine, A. D. 1798; was married in Bath, 1820, and removed to Boston, where she lived till 1833, when she removed, with her family, to Covington, Ky. In 1816 she was immersed, and joined the Baptist church. She continued a zealous, consistent, pious member of that denomination until 1840, when she united with the Church of Christ in Covington. She came to this city early in March last, with a letter of commendation from the church in Covington; but the state of her health was such that she never met with us.
I had the pleasure of visiting Sister Littlefield during her last illness, and enjoyed much satisfaction in conversing with her on the subject of Christianity. She was gifted with a fine intellect, and had stored her mind with much valuable information, particularly on the subject of religion. She was eminent for her piety, for correct and enlarged views in Christianity, for strong confidence in God, a fixed reliance upon his word, and a firm hope of happiness after death.
She left the Baptists and united with the Church of Christ, because she wished to cast her influence in favor of union amongst Christians on the word of the apostles. In this she rejoiced on the bed of death.
She died as she had lived--full of faith, and hope, and love; and has gone to her home in heaven. May we all meet her there! B. F. H.
Brother Campbell: Bro. FLAVEL VIVION, of Lafayette County, Mo., departed this life on the 12th of May, after an illness of ten days. Congestion of the brain, terminating in inflammation of the stomach and bowels, carried him off. He was seldom in his right mind during his illness. .A few moments before his death, he called his children and his servants to his room, and asked them to sing "Jerusalem, My Happy Home;" which the servants did. When the song was ended, he was asked if he was ready or prepared to die? To which he nodded assent twice, being then unable to speak, and in a moment more breathed his last. He became a member of the Baptist church in early life, in Fayette county, Ky., but for the last ten years has been a member of the Church of Christ. He was in the 69th year of his age, and truly a father in Israel--a man of great firmness and force of character; but he has gone to join the host in heaven. T. N. GAINES.
ERRATUM.--In our May number, the address of Bro. Henry Henderson, Principal of the Irvine Grove Academy, was given as De Kalb county, Mo. It should be De Kalb P. 0., Buchanan county, Mo.
Vol. I.] BETHANY, VA., AUGUST, 1851. [No. VIII.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE--No. VIII.
WE have already surveyed the Spiritual Universe as far as our Compass and chain can lead us. True, indeed, we look through a and do not, with the naked eye, see its realities. Faith is, therefore, essential to our seeing things invisible to mortal sight. "It is the evidence of things riot seen." But the testimony of other men, when believed, produces al much certainty as is necessary to all the purposes of life. It a certainty equal to our own experience, and puts us in possession of other men's experience, in all oases where it is perfect.
The experience of some men, in some respects, is much greater than that of other men in those respects; but no man's experience, in all respects, can equal all other men's experience in all respects. In society we are, therefore, obliged to borrow and lend experience, just as much as money, or that which it represents. We always borrow experience by faith, and we can lend it only through faith. My experience is of no value to any man that does not believe it; nor is any man's experience of any value to me, unless i believe it. Faith, then, is the only circulating medium in the market and exchange of human experience.
Although I have never seen Jerusalem nor Babylon. a burning mountain nor a frozen ocean, Paradi nor Tartarus, I can, on adequate testimony, regard them as much realities as London or Paris, both of which I have seen. But it is alleged that human experience is limited to things of time and sense, and can not, by any possibility, transcend these. But on what authority is it so alleged I On the authority of some men's experience. Not on the authority of all
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men's experience; for no living man, or set of men, are now in possession of all the experience of all men. It is, therefore, unphilosophic, irrational, and most presumptuous in any man, to say that he cannot believe in the apparition of an angel, or in a special message from heaven, or from some other world than this, because it is contrary to his experience, as well as to that of all living men and to that of all dead men. Let him first produce the experience of all men, and then he will have some show of reason in so affirming.
Still, even then, he would have no absolute certainty that a communication might not hereafter be received from another world-- from some sun, moon, or star, from which we have hitherto heard nothing. This would be to foreclose all future new developments. It would be equal to affirming that there never can hereafter be any thing that has not already been. No one, on such premises, could have believed in a universal flood in the days of Noah, nor of cities being burned by a shower of fire from heaven, because, forsooth, till the days of Abraham and Lot, no such event had happened.
Human experience is a very mutilated volume. The cover is off, the preface torn, a hundred pages wanting in the middle, and no one knows how many hundred are wanting at the end. Would he not be a silly boy, that, on entering school and taking into his hand these fragments, should, on reading them, affirm that he had read the entire volume; and fully comprehended, not only the contents of the volume, but also the contents of every other volume that could possibly emanate from the same author. As silly and as pert every man or grown boy, who affirms that he cannot, or will not, believe in an oral or written communication from the author of the volume of nature, of man, and of providence, because he has never found it on the few scattering leaves in the primer that he has read!
But it is alleged that a spiritual system and spiritual beings, are wholly without that evidence on which all faith in human testimony respecting things material and sensible, rests. We believe human testimony touching matters which are sensible, which we know from the evidence of our own senses and from our own experience, do actually exist. But what living man has ever seen an angel, a spirit, or heard an angel or a spirit speak? And how can we believe testimony touching the actions of beings of whose existence we have no evidence--neither the evidence of reason nor that of sense?
But is this the sum total of all evidence 2 Have we not the evidence of consciousness, as well as the evidence of sense? Are we not conscious of what passes within us? And do we not feel as
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much certainty or assurance that we have a spirit, as that we have a body, and that this spirit is not destructible, as is the body?
On the philosophy of the objector, we might ask, has any one ever seen a pain, or heard a pain? And when answered in the negative, shall we negative the existence of pain! Shall we not rather say, that seeing and hearing are not the only inlets or avenues of pleasure and pain? That although we have never seen nor heard a pain nor a pleasure, we have often felt both. And is not feeling as good and reliable evidence as either seeing: or hearing? We have felt a thinking, reasoning, grieving, rejoicing spirit within, willing, moving, controlling all the actions of the body, and even of the mind itself. There is a world of ideas, emotions, desires, passions, feelings, within us, as evident to our consciousness, as the world without us is to our five external senses. We have, therefore, as much assurance of the one as we have of the other.
The spirit of man, while in the body, is always controlling it. It early discovers its innate powers and supremacy. It may listen to its animal instincts and appetites, but it will assert its sovereignty-- reigning over it with authority--and that, too, from reasons and motives springing from the intuition and recognition of moral, spiritual, and religious relations and obligations, originating not from the flesh, nor from the conditions of its present existence, but from the perception and assurance of things unseen--spiritual and eternal; for which it sighs and groans, and hopes and fears.
But it does more. It often, without knowing it, communes with a kindred great Spirit, in the admiration of the infinite, the eternal, the immutable. It feels an unutterable pleasure in the contemplation of the sublime, the beautiful, the incomprehensible. It does more. It cannot but approve the just, the holy, and the good, when they present themselves in generous and noble deeds. Of these, no creature merely animal, sensitive, and material, affords the slightest indication.
But still it is suggested by the fallen and depraved, that we have no clear, distinct, palpable evidence of a Devil, a tempter, an evil spirit, influencing the actions of men. But what evidence have we of the positive formal existence of any one of the most puissant agents in nature, save in their operations and effects? The bold and daring infidel asks, with an effrontery and assurance indicative of superlative depravity of reason, and conscience, and moral sensibility, who ever saw an evil spirit tempting himself, or any one else! The modest and unassuming Christian philosopher, asks in reply, who ever saw any one of the most appalling and terrific agents in
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material nature? Who has ever seen the great agent, sometimes called the Law of Gravity I Who or what is gravity--that awful, fearful, yet beneficent agent, which, unseen, unheard, unfelt, wheels the spheres of nature in their awful circuits through immeasurable space; which holds suns, and moons, and stars, in absolute abeyance? Say, weak, frail, vascillating materialist, what subtle, invisible, omnipresent, all-pervading, immutable; self-existent principle, agent or personality, is this unseen, unheard, unfelt GRAVITY?
Is it intelligent, omnipresent, immutable, benevolent, from everlasting to everlasting? Nay, cover thy face, and come down to the lowest classes of terrestrial agencies. What is the thunder, which shakes your person and your castle, but the atmospheric report that an electric spark has left home, or been awakened from profound repose? And who, or what, is this titled prince of life, nicknamed electricity? this omnipresent, all-pervading, and all-potent Anima Mundi? this all-animating soul of the natural universe? Lightning is but its traveling wardrobe, the clouds its chariot, when, on the wings of the wind, it goeth forth to rend the rocks, to break the oaks of Bastian, and to shiver to atoms the cedars of Lebanon. Olympus, in its cloud-capt eminence, robed in eternal snow, skips like a calf, and Sirion like an young unicorn.
And whence this power? It is only a volition. But matter has no will. It is naturally and necessarily passive. Active matter, if not a misnomer, is but matter in motion, or matter controlled by a volition. Matter, like my pen, is but an instrument. It is animated, controlled, directed, by volition, or by a spirit in motion; for what is volition, but a spirit in motion from one object to another? Volition is no attribute of either matter or mind. It is not a part of a spirit--a faculty of a slut. It is the whole soul or spirit in motion. Hence the universe itself is but the effect of an intelligent, and omniscient, and omnipotent volition. It is a spirit in motion in a certain direction, to a certain object; that consummated volition retains its power, and reposes in its own achievements.
But it is alleged that this is all metaphysics. True; but it is the only remedy for those who have been intoxicated by physics. Men cannot recover from sickness, but by one of three medicines--prayer, physics, or metaphysics. Whether nature or art be doctor, intellectual paralytics must take physics or metaphysics. A few grains of metaphysics--say Dr. Rush's celebrated dose of ten and ten-- will cure, if not the yellow fever, the yellow jaundice, which preys upon the vitals of all sceptical Christians, as they are sometimes
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improperly so called; for really true Christians are the only morally healthy and sound persons in the world.
Christians, I say, are persons of sound mind, though occasionally of weak constitutions. They live by faith, walk by faith, and learn by faith. Infants learn their A, B, C, both the form and the sound, or the body and the spirit, by faith in the primer and the enunciations of a nurse or a school mistress. So Bacon, and Locke, and Newton, studied nature, man, and God. We all by faith--the true Jacob's ladder--scale the heights of heaven, and fathom the abyss profound. We even clamber up from star to star, in our literal heavens, by faith in symbols, signs, cosigns, and tangents, and sometimes by mere letters--by A, B, C, X plus Y--a circle or a square. And what man of good common sense, of cultivated mind, can doubt that, if by faith we travel through signs and symbols from earth to heaven's most faint and glimmering star; calculate conjunctions and oppositions of wandering systems, suns and moons, by faith in the currency and symbols of abstract science, we may, by the heaven- descended symbols, words, and breathings of the spirit of wisdom and revelation, ascend to the heaven of heavens, and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, in the presence of him who sits between the cherubim, in the truly high and holy place! A. C.
SLAVERY AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW--No. V.
"The Fugitive Slave Bill; or, God's Laws Paramount to the Laws of Man: A Sermon preached on Sunday, October 20, 1850, by Rev. Nathaniel Colver, Pastor of the Tremont Street Church, Boston. Published by request of the church."
Such is the title of a sermon sent to me from Boston, delivered by a gentleman personally and officially unknown to me. Its author is favorably introduced to my consideration as of high standing in that city and in his denomination. He has been also presented to my special consideration, as practising what he preaches--an occurrence not so common in these days--in his very warm and active resistance to the law, in the streets of Boston, during the late great commotion in that city to prevent obedience to the law, in the case of a runaway slave from the far South.
Mr. Colver is a popular lecturer, and greatly animated and encouraged the opposition to the delivery of the runaway. He has so fully confirmed his church in the soundness of his views, that the church
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lately passed the following resolution: "That as disciples of Christ, and members of his church, we ought not, we cannot, and, as we fear God, we will not, render obedience to the said law."
His text is a very suitable one to the occasion, according to his views of it. it is, "Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men." Acts v. 29. From this text he submits two propositions, which constitute, in their development, the body and soul of his discourse. The first is, "Whenever the law of any civil goverment demands of its subjects either active or passive disobedience to the known will or law of God, disobedience to the former, in favor of the latter, becomes an imperative duty."
His definition of the cases in which disobedience becomes a paramount duty, are very clear and definite. "It is only," he says, "when the law commands the subject to do that which the law of God forbids, or to fail to do that which the law of God commands, that he is bound to resist it." So far we cordially agree.
The cases of approved disobedience which he alleges, are the following: The three worthies, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refusing to worship Nebuchadnezzar's idol God; and the case of Daniel, when forbidden by Darius to call upon the name of his God. The former case illustrates his views of "active disobedience:" the latter his views of "passive disobedience to the law of God." Waiving any criticism on the appositeness of his terminology, on the subject of active and passive disobedience, we must say, that the appositeness of these cases to his dutiful disobedience of the Fugitive Slave Law, is more than questionable, unless, indeed, he fully sustains the second proposition, expressed in the following words: "Such is the inherent and manifest iniquity of this bill," or law, "such its hostility to the law of God, as to render disobedience to its demands a solemn duty." But does he prove its hostility to the law of God? This is the first question. We must, then, examine for a moment his proof, or, rather, the assumption on which it is based, viz: "That in sending back, or in aiding to send back, a runaway servant, we sanction the law or the code under which that servant is held in bondage." Is this- so? Should I send back, or aid in sending back, a runaway indented apprentice to his master, or a runaway son to his father, am I, thereby, constituted an approver of the bond and conditions of tenure in the one case, or of the government of the father over his runaway son, in the other easel This he merely assumes, and attempts not to prove.
It is much easier, to a person of a sprightly imagination, to ima-
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gine cases of a very exciting character, than to show their pertinency to his position. Some of the opponents of marriage, give ample proof of this facility of imagination. They say it is a fearful thing, and of dangerous tendency, to bind a woman to live with a husband all the days of her life. Under this view of the institution, and because of alleged grievances inflicted upon her by her husband, a woman runs away from him and takes shelter under the hospitable and humane roof of an anti-marriage philanthropist. Her husband pursues her. Her philanthropic protector, on hearing her tale of woes, refuses to give her up. Her husband remonstrates in vain. He calls in the advice and interposition of the Rev. Mr. Colver. What does he say I "The marriage is not canonical, not having been performed by a legally ordained and licensed minister," or, perhaps, on account of her tale of grievances endured, or both. In the first case, he annuls the marriage on his own interpretation of the law or view of what is fitting. In the second place, he refuses to giver her up on her own testimony as to evils endured; and on the presumption that should she be hereafter evilly treated by her husband, he might be regarded as particeps criminis--as partaking in the outrages she might endure. The error, in the first case, is an assumed right to annul the law, on his own views of it, or on the ground of expediency. In the second case, it is a decision on interested testimony, and that of the most objectionable kind--that of the party herself. But suppose a slave, who, in a fit of unjustifiable passion or inebriation, had fired his master's dwelling, and been the occasion of the destruction of his house and family, should run away to Boston, and place himself under the protection of Mr. Culver, on account of evils which he had endured, would it be consonant to law or gospel to secrete him, or to aid him in escaping into Canada, and that, too, in direct violation of the law of the land, without permitting a legal investigation, or the operation of the law in such cases provided? There is no limit to imagination, and he that acts on its authority follows an ignis faluus that will more likely allure him into the mire, than direct him in the path of duty and of safety.
But the Fugitive Slave Law, it is alleged, is directly contrary to the law of God, because that law has said, "Thou shalt not deliver to his master the servant which has escaped from his master to thee; he shall dwell with you in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him." The law, says Mr. Colver, takes direct issue with God, and says, "You shall deliver him to his master." He adds, "We ought to obey God rather than man."
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Truly! But where, in the Christian law, is such a statute found? No where! And could it be, by construction, inferred from it, the case of Paul sending home Onesimus, to his master Philemon, stands directly in the way of Mr. Colver, as once stood an angel, with a sword in his hand, in the way of a celebrated prophet.
But the law was given to Israel, with respect not to their own servants, but to servants that had escaped to them from heathen masters. Every commentator of character, from Matthew Henry down to Adam Clark and Boothroyd, all anti-slavery men, too, sustain this view of the passage. Indeed, I cannot imagine how any man of ordinary reflection could otherwise view it. To what purpose had God given precepts, by Moses, to his ancient people, authorizing their purchasing and holding servants, if he had, by the same Moses, enacted that, should any of their servants run away to a brother Jew, he must not return him to his master! And yet this is reiterated from Dan to Beersheba, in every paper against the Fugitive Slave Law, as a divine precept, binding on every Christian man in these United States. By such a licentious use of language, I know not what tenet or opinion might not be proved by Holy Scripture. "The law," says the Rev. Nathaniel Colver, "takes direct issue with God, and says, You shall deliver him to his master." With infinitely more evidence, one might say, his interpretation of the words of Moses takes direct issue with Moses himself, and the whole science of hermeneutics.
But again, says Mr. Colver, "This law should be abhorred and trampled under foot by every man, because it enjoins the commission of one of the blackest crimes specified in the divine catalogue--a crime classified by an inspired apostle with murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers--MAN-STEALERS." This I quote, not for a serious response, but in proof of his disqualification for the task he has undertaken. If this were a sound principle of interpretation, not a man in Massachusetts could honorably hold a foot of the soil he claims, by any deed registered in the commonwealth. From whom did Job, Abraham, and the twelve tribes, steal their men servants? From whom did the primitive Christians steal the men they held in perpetual servitude But Mr. Colver farther states,
The title of man-stealer is written by the finger of Almighty God, upon the brow of every man who claims to be the owner of a man." Alas for the Bible patriarchs, and for myriads of Jews and Christians, ancient and modern! But Mr. Colver is not the final judge of man, nor a very safe expositor of Sacred Scripture; and therefore, while he may succeed in the streets of Boston, in inflaming a mob, he can
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have no very strong claim in the pulpit nor by the press, on the understanding or the conscience of a Bible enlightened community.
It is well known at the South, and at the North, that I am no advocate of American slavery; that the only thing in our American institutions that I regret, as an incubus on our national prosperity, and as a shade on our national character, is this great political evil, which is a misfortune entailed upon us, rather than a crime perpetrated by us. Providentially permitted, we have more than three millions of Africans committed to our humanity and Christian sympathy, while doomed to their present condition. And though there is no sin against morality or religion in the existence of such a relation, there may be, and our laws not only permit but sometimes license, a discipline and treatment of them at which both humanity and religion revolt, but which Christian men and philanthropists dare neither practice nor approve. But whatever the evils may be, they have not been remedied, but rather exacerbated, by the ultra measures which a portion of our community, with more zeal than knowledge, have adopted and presented under the name of abolitionism, sustained by the plea of humanity and philanthropy; of which there is just as much, man per man, at the South, as at the North. I speak advisedly, having pergrinated the country from Georgia to Vermont, and from Boston to Independence, when I say there is, to my optics, as much humanity and democracy in the slave States as in the free.
While, then, I conscientiously and benevolently sympathize with both extremes of our confederacy--and there are as excellent men as I know on earth in both--I cannot but profoundly regret to Witness the bad feelings and the developments of a spirit of violence and insubordination, constantly indicating its fierce temper and fixed purpose to sow the seeds of disunion--of intestine strife and commotion.
But in this no Christian man, properly enlightened, can take any part. We may freely express our opinions and remonstrances, but cannot sow the seeds of alienation, dissociation, or insubordination, and maintain an allegiance to Jesus Christ. "What," says Paul, have we Christians to do with them, or "to judge them without the church?" We cannot kindle the flame of war within or without the State in which we hold our citizenship. The apostles expressed the will of our Lord and Master in their epistles to the churches addressed by them; and in those churches there were, as already proved beyond a rational doubt, both masters and servants, such as we have already described. We can certainly forbear with that
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with which the apostles forbore. If they communed with men holding property in man, as servants for life, the property of their masters, we can do so too. If any one thinks otherwise, he thinketh not with Paul, nor with Paul's Master.
But as our manner has always been to hear both sides, and to let both sides be heard, we subjoin a very sensible letter from a very sensible brother in Indiana, who stands very high, both as a lawyer and as a Christian. He is temperate in all respects; and as he speaks like a man and a Christian of good understanding and of good feelings, we shall now hear him with all candor.
FOREST HOME, (near Indianapolis,) March 29, 1851.
Brother Campbell: I am aware that your correspondence is already so extensive and voluminous, as to engross too much of your time and attention. This consideration has prevented my writing to you, as I otherwise might have done. I venture, however, at this time, to ask your indulgence, as I wish to say a few things which I regard as of importance, and may, perhaps, be so regarded by you, as indicating the sentiments, not of myself alone, but of many of the brethren.
But first, let me say, that your notes of your tour of forty days through Indiana, &c., published in the January and February numbers of the Harbinger, are highly acceptable to the Indiana brethren. They are much gratified that you were so well pleased with the trip, and have expressed so favorable an opinion of the country and of the brethren. They hope, and I cannot avoid the expression of a personal wish, that this trip may be but the precursor of others, which shall tend to perpetuate and strengthen the bonds of Christian union and fellowship, and to stimulate to efforts which shall result in the increased progress and prosperity of the good cause, and in great good to our fellow-citizens.
But this subject is not the special object of this communication. I could wish that it were, and that I could here express more fully the pleasure which those notes have given me. Another subject, which I would have gladly avoided, seems, however, to require from me some notice at this time. In the same January and February numbers of the Harbinger are articles upon the subject of Slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law. I saw those articles with deep regret, and felt pained that you should have considered it your duty to have taken the position indicated in them. I had, indeed, foreseen, or supposed that I could foresee, an approaching controversy, even in
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the Christian communion, upon the questions involved. Reluctantly had I admitted the conviction, that there were, upon these subjects, irreconcilable differences of opinion: moral sentiments and feelings so antagonistical to each other, that they could not be made to harmonize. I had, however, hoped, perhaps against hope, that you would find it consistent with your sense of moral and Christian duty to leave the controversy to others; and that, in its inception and progress, you might not be involved. I had also hoped, that in the recognition of the principle of the independency of the congregations, (growing at this time, as I fear, too unpopular,) we might escape the disruption of the Christian community, which these questions might otherwise produce.
The hope that you might not be involved in the controversy, was dissipated by the article referred to, and I felt the necessity which you, in the last (March) number of the Harbinger recognize--that you should more fully define your position upon those questions. Regrets are, therefore, useless, and their expression can only avail to deepen your conviction of the importance of the work you purpose.
If I understand your position, as indicated by what you have already written upon these subjects, it is one far removed from the one which, as yet, I am constrained to occupy. I could not, perhaps, better express my own views and opinions, than by referring to the resolutions of the brethren at Berrien, Michigan, which appears in the last (March) number of the Harbinger. I know nothing of the Berrien brethren, and am not aware that I ever heard of them till I saw their resolutions in print. These sufficiently define my position upon the subject of slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law. These, too, so far as I am advised, pretty well express the anti-slavery sentiments of the Northern people. Whatever language is employed-- whatever form of speech is used, no more, as I think, and perhaps no less, is intended, than is expressed in these resolutions. There are probably few, and none, I am sure, among the brethren, who purpose forcible and violent resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law. They feel aggrieved that they should be regarded as contemplating treason and rebellion. They protest--at least for myself, I protest-- against being placed in that attitude. They ask not the advocacy of the sword, and are unwilling that such an instrument of aggression should be forced into their hands. They reject the gage of battle; and I trust that neither the insolence and intolerance of the whole partizan press, or the ridiculous arrogance of the highest public functionaries, will ever induce any of them, in a single instance, to lift it.
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There is neither revolution nor rebellion--neither treason, felony, or breach of the peace, in a passive resistance to, or in an open, quiet, firm, and even stern disobedience of, the requirements of the Fugitive Slave Law. This indicates my position. As a lawyer and a citizen, I entertain a clear conviction that the law is unconstitutional, both in its principle and in its provisions. But the moral of obedience to its requirements depends not upon the question of its constitutionality. I have stronger and higher objections to the law. As a man, and as a Disciple of Jesus, I am constrained to regard its provisions as violations of the principle of humanity, and as controvening the statutes and institutes or the Lord Christ. This is the decision of my conscience--a weak and unenlightened judge, it may be--an inferior tribunal it surely is; but the only one of authority to me in the present life, in the construction of the laws of the Master. I must abide its decisions, in the full conviction that they will all be taken to the Higher Court, to be affirmed or reversed by the Supreme Judge of the Universe.
My individual opinions are of minor importance, and did I not suppose them in harmony with the views and opinions of a numerous class of the brethren, I should not obtrude them on you. I am, however, well convinced that many of the brethren sympathize with me in feeling and sentiment upon these questions. It is, therefore, as I think, well that you should be advised of our position, that you may give it that attention which you may think it deserves. If we are benighted, it were a work worthy of your efforts to enlighten and instruct us. For one, I hold myself open to conviction upon any and all subjects, and especially upon this I desire to be corrected, if I am wrong. The Fugitive Slave Law has heavy penalties. Fine and imprisonment are its rewards for disobedience. I court no martyr's crown, and would avoid the sacrifice, if I may consistently with Christian duty. The Heavenly Father has given me the stewardship of some property, as I hoped, for other purposes than to be dissipated in fines for the violation of the laws. I love liberty. The enjoyment of personal freedom for half a century, renders the contemplation of threatened incarceration quite repulsive to me. I love life, more, perhaps, for the sake of my young children, than for its own sake. Yet, with feeble health and a broken constitution, I could not reasonably expect to survive an imprisonment of six months, denounced as the penalty for disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Law.
Many others are situated as I am in these particulars, who, notwithstanding the highest of earthly inducements to the contrary,
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are yet constrained to regard obedience to this law as disobedience to the laws of Christ. If in this we err; if, indeed, we can be taught that obedience to this law is enjoined, or even permitted by the Higher Law, we shall--at least I shall--be most willing to act upon the conviction. In view of the imperfections of human reason and human judgment, I admit that, notwithstanding the interests and influences against which my convictions are formed, those convictions may, nevertheless, be Wrong. If so, it now becomes a work of great moment to me, to convince me of the wrong, and to enable me to obey the requirements of this Fugitive Slave Law, without feeling or apprehending the scorpion sting of violated conscience. I hope, then, not for my sake alone, but for the sake of many others--if your own convictions in favor of such obedience are strong and clear--that you will present for our consideration the proofs and arguments which have given you those convictions. I am not unacquainted with most of the arguments, legal and moral, which have been used to sustain slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law; but those do not satisfy me. The argument should rise higher, penetrate deeper, and take a wider range, to convince the judgment or enlighten the conscience.
The Divine Philanthropy, as it seems to me, is manifested in the Christian Scriptures, in the full recognition of the principle of the universal brotherhood of man. This, to my apprehension, is the central idea of the Christian revelation--the radiating point of all Christian faith and Christian duty. Am I mistaken in this, or can the proofs, arguments, and conclusions in favor of slavery, and obedience to the Fugitive Slave Law, be made to harmonize with that principle?
The apostolic injunction, to be in subjection to the powers that be, is certainly a divine command, clear, simple, and concise; but in its proper construction, it is as certainly in harmony with the teachings of the Master, as recorded in the 10th of Matthew, and elsewhere throughout his public ministry, and especially with his oft-repeated injunction, requiring of his disciples the taking up and bearing the cross--the voluntary embracement of a convict's death, under judicial sentence, for the violation of human laws. I have thought it not difficult to reconcile the antagonism to human governments and human laws, which the one lesson inculcates, with that subjection to the powers that be, which is required by the other. Can they be so reconciled to sustain slavery and obedience to the Fugitive Slave Law? If you can accomplish this, you will remove a weight of apprehension--of even dread--which presses heavily
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upon me. As it is, I can only pray that the cross may be removed from me--that no demand may be made of me to render obedience to the Fugitive Slave Law. Should the trial come--should the cross be pressed upon me, I trust I may be enabled to adopt the concluding language of the Master's earnest prayer, and say, "0, my Father, if there be no exemption for me--if I must drink this cross-- Thy will be done."
You will, I trust, pardon the freedom of this communication, and, of course, will serve it as you may think proper. I only desire that the views and feelings common to me and many of the brethren, should be known and appreciated. I do not estimate my individual opinions as of much importance to the brethren, but yours, I am aware, are of deep import--involving much of the moral character and future destiny of this Reformation. Yours, in Christian fraternity, OVID BUTLER.
Great and good men will and do differ in matters of great moment. I insert the following decision as worthy of consideration:
"THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.--The unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in favor of the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law, is published in extenso. It is a very able and satisfactory document, and coming from the grand focus of Abolitionism, and from a Bench of eminent learning and integrity, would, we should suppose, in addition to the overwhelming opinion of the Bench and Bar throughout the country, to the same effect, cause some of our young clergymen to distrust their own judgment a little, as to the constitutionality of said law, or at least to deem it possible that they might, for once in their lives, be mistaken."-- New York Journal of Commerce.
The following judicial opinion on the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law, is identical with the opinion which I have formed and given, in word or writing, to many querists. We could not grammatically or historically interpret it otherwise. If, however, good and eminent men differ in interpreting the New Testament, the plainest book, so far as language is concerned, ever written, we should not think it strange. We only ask that Christian men should not cast each other off as reprobate silver, because of honest and sincere differences of opinion. In most cases, the difficulty is created by would-be demagogues, rather than by men of sound understanding, good judgment, and good intentions; by the Construction of officious commentators, than by the good sense, and mind, unbiaesed consideration of the individuals themselves. As
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for the Fugitive Slave Law inhibiting any acts of humanity or kindness to a colored man in distress, more than to a white man in distress, of food and lodging, I never thought it, and I am glad to have that opinion confirmed by Judge Wilkins, and all the Judges that have given an opinion on the constitutionality of the law:
"ANOTHER JUDGE ON THE FUGITIVE LAW.--Judge Wilkins, the United States District Judge for Michigan, has charged the Grand Jury, among other things, that the Fugitive Slave Law is constitutional; that it would be, and will be executed in Michigan; and that all obstructions to an arrest, or interference with the arrested, will be punished as the law prescribes. The harboring or concealment spoken of in the act, he says, is the fraudulent act of placing the fugitive beyond the reach and knowledge of his owner. This act must be done with a fixed intention to violate the law by defeating its object, which is a fraud upon the law, as well as upon the rights which the law designed to protect.'"
Although I could not see a single point on which to hang a doubt, as to the constitutionality of the law, yet as a few such men as Bro. Butler, of much legal science and well read in law, differed from me, I held my opinion, till recently, in abeyance. I am now confirmed in the opinions before expressed. We have a remark or two on Bro. Butler's communication, which I must postpone till next month. A. C.
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DELIVERED TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF BETHANY COLLEGE:
July 4, 1851--By A. CAMPBELL.
Young Gentlemen: TIME, as Ovid said of envy, carpit que carpitur una. It is simultaneously consuming, and being consumed, by its own operations. Every thing that now exists, of which man takes cognizance, had a beginning, and will have an end, himself alone excepted. The sun himself, with all his glory, will grow dim; the heavens, with all their grandeur, will pass away, and nature herself will sink under the weight of years; but man alone, of all that we have ever seen, is destined to flourish in immortal youth, under a sun that will never set, and in a world that will never pass away. Were this not so, our planet, with all its tenantry, and with all its wealth-- mineral, vegetable, and animal--would be a maze without a plan; an agony, and nothing born.
To justify the universe and its author, man must live again. He
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is, indeed, the only indestructible, immortal, and eternal being, that we have ever seen. He had a beginning, is now in progress, but will never have an end. To the eye of enlightened reason, man is the most mysterious and sublime object his eyes have ever seen. He is, in himself, a living, moving microcosm--a miniature universe--containing the seminal rudiments, the primordial elements of all that was, of all that is, and of all that will hereafter be. There will be no creation in the developments of eternity, the seeds of which will not be connate with the elements of his mysterious and sublime constitution.
In the spirituality of his nature, he communes with all that is above him, and in the modes of his present existence he sympathises with all that is below him, in which the breath of life is. Man, contemplated in his entire constitution, and in all his relations to the past, the present, and the future--to heaven and earth--is, therefore, a spectacle of sublime and awful grandeur.
But as the eye cannot see itself, otherwise than in a mirror, so man cannot see himself, but in a spiritual and divine mirror. Such a mirror, indeed, could not be created by all the art and contrivance of man. It is, however, kindly vouchsafed to us from the only source competent to its creation and adjustment to the wants of our being. In it, therefore, we must contemplate ourselves in all the dimensions and relations of our being--the most soul-subduing and ennobling study in the large circle of true science and true learning. We cannot survey the heavens but from an observatory, an apposite stand-point, and through a telescope of adequate dimensions. No more can we survey our own being--our origin, progress and destiny-- without the telescope of faith, the light of heaven, and an elevated position above the mists and vapors of earth and time. But, gentlemen, as these are now to you, matters, I trust, familiar as household words, I deem it expedient to the occasion, and to the relations in which we have hitherto stood to each other, and which are now about to be dissolved, to make one valedictory suggestion, which I desire to impress deeply and indelibly upon your minds, as one of more than ordinary importance. It is this: Just as certain as we all have our own peculiar personal identity, associations, and circumstances, so have we each a distinct, specific, and special mission into the world, which never can be transferred to another, and on the proper execution of which our own honor, dignity and happiness, and those of some others beyond ourselves, few or many, are, by the decree of an all-wise and all-benevolent Creator, made necessarily and irrevocably to depend.
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As the philosophy of language and music is found in the human voice, and displayed in a definite number of vowels and consonants, with their combinations, so the philosophy of man, according to the developments of true science, as we understand it, must be sought in his own constitution, and in the relations which he necessarily sustains to his Creator and to his fellow-creatures.
But as this is a subject too great for man, our Creator has kindly given to us a special revelation on all the premises before us, from which we learn that, as in our own personality we have many members, each of which has its own office, so, in the great family of man, every man has his own office and work.
In a great army, every soldier is contemplated either as a commissioned or a non-commissioned officer. So in the great family of Adam, every man is an educated or an uneducated officer, and has a mission either general or specific, on the proper execution of which must necessarily depend his own happiness, as well as that of his species. The single point, then, young gentlemen, to which I now direct your attention, is this: You must from this moment, as from the day of your majority, contemplate yourselves as having received a special mission into the world. You are to consider yourselves, severally, component parts of the universe, essential to its existence or well-being as it is to yours. The whole universe looks to you as you look to it. It would not be complete without you; nor you without it. In receiving your special being and a special education, you have, in that fact, received a special mission.
But in speaking thus, perhaps I ought to say, that in this view of the universe I comprehend more than the mere masses which we call suns, and their respective systems of attendant planets. It comprehends these, and also, all their tenantry. And not only their present, but also their past and future tenantry. It comprehends the ultimate and perfect development of every element, seed, and principle, that has hitherto existed, or that may hereafter exist. The universe, past, present, and future, is one and indivisible. There was not, there is not, and there will not be in it, one creature, or one mode of existence, superfluous or redundant. Of the tenantry of this universe, some are causative and active agents; others are subjective and passive agents in their being and progress. Its author and proprietor is infinitely, immutably, and eternally perfect, holy, and happy, in himself, and worketh always, and in all places, according to the counsels of his own will; "from seeming evil and from real evil, still educing good; and better still, and better thence again, in infinite progression."
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In this vast creation no one lives by himself, or for himself; and therefore, none should live to himself. We mast borrow from society a large portion of our happiness, and we must pay that which we have borrowed, and, sometimes, with interest, too. One individual may, and often does, change the destiny of another for good or for evil. And that good or evil does not always terminate with the individual that creates it. It may continue and increase through many generations. Hence the law that sometimes visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, and also- the goodness that shows mercy to many generations.
Seeing, then, that one individual may change, or affect the destiny of another for weal or for woe, and that this weal or woe may be transmitted to many generations, how important and how necessary that every young man, on entering the active theatre of life, should gravely think and feel that he is sent into the world to be a minister of good or evil to mankind. The day of his birth is to be remembered forever, as a blessing or a curse to some of his contemporaries, and their heirs and successors for an indefinite period of time. The character and the fortunes of myriads of our living contemporaries, are but the fruits and consequences of the acts and deeds of those who lived one, two, or three centuries ago. For this reason not only individuals, families, and tribes of men, but nations, and kingdoms, and empires, for many generations, celebrate the birth of their eminent benefactors. The very day we celebrate as our commencement, with all its pleasing, grateful, glorious associations; with the noble deeds and the illustrious patriots, heroes and philanthropists, whose memories cluster around the day of our national nativity, is a monumental fact in development and proof of the position we would now indelibly imprint upon the living tablets of your hearts and memories.
Perhaps, too, a mother, a nurse, a school mistress, may have deposited in the mind of that infant the idea, the sentiment, the purpose that grew with his years-, and that ripened into that illustrious benefactor or redeemer of his country, whose fame is as broad as the earth and as enduring as time. But we need no abstract reasonings nor elaborate developments, to impress upon your minds, my young friends, the lesson before us. You have already learned that the history of tribes, nations, and empires, are but the development and proof of my position--that every man sent into the world has a commission from his Creator to do some great and noble deeds, on the performance of which his own glory and happiness, and the glory and happiness of others, is as necessarily dependent as an
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infant is upon his nurse for his life, growth, and full personal development. It is not necessary that every man, in order to personal nobility, true greatness, and real glory, should be a Sampson, a David, a Solomon; nor even a Columbus, a Luther, a Franklin, a Washington. There are as many forms of true greatness as there are of real goodness; and, therefore, he that is eminently good will always be eminently great in some of the admirable attributes of human greatness and human excellency, which throw a halo of true grandeur around human character, and give to man an enduring nobility. There are, too, as many niches in God's celestial temple, for constellations of great and noble men, as there are stars in the heavens, and worlds in infinite space.
It is not time or earth, or their petty ephemeral distinctions, that fill the measure of man's real greatness or true glory. He was created in the image of God, and, by heaven-born truth and infinite benevolence, he may rise to honor, and glory, and happiness, as far above all earth-born aspirations as the heavens are higher than the earth, or the brightness and grandeur of the sun to the feeble and evanescent glow of a worm.
But how is this real grandeur, this true greatness and glory, to be achieved? It commences first in thinking right, next in feeling right, and then in doing right. We must first perceive that we are men, and not mere animals; that the mind of man is essentially spirit, and not matter; that true glory is the government of ourselves, and not in constraining the admiration of others; that true beauty is not mere sensible form, light and shade, but moral excellence; that true honor is not the noisy breath of human adulation, but the approbation of conscience and the smiles of the God of heaven; that the path of glory is not in clambering up the steeps of earth's ambition, but in condescending to men of low degree, to raise them to honor and happiness.
We must, though we may think as sages-, feel as men encompassed with innumerable infirmities. We must cultivate all the feelings indicated and comprehended in the word humanity. We must aim at raising the man- of low degree, and not at equaling or surpassing men of high degree. We must stoop to conquer our own pride, avarice and ambition, and not stretch our pinions to soar above the eagle, nor employ our powers to equal or surpass- those who stand, or vainly aspire to stand, on the giddy pinnacles of earth's towering but mouldering temples. We must, in one sentence, seek the glory that cometh from above; and that is the glory of having been the benefactor of many.
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The fields of human labor on the great plantation of humanity, are both numerous and large. You may choose science or art, in some of their innumerable departments, and find enough of labor and enough of glory in any one of them, in some grand--that is, in some benevolent and useful achievement. You may make a small contribution in a mite, that may terminate in a million sterling. I will give you an illustration or two. You may at random open any page in the biography of the world's benefactors, and find a passage that will furnish materials for a volume. Here is one, taken from the science of astronomy--a science in which we are all interested, and which ranks, in sublimity and grandeur, next to religion. The fields of space which it has opened to our vision, are of overwhelming dimensions, and rich with manifestations of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, beyond the limits of human appreciation. Yet this science, which communes with masses and distances that create extacies of admiration, to which language vouchsafes no utterance-- no adequate means of expression--is now so far grasped by the human mind, and subjected to such accuracy of knowledge and comprehension, as to give man the power of foreseeing such conjunctions and oppositions of suns and planets in our solar system, as a century before to foretell the appearance of a comet, or the transit of a planet over the sun's disk, or the occulation of a star, eclipsed by the interposition of a planet. It accurately anticipates the meeting of two or more stars, or planets, in one degree of the Zodiac, or an eclipse of the sun and moon, either partial or total, at a given moment. It foretels an age before it happens, the moment when the shadow of our earth will shroud the moon in mourning; and it enables the mariner to traverse all the oceans of earth to a given point, with as much certainty as we follow the compass from one corner of a plantation to another. And yet this science has been in progress for twenty centuries, and is still in progress. But how came it to this degree of perfection?
Hipparchus lived 2,000 years ago. Indeed, he was born 147 years before Christ. He simply suggested to a friend the propriety of making a note in his vade mecum, of every new fixed star that might strike his attention in the heavens, adding, that he had been doing so for sometime. He got up, as we say in our style, a few star-gazers, who were now and then making a new discovery. But the opinions of Plato concerning the earth, stood sternly in the way of their progress. This renowned disciple of Socrates had, even then, a magic influence over the free inquirers of that day. He had taught the theory that our little earth was the stable centre of the
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material universe, and that, of course, the whole heavens moved in solemn and sublime attendance around our fixed and immovable domicil. The sublimity of his philosophy, and the elegance of his diction, were a universal passport to all that he spoke and wrote.
"It must be so, Plato, thou reasonest well," was, for ages, enough to silence all the logic and rhetoric of the schools of Greeks, Romans and Jews, on all points of dissent and difference. Hipparchus, and his school of observers, held on their way, noting down and comparing their observations till Ptolemy, some 280 years afterwards, came upon the area of observation, and, correcting some of their aberrations, added new discoveries and reasonings of his own.
Alphonsus, King of Castile, in the same spirit, improved upon the tables of Ptolemy; and so it progressed till Copernicus, about the middle of the 16th century, became a still more enlightened star-gazer, and removed from the heavens the cycles and epicycles of his predecessors, and placed the sun in the centre of the universe. Kepler and Galileo, in the same spirit, advanced farther into the arcana of nature, and corrected, still more satisfactorily, the errors of their predecessors.
Waxing bold, Galileo and the Pope got into a debate. It was an unequal conflict in every point of view. Galileo had the science and the telescope; but His Holiness had the authority and the scaffold. He brought the astronomer to his knees, in solemn recantation of his error, in differing from him who had hanging at his girdle the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Still, as the chorus of his recantations, when acknowledging the sin of differing from the Pope and Plato, he muttered, "BUT IT MOVES." Yes, the earth moves and the sun stands still.
His Holiness, good natured soul, had no faith in any one thinking upon any subject on which he had not thought; and although Galileo had looked through a telescope, and had actually seen four of Jupiter's moons, and even the hills and valleys in our own moon, the Holy Father not having seen them through his spectacles, constrained him to abjure his heresy. Still the philosopher, with his own telescope, went on his way, and continued his observations till he weighed the air in balances; invented the cycloid and the pendulum, and demonstrated the laws of motion, and fully established the Copernicum system. So much for observation and thinking for one's self. I need not tell you of the Continental, the English, and the American philosophers, reformers, discoverers, and inventors. These are, and have been, portions of your every-day reading and study. You have learned, that from Newton's observation of a
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falling apple, and reflections thereupon, resulted his "Principia;" and from our own Franklin's observations, and his habits of analysis and sunthesis, he gave his name to an instrument that steals from a thunder cloud its superabundant stores of life and destruction. Indeed, all the great original characters, and public benefactors of all time, and in all departments, scientific or artistic, ecclesiastical or political, have been distinguished, not so much by nature as by their habits of observation, comparison, deduction, and by a severe mental discipline and application.
You are fully aware, that large as is the area of our knowledge, the area of our ignorance is yet much larger; that the unknown incomparably transcends the known, in all the fields and departments of true science. Benefactors are yet in demand, and the rewards of their labor are sure. The man of science, that makes two blades of grass to grow in the space occupied by one, is more to be appreciated and to be rewarded, because more beneficial to mankind, than the commander of a belligerent army, or the commodore of a floating navy, in quest of new territories.
Not one of you was either created or educated to be a mere drone in the hive of humanity; to stand upon an eminence with a spy glass in your hand, to ogle a moving, working, toiling world. You came not into the world booted and spirred, standing by a well saddled and caparisoned courser, to take the field of the sportsman and contend for the limb of a hare, or the wing of a partridge. Still less were your lips moulded for puffing a cigar, uttering a smutty tale, or taking the name of God in vain. You have studied language and science, and the useful and ornamental arts, to give you the power of enlightening, adorning, and elevating human nature; of blessing and being blessed, in the performance of good and noble service to yourself and to society. Hide not, then, your talent in a napkin; still less, bury it not in the earth.
Young gentlemen, I wish you to take a proper view of yourselves; but I trust you have attempted it already. To regard yourselves, from this day forth, as having each a special mission into the world; as providentially called, and furnished, and sent out into the world to do something, if not great and wonderful, at least something good, useful, profitable to yourselves and to mankind; honorable and memorable in the archives of the universe. Of what use, honor, or profit, is education--literary, scientific, moral--if you do not employ it, use it, and enjoy it, in doing the generous and noble deeds of eternal fame and reward
There is no reasonable, no desirable position or place, in some of
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its numerous and various departments, worth occupying or enjoying, for which you may not become eligible, and to which you may not successfully aspire, provided only, that you are true and faithful to yourselves.
"Act well your part--there all the honor lies.
Fortune in man has some small difference made:
One flaunts in rags; one flutters in brocade;
The cobler aproned and the parson gowned;
The friar hooded and the monarch crowned.
What differs more, you'll say, than crown or cowl?
I'll tell you, sir--a wise man and a fool.
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow:
All the rest is but leather or prunello."
But you must always remember, that
"The steep ascent must be with toil subdued;
Watchings and cares must win the lofty prize
Proposed by heaven--true bliss and real good.
Honor rewards the good and great alone;
She spurns the timorous, indolent and base.
Dangers and toil stand stern before her throne,
And guard (so Heav'n decrees) the sacred place.
Who seek it must the mighty cost sustain,
And pay the price of fame--labor, and care, and pain."
"A double minded man," or a man of two souls, "is unstable in all his ways." You must betimes, but not before due consideration, select some calling, some pursuit, or business for life. Having decided upon that, you must prepare for it--keep it in your eye, and think of every thing that bears upon it. You must always resolve to be an honor to your calling or profession, rather than to seek honor from it. You must seek to be useful to mankind; not to your single self alone; but to the great family of man. You must feel that you are doing good service to yourself. No good, no generous, no noble man, can seek to build up his own fortune or fame upon the ruins of the fortune and fame of other men. There is room enough in the world for us all, were we multiplied by thousands, even in our own country and in our own day.
But the place of true honor and of extensive influence, is a very responsible place; and without a highly cultivated conscientiousness, continued effort, and fixed purpose, faithfully to discharge its duties, cannot be honorably retained. To be an honor to an office, rather than to seek honor from it, is the true philosophy--the only lawful ambition. A faithful deacon is incomparably more honorable, before heaven and earth, than an unfaithful prelate; and a dutiful subject, than a dissolute and licentious King.
In this community we have no noble blood, yet we have noble men. In other countries, indeed, they have noble blood, that oft
444 THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.
"has run through scoundrels ever since the flood." We prefer the naked Arabian courser, to the richly caparisoned mule, though shining in the livery of an Eastern prince. It is not blood, but soul, that constitutes an American nobleman. And he that ranks high amongst such, must be something more than bones and sinews, or flesh and blood. He must be a man, which is much more than an ambitious demagogue, and, sometimes, more than even an officer of State.
Still, the apex of this world's ambition, honor and glory, compared with the unseen and the future, is lower than the top of an anthill, compared with the summit of the Andes. Earth's pinnacles of glory, seen from the summit of true moral grandeur, are like the gently undulating hills and valleys at the foot of our Alleghenies, apparently of the same level, viewed from its loftiest peak, while the heights of Zion reach to the heaven of heavens, and endure to eternity.
Apply, then, my young friends, to the eye of reason and truth, the telescope of faith and hope, and survey the area of your being in all its immensity, durability and grandeur--then choose that calling in life which has most of true honor and immortality in it, and pursue it with a generous competition, an untiring assiduity, and with a magnanimous and philanthropic aim. Then will life be a pleasing reality, and your pilgrimage through it replete with usefulness and honor. Your sun will shine with splendor--set in a clear and cloudless sky, and again rise full-orbed in a brighter heaven, and there continue to shine upon your destiny, with increasing glory, through the cycles of eternity.
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.
THE JEWISH ORIGIN OF THE CELEBRATED POPULAR LEGEND, "THE
HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT."
As the occupation and pleasures of childhood produce a powerful impression on the memory, it is probable that almost every reader, who has passed his infantile days in an English nursery, recollects the delight with which he repeated the puerile jingling legend" The House that Jack Built." Very few, however, are at all aware of the original form of its composition, or the peculiar subject it was designed to illustrate. And fewer still would suspect that it was only an accommodated and altered translation of an ancient parabolical hymn, sung by the Jews at the feast of the Passover, and
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT. 445
commemorative of the principal events in the history of that people. Yet such is actually the fact. The original, in the Chaldee language, is now lying before me, and as it may not be uninteresting to the readers of the Congregational Magazine, I will here furnish them with a literal translation of it, and then add the interpretation, as given by P. N. Leberecht, Leipsic, 1731. The hymn itself is found in Sepher Haggadah, vol. 23.
1.
A kid, a kid, my father bought,
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
2.
Then came the cat and ate the kid,
That my father bought
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
3.
Then came the dog, and bit the cat,
That ate the kid,
That my father bought
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
4.
Then came the staff, and beat the dog,
That bit the cat,
That ate the kid,
That my father bought
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
5.
Then came the fire, and burnt the staff,
That beat the dog,
That bit the cat,
That ate the kid,
That my father bought
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
6.
Then came the water and quenched the fire,
That burned the staff,
That beat the dog,
That bit the cat,
'That ate the kid,
That my father bought
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
7.
Then came the ox, and drank the water,
That quenched the fire,
That burned the staff,
That beat the dog,
That bit the cat,
That ate the kid,
That my father bought
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
8.
Then came the butcher, and slew the ox,
That drank the water,
That quenched the fire,
That burned the staff,
That beat the dog,
That bit the cat,
That ate the kid,
That my father bought
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
9.
Then came the angel of death, and killed the butcher,
That slew the ox,
That drank the water,
That quenched the fire,
That burned the staff,
That beat the dog,
That bit the cat,
That ate the kid,
That my father bought
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
10.
Then came the Holy One, blessed be He,
That killed the angel of death,
That killed the butcher,
That slew the ox,
That drank the water,
That quenched the fire,
That burned the staff,
That beat the dog,
That bit the cat,
That ate the kid,
That my father bought
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
EXPLANATION OF THE LEGEND.
The following is the interpretation:
1. The kid, which was one of the pure animals, denotes the temple. The father by whom it was purchased is the King David.
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446 THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY.
The two pieces of money signify two shekels of silver. The tradition says, when David purchased the thrashing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite, (see 2 Sam. xxiv.) he asked a subscription of two shekels of silver from each tribe; so that all the tribes had a legal share in the temple.
2. The cat, who destroyed the kid, denotes the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar.
3. The dog signifies Cyrus of the Persians. The tradition says that Cyrus, when an infant, was thrown into a forest to perish there; but Providence, who destined Cyrus to rebuild the temple, sent a bitch, and she fed him with her milk. Hence the symbolical name.
4. The staff indicates the Grecian empire under Alexander the Great.
5. The fire signifies the Syrians under Antiochus, justly surnamed by the Jews, "the Wicked," who destroyed many thousands of Israel with fire and sword.
6. The water betokens the Roman empire.
7. The ox is a symbol of the Saracens, who subdued Palestine and brought it under the Caliphate.
8. The Shochet, or butcher, that killed the ox, denotes "Messiah, the son of Joseph." The modern Jews, being unable to deny that Messiah must suffer, and unwilling to acknowledge that their Messiah Was to be "despised and rejected of men," professes to have found two Messiahs in scripture--one who is to suffer, and one who is to be the conqueror of the world; hence-
9. "The angel of death killed the Shochet," &c., &c. But this state of affairs will not remain so; for-
10. The time will come when God will take signal vengeance on Satan, after whose overthrow the Jews are to be restored into their own land, and live under the government of their long-expected conquering Messiah.--Jewish Chronicle.
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY THE TRUE PRINCIPLE
OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT.
[Continued from p. 372.]
THE fact that man was made capable of enjoying an immortal existence, is the grand key given to him that enables him to apprehend the import and importance of all that has been spoken to man, dm' done for him, by his Creator and moral Governor. This grand truth, though not clearly revealed in His former institutions, as it is in that institution which consummates his entire will to man, it was, nevertheless, implied in the Patriarchal and Mosaic institutions.
And had it not been for the hope which this truth inspired into the minds of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and the saints of all ages;
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 447
we never should have had such trials of men's spirits as are recorded in the 11th chapter of the Hebrews; nor should we have had that cloud of witnesses testifying to the mighty achievements of this principle in contest with the world, sin, and death. Its complete victory was seen in the translation of Enoch and of Elijah.
If when. with such a revelation, we do not yet believe in our future being, we must believe in something still more difficult to apprehend; for to expect continued life, is according to our habit and our sense of probability; but not to believe this, we must believe in annihilation, but this we cannot, because we find no ground on which to proceed to such a conclusion, since there is no instance of such an event in all our knowledge; and therefore, we cannot suppose the Omnipotent engaged in blotting out his own work.
What the heathen philosophers wanted, in order to satisfy them, or, at least, to impart to them a hope full of immortality, was a true knowledge of God and of man. Their systems of mythology were as bewildering and as dark as would be our mundane system, were the sun totally eclipsed. They were without an Omnipotent Being, and, therefore, had no grand central truth. They had no light or life in them. There was no Being as the source and centre of existence, no mind interested in all other minds, no unity of intelligence, no bond of reason, no parent of spirits, to whom they might come to dissipate their doubts.
What was needed was a Logos, to demonstrate that the divinity was not an impersonation of the lusts and passions of the human heart, as displayed in the pride, ambition, and revenge of mighty chieftains and distinguished statesmen, who, by their blind votaries, were decreed as worthy of an apotheosis.
Hence we find it to have been the practice amongst the most enlightened nations of heathendom, to deify their favorite passions, in the persons of their most distinguished men, who, after death, were elevated to the rank of gods. And as Bishop Warburton has justly remarked, "That the attributes and qualities assigned to their gods always corresponded with the nature and genius of the government of the country. If this was gentle, benign, and forgiving, goodness and mercy characterised the deity; but if severe, inexorable, captious, or unequal, the gods were then believed to be tyrants; and expiations, atonements, lustrations, bloody sacrifices, composed often of human victims, as well as animals, formed then the system of religious worship." Hence all that diversity of character ascribed to them by their worshippers. To regard with favor the petitions
448 THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY.
offered to their divinities, would, indeed, require them to be such beings as the poet has described--
"Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust; Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe."
Hence it was necessary, as we have said, that there should be n Logos to demonstrate that the divinity was not a multitude of conflicting attributes, which men had imagined and adored as distinct deities; but that God was one, who, to reconcile all things to himself, came forth in the person of his Son, the word made flesh, to show himself the Father of our spirits.
When God vouchsafed to appear as love manifest in humanity; man was visibly immortal. In such a manifestation of the divine love, we had the demonstration of the cause of life everlasting. This demonstration we have, not in the Book of Nature, but it is In the Bible, the Book of God, that we behold him as the immediate friend of man. There the pledge is given to man after he had forfeited the bliss of Eden. According to the pledge given, he was to be the conqueror of him who originated death; and this pledge, delivered by tradition from father to son, was never doubted so long as the unity of the divine nature was taught and believed. The deathlessness of the soul was never doubted until the unity of the divine nature was lost sight of.
If we would maintain the former, the latter must be preserved in the world. The feeling of immortality that it begets, is not, however, of that gross kind which is made to consist in a continuance of life through mysterious metempsychoses in earthly forms, but as a veritable spiritual being, advancing in life, on the principles of justice and of love; to be happy in the knowledge of God, which causes the redeemed spirit to admire and to adore the ways of God towards all his rational creatures, whether it be in promoting the happiness of some, or in inflicting condign punishment upon others. In either case, his wisdom, power, justice, holiness and goodness, are alike displayed to all, but not alike enjoyed by all. They are the guarantee of the redeemed, that they shall enjoy an immortality of blessedness.
Some there are, who talk of a natural or necessary immortality, and a derived immortality. What is the import of these words? What God wills, that is nature; what he does, that is necessary; and he does what he wills. If, then, he wills that man should be immortal, man's immortality is natural and necessary. All that the creature possesses is, of course, by gift. God has immortality, but
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 449
he has it to bestow; "the gift of God is eternal life by Jesus Christ."
Immortality is, then, conferred; but is it conferred on all men? What teaches the Bible on this question? If eternal life is conferred on those who believe and obey the truth, and if they are thus saved from perishing in their sins, must not those who reject the truth and die in their sins, perish or be annihilated? But is the notion of annihilation derived from the Bible?
Some think that the word perish, and other forms of expression of similar import, found in the New Testament, hold forth the idea of annihilation to be the final doom of all who reject the offer of eternal life. We, however, apprehend that neither the common usage of these terms, nor the relation in which they stand, will at all favor the idea of annihilation. Without pretending to erudition, any one may see the force of the few Greek words translated perish, in the New Testament. First, there is apoqnhVkw. This is usually applied to death, in the ordinary sense, as in the passage where it is said, "In due time Christ died"--he was not annihilated. Next we have apollnmi, which means to be lost. He came to save that which was lost. The same word is used in the case of the woman whose piece of money was lost: this was not annihilated. Peter uses the same word where he says, "The world that then was, being deluged, perished"--it was not annihilated.
But does not its hypothetical use seem to signify more, as when Paul says, "They who are fallen asleep in Christ, have perished;" but the verse before explains his idea of perished: "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins"--not annihilated, but continue to be under the weight of unatoned sinfulness.
Again: we have another word, katafqeirw which, in one place, is translated perished utterly, and to some, might seem to mean annihilation, if any did; but it signifies only, shall become thoroughly corrupt; and the same word is used with reference to men abandoned to iniquity, as if to intimate their departure from all excellence. But enough, we presume, has already been adduced to show that wherever the word perish occurs, it expresses a state of something that exists, and therefore, cannot mean annihilation.
As to the words of similar import--such as destruction, perdition, and so forth--being, indeed, from one and the same word derived, they indicate, in every instance, condemnation, as of something pernicious, perverse, or frustrating right purpose, as in waste, or the misapplication of means; and when applied to the body only, they signify dissolution, as opposed to its edification. We conclude, then,
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 38*
450 ANCIENT AND MODERN EVANGELISTS.
that there is no word in the New Testament which must mean annihilation, in the strict sense; for in part it implies a contradiction in terms--a production of nothingness. A. W. C.
ANCIENT AND MODERN EVANGELISTS--No. I.
As a preface to some thoughts on Evangelical labors and laborers, I copy from "The Christian Union," of Baltimore, an article which appears on this subject, being an advice to an evangelist, by Elder Thomas Campbell. It appeared, for the first time in print, in April last, but was written May 16th, 1843. Its author, then in his eighty- first year, now in his eighty-ninth. A. C.
BETHANY, May 16, 1843.
Brother Frame: Your kind letter of the 19th ult., was received in due time. I would have answered it immediately, but I was not determined what to do, and am not yet. But having learned from a brother, who passed this way, that you were to hold meeting the last Saturday of this month at Bridgeville, I have determined to address you at that place; that if I should not meet you there, you might know the reasons that prevented me.
In the mean time, I congratulate you upon the success of your labors since I saw you here. "Paul may plant, and Apollos water; but it is God who gives the increase." Let us look up to him with prayerful confidence for success in all our dutiful undertakings; and in so doing, we have reason to hope that "our labors shall not be vain in the Lord."
I should be very glad to co-operate with you in this good work, for all the purposes mentioned when you were here; but my son Alexander, is quite opposed to my proceeding any farther in itinerant labors, at my advanced age of eighty years. He rather urges the application of my time to writing, and to local labors in the vicinity of Bethany. However, what I shall do I have not yet finally determined. But if I conclude to co-operate with you a part of this summer, I shall endeavor to be with you at the time and place above mentioned. And if I should not, I assure you it is not for the want of disposition, but for reasons that, in the mean time, may appear sufficient to determine otherwise.
ANCIENT AND MODERN EVANGELISTS. 451
Be this, however, as it may, there are a few important hints which I wish, at present, to suggest to your serious consideration.
1. That the divine object of the blessed gospel is to make new characters--" new creatures." 2 Cor. v. 17. Therefore, according to the commission--Mat. xxix. 19,20, and Mark xvi. 16--the gospel is to be clearly and fully taught before any be admitted to baptism, upon a professed belief of it; for how shall any person truly believe any report until he truly understand it? Wherefore, the real condition of mankind, which makes the gospel necessary to our relief and deliverance, should first be fully and convincingly declared; and then, the provisions which it presents for these all-important purposes, clearly stated. 1 Cor. i. 30, 31, with John iii. 16. Now, according to the latter of these, the whole world was perishing--all going to perdition; but according to the former, the very things for lack of which they were perishing--namely, for want of "wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption"--these very things are presented to them in Christ, as contained in his threefold office, in which the scriptures present him to the reception of all that are scripturally induced to receive it.
2. That through this intelligent belief, persons being prepared for baptism, and having thus put on Christ, in his office, for the above purpose, they should next be taught to desire to do all things whatsoever Christ has commanded by the teachings of his holy apostles; for the due observance of all those things is necessary to the complete enjoyment of the proposed salvation. And seeing, that in the very nature of things, all enjoyment lies in employment--if, there fore, we do not make the due use of the divinely appointed means, we cannot enjoy the "heaven upon earth" which the gospel proposes; nor, of course, be prepared for the enjoyment of "the salvation yet to be revealed in the last time." 1 Pet. i. 2-9. Hence it is evident, that the evangelist should see to the due instruction of all that he baptizes, and not leave them like sheep in the desert. Hence we see that Paul continued a considerable time in one place; or, if the case required him to act otherwise, he either returned, or sent competent assistants, to set in order the things that were wanting. But, as we now have the written word for our directory, all that is necessary is to have the churches duly furnished with the intelligent reading of the good Book, and with the oversight of duly qualified persons, to see that those things be faithfully reduced to practice; Heb. xiii. '7, 8, 13. For profession, without faithful, fervent practice, is worse than nothing. Rev. iii. 15-18.
3. Family edification is the next in practical importance in church
452 ANCIENT AND MODERN EVANGELISTS.
edification; it is, indeed, the proper nursery for it. Now, this entirely depends upon a proper use of the Bible, and of the throne of grace. See the divine directions and examples for these practices, in the following quotations, as also in many others that might be added, by consulting the margin: Dent. vi. 5-9; xi. 10-20, and xvii. 17-20; Josh. i. 8; Acts xv. 21; Job xxiii. 10-12; Ps. i. 2, and xxix. 7-11, &c., &c. From these, and many more that might be added, it most evidently appears that the divinely prescribed use of the throne of grace is the food of the pious soul. See Jeremiah xv. 16, with 1 Pet. ii. 2, 3.
Indeed, how can it be otherwise, If we consider the import and importance of these two blissful provisions of divine love. The former to supply the want of his sensible presence, which we have lost by the sin of Adam; the latter to give us the full assurance of faith, that whatever we ask according to his will, we shall receive. 1 John v. 14, 15. And now only thus can we have fellowship with God--that is, by the Word of God and prayer; for by the former he speaks to us, and by the latter we speak back again to him. And thus truly have we "fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ," through the Spirit, "for it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth." 1 John i. 3, and v. 6.
These things being evidently so, what sort of a Christian must he be who neglects the word of God and prayer, either in his closet or in his family, if he have one What a careless, prayerless Christian! Now, if any man has not the Spirit of God, he is none of his children. For they only that are "led by the Spirit of God, are the Sons of God." Rom. viii. 9, 14. But to what does the Spirit of God lead those that are led by him, if not to the throne of grace and to the Bible?
Wherefore, let us warn our professing brethren, in the language of the apostle, who spoke as he was moved by the Holy Spirit, Gal. vi. 7, 8, saying, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; and he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."
Then let us first exhibit the gospel as above hinted. And then, in the language of the apostle just quoted, warn those who have made the good confession, lest they be deceived, by thinking to enjoy the blissful and glorious end of their high calling, without making the clue use of the means divinely appointed for that happy purpose.
Till I have the privilege of seeing you, you may, in the mean
JERUSALEM MISSION. 453
time, present the contents of this letter to the consideration of as many of the brethren as you please, in your family visitations and private considerations; for were I with them, the all-important subjects I have herein suggested, and the scriptures quoted to enforce and sustain them, would constitute the substance of my conversations till they were fully and constantly reduced to practice.
I remain, dear brother, your sincere friend and fellow-laborer in the gospel. THOMAS CAMPBELL.
JERUSALEM MISSION.
Brother Campbell: I have read the letter of Bro. Goss, as published in the Harbinger for June, with the comments of Bro. Pendleton upon it, with much interest; in which he calls upon the brethren in Virginia to "claim the privilege of standing by and sustaining" this mission in Jerusalem "herself." This proposition was certainly prompted by the most generous feelings, and it speaks well for the heart that suggested it. But I doubt the propriety and wisdom of the measure; and sure I am that the brethren in other States will not accede to it, and thereby forego the privilege of contributing their quota in aid of this first mission to the heathen. As the Jerusalem church of old was the mother of us all, so this mission in the forsaken city, is the infant daughter of us all, and we will watch her and nurse her with a mother's care.
We have an equal interest in this mission, and will not deny ourselves the privilege of taking stock in this glorious fellowship. You may establish missionaries any where else on the face of the globe, and, if you so please, sustain them by State munificence; but the one now founded in Jerusalem, is the offspring of the entire brotherhood, and we cannot consent to give it up to the support of a mere fraction. We will not give that to a part which, by right, belongs to all.
Jerusalem is the grand central point of the missionary enterprise among us. All eyes are turned towards it, and all hearts fervently pray for its prosperity and success; and all hands are ready and willing to contribute for its support. We do not wish that Virginia shall claim any more than an interest in this mission--than Kentucky or Ohio, and the other States of this Union. Dr. Barclay and family belong not so much to Virginia, as to the church of God,
454 RENUNCIATION OF PEDOBAPTISM.
which knows no State lines, metes or boundaries. We look upon this mission family as a precious gift of God--raised up, educated, and prepared by him for the work assigned them; and we have received the gift with gratitude and many thanksgivings. No. Let us unitedly sustain this mission, for God is in it. I would not deny the privilege to the widow to give her mite, though dwelling in Oregon; nor the rich his offerings, no matter where he dwells.
That we need, and must have other missions abroad, is generally conceded, and the sooner we project them the better; but while we deny not the privilege to our brethren in Virginia, of contributing, as I know they are willing to do, in the most liberal manner, for its support, we will not deny ourselves the privilege of sending our offerings for the same object. The moral influence of this mission we wish the whole of the brotherhood to feel, but this would not be the case, if any one State should become her foster mother. And I doubt whether it would be so acceptable, even to Dr. Barclay and family, if such an arrangement should be entered upon. I hope the brethren will not move too hastily in this project, and that they will speak out fully and freely, as I have done in reference to it. In the one hope, JAMES CHALLEN.
[From the Disciple.]
RENUNCIATION OF PEDOBAPTISM BY A PRESBYTE-
RIAN MINISTER.
ON Sunday, May 25th, the Rev. Dr. James Lillie was immersed, together with his wife and several others, by the Rev. S. H. Cone, at the Baptist Mariner's Chapel, New York city. Dr. Lillie attended the University of Edinburg, studied theology at Selkirk under Dr. Lawson, in Edinburg under Dr. Ritchie, but chiefly in Glasgow under Dr. Dick, author of the celebrated system of theology. When he resolved to give up Presbyterianism and Pedobaptism, he received the highest testimonials of character, and of his zeal and talents, from the Presbyterian congregation at Mansfield, New Jersey, which was then under his pastoral care. On the day of his immersion he delivered a sermon in Dr. Cone's church, setting forth his reasons for abandoning Pedobaptism, and becoming a Baptist. From his sermon, as reported in the New York Weekly Chronicle, we give below an extract. From many quarters we hear of conversions like this. Tradition is losing its dominion over the minds of men. We hail these as blessed omens of a glorious progressive tendency from darkness to light, from the tyranny of tradition to the light
RENUNCIATION OF PEDOBAPTISM. 455
and liberty of the gospel. Lord, speed the hour when pure, primitive Christianity shall be enthroned in the hearts of millions of thy children on earth, and may every thing that exalteth itself against it be cast down by the power of thy truth!
Dr. Lillie said he had thought proper to make the views of Calvin the subject of special remark, not merely because he has been, more than any uninspired man, the teacher at whose feet I have sat for more than twenty years, but also because he has had more to do than any other individual in preventing the reformation from reaching the most ancient, the most inveterate, and the most plausible corruption of Apostolic Christianity--he meant infant immersion and sprinkling. The whole doctrine of the Sacraments (so called) as laid down by Calvin (B. iv. 14c. In ) is inconsistent with infant baptism. He defines a sacrament "an outward sign by which the Lord seals in our consciences the promises of His good will towards us, to support the weakness of our faith, and we, on our part, testify our piety toward him." Now, as infants have no faith, either weak or strong, it is plain there is nothing in them for the sacrament to act upon, and it is equally impossible for them to meet the other part of the definition, of testifying their piety toward God. The definition, therefore, throughout, excludes infants.
The Shorter Catechism imitates this inconsistency. It defines a sacrament as an ordinance that represents, seals, and applies Christ and his benefits to believers. How, then, can it do any of those things to a child that does not believe? It is surely a remarkable fact, that neither Calvin nor the Westminster divines could frame a definition of a sacrament that did not, by the plainest implication, shut out infants from all participation.
In Sec. XIV. Calvin denounces those who maintain that the sacraments confer grace, as teaching a diabolical doctrine; and yet in the next chapter (Sec. III.) he declares "we ought to conclude at whatever lime we are baptized, we are washed and purified for the whole life." Human wit cannot shield this great man from denouncing himself as teaching diabolical doctrine. Thus it must ever be, when men, however strong, attempt impossibilities. Sampson will gain his end, no matter whether he grapple with the gates of Gaza or the pillars of Dagon; they will bow before the power that his hand wields. But if in an evil hour he lay his head in the lap of Delilah and listen to her counsels, he shall become the scorn of the enemies of God and weak as another man.
This undeniable contradiction will be found to pervade the theology of the Reformed organizations. For example, it meets us again in the Shorter Catechism, which defines baptism as sealing our engrafting into Christ and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and yet declares that sacraments do not profit by any virtue in them, or in him that doth administer them, but by the blessing of Christ and working of his Spirit in them that by faith receive them. Here we are told that baptism seals the babe's partaking of the covenant of grace, and yet it is impossible to receive the blessing of
456 THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
Christ in a sacrament except through faith. Is not this to make infant baptism seal an impossibility?
As Calvin could not find infant baptism in the commission, he labors to find a warrant for it in the Abrahamic covenant. He sets out with the assumption that baptism has come in the room of circumcision. This has often been asserted, but it has never been proved. It is inconsistent with the plainest facts of Apostolic history. How did the council at Jerusalem teach us nothing of this, when they were asserting the freedom of the Gentiles from the yoke of circumcision? How did Paul say not one word of it to the Galatians, when he was guarding them against submitting to circumcision? Why did Paul circumcise Timothy after his baptism?
This argument assumes that circumcision sealed spiritual blessings to all who received it. Where was Ishmael's spirituality, or Esau's or Annas', or Caiaphas', or Judas'? Yet they were all circumcised. The profaneness of the vast majority of the descendants of Abraham demonstrates that if circumcision was intended to seal the personal righteousness of the circumcised, it generally failed. It was a seal hanging at a blank or blurred parchment. The God of order and of truth never made any such appointment. Circumcision sealed the righteousness of faith in no man but Abraham. It is of him alone that Paul declared, Rom. iv. 11, "He received circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had." It was no such seal to Isaac, for when it was impressed, he had no faith to be sealed; so with Jacob and his descendants.
THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT AND THE
EXTENT OF ITS AUTHORITY.
I HAVE just read a very beautiful rhetorical discourse on "The Design of Civil Government, and the Extent of its Authority," from a brother of high intellectual and moral worth, in Ohio, whose praise is in all the churches of Northern Ohio for good sense, sound doctrine and exemplary Christian character. Our much esteemed brother Isaac Errett, its author, has, with a manly independence, and with all decorum, animadverted on some of my positions, for which he deserves my admiration and respect) as well as that of all his readers. I always cheerfully extend to all men, and especially to all my brethren, the liberty which I claim to myself, of receiving nothing on mere human authority, but of trying all things by the only proper test--the Bible, properly interpreted. I have neither time nor space, at present, to deliver myself fully on the passages of Sacred Scripture, to my interpretation of which he has objected. I will, therefore, on the present occasion, note only one, or at least two passages
THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 457
of this sort. But that our readers may have the premises on which I am about to remark, fully before them, I will give an extract, so full as to satisfy them that I neither mistake nor misrepresent his positions.
Speaking of the demoralizing influences of slavery, the preacher says:
"But if later testimonies are desired, they can be furnished. Here is one from a source certainly entitled to consideration. It is from Rev. Moses Stuart's recent pamphlet, entitled Conscience and the Constitution'--a work which certainly redeems his character from any suspicion of unjust prejudice against southern institutions, or any sympathy with abolitionists. He speaks as a friend of the south. Yet he is compelled to say of the slave population, that the young females, ignorant and without a sense of delicacy implanted and cherished, are at the mercy of their masters, young and old. And although the accusation of universal pollution among the masters of the south is far from being true, yet one cannot walk the streets of any large town or city, in a slaveholding State, without seeing such a multitude of mulattos, mestizos, quadroons, etc., as proves, beyond all possible question, a widely diffused profligacy and licentiousness. It is in vain to deny it. There they are, stamped by heaven with the indelible marks of their polluted origin--a spectacle which might make the sun to blush as he looks down upon them.'
"Talk not of obeying a law of God in returning to the midst of St° C1' abominations the wretched fugitive--to be, for aught we can tell, the helpless victim of unbridled passion!
"But it is said this is not a law of Christianity. I ask, is Christianity lees merciful to the oppressed than Judaism? Is He, of whom it is beautifully said, He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor:" is He less compassionate to the helpless victim of oppression than Moses was? Is it darker a:, noonday than at midnight? Let us be careful what we say.
"But listen to the following: But some Christians are conscientious about giving up a servant--a runaway servant to his master. So was not Paul, when he sent the runaway, Onesimus, home to his master. So was not an angel of God, when he commanded the runaway Hagar to go home to her mistress.' In this our day of high-wrought sentimentalism, we have some very romantic and imaginative philanthropists.'*
"Now, what would you think of this reasoning? Some Christians are very conscientious about having more wives than one. So was not Abram, who took Hagar to wife in addition to Sarai. So was not an angel of God, who commanded Abram’s runaway wife to return to her place again. Verily, in this our day of high-wrought sentimentalism, we have some very romantic and imaginative moralists!"
The above passage appears under the head of the unrighteousness of the Fugitive Slave Law. "I hold it," says the author, "to be unrighteous to deliver up a fugitive from oppression." And such, with him, is every runaway. This is assumed throughout as an axiomatic truth. If it be not axiomatic, then it follows that all the reasonings on the premises are false.
But is it true in fact, that every slave that runs away from his
*Mill. Harbinger, Jan. 1851, p. 51.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 39
458 THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
master is a fugitive from oppression? It is assumed at the South rather as a conceded point, that of runaways, a majority are of those that have been the best used, and who have had the most humane masters. I will not express an opinion on this subject, farther than to say, that I presume there are some of each sort. If so, ought all to be treated as of one class! Or is a servant running away an unequivocal proof that he has good cause for it Now, a Christian man, in aiding and abetting a runaway slave, may be sinning against a good Christian master, in aid of a robber, a felon, who has outraged every law of justice and humanity. Many such instances have occurred. And can an enlightened Christian man, of tender conscience, take part with any runaway, merely because he is a runaway, and upon his own showing of his case, and pay a proper respect to the law of Christ? If he can, I envy not his perspicacity of mind, nor his attainments in Christian knowledge. It is right he should have a trial, and a trial before a lawful tribunal. And such are our tribunals, North and South. But having neither time nor inclination to argue out this view of the matter--upon which we have not only arguments, but documents of grave import--I proceed merely to note allusions to my remarks on the cases of Hagar and On esi mus.
And first of Hagar. I observed that an angel had commanded Hagar to return to her mistress. Bro. Errett interprets this passage as a command to Hagar to return to her husband! She is, with him, a runaway ' secondary wife." His words are: "Now, the simple facts are these. Hagar was Abram's wife--his secondary wife--for they practised polygamy in those days. Sarai, the principal wife, in a fit of jealousy, afflicted Hagar, the inferior wife, and drove her away. The angel of the Lord paid Hagar a visit of mercy, and advised her to return to her place in the family again, especially in view of the fact that her offspring was to become a great nation; and it was proper that Abram's child should be reared in Abram's house."
This is a very convenient way of deciding the case! Give me this license, and I can make a pope out of Peter, and a priest out of Paul. I doubt not either the sincerity or the candor of our most estimable brother. It is the force of circumstances, which few men can either calculate or overcome. All our English abolition commentators agree with me in the construction I have given of this passage. Still, that is no proof that I am right.
True, Bro. Errett prefers to construe the precept of the angel in the words following, to wit: "he advised her to return to her place in the family again." But he has first affirmed that she was a
THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 459
secondary wife," and that relation he very courteously calls "her place in the family." Paul, however, not quite so complaisant, in commenting on her place in the family, calls her the "bondwoman." "Cast out of her place in the family, the bondwoman and her son." However reluctantly, in this case, we must, then, prefer the title bondwoman" to that of "secondary wife," merely out of respect to Paul. The Bible presents Hagar as a bondservant, before she became a mother, and calls her a bondservant when her son Ishmael was nineteen years old--Anno Mundi, 2108.
But the angel gave her two precepts. He not only commanded her to return to her mistress, not to her husband, but told her how she must behave on her return. His command was, "Submit thyself to her hand." Such was her place in the family of Abraham. I am not afraid of the consequences that follow from the legitimate interpretation of Holy Scripture. Nor will I give up a single filing of divine truth, out of respect to the reason or folly of saint or infidel. I stand up for the Bible, against sectarians and infidels, and stake my fortunes forever on its sound interpretation.
Our ingenious and generous brother makes a beautiful dialogue out of this case. Imagination could make two on the other side. But I forbear.
The case of Onesimus is disposed of with equal ingenuity. He was a runaway slave, in Grecian and Roman law. But in Rome he fell in with Paul, and was converted. Paul gave him sound evangelical instruction, though very unfashionable at the meridian of Warren, Ohio. Of this case says our brother: "If Paul were here to do with Onesimus what he did in Rome, he would be liable to a fine of one thousand dollars and six months' imprisonment; and then, perhaps, he might know something of a romantic and imaginative philanthropy." Well, this is ingenious pleasantry in a grave case.
The case, as reported by Paul, is: I, Paul, am now in jail in Rome. Onesimus, Bro. Philemon, a slave of yours, has kindly waited upon me. I have been the means of converting him to Christ. I have learned from him that he ran away from your service. I have advised him to return to you as a brother and a slave, valuable to you as both. Receive him as such with all kindness; and if he have taken from you any of your property, charge me with it--I give you my bond.' Did Paul harbor Philemon? Did Paul advise him to run away into another state or empire? Did he give him money, and advise him to seek refuge from his master in Canada! It seems that the lawyers and judges At Warren would, in such a case, Bro. Errett thinks, have fined Paul in one thousand dollars and
460 THE DISCIPLE.
Imprisoned him for six months. From such counsellors and judges I desire to keep myself at a respectable distance. He knows them much better than I.
There are sundry other items in this very beautiful sermon, on which I might animadvert with some advantage, but I only note those that bear on my principles of Biblical interpretation. I am aware how my remarks may be perverted. Neither slavery, as practised at the South, nor abolitionism, as understood and practised at the North, will ever find an advocate in me. I stand up for God, the Bible, and man; and when they call upon me to speak or write, palsied be my tongue, and let my right hand forget its cunning, if keep silence, and do not obey the calls of Divinity and Humanity. A. C
THE DISCIPLE:
A Monthly Publication, devoted to the advocacy of Primitive Christianity
SUCH is the title of a new monthly visitor, emanating from Somerset, Penn.'a, and edited by Bro. Loos, a graduate of Bethany College. We quote its preface, from which we may prognosticate its character. Bro. Loos preaches in German and English, and in French, as he has got a mother tongue, a father tongue, and a brother tongue, besides a knowledge of the dead tongues, and is, therefore, well qualified to speak; and that he has the faculty to write, will appear from the preface to this new work, which we quote entire. I have thought that our Bro. Baxter, the poet. who has written so many beautiful pieces, and Bro. Loos, ought to be associated in some one grand weekly paper, that would circulate over all the Union. It would require two such young men as they to devote their whole time and talents to such a paper, as would be useful and respectable to the whole brotherhood. Almost all our periodicals are sinecures. They are, in a literary point of view, and in their general appearance, with one or two exceptions, not creditable to the age nor to the cause of Reformation. When will our brethren learn this lesson! But first, we should ask, who dare teach it!! A C.
THE Reformation we are pleading, is a reformation not of one idea, but one that shall be thorough and complete. We are calling for an entire restoration of Primitive Christianity, as well as an abandonment of every thing unscriptural and traditionary. The magnitude of the work of such a reform, and the self-sacrifices necessarily attending it, must be apparent to every one who understands the mind and heart of man, and 1k ho has well read and studied the history of the church. He that raises the voice of reform,
THE DISCIPLE. 461
especially if that reform is to be radical, at once arrays against himself, in hosts, the advocates of that which is old and venerable, popular and profitable. These will bring to bear against him every influence at their command; and being in the preoccupancy of the ground, they will command more resources, and carry on the contest under much more favorable auspices, than he who pleads for change and reform. His work requires constant vigilance, increasing labor, and untiring perseverance, if he would rightly fulfil his mission and insure success to his cause. This is especially true of an effort at a religious reformation. This the consenting voice of history, and those who have been for years, in our own land, engaged, under God, in the restoration of Primitive Christianity, have fully realized it in their experience.
While error is in the world and predominates, truth can only be evolved by men banishing from their hearts the blinding spirit of bigotry, and instituting a full and free inquiry in all matters of faith and conscience. This is what the real friends of truth have ever been pleading for, and ever shall plead for. They will ever demand it as the right and perogative of truth. But this is precisely opposed, at all points, to the spirit of sectarianism and of error. This spirit has always been intolerant, and an enemy to free inquiry and free thought. Sectarianism, throwing itself back upon the popularity or antiquity of its name, spurns indignantly every attempt to call into question its claims, and to pass them through the ordeal of investigation. In by-gone days, he who dared the hazardous task of assailing the sacrosanct notions and doctrines of established churches, Catholic and Protestant, was rewarded with the dungeon, the block, and the stake. Those palmy days of spiritual despotism, when no man was allowed to inquire for the reason of things, have, to the great grief of thousands, departed, and the physical arm of persecution has, to a great degree, been broken. Nevertheless, that same spirit of intolerance is still displayed by sectarian leaders against the reformer. Denunciation, misrepresentation, and all the common fallacies of covert and established error, are played off against him, to inspire the people with secret apprehension and a dread of his doctrines and motives. All the ad captandum arguments are brought into free use; and strong must be the faith and spiritual courage of the man, who, amid all this opposition, can with unfaltering firmness pursue the work to which God has called him. We bless God that, in his providence, he has raised up such men. They have, with a noble intrepedity and confidence in the truth and righteousness of their cause, met all the opposition which a blind sectarian zeal could bring to bear against them, and God has greatly blessed their labors. There are many thousands now in our land, who are pleading for a restoration of Primitive Christianity, and an emancipation of the church from all that is human. But yet the odds in numbers, influence and means, &c., are against us. Where there are a hundred in the field, building up their respective sects and parties, scarcely one is abroad advocating the pure, unadulterated gospel of salvation, unmixed with the doctrines and commandments of men. But not only is Christendom filled with myriads of public teachers, pleading and advocating the interests, doctrines, and opin-
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 39*
462 THE DISCIPLE.
ions or parties, all building up their various Babels, with the tongue; but the press, too, is every where made subservient to the same interests, and is teeming with its legions of books and publications, quarterlies, monthlies and weeklies, all pledged to support the views of a party--all bound by the chains of sectarianism. Free discussion, so essential to the eliciting of truth, and so fatal to error, is banished from the religious party press. All must speak the shibboleths of the sect, all must banish the idea of independence of thought and of speech, and must act, as they profess to act, as mere passive organs., having no mind nor will of their own. Woe to him who dares to break these ignominious chains!
Every one who thinks, is aware of the vast power exercised over the minds of the listening and reading millions, by this co-operative machinery. And is it not just, is it not our sacred duty, to make use of the same potent means to advocate with efficiency the cause of truth and righteousness, and to seek the triumph of a pure primitive Christianity over tradition--over the commandments of men--which have made of none effect the law of God? We believe that among all the means of human agency that God in his providence has called forth to advance the triumph of truth over error, of light over darkness, none is endued with, and has exercised so potent an influence over the destinies of humanity, as the printing press. Had Luther arisen two centuries earlier, or had movable types been invented two centuries later, the Reformation which marched with such unparalleled progress to conquest and victory, would not have advanced a furlong, where it advanced a league. If might have beer: crushed, as were many similar efforts before. Truth, in itself, is mighty and will never die; though "crushed to earth, it will rise again." But where every thing is leagued against it--where absolute power, political and ecclesiastical, like a two-edged sword, is ever hanging over its head, and spiritual darkness, dense as midnight, is all around it, and the passions and prejudices of the multitude are all aroused against it, its efforts will necessarily be feeble and at long intervals, and its progress slow. Such was the case through the long night of mediaeval darkness. Few and faint were the glimmerings of light here and there, serving only to make the darkness more visible, till God said, as erst at creation’s dawn, "Let there be light, and light there was." A new agent was called into being, that, like light, was clothed with a kind of omnipresence and omnipotence, and was, with a subtle potency, to reanimate into a new and greater life the moral world. As this agent came forth at the voice of God, Truth rejoiced--Truth in science and religion-- as she beheld this new champion armed with power invulnerable and invincible, that would fight her battles, and lead her armies to victory. The empire of darkness felt a throe through all its dominions, when the printing press cast off The first sheets of its impression. Strange that the first use of this wonderful invention should have been the printing of the Bible t Blessed omen! indicative of God's design in guiding the minds of Guttenberg and Faust to this great idea. "Men may act but God leads them," said Bossuet, and it was a great thought. The hand of God was in this work, and let us not mistake the true interpretation of this omen. It is to teach
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us that as the Bible, the first production of the press, is the emblem and embodiment of all truth and light, so we are to accept and use this mighty instrument, as the gift of God, for the advancement of truth and light in the earth. This is, therefore, our plea for engaging in the work of advocating a pure primitive Christianity by the press. We have no better reason to offer. With any reasonable man, we need not argue the necessity and propriety of such an undertaking. We rejoice to know that others here and there, are engaged in the same noble work of advocating the claims of the primitive gospel, and of the emancipation of our fellow-men from the ignominious bondage of a corrupt, traditionized, humanized Christianity. It is our wish, humbly and faithfully, to cooperate with all these in this noblest enterprize of human ambition, for thereby, more than in any other way, can we, under the guidance of God, advance His glory and honor and the best interests of humanity. We know and feel our own weakness, but to Him we look for wisdom and strength, and we humbly pray God to guide and direct us in our work, and to accept of our feeble endeavors to serve Him in advancing the cause of His truth in the earth. C. L. L.
DECLARING THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
BY ALEXANDER CARSON, LL. D.
"Diminish not a word."--Jeremiah xxvi. 2
DIMINISH not a word! Why should a message of the allwise Jehovah need such a caution? Shall a servant among men dread the consequences of tampering with the contents of a message to the friends or the enemies of his master; and shall the servant of the King of kings, compromise his duty, through fear, affection, or interest? The caution supposes then the temptation, and experience proves that the servants of the Lord are under the strongest solicitations of an evil heart to be unfaithful in declaring without reserve the will of their Lord. When the truth delivered is of a disagreeable nature, it exposes the messenger to the same hatred, as it he himself was the author of the threatened calamity. The messenger of good news is received with favor, but the messenger of evil news is an object of horror.
But the messengers of the Lord are not only exposed to the same displeasure with other messengers of evil, they are charged as malignant persons, who delight in the evil which they denounce as from the Lord. Men do not generally, in words, attack the Almighty, when they are displeased with his message, nor directly bring him to account for what is offensive-; they bring the charge directly against those who deliver the message, or who urge them to consider it in all the relations of the children of Israel in the wilderness. They murmured against Moses, and instead of laying the blame of their calamities expressly on Jehovah, they brought them directly in
464 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
charge against his servant Moses. In this way they gratify their resentment against the evil which they dread or suffer, and hide from themselves their awful guilt in calumniating the Almighty.
The things denounced by Jeremiah were exceedingly disagreeable to the people of Judah. Though mercy was always held out to repentance, yet, as they were wedded to their idolatry and sins, they despised the divine favor, or the way of a return to his service. They must have mercy, and have their own way. When the utter destitution of their temple and cities were presented, they were maddened with rage, and the hatred which they in reality indulged against God, was vented against the deliverers of his message. To encourage the prophet not to falter, Jehovah, here, in the most authoritative tone, charges him to diminish not a word. Neither must a tittle of the threatening be concealed, nor the language in the least softened.
The misconduct against which Jeremiah is here warned, is frequently exemplified in every age, in delivering the message of the Lord from the scriptures.
How many of the professed servants of the Lord, tamper with his message to the children of men! How many of them conceal a part of that which they know to be the will of God, in order to avoid giving offence.
This craft is by some openly avowed and gloried in, as an instance of holy guile, which is supposed to be a great accomplishment in a pastor. Have we never heard of ministers of the gospel, who boast that they dexterously avoid the doctrines of scripture that relate to the sovereignty of God, and the deep things of the divine counsels! How awfully wicked is the presumption! They condemn the Wisdom of God as folly, and profess to have discovered a way of dealing with man more likely to be useful. The truths of the divine word are not to be taken out of their proper place. By pressing them in a view in which they are not exhibited in the divine word itself, evil may be done. But to suppose that any thing is revealed in scripture which it is wise to conceal, is an evidence of atheistical profaneness.
No part of the will of the Lord is to be concealed or testified for any purpose, on any account whatever. "Diminish not a word." Is the Lord more jealous with respect to the message to be delivered by Jeremiah, than he is with respect to the truths of the New Testament? Yet in how many moulds has the gospel been put, in order to form it in a manner suitable to the pride of man, so as to make it less offensive to the carnal mind? How many modifications have been given to the doctrines of faith, justification, &c., in order to reconcile the word of God, and the wisdom of man! How many ponderous volumes of commentary have been written, in order to effect what will never be effected--a cordial onion between the natural lusts of man, and the statements of the book of God! All the contortions of scripture language, may be traced to the same source. The great bulk of those who are engaged in explaining the Bible, employ their efforts in endeavoring to destroy the features of divine wisdom, and make the book of God a favorite with the world.
The ordinances of the house of God, have experienced the same
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treatment. By the institutions of the great apostacy, all the ordinances of the New Testament have been either laid aside or modified by human wisdom. There is not one portion of the divine inspiration which has not been tampered with. Arid the Lord's people, when they have been allowed to return from Babylon, have in many instances, even thought it prudent to bend to circumstances, and by a holy guile, to persevere in those alterations and modifications which were introduced by the man of sin. How few churches dare take the New Testament in their hand, and go through it with this fearful caution before their eyes! Have not almost all of them, either added or diminished, or modified? While we are bound to rejoice in all who hold the truth, and should receive them in all things in Which we are agreed, we should not cease, boldly and loudly, and constantly, to make this charge "tingle in the ears" of all our brethren, "Diminish not a word."
PITTSBURGH INFIRMARY.
First Annual Report of the Pittsburgh Infirmary, under the care of the institution of Protestant Deaconesses. Presented to the Board of Visitors, January 13, 1851.
BY the act of Assembly incorporating the Pittsburgh Infirmary, the undersigned were constituted a "Board of Visitors," and charged with the duty of meeting annually, on the second Monday in January, "to examine and report for publication the condition and management of the institution."
In obedience to the injunction of the legislative authority, the undersigned met at the Infirmary buildings on the second Monday of the present month, and organized by the election of Thos. M. Howe, as President of the Board, and the appointment of C. Zug, as Secretary.
The Director of the Infirmary, the-Rev. W. A. Passavant, submitted a report of the condition of the institution, which was ordered to be published. For this most interesting chapter upon the inception, progress, and future prospects of usefulness of this infant institution, as well as for the interesting report of the attending physicians, the Board of Visitors would bespeak the earnest consideration of their fellow-citizens. A statement of the receipts and expenditures was also submitted, and having been carefully examined by a committee of the Board, and found to be correct, was likewise ordered to be published.
The buildings, and all the departments and wards thereof, were thoroughly inspected by the several members of the Board, and found to be in excellent condition. The cleanliness order and decorum which pervaded the entire establishment, and the administration of its affairs, was equally a matter of surprise and gratulation. From the untiring zeal of the worthy Director, we had been led to
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expect much, but our expectations were more than realized. Instead of a hospital where medicines were doled out, and the common dictates of humanity heeded as a matter of duty, we found an asylum for the sick and disabled, and a home for the invalid stranger, where the kindest sympathies of our nature were clustered, as around the domestic hearth.
The plan upon which this institution is organized and conducted, for the details of which we refer to the accompanying report of the Director, commends it most strongly to the liberal patronage of a Christian public. Its internal economy, and particularly the care of the sick, is entrusted to females, previously qualified by a course of education and training for this especial object. Here there is no distinction of creed, or color, or country. The pennyless stranger receives as cordial a welcome, and his wants are as carefully provided for, as the possessor of thousands. There are no rules which exclude from this sanctuary the unfortunate victim of the most pestilential disease. While the doors of other institutions are closed against him at the time of his extremest need, here he gains ready admittance and the tenderest care. In the self-devoted nurses of this institution, he finds a substitute for mothers and sisters. It is, indeed, a noble charity, and as such, deserves to be most abundantly cherished and sustained.
No adequate provision of a permanent character has yet been made for its support. From the voluntary offerings of our benevolent citizens, the means have hitherto been provided for defraying its current expenses; and from the same source has also been raised the necessary funds for meeting the several installments as they have become due upon the purchase of the Infirmary buildings. Other payments have yet to be made, amounting in the whole to $3,000; of this, $1,000 falls due on the first of April next. The treasury is empty, and the Director, in addition to his other self- sacrificing efforts to carry successfully forward this noble enterprise, is now, as he repeatedly has been before, in advance of money from his own slender revenue, to buy bread and other necessaries for the dependent inmates of the institution. A small sum contributed annually, at stated periods, by one or two hundred of our fellow- citizens, would contribute greatly towards relieving the Director from many and perplexing difficulties, which he has hitherto been compelled to encounter; and to this end a committee has been appointed, whose appeal we hope and believe will be most cheerfully responded to.
And may we not also indulge in the hope, that not a few of our wealthy citizens, who owe much to the bounty of a kind Providence, will regard this institution with especial favor; and when they have gained the common heritage of all, will have left behind them some memorial that the PITTSBURGH INFIRMARY has not been forgotten. THOS. NI. HOVE, GEO. W. JACKSON, WM. LARIMER, Jr., J. H. SHOENBERGER; WM. HOLMES, JAMES PARK, GEO. WEYMAN, ALLEN KRAMER, GEO. W. BLACK, HENRY GRAFF, ROBT. BEER, C. ZUG, J. K. MOREHEAD--Board of Visitors.
[This is a great and good work, originated by one of the most
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valuable and benevolent ministers of the Lutheran Church, and worthy of the efficient smiles and efforts of the humane and benevolent of all Protestant communities. It disarms the Romanists of much of their sickly and selfish schemes of sectarian aggrandizement, in their boasted charities to the poor and the wretched Protestants, forsaken by themselves in times and circumstances of great calamity and distress. Poor Protestants preferred to poor Romanists, by Romanists themselves, is good sectarian policy, and avails much to their efforts at proselyting. Our Bro. Passavant merits the encouragement and co-operation of all Protestants in this great enterprise, so charitably commenced and so indefatigably and successfully prosecuted. We may notice its scheme and operations at a more convenient season--A. C.]
DANCING.
CARLISLE, Ky., June 9, 1851.
Brother Campbell: It is now some seven years since I felt myself called upon, in view of the increasing disposition to frivolity in our churches, to prepare and publish a discourse against dancing, as an amusement. But however that and kindred efforts from the pulpit and press may have checked the evil, most certainly it is still on the increase in this section of Kentucky. For years past, many persons of wealth and influence have been advocating dancing as a social amusement--as innocent, elegant, healthful, and every way improving. But they have been much hindered, hitherto, by the old-fashioned sort of Christians, who have not so learned Christ; and the preachers, too, have all been against them.
But my brother, (would you believe it?) a popular preacher has come out in two numbers, in the "E. Reformer," in favor of instrumental music in churches, and social dancing in our families! Hear him: "That the fashionable dancing of the day should be denounced by the churches, is not strange; but social dancing affords a very healthful and elegant exercise for the young, which, in itself, is entertaining, improving, and inoffensive." E. R. for June 1, 1851.
"Watchman, what of the night?" I call upon you, my dear Bro. Campbell, in the name of God--in the name of the crucified one-- in the name of poor, bleeding Zion; upon Bros. Richardson, Pendleton, and every editor and every scribe who can lift a pen, and every orator in this Reformation, to speak out in a voice of thunder,
468 DANCING.
and say, O say! is this the goal to with you have been driving the car of this Reformation! This the grand ultimatum of all your toils and sacrifices; of this terrible war you have waged against creeds and confessions, disciplines and covenants, sects and sectarianism; against mystery, Babylon, and all her offspring? O, say! has the object of this warfare, for more than a quarter of a century, been to introduce instrumental music into our meeting-houses, and the elegant, healthful, inoffensive, improving practice of social dancing into our families! "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph!" How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! The ways of Zion mourn; she weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. All her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. For these things I weep--mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me. Astonishment hath taken mold on me! For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt. O, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Is there no balm in Gilead! Is there no physician there!
Bro. Campbell, more than a year ago I wrote to you in reference to some of these matters, and urged you strongly to present your views concerning them. You promised me you would; but a press of business, I suppose, has prevented. I do think the whole weight of your influence is called for upon this question. Are we to have instrumental music in our churches? Are Christian parents to be allowed to send their children to dancing school, and have social dancing in their houses? Is the church to tolerate and encourage all this Circus going, card playing, as an amusement--theatre going, and all kindred practices? Give us, my dear brother, your best thoughts on this subject.
God bless you, and make you yet a blessing, is the ardent prayer of yours, as ever, JOHN ROGERS.
[The subject laid before us in the above communication from its excellent author, merits our profound consideration and that of all the brethren. We will attend to it in our next.--A. C.]
A desire to say things which no one ever said, makes some people say things which no body ought to say.
BETHANY COLLEGE. 469
TENTH COMMENCEMENT OF BETHANY COLLEGE.
THE Fourth of July last, closed the tenth session of Bethany College. The number of students in attendance during the session was 141. Ireland, and fifteen States of the Union, were this year represented in Bethany College. The examinations, both daily and final, were strict and severe, and gave results satisfactory to the Faculty. We have space to publish only the graduates in the five schools, into which the regular course of collegiate instruction is distributed.
GRADUATES IN THE SCHOOL OF ANCIENT LANGUAGES.
Latin Class.
Amaziah Hull,
James F. Lauck,
John J. Louthan,
Geo. Plattenburg,
John C. New,
E. T. Bush,
J. C. Palmer,
J. W. Ewing,
B. D. P. Standeford,
George Lemmon,
N. W. Miller,
Kirkland Baxter,
A. G. Thomas.
First honor was assigned to James F. Lauck; second to John J. Louthan
Greek Class.--1st degree of merit.
Amaziah Hull,
James F. Lauck,
James M. Ewing,
T. G. Earle.
2d degree of merit.
George Lemmon,
N. W. Miller,
S. W. Coleman,
R. H. Whitaker,
K. Baxter,
E. T. Bush,
J. W. Weems,
A. G. Thomas,
R. Faurot.
GRADUATES IN THE SCHOOL OF MATHEMATICS.
Hanson Boring,
R. W. Whitaker,
E. T. Bush,
A. Campbell, Jr.,
J. H. Cook,
E. Crews,
J. T. T. Handley,
W. P. Hudgens,
Geo. Lemmon,
A. G. Thomas,
J. C. Palmer,
W. E. Yager,
J. R. Brinker,
J. W. Clanton,
Randal Faurot,
T. M. Redd,
T. J. Snyder.
First honor was assigned to E. T. Bush. Among the under graduates, to Messrs. Hanson Boring, J. C. Palmer, and W. T. Snyder.
GRADUATES IN THE SCHOOL OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
Kirkland Baxter,
E. T. Bush,
A. Campbell, Jr.,
Augustus Campbell,
J. W. Coleman,
J. H. Cook,
J. R. Earle,
J. M. Ewing,
B. Y. Gross,
J. F. Lauck,
George Lemmon,
J. J. Louthan,
Geo. Plattenburg,
Jno. F. Rowe,
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 40
470 BETHANY COLLEGE.
W. T. Snyder,
T. J. Snyder,
B. D. P. Standeford,
A. G. Thomas,
J. W. Weems,
R. H. Whitaker,
W. E. Yager.
The foregoing is a list of all who graduated in Natural Philosophy. Among these, the first honor was given to J. F. Lauck, of Va.; and the second to B. D. P. Standeford, of Ky. Among those who have not completed the college course, the first honor was divided between J. R. and S. G. Earle; and the second awarded to Augustus Campbell.
GRADUATES IN THE SCHOOL OF CHEMISTRY.
Kirkland Baxter,
Moses Bennett,
James R. Brinker,
Augustus Campbell,
Edgar Crews,
J. R. Earle,
J. M. Ewing,
B. J. Franklin,
George Lemmon,
John J. Louthan,
A. E. Myers,
Thomas M. Redd,
E. Regal,
John F. Rowe,
Wm. B. Smith,
T. J. Snyder,
W. T. Snyder,
B. D. P. Standeford,
A. G. Thomas.
First honor among the under graduates awarded to B. J. Franklin; the second to E. Regal.
GRADUATES IN THE SCHOOL OF MORAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE
Amaziah Hull,
James F. Lauck,
George Plattenburg,
B. D. P. Standeford,
A. G. Thomas,
E. T. Bush,
J. M. Ewing,
A. E. Myers,
T. M. Redd,
Edgar Crews,
Kirkland Baxter,
John J. Louthan,
George Lemmon.
SACRED HISTORY.--In a class of one hundred students during the session, the first honor was assigned to Messers. Plattenburg, Hull, Lauck, Ewing, Miller, Faurot, Bush, Redd; the second honor to Messrs. Regal, Myers, Rowe, Thomas, Risley, Crews, New, Standeford, Waller, Moffit.
PREMIUMS.-1st. To Mr. B. J. Franklin, for general attention to all his studies, not having been absent during a recitation in any department during the year. 2d. To Mr. Plattenburg, for best demonstration of the Jewish Tabernacle and its meaning. 3d. To Mr. Hull, for the next best demonstration of the Jewish institution, in its tabernacle and its ordinances.
Programme of the Order of Exercises at the Tenth Annual Commencement
of Bethany College, July 4, 1851
After prayer and appropriate music, the following addresses, interspersed with music from the band, were delivered during the day:
The True Dignity of the Scholar--An Oration by EDWIN REGAL, of Ohio, representative of the American Literary Institute.
Germanic Liberty: its Characterizing Spirit and Results--An Oration by E. S. TENER, of Ireland, representative of the Neotrophian Society.
Greek Salutatory, by J. F. LAUCK, of Virginia.
Latin Salutatory, by A. HULL, of Pennsylvania.
BETHANY COLLEGE. 471
The Peerage of Toil--An Oration by GEORGE. PLATTENBURG, of Virginia, a representative of the Graduating Class.
Poetry: its Spirit and Influence--An Oration by B. D. P. STANDEFORD, of Kentucky, a representative of the Graduating Class.
Report of Examinations.
Valedictory Oration, by JOHN J. LOUTHAN, of Missouri.
Conferring of Degrees.
Baccalaureate Address, by the PRESIDENT.
We cannot, at present, better express our conceptions of the developments of commencement day, and of our feelings on the occasion, than in the statments made on a former occasion.
The performance of the students selected for the occasion, rendered the 4th of July a day of high intellectual and moral enjoyment to the large assembly convened to witness their proceedings. The weather was fine, and the concourse great. On no former occasion have we had more reason to be gratified at the success of our long and arduous labors. The deep attention and interest which pervaded the auditory, was the most expressive evidence of their high entertainment. The addresses were well conceived, well written, and well delivered. The sentiments advanced in them were, in general, such as would do no discredit to the statesman, the philosopher, or the christian. Dictated by high moral and intellectual culture, well matured, and uttered in a chaste and classic style, these addresses produced au impression on all minds, honorable to their authors, and most gratifying to the Faculty, whose richest reward is to witness such fruits of their long and patient toils in developing the minds of the youth committed to their charge.
We have much reason to take courage and renew our energies in the great and enduring work of education. "Success," it has been said, "is the surest test of merit;" and we may reverse the adage, and say that merit must and will succeed. This has been the abiding confidence of the Faculty of Bethany College, and, therefore, despite of many most untoward circumstances, we have persevered in our labor, and we feel assured, that the time is not far distant when we shall be more than rewarded for the denials and disappointments of the past.
Our brethren are beginning to see the bearings of Bethany College upon the fortunes and progress of the Reformation. Her graduates, who have entered the evangelical field, are proving themselves worthy of their Alma Mater, and, more and better, worthy of their high and responsible position before God and man. The intelligent and conscientious portion of the brotherhood are beginning, in a very general degree, to see and acknowledge that our College must be sustained, and the number of her students must be increased. Education is the great handmaid of religion, and we want educated mind to train the vineyard of the Lord; mind educated, not only intellectually, but morally, religiously; educated not only in the subtleties of metaphysics, and the learning of the dead, but in the pure ethics of inspiration, and the learning of that word which liveth and abideth forever.
472 BETHANY COLLEGE.
These, Bethany College has proved herself able to furnish, if the brethren will but support her in the work. We still believe they will do so; and though nine years have rolled by and she is yet unendowed, the prospects are beginning to be fairer, and we trust that, before another year shall have elapsed, she will be on a better footing to secure for herself a permanent and lasting influence for good.
Since last year, subscriptions nearly equal to the endowment of the Chair of Sacred History, have been obtained; of-Which a portion has been collected, and the remainder bearing interest. The State of Kentucky has taken this Chair. Indiana has proposed to endow the Chair of Ancient Languages. Anti it is presumed that the Missouri brotherhood will endow the Chair of Natural Philosophy. But of these matters we shall speak more in detail in our next number. We would now state to the brethren in Kentucky, that we will expect to receive the entire amount of their subscriptions at the annual convention in Lexington, in November next, at which we hope to be present. Also, at the same time, we will receive the amounts due on unconditional scholarship bonds, given by that State for reducing the price of tuition. We expect, also, the week before, to be present at the Cincinnati Conventions; and the week following at the Indiana Convention, in Indianapolis. Those desirous of seeing us on these occasions, will please attend these very interesting meetings.
The pecuniary condition of Bethany College, with the Treasurer's report, will, We hope, appear in our next monthly. Our brother editors will please copy these intimations.
PRIMARY DEPARTMENT.
This department has been, during the last session, under the personal instruction of Professor Ross, assisted by Mr. Regal, of Ohio. At both the intermediate and final examinations, it exhibited a very high degree of accuracy and proficiency in every department of study.
In reading, writing, arithmetic and English grammar, Masters C. Turner, D. Robinson, W. Ross, R. L. Jones, G. Tafiafero, distinguished themselves.
In Algebra, first class, S. Steele, J. Perkins, E. Guess, W. Jones; second class, F. Vaughn, G. Hailman, L. H. Lane. In Latin, first class, S. Steele. J. Perkins; second class, Wm. D. Storke, L. H. Lane; third class, G. Ross, G. Hailman, F. Vaughn. In the Bible Class, (book of Genesis,) first honor was assigned to G. Hailman, of Pittsburgh; second honor to R. F. Turner and G. Ross, of Virginia, and J. Perkins, of Ohio.
In oratory and original compositions, the first honor was assigned to Masters Storke, of Richmond, Va., and G. Hallman, of Pittsburgh, Pa. A. C
CHRISTIAN BAPTISM--POSTAGE LAW. 473
CHRISTIAN BAPTISM:
WITH ITS ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENTS,
Is now in the hands of our Philadelphia stereotypers and printers. We sent on, today, its last page, save a general index. We are getting it up in good Eastern style--on superior paper, and in neat binding. I presume the volume will contain not less than 450 pages; nearly equal to the contents of 450 pages of the Harbinger. It will be sold to subscribers at One Dollar. Those sending on orders, with cash or drafts, will be supplied as soon as the book can be issued in Philadelphia, at liberal discounts.
This is intended to be, and, in all human probability, will be, our last offering on the subject of Christian Baptism, with its antecedents and consequents, and its bearing on the whole Christian institution. It is a condensation of much that we have written, and spoken, and read, and pondered upon, for forty years. He that candidly and impartially reads and weighs its contents, if not satisfied, we will only say to him as a prophet of old once said to a very distinguished man, a prop to a King in his devotions, "Go in peace!" We know too much of human nature to imagine that any book, human or divine, can convince every one. But after a certain effort has been made, all beyond is just as useless to cavilers, as a work of Roman supererogation is to a soul in purgatory. It will never bring him out. A. C.
NEW POSTAGE LAW.
HAVING, under the new postage law, been divested of the franking privilege, which I have enjoyed under the former law for almost a quarter of a century, as a remuneration, in part, of my services as postmaster, which has been mutually an accommodation to my subscribers as well as to myself, it becomes necessary that all our readers and correspondents should be informed of this fact, that they may prepay their letters; which, to them, will be a very small matter, but to me a very serious one, receiving, as I do, from fifty to one hundred letters per week. I do not hold myself indebted to the Postmaster General or the Government, for any favor bestowed on me since the days of the honorable Postmaster General, John
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 40*
474 FEMALE ORPHAN SCHOOL.
M'Lean. I have created to the department as much revenue as would now justify the Government to continue with me the franking privilege through life, provided it was compatible with the law. From absolute nonentity, during our editorial career, we have created a minimum revenue to the Government of at least seventy-five thousand dollars. True, they have had to carry, for myself and readers, at least one hundred and fifty thousand volumes during that time; but, as the saying is, they would have been obliged to have tone the same rounds without them.
It will be obligatory on all our subscribers, except agents who send us money, as honorable men--and they are all, it is presumed, honorable men--to prepay their three cents per letter, rather than oblige us to pay five cents on their business. When a number miscarries, it is enough to furnish the number, without having to pay five cents for the request to send it. The reduction of postage to 12 cents a year on the Harbinger, for all our subscribers within 500 miles of us, and proportionably in favor of those at a greater distance, will, no doubt, be favorable to all who desire knowledge. In our new conditions for the next year, we will communicate very freely with our subscribers, and will make liberal proposals for the increase of our readers. We desire to obtain ten thousand new readers; and that we could do, without any great sacrifice to any one, and with great interest to the present and next generation. But, of these matters, next month. A. C.
KENTUCKY FEMALE ORPHAN SCHOOL.
THE Trustees of this institution are happy in announcing to the brethren, that they have been so fortunate as to get the advantage of the labors of Bro. Ephraim A. Smith, in behalf of the Kentucky Orphan School.
It is useless for us to say any thing in commendation of him to the brethren, as our authorized agent for obtaining donations or receiving dues to the institution. His disinterested labors of love have been known to the people of Kentucky and most of the Southern States for fifteen or twenty years, and we will say his labors in behalf of the Orphan School are as disinterested as his labors for other causes. He labors for the good of the poor--the good of our cause-- the glory of God. We hope he may meet, not only with success, but with that Christian affection from among those whom he may be thrown, that his Christian character so widely deserves. Bro. John T. Johnson, who has been so laborious in our behalf, will give
BISHOP HUGHES. 475
himself more this year to the completion of the endowment. We expect they will visit the counties of Bourbon, Montgomery, Owen, Harrison, Fleming, Mercer, Lincoln and Madison, during the months of June, July and August; and Henry, Shelby, Jefferson and Oldham, in September and October. We hope to finish the endowment of the institution this year, and we trust the brethren, whom we may hereafter visit, Will be as cheerful and as liberal as those whom we have; and if so, the school will be endowed before Christmas. The institution was never more promising than at present, and none has ever given more perfect satisfaction to its friends, than the Kentucky Female Orphan School.
We shall labor faithfully to make it worthy of all confidence, and hope we shall meet with in the future, what we have in the past-- the confidence and liberal assistance of its friends.
W. R. CHEW,
SAM.'L NUCKOLS,
W. S. PATTERSON,
B. P. SMITH,
SAM.'L PEPPER,
J. M. DAVIS,
JAMES M STARKS,
L. B. CRUTCHER,
R. H. DAVENPORT,
GEORGE ROGERS,
L. L. PINKERTON,
P. S. FALL.--Trustees.
We cannot but commend to the high Christian consideration and regard of all the Kentucky brotherhood, the claims of this school. Its agent is so well known in Kentucky, that it would be as unnecessary to commend him, as to inform them that Kentucky is washed by the Ohio; that its soil is rich, and its citizens hospitable, generous, and humane.--A. C.]
BISHOP HUGHES.
THE Bishop, in his fond anticipations of the decline of Protestantism, quoted a sentence from Macaulay's England, and to give it force, represented the historian as one of the greatest minds in England, who treated the subject in the light of impartial philosophy. The New York Commercial Advertiser, takes the Bishop at his word, and Macaulay being endorsed fully by his reverence, he offers for his meditation the following extract from his history:
"From the time that the Barbarians overran the Western Empire to the time of the revival of letters, the influence of the Church of Rome had been generally favorable to science, to civilization, and to (-rood government; but during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, wealth, and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has every where been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual
476 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
torpor, while Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, four hundred years ago, they actually were, shall now compare the country round Rome with the country round Edinburg, will be able to form some judgment as to the tendency of Papal domination.
"The descent of Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest depths of degradation; the elevation of Holland, in spite of so many natural disadvantages, to a position such as no commonwealth so small has ever reached, teach the same lesson. Whoever passes in Germany from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant principality, in Switzerland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant Canton, in Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant country, finds that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of civilization. On the other side of the Atlantic the same law prevails. The Protestants of the United States have left far behind them the Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole continent around them is in a ferment with Protestant activity and enterprise. The French have doubtless shown an energy and an intelligence which, even when misdirected, have justly entitled them to be called a great people. But this apparent exception, when examined, will be found to confirm the rule; for in no country that is called Roman Catholic has the Roman Catholic Church, during several generations, possessed so little authority as in France."
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
OHIO.--Bro. James Porter reports 13 additions, the result of the joint labors of himself and Bro. Hayes, of Mt. Vernon, which were continued for days, at Nottingham, Harrison county; also, 4 wanderers returned to their former place in the church. A good Impression appeared to be left on the community around. This, with the former meeting at this place, made 25 additions by baptism, and 7 reclaimed. The church was strengthened, and the prospects favorable.--Bro. E. S. Faris states that 20 persons were recently added to the church at Danville, by the labors of Bros. Hon and Thompson.--Bro. James Rossell's report of the progress of the gospel in Belmont county, especially at Flushing, is, indeed, encouraging. Some 8 persons were persuaded to confess the Lord, and a church was organized at the above place, with its elders and deacons.
INDIANA.--The cause of Christ continues to advance in the southern section of the State. Bro. T. L. Martin reports 7 restored to the church at Martinsburg, and 1 added by baptism; also, to the church at Mill Creek, some ten miles from the former place, 6 were added by baptism and 1 restored.
ARKANSAS.--Bro. R. E. Arrington wishes to have the statement contained in the March number of our paper, respecting the success of the truth in Camden, corrected. The statement is, that Bro. J. S. Wade had baptized,
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 477
persons in Camden. This, though a simple oversight in us, has, by an opponent of the truth, been construed into a wilful publishing of lies- When corrected, the statement stands thus: That by the labors of Bro. James S. Wade, "there were about 20 accessions made from September to the time he wrote; but they were all, except one, residents of this and the adjoining counties." Bro. R. E. Arrington reports 16 additions recently made in this county, and the prospects very encouraging.
TENNESSEE.--Bro. B. F. Hall reports 14 persons added to the church at Memphis, all by baptism. "Scarcely," says he, "has there been such a change wrought in any community in so short a time. The harvest is ripe all through this country, but the laborers are few."
KENTUCKY.--Bro. Challen attended a four-days meeting at Covington. including the 3d Lord's day in June. Great interest was manifested-3 confessed the Saviour, and 2 were added who had been previously immersed. Also, at Caveridge, a meeting of four days, embracing last Lord's day, during which 5 persons hearing, believed and were immersed, and the brethren generally were greatly refreshed. Reported by Bro. John A. Gano, July 4th.
VIRGINIA.--Bro. W. A. Belding-, who writes June 23d, reports 33 additions to the church at Beeler Station-27 by baptism, 4 reclaimed, and 2 by fetter; amongst whom was a lady about SO years of ago. Bro. B. adds, "Since I last wrote you, I have baptized about SO persons." We have also had 7 baptisms recently at Bethany. At West Liberty, also, 7 disciples were added by Bro. Myers.
PENNSYLVANIA.--At Dutch Fork Church, six miles from Bethany, through the labors of Bro. Hough, and Bro. Myers, student of Bethany College, 21 persons were recently added, all by baptism.
ILLINOIS.--Bro. John W. Taylor reports 50 persons added to the church at Mechanicksburg, Sangamon county, by the labors of Bros. Cane and Brown. The meeting continued for several days. At Lick Creek, 12 additions by Bro. Cane. At Hand Grove, 13 disciples were added by Bro. Brown, assisted by another brother. At Clarie's Grove, by the joint labors of Bro- Brown and others, 16 persons were discipled. At various times, in our own congregation, says Bro. Taylor, 8 additions have been made, and in the vicinity of Richland, 3 persons have since been added. Bro. P. Vawter, within the last year, reports over 200 persons. A part of the time was spent in the Military tract, and the remaining time in Sangamon county. Bro. Happy, Bro. Brown and others, about the beginning of winter, discipled more than 50 persons. The same brethren, at Linville, persuaded more than 50 to turn to the Lord; and 10 others at Beardstown. Bro. Brown's labors in Pike county, for six weeks, added some 100 persons to the church in Pittsfield, and 50 to that in Barry. All reported by Bro. John W. Taylor, June 20th.
LOUISIANA.--Bro. A. A. Jones reports 11 additions to the church in New Orleans, by the labors of Bro. J. D. Ferguson.
MISSOURI.--Bro. T. M. Allen reports an interesting visit to Huntsville, Randolph county, in company with Bro. Wills. He says: "We had a good hearing, and 1 lady heard, believed, and was baptized." The following interesting letter from Bro. Allen, we copy entire:
ELLERSLIE, Boon County, Mo., May 8, 1851.
Brother Campbell: Yesterday evening I reached home from Fayette, where I had been conducting a meeting for several days, with Bros. M. E. Lard, A. Proctor, and J. H. Harden. It was an interesting and pleasant meeting, with five additions--one reclaimed. The others heard, believed, and were baptized.
On this day week, Bros. D. P. Henderson, G. E. Taylor, and my-
478 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
self, closed a meeting in Rocheport, with sixteen additions--six, I think, by letter; the others confessed the Lord and obeyed the gospel.
Bro. T. N. Gaines informs me that he recently held a "meeting in Richmond, of eleven days' continuance, and had thirty-one additions." Bro. Gaines has, for the last ten or twelve years, been actively engaged in proclaiming the word in Missouri, doing good service. Few of our preachers have, in the same time, made greater sacrifices, or done more to promote the cause of our divine Redeemer than he has.
Bro. John Jamison, of Callaway county, has, within a few weeks, held several very interesting meetings in that county, with several additions to the good cause. Bro. Jamison has spent some twenty- five years in the practice of law, and almost as many in the councils 01 the state and nation. For several years he was a member of, and Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Missouri Legislature, and for several years was a member of the popular branch of Congress. About eighteen months ago he contested the Lord, and obeyed the gospel, united with the church in Fulton, and has recently been set apart to the work of the ministry, and is now in the field sowing the good seed of the Kingdom, with great acceptance and to good effect. I trust he is destined to great and extensive usefulness in this new and glorious enterprize for good. May he be strong in the Lord and the power of his might! Are there not some of his associates at the Bar, and in the Legislature, who, like him, are willing to forget the past, and henceforth seek for glory, honor, and immortality
At the meeting that I mention as having just been held at Fayette, Bro. J. W. M'Garvey, who is a member of that church, was present. He, and Bros. Lard and Proctor, are graduates of Bethany. The two latter are now constantly preaching the word, with general acceptance and considerable success. Bro. M'Garvey has also commenced speaking, and I trust will soon take his place by the side of his former associates at college.
While mingling with these brethren, and knowing their qualifications for usefulness, I could but think of what Bethany had done for us in Missouri; and came to the conclusion, that if the brethren and churches in this State only had their attention directed to this subject, that they would cheerfully endow a Professorship in Bethany College, or else each congregation take a scholarship; which would enable them to educate pious young brethren, free of charge for tuition, and soon have many able and efficient laborers in the vineyard of the Lord. If one hundred and fifty churches would each give $100, it would endow a professorship. And will not the churches come to the good work? How easily could it be accomplished, with concert and action? I will be responsible for the church of which I am a member, although I have not mentioned it to any person. I have great anxiety to see Bethany College amply endowed, believing that it is destined, under God, to aid much in the glorious cause of Reformation. Will our brethren, and the churches in Missouri, think of this subject? and I trust they will soon do something for Bethany.
OBITUARY. 479
Bro. Campbell, can you not make one more visit to our State, and I am sure you can do much for the cause of Christianity and for Bethany College 2 Your Brother, T. M. ALLEN.
Total number reported since last month, 882.
[If the brethren in Missouri will endow, or promise to endow, the Chair of Natural Philosophy in Bethany College, I will, the Lord willing, make a tour equal to my first tour in their great State. I know they can do it, if they will do it; and that they will do it, I think is almost, if not altogether, as certain as that they can. I can add, that while they might hereafter repent that they did not, I am persuaded that they will never repent for having done it, should they succeed. We need, to keep up with the age, to have hundreds of men equal to the age and the work to be done, to go into the vineyard to gather the vintage of the Lord.--A. C.]
OBITUARY.
Departed this life at Marietta, Ohio, on his way to Bethany College, Bro. Dr. G. F. SALTONSTALL, of Fayette, Mo., on the 23d June last. Dr. Saltonstall was one of the most devoted friends of Bethany College, and one of its most liberal patrons and contributors, having given to its erection some $2,500, subject to the education of one of his children successively, and then to accrue wholly to the benefit of the college. A cordial and efficient friend to education and christianity; liberal in his devices and energetic in the execution of them, he was intent on the permanent endowment of the college, as in his judgment essential to the prosperity of the great cause of Reformation, in raising up an efficient ministry in keeping with the progress of the age, and with the increasing demands of a great and rapidly growing community.
To aid by his counsels, and to suggest schemes of advancement, he was on his way here, accompanied by his excellent lady, when seized by the cholera at Marietta, which in a few hours terminated his life.
He had been for many years a member of the church, and was greatly interested in the cause of Original Christianity. The confidence of his deeply afflicted consort, that he fell asleep in the hope of a blissful immortality, has alleviated her sorrow and greatly reconciled her to this sad bereavement, and will, we hope, reconcile all who, with her, must participate in this affliction. A. C.
Died, at Bethany, Va., on Thursday, July 10th, Mrs. ESTHER JAMIE- SON, widow of the late Henry Jamieson, whom she had survived about four years. The deceased was from Paisley, in Scotland, and formerly a highly respected member of the Scotch Baptist church in that place.
Died, in Indianapolis, Ia., on the 19th day of June, in the 20th year of her age, Sister JULIA A., eldest daughter of John O'Kane.
The deceased had been a member of the Church of Christ since 1846. She fell asleep in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ, bidding her parents, her little brothers and sisters, an affectionate and Chris-
480 OBITUARY.
tian adieu. The last pangs of sinking mortality were endured with a degree of patience only to be witnessed when Christians die.
"Sweet is the scene when Christians die;
When holy souls retire to rest!
How mildly beams the closing eye!
How gently heaves the expiring breast.
So fades a summer cloud away;
So sinks the gale when storms are o'er;
So gently shuts the eye of day;
So dies a wave along the shore." L. H. J.
Departed this life on the 18th of May, in King William county, Va., our Amiable and estimable sister, HENRIETTA R. HOLT. From the time she had made the good confession, her devotion to the cause of her Saviour was untiring. Her deeds of charity, numerous and unostentatious as they were, we forbear, at present, to speak of particularly. We leave them to be disclosed at that day when the things done in secret shall be proclaimed before men and angels. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them."
Bro. E. B. VIALL, of Mentor, Lake county, Ohio, after an illness of about two months, closed his earthly pilgrimage on the 9th of April last, in the 45th year of his age.
More than half his life had been spent in the service of the Lore, not merely as a private citizen of his kingdom, but a large portion of it as an evangelist, proclaiming the good news of peace and pardon to a perishing world. Conscious of his approaching dissolution for some time prior to his exit, and with the utmost calmness and composure, he gave directions with regard to his funeral, and named the speaker for the occasion.
He left an affectionate sister, wife, numerous relatives and friends, to lament his loss.
Our much beloved and excellent sister, Mrs. ARTEMESIA BLISH, consort of Bro. Benjamin Blish, departed this life on the 3d of May, after an illness of but a few days, in the 56th year of her age. The deceased was a member of the Baptist church in Mentor, when the doctrine of the present Reformation was first proclaimed- With her husband, and with almost the entire congregation, she abandoned the sectarian creed, and commenced building upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. By this sudden bereavement, Bro. Blish has lost a dearly beloved wife, who, he fondly hoped, would have soothed his declining years; her children, an affectionate mother; a numerous circle of relatives and acquaintances, a kind and sympathising friend; the poor, a benefactress; and the congregation, one of its most worthy and exemplary members.
[From our personal acquaintance with Sister Blish, it gives us pleasure to add, that we have seldom known one more richly endowed with those chief graces which adorn the Christian wife and mother. Affectionate and kind to all; of a meek and quiet spirit; in her charities and good works without ostentation, and in her manners modest, unassuming and retiring.--A. W. C.]
Many things that ought to be in this number are not in it; and of our hundreds of correspondents, there are scores to whom we are so much in debt that we must crave their indulgence. We sleep some five or six hours in twenty-four, and yet we are in arrears. A. C.
Vol. I.] BETHANY, VA., SEPTEMBER, 1851. [No. IX.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE--No. IX.
THE following essay was written in the dog-days, under the lassitude of an oppressively heated atmosphere, and after my return from the convention at Somerset, wearied with the journey and my labors during the convention. To re-write and render it more perspicuous, is a task which I could not endure. Believing that there is some bullion in it worth coining, I resolved to let my readers have the advantage of the process, and, therefore, submit it to their own taste and discretion, in the hope that they may be benefitted by the operation. A. C.
THOUGH the material universe be an object of sense, and the spiritual universe an object of faith, it does not follow that the latter is, in its recondite elements, better understood than the former. The origin of the material universe, as well as its end, is, indeed, as much an object of faith as the other. "By faith," says Paul, "we understand that the worlds were framed by the command of God; so that the things that are seen were not made of things that do appear," or that did previously exist. There was no eternal matter antecedent to the things that are.
But at this point, man vainly asks, What is matter? He is told that matter is not spirit; and again, that spirit is not matter. But this removes not the mystery of either. Indeed, to the eye, not of ignorance, but of enlightened reason, the one is just as great a mystery as the other.
Matter, in a philosophic sense, is the substance of which all bodies are constituted, and is usually divided into solid, liquid, aeri-
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 41
482 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
form or gaseous. Spirit is, literally, breath, or wind; but philosophically, it is an immaterial, intelligent substance. But neither of these present the distinct entity or being so distinguished by name. The mind rests not upon a clear conception of either.
Granite and gold are said to be solid and substantial matter. But mercury and water are as much matter as they. Mercury is, in the absence of caloric, as maleable as iron; and water will endure the sledge sometimes in our own latitude, and much more at Nova Zembla and in the polar regions. Yet mercury becomes, in our latitude, a fluid, moved by the slightest change in the temperature of our atmosphere; and water decomposed, is rendered more inflamable and expansive than gunpowder, in the presence of a given amount of caloric.
We know, indeed, that ice can be turned into fuel; and that gold and granite can be converted into gas; and that a subterraneous or submarine fire may be kindled by water, that will heave up into mountains the beds of oceans and the channels of seas, and make of these mountains chimnies for its eternal flames. The earth, indeed, itself, only awaits the kindling ire of Jehovah, to give to its elements a power so expansive as to dissipate, or, if he please, to annihilate it, in a moment. Daniel's visions, or your own dreams, my reflecting readers, at morning's dawn, are not more evanescent in all their beautiful, grand, and grotesque imagery, than the Alleghenies or the Andes would be, were the ire of the Lord to gleam upon them. Science teaches that the whole material universe is, to say the least, as dissoluble, not merely as your little ice cream mountains under a vertical summer sun, but as a soap bubble that glistens in a sunbeam.
In the language of Job and David: "He removeth the mountains, and they know not that he overturneth them in his anger; he shaketh the earth out of its place, and the pillars thereof tremble."* "When Israel went out of Egypt, the sea saw it and fled; Jordan was driven back; the mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs. The earth trembled at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rocks into pools of water, and the flint into a fountain of water."† And yet all this splendid imagery is far below the awful glory of the coming of the King of Kings, to judge the world. Then,
"Every island, sea and mountain,
Heaven and earth, shall flee away."
The glance of Jehovah's indignation against a sin-polluted world,
*Job ix. 4.
†Ps. cxiv. 4.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 483
simultaneously with the transformation of his saints, will, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, decompose, and transmute it into a crystal palace of magnificent dimensions--of unfading beauty and grandeur--the everlasting habitation of his ransomed people, and fling to an infinite distance, and into eternal darkness, the adversaries of his throne and government. So testifies the Holy Spirit.
As to its practicability, we need only ask, Who can limit the power of the Almighty? He that commanded darkness to bring forth light, and though himself all Spirit, Willed matter into being, so that the material heavens and earth "were not made of things previously existing," or that do now appear, certainly can do all things he pleases, and will do all that he has promised. "I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and I create evil. I the Lord do all these things." Is. xlv. 7.
But we have already proved that there is a spiritual universe, and our present essay is not again to prove it, nor to contrast it with the material; nor aim we at the lineal demarkation or separation of the spiritual from the physical realms of creation. We find these most clearly defined in the human constitution.
"The flesh to worms and dust allied;
The soul immortal and divine."
Man is a miniature universe in himself. He has the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, faithfully represented in his body. In his inner man are found the intellectual, the moral, and the spiritual, embodied and developed. Creator and creature are manifested in human nature; and hence, man is a species of creation more sui generis, more God-like, than any other known to revelation or human experience. He was made not "a little lower than the angels," but, for a little time, lower than they, and he will be crowned with glory and honor, through the incarnation and glorification of "the word that was in the beginning with God, and that was God;" for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
Hence, while the Holy Spirit inspired the prophets of the olden time, he becomes the Holy Guest in the Spiritual temple--the church of the Lord Jesus. Thus, too, the word of God is but a specific embodiment of the Holy Spirit. It is veiled spirit, or limned grace; and hence, the Spirit works only through the word upon the understanding, the conscience, and the heart. It suggested to prophets, apostles, and the ancient evangelists, in human terms, or in visions and dreams, the mind and will of God to man.
We must either picture to the eye, or address to the ear, the ideas, the sentiments, or the volitions of the Holy Spirit. By the
484 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
machinery of language, presented either to the eye or the ear, we communicate our views and desires to God, and he communicates to us his mind and will by the word of his Spirit. We speak to. God in words, and he speaks to us by his word. In this way the currency of our intercommunications, in all things supernatural and spiritual, is the wind, or its embodiment in signs or sounds, alike adapted to the outward and to the inward ear.
Indeed, all spiritual communications, by all celestial spirits communicated to man, are through the medium of human speech, or through signs tantamount to them. Thus the Spirit said to Philip the Evangelist, "join thyself to the chariot" of the Ethiopian grandee. Their conversation was upon words and with words, and by these was the officer illumined, converted, and united to the body of Christ.
Words are essentially wind, and formally they are but mere modifications of it. It is not, therefore, strange, that the word that denotes spirit, is, in the original tongues, the same as that which denotes wind. And beautifully apposite to this is the fact, that the Great Teacher explained to a Jewish ruler the doctrine of Spiritual regeneration by images taken from the wind. Literally he says, "The Spirit breathes where he pleases, and you hear the sound of
but cannot tell whence it comes or whither it goes. So is every one born of the Spirit."
The entrance of air into the human lungs, communicates animal life, or puts the animal machinery into motion. The entrance of the word--the breath of the Almighty into the human heart--imparts Spiritual life, and creates us anew, or puts into motion, God- ward, the moral feelings of our nature. The Spirit of God, by his breath or word, is thus to the kingdom of grace, what the air is to the kingdom of nature.
Thus stand we upon one of the lines of the spiritual universe, which, in its earthly and temporal province, lays along the coasts of human speech; and though invisible, as the air to the eye, is, nevertheless, as real and as well defined to the eye of faith, as was the promised land, Horeb, or Zion, to the eye of sense.
Elihu has said, "The hand of the Lord has made me. The breath of the Almighty has given me life;" and as truly he has said, The Spirit of God is in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." If the Roman adage be true, and ail Christendom admits it and re-enacts it--facit per alterum per se--he does himself what he does by his agent; or if a man does what the sword in his hand does, the Spirit of God does in us, with us, and by
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 485
us, whatever his word does. There is, in this department of the Spiritual Universe, no separation of these two. If the Holy Spirit, and the Spiritual Universe, cannot be seen by the natural eye, they can be realized and enjoyed by the ear or the eye of faith, which perceives and trembles at the voice or word of the Lord. They are as much realities as the sun, moon and stars--as the everlasting hills and mountains of earth. They are as palpable to the spiritual sense as matter, in its grossest forms, is to the eye or to the hand. Who ever saw heat in a sunbeam, or cold in an iceberg? Who ever heard sweetness in honey, or bitter in wormwood? Who ever tasted light by day, or darkness by night? But do they not exist? Is there no light, no darkness, no bitter, no sweet, no heat, no cold, because they are unrecognized by those destitute of these senses So, without revelation and without the Word and Spirit of God, there is neither faith nor hope, there is neither peace nor joy in God, any more than if the aphorism of the fool was true--" There is no God."
Faith, like a telescope, reveals worlds above--suns and moons unseen, unknown without it. It sees Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. It also sees Dives in the flaming abyss, and hears him call on Abraham for a drop of water to cool his parched tongue.
The Indian, in the far off wilderness, not enlightened by our science and our experience, could as soon, of himself, unaided and untaught by our science and learning, discover and reveal to his fellows the mysteries of a telegraphic dispatch, or the wonders of boiling water in a steamship on the Atlantic, as many of our well bred and finely polished Parisian or Bostonian tits could realize the objects of Christian faith and hope--the ineffable grandeur of eternal life, or the appalling horror of "an everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power."
Leviathan, huge monster as he is, at the bottom of the ocean could as soon discover a new comet in the milky way, or a burning mountain in one of the moons of Sirius, as many of our fellow- citizens could discover that there is a resurrection to eternal life-- the portion of them that fear God and keep his commandments, through the mediation and sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth. Nor could all the thunders of Sinai, or the seven thunders of John in Patmos, awaken millions of our cotemporaries to the awful, fearful, glorious facts of Christ's gospel. But still, all this and much more being conceded, it no more disproves the fearful and glorious realities of a spiritual universe, or the faith and hope of the Christian, than does the blindness of a bat at noon, prove that there is no sun,
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 41*
486 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
or the deafness of a mute, that there is no thunder in heaven nor melody in the human voice.
It is in beautiful harmony with these awful utterances, that all the great powers of nature and of the universe, discernible either to sense or reason, are as simple, as recondite, and yet as appreciable, as those of the Christian faith and of the spiritual universe. What order, beauty, happiness, result from the antagonism of the two great tendencies of the worlds around us, called centrifugal and centripetal. Day and night, spring and autumn, summer and winter, with their countless influences and tendencies, flow as naturally, as simply, as the circulation of the blood through the contractions and dilations of the heart--the unavoidable consequences of this great radical, immutable, original organic law of God, impressed and engraven on all the atoms of all the worlds above, below, and around us, which he has launched into space, and poised upon nothing but his own awful, fearful, glorious FIAT!
Standing here on this holy mount, we see Moses, Elijah and Jesus, communing on the deep counsels of Jehovah. Here the mysteries of nature, of providence, and of redemption, stand in awful grandeur, and yet in beautiful symmetry and simplicity, before our minds. I never saw the questions of the schools about liberty and necessity, free agency and accountability, praise and blame, reward and punishment, so beautifully simplified and adjusted, as at this stand-point on the holy mount of heaven-illumined vision.
In one great enunciation God has made the freedom of the whole universe, material and spiritual, spring from an insuperable necessity. The spheres cannot but move, and yet they move freely--day and night, seed time and harvest, cannot but succeed, and yet they succeed without a jar, a discord, or an insubordinate tendency. Animated nature springs into life necessarily and cheerfully. It cannot but breathe and move, and yet it breathes and moves with pleasure; with choice, not as if by mere necessity.
But in mind and in spiritual ranks of intelligence, there is an intrinsic as well as an extrinsic motive power. Man has a will of his own, as angels have. This will is his great motive power. And it is the basis of all his moral beauty, grandeur and happiness. It is, however, during his minority, under the tutelage of his understanding. The eye cannot see without light, nor the will act but under the dictates of the understanding, be they true or false. But that dictate must have the semblance of good, of happiness, of truth, else it is not addressed to the reason or understanding of man, and the will, or the man must, of necessity, repudiate it. Deceiving
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 487
the understanding, therefore, on the part of an adversary, is the only means of seducing man to will or act against himself. And such is the history of the first temptation reported in the annals of man.
But as God constituted the universe that order, regularity, and happiness must follow--must be the result of its continuance under, or within the province and dominion of, that law--so has he constituted man. He, therefore, most benevolently placed man under a moral and religious law, combined in one precept. This was essential to the idea of moral dignity, and of moral or spiritual happiness. Where there is no law, there can be no transgression; but there can be no obedience. And where there can be no obedience, there can be no proper sense of dignity, no rational self-respect, and no true human happiness. Human happiness is not breathing, eating, drinking, sleeping, waking. This is animal happiness. Human happiness is communion with God. But communion is necessarily reciprocal. It cannot be on one side. There must be a law of intercourse with God, as of intercourse with man. That law is essential to the mutual enjoyment of the parties. The word mutual has much of heaven in it. All parties, in the relations of the universe, must, in order to dignity, honor, happiness, act in harmony with these relations. The terms of correspondence, intercommunication, fellowship, must be stipulated, understood, assented to, and kept sacred, in order to that high, holy and blissful intercourse and reciprocity. Hence originated law, or a rule of free, familiar, eternal intercourse and mutual enjoyment of all the parties. Hence, the first law was moral positive, and not merely moral natural. In the latter case, it could have been no condition, test or pledge of loyalty. It was morally natural to love, fear, revere, and adore God in all spiritual and moral intercourse. But a positive precept, based merely on sovereignty--a token of dependence--a guarantee of continued life and happiness--of free, full, and uninterrupted enjoyment of God, was necessary; not merely expedient, but essential alike to the glory of God and the glory of man. The reservation of one tree in Paradise, was the most simple, beautiful, and appropriate test of homage, gratitude and devotion that could, in infinite wisdom and goodness, have been devised. This reservation, regarded as not the octillionth part of a barleycorn in intrinsic worth, was the only rent which our Father Adam had to pay for the dominion of- the whole earth and sea, with all their live stock and appurtenances, on a lease, renewable to himself and heirs, for ever and ever. And yet, it was made equivalent, in the benignity of God, to a rental commensurate
488 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
with the real value of the world. He was to give nothing--absolutely nothing. He was merely to withhold his hand from one tree.
Few of our most profound sectaries, as it seems to me, view this original Adamic constitution in its true simplicity, amplitude and grandeur. It was amply large, and sufficient for the continued intercommunion and honorable standing of humanity and divinity for ever. It was most honorable to Adam, most philanthropic and condescending on the part of our Heavenly Father, and gave to the parties every means of perfect and complete intimacy and communion.
But we are contemplating moral liberty, as rising from physical necessity, as the physical harmony, regularity and beauty of the universe arise from a physical necessity. Man, as Gad constituted him, cannot will his own destruction or his own Misery. It is, in the necessity of his nature, impossible. And from this necessity spring all his voluntary movements towards happiness; in which course, according to his light arid knowledge, he cannot but pursue that which his understanding realizes and approves. God has, in the fundamental elements of the human constitution, made the desire of happiness perfect, complete, and paramount. Man as necessarily desires happiness as the seas ebb and flow, or as moons wax and wane. Hence this love of life, this desire of happiness being innate and supreme, obliges him to move in that direction, according to the best lights he has upon the whole subject. Liberty or freedom to pursue this object in his own way, according to his convictions, is true liberty, springing from the necessities of his constitution.
Fallen and degraded as he is, he may, and often does, mistake both the means and the end. Under the guise and semblance of good, he may choose evil. But this is simply a mistake of the understanding, which may have been perverted by the obliquity of his life or the tyranny of his passions. Good, real, or imaginary, must, of necessity, be the goal of all his volitions, aspirations, and actions. A necessity to pursue that, in the most direct path which his reason or imagination suggests, is our best conception of free agency. And this arises from a divine necessity or obligation, inwrought or implanted in the human constitution, as God has in physical nature, based all the movements of all the spheres on the principle of gravity or attraction. God himself is the spiritual sun and centre of the spiritual and moral universe, and we are spiritual planets, of different magnitudes and at different distances, moving round him, and in harmony with one another. From him we receive our life, our light, our beauty, and our bliss. In this course angels, "the morning stars, sing together," and men, "the sons of God, shout for joy." A. C.
CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS. 489
CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS--No. IV.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with me.
The AMEN, the faithful and true WITNESS, the Beginning of the creation of God.--Rev. iii. 14, 20.
As man is susceptible of impressions from unseen spiritual beings, it is of the utmost importance that he should be constantly upon his guard in reference to them. He should be cautious how he listens to the insinuating eloquence of subtle foes in the guise of friends, who speak only to delude, and flatter to betray. More especially should he watch, lest, by giving the slightest countenance to their advances, they should at length glide within the portals of the heart, to usurp the dominion of his spiritual nature, and exercise their wonted tyranny over all his powers. The Christian is hence exhorted to "watch and pray," and to "try the spirits" by the infallible touch-stone of divine truth, being warned that there are many who "lie in wait to deceive," and that Satan himself, the "Prince of Darkness," can even assume the celestial robes of an "angel of light."
While, however, man should guard thus carefully the avenues of the heart against the approaches of Malign spiritual foes, he should open, with alacrity and joy, the gates of the inmost sanctuary of the soul to those heavenly visitants who are commissioned to sustain him with divine power, and renew his inner nature by a sacred and blissful fellowship. To their gentlest whispers, as well as to their most earnest calls, his ear should be ever attentive, and he should cherish, with reverential awe, those holy influences which they shed abroad in the heart. It is to man alone it is thus accorded to become the recipient of the most precious gifts of Heaven. It is to him alone it is thus permitted to become himself a temple even for Deity, and to possess within the hallowed fane of a purified and renovated heart the Shekinah of his presence. It is to a communion thus lofty and ennobling, that he is invited, in the remarkable passage which we have chosen for our motto. He who announces himself as the Amen; the Faithful and True Witness; the Beginning of the creation of God, here declares his presence and his gracious purpose. "I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me." This is the appeal to which the believer should respond. These are the "spirit knockings" to which he should pay instant and supreme regard.
490 CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS.
How exalted the personage who thus requests admission! How worthy to be received with trustful faith and reverential love, as the spiritual guide of the soul! It is no flitting shade from the gloomy shores of Acheron; no wandering ghost from the corruption of the grave; no malignant demon from the aerial regions; no spectral apparition of a deceased acquaintance, as ignorant and as fallible as ourselves. But it is the Amen; the Faithful and True Witness; the Beginning of the creation of God. He is the AMEN: a term here used substantively to signify truth, firmness, constancy; and he is not merely represented thus as abstractly truth, stability or faithfulness, but as emphatically the impersonation of these qualities, or the very source itself from which they spring. In him indeed, "all the promises of God are amen;" that is to say, indubitably certain and unchangeably true. But he is himself, in a fuller and loftier sense, THE AMEN, as constituting, himself, eternal, universal, unchangeable truth, and being himself the very foundation of all the stability and enduring constancy of all the systems of the universe. All things are "by him;" all things are "for him;" "by him all things consist." As he is the Alpha, so is he the Omega of the divine alphabet, and the "Amen past" of the solemn close of man's eventful history. He is the end of all prophecy; the fulfilment of all divine promises; the almighty Fiat of all divine power. He is the ultimate object of the Christian's faith, and hope. and love, and the final adjudicator of all the interests and destinies 9f the human race.
He is also denominated the FAITHFUL and TRUE WITNESS. TO this end was he born; for this cause came he into the world, that he should bear witness unto the truth.' It was he who revealed the Father to the world, and declared the things which he had seen and known of Him. He spoke not of himself; but the Father who sent him gave him in charge what he should say and what he should reveal. "I speak, therefore," said he to the people, "even as the Father said unto me, so I speak." And in his address to the Father himself, he says: "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gayest me out of the world; for I have given unto them the words which thou gayest me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me." To this great truth. that he was sent of God--that he was the Messiah--the Son of the Highest, his words, his acts, his life, his death, bear witness; a faithful and a truthful testimony, attested by prophecy; confirmed by miracles; sealed by his precious blood, and accred-
CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS. 491
ited by his resurrection from the dead and glorious exaltation in the heavens.
But this illustrious Guest, who stands at the portal, is announced, also, by the title of the BEGINNING of the creation of God. It was he "who laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of his hands." And "by him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible or invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers." He is the BEGINNING, not only of the old, but of the new creation--the first fruits of the harvest of eternity--the first born from the dead--preeminent--whose voice shall yet, from amidst the chaos of sin and the darkness of the grave, bring forth the beauty, light, and life of a world forever renovated and redeemed. For it pleased the Father, that in his person should dwell the fulness of the God-head, and that he should become the Author of the spiritual as of the natural system; of the world to come, as of that which is; of a life and a salvation that are eternal, as of an existence and a providence that are temporal.
Such are the glorious attributes implied in the title here appropriated to him who says, Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me." And ah! with what earnest attention should man regard such an annunciation. With what ready promptitude should he open wide the door for so illustrious a visitant! With what trembling hope and reverential love should he receive him! With what anxious desire should he long for that sacred spiritual communion to which he is here so graciously invited!
But vain and thoughtless man, alas! prefers to listen, with ready ears, to the "spirit rappings" of imposture; to seek, with prying curiosity, the solution of some idle speculation; or to receive, with superstitious awe, the absurd reveries of some false and fanatical apostle, rather than to hearken to the knock of the Faithful Witness, or believe his truthful testimony, or acknowledge his divine and glorious character. How alienated from God must be the human heart, which can refuse admission to the Holy One whom he has deputed to reveal to man his gracious purposes; to enlighten his benighted mind with heavenly wisdom, and guide him safely to the realms of bliss! How perverse and deluded the mind that can mistake the darkness of the world for the light of life, and willingly reject the richest gift of heaven to enjoy the delusive vanities of earth! With what unreserved confidence, however, may the believer
492 GERMANIC LIBERTY.
entertain this divine Guest, who thus desires admission! How readily may he open his heart to him who has shown his love for man, in forsaking the blessed abodes of heaven to assume his nature; to share his sorrows; to expiate his sins, and crown him with everlasting joy! In him there is no delusion, for he is himself the Truth; in him no darkness, for he is himself the Light. With him are the secrets of heaven; the mysteries of eternity; the wonders of the unseen spiritual world. He only can reveal them. He only has made them known.
In that divine fellowship to which he invites his people, there is no disquietude; no satiety; no doubt; no fear. But there is there the peace of God; the assurance of faith; the confidence of hope; and the perfection of love.
How happy, then, is he with whom the Lord shall dwell; and how blissful the consolation, that nothing shall be able to separate him from the love of Christ! R. R.
GERMANIC LIBERTY:
ITS CHARACTERISING SPIRIT AND RESULTS,
THE following oration, delivered at the late Commencement of Bethany College, by Mr. Edward Teller, of Ireland, we deem worthy of the pages of the Harbinger; not as the only one of that day, either in composition or good taste, worthy of so appearing; but its subject matter, equally with its other merits--its congeniality with the spirit of the age and the character of our political institutions--lead me to think that it will be both useful dad pleasing to a great majority of our readers. A. C.
Ladies and Gentlemen: We celebrate the day that gave to America freedom, and to the world a nation. In doing this, we do homage to all the brave spirits who strove in the same holy cause--the courage of the soldier, the wisdom of the statesman, the devotion of the citizen, the common patriotism of all. We honor all in the grand result; for this day was the joyous harvest of their hopes--the golden fruitage of their labors. On this day a youthful people assumed the toga virilis of freedom, and arrayed in the robes of independence, strong in her trusting faith and assured hope, America appeared no longer a twilight Urania of the world's system, but,
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in full-orbed splendor, bursting into the golden glory of the perfect day!
It has been often and truly said, that a nation's greatness rests on her mighty men; but it is no less true, that nothing tends so much to keep alive a deep and life-breathing national feeling, as the cherished recollection and proud perpetuation of former glories, and a passionate devotion to the memories of those who lived but to love, and thought it sweet to die for their country. It is the remembrance of these times and of these men, that nerves the arm and flames the speech. It makes the old man young again, and gives to youth a manlier life. It is this that throbs through the pulses of a generation, forcing it to hear the rushing of the "mighty stream of tendency." It is this that thrills, for centuries, through the chords of the human heart, pealing forth its trumpet tones in no weak orchestra of cold regret or languishing sentiment, but ringing out the glorious bass of a nation's harmony! This is the true torch, lighting the flames of the mind at the fire of the soul!
Of the patriots of '76, nothing can be said that would add either to their renown or their glory--the one is as world-wide as the other is eternal. For them is needed no towering monument--no sculptured pile. The wreaths they won are green forever. Their fame rests on the cherishing love of a grateful people; their names are graven on the hearts of men. Time, as it flies, has no power to efface these holy memories; it but strengthens the tie, and, each year as it glides away, throws a brighter halo of glory around them.
This day is also especially interesting, hallowed, as it is, by the death of the two greatest actors in the scene. No brighter names can history show--no purer spirits ever fled the earth. Separated by the prism of time, their virtues seem more divine, their excellencies greater, as each is seen in its own lustre and mellowy radiance. Like those starry worlds, whose beams only reach our earth after countless ages, it is but when years have passed, that their true glory is seen; their real greatness felt. Hand in hand had they toiled up the rugged path; side by side had they struggled, together fought the good fight, and together did they go down to the grave full of years and honor, on the glorious jubilee of that independence they had achieved. The same winds of heaven sobbed their last requiem; the same dews of evening wept over their graves; the same sun gilded their tombs with a soft and lingering light, ere he, also, sunk to his rest. Adams and Jefferson! "Lovely were they in their lives, and in death they were not divided."
The influence which this day has exerted, and the power it at
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present exercises, would task the orator to tell--the pen of genius to portray--it is at once so extended and so various, so universal and peculiar, adapting itself to so many conditions, modified by circumstances so diverse, and colored by the changing hue of events; yet, through all, exhibiting the same spirit and tendency towards the same glorious result.
The spirit that awakened this day has crossed the seas, and infused the hot and vigorous youth of the New into the Old Word. It has tinged the Alps with its golden glow, and spread over the Fatherland the sunny suffusion of hope. It has given to Greece a new Thermopylae, and lit its beacon fires along the Baltic. It has mingled its gorgeous dyes with the deep azure of an Italian sky, and rolled, in effulgent surges, over the plains of Lombardy. It has thundered in the cannon of Valmy, and flashed from Kossuth's surcharged spirit! Every where, and in every way, has it appeared, sometimes hidden, often disguised; but the same principle ever at work, always triumphant, pouring a flood of sparkling radiance over every hill and into every valley of Europe; cheering the patriot in his struggles; bidding the poor slave to hope; carrying peace and joy to every hearth, happiness to every heart; filling the whole continent with the light of its presence!
In celebrating the triumph of a cause prayed for by the good and great of every land--the cause hallowed by the scaffold of Sidney, and sanctified by the lifeblood of Warren--we date but the period which marks the final achievement and successful consummation of rights before asserted, and principles before maintained. Ideas are said to be awakened, great minds rise as their exponents, and many think it is all spontaneous--indigenous, as it were--owing nothing to an anterior date. But when the faithful lens of criticism is applied, history tells a different tale. Principles are immutable; and however much they may appear to some to lose their life and perish, they live in other forms and in many different guises; quietly work their way, while these loose observers, deceived by the mere appellation of things and the immobility of names, fancy new and totally different ones arise, when, in fact, it is but the recurrence to first principles, and the establishment of these on their true foundation. Truth never changes, because it is eternal.
It is in the consideration of other lands, and of former times, that we are oftenest deceived; and we frequently call the most opposite things by the same name, and class the most diverse principles under the same category. It is, especially, in regard to what is called the ancient world, that this is practised, and many appear
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to think, when looking through the enchanted glass of antiquity, that all the glory of the present is but a reflection of the past. They are dazzled with the blinding brilliancy of Greece; awed and captivated with the solemn grandeur of Rome; and hence the constant endeavor to assimilate every thing great in our own age to theirs, and to ascribe so much to their influence. Virtue, patriotism, courage--all that can ennoble or dignify man--examples of them are sought only among the ancients, and the most mournful contrasts drawn between them and the men of modern times. We use the names of the heroes of antiquity as synonymous for all that is best worthy our admiration and all that demands our reverence; and like their works of art, point them out to be imitated, but not equalled; to be attempted, but not to be excelled.
But even the liberty of the ancient world consisted only in name; and their much boasted freedom merely meant that they were not enslaved to other nations, or ruled by a King. Aside from this, it Was a fiction--a something expressed in words, not in fact. There was nothing whatever in common between what they called liberty and what we understand by it; for if they groaned not beneath the tyranny of caste, they suffered the severest despotism of office. Government, with them, was all powerful, and took cognizance of every thing, whether public or private. Affairs of the gravest and of the most trivial import, engaged its attention, and it even penetrated the domestic circle, and invaded the sanctuary of home. In religion and philosophy it equally interfered, and the sage became its victim as well as the intriguing traitor. The people were considered as made to be governed--not to govern; and they were shackled in a thousand ways, and harrassed by the most absurd restrictions, while rhetoricians declaimed, and the forum rang with the praises of liberty. Government controlled all and regulated all; the man was not known, it was only the State that was recognized; the individual was lost in the citizen.
That such a system should continue, is as contrary to nature and reason as it is repugnant to every feeling in the breast of a freeman, and opposed to every sentiment of independence. It might, indeed, glow for a time in the brilliant glory of Greece, or produce the Titan strength of the Roman empire, but at variance with every law of progress, and controverting the fundamental idea of liberty, its reign must be short, its downfall sure- At best, it was but a hideous Frankenclein--not the from of the perfect man. And to this, which existed also in the Republic, the western empire owes its fall; for though every element in the social fabric was diseased--,-
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all overflown with the stagnant waters of corruption, and luxury and an enervating soul-destroying refinement had been carried to their utmost limits; yet civilization itself had ceased, and nothing new in literature or art, worth preserving, had been executed for centuries. The whole human race seemed forever destined to remain the humble followers and servile imitators of other times; to move only within the prescribed limits of old formulas, and only to act according to the approved rule. Man was fast sinking into the lowest depths of his animal and sensual nature. Christianity itself could but feebly retard the awful consummation. Europe was about to become another China.
To revivify this social death; to reclaim this moral Sahara; to sweep away this fatal malaria, deadly as the poison-exhaling Campagna, came that mighty deluge from the North, rolling its giant waves to the foot of the capitol.
But those nations that we, with so much complacent contumely call Barbarian, came not alone to plunder and destroy. They brought with them the noblest principles of civil polity and government. They were the bearers of a new evangel to man, and to them we owe all that renders life dear--the pure spirit of love; the holiness of the affections; the moral grandeur of virtue, and the inviolability of home!
Our liberty, then, issued, not from the portals of the Pantheon, nor was it reared in the luxurious lap of Roman refinement; it streamed not from the Delphic heights, and was kindled at no vestal fire; it had a nobler birth and a hardier offspring. It was not born beneath the lurid fires of the Southern heavens, but it was in the far North that the brilliant aurora of freedom arose in a purer sky and in brighter colors. Liberty, like the goddess of Beauty, sprang from the North sea foam, and was cradled among the winds and waves t
In the depths of the German forest, by the banks of the rushing Rhine, in the storm-tossed isles of the Northern Hellespont, rocked by the tempest and lashed by a world of waves, dwelt our ancestors! Fit home for the free spirit! fit birth place of English greatness and American glory! They carved no statue of liberty; they built no temple to receive it, and yet fell prostrate before the Juggernaut of despotism; but they worshipped liberty as a divine intelligence, and for their temple-roof, they had the zenith above them; for their altar-flames, the countless lights and the burning glories of heaven!
Here, then, have we at length found the origin and well-spring of an idea now so adored, so worshiped; of a right now so prized above
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all others--the right to think and the right to speak; to boldly plan and fearlessly execute. In fine, the idea of individual liberty; of that liberty so opposite to all that had preceded, and so completely interwoven and thoroughly welded with all that has since transpired. It is this which has created modern history, and made it so different from, and so superior to, all that had gone before. It is this that lies at the bottom of all modern civilization, and is, indeed, at once its conservative principle and the guarantee of its eternity; for the mind of man is progressive, ever tending towards something higher and better in the scale of intelligence; and what is liberty, but the freedom of the and the uncontrolled exercise and untrammeled use of its faculties?
This spirit of individual liberty, once invoked, never was laid at rest. The true Promethean spark, it was kindled in heaven at the flame of immortality, and, like the sacred Persian fire, was inextinguishable and unquenchable. For long ages did Germanic or Gothic liberty struggle on obstructed, but irresistible; retarded, but yet advancing. The Roman and the Germanic spirit striving together, fighting for the mastery--ever the two antagonisms--Oramasdes and Arimanses. Even the sons of German freedom themselves, fought against it, and Charlemagne himself spent half a life time, and wasted his giant energies, in building up again the western empire. But when death had relaxed his iron grasp, the bow so long bent recoiled; the tough yew straightened, and no after Ulyses could bend it by his force or cunning.
In this spirit of Gothic, Germanic, or individual liberty, call it as you will, we think we discern the life-breathing principle--find the true key to every thing in modern times. In the middle ages, which are regarded with such an holy horror, and looked upon as a dark, gloomy blank in humanity--a revolting page in world-history, tracing, in lines of blood, a reeking catalogue of crimes--we conceive not a struggle between barbarism and civilization; between Christianity and Paganism; but between the Roman and the German-- between a falsehood and a truth--between liberty and despotism. But it is urged that civilization was forced to pause, and the progress of science and literature retarded. But is this true? History loudly declares it false. Civilization had ceased to advance, and the field of literature lain fallow for centuries, and surely any thing was better than this absence of all originality and the servility of universal imitation! We might show how barbarism has produced a Bede and an Alfred; but taking the very worst point, is not even a Brunehilda to be preferred to a Messalina; the one an exaggerated
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instance of Northern cruelty and ferocity, but the other a true type of the revolting and soul-sickening vice of the Roman world
In literature and the arts, the line is closely drawn. To the Roman we are indebted for the faultless outline and vivid coloring, for the finish of the execution and the harmony of the whole; but it is to the German that we owe the creative thought, the life- breathing principle, and the original idea that lives and breaths in all. The one is thought, the other sense; the one ideal, the other Material. The German mind drinks in the idea of spiritual loveliness, and sees more beauty in the petal than in the leaves around it; while the Roman admires the outward perfection of form, and delights only in the gratification of the senses. Fancy contributes her brilliant imagery, and throws her iris-colored scarf and rainbow hues over the productions of the Roman; while the German ascends above, and bathes in the divine light of the imagination. The one is like the enchanted cave of Alladin, filled with all that can afford delight to the eye--crystal fruit and flowers, and buds of precious stones, cold, hard, and glittering; the other resembles a real garden, luxuriant with shade and warmed by the sun, loading the air with its perfume, an all instinct with life, and light, and motion.
In the nations of modern Europe, we mark the vast superiority of some over others, both in a moral and political sense, in national grandeur, and in vigor of intellect and fertility of thought. Some are fruitful in genius, while others are sunk to the lowest depths of degradation--immersed in ignorance--seemingly barren in every element of prosperity. To what is this owing, that the South is so far below the North? Perhaps some will answer, the influence of the Reformation. But the Reformation itself was begun among the Northern nations, and it is they alone who are Protestant. The true reason--the real secret of it all is, that in the one the spirit of individual liberty, introduced- by their Gothic ancestors, was at work; while in the other, was the spirit engendered by the Romans. These antagonisms we will still find at the bottom and at the root of all. Truth, as we said before, never changes, because it is eternal.
It is the purity of the origin of this idea, and the preservation of these principles among the fathers of the English and American people, that has made them so great, so glorious, so free, and so happy; so favored above and blessed above all other nations. Among the Saxon tribes these principles were best developed, and most strictly adhered to; and though some may shrink in pious horror at the thought of being descended from pirates and robbers,
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yet, in the words of an eloquent historian, "from such ancestors a nation has, in the course of twelve centuries, been formed, which, inferior to none in every moral and intellectual merit, is superior to every other in the love and possession of useful liberty: a nation which cultivates, with equal success, the elegancies of art, the ingenious labors of industry, the energies of war, the researches of science, and the richest productions of genius."
We are indebted, more than perhaps we are aware, to these Saxon tribes, for the liberties and priceless advantages we enjoy. Attracting the attention of the Romans at a late period, and man. fully resisting every attempt to enslave them, these old sea-kings, in whom we recognize so many future Howes, and Drakes, and Nelsons--so many harbingers of the Jones' and Decaturs, yet to be--these old ocean warriors lived free as the element around them. They reveled in no soft luxurious languor--they hearkened to no Circean strains of silken melody--they breathed no Sabean odors-- inhaled no Syrian perfumes; but they drank in the fierce Northern breeze--listened to the harpings of the "viewless winds," as they wailed through the ancient pines; and instead of the siren's song, they had the grander anthems of the ocean's roar, and the everlasting symphonies of nature! Borne in their ocean steeds, as they called their ships, they laughed at threatening skies and lowering storms. In their stern energy, their deathless courage, their custom of lashing the opposing vessels together, in the shout of triumph heard above the wild din of the battle, and the hoarse cry of the waves, we discern a future, dimly seen it may be, but, at all events, grandly realized at Trafalgar and the Nile, on Champlain and Erie, in the dying words of Nelson and Perry's glorious victory!
The invasion of England by the Anglo-Saxons, was attended by the most beneficial results, both to their descendants and to mankind. It rescued the island from the Roman cancer that has preyed so deeply on the vitals of other nations, and substituted a brave and hardy race for an effeminate and degenerate people. To this may be traced the individual character, independent spirit, and reliant personality, which has ever distinguished the Englishman--that firm self-confidence and inherent courage that makes him at home In every clime, and at ease in every situation. Second only to the Exodus of Israel from the valley of the Nile, seems to us the advent of this Saxon band on the shores of Britain. "Of a truth," says a celebrated writer, "of a truth, whosoever had, with the bodily eye, seen Hengst and Horsa mooring on the mud beach of Thanet, on that spring morning of the year 449; and then, with the spiritual
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eye, looked forward to New York, Calcutta, Sidney Cove, across the ages and the oceans, and thought what Wellingtons and Washing- tons, Shakspeares and Miltons, Watts' and Arkrights, William Pitts' and Davie Crocketts had to issue from that business, and do their several task works so, he would have said, those leather-boats of Hengst had a kind of cargo in them!"
Yes! it was, indeed, a noble cargo--the richest freight ever borne in ship--the most fruitful seeds ever sown; seeds that fell on no stony ground, but, planted and nourished in fertile soil, produced a hundred fold; striking deep their roots, spreading wide their branches, overshadowing the world with their protecting shade; laden with the most fragrant and refreshing fruit; wafting their perfume and delicious aroma to the most distant shores; falling on every land like the golden shower on Dana, springing up every where in abundant harvests
Let us contemn nothing because of the humbleness of its origin, or the smallness of its beginnings. The Nile itself springs from a small fountain, and the great Amazon dwindles to a rivulet at its source; and surely the history of our ancestors, and the place of their nativity, should be doubly dear to us. With what reverence should we approach the subject, and slowly and carefully unfold their story, as we would remove the rubbish and dirt that covers some old and valuable picture, until every lineament is restored and every hue distinct. How much more interesting should that holy isle of theirs be to us, than the luxurious Capreae, or the resting place of Latona; and the Castum Nemus, the sacred grove, than the woods of Delphos or the oracles of Crete!
To the, Saxon tribes, and to Anglo-Saxon England, is the world indebted for those representative institutions, which are confessed to be the best hope of humanity--the ultima thule in the science and structure of government. That system of government, so elastic in its nature, keeping pace with the advancement of the age; not enacting irrevocable laws, like the monstrous legislation of Lycurgus, but ever expressing the opinions and yielding to the desires of the people: here, we say, is the origin of this principle, which has become the political Aidean of the modern world. In the Saxon Witan we have not only the germ of what afterwards was called Parliament, and thence spread out into Congresses and Assemblies, but we possess the parliament itself, chosen in the same way, and from analogous classes. And so deeply were the people imbued with the spirit of these principles; such firm hold did they take in England, that after the conquest, the only thing desired and deman-
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ded from the throne, by both the Barons and the people--the higher orders and the masses--whether the insurgents were headed by a De Montford or a Cade, was a return to ancient laws and an observance of old customs. All the charters wrested from the crown at Runnymeade, and elsewhere, were but the assertion of former rights. Even habeas corpus itself, was derived from the old Saxon custom of admitting to bail; and here, too, do we find the origin of the noblest institution ever devised by man--trial by jury; which the great Burke declares to be the soul of all government.
These are the great ideas and ruling principles that has made the island so renowned in history--so famous in story. The most distant nations have felt her influence and experienced the benefits of her laws, her literature, and her science; which, like so many Alphean streams, have dived beneath the seas and reappeared in other lands, welling up in ever new Arethusas.
Would we had time and ability to follow the varying course, and mark the grand eras of English history. To show the effects of the Norman invasion; to watch the progress of liberty, through conflicts of the Barons with the crown; of the crown with the people; through conventions at Runnymeade, and charters confirmed at Winchester; through battles on Barnet and Bosworth fields. To observe the growth of the commercial spirit, which was the first outward manifestation of greatness. To pause on the fifteenth century, the era of Columbus and of Cabot; the dawn of a purer religion and a holier faith. The time had come at last. The Roman Church had accomplished her task; she had preserved the treasures of science and protected the people, and, rising like another Ararat from the billows of barbarism, was the only resting place for the ark of civilization. Within her gates the oppressed found a refuge, and the friendless a home. She had given bread to the hungry and alms to the needy. She had knelt by the bed of the penitent, and forced the dying Thane, before she released his soul from the shackles of crime, to liberate his serfs; her mission was ended, and a brighter day revealed.
In England, then, first began the Reformation, for Wickliffe lived before Huss or Jerome; and Lollard was a name known and honored long before that of Lutheran. The Puritans, too, were, in a great measure, the offspring of the old English Reformers; and the "Morning Star of the Reformation" first threw its beams upon the path afterwards so gloriously illuminated by the sun of Geneva.
From one small isle in the German ocean, has, then, emanated all true liberty, all pure religion. It is truly, as a poet says, the
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"heart of the world," beating steadily, and with no fevered pulsations. Streaming forth from it like mighty arteries in every quarter, has the unbending energy and iron will of the Saxon race been displayed, whether behind the crumbling walls of Acre, on the heights of Abraham, or among the mountain gorges of Lahore. In America, from the St. Lawrence, with his glittering line of lakes, to the golden shores of the southern sea, the whole long fallow continent feels, at last, its masters. The great rivers wind their white arms around huge mill-wheels, while every hill and glen re-echoes the clash of the engine and the blow of the hammer. The Dryads fly pale and affrighted, before the gleam of the axe and the crash of the falling forest; and the Mermaid no longer looks up from the glossy wave to dry her purple tresses in the sun--shine and gaze upon the wonders of the upper world, but seeks her quiet sea-green cave and coral grove, far from the rushing keel and the plash of the paddle! In England, the old Roman roads are replaced by iron highways, and the island trembles beneath the thunder tread of the fire horse, as he pants on his smoking path from the silvery line of the Tweed to the snowy cliffs of Dover, or rushes madly over the bridge-spanned sea to the once dread shades of the Druids. But why mention all for all are well known. The submarine mines of Whitehaven; Manchester, with her million spindles; the Thames, and its forest of masts; that great new forest of England--Birmingham--with its thousand workshops; and Leeds, with her countless looms. From sea to sea--from the heavy swell of the German tide to the dashing foam of St. George's channel, is heard the ring of the anvil and the roar of the furnace; every where is seen the effects of the old Norse blood--the workings of the intensified spirit of labor!
Sprung from the same ancestors; guided to glory and greatness, wealth and honor, by following the same principles, how, then, should the American--how should all of Saxon blood--look upon England? Surely with feelings of reverence and love. Let us not believe the foolish tale of her fall, or listen to the absurd recital of supposed decline. Unlike other nations, the English are a Christian people; and will it be said that the spirit of the gospel, like the "sorrowful tree" of the island of Goa, shall open its leaves and flourish in the night, but its blossoms fade, and its flowers wither at the approaching day-dawn of prosperity I No! Let us rather trust that Britain may ever remain firmly rooted in the Northern ocean, carrying her laws and her language to every land; raising up new Americas in Australia; regenerating the worn out east;
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ever the refuge of the oppressed, and the guardian angel of the liberties of Europe!
Cherishing such feelings, what treasures will be ours! what spirits tenants of our great World-Valhalla! Shakspeare, the "thousand-souled;" Milton, "who sang, in his glorious darkness, of Paradise and the courts of Heaven;" Bacon, with his God-like mind; and the deep soul of Coleridge. Ours the laws, of Alfred and the discoveries of Newton; the eloquence of Phillips and the lessons of Burke. Ours will be equally the researches of Davy and the explorations of Fremont; ours equally the rod of Franklin and the telescope of Herchell.
In the year 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers sailed from Southampton: in the year 1851, the frigate St. Lawrence entered the same port, bearing to the great "Alhambra of Labor"--to the World-Colosseum of Toil--the fruitful products of their industry. 'May the omen prove a bright one! May the star of peace shine over the temple of Concord! And like that glorious sunrise sometimes seen at sea, may England and America rise twin orbs in grandeur and majesty; not for one to fade away, but both continue to ascend towards the zenith, pouring their divine effulgence on every land, until, like the belt of the great Hermes, respected in heaven and on earth, the globe is girdled with a universal Saxondom!
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OUR most estimable brother, Samuel Rogers, of Kentucky, having called my attention to the subject of promiscuous dancing--a growing fashion in Kentucky and certain other places; not only amongst the sons and daughters of men, but amongst the professing sons and daughters of God--and having conceded a few pages to this interesting subject, I now proceed, in due form of an essayist, to redeem my pledge.
My usual custom, in all such cases, being first to understand the subject myself, before presuming to write upon it, I set myself diligently to inquire into the philosophy of dancing--its origin, history, and design. And to proceed logically and legally in the work, I first consulted Webster, as to the legal meaning of the word. I do not mean the great statesman and constitutional lawyer, the Hon. Daniel Webster; but the learned, the profound, the great American
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philologist and lexicographer--Noah Webster, L.L. D., member of all the great literary societies of his day.
Not having myself, for more than five and forty years, seen a dance, and but once before that, (having been, by mere accident, precipitated into its midst;) and, still more unfortunate, having, during its progress, fallen most profoundly asleep, I acquired no accurate knowledge of the curious affair. To make amends for this my shameful ignorance of the mystery, I have consulted Webster, and most satisfactorily ascertained that to dance means"" to leap or spring with measured steps, regulated by music; to frisk about gracefully" to something called a minuet, waltz, or cotillion, for such is the species of music and dancing in this our day and generation, at the most attractive and fashionable centres of the polite world; such as Paris, London, New York, and New Orleans.
But in this, as if? all grave and important subjects, desirous to begin at the beginning, I next took up the oldest book in the world, and searched the oldest part of that --the book of Job.
Job flourished not later than 2130 years before Christ, according to Hales; and in musing upon the saints and sinners of that age of the world, the venerable Patriarch says: "Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power' Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear; neither is the rod of God upon them. Their bull gendereth and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf. They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They take the timbre] and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty that we should serve him? and what profit should we have if we pray unto him
"How oft is the lamp of the wicked put out, and how often destruction cometh upon them. God distributeth to them sorrows in his anger. They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away. God layeth up his iniquity for his children; he rewardeth him, and he shall know it. His eyes shall see his destruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty. For what pleasure hath he in his family after him, when the number of his months is cut off in the midst?"
From this instructive apostrophe to the manners of that age of the world--not later than early in the third century after the flood-- we learn that music and dancing held a conspicuous place amongst
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the wealthy and honorable sinners of that day. If not venerable from its age, it was, at least, a fashionable amusement. It justly claims, then, we may conclude, a very high antiquity, as well as a very respectable patronage.
In 639 years after this time, the ladies held female dances of a joyful and religious character, on great occasions. We find Miriam, the sister of Moses, on leaving Egypt, leading out the pious ladies, with timbrels in their hands, and skipping in dances to the song of deliverance furnished by her brother Moses. This was, indeed, a very solemn and joyful occasion; for in responses to the female hymns, she said, "Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea." This is the second allusion to dancing in the antiquities of the world. If ever it was opportune to dance for joy, it was so on the coasts of the Red Sea, when and where Pharaoh and his armies were drowned, and the Israel of God walked through its channel as on dry land. This is the first religious dance in the annals of the world. The third dance in history, like the first dance, was of a promiscuous and profane character, though under pretence of reverence for an idol god. On descending from the mount of communion with God, Moses found the people, whom he had led through the Red Sea, dancing and shouting to a molten calf, made of the golden trinkets with which the daughters of Israel had adorned themselves. But for this profane and idolatrous dance, there fell, of the tribes of Israel, three thousand men in one day.
But, as we have noted the ancient dances in sacred story, we must read the last dance in New Testament history.
We have Washington balls, on Washington's birth-nights. This is in good keeping with a portion of New Testament story. "For it came to pass when Herod's birth-day was kept, the daughter of Mrs. Herodias danced before them, (the assembled grandees,) and danced so elegantly. (a la mode Roma;,) that Herod swore that he would give her whatsoever she would ask." Instigated by one of the sweetest passions in man or woman's breast--the exquisite pleasure of a fiend's revenge--her mother, the unlawful wife of the lustful Herod, the elegantly accomplished Mrs. Horodias, instigated her dancing nymph, Miss Herod, to ask a bason full of the Baptist's head. Herod's false honor overcome every humane feeling of his heart, and quenched every remonstrance of his conscience. He ordered the Baptist's head, and he was sacrificed.
In these four dances we have the prototypes of all the dances in all story, sacred or profane. They are, in the philosophy of them,
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 43
506 DANCING.
animal and bodily movements, indicative of the passions, emotions, and impulses of the animal soul; not of the spirit, nor of the spiritual nature of man.
True, the spirit of man, in its conceptions and aspirations, occasionally so operates as to influence both soul and body. Even the tongue, when "set on fire of hell, sets all the wheels of animal nature in a blaze;" and, as a tornado sometimes shows the bottoms of lakes and rivers, so it reveals the secrets of a wicked heart, and stimulates to deeds of horror which no one can describe.
So in religion, when it obtains the aid of the Spirit, inspired with its holy aims and heavenly aspirations, it moves both soul and body in harmony with the dictates of the Holy Spirit.
Tongue, hand, and foot, are instruments of righteousness and unrighteousness, as the heart may be. I can, therefore, conceive of a David dancing before the Ark of the Lord, and of the holy virgins praising God in the dance, and of David calling upon the congregations of the saints in such strains as these-
"Let Israel rejoice in him that made him;
Let the children of Israel be joyful in their King;
Let them praise his name in the dance;
Let them sing praises to him with the timbrel and the harp."
[Psalm cxlix.
Again:
"Praise him according to his excellent greatness;
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet;
Praise him with the psaltery and the harp;
Praise him with the timbrel and the dance;
Praise him with stringed instruments and organs;
Praise him upon the loud cymbals;
Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals;
Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord.
Praise ye the Lord:" [Psalm cl.
At the feasts of Israel in their palmy days--I mean their religious festivals--the daughters of Shiloh went out to dance, as David did before the Ark. But they went in companies, to dance by themselves. For on one occasion, the children of Benjamin seized the virgins of Shiloh at the dance, and took to themselves wives, having been inhibited by all the tribes of Israel from intermarrying with them. Thus, according to the adage, "Extremes beget extremes."
But, in the New Testament age, we read of no religious dances, any more than of religious harps, psalteries, and trumpets. Amongst all the directions and exhortations in the New Testament, I have not found one on the subject of dancing. Yet there was dancing in those times, as well as in the ancient times of the Patriarchs and Jews. Hence, in one of our Lord's parables he represents the Prod-
DANCING. 507
igal's father as making a feast, and celebrating the return of his lost son, "with music and dancing." Luke xv. 25. According to Solomon, there is a time for every purpose and for every work; and therefore, he says that there is a time to mourn and a time to dance, as "there is a time of war and a time of peace."
But we live under a wiser, greater, and more glorious Prince than King Solomon, and under a spiritual and anti-typical, not under a worldly and typical institution. Hence, in New Testament manners and customs, in evangelical ordinances and usages, the word, nor the idea of dancing, is not found. "Is any one merry," says the Apostle James, "let him dance." That is an Episcopalian Testament- It is not our version of it. We read it by authority of King James, "Is any merry, let him sing psalms." He does not say let him dance. Still, if I saw a Christian man or woman hymning or singing psalms and dancing, I could not condemn him, because I read of one so joyful in the Lord that he entered into the temple walking, and leaping, and praising God. Besides, the Lord commanded his disciples "to leap for joy;" but the occasion was not one of popular esteem, for it was when their "names were cast out as evil, for the Son of Man's sake."
But why introduce Bible authorities in this case? Who claims precedent in Holy Writ
"For courtly balls and midnight masquerades?"
Surely no disciple of Jesus Christ!! To play the fool at a masquerade, is no very honorable amusement for a saint or sinner. The Shaking Quaker dances to shake the devil out. Vain man, he shakes the devil in.
As idle they who dream of pleasure in what are called the fashionable amusements of the day. Why look to Paris, the metropolis of atheism, sensuality and crime, for any other fashion or custom than those which drown men in destruction and perdition I would say, if need there be, to every brother in the land, "Lift up your voice like a trumpet; cry aloud and spare not. Show Israel their transgressions and Jacob their sins:" for because of these things "iniquity abounds--the love of many waxes cold." The gospel is spoken and heard in vain; and "because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience." "What fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? what communion hath light with darkness? what concord hath Christ with Behar! what part hath he that believeth with an unbeliever? and what agreement bath the temple of God with idols?" A. C.
508 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.
SUPPORT OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY--No. I.
"Even so has the Lord ordained, that they who preach the gospel shall live of the gospel."--I Cor. ix. 14.
IT is more than a year since I felt the necessity of a new development and enforcement of this Christian ordinance. We have, at an early day in our editorial career, fully expressed ourselves on the subject of the "Hireling Clergy." It was a popular theme amongst the laity, but very unpopular amongst the clergy. But we have been on this, as on some other topics, misapplied, as well as misunderstood- We have been placed on the wrong side of another question, while placing ourselves on the right side on that of the hireling clergy. We have had sundry communications on this subject during the last seven years, but found so many other matters immediately pressing on our attention, that we have hitherto neglected this one.
Last year, while paying a visit to our much esteemed friend and brother, the venerable Ex-Consul Buchanan, he put into my hands the following tract, written by himself, on this subject. He is one of the most uncompromising Bible Christians I know; not in the sectarian and appropriated use of that designation, but in the sense we commonly use it, as indicating one who advocates the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, as the standard of Christian faith, duty and privilege. But the tract has more to do with one branch of the subject, rather than with the whole of it. Still, its spirit and import bears on the whole subject. I therefore now lay it before my readers, as a preface to the whole subject of Christian duty on the entire subject of the pecuniary support of the gospel and the gospel church, in all that the Lord has left us to do in the work of building up his kingdom in this world.
There is, first, the oral preaching of the gospel to the world. In the second place, there is the planting of churches by the labors of evangelists, and setting them in order. In the third place, there is the edification of the church by its eldership--the elders, pastors, and teachers. In the fourth place, there are the means of doing this in the way of translating, printing, and circulating of the Holy Oracles.
In the fifth place, there is the erection of church houses, usually called meeting-houses, or Christian synagogues. In the sixth place, there are public conventional meetings, at certain times and places, for the consummation of these great works, requiring co-operation
THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 509
and joint consultation. All these are enjoined upon us, either in the form of precepts, of precedents, or of suggestions by the authorized ambassadors of Christ. To all these we shall again call the attention of the Christian brotherhood, in harmony with the indications of the Holy Spirit, and the indications of God's moral government and special providences, taught in the Inspired Oracles, our only acknowledged standard of faith, duty and privilege. We shall, therefore, at present, give as our preface the following suggestions. A. C.
NIAGARA FALLS, January 6, 1850.
THE first instruction on the subject of support, to those sent forth to preach the gospel, we find in Luke x. 3, 4, 7, from which a governing rule is laid down, viz: "The laborer is worthy of his hire," which is ever to be kept in mind, as the teaching of the blessed Saviour, as it relates to all engaged to make known the gospel. We find two orders were to be ordained in every church, viz: Elders or Bishops, to be overseers; as each term imports, as one order; and Deacons, as the other order-* The elders to attend to the spiritual, the deacons to the temporal wants of the members. The qualification of these and their wives, the apostle distinctly sets forth to Timothy and Titus. In the xxth of Acts we find Paul sends to Ephesus, and calls the elders, and tells them what was his course in "serving the Lord" (and in doing so, interests all who assume the office) "with all humility of mind, testifying repentance toward God, and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ;" "take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost bath made you overseers, to feed the flock of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel; yea, yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have showed you all things, how that so laboring, ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"
The same apostle writes to Timothy. v. 17, "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine, for the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn;" "and the laborer is worthy of his reward." Here we see Paul following. the teaching of the Lord Jesus, referred to in Luke. The apostle, in 1 Peter v. 1, says, "The elders Who are among you I exhort (who am also an elder) feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock; and when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away."
In the present day I find sixteen orders distinct from elders and deacons in the churches called evangelical, assuming titles alone applicable to Deity.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 43*
510 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.
I now turn to the duty of the church, as to their liberality, apart from those not belonging to the body, contributing to the support of elders, whose circumstances require it. From the Lord's teaching, followed up by the Apostle Paul as to the "ox treading the corn," it evidently refers to those who labored in the word and doctrine; dispensing the bread of life, even the gospel, in accordance with the teaching in 1 Cor. ix. 14, "even so hath the Lord ordained, that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel," rendering it the indispensable duty of all who attend on the ministering of the food for the soul, to supply abundantly the wants for the body, and personal comforts of those who so minister. Wherefore, those who attend and partake of the labors of the preacher, if such do not contribute, it is unjust, as between man and man; but how much more so towards those regarded as the servants of God. The support afforded by those waiting at the altar in the temple worship, (which was typical of the Christian) teaches that those who attend the gospel ministry, should, without referring to them, sustain the officiating elders, the church, like the temple worship, being attended by those professing to be of like faith, regarding obedience to Christ as their Head and King; avowing communion with his body the church, and subjection to his laws; wherefore, on them the privilege as well as the obligation rests, to support those whom the church select to preach the gospel, or dispense the bread of life. If the church is governed by the teaching of Christ and his Apostles, the members of the church are not only bound, but privileged to sustain, not only their elders, but such of the brethren as are in want. The fellowship, which is attended to after the breaking of bread, was designed for the support of the poor brethren, whom it is the bounden duty to aid if they are not able to work; but if they do not work, when able, they are to be treated as taught in 2 Thes. iii. 10. This duty belongs to the deacons; yet supplying the wants of the elders is not to interfere with the fellowship for the poor brethren. In like manner, the aid requisite to sustain the elders, should be in accordance with the support they require for themselves and families; of which the deacons should judge, and such should be regularly supplied to them, so that nothing may interfere with their devoting their time and talents to the duties of their office; not only as to their pastoral duties with Christ, but sustaining them in going forth to preach the gospel, unless their circumstances- do not require aid from the church.
There is no ground in the scriptures for a church of God referring to the world, or those not admitted as brethren, for aid for their poor brethren, or for support to their elders. It is the peculiar duty of deacons to be acquainted with the wants of the members of the church, as well as of their elders, and they are deficient in duty, if these objects are neglected. It is not necessary that all the members should know what each gives. It should be regarded as a matter between the giver and God, while the deacons who must necessarily know the contributions for the elder, should enjoin liberality according to the necessity and the ability of the giver. The scriptures furnish ample instruction on the subject of liberality, with a promise of blessing; while it is to be lamented that the attaining.
THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 511
of money seems to justify any departure from scriptural rule. Yes, yes, the god of this world, by the obtaining of money, reconciles those who obtain it to shut their eyes to the course pursued; yet they profess to fear God, and forget that God worketh in those who act in the fear of the Lord, "according to his pleasure." If we do any thing, however approved by man, in a way not enjoined in the scripture, such is not of God, "working in us of his good pleasure," but of the god of this world, who leads many to count gain godliness, which awful influence I denounce as the prominent sin of the present day, even among those preferring to be guided by the "Bible, and nothing but the Bible."
REFLECTIONS SUBMITTED.
At all times, the god of this world has made money (called the mammon of unrighteousness) the great instrument of corrupting professing Christians, and new plans have been invented of late, to get up fairs, and attractive schemes to raise money, to carry into effect measures professedly connected with the worship of God, including even the garments for the officiating elders of the church. Such corrupt assemblies meet in places set apart for the worship of God, while to these abominations, Satan has set on foot a new begging system, termed "Donative Meetings," held forth as acting on the principle of alms giving or charity, yet standing opposed to the teaching of the Saviour in Matt. vi. 1, 2, as such is blazoned forth regardless of delicacy to their pastor; his house is selected where this sinful and awful display of begging is carried into effect. The pastor, though sensible of this want of delicacy, cannot object, as the members of the church organize the plan, enlist a number of those the scriptures call "silly women," who feel they are engaged in a good yet a sinful work, as all religious works are sinful, unless sanctioned by precept or example in the scriptures.
I deeply regret to find the system of counting gain godliness has come into Canada, and that lately in St. Catharines, the Presbyterian, the Baptist, and Methodist pastors, had their houses turned into begging establishments. Why was not delicacy observed to select other places? "Oh, we would not get as much." Oh mammon! mammon! thou accursed god; as long as you furnish money, you will have followers, even among those called Christians; therefore, the greater will be their condemnation as giving a corrupt view of the gospel. May the Lord in mercy lead al who profess the name evangelical, to renounce every sinful course, and may all such ungodly systems, like money changers, be scourged out of the house of God, prays one in the spirit of the publican. I. B.
DR. CHANNING says: "-The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms, and most fearless under menace and frowns; whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering."
512 THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY.
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY THE TRUE PRINCIPLE
OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT.
[Continued from p 372.]
DEATH, it is said, is the negation of life. But what is life? Animal life, say biologists, consists in the functions of sensibility and contractility; or, in the functions of sensibility and voluntary motion.
The former may define either organic or vegetable life--the latter, animal life, as distinguished from the former. Death, then, may properly be defined to be the negation of these properties, or the total and permanent cessation of these functions. This has been, and shall continue to be, the finale of all creatures, in whom has been the breath of life, as above defined. But such is not human life, or the life of man. When his earthy tenement was perfectly formed, his Maker breathed into it the breath of lives, and man, by the inspiration of the Almighty, became a living soul, possessing not only an animal life in common with the animals around him, but having superadded thereto, a spirit quickened by the Spirit of God.
We pause not, at present, to discuss the question with the atheistic philosopher, when he asserts that life is the mere result of animal organization; nor can we now enter, at length, into the defence of the position of the Christian philosopher, affirming that life is a divine principle, inspired by the breath of the Almighty, and not the necessary result of organization. Suffice it, for the present, with reference to this question, to say, that, while the atheistic materialist makes man a mere machine--an automaton-- that moves only when touched by the finger of the artist, if artist there be, and which is liable at any moment to stop and fall into decay and utter ruin, the Christian, or spiritual philosopher, sees a motive power--a spiritual principle--separate from, and independent of, organization and mere animal life. While, then, we affirm the proposition with which we set out, that physical death is the negation of physical life, we as positively deny that physical death is the total, permanent, and final cessation and utter extinction of man.
It, however, does not follow from the above premises, that man as to his spiritual nature, is incapable of death. There is, undoubtedly, a spiritual death, as there is a spiritual life. But this death we cannot define by the terms used in the definition of natural death. It is not a total, permanent, final extinction of spiritual existence.
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 513
Adam died the day he violated the great law of spiritual life. If he did not, then the serpent was not a deceiver, when he said, "Thou shalt not surely die." The prohibition had been enforced with the penalty, that "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Was he not, by the violation of a great spiritual law, separated from all communion and intercourse with God, and debarred from the light of his presence? By the breach of divine law, he lost the animating and blissful light of the divine countenance.
Disobedience was death; the separation of his spirit from communion with God; from the smile of the Lord. The likeness of God departed. Like a mirror without light, Adam no longer reflected the moral image or likeness of his glorious Creator. That mirror, the human soul of Adam, having lost the light of the divine presence, ceased to reflect His likeness--the moral beauty and glory of God. Yet who would argue from this that the mirror had no substantial existence, because it could not, without light, reflect the image of the beholder; or that the spirit of Adam ceased to exist, because, forsooth, it did not reflect the moral likeness of his Maker, when deprived of the light of His presence and favor.
But the light of His countenance has been restored in the personal presence of Jesus, the only begotten of the Father. "While I am in the world," said he, "I am the light of the world." Ignorance is moral darkness. Knowledge, that which Jesus imparted, and which has been left on record, is moral light--the light of life eternal. He is thus the Sun of Righteousness. The understanding, the heart, the conscience, constitute the moral mirror of every man.
If man would again reflect the moral likeness of his Creator and Redeemer, he must consent to come out into the light of this great moral luminary and assume a proper attitude, that he may receive the enlightening, warming, and vivifying rays of this great orb of day--such as were shed upon those around him, when they were felt to he life from the dead, and full of grace and truth.
The busy people of the world are living in a deadly dormancy. But few appear to be apprised of their danger; yet the kindly warning voice is still being heard, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee." From this spiritual lethargy and death, they are called to awake--to arise, that they may receive his healing, life-giving rays. They are called from a state of darkness, coldness, and spiritual inactivity, by which they have been separated from God; deprived of the light, warmth, and enjoyment of His gracious presence. The moral mirror is not destroyed--the spirit is not dead, as is the body, when insensible and
514 THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY.
incapable of voluntary motion; though ignorant the person may be of what once constituted the spiritual life and happiness of Adam, "he is, though morally dead in trespasses and sins," addressed as capable of awaking, arising from the dead, and coming out into the light.
Jesus, while standing upon this our earth, once uttered in the hearing of those around him, a single truth, which, if apprehended, was life from the dead. When its meaning is apprehended and its truth confided in, it has the power of the words which Jesus uttered over the grave of Lazarus--" Come forth." A truth which, when perceived upon its proper evidence, is of such magnitude and power as to re-impress the divine likeness upon the spirit of man, and to restore communion with his Maker, which he had lost the moment he violated the law of spiritual life, when that moral likeness and glory which had assimilated him to his Creator departed from him. The moral power of this truth Jesus declared was such as to reanimate man from a state of death or separation from God, (for such is the meaning of the Hebrew term rendered death,) and to restore to him the moral similitude of his Maker, imperishable and immortal as his being. But is it asked, how is the divine image restored' He who is the brightness of His glory and the express image of his character, thus declares it, "This is the life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."
Death, spiritually considered, is the opposite of this life; that is, to be ignorant of the true God is eternal death--a death such as a man without faith must feel; a state the reverse of that which Adam enjoyed when he first awoke in the divine likeness. The scriptures no where speak of the destruction of the spirit, in the sense of annihilation, as we have before shown. Destruction is not put in opposition to creation, but to the right use of existence.
Life and creation--death and destruction--are not always well defined in our religious systems. The two latter, in scripture language, are not placed in antithesis with the two forms, but with regard to our happiness as rational and voluntary agents.
Life will ultimately be restored to all that have lived. There will be a resurrection, both of the just and of the unjust. Life and death are great facts, but life from the dead is the great fact. This Paul declares, when he says, "By man came death; by man came also the resurrection of the dead." "As in Adam all die, so in Christ," the second Adam, "all shall be made alive." We are not to limit these words to suit any fanciful interpretation. The life is commensurate with the death; the quickening spirit more
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 515
vast and extensive than the living soul, and has abolished the last enemy.
The argument with which our Lord met the Sadducean materialist, contains as plain a statement of man's immortality as language can express. "The children of this world marry and are given in marriage;" it being the appointed means, and in perfect keeping with the condition of bodily mortality, to replenish and perpetuate the race of man; but in the future state, being divested of mortal bodies, "they will resemble the angels; they cannot die any more;" and, consequently, will be in keeping with such a condition of life to be without the power of multiplication, because without the capability of dying. "They cannot die any more." The body died, and that was all that could die. It is therefore but congruous, that they should henceforth be "on a par with the angels," in regard to their immortality.
Having thus authoritatively decided the future and immortal existence of man, he next proceeds to establish the same fact from testimony which, from their own admission, the Sadducees were bound to accept. That testimony he adduces from the writings of Moses, which they held as authentic and divine. "Now that the dead are raised, Moses showed at the bush, when he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living; for all are alive unto him."
In the first part of his argument with the Sadducees, the Saviour puts all men, whom he styles "the children of this world," in contrast with those of the anastasis, or future state, which, therefore, refers to all. The dead, both just and unjust, are as immortal as the angels. In the second part of the argument, he declares that all shall be raised and live again, as certainly as that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are now alive to Him and shall live for evermore. As there is no future with Him, the dead are all to Him alive.
In conclusion, may we not ask, does not the oracle of reason, as well as revelation, teach that the intention of the Omniscient, with regard to any being, is expressed in the nature of that being? But to intend annihilation, is really to have no intention, since there can be no purpose in that which is not. God can have no relation to non-existence, and therefore, the annihilation of a human soul is an unimaginable event. "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all are alive unto Him." A. W. C.
516 THE BIBLICAL EXPOSITOR.
THE BIBLICAL EXPOSITOR.
THERE was handed me the other day, the July number of a monthly magazine, called the "Biblical Expositor," edited and published by George P. Smith, Steubenville, Ohio, 1851, and my attention called to some remarks concerning my views of the Fugitive Slave Law. This gentleman professes to be a "Biblical Expositor." What his abilities may be in that department, I presume not to dogmatically affirm. One thing is evident, he does not worship the Christian's God, but has, in his imgination, created a new God, or new modified a Pagan God. Nor has he ever understood or learned the Ninth Commandment. He pretends to quote my words from the June number of the Millennial Harbinger, as follows: "He," [that is myself,] "states in the Millennial Harbinger for June, 1851, that a Christian man has the same right to hold a slave, that he has to hold a wife, a son, or a daughter.'" These words are not found in the June, or in any other number, of the Millennial Harbinger; and yet they are gravely marked and commented on as mine. My words are, "That no Christian man can censure another Christian man, because he is a master and owns a man, any more than because he owns a wife, a son, or a daughter; but he may and ought to censure him for any act of cruelty or injustice to a wife, a son, a daughter, or a servant." Such was, and is, my declaration; and such I showed was the doctrine of the New Testament.
But this "Biblical Expositor," in the same spirit of falsehood, not satisfied with putting words into my mouth which I never wrote or spoke, also affirms, that a few years ago I was engaged "in selling slaves." So gratuitously false is this, that I not only never sold a slave, but have set free from slavery every slave that came into my possession by purchase, or in any other way! It will not justify him to say that he has not, with his own hand, written, but only printed the preceding falsehoods, since he endorses them in the words following: "The above communication was written by a man of learning and general observation, and is entitled to due respect.-- EDITOR."
A notice or two of the doctrines of this "Biblical Expositor," will suffice to show that his theology is in good keeping with his morality. He teaches that his God is a being possessed of body, parts, and passions. His words are: "The idea that God is a being without body, parts, and passions, is erroneous, and subversive of true and heartfelt worship and adoration." Page 99. Therefore, the object
THE BIBLICAL EXPOSITOR. 517
of his heartfelt worship and adoration, is "a being with body, parts, and passions."
That he has created a material God, of refined and sublimated matter, is not only to be inferred from words as perspicuous and definite as the above, but is expressly avowed in the following words: "I suppose that God is a material being, but composed of the highest elevation of refined and sublimated matter. I cannot conceive, or have any idea, of an immaterial God--a God without body, parts, or passions." And to set off the scriptural revelation of God as Spirit, he adds the following elegant argument or illustration: "A God not material, without body, parts, or passions, is a good description of nothing--equal to the school-boy's bodyless jacket without sleeves!!"
This essay, headed "Reform No. 2," closes with an indication that cannot be mistaken, in the words following: "They," the modern school--that is, those called orthodox--" believe God to be a very puissant being; for through his anger he will endlessly damn the wicked, and through love, will save the righteous." "Upon this point, then, we should reform. We need never expect to become a pious and Godly people, until we form more correct ideas of God. This subject will be continued in several numbers of this work.--EDITOR."
We can no longer doubt the position of Mr. George P. Smith, Editor of the "Biblical Expositor." He boasts of nine hundred subscribers to his paper. I only wonder, that of so many wicked men as the age affords, he could only obtain nine hundred subscribers to a gospel that so admirably brings to them the consolation that the true material God is not angry with the wicked, but loves them as his saints!
I see on page 104, that one Mr. Daniel Wolfe, publisher of the "Gospel Advocate," at Centersburg, Ohio, in noticing this "Biblical Expositor," "hopes that it will prove a valuable auxiliary to the cause (or course) of truth," and prays "God grant it abundant success in the cause of truth and in prosperity." I have not before heard of this Mr. Daniel Wolfe, of Centersburg, Ohio, but am pleased to see that he is not a wolf in sheep's clothing. A. C.
INTIMACY has been the source of the deadliest enmity, no less than of the firmest friendship; like some mighty rivers, which rise on the same mountain, but pursue quite a contrary course.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 44
518 ARE THE BAPTISTS A SECT?
WHAT IS A SECT?--WHO IS A SECTARY?--ARE THE
BAPTISTS A SECT?
MR. ALEX. CAMPBELL--Dear Sir: During last year I forwarded to you two communications for publication, and as I was so successful as to obtain for one of them a place in the Harbinger, I again venture to make a similar effort. I should have disregarded the rejection of my first article, had there not been a reference to it in my second, which made me appear awkwardly as a correspondent. I suppose you are aware, that little writers generally like to show off to the best possible advantage, as well as great ones.
For many years I had greatly desired to see, and labored assiduously to bring about, a reformation among those professing to be followers of the Lord Jesus. After subscribing for the Harbinger, a few months since, and reading a few numbers of it, I discovered, that in many respects, there exists a similarity of views between the editors and myself. I then obtained three back volumes of that periodical, and a copy of your Christian System, from which I have gathered some knowledge of what you term the current Reformation. I now wish to institute an investigation of the character and claims of the enterprise in which you are engaged, and ascertain the precise relation that I and certain churches sustain to it.
You repudiate sectarianism. So do I. But you regard the Baptists as a sect; and as I am a Baptist, I suppose you consider me a sectarian. In "The Baptists, No. I." (see Mil. Harb. No. iii. Vol. vi. Ser. 3,) you say of the Baptists, "They are a people for whom, notwithstanding all that they have said of myself and my brethren, and notwithstanding all that they have done to us in the way of opposition and seclusion, I cherish just as much good will and fraternal feeling as is possible for me to cherish for any community outside of my immediate brotherhood. * * * They and we approximate much nearer than any two communities on earth known to history or to me. By this I do not mean Scotch Baptists, English Baptists, or American Baptists in particular; but Baptists in general- Their views, their manners and customs, as a sect, are more congenial to ours than those of any other profession." I feel somewhat at a loss in not being in possession of your definition of a sect, or a sectarian. Do me the favor to furnish me with it for future reference. Dr. Webster defines sect to be "men united in tenets;" but that will not do for me. With me, Dr. Luke or some of his associates, would be much better authority. At present, I shall use
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the term sect to mean a religious body built upon any other foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Sect means a division; and as Christ is not divided, all who are built upon that Rock constitute but one church in distinction from those parties which are built upon their respective systems of faith and practice, and are, therefore, distributed into numerous sects. If I am wrong, I want you to make an effort to set me right; for I am not seeking a vexatious controversy, but the truth as it is in Jesus. 1t is true, that there are several sects among the Baptists. For example, there are Seventh-Day Baptists and Old School Baptists. But those sects build upon something apart from the belief and confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. The first makes the keeping of Saturday as the Sabbath, a test of church membership; the last makes the rejection of what are termed new measures, and the so-called benevolent schemes of the day, an essential qualification in one wishing to become a member of that sect.
If there are sectarians among the Baptists, it does not follow that all Baptists are sectaries. Here we need to define the term Baptist. By it, I understand one who practices immersion. The harbinger of the Messiah immersed penitents; therefore, he was a Baptist, or Immersionist. You are a Baptist, or Immersionist, no less than myself. Even those who have chosen the name of Christians, are Baptists, however inconsistent it may be to be baptized into Christ while denying the supreme dignity of his divine person, the transcendant glories of his triumphant mission, and the superior excellence and perfection of his efficient office-works. The epithet Baptist, applied to me, signifies no more than that I hold to and practice immersion; applied to a church, it denotes the same. I, therefore, hesitate not to inform my friends that Mr. Campbell is a Baptist, and the churches with which he is associated are Baptist churches. Will you affirm that the mere name Baptist, makes a person or a church sectarian? If the church organized in Shelby county, Texas, on the 18th of July, 1847, under the name of the Zion Church, had taken the name of the Baptist Church in Shelby county, Texas, would it have been a sectarian church, and would you have refused to acknowledge its co-operation with you in the great work of reformation? Would they have been compelled to share with the rest of us poor Baptists the effusions of your caustic pen? If not, why must I and thousands in like circumstances, be put with those who "have said so much of you and your brethren, and done so much to you in the way of opposition and exclusion!" You "do not mean Scotch Baptists, English Baptists, or American
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Baptists in particular; but Baptists in general." I suppose you mean to include all who bear the offensive (?) name of Baptists, whether built upon the great confession of Peter, Rock or the Philadelphia confession.
We Baptists, like all other non-conformists, are "outside of your immediate brotherhood." I want to know if we are inside of your mediate brotherhood; or whether we are outside of the kingdom of heaven? According to your account of the matter, you and Baptists in general are two distinct communities. But in truth, you and the Baptists form many distinct communities. There are assuredly several distinct Baptist communities; and I think different degrees of approximation between you and the various orders of Baptists. The Old School Baptists will admit none to their communion who do not acknowledge their name. And no Baptist who has correct views of the method of salvation, will extend the hand of fellowship to Unitarian Baptists. I desire to know what kind of Baptists approximate nearest to your community? I also ask if there are any isolated Baptists with whom you fraternize! May not a Baptist, under certain circumstances, be as nearly related to you as the unbaptized Saul was to Ananias? If you answer in the affirmative, may not even a Baptist church be included in your immediate brotherhood I A certain Baptist church within my knowledge, requires of applicants for membership a confession of faith in the Lord Messiah, and a formal submission to him in the ordinance of immersion- The sacred scriptures are her creed and book of discipline. What additions to, or subtractions from, her faith and practice, would be requisite to her admission into your immediate brotherhood?
In "Tracts for the People, No. xxxii.; Baptism, No. xxi.," your first query is, "Who was the first Baptist?" the answer is, "John, the harbinger of Christ, called John the Baptist.'" Was John the Baptist a sectarian? Were John's disciples Baptists? If so, were they sectarian? Did John make ready a people for the Lord? If so, were Christ's prepared people Baptist sectarians? If those immersed by John were Baptists and sectarians, was not Jesus a Baptist and a sectarian? I affirm that he was a Baptist. The Baptist disciples of the Baptist Messiah, are my immediate brotherhood; and if by an edict of a great Reformer of the 19th century, we are kept outside the pale of a community for owning the sectarian and heretical appellation of Baptists, be it so. Perhaps we may advance a little in the way of reform, without doffing our name. By the way, we intend to continue reading friend Campbell's writings, and
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so gain all the knowledge we can from that source. We hope to bear the lash of reform, though made of small cords and well laid on, somewhat better than certain votaries of secret societies, and not so hastily discard the harbinger of a by-gone millennium.
There are many matters pertaining to your efforts in the cause of reform, which I wish to inquire into, provided you are not too much engaged in ministering to the wants of your immediate brotherhood to devote any time to instructing aliens. I had designed attending the convention appointed to be held at Somerset, in this State, on the 18th inst., the time falling within the period of my summer vacation, to witness some of the practical workings of your theory of reformation; but when the time drew near, I was deterred from executing my purpose by the expense attendant on such a journey. I presume, however, that at that meeting arrangements were commenced towards sending evangelists through the State, to herald a reform on hand and a millennium ahead; and perhaps it will not be long before I will have an opportunity of hearing some of your pro- claimers plead their favorite cause in Bucks county. On their arrival here they will do well to call on me and obtain such information concerning the field of their labors as I may be able to afford them. And if the spirit of the enterprise call for it, and they religiously desire to commence operations by giving to the Baptists a drubbing, I will use suitable exertions to obtain for them the occupancy of a chapel we have lately built, and get my Baptist brethren to help fill it with hearers. For your preachers and brethren in general, I cordially aver, that "I cherish just as much good Will and fraternal feeling as is possible for me to cherish for any community outside of my immediate brotherhood." Yours, &c.,
ALFRED EARLE. NEAR DANVILLE, Bucks Co., Pa., July 28, 1851.
Dear Sir: I regret that your first letter did not appear with your second letter, in the Harbinger of November last- The reason I cannot now assign; but there was a reason. In responding to your interrogatories, I do not propose to go into "an investigation of the character and claims of the enterprise in which I am engaged-" This has already been so often done, that I would now regard it, on my part, rather as a work of supererogation, than of interest or value. Should any thing new, at any time arrest my attention, I hold myself always obliged to give it a careful consideration. I proceed,
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then, immediately, to the burthen and point of your very valuable and acceptable epistle.
The first topic which I select is the meaning of the term sect; or who is a sectary? A sect, as we both view it, is a section or a party of a community, whether in philosophy, politics or religion. It is founded on some peculiar or distinctive theory, tenet, or interest, which is not catholic or universal. Such were all the ancient sects of philosophers; and such are all the sects of religionists--Pagan, Jewish, or Christian.
There are some truths or propositions in philosophy, religion and politics, which are not merely fundamental, but of universal acceptation and acceptability. One God, or many Gods, may become the basis of a national or imperial religion. But that there is a divinity presiding over the destinies of a universe, is, in Christendom, a catholic truth, because admitted by all religionists of every name. Monarchy is a catholic form of civil government in a large portion of Europe. But there are two sects on the question, whether it should be absolute or limited I and again, other two questions, whether it should be elective or hereditary? Here there are four theories of monarchical government--one absolute, one limited, one elective, and one hereditary. The catholic, in this case, is the person who advocates, and submits to, a monarchy, without any particular regard to its being limited, elective, or hereditary.
A. is simply a monarchist, whether absolute or limited; whether elective or non-elective. B. is an absolute monarchist, whether elective or non-elective. C. is an absolute monarchist, but exclusively elective. D. is an absolute monarchist, but exclusively hereditary. E. Is a limited monarchist, whether elective or non-elective. F. is a limited monarchist, but exclusively elective. G. is a limited monarchist, but exclusively non-elective.
Here, then, in appearance, are seven sects of monarchists, though really but six. One only is catholic. Six are sectarian.
A. could live under any one-of the seven forms of monarchy with a good conscience, because in any one of them he has his beauodeal of a King. He believes simply in a King. But not one of the other six, consistently with his particular theory, if he regarded it as of divine authority, could conscientiously submit to this form of government. So far, then, as we have used or applied this illustration, we have given our conception of a sectarian and of a catholic Christian.
The foundation on which the Lord Jesus Christ has established his kingdom, is not a mere tenet, a sentiment, or a theory; some-
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times called doctrine. The proposition on which he builds his church, is the recognition and open confession of his true personality and divine mission. "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is already laid," said Paul, Which is, that "Jesus is the Christ." The Messiah declared to Peter, that "on this rock he would build his church;" and founded on this rock, "the gates of hell should not prevail against it." This proposition is as definite and perspicuous as it is comprehensive and sublime. To believe it, is to realize its evangelical import.
It is exceedingly. broad. To realize that Jesus is the Messiah, in the full evangelical sense of the terms, imparts a new life and energy to the soul. It allures and charms, and quickens all the moral faculties of man. It is the great spiritual and divine magnet, which attaches to itself every element in man- that can be assimilated to the divine image; that can beautify and beatify him forever. "Other foundation can no man lay" for church union and communion, than that which God himself has laid in Zion, viz: That Jesus is the Christ.
Now, my dear sir, whatever society baptizes into this faith, and builds the church upon it, is catholic; and whatever society does not, but substitutes for it any human opinion, speculation or experience, is, necessarily, sectarian. And he that defends these addenda and preaches them as necessary, either to salvation or church fellowship, is a full developed sectarian--a heretic, in its original import-- that is, one that makes a sect or a party to his own opinion, whim, or caprice, or to the opinions, whims, or caprices of other men, living or dead. It is not my object to develop, nor do I presume that it is necessary for me to develop, the import of that vital confession. It is, for my purpose, enough to say of it what is affirmed by apostolic authority, viz: "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God." 1 John v. 1. "Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God." 1 John v. 6. He that believes this great capital truth, "has eternal life;" for "God sent his Son into the world, that whosoever believes in him might not perish, but have eternal life." This is the central truth of the Christian system. It is the foundation on which the church is built, and contains in it that which reconciles the heart of a sinner to God, and justifies God the Father in justifying man.
Now, in all that I have said, I am persuaded from your letter before me, that we fully agree. Also, what you say of Baptist churches, and of our churches, is but a reiteration of what we all admit. We are called "Baptists" by certain parties, and our
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churches are called "Baptist churches." But we do not so assume nor so designate ourselves. For this we have sundry reasons. I will name two: In teaching moral science and Christian evidences, I repudiate the technical style of Paley, Butler, &c., as fallacious and unscientific. If I admit that there is natural religion, as well as revealed religion; or speak of revealed religion in contrast with natural religion, in the fair construction of my language, I admit two sources of religion, and two kinds of religion. As with me there is but one religion, and that founded on, and springing from, revelation, I must reprobate the style and the teachings of some of our standard works on this subject. Apply this form of reasoning and of language to our Baptist and Pedobaptist churches, and you will better understand a portion of my objections to being called Baptists, or Baptist churches. I know of but one church of Christ. If I say that we are "the Baptist church of Christ," do I not admit that there is a Pedobaptist church of Christ? Has Christ two churches? But hear from me another remark. The Baptist's church has long since died. I say the Baptist's church; not the Baptist church. The Baptist church cannot die, because it never lived. After John the Baptist was beheaded, his church died. He only gathered a people for the Lord, and they were only baptized themselves, not Baptists. I need not tell you, my dear sir, that not he who is immersed or baptized himself, but he who immerses or baptizes him, is the Baptist. If being immersed constitutes a Baptist, John himself, the harbinger, never was a Baptist, never having been baptized. Did you, or did any one else, living or dead, ever see a church whose membership was composed of baptizers, or Baptists! I never did. We have some churches that may have some six or seven Baptists in them, but I presume to say, that there is not now, in the scripture sense of John the Baptist, a Baptist church in the world.
Must we, then, hallow and consecrate the errors of the dark ages, and perpetuate forever the reign of ignorance and superstition I know some men, good men, too, that glory in the name "Baptist," and the "Baptist church," as if there was, in the true sense and meaning of words, a Baptist church in the United States.
Some oppose a new translation of the Sacred Writings, because it would dissipate this illusion, and annihilate the name and honor of the Baptist church, and deprive certain Eastern D. D.'s of all their glory. Such men would rather have the old version of the Bible, and the name Baptist, than the best Version that could be made, without it. Still, I am happy to learn that their influence is daily
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waning, and, no doubt, will ere long vanish away. It is hard to fight against sunbeams.
It may startle some of our good Baptists, so called, to be informed that Jesus Christ was not a Baptist; yet it is clearly declared, that Jesus baptized not, he was only baptized. But this law of evidence and criticism bears somewhat heavily on the "Pedobaptist churches;" and were it not that they have been more politic and shrewd than "the Baptists," they would have fallen under the same sentence; but, fortunately for them, they call themselves Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, &c., preferring to found their party on ecclesiastic politics, rather than on Christian ordinances.
There is another reason why some sensible men, yet living in the world, demur at the currency ecclesiastic, as now popular in Pennsylvania and some other States, when allusion is made to the "Baptist Church of Christ," and the "Pedobaptist Church of Christ," as though we had both Baptist and Pedobaptist churches. If we have only one true religion, we can have only one true church of Christ. Still there may be, and doubtless there are, many good Christian people in the church of England, Scotland, and perhaps Rome, as there are good republicans in them all. But these facts neither make the natives Republicans, nor the churches Christian. We all live too much in the nineteenth century to know ourselves, and the truth as it was taught, believed, and practised 1800 years ago. I must, with your permission, reserve, my dear sir, a few farther remarks on the contents of your letter, till the moon changes. A. C.
QUERIES ON MASTERS' DUTIES.
WESTERN STAR, O., July 21, 1851.
Brother Campbell: We have listened patiently to you for several months past, while you have been showing the existence of slavery in the days of Abraham, Moses, and Paul. I have read your essays in the Christian Baptist, and in the several volumes of the Harbinger. I know you are opposed to slavery, and consider its existence among us a curse--a curse to the master, his children, his land, and our country. But to get rid of it, and do justice to both master and slave, so that they shall not be in a worse condition than they are now, with you is a serious matter. While the sympathy of some is confined to the slave, your sympathy runs to both master
526 QUERIES ON MASTERS' DUTIES.
and slave. You think the condition of master and slave now, is hard, but that the condition of both would be much worse to have all freed at once, and the colored population left at the mercy of a cold and heartless world, to obtain a living and find employ. Hence, your effort to show that the relation of master and slave may exist, and has existed, without sin. This may be an essential point to establish in certain minds; but it is not touching the real difficulty in the minds of your readers among us. Slavery, with us, is understood to be just whatever the law makes it to be; not only the relation, but the legal rights growing out of that relation. Hundreds of your readers admit the existence of master and chive in the days of Adam, Moses, and Paul; and that among the Heathen, the master had an unlimited power over even the very life of his slave. But we seriously doubt whether Abraham, Moses, and Paul, ever did, or permitted their brethren to do, that which is done by professed Christians in our land, and who plead, in self defence, the fact that the relation has always existed in the days of Patriarchs, Jews and Christians. Can you give us light on the following questions? If so, then you will touch our real difficulty.
1. Though Abraham owned and bought slaves, yet did he, or the Jews, by a divine permit from Moses, their lawgiver, ever sell their slaves to ungodly men? Or were they ever permitted to sell them to any person?
2. Have we an example in the Inspired Volume, of either Patriarchs, Jews or Christians, selling their servants out of their families?
3. Has a Christian the divine right to sell the husband away from his wife and family, or the wife from her husband and children, and then plead in self-defence, that he has a right so to do, alleging that Abraham bought and sold slaves?
An answer to the above questions is very important. We do not want to know the master’s legal right among us, nor what a Heathen master did; but we want to know if a Christian master can claim a right, by virtue of either Bible precept or example, to separate, by sale, husband and wife? Jesus says, Matthew xix. 6, "They are one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put assunder."
The above is a presentation of our real difficulties; and no plea made upon the right of the sale of property, can be satisfactory; but Holy Writ will be satisfactory.
With all confidence in your honesty and the purity of your motives, I am, my dear brother, yours in the Lord. A. B. GREEN.
BROTHER GREEN-My Dear Sir: Agreeing, as you and I do, that the relation of master and servant, for life, is of divine permission and enactment, in every age of the world--Patriarchal, Jewish and Christian--the difficulties of which you speak come under another category than that which we have already discussed.
The establishment of a divine authority for relations, civil or reli-
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gious, and the conduct of the parties in these relations, are distinct and independent subjects, and ought, therefore, to be held and treated as separate and distinct themes of consideration, as they are both in divine and human legislation. That husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, magistrates and subjects, are relations of divine authority, and have their appropriate duties, obligations and advantages, no Christian will presume to deny.
If, then, Abolitionists had confined themselves to the abolition, not of relations, but of the abuses of them, the community would have heard them with more candor and respect, and they would have had, in the proper field of their labor, a brighter hope and a more certain reward.
Still Christians, even in this sense, would not have had any right, as such, to take under their care, supervision, or reformation, Southern institutions, or any other of a political character or bearing.
What," says Paul, "have we [Christians] to do, to judge them that are without? Them that are without God judges," and not the Christian church. Christian men have no more Christian right to join American Abolition societies, than they have to join "Orange Men," "United Irishmen," "Free Masons," or "Odd Fellows," as such. Crusaders to rescue the Holy Land from Mussulmen, have as much divine authority to sanction them, so far as the Christian church, instituted in the New Testament, has to do with them, as any one of these institutions. Christians, as such, have as much divine authority to attack monarchies, aristocracies, despotisms, political and sectarian, as they have to attack Southern political institutions, or to form confederations, leagues, or covenants, with them that unite for such purposes. All that we, as Christians, have to do in instruction and correction, is with them that are within the church. We subscribe to that article of the true apostolic creed" Them that are without the church, God judgeth." In settling this preliminary point, more than half the confusion and strife on the present theme, is finally disposed of. I should not wonder if a portion of our own communities should demur at these statements. There are, indeed, but a minority of them at all educated on this subject.
With regard to the abuses you mention, I may have more to say than can be well said at present. But I will make a few statements of my views on the main topics of inquiry.
First, then, as to the right of selling a servant for life, or for a term of years. The right of selling is always implied in the right of buying. Whatever a man may lawfully buy, except the truth, he
528 QUERIES ON MASTERS' DUTIES.
may lawfully sell. The right absolute is thus conceded, nevertheless, it may be limited or restricted by special provisions. Hence the civil law of the Jews, which God gave them, limits and directs this right in reference to certain servants. In the case of a man's selling his daughter, (for the divine law enacted this right in certain cases,) he was to sell her under a stipulated condition, viz: "If a man sell his daughter to be a bondwoman, she shall not go out as the bondmen do." Exod. xxi. 7. "To sell her to a Pagan nation, he shall have no power." This implies the right to sell to any one in his own nation. The divine law made provision for a man even to sell himself. Lev. xxv. 47. The Jews also sold, by divine authority, insolvent debtors. See 2 Kings iv. 1. Even our Lord himself, in one of his parables, recognizes this fact. "For as much," said he, "as a certain debtor had not wherewith to pay, his master commanded him to be sold, his wife and children, and all that he had, to make payment of the debt." Certainly our Lord did not make a new case to illustrate an important doctrine; or draw from Gentiles laws to instruct Jews, still less his disciples.
You ask, "Did ever Moses allow," by divine permission, "the Jews to sell their slaves to ungodly men or to any and every person who might desire to buy them I" Questions may be so constructed as to make it impossible or difficult to find a pertinent case or answer. For example: I might be asked, Did Moses ever enact a law to sell a man to an old bachelor, an unmarried man, a rich man, or an' Egyptian, &c. But what does this prove!
If a Jew was allowed to purchase a man from his brother Jew, his brother Jew must have been allowed to sell him. The Jew who stole from his brother Jew, unable to make restitution, was, by the God of the Jews, commanded to be sold. Ex. xxii. 3. Of course he would be sold for the whole amount. His brother Jew might buy him, but there is no such provision. He must be sold, to make restitution, to the highest bidder; for the law required that he should be sold for double the amount that he stole. Such a Jew would not indeed, command a high price, as men, for the most part, do not like to purchase thieves, there being generally, at least in modern times, too many of them in the market.
Still, this might be supposed to be a peculiar case. And requiring, as such cases generally do, a special law, it might be alleged as an inadequate precedent. We therefore argue, from the clearly established law, that sanctioned both the buying and selling of their brethren and foreigners, as in every such case the one license implies the other. If a Jew might sell his brother Jew, his brother
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Jew might purchase him. Still, a humane man, (and a Christian ought to be a humane man,) will not sell his horse, much less his servant, to a heartless and cruel master.
But it is asked, Have we any example in the Inspired Volume, of Patriarchs, Jews and Christians, selling their servants out of their families? This is virtually to ask, Had they any right to sell them at all For slaves are not sold in their own families. If they cannot sell them out of their families, they cannot sell them in their families.
Your third question on the premises is very important, and can be answered only by an emphatic no. It frequently happens, however, that A. owns the husband and B. the wife. And B. is obliged, by necessity of law, to sell the wife. He will, of course, (and such is the custom on the part of all Christians, known to me,) sell the wife either to the master of her husband, or, if he cannot do this, he will sell her to some one in the vicinity, as near as possible to her husband. Professors recklessly selling husbands or wives, so as to violate the relation, are justly fit subjects of church discipline, and ,:night not to be retained in the communion of the faithful. Such, I believe, is the judgment of all true Christians at the South.
I cheerfully, though with sorrow, admit, that it is one thing to justify the relation of master and servant for life, and another to justify the treatment of the parties to one another, in all respects, in this relation. I must, therefore, as a Christian and a Philanthropist, regret the existence of slavery in any state whatever, and especially in our own country. It is a great misfortune and a manifold evil to both parties; more, in my opinion, to the master and his children, than to the servant and his children. For this reason, I deeply regret the Abolition movement from its incipiency to the present moment. Because I sincerely think, and upon the most satisfactory premises, that it neither has achieved, nor ever can achieve, any amelioration of the condition of the parties, or effect the abolition of slavery. It has, indeed, created an exacerbation of bad feeling, and retarded, rather than accelerated, as it seems to me, the day of universal emancipation.
Abolitionists, as a class, are neither philosophically nor practically, more humane, or benevolent, or self-sacrificing, than other men. There is as much humanity, benevolence and magnanimity, at the South as at the North, in proportion to the Anglo-Saxon population in either. My views of the whole premises have been freely, fully, and conscientiously given. I am fully satisfied that the only rational--that is, practicable--way of abolishing slavery
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530 THE BIBLE UNION.
in America, if it ever can be done, is that proposed by the American Colonization Society. If it cannot send them home to their own country, and make them an eternal blessing to Africa, the Abolition Societies cannot emancipate them in America. I strongly affirm the strong conviction, that they will never abolish slavery in these United States. They may accomplish a division of these United States. They may create more slave States. They may increase slave territory. They may create international wars; cherish and perpetuate eternal discords and hatreds; but they never can, they never will, in my judgment, abolish slavery in this New World.
Their philosophy may be humane, but it is not human. It is not in harmony with the genius of human nature. There may be black States and white States, as there are red men and white men. But there never will be, on Abolition principles, an abolition of slavery in the midst of a white population.
History, if it be philosophy speaking by example, teaches this lesson. The forms of slavery, and some of its usages, may be changed upon Abolition principles; but its abolition on Abolition premises, is, to my mind, inconceivable. Send them to Africa with the gospel and civilization, or colonize them on a portion of the New World, or annihilate them by amalgamation; but dream not of abolishing slavery in America on Abolition principles. So thinks one man, and he cannot, with his premises, with his philosophy, religious, moral or political, think otherwise. He, therefore, says, send them home to their own clime and their own country. This will be practicable, humane, and Christian. A.
THE BIBLE UNION.
THE great object of the Bible Union is generally, I presume, understood and favorably regarded by all our readers. Nothing in the present century, proposed by any Christian community, compares with the great enterprize of giving the Bible, the whole Bible, to the whole world, without NOTE OR COMMENT. But these words, "without note or comment," occurring in the first promulgation of the first Bible society formed in Great Britain, if my recollection fails not, occasioned the reaction of the French Revolution--I say these words, "without note or comment," were words of transcendant mean-
THE BIBLE UNION. 531
ing. They were retrospective of evil done in days past, and prospective good to be done in days then future, but now come. For if there be neither note nor comment attached to the Bible, we ought, most certainly, to have a translation that needs neither note nor comment. This is the best argument in my horizon for a new version; not simply for a new version, (for every school-boy can make a new version of some sort,) but for a correct and perspicuous version, that needs neither note nor comment. I have not seen this argument plead as used in the present controversy between no improved version and an improved version; for that is the jet of the controversy, (pardon the use of a local and old fashioned phraze.) I repeat, this is the scope, drift, or point of the present controversy between the old fashioned old men of the olden Baptist age, and the more enlightened men of mature age, reason, and learning, of the present day.
I have said "precious little" on this subject during the present controversy, for two reasons: one, that I argued this question, at much length, over a quarter of a century ago, as the first edition of my Family Testament, printed in 1826, avoucheth; another, that by the sinister influence and jealousy of a few aspiring great men, I judged it expedient to be silent, or as silent as possible. I had the misfortune to be, for a time, cried down, misrepresented and slandered, by a very ignorant, unlettered, and consequential little priesthood, called "The Red Slone Regular Baptist Association," and through them dubbed an heretic, and aspiring to be an heresiarch-
I wrote the Christian Baptist, and that was not expected to make the matter better, but rather worse; for we had the triple alliance of ignorance, pride and jealousy, to contend against. Old men without talent, learning or experience, never could learn any thing, possessing a double portion of the spirit of their station, and as parsimonious of their contingent forms, as a miser of his hoarded gold. Suffice it, we had to pass through a fiery trial, for which I will be ever grateful--not, indeed, to these particular elect patriarchs of Western Virginia and Pennsylvania, but to him who sometimes chooses "the weak and the despised, to bring to naught the things that are."
I say we were made to Mimic, and that is a very rare, as well as a very great blessing. We were made to think for ourselves, and upon ourselves, and that led us from men and fathers, from synods and councils, up to the Bible and God.
I know many men do, in a certain sense, think for themselves; but it is the misfortune of the last age, and yet of the present, that
532 THE BIBLE UNION.
but few men are ever lead or taught to think right upon any thing but on the interesting themes of good eating, good living, and a good estate, and the shortest and easiest way to get it. I have, in this book-smitten age, wondered that no one has written a treatise on the art and mystery of thinking. Every thing--good, bad, and indifferent--but the art of thinking, is taught in our schools. But what are we saying!
I was going to say, that this hostility and prejudice awoke, without us, a fiery tempest, while it created, within us, a delightful calm. But I will proceed no farther in this direction. We have still this ill-earned reputation of being heretical. Hence, though glad to see the Bible Union formed and in progress to a glorious issue, I have said but little about it, lest I should be the occasion of rousing some evil spirit to oppose it, merely because we have so long been forward in the good work it has in view. But if I could, I would say to every honest, learned, and candid Baptist minister, be not intimidated by a few ambitious doctors, who associate my heretical name with this enterprize. You will, in a few years, see that our views are, in the main, the very views of your present most deservedly distinguished ministers, in Europe and America; and I may show yet before I die, that I am not a whit behind the chiefest of them in true, real, soul-redeeming orthodoxy. They will all confess it ere another quarter of a century passes over this New World.
I did not intend to write these things, when I took my pen in hand to say to many inquirers, that the "Bible Union" is onward and upward in its career. I will only say farther, that although I have had a new version, or a farther improved new version of the New Testament in my mind, in my heart, and occasionally in my hands, for a long time--in advance of Campbell, Macknight and Doddridge--I have not publicly named it, and, meantime, have laid it on the shelf, although we have not a single octavo copy of our Family Testament for sale. I am waiting the developments of this great Bible Union enterprize before I proceed farther in that direction. But God has said, Let there be light, and light is on the increase; for many are running to and fro in the earth, and knowledge is increasing and will increase. A. C.
VACANT--Four hundred and ninety-seven of the twenty-six hundred and seventy-five Presbyterian churches in the United States.
THE TRUE IDEA OF PRAYER. 533
THE TRUE IDEA OF PRAYER.
THE prayers and importunities of men can make no change in the divine purposes; for with the Lord there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. He cannot be moved to greater love, for his love is always infinite, and, therefore, cannot be increased. He cannot be instructed in regard to our wants; for his wisdom is also infinite. He always knows the things we have need of, before we ask him. And yet prayer is often commanded by Him whose commandments are never given in vain, and it is, therefore, important and indispensable. Though it has no power to move the arm that moves the universe; though it cannot increase the love, or change the purposes of Him who is divinely good, and infinitely wise, yet it is a means by which our own states are so changed as to make us more receptive of the divine love and wisdom. Though it does not dispose the Lord to give us what he otherwise would not be willing to grant, yet it does prepare us to receive what we could not otherwise receive. The change is effected solely in man, as the receptacle of good; riot in the Lord, as the infinite source.
The light of the sun is not increased by restoring light to a blind man. The change is effected in the man himself. So, when the interior of the mind is opened by prayer, and man receives and appropriates the blessings of heaven, the change thus effected does not result from a new impulse having been given to the divine love, but by prayer as a divinely appointed means, the man himself has become better prepared for the reception of heavenly things. The Lord is no more willing to bestow the rich treasures of spiritual goodness and truth; but man is prepared to receive those heavenly gifts without perverting them, and thereby injuring himself and others. The same divine providence which gives to those who are prepared to receive, without injury, withholds from those who are not thus prepared, looking not to the temporary gratification of man, but to their permanent and eternal welfare. The Lord is ever ready to give good things to them that ask him. But those things only are truly good which are adapted to the states of those who ask them. And as the Lord alone can know what things are adapted to the state of each individual, there can be no true asking, no genuine prayer, except in that state of thorough and humble self-resignation which says, not my will, but thine, 0 God, be done!
The true design and use of prayer is to bring a man under obedience to the divine will; to prepare him to love those things which
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 45*
534 THE TRUE IDEA OF PRAYER.
angels love, and to delight in living and acting according to the true order of heaven. So far from being designed as a means for obtaining those things which will gratify his selfish desires, its genuine use is to restrain and subdue those desires, and implant the heavenly affections of love to the Lord and his neighbor. T. H.
OUR correspondent has given us one idea, and one true idea of prayer. But we have another true idea of prayer, and one of much greater value. We are taught to pray for many other things than a resigned or holy state of mind. Our Lord himself taught his disciples to pray "for their daily bread:" no state of mind could supply this want, not even though it could have some influence in increasing patience to endure hunger. Abraham prayed for a son, and so did Hannah, and the Lord gave them sons. The Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends. Job xlii. 10. Hezekiah besought the Lord his God, and greatly humbled himself before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him and he was entreated by him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to his kingdom. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 13. I need not cite the case of Peter's praying for Dorcas, and in answer to prayer, she was raised to life again; nor of Elijah's praying for rain, and rain came in answer to his prayer. It is more to our subject to observe the use that James makes of his case. From these premises he says: "The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," notwithstanding his infirmities. The promise of the great Teacher to his disciples on this subject, is given in the following words, "What things soever you desire, believe that you will receive them, and you shall have them."
It avails nothing to assume that these were extraordinary cases in the age of miracles, or in the age of prophecy. So far as the questions about changing the divine purposes, or of increasing the love of God, or of affecting the reputation of his foreknowledge, or the fixedness and uniformity of his government, are concerned, it is one and the same thing. For the divine foreknowledge, immutability, purpose, love and mercy, are as much affected in the cases alleged, as though they were as frequent as all the prayers of all his saints. If we can reconcile one single case of a positive and prompt answer to prayer with those attributes, it is enough, and especially in such sensible and appreciable instances as those I have given. If the Lord has said, "Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you," it is assurance enough that he will answer prayer. Indeed, he gives promises for
POWER OF A GOOD MAN'S LIFE. 535
the purposes of being inquired of in prayer; and, therefore, occasionally, he waits to be inquired of; as in the case of ancient Israel he says, "I will yet, for this, be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them." Ezekiel xxxvi. 37.
I do not believe that when God created the universe he made it like to an eight-day clock, to run just seven thousand years, and then stop. In that case, indeed, there would be no direct answer to prayer. One form of prayer would suffice for all cases. Instead of a daily prayer for our daily bread, or our daily health and safety, we might, with more propriety, say, "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." This would be the only prayer necessary, in all cases, were prayer merely designed to produce acquiescence. When at more leisure, I have an essay in contemplation on the subject of prayer. A. C.
POWER OF A GOOD MAN'S LIFE.
"THE beauty of a holy life," says Chalmers, "constitutes the most eloquent and effective persuasive to religion which one human being can address to another. We have many ways of doing good to our fellow-creatures, but none so efficacious as leading a virtuous, upright, and well-ordered life. There is an energy of moral suasion in a good man's life, passing the highest efforts of the orator's genius. The seen but silent beauty of holiness speaks more eloquently of God and duty than the tongues of men and angels. Let parents remember this. The best inheritance a parent can bequeath to a child is a virtuous example, a legacy of hallowed remembrances and associations. The beauty of holiness beaming through the life of a loved relative or friend, is more effectual to strengthen such as do stand in virtue's ways, and raise up those that are bowed down, than precept, command, entreaty, or warning. Christianity itself, I believe, owes by far the greater part of its moral power, not to the precepts or parables of Christ, but to his own character. The beauty of that holiness which is enshrined in the four brief biographies of the man of Nazareth, has done more, and will do more, to regenerate the world, and bring it an everlasting righteousness, than all the other agencies put together- It has done more to spread his religion in the world, than all that has ever been written on the evidences of Christianity."
536 HOWARD AND BUNYAN.
CHURCH AT WASHINGTON CITY.
Farther report of the contributions received at this office, in aid of the erection of a meeting-house at Washington City:
Z. Carpenter, - - - - - - - $2 00
W. D. Davis, - - - - - - - 6 00
J. Groom, - - - - - - - 2 00
J. L. Martin, - - - - - - - 2 00
L. L. Pinkerton and J. T. Johnson, - - - 2 00
W. Bender, - - - - - - - 5 00
William S. Pickrell,- - - - - - 10 00
John Metts, - - - - - - - 1 00
Le Roy Bowlward, - - - - - - 5 00
J. Harvey, - - - - - - - 1 00
J L. Martin, - - - - - - - 1 00
John Shotwell and H. B. Goe, - - - - 10 00
John Yowell, for Liberty Church, Tenn., - - 20 00
S. B. Teagarden, of West Finley, Pa., - - 1 00
J. D. Ferguson,- - - - - - - 1 00
Dr. Pinkerton, - - - - - - - 1 00
J. T. Johnson, - - - - - - - 1 00
G. T. Edwards, of Russelville, Ky.,- - - 1 00
Mrs. Ferguson, of Clark county, Ky., - - 1 00
$73 00
HOWARD AND BUNYAN.
APART from the accidents of the case, the prison at Bedford was a fitting scene for the inauguration of Howard's philanthropic career. Its walls were already glorified by the long captivity of Bunyan- Seldom does such a combination occur. From that obscure and petty prison proceeded, but at a long interval of time, two of the noblest and most precious works of man--Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Howard's labor of charity and love. Here that famous Puritan--a man whom Milton and Cromwell would have loved and honored--was confined for twelve long years, after the restoration of the Stuart dynasty-1660-72 --for the high crime and misdemeanor of denying the right divine of kings and hierarchs to govern wrong; and here, he not only conceived, but also wrote, his famous allegory, that true and genuine book, which has perhaps done more for the spread of real piety and religious sentiment in this country, than any other uninspired production--supporting himself the while by his industry in the art of making tags and purses; which he, in common with his fellow-captives, was permitted to sell to visiters. Himself a Puritan of the grand and genuine Miltonic stamp, Howard would certainly feel a deep respect and veneration for his prison on Bunyan's account; and here his own efforts and investigations were to begin.
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 537
WESTERN CONVENTIONS.
INTENDING, the Lord willing, to visit the following Conventions--viz: the American Christian Bible Society, meeting at Cincinnati, Ohio, October 22d; the State Convention of the Churches in Kentucky, meeting one week after, at Lexington; the State Convention of the Churches in Indiana, meeting one week after, at Indianapolis--I would request the, contributors to Bethany College, for endowing the Chair of Sacred History, in Kentucky, who have not paid their subscriptions; and the other contributors to said College in Ohio and Indiana, with those in arrears to the printing establishment at Bethany on any account, to meet me, or to send on their arrears to those centres, at the aforesaid meetings. In complying with this request, I need not say that they will not only gratify and please themselves and us, but promote, in so doing, the great interests both of Christianity and education--interests the most vital and important to society, both with respect to the life that now is, and also with respect to that which is to come. It will be, moreover, not only more economically, but more satisfactorily accomplished to the parties themselves. All of which is most respectfully, as well as most earnestly, submitted. A. C.
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
OHIO.--Bro. Burns says: "The result of my labors in the gospel since writing, have been about 25 additions by immersion, and 5 restored. At a meeting at Gilloway, Knox county, and continuing some ten days, 14 made the good confession and 4 restored, and the brethren filled with joy, was the result."--Bro. Jno. T. Powell reports 4 persons immersed at Bethel, on Monday after the second Lord's day of July; on Monday following, at Holmesville, 3 more were added, and 1 received who had been immersed--. all by his own labors --Bro. Jno. Campbell reports 2 additions, by immersion, at Deaverstown, by the labors of Bro. Lardner.
INDIANA.--Bro. James Conner reports, that under his labors 9 additions have been made within a few weeks; and since his removal from Greensburg to Freeport, 16 persons were added to the congregation at Hanover, Shelby county. "We have held no protracted meetings, nor does there appear to be any unusual excitement, but yet there is a general awakening of the people to the subject of religion, and additions are regularly being made from the first classes of the community."--Bro. L. H. Jameson says: "I have immersed 9 persons within the fast two weeks," and reports the prospects favorable for a larger addition.--Bro. Milton Short, of Springville, informs us that the labors of Bro. James Blankenship, In the counties of Bartholomew, Decatur, Brown, Morgan, Johnson, Owen, Putnam, Lawrence and Green, since the middle of March, have resulted in 150 additions to the Army of the Faithful-130 by baptism, and 20 from the Baptists; 47 of whom were added during a protracted meeting of ten days. --Bro. J. B. New reports 29 additions-10 by immersion, 19 had been immersed but not received into communion. Brethren O'Kane, Waters
538 OBITUARY.
and Wilson, were assistant laborers. "The churches appear to be doing Well."
VIRGINIA.--Bro. C. Bullard reports 4 confessions made during his labors in the vicinity of Sinking Creek.
ARKANSAS.--Bro. C. Carlton says: "Since I last wrote, we have re-organized the church on Frog Bayou, consisting of about 20 members. The prospects for the triumph of truth in this country, are good. May the Lord prosper his own cause!" The church which we stated as having been organized in Van Buren, was organized at Fort Smith; which statement corrects a simple mistake made in the July number.
GEORGIA.--Bro. Augustus B. Fears reports a meeting of six days in Campbell county, during which 7 persons were added-5 from the world and 2 from the Baptists. The assistant laborers present were Bros. Hook, Cheek, Moody and Perdue. "The Bible alone is soon to be the rallying point with thousands of Baptists in Georgia." Within the last twelve months there has been, says Bro. A. B. Fears, a wonderful change in the bounds of my labors, in favor of Christian union, and of the good cause we plead.
ELLERSLIE, Boon County, Mo., July 30, 1851.
Brother Campbell: Yesterday a very interesting meeting of four days, closed at the upper end of the Two Mile Prairie, in this county, with 11 baptisms on the profession of faith in the Lord Jesus. The congregations were large and solemn throughout the meeting. Bros. Shannon, Henderson, Wills, Chrisman, and myself, were the speakers. I immersed a lady who confessed the Lord in Fulton, on the second Lord's day in this month, and an old and respectable gentleman confessed the Saviour at New Bloomfield, on the third Lord's day.
Today I received a letter from Bro. W. H. Hopson, dated "Warsaw, Benton county, Mo., July 23, 1851," in which he says: "My meeting in this place closed last night with 33 additions; among them, 2 Baptists, 4 Methodists, and 1 Presbyterian. I go from here to Springfield." Bro. Hopson has been constantly in the field as a State Evangelist this year, doing good service. His talents and untiring devotion to the good work, has enabled him to contribute much to the triumph of truth and the advancement of the Redeemer's Kingdom in this State. Affectionately your brother, T. M. ALLEN.
Total number reported since last month, 220.
OBITUARY.
Died, at Connersville, Indiana, on the 6th of July, in the 23d year of her age, Sister DRESDEN FREYBERGER, consort of Mr. Wodson Freyberger, and daughter of our deceased brother, Gabriel Ginn. She left an affectionate mother, nine sisters, one brother, a devoted husband, and three orphan children, to lament their irreparable loss. Nine years ago she made the good confession, and was justly esteemed by all who knew her, as an intelligent and devoted Christian, an affectionate wife, a tender mother, and a kind-hearted neighbor.
MOUNT ROCK, Pa., June 28, 1851.
Brother Campbell: On the evening of the 25th of April last, after a most severe and painful illness of five days' duration, which she bore with the calmest Christian resignation, departed this life, LEAH, wife of George Zinn, Jr., of Mount Rock, Pa., aged 34 years. The deceased was endowed by nature with a clear and vigorous intellect, strong and active moral
OBITUARY. 539
faculties, and a sound physical constitution. Although she was the mother of eight children, seven of whom survive to mourn over a sad, and most melancholy bereavement; yet she seemed to have been cut down as the green and tender herb, in the very morning of her existence. One short week previous to her decease, she possessed as fair prospects for long life and happy days as any one in the community; but alas! how sad the change, which even a day will Wing forth, and bury all our bright anticipations in the dust! But we mourn not as those without hope. Through the evangelical labors of our deeply lamented Bro. Geo. Caldwell, of Beaver Creek, Md.--Whose inspiring and eloquent tongue is now, also, hushed in the deep and solemn stillness of the grave--she made a public profession of faith in Christ, was immersed in the spring of 1841, and lived a pious, zealous, devoted, and exemplary Christian, till the day of her death. She was one of the first fruits of the current Reformation in these parts; and to her influence and instrumentality, more than to any other earthly cause, do I attribute my rescue from the pernicious herecies of the day and the service of the great Adversary. Amid all the difficulties and embarrassments, which were of the most trying character, that environed the establishment of the infant cause in the very heat of a most belligerent and bigoted sectarian community, her faith never faltered. For ten years she valiantly done battle under the banner of Prince Messiah; and when brought down upon the bed of death, she bore her illness with extraordinary patence, courage and resignation, never expressing a murmur or a fear as to its final termination. She was a true and devoted wife, a vigilant and affectionate mother, a peaceable and respectable citizen, and a bold, ardent and zealous friend of primitive Christianity- Possessed of her reason to the last, in conversation with her in relation to the great and solemn change that awaited her, in the calmest and most composed frame of mind she declared herself prepared to die; that the terrors of the grim monster, death, produced no fears or disquietude to her mind; that she felt but one concern of a temporal character, and that was for the welfare of her children, which she was about leaving forever on earth, in a comparatively helpless state. These she affectionately entrusted to the care of her husband, with a solemn admonition to train them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, that they may meet her again, where parting will be no more, in the fair climes of heaven. A few moments before she expired, Bro. Lefever conversed with her, to whom she expressed a firm faith and trust in Christ for salvation- He then knelt down at her bedside aid offered up a most fervid petition in her behalf to the throne of Grace; shortly after which, in a most severe and bitter struggle with the King of Terrors, her captive spirit was released from its clay tenement, and took its exit to the spirit land.
"Sleep, lovely wife, in death's cold arms,
No pain afflicts or fear alarms.
Thy tender spirit now at rest,
With angels bright, with all the blest.
Dearest mother, thou hast left us,
And thy loss we deeply feel;
But it is God who has bereft us:
He can all our sorrows heal."
Departed this life on the 30th of June, in her 65th year, after a short but painful illness, of cholera, Sister ELZABETH B. MASON, (consort of Peter Mason, dec.) She was born the 13th of December, 1787; raised and educated in Kentucky; baptized in early life by Elijah Craig, becoming a member of the Baptist church; but in 1828 she became a member of the Church of Christ with her husband. She emigrated to Missouri in 1829, where she has continued to fill the various relations of wife, mother, friend and neighbor, with credit to herself and her profession, till her death.
540 PIETY AND MENTAL GROWTH.
She has left a respectable family of children and grandchildren, with a large circle of brethren and sisters, and numerous friends, to mourn her loss, She was sensible that the hour of her departure had come, and, with Christian fortitude and resignation, she called her youngest daughter to her bedside, (the only one of her children present,) and told her she must not weep for her, and to tell the rest of her children not to weep; that she was prepared to die, and would soon exchange a world of affliction for one of immortal bliss. Thus she resigned her spirit into the hands of the Lord.
"Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are;
While on his breast I lean my head,
And breath my life out sweetly there.
Then blessed are the dead,
Who die in Christ the Lord;
They'll rise with him their head,
To gain a rich reward." A. RICE.
Departed this life on the 9th of July, 1851, in the 72d year of her age, Sister SALLY EDWARDS, consort of Bro. Haden Edwards, of Nelson county, Ky. For about 47 years she had honorably maintained the Christian profession. And being much devoted to the will of her Saviour, Sister Edwards was one of the first in this part of the State to embrace the principles of the present Reformation, and was a most zealous advocate of them for nearly 20 years. In the death of Sister Edwards the church has sustained a great loss, having been one of its most zealous advocates and devoted friends, and, perhaps, had done more to sustain the good cause within the bounds of her influence, than any one person in this part of the State.
With David she could truly say, "I was glad when they said, come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and learn his wars, that we may walk in them." She never permitted any thing to keep her from the house of the Lord, when it was possible for her to get there; not only so, but to encourage every one, by her affectionate admonition, to do the same. In every circle she acted with a view to her religious obligation to the Lord, the church, and the world.
She left an aged companion to bemoan the loss of her society, which was felt so needful to make his declining years tranquil and happy.
PIETY AND MENTAL GROWTH.
AN hour of solitude passed in sincere and earnest prayer, or the conflict with and conquest over a single passion or "subtle bosom sin," will teach us more of thought, will more effectually awaken the faculty, and form the habit of reflection, than a year's study in the school without them. A reflecting mind is not a flower that grows wild, or comes up of its own accord. The difficulty is, indeed, greater than many, who mistake quick recollection for thought, are disposed to admit; but how much less than it would be, had we not been born and bred in a Christian and Protestant land, very few of us are sufficiently aware. Truly may we, and thankfully ought we to exclaim with the Psalmist: "The entrance of thy word giveth light; giveth understanding even to the simple."--Coleridge.
Vol. I.] BETHANY, VA., OCTOBER, 1851. [No. X.
ROMANISM.
THE following developments of the aggressive and untiring efforts of the Papal power, to re-establish itself in Great Brain, and, indirectly, throughout European Protestant Christendom, ought to be read with attention by every American Christian; indeed, by every American citizen. The Papal government now regards the United States as one of her most promising missionary fields, because of the great freedom, generosity, and magnanimity of our population end the philanthropic and humane spirit of our institutions. Si- C' has here (what she never gave to any nation, tribe or people,) perfect liberty of conscience, of speech, and of the press, and a political right to proselyte to her own church, by every device and scheme dictated by a foreign politico-ecclesiastico despotic prince, claiming the keys of heaven, hell, and purgatory.
There is also abroad in this land a spirit of political demagogue- ism and of partizan ascendency, that caters much to bad taste and worse principles. Bishop Hughes, for example, goes to Rome to kiss the hand or the toe, as the case may be, of nine times pious Pius, and to woo a cardinal's cap, than whom his Roman Holiness has not a more pious equivocator, a more accomplished Jesuit, a more ambitious suffragator, or a more whole-hearted aspirant in his European or American Popedom. Yet, soon as he returns to his New York diocess--to his American Archiepiscopacy--a fatted ex is killed, a puncheon of wine ordered, Chief Justice Taney, Senator Webster and Senator Clay, with all the pillars of the papacy of our great American emporium, are invited to grace the banquet; and to
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 46
542 ROMANISM.
welcome, with all forensic and rhetorical eloquence, the safe arrival of this great Americanized ambassador of Christ's Vicar. But from great prudence, uncontrollable circumstances forbade the attendance of these chief political dignitaries of our land; and from profounder policy, Senatorial letters, apologetic, were read from them to the assembled guests, full of flattery and full of welcome, ingeniously adapted to the well educated ear of Archbishop Hughes!! This was sweet incense to the young American Papal See, more precious and more aromatic far, than any ever imported from Afric's spicy isles, or Arabia's fragrant groves. When these letters were read, how swelled the grateful heart of Archbishop Hughes, and how glowed the bosoms all, of the true sons of the true church around the festive board,
Especially when "the goblet crowned,
Breathed aromatic fragrancies around."
Whose eye does not discern in all this pontifical affair, the encroaching policy of haughty Rome, and the supple eycophancy of American politicians, needs to be couched, by some skilful, oculist veil read in the science of political ophthalmia.
To conclude this preface, I think I see great breakers ahead. To make presidents for a great confederacy of thirty sovereign States, is a momentous affair. It has already cost this nation many, very many millions of dollars, and many myriads of men, as the late accessions of Mexican and other territory to our country, clearly authenticate. The same spirit is as rife as ever; and while Rome is pouring her millions of loyal papists, forever sworn, on pains of eternal fire, to be true and faithful to a foreign politico-ecclesiastic despotism--to "increase and enlarge" the popedom, to extend the double sceptre, and to unsheath the two swords, which Messiah gave to Saint Peter--one temporal and one spiritual--one for the throne and one for the mitre, I must confess I fear, not so much for the church as for the State. We have political Puseyism, while England has ecclesiastic Puseyism. The church thrives best under persecution. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, bound in the midst of the burning fiery furnace, Christians come out of the fire 'unscathed, because the Son of God is with them. But he State is in danger of giving her power to the monster, and the monster imprisons the truth, and gives its votaries gall and wormwood to drink.
This community is not elightened, as it ought to be, on the aggressive spirit, character, and efforts of the !"Wan of Sin." He has made his covenant with death, and his agreement with the grave. He would sweep the earth with the besom of destruction, and people
ROMANISM. 543
the world unseen with the spirits of the martyrs. His church is more infallible, immutable, and perpetual, than Catholic, and can neither change nor err. What she once did under the authority of the Vatican, she must always do; because she is as immutable as she is infallible. If, in the day of her power, her lightnings gleamed over Europe and Asia, and her thunders roared from the Tiber to the Thames; if her Inquisitors incarcerated the purest and the best patrons of science and religion, or cast into prisons the purest patriots and the most enlightened men--give her the same opportunity, and she perjure herself if she re-enacts not the same bloody and murderous scenes. And this she does, forsooth, for the glory of God and the good of men's souls.
This may be unsavory to some palates, and dissonant to some ears; but on her own showing, and under her own vows, she cannot change, for while a Pope may go to hell when he dies, as Bishop Purce! teaches, while on earth, he is the infallible head of the church and the official Vicar of Christ. But here we shall leave him at present, and treat our readers to a truthful and valuable extract from "The Banner of the Covenant," for August and September. A. C.
NEVER, probably, since the time when direct force was employed in the controversy, did Romanism and Protestantism look each other so fully in the face as at this moment. An over-credulous Pope was persuaded that England longed for his sway, and he sent her, as an earnest of future favors, a veritable Cardinal. Rumor may or may not be correct in asserting, that papal advisers warned their master to allow something for the vanity and ambition of his informant, and that these same advisers now rejoice in the events that verify their own predictions. England did not, as in the days of Cardinal Pole, bow to Dr. Wiseman and beg his blessing. Instead of such humiliation, her parliament is making laws--uniting, think many, as much toleration as is consistent with self-preservation, and the purport of which is, that if Cardinal Wiseman persists in being a cardinal, and manufacturing bishops, he must enjoy the dignity, and follow his profession, beyond the seas. All but the very moderate Roman Catholics, are of course very angry. Significant bonfires have been kindled by my countrymen, for Lord John Russell's effigy; and the priests have been eloquent on every altar regarding this persecution of their faith. Perhaps it is to be regretted that legislation should have been necessary on the question. The fact will be dexterously employed to give to Romanists the appearance of a weak and down-trodden party--a persecuted minority. The natural sympathies of a class, which, regardless of relative merit, feels for the weaker party, will be drawn upon, and a pretext will be given to many to rail and whine, as may suit the occasion, about "Romish wrongs and Romish endurance." Those who are
544 ROMANISM.
laboring to disseminate Bible truth among a Romanist population, have already observed a degree of alienation, consequent upon the view of this Bill, presented to the popular mind--inflammable always in proportion to its ignorance.
But it can be said on the other hand, that legislative interference had become a national necessity. A cardinal is not a mere Ecclesiastic- He ranks a temporal prince. He is such to all intents and purposes. The pope, then, as a foreign power, could not be allowed to create princes, introduce a new law-the Canon law--and set up an independent jurisdiction in Britain. Besides, by this act, Rome claims supremacy over every baptized person in Britain. The claims of Rome, allowed, become "rights;" and we all know how Rome establishes her "rights," even by such strong reasons, as bolts, bars, chains, and prisons. And so far as Romanism is a religious system, tolerate it, by all means. Let there be no penalties for saying a mass, or seeing a mass. Give the priest full permission to administer the filthy rite of extreme unction, though it only lubricates the dark passage of a sinner into another world. In one word, tolerate all of the system that is religious, an that clashes not with the safety of Christian freemen. But all the world's experience proves that much of Popery is away and beyond the limits of a mere religion. It is a state above states, a government over governments- A number of strange facts have lately been before the public eye, illustrative of Rome's selfish procedure. A vain attempt to get art orphan into a nunnery, whose claims upon charity were the possession of £80,000--a lawsuit at the instigation of the friends of a Frenchman, whose £10,000 were slipping into the church's hands, and a number of kindred facts, have awakened public attention to call for a bill, subjecting "religious houses" to regular inspection- We have heard it remarked that these things have come very providentially, when men were willing to look at real, undiluted Popery. We would rather suppose that the close scrutiny now meeting and investigating Popish deeds, is bringing to light its schemes and plans, and that man's quickened vision is now detecting what may have been going on, all unseen and unnoticed, through all the years of the system's "dark duration."
These facts, however, evidence the existence of art element in Popery, away and beyond the simply religious. Rome can wield the sceptre which the Saviour deprecated, saying, "My kingdom is not of this world." "Here are two swords," said the disciple "that is," says Rome, "the temporal and the spiritual power, in Peter's hand." She uses both, as a church, and in her office-bearers, in detail, she is at war incessantly with the apostle's saying, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal." What an absurdity would this be in the mouth's of Rome's agents, from the frail, and feeble, and fettered man, whose blasphemous name is "Christ's vicar," to the lowest, and vilest minion, who, under the unevangelic name of "priest," degrades the office of a minister of Christ! "Not carnal," says Pio Nono; and he bids the French shot and shell fall in fiery showers on the "city of the saints" with its 365 churches--that spurns him from her palaces. "Not carnal," says the "Society of Jesus," as it bids the door of an "inner prison" creak upon an
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incarcerated Achilli, or leads him out to a market-place auto-da-fe. "Not carnal," says the Irish "priest"--Father Malone, who was tried the other day for abusing a woman and making free use of his whip; and the crime of the woman was sending her children to a Bible school. "Not carnal" they may all say. But who believes them when they say it? No, Rome is equal to any undertaking. She can stoop to ruin the trade of a Bible-reading mechanic, or block up the course of a nation's legislature. Has she not done it only a few weeks ago in Britain? Mince the matter as men may, it was "Papal aggression" that lay at the bottom of Lord John Russell's difficulties. Oh! would that this might rouse up British senators to see the vanity of conciliating Rome by "sops to Cerberus"--concessions to error that have two bad effects--to increase the craving appetite they feed, and to bring down upon the nation, God's righteous indignation. Oh! when will Britain, from the analogy of her own by-gone annals, learn the lesson that whenever she becomes thoroughly the patroness of error, she falls, and falls irrevocably!
Still there is not much over which Rome can boast in her present position in Britain. True, indeed, she is getting daily accessions from the Church of England's Puseyism. These, however, do not strengthen her, nor do they weaken Protestantism- They are better out of the ranks in which they could, and would, be traitors. Dr. Pusey tried a few weeks ago to keep a number of his friends in the Establishment, that they might the better disseminate their views. They refused. They had grown wiser than their teacher, and have gone the whole length of "Anglican principles"--to a recantation of Protestantism. Zealous churchmen devoutly wish that Dr. Pusey and the Bishops of London, Exeter and some others, would be equally honest.
But, no. They keep their places; and who can put them out There is a fact in English episcopacy. A man may be a bishop. teaching popery openly, and no man can remove him. He is a church fixture, and no Elizabeth can say now, "I will unfrock you." Henry of Exeter, in a late "pastoral," says he knows no work by a minister of his church containing "half so many heretical statements," as does the "charge" of his own primate, the pious and valued Archbishop of Canterbury. Rome, however, derives no elements of strength, even from these things. Good men are being stirred up to pray against, and strive against the principles that lie at the bottom of Puseyism and Popery. And lo lead others to the same, do we mention them--not to triumph over our neighbors' weak points, and bring them into self-glorifying contrast with ourselves, but to excite that deep interest in the general concerns of Protestantism that ought to be felt in every Protestant bosom--and to keep ourselves on the watch against kindred iniquities. Oh! it is a fearful thing when the worm man, forgetting to hide pride from him, builds up a pedestal of proud ceremonials, and puts himself thereon to be glorified! Oh! it is a blighting and a withering curse, to a church, when man is allowed to collect together, as may suit his fancy, artistic and imposing paraphernalia, and in the midst of the gorgeous complexity set himself up as officiating high priest! Un-
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renewed man, in any position, is proud. Man in the ministry, we have often thought is specially tempted to the sin of Satan. Many there are who would become individually great if they could. But they cannot. How, then, shall they gratify their wish? By becoming part and parcel of a great whole. Rome presents that appearance- She has an apparent uniformity--the uniformity of a set of men, whom the tailor dressed in the same cloth, and the drill-sergeant taught to walk in the same steps. But, that uniformity, is not unity, the oneness of soul, that characterizes the followers of Emanuel, whether they shiver towards the pole, or are scorched under a vertical sun. This appearance of unity beguiles many. Their minds once fixed on that idea, they will overlook many things obviously wrong--as excrescences on the great trunk of a church having this mysterious and majestic "unity." Oh! what unify! Unity like that of an African desert, where no oasis relieves the eye or breaks the monotonous sterility of the wide, uniform, waste. Unity like that of the Dead Sea, whose waters no gentle wind ruffles and whose shores no pleasant trees or flowers variegate. Unity, such as the gardener produces in his box-rows by incessant clipping, and a unity which no individual shrub retains without clipping--except the dead ones. And how much clipping Rome has to do! The confessional, the altar denunciation, the secret denunciation, the inquisition, the espionage, the suppression of Bible-reading, the Index Expurgatorius, and the armies that hunt down the Albigenses and the Lollards, are just so many Corms assumed by the tremendous scissors of Papal Rome, to prevent her stinted offspring from casting forth free and unfettered boughs, after the manner of the "tree of righteousness, the planting of the Lord."
If the communication, in this form, of such thoughts regarding Romanism--not new--but enforced on the writer's mind, by daily contact with Popery--be deemed of any use, he will deem it a duty, in a more careful manner, to continue the contribution. J. H.
LETTER FROM DR. BARCLAY--No. IV.
JERUSALEM, May 1, 1851.
Dear Brother Crane: When I assign as reasons why your most welcome letter of December 12th, which was received early in March, has remained so long unanswered, that I had just previously written to Bro. Millen, and have been waiting for some time in constant expectation of a private and safe opportunity to convey letters to the United States direct, I trust that, though the apology may seem to need an apology, you will, of your clemency, excuse the delay. The postal communication existing between Asia and the United States, is so circuitous and defective that but little reliance can be placed upon the transmission of letters; but inasmuch as yours reached me so safely and speedily, I can but indulge the hope that the three or four letters which I have addressed to Bro. Challen, the former secretary, since leaving home, have reached him. I
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shall, therefore, in order to avoid repetition, say nothing of matters prior to the date of my last.
We are not only contented, but perfectly delighted with "Jerusalem, our happy home." This place seems to be as remarkably distinguished, at the present day, for its polyglottal inhabitants and visitors, as it was at the ever memorable Pentecostal Feast. But still, most of the people speak Arabic, more or less perfectly. Hence, our first great object is to acquire the knowledge of this difficult tongue, and we already begin to stammer a little in its grunting ventriloquials; yet so numerous and onerous are my other engagements, that I have as yet made no progress worth boasting of. We are truly sorry to find, that so far as communication with the people is concerned, the little classical Arabic we learned from books while in London and on our way here, is altogether unavailing--being so entirely different from the vulgar tongue. Deeming it entirely inconsistent with the object had in view in coming here, to put under a bushel that light which, though it emanated from this consecrated spot, has yet ceased to illuminate it for so many long centuries. I have made it my business to become acquainted with the chief men of the city, and to be much in contact with the people; this, mainly, through the kindness of Mr. Sinyauke, a missionary of the London Missionary Society, and Mr. Murad, an excellent teacher, who has also kindly acted as interpreter, I have been enabled, in a great measure, to accomplish.
It was no sooner known that I administered medicine than petitions poured in from all quarters-Jews, Moslems and Christians, so called, but especially the first named, requesting me to visit their sick. But so great was the draft upon my time, that I soon found it necessary to decline visiting those at a distance from my house, except in cases of great urgency. But still they bring to my door such of their sick as are not too ill; and it is no uncommon thing to have five or six patients in my office at one time.
In consequence of the increasing applications, my stock of medicines, which was already much reduced and injured while at sea, is quite broken and exhausted, so that I am constantly pained by being compelled to turn a deaf ear to applicants, for the treatment of whose cases I have not the necessary medicines. I have several times been called in to see the body (or at least one of the bodies) of an offendi, (or Moslem lord,) whose house opens directly into the yard of the Mosque of Omar, (the temple area,) and have thus been permitted to enjoy the much coveted right of that (tabooed) inclosure the Harem as Sherif.
I have received numbers of visits from the offendis of the city and the sheiks of the surrounding country, either professionally or socially, and they have uniformly professed themselves admirers of America, and have, at the same time, expressed their approbation of my residence among them, as did also the authorities in the seraglio, where the mission was brought to their notice by our attentive consul, who, though stationed at Jaffa, occasionally exercises the functions of his office here also.
You will be pleased to hear that one of the chief secretaries of the city government has been presented with a copy of the Bible
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upon his own application. Some of the Jews have been independent enough to receive the New Testament; but the rabbi have, as yet, uniformly, refused it, nor do I think I could gain access to them at all but for my medical services. When once acquainted, however, they converse very freely upon the subject of Christianity, and I may say without the semblance of boasting, that with all their talmudical lore and rabbinical sophistry, it is quite easy to gain the most complete victory over them by the appropriate use of the "sword of the Spirit-" With the exception of the autocracy of Dahomy and Nicholas, I verily believe that there is not in all this wide world a more tyrannical despotism than that exercised over the Jews of this land by their "lords spiritual and temporal," holding, as it does, in the vilest durance the minds, bodies arid souls of these unfortunate outcasts of Israel- Hence so very few of them have the courage to confess Jesus, even after they are fully convinced that he is their promised Messiah.
Although greatly disinclined to beg, I am strongly tempted--in view of the great good to be accomplished--to beg the Board to send out, as an assistant to the mission, a physician with a good assortment of medicines, to practice gratuitously among the poor of Jerusalem. To attend properly to all the professional calls made upon me, would entirely consume my time; to turn a deaf ear to them altogether, would not only be entirely inconsistent with my feelings and sense of duty, but close up an open door of access to the people: and to pursue a middle course, is almost impossible. What, then, is to be done?
The London Jews' Society has a large hospital here, upon which it annually expends more than $10,000; and it is through this institution, almost solely, that its converts have been made. In order to counteract its influence, Sir Moses Montefiore, a wealthy Israelite, has established a large and well managed hospital in opposition. The Armenians are now building one, and the Latins have such an institution already. Yet, notwithstanding this, I have applications from all parts of the city, more than sufficient to employ all my time, could I attend to them.
Should the executive committee not deem it within the legitimate scope of its functions to comply with this request, still, have the Disciples of Christ in the United States no wealthy brethren among them, as much devoted to the truth as it is in Jesus, as the Hebrew is to the truth as it was in Moses, who will send us that help at his own proper cost? If not, tell it not in Gath; breath it not in the streets of Jerusalem.
We have just removed from the Christian Quarter, where we first rented rooms, and have settled in the Mohammedan Quarter, quite near the seraglio, or Governor's Palace, which occupies the site of the Tower of Antonia, hard by the temple area. I will not tell you what intrigues were resorted to, (nor by whom, lest it might cause my veracity to be questioned,) to defeat our contemplated settlement on Mount Zion, where I made no little effort to procure a house.
The rent I am now paying is rather higher than what I paid for our late premises, being 4,050 piasters per annum. The price insisted upon for some time by its owner, an influential offendi, was
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6,000, but after long pending negociation, our kind consul succeeded in procuring it at the above rate--$202. It is rented for one year, or as much longer as I may choose to keep it; but as rent is on the rise, it will no doubt be found advisable to continue in it, although a tolerable decent and comfortable house of smaller dimensions, and situated in a less healthy part of the town, can be had cheaper. But the increased rise of our congregation rendered it very inconvenient to hold cur public meetings in the reception room; and had we continued there any longer, it, would have been necessary to rent, a separate room for a meeting room, and also for teaching school, for we have some scholars already, and many more could be had if deemed expedient. This house, however, has in it a large hall, which answers very well for that purpose, and it is more economical, as well as convenient, to have them both together.
But what is a matter of prime importance, during our acclimation in this sickly place, is that it is located in the healthiest part of the city. That it may not seem unmeasurably high in your estimation, however, I will just remark that the house occupied by the American Presbyterian Missionaries, when in this city, (which is in the immediate vicinity,) is now rented by Dr. Schultz, the Prussian Consul, for 6,000 per annum.
Whilst olive oil, doura, oranges, and many other articles are cheap here, the articles chiefly used by Franks are very dear. I have kept an accurate account of our expenses thus far; and assuming this account as the basis of calculation, it will require at least $1,000 per annum to defray current expenses. This is only about half the amount estimated by a few friends whom I consulted. Dr. De Forest, however, one of the Beirut Missionaries, who was here a few days since, thinks that this amount, exclusive of house rent and dragoman's wages, might suffice. But I feel confident that it will be sufficient to meet all the expenses which I feel willing for the brethren to incur on our account. This amount you will understand is entirely exclusive of the cost of furniture, books, and many little articles required by every family, but which I can by no means consent to charge the patrons of the mission with. But although this estimate is considerably lower than it has been rated at by any one else, I am yet a little apprehensive that it considerably exceeds the amount supposed to be sufficient before my departure from the United States.
I must take the liberty of mentioning the sums respectively received by several persons here, somewhat similarly situated, in order that the committee may be more fully satisfied:
The salary of Messrs. Nicholson and Eweld, stationary preachers, and of Dr. McGowan, physician to the hospital, is fifteen hundred dollars each, without any family, or but a small one; this, too, is exclusive of house rent, dragoman's hire and servants. Mr. Veitch, the principal of the Hebrew school, received (until the school was discontinued) $2,000. Mr. Tinyauke, a single gentleman, missionary to the Jews of Palestine, is paid five hundred dollars, his traveling expenses when abroad, and incurs no charge for rent, hire of servants, etc. Colporteurs receive for their occasional services about five hundred dollars. "The Right Reverend Lord Bishop of
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Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and the United Anglican, and Irish churches at Jerusalem," receives, in addition to six hundred dollars allowance for house rent, several dragomen, janisaries, and perquisites innumerable, six thousand dollars!! But Bishop Barclay is happy in belonging to no such category.
But let me now speak of a more interesting subject. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of introducing into the fold of the Redeemer four of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. These first fruits of the mission, consisting of a mother and three grown children, were buried with their Saviour in baptism, near the Damascus gate, in one of the pools so abundant within and without the city, and give the strongest evidence that they have risen to walk in the newness of life. There were present at their baptism a few spectators from each quarter of the globe, who gazed in mute astonishment at this strange sight, behaving with the utmost propriety. But no sooner was it noised abroad through the city, than it excited the greatest disturbance; not so much amongst bigoted Jews as amongst Protestants--Christians! And whereunto the matter would have grown, but for the protection of their consul, there is no telling. Be it recorded to the honor of Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, that Joseph like, he did not consent to the counsel and deed of them that convened in conclave to consider the matter, but nobly stood up in defence of the right of private judgment and independence. If ever I saw true penitent believers, this household consists of such, and their obedience to the faith has given us great satisfaction.
But uncertainty as to the proper course to be pursued in relation to several Others who have applied for baptism, has greatly perplexed my mind and grieved my heart, with the exception of these cases, (Jewish converts,) the purity of whose motives there is every reason to question. In one or two instances, improper motives were so well developed as to justify me in rejecting them after a very little investigation; but in others, while their motives may be reasonably questioned, there is yet no sufficient ground for rejecting them, without permitting mere suspicion to exercise too much sway. But besides these, there are two or three persons of superior intelligence, and apparently very pious, and yet they come in such a very questionable shape, and are so eccentric in manner, and singular in their views of prophecy, which they publish on all occasions, that the connection with us which they seek, I apprehend would considerably tend to injure us. I have concluded upon the whole that, inasmuch as there is in the scriptures neither precept nor precedent for the treatment of such doubtful cases, it is best to hold them in abeyance awhile, and recommend them to devote much time to reading the Sacred Scriptures, self-examination, etc., in the hope that Providence will make the case plain. By pursuing this course, and exercising rigid discipline over those already admitted, I hope to keep the church pure. I would gladly, in this dilemma, avail myself of the advice of the committee, but it is evident without being here in person, and conversant with all the circumstances of the case, the genius of the people, and other matters, a correct idea of which it would be impossible for us to convey in writing, no correct judgment can be formed. But if the dear brethren cannot assist me by
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their counsel, they can at least render valuable service by praying to the "Lord of the Harvest," who giveth liberally and upbraideth not, that he would endow me with wisdom and discretion, and all qualifications requisite properly to meet the onerous responsibilities of my station. Were it merely my object to get members into the church, I could soon have quite a number of respectable persons. But besides these crooked cases, there are several persons almost persuaded to become old-fashioned Christians, who would be a great acquisition; of whose complete conversion to the truth, and union with us, I trust I shall soon have the pleasure of informing you.
Appearances are certainly very encouraging at present, but what. a day may bring forth in this place, there is no divining.
Jerusalem, once called, par excellence, "The Holy City," I verily believe, my dear brother, is one of the most corrupt places on earth, especially the Christian portion of it. In this respect I have been greatly disappointed. From the Mohammedans, by whom I had expected to be denounced and persecuted, I have received the kindest and most respectful treatment; while from the Christians, (and especially that portion claiming to be apostolic and enlightened,) by whom I had expected to be treated, at least, with Christian courtesy, I have received treatment which has worked the censure of all classes. In the entire absence of all other occasions, the inference may, perhaps, be drawn that I have incurred their displeasure, by tailing to present the truth in love, or, what is still worse, have not commended myself to their consciences, by the proper manifestation of the truth. But, my dear brother, I must be allowed to plead "not guilty."
In the sagacity and the prudence of the serpent, I am, doubtless, somewhat deficient, but I must be allowed to lay claim to no small portion of the inoffensiveness of the dove, so far, at least, as they are concerned; albeit I confess I have cried aloud, and shown Rome her transgressions. My only fear is that my great desire to avoid giving offence, has been construed into another quality of the dove, of which I am as little envious as deserving--timidity. But enough.
I must not close, however, without saying a few words on the subject of a mission school. Not only all the missionaries have large schools, but there are also associations of bodies in England and the United States, who maintain very large and well conducted establishments, in which they educate gratuitously all who choose to attend, old or young, Moslem, Jew or Christian; and the King of Prussia is also founding a similar institution, handsomely endowed. 1f, therefore, we would not cut ourselves off from the plastic mind of youth, we must have a regular school also. But the Board need not be reminded of the great importance of schools in connection with missions, as means of access, not only to children, but their parents, and, indeed, the community generally. Of course, as long as there are only a few scholars, as at present, (only five,) we are fully able to take charge of them, and will cheerfully furnish books, stationery, materials, etc.
A lengthy reply, at your earliest convenience, will not be only highly gratifying, but, inasmuch as this is an important crisis with us, will be highly expedient also.
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Love and greetings to all the holy brethren. I can but feel that I have not been forgotten by them. Will you not all continue to commend me to God and the word of his grace?
With the highest personal esteem, as well as Christian love, yours in Christ, J. T. BARCLAY.
LETTER No. V.
JERUSALEM, May 14, 1851.
BROTHER CRANE-My Dear Sir: Since my last, we have received two valuable accessions to our little flock--Mr. Murad and Mr. Houser; and it is in relation to the former that I now avail myself of a private opportunity of communicating with Beirut, to address you a few lines. This individual, Mr. Lazarus Murad, the brother of our consul at Jaffa, has been employed by me as a teacher and dragoman ever since our arrival here, and has for some years been a member of the Presbyterian Church. He is an Armenian by nation, but born in Bethlehem, Judea, and brought up in this city. Upon leaving the Armenian Church to join the Presbyterian, he was dreadfully persecuted, being bound in fetters and scourged--the marks of which he bears to the present day. He speaks the Armenian, Turkish, Arabic, and English languages fluently, and Italian, German and French, less perfectly.
He has, for the last six years, been employed by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions as translator, colporteur, etc.; and, by order of the Beirut missionaries, has lately rendered into Armenian, for the benefit of pilgrims, that queer, mystical, and mystifying production of John Bunyan--" Pilgrim's Progress!"! Though formerly so much persecuted by the Armenians, and lately anathematized publicly by the Patriarch, he still has influence enough with them to secure the attendance of a little congregation amongst them, that he addresses every Lord's day evening. He is entirely devoted to the work of the Lord; and his talents and attainments, which are quite respectable for this latitude, are such as to give fair promise of usefulness--indeed, have already proved not a little useful. He has been a constant attendant upon our services for the last three months, and though for some time he could not be convinced of all the truth as it is in Jesus, yet for some weeks he has been fully convinced, but owing to his sense of propriety, postponed his entire submission to the truth until he could freely communicate with his former brethren at Beirut. The strenuous efforts put forth to prevent his union with us, and retain him in his late connection, confirm the good opinion entertained of him on all sides.
I am thus particular in giving you his history and character, because I am very anxious--being fully assured of the purity of his motives and the integrity of his intentions--to have the Board appoint him my assistant, so that I can at once obtain complete access to all classes of Syrian population.
We have just advanced far enough in Arabic to perceive its difficulties, and be convinced that many a weary and unprofitable month --perhaps year--must pass away before I can speak fluently enough
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to preach publicly in this intricate tongue; and, besides, it is a great mistake, as I now learn, to suppose that Arabic is a universal medium of intercourse, farther than mere trading is concerned. The present crisis demands, too, that we should issue a few simple tracts in Arabic and Armenian, which, with his assistance, I can easily do.
I have just been conversing with him, and he is truly anxious to preach the truth, as he has found it in the word of the Lord. Should the Board deem it expedient to engage his services, I suppose about $300 would suffice to sustain him, though others are getting about twice that sum from other missions, for doing less than he would be required to do as teacher, dragoman, Bible distributer, translator. etc.; but I have rated it to correspond with the estimate of my own allowance. Indeed, his services for two hours every day as teacher of Arabic, would be rated at about that price.
The matter seems to be so providential, and his appointment so manifestly advantageous, that I have not hesitated to engage him on my own responsibility, until I can hear from the Board. I mils: confess, however, that I feel no little diffidence in making this proposition to the Board, after having so recently proposed other considerable expenditures. My only apology is that the importance of the crisis, in my estimation, demands it so loudly, and Providence indicates it so plainly, that my convictions of duty constrain me to suggest it.
But I have just received notice that I must make haste or lose the present opportunity, so that I must conclude as abruptly as reluctantly-
May the Great Head of the Church so direct our counsels and influence our course of action, that glory may redound to his name. and good accrue to his cause.
Most respectfully, fraternally and affectionately, yours in the one hope, J. T. BARCLAY.
SELF-CULTURE.
An Address by W. K. PENDLETON, delivered in Wellsburg, Va., at the request of the Wellsburg Lyceum.
YOUNG GENTLEMEN OF THE LYCEUM:
WHEN I first received your invitation, requesting me to address you on the present anniversary, I hesitated to undertake the labor of such an address as I knew you would expect from me, and as I felt the occasion would demand. The many and arduous duties already resting upon me, and accumulated during a recent absence from home, together with a no very robust state of physical health. were not among the least causes of my hesitation. But it was only for a moment. When I reflected upon the duty to which I was
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called, and saw that the occasion was one so intimately connected with the great purpose to which I have ever proposed to dedicate the best powers of my mind, and felt, that in refusing the task, I should be recreant to a high duty, and fail to improve an opportunity for public usefulness and service, which it ought to be my pleasure to embrace, I forgot every other consideration, and, without seeing very well how I could find the time, determined, nevertheless, to commit myself to the work, and trust to fortune or chance for the opportunity and means of performing it.
It is with no affectation of feeling, that I declare myself deeply interested in every measure that proposes to improve the condition, intellectual, moral or physical, of the society in which I live--of my fellow-men generally. No one can place a higher estimate upon man, as man, than I do. I see stamped upon his form, glowing in his intellect, and breathing in his moral nature, the lineaments, the glory and the spirit of divinity; and no matter whether he be attired in the robes of earthly royalty or the shaggy garb of honest industry; whether he repose under the canopy of wealth or struggle in the meshes of inextricable want; whether he come forth adorned with the highest polish of education, or rude with the uncultivated instincts of a neglected nature--under all circumstances of rank, of fortune, and of education, I see written upon him, as with the finger of Revelation, his inherent immortality, and I attach to him a value commensurate in worth with the duration of his being. No occasion, therefore, which has for its object the improvement of our fellows, which affords a favorable opportunity of saying or doing any thing that can tend to help on the general progress, can fail to enlist my services or to secure my most cordial co-operation. Especially do I feel interested in cooperating, on such an occasion, with the young men of Wellsburg, and you, young gentlemen of the Lyceum; for however large our patriotism may be, and ought to be, the constitution of things under which we are placed, requires that our labors shall be directed, first and specifically, to ourselves and those more immediately around us. Our first duty is, unquestionably, to improve ourselves; to cultivate, develop, and adorn our own nature; to train up to manly strength, that we may employ in noble enter- prizes the powers that the beneficent Creator has endowed us with. Our next duty is to our families and immediate circle of friends-- then to our village, our county, our State, our race. Thus from the heart of the individual the sphere of influence expands, till, with a divine philanthropy, it includes the whole human family.
Knowing, as I do, the influence which a few words, timely spo-
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ken, may exercise upon young minds, ardent in their desires for distinction and influence, and desirous, as I always feel, to give a practical and useful direction to every thing that I do, you will appreciate my motive, if, instead of playing with your fancy by sallies of wit, or perplexing your reason with the abstractions of philosophy, I prefer the humble, but not less noble, work of directing your attention to the high ends to which you should devote the powers, intellectual and moral, which you no doubt already feel have been given you for a worthy purpose. I shall take it for granted, that you have so far looked at yourselves--so far studied the curious problem of your own personal identity, as to be satisfied that you have not, any one of you, been thrown upon the bosom of life to float as a weed upon the trackless ocean, the sport of chance, and destined only for decay; but that you feel in that finite embodiment of infinity which makes your own particular individuality, a conscious power and worth moving you to noble efforts, and filling you with desires for honorable distinction. I shall assume that you have progressed so far in studying the mystery of your own being, as not only to have raised the question, "Why am I here; to what end have I been thrown upon this wide stage of the world, among so many actors?" but that you have, moreover, inquired somewhat into the part that you are to play, and the manner in which you shall perform it.
These things we take for granted. Still, we cannot suppose that your thoughts have been so profoundly subjective on these questions as to have discovered all that they inquire for, or that we may not yet find it profitable for a moment to dwell upon them. No one, perhaps, ever asked questions of more solemn and eternal import, yet, while a child may raise them, philosophy, unaided by a divine light, has never yet satisfactorily answered them.
That there is some design in your being, is indeed evident enough. We cannot look at a piece of mechanism so curiously contrived--so marvellously and intricately arranged and adapted--with such powers of thought, of volition, and of action--with a form so divine and a mind expanding in its aspirations to embrace all that is beautiful and infinite, without feeling that here is a being, not a thing, simply, but a spiritual thing, that some how or other has been sent upon this earth, not by chance, not by mistake, but with a deliberate design-- a previous deep purpose, worthy of the mighty powers with which it is endowed, and honorable to the wisdom and skill of the Architect who conceived and created it. The very laws of our being, our own consciousness of the relation between motive, as a cause, and
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Its effects, constrains us, almost with the promptness of an instinct, to conclude that we have sprung from a great motive. Nor can we fail, after a little reflection, to admit that that motive is and must be the end of our being. If we construct a machine, we do so with some design. We intend it for some purpose, and if we are competent and skillful artizans, it is adapted to, and capable of, the use for which we made it. Still, it only answers the end of its creation when employed in the use for which it was designed. So it is with man: whatever may have been the motive which caused his creation, that motive is the end of his being, and he can only be said to fulfil the end of his existence when engaged in those pursuits which his Maker designed him to follow.
If these premises be true, and who can question them, does it not follow that no man can be said to live rationally, who is not striving to be all that his Creator designed him to be We arrive thus, by a very short, yet by a most conclusive process of reasoning, at the great and necessary ground of duty, and see that it is no other than the will of Him who made us, so that we are shut up to the conclusion, that his will is the only supreme law that a man should reel: after and follow all the days of his life- Looking at ourselves, then, in this light, let us turn our attention to a brief consideration of some of the great duties which, as men and citizens, we owe to ourselves and to society; and first to ourselves.
It is a trite remark, that man was not made for himself alone; and this, with the qualification, is true, but not otherwise. It is unquestionably true, that man was made to enjoy himself. Considered in himself, and in relation to his fellows, we may say, indeed, that this is the supreme end of his being. We do not forget, we never forget, that all things are for the glory of the great first cause, in whom we live, and move, and have our being. But this is another aspect of the case. The moving principle of that infinite one is goodness, and when his awful voice sounds through the untenanted void and says, "Let there be," where there was not before, it is that he may enliven the solitude with beings capable of happiness, break the dread silence of chaos by the sounds of communicated joy, and dissipate the darkness of night by the light of his love. Man was made to be happy--happy in himself and for himself; and if it has been wisely ordained that he shall labor for the happiness of others also, it is only because that he thus more effectually and fully enjoys his own being. The general happiness, indeed, depends upon, and is in fact made up of, that of the individuals; and therefore, look at it in any way we can, it is evident that each one has a right, an ina-
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lienable and an indefeasible right, to be happy; yea, that it is his supreme duty to be happy. But what is happiness? With whom does it dwell Where is it to be found on earth!"
"O happiness! our being's end and aim!
Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content! whate'er thy name:
That something still which prompts th' eternal sigh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die;
Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'erlook'd, seen double, by the fool and wise;
Plant of celestial seed! if dropp'd below,
Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow."
The question is important, and not a few have attempted to answer it. Happiness, say some philosophers, is agreeable sensation; but this is too gross a definition--too restricted in its comprehension- Is there no pleasure in memory, in imagination, in hope None in devotion,- in the high and lofty contemplation of the cultivated intellect and are these sensations! No. The idea is too material and gross, and we must reject it. "Happiness," says Dr. Johnson, "is the multiplication of agreeable consciousness," and though we do not see the exact propriety of the term multiplication, which is merely a word of number, we like the definition better, and shall adopt it as suited to my present argument. Still, if any one would look more profoundly into this question, and desires to hear a greater than these, we refer him to that unequaled dissertation on the chief good, by the Hebrew sage, where he can "learn the end of the whole matter."
Meantime, we shall adopt the definition of Johnson, and proceed to inquire by what means we may attain to this multiplication of agreeable consciousness, which he declares to be happiness. Let us premise, however, that consciousness, considered as a faculty or power, is that essential quality of the mind by which it is able to know its own sensations and actions; or, considered in its manifestations, it is the knowledge of our sensations and mental actions. This definition, therefore, comprehends all that is included in the sensational theory, and also those pleasures of the mind which are either original with itself or the reviviscence of its past experience. The world without, then, and the world within, may both subserve this great and desirable end; but to reap the full harvest of enjoyment which either may afford, we must sharpen the instrument with which we are to operate. This instrument is the mind itself, and we are thus led to the conclusion, that our happiness is dependent on mental culture.
The health of the mind, important as it is, yea, absolutely essen-
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tial as it is to the enjoyment of life, is, notwithstanding, almost altogether overlooked in the great and arduous struggles with which mankind are so eagerly and restlessly pursuing the objects of their desire. Like the unfortunate woman, who had spent all her substance upon the doctors, we will make any sacrifice for the health of our bodies; in our fond anxiety to be healed, we will swallow down the nostrums of any, even the most visionary or knavish compounder--allopathy, homeopathy, hydropathy, no matter what, much or little, wet or dry, hot or cold; the greater the extreme, and the more marvellous the theory, so much the better. The virtue of faith is in the inverse ratio of the evidence upon which it rests. and directly as the absurdity of the thing believed! And so it happens that even men, wise in other matters, will betake themselves to a wet sheet or a sitz bath for every malady; while others, equally wise, place equal, if not greater, confidence in the tenth or twentieth solution of the homeopathist, when a little arithmetic would teach them that all the water which flows down the Ohio in a life time. would not suffice to dissolve and equally dilute a single grain of the specific. Such is the anxiety which men manifest for the health of their bodies; yet it is not to say a word against the importance of physical health, that I thus advert to the follies of this quack-loving age. Far from it. Health of body is essential to the full enjoyment of one's self. Among the many solutions given by the ancients to the question about the summun bonum, not among the least popular declared it to consist in the mens sana in sano corpore; and so intimately connected are these two, body and soul, that it is difficult to secure the full health of either, without consulting that of both. Let us take care, good care, of our bodies, but let us remember, at the same time, to take care of quackery also. Did I conceive it necessary, so highly do I value the importance of bodily health, that I would pause a moment to enforce the great truth, that we cannot act up to the full measure of duty to ourselves and to society, without a most especial regard to our bodily comforts. But it is not necessary. The body, in this respect, is its own sufficient advocate. It cries out, with a complaint that cannot be disregarded, whenever it feels a want. But it must appeal to the mind for relief. It does not itself suggest nor choose the remedy. This is the province and duty of the mind.
These observations lead us to the importance of studying our animal constitution, and of informing ourselves with respect to the laws of our physical being--the economy and means of bodily health. Every one should, to a certain extent, make himself acquainted with
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the general laws of physiology, and so far study the science of medicine as to enable him to guard against the impostures of patented quackery. By knowing the laws of his system, he may often avoid those disagreeable, and sometimes fatal consequences, which result from their violation; and by an easily attainable general knowledge of therapeutics, he will be admonished against those mysterious mixtures of modern days, which profess a kind of medicinal omnipotence, and which come knocking at the door of every diseased stomach with a frequency and importunity that scarcely a healthy one can resist. Let the body be clean, neatly attired, moderately and judiciously fed, and trained into the graces of a courteous and civil politeness. Slovenly and intemperate habits injure the mind, destroy the susceptibility of our souls for the more refined and pure enjoyments, and beget a feeling of rudeness and self-abasement unfavorable to the noble manifestations of humanity. At the same time, a disregard for the refining courtesies of civilized life is engendered. The man becomes a brute; his feelings and sentiments are grovelling and low; his language is vulgar and coarse, and his whole bearing, in keeping with his personal filthiness, is offensive and disgusting. Not only do loathsome diseases creep forth under the encouragement of such personal neglect, but the mind, by a natural sympathy, partakes of the pollution, and the creature made for high ends, for pure enjoyment, and endowed with ennobling powers, becomes lower than the reptile under his feet; more foul than the slime which he smears over his track, and as dead to all the elevating motives which society and religion hold out to the virtuous and the good, as the merest animal, ungifted with the god-like attribute of a moral nature.
Let it not be supposed, however, that I advocate any thing like foppery, fantastic fashion, or gaudy dress; the tripping step or the primped bow of the fashionable drawing-room; that I would have young men or old, to spend more time on their hair than their hearts, on their whiskers than their understandings, or wish to see them going forth anointed with hog's lard, or redolent with perfumes borrowed from the stores of the musk. This is another extreme. equally unfavorable to the proper culture and development of the mind, and, therefore, equally to be deprecated. The proper medium is attainable, and it is it which I would recommend. Sobriety without ascetic abstinence; neatness without extravagance; politeness without affectation; and gentility without pride. These all are within the reach of all, and constitute a man, apart from wealth or station, the true gentleman.
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A full and logical discussion of my subject would require an analysis of the powers of the mind, but this we have not time to enter into, nor does it seem fitting, on such an occasion. We can do no more than point out the importance, and suggest some means of improving certain powers, which, appear to, be most largely and constantly employed in the science of our daily experience, and the proper culture of which, therefore, seems of indispensable necessity to our happiness. I must, however, digress a moment, to say that I repudiate, with my whole soul, those gross doctrines of materialism which make man, whether professedly or under the disguise of a false but plausible philosophy, nothing more than the passive tool of external forces--a bundle of nerves, or organs, or susceptibilities, with no life nor quickening power from within, but the sport and instrument of material influences, operating through the five senses, and producing effects of their own, with as fixed a necessity as that which governs the motions of a steam engine or a spinning jenny Nor does it help the theory, that it can be presented and illustrated by more pleasing and poetic comparisons. The philosophy of the doctrine is the same, and the illustration is equally applicable, whether it be drawn from the heavy and cumbrous motions of a road wagon, moving whithersoever it is dragged by the forces applied to it, or from the soft and mellifluous strains of the Eolean Harp, breathing responsive to the kissing breeze, or swelling its wild monotone under the ruder stroke of the angry storm spirit. In the latter case, the imagination is fascinated by a pleasing analogy, and, under its charm, the judgment is led captive by the invisible nature of the agent, so as to make us feel for a moment that this instrument is self-moved, giving forth its wild and impulsive strains at its own pleasure, and like the swan or the nightingale, but expressing its own emotions, melancholy or sad, for its own enjoyment or relief. But when we shake off this delusive charm, and apply the critick of the pure reason, how soon do we discover the gross materialism which lies at the bottom of the analogy--material strings and material air, a chord of cat-gut vibrating mechanically under the fingers of the breeze, and capable of being reduced, in all its mysterious motions and harmonies, to the fixed and most rigid laws of mathematical analysis and determination. And is such the human mind! Are the laws of that sublimer part, which we deem immortal, and which we fondly believe shall survive all changes of organization and decay, to be reduced to the cold formulas of mathematics, and our refined distinctions between virtue and vice, religion and infidelity, to be nothing more than questions of plus or minus--the
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necessary results of certain brain motions, executed by the pressure of some outward material upon the nervous extensions of that tabernacle of thought! Are all the lofty inspirations of genius, the wonderful creations of the imagination, and the holy affections of religion, not the work of the mind operating under the self-determining and the controlling will, but simply the accidental products of an external agent, which is itself, in fact, no agent, having neither life nor intelligence, volition, nor power of locomotion? Has it been the cunning management of change, working upon our nerves, that has prompted us, without any will of our own, to meet here upon the present occasion; and are these observations which I am now making against this theory, really produced in accordance with it, and all that I am saying, and you are thinking, but motions, or extensions, or degrees of velocity in the nervous system, produced by the fingers of the breeze, the fluctuations of temperature, or the varying intensity of the lumineferous ether? Strangely narrow, indeed, is the doctrine of this school.
"The metaphysics but a puppet motion
That goes with screws, the notion of a notion;
The copy of a copy, and lame draught
Unnaturally taken from a thought:
That counterfeits all pantomimic tricks,
And turns the eyes like an old crucifix;
That counter changes whatsoe'er it calls
B' another name, and makes it true or false;
Turns truth to falsehood, falsehood into truth,
By virtue of the Babylonian's tooth."
But I fear, despite my intention, my subject is leading me into the mazes of metaphysics, and we shall not, therefore, prosecute the discussion further than to say, that we regard all moral responsibility, as well as all hope of intellectual or moral improvement, as resting for its ground truth upon the great proposition that man is gifted by his Creator with an independent and self-determining power of control, by which he city* command, direct, suspend, or intensify his mental, as well as his bodily action, and thus choose, for good or for evil, the path of his own destiny.
Assuming, then, that we have this power, allow me to fix your attention for a short time upon the importance and utility of cultivating some of the more general faculties with which we have been so highly gifted. Our more immediate enjoyments may spring from social intercourse, the holy communion of conjugal hearts; from contemplating the beauties of nature; from studying and unfolding the laws of the universe about us; from perusing the productions of the great and gifted minds of the present and the past; from medi-
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tation and reflection; and last, though not least, from the consciousness of having contributed to the happiness and perfection of others, either individually or socially. These enjoyments have, of course, their appropriate faculties, but it would be out of place to attempt their analysis here, and we shall, therefore, treat of them rather in the concrete than the abstract, and look at them rather through their modes of combined action than otherwise.
The social feeling lies at the foundation of society or political organization, though it may be well doubted whether any thing more than the patriarchal form of government can have sprung immediately from it, as the sphere of its influence is necessarily restricted to the circle of personal acquaintance and intercourse. Large political organizations arise, doubtless, from the operation of other influences, which we shall not now discuss. But as a source of personal and individual enjoyment, the social feelings must be ranked among the most fruitful of our faculties for happiness. No one can long enjoy himself alone. His soul hungers for communion. If it is not found, it grows sick and withers under the shadows of a misanthropic gloom. Its powers, moral and intellectual, lie dormant, like the germ on which the rains and the sunshine never fall, and a corroding mildew settles on it, in its loneliness, and blights it forever. It is, in the very nature of our constitution, impossible that we can either be happy or grow better, isolated from our fellows; and nothing can be more cruel or philosophically unwise, than those systems of reforming criminals by subjecting them to the horrors of solitary confinement. Tears of regret must be mingled with the sunshine of hope, before the heart can be made to melt with true repentance; but when you shut a bad heart up by itself, with no good example before it, with no voice of affection encouraging it to hope, and no better friend to lend his strength to help him out of his fall, what can we expect but recklessness or despair! Dark and stormy passions, pent up in solitude, vent themselves upon the bosom in which they are nursed, and their miserable existence is not unfrequently terminated by the dreadful alternative of self- murder!
How important, then, is society--not that public, promiscuous intercourse which we have with the throngs of human beings that jostle us in the streets and thoroughfares of the world, but that intimate, close, and unreserved interchange of heart with hearts congenial, which the Latins called amacitia, and which we translate amity or friendship. In the language of the renowned Cicero, "Life would be utterly lifeless,' as old Ennius expresses it, without
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a friend on whose kindness and fidelity one might confidently repose. Can there be a more real complacency, indeed, than to lay open to another the most secret thoughts of one's heart, with the same confidence and security as if they were still concealed in his own Would not the fruits of prosperity lose much of their relish, were there none who equally rejoiced with the possessor in the satisfaction he received from them And how difficult must it prove to bear up under the pressure of misfortune, unsupported by a generous associate, who more than equally divides their load?" (Cic. de Am.) It is, therefore, a source of happiness which every young man should cultivate, and every old man cherish. But how shall this be done'! Many persons seem to think, that to enjoy the blessings of friendship, it is only necessary to frequent the places where men do congregate; to stand upon the street corners and salute the passers-by, or gossip with the idle. Sad mistake! True friendship is that strong affection which takes hold of the person, and interests itself in all its fortunes; which rejoices in his prosperity, mourns over his misfortunes, sympathizes with and soothes his afflictions, mitigates all his sorrows, and brightens every joy. In the moment of triumph and success, it is by to swell the note of praise and to rebuke
"That malignant envy which grows pale
And sickens, even if a friend prevail."
And when the dark clouds of affliction or adversity gather over, it is then most ready to lend its grateful offices, and interpose a shelter from the storm. And what more admirable spectacle can humanity present, than such an exhibition of pure friendship! We are told that when the play of Pacuvius was first presented upon the Roman Theatre, there was a general burst of acclamation, and oft repeated, at that scene in which the friendship of Pylades and Orestes is exhibited. The King had determined to put Orestes to death, but was ignorant of his person. When summoned before the tribunal for sentence, his friend Pylades accompanies him, and there each insists, in order to save the life of his associate, that he himself is the person in question." "The general effect produced on this occasion clearly shows how deeply nature hath impressed on the human heart a sense of moral beauty; since a whole audience thus unanimously conspired in admiring an instance of sublime generosity in another's conduct, which not one of them, perhaps, was capable of exhibiting in his own." (Cic de Am.)
An affection so noble as this, can only subsist between noble and honorable minds, and the first step, therefore, in the cultivation of friendship, is to make our own hearts lovely. Virtue and honor can
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alone secure the lasting attachment of which we are speaking, and he who complains that his friends forsake him in the hour of his need, should rather say that he never had, and perhaps never deserved a friend. It was not himself they loved, but the accidents of fortune, and when these left him, their friendship departed with them. If we would enjoy true friendship, we must seek it among the good; the vicious are incapable of its exercise. Hence, We cannot fail to draw another general inference, and that has respect to the selection of our company. As we cannot ourselves merit or secure the friendship of others, without manifesting that beauty of moral nature which alone can excite so virtuous an affection, so neither can others feel for us and cherish this affection, unless their own hearts are trained to the noble exercise of virtue and honor. Trust not your social happiness, then, to any unworthy hands; but as you desire to cultivate virtue and honor in your own heart, take care that they shall abound in the hearts of your companions. You Will thus not only escape the evil influences of bad example, and the sorrow of bitter disappointment from recreant friends, but, at the same time, be secure in the enjoyment of one of the sweetest pleasures that belongs to this earthly life.
The transition is natural from that that is lovely in social intercourse, to that which is beautiful in nature; from the pure moral pleasures of friendship, to the exquisite and elevating enjoyments of natural beauty. The cultivation of a sensitive taste brings with it the most refined gratification. True, we cannot all look upon nature with a poet's eye, nor feel her loveliness with a poet's heart. yet her mountains and her valleys, her hills and dales, her rivers and her rivulets, were made for all; and the plowman, who homeward plods his weary way, may enjoy the carol of birds or the hum o! bees; the sweet odors which float upon the air, and the delightful landscape spread beneath the yellow light of a setting sun, if not with as high a rapture, yet with as good a right, as the loftiest bard that ever sung. The same Father made them all, and gave them a free grant to all who would open their hearts for their reception. And what more delightful emotions--what more fruitful source of that agreeable consciousness which is admitted to be happiness--than the beauties of nature! The colors, the odors, the forms, the sounds, the life, the motions, and that mysterious sympathy which inweaves them with the soul, and makes them a joy that can be felt but never expressed--are not these designed by nature, by the God of nature, as a part of the rich inheritance given with our being 2 And shall we shut our eyes, and stop our ears, and crisp
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our souls, with the arid dust of carking cares, till all the sweet harmonies of nature's undying loveliness fall upon us unheeded and unfelt, as the echo upon the rock, or the sea murmur in the unconscious cave? God has not implanted in us the love of the beautiful without a high purpose. It is a purifying, an elevating principle, moving sweetest emotions and leading to holiest thoughts. Its philosophy is deep-founded in the nature of the creative one, and resolvable into the unbroken unity which pervades his immeasurable works. We are his work, in his own image, and they are his work in the mould of his own taste. Nature is but an expression of the great Mind in the likeness of which we ourselves are cast; and just because we are like its author, is it lovely and beautiful to us. This is a sufficient evidence, even if we had no other, that the author of man is the author, also, of the material universe, for no other being could have created an external World, fitted to man by so many hidden sympathies, known only because they are felt, save the Creator of man himself.
This is a source of pleasure that can never fail us. Fortune may prove fickle, riches may make to themselves wings and fly away, friends may desert us, or death may invade the charmed circle and rob us of the hearts
"Who came like truth, and disappear'd like dreams."
Yet, when these are gone, beauty still remains;
"States fall, arts fade, but Nature cloth not die."
The ever verdant earth is around, and the stars, which are the poetry of heaven, are above us, and the sweet voices,
"That music in itself, whose sounds are song,
The poetry of speech;"
These are always with us, as ministering spirits,
"Watering the heart whose early flowers have died,
And with a fresher growth, replenishing the void."
But how many of us live in utter isolation from these pure and hallowing influences? We immure ourselves in the sordid dungeons of a slavish avarice, tied to the chain of "business;" or, if we go forth at all, envelop ourselves in such a murky mist of blinding care, that we walk as unheeding through the sublimities and beauties of the outer world, as if we had neither eyes to behold nor hearts to feel them. To such the lavish provisions of the Creator are bestowed in vain, and though treading under their feet the rich means
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of sweetest enjoyment, they pass their life in penury and in misery. To them,
"There is no pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is no rapture in the lonely shore,
And no society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, nor music in its roar."
But if the simple and unintelligible beauties of nature charm us-- if the bare inspection can fill us with emotions so pleasing, how must our enjoyment be enhanced, when we penetrate into their mystery and explore the deep laws of nature's mighty operations! The science of the universe, taken in its widest sense, is, indeed, the science of God. We only know him as he has revealed himself to us, by word or by work; and it is only as we study and understand these, that we can be said to comprehend or apprehend his adorable character. What a lofty reason is this for studying the laws of the universe! But the occasion requires that I should present the subject to your consideration in other aspects, for it is unfortunately true that many, alas too many, prefer to confine their feelings and their reflections rather to the temporal than the eternal.
Viewed in relation to the present life simply, the advantages to be derived from the study of the laws of the universe are manifold. There is a natural desire in the heart of every man to know the causes of things, and the gratification of this desire gives pleasure. Of this we are conscious. As often, therefore, as we look upon any object in nature, and pass before the mind the process, which in her great labaratory produced it, we must, of course, experience an emotion of pleasure; and all who have exercised themselves in this way at all, know that there are few enjoyments more exquisite than those derived from this source. Neither are there any more universally attainable, provided only, that the mind is cultivated, and prepared for partaking of them. Consider the mind of a St. Pierre, unfolding the mysteries embosomed in the petals of a rose, or the comprehensive genius of a Newton, sweeping the cycles of distant worlds; look at the eager toil of a Davy, with his safety lamp, discriminating between the laws which govern the circulation of light and of heat, or the curious electro-anotomic eye of a Galvani, noting in the spasms of a frog, the germs of that science which has made the lightning literary, imparting almost ubiquity to the voice of man; multiply all these instances by the innumerable objects to which like researches may be applied, and truly must we say, that here is a fountain from which to draw enjoyment as inexhaustible as the universe, and as varied as the works of God.
Not only is there positive pleasure in studying the laws of the uni-
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verse, but there is also a strengthening of the powers of the mind itself, and an enlargement of its capacities, which, by a reflex influence upon other objects of enjoyment, greatly increases our interest in them, and enhances our means of deriving from them the pleasure which they were designed to impart. Thus all this mighty universe, this infinite complication of matter in space; the earth, chequered with rivers and garnished with seas; and the sky, blue in its depth and islanded with stars, to the untutored savage, what is it but a maze without a plan! It fills him with wonder and awe; but for all else, he gazes upon it as idly as the herd which he hunts. How different to the eye of the science-taught intellect! He sees and feels all that moves the breast of the savage, but more. The unseen and immaterial cords which bind the stars to their orbits, are visible and real to the eye of his reason; the unheard music of the spheres becomes audible to his scientific ear; and through the darkness of the outer void, unpenetrated by the space-piercing telescope, he follows, with an eye that never winks, and a gaze that never tires, the fiery-headed comet in her lonely visit to other climes, nor loses her till, weary with her wanderings, she turns like a penitent prodigal, to seek once more the center and fountain of her being. Thus he harmonizes and reduces to order and beauty every motion of every orb, and deduces laws of design instituted by deepest wisdom and applied by infinite power, till, in nature's high converse, he is himself ennobled, and returns from her altar a purer and a better man. Need I say more to excite you to the study and development of the laws of this mighty universe!
We pass from the works of nature to the works of man; from the expression of the infinite mind to communion with the thoughts of our fellows, and here is opened to us a companionship the most extensive and delightful. In the small compass of a common library, we may gather around us the spirits of the illustrious dead. We have not, as had old Pythagoras and his compeers, to travel into the east, there to learn wisdom from living magi only, but we can, as by the wand of the magician, summon them all, from all climes and of all ages, upon our centre tables, and hear them speak or bid them be silent, with the authority of a master. The art of printing has not only immortalized many a spirit that else might have died unknown, but it has made the fountains of literature, the rich mines of intellectual bullion, common property to all who hunger and thirst after knowledge. With means of enjoyment so ample and so accessible, no man should neglect the cultivation of a taste for books. In them he cannot only find the best society, but such as is exactly
568 SELF-CULTURE.
suited to his mood or his wants. From grave to gay, from tender to sublime, he can pass with perfect freedom, and without offence, to any savan present. Though literary gentlemen are proverbially sensitive, here there is no fear of any one feeling himself slighted. The book is perfectly content to be read or to enjoy its ease upon the shelf. Yea, there is no harm done even if we venture to express our choice--our approbation or our disapprobation, of certain volumes in words. Under this license, allow me to say a word or two on the kind of books we should read, or, more properly, on the kind we should not read. A book may be read for various purposes--for instruction and improvement, or for amusement simply; but in no case should we read books that have an immoral tendency. Every one who values his own happiness, should especially avoid those productions which inflame the passions, weaken the restraints of wholesome custom, or confound the distinctions of virtue and vice, good and evil. All distorted representations of life, of feelings, or of virtue, have an injurious influence on the mind and the heart, because they create expectations which are never realized, stimulate desires which it would be hurtful to gratify, and beget a dreamy and listless sentimentalism, or else a wild and unprincipled ambition-- in the one case, inimical to our own peace, and in the other, disturbing to the peace of society. That which we see represented in fiction, has a similar influence to that which we see enacted in fact, and the license allowed to the hero only in the imagination of the author, we are disposed to claim for ourselves, with the consent of the world. The influence of bad books is, in this way, very often greater than that of vicious society, because they have all the charms of social intercourse, and less of its truth to nature.
Not only should we avoid works whose tendency is immoral, but those, also, whose style is low and degrading to the literary taste of the student. Our modes of thinking, as well as the themes upon which we are inclined to dwell, are most intimately connected with the style of the language to which we are accustomed. Elevated thoughts require elevated language to suitably express them, and they cannot habitually arise in the mind of him who has given himself up to the vulgar slang of the harlequin or the buffoon. I regret exceedingly--every true friend to the literature of his country must regret--that there is so growing a tendency to this adoption of a vulgar dialect, even among some of our popular writers. Men capable of writing elegantly and chastely, are resorting to Yankeeisms for wit; and lest they should fail to raise a laugh by the drollery of sense, call into their aid the drolleries of sound. A nazal twang, a
SELF-CULTURE. 569
contracted termination, or a barbarous provincialism, is resorted to in the place of humor, and thus the catch-words of street rowdies, and the lowest phrases of brawling brothels, are introduced to ears polite, christened by the ink drops of some literary priest, and taken into the communion of the corps editorial.
It were needless to specify instances of works coming under the condemnation of both rules to which I have invited your attention. They are too numerous for enumeration. Indeed, there is very little of the popular literature, with which the country is now flooded, which has not a tendency to produce a depraved literary taste, and an impure and inelegant style. The style, says Coleridge--than whom no one since the days of Addison has written a purer English--the style of our prose writings and more set discourses, “strives to be in the fashion and to trick itself out in the soiled and over-worn fancy of the meritricious muse." The composition of our novels, magazines, public harangues, &c., is commonly as trivial in thought, and enigmatic in expression, as if Echo and Sphinx had laid their heads together to construct it."
Gather around you, then, books, good books, and cultivate a taste for reading; but remember that better, far better is it, not to read at all, than to read that which will injure your morals, deprave your taste, or impair the beauty and purity of your language.
From all these sources which I have named, man may derive enjoyments worthy of his nature and purifying to his heart; but besides their own immediate gratifications, they afford material for another kind of enjoyment, a different exercise of the mind, without which no one can be great, good, useful- Meditation and reflection are necessary to the wholesome digestion of the food furnished us from these fruitful sources. If we would be any thing more than a mere amateur--rise higher than the simple power of perception and apprehension--or attain to an excellence beyond that of the mere bookworm, we must think; put the mind to work upon the elements poured into the great labaratory of the scientific reason, and bring forth from the crucible of thought new forms and combinations of beauty and truth, which we can admire as the creations of cur own hands. We must not be content to be the echo of tones born upon other strings, but, like the Eolean Harp under the touch of the awakening breeze, utter a music of our own. On all that we hear, or see, or feel,
"Let us ponder boldly--'tis a base
Abandonment of reason to resign
Our right of thought--our last and only place
Of refuge."
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 48*
570 SELF-CULTURE.
In no other way can we form a manly and independent characters prepare ourselves to battle against the assiduous and insiduous attacks of error and of vice, or rise to that noblest dignity of man, which fears nothing but conscience, and bows to nothing but truth. In such a pursuit who would not struggle, and for such an attainment who would not suffer! Yet the means are pleasant as the end is ennobling.
I must now hasten to call your attention to another source of happiness, for which all those I have named tend to prepare us, and which, for some reasons, I could have wished to have made the theme of this entire address. I can now give it little more than a passing notice. It is the pleasure of doing good--of communicating happiness to others. If we may speculate upon such a subject, it. seems that this is the supreme bliss of God--of him who chooses to be known among men as the Good One; for while power executed and wisdom planned, Goodness prompted to the whole creation. It is, therefore, the first cause, and, for its gratification, we may infer all things were and are. As God is himself pleased in the exercise of benevolence, so he has constituted us to derive our highest enjoyments from doing good. The consciousness that we have done something to enhance the well-being of our fellows, to elevate and make happy our race, or to alleviate the sufferings and satisfy the wants of our kind, affords a kind of pleasure which nothing else can produce. An inward prompting of the heart is obeyed, and coo science lends the peaceful charm of her approbation. Benevolence is, indeed, essentially diffusive, and in proportion to the wideness of the sphere over which it spreads its blessings, must be the gratification it affords to him who exercises it. It is a faculty, too, which may find its objects in a thousand forms; and no matter how much we may be debarred from other enjoyments, so long as the body free, nothing can well prevent us from the pleasure of doing good.
But there are some objects to which it is the peculiar duty of every one, endowed with the blessings of an education, to devote himself. The improvement of the social condition of the community in which we live, and a patriotic co-operation in the preservation of the happy institutions under which we have grown up with a rapidity of development unparalleled in the history of man--these are high ends, worthy of your best efforts, and fruitful of richest gratification to your feelings of benevolence. So long as we live in society, its prosperity and peace cannot fail to be matter of deep personal interest to us. The enjoyment of our own families, the happiness of our children, is necessarily involved in that of the
SELF-CULTURE. 571
society in which we live; so that patriotism is but the expansion of personal friendship and parental affection, embracing, as a common good, the interests of the whole. It is thus wisely arranged, that no one can fully secure his own happiness without laboring, also, for the happiness of others.
Not only does the feeling of benevolence crave its own gratification, but the fruits of its labors are poured into the lap of other faculties, rendering doubly blessed this beneficent quality. In order, then, to fulfil your own destiny, to rise to the full measure of happiness attainable from earthly sources, seek out the labor that will promote the great ends of human advancement. In the local improvements of your town or county, in the general development of the wealth of your State, and in the great interests of our glorious Union, we shall find work worthy of our efforts, be. cause upon these, in a great measure, depends the temporal welfare of ourselves and posterity. The education, moral and intellectual, of all classes, and the diffusion of useful knowledge among the people, are ends for which the highest powers of genius and cultivated talent may labor with honor and profit--ends, too, calling for the most earned efforts of every patriotic heart. When we reflect that in our own State--the oldest in this illustrious fraternity of sovereignties--in Virginia, magna mater virum, the mother of statesmen and of States, we have no less than 80,000 full grown men and women who cannot read; to whose intaught eyes the art of printing, though flooding the land with light, is as the many tinted landscape to him that is blind, do we not feel that here is a field over which our sympathies should pour refreshing tears, and the strong hand of benevolence advance the standard of reform! Let us awake to this startling fact, and go to work like good men and true, within the sphere of our influence. In this county, in this town, there is needed a more liberal and general provision for the education of our children; and if our constitution-makers will not provide it, let us do it ourselves. I am satisfied that the. people of our county can be convinced that it would be wise and economical; that it would be right to provide for a general system of common school education, by which every child amongst us shall be afforded the means of studying the institutions under which we live, and reading for himself that word which his Creator has spoken for his redemption. But to effect this is the work of benevolent labor, and to whom can we so fitly look for its performance as to those who are soon to become the actors on the stage, from which their seniors are retiring? But I cannot dwell upon the details of this fruitful source of usefulness
572 SELF-CULTURE.
and of happiness. My purpose is to deal with general principles; and if I have departed so far from my plan as to make this particular application, I shall find an apology in the peculiar interest of the case.
I must draw these hasty observations and reflections to a close. They have been written amid many interruptions of business, and perplexities of head and of heart. They are not such as I could have wished them, or would, under more favorable circumstances, have made them; but as they are tendered you with a cordial good will, I trust they will be received with respect and considered with candor. I can scarcely claim for my suggestions the sanction which venerable years give to the oracles of the old; but if the results of an experience more than ordinarily mingled with the elements of sorrow, can add any thing to the force of the reasonings by which I have sustained them, then may I say, that in the paths I invite you to tread may be found the richest, the purest, and the sweetest enjoyments which any mere earthly sources have afforded. That they may prove so to you, I can give no higher evidence of my sincere desire, than the pains I have taken to point them out and commend them; and if, amid their varied influences, there should arise any suggestion pointing you still higher than themselves; if, in the sweets of social intercourse--the delightful bonds of friendship, there should be excited a desire to secure their perpetuation beyond the grave; if the enraptured vision, lured from the pleasing landscape to the distant mountain, thence to stretch far on high to the starry beauty of the distant sky, should still strive for a fuller view, and lead you to wish for brighter climes; if the study of secondary causes should bring your minds to a just apprehension of the great first cause; if the perusal of the works of the mighty dead, the converse through books with the spirits of those illustrious bards, the echo of whose music comes to us from afar, should enkindle in you a wish to meet them face to face, and hear their harps tuned to sweeter strains and struck in loftier praise; if the communion with your own hearts, and meditation upon all that is within and around you, should conduct you to truer views of your own helplessness and dependence, and a more lively sense of your duties to him who sustains and blesses you; if, in fine, in the delightful pursuits of benevolence, in the blissful paths of mercy and humanity, you should discover the footprints of him who is the fountain of all goodness--the eternal spring of life and of blessing, and thus rise to a source of happiness which will not only sweeten all others, but make them immortal, then shall I feel that my labor has been doubly paid, and you been made doubly blessed--happy in this life, happy in the life to come.
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 573
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY THE TRUE PRINCIPLE
OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT.--[ Continued from p. 515.]
MAN AN EMBODIED SPIRIT.
Is man an immortal spirit? Or, in other words, Is the figure that compares the human body to a temple constructed for the habitation of a spiritual being, just to truth and fact? Or is man a material being, composed of elements like those amid which he dwells, the mode of whose existence and operation are to be explained by reference to the known laws of matter Divine revelation asserts the former, while phrenology and materialism affirm the latter.
In considering the nature of the material part of man, and of its connection with his mind or spirit, we feel that we cannot do better than express our views in the language of one who has thought much and closely upon this subject.
"The divisibility of matter," says a modern writer, "has led to curious discussions, some saying that if matter cannot be divided and sub-divided without end, and still remain possessed of dimensions, etc., then it must either become spirit or be annihilated." Such a notion of matter is absurd, for it involves the belief of three impossibilities: the conversion of brute matter into a thinking principle, its withdrawal from existence, or its capability of being divided infinitely; that is, that every imaginary particle of matter may be still divided into as many parts as there are moments in eternity!
Such reasoners seem to forget that the properties of matter are imposed by Omnipotence. The will of His wisdom limits all things, even the exercise of his own power. Those materialists who have lost all idea of Deity in their study of the physical world, might have learned a different conclusion, even from the law of chemical combination, by which the elements unite to each other in certain proportions. Matter must have been made in definite atoms, or how should different chemical elements always combine, by weight and measure, in exact order and proportion--so much of one to so much of another, and in no other manner? The reason of this universal fact we can understand, when we conceive that so many definite atoms of one element combine with so many definite atoms of another. If there be no definite atoms, how can there be definite combinations?
It has been said that God could cause matter to think. Who can say yes!" He has not made us capable of thinking so. We cannot
574 THE HOPE OP IMMORTALITY.
conceive of such matter, for the words thought and matter always present inconvertible and contradictory ideas; because our rational consciousness assures us that thought has no analogy to any known property of matter. The mental unity which each man calls I, cannot exist as a part of the body, for what part can we suppose to be a unit, either in structure, function or substance? The soul. being one, "spreads undivided, operates unspent," and confers a kind of unity upon the organization which it employs, by the act of using it for one purpose at a time.
It is but one will that enforces the obedience of the body; therefore, no diversity of division in the organization can destroy the impression of our unity in volition and feeling. The dangerous tendency of the popular notions of phrenology, is most evident in the excuses it supplies to those who seek apologies for their moral depravity, and in the impediments it builds up in the way of those inquisitive minds that expect to find in nature a substitute for revelation. Many, convinced of the authority of the Bible, yet seem to see so much demonstration in this pseudoscience at variance with the declarations of that strong book, that they are constantly hanging in suspense between the ruling faith, in the spiritual origin of thought, and the vacillating persuasion of the material beginning and end of mind. With such persons, morality and Christianity are thus at stake. A thorough, uncompromising, common phrenologist, must apologize, if he exhibit respect for either divine or human government; since a will that owns no source, but in the accidents of a man's organization, can have no relation to the law which demands obedience for the common good. What good can there be to a mind unassociated, and, indeed, not existing, but with the body, except the individual's physical good? What community of interest can there be, except among spiritual beings, that reason, love and hate, on principles and under laws altogether distinct from any that regulate material combinations and results?
If degrees of criminality, as some men teach, be determined by the relative development of portions of our brains, and not according to the degrees of our knowledge and the kind of motives presented to our reason, through our affections in our training, then the language of the Great Teacher is a violence to our nature. "If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin." These words appear to have no meaning, unless they signify that the extent of man's accountableness is commensurate with the degree of holy truth applied to his understanding.
Although some of the prominent advocates of phrenology undoubt-
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 575
edly regard that somewhat rickety science as affording irresistible argument in favor of the material theory of mind, and hence infer, that the soul perishes with the body; yet there are many more who, most heartily following their confident leaders, believe themselves persuaded that phrenology is only a little less certain than the gospel, and who, nevertheless, would not for the world forego their convictions of a spiritual and immortal existence. Some have taken a kind of middle ground, and while stanch in their attachment to the Christian creed; yet imagining they possess proof in phrenological facts, that the soul has no being without the body, they have endeavored to prove to their own satisfaction that the Bible reveals not a word concerning the distinct existence of the human spirit, but rather, that it declares an utter death of both soul and body, as derived from Adam. But then they dare not deny that an eternal life and bodily resurrection are promised and secured in Christ. So they are brought to the conclusion, that when a man dies he is annihilated, as an individual being, and by the power of God is reproduced on some future occasion.
Dr. Elliotson, President of the Phrenological Society, thus states, in the Lancet, the position which he adopts: "By nature all die, are utterly extinguished; and in another order of things, when the fashion of this world shall have passed away, and time shall be no more, then in Christ, by the additional gift of God granted through the obedience of Christ, but consequently by a miracle, not by our nature, we shall all again be made alive."
If Christianity be true, then science--that is, the classification of natural facts--will never contradict it, for God must be the author of both. The scientific part of phrenology is, therefore, perfectly compatible with revelation.
We cannot, indeed, but feel pleased to find that men of the profoundest science most reverentially acknowledge that man and Christianity are productions of the same mind, and that there is nothing in any science at variance with the New Testament. Yet I cannot help thinking that Dr. Elliotson, whom we must believe to be a sincere Christian, on his own confession of hope for eternal life through Jesus Christ, has followed a false interpretation in the passage above quoted; for how is it to be reconciled with these scriptural declarations i "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." "This day shalt thou be with *in Paradise." "We are confident and willing to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
576 PSALMODY.
These passages of scripture seem plainly to express the fact of a spiritual existence, or being, at present distinct from the body, and capable of existence at once in another sphere. An array of arguments is not needed--this is sufficient; unless such language, and the abundance of the same kind in the New Testament, can be proved to mean the reverse of the apparent meaning. A. W. C.
PSALMODY--No. I.
IT is a common and a very sensible saying, "Show me what sort of company a man keeps, and I will show you what sort of a man he is." It is equally apposite to say, and especially of a young man, Show me a man's library--the volumes which he studies--the books in which he delights, and I will tell you not only merely what his taste now is, but also what it is most likely to be in future life.
With equal reason and evidence I will say, Show me the psalmody, the psalter, or the hymn-book of any Christian community, and I will show you more in it than their phrenology; more than their mere intellectual and moral calibre; more than their mere literary taste or literary acquisitions--I will show their actual intelligence; their spiritual taste and discernment; their positive growth in Christian knowledge, faith, hope, an-' love; their repentance towards God, and their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Their hymn. book is the doctrinal embodiment and exponent of all these.
Were I, indeed, obliged, or Providentially called upon, to publish what is usually called a confession of my faith--a full exhibit of my attainments in Christian knowledge--I would rather present to the world a copy of my Christian Psalmody--the psalms, hymns and spiritual songs which I adopt and use, than any other documentary evidence which I could offer; not only of my faith and hope in God through the Lord Jesus, but also of my measure of knowledge in the mystery of God, and of Christ, and of man's redemption.
Such being the fact, and such often being one of the tests used by our contemporaries in ascertaining the faith and doctrinal views of their contemporaries, is it not, I ask, a subject of superlative importance to every Christian community, that its psalmody be evangelical, scriptural and chaste, not only in thought, sentiment and feeling, but also in language and style, in good taste, and in good keeping with the progress and character of the age? This has long been my aim and endeavor, and in this enterprize I had measurably suc-
PSALMODY. 577
ceeded, and would, probably, long since have fully succeeded to the measure of my expectations, had not one calling himself a brother seized upon my book, and perverted it into a music book, under the pretence of simultaneously worshipping God, teaching and learning music in the Christian temple and on the Lord's day, much to the mortification of the spiritually minded, and much to the amusement and gratification of the worldly and profane.
During my tour through Indiana, last winter, the only special mortification I had to encounter was the frequent desecration of the Lord's day and of Christian worship, by Mr. Leonard's Christian Psalmist, and the almost universal lack, in certain districts, of Christian psalmody or Christian praise. I have frequently seen some three or four persons, with a "Christian Psalmist" in their hands, performing all the praise, in that branch of social worship in the Christian church, in singing-school style, while all eyes and all ears seemed to be engrossed in the observance of an ecclesiastico-theatrical devotion. My soul sickened at the sight and the sound, on sundry memorable occasions.
Mr. Leonard, I have understood, is equally obliging to our Methodist friends, in accommodating his "Christian Psalmist," manufactured to order, so as not to impinge on "baby sprinkling." They, too, are much relieved in the more onerous duties of their profession. They can follow, with their eye, the train of their devotion in separate editions, expurgated from any offensive allusions to Christian immersion. In this felicitous way many thousands of the Christian Psalmist are circulated, without my amended hymns, amongst the Methodists.
It is usual for gentlemen of other denominations, and, sometimes, for some of our brethren, to solicit from me the liberty to republish, in their periodicals, some of my essays in the past and current volumes of the Harbinger. A privilege I have always granted, and for which, indeed, except as in Christian courtesy, they are not obliged to ask, the Millennial Harbinger not being issued under the seal of a copy-right- But such is the Christian delicacy and courtesy of some of those called by Mr. Leonard "sectarians," that they will ask, and not seize the labors of another, even when they are made public property. Whereas this "Brother Leonard," good man, seizes, in defiance of both courtesy and law, my copy-right compositions and emendations, both of which are as much my property as my coat or my house, according to the seal of the United States and the Christian law. Yet he boasts of selling 82,000
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 49
578 PSALMODY.
copies of these emendations, and while pocketing the reward of my labor, calumniates me into the bargain!
Surely some of our brethren, who have received the rewards of this infraction of law, by way of liberal donations to benevolent societies, to procure a market for these spoliations, are not informed on the premises. If they were, Christian duty might possibly compel them to query the offering, as it does me to notice the fact as publicly as it has been perpetrated.
In the Ecclesiastic Reformer, (page 293,) from which I make a few extracts on the subject of the Christian Psalmist, I see that Mr. S. W. Leonard says, "that the best scholar, writer and poet, belonging to the Christian Church in Kentucky, says of the hymns of the Christian Psalmist, that 'they are the best in our language.'" I am sorry that Mr. Leonard did not give his name. I hope he may yet be induced to give it, that-.we may apply to him for his opinion how far these are the manufacture of Mr. Leonard, and from what source he has acquired them!
Still the "Christian Psalmist," notwithstanding the approval of this learned unknown poetic brother, is regarded by very -many as a proper subject of criticism; and though taking no special interest in the discussion now in progress on the merits of said book, I regard the crisis as calling for a discussion on the whole subject of psalmody; and to show that we are not peculiar in our views, I will first quote a few extracts from a late number of the Ecclesiastic Reformer on the subject, in allusion to the Psalmist, and its author's apology for them, in order to bring the subject before our readers. They pertain rather to its literary character.
Bro. Leonard tells us that most of those erroneous stanzas and doggerel songs were put in "at the particular request of pious and dear brethren, and in language of their own arrangement." Does Bro. L. regard this as a sufficient apology for inserting them into a book for the use of worshipping assemblies!" a book to be put into the hands and to pervert the taste of the rising generation?
As to the "White Pilgrim," Bro. L. and myself agree. It is certainly "unfit" to be in a "Christian Psalmist." But, says he, "the majority vote for it, and the majority rules in this Republic of ours." Really, I did not know that the majority in this Republic had ever taken any action in reference to the "Psalmist!" But Bro. L., if you were forced, by a majority, against your will, to insert a song in a book, why did you not insist on the privilege of retaining the only really poetic and beautiful thought it contained!" Why did you strike out the word voice and insert think? Was that in consequence of a vote of this great Republic tool
The omission of the article "the" in the piece we noticed, was
PSALMODY. 579
a mistake of the compositor.' Well, of course we had no means of knowing this. I hope, then, it is corrected in the seventeenth edition; but as it occurred twice in the seventh edition, and is, indeed, in every edition that we have yet seen, we supposed that it was a deliberate alteration.
The song, "Jesus I my cross have taken," &c., we are glad to see, is restored to its original language. This is decidedly an improvement-
If the reader will look again at the remarks we made before, about the "Bower of Prayer," he will see that we personate the book and bring our charges against that. Bro. L- may, indeed, show that some one else "drugged and diluted" this particular song; but our remarks in reference to it are no less true, if altered by Messrs. Harrison and Fillmore, than if altered by Bro. S. W. L. Every remark made in that criticism is correct, in reference to the "Psalmist"--it matters not who altered the original lines.
But the original composition on page 263, contained so much "more truth than poetry," that the Methodist preachers who assisted in revising the book for their denomination, were not pleased with it, and made a "slight alteration in the fourth line of the second verse." (stanza.) Well, we are glad that those Methodist preachers did possess "learning, piety and liberality" enough to insist on that alteration, for the original contained less, of caber truth or poetry, than of blasphemy.
Paul said, "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Christ." This song said,
"Despise both the cross and the shame,"
and we are very happy that our Methodist brethren have changed it to,
"Submit to the cross and the shame."
Bro. L. is still going on "correcting and improving the plates." We have said that a taste for correcting and improving is laudable in men of letters. But, did this task devolve on us, we would certainly adopt the policy pursued by old father Smith, when called on to finish a certain prayer: "No," said he, "I cannot finish that thing--I would rather make a new one."
But "the best scholar, writer and poet, belonging to the Christian Church in Kentucky, says of the hymns of the Christian Psalmist, they are the best in the language.'"
We should like to know who this scholar, writer and poet is. We are certain he does not live any where near the latitude and longitude of Lexington; and surely he has exhibited vast powers of learning and wonderful poetic discrimination in thus commending the Psalmist.
We should like to have the judgment of this learned writer in reference to a few such passages as this, page 24th of the tenth edition:
"O there then the Lord will deliver,
And souls drink of that beautiful river,
Which flows peace forever and ever,
And love's joy shall ever increase.
580 PSALMODY.
Come, drop, drop the tear of contrition,
And yield to the spirit's direction;
And come make the noble confession,
And bow to the Saviour also.
Then rise, rise to walk in his favor,
And show by your constant behavior,
That Christ is your King and your Saviour
From sin, from death, from sorrow and woe."
Or this, page 292
"And O it refreshes the sin-burdened soul
To read of the Saviour in that Bible old."
Or what does he say to such a parody as this, page l75:
"ORIGINAL TROUBADOUR. PARODY.
Hither from Palestine, His love is rich and free,
Gayly I come, A boundless store;
Lady love! lady love! Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Welcome me home. Forever more!"
It is true, the name of the tune is changed from "Troubadour" to Thanksgiving, but it is the same tune.
Here is another specimen which we submit to his consideration, page 224:
"ORIGINAL LOVE SONG.
"O come where love will smile on thee,
And in our hearts will rapture be,
And time pass merrily;
O come, come away."
Parody (set to the same tune:)
"O come where God will smile on thee,
And in our hearts will rapture be,
And time pass happily;
O come, come away."
If, however, we are mistaken in judging this book discreditable to us as a denomination, we hope that it will still be attributable to our "ignorance." It is the most calm and deliberate conviction of our mind, and if others regard it as the "best collection of hymns in our language," we are willing that they shall regard us as dull, prosy and "ignorant." Toward the author of the Psalmist we cherish none but kind feelings; we wish him well. But when he turned bookmaker he certainly mistook his calling.
Coarseness and clumsiness of expression, or even errors of thought, may be tolerated in a newspaper, magazine, or book of prose; for then, if they are read at all, they are read but once, and forgotten. But the songs of a psalmist are "learned and conned by rote." They are committed to memory, and sung again and again, until their spirit, style and sentiment, are all imbibed; and we know not how many young persons, whose judgment is riot matured, can long use the "Christian Psalmist" without being completely doggerelized in thought and feeling.
These convictions induced us to notice the work. This, howev-
INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC. 581
er, was not done without counting the cost. All that has been said will he defended at the bar of the public, as occasion may demand; and the author, or any one else will have access to our pages in defence of the book; but one thing will be remembered by all--we never stoop to personalities. S. W. I.
So reads the first chapter on the best hymn-book in the English language. A. C.
INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.
"INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC is entirely in harmony with the most grateful, solemn and happy feelings of which the human heart is susceptible. Indeed, sacred music upon an instrument, tends, in a very considerable degree, to excite solemn and holy emotions; and we cannot forbear to say, that could the music of our churches be improved--could it be accompanied with an instrument, it would add very much to the solemnity of our worship; it would soothe and calm the feelings of the auditors; it would improve the order of the house; it would call into lively action the latent religious emotions of the heart, and add very much to the enjoyment on such occasions.
"Music exerts a mysterious charm upon man--it takes captive the citadel of life--carries him out of himself, and leads him where it will. The shrill fife and the rattling drum, inspire the soldier just about to enter into battle, with a zeal and daring which no hardship can overcome, and no danger intimidate, and causes him to rush headlong into the thickest of the combat, regardless of consequences. If martial music thus inspires the worshippers of Mars, will sacred music do less for the humble followers of the meek and lowly Jesus--the worshippers of the true and living God? No! It will not. It will inspire them, too, with zeal and courage, and impel them on to resist--not flesh and blood with instruments of death, but principalities and powers--spiritual wickedness in high places, with the armor of God and the sword of the Spirit. G."
The argument drawn from the Psalms in favor of instrumental music, is exceedingly apposite to the Roman Catholic, English Protestant, and Scotch Presbyterian churches, and even to the Methodist communities. Their churches having all the world in them--that is, all the fleshly progeny of all the communicants, and being founded on the Jewish pattern of things--baptism being given to all born into the world of these politico-ecclesiastic communities--I wonder not, then, that an organ, a fiddle, or a Jews-harp, should be requisite to stir up their carnal hearts, and work into ecstasy their animal souls, else "hosannahs languish on their tongues, and their devotions die." And that all persons who have no spiritual discernment, taste, or relish for their spiritual meditations, consolations and
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 49*
582 OUR JERUSALEM MISSION.
sympathies of renewed hearts, should call for such aid, is but natural. Pure water from the flinty rock has no attractions for the mere toper or wine-bibber. A little alcohol, or genuine Cognise brandy, or good old Madeira, is essential to the beverage to make it truly refreshing. So to those who have no real devotion or spirituality in them, and whose animal nature flags under the oppression of church service, I think with Mr. G., that instrumental music would be not only a desideratum, but an essential prerequisite to fire up their souls to even animal devotion. But I presume, to all spiritually-minded Christians, such aids would be as a cow bell in a concert. A. C.
OUR JERUSALEM MISSION.
OUR readers will, no doubt, peruse with deep interest, the letters published in this number from our devoted missionary at Jerusalem. They awaken in us the liveliest hope, that much good is to grow out of this noble enterprise. At the same time, we feel moved to say something to our brethren about the importance of rendering the needed aid to keep up a movement so well begun. That there is a very general and zealous desire among our people, to see this effort to plant the standard of the Reformation upon the ruins of Mohammedan superstition, Jewish infidelity and sectarian Christianity, succeed, and that, too, on the very site of the earliest triumphs of the cross, we do not for a moment doubt. We have, in fact, the fullest assurance of words, that no movement of a general concerted kind, which has been hitherto made by the Disciples, is so entirely agreeable to their feelings and their sense of duty, as this one. Every heart, truly warm with the love of Christ, seems to kindle with unusual fervor at the thought, that from Jerusalem, and through our instrumentality, once more is to go forth the law of the Lord--the uncorrupted word of the gospel as it is in Christ Jesus our deliverer. The eagerness with which Dr. Barclay's letters are read, and the gladness of heart with which their good news is circulated from mouth to mouth, are a sufficient demonstration that the people do feel a concern of the liveliest and most heartfelt kind, in the self-sacrificing labors of the man who has, without a fear of desertion, thrown himself and his family upon the mercy of God and the benevolence of his fellow Christians.
Still, all this interest and zeal may expend itself in simple admiration, or even heart-felt gratitude, without a single effort on the
OUR JERUSALEM MISSION. 583
part of those who feel it, to sustain the missionary and his family. This, we know, cannot be the case, if Christians will only reflect upon the relation which this work sustains to them and they to it; but this they, too often, will not, or do not do. They are too apt to regard the good news of our Jerusalem mission just as they do the "Church News" which we publish monthly, from the various States of the Union; that is to say, as the result of labors, for the cost of which they are in no wise obliged, and which not only do not depend,- in any degree, upon their support, but to which, in fact, no one expects them to contribute a single farthing; a work in which they may rejoice as of common interest, but to the cost of which they are not to contribute as of common expense. Nothing but the apprehension of some such mistake as this has ever made us fear that the Disciples might allow to go neglected this nobly-begun labor of Christian philanthropy; but that some such lethargy might prevail, and consequent inconvenience, if not disaster, result, we have often felt but too probable.
With these views and feelings, we were pleased to see, from our greatly beloved friend, T. W. Goss, of Eastern Virginia, a proposition which we laid before our readers some months since, and upon which, with my remarks, Bro. Challen, of Cincinnati, has given us his opinion in the August number of the Harbinger. This proposition suggested the propriety of Virginia assuming the responsibility of raising $1200 for the special purpose of supporting Bro. Barclay as a missionary at Jerusalem, and assigned, as we then thought and still think, some very good reasons for it. It was not for the purpose of excluding others from aiding Dr. Barclay, but to make his support more sure; not to destroy the general interest, but to reduce the responsibility to such specific limits as to make it felt as the duty of some churches in particular; not to cut off Kentucky or Ohio, but to bind, without failure, Virginia; not, in short, to compel any one "to forego the privilege of contributing his quota in aid of this first mission to the heathen," but to recommend an arrangement which the churches in Virginia would adopt:, and by which they, would compel themselves to aid to the full amount necessary, the devoted man and his family who have gone forth to the work, confiding in our Christian benevolence. Such were our views and motives.
But it will, be said, that the effect is virtually to cut off from the privilege of co-operating in this noble work, all but the Disciples of Virginia. We do not so apprehend it. On the contrary, the support of this mission, we have all along known, involves more than
584 OUR JERUSALEM MISSION.
the support of the missionary. To support Dr. Barclay and his lovely family, is but a part of the expense of supporting the mission. This, all who have taken any pains to understand missionary operations, must have known from the commencement of this enterprise; and to those who were not previously thus informed, the correspondence of Dr. Barclay will be sufficient elightenment. Indeed, the operations in connection with this mission may be enlarged profitably to the cause of religious benevolence, to the cost of many thousand dollars, and the widow's mite, thrown into the general fund, can be as honorably and as gratefully expended in defraying one class of the expenditures as another. We apprehend that no one will have to complain that he cannot "take stock in this glorious fellowship." Should such a state of things ever arise, however, I have no doubt that the complainant can be readily accommodated, so soon as his case is made known. There will be many, liberal enough to give room for such an one, by transferring their subscriptions to some other form of religious benevolence.
We, therefore, regard such objections, reasonable as they may seem in themselves, as scarcely worth consideration, when weighed against a proposition which, if generally acceptable, may secure the pledged and certain contributions of Virginia for no inconsiderable portion of the very heavy demands which this first mission of the Reformation must ultimately make upon the Disciples. That this proposition can be made acceptable, we have very little doubt, owing to the very general personal interest and confidence which is felt in Dr. Barclay throughout the State of Virginia. This will engage a liberality which could not be expected for a mere stranger, and, is it not wise to present the claims of the society before the benevolence of the brotherhood, in such forms as Will secure their most hearty and generous support? I would, by no means, encourage any scheme that would even seem invidious, much less one that appealed to any unworthy motives of personal partiality or State pride; but it is good to be zealously effected towards one whom we know to be a good man; and it is not only natural, but in accordance with the feelings exhibited towards Paul, and commended by him, for those, among whom one has labored acceptably, and won for himself a personal influence over the affections of the people, to undertake for his sufficient and certain support.
We trust, therefore, that liberal as the brethren may be elsewhere, Virginia will, nevertheless, undertake to raise the specific sum named for the specific purpose of supporting Dr. Barclay and his family, and thus provide against any disastrous neglect which
OUR LITERARY INSTITUTIONS. 585
might arise from so important a duty being left to the irresponsible contributors of an unpledged and spontaneous benevolence. Still, we shall be happy to know that many other States are ready and anxious to unite in the support of this mission, and will be among the first to make room for the contributions of any who desire to have a specific interest in Dr. Barclay’s personal labors. W. K. P.
[From the Disciple.]
OUR LITERARY INSTITUTIONS.
BETHANY COLLEGE.
LAST Fourth of July, we enjoyed the pleasure of attending the annual commencement of Bethany College, where we greeted many of our old friends--some having come a twig distance, from various parts of the Union. The weather being very favorable, an unusually large concourse of people attended to witness the performances of the day, which passed off to the satisfaction of all parties. We were not only edified by the addresses delivered, but also especially pleased by the good order and decorous behavior of the large auditory. An abiding interest in the welfare and prosperity of the institution, was strikingly manifested by the presence of a good number of our prominent brethren, preachers and others, from various quarters of the Union, North, South, East and West. These were indications, cheering to the friends of Bethany College, showing that its good influences are beginning to be felt and admitted.
We desire to speak a word or two with reference to this institution, and what we say we say advisedly, as we have been intimately acquainted with its history from its organization to the present hour, having spent several years as a member of it. The trials through which it has had to pass, in many respects, have been more than ordinary; and yet it has nobly maintained itself through them all. Its too sanguine friends--many of them inexperienced in the character and troubles of colleges--expecting to realize too much, may have been in some respects disappointed; but one familiar with the details of the private experience of American colleges, and knowing what Bethany has accomplished, will readily concede, that more than could, under the circumstances, have been looked for, has been realized. The faults of the institution are general--are to be found in all similar institutions--its advantages are peculiar and rare. One thing we hesitate not to say, and all who have ever been connected with Bethany College will bear us out in the declaration, that a faculty more devoted to the interests of their institution--more prompt and assiduous in fulfilling their respective duties, and more solicitous for the moral and intellectual advancement and welfare of those confided to their care, could not well be found. 01
586 OUR LITERARY INSTITUTIONS.
their moral and intellectual character--their competency to fulfil the duties of their respective departments in the college--it is superfluous to say one word. These declarations we make as an humble tribute of that gratitude which we shall owe them our lifelong, for the numberless acts of kindness experienced from them, during the long time it was our fortune to stand connected with them. Many a youth in whom they saw excellent qualities, when discouraged, without means or prospects, has been cheered and encouraged by them, not only in sympathy and good advice, but often by more prompt and efficient aid. A good number of young men who will be, and are even now, a blessing to the world in the noblest spheres of action, owe their ability to be eminently useful, under God's providence, to the kindness and liberality of the Faculty of Bethany College. Many have been educated free of all charge by the Professors, and to our knowledge, no one who promised well for moral and intellectual worth, was ever rejected for want of means to pay his tuition. The reader will remember, also, that Bethany College has to this hour not had one dollar of endowment, and that the position of its Professor, to our certain knowledge, has been by no means a lucrative one. These facts, we think, ought to be generally known, that the public may know how to appreciate the value and importance of Bethany College. Many who will read this, we know, will respond from the heart to the statements here made, knowing fully in their own experience, the troth of what we have said-
One great improvement we were much pleased to notice, as it will be of most decided advantage to the institution. The large Hall, occupying the entire basement of the college proper, has, at considerable expense, been most commodiously fitted up. Besides other improvements, it is provided with an elegant and spacious rostrum on the north side for speakers, and supplied throughout with convenient seats for a very large auditory, and is now entered by a door in the south side of the building, even with the outside grounds. Besides furnishing a most commodious place for the exercises on commencement day, and any other general meetings of the college, it affords a most excellent lecture room for the whole college, being more convenient, every way, in our estimation, for that purpose, than any other room in the whole building-
The professors and friends of the college were all in good hopes for the future of the institution. The catalogue of last session numbers 141--a larger number than of any previous session, and coming from fifteen states of the Union, besides two from Europe. The number of final graduates, who received the degree of Bachelor of Arts, was 14. The prospect for the coming session, we were told, was very flattering; and as Mr. Campbell will make a tour through the west this fall, no doubt a large number of students will come on from that quarter. But what is indispensibly necessary to make Bethany College what it ought to be, is the liberal endowment of all the professorships. This would place it on a permanent basis, and increase its usefulness tenfold. We would only add, that the Society of Alumni, constituted of the graduates of the college, meet annually on the 3d of July, the day before commencement, when an
OUR LITERARY INSTITUTIONS. 587
oration and an address are delivered, which are regularly published by the Society.
NORTH-WESTERN UNIVERSITY.
Our brethren in Indiana are making strong efforts to endow the "North-Western Christian University." According to their charter, which is a very liberal one, they are required to raise the sum of $75,000 before they are allowed to organize a Board, and erect the necessary buildings. We think this is a wise provision for the welfare of the institution itself. When it is once organized, it will stand on a sure foundation, and can proceed with confidence and courage, and will, moreover, be of much greater value to the community than if it were to enter upon its career under the burden of pecuniary embarrassments. Bro. John O'Kane has been sent out in the State to solicit subscriptions to the necessary amount, and we confess that we were surprised to see, that, although he has been but six months in the field, he has already obtained subscriptions to the amount of $25,000--one-third the required sum. The brethren in 1ndiana have also determined to endow the Chair of Ancient Languages in Bethany College, and Bro. O'Kane is also their agent to solicit funds for this purpose, and we have every reason to believe that his solicitations for the one will be as strong as for the other-- that he will labor for Bethany College as earnestly as for the N. W. C. University- This act on the part of the Indiana brethren is really noble and most worthy of imitation. From the energy and liberality that they have shown on various occasions, we have every reason to believe, that what they undertake they will accomplish. The Lord prosper them.
The "University" is to be located at Indianapolis. That is now the centre of several railroads, is beautifully situated, and is rapidly rising to prosperity and importance. The "Christian Record," published by Bro. J. Mathes, has also been removed from Bloomington to Indianapolis. This is a good movement both tor the "Record" and the University," of which, doubtless, as well as of the churches in the State, it will be the organ.
WESTERN RESERVE ECLECTIC INSTITUTE.
This institute is located in the town of Hiram, Portage county, Ohio. It entered upon its first session November 27th, 1850, and its first catalogue numbered 102 students, which in the second session was considerably increased. We presume that the number of the students the next session will be from 150 to 200. The institution is most favorably located. It stands in one of the most beautiful and commanding places on the Western Reserve, well selected for health and ease of access. Excellent buildings have already been erected, sufficient to accommodate, with great convenience, a large number of students. The teachers are well known for their moral and intellectual attainments--one of them a graduate of Beth. any College--and have, as we learn, given great satisfaction already to the friends and patrons of the institution, as instructors. We can say with the utmost confidence, from our personal intimate acquaintance with the principal teachers, that they will scrupulously
588 THOUGHTS FOR THINKERS.
maintain the moral and religious education of those placed under their care, as the highest object to be aimed at in the development of man.
The study of the Holy Scriptures--not in any sectarian sense--is a regular branch of the educational course of the "Institute," and the teachers are well qualified to give instruction in their departments, themselves being constant and ardent students of the Bible. The course of study, in general, is very full and well arranged, and the textbooks well selected. It possesses various advantages not found in many literary institutions, as will be seen by examination of the course of study announced.
From what we have heard, the success of the institution thus far has given general satisfaction to its patrons and the public generally, and has inspired them with great hopes for the future. We hope that the brotherhood on the whole Reserve will adopt it as their own--will give it an undivided and strong support. If the active brethren of Northern Ohio will do this, it will no longer be a question whether the "Eclectic Institute" will succeed and prosper or not; its success will be, under God's blessing, certain. The brotherhood there cannot but appreciate the importance and benefits of such an institution among them. It has the highest claims upon their sympathies and cordial support, and we trust that they will not fail, to a man, to extend them to their infant institution, to make it eminently and extensively useful. C. L. LOOS.
THOUGHTS FOR THINKERS.
"And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."--Matt. xviii. 2-4.
THE scriptures must make their appeal to the human reason. It is impossible that the mind, in the free exercise of thought, can receive as True, that which the reason intuitively discerns as absurd. To compel it to do so, is to put a chain upon the conscience, and to extinguish that light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. This is spiritual despotism, ending in moral death. It is only in proportion to the freedom which has been given to the exercise of the human reason, that the true interpretation of the scriptures has been reached. A foolish heart is necessarily dark. A stupid veneration for authority, is to the mind as the cataract is to the eye: it cuts off the free influx of light to the reason, or passes it first through spectacles which discolor and distort it. As the unclouded sunlight is to a well organized eye, so is revelation to the
THOUGHTS FOR THINKERS. 589
purified reason; and as vision presupposes an adaptation of the eye to light and of light to the eye, so faith, which is but mental vision, presupposes a correspondence between the word of truth and the conscience. As a man with his eyes open cannot but feel the light, so one whose reason is not utterly closed against its entrance, cannot but feel the truth. Thus it was that Paul made Felix tremble "as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come." The truth met with a response in his heart, wicked as it was, and like the music-chord under the pulse of the invisible breeze; there was an inborn sympathy that made it vibrate with fear.
The Catholic, discarding the light of reason, claims a literal interpretation of the scriptures, even where it is absurd to the reason; but here, it is evident, the influence is not that of truth, but of authority, and the benefit or blessing of the obedience or the faith, can rise no higher than its object. It may entitle the poor wretch to the approbation of his despot, but it cannot give any enjoyment of God. "This is my body," means the veritable, real body, and "this is my blood," must be understood to mean the real material blood of Christ! We must understand it to mean!--yes, and so we can understand it to mean, &c., for we can understand an absurdity; but under the free exercise of reason, can we believe it to mean what the reason, by its immediate intuition declares to be impossible, because absurd? The man who thinks, will ponder this question but a little before he will answer, with full assurance, No.
These remarks are all very practical--as practical as the faculties of the soul, concerning the action of which they are made. Let us try them on our text, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." We must become as little children in what sense 2 In every sense, says the literalist. This is absurd, says the reason--I cannot receive it. Shall the scripture, therefore, be thrown away? By no means; but we will search for an interpretation that can be harmonized with the light that is in us. Though we may become fools by shutting our eyes against the light of revelation, we will not allow that revelation to be used to stultify the reason given us by its author for its comprehension and reception. If we cannot become like children in stature, in physical inability, we can resemble them in some moral qualities. "Humility," indeed, is specified by the Saviour, for he adds, "Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child," &c. Interpreted by the reason, under the suggestion of this clause, how beautiful does this comparison seem! What can be more illustrative of the spirit in which a fallen and guilty man shall approach
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 50
590 THE CAUSE OF REFORMATION.
the Saviour, than the dependent and helpless suppliancy of a little child. He is not ashamed to confess his weakness, for he is conscious that he has no strength in himself, save to express his willingness and his wants; he does not scruple to surrender his will, because he feels that his parents are to him nothing but love; or to cry out for his wants, because he has realized his dependence, his absolute dependence, from his cradle. These are the elements in the character and temper of a child, to which the Saviour declares every man must be assimilated, before he can enter the kingdom of heaven. And are they hot the foundation upon which all true-- that is, all vital religion--rests? O, the depth of the phylosophy of Christ! The searchings of his reason how profound! But why should we marvel! Is he not the Logos embodied, and in Him are there not hidden even the deep things of God! Let me ask the reader who thinks, to ponder on this revelation, so beautifully and simply made in the illustration drawn from the character of a child, and, uncovering the depths of his own soul, to ask himself, in what spirit it is that he feels himself nearest to God, and actualizes, by faith, most fully the reign of God in his heart, and I shall not fear that he will differ from me, when I say, that, The beginning of all genuine religion in the heart, is in the feeling of absolute childlike dependence on God, with a will reconciled to His will, and harmonizing, through the light' of reason, with the law of love. W. K. P.
THE CAUSE OF REFORMATION.
THE territory over which the doctrine of the Reformation has been more or less diffused, within one quarter of a century, is unprecedented in any age known to history and to me. It is preached or read in our books, not only in all the United States of America, and in all the British provinces of North America, from St. Johns to San Francisco, and from the Oregon to the Neuces: it has also been preached or read in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and the Isle of Man. It has crossed the Pacific to Australia and New Zealand, and visited Liberia, on the coast of Africa. At some of these points it has, indeed, touched but slightly; but even there, like a little leaven hid in a large measure of meal, it must work, as the Messiah said, until the mass be leavened.
The following notices from the July number of the British Mil-
THE CAUSE OF REFORMATION. 591
lennial Harbinger, is an index of the times and of the progress of the great cause to which we have consecrated our lives. A. C.
We hope to forward, in the course of the current month, a box of books to Port Adelaide, Australia, containing "The Christian Baptist," "Campbell and Rice Debate," "Debate with Bishop Purcell," "Christian System," "Essay on Remission," Hymn-Book, &c. We trust that, our brethren in that part of the world, will be preserved from those fruitless speculations which have so strong a tendency to dry up all sympathy with the cause of Christ, and with the faithful exercise of pure and undefiled Christianity.
We embrace this opportunity of informing our readers, that the Essay on the Evidences of Pardon, commencing page 318, will be printed as an eight-page tract, to be sold to the brethren as cheaply as possible. Five hundred copies will be forwarded to Australia. We solicit the churches who approve of this effort, and who may desire to aid in circulating the tract, to send in their orders immediately, while the type is standing.
THE MEETING IN LONDON.--Bro. King, writing on Monday, June 22d, concerning the above meeting, says:
I am able to announce the following: A preliminary meeting will be held on Tuesday evening, July 8th, in Providence Chapel, Elstree street, Pancras road, not far from the Euston square station, to commence at half-past six o'clock. On Wednesday morning, at nine o'clock, in Fitzroy Hall, Little Portland street, Oxford market, near Regent street, the second meeting will commence. On Thursday morning, the assembly will resume at the same time and place, adjourning at four o'clock, in _order to meet the Hammersmith brethren in their hall for tea, and to bring before the public, in the evening, the principles of the Reformation. On Friday morning, Fitzroy Hall will be again open for completing any remaining business, at which place tea will be provided, and in the evening a public meeting held, which will be announced somewhat as follows:
"Great Religious Reformation.--The incompetency of existing sects to convert the people being apparent, and the necessity for an extensive reformation having been proclaimed by their high authorities--Dr. Leifchild, Rev. T. Binney, Mr. Edward Miall, and others --a public meeting will be held in Fitzroy Hall, on Friday, July 11th, when gentlemen from various parts of England and Scotland will deliver addresses explanatory of the nature of the required reformation. The above named gentlemen, and many other ministers and public men, will be invited to attend."
On Lord's day, brethren meet for worship in the morning, at Providence Chapel, St. Pancras road; at the hall, Black's road, Hammersmith; at Lark row, near Victoria Park; and at Kennington. At Providence chapel, in the afternoon and evening, a public conference will be held, the design of which is, to bring before the public
592 A CONVERTED CATHOLIC.
the things of the kingdom, relative to which they are so lamentably ignorant.
These are the best arrangements I am able to announce. Trusting they may prove in every respect useful, and wishing to hear from you if you have any thing to suggest, I remain, yours in love, DAVID KING.
[It is our intention, all things concurring, to be in London to attend the General Meetings.--J. WALLIS.]
THE TESTIMONY OF A CONVERTED CATHOLIC.
WE publish, at the request of its author, the following communication, in hope that it may reach the eyes of others, who are yet under the spiritual despotism of the Roman Hierarchy. We need only add, that the writer is well known to us, having spent a session at Bethany College since his conversion from Catholocism, and that his statements may be received with all confidence.
READ THE HARBINGER.
Brother Campbell: I would not offend you, by seeking to circulate your writings on any subject, by what is usually termed a puff; but justice, charity, pure and undefiled religion--the cause of all mankind--forbid that I should conceal my sentiments at a time when great efforts are being made in the metropolis of this Union, and elsewhere, to brand with eternal infamy the great cause which Protestantism has espoused, and to raise in this land of liberty a battalion sworn to raise the standard of Roman despotism, the most debasing of all.
A few short years ago, the Harbinger found me a wreck, wandering between Catholocism, which I had learned, (all but the mysteries,) and infidelity, in which I was becoming proficient. Without judge or jury, I felt disposed to condemn the Harbinger; and although I was neither a good Catholic nor a good Protestant, yet I would think it no cruelty to meet its authors with the chastisement due to heretics, when Protestantism was young. And I presume the Harbinger could never gain admittance into my miscellanies, but that I was invited to take a hand in a debating society, where the question next to be discussed was the subject of an article in the Harbinger. The subject I had seen on the back, without opening the book; and after some reflection as to the propriety of opening it, I read the address on war. I found nothing in it that would bear an action in
A CONVERTED CATHOLIC. 593
a spiritual court, nor even revolting to the common sense of an honest infidel; and so, with more toleration than good faith, I read the book through. It suggested the inquiry, Is the religion which is now sustained by the power and pride of Christendom, the same that was propogated by those men called Apostles? or have modern theologians the same instructions--the same text-books that the primitive doctors had; and if so, are they delivering their message in the same way? The boldness of the Harbinger in affirming the first, arguing and denying the second, increased my suspicion of both. For surely, if these apostles, single handed and alone, were more than a match for the power, pride, and prejudice of the Herods and the Caesars, now, when the same subject is more popular, it does not require the trappings of church and state to give it efficacy, nor the embodiment of temporal and spiritual power in the person of a mitred chief to give it sanction--a passport to the hearts of men. My motto is, "hear bath sides, and then decide." And after hearing both sides, we were forced to admit that the textbooks are the same; that the instructions of the early ambasaadors are the only instructions we have worth a penny; but that the same message is delivered in different ways; and acting upon this conclusion, we rejected alike the ill-directed, material, and blind zeal of the present whoredom of church and state; the matrimonial alliances of spiritual and temporal authority, bound up in a mitre, and flung ourselves into these times when men had neither silver nor gold to give impotent people, but gave such as they had, saying, "in the name of God take up thy couch and walk." And so far from feeling, that in renouncing Catholicism and infidelity, we have renounced the great privileges of humanity, we feel that we have renounced a debasing servitude, and burst the fetters which entail intellectual thraldom--a thraldom which makes man a mere machine, twisting, and turning, and bending to shams, memorized prayers, pious fraud, exploded fables, whenever the insolent head of baseless authority nods, or where the inflated head of a self-sufficient infidel puffs. At length we feel like a new fledged lark, when trying its new found powers from the top of some lofty oak, singing her carol and soaring upward, surveying the vast universe with that free and fervent gaze with which the soul, unfettered, dares to gaze, when conscious that the source from which it emanated has left it free.
We would say, then, to all, read the Harbinger. If you are an unbeliever, read it. You must either admit the truth of Christianity or deny your senses. If you are a believer, read it; it will strength-
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 50*
594 A HINT FOR EVERY READER.
en your faith and open the treasure of the scriptures, which give peace to the soul. It will defend you alike against shams of a georgeous superstition, and the more fatal darts of infidelity, and, unfolding the tender mercies of the Almighty, will warm the heart in his love.
PARIS, Ky. B. N. G.
A HINT FOR EVERY READER.
IT is now full time that the patrons of the Harbinger should exert themselves to extend its influence, by greatly increasing the number of its readers. The efforts made for this purpose, last year, have not been vain. They show how much might be done to disseminate the truth, as we exhibit it--to lengthen our cords and strengthen our stakes as a Christian community. We could still reduce the price of the Harbinger, provided all arrears were paid, and the number of subscribers increased a few thousands, and payments made in advance. We ought, at least, to have double the number of our present readers.
To furnish substantial edification to our reading community, it is not enough to fill our pages with mere print, or handsomely written and neatly printed compositions. We must be furnished with substantial intellectual and spiritual food--with something to make us think, and feel, and grow in our spiritual strength and stature. We must have more than the wind and the water of the kingdom; we must have the bread of life--" the sincere milk of the word"-the marrow and fatness, and even the wine of the Kingdom of Heaven. We must have the sunshine and the dew of heaven--the early and the latter rain--the breath, the water, and the bread of life--the oil of joy and the wine that cheers the heart of God and man.
It requires not merely ordinary learning, or the pen of a ready writer, or the tongue of an eloquent orator: it requires profound thought, deep reflection, as well as much learning and piety, to edify, entertain, refresh, and energize the citizens of the kingdom of God, and bring them up to the fulness of the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus. Let us, then, look at what has been done for us, and by us, and add to our faith courage, zeal, largeness of spirit, liberality and effort, to enlarge and extend the empire of truth in our own country, amongst our own brotherhood, and throughout the world! We can if we will; and if we will not, it is because our minds are blinded, and our hearts hardened, by the deceitfulness of sin. Take a lesson from the politicians and worldlings of this day. Their energy, their enterprize, their efforts, their liberality, are worthy of the kingdom of heaven, while those of many so-called Christians, are not worthy of the Island of Cuba or of Crete.
We thought that every body, as far as the wide world of the English
A HINT FOR EVERY READER. 595
language, knew the modern meaning of the word Club, but we were mistaken. A friend writes as follows:
Beloved Editors: Your club system is not yet understood. Out here in the back woods, we know all about hickory-clubs, jockey-clubs, and drinking-clubs; but Harbinger-clubs, we find it difficult to get at. Some of the people who have, either by sight or tradition, learned in their youth of the club of Hercules, fancy that Harbinger-clubs must be a revival of that ancient and terrible weapon. This conjecture is the more readily received, from an idea very prevalent out here, that some of you editors are a good deal like that celebrated devastator, who not only cleansed the Augean Stables of their filth, but swept his enemies from before him as with a besom. But this you know is, for the most part, a misapprehension. It is probable that Webster's new dictionary has had some influence, not only in misleading the people, but in prejudicing them against your club-law. He defines club-law to mean a "government of violence or force," and this you know seems strangely inconsistent with the character of a religions periodical. I confess myself to have been somewhat bewildered by these odd interpretations; and though I know, or think I know exactly what you mean by your club-law, I have not been able, without difficulty, to reconcile your use of the word with Webster’s definition of the same.
It has always appeared to me of the first importance, that learned men should agree, because, in that case, the ignorant can have no excuse for differing. I have, therefore, tried to reconcile you and Webster in this way, and though I had some misgivings about my solution at first, I have given it forth so often, and it has proved satisfactory to so many, that I am now fully persuaded that it is both philosophically and historically true. Webster, I assume, is right in saying that club-law is a law of force, and then I explain how it may, with propriety, become a law of a religious periodical in two ways: 1st. It may be a law imposed upon the publication from without, by the people themselves. A number may club together, or even without conference, so act in concert as to make it virtually a club, and say, either audibly or by silence, which is equally expressive to sagacious Editors: "If you will not give us better terms, we will not take your paper." Here is a threat--force; the Editors yield, the threat compels a change, and grows into a law--and that a club law. Is there any harm in this? All say, No. 2d. It may be a law imposed upon the people from within; that is, by the Editors themselves. Thus: The Editors (sagacious men, of course,) see that the people want their paper, but they are higgling about the price. The Editors say to them, We can publish many at a cheaper rate than we can a few; we can furnish them at a less price for cash, than we can on credit; combine together, form clubs, and send us in the cash in advance, and you shall have our paper for so and so--twenty-five or thirty per cent cheaper. The people, urged by the desire to read the paper, and the equally pinching pressure of the love of money, are compelled into the terms; they are forced, by the joint love of literature and of money, into clubs--and this is club-law, subjectively considered. Is there any harm in this? Again all say, No.
Thus I reason, my beloved Editors, and my reasoning has satisfied so many, and, above all, pleases myself so much, that I would like to see it hi print, and will pledge myself, should you gratify me by its publication, to do my best to send you in a big club for 1852. Most truly yours, P.
We have been more amused than edified by the very quaint manner in which our correspondent has explained the philosophy of club-law. He compels us, however, to publish his letter, by the promise given in the eon- elusion. We trust he will prove as good as his word. To aid him and
596 A HINT FOR EVERY READER.
others, who are purposing in their hearts, we have no doubt, to do the same kind office, we shall take the liberty of suggesting a word or two by way of inducement, that may not have occurred to all whom it concerns. The recent postal arrangements are such as very greatly to reduce that part of the cost of the Harbinger. For years past, the postage to all the readers of the Harbinger has been 42 cents per year, whereas, now, to a majority of the subscribers, it will only be 12 cents. This will, of course, be a very acceptable reduction, and will afford the Harbinger on such terms to those who embrace the club arrangement, as will remove every reasonable excuse to those who really desire our periodical, and are willing to allow a just reward for the fruits of labor, faithfully and benevolently performed.
To prevent all mistakes, we shall republish in tabular form,
OUR CLUB-LAW FOR 1852.
Three persons, at any one post office, for - - - $5 00
Five " " " - - - 8 00
Seven " " county, - - - 10 00
Eleven " " " - - - 15 00
Sixteen " " " - - - 20 00
Fifty " " " - - - 50 00
No person, whose entire arrears are not paid up to the 1st of January, 1852, can be admitted to the privileges of this system. Those paying from January to July, not in clubs, shall, as formerly, be charged $2. Those not paying till after July, $2 50.
NEW POSTAGE LAW.
The weight of the Millennial Harbinger is under 2 ounces, and the postage for all distances
Under 500 miles - - - - 1 cent per number.
" 1500 " - - - - 2 " "
" 2500 " - - - - 3 " "
" 3500 " - - - - 4 " "
All over 3500 " - - - - 5 " "
The postage, at these rates, must be paid quarterly in advance by the subscribers, at their respective offices. The publishers cannot prepay for their subscribers at the above rates.
To those who may wish to order any other publications from this office, except the Harbinger, it is proper to say, that the rates of postage for all miscellaneous papers, books, &c., are 1 cent per ounce for all distances under 500 miles; 2 cents under 1500, &c. These must be prepaid, or else the rates will be double.
Notice.--There are no less than seven post offices, in the United States by the name of Bethany, and on this account, letters intended for our office are often miscarried. Be careful to direct to A. Campbell, Bethany, Brooke county, Virginia, via Wheeling, Va. Subscribers in arrears should not wait for agents, but remit, without delay, by mail, directed to us. A. C.
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 597
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
KENTUCKY.--Bro. James Henshall, of Lexington, under date of August 20th, reports as follows: "Politics prevail this year, rather than religion. The new constitution has gone into operation, and a long list of public officers have been before the people for their suffrages, which heretofore were constituted in another way. In January of this s ear I went to aid Bro. Ricketts in Danville, preached there a week, and had a good hearing --6 additions. Bro. Ricketts then returned with me to Lexington, and commenced an effort which continued better than a month. Bro. It. remained part of the time, and labored faithfully and with great profit to the community. During the meeting, we had occasional help from Bros. Gano and Raines, and the veterans, Bros. Creath and T. Smith, were often with us, aiding in the work, and especially in exhortation. There were 55 additions made to the cause here. On the fifth Lord's day in March, in company with Bro. Wm. Morton, I went to Richmond. The cause was rather low here, but we had a good hearing for twelve discourses in seven days. Several were added to the faithful. On the second Lord's day in June, I was at Old Union, exchanging with Bro. Gano, who joined me on Monday; but it being a very busy season, we had no additions. On Monday after the fourth Lord's day in June, I went to Macedonia, and, in company with father Creath and Bro. Tompkins, we had a fine hearing, and 3 confessions. On the 2d Lord's day in July, I exchanged with Bro. Raines, and went to Millersburg. We had a great turn out on Lord's day, and a good hearing for several days, in company with father Creath, Bros. Raines, J. Rogers, and Irwin. On the fourth Lord's day I exchanged with Bro. John Rogers, and preached at Carlisle for several days, aided by father Creath, Bros. Raines, Samuel and John Rogers. On Monday after the first Lord's day in August, I went to Bethlehem, to aid Bro. Tompkins, and we had 3 additions. Before and after the second Lord's day inst., I went to Old Jessamine, and in connection with Bros. Ricketts and Sacre, we had a good hearing, and 2 confessions. On the fourth Lord's day inst., I exchanged with the veteran John Smith, and went to North Middleton, where Bro. Gallo joined me on Monday, and Bro. Smith also. We had a joyful meeting, and 12 additions. Our's is a noble cause, and I feel more and more convinced, that if the preachers will preach Christ, and the brethren will live as becomes the gospel, it will take the world May the Lord abundantly bless his people, and make them a blessing "--Bro. E. A. Smith, writing from Midway, under date of August 12th, says: "I find rich brethren complaining of you and others, about those meeting-house calls, who, nevertheless, are paying out $5 each, towards rearing a stone pillar on the plains of Washington. I much prefer to put my tythes into a house for the Lord, than to rear a marble pillar to a man, be he ever so great. Let us Christians honor the Lord with our substance. I complain not at those numerous calls. Let us help one another in every good work, whether at home or abroad: the Jerusalem mission--the Lord bless it; the Liberia mission, and all other kindred works. How are we to lay up treasure in heaven, if it be not in aiding the weak? Of the small balance in my favor, will you please direct that $3 be put into the Washington City meeting-house fund, and the same amount into the St. Louis meetinghouse fund? May the good Lord accept of these humble offerings, and bless those good brethren who have this good mind to labor for the glory of our God."
MISSOURI.--Bro. T. M. Allen writes, under date of Ellerslie, Boon county, August 19, as follows: "I have the pleasure to inform you of the continued prosperity of the good cause in this part of the State. Yesterday a ten days' meeting at Friendship, in this county, closed with 31 additions-
598 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
29 heard, believed, and were baptized, and 2 were reclaimed. Bro. Shannon was present, and spoke with general satisfaction for two days; Bro. Wills, also, attended one day; the rest of the time I was the principal speaker, assisted by Bro. Crisman, the resident teacher." Under date of August 26th, Bro. Allen says: "Yesterday evening I returned home from the upper end of the Two Mile Prairie, where I had been conducting a meeting for three days, with Bro. Crisman, Bro. Wills being present two days. The Methodists had a camp meeting in progress close to us, yet we had very large congregations and profound attention-6 persons confessed the Lord and were baptized. Bros. Wills and Crisman will continue the meeting to day. This makes 48 additions that have been obtained there and at Friendship, in a short time. Bro. T. N. Gaines, of Lexington, informs me that he had 12 additions at Dover, at a meeting he held, embracing the second Lord's day of this month."
INDIANA.--Bro. J. Snyder reports 33 additions to the cause of Christ, as plead at New Hope, six miles from Columbus, where he resides. Bro. Hubbard dispersed the good seed on that occasion.
ARKANSAS.--Bro. Whitfield, of Camden, reports 31 additions made to the churches in Ouachita, Hempstead and Pike counties, by the labors of Bro. James S. Wade, assisted by his father, Eld. M. H. Wade, aged upwards of seventy years, a veteran in the cause of his Master.
WISCONSIN.--Bro. L. P. Correll, of Hazel Green, Grant county, reports 75 additions made in his county, during his labors for the last seven or eight months. The brethren, he adds, are much encouraged, and are also engaged in building a house of worship.
MARYLAND.--Bro. J. R. Frame, of Boonsboro', speaks favorably of the prospect of things in Washington county. The audiences were large and attentive-2 made the good confession. The annual meeting for Hartford county was well attended, and 2 there, also, confessed the Lord at our last advices, the meeting still being in progress. He farther adds, "Our State co-operation was brought to a close at this meeting, and it is probable we will soon have two evangelists in the field. Washington City is included in the Maryland cooperation, and the evangelists will labor regularly at that point. This is an important centre, and so soon as they get a house of worship, the churches generally ought to sustain a speaker there till they are able to do so themselves. A resolution, requesting the elders and evangelists to bring the matter before the churches, of contributing to the erection of a suitable house there, was unanimously passed at our late meeting."
OHIO.--Bro. Calvin Smith, writing from Jackson, under date of September 901, reports 65 additions made during a meeting of some four days at Niles, Trumbull county, and 8 persons reclaimed. Also, 3 have been immersed in Jackson, where a meeting is still in progress. This is our first presentation of the gospel in this place. Prejudice is fast giving way, and the prospect favorable for yet farther conquests.
Total number reported since last month, upwards of 328.
MY absence from home during one month, has occasioned the suspension of our series of essays, and accumulated on our files many documents which shall have attention at our earliest convenience. A. C.
TRIBUTE OF RESPECT. 599
OHIO MEETINGS.
WE had the pleasure and the profit of attending four annual meetings of the Christian brotherhood on the Western Reserve, including the county of Wayne, in Ohio. We were much edified and refreshed by these meetings, and had the pleasure of addressing as many thousands, at each of them, as could satisfactorily hear the voice of one man. The best order I have ever witnessed, obtained at them all. From the intelligence obtained, they have resulted in more than one hundred and fifty baptisms. We intend, in our next Harbinger, to give a more detailed report of them. Not the slightest incident occurred, at any one of them, to mar our enjoyment, or to leave on our memories one painful impression, except that, under circumstances so propitious and so eminently favorable, not more of our fellow-citizens were converted to God and made happy under the reign of the Prince of Peace and of Life. A. C.
TRIBUTE OF RESPECT.
Died, on Saturday, September 13th, at Bethany, Va., Mr. WILLIAM BERRY, of Clay county, Mo., in the 22d year of his age.
At a called meeting of the Students of Bethany College, on Monday, September 15th, 1851, the College duties having been suspended, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:
WHEREAS, it has pleased Almighty God to remove by death, from our midst, Mr. WM. BERRY, of Liberty, Mo., who had but recently bade adieu to parents, sisters, friends and home, to enter upon the rugged ascent of the Hill of Science at Bethany College. Therefore,
Resolved, That in the death of our fellow-student, Wm. Berry, we are all solemnly admonished of the uncertainty of all terrestrial pursuits, the shortness of human life, and the Omnipotence of that Sovereign who rules in the armies of heaven and executes his own will upon the earth.
Resolved, That we, deeply lamenting his untimely death, do sympathize with his parents, as being bereaved of an affectionate son, who, not removed by the hand of death, would have been their comforter and the joy of their hearts in declining years; with his relations, as sustaining the loss of a noble kinsman; and with his friends, as having lost one whose place cannot be supplied: and that we do the more deeply grieve since he was, during his short but painful illness, deprived of the vigilant care of his parents and relatives, and found his final home far from his native State.
Resolved, That in token of our respect, we will cherish his memory as one having high and generous aspirations, and that we will emulate the noble traits of character which we, from our short acquaintance, believe him to have possessed.
Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to address a letter of condolence to his parents, together with a copy of these resolutions.
Resolved, That the Secretary forward a copy of these resolutions, with an obituary notice, for publication, to the editors of the "Millennial Harbinger" and "Liberty Tribune." P. M. TALBOTT, Secretary. F. H. RISLEY, President
[The Missouri Republican will please copy.]
600 POETRY-OBITUARY.
COME UNTO ME.
BY WILLIAM BAXTER.
"Come unto me," the Saviour cries,
All ye by sin oppressed;
Confess my name before the world,
And I will give you rest.
Assume my mild and easy yoke,
And by obedience prove,
Your heart's devotion to my cause,
Your gratitude and love.
In meekness strive to do my will,
All other teachers flee,
Lay every earthly trust aside,
And learn alone of me.
The stores of wisdom all are mine,
And to each trustful heart,
Treasures of knowledge, deep and pure,
I gladly will impart.
I am of meek and lowly heart,
And those who follow me,
Must cast all lofty pride away,
And learn humility.
Through life, then, humbly follow on;
In death, lean on my breast;
Fear not the dark and gloomy grave,
Beyond it lies your rest.
OBITUARY.
COVINGTON, August 12, 1851.
Brother Campbell: Our congregation has recently been called upon to mourn the loss of a valuable and highly esteemed member. On Monday, July 4th, Sister JULIA CHOWNING, wife of John Chowning, Esq., of this city, departed this life, after a painful illness of two weeks, which she endured with Christian patience and fortitude.
Sister Chowning, with her family, removed from Harrison county, Ky., to this city, in March, 1847. Having for six years been an exemplary member of the Christian Church, she (as might have been expected from one of her character) promptly united with the brethren here; and by her pious walk and uniform ardent devotion to her Redeemer's cause, she won and retained the confidence and affectionate regard of the faithful. Ever ready to minister to the wants of the afflicted and the destitute, there probably never lived one of whom it might more truly be said, that she was loved most by those who knew her best. An amiable and worthy family share our sympathies in their bereavement. May the promise of the Holy One to those who "die in the Lord," sustain and console them in their affliction. Yours, in the hope of immortality, G. FISHER.
Vol. I.] BETHANY, VA., NOVEMBER, 1851. [No. XI.
CONVENTIONS.
CONVENTIONS are as ancient as families, or family meetings. Family worship is a family convention.
The second class of conventions were weddings. Two families met to form a union, by a nuptial contract on the part of one member of each entering into covenant to create a new family. These, again, met around a common sacrifice and a common altar, and thus religious, as well as civil, conventions began. As time advanced, and families increased in their number and their membership, conventional meetings, for common purposes, would naturally and necessarily increase.
Patriarchs were the princes, or chiefs, or heads of families, and these, in the very olden times, called their descendants together and held an occasional feast of days. This fact is well authenticated in the book of Job--the oldest volume on the shelves of time.
Abraham stands out upon the canvass of the patriarchal age a prince of patriarchs, with a household, during his own life, equal to a modern convention.
His family, in process of time, became a family of families, and these, by a common blood and a common religion, formed a nation great, and mighty, and populous. That nation was, for a time, the beau ideal of nations, and was always distinguished for grand conventions.
During a period of fifteen centuries after their exodus from Egypt, three grand annual conventions were held by the whole nation. These were the Feast of Unleavened Bread, or of the Passover; the
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 51
602 CONVENTIONS.
Feast of Harvest, or of First Fruits, called Pentecost; and the Feast of Ingathering, or of Tabernacles. Besides these three, they had the Feast of Trumpets, on the first day of the seventh month, being the new year's day of the civil year; the Feast of Expiation, or Atonement, held on the tenth day of Tisri, or of our September; the Sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee. Besides these, they had also that of the weekly Sabbath. Of these conventions three were most conspicuous, because all their males were to be convened at the great centre of attraction--the Sanctuary of the Lord.
That preparatory institution was superlatively social, benevolently adapted to the genius of human nature, and admirably designed to promote social enjoyment. Christianity is but the true and real antitype of it. It began at a convention held in Jerusalem, and that the most splendid ever held on earth. It was a meeting of days--a protracted meeting--and so long protracted, that Christians resident in Jerusalem and elsewhere, sold houses and lands, not to institute a community of goods, or a joint stock company, as many have foolishly imagined, but to prolong the feast and protract the pleasures ineffable and full of heaven--the fruits of a copious effusion of the Spirit of God, the Holy- Guest of that great festival.
Our Lord's days are weekly convocations around the table of the Lord, in the house of prayer, the pillar and stay of the gospel in the world. But these are not all that is necessary to the wants, the duties, and the enjoyments of the Christian age. We as much need annual festivals, conventions, or big meetings, in the Christian Kingdom of God, as they did in the Jewish Kingdom of God.
"As iron sharpeneth iron," or, rather, a better translation, "Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." And if this be true--and who dare question it?--what quickening, animating, enlightening, polishing influence must a protracted convention of a thousand brethren, with a thousand sisters, have upon one another'
But I design no work of supererogation, and will not imagine that any Christian brother or sister dissents from me in the utility, importance, and blessedness of large protracted conventions of Christians, assembled to worship God our Father through Jesus Christ our common Lord and Saviour; to exhort and stir up each other to adorn our calling, and to commend, by preaching, teaching, and exhortation, the gospel of our salvation to our fellow-men, that they may freely and cheerfully participate with us in the blessings of the common salvation.
It is even advantageous to leave home, with all its associations,
CONVENTIONS. 603
labors, cares, troubles, pleasures, and meet with the thousands of Israel who have agreed to come together for a spiritual banquet on the marrow and fatness, the milk, the wine, and the honey of the kingdom of God, and to have a feast of the soul; to listen to the Master in the true sense and meaning of his strong appeal to his betrothed spouse, in the picturesque and beautiful imagery of the song of songs, in the words following:
Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse,
With me from Lebanon;
Look from the top of Amana,
From the top of Shenir and Hermon;
From the lion's den--from the mountains of the leopards.
Thou hest captivated my heart, my sister, my spouse;
Thou hast captivated my heart with one glance of thine eyes,
With one turn of thy neck.
How beautiful is thy love, my sister, my spouse!
How much better is thy love than wine!
And the smell of thy garments than all spices!
Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honey comb:
Honey and milk are under thy tongue;
And the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse;
A spring shut up--a fountain sealed.
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits;
Camphor, with spikenard and saffron;
Calamus and cinnamon, and all trees of frankincense,
Myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:
A fountain of waters, a well of living waters,
And streams from Lebanon."
And how happy we, when, in the true spirit of this beautiful invitation, we have met in Christian affection, to tune our hearts to the response of the bride, couched in the following appropriate and beautiful poetic effusion:
"Awake, O north wind! and come thou south;
Blow upon my garden,
That the spices thereof may flow out.
Let my beloved come into his garden,
And eat his pleasant fruits."
In answer to this prepartion of the heart, how delightful to hear him respond-
"I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse;
I have gathered my myrrh, with my spice;
I have eaten my honey comb with my honey;
I have drunk my wine with my milk;
Eat, O friends; drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved."*
We have been made to understand this passage by a spiritual discernment of the blessings of the meetings of Christian brethren,
*Solomon's Spiritual Songs, chap. iv. 8-16; v. 1.
604 CONVENTIONS.
better than from all the comments we have ever read or heard upon it. This is one of the fruits of that Christian experience, which gives to the mind a spiritual perspicacity from which all worldlings are necessarily debarred. In their eyes, it is true--" He has no form, nor comeliness, and when they see him, there is no beauty that they should desire him." "He was despised," they may say, "and we esteemed him not."
But the conventions for which we now plead are very unlike ecclesiastic, synodical, or hierarchical conventions of church judicature. Our's are meetings of Christians "in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ," when they assemble to congratulate one another as members of the great family of God, and of the household of faith, and to "exhort one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with gratitude in their hearts to the Lord."
True, as in duty bound, we also, on such occasions, invite our fellow-citizens to bow to the sceptre of grace; to be reconciled to God, through the merits and glory of the great Master of assemblies; and thus we endeavor to persuade mankind to be happy. In this we are generally successful, in the ratio of our own spirituality and conformity to the statutes of the great King. So it comes to pass that the word is spoken, as a general law, with most success, in those communities where the church is most exemplary in the work of faith, the labor of love, and the patience of hope, and when the speakers are themselves spiritually minded and in good earnest.
Neither logic nor rhetoric, neither great learning nor great eloquence, can supply the place of great spirituality and Christian earnestness and sincerity. Whole heartedness, with humble parts and limited attainments, will always succeed better than the most studied style--the purest diction--the most graceful periods--the most beautiful imagery, and the most fascinating mannerism, without Godly sincerity and unaffected piety. Every arrow from the bow of truth, properly aimed, will strike the object in the eye of the archer. Does he aim at the imagination, at the taste, at the head, or the heart, then will he strike the imagination, the taste, the head, or the heart of his auditory. If, while aiming at the imagination, he strikes the heart, or while aiming at the heart he strikes the imagination, it is because of some aberration of his hand or his eye. The great success of all preachers is greatly owing to favorable auditories, to honest hearts, and to spirituality and devotion to the truth as it is in Jesus. Both are essential to eminent success.
But besides these conventional meetings, there are those for the
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business proper to the Christian community. These are conferential meetings on the whole affairs of the Christian kingdom. There are fields of labor to be selected, evangelists or missionaries to be sent abroad, and the ways and means of accomplishing these objects are to be considered and provided for. Brethren, as individuals, nor churches as individual communities, cannot, in their individual capacities, accomplish these objects. There must be church, as well as individual co-operation, in order to the accomplishment of our obligations to the Lord and his cause in the world-
The churches in a county, a province, or a State, may, indeed, by their joint consultation, contributions and co-operation, do much to evangelize their respective districts. But the world is the field of the whole church, and the whole church ought, as far as in its power, to co-operate in the great cause of sending the gospel to all nations. She fails in her duties to her Lord, and in the fulfilment of her mission into the world, unless she puts forth her whole power, according to her means, in this transcendent enterprize.
Stated conventional meetings, for legislation or ecclesiastic jurisdiction, are unknown to the Christian Scriptures. But that cases amongst brethren and churches may and do occur, requiring the aid, the counsel, or the abitriment of difficulties, on the part of a convention, is a matter so evident and so common in all communities, as to need no demonstration. A case of this sort occurred before the New Testament was completed, and required the wisdom and authority of apostles and elders, in convention assembled, to adjudicate and decide. Conventions of this character constitute a part of the Christian dispensation, and the experience of all ages shows how important it is to have such tribunals, on certain occasions and emergencies, well selected and ordained.
There never was an extended community on earth without such conventions; and while human weakness, folly and perversity continue, such conventions will be indispensible to the peace and prosperity of the Christian church in its general and aggregate character. But this only in passing.
Our present aim has special reference to those grand conventions of the brethren for mutual edification and comfort, and for the conversion of sinners, sometimes called anniversary, or yearly meetings, of whole districts of churches; and to give some account of these, I have recently attended in the Western Reserve portion of the State of Ohio. A. C.
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606 OHIO ANNIVERSARIES.
OHIO ANNIVERSARIES.
ON Thursday, the 21st of August, myself and lady, and, a portion of my family, left home for the Ohio anniversaries. We ascended the Ohio to Wellsville that day, and enjoyed the Christian hospitalities of Bro. Mahlon Martin, of that place. Bro. Walter Scott, now of Kentucky, on his return from Pittsburgh, to our great satisfaction, simultaneously arrived and participated with us the pleasures of our sojourn in Wellsville. I had an appointment to address the citizens of the town that evening, and after tea immediately met a crowded house of attentive hearers. They were addressed on the great Salvation.
Next morning, before departing from Wellsville for New Lisbon, Bro. Scott and myself visited the new Union Schools, in a very superior edifice recently erected, much to the honor of the enterprising citizens of Wellsville. The building is large and most happily adapted, in its position and in its spacious and tastefully furnished rooms, to accommodate, with much comfort, some five hundred pupils. Its present number, though but a few months in existence, is about four hundred. Its principal, Mr. Parsons, admirably accomplished for his office, assisted by Bro. Regal, a graduate of Bethany College, and several eminently qualified female teachers from the best eastern academies, has under his care this very large school. The pupils are the entire uneducated children of the village, embracing all ages, sexes and conditions, from five years old to manhood and womanhood. Here there is neither aristocracy nor democracy, rich nor poor. They are neither more nor less than pupils. We visited every room; and after witnessing several recitations, were requested to deliver a short address to each department. This we did at the impulse of the moment.
I may say of myself and Bro. Scott, that we were never more gratified with a visit to any elementary school, as respects the appearance, demeanor, and order of the different classes of this real seminary of learning.
We understood the streets of Wellsville were clean swept of all its children, for they were all at school, well attired, and occupying each his chair and table in mathematical precision, under an admirable training adapted to that beautiful thing called the genius of human nature, in all its buddings and dawnings from infancy to majority.
The sublime silence that reigned, not merely on our entrance, but
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during our visit through all the classes, except when called to recite, and then the order and proficiency of the recitations, from the monosyllabic class up to those midway the hill of rudimental and primary school literature, was indicative of a very strict discipline and of a thorough training. These recitations were mingled with the charms which music, "heavenly maid," when young, by sweetly tuned infant voices imparts, and greatly assists to please and interest, to soothe and refresh, teachers and pupils.
We could suggest no improvement in the modes and forms of communicating instruction, as we could not regard it as a mere Lancasterian display of ready movements, by the mere force of memory, at the ringing of a bell or the nod of a fugleman, but as an index of perceiving and reflecting minds, in their first sallies in the acquisition and communication of knowledge.
Its acute and discriminating principal, Mr. Parsons, after visiting the best schools of New York and New England, as well as from much experience in teaching, has, as far as we could judge from a transient visit, admirably succeeded in giving one of the best model schools of the parish, town, or district order, that we have seen. And this, too, without calling to his aid the barbarous rod of "the ferule fingered boy popes" of the times of John the Thirteenth. He has made his school so very attractive, that expulsion from it is more terrible than the club of Hercules; more poignant than all the corporeal inflictions of the reign of terror.
The streets of Wellsville, since the opening of this school, are not like many other villages, filled with squalid, filthy urchins, with lips full of cursing and profanity; but, in the evenings and mornings, with well clad, well bred, well schooled, smiling boys and girls, going to and returning from that great centre of attraction--the Wellsville Union Seminary. I would invite attention to this noble pyramid of humanity, and urge every philanthropist, who has leisure and taste, to pay this seminary, when in session, a generous and candid visit.
On Friday, the 22d, we made our way to New Lisbon, accompanied with Bros. Scott and Martin, and were most kindly received and entertained during the meeting at the house of our excellent Bro. Pritchard, under whose hospitable roof we, and many preaching brethren, were wont, some five and twenty years ago, to meet and discuss all the great elements of the current Reformation; and in that same town where, at the commencement of the great movement in Ohio, Bro. Scott immersed so many persons into the faith of the original gospel of our salvation,
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The meeting had commenced before our arrival, under a magnificent circular tent of one hundred feet in diameter, located in the environs of the town. Bro. Scott, for three successive evenings, in New Lisbon, addressed, with great power and eloquence, large and attentive auditories assembled in the Christian meeting-house, and exhorted during the meeting, but was obliged to leave early on Monday. Bro. Robinson, from Bedford, powerful in exhortation, was also present with us, and exhorted with great effect. Brethren W. Belding, I Belton, M. Martin, E. Regal, I. Errett, A. Finney, Burns and Wakefield, with Bro. Lanphear, who presided over the meeting, took part in its edification.
My principal discourse on Lord's day, was based on the Oracle uttered from Heaven, when Moses and Elijah were recalled. This was preceded by reasonings on the five cardinal facts which are the materials of the gospel, properly arranged and developed. Instead of jive points, or principles of doctrinal development, we stated and illustrated the death, burial, resurrection, ascension and glorification of the Lord Jesus, as the premises to the command, "HEAR HIM."
On Monday, at the tent, Bro. Errett, in a clear, chaste, and fluent style, set forth, in a striking attitude, certain leading views of the Christian institution, with special reference to obedience, and was followed with some remarks on constitutional principles, in nature, providence and redemption, by myself, and sundry warm and pathetic appeals by Bros. Robinson, Belden, and others.
In the evening, in town, a large auditory was addressed by Bro. Errett on the trial of Jesus, and in developing the characters of those engaged in his trial and condemnation- The moral of this discourse was applied with much force to the auditory, and not without good effect. The meeting was continued for several evenings, principally by Bro. Errett, in the Christian Church in New Lisbon. The result of the whole anniversary was fifty-two baptisms.
From New Lisbon, very agreeably conveyed by Bro. R. Pritchard to Canfield, we arrived at Bro. M. Sacket's on Tuesday evening, and there enjoyed a repose of two or three days, speaking only once in Canfield.
From Bro. Sacket's, on Friday, we proceeded to the Trumbull anniversary, held at Niles, some five. miles from Warren. We made our sojourn at Niles, at the hospitable residence of Bro. Robinson. We found an immense concourse on the ground at an early period of the meeting, and large and liberal provisions made for all. The great tent was spread in a. very convenient place, covering a circle of three hundred feet circumference, and well seated. Besides
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several of the preachers present at the Columbiana anniversary, there were present Brethren A. B. Green, H. Reeves, M. Streator, J. Philips, J. Hurdman, B. F. Perkey, C. Bosworth, and Calvin Smith, who presided over the great congregation. From four to five thousand persons were supposed to be in attendance. After the adjournment of the meeting several brethren continued their efforts for several evenings. The number added by baptism was sixty-four, besides several persons were reclaimed and restored to the church.
Bro. Dr. Robinson conveyed us in his carriage from this meeting to Bedford, via Warren, where, in the evening at 5 o'clock, I delivered an address in the Presbyterian meeting-house, on the great foundation of Christ's Church; after which we proceeded ten miles, to Bro. Robins'; and next day, via Hiram and Aurora, to Bedford.
At Bedford we found all things ready for a great meeting. Large preparations were made for its accommodation, and they were not made in vain. Very many brethren were in attendance, and they seemed all to be alive to the occasion. There were Fathers Bentley and Hayden; Elder Samuel Church, from Pittsburgh; Elders Willard and Hawley, lately from the Baptists; also, Elder Hawley, from Detroit, and Elder Stephens, from Vermont, lately from the Methodists; and there were Elders D. S. Burnet, from Cincinnati, Melish, from Wilmington, Jones, from Wooster; Bros. Perkey and Bosworth, from Trumbull, and Elders Clapp and Collins, from Geauga.
On Lord's day some two thousand brethren partook of the monumental loaf and cup of blessings--the largest number that I have ever seen sit at one Lord's table. Here, as at all the meetings, we had much preaching, teaching and exhortation, all of a highly interesting and impressive character. On the first day of this anniversary we had a sort of experience-relating meeting. Certain brethren, elders from the Baptists and Methodists, who entered into the Reformation, gave a miniature of their experience under the denominational systems, and now under the Christian system, as held, exhibited and experienced by us. This was one of the most interesting relations of the kind I have heard, and greatly affected us all.
We had on all occasions, at all the meetings, much good preaching and teaching; but we had the best wine, as I imagined, at Bedford. Others might think differently; and we have all a right to our own opinions, in this free country. True, we had not so many baptisms; some twenty-five only were baptized during our stay
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there. But there were not so many people to convert in that region. No where on the Western Reserve has sectarianism, in all its forms, so visibly withered and died away, as in the region round about Bedford.
I need not speak of the Christian hospitalities of the brethren at Bedford, nor of those enjoyed by myself and family at the residences of Sister Willis and Bro. Robinson, during our stay, than which nothing more could be desired, for they were in all places in the same large and liberal scale.* Indeed, as some of them said, "These are Pentecostan times." I need not say, that generally, the spiritual fare was in good keeping with the provisions for the body. At Bedford, especially, we had a luxurious spiritual repast. There were Bros. Burnet, and Melish, and Jones, and Perkey, and Church, &c., &c., in all the prime and vigor of life, with heads full of knowledge and hearts full of love, pouring out rich treasures of wisdom and knowledge from the ark of the covenant and the golden treasury of the mystic manna. And there were greedy ears and devout hearts. devouring the discourses with approving countenances and beaming eyes, oft moistened with a tear.
Discourses were uttered, and exhortations were delivered at these meetings, that have told well, and will tell still better in coming years.
What has been said of Bedford, and Niles, and New Lisbon, may also be said of the anniversary convention held in Wooster, the capital of Wayne county, and the theatre of much of the labors of Bro. Jones. I was overcome by the importunities of the brethren at Wooster, to attend their anniversary; to spend another week, and to extend my travels and labors in Ohio over more of its territory- The weather was excessively warm, the calls from home very strong, my duties there were very urgent, and I was already overwrought; but after my visit to Wooster, on witnessing the zeal and love for the cause of truth, and the great devotion to it on the part of the brethren there, and what they had achieved, I was happy in the feeling that I was amongst them, and had yielded to their importunities. The unusual heat of the weather at that season, and the dust, and the immense concourse there assembled under the
*I have never witnessed, at any convention, a greater profusion of the bounties of a kind and gracious Providence, than was indicated at these meetings. The whole multitude of auditors and spectators, at two or three of the anniversaries, were informed from the stand, that "the brethren had brought provisions, abundant provisions, for them all, and that all were invited to partake who were not provided for." And yet many baskets, it was said, full of fragments, were borne away from the ground. I, myself, witnessed this fact at Bedford and Wooster.
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same great tabernacle, were rather appalling to one who had delivered some four long discourses every week, and all but two of these under the same canvass, to immense auditories, and in the midst of much excitement, were rather depressing considerations, in the presence of new, and waiting, and anxious thousands.
"As thy day is so shall thy strength be," is a very precious promise, and often have we realized and enjoyed its truth. When Whitfield came to die, he said, "I was immortal to this hour." It is as true in every case as it was in his, though not viewed nor regarded in the same light. Paul had not finished his work till he wrote the letter to the Hebrews, and the wicked Nero obtained the sceptre of Rome.
Our meeting was in a beautiful forest near the flourishing town of Wooster, and began, as usual, in the afternoon of Friday. I had the pleasure of speaking once on every day for four successive days, but a happy change of weather, on the Lord's day, gave us more vigor. Bro. Perkey delivered two very interesting discourses at this meeting--one on Prayer, and one on Spirit Rappings, or, rather, on the wickedness and folly of "giving heed to seducing spirits" and doctrines concerning ghosts and demons. His discourses are well digested, well ordered, and well delivered, and are, consequently, edifying and refreshing. Bro. Robinson, also, acted his usual part at this meeting, in teaching and exhorting with great earnestness and power. Bro. Jones and he are amongst the most efficient laborers in the work of conversion, in their respective fields of labor, and frequently co-operate with much success. Bro. Melish, in his lucid and forcible manner, also contributed much to the edification of the auditory, and on the important subject of cooperation. Bro. Green, though for some days before in ill-health, took a more active part in the edification of the community at this meeting. We left him and Bro. Melish to continue their efforts, but a few having been immersed during our stay.
The brethren in Wooster are doing much good and profitable service in the cause of Reformation. They are characterized by a very generous liberality, as I learned from various sources. Enjoying, while there, the hospitality of Bros. Constant Lake and Porter, whose praise for liberality and hospitality is commensurate with their means of doing good, and seeing many brethren at their houses, I learned how much the cause of Reformation is, in certain regions, in its rapid advances, indebted to the liberality, energy and enterprise of a few individuals in all places. I could name a few men, in almost every county and section through which I passed in
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my late tour, who are the main-springs and efficient causes of almost all that is done and doing. I do not especially mean preachers, but those who supply the means of keeping them in the field. And these, too, I generally observed, are watered again, until their cisterns are full. How true the aphorism, "The liberal soul waxeth fat, and he that watereth others shall be watered again." I have found this a true proverb all my life. If it were not that I think it would not be acceptable to those noble spirits, male and female, I could illustrate and enforce this ancient oracle with some fine specimens in Ohio; and certain sisters, not only in Bedford, and Wooster, and Niles, and Lisbon, but in many other places, would just be as conspicuous proofs of the proposition as any I could select from the other sex, whether called preachers or laymen. He that giveth, and he that preacheth, and he that exhorts, are, and will hereafter be, rewarded as equally the agents of the Lord in extending his empire of truth in the world. Nor do I say this with reference to any thing done to myself, for, excepting the hospitality of the brethren, which I always enjoy, I receive nothing for my personal labors in the gospel, not because it is not right in itself, but because I long since so purposed with myself; and if, to gratify any of the brethren, I sometimes, and very seldom, am compelled to receive any proof of their liberality, I choose to impart it to others, who are not so well provided for as myself.
On our way from Warren to Bedford, we made a call at Hiram, for the double purpose of seeing our Bro. Hayden, who had been sick, and for the purpose of seeing the Hiram seminary of learning. We arrived about noon, and found Bro. Hayden convalescent, though very feeble, both in fact and appearance. We spent most of our two hours in surveying the beautiful site and substantial edifice, already well occupied, in its neat and tasteful rooms, with some 150 pupils, male and female. Our Bro. Hayden has been fortunate in obtaining the services of Bro. Thomas Munnell, as teacher of the languages and mathematics, and also the assistance of Bro. Wilber, with certain female teachers of acknowledged ability.
I was requested by the students to address them, after dinner, assembled in the common hall, which I did for some half hour or more, on the subject of Education. They presented a very intellectual aspect, and the evidences of much interest in the subject of education.
I was much pleased with the building, its site, and the extended horizon which it commands; with the furniture of the school rooms
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of the Hiram Institute, and the very healthful appearance of the place, the pupils, and the surrounding population. Every thing seems substantial, neat, and convenient. The pupils look well; and if an institution of both sexes, in mixed classes, at their time of life, could succeed any where, it will most likely succeed well in the Hiram Institute, and under the instructors that now preside over its destinies.
I have, in a very hasty manner, given a brief sketch of the anniversaries in Ohio. Relying mainly on my recollections, without notes, I fear I may have left out some things, and passed by some persons, that ought to have been noted. From Wooster, through the kindness of Bro. Porter, accompanied by Bro. Mitchel, we were conveyed home in his carriage, a distance of ninety-six miles, in two days.
Upon the whole premises before me, there is but one suggestion that I am constrained to submit to the consideration of one or two congregations, of whose doctrine and inefficiency I have heard from different quarters. With these exceptions, there is general life, animation, and advancement. These once flourishing communities have withered and wasted away, under the administration of a good man in each community, who, under the conviction Of his official duty, has lectured his charge from one hundred and twenty or thereabouts, to about twenty persons; or, perhaps, in his administration, we should say, he has ruled them down in virtue of his office, which he believes to be indelible, and to which he cleaves with a tenacity equal to his love of life. In answer to interrogations on such cases, we uniformly advise the voluntary resignation, and, if that cannot be attained, the removal of the incumbent, rather than to suffer the last spark to be covered with his own ashes.
All men have not eyes to see themselves as others see them, and cannot realize their unfitness for an office which they only retain to waste and scatter the flock. Nor can they be made to feel that they are influenced more by a zeal for themselves than from a z for Christ. Yet they would, in any other case than their own, say, "It is better that one man should resign an office which he cannot fill, than that a whole church, after being reduced, by his inefficiency, from one hundred and twenty to twenty members, should finally perish, and that, too, by his own labors."
In one of our night travels to avoid the heat, we lodged with an excellent brother, whom I will not name, in a neighborhood where I once knew a church of some hundred and twenty members, which, under this blight, had been, by a good man, too, but misplaced, re-
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duced to some one-sixth of its former number! And yet the remaining few had not courage or discretion to call for help, advice, or aid to strengthen the things that remained, and were ready to die. And he, too, as tenacious of his office as if he had been a blessing to the church. This case, and another one very similar, certainly might suggest, not only to the church itself, but to the brotherhood of the district, the necessity of an effort to prevent such a consumption, or, rather, catastrophe.
Upon the whole premises of these four anniversaries, I must conclude that the cause we plead is constantly extending its conquests and influences over one of the most intelligent, industrious, and prosperous communities in the State of Ohio; and that, too, amidst a great excitement, got up mainly by restive "Comeouters," abolitionists and disunionists, of all colors, creeds and parties. This, indeed, under the blessing of the Great King, is mainly owing to the prudence, Christian affection, and forbearance of the brotherhood in general; and especially to the wisdom and moderation of a ministry who, with ability and perseverance, faithfully and affectionately endeavor to maintain unity of spirit in the bonds of peace. In these respects they are not excelled by any portion of the Christian brotherhood known to me in any section of the Union.
The brethren, besides their contribution for the Jerusalem Mission, (amounting to three or four hundred dollars,) at the meetings which I attended, in accordance with an able presentation of the great need of home missions, by Bro. Melish, a delegate from a general meeting in Southern Ohio, have resolved to institute a home mission, commensurate with the whole State of Ohio; and for that purpose, to hold a State Convention at Wooster, commencing on the Wednesday preceding the third Lord's day of May next, at which it is earnestly solicited and most important to have a very full attendance from all parts of the State. We cannot, as citizens of the Kingdom of Christ, but pray and labor for the success of such an undertaking. A. C.
HE that has never known adversity, is but half acquainted with others, or with himself. Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For, as it surrounds us with friends, who will never tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.
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CHANCE.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE TERMS CHANCE, ACCIDENT, LUCKY, UNLUCKY.
To all who acknowledge Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as set forth in the scriptures, as Creator, Ruler and Governor of all events, seen and unseen--in heaven and earth, and throughout all space known and unknown, the following reflections are submitted, at the close of a year during which numerous calamitous events have occurred, and fearful apprehensions as to coming events, in relation to the religious state of the professing Christian people upon this earth.
From the numerous awful events--the burning of steam and other vessels, railroad cars, buildings, deaths, loss of limbs, and other heartrending occurrences, daily brought to view, attributed generally to chance, or accident, while those who escape, generally attribute their so escaping to luck, or fortune, I have been led, in hope that those more competent may be induced to take up the subject, and draw the attention of all who fear God (in the scripture sense of the term fear) to examine their course.
Let such consider a few of the general expressions in use in reference to such events. "Oh how fortunate the wind did not blow in another direction, as most awful would have been the extent of the conflagration." "By mere accident, when the well fell and killed so many, I escaped .by leaping from the window." "Oh by mere chance I caught the rope, which saved my life." How we laid hold of the boat, and escaped while so many were drowned." "By mere accident a broach turned off the gal, when pointed toward me, or I should have been shot." Some add. how merciful was our escape, as the lightning ,struck the next tree to that under which we took shelter." The term merciful, mentioned without a deep sense of gratitude uniformly following deliverance, is awful! I need not add more of such expressions to the calamitous events of which we have dolly accounts. We see churches of various denominations burned, public edifices destroyed, while neither those who escape, nor those sustain loss, publicly or privately acknowledge the hand of God in saving those who escape, or view it in any as a chastisement from God, designed not only to punish, but to lead to repentance and amendment of life.
From a careful examination of the scriptures, I cannot learn that since the creation there has been any thing like chance or accident in the government of the world, or as to persons coining into or departing out of it. Life and death are under the control of God, (Rev. i. 18;) and viewing all the calamities of life as the result of sin, even those which are permitted to befall the children of God, designed as chastisements to lead to repentance, by reason of their departure from the Lord's commandments, as required and set forth in the scriptures, I conclude, did we see whence sufferings and calamities arise, and the course pursued by those who suffer, while all who are not so visited, are admonished not to think those who suffer as sinners above others, (Luke xiii. 2;) but should lead all who fear the Lord to repentance, and to flee to the cross, the only refuge for sin-
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ners. Were the sins of those who so suffer known to man, as they are to God, a solution would be found, but the day of judgment will reveal it.
God is not unjust, nor does he willingly afflict, while wrath is revealed against ungodliness, (Rom. i. 18;) the Christian is admonished, by every calamitous event, to examine himself, and in a particular manner, whether morning and evening special prayer and supplications are offered to God, through the Lord and Saviour, for guidance and protection, and at the same time keeping in view walking uprightly in the sight of God and man.
I have heard it asserted in relation to those awful judgments referred to, that such never befall any who fear the Lord, if on the day of calamity such had, in solemn prayer, committed themselves to God.
O my fellow-sinners never go to bed, nor go forth in the morning, until, alone or with your family, you prostrate yourselves in humble prayer, through the Lord Jesus Christ to be upheld, preserved and guided in all your ways, and that you may walk uprightly before God and man The converted sinner will acknowledge God in all his ways. Independent of his daily, family, and private prayer, he never will allow any of his family to depart on a journey without entreating, by their united prayer, protection and preservation, and on their return, duly all assembled, and ascribe praise to God for their safe return. 0 how such a course secures confidence in the Lord, when we, as sinners, depend on the intercession and preservation of the blessed Saviour and Redeemer. To whom, with the Father and Holy Spirit, be praise, honor, and glory forever. In the spirit of the publican, J. BUCHANAN.
P. S.--The following passages are submitted for the consideration of all win) may be desirous of examining this subject further: Amos iii.; Ps. ciii. 4, cxxxix. 1-12, lxviii. 20; Matt. x. 29; Acts xvii. 28; Ps. cxxi. 4; Isa. xlv. 7; Dan. x. 10-19; and Rev. i. 18. Many more might be added; but the reader will please keep in mind that a sparrow cannot fail unknown to God, much less a living soul. It that we see children suffer. Accountability rests on parents. Did they, before departing, commit themselves and children to God? Was such their daily practice? The parents shall answer.
Numerous children are "taken away from the evil to come." Children incapable of being instructed in the knowledge of God, suffer death of the body from their connexion with Adam, but not having committed actual transgression, are saved through the Lord Jesus, the second Adam. The abounding mercy and love of God is seen in removing by death so many children from wicked parents, by w home they would, if spared, be brought up in sin, (see Matt. xviii. 14,) which proves that children, even infants, whether Christian, Turk, Jew, or descendents of Infidels, are among the triumphs of the Lord Jesus in glory. J. B.
NIAGARA FALLS, December 25, 1850.
THE above remarks are from the pen of Ex-Consul Buchanan, Canada West, a man who fears God and works righteousness, and
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who has man's salvation and the Lord's glory constantly in his eye. While I perfectly accord with his views of the impropriety of the phraseology which he reprobates, and that the denial of a superintending Providence is implied and indicated by the use of the word chance, in the lips of a profane, sceptical world, I must observe, that the word is occasionally found in the Sacred Scriptures in a sense highly proper, and is used by the best of men, and even by our Lord himself, to indicate events the reason or cause of which we cannot see or comprehend. For example, our Saviour says, Luke x. 31, "By chance a priest came down that way." This is equivalent to it happened, or it came to pass. Hap is itself chance, in common usage. Hence the phrase, "By good hap" it came to pass. So both chance and hap are found in the book of Ecclesiastes--" Time and chance happeneth to them all." Chap. ix. 11. And so, again, 2 Sam. i. 6, "I happened by chance on Mount Gilboa." I quote this passage, not from inspired lips, but to show its acceptation as equivalent to happen, which occurs more than twenty times in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. "It happens alike to the wise and the fool." Ecc. ii. 14,13. "Now, these things happened to them for examples." I Cor. x. 11. Whatever occurs, the cause or instrument of which we do not perceive, is said to happen, or to come by chance. But of chance, we will ask with Alexander Pope, What is chance? And with him, we answer,
"All chance" (is) "direction which thou canst not see."
But with the great Teacher we had better say, "Not a sparrow falls to the ground" by chance, or without the will, or permission, or appointment of God. Some copies read, "Aneu tees boulees tou Patros;" "Without the will of your Father;" which is, unquestionably, the sense. But we need not argue this point. We all believe and teach, that in the strict sense of the word chance, as respects God, there is no such thing. And as respects us, we use that word only to indicate that of which we cannot see the reason or the immediate cause; and thus the inspired writers use the term happen and chance.
As to "blind fortune" and "good luck," they are creatures of Pagan imagination. Luck was the Anglo-Saxon catch- A "luck of fish" was a good catch--a good hawl of fish; and thus lucky and fortunate were taken in a good sense, though etymologically they indicated neither good nor evil fortune, but mere chance; simply an event which could not have been foreseen, yet a link of a chain, the connexion and length of which was wholly inappreciable.
Fortune, luck, and chance, as understood and used at the present
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 52*
618 CHANCE.
day, are wholly incompatible with Christian sentiment and style. "Has there been evil in a city," or a family, "and the Lord hath not done it?" asks a Prophet. As respects the divine knowledge and will, there is no chance in the universe.
To illustrate this, let us turn back to the history of Joseph and note the chances "the good luck and the bad luck" of this renowned patriarch.
He happened to be the eleventh son of Jacob, by his beloved Rachel, and to be the most beloved by his father. He happened once upon a time to be sent upon an errand to see his brethren, away from home tending their flocks at Shechem. He had the good fortune to be a beautiful boy, and to have so much of his father's partiality as to be more elegantly dressed than any of his brothers. He happened to have two remarkable dreams in his boyhood, which, when told to his father and his brothers, greatly excited their envy and hatred. He happened to lose his way in seeking for his brothers, and lost much time in the plains, tracing their movements. But by good luck a kind stranger came along and directed his way to Dothan, and there he found them. On seeing him approach, his brothers conspired against him to kill him. But Reuben fortunately saved his life, by proposing to cast him into a pit. By great good luck a company of Ishmaelitish traders in spicery and gums, came along from Midian, and succeeded in purchasing him for the Egyptian market. This was a very remarkable chance: for had he riot lost his way, he might have been there too soon for such a deliverance.
One Potiphar, a very worthy officer and captain of Pharaoh, fortunately wanted a servant, and bought Joseph. but the Lord was with Joseph, and he was for a while a lucky loan, for he obtained favors from his master, and became the steward and ruler of his family But, unfortunately, Potiphar's wife was not the most virtuous woman in Egypt, and fell in love with the beautiful Joseph, and sought to allure him into her room. Finally, on one occasion she seized him by his garment, but he, resolutely withstanding, unluckily lost hi., garment in the scuffle, and, by the falsehood and villainy of Mrs. Potiphar, he was complained of to his master, and had the misfortune to be thrown into prison. By his good manners and prepossessing appearance, he was, however, so happy as to obtain the confidence of the jailor, and to be made a sort of superintendent of the other unfortunates, whose unpropitious stars had made them inmates of the dungeon.
It chanced, once upon a time, that Pharaoh's cup-bearer and confectioner offended their master, and were cast into the same prison,
CHANCE. 619
and placed under the care of Joseph. By good luck, these new inmates of the prison happened, each on one night, to have some portentous dreams. On inquiring into their sadness next morning, they told Joseph their dreams, who, by his great sagacity, was enabled to give them a true interpretation.
It fortunately came to pass soon after, that Pharaoh himself had some portentous dreams, which caused great perturbation of mind, and induced him to call for the magicians of Egypt, to interpret his dreams. By great good luck none of them, however, could satisfy the monarch. His cupbearer, fortunately at this crisis, remembered his own dream and Joseph's interpretation of it, and was prompted to report his talents to his master.
Joseph was sent for, and had the great good fortune to satisfy the monarch of his superior wisdom and learning in the department of oneiracriticism. Soon after, he was most luckily called from the prison to the palace and made governor of Egypt, and next to Pharaoh in power.
Under his wise and prudent administration of the affairs of Egypt, the famine was anticipated, and large preparations were made for its approach.
It had extended to Canaan, and compelled its inhabitants to go down into Egypt for bread. Meantime Joseph's brethren, and finally his father, were compelled to come down into Egypt and reside there. Fortunately the shepherd kings, who had been a scourge to Egypt, were compelled to vacate the land of Goshen; and that being the best portion of Egypt for pasturage, Jacob and his sons, with their flocks and their herds, were, under their new fortunes there, happily located. At Goshen they remained for very many years, enjoying general good fortune, till another king was placed on the throne, who, unluckily for them, knew not Joseph nor his people, and they were reduced to slavery.
Such is the doctrine of chance. One hundred such chances, all terminating in one great event, affecting to this day the destiny of a nation, the most prolific of blessings to the world, metamorphoses these chances into the well wrought links of a chain of designs. terminating in the eternal destiny of the world. For had not Joseph been sold as a slave into Egypt, and there risen to honor, the family of Jacob had not gone down there, and would not have been enslaved there. Moses would not have been born and educated there. Egypt had not been plague and The first-born of Egypt had not been slain. Israel had not been redeemed and led through the Red Sea by the naked arm of God. The Passover had never been instituted.
620 CHANCE.
The law would not have been given on Sinai; the tabernacle and its worship would never have been instituted, and all the miracles displayed in the fields of Zoan, and in the wilderness for forty years, had never been wrought. Out of Egypt God could not have called his Son, nor would his character have been made known to all the earth as it was by the instrumentality of the Pharaohs. The manna had not fallen from heaven; the rock of Horeb had never been converted into a perennial fountain in the desert; a thousand types and figures, essential to the development of God's moral government, and the means of redemption had never been wrought, and the destinies of the world at this day would not, in any great point, have been as they now are.
Now, all this seems to be traceable to an "unlucky" variegated dress, placed by fond and partial parents upon a handsome boy, or to his telling two portentous dreams to the family, and his being sent on an errand, and then to the contingency of the arrival of a company of traders dealing in goods and men at the moment. On the failure of any one of these "chances," the destiny of the world would have been very different from what it now is, and has for a long time been. How far this chain may reach beyond the bourne of time, it is not given to man to know. Hence, it becomes him not to be dogmatically positive in affirming this or that, touching a chain the first and last link of which he has never seen; nor to set about the creation of a demi-god called chance, who has lost one or both of his eyes, and of whose other senses he can never learn nor communicate any thing.
It required several centuries to develop the mysteries of Joseph's dreams and early fortunes; and it is he alone that sees the end from the beginning, and to whom the issues of life and death are ever present, that can fully vindicate his own government, and that can satisfy the universe that he has done all things well. Our duty is to walk by his precepts, to acknowledge him in all our ways, and always to cherish the feeling of an absolute dependence on him for every thing that we enjoy, or hope to enjoy.
It is, beside, a thousand times more rational and blissful, to refer all things interesting to us, either in the present or the future, to the counsel, the hand, or the blessing of the Lord, than to a mere contingency, or "our good fortune" or management. To feel that our persons, our lives, and all our conditions of life, are of his superintending care and providence, and not of "blind chance" or "good luck," but of his own direction and blessing; for, indeed, in this life, many of our so-called misfortunes are the choicest blessings, and
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 621
all things do work together for good to them who love God and keep his commandments.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his works in vain:
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain. A. C.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW--ONCE MORE.
BEING of opinion that this subject has been long enough before our readers, and that our position is well understood, and being near the close of the volume, we shall close the subject by presenting to the consideration of our brethren an essay from the pen of our much esteemed Bro. Errett, in the form of a letter addressed to me, not only in defence of his last communication, but also upon the whole subject of slavery in extenso. It will suffice our design and desires to offer a few notes at the bottom of the page, to such passages as we judge calling for a special remark:
WARREN, Ohio, September 13, 1851.
Brother Campbell: The last month has been with me one of such incessant labor, as to leave me no time to write to you. This is my apology for not sooner acknowledging your kindness, in the very friendly notice you have taken of my sermon on the Design of Civil Government. Whatever may be the merits of that discourse, it speaks my honest convictions on a very grave question; and although it was not without much regret that I uttered these animadversions on some of your affirmations and reasonings, I felt then, and still feel, that no apology was needed, either to you or to the very extensive circle of acquaintances in the Christian brotherhood, who know what my respect and reverence for you have ever been. I am glad to know that, so far as my motives and intentions are concerned, I am not misunderstood. Were it not for the assurance that I speak the sentiments of very many brethren in speaking my own, and that your very kindly notice of my discourse emboldens me, no merely personal consideration could induce me to ask for a single page of the Harbinger to reply to your strictures. I am too young, and my pen is too inexperienced, to allow me to assume the attitude of a controversialist; and even if these difficulties were not in the way, controversy is so little to my taste, that I am in little danger of winning a pugilistic fame. But since the "force of circum stances" has given me my present position, I beg leave to offer, in behalf of a large number of brethren, and for the benefit of those
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who have not read my discourse, a few thoughts in reply to your criticisms. Perhaps I may be constrained to say more on the whole subject, when your series of articles is completed.
I. You object to my reasoning under the head of the unrighteousness of the Fugitive Slave Law, that I assume that every runaway is a fugitive from oppression. And you say, "If this be not axiomatic, then it follows that all the reasonings on the premises are false."
I might, indeed, safely assume this as true of the mass of runaway slaves, even as the Jewish law assumes it, (Dent. xxiii. 15.) And ill doing this, I would be sustained by very strong testimonials. The evidence submitted in that discourse, from Southern men, as to the degraded and heathenish condition of the slave population, even where slavery exists in its mildest form, is to the point. Listen, also, to the following from Profersor Stuart, in his work entitled Conscience and the Constitution, in which he certainly shows himself free from all sympathy with Abolitionism
"As existing among, us, slavery has taken its worst form: it degrades men, made in the image of their God and Redeemer, into brute- beasts, or, (which makes them still lower) converts them into goods and chattels. * * * * Slavery, in its best attitude in Our country, even among humane and Christian masters, is a degradation of a whole class of the community beneath their proper rank as men." is not this oppression? Again: "In this form of slavery, sacred social relations of life are destroyed. Husband and wile, parent and child, brother and sister, are not known in law, nor protected nor recognized by it. In conformity with this, these relations are every day severed by some slave-dealers, without regard to the feelings of the wretched beings who are torn assunder; and all their parental, conjugal, and filial sympathies, are the subject of scorn, if not of derision. No invasion of human rights can be worse than this. As the inevitable consequence of this, the mass of slaves must live, and do live, in a virtual state of concubinage," &c.
But I have greater testimony than that of Stuart. I looked into the Harbinger, and that bears witness unto the truth. In the Harbinger for 1832, p. 88, you have given, with your own pen, a testimony sufficiently broad to make the truth respecting fugitives from oppression axiomatic. You speak of our nation's "shedding crocodile tears over the fall of Warsaw, and illuminating for the revolution of the Parisians, while we have MILLIONS of miserable human beings held in involuntary bondage, in ignorance, degradation and vice, by a Republican system of slave-holding."
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 623
I could enlarge, almost indefinitely, these testimonies from unexceptionable sources. I know what reply may be made to all this; but I desire to place these on the pages of the Harbinger, as furnishing sufficient reason why we should regard the fugitive as oppressed, at least until the contrary is shown. (1)
But, let me say, I did not design to put our justification in refusing to obey this fugacious law, on that ground. Not that every runaway is a fugitive from oppression, but that the law allows no discrimination; and in obeying the law, we must deliver up fugitives from oppression, without help for them. You state your conviction that, of runaways, some are fugitives from oppression and some are not. And you ask, "Ought all to be treated as of one class I" I answer, your argument requires that they should; for you insist on obedience to a law which makes no account of the oppressions endured by the fugitive, but which, simply requiring evidence of property in him, remands him or her, with utter indifference, into the midst of the most shocking cruelties and horrid pollutions. And your argument goes to say, that though the fugitive should bear the most unmistakable marks of cruelty to which he has been subjected: though scarred, and maimed, and branded, and, far worse, broken in heart and crushed in spirit, his loves and hopes all smothered or blighted; and though, in giving him up to the law, we may be assured that we are giving him up to a repetition of these sufferings in the hands of a reckless master, we must- nevertheless, give him up, and are "not responsible to heaven or earth for the after- treatment of such runaway." "Ought all to be treated as of one class?" "Happy is he who condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth." (2) But you respond, "It is right he should have a
(1) Admit, for the sake of argument, the entire truth of these two quotations on the institution of slavery in general. It will not follow in form of law or of logic, that fugitives, as such, are to be regarded as innocent persons And therefore, no one of enlightened judgment and of approved conscientiousness, as I judge, could, as a Christian man, aid and assist any, or every one, in escaping from his master. The great Lawgiver of the world never gave a law authorizing any subject of his government to approve or condemn any individual, merely because he was one of a genus or of a species. Paul said of the Jews as a class, as a nation, "They please not God, and are against all men." 1 Thes. ii. 16. But would this general, almost universal character, have justified the Christians in traducing every Jew they met, or that called upon them for aid, as "contrary to all men!" I envy not the perspicacity of any man who would so think and so act. "It is a good rule that works both ways;" and if the adage be true, it is a bad rule that works only one way.
(2) This quotation is just to my purpose. All ought not to be aided and encouraged to escape. It also proves that no one, however acute and sagacious, can conduct an argument that is not logically sound, without occasionally betraying the fallacy of his position.
624 THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
trial, and a trial before a lawful tribunal. And such are our tribunals, North and South."
Will you please inform us where these tribunals are, where a slave can be vindicated against oppression? I know there are tribunals where they may be protected against starvation, and against extreme physical torture, if there are white men to prove the cruelty. But where is the tribunal at which they can claim protection against the "ignorance, degradation and vice," in which you declare that millions are involved? Certainly it is not the Commissioner! If you, in your "documents of grave import," can point us to such a tribunal, it will help many of us to feel better about returning the fugitive. But so long as we have the clearest testimonies of the oppressions practised upon the millions now in bondage, and know not of any tribunal at which a fugitive from oppression may tell his tale of woe in the listening ears of impartial justice, we must be excused if, so far as our instrumentality is concerned, we "let the oppressed go free." (3)
Again you say, "A Christian man, in aiding and abetting a runaway slave, may be sinning against a good Christian master in aid of a robber or felon, who has outraged every law of justice and humanity." The answer is easy. Such are fugitives from justice; and we are not discussing the fugitives from justice, but fugitives from slavery. If, indeed, such cases should happen while this fugitive law continues in operation, and fugitives from justice should take advantage of the sympathy kindled for fugitives from oppression to make good their escape, we should regret it; but cannot admit these solitary cases as an offset to the thousands who ask our sympathy while fleeing from cruel bondage. If it be better, as is said, that ninety-nine guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer, we cannot perceive any great magnitude in the difficulty presented. Would it have been right for the Jews to have protected a robber or felon, fleeing from an idolatrous master? Yet it was possible for such an one to abuse the merciful provisions of the law for fugitives. I think that, under the present law, no such robber or felon is known to have been associated in his
(3) There is no tribunal at the North, or at the South, that will protect white man or black man from "ignorance, degradation and vice." Nor is there any one who, by resisting the law, "can let the oppressed go free." No man but a master can let his servants go free. To assist a runaway is not to set him free from his master: it is only aiding him to runaway from his master, regardless of his character and of that of his master. And who has constituted every citizen a judge of each and every case? Have the laws of God or of the State, constituted each and every citizen such judge!
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 625
escape; and clearly, "it is much easier, to a person of a sprightly imagination, to imagine cases of a very exciting character, than to show their pertinency to his position." Now, against this imaginary case let me present two facts--and I have more in my possession--showing the operation of the fugitive law: 1st. Commissioner Ingraham, of Philadelphia, did, by the "summary process" which this law requires, consign a freeman to slavery; and had not a Maryland slave-holder been better than either the law or the Commissioner, this victim of wrong might have remained in slavery all his life. 2d. Commissioner Smith, of Buffalo, also gave up to slavery a freeman, free by the decisions of Northern and Southern courts; and so bent was he on the "summary process," that although the slave-catcher had, without provocation, struck his victim with a billet of wood, laid open the back part of his head, and rendered him senseless; and the poor fellow, when in court, could scarcely be aroused from his stupor to answer to his name, the blood slowly oozing from his mouth and nostrils; no postponement of the case would be granted. And had it not been for a higher court than this law creates, this wretched victim of brutal wrong would have been given, without hope of deliverance, into the hands of the claimant. Shall we be governed by facts or by imaginations? (4)
II. You object to my calling Hagar a secondary wife; and after quoting my statement of the case, you remark, "Give me this
(4) This is, indeed, a soul-rending affair. Still, it reminds me of the rhetorical efforts of some of our ingenious lawyers, who, in the absence of law and evidence, appeals to the tender hearts and sympathies of the jury, and having broken up the fountains of the great deep of their sympathies, and flooded their cheeks with tears, obtains a favorable verdict, not from the law and evidence in the case, but from a gush of sympathy, which dispenses with law and justice on the plea of humanity. The particular experience, or observation, or memory of an individual, is not considered an offset against the workings or the effects of an unjust law.
To affirm that the answer is easy, by assuming the very point in debate, is not in accordance with our logic or our laws. To say that assumed fugitives from slavery are seldom fugitives from justice, is not meeting the case, but rather evading it, although without any such intention. It is, indeed, all that ingenuity could say in the case. Yet it seems that the two cases alleged are strong proofs of my position. Both the subjects were released, because they were not fugitive slaves. And as no case is produced in which any freeman has, in pursuance of the Fugitive Slave Law, been consigned to slavery, it speaks well both for the law and the community. There is not a law of the State that may not be abused.
I am no apologist for furious and unprincipled men. Every institution-- conjugal, domestic or political--has been violated and outraged by false pretences, and by the conspiracy of heartless and wicked men. But this, before the bar of reason and of justice, is no objection to the institutions themselves.
I am asked the question, Would it have been right for the Jews to have
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 53
626 THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
license, and I can make a Pope out of Peter, and a Priest out of Paul." Now, although the evidence on which this statement rested was not furnished in the discourse--a reference to the history itself being deemed sufficient--yet I hope to be able to show that it is not mere assertion. Clarke and Scott, in their Commentaries, both call Hagar Abraham's secondary wife. Calmet says that in the sacred writings the word concubine means "a lawful wife, but one of the second rank, inferior to the first wife or mistress of the house. She differed from the first wife in that she was not married by solemn stipulation, but only betrothed; she brought no dowery with her, and had no share in the government of the family." Very similar is the statement of Horne. Josephus says of Jacob's concubines, "Zilpha was handmaid to Lea, and Bilhah to Rachel, by no means slaves, but, however, subject to their mistresses." But what is better than all these, Moses declares that Hagar was Abram's wife. "And Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife." Gen. xvi. 3. In Gen. xxv. 1, Keturah is called Abram's wife; and in the 6th verse of the same chapter, she and Hagar are called concubines. Now, if you can find equally good authority for calling Peter a Pope, and Paul a Priest, I think it ought not to be despised. (5) I have no objection to your calling Hagar a bondwoman, out of respect to
protected a robber or a felon, fleeing from an idolatrous master? I answer, No. It would not have been right for a Jew, nor is it right for a Christian, to protect a robber or a felon, fleeing from a Christian, a Jewish, or a Pagan master. Yet it was possible, and it is still possible, for such an one to abuse the merciful provisions of the law for fugitives. But there never was a law making it right for a Jew to protect, against the claims of a brother Jew, his fugitive slave!
(5) I have never, so far as I remember, objected to calling Hagar a secondary wife, nor Abraham's secondary wife; but not on the authority of Clarke, or Scott, or Calmet, or Josephus, or Horne, for many concubines and slaves were, and are, secondary wives; and if we had as many words of the third, fourth, and fifth number, as of the second, I would concede that many of the patriarchs had thirdly, fourthly, and even to tenthly wives. But still they were primarily and really, and to all intents and purposes, slaves. We need not go out of Virginia to Syria, nor out of some other States to Assyria, to find many such wives. But a secondary wife is not a second wife. These were, in condition, slaves, and therefore, Paul uses her as a real SLAVE in his argument, and not as a secondary wife. As Bro. Errett merges the slave in the wife, so I would merge Paul in the father, as he admits himself to have very many children begotten by him. And by an easy transition, would call him papa or Pope Paul, just as we have got Hagar, the bondwoman, converted into Mistress Abraham, or, rather, Father Abraham's Mistress Hagar.
The grave question here is, What saith Paul in his development of the two testaments, or the law and the gospel? He makes Sarah--the free
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 627
Paul; but I must be allowed, out of respect to Moses, to call her Abram's wife. Whatever the phrase bondwoman imported in her case, I think you will freely admit that her "place in the family" was very different from what that of a slave now ought to be; and I cannot make myself believe, that under similar circumstances, as you understand the case, you would advise a return as compatible with the teachings of Christianity. There are three considerations which, to my mind, make your allusions to Hagar's case unfortunate for your argument,
1. She was Abram's wife. To deny this and to make her a mere slave, is to prepare the way for conclusions which, to a mind of not a thousandth part of Bro. Campbell's penetration, would seem by no means honorable either to divinity or humanity. The difficulty would be increased by your remark in the May number, that "what a Patriarch, a Jew, or a Christian may lawfully do, they all may do." For not only was Abram's course, in Hagar's case, without rebuke, but promises were made both to Abram and Hagar, in view of all the facts in the case! Unless you will contend that a fugitive, in alike condition, should be returned, the argument proves too much, and, therefore, nothing at all.
2. The angel's visit to Hagar was a visit of mercy. "The Lord hath heard thy affliction," says the angel; and in view of this he makes to her a very cheering promise--Gen. xvi. 10,11. "The poor slave, the stranger, the Egyptian, suffering under the severity of her hasty unbelieving mistress, is seen by the all-wise and merciful God. He permits her to go to the desert, provides the spring to quench her thirst, and sends the Angel of the Covenant to instruct and comfort her. How gracious is God!" Dr. A. Clarke. Perhaps, as distinguished jurists and divines are busy in the search for the beauties of the Fugitive Slave Law, they may yet be able, in addition to its constitutionality and mercifulness, to point out the officer who, under that law, performs the part of this angel of God! (6)
woman, the married wife of Abraham--represent the gospel and its liberty. He makes Mrs. Hagar, the bondwoman, represent the law. The child of Sarah he makes free, because his mother was a free woman; the child of Hagar he makes a slave, because her mother was a slave. As this is so evident, I will not plague my readers with an exposition of it. It is, therefore, equally out of Paul's premises and of mine, to merge the slave Hagar into the wife of Abraham; and the fact that an angel of God, who certainly was both chaste and correct in his style, did not recognize Hagar in any other attitude than that of a slave, ought to satisfy the most squeamish taste. The angel did not say return to thy husband, nor return to thy nameless place in the family, but he says, in unmistakeable words, "Return to thy mistress and submit thyself to her hand"--to her authority, to the heck of her hand.
(6) As our brother has given some weight to Dr. A. Clarke, as corrobo-
628 THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
3. Bro. Campbell himself interposes a consideration which, if true, forbids an application of this case to any but a particular class of runaways. In the Harbinger for 1841, p. 283, is the following:
"Thomas.--And did angels advise runaway servants to return home?"
"Olympas.--Yes; but in those ancient days it was running away from home, to run away from such a household as that of Abram and Sarah. And such was the character of Sarah, that the angel added, Submit thyself to her hands.' Humanity and mercy are twin- sisters, daughters of one divine faith, natives of the heavens, and always point to deeds of kindness and benevolence. Therefore, those who run away from the righteous, run away from home."
Yes, "in those ancient days it was running away from home;" and in these modern days it is, in a large majority of cases, according to your own showing, running away from "ignorance, degradation and vice:" that is the difference, and a wide difference it is. "Such was the character of Sarah, that the angel said," &c. And if such had not been the character of Sarah, then the angel would have said no such thing! Is not this a fair inference? "Ought all to be treated as of one class?" What amount of force is left now in Hagar's case, to bear on a Christian's conscience, in favor of obedience to the Fugitive Slave Law? (7)
III. You next quote a sentence from my remarks in the case of Onesimus, and say, "Well, this is ingenious pleasantry in a grave case." I presume your playful remarks in reply, aspire to a place in no higher category. Paul received Onesimus into his own hired house in Rome, and discharged the duty of humanity to the fugitive. Did his knowledge of Onesimus being a fugitive, amount to "legal notice or knowledge of the fact?" If not, perhaps my "ingenious pleasantry" was not out of place. For if I understand your construction of the law, (July Harbinger, p. 388,) we may know of ever so many rumors and suspicions, and help the fugitive
rative authority, I will also cite the same authority. On the presentation of Hagar to Abraham, by his wife Sarah, on the words of Sarah, "that I may obtain children by her," Dr. Clarke says, "The slave being the absolute property of the mistress, not only her person, but the fruits of her labor, with all her children, were her owner's property. The children, therefore, which were born of the slave, were considered as the children of the mistress." So speaks Dr. A. Clarke, an English Abolitionist.
I have nothing to say of "the part of the angel of God" to be performed, of which Bro. Errett speaks. That may please some of our readers, but will displease full as many. I will, therefore, leave every one to interpret it as he pleases.
(7) "Ought all to be treated as of one class?" We say, no. Let them first be tried. But does not he that aids and abets every runaway that falls in his path "treat all as of one class?"--:
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 629
along as much as we please--shutting our eyes and ears against all rumors and suspicions--until we receive legal notice that he is a fugitive. That is, if we are careful not to violate the letter of the law, we may violate the spirit of it as much as we please, by harboring and helping away all those concerning whom we have received no legal notice! Well, I am not prepared to say whether Paul had legal knowledge of the fact or not, and perhaps, therefore, even the Warren lawyers and judges would be more merciful than Bro. Campbell thinks! But you ask, "Did Paul advise him to run away into another State or empire? Did he give him money, and advise him to seek refuge from his master in Canada?" And I ask, in return, Did he show his zeal for the doctrine of property in human flesh, by despatching intelligence to Philemon of his slave? Did he deliver him up into the hands of the Fugitivarii--a body of men whose profession it was to catch fugitive slaves and return them to their masters? He "harbored" him till he was converted, and then persuaded him voluntarily to return. Allow me to quote here from the sermon something touching the case of Onesimus, more solid than ingenious pleasantry:
"But, admit him to be Philemon's slave--he is not sent back to be oppressed and crushed in spirit, and ground down by a cruel and heartless master, as must often be the case under this fugitive law. He sends him back with this injunction to Philemon, Receive him as myself;' and expressing this conviction on his own part, Knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say.' Let it be remembered, too, that Onesimus voluntarily returned, assured that it was better for him so to do. And he returned to Colosse with a high commendation from Paul to the church. All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord, whom I have sent unto you, for the same purpose that he might know your estate and comfort your hearts; with Onesimus, who is a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make known unto you all things that are done here.' Col. iv. 7-9. And this is made parallel to the cases of forcible arrest, summary trial, and extradition of fugitives, who return to a state of heathenism that will, according to the testimonies of slave-holders themselves, compare with any other part of heathendom for ignorance and brutality! If any one still thinks the cases parallel, he had better get a copy of the Fugitive Slave Law and lay it beside the epistle to Philemon, and compare them; then look at Onesimus voluntarily returning in company with Tychicus, a faithful minister in the Lord,' with high testimonials to the church, as a faithful and beloved brother,' and compare him with the broken- spirited fugitive, conveyed by the marshal and his aids back to a slavery that he hates and loathes as worse than death." (8)
(8) With this view of the case of Onesimus, I rather wonder at the inter-
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630 THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
When the Jewish law respecting fugitives is quoted, you argue that this is one of the "special laws of the Jewish nation, and for a special object." And is there nothing "special" in these cases of Hagar and Onesimus? Is it logical to argue from these peculiar cases to a general conclusion? We will go no farther than these cases warrant us. If a slave come to us from a Christian master, whose kindness arid faithfulness we know, and we can persuade the fugitive to return, with the assurance that he will be received even as ourselves, and that his master will do even more than we ask, why we will counsel his return, even as Paul did, and, if possible, give him good company on the way. But what has this to do with the Fugitive Slave Law? (9)
It is worthy of remark, that the only law in the Bible relating to fugitives, forbids their return to slavery. The language of the Bible respecting unfortunates fleeing from oppression, is always language of sympathy and kindness.
"Hide the outcasts; discover not the fugitive.
Let the outcasts of Moab sojourn with thee, [O Sion;]
Be thou to them a covert from the destroyer. (10)
Lowth's Isaiah, ch. xvi. 3.
And while there is no law requiring us to deliver up fugitives, the examples relied upon are shown, I humbly conceive, to prove too much or too little for your position; while the unrighteousness of the law itself is such that no plea of constitutionality, could it be ever so clearly sustained, can suffice to overcome a Christian's sense of right, and the strong pleadings of humanity in a heart filled with love to God and man.
rogatories propounded me in the case. For example: Did he (Paul) show his zeal for the doctrine of property in man, by despatching intelligence to Philemon of his slave? Did he deliver him up into the hands of the Fugitivarii, to return him to his master? This, and a good deal more like it, I would, in almost any other correspondent, refer to the caption, ad captandum vulgus--to please and catch the ignorant. But I must assign to it a Different category. Our good brother is somewhat superexcited. Paul had too much confidence in this converted slave to treat him as a runaway unconverted African slave, and therefore, gives us two good lessons in one and the same case: 1st. To send a Christian slave home to his master, with an intercessory letter; but, 2d. Not to send him home with a guard, as though we had no faith in him. A martial and aids with a Christian brother!
But this is not in our premises nor argument. We are not required, as citizens, under the Fugitive Slave Law, to send any runaway home-- apprenticed or unapprenticed, servant or slave.
(9) It has to do only with the evangelical rights of masters, and the duties of Christian slaves and a Christian people.
(10) To this we say amen! If any subject of a Pagan nation or people fly from oppression and idolatry, and wish to become one of us in faith and religion, we will not employ any means to drive him from amongst us.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 631
The brethren in the North, so far as known to me, have no desire nor intention to resort to violence in opposition to the law. They have simply determined, what I think you would yourself determine- in case a law demanded of you what you regarded as wrong in the sight of God--that is, to refuse to obey the law and submit to the penalty. Certainly Bro. Campbell was unduly alarmed when he saw a sword in the hands of the brethren in Berrien; Michigan, and discerned the scent of gunpowder in their resolutions. We wish to be placed before your readers in our true position. I am glad to say, that I have yet to talk with the first disciple on the Western Reserve, who sympathizes with threats or acts of violence.
This communication is longer than I intended to make it; yet there are many other things in your articles on slavery not touched upon here, to which I have serious objections. I have in this confined myself principally to your strictures on my discourse. Should I find time hereafter to write out some objections to your reasonings on this question, I will try to make my communications short, so as not to trespass too largely upon your room and your patience.
With much affection and deep solicitude, yours, ISAAC ERRETT.
CONTRARY to the customs of reviewers, and contrary to the customs of much of the religious press, we have given in this, as in all other cases, both sides to our readers. We are not afraid of any investigation of our positions or of our course. But we cannot allow ourselves to be carried or allured to fill our pages with matters irrelevant to our great object, or to prosecute even these to disproportionate and unnecesary lengths.
I am happy to say that our brethren at the North, as was very fully manifested to me during my late tour through Northern Ohio, are very generally right on this subject. They are a law-abiding people, and, with very few exceptions, are determined to throw no obstructions in the way of the execution of the laws of the land. I did not meet one, so far as I know, in all my conversations and interviews, that intimated, or in any way indicated a spirit of resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law. Many of them do not like slavery in any of its forms; and many such there are at the South. But there are a few propositions in which they all agree:
1. That Christians should submit to every ordinance of manful- the Lord's sake; as free, and not using their liberty for an excuse or cloak of wickedness and insubordination.
2 That Christians are not required to combine, in order to judge or punish them out of the church, or to unite in any political coalition or combination against the laws of the land.
3. That in the independence of the Christian-congregations, they are not called upon to carry their resolutions and enactments beyond their own
632 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
immediate congregation, or to make laws religious, or even economical, for other communities.
4. They are generally of opinion that slavery, as it is practised in some States of this confederacy, is incompatible with human happiness, as respects both masters and servants, and sympathize equally with both.
5. That it cannot, in any way, be abolished by the North.
6. That it cannot be abolished at the South, by any Abolition movement at the North.
7. That it cannot be abolished at the South, or any where, by professional Abolitionists.
8. That it never can be abolished at the South, on any premises that will locate the African race amongst the whites, or in the slave States.
9. That, according to some suggestions which we have already uttered, it can be abolished only by one of two ways: by amalgamation or colonization abroad, or in some portion of our own country, exclusively given to them.
10. That the only reasonable, plausible, or practicable way of abolishing slavery, is that proposed by the African Colonization Society.
11. That we, as a nation, have the means, and ought to apply them to send them back to Africa, with our language, our civilization, and religion.
12. And that this must be left to the discretion of their owners; but that it ought to be encouraged by the concurrence of the North, and through the General Government countenanced and aided in every practicable and generous way.
Such are my deep and settled convictions. And although I am constitutionally, religiously, and economically anti-slavery, in view of all my premises; yet, with the Bible in my hand, heaven in my eye, and humanity in my heart, I verily believe that our wisdom, our duty, and our privileges, all combine in treating our brethren at the South with all good feeling, with all sympathy and brotherly kindness, as they are worthy of it; and in leaving the issue to the openings of Divine Providence, and to the developments of time, that greatest of teachers--that most assiduous, most potent, and most successful of revolutionists. A. C.
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE--No. X.
THE Spiritual Universe, as we have seen, comprehends God himself; angels, good and bad, and demons.
Angel is an official name, and neither the name of a person nor of a nature. Primarily it indicates a messenger. But there are ranks or orders of messengers, celestial and terrestrial. An angel primarily indicates a spirit messenger. Spirits having been the first
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 633
messengers, obtained par eminence the name of angels--angels of God. They are, essentially and personally, spirits.
But what is a spirit? says the materialist. It is, says the metaphysician, a being possessing thought, volition, and motivity. It thinks, it wills, it is moved and moves by motive or moral reasons. And it differs from matter in all these respects, viz: matter does not think, will or move, by argument or suasion.
Matter is reducible to atoms, and these in their original state, or in any form of organization or aggregation, do not, cannot think.
The attenuation of matter, which means only the distance and the minuteness of its particles, or the changing of their position, cannot give it a new power or capacity which it possessed not before in the aggregate. As was said by a philosopher, "air, heat and light, approximate no nearer to thought or volition than stones, lead, or earth." And thought has been often demonstrated not to be "the result of chemical properties of matter, nor the result of motion." Nor can it be superadded to matter, so as to render matter cogitative, or capable of thinking.
Nor can it be demonstrated that the substratum of the mind and the substratum of matter are the same. Thought is not found in the chemical properties of matter, not in its motion, not as super- added to it, nor as having matter, nor any of its properties, as its substratum,
But we will not proclaim war against matter, as Dr. Priestly did against angels, because, forsooth, these angelic entities were a mountain barrier against the invasion of his materialism into the minds of uncommitted men. We merely intend to note the differential attributes of spirit and matter. Revelation, and not philosophy nor metaphysics, is our guide. Though these, properly cultivated, will cure any candid and inquisitive man of that species of intellectual dyspepsy, so prevalent amongst those who have been seized with the moral jaundice. Concerning matter, we only dogmatize in one sentence, that there is no more power of thought, volition, or motivity, in the whole earth or the solar system, in the aggregate, however organized, than there is in the veriest atom of it, appreciable by any test within the whole circle of human knowledge. Our proof is the Bible, and not philosophy, truly so called,.
Spirit is an entity, a being, an existence wholly immaterial, in the true and legitimate meaning of the term, according to the Holy Scriptures. Whether an angelic spirit or a human spirit, it is always represented as immaterial "God is spirit;" not a spirit, but absolute spirit. Angels are spirits, according to the declarations of the
634 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
Bible. Of the angels he says, "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who are heirs of salvation'!" God himself is said to be "the Father of the spirits of all flesh." These are human spirits. Man himself is, therefore, both scripturally and philosophically considered, wholly a spirit. His body is, scripturally and rationally, his house, his tent, or tabernacle. Paul, in a single passage, sets this fact before us in bold relief. "For," says he, "we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle" (or dwelling) "were destroyed, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, everlasting in the heavens. For in this tabernacle we groan earnestly, desiring to enter our house which is in heaven, assured that if we enter into it we shall not be found destitute. For we who are thus tabernacled do groan, being burdened, not that we would not go from it, but that mortality might be swallowed up of life." 2 Cor. v. 1-4. This single passage, if we had not another, would suffice to show, with authority, that the man is within his body, and that his body is to his spirit what his house now is to him, as dwelling in the flesh--a mere covering or residence.
By a very common figure of speech, we call the outward, visible person, the man. In familiar style, we generally speak of the body as the person of the man. The man called "he himself," talks of his body, his hands, his feet, his eyes, his ears, as he speaks of his house, his horse, his servant. He, the man, is the "thinking, willing, acting person." He could think out, will out, wear out, a hundred, a thousand houses of flesh or of clay, one after another, and then be as anxious for a new house--a house not made with human hands, everlasting as the heavens.
I will not presume that we have a single reader so wholly animal, sensual, and gross in his conceptions, as to require any special proof on this subject, and will proceed.
We are informed, not only by one who made a visit to the third heaven and returned to this earth--a martyr, and an apostle, too-- but by the Lord himself, that, in his "Father's house, there are many mansions;" and that there are spiritual bodies as well as animal bodies. So that the bodies of the saints will become as incorruptible, spiritual and glorious, as their spirits, bearing the exact image of the second and heavenly Adam, as they now do that of the first and earthly Adam. They will possess a spiritual energy equal to the energy of the mind itself. They will be no burthen, no entanglement or hindrance to the spirit.
Our present task, however, is not to dilate upon, or to develop the energies of the spiritual bodies of the saints, when they shall he
THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE. 635
"clothed upon with their house which is from heaven." It suffices our purpose to affirm the clearly revealed fact, that there is a spiritual as well as an animal body. And it may be fairly inferred, that it will be like his body, who was in himself the prototype of the resurrection of the just, who is "the resurrection and the life"--the first born of many brethren. In one sentence, the saints shall be as the angels of God now are, only with their specific character; for they shall bear the image of the heavenly Adam, as they now bear the image of the earthly Adam. But into the spiritual universe, of which we now speak, the human family is not yet about to enter. At present it is composed of God, the holy angels, the cherubim, the seraphim, and of a few representatives of the human race; amongst whom are Enoch, Moses, Elijah, with a few of the first fruits of Christ's resurrection.
Of the orders of angels we know but little. If, indeed, we know any thing of them, our knowledge is of that species of which Paul speaks when he says, "By faith we know that the worlds were framed by the word of God." Like God himself, angels and spirits are objects, not of sense, but of faith. They are presented to us as of different ranks and orders, and are called by different names. We read of the "Seraphim," "Cherubim," of the "Thrones," "Principalities," or princedoms, the "Living Ones," "Powers" and "Authorities," celestial. These names, indeed, may not severally indicate a specific class, but certainly they do not all indicate one class.
Some of them are known by personal names. During the Captivity we read of Michael and Gabriel, and in the Jewish Apocryphal books we read of Raphael and Uriel.
As to the number, it is overwhelming. In Daniel vii. 10, when the ANCIENT OF DAYS appears, "A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him; a thousand thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him." David says the chariots of God are "twenty thousand even thousands of angels." When adverting to the Roman power, the Messiah said his Father could have sent to his aid more than twelve Roman legions--more than seventy-two thousand angels.
We learn from the same infallible source, that they are not all of one and the same character. Some "kept not their first estate." These are fallen angels: of these the Devil, or Satan, is the head. They are, indeed, confined within certain limits, and are said to be "reserved in everlasting chains unto the judgment of the great day." These have "left their own habitation," and are beyond recovery.
As to the time of their creation, we are not informed. Moses
636 THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
gives only the history of a creation connected with man. How many other creations may have preceded our heavens and earth, with their appurtenances, we know not. One thing is certain, that Moses is silent upon any other creation than that which pertains to our condition.
Job, indeed, an older writer than Moses, intimates that the creation of angels antedates our solar system. How long before we know not, as time was not yet born. Time being only the motion of material orbs, before that motion there was no time. Angels, according to Job, were spectators of the creation of our little universe, of only a thousand millions of suns. God himself asks Job, "Where vast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth, when all the sons of God shouted for joy?" It was, indeed, a glorious--a transcendant scene, when a single volition flung out into space a thousand millions of suns, and thirty thousand millions of planets, and bade them wheel around their standard bearers in silent and awful majesty.
A portion of their tenantry were not satisfied with their position. They envied other suns and other systems, and fell into condemnation. Their course at this moment became centrifugal. One led the way, the others followed. Satan first assumed the attitude of an insubordinate, and, falling into self-worship and pride, he fell into condemnation, and became a leader of fallen angels.
We cannot penetrate into the secrets of their nature, nor into their manner of living and acting. We only know that they can move matter of every form, and feel no obstruction in their career. They need not to go round a planet or a sun. They can go through it. Imagination, in the contemplation of the winged cherubim and seraphim, gives to all angels wings. But this must be only an appearance, as wings, in our conceptions of them, are not expedient, only where air is and gravity reigns.
Still, all of them are "ministering spirits;" some of them, too, are guardian angels. Moses and his tribes had their guardian angel "to keep them in the way, and to bring them to the place God had chosen for them." The name of God was in this angel. He had divine authority, and a power commensurate with all the wants of Israel. The promise of such an angel was equivalent to the divine presence. Therefore, God and Israel made one party against the Devil and his angels, then possessing and using, according to their will, Pagandom, with its myriad idols and superstitions.
Of the angels located in heaven, if we may use such a phrase, the Seraphim are most resident. They, of all the inhabitants of
THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 637
the highest heaven, are the most grand and glorious. They immediately encircle the throne of Jehovah, now filled with the Lord Messiah. The name being THE BURNING ONES, or Seraphim, they are robed in the brightest glory. They have feet, but they are covered with two wings, as of fire. They have a face, but in the divine presence it is veiled with two flaming wings, and with other two they fly on the errands of the Lord. They look at each other in perpetual rapture, and in heavenly ecstacies they unceasingly exclaim, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts! The whole earth is filled with his glory."
Such is the worship of the true Holy of Holies, and of the sub- Ernest worshippers in God's own celestial temple. The Cherubim in Solomon's Temple seem to have been but the earthly symbols of the celestial glory and worship in the immediate presence. Here we see, through a glass darkly, in the brightest visions we have of God's glory and of the ineffable grandeur of the high circles of the upper regions of the spiritual universe, where the Lord Jesus now reigns in all the majesty and grandeur of his Father and our Father, of his God and our God.
We shall only, at present, farther add, that these angels that excel in strength, in beauty and grandeur, are now sent forth by the Lord Jesus to minister to his saints, though dwelling in the cottages, and cabins, and prisons of earth. And shall we not be courageous and bold in the ways of the Lord, when assured that angels' arms, which can shake the seas, the earth, and the heavens, are ever around us, our shield and our rescue; and that with all their grandeur, "they are all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation!" A. C.
SUPPORT OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY--No. II
I AM asked by some, not of our constant readers, "Who or what is the Christian Ministry?" and required to define it, before I discuss the question of its support. To some of my late readers this, indeed, may be a necessary preliminary question, and for their sakes we will define our positions on that subject.
Every institution, from a common school to an university, from a township to a State, from a borough to an empire, has, of necessity, a ministry; a living, acting, sustaining, controlling ministry, or it ceases to be. Nay, indeed, it cannot begin to be without a special
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638 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.
ministry; and it cannot continue to be after the extraordinary ministry that caused it ceases to be, without a conservative ministry. Hence the distinction of ordinary and extraordinary ministers.
Moses and Jesus were, superlatively, ministers extraordinary. So were, in a second degree, the prophets and the apostles. Priests and Levites were the ordinary ministers of the Jewish institution. Evangelists, teachers and deacons, (sometimes called preachers, pastors and deacons,) are the ordinary ministers of the Christian institution.
While a single Christian family on an island, or on a foreign mission in the midst of a Pagan empire, may be a church, and may dispense and enjoy social ordinances as a Christian institution, in all other cases churches are communities, organized and disciplined by a divinely constituted ministry of three ranks--evangelists, pastors and deacons.
These are apostolic designations--words which the Holy Spirit taught, indicative of official duties. The term "elder" denotes one of age, and was appropriated to all governors, Jewish and Christian, because experience, or age, was an essential prerequisite. But because of the indefiniteness of the term--indicating, sometimes, a mere ruler, president or governor; at other times a teacher--it yields in appropriateness, on this subject, to the term pastor, as the Apostle Paul evinces when he says, "When Jesus ascended up on high," when he triumphed, or "led captivity captive, he gave gifts" (offices) "to men." "And he gave," or "even he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, some teachers, for the perfecting of the saints; for the work of the ministry; for the edifying" (building up) "of the body of Christ: till we all come into* the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man; to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."†
The original term Poimeen, here used, has, in my judgment, the preeminence, and hence it ought to be read pastor or shepherd. It has in both testaments, in all the scriptures, the chief dignity in expressiveness and appositeness, to the station and work assigned the officers here named. They are elders; they are bishops; but much more, they are pastors--they are SHEPHERDS; the greatest and noblest of all.
No one can be a shepherd who is not a bishop; yet a shepherd is more than a bishop. A bishop oversees a flock; but a shepherd, in fact, oversees, feeds, and protects the flock at the hazard of his life.
*Not in but into the unity, &c.
† Eph. iv. 11-13.
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Jesus, the great and the good shepherd--the bishop of our souls-- delights in this term, or in the idea which it represents; and hence he so often and so impressively applied it to himself--" I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep,"* &c., &c. And Paul calls him (Heb. xviii. 20) "the great shepherd of the sheep." And Peter calls him "the shepherd, the overseer or bishop of our souls."† "Feed the flock of God which is among you;" and "when the CHIEF SHEPHERD shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory which fadeth not away."‡
But our present topic is not the development of the Christian ministry, but the maintenance of it. By maintenance or support I do not, indeed, mean, as many mean, the mere feeding and clothing of a Christian ministry, but the creation, qualification, and garniture of an evangelical ministry, as well as its sustenance.
The disciples of Christ were, at a very early period, taught by the great Teacher himself, to pray to the "Lord of the harvest to send forth reapers to gather it." But the Lord did not teach his disciples to pray for any thing to be performed by miracle, or without the use of appropriate means. Hence it came to pass that he added the part of a teacher, and formed a class.
If not of the school of the Peripatetics, who taught and studied while walking about, he taught his original school while peregrinating Judea and Galilee, and both in public lectures, in private conferences, and by frequent examinations, developed to them the doctrine or science of his person, character, mission and kingdom. By precept and example, as well as by descanting upon the doctrines, commandments, and examples of other schools, of other teachers, and of other pupils, he inducted his disciples into the true doctrine, spirit, character, and design of his mission into our world, and of the spiritual and everlasting kingdom and institution which he was about to establish in the world.
The apostles, also, after his example, when fully accomplished for their official duties, were to become teachers of others, not only in preaching the gospel and planting churches, but also in providing a ministry for those churches and for the world. Paul, whose history and labors are most amply detailed, was most assiduous, not only in preaching and teaching Christ, but also in training men, both young and old, for the work of the Christian ministry, and gave instructions to Timothy and Titus to the same effect. From these developments in the Christian Scriptures, so fraught with instruction to all ages, we have learned much, and may still learn much more.
*John x. 11, 14.
†1 Pet. ii. 25.
‡1 Pet. v. 2-5.
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One command of Paul to Timothy implies all that we conceive necessary to this great work. "The things," said he, "which you have learned from me, the same commit thou to faithful or to able men, who shall be competent to teach others also." Thus provision was made for a perpetual ministry in the church.
Titus, too, as well as Timothy, had an injunction from Paul to the same effect--to set in order, in the Island of Crete, the things left undone, and to constitute or ordain elders in every city, as he had been orally directed by Paul himself.
It is a proverb in our Israel, that what is every one's business is no one's business, and therefore, the Lord constituted offices, and these imply officers. If the whole body were an eye, an ear, a mouth, or a tongue, what a useless, unsightly body would it be'. This is a subject that needs no argument. A. C.
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY THE TRUE PRINCIPLE
OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT--[ Continued from p. 576.]
MAN AN EMBODIED SPIRIT.
THAT man may not lose the feeling of responsibility, it is important that he keep constantly in view the unity of his being; otherwise he may be led to suppose himself a compound of incongruous parts, over which he will feel himself to have but little control. The want of this proper feeling of unity has been conspicuous in all ages and amongst all nations--the most enlightened equally with the most savage; wherever, in fact, the true light of man's origin and destiny has not shone. When man loses this view of his unity, with respect to his intellect and volition, he carves as many divinities out of himself as he has affections, desires and ideas, and makes them visible by all imaginable combinations of beauty and deformity. "Having thus," says a modern writer, "reduced poetry into sculpture, and made feeling a permanent presence, heathens fall down to adore their own conceits. They divide their divinity by personifying their own lusts, and think they see a god where they behold an image of themselves; they people the empyrean with heroes that outrage humanity, and crowd their heaven with horrors that earth can scarcely tolerate."
It would seem, indeed, as though a disposition had always existed in minds not truly enlightened, to represent their own feelings as
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different from themselves; and therefore, it is no marvel that, in this respect, the philosopher but emulates the savage. The modern phrenologist, professing to be a modeler of minds, would demonstrate his rational status by presenting us with casts of his mental faculties and affections as distinct from himself, but resident in the numberless cells of his brain; while the savage, with equal ingenuity, evinces the same view of his mental condition, when he attributes the powers of his own soul to insensate matter, which he shapes according to his own conceit, and the form he calls a god; for his philosophy, too, teaches him that bodies do not act without spirits residing in them. Materialists of the phrenological school settle their incongruities by arranging them in opposite compartments, like prisoners in a penitentiary. There is, however, this difference in the cases: in the penitentiary, one individual inspects many others, but the philosopher distributes himself in fragments through a multitude of darkened cells, and thus disposes of his faults and his faculties together, while the individual is lost and the mind is no where.
Others would analyze intellect and volition as they would the soil, and having separated the elements and set them aside, they wonder what we mean when we ask them what they have done with the soul?
What, then, must we think of some of our best writers upon morals, who would teach us that desires and affections exist without volition. They certainly mean more than their words signify, else we cannot understand them; for where is the desire without will, and Inhere the affection that is neither pleasing nor displeasing? Can there be any manifestation of self without the will being excited? All we feel is but the result of the correspondence between the sensitive soul and its object; for if these can be viewed with so much indifference as not to produce in us volition, there can be no impression, and we necessarily fall asleep and enter the world of dreams, for even dreams are more real than sights and sounds, without effect upon us. It is these, in the qualities of the things that habitually engage and exercise the will, that give individuality to character. We never attend without the exercise of will, and the qualities of things induce a state of mind in the individual regarding them, according to his intuitive perception, habit, or association. By intimacy with the feelings of others, we are apt to feel like them. Their tastes become ours; we sympathize with them until we resemble them. In this manner it is that our affections, as well as our intellect, are educated; and it is just as easy to depart from good
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 54*
642 THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY.
feelings as from sound thinking, by fellowship with erroneous souls. The workers of iniquity who depart from God, not only forsake truth,. but they yield to the power of falsehood, which is never a mere negative, but an active evil, positively at work to corrupt the will. Hence it is that the untutored and unrestrained by the counsels of the wise and good, not only stray from the path of life, but actually suffer the pains that are inseparable from the ways of error and disobedience.
The emotion we cannot separate from the affection, nor the desire from the will. Will in action is desire, and a will inactive is no will.
"The mind," says a late English writer, "operating in relation to objects of sense, is mind under more or less of emotion--self more or less impressed by what is agreeable or otherwise; thus the soul evinces its will; and the mind, attending to ideas and comparing them, whether from direct impression or in the memory, is a thinking mind or intellect. Now, it is evident, that both will, and the power of knowing or being impressed, are essential to a conscious being. And man's superiority, as a mind, is shown in his capacity of abstracting his attention from objects to fix it upon ideas, so as to reason concerning them. His reason is his faith. So, then, man, fully manifested, wills, knows, believes, and loves. This is his nature. Therefore, he must be provided with objects in keeping with his nature--things to desire, to understand, and to believe. And in as far as man is created with a capacity of thinking of the Creator as the originator of all things, he must be constituted to find in Him the supreme object of desire, of knowledge, and of faith. In other words, man's will and intellect must find their satisfaction in God, and in what he provides; for man cannot rationally enjoy any thing in creation but as he finds- in it the expression of his Maker's mind towards himself. Therefore, an irreligious man is so far unreasonable; his reason is without its chief end, the efficient object of love, the only source of light and joy.
To know truly, to love truly, to believe truly, is to know, love, believe, what God has provided; and to be deprived of this; is to be ignorant and unhappy. But He has not left himself without witnesses of his tender care for human beings. He has given us all something for the exercise of whatever faculties we possess, leading us on in thought from the deficiencies of the past and the present, to the fulness of the future, that we may be conscious that we hang upon his unfailing Providence for all we have and all we hope."
"Let us not suffer ourselves," says- the same writer, "to be
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 643
beguiled out of our birth-right as intelligent beings, by the vapory words of speech, invented by the misty order of metaphysicians, or the more mechanical surveyors of our brains; but let us remember, that whatever the peculiarities of our mental manifestation, we are still individuals, and not complicated thinking machines. We hear, feel, see, taste, smell; we desire, hope, fear, confide, venerate, deter; mine; we compare, reflect, reason; we exercise intellect and feel emotion; we sin; we suffer; we live forever; and we need a Saviour, that knows our nature in all it is, and all it can be, and who is capable of providing for us according to the vastness of our necessities."
In his present state, man has two modes of spiritual manifestation or existence. He can live in an ideal world, which he enters, or, rather, which is created by the impression of exterior objects upon his mind. In this ideal world dwelt the wise men of heathen antiquity. But above and beyond this, there is an ideal world, into which no heathen philosopher ever entered. The loftiest flights of his spirit was still within the misty atmosphere of ideas suggested by objects of sense. The whole material universe afforded his spirit not one clear ray of light, such as is enjoyed by a mind where reason is enlightened by underived Intelligence. But when enlightened from this source, the spirit of man is capable of enjoying thoughts which objects of sense could never engender or suggest to his mind. Anointed with this heavenly eye salve, he has eyes to perceive events. He becomes the student and expositor of nature, and is, indeed, the only creature on earth that is capable of concerning himself with the designs of Providence, with respect to the past, the present, and the future.
Thus enlightened, he can also become the subject of his own Insight--he can dwell upon the events of his own past history for the renewal of his pleasures, or he can indulge in the luxury of recollected sorrow. He can do more: he can view himself as the inheritor, in spirit, of all that has been accomplished, and all that is to come. The indelible record of his life--the autobiography of the heart, he sees written in his memory, as in a book- This, however, is but a small part of the record of facts, which memory has faithfully treasured up. "He glances in the retrospect of thought, to witness, as in a moment of time, and as in a living panorama spread before the eye of his soul, the grand lessons of history, in respect to the promises and providence of God. It is thus the human spirit can take its part in all the progresses of its race; go back to the beginning, when "the heavens and the earth rose out of chaos;" associate in soul with the first Adam, in his perishable Paradise;
644 THE MOUNT OF SACRIFICE.
and then, deliberately looking through all the passages of a fallen and redeemed world, go forth in the strength of an unfailing faith, to meet the second Adam, the Lord from Heaven, returning to establish among men the immovable dominion of righteousness and love." A. W. C.
THE MOUNT OF SACRIFICE.
I LOVE the mountains. Their hoary summits piercing the clouds, and crowned with eternal snow, the unbroken silence which ever surrounds them, and the pure atmosphere by which their lofty brows are fanned, invest them with a deep, solemn, religious interest. They stand aloof, as it were, from the earth, of which they form a part; they seem like the altars of the world, whose fires have been quenched--the smoke of whose sacrifices have ceased to ascend for ever. Their heads are lifted skyward in changeless serenity; the storm and the tempest burst and rage far beneath them; they are first encircled by morn's bright rays; and when, at eventide, their dark shadows lie along the plain, their tops are gilded with the splendor of the day-god's parting beams.
Mountains have long been the theme of the historian's pen and the poet's lyre. Atlas and Ida, Parnassus and Olympus, the haunts of gods, heroes, and muses, have long been familiar words. The Alps and the Appenines, Sovran Blanc and hoary Saint Bernard, have each their story, and are only inferior in interest to those whose names and legends are found in the sacred page.
Turn we, then, from the wooded heights of Ida and the delightful shades of Parnassus, to linger awhile near those holy mounts which have long been celebrated in sacred story.
And, first, Ararat rises on our view, memorable as the first mount mentioned in our world's history, the resting place of the Deluge- ship, which long had sailed on a shoreless sea. Never was land so dear to the mariner, as its rugged peaks to the survivors of a world; and never did the smoke of a more joyful sacrifice ascend, than that which curled in graceful wreaths around its summit, when the family of the saved pressed eagerly round the first altar that rose on the purified earth.
It is a hallowed mountain. There, doubtless, the dove first folded her weary wing. It was the ark's first resting-place; and there the
THE MOUNT OF SACRIFICE. 645
altar's smoke and the rainbow's hues first met the adoring and admiring gaze of the new world's inhabitants.
Grand and gloomy Sinai rises in the Arabian desert. Its rugged cliffs seem to pierce the clouds; and its solitary position fits it eminently for awful and solemn revealings. There the mighty One of Israel came down in terrible majesty, and gave a law to his people by the hand of his chosen servant--there he proclaimed his own wondrous name in the hearing of the assembled millions who thronged its base, and shook it to its very foundations by the majesty of his awful presence. Thunders pealed and lightnings played around its clouded summit; darkness enveloped it in a gloomy mantle; angels stood by to witness the solemn act of Jehovah, when he was first made known to man as his wondrous lawgiver, and to hear the ten words of mighty import, which then broke from the lips of the high and lofty One. I would not, as the ancient leader of God's people, ascend its rugged steep--I would not stand in the awful place where Israel's mediator stood; but humbly would I kneel at its base, and let my spirit linger upon the solemn memories which are interwoven with its history.
Hor, Pisgah, and Carmel, have each their story. While gazing on the first, we seem to stand by the first high priest, as he calmly awaits the call of death. With Moses, from Pisgah's top, we survey at once the desert, and look to the fair land beyond Jordan's wave, and feast our eyes on its living beauties. At Carmel's base we hear the frantic petitions of the false god's votaries, and, in the hush of evening, the few, yet solemn words of the true God's prophet, and see the hallowed flame descend to bring at once pallid terror and sacred joy.
Tabor tells of the descent of the shining ones, and the shadowing forth of the glories of the Christian's land; and we feel, in meditating over the sacred spot, that we could stand in rapt adoration; and did we break the silence, it would be but to exclaim, "It is good for us to be here!"
Olivet, too, hath many a sacred legend. Oft has the stillness of its seclusion been broken by the accents of the Saviour's prayer. What lessons of divine wisdom have been taught under its shadowing palms! The feet of God's well-beloved have hallowed it by their impress. There it was that the risen Saviour bade his disciples repair, to take their last look at their Master, and hear his parting words. There, too, he was parted from them, and borne by an angel escort to his Father's throne; and there the eye of faith is directed as the place where he shall in like manner descend.
646 THE MOUNT OF SACRIFICE.
And yet, though it be sweet to wander among the vines of Carmel, or linger amid the palms of Olivet, there remains another mount, whose memories are dearer and sweeter than all we have named beside. Three solemn scenes have been. enacted upon its heights --three altars have been reared, and three victims offered. It is the sacrificial mount; and though we stand afar, we will gaze on its wondrous scenes in tearful admiration.
A gray-haired patriarch, bending under the weight of years, and a blooming son, the child of his old age--the object of his-tenderest affection, are toiling up its steep. The face of the sire is anxious and care-worn. Ever and anon his eye is cast heavenward imploringly, and a fervent though hasty prayer escapes his lips. The fire to kindle the sacred flame, and the knife to immolate the victim, are in his hand, while the son, with a firmer step, bears on his shoulder the wood to consume the appointed sacrifice. A few loose stones, hastily heaped together, form the altar; but neither lamb nor kid for the offering is yet seen. The wood is laid in order, and to! the sorrowing sire binds the yielding son, and lays him, an unresisting victim, on the sacred pile. The knife gleams in the air; another moment, and it will be dimmed by the blood of that young and trusting heart; but that moment is the moment of safety. An angel's voice bids the hand of the father stay; and the son, as if alive from the dead, is pressed to his yearning heart. Another and less noble victim is provided; and soon the smoke of sacrifice ascends from the mountain where Abraham's altar stood.
But, to! in after years, a gorgeous temple arises upon the selfsame mount. Gold and gems are lavished profusely upon it; for it is the place of worship for a mighty people. A train of white-robed priests are there; and they are about to celebrate a solemn religious rite. And again the altar meets our view. There stand the worshiping assembly, and near the altar the victim and the priest. The fatal blow is given; the victim bleeds; the smoke of sacrifice ascends the sky; and the mount where Abraham worshiped has become a nation's altar.
Time sweeps on, and the glory of the first temple departs; the hand of the barbarian is laid upon it; its glory and beauty are marred; the stately edifice is given to the devouring flame; and all its ancient grandeur is prostrate in the dust. Again the mountain presents itself to our view. A confused multitude are near its base. They press hurriedly along, and the air is rent with their shouts. Is it some high festival, which causes Jerusalem thus to pour forth its living tide?--to thus bring forth slave and senator, and cause the
APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 647
turbaned priest and mail-clad soldier to meet in the same motley throng? No; the shouts are not those of mirth and glad rejoicing; but words of malediction and bitter hate burst from the lips of that infuriated throng. And the object of popular fury, where is he Behold him, not a malefactor, bold and hardened in crime--his hands stained with the blood of his fellows, but a meek, uncomplaining Man of sorrows, who, bending under the weight of the Roman cross, seeks the place of his closing scene. Like wave urged on by wave, the crowd presses onward, until the fatal spot is reached. The meek Victim is rudely nailed to the prostrate wood; and soon the cross arises, the altar of the world. We saw the son of Abraham ascend this mountain, bearing on his shoulder the wood for his own sacrifice, and have just seen the Son of God fainting under the burden of his own cross. We saw the former bound upon the altar; but we now see the latter nailed to the accursed tree, groaning, agonizing, dying. We saw Isaac released, and an inferior victim substituted; but now we see the sacrifice that God has provided freely offered up for us all; and this mountain is thus rendered dear to all--the centre around which faith, and hope, and memory delight to linger. Sacred mount! known as Moriah, the temple's site, and Calvary's Hill, thou art rich in holy associations--the altar of Abraham, the altar of Israel, and the altar of the world. B.
APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION.
Brother Campbell: Having been very forcibly impressed with the great similarity of views contained in the following able extract from an article from the pen of T. B. Macaulay, the great historian of England, and one of the most able of the Edinburgh reviewers, and those presented by yourself for the last twenty-five years; and thinking it might be of some interest to the readers of the Harbinger to compare them, and that Macaulay might be heard with some candor where you would not, I send them to you, to dispose of as you may see fit. The extract is from a review of Mr. Gladstone's work, entitled "The Stale in its relations with the Church,"- written for the April number of the Edinburgh Review for 1839. Yours, most truly, J. M. SHEPARD.
"IN England," says Mr. Gladstone, "the case was widely different from that of the Continent. Her reformation did not destroy,
648 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION.
but successfully maintained, the unity and succession of the church in her apostolical ministry. We have, therefore, still among us the ordained hereditary witnesses of the truth, conveying it to us through an unbroken series from our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles. This is to us the ordinary voice of authority; of authority equally reasonable and equally true, whether we will hear, or whether we will forbear."
Mr. Gladstone's reasoning is not so clear as might be desired. We have among us, he says, ordained hereditary witnesses of the truth, and their voice is to us the voice of authority. Undoubtedly, if they are witnesses of the truth, their voice is the voice of authority- But this is little more than saying that the truth is the truth. Nor is truth more true because it comes in an unbroken series from the apostles. The Nicene faith is not more true in the mouth of the Archbishop of Canterbury, than in that of a moderator of the General Assembly. If our respect for the authority of the church is to be only consequent upon our convictions of the truth of our doctrines, we come at once to that monstrous abuse--the Protestant exercise of private judgment. But if Mr. Gladstone means that we ought to believe that the Church of England speaks the truth, because she has the apostolical succession, we greatly doubt whether such a doctrine can be maintained. In the first place, what proof have we of the fact We have, indeed, heard it said that Providence would certainly have interfered to preserve the apostolical succession of the true church. But this is an argument fitted for understandings of a different kind from Mr. Gladstone's. He will hardly tell us that the Church of England is the true church because she has the succession; and that she has the succession because she is the true church. What evidence, then, have we for the fact of the apostolical succession'] And here we may easily defend the truth against Oxford, with the same arguments with which, in old times, the truth was defended by Oxford against Rome. In this stage of our combat with Mr. Gladstone, we need few weapons, except those which we find in the well furnished and well-ordered armory of Chillingworth.
The transmission of orders from the apostles to an English clergyman of the present day, must have been through a great number of intermediate persons- Now, it is probable that no clergyman in the Church of England can trace up his spiritual genealogy from bishop to bishop, even so far back as the time of the Reformation. There remains fifteen or sixteen hundred years, during which the history of the transmission of his orders is buried in utter darkness. And whether he be a priest by succession from the apostles, depends on the question, whether, during that long period, some thousands of events took place, any one of which may, without any gross improbability, be supposed not to have taken place. We have not a tittle of evidence to any one of these events. We do not even know the names or countries of the men to whom it was taken for granted that these events happened. We do not know whether the spiritual ancestors of any one of our contemporaries were Spanish or Armenian, Arian or Orthodox. In the utter absence of all particular evidence, we are surely entitled to require that there should be very strong evidence indeed, that the strictest regularity was obser-
APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 649
ved in every generation; and that episcopal functions were exercised by none who were not bishop by succession from the apostles. But we have no such evidence. In the first place, we have not full and accurate information touching the polity of the church during the century that followed the persecution of Nero. Trio, during this period, the overseers of all the little Christian societies scattered through the Roman empire held their spiritual authority by virtue of holy orders derived from the apostles, cannot be proved by contemporary testimony, or by any testimony which can be regarded as decisive. The question, whether the primitive ecclesiastical constitution bore a greater resemblance to the Anglican or to the Calvinistic model, has been fiercely disputed. It is a question on which men of eminent parts, learning and piety, have differed, and do to this day differ very widely. It is a question on which at least a full half of the ability and erudition of Protestant Europe has, ever since the Reformation, been opposed to the Anglican pretensions. Mr. Gladstone himself, we are persuaded, would have the candor to allow that, if no evidence were admitted but that which is furnished by the genuine Christian literature of the first two centuries, judgment would not go in favor of prelacy. And if he looked at the subject as calmly as he would look at a controversy respecting the Roman Comitia, or the Anglo-Saxon Witenagemote, he would probably think that the absence of contemporary evidence, during so long a period, was a defect which later attestations, however numerous, could but very imperfectly supply.
It is surely impolitic to rest the doctrines of the English Church on an historical theory, which, to ninety-nine Protestants out of a hundred, would seem much more questionable than any of those doctrines. Nor is this all. Extreme obscurity overhangs the history of the middle acres; and the facts which are discernible through that obscurity prove that the church was exceedingly ill regulated. We read of sees of the highest dignity openly sold--transferred backwards and forwards by popular tumult--bestowed sometimes by a profligate woman on her paramour--sometimes by a warlike baron on a kinsman, still a stripling.. We read of bishops of ten years old--of five years old--of many popes who were mere boys, and who rivalled the frantic dissoluteness of Caligula--nay, of a female pope. And though this last story, once believed throughout all Europe, has been disproved by the strict researches of modern criticism, the most discerning of those who reject it have admitted that it is not intrinsically improbable. In our own island, it was the complaint of Alfred that not a single priest south of the Thames, and very few on the north, could read either Latin or English. And this illiterate clergy exercised their ministry amidst a rude and half heathen population, in which Danish pirates, unchristened, or christened by the hundred on a field of battle, were mingled with a Saxon peasantry scarcely better instructed in religion. The state of Ireland was still worse. "Tota illa per universam Hiberniam dissolutio ubique pro consuetudine Christiana saeva subnitroducta barbaries," are the expressions of St. Bernard. We are, therefore, at a loss to conceive how any clergyman can feel confident that his orders have come down correctly. Whether he be really a succes-
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650 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION.
sor of the apostles, depends on an immense number of such contingencies as these--whether, under King Elthelwolf, a stupid priest might not, while baptizing several scores of Danish prisoners, who had just made their option between the font and the gallows, inadvertently omit to perform the rite on one of these graceless proselytes?--whether, in the seventh century, an imposter, who had never received consecration, might not have passed himself off as a bishop on a rude tribe of Scots?--whether a lad of twelve did really, by a ceremony huddled over when he was too drunk to know what he was about, convey the episcopal character to a lad of ten?
Since the first century, not less, in all probability, than a hundred thousand persons have exercised the functions of bishop. That many of these have not been bishops by apostolical succession, is quite certain. Hooker admits that deviations from the general rule have been frequent, and with a boldness worthy of his high and statesmanlike intellect, pronounces them to have been often justifiable. There may be, says he, sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow ordination made without a bishop. Where the church must needs have some ordained, and neither hath nor can have possibly a bishop to ordain, in case of such necessity the ordinary institution of God hath given oftentimes, and may give place. And therefore, we are not simply without exception to urge a lineal descent of power from the apostles, by continued succession of bishops in every effectual ordination." There can be but little doubt, we think, that the succession, if it ever existed, has often been interrupted in ways much less respectable. For example, let us suppose --and we are sure that no person will think the supposition by any means improbable--that, in the third century, a man of no principle and some parts, who has, in the course of a roving and discreditable life, been a catechumen at Antioch, and has there become familiar with Christian usages and doctrines, afterwards rambles to Marseilles, where he finds a Christian society, rich, liberal, and simple- hearted. He pretends to be a Christian, attracts notice by his abilities and affected zeal, and is raised to the episcopal dignity without having ever been baptized. That such an event might happen, nay, was very likely to happen, cannot well be disputed by any one who has read the life of Peregrinus. The very virtues, indeed, which distinguished the early Christians, seem to have laid them open to those arts which deceived
"Uriel, though Regent of the Sun, and held
The sharpest-sighted spirit of all in Heaven."
Now, this unbaptized imposter is evidently no successor of the apostles. He is not even a Christian; and all orders derived through such a pretended bishop are altogether invalid. Do we know enough of the state of the world and of the church in the third century, to be able to say with confidence that there were not at that time twenty such pretended bishops Every such case makes a break in the apostolic succession.
Now, suppose that a break, such as Hooker admits to have been both common and justifiable, or such as we have supposed to be produced by hypocrisy and cupidity, were found in the chain which
APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 651
connected the apostles with any of the missionaries who first spread Christianity in the wilder parts of Europe--who can say how extensive the effect of this single break may be Suppose that St. Patrick, for example, if ever there was such a man, or Theodore of Tarsus, who is said to have consecrated, in the seventh century, the first bishop of many English sees, had not the true apostolical orders, is it not conceivable that such a circumstance may effect the orders of many clergymen now living? Even if it were possible, which it assuredly is not, to prove that the church had the apostolical orders in the third century, it would be impossible to prove that those were not in the twelfth century so far lost that no ecclesiastic could be certain of the legitimate descent of his own spiritual character. And if this were so, no subsequent precautions could repair the evil.
Chillingworth states the conclusion at which he had arrived in these very remarkable words: "That of ten thousand probables, no one should be false; that of ten thousand requisites, whereof any one may fail, not one should be wanting: this to me is extremely improbable, and even cousin-german to impossible. So that the assurance hereof is like a machine composed of several parts, of which it is strangely unlikely but some will be out of order; and yet if any piece be so, the whole fabric falls of necessity to the ground; and he that shall put them together, and maturely consider all the possible ways of lapsing and nullifying a priesthood in the Church of Rome, will be very inclinable to think that it is a hundred to one, that among a hundred seeming priests, there is not one true one; nay, that it is not a thing very improbable that, amongst the many millions which make up the Romish hierarchy, there are not twenty true." We do not pretend to know to what precise extent the canonists of Oxford agree with those of Rome as to the circumstances which nullify orders. We will not, therefore, go so far as Chilling- worth. We only say that we see no satisfactory proof of the fact that the Church of England possesses the apostolical succession. And, after all, if Mr. Gladstone could prove the apostolical succession, what would the apostolical succession prove? He says that "we have among us the ordained hereditary witnesses of the truth, conveying it to us through an unbroken series from our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles-" Is this the fact? Is there any doubt that the orders of the Church of England are generally derived from the Church of Rome? Does not the Church of England declare, does not Mr. Gladstone admit, that the Church of Rome teaches much error, and condemns much truth? And is it not quite clear, that as far as the doctrines of the Church of England differ from those of the Church of Rome, so far the Church of England conveys the truth through a broken series? * * * * No stream can rise higher than its fountain. The succession of ministers in the Church of England, derived as it is through the Church of Rome, can never prove more for the Church of England than it proves for the Church of Rome. But this is not all. The Arian churches which once predominated in the kingdoms of the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, the Burgundians, the Vandals, and the Sombards, were all Episcopal Churches, and all had a fairer claim than that of England, to the apostolical succession, as being much nearer to the apostolical
652 ARE THE BAPTISTS A SECT?
times. In the East, the Greek Church, which is at variance on points of faith with all the Western churches, has an equal claim to this succession. The Nestorian, the Eutychian, the Jacobite Churches--all heretical, all condemned by councils of which even Protestant divines have generally spoken with respect--has an equal claim to the apostolical succession. Now if of teachers having apostolical orders, a vast majority have taught much error--if a large proportion have taught deadly heresy--if, on the other hand, as Mr. Gladstone himself admits, churches not having apostolical orders--that of Scotland, for example--have been nearer to the standard of orthodoxy than the majority of teachers who have had apostolical orders--how can he possibly call upon us to submit our private judgment to the authority of a church, on the ground that she has those orders?
MY thanks, in the name of ray readers, to Bro. Shepard, for calling my attention to this valuable document. I am sorry that I cannot yet say when I will see the brethren in New York or in North Eastern Pennsylvania. I much desire such an interview; but my time and my ways are not at my own disposal. The Lord bless all the holy brethren A. C.
WHAT IS A SECT?--WHO IS A SECTARY?--ARE THE
BAPTISTS A SECT?--No. II.
MR. ALEXANDER CAMPBELL-Dear Sir: For the most part, I am much pleased with your response to my interrogatories, so far as it is published. As you promise to gratify me with a few farther remarks in your next number, these lines may be thought uncalled for; but as I am seeking instruction, not controversy, I think it proper to let you know on what point you have failed to edify me.
You speak of "the scripture sense of Baptist." It is impossible for me to conceive of the scripture sense of a word or phrase not occurring in the scriptures. The translation of the Bible with which King James has furnished us, contains, it is true, the word Baptist; but the Bible which God has given to man does not. I am told that you have a translation of the New Testament of your own, and I am curious to know whether the term Baptist is to be found in that. If it is, I must conclude with you, that "we all live too much in the nineteenth century to know ourselves, and the truth as it was taught, believed, and practised 1800 years ago." I have a copy of the New Testament printed not quite 150 years ago, in which the words Baptist, baptize, and baptism, are all wanting. Let me know, if you please, whether your Testament states that "in those days came John the
ARE THE BAPTISTS A SECT? 653
Baptist, preaching," &c., or whether, like the old copy in my possession, it relates the adventures of John the Immerser. If the word Baptist is not in your translation--or, rather, if it is not in God's Bible--what do you mean by the scripture sense of it?
Baptist is a foreign word, anglicised and adopted into our language; its signification, therefore, must accord with the use to which we have appropriated it by common consent- When Mr. Campbell speaks of the Baptists, we do not understand him to mean merely immersers, but those who hold and practise immersion, and on that account have obtained that distinctive name. Will you tell us, that when you complained of ill treatment from the Baptists--not any Baptists in particular, but Baptists in general--you wished to be understood as speaking of baptizers in general, and baptizers only? When I affirm that Jesus Christ was a Baptist, I mean that he was immersed; and when I say that the Reformers are Baptists, I am understood by all to mean that they are immersed, and have immersers among them.
Your remarks about the "Baptist Church of Christ," and the "Pedobaptist Church of Christ," have no application to me. You must have forgotten, for a moment, to whom you were writing. I cannot account For the aberration, unless, at the time of writing the paragraph alluded to, a vision of your crippled and very uneasy antagonist on the other side of the Mississippi, came up before your too active imagination, and you made a pass at him. Yours, &c., ALFRED EARLE.
NEAR DAVISVILLE, Bucks County, Pa., Sept. 4, 1851.
MR. ALFRED EARLE--Dear Sir: Being from home, for the most part, during the composition of the October Harbinger, I could not, in it, finish my remarks on your former letter, as both designed and desired, when I wrote my former response. And now, on the eve of leaving home for a few days, to attend our Christian Missionary Society at Cincinnati, and an Anniversary Convention at Lexington, Ky., I fear I cannot enlarge much on the premises before me. I will, therefore, in the first place, advert to the interrogatories you have propounded on my former letter.
And first, with regard to your inquiry as to a passage in the New Version of the "Living Oracles," published one quarter of a century ago. The third section of the testimony of Matthew Levi, in that version, reads thus: "In those days appeared John the Immerser in the wilderness of Judea, saying, Reform, for the Reign of Heaven approaches." The third paragraph of that section also conforms to the same usage, in another member of the same family, viz: "Then came Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan, to be immersed by John." Another passage of vital importance in that same Evangelist, thus
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 55*
654 ARE THE BAPTISTS A SECT?
reads: "Jesus came near and said, All authority is given to me in heaven and upon the earth; go, therefore, convert all the nations, immersing them in (into) the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things which I have commanded you; and behold! I am with you always, to the conclusion of this state." And so it reads uniformly through the book.
This version was much condemned by leading men of all parties, on its first appearance. Nevertheless, it has steadily grown in public favor, and several editions of it have been circulated and read with much pleasure and acknowledged profit.
You say it is impossible for you to conceive of the scripture sense of a word or phrase not occurring in the scriptures. Neither can I. But Baptist, or Baptistees, is a scriptural word, occurring fourteen times in the New Testament, in three of the four gospels. Baptisma and Baptismos, occur twenty-six times. In the Common Version both words, while retained, are abreviated--the one into Baptist, the other into Baptism. Now, these terms have a scriptural acceptation, and ought to be used in that acceptation. But Baptist, or Baptistees, never indicates one that is baptized, but one that baptizes. Hence, in the scripture sense of the word, there is not a Baptist church in America. It must, then, be a profanation or an abuse of a scriptural word, to apply it to any person or community that does not fill up the measure or meaning of that word. I challenge the so- called Baptist Church to stand up to the defence of its name, or call upon them to abandon it. Why should a Christian people or a denomination take a liberty to use a scriptural word, or name, or title, in a new sense, and yet contend for scriptural authority? The tyrant custom, never can legitimate its claims to the throne of reason or of religion.
I pretend to no gift of prophesy, and yet predict that the name Baptist will not continue till the Lord comes, as the cognomen or title of a community, because a few individuals in it perform such an office. To call the city of Philadelphia an Alderman city, because there is a suite of aldermen in it, would not be a more glaring aberration from truth and propriety, than to call the Church of Christ in America a Baptist Church, because it has a few Baptists or immersers in it. To believe in immersion or baptism, and believe in aldermen, as a political institution, does not convert the believers into Baptists or aldermen.
You ask me, when I complained of the Baptists, did I not use the term Baptists as they do? I used the term because they chose to be called by that name, and because they were known and recognized
FRIENDLY NOTICE. 655
under that style and title, without recognizing its propriety. So I speak of the Pope, and so I speak of the prelates of England. But, in so speaking, I neither sanction the title, nor believe it to be either true or canonical. I trust, so soon as the Union Bible Society has completed the contemplated new version of the Living Oracles, and speak of John the forerunner, they will not call him John the Baptist, but John the Immerser, and then enter a solemn protest against being themselves any more called Baptists. They must, in all propriety, either call themselves Christians or Immersionists; and even the latter would be an impropriety, which time and the progress of the age will as certainly annul as it will the Pope and the Cardinals. But the courage and the Christian zeal of the denomination in the aggregate, is not yet, I fear, equal to such a triumph over tradition and the doctrines of men.
I am sorry that my leaving home for the Cincinnati Convention, prevents my finishing my remarks on your communication in the present number. In Christian affection, yours, A. C.
FRIENDLY NOTICE OF OUR ARTICLES ON THE
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
THE following communication, from a beloved and distinguished Physician and Christian gentleman--one of the choicest graduates of Bethany College--an anti-slavery man, too, we lay before the readers of the Harbinger in the absence of the Senior Editor, believing it will be as acceptable to the great majority of our brotherhood as it has been to us here.
S.- L.-, July 24, 1851.
Esteemed Friend and Brother: "The strong should bear with the infirmities of the weak." So says, in substance, the man whom you admire above all others; and will you bear with me while I presume to infringe upon your time I know you receive thousands of letters infinitely more interesting than any thing that I could write; yet, knowing you so well, I feel assured you will not throw it aside unread, though it may command no further attention.
I have read, with infinite delight, your unanswerable essays on the slavery question, and I feel profoundly grateful to you for them; and I feel assured that I express the sentiments of thousands. We live in troublesome times; in a country glorious and happy--blest, by our Divine Father, beyond all expression, but now threatened with the greatest of calamities; and what depth of gratitude and love is due to the Christian and Patriot who stands up to face the storm; to ward off the thunderbolts from this side and from that; who
656 FRIENDLY NOTICE.
speaks, openly and fearlessly, his sentiments upon the great politico- religious questions of the day; who stands up in defence of the two greatest blessings ever vouchsafed to mankind--Christianity as taught in the Bible, and Liberty as guaranteed by our Constitution? Sir, I have no words to express my admiration of your conduct. You are the advocate of the century for the Bible, freedom, and tolerance of opinion, and for sound and rational views of Biblical criticism and interpretation; and the world is more indebted to your efforts for the light on these subjects which they now enjoy, than to all others beside. What, sir, are the principles of the Reformation you have been pleading for thirty years? Let those who have emerged from darkness almost Egyptian, and have been immersed in the flood of light that has been, and is being poured upon the world, tell.
But I mean not the purely religious views; but those principles that free the mind from the shackles of human authority; that elevate the mind to its own proper dignity; that teach us to decide questions by reason and argument, and not by passion or predilection. Why, if there were no truth in the Bible, I would still be thankful for the ennobling principles which I have imbibed from this Reformation. These principles not only disinthrall the mind as regards matters of religious faith and practice, but also as regards the efforts of the human mind in every department of learning-- religious, political, or scientific. I look upon these principles and their undiscovered cognates (if there be any) as destined, by Providence, to revolutionize, free, and bless the world--as much so, and more, than the principles of civil and religious liberty we enjoy are destined to bless the whole race of man. I may be an enthusiast, and guilty of the same error I would condemn in another--too elevated conceptions of my own principles. I think not, however, else the devout, ardent, and untiring Christian, would be an enthusiast. Ardent devotion, the result of unwavering conviction, I need not tell you, is no blind enthusiasm.
I fear, my dear sir, that many who are in our ranks--many who have embraced the general views of this Reformation--have not imbibed its spirit. I fear they have brought with them their own contracted and selfish views, which profit no one, but are injurious to all--destitute of all harmony and love. They have come with passions and prejudices similar to those that filled the breast of the self-conceited and supercilious Jew, in the days of the apostles, who never did, and, as it appeared, never could appreciate the liberty which the gospel and the teachings of our Divine Redeemer inspire. They are but little removed from the Jew in point of reasoning ability; for both fail to understand and appreciate the spirit and teachings of the book of God. And what hope have we of their deliverance from this slavery to prejudice and "morbid sentimentality?" If the principles that you have advocated with such untiring ability and gratifying success, fail to inspire more humble views of their own importance, and more just conceptions of the rights and liberty of others, then, indeed, they are left without remedy. And what if they do fail? Alas! even for Christianity itself; alas! for all that is worth the possession in life--life, liberty and happiness! None are secure. The spirit is promotive of anarchy, ruin, desolation.
FRIENDLY NOTICE. 657
Is there not, then, my noble friend, an adjoining field of action for you, although wearied with the fatigue of past labors? Are there not duties growing out of the question discussed in those essays, of a temporal character, that require your tongue and pen? If any there be, I presume you see and know them. What, my dear sir, if this agitation is to continue, will be the end of our hopes? Is this glorious confederacy, that is to us the source and means of incalculable blessings, to be rent assunder by intestine feuds, bringing in its train the direst calamities to all? Is there to be no end to this meddlesome impudence on the part of some with the affairs of others, for which they are in nowise responsible? Will there be no rest for their grieved and troubled spirit until the Union is dissolved? Alas! and not then. That event will be but "the beginning of sorrow." Are reason and argument to lose all their influence on the mind of man, and prejudice and passion to be enthroned supreme?
You have showed conclusively that the relation of master and servant is not sinful. How, then, can communion with slave- holders be sinful? And you have also proved the recent act of Congress to be constitutional, and that all men ought to obey it, citing the highest example on record--the conduct of Paul towards Philemon, in a similar case. If these things be true, and they are true, why all this senseless agitation about abstractions, and that, too, by men calling themselves the followers of the Lord Jesus? Upon the Christian depends the hope of the world. If the Christian be no better than the vilest sinner (and sometimes they are worse) as regards this agitation, what may we not expect? How fearful the prospect, when the Christian becomes blinded by superstition or fanaticism! What will not the conscience then do! "If the light that is in you be darkness, how great must that darkness be!"
Shall we not hear from you, then, in an address to Christians, upon their duties in the premises; the duty they owe to God, to the world, and to themselves, to do all in their power, by the divine assistance, to allay this agitation--to draw more closely the bonds of love and union between the whole family, and to preserve inviolate the great blessing conferred on us by our Divine Father--the integrity of the United States? This is not merely a political duty, but, on account of the blessings we enjoy, a religious duty, binding upon every member of this great family, and especially those who acknowledge the authority of the great King.
Political duty! What is that when there is a "higher law?" Aye, and what is the throne of Jehovah, when there is a "higher law?" There was a "higher law" doctrine once promulged among the armies of heaven, and Satan led off the hosts. And who can tell what will be the end of "higher law" doctrines among men? Analyze them, and there will be found ambition, hatred, prejudice, passion, selfishness, presumption.
Nothing has preserved us from divisions but our principles. Let them be inculcated anew. Let them sink deep into every heart, inspire every soul, and awaken in us higher conceptions and more vivid realizations of our own responsibilities in the great matter before us--the preservation of the union of the United States--that
658 CO-OPERATION MEETING.
all the blessings we have enjoyed, and do yet enjoy, may be transmitted, unimpaired and untarnished, to the latest generations.
May God preserve you many years, that you may still farther glorify his name on the earth, and be the means of blessing untold millions of our race!
Your humble brother, in the kingdom and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, H. C.
CO-OPERATION MEETING IN OHIO.
Pursuant to public notice, the delegates from the several congregations of the Church of Christ composing the Wolf Creek Co-Operation, met in Convention at the East Branch Meeting-House, on Monday, the 25th of August, A. D. 1851.
The Convention was organized by the election of Bro. Wm. H. REEVES, of Deavertown, President, and Bro. GEO. S. WELSH Clerk. After which the President opened the exercises, calling upon the Heavenly Father to watch over and direct the deliberations of the Convention.
Brethren from twenty-once churches presented their credentials and took their seats as delegates.
The unfinished business of last year was then settled, and a committee, consisting of brethren Angush, Ward, A. Williams, Kirkland and Morgan, were appointed to report business for the Convention.
In the absence of the committee, subscriptions to the amount of $585 were made for the support of evangelists the ensuing year.
The business committee reported the following resolutions, which were discussed, amended and adopted:
Resolved, That this co-operation be divided into three districts, and that an evangelist be employed for each.
Resolved, That we conceive it to be the duty of the brethren of this cooperation to double their contributions for the aid of the good cause, that they may consistently pray the Lord of the harvest to send more laborers into his vineyard.
Resolved, That the congregations which have not yet practised weekly contributions, be earnestly requested to establish the Lord's treasury in their respective congregations.
Resolved, That the several congregations be requested to report at our next annual meeting, statistically as follows: Number received, and how; dismissed, and how; the deaths within the year; and the whole number, male and female; and also the general condition of the congregations as to order, house, Bible Class, Sunday School, library, &c.
Resolved, That we recommend our religious periodicals to the attention and patronage of our brethren.
Resolved, That our evangelists be requested to deliver a discourse on Christian liberality and co-operation, at their last meeting at the several congregations.
Resolved, That when this Convention adjourn, it adjourn to meet at Chauncey, in August next, and that Laurentius Weethee, A. J. Wilmoth, J. D. Davis and Wm. H. Reeves, be a committee to fix the day of meeting, and publish a notice thereof in the Millennial Harbinger and Proclamation and Reformer, of July, 1852.
Resolved, That minutes of this Convention be forwarded to the editors of the Harbinger and Proclamation, for publication.
Adjourned. Benediction by Bro. John Beird.
GEO. S. WELSH, Clerk. WM. H. REEVES, Pres't.
BETHANY COLLEGE. 659
BETHANY COLLEGE.
THIS yet infant institution is annually growing in public favor. The number entered in the College Proper is over a hundred, besides the Primary Department. These are, for the most part, young men, and of a superior character, as respects all the essentials of good students--orderly, studious, and ardently devoted to literature and science. Of the number in attendance over twenty-one years, we have a larger number than usual devoted to the ministry of the gospel. Indeed, we have a goodly number of good preachers amongst them, who are occasionally laboring with good success in the vicinities around us. Some fifty members have been recently added to the church in Wellsburg, principally through their labors, besides a few in other churches. Of these, some are already heads of families; and, according to my experience, nothing adds more to the good influence, both of students and young preacher's, than to have Christian wives to assist them, both in their studies and ministrations. I would, therefore, advise a considerable class of young men to take to themselves good wives--real helpmates; and instead of seeking honey-moons at home, to seek for honey- years at Bethany College, and prepare themselves for a life of happiness, usefulness and honor.
The friends of Bethany College are still increasing. Only one thing is yet wanting--an increased liberality in the donations--to enable it to diffuse far and wide the blessings of a literary, scientific, and moral education. Its Faculty have done, and are doing all they can for these purposes, with a due respect to themselves and their families. I crave their pardon when I say, without their consent, that my conviction is, that wore all our brotherhood, proportionably with their means, as liberal as they, we should soon have a host of learned and efficient men in the field; and that the cause of truth and life eternal, as well as that of literature, science and art, would be generally advanced. Be it remembered, that Bethany College is not yet in the receipt of an income of $500 a year, in the form of endowment, beyond the fees of tuition, and that certainly more than this sum is annually given away in aid of the education of indigent and worthy young men! A. C.
AN hour of solitude passed in sincere and earnest prayer, or the conflict with and conquest over a single passion or "subtle bosom sin," will teach us more of thought, will more effectually awaken the faculty, and form the habit of reflection, than a year's study in the school without them.-- Coleridge.
MORE than half the human race are found on less than one-third of the landed patrimony of man. Subtract Russian Asia from the Pagan territory of Asia, and we have on one-fifth of the habitable earth more than half the human race! And that, too, under the moral desolations of the grossest idolatry!
660 POETRY--RELIGIOUS TELESCOPE.
STORM AND CALM,
BY WILLIAM BAXTER.
Sailing o'er life's pathless ocean,
Not a star could I descry,
To direct my sea-tossed vessel--.
In the dark and stormy sky.
Fearful rose the angry billows,
Broke each mast and rent each sail;
At the mercy of the tempest,
On I swept before the gale.
Frowning rocks rose o'er the waters,
Dangers round me seemed to close,
But amid despair and darkness,
Lo! the morning star arose.
Guided by its gentle beamings,
Wafted on by breezes bland,
Soon I trust to moor my vessel,
Safely at the wished-for land.
Men are all but storm-tossed sailors,
God's blest Book the holy star,
That with bright and pure revealings
Lights their pathway from afar.
It will lead where storms of passion
And despair shall ever cease,
To that calm and blessed haven
Where God's smile diffuses peace.
RELIGIOUS TELESCOPE.
THIS Religious Telescope, of Circleville, Ohio, fell into my hands in September, while in Ohio. My attention was directed to the very interesting question, "What is a Campbellite?" It is answered by one Mr. Ambrose. He unfortunately put the large end of his Telescope to his eye, and that, too, so covered with the insects of prejudice, that he could see nothing but these on his thickly covered object glass--imagining that the creeping things on his glass were on the person of a "Campbellite," he was suddenly terrified at the spectre, and gave us one of the most frightful caricatures, taken from a painting in Pandemonium. He fitfully and frightfully concludes in these words, "Death in the pot." "Touch it not, O my soul."
There is no danger, Mr. Ambrose. The vermin are all on your Telescope. Send it to the optician; and meanwhile, anoint your eyes with the true eye-salve, that you may see. You are the blindest man, in your moral vision, I have met with in these last days. But you stumble and fall into so many fens and sloughs that no one, that knows us, can view you in any other light than a drunken man--drunken with the wine of Babylon. Were I your practising physician, you should be put under a vigorous treatment, in which the lancet, calomel, and good French flies, should be freely administered. Meantime, there are other patients that promise more useful lives, and we shall leave you to your own counsels. A. C.
Vol. I.] BETHANY, VA., DECEMBER, 1851. [No. XII.
THE TWO COMFORTERS, FIDO AND LOGOS: OR,
FAITH AND REASON.
[Continued from p. 382.]
Logos.--Your long absence from home, has deferred the conversation we last held for so long, that I fear the subject has almost passed from your mind. It has, however, been one of continued interest with me, and if you are disposed, we shall devote our present interview to a renewal of its consideration.
Fido.--With all cheerfulness. So far from forgetting either our last meeting or the subject of our conversation, I have often reverted to both with friendly interest, and desired an opportunity again to commune with you on similar themes.
Logos.--You remember, you requested me to reflect upon the general conclusion, which you then drew, that "no system of philosophy has proved adequate to the wants and desires of our nature, which does not include some hope of future being or bliss," and it has afforded some respite to the heavy deadness of my desolate life, to dip anew into the great masters of antiquity, whom I studied and admired so much in my more youthful years. Still, while I have found in this occupation of my mind some relief from my oppressive emptiness of faith and hope, it has not come from any new prospects opened up to me by philosophy, but rather from the associations of former, happier days, which a review of my early studies has revived. I have seemed to myself, for the moment, transported back to the days of Elysian dreams; and the hopes which then blossomed in beauty, have shed again their fragrance around me. To be thus
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 56
662 FAITH AND REASON.
deluded, is to be once more happy; but ah! how short the passing shadow. It but throws its dappling beauty over an insensate and cheerless ruin, and flits on to become itself as nothing!
Fido.--The indulgence of a morbid melancholy is as unfavorable for the discovery of truth, as it is poisonous to the fountains of enjoyment. As the memory of happier years clothes with its own charms the dreary wastes of the present, making them all aglow with a warmth and a glory not their own, so melancholy will throw its darkening shadows over the beautiful and the bright, and cheat us of the joys that invite us to happiness and peace. Let us shake off this "Idol of the den," as Lord Bacon would call it, and in the day-light of a purified vision, the lumen siccum et purum, apply ourself to the question before us. What report bring you from your readings upon the proposition which I submitted for your reflection?
Logos.--It is scarcely meet that I should be thus chided by you, for an indulgence which you know is not affected; but it is meant in kindness, and we will let it pass. That many of the ancient philosophers did indulge a vague hope of immortality, I have not at any time overlooked; but the accounts we have of the earliest dawnings of philosophy, show that the sages, whose names are not worthy of note, framed their maxims with a reference, almost exclusively, to the political and social relations of men in this life. The chief excellency of their systems, was in the wise direction which they gave to the laws and policy of States, and the regulation of the habits and pursuits of individuals. In looking over the maxims of the seven wise men of Greece, you shall find not one concerning any future life. 'Phil- were, without an exception, either moral or simply prudential; commending prudence, or virtue, or patriotism.
Fido---This is true. But you will allow me to remind you, that with these philosophers, and at this early period of the Grecian history- philosophy had not been reduced to any complete system, and in the wise sayings of these seven wise men, one cannot expect to find all that they cherished or believed. Thales, who was one among the chief of them, may, indeed, be regarded as the founder of the Ionic school and its various branches; but we have its creed but very imperfectly developed in any remains that have come down to us from him.
Logos.--It is not to be denied, that the sayings of these wise men do not present any complete philosophic system; but should we not expect to find in them some allusion to a doctrine, which you think was the chief excellency of every system?
Fido.--I think not. In those maxims we have presented rather
FAITH AND REASON. 663
what was peculiar to each of these sages, than what was common to the whole people. Chion, among a people who had totally neglected to study themselves, might well become distinguished for the maxim, "know thy self," whilst a precept concerning the hope of immortality, which was a part of the popular doctrine, would be nothing more than the iteration of what was already sufficiently conspicuous in the religion of the day.
Logos.--Why, then, does Plato make this doctrine so prominent in his Phaedo Scarcely any of his profound and eloquent writings has contributed so much to his fame, as his discourse on the immortality of the soul; yet you say that a maxim on this subject, by one of the seven sages of Greece, would not have been noted as worthy of being associated with his name
Fido.--In interpreting the philosophy of any period we must, as far as possible, realize the circumstances by which the chief writers or speakers were surrounded. During the age of the seven wise men of Greece, philosophy, in the true sense of the term, had not commenced. Its elements were treasured up in traditions and maxims, and these were received rather implicitly, and from a superstitious veneration in the people, than from the apprehension of any philosophic ground upon which they rested. The discovery of such a ground was the work of a later day, and the effort to unfold and establish it, the first labor of true philosophy. While the popular belief rested upon the purely empirical ground, and the doctrine of immortally was received without question, as an inheritance from tradition, there would be no occasion for such a work as the Phaedo of Plato. But when the advocates of this doctrine were no longer content to let it rest upon the simple sanction of tradition, and an attempt was made to develop it by reason, then it was natural that it should receive a prominence in the philosophical discussions of the day commensurate with the interest which attached to it.
Logos.--I see the distinction, and admit it to be just. A doctrine which is dogmatically propounded, is frequently received without question, when an attempt to establish it by reasoning, only tends to its subversion. In the first case, it excites no discussion; in the second, its claims to our credence are all canvassed; and hence arises controversy, for human reasonings never can harmonize until the world is more enlightened than it now is or ever has been.
Fido.--And why not add, Than it ever will be?
Logos.--I like not to think so. The general progress of our age promises clearer light on philosophical subjects, and the time may
664 FAITH AND REASON.
come when the human mind will culminate in philosophical unity, for truth is essentially one and eternal.
Fido.--Not till God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit are universally acknowledged; not till the Son hath subdued all things unto himself, and this will not be till time is no more. But let us not wander from our subject. I shall be gratified to hear from you a succinct review of the belief of ancient nations respecting this doctrine of immortality. It is growing quite fashionable now-a-days with a certain clique of would-be-philosophers, to berate it as a superstition of modern times, and I shall be pleased to have you show the light of your better learning.
Logos.--I have no sympathy with ignorance, and have often been disgusted by the frisky pretensions of the class to whom you allude. I give them no countenance, I assure you.
Fido.--Yet they hail you as a brother sceptic, and, therefore, I ask you to speak out upon this important point, and say whether antiquity presents us with any people or nation who did not hold, either traditionally or philosophically, the doctrine of the soul's immortality?
Logos --We are prolonging our walk too far. If you please, we will sit down beneath this branching elm, and while we inhale the fresh breath of autumn, I will attempt, as my memory may serve me, to comply with your request. This grove may well remind us of the Academicians.
Fido.--And our sitting posture will suggest, by contrast, the school of the Peripatetics.
Logos.--The popular creeds--(for it is not proper, as you justly remark, to apply the term philosophy to the empirical notions of a people)--the popular creeds of the ancient nations may be considered in three aspects--first, as it respected their superstitions; second, as it respected their moral and political maxims; and third, as it respected their sectarian differences. So far as the point before us is concerned, I have ever regarded it as belonging to the superstitious class of doctrines, and have, accordingly, assigned to it nothing more than an historical interest.
Fido.--I prefer, in analysing the creed of any people, a different principle of classification. My objection to yours is, that you employ terms of prejudice, to which, by a foregone conclusion, you reduce a general doctrine, whether true or false, and thus characterize it, not by its own merits, but by the odium of the class by which you name it. Thus, by calling every thing which is religious, superstitious, you stigmatize religion by the prejudices which the popular
FAITH AND REASON. 665
mind attaches to the term superstition. If we would classify the doctrine of any people, we should adopt terms which indicate the general subject, but which express no judgment as to the merit--the truth or falsehood of the doctrine itself. Thus we shall treat the ancients more fairly, if we reduce their creeds to the general subjects to which they extended--as to physics, metaphysics, dialectics, politics, ethics, and religion. You will pardon me for this interruption, but I never converse with sceptics that I am not constrained to observe the secret biases by which they are prevented from a fair and honest consideration of the subject of religion. Will you proceed?
Logos.--Well, since you object, I will not call the doctrine of immortality a superstition, but shall proceed to a consideration of the ancient creeds on this subject. The oldest written history we have is of the Jews, or, rather, the ancient Hebrews; but as that professes, and you believe it to be inspired, I shall pass it over, and speak of other people. The Greeks called those nations who did not speak the Greek language Barbarians, and we shall take up these first in order. Without pretending to decide the question whether the Chaldeans or the Egyptians were the more ancient people, we shall consider the Chaldean creed on this subject first. It is unquestionably clear from Diodorus, and from fragments gathered from various sources by Eusebius, that these ancient people believed in a supreme divinity, in spirits or demons of a subordinate order, and in deified men or heroes, whose souls, after death, passed into higher and more glorious spheres of enjoyment.
Fido.--If we do not concede that such was their belief, how is it possible rationally to account for the origin and prevalence of their entire system of worship?
Logos.--The Egyptians, I find, held various opinions on this subject; so different as to be entitled to no higher regard than the visions of a speculative priesthood.
Fido.--But did not all these opinions concur in the admission of the soul's immortality?
Logos.--They did. According to some historians, they held that the soul survived the body, and after death passed into other bodies; others say, They rejoiced in death, as affording to the virtuous but a transit to the world of the stet; and with this seems to concur the prayer which Porphyry tells us was offered up at their funerals, in the name of the dead. But I do not remember the precise words.
Fido.--It ran thus, "Thou sun, who rulest all things, and ye other
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 56*
666 FAITH AND REASON.
powers, dispensers of life to man, receive me, and grant me an abode among the immortal gods."
Logos.--The ancient Persians blended their doctrine on this subject with the philosophy of creation, and deduced immortality from the theory of emenations. According to Zoroaster, all spiritual beings, whether gods or demons, are but emenations from the Supreme Divinity, and differing in rank or perfection according as they are nearer or farther from the great source and fountain of all being and intelligence. The human soul, being thus a particle of divine light, will return to its source and enjoy its immortality. But they believed the same concerning matter.
Fido.--This doctrine of emenation, called in modern philosophy Spinozism, has been the fruitful source of many wild and hurtful fancies; but it is to the question of fact that we are now looking, and not to theories invented for its explanation. What of the Indians?
Logos.--The Indians gave this doctrine great prominence in their creed. They regarded the soul as of celestial origin, returning to God after _death, and participating in his immortality. So strong was their faith in this notion, that a sect among them called Brach- mans, would sometimes, in the midst of health and in the prime of life, without any apparent external cause, suddenly resolve on quitting the world; and without any fear on their own part, or regret from their friends, throw themselves into a fire prepared for the purpose, and perish.
Fido.--You remind me of the story of the Brachman, Calanus, who reproved Alexander and his messengers for their fine raiment, upbraiding them with effeminacy. It is said that when he felt the infirmities of age growing upon him, he voluntarily mounted the funeral pile, exclaiming, "Happy hour of departure from life, in which, as it happened to Hercules, after the mortal body is burned, the soul shall go forth into light."
Logos.--I charge not my memory with such humiliating extravagances of superstition. Of the faith of the Arabians on this subject, I do not remember that we have any very reliable knowledge. If we have, it has escaped my notice.
Fido.--I think we have none. The most that has been said amounts to little more than inference or conjecture. The probability, however, is, that they entertained the views of the Chaldeans or Persians.
Logos.--We are left in equal darkness as respects the Phoenicians.
FAITH AND REASON. 667
Fido.--Yes. The writings attributed to Sanconiathon must be regarded with some suspicion; and at most, relate only to the subject of cosmogony. It appears certain, however, that they had a priesthood, and worshiped higher powers, which presupposes a belief in a spiritual world, upon which man was in some way dependent. In their later history, we find abundant proofs of the prevalence of this doctrine.
Logos.--We pass next to the Ethiopians. Laertius tells us that their morality consisted in worshiping the gods, exercising fortitude, doing no evil, and despising death. They resembled the Egyptians so much in their religious ceremonies and tenets, that little doubt seems to be entertained that they were originally colonized from that country. We may, therefore, safely infer that they entertained the same doctrine with respect to the immortality of the soul. As to the ancient Celts, under which common designation we may include those numerous nations in Europe known as Scythians, Pannonians, Germans, Britains, Gauls, Spaniards, &c.; although at the time of the Roman invasions, they appeared to have very little or no written language, yet there were found the most ample evidences of the doctrine of immortality, not only in the popular belief at that day, but in the ancient ballads and war songs, which were prevalent among them. Pomponius Mela relates that this doctrine was promulged among the common people, to excite in them courage in battle; and, certainly, no nation has displayed a more hardy and fearless spirit than they.
Fido.--Does not Valerius Maximus say that the Thracians had a custom of celebrating the birth of a man with tears, and his death with joy, because the end of life is better than the beginning?
Logos.--Yes, he does make some such statement, and the reason assigned is, that the souls of the virtuous dead pass immediately into the regions of the gods. To those who die valiantly in war, the palace of Odin is immediately opened, and they are welcomed to an unrestrained participation of the enjoyments of his Valhalla, (hall,) and indulged in the fullest gratification of every taste which they had formed on earth. The ancient Tuscans, or Etrurians, were, most probably, of Celtic origin, and must have cherished their views of this doctrine. As to the old Romans, the introduction of religious rites among them is universally ascribed to Numa; but whether he borrowed or invented his system, is not so determinate. That they held the doctrine of the soul's immortality may be conceded as altogether probable.
Fido--I think you have now glanced at nearly all the Barbaric
668 THE LAW OF LIBERTY.
nations of these early times, known to have had even empirical systems of faith, and the conclusion is one. The ancient Scythians, including the Thracians and Getae, remain alone to be mentioned.
Logos.--With respect to these, there is no obscurity. Their most celebrated name is Zamolxis, who is said, at a very remote period, to have taught them the doctrine of immortality. They believed him to have been enrolled, after his death, among the gods, and cherished the hope that they, too, would join him, and dwell with him in the invisible world.
Fido.--I must thank you, my respected friend, for the very satisfactory report which you have furnished us on this important subject. Allow me to call your attention to the evidence which this report furnishes of the fact, that this doctrine, so universal among these barbarous and unspeculative nations, was not entertained as a theory, invented by the human reason, but as a tradition, handed down from sire to son, and primordially, heaven descended. E caelo descendit. As the rays of you setting sun to the earth, so this doctrine to human life. It has been the light and warmth of the human heart, when all else has proved dark and chilling; and whether we regard it as a doctrine of tradition, or claim for it a parentage and a birth place in the human mind, it is equally celestial and divine, for
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had else where its setting,
And cometh from afar
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home."
Logos.--Beautiful dream of the poet! But we must defer our conversation for the present. We will meet again soon. W. K. P.
THE LAW OF LIBERTY.
"So speak ye and so do ye, as they that shalt be judged by the law of liberty." James ii. 12.
NOTHING is sweeter to the human mind than freedom. It has become, in modern times, the watchword of nations, and in its name the banner is unfurled, and the brazen-mouthed trump of war shakes the dull silence of the earth. Armies meet, and over the clash of arms and amid the groans of the mangled dying, her covenants are
THE LAW OF LIBERTY. 669
sealed--sealed with blood of men. Alas for such freedom! Yet who shall say that it is not worth its price, or murmur that the eagle-bird should be a bird of prey? Political freedom is not our theme; it presents us not with a "perfect law of liberty"--the liberty of the gospel. Yet I love political freedom; and I thank God for our free and fruitful institutions, as I do for my daily bread. May He long continue them unto us, and spread them, like the rain-cloud, over the sterile wastes of oppression, till all the nations of the earth shall be free to worship Him, each man under his own vine and fig tree, with no one to make him afraid!
The Jewish dispensation was not Christianity, nor did it comprehend the freedom of the gospel; yet it symbolized all divine truth, and pointed, as with an index, to the deliverance which was through Christ. I do not mean, by the finger of prophecy, for the prophecies which related to this deliverance were not actualized till He, the deliverer, hid burst the bars of that spiritual thraldom which held imprisoned the heart, the life, the soul of man. But the mighty deliverances of the Jewish people from under the yoke and the strong arm of their oppressors, not only demonstrated that God, who made man free by planting in him, in his deathless and tameless will, the likeness of himself, was an enemy to human oppression; and looked, with vengeful displeasure upon the tyrants of earth, but, more and symbolically, that he would one day subdue and overthrow the great spiritual head and instigator of all slavery, and upon the ruins of his dark and dreary dominions, plant the banners of a freedom from whose folds should glance light and joy to the captive. Thus God, who does not and will not oppress man himself, wills not that he should be oppressed by his neighbor; and in the freedom which he vindicated in the rights of the Jews against their oppressors, he but gave presage of that freedom which, in the person of his Son, he would achieve for man against the captivity of sin, death, and the grave. Thus Isaiah sung, rapt in prophetic fire, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called Trees of Righteousness, The Planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.*
*Is. lxi. 1-3.
670 THE LAW OF LIBERTY.
Seven hundred years after this memorable prediction and promise, we see Jesus standing up in the Synagogue of Nazareth, reading this passage out of the book of Isaiah, and making this, to the Jews, startling and offensive comment, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears."* But the people were filled with wrath, and thrusting him out of the city, led him to a precipice, that they might cast him down headlong; but he passed through their midst and went his way--went on towards the accomplishment of his great work, the deliverance of man. But did the world then, does it now, acknowledge that it is in bondage? Does it realize the need of a deliverance? Nay, verily. When, like Christ, and in his name, we preach to our enslaved fellows, saying, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free;" will they not answer now, even as did the Jews then, "We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, ye shall be made free?"† Nevertheless, it is mournfully, awfully, eternally true, that "whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin;" and that the world is lying in wickedness, under the dominion of the evil one, the willing slaves of sin, the parasites of corruption, and all their lifetime, through the fear of death, subject to bondage. The primal curse seems to rest upon the earth and its inhabitants, with accumulated weight, in the double damnation of perverse willfulness and gross sensual blindness. "In the flesh there dwelleth no good thing," but "a law, warring against the law of the mind, and bringing the man into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members." So that even "when he would do good, evil is present with him," leading him into sin. O, that the world could be awakened to this awful condition, and feel their wretchedness and impotency, till with Paul they should cry out, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?"‡
Is there any deliverance? "We thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord," there is. If man were not willfully a slave, he might now be spiritually free. If 'man were not willfully a slave, the human reason could not justify the penalties of sin. If man were not willfully a slave, it were cruel and a mockery to awaken him to a sense of his bondage. If man were not willingly a slave, the tortures of hell might embitter him with regret, but they could not rack him with remorse. He would turn himself upon the fire that is not quenched, but the wail which he would send up would be a plaintive wail, crying ever, "I could not help it;" so plaintive, that methinks
*Luke iv. 21.
†John viii. 31-33.
‡Rom. vii. 18-25.
THE LAW OF LIBERTY. 671
the worm, which dieth not, would cease its gnawings under the sickening echo, and turn in sympathy from the helpless victim of a fatal and unavoidable calamity. There is a deliverance freely provided, freely proffered, and this is now the condemnation, that men will not accept the deliverance. They voluntarily remain in the prison, after the doors have been thrown open, and despise the proclamation which declares them free. And now, if they go down into deeper, darker death, their cry must be a cry of remorse--of bitter, biting, binding self-accusation: "I knew my privilege, but I despised it. All the day long did mercy cry unto me, but I heeded not, and now, justly--justly--justly is my house left unto me desolate." O! shall we not tear away the veil from before the eyes of the sin-blinded, and awake them to a view of the deep degradation of their bondage, that they may look tip to a deliverance which has been achieved for them, and elect themselves tree; that they may pass from "the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God?"*
What is this liberty? Is it license? If we would solve this question scripturally, we must look at it through the eyes of Paul. With him, liberty and bondage are antithetical. When he speaks of bondage, it is either the bondage of the Lou', or the bondage of sin. These are different, for the law is not sin, but is holy, just and good.† The bondage of the law consisted in its requiring ill those who were under it a perfect obedience, from the feeling of fear;--a constrained obedience, with or without the hearty concurrence of the subject, and under the penalties of a rigid, and an exacting letter. Its precepts were imperious simply: Thou shalt, and thou shalt not. Though they were all just, and exacted only what was good. yet they required more than mail could do, and provided no remedy for the default; so that though "the commandment was ordained for life, it was found to be death, since sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived and slew. Even the best endeavors proved abortive, through the weakness of the flesh. Therefore, no flesh could be justified in the sight of God, by the deeds of the law, which was given, not to provide a deliverance from sin, but rather to give the knowledge of sin, by prescribing a code which, though perfect in itself, required what no mail could perform, thus drawing out and making manifest the sinfulness of our nature, by proving its impotency perfectly to conform to the rules or righteousness and truth. The tendency of such a system was to infuse into the minds of its subjects a feeling, of apprehension--of fear, which is the essence of
*Rom. viii. 21.
†Rom: Vii. 7 and 12.
672 THE LAW OF LIBERTY.
slavery; and it is in this sense that the great Apostle to the Gentiles says, "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage, again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."* Now, in full antithesis to this bondage of the law, does the apostle present the freedom of adoption; for the servile spirit of fear, he presents us with the filial confidence of children; and for the constrained obedience of the imperious letter, he substitutes the willing and approving submission of a heart reconciled through love to the law of the gospel, which is the law of liberty and of life. The law of THE LAW, then, is a law of constraint; the law of the gospel is a law of freedom; the spirit of the law is a spirit of fear; the spirit of the gospel is a spirit of love. The one threatens, the other persuades; the one is clothed with terror, the other with hope; the one lays bare our sins with an unfeeling hand, and offers us no remedy; the other weeps over the faults we cannot help, and offers us a righteousness not our own.
The bondage of sin is different from the bondage of the law; yet the gospel delivers us from both at once, because it is the bondage of sin which gives terror to the law. If man were not sold under sin, then might he feel no fear under the commandments of the law, for it is the working of sin in his members, which leads to the violation of the law. Sin has, indeed, been defined to be the transgression of law, and this it unquestionably is, when considered in its outward manifestation; that is to say--objectively; but this is not the sense in which the apostle uses it in his profound reasonings in the Epistle to the Romans. He goes behind the manifestation, and considers the principle itself; that is to say--sin subjectively. He passes beyond the act, to its cause, and shows that there is a principle in us which he sometimes calls "sin," and sometimes the "law in our members," to which all wicked actions are to be referred, and which is the cause, in us, of transgression. Now, the responsible cause of any action in man, is his will; and if there be in man a cause of sin, (and this there must be, or he cannot be held guilty,) then this cause must be a corrupt will. But ,since will is essentially free, it can only become corrupt by its own act; it is the cause to itself of its own corruption. Therefore, a sinful will is responsible for its own sinfulness, and we cannot plead the proclivities of our nature as an excuse for our transgressions. These proclivities in man to sin, did not originate in God, but in man himself, by his own election; and upon man are justly chargeable all the consequences. He has, therefore, voluntarily placed himself under the power and
*Rom. viii. 15.
THE LAW OF LIBERTY. 673
bondage of the devil, by corrupting the fountain and main-spring of his being; and in this condition the gospel finds him; in this condition the law, also, found him. The law condemned every manifestation and movement of the corrupt will, and that without the "benefit of clergy;" it punished all, and pardoned nothing: if a man kept the whole law, and offended but in one point, he was guilty of the whole. So that under it, man's case was hopeless. Still it forced obedience, and compelled man to feel his absolute dependence upon God. It was, indeed, a stern and severe pedagogue--a schoolmaster, to prepare the world for the reception of Christ; to make man, as it were, sick of his follies; hateful of his own rebellion; loathful of his self-assumed corruption, and ready to cry out, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?"
If I am understood by the thoughtful reader--and it is only such that I presume to interest on this subject --it will be perceived, that the bondage of sin is the voluntary submission of one's self to the reign of the corrupt element of his will, under the movings and temptings of the father of lies, to the exclusion Of the authority of God, yet under the penalties of his law. And what more galling bondage than this can the reason of man conceive? Working against our own happiness--working against a righteous law-- working against absolute power, and blind to the offers of absolute love! Now, it is from this wretched and hopeless condition that the gospel delivers us.
It would be foreign to our purpose to inquire how it settles the matter with God, in satisfying and harmonizing every divine attribute. This it unquestionably and fully does. Its influence upon us, in delivering us from this bondage of sin, is all that we propose now to consider. It shows us the hatefulness and guilt of sin, in that priceless offering for sin, by which God condemned sin in the flesh; it shows us the love of God towards us, in providing, even while we were yet enemies, that divine offering, even his own Son, "that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but obtain eternal life"--a sin-offering which takes away all Our guilt; it comes to us declaring, that although by works of law no flesh shall be justified in the sight of God, yet that there is a justification which is of God, through faith, and which is conferred freely by his favor, through the redemption which is by Christ Jesus;* it brings God to us in Christ, beseeching us to be reconciled to him, not counting to us
*Rom. iii. 21-24.
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674 THE LAW OF LIBERTY.
our own trespasses;* it realizes to us the fact of a resurrection and future judgment, the joys of heaven and the terrors of hell, and thus moves upon the not all-extinguished spark of divinity that is within us, if we do not willfully and wickedly shut our hearts against the gentle breathings of its divine afflatus, till the darkened understanding is enlightened--the alienated heart reconciled--the convincing reason enlisted--the rebellious and corrupted will subdued and renovated, and the man becomes "in Christ a new creature; old things have passed away, behold all things have become new; and all these things of God, who has reconciled him to himself through Jesus Christ."† Thus we pass from the bondage of sin into the liberty of the gospel.
But is this liberty, license? "God forbid." We pass from under the bondage of sin by a symbolic death to its influence. "Know ye not that so many of us as have been baptized into Jesus Christ, have been baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him, by baptism, into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."‡ And here, again, we may recur to our text: "So speak ye and so do ye, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." But some one will ask, how can there be liberty w here there is law? To which we answer: That government is free which is of the people's own choice, and that law by which they voluntarily and approvingly elect to be guided, is a law of liberty. When, therefore, the mind of man culminates in faith--in other words, when the practical reason, or conscience and will of a man are perfectly harmonized with the divine law, then the law of God becomes, through the assimilating power of love, his own delightful choice--the obedience which he renders, his highest and most grateful service; and the liberty which he feels, the freedom of an enlightened conscience, a renovated will, and a reconciled heart. W. K. P.
NEVER BREAK YOUR WORD.--There is no necessity for breaking your word. In the first place, never promise any thing unless you know it to be in your power to fulfil; and in the second place, make up your mind before you promise, that whatever you promise you will fulfil. By so doing, you will gain and enjoy the confidence of those around you. When such a character is established, it will be of more value than ermine, gold, or diadems.
*2 Cor. v. 19.
†2 Cor. v. 17-18.
‡Rom. vi. 3-4.
BAPTISMAL REGENERATION. 675
VINDICATION AGAINST THE CHARGE OF BAPTISMAL
REGENERATION.
THE following very interesting letter has been forwarded to us by Bro. Church, and is a part of a correspondence which has been held by him with Dr. Fairchild, with respect to our views on the subject of baptism. It will he received with interest by our readers. W. K. P.
PITTSEURGH, September 26, 1851.
A. S. FAIRCHILD, D. D.--Dear Sir: Your esteemed letter of the 22d inst., is to hand this morning. Pardon me for adding another letter to our correspondence. I' is probably due to all parties.
While writing my last letter to you, I felt that I exposed myself to a remark contained in your letter now before me, namely: "I can believe you in a case where you are deeply interested, and where you are not even bound by the obligations of an oath." Sometime when you visit our city, if you will do me the favor to call on me, I will take pleasure, if agreeable to you, to corroborate my statements. it would afford my family, as well as myself, great pleasure, if you would, without ceremony, make our house your home, when you next visit our place.
I gratefully appreciate your kindness, in saying that you will do me the justice to correct any impressions which you may have made unfavorable to my character.
I am unfortunate in not understanding the views of your church on the subject of justification. You say: "I have never heard of any body of Christians in this country, holding justification by faith alone; i. e., by a faith unproductive of good fruit; but, most evangelical divines believe that a true faith, and not baptism, is the turning point between condemnation and justification."
The doctrine of justification by faith alone, expressed in these very words, is the current sentiment of the day with all the so-called orthodox religious parties. It is held up as the most prominent feature of the Protestant Reformation; and I well remember, that it was adopted at the World's Convention, as a leading test of soundness in the faith. I object to it simply because the Apostle James condemns it.
I think, however, my dear sir, that you misunderstand Mr. Campbell on this subject. He is as far as any man can be from holding to baptismal justification. He holds that three things--namely, faith, repentance and baptism--are necessary, in the case of accoun-
676 BAPTISMAL REGENERATION.
table persons, in order to justification. With him, faith is the root of every thing else. No faith, no repentance; no repentance, no baptism; no baptism, no justification. Faith, repentance, baptism, justification. According to his view, no person ought to be baptized, unless on a profession of their faith in Christ. He requires all that Presbyterianism requires, and repentance and baptism, at least baptism, besides. His system, therefore, includes yours. It is more comprehensive. If you are right, he cannot be wrong. If a person is justified when they believe, it certainly cannot hurt them to add repentance and baptism to their faith. How exceedingly unfair, then, to charge him with holding the doctrine of baptismal regeneration; or, as the phrase is generally understood, that a person is justified by merely submitting to be immersed. Let me say emphatically, and pledge myself that he shall endorse the saying, that he holds no such silly, absurd, ruinous notion. He never wrote such a thing; he never preached it; he never said it; he never thought it. He has more sense, more conscience, more religion. The most careless thing he ever wrote, if placed on the rack, cannot be tortured to utter such an absurdity. I have read his writings with attention and candor. I have heard him preach repeatedly; have spent hour after hour in his company. I claim, therefore, to understand him on this subject, and do now, once for all, calmly, deliberately, distinctly and emphatically deity the charge. He has, I admit, written some things--such as those quoted in your letter-- which, when taken out of their connection, are calculated to subject him to the imputation of holding this error, with those who are either incapable or indisposed to do him justice; or who have not had it in their power, or thought it worth their while, carefully to digest all that he may have written in the same connection on this topic. The best of men are, more or less, governed by their prepossessions. I claim no exemption; I award none. It is a weakness incident to our fallen state. You will, therefore, pardon me for saying, that you do Mr. Campbell injustice, by concluding, from such expressions as those quoted in your letter, that he holds the error in question. I am persuaded, from your gentlemanly and Christian course towards myself, that it is not in your heart to do any one injustice; but still you may, and, in the present instance, you have done it, without, as I believe, intending it. If you do not possess the work from which these expressions are quoted, I will regard it as a favor, if you will permit me to send it to you; and all that I ask for Mr. Campbell is, that you read the entire connection, and try to look at the subject from the angle occupied by the writer
BAPTISMAL REGENERATION. 677
in noting down his views. I can, and may as well add, I do adopt each of the obnoxious expressions, and that, too, without, in the least, compromising my utter abhorrence of the detestable doctrine of baptismal justification. You quote him as saying, "Sins are pardoned in the very act of baptism." I say so, too. John preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. See Mark i. 4, Luke iii. 3, Peter commanded the inquirers on the day of Pentecost, "Repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins." See Acts ii. 38. Baptism is the consummating act of a penitent believer's union to Christ; hence, says Paul, As many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. See Gal. iii. 27. Baptism is that ordinance, and the only one in the New Testament, by which a sinner is brought into contact or connection with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. See Rom. vi. 3, 4; Col. ii. 12. These are some of the scriptures on which Mr. Campbell relies to sustain his views; and surely, when we attentively consider the force of such expressions as these passages contain, we are not surprised to find Mr. Campbell saying that "Sins are pardoned in the very act of baptism;" or further, that "baptism is a transition nut of a sinful and condemned state, into a spiritual and holy state;" or, still further, that it is "an introduction into the mystic body of Christ, by which he necessarily obtains the remission of sins."
If it be really so, as the apostle writes Rom. vi. 3, that we are baptized into Christ, how can you object to Mr. Campbell for saying that "Baptism is an introduction into the mystical body of Christ!" What does the apostle mean by the expression, Baptized into Christ? Is it less than that we are united to his church? It cannot be less. It may be more. Well, this is all that Mr. Campbell says. But Mr. Campbell adds, "by which he necessarily obtains the remission of his sins." Does this not follow as a necessary consequence of our union to Christ? I have always understood that the church was the Kingdom of Christ. That in the world men were in a state of rebellion to Christ, but in the church they were in a state of reconciliation, and that this reconciliation was the result of pardon. See 2 Cor. v. 18-21, inclusive. I cannot, for my part, conceive of an unpardoned church; neither can I conceive of a person united to Christ in his sins. An introduction, scripturally, into the mystical body of Christ, can never take place without pardon. The very moment a person becomes united to Christ, he becomes, in and by the very act which unites him, separated from sin in all its phases. No person is admitted to membership in the Presbyterian church
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 57*
678 BAPTISMAL REGENERATION.
without baptism; and according to your standard, baptism is a sign and seal, not only of membership, but likewise of pardon. They are, therefore, when admitted, or before they are admitted, pardoned.
Again: if we are at liberty to think that the Apostle Peter meant exactly what he said, when he commanded the people to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins, we cannot, for a moment, doubt that these two things are indispensable to pardon; and as baptism is the last attended to of the two, it must follow, that until, baptism is complied with, pardon is withheld. Moreover, if it be true, as Paul teaches (Rom. vi. 3, 4) That we are baptized into the death of Christ; buried with him in baptism; risen again with him in baptism; thus united in baptism to him in his death, burial, and resurrection; if these things are to be believed, then it seems to me that all difficulty on this subject vanishes. Where would a poor penitent sinner go for pardon, but to Christ--to his death--to his blood? And how could he become so intimately united to Christ as by being baptized into him? I like these phrases, into Christ-- into his death. There's marrow in them. My soul luxuriates upon them. It is because my Bible teaches me that baptism engrafts me so thoroughly into Christ, that I adopt the expressions of Mr. Campbell, to which you object. Faith in Christ does well to start with, but baptism into him does better to finish with. I cannot dispense with either.
But, after all, do not you make more of baptism than even Mr. Campbell? You are reluctant to admit this, but, nevertheless, it may be true. With Mr. Campbell it merits nothing--procures nothing--seals nothing. It is simply an ordinance in which God dispenses pardon, and the believer receives it. Baptism, with you, is a "sign and seal." Is it ever so made in the Bible? If not, then why do you so name it? Is it a sign, as circumcision was a sign? No. Circumcision was a fleshly and visible mark, but baptism leaves no mark. Is it a seal? Then the Christian religion has two seals--rather suspicious. Now, in the only place in the Bible where the words occur in connection, (namely, Rom. iv. 11,) it is said of Abraham, He received the sign of circumcision, (not baptism) a seal of the righteousness of that faith which he had, being yet uncircumcised. This "sign" was a visible mark in his flesh, and God's seal upon his person to give him further assurance that he was a justified person. Does baptism resemble this!" Or did the sign of circumcision ever seal to one of Abraham's descendants, receiving it at the tender age of eight days, a similar blessing--i.e., a righteousness by faith In the nature of things it was totally impossible. Permit
BAPTISMAL REGENERATION. 679
me to say, I am surprised that men possessing both the intelligence and conscience which it affords me pleasure to award to a very large proportion of my Pedobaptist brethren, should never have seen the weakness of this point.
I have said, however, that you make more of baptism than Mr. Campbell. Now for the proof. You baptize infants. What for To secure their salvation? This is the current sentiment with the masses of the people, and, indeed, it is the only reasonable solution of the practice. Mr. Campbell admits that they can be saved without it, and hence refuses to baptize them. Now, who thinks the most of it? But you do not admit that it is done to secure their salvation. Well, you make no distinction when you call it a sign and seal of certain blessings. Suppose, then, we were to adopt the language of the apostle, in the 4th and 11th of Romans, and apply it to an infant, substituting baptism for circumcision: "He (the infant) received the sign of baptism, a seal of the righteousness of that faith which he had, being yet unbaptized." Would not every one ask what faith had the child? When was any righteousness imputed to it? Where is the sign? Where the seal? You see that would not do. Admitting, however, baptism to be a sign and seal, (which deny,) you bestow the sign in the absence of the thing signified, and seal blessings which are not possessed. Is this right? If the infant, at the time you baptize it, is in the possession of an "engrafting into Christ, regeneration, remission of sins, giving up unto Christ," etc., how do you know it? If you do not know it, why do you affirm it by sealing it? If it be so, then we are presented with the most wonderful anomaly in the universe--namely, a person engrafted into Christ, regenerated, justified, sanctified, without any volition of his own or consciousness of the fact, and in the absence of all the means of grace and salvation; such as the preaching of the gospel, faith, repentance, baptism, a holy life, etc. • Believe it who can, my faith fails me. Faith is made void, and the gospel of no effect. Justification by faith, regeneration by water and spirit, are thrown overboard. That infants are saved, I admit; but that the Bible says one word about their engrafting into Christ, justification, regeneration, sanctification, baptism, etc., I do most explicitly and deliberately deny.
The baptism of infants, as you are aware, grew out of the very error which you charge on Mr. Campbell; that is, attaching an unscriptural importance to the ordinance. The reason why infants were at first baptized, was because the ordinance was regarded as indispensably essential to salvation, and this is still the doctrine in
680 BAPTISMAL REGENERATION.
the church where it originated, (the Papal Church;) and it is like- wise the doctrine of the Episcopalian Church, and, I may add, it is a very current sentiment among the more ignorant, and many of the better informed in Pedobaptist churches generally. I have often met with it where I expected better things; so, no doubt, have you. This practice of infant baptism cannot be sustained by scripture; and if it is not observed in order to secure the salvation of the child, it is not only scriptureless, but absolutely senseless.
You seem unwilling to adopt Mr. Calvin's expedient, That infants of believers are to be baptized in view of their future faith and repentance, because the seeds of these graces are sown in their hearts by some mysterious operation of the Holy Spirit. I am glad of it. Mr. Calvin's figment is, in my humble opinion, the super-sublimate of nonsense.
The writers among yourselves are not agreed as to the design of baptism--whether it is an initiatory ordinance, or whether it is a public recognition of a previously obtained membership. The latter appears to be your sentiment. I adopt the former. The first time that I ever heard your view advanced, was some years ago, in New Orleans, by Mr. Breckenridge, of your church, since dead, and I confess I was amazed. It looked to me like a new edit ion of Judaism. Afterwards I met with it in Dr. work on baptism. It appeared to have been resorted to in order more perfectly to run out the parallel between circumcision and baptism. These gentlemen admitted that circumcision was not initiatory; and, to be consistent, took the ground that baptism was not initiatory. Jewish children were circumcised to recognize a membership in that church obtained by natural birth; and Christian children should be baptized, to recognize a membership in the Christian Church, obtained in the same way. They were circumcised in the former, and baptized in the latter, not to constitute them members, but because they were members before. In both cases, church membership is suspended on flesh, and not on faith. This is worse than baptismal justification itself, for it is a justification without even baptism, or any thing else; an accidental justification. The Lord deliver the world and the church from such teaching!
Justification, as used in the scriptures, is another name for pardon. Pardon is always an act of sovereignty. It is likewise an act of mercy and grace. The terms of pardon are entirely at the option of the sovereign. When made known, they are immutable. When complied with, pardon follows, and is, at the same time, an act of law, of justice, and of grace. In the case of a rebellious province
THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE. 681
in an empire, it is usual to proclaim pardon on condition that the rebels shall, by a fixed date, come forward, lay down their arms, acknowledge their sovereign, and swear allegiance to his government. This statement illustrates my view of the scheme of divine forgiveness. God is the rightful Sovereign of the universe. This world is a rebellious province in his empire. Christ died to propitiate God and reconcile man. The gospel is the proclamation of pardon. Its terms are, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." The person who complies, has the word of Him who cannot lie, to assure him of his salvation. Can he have any thing as good? This view of the subject excludes all human merit. The idea with many is, that there is something really meritorious in faith, or repentance, or prayer. NO greater mistake than this was ever made. There is equally as much merit in baptism as in faith, repentance, or prayer, for there is none in either or all of them put together. What a silly thing it would be for a Cuban, engaged in the late rebellion, to present himself before the Captain General and pray for pardon, alledging that he had read his proclamation of pardon, and believed it with all his heart. Not less silly is it for a rebel against God to claim forgiveness because he believes the gospel. In the case supposed, the Cuban would be told to go and take the oath of allegiance, which, if he refused or neglected to do, would exclude him from all the benefits of the proclamation. So in the gospel; if a man believes it, let him at once consecrate himself to Christ in baptism. The proclamation says, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." It means what it says, and nothing else. How dangerous to neglect any of its requirements! What a fearful risk! What a reckless presumption! But I will add no more.
I am, with great respect, yours with hope of eternal life,
SAMUEL CHURCH.
PROGRESS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE.
THE following very able, interesting and attractive article, we cut from the London Anthenaeum. The startling facts herein developed are well deserving the profoundest attention of the statesman and political economist:
By a fortunate coincidence, the general total of the American census, taken last year, has just been received, and we are enabled, in conjunction with the returns made on the 31st of March, for this country, to measure the absolute progress of the Anglo-Saxon race
682 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE.
in its two grand divisions, and to compare the laws of their respective growths in relation to each other and to the rest of the world. 1t is estimated, including Ireland and the colonies, that there is a grand total of men speaking the same language, and manifesting the same general tendencies of civilization, of fifty-six millions; from which is to be deducted the three millions of negro slaves in the United States, leaving a remainder of fifty-three millions chiefly of Anglo-Saxon descent, and deeply impregnated with its sturdy qualities of heart and brain, as the representatives of this advancing stock.
Two centuries ago there were not quite three millions of this race on the face of the earth. There are a million more persons of Magyar descent, speaking the Magyar language, at the present moment, in Europe, than there were in Europe and America, of this conquering and colonizing people, in the time of Cromwell. How vain, then, for men to talk of the political necessity for absorbing small races. Sixty years ago the Anglo-Saxon race did not exceed seventeen millions in Europe and America. At that time it was not numerically stronger than the Poles. Thirty years ago it counted only thirty-four millions, being altogether only three millions and a fraction more than the population of France at that time, and considerably less than the Teutonic population of Central Europe. In 1851 it is ahead of every civilized race in the world. Of races lying within the zones of civilization, the Sclaves are more numerous, counted by heads; but comparatively few of this plastic and submissive stock have yet escaped from the barbarism of the dark ages. In wealth, energy and cultivation. they are not to be compared with the Frank, the Teuton, and the Anglo-Saxon. Number is almost their only element of strength. Of all the races which are now striving for the mastery of the world, to impress on the future of society and civilization the stamp of its own character and genius, to make its law, idiom, religion, manners, government and opinion prevail, the Anglo-Saxon is now unquestionably the most numerous, powerful and active. The day when it might possibly have been crushed, absorbed, or trampled out, like Hungary and Poland, by stronger hordes, is gone by forever. That it was possible at one time for this people to be subdued by violence, or to fall a prey to the slower agonies of decline, there can be little doubt. In 1650 the United Provinces seemed more likely to make a grand figure in the world's future history than England. Their wealth, activity, and maritime power, were the most imposing in Europe. They had all the carrying-trade of the West in their hands. Their language was spoken in every port. In the great Orient their empire was fixed and their influence paramount. England was then hardly known abroad. Her difficult idiom grated on foreigners, and her stormy coasts repelled the curiosity of more cultivated travelers. Had the thought of a day arriving when any single European language would be spoken by millions of persons, scattered over the great continents of the earth, from New Zealand to the Hebrides, and from the Cape of Storms to the Arctic Ocean, occurred to any speculative mind, Dutch, not English, would probably have been the tongue to which he would have assigned the marvelous mission. Yet Holland has
THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE. 683
fallen nearly as much as the Saxon has risen in the scale of nations. Her idiom is now acquired by few. Her merchants conduct their correspondence and transact their business in French or in English. Even her writers have, many of them, clothed their genius in a foreign garb. On the other hand, our literature and language have passed entirely out of this phase of danger. Dutch, like Welsh, Flemish, Erse, Basque, and other idioms, is doomed to perish as an intellectual medium; but whatever may be the future changes of the world, the tongue of Shakespeare and of Bacon is now too firmly rooted ever to be torn away. No longer content with mere preservation, it aims at universal mastery. Gradually it is taking possession of all the ports and coasts of the world; isolating all rival idioms; shutting them up from intercourse with each other; making itself the channel of every communication. At a hundred points at once it plays the aggressor. It contends with Spanish on the frontiers of Mexico; drives French and Russian before it in Canada and in the Northern Archipelago; supersedes Dutch at the Cape and Nata; elbows Greek and Italian at Malta and in the Ionian Islands; usurps the rights of Arabic at Suez and Alexandria; maintains itself supreme at Liberia, Hong Kong, Jamaica and St. Helena; fights its way against multitudinous and various dialects in the Rocky Mountains, in Control America, on the Gold Coast, in the interior or Australia, and among the countless islands in the Eastern Seas. No other language is spreading. in this way. French and German find students among cultivated men; but English permanently destroys and supersedes the idioms with which it comes in contact.
The relative growth of the two great Anglo-Saxon States is noteworthy. In 1801 that of Great Britain was 10,942,646,in 1800 that of the United States was 5,319,762, or not quite half. In 1850 the population of the United States was two millions and a third more than that of Great Britain in 1851; at this moment it probably exceeds it by three millions. The rate of decennial increase in this country is less than 15 per cent., while in America it is about 35 per cent. In the great continental States the rate is considerably lower than in England. According to the progress of the last fifty years in France and in America, the United States will have the larger population in 1870; in 1900 they will exceed those of England, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland, combined. Prudent statesmen should bear these facts in mind. Many persons now alive, may see the time when America will be of more importance to us, socially, commercially and politically, than all Europe put together. Old diplomatic traditions will go for little in the face of a transatlantic power numbering one hundred millions of free and energetic men of our own race and blood.
IF the preceding sketch, from a London pen, be a correct view of the progress of the Anglo-Saxon race, and we presume it is, inasmuch as it agrees so remarkably with the views we presented in an
address delivered in Cincinnati, December 11th, 1849, on the origin, character and destiny of the Anglo-Saxon language, what encour-
684 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE.
agement and motive does it afford to us, as a Christian people, advocating the cause of the restoration of original Christianity, as taught and exhibited in the Living Oracles!
According to tabular views of the relative power of religious communities--estimating for every communicant an influence equal to four or five of the entire population of a country--we as a community, say of two hundred thousand communicants, possess the one- fiftieth of the whole Anglo-Saxon race! And as this community has, in less than the one-third of one century, risen from nothing, with all the freshness and vigor of youth, with such a proselyting power as no other denomination now possesses, or ever did possess, since the first century of our religion, what a wide extended horizon opens to our vision, and what mighty achievements are now within our power, if true to ourselves, our principles, and the Lord Jesus Christ!
The spirit of the age, the character of the Anglo-Saxon people, especially the Americano-Anglo-Saxon people, and most especially, the evidence and inherent power of the great master truths for which we contend, and the truly catholic spirit which these truths inspire, beyond all controversy give to us the vantage ground above any community founded upon any of the existing Protestant platforms or traditions. True, indeed, our continued success must depend upon our faithfulness, disinterestedness, zeal and devotion.
We have, at this moment, in our vision, a large area--a spacious field to cultivate; but there is much labor wanting, and there are comparatively few laborers to do the work, as it ought to be done. A thousand fields are open to us, ready for the sickle, but we have not laborers to reap them. And of those now engaged in the work, there is but a minority that are workmen who need not to be ashamed of their manner of pleading this transcendent cause.
What shall be done to meet the crisis? is now, with our most enlightened brethren every where, a leading question--a standing topic, ever pressing itself upon their attention. The best cause in the world demands the best men, the best talents, the best acquisitions to urge and enforce its claims upon mankind. Why, then, are they not in the field, or in training for the work? These questions I presume not to answer for every one, but I desire to say, that every brother should endeavor to find an answer for himself; and such an answer, too, as will stand good, not merely in his own conscience, but also in the great day of accounts.
Christ's cause and kingdom is a common cause--it is the cause of the whole church--of all men, women and children in Christ,
THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE. 685
who can in word or in prayer, or in personal effort, or by any means, property or influence they may possess, advance its growth, prosperity and usefulness in the world.
Can any man of good sense imagine that a wise, philanthropic and puissant Lord, could die for a world, and leave the fruits of his life and death to the hap-hazard of private impulse, or the accidents of capricious benevolence and individual enterprise to give it endurance and success?
I know what I hazard in reiterating opinions which I have long since promulged amidst the frowns and contumelies of supercilious orthodoxy, while I say that it is still my judgment and conviction, that pagandom and popedom owe their present territory to the sectarian sins of Protestantdom; and that the non-conversion of the world is yet the sin and reproach of Christendom, and more especially of that portion of it to whom God has, for so many centuries, committed his oracles, and given to them the keeping of the ark of the covenant, which they yet claim exclusively to themselves.
But this is neither the time nor the place to argue this question, or to show to Israel his transgressions, and to the house of Jacob his sins. We must, however, at no far distant day, press this subject upon the attention, the conscience, and the affections of our brotherhood, now possessing the one-fiftieth part of Anglo-Saxon influence and territory; and which is even much greater than this, when we consider the weapons of our warfare, the instrumentalities vouchsafed to us for giving wings, and power, and victory to the ancient and venerable apostolic gospel, in that special dispensation of it now entrusted to us.
Compared with the vague generalities, the stale philosophy, the antiquated theories of the olden times, how mighty the original gospel, disentangled from the doctrines and commandments of men Compared, too, with the weapons of our adversaries, how superior the helmet of hope, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the girdle of truth, and the sword of the spirit! We have already proved the temper of the Jerusalem blade in many a rencontre, and by it have put to flight armies of the aliens, panoplied with the whole artillery of error, offensive and defensive. But why this foolish boasting! The battle is the Lord's, and the victory his, and to him, therefore, be all the glory, now and forever. A. C.
AFFLICTIONS are the same to the soul as the plow to the fallow ground, the pruning-knife to the vine, and the furnace to the gold.--Jay.
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 58
686 ANNIVERSARY RESOLUTIONS.
ANNIVERSARY RESOLUTIONS ON BENEFICENCE.
[From the Christian Age and Unionist.]
THE following resolutions were passed by the Societies on the subject of liberality to the Lord's cause:
Resolved, That all Christians should live in the constant and earnest realization of the truth, that when they came out from the world, and became followers of the meek and lowly Jesus, they consecrated to his service themselves and all that they have--their faculties, their time, and their possessions. And no person can live in the enjoyment of such a state of mind, who does not contribute largely of his substance for the spread of the gospel, and the furtherance of all truly Christian enterprises.
Resolved, That as Christians are not their own, but have been bought with a price, even the precious blood of Christ, so also the worldly riches which a bountiful Providence has bestowed upon them, are not absolutely their own, but they are God's stewards of them, and are bound to dispense, in the succor of God's poor, and the advancement of His kingdom, all that is not requisite to the actual supply of their wants.
Resolved, That we know of no better or more authoritative system of Christian beneficence, than that commanded in the divine law set forth by the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians; wherein, speaking on this subject, and reiterating the order previously given to the church of Galatia, he says, "Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him."
Resolved, That it was the entire consecration, by the early Christians, of themselves and all their possessions, to the service of the Lord, which, under God, in a great measure, occasioned the remarkable success of the gospel in the face of the adverse influences of all-prevalent heathenism, and the deep corruption of mankind unparalleled since the deluge; and if the love of Christ should constrain all Christians of the present day to a faithful obedience to Paul's injunction in regard to religious beneficence, the church militant would soon become on earth the church triumphant.
Resolved, That in this age of Bible, Tract, and Missionary Societies, and of rapid and easy intercommunication between all parts of the world, the multiplied facilities which are thus afforded by Providence to Christians, of dispensing in the cause of the Redeemer the wealth entrusted to their care, impose upon them, if possible, still stronger obligations to a faithful fulfillment of their stewardship.
Resolved, Therefore, that we earnestly urge upon our brethren not only to give a faithful attendance upon the preaching of the word, and the ordinances of God's house, but also in obedience to the Divine injunctions for the purpose of religious beneficence in store, upon the first day of the week, every one of them as God has prospered him. By so doing, they will sanctify their wealth, promote their own growth in grace, and enjoy the glorious privilege of being
ANNIVERSARY RESOLUTIONS. 687
co-workers with God in the promotion of his glory, and the redemption of their fellow-men.
Two objections were made to these resolutions, but they were overruled. The first was that it was asking too much to expect that all that was not needed for ourselves and families, should be consecrated to the Lord. This principle, however, was unanimously adopted upon examination; for it was considered that every Christian's conscience would decide that, after a liberal and comfortable allotment to the animal and intellectual man, the moral or religious should claim the remainder, until a wise and economical distribution should fail to employ that remainder.
The second objection, brought forward by a zealous and an excellent brother, was, that the contribution mentioned in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. xvi., was not intended to cover the case contemplated in the resolutions; that, in addition to this method of raising funds for a specific object, there were specific directions given to bestow alms upon the needy. It was unfortunate that the objector did not perceive that he made a distinction without a difference. The alms which the Saviour enjoined, is precisely the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem, commanded by the apostle, and one law will cover the two cases. The Saviour gave a general principle to individuals; the apostle applied that principle to the church composed of individuals, by enacting a law to prevent the necessity of his urging that principle, personally and individually, when he should come among them. He wished, indeed, that the Saviour himself should urge it. Therefore he commanded every man to sequestrate some of his wealth at the moment when the divine ordinance of the first day of the week compels him to meditate upon the glories and the commands of his living Lord, now redeemed from the grave, and recovered by the heavens. With Jesus in his eye, the lovely and beneficent Saviour and Master of men and angels, the Christian is commanded to put his hand in his coffers and give as that glorious Lord has prospered him. The amount given he is to lay by in store. It is no longer his own. It belongs to the risen Saviour. This is religious benevolence. It is systematic benevolence. It is apostolic and Christian.
It is essential to the success of this plan, that it should be done privately. Indeed, it is generally so done by those who attempt to carry into effect the law of the apostles to the Corinthians and the churches of Galatia. They lay apart some change before leaving home, that they shall not be found unprovided when they go to church. The fault of the present method is, the whole matter has degenerated into a provision of the regular change put into the box, bag, or plate. This meagre sum is generally the smallest denomination of silver coin. Now, this does not approximate the design of the Lord or his apostle. Indeed, it is not unfrequently the case, that a large majority give nothing at all. But if every member who is able, should contribute because the Lord has prospered him, this would not be enough. It would not fulfill the law, which does not say, lay by a regular pittance every Lord's day, but lay by you as the Lord has prospered you. Sometimes it might be cents, sometimes dollars, sometimes eagles, or double eagles.
688 CONVENTIONS--CHRISTIAN BENEVOLENCE.
A just and conscientious view of the subject would require calculation--close and patient calculation. First, his expense account for one year must be estimated, and his whole living examined, to know what it will probably cost, including ample provision for the just demands of the intellect and taste. This once conscientiously determined, every man could proceed to fill the Lord's treasury in his house--the sub-treasury. Secondly, this fund must now be economically and conscientiously distributed. The Disciple's pocket ought to be furnished with alms for the needy; his share of all church expenses should be paid; and his support should be extended to the Lord's poor--to the Lord's servants at large--to the school of the prophets, etc., etc.
This subject may be adverted to again, but, for the present, this must suffice. D. S. B.
CONVENTIONS AND CHRISTIAN BENEVOLENCE.
WE had the pleasure of attending the late anniversaries of the benevolent institutions now located in Cincinnati; and also, the annual State Convention held in Lexington, Ky. These were very happy meetings. We had much good teaching, and some good preaching, during the meetings. Besides, we had the feast of communion with many excellent brethren, who are laboring, and have been laboring for many years, in the great cause of Christian reformation. We took sweet counsel together, on the ways and means of advancing the great cause of the great Benefactor and Saviour of the world--the redemption of man from ignorance, guilt, and bondage.
Remarkable unanimity of mind appeared on all the great themes of deliberation that came before us, and especially on that of the necessity, importance, and value of an increased liberality on the part of the whole Christian community, in reference to the increasing demands growing with the rapidly enlarging area opening to the gospel, as proclaimed and developed by us. From all that I have heard, and learned, and know of the wants of the people--of the increasing desire to hear and understand the great principles propounded by us--I feel myself not to be chargeable with the sin of exaggeration, in affirming the conviction, that we want, in these United States, one thousand able men, as preachers and teachers, to equal the calls of the people, and the calls of the Lord upon us, to preach the gospel as delivered to us by the holy apostles. In our field of vision, we may truly say, the harvest is great and the laborers are few--very few--not enough to gather a tythe of what the
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Lord has made accessible to us. And while sundry and various projects are being pressed upon the brethren as worthy of their patronage and Christian liberality, there is one with me of transcendent--of paramount importance--which is the least pressed of any other upon their attention; and that is, not only to "pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth reapers to gather it," but to do our duty in raising up and furnishing the men to send.
The age of miracles is past. The Lord found and educated the men, and sometimes fed them, by miracle, whom he trained to plead his cause. When he ascended from earth to heaven, he showered, nay, he poured down, the Holy Spirit, and, by its influence, furnished them with the languages, sciences, and arts of the kingdom, vouchsafing every gift and endowment of mind, of elocution and of utterance, necessary to the great commission which he gave them.
And what next' His Holy Spirit taught the apostles to teach the church--the great aggregate of the family of God in every nation, kindred, tongue and people--to commit this work of preaching, teaching, and presiding well, to "faithful men"--to able men-- to men "able to teach others also."
It was, therefore, necessary, in the judgment of Paul, and enacted by his authority, that the churches should be furnished with able and faithful teachers, and that those in office should superintend this matter. Hence he gave a charge to this effect to his agent and son Timothy. He had committed a similar work to Titus, in Crete, as that committed to Timothy in Ephesus. "I left you," says he, in Crete, for this purpose, "that thou shouldst set in order the things wanting; that were left by me undone--viz: that you should ordain elders, bishops, in every city as I directed you;" and after setting forth the moral and Christian characteristics of those teachers, he adds, that he must "hold fast" the truthful word as he had himself been taught by his teacher Paul, that "he might be able, by sound learning, both to exhort and to convince" sceptics or "gainsayers," whose mouths he must be able to silence, as well as to teach those "who have believed in God to be careful to excel in good works." I presume that I will be excused, by every sensible reader, in not attempting to prove that such labors and laborers are always wanting or necessary to the position which the church still holds in the world; or that such persons are not as necessary in Cincinnati, New York and Lexington, as they were in Ephesus, Corinth and Crete, where apostles and evangelists had long labored in person.
In the general and special constitution of the Church of Christ, Paul informs us that the Lord Jesus Christ himself had, by the
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690 CONVENTIONS--CHRISTIAN BENEVOLENCE.
authority of God, appointed or ordained certain offices and officers, both extraordinary and ordinary. The extraordinary were apostles and prophets. These are ever with us, in their writings. But beside these, he has ordained a third class, called teachers. These the church will always need for herself, as much as she needs preachers or evangelists for the conversion of the world. Pastors or teachers, and deacons, are always in demand on the part of all Christian communities that desire the knowledge and experience of the fulness of the blessings of the gospel of Christ. These statements need, amongst us, no labored arguments. They are conceded points of Christian doctrine.
What, then, do we to meet the growing demands of the church in particular, and of the world in general? This question I cannot answer with much satisfaction. We have men capable and willing to serve in the gospel, but they are not at work in the field. They are not fully prepared for it. There are some workmen of this class that need to be ashamed. And others, that need not to be ashamed, are at home on their farms, or at their merchandize. They do something--some of them do much for their study and reflection; but they resemble, in the main, the secular clergy or elders. Some societies besides the Romans had, and some still have, their "secular," as well as their "spiritual" clergy. The secular support themselves; the spiritual were supported by the church. The secular wrought with their own hands, as Paul sometimes did, to support himself and his fellow-laborers. The spiritual devoted their whole time to preaching, teaching, exhortation and discipline. Publicly and privately, from house to house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.
It was a wise, as it was a benevolent ordinance of the Lord Jesus, "that they who preach the gospel should live by the gospel." Men, generally, are most apt to mind that business that minds them. Let a man's living depend upon his flock, and both he and it will, as a general law, fare better in all good things. But if the Lord has ordained that they who preach the gospel should live by the gospel, that is enough. His ordinances are as infallibly wise as they are supremely good. There was a danger in the apostolic age, from which we, indeed, are rather exempt. Some preached Christ for filthy lucre's sake; and some from a willing, cheerful, and benevolent heart. There are some, perhaps many, of both classes, yet in the world. But it is to be hoped, that amongst us, there are many more of the latter class than of the former. The temptation is, in truth, not so very strong as to require very great strength of mind to
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resist it. This, it will be assumed, but cannot be proved, to be a safer state of things. Some Christian philosophers think, that if the church keep her ministers poor, the Lord will more easily keep them humble; yet I have seen not a few, whose vanity seems to be fully satisfied with the reward of a good hearing.
But what say the true friends of the Redeemer, now living amongst us? They, I hesitate not to affirm, will say that the church is not doing her duty in countenancing one class, and in not sustaining the other. They will say the Lord's cause demands the best men we can raise and furnish for his great field--the world. But they ask, Where shall we find them? How shall we obtain them? We answer, wheresoever you find a young man, or a fully matured disciple of Christ, well reported of, prepare him for the work, then send him to the field and support him in it.
For this purpose, as a supreme object, we have got up a seminary of learning, and a system of instruction with special reference to this great object. We ought to have men as well educated to preach and teach Christ, as other communities have men well educated and trained to preach and teach metaphysical theology or partizan gospels. We desire to have all the youth of our country to study sacred history, as well as--indeed, rather than--profane history. We desire to have them more conversant with the facts and precepts of the Bible, than with the laws of Lycurgus; with Moses, than with Solon; with Jesus Christ, than with Socrates or Plato; with Paul and Peter, rather than with Demosthenes or Cicero. The natural sciences, as well as the moral; the works of God, as well as his word; the history of nature, as well as the history of Providence; the history of moral government, as well as the history of redemption, are intimately associated, and should equally find a place in the education of youth, as well as in the libraries of their fathers. We assume that Christianity needs, and can use with advantage, every branch of time learning and true science, and can raise as much revenue from them as can the State; nay, can cause them to redound more to the glory of God and the good of mankind, than can any merely civil or temporary institution.
But this subject needs no argument nor defence from our hand. It is conceded by every intelligent reader of the Harbinger. Well, then, brethren, what are you doing worthy of eternal fame, in this great and excellent work? How much of your earthly means do you annually devote to this great work of the Lord? How much stock have you in the Bank of Heaven? How many sacrifices of sweet savor do you offer to the Lord that redeemed you, out of your
692 CONVENTIONS--CHRISTIAN BENEVOLENCE.
flocks and herds, your fields and your stores of earth's riches and of God's benevolence? Do you give, like Abraham, the tenth of the spoils, or like Israel, the tenth of all your labors, and of the increase with which the Lord has blessed you I know there are some of us that give much, and some of us that give little. Amongst the preachers and the teachers there are some that labor in the word and teaching without any reward from them to whom they minister, and for whose edification and salvation they travail in labors and toils. There are some that receive a humble pittance; a very few that receive a full reward of earth's bounties. Is it not so within the sphere of every reader's observation and knowledge, who takes any interest in this great work of faith and labor of love?
But, in our late conventions, we were pleased to see a growing feeling of obligation evinced; an increasing interest developed; a more generous benevolence, and a more earnest desire to advance the cause of salvation, displayed in reference to every measure proposed, bearing on this great object.
Both at Cincinnati and Lexington, there was a discussion on the best method of raising means for the wants of the poor, and for all the demands upon Christian sympathy and benevolence. In both cases, the order of Paul to the churches of Galatia and to the church at Corinth, concerning the collection for the saints, was argued as a precedent for raising the funds necessary for these purposes. Indeed, by request of the convention last year, an admirable discourse upon this subject was delivered by Bro. P. S. Fall, of Frankfort, during the sessions of the Kentucky Convention. It was received with great satisfaction, and ordered to be stereotyped, and widely circulated among the churches in Kentucky. While delighted with this excellent discourse, and with the speeches made by brethren at the Cincinnati Anniversaries, on the same passage, I had only to regret the possibility of an exception, which could and might be urged against the application to this subject, of the passage in 1 Cor. xvi. 1, which was made the theme of these essays; and that, in consequence thereof, the means requisite and necessary to accomplish the various objects of Christian benevolence, could not be obtained.
A treasury in the church, or a sub treasury at home, in which weekly to deposit, as it might appear to every brother proportionally to his weekly prosperity in business, under the Divine blessing, had not the warrant of a Divine appointment or provision, only for one purpose; whereas, the objects of Christian benevolence are numerous and manifold, and could not, without great inconvenience, be
CONVENTIONS--CHRISTIAN BENEVOLENCE. 693
provided for in this way. The cases in Corinth and in the churches of Galatia, named by Paul, were special provisions for a special purpose, and for a special time. They were specially for the saints in Jerusalem, and addressed to the churches in Galatia, and in reference to a special call to be made by Paul in person, and to prevent the distraction of raising a contribution on his arrival. These specialities annul the assumption of its being a general provision for all churches, in all places, and in all time. Besides it would, in view of all the -demands coming upon a congregation for the numerous and various exigencies of society, require not only a weekly inventory of every one's business and prosperity, but also, it would require a treasurer of quite a business character, to keep the accounts of the church, and to make appropriations for the various exigencies of the church; amongst which are sometimes the building of a meeting-house, contributions for Bibles, for missions, foreign and domestic, for widows and orphans in distress, for the sick and afflicted poor, &c., &c.
The circumstances of a community are continually changing; the objects claiming Christian benevolence are numerous and various, and the business and resources of ordinary families are such as cannot be ascertained at short intervals. These, and other items of a more peculiar character, could not be provided for, so amply and advisedly, by such a systematic procedure as was contemplated in the special cases named by Paul, in the only passage found in all the epistles on the subject.
Still, the precept indicated in this case is highly suggestive, and develops the duty and privilege of a Christian community to make constant prudential provisions for coming wants, and establishes the great rule of Christian liberality, viz: that Christians are to be liberal in the same measure and degree as the Lord has prospered their labors for the acquisition of the necessities and comforts of life, and for the exquisite pleasure of having it in their power to abound in good works.
If all the churches in this Reformation were to adopt the principle inculcated in this special provision for the saints in Jerusalem--viz of setting apart for the purposes named, as the Lord has prospered them--the cause of human salvation would be plead more generally, more ably, more successfully; the gospel would circulate more freely, and multitudes would be comforted, and blessed, and saved, more than we have ever yet witnessed.
It may, indeed, become a question with many, which of all the good works, at any one time within the area of our information and
694 CONVENTIONS--CHRISTIAN BENEVOLENCE.
knowledge, has the stronger, or the strongest claims upon our consciences and our hearts? There are, even in good works, three degrees of comparison. There are three classes of wants to which man is incident. There are the animal, the intellectual, and the spiritual wants of man. We want food, raiment, and medicine, for the body; we want education for the mind; we want salvation from sin, and eternal life for our whole personality. The first are most immediate and pressing, because, without them, we cannot live. The second are most fundamental to our development and enjoyment as men, the tenants of earth and of time. The third are most imperious, because, when satisfied, they are most ennobling, blissful, and enduring--large as the universe and lasting as eternity.
The cook, the seamstress, and the doctor, are the ministers that provide for our animal and perishing wants. The schoolmaster and the printer administers to the intellectual and the moral. Prophets, Apostles, and the Son of God, through the ministry of evangelists, pastors, and teachers, provide for the spiritual and the eternal.
Such is their gradation, in the three ranks of body, soul and spirit. Hence, when the Lord ascended up on high, and had led the captivator captive, he gave gifts to men--the offices and the officers of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers--for the edifying and completion of the body of Christ, whose members are believing men and women.
Every Christian man may, therefore, find honorable and useful employment as a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. God himself works in all those departments; therefore, they are all both useful and honorable. He makes the grass to grow, and provides food for every living thing. He feeds the young ravens when they cry, and enacts laws for oxen. Not a sparrow can fall to the ground, nor a hair from an head, unobserved or unheeded by him. He that keeps Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps. He encompasseth our paths with his mercies; he numbers our steps in life's weary pilgrimage, and takes cognizance of all our goings. But he so loved fallen, lost, and ruined man, as to give up to the death, for us, his only begotten and dearly beloved Son.
Hence, the spiritual and eternal wants of man are transcendent. They are large as creation and enduring as eternity. The gospel, or remedial mercy, is the sublimest theme known to man in this universe. Its ministry and ministration are, of all instrumentalities now on earth, paramount and transcendent. We want the whole suit of the evangelical ministry. Prophets and apostles have done their work and gone to rest; but we have their labors, as they had
OUTER DARKNESS. 695
those of the prophets and of the personal ministry of the Messiah. We want Bibles, missionaries, pastors and teachers. We want men to meet the crisis and the age. Infidelity, superstition and error, ancient and modern, are every where around us and in our midst. Paganism, papalism, infidelity, and every form of error and heresy, are still struggling for the ascendency. We as much need the knowledge of their machinery, and the use of the armory of heaven, as did the apostles at one time need the gift of tongues and the power of casting out demons.
Schools for prophets, as well as schools for languages and sciences, are yet required, and all men feel the want of them. We also want inmates for them--spiritually minded men--because the church and the world are calling for such advocates of the claims of the supremacy of the Messiah. Shall we not, then, listen to the calls of the church, and attend to the cries from Macedonia, and Antioch, and Jerusalem? Shall we not cultivate the spirit of Christian benevolence; and, as good stewards of the manifold blessings of God vouchsafed to us, consecrate our persons, our lives, and our substance, to the glory of God, the honor of the Lord Jesus our Divine Redeemer, and to the wants and miseries of perishing humanity! Methinks I hear a voice from every church echoing forth, in the language of Israel's sweetest bards-
"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget her skillfulness.
If I do not remember thee,
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth;
If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy."
We have yet in contemplation some farther notices of these important anniversaries, and may make some remarks on some other matters connected with them. A. C.
OUTER DARKNESS.
To skotos to exooteron--To scotoV to exwteron--"Outer Darkness."
OUR Lord three times uses the phrase, "outer darkness"-- Matthew viii. 12, xxii. 13, xxv. 30. These are "The children of the kingdom"--the natural heirs of the Kingdom of God, hitherto confined to the children of Abraham, for not accepting "THE HEIR OF THE WORLD," shall be "cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth," Matt. viii. 12.
The second case or occurrence of this phrase, is found in Matthew
696 OUTER DARKNESS.
xxii. 13. This is the case of the man without a wedding garment, who thrust himself in amongst the bidden guests to a marriage supper, without calling upon the ruler of the feast for a wedding garment, which, amongst the Orientals, was a prerequisite to admission amongst the guests to the presence of the bridegroom and the bride, and which was prepared and furnished on application to every one bidden to the feast. The only remaining case in the Christian Scriptures, is that of the man of one talent, who hid that talent in the earth, presuming that his master was a hard man, because he had given him little and exacted much. The master of the feast commanded this defaulter to be divested of his one talent, and, as an unprofitable servant, to be cast into outer darkness--to weeping and gnashing of teeth.
From these passages, especially from the second, which is that of a marriage feast, it would seem that the foundation of the figure was an Asiatic wedding, which generally transpiring within closed doors at midnight, when darkness was most profound, required lamps within the wedding chamber. Hence, grand in-door illuminations constituted a portion of the grandeur of the Eastern marriage scenes.
Should any one, on such an occasion, foist himself into the marriage chamber, he was immediately cast out into "outer darkness," the door being shut in his face, and from the cold chilly air of the night, and in profound darkness, more oppressive from having seen the light within, a cold shuddering and chattering of teeth seized him, exacerbated by the chagrin and mortification of such a repulse.
Such, as I conceive, was the origin of this repeated allusion by the Lord himself, during his personal ministry, and most appositely and fearfully presents the terrors of an "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power."
I am asked, with much earnestness, by one who heard me at New Lisbon, O., a few weeks since, make an allusion to this region of outer darkness, in a response to a professed infidel, who, with an air of confidence, demanded its locality--to state that response for his sake, and the sake of others then present. My answer was, in part, dictated by a proverb in Solomon, which saith, "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit." I immediately answered the question, "Where, sir, lies this region of outer darkness?" Between us and the sun, sir. His response was, "Between us and the sun, sir? How can that beg" Because, sir, beyond our atmosphere there can be literally no light. Since, as
OUTER DARKNESS. 697
science teaches and demonstrates, light is not found in the direct, but in the indirect, reflected ray. Hence, all the suns in heaven can produce no light in their respective planets but through the extent of their atmospheres, or the limit of their reflected rays. Heat, too, follows the same law. And, therefore, in outer darkness there is outer cold. Hence, the chattering of teeth in outward darkness. Cold and death, are not more exact correlates than heat and life. Milton, the great poet, in his second book, speaks as a philosopher as much as a poet, when alluding to this subject, he says:
Beyond this flood a frozen continent
Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms
Of whirlwind and dire hail------
---------the parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire.
Thither, by harpy footed faries hal'd,
At certain revolutions all the damned
Are brought, and feel, by turns, the bitter change
Of fierce extremes--extremes by change more fierce
From beds of raging fire, to starve in ice.
----------and there to pine
Immovable, in fixed and frozen round
Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire.
[Book 2d, line 5863
And yet, more terrific still--" There the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."
But the philosophy of nature, now better understood than in the days of Milton, and much better than in the days of Christ, justifies all that we have said of Tartarus, of eternal darkness, or of the "blackness of darkness" which attends that eternal fire within--the stings and arrows of remorse; and all this through the imagery of light and darkness. But were it literal darkness, and outward, sensible cold, we are in a right direction to find them as we leave the earth and the Sun of Righteousness, and fly off into space. Those who ascend in balloons, and who clamber up the steeps of earth's mountains, sensibly discover that the heavens grow darker and the air colder, as they approach the sun. Hence the eternal snows that crown the lofty tops of the towering mountains of every zone, and the dark lead color which changes the blue ether into a mournful blackness, as we recede from the earth in the direction of the lamp of day.
But, except to silence the demurs of ignorant and unbelieving men, who have no faith in heaven or hell, or in a future life, we deal not often or much in matters of this kind, while preaching the true gospel of the true grace of God. It is, indeed, a duty, to "answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own
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698 THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY.
conceits;" but it requires more wisdom to observe the other precept of the same Solomon, who immediately adds, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou shouldst be like to him."
To obey both precepts in one and the same case, is not always an easy task. We endeavor to do this by merely showing the folly of the fool, not by treating him according to his folly. Instead of calling him a fool, we only aim to show that he is acting the part of a fool, in discoursing against that of which he is as ignorant as he can be of the true physiognomy of the man of the moon, whether he be a Caucasian, Mongolian, American, African, or Australian.
It ought to suffice, that no one has ever shown a real error perpetrated by any one of the sacred penmen from Moses to the visions of John. It is, indeed, as much in good taste as in wisdom, to clothe some ideas in delicate or in strong imagery, according to the quality and attainments of the pupil. The infant school is not the only school that requires this art and wisdom. With the Ancient of Days, the most reverend patriarch is a babe. Hence, the truest philosophy only aims to show how little can be known of God and of man, or of the stupendous universe to which we belong. A. C.
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY THE TRUE PRINCIPLE
OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT.--[Continued from p. 644.]
HOPE AND FEAR NECESSARY TO OUR PRESENT WELL-BEING.
HOPE and fear have a three-fold influence upon our nature. They appeal to our instincts, to our natural affections, and to our reason.
"Our instincts are moved by those impressions on our senses which convey ideas of pleasure and pain, irrespective of moral considerations: thus certain properties of things, being the natural provocatives of appetite, are associated with desire of indulgence; and, as far as these appetites are concerned, we may hope for the possession of their appropriate object, or we may fear their loss. These instincts imperatively demand attention, since they are the ground-work of our social existence, as creatures dependent on bodily adaptation and supply; and however philosophic may be our habits of contemplation, when well furnished with bodily appliances, our reasonings will avail nothing in appeasing the pangs of hunger or of thirst. It is, doubtless, the prerogative of reason, to control
THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 699
the instincts by religious and moral motives, by hopes and fears, in relation to our Maker, our fellow-man, and our family affinities; the body must be so far kept in subjection, as that appetite may be appeased, as a necessity towards higher purposes, rather than indulged as an end in itself; but yet the physical demands of our existence are so immediately imperative and so regular In their recurrence, that to reason against their dominion, without providing for their moderate idulgence, were as vain as to bid the ordinances of nature to obey your voice, because the alternative of light and darkness happens not to suit your notions of propriety. Holiness is obedience to the law for divine purposes, and God is obeyed by using the body under the blessed restrictions of Christian temperance; for thus the whole life becomes eucharistic, being dedicated to the Holy One in prayer and thanksgiving. If, then, even the devoutest saint must yield, and that in faith, to the instinctive cravings which arise from the state of the body, how shall we suppose that men, whose minds are moved for the most part by appetite alone, shall be able to resist them? He must have a strong spiritual faith of some kind, who is not a rebel at heart, when called upon by authority to starve, while he sees that the plenty of his neighbor is so protected that even charity cannot touch it."
He, then, sadly misconceives of the character of the Christian Religion, who conceives that the holiness therein taught requires of him to resist the instincts of his nature by turning a heedless ear to the cravings of appetite, which the Author of his being has implanted, to be obeyed in such a manner as shall conduce to the glory of his Maker and to the well-being of the creature. Such abstinence from meats and drinks, which God has provided for the body, and to be received with thanksgiving, may denote a strong spiritual faith, but it savors strongly of a false and deceitful religion. Papistic it may be, but divine it cannot be, seeing it is at war with the instincts of our nature, and, consequently, with that divine wisdom which, in its adaptations of our nature, is as remarkable for its munificent goodness, as it is for any other of its manifestations in the providential government of his creatures.
"Although reason has no morality but in governing the instincts, yet if the instincts be not suitably provided for, nature is outraged. To offer to a man in want of bread, the Kingdom of Heaven, that he might not perish in his sins, would be worse than the unnatural conduct of a father who, when his son would ask bread, would give him a stone; it were to insult the God of Providence, in the person of his needy creature. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, are as
700 THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY.
binding and as divine as any precept of the decalogue; and the way in which the Almighty teaches the hopes of heaven, is daily to supply the wants which belong to earth; and those who willingly place themselves in the way, so as by the craft of covetousness to divert the gifts of God's bounty from the homes of their fellow-men, are hateful at heart now, and are to be hereafter especially marked as the accursed. To do good, is to communicate to the needy and to administer comfort to the distressed.
This word comfort means so much of present accommodation as will allow hope to sit smiling with us in our homes, and prevent the intrusion of any dispiriting apprehension of coming want. But if hope and comfort be wanting in any dwelling, what can be the motive most prevalent there? Ask what is the temper of the tiger, hunted into his lair, and there torn by dogs; and then ask what a sinful man feels, with his capacity of loving, hating, hoping, and fearing, aggravated to the utmost, and having persuaded himself that the selfishness of his potent neighbor has rendered his home a hell. It is true, he may experience a more intolerable and common torment; he may feel that he has brought desolation and misery upon himself and his family by his own guilt. But in either case, how is he to be helped? I say by his encouragement to hope, and by his reasons to fear. Let him feel that the condemnation of his neighbor does not deliver himself from judgment. As a rational being, let him be persuaded to exert himself. But how can that be without hope? Instinct prompts to seek death, rather than to live on in a world without hope; and it will be no wonder, if one who knows nothing of the divine method of doing justice, should imagine that he is fulfilling the law of Heaven by wreaking his own vengeance according to the blindness of his fury and his ignorance. That man can have no idea of hope, but in relation to his instincts.
First, show him plainly how to satisfy his appetites safely, comfortably, and with a feeling of home, and fellowship, and responsibility, and then you may be able to convey to him the idea of a nobler enjoyment and a diviner hope. Give him means; give him something to do for himself; and then instruct him as to what the Saviour has done for him. He will scarcely be convinced of sin by his sufferings; he must be able to look at the reason for his hopes and his fears; he must be softened and soothed by the sacred spirit of kindness, bringing proofs before his eyes that heaven has not forsaken him, but rather has sent angels to minister to him, before he can feel afraid of his own sins.
The thief on the cross was not converted by his own sufferings,
BETHANY COLLEGE. 701
but because he saw the Son of God suffering. This man has done nothing amiss, was the reason for calling him Lord, since his own conscience informed him that, if the righteous suffer, there must be a kingdom beyond this world. The Saviour's good deeds had been such mighty witnesses for him, that his Divinity was plainly seen by the man who felt that he needed salvation; and thus God ever reveals himself through those who are obedient to His will; and if we expect to teach the divine character of Christianity without embodying its spirit in Ourselves, in deeds of kindness, we are but verbal Christians, ready, perhaps, to give our bodies to be burned in proof of the sincerity of our opinions, and all our goods to feed the pour, for the manifestation of our bubble merits; while charity, in the true sense, never moved a thought in our minds or a muscle in our limbs. But there is nothing so terrible as the unresisting gentleness of a soul governed only by truth, and determined to prove it by dying, if necessary, to declare it. It is this that appeals to the Almighty, as the vindicator of the oppressed, the innocent, the obedient; and it proves that Jesus, the Lamb led to the slaughter, was really the Son of God, and that his blood was on his murderers only to save them, if they repented in His name."
Such is a development, in part, of the Divine Philosophy of the precept, "To do good and to communicate, forget not." As our Almighty Benefactor does good unto all, making his sun to arise with warmth and life in its beams, and sending His rain to water the earth, that it may bring forth for the wants of his needy creatures--to fill the hearts of all, good and bad, just and unjust, with food and gladness; and by so doing, is inviting all to look to Him for a full supply of all the wants of their entire nature. Those who thus imitate Him in dispensing His bounties to their needy fellow- creatures, cannot but enjoy the conscious assurance, that "with such sacrifices God is well pleased." A. W. C.
ENDOWMENT OF BETHANY COLLEGE.
INDEPENDENCE, Mo., September 16, 1851.
Brother Campbell: In the August number of the Harbinger I see from you a proposition to visit, conditionally, the State of Missouri. Upon that proposition I wish to make a few suggestions.
That the brethren in this State feel a deep interest in the permanent endowment of Bethany College, I feel well assured; and that their willingness to contribute to that endowment is fully equal to
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 59*
702 BETHANY COLLEGE.
their ability, I have just as little doubt. Put them to the proof, and I believe no State in the Union can furnish an equal number of men, of no more wealth, who are more ready or more willing to contribute of their substance to support Bethany College. Our brethren are not wealthy, but they are generous and true. They have not, heretofore, moved in this matter as, perhaps, the Faculty of Bethany College may think they should have done. Many are the apologies which might be offered for this seeming tardiness. They have had their lands to purchase, which, in most instances, has exhausted their funds. They have had meeting-houses to build, school-houses to erect, houses to render comfortable, with numerous other demands for money not necessary to be named. Many of our communities have not yet recovered from these embarrassments; and yet I confidently predict, that not one of them will falter when called upon to act. From St. Joseph to St. Louis, try them, and I fear not to say they will prove themselves worthy of their steady zeal in the cause of truth and uniform liberality, in its support. Locate Bethany College in any eligible county in the State of Missouri, and my word for it, before the bell shall summon the first class together, Missourians will endow it with a hundred thousand dollars. But as this cannot now be done, we will devote our attention to what is still within our power--the endowment of Bethany College where it is.
As to the point where you shall commence your peregrinations, and the length of time to be spent with us, you will not think it uncourteous to intimate our wishes. I would, then, suggest to yourself, and submit to the brethren throughout the State, the propriety of commencing at St. Joseph. At this point spend one week. This would afford all the brethren, even to the distance of fifty miles around--and they would come a hundred--time to form your acquaintance personally, and to be made fully acquainted with the prospects and claims of Bethany College. Besides, it would afford all classes an opportunity of hearing you discuss, at length, the solemn interests of Christianity--a matter, in no event, to be thought of second-rate importance. I do hold, that the good you might effect in this way would be incalculable. Next, select some point distant from St. Joseph, say thirty or forty miles, and on your route to St. Louis. At this second point spend the same length of time, and pursue about the same course as at the former place. Continue thus through the state, which would require some three months. From all intermediate points the brethren would meet you; and laterally, they would come from almost every part of the State, if informed beforehand where they could meet with you. In this way you would bring together the brotherhood of the entire State, and, I seriously believe, would effect more good than by six such visits as your former one. Then the puzzle was, not to ascertain your whereabouts, with a view of becoming acquainted with you, or of hearing you speak; but to calculate the rapidity of your flight, that brethren might Intercept you, for the sake, at least, of a passing glance, as you made your rapid transit across the State. From this you mug! not Infer that the brethren were not duly thankful for that visit; for indeed they are not yet done feeling grateful for it. And in the ratio of its
CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS. 703
length, will be their thankfulness (or this second one, no matter how long continued.
As to the most suitable time for your visit, I feel at a loss to speak definitely. The present fall is too far spent--that of 1852 is too far off. Perhaps, every thing considered, a more convenient time than next spring could not be selected. I admit there are objections against the spring; but perhaps the distance off, of any other time, would render it still more objectionable. As, however, your time, owing to your numerous duties, is not wholly at your own disposal, we will endeavor to make the period which may suit you best, suit us best. We will, therefore, hear you speak upon this subject. Once more, truly yours, MOSES E. LARD.
I CAN only, at present, say, that I will give the above very acceptable communication a very special consideration. On the endowment of Bethany College more depends, for the advancement of the cause of Reformation, than on any other object within the horizon of our brethren. I would thus express myself, as at present advised, did I apprehend that I should be called hence the day after it was so endowed. The first college in the Union founded on the Bible, as the only firm foundation of moral science, of religious humanity-- alias, Christian civilization--and by a community founded upon the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. In the name of reason, why do a Christian population of some 200,000, linger in this cause, and fear to launch away!" Why divide their means, and scatter them on State, and local, and transient institutions! But I will not give way to my feelings, lest perchance I should offend against those who think that three or four abortive efforts are better than one successful one. A. C.
CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS--No. V.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: f any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with me.
The AMEN, the faithful and true WITNESS, the Beginning of the creation of God.--Rev. iii. 14, 20.
As the revelation of Christianity has both its external and its internal evidences, so the possession of Christianity by the individual, is denoted, not only by outward forms, but by inward proofs. To use a scholastic and precise, but, perhaps, less intelligible expression, we may say that Christianity has its external and its internal evidences, both objectively and subjectively considered.
704 CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS.
And of the two kinds of evidences here mentioned, we may further remark, that, while in each case, the external are most convincing to the unconverted, the internal afford the greatest assurance and consolation to the believer. For, while the latter recognizes the entire weight of the proofs which analogy and testimony furnish of the divine origin of the Christian system, he finds in the divine spirit which it breathes; the heavenly wisdom which it imparts, and the innumerable marks of purity and truth which every where abound, far more convincing evidences that it has come from God. So, also, on the other hand, while he presents to the world a formal and consistent profession of this religion, and attaches due importance to the outward ordinances and institutions of the gospel, he himself relies upon his own internal perceptions of the truth, and those inward workings and spiritual consolations and monitions of which he alone is cognizant, as the real and substantial evidences of his interest in the salvation of Christ.
Among these internal, and, as we might say, personal evidences of renovation, there is no one more worthy of confidence than a sensitiveness to the spiritual presence of Christ. It has been ever, indeed, the great end and aim of all true religion, to secure fellowship with God--a fellowship which is enjoyed just in proportion as He is seen, and known, and felt in His word and in His works. It is especially, however, the purpose of that gospel, which is the concentration of all divine truth, and the consummation of all divine love, to induce the nearest possible approach to God, and establish the most intimate, heartfelt and permanent relations between God and that human soul which has been reconciled through Christ. It will be, accordingly, in proportion as these relations are felt and appreciated; as this fellowship is realized and enjoyed; as His presence is perceived and recognized, that the believer will have an assurance of his personal interest in Christ's redemption.
It is a common error among men to mistake an admiration of virtue for virtue itself, and to imagine, that a mere verbal or theoretical admission of the principles of morality entitles them to rank with those who both admit and practice them. It is an error equally common, at least in Christendom, for men to think themselves deserving of credit as Christians, because they admit the force of the external evidences of Christianity, and consent that it is true, although they have never made, and have no intention of making, a public profession of this religion. So, also, it is lamentably true of many who have made the profession of Christianity, that they rest their confidence and their hopes upon the mere external forms and
CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS. 705
ceremonies of the gospel, and have not the slightest perception of those true spiritual relations which it was designed to establish-- that heavenly fellowship which it proposes--that inner life which it is its express object to impart and cherish. Such are they who secularize spiritual truths; who spin out all within them into a rectilinear web of theory, and seek to nullify, by a frigid system of human philosophy, the purest joys and highest privileges which human beings may possess.
It is, however, the part of the true Christian, ever to recognize a spiritual fellowship with God, as the great object and end of the gospel call, and so to live, in all holy conversation and godliness, that no cloud may intercept the life-giving beams of the Sun of Righteousness, or obscure the bright heaven, which, even while on earth, he is permitted to enjoy. And he, very naturally and justly, learns to estimate his own spiritual condition by the amount of his spiritual enjoyment, and especially by the acuteness, if we may so speak, of his spiritual sensibilities. If his perception of divine truth is blunted, and his consciousness of the divine presence enfeebled, he rightly judges that the perishing things of time have too much occupied his attention, and he hastens to seek, with renewed earnestness, the presence of his Redeemer. "I know my sheep," says the good shepherd, "and am known of mine." "The good shepherd calleth his sheep by name and leads them out, and when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice, and a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they, know not the voice of strangers." How beautiful a picture is here presented of that undoubting confidence; that familiar intercourse, and that mutual and unerring recognition which ever exists between Christ and his true disciples!
The perception or sensitiveness on the part of the true believer, of which we speak, is a spiritual one. It is not merely lexical, intellectual, or even moral. It may be based upon such perceptions, but it rises above them, and affords to the believer clearer, loftier, and more extended views of spiritual things than can ever be reached without it. The believer is himself spiritual. The kingdom of heaven, which consists not in outward show, but which is within him, is "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." It belongs to his renewed nature to possess spiritual sensibilities; nor is it without meaning, that the scripture says that the things of the spirit are "spiritually discerned;" and that, for this very reason, the "natural man" does not receive them, and cannot know them. And this "natural man" is not one with no other means of information
706 CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS.
than those afforded by his senses--one without divine revelation or a proper presentation of religious truth. On the contrary, he is one to whom the things of the Spirit have been presented, but who, for want of this spiritual dicernment, has refused to receive them, and who, after considering them, has adjudged them to be "foolishness."
It is not to be doubted, however, that spiritual sensibility exists in various degrees in different individuals, and that it may be highly cultivated and exalted by the means divinely provided--the indwelling of the word of Christ; the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; habitual prayerful communion with God, and the keeping of his holy commandments. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom," says an apostle to the brethren at Colosse, "teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." Again, says the same apostle to the Ephesian disciples, "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord." These passages are cognate, but not identical in their import, and we must not imagine that be. cause the Colossian is exhorted "to let the word of Christ dwell in him richly, in all wisdom," and the Ephesian to be "filled with the Spirit," that, therefore, the injunctions either nullify each other by a mutual incompatibility, or that the apostle designed to intimate thereby that the Spirit is the word, or the word the Spirit. The word of Christ is, indeed, the expression of the divine will, and the source of all divine wisdom; and the apostle has very appropriately associated this idea with the exhortation to the Colossians; while, on the other hand, to the Ephesians, he contrasts with the excitement and inebriation produced by wine, the pure and holy emotions which it is the office of the Spirit to cherish. Both the word and the Spirit are undoubtedly, in every case, necessary to the Christian; the former to communicate a knowledge of the divine philanthropy, and the latter to shed abroad in the heart that revealed love of God, and to excite to the production of those precious fruits of love, joy, peace and holiness, which are the true indications and appropriate graces of the Christian character. And, through these heavenly influences, how greatly is the spiritual sensibility of the soul exalted! How sensitive it becomes to that indwelling Presence! How quick to hear the accents of that precious word! How prompt to detect the intrusion of deceitful spiritual foes, and unveil their hideous features in the radiant sun-light of celestial truth!
For such a result it is by no means difficult to account. It is the
CHRISTIAN KNOCKINGS. 707
natural result of long-devoted attention to a particular object, that this shall engross and be ever present to the thoughts. How familiar, by long acquaintanceship, we become with the gestures, the voice, the modes of thought and action of those with whom we are intimate! How easily we recognize them at a distance! How quickly we distinguish their voice in the darkness! We are told that the operators with the telegraph, who are obliged to fix their attention night and day upon its movements, become so thoroughly versed in them, that they can determine almost by their practised ear alone, without reference to the writing, the nature of the communication, and that, the one who sleeps, can always hear amidst his slumbers the slightest click made by the instrument when in action. How expressive, in this connection, is the language of the spouse in Canticles: "I sleep, hut my heart waketh; it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me!" It is in this beautiful passage we find presented a chief source of that peculiar delicacy of perception of which we have been speaking- It is the effect of attention; that attention is commanded by love; that love in the Christian is one of the fruits of the Spirit!
How, indeed, is it possible for us to imagine a human soul imbued with the divine word; familiarized with the divine presence, and accustomed to constant spiritual intercourse, and yet attaining no higher degrees of spiritual sensibility, and gaining no deeper insight into the mysteries of the spiritual world? It is the natural and necessary result of such communion to enlarge the soul; to expand its powers; to refine and renovate its nature; to quicken all its energies, and exalt to the highest degree its spiritual susceptibilities. Nor is it surprising that the individual who is thus renewed, and strengthened with might in the inner man," should ascend to loftier views of heavenly truth, and have a more enlarged vision and a more accurate knowledge of spiritual things. That very assimilation to the divine character; that very conformity to the divine mind, which are here implied, and which are themselves progressive, must necessarily lead to truer and more sublime conceptions of the divine nature, and to a clearer and fuller comprehension of the divine word.
How dear, then, to the heart, thus animated by this inner file, the gracious promises of Christ: "Ask and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will ye give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will ye for a fish give him a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will ye
708 CONVERSIONS FROM ROMANISM.
offer him a scorpion? If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." "Behold I stand" (says he in the language of our epigraph) "at the door and knock: if any man will open the door, I will come in and sup with him and he shall sup with me." He himself here solicits admission; and, as once he forsook the bright seats of glory in the celestial world, to partake of our humanity, in order that we might be made partakers of the divine nature; so here, in like manner, he proposes to share with man in man's repast, with the blessed promise that man shall share with him, in turn, the feast of heaven. R. R.
CONVERSIONS FROM ROMANISM.
IN the Catholic part of Ireland conversions are going on in great numbers, the Church of England receiving most of the converts. From the accounts published, two counties have furnished ten thousand converts each. The Catholic Telegraph is as good as most Jesuits are in accounting for such a wholesale change of views; but in his zeal to make easy the ascent of his countrymen from the implicit faith of Romanism to the higher Protestant principle of faith, a belief of evidence, he has paid a poor compliment to either their judgment or their conscientiousness. So accustomed to the sacrifice of principle and independence for visible unity, he cannot conceive of a higher motive than bread and butter among the constituency of the Catholic Church. He thus discourses on the subject of these con versions:
"Several Catholics have recently been perverted in Ireland. The way of their conversion is this: A certain village is selected, whose inhabitants are to be immediately united to the Church of England. A preacher wearing a white cravat and foolish face, proposes to the people to abandon Popery. They refuse. Come forward with your arguments, says the preacher to the sheriff. Pull down their houses, says the sheriff to his men. Throw the sick into the ditches, starve the children, pinch them with cold, thirst, famine, and fever; and whilst in that condition, made almost idiots by persecution, they promise to join the Protestant Church, and the fat Evangelicals of England shout with joy, and the preachers coax their dupes to open their purses to carry more gospel to the Papists!"
A cause must be in sad destitution of argument and documents, which disposes of thousands of changes in a country where, a short time since, the very mob would have rendered the present peaceable enterprize a dangerous one.--D. S. B. [Age and Unionist.
EDITORIAL NOTICES. 709
EDITORIAL NOTICES.
A DISCUSSION of the mode and subjects of Christian Baptism, in a series of letters, by Rev. R. C. Grundy, D. D , of the Presbyterian Church, and Elder John Young, of the Christian Church, held through the medium of the Maysville (Ky.) Post Boy and Flagg, during April, May, and June last, but now re-published by Bro. Young, and sold at 30 cents single copy, or four copies for one dollar, pamphlet form, containing 166 pages.
These debatants have not only handled the subject, but they have also handled each other, gloves off, and with much point. Dr. Grundy seems to have forgotten that he is a Doctor of Divinity, or, rather, laid off the Doctorate, as an encumbrance in the way of doing himself and his cause justice.
He greatly mistook his man, and has divested himself of any well grounded pretensions to critical attainments or theological ability. It re-. quires no very great discrimination, on the part of his readers, to see that his failure was "perfect and complete, wanting nothing." Bro. Young, on the contrary, has evinced much acumen and ability, and certainly has triumphantly carried all his points, sword in hand. Dr. Grundy, in attempting to belittle his antagonist, has only belittled himself; while his opponent has raised himself and his cause to deserved respect on the part of all uncommitted and impartial umpires. I do not think that the friends of Dr. Grundy will take much interest in circulating the book, while I am sure that Bro. Young's friends will give it a cordial and liberal circulation. How hard the lesson to some scholars, viz: That they who live in gluts houses ought not to throw stones at their neighbors.
NEW EDITION OF CHRISTIAN HYMN-BOOK--We can now supply orders for the Christian Hymn-Book equal to the demand. Those desiring common or plain leather binding, can be supplied on large orders, at a liberal discount. Retail price, 37 1/2c.
CHRISTIAN BAPTISM.--Orders for the book on "Christian Baptism, with its Antecedents and Consequents," Philadelphia edition, can now be filled at Bethany, or at Philadelphia, at the house of Lippincott, Grambo and Co. Retail price $1, neatly bound. Orders from booksellers and agents at liberal discounts for cash. We have been obliged rigidly to adopt the cash system in the book business, much to the interest of both parties--buyer and seller.
Ex-CONSUL BUCHANAN.--With much sympathy with the relatives of our much esteemed and beloved Bro. Buchanan, we have received intelligence of his decease, on the 8th October, at Elmswood, near Montreal, in his 80th year. We had a letter from him a few days before his decease--if not the last, amongst the last he wrote-expressing his firm reliance on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ for his redemption. In the New York Chronicle of the 15th November, we have a sketch of his interesting life, which is put on file for our readers next month.
REV. T. B. CLARK AND DR. N. L. RICE.--Dr. Rice, it would seem, will never forgive me for the honors done him at Lexington. His Rev. Bro. Clark manufactures the ammunition, and he discharges the canon. A correspondent from Mr. Clark's neighborhood, informs me that the Rev. gentleman has given numerous and various versions of a conversation which I had with him some thirty-seven years ago. I have noticed his distortions and fables, which no man, that knows the parties, could believe; for which I am now abused in language so mean, so vulgar, so ungentlemanly, as to place him beyond the pale of any further notice from me.
My statements concerning his version of that interview are, without
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 60
710 TRIBUTE OF RESPECT.
exaggeration, literally true; and the facts alluded to, so far as concerns myself, are public property, true and veritable. The two, or almost three columns, which Mr. Rice, in his "Presbyterian of the West," devotes to the distracted vulgarisms of his brother, out of a due sense of self-respect and of regard for a vain and feeble old man, ought, in mercy, to have been sent home to him. But if he thinks otherwise, he has a right to consult his own taste in this free country.
THE CHRISTIAN SUNDAY SCHOOL JOURNAL, published by J. Jackson, Lexington, Ky. This is an interesting and valuable journal, and well calculated to interest the youth of our country. It is "devoted to Sunday Schools, juvenile education, and parental responsibility." It will do parents, as well as children, no harm to read it. It is a monthly, containing eight quarto pages, at TWENTY-FIVE CENTS per volume of 90 pages. Having seen six numbers of it, I can say I wish it, because it deserves, a liberal patronage. A. C.
THE STYLUS.--The second number of the Stylus will be issued in a few days. It has been enlarged, as promised, to 24 pages, and will, no doubt, fully sustain the interest of the first number. As yet, but few subscriptions have come in from abroad; and in this respect, the hopes of the enterprising young gentlemen who have gotten up the Stylus, have been somewhat disappointed. Nothing disheartened, however, they are determined to go on, and it is fondly hoped, that the old students and friends of Bethany College will give them a liberal support. A few have promptly sent in their subscriptions, and hailed the appearance of the Stylus with an encouraging voice. Are there not many others who would like to link themselves to their Alma Mater by some living tie, that will awaken, at least once a month, the grateful memories of their College days? Let such send on their names without delay. The terms are as low as can be afforded, and will prove no objection to the liberal spirit of those who have been baptized in the fountains of an ennobling literature. Address J. A. Campbell, Bethany, Brooke county, Va. Terms, $2 in advance. W. K. P.
TRIBUTE OF RESPECT.
AT a called meeting of the Neotrophian Society of Bethany College, held in the Society Hall, November 6th, 1851, the following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted:
WHEREAS, we the members of the Neotrophian Society, have been informed of the recent death of CHARLES H. FOSTER, of Detroit, Mich., formerly a regular member of our association; therefore,
Resolved, That we deeply deplore the unfortunate event which has deprived our society of one of its most distinguished members, and sincerely sympathize with the friends and relations of the deceased, in the loss of one so young and gifted.
Resolved, That the Hall be hung in mourning, and the members wear the usual token of respect for thirty days.
Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be furnished to the editors of the "Millennial Harbinger," "Stylus," and the Detroit "Advertiser," with a request that the same may be published.
M. BENNETT, President.
R. H. WHITAKER, Recording Secretary.
COLLECTIONS FOR BETHANY COLLEGE. 711
SUBSCRIPTIONS AND COLLECTIONS FOR BETHANY COLLEGE.
THE following report, laid before the Trustees of Bethany College July 3d, ought to have been published in the August number, but has been crowded out till now. Since then a few collections have been made, which will, of course, appear in the next report made to the Board.
Statement of subscriptions received and collections made for Bethany College, from July 3d, 1850, to July 3d, 1851.
| Am't Subscribed. | Am't Paid. | |
| Amount of donations and subscriptions published August, 1850, | $42,234 68 | $33,672 30 |
| Estate of Wm. Dabney, dec., Ayletts, Va., | 562 90 | 562 90 |
| Thomas M. Allen, of Mo., donated, | 10 00 | 10 00 |
| H. C. Ewin, Todd county, Ky., | 15 50 | |
| Mrs. Mary Meriwether, Minor's Nursery, Tenn., | 20 00 | |
| John Rogers, Carlisle, Ky., | 5 00 | |
| John Butterfield, Morgan county, Ia., | 10 00 | |
| Geo. W. Abell, Albemarle county, Va., | 4 00 | |
| M. Gridley, Bloomington, III., | 5 00 | |
| C. Jacobs, Lexington, Mo., | 2 50 | |
| E. H. Carter, Lexington, Mo., | 8 00 | |
| E. M. Ware, Essex county, Va., | 50 00 | |
| J. W. Barker, Montgomery county, Tenn., | 10 00 | |
| Samuel Rogers, Nicholas county, Ky., | 1 00 | |
| Albert Allen, Fayette county, Ky., | 10 00 | |
| J. C. Stone, Madison county, Ky., | 80 00 | |
| E. Roberts, Madison county, Ky., | 3 00 | |
| W. Standeford, Shelbyville, Ky., | 5 00 | |
| W. C. Whitaker, Shelbyville, Ky., | 10 00 | |
| N. Owesley, per W. Standeford, Shelbyville, Ky., | 5 00 | |
| George C. Slaughter, Louisville, Ky., | 10 00 | |
| J. A. Boulton, Boone county, Mo., | 50 00 | |
| John W. Smyser, Louisville, Ky., | 3 00 | |
| George Seebolt, Louisville, Ky., | 4 00 | |
| S. Carpenter, Bardstown, Ky., | 50 00 | |
| J. W. M'Garvey, Fayette, Mo., | 10 00 | |
| B. Andrews, Philadelphia, Pa., | 20 00 | |
| J K. Speer, Cass, Tenn., | 4 00 | |
| Mrs. Ann Ford, Edmondson, Ky., | 15 00 | |
| J. B. Cobb, Hart county, Ky., | 19 30 | |
| G. W. Elly, Lexington, Ky., | 10 00 | |
| J. Bellomy, Todd county, Ky., | 10 00 | |
| R. Dulan, Christian county, Ky., | 10 00 | |
| G. P. Street, Christian county, Ky., | 10 00 | |
| E. G. Herndon, Christian county, Ky., | 10 00 | |
| W. A. Morrison, Christian county, Ky., | 10 00 | |
| Mrs. H. B Keene, Georgetown, Ky., | 20 00 | |
| Wm. Green, Henderson county, Ky., | 3 00 | |
| E. W. Dabney, Trigg county, Ky., | 10 00 | |
| Joshua Smithson, Ghent, Ky., | 25 00 | |
| James S. Fall, Frankfort, Ky., | 20 00 | |
| James M. Graham, Franklin county, Ky., | 10 00 | |
| Mrs. M. E. Dabney, Ayletts, Va., | 5 00 | |
| $42,807 58 | $34,827 50 |
712 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
MISSOURI.--Bro. T. M. Allen reports some 56 additions in Boone county, all of whom were admitted by baptism, with the exception of 2 by letter and 2 from the Baptists; and all within the last few weeks, ending September 25th. He was assisted by Bro. Wills. Also 5 additions in Fayette, where he was assisted by Bro. A. Proctor. On the 1st Lord's day of September, Bro. John W. M'Garvey was ordained for the ministry of the word, by fasting, prayer, and the imposition of hands. On the 2d Lord's day, at Concord, Saline county, assisted by Bro. T. N. Gaines, 6 more additions by baptism. Bro. Gaines remained to continue the meeting till after the following Lord's day. On the 3d Lord's day--the day before and the Monday after--at New Bloomfield, in Callaway, a meeting was held, and 2 more were added- Also, in the counties of Pike, Rails, Miami and Lewis, where Bros. Anderson and Jamison have just closed a campaign of several weeks, Bro. Allen reports as the result of these meetings, embracing the 3d Lord's day, 100 additions.--Bro. Mason Summers, of Haynesville, writing under date of August 19, reports some 52 additions; of which, 20 were at Haynesville; 27 were gained in the progress of a meeting within three miles of Plattsburg; at another point of the same county, 5 more were added. Bro. Trice was the chief laborer.--Bro. Winthrop H. Hopson, late of Lafayette, now residing at Palmyra, writing under date of October 28th, says: "For the last ten months I have been traveling in Missouri as an evangelist. I have preached four hundred and forty times, and have obtained 350 additions. The churches in the State are generally doing well; meeting weekly; observing the ordinances of the Lord's house, and growing in grace and in knowledge. Our number in Missouri is rapidly on the increase. It may safely be estimated at thirty thousand."
INDIANA.--Bro. Elias W. Shortridge, of Milton, Wayne county, under date of September 23d, reports 220 additions during his labors of some eighteen months; 159 of the above number were added by baptism.
VIRGINIA.--Bro. R. M. Kent, of Louisa C. H., under date of September 24th, reports 30 additions during this year. His labors were confined to Fluvanna county, which, he says, was entirely a new field of operations. --Bro. C. Bullard, of Humility, under date of September 8th, writes thus: "We had, at the South-West Co-Operation, a large and profitable meeting-9 persons were added. I sent $100 to Bro. Silas Shelbern, as part of our Jerusalem contribution." Bro. B. has consented to labor as an evangelist for this year. His first appointment was at the Barnett Springs, a watering place, (a new point,) where 2 from the crowd confessed the Lord. --Bro. J. R. Frame, of Hyattstown, Md., under date of November 3d, says: "I have just returned from a very interesting meeting at Beaver Creek, Eastern Virginia, at which 6 persons confessed the Prince Messiah and bowed to his authority. The church was also greatly refreshed. I found the cause prosperous in Eastern Virginia. I obtained $12 at the late Beaver Creek meeting for the purpose of erecting a church in the metropolis of our great Republic. 0 that Christians would truly appreciate the importance of this magnificent Christian enterprize. Property is enhancing rapidly in value there, and we might save by purchasing a lot immediately. The Romanists are making a most desperate effort to control the people in the capital. Brethren, let us try to plant the more ancient, apostolic, and Christian Church there, and not let the Man of Sin luxuriate in his abominations, and delude the growing millions of this glorious land."
MISSISSIPPI.--Bro. M. W. Webber, of Shelby county, Ten., writing under date of September 8th, states that 16 persons were added, 8 by baptism and 8 by letter, to the congregation at Thyatira, Desoto county, Miss. He was assisted by Bros. Cooper and Dupuy. The meeting continued for a
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 713
few days. The success of the cause in that place was, he remarks, owing to the remarkable Christian circumspection of a single family, which composed a large part of the congregation.
OHIO.--Bro. Wm. Hays, of Mt. Vernon, under date of November 11th, reports 7 additions in a late visit to the brethren in Harrison county. One of the persons who confessed the Lord was an aged father, 77 years old, who, he says, was won to the Lord by fire-side preaching--by courteous expostulation and entreaty.--Bro. A. G. Hayden, of Salem, under date of November 11th, reports the result of a meeting held by Bro. Harmon Reeves, which commenced on the 31st ult. and ended on the 10th inst. The public mind appeared to have been disabused of much prejudice; the brethren were stirred up to greater zeal, and 12 persons, mostly in the bloom of youth, confessed the Lord, were buried with Him in baptism, and were united to the church.-- Bro. B. F. Perky, of Freedom, Portage county, under date of September 26th, thus writes: "On the 8th inst., in company with Bro. Newcombe, I left Wooster for Camden, Loraine county, to attend the last of our annual meetings for the current year. Our meeting was small, compared with those you attended. Some 400 persons were all we had in attendance. The number of speakers was proportionally small. Bros. Philander Green, T. Newcombe, and your humble servant, were all who addressed the public. Still we had a very happy, and, I trust, profitable time-14 having been added to the saved, 12 by immersion, I reclaimed, and 1 from the Methodists. This, like some of the other meetings, should have been protracted, but previous engagements forbade our longer stay, and accordingly, on Wednesday morning, we took the parting hand. Our annual meetings for 1851 will long be remembered as seasons peculiarly delightful. If I have been correctly informed, there have been added to the saved, in all, more than 200; and of this number, about 185 new converts. To the Lord be all the praise!"
TEXAS.--Bro. Randolph Fugate gives us cheering news from Eastern Texas. Under date of October 23d, he reports 242 additions in Rusk county. Bro. C. Kendrick and Bro. Henderson, were the chief laborers. The people of this flourishing and fruitful section of our Union, appear to hear the truth with great interest. The field is large, and of good soil, but the laborers are few. Let us, brethren, pray the Lord of the harvest, that he may open our hearts and dispose us to Improve the bounties of His providence, by sending laborers into his vineyard. Can we, as stewards, withhold the means--the goods--the talents--so abundantly bestowed upon us and be faithful to our Master, the Lord of the Vineyard? Has he not told us, by way of admonition, that the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light? While the former, by their industry, are gaining for themselves wealth, friends, and influence, ought not the latter learn a lesson therefrom, to use and so improve the products of their industry as to gain for themselves friends, who shall receive them, at length, into the everlasting mansions.
KENTUCKY.--Bro. Jeptha C. Brite, under date of September, reports 22 or 23 additions to the church at Eminence, the result of a visit made by Bro. Thornbury.--Under date of November 15th, Bro. J. T. Johnson reports the success of his labors for the last twelve months: "Of the last twelve months, half my time has been spent in the South, and the remainder in Kentucky. I had many pleasant meetings in conjunction with other evangelists, and formed many friendships, which are a source of great gratification. The result has been upwards of 100 additions in the South, and about 150 in Kentucky--making, in all,. about 250. The Lord be praised for all his goodness! Including the sum pledged at Mt. Sterling, I have obtained subscriptions amounting to about $3,000, in Kentucky, for the Female Orphan School at Midway. Of this sum, between $400 and $500 have been collected and paid to the Treasurer."
SERIES IV.--VOL. I. 60*
714 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
PENNSYLVANIA--Bro. Festus Tibbot, of Ebensburg, under date of November 10th, reports 3 additions at their annual meeting. Bros. Loos and M'Dougal were present.
[Bro. J. T. Johnson, under date of November 15th, reports the following adjudication and adjustment of the late difficulties that have existed in the church at Mt. Sterling:]
Whereas, the Church of Christ at Mt. Sterling, and Bros. John Smith, Charles E. Williams, and D. Hazlerigg, have been afflicted will difficulties for the last eighteen months, to their great annoyance and unhappiness, and to the detriment of the best interests of the cause of Christ. And whereas, the parties inspired with the deepest solicitude to restore harmony, and the sincerest Christian affection and fellowship, and to remove all causes of offence between all the parties concerned in this difficulty, have had full, free, and unreserved intercourse with Elders John T. Johnson and Wm. Morton, in reference thereto. And the parties, influenced by their own desires and judgments, and the advice of said Johnson and Morton, do hereby most cheerfully and unreservedly withdraw and bury in oblivion, all these difficulties. with the causes of difference between the said parties. And further, that all writings in reference thereto are deposited with said Johnson and Morton, to be kept by them safe from the inspection of all parties.
And the parties esteem and feel it a privilege, to withdraw and bury in oblivion all harsh. unkind, and unchristian expressions that may have been indulged in by any one; and further, that any allusions to this adjustment, or the matters involved in it, to the prejudice of any of the said parties, shall be considered and treated as covenant breaking.
WM. MITCHELL, In behalf of the church.
ENOCH SMITH,
JOHN SMITH,
C. E. WILLIAMS,
D. HAZLERIGG.
FREEDOM, Portage county, O., September 26, 1851.
Brother Campbell: Enclosed I send you two scholarships for Bethany College. These were the only blanks I had on hand. Could I have remained in the same region a week longer, and publicly presented the advantages of scholarships, I feel sanguine that I could have sold at least a half dozen more. One of these which I send you is yet defective $10. This deficit was occasioned by a heavy rain on the last evening of our meeting, which prevented the attendance of a brother who had agreed to sign $10. But Bro. Wood, whose name is first, pledged himself to see it paid whenever called for. He is both able and willing. Moreover, to secure a scholarship, it must be done, and, as Yankees, they know their interest too well to neglect it.
Permit me now to offer, for your consideration, a suggestion which is not original with me, Viz: That if you could spend some two or three months on the Western Reserve, sometime during 1852, in lecturing on education, the evidences of Christianity, and Primitive Christianity, we will raise you 150 scholarships.
The growing city of Cleveland very much needs a thorough course of lectures on the evidences of Christianity. Oberlin is much in need of instruction on the subject of Primitive Apostolic Christianity. On my way home through Oberlin, I was pained to learn from a brother residing there, that on let Lord's day some 200 young men and women were at the !"umlaut seat," earnestly inquiring what they must do to be saved. I was told that I could have a hearing there by the public, and was solicited to remain and preach for them a season; and had I possessed the tongues of
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES. 715
Pentecost, or even half the literature of Bro. Campbell, I would have remained, maugre previous engagements. I was likewise informed by some one there, that their large and commodious chapel would be opened to you at any time, reserving only the privilege of replying to you. The suggestion to have you come and spend sometime in North-Eastern Ohio, comes from Bro. J. II. Jones, with the promise that he will act ac solicitor; than whom you could net possibly obtain a more efficient one, exec lit. it be Dr. Robinson, who would, of course, be on hand to do what he could, and the rest of us would throw in our mites, and thus acting in unison, be successful.
Please inform me, at your earliest convenience. What pm think of the practicability of the above suggestion; of the probability of your accepting it; and should you report favorably, I will then lay the 'natter before our more prominent speaker, and we will make all necessary arrangements.
Meanwhile, send me a few more blanks, and I will see what I can do in the way of obtaining scholarships, while attending to my appointments during the winter.
With the best wishes for your present and eternal welfare, I have the honor to be, my venerable brother, yours in the, kingdom and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ. My wife joins with me in sending Christian love to Sister Campbell and family. B. F. PERRY.
BROTHER B. F. PERKY--My Dear Sir: You have, in your favor, made a very generous proposition--one worthy of yourself and of the brethren with whom you have conferred, and one which demands a corresponding consideration on my part, and on the part of those whose interest, in one point of view, I may be said to represent. Bethany College is with me, as an individual, a very small consideration. It has been, is now, and while I live, as far as I can foresee, will continue to be, a very onerous, and, as far as pecuniary considerations are contemplated, a very unprofitable concern--a perpetual incubus and trouble. But as a public interest to the cause of education, literature, science and religion--an alliance never to be broken--it was in its conception, is now in its existence, and will ever be in its fortunes, identified with the cause of the Reformation, and essential to its progress and prosperity. And unless to try my faith, and prove my patience, I cannot comprehend the comparative apathy or indifference with which its announcement was received and its claims have been met. It has, indeed, been responded to by a few hundreds, and generously congratulated and aided by probably one or two hundred persons of considerable means, with many small contributions from hearts as generous as theirs, but stewards of less estates.
It is no State institution--no provincial affair. It grasps the North and the South, the East and the West, of this great American family of nations or sovereign States, and that with a single eye to the progress and prosperity of the greatest cause, in our esteem, plead by man.
716 OBITUARY.
We want a thousand able preachers at this moment, of good hearts, clear understandings, and well furnished for the field. It is no theological school. It is a literary and scientific institution, built on the Bible--on sacred history--free from any indirect or sectarian influence. Christianity can be taught in all its catholicity as a matter of history. Sectarianism is not Christianity. It is speculative, philosophical, political and artistic.
We can more easily build ships than man them, and put to sea with more gallantry than make successful voyages to safe and profitable havens. My motto is, to follow the example of Him who did all things well. One thing at a time, and well done, is twice done. Bethany College could educate two or three hundred students better than one, and for half, or one-fourth of the present rates, and not a Christian steward of God's bounties live or die less happily or honorably for it. And we could furnish many gifted and promising Christian young men with gratuitous education; young men of good minds and good hearts, that would make themselves tell well, and much to the honor of many generous hearts in the day of the Lord. It remains with the brethren to say whether this great work shall pine away and die, or go forth, like a strong man, to run his race of glory, honor, and immortality.
But to this point the experiment is in progress, and has been for ten years. We appeal to its fruits. Our brethren are working, or seeming to work, after the flesh, from State pride, State policy, or local interest, and are squandering their means in matters local, transient and inefficient, or withholding them from the Lord, His cause, and people. But I will not detail those matters. They will make other abortive efforts. For if they do not thoroughly establish and sustain Bethany College, they will not, in this our day, establish any one. I must, Bro. Perky, say that your proposition is generous and Christian like, and I will, at present, presume to say, that it will be accepted. But as to the time and other matters, we shall not now say any thing. Yours, in the hope of immortality, A. C.
OBITUARY.
I WAS sorry to hear, the other day, of the death of Dr. ANDREW WYLIE, late President of Bloomington University, Indiana, formerly President of Jefferson and then of Washington College. He and myself, some thirty years ago, had some newspaper discussions on moral subjects. But time and experience brought us mote together. I enjoyed his hospi-
OBITUARY. 717
tality, and much of his society, during my short visit to Bloomington last year. Mr. Wylie was a distinguished man by nature, education, and public confidence, and in his last days enjoyed broader and higher views of Christianity than suited the taste of Scotch Presbyterianism. A. C.
FAYETTE, Mo., September 5, 1851.
Died, on the 29th ult., in Boonville, Mo., in the 27th year of her age, Sister MARY SUSAN COOKE, consort of Geo. W. Cooke, and eldest daughter of Bro. Wm. T. Mallory, of this place.
Sister Cooke was, by nature, lovely, affable, and kind; and without an effort on her part, gained the esteem of all with whom she mingled. But the crowning excel once of her character was the spotless purity of her Christian life. Intelligent, zealous and benevolent, her efforts were felt in the church and community for good, and her loss will be deeply felt. Sister C. leaves a bereaved and sorrowing husband, with two small children, to feel and suffer her loss; aged parents, sisters and relations, by whom she was tenderly loved. But living and dying as she did, in the love and service of Christ. they can but feel that their loss is her gain; that she is but removed from earth, that Christ may bestow upon her the blessings of an eternal life. B.
On the 18th of October, at his late residence in Knox county, O., died Bro. BENJAMIN BELL, aged 69 years. Some 24 years ago he had made the good confession in which he lived and died triumphantly. In his last moments he thus bogie testimony to the truth. When asked by a Presbyterian minister, "What is the ground of your hope?" he thus replied, "If the promises of God in Christ are sure and faithful, I am safe; if they are not true, I am lost. I have believed in Christ and have obeyed Him; and he that believes in Him and obeys Him, shall be saved." Bro. Bell was a faithful disciple, and very benevolent to the poor, and was ever ready to aid in sustaining the proclamation of the ancient gospel.
Bro. J. Jones being present at his death, says: I never witnessed a more calm and triumphant death. He bade his family farewell with great composure of mind, and commended them to God and the word of his grace, and then fell asleep in the hope of the resurrection. "How sweet to die with Jesus nigh--the Rock of our Salvation."
Fell asleep in Jesus, on the 13th of May, Sister ELIZABETH BEECHER, late of Lancaster, Ohio, aged 74 years. Sister Beecher had been a constant reader of our writings for more than twenty years. She often spoke of having derived much pleasure and comfort from their perusal. Her constant desire appeared always to have been, that she might know and do the will of God.
Departed this life on the 7th of July, in his 47th year, Bro. R. S. LOWE, late of Macomb, Ill. In the spring of 1849 he made the good confession, and two months prior to his death was chosen an elder of the congregation at Macomb. From the time of his confession he lived a devoted Christian, and died in the full assurance of a resurrection with the just.
Our well-beloved Sister MELINDA SWAYZE, (consort of our excellent Bro. Wm. L. Swayze, of West Feliciana, La.,) fell asleep in Christ on Lord's day morning. August 24th, 1851, aged 39 years and 1 month, being horn July 24th, 1812. She became a member of the Christian Church in the spring of 1842, under the teaching of Bro. G. W. H. Smith, and has continued to grow in knowledge and grace. She was kind to all, spoke evil of none, and was never appealed to in vain by the poor or distressed, who always found in her a true friend and faithful stewardess, of those good things with which God had entrusted her in this life. Married June 2d, 1829, she was for 22 years one of the best wives it has ever been my lot to
718 ALL THE RESOLUTIONS.
know. I cannot describe her devotion to her husband, who consulted her on every matter of every description--never acting without the almost unerring advice of her he loved most tenderly. To mourn her loss, she leaves a devoted husband, three sons and three daughters, (besides her bereaved brother’s two sons and a daughter, who had been entrusted to her rearing,) and a very large circle of friends in the churches and the world, for none knew her but to love. I fear that the church in West Feliciana will not soon recover from the removal of one who seemed almost its very mainspring and life. She often spoke of her departure, bore her protracted afflictions with meekness, and as she had lived so she did--at peace with all, rejoicing in the faith and hope of a blissful immortality. D. L. P.
"ALL THE RESOLUTIONS."
NOT long since, a missionary meeting was held among the negroes in the West Indies, at which the following resolutions were passed: 1. We will give something. 2. We will all give as God has enabled ns. 3. We will all give willingly. At the close of the meeting a leading negro took his seat at the table, in order to mark down the sum each came forward to give. A large number came and laid their contributions upon the table, some more, some less. Among the number who came up was a rich old colored man, as rich as all the others put together, who threw on the table a small silver coin. "Take dat back again," said the African receiver of the money, seated at the table, "Dat may be accordin to de first resolution, but not accordin to de second." The rich old gentleman accordingly took it up, and hobbled back to his seat in a great rage. One after another came forward, and almost all giving more than himself, he was fairly ashamed, and again threw down a piece of money on the table, saying, "Dar, take dot." It was a valuable piece of gold, but it was given so ill-temperedly that the man at the table again answered, "No, dat will not do yet. It may he accordin to de first and second resolutions, but not accordin to de last;" and again the old man took up his coin. Still annoyed at himself and all around him, he sat a long time, till nearly all were gone, and then came to the table, and with a pleasant countenance, (the man was a Christian,) willingly gave a large sum to the treasurer. The receiver, as he marked down the amount, exclaimed, "Well, den, dat am accordin to all de resolutions."
WASTED HOURS.--Walter Scott, in a narrative of his personal history, gives the following caution to youth: "If it should ever fall to the lot of youth to peruse these pages, let such readers remember that it is with the deepest regret that I recollect in my manhood the opportunities of learning which I neglected in my youth; that through every part of my literary career I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance; and I would at this moment give half the reputation I have had the good fortune to acquire, if, by doing so, I could rest the remaining part upon a sound foundation of learning and science."
THE great Convention at Memphis, Tenn., on Bible translation, constrains me to defer my visit to Eastern Virginia, as I have to deliver an dress there on the 26th inst. A. C
INDEX TO VOLUME 1.
| Address, Baccalaureate, 435 " on Germanic Liberty, 492 " on Sacred Literature, 382 " on Self Culture, 553 American Census abroad, 375 " Slavery, our position on, 49, 105 An Apology, 228 Ancient and Modern Evange- lists, 450 Angels and Demons, 66 Anglo-Saxon Race, progress of, 681 Anniversaries, Ohio, 606 Anniversary resolutions on Be- neficence, 686 Apostolic Baptism, 187 Apostolic Succession, 647 Appeal to Christians, 296 Baccalaureate Address, 435 Baptism, Apostolic, 187 Baptismal Regeneration, 675 Baptists, are they a Sect? 518, 652 Bethany College, 51, 234, 659, 711 Bethany College, endowment of, 701 Bible Question in Tennessee, 286 Bible Union, 23, 162, 530 Biblical Expositor, 516 Bishop Hughes, 475 Blessedness of Affliction and the Hope of the Mourner, 277 Book on Baptism-Justification, 318 Bro. Barclay in Jerusalem, 343 Campbellism, 82 Cause of Reformation, 590 Chance, 615 Christian Baptism, with its Ante- cedents and Consequents, 257, 473 Christian Chapel, New Orleans, 292 Christian Experience, 373 Christianity Experienced and Enjoyed, 61 Christian Knockings, 305, 326, 392, 489, 703 Church in Washington City, 120, 353, 536 Christian Ministers' Library, 259 Christian Union, the, 292 Church Edification, 262 |
Civil Government, its Design and its Authority, 456 Conversations at the Carlton House, 38, 97, 142, 229, 253, 406 Conventions, 601 Co-Operation Meeting in Ohio, 658 Claims of the Mill. Harbinger, 279 Clark, Bro. Elder Wm., his Tes- timony, 289 Church, Samuel, letter to A. S. Fairchild, D. D., 675 Conventions and Christian Be- nevolence, 688 Conversions from Romanism, 708 Dancing, 467, 503 Declaring the whole counsel of God, 463 Design of Civil Government and the extent of its Authority, 456 Disciples in Washington City, 60 Disciple, a Monthly Publication, 460 Dialogue between Fido and Logos, 377 Discoveries of the last century, 108 Distinguished men always hard workers, 411 Editorial Notices, 112, 709 Erratum, 300, 420 Eureka College, 111 Endowment of Bethany College, 701 Families of Literary Men, 372 Family Culture, 38, 97, 142, 229, 253, 406 Finished Education, 84 Fido and Logos, the two Comfor- ters, 377, 661 Friendly notice of our articles on the Fugitive Slave Law, 655 Fugitive Slave Law, 27 Fugitive Slave Law--once more, 621 " " queries on, 224 Germanic Liberty--Its charac- terising Spirit, &c., 492 Government, Civil, its design and extent of Authority, 456 Hint for every reader, 594 Hope of Immortality the true principle of Self-Improvement, 368, 446, 512, 573, 640, 698 |
720 INDEX.
| House that Jack Built, 444 Howard and Bunyan, 536 Instrumental Music, 581 Irvine Grove Academy, 293 In Memory of Clarinda, 412 Infant Baptism, its design, as taught by Dr. Miller, 680 Jerusalem Mission, 340, 453, 582 Justification, 318 Kentucky Baptist and the Bible Union, 103 Kentucky F. O. School, 474 Lind, Dr., views on the Bible Question, 198 Life of Faith, 7 Letter from Bro. J. T. Barclay, 35, 546 Letter from Bro. Shannon, 168 Lines on the death of Mrs. Cla- rinda Pendleton, 360 Law of Liberty, 668 Memory of Clarinda, 412 Ministry, 127, 401 Millennial Harbinger, 240 Mount of Sacrifice, 644 New Postage Law, 473 News from the Churches, 54, 114, 174, 236, 295, 357, 417, 476, 537, 597, 712 New Year's Gift, 85 New York Weekly Chronicle, 165 Notice to Evangelists, 60 Number Seven, 46 Obituary, 59, 117, 180, 297, 358, 418, 479, 538, 600, 716 Ohio Anniversaries, 606 Ohio Meetings, 599 Our Missionary, 284 Our Jerusalem Mission, 582 Our Literary Institutions, 585 Outer Darkness, 695 Piety and Mental Growth, 540 Pittsburgh Infirmary, 465 Position, our, on American Sla- very, 49, 105 Poetry-Storm and Calm, 660 " Come Unto Me, 600 Power of Faith when fully tested, 346 Power of a Good Man's Life, 535 Providence defeating Papal De- signs, 282 Psalmody, 576 Punctuality, 294 Preface, 3 Prayer, true idea of, 533 Queries, 172, 352 " on Discipline, 352 " on Masters' Duties, 525 |
Queries touching F. S. Law, 224 Re-Baptism, once more, 213 Remarks on Re-Baptism, 219 " Bro. Shannon's Letter, 169 " on F. S. Law, 226 Renunciation of Pedobaptism, 454 Reported Challenge, 416 Resurrection, 191 Religious Telescope, 660 Review Extraordinary, 71 Romish Church, 140 Rev. N. L. Rice, D. D., 355 Romanism, 541 Septenary Institutions and West- minster Review, 267, 331 Slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law, 171, 201, 247, 209, 386, 425 Self-Culture-An Address, 553 Sacred Literature-An Address, 382 Society in God, 130 Spirits in Prison, 133 Spiritual Universe, 64, 66, 121, 181, 241, 304, 361, 421, 481, 632 Spiritual Dyspepsy, 72, 147, 210, 348, 397 Summary, 52 Support of the Christian Minis- try, 508, 637 Testimony of a Converted Cath- olic, 592 Tenth Commencement of Beth- any College, 469 Testimony of the venerable Bro. Elder W m. Clark, of Miss., 289 Thoughtful Hours, 154, 207 Thoughts for Thinkers, 588 Tour of Forty Days, 76 " " " in the States of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, 13 Treatise on Christianity, 159 True Idea of Prayer, 533 Tribute of Respect, 599, 710 Two Comforters, or Fido and Logos, 377 Universities, Colleges, &c., in Great Britian, 356 Upper Canada Bible Society, 261 Views of Dr. Lynd on the Bible Question, 198 Voice from England, 109 Walnut Grove Academy, 111 Washington City, Disciples in, 60 Western Conventions, 537 What is Education? 403 What is a Sect? Who is a Sec- tary? 518, 652 Word to Lawyers, 48 |