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church to rise, and assert her own rights, to do her own business, and secure her own objects.

And what makes this subject peculiarly imperious at the present time is the alternative, which seems to impend the church, at least in this country, viz. That enlightened enthusiasm, or blind fanaticism, must inevitably, one or the other, take lead, and controul the interests of religion throughout our land. Nor is this a choice of evils. The former character is the true apostolic spirit, and the only spirit that is capable of renovating this world. The present cold, phlegmatic temperament of the Christian ministry can never advance the church, nor stand against the encroachments of heresy and fanaticism. There is a necessity imposed upon us, either to sacrifice a long succession of religious prosperity, or to rise, and as Fert the primitive character and rights of the Christian church.

ANTIPAS.

ousies, and desertions. I am acquainted with a township of cold, hilly, hard land, which begun to be settled about 1764. In 1785, it was set off from another town, and incorporated. The first settlers, like most first settlers, were adventurers, with but little property. I presume it was thirty years at least from the first settlement, before there was one inhabitant who was worth so much clear of debt, as his farm and stock. By the United States' census of 1790, the number of inhabitants was three hundred and seventy-nine, or probably about eighty families, of whom many were very poor. As there had been a great increase subsequent to the incorporation, it is not probable there were in 1785, more than forty persons who paid taxes. Yet the same year they took measures to provide themselves with a meeting-house, and voted to raise twenty pounds for schools, twenty pounds to hire preaching, fifty pounds to build school houses, and fifty pounds for highways. In all four hundred and

GOD HELPS THEM THAT HELP THEM- sixty-six dollars and sixty-seven

SELVES.

WE often have contributions solicited for the purpose of assisting poor congregations to build o. repair houses of public worship. Undoubtedly there may be cases, in which it is a real act of charity to grant assistance. But I am inclined to think that in many cases it is better for the societies themselves to build and finish according to their means. If they cannot build large, build small, and grow. They value their own acquisitions more than that which costs them nothing. They then have a real bond of union, a security against the incursions of other sects, a hold upon the affections of their people. They will know how to bear and forbear, while societies which have done but little for themselves will be constantly exposed to offences, and jeal

cents, besides the meeting-house. In 1790, the pews in the meetinghouse were sold to defray the expense of finishing the house. The same year, 1790, they raised twenty-five pounds for schools, and settled a minister, with a settlement of four hundred dollars, and a yearly salary of two hundred dollars, to be paid in produce at a stipulated rate.

Whenever I find a people as much in debt, as far from market, and in as hard times, willing to do as much for themselves as these, and yet really unable to secure the blessings of the gospel, I feel inclined to help them. In 1785, the number of church members was twenty males and fifteen females, and as they had no minister, it is not probable they would be much increased by 1790. So that this work was not wholly the effect of any such peculiar zeal for religion as is suppo

sed to characterize professors of religion.

Does any one ask what was the effect of such early and vigorous exertions? I answer, the same that similar circumstances have upon a man at the outset of life. They imparted a tone and vigour to that little community, which characterizes them to this day, and makes them pre-eminently a virtuous, united, and enterprising people. The same effect that the trials of our

forefathers had upon the character and destinies of our country, to give hardihood of character, far removed from sloth and sickliness. It was their education, their discipline. And when we attempt to save other societies from the burden of establishing religious institutions, in my opinion we act just as rationally, as the parent who employs servants to carry his boy, that is destined to be a soldier. S. F. D.

THEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS.

THE NATURE AND EFFICACY OF THE ed, the house of God deserted, and

SCRIPTURES.

More mystery has been attached to the Bible than actually belongs to it. Evangelical preachers (who in other points are much to be respected and admired,) have too generally represented the Bible as wholly unintelligible to the natural man, and declare that to all but the regenerate it is a sealed book. But they are much in the wrong, who thus impress it on the minds of men, that while they are unregenerate, the Bible is utterly in comprehensible: this is placing fresh barriers between the sinner and his God; for instead of searching the Scriptures, (which contain our only rule of faith and practice,) men stand waiting for some stroke of the Spirit, some sudden change, which is to remove the clouds of obscurity, in which they imagine the word of Christ is enveloped. But the Bible may be considered as the legible Spirit; it is the voice of the Spirit; and by this voice God is pleased to make his will known unto us.

When the Bible remains unopened and unregarded, when prayer and meditation are neglectVOL. I.-No. XI.

74

the society of Christ's followers avoided, then we are not far from the kingdom of satan: and when that holy volume is studied and reflected on, and when the courts of the Lord are frequented, and the converse of his people eagerly desired and sought for, then we are not far from the kingdom of God.

There is no book which may be more easily comprehended than the Bible. It may be asked, Why do so many read it without deriving any benefit? The fault rests not with the Bible; it is wholly with the reader.

The written word is a pointed arrow, aimed by God himself at the heart of man; but the reason it is not felt, and understood, and remembered, is because the natural man is not willing to attain this knowledge: he seldom opens the Bible; he reflects not on what he reads; none of its contents have power to fix his wandering thoughts, except perhaps a moral precept, or a poetical expression; he does not seek to be made wise unto salvation: sufficient light is given him, but he wilfully shuts his eyes. There is no veil cast over the Bible, but satan and himself have cast a veil

over his understanding; and his heart is so filled with the vanities of the world, as to leave no room for the reception of heavenly things. Now it may be firmly asserted, that any person regarding the Bible with reverence as the word of God, and reading it with an humble and teach able disposition, holding its contents as sacred truths, and sincerely desirous to impress them on his mind, may without difficulty comprehend what he reads.

I do not say that the light of the natural man is in equal degree with that of the spiritual man; (neither has one spiritual man the same proportion of light as another may possess;) but can we doubt of God's assistance in this holy study? Will not this knowledge, like all other, be progressive? It may at first be compared to the feeble glimmering of dawn, which, though but one faint streak, is nevertheless a certain presage of the meridian sun.

Let any man shut this book altogether; never enter a church-door, where its truths and precepts are explained; nor never into the company and conversation of those who frame their lives by this book; and I will tell him he is hastening to the land of unalleviated sorrows. On the other hand, let him read this book for edification, to learn the way to heaven; let him carefully attend upon the preaching of the gospel; converse and hold sweet counsel with the excellent ones of the earth, and imitate their example; and I will tell him he is not far from the kingdom of heaven. God never did, nor never will, withhold his blessing and the influences of his Spirit from those who diligently seek him.-Irving.

What was it that made man miserable? Sin. What is that can make him happy? A complete deliverance from it.

You say that your appetites and passions are so strong that they lead you astray. Say rather that you yield yourself up to them with heart and mind;-the word of God is put into your hands to be your guide, and it is of your own choice if you reject the counsels which it contains.

The religion of Christ has in it something extremely engaging. It is the scheme of God to make man happy, and to prepare him for that eternity which is before him.

Give me the man that likes to be good, and I will answer for his being good, all the world over.-Rowland Hill.

CONSCIENCE.

Naturalists observe, that when the frost seizes upon wine, they are only the slighter and more watery parts of it that are subject to be congealed; but still there is a mighty spirit, which can retreat into itself, and there within its own compass be secure from the freezing impression of the element round about it: and just so it is with the spirit of man; while a good conscience makes it firm and impenetrable, outward affliction can no more benumb or quell it, than a blast of wind can freeze up the blood in a man's veins, or a little shower of rain soak into his heart, and quench the principle of life

itself. South.

REVIEWS.

Six Sermons on the Nature, Occasions, Signs, Evils, and Remedy, of Intemperance. By LYMAN BEECHER, D. D. Boston, Crocker & Brewster, and J. Leavitt, New-York, 1827. pp. 107. 12

mo.

Discourses on Intemperance, preached in the church in Brattle Square, Boston, April 5, 1827, the day of annual Fast, and April 8, the Lord's Day following. By JOHN G. PALFREY, A. M. Pastor of the church in Brattle Square. Nathan Hale. Congress street, 1827. pp. 111. 18mo. An Address, delivered before the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, May 31, 1827. By CHARLES SPRAGUE. Boston. Bowles & Dearborn. pp. 30. 8vo.

THE progress of intemperance in our country, was for a long period gradual and almost imperceptible. It is within the memory of some now living, that drunkenness was a crime of rare occurrence, and an habitual drunkard an object of universal disgust and detestation; that ardent spirits were not considered necessary, to afford glee to the social circle, or strength to the laborer; that many large farmers gathered their hay and harvest with a single gallon, and still more with none at all. Though ardent spirits have always been within the means of the great mass of our population, yet the strict morality of our forefathers, their sacred regard to law, and their faithful execution of it, held this vice for a long time in check, and almost excluded shameful excess. But the strictness of their morality has passed away, our political revolutions and dissentions have relaxed the restraints of law, our new modelld constitutions

have given to the lowest class in the community, a class most under the dominion of appetite, a political consequence, which enables them to 66 break in sunder the bands, and cast away the cords," which kept them back from excess; the abundant prosperity also, which has flowed in upon us, since we became an independent nation, has made every qualification easy, and rendered those things, which were formerly luxuries, common as our daily bread. From these causes, intemperance has increased for thirty or forty years past, with unexampled rapidity.

Our peculiar circumstances account for the fact, that the increase of this evil has been more rapid in our own, than in other countries, without supposing our people more unprincipled, or more debased, than theirs. While the poor Irishman, whose chief joy it is that he can add a piece of meat to his potatoes on St. Patrick's, has not the means of forming and continuing a habit of intemperance, and the English labourer, who can only afford himself a little indulgence once a week, is under the same inability, the poorest of our inhabitants, by an hour's labour, can procure the means of intoxication, and even our beggars can gratify their unnatural appetite and riot in scenes of excess. The price of labor is so high, and that of spirits so low, that we can drink almost as freely as if our rivers and streamlets ran down with the intoxicating liquid.

The causes, which began to ac celerate the progress of intemperance, were, for a while, unobserved, or were regarded as irresistible, and the extent to which they were proceeding was not apprehended. The wise and the good looked on, and lamented the evil,

and knew not which way to turn themselves, or where to look for a remedy; till at length it became so alarming, they felt that something must be done; that inaction would be a quiet acquiescence in the ruin of our country, and a tame surrendry of the inestimable privileges transmitted to us by our fathers. The inquiry was made, with increasing solicitude, what remedies could be found to stay the plague; and some insulated efforts were made. Doctor Rush, at the request of an ecclessiastical body, we believe, published his excellent essay in 1810. About sixteen years since, a committee was appointed to devise measures to produce a reformation, who reported to the General Association of Connecticut in 1812. This report suggested a system of measures, which were recommended by the Association, and follow ed with considerable effect, in various parts of this and other states. Ardent spirits were banished pretty extensively from the meetings of ecclessiastical bodies, and from the hospitable board of many families; societies were formed to secure the execution of the laws; ministers preached, pamphlets were publish ed, and the able pages of the Panoplist were devoted to the cause of reformation. These measures were attended with considerable effect. But from the fact, that comparatively few entered into them with interest, and pursued them with persevering energy, and from the violent opposition made to "moral societies," they failed of that success which was hoped and anticipated. The exertions of the most ardent friends of reform flagged, and the evil, though somewhat checked, still continued its desolating progress.

But we rejoice that of late, the friends of reform seem to be inspired with new courage; that a new impulse is given to benevolent effort on this subject, which affords a prospect of more extended, system

atic, and persevering measures, to arrest the march of the common enemy; and that the pressure of the calamity upon the community is so felt, as to promise a more general co-operation of the friends of our country, and of humanity. The American Society for the promotion of Temperance has come into existence with fair auspices; its title is unobtrusive; the field before it is immense, and the commencement of its operations has reanimated the hopes of the friends of reform. It is a subject of gratulation, that so many men of distinguished talents and influence have volunteered their services in this good cause.

We hail the authors at the head of this article, as among the foremost in the list of these champions. We shall give a brief account of their productions, interspersed and followed by such remarks as may appear to us pertinent.

These writers traverse substantially the same ground, though they do not describe with equal minuteness the same parts. They all treat of the causes, evils, and remedies, of intemperance. Mr. Palfrey has considered more particularly than the others the extent of the evil, and has furnished us with a number of valuable documents on the subject. Dr. Beecher has defined the nature of intemperance; be has drawn the line of demarkation, to admonish the unwary of the dan gerous ground; he has also furnished the signs of its incipient stages, and the various steps of its progress, to its fearful termination.

The extent of this evil deserves particular attention. The great body of our citizens are not aware of the greatness of its prevalence. Its progress has been so gradual, one victim after another has fallen so silently, that scenes of desolation have, almost unawares, become familiar to their eyes; and they have passed along with the current. and have not paused to reflect, and

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