Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

we entered, while a chief of the district was praying with them. During the catechism which followed, the questions and answers were repeated to us in English, when we were gratified to observe that the former were well adapted, and the latter, for the most part, intelligent and satisfactory. At four o'clock there was public worship again. Mr. Wilson preached from Heh. ii, 3, 'How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation.'"

Two services also in English blessed this day: on which they observe: "We closed this first Sabbath among these Christians of the Gentiles with edifying conversation, in company with Mr. Nott, and Mr. Wilson, our host. What we have witnessed and recorded now, we believe to be a fair exemplification of what occurs every Sabbath here, and at all the missionary stations in these parts. Oh that every friend of this cause, at home, could see the things that we have seen, and hear what we have heard, and feel what we have felt, this day, of the presence and power of God to heal, revive, yea, new create the souls which sin hath fatally wounded, and exposed to the second death! How would their zeal, their faith, their hope, their love be increased, and their labours, their prayers, and their sacrifices multiplied in proportion!"

FORMER INFANTICIDE AT TAHITI. VOYAGERS have successfully testified the brutality of the South Sea islanders towards their wives, and of their custom of murdering their children. Some particulars from the "Journal" of the Deputation will not fail to be affectingly interesting to our readers. They observe:-"We conversed with Mr. Nott, who has resided here from the commencement of the mission, on the subject of INFANTICIDE, and learned, with horror, that it had been practised to an extent incredible except on such testimony and evidence as he and the brethren on other stations have had the means of accumulating. He assured us, that three-fourths of the children were wont to be murdered as soon as they were born, by one or other of their unnatural parents, or by some person employed for that purpose-wretches being found who might be called infant assassins_by trade. He mentioned having met a woman, soon after the abolition of the diabolical practice, to whom he said, How many children have you?' 'This one in my arms,' was her answer. And how many did you kill?' She replied,EIGHT!' Another woman, to whom the same questions were put, confessed that she had destroyed SEVENTEEN! Nor were these solitary cases. Sin was so effectually doing its work in these dark places of the earth, that, full as they were of the habitations of cruelty and wickedness, war, profligacy, and murder were literally exterminating a people unworthy to live; and soon would the cities have been wasted without inhabitant, the houses without a man, and the land been utterly desolate.' But the Gospel stepped in, and the plague was stayed. Now the married, among this Christianized population, are exceedingly anxious to have offspring; and those who have them, nurse their infants with the tenderest affection."

[blocks in formation]

rents and children, in families, were baptized by the missionaries, Williams and Threlkeld. The services on this occasion were very solemn; and a deep sense of the power of Christ rested upon the church here, while so goodly a company was added to its members. In the evening we took an affectionate leave of our Christian brethren and sisters gathered from among the heathen, as well as their excellent teachers, by whom we have been so hospitably entertained.

"Feb. 9. Having been detained here (Tahaa) by contrary winds during the past week, after we had taken leave previously to embarking for Borabora, we have had the privilege, this day, to witness the baptism of a hundred and ninety-eight candidates, of whom eightyfour were adults, and a hundred and fourteen children Of the latter, sixty-five were boys, and forty-nine girls; and of these, ten or twelve only appeared to be upwards of seven years old. It was an affecting consideration, as we looked upon the lovely and innocent countenances of these little ones, to reflect, that a large majority of them owed their lives to the Gospel. These ought indeed to be children of God; for previously two-thirds of the infants that came into existence were put out of it as soon as they breathed the atmosphere of a region under the dominion of the prince of the power of the air, who wrought in the hearts of the parents, without natural affection, to destroy their own flesh and blood."

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

SCENERY AND FERTILITY OF JUDEA. PROFESSOR MILLMAN, in his History of the Jews, speaking of that land "flowing with milk and honey,' says, no part of it was waste, very little was occupied by wood, the more fertile hills were cultivated in artificial terraces; others were hung with orchards of fruit trees; the more rocky and barren districts were covered with vineyards. Even in the present day, the wars and misgovernment of ages have not exhausted the natural richness of the soil." Galilee," says a traveller, "would be a Paradise were it inhabited by an industrious people, under an enlightened government. The climate was healthy, the seasons regular; the former rains, which fell about October, after the vintage, prepared the ground for the seed; the latter rains, which prevailed during March and the beginning of April, made it grow rapidly. Directly the rains ceased, the grain ripened with still greater rapidity, and was gathered in before the end of May. The summer months were dry and very hot, but the nights cool and refreshed by copious dews. In September, the vintage was gathered. Grain of all kinds grew in great abundance the wheat commonly yielded thirty for one. Besides the vine and the olive, the almond, the date, figs of many kinds, the orange, the pomegranate, and many other fruit trees, flourished in the greatest luxuriance. Great quantity of honey was collected. The balm-tree which produced the balsam, a great object of trade, flourished about Jericho and in Gileadhence the passage, 'Is there no balm in Gilead?'"

THE WIND SAMIEL.

"A FRIEND of mine, who had been bathing in the Tigris, not far from the ancient city Ctesiphon, and within five days' journey of Bagdad, having on a pair of Turkish drawers, one of these hot winds, called by the natives Samiel, passing rapidly across the river just as he had got out of the water, so effectually dried him in a moment, that not one particle of moisture was left, either on his body, or in his bathing dress!"Dr. Adam Clarke's Commentary.

SCRIPTURE BIOGRAPHY.

ADAM.

DIED A. M. 930. B. C. 3074 YEARS. THE Holy Scriptures, containing the Oracles of God, above all things demand, as they deserve our study. They were given by inspiration of God, written for our admonition, and mercifully designed to make us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. The manner in which they present to us the lessons of eternal wisdom, is not the least remarkable: it is not a tedious detail of uninstructive facts, or a dry systematic code of severe laws-but chiefly by exhibiting to us in the liveliest simplicity, the lives, principles, and practices of mankind, of every description of character.

[ocr errors]

As believers in Divine Revelation, and candidates for immortal blessedness, no study can be so profitable to us, as the recorded lives and actions of those holy men of God, who are commended to us as the 'great cloud of witnesses" of the faithfulness of God, by whose faith we are encouraged, whose examples we are to follow, and with whom we hope to sit down and dwell for ever, in the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour.

Sect. I.- The Creation of Adam.

Adam was the first man that God made, and the father of all mankind. As our universal ancestor, our acquaintance with his life and character ought to be familiar and perfect. The wondrous history of his creation, his original dignity in the image of God,his fatal disobedience and fall from innocence and happiness, the nature of his religion, and the circumtances of his family, cannot fail to be interesting to us his reflecting children, especially to intelligent young persons. We will, therefore, endeavour to collect his brief memorials, as they have been preserved by the inspired writers.

Adam, in the Hebrew language, is a word which signifies red earth; and this name was given to the first of human beings, because he was fashioned by his Creator from a fragment of common clay. By divine inspiration Moses says, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,” Gen. ii, 7. "In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day wherein they were created." Gen. v, 1, 2.

In this passage we are informed, that our first parents were both called Adam by their Maker: yet afterwards, this name was limited to the man only, the woman having another name given to her by her husband. "And Adam called his wife's name Eve: because she was the mother of all living." Gen. ii, 20.

When the Almighty Creator had fitted up the vast fabric of this lower world,-when he had formed and arranged the innumerable and various tribes of animal and vegetable existences, and by his divine benediction had prepared them for fruitfulness, he fashioned his lovely work, the master-piece of the terrestrial creation, Man, in the sacred likeness of Himself.

The Scriptures, in their own peculiar and striking simplicity, record the history of man's creation. "So God created man in his own image, in the likeness of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Gen. i, 27, 28.

That Adam was a person of very exalted worth and dignity, is clearly evident from the account which is given of his creation. The manner of it was far dif

ferent from that of all the other works of God. When the Almighty created the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon, and the host of stars, he only said, "Let there be light: and there was light," Gen. i, 3. "Let there be a firmament—and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven," ver. 6-8. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after his kind, and it was so," ver. 24.

But Adam was not called into existence simply with a word, like the other natural and inanimate things of the earth and heaven; nor yet like the irrational animals. To represent to us the superior excellency of Adam, the Scriptures speak of God as making a se. rious pause, and as looking for a model, after which to frame this exquisite piece of workmanship.

The adorable Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, consulted and deliberated on the momentous subject. It is observed by the inspired writer, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth," ver. 26.

How fair must have been the body of Adam, that wonderful and ingenious machine, framed immediately by the finger of God! It was the contrivance and execution of the infinitely wise and powerful Creator of the universe. He moulded it into form, as a potter models his clay according to his will, and produced from the dust of the ground the most curious and beautiful figure of the human frame.

A careless, irreligious observer may not notice or understand its complicated wonders: nor consider, as the pious Psalmist reflected upon his own body, saying, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Psalın cxxxix, 14. But serious physicians, whose profession has led them minutely to examine the different parts of the human body, have always been struck with astonishment at the admirable skill with which the whole has been contrived. Galen, an ancient physician of the greatest fame for his knowledge, was affected even to tears, on contemplating the wisdom of God as seen in the human frame; and challenged any one, after the study of a hundred years, to show how the smallest sinew, or vein, or artery, could have been more commodiously placed, either for use or beauty.

But the soul of Adam was still more wonderful: it was the immediate breath of God. The body was fashioned supremely beautiful: but it was yet only a senseless lump of clay, until "God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Gen. ii, 7. The "living soul" of Adam, how capacious! qualifying him for all the exercises and actions of a rational, social, intelligent being, far elevated above the beasts of the field-to think and reflect, to remember and discourse, and even to contemplate the wondrous works and the infinite perfections of his ever-blessed and glorious Creator!

Adam, no doubt, in reflecting upon himself, felt the pious sentiments which we sometimes utter, as expressed by Dr. Watts, in his version of Psalm cxxxix. "When I with pleasing wonder stand,

And all my frame survey,

Lord, 'tis thy work, 1 own thy hand
Thus built my humble clay.

Heaven, earth, and sea, and fire, and wind,
Show me thy wondrous skill;

But I review myself, and find

Diviner wonders still."

The exalted piety of Adam would assuredly lead him to cherish such devout exercises of mind: and under this conviction, Milton, the great poet, with equal ele

gance and sublimity, represents Adam as describing, in striking language, the first operations of his own mind, immediately after his creation.

"Myself I then perus'd, and limb by limb

Survey'd, and sometimes went, and sometimes ran
With supple joints, as lively vigour led:
But who I was, or where, or from what cause
Knew not to speak 1 try'd, and forthwith spake;
My tongue obey'd, and readily could name
Whate'er I saw. Thou sun,' said I, fair light,
And thou enlighten'd earth, so fresh and gay,
Ye hills, and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains,
And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell,
Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here?
Not of myself; by some great Maker then,
In goodness and in pow'r pre-eminent;
Tell me, how I may know him, how adore,
From whom I have that thus I move and live,
And feel that I am happier than I know.'"

(To be continued.)

PARADISE LOST.

THE EFFECTS OF INFIDELITY. MR. EDITOR, Having in a previous paper traced Infidelity to its true source, viz. the Devil, I think it is but right that I should set forth some few of its consequences: adequately to describe all the horrors of this awful crime is not in the power of man; imagination fails to delineate, and human reason shrinks abashed from the task. It will however, I think, need but little argument to convince every reasonable man, that the effects which spring from so dreadful a cause as I have described, must be most appalling, "for men cannot gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles:" the prince of evil cannot be the author of good.

Let us look then for a moment at the national consequences of Infidelity. What would become of justice or truth, if it were possible for atheists to prove that there is no God? Does not by far the most important part of the distribution of the laws, rest upon the solemnity of an oath? Is it not by this that our properties are protected, that criminals are brought to justice, and such as are in need and necessity have right? Nay, do not our very lives depend upon it? Remove then the idea, that God is the witness of what we say and do take away all considerations of eternal punishment, allotted to the liar and the perjurer, and what will be the result? To satisfy private revenge, men will dare to stand up and accuse him who is the object of their hatred, of some crime which he in truth never committed; for the sake of gain and money, the widow will be robbed of her portion, the fatherless of his right; injustice, treachery, cruelty, malice, and all that awful catalogue of crimes, the very mention of which makes the blood run cold in our veins, will fill every portion of our land. Order and happiness will have fled for ever, and our coasts will resound with the fell cry of the midnight robber and murderer, the shriek of the destitute, and the groan of the forsaken. Let it not be thought that this is visionary, that such results would not ensue, for experience has taught us that more, much more is the effect of this awful crime. Remember Robespierre, and remember France, and then let the Infidel stand forward if he dare, and recommend a system written with the iron pen of tyranny on the broken hearts of the destitute in characters of human blood.

[blocks in formation]

what side you please, enter any street almost throughout her coasts, and institutions, whose object is to ameliorate human sufferings, and ease the weight of human woe, will meet your view. Who established all these? we may justly ask. Christians, is the reply. Never has Atheism or Deism done one action for the good of society. They have endeavoured to shake the principles of our people, to rob the destitute of their only consolation, to double the weight of human cares, and increase the horrors of a yawning grave. They have undone the hopes and destroyed the soul of many a poor and ignorant sinner. They have done all that could be done, to injure and oppress the pilgrim of earth, to increase his woe and augment his misery, and then- they have deserted him. In sickness he has found no deistical physician, in sorrow he has been attended by no deistical comforter, in death he has found no benefit from deistical principles. What, then! are these the men to whom we are to yield the principles and doctrines of a religion, which has established every honourable and praiseworthy society in existence? Can men be so blind as to think, that bloodshed is better than peace, misery than happiness, the caverns of hell than the mansions of blessedness?

It always affords me a degree of satisfaction when I hear that the death-bed of an Infidel has been a scene of woe. Not, believe me, because I rejoice in the sufferings of my fellow-creatures, but because I am certain such an event has a great influence on society. Suppose a young man to be very much entertained by the writings of Voltaire or Thomas Paine, and to admire the principles urged by those celebrated men; he would of course be disposed to adopt their sentiments and act accordingly. But if it should so happen that the account of the death of either of these men should be laid before him, what would be the result? Is it to be supposed, that as a reasonable being he would follow a system which produced only the most awful misery and dreadful despair? The best cure for Infidelity would be to publish the death-bed scenes of its supporters. Christianity does this, and is always benefited by so doing-let then our opponents do so likewise, and we should soon see that there is an immortal difference between these two religions. But I must draw to a close, lamenting much the necessity which calls upon Christians to recommend their religion by arguments, when, if we had common sense to deal with, facts would be sufficient. Nay, as it is, facts go a great way towards subverting Infidelity, and would, I think, be quite successful were it in the power of human language to describe the horrors of hell. Here is a subject which never can be exhausted; here is an argument which shall last for ever; and when eternity has swallowed up all the workers of wickedness, and time is no more, dreadful will be the testimony borne to the folly of atheism in the groans of the undying, and the curses of the lost. While yet then such awful misery may be averted, let us "be wise and consider these things, let us remember our latter end." I remain, Sir, Yours most sincerely; Z.

[blocks in formation]

THE GYMNOTUS, OR ELECTRICAL EEL. THESE electrical eels inhabit the Rio Colorado, the Guarapiche, and several small streams which cross the Chayma missions, as well as the Orinoco, the Meta, and the Maranham; and in the llanos, particularly in the environs of Calaboza, the pools of stagnant water, and the streams which fall into the Orinoco, are filled with them. They are at once dreaded and detested by the natives. The muscular part of the flesh is tolerably good eating, but the electric organ, which fills more than two-thirds of the body, is slimy and disagreeable, and is, accordingly, carefully separated from the rest. The presence of the gymnoti is considered as the principal cause of the want of fish in the ponds and pools of the llanos. They kill many more than they devour; and all the inhabitants of the waters, lizards, frogs, and tortoises, dread and endeavour to escape from their society. The Indians sometimes take young alligators and gymnoti in the same net, and the latter are never found in that case to display the slightest wound, having evidently disabled the alligators before they could attack them. It was found necessary to change the direction of a road near Uritucu, because these electrical eels were so numerous in one river, that they killed a great number of mules every year as they forded the water.

Desirious of making some experiments on these remarkable fish, M. Humboldt repaired to a stream in which they abound, and where the Indians offered their services in fishing for them with horses. Having caught about thirty wild horses and mules, they forced them to enter the pool.

"The extraordinary noise caused by the horses' hoofs, makes the fish issue from the mud, and excites them to combat. These yellowish and livid eels, resembling large aquatic serpents, swim on the surface of the water, and crowd under the bellies of the horses and mules. A contest between animals of so different an organization, furnishes a very striking spectacle. The Indians, provided with harpoons and long slender reeds, surround the pool closely; and some climb upon the trees, the branches of which extend horizontally over the surface of the water. By their wild cries and the length of their reeds, they prevent the horses from running away and reaching the bank of the pool. The eels, stunned by the noise, defend themselves by the repeated discharge of their electric batteries. During a long time they seem to prove victorious. Several horses sink beneath the violence of the invisible strokes which they receive from all sides in organs the most essential to life; and, stunned by the force and frequency of the shocks, they disappear under the water. Others, panting, with mane erect, and haggard eyes, expressing anguish, raise themselves, and endeavour to flee from the storm by which they are overtaken. They are driven back by the Indians into the water: but a small number succeed in eluding the active vigilance of the fishermen. These regain the shore, stumbling at every step, and stretch themselves on the sand exhausted with fatigue, and their limbs benumbed by the electric shock of the gymnoti.

"In less than five minutes, two horses were drowned. The eel, being five feet long, and pressing itself against the belly of the horses, makes a discharge along the whole extent of its electric organ. It attacks at once the heart, the intestines, and the plexus coeliacus of the abdominal nerves. It is natural that the effect felt by the horses should be more powerful than that produced upon man, by the touch of the same fish at only one of his extremities. The horses are probably not killed, but only stunned. They are drowned from the impossibility of rising amid the prolonged struggle between the other horses and the eels.

"We had little doubt that the fishing would terminate by killing successively all the animals engaged; but, by degrees, the impetuosity of this unequal combat diminished, and the wearied gymnoti dispersed. They require a long rest and abundant nourishment, to repair what they have lost of galvanic force. The mules and horses appear less frightened; their manes are no longer bristled, and their eyes express less dread. The gymnoti approach timidly the edge of the marsh, where they are taken by means of small harpoons fastened to long cords. When the cords are very dry, the Indians feel no shock in raising the fish into the air. In a few minutes, we had five large eels, the greater part of which were but slightly wounded.

"It would be temerity to expose ourselves to the first shocks of a very large and strongly irritated gymnotus. If by chance you receive a stroke before the fish is wounded, or wearied by a long pursuit, the pain and numbness are so violent, that it is impossible to describe the nature of the feeling they excite. I do not remember having ever received from the discharge of a large Leyden jar a more dreadful shock, than that which I experienced by imprudently placing both my feet on a gymnotus just taken out the water. I was affected the rest of the day with a violent pain in the knees, and in almost every joint.

66

Gymnoti are neither charged conductors, nor batteries, nor electro-motive apparatuses, the shock of which is received every time they are touched with one hand, or when both hands are applied to form a conducting circle between two heterogeneous poles. The electric action of the fish depends entirely on its will; whether because it does not keep its electric organs always charged, or by the secretion of some fluid, or by any other means alike mysterious to us, it is capable of directing the action of its organs to an external object. We often tried, both insulated and uninsulated, to touch the fish, without feeling the least shock. When M. Bompland held it by the head, or by the middle of the body, while I held it by the tail, and standing on the moist ground did not take each other's hand, one of us received shocks, which the other did not feel. It depends upon the gymnotus to act toward the point where it finds itself the most strongly irritated. The discharge is then made at one point only, and not at the neighbouring points. If two persons touch the belly of the fish with their fingers, at an inch distance, and press it simultaneously, sometimes one, sometimes the other, will receive the shock."-Modern Traveller, Colombia.

PSALM XCIII.

THE following is taken from a version of the Psalms
by Sir Philip Sydney and the Countess of Pembroke.
Clothed with state, and girt with might,
Monarck-like Jehova raignes;

He who Earthes foundations pight*,
Pight at first, and yet sustaines.
He whose stable throne disdaines
Motions shock and ages flight,

He who endless one remaines,
One, the same, in changelesse plight.
Rivers, yea, though rivers rore,

Roring though sea-billowes rise;
Vex the deepe, and break the shore,
Stronger are thou, Lord of Skies.
Firme and true thy promise lies,
Now and still as heretofore;
Holy worshipp never dies
In thy Howse, where we adore.
• Pitched.

THE FOLLY OF ATHEISM SEEN IN THE
WONDERS OF NATURE.

WHEN I зurvey the works of nature with a more attentive eye, I am surprised to find with what marvellous exactness every creature draws its own picture, or propagates its own likeness; though in different manners of operation. The fox produces a living fox; the goose drops her egg, and hatches the young goose; and the tulip lets fall its seed into the earth, which ferments and swells, and labours long in the ground, till at last it brings forth a tulip.

Is it the natural sagacity of foxes that enables them to form their own image so accurately? By no means; for the goose and the flower do the like. The sprightly and the stupid, the sensible and the senseless, work this wonder with equal regularity and perfection; and the plant performs as well as the animal.

'Tis not possible that any of them should effect this by any peculiar rules of art and contrivance, for neither the one nor the other are at all acquainted with the composition or progress of their work. The bird is entirely ignorant of the wondrous vital ferment of her own egg; either in the formation of it, or the incuba. tion: and the mother-plant knows as much of the parts of the young plant, as the mother-animal knows of the inward springs and movements of the young little animal. There could be no contrivance here, for not any of them had any thought or design of the final production: they were all moved-the beast, bird, and flower -by the material and mechanical springs of their own nature to continue their own species, but without any зuch intent or purpose.

Give souls to all the animal race, and make those souls as immaterial and as intelligent as you can: attribute to them what good sense you please in other affairs of their puny life: allow the brutes to be as rational and as cunning as you could wish or fancy, and to perform a thousand tricks by their own sagacity; yet in this matter those intellectual powers must all stand by as useless. The senseless vegetable has as much skill here as the animal; the goose is completely as wise as the fox or the greyhound: they draw their own portraits with as exquisite art and accuracy, and leave as perfect images behind them to perpetuate their kind. Amazing proof, and incontestible argument of some superior wisdom! Some transcendant contriving mind, some Divine artificer, that made all these wondrous machines, and set them at work! The animal and the vegetable in these productions are but mere instruments under His supreme ruling power; like artless pencils in a painter's hand, to form the images that his thought had before designed. And 'tis that God alone who, before all worlds, contrived these models of every species in His own original idea, that appoints what under-agents He will employ to copy them.

Ever since the week of the creation, God has ordered all these creatures to fill the world with inhabitants of their own kind; and they have obeyed Him in a long succession of almost six thousand years. He has granted (shall I say) a divine patent to each creature for the sole production of its own likeness, with an utter prohibition to all the rest. Without His immediate commission not one creature can invade the province of another, nor perform any thing of this work but within its own peculiar tribe. Even MAN, the glory of this lower creation, and the wisest thing on earth, would in vain attempt to make one of these common vegetables, or these curious, animated, moving machines. Not all the united powers of human nature, nor a council or club of the nicest artificers, with all their enginery and skill can form the least part of these works; can compose a fox's tail, a goose quill, or a

tulip leaf. Nature is the art of God, and it must for ever be unrivalled by the sons of men.

Yet man can produce a man !-Admirable effect, but artless cause! A poor, limited, inferior agent! The plant and the brute in this matter are his rivals, and his equals too. The human parent and the parent-bird form their own images with equal skill, and are confined each to its own work. So the iron seal transfers its own figure to the clay with as much exactness and curiosity as the golden one: both can transfer only their own figure.

This appears to me a glorious instance wherein the wisdom and power of God maintain their own supremacy, and triumph over all the boasted reason and intellectual skill of men; that the wisest son of Adam in this noblest work of nature, can do no more than a flower or a fly; and if he would go out of his own species, and the appointed order of things, he is not able to make a fly nor a flower; no, not a worm nor a simple bulrush. In those productions wherein mankind are merely the instruments of the God of nature, their work is vital and divine; but if they would set up for prime artificers, they can do nothing. A dead statue, a painted shadow on a canvass, or perhaps a little brazen clock-work, is the supreme pride of their art, their highest excellence and perfection.

Let the atheist then exert his utmost stretch of understanding; let him try the force of all his mechanical powers, to compose the wing of a butterfly, or the meanest feather of a sparrow; let him labour, and sweat, and faint, and acknowledge his own weakness: then let him turn his eye, and look at those wondrous composures, his son or his little daughter; and when their infant tongues shall inquire of him, and say, Father, who made us? let him not dare assume the honour of that work to himself, but teach the young creatures that THERE IS A GOD! and fall down on his face, and repent and worship.—Dr. Watts.

MUNIFICENCE OF AN AMERICAN CHRISTIAN, RELIGION is believed to flourish in the United States of America, more than in any other country upon earth. An evidence of the intelligent, discriminating piety of a wealthy Christian lately deceased in that country, cannot but command the admiration of our Readers. He was a Christian Patriot, a "Friend of the People," and his works have brought him immortal honour, while they testify his cordidial belief in the doctrines of eternal salvation by grace, through the atonement of Christ.

Joseph Burr, Esq., was a member of an independent church, at Manchester, in the State of Vermont, New England; and we copy a list of his bequests, extracted from a paper of that city.

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »