voluntary associations are at least the occasion of weakening this Christian rule of life, it is problematical whether they are promoting or retarding the reign of holiness.

Another of the defects of this age is the neglect of private for public duties. The proneness of man to ostentation is an original sin. It pervades all grades and classes of society. A disposition to conceal from the left hand what is done by the right, is one of the ripest and richest fruits of the Spirit. And often as the sentiment is proposed in the Scriptures that God looks not on the outward appearance, yet with multitudes the outward appearance is every thing. And thus it has been in every age. Every generation has had its Pharisees; paying their tithes of mint, annis, and cummin, but neglecting the weightier matters of the law; making their long prayers, and wearing their broad phylacteries in public, whilst in private they fail to cultivate the things that pertain to godliness. Show and ostentation in religion are usually in the proportion of the lack of sincerity and true piety. They are brought in by way of compensation.

The private are by far the most important duties of religion. And the performance of them is the best index of character. We may regularly attend every public means of grace, without religion and without benefit. Not so, however, with the more private means, such as family prayer-closet devotion-self-examination-the prayerful and daily perusal of the Scriptures. Nothing but true religion can sustain in the performance of these for any length of time, nor can they be regularly and statedly performed, without growing in grace.

Attention to the private duties of religion has characterized the saints of every age. Enoch and Noah walked with God. David and Daniel prayed often every day. Such men as Luther, Owen, Henry, Flavel, Edwards, Brainard, Payson, devoted hours of each day to these duties. We cease to wonder at the stature to which these attained, when we are informed of their communings with God in private. And the same may be said of Hannah, of the Shunamitish woman, of the holy women that ministered to the Saviour and his apostles, of Mrs. Rowe, Mrs. Ramsey, and Sarah Osborne. It was in their private musings, and secret and holy meditations, that those fires were kindled which have not died with them, but which will continue to shed

pure light on the Church from age to age. But is it

not so, that there is an increasing tendency to neglect private for more public duties?

We mean to be understood on this subject, and hence we must specify and explain. Are there not many whose seats are but seldom vacant on the Sabbath, who never seek an interview with God any where else? Are there not many who go about praying and exhorting, who neglect their own family altar and the closet? Are there not many who have so much to do in correcting public morals, in forming public sentiment, in guiding public charities, as sometimes to forget private morals, and private decorum, and the duty of exhibiting in private, truth, love and charity? Are not females seen running to maternal associations to talk about the importance of domestic religion, and to pray for their children, who never pray with them in private, nor instruct them as they vowed to do when they offered them to God in baptism? These things we quote merely to illustrate what we mean. It is heaven-wide from our intention to censure even by implication, attendance upon public duties. This is both commanded and necessary. But public duties should never be so multiplied as to interfere with private ones, and should never be considered as possessing superiour claims. The place for the Christian to shine is before the world; but the way in which oil can best be procured to feed his lamp, is in private communion with his God. Attention to the many and multiplying public duties of the day may secure a name among men, and a degree of celebrity, and gain us a reputation for activity and benevolence; but it is the daily and sober attention to private duties, that secures a name before God, that warms and purifies the affections, that gives solidity and consistency to character, and that is most in accordance with the spirit of true religion. Nor is this neglect confined to any one class of people. Temptations to it are placed before all. The ministry and the members of the churches are alike in fault; the former, probably, much more than the latter. And unless, in this respect, the current of this age is arrested, that secret, and private, and individual influence, which in a better age made every spot occupied by the Christian as a green oasis in the desert, will be superseded by a public and general influence, which is weak in the proportion it is extended.

Another of the defects of this age, is the neglect of a clear and full exhibition of the doctrines of the cross.

The cross

of Christ has ever been a stumbling-block to the Jew, and foolishness to the Greek. Hence, every age has betrayed a disposition to soften and sweeten its doctrines. We need but refer to the early defection of even the converts of the apostles from the simplicity of the gospel, to the departure of the Episcopal Church from the doctrines clearly taught in its standards, to the Neologism which has supplanted Lutheranism in Germany, to the Unitarianism which has gone up to the Puritan pulpits of New-England, to establish our position. Indeed, the current of the world has ever been adverse to evangelical doctrines; and they have been kept alive in the Church at a fearful sacrifice of the life and blood of the best of her sons. And if these doctrines, at the present day, are not surrendered, there is a growing disposition to keep them out of the pulpit, and away from the people; to regard them more as subjects of metaphysical theory, than as the bones and sinews and muscles of religion. And this has always been the premonitory symptom of their rejection. And there are many causes operating to produce this result.

One of these is, the imperfect education of much of our ministry, and the constant service by which they are occupied when they enter the church. Our population is increasing so rapidly, and our moral wastes lift up such a long, and loud, and mournful cry for ministers, that there is a powerful temptation to abridge courses of study, and to send out novices into those wastes before they are prepared to cultivate them. And when they enter them, they are so constantly occupied by active duties as to be unable to give the time to study, research, and sober investigation, which, as teachers of the people, they should do. Hence they grow not in knowledge-if in mental resources they do not retrograde, they are stationary-and by the necessity of the case, they are compelled to confine their public services to the practical duties, and to the mere generalities of religion. And great care and caution are requisite lest, in our efforts to increase the quantity of the ministry, we do not lessen its quality; lest, in multiplying hands upon the wall, we do not retard its progress. An ignorant ministry cannot be otherwise than a curse to the Church. The tendency of such a ministry is, either to bury the Church in errour, or to burn it up with the fierce fires of fanaticism.

Another of these causes is the belief that doctrinal

preaching is adverse to the promotion of revivals of religion. If this were so, it would be an insuperable objection to it. But the whole history of the protestant church disproves the allegation. The most extensive and pure revivals of modern days have occurred under the ministry of men who boldly and pointedly preached the doctrines of grace. Such a man was Whitfield. Such, also, was Edwards, as his immortal works prove. Such, also, was Jonathan Dickenson, the author of the Five Points. Such, in fine, were the great revivers and promoters of religion, both in Europe and America. They preached the entire ruin of the race-regeneration by the Spirit--justification through the imputed righteousness of Christ-the inability of man to do any thing acceptable to God-his entire dependence upon divine influence-God's sovereignty-election, and final perseverance. These and their kindred doctrines are found thickly scattered through the works of those already named, and are strongly taught by Davies, and Witherspoon, and Smalley, and Hopkins, and Bellamy, and Dwight, and Payson. And we might add a yet longer list, were it proper so to do, of living men to sustain this position. And may it not be because of the withholding of these doctrines, that the revivals of our day are so few and so short-lived, and that they have been attended with so much confusion, and imperfection? If the past history of the Church teaches any thing, it teaches that doctrinal preaching, instead of being adverse to revivals of religion, is directly promotive of them.

Another of these causes is rather a growing mania for what is called substantial Christianity, to the rejection of any sectarian form of it-that is, neither to preach nor to propagate any thing in which all sincere Christians cannot unite. Absurd as is this visionary theory, it has its advocates and believers. And nothing is necessary but its universal prevalence to banish Christianity from the world. Because some Arminians and Calvinists are pious, nothing must be said about the doctrines peculiar to either sect. Because some Baptists and Pedo Baptists are pious, nothing must be said upon baptism as to mode or subject. Because some Quakers are pious, nothing must be said upon the ordinances or positive institutions of religion. And because the advocates and opposers of forms of prayer are pious, nothing must be said on that important subject. Thus, this

theory, by prohibiting the preaching and the propagation of things on which good people differ, lays an axe at the root of the doctrines and the ordinances, and the institutions, and even the ministry of the Church of Christ. These are consequences which legitimately flow from the scheme, and which prove it both absurd and ridiculous. And in the wake of this theory, we see rising a cloudy divinity which conceals the Sun of Righteousness-we see mystic devotion superseding evangelical doctrine; and definite Christian sentiment giving place to the most vague and vapid theological generalities.

As the limits of an article in a publication like this, forbid a full discussion of this great subject, and as we must stop somewhere in the midst of it, we have resolved to stop here. And we will only detain our readers further with a brief statement of two important lessons taught by the whole discussion.

It teaches us what is the best course to secure the ultimate prosperity of a church. That course is to inquire for the old paths, and to walk in them. Let the fire of devotion be kept burning on the family altar. Let parents diligently bring up their children in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and from lisping infancy instruct them in the doctrines, precepts, and duties of religion. Let every member of the Church be careful, and take all pains, to form a solid Christian character. This can be done only by prayer, reading, reflection, digestion, and self-examination. Let every individual, without waiting for others, do his duty in the circle in which they move; let there be no devolving of duty upon others. Let the minister preach the truth in love; and let the people practise it. Let every duty have its place and its time. Let none be unduly magnified, nor depressed. Let there be no effort at compensation; making the doing of some things atone for the neglect of others. Let a course like this be pursued by any church, and the Spirit will be there abiding. Peace will spread its balmy wings over it. Its members will grow stronger and stronger, and more and more abounding in the fruits of the Spirit. A church thus living, may be destitute of the excitement of enthusiasm, but it will have the steady pulse indicative of health. It may not be visited by the heavy showers and the swollen. streams. But it will have the gently distilling rain which