ISSACHAR BATES.-NO. 5. BY H. C. BLINN. At the time the community was formed at Union Village the Believers suffered much from the hands of cruel persecutors. It really does seem that when a man turns from righteousness, that God does give him over to a reprobate mind to do what at other times he would be ashamed to do. Instead of a man of reason he becomes more like a wild beast, and destroys all he can find in the way. These evil minded persons would come time after time and break the glass in the windows, throw down the fences, cut down the orchards and even set fire to the buildings. who may, at this date, make a visit to the peace loving Shakers of Union Village would hardly suppose that they were obliged to purchase their home amidst such cruelties. Those In 1806 Benjamin, Issachar and Richard visited Kentucky and held meetings in the several places where the Believers lived, and were blessed by additional numbers being ready to accept the word of faith. In June 1806 Peter Pease, Samuel Turner, Constant Mosely, Eldress Ruth Farrington, Lucy Smith, Molly Goodrich, Ruth Darrow, Martha Sanford and Prudence Farrington were sent from the Society at New Lebanon to assist the western Believers. After this they had no need to fear as the Governor became their friend. On their second visit to Busro they were at the mercy of a mob of twelve men. "They had ropes with which they intended to bind us. The leader stepped forward and said. Come, prepare yourselves to move. Move where? said I. Out of this Country, and we intend to fix you. Well, said I, have you any precept? With an oath he commanded us to get on If you don't go and get your horses, I will get them, for you shall go, so where are they? In Berry's stable, but if you get them we shall not get on them. Well, then we will put you on. But you will have a hard job of it before you get through. By this time some of the mob were laughing, and said, 'Come let us go.' So they started, but looked back, to say, If you ain't gone before Saturday night, you shall go dead or alive. Very well, said I. The missionary work still continued and Saturday was muster day, and we expected Issachar enjoyed his new home but a few some of them would come to our place intoxweeks at a time. With Richard or Malcham,icated and perhaps trouble us. We informed or Matthew or at times with all of them he the Governor of the affair and on Sabbath would leave home for two and three months, and hold meetings in many parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. The work of evangelizing continued very active till 1811 and the societies of Ohio and Kentucky were formed into a covenantal order. While in Indiana Issachar called to see Gov. Harrison, and to inform him that the Believers had been preaching their faith in Busro, "and we want,' " said Issachar, "to know if there are any laws in this territory to protect the people." "The same law said the Governor that there is in any of the United States. You have a right to preach your faith, and any one has a right to embrace it. So you need not fear, I will protect you." morning he sent a magistrate and another of- From 1801 to 1811 Issachar kept an account of the distance he traveled, and although most of these he walked, the sum reached not less than 38.000 miles. On Issachar's return to Union Village, he was asked to go to Busro and again assist the Believers in that place. "It was a long and wearisome journey of not less than 240 miles. For 150 miles of this distance there was not a house nor a cabin to be seen, and for m it was water, water, water, with no bridges licious meal. On reaching White River they and we were compelled to cross the rivers by found that also filled with floating ice but fortwading or swimming. unately obtained a good canoe and a man to My companion on this trip was good broth-assist them in crossing the river. At the er John Knox. He had a small sum of house of this friendly guide they were also money committed to his charge, and it was able to obtain some additional food which they my privilege to act as his guard and protect ate in humble thankfulness. Having crossed him from the robbers. We, however, made this river in safety they made a journey of a safe passage through that wild and wicked one day and reached a "fork" of the same world, and were gladly received by our gos- stream which had also overflowed its banks pel friends." and was now not less than two and one half Issachar relates the incidents of one jour-miles wide. This was the last flooded pasney from Union Village to Busro when the sage which they must make but their feet were party consisted of Elder Benjamin Youngs, badly swollen, from severe exposure and they Richard McNemar and himself. They left were obliged to wade through the snow and Union Village on the 16th of January 1809, ice without shoes. After reaching the dry with provisions for five days but were com- land once more they obtained some Indian pelled to make it hold out for sixteen. In moccasins which afforded them much comfort some of the rivers the ice had already broken so that on the remainder of the journey, some up and the banks overflowed so that they thirty miles, they renewed their strength and were detained much beyond what they had reached their friends in Busro in a very comanticipated. fortable condition. This journey was made on foot as Issachar says there was neither track of man nor beast through the forests. They were five days in reaching the Indiana line on account of the floods and floating ice of Laughrey's creek. Each had his staff and knap.ack with an extra blanket for use at night. For several days they were obliged to wade through the mud of the marshy flats or river bottoms, while water tell from the clouds without measure. (TO BE CONTINUED.) DECORATION. WILLIAM WIRT SIKES. DECORATION is a duty every one should well discharge, Number one is of important consequence And just there the difference lies. They were, however, men that trusted in the mercy and protection of God and He kindly led them through all dangers in a marvelous manner. They believed in prayer, and fervently and effectually, on their knees, And in decorating human beings at the heart and in in that wilderness they sought the kind care of an over-ruling Providence. I believe in cultivating God's demense around the head. There is where your decoration is not vain and false and weak; They were obliged to encamp for a few In the heart that beats with beauty, in the head that's days on the banks of one stream that was not less than six miles in extent, as the ice was too thin to support them. On the third day they ventured on this dangerous passage and were frequently wading in the water where it was not less than three feet deep. They were finally obliged to build a raft in order to make a safe passage across the Mushakitak river ̧ Near this stream they found a part of a wild turkey that the foxes had killed. This they dressed and smoked and then enjoyed one de prompt in duty, There for fine things I would seek. clothe our mortal frames with graces, shines in costumes less than faces. centers where loved virtues meet, TRUE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. teaching the remaining eight, and in endeavoring to insure their recognition by the pupils as their best guides and as indispensable links in that religious chain which binds them to their Creator and imposes upon them the primary duty of seeking to know and do His will in all things. This done, let the parents and priests teach what they deem truth on the two disputed points, in addition to the religious principles thus daily and hourly inculcated and brought into practice among both teachers and pupils. It may be said that this is what is done already. But there is a difference. At present the line of separation between religious and secular education is drawn sharply, and in the school the pupil is not taught that the natural arrangements he studies or sees in play around him have been devised by Divine Wisdom for his guidance and happiness, nor are his feelings interested in securing obedience and gratitude to God as a moral and religious duty in return. The arrangements of nature are taught simply as "knowledge" coming from nobody, and leading only to worldly advantage, not personal happiness. Religion again is taught not as the complement of that knowledge, leading the mind back to God and bearing at every moment on our welfare, but as a something apart, which does not dovetail with our conduct or duties. In short, the prominent idea in the minds of both teachers and taught, under the present national system, is, that secular knowledge and religion are distinct, and have no natural connection; and hence neither exercise its CONSCIOUS of the immense power of the religious sentiments in the human mind, and of the impossibility of separating them without violence from their vital union with the moralities, I have all along felt that the plan of excluding religion from education was inherently a defective one, which could not continue to hold its place against the assaults of reason and truth. In the past position of the question, it was best which could be followed, and was defensible as the smallest of several evils among which society was compelled to choose. As such I still advocate and defend it; but I think it important that it should be defended and advocated on its true grounds, and not as in itself proper and desirable. Instead, therefore, of recommending the separation of secular from religious instruction, as in themselves distinct, I would adopt the true grounds, and in answer to the wish of some to make all education religious, say: Yes, I agree with you entirely that all education must be based on religion and that the authority of God should be recognized by us all as the only infallible standard in everything; but that we may know what we are talking about, let us understand distinctly what each of us means by religion. Standing on such a basis, we cannot be shaken by either Jew or Gentile, Calvinist or Lutheran Then comes the discussion, What is religion? A, says it is a code embracing, suppose, ten principles in all. On examination B, C, and D find that, say, eight of these refer to prac-legitimate influence. tical matters directly influencing conduct and But the result will be different if it be reccharacter, and that they approve of them as ognized universally that, taught as it ought to true; but each affirms that the remaining two be, all the knowledge conveyed is inherently are church dogmas, untrue, dangerous to sal-religious, and calculated, necessarily to bring vation and deserving of all reprobation. the creature and the Creator into more imFor these B proposes to substitute other two, but is, in his turn, voted wrong by A, C, and D. The latter two follow with their substitutes, and are each condemned; all, meanwhile, admitting the eight practical principles to be sound and necessary to happiness. Here it is plain that if the children of all are to attend the same school a compromise must take place; and while all agree to leave out the two articles, they may cordially unite in mediate contact, and to develop feelings of love, admiration, reverence, and submission to the Divine will. Let it be proclaimed and understood that the inevitable tendency of knowledge is to lead the mind to the Creator, and that wherever it is taught without this result there is and must be a defect of method, or a fault in the teacher, which ought instantly to be remedied. Let it be proclaimed to the four corners of the earth, that education, rightly conducted, is religious in the highest of their interpretation of His written wisdom and ways. This is a tyranny to which human reason can not continue to submit, and the sooner they are put on the defensive the better. Science is, in its very essence, so inherently religious, and leads back so directly to God at every step, and to His will as the rule of our happiness, that nothing would be easier or more delightful or more practically improv degree, although embracing none of the tenets peculiar to sects or parties, and that a “god less education" is a contradiction and a moral impossibility. It would be as logical to speak of a solar light without a sun. Every truth, moral, physical, or religious, springs from, and leads directly to, God; and no truth can be taught, the legitimate tendency of which is to turn us away from God Instead, therefore, of giving in to the oping to human character and conduct than to ponents of national education, and admitting exhibit even its minutest details as the emanaa real separation between secular and relig. tions of the Divine wisdom, and their indicaious knowledge, I would proclaim it as the tions as those of the Divine will for our guidhighest recommendation of secular knowl-ance. In a well-conducted school-room or edge that it is inherently religious, and that the opponents are inflicting an enormous evi on society by preventing philosophers and teachers from studying and expounding its religious bearings. If this were done it would lay the odium at the right door, and show that the sticklers for exclusive churcheducation are the real authors of "a gigantic scheme of godless education," in attaching such importance to their own peculiar tenets on certain abstract points; that rather than yield the right of conscience to others, they are willing to consign society at large to an absolute ignorance of the ways of God as exhibited in the world in which He has placed them, and to all the misery, temporal or eternal, certain to result from that ignorance. college-hall, the religious sentiments might be nourished with the choicest food para passu with every advance in intellectual knowledge. The constant practice of exhibiting the Deity in every arrangement would cultivate habitually that devotional reverence and obedience to His will which are now inculcated only at stated times, and apart from everything naturally calculated to excite them. So far from education or knowledge proving hostile to the growth of religion in the minds of the young, they would in truth constitute its most solid foundation, and best prepare the soil for the seed to be afterward sown by the parent and priest, who would then receive from school a really religious child fashioned to their hands, instead of being, as now, presented only with the stony It must be admitted that, as at present taught, much of our knowledge is not relig-soil and the rebellious heart. ious but this is an unnatural and avoidable, The practical inference from all this is, not a necessary evil, and it has arisen, in a that while we continue to advocate the exclugreat measure, from the denunciations of the sion of sectarianism of every hue from our party opposed to the diffusion of education. educational institutions, we are so far from By stigmatizing as infidel and godless what- wishing to exclude religion itself, that our ever knowledge was not conjoined with their chief desire is to see all education rendered own peculiar creed, they deterred men from much more religious than it has ever been or touching upon or following out the religious ever can be under the present system. To aspects of knowledge; and if they be allowed make religion bear its proper fruit, it must to maintain longer the wall of separation they become a part and parcel of every-day life have erected, the result will continue to be It must, in fact, be mixed up with all we the same as in times past. The only way to think, feel, and do; and if science were meet them is to turn the tables and denounce taught as it ought to be, it would be felt to them as the obstructors and enemies of re- lead to this, not only without effort but necligious education, because they refuse to al-essarily. God is the creator and arranger of low any exposition of the Divine wisdom and all things; and wherever we point out a use arrangements and will which does not also and pre-arranged design we necessarily point assume the equal infallibility and importance to Him. If we can then show that the design |