talk about being free, and complaining about their work, was produced by the intermeddling of Moses and Aaron? It really appears to me that he might happen to take up notions of that kind; and feel not a little provoked at Moses and Aaron, for spreading discontent among his slaves. But there were still other diffi. culties. The Hebrews formed the great body of labourers in his kingdom. Moses insisted on taking them all off, on the same day. What a state of things this was calculated to produce in his kingdom! Would it not ruin it? And would it not ruin the Hebrews? They had been raised in slavery been unfit for self-government. He had found it necessary to employ overseers, and even to call in the aid of the scourge to overcome their idle habits. For a people with such habits, to be turned free all at once! might not Pharaoh think it would ruin them?-that they could not govern themselves? -that they would starve? and think that kindness to them would forbid turning them loose, as Moses demanded? But we have no reason to think that Pharaoh was wholly without regard to the value of property. The Hebrews, as his labourers and artificers, were very valuable property. There were 600,000 labouring men, besides the women and children. From their doubling in less than fifteen years, there must have been a great many children. It will be a moderate calculation, to suppose that the men above the age of twenty, formed one-fourth of the whole. There were then three millions in all. Estimate these at three hundred dollars a piece, it amounts to 720,000,000 dollars: not to mention their cattle, and other property, which were very valuable. Now, is it to be wondered at, that Pharaoh felt reluctant to lose so much property? Nothing was said about buying their freedom. He was required to give all up,-not to bear a part of the loss, and they the rest-he was to bear the whole! We can easily conceive how Pharaoh might have persuaded himself, that to lose so much property, and be deprived of all his labourers,--and have to set his own people to all the hard work in the city, and in the field, to which they were not accustomed, was really rather too much. He might very possibly have thought, that if it was wrong at first to enslave the Hebrews, he at least was not to blame for it; that it was done long before he was born; that he found them in slavery, and held them as property; that the whole habits of the Egyptians was such now, that the evil of slavery was a kind of necessary evil; that they could not do without it; and that it was hard to make him pay for the faults of his fore-fathers, and to give up what he had received as property by inheritance. There is another point deserving notice. Natural and personal rights were not then so well understood as now. Perhaps few, if any, then maintained the doctrines, that personal "liberty is an unalienable right," which no man has a warrant either to take or withhold from us, under the plea of a right of property. Less was given to Pharaoh, as to knowledge, than to us, and less was therefore to be expected. As to the supposition that the miracles wrought made Pharaoh altogether inexcusable in refusing to comply with the demand, I admit it. But is it not equally true that those plagues, while they prove God's displeasure against Pharaoh and the Egyptians for enslaving Israel, go directly to prove the general truth, that all who enslave others, or hold them forcibly in slavery, do what is offensive to God? Pharaoh may have persuaded himself that Moses wrought his miracles by magic. was an ignorant Pagaz. Pharaoh We be lieve that God wrought the miracles; and the general truth is plain, God hates oppression. To conclude my apology, which is much too long, I repeat that I fully believe that Pharaoh did wrong in enslaving Israel-in persevering in it; and that, however plausible his excuses, they availed nothing. The thing was wrong. He only added sin to sin, and made matters worse by his delay. The event proved that it would have been better for Egypt never to have enslaved Israel. It would have been better to have given up this state at any one time that could be named; for not only did they go out, but they spoiled the Egyptians; and the attempt to force them back, involved the whole army, with Pharaoh at its head, in ruin. All this is admitted. Yet I say, Egyptian slavery was not so hard as some other cases of slavery;—and Pharaoh's excuses are, I think, better than what have satisfied, and now satisfy, many. Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer, PERMIT me, through the medium of your paper, to call the attention of the clergy to a method of reading certain portions of our excellent Liturgy, which, though violating just taste, is adopted by many under the idea of superior correctness. Some writers on grammar and elocution, among them Murray and Walker, have very justly observed, that a transposition of the accent is sometimes required when two words, which have a sameness in part of their formation, are opposed to each other in sense. For example, as single words, we pronounce" injustice," "forgiving," -- with the accent on the penultima; but if we mean to contrast them with their opposites, we then place the accent on the first syllable. Thus we say, Neither justice nor injustice has to do with the question." "There is a difference between giving and fòrgiving." In like manner the verbs, increase and decrease, have the accent on the last syllable; but if we contrast them, we remove the accent to the first syllable.“ PA man's riches must increase or dècrease." But This is perfectly correct. some readers of the Liturgy seem to mistake juxta-position for antithesis, and extend the rule beyond its legitimate application. Hence we hear, "Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses "That it may please thee to give us true repentance: to fòrgive us all our sins""We bless thee for our création, prèservation;" in which places the words "forgive," "creation," "preservation," should be read with the natural accent, though a little lingering on the syllables pre, ser, will naturally be made by a reader who has a good ear to prevent a jingle in the sound. Allied to this misplacing of accent is a very common misapplication of emphasis, which owes its origin to the authority of Dr. Johnson, who observed, that the Commandments, being prohibitions, the emphasis should be laid on the word not. The rule is evidently wrong. Had one of these Commandments stood alone, and been a reply to an avowed purpose of doing the thing which it forbids, the emphasis would have been properly placed on the negative. To the man who should say, "I will steal," the answer would rightly have been, Thou shalt not steal, But in the Decalogue we have a series of prohibitions; and therefore the emphasis is not to be laid on the negative, which is common to all, but on the thing specified in each, and by which it is distinguished from the rest. If the word "not" is to be emphatic in the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Commandments, why not the word "nor" in the Tenth; "nòr his servant, nor his maid, nor his ox," &c. ; yet I never heard any read so, except ill-taught children saying their catechism. Nor do I ever remember hearing a clergyman read, "Thou shalt do nò murder;" yet the Sixth Commandment also is a prohibition, and, by Dr. Johnson's rule, the emphasis should be upon "no." amply abundant for the parishioners. Moreover, the commissioners were formed into a body corporate for building new churches in populous towns and districts, destitute of AN ADMIRER OF THE LITURGY. church room. It should seem there Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. IN reference to the recent act for building churches, alluded to in your last Number, an opinion has been taken up by many, and by some in authority, that the clause cited by your correspondent is unlimited in its application, and that any individual, without regard to church accommodation, may in any parish erect a chapel for himself and neighbours, in defiance of the incumbent, provided only the commissioners are satisfied with the endowment. That the legislature should have had such a measure as this in contemplation seems to me incredible. They could not but be aware that an unnecessary division of a parish into sections would be a disruption of that bond of union which ought to subsist between the authorized minister and his people; and though, in cases of absolute necessity, where the want of accommodation in the parish church is notorious, they might deem it a paramount duty to give every facility for opening a way to enable every man to worship God according to the rites of the national church, I cannot hastily believe that they would sanction a measure which might intersect a parish with as many chapels as there were persons in it willing and competent to incur the expense. I am the more disposed to take this view of the subject from the title of the Act itself; "An Act, &c. in POPULOUS parishes." If the Act be to amend Acts relating to populous parishes, it can have no reference, it should seem, to parishes not populous; that is, I conceive, where the church accommodation is fore, that to interfere in parishes. not populous, and where there is ample church accommodation, would be to enter on a sphere of operation never assigned to them; and as the recent Act repeals none of the former connected with population, &c. I should consider it as involving rather a transfer of right to sanction the building of chapels, and a change of the previous steps necessary for such a measure, than a hasty and unnecessary invasion of the privileges and spiritual duties of the legal incumbent. The opinion of some able civilian on this point might remove much uncertainty of no inconsiderable moment to the peace and harmony of the members of the Established Church. A CONSTANT READER. Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. Ir would be beside the object of your publication, and tedious to your readers, to prolong a discussion relative to the technical method of wording a charitable bequest. The principle which I endeavoured to point out, in my former communication, is fully recognized by your correspondent Omega-namely, that in order to ensure the payment of a charitable legacy, an express direction is requisite on the part of the testator, not only that it shall be paid out of his personal estate, applicable by law to the discharge of such legacies, but that this portion of his property shall be primarily applied to that purpose. Having called the attention of your readers to the defect of the forms of bequest usually recommended by benevolent institutions in this important respect, it would perhaps only be necessary for me to add, that recourse may be had either to the form prescribed by Omega, or that by myself, as may be most adapted to suit the general arrangement of the particular testamentary disposition. For, with great deference to Omega, I still think, the form suggested by me is fully adequate to the end proposed; and that it will probably be more usually convenient than Omega's form, both on account of its brevity and simplicity, and because, as it does not affect the order of the several parts of the will, it may be introduced into any part of it, or may be used as a separate codicil. The whole of a testator's personal assets immediately upon his death vests by the act of law in the executors, subject to the payment of the debts and legacies; of course, therefore, a bequest to them, of any par f1 ticular portion of those assets, as recommended by Omega, is unnecessary. All that is required is, that the order of the distribution of the effects be expressly pointed out. Now, the direction that such part of the personal estate, as is by law applicable to the payment of charitable legacies, shall, in the first place, and before answering any other purpose whatsoever, be applied in satisfying the bequests of this description, appears to me as definite and clear as can be well imagined. I have to apologize for intruding again upon the patience of your readers. It is however important that the principle contended for should be fully understood, and that persons should feel confidence in using one or the other of the several forms of bequest which have now been recommended. I. D. L. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. We left our two worthies at the beginning of the seventeenth century; Hall just entering on the rectory of Halstead, where, under the religious despotism of James I., he remained till 1612; and Arminius in his pastoral charge at Amster dam, but now become, by reason of his treatment of the Predestinarian question, a man of strife and contention to the whole earth." Little did the new century, temporally considered, promise of good to either. King James, though holding Hall in honour, and soon about to send him in 1618, to assist the Dort Synodists in Holland to put down the Arminians, yet, in 1603, was giving no proof of his own candour and impartiality in the HamptonCourt conference, whilst dealing with his Calvinistic subjects, the Puritans. He admitted their doctrines, but persecuted their persons; and by a series of harsh and ill-concerted measures, in conjunction with the Anti-predestinarians, maddened them, till he prepared them, in the reign of his successor, to sweep away kings and bishops together, and our venerable friend Hall amongst the number. From such a fearful national catastrophe, our Dutch neighbours were in part rescued by the poverty of the Arminians in numbers and strength, and their consequent necessary submission to every measure of sup pression and expulsion against their leaders. We pursue our notice, first, of the further progress of Arminius. We left him pastor at Amsterdam. And happy had it been for himself, and perhaps for the world, according to our dark-sighted views of happiness, had Arminius so remain ed; and had Franciscus Junius, the enlightened professor at Leyden, lived to pursue his pacific career in the theological chair, having only such a luminary as Arminius, quiescent, and in the vista of his view. Not that Arminius had been altogether at ease in Amsterdam. He had commented on the 9th chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans; and having applied the argument of the Apostle merely to the doctrine of justification by faith, he gave such alarm to the Reformed, that they accused him of pleasing at once the Lutherans, the Anabaptists, and the Libertines, by his doctrine. He was surprised at pleasing so many, and all but those he desired to please. He replied. "That with no less grief of mind had he heard by report of the clandestine slanders of some persons, and in what manner he was traduced under the title of a Heretic, a Libertine and Pelagian; that he had never given just cause to any person to have such a bad opinion of him; that he had never SPOKEN ANY THING IN CONTRADICTION TO THE REFORMED CONFESSION AND CATECHISM, but had at all times taught what agreed with them, and had, ou more occasions than one, given testimony to this fact in his sermons; that if any one would before that assembly openly accuse him, and should think it possible to convict him of this crime, be was prepared instantly to hear his reasons, and to enter into a defence of his own innocence." Arminius, p. 113. Again: "His conscience bore him testimony, and he knew, from the communications of several persons, that his discourses had been rendered useful, and their delivery attended with profit. In reference to those passages of Scripture which, it was asserted, he had expounded in a sense contrary to that of the Confession, no person could convict him of that offence: he confessed, that the eighteenth verse of the seventh chapter of the Romans was cited in the margin of the Confession in a sense somewhat different. Yet, if it was incumbent on every teacher of the Reformed Church to adhere thus strictly to the terms of this Confession, and if, when any one in quoting passages of Scripture departed even a hair's breadth from those terms, it was instantly construed into an enormous offence,it would not be a matter of difficulty for him to prove the greater part of his fellow-labourers guilty of the same crime, and of having "The Rev. J. Kuchlinus owned, that The nature of his heresy was however at length disclosed; for, on an adversary, at another convention, being suddenly called forth to allege the points objected to, he stated, with much hesitation and some confusion, the sum of his objections as follows:- 1. While Arminius was interpreting the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, he had taught, that no one was condemned except for sin, and that all infants were for that reason excluded from condemnation. "2. That he had likewise said, It is scarcely possible to attribute too much to good works: we cannot say enough in cominendation of them, provided we ab stain from ascribing to them any portion of merit. "3. And that he had avowed, The angels are not immortal.' "Arminius answered each of these charges, thus: "In reference to the first objection, when he was preaching on sin as the cause of condemnation, he did not by those words exclude original sin; but Plancius had not correctly understood the nature of the original stain, if under the name of sin he was desirous to have it excluded. 42. So far was he from denying the second assertion respecting good works, that he chose rather to defend it as a correct saying.'-Plancius then asked, Is justification therefore to be ascribed to good works, provided no merit is attributed to them?'-Arminius replied, Justification is not assigned to works, but to faith.' In confirmation of this he quoted Romans iv. 4, 5: Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.' "3. With regard to the third matter of which he was accused, he had never ut, tered such a sentiment about the angels in. public, but had, he confessed, once mentioned it privately in the house of Plancius, and had established it by solid arguments, |