ted into one or two, it would likely be better for the cause and better for the editors, some of whom are sacrificing their time and their means of doing good, without either a Divine or a human call to the work.

EXTENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

A. C.

THE present confederacy of the United States of North America, contains a larger area of cultivated land and hospitable climate, than any country that has previously existed. Ancient and modern empires sink into insignificance, when compared with it. The United States of America contain 2,300,000 square miles-over half a million more than Europe, if we except Russia. The greatest length is 3,000 miles; their greatest breadth 1,700 miles.

They have a frontier line of 10,000 miles; a sea coast of 36,000 miles, and an inland lake coast of 1,200 miles.

The rivers in the United States are the largest in the world. The Missouri is 3,600 miles in length, or more than twice as long as the Danube. The Ohio is 600 miles longer than the Rhine. The Hudson, entirely within a single State, is navigable 120 miles above its mouth further than the Thames.

The State of Virginia has an area of 70,000 square miles, and is about one-third larger than England. The State of Ohio, 40,000

square miles, or one-fourth more than the whole of Scotland.

The harbor of the city of New York, is the Atlantic outlet of a river, canal, and lake navigation of about 3,000 miles, or the distance from Europe to America.

From Augusta, in the State of Maine, to New Orleans, in the State of Louisiana; the distance is 1,800 miles; or 200 more than from London to Constantinople. To go from London to Constantinople, you cross the entire continent of Europe, and through most of its principal kingdoms.

The great proportion of the whole extent of the territory of the United States is uncultivated. The population of the country, as rapidly as it increases, would not occupy all the public domain in a cycle of 500 years, and yet, in spite of this startling fact, there are men among us claiming to be statesmen, who wish to anticipate the future and occupy by conquest, at the expense of blood and treasure, that territory which is as certain to fall into our possession by the natural course of events, as that the sun's rising marks the beginning of day.

NEW YORK CITY.

Beloved brother Campbell-I AM happy to inform you that the congregation of Disciples, in this city, is in a comfortable condition; able, in a measure, to edify and build up each other in the faith.

We are greatly in want of a competent Evangelist or Teacher; if we had such, possessing talent, piety, godliness, and a finished edncation, we are persuaded a great amount of good would be done in this immense city. We are perfectly aware that it is our duty

to get such a proclaimer, in order to present the ancient gospel clearly, in all its inherent power, before the world. We are able and willing to compensate such a brother for his services.

Will you have the kindness to make our circumstances known, in the Harbinger, and assist us in procuring such a workman as is needed in our city; in doing which you will greatly favor the congregation, and much oblige your most affectionate brother, in the good hope. D. MONROE.

The call from New York is a very urgent one. The church there, I am glad to learn, is in a state of great harmony and peace. Brotherly kindness and love are in the ascendant; and consequently, as do all other churches in a good and healthy state, they desire others to participate with them in that peace, love, and joy, which are the fruits of the Holy Spirit in all them that believe. The church in New York can do much as faithful stewards of the manifold grace of God. They could sustain several Evangelists in their great field of labor, and with as much promise of success as in any other field of labor known to me. Cannot some brother of acknowledged qualifications for such a field, be persuaded to offer himself unto the Lord and the brethren there? I desire to hear from him.

A. C.

NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.

Western Star, February 28, 1848. The hearts of the saints have been made to rejoice in seeing sinners turn to the Lord. Brother J. H. Jones visited Morton in January, and plead the cause of the Redeemer a few days; and, by the blessing of the Lord, ten were added to the congregation-seven by baptism. The next week I visited Wooster, and nine were added there-seven by baptism. A few days since I visited Chardon, where eleven made the good confession and were buried with Christ in baptism. May the great Shepherd of the sheep guard and keep them and us in the way of life everlasting!-is my prayer. A. B. GREEN.

Macomb, M'Donogh county, Illinois, February 29, 1848. Remember that at this place we have a congregation of Disciples, numbering about one hundred. We have been organized about two years. We meet on the first day of the week to show forth the Lord's death till he come again. Brother A. J. Cane has been the principal Evangelist in this work. May the Lord b'ess the efforts of all those who contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. We need help in this country-some to proclaim the life-giving word, WM. H. FRANKLIN.

Marion, Grant county, Indiana, March 11, 1848. There have been about 120 additions to the churches under my teaching, during the last year, and the most of that number by immersion; the others having been immersed before. I send my Christian love to you and family and all the holy brethren with you. J. B. NEW.

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Chagrin Falls, Ohio, March 14, 1848. Dear brother Campbell-I much long to see you and yours, and hope to visit Bethany with my wife in July next. Neither have I given up all hope that you will yet visit the Reserve and York State before your labors in the Saviour shall cease. I know you have not been well used by the Northern brethren, and so a great many think; but those who think so are those who, like myself, have not hitherto been able to help it much. But prospects favor the hope of a better time shortly.

A good deal has been done here this winter, so that all begin to feel that much more ought and can be done. More than 120 have been added to the church, besides a considerable awaking of all those exertions of love, joy, zeal, courage, liberality, &c. which are the natural results of evangelical labors. But while we rejoice in the revival of the enterprize of the brotherhood, we lament the loss from among us of a number of excellent men and women, ornaments and helps in the good cause. Among these are David Darrow, of Stow, Summit county, lost his life by the caving in of a well, October 20th. He was the first of the gospel in Stow, in 1831, a prominent and valuable member, both in the church and civil society. He left a wife and five children to mourn their severe bereavement. He was 43 years of

age.

Timothy Wallace, aged 62, a most excellent man, immersed by brether C. Forward in 18:4, died January 19th, 1848. His wife, Elizabeth, at 52, died August 17, 1817, leaving eight children, several of them in their minority, to the care of an elder brother and sister who have obeyed the gospel. My love to all the Bethany family..

WM. HAYDEN.

I am sorry to think that any of our brethren in the Western Reserve should think that my absence for several years from their annual meetings, has been occasioned by any alienation of my affection from them because of any thing which they have said or done as respects myself. True, I expected from some of them more than they have done in aid of the great common cause of moral and religious education, in which I have been for some years engaged. I intend, however, the Lord willing, to see as many of them as I can at the next Trumbull annual meeting, about the end of August. A.C.

OBITUARY.

North Middletown, Ky., March 9, 1848. Brother Campbell-I sit down to write you a few lines relative to the death of sister EVELINA BRYAN, wife of Thomas P. Bryan, and sister of A. M. Harriss, deceased, formerly a student of Bethany College. She died on the 20th of last month in the full hope of realizing the resurrection of the just. Early in the spring time of life she gave herself to the Lord, and ever since that time (15 years ago) she has been an exemplary member of his family at this place.

For years past she was the subject of severe bodily affliction; under the discipline of which, in the immediate prospect of death, she was enabled to say, "There was nothing in this world that made life desirable." Her life was despaired of by her physician and friends before she knew her case was even dangerous; but when the subject of her death was named to her, she said it cid "not give her the least alarm;" that if she "had a thousand years to live, she would not be better prepared to die than she was at that time." She took an affecting adieu of her children, (four little daughters,) and husband, and aged mother. A number of her friends presented themselves; to some of whom she gave special charges: one was a brother-in-law who lives with her mother. To him she said, "Take good care of my mother." She manifested a composure during the latter part of her illness which nothing but the hope of a better life could impart. "Oh! the pain, the bliss of dying!"

W. J. M.

PERIODICALS.

"THE CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE, devoted to primitive Christianity, conducted by J. B. Ferguson, principal Editor, assisted by B. F. Hall, T Fanning, associate Editors, Nashville, Tennessee," has reached its 3d number. It is not got up in good style, but in the best style of the periodical monthly press, in all that pertains to good paper, good printing, and good mechanical taste. It is one of our largest, if not the largest, monthly-certainly the broadest and longest page-each number containing 32 pages. It is filled with good original essays and good selections; but I regret to say that I have not been able to read but a few of them-as, indeed, I still more regret to say, I can read but a very small portion of our periodical productions. Therefore, my general commendation of them extends only to the end of my readings, which is not in the ratio of one page in every twenty that is printed amongst us. So far as I have above spoken, this is, in my judgment, a beautiful paper; and whether it does more honor to the editors, the printers, the paper-makers, or type-founders, I pretend not to say; but one thing I will say, it does honor to them all.

"THE ECCLESIASTIC REFORMER," published every other Saturday, in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, by our well known brother Editor, C. Kendrick, on what he calls "a mammoth sheet." Mammoth, indeed, it may be in the environs of Harrodsburg; but every thing is relative; and what is a mammoth in one place is not a mammoth semper et ubique—that is, being interpreted, always and in all places. Its terms are one dollar cash; one dollar and twenty-five cents after six months, and one dollar and fifty cents after the close of the volume. It is well edited, so far as I have glanced over its pages; and the fair and honorable standing of our brother Kendrick is the best guarantee that it will be conducted with all gentlemanly and Christian port and bearing.

"THE CHRISTIAN MIRROR," edited by L. L. Pinkerton, M. D., Midway, Kentucky, a monthly, of twenty-four octavo pages, January 1, 1848, has also appeared in our heavens-a new star in the West, of much brilliancy. We have few young men of a clearer head, of a kinder and more generous heart, or of better taste both in speaking and in writing, than our much esteemed and beloved Dr. Pinkerton. I have no doubt whatever he undertakes he will do well and deserve the patronage of the brethren. The first number, the only one I have seen, is in good style and taste, and in good keeping with the times.

Few

I intend to keep a record of all our publications, and will proceed in the work until we get through. Reformation has been prolific of Editors. One or two generations of them have passed away, still they multiply and replenish the earth. They cannot all be patronized, nor need they, because they are not needed. I only regret the direction which our writing talent, and we have a very great abundance of writing talent amongst us, has taken. We really need but two periodicals, or three at most, in the United States-all beyond these are fifth wheels-they only needlessly tax the brethren-and tax them for what does not profit them nor the cause. have courage to say this. But I have; and I can say it, and I ought to say it. The paper is lost, the time is lost in selecting how much we ought to read. There is a great waste of paper, ink, and time for nothing. But I do not deprecate authors at all. I appreciate them all. But let them write books, volumes on useful subjects; bind them, sell them, save them, and transmit them, and rescue them from the fire. I will some day, perhaps, show the wisdom of making books, and the folly of multiplying periodicals, in a way that all must comprehend and appreciate.— Whether they may like it, I will not say; but I hope they may. I regret much that I am an editor. I had rather, be an author. But while I would be an author from choice, I am an editor from necessity.

A.C.

REVIEW OF PROFESSOR MILLER, OF PRINCETON; DR. WALL, VICAR OF SHOREM IN KENT, AND OTHERS.

HAVING already given a fair, and, I think, ample specimen of the value of the testimony of those "Fathers" mainly relied on by the most learned and influential of the advocates of infant baptism, I intend to occupy not many more pages on the argument drawn from tradition, oral or written. We must logically and morally discriminate between the testimony of the Greek and Roman Fathers concerning facts and events extant or transpiring in their own times, and their own opinions touching those facts and events. It is as much a fact that a certain opinion was entertained or propagated by a Tertullian, an Origen, or a Cyprian, as that such men lived in the third century. It may also be a fact that they entertained such an opinion, or that they did not; but neither the fact of their entertaining or not entertaining any given opinion, is any proof to us or to their contemporaries of the truth or the falsehood of such an opinion.

The fact that infant communion was as common as infant baptism in the "ancient church," and that it was plead for by such men as Photius, Cyprian, Augustine, &c., should be, methinks, a sufficient reproof to all Protestants, at least, for their implicit admission of the testimony of certain Greek Fathers as to the existence of an opinion in favor of infant baptism, or of the fact that some infants had been baptized in the third century. And certainly there is still more incongruity in administering the elements commemorative of the Saviour's sacrificial death to an unconscious unthinking babe, than in either sprinkling water upon its face, or in immersing it in water into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Still, in defiance of all reason, propriety, and the total absence of SERIES III.-VOL. V.

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