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relish it, as the Scotch peasantry actually do. The reverse method, though simpler, and less liable to the charge of cant, has never produced as desirable fruit. And we must not take as our model the way which pleases such as are, by the supposition, uninstructed. We must interpose some long words in the child's lesson, or he will never know any but the short ones. And I cannot help thinking it one of the chief faults of the New School or revival era, that its plan of teaching had respect too exclusively to the initiation of new converts. One thing I more and more feel, the excellency of figures and illustrations and examples drawn from the text of the Word. To aim at either simplicity or elegance, by avoiding these, leads either to vagueness or dryness. Hence I never could get along with this rule of Dr. : "if you have a figurative text, explain the figure, and then dismiss it." It is the secret of the good Doctor's tameness. By this rule, all sermons on Faith will be the same sermon. I will send you shortly two numbers of "Punch." Though the old Adam in me relishes his passes, yet I agree in what a very poor editor lately said of him, that it is bad, week after week, to undermine the veneration of a people. We are too fond of laughing at every thing. On the 4th I was at a soirée, at He is a McElroyalist; and is eldest of eight sons of a late clergyman of Glasgow. One of the ablest laytalkers on theological matters. I met there Hugh Maxwell, Esq. Our host had that same day entertained Dr. McLean, husband of Miss Landon, L. E. L.; and Governor of Cape-CoastCastle; said castle covers several acres. Said governor is autocrat; and has condemned as many as eleven to death; he also buries and baptizes. A parishioner of mine spent some time in Madeira. He knows good Dr. Kalley. I have before me two of his letters; date 1840. Facts from them: He was bent on China, to join Dr. Parker, as an M. D. Wife's health prevented, and took him to Madeira, October 1838. In 1839 he went home and was ordained; independently, though a Scotch Calvinist. The London Missionary Society would not, however, take Madeira as a station. The Continental (now the European) Society also refused. He began as M. D., gave medicine gratis, prescribed. 'During the last twenty-five days, I have come into contact with 112 individuals as patients; and during the last eight days, forty-five besides patients have had opportunity to hear more or less of the word of God." "When the room is filled, I take the Bible and read a few verses," &c., &c. He mentions in detail different classes during each week. "One of the most regular attendants is a schoolmistress, who has 130 scholars.” "Öne old woman has a family of six, but till lately has had

nothing of the Scripture of God in her house. I gave her a Testament. Next day she returned, inquiring about the reward people receive, who love to pray that they may be seen of men, and various other questions about prayer. She said she had spent many hours in saying rezas, but never felt as if speaking to God; and asked very earnestly what it is to pray. Another day she complained that, though she felt a toca di Dios (touch of God) in her heart, while she prayed, it went away when she got home to her family and fazenda; and wished to know if that were sin.” He mentions numerous cases of persons dying in lively faith.

Tuesday 10.-This morning I married two of my Sunday School teachers; this evening another couple. The savour of the old old-schoolism is not good here. Many have never seen old-schoolism allied to any zeal, and have all their early associations connected with new measures. Such a character as McCheyne would be to them as out of nature as a Centaur, a Sphynx, or a Griffin. The new school of Scotland, predominant in the Free Church, gives some occasion to Chalmers's censure of their "nursery-endearments of style." They have also much to learn about the evils of unseasonable meetings, outcries, &c. But they are in earnest, and they exalt Christ. I am convinced you are right about the place ministers seek to occupy in society. One loses nothing, either, by being behind. the fashion. Paul, or Luther, or Swartz, would perhaps have been poor Mentors about a visiting card, or a sack-coat. Their tea-service was perhaps humbler than a Methodist's. If we had more men, we ought to have more and smaller churches, and smaller stipends. I have seriously proposed to our clergy, as we have no night-meetings for the young and strangers, that the Presbyterians of New York buy the Broadway Tabernacle, and have first-rate preaching Sunday evenings all the year round. It holds 3,000, and has always 2,000, whoever preaches. The site is incomparable.

NEW YORK, December 18, 1844.

I expect to be here all the holidays. The custom is for the congregation, one and all, to call on the pastor on New Year's Day, to eat a morsel, &c.: I must of course be in place; and I shall be glad to have you to do some of the pump-handling for You will be particularly welcome. If the worst comes to the worst, and company from Princeton should be here, I know my deacon and deaconess will give you a chamber in ditto [Chambers] Street, and I can answer for their pie: probatum est.

me.

A sermon in your pocket will celebrate Tuesday evening, if they have a meeting. I regret to say that my attic-room has but a dormouse-window, but otherwise it is as good as any we have. Any how, come on. The "Tombs" I now see, as I write; admission free, and company sociable. My mother went this morning. I write merely to tell you to come, wherefore adieu, and love to all, and all friends, with "Merrie Christmasse."

NEW YORK, January 10, 1845.

Van Rensselaer is working here, [for endowment of Princeton Seminary.] He will have to work hard to get the $40,000 he has assessed on our island. Dr. Phillips's church has given him $13,000. When the new railway to Boston, viâ New Haven, is done, it will be a great thing. They say already that its terminus will be where the Brick Church stands. To-day I attended the funeral of the only surviving child of a new-comer. I was trying to light a lamp at an expiring fire, when it breathed its last. This evening I preached a preparatory lecture, from Cant. iv. 16. Seven on profession, twelve on certificate. The apostles have sold the copyright of the trial, [of B. T. Onderdonk,] which is sub prelo. Berrian has a manual, "Enter into thy Closet," from the prayer-book, and "ancient litanies :" some beautiful prayers in it. I always admired the Latin collects of the Catholics. The lapse of ages has given some of these old prayers a polish, and rotundity, and denseness, such as pebbles get in a river-bed. The rhythm of the almost metrical Latin is exquisite, and untranslatable. Most of them, however, are idolatrous. Dr. Hawes has published a very simple, touching sermon, on the death of his missionary daughter, Mrs. Van Lennep. Williamsburg has 8,000 inhabitants; and Paul Stevenson, late of Staunton, is gathering a first Presbyterian church there. I am appalled at the extent to which our city churches have become machines for raising money. Every month a stated collection, and almost weekly calls between-whiles. Now, aside from any selfish feelings, is this right? Is it the ideal of a true gospel state? Is not most of these sums given by worldlings? Is not the pecuniary association kept rankling, to the hurt of piety? These are questions more easily asked than answered. Ecclesiastico-politico-economy wants an Adam Smith. More equalization is certainly one thing we ought to aim at.

It is rumoured that the Episcopalians are meditating a revolt against the Episcopal degradation of Onderdonk; but que faire?

Do you know that Sue's "Wandering Jew" is aimed at the Jesuits? It is an awful book, and its principles are clearly antichristian. Hordes of scavengers do not remove the ordure and smell of our streets. We have none of the great sewers of Philadelphia.

I see a new book on the Ruling-Elder, by King, of Scotland. He seems to adopt the view of a bench of Presbyters, some of whom preach. Thornwell is out with a volume against the Apocrypha; it looks very learned, and is no doubt able. He has certainly touched the right string. The Jews are evidently very uneasy. Witness Leeser's "Occident," and others summoning them to defensive efforts; Noah's Lecture; the reforms in Germany; the prevailing and admitted rationalism; the forsaking by many of their belief for ages in a personal Messiah.

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I want to preach a sermon on this subject, viz., Men of Business live in a perpetual hurry, scarcely taking time to refresh nature. This keeps out thoughts of God. This spell must be broken. For such men, stated inviolable periods of devotion are therefore necessary. Apply to closet-prayer, family-worship, and especially the Sabbath. I feel the evil as I never did before. Broadway is a spectacle these sunny mornings. I sat by [a fashionable author,] in an omnibus, to-day; black, shaggy sack, plaid pants, gaiter-boots, blue and red neckcloth, crookdangling curls like a Miss, face of a vinous character. I have always felt serious concern at the evident repugnance of a friend of ours to the Tract Society. It is unfortunate, for the principle of compromise in the two charities is identical. And the only privilege of the S. S. Union in the event of disaster, will be that of "being devoured last." I am loth to say it; but to this I apprehend it will come. Even the New School, who spread wide their no-sect flag in '37, are now moving every thing to be as sectarian as possible-newspaper, Board of Publication, complaint about suppression of Calvinism, &c. A great protraction of meetings and revival reported at Sag Harbor, L. I., (Old School.)

NEW YORK, January 30, 1845.

I have just returned from my weekly prayer-meeting. Prayer-meetings are like Jeremiah's figs. Where gifts are rare, and graces are small, the edification, and certainly the comfort, are accordingly. One of our men is ill, I fear dying. It is a case in which severe remedies afford the only hope; but he has two Homoeopathists. Contrary to every principle avow

ed, and all their denunciation of " Allopathic" means, they are now, when he is moribund, giving strong medicines. The more I see of them, the more am I confirmed in my belief, that their pretensions are those of systematized charlatanry. Bush is going over fast to the New Jerusalem, [Swedenborgian.] In the Tribune, he challenges all the world to prove the resurrection. He has a book coming out on the "Soul." He practises Mesmerism. He told me of a lady who can read any one's character by feeling a paper on which he has written and read me a copy of his own character thus deduced. His talk is mild, self-complacent, learned, and fascinating. He has a man translating the German account of the famous Clairvoyante of Prevorst. You can imagine nothing of the sort too big for his swallow. The coalition between Mesmer and Swedenborg is becoming patent: both affect to see things beyond the vulgar ken. You have read the account of young Dr. Bodenier's extirpation of a glandular parotid tumour, from a woman, during magnetic sleep, in presence of Mott, Rodgers, Doane, Delafield, &c. Come on and be mesmerized. I am strangely obtuse, for I can't wake up enough to see these things in the favourable light. That they can put people asleep, I believe: but so can I. McCartee is called to the Canal Street church. You see that Texas is all but annexed, and the “area of freedom" widened: N. B. area is the Latin for "threshing-floor." I am heretic enough to believe, in very earnest, that this very enormity will be overruled to the good of the negro. It will drain Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee of their slaves. It will push the slave-mass towards the tropics. There they may physically thrive; there they are always happiest. There they will outgrow their white holders. There they will be in the region which is exempt from the real hinderance to their freedom, the prejudice of colour and caste. In Mexico, Central America, and Colombia, black is almost as good as white. Half the Mexican officers of the two steamers, whom I saw, were one-half or two-thirds Africans. Amalgamation, say what they please, can go on, does go on, and will go on. The longer we put off the national break, the greater will be the Free America. All this, I think, leaves the emancipation question just where it was. But leave this out of view, and what becomes of our negroes, slave or free? Those called by mockery free people, are a race of Helots or Yahoos, in our estimation. We do not give them our dinners, or our daughters; we debar them from pulpits, pews, and omnibuses; we deny them actual citizenship. We smell their rancid odours, and hustle them off our streets more vehemently now that they are free, than when they were slaves. Educate them, and this prejudice makes them

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