I am pleased that our collections are increased, notwithstanding church-building. I never had so many volunteer offerings for poor. One man has offered $1,000 now, and $500 a year towards a Ragged School, and another $1,000 towards a free church. Another promises to keep me in books for the poor as long as I live. The Irvingite Prayer Book is very good, being compiled with much taste from the ancient liturgies. They have "seven churches in London," as headquarters, with their respective angels. But there are angels in other churches. The twelve "apostles" are for great countries. Ours is Woodhouse, who is not here at present. We are served by F- and M probably prophet and angel. It is a consistent Puseyism. The Advent is not made so prominent as unity, real presence, prayer for dead and extraordinary χαρισματα. They profess great peaceableness, and ask no one to their meetings. Daily prayers at 6 and 5. Several University men are among their speakers. They have ample vestments, and no metrical psalmody. Their Psalter has some odd things, e. g. :

"He that doeth these things

Sha...ll never be moved."

“My li...

ps shall praise thee." Et sic passim.

NEW YORK, February 13, 1852.

I don't know whether it is so elsewhere, but here the Valentines have become a plague. As the day approaches, whole rows of shops of every sort fill their windows with valentines, from a penny up, which from having been amatory have become cynical and opprobrious, affording boobies and snobs an opportunity of venting cheap gall on a neighbour. For the first I find some tending to irreligion. You have seen the account of the perfectionism and promiscuous abomination.' How few cards after all the devil has in his pack; this is only the "Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit" over again. It more than fulfils predictions made by Nettleton, which at the time I thought absurd.

A youth died the other day, at 19, who said he had used every day for eleven years a prayer I gave him on a card, when my catechumen.

I am getting to think professing religion much less presumptive of grace, than once I did. Nor do I see that any strictness at the door helps the matter. Have we not added to the New Testament notion of communicating in the Lord's Supper? The anabaptist essays at a church of pure regenerate

1 Public assemblies held in Broadway of the advocates of "Free Love"eventually suppressed by the police.

VOL. II.-8

believers have not worked well. I used the word "catechumen " in the vulgar sense; but the кaτηxоνμevos was as such unbaptized-under schooling-long watched-slowly indoctrinated. The Church as a school has declined; hence the Sunday School has been built up alongside.

NEW YORK, February 25, 1852.

The meeting for prayer this morning at St. George's [Epis copal church] is one of the most hopeful things I have seen for a long time. ~ Dr. Spring made an address and a prayer such as few but he can utter. Dr. Potts was in a tender melting frame, and prayed so as to carry a large assembly up with him. I had not heard of Mrs. L.'s death. Brooklyn is, as to any visits, about as far as Trenton. I was this very day meditating a journey thither to see her; but daily visits of three to four hours have by no means allowed me to "overtake " my pressing parochialia. I agree anent Webster, and was going to write so. Moreover, his estimates of Livy, &c., are equal to the Sophomore class. His comparison of Sallust to Dr. Johnson is absurd.' I don't yet believe in the Maine law. The radical principles of the whole scheme are rotten. 1. The Bible speaks well of wine, even as exhilarant. 2. Christ chose, for a sempiternal ordinance, that thing, which of all others is (according to Maine) what ought to be everlastingly absent. 3. Islam (according to Maine) is ahead of Christianity. 4. The Decalogue is defective, for the first command ought to be, "Thou shalt not drink." 5. If what they say is true, pledging is not the way; else, why not pledge never to touch that, the love of which is a root of all evil? or never to lie? 6. It is questionable whether the true ethical principle is to remove all material of sin. 7. We have too many laws already which can't be enforced.

I can't help seeing that the apostolic preaching could never have been conformable to prophecies in John xiv.-xvii., unless greatly different from our Lord's. Progress and development mark all the teachings through his and theirs to the end. I look on a system as a mere report of progress in understanding Scripture, at a given point in history. Our preached system differs from the Confession of Faith, both by addition and subtraction.

I have heard [R. W. ] Emerson. There is a singular fascination in his delivery of his sentences. These end in a surprise, almost always, and he artfully stammers and halts, so as to make expectation extreme. No gesture. No outlay of voice. Yet he keeps you intensely anxious to hear his soft, hesitating

1 The allusion is to Mr. Webster's unfortunate selection of a classical subject for a discourse before the New York Historical Society.

tones. A disjointed series of" good things." Audiences not large; apparently New England residents, ladies, uppish clerks, &c.

Carlyle's Life of Sterling is a dreadful book, to popularize Pantheism, warm up the swelling germs of doubt in young minds, and prepare the soil for every extreme. I nowhere find in English, except in Th. Parker, such dark menaces. It is evident C. converted S. from a mere nominal Christian into a black despairing skeptic. The Irvingites have a great proportion of persons out of the most indoctrinated circles; most of their prophets, &c., having Episcopal orders, and several privates known to me being Presbyterian, and even Seceder-bred. Six scribes take down the dicta of the prophets. Judge Story was a great man; but as to enthusiasm in professional studies, I have no doubt a hundred American clergymen have as much. In this one point I do not see him to surpass Stuart, Robinson, Hodge, or Barnes. In extra-professional literature he seems to me inferior to any one of these. I admit that our period is singularly barren of great divines and great preachers. Yet the average working talent, I apprehend, was never greater. As to what is called pulpit eloquence, I grow in disbelief of its importance. The gaping multitudes who fill churches are little reached, as to the main matter. Worship is certainly overshadowed by our sermons. How few quoters of our Directory ever quote p. 497, where the sermon is compared with "the more important duties of prayer and praise."-Quere: Whether we do not err in ciphering so much about the time, men, and money it will take to convert the world? Whether God's plan is not to work upon, in, and by a peculiar people, elect and called; EKλEKTOî? εκλεκτοί Whether his plan may not be doing well, even though in a “little flock"? Whether the other world is not the great collection of saints? Whether God is not taking out of this world a constant select addition to that? And whether, consequently, both hopes and fears do not mislead us, as to the extensiveness of visible success?

Absurd as it sounds, the spiritual-knocking business is like to be really alarming. If Satan ever interferes, one might think it would be in such mesmeric and analogous delusions. I am told there are scores of distinct and stated meetings in town, for these spiritual investigations. Miss Martineau, in her late book, avows high-mesmerism and utter atheism.

NEW YORK, April 3, 1852.

I attended the funeral of M. R., on the 1st inst., æt. 13. She had been of my catechizing class, and was, I trust, a renewed child. I am expecting soon to go to the grave of M. S., who is

sinking fast, but with the loveliest aspect I ever saw death put on. Her sayings are as worthy of record, as those of any woman I have read of. Her mother and sister, who both died of consumption, had just such blessings in their decline. Mr. Lowrie is going to visit our Western Indians. The death of Dr. Wm. S. Potts, of St. Louis, is truly a solemn event. He had attained great eminence and influence, without the employment of any arts, or the perpetration of oddities.1

Grote's Greece is a wonderful book. He is a hot radical, but a great scholar and historian. His style is true English; no balance, rhythm, or expected cadence; his mind is John Bull-ish, as much as Gifford's, (they say Jifford in England,) and there is no flummery or fog of any sort. You read his account of debates at Athens, with the same matter-o'-fact feeling, as when you read about a debate in Parliament. All is made to uphold democracy.

66

New Orleans seems to be the small end of Kossuth's horn. What a pity, to see the noblest fellow living kill himself by power of slack-jaw," as Yellowplush has it. What extremity of asinine folly, to prefer a Parisian education! Except for the name of it, French is of no more use to women than Cherokee.

I think with all its airiness and sweetness the up-town is less agreeable to me than the old parts. I feel more at home among the noise and kennels. A wealthy, zealous Norwegian, is here; he lent the American Bible Society $50,000, unasked, without security, for their new edifice. We are near the moving season. A number of my people are coming up. I think not five families of my old charge are below.

cern.

We have not the least stir in our congregation; but at no time have I known so many persons under a deep religious conI have perceived something unusual in the manner of hearers, for some weeks. The proportion of non-professors in our assembly is small. In every place where I have been, I have observed that I never have marked increase of hearers, but always a striking adhesiveness in those who come. We are suffering greatly for want of a good place for meeting; it is most obvious in our weekly lecture. A lady came to me under great convictions, produced by the funeral services of E. B.

Think of 3,000 Chinese in California! One of our Canton missionaries writes, that there were forty vessels in that port preparing for California. I am looking to the printing of a few hymns in Hungarian, for a little congregation of Mr. Acs, (pronounced something like our old school-phrase Ouch!) More

1 There is a memoir of Dr. Potts in Dr. Sprague's Annals, vol. 4.

than $20,000 have been raised here within a few weeks, towards the endowment of the still unendowed chair at Princeton.

My health has not been improving lately. Constant pastoral visits and anxieties, and mental work without relaxation, have run me down exceedingly, so that I am sleepless in a good many nights, and quite nervous by day.

I have my father's little book on Moral Philosophy very near publication. I suppose I shall have to throw in a Preface. It will rank with his Evidences, but will awaken more opposition. He wrote nothing more simple, clear, or convincing. It is the only work which he left ready. Among his papers, the only diaries are a few, (chiefly in cipher,) of which the earliest goes back to æt. 17.

Does any one properly estimate the approaching certain influence of the Germans, as a power in our country? I often hear as much German as English in my day's walk. Of all the Protestant portion, nine-tenths are infidel. All I meet with are radical. Most of the German newspapers are infidel, and some blasphemous. A friend of mine heard some talking yesterday; one said, “Our grand error in Germany was not using the guillotine; let them employ it freely, and let them begin with the Pietisten." The second Psalm comes to my mind as affording the only hope.

NEW YORK, May 4, 1852.

2

I almost envy you your chance of going to Charleston.1 I have always wanted to see that proudest specimen of sumptuous slaveholding hospitality. Try to see Dr. Smyth's library." Perhaps I will enclose a letter to my classmate, W. P. Finley, President of the Charleston College.

When elected Moderator, the properest speech may be from these heads: "Unexpected-seldom in the chair-most will depend on members-good intention will atone for inexperience-will know no section or party," &c.

I wish I could see my way clear to promise you pulpit aid. But I am so sure to have to flee myself, when it grows hot, that appearances demand pretty full labor from me as long as I can. Something may indeed turn up to make the thing practicable; and it would be very pleasant to me. Yesterday it was a French minister seeking a place, to-day it is an Irish one. These Irish think "vacancies are gaping for them as soon as they disembark. They have no drawings towards the bush. I ob

1

1 Where the General Assembly was to hold its meeting.

2 Now the property of the Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina.