other beings, whether visible or invisible, near or remote, angels or men, are mean and inconsiderable. Wherever we are, whatever we do, with whatsoever we are connected, our connection with God must ever remain most iutimate, eternal and indissoluble. In him we live, and move, and think, —and not an act, or thought, or change, or motion exists, within, around, past, present or future, in which he is not present to support, observe, control and judge. To live then in the world as though he were not its head-to neglect him, to leave him out of our habitual thoughts, or to think of him only with indifference, is not, cannot be the part of wisdom, prudence, gratitude, morality or rationality.

But notwithstanding the infinitely important relation in which we stand to this Almighty Being, how numerous are those men who live without God in the world!

men whose actions have no reference to his existence-whose thonghts never voluntarily direct themselves to him as their observer and their Judge. It cannot be denied that the number of those who have any express regard to God in their conduct, though they may not deny him in their belief, is not very large.

The practical atheists are far more numerous than the speculative. By practical atheists I mean those men who are wholly engrossed in providing for their present comfort, wealth, fame, power or sensual satisfactions. They live precisely as they might do with a belief that God and christianity, and a future state

were mere nonentities, or as if they had only to provide like a superior order of brutes, for a com fortable existence on earth.

The idea of God may indeed at sometimes enter into their minds. They hear of him as they would of some invisible energy of nature, and have little more practical relation to him than they have to the principle of gravitation. He 'is not associated with their private thoughts, nor do they regard him as a being whom it is important to please in all their actions. They are creatures only of the habits which they have happened to form by circumstances, into which they have happened to be thrown; and by these they are unconsciously impelled, without admitting the idea of a supreme controller to disturb their worldly progress. In short, the practical atheist is the man who hears of God with indifference; who thinks all fear of him a chimera to frighten weak minds,-all love of him an enthusiastic passion-all religious habits, conversation, ordinances, or meditations, uncongenial with his pursuits. If he appears to live and die an honest man, it is not because he wishes to approve himself to God, but because it is the best policy in business, or most reputable in society.

Between this character and that of a thoroughly devout man, are almost as many shades of difference as there is between the darkness of midnight and the brightness of noonday. Some men can never entirely forget the impres sions of youth, the instructions of their catechisms, their infant prayers and their childish notions.

The idea of God returns to them upon extraordinary occasions to excite some feelings of awe or religious restraint, some have intervals of consideration, when they perform a few actions with express reference to God's knowledge and observation. Others reserve all their consideration of God for those seasons when they go up with others to the temple to pay a customary homage; and think the ideas which they cannot then avoid admitting, quite sufficient for the purpose of life. They go away perhaps with resolutions of amendment, which pleasure or business soon drives from their minds; and they wait till the first day of the next week comes round to throw the idea of God again into their minds.

Many are awakened to think of God by some unusual calamity. For a while they stand aghast. But the tremendous voice of admonition soon perhaps dies away, and the din of the world drowns their serious meditations. Others admit the idea of God so far as to keep up certain formalities which they think agreeable to him. In the hearts of some persons more piety exists, than appears to men in external acts. In others the outward appearances of religion are more promising than the state of their hearts really confirms.

The character of the man of habitual devotion is far superior to any of the varieties which have been described. He is accustomed to see God in every thing. Not an object arrests his attention, or interests his hopes or his fears, but he descries the agency of God. All the beauty, grandeur, wisdom,

complex uses, structure and operations of the material world, give him hints of omnipotence. The calm and soothing serenity of the sky impresses him with the mild character of the Deity. The happiness of the inferior creation invites him to rejoice in the Dispenser of so much life and alacrity. The tremendous changes of the elements, thunder, whirlwinds, earthquakes, eruptions, seem the mightier movements of irresistible power. The various adaptation of means to ends, the complex structure of animal bodies, their growth, progress, tendencies, and distinctions, fill him with unaffected admiration of the Supreme Intelligence.

But the peculiar characteristic of a man of piety is, that he looks upon God in the character of a parent. Events as they occur are considered by him as arising under the direction of parental wisdom. In his own life he acknowledges the moderating hand of an omnipotent, heavenly father. He is convinced that nothing of evil befalls him but under the direction of one who is able to make all things work together for good to them that love him. He feels that he is a creature in the hands of a being, who has destined him to live forever, and that nothing in creation can snatch him out of the hands of this gracious God. He never feels so happy, as when he has the most intimate communication with his heavenly Friend; and the sense of his dependence, so far from being irksome, is in truth one of the most soothing sentiments which he can entertain. The consciousness of having aim

ed to please his greatest and best Friend, is a recompense for any thing which he may have unmeritedly suffered from erring mortals. No important event occurs to him without leading his thoughts to God. Sickness, pain, reverses, disappointments, bereavements and joys are all associated in his mind with God as the disposer of all things.

He looks upon his children as God's children, his family as a part of God's family. He makes no friends, allows himself in no pleas ures, engages in no pursuits, incumbers himself with no cares without considering whether God looks down with complacency. He is never alone, never destitute, never insensible of his dependence.

The idea of God accompanies him in his pleasures, in his business, as well as in his devotional exercises. Acts of devotion are congenial to the state of his feelings, for God is in all his thoughts.

This state of mind is the parent of christian intrepidity and habitual cheerfulness. Such a man is as far superior to the common description of busy or ambitious men, as the finest mind in a civilized society is to a rude and sensual savage. To associate all our feelings, objects, thoughts and conduct with the idea of God as a kind parent-to coalesce, as it were, with him as the great Governor of the world, is the highest perfection of the human character.

B.

WHILE we deplore the delusion which arms christians of different nations with weapons of death, and which places different sects in a hostile attitude in relation to each other; we cannot but rejoice in every occurrence which seems to indicate, that the reign of darkness is drawing to a close.

The author of the pamphlet “ on the Terms of Communion," is one of the most celebrated ministers of the baptist denomination in England. The object of the pamphlet is, to persuade his brethren to renounce the principle and practice of what, in this country, has been termed close communion -in England" strict communion,"

another, where is the man who can find that a belief in the peculiar opinions of his own sect is any where in the New Testament stated either as a term of communion or a 66 condition of salvation?" It is seriously doubted whether such a man can be found in any sect in New England.

We shall now give our readers some specimens of Mr. Hall's reasoning, which are applicable to every case in which Christians of one sect are disposed to treat others as heretics on account of a dissent from opinions, which are not stated in the New Testament at all, or, if found there, are not "enjoined as conditions of salvation."

"To see christian societies regarding each other with the jealousies of rival empires, each aiming to raise itself on the ruin of all others, making extravagant boasts of superior purity, generally in exact proportion to their departures from it, and scarcely deigning to acknowledge the possibility of obtaining salvation out of their pale, is the odious and disgusting spectacle which modern Christianity presents. The bond of charity, which unites the genuine followers of Christ in distinction from the world, is dissolved, and the very terms by which it was wont to be denoted, exclusively employed to express a predilection for a sect. The evils which result from this state of division are incalculable: it supplies infidels with their most plausible topics of invective; it hardens the consciences of the irreligious, weakens the hands of the good, impedes the efficacy of prayer, and is probably the principa! obstruction to that ample effusion of the spirit which is essential to the renovation of the world."

"That we are commanded, in terms the most absolute, to cultivate a sincere and warm attachment to the members of Christ's body, and that no branch of christian duty is inculcated more frequently, or with more force, will be admitted without controversy. Our Lord instructs us to consider it as the princiHal mark or feature by which his follow

ers are to be distinguished in every age, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples. if ye love one another. As I have loved you, ye ought also to love one another;" whence it is evident, that the pattern we are to follow, is, the love which Christ bore to his Church, which is undoubtedly extended indiscriminately to every member."

"If it be once admitted, that a body of men, associating for christian worship, have a right to enact as terms of communion, something more than is included in the terms of salvation, the' question suggested by St. Paul-" Is Christ divided?" is utterly futile: what he considered as a solecism is reduced to practice, and established by law. How nimity in the absence of an intelligible is it possible to attain or preserve unastandard? and when we feel ourselves at liberty to depart from a divine precescrupulosity, in the separation of the dent, and to affect a greater nicety and precious and the vile, than the Searcher of Hearts; when we follow the guidance of private partialities and predilections, without pretending to regulate our conduct by the pattern of our great Master; who is at a loss to perceive the absolute impossibility of preserving the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace? Of what is essential to salvation, it is not difficult to judge: the quiet of the conscience requires, that the informa tion on this subject should be clear and precise: whatever is beyond, is involved in comparative obscurity, and subject to doubtful disputation."

"Whatever retards a spirit of inquiry, is favorable to error; whatever promotes it, to truth. But nothing, it will be acknowledged, has a greater tendeney to obstruct the exercise of free inquiry, than the spirit and feeling of a party. Let a doctrine, however erroneous, become a party distinction, and it is at once intrenched in interests and attachments, which make it extremely difficult for the most powerful artillery of reason to dislodge it. It becomes a point of honor in the leaders of such parties, which is from thence communicated to their followers, to defend and support their respective peculiarities to the last; and as a natural consequence, to shut their ears against all the pleas and remonstrances by which they are assailed."

"Religious parties imply a tacit compact, not merely to sustain the fundamental truths of revelation, (which was

the original design of the constitution of a church) but also to uphold the incidental peculiarities by which they are distinguished. They are so many ram parts or fortifications, erected in order to give security and support to certain systems of doctrine and discipline, beyond what they derive from their native force and evidence.

"The difficulty of reforming the corruptions of Christianity is great, in a state of things, where the fear of being eclipsed, and the anxiety in each denomination to extend itself as much as possible, engage, in spite of the personal piety of its members, all the solicitude and ardor which are not immediately devoted to the most essential truths; where correct conceptions, on subordinate subjects, are scarcely aimed at, but the particular views which the party has adopted, are either objects of indolent acquiescence, or zealous attach ment. In snch a state, opinions are no otherwise regarded, than as they affect the interest of a party; whatever conduces to augment its members, or its credit, must be supported at all events; whatever is of a contrary tendency, dis countenanced and suppressed. How often do we find much zeal expended in the defence of sentiments, recommended neither by their evidence nor their importance, which, could their incorporation with an established creed be forgotten, would be quietly consigned to oblivion. Thus the waters of life, instead of that unobstructed circulation which would diffuse health, fertility and beauty, are diverted from their channels, and drawn into pools and reservoirs, where, from their stagnant state, they acquire feculence and pollution."

"Nothing is more common, than for zeal to overshoot its mark. If a determined enemy of the Baptists had been consulted on the most effectual method of rendering their principles unpopular, there is little doubt but that he would have recommended the very measures we have pursued: the first and most obvious effect of which has been to generate an inconceivable mass of prejudice in other denominations. To proclaim to the world our determination, to treat as "heathen-men and publicans," all who are not immediately prepared to concur with our views of baptism, what is it less, than the language of hostility and defiance; admirably adapted to discredit the party which exhibits, and the principles which have occasioned

such a conduct. By thus investing these principles with an importance which does not belong to them, by making them co-extensive with the existence of a church, they have indisposed men to listen to the evidence by which they are supported; and attempting to establish by authority, the unanimity, which should be the fruit of conviction, have deprived themselves of the most effec tual means of producing it. To say, that such a mode of proceeding is not adapted to convince, that refusing Pædobaptists the right of communion has no tendency to produce a change of views, is to employ most inadequate language; it has a powerful tendency to the contrary; it can soarcely fail to produce impressions most unfavorable to the system with which it is connected, impressions which the gentlest minds find it difficult to distinguish from the effects of insult and degradation."

"It is not by keeping at a distance from mankind, that we must expect to acquire an ascendancy over them, but by approaching, by conciliating them, and securing a passage to their understanding through the medium of their hearts. Truth will glide into the mind through the channel of the affections, which, were it to approach in the naked majesty of evidence, would meet with a certaiu repulse.

Betraying a total ignorance or forgetfulness of these indubitable facts, what is the conduct of our opponents? They assume a menacing aspect, proelaim themselves the only true church, and assert, that they alone are entitled to the christian sacraments. None are alarmed at this language, none are induced to submit, but turuing with a smile or a frown to gentler leaders, they leave us to triumph without a combat, and to dispute without an opponent."

"The policy of intolerance is exactly proportioned to the capacity of inspiring fear. The Church of Rome for many ages practised it, with infinite advantage, because she possessed ample means of intimidation. Her pride grew with her success, her intolerance with her pride; and she did not aspire to the lofty pretension of being the only true church, till she saw monarchs at her feet, and held kingdoms in chains; till she was flushed with victory, giddy with her elevation, and drunk with the blood of the saints. But what was policy in her, would be the height of infatuation in us, who are neither entitled