Were our Creator less considerate, He might permit us to wrestle with the Evil One, and then justly punish us for our defeat. But He graciously forbids the combat. He will not have us enter the lists with Satan; for He knows that the children of this world are, in their generation, wiser than the children of light. He knows that in worldly arguments the infidel will prove an overmatch for us; and therefore he forbids us to argue.

Profit, then, my brethren, by his tender mercy, and expose not yourselves to the arrows of the wicked. Enquire not; examine not; criticise not; argue not. Why would ye be smitten before your enemies?

In faith and hope and humility, there is life and safety; but in Free Enquiry there is disbelief and death. In wisdom, there is not only sorrow, there is also everlasting punishment. Eve desired to be made wise, and she reaped death-death for herself, and eternal death for countless myriads of her descendants. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God; and therefore are the things that appertain to salvation hidden from the wise and prudent. Seek not ye, therefore, wisdom or pru dence; but seek faith and humility.

Does this counsel sound harshly in your ears? does it jar on your earthly pride? It may be: for pride goeth before destruction. Do ye dream of the dignity of human wisdom, and the noble consciousness of mental independence? Dream on then; be wise, be dignified; be independent; be Free Enquirers— Rudely and fearfully shall that haughty dream be broken. The last day shall dawn, and the last trumpet sound. Ye shall awake! happy if ye could but have slept on, in eternal forgetfulness!

NO. 7.

CONTAINING

EFFECTS OF MISSIONARY LABOURS;

BY

ROBERT DALE OWEN.

AND

RELIGIOUS REVIVALS;

BY

JOHN NEALE.

NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF THE FREE ENQUIRER.

selves damnation. Think not, that because the Lord's vengeance sleepeth, it shall never wake. Great was his long suffering towards Sodom and Gomorrah; but the swift vengeance of the divine Judge overtook them at last.

Even so shall it be with the Americans. God will bring them into judgment for every disloyal word they have said, and for every rebel blow they have dealt, against His ordained Ruler. When Washington, and Jefferson, and Franklin, and the others with them, shall stand before the throne of judgment, then shall a voice from thence proclaim: "I spake to you, and ye would not listen; I commanded, and ye would not obey: depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire!" Then shall they begin to say: Lord, when didst thou speak, and we did not listen? and when didst thou command, and we did not obey ?" But He will answer and say unto them: "Forasmuch as ye did it not unto him whom I had ordained to rule over you, ye did it not unto me."

But enough of the rebellious offenders. I would rather speak to ye of Heaven, and of its joys. I would rather remind ye of the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled; of the living streams of unfading bliss that flow through the eternal city; of the pleasures that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived; of the glorious light without any shade, and the ever-enduring bliss without the fear of change; of the golden harps attuned before the throne of God, and of the heavenly voices swelling to His praise. I would remind ye of the dear friends ye have loved and lost. There shall ye meet them again, to part no more for ever. Have ye given to the cold arms of Death, an affectionate parent, a tender child, a companion dearer than your own soul? There shall their loved images again appear to your longing eyes; there shall their familiar voices again speak music to your ears. There shall ye find them, unstained by mortality, clothed in heavenly beauty, bright with heavenly happiness; no tear to dim the eye, nor any sigh to swell the bosom. There shall ye live together, breathing the pure air of immortality, unchanged, unchangeable!

Ye feel the scene I have feebly painted. I see it in your moistened eyes; I see it in your looks of holy desire. Ye would gain Heaven! Gain it then by obedience, by meek submission. If any man take your coat, let him also have your cloak. To him that smiteth ye on the one cheek, turn the

other also. Suffer, for His sake who suffered-and oh! how cruelly for you. Resist not evil. Ye would be the children of the Prince of Peace? Then is your kingdom not of this world, and ye shall not fight. Faint not by the way! Take God's yoke upon ye and find it easy, and his burden and find it light. Even in secret, when none but the all-seeing eye is upon ye, obey your Ruler; not with eye-service as men pleasers, but with the service of the heart, as fearing God. If a disloyal word or a rebellious thought rise to your lips, give it not utterance, cast it from ye. Obey and escape damnation. Obey and please your merciful Creator. Obey, and honor his Sacred word. Obey, and more than all ye have asked, and all ye have prayed for, and all ye have imagined, shall ye receive at the great day of judgment and retribution!

REMONSTRANCE TO GOD.

BY ANTOINE VIEIRA.

[Extracted from the Free Enquirer.]

SOON after the revolt of the Netherlands from the cruel and tyrannical Philip II, when the northern provinces, after a desperate struggle, had at last secured their independence, the new republic began to form extensive projects not only for its own defence, but likewise to attack its formidable enemy in his rich foreign possessions. A Dutch "West India Company" was formed in 1621; and these warlike merchants contemplated no less an enterprise than the subjugation of Brazil.

A long struggle ensued, in which, though the Spaniards were partially successful on land, the Dutch made up for all their losses at sea. The treasures which it had cost the liberties and lives of happy and independent nations to accumulate, were intercepted and lost to their avaricious possessors, by an injustice similar to that by which they had been at first obtained. The robber was robbed in his turn. The Dutch com

pany captured, in the course of thirteen years, 545 Spanish and Portuguese vessels, valued, with their cargoes, at 180 millions of livres; and the spoils of the New World swelled the markets of Amsterdam.

In the year 1630, the Dutch admiral Henry Lonk, arrived with forty-six vessels of war, on the coast of Pernambuc, one of the largest, and most strongly fortified Brazilian provinces. After several years of bloodshed, the best cultivated and richest part of Brazil submitted to the Dutch arms. In 1637, Maurice of Nassau, was sent to complete the conquest of that immense country; and, in despite of the veteran generals which Spain opposed to him, he soon rendered himself master of the whole coast, from St. Salvador to the river Amazon.

His must be a phlegmatic nature who can read with a cold pulse and a quiet heart the history of those savage times. But most does the narrative stir the blood, when rapine and avarice take the form of sanctity, and when man despoils and murders his unsuspecting, unoffending fellow-creatures, in the name of a merciful God. Then it is we see what purposes religion can subserve then-when we read of Te Deums chanted over the bodies of innocent, murdered aborigines, and days of Thanksgiving instituted to praise the Deity that he had graciously permitted crimes, which the historian shrinks from recording.

I have given our readers the above brief historical sketch as an introduction to a sermon, which well illustrates such reflections as the foregoing. It was preached in one of the churches of Bahia, a Brazilian province, of which St. Salvador is the capital, by a Jesuit, named Antoine Vieira, about the time of the Dutch successes under Maurice of Nassau. It is translated from the French of Raynal, as given by him in his "Histoire Philosophique et Politique des Establissements et du Commerce des Europeens dans les deux Indes," tome 4, p. 261, et sequ.

SERMON.

[Translated for the Free Enquirer.]

TEXT. From the Psalms. Awake? why sleepest thou, O Lord? Why hast thou turned thy face from us? Why hast thou forgotten our misery and our tribulations? Awake! come to our aid; and save us, for the glory of thy name.

"It was in these words, filled with pious boldness and holy