which he entered into the subject of the Mission in all its particulars. From a person indeed of his large heart and expanded mind, this was to be expected. He lost no time in introducing me to all the ministers of the place, and to such other friends as he thought most likely to promote our object; among others, we waited upon the Governor of the province, who seemed also favourable. In addition to this, Mr. Brower invited, at different times, friends to his house, to meet us, and talk over the Mission. This lively zeal on the part of Mr. B. is the more interesting, when we consider that he is on the other side of seventy years of age, and that formerly he was other wise minded as to Missions in general. As to the mode of raising funds for this good work, he suggested it would be best to move the subject at a general meeting of the churches in his district, which takes place every year, and by happy accident it falls to his turn to give the address; he will, therefore, avail himself of the opportunity of bringing forward and pleading

the interests of the Mission. This venerable and excellent friend is the author of different pieces of high literary merit, and for which he holds prize-medals, awarded to him by different societies. On taking leave he put into my band 50 guilders, modestly requesting that it should be anony

mous.

W. H. ANGAS.

Character of the Puritans.

[Extracted from the Edinburgh Review, No. 84.]

THE Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of saperior beings, and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an over-ruling Provi dence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on the intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated their The difference between the greatest contempt for terrestrial distinctions. and meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but his favour; and, confident of that favour, they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophiers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they felt assured that they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces

were houses not made with hands: their diadems, crowns of glory which should never fade away! On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests they looked down with conrich in a more precious treasure, and tempt: for they esteemed themselves eloquent in a more sublime language; nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mys

terious and terrible importance belonged-on whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest-who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake, the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the harp of the Prophet. He had been wrested, by no common deliverance, from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God!

Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men-the one all selfabasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other, proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker: but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He was half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels, or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried, in the bitterness of his soul, that God had hidden his face from him. But, when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them;

but those had little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate, or in the field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs, a coolness of judgment, and an immutability of purpose, which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal; but which were, in fact, the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one subject, made them tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went through the world like Sir Artegale's Iron man Talus, with his flail crushing and trampling down oppressors; mingling with human beings, but having neither part nor lot with human infirmities; insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain ; not to be pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier.

Such we believe to have been the character of the Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of their manners; we dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic habits. We acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often injured by straining after things too high for mortal reach: and we know that, in spite of their hatred of Popery, they too often fell into the worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and extravagant austerity,-that they had their anchorites and their crusades, their Dunstans and their De Montforts, their Dominics and their Escobars. Yet, when all circumstances are taken into consideration, we do not hesitate to pronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest, and a useful body.

RECENT DEATHS.

-REV. DAVID BOGUE, D.D.

ON Monday, October 23, in the 77th year of his age, died the Rev. Dr. Bogue, long known in the religious world as pastor of the Independent Church at Gosport, and tutor of the Seminary established there by the London Missionary Society, of which Society, as well as of the British and Foreign Bible Society, he was one of the founders. The event took place at Brighton, whither he had gone to attend the meeting of the Brighton Auxiliary Missionary Society. The funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Winter, and will, we understand, be published. As an author, Dr. Bogue attained considerable celebrity, by his "Essay on the Authenticity of the New Testament;" and his " Discourses on the Millennium." He will be long remembered, with affectionate veneration, by a large circle of friends and admirers.

REV. JOSEPH DAWSON.

DIED, at Maidstone, on the 6th of October, the Rev. Joseph Dawson. For many years he was the respected and esteemed pastor of the Baptist Church at Lyme, Dorsetshire. After he left Lyme, he spent several years at Staines, where he supplied that declining interest with unwearied attention, though not with considerable success. The last years of his life were obscured with dark clouds of affliction; but we have no doubt he has now reached that country, of which it is emphatically said, "There shall be no night there."

REV. DR. BALDWIN,

OF BOSTON, U. S.

MANY of our readers will be concerned to hear, that intelligence has been recently received of the death of the Rev. Dr. Baldwin, pastor of the Baptist Church at Boston, U. S.

Second Edition.

Hatchard, Octavo. Pp. 63. 4. Twenty-one Reasons for not contributing to the Circulation of the Apocrypha among the Churches which deem it Canonical. Octavo, Pp. 7. Of all the controversies that have taken place in England on the subject of religion, since the period of the Reformation, none has been so entirely and exclusively Protestant, or which has involved so many important considerations, as that to which the pamphlets now on our table relate.

Former controversies between Protestants and Papists, Episcopalians and Dissenters, have related either to the Doctrines or Discipline, the Constitution or Officers of the Church; but this comes directly at the foundation principle of the Reformation: to the very corner-stone on which the building rested, by which alone it can be supported, and the superstructure be eventually raised and perfected. "The question to be decided is,Whether the funds of the Bible Society shall be employed to support the Protestant Canon of Scripture, composed exclusively of the Inspired books, and considered as the alone rule of faith and practice; or whether the Popish Canon shall be also circulated, of

which the Apocryphal books make a component part, and which are binding upon the consciences of Roman Catholics, upon pain of their everlasting destruction?"

The British and Foreign Bible Society was doubtless built upon this simple principle, thus unequivocally expressed :-"the sole object of which shall be, to encourage a wider circulation of the scriptures without note or comment." As if, however, they had foreseen the difficulty of encouraging the circulation of the scriptures without buman additions among the Foreign Protestant Churches; it was added, the United Kingdom to be circulated by "the only copies in the languages of the Society, shall be the authorized

version."

this rule, the Apocrypha has never made In strict conformity with the spirit of any part of those copies which have been circulated in the United Kingdom; but as to those which, by its means, have been circulated in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Russia, the Apocryphal books have, in general, been bound up with them: for as the received versions of those respective foreign Protestant churches contained the Apocrypha, the Society did not think itself as acting contrary to their fundamental rule in granting them pecuniary aid for the purchase of the Scriptures.

Before we proceed to notice the controversy itself, on this subject, it may be necessary to give an account of the principal circumstances which have led to it, and which have involved the Committee of the Parent Society in so many, and, probably, inextricable difficulties: which threaten the disruption of this most noble institution.

A fact not generally known, except by scholars, has been recently brought to light as to the condition of the Popish Editions of the Scriptures, translated from the Vulgate, respecting the Apocryphal Books. Unlike the arrange ment in our Bibles, which took place at the Reformation in England, of putting them in a separate series, and marking them "Apocrypha," i. e.