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trines of the English Church (a consummation surely most devoutly to be wished!) what better, or rather what other, regulations could secure this connection, than those already mentioned as adopted by the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge? The Committee to whose discretion" the selection of the books and tracts of the Society is finally committed, is OPEN TO EVERY INDIVIDUAL OF THE SOCIETY, WHO IS PERMITTED TO BE PRESENT THERE, AND TO GIVE HIS VOTE. The manner of admitting books on the Society's list (I mention it here, sir, simply for T.'s information, who from his remarks seems unacquainted with the regulation) is as follows: The manuscript, printed book, or paper (I quote from the Society's rules) is recommended by three subscribing Members, who have read the same, and report it proper and requisite to promote the designs of the Society: it is then referred to four other Members, who are to report their opinion thereof as may be: and (finally) at the next General Meeting after their Report, the admission or rejection of such book is determined by balloting." Here, again, can any "security or limitation" be devised, so effectually calculated as this is to secure the doctrines, for the protection and maintenance of which T. is so wisely cautious? I trust it is at once sufficient to disarm all his anxiety respecting the want of adequate safeguards.

Your correspondent, however, refers to the opposition of sentiment" as he calls it (using, I conceive, a stronger term than fact and experience justify) among churchmen. The individuals who compose the (happily) numerous Society before us (God grant its still farther increase!) may indeed differ from each other in shades of doctrine and sentiment; but all (it is reasonable to infer) agree fundamentally in the leading and essential doctrines of the Church, to which they in common

belong. "The guarantee for perpetual orthodoxy of opinion, and even (as far as human institutions will allow) uniformity of sentiment exists in the provisions already pointed out of the certificate and the ballot. Beyond this, it seems impossible for human precaution to reach. Shades of difference (as I have remarked before) will doubt. less exist among so large and extensive body but if in one portion of tracts admitted by the Society a part of Divine Truth is urged and enforced to the comparative omission of another, according to the particular views and bias of their writers, the disproportion may be remedied by resorting to another portion of tracts, in which the comparatively neglected doctrine may be more copiously enlarged upon. Indeed, I think it may be said of the Society's publications as a whole, that a series of tracts may easily be collected from them, admirably calculated "rightly to divide the word of truth.' I would not be understood to presume to dictate in this respect to any one's choice: but if T. is hitherto unacquainted with the Society's tracts, and should have the opportunity and inclination to procure any of them, I think he would find in the following an amply sufficient compendium for a Christian man's faith, practice, and daily devotion; or (as the Apostle speaks in reference to the Scriptures) for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: viz. The Pious Country Parishioner instructed; Bp. Wilson on the Lord's Supper" Bur kitt's Help and Guide to Christian Families" The Christian Monitor; Bishop Kenn's Manual of Prayers for Winchester Scholars; Bp. Andrews's Devotions; Nelson's Companion for the Feasts and Fasts; Dr. Stanhope's Meditations and Prayers for Sick Persons; Reflections for every Day in the Week, by a Lady; Cottagers Religious Meditations: Stonehouse's most important Truths and Duties

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of Christianity stated; and his were it only for my own private in Admonitions against Drunkenness, formation and satisfaction; but as Swearing, and Sabbath-breaking; to the point to which I beg to call the which list many others might be attention of some of your intelligent added. correspondents is a question of a more extended nature, and of more essential consequence, in the religious world, than may be generally apprehended, I am inclined to sup pose that a brief, clear, and pointed exposition of it may prove of extensive utility, and be acceptable to many of your readers.

Upon the whole, I cannot help indulging the hope, that upon a farther and more minute acquaintance with the proceedings and constitution of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge (of which I am surprized at his knowing "so little," considering his intimate knowledge of and subscription to the Prayer-book and Homily Society; a Society of modern date, and infinitely less brought before the public than the one now under notice, through the aid of its Diocesan and District Committees), I cannot, I say, help hoping that your correspondent will be amply satisfied with the "securities and limitations" prescribed by it; and that he will cordially extend his subscription, cooperation, and influence (all of which he has hitherto suspended, from a dread of supposed difficulties alluded to in these remarks), to the measures of the "District Society in his neighbourhood, in aid of the Society in London." I am brought to this conclusion by T.'s own assertion, that "if the securities are certain and sufficient, the Society is eminently calculated for good, and ought to be supported by that universal patronage to which, in all other respects it appears to have so fair a claim.".

If these remarks should afford any interest or satisfaction to T. I shall most sincerely rejoice; and hoping that you will not refuse them a place in your Magazine,

I am, &c.

A FRIEND TO THE OLD SOCIETY

AND ITS SAFEGUARDS,

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. KNOWING that your Miscellany is always occupied with useful mat ter, I should not, I believe, have intruded on your time and space, CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 156.

The questions I have to propose are, On what grounds are public logteries improper? And are private lotteries of any description, under any circumstance, scripturally lawful?

My reason for proposing these questions is, that sometime ago I was asked by a pious lady my opinion on the propriety of adopting a private lottery for various articles, fabricat ed by a number of ladies, for the benefit of a charity school; and very recently, in an incidental manner, I found that another society of ladies had used the same means towards benefiting a good and praisewortby end.

When first the subject was pro posed to me, it struck me, that the very principle of a lottery was wrong, and I did not hesitate to declare my opinion accordingly, though L found it was in opposition to the opinion (I suppose it was to the opinion, for it was to the practice) of some worthy and intelligent persons.- When, a second time, it came under my notice, I certainly did think it incumbent on me to censure the practice; but whether I was right is the point I want to ascertain. The means in question I did view, and still view, as illegiti male, and, therefore, on no account to be used, however excellent the end to be attained.

I considered the immoral conse quences of a public lottery as only one of the reasons why a Christian could not have any thing to do with it.

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THE following paper ought to have beens inserted in our Number for August clast, but was overlooked. Though dess seasonable now than it would have been at that time, we are nevertheless unwilling that it should be lost. མ ནི མ ཐཱ་

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. Two years have not elapsed since, through the medium of your Journal*, I was permitted to invite the public attention to the then falTen character of our occasional state prayers and thanksgivings. I now beg leave to congratulate the enlightened members of the national church on the great improvement, in regard both to talent and devout feeling, which marked the Thanks giving Services for the 13th of January and 7th of July.

- In offering, nevertheless, the present tribute of thanks to our ecclesiastical legislators, I should present an idle, and indeed a treacherous compliment, were I to assert their complete success in a matter, in its own nature, precluding perfection, What human pen, unaided by immediate inspiration, ever produced an immaculate specimen of devotional composition? I cannot, how ever, under all circumstances, refrain from expressing a wish, that the form for the last General Thanksgiving bad been purified from every term which bore even the most remote allusion to the character, exploits, and projects of the fallen foe. Let me exemplify my meaning by placing between brackets such passages in the following prayer as, in my judgment, tend to restore feelings, already, I trust, considered to be obsolete by the majority of our countrymen,

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O God, who hast manifested Thy Almighty Power, by breaking • Christ. Observ. 1812, pp. 638–645.

the bow, the sword, and the battle, and hast breathed into the hearts of the conquerors the love of peace, and the blessed spirit of forbearance, accept our praise and thanks. giving. And as Thy right hand hath brought these mighty things to pass, so let the

Ime Hand im

press upon us a just sense of thy mercies, and a conviction of Thy controuling Providence. Nor let the remembrance of these awful events die with us, nor pass away as a tale that is told; but establish it, O God, as the inheritance of our children, to the latest posterity; instructing them [with patience and courage to withstand the aggressions of wicked ambition, and] under the heaviest calamities to rest their hopes in Thee; and (when the tyranny be overpast,] teaching them that harder but better part of Christian duty, the forgiveness of injuries, and the love of their enemies. Grant this, O merciful God, for Jesus Christ's sake, our Saviour and Redeemer. Amen."

Honourable as this address is to the composer, it is impossible to forbear wishing that the bracketed parts had been omitted; if for no other cause, yet for this, that an act of public, British devotion should have borne the evident impress of consistency. Would it not have been preferable, setting aside considerations purely religious, to have left the aggressions of wicked ambition" to the examination and resistance of those who may (Deus avertut!) witness their recurrence?

It would be unnatural to recollect without emotions of high delight, the pacific character which distinguished the official addresses of the Allied Sovereigns to the people of France, composed-"not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers*"not in the hour of festive peace, in the calms of passion, in the deep repose of security, but amidst armies inflated with success, impelled by revenge, and terribly

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familiar with blood. It is this ex-, The inspired writers appear to con traordinary spirit of forbearance which invests the romantic, names of Alexander and Frederic-William with a splendour unknown to all former conquerors; and only imi tated by the subordinate chiefs of their armies, or rivalled by the chivalrous valour of our own Wellington, their compeer in military talent and their precursor in victory. The example afforded by this unprecedented assemblage of princes and warriors has not, I blush to confess, been duly improved by the compiler of the above prayer. At the same time, I should not have noticed the dissimilarity, had the prayer been less excellent than it certainly is; but bright surfaces readily discover a shade.

fine themselves to necessary facts, and leave the induction of character. to the reader. Thus, an enemy is termed an enemy; but never, for example, cruel, unjust, ambitious, ungrateful. We do not read of the bloody Cain, the obdurate Pharoah, the unrelenting Herod, and the treacherous Judas. The names of notorious persons of any class are self-supported; yet the public are still told of the great Blucher and the detestible Davoust,-and, alas! of "the aggressions of wicked ambi tion."

The Knight of Snowdon prefers a human claim to our applause, when, having punished the perfidy of an assassin, and fresh with the feelings of vengeance,

Bent o'er the slain, with falcon eye, He grimly smil'd to see him die ;but while we are compelled, against the current of principles, momenta rily to admire the generous revenge (so the world would call it) of a soldier, we are ready to bring up the old cast-off quotation, tantane animis, &c. not only when a celestial mind discovers actual ire, but when it exhibits the appearance of evil by reinding a Christian, on his knees, in the temple itself, on a day of thanksgiving and devout reflection, that his children are under a religious obligation to fight the Bonapartes of future times.

I have frequently been struck by the paucity of epithets, particularly of vituperative epithets, to be found in the Bible. One might, I think, go through almost the whole body of such scriptural narratives as detail the history of bad men, or bad communities, without finding a single epithet attached by the narrator himself, to any individual or national name, whatever be the crimes developed in the course of the story.

I regret the more the gratuitous deformity of a prayer otherwise symmetrical, because the form for the 7th of July was the concluding devotional act of the Ecclesiastical Legislature at the expiration of the war: and as the çivil, military, and naval powers of the empire have retired from their long toils with' peculiar grace and dignity, who does not wish that the most impor tant branch of government (if that be most important which is designed to furnish the contingent of moral principle) had finished the whole by imparting to the British name and character the fairest hues of love and peace, unclouded by earthly shadows, and brightening with the radiance of immortality!-Having submitted these remarks and, begging leave to repeat the congratulations offered in the beginning, and which, after every drawback, are justly merited, I conclude with breathing a filial aspiration for the permanent prosperity of our Establishment. May she be enriched with a plenteousness of truth, zeal. and holiness, an abundance of the gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost,

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To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

I was much pleased with the defence in your Number for October last, of the ladies of India, from the precipitate and flippant remarks of Maria Graham. The inclosed extract will shew, that this is not the only instance in which she has ventured to pass a sweeping sentence of condemnation on whole classes of persons, not merely without due inquiry, but without the possibility of possessing the means of forming a correct judgment on their conduct.

Maria Graham spent only a few days very agreeably, as she tells us, at Cape Town, in her way from India to England. By this transient visit to the remotest point of Southern Africa, she conceives herself qualified to pronounce confdently on the character and conduct of those valuable men who have been labouring for the last twenty years to evangelize the native inhabitants of Caffraria.

tion, by introducing the comforts of society, the Moravians preach Christianity with an incalculable advan. tage over those blind enthusiasts, who, neglecting to prepare their converts for the belief of real Christianity, by shewing them the advantages to be derived from the practice it enjoins, address themselves to their passions and their credulity, and bribe them into baptism, only to leave them in a worse state than that in which they found them." Journal of a Residence în India, p. 176.

What means could Maria Graham possibly have of instituting this comparison between the Moravian and other Missionaries Even with respect to the Moravians, whom she intends to exalt, she altogether misconceives their policy. They do not first civilize, and then preach Christianity; but they civilize through the preaching of the Gospel, as their own journals abundantly testify. But it were idle to waste time in combating such a representation as this; the whole of which, even to the brandy bottle, is a pure fiction, Į will not say of Maria Graham, but of the person at Cape Town on whose information she has rashly relied.

I am, &c.

T.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

"Most of the African Missionaries," observes this lady, "when they go into the interior, collect a tribe of savages round them, who are willing to be baptized, and to pray and sing Psalms, as long as the Missionary's store of brandy lasts; SHOULD you be able to spare but when that is done, they return a page or two of your publicato their native habits, only more tion, for the following account of wretched from the artificial wants the Prussian preparation for the created by a partial acquaintance memorable campaign of 1813, you with Europeans. The Moravians, will much oblige a constant reader, on the contrary, instruct their pro- and an admirer of your publication. selytes to sow corn, to rear domestic. It is extracted from a Tour of the animals, and to manufacture articles Rev. H. P. Halbeck, through the of various kinds, which are brought North of Germany. After relating to Cape Town and sold and with the rapid flight of Bonaparte, the the produce, coarse stuffs for cloth shocking appearance of the wounds, ing, and raw materials for the ma- and frozen limbs of the poor French nufactures are bought. Having thus soldiers, who escaped the spears of -laid a foundation for understand the Cossacks, and many of whom ing the necessity of moral regula-had lost their senses through the in

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