our Presbyterian and reformed church is too noble for us to abandon it. I know that there are some countries where they do not adhere to the historical church; it there happens that every church is continually forming and dissolving again. Sometimes they crowd round this minister, sometimes round that; and they run from denomination to denomination, as in the world they run from theatre to theatre. This is a great evil, which lowers religion and degrades the ministry. But while I maintain the necessity of listening to the teaching of history, I never place that teaching but in a very subordinate position to that of the word of God. The word of God should rule, and rule alone, in the church. If the teaching of any church is opposed to the word of God, it must be abandoned and rejected without any hesitation; but if the teaching of a church (as in the case of the Presbyterian or Reformed church) is conformable to the oracles of God, I say that we should remain in that church, support it with respect, and not precipitate ourselves into the formation of a new church, which would have no reference to the past. I believe the reason that the great secession of two thousand nonconforming ministers which took place in the time of Baxter, has not borne more fruit, to be, that they could not simply remain in the church to which they belonged by re-establishing her on her true principles. Is it necessary to add, that I do not believe fidelity to the historical church to consist in having the same walls, the same pulpit, or the same pews,-but in having the same doctrines, the same principles, the same hope? I may see the same coat on different men, and I may see the same man with different coats. There is an appearance of identity in the first case, but the reality of identity is only in the second. Yet more; not only are changes, revivals, reformations, and secessions, possible in the same historical church, but they are necessary. In the same way as weeds spring up continually in a field, bad doctrines and bad principles return incessantly into the church. The Reformation of the sixteenth century is not enough; it is by constant reformations that the true church, the church of our fathers, is to be maintained. Let us watch continually to purify the church from the bad seed which the enemy scatters there; but while giving sole and sovereign place to the Divine word, let us all recognise with respect the work of God in history; and instead of improvising new churches, let us stand by that which God has formed and guarded by so many illustrious witnesses. May the Christians of Scotland adhere firmly to their historical church,-the church of their confessors and martyrs! I believe it essential to the strength, life, and prosperity of your church. I add one wish. We desire Christian union over all the earth; may we see it fully realized in your country and in mine! It is not man who will do it,-it is God alone; and it must not be forced, yet we must tend towards it. Undoubtedly, it may be desirable that the Church of Scotland should reunite; but I would be wanting to my convictions if I did not add, that if ever that should be, it must be done in liberty as well as in truth, the Established Church coming to the Free Church, and the Free Church returning to the Established Church. excellent Bickersteth and the Bishop of Cashel have both pronounced a word lately which should resound through all Christian hearts,-" No establishment, rather than the establishment of Popery!" I am convinced that there is no choice between these two alternatives; and I hope that every truly Christian and truly Protestant minister will be ready to sacrifice his temporal interests, rather than see his country allied with the Pope. The Dear brother, your country has seen great things in these latter days; God grant that it may see still greater! May the Holy Spirit be shed abundantly upon your flocks! May many souls be awakened to their eternal interests; and may the already awakened be themselves revived! for we have always need of it. Perhaps it is not when God works great movements in the institutions of his church that he works most in the secrets of men's hearts. The strong and powerful wind, and the earthquake which Elijah witnessed, (1 Kings, xix.) came undoubtedly from the Lord; but it was in the still small voice that he above all manifested his presence. Days of calm may come to your church; new blessings await her; they should be sought with much faith, prayer, and hope, from the Lord. There is 66 a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time of war, and a time of peace;" Eccles. iii. May the Lord himself build up your church in peace! And now, farewell, dear friends of Scotland! The cordial affection with which you have received us,-me and the companion whom God has given me,-will ever live in our hearts. We will find ourselves often in thought under the roof of our excellent friends, A. Bonar and others, from whom we have experienced such Christian hospitality. Scotland, all Scotland, has become to us our second country. I will tell you frankly, dear friends, one of the things which has touched me most, has been to see persons of very different opinions give me an equally affectionate reception. I am grateful to all. I desire to express it to all. I will recall with equal pleasure the hospi tality which I received in the miserable hut of the minister of Iona, and that which I met with at the palace of Holyrood, at the table of the representative of your queen. Farewell, then, valued friend, of whom I rejoice to have seen the face and clasped the hand. May your last days shed a mild light over the church which the days of your strength have so much contributed to enlighten, to edify, and to defend. Farewell, dear friends of Scotland! Perhaps we may never meet again here; but we have an eternal meeting-place, the table where are seated Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the Apostles, and the Prophets,-where those arrive who are marked with the blood of Jesus Christ, and of which the Lamb himself is the light. Your devoted, Rev. and dear SiR,-It may interest your readers to know something of the Germans in this country. The disturbances to which their father-land has of late been subject, induce vast numbers of them to emigrate. Our port is, therefore, continually thronged with them. Nearly 5,000 have sailed hence for the United States since the opening of inland navigation in Germany last spring. Swiss and German emigrants have, for twenty years, gone in multitudes to America from this port, but at present the numbers are greatly increasing. We have often 1,000 of these people among us at once. Their average departure per week has been 500. I have seen 350 on board a single ship. Whilst here they are visited by our colporteurs, and occasionally by an evangelist, who preaches to them in their own language. They are industrious people. They go to the valley of the Missisippi and beyond it, where they cultivate the rich soil and labour at their respective trades. Few ever return. When they reach their dis tant field, the emissaries of Rome too often meet them, yet they are visited by our indefatigable home missionaries and colporteurs. In many instances also they enter upon a territory previously settled by their countrymen, and blessed with the ordinances of the gospel. Many visit Paris from Hamburgh, Berlin, and the more southern cities of Germany, for the purpose of perfecting themselves in their professions and arts. They are men of enterprise and education, but rationalists. They profess to have arrived at the sublimity of philosophy and morals, by a shorter way than that of the Christian revelation. They pride themselves upon a clear vision of the wonders of the universe, maintaining that the Bible and Christianity are well enough for the ignorant and debased, but useless for them. Faith, in the evangelical sense, they discard. Reason is their grand medium of communion with the spiritual world. They believe in the Deity, in conscience, and in the soul's immortality, but, though far less disposed to dissipation than the French and English, they have no claim to a pure and elevated character. Mr. Byer, a Lutheran evangelist, labours among them in Paris, Balbeck, and other places. He is a Prussian, deeply pious, well educated, and profoundly acquainted with German mind. In addressing them, he does not indulge their love of speculation, but fixing upon their own admitted facts, draws from them conclusions which they cannot fail to perceive. He seizes upon their natural relationships, and plies their consciences with the ideas of filial duty and paternal expectation, then shows how the Bible and Christianity present the high claims of God as a Father; and when they acknowledge these, he brings to view the perfection of the law, the weakness of man, the necessity of an atonement, and the great fact, and then urges them to its acceptance by faith. His labours have been blessed to the conversion of many souls. They returned to their native cities, and became evangelists. One recently wrote Mr. Byer, from Hamburgh, expressing a desire to enter upon a course of study for the ministry. Another, though married, and thirty years of age, has begun the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, at Geneva, preparatory to the preaching of the gospel. He did not at first inform his minister of his purpose, fearing discouragement; but when his plans were matured, and fully entered on, his communication to his pastor was a source of mutual delight. Germany is now in a most interesting position. The evangelical Protestant party gains ground daily, and the German Papists seem to be yielding to the power of truth. Ronge is a second Luther, a bold, learned, able combatant, who knows where to get his armour. Let Germany arise from her moral prostration, and it will be no momentary show. It will be a sublime resurrection. May it speedily come! In my next, I shall give you some account of the origin of evangelical movements in Havre. Yours, affectionately, E. E. ADAMS. Havre, June 11, 1845. GERMANY. GENERAL CHRONICLE. APPEAL ON BEHALF OF THE HOME AND In the year 1832, an association of a few clergymen and others was formed at Calw, in the kingdom of Wirtemberg, which gradually grew into a Home and Foreign School Book Society, without, however, bearing that title. Its main object has been to publish small popular works adapted to promote a clearer understanding of the sacred writings, and to impress the great truths of the Reformation upon ordinary minds, so as to commend them to the consciences of the young and ignorant, and in particular to supersede those juvenile and fascinating publications of a neologian and infidel cast, which, it is much to be lamented, have even found their way into by far the greater number of the German parochial schools and seminaries. For this end, it was necessary that the books to be preferred should come recommended by their more popular adaptation, superior embellishments, and yet inferior cost. But, as in Germany the teachers and superintendents of schools, whose sentiments tend most plausibly and industriously to undermine the very foundations of Christian truth, are everywhere so numerous, it would obviously have defeated the purpose of this association to have announced its object in the public journals. Hence it was obliged to apply privately to Christian friends in Germany, Switzerland, France, England, and North America, for the assistance required. Though from the year 1832 to the present day the contributions have not exceeded, on an average, the small sum of 80l. per annum, (while the books issued by this association have always been disposed of at the very cheapest rate,) much good has already been effected, and 550,000 volumes of various publications, of the kind here described-not to mention some hundred thousands of juvenile books-have already been circulated; several of them having also been translated into the English, French, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Bohemian, Hungarian, Arabic, Tamil, Canarese, Bengalee, and Hindostanee languages. Thus a field has been opened which this association, at its commencement, never contemplated. It sees also among the German population itself, a much wider sphere of usefulness than its present funds will enable it to compass. Its "Bible Stories," "History of the Church of Christ," "General History," "Natural History of the Bible," "Geogra- Donations in aid of the above association whom all post-office orders are kindly requested to be made payable. CHINA. TO LITTLE BOYS AND GIRLS OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. Ningpo, Jan. 21, 1844. MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS,-I must introduce myself to you, by saying that my parents are both Britons, but I have had the great disadvantage of being born in the East, where children have not the instruction or examples which God has privileged you to have. My two companions, Ati and Kit,with myself, were much surprised to see, from the new Juvenile Missionary Magazine, which Mrs. M-sent to the little Chinese orphan, Asan, how active and successful you were in obtaining money for objects of Christian usefulness. Now I hope you will do something for the first Chinese boarding-school for girls in the north of this empire, which, after a great many difficulties, has been established here. Girls suffer a great deal and are kept in gross ignorance in China. You have heard, no doubt, how little Chinese girls of five years of age begin to have their feet bandaged, and, every two or three weeks afterwards, bound tighter and tighter, but you never heard their cries. I have; and I have heard also the cries of a poor girl, beaten by a person who was afterwards to become her mother-in-law. taken from her home many years ago, and must live with this woman yet a great many years, before she becomes really a daughterin-law, by marrying her son. She was That poor girl is treated like a slave, not allowed to eat with the family. Her food is inferior, and she has but little of it. Such is the treatment of almost all girls whose parents are not rich. Miss Aldersey had the plea Asan, the daughter of a Chinese soldier, who, with her two brothers, was committed, by their dying mother, to the care of the late Mr. Morrison. Their father was killed in battle. sure, about a month ago, to receive a girl, about fourteen or fifteen years of age, who had been thus, and even more cruelly treated. She has now grown stout, and looks happy. The outward condition of females is indeed, as they say, koo, "bitterness;" but let us think of their immortal spirits! Do reflect how distressed you would be, if your little sisters could be taken out of your happy nurseries, where they are taught to love Jesus, and afterwards placed, although in the very best of all the families of this large city, how awful would be their ignorance of God, of the evil of sin, and the means of salvation! Under such circumfriends residing in the city, anxiously desirstances, were you to hear of any Christian ing to lead your dear sisters in the path of holiness which yourselves were walking in, what joy would fill your hearts! Now here are thousands of the little sisters of the human family, who are going into eternity unprepared. Here is a lady very anxious to teach them, and Ati, Kit,* and I, will do all we can to help; but Miss A. does not expect much to be done for the spiritual good of these poor heathen children, except as they are removed from the bad habits of home. Miss A. receives them, therefore, into her house, clothes and feeds them for several years, and the parents write down a promise four, five, or six years have expired: but that they will not take them away until the the food, clothing, &c., of fifty girls, whom she hopes to collect soon, (she has already nine, and the promise of ten more,) must amount to at least 300l. per annum, which we are hoping you will assist to collect, as actively as you assisted the collection for the new missionary ship, "John Williams." I am, my dear young friends, Yours sincerely, M. A. LISK. P.S. I should like very much to receive a letter from you. The two Indo-Chinese converts, who, fleeing from the persecution of their relatives, joined Miss Aldersey at Hong-Kong, in December, 1842. |