ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

E. M.B.; W. G.; J. E. G.; CANDIDUS; W. H.; PERQUIRO; R. S.; A. N.; A CONSTANT READER; W. D.; and O. B.; are under consideration. Does not THERESA see that it is not "for lack of Christian courtesy, "but in the exercise of it, that we do not in general specify the reasons why we do not insert papers? A paper may be well meant, but very dull, or trite, or in many ways unfit for publication; and Theresa should not hastily conclude, that we take no interest in a question, because we do not happen to insert a particular paper upon it. We always feel obliged to those correspondents who favour us with their communications, from which we select such as appear to us most desirable for publication. We may err in our judgment, but we should hardly wilfully deform our pages with a worse

paper, when we could adorn them with a better. If Theresa can instruct us in a more courteous and less "crabbed "-(that was not a courteous word for Theresa to use)-way of proceeding than that of acknowledging all papers, and after due consideration, inserting what appear to us the best, and saying nothing of the others, we shall gladly adopt her suggestion. Ours is precisely the plan pursued at the Universities, in the case of prize compositions, as being the most courteous and least offensive. Several correspondents have addressed us, respecting a work entitled Death-Bed Scenes; and we quite agree with them, that it is an unscriptural, injurious, and partyspirited book; that it ought never to have been admitted on the list of the Society for promoting Christian knowledge, and ought forthwith to be extruded from it. It is not the production of a certain deceased Dr. Warton, but of a living writer, so that it carries falsehood on its front. We animadverted strongly upon the work soon after its publication (see Christian Observer for 1827, p. 741), and every new review confirms our first impressions. It is lamentable that any portion of funds raised for promoting Christian knowledge, should be expended upon a work like this; a work of Pharisaism and formalism, defective, nay, fearfully erroneous in the great doctrines which relate to human salvation, and the chief object of which seems to be to oppose those scriptural views of religion, which the world by way of reproach are accustomed to call Methodistical, Evangelical, or Calvinistic, and to put in their place a delusive system which is much nearer a kin to Popery than to Protestantism. It partakes of the very spirit of the opus operatum doctrine of the Church of Rome. If our readers think we have spoken too strongly, we will undertake to justify our remarks in painful detail. Take, for instance, the following among scores of equally exceptionable passages; and let any thoughtful man say, if there is a hair's breadth between them and the popish notion of the mass and extreme unction.

"Mr. Stamford died less fearfully, and after having received the sacrament of the Lord's body and blood. I administered it to him, when he was in the last agony; but I have never heard that he had been previously at Church, or that he had performed before any religious act whatever. I was sent for to him very early in the morning, and found him already speechless. Yet he still possessed his faculties, and made known to me by signs, his wish to partake of the bread and wine, with which I at once complied, and he died immediately afterwards."

Here Dr. Warton, in the very spirit of Popery, without the slightest examination, “at once complies" with the dumb-shew sign of a man who had never to his knowledge been at church, "or performed any religious act whatever," to give him the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, as a viaticum, by which means he dies "less fearfully" than another bad man. Nay, he in a succeeding case goes further; not only administering the sacrament to an improper person, who instead of being in charity with all men, was habitually indulging implacableness and a revengeful spirit, but actually "prevailing on" this man to receive it. "I believe, indeed, that the impossibility which he felt of subduing his angry passions, in that particular respect, had lately occasioned on his part a neglect of public worship in the parish church, where in former times he had been a regular attendant; and although, he had been prevailed upon to receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper at home during his sickness, yet the hostile workings of his mind towards his son had prevented him from reaping that degree of comfort and satisfaction from it which might otherwise have been reasonably expected."

To another notoriously wicked man, who professed repentance, and received the Lord's Supper on a sick bed, Dr. Warton says: “ God enabled you to partake of Christ's body and blood, so that you might set up a fresh claim to that covenant of mercy and salvation through Christ, into which you entered at your baptism, but which you have since virtually renounced by the conduct of your life." Even that manual of formalism, the Companion to the Altar, does not inculcate the presumptuous and pharisaical doctrine of the reception of the Lord's Supper being "a claim; " or, as Hooker calls it, "bringing God into our debt-books. Besides, what is meant by a claim, and a fresh claim, upon a covenant of mercy? Man has no claim upon God for any thing that is good; and a claim upon a covenant of mercy is a contradiction in terms. The Pharisee in the Gospel urged a claim: the Publican pleaded the covenant of mercy, but urged no claim; and he went down to his house justified, and not the other.

SUPPLEMENT TO RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

HIBERNIAN SOCIETY.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN SCHOOL SOCIETY.

MEMOIRS OF AMERICAN DIVINES: REV DR. E. PAYSON. (Continued from p. 196.)

WE traced Mr. Payson in our last Number to the year 1807, when he

was set apart to the office of the ministry, in the town of Portland. He commenced his labours with such characteristic ardour as to threaten a speedy termination to his life. He soon expectorated blood, and was considered to be in a consumption; and believed, himself, that his illness was "his death-warrant." He was also much afflicted in witnessing the distresses which fell upon his neighbours and his beloved flock, in conse quence of the differences between Great Britain and his native country. The darkest season through which the United States have passed since their independence had now commenced, and the distresses of the times are the subject of frequent allusion by Mr. Payson in his diary. Thus he says, Dec. 28, 1807 :-" When my father was here, he observed that my prospects were almost too happy for this world. They were so, it appears; for they are now as unfavourable, humanly speaking, as they were then flattering. The prospect of war has produced here such a scene of wretchedness as I never before witnessed. A large number of the most wealthy merchants have already failed, and numbers more are daily following; so that we are threatened with universal bankruptcy. Two failures alone have thrown at least three hundred persons, besides sailors, out of employ; and you may hence conceive, in some measure, the distress which the whole number must occasion. The poor-house is already full; and hundreds are yet to be provided for, who have depended on their own labour for daily bread, and who have neither the means of supporting themselves here, nor of removing into the country. Many, who have been brought up in affluence, are now dependent on the cold courtesy of creditors for a protection from the inclemency of the season. These things, however, are but the beginning of sorrows. If these times continue, nine-tenths of the people here will be scattered to the four winds. I have scarcely a hope of receiving more than enough to pay my board, if I should stay till next spring. These failures have brought to light many instances of dishonesty among those in whose integrity unbounded confidence was placed. And now, all confidence is lost; no man will trust his neighbour, but every one takes even his brother by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest.' But I cannot describe, and I doubt whether you can conceive, the distress we are in.

"And now you will, perhaps, be grieved at this sudden blast of all my fine prospects. But you never had more reason to rejoice on my behalf than now; for, blessed be God, my portion does not stand on such 2 L

CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 377.

tottering foundations as to be shaken by these commotions. My dear parents, my dear sister, do not feel one emotion of sorrow on my account, but rather join with me in blessing God, that he keeps me quiet, resigned, and even happy, in the midst of these troubles. I do not pretend not to feel them, however. All my worldly hopes are, apparently, destroyed; and many of the dearest friends I have are now ready to be turned into the streets; not to mention the distress of the poor, who will, in all human probability, soon be in a starving condition. In these circumstances it is impossible not to feel. Still, if God is pleased to afford me the same degree of support which he has hitherto done, I shall be more happy than ever I was. I thought I knew before that this world was treacherous, and its enjoyments transitory; but these things have taught me this truth so much plainer, and weaned me so much more from creature dependences, that I desire to consider them among my chief mercies. It has long been my prayer, that if God had any worldly blessings in store for me, he would be pleased to give me grace instead of them, or change them into spiritual blessings; and now he begins to grant my request."

He writes again, January 5, 1808:-" The tumult in town has subsided into a dead calm; the embargo has put a stop to every thing like business, and people have now nothing to do but to attend to religion and we endeavour to give them meetings enough, since they have leisure to attend them. Next week we purpose to keep a townfast, on account of our distressed situation. I am not without hopes that these things may be over-ruled to bring about a more extensive reformation. The attention appears to continue, and we hear of new instances of persons under concern. Feel no uneasiness respecting me. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. The people are very kind, increasingly so. Some of our young converts have lost their all, and had their houses stripped; and it does my heart good to see them cheerful and quiet under it; while others, who have no God, have lost their reason, or, worried almost incessantly, are apparently dying of a broken heart, or uttering the most bitter and distressing complaints.

Soon after this he was seized with a violent pleuritic affection, which rendered speaking a most painful exertion. Repeatedly during this illness, when he was necessarily confined to his room, he enters a notice of this kind: "Spent almost the whole day in conversing with persons who were exercised with spiritual trials;"-and every such day was one of great fatigue, at the close of which "all his alarming symptoms would return with great violence." Though he found it "trying to be laid aside as a broken vessel, when the people were willing to hear;" yet he adds: "Could not feel a wish respecting the continuance of my life; but, had God referred the matter to me, I should refer it back again to him. My only wish was— if I lived, to live unto the Lord; and, if I died, to die unto the Lord."

In consequence of his illness he was obliged for some time to desist from his duties, but it was only to return to them with fresh avidity.

The following extract from a letter written a few months after to his mother, exhibits the anxious workings of his mind in hours of discouragement, and may be consolatory to those depressed Christians who think no other person's mental afflictions are equally poignant with theirs :

"God is shewing me what is in my heart, in a tenfold clearer light than ever before; and though I know he does it to humble and prove me, that he may do me good in the latter end; yet, while He permits, my mind will be like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt; and I can no more still it than I can still the elements. I know how I ought to feel, and I know how wrong it is to feel as I do; but that does not help me to feel otherwise. I know that I am every thing that is bad

summed up together, and that I deserve ten thousand times the hottest place in hell; but till God shall be pleased to melt my heart by the returning beams of his love, this sight of sin only hardens my heart, and sinks it down in sullen indolence and despair. I well remember those delightful seasons you mention; but I remember them as Satan does the happiness of heaven, which he has lost. I cannot help being sorry that I ever recovered, or that I ever was born. I cannot help wishing for annihilation, though I see as clear as the light of day how devilish, and cowardly, and base, and ungrateful, such a temper is. I loathe and detest myself for having such a temper, and know that my inability to restrain it, instead of being any excuse, only renders me more utterly inexcusable. I know, too, that all this is necessary for my good. I know that Christ is near me, though I cannot perceive him; and that in his own time, which will be the best time, he will pluck me out of this terrible pit, and set my feet on a rock. But this knowledge does not prevent my being tossed hither and thither before the blast of temptation, like a leaf before a whirlwind. Meanwhile I have nowhere to look for comfort, either in heaven or earth. My prayer seems to be shut out, though in reality I know it is not. My people are raving about my hard doctrine; my friends seem to stand aloof; my health begins to decline; religion is decaying; and all hell seems broke loose within me. While this is the case, what can reasoning or arguments avail? Who but He who caused the light to shine out of darkness can bring light and order out of the darkness and chaos of my soul?

"If I had waited till this time, I surely should never have been a minister. I should give up now, but whenever I think of it something seems to say, 'What are you going to give up for? Supposing you are a poor, miserable, blind, weak, stupid worm of the dust, with mountains of opposition before you,-is that any reason for discouragement? Have you yet to learn that God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty; and that, if you had the talents of an angel, you could do nothing without his assistance? Has he not already helped you beyond all you dared ask or think; and has not he promised to help you in future? What then would you, poor, weak, stupid, cowardly fool, have more? What do you keep murmuring about all the time? Why don't you glory in your infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon you?'-To all this I can answer nothing; and so I keep dragging on, because I dare not leave off without a discharge."

Mr. Payson's pastoral labours during the first year, though much interrupted by sickness, were remarkably successful, and issued, by the blessing of God, in the accession of twenty-nine members to his church.

The memorialist of Mr. Payson goes on to notice his habitual dependence on God; its influence on himself and his flock; his uniform purpose to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified, and the result in his increased success in his ministry. We copy a few passages from his letters, which indicate his spirit.

"My health continues to mend, though slowly. The religious attention appears rather to increase than diminish; but though it is pleasant to see inquirers, yet the constant anxiety which they occasion, lest they should go back, is exceedingly painful, and wears upon nature. I know it is wrong thus to take Christ's work out of his hands, and to perplex myself respecting events over which I have no controul; but as yet I cannot wholly refrain, though the fault, like most other faults, carries its own punishment with it. I am at present, unless greatly deceived, in the worst part of the Christian race. My people love me; but I cannot enjoy their kindness, lest, instead of rendering me thankful, it should only feed pride. For similar reasons, I can take no pleasure in any success that