ed by the excitement of ardent spirits, is only borrowing strength, which must be repaid with interest. It is a great waste of the bodily energies, To use a common phrase, "It is liv. ing too fast" A multitude of unexceptionable experiments prove, that ardent spirits, as an auxiliary to labor, are worse than useless. Our forefathers, who subdued the wilderness and prepared for us these pleasant seats, were a hardy race of men, who endured labor and fatigue, from which the present generation of their descendants would shrink. But they were not aided by the stimulus of ardent spirits. In our own time there are manufacturing establishments, and extensive agricultural operations, and naval operations, carried on with better effect and more ease and quietness, without ardent spirits, than others are with them. There are individuals among us, who endure much labor and hardship without this foreign aid, and are marked for their health and vigor. In the face of such evidence it is vain to pretend that spirits are necessary or useful to the laborer. The means of conviction are at hand, and let them be faithfully employed, without the fear of incurring the charge of parsimony or cruelty. When all these various influences, which we have mentioned, shall have been faithfully exerted, the way will be prepared for the aid of legislation. The law cannot be powerless, that is called into being by an efficient public sentiment.' But there will be a large class of persons who will stand aloof, and make objections From interest, or incredulity, or apathy, they will assure themselves and others that nothing can be effected, and that reform is hopeless. For these we have an answer in the words of our authors. They who are unwilling to do any thing, will tell him (the friend of reform] that nothing can be done. Taey who fold up their arms in contented crawled into their bowers, will assure apathy, because the viper has not him that nothing need be done. They who deem that the sum of human duty is merely to provide for one's own household, and respect the laws of the land, will try to convince him that nothing ought to be done. But let not all this shake the lover of temperance from his purpose-there is much that should be done, and if he will persevere, at length much may be done.Sprague, p. 28. But it will be said,-what can be done?-and ten thousand voices will reply, nothing-Oh nothing-men always will; there is so much capital always have drunk to excess, and they embarked in the business of importation and distillation-and so much supposed gain in vending ardent spiritsand such an insatiable demand for them-and such ability to pay for them by highminded, wilful, independent freemen--that nothing can be done.' Then farewell! a long farewell to all our greatness! The present abuse of ardent spirits, has grown out of what was the prudent use of it, less than one hundred years ago; then there was very little intemperance in the land--most men who drank at all, drank temperately. But if the prudont use of ardent spirits one hundred years ago, has produced such results as now exist, what will the present intemperate use accomplish in a century to come? Let no man turn off his eye from this subject, or refuse to reason, and infer there is a moral certainty of a wide extended ruin, without reformation. The seasons are not more sure to roll, the sun to shine, or the rivers to flow-than the present its is sure to produce the most deadly enormous consumption of ardent spirconsequences to the nation. They will be consumed in a compound ratio -and there is a physical certainty of the dreadful consequences. Have you taken the dimensions of the evil, its manifold and magnifying miseries. its sure-paced and tremendous ruin? And shall it come unresisted by prayer, and without a finger lifted to stay the desolation?-Beecher, pp. 83, 84. Nothing can be done! Why can nothing be done? Because the intemperate will not stop drinking, shall the temperate keep on and become drunkards? Because the intemperate cannot be reasoned with, shall the temperate become madmen? And because force will not avail with men of independence and property, does it follow that reason, and conscience, and the fear of the Lord will have no influence? entitled "The Lord's Supper at Death," and relates to a practice which is common in England, and not uncommon in our country. Some years ago I was requested to visit a man, who was supposed to be dying. The person who called on me said, that his friends wished the sacrament to be administered to him, and, as the minister of the parish was unwell, they hoped I would do it. I stated, in general terms, that I never administered the sacrament in such circumstances, but that I should willingly call upon the sick person, and converse with him on religious subjects. I speedily fulfilled my promise, and, on entering the room where the sick man was confined, I found him under very severe suffering. I instantly rehad once or twice attended my preachcognized him as an individual who And because the public mind is now unenlightened, and unawakened, and unconcentrated, does it follow that it cannot be enlightened, and aroused, and concentrated in one simultaneous and successful effort? Reformations as much resisted by popular feeling, and impeded by ignorance, interest, and depraved obstinacy have been accomplished, through the medium of a rectified public opinion,--and no nation ever possessed the opportunities and the means that we possess, of correctly forming the public opinion-noring, in a school-room in the outskirts was a nation ever called upon to attempt it by motives of such imperious necessity. Our all is at stake--we shall perish if we do not effect it. There is nothing that ought to be done, which a free people cannot do. Ib. p. 85. The Pastor's Sketch Book; or, Authentic Narratives of Real Characters. Edited by GEOrge RedFORD, A. M. New-York: John P. Haven. pp. 219, 18mo. WE are glad that this small volume, which has been favorably received in England, is republished in this country. It consists of brief sketches communicated by clergymen, of characters and circumstances which have fallen under their notice in the course of their ministry. The character of the volume may be understood by a few of the subjects of its narratives,-which are such as these; The Rescued Suicide; The Missionary Printer ; Last Scenes of the Life of a Fashionable Female, &c. One of the narratives, which is short, we will give in an abridged form. It is of the town in which I labour. In that room I had been accustomed to preach for some time, and on those occasions several persons attended, who had not for many years been in any place of worship. This individual had not heard a sermon for twenty years, till he heard me in the school-room, though he was not many yards distant from the parish church. I learnt, after one of the services, something of his previous history; and it presented an awful instance of the progress and the reward of vice. He had been once in respectable circumstances, had received a good education, and was conconsidered by his neighbours a superior man. it appeared however, that he had prostituted his talents, by caviling against religion, and trying to around him. He became the leader of undermine the good principles of those a village club, where intemperance formed a principal feature in their nightly proceedings. He soon became a drunkard and a profligate. At last he forsook his wife and children, abandoned the sober and quiet enjoyments of home, and lived with another woman. After continuing in this dreadassociate in sin died, and he was left ful state for many years, his wretched alone, a forsaken, guilty, and unhappy creature. To add to his misery, and remind him of the wages of sin, he was seized with palsy, which totally unfitted him for labour, and considerably affected his power of speech. In this deplorable situation, without a friend to comfort him, or an instructor to admonish him, he lived in the house of a stranger, in an apartment any thing but comfortable. His relations offered their personal assistance, but he refused it; yet he was constrained to accept for his support what the kindness of those offered whom he had most injured; for it was by a small weekly allowance from his wife and sons that he was now kept from the extremes of want and wretchedness. He was seized a second time with palsy, and was now considered in extreme danger. His wife and sons were sent for. They instantly came to attend him; and it was at their earnest and affectionate desire that I had been sent for. When I looked upon the pallid and partially distorted countenance of the old man, and remembered his history, I hardly knew how to act. I was afraid to address him in words of harshness, which his long continuance in vice seemed to demand, and at the same time I dreaded to speak comfortably, unless I should see some signs of penitence. I had visited so many who deceived themselves with the idea that there was some kind of efficacy or magical charm in the prayers of a minister, and therefore wished a parson to pray with them before they died, that I was generally uneasy when called upon to visit individuals in such circumstan ces. The solemn responsibility connected with such visits, made me feel most sensibly the need of divine help. In the case before me there was but one path open; and, with prayer to God that I might be enabled to speak to the sick man words of profit, I tried to engage him in conversation. I endeavoured to ascertain his views respecting himself. He acknowledged that he was a sinner. I wished, however, to bring the subject nearer home, and to see if he knew what it was to feel himself a sinner against God, and if he was conscious of his individual guilt, as a flagrant violator of the divine law. His articulation was, how ever, so very indistinct, that I could get but few answers from him. I saw it fatigued and pained him to make an effort to speak; I therefore desisted for a short time from asking him questions. As he appeared quite sensible, I read to him some of the descriptions given of sin in the sacred volume, and explained, as well as I could, its nature and awful consequences. I then proceeded to read some passages which speak of the love of God to a guilty world. I told him of the efficacy of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, and of his willingness to receive all who came to him, seeking salvation; and that, though he had been a great sinner, he was not excluded from the hope of the Gospel, if he did not exclude himself. The blood of Christ could cleanse his guilt away. What God required was faith in his Son, and penitence on account of his many transgressions. I found it necessary to desist from speaking, as his atten tion could not be kept up for more than a few minutes at a time. One effect of his disorder was stupor. His wife and two sons being present, I entered into conversation with the elder of the two sons, who was an intelligent looking man. He stated his desire that his father should receive the sacrament. I endeavoured to ascertain his reason for this desire: the only reason that he assigned was, that it was customary. His father had not even desired it; but it was his wish, and that of his mother, that this ceremony should be gone through. I asked him if he thought the happiness of his father could be endangered by his ot partaking of the sacrament before his death. He said he could not tell, but he thought his mind would be more easy, if his father received it. I then inquired if he was aware of the nature of the ordinance, and the design of its institution. He was unable to tell me. He confessed that he had never thought on the subject, but he was willing to hear my sentiments. Finding him so unacquainted with the design of the Lord's Supper, and, at the same time, so willing to listen to me, I considered it my duty to explain the subject as simply and briefly as I could, and state my reasons for refusing to administer this ordinance to his father. As nearly as I can recollect, the following is the substance of what I then advanced :- I stated, that the Lord's Supper was instituted by Jesus Christ, in order to give his disciples, in all ages, an opportunity of commemorating his love in dying for them; that his apostles and their converts attended to his dying command, and when they met together for the worship of God, they broke bread, or, as he understood it, took the Sacrament. I mentioned that it was one way in which the disciples of Christ were to be known from the unbelieving world, and that only those who were believers in Christ could properly attend to this ordinance. They alone could do so in remembrance of him--could do it in faith, without which it was impossible that the service could either be acceptable to God, or profitable to their Own souls. Christ could not wish to be remembered by his enemies, but by his friends. I thought it also proper to describe the character of disciples of Christ, and endeavoured to bring before him some of the most important truths of the Gospel. Having thus stated my views on the subject generally, I came to a more particular application of it, to the case of his father. I told him that even if I had seen reason to believe his father a pious man, yet I could not conscientiously give him the Sacrament privately. I was willing to give my reasons. I mentioned that it was contrary to my general principles, as a Dissenter, and more especially to the views I had taken of the ordinance from the word of God. It appeared to me, from the Holy Scriptures, that the Lord's Supper was never eaten, except by the members of the church assembled, in the usual place of meeting; that no individual member or members, as such, in any instance partook of the Lord's Supper at home; that the cammand of Christ, when he instituted the ordinance, was addressed to the company of his disciples then assembled, and the apostle Paul, when he wrote to the Corinthians, enforcing a proper attention to this duty, addressed them as a church of Christ. In the Acts of the Apostles we are told, that whenever the disciples came together for the word, and for prayer, "the breaking of bread" formed a part of the service. We find no instance of the apostles taking or giving the Sacrament to VOL. 1, No. XII. 83 individuals near death, or, indeed, in any way but to the church assembled. We do not find that Paul, on any journey, or even in his tedious voyage to Rome, when he had brethren with him, partook of the Lord's Supper; it was only when those who were united together in church-fellowship "came together," that the ordinance was administered. Taking such a view of the subject, I could not, with a clear conscience, administer the ordinance to any person privately-because there was not only no command in the word of God for doing so, but the contrary might be inferred, from the precepts and example of the apostles of Christ. Besides, I told him that, if his father was not a Christian, the giving him the Sacrament could not save him, and if he was a Christian, he neglected no duty in abstaining from it, when unable to go to a place of worship, because God had not commanded him to attend to it at home. If, however, his health was restored, and he was able to go to the house of God, it would be his duty to attend to this ordinance with a church of Christ; and, in doing so, he might expect the divine blessing. In the present instance, that could not be expected, for it was doing what God had not required. I alluded to the reason which he had assigned for wishing his father to enjoy this Christian privilege, and reminded him of the danger of acting according to the customs of men in religious matters, without warrant from the word of God; that these things impaired and defaced the plain institutions of God, and a blind attachment to them, in too many instances, ruined the souls of men. I told him that multitudes thought it quite enough, if this form was gone through before they died, though during life they had neglected and despised it. I warned him to beware of taking his religion from others: it was a matter of such moment, that it demanded and deserved his most serious consideration. The young man listened with attention. His father had by this time awoke from his dosing, and seemed desirous again to converse with me. I had a little conversation with him. Some of his answers led me to hope that he was not wholly ignorant of the way of a sinner's acceptance with God. He acknowledged that there was no salvation but in Christ. I found it, however, in vain to continue speaking, as very soon the stupor again came upon him. After commending him to the teaching and mercy of God, I departed, and saw him no more. He died not many hours after my visit. I could learn nothing satisfactory respecting his last moments; and I was constrained to leave the mournful event in that obscurity and uncertainty in which the hand of God seemed to have veiled it. pp. 155–162. The narrator goes on to speak of the effect of his visit on the family. The younger of the two sons, a youth of eighteen or twenty, had been a silent listener while he talked with the elder, and the conversation had made a deep impression on his mind. Sometime after he came to the minister, for further instruction; their interviews became frequent, and the result was, his hopeful conversion. "He is now," continues the narrator, "one of our most active Sunday-school teachers, and by his amiable and consistent deportment adorns the gospel of Christ. By his persuasion, his mother and brother have been brought under the preaching of the gospel, which they had neglected before. I have had no reason to regret the discharge of a duty, though painful at the time; and I hope it has taught me a lesson which I was sometimes too slow to learn, that the best way to promote our own comfort and usefulness is, to go forward in discharging all our duties with firmness and affection, leaving all consequences with God." A part of these sketches were originally furnished for the Congregational Magazine. We have wished that our clerical readers would oftener furnish similar sketches for the Christian Spectator. The moral history of individuals, both of the pious and the profligate, are always interesting and instructive. They are so especially to the young. In such histories virtue holds out her winning example and her blest rewards, and vice unfolds her dreadful lesson of ruin and remorse. There is another class of facts, besides personal narratives, which fall peculiarly under the notice of clergymen, and which they might profitably communicate to the public through our religious magazines. We allude to the history of churchcords and names and mere matters es and congregations-not to reof chronology-but to such circumstances in their history, as might be profitable to their sister churches as lessons of experience. For example, the reader may have seen a church gradually declining almost to extinction, through neglect of discipline, pursuing a tame, and worldly policy perhaps, in respect to some influential member whose delinquencies they forbore to reprove, on account of apprehended consequences from his displeasure, or that of his family, to the society; and he may have seen that church at length awaking to its duty, and conscientiously executing the laws of Christ's house, and from that time returning to more than its former prosperity. He may have known a people neglect to supply the place of their deceased minister with another, and seen all sense of religion fade away from the minds of that people, till, in the course of one or two generations, Sabbathbreaking and profaneness have become general, gambling and intemperance a common thing, and suicide not unfrequent. Such an instance we could tell of; and it is a solemn warning to all feeble churches not to wait till they shall become stronger,or shall receive foreign aid, before they set about doing all they can do for the continuance of a preached gospel among them. There are facts connected with revivals,-relating to their origin and the causes of their sudden decline, the kind of preaching practised in them, and the subsequent character |