We met on Friday at 1 o'clock P. M. and though disappointed by not seeing you, nor any other of our talented or learned brethren, not even brother Bentley, (through indisposition,)-we, ordinary, illiterate, practical farmers and mechanics, proceeded to do as well as we could. Brother Bosworth led the way and gave the first discourse, and seven or eight other brethren spoke during the meeting in day light, besides preaching in four or five places each evening.

On Lord's day brother Rider gave us a masterly discourse from the 2d chapter of 1st Timothy. His first effort was to show the fallacy of Universalism; 2d. of Calvinism. In the third place, an exhortation to prayer; and, finally, female character, and influence as christians-and why? That as the woman was the first in sin, and had ever since been oppressed by the man;-that as the female was by christianity raised and honored with the place, privileges, and influence which naturally and originally belong to her; and that as consequently through. out christendom, and especially where the christianity of the New Testament is most regarded, the female sex is exalted; it by all reasons behoves the sex to honor christianity in turn by showing all contempt for the trifles which charm the eyes of the vain and irreligious; that they should, contrarywise, delight to honor the gospel with a display of benevolence, rather than of dress.

He succeeded in each point to the great satisfaction of all the disciples, and especially the sisters. The discourse was followed by appropriate exhortations: and in short, the whole day filled up with much valuable instruction. Nineteen were immersed during the three days. On Monday our time was devoted to hearing the reports of the itinerants, and making arrangements for future operations. This was the most interesting day of any, and probably more profitable for the interest of the truth, than all the rest together.

It appeared from the reports, which, from personal knowledge, I know to be correct, that the apostolic gospel and order of things are gradually and regularly gaining influence among us; that although in many things, (and in some places and some individuals more than others,) we are quite in the rear of christian, perfection; yet one good sign is, that all unanimously see it, and unitedly urge an advance. The present reformation is in this different from all the Protestant reformations, whose leaders, when they had taken a few steps from their former ground, halted, and determined the people of God should learn and do no more of the Lord's will than they had already attained to. The teaching brethren understand christianity better, and the churches are not so readily shocked with difficulties as they were some time since; public opinion is turning rapidly in favor of the ancient gospel and order; and though we have to lament apostates, the sects begin to find it weak and vain to reproach us with this, since they have so many of their own, especially since the revivals of 1831; for this year their efforts have not the same success. And for my own part, I think there is a growing liberality in the brethren.

The subject of itinerancy was spoken of with warmth and an unanimity of judgment and feeling never before equalled among us. The whole community, teachers and taught, were much affected with the great responsibility we are under to present to the world the ancient religion of Christ. It was proposed that the itinerants should go two and two; but when we beat for volunteers, it was found there were but two whose circumstances would permit them at present to make it their sole employ to proclaim the word. These two, (viz. brother Morse and myself,) are to go together wherever a door opens and labor is most needed, and not to neglect the churches. The brethren and sisters present honorably signified their approbation of these laborers, and gave good evidence of their readiness to assist them in all things necessary. Besides these two, brethren Allton, Williams, Henry, Hartzel, Bosworth, and Applegate, expressed themselves willing and able to devote a share of their time-some of them, the greater part, and from their known gifts, were assured by the disciples present of their willingness to sustain them. After these matters were dispensed with, an invitation was tendered to any that wished to obey the Lord, when six or seven came forward. We went to the

water, and continued instructing and exhorting until eighteen were immersed, making in all thirty-seven.

Our next annual meeting will be in Warren, Trumbull county, on Friday before the last Lord's day in August, 1833; and for the accommodation of the brethren further West, a similar meeting will be held in Wadsworth, Medina county, on the Friday following, which I hope you will publish.

I had forgotten to inform you that it appeared from the reports that there had been at least four or five hundred immersed since the last annual meeting by the brethren of this section of country.

Yours as ever,

WILLIAM HAYDEN.

TESTIMONY OF A FEMALE ON THE GRACE OF

Dear Brother Campbell,

METHODISM.

Tennessee, Smith county, August 8th, 1832.

1 AM a young woman who has, for some short time past, been engaged in teaching school; and have been, for some few years past, (I think) an acceptable member of the Methodist church; at least I have not understood to the contrary.

I was taken into the church, some way, when quite young-I scarcely can tell how. My friends were mostly of that denomination. But I frankly confess that I never did feel, nor profess to feel, that powerful spiritual operation of which I have heard some persons speak; and which indescribable something our church held was a mark of our acceptance with God-or in other words, as I have often heard our preachers express it, "to know God a pardoning God, and our feelings the criterion to judge it by." I thought, and still think, they preached the doctrine of faith in the Lord Jesus, and a hearty repentance; but what next, I never did nor could understand them. Our preachers would say to the trembling, crying mourner called up into the altar, Just believe, and the work will be done in a moment.' I thought they did believe, or they would not have come forward: they are surely tired of sin, or they would not thus be bathed in tears! Is it possible that Jesus requires more than a belief of the testimony, a more vivid impression than a cordial assent to the truth of the gospel!

But I continued with them, and believed them to be nearer right than any other denomination. This conclusion, however, was not drawn from an examination of their doctrine by the word of God, but believed for the heartfelt work and solemn deportment. Still all went on well until the first of June last. When visiting my relations in Rutherford county, I had an opportunity of hearing the Christians and Reformers, who are united in that neighborhood. They taught me, for the first time, that the Holy Spirit operated in a rational manner, by words addressed to the understanding. In a word, they set me to searching the scriptures, which eventuated in my being immersed for the remission of my sins: and thanks to the Lord, it has afforded me something more firm and durable than a momentary excitement, an evidence that my sins are pardoned which will remain with me while I continue to obey the word, while I continue steadfast in the Apostles' doctrine.

Your sister, in the hope of eternal life,

M. R. M.

N. B. At a four day meeting last week in Rutherford county, near Readyville, eighty persons came forward, made the good confession, and were immersed for the remission of their sins. The preaching brethren present were Smith, Carlee, Bowman, Berry, Hubbard, Dr. Becton, Sweat, Davis, Griffing, Harris, and Flemming. Not one jarring or discordant note was heard; all was harmony among them. M. R. M.

By a letter from brother Becton, about the same date, we were particularly informed of the results of the four day meeting near Murfreesborough at which eighty persons were immersed for the reinission of sins. ED. M. H.

A REAL AND A NOMINAL DISCIPLE.

MANY disputations and controversies among christians originate, progress, and terminate in the ambiguity or abuse of terms and phrases. If I am not much mistaken, such is the fact between the brother Inquirer and Philalethes. The former seems to regard the latter as holding the single act of immersion as the whole discipling institution; and the latter contemplates the former as teaching that faith alone, without immersion, constitutes a real disciple. We regret this misunderstanding, for we highly esteem them both, and regard them as both right. The terms real and formal, or nominal, in their various acceptations, seem to lie at the root of this whole matter. A disciple in determination, in purpose, or in heart, is by Philalethes called a real disciple, and one who has publicly confessed the Lord he calls a nominal disciple. Perhaps Inquirer regards these terms as necessarily implying a contrast, and that Philalethes teaches that a person may be a real disciple without immersion, and independent of it. Now, in our opinion there is no necessary contrast between real and formal as applied to a disciple; for while a person may be a formal and not a real disciple, he may be both a real and formal disciple in Philalethes' acceptation of these terms. With us a real disciple is a disciple in fact; not one who determines and purposes to be an avowed and constitutional follower of Jesus, but one who has consummated his purposes by actual and formal obedience.

We contend that a disciple in intention is not a disciple in fact, and that a real disciple is one who not only intends to be a follower of Jesus, but who actually keeps his injunctions. And still we hold that no one institution or act of obedience, however exact and formal, without a previous determination or change of heart, can avail any thing in constituting a disciple, or in finding acceptance with God. ED. M. H.

Philalethes' Reply to an Inquirer.

Dear Sir,

possible.

PHILALETHES' reply to an Inquirer shall be as brief as

1. The Inquirer seems to dismiss with a sneer the distinction which Philalethes has made between the terms commission and com mand. But will the Inquirer assert that the words commission and command are English synonimes, or are ever used promiscuously by a correct English writer? He presumes not. Commission always implies more or less of a discretionary power with respect to its execution; whereas command excludes every thing of the kind. A commanded action must be performed precisely, or in all respects, as it is commanded; otherwise the command is not obeyed. And Philalethes thinks that all inspired men did, from the beginning of divine revelation, rigidly comply with the commands of their inspirer: that they never substituted their own conceptions for the communications of the Divine Spirit; nor employed any motives,

inducements, considerations, or means of any kind of their own de vising, to induce the persons whom they addressed to become disciples or religious persons, instead of the motives, inducements, considerations, or means suggested to their minds by the all-wise God: in short, that they exercised no discretionary power, but strictly obeyed in all points the divine will.

2. When Philalethes wrote his essay on Matheteuo, he hoped his words were selected with so much caution, and his meaning expressed so clearly, that it was scarcely possible that they could be subjected to such misrepresentation and distortion as have been their lot. Philalethes never considered the command given to the Apostles to induce by suitable means (means furnished by God) the inhabitants of this world to become christians, to mean that these inhabitants were to become, "not secret or private disciples, but open and avowed disciples." On the contrary, he contends that Christ's command is to induce rational creatures to become first real disciples, a state which Philalethes considers perfectly consistent with either secret or avowed discipleship; and he further contends that unless they become first real disciples, even while their discipleship is yet secret, private, or unavowed; or, in other words, anteriorly to immersion, they can in the very nature of things be only hypocrites, when they proclaim themselves by immersion avowed disciples, as Simon Magus was, when by immersion he became an avowed disciple. And moreover, Philalethes thinks that this was the course which the Apostles pursued, when they proceeded to execute their Master's command. They first induced their hearers to become real disciples, and afterwards avowed disciples. And further he thinks that the examination previous to immersion, to which the Apostles subjected all applicants for immersion in their day, and to which all applicants for immersion, even in our day, have been subjected by those who immersed them, affords conclusive evidence. For if this antecedent examination was not instituted by the Apostles and other inspired immersers, and by all uninspired immersers since their time, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the applicants were or were not real christians, before they were suffered to avow discipleship, it is impossible to conceive for what purpose it was or is instituted. But if instituted for that purpose, it is manifest that the sort of disciples which the Apostles desired to make, and recognized by their solemn permission to be immersed, as made, were real and not immersed disciples. For it is obvious that the Apostles' recognition of disciples rested on a previous examination, and not on immersion. It is therefore untrue, that however real a disciple a person may have been, he would not have been recognized by the Apostles as such unless immersed. For in every instance of subsequent immersion, the Apostles did actually recognize the applicant as a real disciple before they suffered him to be immersed, and his subsequent immersion in every case was an open proclamation of their antecedent recognition: nor is the practice nor the doctrine altered to this day. To ascertain the real christianity of an applicant, an examination is instituted, and if imVOL. III. 44

mersion follows, that immersion is a proof, that in the judgment of the previous examiner, the applicant was anteriorly to immersion a real christian. And this fact, by the by, proves, 1st. That it is not by immersion, but by something anterior to immersion, that a person is made a real christian. 2. That this is the judgment of every examiner. 3. That immersion can only make nominal christians, whether true or false, as it made Simon Magus. Nay, the Inquirer's own language proves that he holds the same opinion. Let us go on, says he, to make disciples, immersing them. Immersing whom? Certainly the disciples which he had made. But if he immersed the disciples which he had made, they surely must have been made before they were immersed. But if he means that to make disciples and to immerse people is all one, why resort to such despicable tautology? For, on that supposition, the word immersing is a mere expletive. For undoubtedly the Inquirer will not assert that we are to make immersed disciples, and then immerse them.

3. As to obedience, Philalethes presumes that, as employed in sacred writ, the term denotes compliance with the whole will of God, giving no preference or precedence to any one part above another, other than he has given. But at the same time Philalethes thinks that this obedience, though in regard to its principle, or a disposition to yield it, it is an instantaneous act; yet in its actual rendition, must follow a natural or prescribed order, emanating from the various degrees of tendency to promote happiness which the several actions of which it is composed possess, and also from the various degrees of capacity to yield compliance which human creatures have acquired. No person, for example, can be considered as bound to perform the act of immersion before he has performed many other acts prescribed by God. God is the God of order, and the very acts of obedience due to him must be done in order. When, therefore, a human being has performed all the actions which God has prescribed as necessary to fit him to perform the act of immersion, he is bound to perform it without delay-and, certainly, not before. God commands no unqualified creature to work for him.

4. In his second paragraph the Inquirer seems to insinuate that Philalethes has departed from the rules of decorum, and it may be so. Humanum est errare. Hut where in Philalethes' writings has he resorted to such personalities as appear in this paragraph? Philalethes may be an old man, and even a Scotchman; but what has the Inquirer to do with such accidental matters, and what had these fortuitous circumstances to do with the cause of Jesus Christ? Philalethes thinks, extremely little.

5. Now for the inconsistency of Philalethes' sentiments. Every person knows that words are used even by the most correct writers, sometimes in their strict and proper sense, and sometimes in a looser and more popular acceptation. When discussing the subject alluded to in the Inquirer's quotation from the Harbinger, Philalethes conceived himself authorized to avail himself of this concession, and he did so. He used the phrase, "God's own unadulterated, unmixed