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But what shall we say to Mr. Norris, when it appears that he has made a most remarkable blunder respecting the very place where these gentlemen are said to have spent the morn of life. "The Carron Iron Works upon the River Clyde," is a topographical error, not quite so great, but nearly as glaring as it he had said London on the River Mersey, or Liverpool on the Thames. Any man engaged in commerce could have told him that Carron was not on the Clyde, but on the River Carron, or if in the hurry of vomiting out his bile he had taken breath to consult a Gazetteer, he would have escaped thus having put out one of the eyes of history.

Ignorance of one's own country is, like ignorance of one's own language, a mark of an uninformed mind; and how Mr. Norris can expect to be believed when he tells us about the early obscurity of Drs. Henderson and Paterson, while he betrays his ignorance of the place, is not easily accounted for.

If he writes for the public, let him pay a little more attention to the subject he writes about; let him inquire, and he will find that Carron and Clyde are on the two opposite sides of the kingdom; and when he is ignorant of so common-place a fact, let him allow some better informed man to write about the early history of Drs. Henderson and Paterson.

I am Sir, yours,
LOCALITY.

Glasgow, 26th Oct. 1822.

་་་་་་་་་

ON CONGREGATIONAL UNION.

(To the Editors.) GENTLEMEN, -When a man ventures to publish on an unpopular subject, he must expect to encounter a variety of objections from different quarters. That my sermon on Congregational Union has met with such gentle treatment, CONG. MAG. No. 63.

Your

is to me a striking proof that the taste for insulation, which has so long disfigured our churches, is about to yield to a policy more enlightened and effective. correspondent, "A Country Dissenting Minister," has done me honour by the manner in which he has spoken of the sermon in question; but, it appears to me, he has fallen into the error of almost every one who ventures to touch on the subject of congregational union, viz. that of summoning before the public mind a host of difficulties, (whether real or imaginary I will not pretend to say,) instead of strengthening the salutary impression, that there are no difficulties which resolute and harmonious efforts might not overcome. If congregational union be desirable, even on the principles of a justifiable expediency, let us not delay the happy consummation, by saturating the public mind with apprehensions and jealousies which tend only to distance the golden age of our polity, and to keep alive that love of sectional piety, which weakens the actual resources of the denomination, and exhibits it as less inviting to the wavering of other de nominations. Every great work has been achieved with difficulty; but is any goodly undertaking to be abandoned, because it requires wisdom and discretion to accomplish it? Your correspondent and myself are one, I perceive, in desiring to see the churches of the Congregational order more ostensibly united. We will not, therefore, strive about the modus operandi, or even about the extent to which the union should be pushed. These are questions to be adjusted at a future stage of the business, and if your intelligent correspondent will promise to lend his hearty assistance to any plan for union which may meet his approval, I think the day is not far distant when something valuable may be

T

effected. A public meeting, got
up with care and deliberation,
could not fail to be useful. I
trust, Gentlemen, the pages of
your Magazine will be open, from
time to time, to all temperate dis-
cussions on this momentous topic.
In this way you cannot fail to be-
nefit the denomination, to whose
interests your labours are profess-
edly devoted. The immediate ob-
ject which I have in view, in ad-
dressing you on the present occa-
sion, is to inform your correspon-
dent, that he has prematurely, in
the note appended to his excellent
paper, charged me with ignorance
of fact: the mistake is with him-
self, as he will find upon inquiry.
He refers altogether to another
matter. With thanks to him, and
ardent wishes for the speedy con-
solidation of our churches,

I remain, Gentlemen,
Yours, very respectfully,
JOHN MORISON.

1, Hans Place,

Jan. 20, 1823.

CONGREGATIONAL INSTITU

TION.

THE remarks which appeared in

books and tracts, now in my hands, which I intend to dispose of, and which I think would be suitable for the library, (this I consider would be the principal and most important branch of the establishment,) mostly relating to dissenting history, biography, and controversy, and to general theology.

That I may not be misunderstood, I beg explicitly to observe, that unless some steps shall have been taken, with a probability of ultimate success, towards the actual accomplishment of the plan, at the close of this year I shall consider myself released from this engagement, and at full liberty to dispose of the books referred to in any other manner.

I am, gentlemen,
Yours respectfully,

A LONDON DISSENTER. We must be allowed to add, that this offer comes from a gentleman who feels much interested in the proposed scheme, and who has every disposition to assist the undertaking.

་་་་་་་་་

TLED "SOCINIAN INTERPOLA-
TION DETECTED."

your number for November last, REPLY TO AN ARTICLE ENTIp. 597, and in that for January, this year, p. 15, on the desirableness of the formation of a Literary Institution in the Metropolis, for the use and benefit of the Congregational Denomination, are entirely coincident with my feelings on the subject, and if they have not excited, have revived and invigorated wishes and hopes long since formed, though always faint and languishing, but which the establishment of such an institution will be the means of realizing and gratifying. I therefore cheerfully make a tender of my assistance towards the accomplishment of the design, and in addition to pecuniary contribution, contribution, which I shall be willing to afford, I promise to reserve till the close of this year a considerable quantity of

GENTLEMEN,-Under the formidable head of "Socinian Interpolation Detected," a correspondent, in your last number, p. 30, charges, upon some unnamed "Socinian monthly publication," the corruption of a verse in the "Hymn to the Deity," from Mr. Bowring's Russian Anthology. I presume he refers to the Monthly Repository. Now, gentlemen, the fact is, that in that magazine the poem was printed verbatim et literatim from the first edition of Mr. Bowring's work. Your correspondent acknowledges that he consulted only the second edition; but what will your readers think of his correctness, to say nothing of "truth and honour," when

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MODES OF COLLECTION.

(To the Editors.) GENTLEMEN,-I have no doubt that with many of your reayou, ders, rejoice greatly at the various signs for good, which appear in the moral and spiritual world, one of the most obvious of which is that of cheerful benevolence and liberality. It is truly delightful to think of the princely sums which are contributed for the support of useful institutions, for individual cases of distress, and, in fact, for every plan of doing good, which the ingenuity of man can devise. It is true, that at places of worship, where collections are made, many

* We feel it necessary to state that, though the writer of the article on which this letter animadverts is personally unknown to us, the communication was inclosed in a recommendatory note from a respectable correspondent. We have not, to the present moment, seen either edition of the work in question, and can, of course, do nothing more than give the same currency to the defence, that we have given to the accusation.

persons do not give according to
their ability; and, it may be, many
pass by the plates, when held at
the doors, without giving any
thing at all. It is the latter cir
cumstance, I suppose, which has
given rise to a practice which
I am very sorry to see gaining
ground among enlightened Dis-
senters, namely that of handing
plates round from pew to pew;
there is something in this mode
of collecting repugnant to the
noble spirit of generosity, which
I am persuded generally pervades
our congregations something
which I can construe into nothing
less than an unmerited reflection
upon their munificence as a body.
If it be urged that more is col-
lected in this way, than by plates
at the doors, I reply, prove it by
an appeal to facts, for if the fear
of shame and observation should
induce some to give, who would
not otherwise have given, I feel
assured that the suspicion and
want of confidence, implied by
such a procedure, prevents many
from contributing so largely as
they had previously intended.
But admitting that more is col-
lected, is it prudent or right to
injure the feelings of a whole
auditory for the sake of a few
pounds; at most, I think it is
estimating their delicate sensi-
bilities at too low a price. All
that can be obtained by sound
arguments, forcible descriptions
or pathetic appeals, followed by
collections at the doors, I consider
to be a fair and an honourable
possession, but the system of
thrusting the plate into each pew,
and into each face, savours less of
propriety than of rudeness.
In
the hope, Sir, that this obnoxious
practice may be discontinued.
I remain,

Your obedient Servant,
E. S.

REVIEW OF BOOKS.

Essays on the Recollections which are to subsist between earthly Friends re-united in the World to Come; and on other Subjects connected with Religion, and in part with Prophecy. By Thos. Gisborne, M. A. 12mo. London: Cadell. 1822.

FEW subjects, not immediately connected with our personal interest in eternal life, can possess greater interest than the question, Shall our legitimate attachments be renewed in the world of glory? Are those tender and hallowed affections, which unite us in such intimate sympathy to our kindred and our friends, to be extinguished in the darkness of the grave, or are they to be rekindled at the lamp of eternity, and, purified from all earthly and passionate alloy, to become tributary to that consummate felicity, which is the inheritance of the saints in light? For our own parts, this is a point on which we cannot suffer ourselves to entertain the slightest doubt. We believe, with assurance, that those whom we have loved and lost in this world, and who left behind them a dying testimony to the sincerity of their unstained profession, will welcome us when we reach that Promised Land. Why should the anticipation of this pure blessedness be excluded from our forethoughts of heaven? Why, in that abode of joy, where the inhabitants will breathe the very element of love, and derive from it their spiritual health and their undecaying happiness, should this intense and enduring feeling be absent? God is love, and if his presence, and the communications of his infinite beatitude, be the great fountain of bliss in the heavenly state, those genuine, though inferior emanations of the same holy and elevated principle, which

strengthen and adorn the ties of kindred and of friendship, will not be withdrawn from those who shall dwell in the city of our God. If there were no other text in the Bible, and there are many,bearing upon this point, than the affirmation of our blessed Lord, that many shall come from the cast and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven,-we should deem this alone conclusive in favour not only of the recognition of departed saints in glory, but by clearest inference, of the joyful recollection of friends and relatives.

We are not, however, aware that Mr. Gisborne has succeeded in throwing new light upon this interesting and important subject. Mingled with much common-place disquisition, there is some specific and pointed argument; but for an inquiry like the present, which requires both large views and discriminating investigation, we cannot say that his habits of thought and composition appear to us peculiarly fitted. Mr. G. is a sensible man, and an elegant writer, and we have frequently derived much gratification from his writings; but in the instance before us, our admiration has, we confess, been less vividly excited. His first argument, from common consent, seems liable to the objections, that the opinions of mankind, on this point, are a mere transfer of earthly analogies to the modes of existence in a future state, and that their concurrence is suspicious, since it amounts to nothing more, than that all men are prompt to give credence to what they feel interested in believing. Now the happiness, in the present world, of the social being, is so directly influenced by certain associations,

that in the absence of a distinct revelation from God, nothing is more natural, and nothing less effective in the way of argument, than that he should carry those associations forward in his estimate of the enjoyments of a future life. And, since he has a positive interest in prolonging his state of happiness, since, too, man, as man, can have but an imperfect notion of the real nature of felicity, we shall find him mingling together all sorts of enjoyment to make up the idea of ultra-mundane bliss, and, among them, he will not fail to revivify the objects, animate and inanimate, which have afforded him the greatest quantum of delight in this world. Common consent, in the case of man's eternal destinies, can have no weight in reasoning, unless it can be traced up to the great primeval tradition, or referred to the law written on the heart, and, in the question now under consideration, we do not perceive that it has necessarily or probably any connexion with either. If, however, we have not always agreed with Mr. Gisborne in his processes of reasoning, yet, fully according with him in the general sentiment of his thesis, we as cordially coincide with the conclusions of his eloquent chapter in "application of the subject."

"Since in the world to come, departed spirits are to meet each other, mutually possessed of so many consciousnesses and recollections; how important an object does it become to every one so to conduct himself in the present life, that his re-union with former associates may excite, not pangs and reproaches in his own heart, but emotions of holy gratitude and delight! Who can estimate how large a portion of the character of any given individual has depended on other persons? most topics, a hasty estimate is commonly extravagant; on this subject it would fall below the truth.

On

If others stand responsible, each as to himself, for the use which they shall have made of the materials laid before them; we shall ourselves have to an

swer, at the tribunal of our Lord, for the materials which we have individually furnished to other men. We shall have to welcome the transports, or to sustain the cutting lamentations of those, to whose felicity we have ministered, or whose condemnation we have increased. What, on that great and universal day of assembly, will be the feelings of the parent, when he contemplates his child, then beheld standing to receive the everlasting sentence, whom he assiduously trained for the pursuits of mortal life; but negligently, as to the nurture and admonition of the Lord? What will be the sensations of the man of learning, who advanced his pupils, now before him at the tribunal of Christ, to be eminent scholars, but not to be wise and spiritual Christians? What will be the sinking of heart of the man of business, whose ordinary conversation and pro

ceedings were calculated to excite his

associates to seek first the treasures of the earth, not the kingdom of God, and his righteousness? How shall the ambitious man sustain himfelf, when he sees, face to face, those whom his society had ensnared to thirst for power and preeminence, instead of desiring that honour which cometh from God only?"

The <c

Essay on attestations furnished in the Bible to its own truth, by remarkable omissions and insertions," is of mixed merit. This mode of argument and illustration, requires the utmost discretion and skill in its management. It is easy to single out passages, and by dint of explanation to make them speak the required language, but it is extremely difficult to select appropriate sections, and to place them in such a conspicuous and commanding position, as shall strike the mind with clear and unhesitating conviction. Some of the instances cited by Mr. Gisborne, seem to us to prove nothing whatever of that which he intends them to demonstrate, and his elucidations have not by any means tended to make the matter clearer to our understandings. Of this kind of failure we should refer to the dissertation on Deuteronomy iii. 11. as a specimen; while on the other hand, the illustration of Deuteronomy xxxii. 48- 52,

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