EDUCATION. THERE is a fact, which is most im QUARTERLY LIST OF portant to keep in view, namely, that in England, and in every other country ORDINATIONS AND INSTALLATIONS. rapidly advancing in civilization, offences against the person are diminished, precisely in the proportion that the means JOHN B. HAGUE, Bap. ord. pastor, Eastport, Maine, Sept. 23, 1835. T. CURTIS, Bap. inst. pastor, Bangor, Me. Sept. 30. 14. ANSON SHELDON, Cong. inst. pastor, Falmouth, Me. Oct. S. TENNEY, Cong. ist. pastor, Ellsworth, Me. Nov. 11. BENJAMIN RICE, Cong. inst. pastor, Buxton, Me. Dec. 9. ALVAH SPAULDING, Cong. ord. pastor, Cornish, New 21. Νον. 3. of education are enlarged. The greater JOHN N. WHIPPLE, Cong. inst. pastor, Dixmont, Me. Oct. exhibition of offences has been found, not only in England, but in France, in the United States, in Switzerland, to be limited to the smaller offences against property. For example--in London and Middlesex, as stated by Mr. Peel in the House of Commons, the number of commitments in 1820 was 2,773; in 1826, 3,457; increase of commitments 684 ;-in 1820, of these commitments, the number for larceny, was 1,384;-in 1826, 2,118; increase of commitments for larceny, 734. Thus, we see, that whilst in 1826, there was a large increase of offences against property, there was an actual diminution of crimes against the person. MAXIMS. WE observe a contrariety in some maxims to one another. Pope, the poet, has a line, "A little learning is a dangerous thing," which we often hear repeated, as a maxim, by those who have but a very little themselves. We have also this other maxim, "Half a loaf is better than no bread;" and this is certainly true of bread. Is it not likely to be true of knowledge also? Try it in a few practical cases. A little knowledge of navigation is better to the sailor than no knowledge. A little knowledge of soils, and seasons, and cropping, and stock, is better for the farmer than no knowledge. A little knowledge of tailoring is better to the tailor than no knowledge. A little knowledge of anatomy is better to the surgeon than no knowledge. The truth is, that much knowledge is the best thing; a little knowledge the next best; and no knowledge the worst of all. The line of the poet is good in the sound, bad in the sense. FALSE despatch is one of the most dangerous things to business that can be. It is like that which the physicians call pre-digestion, or hasty digestion, which is sure to fill the body full of crudities, and secret seeds of diseases. I knew a wise man had it for a by-word; "Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner."-Bacon. STORY HEBARD, Cong. ord. evang. Lebanon, N. H. Oct. Dec. 9. Dec. 16. LYMAN CULVER, Bap. ord. pastor, West Roxbury, Vermont, Oct. 27, 1833. ERASTUS DICKINSON, Cong. ord. pastor, Canton, Massa- CHRISTOPHER M. NICHOLS, Cong. ord. pastor, Gloucester Harbor, Mass. Sept. 29. Sept. 29. MARTYN TUPPER, Cong. inst. pastor, E. Longmeadow, PAUL COUCH, Cong. inst. pastor, N. Bridgewater, Mass. 14. DANIEL E. BROWN, Epis. ord. priest, New York, N. Y. EDMUND EMBURY, Epis. ord. priest, New York, N. Y. ZENAS BLISS, Cong. ord. evang. Sheridan, N. Y. Oct. 28. ORSON P. CLINTON, Cong. ord. pastor, Lewis, N. Y. THOMAS H. SKINNER, D. D. Pres. inst. pastor, New York, CHARLES JONES, Epis. ord. deacon, Brooklyn, N. Y. Nov. 29. DANIEL BEERS, Pres. inst. pastor, Greenport, L. I. N. Y. HUGH L. WILSON, Pres. ord. evang. Elizabethtown, New WILLIAM BUSHNELL, Pres. inst. pastor, Parsippany, N. J. JOHN ANDERSON, Pres. ord. pastor, Baskingridge, N. J. THOMAS P. HUNT, Pres. inst. pastor, Newark, N. J. Nov. 3. N. J. Dec. 7. SAMUEL H. McDONALD, Pres. ord. evang. Cranberry, JOHN SHARON, Pres. inst. pastor, Wysox, Pennsylvania, WILLIAM P. HILL, Pres. ord. evang. Callihan's Mills, RANDOLPH BRADFORD, Pres. ord. evang. Barnwell Dis- WILLIAM B. YATES, Pres. ord. Charleston, S. C. Dec. 8. JACOB FLINT, Unit. Cohasset, Massachusetts, October, 1835. NICHOLAS B. WHITMAN, æt. 64, Cong. Hingham, Mass. DAVID L.. PERRY, æt. 59, Cong. Sharon, Connecticut, Oct. 25, 1835. HENRY A. ROWLAND, æt. 72, Cong. Windsor, Conn. Nov. 28. HENRY LINES, æt. 53, Bap. New Haven, Conn. December. NICHOLAS LANSING, æt. 87, Tappan, New York, Sept. TIMOTHY DWIGHT, Moscow, N. Y. Oct. 13. JOHN CORNWELL, æt. 62, Millstone, New Jersey, Nov. 15. ROBERT GRAHAM, Pres. Newcastle, Delaware, Nov. 4, 1835. JAMES MAGRAW, D. D. æt. 61, West Nottingham, Mary- P. W. CLENNY, æt. 23, Meth. Epis. Camden, South Carolina, ELIJAH SULLIVAN, Bap. ord. evang. Sarepta, Alabama, EDWARD P. POSTELL, æt. 38, McIntosh, S. C. Oct. 7. JOHN H. NORMENT, Epis. ord. priest, Franklin, Tennessee, NATHAN W. MUNROE, Epis. ord. priest, Franklin, Tenn. Nov. 22. STEPHEN SAUNDERS, æt. 59, Pres. Milan, Ohio, June 3, JONATHAN WINCHESTER, æt. 54, Geauga Co. O. Aug. 17. FREDERICK W. GRAVES, Pres. ord. pastor, Alton, Illinois, GILBERT FAY, æt. 32, Cong. Wadsworth, O. Nov. 27. Nov. 18, 1835. Whole number in the above list, 80. Whole number in the above list, 23. SUMMARY. STATES. 39 Maine....... 7 New Hampshire.......... 5 From 20 to 30............ 2 30 40....... 80 Vermont........ 1 3 Massachusetts......... 50........... 1 Connecticut......... 5 New York............. 70............ 4 New Jersey........... 3 5 2 80............. 2 Delaware............... 1 Maryland Not specified........ 5 South Carolina....... 1 2 2 Ohio............. 5 2 South Carolina....... 3 Total..... 23 Illinois........... 1 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN EDUCATION SOCIETY. FEBRUARY, 1836. THE LAST THURSDAY OF FEBRUARY. A letter from Dr. Scudder of Ceylon, addressed individually to the Young Men in the colleges and seminaries of learning in the United States of America, who have not yet chosen the Lord Jesus as their portion. MY DEAR FRIEND, You may think it rather a singular circumstance, that one who is above 12,000 miles from America, and who is moreover a total stranger, should be the author of a letter to you. But pass by this and kindly bestow your attention upon what I have to say. This is the day which has been set apart by many Christians, as a day of fasting and prayer in your behalf. There are various reasons, which, as they think, imperiously demand such a course of procedure. Several of these I will mention. In the first place, they feel that you are waging a warfare with your Creator, which they exceedingly desire to see terminated; a warfare which aims at no less than the destruction of his government throughout the universe; yea, which aims at HIS OWN destruction. You perhaps start back with horror at the thought; but if you will analyze your conduct, you will find that this is the only legitimate construction which can be put upon it. God has a right to you and yours. He has set up a kingdom in this world, and commanded you as one of his subjects to render him your obedience. The essence of this obedience consists in an entire surrender of the heart to him, and an aim to glorify him in every thought, word, and action. Neither of these have you done. Consequently, you are in a state of enmity with him. You virtually declare that you will not obey his laws. Your language is, What is the Almighty, that I should serve him?" In the second place, they feel that such conduct will be disastrous only to yourself. God is almighty. He will maintain his authortly; and the warfare in which you are engaged, will certainly end in your defeat and utter ruin. You have an instructive exhibition of the consequences of such a warfare, in the angels who kept not their first estate. They were expelled from heaven and shut up in hell. Of course God will make no distinction between your con VOL. VIII. duct and theirs. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." And remember that if you die in your sins, you die to enter upon a state of wretchedness which is to continue forever. You will be obliged to wear out eternal ages in bearing the wrath and curse of a righteous and just God: to become a prey to that worm which never dies, and to that fire which is never to be quenched. O, it is this latter circumstance which overwhelms the minds of Christians, and which, to say nothing of other reasons, constrains them to prostrate themselves at the footstool of sovereign Mercy, and plead that God may save you from so tremendous a doom. In the third place, they feel that you are acting a part, which even you, in your mo. ments of proper reflection, will acknowledge to be exceedingly ungrateful. God is your creator, your preserver, your bountiful benefactor. From your earliest years to this moment, he has caused your cup to overrun with blessings. When you have been hungry, he has fed you. When you have been thirsty, he has given you drink. When you have been sick, he has directed to, and blest the means made use of for your recovery. You are alive and well this day, while many who commenced life with you, have been cut down and consigned to everlasting burnings. These mercies from a Being whom you have daily been provoking for many years, you will acknowledge, ought to be rewarded by a different course of conduct. Great, however, as these mercies are, they are small when compared with the great spiritual benefits conferred upon you. When you was under sentence of everlasting condemnation, he parted with his only begotten Son to die for you. Be astonished, O ye heavens! wonder, O thou earth! at this exhibition of divine mercy. Yes, to rescue you from eternal torment, Jesus left the joys of heaven, came down and sojourned upon earth, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. For you he agonized in the garden, and hung with streaming veins upon the cross. For you he cried out, My God, my God, why hast 33 thou forsaken me? For you he bowed his head and died. In the fourth place, they feel that your conduct is not only ungrateful, but highly criminal. Though I have touched upon this point before, allow me to dwell a moment more upon it. Tell me, For what were you made? Let couscience, let reason furnish the reply in the secrecy of retirement; when none but the eyes of Him who created you, are upon you. Look at yourself, an intellectual being, made in the image of God, and destined to immortality. What do you conceive was the design of God's creating you and endowing you with such powers? was it that you night live for self, that you might promote your own aggrandizement, that you might obtain the applauses of your fellow men?-No.-But that you might glorify God and do good to others. Will a man rob God? Yet he who withholds from God his affections and services, robs him of his due. Creation is undoubtedly the most perfect ground of property. We say, and very correctly too, that whatever a man makes is his own. Now God made you, and you are therefore his, without the least qualification. He has an absolute right to command your services. Not only are his creatures his property, but all theirs is his: their time, their faculties of soul and body, their learning, their possessions, their very sources of enjoyment are his. He has, therefore, an indisputable right to claim that you and all you have should be devoted to him, and expended in promoting his glory. Consequently, you have no more right to employ your talents to the promotion of your own interests, than to take another man's property. Oh, let me entreat you to beware how you any longer pervert the talents God has given you. Remember that your day of reckoning is just at hand. In the fifth place, they feel that you may become much happier by embracing the Saviour, than you can be in your present situation. This opinion, they are aware is at variance with that of the worldling. He would fain persuade you, that Christians are gloomy, unhappy beings, and that happiness is to be found only in his ranks. But you must remember that he is very unfit to sit in judgment upon things of which he knows nothing. Were a Hottentot to see a Herschel so engaged in his contemplations of the heavenly bodies, as to be lost to every object around him, he would be ready enough to pronounce him a madman. him, however, enjoy his intellectual feast for an hour, and he would long to be a participator with him in his joys. The worldling must taste of the pleasures of religion, before you are to pay the least attention to his opinion. He who addresses you was once a worldling. Religion then possessed no charms. But the scene has been reversed. He has tasted its pleasures, and is Let happy to assure you, that he would not give one hour of the enjoyment he has found in it, for all the vain pleasures you have ever enjoyed. Nothing, my dear young friend, can be more preposterous, than for one who has no other portion than this world, to talk of enjoying happiness. I should as soon expect to hear of a man who was going to a place of execution, talking of enjoying happiness. What, a man be happy, when the God who made him is his enemy, and against whom it may be the gates of heaven are barred forever! A man be happy, who, ere to-morrow's sun arises, may be writhing and weltering in the flames below!* Go to the death-beds of those who have given the pleasures of the world a full trial, and learn their utter vanity." Their departure is without peace. Clouds of horror lower upon their closing eyelids, most sadly foreboding the blackness of darkness forever. When the last sickness seizes their frame and the inevitable change advances, when they see the fatal arrow fitting to their strings, see the deadly anchor aiming at their heart, and feel the invenomed shaft fastening in their vitals, alas, what fearfulness comes upon them; what horrible dread overwhelms them. How do they stand shuddering and aghast upon the tremendous precipice, excessively afraid to plunge into the abyss of eternity, yet utterly unable to maintain their standing on the verge of life." O what pale reviews, what startling prospects conspire to augment their sorrows. They look backward and behold a most melancholy scene. Sins unrepented of, mercy slighted, and the day of grace ending. They look forward, and nothing presents itself but the righteous Judge, the dreadful tribunal and a most solemn reckoning. They roll around their affrighted eyes on attending friends. If accomplices in debauchery, it sharpens their anguish to consider this further aggravation of their guilt, that they have not sinned alone; but drawn others into the snare. If religious acquaintances, it strikes a fresh gash into their hearts, to think of never seeing them any more, but only at an unapproachable distance, separated by the unpassable gulf. Thus they lie groaning out the poor remains of life; their enjoyment, is often the victim of indescribable The worldling, even in the midst of his supposed wretchedness. This was remarkably exemplified in the case of the celebrated Col. Gardiner. "As he had a strong constitution of body, and a great flow pated companions, he seemed as amply qualified as of animal spirits, and a large circle of gay and dissimost men to range in the field of animal enjoyments, and extract from it, all that it is capable of yielding. enced that even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, Yet in the meridian of his joys, he bitterly experiand the end of that mirth is heaviness. Being at one time congratulated by some of his dissolute companions, on his distinguished felicity, and a dog happengroaning inwardly and saying to himself, 'O that I ing to come into the room, he could not forbear were that dog."" limbs bathed in sweat; their hearts strug-insect in the beams of the sun, exulting, yet gling with convulsive throes; pains unsup- almost trembling, while I gaze on the exportable throbbing through every pulse, cessive brightness, and wondering with unand innumerable darts of agony transfixing utterable wonder, why God should deign their conscience." 66 O time! time!" cried thus to shine upon a sinful worm. A sinout the wretched Altamont, "it is fit that gle heart and a single tongue seem altothou shouldst thus strike thy murderer to gether inadequate to my wants. I want a the heart! How art thou fled forever. A whole heart for every separate emotion, month! O for a single week! I ask not and a whole tongue to express that emofor years, though an age were too little for tion." Again, "I can find no words to exthe much I have to do. Remorse for the press my happiness. I seem to be swimpast throws my thoughts on the future.ming in a river of pleasure, which is carryWorse dread of the future strikes it back on ing me on to the great fountain. Last night, the past. I turn and turn and find no ray. I had a full, clear view of death as the king And is there another hell. O thou blas-of terrors, how he comes and crowds the pour phemed yet indulgent Lord God! hell itself will be a refuge, if it hides me from thy frown.' In that dread moment when the frantic soul sinner to the very verge of the precipice of destruction, and then pushes him down headlong. But I felt that I had nothing to do with this, and I loved to sit like an infant at the feet of Christ, who saved me from this fate. I felt that death was disarmed of all its terrors; all that he could do, would be to touch me and let my soul loose to go to my Saviour. My soul, instead of growing weaker and more languishing as my body does, seems to be endued with an angel's energies, and to be ready to break from the body and join those around the throne." "I have suffered twenty times; yes, to speak within bounds, twenty times as much as I could in being burnt at the stake, while my joy in God so abounded as to render my sufferings not only tolerable but welcome." he is present with me, no event can in the "God is literally now my all in all. While least diminish my happiness; and were the whole world at my feet trying to minister When you have witnessed the end of the wicked, go to the sick and dying chambers of Christians, and learn the pleasures of religion. "I am going to mount Zion," said the Rev. Dr. Payson, "to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-to my comfort, they could not add one drop to the cup." Born, and to God the judge of all. The ce- God shall wipe away all tears from thine "It seems as if the promise, lestial city is full in my view. Its glories beam upon me; its breezes fan me; its odors eyes, was already fulfilled in me as it reare wafted to me; its sounds strike upon my shed now; but those of love, and joy, and spects tears of sorrow. ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. thankfulness." Nothing separates me from it, but the river of death, which now appears as an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a single step. when ever God shall give permission. The Sun of righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as he approached, and now he fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float like an * The death-bed scene mentioned above, of course I did not witness; but I have witnessed those both of the righteous and the wicked. I have seen the joy of the one, and the distress of the other. Never shall I forget the awful death of a young person, about twenty years of age, who was a patient of mine. Horror-past imagination sat lowering upon her brow, while she stood shuddering and aghast upon the tremendous precipice. I heard her dolefu! cries. She fell-I saw her no more. Would that I could present her before you, as she appeared while reason retained its powers, that you might hear the solemn warnings she gave the young, not to put off repentance as she had done. And would that I could also show you that mournful countenance which remained as a sad monument of the wreck there had been within, long after death had closed her eyes forever. Never, never, shall I forget it. I have no tears to that you may, by embracing the Saviour, be In the sixth place, they feel persuaded the instrument of great blessings to others. whether as a statesman, a physician, a lawIn whatever situation you may be placed, yer, a merchant, a farmer, or a minister of the gospel, your influence on the side of evil or good may be immense. If your example is bad, thousands may perhaps imitate it, and curse you forever in the world to come. If on the contrary it is good, many by seeing your good works, may be induced to glorify your Father who is in heaven. Especially, should you become a minister of the gospel, it is believed your sphere of usefulness may be very large. You may be made the instrument of rescuing multitudes from the wrath to come. O that the Head of the church would set his seal upon you for this purpose. O that you might from this day be induced to count all things as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord, and in his strength resolve to become an ambassador of the |