June 13.-The Rev. Joseph FREE- June 20.-The Rev. AARON PICKMAN, as an Evangelist, at Ludlow, Vt. ET, as an Evangelist, at Boston. SerSermon by Elder Aaron Leland, of mon by the Rev. Mr. Fay of Charles. Chester.

town.

Public Affairs.

FOREIGN

lately been forwarded to this country

by Mr. Ashmun, the resident agent, GREAT BRITAIN. - The distresses which existed a few months since in the substance of which is given in the England, in consequence of numerous following summary by the editors of bankruptcies which happened, have the New York Observer. been succeeded by serious disturban- The most perfect health, we are inces in the manufacturing districts, formed, exists at the Colony, except. great numbers of the workmen having ing a few cases of chronic casualties, become riotous for want of employ- and a species of troublesome, but not ment. Large subscriptions have been dangerous, scorbutic affections. From raised among the wealthy for their re- the 17th of June, to the 1st of Janualief, and they appear now to have be- ry, only five deaths occurred, two of come quiet.

which were small children. The chil.

dren and young persons, above three GREECE.-- Missolonghi fell into the years in the Colony, appear to be, in hands of its enemies on the 23d of A- every respect, as healthy, muscular, pril, unable to sustain the increasing and vigorous, as the natives of the pressure of seige and famine longer. Coast. Adults, who have been the The destruction of life was indiscrim- same time in Africa, acquire a prediinate and very great. This event has lection for the climate, and enjoy equal added another page of terror to the health with those in America. history of Greece, and another shade The system of government adopted of guilt, we fear, to the apathy with in August, 1824, and since sanctioned which the Christian powers of Europe by the Board, has undergone no materegard this ruthless war.

rial alteration. It has proved itself

entirely sufficient; for the civil govBURMAH.-Official accounts state that ernment of the Colony possessos much the Burmese war is terminated. The of the Republican character. The conditions of peace are said to be the

constitution and laws appear to be the cessation of several provinces, and the pride of all. Every attempt to impede payment of a sum of money to the Brit- the movements of government awaish. The Burmese appear to have kens general indignation. been subdued rather by disease, chole

One hundred and twenty sections of ra morbus, than by battle; their en

plantation lands have been surveyed, emies, it is said, in a march of more

and allotted to as many different famithan a hundred miles, with little oppo- lies; but, with the exception of ten sition, through a country fortified with sections, given to the settlers on the stockacees, found the earth burthened St. Paul's river, all these lands are with the victims of this destructive but ill adapted, as respects their soil malady, in graves of twenty and forty. and location, to cultivation. Their Few wars have been waged in modern ability to obtain a subsistence by othtimes of which as to their origin and

er pursuits has induced the settlers, history, so little has been communica- too generally, without intending to ted to the world as that in Burmah. abandon the cultivation of their lands,

to defer this labour to a future period. AFRICA.—An interesting document, tremely well, until nearly harvest time,

The last year's crops succeeded exexhibiting a detailed statement respect- but were then, in a great measure, deing the Colony at Montserado, has stroyed by the animals and insects of

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the country. By clearing the lands, A schooner of ten tons has been conthis will hereafter be prevented. The structed by nine blacks, under the diSt. Paul's territory appears to possess rection of the Colonial Agent, which great fertility, and every advantage for visits, once a fortnight, Rio Sisters agricultural improvements. “Nothing and Grand 'Bassa; and freighted both (says Mr. Ashmun) but disasters of the ways, generally carries and brings mermost extraordinary nature can prevent chandize and produce to the amount the settlement of sturdy farmers now of from four to eight hundred dollars happily seated on it, from making their per trip. Two small churches have way directly to respectability and a- been erected, under circumstances of bundance."

a most gratifying nature. The Colonists generally live in a Five schools, exclusive of Sunday style of neatness and comfort, approach- Schools, have been supported during ing to elegance in many instances, un- the year, and still continue in operaknown before their arrival in Africa. tion. The children give evidence that A family twelve months in the Colo- they possess good mental powers.ny, without the means of furnishing a Should emigration cease, for a few comfortable table, is unknown; and an months, to throw little ignorants into individual, of whatever age or sex, the colony, the phenomenon of a child without an ample supply of decent ap- of five years unable to read, would not, parel, cannot be found. All are suc- it is believed, exist in the Colony. cessfully building houses, and improve The militia are organized into two ing their premises. Every family has corps; the artillery, of fifty, and the the means of employing from four to infantry, of forty men, on several trysix native labourers, at an expense of ing occasions, have shown their solfrom four to six dollars per month. On dier-like conduct. There belongs to urgent occasions, individual settlers the establishment 15 large carriage have advanced, repeatedly, for the pub- and 3 small pivot guns, all fit for serlic service, produce to the amount of vice. The Agent proposes to open a from 300 to 600 dollars. Mechanics double battery on the height of Thomreceive for wages $2 per day, and com- sontown, for the protection of vessels mon labourers from 75 cents to $1 75 in the roadstead. cents. Their services are in great de- The religious character of the Colomand. A surplus quantity of rice is nists is too flattering, says Mr. Ashat present raised by the natives, and mun, to the hopes of the pious friends may be cheaply purchased. Several of the Colony, not to be admitted withhundred tons of camwood annually pass out hesitation. The Sabbath is obthrough the hands of settlers. The served with strictness. The Sunday amount of Ivory bought and sold dur schools both for settlers and natives, ing a year is estimated at from five to are well sustained and attended, and eight thousand dollars. Domestic an- productive of the happiest fruits; and imals, though not numerous, are on several charitable societies, particularthe increase. Fish are excellent and ly for the tuition and bringing up of abundant. By a few drafts in the the native children, appear to have morning, a thousand pounds may be been undertaken in a truly Christian obtained weekly. On a given quanti- spirit. “During the latter half of the ty of ground, the crop of rice is found year, two commodious and beautiful to be double that of an ordinary wheat chapels have been erected, each sufficrop, and obtained with half the labour. cient to contain several hundred wor

Fort Stockton has been entirely re- shippers. They stand on the confines built, and in a very improved style.- of a once gloomy forest consecrated to The new Agency house is nearly com- the demon worship of the natives; and pleted, and only waits to be finished while they are beheld by Christians as with American materials. The gov- new and joyful landmarks of the wideernment house, at the St. Paul's will ning empire of the Son of God, are resoon be finished. A telegraphic com- garded by the neighbouring tribes as munication is to be established between monuments of the incipient overthrow the two settlements, by means of sig- of their superstitions, and as prophetAals from the cupola of this house and ic beacons of its hastening dissolution.” the flag-staff of Fort Stockton.

More than fifty persons have in the fif. teen months past, embracing nearly been made by the Chief of Grand Basthe whole young adult population, be- sa. It is thought that settlements may come the serious and devout profes- be commenced at both these places. sors of Christianity..“ The Colony,” Thus, the Society has jurisdiction says Mr. Ashmun," is, in deed and re- along more than one hundred miles of ality, a Christian community. The coast, and this obtained at a trifling Faith of the Everlasting Gospel, has expense. become the animating spring of action, The just, humane, and benevolent the daily rule of life, and the source of policy pursued by the Colonists in all ineffable hope and enjoyment, to a their intercourse with the native tribes, large proportion of the Colonists. I has given a great and increasing influhave seen,” he adds, “the proudest ence over them. We have practically and profanest foreigners that ever vis- taught them, says Mr. Ashmun, in the ited the Colony, trembling with amaze- spirit of the parent institution, that one ment and conviction, and almost lite- end of our settlement in their country, rally in the descriptive language of is to do them good. We have adoptPaul, “Find the secrets of their hearts ed sixty of their children, and are made manifest, and falling down upon bringing them up as the other chiltheir faces, worship God, and report dren, and have shown a tender concern that God was with this people of a for their happiness, and a sacred retruth.”

gard to their rights, and have thus givExcept for military offences, not a en them a new and surprising view of single individual of the Colonists has the character of civilized man. Our suffered imprisonment for a period of influence over them, he adds, is untwenty-two months-profane swearing bounded. Thieves and other malefucis held in abhorrence. Mr. Ashmun, tors have, in too many instances to be however, expresses his regret that recited, been voluntarily given up to 'there has been too little punctuality in the Colony for punishment. One of the payment of debts, and the moral the most obvious effects of the Colony, force of a contract has been too little has been to check the Slave Trade. felt.

We have, says Mr. Ashmun, I think The St. Paul's Territory has alrea. I may confidently say, banished it from dy become the residence of a number this district of the coast. Perhaps it of families. A cession of country has is yet to be seen that the most barbabeen made to the Colony by King Free- rous of practices may be undermined man of Young Sestus, and a factory by an influence as silent and unpreestablished there for the purchase of tending as the persuasive power of rice. A similar cession of territory has Christian example.

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Answers to Correspondents.

« Extracts from a Diary" by B, received sometime since, contain some interesting sketches, but are hardly admissable as a whole.

We have not yet found time to peruse the discussion of Dinarnens. It shall be considered soon.

A reply to ALEPH will appear, probably next month, or be otherwise disposed of, according to the direction of the writer.

*** It has been noticed probably by our readers, that from the commencement of the current volume, the mechanical execution of this work has not been good. The evil has been owing chiefly to the unfaithfulness of the person to whom, in the frequent and necessary absence of the late publisher, the press was entrusted. The business is now committed to two young gentlemen who have established an office with an apparatus wholly new, and in whose hands, it is expected, the work will be improved. Improvements in respect to paper must, from a regard to uniformity, be deferred to another year.

THE

CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR.

No. 8.)

AUGUST.

(1826.

Beligious.
For the Christian Spectator. Theology was unusual, for so late

a convert. Possessing a masculine LAY PRESBYTERS, NO. XIX. understanding, his decisions were

often too prompt, but readily abanAURELIUS AUGUSTINUS was born at

doned for the sake of the truth. Tagaste, in Numidia, A. D. 354; His opinions were in high repute, taught rhetoric at Carthage, Rome, and of great utility at the reformaand Milan ; and being of dissolute tion, where also some of his errours morals, adopted the errour of the

were adopted. In ecclesiastical Manichees. Convinced by Am

government, he professed conforbrose, he became a Christian, in mity to the canons and customs of his thirty-second year, and returned the church. Thus when he nomfrom Milan to his native city. Five inated Eradius the presbyter to beyears afterwards he was ordained

come his successor, and obtained presbyter by Valerius, at Hippo the vote of the people, he obseryed, Regius ; and in 395 was received that he had been ordained bishop into the episcopate. Of his con- in the life time of Valerius, contratemporaries, Ambrose died in the ry to a canon of the council of fourth century; Chrysostom and Nice, but of which neither of them Jerom in the fifth ; the former he had had knowledge; the reprehensurvived more than twenty, and the sion he had received on that occalatter about ten years. These with sion, he wished Eradius to escape; Nornus, Synesius, Sulpicius, Se- but the vote he caused to be recorverus, and Paulinus, were deemed ded, and subscribed by the people, orthodox writers ; Socrates the his- and introduced the young man inte torian and Pelagius were of the op- a portion of his labours.* posite character. He died in Hip- That the office of bishop was po, in 430, whilst it was beseiged founded upon the custom of the by the Vandals. His works are church, he acknowledges in a letcontained usually in ten tomes and ter to Jerom; “ I entreat you to a supplement. His confessions correct me faithfully when you see constitute an edifying history of his I need it; for although according early life, and of his views at differ to the titular distinctions which the ent periods. His retractations

custom of the church hath introdushould be consulted with the parts ced, the office of bishop may be of his works, which they correct. greater than an eldership, nevertheHis knowledge of the Greek, deem- less in many respects Augustine is ed by himself defective, was obvi- inferiour to Jerom.”! To suppose ously competent ; but he excelled in the Latin language, and could * Tom. II. 515. Epist. 110. not have been ignorant of the Puaie.

+-"rogo ut me fidenter corrigas, ubi His comparative proficiency in mihi hoc opus esse peropexeris. Quan

1826.- No. 8.

48

he meant hereby the abandonment church herself calls them fathers, of a known scriptural superiority, she has borne them, and she has and the depreciation of a divine placed them in the seats of the faright into a mere titular pre-emi- thers."'* He acted as a christian nence, is an impeachment of the should do ; the church of Christ piety of Augustine. The language was then, and still is such, though jam ecclesiæ usus obtinuit is a plain the original form of government acknowledgment, that episcopal su- may not exist in the world. The periority was not original, but mere- investigation of truth is rarely unly founded on the custom of the important; but on these points nechurch, and no prevention of the cessary only, when errour would precedence due to Jerom for his unchurch those whom God accepts; distinguished learning and knowl- or where primitive truth is denied, edge. Had Augustine's compli- and its advocates arraigned by the ment been made at the expense of ignorant. truth, it would have been also an An argument has been attempi. imputation of ignorance and vanity ed for lay presbyters from an episto Jerom. That canonical distinc- tle which Augustine wrote to his tions originated in custom, and church at Hippo,t commencing were ratified by mere human au- with these words ; “ Dilectissimis thority was then known; and when fratribus, clero, senioribus et unitruth demanded from the bishop an versæ plebi ecclesiæ Hipponuisis." acknowledgment of his personal in- To the brethren greatly beloved, the feriority to the presbyter, it was fit clergy,f the elders, “and all the also, that he should wave the dis- people of the church at Hippo." tinction, which custom had intro- The next epistle is directed to the duced in opposition to the word of same church, and begins with “ DiGod.

lectissimis fratribus, conclericis, et He has on the question, wheth- universæ plebi ; To the brethren er those charged with false doc- most beloved, the clergy, and all the trines be in the church or not, dis- people, &c. These two letters were carded the authority of the most written to the same church, consevenerable of the fathers, and the quently the same officers and peoobligation of the decrees of coun- ple were addressed in both. The cils, and affirmed that the ques- two first terms“ dilectissimis fration can be decided by the sacred tribus," occurring in each salutascriptures alone.* But on the or- tion, may have been intended of all der of the church he sided with Je- the worshippers, or of the clergy rom, and like him acquiesced in only. Clero the clergy in the one its government, apprehending no epistle corresponds to conclericis, possible advantage from opposing in the same sense, in the other. the customs of the church, the can- senioribus, the elders, expressed in ons of councils, and the laws of the first, are included in the unithe empire. The ecclesiastical ad- verse plebi of the second. The ministration was not then a matter conclericis of the second being preof controversy. “ 'The bishops, cisely equivalent to the clero of the who are this day throughout the world, whence sprung they? The ** Hodie, episcopi qui sunt per totum