or station. The work contains more of compilation than originality. It may be needful, however, to observe, that though its appearance is, perhaps, late, as regards some recent publications, yet the design of it was formed when few of them were in existence. Much of it has been in manuscript for years, though its public appearance has been delayed from various causes.'

In this second edition there are various alterations and amendments; but as it never fell to our lot to see the first, we cannot pronounce on their character and value. We apprehend, however, from an intimation in the author's preface to this new edition, that we should greatly prefer the old. The alterations, he informs us, are chiefly in relation to those passages which allude to the coming of Christ, concerning which he has, since the volume was originally published, obtained some additional light. We regret to perceive, from his reflections on such passages, that the author has lately become affected with the Millenarian mania, now so rife in the world; and, in consequence, several of his emendations are influenced by his recent hallucinations. It is gratifying, however, to perceive, amid his melancholy descriptions and prognostications, that the author is no accuser of the brethren;" utters no reproaches, denounces no anathemas against those who differ from himself. His lectures are eminently serious, practical, and liberal. They breathe, in general, the pure spirit of Chris tianity, and discover the intense solicitude of the author for the spiritual benefit of those, whose private or domestic devotions he may be the means of assisting.

66

As a second volume is forthcoming on the Epistles and Revelations, we shall content ourselves with this mere notice, reserving any additional remarks we might be disposed to make on the general merits of the work, till it is completed; assuring our readers, however, in the mean time, that, with the exceptions to which we have alluded, we think the work highly calculated to assist in the worship, and promote the spiritual benefit of the domestic circle.

The work is published without the text, and the Expository Lectures are

Notes. Part 1. 5s.

Extracts of Letters to a Christian Friend, by a Lady, with an Introductory Essay, by Thos. Erskine, Esq. 12mo. 2s. Portrait of John the Baptist; or an illustration of his History and Doctrine. By Henry Belfrage, D. D 12mo. 3s. 6d.

A Memoir of Jane E. Taylor, who died in the fourteenth year of her age. By the Rev. Thomas Lewis. 24mo.

Mental Discipline; or Hints on the Cultivation of Intellectual and Moral Habits, addressed particularly to Students in Theology and Young Preachers. By Henry Forster Burder, M. A.

Edition. 12mo. 5s.

Third

A Funeral Sermon for the Rev. W.

Roby, of Manchester. By John Clunie,

LL.D.

Indian Cries to British Humanity, relating to the Suttee, Infanticide, British Connexion with Idolatry, Ghaut Murders, and Slavery in India, &c. By J. Peggs, late Missionary in Orissa.

The Ecclesiastical Polity, and other Works of Richard Hooker, with his Life by Izaac Walton, and Strype's InterBy B. Hanbury. polations, &c. &c.

3 vols. 8vo.

Eight Discourses to Youth, with a Memoir of the Author's Eldest Son. By J. Humphreys, LL.D.

A Statement of the Nature and Objects of the Course of Study, in the Class of Logic, and the Philosophy of the Human Mind, in the University of London. By the Rev. John Hoppus, A.M.

By an enumeration I have just made, I calculate that the miuisters of religion of all denominations, in the United States, do not fall far short of ten thousand. Of these, 1289 are Presbyterians, 800 Congregationalists or Independents, 2749 Baptists, 1642 Wesleyan Methodists, 507 Episcopalians. Evangelical Lutherans, 200; Reformed Dutch, 117; German Reformed Church, 90; Free Will Baptists, 242; Christian Society, 250; Unitarians, 150; Universalists, 140; Cumberland Presbyterians, 60; Swedenborgians, 26; Shakers, 45; Mennonites, 200; Tankers, 30; Six principle Baptists, 30; Seventh-day Baptists, 20; Several small Sects of Methodists, 255; Free Communion Baptists, 23; Moravians, 23. If I have counted correctly, these, together, make 8934. The Roman Catholics are not included, nor are my documents, by any means, perfect; I presume, however, that there are enough priests and other ministers not enumerated to make up the 10,000.

Our population we put down at 12,500,000, which increases at the rate of 400,000 per annum. We are a prolific generation, and are therefore constrained to mighty efforts to meet the spiritual wants of the people. I conjecture that about 6500 of the ministers of the Gospel are really such, and evangelical in heart and head. Of many of the preceding sects, I personally know nothing, never having seen an individual connected with them; such, for instance, as the Tankers, Mennonites, &c. The Tankers have, it is said, 3000 communicants, and the Mennonites, 20,000; but where they are to be found, I know not; but presume in the interior of Pensylvania, and the middle states, for a darker region is not easily to be found in this country. What portion of our citizens are Roman Catholics it is difficult to say, probably, however, a million are under the dominion of "the Beast." They are mostly emigrants; Louisiana you also know was originally Roman Catholic.

In the United States there are 1946

Presbyterian churches, and 146,297 communicants, 1050 Congregational churches, and 115,000 communicants. In the Wesleyan Methodist Communion, 421,105 members, 4027 Baptist Churches, and 282,494 members, 598 Episcopal Churches, and 25,000 communicants.

Taking the country through, I think the Presbyterians and Congregationalists have most mind,wealth, and influence, but in some particular places and districts this is not so. In some places, the Episcopalians or the Baptists and Methodists have the most controling influence. All this tends to keep up an equipoise, and make all parties feel their equality. There is great harmony subsisting amongst most of the sects, though not equal to our wishes.

ten

re

In the vicinity of Boston a mighty struggle is going on between the orthodox and the Unitarians, the latter, as we Evangelical, affirm, have insinuated themselves into the pulpits of the Puritan and Pilgrim Fathers of New England, by ambiguity of language, and artifice of conduct. How this struggle will terminate, I will not say, but I am not without the hope that the next years may see Harvard University, the chief seat of Unitarianism, stored to the principles of its founders, who dedicated it "Christo et Ecclesia." In this land we trust the Missionary cause is gaining ground. At the last annual meeting of the American Bible Society, it was resolved, as perhaps you have heard, to supply every destitute family in the United States with a copy of the Scriptures within the two ensuing years, and the Directors have pushed the resolution thus far quite successfully. This is a great effort in this land.

The

Seamen's cause is prospering. In Boston a new church is building for them; the large public room in which they have hitherto assembled, is "too strait for them."

In New York City, a church, additional to the former, is about to be erected for them also.

OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH.

Circular Letter, respectfully addressed by the Christian Instruction Society, to the Ministers of the Gospel of every Denomination, in London and its Vicinity, as ordered at the Special General Meeting, held Nov. 3, 1829.

Reverend and Dear Sirs,

THERE is an apostolic injunction, requiring us to "consider one another, to provoke unto love, and to good works." It is in the spirit of obedience to such an injunction that we now beg to address you. Sanctioned by authority so legitimate, sacred, and awful, because supreme and divine, we shall not apologize for thus soliciting your attention. Upon inferior authority, we should not have ventured to do it.

We address you as fellow-Christians, greatly esteemed and beloved; but at the same time as fellow-Christians possessed of commanding influence, and to whom the Head of the Church has, in a peculiar manner, entrusted the interests of his kingdom. Representatives of the Son of God, and appointed to sustain and carry on a cause wherein He was the first labourer, your office has a sanctity and an impressiveness attaching to it, by which no other office is distinguished. Watchmen stationed on the walls of Zion, and under the most solemn engagements to be faithful-thousands and tens of thousands are habitually observing you, and cannot fail of being wrought upon, by what they perceive to be the peculiarities of your spirit and conduct. The history of every period of the religious world attests the important fact, that as are the Priests, so will be the People. A mightier power does not exist under heaven than that with which you are invested, and which it is possible for you to exert. Nothing could stand against a combination of evangelical principle and consecrated talent, like that which you might exhibit; nor is there any result, however grand and momentous, which might not be achieved by means of such a confederacy. It is for you to fix the standard of practical virtue. It rests with you, in a great measure, to determine what shall be the tone of moral sentiment and feeling throughout this vast metropolis. It is from your character that families and communities derive theirs. It is by your

sacred as an ancient and a divine institution-worthy to be had in continual remembrance on account of the significant and impressive, but long-lost, ceremonies of the Jewish worship- unspeakably interesting as the period of the Saviour's resurrection -- an audience-day on which the King of Zion has ever been wont to come unto his people, and to bless them-a day wherein countless multitudes have been born to God, and meetened for a glorious immortality- a day whose exercises and enjoyments are an antepast of the heavenly rest; you have long considered and felt it to be of incalculable importance; have long been accustomed to connect in your ideas its means and opportunities with the grandeurs of eternity, and the ends for which you live and have often trembled for yourselves and others, through fear of condemnation on acccunt of its non-improvement.

Of the manner in which the Sabbath is spent in many parts of our city, you are not ignorant. While the appearances presented by a few of the most public and respectable thoroughfares, would seem to intimate that it is a hallowed season, you need only turn into some of the more retired districts during the earlier part of the day, or pay a visit to any of the surrounding suburbs towards its close, in order to receive a widely different impression. At the time when you, and the several flocks over whom the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, are repairing to the sanctuary, hundreds of thousands are busily employed in worldly avocations, buying and selling aud getting gain; and the hours of your evening worship are hours devoted by them to amusement, voluptuousness, and intoxication. substance acquired in the morning, is, at night, squandered away in the tavern and

The

the brothel; and in this Christian country, and this the most enlightened metropolis of Europe, never are scenes of such gross and appalling wickedness exhibited. and never are such mournful and disgusting spectacles of human degradation to be witnessed, as on the day professedly set apart for religious purposes !

Surely, Sirs, the consideration of a fact so melancholy, and yet so palpable and notorious, is calculated to excite alarm; and occupying as we do a position, where many of its most flagrant instances are continually coming before us, you cannot feel surprised that we should be the subjects of intense and ever-wakeful anxiety respecting it, and deeply concerned that it should engage the serious attention of others.

There is, however, reason to apprehend, that the evil we deplore is not confined to the haunts of iniquity, or peculiar to the ignorant and the impious. It is greatly to be feared, that even among professors of evangelical religion, ideas and practices, utterly at variance with the sacredness of the Sabbath, have become lamentably prevalent; and that where it may not be openly profaned, it is, in innumerable instances, far, very far, from being reverenced and sanctified as it ought. Are not many of those, accustomed to attend upon your holy ministrations, and called too by the name of Jesus, chargeable with spending not a few of its precious hours in idleness, in unprofitable and unseasonable conversation, in paying or receiving visits, and in entertaining company, or seek ing to be themselves entertained? Are not many of those who sustain the important character of masters and mistresses, guilty of great negligence in their selection of individuals to serve them; and of yet greater negligence in their treatment of the spiritual and eternal interests of such individuals, when brought under their care, and introduced into their households? Áre not many of those who keep their shops open on the Lord's day, and can, without shame, transact their usual business, emboldened by the thought, that much of what they get during that hallowed scason, comes from professors of godliness, or, at least, from regular attendants upon the preach ing of the Gospel; while the godly and conscientious man, who nobly and resolutely refrains from his wonted occupation, and shuts out the world from his house, and would shut it out from his heart, is thus deprived of the gain to which the New Testament declares him entitled! (Mark x. 29; 1 Tim iv. 8) Are not many of those whom we behold, N. S. No. 63.

during the intervals of public worship, parading our streets and our squares, and the fields of our vicinity, for the mere sake of personal enjoyment, the younger branches of religious families? And among the thousands of both sexes, who, as regularly as the Sabbath returns, form themselves into parties of pleasure, and repair to the scenes of gaiety and dissipation, are not hundreds the apprentices of persons whose piety it would be most uncharitable to doubt-persons, perhaps, standing high in the esteem of the Christian world, and eminent for liberality and zeal?

O ye servants of the living God! these things ought not to be. We complain not of your exertions, and let us not be understood as insinuating that you have been deficient. Had your endeavours been duly appreciated, and had the spirit of those truths which you are accustomed to enforce been imbibed, the moral aspect of society must have become very different from what it is. But we ask, Can nothing more be done? We want a grand simultaneous movement in reference to the Sabbath. In effecting such a movement, you must be the prime agents. It were of no avail to call upon the Ministers of State to do what may be regarded as their duty, while the Ministers of Religion are not in all directions actively engaged to the full extent of theirs. It were useless, and perhaps worse than useless, to secure the enforcement of human laws, if there be not the operation of a higher and holier law that law of truth and of love, the nature of which you are appointed to unfold, and the influence of which you must be instrumental of bringing to bear upon the conscience and the heart. It is in the Church that, in this, as in almost every other respect, reform must begin. The Church is not what she ought to be. The Church is not doing her duty, either to herself or to the world. If she were, instead of acting upon the principles of the world, as is now so frequently the case, the world would be compelled to act upon her principles. Suffer us then, with all affection and earnestness, to entreat that you will assiduously and constantly seek to bring about and promote a revival of genuine godliness in the different societies with which you may be connected and especially that you will let it be one of the objects of your most anxious solicitude, and will adopt every practicable method, to keep the claims and privileges of the Sabbath always in the thoughts and imaginations of your people. Suffer us to entreat that you will give yourselves no rest until

Y

you see them roused to a proper sense of its importauce-a correct appreciation of its value-a right discharge of its duties -and that deep concern for its improvement, which ought never to be absent from a Christian's bosom; and until, when thinking of them at its commencement or its close, or when looking upon them as assembled in the sanctuary, you can feel an unwavering assurance that "it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all their dwellings." Thus will you be the means of restoring the broad and vivid line of demarcation which existed in other days, and was intended always to exist, between the Church and the World. Thus will you be the means of imparting a moral power to the religions community, which must tell upon the surrounding population.

May the Spirit of wisdom and of power abundantly rest upon you! In making this communication, we have discharged what we considered a duty devolving upon us, and redeemed a pledge recently given to the public. Should it conduce in any measure to the stirring up of your minds, and so to the accomplishment of the important object we have at heart, we shall exceedingly rejoice, and account ourselves greatly honoured.

Believe us to be,
Reverend and dear Sirs,
On behalf of the Society,
Yours most respectfully,
JOHN BLACKBURN,
Secs.

JOHN PITMAN,

January, 1830.

5, Paternoster Row.

ing of others, the attention of the prisoners was directed very exclusively to religion. They formed meetings for prayer, and engaged in a Bible class. The religious feeling became stronger and more powerful, and they formed a covenant amongst themselves, requir ing obedience to rules as fully Christian as any one could wish. Seventy five signed this. As you may suppose, charity is slow to believe all things' of such a company of villains; but the chaplain, a man of singular prudence, caution, and energy assures me, that he has confidence in the Christian character of about 35.

"The cause of temperance is making the most surprising strides in the New England States. I have no doubt, that the consumption of distilled spirits has decreased 75 per cent. within four years. It is really marvellous, and has taught us what we have been very slow to believe, that the public mind, as such, can be moved by argument and sound reason. The fact is of inconceivable value in that respect, for no manner of legislative interference has been resorted to; it is all a matter of personal self-denial.

"Another important occurrence since I have been absent is, that the legislature of this State has abolished the system of military reviews, and the belief of their useless, and even pernicious tendency is fast extending in other States. The result will be, that a military and warlike sprit will have nothing to call itself forth.

"The Peace Societies are also extending their influence. I cannot but rejoice, that the State to which I belong has been the first government (I believe in the world) that has resolved to put her trust under God in the honest hearts, and strong hands of her citizens in the day of need, without teaching them to kill their fellow-men as a professional busi

APPOINTMENT OF A DAY FOR RENEWED AND UNITED SUPPLICATION.

We are happy to inform our readers that at a very numerous meeting of the Congregational Board, held on Tuesday Evening, Feb 16th, the Rev. Dr. Winter in the chair, it was resolved unanimously,

"That considering the advantages experienced by our churches in the observance of a day of special religious service last year, and that the same reasons exist why thanksgiving should be presented to God, both on account of what he has done for our country, and for the world, and fervent prayer offered up that he may bestow a still more abundant blessing on