think you will perceive that the fault is peculiarly on your own side of the question; that your complaints are unfounded and unreasonable. I have enjoyed opportutunities of knowing somewhat of children, and have found it to be the case, that in respect to this, more depended upon the way in which children had been taught by parents, than on the peculiarity of the ministers. With regard to the visiting of the sick, you must know that it is impossible for the minister, as well as for any one else, to judge by rumors; were a pastor to be continually running at every report, it would be a great interruption to his studies, and in many instances he would call where he was not wanted on account of sickness. It would be improper for a clergyman to call without having his information from proper authority; and it would not be unnatural for him to expect that if people wished to see him in sickness, they would take the trouble to send for him. I think this would be the proper course for a clergyman to pursue. Now it is generally considered that the request of public prayers, is a notice that the visits of the clergyman would be acceptable. Again, were ministers to pursue a different course, they would not hear of all cases of sickness; and would be most likely to hear of the cases of their particular friends, and of the rich and distinguished, because there. would be most talk about such persons, and of course he would give cause of offence from an appearance of partiality. But still further. Does not this complaint arise from a false notion on the subject. Are you not too apt when in health and prosperity, to care but little about conversing on religious topics, too apt to put off the preparation for death, to a time of sickness, and then

think that you can call in your minister to prepare you for that solemn hour. I have known instances of persons who cared not to converse with their minister on religion in health, send for him in sickness; upon the restoration of health, to neglect again his instructions, and again in sickness to send for him to prepare them for death again. This is altogether a wrong notion. Health is the proper time for the exercise of religion, that we may enjoy its consolations in sickness. If then you will reflect upon this subject, I think you complaints have been unreasonable. sion, let me exhort you to reflect before you indulge in complaints against your minister. Think what you would impose upon him were he to become in all things as you wish towards you, and the same towards all the society ;and may God grant that neither you or I shall be under the necessity at the last day, of adding unreasonable complaints against the clergy, to the already too many idle words of which we shall in that day be called to give an J. W.

account.

will find that your And now, in conclu

THE TRINITY A DOCTRINE OF HEATHENISM.

THOUGH heathenism was exhibited in various garbs by different philosophers, and in different countries; yet in almost every place the doctrine of a mystical threefold existence in the Supreme God was taught. The Persians worshipped the Sun, Moon and Fire; the first as the great cause, the second as coexistent with it, and the third as proceeding from the two first; but all three as a supreme Deity. In Egypt, Osiris, Isis and Apis, received

equal honors. Piato, Pythagoras, and many Grecian. philosophers, inculcated similar doctrines, and decribed. their "unknown God" as constituted of an inexplicable threefold essence. These ideas of the supreme Deity were doubtless brought into Greece from Egypt and the East, in which latter country the Brahmins, a people remarkable for the little change which time or circumstances have made in their religion, continue to this day to ascribe a threefold mode of existence to their supreme object of devotion. As the philosophers of Greece either obtained their mythology from the East, or formed their dogmas on eastern models, they taught the doctrine of one self-existent being, another formed by this pre-existent cause, which was both God and man; and a third called the Soul of the World. This doctrine is of great antiquity, and strongly resembles the more modern Trinity; it prevailed in India long before it reached Greece, and it prevailed in Greece 500 years before the birth of Christ, and was the basis of the famous Platonic system of philosophy, some of whose admirers doubtless introduced it into the christian religion, to which they had become proselytes; indeed it appears evident from the history of the early ages of the church, that the Trinity was first taught and described in the eastern portion of the Roman empire, and afterwards received in the west; in the East also the similarity of the Trinity and the "unknown God" of heathenism was first observed and decried by the true believers; hence the Council of Nice, its incomprehensible symbol, and the subsequent persecution of Arius. In no feature with which I am acquainted, is th idolatry of the ancient Pagans, and the system of modern Orthodoxy so generally alike as in the one under

consideration. We see in heathenism, as the object of belief and worship, one being self-existent, &c, a second who is both God and man, and a third who is supposed to inspire the human soul with the essence of the Deity: what stronger resemblance could there be to the Trinity? It is here worthy of remark, that Socrates stands a bright exception among ancient philosophers; the celebrity of his fame is no doubt heightened, by his inculcating the doctrine of the Unity of God, a doctrine, differing so widely from the mysteries of Polytheism, that its asserter must have become notorious, and been exposed to all the disagreeable consequences of differing in opinion from the multitude in an age of intolerance.

In the Paganism of Rome we perceive, in the Parcæ, a striking resemblance to the Trinity; they were three persons constituting one Deity, and it is worthy of remark that these triune beings were chief in power; even Jupiter, though king of the gods, could not save Patroclus, because the Parca had predestinated his death; Juno could not prevent the settlement of Æneas in Italy, because the Parce had so ordered it of old: numerous instances of similar import, might be quoted, so numerous indeed that it must be acknowledged to be a leading feature in the Romish Pagan religion; and I would ask, could there be a stronger similitude of a Trinity, and of predestination?

Scarcely had two centuries passed away after the apostolic age, when the doctrines that had been associated with the early prejudices of many of the professing Christians of these times, began to be systematically mingled with the truth; even in the apostolic times, Christianity is supposed to have been somewhat tinged with the leaven

of Paganism. This may be easily accounted for, when we consider the difficulties that were then in the way of the open promulgation of the gospel; persecution raised the torch and the sword, and drove it into caves and silence; the early prejudices of Pagan converts amalgamated their errors with the truth; and the impossibility of consulting the entire New Testament in its then scattered and detached state, prevented uninspired teachers from correcting errors which were gaining strength and a more general acceptance, as the converts from Paganism increased. Of all the doctrines of religion, none, it may be supposed, would so much arrest the attention of Christian converts, as that of the nature of God; and so it is found upon investigation, that whilst prayers for the dead, vicarious sacrifice, worship of images, &c, were scarcely believe by any of the early Christians, the doctrine of three persons in God had obtained many advocates, and had become so prevalent, that Arius was constrained to withstand it, and to vindicate the unity of the Deity. Constantine, upon his ostensible conversion to Christianity, found the church agitated with the opposite views of Athanasius on the one side, and Sabellus, Arius, &c, on the other; and having from his earliest years, been educated in the Platonic School, it may reasonably be supposed that he would be inclined to favor the commonly received opinion of a threefold nature in God; he however seems to have been the passive subject of state policy, vacillating one time towards his favorite prejudice, and another time towards pure doctrine; a general order (as it would be called in modern military language) had established the christian religion, but the change was merely that of a name: the prejudices, the superstitions,