in the universe. And what a splendid monument it is of the capacity and attainments of our father Adam in the school of animated nature! We were much pleased, indeed refreshed, with the developments of this interesting occasion. Its Principal, Mr. Sumner, is a gentleman of great energy of character, a great amateur in his profession, and of unwearied attention to the numerous and important duties of his responsible station. The musical performances at this Commencement were regarded, by amateurs, as admirable. Not gifted in that department, I have no confidence in my own judgment; but whatever Mrs. Campbell says on that subject, I unhesitatingly endorse. I, therefore, pronounce them most creditable to teachers and taught. I was only pained in witnessing the Herculean efforts of Mr. Sumner to address a portion of the audience, and myself, in the midst of the most crowded edifice I have ever seen. His voice is only a whisper, under the abrasion of some thoracic ailment, and therefore, much speaking is with him, at present, a labor and an effort that ought seldom to be encountered. His Female College is beautifully located, in a very beautiful village, and in the midst of an intelligent and prosperous community. It is, therefore, liberally patronized. Kentucky is a great State; not only because of its dimensions, its luxuriant soil, its mineral wealth, and felicitous location, in the rich valley of the beautiful Ohio; not merely because of its enterprising and energetic population, or its great statesmen; but because of its eleemosynary institutions, its many flourishing female schools and academies, not only in Frankfort and Louisville, in New Castle and Hopkinsville, but at Midway, Woodford county, that home of female orphans, under the patronage of the noblest of Christian philanthropists known to me in the valley of the Mississippi, who has had, this year, under the wings of his protection, some eighty orphans, receiv. ing such an intellectual, moral, and Christian culture, as will make them honorable, able, and useful co-operants in the great work of human redemption. These are the institutions that do honor to Kentucky, and give to her a high rank amongst her sister States in this great family of States and radiating centres of Christian civilization. We are not informed of the number of students in all these seminaries of learning. There were some 120 in attendance at Henry Female College, in this its fifth annual catalogue, having, beside the President, nine teachers, including music, science, and literature. It is in a most prosperous condition. We had a very agreeable and interesting sojourn of several days, including one Lord's day in Louisville, enjoying the hospitalities of Dr. Bell, and sundry other brethren and sisters. We addressed large auditories during our stay, in the Christian church, and in Dr. Everts' large and magnificent edifice. The increase of the Christian church in that city, under the labors of Elder D. P. Henderson, during the last year, has been unprecedented in that city: some 500 additions have been added in little more than a year, and during our stay, it was still growing in numbers. There appears to have been no extraordinary excitement at any time. All was calm, solemn, concentrated attention to the developments of the original gospel, in its claims upon the understanding, the conscience, and the heart. Rich and poor, master and servant, inale and female, were alike interested and caught in the gospel net, under a calm, argumentative, expostulatory, and persuasive Christian oratory. We had, on our return, a pleasant day with Elder C. L. Loos, in Cincinnati, and the pleasure of an interview with brother and sister Burnet, and Elder Dr. Irwin, at his house. We had a good report of the progress of the good cause in that city and its environs. On our return from Cincinnati, we spent an evening with Bro. Rose and lady, in Columbus, and would have spent a Lord's day in the capital of Ohio, had we obtained an elligible house of worship. Why do not the brethren in Ohio erect a tabernacle, if they cannot a temple, in their capacious political centre? The gospel, according to Luke, is as much needed in Columbus as any other State capital known to me in the great valley of the Mississippi. Purchase a lot, brethren, build a large tabernacle, and station an evangelist there who can command the attention of that community, and success will as certainly reward your labors there as in the same amount of popula tion any where in your State. A dollar for every disciple in your State will erect a mansion for the gospel in Columbus, worthy of your professed allegiance to the King of Zion. Go to work, and I will subscribe thirteen sermons, one for every one of the thirteen apostles. A. C. SECT. THE Greek word hairesis, (dipeois,) is derived from the verb hairco, (hupew,) to choose. It, therefore, literally signifies a choice. It is used ia secular and ecclesiastical writings of earlier times, and also by the authors of the Sept. version of the Hebrew Scriptures, in this sense, Lev. xxii. 18, 21, and in the Apoc. Mac. viii. 30. The law, in Leviticus, required that all the gifts of Israelites and resident strangers (KATA Tασav άipeσiv,) "according to all their choice," should be, males without blemish. The same usage is found in Plato Rep. 618 e. Thuc. ii. 58, uses it in the sense of capture; thus, (n aperis wns woλews,) the capture of the city. In the Christian Scriptures it occurs nine times. It is used in a definite, an abstract, and an indefinite sense. 1. A definite sense-Acts v. 17, "which is the sect of the Sadducees." Acts xv. 5, "certain of the sect of the Pharisees." Acts xxiv. 5, "the sect of the Nazarines." In Acts xxvi. 5, "straitest sect of our religion." Acts xxviii. 22, "as concerning the sect." In all these cases the noun is used in a definite sense, and in the original accordingly it has the article. 2. An abstract sense-Acts xxiv. 14, "after the way which they call sect," or "heresy." Being an abstract use, the article is omitted. 3. An indefinite sense-1 Cor. xi. 19, "there must be also sects among you." Here is no article in the Greek, because it was not designed to speak definitely. Gal. v. 20, "strife, seditions, sects." No article in the Greek. 2 Pet. ii. 1, "shall bring in sects of destruction," or destructive sects. In every place in the Greek Scriptures, or, as we sometimes say, the New Testament, the word is used in the sense of party. We now use the word "denomination," in the same sense. The Episcopal "denomination," means the Episcopal party, or sect. byterian "denomination," the Baptist, and the Methodist, &c., "denominations," are all of this same category. The Pres S. E. SHEPARD. RELIGION-No. II. HAVING briefly considered the popular and the theological use of the word Religion, in our article of last month, we proceed now to fulfil the promise, then made, to show precisely what it is, that in the New Testament is meant by the word Spnokcia, (threeskeia,) rendered in the Common Version religion. Our English term, religion, it is important to note, is not derived from the Greek word in the Scriptures, Opnokcia, (threeskeia,) which the translators of the Common Version employed it to represent. It is not derived from the Greek at all. It was most probably of Etruscan origin, but it comes to us from a Latin word; whether from religere, to reconsider or diligently study, or religare, to bind fast, to bind again, is disputed. Cicero, who ought surely to be better authority on a subject like this, than modern divines, says it comes from religere. Reliogiosi dicti ex religendo, says he. Those who diligently studied and regarded the rites and ceremonies of idolatry, were called religious. The modern and general opinion is, that the word religion carries in its derivation the idea of binding or restraining men within the courses of morality, and that, by divine authority and sanction. Others extend the meaning still farther, and see in this word allusion to the re-union which is effected through the redemption of Christ, between God and man. these, religion is the binding again of that which was broken-the restoration of the severed bonds between the Creator and the creature -the mending of the breach caused by the transgression of the first Adam, through the imputed righteousness of the second Adam, the mediating and redeeming Messiah. With It will be perceived at once, however, that this is an extension of the term altogether beyond the theology of the Heathen Romans, from whom we derived it. They had no such sublime ideas attached to religion. Religion, with them was, indeed, in no proper sense, connected with morality. It was a servile and slavish submission to the gods, from fear, not of their justice, but of their vengeance. The very idolater inwardly and at heart despised the God whom he placated. He thought him a being of like passions with himself, only more powerful, and, therefore, the more dreadful. He had not the most remote idea of loving him. There was, in fact, nothing about his God at all lovely. Not one in the whole Pantheon had a character, in the estimation of his worshiper even, that would now entitle him to admission into respectable Christian society! They envied one another, were jealous, and fierce, and revengeful;-lent themselves to the vilest ends of earthly ambition; became the partial partizans of their favorites, and even entered the lists of opposing hosts, to aid and counteraid;-regardless of right, and destitute of mercy and devoid of every principle of honor or honesty. Jupiter, the Imperial, the Thunderer, "Immortal Jove, high heaven's superior lord," this paragon of a god, if we may venture to say so, was, it would seem, one of the worst of husbands! Poor Juno, who, by the by, appears to have been the prototype of woman's rights, and, of course, a miserable specimen of a royal consort—an intolerable termigant of a wife this Juno had rather a dog's life with his Olympic highness, and fretted majestically often, at his incontinence and his crossness! These gods, we can well see, their mortal worshipers could not SERIES IV.-VOL. VI. 34 love-they, in fact, hated them full as much and as openly as they dare, and the furious Diomed does not scruple to drive his hissing javelin right into the thigh of "mighty Mars," and send him bellowing from the field, to make his complaint to the "sire of gods." With them, therefore, religion could not have been a religation, in any sense of Christian atonement or reconciliation. Their sacrifices were, indeed, nothing but "big dinners," given in forfeit, of which the honored gods, fond as they were of good wine, got only the savory smoke of a few choice morsels, whilst the rest was devoured by the parties pledging it! We shall, then, in vain look to the Roman use or meaning of this word religion, for these modern ideas of our Christian doctrine. The Romans had no such idea in all their religion, as the Christian doctrine of reconciliation, and the consequent religation of man and his Maker in the covenant of Christ. They could not, therefore, have expressed it in the word religio. But suppose they had,―suppose that by the term religio, the Romans meant all that we now understand and enjoy under the light and saving power of Christianity, still, since the writers of the New Testament did not use this word in the places where our version employs the word religion to translate them, but the Greek word Spŋkɛia, we are compelled to push our inquiry farther back, and ask, Are the words Spokɛia (threeskeia) and religio, equivalent? Or, still more radically, we must inquire, What is the true meaning of this term, as used by the writers of the New Testament? It is remarkable, that the word religion is not found in the Common Version of the Old Testament, nor is the word Spnokcia found, so far as we can now ascertain, in the Septuagint. The Hebrew Scriptures have the word, (sagad,) which they used to express the worship offered to Idols, and the word ne, (shache,) which they employ to express the worship offered to God. The radical meaning of both these words is to bow down-to prostrate one's self before another, in an act of reverence, and in this sense it expresses properly the act, the outward, formal act of adoration. They also employed the word ay, (obad) to express any kind of service or labor, and hence sometimes to worship-in the sense of religious service. With respect to the first two of these words, sagad and shache, we observe that the Septuagint uniformly translates them by one and the same Greek word, "poσkvvεw, (proskuneoo,) in which we trace the same radical idea of prostrating one's self before the object of reverence, and reverently and humbly kissing the earth in his presence. The term obad, is more generally confined to slavish service, and is rendered in the Septuagint by λατρευω (latreuo) or δουλευω, (douleuo,) except when it refers |
