but even in some of the heathen writers, particularly in the discourses of Socrates, I answer, that the same may be said of the immortality of the soul, and of the rewards and punishments of a future state. The doctrine was not more a discovery than the precept: but their connexion with each other, the authority with which they were taught, and the miracles by which they were enforced belong exclusively to the mission of Christ. Attend particularly to the miracles recorded in the second chapter of Luke, as having taken place at the birth of Jesus. when the angel of the Lord said to the shepherds, "Fear not, for behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people; for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord." In these words the character of Jesus, as a Redeemer, was announced; but the historian adds, "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and singing, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will toward man." These words, as I understand them, announced the moral precept of benevolence as explicitly for the object of Christ's appearance, as the preceding words had declared the purpose of redemption. It is related in the life of the Roman dramatic poet, Terence, that when one of the personages of his comedy, the 'Self-Tormentor,' the first uttered on the stage the line, 'Homo sum, humani nil alienum puto,' (I am a man, nothing human is uninteresting to me,) a universal shout of applause burst forth from the whole audience, and that in so great a multitude of Romans, and deputies from the nations, their subjects and allies, there was not one individual but felt in his heart this noble sentiment. Yet how feeble and defective it is in comparison with the Christian command of charity as unfolded in the discoveries of Christ and enlarged upon in the writings of his Apostles. The heart of man will always respond with rapture to this sentiment when there is no selfish or unsocial passion to oppose it: but the command to lay it down as the great and fundamental rule of conduct for human life, and to subdue and sacrifice all the tyrannical and selfish passions to preserve it, is the peculiar and unfading glory of Christianity; this is the conquest over ourselves, which, without the aid of a merciful God, none of us can achieve, and which it was worthy of his special interposition to enable us to accomplish. From your affectionate Father,

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

ANECDOTES, INCIDENTS, AND FACTS—No. IV.

SOME time in 1820 I was first introduced to brother Walter Scott, lately from Scotland, then a Presbyterian, residing with Mr. Forrester, of Pittsburg, a Haldanian, from Paisley, Scotland. Mr. Forrester was a pure Calvinist in doctrine, an Independent in Christian politics, or church government, a weekly communionist, and a rigid disciplinarian. He had a few brethren in Pittsburg, with whom brother Scott, on his baptism, united.

On my visits to Pittsburg in those days, being a member and minister of the Redstone Baptist Association, I spoke to the Baptist church in that city. The result was, that, with the exception of some twelve persons, the whole church, over a hundred members, were theoretically reformers.

In 1822 I induced Sidney Rigdon, then a Baptist minister of Ohio, to accept of a call to the church in Pittsburg. About this time brother Scott had, on the death of Mr. Forrester, under his instruction a small society of very intelligent persons, to whom he delivered admirable lectures on the New Testament every Lord's day. I was at all pains to have Sidney Rigdon and the church in Pittsburg introduced to brother Scott and the brethren with him. They were, however, for a considerable time very shy of each other. Each community was very sensitive on the subject of its own peculiarities. So matters stood in Pittsburg till the meeting of the Redstone Baptist Association in that city, September, 1823, in reference to which meeting I have alluded to the above mentioned persons and incidents.

At the meeting of this Association in Pittsburg an event occurred of very great importance in the current reformation. In itself it was a very small matter, yet no event in its whole history, as far as I am informed, was pregnant with so many and so great results. I will, therefore, with considerable minuteness, enter upon its details.

Having for the six preceding years been engaged in teaching and in presiding over a classical and scientific seminary of learning at my present residence, I did not itinerate so extensively as before, throughout the bounds of the Redstone Baptist Association. The consequence was, that the opposition to reformation in that Association was annually strengthening itself. We still had the majority on our side; but the minority, led on by Elders Brownfield, Pritchard, and the Stones, was full of expedients to gain an ascendancy and to thrust myself and friends out of it. Their last effort came to my ears in August, 1823. It was as follows:

A bill of heresies was duly made out of my printed Sermon on the Law, and from my oral sermons and lectures. Special brethren traversed the whole Association before its meeting, and very ingeniously contrived to have friends in the churches to nominate for election, as messengers to the Association, such persons as they knew of their party; and by this means had obtained what is usually called a "packed jury," sure to decide against us in the Association. From the intelligence I had received, no doubt remained but that SERIES III-VOL. V.

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myself and friends would be, by this manœuvre, solemnly excommunicated from the Baptist denomination. I had but one month to provide against this event.

The terror of excommunication was to me, indeed, not very formidable; but a debate in Kentucky between the Rev. William L. M'Calla and myself was then agreed upon, to come off in October, one month after the time fixed for my ecclesiastic martyrdom. The value of this discussion to the cause of reformation, if not the discussion itself, must be frustrated by the sentence of excommunication already determined, if carried out. One expedient alone remained by which I could defeat them, and of the propriety of which I did not doubt.

I had been occasionally pressed by Elder Adamson Bentley, of Ohio, to leave the Redstone Association, and unite with the Mahoning Association. But how could this be effected in four weeks, was now the question. Fortunately the Mahoning Association met one week before the Redstone. I, therefore, resolved to save my reputation and to stultify the policies of my opponents.

I called a special meeting of the church at Brush Run, Pennsylvania, eight miles from my residence, in which I held my membership, and which church I had always, as one of her delegates, represented at the annual meetings of the Redstone Association. I simply stated to the church that a crisis of great importance had arrived and great interests which it would be imprudent for me then to disclose, were now pending, and that, without giving any other reason for it, I must request for myself and some twenty other persons, members of that church, letters of dismission, drawn up in Regular Baptist style, for the purpose of establishing a church in Wellsburg, Virginia. The brethren, though much excited at the announcent, having full confidence in the validity of my reasons, promptly consented and granted my request. Immediately this new-born church at Wellsburg despatched three messengers to the Mahoning Association, soliciting admission into its communion. They were cordially received by the Association, and on a summary declaration of its faith the church of Wellsburg was enrolled in the Minutes as a member of the Mahoning Baptist Association.

Meantime, having set these things in order, and having refused to be sent a messenger to Mahoning, I reserved myself for a visit to the Redstone Association as a spectator, to note its proceedings, my father and two other members being sent as messengers to it to represent the church at Brush Run. Our movements were so rapid

and so private as to be wholly unknown to a single church in the Redstone Association.

On reading the annual letters sent up to the Association, that from Brush Run, as a matter of course, was called for and read. No mention was made in it of a specific dismission of so many members for the purpose of constituting a church in Virginia. The subject of dismission was only alluded to in general terms. That

I was not named in it as a messenger, though present, an event unprecedented, created an evident stare on the part of some leading spirits in the plot; but to them the reason, of course, was quite incomprehensible.

A brother, not in the plot, and much attached to me, at a proper time arose to move that certain ministers from a distance, members of other Associations, should be invited to seats during the sessions of the Association, and concluded by observing that brother Alexander Campbell should also be invited to a seat. No objection was made to brother John Rigdon, of an Ohio Baptist Association, and some others present, who were promply invited to the honor; but one of the party, privy to the plot, if not a member of it, arose and objected to my being invited to a seat, on the ground, that, as the Brush Run church, for some reason, had not, as usual, sent me as one of its messengers, it would be inexpedient, if not unprecedented to invite me to a seat? Just at this moment, to one accustomed to the faces of the prominent actors in the plot of excommunication, there was in their features and movements such legible indications of their designs and feelings as enabled me to comprehend the full strength of the party. My friends, as ignorant of the reason why I had not been sent as were my opponents, advocated the motion with much zeal and assiduity, and my opponents with at least equal warmth and power persisted in their opposition to the measure. Much of the day was spent in this very trifling matter, until one of the opposition, as if fearful of their strength to carry out their designs, said—that "if brother Campbell would state the reasons why he was not as usual elected as a representative of the church at Brush Run, it might enable the Association to decide the matter at once." To this motion both parties assented, and I was requested to inform the body why I was not, as before, a messenger to the Redstone Baptist Association.

After expressing my regret that the Association should have spent so much of its precious time on a matter of such trifling importance, I observed that I would at once relieve them from all farther trouble by simply stating that the reason why I had not been

appointed a messenger from Brush Run was simply this;-that the church of which I was now a member belongs to another Association—– the Mahoning Regular Baptist Association of Ohio. Never did hunters, on seeing the game unexpectedly escape from their toils at the moment when its capture was sure, glare upon each other a more mortifying disappointment than that indicated by my pursuers at that instant on learning that I was out of their bailiwick, and consequently beyond their jurisdiction. A solemn stillness ensued, and for a time all parties seemed to have nothing to do. They dropped the subject; but after dismissing a few minor matters, they seemed to rally on certain allegations in the letter from a party of dissidents in Pittsburg, preferred against the Baptist church in that city for having departed from the Baptist Confession of Faith under the teaching of Sidney Rigdon. Some twelve persons claimed to be the Baptist church on the ground of holding to the Confession of Faith and Church Covenant. This matter was debated during the remainder of the session; but through the potency of the reasonings and facts alleged by Elder John Rigdon and the Brush Run delegation, they failed in carrying the point, referring it to a committee to report at their next annual meeting.

We gained our object, and in a few days after set out for Kentucky, where we arrived about the middle of October, without the brand of excommunication upon us, which would, indeed, in all human probability, have frustrated all our hopes in pleading the cause of reformation in that state. Thus "the Lord taketh the wise in their own craftiness and disappointeth the expectations of them that rise up against him."

Before noting any incidents relative to the two great fields of labor then opening to the dissemination of the great seeds and elements of reformation, I will tarry in Pittsburg a little longer. From the adjournment of the Redstone Association, owing to the developments of the views and principles of the leading spirits and the attempt made to cast out all members of the church in Pittsburg favorable to reformation, a greater degree of intimacy was cultivated between brother Scott and Sidney Rigdon and their respective friends and admirers—and finally a union between them was consummated, so that they met together in social worship on the Lord's day as a Christian church. The few Baptists that were attached to the old confession and regimen, on being judged by the committee of the Association the only legitimate Baptist church in Pittsburg, formed a separate church organization. Each community henceforth was separate and distinct as Jews and Samaritans. It was