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Think, oh think what Christ has done for you. It cost him dying groans, to send you Gospel news.

Oh read the Bible, read it much, and you will love it much; and strange as it may seem, the more you love the precious volume, the more you will wish to give it to the world. It costs not much to give a BIBLE, it will never make you poor-it may make many rich.

It was Charity in Heaven that gave this book to earth, and warm from the compassionate bosom of its Divine Author, we embrace the boon, and feel its genial influence thrilling through our veins-we catch the generous flame--it warms our hearts--it rises high, and reaches back to Heaven.

REVIEW.

THOUGHTS ON THE ANGLICAN AND AMERICAN ANGLO-CHURCHES. By John Bristed, Counsellor at Law, Author of the Resources of the United States of America, &c. New-York: John P. Haven. Boston: Samuel T. Armstrong. 1822. 8vo. pp. 500.

THE character of these "Thoughts" may be gathered from the first sentence of the Author's advertisement: "The following pages are intended, merely, as the herald of a more extended and minute inquiry into the causes of the present positive and relative weakness and inefficiency of the Anglican and American-Anglo Churches; notwithstanding their external advantages, and their truly evangelical liturgy, articles, and homilies;--the precious legacy of those blessed reformers and martyrs, who sealed the constancy of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, by the pouring out of their own life blood."

The Author objects not to the Episcopacy of the Church of England -and thus he gives his approbation to the external form of the Episcopal Church in this country; his objections are (p. 16) “confined exclusively to her political position; her close alliance to the state; her system of patronage, whether lay or clerical, excluding the congregations altogether from any choice of the clerk, who is to minister to them spiritually; and her provision of tithes. Her liturgy, articles, and homilies, are all strictly scriptural; and when faithfully set forth, and supported by the preaching and living of evangelical clergymen, are eminently calculated, under the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit, to call men from darkness into light, and from the power of Satan unto God."

One object therefore of the book before us, is to refute the "main position" of a work of the Rev. S. C. Wilks; viz. "that where there is no church establishment, a nation necessarily tends to irreligion and heathenism." The refutation of this position consists in a historical exposure of the fact, that the state has uniformly been the patron, not of irue, devoted, and efficient Christianity, but of mere - formalism;—the shadow without the substance the body without the living soul of the Gospel.

In the charge of formalism, fixed upon the established Church of England, our Author includes the unestablished Episcopal Church of

our own country, whose formalism, also the cause of its inefficiency in the general diffusion of divine truth, he successfully labours to expose. This, briefly, is our Author's design, and, might we be permitted to use a vulgar expression, we should say, he handles all his adversaries "without mittens." In prosecuting his design, certainly without too much regularity and order, he gives an historical expose of the past condition of the English Church and as occasion offers, the points of resemblance which are found in her daughter in this country.

In regard to England, and the beneficial effects assumed as resulting from her political superintendence of the Church, it is evidently the object of the Author to show that always the political heads of the Church have been the actual enemies of all evangelical piety, and the patrons of a ministry formal and graceless at best, and in a great degree notorious for dissipation and vice.

In regard to this point the Author affords large and interesting details, but we can only refer to the persecutions of the infamous Laud,— to the ejectment of two thousand godly ministers, for nonconformity, --to the antievangelical character of the bishops permitted to be elected by government for these two hundred years, with most scanty exceptions to the opposition, made almost uniformly, to the more zealous ministers of the establishment to the difficulties with which the evangelical clergy have had to contend in their holy and successful work, for the last forty years-to the melancholy truth, that their energetic and pious exertions have only secured to the establishment as many evangelical clergy as were ejected 200 years ago for their nonconformity— to the proverbial stigma cast upon all pious zeal for spreading the Gospel, as mad methodism; and, to the difficulties and persecutions with which dissenters have to contend even to this day.

These items certainly exhibit an appalling evidence, that, whatever may be the evils consequent upon "no Church establishment," the Church of England, or shall we say the Church of Christ, receives no good, but much harm, from the superintendence of her secular head. Still, we do not, and we presume our Author does not, desire the downfal of the Church of England. The true remedy for her evil is her reformation, and not her destruction. This remedy is sure, but it will not be sudden. It is already in encouraging progress, and will, at no great distance of time, make the Church of England one of the fairest portions of Christendom. In the tender mercies of God towards the present generation, evangelical piety is diffusing itself within, as well as without the establishment-public opinion, more imperious in England than in other countries, is fast reforming the abuses and evils of which our Author complains. We hail his reproaches and complaints, though sometimes harsh and unmannerly, as instruments of Providence in the reformation, and not in the destruction of a corrupt establishment. To this result the events of Providence are evidently tending; and, we believe, the time will come when the evangelism of the church will have diffused itself over the whole mass. We cannot believe that a Church so essentially right will be triumphed over by the world, but that its leaven, will leaven the whole lump.

Indeed there is no event which we should more sincerely deplore than

the downfall of the Church of England; nor do we anticipate a higher honour to herself, or a more glorious triumph to Christianity, than her ultimate victory over the dignified enemies of her own household. But there he opens upon us a subject, the full consideration of which we must defer till a future number; and must now pass on to a few remarks concerning the American-Anglo Church.

The proofs of formalism in the American Episcopal Church, are scattered up and down in the work, and we can only tell our readers to look all over it for them. On this subject the Author has omitted two or three important pages, which he might have inserted almost any where. He should have shown that American formalism, existing in a Church altogether unconnected with the state is a stream from the original fountain, because, as the matter now stands, the American-Anglo Church seems to show itself as a refutation of his main position.

The truth, however, is, that the corrupt patronage of the Anglican Church was, until the American Revolution, as pernicious to America as it was to England. The episcopal ministers for America, were ordained and promoted with the same worldly views as the bishops, priests, and deacons of the mother country. Hence the sturdy and systematic opposition which many of our ecclesiastics have kept up against religious zeal exhibited in prayer meetings, conference meetings, and conventicle, or, rather, against the doctrines of the total depravity of human nature, spiritual regeneration, justification by faith, &c., is a part of a legacy which the American-Anglo Church inherits from her " politico cle ico" parent. The American-Anglo Church is a stream from that fountain which was contaminated by the influence of the State-a brauch of that Church which cast out such men as Baxter-which for many years, both at home and here has been glorying in her shame, and deriding all true evangelical piety. We believe, indeed, that formalism has been of as rank a growth here as in England; and that until of late, zeal and faith were as unpopular in our episcopal body as in the establishment of England.

We mean not by these remarks to defame the character of the Episcopal Church, either of England or in this country. We approve her doctrines, we admire her liturgy, and think we have seen within her pale the brightest ornaments of Christianity. Among the evangelical clergy and laity of the present age, especially in England, we see a chastened, discreet, regular, and consistent piety, connected with the most excellent and effectual zeal; and especially we see, more than any where else, the family nurtured in the bosom of the Church, as a part of the body of the Church, and realizing in the result of a Christian education, the truth of the declaration, "train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." We hail the Episcopal, and even the Church of England as a noble branch of the true Church. The vital sap flows within her, and though some of her branches are dead, many of her branches are living and fruitful; the dead branches will decay and fall, or be lopped off, and the living current will yet animate the whole Church.

(To be continued.)

Entelligence.

UNITED STATES.-GREAT OSAGE MISSION..

THE number of scholars, progress in agriculture, employment of the Indians, and their summer's hunt, with the good health of the mission family at this station, (to July 28th,) were noticed in our last number for September, pp. 277, 278. To furnish some further particulars, we shall avail ourselves of the journal for March, April, and May, published in the Missionary Register, and letters addressed to Mr. Newton, by the Rev. Mr. Pixley, published in the Religious Intelligencer.

A letter from the Superintendent, the Rev. N. B Dodge, of July 1st, states the number of scholars, at that time, to be thirteen-five males and eight females. They have made some progress in learning, but their locomotive habits interrupt the plans of instruction, and put to trial the greatest patience. Several of the children were, at different times, stolen away from the school by their parents, or other persons employed by them for that purpose, and a few left of their own accord. The scholars' mothers occasionally visited them, and some appeared pleased with their children's being taught. While at the Osage village the attention of Mr. Pixley seems to have been drawn to this subject, and be thus writes to Mr. Newton:

I have been thinking much to-day what can be done for these poor children. Robert Raikes' expression, Try, has come home very forcibly to mind. And I have said to myself, "who can tell but the Lord may second my poor exertions beyond all expectation?" I have been thinking of scraping a place smooth and clean upon the ground, and begin by learning them to make the letters in the dirt. They certainly are not destitute of intellect, but may learn as fast as any children if they can be led to take an interest in it.

The missionary should have a thorough knowledge of the native tongue of those whom he would teach. If this be an unwritten language his skill must be in constant exercise to seize upon the flitting sound, and reduce it to the rigid rules of grammar, before he can add to his oral instructions the benefit of a power to seek for themselves the hidden treasures of the word of God. To acquire this knowledge, and to transfuse this power among the natives, may justly be considered one of the most important features in the plan of modern missions, and we rejoice to see the effort made by the missionaries at Harmony. Mr. Pixley and Mr. Montgomery have both devoted some time to the study of the Osage language, and for that purpose, the former has passed several weeks at a time at the Osage village, about 8 miles from the Harmony station. In writing to Mr. Newton, he says:

While here I feel as though I was learning something all the time, and that something is more and more of the difficulties attending the acquiring a thorough knowledge of it. But though I discover these increasing, I am not discouraged, but, with Elliot, say, "that prayer and pains will accomplish all things."

The want of a suitable interpreter prevented the missionaries from preaching to the Indians collectively, until on the 3d of March, when a meeting of this kind was held, and Mr. Dodge "preached to a little number, the children, also, being present."

White Hair, the principal chief, and his uncle, the brother of the old chief, were present on this occasion. They both, after the exercises were through, acknowledged that they believed what had been said to them was true, and that there was such a God as we had represented.

An account of the first marriage among the Osages is thus related in the journal of March 14th and 15th.

We have a young Indian, who has been with us from about the commencement of our school, who was married according to their customs, a little previous to his coming to live with us. He tried,

and we used our influence, to have his wife come with him, but her mother would not consent. He said, that, at all events, he would remain at school. He should be glad to have his wife at school also, if she would come with her whole heart; but if she could not, he did not wish her to come at all. He did not consider himself bound to her, as their custom of marrying is binding no longer than during the pleasure of the man. She finally concluded that she must ge over to the village for a few weeks, and then she would return, and live with him at our station. She accordingly came back to-day. We are now enabled to decide an important question, in relation to the prosperity of our mission, and the well-being of the Osages. To suffer them to live together with no other ties than are furnished by their mode and views of marriage, would be giving countenance to the loose and sinful practices of these heathen people. To attempt to separate them while living with us, would probably be in vain, and to say that one or both of them should leave us, would hardly be consistent with our object. But one of these things must be done, or they must be regularly married.

Friday, March 15th.-We conclude that if the young Indian and Squaw, before mentioned, remain with us, they must be instructed in the nature and solemnity of the marriage covenant, as much as possible, for the present, and that they be united in marriage this evening. We accordingly conversed with them through our Interpreter, and endeavoured to make the subject as plain to them as possible. They acknowledged their affection for each other, professed their willingness to be married according to our customs, and promised to consider the connexion as binding for life. After supper and family worship, they were married in the presence of all the family, and of several Indians, who came in to witness the ceremony. They exhi bited, on the occasion, a degree of decency, and propriety of conduct, which would have done honour to a young couple in a civilized land. About ten days afterward, it is added :

This evening our young Indian and his wife had a falling out, and he beat her. In his passion, he flew for his knife. We did not know but it was his intention to kill her, but we learned afterwards from

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