Their pastors are chosen by casting lots; but after being chosen great attention is paid to their education: they are instructed in all the necessary branches pertaining to the gospel ministry.

They number at present about three hundred families; eight hundred members; have five churches and school-houses. They form a respectable part of the German community of the counties above named. Some of them pursue agriculture, some manufactures, others are engaged in commercial enterprise. By their strict church discipline, they keep their members orderly, and pure from the contaminating influence of the corruptions so prevalent. They are a moral people; pious and highly esteemed by all who know them. They pay great attention to the education, the religious and moral training of their children. Many of them possess a respectable knowledge of the learned languages, Latin, &c. There is scarce a family among them that does not possess a well selected and neatly arranged library, among which you find manuscript copies from their learned forefathers of the size of Mell's, or Erasmus Weichenhan's Postill, which they hold sacred on account of the purity of doctrine contained therein.

In order fully to carry out their excellent arrangements, an election is held among them annually, in May, either for elders, or trustees of schools, or overseers of their poor, and sometimes other officers. They have not long since had their literary and charity funds incorporated, entrusted to a number of trustees and others, constituting a body corporate. Church meetings are held, when young and old attend, every Sunday forenoon, once in the upper, and once in the middle or lower district; and every other Sunday afternoon, catechetical instruction is held, indoctrinating the young and old in the truths of the gospel. Their marriages and funerals are conducted as becomes Christians, upon strict temperance principles. At present, all teaching or preaching is principally, if not wholly, conducted in the German language.

We introduce here what might, perhaps, have been more appropriately mentioned before. There is an existing ordinance among us not common with other Christian denominations: the ordinance respects infants. As soon as a child is born, a preacher or minister ist called in to pray for the happiness and prosperity of the child, admonishing the parents to educate their tender offspring; to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, according to the will of God. Parents generally bring their little ones into the house of worship, where the same service is performed; praying, and singing some appropriate verses. We hold the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin.

SECOND ADVENT BELIEVERS.

BY N. SOUTHARD,

EDITOR OF THE MIDNIGHT CRY.

THE belief that Christ's personal return precedes the Millennium has been held by Christians in all ages; but it has been accompanied by a belief that those descendants of Abraham, erroneously called Jews, would be either gathered to Palestine or converted, or both, before that coming. Within the last fifty years, the great principle that the New Testament, is an infallible key to the Old, has led to the hearty adoption of the truth that "he is not a Jew who is one outwardly," that those who are Christ's are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise," inasmuch as "the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and OF THE SAME BODY, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel," and that those are truly "the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." Hence, those who have "confidence in the flesh," and rest their hopes in a lineal descent from Abraham, have no share in the promises to the true Israel, but "all Israel, shall be saved."

Among the rejecters of modern Judaism which gives the promises to those who say they are the seed of Abraham, but are not the true seed, William Miller is prominent. The following is a statement of the views advocated in the Second Advent publications.

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE SECOND ADVENT CAUSE IS BASED.

1. The word of God teaches that this earth is to be regenerated in the restitution of all things, and restored to its Eden state as it came from the hand of its Maker before the fall, and is to be the eternal abode of the righteous in their resurrection state.

2. The only Millennium found in the word of God, is the one thousand years which are to intervene between the first and second resurrections as brought to view in the 20th of Revelations. And the various portions of scripture which are adduced as evidence of such a period

in time, are to have their fulfilment only in the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

3. The only restoration of Israel yet future, is the restoration of the saints to the new earth, when the Lord my God shall come, and all his saints with him.

4. The signs which were to precede the coming of our Saviour, have all been given; and the prophecies have all been fulfilled but those which relate to the coming of Christ, the end of the world, and the restitution of all things.

5. There are none of the prophetic periods, as we understand them, extending beyond the (Jewish) year 1843, (which terminates in the spring of 1844.)

The above we shall ever maintain as the immutable truths of the word of God, and therefore, till our Lord come, we shall ever look for his return as the next event in historical prophecy.

Those who hold substantially the above views, are found in the greatest numbers in the United States, but the doctrine has been promulgated in the four quarters of the globe. Wm. Miller commenced lecturing in 1831, and his views were published about the same time, in the Vermont Telegraph. To meet the calls for information, he collected these articles in a pamphlet, which he distributed gratui tously. One edition of his lectures was published in 1836. Early in 1840, Joshua V. Himes, a minister in the Christian connexion, became a believer in these views, and commenced the Signs of the Times, issuing it for nearly two years only once in two weeks; it is now weekly. It commenced without subscribers or funds, but gradually gained friends. Other works were issued, and their circulation steadily increased. Josiah Litch, a member of the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, had in 1838, published a book on the "Probability of the Second Coming of Christ about the year 1843." In 1842, he issued "Prophetic Expositions," in two volumes. The Midnight Cry was commenced in New York, in Nov. 1842, and continued daily for twenty-six numbers, and is now weekly. It has been sent to every post office in the United States, and has excited an interest in the Middle and Western States, like that which the Signs had been the means of awakening in New England. Charles Fitch, formerly a pastor of the Free Presbyterian Church, Newark, N. J., wrote his "Reasons for believing the Second Advent of Christ in 1843," when he was at Haverhill, Mass., in Nov. 1841. A paper called "The Second Advent of Christ" was commenced by him at Cleveland, about the close of 1842. George Storrs commenced preaching the Second Advent Faith, in the summer of 1842. His

lectures are many of them published in a pamphlet called Bible Examiner. Enoch Jacobs, a Methodist Protestant preacher, stationed at Attorney Street, New York, advocated the Second Advent Faith in the New York Luminary, in 1842. He has continued his labours in New York, and at Cincinnati, where he is continuing the Western Midnight Cry, a weekly paper, commenced by George Storrs. The books and pamphlets of William Miller, Josiah Litch, G. F. Cox, Charles Fitch, George Storrs, L. D. Fleming, S. Bliss, J. B. Cook, F. G. Brown, N. Hervey, and others, are embodied in forty successive numbers of the Second Advent Library. The writings of Lewis Hersey, have been widely circulated in newspaper form. Several millions of books, papers, and tracts have been issued. Their circulation has been chiefly in the United States and Canadas; but considerable quantities have been sent to England. The Voice of Elijah, published at Montreal, circulates in the British dominions both sides of the Atlantic. Tracts have been translated into French and German. They have been sent, in English, to all the missionary stations known, and carried by whaling vessels to the remotest parts. Several hundreds of preachers constantly promulgate these views. The Eumber of believers cannot be ascertained. They are every where a minority. If the world generally embraced these views that fact would prove them false, for at Christ's second coming, it shall be as it was in the days of Noah; and Christ's question, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" clearly implies that true faith will be very far from universal.

SYNOPSIS OF MILLER'S VIEWS.

I. I believe Jesus Christ will come again to this earth.

Proof.-John xiv. 3: And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Acts i. 11: Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner, as ye have seen him go into heaven.

1 Thess. iv. 16: For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

Rev. i. 7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

II. I believe he will come in all the glory of his Father.

Proof.-Matthew xvi. 27: For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

Mark viii. 38: Whosoever, therefore, shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels.

III. I believe he will come in the clouds of heaven.

Proof.-Matthew xxiv. 30: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.

Mark xiii. 26: And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds, with great power and glory; xiv. 62: And Jesus said, ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Daniel vii. 13: I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

IV. I believe he will then receive his kingdom, which will be eternal.

Proof.-Daniel vii. 14: And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, that which shall not be destroyed.

Luke xix. 12, 15: He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded those servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.

2 Tim. iv. 1: I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.

V. I believe the saints will then possess the kingdom for ever.

Proof.-Daniel vii. 18, 22, and 27: But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for