of Unitarians. First one, and then the other, took the floor: and without actually grappling with each other, took turns at mutually neutralizing what either party had said. The scene appeared like a violation of the Levitical law: "Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woolen and linen together." Either sort of speakers occasionally aimed a shot at Orthodoxy, but the weight of their metal was mostly bestowed upon each other. Orthodoxy seemed like the Yankee frigate in the last war, which was chased all day by two British cruisers, which closed upon her at night, one on either side. Firing her broadsides right and left, she took advantage of the darkness and slipping from between them, left them cannonading each other. While they were thus occupied, the departing American captain kindly wished them both the most glorious success! LIVES OF THE CHIEF FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. -The fourth volume, just issued by the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, contains the life of Thomas Shepard, the Cambridge luminary, by his successor in the true First Church. Mr. Albro is a sincere believer in the excellences of his sainted predecessor. He has laboriously collected the scattered relics; and the image which time had defaced, he has artistically restored to something of its original completeness and beauty. It is among the choicest means of grace, to ponder the character of such a holy man as Shepard. It is a strong evidence of piety to be able to enter into the religious experience of such a man, and to hold full communion with his devout spirit. It is, however, a very humbling book to read. It will make most Christians of this day feel dwarfish, and look small in their own eyes, to come into such a presence, towering so far above them in spiritual height and strength. The influence of Thomas Shepard still lives, and walks, and acts, among us. Yet the signs of its presence and activity are not so decided as could be wished. We cannot but sigh for the return of days which will bring back such men as Shepard, Cotton, Eliot, and their venerated compeers. 66 "O they are fled the light! Those mighty spirits Lie raked up with their ashes in their urns; And scarce a spark of their eternal fire, Such sparks as survive will be best cherished by the aliment which history affords. Let the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society go on to furnish it. They have never engaged in a more useful or honorable undertaking. They have yet Winthrop, Hooker, and a long array of other names, not less illustrious among the "chief fathers," who left the house of bondage to pitch the tabernacle of the Lord in this "New English Canaan." THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN PIETY. - At a convention of antislavery philanthropists, as they pretended to be, held for several days in Boston during "election week," a resolution was adopted, expressing their delight and gratitude at the decline of American piety. We can only understand this piece of wickedness, on the supposition that the members of the convention are sensible that their own piety, if they ever had any, is quite gone; and that they imagine themselves to have been exclusive possessors of American piety, while there was any left. At one of its tumultuary sittings they were addressed by a very pure-minded gentleman in very dirty linen. For a long time he struggled to obtain a hearing, in spite of the hoarse clamor which drowned him out the instant he opened his lips. This indecent behavior is to be ascribed to the members of the convention; and not, as the presiding officer and others intimated, to the rowdies who were present. The proof of this is, that they were perfectly quiet whenever the chair or Mr. Quincy interposed a word in his behalf; while the deafening din burst forth with fresh fun and fury whenever the "gentleman on the floor" attempted to resume the broken thread of his argument. It was amusing to hear one of the leaders apologize for "the unfortunate gentleman," and his "morbid state of feeling:" for we have before heard these very terms applied to the apologist himself; with an intimation that his friends did not think it necessary to put him under restraint, because his distemper was of a harmless character. The meeting was then addressed by Rev. Theodore Parker, and Mr. Stetson of Medford, and by a Quakeress. This last speaker brought to mind a scrap of proverbial wisdom which is current among the Arabians: "When a hen crows like a cock, it is time to cut her head off!" All the speeches tended to confirm the impression, that this branch of the anti-slavery agitation is but a hypocritical scheme to decry Northern orthodoxy under the pretext of opposing Southern oppression. For one word uttered against slavery, there were a hundred vociferated againgst the evangelical truths of human depravity, atonement, election, and the like. As to the decline of American piety, we will mention a fact or two. Mr. Parker's old Society at Roxbury has settled in his place, a minister who is said to be not of his sort; but one of the old fashioned, or as they are sometimes called, whether derisively or not, "Orthodox Unitarians." Thus his kind of "piety" seems to be declining on that field of his longest labors. As to Rev. Mr. Stetson, when we first knew Medford, the orthodox Christians there, - a feeble, but zealous band, worshipped "in an upper chamber." And long they drooped in the shade, and under the unwholesome droppings of the overgrown tree of "liberalism." But at a census recently made, it was found that God had so prospered them, that their families far outnumbered those which remain under Mr. Stetson's care; and they have sent out a vigorous colony to form a new society in that flourishing town. Thus Mr. Stetson's sort of piety seems to be declining at home. As to the Hicksite Friends, it is notorious that their sort of piety, is far gone in hopeless consumption. The only kinds of American piety which, so far as we know, exhibit decided symptoms of decline, are Unitarianism and Quakerism. Within twenty-five years, the number of orthodox churches is nearly doubled in Massachusetts, and they are increasing as fast as ever. The number of orthodox communicants has much more than doubled within that time. This is the way American piety is declining! That Convention must have been composed of such persons as our Lord and the apostles so often spoke of,-who "having ears, hear not, and eyes, see not." If they are so grossly ignorant of the statistics of religion, right here about their doors, who will believe them to be infallible in their views of slavery in distant states ? The Convention closed amid a storm of rowdyism. And it is noticeable that the presiding officer, Mr. Quincy, one of the no-humangovernment, no-physical-force, men, one who disowns his allegiance, and professes to renounce the protection of law, -called on the police to arrest the rioters, and acquiesced in their forcible removal. NEANDER'S GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND CHURCH.-Professor Torrey, a scholar remarkably qualified for the work, has undertaken a labored and exact translation of this invaluable history. The first volume, a noble and solid piece of work, has just been issued by Crocker and Brewster. We became acquainted with this work in the original many years ago. We were then exercised with painful doubts as to the proper form of church government: but those doubts resolved themselves into certainties during the reading of Neander. He clearly showed that the form of government instituted by the apostles, so far as appears, was eminently popular, and intended to cherish the independency of the churches, and the freedom of their members. He convinced us that Congregationalism, as developed in New England, comes closest to the apostolic model, and accords best with the free spirit of Christianity. His opinions had the more weight with us, inasmuch as being an Erastian, or state-church Christian, he had no point to make out, no systematic interest to maintain. The subject awoke in him no party feeling: no partiality clouded his mind. Since then, as appears by his preface to Mr. Colman's excellent book on the "Primitive Church," Dr. Neander has come to be a decided advocate of the apostolical origin of that ecclesiastical order, which was restored by our fathers in New England, who sought to place their churches "nearer to the Bible, and farther from Rome" than any others. - Dr. Neander's history is equally remarkable for an erudition from whose research and memory nothing has escaped; and for a keen discrimination of character and opinion. Shew to Baron Cuvier, a bone, and he would presently give a correct account of the nature and habits of the animal to which it belonged, and make an accurate drawing of the creature, though he had never seen or heard of it before. And so Dr. Neander, with even more admirable discernment, will take some fragment which has reached us from Basilides, or Valentine, or any other of the old heretics: and from this he will argue, that the man who held such an opinion, to be consistent, must hold such and such other opinions. He thus reconstructs the whole theory of the said heretic. To verify this account, he looks up all the other fragments which may be extant; and behold, each falls naturally into its place, agreably to the historian's sagacious expectation. Says Lord Bacon: "It is not St. Augustine's nor St. Ambrose's works that will make so wise a divine, as ecclesiastical history thoroughly read and observed." There seems to be a remarkable coincidence in spirit and habit of mind, between Dr. Neander, himself a converted Jew, and those first converted Jews, the apostles of the Lord. SCHOOL GOVERnment. We have read with singular interest, a lecture on this subject, delivered by Rev. John P. Cowles before the Massachusetts State Teachers' Association, and published in the "Practical Educator" for April and May. It is a strong document, and highly entertaining withal; and vastly better than a whole year's training under "normalty" at West Newton. It discusses the subject of sensible punishment in a sensible way, quite different from the new rose-water reformers whose discipline would reject all sticks but sticks of candy, and would oblige each family to buy an annual hogshead of molasses, wherewith to regulate its "unlicked cubs." Nature, indulgent as she is to the obedient, is stern to the froward; and such as break her laws will be broken by them, receiving meet recompense in themselves. The God of nature wields over his family the rod of moral castigation, and also that of corporeal pain; the latter in aid of the influence of the former. That he is in this instance our pattern, is certain from his Holy Word, whose counsels, though they seem foolish to certain weak philanthropists, will ever prove to such as follow them, that "the foolishness of God is wiser than men." There be many who fancy themselves wise far "above what is written," who yet are not wise up to the smallest fraction of the Scriptures of truth. SABBATH SCHOOL QUESTION Books. In some recent remarks of ours relating to the use of these books, we took occasion to say, that they were apt to lead to a mechanical way of teaching; the instructor confining himself to the questions, most of which obviously admit of being answered only in one way, and when these answers are regularly given, the business is done for that time. That this is necessarily the result from the use of question-books, by no means follows: because in this, as in every other occupation, much more depends on the zeal and intelligence of the teacher, than on the nature of the instruments he works with. "If the iron be blunt, he must put to the more strength." A good teacher will not be too much restricted by any set of questions, however excellent of their kind. During the brief period allotted to his Sabbath exercise, he should be like a powerful electrical machine in full operation, sparkling, and charging his animated class, like a battery of Leyden-jars, till they are instinct with life and interest. In preparing for this duty, the question-book is exceedingly useful but it should be employed as a means, rather than an end. It should accumulate knowledge in the minds of the scholars to be enkindled with the fire of emotion, when they come into contact with the mind of the teacher. Above all, the presence of the Holy Spirit must be sought as the Spirit of life and power, in whose absence all is labor lost. BIOGRAPHY OF SELF-TAUGHT MEN.-The self-made man labors under one great disadvantage, he is doing something in which he has had no experience. He is "trying his prentice-hand," and is trying it upon himself. As most men have to be self-made, or else not made at all, this explains why many of them are so poorly made. When any from this class are successful, it is the more to their credit: and it is well that they should be held up to encourage the efforts of others who are in like condition. This is excellently well done in the volume whose title is at the head of this paragraph. With the exception of one article, it is from the vigorous and instructive pen of Professor B. B. Edwards; and is to be followed by other volumes on the same plan, by a different hand. It is published by Benjamin Perkins and Co., Boston, who are thus efficiently helping men to help themselves; and to be, under divine providence, "the builders of their own fortune." PRISON DISCIPLINE. The annual meeting of the Boston Prison Discipline Society has been protracted, by a number of adjournments, through several weeks. The matter in debate is the comparative merits of the "congregate" and the "segregate" methods, adopted at Auburn and Philadelphia respectively. At Auburn, the prisoners work together, in silence, during the day; but are separated by night. At Philadelphia, they are shut up in solitude and silence all the time. Considering what man is, we should suppose that every humane mind must reject this system of utter solitude; of which some ancient has justly said, "that none but a god or a savage, can endure this exile from human nature." The statistics abundantly prove, that the Philadelphia system has a dreadful efficacy in causing derangement and death among the convicts; while the other system has no such tendency. In the recent discussions before the Society at Boston, one gentleman of great distinction remarked, that for the last twenty years, his family had numbered about twelve persons: and if they had suffered in the same proportion with the convicts in Pennsylvania, they would all have been dead by this time, except two or three; and these survivors would have been crazy! And yet the advocates of this cruel and unnatural method of treating erring men, are our new style of philanthropists, a certain proof that they are wanting either in sense or sincerity. The probability is that they have no hearty preference for the Philadelphia plan; but merely use it as a pretence for ousting the Secretary of the Prison Discipline Society, who was the pioneer of reform in the penitentiaries and houses of correction in this country; and with whom they hope to cast out that savor of evangelical piety which has heretofore been diffused through its proceedings. Malignancy against orthodox men and measures is the real motive of this agitation. Of this, the speech of Dr. Howe, and his scoffs at the adorable triumphs of divine grace in the conversion of the convict, "Black Jacob," give manifest proof. It is remarkable, that the course pursued by the Society and its Secretary has found, in these discussions, some of its ablest defenders in gentlemen of the first rank in what is called "the liberal party." Hon. Mr. Gray, Hon. Mr. Eliot, Rev. Mr. Lathrop, and others, have dealt severe rebukes upon the puerile agitations of Mr. Charles Sumner and his clique. He and his set have sadly sunk themselves in the estimation of the public by their rancorous, but imbecile, assault upon "The generous band, Who, touched with human woe, redressive searched |