greater number of sorcerers, or Shamans.

The total number of the whole Burät nation, is above 100,000 males. The names of the eleven Chorin-Burät tribes, which are inaccurately stated in Pallas' account, are the following:-Charnagay, Galsood, Bodongut, Kübdüt, Chuwahzay, Batanay, Sharait, Chuday, Zagan, Chalwing, and Gutschid.

SIR,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN HERALD.

IF you think the following expository and practical remarks, upon a very important passage of Scripture, likely to be useful to your readers, you are at liberty to insert them in your valuable Miscellany. IOTA.

"If thy brother trespass against thee," &c. Matt. xviii. 15-20.

FROM the connexion in which these words stand, it is evident they were designed by our Lord to describe the conduct we must adopt if we would co-operate with God in recovering an offending and fallen brother.

In this passage, Christ is to be understood as issuing a positive command. Some, indeed, it is to be feared, view it rather in the light of a recommendation, than of a command. They admire the wisdom displayed by this injunction-they acknowledge its benevolent and useful tendency; yet they scarcely seem to be conscious of guilt, though they live in the constant violation of it. That same Being, however, who said, "Swear not at all,” &c. said also, "If thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell," &c.; and therefore it is not greater rebellion against the authority of Jesus to use impious and profane language, to hate our enemies, and to curse those who bless us, than to make public the faults of our brethren, instead of administering private rebuke.

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The term brother means a fellow-partaker of the faith, hope and privileges of the gospel. It especially refers in this passage. to a member of the same Christian church; not indeed exclu sively of others, for the conduct which our Lord in these verses enjoins, should be pursued by us towards any of the disciples of Christ when they fall into sin.

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To trespass is to miss a mark, or to deviate from a way. The law of God describes the path in which we should walk: to trespass, is to deviate from it. Now, though all trespasses are sins against God, yet some trespasses are committed immediately and directly against our fellow-creatures: they are deviations from that path in which we ought to walk in reference to them. Hence our Lord says, "If thy brother shall trespass against

thee," i. e. if one who is connected with you in the fellowship of the gospel, should neglect or violate the duties he owes to you, go and tell him," &c.

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Strictly speaking then, it appears that the trespass of which our Lord here speaks, is a personal offence; and by offence, we are not to understand a deficient display of that attention and respect which we may conceive we deserve, but some act of positive sin,-some violation of the laws of Christianity in the conduct of our brother towards us. In cases of open sin, it cannot be said with that peculiarity of application which the words of our Lord convey, that an offence has been committed against any individual member of the church. Besides, trespasses of this kind require a very different mode of treatment. "Them that sin before all," says the apostle, "rebuke before all, that others may fear." Yet when the sins of our Christian brethren are known only to us, though in strict propriety of expression they cannot be called trespasses against us, they are included amongst those to whom our Lord refers, and are to be treated in the same manner. There is, in fact, no other way in which they can be treated. To deal with them as public offences, would be to make them such. In the cases which are now supposed, there can be no doubt that honour and justice and Christian love require us in the first instance, to ascertain whether the transgressor has been brought to repentance, and, should that be found to be the case, to bury his offence in everlasting oblivion.

The direction given by our Lord, in case of a brother's trespassing against us, is so plain as scarcely to admit of explanation. When the offence has been committed, we are forbidden to breathe a word upon the subject, even to our most intimate friends. We are without delay to go to the offender, and in the spirit of Christian affection and faithfulness to state to him wherein he has violated the laws of Christian love in his conduct towards us, and thereby sinned against God. "If he shall hear thee," says our Lord, "thou hast gained thy brother," i. e. thou hast brought him back to the path of duty and safety, and secured the perpetuity of your brotherly regards.

It is manifest then, that to gain our brother, and thereby to promote the glory of God, is the exclusive object we should have in view in going to him; and from hence we learn the absolute necessity of proceeding in a spirit of the tenderest Christian love. And the depravity of our natures renders it especially necessary to be frequently reminded of this. Resentment is too apt to spring up in our bosoms when our brethren trespass against us. Nature prompts us to say, How shamefully have I been treated, and from such a quarter too; but I shall soon make him repent of his conduct.' To divest ourselves of

such feelings as these, if we are unhappily the subjects of them, is the first step to be taken in case of offence; for if we were to go to our brother under their impulse, it would give an edge and a sharpness to our expostulations, which, in all probability, would totally defeat the object we had in view-would provoke him to shut himself up in sullenness and impenitence, and thus produce an incurable breach between us. It is of the greatest importance to remember this direction, since the duty now under consideration is one of the most difficult and delicate, to the discharge of which we can be called in our intercourse with our Christian brethren. There are those, and those who call themselves Christians too, who will fly to remonstrate with a brother the instant his conduct affords the least pretence for it, and who seem to take much delight in so doing. It is no easy thing, however, so completely to conquer those feelings of irritation which the trespass of a brother against us is calculated to excite, as to be enabled to act in the pure spirit of Christian love, and to render it manifest to the offender himself that our conduct is not dictated by resentment, but by an honest and affectionate desire to lead him to repentance. And therefore every man who knows his own heart, will take some time to subdue and discipline his feelings, and he will not go to his brother till he has gone to the throne of grace, and earnestly implored direction and assistance and a blessing from above.

Private remonstrance, administered in this spirit, will seldom fail to prove effectual. There may be cases, however, in which no good will result from it: yet even in these cases, we are not at liberty to make the circumstance publicly known; we are only permitted to divulge it to one or two more, and we are only to mention it to them in the hope, that their presence will give more solemnity and effect to our admonitions, or that they may be able to establish the facts of the case, if, unhappily, it should be necessary to lay them before the church.

"But if he will not hear thee," says our Lord, "then take with thee one or two more," &c. If he should hear them, our brother is gained; but if this endeavour to reclaim him prove ineffectual, his trespass, as the last resort, is to be told, not to the world, but to the church. The church are to add the weight of their entreaties, exhortations and rebukes, to ours; and if he still refuse to confess and forsake his sin,-if he shall neglect to hear the church, he is then to be considered as a heathen man and a publican. He must not be treated as a brother in Christ, since this would tend to harden him in his transgressions. With him we must not keep company, no not so much as to eat. When the brethren are gathered together, he is to be delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

The limits of your work, Mr Editor, will not allow of any remarks upon the verses which immediately follow, though they are most intimately connected with the subject; but I trust you will allow me space for a few observations upon the beneficial effects which the conduct enjoined by our Lord, in the case of offence, is adapted to produce, and then to state a few general remarks suggested by the whole subject.

First, then, let us observe its beneficial influence upon the mind of the offender himself. It is indeed, I conceive, with an especial reference to him that the injunction we have considered, is delivered. By violating the law of Christian love, in relation to his brother, he has brought himself into the condition of a sheep which has wandered from the fold. It should be the desire of the brother trespassed against, to lead him back again, and so to co-operate with Jehovah in the great and good work of reclaiming him from his wanderings. What, then, is the course of conduct most likely to effect this important object? Suppose that before he went to the offender, he were to make public the knowledge of his fault; would not, I ask, the publicity thus improperly given to it, expose him, by increasing the difficulty and pain of confession, to a strong temptation of denying the charge altogether, or of vindicating his conduct, even though he incurred by so doing the reproaches of his own conscience? Surely this cannot be doubted. It is sufficiently humbling, as we all feel, to confess our faults in any circumstances; but it is especially so to confess them to one who has made all the world acquainted with them. To him it is by no means wonderful if they should be justified or denied. It is also of great importance, when we attempt to bring any person to a sense of guilt, that he should not have any very obvious charge to retort upon us, or he might reply, "First cast out the beam," &c. Few things constitute a greater trial of patience, than to be exhorted to repentance by a man whom we consider as great a sinner as ourselves; and in this light most offenders will consider their brethren who have made public the knowledge of their fault,— so that when reproved by them, they are more likely to assume the tone of accusers, than to manifest the spirit of penitents. It is not at all likely that private reproof should prove of any avail, when the law of secrecy has been violated. But when the brother who has been trespassed against, most religiously conceals the knowledge of the circumstance-when he goes to the offender in the spirit of Christian love, as well as faithfulness-when he reproves him for his faults, evidently with the sole view of restoring him again to the path of duty and of safety, he will seldom fail of gaining him, unless he has been a false brother unawares brought in. Few real Christians, in the first stages of backsliding, are so hardened in sin, as not to be affected and

brought to repentance by the faithful and affectionate expostu lations of a brother, who is evidently acting in the spirit of the gospel of Christ.

Secondly, Let us observe its beneficial influence upon the church with which the parties stand connected. It tends first to promote and preserve love amongst them. A church of Christ is a company of believers united together by love to Him who redeemed them. Now, it is not likely, it is not possible even that its members will abound in love to each other, unless they have confidence in each other's Christian character. They love one another for the truth's sake which dwelleth in them; so that if circumstances should occur to infuse a suspicion into the minds of some, that the truth does not dwell in others who are united with them in church-fellowship, their brotherly affection for them must be necessarily weakened, if not entirely destroyed. What then, I ask, would be so calculated to shake the confidence of the brethren in each other, as for every offence which is committed to be immediately circulated through the whole church? It must tend to awaken suspicion in every one who reflects but for a moment, that there is a lamentable want of practical regard to the authority of Jesus in the body; that its constituent members have not that fervent affection for each other which they ought to possess; and that it is not so evident they are the friends and disciples of Jesus, as they had been accustomed to imagine. Upon the offender himself, whose fault has been thus ungenerously and improperly published, it must operate to alienate his affections from those who have treated him more like foes than friends and brethren; and, as every one feels that the case of his neighbour may soon become his own, it must tend to check the generous current of Christian love which, while it circulated through the body, imparted to it a dignity and beauty, of which no society in this world, but a church of Christ, is susceptible. Reverse the picture. Suppose that the law of Christ on this point is invariably acted upon that the trespasses of an offending brother are never divulged, unless his impenitence render it necessary, and in no case to any greater extent than is required to carry into effect the laws of Christ-how attractive, how lovely the scene! How eminently adapted to inspire confidence and affection! How safe does every brother feel in such a spot as this! Through the infirmity of his nature, and the power of temptation, he may trespass against his brethren, and he will be certainly reproved for it; but the tongue of malevolence, or anger, or envy, will not be permitted to move against him. He may be smitten, but not with the fist of wickedness; for when the righteous smite him, it is a kindness, it is excellent oil which does not bruise his head.