we have little to fear. A Mr. Abraham Scott, of the New Convention Methodists, has printed a refutation, as he calls it, of your "Essay on Remission of Sins." I have read it, but it is too weak a production to require noticing, and is scarcely known in this neighborhood. You will, I am sure, be glad that any notice is taken of your writings; and I have little doubt that they will gradually become known and have their effect. The Testament translating into Welsh is in a forward state, but is not yet out. The Essay on Remission, in Welsh, is in circulation.

I write in some haste, for the post, as I hear the President sails from Liverpool tomorrow afternoon. I am thankful that my broken limb is now so far recovered as to allow of my proceeding with business.

May He who gave himself a ransom keep you always, and give you opportunities of endeavoring to spread the knowledge of Him! He is faithful who has promised. With the best wishes of Mrs. Davies, my father, brother, and all friends here. I remain, dear sir, yours in unity of spirit, JOHN DAVIES.

CICERO, New York, April 1, 1841. Brother Comings-The meeting which I mentioned to you in my last, as being in progress in this place, has resulted most gloriously for the truth. Fifty-six have been immersed, and several joined from the sects. The laborers were brethren M. S. Clapp, from Ohio, and J. I Lowell, who now resides in Pompey. Considering the thinness of our population and the violent opposition we have to encounter, I think the result of this meeting will fully equal any ever held in the United States. The converts appear exceedingly well. Among them we number some of our most respectable and intelligent citizens. H. JOSLYN.

BALTIMORE, Maryland, March 25, 1841. Dear brother Campbell-Brother Elley has given you some account of his labors among us for two weeks in February. Brother Henry T. Anderson has been with us since then, and his preaching has been attended with like good success. We continued our meetings for some two weeks, preaching five or six times each week. On the second Lord's day after his commencement we received 21 persons into the congreation, 17 by immersion, and 4 who had been previously immersed. We had the further pleasure of the company and assistance of brother Thomas Taylor of Philadelphia. The Reformation has cause to rejoice in the addition of this truly amiable and devoted man. He is highly educated, and his mind richly stored with every kind of information for general and most extensive usefulness. Could he only find it to his interest to remain in the cities on the sea-board,1 he cause would soon assume a different aspect under his able and most influential teaching and preaching. Oh! that many such laborers may be raised up for the work of the Lord!

Our good and venerable old brother Ferguson has been with us in the capacity of an Evangelist for the last six months, but has now returned home to Virginia. Few men, indeed, are to be found whose lives have been so entirely devoted to the Lord as has this most excellent individual He is truly full of the spirit of wisdom and understanding By the blessing of our heavenly Father our numbers have increased far beyond our most sanguine expectations, and the cause is decidedly in a better condition than it ever has been in Baltimore before. The church began a few months since with about thirty members. We now number 115. In that time nearly 40 have been added by immersion. and nearly all, if not quite, all of those who had stumbled and gone out of the way through our difliculties, have returned; so that we have lost none, we may say, or very few compared with what we have reason to fear would have been entirely destroved. GEORGE AUSTEN.

My absence so long from home has occasioned the postponement of many communica tlons, especially those on the progress of the gospel. I had the pleasure of passing through a portion of the field recently cultivated by brethren Johnson, Gano, and Ricketts, in Mason county, in which about a hundred were recently immersed. These breth ren were greatly engaged in the work of the Lord, and their abundant labors are crown. ed with abundant success. A. C.

OBITUARY.

On the 11th of April, in her 35th year, fell asleep in the Lord, sister MARY BERRY, of Belmont county, Ohio. An excellent sister-she lived and rejoiced in hope of a glorious immortality, and died as she had lived.

Also, on the 9th ultimo, in the same blessed hope and joyful anticipation, departed hence our brother WINFIELD of Philadelphia, in his 63d year. He only who lives the Christian's life, can die the Christian's death.

Brother Campbell,

DECLINE OF PARTYISM.

It seems to me that there cannot be a more agreeable subject of contemplation to the benevolent mind, than the rapid decline of partyspirit in the age in which we live. How gratifying it is to perceive in the stead of an influence so pernicious, the prevalence of peace on earth and good will among men! It seems as though the iron age of bigotry, intolerance, and brute force, were about to yield to the golden one of truth, liberality, and reason; and that we were soon to enter upon the years anticipated by the wishes of the philanthropist, and foretold in language and figures, more or less distinct, in the prophetic records and traditions of almost every nation:-that happy period when the gods who have heretofore delighted in human victims, shall give place to a peaceful divinity, the protectress of harvests, who will accept the more pure and simple offering of fruits and flowers.

How rapidly have these milder influences diffused themselves throughout society! How short an interval has there been since a passion for war, a 'reign of terror,' visited almost every land, like the contagious influence of a pestilence! Within the recollection of those who are even yet young, the world has been almost completely newmodelled. A new spirit appears to pervade society. In the political world, a love of quietude has succeeded to restless ambition. A desire for the peaceful acquisition and enjoyment of wealth, has supplanted the ardor for military glory and the spoils of war. Among nations, alliances have taken the place of rivalries; négociations and references have superseded the sword; and the kings of the earth offer themselves as mediators to allay national discords, instead of sending, as formerly, secret embassies to foment them. How great indeed the change, when Napoleon, if he be not twice dead, has at least been twice buried; and when in the room of warlike ministers and rulers, 21

VOL. V.-N. S.

the liberal-minded Brougham can have influence in the affairs of England, and the amiable Guizot is called to preside in the councils of France!

In religious society a change no less remarkable has taken place. The gloomy dungeons and cruel torments of the Inquisition, as well as the persecuting rage of sectarism, have yielded at length to the growing power of liberal principles and the unbounded forbearance of a popular "charity." Toleration in its widest extent has taken the place of a malignant and unrelenting oppression. Co-operation meetings for conversions abroad; union meetings for proselytism at home, are held by parties formerly discordant; and efforts are made to consolidate all denominations into one, upon the basis of unlimited endu rance, which, however broad and undefined, is, in these respects, but an emblem of the spirit by which it has been adopted. Thus it is that orthodoxy of feeling has triumphed over orthodoxy of faith, and a universal charity has come to be the very test of piety.

True, indeed, there may be found here and there individuals and even communities who form exceptions to the general rule. There are always those who remain in the rear of every great or rapid movement; and certain classes who are ever the last to change either for the better or the worse. Your late opponent, Mr. Landis, of calumni. ating memory, is not a bad illustration of the former; nor, if he represent their spirit aright, is his party an unfair example of the latter. I think, however, that he has not discerned the spirit of his own party; and I am sure he has wholly mistaken the spirit of the age, if he sup poses that his labored misrepresentations; his ill-natured criticisms; his manifest desire to put the worst construction upon your language; his solicitude to make upon his readers the worst impressions of your views and efforts; and his obvious design to widen rather than to close the broken ranks of the Protestant forces; to stir up strife, rather than to allay it; to judge and condemn with the sanctimonious ness of a Pharisee, rather than to examine and discuss with the candor and liberality of a Christian, will tend to give him any desirable popularity among his own people, or render him acceptable to the community at large.

Meanwhile, however, the great work in which you have been so long engaged, is progressing, and will continue to advance in defiance of all opposition. And I cannot but congratulate you that the intelligent public are daily becoming more and more disabused of the prejudices which have been created against you. Themselves, newly inspired by the liberal principles which are so rapidly diffusing themselves throughout society, they are surprized to find that you were,

LI

more than twenty years since, a pioneer of the road to peace and Christian union, and that, while you have signally sustained our common Christianity against both the Infidel and the Romanist, you have, on the other hand, ever labored to suppress the mutiny in the camp, and induce all to marshal themselves under the banner of the great Captain of Salvation. They begin to discover also the wisdom and entire fitness of the plan of union upon which you have insisted from 12 the first to wit, to take the Bible as the only rule of faith and morals, to unite upon those facts and principles which are commonly received by all parties, and to obtain deliverance from a set of quarrelsome opinions by setting them at liberty.

But the Bible is too large and wide a basis for men of little minds. These are they who seek to perpetuate that partyism which is so well suited to the calibre of both their intellect and morals. Incapable of comprehending the liberal purpose of an expanded mind; or else foreseeing from its accomplishment the downfall of their own petty popularity, and the loss of emolument, they set themselves in array against every attempt at improvement and reformation. Or, there are those again of higher abilities and attainments, who, not being destitute of either ambition or envy, so often unhappily allied, cannot bear the idea of being outshone; and will therefore withstand the introduction of new measures, simply because they did not originate with them.They very prudently prefer the continuance of the old systems and the darkness of past ages, being aware that their tapers which shine so conspicuously amidst the gloom, would cease to be even visible if brought into the light of day. All these resort alike to the means commonly employed on such occasions-the bugbears of orthodoxy. 'A heretic!' cries one. 'A grand heresiarch!' exclaims another of more Grecian taste. A Unitarian!' avouches the believer in Saint Athanasius. A Trinitarian!' declares the votary of Arius. A disorganizer!' is the cry of him who loves a church establishment. 'A builder up of a new party!' is the pious ejaculation of the ambitious sectary and pseudo-unionist who fears a rival claim for power and place. It is happy for you, my dear sir, that, in your case, such conflicting and opposite designations, like substances possessed of chymical affinity, have, after an immoderate effervescence, had only the effect to neutralize one another.

There is yet another class who are unwilling to adopt the Bible alone as the basis of union,-the pious and intelligent, but irresolute believers. These are too conscientious to oppose what they believe to be true, but they are afraid to trust their frail bark, now securely riding at anchor in the accustomed harbor, to the swelling waters of

so wide an ocean. Not even a Columbus could persuade them to unfurl their sails, or venture out to sea, by all the charms and blessings of a world. They excuse their timidity, nevertheless, by saying: 'We doubt the faithfulness of some with whom we should have to be associated. We fear that some of them leave out fundamental articles of the Christian faith. And how can we, upon such broad and general principles, secure ourselves against pernicious heresies?' They most erroneously imagine that a human creed can save them from hypocrites or errorists either doctrinal or moral, and that the scriptures of inspiration are less profitable for "instruction in righteousness," for "reproof," and salutary "correction."

Others, too, who have even by profession chosen the broad ocean of divine revelation as their proper place, have, from the same timidity, failed to carry out their declarations. They would rather beat about the estuary into which they were first launched, and keep carefully in view the well-known shores and land-marks. Your friend William Jones, it is true, charmed at first with your more adventurous course, and forgetting for a time the caution for which his countrymen are celebrated, did actually follow in your wake until he had got nearly out of sight of land; but his courage suddenly failed, and it was curious to see with what celerity he hastened back to port.Strange that some excellent and intelligent men should have so little confidence in the heavenly chart and compass that they dare not trust themselves to their guidance!

Such men are behind the age, and very deficient in a knowledge of the genius of the Christian Institution. How much more noble than this, the spirit of Christianity, which knows no distrust; and which is not afraid either of the Bible, or of those who have taken it as a guide! How much more accordant with Christian character, to bear with the weak; to instruct the ignorant and erring, and to cover with the mantle of Christian love the deficiencies of all! The spirit of Christ is a spirit of universal benevolence and love, and not one of the various parties of Christendom has been able, by all the barriers they have erected, to retain it exclusively within their own precincts. It was a want of confidence, a loss of Christian love, which first originated creeds. The different detachments of the Christian army would never have thought of thus fortifying themselves against each other, unless they had first begun to fear each other. Nor can a return to peace and harmony be expected until all these memorials of their belligerent state shall have been demolished. Creeds can never make sincere and devoted Christians. They may compel an assent to doctrines and principles seldom or never understood or believed, just as