to be sent out as evangelists, into the dark places of the earth? It cannot be doubted that there are many such, and in the reports to be presented to the meeting, it would be well to state who may be willing to go forth, and who are now discouraged to make the attempt, because the prospect before them is so uncertain. Also, if there are any of the younger members desirous to devote themselves to this great work. The disciples were sent out two and two, and in order that there may be a continued supply of properly-qualified teachers, if each of the evangelists was accompanied by a young brother, his hands would be strengthened, and he would have the comfort of a companion under circumstances usually very discouraging. Two walking together well agreed, would carry a weight in their teachings that would produce the most salutary effect. The subject of drawing a supply of teachers from America, will no doubt be debated, and should be entertained with all respect and consideration. Still, it must be conceded, that those who have been born and brought up in the country, must understand the peculiar errors in religion they will have to combat, better than a stranger. The errors in religious faith, take a peculiar complexion and bearing from the spirit of the people, that spirit being itself controlled by the form of government under which it has been fostered. A foreigner would not be so well qualified to expose the errors of the Established Church, as one who has been brought up here. Church and State give a tone to all denominations, and an imported teacher would have himself to learn, before he could command success. Besides which, the prejudice attaching to all from America, from the weakness of some of the brethren and many of the world, allowing themselves to mix together two very different and altogether distinct subjects—I allude to slavery. These thoughts are not presented as dictating any peculiar mode of proceeding, but are rather suggestive. Let this subject be approached in the spirit of the great Author of our religion-let the establishment of the faith of the Prince of Peace be attempted in his spirit-let forbearance characterize all the controversies on this subject, and let each one be willing rather to receive than to give advice. Above all, let the views be given as supplying materials out of which may be framed a comprehensive scheme for evangelization, rather than as pledging the churches to a distinct course of action. If the delegates come well prepared on this and other subjects, no doubt great benefit will result from our meeting, and our Heavenly Father will add his rich blessing through Jesus Christ our Lord. There will be time in the June number of the Harbinger to give thoughts on all prominent subjects, and a digest might be made that would prove highly useful at the meeting already alluded to. About twelve months since I joined the Wesleyan Society, after repeated solicitations from several of the members. I made known to one of the preachers, that I was a believer in immersion, and that I should obey that command after I had been a member a short time, if my belief underwent no change. As I have not heard or read anything to weaken my faith, but rather to strengthen it, I feel it to be my duty on the earliest occasion to obey that command, namely, to be immersed into Jesus, and put on a conscience void of offence toward God. I have many reasons for believing this to be my duty. It certainly is the command of Christ himself, which ought to be sufficient for every believer. But if no command had been given, I think all who love Christ would be glad to follow his example. I have, further, another reason. -You are aware that I have been an infidel for upwards of twenty years, and I think it would be my duty, were there neither commandment nor example, to make as public an acknowledgment of my conversion to a belief in Christ, as possible; but I know of no way more suitable for this purpose, than public immersion into the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I wish, also, to state, that when I first joined the Wesleyans, I did not think there would be so many points of difference between us. I feel it my duty to refer you to some of the most important. I never received the sacrament but once, and was astonished that we all had to kneel - - a position that appeared to me to have no authority for it in Holy Writ, and contrary to nature itself. To sit and receive food appears to me the most reasonable and Scriptural, and I do not wish to follow anything Popish or superstitious. I am not partial, also, to hearing the Lord's prayer repeated on every occasion, which is something like a schoolboy repeating his task. Besides, there are passages which are not appropriate to every occasion. As we are progressive beings, I have lately made some farther progress in what I consider necessary to us, who so often pray that we may be perfect, even as our Father who is in heaven is perfect. It is this, that the Holy Spirit, being the gift of God, and one of the promises of the Saviour, we act very wrong in supplicating it, regardless of God, who is the giver of the Spirit through our Saviour Jesus Christ. Thus, too, when we sing "Come Holy Ghost, our hearts inspire," or Come Holy Spirit quickening dove," it is very inconsistent, as we have no precedent for it in the example of the disciples of Jesus Christ, as recorded in the New Testament. There are a few other practices which I have found to be contrary to the New Testament, and for these reasons I must discontinue my attendance at your class-meetings, and unite myself, if possible, to a church more in accordance with the teachings of Jesus and his Apostles. I have now to return you many thanks for your kind wishes to me, believing, without the least flattery, that you sincerely desire to see all around you happy; but I assure you, when others have appeared the most happy at your class-meetings, I have felt unhappy. Praying for the happiness of you all, I remain, Your's in Christ, J. W. [The writer of the above letter has since been immersed into Christ. We should have published it in a former number, but for the manuscript having been mislaid.] WILBURY. ITEMS OF NEWS. Though we as a congregation do not make great increase in our number, we have occasion to rejoice that we sometimes have a few additions. You will be pleased to hear that on the 12th instant two were added to the saved, a male and female, both young, the children of our beloved Brother Scott, making six of his children in our little congregation. How pleasing and delightful to see the young offering their "bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God," before their tender hearts have ever been "hardened through the deceit. fulness of sin." - for Does not the fact of six of our brother's children (all who are of a sufficient age) being added, speak something for their culture family culture? A subject which has not been neglected in the pages of the Harbinger, and it deserves a place there still. There are many families who need more, very much more instruction on this very important subject. There are other important matters, but perhaps none more so than family culture. I am exceeding pleased to see the Temperance Question has found its way into the pages of the Harbinger. I hope you will continue to give it a place there, for in my opinion there is no other remedy for Britain's curse, drunkenness. Oh, what a blessing it would be, if drunkenness were once banished from our isle, carrying with it the greater part of the other crimes! Let our brethren all oppose, with all their might, the grim monster in its angel-oflight form (moderation), and success will crown their efforts. Not else! I have no hesitation in saying the Harbinger improves. Would it were more widely cir culated, as it deserves. May our young converts, and we all, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. GEORGE ELTON. GLASGOW. I am in receipt of a letter from Sydney of last December, a few particulars of which may interest you. It is from Brother Mitchell, who, with his wife, were members of the congregation here, and went to the Antipodes upwards of 5 years' since. He says: "I desire to return you my grateful thanks for your kindness in sending the books I wrote for, and as our Sister Isabella has arrived, and informed me that you are to send some more first opportunity, I am all anxiety to get them, because there are a great many about making the good confession, and the writings of Brother Campbell have done much good here, and likely to do much more, as the people seem to appreciate them very much. I am happy to inform you, since I wrote you last, (exactly a year ago) that we have immersed seven into the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, four men and three women; and I may say that they have all been led to the knowledge of the truth by giving the Christian System, Christian Messenger, and Bible Advocate a fair and candid examination. They are delighted with Mr. C.'s works, and say they are the plainest they ever read, and coincide more with the Scriptures, than any they ever heard of before, and are very anxious to see more of them. We meet every first day of the week to break bread, and the new converts enjoy the ordinances of the Lord's house. They are all very intelligent men, and well qualified to preach and teach the gospel of Christ. After the breaking of bread, we go to the public green to declare the glad tidings to those who are without, and have many questions put to us, and considerable debatings with the hearers. We are bound to bear with them, and answer them according to Scripture, as well as we know. As regards the state of our church, we are living in peace and love, and all the brethren are very anxious for the salvation of the souls of men." A. PATON. OBITUARY. We have to record the death of another of our members, SISTER ANN SHARROCK, aged 72 years, of Wigan, who fell asleep in Jesus on the 22nd of March, 1854. JUNE, 1854. CHRISTIANITY ADAPTED TO MAN. CHRISTIANITY, like man, has its object and its subject. God himself, in all his adorable excellencies, is its object. It attracts and allures the human soul to its own origin and fountain. And these are Jehovah himself. The universe is his temple. He fills it all-he animates it all-he beautifies and adorns it all. There is absolute nothing above him, beneath him, beyond him. The visible heaven and the heaven of heavens are but his pavilion-the tent or tabernacle in which he manifests his eternal majesty and godhead. "Ascend I heaven! Lo! Thou art there. There, if amongst the dead I lie." "I cannot go where universal love smiles not all around." Take I the wings of the morning, and on "the swift-winged arrows of light" flee to the utmost star I see, I there find myself yet but in the vestibule of the pavilion of the great King, for I see as many suns and systems before me as I left behind me. And could I continue my flight for ages of ages, I would, at the remotest orb, still see as many wonders of creative power, wisdom, and goodness, above me as under me. Hence, eternity is the only field of vision and of bliss that meets the wants and wishes of an immortal mind. But who can distinguish between "the Eternities of Israel" and an absolute eternity of eternities? Yet, nothing short of absolute space, absolute being, absolute blessedness, and absolute duration, can fill the vacuum which God has himself created in man, in angel, and in spirit. The mysteries of creation, providence, moral government, and redemption, all launch out into the ocean of eternity into an infinite past behind us, and an infinite future before us. The moral pulsations of our moral nature expand or contract in harmony with our intellectual and spiritual garniture, and with our conceptions of him whose most sublime position is comprehended in the oracle, I AM. But who can comprehend the ineffable sublimity of the adorable I AM? And yet it is one only self-existent impersonation that gives form to thought or thought to form. Annihilate it and you have annihilated yourself. You are a mere idea, an impression, an imagination, without a local habitation or a name. There is a pleasure in being bewildered in a paradise-in being lost in a rapture of glory; or, like Paul, in not knowing "whether in the body or out of the body"—whether in the first or in the seventh heaven-in the heaven of heavens, or beyond them all. There is no relation between the finite and the infinite, and yet neither of these could be without the other. There are, therefore, but two ideas in the universe of the genus generalissimum — two distinct conceptions, and yet dependent on each other for a revelation of themselves. These are creature and creator. Father and child are equally dependent on each other for their being and manifestation. A father without a child, or a child without a father, is not within the grasp of human reason nor of angelic thought. We may as well, then, pause here as go any farther in this direction. For all the philosophers of earth, and all the philosophers of the universe, are stranded and silenced just here, because of the impotency of boasting, boastful reason. We are, because God is. And God is, because God was, and God will ever be, because he always was, the one only self-existent, underived, unbegotten, uncreated one, indicated in the ineffably sublime utterance, I AM. This is our Rock of Ages. And in speaking of the joys and plesures of true religion, we F must have a clear and clean arena for its full manifestation, in order to its full enjoyment. Religion (I use the term because of its consecration in the dialects of earth) being wholly of a remedial character, and to be appreciated and enjoyed as such must be adapted to man as he now exists in this world. It must, therefore, have a body, a soul, and a spirit, to meet all the demands of his being and of his well being. Hence Christianity must have a body, a soul, and a spirit, if it be at all adapted to the conditions of a lost, bewildered, and ruined world. In heaven and in hell there is no religion. None in heaven, because all its inhabitants are reconciled to God; and none in hell, because its inmates are not under a remedial dispensation. The whole need neither a physician nor his medicine. Neither do the dead. Religion, therefore, is for man in the flesh, or for man fallen and undone, but yet placed under a remedial system. Angels or spirits in no realm of the universe, are the subjects or the objects of religion. Adoration and praise belong only to those in holy communion with God; and these in heaven constitute nature; on earth, they are the fruit of religion, or reconciliation to God. Light is not love, neither is love light. It is but the fruit of it. Before we admire or love beauty, we must see it. And before we can love God, we must know him as he is-absolute, supreme, essential beauty. But in this lower world, and in all its mists and fogs of philosophy and religion, so called, there is a vocabulary as frail, and feeble, and erratic as man. The reason is clear-the stream cannot rise above its fountain—and man can never, at one glance, see himself. There is, of his senses, not one that can recognize its own acts. The eye sees not itself, the ear hears not itself, and neither of these can take cognizance of any one of the other senses, nor any one of them take cognizance of either of them. The gustatory nerve, the olfactory nerve, nor any nerve of sensation, can take any cognizance whatever of itself or of the acts of its fraternity. Hence, mind and spirit are mysteries, on which myriads of philosophers have, in vain, racked their brains for thousands of years. But shall the eye of man nullify its own being because it never saw itself, or the ear because it never heard itself? Talk not of mirrors. There are neither eyes nor ears in mirrors. They but adumbrate material orbs or structures. Senses have no shadows, no lights, no colors, no forms, no images of themselves or of one another. Organs are not senses. But if they were, not one of them could recognize another. So of all the inner faculties of the mind. Indeed, the mind and the spirit require the sharp two-edged sword of the Spirit of God to separate them. None but a sword manufactured in heaven can distinguish or separate these. That sword is the Word of God. Hence Paul, who saw all this by a spiritual intuition, eloquently declares that "the Word of God is quick and powerful (living and effectual) sharper than any two-edged sword, and is a discerner, (or a detector) of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Hence the metaphysical, or animal, man never did, never can, discern himself. No mere philosopher, unaided by revelation, in writing or in tradition, ever knew himself — his origin, his relations to the universe, his ultimate destiny. So reason we, and so affirms Paul by a plenary inspiration. Now, then, after this excursion, let us return to our theme. We have said that Christianity, like man, has its subject and its object. Man himself is the subject of it-man, in his whole being, character, and constitution, is the subject of this divine institution. He was in being before it was in fact. It was originated and consummated for him as a fallen, degraded, ruined being. It contemplates his entire regeneration in body, soul, and spirit. This is, therefore, its object. This consummated, its design is perfected. This not consummated, he dies a wretch undone--lost, ruined, degraded for ever. It is, therefore, the greatest subject, or theme, within the limits of human thought, of human aspiration. Compared with it, the physical universe is an atom unappreciable. Possessed of it, and of its full effect upon his intellectual and moral constitution, his whole spiritual being is the most sublime and elevated spectacle we have ever seen, or can see, by the light of this world, whether we call it physical, intellectual, or spiritual light. its But man being a miniature trinity-possessing a body, a soul, and a spirit— Christianity assumes a similar constituency, and, therefore, it has a body, a soul, and a spirit. Its body is the ordinances of Christianity. Here I would not call them ordinances of religion, for religion is God's one grand ordinance-the centre of which is the propitiatory sacrifice and the propitiatory intercession— the latter based on, and emanating from, the former. The sun has been turned into blood, in the Son of God having become a slain lamb. Blood is the envelope of life, the mystery of mysteries, in the organizations of this physical and moral universe. But that Lamb of God having been slain a sacrifice for us, there needs no more sacrifice for sin. Hence, this blood is embalmed, preserved, and shadowed forth in that which we have called the body of Christianity ordinances. And of these, there are three distinct embodiments. These are, baptism, the Lord's supper, and the Lord's day. These are pregnant institutions, filled with the grace of God. Forms without meaning are nothing. Form is but a mode of being. It is not being. In Christian baptism there is more than words and water, and the action of immersion. There is a grace, a special grace. Baptism is valid grace, and no more. There is, indeed, implied and solemnly expressed in it, a death, a burial, and a new life. There is, too, a solemn preparation for it. There is a spiritual illumination terminating in faith, as preparatory to it, or to the enjoyment of its spiritual provisions. This faith itself is not a physical impression on the senses or the soul of a man, in a state of death or torpidity, but an actual giving up of the heart, the conscience, the will, to the Redeemer, on the verity and fidelity of the Holy Spirit, who always tesfies to the divine and moral grandeur of the Son-the INCARNATE WORD OF THE LIVING GOD. This is baptismal faith, terminating in a literal immersion in water, into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Hence its inappreciability to insensible, unappreciating babes and sucklings. There is then a resurrection out of the mystic grave, by the arm of the administrator-a second birth into a new world-the church or family of God. Born thus of the water and of the Spirit, a new and formal life begins. Communion with the Father, and with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit, here commences, in the spirit of adoption, by which those mystically regenerated in body, soul, and spirit, cry, Abba, Father! There is, also, besides the quickening of the Word or Spirit of God, the resurrection to a new life, not only in the symbolic form of immersion, but in the spiritual, and holy, and joyful aspirations of the soul to God, in the pure and holy spirit of personal consecration to the service and the honor of the Lord who redeemed us by his own blood, and constituted us kings and priests to God. This sublime confession of our faith in the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus, is followed up by a sacred regard to the other constituents of the Christian gospel-the Lord's day and the Lord's supper. |