of their affairs, a diversity which cannot abide the test of scripture. I contend that in all cases where we have a precept. enjoining the observance of any thing in a certain way, that thing, whatever it may be, cannot be rightfully done, or observed in any other way than that prescribed. And in the absence of precepts, where can be found an example or precedent, showing the manner in which any part of Christian worship was performed by the Apostles and first Christians, that example or precedent should be as carefully observed by us, as the pattern shown to Moses in the Mount was by him, in the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness. The occasion, institution, and design of the Passover are clearly stated in the 12th chapter of Exodus. Here we learn that the paschal lamb was selected, prepared, and slain by divine direction;-that in connexion with the passover was to be observed the feast of unleavened bread. "Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? that ye shall say, It is the saorifice of the Lord's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses." It is recorded as a fact, that the passover was eaten, with unleavened bread: and that the use of the unleavened bread which commenced with the passover, was to continue for the full period of seven days, throughout all the land of Israel. And it was considered by the Almighty himself a matter of much vital importance, that when he gave Moses directions for the establishment of the institution, he enjoined it under the penal sanction that every soul who shall desecrate the passover by eating leavened bread, shall be cut off from the house of Israel. The paschal lamb was typical of Christ. The Apostle Paul evidently viewed it in that relation when he wrote 1 Cor. v. 7. For even Christ our passover is slain (sacrificed) for us. A lamb is an approved emblem of innocence: and Isaiah speaking of Christ, says, "He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter." And the Apostle Peter, "Ye were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish, and without spot." And John the Baptist, "Behold the Lamb, of God," &c. All the blood of all the lambs offered in sacrifice, from the days of Abel to those of Christ, pointed to the great antitype; but none so directly, perhaps, as that of the paschal lamb. For the same night in which he was betrayed to his enemies, Christ partook of the passover with his disciples, and said. "With desire I have desired to eat of this passover before I suffer.” Here for the last time with his disciples, he commemorated the national deliverance of the Jews; and the disciples witnessed the consummation of that immense system of bloody institutions which adumbrated and prefigured that great, that glorious, divine, and mysterious personage, called the Lamb of God. On that solemn occasion our Lord took an unleavened cake, such as are spoken of, Ex. xii. 39, and said, "This is my body which is broken for you." By thanks and prayer he consecrates the cake, and ordains it to be the appointed and fit emblem of his body. Paul, correcting the abuses of this institution in the Corinthian church, says, 1 Cor. xi. 23. “For I have received

of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the night in which he was betrayed, the night in which he ate the last passover with his disciples, took bread:" and if Paul delivered the institution to the Corinthians as it was observed the same night in which Jesus was betrayed, he delivered to them an unleavened loaf as the symbol of the body of Christ. But if this is not sufficient to settle the question, observe further what he says in the 5th chapter. Immediately after declaring that Christ our passover is slain for us, What feast? That, he adds, "Therefore, let us keep the feast." doubtless, which reminds us of the slaying of our passover. "Let us keep this feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread (the natural symbol) of sincerity and truth; and purge out the old leaven that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened." Christ warned his disciples to "beware of the leaven of the Scribes and Pharisees, which is hypoerisy." Leaven, and that which is leavened, with the divine writers furnish suitable representations of hypocrisy, deceit, malice, wickedness, &c. And things leavened are almost universally, by Christ and On one occahis Apostles, as figures of speech, used in a bad sense. sion Christ instituted a comparison of the gospel with leaven. But in that place the gospel in one respect only is compared with one attribute of leaven; that as leaven, when hid in a quantity of meal, being of a diffusive nature, will gradually affect the whole mass; so the truth of the gospel, by its own inherent power, works in the hearts of men. But men in sin are leavened, and the tendency of the gospel, by its diffusive quality, is to purge out the old leaven of wickedness, With these facts beand render the man a new and unleavened man. fore us, I do not see how Bible Christians can think of representing the body of Christ, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, with a large, huffy, light loaf. I think the same reasoning that would justify this, would justify sprinkling; yet in some of our churches we meet with this unseemly custom.

In the good hope yours,

G. G.

KNOWLEDGE INDISPENSABLE TO RELIGION.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ALBION.

your last,
Sir-IMOST heartily thank you for the eloquent article, in
on the subject of the recent great Educational Meeting. I cannot
sufficiently express to you how delighted I am with the true liberality
of sentiment and the spirit of enlightened philosophy and philanthro-
py which characterize and pervade the whole of those admirable re-
marks. Would to God such sentiments and opinions were universally
entertained by clergy and laity! In that case, we should not long have
to deplore the debasing ignorance, with its concomitant evils, which
still characterizes a large proportion of our population.

I shall now, with your permission, offer a few remarks on one or two points involved in the speech of the Rev. Hugh McNeile. That reverend gentleman, amongst other crudities of the kind, broached anew the old doctrine, that knowledge is hostile to religion; and, by

implication, he represented mental culture as inimical to human salvation. A more dangerous or damnable heresy never emanated from the great father of lies himself. It is insulting to God, and is an infamous libel on humanity. It may safely be predicated, that one of the prin cipal causes of the comparatively limited triumphs of the gospel, in our own country, is to be found in the benighted and degraded mental condition of the bulk of its population. The mind itself is the great instrument designed by the Creator for accomplishing its own elevation and happiness. Christianity, as it is a system of divine truth, is based on argument and evidence, and, in that character, addresses itself to man as an intelligent being. It appeals to the human understanding, recognizing its right and competency to decide on the subject submitted to its consideration-"I speak as unto wise men: judge ye what I say." Hence it is manifest that the more cultivated the mind, and the more accustomed it be to the exercise of its faculties in the discriminating investigation of evidence, and close and consecutive reasoning, the better prepared, cæteris paribus, is it for the calm and dispassionate consideration of the claims of Christianity. But, fur ther, gospel truth must be known and understood before it can be felt in its soul-recovering and purifying influences. To perceive and appreciate divine like other truth is the peculiar province of intellect but intellect uncultured and undisciplined is incompetent for the due performance of this its appropriate and most important function Hence one of the most deplorable of the many evils attendant on mental debasement is the incapacity which it superinduces for the appreciation and reception of religious truth. Knowledge of duty is a necessary antecedent to the conscientious performance of duty; but such knowledge cannot easily gain access to the stagnant minds of the great bulk of the uncultivated adult population. Right thinking is a necessary preliminary to correct conduct; but, as Locke well observes; "a man who has never elevated his thoughts above the narrow compass he has all his life been confined to, you will find him no more capable of reasoning than a perfect idiot." Yet it is manifestly neces sary that a man must be brought to reflect on the purposes of exist ence, and on its various relations to external physical objects and the intelligent universe, and also to reason, and to reason correctly, on the consequences of his actions and the responsibilities of his position, ere he can be transformed into an enlightened and practical believer in the religion of Jesus. But those whose minds are strangers to thinking on all other subjects are not the most likely to be brought to think deeply and seriously on the subject of religion. That obtuseness of understanding, that confirmed inactivity of mind which can witness with a vacant stare and almost brutish stupidity the most splendid phenomena of nature, and the most marvellous exhibitions of divine power, wisdom, and benevolence, must, obviously, present serious obstacles to the conversion of those who, as regards their consciousness of intelligent existence, are, as it were, "dead before their death." In reality, the sublime and spiritual truths of our holy religion are far above the comprehension of stunted and shrivelled intellects-of minds conversant alone with the gross and substantial realities of every day life. In the words of the eloquent Foster, "The abstracted, contem plative, and elevated ideas of celestial happiness are far above their

apprehension.*

*

The modern Christian barbarians of England do not know what they mean by their phrase of 'going to heaven.'" Christianity, then, demands for its competent understanding, and the due appreciation of its life-giving principles, and the glorious prospects it holds out of a happy immortality, "minds trained to the exercise of their faculties and the possession of the elements of knowledge."

It follows, then, that secular knowledge, so far from being inimical to religion, is, in reality, its most powerful auxiliary. The direct tendency of mental culture is to prepare the mind for the reception of truth, and is, therefore, a most efficient agent in paving the way for the ultimate triumphs of Christianity. The mind, when its slumbering faculties have been awakened and developed by a generous culture, becomes, to some extent, alive to its own inherent wants and imperfections, whilst it becomes increasingly conscious of its vast capacities for improvement and enjoyment. It is dissatisfied with its present attainments. In its vivid conceptions of ideal excellence and happiness, contrasted with its present humiliating condition, it begins

to

"Look inward on itself

In awful seriousness,"

and soon becomes painfully convinced of the utter inadequacy of all terrestrial objects to satiate its deep and various wants, or to fill up the measure of its boundless hopes and lofty aspirations. The mind be comes thus predisposed in favor of a religion which is "rich beyond compare" in its infinitely gracious provisions for the redemption of lost humanity, and which brings to light "life and immortality," and reveals to man the prospects of a never-ending progression in knowledge, virtue, and happiness. This view of the subject is corroborated by Finney, in his lectures on Revivals. He says, "The class of 'cultivated minds' are more easily converted than any other. They have so much better capacity to receive an argument, and are so much more in the habit of yielding to the force of reason, that as soon as the gospel gets a fair hold of their minds, it breaks them right down, and melts them at the feet of Christ." We are compelled, then, to come to the conclusion, that those religionists who discountenance intellectual pursuits, and depreciate the value of secular knowledge, unwittingly do the cause of religion most serious injury, inasmuch as they disdainfully repudiate those means and appliances which may powerfully aid them in their benevolent efforts to excavate the people from the mass of heathenism in which they are so firmly embedded." But not only is intellectual enlightenment of essential service in preparing the popular mind for appreciating religious instruction, and profiting from the ministrations of the pulpit; but it is of imperative necessity in the case of those who, by divine grace, have been brought to a knowledge of "the truth as it is in Christ Jesus," for aid of intellect is not only indispensable to the acquisition of religious truth, but it must be under the guidance of enlightened intellect, well furnished with natural and divine knowledge, that they alone can intelligently pursue a line of conduct in harmony with the will of God. Intellect has been given to us to discover truth, and to guide us along the path which leads to peace and happiness: but if religionists neglect or con

temn mental culture, "they will be liable and inclined to receive their ideas of the highest subject in a disorderly, perverted, and debased form, mixed largely with other men's folly and their own." If they dispense with the aid of exercised and enlightened judgment, in the direction of their religious conduct, they will infallibly become the creatures of impulses and impressions, the mere puppets of passion and prejudice

"A soul without reflection, like a pile
Without inhabitants, to ruin runs."

Religion, if separated from its legitimate adjuncts of cultivated understanding and secular knowledge, is very apt to degenerate into abject superstition, fanaticism, or enthusiasm. A bigoted zeal, in the absence of sober judgment, has ever inflicted on religion its deepest wound, and committed the most flagrant outrages on the rights of humanity. But I find I must bring these desultory observations to an abrupt conclusion. To me it appears that these and other considerations afford abundant encouragement to increased exertions on the part of the friends of popular enlightenment; and to the Christian philanthropist it is a consolation to know that, in furthering the extension of useful science and widely diffusing the blessings of a liberal secular education, he is not only most effectually promoting the amelioration of the present condition of man, and opening to the many new and elevating sources of enjoyment; but he is, at the same time, accelerating the coming of that glorious advent, "when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, even as the waters cover the sea." CYMRO.

Liverpool, 24th September, 1840.

THE CAMPAIGN IN MASON COUNTY, KENTUCKY, EARLY IN 1841.

CENTREVILLE, Bourbon county, Ky., March 17, 1841. Dear brother Campbell-THROUGH the abundant goodness of the Lord I reached home on yesterday, safely, and in my usual health, after a long, early, and successful campaign in Mason county.

The most decisive and eventful battles for the Lord have been fought near the spot, where, in 1823, with the same glorious weapon we have been wielding, you vanquished a celebrated Paido-Raino, and cut away human traditions from around the sanctuary of God, until again unmasked the significant and blessed institution of Christ stood forth to the view of man in all its primitive loveliness, seen again in the light of Heaven's own Book.

On the 19th of February, in company with that untiring servant of God, brother J. T. Johnson, I reached May's Lick. It was the last day of a protracted meeting then and there being held by the Baptists. Mesers. Mason and Sayre were the preachers present. The last named was holding forth when we arrived. We instantly entered the house, and heard part of the discourse. It seemed to me a strange mixture of Calvinism, Arminianism, and some gospel-the first ingredient