with Mary his mother, and kneeled down and worshipped him, and opened their treasures, and offered unto him gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh. And after they were warned in their sleep, that they should not go again to Herod, they returned into their own country another way."

We hope the publishers will be remunerated for this great service they have done to biblical science in giving to the American family this rare work. It is for the old orthography admirably well executed. A. C.

NEW VERSION,

FOR a long time we have said nothing about our New Version, We have left it to its own merits. We have, however, with some. solicitude noted its fortunes as opportunity has offered. On inquiry at our publishers we learn, that, of the different editions, something more than 24,000 copies of it have been issued from our press. We have had the pleasure to learn that it has, by the instrumentality of Mr. John Davis, of Chester, England, been recently published in the city of London, and is now being dif fused amongst the Christians in England.

The brethren too at home, are awaking to the importance of having it introduced into their common schools and into the Sunday schools under the supervision of the brethren. The Baptists are patronizing an improved version abroad, and many of them are for having a correct version at home. In all such efforts and wishes it cannot be expected, that, having devoted so many years to this heaven descended volume, we could do otherwise than rejoice, thank God, and take courage.

We never said or wrote that our version should be exclusively read. We have no such idea. In all controversies we stand by the common version as a common arbiter, or umpire; but, excepting in controversial appeals, we think that ourselves, our chil dren, families, and communities should all read daily and devoutIv the New Version, and diligently compare it as every one can for himself, with the common version. This will certainly make our brethren more intelligent in the scriptures than other Christians, as they ought to be from the very nature of their profession, and also as matter of course, more moral, pious, and exemplary in their behaviour. If they are not eminent in all these, they are no honor to the profession. A. C.

WHILE Mr. Skinner is abusing us in Richmond, his colleaguo is abusing us in Utica. The hardihood of these gentlemen is in harmony

with their system. We sometime since asked for their paper of the 28th July, stating that we had never seen it. This he attempts to falsify in the following courteous style:-"Let him remember that our paper for July 28th was received at his office; yet he declares he never saw it." Now for the proof:-"It was received, for Mr. Skinner's letter of July was copied from it into the Harbinger; yet in his letter of September 30, Mr. C. says he has not yet seen the rules," &c.

Now the gentleman, if a person capable of such impudence dare be so called, ought to have known that he was uttering a falsehood at the time; for it was not a fact to him that Mr. Skinner's letter was copied from the Magazine into the Harbinger, It was copied from the proof slip, sent in an envelope, as is most commonly the case here; the slip usually arriving a week before the paper!! For instance, I have at this moment on the press Mr. Skinner's last letter to me, and my answer to it ought now to be in Richmond; and yet the Magazine that contains Mr. Skinner's former letter to me and my reply to it, has not yet appeared at Bethany!! If Mr. Grosh does not publish this article and apologize for this insolence, I shall henceforth regard him unworthy of notice! Before I could esteem such a person as good company in heaven, he will have to pass through a purgatory of many thousand years.

A. C.

CHRISTIAN MESSENGER AND REFORMER.

We have received the November and December numbers of this periodical, published in London. That for December was received here about the Middle of January. The contents of these two numbers

are:

1

November Number-Exposition of the 3d chapter of John, continued. Notice to Correspondents. The Trinitarian System.* Man the Temple of God. History of the English Bible, No. I. Parable of the Iron Bedstead. Letters to England, No. III. Proposed Reformation among the Baptists. News from Reforming Brethren and Churches. Extract of a Letter, &c. Miscellaneous Intelligence.

December Number "Strictures on Campbellism," Strictured. The Power of Falsehood. Extract from the Prospectus of the Apostolie Advocate and Prophetic Interpreter. The Theology of the Nineteenth Century. Letters to England, No. IV. Lynd and Campbell on the Influences of the Holy Spirit. The Prophecies, No. I.-by a Reformed Clergyman. A Good Idea. News from Reforming Brethren and Churches. Queries and Replies.

• From Christian Baptist, on John i. 1.

To such of our readers as are curious to know the estimate formed by some of the English reviewers of the Christian Messenger, we subjoin an extract from the cover of these numbers. If this be a good deal too flattering, our readers can easily balance it by something on the other side from our own pages. We are for the pro and the con, that all may be edified:

"This work is chiefly devoted to the re-publication in this country of the writings of Mr. Alexander Campbell, in America, with some addi tional pamphlets by able authors, who are advocating the cause of ecclesiastical reform. Mr. Campbell is well known as the champion of Christianity, in opposition to the visionary Robert Owen, who is the advocate of an order of society based upon other than Christian principles. The essays contained in the three numbers we have seen, are all of them on important subjects, are written with singular ability, and calculated for extensive usefulness. Some of the views set forth will, no doubt, be startling to many; but in this age of inquiry, it is enough to compare the writer's sentiments with Scripture. If not supported by Holy Writ, immediate rejection is the obvious duty. If on the other hand, they are substantiated by reference to that arbiter, men reject them at their undoubted peril. Our Lord's words are always applicable, "Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?" The Dissenter, for July, 1837.

444

From the Evangelist.

EXTRAORDINARY SUCCESS OF THE TRUE GOSPEL.

I HAVE Succeeded greatly since I saw you. We have had, I believe, almost 250 additions in Madison county this year. Within five or six weeks we have joined about 110 at Nicholasville, 25 at David's Fork, upwards of 20 at Paris, and are now engaged here. Seven have been received thus far.

I only desire to have twelve laborers, who will pledge themselves to the Lord and to each other. This is the sacrifice which is necessary to change the face of things here; and partyism will soon disappear from Kentucky.

Georgetown, Ky., December 26.

JOHN T. JOHNSON.

The Essay on Remission of Sins, our first Extra, from the last American edition of 1835, in 76 pages 12mo., was to appear in England on January 1st-Published in London by G. Wightman, Paternoster Row.

Though much of this number is in small type, yet "News from the Churches" and many other matters are crowded out.

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER,

NEW SERIES.

VOLUME 11. -NUMBER III.

BETHANY, VA. FEBRUARY, 1838. March

MORALITY OF CHRISTIANS-No. III.

We have said that the sacred objects of that heaven-born morality that flowed from the lips of the Great Teacher, are the person, the character, and the property of our neighbor. We are dwelling on the first of these three, and shall devote to it the present article.

The Christian moralist, illuminated by the lamp of God, sees in the person of man something more than appears in the person of the horse on which he rides, or of the spaniel that fawns upon him. There is a capacity for intellectual and moral excellence, spiritual enjoyment, and social bliss, high as heaven and lasting as eternity, which arrests his attention, and imposes upon him duties the most imperious and arduous, yet the most delightful. Within that homely casket of a human body, whether painted by a European, Indian, or African sun, black, red, or white, he discerns a jewel of ineffable value, which, under proper moral polishing, might burn with eternal lustre among the gems that shall beautify and adorn the crown of heaven's immortal King.

Persuaded of this, the Christian who happens to stand in the relation of a father or a master, having, by the economy of Heaven, placed under him, in a great measure, the temporal and the eternal destiny of human beings, is deeply penetrated with the grand idea that God has put into his hands a piece of human clay which may be moulded into a vessel of honor for the Master's use, and an ornament for the royal palace of the skies. Ever mindful of this favor, he seeks to prove himself worthy of the high trust reposed in him, by the most faithful attention to the intellectual and moral culture of those human beings committed into his hands.

Not grieving that God has made him so responsible, but rather thankful that he has been so highly distinguished as to be entrusted with the education, moral discipline, and, consequently, with the future fortunes of those born in his house, or reared to manhood under his auspices, he sets about the pleasing though laborious task of thei: education. This he feels to be his paramount privilege and duty.And here it may not be wholly out of place to remark, that in the direct proportion of any moral undertaking, or of any of those obligations called duties, are the privileges to ourselves, and the advantages to others, consequential upon a successful discharge of it. A Christian, for example, who has a large family of children and servants to clothe, to feed, and to educate, feels that these duties are not all equally onerous nor important. To clothe them is not so expensive upon his time and attention, as to feed them; and to feed them is much less arduous and costly than to educate them in all that right reason, religion, and morality require. I mean, it takes more of his attention, vigilance, and personal effort to form their minds and morals, than to clothe and feed their bodies during that period of human life which is most suitable to But the honors which accrue to the formation of mind and manners. him and the advantages to his household, from their intellectual and moral training, are incomparably superior to the combined effects of the most faithful attention to their mere animal necessities. A wellfed and well-clothed son or servant, with an uneducated mind and a perverse heart, instead of one intellectually, morally, and religiously fitted for his station, is as great a mockery of moral right as the bowing of the knee, or the moving of the lips, without the devotion of the heart, is of religious homage addressed to God.

Christians in this age and country appear never to have been generally awakened to this subject. I know many fathers whose sons and daughters receive scarcely one hour's moral or religious training per week, and indeed their literary education elevates them but a very little above the aborigines of our country in what may be called book-learning and science; yet are these parents depriving themselves of many enjoyments in their power, for the sake of what they judge a reasonable outfit in goods and chattels for their children when they leave them.I also have the misfortune to know many other Christian parents who spare no expense on the intellectual and fashionable training of their sons and daughters, who most mysteriously almost wholly neglect their moral and religious improvement. They seem so wholly absorbed in their worldly prospects and glory, as to have lost sight of their eternal welfare. If such be the facts with reference to their own offspring, what may we expect from such persons who happen to stand