have precluded its insertion in a sober and serious publication; and we confess, it was with no small surprise that we found it in a paper conducted by the Rev. Dr. Ely, whose discernment and respectability we should have imagined to be a sufficient guarantee against the circulation of such a fulsome, disgusting, and unholy composition.

From the Christian Index.

THEOLOGICAL DEBATE.

As

"In consequence of a notice of a theological debate, which was published some weeks ago in the Philadel. phian, the curiosity of your numerous readers has been a good deal excited. With many this excitement was of no ordinary kind. The subject of debate was the very foundation-stone of Christianity; and the combatants were men high in the estimation of their respective friends. Mr. LANE, the Unitarian combatant, was so fully satisfied of his own theological prowess, that for a length of time he was vaporing before the christian world, and literally defying the armies of the living God. His challenge was generally directed "to any man of the great leading sects in the United States.” Having repeatedly challenged our American Israel, and received no reply, he began to swell into immense importance, both in his own estimation and that of his friends. his challenges were reiterated, and with increasing energy, his confidence grew amazingly, until, in fact, both he and his followers began to blow the trumpet of vic. tory, and enter upon the spoils of conquest. But at length, on a fatal day, when the leaven of vanity had arisen to its acme, he penned a challenge which was put into the hands of the Rev. W. L. M'CALLA. You might as well expect a Kentuckian to refuse a challenge, as Mr. M'Calla to stand aloof when the great Captain of his salvation calls him to the support of any post. Like a soldier always equipt, and ready for the word, he accepted the invitation, and in your paper, the time and place of meeting, together with the names and opinions of the parties, were advertised. That Mr. M'Calla is a man of no common mental calibre in theological

discussions, you are well aware; and this fact, in connection with the point in debate, did beget in the public mind an intense interest. But how has this desire been satisfied ?—not a word has ever appeared to tell whether the meeting took place, or if it did, how it resulted. The public are left entirely in the dark, and very much dissatisfied. From the language used by the gentleman who wrote the notice, I have no doubt many, as well as myself, were led to expect a detailed account. Week after week I have waited for this, until disappointment has at length urged me to take the pen, and in some measure satisfy the christian public.

"The combatants did meet at the village of Milford, twelve miles below Easton, on the Jersey shore of the river Delaware, on Tuesday the 7th of December. Having each chosen two judges, and agreed upon a fifth, who was to act as president, and determined to speak 30 minutes alternately, beginning each day at ten o'clock, A.M. and ending at 3 o'clock, P.M. the debate opened on the morning of Tuesday, and concluded at 3 o'clock on the following Friday. A large concourse of spectators were present, and each disputant was ably supported with a number of friends and brethren. The Unitarian had a brother minister from Rochester, in the state of New York, one from the city of New York, and two or three others from different places. The advocate of the Lord Jesus Christ was surrounded, not only by a number of his own clerical brethren, and sectarian friends, but by ministers and people of the Methodist, and Baptist, and Dutch Reformed denominations. Yes, and what was still more touchingly interesting, two members of his Session, and a pious member of another sect followed him from the city.

"During the first day Mr. M'Calla did little else than drain out of his opponent the system which he embraced.. *** Mr. Lane had the concluding 30 minutes on the first day, and so completely was he deceived in his antagonist, that he actually, in the most pompous and swelling accents, proclaimed a prospective victory. Having pumped him, however, thoroughly dry, the first day, Mr. M'Calla came down upon him and his system

the second day, with the most tremendous and fearful power. If you have ever stood against him in the war of mind, you can form some indistinct opinion at least of what a man of very slender intellect and acquirements must have suffered beneath the united force of Mr. M'Calla's wit, and satire, and argument. Yes, Sir, such was the effect of his tremendous power over the audience, that the very features of Lane's clerical friends, sitting with their backs to him, seemed to be, as if by some secret magic, under the dominion of his spell. When he assailed their system by argument, they would sometimes writhe under the painful weight and certainty with which he struck and bruised it-and when he poured down upon their blasphemies that scathing and withering satire of which he is such a mighty master, they looked as if molten lead were hurled upon them; and then turning from this he would let loose such a torrent of wit, that even their own friends convulsively shook. And, Sir, I may here remark, that whether Mr. M'Calla assailed them by wit, or satire, or argument, he seemed to receive the instrument from the hand of that blessed Master whose cause he was pleading. In his hands they looked as if they had just come from the armory of God. He seemed filled with the Spirit, animated with the ennobling thought that his Jesus permitted him to stand forth in his name, and fired with the holy ambition of walking in the train of a conquering Redeemer. And this was literally the case: both he and his brethren felt themselves strong in the mighty God of Jacob. Independent of other seasons, they spent the hour preceding the debate each morning in social prayer; and they came from the feet of their divine Master to defend his cause. It was a glorious season, and so much favor did God give his champion in the eyes of all his Israel, that we felt as secure in him as we felt in our cause-nor were we disappointed.

"At one time M'Calla drove him to the acknowledgment that God the Father was a material being, and then after receiving the awful castigation which such a sentiment deserves, and such an opponent could give, he denied that he said so, and though he described God as a

being who has "a real body and parts, a location, a centre, and a circumference," yet he would deny him to be material. Again he denied that God could fill infinite space, for having a "real body," if he did, there would not be room for any other existence but himself; and yet he would the next moment deny that he said God was material. At one time he would call God the Son, divine and eternal; and when prest by the argument of Mr. M'Calla, would explain eternal as meaning a creation before the commencement of time, and divine as the possession of a divine or holy soul! He repeatedly called the adorable Saviour a creature, and as repeatedly denied it. Sometimes he was a delegated, and again an originated God. And thus he flew under the rod of truth with which Mr. M'Calla so signally chastised him, like Proteus, from one shape to another; sometimes Socinian, sometimes high Arian, and sometimes Materialist! But in his case, as in Kneeland's, Mr. M'Calla providentially had a book, which Lane having recommended, enabled him to pin him down to its absurdities, until at length he was fain even to deny the book; and before all was over, he maintained that he believed it only in part!-Now, Sir, in thus driving him from absurdity to absurdity-exhibiting his true sentiments - and their legitimate results-causing him to deny doctrines which he had frequently preached, and reject, at least in part, a book which he repeatedly said "contained his doctrines better than he could express them," every thing which the friends of Jesus expected was almost realized, for he had deceived many by a partial exhibition of his doctrines, and a sophistical explanation of their bearing upon revealed truth.

"After the first day, Lane's speeches were little better than repetitions delivered in a stentorian voice, and the auditors evinced the greatest uneasiness until his half -hour terminated. Indeed, on one occasion, I overheard a friend of his exclaim, "how tiresome;" but no sooner did M'Calla's voice sound, than every drooping head became erect-loiterers hurried in, and all eyes and ears were open. He was indeed so instructive, and so entertaining, and so full of wit and repartee, and yet so

evidently actuated by the spirit of his divine Master, that it was a treat of no ordinary kind to hear him.

"At the beginning of the debate, Mr. Clough, their great Corypheus, manoeuvred a good deal to get a part, if not the whole of the debate to himself; and when he failed, as a last effort, tendered Mr. M'Calla a challenge to meet him next March in the city of New York, which Mr. M'Calla promptly accepted.

Towards the conclusion, as Mr. Lane got more and more weak, and Mr. M'Calla grew stronger and weightier, the Unitarians could bear it no longer, and whether by concert or not, Clough interrupted him, and created a general confusion. The judges ordered Clough down; and Mr. M'Calla taking his challenge from his pocket, tore it in pieces; saying, that when he accepted it, he thought it was from a gentleman, but as he found himself so egregiously disappointed, he would take no more notice of it;-adding, however, that if they had a gentleman among their ministers, he would meet him, or any Unitarian of character in the United States, even the great Dr. Channing, of Boston.”

It requires all the patience and resolution of which we are possessed, to enable us to notice with any degree of calmness, such frothy bombast, such deliberate and undisguised falsehoods, as show themselves on the face of the above communication. Nay, even the mantle of charity itself, cannot cover the moral deformity of a professed Eye Witness, in sending into the world such a contemptible production. Nor can that charity, which hides a multitude of sins, encourage us to admit that piety and truth can deign to dwell in the fellowship of one whoso wantonly outrages these characteristics of religion and moral virtue.

It is due to the editor of the "Christian Index" to approbate his conduct in disavowing all intention to countenance the bullying style," in which the communication to the Philadelphian is penned; and we do not feel ourselves obliged to bestow on it greater attention, than merely to point out to the reader some of its prominent features of moral deformity.