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Dr. Aikin's Works.-Miss Aikin is preparing a memoir of her father, the late John Aikin M. D., together with a selection of such of his critical Essays and Miscellaneous pieces as have not been before printed in a collected form. Monthly Repository, No. 207.

London Charities. It is with pride, gratitude, and pleasure, that we are enabled to present to our readers, the following Statement of the Receipts during the last year, of some of these most valuable, most virtuous, and sacred institutions :

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Society for Promoting the Gospel in Foreign parts,

British and Foreign Bible Society,

British and Foreign School Society, about
Church Missionary Society,

Wesleyan ditto

£. s. d.

53,729 9 3

19,513 11 0

103,802 17 1

1,600 0 0 32,975 9 7

26,883 5 5

London ditto

Moravian ditto

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Continental Society

London Female Penitentiary

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Religious Tract Society

Church of England Tract Society

Society for the relief of Poor Pious Clergymen

9,261 3 0

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Irish Religious Book and Tract Society

Sunday School Union Society

Bell's Weekly Messenger.

3,943 0 0

1,762 4 5

DIED,

In Calcutta, March 27th, after an illness of only one day, the Rev. Wm. Ward, the distinguished associate of Cary and Marshman, in the Baptist Mission and a man deserving to be had in honourable remembrance for his tried disinterestedness and zeal.

TO READERS.

THE publication of this number has been unavoidably delayed by the removal. of our publishers to another office.

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THE

P. Lowell

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLE.

NEW SERIES-No. 29.

September and October, 1823.

MEANS OF A GENERAL REVIVAL OF PRACTICAL RELIGION.

In looking upon the religion of Jesus Christ, as it is exhibited in
IN
his teaching and life, we are not more surprised at the limited
extent to which its reception has been confined, than at the prac-
tical indifference with which it has been treated by its profess-
ed disciples. When we examine it independently of the cha-
racter of those beings to whom it offers itself, we at once suppose
that it will gain their esteem and devotion; that the weight of
its motives, and the solemnity of its sanctions will call forth their
earnest attention. Yet in all ages of christianity complaints
have been heard of the coldness of its professors. Their want of
zeal and engagedness in religion has been the theme of reproof
with the true servant of God, and with the artful hypocrite.
And it might well be so in the ages that followed the establish-
ment of the church, when the simplicity of our holy faith was
buried under doctrines and rites which vain philosophy and wan-
ton speculation, ignorance and superstition, ambition and avarice,
and every worldly passion had united in heaping in strange confu-
sion upon it. In the ages of darkness, when arts and letters and
science were neglected, we might expect that virtue likewise
would be forgotten, and when learning fled for refuge to the
cells of a monastery, religion would seek an asylum in the val-
lies of Piedmont. But how is it, that when knowledge is shin-
ing in its greatest splendour on the civilized world, and christi-
anity has been recovered from oppression, and brought back to
the communion of social life, when its doctrines are so well un-
derstood, and its precepts so truly inculcated, that there is still
occasion for the exhortations and remonstrances that are directed
against the indifference of christians? Why is there so little prac-
tical religion among us? If we confine the subject to our own
New Series-Vol. V.

41

situation, we shall more feel its importance, and be better able to satisfy ourselves in its examination.-By considering the causes of our religious indifference, we shall be enabled to form some idea of its correctives.

1. In the first place, the very constitution of our being and situation in this world has a tendency to make us inattentive to religion. We enter life with capacities which may be strengthened in the cause either of virtue or of vice, with passions which may be made subservient to our progress in moral excellence, or become the ministers of sin, with affections which may be directed to worthy objects, or be perverted to unholy ends. With this mental and moral constitution we are brought into a portion of our existence, whose essential characteristic is, that it is a state in which, under a strict moral discipline, we may be prepared for a more perfect state. Temptations are around us from our first entrance on our earthly being. The mind is constantly exposed to the influence of circumstances which partake of the character of the life to which they belong-they are circumstances of discipline to moral agents. But mankind have not solely to prepare for a future existence, they must support themselves in this. They must not only contend with the moral difficulties which lie in their way to perfection, but they have innumerable physical wants which must be answered, they must provide for the necessities of the present state as well as lay up for themselves a treasure in heaven, and this by a merciful disposition of their Creator constitutes part of their moral discipline. But with the necessities come the cares and vexations of this life. Excess and luxury follow close upon the supply of our wants, and then we have continually something which we desire, or something which we must guard. We have too much or we have not enough, and the want and the abundance alike bring demands on our time and our thoughts, and much of each is taken away from religion. As we proceed in life, habits are exerting an increasing influence over us, the passions connected with them are gaining strength, and we become more and more the slaves of this world's concerns. Where our thoughts are, there will our hearts be also; our affections are entwined around the objects of our anxiety and pursuit; our fears and hopes are given to the things of this present time, and our power and our inclination to attend to subjects connected with a future and invisible state are lessening together. This is the natural influence of the circumstances of our being, and in this we may find a powerful cause of inattention to religion operating at all times and upon all men.

2. A circumstance which has a strong tendency to make us indifferent to real, practical religion is our early instruction in

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