6 ments, went and paid his friend a visit. Mr. Abbé,' says he, 'where is now that season of innocence and candour, in which you declared that pluralists hazarded their souls greatly?" "Ah! good Boileau,' replied the Abbé, did you but know how much pluralities contribute towards living well!' 'I am in no doubt of that,' replied Boileau, but of what service are they, good Abbé, towards dying well?" CHRISTIAN WARFARE. A christian is a warrior by his profession, and bas, through life, a succession of enemies to encounter. Pleasure solicits him in the days of his youth, ambition disquiets his riper years, and avarice infests his old age. His condition reminds one of that observation of Plutarch concerning the Romans of the first ages, that, If ever God designed that men should spend their lives in war, they were the men. In their infancy they had the Carthaginians to contend with for Sicily; in their middle age the Gauls for Italy itself; and in their old age they were obliged again to contend with the Carthaginians and Hannibal.' Horne's Works, Vol. 1. FOR THE CHRISTIAN DISCIPLE. Mr Editor,-In the following hymn, founded on certain passages in the Apocalypse, [Revelation iv. 11. 3. xv. 3.] an attempt is made to retain, as far as possible, the very language of the sacred writing; and all the merit of the verses, if they have any, is owing to this circumstance. Around the throne of God The host angelic throngs; They spread their palms abroad, And shout perpetual songs: Him first they own, God ever blest, Him last, and best; Their golden crowns they fling, Before his throne of light, For thine they are, Thy praise declare, 7 From the Monthly Repository, London, 1822. THE CHRISTIAN MOURNER'S PROSPECT OF DEATH. The hour, the hour, the parting hour, That takes from this dark world its power, And lays at once the thorn and flower On the same withering bier, my soul; The hour that ends all earthly woes, How sweet, while on this broken lyre To praise the immortal One, my soul! Nor dwell in Heaven alone, my soul ! How sweet, while waning fast away, The golden dawn above, my soul ! In ever-living love, my soul! The hour, the hour, so pure and calm, That shuns this wintry clime, my soul! HEAVEN. Then never tear shall fall, The heart shall ne'er be cold, And life's rich tree shall teem for all With fruit more golden far than gold." Then those we lost below Once more we shall enfold; And there, with eyes undimm'd by woe, There the pure sun-bow glows No thorn attends the elysian rose, There roll the streams of love, In light and song for age they move REVIEW. ARTICLE I. The sacred origin and divine authority of the Jewish and Christian Religions, argued from their internal evidences, in three Sermons. By ROBERT LITTLE, Minister of the First Unitarian Church, Washington City. Washington, 1823. TH 6 6 HESE sermons are preceded by a long and sensible preface, in which the author states his views of the manner in which revelation should be defended against infidelity, and pleads the claim of all who acknowledge the revelations of the Bible, to be called Christians. He thinks that much of the scepticism of the world has arisen from the indefensible things, which have been taught and insisted upon as essential parts of revelation; and that he consequently serves the cause of revealed religion most ef fectually, who shows, that the weak and vulnerable opinions, against which reason and wit have so often and so successfully played off their artillery, in reality make no part of the system.' In this persuasion, our author professes to abandon many points, in which some writers have entrenched themselves, as merely clumsy, ill constructed outposts,' not in any degree necessary to the safety of the citadel. For why, he very reasonably asks, should we think it necessary to show our love to christianity, by defending all the foolish things which its advocates have ever said. It is these things, which have furnished food for the objections and cavils, the sneers and ribaldry, of infidel writers;who for the most part leave untouched the substantial and essentia! truths, to play off their argument and their wit against those things, which are either no part of the system, but only the fancies of its advocates,-or, if parts of the system, yet whose destruction would not affect the foundation and credibility of the whole. This idea is thus stated in the first sermon. 'Scepticks have dealt, I think, unfairly and unphilosophically with the records of the Mosaic institutions. They have exposed to the severest test of ridicule those parts of these ancient writings which either contain matter, or are couched in language, most alien from the purified principles of a better age, and incompatible with the fas tidiousness of modern civilization; and because no well regulated mind can dwell with pleasure on the contemplation of such subjects, New Series-vol. V. 7 they conclude that the people who retained them with sacred reverence in the volume of their political and religious code, could have no pretensions to the peculiar interpositions of Deity on their be half. In this way the traditionary accounts of the origin of mankind, and the introduction of evil, (evidently derived from a much earlier date than the time of Moses, and perhaps after all, chiefly allegorical;) the vices and occasional brutality of some of the most distinguished ancestors of mankind, the cruel war of extermination which the Israelites waged against the inhabitants of Canaan-these and such like are triumphantly urged, as a sufficient refutation of all the claims set up on the behalf of that people, as the depositaries of a divine revelation. An impartial mind will pronounce the conclusion as too serious, and too weighty, for the premises to support.' pp. 3, 4. After an introduction, containing many remarks of this nature, the preacher proceeds to exhibit what he regards as strong internal evidences of the divine origin of the religion of the Jews. His first mark is, The pure and correct theology taught in their books and maintained by their public and earliest institutions. It is impossible to account for the prevalence of such a religion, among such a people as the Jews, at so early a period of time, except on the supposition of a revelation from God. Every other pretence is unsatisfactory. 'These grand truths and correct statements concerning the divine nature and perfections, are now so familiar to us, that we estimate too low the possession of them. Nature and reason, you say, will teach them. But why did not nature and reason teach them to the Chaldeans, from whom Abraham separated that he might escape their offensive idolatries? Why did not nature teach the Egyptian sages these truths? And why should the wise founders of the Grecian republicks have been ignorant of them; and at a much later period, the polished and enterprising Romans also? Whilst the stupid, untractable, and ignorant Jews, discovered so clearly, and held so tenaciously, the sound, incontrovertible and immutable truth concerning God, and the worship due to him. There must be a reason for this, and let unbelievers assign an adequate and satisfactory one on their principles if they can.' p. 8. 'We may challenge the world to produce any writings either ancient or modern, in which the demonstrable truths of religion are taught with the purity, perspicuity, sublimity and simplicity, which every where meets us in the writings of the Jewish prophets; and there were some of them composed before the boasted sages of Greece had existence, or their country a place among civilized nations.* There is but one satisfactory and sufficient cause that can be assigned for this distinction.' p. 9. *Homer the Greek Poet did not live till after the time of Solomon King of Israel And Solomon was 500 years later than Moses. Now it is well ascertained |