tion of common school teachers, would have accomplished ten fold, (perhaps omniscience would say a thousand fold,) greater benefit in the aggregate, both for this world and the next. To make one teacher a little better, is to make a great many pupils better. To make the whole mass of teachers a great deal better, as must surely and speedily be the effect of a good institution for the purpose, whether they all personally attend it, or are only qualified by the instructions of such as have attended it, will speedily be seen to outrun, in its happy results, all possible compu

tation.

Shall, then, such an institution, and such consequent benefits, be suffered to exist only in imagination, serving by its suggestion, only to mock and aggravate our necessities? I hope the honour of my native state, and the welfare of the rising generation, and patriotism, and philanthropy, and piety, will speedily induce our legislature, or individuals who possess the means, to answer, no.

In the mean time, whether such a seminary is to be brought into existence or not, I will suggest one mode of doing good which may be worthy of consideration, though I do not recollect of its ever being tried, or even mentioned. I do it with the hope that it may possibly meet the eye of some one whom Providence may have raised up with qualifications and a disposition adapted to the delicate nature of the service. The proposition is this; for the right individual, whenever found, to devote his life, missionary like, to the business of visiting schools. To such an one let me say come forth and make the experiment. Let your object be VOL. I.-No. II.

12

at once to teach the pupils a little directly, and to teach the instructers, by precept illustrated on the spot by examples in the mode of instruction. Teach them to learn children how to articulate well, to read in a natural tone of voice, to understand what they read, to take an interest in their studies, &c. &c. In the mean time, learn what you can yourself by such intercourse, as to means and modes of instruction, the best books to be used, &c.; and ultimately be prepared to give public lectures on schoolkeeping, or to write a useful treatise. As there is no seminary to call teachers together for instruction, go to them. In this way, who can tell but you may do as much good as Howard, though with less fame. Fear not the want of pecuniary support. If found useful, like our domestic evangelists, "verily thou shalt be fed." Whether a week or a fortnight would be requisite for such a visitation of the schools in a town of common size, experience would decide. Make then, the experiment, if God has fitted you for it; for should you not be pleased with the employment, or should it not appear useful, it can be relinquished at any moment without detriment. Perhaps it will hereafter be found of as great political benefit, to have our schools thus visited, as our prisons. While one is only to remedy, the other is to prevent, crime. School discipline is at least as important as "prison discipline."

Some further remarks I have to offer in reference to common schools, but lest they should render this article longer than may suit your convenience, they must be deferred to another Number.

V.

OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY FROM THE CONDUCT OF ITS PROFESSORS.

SOME decent but worldly people, among other obstacles to their becoming personally religious, affect to find these two:-they are scandalized at the lax conduct of some of the professors of the gospel; and they are embarrassed by the discrepancies of creeds and sects. I know not whether such objections have been better answered than by Dr. Watts, in his "rational defence of the gospel;" to which I beg leave to refer the reader,-particularly to the following paragraphs.

First, in respect to the inconsistent lives of some professors:

This, I confess, gives it great dishonour among the men of the world, and is sometimes ready to shake the faith of younger Christians; they know not how to go on farther in Christianity, for such and such that made great profes sion, you see how they are fallen. This is a common temptation of the devil; it is a frequent snare, and there hath been many a pious soul that hath been in danger of being caught thereby. The vices of some professors were great even in St. Paul's days: there were some among the Philippians, Phil. iii. 18. Of whom I have told you often, and now even weeping, that they walk as enemies to the cross of Christ, "and cast scandal and shame upon it. It makes my eyes flow with tears, and my soul bleed within me to hear of it: the gospel of Christ is so much dishonoured by these means."

But if we take a nearer view, we shall see that no doctrine ought to fare the worse, because some wicked men are professors of it. It was not counted a discredit to philosophy, that some of the pro

fessors of it, who hated the gospel, were vicious in their lives. I would ask the deist now, is there any ground to disbelieve natural that make profession of it are fallen religion, because there are some into great sins? The gospel itself teaches us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and does not indulge one of them.

And they are said to be enemies to the cross of Christ, when their conversation is all earthly, when their god is their belly, and their fault of the gospel, for they felt not glory is their shame. This is no the power of it. Nor is there any religion or profession in the world that would have had any followers at all by this time, if men must have entirely cashiered that religion, because there have been some persons vicious that have been professors of it. There is no sect,no

religion in the world, though the institution and the rules of it have been ever so pious, but what has produced some persons that have

been vicious in their lives.

The objection is not unfrequently extended to Christendom at large. The Christian nations, as such, are no more virtuous, it is said, or less wicked, than Mahometan and heathen nations. The author, first showing that this assertion is not true in point of fact, proceeds,

But the chief answer I give is this, that when whole kingdoms are made Christians merely by birth, education, and custom, it is not to be supposed that a twentieth part of them believe the gospel upon any just and reasonable principles of knowledge and choice. When whole cities and nations are worshippers of Christ, no otherwise than the Ephesians were wor

shippers of Diana, or the Turks of Mahomet, it is not reasonable to expect that there should be much difference in the virtues of such a national sort of Christians, Mahometans, or heathens; for the principle from which all their religion springs is the same, namely, their education, custom and fashion of their country; and therefore their vices are much the same as they would be according to the present reigning humour, disposition, or political temper of the nation, what soever were their form of religion and their established worship.

The true way therefore to put these things to the test, is to consider those Christians only who believe and profess the gospel from knowledge, and choice, and inward conviction, and who make their religion a matter of solemnity and importance, and not of mere form and custom. Now if you separate these from the rest of mankind, I am well assured, that as bad as the Christian world is, you will find all the human and divine virtues more gloriously practised among such Christians as these, than among an equal number of the professors of any other religion under the sun: for inward Christianity, and the faith of the gospel, when it is built upon just foundations, will necessarily draw along with it such a train of virtues and graces as shall adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour; and by such a comparison as this, men would be constrained to confess that God is among us of a truth.

In regard to the second objectionthe division of Christians into various denominations, it is answered,

That almost all those things wherein protestants differ, are but of smaller importance in religion, in comparison of those many and great things wherein they agree. The chief and most important points of Christianity are written with so

much plainness and evidence in the word of God, as would lead all humble, honest, sincere and diligent enquirers into a belief of them, and consent in them. Now it is not necessary that the lesser matters of Christianity should be written down so expressly in scripture : for the all-wise God thought it proper to leave many of these articles of less importance more dubious and obscure, both to awaken the diligence of men to study his word, and to leave amongst them some occasions for the exercise of their mutual charity and forbearance. Our blessed Lord has thought it proper to put the universal love, which he requires amongst his followers, to this test or trial, to see whether they will cultivate peace and charity to one another amidst their various and divided opinions in things of less concernment.

I have made the foregoing extracts chiefly for the sake of the following just reflections,-just and seasonable, they always will be, so long as there

are Christians whose minds can fasten on the tenets of a sect with more te

naciousness than on the great essentials of their faith.

Do

Since the gospel of Christ gives no just occasions of shame, you that are professors of it should take heed that you do nothing to cast shame on this gospel. Do not mingle the Christian faith with doubtful notions of your own. not defile your Christian conversation with sinful practices. Do not make the lesser circumstances and appendages of your religion the matter of loud contest, and a partystrife; for all these things expose the gospel to shame, and may justly put its professors to the blush, in the face of the world, when they are guilty of these practices.

Let me insist a little upon each of these.

Do not mingle the Christian faith with doubtful notions and fancies of your own. The articles of our Christianity, and the necessary truths of the gospel, are divine and glorious: take heed you do not bring in your peculiar sentiments and favourite opinions, which have no sufficient evidence from the word of God, and join them in the same dignity with the articles of your faith; and much less should you dare to impose them upon the consciences of your fellow-Christians. The gospel itself will suffer by it, and sink in the esteem of the world, when the divine doctrines of it are mingled with our weakness, and debased by the addition of our doubtful senti

ments.

*****

Make not the lesser circumstances and appendages of your religion the matter of loud contest, and a party-strife. We are called to contend earnestly for the great and necessary doctrines of faith, which were once delivered to the saints: but we are commanded also to receive those that are weak in the

faith, without involving them in doubtful disputations about matters of less moment. Give no occasion to the infidel to blaspheme the gospel by your factions and quarrels, and the rage of a bitter and unsanctified zeal. Oh that the time were come, when the wolf and the lamb shall lie down together, and there shall be nothing to hurt or destroy in all the holy mountain! But surely, it is very hard if the lambs themselves, who belong to the flock of Christ, cannot live without hurting and destroying one another; that Christians cannot live without exposing their divine and heavenly religion to the blasphemies of sinful men. Happy were the Christian world, if we could all behave ourselves so as never to give occasion to the adversary to reproach the professors of the Christian faith, nor throw shame and dishonour upon the gospel of Christ! May the blessed Spirit of God teach us this lesson effectually, and let it be copied out in our lives daily, till we arrive at the regions of perfect holiness and love! Amen.

Brief View of the American Education Society; with the Principles on which it is conducted, and an Appeal to the Christian Public in its behalf. Published by order of the DIRECTORS of the Society. Nov. 1826. 8vo. pp. 24. THIS pamphlet has been so widely circulated, that any notice of its contents on our pages may seem superfluous. But it is not our intention to review it, so much as it is to lend what influence we have to the promotion of the cause for which it pleads.

Our views respecting the claims and operations of the American Education Society were expressed at considerable length in one of the volumes of our former series. The state of the churches in our country, the rapid growth of our population, the peculiar nature of our government, and the universal and yearly increasing intelligence of our citizens, indicate, too plainly to be questioned, the necessity of great efforts to provide a competent supply of pious and well furnished preachers of the gospel.

To labour in this cause is obviously no novelty in the history of benevolence. For this object most of our colleges, and all our theological seminaries were founded. The funds which have been accumulated at Andover, and Princeton, and Auburn, whether invested in buildings, in libraries, in professorships, or in scholarships, are all consecrated to the education of pious young men for the Christian ministry. And let it never be forgotten that the foundation of almost every college in the United States was laid by Christian enterprise seeking to compass this object of Christian benevolence. The venerable names of Harvard, and Yale, and Nassau Hall, and Dartmouth, and the more recent ones of Middlebury, and Hamilton, and Amherst, occur as particular illustrations of this assertion. At no period then have the Christians of this country been entirely neglectful of the importance of effort to provide for the churches a well instructed ministry. In the days of the pilgrims, the scattered and defenceless settlers paid a tax in wheat (because there was no money) to found the consecrated halls of Harvard, Christo et ecclesiæ ; and when that work had just been done, the pastors of Connecticut came forward each with his contribution, saying "I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony." In the days of Tennent and Edwards, the fathers of the Presbyterian church placed their students in the "log college" of New-Jersey. Not long after, Wheelock was pleading with the churches for his Indian college in the Woods. And in our day, we have seen the "man of Ross" at Newburyport, expending his tens of thousands and his hundreds of thousands on the bleak

hill of Andover.

The object then of the American Education Society is not a discovery of modern times; nor is it a

new thing under the sun to make contributions and to gather funds for this object. The peculiarity of ' education societies is rather in the mode of their operation than in the end at which they aim. Other efforts in this cause have been directed to the general result of increasing the facilties and elevating the standard of ministerial education. In these efforts the aim is more specific; individual beneficiaries are selected, and patronized, and superintended, with a sort of paternal watchfulness, from the beginning to the end of their course. Thus the bounty of the Christian public in this cause is made to bear more directly and more visibly, upon its object. So many individual ministers are seen to be educated for their work and brought forward into the field. This, no doubt, in the present state of our country, is a great addition to the general system of benevolent operation. Before seminaries of learning have been planted there is no room for the operations of such institutions as Education Societies. After seminaries of learning have been established, there is, in a young and growing country especially, abundant occasion for such efforts. For let the means of liberal education be ever so complete; still to a considerable class of the community, they must be in a great degree inaccessible. And often, in that class of society, may be found those who are by nature and by grace best qualified for eminent services in the church of God.

The highest native endowments, it is well known, are often associated with poverty, and piety is more frequently found in the dwellings of the poor, than of the rich. In every age and country, a large proportion of the great and good have sprung from humble life. Especially, has this been the case with ministers of the gospel. From the days in which the highest offices of the church were filled by a few plain