Church will only hew out for them a channel in which nobleness may flow.

But you will say, they ought to be noble, whatever the Church are. Well, so they ought, and so many are. Not all the martyrs have mouldered in dungeons. Not all the martyrs have embraced the stake, and amid wondering and admiring millions gained heaven in chariots of fire. Not all the martyrs have stretched out their arms upon the cross, or looked into the fierce eyes of wild beasts in Roman amphitheatres. In many a lonely western village sits a man whose name is on the roll of a proud college, and by his side a woman who would be at home in a capital, their hands roughening with toil, and their garments wearing thin with age. They are almost ashamed to show the passing stranger their little table, with its rough fare. Their martyrdom is not so sharp, but it is much slower than Peter's, or than Polycarp's. In the suburbs of the city, amid the green valleys of New York, or of Pennsylvania, you may find the minister whose cheek is waxing thin with unrequited labor and care, who is bound to the ministry only by the love of Christ, and who toils on and suffers on, and at last steals to an unnoticed grave, and sleeps until the Resurrection. Church History does not emblazon his name, but the Recording Angel writes it down with a softened heart.

But ministers are men; and, oh! it helps faith to gain some little encouragement from sense. The heart grows strong by gazing into sympathetic eyes, and the great and noble Moses would have fainted, had not Aaron and Hur been given him to hold up his falling arms. And next to being burning and shining lights ourselves, is the privilege of ministering, like Lazarus, and Mary and Martha, to those who on earth are Christlike.

We turn to another topic. It is feared that the object which Lutherans and Episcopalians desire to subserve by the rite of Confirmation, is somewhat forgotten by our people. Our children are baptized in infancy, and thus become members of the Church. Unless, however, they give decided evidence of conversion, we do not encourage them when they come to years of discretion to take their parents' vows upon themselves. Hence a separation, more or less great, in feeling and interest It is difficult for any one to be interested in that to which he does not belong. Hence some denominations make all their children members of the visible church, by urging them to attendance on the communion, with the hope that they will

from us.

thus be constantly interested in the church, and will become, by Divine Grace, if they are not such now, true Christians. By means of the form, they thus strive to attach them to the life of Christianity. The opposite extreme, and its great danger, we may see in the present position of the Society of Friends. They began with an intense spiritualism, that fused every thing that came within its reach into its own substance. The dry forms of the Established Church seemed to be, in its fiery breath, but stubble. The life of God was powerfully seen in the soul of man. But, wise above that which is written, they relied entirely on the spirit, disregarding the form of religion. They refused the ordinances of Christ's House. Baptism and the Lord's Supper were carnal, and the Christian Ministry hirelings. And where are they now? Passing away, becoming historical. Their children are filling churches of a different faith, or becoming, in the shape of heterodox Friends, the very bones and sinew of a sect, whose faith is physiological, and broad enough to include the Vestiges of Creation, and whose polity tends to Fourierism. No darker element, in its ultimate issues, than the faith of Elias Hicks, has ever shrouded our American shores.

What is the lesson? Is it that we have not forms enough, or is it that, like the original Friends, we have dwelt too much on the thought that the life is more than meat, and the body than raiment? Must we add to our form, and thus feel like young David in the armor of Saul, encumbered by that which we know not how to wield? An American could not choose but smile if enveloped in the robes of an European court, though those "to the manor born" might look on themselves with a deep complacency. We think there is a great truth in the maxim attributed to Buonaparte, that "revolutions never go backward." A nation educated to simplicity, may grow anarchic, but hardly ceremonious. Presbyterians may grow infidel or careless, but hardly as a body ritual or doting.

There is, then, but one other way. As we have not one iota of form too much, as we have barely as much observance as is indispensable, the very smallest body that the soul can live in, we must make every thing of the form we have. This our brethren of the basis of 1837 and 1838 are doing, after the fashion of a sectarian exclusiveness, and they are wise in their generation. We always have room in our hearts to love them, and room in our heads to admire the wisdom that is in them. But we hope to avoid this excess too, and to move in the very path

way of the life of American Presbyterianism. And what is it? He who can find this out, and induce the Church to walk in it, will be her great benefactor in this age, and will have entwined around his brow her palm-branch of victory, wet with grateful tears!

It does not belong to us to do this great deed. We have said that it is enough for ordinary men to appreciate Presbyterianism, and not to lose sight of its idea, without aspiring to be discoverers. But whatever we have, the Church is welcome to it, if it be but one stone to be built into the magnificent structure of the future.

We must, then, if we would obey the voice of God's providence, teach our children the priceless glory of their faith. It is dreadful that the children of Presbyterians do not know the traditions of their history, and have not listened to the groans of their martyrs. Every drop of the blood of Coligny should be precious as their own, every sigh of the maiden who perished in the rising tides of the Scottish sea should sweep like the wind of autumn over their spirits. If some of our observances are antiquated, and are replaced by more graceful methods, still the Country Sacrament in the old Church, surrounded by whispering groves, ministered by the strong men of other times, and dispensed by the venerable grey-headed elders, who now sleep in hope of the Resurrection, should be precious in our memories. If the hearts of our young men thrill at the sight of a banner borne aloft over the heroes that gathered fire from the eye of Washington, should they be cold at the sight of a fragment of the Kirk of Shotts, or feel no kindlings of enthusiasm at a relic of the siege of Derry? If a brighter poetic inspiration has given us sweeter strains in the worship of God, are we to pour contempt on the words which upbore the affections of God's people for ages to the Throne, and upon which their spirits took wing to the bosom of their Saviour!

Yea, though I walk through death's dark vale,

Yet will I fear none ill,

For Thou art with me, and thy rod

And staff me comfort still.

There has verily been a fault among us. While our sister Churches have been cherishing as priceless, every remnant of ecclesiastical antiquity, and even putting into their treasury rags of Rome, we have counted as nothing the recollections of men of whom the world was not worthy, and suffered our chil

dren to grow up in ignorance of that which should have been their great glory. How can a Church have historic life, if her history is forgotten? While every hour our children hear of the beautiful liturgy, the unrivalled burial-service, the grave and decorous ritual, the noble prayers of another Church; while it is pressed upon their attention, that her literature is full of all sweetness and holiness and learning, and that the odor of her sanctity smells to heaven, what wonder that our children should ask why we are not all Episcopalians? Who tells them that the Westminster Confession is a model of noble writing? Who tells them that such a synopsis of Christian doctrine, so transparently clear, so admirably guarded, so grandly expressed, was never before written by man? Who says it, until they bear it in their heart of hearts, that there never was so noble a compression of Scriptural truth in any language, as the Shorter Catechism? Who compares the poetry of Watts, who, almost alone of modern men, "sings like the lark at heaven's gate, with the poverty of Sternhold and Hopkins, or Tate and Brady? Who congratulates them over and over, upon the simplicity of our worship, and the grandeur of our Churches in this, that they are free from all attempt at pomp or over crowded symbols, defeating their own object. Who points out to them the nobleness of standing erect and uncovered before God, while in no borrowed words, but in language impressed by the interceding Spirit, the Ambassador chosen of God, and the People, leads their souls up to the throne of the Eternal? Why are they not told the value of a ministry, whose constant effort it is, by elaborate argument and discussion, to enlighten the mind, as well as please the taste, and touch the heart of their hearers? Why are they not told that the learning of America comes,-two-thirds of it,-from Puritans and Presbyterians? And why does it not glow within their bosoms, that the liberties of England and America, of the Anglo-Saxon race, are due, by acknowledgment of all competent and unprejudiced authority to Puritans and Presbyterians? And what are the liberties of the Anglo-Saxon race, but the liberties of the world? For where could liberty look for an asylum, if despotism came forth from the midst of Popery, and placed her fetters on Anglo-Saxon limbs?

The late eminent William Wirt is one of the few literary men who has done justice to Watts. It is exceedingly difficult to write hymns. Even Milton failed here. We purpose to discuss the subject at length in a subsequent number of this

work.

We must begin at our firesides, if we would save the Church. One thing that is quite essential in this behalf, is to exemplify a living Christianity. The world say, and our children are beginning to echo it, that they are weary of dogma. We are not, but it is dead, being alone. We are shut up to holiness in our Church, if we intend to live and grow. Our fathers made that issue in the very structure of Presbyterianism. With a daring which could only have been the result of the overwhelming energy and confidence of a glowing revival age, our Branch of the great Presbyterian family have made that issue still more nakedly and palpably. It is a fearful and yet glorious one. The condition of our external growth is the presence of the regenerating and sanctifying Spirit. Unless our Christianity warms, refreshes, blesses our children, she has no power over them.

There is something not quite right in the training and character of American children. They grow old prematurely. Boys are men of business, and girls are mothers when they ought to be at school. Nature always revenges herself, and the result is, that men are thrust aside as useless, almost in the prime of life, certainly when their eye is not dim with age, nor their natural force abated. Nothing is clearer, than that this is unscriptural. Men in the Hebrew Commonwealth, nay even in heathen Lacedæmon, rose up before the hoary head, and felt that the multitude of years should teach wisdom.

This excessive sharpness, and premature development of children, of course, gives them what is called knowledge of the world. We may take another occasion to show, that our entire arrangements for the young, especially our social arrangements, need revision. At present, we only remark, that this juvenile sharpness looks rather at the practical working, than the principles and tendency of things. It springs to conclusions, generalizing from the narrow circumstances which it sees and feels. Prescription has very much lost its power. Boys demand the right of private judgment in its fullest extent, when they are only acute, and not comprehensive. But if a church claims to be apostolic, they can see that it ought to be holy. The power of goodness is palpable, and cannot be gainsayed. In a word, a religion that makes us wiser, calmer, better, happier; a religion that will fill a home with joy and love, a neighborhood with all sweet charities, and a nation with quietness and peace, is the great desideratum of the age. And this our children would love. They are often over-driven, over-worked,