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FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER.

"TAKE FAST HOLD OF INSTRUCTION; LET HER NOT GO; KEEP HER; FOR SHE IS THY LIFE."

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Review of the Life and Discourses of F. W. Robertson....... 193

COMMUNICATIONS MUST BE ADDRESSED AND PAYMENTS Epistle from New York Yearly Meeting of Women Friends.. 196

MADE TO

EMMOR COMLY, AGENT,

At Publication Office, No. 144 North Seventh Street,

Open from 9 A.M. until 5 P.M.

Residence, 809 North Seventeenth Street.
TERMS:-PAYABLE IN ADVANCE

The Paper is issued every Seventh day, at Three Dollars per
annum. $2.50 for Clubs; or, four copies for $10.

Agents for Clubs will be expected to pay for the entire Club.
The Postage on this paper, paid in advance at the office where
It is received, in any part of the United States, is 20 cents a year.
AGENTS-Joseph S. Cohu, New York.

Henry Haydock, Brooklyn, N. Y.

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Johann Rickle........

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The Rosine Association...........
Annual Meeting of Friends' Publication.......
Report of the Secretary of the Industrial Schools of Balti-
more for the Colored People..
POETRY........

......

A Voyage Across the Atlantic....

Extracts from John Stuart Mill's Inaugural Address. ........ 205
Coal Suply of the World..
ITEMS..

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REVIEW OF THE LIFE AND DISCOURSES OF truth a special capacity or preparation is indispensable."

F. W. ROBERTSON.

BY S. M. JANNEY.

Continued from page 179.

In thinking or speaking of the kingdom of Heaven, most persons confine their views too exclusively to a future state. It is the reign of God in the soul, and, according to the Apostle Paul, it consists of "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." They who attain this blessed condition realize, even in this life, a measure of that felicity of which the full fruition will be enjoyed in the spiritual world.

"God's revelation of Heaven," is the title of one of Robertson's discourses, and the text referred to is, 1 Cor. ii. 9, 10.-" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit."

"For a revelation of spiritual facts two things are needed --First, a Divine Truth; next, a spirit which can receive it.

Therefore the apostle's whole defence resolved itself into this: The natural man receiveth not the things which are of the Spirit of God. The world by wisdom knew not God. And his vindication of his teaching was: These revealed truths cannot be seen by the eye, heard by the ear, nor guessed by the heart; they are visible, audible, imaginable, only to the spirit. By the spiritually prepared they are recognized as beautiful, though they be folly to all the world beside, -as his Master had said before him, Wisdom is justified by her children.' whatever type of life she might be exhibited,. whether in the austere Man of the Desert, or in the higher type of the social life of Christ, the Children of Wisdom recognized her lineaments,. justified and loved her she was felt by them.

In

Two things are contained in this verse :1. The inability of the lower parts of human nature-the natural man-to apprehend the higher truths.

In the opening of this discourse he says: "The preaching of the Apostle Paul was rejected by numbers in the cultivated town of Corinth. It was not wise enough, nor eloquent enough, nor was it sustained by miracles. The man of taste found it barbarous; the Jew missed the signs and wonders which he had looked for in the new dispensation; and the rhetorician missed the convincing arguments of the schools. To all which the Apostle was con- 1. Eternal truth is not perceived through sentent to reply, that his judges were incompetent sation. Eye hath not seen the things which to try the question." "For every kind of God hath prepared for them that love Him.'

II. The Nature and Laws of Revelation. I. By the natural man is meant the lower faculties of man; and it is said of these that they cannot discover truth spiritual.

There is a life of mere sensation. The degree of its enjoyment depends upon fineness of organization. The pleasures of sense arise from the vibration of a nerve, or the thrilling of a muscle, nothing higher.

The highest pleasure of sensation comes through the eye. Sight ranks above all the rest of the senses in dignity. He whose eye is so refined by discipline that he can repose with pleasure upon the serene outline of beautiful form, has reached the purest of the sensational raptures.

Now, the Corinthians could appreciate this. Theirs was the land of beauty. They read the apostle's letter surrounded by the purest conceptions of art. In the orders of architecture, the most richly graceful of all columnar forms receives its name from Corinth. And yet it was these men, living in the very midst of the chastely beautiful, upon whom the apostle emphatically urged, Eye hath not seen the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.'"

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"Therefore, when He came into the world, who was the Truth and the Life, in the body which God had prepared for Him, He came not in the glory of form; He was a root out of a dry ground: He had no form nor comeliness; when they saw Him, there was no beauty that they should desire Him.' The eye did not behold, even in Christ, the things which God had prepared.

the Truths of God. Science cannot give a Revelation. Science proceeds upon observation. It submits everything to the experience of the senses. Its law, expounded by its great lawgiver, is, that if you would ascertain its truth you must see, feel, taste. Experiment is the test of truth. Now, you cannot, by searching, find out the Almighty to perfection, nor a single one of the blessed Truths he has to communicate."

"2. Eternal Truth is not reached by hearsay. 'Er bath not heard the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.'

No revelation can be adequately given by the address of man to man, whether by writing or orally, even if he be put in possession of the truth itself. For all such revelation must be made through words; and words are but counters-the coins of intellectual exchange. There is as little resemblance between the silver coin and the bread it purchases, as between the word and the thing it stands for. Looking at the coin, the form of the loaf does not suggest itself. Listening to the word, you do not perceive the idea for which it stands, unless you are already in possession of it. Speak of ice to an inhabitant of the torrid zone, the word does not give him an idea, or, if it do, it must be a false one. Talk of blueness to one who cannot distinguish colors,-what can your most eloquent description present to him resembling the truth of your sensation? Similarly, in matters spiritual, no verbal revelation can give a single simple idea. For instance, what means justice to the unjust, or purity to the man whose heart is steeped in licentiousness?"

Now, observe, this is an Eternal Truth; true at all times; true now and forever. In the quotation of this verse, a false impression is often evident. It is quoted as if the apostle by 'the things prepared' meant Heaven, and the "So that apostles themselves, and prophets glories of a world which is to be visible here speaking to the ear, cannot reveal truth to the after, but is at present unseen. This is mani-soul-no, not if God Himself were to touch festly alien from his purpose. The world of their lips with fire. A verbal revelation is only which he speaks is not a future, but a present a revelation to the ear. Revelation. God hath revealed them. He speaks Now, see what a hearsay religion is. There not of something to be manifested hereafter, are men who believe on authority. Their winbut of something already shown, only not to ister believes all this Christianity true; thereeye or ear. The distinction lies between a fore so do they. He calls this doctrine essenkingdom which is appreciable by the senses, and tial; they echo it. Some thousands of years another whose facts and truths are seen and ago, men communed with God; they have heard only by the spirit. Never yet hath the heard this, and are content it should be so. eye seen the Truths of God; but then never They have heard, with the hearing of the ear, shall it see them. In Heaven this shall be as that God is Love-that the ways of holiness true as now. Shape and color give them not. are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths God will never be visible. Nor will his blessed-peace. But a hearsay belief saves not. ness. He has no form. The pure in heart will see Him, but never with the eye; only in the same way, but in a different degree, that they see Him now. In the anticipated Vision of the Eternal, what do you expect to see?-A shape? Hues? You will never behold God. Eye hath not seen, and never shall see in finite form, the Infinite One, nor the Infinite of feeling or of Truth.

Again; no scientific analysis can discover

The Corinthian philosophers heard Paul; Pharisees heard Christ. How much did the ear convey? To thousands exactly nothing. He believes truth who feels it. He has a religion whose soul knows by experience that to serve God and know Him is the richest treasure. And unless Truth comes to you, not in word only, but in power besides,-authoritative because true, not true because authoritative,-there has been no real revelation made to you from God.

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FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER.

3. Truth is not discoverable by the heart-1 Neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.'

The heart-two things we refer to this source: the power of imagining, and the power of loving.

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spirit- God hath revealed them to us by His Spirit.' Christ is the voice of God without the man; the Spirit is the voice of God within the man. The highest Revelation is not made by Christ, but comes directly from the universal Mind to our minds. Therefore, Christ said. Himself, He, the Spirit, shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you. And therefore it it is written here-the Spirit searches all things,

Imagination is distinct from the mere dry faculty of reasoning. Imagination Imagination is creative; it is an immediate intuition, not a logical analy-yea, the deep things of God. sis. We call it popularly a kind of inspiration. Now, imagination is a power of the heart. Great thoughts originate from a large heart: a man must have a heart, or he never could cre

ate."

Now, the spirit of God lies touching, as it were, the soul of man-ever around and near. On the outside of earth, man stands with the boundless heavens above him; nothing between him and space, space around him and above Under this head, Robertson points out the him, the confiues of the sky touching him. So difference between the revelations of the Holy is the spirit of man to the Spirit of the Ever Spirit, with the utterances that proceed from it, Near. They mingle-in every man this is true. and those admired efforts of gifted mind's which The spiritual in him, by which he might become are frequently called the inspirations of genius. a recipient of God, may be dulled, deadened, The statuary or the painter may excel in his art, by a life of sense, but in this world never lost. the philosopher may disclose the secrets of na- All men are not spiritual men; but all have ture, and the poet may soar to the highest re-spiritual sensibilities which might awake. All gions of imagination, yet none of these unless they become the humble recipient of Divine grace, can attain the knowledge of heavenly Truth.

In illustration of this point, the discourse thus proceeds:

"The highest astronomer of this age, before whose clear eye Creation lay revealed in all its perfect order, was one whose spirit refused to recognize the Cause of Causes. The mighty heart of genius had failed to reach the things which God imparts to an humble spirit.

that is wanted is to become conscious of the nearness of God. God has placed men here to feel after Him if haply they might find Him, albeit he be not far from any one of them. Our souls float in the immeasurable ocean of spirit. God lies around us; at any moment we might be conscious of the contact.

The condition upon which this self-revelation of the Spirit is made to man is Love. These things are prepared for them that love Him;' or, which is the same thing, revealed to those who have the mind of Christ.

There is more in the heart of man-it has Let us look into this word Love. Love to the power of affection. The highest moment man may mean several things. It may mean known on earth by the merely natural is that love to his person, which is very different from in which the mysterious union of heart with himself; or it may mean simple pity. Love to heart is felt. Call it friendship, love, what you God can only mean one thing.-God is a Charwill, that mystic blending of two souls in one, acter. To love God is to love His character. when self is lost and found again in the being For instance, God is Purity. And to be pure of another; when, as it were, moving about in in thought and look, to turn away from unhalthe darkness and loneliness of existence, we sud-lowed books and conversation, to abhor the modenly come in contact with something, and we ments in which we have not been pure, is to find that spirit has touched spirit. This is the love God. purest, serenest ecstacy of the merely human: more blessed than any sight that can be pre-attachments have expanded into a philanthropy sented to the eye, or any sound that can be given to the ear; more sublime than the sublimest dream ever conceived by genius in its most gifted hour, when the freest way was given to the shaping spirit of imagination.

This has entered into the heart of man, yet this is of the lower still. It attains not to the things prepared by God-it dimly shadows them. Human love is but the faint type of that surpassing blessedness which belongs to those who love God.

II. We pass, therefore, to the Nature and Laws of Revelation.

God is Love; and to love men till private

which embraces all, at least even the evil and enemies with compassion,-that is to love God. God is Truth. To be true, to hate every form of falsehood, to live a brave, true, real lifethat is to love God. God is Infinite; and to love the boundless, reaching on from grace to grace, adding charity to faith, and rising upwards ever to see the Ideal still above us and to die with it unattained, aiming insatiably to be perfect even as the father is perfect that is to love God.

This love is manifested in obedience: Love is the life of which obedience is the Form.

First, Revelation is made by a spirit to a 'He that hath my commandments, and keepeth

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USES OF PRAYER.-Let prayer be the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.— Henry.

From the New York Yearly Meeting of Women Friends, held in New York by adjournments from the 28th of Fifth month, 1866, to the 31st of the same inclusive.

To the Y. Meeting of Women Friends held in Philada.:

DEAR SISTERS:-We deem it a privilege thus to hold correspondence with our absent friends, and express our desires for each other's

"Therefore the apostle preached the Cross to men who felt and to men who felt not the Re-welfare; but it is only as we are favored to velation contained in it. The Cross is humble- enter into spiritual communion that we are ness, love, self-surrender-these the apostle qualified to sympathize with each other's labors preached. To conquer the world by loving it; for the promotion of Truth, and know its power to be blest by ceasing the pursuit of happiness, to unite us together in the bonds of love. Oh! and sacrificing life instead of finding it; to that we may be willing to ask counsel of Him make a hard lot easy by submitting to it-this who hath sald, "Ask, and ye shall receive; was his divine philosophy of life. And the seek, and ye shall find;" then we may be enprinces of this world, amidst scoffs and laugh-abled to feel our own souls refreshed, and also ter, replied, Is that all? Nothing to dazzle-to hold forth a word of encouragement to others. nothing to captivate. But the disciples of the inward life recognized the Divine Truth which this doctrine of the Cross contained. The humble of heart, and the loving, felt that in this lay the mystery of life, of themselves, and of God, all revealed and plain. It was God's own wisdom felt by those who had the mind of Christ. The application of all this is very easy: Love God, and He will dwell with you :-Obey God, and He will reveal the truths of His deepest teaching to your soul."

"To such a man it would not matter where he was, nor what: to live or die would be alike. If he lived, he would live unto the Lord; if he died, he would die to the Lord."

"No matter to such a man what he saw or what he heard; for every sight would be resplendent with beanty, and every sound would echo harmony things common would become transfigured, as when the ecstatic state of the inward soul reflected a radiant cloud from the frame of Christ. The human would become Divine,-life, even the meanest, noble. In the hue of every violet there would be a glimpse of Divine affection, and a dream of Heaven. The forest would blaze with Deity, as it did to the eye of Moses. The creations of genius would breathe less of earth and more of Heaven. Human love itself would burn with a clearer and intenser flame, rising from the altar of self sacrifice.

These are 'the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.' Compared with these, what are loveliness, the eloquent utterances of man, the conceptions of the heart of genius? What are they all to the serene stillness of a spirit lost in love the full, deep rapture of a soul into which the Spirit of God is pouring itself into a mighty tide of Re

velation?"

We have with us at this time several friends from yours and other Yearly Meetings whose presence and counsel has been comforting and encouraging to us.

Mothers have been encouraged to greater faithfulness in the care of their tender offspring; they have been exhorted to dwell under the influence of that Divine power which will enable them to control their own spirits, and show forth by example the practical character of the teachings of Christ.

A deep interest has been revived amongst us in regard to the increasing dangers of intemperance. Ought we not to consider our duty in reference to this great evil, which bas laid waste so many fair prospects, and brought ruin to so many who otherwise would have been shining lights in the world. Let us examine ourselves and see whether we are altogether clear of our brother's blood,-that we do not drop the first seed of intemperance, by presenting the wine-cup, or encouraging its use in social gatherings. We have been reminded that we possess an influence, which, if faithfully exerted, will do much towards the preservation of those exposed to temptation, and bring a great reward to ourselves both in the present and future world.

We would that the dear youth might feel as they go forth on errands of mercy and love into lonely habitations, that they also are fulfilling their mission in life, and that as they are faithful and obedient, cheerfully doing these acts of self-denial, their path of duty will open before them, and God will strengthen them for greater works.

It is earnestly desired by us that we not only as individuals, but as the Society of Friends, may prove faithful in our duty toward the African race, who are passing from slavery to free

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dom, helping them from ignorance and degrada- | ton, to send me to school; and I had not been
tion to an appreciation of their new responsi-
bilities as free men and women.

Our hearts were warmed by the reading of your acceptable Epistle and those of other Yearly Meetings with which we correspond. And we have desired that we may all be instrumental in advancing the exalted testimonies held forth by our Society; that it may become a city of renown, shedding light to surrounding

nations.

And in conclusion, dear sisters, may that grace which alone is able to purify the heart and qualify for usefulness, be our guide and support in every good word and work. With the salutation of love, we bid you farewell. Signed on behalf of the meeting by

RACHEL HICKS, Clerk.

"Everybody is impatient for the time when he shall be his own master, and if coming of age were to make one so, if years could indeed bring the philosophic mind, it would rightly be a day of rejoicing; but too often he who is impatient to become his own master, when the outward checks are removed merely becomes

his own slave."

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I was born in the year 1756, in the Canton of Berne. My parents were of the Lutheran Reformed Church; and were accounted religious people. I was their only surviving child, and they were anxious that I should receive a religious education, and taught me early to read and accustomed me to prayer. They were afraid of sending me to school, lest through the bad example of other children I should learn more evil than good.

At home I read diligently the Heidleburg Catechism, and having a quick and retentive memory, I soon learned it by heart and could repeat the answers, and also give the names of the authors and passages referred to with readiness. From my early youth, I was very susceptible of good impressions, and while reading the Holy Scriptures and other religious books, I was often melted to tears; but from unwatchfulness these impressions did not prove real and abiding.

In the ninth year of my age, my parents were obliged, according to the law of the Can

long there, before the time came for me to undergo a preparation to receive the Holy Supper. Here I again found the advantage of my ready memory; for I was soon able to repeat all the necessary questions put to me by the minister.

I wish here to remark, that great danger often arises to young persons, blessed with gifts and talents, from being too early and improperly put forward by their parents and teachers, in a manner that tends to fill the youthful mind with self-conceit and vanity. This might have proved a lasting injury to myself, had not God, in mercy, preserved me from it.

Yet my

After the usual examination, I was found suitable to partake of this rite, but my preparation consisted only in a knowledge according to the letter: I knew nothing of heartfelt repentance, although my father, according to his own religious views, had taken great care that I should undergo a strict preparation, and also to myself, the subject appeared of great importance, much more so, perhaps, than it did to any of my school companions. But I soon found that the vows and promises, entered into at the time of my baptism, were not sufficient to enable me to renounce the vanities of a wicked world; yet I passed on in a pretty orderly walk, until about the eighteenth year of my age; when, sorrowful to relate, I was led away by evil companions, to lightness of conduct, and to hurtful things of almost every kind. Heavenly Father, by the convictions of His Spirit, knocked at the door of my heart, so that when I returned from my nightly revellings with my companions, I almost always formed resolutions never to accompany them again to the like excess; but these resolutions being made in my own strength, they only lasted till another temptation offered. My Heavenly Father, in His mercy, ceased not to knock still harder at the door of my heart and conscience; and the inwardly written law threatened me with judgment and hardness of heart. This made me a little more careful; I was frightened; and my stubborn will became more yielding to the gentle leading of the Spirit; and a strong desire sprang in my beart to give myself up to follow my crucified Saviour.

It was in the twenty-fifth year of my age when I experienced this happy change. As this blessed light began to shine in my dark heart, it brought my sins to remembrance, and the righteousness of God passed strict judgment on my youthful levity and dissipation; and I had bitterly to lament over many of those follies practiced by young people, and too often considered as innocent: keen was the sting of conscience for time misspent that could never be recalled.

I have seen the danger to which young per

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