Meeting of the A. B. C. F. M. 229 şermon; and to request a copy fo: They therefore recommend, that the the press. sum of one thousand dollars be grantA letter was communicated fromed to Jeremiah Evarts, Esq. as CorTamehameha, (usually denominated responding Secretary of the Board; Riho-Riho,) king of the Sandwich Islands, composed and written by himself, and addressed to the Board: Whereupon, and that the further sum of one thousand dollars be allowed to him as Editor of the Missionary Herald, to be included in the expenses of that publication.* This Report was accept The Committee on the subject of the avails of the Missionary Herald, and the appropriation of those avails, The President and Secretaries of the Board were appointed a commit-ed. tee to prepare and transmit to the king an answer, expressing the thanks of the Board for his letter, and for his kindness to the missionaries; to-reported, gether with such other sentiments, as That they find the profits of that work, for the year 1822, already re they should deem advisable. The Hon. John C. Smith, the Hon.ceived amount to the sum of $4,200 Benjamin Talmadge, Gen. Daniel B. Brinsmade, the Rev. David L. Perry, and Rev. Charles A. Boardman, were chosen Agents of the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall. 51-or, deducting the sum allowed for editorial services, and the sum charged for copies of that volume distributed gratuitously, the clear profits, already received, amount to the sum of $1,225 51.† *Since the meeting of the Board, five gen tlemen in Boston, well acquainted with the Resolved: That the Hon. John C. Smith, the Hon. Jonas Platt, the Rev. Dr. Morse, Jeremiah Evarts, Esq. and Gen. Van Rensselaer, be a comcircumstances of the case, all of them liberal mittee to prepare a memorial to the Board, and four of them subscribers of 100 contributors to the general objects of the government of the United States, on dollars annually to the Printing Press for the general subject of the civilization Western Asia, have addressed a letter to flenand moral improvement of the Indi-ry Hill, Esq treasurer, express ng their full acquiescence in the above report, and engag an Tribes, within the limits of our na-ing to pay 100 dollars each towards the suptional territory. William T. Money, Esq. member of the British Parliament, was unanimously elected a corresponding member of this Board. port of the Corresponding secretary, for the from the profits of the Herald. A The sum remaining due from subscribers and agents, cannot be exactly ascertained 2,000 dollars. How large a part of this sum before this sheet goes to press; but it exceeds will be ultimately rece ved is uncertain. bout a thousand copies of the volume remain on hand, which, (or so many of them as shail not be sold,) can be gratuitously distributed, 'n such a manner as very essentially to pro mote the objects of the Board. Thus taking into the account the value of the copies which have been and will be grat▾ The committee on the subject of compensation to be allowed the Cor responding Secretary reported that they entirely concur with the committee appointed by the Board last year, in the sum reported by them, as predicated upon a reasonable & economical estimate of the expenses to which tousty distriba ed, the support which has the Secretary is necessarily subject-been afforded to an officer of the Board, and ed by his office, in supporting a family in Boston, and to which the entire devotion of his time and talents to the service of the Board eminently entitle him, together with the grati-ny society as the profits of a similar publica. tude of the Christian community. the clear profits received and to be received in money, the direct aid yielded to the missionary cause, by this volume of the work cannot be estimated at a less sura than somewhere between 6,200 and 6,400 dollars; a larger sum than was ever before received by tion, and quite as large as was ever expected 930 Meeting of the A. B. C. F. M. Resolved: That the success at tending the labors of the missionaries, The committee also recommended, that, for the present, the clear profits of the Missionary Herald, after pay-at several stations under the care of ing the compensation of the editor be this Board, and the progress of misplaced in the general funds of the sions generally, have been such as to Bard. Accepted. afford abundant reward for past sacrifices, and great encouragement to future exertions. Resolved: That the Board approve the conduct of the Prudential committee in appointing suitable agents to visit the missionary station among the Indians, from time to time, and recommend a continuance of similar measures. Resolved:-That the urgent claims of many parts of the heathen world, now open for evangelical exertions, and the recurring wants of the missions already established by this board, The Rev. Dr. Morse, the Rev. Dr. make it the imperious duty of the Day, and the Hon. Jonas Platt, were Prudential Committee to use the appointed a committee to communi- most efficient means in their power cate with the prudential committee to obtain resources adequate to the on the subject of a missionary estab-demands for increasing expenditures. lishment at Green Bay. Resolved: That the Board are Mr. Rufus Anderson was elected concerned to find, that the deficiency Assistant Secretary, in the depart-of receipts during the present year, ment of Corresponding Secretary. Resolutions of thanks were voted to the Mayor and Aldermen of the city to the members of Park-Street Church-to the Singers, and the hospitable families and individuals by whose kindness the Board were accommodated. Resolved: That the thanks of the Board be presented to all auxiliary societies, churches and congregations, and to all individuals, who have contributed to the funds, or in any other way promoted the objects of the Board. from this work by any persons acquainted compared with the expenditures, has been considerable. They confidently believe, however, that American christians will never relinquish any of the benevolent objects which they have undertaken; and that they will increase their efforts, till the messengers of salvation shall have visited every country, and the proclamation of mercy shall have been made to all the children of men. Resolved: That the next annual meeting of this Board, be holden in the city of Hartford, Conn. on the third Wednesday of September, 1824, at 9 o'clock, A. M. and that the Rewith the expenses, the allowance made to a- cording Secretary, make the arrangegents, and the unavoidable losses ments necessary for the accommodaThe profits of the preceding volume, estition of the members of that meeting. mated in the same way, do not vary much from 2,500 dollars That volume was subjec ted to some extraordinary expenses, and the edition was but half as numerous as that of the last volume. The clear profits, which remain after the sum paid to the editor is de-ing their Report for the last year; ducted, are added to a permanent fund for the support of the Corresponding Secretary This fund, commenced by the benefactions of individuals, now amounts to more than 6,000 dollars; and it is deemed by many Resolved:-That it shall be the duty of the Prudential Committee to compile and publish a Report, includ the Report from the Agents of the Foreign Mission School; a statement of the Treasurer's accounts; such a detail of donations as may be found useful; extracts from the minutes of the present session; and such other information, as they shall deem cal 231 Difference between Philosophical and Evangelical Faith. culated to promote the great and ben-lifeless hopes were to become, not evolent objects of the Board. ‹ indeed present and sensible realities, but the objects of constant and irresistible conviction. The session was closed with prayer by the Rev. Dr. Church. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHILOSOPHICAL AND EVANGELICAL imperfect, inconstant, wavering, sullen, quiescent, powerless, to be received and rested in, as that Faith which the bountiful "Giver of all Grace" bestowed upon his true disciples? Will he not grant to those who, "though they have not seen, have yet believed," a nearer, a more sensible, a more habitual contract with the spiritual world by which they are surrounded, and for which they are under education? Yes, that faith which is "the gift of God," brings with it a specific confidence, a perception, a full persuasion "of things looked for." And, as it is not less founded, nor more indirectly derived from above, than the faith of the first Christians, it supports spontaneously, and without the aid of false excitement, the same tone of feeling, the same system of motives, and the same course of action. But as the qualities of this faith are not cognizable, except by its professors, it must happen, that while Christians of latter But is there, then, to be attained no higher and more efficient persuation of the reality of these objects, which as truly exist when they are A faith which results from more doubted, as when they are immediateratiocination, o» a faith that has growny preceived? And is this opiniongradually and involuntarily out of an indistinct, uninvited, but irresistible impression of the supernatural majesty of the Christian Records,- -a faith which, when it is laboriously pursued, seems to elude the grasp of the mind, and has the force of reality only when it makes a sudden and unwel come intrusion upon more pleasurable trains of thought,- -a faith which leaves us to the uncomfortable sen sations of hypocrisy in the moment of our public professions, but which suggests the more uncomfortable suspicion of a fearful insecurity in our solitary hours, a faith which is making a daily and insatiable demand for evidence, and which never seems to say. It is enough,- —or a faith which permits us still to stand so near the verge of Christianity, that, on the first appearance of difficulties, offences, or reproaches, we find a quick way of escape into the free fields of infidelity, -a faith which never corrects in our speech the accent of scepticism, which admires Christianity as an abstrac-ages feel, speak, and act like Christition, but spurns the proffered acquaintance when it comes emboiled to challenge as an avowal,-or a faith which consists with an idolatrous devotion to present good, and which seems not to contain even the germs of an absolute taste for the expected good of a future life;-such a faith, proves and professes itself to be wholly insufficient to give a natural support to these feelings, and to that course of action, which, it is not denied, would seem simply reasonably it the objects of our flitting fears and we say, ans of the primitive age, they are involuntarily deemed, and freely reproached as hypocrites, enthusiasts, fanatics, by men whose conviction of the truth of Christianity is not only lower in degree, but different in its source and nature. But those who feel that their own faith in the truth of Christianity is neither sufficiently vivid nor stable, nor so associated with affections of the heart as to carry them forward into eminent services, and to sustain them under privatious, and approaches, or even 232 Origin of TextsScarcity of the Testament before Printing. to put them in sympathy and intelli- the sense, and caused them to undergence with much of the language of stand the reading.* the New-Testament,--might convince Previous to the time of Ezra, the themselves of the radical defect in patriarchs delivered in public assemtheir religious feelings, by observing blies, either prophecies or moral inthe many instances in which a genu-structions for the edification of the ine faith, even though low in its people; and it was not until the redegree, and always struggling with turn of the Jews from the Babylonish constitutiona! scepticism, is seen to captivity, during which time they had produce nearly the same results as in almost lost the language in which the individuals of a happier temperament. pentateuch was written, that it beSome of the most devoted champions came necessary to explain, as well as or martyrs of the Christian Church to read, the scriptures to them; a have never enjoyed the comfort of practice adopted by Ezra, and since undistracted conviction. But in these universally followed. In latter times instances, faith, if not happy, has as we are told in the Acts of the Abeen efficient; and it would have pastles, chap. xiv. v. 21, the books of carried its possessors to the stake, Moses were thus read in the synafirmly though not joyfully. gogue every Sabbath day. To this Declaimers against enthusiasm laudable custom our Saviour conforinwould do well, then, to fix their at-ed; and, in the synagogue at Nazatent on upon instances where a cold, phlegmatic, or melancholic temperament has rendered the individual insusceptible of that exaltation of mind to which the term is properly applied, and yet, where, in steady renunciation of personal interests and comfort, and in sustained activity, he has differed in no perceptible degree from his more sanguine and happy brethren. So true is the principle, that he who has a true faith, "though it be but as a grain of mustard seed, is able to say unto the mountain, be thou removed and cast into the sea; and it shall obey him." [Ec. Rev. From Collet's Relics of Literature. ORIGIN OF TEXTS. The custom of taking a text as the basis of a sermon or lecture is said to have originated with Ezra, who, we are told, accompanied by several Levites in a public congregration of meu and women, ascended a pulpit, opened the book of the law, and after addressing a prayer to the Deity, to which the people said Amen, ‘read in the law of God disunctly and gave reth, read a passage from Isaiah, then closing the book, returned it to the. priest, and preached from the text. This custom, which now prevails all over the Christian world, was interrupted in the dark ages, when the Ethicts of Aristotle were read in many churches on Sunday, instead of the Holy Scriptures. Scarcity of the Word of God, before the Invention of Printing. South E.mham, in Suffolk, was accu- *Nehemiah, chap. viii. Miss. Herald for Oct-Mourning Dresses.-Revival. Punishment for reading the Word of God, in the days of Popery. 233 suitable expression of respect for the memory of the dead. But for one, I In a parliament held at Leicester, have long since regarded the custom in A. D. 1415, it was enacted, 'That as unnecessary and inexpedient. Unwhosoever they were that should read necessary, as we may evince our sorthe Scriptures in the mother tongue, row for the loss of our deceased (which was then called Wickliffe's friends, in a less imposing but more learning,) they should forfeit land, consistent manner. Inexpedient, as cattle, body, life, and goods, for ever; it is attended with much expense to and so be condemned heretics to God, all classes. Some of the poor it emenemies to the crown, and most er- barrasses for months; to others it furrant traitors to the land. Besidesnishes a temptation to involve themthis, it was enacted, That neither a selves in debt, which they cannot pay. sanctuary, nor priviledged ground When, therefore, God in his rightewithin the realm should hold them, ous providence saw fit to remove from though they were still permitted to me by death one whom I tenderly lothieves & murderers. And, if in case ved, I felt myself not at liberty to they would not go over, or were after comply with the general custom of their pardon relapsed, they should suf- emblematic mourning; but on the confer death in two manner of kinds; that trary, solemnly bound to do someis they should first be hanged, and thing towards meliorating the condithen be burned for heresy against God, tion of six hundred millions of our and yet neither of both committed.' unhappy race, upon whom no star of Bethlehem hath shone; accordingly, Mr. Editor, I send you $10 for the The MISSIONARY HERALD for this Education Society; which is just month, furnishes some intelligence twice the sum I could have sent had it from Ceylon, in letters from Messrs. been at the usual expense of purchaPoor and Winslow-some from Bom-sing mourning weeds. bay, in a joint letter from the Mission- Yours, respectfully, aries, dated Jan. 6, 1823—And from || Received $10 as above. the Sandwich Islands, in letters and the journal of the Mission. It also gives a full account of the annual Revival.-Rev. E. H. Herrick writes meeting of the American Board of to a friend in Washington city, that Commissioners for Foreign Missions. a revival has existed in Schoharie and This took place on the 17th and 18th Charleston, N. Y. since Feb. last, and September, in the court house in that 51 persons have been baptized. Boston. The reports of the Treasur-A letter from a gentleman at ers give the receipts and expenditures for the year preceding the 31st Aug. as follows;-Receipts, $55,808,94.Expenditures $66,379,75. MOURNING DRESSES. Ibid. To the Editor of the Boston Recorder. Dear Sir,-The custom of wearing black as a mourning dress, is sanctioned by great antiquity; and from our early habits of association, seem to be connected in our minds with a A.J. A. P. CLEVELAND. Rockspring, Ill. to his correspondent |