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mental and moral qualifications!" hoping to induce others to believe, no doubt, that they who thus censure the illiteracy of others, are indeed learned themselves.

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And yet, how few of these men of learning, so called, understand Hebrew, Latin or Greek! Nay, how few of them are correct English scholars! Many of them are unaequainted with the plain rules of grammar. In numbers, they frequently join the singular and the plural together, and confound the masculine with the feminine gender, and seldom use the proper tense. Desire one of them to tell you the English of the first paragraph that occurs in one of Plato's dialogues. Give one of them an epistle of Tully, or a satire in Virgil or Persius, and you stall him. But let them tell the story, and they are perfect in the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Arabic, Turkish, Coptic, Syriac, German, Arminian, Illyrican, Bohemian and English languages! These are the only men, let them tell the story, who are at all versed in the higher branches of mathematical and mechanical science, or know any thing about physical astronomy! Presbyterian ministers alone, have ascertained that like causes will produce like effects! They are the inventors of the science which compares and identifies the laws of motion? They are the men to measure the magnitude and distance of the sun and planets! They have discovered that the action and reaction. of matter are equal and contrary, and that the moon must attract the earth with an equal and contrary force!-They have. discovered that on account of the reciprocal action of matter, the stability of the system depends on the intensity of the primitive momentum of the planets! They have discovered what number of years are requisite for the major axis of the earth's orbit to accomplish a siderial revolution!They have learned that the revolutions of the satellites about Jupiter are precisely similar to those about the sun!-and they alone have learned that, the greatness of the compression of Jupiter's spheriod is in consequence of his rapid rotation! And now, with all this knowledge, how do they figure in the pulpit? Why, verily, after much labor and groaning to get started, on they go, reading from a dead note book, to a mixed multitude, and that with a manner, too, as dead as the devil (who always attends church) could wish it. Is it not a shame, to say the least of it, that a man in congress, or in a court of justice, will speak hours to the purpose, and often in support of a doubtful point, without a note book; and yet, a minister of the Gospel, who has the range of three worlds, heaven, earth, and hell, with all the sublime doctrines

of the Bible at his finger ends, can't speak forty-five or fifty minutes, without a little paper book held up as an extinguisher between his eyes and the eyes of his hearers. Were I a Presbyterian priest, I would commit my papers to the flames, and determine to be second to none, were it only for the honor of the profession.

CHAPTER VIII.

MISSOURI A MORAL WASTE.

THE New-York Evangelist, of Nov. 1833, contains a communication over the signature of "A. T." giving a most distressing account of the moral and religious condition of the state of Missouri. From this rare production I will give some extracts. The writer, from both the matter and manner of his communication, appears to be a Presbyterian clergyman, as usual; and it is very obvious, from his having concealed his proper name, that he anticipated a reply to his libellous publication. After giving an account of a very powerful camp-meeting, held at Doctor Nelson's camp-ground, where the writer seems to have been in attendance, with "others" of his "brethren," he proceeds as follows: "Here are a few thousand souls scattered over a wide extent of country. No meeting houses, no organized societies by whose influence sinners may be brought under the influence of truth; a common meeting will gather few; men who have long lived destitute of the REGULAR ordinances of the Gospel, must have something more than a common neighborhood meeting to induce them to leave their business and their pleasures; the novelty, the interest manifested on such occasions as I have specified, induces many to go. Thus at a camp-meeting they come 10, 20, 30, and even 50 miles." His Holiness,

the reverend A. T., then closes with the following soul-cheering intelligence:-"two or three hundred have been converted round in Doctor Nelson's neighborhood, in this way, the three past years."

REMARKS. Truly, Doctor Nelson seems to have scattered salvation, in this benighted region, as from angel's wings! Or, as says the poet, he seems to

"Blow rock and mountain rampart round,

Till glory echoes back the sound!"

But the Doctor's "two or three hundred" converts, it

seems, are the only followers Christ has in all this "wide ex tent of country." I know this Dr. Nelson, and have heard him preach; he was always an enthusiast, and was always upon some extreme. As, however, his labors have been so abundantly blessed in the meridian of Boon's lick, "the three past years," there is reason to suppose he has less acrimony in his composition now, than when he aided in editing and publishing the Calvinistic Magazine.

But I shall say nothing more of Dr. N., nor of his brother A. T. since the communication of the latter, and not the person of either of the men, is the subject of my review.

Poor Missouri! you are an anomaly of wickedness, of gain, unlawful, reckless, unrelenting and polluted deeds; while your inhabitants are a set of dark, oblique, marblefaced, savage-featured beings, whose only employment in this world is, to oppose God, and the spread of his Gospel!

Although the soil and climate of Missouri is very rich, and handsomely adapted to the culture of wheat, maize, hemp tobacco, cattle, hogs, horses, deer, turkeys, sheep, buffaloes and elks, yet, the same soil and climate, will scarcely sprout Calvinism. The coldness of the climate cannot be the cause of this, for it has been ascertained by actual experiment, that a cold, or an unusually frigid climate suits the poisonous plant best. For instance, let a man travel into the ice-bound regions of Maine, the frozen regions of Russia, or the more moderate plains of Geneva, and before he is aware of it, he will find himself coming to the conclusion that, "whatever is, is right!" It must be, then, that the good sense of the people of Missouri, obscures from the seeds of Calvinism, as fast as they are sown, the sun of prosperity, and causes them to pine away and die, before they even sprout.

It is

Query: Were those two or three hundred" souls converted under the preaching of the Arminian or Calvinistic doctrines? Surely not under the preaching of Calvinism: For I will venture to say, that the bare preaching of Calvinistic. doctrines never did, nor never will produce a revival. only when Calvinistic ministers lay aside their distinguishing tenets, and become inconsistent, that is, when their preaching is at variance with their peculiar doctrines, that they do any good.

What! the preaching of Calvinism produce a revival! What is there in this doctrine calculated to excite volitions in a sinner to seek eternal life? Nothing at all. But there is every thing in the doctrine, necessary to make men deists and atheists. When, therefore, the ministers of this order go forth

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to hold a camp-meeting, or to do good, they find it most expedient to bear the Methodist armour.

It appears from the minutes of the Missouri Conference, for 1833, that there are 52 of our Mounted Rangers,-otherwise circuit preachers there, besides a number of local preachers; and as to our membership, we have 6,103 whites, 756 colored, and 339 Indians. Besides, the Cumberland Presbyterians and Free Will Baptists, are tolerably numerous in Missouri.

In conclusion: Over the whole continent of America, from the eastern extremity of Maine, to the wide-spread and luxuriant plains of Florida-from the towering heights of the Allegany, to the extreme western plains of Louisiana-from the shores of the Atlantic ocean, to the Rocky mountains beyond the Mississippi, there is scarcely the dwelling of a white man, or free negro, that has escaped these Presbyterian agents and missionaries:-bidden or unbidden, welcome or unwelcome, these religious mendicants have entered. On the whole inhabited face of this continent, reader, name, if you can, the dwelling, from the proud tall mansion of the city, to the thatched hut of poverty, or of the forest, whose inmates have not been teazed for money, to "evangelize the world." With these people, priest and levite, press, pulpit, altar and sacrament, high place and low place, "public walks and private ways," have all been put in requisition for the attainment of more of the mammon of unrighteousness. And besides these, the fire side, the nursery, and pillow, have been made places of assignment, that in the endearment of caresses, the children, the wife, the husband, the servant, and the master, might be induced to contribute their hard earnings, which other means had failed to obtain. These religious beggars, and sanctimonious pretenders to extraordinary piety, are as importunate too, as the celebrated beggar of London; and they are becoming almost as numerous as the beg hards who sprang up in Europe, sometime in the thirteenth century. They make the cotemporaries of the old apostles to say, we need all your wealth! Did the apostles of Christ, like the apostles of Calvin, Hopkins, & co. bawl money! money! money! and pretend that money was necessary to convert the world? Did Christ tell his disciples to bawl and beg of every man they met, in his name, for money to enable them to save souls? If he did, then these men are justifiable, and can bring precept and example to authorise their proceedings. But, if Christ never gave such directions, these men are wrong. Christ told his disciples, "provide neither gold, nor

silver, nor brass, in your purses," &c. evidently meaning that the success of his Gospel did not depend upon these helps. But modern Presbyterian disciples and apostles, are continually bawling money! money! money! O for the money! Like the daughters of the horseleech, their cry is, give! give! give! At a common sacramental meeting, here at home, they lift from three to four collections. They are the most shameless beggars the world ever produced. Money is the aurora borealis of their religion! O Saviour! where are thy followers straying to?

But to leave money out of the account, it is hard, to say the least of it, that these fit subjects for the Magdalene Asylum, should be palmed on the community for preachers of the Gospel. If some of them were exhorters in the Methodist church, they would be silenced, solely too, on the ground of incompetency! In a course of desultory reading, I recollect to have seen it stated, that when Frederick, king of Prussia, proclaimed his new code of laws, it rendered lawyers unnecessary; and a large body of them memorialized his majesty, praying for relief; and enquiring what they were to do? In reply, the king is said to have returned this laconic answer:"Such as are tall enough may enlist for grenadiers, and the shortest will do for drummers and fifers." Reader, the application is easy.

CHAPTER IX.

ANDERSON COUNTY, IN EAST TENNESSEE, A GREAT MORAL WASTE.

THE Home Missionary, for 1833, contains a communication from the pen of the REV. JESSE WIMPY, on the subject of moral desolations, having the following bold sentence for its frontispiece:-"HOW TO BUILD CHURCHES AMONG THE DESTITUTE IN TENNESSEE!" Mr. Wimpy says, "I was directed to this place in the providence of God, by the fact, that an aged lady, a member of the Presbyterian church, resides in this part of the country! It is her ardent desire, that the Gospel may be preached to them; and her connexions will, at least, (observe his grammar) not discountenance!! I have at last succeeded in getting the people in one place to make some effort (in numbers, he joins the singular and the plural

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