we abandon his offered means of instruction and resort to theirs. For surely no reason can be assigned for closing our bibles and giving our eyes, our ears, our time and attention to the means of information offered by fellow-mortals, but that we expect during the same time to receive more information and greater benefit, from the latter than we do from the former! And is not God insulted, grossly insulted, by such an expectation? terms they introduced new and erroneous conceptions of God and divine things, and sunk into idolatry every where. And by the same cause a similar effect has been produced oftener than once in after times. No sooner did the Jewish clergy cease after the captivity, to employ in their religious instructions and services, the words used in their sacred books, and invented terms, fitter as they no doubt thought, to express their religious conceptions, than with their new religious language, they brought into vogue doctrines, rules, institutions and practices, unknown and unsanctioned by the word of God. And by a like departure in their religious instructions and services from the words employed by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament have christian teachers introduced into the world a multiplicity of notions, institutions, rules and practices wholly unauthorized by sacred writ. So invariably true is it, that if we would with absolute certainty secure the sense or ideas of a writer or speak-cy of his message to save our souls, at least beer, we must retain his words. fore it has been altered, modified, and largely mixed with what is human? We in reality deny its sufficiency. 6. Again, when we resort to human means of instruction, we in effect make the Spirit of God a liar. As already observed, God has declared the information which he has provided for us, sufficient, without alteration, for the salvation of our souls. Do we not, then, when we abandon that information more or less, and resort to that which our fellow-creatures offer, tell our Divine Teacher that we have no confidence in the declarations which he has published concerning the sufficien 7. God has not only not commanded us to resort to any other means of acquiring religious information, than that which he has provided for us in his word; but he has peremptorily forbidden us to resort to any other teacher than himself, which is manifestly equivalent to forbidding us to seek religious instruction from any other source than the bible. 3. But if the only certain means of securing the ideas or sense of an author be to retain his language, it follows, that if we would certainly secure to our minds the ideas which the Spirit of God has communicated to us in sacred writ, we must resort to the very words which he has employed in sacred writ to convey them. For there, and then, alone can we infallibly find them. When men attempt to express the Spirit's ideas by words of their own selecting, we have no certainty that their attempts have been success- 8. In innumerable passages of his word God ful. On the contrary we are certain that com- commands his creatures to read, search, mediplete success never attended the enterprize. In- tate, remember, and converse about the contents to every performance of the kind error more or of his message; and to these commands the pi-` less has never failed to insinuate itself; and cer- ous have yielded prompt obedience in all ages. tainly this danger, from which no human lan- Like David, they have day and night read, studguage is free, ought of itself to be sufficient to ied and meditated the information sent them by deter us from resorting in a matter of such infi- their God; but nowhere are we told that they evnite importance as the eternal happiness of our er applied for religious instruction either to uninsouls to these sources of religious information, spired men, or uninspired books. There is no from which we are as liable to inhale ruinous er- such precedent on the divine record. Indeed, ror as saving truth. And here let me add as a till the fatal Jewish Apostacy, which occurred general truth, that there exists no other method not long after the Captivity, there is strong ground of guarding any message from misrepresentation, to believe that no uninspired man ever dared to but that of selecting and prescribing the very set himself up as a religious teacher, in the modwords which the person charged with its publi-ern sense of that term. It was then, for the first cation, is to employ for that purpose. 4. God's information, as conveyed in his own words, unaltered by man, is alone safe, alone certain, alone entirely exempt from error. As just hinted, the notions, opinions, harangues and compositions of men, not excepting their religious notions, opinions, harangues and compositions of every name, are all fraught with error, mistake, misconception and misrepresentation. In God's declarations alone are unmixed truth and infallible certainty to be found. What inducement, then, can any rational being have, what reason or apology can he devise for his conduct, when he abandons even for a single moment the sure unerring information of his God, and devotes his time and attention to hearing, reading, studying, searching, and consulting sources of information which he knows to be replete with danger, from which he is certain he is liable to imbibe error, suck in falsehood, and deceive, mislead, and ruin his soul eternally? 5. When we prefer human to divine means of information, of which vile preference we are incontestably guilty, when we lay down our bibles and take up the written compositions or listen to the religious harangues of men, we grossly insult our Divine Teacher-we tell him flatly, that he is not as capable to teach, inform and instruct us as our uninspired fellow-creatures, and therefore time, that uninspired men arrogated to themselves the titles, honors, functions, and homage due to an inspired instructer, and the lamentable result of this impious innovation is well known. Let me now ask, if God's information, believed, but not altered, be, in his judgment, sufficient so to enlighten our understandings, purify our affections, elevate our desires, and rectify our conduct, as to render us fit to become members of his family and subjects of his kingdom, why resort to other or additional means? Can we expect to derive ampler or clearer information from human discourses and human writings, than we can obtain from the unadulterated instructions of the Divine Spirit? Can we imagine that a small fragment, a few words, torn from their connexion with the rest of God's message, and wrought up into, or diffused through, such a huge mass of human notions and human words, as require an hour to utter them, and which so dilute and obscure the fragment, that not a trace of it can be discerned, can by such violent separation and such immense dilution, be rendered more fit to convey the Spirit's meaning, inform the human mind, or impress the human heart, than it was when it occupied its original place in God's book, and its primitive concentration? Truly, we cannot believe it. If either the principal objects, concerning which sacred writ professes to give information, be the existence and attributes of God, the dignity, office and character of the Redeemer, the character and office of the Spirit, the nature, character, condition, prospects and duty of man, and the means provided by God for man's extrication from his present ruined state, and elevation to a state of moral perfection and complete happiness: I say if these be the great objects concerning which the bible treats, can any rational being be so senseless as to suppose that he can, by any ingenuity of his, render God's information concerning these things, fitter to answer its purpose than he has made it? Is it not mere waste of time, then, is it not worse, is it not contempt of God, to resort to tracts, (silly stories,) to pamphlets, sermons, lectures, commentaries, expositions, to the neglect of God's own information on these infinitely important subjects? Depraved, indeed, must that taste be which prefers the muddy, filthy stream, to the clear unpolluted fountain! ten sways the sceptre over thousands. My opposition to this state of things brought me into collision with some of my brethren. When I read brother Melancthon's recommendation to an ecclesiastical body, I felt mortified, believing, as I now do, it will only tend to perpetuate the spirit of sectarianism, which every lover of truth ought to banish from the earth. This is my apology for my letter to you in your May number. I see in your last number "Paulinus again." I wish to say a few things, and I am done with this subject, without new matter should be introduced. The Baptist, in this section of country, I am satisfied is nearer the christian church than any other denomination I know of here. If they would exercise more liberality, pay a greater attention to the character and conduct of the New Testament christians, and the manner of their instruction, it would soon place them, in my estimation, upon the ancient order of things. It is truly pleasing to me to find of late a growing spirit of liberality flowing from the press, and I do hope ere long to hear it from the pulpit. There is great room for reformation here. Brother Melancthon promised in his next essay to go there. We shall watch him closely. "I am less than the least of all saints."-Paul. It was my intention to mention at least a few of the many sad evils which have been produced by the impious innovation now the subject of censure; but one must suffice at this time. It is the tendency of this innovation to bring God's information into disrepute, and alienate the affec- I do not love the spirit of the capital I, and the tions of men from it, and so keep them ignorant little u, and I hope brother Paulinus does not. of it. This is the natural effect of the imposi-"Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." tion practiced on an ignorant and credulous world by an artful and interested clergy. By them mankind have been long taught to believe that God's information, at least before it is acted on by their metamorphosing powers, before it is completely new-modelled, before it is perfectly saturated with their ingenious notions, before its arrangement and connexion formed by the Divine Spirit, have been thoroughly subverted, and its plain phraseology also the choice of its allwise author the Spirit, has been compelled to give place to their gaudy, pompous diction, is fit for no human purpose, can convey no instruction that can be depended on; in short, is entirely unfit to save a human soul. They must break the bread of life ere it can be chewed, swallowed, digested, or a particle of nourishment obtained from it. Is it any wonder that creatures, justly alarmed about their perishing souls, should, under such persuasion, pay little respect to God's word, expect little benefit from it, and flatter, caress, and fairly idolize a set of men, from whose ingenuity and eloquence they are taught to expect the deliverance of their endangered souls? A. STRAITH, M. D. VIRGINIA, JULY 20, 1829. Brother Campbell, Again, his letter contains not that simplicity for which he is noted. This may be owing to a conviction of the difficulty of supporting his recommendation from revelation-pari passu, modus operandi, fortiori, ergo. Many of your readers do not know what these words mean. Were it not for a Latin dictionary, he would have been a barbarian to me. "Except you utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken, for you speak into the air?" "Therefore, if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be to him that speaks a barbarian, and he that speaks a barbarian to me." "In the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue."-Paul. What the magnet is to the needle on the compass, this world is to the spirit of a man. Speaking of me, "From such a one I must appeal to those of more candor," says brother Paulinus. When the ancient order of things was attended to, we hear nothing of appealing to brethren's opinions. This brings to mind a stratagem of two travellers, who were without money, to procure them a drink of alcohol. They caught a frog just before they reached an inn, which they agreed to call a mouse. One was to go on before the other and ask the keeper of the inn if that was not a mouse. He replied, "No-it is a frog." The traveller proposed a wager of a pint of whiskey that it was a mouse, and would leave it to the first man that passed by. The inn-keeper agreed to it. Up comes the other traveller. "What is this?" said the inn-keeper. "It is a mouse," replied the traveller. "A mouse! No, sir, it is a frog." "You are mistaken, my friend," replied the traveller; "it is a mouse." Thus, the inn-keeper, contrary to the evidence of his own senses, was made to pay the wager. In ancient times, in all matters of difficulty, "What say the scriptures" was the watch-word, and not to the candor of erring mortals. "He that sows to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the spirit, shall of the spirit reap DEAR SIR: THE divided state of the worshipers of God has been a source of much unhappiness to me for many years. I do cordially believe it is owing to the presumption of the teachers making their opinions a bond of union. And every attempt to perpetuate this state of things is at war with the spirit of the gospel. In every sect there is a set of opinions, which is the lifeblood of the sect, and made paramount to the word of God. A dissent from these opinions invariably produces a breach of fellowship in that sect; of course there cannot be any improvement or correction of any error without the consent of the leading teachers. This is not to be expected while they have full sway over the consciences of their disciples; for they have the power of stopping the mouth of every dissenter in their congregations. One popular teacher of-life everlasting."-Paul. Again brother Paulinus measures my corn by his bushel, because he goes an equal pace with others. Pari passu, I go with you, and even run before you. "We dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." "We know no man after the flesh; ergo, if any be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature." "But we have a measure to reach even to you," &c. "Charity thinks no evil."-Paul. pects of sitting in the chair, and thereby to lord it over the consciences of his brethren. This advice followed up by all sects, would soon restore the purity and simplicity of the gospel of Messiah, bring about the millennian state of the church, and banish from the earth party spirit in the holy religion of Jesus Christ. All sects that are honest acknowledge errors are among them. Could they but once see error is no advantage to men, angels or devils, saint or sinner, every honest man in pursuit of truth, would cast it away from him as folly and rubbish, and inquire, "What say the scriptures?" and if they are silent, leave it to the first general convention of the anniversary of the saints at the resurrection of the dead. May the minds of all your readers be directed to this important point, is the constant prayer of A LOVER OF THE WHOLE OF DIVINE TRUTH. Sermons to Young Preachers.-No. I. MY YOUNG FRIENDS,-YOU are so much accustomed to preach from texts that I shall have to take one when I preach to you. My text at this time will be found in the first book of kings, xviii. 38. "And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their manner, with knives and lancels till the blood gushed out upon them." I intend no allusion to those reverend gentlemen who officiated in the temple of Baal, as analogous to you, save one; and that I will specify in its proper place. You know, I presume, my young friends, Again-"If persons who are fully capable of reading the bible for themselves need human aid in deriving instruction from that sacred source, then much more do children need such aid that cannot read for themselves." Brother Paulinus is an excellent portrait painter, and by his pencil has drawn his miniature of the subject in controversy. The burthen of his argument is this: If old children that can read the scriptures for themselves, need lectures-then little children that cannot read, much more need catechisms! "From a child you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise to salvation."-Paul. If brother Paulinus' catechisms are purely historic they cannot do this, and are as innocent as breath. If he aims at the salvation of these little immortals, catechisms will prove injurious to them, as much so, as any Catholic manual, creed, rubric, or formula. They will dogmatize. Fortiori. "If I will prove catechisms," &c. If catechisms cannot quick-that the term prophet means not primarily to foreen and convert the souls of these little ones that cannot read, then they are Rubbish. If they can read let them read the scriptures; and brother Paulinus says "they contain all truth necessary to make us wise to salvation; and that wherever they come, they lay hold of every human being with the grasp of divine authority, while they present the exhibition of divine mercy. What a pity men are not satisfied with God's way of saving sinners, but must hew out cisterns of their own which hold no water. This was Israel's error of old."* tel future events. This is an appropriated sense of the term. There have been hundreds of prophets who have never foretold any thing except that all men will die. The interpreters of oracles were called prophets as well as the poets by the Greeks and Romans. Extemporaneous speakers on all subjects, especially upon religious matters, were called prophets. He that interpreted, as well as he that predicted, was, in the scripture sense, called a prophet. You, my young friends, perhaps, had better assume the name of prophets, than that of elders, bishops, or ministers. I have never considered them clothed with eccle- You are sometimes heralds, or criers, or preachsiastical authority as those catechisms have sought ers, and all these three are comprehended in the to be, and thereby obtaining "a powerful infiu- term prophet. You sometimes interpret, and an ence amongst us. The keeping alive a sectarian interpreter is a prophet. I therefore move that spirit, and the opinions of brethren as a bond of all young preachers who have no certain dwelling union, is supplanting the word of God (and what place; no special charge; who are not overseers, I opposed) by acknowledging and soliciting the nor strictly called evangelists, be denominated powerful influence of the kingdom of the clergy, prophets. When you proclaim the gospel, interwhich was one of the evils which brother Paulin- pret ancient oracles, and speak extemporaneousus wished to aid you in correcting. "I stretch-ly, you are truly prophets. Now, having found ed out my hand to pull down," &c. If my at- a suitable name for you, I proceed to show you tention to the education of my children, teach- the bearing of my text. ing them at my family altar, the contents of the New Testament, and exhorting my brethren to do the same, is doing nothing, this charge is correct, God has commanded teaching and exhortation. Brother Paulinus appears to prefer his catechisms. I have nothing to build up. If dissecting the word of God to get materials to build up catechisms, is what he means, I must beg to be excused in not lending a hand to this work. This is to keep up the old divisions, if not to make new ones, and I maintain that they have a vicious tendency in keeping back the salvation of the world. All superstitions, false oracles, and false gods have had prophets. Every thing has been counterfeited except a rogue, a villain, and Lycurgus' iron money. You must know we have had counterfeit gold, silver, and brass coins. We have had counterfeit bank bills, and the world has been filled with counterfeit gods, oracles, and priests. Counterfeiters seldom deal in brass, or in small bank bills. They are mean villains who counterfeit cheap articles. High minded rogues have counterfeited the most precious metals, and bank bills of the highest denominations. Hence it came to pass that gods, priests, and oracles have had the Your advice is so reasonable, I cannot doubt largest stock, at all times, in the counterfeit mar that brother Paulinus will cheerfully comply be-kets. But in all these things I have no allusion fore long; nor can I see how any man can refuse to comply with such a course, unless he has pros*I ask brother Paulinus to look and see who it was that first advised Israel of old to make cisterns of their own. to you. For I am speaking to my young friends, for one Elijah. But the point to which I allude, and which I wish you to consider, is that they appear to have been very sincere and very vociferous. The doctrine which I deduce from my text is therefore this, that persons may be so sincere as to wear out their lungs, and so zealous as to spill their blood in the cause of error-"They cried aloud and cut themselves with knives." And you may cry aloud and spill your blood sincerely and zealously without proving that your doctrine is true. I do not know that loud talking and blood letting will prove any opinion, theorem, or proposition to be true. | sermons to yourselves, and I wish I could put them in a corner of the Christian Baptist which none could find but yourselves. I am conscious you need a few sermons to convert you from customs and habits as injurious to yourselves to your health, usefulness, and improvement, as intemperance is to the well-being of the soul, body, and estate of the worshipper of Bacchus. I do think that nature, when followed, is a better teacher of eloquence than Longinus, or all the Grecian and Roman models.-Mimics never can excel, except in being mimics. There is more true gracefulness and dignity in a speech From these desultory remarks I come now to pronounced in the natural tone of our own voice, the application of my sermon. And although I and in the natural key, than in all the studied dare not boast of my eloquent exordium, nor lo- mimicry of mere actors, whether stage or pulpit gical distribution, if I can only make a good actors, and which is the more numerous we will application, I will be pleased with myself, and not be able to decide till after the census of 1830. that, be assured, is the main point. For many a But above all others, these prophets of Baal are preacher pleases his congregation, who fails to the worst models for young preachers; and I trust please himself. And now for the application-none of you, my friends, will, from this time forth, Young orators, in the pulpit and at the bar, ever follow so scandalous an example. EDITOR. are more in need of an instructor than children at school, or students at college. For if they begin wrong, and contract a bad habit, they sel- A Restoration of the Ancient order of Things. No. XXXII. Official Names and Titles. them all by scriptural names if I could find them. But it is very difficult to find scriptural names for unscriptural things. dom can cure it. Their ideas will only run in a certain channel. Often have I seen a preacher try to get his mind abroach until he began to THE religious theatre of public actors is crowsnuff the breeze like a whale snorting in the ded. To find suitable names to designate them North Atlantic Ocean. It is more easy to bring all would be a desideratum. We have Ministers, a seventy-four gun ship into action in a gale of Divines, Clergymen, Elders, Bishops, Preachers, wind, than to get the mind to bear upon the text, Teachers, Priests, Deans, Prebendaries, Deacons, until the nostrils catch the corner of a volume of Arch-Bishops, Arch-Deacons, Cardinals, Popes, air, and sneeze it out like a leviathan in the deep. Friars, Priors, Abbots, Local Preachers, Circuit I have seen other preachers who can strike fire Preachers, Presiding Elders, Missionaries, Class no other way than by the friction of their hands, Leaders, Licentiates, cum multis aliis. I do not and an occasional clap, resembling a peal of dis-know what to do with them all. I would call tant thunder. In this holy paroxysm of clapping, rubbing, sneezing, and roaring, the mind is fairly on the way, and the tongue in full gallop, which, like a race horse, runs the swifter the less weight I have rummaged the inspired books to find it carries. The farther from nature the nearer some scriptural names for them all, or some genthe skies, some preachers seem to think. But so eral names, under which, with some sort of affiit is whenever they acquire this habit it is almost nity, we might hope to class them. But this is incurable. They can neither speak to God nor also a difficult task. I find the following are the man in the pulpit to purpose, as they think, un- nearest approach I can make: Deacons, Bishops, less when, like the boiler of a steam boat, they Preachers, Evangelists, Antichrists. This last are almost ready to burst. This is one extreme. term is a sort of summum, genus for a large majorThere are various degrees marked on the scale ity of them. The term preacher will hardly apply to before we arrive at this dreadful heat. There is any of them, in its scriptural import. Christian. a certain pitch of voice which at least is ten de- mothers who make known to their children the grees above a natural key. To this most preach- glad tidings, or the facts concerning the Saviour, ers have to come before their ideas get adrift. are the most worthy of this name of any persons Their inspiration is kindled from the noise they now on earth. Evangelists will not strictly apcreate. I have seen children cry who began ply to any, in its primitive usage. Though the quite moderately, but when they heard the mel-printers of the history of Jesus Christ, and those ody of their own voice their cries rose in a few who proclaim the ancient gospel, in the capacity seconds to screams. No person can tell how of public speakers, may, of all others, deserve much is to be ascribed to these factitious influen- to inherit this name with the most reasonable ces in giving play to the imagination and wings pretensions. Elders will apply to old men, only, to our ideas. Some people have to milk all their whether they are official or unofficial members sermons from their watch chains-and others of society. Overseers or Bishops will apply to from the buttons on their coats. all, and to none but those who have the presidency or oversight of one congregation. Deacons, to those males who are the public servants of the whole congregation. Deaconesses, to those female public servants, who officiate amongst the females. Teacher, is a generic term which will apply to all men in the capacity of public instructers. As for the others, I cannot classify them. The word antichrist covers a goodly number of them: and it is not worth the labor to tell which of them may escape the enrollment. They who have more leisure may amuse themselves with such speculations. Now all these habits are no more according to reason, than were the screams and cuts of the prophets of Baal. And as for religion I hope none of my young friends think there is any of it in a watch chain, or a button, or in mere vociferations. Some preachers seem to think that suicide is equivalent to martyrdom; in other words that it is a good cause in which they die who burst their lungs in long, and loud, and vehement declamations. I doubt not but that hundreds kill themselves or shorten their days by an unmeaning and unnecessary straining of their lungs. I do intend, my young friends, to devote a few The officers of the christian congregations found in the New Institution were overseers and 586 THE CHRISTIAN BAPTIST. public servants, or bishops and deacons.-Every lete. Christians cannot, consistently with their well ordered congregation was supplied with profession, desire the official name without the these. They had one, or more, male and female work. If a man, says Paul, desire the office of a deacons, who served the congregations in per- bishop, he desires a good work. The work then and forming such service or ministry to the male and not the name or title engrosses the ambition of female members of their respective communities, the christian. as circumstances required; but all these official duties were confined to one single congregation. Such a thing as a bishop, over two, three, or four congregations, was as unknown, unheard of, and unthought of in the primitive and ancient order of things in the christian communities, as a husband with two, three, or four living wives. There is just as much reason and scripture for one pope and twelve cardinals, as for one bish-ophilus." op and four congregations. A bitter sweet or a sweet bitter is not more incongruous than a young elder, or to see a young stripling addressed as an elder. It is not long since I saw, in a newspaper, such an annunciation as this: "Elder A. B. will preach at such a place at such an hour." But the satire was, that elder A. B. was not twenty-three years old. Another equally incongruous was, that "bishop W. T. will lecture in the court house on the first Sunday of July." The humor was that Bishop W. T. had no diocess, nor cure, nor see, nor congregation, nor oversight on this side of the moon. Now what shall we do with these anomalies? I who answer, call no man a bishop or overseer, has not a flock or an oversight; call no man a deacon who is not the public servant of a community; call those who proclaim the ancient gospel evangelists. This, upon the whole, is the least exceptionable name for them. It does in its etymology, just express the proclamation of the glad tidings; and if it did not import any thing more, it cannot now. The ancients called those who wrote as well as those who spoke the facts constituting the gospel history, by this name. Besides, the office of evangelist, as a proclaimer of the gospel, was always contingent. He was needed only in some places, and at some times, and was not a permanent officer of the christian church. His office now answers to that of the prophets of old. The prophets as extemporaneous and occasional teachers became necessary. When, then, any congregation has a brother well qualified to proclaim the gospel, and when there is, in the vicinity, a people in need of such a service, let the person so sent by them, be called an evangelist. Perhaps the present distress requires such persons as much as any former period. But when christian congregations cover the country, and walk in the instituted order of the new constitution, such persons will not be necessary, any peace. more than a standing army in time of In the common intercourse of life, it is requisite that we give all their dues. Even where honor is due, the debt ought to be paid. Paul thought it no incongruity with the christian apostleship to call a Pagan governor "Most noble Felix." This very term, Luke, the amiable physician, and evangelist, applies to a christian brother of high political standing, "most excellent TheWe ought to address all men wearing official titles, when we address them publicly, by the titles which designate their standing among There is a squeamishness of conscience, men. or a fastidiousness of taste, which some men, and some sectaries exhibit about giving any official names or titles to men of high rank or standing. This proceeds more from pride than from humility, and more from the intimation of some eccentric genius than from the examples of either patriarchs, prophets, saints, or martyrs in the age of God's Revelations. Let us then endeavor to EDITOR. call things by their proper names; and render to all men their dues. of New York. New Harmony Gazette, now the Free Enquirer, It would seem, if any reliance could be reposed upon the testimony of those who reject testimony as a source of certain information, that the materialists, once of New Harmony, now of New York, are carrying all before them. These philosophers have silenced all the cannon of all the christian batteries of New York, themselves being judges, and have even pitched a bomb into our camp, a distance of four hundred miles. These good reasoners came hither to build up a social system in the back woods. They founded the city of Mental Independence, and proclaimed a new era, on the Wabash somewhere. But find ing themselves and their converts too social, so that love itself burned into jealousy; and mine and thine no longer designated wife or husband; becoming in fact too social and too much in the community spirit, they found it expedient for these and other good reasons, to turn their mortal souls and dying minds to pull down that fell demon, religion: for the traces of it, still remaining, though scarcely legible, on some of the good hearts of some of the good citizens of New Harmony, made some of the folks willing to have some interest in their wives and children, and therefore religion became inimical to the But when we speak of the armies of the sects, social system. Those who loved their wives and how shall we denominate them? Let us call offspring, fled from the city; and of the rest, them all teachers of their respective tenets; such some who had no wives nor husbands resolved as teacher of Methodism, teacher of Presbyteri- to form a league offensive and defensive against anism; or Independent teachers, Baptist teach-religion.-Hence the New Harmony Gazette reers, Methodist teachers, &c. This is not at all nounces "Harmony," in word and deed, in time disrespectful nor incongruous. In addressing and space, and freely inquires, in New York, letters, or in publishing the names and offices of whether man or woman ought to form a more persons, in order to save time, paper, and ink, intimate compact than that existing between let us use the following abbreviations: Bp. for Miss Frances, Mr. R. D. O. and Mr. Jennings, as coeditors of free inquirics. They have swords bishop, Dn. for Deacon, Et. for Evangelist. and lances now to pierce the hearts and kill the souls of all who love religion; and have devoted their whole souls to the cause of no religion. Distinctions of this sort are only necessary for discrimination from persons of similar names in the same vicinities. There is a great love in the American people for titles. So strong is this passion that many retain the title of an office, which, perhaps, they only filled a year or two, all their lives. How many captains, majors, colonels, generals, esquires have we who have become obso But, to come to the point at once, these new era folks have agreed to write down religion; and so, have made that the all-engrossing theme in every number of their Free Enquirer. One of these three editors, in the 8th of July number, 18 |