Your ShelfYour Projects

Review and Herald, Vol. 24, No. 11.

Sanctification : or Living Holiness

Review and Herald

Aug 9, 1864

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 9, 1864

Sanctification : or Living Holiness.

By D. T. Bourdeau

BY ELD. D. T. BOURDEAU.
(Continued.)

IMAGINATION

Imagination is "the power or faculty of the mind by which it perceives and forms ideas of things communicated to it by the organs of sense." Webster. It is by this faculty that ideal images, or pictures of absent objects and scenes are formed. For instance, when in the silence of the night, reviewing the events of the day, we see the persons that we have visited, the country through which we have passed, and other things which have struck our vision, it is the imagination that pictures these things in our minds.
Imagination was designed to represent real and true objects and scenes; but it sometimes goes farther than this: it creates things that are unreal and untrue. This is seen in Mythology, where we read the description of creatures and scenes which have existed only in the imagination. This is also seen in the description of the future state given by Mahomet; also in the doctrine of purgatory, and in many other fanciful doctrines which are the fruit of unsanctified imaginations.
Imagination is naturally unruly, and is often used in picturing scenes that encourage the practice of sin, in magnifying the faults of others, and in manufacturing mountains of difficulties out of nothing. To illustrate we will suppose a case: A. and B. meet together. They have always been on good terms. A. moves along toward B. to pass compliments as on other occasions, but observes that B. is sad and rather backward in his remarks. These individuals part. A. looks back to the interview he has had with B. and calls up B. in his imagination, and says, How cold and sour he looked. How he stood off. How little he said. He never treated me so coldly. And the enemy comes in, and adds and adds to the picture, till B. looks ugly, independent and hard, and A. feels that he has been slighted and abused without a cause, and that B. has something against him. Soon A. and B. meet again. But this time B. comes up cheerfully, and A. stands off. Says B., What is the matter, Bro. A.? What is the matter, replies A.? You ought to know. You treated me coldly the other day without a just cause, and you have something against me. What makes you think so says B.? I know it is so, answers A. But B. replies, Why, dear Bro., I was examining my own heart and thinking about my imperfections, and since then I have got help, and I now feel free.
This is one case out of many in which we see the wrong use that is made of imagination. If A. had examined his own imperfections and checked his imagination, this trial might have been avoided. With many, an unsanctified imagination takes the lead, and the fruit is evil-surmising, hatred, envy, lust, evil-speaking, unnecessary trials in families, in neighborhoods, and in the church of God, castles built in the air, fanaticism, etc.
But imagination may be very useful, and a source of much comfort. Would you derive real benefit and comfort from this faculty? Then employ it in picturing useful objects and scenes. Let it represent all that is lovely in the appearance and actions of others, and if you suffer it to represent the evil conduct of others, let it be only that you may help them, and more easily avoid the ways of sin. Let it form images of holy men and women spoken of in the Bible—especially of Jesus, the great example. Follow him from the manger to the cross. Behold him as he goes from place to place on his mission of love, suffering from weariness, hunger and thirst, from persecution and the temptations of Satan. Listen to the rich instructions that fall from his lips. See him weep over sinners. See him pray all night alone. Witness his agony in the garden, and the abuses that he receives as he is tried by his enemies. View him stretched between the heavens and the earth, with his hands and feet pierced, and the crown of thorns mutilating his sacred brow. See the precious blood flow freely from his hands and feet. See it fall from his sacred head. Hear him pray for his enemies, and cry as he bears the sins of the whole world, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Follow him from earth to the heavenly sanctuary, where he pleads the merits of his blood in behalf of his people, and where his great mediatorial work will soon wind up preparatory to his coming to earth. Behold him coming in glory and majesty in the clouds of heaven, with all the holy angels. Witness the events connected with his coming. Picture in your minds the rich and glorious reward of the just, and the awful punishment of the unjust. And all these scenes will have a tendency to strengthen your faith, and encourage you to love the Lord, and imitate his virtues, to shun the ways of sin, and walk in the path of holiness.

WILL.

The will is the faculty of choosing or determining. This faculty is the main-spring of the mind. It holds the operations of the mind and the motions of the body at its command. In this respect, it is to the rest of the faculties what a king is to his subjects. A king says to his subjects, Do this, and they obey him; and the will controls, to a great degree, the thoughts and actions of men. How necessary, then, it is for this faculty to be sanctified.
Men do not choose and determine without causes. There are always motives which lead men to choose and decide to act. These motives are either just or unjust, reasonable or unreasonable. The decisions of a sanctified will are based on just and reasonable motives, on reason, sound judgment, and the word of God.
In the language of another, "Commendable decision implies two things—a knowledge of what is truth and duty, and a fixed determination to conform to them in practice without a compromise." The mind should first be enlightened. It should first analyze what is held out as truth, and then judge and decide, choose or refuse.
When Joshua had refreshed the minds of the Israelites on God's dealings with them, and called in exercise their reason and judgment, he said, "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve," Josh. xxiv, 15. Said the Lord to his backslidden people, "Come now and let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured by the sword." Isa. i, 18-20. Jesus and Paul instructed their hearers, reasoning with them from the Scriptures, and then called upon them to judge and decide with regard to the truth. Matt. xii, 24-30; Jno. vii, viii; Acts xvii, 2; xviii, 4, 19; xxiv, 25, etc. Reason and judgment are not laid aside in the Scriptures; on the contrary, they are made use of and appealed to, that men may be persuaded to choose the truth.
But too often, alas! reason, judgment, and the word of God are neglected, and the will is used in deciding against the truth. A. has a strong will, but decides against certain Bible doctrines before he has carefully examined them, and thus shuts the truth out of his mind. If he goes where the present truth is preached, he decides in his own mind what he will believe and what he will not believe, before he really understands what is to be presented. If he decides to read what is held out as truth, he determines beforehand to believe only what agrees with his ideas of right, and makes his opinions the rule with which to compare what others say. And if he finally sees his unreasonable and injudicious course, how difficult it is for him to alter his decision, especially if he has a proud heart. But it is wiser to revoke an unsanctified decision than to abide by it, that it may appear that we are firm and unchangeable.
B. is reluctant to decide in favor of the truth because a few ideas connected with it are not clear to his mind. But is it consistent to let a few seeming objections obscure clear and well established principles, and prevent us from deciding in favor of what we know to be truth? Would it be reasonable for a school-boy to decide against the science of arithmetic because he has come to a problem that he cannot solve? Reason and consistency require that we pronounce ourselves for what we understand to be truth, and those do violence to their reason and judgment who refuse to do this. By deciding in favor of the truth as far as we see it, we may be enabled to understand those points that are not clear. This has been the experience of thousands. But, although there should remain a few points unexplainable to our minds, we should not suffer these points to shake our confidence in plain and unmistakable evidences. It has been ascertained that the sun has spots which do not emit light, but it would be unwise to conclude that for this reason we should shut our eyes against the sun, and say that it does not shine. It is our duty and privilege to settle on the truth as far as we understand it, and to be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed.
C. understands the truth, but determines to reject it because he does not have the feeling he would like to have. But feeling varies with circumstances, and is not, if separately considered, a safe guide. One of our relatives once urged me with much feeling and tears to become a Roman Catholic. I respected this relative's honesty, but did not consider her feeling and tears as sufficient evidence to prove the Roman Catholic religion genuine. But bad feeling sometimes grows out of an inward conflict between right and wrong. Let wrong be overcome by sanctified decision and a holy practice, and good feeling may be restored. But, though good feeling should not be restored, we ought not to reject the truth, but rather settle on the merits of the truth.
When seed-time comes, the consistent farmer does not wait for feeling to know whether he had better prepare his ground and scatter his seed; and when the time of harvest comes, he does not wait for feeling to know whether he should harvest his grain. And shall any professing to love Bible truth, dishonor the cause of truth, and disgust the candid, by waiting for feeling, while they see their duty in God's word? Consistent persons are willing to trust honest individuals, and labor hard before receiving their wages, and shall Christians fear to trust God? Will they refuse to decide to serve him till they have a good feeling, or till they receive the blessing which God bestows on those who yield to his truth? Those who leave plain Bible truth to run after feeling, grieve the Spirit of truth, and are in danger of being led by another spirit.
The Christian often feels very bad while in the way of duty. It is then that the enemy comes in with power to discourage and destroy him. No one will claim that Christ had very buoyant and joyous feelings when the sins of the whole world rested upon him. Yet he was doing the most important work connected with his earthly mission.
D. concludes to reject the truth because of the trials and afflictions connected with it, and perhaps does not realize that those trials and afflictions connected with the truth are very prominent means of sanctification; that they make us know ourselves, and will, if rightly improved, enable us to advance in the attainment of every excellence. Says Job, "When he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold." Job xxiii, 10. Says Isaiah, "By this, therefore, shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged." Isa. xxvii, 9. See, also, verses 7 and 9. Says Paul, "They (our earthly parents) verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for our profit, that we might be made partakers of his holiness. Now, no chastening for the present," etc. "We glory in tribulation also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." Heb. xii, 10, 11; Rom. v, 3-5. And James says, "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience; but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." James i, 2-4.
God's people have ever been a tried people, and the Scriptures plainly declare that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." Acts xiv, 22. Christ, the great Pattern of the church, was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. He was tried in all points; and for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame. When the bitter cup of suffering was presented to him he showed that his will was sanctified by using the following language: "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done." Luke xxii, 42.
In the above cases, we see some of the unreasonable and unscriptural motives that lead many to refuse the truth, and choose the way of sin and death. It often happens that the will is not checked, and runs impetuously in its course, without regard to consequences. This we see in persons called willful, self-willed, headstrong, who are a source of grief to those who would reason with them. Children are often so; if let alone their stubborn will would lead them to rush on headlong to destruction.
It is a true saying that "yielding pacifieth great offenses." Eccl. x, 4. It saves many trials and troubles. Most of those trials and difficulties that arise in families, in neighborhoods, and among brethren, can be traced to an unwillingness to yield. But some will say, Must I give up my rights? We answer, It often becomes a duty for individuals to give up, or yield in, what they call their rights. There are many instances in which we can yield or submit to others without sacrificing the truth. We are exhorted in the Scriptures to submit one to another, and we should in many things submit to all. If this principle were followed, many unhappy families and neighborhoods would be made happy, and thousands of grievous trials would be avoided.
Some have not learned to yield their will to their superiors, and how hard it is for such to bow to their Maker. They manifest the same stubbornness toward the Lord that they do toward their fellow-creatures. How many mighty men and women have fallen because they have rebelled against the Lord. Many have run well till their wills were crossed, and they would not yield to God and his truth. Doubtless, they were blinded to the fact that they were rebelling against God. Perhaps their minds were not raised higher than those who ministered to them in word and doctrine. This was the case with ancient Israel in the days of Moses, the servant of God. This was also the case with Israel at subsequent periods in their history.
David's advice to his son Solomon was to "serve the Lord with a willing mind." 1 Chron. xxviii, 9. Said Hezekiah to the Jews, "Now, be ye not stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the Lord." 2 Chron. xxx, 8. The consequences of stubbornness are awful. Many will yield when it is too late. Says the prophet Amos, "They shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." Amos viii, 12. To such, wisdom says, "Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me; for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; they would none of my counsel; they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way." Prov. i, 24-30.
The language of each heart should be, Speak Lord, thy servant heareth. I will choose thy truth, and do what thou requirest at my hand. I will follow thee through evil as well as through good report.
Though it is an exaggeration to say that men can of themselves do what they will, yet it is certain that many fail to gain their object, because they do not enlist their will on their side, and move from a fixed determination. This is true in religion as well as in worldly matters. The will can be a great help to Christians in overcoming their besetments. Said a dying man to his son, "Only have strength to say, No." If we would have strength to say, No, in our conflicts with the powers of darkness in the time of trouble (Rev. xiii, 15-17; xiv, 9-11), we must have strength and decision to say, No, to the temptations that we now have to encounter. Our wills must be wholly swallowed up in the will of God. We read that "thy people shall be willing in the days of thy power." Ps. cx, 3. And in the language of Jesus, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Rev. xxii, 17.
(To be continued.)

The Cheering Hope.

By E. W. Darling

The dull cold days that we number here, Make the heart feel sad and the world seem drear; But colder still are the thoughts that come From blasted hope or a ruined home; And still more sad do our spirits feel For the sickness of friends that we cannot heal; And far more drear when in death they close Their languid eyes for a long repose, In silence to sleep while we struggle still Through the varying prospects of good and ill.
Oh, were this the last we should ever see Of the friends we cherish so tenderly, Oh, were we never to meet nor tell Of aught we had seen since the last farewell, Then our earthly lot were sad indeed And dreary the life that we needs must lead.
But a cheering hope of a bright abode, Is revealed in the blessed word of God; And a promise sure that the dead shall come From the cold damp cells of their narrow home. For the earth in surpassing beauty dressed Shall be the place of abode and rest For those who by watching and toil and pain Have kept the faith of the Lamb once slain, Have loved the truths of his changeless word And washed their robes in his precious blood.
Yes the righteous shall join their friends once more Immortal and free on that fadeless shore. And thus how the ills of life's bitter cup, Are taken away by this cheering hope.
E. W. DARLING.

Protestant Views of Hell,

To which we may apply the language of Eze. xxii, 28: "And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord, when the Lord hath not spoken." Let us be thankful that the Bible is not responsible for such sentiments of eternal misery.
Dr. Mather Byles, pastor of a church in Boston, Mass., 1771, in a sermon on the resurrection, page 19, says:
"The unbeliever and impenitent have no interest at all in the 'blessed hope.' It is true the wicked must be raised from the dead, as well as the holy. But oh! how wide the difference between the one and the other, at the great decisive day. The wicked shall be raised to 'shame and everlasting contempt.' No glory shall shine about them; no image of Christ shall appear on them. They shall be changed 'tis true, but oh, the dreadful change! Their feeble bodies must be changed into bodies strong to bear the wrath of Almighty God. Their dying and dead bodies shall be changed into bodies of an immortal constitution; bodies that must live forever in anguish! They must measure eternal ages with groans and out-cries, and execrations and despair! Their corrupt and filthy bodies shall be changed into ten thousand times more hideous and loathsome figures, fit to be inhabitants of hell, and companions for devils. Their healthy and pleasurable bodies shall be changed; be seized and racked with an unknown variety of pains and torments; shall feed the flames of the horrible furnace kindled with the wrath of God that burneth as an oven, and endureth forever. And oh! who can dwell with devouring fire? who can endure everlasting burnings? The darkness of the grave shall be changed for the outer darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
The American Tract Society publish a tract, (No. 277) from the works of Saurin, a divine of the 17th century, on the "ETERNAL MISERY OF HELL." We give a brief extract as a sample.
"As God will aggravate the sufferings of the damned by displaying his glorious attributes, their hatred of him will be unbounded, their torment will excite their hatred, their hatred will aggravate their torment. Is not this the height of misery—to be filled with unmixed hate toward the Perfect Being, the Supreme Being, the Sovereign Beauty—in a word, to hate the infinite God? Doth not this idea present to your mind a state the most melancholy, the most miserable? One chief excellence of the glory of happy spirits is a consummate love to their Creator. One of the most horrid punishments of hell is the exclusion of divine love. Oh, miserable state of the damned! In it they utter as many blasphemies against God as the happy souls in Heaven shout alleluiahs to his praise.
"These are the punishments of condemned souls. It remains only that we consider the length and duration of them. But can we number the innumerable? and measure that which is beyond mensuration?"
The Rev. Mr. Spurgeon recently addressed the following remarks to the sinner:
"When thou diest thy soul will be tormented alone; that will be a hell for it; but at the day of judgment thy body will join thy soul, and then thou wilt have twin hells; body and soul shall be together, each brim full of pain, thy soul sweating in its inmost pore drops of blood, and thy body from head to foot suffused with agony; conscience, judgment, memory, all tortured; but more, thy head tormented with racking pains; thine eyes starting from their sockets with sights of blood and woe; thine ears tormented with 'Sullen moans and hollow groans, And shrieks of tortured ghosts;' thine heart beating high with fever; thy pulse rattling at an enormous rate in agony; thy limbs cracking like the martyrs in the fire, and yet unburnt; thyself put in a vessel of hot oil, pained, yet coming out undestroyed; all thy veins becoming a road for the hot feet of pain to travel on; every nerve a string on which the Devil shall ever play his diabolical tune of hell's unutterable lament; thy soul forever and ever aching, and thy body palpitating in unison with thy soul. Fictions, sir? Again, I say, they are no fictions, and as God liveth, but solid, stern truth. If God be true and this Bible be true, what I have said is the truth, and you will find it one day to be so."
"There is a real fire in hell as truly as you now have a real body—a fire exactly like that we have on earth in everything except this—that it will not consume though it will torment you."
Richard Benson, an able and learned preacher of the Wesleyan connection, gives the following on "ENDLESS MISERY."
"God is present in hell, in his infinite justice and ALMIGHTY WRATH, as an UNFATHOMABLE SEA OF LIQUID FIRE, where the wicked must drink in everlasting torture. The presence of God IN HIS VENGEANCE scatters darkness and woe through the dreary regions of misery. As Heaven would be no Heaven, if God did not there display or manifest his love, so hell would be no hell, if God did not there display his wrath. It is the presence and agency of God, which gives everything virtue and efficacy; without which, there can be no life, no sensibility, no power. God is, therefore, himself present in hell, to see the punishment of these rebels against his government, that it may be adequate to the infinity of their guilt. His fiery indignation kindles, and his incensed fury feeds the flame of their torment. While his powerful presence and operations maintain their being, and render all their powers most acutely sensible; thus setting the keenest edge upon their pain and making it cut most intolerably deep; he will exert all his divine attributes to make them as wretched as the capacities of their minds will admit."
On the duration of this torment, he says:
"Let every star, every drop, every grain of sand, represent one million of tormenting ages, and know that as many more millions still remain behind, and yet as many more behind these, and so on without end."

Dying Testimonies of Infidels.

DYING testimonies show the folly of endeavoring to deceive ourselves in respect to our relations to God. Death corrects our known errors, it crushes our speculative reasonings, and allows our innate consciousness of truth to assert its authority. As death approaches, a man reviews his life, and his motives and conduct are brought into judgment before the tribunal of his conscience; he cannot flee from himself; he cannot stifle his convictions of the fas and nefas of the motives that have governed his behavior; and if, to palliate irregularities in his moral conduct, he has called error truth, he will find it a fearful thing to be undeceived.
John Wilmot, Lord Rochester, was an accomplished nobleman and a favorite of Charles II. He became dissolute, a votary to the wine-cup and to sensual pleasure, and a defender of infidelity. He confessed to Dr. Burnet that, for five years, his dissipation was so excessive that he was at no time master of himself. The age of thirty-one found him with his physical powers ruined, and his prospects of life precarious. His infidel principles forsook him, and, trembling in view of future punishment, he turned penitently to God. During his protracted illness, he published a confession of his errors, declaring that "he left to the world this last declaration, which he delivered in the presence of the great God, who knows the secrets of all hearts, and before whom he was preparing to be judged, that, from the bottom of his soul, he detested and abhorred the whole course of his former wicked life." "O remember," he said to a friend who visited him on his death-bed, "that you contemn God no more. He is an avenging God, and will visit you for your sins, and will, I hope, touch your conscience sooner or later, as he has done mine. You and I have been friends and sinners together a great while, and, therefore, I am the more free with you. We have been all mistaken in our conceits and opinions; our persuasions have been false and groundless. Therefore, God grant you repentance."
"I am abandoned by God and man!" exclaimed Voltaire in his last sickness. After a long exile, he had returned to Paris in triumph. His name was the signal for enthusiasm. He had even feared that he should expire amid the acclamations which his presence called forth at the theater. But neither the shout of the populace, nor the assurance of his atheistical friends, could stay his faith on his own philosophy in the prospect of the coming judgment. He renounced his opinions, but died in the expectation of future retribution.
"Guenard has said it! Guenard has said it!" mournfully said Cardinal Mazarin, alluding to the declaration of his physician that he must die. He was heard to exclaim, "Oh, my poor soul, what will become of thee? Whither wilt thou go?" To the queen-dowager of France he said, "Madame, your favors have undone me. Were I to live again, I would be a monk rather than courtier." Such were the sober reflections of an ecclesiastic whose boundless ambition had overruled his sense of moral obligation, and whose adroit policy had virtually placed in his hands the scepter of France. But Mazarin, though awakened to his situation, was too much joined to his politics and pleasures to turn manfully to religion. Cards were one of his last amusements; and, when dying, he ordered himself to be rouged and dressed, that he might receive the flattery of his courtiers on his apparent recovery.
There are hours of sober thought, and times of imminent peril, when the soul seems to forecast its dying hour—when it starts at the view of its conscious errors, and utters, as from dying lips, its settled convictions. Hobbes was subject to the most gloomy reflections, and was thrown into a state of terror if left alone in the dark. He declared, on one occasion, that, had he the whole world to dispose of, he would give it for a single day to live. He died with the declaration that he was taking a leap in the dark. Paine, in his last sickness, would cry out with affright if left alone night or day.
Volney, after deriding religion, while sailing on Lake Ontario, was thrown into a state of consternation very inconsistent with his philosophy, as a sudden storm exposed him to imminent peril. Shelley, during a storm at sea, was stupefied with terror; and, when the danger was past, declared to Lord Byron that he had tasted so much of the bitterness of death, that, in the future, he should entertain doubts of his own creed. The poet, Churchill, whose life was marked by apostasy from religion and by excessive dissipation, thus writes in a sober hour:
"Look back! a thought which borders on despair, Which human nature must but cannot bear. 'Tis not the babbling of a busy world, Where praise and censure are at random hurled, Which can the meanest of my thoughts control, Or shake one settled purpose of my soul: Free and at large might their wild curses roam, If all, if all, alas, were well at home. No; 'tis the tale which angry conscience tells, When she with more than tragic horror swells Each circumstance of guilt; when stern, but true, She brings bad actions forth into review. And, like the dread handwriting on the wall, Bids late remorse awake to reason's call; Armed at all points, bids scorpion vengeance pass, And to the mind holds up reflection's glass— The mind, which, starting, heaves the heartfelt groan And hates that form she knows to be her own."
There is something mournful in the declaration of Gibbon, on the night he completed the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. "It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all Nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might be the future date of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious."
Still more gloomy is the declaration of Hume, on reviewing his life and works: "I am at first affrighted and confounded by the forlorn solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy, and fancy myself some strange, uncouth monster, who not being able to mingle and unite in society, has been expelled all human commerce, and left utterly abandoned and disconsolate. Fain would I run into the crowd for shelter and warmth, but cannot prevail upon myself to mix with such deformity. I call upon others to join with me to make a company apart, but no one will hearken to me. Every one keeps at a distance, and dreads the storm that beats upon me from every side. When I look abroad, I foresee on every side dispute, contradiction, anger, calumny, and detraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance."—Independent.

The Religion of Patrick Henry.

In a letter to his daughter, Patrick Henry thus expresses his regard for the Christian religion:
“The view which the rising greatness of our country presents to my eyes, is greatly tarnished by the general prevalence of deism, which, with me, is but another name for vice and depravity. I am, however, much consoled by reflecting that the religion of Christ has, from its first appearance in the world, been attacked in vain by all the wits, philosophers, and wise ones, aided by every power of man, and its triumph has been complete.
“What is there in the wit or wisdom of the present deistical writers or professors, that can compare them with Hume, Shaftsbury, Bolingbroke, and others? and yet these have been confuted, and their fame decaying; insomuch, that the puny efforts of Paine are thrown in to prop their tottering fabric, whose foundation can not stand the test of time.
“Among other strange things said of me, I hear it is said by the deists that I am one of the number; and, indeed, that some good people think I am no Christian. This thought gives me much more pain than the appellation of Tory; because I think religion of infinitely higher importance than politics; and I find much cause to reproach myself, that I have lived so long, and have given no decided and public proofs of my being a Christian.”

Tobacco.

THE old subject of preachers' using tobacco has been stirred again. A correspondent of the Chicago Advocate, detailing the proceedings of the Arkansas and Missouri Conference, says: 'The Committee on Temperance offered a very stringent resolution on the use of tobacco by ministers of the Gospel, which called out a spirited debate.' The Conference finally passed this resolution:
'Resolved, That hereafter we will require of all young men, who apply for admission into this Conference, a pledge to abstain from the use of tobacco, except when prescribed by a physician.
'In connection with this, Bishop Ames stated that this was a subject which had interested him for twenty years, and as the result of his observation, he had long been persuaded that the Church had suffered more than many are aware from this habit on the part of ministers. Many ministers, he said, would be glad now if they had never touched tobacco. In his opinion, a very large proportion of the funds which are collected for superannuated preachers, are paid to men who, by the excessive use of tobacco, have been mentally and physically disqualified for the itinerant work.'—Western Advocate.

Holiness.

By Dr. Emmons

Holiness is that which God supremely requires in all his commands. If there were any thing more noble or morally excellent than holiness, we might have expected that God would have required us to pursue that supremely, and holiness subordinately. But he has expressly commanded us to pursue holiness supremely, and every thing else in subordination to it.—Dr. Emmons.
Continue reading: A Friendly Word with the Voice of the West