character is under the influence of the gospel, so will this infirmity be hated and mortified. To assist the Christian in watching against it and overcoming it, is a leading design of the tract before us. It is allowed that the Spirit of God only can deliver from it; but there are means to be used by us, in dependance on his blessing. The special means recommended by the author is that while the different parts of prayer are engaged in, we should seek to keep the mind awake to a just sense of the exercise, by mentally paraphrasing whatever may be said by ourselves or others; in other words, that we should endeavour to enter more fully into the meaning, and feel more powerfully the force of what is uttered by indulging a silent and instantaneous meditation upon the truth that is uttered, with its application to ourselves, and the obligations it lays upon us. This principle will be best'understood by the following example, only remarking, that the words in Italics are the mental paraphrases spoken of. And it must at once be obvious, considering the nature of the human mind, and specially the particular character of religious exercises, that such a principle faithfully acted upon would render our prayers much more reasonable and spiritual, and fervent and profitable.

"We are sinners (oh, how awfully and deeply such !) but not insensible of our state (of peril and of ruin.) Our iniquities are numberless (more than the hairs of my head); but with a broken heart and contrite spirit (do thou augment, O Saviour, that contrition!) we pray to be delivered from them (through thy heavenly grace), and led in the way everlasting (to perfect holiness and bliss.) Our case is desperate in itself (through great and multiplied guilt), but there is hope in Israel concerning this. (Thou hast invited and enjoined us to hope.) The combined help of men and angels could not reach our misery. (Who can forgive sins save God only)? But Thou art adequate to our relief. (Lord, help me!) Thou art rich in mercy. (Grant that mercy abundantly!) The blood of Jesus Christ thy Son cleanseth from all sin. (Oh, let it give peace and purity!) The agency of thy Holy Spirit can subdue the most powerful corruptions. (Oh, give that Holy Spirit! Thou hast promised them that ask.) Heal us, and we shall be healed," &c. &c.

ON PULPIT, OSTENTATION.

How little must the presence of God be felt in that place where the high functions of the pulpit are degraded into a stipulated exchange of entertainment on the one side, and of admiration on the other; and surely, it were a sight to make angels weep, when a weak and vapouring mortal, surrounded by his fellow-sinners, and hastening to the grave and the judgment along with them, finds it a dearer object to his bosom, to regale his hearers by the exhibition of himself, than to do in plain earnest the work of his Master, and urge on the business of repentance and of faith by the impressive simplieities of the Gospel.-Dr. Chalmers.

ORDINATION.-On Wednesday, the 24th of December, the united Presbyteries of Cavan and Monaghan ordained the Rev. J. Parr to the pastoral charge of the congregation of Ballytrain. The services of the day were conducted by the Rev. W. Gibson, the Rev. J. King, and the Rev. P. White.

THE

ORTHODOX PRESBYTERIAN.

No. LXV.

FEBRUARY, 1835. VOL. VI.

HINTS ON THE CAUSES AND CURE OF POPULAR IGNORANCE OF DIVINE TRUTH.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX PRESBYTERIAN.

many

SIR, THAT knowledge of every kind is on the advance in our day, is a fact which cannot be denied. Instruction, with a silent, but a steady step, is prosecuting her course of light into the dreary regions of intellectual and moral darkness, making "the wilderness to rejoice, and the desert to blossom as the rose." A spirit of inquiry has been raised upon the earth, that nothing but the possession of knowledge will ever lay; a flame has been kindled that floods shall not quench, and waters shall never drown, until the righteousness of Zion go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. In such prospects the heart of the Christian rejoices, and hails with delight the efforts which are making to spread truth on the world; and whilst I rejoice most heartily, in the blessings which attend these efforts, and confidently expect that they shall not be in vain, still the question presses itself upon my mind, "are we really correct in holding up the day in which we live, as a day so remarkable for sound Christian knowledge; or is it not rather a fact that we are far behind our forefathers in deep and well-connected views into the mysteries of revelation ?" One thing, Sir, is certain-the Christian authorship of our day will suffer sadly by comparison with the writings of our forefathers. I lift an Owen, or a Leighton, or a Booth, and before I have perused half-a-dozen pages, their manly attitudes in the defence of the truth, the ease and the power with which they wield "the sword of the spirit," and the pathos and the force with which they turn its edge upon the conscience and the heart, make me rise from their perusal instructed and benefitted, exclaiming, "in those days there were giants in the earth; surely the people who had

such instructors, had a connected and sound fabric of knowledge reared in the understanding, and a flame of spirituality and life enkindled in the heart." I lift again the productions of our fathers and young men in Israel, in the day in which we live, and I am delighted with the grace of their attitudes and the polish of their armour, and the measured tread of the march of their periods; but some how I do not tremble so under their strokes, nor feel so the power of their arm, and I rise from their perusal, saying, "ye plow with another man's heifer-take away this new wine, the old is better."

And permit me, Sir, to ask if it be a truth that the great majority of our Protestant Christian population are any thing like well versant in the truths of the Bible? Take, on an average, the most respectable of the church-going, well-educated citizens, and how many of them could give a scriptural reason of the hope that is in them? They believe in the doctrines of the Trinity, free grace, justification by faith, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit; but ask them to show the scriptural connexion and the scriptural foundations of these doctrines, and we apprehend you will puzzle them sadly. Now, Sir, these things ought not so to be. When God gave the Bible, he gave it to be understood. "Search the Scriptures' is a command as binding to-day as it was when first delivered; and it is as true now as it was in the days of Solomon, "for the soul to be without knowledge is not good."

That there is an order and harmony, and a connection subsisting among the doctrines of revelation, no one acquainted with the Bible will deny. The truths of the Bible are not like separate and detached jewels, but, like gems set in a figured coronet, you cannot remove one out of the place it occupies, without destroying the symmetry and beauty of the whole. They are not only like the notes of an Eolian harp, beautiful in themselves, but they are like the same notes, blended by the skilful musician into the sublime anthem; of which, if you strike but one note wrong, you mar the harmony, and prevent the effect of the whole. That this connection and necessary dependance upon each other of the great characteristic doctrines of the Bible, is seen and appreciated by the great majority of professing Protestants in our age and country, I think truth would not allow any one to affirm-nor do I, mean to affirm that it is essentially necessary to their their salvation that they should; but that they ought to know such things, I most strenuously maintain. The question, therefore, has often pressed itself on my mind, "why do they

not ?" To answer this question will be the object of the remainder of this paper.

I. One cause of the prevailing ignorance of the harmony of divine truth, is to be found in the neglect of parents. Experience should have taught the world long ago, that if ever the train of scriptural knowledge is to pervade the mass of society, it must be hid in the young mind. When the days of manhood overtake the days of uninstructed youth, they bring with them such a rigidity of understanding, such a callousness of heart, and moreover, such a positive dislike of the labour of putting ideas together, that a book which requires thinking, or a sermon which requires almost any thing like mental labour to follow and appreciate it, are positively lost on the great majority of readers and hearers. Now the admirable economy of Providence to meet and remedy this evil, is at once simple and effective. And what is that economy?—just the binding of the parent to his child by the tenderest tie, that the mind, when susceptible of intellectual and moral impressions, may have beside it an instructor, bound as much by love as by duty to train it up to intellectual strength and to moral purity. For surely the parent was bound to his children by the tender ties which link them together, for far higher and far holier purposes, than merely to promote their temporal well-being, their worldly aggrandizement; to seek what they shall eat and what they shall drink, and wherewithal they shall be clothed! Does not the eagle on the cliff, or the tiger in the jungle, discharge these offices with a constancy and a diligence that they may equal, but which they cannot surpass? Have fathers forgotten they are the priests of their families, and that to train their children and household for heaven is their first, their highest duty? Have mothers forgotten that they are bound to their little ones, with all the strength of maternal tenderness, just that that tenderness might be the link between their children and God? Oh! that these questions could be answered in the negative! but alas! for the world, they cannot; and just because parents have neglected their duty, does the church present the aspect which she does, cold in all her affections, and crippled in all her energies? The family is the nursery of the church; and if the seedling plant be deprived. of the culture and the care which it so much requires, we must not wonder if, when it becomes a tree, it should be found to be only "a cumberer of the ground." Error in doctrine has made fearful inroads in our day upon "the faith that was once delivered unto the saints;" and yet I confess it only as

tonishes me that its territories are still so limited; for what was there, humanly speaking, to retard its progress? did it not find nine out of every ten minds unfurnished with any force of scriptural knowledge to repel its encroachments? Truth was not stored in the soul of youth, and therefore error, through the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, found a ready lodgement in the vacant mind. And it will ever be so until parents shall feel it to be their duty, as it is their privilege, to "train up," as you would a vine to its trellis, their children in the way in which they should go; until in the days of early youth, they shall rear up a fabric of sound scriptural knowledge, which in the days of manhood, settling down by conviction upon its foundation, will bid defiance to the loud, but light artillery of infidelity and heresy. Do parents ask how they are to do this? "Search the Scriptures"-pray over their sacred pages-gain knowledge for yourselves and then impart it to your offspring. Store their memories in youth with scripture facts, and scripture characters, and scripture doctrines; and if you can find a better summary of scripture truths than the Shorter Catechism, first write it upon their memories, and then explain it to their understandings, and press it upon their hearts. Up and be doing-you know right well what you ought to do do not trifle with your convictions-you will meet your children before Christ in the day of judgment.

Oh! when will the days again come that once arose on our forefathers! when the Sabbath evening found the doors of hut and of hall closed, and the hoary-headed father with his household around him, from the ponderous Bible that descended from sire to son for generations, teaching his children and servants the ways of God to man! May they come, and that speedily!

II. Another cause of the ignorance of Gospel truth, which prevails in our day, is to be found in the manner in which schools have been conducted. I ask any candid mind if the manner in which our schools have been conducted, be not this:-that reading, and writing, and arithmetic, and Latin, and Greek, are things which require patient application, lengthened study and persevering industry, to acquire a knowledge of them; but that the religion of Christ is a subject, the knowledge of which may be picked up on Saturday evenings, when the mind. is wearied with the labour of the week, and is sending out all its energies in anticipating the nesting in the wood, or