ALBERT BARNES. THIS eminent theologian was born at Rome, New York, December 1, 1798. He worked with his father in his tannery until he was seventeen years old, when he determined to obtain a collegiate education; and in 1819 he entered the senior class in Hamilton College, and graduated in July, 1820. At college, he was the subject of a "revival of ligion;" and, feeling it his duty to study theology, he went to Princeton, New Jersey, and entered the Theological Seminary. He was there three years, and was licensed to preach, April 23, 1823, by the Presbytery of New Brunswick. After preaching at various places, he received a call from the First Presbyterian Church in Morristown, New Jersey, and was ordained there, on the 25th of Fruary, 1825. Here his ministry was highly prosperous, and his people becamevotedly attached to him. In 1830, he received a call from the First Presbyn Church in Philadelphia, which he accepted, and was installed on the 25th of June of that year.1 Before leaving Morristown, Mr. Barnes commenced a series of commentaries on the New Testament, designed for Sunday-school teachers and family reading. The volume upon Matthew was published in 1832, and was followed from time to time by like commentaries upon every book of the New Testament. These works are eminently practical, and among the best of the kind in our language. The high estimation in which they are held by the religions world is evinced by the numerous editions which have been published in England as well as in this country. In 1835, George Junkin, D.D., preferred against Mr. Barnes, before his Presbytery, charges of heresy, based on his commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans. The Presbytery sustained Mr. Barnes, and Dr. Junkin appealed to the Synod of Pennsylvania. The Synod sustained the appeal, and suspended Mr. Barnes from the ministry "until he should give evidence of repentance"!2 Mr. Barnes, in his turn, appealed to the General Assembly, that met at Pittsburg, in May, 1836; and the Assembly restored him to his clerical functions, by a large majority. Before Mr. Barnes had finished his Notes on the New Testament, he began a 1 Before leaving Morristown, he had preached (February 8, 1829) a sermon, entitled "The Way of Salvation," which was severely reviewed in the "Philadelphian," by Rev. William M. Engles, accusing the author of "defrauding his readers and hearers of the doctrine of justification," &c.! The learned and venerable James P. Wilson, D.D., whom Mr. Barnes succeeded, replied to this reviewer, fully and ably sustaining the positions of the sermon. 2 During his suspension, the Rev. George Duffield, D.D., the author of the able work on "Regeneration," was invited to preach for him; and he did so from this pertinent text:-Isaiah lxvi. 5: "Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word: Your brethren that hated you, and cast you out for my name's sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed." And this declaration of Scripture has been indeed verified. A writer in "The New Englander" for November, 1858, in reviewing Dr. J. P. Thompson's Memoir of Stoddard, makes this pertinent and instructive remark:-"The history of the church is full of evidences that clergymen, when contending with one another over the metaphysics of theology, confound small matters with great, and by their recorded decisions expose themselves to the ridicule and pity of after-generations." series of commentaries upon the Old Testament. Laiah first appeared, in three volumes; then Job, in two volumes; then Daniel, in one volume; which have given him a still higher reputation for profound and varied scholarship. He has also published an edition of "Butler's Analogy," with an Introduction of rare ability; a volume of Practical Sermons, richly prized in many a Christian household; and a treatise entitled Episcopacy Tested by Scripture. Another volume of his sermons, entitled The Way of Salvation, has recently been published. Mr. Barnes early became interested in the temperance reformation, and his sermon upon that subject is one of the best tracts that have yet appeared. He also came out very early, and with decided power, against the crime and curse of slavery, being almost the only one among his ministerial brethren "faithful found among the faithless," on what has become THE great question of the day. In 1838, when the yells of the mob that burned Pennsylvania Hall had scarce died away, he showed his moral courage by preaching a noble sermon on The Supremacy of the Laws. In 1846 appeared An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery, which was followed by an excellent volume, entitled The Church and Slavery, showing it to be the duty of the whole Christian church to "come out and not touch the unclean thing." More recently he has given us Inquiries and Suggestions in Regard to the Foundation of Faith in the Word of God; Life at Three-Score, a Sermon delivered in the First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, November 28, 1858; and The Atonement in its Relations to Law and Government, It is wonderful how Mr. Barnes, with such laborious pastoral duties, has been able to prepare for the press so many works, and of such depth of learning. The secret lies in method. He has always been a very early riser, and most of his works have been written while the greater part of his congregation were taking their morning slumbers.3 So much may be accomplished by devoting a few hours, statedly, every day to one fixed purpose! What a lesson for every young man! 1 On the night of the 17th of May, 1838, that noble structure in Sixth Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Hall,-erected for the purpose of free discussion, and especially for the free discussion of slavery, was burnt by a mob. To this event Rev. John Pierpont thus alludes, in his spirit-stirring poem, The Tocsin : "Go, then, and build yourselves a hall, To prove ye are not slaves, but men! "Within let Freedom's anthem swell: And, while your hearts begin to throb 2 Beautiful editions of Mr. Barnes's recent works, as mentioned above, have been published by Parry & McMillan, Philadelphia. 3 All my commentaries on the Scriptures have been written before nine o'clock in the morning. At the very beginning-now more than thirty years ago-I adopted a resolution to stop writing on these Notes when the clock struck nine. This resolution I have invariably adhered to, not unfrequently finishing my morning task in the midst of a paragraph, and sometimes even in the midst of a sentence."-Life at Three-Score. A MOTHER'S LOVE-HOME. Many of us-most of us who are advanced beyond the period of childhood-went out from that home to embark on the stormy sea of life. Of the feelings of a father, and of his interest in our welfare, we have never entertained a doubt, and our home was dear because he was there; but there was a peculiarity in the feeling that it was the home of our mother. While she lived there, there was a place that we felt was home. There was one place where we would always be welcome, one place where we would be met with a smile, one place where we would be sure of a friend. The world might be indifferent to us. We might be unsuccessful in our studies or our business. The new friends which we supposed we had made might prove to be false. The honor which we thought we deserved might be withheld from us. We might be chagrined and mortified by seeing a rival outstrip us, and bear away the prize which we sought. But there was a place where no feelings of rivalry were found, and where those whom the world overlooked would be sure of a friendly greeting. Whether pale and wan by study, care, or sickness, or flushed with health and flattering success, we were sure that we should be welcome there. Though the world was cold towards us, yet there was one who always rejoiced in our success, and always was affected in our reverses; and there was a place to which we might go back from the storm which began to pelt us, where we might rest, and become encouraged and invigorated for a new conflict. So have I seen a bird, in its first efforts to fly, leave its nest, and stretch its wings, and go forth to the wide world. But the wind blew it back, and the rain began to fall, and the darkness of night began to draw on, and there was no shelter abroad, and it sought its way back to its nest, to take shelter beneath its mother's wings, and to be refreshed for the struggles of a new day; but then it flew away to think of its nest and its mother no more. But not thus did we leave our home when we bade adieu to it to go forth alone to the manly duties of life. Even amidst the storms that then beat upon us, and the disappointments that we met with, and the coldness of the world, we felt still that there was one there who sympathized in our troubles, as well as rejoiced in our success, and that, whatever might be abroad, when we entered the door of her dwelling we should be met with a smile. We expected that a mother, like the mother of Sisera, as she "looked out at her window," waiting for the coming of her son laden with the spoils of victory, would look out for our coming, and that our return would renew her joy and ours in our earlier days. It makes a sad désolation when from such a place a mother is taken away, and when, whatever may be the sorrows or the suc cesses in life, she is to greet the returning son or daughter no more. The home of our childhood may be still lovely. The old family mansion-the green fields the running stream-the mosscovered well-the trees-the lawn-the rose-the sweet-briermay be there. Perchance, too, there may be an aged father, with venerable locks, sitting in his loneliness, with every thing to command respect and love; but she is not there. Her familiar voice is not heard. The mother has been borne forth to sleep by the side of her children who went before her, and the place is not what it was. There may be those there whom we much love, but she is not there. We may have formed new relations in life, tender and strong as they can be; we may have another home, dear to us as was the home of our childhood, where there is all in affection, kindness, and religion, to make us happy, but that home is not what it was, and it will never be what it was again. It is a loosening of one of the cords which bound us to earth, designed to prepare us for our eternal flight from every thing dear here below, and to teach us that there is no place here that is to be our permanent home.1 THE TRAFFIC IN ARDENT SPIRITS. Every man is bound to pursue such a business as to render a valuable consideration for that which he receives from others. A man who receives in trade the avails of the industry of others, is under obligation to restore that which will be of real value. He receives the fruit of toil; he receives that which is of value to himself; and common equity requires that he return a valuable consideration. Thus, the merchant renders to the farmer, in exchange for the growth of his farm, the productions of other climes; the manufacturer, that which is needful for the clothing or comfort of the agriculturist; the physician, the result of his professional skill. All these are valuable considerations, which are fair and honorable subjects of exchange. They are a mutual accommodation; they advance the interest of both parties. But it is not so with the dealer in ardent spirits. He obtains the property of his fellow-men; and what does he return? That which will tend to promote his real welfare? That which will make him a happier man? That which will benefit his family? That which diffuses learning and domestic comfort around his family circle? None of these things. He gives him that which will produce poverty, and want, and cursing, and tears, and death. He asked an egg, and he receives a scorpion. He gives him that From a sermon delivered but a few weeks after the loss of his own mother. which is established and well known as a source of no good, but as tending to produce beggary and wretchedness. A man is bound to pursue such a course of life as not necessarily to increase the burdens and the taxes of the community. The pauperism and crimes of this land grow out of this vice, as an overflowing fountain. Three-fourths of the taxes for prisons, and houses of refuge, and almshouses, would be cut off but for this traffic and the attendant vices. Nine-tenths of the crimes of the country, and of the expenses of litigation for crime, would be prevented by arresting it. Now, we have only to ask our fellowcitizens, what right they have to pursue an employment tending thus to burden the community with taxes, and to endanger the dwellings of their fellow-men, and to send to my door, and to every other man's door, hordes of beggars loathsome to the sight; or to compel the virtuous to seek out their wives and children, amidst the squalidness of poverty, and the cold of winter, and the pinchings of hunger, to supply their wants? Could impartial justice be done in the world, an end would soon be put to the traffic in ardent spirits. Were every man bound to alleviate all the wretchedness which his business creates, to support all the poor which his traffic causes, an end would soon be inade of this employment. THE BIBLE versus SLAVERY.-THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. Of all the abuses ever applied to the Scriptures, the most intolerable and monstrous are those which pervert them to the support of American slavery. Sad is it that the mild and benignant enactments of the Hebrew legislator should ever be appealed to, to sanction the wrongs and outrages of the poor African in "this land of freedom;" sad, that the ministers of religion should ever prostitute their high office to give countenance to such a system, by maintaining, or even conceding for a moment, that the Mosaic laws sanction the oppressions and wrongs existing in the United States! *** The defence of slavery from the Bible is to be, and will soon be, abandoned, and men will wonder that any defence of such a system could have been attempted from the word of God. If the authors of these defences could live a little longer than the ordinary term of years allotted to man, they would themselves wonder that they could ever have set up such a defence. Future generations will look upon the defences of slavery drawn from the Bible, as among the most remarkable instances of mistaken interpretation and unfounded reasoning furnished by the perversities of the human mind. * * * Let every religious denomination in the land detach itself from |