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SIR,

Griesbach's Prolegomena and Notes.

Poole, Sept. 10, 1822. ALLOW me to state through the medium of your valuable publication, what I have often felt, viz., a strong and earnest desire to see Griesbach's Preface and Prolegomena to his edition of the Greek New Testament in an English translation. And if the principal of his notes were added to the translation, it would be all the better. The English theologian often hears of Griesbach's great work; but he knows nothing of the rules which guided that eminent critic in his judgment concerning the various readings of the New Testament. He reads the Improved Version; but can form little or no idea of the reasons why one reading is to be preferred to another. Since Parkhurst gave to Englishmen Hebrew and Greek Lexicons, through the medium of the English tongue, and encouraged them to study the original languages of the Scriptures without taking the pains first to acquire the Latin, I believe there are several who can understand the Hebrew and Greek of the Scriptures who do not understand the Latin. And upon the whole I am persuaded, that a translation of the above work would put into the hands of many, a great mass of information which would be highly acceptable and useful.

SIR,

A. B.

stor to N Sunday, August 25th, the Rev.

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the congregation assembling at the Meeting-house in Monkwell Street, for divine worship, pronounced a most impressive discourse on the awful death of the late Marquis of Londonderry. The subject of his sermon was the admixture of good and evil in the destiny of man: his text was from Eccles. iii. 4, and in pursuing his subject, the reverend preacher traced out a most powerful delineation of human woes and human joys: sometimes he led his audience on to the brink of despair, and then mitigated the anguish of the soul by presenting to it brighter views; and as we are favoured with some extracts, the public will judge to what a degree the preacher calls forth the finest sensibilities of our frame.

"In the exuberance of life's blos

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soming season, who has not painted to himself in the most glowing tints the delights to be reaped from pros. perity and lofty station? And when any of these anticipations of the highcoloured imagination and ardent spirits of youth have been realized, who has not bitterly wept at the disappointment? and felt that fastidiousness and weariness of long-accustomed possession may wear out that eagerness of fruition, which the bounding heart and ever up-springing hopes of early life had flattered themselves would, in their cases at least, know no ungenial blast? The strongest constitutions, the most undimmed glory, the most princely fortunes, and the sweet relations of family and friendship are liable to sad vicissitudes. Who has not seen a serene sea, glowing with the radiance of a mid-day sun, gently presenting to the eye the play of its bespangled waters? Often on a sudden has it been darkened over by a rising storm; its waves roaring fearfully: so have we seen these earthly enjoyments sometimes pass rapidly away, and followed by all the storms of an agitated and adverse life. See the young heir, wringing a father's heart by his extravagance, and causing his own manly beauty of countenance to be sicklied over by his vices! See the sweet affections of a warm breast cruelly checked and wounded by the unfaithfulness of an unworthy husband, seeking what?-rapturous delight from mind, O God! Equal misery hangs prostituted charms and a depraved

over the great ones of the earth. Once was I forcibly struck with a pencilled canvas, on which the masterly hand of genius had made every circumstance pourtrayed, start into life; and the beholder was, as it were, surrounded with the reality of the scene. Camps and armies were in the back-ground. The prominent subject of the picture was the once mighty Lord of immeasurable tracts of earth, denominated kingdoms: the far renowned Bajazet, in a moment of discomfiture, was presented to the view: his brow, the seat of anxious care, was knit and scowling; the horror of despair was depictured in every feature; the interval of some hours had elapsed since his defeat by the genius of Tamerlane, then in his ascendant; so that the agitations necessarily attendant on a lost field of

battle, had subsided into a settled gloom. His arms were enfolded each in the other; and as he marched along, wrapt in the most torturing musings on his lost empire, he espied a shepherd boy, asleep amid his flock, insensible to all the changes the fate of war had made his country undergo. The fallen and fugitive monarch cast on him a look which expressed the heartwrung wish, that he could exchange condition with the lowly clown, whom a few hours before he would, perhaps, have spurned from his presence, and had he opposed his progress, have crushed him with a blow, regardless of his fate! Absorbed in the contemplation, I said within myself, it can only be from ignorance that the humbly born and the poor can ever make the crowned monarch or the splendidly wealthy the objects of so much envious hate!"

What beauty of contrast in this portraiture; and how appropriate the instances adduced to illustrate the subject the Christian orator had chosen to present to the minds of his auditory for their meditation on this dire occasion! Sometimes, however, he broke the gloom of this train of thought, and introduced some bright and consoling rays across the darkness which hangs over the moral horizon of man; "Thou," did he say, "benevolent follower of Jesus, hast perhaps placed a son of indigence in the way of gaining his honest livelihood, and joy penetrates a once withered heart. Even in the bitterness of adversity, a tender wife and smiling children will cause the brow to dilate, and the soul to enjoy the good it still possesses: even the horrors of a prison are thus diminished-perhaps converted into sources of happiness."

The eloquent and pious preacher then entered into a more severe train of reasoning, to expose the absurdity of the Epicurean of ancient times, and of the modern Sophist in these days of irreligion, in attributing this mixed lot of man to chance, a word used to conceal our ignorance of the true causes of things. With exquisite judgment he here selected many of the obvious good results arising from the varied discipline by which the character of man is formed and tried in his passage through life, and shewed that this discipline was the parent of our virtues

and the stimulant which developed our noblest powers; till at length he held forth to the mental eye the Marquis of Londonderry, sinking into imbecility, and seeking a refuge from despair in self-destruction.

"The public attention of Europe has lately been roused to the contemplation of a most tremendous, appalling event; and has powerfully been impressed by so awful a subject for its meditation. A man raised to the highest offices of the state; and when we consider the colossal grandeur of the British empire, we can scarcely dwell on a loftier station amid the glories of civilized life: a man admitted to the counsels of haughty and potent monarchs; and taking in them a most commanding part, commanding from the eminence to which England had attained, and of which she sometimes made an ill use; a man, who in the senate led a British House of Commons; defective, indeed, as a representation of the nation, yet, with all its defects, the most august deliberative assembly on the face of the globe; (this man,) in an access of melancholy madness, has raised his hand and struck against his life; at a moment too when he was environed with the proudest honours and most extensive influence of which a subject of England has to boast: an awful admonition this of the vanity of human greatness! Do not the splendour of wealth, the charms of voluptuousness, the power attendant on successful high ambition, lose all their dazzling allurement before so unnerving an instance of greatness, shorn of all its glory? We here contemplate a mind suddenly losing all its powers, and falling into the desperation of madness, and determined not to survive the degradation! What shall we say to these things? No doubt, had the suicide been voluntary, arguments might easily have been adduced to confound the sophistry which might have attempted its defence: but what avails the pomp, nay even the justness of reason, to a mind in ruins, sinking into imbecility, though somewhat conscious of the change? No doubt, many have cast away life from wounded vanity, disappointed ambition, a hopeless bereavement of affection; many from excessive fear; but then the passions might have been reasoned with and combat

of the Marquis of Londonderry.

ed, and the censure which in any of these instances falls on an action so rash, is justified, and serves as a warning to surrounding friends, or as a guide to public opinion: but what impression can be made on a mind bereft of reason, and reduced to the mopings of melancholy? Nor can party spirit, that cruel hardener of the human heart, here obtain a satisfactory triumph, since we have mourned over a Whitbread and a Romilly, who fell overwhelmed by a similar fate with that of the late Secretary of State for the Foreign Department. It might, perhaps, be useful to ascertain the religious and moral habits of those who have been subject to these sad aberrations of the intellect, to see whether a foundation had not been laid in a long prior train of thought, or of injurious modes of life. This, however, would require a most intimate acquaintance with the turn of character, difficult for persons placed at a distance to obtain, where much room might be left for conjecture; and this might often be unjust. We may perhaps observe, that the unfortunate state of mind which leads to these rash acts, is more frequent in high and wealthy life than in the more humble departments of society, as if there were something in the very elevation which may cause a man to lose the just poising of his mental powers, and dash him down the precipice. The slavery of pleasure, the rivalry of honour, the clashing of strong interest, the fever of ambition, the eagerness for wealth, have all, in their very nature, a harassing influence on the soul; and may gradually prepare that enfeeblement of the intellect which declares itself at a later period: and we may add, that the mild corrective of the genuine gospel of Jesus is seldom much appreciated by the great ones of the earth. By them Christianity is too often viewed as an affair of the state; as the basis of a grand national establishment for powerful and influential families, eager for church dignities; but seldom do they experience the salutary awe or the balmy consolations true religion inspires. Their never-ending commerce with the pride and pomp of the world, their speculations on the fate of empires, the subtleties of court intrigue, in which they are adepts, obscure the light of evangelical truths,

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stifle the voice of prayer, check the aspirations of the soul after immortality, and chain it down to earth; and thus passion breaks in pieces the fences of the love of God, and of religious hope. If, therefore, this restless play of the passions, united with the abandonment of pure religion and the calmer pleasures of domestic life, lead gradually, though imperceptibly, to the misplacement of the affections, to the alienation of the mental powers, and thus to suicide, what a lesson to parents to keep their youth within the sober enjoyments of life, and under the influence of a heart-felt religion, and of gentle family affections! Still, with all this care, the ways of God are often to us inscrutable; and it is our duty to draw a veil over the misfortunes of those who fall into the hopeless state which leads to self-destruction, when those misfortunes cannot serve as a beacon to others: and cases do happen which baffle all our investigation. Our duty is, then, to sympathize with those families in which these deplorable events take place; to mitigate every pain, and to dispose the mind to seize every consolation reason and religion can offer. We should petition for the abolition of that barbarous and superstitious law which makes the survivors the victims of another's rashness. In the present case, we must weep with the afflicted widow, and remember that no one of us can assure himself that he or his family shall escape so dreadful a visitation. I am well convinced, that not one of us in this respectable Christian assembly, can have the most remote conception of falling under so deplorable a misery; yet so, probably, thought the once youthful and aspir ing Lord of Londonderry in his increasing prosperity: so thought many of the wealthy, and I will add, of the good, who have been driven by loss of reason to such an act of desperation, And surely no one ought to say he stands on a towering eminence more solidly fixed than theirs. All these hoped that years of peace were before them; many might from their rank or talents expect years of glory, and that they should then go down to the grave, full of piety and full of days. O, my brethren in Christ Jesus, let us address the throne of Divine grace, you for me, I for you, and all of us for each other,

that neither the day nor the night may ever come when we shall ever be involved in so direful a fate, either for ourselves, or those with whom we are connected: but that we and ours inay preserve our faculties so far as never to fall under so sore an evil: may our latter end be in peace, and our hope everlasting felicity.

"O, Almighty God! terrible in thy judgments, and wonderful in thy doings toward the children of men, we would deprecate thy displeasure, and beg of thee to preserve our minds calm, and in the sound use of all our faculties to life's extremest verge. Thou hast called us lately to the contemplation of a direful catastrophe, resulting from a previous loss of intellect, Ö may thy guardian Providence watch over us for our good, and turn from every one of us so deplorable an evil : that we, being protected by thy goodness from all dangers, may glorify thee to our last hour, through Jesus Christ, our great Mediator and Advocate. Amen.”

This discourse was delivered to a full and most respectable assembly of Protestant Dissenters, awfully impressed with the pious earnestness of the preacher.

On the following Sunday, Sept. 1, the Rev. S. W. Browne preached a Sermon in the same chapel on the Disenthralment of the Greeks from the Ottoman oppressive government.

SIR,

M. J.

I a written

LATELY purchased, at an old

famous Dr. Jonathan Edwards, on the language of certain Indian tribes. On the last page of this little tract, there is printed the following whimsical anecdote, which you will perhaps think worthy of a place in your Repository. The imprint is dated London, 1788, and purports to be a reprint of an American edition of the preceding year. I suspect that the London publication had been edited by the Rev. Dr. Rippon, and that he is the I. R. mentioned in this Appendix, and probably the first publisher of the anecdote: for, on the same page, there is an advertisement of "Hymns intended to be an Appendix to Dr. Watts's Psalms and Hymns, by John Rippon, A.M." B. D.

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Amen.

Minister. How did you find Jesus Christ?

Pagey. I no findee him, he findee me. Minister. Where did he find you?

Pagey. I was a work in my field, a hoeing my corn, and den I tink I hear someting say, Pagey! Ah, I look but I see noting. So I stooped down again and I hoe my corn, and I tink I hear someting say, Pagey! I cry out, What a you say? but I see noting, and I feel cold on my head. I go up high hill and look round, but I see noting; den I tink I hear someting say again, Pagey! I cry out, What a you say? and I tink he say to me, Pagey! you know who gave a you dat corn? I say, No. And he say, Jesus Christ gave a you dat corn; I fall on my tink a blessed Jesus give poor drunken face on a ground, and I cry, cry, when I

Indian corn.

Minister. What, Pagey, do you get drunk now?

Pagey. Oh, no! me never be drunk again after Jesus Christ tell a me he give a me dat corn; so den I go home to my wigwaum, (his hut or house,) and see a up my squaw (his wife); my squaw be a

squaw, but while I hold up a my hand to beat a my squaw, I tink I hear blessed Jesus say,-Pagey! Jesus Christ a beat a you when you was drunken Indian? So den I trou down my tick and I fall on my ́ face, and I cry, and I pray for my squaw, and blessed Jesus hear me, and my poor squaw never get drunk any more: blessed for ever, Jesus Christ. Amen.

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One man he ask a me, Pagey! who best, you or your brother deacon? I say no best, Jesus Christ best, blessed for ever. Amen. Dey tell a me I must God; so I tell a my blessed Jesus, and he tink dare be tree in God, and but one say, Pagey! you know de rain? Yes. And you know de hail? Yes. And you know de snow? Yes. Well, you know de rain be water, de snow be water, and de hail be water; but they are all one water. I jump up; I have a-I have a.

Mr. Knowles's proposed Work.-Unitarian Missionary Exertions. 545

(Communicated by the Rev. Mr. M

of America, to Dr. M to J. R.)

SIR,

THE

and from him

Nantwich, September 9, 1822. HE readers of the Monthly Repository will recollect, that some time since there appeared in one of its numbers the prospectus of a work, proposed to be published by subscription, entitled, "The Test of Truth, or the United Evidence of the Sacred Scriptures, respecting the True Object of Religious Worship, and the Condition of Acceptance, in the Language of the Scriptures, including the Evidence of the Scriptures on the Person,

&c. of Jesus Christ."

Since then it has been suggested to the author, that it would be much better to publish it in parts or numbers, at sixpence each, once a fortnight; as it would, by this means, be more within the reach of all; particularly of those who cannot conveniently purchase large works; and as it would hence, also, be more generally useful. Agreeably to this suggestion, the author now proposes to publish it in this manner as soon as a sufficient number of subscribers can be procured to indemnify him from loss. It would be necessary, of course, that the subscribers should consider themselves pledged to receive the numbers till the work be complete. But it might be well to remember, that it is not designed so much to please as to profit the reader. It is a work completely of scriptural evidence, on the important points mentioned in the title, arranged in such a manner as appeared most likely to convince, without perplexing, the mind. It is, however, calculated to be a great assistance both to devotion and practice. And the author hopes, that the friends of pure and undefiled religion will not suffer it to be lost to the public, particularly in the present state of the Christian world. He depends entirely on their aid to bring it out.

It may probably consist of twenty or twenty-four numbers.

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HE last Report of the Unitarian Fund was in several respects very interesting and encouraging, espethe Transylvanian Unitarians. cially in its communication relative to But the Heathen, there is still almost a on one topic, that of exertions among blank, and till that blank be well filled and occupied, a thoroughly satisfactory report, in a Christian estimation, cannot, I think, be made. I would not, in these remarks, be thought to and able managers of the Unitarian intend censure on the very respectable Fund: they have, perhaps, done as much in this way as circumstances admitted. I know that there is much prejudice and opposition on this point, and a good deal of division of sentiment where one would expect cordial

unanimity. But my object is not to blame any one, which is not my province. I only aim to stir up to love and to good works; to solicit the attention of your readers in general, and fluence in leading our united exerespecially of those who may have intions, to the sacred duty of diffusing Surely, it is urgent upon Unitarian Christian light among the Heathen. that reproach under which they have Christians, as a body, to wipe away been so injurious to their cause. long so justly laboured, and which has vain will they write and preach, in vain will they seek to convert other Christians to their opinions, while their conduct does not evince that the warm glow of Christian sympathy ani

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