troops, and all the monks are deeply hostile to this state of things. Late arrivals announced an insurrection; but it was speedily quelled by the government. --- lic manifesto dsclared, "that every slave shall be free the moment that he touches the soil of Austria, or any of its ships." RUSSIA.-Order has been again restored in SPAIN. The wretchedness of this fallen and Russia; and the ringleaders of the late ill-condegraded country remains unabated. A change certed attempt to gain liberty have been punishof ministry has taken place; but that ha ed by death or banishment. The Emperor Nibrought no cure, nor even remedy. The king e las continues to manifest himself an enemy to continues to rule with a rod of iron over an Bible and Missionary enterprizes. Within the poverished and broken-spirited people. The pre-stupendous building of the Kremlin, at Moscow, sent alarm caused to his majesty, is the neigh- in July last, there was a solemn thanksgiving of bourhood of constitutional principles in Portu-fered up to the Almighty, for his protection gal. To prevent his people from catching a spark of liberty, he is labouring indirectly to put the feelings of constitutionalism down in that kingdom. But the Holy Alliance-and it is pleasant to have one tolerably good thing to say of such hypocritical tyrants-do not seem at all disposed to interfere with Portugal and her affairs. vouchsafed to the imperial family." Besides the audience of civilians, there were present 16,000 troops within the Kremlin; and all the imperial family, except the Duke Constantine. When the officiating minister began the solemn thanksgiving, the imperial family and all the audience prostrated themselves on the ground, with their heads uncovered! The Emperor Nicolas was crowned in the early part of September. GREECE. This brave people are yet unconquered. Their affairs have, however, been AFRICA. Several travellers are exploring the most unpromising. They have been busily employed in collecting all their naval forces for interior of this country. Major Laing has at fresh encounters with their blood-thirsty ene-length reached the famous object of these remies. They have 14,000 superior seamen; and about 240 vessels. Lord Cochran has at last ar rived at Napoli di Romonia and is only waiting for the gathering of his fleet. We shall soon hear a good account of the Egyptian invaders of Greece, from this naval champion, who distinguished himself so much in South America. TURKEY.-While the Egyptians have been labouring to destroy the Greek nation, Mahmoud, the grand Sultan, has been, by fire and sword, putting down and exterminating the Janissaries, the old standing army of the Turks. It was done in the Turkish style, by a horrible massacre.In the capital alone, 15,000 of these beings perished by sword and burning! The slaughter is going on throughout the empire. The cup of these modern Amorites will soon be full! searches, the city of Tombuctoo. And Capt. gain. PANAMA.-The grand congress sat down in July last, and it has adjourned to meet near Mexico, at a village called Tacubaya. The basis of the great confederation of the Southern Republics has been declared in the Congress to be" Peace with all the world-Free trade with all nations--Religious toleration-The abolition of slavery-And,-The enjoyment of equal rights by persons of every colour."-May God AUSTRIA. This government has interfered in behalf of the injured Africans. It has in its pub-prosper the great and holy cause! OBITUARY. Sir Stamford Raffles, a warm and tried friend | of missionaries, suddenly fell down and expired, lately, in his own house, in England. "Be ye also ready, for ye know not the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh." Died, at Doorlee-Dapoor, East Indies, greatly lamented by all the Churches of Christ, the Rev. Gordon Hall, the oldest of the American Missionaries under the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. This took place on the 20th of March last. He was carried off by that dreadful scourge of the East, the choleramorbus, after an illness of only eight hours! He had lived to finish the review of the last proof sheet of the New Tertament translated into the Mahratta language. His afflicted widow and only surviving child are at present in this country. the Died, at his house in Bedford-square, London, on the 30th of June, after a very short illness, Joseph Butterworth, Esq. one of the treasurers of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, and for several years presiding member at the anniversary meetings. His funeral took place on the 7th of July, amid s'rong manifestations of general respect for his memory. His age was fiftysix. "The loss of Mr. Butterworth," says Editor of the Evangelical Magazine, "will be greatly felt by the denomination to which he belonged, as well as by the religious public at large. He was a zealous supporter of every good cause; a man of fervent piety and catho lic spirit; a friend to the poor, and the ready advocate of the widow and fatherless."--MISSIONARY HERALD. ERRATUM.-p. 232. line 26 from the bottom for 1764 read 1774. p. 233 line 8 from the bottom, for Christ read Church, Religious Communications. A funeral Sermon, preached after the death of the lamented PROFESSOR WOODHULL, of Rutgers College; By Dr. Brownlee, at that time Professor of Languages. [ Concluded from p. 237. ] PRACTICAL SERMONS. No. IX. sensations in the stead of more violent. And were there even an absence "I have a desire to depart, and to be with of bodily pain, there are a thousand Christ, which is far better. painful sensations which press on the mind, from the recollections of the past, from the pressure of present objects, and from the melancholy anticipations of the future. And is it to be wondered at? The II. Let us consider the reasons and motives by which he is guided in this choice "I have a desire to depart." The good man longs for his depar-world in which we spend our lives is ture; and leaves this world without a land of unsubstantial joys and shamuch regret-Because, dows-empty and fleeting as the vaIn the first place-It is a depar- pour of the early morn. Imposed ture from the dawn of being, spent in upon by appearances, we seek for bliss painful durance, into an existence and solid happiness amid these phanwhich truly merits the name of life. toms. We grasp at the objects which flit The whole of our being in this before our eyes; but we grasp at a world is a mere point-a thing of al-shadow. The short-lived joys expire most no account, when laid in balance as we touch them, and we feel the bitwith that of the eternal state. It is terness of disappointment. merely the first early bud in the spring of our existence. It is but the first morning's dawn of our eternal day! And this short space is spent in trouble and pain. What we call a cessation of pain is more frequently little else than a change of the complaint a succession of less painful VOL. I.-34. Youth may not feel this; nor believe they it while in the sweet morning of their day of hope. But the longer we live, we receive the growing proofs of experience. And were the span of our earthly existence lengthened out to a patria chai age-were we permitted, like Methuselah, to see nine hundred and sixty-nine long years-we should only live the more fully to realize the painful truth of the warnings of wisdom-"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" sympathy with those of his own flesh and blood. The companions and dear relatives of his earthly pilgrimage he has left under the care and guidance of his Redeemer. And his companions in glory are, like himself, immortal. He feels the evils of sin no more Nor did the Christian's soul experience the bitterest pains from these disappointments. There is another source of trouble. Unlike the unre- within him. Every power of his newed man, in whose soul there is soul has a strong immortal vigor.— one undivided class of principles, He sees no more " through a glass which urge him on in exclusive dedimly." Face to face he sees his votedness to the pleasures of sin Redeemer, whom he longed so much the Christian has in him two princi- to see. His intellectual faculties are ples, every way opposed to each oth- elevated to the loftiest, clearest, and er. I mean divine grace, and the vi- most perfect conceptions, on every rulent remains of sin. Between these department of knowledge:--And, there is a constant conflict. There through these organs, renewed up to never can be a compromise-there a state of heavenly perfections, and can never be a cessation of hostilities. performing their functions without It is a conflict for victory or death. failure, without disappointment, withWhen the growth of grace is vigo-out pain, without the least cloud of rous, there is serenity and peace in darkness. Through these organs, the Christian's soul; and there is a streams of the highest and most raprejoicing with joy unspeakable, and turous bliss are poured in on his soul, fulness of glory, in his blessed, though from the heavenly communion of unseen Redeemer! But often it hap- his God. pens that the remains of indwelling sin, being excited into action by the busy agency of enemies; a desolating war is exerted in the Christian's soul. He is pressed down in the deep waters of sorrow! his hopes, his passions, have underAll his moral powers-his desires, gone a similar process of spotless purification. There is no disorder in their operations; no derangement in their steady pursuits after heavenly pleasures and the joy of his God. There is no burden of earthly feelings to draw them down in their ascents in the glory of eternity! Often in the progress of life, indeed, the voice of his Redeemer is heard, stilling these tumults-as it did the raging elements and the waves of the sea of Galilee-when it said, "peace, be still," and there was a calm! But often again are his mentales sorrows renewed. It is thus that the moral life of the Christian is sadly di versified. He has his bright sunny days, indeed; and his dark and stormy nights! But the scene is changed forever when he departs, and is with Christ. He passes into the perfect and unchangeable state beyond the grave. He is elevated to the true dignity of his being. He is forever relieved from all the weaknesses and pains of the body. He suffers no more from Sin, the cause of his bodily diseasand pains, and of his mental disorders, is destroyed in him forever! There the inhabitants never say, am sick.' 'I And there is nothing within his mind, as there is no enemy without, to distract one thought, or to derange one feeling. There are no errors, heresy, or delusions there! There is no worldly object to steal away the heart. There is no wicked man there to discompose the mind of the blessed. There is no demon to tempt.All these are excluded. A gulf which none can pass is the line of demarkation forever! In the second place-In that blessed world, also, the retrospective view of every dispensation of the divine government fills the soul of the glorified saint with unmingled delight. from the head of the family, and leaves the new-made widow, and her sobbing little orphans, to wail under the untimely bereavement. Or, in the house of God, from the holy sanctuary, it removes, amid the tears of an affectionate people, the faithful The divine government or provi- and laborious pastor. Or from the dence may be justly conceived to be temples of science, and the schools nothing else than the hand of Almigh- of the prophets, it takes away, by a ty God, carrying irresistibly into ef- sudden and most distressing visitafect his holy purposes of wisdom and tion, the beloved and pains-taking insovereignty over the whole extent of structor of our youth-the father-the his natural and moral world. Hence husband-the venerated minister of it follows, that every act of providence Christ, the instructor of youth-like must be holy, just, and good. It thee, O lamented brother Woodhull! is impossible that it can be other--is cut off forever from the land of wise. the living, and the course of honour and usefulness! Oh! most mysterious, and most afflictive dispensation of providence! But, in yonder blessed world, whither our associate and brother has gone, every distracting view, and every anxious feeling on this matter is forever corrected and removed.Every dispensation of providence, so dark and distressing here, is there But, these holy acts of providence are often, in this world, terrible and afflictive. They are such, when, in the progress of God's work, they sweep away, with resistless power, our possessions, our friends, our nearest relatives, and our sweetest comforts; and leave us pining under the desolating bereavements, while the overwhelmed soul seeks in vain to penetrate the dark cloud, or to disco-made luminous, and shown to be never how all these things can "work together for our good." And they are mysterious in their inflictions. Passing by, in his long forbearance, the guilty infidel, and the troubler of the peace of social cessary, consistent, honourable to all the divine perfections, and conducive, in the final result, to the best interests of the Christian. The most afflicting dispensations of divine providence are, to the soul of the Christian,-to a Christian family, and to the Church of God, what the loud and roaring thunder-storm, after a burning summer's sun, is in the natural world: They purify and render wholesome the moral atmosphere. order; and the vile drunkard, and gambler; and the profligate, who has grown gray in crimes: and the human monster, who has waded through seas of blood, and climbed over mountains of the slain, to gain the bauble of the blood-stained laur- And, Oh! it is there that the gloriel, or a guilty crown-often the hand fied servant of God, like thy departed of the Most High brings his heavy spirit's, O! lamented associate! does visitations of judgments on the hum-see, and does feel, that the governble and devout man of God; or ment of the world, and the arrangestrikes down the useful citizen, who ment of every individual act of profilled an important place in society; vidence is in the hands of infinite or the beloved and faithful magistrate wisdom and love. If he takes his who was labouring to reform man eminently useful servants away in kind; or from the midst of the hap-early life, it is to consummate their Py domestic circle, it removes the immortal happiness, and to teach us mother from her babes; the father humility and dependance on him. if the profane, the guilty and useless | beings in society are spared long in the forbearance of a mysterious providence, it is to give to the prisoners of the world below, and to the mortal inhabitants of this world, and to the holy inhabitants of Heaven, a more tremendous display of the justice of the Almighty. A d, a voice wrung from the bosom of the condemned, shall be heard to say, that all is just. And the voice of song shall be heard through the myriads of glory, "He hath done all things well!" In the third place-To sum up all in one comprehensive remark, He makes the happy exchange of a wicked, persecuting world, for the blooming paradise of God. mingles with the spirits of just men made perfect. He drinks of the pure waters of the fountains of life. He feeds on hidden manna. Herests with his Redeemer on his throne.The Sun of Righteousness sheds his beams over him. And his soul is satisfied with his Redeemer's likeness. : There he stands in the glory of a There he stands in the brilliant ranks of the Church triumphant.— They are all one. There are no divisions there; no heresies; no factions there to rend the peaceful socity above. In these pure and celestial abodes, everlasting truth is triumphant. There the believer meets more than brother and sister: more than husband and wife more than This world was once a paradise, father and mother. There the gloribut it is so no more. It is a dreary fied soul is bound to his associates waste, compared to what it was ac- and companions, by ties infinitely cording to the original constitution of closer than any that are created by things. Fools may dream, and phi-the tenderest earthly relationships. losophers may speculate-but it` affords not to man-to the better part-perfected holiness, by the side of his the immortal part of man-a secure Redeemer, on whose "head are maresting place in his pilgrimage; no ny crowns." There he hears and cool refreshing streams of life-no sees him making continual intercesfood fit for the soul of one destined sion for the Church below. There, for an eternal existence ! far removed above the feelings and "Spiritual wickednesses in high affections which were entwined around places," are exerting a constant influ- his heart in this world, he beholds his ence on our species. And storms Redeemer binding up the brokenand tempests, produced by the wick-hearted widow and orphans, who edness of that species, rage in the were once linked to him by the dearmoral world, around the Christian in est ties on earth. There he sees his progress to the land of glory.- him, as the sympathising Redeemer, Ambition, pride, avarice and tyranny," giving them beauty for ashes, and have erected their rival thrones here. Their jarring interests are ever and anon deluging the world with human blood. And deep and wide the wave of human misery flows from generation to generation! But, in the world of glory, whither the departed spirit of our beloved brother has gone, these tumults can have no place forever. "There the wicked cease But I must not expatiate any farfrom troubling, and the weary are at ther on this.--And, need I my brerest!" There the Christian, trium-thren, make a particular "applicaphant from the swellings of Jordan, tion" of my subject? You have had and exulting abovethe fears of death,' your thoughts on my late learned as the oil of joy for mourning." There he sees him, in his love, controlling the most afflictive dispensation of his providence; and, by a contrivance of wisdom, causing it, as one of his instruments, to work out the preparation of the souls of the bereaved, to meet their departed friends; "who are not lost, but only gone before." |