Dr. Hart, Williamsburg. S. C. From teachers and children of the Pitts

2.00

1 00

2.00

IV. MISSIONARY FUND.

Initiatory Subscriptions to constitute the following Societies Auxiliary.

Mount Holly, N. J., Baptist S. s.

Blountsville, Tenn., S. S.

Flemingsburg, Ky., S. S.

Donations.

Philadelphia Monthly Concert of Prayer for December, 1829, of which 81 30 is from Female S. S. of First Presb. Church,

From the children of a Sunday-school

in Philadelphia, Received from Female S. S. Association of First Presb. Ch. Philadelphia, From Philadelphia Western Monthly Concert of Prayer, December, 1829, Hartford Co. (Conn.) S. S. U., first quarter's payment for the support of a S. S. Missionary in the Valley of the Mississippi, per N. Smith Jr. Treasurer,

Joseph C. Hornblower,

John Taylor,

Jesse Baldwin,

William Tuttle,

Henry Holden,
Peter Jacobus,
C. J. Graham,

Isaac Nichols,
A lady,

Luther Goble,

Philadelphia Monthly Concert of Prayer for January, of which 87 1-2 cents are from Fem. S. S. First Presb. Ch.

10 30

*

By Rev. J. E. Welch.
By Rev. S. Graham.
By Mr. Richard Hooker.

For the American Sunday-School Magazine.

"On Sabbath last I visited a school of two hundred children. It was the half yearly day for distributing reward books. The children were drawn up in a triple semicircle, in the centre of which I stood. Each successful candidate successively stepped forward and received from my hand a Young Cottager,' and from my lips a short exhortation and blessing. Not an eye was dry, and my own with difficulty allowed me to go through the simple and interesting ceremony. One girl, who was two years since converted by God's blessing on the tract, as she approached me, was so affected, that she dropped on her knees and burst into tears."-Scene in Scotland from Rev. Legh Richmond's Memoirs.

The trivial incident of every day occurrence, above narrated, has about it a touching pathos and a depth of feeling of very singular and extraordinary interest. Is it at all like any interview of which we have ever read between a writer of entertaining fiction, and an excited admirer of his amusing pages? Does the homage of this child bear the slightest resemblance to the enthusiastic admiration of a young scholar, upon forming a personal acquaintance with an illustrious professor of the sciences? Is there VOL. VII.-9

not a depth and sincerity of emotion attendant on this interview, strangely disproportioned, in the opinion of an unconcerned observer, to its apparent importance? What could have been its secret, but very powerful cause?

The first impulse, in the mind of a witness of such a scene, would most probably be to subdue the slightly sympathetic emotion, which the sight of tears never fails to awaken; and with this effort, the entire impression of the interview, would be very likely to fade forever away. But suppose it should not suppose the exceeding simplicity and truth of the emotion, betrayed by this young person, should have riveted the attention of a reflecting and inquisitive mind, and that he should have felt strongly impelled to account for the depth of feeling which he had seen exhibited, what would have been the current of his thoughts?

"That girl certainly seemed overpowered with an intensity of feeling, which greatly astonished me. Was it the mere trickery of a public exhibition, got up to surprise and excite the spectators? Or was her's a heart of more than ordinary sensibility, that a pageant which left others unmoved, should have had such power to excite her? It is impossible for me to doubt that there were moved within her some of the deepest and most unaffected sympathies of the heart. 1 must

believe that her emotion was too strong for artifice, and too sincere to have sprung from any false, or artificial excitement.

Perhaps she has been taught from earliest childhood, to look up to this travelling stranger with extravagant veneration, or recent measures have been employed to work upon her fervid imagination, and to persuade her that he is the greatest of men. But no; I am told that she has known nothing of him until lately, and that all she now knows is, simply, that he is the author of a little story book, of less than an hundred pages, over which she has been seen to shed an abundance of tears.

What strange fascination can lie concealed between the covers of this little tract? I will read it attentively and try to solve this extraordinary mystery. A touching little narrative is this truly: but nothing in it of love and romance; nothing of hairbreadth escapes, or persecuted innocence; nothing of cruel guardians, blighted affections, or broken hearts; nothing whatsoever exciting to the fancy of a moon-sick girl. It contains a very simple relation of the sickness and death of a truly religious and sensible child, who appears, for one so young, to have been a very strange, but happy enthusiast. And to my mind, it is absolutely amazing how a lively and gay young creature could ever have found it in her heart to read such a story; and still more inexplicable, how that story should have opened the well-springs of some of the deepest and strongest feelings in the human heart; and establish a sympathy between this girl, and a strange and rather elderly gentleman, as deep and passionate, as between a father and a lost but repentant daughter.'

Under the excitement of this perplexing inquiry, it occurred to me that there might be involved in the case something of that secret of religious feeling, which I have often had occasion to observe amongst pious people, and I resolved therefore to speak to my uncle on the subject. He is a great admirer of Mr. Richmond, said I, and perhaps, he can explain the case to my satisfaction.

When I had unfolded my inquiries, and expressed the extreme perplexity

in which the matter appeared to me involved, my uncle smiled, and simply remarked, that he hoped I should soon be able to fathom the mystery; for said he "new sympathies are inseparable from a new heart." I know not fully yet what he meant, but from the following explanation which he gave of the strong feeling manifested by the young lady on being presented to the Rev. Mr. Richmond, I see the matter partially explained.

With regard to her feelings towards my reverend friend, said he, they are her's in common with thousands in our own land, and in almost all other parts of the world, who look up to him with the pure and thrilling emotions of admiration and love, as their SPIRITUAL FATHER. Would to God we had ideas and feelings in common on this subject, and that you could understand my meaning, when I say, that the dear girl whose evident emotions you find it so difficult to comprehend, consisidered the author of the little tract you have read, as having been the appointed instrument of conveying the true elements of a holy and happy immortal life to her soul, by a spiritual new birth; as truly as she owes, under God, her natural life to her earthly parents. And our moral nature, obedient to a strong, grateful impulse, and perhaps also, to an undefinable affection suited to this spiritual relation, knows no purer or stronger earthly tic, than the love which binds a new heart, to the pious individual, if known, to whose instrumentality, the first and deepest religious impressions are to be attributed. Can you not conceive, then, that the young person whose case arrested your attention, was swayed by genuine, and very intense emotion, when she beheld, for the first time, that honoured being, to whom, more than to any other person on earth, she felt the gratitude and devoted attachment due from a child to its spiritual father? One whom she recognized, as the honoured instrument of that new birth, whose holy instincts, exalted privileges, and sublime joys, were and are inexpressibly more dear and precious to her, than the life or inheritance, which she has received from her earthly parents?

And, as to the absorbing interest

and passsionate feeling with which she studied the little tract, of the mystery of whose magical influence you have told me, and which I have myself many times witnessed, to me it is a very explicable and delightful thing;. and I will not despair of making it partially intelligible even to your mind; to all whose faculties, however, it will never appear in the light of absolute certainty, and with all the simplicity of second nature, until God shall endue you with the new sympathies of a new heart. You understand, I very well know, the peculiar satisfaction which the mind feels in reading the details of its own hidden operations, in the profound and eloquent disquisitions of such men as Kames and Brown. Grant that, obedient to certain known, because divinely revealed, laws, the hearts of all real Christians are subject to the same deep and powerful exercises, you can understand, in part, why the detail of these exercises, will interest truly pious readers. You

also understand why those who are influenced by the strong impulse of a leading passion are profoundly interested, each with the work best suited to his taste; and particularly why the passion emphatically denominated LOVE lends a charm to books, and derives a thrilling and intense excitement from their perusal; while their pages appear, to all but the young and the excitable, inexpressibly vapid and dull.

Just

suppose it true, that inward religious devotion to God, and holy love for the Saviour, by spiritual regeneration, become the absorbing master-passions of the soul, more deep, more thrilling, more eager, than all natural passions in their strongest combination, and in their highest excitement; will not that result be realized, which, in the case of a particular young person, first arrested your attention? Under such a supposition, should you not expect to see her read the Bible, where all the workings and symptoms, indeed where all the objects and sources of this master-passion are to be found, with unutterable devotion and delight? Should you not expect her, also, to find food and cordials-precious recollections and sympathiesstirring appeals, and thrilling allusions, in the recital of the experience of

other hearts, under the sway of the great principle which by the grace of God has taken entire possession of her own heart? Need I give to a mind habituated to yield to evidence, and to pursue inquiries upon strictly inductive principles, any stronger fact, than the one which you have yourself witnessed, that this is the great secret of all real heart-felt piety:-that a NEW HEART is the seat of the strong sympathies, whose outward manifestation has perplexed you; and that it must be as much impossible for a person, without the implanting of this NEW HEART within him from above, to comprehend its various workings, or to partake of its holy and delightful sympathies and joys, as for a child to comprehend the workings of the passions of men-as for a mathematician to understand the thrilling emotions of a poet-or for a superannuated miser, to enter into the breathless delight of the gay, unreflecting, and extravagant devourer of novels." But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him! neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

1 Cor. ii. 14.

us. In the mean time, we cannot forbear the exession of our surprise, that one who seems to understand so well the power and nature of Inbred Sin, should so often have lost sight of its existence and character, in many of her works for children. "The Infant's Progress,” was written in 1814. It has been published many times, and the prices have been various, but we scarcely ever meet with a child, or young person, who has read it. It is now adopted by our Society, as a permanent catalogue-book, and may be had at twenty-seven and thirty-two cents, with the usual discounts. We do hope it will become at once a constituent part of every Sunday. school and family library in the country, where it is not already found. In very many instances we have had the opportunity to recommend it to individuals, children and adults, and from almost every one of them, we have afterwards heard that it was read with interest and delight.

You do not yet know, what it is that has separated you from your God: nor do you fully understand what it was that induced the Lord our Redeemer to descend from heaven for the purpose of assuming our nature, and dying upon the cross. You have, perhaps, never yet been informed, that the sin of man's heart is very great, very prevalent, and very hateful; and that, except it be overcome, it will subject him to everlasting perdition.

Many long sermons have been preached, and many learned volumes have been written, in order both to describe the nature of this sin, and to guard us against its influence: but little children cannot understand these grave and elaborate discourses. I have therefore written for your instruction on this subject, a story about some little children, who, like yourselves, were born in a state of sin. And in this story I have personified the sin of our nature, and introduced it as the constant companion of these children.

The relation is given under the form of a Dream, the various incidents of which are so contrived, as to show how incessantly sin assaults even those who are truly devoted to God, and what unhappiness it causes them from the beginning to the end of their days.

Through the whole of this dream, the present life is compared to a Pilgrimage, which signifies a journey undertaken for some pious purpose. And in every part of it especial care has been taken, distinctly to mark the strait and only way to the Kingdom of Heaven, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ, who himself hath said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. no man cometh unto the Father but by

me.

Now as nuts and almonds are hidden under rough shells, and as honey is concealed in the bells and cups of .flowers, so there is a hidden meaning in every part of my allegory, which I hope you will be enabled to draw forth for your profit. In the mean time, my dear children, I pray God to seal instruction upon your hearts, and fill you with that heavenly wisdom, whose price is far above rubies. p. vi.