THE REPROACH OF CHRIST.

In every age and place, the character of a true and lively Christian has been considered, by the unthinking part of the world, as reproachful. Of late years it has become the fashion to style him a Methodist who, conscious of his own sins and infirmities, seeks to wash himself clean in the blood of his Redeemer !-yet, if you ask these virulent opponents to Christianity the definition of the word, and in what the infamy of it consists, they are at a loss for an answer; but surely it would become these men, who gather knowledge, and eat the fruits thereof," not to take what is of the highest importance upon hearsay,but to search the book of life, and the writings of our earliest reformers; whence they might be convinced that the doctrines which they endeavour to stigmatize as a novelty, as a religious mania, and as a cause of schism, have been at all times consistent with the truth and the gospel. The inconsistency of these unbelievers is almost incomprehensible :-A man may be enthusiastic in the pursuit of letters, in the science of war, and in an appetite for carnal pleasures; yes, and shall receive praise for it; shall be held in estimation, and pointed at as a pattern and an example; but to feel an ardour for the will of God is madness! It is, forsooth, the height of ingratitude to neglect returning an obligation to a creature as frail as ourselves; but to slight and despise the mercy of Him who, in his infinite goodness, descended from the regions of bliss to take upon him our nature, and in that nature to endure the most painful privations and insults; and then, to crown his love, to suffer the agonizing torture on the cross, is at least venial, and often praiseworthy! The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib ;' but man contemns the mercies of his Redeemer, and spurns his love! Does he design his son for a profession, he is taught to be indefatigable in his exertions; and riches and honour are held up as his consequent reward;riches which the moth corrupts, and honour which is but for a moment, whilst his eternal interest, the interest of his immortal soul, is neglected and forgotten! Our Saviour has said, Blessed are ye when ye are reviled for my sake:' and happy are they who are permitted thus to confess their faith. In his own person he has shewn what we have to expect from the ingratitude, the blindness of this carnal world; and in his own glorious example has taught us to endure all things, of whatsoever kind, patiently and meckly, and to suffer for his sake. We acknowledge precarious tenure by which we hold this life, we drop a tear to the memory of those who fall around us; yet, are we the more alarmed for our own dangerous situation? We stand npon the edge of a precipice, over which the least false step precipitates us. Whither shall we, oppressed with a weight of sin

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too great for man to bear, fice for succour, but to our God, who, knowing that of ourselves we are unable to do any thing, has appointed his Son as a Sacrifice for our transgressions! Ö love unequalled! goodness unparalleled! so dear is our soul to its Creator, that be spared not his only Son, that we might be freed from the bondage and yoke of sin, and obtain eternal life! and when this earth shall pass away, and be dissolved, when the trump of the archangel shall sound, and the dead arise from their graves, putting off corruption to take upon them incorruption; when every one shall stand in the presence of him whom we have all too much neglected, and he shall say Come, my beloved, to the mansions prepared for you;' and to the sinners, I know ye not; then when every man's heart shall fail him through sin, how will they wish that they too had taken up the cross, and glory in the name of a

METHODIST !

THOUGHTS ON RELIGIOUS MELANCHOLY.

As the Opposers of Evangelical Truth are fond of ascribing numeroas Instances of Insanity to Religion, and tell us that Methodism has filled all the Mad-houses in England with Patients, the following Strictures on the Subject, though penned on a particular Occasion, in order to counteract a base and malicious Charge, may be generally useful, and are therefore inserted.

'As many persons talk of Religious Madness and Religious Melancholy who, am persuaded, know nothing of the matter, I think it my duty to make a few observations on the subject. I have known several patients who have appeared, some suddenly, and others gradually, to be seized with a species of religious hor ror, despairing of salvation, distrusting divine Providence, asserting that they had commitied sins which could never be forgiven, who had never previously appeared to be under religious impressions, nor attended the preaching of Methodists, &c. In these cases, friends have often interposed, procured visits to them by religious people, and perhaps have taken them to hear different ministers, whose mode of preaching was supposed to be well calculated to dispel gloomy apprehensions, and excite religious confidence. The use of these means has appeared, for a time, to answer the desired end; but speedy relapses into a fear of immediate judgments,' or 'of being reduced to beggary,' &c. have taken place; so that all hope of restoration to mental sanity has been cut off. In these cases, attempts at suicide have been resorted to by the unhappy sufferers; and, when not closely watched, they have succeeded in putting an end to their lives. Others, by proper care and medical treatment, have recovered;

and have been completely restored to their former soundness of mind, and to their station in society; and, what has been peculiarly remarkable in the cases of those who have recovered, is, they emerged precisely as they immerged: for, as before their seizure, they were, like too many in the world, quite unconcerned about religious matters, so, on their recovery, the enquiry after salvation, and the sense of their sinfulness, ceased with the removal of the hypochondriac affection, and they became precisely what they were before; so that the whole of their indisposition scemed to have been a perfect parenthesis in their lives, partaking of nothing that preceded,-of nothing that followed after.

This indisposition, because it assumes a religious aspect, has been injudiciously ascribed to Religion, with which it has no kind of affinity or concern, as the preceding and succeeding circumstances sufficiently evince; and I am persuaded, from my own experience in medical practice, that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, no religious impressions, no true or false views of any scriptural doctrine, have any thing to do in the business; and, that whatsoever is felt or expressed on this subject by these Hypochondriacs, should be considered merely as the symptoms by which this almost non-descript disorder may be ascertained, but no cause whatever of the complaint..

'I have only further to observe, that this disorder almost invariably exhibits the same symptoms; and these are fairly reducible to two points,-Despair of temporal support, or Despair of final salvation. I am sorry to find that, in many instances, this is treated as a spiritual disease, which may yield to consolatory exhortations drawn from the mercy of God, &c. But from the fullest means of information, through an extensive acquaintance with deranged persons, I can say (with the highest respect for the gospel of God, and all the consolation which may be le gitimately derived from it) that they are utterly inapplicable to such cases; and that the Medical Practitioner, and not the Divine, is the proper person to be consulted.

'I would earnestly advise religious people not to be too forward to take cases of this nature out of the hands of medical men. I have known several, more remarkable for their zeal than for their knowledge or discretion, who have incautiously asserted, that the disorder was wholly of a religious nature; and thus, its numerous fatal issues have been charged on Religion itself, caricatured for the purpose, under the names of Fanaticism, Enthusiasm, &c. I need not say that it is perfectly disingenucus, as well as grossly absurd, to attribute to the means of cure, whether judiciously or injudiciously applied, the disorder which existed previously to that application, and for the removal of which they were administered. AMICUS.

To the above judicious observations, may be added some further remarks on the same subject, by the Rev. Mr. Cecil, in his Mc

moirs of the late Rev. John Newton.-Having occasion to advert to the mental indisposition of Cowper, the poet, he states the following:

"The malady, which seemed to be subdued by the strong consolations of the gospel, was still latent; and only required some occasion of irritation to break out again, and overwhelm the patient. Any object of constant attention that shall occupy a mind previously disordered, whether fear, or love, or science, or religion, will not be so much the cause of the disease as the accidental occasion of exciting it. Cowper's Letters will shew how much his mind was occupied at one time with the truths of the Bible; and at another time by the fictions of Homer; but his melancholy, originally a constitutional disease,-a physical dis order, which, indeed, could be affected either by the Bible or Homer; but was utterly distinct in its nature from the mere matter of either. And here, I cannot but mark this necessary distinction; having been often witness to cases where religion has been assigned as the proper cause of insanity, when it has been only an accidental occasion in the case of one already affected.

"I have been an eye-witness of several instances of this kind of misrepresentation; but will detain the reader with mentioning only one. I was called to visit a woman whose mind was disordered; and, on my observing that it was a case which reqnired the assistance of a physician rather than that of a Clergyman, her husband replied, Sir, we sent to you, because it is a religious case; her mind has been injured by constantly reading the Bible.'-[ have known many instances, said I, of persons brought to their senses by reading the Bible; but, it is possible that too inten an application to that, as well as to any other subject, may have disordered your wife. There is every proof of it,' said he; and was proceeding to multiply his proofs, till his brother interrupted him by thus addressing me :-Sir, I have no longer patience to stand by and see you so imposed on. The truth of the matter is this: My brother has forsaken his wife, and been long connected with a loose woman. He had the best of wives in her, and one who was strongly attached to him: but she has seen his heart and property given to another, and, in her solitude and distress, went to the Bible, as the only consolation left her. Her health and spirits at last sunk under her troubles, and there she lies distracted, not from reading her Bible, but from the infidelity and cruelty of her husband.'

Does the reader wish to know what reply the husband made to this?-He made no reply at all, but left the room with confusion. of face!"

The opponents of Evangelical Religion will do well to remember, that the agonies of mind under which some persons have laboured, who were unjustly called Fanatically Insane or Melan

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choly Mad, were occasioned by their sense of moral turpitude, independently of any peculiar religious tenets newly embraced; and they should also recollect, that our public hospitals and nad-houses are filled with patients of every class and character, with but comparatively few individuals oppressed by hypochondriacal delusions.

A FRAGMENT OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

PAMPHILUS was born at Berytus about the year 294. Hav ing made some progress in literature in his native city, he went to Alexandria to complete his studies; from thence he removed to Cæsarea where he resided the greatest part of his life, which of consequence was the principal witness of his glorious career. He had not dwelt long at Cæsarea before his piety and Christian virtues shone so vigorously, as to load the church of that place to elect him as one of its Presbyters. Here it was that he formed that intimate friendship with Eusebius, the Ecclesiastical Historian, which ran parallel with life, and which caused them to concentrate their forces in opposing the blind superstition of Paganism, and in disseminating the knowledge of Christianity throughout the sphere of their exertion.

One interesting part of the character of Pamphilus undoubtedly consisted in his attachments to Biblical literature. Of this we have several valid testimonies; Pamphilus had,' says Jerome, such an affection for a divine (or ecclesiastical) library, that he wrote out with his own hand the greatest part of Origen's works, which are still in the library of Cæsarea; and besides, I have met, adds he, with twenty-five volumes of Origen's Commentaries upon the Prophets, in his own hand-writing, which I value, and keep as though I had the riches of Croesus.' The same writer quotes Eusebius, as saying That Pamphilus diligently read the works of the ancient authors, and continually meditated upon them."

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The Cæsarian Library, which Jerome takes notice of, was founded by Pamphilus himself. Isidore, of Seville, informs us that it contained no less than 30,000 volumes. By this information we are at once taught that Pamphilus must have possessed vast pecuniary resources, and an ambition to consecrate them entirely to the welfare of the disciples of the Redeemer; for we have full authority to affirm, That this collection of books was made merely for the use of the church; and to lend to those who were desirous of being instructed in the grand principles of Christianity. And this is, as Dr. A. Clark observes, the first notice we have of a circulating library being established.' Nor was the benevolent and philanthropic spirit of this eminent man

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