created being? To again borrow ideas (if not language) from our friend C-, how would that divine sentence, 'God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,' how would it lose its glory and sink into insignificance, were we to read it 'God so loved the world that he gave an angel for us!' But further still, our Almighty Creator could as easily create the brightest angel that glitters before his throne, as to create a beast of the field, or a fowl of the air. How, then, would it read, 'God so loved the world that he gave a fowl of heaven for our salvation"! Hoping that you will candidly examine all these things, I bid you farewell for the present.

Affectionately your friend,

M. S. CLAPP.

GOD IS OUR FATHER.

VICKSBURG, April 29, 1839.

GOD is our Father. By him were we created; "in him we live, and move, and have our being.` And what a Father! "The heavens declare his glory, and the firmament showeth forth his handy work." His works are truth, and his ways judgment. How great his signs, and how mighty his wonders! He liveth for ever and ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, whose wisdom infinite, eternal, unchangeable. His will is done in heaven: cherubim and seraphim pay allegiance to him. The secrets of wisdom belong to him. But, O how great his goodness!-Revealed wisdom he has bestowed as a rich boon to man. Yes, that which contains eternal life, joy unspeakable, and full of glory! Man, O man! praise, exalt, adore Him, the fountain of all excellence, the source from whence emanates every good, every perfect gift.

And is it so? Aye, even so, because God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son, by which we call him Abba, Father. Then, as our Father, we are to apply to him for what we want. Whither should children go, but to their father, for protection, help, and relief in every danger, difficulty, and distress? We must trust his power and wisdom and paternal goodness to provide for us, take care of us, and do for us that which is best; and what that is, he knows best. To be anxiously fearful what will become of us, and discontented and perplexed under the apprehension of future evils, whilst we are in the hands and under the care of our Father which is in heaven, is not to act like children. Earthly parents cannot avert from their children all the calamities they fear, because their wisdom and power are limited; but one all-wise and almighty Father in heaven can. They may possibly want love and tenderness; but our heavenly Father cannot. As children, we must quietly acquiesce in his disposal, and not expect to see into the wisdom of all his will. It would be indecent and undutiful in a child to dispute the authority, or question the wisdom, or neglect the orders of his parents every time he could not discern the reason and design thereof. Much more unreasonable and unbecoming is such a behaviour towards God, who giveth not account of any of his matters; whose judgments

are unsearchable, and whose ways are past finding out. Lastly, as children we must patiently submit to his discipline and correction. Earthly parents may sometimes punish their children through passion, or for their pleasure; but our heavenly Father always corrects for their profit, and only if need be, and never so much as their iniquities deserve. Under his fatherly rebukes, then, let us ever be humble and submissive. Such now is the true filial disposition. Such a temper and such a behaviour should we show towards God, if we would act in character as his children. C. D. HURLBUTT.

INCIDENTS ON A TOUR TO THE SOUTH.

NO. VII.

FROM Louisville, Kentucky, accompanied by brother Morton, we proceeded to Shelbyville, and in a few hours found ourselves comfortably lodged under the hospitable roof of our former kind host and brother Dr. Nuckols, and his amiable consort. The church in Shelbyville we found in good health and good order, and consequently it had grown much since our last visit to that place. The best index of good health, especially in young communities, is their steady growth. Unless by emigration a church diminish, which, in this migratory population is not a very uncommon event, it is a sure sign of ill health if she long remain stationary, and still more ominous if she grow less. While, indeed, we cannot regard a very florid growth, the effect of artificial stimulants, as healthy; any more than the dropsical and bloated fulness of an obese corpulency, the effect of diseased action; we must view a diminished person and a worn and shrivelled face in youth, or middle age, as an infallible index of bad health.

Our audience in Shelbyville was large and attentive, composed of a fair representation of the clergy and laity of all the sects in the place. We delivered three discourses, and hasted on to Frankfort, where we were, as formerly, cordially received by our friend and host Mr. Langston Bacon-as good a man, not to be a Christian, as we saw in our tour.

Our good and worthy brother Taffe, formerly our fellowtraveller on our northern tour, met us at Shelbyville and increased our joy. He and brother Gates, of Louisville, a brother highly esteemed by us for almost twenty years, accompanied us through the whole state to Maysville; and brother Brown, of Indiana, as far as Lexington. Brothers Gates, of Louisville, and Brown, of Indiana, accompanied us into the interior of the state; and at Frankfort we were met by brother Fall, the first Reformer in

Kentucky; by brother Chinn, of Lexington, and the amiable and indefatigable brother Fleming. These choice spirits, ardently devoted to the cause of primitive Christianity, greatly refreshed and comforted us with their company. We were very courteously received into the Presbyterian church in Frankfort, and attentively heard by a very large and intelligent congregation. Next morning, being the Lord's day, we were carried by brother Chinn in a private carriage to Lexington, a distance of 24 miles, in time to address a large audience in the city in the forenoon. We spoke again at 3 o'clock in the University Chapel to a very large concourse, and met with the brethren in Church street to break the loaf of blessing at night. We had a pleasant time. The Senior and the Junior brother Creath was there, as zealous and indefatigable as ever, and old Father Sims and Higbie, and many more too long to tell, with whom in days we took sweet counsel together. After visiting Versailles and Georgetown, and addressing the large communities assembled in those places, we again returned to Lexington, accompanied by our beloved brother and sister Burnet, to our kind and generous host and hostess, brother and sister Hall. I cannot mention the many brethren in those places, besides brethren Nuckols, Duval, and Bullock, whose dwellings were ours while we sojourned with them-whose presence and salutations in the Lord greatly animated our zeal and lightened the fatigues of our journey. The purest joys that earth affords are in the fellowship of kindred minds touched by the magnet of redeeming love, united to Christ and his cause by the bonds of an everlasting covenant, and made joint heirs of a glorious immortality. To see the faces of such persons shining with zeal and love, inspires one with fresh ardor and encourages to renewed energies and untiring perseverance in the work of the Lord. Many such faces, long known to us, we saw in every group and congregation throughout the state. May the Lord make them like the sun in the kingdom of our Father for ever and ever!

There had been for some time certain misunderstandings and alienations in the church in Lexington, arising, as such difficul. ties almost always arise in churches, out of errors in discipline. Intelligent and worthy brethren, either from a want of a deep and practical knowledge of human nature, or from some mistaken view of some question involving principles of church arrangements or administrations, will suffer themselves to be for the time being wholly absorbed in one idea, as if there were not two ideas in the Christian Institution. They will, then, in showing their zeal for the Lord, as one of the olden time, run too fast; and speak harsh things, and wound feelings, and alienate affections. Then the little speck upon the skin becomes a cancer-wart, or a

leprosy, or a symptom of some mortal malady; then his company and fellowship must be eschewed like an infected city. He has his friends: he tells his tale of woes, and they sympathize with him. They think he is more than half right in theory; and then he has been much injured in fact. Thus they who listen become infected with the same spirit, and enter into his antipathies and sympathies until they become homopathics, and until a neucleus of discord or a schism is formed; and then the tittle-tattle of that unruly evil thing, full of deadly poison, fans the spark into a flame, and the fire rages; and, alas! there are neither engines nor fire-men in the camp who can extinguish it until it bursts through the walls and the citizens are awakened. Then the fire-bells ring; and Oh, what a noise in the streets! What a rush to the theatre of conflagration! Behold how great a pile a single spark kindles! Yet there was a moment when a single tear would have extinguished the spark, and saved the building of God from any harm.-Well, the school of experience is a dear school; and those who cannot, or do not read their Bibles, will have to take in that academy a few unpleasant lessons.

Good and intelligent men, too, like brethren Poindexter, Chinn, &c. &c. will sometimes differ upon a question of expediency; and, like Paul and Barnabas, get into a passion about Silas or John Mark, and walk on different sides of the street. Still we rejoice to see that the fit is not perennial; but, like the same two mighty chiefs, they can, after a while, speak of one another and treat one another as liege subjects of the common King and Prince of the affections of all good men. We set on foot a remedial system, which we rejoice to hear has been thoroughly perfected by brother Johnson-and all things are now restoredand that there has since been a number of additions made to the church in Lexington, as there was to that in Shelbyville, on the Lord's day after our visit there.

Discipline is not universally nor practically understood by the brethren. Churches are not generally set in order according to the Apostless' teaching, and it is hard for them to preserve what they have not got. Evangelists are ten times more expert in making converts than in putting things in order. "Elders that rule well" are rarer commodities in this day than Doctors of Divinity. I can find a hundred men that can preach down every ism in Christendom but their own, for ten that can take care of a few sheep in the wilderness. Kings, indeed, and Prophets too, are, now-a-days, more easily met than shepherds. We want discipline; yes, brethren, we want discipline. The fierce democracy of the Baptist system, and the prouder aristocracy of Presbyterianism; and the still more supercilious despotism of high

school Episcopalianism, are neither singly nor collectively the eldership nor episcopacy of Christ's monarchy. A community where all are judges-where all are heads, is a monster; and that community where all are body and no head is also a monster. The settling of a question of discipline by the casting vote of sister Anne, baptized during the last moon, is making her Queen Anne of the church; and the settling of a question by a unanimity of voices puts into the power of Simon, not Simon Peter, who is a little self-willed, to be the Pope of the whole church. We neither plead for the unaniminity of the whole body, nor for a lean majority in cases of discipline; nor, indeed, for making the whole church a Court of Oyer and Terminer to decide such matters. But this is not the time nor place for an essay on church discipline. Of this yet more fully in another

corner.

After another address to an immense audience in the University Chapel on Thursday evening, through the liberality of E. Johnson, esq. mail contractor, we were sent forward to Paris, accompanied by bro. Hall, where we had a large audience in waiting; and were animated by the presence of brethren Raines and Irvine and other fellow-laborers in the kingdom of our Lord. We had seen the amiable and zealous brother Gano at Georgetown, and most of those who labor in the word and teaching; but so rapid was our march through the state, that we had but little time for conversation. After sojourning during the night with our amiable and faithful brother Williams, superadded to our company our old friend and host brother Briant, we posted on to May's Lick; and on arriving were immediately carried to the hospitable residence of our faithful and devoted brother Sandidge.

On Lord's day the large meeting-house owned in copartnary by the Baptists and the Disciples of Christ-(a bad arrangement!)-being that day in the occupancy of the Baptists, we were kindly permitted to occupy it on condition that we should not begin to speak for some two hours after the Baptist Minister ended: so that the sound and uncorrupt Baptists might have time to digest their two-weekly meal of orthodoxy, or escape the infected atmosphere of our breath without the danger of contami. nation. The gift of the house was like the surrender of a cityon condition that time be allowed for all the inhabitants who did not like the capitulation, to evacuate its walls! By this courtesy a large congregation was kept in waiting till between 2 and 3 o'clock, which, but for the condition, might have heard both discourses against that hour, and been on their way home.

We had the satisfaction of hearing the preacher, who, much to our edification, quoted several passages from a Bible we had never seen. One remarkable fact, to us entirely new, was a