PEACE IN BELIEVING: A MEMOIR OF ISABELLA CAMPBELL, OF ROSNEATH, DUMBARTONSHIRE, SCOTLAND. WITH A PRELIMINARY ESSAY, BY AN AMERICAN CLERGYMAN. by Robert Gory "No nourishment is here for worldly minds; From the last English Edition. New-York: JONATHAN LEAVITT, 182 BROADWAY. Boston: CROCKER & BREWSTER, MDCCCXXX. Southern District of New-York, ss. BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the tenth day of September, A. D. 1830, in the 55th year of the Independence of the United States of America, JONAthan Leavitt, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit: "Peace in Believing: a Memoir of Isabella Campbell, of Rosneath, Dumbartonshire, Scotland. With a Preliminary Essay, by an American Clergyman. "No nourishment is here for worldly minds; But for theirs who of the world are weary." In conformity to the act of Congress of the United States, entitled "an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the time therein mentioned," and also to an act, entitled “An act, supplementary to an act, entitled an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints." FRED. J. BETTS, Clerk of the Southern District of New-York. PRELIMINARY ESSAY. In the class of modern religious biographies, this work is peculiar peculiar from its destitution of all interest, except that founded in religion. There were no incidents, in the life of Isabella Campbell to excite interest, and though she lived in the midst of natural scenery, both wild and beautiful, there is no attraction given to the Memoir from that, or indeed any other incidental circumstance. The value of the biography consists in the peculiarity of the religious character displayed; and on this account it is worthy of the most attentive and studious perusal. I am of opinion, that the nature of personal religion has not been sufficiently studied among us; and while the press has been teeming with religious controversy, with biblical criticism, with missionary intelligence, and with plans and persuasives pertaining to benevolent enterprise, comparatively little has been written upon religion, as a mode of life, as a course of action, as the perfection of spiritual existence. And because it has not been thus studied, the church in our land, is very deficient in eminent examples of living piety;-examples that throw a holy radiance about them, which warm and animate all within the sphere of their influence. It bodes ill, that we have so many, in the high places of our Zion, who rather give us the light of a wintry sun, than those golden rays, which give perfection and maturity to our fruits. Religion has too long been studied, as a system to be explained and conformed to reigning opinions on intellec tual philosophy, rather than something to be believed; to be believed, not as a chain of arguments, of which, about as much may be said on the one side as the other, but believed as in itself furnishing the sustenance of the soul-that from which its daily life comes, and in which it consists. Many a weary battle has been fought with Motives, and Volitions, and Tastes, and Moral Power, and Moral Tendency, and no very perceptible advantage gained, because the parties had forgotten that the victory that overcometh the world is our FAITH. Religion is a system of truths to be believed. And if BELIEF does not express enough to thoughtless minds, then, I say religion is a system of TRUTHS, in which our moral life is to have its being. Here is the sustenance, the peace, the purity, the happiness, of the soul. Life and immortality are here; joy and bliss are here. By argu. ments, a variety of things may be made known; but not life and joy; these must be felt to be known. Many, many things may be said of the why and the wherefore in reli. gion, the cause and the reason abundantly stated, without the least advance in the knowledge of religion as a life. And yet it is only as a life, that God has condescended to speak of it to us; and he that would be godlike must contemplate it, and speak of it; nay, and should teach it only as a life. O! how full of folly are those, who are wasting their time, and their temper, and their energy in pulling down and building up the ungainly scaffolding of the Christian temple, which men as full of folly as themselves, have heretofore erected to the marring of its beauty, and the utter destruction of its imposing grandeur. Isabella Campbell treated religion as a life. She lived in it. It was the life of her life. And she received it not from the arguments of man, nor from the opinions of man, nor from any source in man, but from God. But she had not seen God, and as the only possible way, she received it by Faith, adopting it, as she received it, to her necessities; |