remedy to propose for that religious despondency and hopelessness which mark the nervous man's experience. Let him strive FOR HIGH ATTAINMENTS IN PIETY. True, the obstructions in his path are many, and it will demand the most inflexible perseverance to overcome them. But they are not absolutely insurmountable. If his memory be treacherous, let him read oftener and with more earnestness, the word of God; that he may not be bewildered by human speculations. Keeping close to the Bible, where doctrines and precepts, threatenings and promises, terrors and consolations, are mingled in just proportion, his gloomy fancy will be less apt to look exclusively at the sterner features of the Divine character and revelation. If his attention cannot be long fixed upon any one thing, let him the oftener recur to religious subjects. If his judgment be liable to be warped by his complaints, let him ask wisdom of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. If he cannot, like his Master, occasionally spend whole nights in prayer, let him the more frequently visit the throne of grace. Indeed, it is by prayer mainly, that such a man is to make high attainments in piety. For here he takes hold of omnipotence and draws down a holy influence that is able to overcome all his difficulties. Even nervous disorders cannot withstand or counteract almighty grace. It is able to send a beam of heavenly hope into the most desponding bosom; to inspire with courage the most fearful heart, and the most timid soul with strong faith; to calm the wildest tumult of the bosom, and to stay the rising gusts of passion. Prayer, therefore, is the nervous man's grand refuge and hope. Although there are so many things in nervous complaints to re tard the Christian in his course, there are some circumstances that are peculiarly favourable to his growth in grace. The necessity he is under of relaxing from business, will afford him more leisure for cultivating his heart than many enjoy. And although most of that leisure must be spent by him in diverting employments, or innocent amusements, yet should he learn so to mingle religion with every pursuit, that it should be his constant companion. Another circumstance in his case that may be regarded as favourable, is the sense of weakness and dependence with which his situation inspires him. He sees that his existence depends upon a brittle thread; and therefore will he be led to feel deeply his need of an Almighty arm on which to lean, and of efficacious grace to prepare him for a better world. Again, his disorder is calculated to show him many proofs of the wickedness of his heart; and this is favourable to his exercise of penitence and humility. His peevishness, his irritability, his impatience and murmuring under the chastisements of Providence, serve most frequently to remind him that he has a heart of desperate wickedness within. Accordingly it is found, if we mistake not, that nervous people usually have a deep sense of their depravity; and if this sense does not humble them and make them penitent, it does not produce its legitimate effect. But the circumstance in their case most favourable to the cultivation of piety, is, that their disorder renders them almost incapable of enjoying worldly pleasures, and prostrates their too ambitious hopes and designs. It is not generally because nervous invalids love the world so well that they live in constant apprehension of death; but it is rather the dread of something after death. For the person who has had long experience in these complaints, anticipates little else but suffering while in the body, unless God please to subdue his disorder; and were his worldly enjoyments all that is to be taken into the account, scarcely "would he turn on his heel to save his life." Do you speak of the pleasures of eating and drinking? With him they have become sources of almost incessant suffering; and if he overstep the most rigid rules of temperance, in the gratification of any of the appetites and passions, a tremendous retribution awaits him. Do you talk to him of social enjoyments? Alas, they are neutralized by his despondency and jealousy. And as to ambitious projects for rising to eminence, in science or literature, in arts or arms, in divinity, law, or medicine, the really confirmed nervous invalid may as well dismiss them at once. For these distinctions are beyond his reach. In learning, how can he cope with men of vigorous health, who can spend their days and nights in study? With his fickleness, timidity, and despondency, how unfit to rule in the councils of the nation and direct the storm of state? With his irritability and proneness to err in judgment, how can he hope the medical profession will look up to him as an oracle; or that to him will be committed the care of the churches, and he be called to preside in council? The truth is, the nervous invalid has great reason to be thankful, if God gives him strength to labour in some subordinate capacity, where he may do a little good, and he is not reduced to a state of utter uselessness. He must not aim at the highest places of trust, or honor. For, in the first place, he cannot fairly attain them; and if he could in the second place, he cannot fill them with dignity and success. And ought not the nervous man to regard it as a great mercy, in a spiritual view, that he is thus physically prevented from the inordinate indulgence of his bodily appetites, and of an unhallowed ambition for distinction? For he is thus left comparatively free to devote himself to the service of God. Here he may aim at distinction ; for we believe if he is faithful, God will bestow it upon him. Notwithstanding the favourable circumstances, in his case, which we have mentioned, we still think, however, that scarcely any other description of men will find it so difficult to rise high on the scale of holiness. We do not expect that his religious experience will ever, in this world, be entirely divested of the peculiarities we have described. Timidity and despondency, and feeble hope will probably accompany him, so long as his disorder clings to him, however lofty his religious attainments. But we do believe, that if he make it the single, the constant, the persevering aim of his life, to grow in grace and in the knowledge of his Saviour, God will not leave him altogether destitute of hope and peace. We believe that the fire of holy love may be made to burn so brightly in his heart, that it will sometimes burst its way through all the clouds and darkness that surround him; carry him above even his maladies, and disclose to his hope a throne of glory awaiting him at God's right hand. Pursuing such a course, we believe that even the poor broken hearted nervous invalid may before he die, forget his bodily complaints, in rapturous anticipation of that building of God, that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, and that he, who through fear of death, has been all his life-time subject to bondage, may have put into his mouth, the triumphant song, O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God, who giveth me the victory through my Lord Jesus Christ. AN EDUCATED MINISTRY. The following reply to a common argument against an educated ministry, is at once so brief and so conclusive, that I wish to see it transferred to the Christian Spectator. It is from the Church Register, published at Philadelphia : "It is common for the contemners of learning, as a requisite for the ministry, to allege the case of the first chosen twelve. Were they not illiterate fishermen ? Why should not such men be constituted ministers now? Be it remembered, however, that they were not taken such, and constituted preachers of the gospel. They spent three years in the school of Him, who taught as never did man, before they were invested with their office. Add to this, that a large part of a theological education in our day, consists in learning languages, which they spake from childhood, and acquir ing some knowledge of customs, which they knew from daily observation. Deduct this from what the first preachers had to learn: estimate how much more rapidly they might have been expected to advance under their instructer, than can be done under any now enjoyed: and then let it be decided what education in our day is equal to theirs." SUGGESTED WHILE STANDING BY THE GRAVE OF A SCEPTICAL LADY, WHO DIED SUDDENLY AT THE AGE OF TWENTY. Hush'd are the fitful winds-the earth is sleeping, No sound along the deep-green valley steals- "Twould seem the final day of time had set, And all the star-crown'd sons of heav'n were met The universe of pale mortality Start from its marble pillow, and arise To bliss or wo unending, in the skies : But where is she, whom Grief, with noiseless tread Of pleasure's dance and melody's soft sound, I saw thee floating as on silken wing, Thro' many a wild and airy wandering, With sparkling eye, and cheek ne'er blanch'd with wo Swiftly it fled-another morn arose— (Alas the ways of God what mortal knows?) It was the morn that lit thee to the tomb, The morn that seal'd thy last-thy changeless doom! Thy winged spirit flew with lightning speed, O tell them-if thy spirit e'er can tell- THEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS. WESLEY AND TOPLADY. These remarks may be illustrated by a few extracts from the writings of Toplady, and from Southey's life of Wesley. Toplady's writings are distinguised for strength, originality, perspicuity, and eloquence; but leaning strongly to Antinomianism, he was of course at odds with Wesley, who toiled at the other extreme -as will appear from the following extract from the "Caveat against unsound doctrines." "My sheep hear my voice, and I know In this enlightened and charitable age, when Christians of various denominations are approximating to a common centre, and combining their exertions to promote the common welfare of Christ's kingdom, it may seem unwise to recal, even to the memory, the controversial spirit of other years. In general that spirit is characterized by a bitterness and sarcasm, and cruelty, which may well excite astonishment and grief. But it is profitable them, and they follow me: and I give to compare the present spirit of controversy with the past, for by the comparison, we learn how much more Christians of the present day have entered into the benevolence of the gospel. It is important also to know the errors which set in array such angry disputants, and to reflect upon the consequences of insisting more on certain tenets, than on the practice of the moral duties which the gospel enjoins. unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of my hand." "True," said an Arminian schismatic, grown grey in the service of error, and who still goes up, and down sowing his tares, and seeking whom he may devour, and compassing sea and land to make proselytes,-"True, Christ's sheep cannot be plucked forcibly out of his hand by others: but they themfall into hell, and be eternally lost." selves may slip through his hands, and so They may slip may they? as if the Mediator in preserving his people, held only a parcel of eels by the tail. Is not this a shameless way of slipping through a plain text of scripture? But I would ask the slippery sophister, how we are to understand that part of the last cited passage which expressly declares concerning Christ's people, that they shall never perish? Since perish they necessarily must, and certainly would, if eventually separated from Christ, whether they were to be plucked out of his hands, or whether they were only to slip through them. I conclude then that the promise made to the saints that they shall never perish secures them equally against the possibility of being either wrested from Christ's hand, or of their own falling from it: since could one or the other be the case, perish they must and Christ's promise would fall to the ground." Toplady's Works, Vol. III. p. 52. Lond. "Aliquis in omnibus, nullis in singulis. Mr. Wesley by a very singular mixture of Manichaeism, Pelagianism, Popery, Socinianism, Ranterism, and Atheism, has I believe now got to his ultimatum. Probably he would go still farther if he could. But I really think he has no farther to go.-Happy settlement, after forty years infinity of shiftings, and flittings hither and thither! Thus weather-cocks, which for a while, Happy for the world that at the present day divines termed Christian have learned to wield the weapons of controversy in a more gentlemanly manner. Rude attacks upon personal character have little to do with the investigation and settlement of disputable points, either in Theology, or morals. But we must give Wesley also in turn a hearing. If the following be a true portrait of Antinomianism in his time (and Southey declares it to be,-Life of Wesley, vol. II. p. 144,) we should be not only inclined to excuse him for betraying a little controversial warmth, but would also, in behalf of the Christian world, give him our warmest thanks for achieving a reformation. His opponents boasted of being "perfect in Christ not in themselves." The following colloquy, held between Wesley, and one of the Perfectionists, will develope the moral tendency of the perfection. Wesley. "Do you believe that you have nothing to do with the law of God?" Antinomian. I have not. I am not under the law, I live by faith. Wes. "Have you, as living by faith a right to every thing in the world?" Antinom. I have. All is mine, since Christ is mine. Wes. "May you then take any thing you will, any where? suppose out of a shop without the consent or knowledge of the owner?" Antinom. I may if I want it; for it is mine; only I will not give offence. Wes. "Have you a right to all the women in the world?" Antinom. Yes, if they consent. Wes. "And is not |