The American Presbyterian AND GENESEE EVANGELIST. RELIGIOUS AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER, I 1 Ti' INURRST OF TM Constitutional Presbyterian Church, PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY, AT THE PRESBYTERIAN HOUSE, 1834 Chestnut Street, (2d Story,) Philadelphia. Rev. JOHN W. NEARS, Editor and Publisher.. CONTENTS OF INSIDE PAGES. SEM PAGE—FAMILY: Christ and the Little Ones—The Soft Summer Shower —Building Castles in.the Air—A. Lie of Honor—An Economical Pump—Profanity a Sign of Ignorance— The Last Hours of Prince Albert--The pabbath a Boon—ln Season—Daniel Webster—Moral Courage. TRIED PAGE—EDITOR'S TABLE; D'A übigne's History—Warner's Hard Maple . and Sybil and Chrysaa—Sohneck's Burning of Chambers burg—Fanny Fern's New Story Book. The Bdugea tionnl Literatureof America—U. S.-Christian Comm'n. SIXIII P<OL—CORRESPONDENOE: Open Air Meetings, No. I—The Oil Regions of Penn sylvania—lV hat Must the God of the Heavens Be ? Religious Intelligence. SIMINTR PAGE—MISCELLINEOI:IB: The Painter and the Monk—Scenes and Ineidints 0 the Time of Calvin—None Other Name. OUR NEW TERMS In our issue of three weeks ago, we stated the necessity we• were under of advancing the price of the paper to. $3 per annum in advance. This step we declared would be necessary, provided paper did not mean while fall to less than 20 cents a pound and other things in proportion. Up to this date, October 3d, neither paper nor other articles of newspaper use have declined in price, and we are compelled to put our charge at the figures named. Our scale of prices, therefore, until further notice, will be By mail, $3 00 in advance. 4. 3 50 after three months. By carriers, 3 50 in advance. 4 00 after three months CLUES OF TEN OR MORE, INVARIABLY IN ADVANCE By mail, $2 50 per annum. By carriers, 3 00 cc MINISTERS AND THEIR WIDOWS, IN ADVANCE. By mail, $2 00 per annum. By carriers, 2 50 HOME MISSIONARIES, IN ADVANCE. By mail, $1 50 per annum. By carriers, 2 00 Ci ADVERTISING- RATES. [Nonpareil, solid measure, nine words to a line, 1234 lines to the inch, ten lines to a square.] First insertion,l234 cents a line, Second One square, one month.., two months.. three " six " one year. MORE DOOTRINES FOR THE TIMES. Said Dr. Robert Breckenridge, in a speech made in Kentucky a few days ago: "This thing of revolt, secession, or rebellion, whatever - it may be, must be exterminated root and branch. It is not necessary that every man should be killed, but the rebellious spirit must be crushed out and removed. In this ;lies the only safety of the country." This is the true doctrine. Rebellion is a capital crime against society, and must be dealt with in the most vigorous and uncompromising manner. Its wick edness and its noxiousness must be boldly exposed by the religious teachers of the community- Now is the time ; perhaps, of all others in the world's history, to inculcate the truth, to inform and imbue the public conscience with just and wholesome sentiment, and to kindle the soul to a righteous indignation against this monstrous wrong. Already the popular mind, to a great degree,bas settled upon this correct view •of the case. A leading instinct of the Anglo-Saxon character is for social order, and a murderous assault against that order must inevitably stir up the keenest indignation of a people so large ly Anglo-Saxon as ours. We firmly be lieve that all the efforts now making by base men—well organized and vigor ous as they are—to abate that indigna tion and lower the moral tone of the people, will be found unavailing. In spite of appeals to the lowest, meanest principles of our nature—to a covetous which might be expected to shrink from taxation; to cowardice which might be expected to shrink from military ser vice; to false and licentious notions of liberty which might be expected to rebel against the unavoidable strictness and severity of government measures in a time of civil strife, the people will main tain their uncompromising attitude to wards rebels in arms against a good government like our own. They will still consent to pay the necessary taxes; they will still freely give their sons, themselves, for the defence of the na tional life; they will still peaceably sub mit to drafts, to the suspension of habeas corpus, to restrictions on trade, to high prices of living; nay, they will demand, through their representatives and exec utive officers, every energetic, prompt, decisive measure, at whatever cost, to crush so foul a crime as rebellion, and punish adequately so malignant a class of offenders as the traitors and pirates of the South. Rebellion must be crush ed, and its causes extirpated; this is the simple common sense demand of every thinking, unprejudiced mind in the community. Here is a sentiment which must go far to prepare the mind for the reception of some of the cardinal principles of 71 1) i irtV irtrl -) c; Li t 1111 New Series,' 'Vol. I, No. 40. evangelical teaching. It is a strong, positive, sweeping sentiment against rebellion. It is one ready for the sever est retributive measures. It is deeply concerned for the maintenance of Law and Government. It opens springs of the most ardent sympathy for assailed and jeopardized authority. Precisely such is the authority of God in this world. Though supreme, though infin itely just and beneficent, though 'the source and fountain of all other legiti mate authority in the world and the security for all the order, peace and happiness of the whole moral creation, it is assailed by causeless, wicked and wide-spread rebellion. God's command ments are broken, his name is taken in vain, his Sabbaths are profaned, • his word is disbelieved, his Holy Spirit is grieved, his Son is rejected, his grace is derided. The heathen rage, the people imagine a vain thing; the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord .and against his anointed, saying : Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us i Unjustifia ble rebellion against a human govern ment is but one of the forms of rebellion against God who ordained human gov ernment. We cannot regard the one offence as dangerous and malignant be yond description, and not be easily led to look upon the other in the same light. We cannot demand for a human govern ment what we would not ask for the divine government. If one is sacred, much more is the other from which it springs. If one should be sustained with all the power and resources which can be commanded, much more the other. If one has a right to our ardent sympathies ; if it is infamous for us to waver and shuffle in our attitude to wards the one; if property, friends and life itself should be sacrificed in promot ing the one, much more are these things tru3 of the other. And if it is right for us to urge the condign punishment of incorrigible rebels against a human gov ernment, and to be indignant at undue leniency on the part of those in. authori ty, towards such offenders, much more should we expect from the all-seeing, the infinitely just and Almighty Ruler, the'exercise of like severity towards of fenders against his holy, perfect and universal government. If we demand that rebellion against an earthly au thority be utterly crushed, much more chould we look to the Deity for the utter suppression of rebellion against himself. It should not startle us to know that he has determined to break the rebellious with a rod of iron, and to dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Such a purpose on the part of an assail ed human government,givesus deep sat isfaction and a sense of security; ought we to feel differently when it is avowed by the Supreme and Universal Ruler ? Of what avail, indeed, were our puny efforts to stay the tide of anarchy and maintain civil order, if He in whom 'rest all Law and Order and Authority, even slightly wavered in his purpose to main tain them ? The very sternness of his purpose severely to punish rebellion must bring peace to every well regulat ed mind. .$3 00 . 5 50 . 7 60 .12 00 1$ 00 Yes !...lEfe does and will visit incorrigi ble rebellion with the severest of all his judgments. He will banish the offen ders from his holy and blessed presence forever. He will shut them up in an abode of indescribable darkness and horror " and thrice three-fold the gates of brass and adamant and iron." They shall be abandoned to the gnaviings of their own guilty consciences, and to the society of those equally wretched, lost and wicked with themselves. God will Crush rebellion against his govern ment. He will vindicate the majesty of assailed law. He will make plain to the Universe his unalterable, eternal pur pose to sustain the grandeur and perma nence of his moral government, if it re quires a place of unending torment for the finally impenitent, and the sacrifice of his own co-equal Son, in the flesh, for the salvation of those that repent and receive the terms of pardon. Now is the time to preach these doc trines. Now is the time to draw off the public mind from merely sentimental views of religion, and from contemplat ing God simply and weakly as an indul gent Father. Now is the time to ex plode forever such sickly views of the divine .character and government as woald excite pity or contempt in the PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1864. humblest human official. Now is the time to draw, with bold hand and in strong colors, the great features of the divine sovereignty and justice; now you may tear away, like cobwebs, the flimsy sophistries under which men seek to bury the doctrine of Eternal Punish ishment. Now, more forcibly than ever, you may insist on Obedience; you may proclaim man's responsibility to the Law; you may bring home to him the hopelessness of his condition as a sinner and may shut him up to Christ. It is hardly to be expected that the covert infidelity of this country will fail to avail itself of the heresy on the sub ject of inspiration, which has proved itself so unmanageable an element in the English establishment. For this reason the strifes of that church against it are a subject of importance tows on this side of the Atlantic. The doctrines of Bishop Colenso and of the "Essays and Reviews" are no radical improvement upon the semi-infi delity of the continent. They are at best but a re-bash—an Anglicised Ger man rationalism, with just enough of modification to avail themselves of the charm of novelty in their strife for pop ularity; but in their substantials, the same stripe of skepticism which,through the whole period of the revival of learn ing, the church has often met, foiled, lived through, and lived down. Not withstanding the alarming progress they have recently been making in the English church, there is unquestionably a sufficient amount of vital faith in the establishment to cast off their propaga tors, and throw them where any decent amount of honor would long since have led themto go voluntarily—to the outside —were it not, for one thing. That thing is, it is an establishment, and as such, is impotent of power for spiritual jurisdiction in the last resort. It is a church in bondage to the throne; one from whose most solemn judgment of doctrine or discipline of men, an appeal. may be taken to the civil tribunal for review and final sentence. This, as we understand the case, is just the dead wall against which that chuarch has come in its effort to purge itself from complicity in the recent attacks upon divine inspiration. And so the authors of those attacks, in their labors against the faith, continue to command the influence of their eccle siastical standing—for example, Colen so, living in England and writing against the Bible, yet holding on to the revenues of his bishopric in South Afri ca, and wearing the mitre of a Bishop in the English church. We see for the many good prelates and clergy of that church no remedy for this deplorable, not to say disgrace ful state of things, short of that offered in the example of the noble and holy exodus of the Free Church in Scotland. It is now not far from a quarter of a century since the question between the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland, and their Lord Christ, came squarely up, They stood up be fore it with unblenching front, and accepted the issue with a martyr spirit. We fear that we cannot yet expect the orthodox element in the English church to come up to this mark of moral intre pidity. Perhaps indeed a right and true policy would dictate a campaign, of effort, in their present connection, to disenthral their church as a whole from this enslavement to the civil courts. But without one or the other of these reforms, we expect to see them as help less of power in their strife against the present corruption, as they were when attacked by another deadly error—Pa seyism. In their present political relations, the vaunted idea of a full manned Episcopacy as a defence against heresy and a "pillar and ground of the faith," is fast running to a mortifying conclusion. But what of the Episcopal church in this country ? In a recent , number of this paper it was stated,on the authority of -the Episcopal Recorder, ,that the at tempt to get up from the bishops and clergy of that church, a great Ameri can declaration against the odious sen timents of the " Essays and Reviews," was likely to prove a signal failure. We read, however, with pleasure that, in the view of the Recokder, this failure was not attributable to any extensive COLENSOISM. Genesee Evangelist, No. 959. .unsoundness of the church on the points tin question, but to other causes which were. specified. We presume this ex planation is correct. Our confidence in that paper would lead us to accept it, and it corresponds with all the little perional knowledge we have on the sub ject. We believe that Colensoism has thus far made no very alarming pro gress in the Episcopal church in this country, and that aside from the danger which grows out of its natural sympa thies with the English church, it is in no peculiar peril from this heresy—none but what is common to us all. Yet we would have rejoiced, could the Recorder have given us a still lower estimate of its probable minimum of ad vance. We confess to a slight nervous ness, as we read, "Among our clergy there are not probably twenty who do not repudiate the Essays and Reviews." We would have rejoiced could this ex ception have been reduced to naught, or, if -it must remain, to have been assured that it did not include a single prelate. We allude to this matter chiefly for the purpose of saying that, in this country, there is no impediment in the way of the Episcopal church making for itself'a clean record in the matter. We say this in honest congratulation. It has a free track; and a wholesome dis cipline, especially if administered on the obsta, proicipis principle, would do the wade work of the Declaration, and do. it Without any " gratuitous interraed dam with a sister church." If a Penn syh'-ania Bishop finds one of his clergy writing or preaching that the Bible is full of gross chronological and historical errors, inspired only in certain portions and:'a limited sense, and commanding our faith only to a certain extent, he can degrade him from the ministry, and there is no crown thancellor to re-in state him in the / teeth of the spiritual judgment. So also if the House of Bishops find the same derilection in one of their own number, they can pass a judgment over which no earthly court can have control. The ,Episcopal church bas a sound creed upon the subject of inspiration and a compact judicial system for the protection of that creed. In this newest phase of apostacy we had feared more for the soundness of denominations which have no ecclesiastical remedy for open contempt of their traditional faith. We had expected and still expect the most trouble from men whose amenabil ity is to the loosest system of church government—men who, like George Beecher—can snap their fingers at the most solemn resolves of a council, and fling defiance at all spiritual authority, and do it all without any disturbance to their ecclesiastical relations. The Ameri can Episcopal church, it is true, has no power to stop a heretic's mouth : no church should have that. But she has power to disabuse herself of all suspicion of complicity in the case—power to wash her own hands of both the heresy and the heretic. Twenty anti-inspira tion clergy in her bosom are enough for scandal and enough for mischief. If the twenty, or if one of them be there, and show incorrigibility of temper, let her make prompt application of this power, and, as we have said, she will thus put forth the most influential Declaration against the infidel tenden cies which are now periling the life of her trans-atlantic sister. THE CONSTANTINOPLE PERSECU TION. We believe the facts respecting the late violent proceedings at Constantinople against Mahomedan converts to Christianity and the Protestant missions, in violation of treaty stipulations, are now pretty well established. The American Board at Boston has, with great labor, gathered from various sources, a full amount of information on the subject, which it has condensed into a luminous state ment occupying over six pages of the Octo ber number of the Missionary Herald. For the use of those of our readers who do not see the Herald, we shall compress into the present article, the main points of the state ment. The facts of the sudden and unexpected arrest and imprisonment of seven or eight liabornedan converts, the closing of the establishment occupied in common by the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Amer ican Bible Society, and the American Board of-Missions, turn out to be just as they were stated in the first reports of the outrage, as published by us at the time. What was then given as a supposed fact,. also proves true— that this was done under the immediate or der of the Sultan. It also appears that the imprisoned brethren were subjected to un usual rigor ; that for a long time—up to July 30 it had been ten days—no access whatever was allowed to them, "not even for conveying a change of linen, or a gar ment to protect one of them from the cold and damp of the prison at night. And this was true while prisoners convicted of murder, and awaiting their execution, were not denied commu nication with their friends." Rev. Mr. Curtis, of the Propagation Society was, at the same time, arrested without a warrant, by the Turklish police, and subsequently released. Two violations of political rights are in volved in this proceedings. The first re lates to the arrest of a foreigner. It appears that "Foreign residents in Turkey ate not sub ject to Turkish laws, neither are they in any way under the control of the Turkish police. This is the fundamental principle which regulates the relations of foreign resi dents to the Turkish Government. At an annual expense of many thousand pounds, the English Government maintains a system of consular courts to administer to English subjects English law, and no Turkish police officer has any more right to arrest the per son or enter the house of •an Englishman in Constantinople, than he would to do the same thing in London . If the Turkish Government has any complaint to make against any English subject ; they must do it through the consular court. The same rights are guaranteed by treaty to all other foreign residents." The other political offence :is equally against the foreigners and subjects of the Sultan. A few years since, overborne by the demands of civilization, the Porte found it self compelled to abandon the barbarous system of intolerance, which made it a crime of the highest degree fora Mussulman to be come a christian, or for a christian to be in strumental in the conversion of a Mussulman Christian missions had been tolerated only among the nominally christian sects or the Jews. At the period referred -to, a Haiti Sherif, or imperial edict, guaranteed alike to Mahomedans and other subjects of the em pire, religious toleration, reserving to Ma homedanism the ascendancy as the national religion. This opened the doors to christian labors among the Mahomedans, and gave full permission to the latter to profess Chris tianity. The animus of the proceeding is probably referable to an. " irrepressible conflict" in the heart of Islamism itself—a part of the universal strife between progress and resis tance to improvement. The Mahomedan population of Turkey is divided into two parties--the one disposed to intro duce into the empire the civilization and general culti vation of the West, and, as a necessary part of the improvement, to relax the bonds of religious bigotry, still keeping up the form of the old religion as bound up with the State; the other is jealous of all progress which has any Christian association, and anxious for the extirpation of Christianity itself. The Sultan has generally been regarded as sym pathizing with the former of these parties, but has latterly found it convenient to con ciliate the turbulent spirits of the old regime. A startling measure of unmistakable conces sion to the spirit of the ancient Islamism was just the thing for the occasion. But how was he to answer to the civilized world for so flagrant a breach of the solemn decree of toleration, and that without one note of warning ? Especially, how was he to answer to the British governthent, which is supposed to be the special protector of the rights of Protestants in Turkey? Just here occurs the darkest page in the history of the transaction. The British Ambassador in Constantinople is Sir Henry Bulwer, a man who has exhibited an unmistakable hostility to all attempts toward the conversion of Mahomedans, regarding it as an unfriendly interference with the religion of a friendly State. Long experience of his policy to ward the missions forbids any hope of inter ference on his part, any further than it should be forced from him by the severest requirements of duty, and renders it proba ble that, when compelled to interfere, it would be in such way as would afford as much aid and comfort to the aggressors as to the sufferers. And so we shall directly see the event has proved. It is certain that there is in the minds of people in Constanti nople a dark suspicion that he had a pre cognizance of the transaction, and that the authorities went about it with a perfect feel ing of safety, to far as his agency was con cerned. How he met the occasion after the outbreak, shows for itself. As the matter now stands, this ambassador lies under a re sponsibility in the present case, second only to that of the Porte itself.; Of course, it is not to be expected that the Sultan will make a square confession of the violation of his Matti Sherif. There is al ways some ready subterfuge for wrong done, and nowhere does it come into better play than in diplomacy. And so when Sir Henry comes officially into the affair, he informs the missionaries, from the Sultan, that their brethren have not been persecuted for re ligion's sake—not at all !--but the complaint is that the work of the missionaries was be ing pursued at a place and in a manner, which amounted to an open attack. against the Mahomedan religion. This the imperial edict of toleration was never intended to permit. Christians might proclaim their own religion, but not expose Mahomedan- T - ER.SZERL By mail, $3.00 per annum, in advance. I 8.50 « 44 after 3 Months: By carrier, 50 cents additional for delivery! CLUBS_ Ten or more papers sent by mail to one church or locality, or in the city to one addreu .By mail, $2.50 per annum. By carriers. 3.00 ,4 To save trouble, cluo subscriptions must commence at the same date, be paid strictly in advance, in a single remittance, for which one receipt will be returned. Ministers and Ministers' Widows supplied at club rates. Home missionaries at $1.60 per an.: POSTAGE.—Five cents quarterly in advance, to be paid by subscribers at the office of de livery. ism to scandal. Mahomedans might become Christians, but not opponents of their for mer religion. As regards the plan, the mis sionaries had taken rooms in Khans, in the Mussulman quarters of the city—really the quarters for general business. It was further said that the reason for closing the Bible room was, that the Porte believed the establishment to be a depot of controversial books, and the missionaries above mentioned to be connected with the Bible Society. When satisfied on this point; those rooms were re-opened,with an apology.„ as the Porte does not object to the sale a distribution of Bibles, in Turkish even, in bookstores. It does not, moreover, mean or wish to interfere with regular Protestant worship, in churches or private houses. "But it will not allow any attempts, pub lic or private, to assail the IVlussulman reli gion. It will allow Mussulmans to become Christians, but it will not allow them, any more than it will other Christians, to go about speaking publicly against Mohamme danism." Sir Henry then "Records his strong disapprobation of every form of attack upon lliohamdanism in Turkey, as imprudent, impolitic, and an ungrateful return, as Englishmen and as Protestants, for the hospitality and the reli gious liberty afforded by the Ottoman Go vernment." In reply to so much of Sir Henry's state ment as relates to the imprisoned Turks, the missionaries say: " The head and front of their offending' is, that those of them who have really changed their religion have told their for mer co-religionists that they were Chris tians and why they were such ; and for this they were thrown into prison. Is this, we humbly ask, religious liberty? We have reason to believe that stories about the in flammatory character of the conduct of these men were mainly raised, and exaggerated and circulated by those,—not alone Illussul mans,—who are inimical as well to the Government as to ourselves. We believe that fears. of danger from their being at large, were manufactured fears, to be made real only by just such violent measures as have been taken, which at once rouse the attention of the people, and enable them to point to these Christian Turks as taken in hand for discipline, by the Government." The present position of the case is as fol lows. Sir Henry has patched up with the Porte a so-called "arrangement of the dif ficulty." The substance of this arrange ment, as stated in the Levant Herald, in an article which bears the impress of the am bassador's authority, is-- " The book-stores and offices of the seve ral societies have been re-opened, and full liberty given to their agents to preach to all corners in their respective chapels and private houses, but not in the khans or other public places of Stamboul. The free sale of them in book stores is permitted, but not the colportage about the capital, nor either the sale or gratuitous distribution of controversial works attacking Moham medanism. The native converts under arrest are, for their own protection, and as a measure of precaution against popular excitement,' to be temporarily removed from the capital to some English consular station in the provinces, the Porte engaging to provide for their families during their absence." In relation to this arrangement, the Mis sionary Herald justly remarks : " It may be said in brief, that it puts an end at once to religious liberty in Turkey, so far as Protestantism is concerned, and will make missionary labor for Greeks, Ar menians, Turks and Jews, at once imprac ticable. The principle of religious liberty now laid down by the Turkish Government, and ap proved by the British Ambassador, is this : Every man is at liberty to continue quietly in the profession of the fath of his fathers, whatever it may be, but he is not at liberty to invite or persuade any one else to change their former faith for his. If, however, any person, without invitation or persuasion, desires to change his religion quietly,-he is at liberty to do so ; but the Porte, in this case, reserves to itself the right to exile him, " for his own protection,' but not as a punishm en t ! It should be born in mind, that this sur render of religious liberty is made only by the British Ambassador, as the representa tive of Protestantism. The Jesuit missions are undisturbed, although they have pub licly baptized more Turks than the Protes tants. They have the fullest liberty to proselyte in all directions, and their con verts are secure from all persecution. They are not even exiled " for their own safety!' the Turkish Government would as soon think of declaring war with France as of restricting Catholic missions ; but having the full sympathy of the British Ambassa dor, they have taken a step against Protes tant missions which places them in a worse position than that which they occupied be fore the publication of the Hatti Sherif." A CREED AT LAST An exchange says :—" To check the growing tendency to rationalism among the liberal ministers, the New York association of Universalists has recently adopted a confession of faith, excluding from fellowship all who do not accept it. Its essential statement is : I sincerely declare that I receive the Bible as containing a special and suffi cient revelation from God, which is the rule of Christian faith and practice : and that I will strive faithfully to preach its doctrines and inculcate its principles." We doubt whether the "liberal minis ters" will feel any great embarrassment from this confession. We presume Bishop Colenso would swallow it, not making a wry face about it either.
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