The American Presbyterian
Jam
GENESEE EVANGELIST.
A RJFLIGIOUB AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER,
IX Tax tNriarar or Tau
Constitutional Presbyterian Church.
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY,
AT THE PRESBYTERIAN HOUSE,
1884 Chestnut Street, (2d Story,) Philadelphia.
Rev. iORN W. MEARS, Editor and 'Publisher.
CONTENTS OF INSIDE PAGES,
BECOND PAOZ—FAMILY:
Faith—Matches, Chapter VI and last—Contraata.—
Stmmone: Little Mikey—The Dove of Pompeii—
Making Fun of People—Don't Complain.
THIRD PAGI-EDITOR'S TAB= :
A Pastor's Jottings—Celebrated Preachers—Wister's
Fairies—The Revival Melodist—Literary Items—
Bishop Mellvaine on Prayer.
trra Peoz—COBnIiSrONDENOZ:
Open Mr Meetings, No. Vll—First Evangelical
General Synod in austria—The Synods—Browhitg's
Death of Saint John, First Paper.
SEVENTH PAO H-10 13CELLANEOUB
Peace by Faith—Trinity and Election in Nature—
Remorse of Dying Infidels—Pneumatic Railways in
London—Our Cavaln—Saye the Leaves.
SPIRITUALITY A POWER,
Spirituality is a tone and temper of
mind which leads it to be much occu
pied with divine things, much in :om
munion with them, influenced by them
and devoted to them. Spiritual objects
are paramount in the thoughts, judg
ment, affections, preference and pur
poses of the spiritually minded man.
His disposition is the opposite from
worldly-mindedness, which finds its em
ployments, its society, its pleasures, its
sphere of activity only in this life. Of
ten the latter quality makes au impres
sion upon us of power and efficiency, in
which the less demonstrative modes of
the spiritually-minded suffer in the com
parison., Wealth, genius, eloquence, en
ergy and enterprise are apt to fill the
eye of the mind, and their achievements
dazzle us and prostrate us in blind wor
ship, when the inward struggles, the
humility, the prayers of the spiritually
minded are viewed as feeble and impo
tent things, as visionary and puerile.
The error is a great one. For the
displays of power with which the
world is familiar and which spring only
from sources which she furnishes, are
superficial. There is no deep motive,
springing from the truth of, things, in
them. They belong to time over on the
wing. They grow out of the soil of
self-interest, in its shallowest depths.
They are productions of the creature
relying upon his own strength and re
sources. The very empires founded by
men with no deeper than worldly springs
of action, disappear from the earth and
live only in history. The great cities
they build, and fill with all the multi
plied and thronging evidences of wealth,
of enterprise, and of splendor, the cloud
capped towers, the gorgeous palaces in
which they revel, dissolve, fade away,
and leave not a rack behind. The chan
nels they mark out for a world-wide
commerce are reversed, and great em
poriums aro blotted from existence and
from memory. Their systems of phil
osophy pass away. The revolutions
they wrought are undone. Their civili
zations perish from the earth.
But spirituality has the highest ele
ments of power. It may be undemon
strative and noiseless. It may he pa
tient and meek in spirit. It may seem
scrupulous and slow to those who are
guided by narrow views of expediency.
Often it may seem to lack shrewdness
and enterprise. Its methods may have
no perceptible connection with the end
to be reached, or the instrumentalities to
be put in operation. Often it acts di
rectly in opposition to the dictates of
worldly prudence and repudiates " poli
cy" outright. Meekly unambitious of
fame, it is content to leave its own
achievements unrecorded, unpublished.
1. Spirituality is power becmise it is
Life. To be, carnally-minded, says the
apostle, is Death ; but to be spiritually.
minded is Life and Peace. The ;man
who is not alive to Divineyealities, who
is unconcerned for the, immortality of
his soul, who is unmoved at the specta
cle of infinite love in the atonement,
who sees. nothing in all the •affairs of
time, the course of hititory, the life, the
employments, the sufferings of men,
but temporal things; who is unconscious
of the tie between this and the unseen
world ; in a word, who is not alive unto
God, is dead. All his activity is but a
vain show; all his work is empty and
valueless, except as God, in his Provi
dence, rules and over-rules it to his own
high ends. . .
The spiritually-minded man is truly
alive; he is alive in the innermost vital
centres of hiQbeing; the altar-fires of an
exalted life are• burning in the holy of
holies of his existence. The most es
sential part of his complex being is ani
mated and quickened by the indwelling
of the infinite Source of Life ; he has
been born anew, born from above ; once
born of the flesh, which = would only in
troduce him into the sphere of the flesh
and of the present world • then born of
Atuvric .. 4ll 77.'-it.T.-iligictiat,
New Series, Vol. I, No. 443.
the Spirit, which has ushered him into
the new element and world of spiritual
realities, aims, And objects. He is
strengthened with might by Christ's
Spirit, in the inner man, Christ dwelling
in his heart by faith. With Paul he can
say ; " I am crucified with Christ never
theless, I live; yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me ; and the life which I now
live in the flesh, I live by the faith of
the Son of God ,who loved me, and gave
himself for me." As all our power de
pends upon our life ; first, upon our be
ing alive at all ; and then upon the
measure, the purity, the divines quality
of our lives, the spiritually-minded man
must be the man of true power; and
being most truly, most purely, most di
vinely alive, must be the man of greatest
power.
2. The spiritually-minded is one whose
life 'is controlled by the most exalted
principles. He lives not unto himself;
he is living sacrifice,' devoted to the
Saviour, prepared to share in his cross,
counting all things earthly,—all the at
tractions of time and sense—as dross if
he ,may but win Christ and be found in
him. The world, dissevered from
Christ, with all its attractions has . no
beauty in his eyes. It is vanity of
vanities and vexation of spirit. , Its
judgments do not move him; its threats
do not alarm him,; its, flatteries do not
deceive him ; its mobs, its dungeons, its
racks, its tortures, its persecutions, its
cruel hatred, its executioner's block, its
fiery stake cannot overwhelm his sted
fast spirit. God's hive is an unquencha
ble source of joy and -a sure refuge to
his soul from the most terrible of earth
ly perils and sufferings. The truth of
the Gospel is his great object. This is
in his spiritualized vision so incalculably
precious, that to honor, defend and pro
claim it, no temporal risk or sacrifice
is too great. He will live upon crusts
of bread and cold water; he will labor
working' with his hands, rather than
sacrifice the interests of truth or be
without the means of promoting its ad
vancement. He is a hero, he has all the
stuff in him of the noblest and most il
lustrious martyrdoms_ In such an un
unselfish, unshakable devotedness to high
principle as the spiritually-minded man
exhibits, there is the very highest sort of
power. Mere pecuniary contributions or
exhibitions of enterprise by the wealthy
and the great, will not carry forward the
cause of Christ in the world. The power
of sin can bring thena all to a dead lock;
it can choke up the path of civilization ;
it will place itself, like Bunyan's fear
fully grand conception of Apollyon , quite
astride of the whole breadth ocithe way
of human progress, and swear that en
terprise and liberty and Christian
insti
tutions shall go no further. Then, only
the humble believer, armed with the
Christian's spiritual panoply, and ready
to shed his blood for the cause, can
prove a match for• the monster and en
dure the sore trial of the combat " the
yelling and hideous roaring of Apollyon"
and " the' sighs and groans that' burst
from the Christian's heart."
3. Spirituality is powerful because it
is, chiefly, prayer. The whole being of
the spiritual man goes out in prayer.
Every act is done in a spirit of prayer.
He longs to do the divine will, to be
perfectly conformed to the divine will, to
see the divine will accomplished on Earth.
Hallowedbe thy nanig,thykingdom come,
thy will be .done; in these three heart-ut
tecanees is the revelation of his whole.
inner being. He is in sympathy with
God; his heart-throbs are in unison with
the movement of the divine purposes.
God has made room for his prayers in the
arrangement of His decrees. HAs a
wrestling Jacob; a prince with God
and prevails. He believes in prayer as
a real and efficient instrumentality ; he
uses it as if he believed in it; and in his
hands it succeeds. He re - members the
Great. High Priest, whose intercession
alone makes prayer accessible, and he
urges the All-prevailing i name, he
touches by faith the potent talisman of
his sacrificial blOodi He is mighty in
the use Of the; grandest and most effi
cient Mall means that an can employ.
Prayer has all the promises, or rather the
Niles t. and most emphatic - of all the prom
ises at its back.. It is inwoven witla:the
whole plan of Redemption, so that the at
tributes of God concerned in that work
are equally involved in the efficacy of
prayer. God's plans are so laid, his
providences are so timed, his govern
ment over the world is so conducted, as to
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAI,
make true prayer the great moving force
of the moral Universe. The purpose of
God, the ripeness of time and the strong
yearnings of the awakened human spirit
are the three moments which supple..
meat each other, the three lines which
cross each other to constitute the great
events in the history of Christ's king
dom on earth. Prayer, fervid, earnest,
true prAyer, is the focal point of intense
light and heat in which they converge.
Believing prayer anticipates these
events, and speeds on their coming.
Faith sees the triumph from afar
And grasps it with her eye. -
" God is, if I may say so, at the com
mand of the prayer of faith."*
The great onward movements which
have taken place in the world's history
have been answers to prayer. Prayer
ushered in the Pentecostal effusion of
the Spirit; prayer girded Luther and
Calvin and Whitefield for their great
Reformatory work ; prayer laid the
foundations of - a Puritan Common
wealth in the New World. The prayer
of humble, oppressed, degraded black
slaves in the rice swamps and cotton
fields and sugar plantations of the far
South, responded to by despised work
ers for freedom in the North, broke up
the foundations of our body politic and
ushered in the mighty and beneficent re
volutions tlarough which we are passing.
It was as a Spirit of prayer that the
Hoy Ghost came down so wondeffully
upon all Christendom from four. to six
years ago, and filled the world with the
most wonderful trophies of his power
and with views and hopes of his influ
ence and methods of operation, grander
than ever conceived of before.
If you would be men of true power be
spiritually-minded. Deceive not your
selves with the shows of power of which
the world is full. In these, if needs be,
content yourself to be weak, that Christ's
strength may be made perfect in your
weakness. Glory in your infirmities
that the power of Christ may rest upon
you. Therefore," says Paul, " I take
pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches,
in necessities, in persecutions, in die
tresses for Christ's sake; for when,l am
weak then am I strong."
*J~natban Edwards
THE GREAT ACHIEVEMENT OF AMEBI
CAN LITERATURE.
It has been said, on what authority
we know not, that Russian officials have
recently spoken-of " the American" in
stead of "the English" language. When
the extraordinary activity of American
scholars in the development and scien
tific treatment of the tongue are con
sidered, what might have been' viewed
as a mere piece of pleasantry, assumes`
the appearance of serious truth. Re
cently we have had two immense and
ably executed works in English lexicog
raphy, issued in one State of our Union,
and patronized to an enormous extent
by the American public. Later, revised,
improved and illustrated editions of both
Webster and Worcester appeared ; and
now, we have to announce, in the height
of our war for national existence and for
freedom, when prices are nearly tr pled,
and when heavy taxes betoken the
vast financial burden we are carrying,
the issue of a thoroughly revised, greatly
enlarged and vastly improved edition
of Webster : in short a new book, and
that the most extensive ever published
'in our country, on Lexicography. We
greatly admire the enterprise of the
publishei* and wonder at the elasticity
and unexpended force of intellect and
depth of resources of the people, who
furnish in these times, an encouraging
market for such a ponderous,:abstract,
and expensive. publication.
With cheerfulness we add our testi
mony to that already so warmly given
to the extraordinary value of this Re
vision; at a loss only where to begin
in the enumeration of its manifold ex
cellences, and how adequately to pre
sent, in the limits of a brief article, even
a curse' sketeh of the improvements
and adeations which have been made to
previous editions. Here, in fact, is a.
well-condensed encyclopedia of all our .
abstract knowledge. The leading facts
of every science can be gathered
from its pages. The essence of all hu
man wisdom, so far as known to English
speaking, men, is embodied in these
concise and vivid definitions. The
nicest distinctions in the exercises of
the logical faculty are expressed in the'
rich and 'discrirnina , ting synonyms. It
Clr - nesee Evangelist, No. 005.
NOVEMBER 17, 1804.
is a vast apparatus for object-teaching.
Nunierous miniature illustrations of ex
quisite finish and accuracy give distinc
tion to conceptions, which otherwise
might be confused. A I :monument of
vast mental labor and nice and profound
skill, is this list of upwards of 114.000
well-weighed
,words; a treasure-house
of human experience and observation to
be consulted in every embarrassment;
a school of discipline in all the analyti
cal exercises of the human intellect, to
him who consults it.
Though the dictionary is not designed
to teach facts of history or things in
the concrete, yet each WORD, as a series
of sounds, is a reality and has a history
of its own, often something akin to
romance; often opening the most pro
found views into the very heart of
things ; often so delicate and difficult to
trace, as to require the highest skill of
which the mind is capable, in following
it. The deficiencies of the earlier edi
tions, in this branch, which were con
fessedly grave—especially in view of the
great progress lately made in the sci
ence of philology—have been fully cor
rected by the five years of examination
devoted to this part of the work by Dr.
C. A. F. Mahn, a distinguished philolo
gist of Berlin. So that the Etymologies
of Webster come forth remoulded, under
all the philosophical and scientific in- I
fluence of the modern school of philo
logy. A philosophical spirit has also
been exercised in revising, and to some
degree, remodeling, the very miscella
neous and unsystematized, though, very
lucid definitions of the earlier editions.*
Professional men like Capt. Craighill,
late Professor in West Point, Professor
Dana, Lowell Mason and others, have
undertaken special departments of the
work ; as. military terms, geology, mu
sic, &c., and each has brought to bear
his ownfiill and accurate knowledge in
perfecting the department of the vocab
ulary to: which he was assigned.. The
fullest and most careful attention has
been given to pronunciation in this vol
ume, and' the marks to denote nice dif
ferences in sound and accent, are multi
plied until the extremly abundant and
exact indications remind us of the Ma
soreti6.notation in cur Hebrew Bibles,
and we almost imagine we have before
us the jots and tittles of the oriental
languages.
A very great addition to the value of
the work aro the synonyms and discus
sions of the shades of difference in words
of similar meaning, found under every
leading term in the vocabulary. These
are numerous and full enough to consti
tute a treatise of themselves, and were
originally designed to form a separate
work by the author, the late Professor
Goodrich of Yale College. The acute
mind and long-continued professional
pursuits of Dr. Goodrich, eminently
qualified him. to make those nice and
accurate discriminations in the shades
of meaning between words of a kindred
or related signification, which these
articles furnish. No finer or richer
treatise, in a condensed form, on this
important subject, it is believed, can be
found in the language. In addition to
these valuable articles of Dr. Goodrich,
the present edition furnishes, preceding
each of - the articles, a list of synony
mous worths, without explanation. -The
whole formal', most complete "Scholar's
Companion," furnishing -both to begin
ners and older-writers, important assist
ance in embarassments, which all meet,
in the choice of fitting expressions.
The illustrations, over 3000 in number,
,are mostly inserted in • their appropriate
places in the vocabulary, but all of these
smaller cuts, with many too large for
the purpose, appear as a separate de
partment of the work, and constitute
one of its most attractive and instruc
tive features. Every illu.stration
designed to aid in conveying some defi
nite conception of scientific, and other
objects.
The "Tables" are very fall, and pre
sent some novel features : such as an
Explanatory and Pronouncing Vocabu
lary of the names of noted Fictitious
Persons, Places, &c. ; an Etymological
Vocribular_y of Modern. Geographical
Names ; Pronouncing Vocabulary of
Common English Christian names of
Men and Women with their significance ;
*Something, we think, yet remains to be done, in the
arrangement of these definitions, in representing the
relations of generic and specifie, ar primary and derive
tiveoneanings, to each other. Why not number the first
and tatter the second class of meanings, using, arihe
same time, some variety in the relative posit= a the
twol
Qu(Stations, Words, Phrases, Provers
&c., from the Greek, the Latin anel!
Modern Foreign Languages; Abbrevia,
tions and contractions, used in writing
and Printing; Ancient Foreign and Re
markable Alphabetsall these, be
sides the more usual lists- of Scripture,
Classical, and Modern• G-eographical
Proper names. Nor should' we overlook
the admirable treatise of Profeseor Had
ley on the History of the 'Language,
which takes our mother 'tongue at its
earliest known stages, and• brings it
down to,the time of the Dictionary - it•
self, thus indicating the successive steps
of progress necessary before the mate
rials for so great a . work as the Diction
ary could be produced. Professor
Hadley unearths 1 the fossils of the
language's early existence ; the Dic
tionary marks the last and yet extant
stage of its development.
The paper, typography and binding
are all as excellent as the character of
the work demanded. In short, we feel
honored by the work, and are willing
to hold it up, not only as a triumph of
American book-manufactory, but also as
an adequate representative to the world
of the position of scholarship, science
and the useful arts in America at the
present day.
* The Phonographic- Alphabet would have completed
this list.
THE GREAT RESULT.
When Gen. McClellan was nominated
on the Chicago platform, we predicted
that be would be defeated as overwhelm
ingly by the people as was Vallandigham
in the single State of Ohio. Our faith
in the radical soundness of theelmerican
people, in their good sense and disceit
ment of the momentous nature of the
questions at issue, in their superiority to
the plots and tricks of politicians who
seek to use them as mere unthinking
and" unprincipled masses ; and above all,
our faith in the God who has filled our
history as a nation with the most signal
marks of his favouring providence, for
bade us to doubt the result of the conflict.
And so it has come to pass. And our
faith is turned to fruition—our hope to
joy and thankfulness beyond expression.
In fact the victory is in some respects
greater than even we had hoped for..
Only three comparatively unimportant
States have cast their votes against Mr.
Lincoln ; his popularmajority counts by
hundreds of thousands ; he receives a
larger majority of the votes of the Elec
toral College than any candidate since
the days of IN ashington ; a Congress has
been placed by his side, more than two
thirds of which is in thorough sympathy
with his patriotism and noble aims ; the
most influential and dangerous opponents
of his policy in the country—particularly
Governor Seymour of New York, who
called the mob of negro murderers his
friencis,and whose position in the Empire
State gave him power second to that of
the President only,—and G-ov.Seymour's
associates among the abominable politi
cians of New York city, with himself,
have been repudiated by the loyal peo
ple of the State and drived into ignomin
ious retirement. With such emphasis
a great historic act has, been done ;
broad and clear mark has been made in
the records of time ; a declaration of
purpose, a manifestation of sentiment
has gone abroad in unmistakable tones
to the whole civilized world.
Disguise it as we may, we had come
to a turning point in our history as a
free people. W hatever indiVidual voters
. with the opposition may have meant,
the party itself undoubtedly aimed to
incorporate into the policy of the nation
the most humiliating and disastrous con
cessions to the spirit of disunion and to
the slave power. They diligently labour
ed to marshall all the basest elements of
the national character and population;
they appealed to every sentiment by
which the nobler aspirations of the soul
can be hampered and stifled; they plied
the covetousness of the rich and the
natural anxieties of the poor fora living
by expatiating upon the financial bur
dens of the war; they appealed to love
of ease and of life itself, by dwelling
upon scenes of blood and carnage and
by 'pointing to the draft as a standing
menace to our- domestic peace; they
stirred all the low and anti• Christian
predjudices of race in the breasts of the
multitude; in every way they sought to
corrupt the national heart, and. deaden
all regard for honor and principle, and
to stir up sighs and clamoors for the old
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cent. ; over 100 filte , , 25% per cent oft
political status; when the. South Iliad its
, own way in the NationaliCOuncVs;• send
;Vie grand panacea of Compromise- qui
eted the Cerberao of secession, and/put
far off the evil day. The great question
was: Shall we mar - for the regenera
tion, of the nation and the removal of
slavery, or shall we reckon the . cost toe
great, throw off the cross, and'conapro
mise our principles forthe sake of Peace r
Never was a party, expecting to succeed
by impressions made on an unthinking:
crowd,- better furnished with striking
watch-words and plausible issues}-than
the "Peace Party" of the• North.
And the nation, after three years-of
war, bowed down with debt, dripping
with wounds and drenched in tears; -in
this election said : We will suffer; we
will bear our taxes ; we will endure our -
sorrows; we will throw our prejudices •
to the wind - 6'4 the nation shall be saved;
the oppressed shall go free; law, unity,.
government shall be maintained; rebel
lion shall not be conciliated but crushed;
our posterity shall have a- great, free,
purified country for their home; all the
victims of tyranny, the world- over,
shall find here a refuge, or - shall be ,
strengthened- and cheered in their sor
rows and struggles and hopes, by the
perpetuation of this conspicuous exam
ple of human liberty; the great princi
ple of the capacity of a Christian people
to establish and maintain against oppos
ition without and stupendous treachery
within, a republican form of government
shall be so triumphantly vindicated that.
doubt shall be silenced and the truth
shall be known on the thrones of kings ;
in the closets of philosophers, and among
the hamlets of the people.
The people have recognized the man.
whom God, by his Providence, seems to•
have designated as our LEADER throngh
this crisis. The honesty and directness
of Mr. Lincoln's aims,.the caution. and,
shrewdness- with which he carries out
his inflexible purposes of patriotism and
humanity, his freedom from the taint of
personal motive and base political trick
ery, his devout and humble regard for
the Ruler of the-world,. though not join—
ed with courtly manners and lofty intel
lect, yet sutrce to. mark him as the man
in whose hands the American people
may safely trust the affairs of the na
tion, in its hour- of unparalleled trial.
1 The author of the " Chronicles of the
1 1 Shoen b erg-Cotta Family" represents one•
of the characters in a more recent vol
ume, as thus speaking of William• the-
Silent, on his first appearance among:
the oppressed and persecuted people of
Holland;." When God would save a peo
ple, He sends them a matt to do it; the ,
destruction of any nation is the not re
cognizyng the man whom God sends- to.
them. I believe- there is hope for our
country, because God has given us this
man; if only we will acknowledge
him." Is it too much to believe that
Our people have been saved from de
struction by chosing,---of two. candi
dates—the man whose principles and
past acts point to him as the chosen
instrument of God, for working out the
national deliverance?
For ourselves, in all this conflict now
crowned with glorious triumph, we have
felt that we had a clear and solemn re
sponsibility to the plainly righteous
cause; we have felt that there was no
room for wavering, no excuse for utter
ing an uncertain sound; that we were
passing through moments of the gra
vest importance, when every grain of
influence that every loyal man and
agency could wield an the side of coun
try and liberty was demanded, on pain
of lifelong shame and remorse; and when
to disguise the questions at issue was to
compromise principles and interests of
incalculable value. Theee who in other
places have suffered themselves to be
swayed by popular local influences, who
partly furled their banner, and bent be
fore the passing breeze, and who, though
loyal men, accepted defeat as a foregone
conclusion, forgot the power of a bold de
meanour, a steady adherence to principle
for prineiples'sake, a manly andeheering
utterance in a critical hear, to avert the
shame of defeat, or to divert any share
of it far away from themselves. We
leave them to their regrets and selfre
proofs, thankful that among other in
strumentalities, the great agency of the
religions press has been open to the
regular, fervent and unhesitating advo
cacy of the humane and rightedus prin
ciples, which the Ameriean*ple have
so emphatically readopted,