IRE AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN AND GENESEE EVANGELIST. A Religions and Family Newspaper, IN THE INTEREST OF THE Constitutional Presbyterian Church. PUBLISHED EVERY THIEISDAY, AT THE PRESBYTERIAN HOUSE, 1334 Chestnut Street, (2d story,) Philadelphia. Rev. John W. Mears, Editor and Itublisher. Rev. B. B. Hotchkin, Editor of News and Family Departments. Rev. C. P: Bush, Corresponding Editor, Rochester, N. Y. gm vita ttoirgttriat THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1866 CONTENTS OF INSIDE PAGES. SECOND PAGE—THE FAMILY CIRCLE: Pange. Lingua, Gloriosi—Violet—An English Noble man on Temperance—Punch's Peccavi—The Even him Lesson. l'or the Little Folks: Familiar Talks with the Children—Closer Looking. THIRD PAGE—RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE : Presbyterian—Congregational—Refointed Dutch— Methodist — Baptist — MiscellaneouS—ltems. • Rural Economy: Philadelphia Butter—Fences, Gates and Posts—Wild Peppermint as aßat Exter minator—How to Preserve Smoked. Meats in Sum raer—Farmer'sTaint—Osage Orange Hedges in New Jersey—The Canada Thistle; a Good Law. SIXTH PAGE—CORRESPONDENCE: An Excursion Under Ground—A Quaint Old Puri tan—Ministerial Relief Fund—How shall the South be Regenerated—The Presbyterian Church on In temperance. SEVENTH PAGE—EDITOR'S TABLE : Booth's "Wayside Blossoms"—"The Diadem"— Manoah; or Promise of the Life that now is"— Pamphlets and Periodicals—Literary Items: Ame rica—Great Britain—France. Miscellaneous: The Dying Christian and the Dying-Infidel—The Ancient Statue of Hercules— Give to Your Neighbor; Give Light—List of Deaths —Symptoms of Incipient Insanity. SPONTANEITY IN CHRISTIAN CHAR ACTER. While true and efficient service may be rendered under the promptings of duty, with, more or less constraint and effort, more delightful and more desirable by far is the activity that flows from a full and cheerful heart. The one resembles the flow of an artificial fountain, precise, regular, stately, but dependent on mechanical ar- raugethent the other is like the fresh bub- bling spring which bounds from the heart of the earth and which pours forth its life- giving tide with happy murmur all day long; " a well of water springing up unto everlasting life." There are Christians, many Christians, true Christians, who pray and who read their Bible, who attend upon the ordinances andi*'who go about the work they do for Christ, we will not say reluct antly, but in great measure for conscience sake. They are not dragged or drifen, it is true; but they do not go without a certain pressure; they are, atleast, led. In'their acts of liberality, they show their. need of a stimulus applied from without in the shape, perhaps, of a well-introduced subscription paper. They wait until called on, and then their gifts are offered with hesitation They originate no scheme, no method of giving ; they never trouble themselves to seek out worthy objects. Nor can they be relied upon to prompt, or to take the lead in, any movement de signed for the advancement of Christ's kingdom. The will follow, perhaps, and work earnestly and well in some line of another man's devising ; but they are not like Paul, who struck out new paths and avoided building on other men's foundations. A great amount of work maybe got out of them. They can endure much; but they rarely lead, and all their work, being more or less formal or constrained, will be found, like their own character, to lack sweetness, heart, contagious influence upon their fel lows. They are somewhat as the horse or as the mule who have no secret understand ing of their master's will, but must be held in with bit and bridle; not simply guided by the eye. The spontaneous soul is the one that goes cheerfully and heartily to his work, in pub lic or in private. His religion is a life, not a slavery. He prays because he de sires to pray; he reads the Bible, grate fully recognizing the condescension that communicated authentic heavenly truth to men; he works for Jesus, because he hears incessantly rising in his heart the lug - airy: Lord what wilt thou have me to do ? He gives of his substance to satisfy the benevo lent impulses of his renewed soul. He is ready for every good word or work;, his feet are shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. He is aggressive. He goes out after the negleetors of the ordi nances. He does not wait for opportunities to do good ; he finds them, he makes them. A great secret of this spontaneity is evan gelical love. ' The merely conscientious man is still under the law. Love enfranchises us from this constraint, and brings us into the liberty of the Gospel. Love itself is the fulfilling of the law. He, indeed, who has no love in his , heart, has not the Spirit of Christ, and is none of his. Bilt to live habitually under its guidance, is to have an unfailing fountain of pure and holy actiob in the heart. Love, says Jonathan Ed wards, "is a principle which, if it be im-' planted in the heart, is alone sufficient to produce all good practice, and every right disposition toward God and man is summed 1 up in it, and comes from it as the fruit from the tree or the stream from the foun tain." Love overcomes reluctance, gives wings to duty, makes crosses light, removes mountains, fills valleys, kindles zeal, imparts a stimulus, anticipates commands, prompts to sacrifices, waits not for leaders, for ex amples, for opportunities, but becomes itself a standard, a flaming beacon, an inde- anigritint resbyteriat New Series, Vol. 11, No. 25. pendent source of energy, an inspiration, a contagion to the rest. Love is the- great life-power, the form in which the Holy Spirit is ever communicated to the saints, the well of water in them springing up into everlasting life.. There is too much of mere conscience and law in our religion. We need more of that perfect love which casteth out fear. We need to feel the sweet attraction of grateful love to the Saviour. We need, as a leading and daily element in our experience, to have nearer and more affect ing views of the great sacrifice of Calvary. Our relations to Christ must be more sac ramental. It must be a personal, practical, and delightful truth to us, that we are not our own ; but bought with a price. Then duty will lose its irksomeness, or rather will cease to be recognized as duty. Then consecration will be without reserve. Then there will be no chaffering over doubtful indulgences, over concessions to the princi ples, fashions, and amusements of the world. Then the choicest years of life, the dearest idols of the natural heart, the cherished pride and self-righteousness, the dreams of ungodly ambition will be freely surrendered. Then covetousness will find its antidote, and the vile person shall become liberal, and the churl bountiful. All other promptings to holiness are poor and temporary substi tutes; like prophecies, like tongues, like knowledge, they shall all pass away. They are of the earth, earthy. And when they shall be eternally at an end, then Divine love shall not fail, but shall be brought to its most glorious perfection in every indi vidual member of the ransomed church above. Then •in every heart, that love which now seems as but a speck, shall be kindled to a bright and glowing flame, and every ransomed soul shall be, as it were, in a blaze of divine and holy love, and shall remain and glow in this glorious perfection and blessedness through all.eternity." POLICY AND DUTY OF PUNISHING TRAITOR LEADERS. I. In the discussion of the question thus stated, it will be seen that we leave the treatment of the masses who haVe been in the rebellion entirely out of view. All will understand that a wide difference may safely be made between them and their leadera. As to these, the general senti ment of the country we believe to be clear, positive, and correct, demanding that capi tal punishment should be promptly visited upon more or less of their number. As, however, our Government delays to act, and limits its processes, as far as appears, to cases which fall rather under the juris diction of criminal courts, and as men and organs of opinion of some note and reputed loyal, are boldly demanding impunity for these wretches, it seems necessary to ex amine into the question. It is a startling fact that, while multitudes of rebel leaders, paroled and not paroled, are and have been, for weeks, in our power, the United States Government has not commenced a single process or drawn up an indictment against a single rebel leader for treason. There has been an assassination; Government has promptly followed up its guilty authors. Prisoners have been systematically- starved; we have no reason to doubt but that this awful crime is properly estimated by our Government. But has such a thing as trea son been perpetrated Have the calamities 'of the last four years, exceeding any that the nation has ever suffered, no guilty au thors?, Is it a political campaign merely through which we have just passed ? We think, the Government will ere long give a right answer to these questions, but, for the present, we have much of amnesty, and of pardon to cases excepted by the act of amnesty and nothing whatever of the exer cise of the rigor of law. Now we hold, and we believe the mass of the people hold, with the constitution, that treason is a capital crime, and all guilty of it deserve to be punished as such. It is not at all necessary to prove them guilty of assassination, or of deliberately starving or shooting helpless prisoners, before it be comes obligatory on the authorities to pun ish them. They are condemned already for their attempt to overthrow the Govern ment. Their crime is indeed worse than any single infraction of law, worse than murder, than arson, than rape; it is in spirit and in effect, a combination of all crimes, a violent rejection of all authority; an attack upon all the securities given by civil institutions to life, honor and pros perity, against crime of every sort. It is a movement in the direction of anarchy; an appeal from right to might, reversing the whole tendency of civilization, and risking everything gained; by. the progress of the race. True, your secessionist, or States-rights man, will claim that in preserving allegiance PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1865. to his State, when he broke faith to the nation, he avoided the great crime with which we charge him, and maintained in spirit his fidelity to law. But this is .a mere theory, the creation of subtle minds, and adopted as a practical article of belief only to serve a purpose. No one really believes that the United States is or was an aggregate of some thirty odd independent nations, as this theory requires. A county or a city seceding from a State, or a ward seceding from a city, might just as truthfully claim to be law abiding, because it maintained its own internal organization. The leader of a desperate mob might plead with equal justice that he maintained family disciplirie as a proof that he reverenced the laws. The sinner against God excuses himself exactly in the same way; he claims to be faithful in the lower relations of life, and thus seeks to establish his innocence before God. But insurrection against a higher authority, is virtually and • impliedly insur rection against all below it. In point of fact, the rebel leaders only submitted to State authority so far as it suited their grand purpose of throwing off the authority of the Union. They forced States, with or without tke consent of the people, into secession. They claimed Maryland, Mis souri, and Kentucky, although the people of those; States invariably voted against them. And they were as ready to coerce a State, and to scent treason against their Confederacy and denounce it as a crime, as we could be in reference to the National Government. They plunged into an utterly unjustifia ble rebellion. These leaders knew in their hearts that they had not been wronged or oppressed under a government which they had controlled from the beginning. If the policy of the Government was becoming anti-slavery, that surely did noh look toward oppressing them, but simply; toward the limiting of their license to oppress others. If a change was taking place in the govern metn it, was not toward the curtailment of their liberties, but toward the enlargement of the liberties of a class, and with them, of the whole nation. An attempt to justify a rebellion on the ground that it was under taken to stop a national movement toward justice - and liberty, is only to write its con demnation in larger characters, and to load it with a far heavier guilt. It is enough to say of a rebellion that it is an unjustifiable assault upon the law to condemn it, but here is one undertaken in the interest of oppression; law is not assailed because it is oppressive, but exactly the reverse. In a word, here is a rebellion against lib erty and law both. It is not an exasperated rising of long suffering slaves against proud and crue) masters, but ratherioa rising of masters against their slaves ; not a rising against tyranny and intolerable public burdens, but against the most beneficent of governments, because it gave signs of becoming more be neficent still; not against a crumbling, worn-out monarchy, rotten with vice and with inveterate abuses, but against the latest, most hopeful, most elastic and buoy ant, most generous and prosperous of na tionalities, in the full tide of successful experiment as a free republic, and simply because it was becoming alive to the ne cessity of shaking off its only political incubus, and thus carrying forward its grand experiment to imparalelled success and glory. Right here the viper of seces sion struck his fangs. It was a rebellion in the interest of retrogression instead of pro gress. Every plea that can be urged in defence-) of popular outbreaks against tyranny, such i as the American Revolution, is a powerful 1 argument against a rebellion got up by a set of petty tyrants to stop a peaceful popu lar movement for the overthrow of slavery. A rebellion against a free government in the interest of slavery is without a praral lel in the history of rebellions. Their own Vice President it was, who both solemnly asserted the beneficent character of our government, and who, soon after, announced that the very cornerstone of the new nation was slavery. So that we convict them out of their own mouths, of the donble charge, that it was a good government against which they rebelled, and that the rebellion was in the interest of slavery. They wished to pull down a good government for the purpose of putting a terribly bad one in its place. What then is the ground for a mild treat ment of these conquered traitors atid rebels ? They are plainly guilty of the highest crime known to human laws. For four years we have been engraving its records broadly and indellibly upon the pages of . history—for four years, with the most lavish outlay of treasure and blood ever given for such an object since the world began, we have been standing between these lawless furies and the Government they were raging to destroy. We have felt their object to be so monstrous, so ruinous, that we pre ferred to sacrifice every earthly good, rather than allow it to succeed. Did we esteem their crime so dreadful a few months ago, and now when it is foiled and our Union saved, now when the greatest calamity that could befall the human family, the over throw of our republic, is averted, shall its would-be authors be counted guiltleas, restored to citizenship and made equal to those who, at the risk of everything, frus trated their diabolical scheme ? There never was a higher crime committed in merely human relations. There never,was a clearer, ditty laid upon the ministers:ofjustice than that of punish ing it. There never was a more scandalous or more dangerous dereliction, than for organs of public opinion,* or preachers of the gospel;- to represent the demand for such unpardonable crimes -as a call for " vengeance." They are debauching the public conscience and insulting the majesty of the law °; they are prolonging, cherish ing, and inoculating the very life of the people with the' virus of rebellion—disre spect for law. They are sapping the found ations of justice by a most lamentable and gross perversion of the Christian doctrine of forgiveness, aiming grievously to cheat the people by the sophistical use of the noblest and - sweetest of doctrines. We do not believe they represent the sentiment of the church or of the country. - Hear it rather, in these impassioned words from the occupant of one of the loyal pulpits of St. Louis.t - "These men have avowed their crime They have filled the full possible measure of earth ly cruelty and iniquity. The' monuments' of desolation stand on every side. The woe and wailing is universal. The innocent blood, yet wholly unappeased and unatoned, in deep red waves :rolls over our country. The mur derers, unawed, by hundreds of thousands stalk the land: Tell, us, 0, JuStice ! born in Heaven, and given of God , to man—thou friend of innocence----defender of the weak-- deliverer of the outraged and oppressed— maintainer of the truth—champion of right eousness—avenger of. crime ! Oh, whither hast thou fled? Why haltest in - the execu tion of thine office ? A million bloody dag gers hatli treason plied with all its power, on the fair neck of liberty, and yet SUE lives— revive.s--stavds up again, in beauty, purity, and strengtlo;--preserved of *God ! 0, Jus tice ! Atlas of all government in earth dr heaven, why shouldst THOU perish NOW? Who thus has smitten thee? Tell us, ere thou shalt utterly expire I have all thine or dained instruments, thy sworn allies, the Church, the Court, the Rulers, who bear the sword of God—have ALL TitasE conspired to be thine own assassinators?" *The Public Ledger, of this city, June says : "The tendency of enlightened opinion is certainly against vengeance in political prosecutions.' tßev. H. A. Boardman, D.D., in his pub lished sermon, "The Peace Meaker," speaks of ministers "who have made the air ring with maledictions" instead of inculcating for giveness toward the conquered rebels : and after,apathetic description of the desolation of the South, asks : Can you still talk of vengeance ?" Even in his sermon on the day of humiliation, June Ist, he condemns the Christianity which he says " draws its inspiration from the world . . . from the fury which at such crises influences the passion of the multitude." "It is not," he says, "for Christian men and women to adopt the principles, to cherish the resentments, and to deal out the maledictions common to those who are swayed by mere natural im pulses." tßev. F. Starr, Jr., late of Pen Yan, N - . Y. now of the North Presbyterian Church, St: Louis. THE PUBLICATION COMMITTEE, We published, in last week's paper, the report of the Standing Committee on Publication to the late General Assembly. It . will be seen that the position of the Permanent Committee is highly satisfactory and encouraging for future usefulness. Those who. compare the situation at pre sent with that of two years ago, when Dr. Beman made his very able Special Report. to the Assembly in this city, will appreci ate the vast improvement made. That re port contained the following language : "The collections of last year, amounting to some :Tour thousand dollars, to adopt no severer language, were . no honor to the church. A few such efforts of masterly inactivity would ruin any specific plan ever adopted for the reformation of the world." This year, the committee report the en dowment fund of Fifty thousand dollars complete, with sales amounting to $36,000 and a total income of over $70,000. One half of the remaining indebtedness of , twenty thousand dollars on the Presby terian House has been cancelled, and that fine property is becoming increasingly available and valuable as a source of income to the committee. We have already taken occasion to refer-to the recent issue of the Committee, among which the History of Presbyterianism, by Dr. Gillett, must stand pre-eminent in substantial value,—a work which would be a credit to any publishing house in any country. Recently they have issued the hand sourest temperance tract we have ever seen Genesee Evangelist, No. 996. The richly engraved illustrations, the ele •gautly ornamented cover, the heavy tinted paper and the faultless typography, serve to recommend a most truthful, practical lesson to those who deny themselves the luxury of domestic happiness, for the sake of selfish indulgence of a taste for strong drink. It is called "Buy your own Cher ries." It will be found, we' doubt not, a valuable aid in efforts to reclaim the erring. In the revived and active state of our branch of the church, we may congratulate ourselves that an interest so vital as that of Publication is sharing. Let it continue to enjoy the benefactions and the prayers of the people, until it becomes a fountain of liberal, yet pure and. evangelical influ ences to our whole body and the communi ty at large. HOME MISSIONS AND THE FREED MEN. one can have read our reports of pro ceedings of the General Assembly without noticing how deep was the interest of that body in the spiritual condition of the Freed men. Precisely in accordance with those views was the act of the Home Missionary Committee week before last. They appointed Rev. J. B. Reeve, one of our worthy dele gates in the Assembly, the alternate of our retiring Moderator, Dr. Brainerd, to make a three or four months' tour of observation among the Freedmen in the West and Southwest, and to see how many fields we may find open to us where we can work, and not seem to interfere with any other church, and how many Presbyterian ministers he can find among the Freedmen; and also to observe how far it may be necessary -to combine the school and the church in the work of evangelizing an ignorant race set free, and now most eager to learn. They have assigned Rev. H. H. Garnett, of Washington, D. C., another colored pas tor, to the same work South from Washing ton, perhaps as far South as Savannah. We are assured that nothing would please the committee more than to employ these two brethren permanently in their service, and preaching the gospel, organizing schools, and doing whatever else may be , done, all over the South, in organizing the religious element among the Freedmen, in the social and religious reconstruction of the South. But this we suppose is impossible. The congregations they are serving so success fully would probably withhold their consent. But we hope they will not object, nay, we think they will rejoice to spare their pas tors for a few months to engage in so com mendable a work. And we shall expect that these brethren will return overwhelmed with a sense of the amount of work to be done. We have but two fears touching the whole matter. The first is, that suitable colored preachers cannot be found for this work ; and the second, that the churches do not realize the magnitude of the under taking, for these Freedmen just liberated from bondage are poor, and must have aid largely from the churches. But to meet this state of things, the committee have resolved to call on the churches for special collections for that purpose, and agents are to be sent out to solicit contributions. We are particularly pleased with this ar rangement, because there are agencies we know not how many, or how responsible, or wisely managed; we know nothing about them, scarcely, except that they are calling at the door of every church, and begging almost every minister to let them into his pulpit to obtain aid for the - Freedmen. The next worse thing to giving nothing is to give distrustfully or unintelligently. But now every pastor and every church can say to every such applicant, "No : our church has taken hold of this work, through its OWn recognized and authorized agency, which we can trust; it will need all we can give and probably much more. Our contri butions must go there." Acting thus unitedly, and cheerfully, and intelligently, we ought to expect great things. This is the title of a beautiful little volume, by Rev. Edward Payson Ham mond, just issued by the Baptist Publica tion Board of this city. It contains six chapters, in which the little ones ate ad dressed upon a variety of topics, such as the author knows so well how to handle, and with which he has so successfully ad dressed their consciences and their hearts. His thrilling illuatrations give irresistible interest to the themes. Every child must be attracted by them. And it is a pecu liarity of the book, as it is of Mr. Ham mond's addresses, that it is full of energy and seeks positive and immediate results. In a word it reflects, in every line, the dead earnestness of the man. "CHILDREN AND JESUS." TER itx . Per annum, tu mivanue: By Mail, 83. By Carrier. 83 50. Fifty cents additional, after three months. Clubs.—Ten or more papers , sent to one address, payable strictly in advance and in one remittance: )3y Mail, i 2 50 per annum. By Carriers, $3 per annum. Ministers and Ministers' Widows, $2 in ad vance. Home Missionaries, $1 50 i na d vance. Fifty cents additional after three months. Remittances by mail are at our risk. Postage.—Five cents quarterly, in advance, paid qy subscribers at the office of delivery. Advertisements.-1234 cents per line for the first, and 10 cents for the second insertion. One square (one month) $3 00 two months 5 50 three. " 750 six 12 00 one year 18 00 The following discount on long advertisements, in serted for three months and upwards, is allowed:— Over 20 lines, 10 per cent off; over 50 lines, 20 per cent.; over 100 lines. 33 1 / per cent. off. The latter part of the volume is, we think, unique in addressing young children as already converted and in counselling them as such. A beautifully engraved portrait, by Sar. taro, and numerous wood-cuts adorn the volume, which is quite a credit to our Bap tist brethren. They have also published an admirabl, tract for young men, by the same author, entitled " What I saw from Vesuvius," many thousands of which have been distributed in the army by the Chris tian Commission. The same fervid earnest ness, and the same copiousness and apt ness of illustration characterize this, as all, the efforts of Mr. Hammond for the spiritual welfare of men. MORNING PRAYER MEETING AT CAL- VARY CHURCH. This prayer meeting, commenced in con nection with Mr. Hammond's laborers in Calvary Church, has been kept up ever since, with great spirit and success, from eight to nine o'clock, and has been much blessed to those participating in it. It has been sustained as a union effort. On Sat urday morning last, the closing services were held, taking the form of a thanksgiv ing meeting. Rev. Mr. Saul, assistant rector of St. Clement's Church, conducted the meeting and read the 21st chapter of Revelation. Prayer was offered by Mr. A. Martin, - who remembered Mr. Hammond in his requests. Rev. John W. Mears spoke of the tendency to neglect thanksgiving and of the causes this church and others had for rejoicing at this time. Mr. Calkins, pastor of the church, called on those pre sent who had recently given their hearts to the Saviour to rise, and join in singing, by themselves, the consecration hymn, " 0 . happy day that fixed my choice," with the chorus, " Happy Day !" Some forty five persons, young and old, arose in re sponse to this call, and sung their hymn. It was a beautiful sight. Among them was an individual who afterwards explained that, although he had been a member of church for ten years, he did not think he had been converted until within the last few weeks. Mr. M. W. Baldwin said, How much has this church to be thankful for ! Nearly forty expect to join us to-morrow at the Lord's table, besides others believed to be converted, who go to other churches. If one soul is worth more than all the world, what are forty worth ? Who can calculate the sum ? He also took occasion to thank the brethren from other churches, who had assisted in these meetings, and who had encouraged us by their presence and counsel. Rev. Mr. Calkins also joined in this ac knowledgment, and hoped to see all unite again in re-establishing the meeting in the fall. He also presented requests for prayers, and related the touching replies of one of the applicants for admission, to inquiries made by the session. The meeting was prolonged beyond the usual hour, and was an occasion of un wonted and joyful interest. It marks the first season of general religious interest in the history of Calvary Church. Forty-eight persons united with the church on Sabbath. A QUESTIONABLE MEASURE.- The "American Missionary Association" has sent an agent to England to solicit aid in its work among the Freedmen. Considerable disapprobation of this step has been expressed. It is felt, that, in view of our responsibilities of the past toward this people, and our abundant ability for the work, we, in this country, ought to assume the whole enterprise of educating them and furnishing them with Christian privileges. It is also felt that there are reasons too obvious to require mention, and which are intimately related to the subject, why it is peculiarly un desirable to carry this application for aid to England. We confess to some sympathy with this view of the case, and we believe the humiliation—if humiliation it be—is a needless one. As yet there is more difficulty in procuring the right material, than the pecuniary means for the enterprise. We know that, in our own church, the main embarrass ment is the want of men of adaptation to the service. Give us the men of tact, talent, industry and prayerfulness—men who will inspire givers with confidence, and the means will be forthcoming• THE Florence Nazione publishes some details of negotiations with the Papal Court by Signor Vegozzi. The Pope, it is stated, will appointßishops to the vacant Sees, but they will be pre sented by Victor Emanuel, and will ac knowledge him as their sovereign, and recognize the Kingdom of Italy. The Pope consents to the suppression of some bishoprics, and the Italian Government will have the right to prevent the return of prelates whose presence it may consider prejudicial to public safety.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers