THE AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN AND GENESEE EVANGELIST. A Religions and Family Newspaper, IN THR INTEREST OP THR Constitutional Presbyterian Church. PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY, AT THE PRESBYTERIAN HOUSE, 1334 Chestnut Street, (23 story.) Philadelphia. Rev. John W. Hears, Editor and Publisher. Bev. B. B. Hotchkin. Editor of News and Family Departments. Bev. C. P. Bush, Corresponding Editor, Rochester, N. Y. gintritait Utt%lritttriim THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1865 LIBERAL PREMIUMS. Willcox & Gibbs' Sewing Machine for Twenty Subscribers. By special arrangement, we are able to offer, until the Ist of January, 1866, the WILLCOX at GIBBS David, Noiseless, Easily-managed, Dura ble, First-class Sewing Machine, sold at fifty-five dollars, for twenty subscribers and sixty dollars, the machinery being iden tical with that of their HIGHEST PRICED MACHINES, the difference consisting in ornament and oabinet work alone. machine has rapidly taken a foremost place among the well-known machines of the day. 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Only bona fide new subscribers will be accept ed in making up lists for premiums. No money is made in such a transaction ; the simple object is to give . wider circulation to the paper and the Committee's Publications. Hence pastors and others may the more freely engage in the work. tgritint I",resbpiete Tcr, e -vv Series, Vol. 11, No. 48. COME TO JESUS. For the sinner inquiring for salvation, this, and only this, is the safe counsel. No direction can be more simple, and none more easily understood by one who makes the felt necessities of his spiritual nature the key to its meaning. But there is none which is so often made obscure by the perversities of unbelief. Inquirers gene rally have some vague notion that their proper course is to go to Christ for pardon, renewal, and holiness; but they almost always look for % long and circuitous road tithe Cross, marked by a succession of preliminary religious exercises, along which they are to be carried somehow, they have not the remotest idea how. The sweet and . sublime truth of a purchased pardon, an already paid price of redemption, a now ready Saviour, and all that is implied in coupling the "Just as I am" condition with the spirit of approach, "0, Lamb of God, I come !"—all these are regarded as an interesting pulpit rhetoric, but, as an answer to the question, What must I do to be saved ? they are treated as simply an impracticability. We are sorry to believe that some of the religious teaching upon this' subject, and some of the popular demands respecting the immediate pre-regenerate experience, really darken the inquiring sinner's mind respect ing the straight way to Jesus. We hear sometimes of steps toward religion, and in some cases the attempt is made to reduce them to a mechanical aocurhey, such as the first, second, and third steps. The terrors of impending wrath, the anguish of a guilty conscience, the law work leading to despair of help from any other quarter than the Cross—all, in greater or less mea 'sure, the usual accompaniments of a true conversion, and the last two indispensably so—are nevertheless clothed with a pro gramme aspect, or represented as distinct processes in a gradation, following each other in timely order,.and_with scientific aceu racy. The sinner feels himself taught to expect a season of conflict with each of them in its order, and then to look for regeneration as a sort of logical conclusion of the series. He has heard from the pulpit, or in the inquiry-meeting, of oases in illustration, and he has perhaps seen these cases in process, and thus, as it were, studied the subject clinically, until he has, as he imagines, learned about how long he must undergo the pangs of conviction, and through what phases this conviction must pass before it ripens to conversion. These fancies receive their mould in a heart suf ficiently disinclined to come, by any process, as a beggar to the Cross, and take salvation as the free gift of the love of Christ. So that unbelief of which we have spoken, in a straight way to Christ, or in his present readiness to save, is nourished. A gentleman of our acquaintance, then a young man, educated, and of strong mental powers, but whose relations to religion were simply those of respect, while passing thoughCessly along the street, had his at tion arrested by the light from the windows of ' a rooms whew a prayer-meeting was being held. " Thiik" said he to himself, "Christian people are seeking the favor of heaven. What can be 'more suitable for an immortal being, responsible for his con duct to God, and bound to answer to him for all that conduct ? I will go in." He entered. The leader had just commenced reading tilt history of the pentecostal re vival. The Holy Spirit wrought in his heart an acceptance of the accusation of guilt there contained, and he felt the Saviour there set forth to be the Saviour needed by his lost soul. For a moment, as he afterward acknowl edged, his mind felt the vitiating effect of the prevalent notions of an extended pre conversion experience to which we have referred. " But," thought he, " how was it with these pentecostal converts? Peter set Christ before them, and to Christ they went with their sin-burdened souls— straight to Christ. And Christ received them there at once, for there is the record that the same day they were added to the Lord. And if Jesus could there, on the instant, pardon and renew three thousand of those wicked sinners, why may I not here now 'east myself upon him for the same mercy ?" And so, believing in Christ's present readiness to save him, he found a present salvation. We add with some shame, that the Church should ever have dishonored herself by such inexcusable slowness of faith, that, although the pastor of that church had often preached to sinners that they ought there, upon their seats, to make the full surrender of their hearts to Christ, and that there was no t ood reason why they should not retire from the assembly as fully con verted persons, and although the session, as well as other members of the church, PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1865. had never doubted the propriety of such exhortations, yet it was a gravely-discussed question whether this young man should, upon the relation of such an experience, be admitted to the communion. His general character was all right; he- was a person who was as likely as any other to know his own feelings, and who was wholly unlikely to make a deliberately false profession.• The only point which led the session to_ hesitate, was the suddenness of the change. It seemed incredible £hat a person who, at nightfall, was walking the street in total carelessness of religion, should, before nine o'clock, bt in the full and happy enjoyment of religion. Happily, as many follo - wing years of a holy and useful after lite have well proved, they waived their scruples, and took him to their arms as a brother beloved. Why should they not? What meife could they, have asked ? The instant he saw his need of Christ, he went to him, received him as his Saviour, and consecrated to him his heart and life. Would this sweet and de cisive act have been more acceptable if it had been less prompt? Until it takes place, all the previous exercises are gene rally the mere revolt ` of a proud heart against God's only way of salvation, and their intensity is only a higher point or the excitement of resistance to an offered Saviour. God's revealed mode of conver sion involves no occasion for a fresh excite ment of the spirit of rebellion, as a prepara tory step, and it is simply monstrous to say virtually to the sinner, "You must go to Jesus, but your way to him is only through a painful and mad contest with the fact that, for such a nature as yours, there is no hope' except from the mercy of the Cross." We spoke of illustrative cases. The best and safest are those found in New Testament history. Several are on record there, and we believe that among them no precedent can be found for lingering preliminary steps towtrd religion—nothing but the one step into it. In the ease of Zaccheus, it is a fair conclusion from the drift of the narrative, that he came out to see Christ, with nq higher interest than to behold with his own eyes the celebrity of the day; that, in the voice which called him down from the tree, he heard the Spirit's call to his heart, and that his true spiritual conversion was the fact declared by the Lord, when he said, " This day is salvation come to this house." We have referred to the converts of the day of Pen tecost. There was quick work there. The instant they saw and felt their sin, they took the straight way to pardon and peace, and they found them. 'lt was enough for them to learn that they were sinners, and that Jesus, in the atonement, had provided for the renewal and salvation of such. There two truths—that they were lost sin ners, and that Jesus was just the Saviour whom such sinners need—laid to their hearts by the Holy Spirit, constituted the vital theology of that wondrous revival. The case of the conversion of the Phil lippian jailer is eminently in . point. His whole previous life was, in all probability, passed in heathenism, with all his religious views shaped by heathen theology. If, prevlous to the night of his conversion, he had bestowed one inquiring thought upon Christianity, prob4ly it was only in con nection with the late tumults in the city. There is not the least reason to suppose that he had ever had one feeling of evan gelical conviction of sin, until the moment of that passionate appeal to Paul and Silas, " What must I do to be saved ?" If there could ever be a case in which it would be proper, to tell an inquirer to pause and examine whether he had yet a suffi cient sense of what it is to be a sinner, a suf ficient feeling of the plague of his own heart, or a sufficient understanding of how Christ becomes the Saviour of sinners, and what is meant by faith in him as such, this certainly would have been one. On all these subjects, he hail everything to learn, and those Christian teachers knew it. They began the lesson by first leading him to Jesus. This, in their estimation was the starting truth in a system of saving theology—Christ a ready Saviour for a lost sinner. When this is accepted in the heart, then a whole life and a blessed eter nity may be well spent in studying all the facts and reasoning which lead to it, and the glorious conclusions which result from it. Unphilosophical as this mode of learn ing may appear, it is nevertheless the way to become taught of God. The inquirer took the direction implicitly as it was given. Little as he had known of Jesus, he at once "ventured on him, ventured wholly," committing his soul to him for salvation. There was no delay. It was in the dead of night, and before the morning he was, with sacramental ordi nance, enfolded 'in the Church as a fully converted Christian. Had . he delayed, asking for more light more time to study the exercises Of his own heart, and more assurance that his convic tions were genuine, he might, after a pain ful and useless strife in resistance to the 'heavenly counsel, have at length yielded a tardy submission, and round mercy. Or he might have gone back to carelessness respecting Christ, to be awakened no more until the fruitless awakening of the careless sinner in eternity. As it was, we feel a relief for him, that he did not venture the awful hazard of waiting for more light and conviction. We feel that he went to Jesus none too soon. It was well for him that he went then, exactly as he would have been obliged to go if he went at all, after weeks of preparation—" Just as I am." It was with him, as it is at some time in the life of every sinner, the most decisive crisis for the soul's destiny—the solemn hour of the Holy Spirit's call. That call ever speaks a ready Saviour. Its language, never is, " Make ready," but, " Come, for all things are ready." TINERANT EVANGELISTS IN ENG- LAND. A marked phenomenon of the religious condition of England, at the present time, is the multitude of so-called revivalists on, l lay preachers who, since the revival of '59 and '6O, have been perambulating the coun try. Many of them are poor, and some even in distress at times; many are utterly without education, except that they can read the Bible—a very important exception,' by the way. They preach wherever they can gather an audience, in the street, by the road side, in cottages, theatres, town halls, corn exchanges, in camps and bar racks. They are sure to be on race-grounds, in fairs and at executions, which in Eng land are public and draw together m3riiads of people. At such public- gatherings sev •eral of them arrange.to =go together; they set up a Bible stall, they carry great pla cards inscribed with Scripture texts through the crowd, they plant a banner at their preaching place; sometimes they announce their services by sending one of their num ber as a bell-man through the crowd. A number of females have devoted themselves to some branches of the effort; some, whose husbands are evangelists, travel with them, as is' ll the case with Joshua Poole and his wife, a Mr. and Mrs. Booth, and others; some seem to travel independently; others labor in fixed localities, as Mrs. Daniell, the instrument of a truly marvellous work among the soldiers at Aldershott, where she has labored for two years. Classed with 'these wayside, preachers, though they may not regularly itinerate, are some pious noblemen, like Lord Rad stock, the Earl of Kintore, Lord Henry Cholmondeley, and others; well-blown itinerants are Richard Weayer, Brownlow North, and Reginald Radcliffe—though the latter is not spoken of as actively engaged at present. Less known here, but appar ently prominent in the service in Eng land, are Richard Cunningham—called " the converted flesher," (butcher,) Joshua Poole, . " the converted fiddler," once a rough, low character, but now sincere, zealous, and efficient in labors among that class of people. There are also John Vine, Harrison 'Ord, Edward Usher, John Ham bleton, John Ashworth, author of " Niff and his Dogs" and "Strange Tales," and' Gordon Forlong. Mention should be made, too, of Wm. Carter, a converted thief, who has given abundant proof of sincerity and fitness for his work by many months of persevering and successful labors among the lowest characters of South London. Joseph Barker, the converted infidel, well known in this country, is now, we believe, a Methodist preacher. We believe, none of the others named are licensed preachers. Few of them go into churches or pulpits to preach. Richard Weaver, indeed, is frequently found in some of the most respectable pulpits of Scotland. Last month he occupied the large Free church in Dumfries, Dr. Julius Wood's, on a Sabbath, and for several succeeding nights. As a rule, we think he and the whole of this class of laborers avoid churches, and seek places to which irreligious people may more readily be brought. In many places " Gospel Halls" have been • built, which are open several days or nights of the week, besides Sunday, and where schools, industrial operations, and social gatherings among the godless poor, as well as religious services, are carried on,in entire independence of any denomination. In some, perhaps in many, cases, the converts are gathered into no communion. Some times an independent church is formed, without creed or regularly ordained, minis try that we can discover, though this pro ceeding we . judge to be rare. We fear that too often the converts are left to scat- Genesee Evangelist, No. 1019. ter and backslide, for many complaints of falling away come up from the evangelists. A literature has sprung up in connection with these efforts. Accounts of the livei and the conversion of the evangelists, and of individual cases occurring'in their work, sometimes most remarkable illustrations of the power and grace of God in rescuing and elevating the most abandoned characters, phonographic reports of the most stirring of their addresses, tracts written by the more educated among them, reports of their special evangelistic enterprises, and the like, go to make up this Gospel literature of " the highways and hedges." A small quarto journal of sixteen pages, called The Revival, published weekly by the respecta ble London house of Morgan & Chase, is the organ of the movement, and few jour nals which we take into our hands so pow erfully attract our Christian sympathies. It spreads before us a most remarkable scene of incessant, humble, disinterested labor for Christ among those lower classes of British society, which some have declared the most degraded in Christendom. And the evidences of Divine approval conferred upon these exceedingly humble instrumen talities are most abundant and cheering. The Revival, by its mere presentation of facts, is a sufficient vindication of the move ment. We last week made sorrowful mention of the issue of the first number of a Sunday edition of Forney's Press, a hitherto re spectable paper of this city. We have ever had a strong belief that the Sabbath, like every other good institution, is in the hands of its friends—that .God lays upon them the responsibility of preserving it, upon such conditions that it is safe against all attacks, while they are conscientiously, per severingly, and with self-denying spirit faithful to it. If we could be sure of this, we should view this last outrage upon its sanctity with little alarm. Let all its pro fessed friends drop their patronage of the Press, either as purchasers or advertisers, and it would soon be compelled either to de sist from this wicked enterprise, or to take its place as one of the low papers which live on the vile part of the community. Will they do it ? is the question. The Press boasts a "religious editor; i. e. one who has special charge of the religious department, and who is paraded, in excuse for the Sunday Press, as a religious man. In other words, it has a man who stands to it exactly as the straggling Levite stood to Micah, of Mount Ephraim—a religious apology for a very irreligious proceeding. See the seventeenth chapter of Judges. Perhaps this religious editor has really a connection with some evangelical church. If so, has that church the nerve to wash its hands of complicity in this outrage upon the Holy Sabbath, by doing its unmistake able duty in the case ? This religious editor, in the first number of the Sunday Press, pleads in defence, that the whole office work, editorial and me .ohanical, is performed before the com mencement of the Sabbath hour, knowing, of course, that all the work of hawking it For it has had to encounter its share of opposition. And it suffers serious disad vantages in its isolation from other spheres of Christian 'effort, in the ignorance and unfitness of some of its agents, and in the frequently transient nature of its best re sults from the failure always to house the fruits. But, as a whole, we look upon it as one of the marvellous and hopeful phenom ena of the times. That an army of hun dreds, perhaps thousands, of voluntary workers for Christ, from the people, are ,scattered up and down among the people of England, familiarly speaking to them of the great salvation, saying every man to his neighbor : Know thou the Lord; hunt ing out, in the lowest haunts of , poverty and vice, those who had been saying : No man careth for my soul; that the'noble and the gifted, as well as the lowly and unedu cated, that pious women as well as men, should be turned into lay preachers by the mere force of Christian sympathy, and should literally be going out into the lanes and alleys, into the highways and heilkes of England, and compelling the children of want, the outcast and the fallen, to come in to Christ's table, seems to us nothing less than one of those new demonstrations of the power and working of the Holy Spirit, wlach,__instead of misapprehending, ignoring, and opposing, we should gladly and gratefully welcome. And while many of its features are inappropriate to our na tional character and circumstances, yet the essential element of energetic, self-den ing, lay effort, on a wide scale for the salva tion of the neglected massesf needs to be introduced in our own and all other nomi nally Christian countries. SUNDAY PAPERS. Per an lL. num it . in :M aZanee: By Hail, 83. By Carrier, 83 ISEI Fifty cents additional, after three months. Clubs.—Ten or more papers, sent to one address, payable strictly in advance and in one remittance By Mail, $350 per annum. By Carriers. $3 per annum: Ministers and Ministers' Widows - , $2 in ad vance. Home Missionaries, $l5O inadyance, Fifty cents additional after three months. Remittances by mail are at our risk. Postage.r.Five cents quarterly, in advance, paid by subscribers at tbo office of delivery. Advertisements.-1234 cents per line for the first, and 10 cents for the second insertion. On!.square (one month) $8 two months 5 50 " three " 7 5 sir " 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, 33i4 per cent. off. about the streets is sure to be done on the Sabbath, and at the very time when the poor boys employed, ought to be in the Sab bath-school. The unseen work is done on Saturday; the public, and therefore the most dangerous part, is done on the Sab bath: He further makes account of the fact that the work 6n the Monday morning papers is done on Sabbath evening. So he expects out of two wrongs td make one right. The Lord in mercy save our hearts from the corruption, and our brains from the logic, of sin ! Since writing the above, the following appropriate and timely action of a Phila delphia Presbytery. has come to our knowl edge : "At a meeting of the Presbytery of Phila delphia, held Noveniber 21st, the following resolution was unanimously adopted, and the Stated Clerk was directed to publish it in the Presbyterian, and in the other papers of this city, so far as practicable. Resolved, That this Presbytery deplores the desecration of the Sabbath by the issuing of newspapers on that holy day; and that members of our churches, and all other per sons, be admonished not to read, purchase, or encourage the circulation of such papers. "A true extract from the minutes of the Presbytery of Philadelphia. " Attest : W. M. RICE, Stated Clerk. PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 22, 1865. TOKENS FOR GOOD. There are not a few indications that the Holy Spirit is already working among the people of God in response to their expecta tions- and, prayers for a mighty descent of his influence. Some truly extraordinary revivals have already been recorded in our columns, the fruits of which are being gathered into the churches. This has been the Jase with a cluster of churches in Ches ter County, near the Maryland litke,—a neighborhood of revival repute from early times. The work in Binghamton, New York, under the preaching of Mr. Ham mond, seems to have been very extensive and protracted, comprehending pretty much all the evangelical churches, and reaching all classes and ages in the community. The fact that a large church has been necessary to accommodate the daily prayer meeting alone, shows the character of the work. In our own city, some of the pas tors are greatly encouraged by indications of unwonted interest among their people. Organized efforts for reaching the neglect ors of the Gospel are multiplying, and the most cheering results of personal visitation in the awakening and converting of sinners have come to our ears. A glorious revival is in progress in one of the Washington City churches, of which we hope to be able to report more fully, perhaps in the next issue of this paper. The Lord hath been mindful of us ; he will bless us. THE APPROACHING THANKSGIVING' The first day set apart by-recommenda tion of the National authorities to the pur poses of thanksgiving for our great and wonderful deliverance as a Nation, is the ooming Thursday, the 7th of December. All will agree that such a recommendation is most appropriate. Time enough has elapsed to remove all doubt as to the completeness of the deliverance which God has wrought for us. Not:only has rebellion been crush ed on the field, but the hopes of its friends in the North and the south alike, of accomplishing by intrigue and party com binations what they failed to do by open war, are utterly overthrown. We have no mere hollow, material victory to be thank ful for, but the triumphant establishment, by the unanimous voice of the loyal people, of the high principles of order, justice and humanity involved in the struggle, among the axioms of the national policy. Never had the people of this land, perhaps never had any people, grander occasion for an outpouring of praise and of joy before the Lord than we. We trust, therefore, that every arrangement will be made for a suita ble expression of the popular feeling, and that the day will be a marked one in the annals 'of Church and State alike. A slight or careless observance will not only react unfavorably upon ourselves and our chil dren, but will be not withofit detrimental effect upon the South itself. ARREST THEM If any of the spurious Congressmen elect from the South, who have based their claims to the suffrages of their car rebels upon the grotind of their actual .disqualifications for office, and who have gone about the country breathing un mitigated treason and defiance of the government they wish to share, and for these very reasons were elected over Union men, should dare to present them selves for admission, we hope Congress will have the manliness to order every one of them under arrest and put them on trial for their lives. Common self respect requires it of the body.