LETTER FROM REV. H. H. JESSUP.
Beirut, Stria, January 31, 1866.
Dear Brother Mears :— Six months
ago I wrote you a journal of missionary
experience. The cholera had then just
made its appearance in the Beirut quar
antine. Within three months after that
time, it had overrun the whole of Egypt
and Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Slinor,
European Turkey. It moved steadily
Northward and Westward, marked by
the same characteristics everywhere, and
continuing in each place attacked nearly
the same length of time, a period of about
three months It reached Beirut July
Ist, and disappeared about October Ist.
It continued about, the same length of
time in Alexandria, Jerusalem, Sidon,
Damascus, aDd Aleppo. It was most
revere in the notoriously unhealthy
cities, and in the filthy quarters of
healthy >-ities like Beirut. Tripoli is a
city surrounded by miasmatic,
ground, to d the cholera remained there
more than four months. In the Bukaa,
the great plain between Lebanon and
anti-Lebanon, the disease was most severe
where the cattle murrain had been most
fatal. At Kob Elias, near the line of
the Damascus carriage road, the carcases
of five hundred dead cattle were thrown
into the vaults and cisterns of the ruined
castle above the village. The place was
decimated by the cholera. The disease
was not more violent or fatal than<jn
previous visitations, but the great mor
tality in these Eastern cities arises in
part from the Mohammedan doctrine of
fatalism, and in part from the disregard
of all saoitary rules and precautions
The disease, when taken in the early
stages, almost invariably yields to proper
treatment; but wbat can you expect
where cucumbers, grden plums, and un
ripe melons are given to cholera patients?
The only Protestant who died of cholera
’ in Beirut was treated with sour lemons
and blood letting, after the diarrhoea had
been wasting him away‘for two days.
The medicine used so effectively by Dr.
Hamlin and the missionaries in Constan
tinople, composed of equal parts of
spirits of camphor, laudanum, and tinc
ture of rhubarb, proved to be almost
a certain cure when given in time.
The disease did not go into Mount
Lebanon, except in a few isolated cases
of persons from the plain who had gone
up to the mountain. An elevation of
from 1500 to 2500 feet above the* sei
seems proof against it, as a rule.
THE TENDER MERCIES OF THE WICKED.
The people of Syria, supposing the
disease to be contagions, adopted a sys
,tem of the most arbitrary and cruel
quarantines in the mountain villages,
which subjected them oftentimes to great
suffering. Sceues of were en
acted in these quarantines which will
not bear repetition. One little girl,
whose friends had all died in Beirut
from the cholera, walked up four hours
to the mountain to find some of her rela
tives. It was a burning hot August
day, and she reached the outskirts of
the village at evening, only to be driven
back by the quarantine guards. They
refused her even a draught of water,
and obliged her to sleep alone on the
mountain side among the rocks. Dur
ing the night Bhe was taken ill, and
•early in the morning the heartless
wretches tied a rope to her feet, suppos
ing that she had cholera, and, after drag
ging her some distance, piled stones
upon her, and, it is said, bnried her
alive. In another village a woman in
labor was attacked by the people who
insisted she had cholera, and her hus
band was obliged to carry her on his
back two miles to escape being stoned
to death, and then was kept oat of the
village until his wife and child both
died, and he had to dig the grave and
bnry them without assistance. Nothing
but Christianity can soften the hearts of
men, and lead them to love their neigh
bors as themselves.
THE CHOLERA.
The cholera has how entirely disap
peared from Syria, not a case being re
ported in any direction ; but the Moslem
pilgrims are crowding to Mecca again,
and if filth and improper diet and expo
sure can breed pestilence again, as was
the case last year, we shall be likely to
*be visited with cholera again bn their
return in the spring. A sanitary com
mission is now in session in Constanti
nople, to take precautionary measures
against the re-intrdGuction of cholera
from Southern Arabia, but of what avail
.will such measures prove, as long as
tens of thousands of poor wretches are
permitted to visit Mecca annually and
return ? Yet it is vain to reason with
Moslems about cholera. One of their
Mnftis preaohed a cholera sermon in the
great Mosque early in, July, arguing
that it was consistent for a devout Moslem,
Who . believed in fate) to run away from
cholera, on the ground that it did not
exist in the time of the Prophet, and
therefore he made no law with reference
to it. But the Sermon made little im
pression, as only a very few «f the Mo
hammedans fled from Beirut. They
rejoiced pver the great mortality among
the pilgrims at Mecca in April and May,
and only mourned that they had not
gone too, so as to ascend to Paradise at
a moment so auspicious.
THREE, PLAQUES AND A FAMINE.
Last year we had three plagues in
Syria the locusts, the cattle murrain,
and the cholera. The two former raised
the price of labor and breadstuff's almost
to famine rates, and the latter prostrated
the business of the country.
NO CORN IN EGYPT,
The price of bread is now nearly four
times what it was two years ago, and
other things in proportion. In the city
of Hums, our Protestant native brethren
eat bread only once a week, owing to
its scarcity, though Hums is in a most
fertile grain district. Damascus is the
Rochester of Syria, and yet bread is so high
that the government have been obliged
to take measures to increase tbe supply
of breadstuff's. Five years ago Syria
leaned on Egypt for its staff of bread,
but cotton and tbe cattle murrain have
reduced Egypt from being an exporter
of corn to a state of dependence on
Europe for her bread, and Syria now re
ceives her flour, not from the Nile. and
Damascus, bat from Odessa and Mar
seilles. Twelve different lines of steam
ers now touch at Beirut, yet bread is
scarce and dear, and there is great suf
fering among tbe people. Beggars swarm
as never before, and we have to lock our
doors to keep from being overrun with
them.
THE MISSIONARY WORK,
The missionary work iu Syria is
steadily advancing. Four members have
just been added to the Church in Beirut,
and seven to the Hums Church. The
week of prayer was observed with much
interest. Nightly meetings were held
in Beirnt, although it was the most vio
lent storm of the winter daring the whole
week. Onr congregation is larger than
usual, and the people are attentive. The
demand for education is increasing in
every part of the land. Schools are
multiplying every where, and among all
religioas sects. There are six printing
presses in Beirut alone, and probably not
far from four thousand children and youth
in the various schools, of which nearly
one thousand are in Protestant schools.
The Prussian Deaconesses have a
large orphan house for girls, and Mr.
Bistany’s extensive boys’ school has just
been adopted by the Syrian Protestant
College as its preparatory department.
The Native Protestant Female Seminary
is growing in favor with the people, and
is crowded to its utmost capacity. We
are hastening, as rapidly as possible in
the erection of the new building, which
was entirely interrupted for four months
by the pestilence. The walls are now
nearly finished, .... but so is the money,
a striking, bat not pleasant, coincidence in
.the circumstance. The crowded state
of the school, and the impossibility of
obtaining suitable accommodations, con
strained us to use all expedition in com
pleting the new building. We have nsed
the utmost economy. Nothing has been
expended for ornament, and no debts
have been incurred. The lumber and
tiles for the roof have been bought and
paid for, and we hope within three weeks
to complete the roof. Bat beyond that,
we cannot go. at present. The price of
labor and material is such that the car
penter work, plating, painting,. cistern,
outhouses, and 1 furniture, cannot cost
much less than two thousand dollars,
which snm we have not in hand. A
large donation on which we had de
pended appears to have failed us, and we
are obliged to throw ourselves again
upon the benevolence of the Lord’s
stewards in America. If this enter
prise be of the Lord it will prosper, and
he will provide tbe means. Ido not
doubt that it will be completed. The
unfinished structure stands directly in
front of my study windows, not fifty
feet distant, and yon can well understand
that I cannot easily forget it It will
not be an agreeable task to discharge
the workmen, and leave the windowless,
and doorless, and floorless edifice to be
the wonder of the city; bnt almost any
thing iB better than running into debt.
The secular duties inseparable from mis
sionary life are sufficiently distracting
not to add to them that of bearing sqcb
a burden. Christian friends at home do
not like to pay debts. May the Lord
incline some of His own servants to ex
• tend a helping hand, that this enterprise
be not left to fail.
Feb. 2.—lt is a charming spring day.
Jabel Sunneen, nine thousand feet high,
which overlooks Beirut, is now covered
with snow, and the whole upper range
of Lebanon for miles is glistening under
the rays of the sun. Yet here on the
plain the fields are covered with verdure
and flowers. The almond trees are in
full bloom, their pure, white blossoms
giving them the appearance of snow
white domes, a fit emblem of the silvery
locks of hoary age.
There is no weather like a Syrian
spring. The cloudless sky, the sweet
odors of flowers, and the liquid, balmy
air, refresh and regale the senses. . But
spring is short, and soon gives way to
the blazing heats of summer, when the
cloudless skies become oppressive from
their monotony, and you long for the sum
mer clouds and showers of fatherland.
There are some signs of good in the
spiritual horizon. Several of the young
people are thinking seriously on the sub
ject of religion. , May I ask the prayers
of God*B people for the children and
youth of Syria ? There is great danger
that European infidelity and scepticism
will pour in like a flood upon the young
who become sufficiently enlightened to
throw off their old superstitions* Already
a Voltaire club has been formed in Beirut
Renan’s books are poisoning the minds
of some. It ia dangerous to send civi
lization in advance of Christianity, and
of all forms of civilization the most god
less and dangerous is the French. It
is comforting to see our young men who
have been educated in the Bible, stand
ing firm amid the strongest temptations.
Brethren pray for the youth of Syria.
Very truly, yours in Christ,
Henry Harris Jessup.
THE AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN, THURSDAY MARCH 22, 1866
IS IT MEN OR MONEY'?
At the last meeting of the Synod
of Pennsylvania it was said that what
the Home Missions Committee and the
Education Committee need is Men and
not Money. It was implied that if the
men could be had the money would be
forthcoming.
I did not believe it at the time, and
the more I have thought of it since
the more I have felt that no such im
pression ought to be made -upon .the
mind of the Church. Are Christian
people to be deluded with the notion
that they are doing anything like their
duty in giving to the support of the
ministry, and that the fault, if j there be
any, is with tbe ministers who remain
idle or go into employments foreign from
their sacred profession, and with pious
young men who ought to giije them
selves to the Lord and his Church ?
Tbe truth is, that the great sip of the
Church for the last three hundred Pro
testant years, has been its niggardly
support of • the clergy; this sin,\indeed,
growing out of the soil of worldliness
and mammon-loving in the hearts of
Christ’s people.
Ate we to understand that the gifts
of the Church are now so bountiful that
there lies in the treasury at New York,
the means of giving a decent salary to
any faithful Christian minister who is
ready to do the Church’s Works? No,
while the Church is rolling in (wealth,
and while Christians ..are living in as
extravagant style as the most Worldly,
and while the incomes of Christian men
are reaching almost fabulous amounts,
and while Christian women arte vieihg
with the most ungodly, in the costly
and meretricious adornment of tteir per
sons, the men of Cod, who are tinder no
greater obligation to sacrifice themselves,
for the Gospel than the laity, are living
on the lowest possible amounts at which
their families and themselves cap be fed
and clothed. Is it too much to ask that
when one portion of the Lordls people
have given themselves to the Church, the
rest should give their money ? Are not
the vows of God equally upon both ?
Have not both eqaally renounced the
World aB well as the Flesh and the
Devil? I. ■ . .
That there is not such abundance of
funds in the treasury of the Cliurch is
manifest from the appeals to Christian
people to send box# of clothing ppd the
like to the missionaries of the Church.
The odd pence and loose change jin the
pockets of the laity, together wiit their
charity-made clothing, are the bqnntiful
supplies which the Church offers to its
clerical paupers while calling fonmOre
men! '
While large numbers of the Christian
laity are living on the fat of the land,
denying themselves no luxury even,
these “ men” for whom the Church calls
are, for Christ’s sake and the Gppel’s,
denying themselves at every turn. Let
not Christian men hold before their eyes
those few clergy in the cities whotaceive
the largest salaries; bnt remember those
whose incomes are counted by hundreds
and not by thousands—men who live
on the cheapest food that the nearest
grocery can afford, say hominv and
beans and liver, —who have but cpe suit
of clothes and that worn threadbate, and
who would be happy to receive the cast
off garments which you give t< your
servants—who cannot afford a ire in
the parlor to receive company, or in the
study either, but must make tbei r pre
parations for the pulpit as ’ Dr.LScott
made his Commentary, in the kitchen,
surrounded by his children, and to (whom
the purchase of a new book Ypr the
library is a great event entered npon
with great cantion and necessitating
self-denial. '
These are plain words, but it is time
that a worldly and parsimonious Church
should be spoken to plainly, and be
aroused from this dream of its own
generosity. It is time that the Church
should ask itself how the clergy can live
on five hundred dollars, when a layman
thinks himself poor on five thousand.
And even the highest salaries of the city
clergy are a trifle compared with the
income of their parishioners. What
man ought to count himself a Christian,
who does not put into the Lord’s trea
sury one-tenth of his income ? and yet,
in the Churches where- the largest sala
ries are paid, are there not individual
Christians the tithe of whose income
would pay the expenses of the church,
minister’s salary and all ?
And do you dare to quote to these
men, whom the Church calls for, the
poverty of apostles and primitive
preachers? Those were days when
Christians needed not to be reminded to
pay tithes, since they freely, gave their
all to God. It will be time enough for
the laity to demand of the clergy, “ Why
stand ye here all the day idle ?” when
they give themselves to Christ with
something like the devotion and conse
cration of even the idlest of the ministry.
Are Christian ministers to go to this
warfare at their own charges ? are they
to be told even by their more prosperous
clerical brethren, to go abroad into the
world and make a place for themselves,
whan they.cannot support themselyes for
a day while doing it, and the church will
not support them ?
Dr. Hall, in his Journal of Health,
once proposed that the Church should
give each unemployed minister a horse,
appoint him a field of labor, and require
him to preach somewhere on his circuit
every day the year round, and give him
two dollars for every day he preached.
Does the Home Missions Committee
mean to *jell us that the. men could not
be found to do this, if the money were
forthcoming, with snch increase of the
daily wages as these times demand?
If the Church were poor, then might
it ask the ministry to share its poverty;
but when the Church is rich beyond all
precedent, when it is “ laying up trea
sure for itself and is not rich towards
God,” let it not cherish the delusion that
it is doing its whole duty, and that what
the missionary work needs is, “ men and
not money.”
The parsimony of the Church is shown
in the extravagant praise bestowed upon
rich men who give of their abundance,
that which they cannot feel and which
causes them no self-denial, the absence
of which they can know only by refer
ence to their book of accounts. When
our Lord gave his commendation, it was
to a poor widow who cast into the Lord’s
treasury “ all her living.” With reckless
improvidence she gave her all to God,
and thoagh it was bnt “ two mites which
make a farthing,” He declared that
she had “cast in more than they all.”
0, go your rounds to your daily
prayer-meetings and offer your cheap
words to God, while you spend your
money on yourselves; and say, “We
will prove God herewith and see if He
will not open the windows of heaven
and pour us out a blessing,” but God
says, “ Bring ye all the tithes into the
store-house that there may be meat in
mine house and prove me now herewith.”
“ Will a man rob God ? Yet ye have
robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have
we robbed thee? In tithes and offer
ings.”
God forbid that the clerical office
should ever be one which might be
sought for gain, but yet I do not wonder
that young men are kept from entering
the ministry and others retire from its
active work, while Christians have so
given themselves up to the service of
Mammon that they will not sustain the
ministry, and while they continue to
take the world’s standard of social posi
tion—dollars and cents.
These plain words needed to get them
selves said by some one, and as those who
are most concerned are too modest to
utter them, I have taken upon myself
in God’s name to say them.
THESE ALL DIED IN FAITH.
That is, the few persons whose names
are herein given—Abraham, Sarah, Isaac,
and Jacob. The number is not large,
though the word “ all ” is employed to
comprehend it. But there are things of
more importance than the number. One
is, that they represent a class for whom
they stand as samples; another is, that
though they died years ago, and might
have been forgotten, as other dead mil
lions are, yet they are not forgotten,
bnt stand forth as the permanent exam
ples for our own and all the world’s in
struction.
Three thousand six hundred and
ninety years ago, if our chronology be
correct, all these persons but one were
alive together. Sarah had been dead
thirty years; Abraham was one hundred
and sixty-seven, Isaac sixty-seven, and
Jacob a lad of seven years. In the
south of Canaan, near to Hebron, they
dwelt in tents, moving about from time
to time, as pasturage or water for their
flocks demanded.
Their individual characters stand out
in very full development. Abraham was
great and just, and God-fearing. He
was driven hither and thither—from the
land of the East to Haran ; from Haran
to Canaan; by the famine to Egypt;
and thence among th&Philistines. But
he ever kept his heart, and never serious
ly compromised his character.
And such as he was, such was Sarah.
She bore the honors of his house, and
fed his guests, and shared his toils; and
waß tbe mother of the son through
whom a race,-like the stars for multitude,
and Him in whom all the families of
the earth are blessed, were to spring.
Isaac was a mild, peace-loving, silent,
industrious, but weaker-minded man.
He dwelt at home; digged wells of
water; increased his flocks; became
vastly rich and .was managed by his
beautiful and crafty wife.
And such as the mother, such was the
son Jacob. His life was full of stirring
experiences, of interest, and ambition,
and enterprise, struggled in and for, with
others; of successes unfairly gained,
and poisoned in the end, as scorpions
wear their stings; of sorrows self-inflict
ed; of over-reaching and being over
reached; of conscience acting along with
shrewdness and covetousness; of the fear
of God : along with the love of the world;
of piety grafted into an active, aspiring
and worldly mind; and gradually sub
duing it, and shining out of and above it.
And bo in substance and with varia
tions do others live. But what is it to
live? As Jacob stood before Pharoah,
he gave his own estimate of it: “ Pew
and evil have the days of the years of
my life been; and have not attained to
the days of the years of the life of my
fathers.” And what if they had not?
What more could Jacob do, were he to
live one or seven hundred years more?
Could he more than repeat the acts
Already passed ?
0, there is but one thing, in all these
persons, which renders them of any mo
ment to us. The “faith” in which they
died, is that one thing. That is the
key to them as persons, and as the ma
terials of history. For that, they are
mentioned and remembered. Por that,
they are held as examples to the genera
tions. 'Other than this, there is nothing
in either of them to forbid their being
forgotten 3500 years ago. What care I
for Abraham, strong and unselfish
though he was—yet practicing polygamy
like a Mormon—divested of this faith in
God ? Of what importance the good
natured Isaac, or crafty, over-reaching
Jacob, take this one thing away? A
million of patriarchs, of whom nobody
beyond their grandsons ever heard,
sleep in the soil of Mesopotamia and
Syria, as good as they, other than this.
Why should inspiration trouble itself to
hand down to us, through the long ages,
men who took concubines, women, who
abnsed their housemaids, men who over
reached and lied—why all this ? Have
we no mean men in our day; no mixed
men—of mingled resources and noble
ness, that we should carry these so far ?
You will search in vain, beyond the fact
stated. They are the examples of their
times, as to faith in God, and of no fur
ther value. They show to us how faith
worked in those olden days; how it
grappled with the then actual sin and
sinners of the world; grew into, and
overwrapped, and mightily struggled
with their selfishness and meanness,
and overcame them; and how it refined
and mellowed them as life wore on and
age crept over their manhood; and how
it bore them up in the dying hour; and
carried them out of the world, its spiritual
conquerors, to step into the chariot of
fire waiting at their tent doors to carry
them to heaven. All their travels are
recorded; all their bargains, fair and
mean; all their well-diggings, and Bheep
keepings, and family feuds, and vile
nesses are preserved just to illustrate
what material faith takes hold of, and
how it acts upon and transforms it.
Religion was, and is, for sinners. I
came not to call the righteous—could
you find such, says Jesus—but these
publicans, these, harlots—these sinners
great and condemned of God and * men,
with whom you cannot even associate.
Are you good* enough already ? Christ
did not come for you. Go and kneel at
the gate of heaven, and announce how
good you are. Christ came for Abra
ham, and Sarah, and Isaac, and Jacob,
and the like—incipient idolators, polyga
mists, selfish, crafty over-reachers—and
this faith, which is all the good there is
in them, is the product of His coming,
as .to them. And it bore them above
their sins personal and social, and saved
them. It will save you.
D. G. M.
MR. WARNER’S LETTERS ON RECON
STRUCTION.
Dear Sir :—The President has dis
appointed all my hopes. I thought he
would have remembered by whom and
upon what principles he was elected, but
he has forgotten. I thought his quite
recent outgivings on the guilt of treason
meant something, but, it seems they did
not. I took comfort from his yet later
assurance that he regarded Congress as
the legitimate authority for winding up
the accounts of the rebellious States;
instead of which he now insults that
body for presuming to interfere with
“ his policy” on the subject!
That a train of persons heretoforf dis
loyal should approve his course, i*6 no
thing wonderful. That a few Bepublican
assentators should he found among them
is less wonderful than pitiable. He has
places to bestow which some of them
would like, while others hold places he
could easily take away. They not only
follow but serve him. One, whose offi
cial duty it is to serve the nation in a
great department, travelled two hundred
miles the other day to serve Andrew
Johnson in a very small one. And he
talked to the people, at his journey’s
end, as if Andrew were, in absolute
phrase, the Government; calling Con
gress by the subordinate title of “ his
assistants /”
Well, sir, this “policy” bo fondly
prattled of—what is it? Can any one
tell me ? I think its drift is just this:
to make over the control of the'country
to a new league of rebels and copper
heads, without guarantees of any sort
beyond that of keeping Andrew John
son in the White House. He would
have the whole South received back into
the active management of the Republic,
while their hands are yet reeking in the
blood of its attempted destruction.
I know the pretence is, that the rebel
States are in the Union now, and have
never been out of it. Yet, sir, with this
pretence upon his lips, as indicating the
integrity of their Constitutional rights,
he keeps them under martial law—a
practical admission that they have no
rights at all!
What is it for a State to' be in the
Union ? What but to possess the rights
and sustain rully the obligations of that
relationship ? Mutuality of stipulated
rights and obligations is the essence of
every conceivable compact among men,
whether in private or pnblic, civil or
political, affairs. And whenever and
wherever these elements are destroyed,
the compact ceases to be such in binding
force. Nor can it ever revive without
a new interchange of consenting wills.
Suppose a court of chancery should
pass a decree of annulment on the rights
and duties of a partnership; could it be
said, in any sense whatever, that the
partnership survived ? The paper and
ink of its articles might remain, but only
as dead evidence of a thing that had
ceased to be—a shell without a kernel.
And let me add, that as rights and
duties are in all such cases reciprocal,
depending on each other, the extinguish
ment of either is necessarily fatal to both.
They live inseparable, and they die a
common death.
A State in the Union, therefore, is a
Ambrose.
NO. VI.
State entitled, by the performance of its
part in the economy of the Constitution,
to everything intended to be secured by
that instrument to States thus practically
faithful. As in the case of individuals,
so in that of States, fidelity is a condi
tion of the title to Constitutional recog
nition and protection.
Now, when an individual rebels, he
forfeits all his rights, and Government
may lawfully take his life, or cast him
out forever. Nobody doubts this. And
nobody ought to doubt that, if a State
take part in his rebellion and incur like
guilt, it will properly incur a forfeiture
of the same extreme character. It also
may be cast out forever, or be utterly
destroyed. Common sense and com
mon law both say so in effect. Nor
would Congress, act with rigor if, on this
ground alone, they should declare the
rebel States dissolved and reduced to
territorial dependencies.
The law of war goes further, and de
clares them already thus reduced. That
is to say, it proclaims their old relations
with the Union dissolved, and their
places in the Constitution vacated. War
is a fire in which all peaceful relations
are necessarily consumed. Can you
bind the extremes of friendship and hos
tility together in one bond? Could
heaven be heaven with angels and devils
making common quarters in it? Mr.
Johnson says the rebel States have never
been out of the Union! He regards the
war as a mere eclipse, that obscured
tbeir brightness for a little; but the mo
ment the UDlnckly occultation was over,
they emerged into the full radiance of
their antecedent federal rights, entitled
to be forgiven without repentence, and
received back into the councils of the
country upon the bare repetition of an
oath too often violated to be now re
spected—the oath, indeed, which served
them, 0, how recently, as a mere con
venience of dishonesty, a mark of trea
son! And this is the “policy” that
Mr. Seward advocates, that Mr. Doolit
tle does all he can for, that Mr. Ray
mond is enraptured with, and which
unites copperheads and traitors of all
latitudes in admiration of the President!
Do I misstate it ? Has not the Pre
sident avowed publicly, within a week,
that he thinks the whole South entitled
to be represented in Congress ? Yes, and
represented by traitors, provided only
that the oath be taken? And has he
not encourged the South to send on their
men ? And have we not witnessed the
strange, the impudent spectacle of those
men—traitors without exception, nearly
—trooping to Washington before a year
has passed over their crimes—a little
year—to claim admission into the Gov
ernment of the Union ?
Sir; I am not ashamed of the glow I
feel while tracing these amazing facts; but
as I wish to be temperate, I will let my
mind cool a little before finishing what I
meant to say.
Most truly yours,
DISTINCTIONS IN THE GOSPELS.
It is no accident that the New Testament
contains four Gospels instead of one. There
are important differences in them, which
are thus brought out by atfEnglish bishop,
in a lecture on the “ Life of Christ
1. In regard to their external features
and characteristics:
The point of vipw of the first Gospel is
mainly Israelitic; of the second, Gentile;
of the third, universal; of the fourth,
Christian.
Tbe general aspect, and bo to speak,
physiognomy of the first, mainly, is orien
tal ; of the second, Roman; ot the third,
Greek; of the fourth, spiritual.
The style of the first is stately and rhyth
mical; of the second, terse and precise; of
the third, calm and copious; of the fourth,
artless and colloquial.
The most striking characteristic of the
first, is symmetry; of the second, com
pression ; of the third, order; of the fourth,
system.
The thought and language of the first
are both Hebraistic; of the third, both
Hellenistio, while in the second thought is
often Occidental, though the language is
Hebraistic; and in the fourth the language
is Hellenistic, but the thought Hebraistic.
2. In respect to their subject-matter and
contents:
In the first Gospel we have narrative; in
the second, memoirs; in the third, his
tory ; in the fourth, dramatic portraiture.
In the first we have often the record of
events in their accomplishment; in the
second events in detail; in the third, events
in their connection : in the fourth, events
in the relation to the teaching springing
from them.
Thus in the first we more often meet with
the notice of impressions; in the second, of
facts; in the third of motives; in the fourth,
of words spoken.
And, lastly, the record of the first is
mainly collective, and often antithetical; of
the second, graphio and circumstantial; of
the third, didactic and reflective; of the
fourth, selective and supplemental.
3. In respect to their portraiture of our
Lord:
The first presents him to us mainly as
the Messiah; the second, mainly as the
God-man; the third, as the Redeemer; the
fourth, as the only-begotten Son of God.
MELLOW AGE.
“ I love to look back upon the past. Me
mory lives there, and in treasuring up
what we have acquired or observed it expa
tiates upon the resources of Infinite Good
ness. I love, too, to look forward to the
future. Faith lives there, and in her
brightest anticipations sees Him whose pre
sence and love are the joy of earth and
time, and also the everlasting joy of heaven
and eternity. It ia a delightftil thought
that God is there, God our own God. There
are sombre hues in the past ; but there is
radiance even on the darkest cloud.”—Dr.
Spring’s “ Life and Times.”
H. W. Warner.