-•• e • k 1 is, • /-1 1 ' 1 [ sr ; I \ , • ' " - • rntzt, H , • 6 ' '4n New Series, Vol. A, "bilAweir - • -. SS 00 By Mail. $3 50 By Carrier. I Wets Additional after three Months. gintrirait grullgttriait. THURSDAY, SEPTEIKBER 17, 1868. INVIOLABILITY OF THE SPHERE OF FAITH. Faith is not only the name of an act, or exer cise, or of a habit of mind, but the word may also describe a faculty or capacity of our spiritual be ing. There is that in us which we may call our believing power, as properly as we speak ,of our potter to . judge, conceive or think. Allied ,to that high faculty which compares, combines ; generalizes and reasons, and which deals with be ing and substance, the faith-power transcends it in the greatness and importance of the objects with which it is employed. It may be described rs that distinct faculty or power by which we recognize, appreciate, reach after, and grasp spirit ual truth. It has its own class of functions . as much as conscience has, if indeed that spiritual faculty be not included among the manifestations, of the faith-faculty. It does not reason, nor does it depend upon reason ; it does not claim or care to understand. It has its own peculiar. sphere. Founded on spirit ual want, and guided by a spiritual instinct it seizes upon such objects as are adapted to supply its wants, without waiting first to reason out the matter. We believe in a God, rather than know Him, and before we can be said to know Him. We know because we believe and not believe be cause we know. There is' in us a feeling of su promo spiritual necessity for Gtid, which is above all logical processes of proof and diSproof, and to which, all the atheistical philosophies are as idle as would be the plots of children against the fixed stars. Faith in a Revelation from God, in a divine Redeenier, and a present Holy Spirit, indeed, owes its definiteness and spe ciality to reason and the understanding, but it exists already, potentially, in the mind, in the form of an instinctive receptivity for all these and other leading objects of spiritual truth. Faith holdo the wounded 001100;0D 00, a e ib-Were, 6he hand, ready to spring towards the cross of the atoning Saviour whenever it appears. Not that this power is ever or often in its nor mal state. Here, indeed, mainly the ruin of sin appears. Adam and Eve hid themselves from the God who appeared both to the faith and the sense of his unfallen creatures. And men have never since liked to retain God in their knowledge." The whole spiritual sphere of man's nature has been darkened. But it still exists in its dignity, with its innate tendencies, its wants and its vague but powerful feeling after God, after forgiveness, after holiness and after truth. And this faith faculty demands culture and protection and stim ulus as much as any other set of faculties in the mind. Our nature is cruelly wronged if it be ne glected. Our training is one-sided and faulty, no matter how great attention is given to the other faculties. We are cruelly wronged if our understanding and our reason arc cultivated to the highest point demanded by modern civiliza tion, and our capacity for grasping spiritual truth and for enjoying spiritual realities is neglected. And when the over-cultivated reason or scien tific instinct takes ground exclusive and subversive of faith's teaching, it must be warned that its law ful limits are passed, that it is trenching upon the rights and claims of a faculty which has at least as good a right to be heard as any other. Scientific men must learn that if men are not made solely for spiritual ends, they are no more made solely for scientific ends; that if faith cannot annul the teachings of science, neither can science ignore the teachings of faith; that if faith may not be bigoted, science may not be godless. A scientific man has no more right to pronounce a a conclusion of his reason final which would in validate the claims of faith, than a believing man has to discredit the conclusions of science because they seem inconsistent with his faith. We must believe; it is far more of a necessity than it is to speculate, and we are bound to guard our believ ing power as the most precious of all we have, from everything that would discredit and debili tate it. Poor, abject, lost, indeed, were a world full of all the imaginable results of mere science, from which the objects of faith had been swept and the faithLpower itself crushed and forgotten. Bar Dear reader, can ,you point to a single soul converted by your instrumentality? Is there a single gem in your immortal' crown? There is a time coming when you will wish for this, more than any of the honors, comfort, or wealth of earth. Alas! what a reflection is forced • upon us from year to year by the statistics of our chirches, which show that but one person is converted to about one dozen 'pretesting, Chris tians 15ju1y69 PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1868. THE ISSUES BEFORE THE PEOPLE. In a few weeks the people will be called upon to decide whether they will adhere in peace to the principles by which they were guided in the war with the rebellion; whether they will surren der to defeated rebels the power and influence which we fought a deiperate and costly war to prevent their exercising;`whether in fine, the final overthrow of rebellion after such a pro tracted and terrible struggle, brings with it, as a logical and • immediate result, the, right of the guilty authors of the mischief to all the. privi leg& of citizenship in' the country they sought to 'destroy. The question fairly. stated is: Shall the future of the country be in the hands or its known friends or in those of its helligerent ene mies? Shall loyal men, or shall traitors and sym pathizers with treason, worse often than open rebels, rule the land ? Nay more.' 'The present 1 issues really involve the question, whether the loyal and the true shall even be tolerated in vast districts of our country, and whether fidelity to the government, the first`Of 4rirtues, shall be treated as a crime too' odious to be' visited by the ordinary course of law, and demanding the prompter methods of assassination and.mob yio lence. One'would scarcely imagine such issues capa ble for a moment of dividinc , the intellio•ent'Peo ple of the country. „ True, they are not set forth irk:this bald manner. The prejudices of men are called into play. Multitudes of those who vote wrong, will do so in innocence of any. ititebtion of the results likely to follow. But we think it will require little reflection to see that the over throw of the reconstruction polio , of Congress, which is one of,the prime objects , of the opposi tion party, will be•whollyin the interest of the ,instigators andleaders of the rebellion,andwould; be followed by a policy more or le.ss et:lnformed to their wishes. The share of the negroes in the rights and duties of citizenship would be circum scribed ; the odious apprentice, ,systems, which, were simply stepping-stones back into slivery, and which had actually been inaugurated `under some of Mr. Johnson's proVisional governments, would be extended all over the South; loyal men, soldiers in the army of freedom, and enter prising emigrants, missionaries and schOol teach ers from the North, 'would be proscribed, injUred and expelled, if net coldly murdered; the lines would be broadly drawn between the laboring classes and the would-be aristocracy of the South, and the whole policy of the nation would be effectually at the beck oT rebellious Southerners as truly as if Grant had surrendered to Lee, and Jefferson Davis and his rebel cabinet had dictated a peace to the country from the National Capital. But why' do •not our countrymen more gene rally perceive these dread probabilities, and shrink from them with one unanimous recoil ? Simply because the only effectual way of pre venting them is to put' the ballot in the hands of a despised race, and many, alas ! prefer 'to risk these calamities rather than sacrifice their'blind, unchristian caste-prejudices. Here is where the shoe pinches. If loyalty cannot be honored and rebellion restrained without 'making a man of the dark-skinned lover of his country, then let the genteel rebels of the South take back the reins; let them manage the affairs of their section again ; let black man and white unionist be content with the best he can get at their hands ! So absurd and outrageous are the conclusions to which mere prejudice of race will sometimes bring even in telligent men. Of what use is victory over a pro-slavery rebellion to those who so abuse their advantages? 'What i gained if the result of our costly war is but to encourage and confirm the arrogance of those who planned it, and to re-establish those principles of caste which in our republic are so paradoxical as to be the sure germs of new political convulsions in the future ? We do not see how any true man can shut his eyes to the fact, that our national policy 'during and since the was has been a matt hopeful ad vance in the line of the Gospel precept of Love to our Neighbor. The Abolition of Slavery, the Civil Rights Bill, and the tEnfranshisement of the colored men of the South, are measures which, in the pages of future history, will out shine the lustre of Gettysburg, of 'Vicksburg, of Sherman's march, and of Appomatox Court House. Indeed, without those great acts of legis lation, these victories would be almost unmeaning. Feats of arms are glorious only as they make way for the advance of great principles in the world. We think the pages of history will be searched in vain for an instance of progress in the removal of great and inveterate wrongs, and the recognition of precious human rights so rapid, so cheering, and so momentous as that achieved by our country during the last eight years. Our church's, in nearly all their branches, have been in thorough sympathy with 'this prOgress, and the General Assembly of our body, in 1863, was the'first great: public body to demand politi cal rights for 'the Freedmen of the South. A religious sacredness, a high Christian and moral character, .belongs to this progress. It enters into the world's'h'oPes of redemption, it encour ages faith in the_approach of the Millennium, it, ,belongs to, those movements which emancipate the mind c which -remove obstacles to the pro gress of truth, ainl,wliich give the Gospel a free course in, the, world. There can be no plainer duty to the Christian, in our judgment,—and in our own Church' we have the plainest decisions of our. Assembly to confirm the judgenent,thati to ,Bray and labor and vote that in this onward and upward movement there may be no unfortunate pause or retrogression at this time. "WHO, CAN MUTE A SNEER!" Asks Paley. It is not very easy,—still less easy to refute such a string of them as we findin the last' number of TAe Presbyterian, will& pur ports to give its readds some account of our re cent: article, SACRAMENTAL G - HACE AND THE WESTM.TNSTER. CONFESSION. The writer knows his - own business best, however, and-the cynical spirit' of the Ileine School may not be a 'had one for a Chiimpi4n of Princeton, though the defence of Christian,truth has been, best con dnetedin a.different spirit. The whole bearing*f our article is distorted in, a way that suggests` ome obliquity of mental vision in the critic`. What was " manifestly' an after-thought and, a secondary reason in our .article, and less effective in such. a discussion, thOngh not less important in itself, because rest ing on probability, Is lugged forward. What 'rested 'not on the prObability of the future 'but the certainty of the ipresent; is never noticed. We wish to know (1.) Do the WestniinStet. Standards teach the Zwinolian, doctrine di, the'sacraments r ( .)t Do' Old Schckbl Presbyterians hold .the Calvinistic doctrine t • (3) If both these linestions must , be answered in the negative, (ap.d.we , think they must) do the faets thus , conceietthar slight yon the question of the sense in Which the Confession is held in the other , branch, as to justify the alle gation that those who resort to such questions must be hard put to for arguments against the burgh Circular? The Presbyterian wants to know if there are "Romanizing germs in the ,Confession." We answer if it be Romanizing doctrine to assert that (1.) the body and blood of Christ are really present and partaken of in the Eucharist, and (2.) that Baptism is efficacious to regenerate the elect, then there are Romanizing germs and more than germs in the Confession,- , —statements which modern Protestants commonly reject as unsound and dangerous, even though they were held by Calvin himself. As to "sundry • doctrines in the Confession which the AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN does not approve of," we believe that we are not any worse off in that regard than our neighbors, the differ ence being, we believe, that we are more candid in owning to the ,fact when our opinions differ in any matter from "the traditions of the elders." We, certainly, are not in the habit of reading lectures to other schools of theology for their Ro manizing tendencies in holding and teaching what is taught in any doCument to which we ourselves ,• profess to yield an implicit assent. As to Grundtvig we would refer The Presby terian to ai r y common work in recent ecclesiasti cal or doctrinal history, for information as to the greatest of Scandinavian Churchmen. THE EARTHQUAKE IN SOUTH AMERICA. We get some faint conception of those great geological catastrophes which swept sway whOle systems of living things, and entire continent, in the great earthquake of last month lbrk the Western Coast of South America. The details show a coast-line of one thousand miles Lu extent reaching from Chili, pass Bolivia and Peru into Ecuador, and a belt of country extcsading hack to the Andes, in which twenty towns and shies appear to have been utterly demolished, some thirty thousand lives lost and three hundred mil lions of ,property destroyed. The shocks of the earthquake were violent and protracted to an unus ual degree even in those'countries, the earth reeled to and fro like a drunken man, all the motions of a steamer on a stormy sea were experienced on the solid ground, and she enormous return wave of the startled ocean fell, like an avalanche, upon the miserable ruins left by the earthquake, and swept them clean from their places into the sea. The oft visited' Quito, in the lap of the Andes, is again in ruins. It is rumored, in the first panic, that extensive mining, districts, in the interior, with as many as eighteen thousand inhabitants, have been swallowed up, leaving no trace behind. We wait for the story as it shall be told in a calmer and perhaps less exaggerated form, but we see little reason to doubt that fur violent and destructive effects over a vast range of country, this is unparalleled among all calamities of the kind recorded in history. The only occurrence that can compare with it is the earthquake of 1797, when the country from Santa Fe to Panama was convulsed, and 40,000 persons perished. In the great Lisbon earthquake of 1757, sixty thou sand are believed to • have perished in about six minutes, but though the shock was felt over seven and a half millions of square miles, its destruc tion efforts were mostly confined to the city of • Lisbon alone. There was an earthquake in Calabria, at the end of the last century ; in which 40,000 persons perished. In the Island of Java in 1772; flirty villages, with all their inhabitants, were over Whelmed in ruin. The Tribune men tions an earthquake in the kingdom of Naples, in 1857, attended with the hiss, as was believed of fully 30,000 lives, and it gives, the following terrible summary of less destructive visitations, adding that twelve or thirteen earthquakes, more or less destructive, are believed to occur every year, and that thirteen million of the human race 'are believed to have perished by earthquakes. In October, 1146, Lima and Callao were demolished, and 18,000 persons buried in the reins in April, 1766; the City of Quito was destroyed; in July, 1 173, Guatemala, with 8,000 of its inhauitants, wits swal . • _ - • lowed. up On February, I. occurreit the terrible earthquake. above alluded to ; in March, 1812, the. City of Caraccas, the capital of Venezuela, was re duced, with all its splendid churchas, to a heap of ruins, beneath which 12,9011: of the inhabitants were crushed to death ; on tue 2d April, 1831, Valparaiso iYas.terribly Shaken, and more than 400 houSes de streyed ; April, 1864, St.' Salvador was destroyed ; in June, 1868, the 'Valley of Mexico was convulsed, and.property„to the value of; several millions of dol lars destroyed; in March, 1839, Quito iii ,Ecuador suffered terribly, about . b,OOO persons having been killed, and an immense aniouut of property destroyed; in March, 1861, the greater part of tne city of Men. doza; in the Argentine Republic, was 'overthrown o , and 7,000 liSes lost, and in December, 1882, 160 buildings and 14 churches were destroyed in Guate mala. - The West.lndist Islands have also suffered terribly. Tliere waithe'earthquiike at Jamaica, in 1692, which destroyed Port Royal•; that at Martinique, in January, 1899, by which nearly 700 persons were killed, nearly half the capital of the island destroyed, and the whole island damaged; that of May, 1842, at Cape -Hayden, in Hayti, which destroyed nearly two-thirds of the town with from 4,000 to 6,000 of its inhabit ants ; that at Guadaloupe in February, 1843. result in the entire destruction of Point-a-Pitre and lastly, besides several inferior ones, that with which the island •of. St. Thomas, and other parts of 4he West Indies, were visited in October of last year, causing the loss of property valued at. several millions of dol lars. The St. Thomas catastrophe was followed in the early, part of this year, by the earthquake in the Sandwich Islands. What a comment is all this upon the instability and uncertainty of that which is the very foun dation of all man's dependence for this life ; that to which he points as the essence and illustration of all that is stable and true—mother-earth. How unreal is even his " real" estate. But a little ways beneath our feet struggle the elemen tal forces which thus shim their readiness and give a hint of their power to whelm the earth in one universal catastrophe. Who, then, is ready for the new heaven and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness? ANTIDOTE FOR TOBACCO. MT DEAR BROTHER:—When I receive a news paper with a particular article marked by pen or pencil I instantly infer that, in the judgment of some friend, the said article is one in which I have a special concern. Judge then of my sur prise when opening your paper, which I read regularly, my eye fell upon the following adver tisement—marked on it I supposed by some Mend ly hand: An Antidote for Tobacco. Th great remedy invariably removes all (IPA ' a for Mae and is enttrely vegetable and harlot , . It is also an es dent appetizer. It purifies Eli. dried, in vigorates t system, possesses great n ishing and sprongthsning ewer, enables the stoma& to digest the heartiest Mod, es sleep refreshine and establishes robust health. J erg and Chews • for Fifty Years Gexered. Price Fifty nts, post fr. A Treatise on the lkiftions Effecte or To.; cco, lists of testimonials, Wrenn's, etre., SENT FR . .geata wanted. Addre. *r.T. IL ABBOTT, Jersey City, N. J. A CLEROTBAN'S TF- siosir. Box or ANTIDOTE eared my brother r myself. IT •. •ER FAILS. aev. L ' . SUOILEAKER, 'e Station, Pa. ULM!, AN STETINGTH GATRED.—/ •rtined eleven Fix VAN ad am restored to sound he th by using the ANTI • . S. D. Bowtss, Prospect • ill, Mo. FRO THE U. S. TRAMMEL SOCNT/TrYB Office. .IeRSB nen supply of ANTIDOTE. The one received has cork SORELY. 0. T. EDGA [Trade harts x Copyrighted.] My first emotion was indignation. What bus iness had any one to send me such a paragraph. The implication is that I need it, which I regard as little better than a personal affront. Thus far in my life I am free from all bondage to tobacco in any form. The only antidote to this poisonous narcotic which I need is to con tinite to do as I have hitherto done—LET IT ALONE. I was so cut by what I thought was an imper tinence and an insult that I did not discover for Genesee Evangelist, No. 1165. I Ministers $2.50 IL Miss. $2.00 1 Address :-1334 Chestnut Street a considerable time, that what I had regarded as a private and personal designation, was only a typographical, art, intended give an advertisement the greater emphasis and publicity. But my thoughts would not stop. Relieved at once from the uncomfortable feeling of a personal imputation, my attention was fastened upon the many admissions which are here made as to the unhappy and deleterious effects of tobacco. A promised "Antidote for Tobacco!" "It purifies the blood." Then tobacco makes the blood im pure,. "Invigorates the system." Then it is con ceded that tobacco debilitates the system. "Etta. bles the stomach to digest the heartiest food." Then tobacco enfeebles digestion. "Makes sleep refreshing and establishes robust health !" Then tobacco disturbs sleep and impairs health. Thank God I never have used tobacco. ANTIDOTE for Tobacco I And this in the form of a vegetable preparation, sold in a box! And a clergyman giving testimony for himself and his brother that it is infallible ! Can it be so that one addicted to the use of tobacco—and he a preacher of that Gospel which "gives liberty to the captive "—is so bound and fettered by the habit, i hat having no help from reason, or con science, or self-control, he looks for relief to a physical appliance in the shape of an advertised nostrum 7 Thank God again, that I have not ac quired a habit which so enslaves and disables its victims. Here is a specific which is infallible, costing nothing, misleading no on and good for TonAc co, as for OONTBNTION. "Leave it off before it be meddled with." New York, Sept. 8, 1868 THE EPISCOPALIAN AND BAPTIST TRW BROTHER MEARS :—The Ecclesiastical Court .for the trial of the Rev. John P. Hubbard of Westerly, R. 1., for alleged violations of the ca nons of the Protesta,nt Episcopal Church, conven ed in this city on Tuesday, Sept. Bth. The court not being full they adjourned until Wednesday; when they met and the parties agreed " that a statement of facts be prepared and agreed to by the respective parties, which shall take the place of the familiar mode of *Driving at the facts in the case by a course of evidence." So they ad journed to meet on the 22d of September. From the above facts the trial will, doubtless, be short but important. On Wednesday also, the one hundred and se cond annual meeting of the Warren Baptist As sociation was held in the First Baptist Church. On the afternoon of the second day, the Rev. Dr. Lincoln introduced the following resolutijn: WHEREAS, The Warren Association has from its origin taken the Word of God as a supreme authority in matters of faith and practice; and whereas, in common with Christians of every name, it accepts the divinely appointed order of "Baptism before the Lord's Supper;" therefore, Resolved, That this Association regards an in version of the Scripture law in inviting to the Lord's table those who have not been baptized, contrary to the universal custom of Christendom, as an infringement of the Divine law, and a vio lation of Christian propriety. This was a shaft hurled at the Rev. C. H. Malcom, who, it will be remembered, a few months since, united with a Pedobaptist Church, in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, which was a sore offence to certain brethren, though that church had always been known as an open communion ehurch. Mr. Malcom immediately moved that the resolution be indefinitely post poned. This motion being lost, Mr. M. took the floor, and by a simple enumeration of alleged facts put the resolution and the mover, not on the table, but in a most uncomfortable position. Mr. M. showed that the Warren Association never had pronounced that baptism must precede the Lord's Supper: (see resolution.) That his acts were in perfect consistency with the inde pendency of individual churches, and the right of private interpretation : That this liberty had always been the right of the churches in the As sociation and that the 2d Church of Newport had always used that. right: Ile denied that their Confession or the Bible makes baptism a prere quisite to the Lord's. Table; and asserted that the Confession gave the largest liberty; defining the worthy communicant to be the one who fed uporiChrist spiritually : That the question of a restricted. communion had been left in their Con fession purposely and studiously open ; and that the question was open in their denomination : That President Wayland and other noble names, were emphatically in favor of entire liberty: That the 2cl.ohurek-in Newport—an old and influen tial church in. the Association—had taught hici to.invite to.the-Lord!s table those who have not been. immersed:- The whole matter was- then referred to a com mittee of five, and so the-next meeting will hear from it again.• ' H. Providence, R. L, Sept,. 11th, 1868. mar The " English .Church Union," the great Ritualistic league, has divided on the Irish Church question. Dr. Pusey and his .friends having endorsed. Gladstone, a large party have seceded' and formed an English Church and State Union." BLES IN RHODE ISLAND.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers