rti/OinlenSJADVanf. listittansnitz. SHAKING HANDS. Dr. John Hall discourses in a recent number of the New York Observer upon " Certain Se condary Aleaus of Grace. They are friendly let ters, shaking hands, and kind words. We quote what he says on the latter: There are great varieties in the way of shaking hands, produced, no doubt, by temperament, ex ample, education in manners, and other influences. One method is to shake arms and shoulders. It su ggests dislocation, and is continued indefinitely, accompanied with a gurgling; vehement flow of queries that cannot wait for an answer. This method obtains in Ireland. It is met with in the North of Scotland. A variety of it has been imported, and may be men with "out West" in this country. Another and opposite form is con fined to the hands, and omit the shaking. The digits touch as the fins of. two .fishes might touch, and then, left to the operation of -gravia tion, fall. This may be .met in. England and in "good society" everywhere. There is a i;ia media—a golden mean.-4n which both verb and noun have their place.' It is shaking hands with a firm, fearless grasp, and a little heart tingling down to the finger-tips: . I maintain that sha)ring.of bands, rightlyad ministered, is a means of grade. You, my dear sir, are established, and every one knows you•to be a solid man. There is a man beside you just fighting his battle and making his way. • You know him, and nod to him. Take him loy , the hand, my dear sir. It will do him` good; and if hevai cast down a little, as men will sometimes- be, it may encourage him. "Our minister . shook hands with tee." What made that hulking 'fellow, too big to be a boy, too raw to be 'a -man,- announce • that fact so loudly when he,went home? The , truth is, for sensible effects on him it was more than the sermon. John Smith.has been a hard drinker, but is trying fairly -to 'get out of it. Going down' the village :street, 'he' meets Mr. Brown, who is " boss": at "the works above"'l Mr. Brown shakes hands`with "Mr. Smith," sight of the entire village. Does that do Smith any good ? I.tell you it is as good' to him as one of Mr. Gough's admirable lectures. • It says as' plainly as if Mr. Brown had written it: "Mr. Smith, you have only.'to take care of yourself, and you will be a respectable man ihspite of all." That makes Smith stron g er'; and when he goes to church next Sabbath, and looks over-at Mr. Brown, he will find it easier to believe God's most loving Word : " Their sins and their in iquities I will remember no more." So " shake hands and be friends "—at market, on the street, and, above all, at church.' I presume the 'apostle meant something when he said : ." Greet the brethren with an holy kiss." Some people quit church for want of this means of grace. Every body looks as if just.returned- frorn the North Pole and there had net- been time'to thaw and the deacon, who "runs the church," (if anything so lifeless can be said to be run,)- had been -in command of the party. I Suspect the boys some; times say : " Well, I guess I ought to be good,' but if 1 ever do, it won't be 'long with the dea- , con." They wait, poorloys; till some One comes along with heart—getting no, good in the mean-, time—whose genial, life like ways make them. "feel kind o'.geod." and theS6eatch the inspira tion " and run with gladness in the way of God's commandments." • • APOLOGETIC PREACHING. • The question, How far should preaching . be apologetic? was suggested by a sermon we lately heard at the opening of a new chapel. The preacher, who was an eminent and highly-gifted man, selected a text which set forth a leading doctrine of the Christian faith. From the nature of ,the occasion, we, hoped that the sermon would consist of a luminous exposition - of the'great truth ; and an application of it to the consciences and hearts of the hearers. Instead of that, the time was almost entirely.occupied with an elaborate defence of the doctrine against its skeptical adversaries, though probably not one of them was present to be confounded or convinced by the preacher's arguments. The discourse, though an able and eloquent one, disappointed us. But it led us to ask whether, in some quarters, the same style of preaching was not practiced to an un wise extent. St. Paul said that he was set for the defence of the gospel (cos (=Aortas, roi) warreAlou,) and in some measure all Chris tian ministers have the same vocation. It is very desirable, When occasion rpqnireS, that they should be able to repel the attacks of unbelief. But there are some Men who seem to think that they ought toil° nothing else. They imagine themselves to be always preaching to a congregation of skeptics, to have continually before them representa tives of' all the heresies of the tinies. Every sermon is a Bampton Lecture• on a small scale. They appear to get their , inspiration not so much from their subject'da 'froth doubts which have been expresied with ref erence to it. As if their only interedt' in' truth was to fight for it! The city of God is, to their ;mind, in a state of perpetual siege, and the noise of war always raging around her walls. They seldom lead their hearers forth for a peaceful walk, bidding them to mark well' her bulwarks, and con sider her palaces, that, enamored with the sight, they may exult in citizenship, or de sire to share in its privileges. In most congregations, the majority con sists of persons who are, never reached by the skepticism of the age, and 'feel no in terest in it. They need reproOf for their faults, comfort' for their sorrows, strength for their conflict, with temptation, and for the performance ,of the every-day ditties of lire or to be aikkiseci from their indifference to the whole subject Of 'religion. For their minister to be over bringing before them, for refutation, the iiifidelitrwhich• he, per haps, has met with in die course of his own reading and study, is Very Much like feed inC them with stones *heti ih need bread. Then, again, to he altrays taiieakiiig• 'of truth in an apologetic tone, is dalettlat'ed to weaken its kfluence: If every' '•,dnetiiVe of the faith is treated as in Open - pregtion, THE AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN, THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1869. it gives to religious teaching an air of un certainty, which ought to be carefully avoided. It was formerly the practice of Scotch ministers to preach from the same text for many Sundays together. Ono day. a young man stole into a Church during the sermon, and the first words he heard were, " We now come to the thirty-second objection to this doctrine." He instantly thought to himself, " What an objectionable doctrine it must be." Are there not many sermons which have a similar effect? Do they not often shake the confidence of those who already believe, and create doubt in minds where it never existed before? It may be fairly questioned whether it is wise to drag people through all the mazes of modern infidelity, merely for the pleasure of showing them the way out,.and especially when there is a danger that some of them may be left behind. The very apostle who .was himself so great a controversialist, said : "I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil." Another fact, which weighs against, the constant adoption of this style of preaching, is, that the class for whom it is intended' are seldom convinced or satisfied 'With it. When the preacher supposes himself .to be in conz flict with a skeptical adversary, he generally imagines one who is weaker than himself. He puts into the mouth of his opponent only those objections and arguments which he knows he can refute. He makes him speak or be . silent, just as it suits his pur pose, and, as a matter of course, gains an easy and complete victory "over him. By this means he may obtain some' applause from the less thoughtful portion of his au dience, but if there should• happen to be a real living unbeliever present ; he thinks himself treated unfairly. He only wishes that the proprieties of the time and place permitted him to speak out in answer to the preacher, mounted upon " coward's castle,"• who has it all his own way, and attacks a man when his hands are tied. • Even when every punctilio of controver sial chivalry is observed, and such questiona are treated with the utmost fairness, they can very seldom be treated exhaustively in the short space of time allotted to a sermon. To be a successful apologist requires a lOgi cal mind and great dialectic skill, qualifica tions which many useful ministers do not possess. A man may be a good ploughman, or a good mason, and yet not be a .good, soldier. There are many who are eminently qualified to cultivate the barren wastes of a sinful world, or to build up God's spiritUal temple, who make but a very poor' figure when they come to fight with the enemies of the faith. Their feeble advocacy ,does far more harm than good to the cause they wish to defend. What .a man cannot do well, he bad better let alone. There are some amongst as who consider it an end of all strife to appeal; to the au thority and example of our Puritan fore fathers. It may be said that their preach ing and writing were, to a great extent, controversial,—that they used their rare en dowments and their vast learning to oppose the religious errors of their times. Very true, and no one would wish to undervalue their importabt services in this direction. But, on the other hand, it may be doubted whether this was the most permanently valuable part of their labors. Will not Baxter's Call- -to the Unconverted,", and his " Saint's Everlasting i ßest,” be -read with unabated pleasure and profit, when his pon derous tomes of polemic theology stand ne glected and unopened on dusty bookshelves? It is:not., of course, meant that ministers should have no sympathy.with the doubts which will often distress the minds of their .most intelligent hearers, or do nothing to remove them. Bat a ministry which is only al-chiefly anti skeptical, is not likely to be a very fruitful, one.' It is generally, positive didactic preaching which brings sinners to repentance, and es the most to promote experimental and practical religion.—Lon don Freeman. IS CHRISTIANITY A RACE RELIGION ? BY REV. J. T. (MACEY An item has appeared in several of the papers to the effect that the 8017. Samuel Johnson, " somewhat known as a profound student of Oriental religions,and philosophi cal literature r _tuts affirmed that Chris tianity has bad little success outtide the Aryan' family of It is a little difficult to tell in what con nection this was said. The Radical contains copious extracts , from a discourse entitled " The, piety pf, pantheism, and its Relation to the Age;'as Illustrated in the Higher Forms of Hindoo Vhilosophy," 'hi which this wonderful 41ssertiOn seems in some way to have been contained. If Mr. Johnson means to, affirm that modern missions have only been su.ccessf. in their presentation'of Christianity among Aryan nations, the announcement is; 'after a sense,- at least refreshing. - One 'scarcely knows whether to admire, , morethe etlanolo gical acquirenaents of this ." profound, Btu dent," or his fanailiarity With,tbe success of Christianity within the century. - Thelsnecess of Christianity, in elevating the , peoples of the Hawaiian Islands from barbarism to a fair Christian civilization, or any_progress it may have made in Mada gascar,: could scarcely be included in its Aryan " suCcess!" ' As we'd° not know just what he calls a "success," I presume we must not inquire, about, the Magyars of Ilungary, for so "prefound " a student may possibly include them in his Ary'a,n 'nations!' As he Was discussing Oriental nations, however, it is probable thatle was alluding , to the acceptance of Christianity by. the, people of India. Christianity must be ad mitted to have had somewhat of a 8110643. ES in India, when with but a feeble agency in the field, after A cOmparatively -abort period of labor, it now enrolls two huudred and fifty thousand Protestant Christians as converts from heathendom : , But the greater bulk of these converts 'is, perhaps, in Soutbein India, among the Tamil and like nations; while in Central India, among the Shamans, the work has not only spread rapidly, but has been attended by the same class of physical phenomena that was common at one time at Kentucky Presbyterian camp meetings, and in early Methodist revivals. Multitudes of these people have become Christians. The "success" of Christianity among the Karans, in Burmah, we may as sume to be known even to Mr. Johnson. Ethnology may not have received the at tention of this " profound student," but we are scarcely at liberty to suspect him of such ignorance of its rudest, outlines as not to know that these are without the pale of the Aryan nations. But Bengali is affiliated with Sanscrit, and it may be claimed that Bengal must have been referred to by Mr. Johnson. If we admit -his ethnology herein, it becomes more difficult to recognize hint as a " pro found student" of Oriental religions ; or at least we may be allowed to commend to his attention Mr. Hunter's Rural Bengal, that ho may learn somewhat of the ethnological bearings of the religious element, of that district of country. The fact is, that the predominant religious elements of Bengal are aboriginal rather than Aryan, and while it has accepted much - of Brahmanism, it has added to it . Siva worship, and much else. Its predominant religious features ante-date the presence of the Aryan family. Thus even as to Bengal, it is in the presence of other predominating elements, and in pro portion to them, "that Christianity has met with success. , In the Methodist , missions of the North west, the greatest progressi has been made among low-caste people, such as. Chumars (tanners), and like tribes. These 'low-caste peoples, have, in 'some intances, become quite identified with thei Hindoo social structure, but they have ever been considered by scientific men as the Miechchas, or out casts, and in Bonares, and like centres, they are Pariahs, in nowise ithintified with the Brahminical service. That these represent the aboriginal element of ;India, I presume all are agreed. That they ante-date the i r Aryan in India is equally ell known. The fact seems to be, o far as India is concerned, that the succe s of Christianity , has been in' the inverse ra io of the presence' or predominance of the . t cyan element in the population. , 1 The. Turanian, says Buqisen, is " concrete fear "—that is, he is ,suporstitious and emo tional in religion. ,He lis more. Bunsen SSTS that the Turanian will become a ham mer to break in pieces, etc. This has found its illustration in the Methodist and other missions in India, where the mightest of, the, native Christian ministry is not unfre quently from theselowlcaste peoples.. Many of them prove, indeed, as Bunsen says, " a hammer to break in pieces," etc. The affectation of scientific modes seems just now to be " the fashion " with men 'of Mr. Johnson's proclivities, and it would be amusing, if it were' not woi se,•to witness their eager display of their incipient science and learning. This'ean scarcelyl* admitted to be within the range of dignified sarcasm. At other times and in other ways, they may command our respect, but in this affectation of learning, and this bandying of it, for he purpese of impressing the vulgar, they merit at our hands only the indifference due to Charlatanism. 1 ' ' MINISTERS LIBRARIES, One of the great difficulties in the way of most of our ministers is the inubility to ob tain suitable books to assist them in their studies. If the Apostle,'With all the early advantages which he enjoyed, and the spe cial Divine assistance afforded him, needed, books, surely we need not be surprised if ministers at the present day feel their need of similar aids. Many' of our brethren, hOwever, have •inore difficulty 'in obtaining suitable books; we presume, then Paul had• in obtaining his ; from Troas. .NOt that the books are not to be had, b,ut because breth-, ren have not the means at command to pro cure them. Mani of our Chniches are very attentive' in •supplying the personal v. ante of their minister and his family, and would be afflicted ,if they know be was deficient in, a suitable wardrdbe, or in a supply for his table; but they forget the .:eficiency in his library, and make no suitable provision to meet 'it Every church should furnish its minister with the means to procure food for his, mind as well 118 his body. If, the church neglects 'this, it will be the lOser in the end. Every Church should Make a special donation to its minister, every year, for the exclusive purpose,,enabling him to add to his library such works, as ~he needs, to. keep him fully posted on all the great living issues olthe day..; Then be will be prepared to meet the enemy in the rgate, and to stand, as a defence for the Gospel: PROPER USE OF THE BIBLE. A great many people think that the Bible is a very sacred book. I'will you how it is a sacred book. If you read this book and / find moral qualitie,s in it, , and they, are. , transferred as hying ,virtues t,o you, then to .you it becomes a sacred book. This book is sacred to you just so far as its teachings , in . are Incorporatedyour experience and feelings, and not a bit 'further. All that part of the Bible, is Bible to you that you live by. ,So much of the Bible as you vital ize is valuable to you; but so much of it as you do not Vitalize is of use to you. You put "your . Bible iri 'your book-case. Theke it stands 'all the week', perhaps: 'Or you read it' once a day, or once' a week, as the case may be. And you do it very decorous ly. 'The room is , still, and your children sit around the room in a stiff row. You pot on your spectacles and read ; and as you read you lower fbc key , of your voioe- iorr when men Want to .be; religious,'they always take a solemn note; and. you read all the way through the chapter, and are like a blind man walking along the road where there are all sorts of flowers on both sides, never seeing a single one. Men read thus and feel a great deal better because they have read the Bible to their family Now, I tell you, the only thing you read in the Bible is that which jumps into you, and which you cannot get out of you. It is the vital, luminous part, and not the dead letter that you read, if you read any part of the Bible. Suppose I should set up housekeep ing on the same principle that some people set up their religious housekeeping ? A man goes to housekeeping, and, gets a Bible, with his name on the inside, and his name on the outside, and puts it on the table, in his best room; and there it lies for months and years without being opened—unless there is a funeral in the family.. Suppose I should go, to housekeeping, and should give an order to the grocer for three boxes of sperm candles, saying, " I am going to have a luminous house," and should put those candles away in the attic and never light one of them ? What is the use of candles but to barn ? That is the'very figure of our Master. He says : "No man puts a candle under a hushel;'. but he lights it and puts it on :a candlestick."—Beeeher.- CHURCH REFORM IN RUSSIA. Alexander the IL is one of the most en lightened potentates of Europe. After ac complishing the greatest political reform of the age, the emancipation , of upwards of forty millions of serfs, he proceeds to that of the Church , an, account of which, taken from the Press, we subjoin : • The .Czar has just made. a new reform which will prove of great advantage to, his empire. The Czar is temporal Head of the Greco-Rusiiiin, desig,nated as the Orthodox-Catholic Faith. 'As early as the year 1054, in •the reign of Grand Duke Isaslav 1., the Russian, Church separated from the See of Rome., , In 1589, when Feodor: I. was Czar, the Russian separated from the Byzantine Church; and had for its head a patriarch; almost independent, ap pointed by the sovereign: The spiritual and temporal rulers clashed, and the. Emperor became Head, of the Chnrch = appointing to every office in it, only with the restriction that the heirarchy would recommend can didates, and, in certain caSes; changing and dismissing persons in office: ,In doctrinal matters, the Czar does not exercise jurisdic tion. That is in the hands of 'the Synod, and, in cases of difficulty, the opinion of the four Eastern patriarchs (of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria) is de manded, and final judgment is given by a Council. The Czar, who never calls himself Head; but, only Defender of the Church, is bound, to carry such judgment into effect. There are about 250,000 established clergy, of all ranks and orders, in Russia, and being obliged to marry, these, with their families, constitute a class numbering nearly 700,000. The Russo-Greek clergy aro an ,heredi tary levitieal class, whose social. status is very low, though, since the time of Peter the Great, they have had the privilege of "personal nobility." For the most part this clergy is very poor, the stipends paid by the State -being small, and the congrega tions, themselves in a normal condition of impecuniosity, being unable to give them much aid. The senior metropolitan receives only '53,500 per annum; whereas,.in England, the clergymen in corresponding ' rank, (Archbishop of Canterbury,) has. $75,000 a year, with the rent-free palaces of Lambeth and Addiscom. In Russia, a bishop's salary is generally under $1,200, and an archiman drite, or abbot, niyxt below him, does not receive more than from $2OO to $250 a year. In fact, the Russian clergy, are very poor, and were becoming more needy every day,, for parishes were divided and sub-divided to provide, however inadequately, for the sons of this letritical class who entered 'the priest hood. The Czar has ; issued an ukkee which ut terly abolishes the hereditary character of the Russian clergy. Henceforth they will rank, not - with the nobility, but with the gentry and the mercantile class: Ilioreover, their number is to be greatly reduced and limited. There is to be a.new distribution of cures, on the. basis of population, facility of communication between' villages the moral condition of parishioners, &e. Hence forth, when the4ncome is worth accepting; the clergy will be recruited from the edu cated classes. In short, without tronble.or ostentatious the, Czar has suddenly instituted a wholesale and wholesome re form in the 'Russo-Greek Church, which is Mailer his control. His next - step will be to recognize civil marriages; between 'Russian Dissenters w . ho, do not acknowledge the Or ithodox Sacrainents: LITERARY ITEMS. —We have , rever published any litertiry item with more pleasure than we feel, in regard to the 'following, which The Independent clips from some of its excb.anges; , /4.,4, great deal of curiosity has been prompted aii&many false statements' made concerning the personal relationship existing between George Lewes, the philosophical historian n ancl 'George Viop,' the great novelist, a true statement of which is that 'Mr. Lewes was married early in lite) his wife subsequently . eloped with a para mour; three or four years later, Mr. Leives, find ing her in great distress, relieved her necessities,• settled on her a portion of his income, and then applied for a divorce, which was refused by the English, courts, on the ground that the provision for 'the erring wife was a forgiveness of her error. The Scotch courts was less rigorousj Having secured a;divorce there, Mr. Lewes Mar ried Miss Evans on a Scotch certificate.' " The Independen,t itself is responsible for a good deal., of the currency which these false rumors 'have gained among us. Our own impr4- sion.of something wrong, was.:derived from in article professing•to vindicate Mr. Lewes and his wife for doing what we now learn they did not do. —A story was current a short time since to the effect that Ilogartb's House at Chiswick was to be pulled down. The Ath. nTion is glad to say that such is not the case, and that it re mains in hands which are at least as careful as those of the tenant who recently inhabited it. Something ought to be done for the preservation of this inestimable relic of the great humorist. A very small sum would doubtless secure it against destruction. Hogarth's family tomb, in Chiswick Churchyard, is in good order, thanks to the care of the painter's namesake of Aber deen and London. —Benjamin Disraeli was born in London, but in what parish or house has hitherto been a mys tery. It has often been said that he is a native of Bloomsbury square; but Isaac Disraeli, his father, had not moved so far west when "little Benjamin" first saw the light of day, in Decem ber, 1805. A correspondent of the London Christian Times, asserts that the house of which we are in search, is 215 Upper Street, Islington, now divided. into two shops, and that half a cen tury ago, and before any police authorities or Boards of Works had fe-named the streets, it was a good-looking gentleman's house situated in Trinity-row with a good garden behind, and quite open in front, and overlooking the pleasant fields —as they then were of Canonbury." If this corres pondent be right in his statement, then Islington may boast of having given birth to two living celebrities—the ex Premier and Mr. John Stuart Mill. —Rev. Dr. Guthrie, of Scotland, it is well known, has for some time been laid aside from the pulpit from the state of his health / which forbids his preaching, and he has been making himself useful with his pen. It is now announced that Messrs. Strahan & Co the publishers of Good Words, have placed £5,000 ($25,000 in gold) to the credit of Dr. Guthrie, for the purpose of his going to the Holy Land, and there writing a commentary on the Bible, to be published in penny numbers. —The appearance in Calcutta of a new maga zine, the Indian Student, calls attention to e rapidly changing condition of the higher classes of Hindus. Early in the present century educa tion comprised little or nothing of what it in cludes in England; forty years ago the English language was but in the course of adoption there as a medium of instruction, and so recently as 1854 the despatch was written in England which created the Indian universities. Now the school master is abroad in Indian villages, and the great cities of the Indian empire are crowded with students of. Government and missionary colleges. Each of the three Indian universities has been sucbessful,—notably that of Calcutta; from thir teen to fifteen hundred candidates appear annual ly at the matriculation :examinations, and an average of two hundred at the examinations for the Bachelor of Arts degree. These annual competitors' for university distinction represent about half a million of Hindus, who are being yearly instructed in Bengal, the North West Provinces, Gudh, and the Punjab; and a great multitude who having been more or less educa ted have passed on from school and college to Government service, or to engage in the ordinary occupations of agriculture, commerce, and manu facture. Thus a generation is risinc , up finuiliar with European institutions, for whom special literature on European models has to be provided. The Indian Student is edited by four missiot.- aries. TEMPEE,ANCE ITEMS, —At a recent convention it was asserted that one dollar is spent in the State of lowa every second for whisky. —Pennsylvania has a criminal and pauper popu lation of 24,000, nine-tenths from intemperance, which is maintained at a cost of $,259,910. The State revenue for licences is $317,742. —Mr. Clark, of California, stated at the lowa State . S. S. Convention, that the agitation of the temperance question in his State had brought down the price of wine fourfold. It now sells at 35 cents a gallon, and they intend to force deal ers to sell it at ten cents. Whether this decline in price is to work to the advantage of the tem perance reformation seems questionable. —The Missionaries of the A. B. C. F. M., among the Nestorians compld'ined of the alarm ing increase of intemperance in connection with last year's abundant Vintage. The exigencies of the case have led. several of the native helpers to see the necessity and.applieability of Paul's rule of Christian expediency. At a meeting of these helpers, after other matters had been discussed, Priest Shimoon, of Degala, pastor of one our most prosperous and best disciplined churches, arose and stated that there was one duty which he feared to leave undischarged. It was known, he remarked, that he seldom tasted wine; yet he was persuaded that, as a pastor and leader of his flock, in view of the present fearful intemperance of his people, he ought to give his example to the practice of total abstinence. He was fol lovied by others, till all the class save one (and he has since joined the number) gave their pledges. This action appeared the more valua ble as it was the spontaneous outburst of awak ened conscience and feeling.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers