ILLINOIS. March.-Tremont-Mrs. J. Robinson, per Rev. S. S. Martin, 1. La Marsh Baptist ch., per Jas. MICHIGAN. -$9.00 -$143 30 Mich. March. From the estate of the late Timothy Sabin, in part, per Rev. Marvin Allen, 35. -$113 75 April. Calamazoo Bap. ch, per J. Cadman, treas., 21. Shiwasse, Stephen and Amanda Post, 2, $23 00 MISSOURI. April.-Brookville, Little Union ch., per Rev. John Teesdale, agt, 5; 2nd. Bap. ch., St. Louis, IOWA. $25 05 April. Collections by Rev. John Teasdale, agt., viz:-Pella, Rev. J. Curtis, 3; Burlington Bap. ch., 1; Davenport, 2nd Bap. ch., 5, $21.00 FOR BOOKS. March. Henry Bock, German colporteur in Canada, 20; Dr. Babcock, 75cts: Rev. A. Potter of $562 01 April. Heath & Graves, Boston, 132 09; M. V. B. Soc., 169.57; Rev. C. A. Clark. 153 43; Rev. $663.94 LIBRARY. For want of room to arrange our books, little has been done the last year for increasing their number. The present ample accommodations invite to new efforts Books of the followind descriptions are particularly solicited: 1. All the various editions of the Sacred Scriptures, either in English, or in any other language; whether of the entire volume of inspiration, or of any of its separate books; either with notes and comments, or without. 2. All works of Geography, History, and Chronology, which show the past or present state of the world. 3. All works, periodicals, or others, which furnish the statistics of religious benevolence, the rise, progress, and present numbers and condition of religious sects, whether Christian, Jewish, Mohammedan, or idolatrous. 4. Missionary Journals, and results of investigation. 5. Printing and Book-binding, its history, improvements and present state in different countries. 6. Educational information, and discussions of every variety. 7. The Biography of those who have distinguished themselves in any of the arts and sciences, in piety, or in beneficence. ADDRESS OF JAMES M. HOYT, ESQ.. OF CLEVELAND, OHIO. Resolved, That the Bible-the gift of the Creator to man, and the fountain of spiritual truth-addresses its revelations to the soul, as the voice of God, demanding faith and obedience. Man, in this life, has a compound nature-material and immaterial. The presumption is, that his Creator has made provision for man's whole nature. That the Creator has made provision for man's material nature is palpable to the senses. His bodily endowments are in harmony so striking with the material world around him, as to demonstrate the skill of the Divine Designer. For all man's physical wants, there are abundant provisions in the physical world, with specific adaptations to those wants. ces. Thus, his body subsists and grows by the assimilation through vital processes of material substanThese substances, in order to become so assimilated, must be taken into the body. To ensure this, appetite is planted in the body-man is conscious of yearnings after food. Conceding the wis dom of the Creator, the existence of the appetite, implies a necessity for food, and a supply. Hunger is but the voice of the necessity; and to plant a necessity, without providing a supply, would impeach the wisdom of God; but the wisdom of God no rational being will dispute. Conceding then the Divine wisdom, and conceding in man's material nature a necessity for food-adequate provision by God, of food, adapted to the necessity, is a logical certainty. This, reason teaches; and here the senses teach that reason and reality are one-for the consciousness of yearnings for food is no stronger, than is the consciousness of the satisfaction of those yearnings, by partaking of the substances provided by the Creator on every hand Here we see a material life—a necessity incident to that life, and both reason and fact teaching that for that necessity, the Creator has amply provided. But man has an immaterial nature-a soul; and while we have seen that there are yearnings im planted in his material nature, which are answered by abundant provisions made by the Creator; it is also certain that man's soul has spiritual yearnings-an appetite for spiritual food. Is the wisdom of the Creator to be impeached, by supposing that while He has made provision for the supply of the wants of man's material and lower nature, he has made no provision for the supply of appropriate aliment for man's spiritual and higher nature? When God has cared for the body, can it be supposed that He has been less careful for the soul? Impossible! But what are the yearnings which are native to the soul? Their existence is revealed only by consciousness-which is simply the realization by the soul of its own action. The cry of the soul then-a cry as native to its existence as that of the babe for its mother's milk -is give me life-give me immortal life. The soul shrinks from annihilation. Hence the force of the familiar stanza, "It must be so-Plato, thou reason'st well, Else-whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, Again: The soul craves happiness-that is, well being-a state, in which its varied powers and affections may be conscious of that harmonious exertion and emotion which constitute spiritual health. Craving happiness as an end; and seeing, that as health of body is the result of obedience to the laws of bodily life, so health of soul must be the result of obedience to the laws of spiritual life-the soul, in order to attain to that health, its end, seeks knowledge of those laws as the means to that end. Again: The soul, conscious that its life is derived and dependent, and not self-existent, yearns for an acquaintance with its Creator, and knowledge of its relations to Him, in whom it "lives and has its being." To recapitulate: the language of the soul is-give me immortal life-give me happinessgive me that knowledge without which I cannot attain to happiness-give me knowledge of God. I need not stop to prove the reality of these voices of the soul. He, to whom their reality has not been revealed by consciousness-who has not, during nearly every hour of his waking being, heard them sounding through all the chambers of thought, does not yet live-he needs a birth to know them-he has not yet burst the shell which is between inert and active being. That God has made provision for gratifying the hunger which he has planted in the soul, is as certain as that God is wise. But how has he made such provision I answer in one word-by giving to man the Bible. Is it said, that I here stand on mere assumption-that I beg the question? Let us glance then for a moment at the proof. The soul asks for immortal life. Where, in the experience of the race, since the morning of the creation, have "life and immortality been brought to light," save in the Bible? Again: The soul craves happiness, or spiritual health. Seeing that to attain to this is impossible, without conformity with those laws, obedience to which the author of the soul has ordained to be spir. itual health, the soul asks for knowledge of those laws-in other words, it hungers for spiritual truth. The resolution I am advocating asserts that the Bible is the fountain of spiritual truth. Is it sol What is truth? In another word, it is reality. Whatever is real, is true; and equally, whatever is He true, is real. Physical truth is physical reality; spiritual truth is spiritual reality. Belief-imagination-hypothesis-may be true, or may not be true. It is not man's province to make truth. is gifted with powers, in the exercise of which he may discover, and conform to realities, both phy sical and spiritual; but he cannot create them. It is the inalienable prerogative of Him, who alone in the universe is the primal and infinite reality, to create realities. Whatever He ordains is real; all else is but a shadow, or a dream. That God, the author of the soul, has ordained spiritual realities-conformity with which, in the soul's action, shall constitute spiritual health, as I said before-is as certain as that God is wise. If, then, health of soul is, as it must be, a reality-where has man found it? how has he learned those laws obedience to which is health? Universal history is but the record of man's search for happiness. What has he not imagined-what has he not believed-what has he not suffered-what has he not attempted? He has tried to scale the heavens-he has sunk to a reckless riot of the powers of his soul, which is hell-he has "taken the wings of the morning, and flown to the uttermost parts of the sea" -but has he found it? Gold he has found. In wealth he has revelled. With power and fame he has been surfeited. The arts have ministered all their blandishments, and have made the outward world to glow with beauty. Poetry and music have breathed ravishing strains. Science has lifted him to her sublime heights, and awed his intellect by glimpses of the Infinite. But where has his hungering, weary spirit found food and rest? I may defy refutation, and declare from universal experience, that, aside from the Bible, and obedience to the realities there brought to light, man has never found true happiness. If such then be man's condition without the Bible, the question remains, How is it with the Bible; has he there found this happiness, and been there led to health of soul? Summon individuals of the race, and ask them to testify of consciousness. We see one, with sunken cheek and eye, and enfeebled limbs. We learn that for days he has been deprived of food. We lead him to a table spread with nourishment, and he eagerly eats his fill. He now tells us, that the gnawings of hunger are still; that weakness has given place to strength, and fainting to the pulse of health. Can we doubt that in that man's bodily nature there is a necessity for food so inexorable that the alternative is supply, or dissolution? And when he has eaten, can we doubt that He who made the body, and ordained the necessity, made food, and ordained it to the sustenance of the body? As reasonable beings, must we not from that time forth recognize hunger and food as realities in bodily life? And the man himself-does he need, before admitting hunger to be a reality, to study physiology, and learn the reason for hunger; and, before admitting food to be nourishing, to pry into the occult laws of animal chemistry, which in their action under the vital stimulus take matter which is dead, and build it into that which is living? Surely not. By no conceivable possibility could he have higher evidence of these realities; for to him they have been revealed by consciousness, and her voice is demonstration. But again: We see one whose physical wants have all been supplied-who is affluent. Industry, commerce, art, invention, or taste, can supply no gratification which he cannot command. He is learned, and in the world's estimate is wise. Success has ever crowned his efforts, and gifted with genius, he stands an acknowledged leader in the foremost rank of men. Courted, admired, powerful and beloved, we ask him if all his gifts, successes, acquisitions, pleasures or honors, have led him to true health of soul-have given him any ultimate satisfaction of the cravings of his spiritual nature, or made him conscious, even for an hour, of a harmony of spiritual action and emotion, analogous in any just degree to the harmony of the functions of physical life, which he has a thousand times realized in the gratification of bodily appetite, and the hilarity of bodily health. He will tell us, never. Never has wealth, genius, learning, pleasure, power, or honor, assured his spirit that all is well. The past is to him a mystery; the present, incomprehensible; the future, inscrutable. He drifts upon a "troubled sea, whose waters are ever casting up mire and dirt." His famished spirit ever cries Who will show me any good? And, after tasting every viand of this world's banquet, it confesses, that in its action it has felt the flush of fever, but never the fruition of health; and, a starving bankrupt in the midst of alarms," there remaineth for his soul, so far as it hath been yet fed, only "a fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation." But open to this man the Bible. Let him eat of the bread of God, sent down from heaven to be the food of the soul. Let him drink of the water which Christ will give him; “of which, if a man drinketh he will never thirst, but it shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." Let him sit at the feet of Jesus, who spake as never man spake, and learn of Him "who was meek and lowly of heart;" and now, the fever of his spirit healed by the Great Physician, doubt gives place to faith-fear to peace. He hears, believes, and obeys the voice of his Creator, and, rising above the darkness of earth, he begins to live in the sunlight of heaven. This change so wondrous is the fruit of the Bible. In ten thousand times ten thousand instances it has been born of the Bible; but never, never, has it been once known without it. Seeing this can we doubt that this Bible is the Divinely supplied food for the soul? Will we hesitate to proclaim, in the language of the resolution, that it is the fountain of spiritual truth? As well might we doubt that nunger and food are realities. And does the subject of this change need, before believing in the efficacy of the Bible, to canvass the external evidences of its heavenly origin, and possess himself of the learning which has thrown around it bulwarks impregnable to every foe? All these are well-yes, vital, but he does not need them. He has risen higher. He too, has the demonstration of consciousness, for he feels that the Bible has been food to his soul. Planted by faith upon the rock Christ Jesus, and illumined by the Bible, the past, the present, and the future, now appear to him one amazing scheme of grace, lifting him out of nature's darkness into the light and liberty of a child of God; and, when the days of the years assigned for his probation here are ended, death becomes to him the birth to a higher life; he throws off the mortal coil as the winged chrysalis bursts from its shell, and radiant with "angel plumage," he hears the call of his Father and Redeemer, and soars in rapture to his native skies. But lastly, how can the soul acquire knowledge of God? A craving for this knowledge has been the leading instinct of every tongue and kindred of man, in every age. It has led him to probe the depths of the earth-to pry into the starry heavens-to build idols of gold, silver, and stone,-to waste life in weary pilgrimages to shrines and sepulchres,-to immolate himself beneath juggernaut, or to iuflict upon himself tortures in the monkish cell. But "who, by searching, can find out God?" It is impossible that the creature, of its unaided efforts, should rise to knowledge of the Creator; for of the finite can never be born knowledge of the infinite. To be known, God must reveal himself. True knowledge of God must be as much a gift to man as was the breath of life. Where then is the revela tion of God? Do you say in nature? I grant that her volume is written all over with declarations of the skill, granduer, and omnipotence of its author. But nature has no voice to reveal the eternal self-existent Spirit of infinite holiness and love. Whence came then this idea, of God, in the world? Both reason and universal experience testify that it could not be, and was not born of man; for never did he even imagine it, until it was brought to light in the Bible. The infidel, who ignores the Bible, and exults in an idiot boast of the inner light of reason, but for illumination of that moral sun, some of whose blessed radiance now streaming upon the nations, has in spite of himself fallen upon his soul, would have been a devotee of some idol made by his own hands, less conscious, indeed of the "great verities of the universe;" but also less base and guilty than now, "when light has come into the world, and he loves darkness rather than light because his deeds are evil." The very existence, then, of an ideal in the soul, so infinitely transcending its own purity and lofti. ness, is proof of the reality of the God thus seen, and that this reality has been revealed. For can the creature have conceptions of spiritual loftiness and purity which shall transcend those of the Creator? Can the thing formed be superior, even in idea, to Him who formed it? Impossible! As the eye then, when open to the light, rejoices in sight, and hails the sun as God's fountain for the eye; so let the soul, when bronght to see in the Bible the revelation of infinite holiness and love, hail that Bible as the sun of the soul. Pagan, papist and infidel, may oppose and rail; but, blessed be God, when they are able to quench the sun in the firmament, they will be able to quench the light of the Bible. Believer! then hail the Holy Word as the voice of God to the soul. Obey and live. Fear not, for you stand upon the foundations of the eternal throne, and neither earth or hell can prevail against you. Labor to give wings to this everlasting gospel; and laboring, rejoice that there is a heaven of ineffable health for the spirit; for already, even in this earthly vale, you have had an earnest of its reality, in that your soul, when once conformed in its action to the revealed will of its Creator, has felt the thrill of that harmony, which is awakened by the touch of the finger of God, upon the harp strings of the spirit. ADDRESS OF REV. J. LANSING BURROWS. OF PHILADELPIA. Resolved, That the Bible was designed by God, and is adapted by its own intrinsic character, to be the common book of the people, rather than an esoteric manual for the priesthood. Is the Bible a revelation for the people or for the priesthood? Was it designed to be every man's manual, or the esoteric code for the instruction of the teachers of religion? This is a grave question, which needs to be thoroughly discussed and settled. Protestants have taken it for granted that it is a revelation for the people, and consequently have been at great labor and expense to put it into the hands of all men everywhere. By Romanists it is contended that the Word of God is mainly design. ed as a text-book for the instruction and guidance of religious teachers merely; that they, by sore and protracted study, or by some special perfunctuary inspiration, are to learn its doctrines, and then convey the results of their investigations, orally, to the people. Starting from these different premises, the practical conclusions reached are directly opposite. If it be true that Jehovah gave the Bible, as Pythagoras gave his secret instructions to those of his disciples who were to become teachers, as a secret book, of which a self-perpetuated priesthood, in regular succession, were to be the sole depositories, and they were left to decide what doctrines to withhold and what to promulgate, and in what manner and by what methods the people were to be held and governed, then the Roman doctrine is right; then the book should be carefully kept from the eyes of the people, it should be sedulously excluded from the public schools; then it is a profanity to subject the sacred oracles to the unholy touch of vulgar hands, and the ordinary investigation of secular and common men. The conclusions are logically drawn from the premises. But is it so? Around this simple proposition gathers a great controversy. It involves our educational interests. It is a turbulent element in our political strifes. Is the Bible according to the design of Jehovah, to be regarded as a book for the people, or as a book for the priesthood? If designed for the people, then it ought to be in the hands of all; then it ought to be the text-book in our common schools; then Bible Societies ought to be encouraged and sustained in giving a copy to every family, who can read it, in the wide world. Let us look at this proposition fairly. We shall work the more heartily if we are rooted and grounded in the truth. The whole argument "a priori," is as forceful and as conclusive, that God would reveal his will to the people, as that he would give a revelation at all. It is clearly as possible for Jehovah to adapt his communications to the whole race as to a single class. Having formed all minds after the same general pattern, he could so make known his will that all should be able to comprehend it, so far as necessary for their practical guidance. Are there any such differences in their mental structure, between priests and people, as to involve an impossibility of communicating practical truths with equal clearness to both? To assume this is vain presumption. The God, who made mind and knows its capacities, could, if it were his plan, frame a revelation adapted to the comprehension of all his creatures as easily as one adapted to the comprehension of a few. Who would limit Jehovah's wisdom by denying this? It is evident then, that for God to adapt his word to the understanding of all mankind, is just as possible with him, if it were his purpose, as to make it clear to a few. God is as capable of instructing the ignorant as men are. He could reveal his own will as plainly and as simply as men could. If he could not make plain his revelation to the capacities of the humblest, then it is a bold assumption for any class of men to attempt it. Is it not probable, antecedently probable, that this would be God's purpose? Was it in his plan of creation, that a comparatively small class of men should be so superior in intellectual power to the multitudes, that they alone should be capable of understanding his revealings? And if so, was it a part of his plan of providential government, that these superior intellectual men should always be found in the priesthood; and that they should always be the purest and most holy, as well as the most strongly intellectual? This could not have been in the purpose of God, or else his purposes have been most signally and lamentably frustrated. Are there such differences among men, as to indicate that Jehovah has formed a separate class, capable of receiving the truth from him, of which the great majority is incapable, and so holy and honest that they may be implicitly trusted to communicate "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" of his revealings? There is nothing like it. There are no such differences among men. If then there is, in fact, an average equality of capacity and of virtue among all classes and all ranks, in all employments and positions of society, is it not probable that Jehovah would reveal his will equally to all? In the actual condition of humanity there is nothing that indicates a necessity for a class of intermediate revealers to stand between God's word and the people. All classes of mankind equally need a revelation. It is plainly asserted in the word of God that every man shall give account of himself to God." There is no intimation that any man will be allowed to answer for another, or be able to offer any ransom for the soul of his brother. The dogma that the priest will be permitted to stand between the soul and God, and claim that the conditions of salvation have been met by intercourse with him, is a bold assumption, without the slightest basis. Priests will have enough to do to answer for themselves as common sinners, often, alas! as uncommon sinners. There is but one Advocate, one Mediator, between God and man. If it be true, then, that God holds each man directly accountable to himself, that every one must personally give account of himself to God, then it follows that every man has a right to know for himself what God requires of him, and upon what principles he is to be judged. If a priest cannot answer for me, he cannot learn for me. If he cannot stand betwen me and Jehovah, he has no right to obtrude himself between me and God's word. A man may as well propose to eat for me and promise that I shall not starve, as take from me my own portion of the bread of life, and assure me a healthful spirituality. He may as well stand be tween me and the spring, and tell me he will drink for me and insure me against famishing, as stand |