IMPRESSIONS OF NIAGARA.

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the Divine intelligence as set forth in revelation rather than in nature; who contemplate sublimity rather in the moral than in the physical world; and whose meditations spontaneously dwell upon the invisible and eternal. Does this habit of thinking deaden or quicken the sensibility to the beautiful and sublime in nature? Let us hear. One of them-a person of vigorous and capacious mind, but without imagination, and of phlegmatic temperament-was so excited that he could not be prevailed on to draw near, but stood in mute astonishment and gazed upon the scene from a distance. Some were conscious of something like an impulse to cast themselves into the current, and tumble down headlong with the roaring waters. Mr. Fisk writes: "For myself, the impression was too awful to be uttered. As I stood quite over the verge of the foaming cataract, with the perpendicular falls (160 feet), the rapids above and the foam below, full in view, it seemed to me, in its ceaseless course, like an image of eternity; and in its rolling, tumbling, foaming, sparkling billows, its resistless currents, its eddying whirlpools, its all-ingulfing, all-overwhelming torrents, it appeared a striking image of those fiery steeps, and rolling billows, and noisy caverns where the spirits of the lost are tossed in ceaseless horror." A remark of one of the company deserves to be inserted as quite unique: Standing on the bridge that led over a part of the mighty waters, a little above the perpendicular pitch, after gazing in silent admiration for a season, he turned round, and throwing up his arm, exclaimed, with great apparent feeling, "I suppose, if all the worlds that compose this vast universe were so united by cogs as to turn each other, here is water-power enough to move the whole." Did the spirit of utilitarianism ever conceive such an image before?

They prosecuted their journey

"Through moving accidents by flood and field." "We were two and a half nights and two days rolling in the mud, sometimes walking half-leg deep in clay mortar, sometimes lifting up a broken stagecoach, sometimes going without dinner until nine o'clock at night, and the whole time without sleep save what we could get in a stage, sur16*

A A

ging worse than any vessel in the roughest sea, and every few moments in imminent danger of being overturned." Mr. Fisk, however, as mentioned before, had, in regard to sleep, a slight advantage over his companions. On reaching Pittsburgh he wrote to Mrs. Fisk again, and after an account of his journey, he says, "However, through the mercy of God, we were all preserved, and brought safe from any fatal accident to this city, on Friday morning, May 2d, but in a miserable plight, I assure you. Some of our company got so nervous from fatigue, want of sleep, and from fear, that they would cry out during the night like frightened women or children, whenever the stage fell into one of the deep clay ditches, of which we had plenty. For myself, I was enabled to feel very calm through the whole, and desire to praise God, to whose kind providence I attribute our preservation and my present comfortable health." Yet his health would hardly have been considered comfortable by most people. He complained, while on his journey, of feverishness, cold chills, and an aggravation of his cough, full violent enough at all times. Tenacity of the vital powers was always a striking characteristic of his physiological system.*

Arrived at his place of destination, Mr. Fisk was soon fully occupied with the business on which he went. In a few days he was engaged in the famous appeal of the Rev. Joshua Randell. This person thought that he had received some new light in regard to the Atonement, and gave birth to his ideas in the shape of a sermon. The doctrine therein set forth was condemned by the New-England Conference, of which he was a member, and he was required to desist from preaching it. To this, however, he would not submit. Consequently, he was brought to trial before the Conference on a charge of heretical pravity. This was in 1826.

The substance of his theory may be briefly stated thus: namely, that the atonement of Christ extends only to viola

* From Mrs. Fisk I learn, that during his entire journey up the North River he raised blood, and, indeed, was so unwell that, had he not improved on the way, he would have returned. Even as it was, he would have done so but for particular engagements at the Conference.

REV. JOSHUA RANDELL'S APpeal.

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tions of the "Adamic law," which are thereby unconditionally cancelled; while the violations of the "Mediator's law," the "law of faith," or new covenant, by which we are to be finally judged, are pardoned on condition of penitence, faith, and obedience.

The charge was resolved into two specifications: "First: Denying that the transgressions of the law, to which we are personally responsible, and by which we are finally to be judged, have had any atonement made for them. Secondly: Maintaining that the infinite claims of justice upon the transgressor of the Divine law may, upon condition of the mere acts of the transgressor himself, be relinquished and given up, and the transgressor pardoned without an atonement."

Upon the charge and specifications he was tried, convicted, and expelled. From this decision Mr. Randell appealed to the highest tribunal in the Church, and Mr. Fisk was appointed by his brother delegates to sustain the act of their Conference. This he did with very great ability and power. As the clause in the Discipline under which he was accused is that which concerns "holding and disseminating doctrines contrary to our articles of religion," it was necessary to explain those articles, and to show what were the views of our standard writers on this subject. He therefore explained, in the first place, the language of the Discipline, and then cited at length the testimony of Messrs. Wesley and Fletcher. Then he exhibited the fatal consequences of this heresy: first, in destroying the harmony of the Divine attributes; secondly, in leading directly to various anti-evangelical theories, such as Pelagianism, Socinianism, and Universalism; thirdly, in destroying the simplicity of the plan of salvation; and, lastly, in overturning the cardinal principle of the Gospel, salvation by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Towards the close of his argument, he ingeniously presented the view which an humble believer in the atoning blood would be likely to take of this doctrine; and, to give the greater vividness to his sentiments, he personated such a soul. This affords a fair illustration of his frequent manner of preaching. Thus he expresses himself:

"This, sir, is what so deeply interests my feelings in this subject. This doctrine has taken away my Lord,' and has removed him so far over several laws, and buried him so deeply beneath the curse of an antiquated covenant, that ‘I know not where to find him.' I need such a close and intimate connexion with the blood of the Covenant, that I wish to come very near to my dying Lord:

"To see him heave, and hear him groan,

And feel his gushing blood.'

And it is this method of preaching the Atonement which gives such energy and success to the Gospel. And this, sir, is the way we preach: it is the way our fathers preached. The venerable Wesley, and his assistants in the work of the ministry, used to preach the blood of the Covenant, as it was warm and gushing from the fountain that was opened for Judah and Jerusalem to wash in. According to their preaching, the Atonement was not completed in its merits and efficacy eighteen hundred years ago, but it is a standing sacrifice: therefore they believed and sung,

"Thy offering still continues new,
Thy vesture keeps its bloody hue,

Thou stand'st the ever-slaughter'd Lamb,
Thy priesthood still remains the same.'

This finished salvation by the Atonement, for all laws or for one law, never, I believe, entered into their creed and if the departed Wesley were here himself to witness our deliberations in this highest council of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and should mark with what tenacity we adhered to the forms and modes of expression which he has left us, would he not charge us, like our Divine Master, while we tithe mint, and anise, and cummin, not to omit the weightier matters of the law? Would he not enjoin upon us to guard with a holy vigilance these important doctrines, which are a legacy, not of Wesley, but of Christ himself? and especially that which of all others is the most fundamental, the doctrine of the Atonement? It is, sir, in defence of the doctrine of our Church; it is in defence of the preaching of our fathers, and of your preaching, sir, and the preaching of the great body of our ministers throughout the connexion, in Europe and America;

it is in defence of all that is evangelical in faith, and all that is dear in experience, that we ask this General Conference to affirm the decision of the New-England Conference in this case."

Dr. Bangs, in his History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, observes,* " After a full, and, as was acknowledged by the defendant himself, an impartial examination and hearing of the case, the decree of the New-England Conference was affirmed by a vote of one hundred and sixty-four out of one hundred and sixty-five who were present and voted on the question, two members, at their own request, being excused from voting either way." This was not only highly honourable to the clearness, force, and eloquence of the speaker, but strikingly illustrative of the unanimity of the Methodist ministry on doctrinal points.

Mr. Fisk, at this session of the General Conference, was chairman of the committee on education-one of the standing committees of the body. The report was his production. It is the most satisfactory and able document which had been presented on the subject. At the session of 1820, a resolution was passed recommending the establishment of a classical school by each Conference; but, up to the session of 1824, only three or four had followed the direction. In 1828, as appears from the report, there were seven schools in successful operation, and three others in an incipient state; while there were two colleges successfully established, and another in contemplation. After exhibiting the condition of these several institutions, the report closes by vigorously enforcing the subject upon the attention of the Church. This exhibits as rapid an advancement in the enterprise as could be reasonably expected from the comparative infancy of the body. Appended to the report were resolutions approving of the general cause, and recommending, in addition, to the academies, the establishment of several institutions of a collegiate character. This document, adopted as it was by the highest ecclesiastical judicatory, and published in our leading periodical, served, no doubt, to give an additional impulse to the cause of education in the Methodist community.

* Vol. iii., p. 386.