historical account of the congregation of which he was pastor, it appears that in the year 1756, the dissatisfaction of a number of the members of that congregation, which had been of long continuance, occasioned their leaving their previous connexion, and forming the congregation of which the two Doctor Masons, father and son, were afterwards the distinguished pastors. We have seen what dissentions existed from the first, among this people, produced mainly by the conflict between Presbyterianism and Congregationalism; and there is little reason to doubt that the adopting act had its influence in fostering and perpetuating the dissatisfaction of the strict Presbyterians, till it ripened into a formal secession. But the dissatisfaction was not confined to individuals or congregations. The whole Presbytery of New Castle found it necessary to satisfy both themselves and their people, by an act less equivocal than that which was passed by the Synod. In the year following this memorable doing of the supreme judicatory, the whole of the ministerial members of that Presbytery adopted and made known the following declaration, viz:— At White Clay Creek, 7ber 2d, 1730. Whereas divers persons, belonging to several of our congregations, have been stumbled and offended with a certain minute of the proceedings of our last Synod, contained in a printed letter, because of some ambiguous words or expressions con tained therein-being willing to remove, as far as in us lies, all causes and occasions of jealousies and offences in relation to that affair, and openly before God and the world to testify that we all, with one accord, firmly adhere to that same sound doctrine which we and our forefathers were trained up in We, the ministers of the Presbytery of New Castle, whose names are under written, do by this our act of subscribing our names to these presents, solemnly declare and testify, that we own and acknowledge the Westminster Confession and Catechisms to be the Confession of our Faith, being in all things agreeable to the word of God, so far as we are able to judge and discern, taking them in the true, genuine, and obvious sense of the words. Adam Boyd, Joseph Houston, Thomas Craighead, George Gallespie, John Thomson, Samuel Gelston, Thomas Evans, Alex. Hutchison. The truth is, the Congregational party not only acquiesced, but rejoiced, in "the adopting act;" but the genuine Presbyterians when they came to reflect, and to perceive the real tendency and practical effect of this act, were greatly dissatisfied. Some, as we have seen, left the church, and others, where their numbers enabled them to do it, used their influence in the Presbyteries to which they belonged to preserve order and orthodoxy there, and gradually to recall the Synod from what they considered, we think justly, an injurious lenity, and an aberration from the principles of the original compact. Nor were these endeayours unattended with a measure of success. (To be continued.) Literary and Philosophical Intelligence, etc. Wonders of the Creation-The following paragraph is from the eloquent CHAL MERS: About the time of the invention of the telescope, another instrument was formed, which laid open a scheme no less wonderful, and rewarded the inquisitive spirit of man. This was the microscope. The one led me to see a system in every star, and the other led me to see a world in every atom. The one taught me that this mighty globe, with the whole burden of its people and its countries, is but a grain of sand on the high field of immensity; the other teaches me that every grain of sand may harbor within, the tribes and the families of a busy population. One told the insignificance of the world I tread upon, the other redeems it from all insignificance! for it tells me that in the leaves of every forest, and the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless are the glories of the firmament. The one has suggested to me, that, beyond and above all that is visible to man, there may be fields of creation which sweep immeasurably along, and carry the impress of the Almighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the universe; the other suggests to me that within and beneath all the minuteness which the aided eye of man has been able to explore, there may be a region of invisibles; and that, could we draw aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it from our senses, we might see a theatre of as many wonders as astronomy has unfolded, a universe within the compass of a point so small as to elude all the powers of the microscope, but where the wonder-working God finds room for the exercise of all the attributes where he can raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate them all with the evidence of his glory. Indian Names.-The circumstance that the name of Black Hawk has been recently given to a large ship in Philadelphia, reminds us of the great prevalence of the same kind of simple but effectual memorials throughout the country. There is no danger that the red men will be forgot ten. Eight of the States, not to mention the territories, have Indian names. They are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. So have all the great bays and harbours on the coast of the Union, the Penobscot, Casco, Narraganset, Chesapeake, &c. So have the rivers, the Kennebec, Saco, Connecticut, Merrimac, Mohawk, Susquehannah, Roanoke, Potomac, most of the Southern streams, all the great waters of the West, the Northern lakes. In a word, the whole breadth of the country is charged with the indelible memory of the brave race whose canoes and cabins, fittest emblems of their own vanishing frailty, have been swept like themselves from the face of the land. Well let them be remembered! 'Tis a poor acknowledgment at the best, for the cession of a hemisphere,-poor atonement for the extermination of its primeval masters. Let their eternal epitaph stand as it is, written in the rocking pines of the forest,' and in the blue rivers that flow by their fathers' graves. Let them die, if die they must, but let them be remembered. Boston Journal. Seaman's School.-A petition to Congress, with numerous respectable signatures, says the Boston Centinel, is still before the public for further subscriptions, which, we presume, it is daily receiving. The object is to induce the National Legislature to provide Schools in the large seaports for American Seamen while in port, to instruct the few that may be uneducated, and to preserve in full the learning of those that have been taught. -Such institutions must have a good moral effect in causing the time of some to be usefully, instead of injuriously employed. It will raise the laudable ambition of our mariners, and probably attract more associates. The number of native seamen is now too few for our extended and extending commerce. In war, our navy would constitute the right arm of our defence, and the shield of our maritime trade; but in war, it is probable most of the foreign sailors would leave us. It is further proposed that another memorial shall be prepared to ask of Congress the establishment of schools for tuition in practical seamanship. Every thing that is possible ought to be done to augment the number of our gallant tars, and to raise still higher the standard of their merit in every respect. Scotch Church.-The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has adopted the annexed resolutions, touching the antiscriptural systems of national instruction maintained in Ireland. They breathe the manly and pious spirit of John Knox. "1st. Resolved, That the General Assembly, being convinced that the only sure foundation of sound morality and useful knowledge is to be found in the revealed Word of God, are of opinion that no countenance from the government of the realm ought to be bestowed on any system of national education of which instruction in the Holy Scriptures does not form an essential part. "2d. That they have observed with much regret and disappointment that a system of national education is still maintained in Ireland, in which no adequate provision is made for the daily reading of the entire Word of God in the authorised version, without note or comment. "3d. That they therefore feel it incumbent upon them, as representing a branch of the Protestant Church, to petition parliament against any further countenance being given to such a system." The resolutions were carried by a vote of 157 to 58. Extract of a letter from Dr. Waterhouse, tion -How many of us, blind mortals, are published in a Boston paper.-Putrefacled by the nose into error! It is a common opinion that putrefaction, and the bad smell thence arising, will infallibly generate contagious and infectious distempers. If this were actually the case, what would become of tanners, curriers, butchers, glue and cat-gut makers-not to mention surgeons? The putrefaction of animal substances is less dangerous to human life than confined air, or the effluvium of any one body whatever; whether the body be a rose, a pink, a lily, or a dead rat. The nose is a faithful sentinel to the outpost of life; but neither that nor the other ones, the eye, and the tongue, are infallible guards. I had rather sleep after all, to the leeward of S―s famous piggery, than in a canopied and curtained room, in which were placed pots full of the most beautiful and sweet smelling flowers our gardens afford. They have an effluvia, especially the yellow ones, pernicious to health and dangerous to life. Nor would I sleep in a close room, with several dishes of chlorides or chlorine; because, if it chase away a stench, it may leave behind a poison. Noise of the Anvil.-A blacksmith of Milan has to the comfort of his neighbours, especially the rich, successfully practised a very simple contrivance to diminish in a remarkable degree, the loud noise caused by the percussion of the hammer on the anvil. It is merely to suspend a piece of iron chain to one of the horns of the anvil, which carries off a great portion of the acute sound usually produced. Shipping and Emigrants at Quebec.— Comparative statements of arrivals, tonnage, and emigrants, for the last four years, compiled up to the 9th July in each year, from the Quebec Exchange books. Years. Vessels. Tonnage. Emigrants. 1829 366 99,961 6,528 1830 421 108,659 15,935 1831 497 130,051 32,327 544 146,112 33,848 473 122,827 12,989 1832 1833 Mr. Mallet has invented screws for the purpose of splitting stones and slate into laminæ, instead of blasting with gun-powder. The process is as follows:-Jumper holes are formed in the direction of the proposed fracture, as at present; but instead of filling them with gun-powder, a split female screw is inserted to each hole, and the fracture is effected by the insertion of conical male screws. The success of his mode was proved by the Commissioners of Public Works at Dublin.-Not only all risk from the blast are thus avoided, but the operation is performed more cheaply, and from its slowness, incomparably better.-Lon. Gardener's Mag. An Electric Eel.-I was standing in the gallery of a half-pay officer (now a planter,) when I observed a large jar in the garden; I enquired what it contained, and was told, an electric eel, but," said my friend, "I have had it a long time, it is sickly, and lost its electrifying powers." I went to examine it, and saw a brown flat headed, broad tailed eel, four or five feet long, with a look of "noli me tan gere" moving slowly round the inside of the jar. The planter then taking up a piece of old iron hoop, said in an off-hand ed manner, "if you touch him with this you will perceive he has lost all his power." I did so, and was nearly knocked flat on my back: the shock was most severe, though the eel did not appear to be the least agitated; of course my friend was highly delighted. Scenes of great diversion are occasioned among the English sailors who come to Starbrock, by electric eels; they are told to bring them to be cooked. Jack bares his arm, and plunges his hand into the jar, and in a moment receives a shock which benumbs him; he looks round in wild amazement, and then at the eel, all the while rubbing his elbow. "Try again Jack for a bottle of rum;" he does so, grasps the eel firmly, grins and swears at "the beggar," receives shock after shock, drops the eel in despair, and runs off as if the devil had struck him.. A little dog was thrown into the jar one day in which there was an electric eel, and was so paralysed that it sunk helpless at the bottom, and was got out alive with some difficulty: and a horse that happened to drink out of the jar, was immediately thrown back on its haunches, and galloped off with mane and tail on end, snorting with terror.-Transatlantic Sketches, by Capt. Alexander. Libraries in Germany.-There is a Library at Carlsruhe of seventy thousand volumes; at Heidelberg one of fifty-thousand volumes; at Darmstadt, thirty miles from Heidelberg, there is a library of eighty-five thousand volumes; at Mayence another of ninety thousand; in the commercial city of Frankfort, still another of one hundred thousand volumes, which evinces the spirit of the enlightened merchants of that city. As the traveller leaves the latter place for Gottingen, he stops at Giessen, not far from thirty miles, and in this small university he is surprised to find a collection of only twenty thousand volumes; but he soon learns that at Marburg, twenty miles farther, is another of fifty-five thousand; and Cassel, sixty miles from Marburg, a third, of from ninety to one hundred thousand volumes. At Gottingen, the library amounts to three hundred thousand volumes, all collected within less than a century. At Wolfenbuttel, a small town of less than seven thousand inhabitants, and about forty miles from Gottingen, there is a library of two hundred thousand volumes. Proceeding still north to Hamburg, the commercial and city libraries amount to more than one hundred thousand volumes. At Weimar, eighty miles from Gottingen, there is a library of one hundred and ten thousand volumes; at Jena, ten miles farther, another of thirty thousand; at Leipsig two libraries of one hundred thousand; at Halle one of fifty thousand; at Dresden, the capital of Sax ony, a library of two hundred and forty thousand; at the University of Berlin, a library containing one hundred and eight thousand volumes; the Koningsburg library of fifty thousand volumes; Vienna exhibits the same spirit of the Austrian Government. There are in the four great libraries, the Imperial, the University, the Theresian, and the Medical Chirurgical, five hundred and ninety thousand volumes, &c. &c. In thirty-one public libraries of Germany, there are more than three million three hundred thousand volumes. The thirty-one largest libraries of the United States do not contain two hundred and fifty thousand volumes. Peruvian Bark.--Chemical science may, in many instances, be of great importance to the manufacturer, as well as to the merchant. The quantity of Peruvian bark which is imported into Europe, is very considerable; but chemistry has recently proved that a very large portion of bark itself is useless. The alkali quinia, which has been extracted from it, possesses all the properties for which the bark is valuable; and only forty ounces of this substance, when in combination with sulphuric acid, can be extracted from 100 pounds of the bark. In this instance, then, with every ton of useful matter, thirtynine tons of rubbish are transported across the Atlantic. At the present time, the greatest part of the sulphate of quinia used in this country, is imported from France, where the low price of the alcohol, by which it is extracted from the bark, renders the process cheap; but it cannot be doubted that when more settled forms of government shall have given security to capital, and when advancing civilization shall have spread over the States of Southern America, the alkaline medicine will be extracted from the woody fibres by which its efficacy is almost lost, and that it will be exported in its most condensed form.-Babbage on Machinery and Manufactures. Deaf and Dumb.-The third Circular of the Royal Institution of the Deaf and Dumb, at Paris, states the following facts. France with its 32 millions of inhabitants, contains 20,189 deaf and dumb; that is to say, one in every 1,585 of the population. In Russia, the returns give 1 in 1,548; the United States of America, 1 in 1,556; for all Europe, the proportion is as high as 1 in 1,537. With regard to the education of the deaf and dumb, it appears that on an average throughout the whole of the civilized world, not above 1 in 24 have the means of instruction; in France, how ever, the proportion educated is one in every four. The Clouds. Many people have an idea that the clouds are something very different from the fogs and mists we occasionally experience on the earth's surface. They are mistaken. Mr. Durant's last ascent but one, was made during an easterly storm. It rained, we believe, when he left Castle Garden, and it rained very hard during most of the time he was aloft. He passed through, and far above the clouds. In conversation with him the other day, we made some inquiries about the clouds. He remarked that he no where experienced a greater degree of dampness, (or density of vapour if you please,) than when at and near the earth's surface. On the contrary, the dampness seemed rather to diminish as he ascended, till at length he found himself in a clear, bright atmosphere, with the clouds spreading out beneath, as far as the eye could reach, and the sun shining upon them and upon him, in its mildest, softest radiance.-Jour.Com. Public Execution.-The late Legislature of Rhode Island have passed a law, ordering all executions hereafter to take place in the prison yard, in the presence only of the Sheriff and Deputy Sheriff of the county, and of such other person or persons as shall be by such Sheriff especially required or permitted to attend such execution. London is said to be one of the healthiest places in the world. It has been stated, and we believe correctly, that the happy exemption which the inhabitants of that city for the most part enjoy from the diseases common to other capitals, is owing to the sulphureous naphtha emitted from the coal, serving the salutary purpose of checking the progress of febrile infection. To prove that the air is saturated with this naphtha, you cannot find a wasp, an insect to which sulphur is obnoxious, within the sphere of its action.-Bos. Post. The Senses Fallible Witnesses.--When we bathe in the sea, or in a cold bath, we are accustomed to consider the water as colder than the air, and the air colder than the clothes which surround us. Now all these objects are, in fact, at the same temperature. A thermometer surrounded by the cloth of our coat or suspended in the atmosphere, or immersed in the sea, will stand at the same temperature. A linen shirt, when first put on, will feel colder than a cotton one, and a flannel shirt will actually feel warm; yet all these have the same temperature. The sheets of the bed feel cold, and the blankets warm; the blankets and sheets, however, are equally warm. A still calm, atmosphere in summer, feels warm; but if a wind arises, the same atmosphere feels cool. Now, a thermometer suspended under shelter, and in a calm place, will indicate exactly the same temperature as a thermometer on which the wind blows. 3 A Religious Intelligence. We have heard it whispered that Mr. Pinney ought not to have returned from Africa to this country, without the express allowance of the Board under whose patronage he was sent out as a missionary; and indeed inquiries have been made of us personally, whether a satisfactory explanation could be given of the reasons which induced him to return. Apprehending that such surmises and inquiries might arise, we gave in our last number a summary statement of the motives by which Mr. Pinney was determined to act as he has done, and expressed our own approbation of them. We would now further remark, that we hold as strictly as any can do, the obligation of missionaries to act agreeably to their instructions, and to do no important act in contrariety to them. But it should ever be remembered that all instructions, and even all imperative orders, are given subject to the exception (always understood though not expressed) that no exigency shall arise, which will render it palpably evident that a violation of the orders, or a disregard to the instructions given, will better subserve the interests concerned, than a strict obedience or conformity to a course prescribed when the exigency was not foreseen. It is on this principle that military and naval commanders sometimes disobey the most pointed orders. They find themselves in situations in which the most lasting injury to the service in which they are employed would accrue, perhaps the very safety if not the ruin of their country would be jeoparded, if they did not violate their orders. Then it may be said, and it has passed into a maxim to say, " the command is better kept in the breach than in the observance." Such acts are always done cum periculo. The individual takes the responsibility on himself. His superiors inquire and examine, and either acquit or condemn him, as they find that he has either performed or neglected his duty.— They may sometimes inflict their highest censure for not violating their orders or instructions, when it might have been seen that the disasters which have ensued would have been avoided by such disregard to instructions-to instructions which would have been directly the opposite of those given, if the circumstances which have occasioned the disaster could have been foreseen. Missionary instructions are, and ought to be, less imperative than those of a military character. More must be left to the missionaries' discretion than is granted to a military or naval officer. Still, missionaries are and ought to be, strictly responsible to the Boards that employ them. Mr. Pinney has gone to render his account in person to the Board at Pittsburg— what the decision of that Board will be, it is not for us to say. Our own mind is fully satisfied, as we intimated in our last number, that he has consulted the interest of the important mission confided to him, far more by returning to this country during the rainy season, than if he had remained four or five months in perfect inactivity on the African coast. Here he may be, and if his life and health continue, he will be occupied in aiding the missionary cause in general, and that which relates to Africa in particular, in a very efficient manner. He will, by preaching, and by narrating publickly and privately things of which he has been an eye witness, excite and cherish a missionary spirit in the church to which he belongs. He will en |