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which this qualified censure was principally applied in October were works of German theology.

PRUSSIA.

On the 2nd of March, at Berlin, died Professor Wadreck, who had bestowed persevering care and instruction on 400 poor children. He originated the idea of his institution in the middle of an extremely severe winter, during which he found seventeen families heaped together in a miserable barn, and many more with no other asylum than a stable or cowhouse. Not being able to afford substantial relief to the entire families, he took charge of the children. At first he brought them up in private houses; soon after, the generous contributions of individuals, and subsequently the patronage of the king and the princes enabled him to found a respectable establishment, and to extend his benevolent protection to a greater number of unfortunate children.

Translated from the Revue Encyclopédique for May 1823, p. 449.

AMERICA.

Extract from a letter, New-York, 15th May, 1823. "There is little now going on here; the most important in my recollection is the excommunication of a lady by a Rev. Dr. Spring for obstinately persisting in the disbelief of eternal punishments, and the extension of slavery to Illinois State!"

NORWAY.

Norway has lost in the space of a few years, four of its oldest and most distinguished poets. By a remarkable coincidence, they were all four ecclesiastics; but they all cultivated the art of poetry, without ever compromising the dignity of the priest hood. If they paid a tribute to youth in composing some works which severe critics would call frivolous, after they had become priests they consecrated their talents to more noble and elevated productions. Johan Nordahl Brun, born in 1745, died bishop of Bergen, in 1816: he composed in his youth two tragedies, in the taste of Racine, one entitled Zarina, and the other Einar. These two works were much admired; their celebrity lasted however but for some years.

He afterwards published, in 1796, a poem of which the subject is taken from the Scriptures, and the title of which is Jonathan.

Notwithstanding a number of minor beauties, this poem neither obtained nor deserved popularity. Brun has also written a great number of pamphlets and fugitive pieces, both in verse and prose, which are justly esteemed; but it is particularly as a religious orator that he has acquired his reputation. Claus Pavels, born in 1769, succeeded, in 1817, M. Nordahl Brun, as bishop of Bergen, where he died three years afterwards. Besides some fugitive poems, which are not void of merit, he has left several collections of sermons, which are much esteemed. Jonas Rein, born in 1760, died in 1820 at Bergen, where he was pastor of the New Church. He is author of a tragedy which has never been acted. His poetry exhibits noble and refined ideas and exquisite feeling. His moral works in prose are not less admirable. Jens Zetlitz, born in 1761, was pastor of the Commune of Holders, where he died in 1821. He is author of a great number of poems of various kinds, among which may be distinguished religious pieces and moral songs, for the use of the peasants of the national militia.-Revue Encyclopédique,

PERSIA.

THE attention of the friends of civilization and liberty has been long drawn towards this interesting country, which, like Greece, is awaking from the slumber of centuries. An article in the Times newspaper of June 5, announces that the heir of that splendid monarchy has ordered through the Mirza, now resident in London, a service of English Porcelain for the Persian Court. It is gratifying to us as Englishmen to learn, that before the Mirza decided on the order which he had received, he inspected the two best depositaries in Europe, that of Seves, in France, and that of Messrs. Flight and Barr, in England, and on comparison, gave the preference to the latter. But we are most interested in the conclusion of the article, relating to a much higher subject, and we quote it entire: "We may mention as an illustration of the Prince Royal's wish to adopt the advantages of more civilized states of society, that he has

an English woman to instruct his daughters according to the plan of English education: thus declaring, perhaps for the first time, in an oriental court, that a woman has a mind to be cultivated as well as a body to be adorned; and that she may be fit, not merely

-To sing, to dance, To dress, and troll the tongue, and roll the eye,'

but to be an equal companion and

useful friend."

HAYTI.

The Twentieth Anniversary of Liberty.-Lancasterian Schools.-Medical Schools.-Academy. The last journals we have received from Hayti, (Le Télégraphe and Le Propagateur,) furnish interesting details. They give us the discourses delivered by the President of the Court of Cassation, and by the military commandants of the towns of the Republic, to celebrate the twentieth Anniversary of the Liberty of Hayti. These discourses, generally well composed, recommend union amongst the citizens, the practice of all the virtues, and especially gratitude towards God for the benefits he confers on the Republic; for a religious character is always given to this solemnity, which is generally concluded in the temples by a Te Deum.

The public instruction appears to be the principal object of the exertions of the government. Two schools for mutual instruction, established in the capital, furnish instructors for the schools on the same plan which are opening in the provinces. Besides reading, writing and arithmetic, in these institutions are taught the ele ments of geography and short-hand, and also the principles on which are founded the rights of citizens. The last public examinations have produced the most satisfactory results. The colleges of the capital are improving; and and at the present time others are taking rise in each province. The revenues of the suppressed convents are appropriated to the formation of these establishments, and the Monks are to be employed in them in the situation of professors, unless they prefer devoting themselves to ecclesiastical duties. The unwearied exertions of the government in doing all in its power for the improvement of society, and for softening the condition of the poorer classes, excites the emulation of individuals; and the general activity presents a most delighful spectacle to the philosophical observer. In some places, where no trace of cultivation had ever been seen, plantations are forming; in others, houses are rising up which, though now isolated, will perhaps at no distant period be the centre of flourishing towns; here forests are broken up, or hills made level ground; there bridges are built over torrents which hitherto had arrested the career of the traveller. Ingenious labour is every where the inseparable companion of liberty; commerce extends in proportion to internal industry; the colours of the new Republic are now seen on all the seas. According to an official naval report of 1822, during the first nine months of that year, 2 corvettes, 6 brigantines, 12 schooners and 2 cutters, were employed by government and private individuals: the number was considerably increased in the three following months. The amelioration of the state of the Black Slaves excites general solicitude: the abolition of slavery is become, if I may so express myself, quite the fashion, and the Columbian journals relate frequent instances of noble disinterestedness. M. Camilo Manrique lately emanci3 A

The Cape.-The President extends his care to every thing connected with the happiness of the country. Lancasterian Schools are begun at the Cape and in the neighbouring districts. A Medical and Surgical School, under the direction of a man of talents, M. André Stewart, has already produced some distinguished pupils.

Port-au-Prince.-Au Academy has been established here for instruction in all the branches of medicine, jurisprudence, the belles-lettres, the principles of astronomy, &c. This establishment is conducted by Dr. Fournier Pescay, an eminent physician, known in France by his contributions to the Dictionary of Medical Sciences.

Columbia.-Progress of civilization. -The latest Columbian Gazettes contain very interesting details respecting the situation of this Republic; whose laws and institutions are attaining perfection and stability.

VOL. XVIII.

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That your Petitioners are sincere believers in the Christian Revelation from personal conviction on examination of the Evidences on its behalf; and are thankful to Almighty God for the unspeakable blessing of the Gospel, which they regard as the most sacred sauction, the best safeguard, and the most powerful motive, of morality, as the armest support and most effectual relief amidst the afflictions and troubles of this state of humanity, and as the surest foundation of the hope of a life to come, which hope they consider to be in the highest degree conducive to the dignity, purity and happiness of society.

That with these views and feelings, your Petitioners beg leave to state to your [Right] Honourable House, that they behold with sorrow and shame the prosecutions against persons who have printed or published books which are, or are presumed to be, hostile to the Christian religion, from the full persuasion that such prosecutions are inconsistent with, and contrary to, both the spirit and the

letter of the gospel, and, moreover, that they are more favourable to the spread of Infidelity, which they are intended to check, than to the support of the Chrisundertaken to uphold. tian faith, which they are professedly

Your Petitioners cannot but consider

all Christians bound by their religious profession to bow with reverence and submission to the precepts of the Great Founder of our faith; and nothing appears to them plainer in the gospel than that it forbids all violent measures for its propagation, and all vindictive measures for its justification and defence. The Author and Finisher of Christianity has declared, that his kingdom is not of this shewed a perfect pattern of compassion world; and, as in his own example he towards them that are ignorant and out of the way of truth, of forbearance towards objectors, and of forgiveness of wilful enemies,-so in his moral laws he has prohibited the spirit that would attempt to root up speculative error with the arm of flesh, or that would call down fire from heaven to consume the unbelieving, and has commanded the exercise of meekness, tenderness and brotherly love towards all mankind, as the best and only means of promoting his cause upon earth, and the most acceptable way of glorifying the Great Father of Mercies, who is kind even to the unthankful and the evil.

By these reasonable, charitable and peaceful means, the Christian religion was not only established originally, but also supported for the three first centuries of the Christian era, during which it triumphed over the most fierce and potent opposition, unaided by temporal power; and your Petitioners humbly submit to your [Right] Honourable House, that herein consists one of the brightest evidences of the truth of the Christian religion; and that they are utterly at a loss to conceive how that which is universally accounted to have been the glory of the gospel in its beginnings, should now cease to be accounted its glory, or how it should at this day be less the maxim of Christianity, and less the rule of the conduct of Christians, than in the days of those that are usually denominated the Fathers of the Church-that it is no part of religion to compel religion, which must be received, not by force, but of free choice.

Your Petitioners would earnestly represent to your [Right] Honourable House, that our holy religion has borne uninjured every test that reason and learning have applied to it, and that its Divine origin, its purity, its excellence and its title to universal acceptation, have

been made more manifest by every new examination and discussion of its nature, pretensions and claims. Left to itself, under the Divine blessing, the reasonableness and innate excellence of Christianity will infallibly promote its influence over the understandings and hearts of mankind; but when the angry passions are suffered to rise in its professed defence, these provoke the like passions in hostility to it, and the question is no longer one of pure truth, but of power on the one side, and of the capacity of endurance on the other.

It appears to your Petitioners that it is altogether unnecessary and impolitic to recur to penal laws in aid of Christianity. The judgment and feelings of human nature, testified by the history of man in all ages and nations, incline mankind to religion; and it is only when they erringly associate religion with fraud and injustice that they can be brought in any large number to bear the evils of scepticism and unbelief. Your Petitioners acknowledge and lament the wide diffusion amongst the people of sentiments unfriendly to the Christian faith: but they cannot refrain from stating to your Honourable House their conviction that this unexampled state of the public mind is mainly owing to the prosecution of the holders and propagators of infidel opinions. Objections to Christianity have thus become familiar to the readers of the weekly and daily journals, curiosity has been stimulated with regard to the publications prohibited, an adventitious, unnatural and dangerous importance has been given to sceptical arguments, a sus picion has been excited in the minds of the multitude that the Christian religion can be upheld only by pains and penalties, and sympathy has been raised on behalf of the sufferers, whom the uninformed and unwise regard with the reverence and confidence that belong to the character of martyrs to the truth.

Your Petitioners would remind your [Right] Honourable House, that all history testifies the futility of all prosecutions for mere opinions, unless such prosecutions proceed the length of exterminating the holders of the opinions prosecuted, an extreme from which the liberal spirit and the humanity of the present times revolt.

The very same maxims and principles that are pleaded to justify the punishment of Unbelievers would authorize Christians of different denominations to vex and harass each other on the alleged ground of want of faith, and likewise form an apology for Heathen persecutions against Christians, whether the persecutions that were anciently carried on

against the divinely-taught preachers of our religion, or those that may now be instituted by the ruling party in Pagan countries, where Christian inissionaries are so laudably employed, in endeavouring to expose the absurdity, folly and mischievous influence of idolatry.

Your Petitioners would entreat your [Right] Honourable House to consider that belief does not in all cases depend upon the will, and that inquiry into the truth of Christianity will be wholly prevented if persons are rendered punishable for any given result of inquiry. Firmly attached as your Petitioners are to the religion of the Bible, they cannot but consider the liberty of rejecting, to be implied in that of embracing it. The unbeliever may, indeed, be silenced by his fears, but it is scarcely conceivable that any real friend to Christianity, or any one who is solicitous for the improvement of the human mind, the diffusion of knowledge and the establishment of truth, should wish to reduce any portion of mankind to the necessity of concealing their honest judgment upon moral and theological questions, and of making an outward profession that shall be inconsistent with their inward persuasion.

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Your Petitioners are not ignorant that a distinction is commonly made between those unbelievers that argue the question of the truth of Christianity calmly and dispassionately, and those that treat the sacred subject with levity and ridicule; but although they feel the strongest disgust at every mode of discussion which approaches to indecency and profaneness, they cannot help thinking that it is nei ther wise nor safe to constitute the manner and temper of writing an object of legal visitation; inasmuch as it is impossible to define where argument ends and evil speaking begins. The reviler of Christianity appears to your Petitioners to be the least formidable of its enemies; because his scoffs can rarely fail of arousing against him public opinion, than which nothing more is wanted to defeat his end. Between freedom of discussion and absolute persecution there is no assignable medium. And nothing seems to your Petitioners more impolitic than to single out the intemperate publications of modern unbelievers for legal reprobation, and thus by implication to give a licence to the grave reasonings of those that preceded them in the course of open hostility to the Christian religion, which reasonings are much more likely to make a dangerous impression upon the minds of their readers. But independently of considerations of expediency and policy, your Petitioners cannot forbear recording

their humble protest against the principle implied in the prosecutions alluded to, that a religion proceeding from Infinite Wisdom and protected by Almighty Power, depends upon human patronage for its perpetuity and influence. Wherefore they pray your [Right] Honourable House, to take into consideration the prosecu tions carrying on and the punishments already inflicted upon unbelievers, in or der to exonerate Christianity from the opprobrium and scandal so unjustly cast upon it of being a system that counte nances intolerance and persecution. And your Petitioners will ever pray, &c.

Dudley Double Lecture.

THE Annual Meeting of Ministers took place at Dudley on Whit-Tuesday, May 20th. The Rev. John Kentish, of Bir mingham, conducted the devotional service. Two very interesting discourses were delivered on the occasion: the one by the Rev. Hugh Hutton, of Birmingham, from Prov. ii. 3-5: "If thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hidden treasures; then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God." The other, by the Rev. John Owen, of Tamworth, from Rom. i. 16: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." Fourteen ministers were present, and the congregation was numerous. The Rev. John Corrie, of Handsworth, and the Rev. Alexander Paterson, of Stourbridge, were appointed to preach at the next anniversary.

J. H. B.

Warwickshire Unitarian Tract
Society.

THE members of the Unitarian Tract Society established in Birmingham for Warwickshire and the neighbouring counties, held their Annual Meeting at Tamworth, on Wednesday, June 11, 1823. The Rev. James Hews Bransby, of Dudley, began the services of the day with prayer, read the Scriptures and offered the general prayer. The Rev. Hugh Hutton, of Birmingham, delivered an animated discourse, which he was afterwards requested to print, from Acts xxii. 1: Men, brethren and fathers, hear ye my

We understand that Mr. Paterson is to be ordained to the pastoral office at Stourbridge, on Tuesday, July 15.

defence which I make now unto you." At the conclusion of the religious service, T. Roby, Esq., was called to the Chair; the Secretary read the minutes of the last annual meeting and the subsequent committee meetings; various resolutions were proposed and passed, and thirteen names were added to the list of members. The members and friends of the Society dined and spent the afternoon together. J. H. B.

Laying the Foundation Stone of the Unitarian Chapel at Hanley, Staffordshire.

THE first stone of the Unitarian Chapel at Hanley, in Staffordshire, was laid June 11, 1823. A little after one o'clock, the Rev. T. Cooper, accompanied by Josiah Wedgwood, Esq., the Rev. J. Hawkes, Nantwich; Rev. W. Fillingham, Congleton; Rev. E. Hawkes, B. A., and the Rev. J. Philp, Whitchurch, proceeded to the site on which the chapel is to be erected. A large concourse of people, estimated at a thousand in number, assembled to see the ceremony performed. Mr. Fillingham commenced the service by giving out a hymn. Mr. Philp engaged in offering a prayer to Almighty God. Immediately after which, J. Wedgwood, Esq., deposited a piece of glass, in an excavated part of the stone, bearing this inscription:-"The first Unitarian Chapel built in the Potteries. Erected for the worship of the Only True God, June, 1823. T. Cooper, Minister."

Mr. Cooper then delivered a short, but very appropriate, address; in which he stated, with great clearness, the reasons why Unitarians could not join in Trinitarian worship, and, consequently, why they erected separate places of worship, dedicated to the exclusive adoration of the One True God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. After Mr. C.'s address a hymn was sung, and Mr. Hawkes concluded the interesting and highly gratifying service with a suitable prayer.

members of several denominations, were The audience, though composed of about a hundred persons, male and feAt five o'clock, exceedingly attentive. male, met at the room in which Unitarian service is at present conducted, to take tea and spend the evening in a social manner. After tea Mr. Hawkes was called to the Chair, and in the course of the evening, both gave and elicited speeches, which were conducive to the gratification and instruction of the company. Mr. Cooper's statements, which were proved by ocular demonstration, were very encouraging to the friends of

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