any earthly inconvenience that may now accompany the avowal of truth, would make shipwreck of a good conscience, and would see the cause of truth injured by his desertion. If those who have given their very lives for the truth, could not have excused themselves, had they saved even their lives at the expense of truth, how and where shall those stand, who, at the expense of truth, have purchased hut some paltry convenience, which truth might now require them to forfeit ? You fear the hiss of the serpent, do you? What if you had to brave the sting of the serpent? What if bigotry not only mocked you, but martyred you? What if the call to come to the standard of truth-what if that call had come to you when the Author and the Finisher of your faith arose proclaiming,He that taketh not up his cross to follow me, is not worthy of me'? What if that call had come to you when Hamilton and Wishart gave their bodies to be burned for truth? Or what if that call had come to you when your Servetus was bound to the stake of martyrdom, and endured the fiery furnace? Is it now, when all sit under their fig-tree, none daring to make them afraid; is it now, when intolerance has lost its sting, and cannot kill; is it now, when the heretic can hold up his head amongst his fellowcitizens can have his church among his fellow-citizens and can fearlessly lift up his testimony amongst his fellow-citizens is it now that there would be a pitiful skulking from the standard of truth-a pitiful mingling with the crowd-a pitiful looking on at the tardy progress of truth, without the will to co-operate and to help? Scorn the cowardice. Detest the iniquity, and stand forth and hold fast undismayed, and let not the blood of those who have been martyred for truth cry out against you.”—Pp. 14, 15. The "Appendix," containing a statement and vindication of Unitarian Christian doctrine, is excellent, and with a very few and slight alterations would form a most suitable tract for distribution by our Book-Societies. The following explanation of a little peculiarity of opinion in the Unitarian Church at Dundee, will interest the reader. "Any view of the death of Jesus that is consistent with the supremacy of the Father-with the truth, that God the Father is the author of our salvation,that it was his love that sent Jesus to be the Saviour of men ;-any view of the death of our Lord, consistent with this truth, we consider a Unitarian view of that great event, whether Christ be regarded as the direct, though instrumental procurer of our forgiveness and our immortality, or the indirect procurer of these blessings by means of his doctrine. This we say, the more especially for this reason, that several of the congregation to which we belong, maintain a view of the death of Jesus, which, while it avoids all that would imply that there was any change effected upon the Divine mind, by that event, or that there was any inconsistency between the Divine perfections prior to it, or that God the Father was not strictly and supremely the Author of our redemption; yet, at the same time, regards Jesus as the direct instrument of our forgiveness and our immortality."-Append. p. 21. dress" to general perusal. No EnWe cordially recommend this " Adglish bookseller's name is inserted in the title-page; but we doubt not that it may be procured of any of the usual venders of Unitarian publications in London. POETRY. On reading some late intricate discussions in the Monthly Repository on the Doctrine of a Particular Providence. VOL. XVIII. O never, never from thee tear The simple Faith whose fruit is Prayer! 4 Q Though the fair tree of knowledge show'r That simple Faith whose fruit is Prayer! O pause-If 'mid those darker themes, The simple Faith which causeth Pray'r— Looks through the passing cloud-and there That cheering faith whose glories steal, O'er all we know, or see, or feel, This simple Faith, whose fruit is Prayer! HYMN TO THE STARS. Aye, there ye shine, and there have shone Each rolling, burningly alone, Through boundless space and countless time : Aye, there ye shine-the golden dews There through yon echoing vault diffuse The song of choral worlds to God. Ye visible spirits! bright as erst Young Eden's birthnight saw ye shine Yet sparkling from the hand divine; Gold frets to dust-yet there ye are ; Enshrin'd an everlasting soul !— Could man but see what ye have seen, Thrones, cities, tongues, arts, worships-all Ye saw rapt Zoroaster send His soul into your mystic reign: Ye saw the adoring Sabian bendThe living hills his mighty fane! Beneath his blue and beaming sky He worship'd at your lofty shrine, And deem'd he saw, with gifted eye, The Godhead in his works divine. And there ye shine, as if to mock The storm, the bolt, the earthquake's shock, Drought, famine, plague, and flood and flame, Are nought to you-ye smile the same, Aye, there ye roll-emblems sublime That more divides the soul and sod, OBITUARY. SIR, Νου. 19, 1823. Believing the following Oration over the grave of my late excellent friend and correspondent, JOHN HANCOCK, of Lis burn, who died there Sept. 24th last, which was inserted in the "Irishman" of Oct. 3, a weekly paper published at Belfast, to be a just tribute to his memory, though delivered by a person of very different theological sentiments to those of the deceased, I send it for insertion in your valuable Journal. I subjoin a brief extract from a letter addressed by him to one of his sons, descriptive of the calm and consolatory state of his mind, in a reliance on the Divine goodness and mercy, when contemplating the near approach of his decease: "I am not," says he to his son, "annoyed by persons who choose to envelop themselves in the thick mist of superstition, nor by those who please their fancies by the meteoric coruscations of ultra scepticism. I have settled my creed remote from both extremes, but according to Jeremy Taylor's apologue on toleration, as modernized by Dr. Franklin, that since the great Power of the universe bears with all varieties, why should not I bear with them for my short hour? It is a great comfort to me in the present season of sickness and debility, that I have carefully settled my creed in health. I am free from the gloom of superstition, and the equally gloomy notion of annihilation. I speculate not on the mode or manner of a future state, till death shall remove the veil, and I receive additional senses." May you and I, with all that are most dear to us, when that inevitable, but wisely-ordained hour approaches which is destined to precede the entrance into the unseen world of life and immortality, be favoured with equal serenity and soundness of mind, however differently each may be situated as to the present reputed extremes of orthodoxy and scepticism, somewhere between which, I have no doubt, the happy medium of genuine and scriptural Christianity lies, in which "the wayfaring man, though a fool," we are assured, "shall not err," and which the honest, earnest and fearless inquirer, who values truth above all things, cannot fatally mistake, inasmuch as his errors, whatever they may be, will be decided on by an all-wise, merciful, benevolent and indulgent Judge and Father of all. THOMAS FOSTER. "This very valuable man was yesterday buried in the Quakers' burying-ground in Lisburn. His remains were followed to the tomb by a large concourse of people of all denominations. The most respectable inhabitants of Lisburn and its vicinity assembled to pay their last respect to a fellow-townsman, whose solid and substantial qualities they had long admired. The poor, with the sincerity which generally characterizes them, followed the remains of their friend and protector. They called to their recollection those sad and calamitous days when nobody almost was to be found at the bed-side of the dying victim to the typhus fever but the inestimable individual whose loss they had then to lament. Protestants, Presbyterians and Catholics, felt it a duty they owed to this inflexible advocate of public justice, to pay him the last When the sad honours of the grave. body had arrived at its destined abode, Dr. TENNENT, one of the most intimate and confidential friends of the deceased, addressed the surrounding multitude in the following pathetic terms-a true and honest tribute to the worth of the departed, and a record full of value to the survivor: We are assembled here to perform the last solemn duty of affection and respect to our departed friend. Before committing his body for a season to its kindred dust, it may be profitable to take a short review of the tenor of his active and useful life, and observe some things which may be calculated to impress a desire on the living to go and do likewise. And here I must express regret that my acquaintance with John Hancock can only be considered recent, hardly yet extending to twenty years; but from the beginning, that acquaintance immediately ripened into friendship, which no accident ever disturbed, and which continued perfect and uninterrupted until the last moment of his life. Although belonging to a meritorious sect, and brought up in that strict discipline for which the members of it are distinguished, I understand that he early began to think for himself on that most important of all subjects— Religion: and when his views did not square with theirs, he conscientiously separated from their society. It may be observed on this part of his conduct, that if he did not believe some things which many good men consider essential, it may justly be ascribed to a fear lest so much reliance might be placed on believing as to weaken the attention to that purity ences of opinion, or oppositions arising ments of his life-here, he reaped the reward of his anxiety and toils for a more extended circle-and here, he found refreshment in the intervals of public exertion, and consolation for those disappointments to which the philanthropist is peculiarly liable. But I must pause, and not attempt, too rudely, perhaps, to penetrate the recesses of domestic life, or withdraw the veil from the sacredness and delicacy of filial regret and love. However, I may emphatically remark, that here the tree is known by its fruit; |