among them, except expulsion from their society; and this only for such transgressions as prove the person to have lost the spirit of Christianity. Those who are excluded may be restored, on giving evidence of repentance. They have no magistrates in their society, and no written laws or regulations; but the society at large governs itself, and each individual in it. They are seldom troubled with divisions and animosities, although two or three young families live together in one house.

Their manner of educating children is simple and peculiar to themselves. As soon as a child begins to speak, the parents teach him to get by heart short prayers and psalms, and relate to him such short passages of the sacred history as are calculated to engage his attention. In this manner they continue to instruct their children in the doctrines of the gospel till they are of age. When the children have thus learned by heart several prayers and psalms they go to the meetings, repeat their prayers and sing psalms with the rest. But this people look upon it as the duty of every parent, not only to teach his own children, but those of his neighbours, when opportunity occurs, and to restrain them from folly and sin,

In this way the sentiments of the parents are by little and little instilled into their children, and rooted in their young minds

by the exemplary conduct of the parents.

Hence, it has often been observed, that the children of the Duhobortsi are distinguished among all other children, like stalks of wheat among oats. Their chief and distinguishing dogma is the worshipping of God in spirit and truth; hence they reject external rites as not necessary to salvation. They have no particular creed, but say that they are of the law of God and of the faith of Jesus. Regeneration and spiritual baptism, in their opinion, are the same. They have scarcely any ceremony at their marriages, a reciprocal consent and promise before witnesses is sufficient.They preserve the memory of departed friends only by imitating their good deeds. Death they call a change. They do not say our brother is dead, but our brother is changed. They have no particular ceremonies at a burial.

They do not consider it essential to salvation that a man should be of their society; they say, it is necessary only to understand the ways of the Lord, to walk in them, and to fulfil his will; for this is the way of salvation. They call the theatre the school of satan. They compare those who dance to young geese, which, in the spring, go out with their dam and frolick upon the green; but still, they say, they are but geese, and have no knowledge of God,

They are accustomed to express their ideas in an allegorical manner, and to give a moral signification to many objects.Thus to the name of every day of the week they attach a moral lesson :

Monday: Understand the works of the Lord.

Tuesday: Regeneration. Wednesday: The Lord calleth his people. Thursday: Bless the Lord all ye his saints.

Friday: Sing praises to the name of the Lord.

Saturday: Fear the judgment of the Lord, that thy soul be not ruined by iniquity.

Sunday: Arise from your dead works, and come to the kingdom of heaven.

Twelve Christian virtues they call the twelve friends. These

8. Mercy: By the merciful man Satan himself is made to tremble.

9. Subjection: The work of Christ himself, our God.

10. Prayer and fasting :* Which unite man with God.

11. Repentance: Than which there is no law and no commandment higher.

12. Thanksgiving: Pleasing to God and his angels.

One of their forms of Prayer given by Mr. Pinkerton, is the following:

"What reason have I to love thee, O Lord! for thou art my life; thou art my salvation, my glory, and praise; thou art my treasure, my eternal riches; thou art my hope and trust; thou art my joy and eternal rest. Shall I rather love vain things, or corrupting or ruinous things, and things that are false, than thee my real life! Thou alone art my life and my salvation; therefore all my hopes and all my desires and the panting of my soul are towards thee only. I will seek thee, O Lord, with my whole heart, with my whole soul, and with my whole mind. To thee alone, in the depths of my soul, I cry to thee alone I will pour forth my supplications. I know and confess thee in truth, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent, in thy light I shall behold light,

sian government ;-and those who may be disposed to censure these people would perhaps do well to inquire, whether on the whole, they bear a greater resemblance to the Messiah, in spirit and morals, than the Duhobortsi,-and whether the things in which they may excel this people are not, at best, the less weighty matters of the law. If the Kingdom of the Messiah consists not in meat and drink, but in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, we ought surely to be careful that we do not condemn any sect, or any person, that possesses these essentials, however much they may dissent from us in things of less importance.

The influence of pious education among the Duhobortsi may be regarded as evidence, that wars will cease as soon as a truly Christian education shall become universal.

THE Letter now to be review ed was dated at "Lancaster," Pennsylvania," Sept. 20, 1816." It is that which occasioned the number of the second series of the Triangle, which was exhibited in the Christian Disciple for January.

The importance of recording and reviewing this Letter

results not merely from the extraordinary character of its contents, but principally from the circumstance, that it came forth as the act of a very large and respectable body of clergymen, whose influence must be extensive, whether it be exerted in favour of war, or of peace.This document, in a future day,

like a water-mark, may show how high the tide of presbyterian prejudice and intolerance rose in Pennsylvania in September, 1816.

It is unquestionably true, that such acts of ecclesiastical bodies are the work of a small number of men, with very little reflection on the part of a great majority of the members who sanction them. Still they have mugh the same imposing effect on the minds of the multitue, as if all the members of the body had deliberately examined the questions thus decided, or the opinions thus condemned. This ecclesiastical Manifesto is not the first of a belligerent character which has appeared in our country, in the form of a pastoral address to the churches. It is therefore time that the nature and tendency of such proceedings should be examined and understood, and as we are not now the special object of denunciation-as we have only to share in a common reproach, in conjunction with an innumerable company of worthy ministers, and good men of various denominations-and as we have no apprehension of serious personal injury or inconvenience from what the Synod has done-we hope to review the letter with some degree of impartiality and can

dour.

We have no hesitation, in admitting that the synod of Philadelphia is composed of many pious and intelligent ministers;

nor have we any wish to impress an idea to the contrary by any remarks which will be made on the Pastoral Letter. Nor would we intimate, that even those individuals, by whose influence the exceptionable passages were introduced, are at all chargeable with having violated their own consciences, in implicitly censuring, as hereticks, seven-eighths of the ministers of religion in christendom. We have become fully convinced, either that good men are very scarce, or that good men are very liable to be influenced by custom, prejudice, and passion; and under this influence to do what is reproachful to Christianity, subversive of the peace and prosperity of Zion, inju rious to those who dissent from their opinions, and repugnant to the spirit and requirements of the gospel.

If good men may have been so bewildered by custom, prejudice, and passion, as to think that they were the followers of the Prince of peace, in blowing the flames of war, in praying for the success of armies in their murderous enterprises, and in giving thanks to God for the horrid havock and desolation made by their own countrymen among the inhabitants of another territory, can it be surprising if, under a similar influence, they should think that it is a righteous and Christian practice to support their own religious tenets, by destroying the reputation of brethren who happen

The author of the Triangle, who calls himself Investigator, was probably correct in supposing that "Hopkinsianism was the grand error aimed at in that Letter." The reader however may judge for himself from the following paragraphs :

"Christian Brethren,

"The Synod, assembled in Lancaster at the present time, consists of a greater number of members than have been convened at any meeting for many years; and from their free conversation on the state of religion, it appears, that all the Presbyteries are more than commonly alive to the importance of contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints; and of resisting the introduction of Arian, Socinian, Arminian, and Hopkinsian heresies, which are some of the means by which the enemy of souls would, if possible, deceive the very elect.

"The Synod desire to cherish a stronger regard for the truth as it is in Jesus, than they find at present subsisting among themselves; and, because they are not ignorant of the disposition of many good men to cry 'peace,' where there should be no peace; and there is no danger,' in cases in which God commands us to avoid the appearance of evil; they would affectionately exhort each Presbytery under their care, to be

ditates for licensure or ordination, upon the subject of those delusions of the present age, which seem to be a combination of most of the innovations made upon Christian doctrine in former times.

"May the time never come, in which our ecclesiastical courts shall determine, that Hopkinsianism and the doctrines of our Confession of Faith are the same thing; or, that men are less exposed now than in the days of the Apostles, to the danger of perverting the right ways of the Lord.

"The Synod would exhort particularly all the elders of the Churches to beware of those who have made such pretended discoveries in Christian theology as require an abandonment of the "form of sound words," contained in our excellent Confession and the Holy Scriptures."

Investigator was probably under a mistake as to the extent of Hopkinsianism in NewEngland. Still we believe he was nearly correct in supposing, that the censure of the Synod involves the clergy of New-England almost universally." And that it falls on the "Episcopalians and Methodists" throughout the country. He might have added the Friends and Friends and Moravians, and several other denominations.From the last of the four paragraphs which have been quoted, it would seem, that the Synod meant to include every de