Were there not bounds set to the pernicious influence of the "Pastoral Letter," your societies would soon be in confusion; your present friends would open their mouths against you as hereticks, refuse to hear you preach, and aid in driving you from the ministry. May we not then also suppose, that had not God set bounds to your influence, other societies, under the care of ministers, as godly and as intelligent as yourselves, would long ago have been in confusion, and their ministers dismissed and treated as the enemies of God and man? By reflections like these, you may perhaps derive great benefit from the denunciations of the Synod of Philadelphia. Such denunciations are "not for the present joyous, but grievous; yet they may afterwards yield the peaceable fruits, of righteous

ness."

Moreover, some of you, perhaps, have been anxious for Ecclesiastical Tribunals; but now God is teaching you the danger of such engines of ecclesiastical despotism,by the censures which have been passed on yourselves. Were you within the power of the Synod, neither your orthodoxy, nor your piety, nor your intelligence, nor the affections of your parishioners, would save you from the ecclesiastical guillotine. And is it not horrible to think of erecting tribunals for the ruin of good men? Certainly it is. And yet we may appeal to your own consciences to say, whether good men have not most commonly been the sufferers by

ecclesiastical tribunals? Perhaps nothing but your own experience would have been sufficient to convince you of the danger of the project, which you have had in contemplation. May not each of you, then, humbly address the Synod, in the language of Joseph to his brethren-"As for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good?"

You probably think that the Synod was under a misapprehension in regard to your characters, or it would never have abused you in such a manner. We think so too. But the members of the Synod are not the only men who have misapprehended the views and characters of their brethren. Perhaps you have been as much bewildered by prejudice and false information in judging others, as the Synod were in judging you. Besides, they set up the dogmas of their own "Confession," instead of the moral precepts of the Messiah, as the standard for estimating the characters of their brethren.Hence they involved a multitude of good men, and you among the rest, in a sentence of condemnation. And have not you, brethren, proceeded on similar principles? Instead of the laws of Christ, have you not made the mysterious articles of your own creed the test of a good character? So long as this method shall be generally adopted, we may expect that injustice and delusion will accompany the opinions. which Christians of different sects shall form, one of another,—that their conduct towards each other

will bare a shocking resemblance to that of warring nations, -that wolves will often pass for sheep, and that the best of men will often be treated as the worst. We rejoice in the belief, that the time is hastening when Christianity shall be better understood,--when the laws and the example of the Saviour shall be restored, as the test of Christian piety and excellence, when the great inquiry will be, whether a person is a practical follower of the Lamb of God, and not whether he is a believer in the mysterious dogmas of any sect whatever, when it shall be fully understood, that the wars between different nations and between different sects, are but that wisdom which is from beneath, and not that wisdom which is from above.

to God, the father of light and of spirits, the author as well as object of all divine knowledge, faith and worship, I do, for me and mine, declare and establish for the FIRST FUNDAMENTAL Of the government of my province, that every person that doth and shall reside therein, shall have and enjoy the profession of his or her faith and exercise of worship toward God, in such way' and manner as every such person shall, in conscience, believe is most acceptable to God,"

By this wise regulation he made his colony the asylum for those who were oppressed and persecuted on account of their religious opinions; and he gave to the capital of his colony the name of Philadelphia, signifying brotherly love. Since the days of William Penn, the principles of religious liberty have been gaining ground in almost every part of Christendom. Who then would have expected, that in the very region where the TREE of free toleration was first planted,' a presbyterian Synod would afterwards rise up, to blast its fruit with the mildew of an intolerant "Pastoral Letter!" What will an enlightened posterity say, when they shall impartially compare the wisdom of this multitudinous Synod of 1816, with that of a single Quaker in 1681?

MONTGARNIER.

[From the Connecticut Mirror.]

Stockbridge Indians.-The labours of the missionary at New Stockbridge appear to be assiduous, and, in a degree, successful. From the Journals of Rev. Mr. Sergeant, no very material change appears to have occurred in the mission. Sermons and expositions of the Scriptures are statedly continued on the Lord's day. It is gratifying to learn, that catechetical exercises are also uniformly attended on that day, for the instruction of the children; and that the Lord's Supper is duly administered. The missionary avails himself of favourable seasons and occurrences for giving religious advice or admonition.

In March 1815, Mr. Sergeant, with two of the Indian Chiefs, visited the

schools. In the first school they found between twenty and thirty, mostly small children. "They appeared well, and had made good progress in reading." Advice was given to the master, a young Indian well qualified for teaching, relative to some improvement that might be made; an exhortation was given to the children; and the visit closed with prayer. "In the second school we found," says the missionary, "about the same number of children, but older. Two classes read well in the Bible. Two girls, between nine and eleven years of age, read and pronounced as well as any children of that age I ever heard. They were from a family of the Delawares, who generally speak English in their houses.

They had likewise made good progress in their writing." The examination was concluded, as in the former in stance, with an exhortation and prayer.

Captain Hendrick Aupaumut and his companion, have returned from the Indian country, about seven hundred miles to the west of New Stockbridge, "having been absent six years, labouring to promote the peace and tranquillity of the Indian tribes." Soon after his return, in a long speech, he report ed all his proceedings to his tribe and people. Accompanying our missionary's Journal is captain Hendrick's written "Sketch of the western Indians, who reside along the banks of the White river, and Wabash, on Indiana Territory," where, he says, he "resided six years, by the appointment of General Government, to instruct the natives of that country the arts of agriculture, and to promote peace, &c."

...

"Previous to that time," he adds, my nation had renewed the covenant of friendship, which was established between our forefathers and theirs." A few extracts from this aboriginal sketch, containing facts and hints, that may be of use to the Society, are subjoined. "Those tribes, to wit, Delawares, Monsies, Nanticokes, ever consider my nation as their nearest friends; they live on the first mentioned river. The Miamis on the Wabash, and the other tribes on the west, north, and east of the above-mentioned places, are all at peace, and linked together in a covenant of friendship." When he first became acquainted with those nations, "they were all strongly prejudiced against the people of the United States, whom they call Bigknives, which they look upon as a terrible name." These prejudices he ascribes to the conduct of the Bigknives, in killing the natives or driving them from the sea shore, violating the treaties made with the Indians, and taking away their lands without purchasing it from them," and particularly, after having christianized some of those tribes, the nefarious conduct of "butchering and burning them, both small and great, which took place at or near Muskingum, in the late revolutionary war, at

which time they killed thirty-six innocent people; and have killed friendly Indians at different times since. The above horrid transactions have been sounded in the ears of the neighbouring tribes, and which the Indians have related to me, I suppose, above a hundred times." Having mentioned the very wicked" conduct of the traders who have resided among them, and the enticements of the British by presents and otherwise to induce them to be on their side, captain Hendrick adds: "By what I have stated, that is by the conduct of British subjects, while they control Americans, were such, much blood has been spilt in Indian country ; and it creates what white people commonly call Savages. And by the conduct of the Bigknives toward the Indians, it made them still wild. It may be proper to notice here, that the Delawares, and my nation, and Monsies, have been looked upon by the western tribes as their Grandfathers; that we have much influence among them; and that a little before the forementioned Christians were killed, the chief warriour of the Delawares, named Pokconchelot, determined to send a message to all the different tribes, to recommend Christian Religion to them, to advise them to adopt or admit preachers in their towns in case they would come : but when the Christian Indians were destroyed, he gave it up. Thus it seems the devil had the advantage to frustrate the good designs of religious people. And I have known many instances when well disposed white people spoke to the Indians to give them good advice, the Indians would say, It is an intrigue. Indeed their prejudices were so great against the Bigknives, it was very difficult to make them believe that there are many good people among them. And after I found their real situation and feelings, then I began to take pains to correct their errours, inform them that there are many good people in the United States, and also among the English; that if the white people were all very wicked, my nation and the other nations on the east, might have been all destroyed long ago; that it is true, there have been