we should not rest till we form one; not put up with whatever will gratify and encourage an unhealthy appetite for unsubstantial, unnourishing stimulants. The mode is plain. Cultivate the mind. It is ignorance, it is the illiterate that make excitement the test of truth and their only condition of interest in religion. We may look around and mark what kind of religion the ignorant like best, and what kind the well informed like. What the latter like surely has a presumption in its favor; since God must mean and wish us to cultivate the faculties he has given us. We should cultivate our minds then, I repeat, that we may enjoy God's simple truth, and have a taste which prefers sobriety and moderation, gentle affections and noiseless devotion. In heaven, for which we would have all religion prepare us, there is no noise, we suppose, no tumult; but all is meek and tranquil love.

SALEM CORRESPONDENCE-TERMS OF CHRISTIAN

COMMUNION.

Correspondence between the First Church and the Tabernacle Church in Salem; in which the Duties of Churches are discussed, and the Rights of Conscience vindicated. Salem, 1832. 8vo. pp. 176.

THIS is a large and important pamphlet. It is too large, we fear, to answer the purpose which it was designed, and is in all other respects admirably calculated to answer. Its size and cost may prevent its being read by those who most need the valuable information it contains, and ts clear and fair reasoning. The authori

ties adduced in support of the positions to be established are so unquestionable, that half the amount here given would be enough for any reasonable mind, and more easily admitted perhaps by common readers. Indeed many will say that the positions themselves are so self-evident, as to need no authority to sustain them. We think differently. They may be self-evident to our minds, but not to minds which have been formed under a different system, and accustomed to look at every thing through a particular medium. We are glad that such minds should have an opportunity, if they have the independence or candor to use it, of seeing how others looked at these things, men whom they regard as having been among the most orthodox, the best Christians and ablest writers.

This opportunity is afforded by the present publication. The circumstances which led to it were briefly these. Mrs. Baker, a member of the Tabernacle church (Calvinistic) in Salem, applied for admission to the First church (Unitarian) stating that she had been unable to procure from the Tabernacle church the usual testimonials. The First church, by its committee, respectfully asked of the church their reasons for withholding from Mrs. Baker these testimonials or recommendations. After some quibbling upon words, the Tabernacle church communicated its unanimous vote upon Mrs. Baker's request, as follows:

"That this church cannot grant the request of Mrs. Baker, for the reasons following; viz.

6

First, because this church cannot consistently recognize any church as a sister church,' which, in our judgement, rejects those doctrines that we feel bound

to receive, as the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; and,

Secondly, because this church cannot consent to hold fellowship with any church which manifests an entire disregard to the discipline of this church; and which by readily admitting to its communion those who have been excommunicated by us, virtually declares the disciplinary acts of this church to be null and void.'

This communication led the First church to ask, what instances there had been of their admitting any excommunicated member of the Tabernacle church. The latter church inform them that they had special reference to the case of a Mr. Brown. The First church, in a reply of some length, examine all the facts of Mr. Brown's case, and show that this was not a case of excommunication, and could not have been so considered by either church at the time; it was a voluntary removal of Mr. Brown from that church, and a withdrawal of the church from him. The Tabernacle church is therefore called upon to rescind a charge proved to be unjust. This they refuse to do, as a matter of course; who ever heard of an orthodox church acknowledging itself to be in error? They defend their charge, take leave of the correspondence, and remind the First church of the 'far weightier charge of a dereliction from the great doctrines of Christianity;' confidently intimating that it is not so easy to show that to be unfounded. The First church reply in a long address to the Tabernacle church, closing the correspondence. This address constitutes the main part of the pamphlet under review, and if there are different opinions as to its power, there can be but

one as to its spirit. It is perfectly courteous and kind. It addresses as 'christian brethren,' those who have just denied to them the character and name of Christians, and reasons with them, not as superiors or inferiors, but equals. It draws largely and intelligently from writers of the first orthodox reputation, and shows that they are strongly in favor of all those rights of churches, those great Protestant principles, for which this church is now contending. And it proves that the charge of dereliction, from essential doctrines, is as groundless as the other charge.

We should be glad to quote many passages from this part of the correspondence. They come from sources for which the orthodox profess great regard, and yet they convey most pointed rebukes of the illiberal principles and narrow course taken by all our orthodox churches at the present day. But we have not room for long extracts, for we wish to call attention to some other cases of exclusion, and offer a few remarks on the proper terms of christian communion.

This case at Salem is not peculiar. We wish it were. It has given us a useful publication, and we are glad it fell into such able hands. But the case itself is not worse than several that have come within our knowledge, of recent occurrence. It is very common now for members of orthodox churches to join unitarian churches, and it is as common for the orthodox to refuse to such members a recommendation, let their characters be what they may, for that is a secondary consideration. They refuse on the same ground that was taken by the Tabernacle church as the first stand, amounting always to this, however expressed; that

Unitarian churches are not Christian churches. They not only refuse recommendation, but they often decline to give dismission in such cases, and if asked and foreed to excommunicate they will not do even that, except with a parade of useless, insulting forms, and what they intended as lingering torture. We are using strong language. We know it. And we appeal to facts to sustain it. We do not say, nor do we believe, that all orthodox churches have acted in this way, or would justify it; but we say it has been done repeatedly, and has never, to our knowledge, been disclaimed or censured by the party, or by any church or minister of that party.

One case must be fresh in the minds of most of our readers, yet as we have never noticed it in these pages, it may be well to give some account of it. It is the case of Mrs. Emily Richardson: she was a member of a Calvinistic church in Reading, now under the pastoral charge of Rev. Jared Reid, whose name we give in full that it may not be forgotten. She joined the church in a time of great excitement at the age of fourteen, subscribing a covenant which no child of that age ever did or could understand. It was not strange that she afterwards found herself unable to believe the doctrines of this covenant, scarcely one of which is expressed in scripture language, and most of which are wholly inconsistent with scripture testimony. It was found that she had rejected some of these doctrines, or as Mr. Reid expresses it, had taken the liberty to think differently from them, and from what she once thought." A most unwarrantable liberty this, for which a course of discipline with her was at once begun. And we