sympathy and co-operation, than any evidence on our part of a disposition to retrace the steps by which we have receded from a false interpretation of the sacred volume. We do not mean to point this remark particularly at the journal before us. It was suggested indeed by some of the articles on which our eye rested, but we are led to make it rather by tendencies which we have elsewhere noticed and regretted. We shall be glad to find in the Christian World an efficient ally with ourselves and others, for whom we claim equal strength of religious purpose, in promoting the cause of Christian truth and piety.

FANATICISM AMONG US.-It is painful to observe the evidences of an increasing spirit of religious fanaticism in this community. Taking various shapes, we still must regard it as essentially the same under all its manifestations. The most deplorable example of the extravagance and folly, which can be palmed even upon intelligent persons under the name of religion, is seen just now in the reception which Mormonism finds with some of the people of this city. That an imposture so gross, so clumsy, and so mischievous should obtain any credence in Boston, is what a few months ago we could not have believed. Yet not long since the Marlboro' Chapel was crowded to hear discussions upon this product of ignorance and fraud, and the other day we noticed in the street a placard announcing that an Elder who had lately returned from Nauvoo would on the next Sunday at one of our large halls give an account of the faith and present condition of the Latter Day Saints. At the same time one who has left the sect in disgust is entertaining the public with a recital of the enormities which he heard and witnessed. So are the minds of some fed with falsehood, and others invited to listen to tales of impurity. Millerism, or the doctrine of the Second Advent, as its disciples prefer to call it, is beginning to produce its mischievous effects. Many, excited and filled with this doctrine, are neglecting the common duties of life, while others, uneasy and anxious, give to a temporary delusion the power over their minds which should be exercised by the everlasting truths of the Divine government. When time shall expose the error of the calculation with which they have associated all their ideas of religion, what a decay of faith and hope must ensue. We do not credit a tenth part of the stories which we hear, but it is well known that during the autumn camp-meetings were held in different places by the believers in this theory of the End of the World, and were attended by crowds; and at this moment a large, though temporary building is going up on a vacant piece of ground near the centre of this city, capable of holding the thousands

who, it is thought, will be attracted, as the last hour approaches, to hear the expositions and exhortations of the preachers of the doctrine. Their own faith, however, in the correctness of their calculations is shaken, if we have not been entirely misinformed. Not long since, next April was proclaimed as the month in which the world would be judged, and many still hold this belief; but others speak less confideutly of the month than of the year in which the end will come, and even in regard to the year there seems to be a difference of opinion, for but the last Sunday the following conversation presented us with a new result of the millennial arithmetic.

Coming down from the pulpit after preaching a discourse in which allusion had been made to this and other errors of the day, we were accosted by one of the congregation who said, 'So you have been preaching against the Second Advent.' 'Rather about Mr. Miller's doctrine. Are you a believer in it? Yes. I can't help believing, I have heard so much about it.' 'Why, do you believe the end of the world will come next April ?' 'Oh no. A year from next March. So Elder S. says.' The person whose words we have quoted is not the only one who could give no better reason for his faith than his having "heard so much about it."

We do not know whether the 'Christian' Society worshipping in Chardon Street have as a body adopted the views promulgated by Mr. Miller, and therefore know not that it would be just to ascribe the excesses which mark their proceedings to the influence of his doctrine; but we have been told of scenes enacted in religious meetings held in that place which rival any of the outrages upon religious order or substitutions of animal feeling for Christian emotion, that we have ever seen described in accounts of religious fanaticism in the least cultivated portions of our land.

us.

We might cite other examples of the evil spirit that is abroad among But it is not a theme on which we love to dwell.

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.- -We have received by the last arrivals from England the Unitarian Journals that were due, but we find in them little that would particularly interest our readers, except the continued notices of Dr. Channing's death. Among the works in press we notice "Sketches of the Lives, Characters, and Influence of the Leading Reformers of the Sixteenth Century: a Series of Discourses. By Rev. E. Tagart, Minister of Little Portland Street Chapel, London." The most important event of which we find mention is the decision of the Irish Court of Chancery upon trust-property held by Unitarians. The suc

cess which crowned the attempt to deprive the Unitarians of England of funds similarly situated seems to have encouraged some Trinitarians to prosecute proceedings that should have the same termination in Ireland. They have accomplished their end, and by throwing the Unitarians of the South of Ireland entirely upon their own resources, we trust they have, though unintentionally, given them new energy and firmness. The form in which the case was presented for final adjudication is thus stated.

"Case of the General Fund. The arguments in this important case occupied the Court four days last Hilary Term, and related to the administration of £900 a year, being the rents of Rathfarnham estate, left, in the year 1710, by certain Presbyterians in Dublin, for supporting their congregations in Munster, and the education of young men for the ministry. The ministers and elders, to the number of twenty, of the Dublin congregations of Strand Street, Eustace Street, Mary's Abbey, and Usher's Quay, were to be the permanent trustees. These congregations, and the founders of the charity, were Trinitarians, which, with other facts, was proved by the circumstance, that they had expelled Mr. Emlyn, one of the ministers, for entertaining Unitarian opinions, although he never preached them, and had him even tried in the Court of Queen's Bench, on a charge of blasphemy, of which he was found guilty, and punished with two years' imprisonment in Newgate. Long subsequently to these events, Unitarianism began silently to be favored in the congregations of Strand Street and Eustace Street, and in course of time the eleven trustees and their successors representing these congregations in the management of the fund became Unitarian, while the nine trustees representing Mary's Abbey and Usher's Quay continued Trinitarian. This change of doctrine led to grauts in favor of Unitarians jointly with Trinitarians, which system has gone on for many years. "Two thirds of the funds," it was stated by the Respondents, “had been given to Trinitarians, and one third to Unitarians."] The information was filed in 1840, in order to prevent any further grants to Unitarians, as being contrary to the intentions of the founders. The Lord Chancellor, in a most able judgment, last Hilary Term, decided that Unitarians must be excluded from all participation in, or management of, the trust; but he deferred making a formal decree until the decision in Lady Hewley's case (which involved the same principle) was given. The House of Lords having, in August last, dismissed the Unitarian appeal in the Hewley charity, and displaced the trustees, the present case was now moved again for final judgment."

The Lord Chancellor decided that Unitarians must be excluded from the benefits or management of the property, but that they were not liable to be assessed for the costs of the litigation. His words are as follows in the report of the case before us.

"I shall give them their costs out of the funds; and I shall order all the fifteen trustees to be removed, and new trustees to be appointed, in accordance with the declaration with which I commenced. I shall follow precisely the course as in Lady Hewley's case. I shall declare that Unitarians are not within the scope of the provisions of this deed. I shall follow that literally, and give the trustees the costs."

We know of no subject of more importance at this day than that standing as the title of this article,-important not to our readers alone nor to the Christian world merely, but to the whole human race. It involves all the old questions between Christianity and the proud idolatries and prouder philosophies it displaced; it raises the pregnant inquiry, whether modern civilization and the improved spiritual culture of Christendom are right or wrong in referring their rise and progress to the influence of Revealed Religion; and whether that vast body, the Church, has been resting for eighteen centuries on a foundation of sand or on the Rock of ages. We wish to say what is in our mind on this subject with a free spirit, and, at the same time, with a reverent seriousness. It does not present itself to us in its metaphysical relations, to be settled by the discussion of abstract principles, but rather in its relations to fact and experience, to be decided by the common rules of evidence and laws of belief.

In what does the chief power of the Bible consist? What is the secret of that interest which is every where felt in it? Why is it read and studied and prayed over so much? Now these questions are all included in this," what is the grand peculiarity of the Bible?" And what is it? We have no hesitation in answering,

"the SUPERNATURAL element that runs through it." Whoever reads it sees, that of the striking facts it records a very large number purport to be miraculous. Indeed if we were to take out all that have this character and close up the space occupied in the detail of them, we should have but a small and lifeless book left. This is its chief distinction. With its first page it introduces us to a supernatural scene, where we behold rising from the wild weltering chaos in beautiful arrangement the variegated earth and the spangled heavens. We feel at once as if in the presence of facts, not connected by a long chain of causes and effects with the Creator, but which touch the Almighty Hand. And as we go along through the Patriarchal history, through the annals of the Judges and the Kings, through the books of the Prophets, still we find on every page, stamped into the texture of every leaf, traces of supernatural agency,-memorials of the Divine interposition. And then the history of the Jews, a small and obscure people, so insignificant in comparison with the neighboring nations that they were easily driven into captivity by them and often discomfited in battle, a people every way peculiar, marked as if by the hand of God for a peculiar purpose, kept under a peculiar discipline,—the history of this people, why has it been preserved through all these ages, read with sacred interest, cherished with pious enthusiasm, whilst that of other larger and more important states and kingdoms has been utterly lost and forgotten? We can think of no answer which does not refer to the miraculous facts recorded in that history. And to us this is the great charm of the Hebrew literature, as well as the secret of its preservation. In saying this, however, we are ready to admit that there is much in it which bears the impress of human genius working alone and producing out of its own fulness; and much that is simple narrative exhibiting neither genius nor inspiration, but only truthfulness. Yet, taken as a whole, the odor of sanctity it breathes, the wonderful works it records, the infinite aspirations it calls forth, give it a power over the soul which belongs to no other class of writings, and which entitles it to be called inspired.

If what is said above is true of the Old Testament, it is not less so of the New. This does not fall from the high style of its ancestral dispensations. On the contrary, it has wonderful works to