AN AMERICAN MINISTER. AN active and skilful young minister, while engaged under circumstances of the most promising kind in the village of J-, in the United States, was told of a miller, who, with more than usual of the bravado of profaneness, had repelled every attempt to approach him on the subject of religion, and had daunted all the hopes and efforts of the few serious persons in his vicinity. Among other practices of sinful daring, he uniformly kept his windmill, the most striking object in the hamlet, going on the Sabbath. In a little time, the minister determined to make an effort for the benefit of the hopeless man. He undertook the office of going for his flour the next time himself. "A fine mill," said he, as the miller adjusted his sack to receive the flour; "a fine mill indeed, one of the completest I have ever seen." This was nothing more than just-the miller had heard it a thousand times before; and would firmly have thought it, though he had never heard it once but his skill and judgment were still gratified by this new testimony, and his feelings conciliated, even towards the minister. "But, oh!" continued his customer, after a little pause, "there is one defect in it!” "What is that?" carelessly asked the miller. "A very serious defect too." "Eh !" replied the miller, turning up his face. "A defect that is likely to counterbalance all its advantages." "Well, what is it?" said the miller, standing straight up, and looking the minister in the face. He went on:-"A defect which is likely to ruin the mill.” "What is it?" rejoined the miller. "And will one day no doubt destroy the owner." "And can't you say it out?" exclaimed the impatient miller. "It goes on the Sabbath!" pronounced the minister, in a firm, and solemn, and monitory tone. The astonished man stood blank and thunderstruck; and remained meek and submissive under a remonstrance and exhortation of a quarter of an hour's length, in which the danger of his state and practices, and the call to repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, were fully proposed to him. A SERVANT. WHATEVER station we may be called to fill in society, we may be useful, if we are disposed to be so. By industry, piety, and prudence, we may recommend the religion of Jesus to those who have been previously opposed to it. Many servants have been eminently useful in promoting the spiritual advantage of their superiors. We refer now to the case of the late Rev. John Fletcher, of Madeley, as an instance in point. -When this great man was residing as a tutor in the family of Thomas Hill, Esq., of Tern Hall, in Shropshire, though he felt the importance of religion, he was far from being an open and decided servant of Christ. On one Sabbath evening, a servant coming into his room to make up his fire, observing he was then writing music, looked at him with serious concern, and said, "Sir, I am sorry to see you so employed on the Lord's day." At first his pride was offended, and his resentment excited, at being reproved by a servant; but upon reflection he felt that the reproof was just. He immediately put away his music, and from that hour became a strict observer of the Lord's day. THE WESLEYANS IN AMERICA. THE last Conference held at Cincinnati, Ohio, voted one hundred and fifty-five against four in favour of restoring Mr. Wesley's rule in relation to buying, selling, and drinking spirituous liquors.-New York Evangelist. AVERAGE MORTALITY OF DRUNKARDS. Ir is computed that there are at least six hundred thousand drunkards in the United Kingdom, and that not fewer than sixty thousand of these die annually, in consequence of their intemperance. The following, therefore, may be regarded as a fair average of the mortality occasioned by the use of intoxicating drinks:-In one year, sixty thousand; month, four thousand six hundred and fifteen; week, one thousand one hundred and fifty-three;" day, one hundred and sixty-four; hour, six; and every ten minutes, one. THE following article, written by an American, should be read once a month for a while, by all lovers of authority and power, whether in church or in state: POWER AND THE LOVE OF "The love of power is not, in all its forms, a crime. There are indeed various kinds of power, which it is our duty to covet, accumulate, and hold fast. First, there is inward power, the most precious of all possessions; power over ourselves; power to withstand trial, to bear suffering, to front danger; power over pleasure and pain; power to follow our convictions, however resisted by menace or scorn; the power of calm reliance in seasons of darkness and storms. Again, there is a power over outward things; the power by which the mind triumphs over matter, presses into its service the subtilist and strongest elements, makes the wind, fire, and steam its ministers, rears the city, opens a path through the ocean, and makes the wilderness blossom as the rose. These forms of power, especially the first, are glorious distinctions of our race, nor can we prize them too highly. "There is another power, which is our principal concern in the present discussion. We mean power over our fellow-creatures. It is this which ambition chiefly covets, and which has instigated to more crime, and spread more misery than any other cause. We are not, however, to condemn even this universally. "There is a truly noble sway of man over man; one which it is our honour to seek and exert; which is earned by well-doing; which is a chief recompense of virtue. We refer to the quickening influence of a good and great mind over other minds, by which it brings them into sympathy with itself. Far from condemning this, we are anxious to hold it forth as the purest glory which virtuous ambition can propose. The power of awakening, enlightening, elevating our fellow-creatures, may, with peculiar fitness, be called divine; for there is no agency of God so beneficent and sublime, as that which he exerts on rational natures, and by which he assimilates them to himself. This sway over other souls is the surest test of greatness. We admire, indeed, the energy which subdues the material creation, or developes the physical resources of a state. But it is a nobler might which calls forth the intellectual and moral resources of a people, which communicates new impulses to society, throws into circulation new and stirring thoughts, gives the mind a new consciousness of its faculties, and rouses and fortifies the will to an unconquerable purpose of well-doing. This spiritual power is worth all others. To improve man's outward condition is a secondary agency, and is chiefly important as it gives the means of inward growth. The most glorious minister of God on earth is he who speaks with a life-giving energy to other minds, breathing into them the love of truth and virtue, strengthening them to suffer in a good cause, and lifting them above the senses and the world. "We know not a more exhilarating thought, than that this power is given to men; that we can not only change the face of the outward world, and, by virtuous discipline, improve ourselves, but that we may become springs of life and light to our fellow beings. We are thus admitted to a fellowship with Jesus Christ, whose highest end was, that he might act with a new and celestial energy on the human mind. We rejoice to think, that he did not come to monopolize this divine sway, to enjoy a solitary grandeur, but to receive others, even all who should obey his religion, into the partnership of this honour and happiness. Every Christian, in proportion to his progress, acquires a measure of this divine agency. In the humblest conditions a power goes forth from a devout and disinterested spirit, calling forth silently moral and religious sentiment, perhaps in a child, or some other friend, and teaching, without the aid of words, the loveliness and peace of sincere and single-hearted virtue." In the more enlightened classes, individuals now and then rise up, who, through a singular force and elevation of soul, obtain a sway over men's minds, to which no limit can be prescribed. They speak with a voice which is heard by distant nations, and which goes down to future ages. Their names are repeated with veneration by millions, and millions read in their lives and writings a quickening testimony to the greatness of the mind, to its moral strength, to the reality of disinter ested virtue. These are the true sovereigns of the earth. They share in the royalty of Jesus Christ. They have a greatness which will be more and more felt. The time is coming, its signs are visible, when this longmistaken attribute of greatness will be seen to belong eminently, if not exclusively, to those, who, by their characters, deeds, sufferings, writings, leave imperishable and ennobling traces of themselves on the human mind. Among these legitimate sovereigns of the world, will be ranked the philosopher, who penetrates the secrets of the universe and of the soul; who opens new fields to the intellect; who gives it a new consciousness of its own powers, rights, and divine original; who spreads enlarged and liberal habits of thought; and who helps men to understand, that an ever-growing knowledge is the patrimony destined for them by the Father of their Spirits.' Among them will be ranked the statesman, who, escaping a vulgar policy, rises to the discovery of the true interest of a state; who seeks without fear or favour the common good; who understands that a nation's mind is more valuable than its soil; who inspirits a people's enterprise, without making them the slaves of wealth; who is mainly anxious to originate or give stability to institutions by which society may be carried forward; who confides with a sublime constancy in justice and virtue, as the only foundation of a wise policy and of public prosperity; and, above all, who has so drunk into the spirit of Christ and of God, as never to forget, that his particular country is a member of the great human family, bound to all nations by a common nature, by a common interest, and by indissoluble laws of equity and charity. Among these will be ranked, perhaps on the highest throne, the moral and religious reformer who merits that name; who rises above his times; who is moved by a holy impulse to assail vicious establishments, sustained by fierce passions and inveterate prejudices; who rescues great truths from the corruptions of ages; who, joining calm and deep thought to profound feeling, secures to religion at once enlightened and earnest conviction; who unfolds to men higher forms of virtue than they have yet attained or conceived; who gives brighter and more thrilling views of the perfection for which they were framed, and inspires a victorious faith in the perpetual progress of our nature. "There is one characteristic of this power which belongs to truly great minds, particularly deserving notice. Far from enslaving, it makes more and more free those on whom it is exercised, and in this respect it differs wholly from the vulgar sway which ambition thirsts for. It awakens a kindred power in others, calls their faculties into new life, and particularly strengthens them to follow their own deliberate convictions of truth and duty. It breathes conscious energy, self-respect, moral independence, and a scorn of every foreign yoke. "There is another power over men, very different from this; a power, not to quicken and elevate, but to crush and subdue; a power which robs men of the free use of their nature, takes them out of their own hands, and compels them to bend to another's will. This is the sway which men, grasp at most eagerly, and which it is our great purpose to expose. To reign, to give laws, to clothe their own wills with omnipotence, to annihilate all other wills, to spoil the individual of that selfdirection which is his most precious right this has ever been deemed by multitudes the highest prize for competition and conflict. The most envied men are those who have succeeded in prostrating multitudes, in subjecting whole communities to their single will. It is the love of this power, in all its forms, which we are anxious to hold up to reprobation. If any crime should be placed by society beyond pardon, it is this. "This power has been exerted most conspicuously and perniciously by two classes of men; the priest or minister of religion, and the civil ruler. Both rely on the same instrument, that is, pain or terror; the first calling to his aid the fires and torments of the future world, and practising on the natural dread of invisible powers, and the latter availing himself of chains, dungeons, and gibbets, in the present life. Through these terrible applications, man has in all ages, and in almost every country, been made, in a greater or less degree, a slave and machine; been shackled in all his faculties, and degraded into a tool of others' wills and passions. The influence of almost every political and religious institution has been, to make man abject in mind, fearful, servile, a mechanical repeater of opinions which he dares not try, and a contributor of his toil, sweat, and blood, to governments which never dreamed of the general weal as their only legitimate end. On the immense majority of men, thus wronged and enslaved, the consciousness of their own nature has not yet dawned; and the doctrine, that each has a mind, worth more than the material world, and framed to grow for ever by a self-forming, self-directing ener gy, is still a secret, a mystery, notwithstanding the clear annunciation of it, ages ago, by Jesus Christ. We know not a stronger proof of the intenseness and nefariousness of the love of power, than the fact of its having virtually abrogated Christianity, and even turned into an engine of dominion, a revelation which breathes throughout the spirit of freedom, proclaims the essential equality of the human race, and directs its most solemn denunciations against the passion for rule and empire. "That this power, which consists in force and compulsion, in the imposition on the many of the will and judgment of one or a few, is of a low order, when compared with the quickening influence over others, of which we have before spoken, we need not stop to prove. But the remark is less obvious, though not less true, that it is not only inferior in kind, but in amount or degree. This may not be so easily acknowledged. He, whose will is passively obeyed by a nation, or whose creed is implicitly adopted by a spreading sect, may not easily believe that his power is exceeded, not only in kind or quality, but in extent, by him who wields only the silent, subtile influence of moral and intellectual gifts. But the superiority of moral to arbitrary sway in this particular, is proved by its effects. Moral power is creative; arbitrary power wastes away the spirit and force of those on whom it is exerted. And is it not a mightier work to create than destroy? A higher energy is required to quicken than to crush, to elevate. than to depress, to warm and expand, than to chill and contract. Any hand, even the weakest, may take away life; another agency is required to kindle or restore it. A vulgar incendiary may destroy in an hour a magnificent structure, the labour of ages. Has he energy to be compared with the creative intellect, in which this work had its origin? A fanatic of ordinary talent may send terror through a crowd; and by the craft, which is so often joined with fanaticism, may fasten on multitudes a debasing creed. Has he power to be compared with him, who rescues from darkness one only of these enslaved minds, and quickens it to think justly and nobly in relation to God, duty, and immortality? The energies of a single soul, awaken ed by such an influence, to the free and full sense of its powers, may surpass in their progress, the intellectual activity of a whole community, enchained and debased by fanaticism or outward force. Arbitrary power, whether civil or religious, if tried by the only fair test, that is, by its effects, seems to have more affinity with weakness than strength. enfeebles and narrows what it acts upon. Its efficiency resembles that of darkness and cold in the natural world. True power is vivifying, productive, builds up, and gives strength. We have a noble type and manifestation of it in the sun, which calls forth and diffuses motion, life, energy, and beauty. He who succeeds in chaining men's understandings and breaking their wills, may indeed number millions as his subjects. But a weak, puny race, are the products of his sway, and they can only reach the stature and force of men by throwing off his yoke. He who, by an intellectual and moral energy, awakens kindred energy in others, touches springs of infinite might, gives impulse to faculties to which no bounds can be pre It scribed, begins an action which will "We have spoken of the inferiority and worthlessness of that dominion over others which has been covetted so greedily in all ages. We should rejoice could we convey some just idea of its moral turpitude. Of all injuries and crimes, the most flagrant is chargeable on him who aims to establish dominion over his brethren. He wars with what is more precious than life. He would rob men of their chief prerogative and glory; we mean of self-dominion, of that empire which is given to a rational and inoral being over his own soul and his own life. Such a being is framed to find honour and happiness in forming and swaying himself, in adopting as his supreme standard his convictions of truth and duty, in unfolding his powers by free exertion, in acting from a principle within, from his growing conscience. His proper and noblest attributes are self-government, self-reverence, energy of thought, energy in choosing the right and the good, energy in casting off all other dominion. He was created for empire in his own breast, and woe, woe to them who would pluck from him this sceptre ! A mind inspired by God with reason and conscience, and capable, through these endowments, of progress in truth and duty, is a sacred thing; more sacred than temples made with hands, or even than this outward universe. It is of nobler lineage than that of which human aristocracy makes its boast. It bears the lineaments of a Divine Parent. It has not only a physical, but moral connection with the Supreme Being. Through its self-determining power, it is accountable for its deeds, and for whatever it becomes. Responsibility, that which, above all things, makes existence solemn, is laid upon it. Its great end is to confirm itself by its own energy, and by spiritual succours which its own prayers and faithfulness secure, to that perfection of wisdom and goodness, of which God is the original and source, which shines upon us from the whole outward world, but of which the intelligent soul is a truer recipient and a brighter image, even than the sun with all his splendours. From these views we learn that no outrage, no injury, can equal that which is perpetrated by him who would break down and subjugate the human mind; who would rob men of self-reverence; who would bring them to stand more in awe of outward authority than of reason and conscience in their own souls; who would make himself a standard and law for his race, and shape, by force or terror, the free spirits of others after his own judgment and will. of "All excellence, whether intellectual or moral, involves, as its essential elements, freedom, energy, and moral independence, so that the invader of these, whether from the throne or the pulpit, invades the most sacred interest of the human race. Intellectual excellence implies and requires these. This does not consist in passive assent, even to the highest truths, or in the most extensive stores of knowledge acquired by an implicit faith, and lodged in the inert memory. It lies in force, freshness, and independence thought, and is most conspicuously manifested by him, who, loving truth supremely, seeks it resolutely, follows the light without fear, and modifies the views of others by the patient, strenuous exercise of his own faculties. To a man thus intellectually free, truth is not, what it is to passive multitudes, a foreign substance, dormant, lifeless, fruitless, but penetrating, prolific, full of vitality, and ministering to the health and expansion of the soul. And what we have said of intellectual excellence is still more true of moral. This has its foundation and root in freedom, and cannot exist a moment without it. The very idea of virtue is, that it is a free act, the product or result of the mind's self-determin ing power. It is not good feeling, infused by nature or caught by sympathy; nor is it good conduct into which we have slidden through imitation, or which has been forced upon us by another's will. We ourselver are its authors in a high and peculiar sense. We indeed depend on God for virtue, for our capacity |