A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

From the German Fest-Kalender.

A SONG, a song, keep singing,
Of heaven-attemper'd strain!
Of Him who balm is bringing
To cleanse our deadly stain !

Of princes, gold, and gifts, O sing,

And shepherds waiting on their King!

A star in east hath risen,
Beheld by sages' eyes;

Long groped they, as in prison,
Until they saw it rise:

When first they mark'd its radiant light,
They wept for joy, and blest the sight.
With thanks to God low bending,
They saw night's horrors fade,
And watch'd the sign ascending,
For which so long they pray'd,-
That light of lights, whose rising ray
Gave promise of eternal day.

Wake up! wake up! they shouted,
And call'd a royal train;
They never fear'd, or doubted,
That hope was but in vain:

The star before them beaming went,
Until before their Lord they bent.
O'er many a hill and valley,
And stream renown'd they pass'd;
Until their train they rally,

By Bethlehem's gates at last:

With hymn and song they cheer'd the way,
Still guided by the orient ray.

O'er many a palace towering,
In pomp it journey'd on;
O'er castles, darkly lowering,
And cities vast, it shone:

Where pride and prosperous sin abound,
The humble babe can ne'er be found.

O Bethlehem, thou lowly,
Yet highly-favor'd place!
As told by prophets holy,
The star now stays its pace,

And rests o'er thee, for to the cry
Of poverty the Lord is nigh.

"T was o'er a manger's dwelling,
Arose a heavenly strain;

From earth and heaven swelling,
All join'd the blest refrain,

To sing the glories of the Child,

Now sleeping with his mother mild.
The sages, lowly bowing

Before their mighty King,

All reverence are showing

For him who deign'd to fling

His royal robes aside, to save

Our race from Satan and the grave.

Their precious gifts outpouring,

They spread them at his feet,
The infant King adoring,

With gold and incense meet,

Homage of hearts that were his own,
Homage with lowly worship shown.
All other gifts transcending,
They brought their best-the
heart;

In that one offering

blending

Gems rarer far than

Their blest example let us feel, And with like holy

homage kneel.

VOL I, No. 6.-MM*

HIST

ISTORY, at long intervals, records a period of which it may be truly said "there were giants in the earth in those days." Such periods has the history of literature in the Augustan ages of Rome and England; such in arms were the eras of Cæsar and Napoleon. And while troublous wars rocked New-England's infancy, first assailed by the ruthless savage, then by those who should have been protectors, her mighty men arose. A truly great mind will be felt in whatever direction it may exert its energies. Such an intellect as that of Edwards or Hopkins, if turned to war, would scorn a lesser aim than Alexander's or Napoleon's. Had human glory been its object, it would have been satisfied with nothing short of the loftiest eminence. The genius of the Puritan mind was a religious one, and mind can desire no nobler field for the exertion of its powers than the investigation of God's great truths.

The influence which Dr. Hopkins exerted upon his time, was one of no ordinary extent and power. Whatever differences of opinion may prevail respecting his theological doctrines, his name is historical among us, and his elevated character and greatness of intellect entitle him to a place in a biographical series which, like this, is designed to represent impartially the leading minds of different sects. For a long period prior to his day, lax doctrines and practices had been creeping into the Churches founded by the Puritans. Against these defections, Jonathan Edwards contended; and under his instruction, Samuel Hopkins prepared for the ministry.

He was intellectually a match for any of his cotemporaries, and they were men of might. His mind was naturally adapted to theological pursuits. It delighted to expatiate on the vast and illimitable, and was remarkable, less for acuteness than

for comprehensiveness. His character was colossal in its strength, and he was fearless of opposition. Indeed, he seemed rather to provoke and brave it in the cause of what he considered to be the truth.

Though the number is probably small who adopt his peculiar theory of the divine agency, yet his writings have exerted a wide influence upon the theology of his age and country. His views of man's natural ability and of disinterested benevolence have been extensively received by those who reject other of his tenets. He was a champion for true conversion, as a necessary qualification for Church membership and Christian ordinances; and in advocating it, he encountered a strong tide of opposition from the lax views then prevailing, and which subsequently opened the floodgates of error upon the Churches of New-England. Without receiving his peculiar views of theology, or implying any disrespect for those who reject them, we may admire the boldness and vigor with which he maintained and defended the convictions of his own mind. Moral honesty was a part of his nature, and he never hesitated to avow his convictions and principles, however odious they might be to the multitude.

The inquisitiveness for which Dr. Hopkins is said to have been proverbial, entered into his theological investigations. He took up the word of God with a spirit of hopeful study, confident that new light would be cast upon its sacred pages. And this spirit of inquiry he encouraged in others.

Such a man-so restless in his inquiries after truth, so open in acknowledging his convictions, so firm in upholding and brave in defending them-could not be without great influence. His whole life was a battle, and that with no puny antagonists. Many prominent men of the New-England Churches were arrayed against him, and misrepresentation multiplied enemies. Yet to the last he held his creed unshaken, and after sustaining it against the attacks of half a century, published it in extreme age, "without a single attempt to subdue its offensive features, or to win patronage or renown." Such a life is worthy of history. At the age of twenty-two, the student left his theological pursuits, and the ennobling society of President Edwards's family, to enter upon an active ministry. An uncommon number of invitations to

settlement awaited him. We should, perhaps, expect to find him in a community of educated and meditative men, endeavoring to win them to the system of doctrine then forming in his own mind. But no; he chose a missionary field.

In a region, then wild and uncultivated, on the frontiers of American civilization, exposed to the attacks of the savage, lay the town of Housatonic, now called Great Barrington. It contained but thirty families, and there were but six other settlements in Berkshire County. Often the yeomen went to "meeting" with their guns shouldered, and occasionally the savage hordes came indeed, forcing the inhabitants to leave their houses and fly for protection to small block forts. Here Samuel Hopkins took up his abode, denying himself the comforts of more civilized life, and the intercourse which he might have enjoyed, had he accepted a settlement near his friends.

With a church of five persons, and a salary of $116 55, the pastor commenced his labors, which were faithfully continued, in the midst of many disheartening circumstances, for twenty-five years. There he manifested an extraordinary power of detecting the symptoms of religious decline, and of discerning the human heart-that knowledge of human nature, in fine, which distinguished him always. "He will read you through in fifteen minutes," said an acquaintance of Dr. Hopkins to a young clergyman about visiting him in later years. Doubtful cases of Church discipline were often referred to him, by clergymen from a distance. A person once came to him and described a great conversion" which he had recently experienced. Mr. Hopkins said to him: "After several seasons of excitement and life, and several of depression, you will probably give up all your hope, and within two years, perhaps one, you will be worse than ever. Go, now, I beg of you, and become truly penitent for your sins." The predicted apostasy took place. But after a few years the same person returned, and mourned over his own sinfulness, and wondered he did not love the divine character which appeared so amiable. "Ah," said the sagacious pastor, "you will not get rid of this in six months. Your raising God one minute and depressing yourself the next, seem to indicate that God's Spirit has been with you."

And so it proved. In this respect there was a great resemblance between Mr. Hopkins, and Edwards, his instructor.

Mr. Hopkins felt a deep concern for the spiritual welfare of the Indian tribes, who were settled very near him at Stockbridge. After the death of Mr. Sergeant, the missionary, in July, 1749, he was offered the mission by the Commissioners of Indian Missions at Boston; but not deeming himself qualified for such a post, he secured the appointment for his friend and instructtor, Edwards, who had just been dismissed from the Church at Northampton. And among these humble wigwams often moved the giants in theology together, and casting aside for the time the lofty language of polemics, they told in simple words the simple story of that Redeemer, who is alike the Redeemer of every kindred, and tongue, and nation. Hopkins was metaphysical in his tendencies, but he often successfully resisted those tendencies, and aimed to speak such words as fitted his audience.

After twenty-five years' ministry at Great Barrington, he was finally dismissed, amid ecclesiastical and political commotion. He admitted to his Church during his ministry one hundred and sixteen members: seventy-one by conversion, forty-five by letter.

His next settlement was at Newport, R. I. This town was then larger, and far more enterprising, than at the present day. It was the second commercial town of New-England, and contained eleven thousand inhabitants-half the then population of New-York. It had, indeed, in many departments, a more extensive foreign trade; the merchants of NewYork sending to Newport, as Newport now sends to them. A London mercantile house is said to have directed a letter to "New-York, near Newport." The town was noted for its fashion and luxury, as well as its refined society. Here Mr. Hopkins, though he could not sympathize with the "fashion and formalism prevalent," found many attractions. He felt more religious freedom, had access to valuable libraries, and found more Christian society. He addressed himself to the care of this Church with fresh zeal, and the results were soon visible in its gradual numerical increase, and other improvements. "This," it has been said, "was the sunniest period of his ministerial life.”

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"Mr. Hopkins," says his biographer,

was an embodied refutation of the saying of Edmund Burke, that there is no heart so hard as that of a thorough-bred metaphysician." His heart abounded with love to all men, and overflowed with it to his friends. Love must be a ruling principle in every great and noble nature. God is love. Though Hopkins at times appeared stern, and wrapped up in the contemplation of truth, or, as a little child of his congregation expressed it, "lost in divinity," he had an earnest love for individual souls. Toward the end of his life, he had in his study a complete list of the congregation in Newport, for whom he prayed daily by name.

He delighted in using the strongest expressions of love to the Supreme Being. One who was acquainted with his private habits, says: "He would sometimes come from his study, where he had been engaged in the contemplation of the law made honorable, and magnified by the atonement, and would walk across his parlor floor for the space of two or three hours, pressing his hands together in the most ravishing delight, and seemingly in such an ecstasy as to be unable to contain himself."

The Canadian war had exerted a very discouraging influence upon his ministry in Great Barrington. He was doomed to suffer still more in his Newport labors by the Revolutionary War. Rhode Island was among the first of the colonies to resist British aggression, and flamed with a revolutionary spirit. In December, 1776, the British troops under Clinton and Percy took possession of Newport. Hopkins, with characteristic resolution, had held on till this time, while the Whigs had nearly all fled to the country. Some of his congregation who remained were imprisoned by the enemy; his parsonage was destroyed, and his church turned into a barrack and hospital; the pulpit, pews, and windows demolished, and the bell carried off. The British cut down the shade and fruit-trees for fuel, and destroyed the fences and wharves. When they finally left the town, in October, 1779, it was a complete wreck-sashes and glass almost entirely gone, and about four hundred and eighty buildings destroyed.

Hopkins returned the following spring; but his congregation did not recover from the shock, nor did the town itself. Its public spirit was gone, with the wealthiest

of its inhabitants. Many of his congregation did not return-the rest were impoverished and dejected.

And the influence, not only of poverty, but of infidelity was felt. The French officers, stationed at Newport after its evacuation by the British, had sowed the deadly seed. We can imagine the feelings of this faithful man on beholding the hopeful labors of years scattered and destroyed, and "all his pleasant things laid waste!"

Still indefatigable, he spent no time in mourning, but immediately on his return commenced holding public worship in a private house. Then, at the request of his congregation, he wrote a pathetic appeal to his Christian friends for aid in repairing his church. This was responded to, yet he himself received no regular salary. Although offered during this time another settlement, with good remuneration, he refused to leave the poor remnant of his people, and remained faithful, in deep poverty, to his dying day. Avarice had no place in his soul.

Hopkins, as a reformer, was in advance of his age. The movements which then brought down obloquy upon him, have many of them since become general and permanent reforms, at least in this section of the country. “He had many qualities," said Dr. Channing, "fitting him for a reformer: great singleness of purpose; invincible patience of research; sagacity to detect, and courage to expose, errors; a thirst for consistency of views, and resolution to carry out his principles to their legitimate consequences."

He was early an advocate of total abstinence from intoxicating liquors, and an opponent of free-masonry and of lotteries, which were then in good repute among Church-members. On removing to Newport, he had come into the very center of the slave interest. New-England merchants, and among them Newport merchants in particular, were extensive dealers in the slave trade; let us of the East forget not to acknowledge our responsibility for slavery in this respect, while we utter so zealously our remonstrances against the South, upon whom we helped to fasten it. Hopkins's congregation were involved in the evil. The most respectable citizens, indeed nearly all, excepting the Quakers, upheld and practiced slavery. Had he chosen to at

tack slavery from the solitudes of Monument Mountain, the case would have been different. But here should he do it? He was poor, and such a movement would be almost certain to take away the comfortable support he had just begun to enjoy. He was a preacher of the gospelwould it not be an improper subject for the pulpit? He was the representative of a new school of doctrine, and "should he expose that school to obloquy, by identifying it with an unpopular assault upon an established institution?" These were events worthy of consideration, and they were gravely considered. But he believed in sacrificing the interests of the one to the good of the many, and he offered his own interests for that sacrifice. "He did it deliberately and solemnly. Anticipating the indignation of his people and the anger of the community, he preached a sermon against the kidnapping, purchasing, and retaining of slaves."

Many may reject his doctrine, but none can refuse to admire the heroism of the act. He stood alone, clothed with the authority of truth, calling upon men to sacrifice then what was deemed their indispensable interests. Newport was startled by this movement-the first open and direct assault upon its system which had been attempted in the State. Here is the character of the man most fitly shown. He desired no other support but truth, and with this sturdy confidence in the right of his cause, he would have opposed the world.

Nevertheless, with all his gloomy expectations, he suffered very little by this boldness. A few families left in disgust, but the majority of his hearers were astonished that they had not discovered these views before. After this sermon he issued a pamphlet, a dialogue on slavery, of remarkable terseness and vigor, which had a wide circulation.

The first abolition society in the world was formed by a few Quakers in Philadelphia, in 1775. The third was formed in Rhode Island during this period. Mr. Hopkins's Church was the first in the world (except Quakers) which prohibited its members from purchasing or owning slaves. We introduce the subject here not for the discussion of the ethics or politics involved-that would be irrelevant-but as an historical illustration of the man.

Hopkins had the honor of producing and planting the germ which at last resulted