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Poetical Catechism.

We have no objection to the union of religion and poetry, provided it be effected in a proper manner. To the young, especially, it may be of signal advantage. While the poetry contributes to form their taste, it will assist the religion to reach their hearts. It is to be stipulated of course that the poetry be good, and the religion pure. If the former be bad, it fastens ludicrous associations on subjects, which, of all others, should be free from them. Who that remembers the doggerel of the old primers can repeat it without a smile? If the latter be unsound, false notions are deeply imbibed, which it requires time to obliterate, and which often are never suffered to leave the mind. We are more apt to borrow our ideas of angelic beings, and the history of the first human pair, from Milton, than from the Bible. Neither of these objections can be applied against A Catechism for the Use of Children, which has been lately published at Springfield, Massachusetts. In this little work pure devotion and morality are expressed in chaste, and often beautiful, poetical language. The questions are comprehensive, and are answered in hymns of considerable length, each verse of which, however, forms a distinct reply. We give, as a specimen, the following hymn, which is in answer to the question, How must you feel and act toward God?

ANSWER I.

When in the morning of my days

No mournful cloud appears,
Or when in dark and painful hours
My eyes are dim with tears,

I'll pray to God whose power sends down
New pleasures to the blest,

And when all other hopes depart

Can give the weary rest.

While parents and kind friends for me
Their time and strength employ,
And I am sad at their distress

And love to share their joy;
I'll cleave to him whose love inspires
In them their anxious cares,
The heavenly parent and the friend,
Whose kindness passeth theirs.

Whatever sorrow I may bear
I'll never more complain;
I'll never break his sacred law,

Nor breathe his name in vain;
But morning thanks and evening prayers
With constant heart I'll raise,
And holy deeds with louder voice

Shall tell my Maker's praise,

When sickness wastes my languid frame,

When pleasure all is past,

When each new blow affliction gives

Falls heavier than the last;

I'll bend beneath my Father's hand

With no impatient sigh,

And every pang that rends me now

Shall end in joys on high.

Following the Catechism is a collection of a few hymns, on the seasons, and on some of the grand and beautiful appearances of nature. We are glad to find room for one of them.

THE AUTUMN EVENING.

Behold the western evening light!
It melts in deepening gloom;
So calmly christians sink away
Descending to the tomb.

The winds breathe low-the withering leaf

Scarce whispers from the tree!

So gently flows the parting breath,

When good men cease to be.

How beautiful on all the hills
The crimson light is shed!
"Tis like the peace the christian gives
To mourners round his bed.

How mildly on the wandering cloud
The sunset beam is cast!

'Tis like the memory left behind

When loved ones breathe their last.

And now above the dews of night
The yellow star appears!

So faith springs in the heart of those
Whose eyes are bathed in tears.

But soon the morning's happier light
Its glory shall restore;

And eyelids that are sealed in death

Shall wake to close no more.

We highly recommend this unassuming little book to the notice of parents and instructers.

Unitarianism in Missouri.

A CLERGYMAN in Kentucky writes to an acquaintance in this city as follows. "I have received a letter from a friend in Missouri, who informs me of great revivals of religion in that quarter, and that liberal sentiments of Christianity are triumphant. About eight churches have been collected and organized on these principles. Great opposition is made against them by all parties,

yet they stand firm. He has written to me for unitarian books, and I have sent him all I could spare.

"He is a man in whom I have great confidence, and I hope much good is doing among them. They are of the baptist order, as are all the Unitarians, I believe, who are embodied together in the western country. But their liberal sentiments must and will secure them from that excess of sectarian zeal, which is so injurious to vital Christianity. Among us, though many are convinced, few have confidence to come forward, and avow what they believe. I rest in the hope that time will reconcile them to their duty."

We have other means of knowing, that Unitarianism is extending itself widely in the west; and notwithstanding it is joined with many errors, and degraded by many inconsistencies, its prospects are on the whole very encouraging. It is not to be expected that rational and liberal principles should be received, all at once, in their full and generous extent. The dawn precedes the day. Prejudice will not give up its dominion without many a struggle to retain it. But let only a few truly liberal opinions be admitted, and they will gradually prepare the way for the admission of others, which are closely connected with them, and which must finally come in. It will by and by be perceived that with these opinions other cherished notions are altogether incompatible, and that they must be resigned; and one after another they will be resigned. Let men once take their reason with them to the study of the Bible, and they will see less and less mystery and mysticism in that sacred volume, every time they open its leaves. The diffusion of general information will also do much; faith will become rational, as ignor

ance is enlightened, and zeal will be according to knowledge, when there is knowledge enough to influence, restrain, and direct it.

Our brethren in the west, as it would seem, are mostly of the baptist persuasion. Well, let it be so. If they esteem it essential that none but adults should be subjects of the baptismal rite, and that they should be dipped in the water, instead of being sprinkled with it, let them act according to their belief; we surely would not disavow them on that account. It does not appear that our Saviour was particularly careful to prescribe in what manner, or at what age, that form was to be administered, and we therefore judge that he considered those circumstances immaterial; and we see no reason why we should make them causes of serious disunion.

We have been told too that they worship Christ. So did the old Socinians, and so do some of the modern Arians. And yet if they believe but in one Supreme Deity, it is impossible, in the nature of things it is impossible, that their worship of the Saviour should be strictly divine worship. It cannot be the very same worship which they render to the One Almighty, Omniscient, and Infinite. And they will one day come to see, that they are neither required by Scripture, nor by reason and propriety, to pay divine homage to any but the First, Greatest, and Best. So we are entirely willing to call them Unitarians, although their highly commendable feelings of gratitude, reverence and love, toward the Saviour, may introduce some confusion into their ideas of worship.

But further, we have been informed, that many of them would themselves disclaim the appellation of