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The metrical version of the Psalms may be capable of improvement, but any new translations should receive judicial authority; and, after that authority is granted, hymns will still continue as a violation of the Confession. Perhaps the depression of Presbyterianism in certain districts may have been chiefly caused by the Independency in practice, of her constitued guardians.

It would be trespassing too much on your valuable pages, were I to discuss the arguments adduced in favour of hymns. Be these arguments good or bad, it is to repeal the law they should be brought forward, and not to justify its violation, although it would be no difficult task to shew that the book of Psalms is the only portion of Scripture, which we have authority to sing. I quite agree in the opinion, that a drawling, vulgar, nasal style, is no proof of Orthodoxy, either in preaching or singing, and improvement in Church music is by far too little regarded. It is here the screw is loose; but the unauthorised introduction of hymns is not the remedy. Let sacred music be properly attended to, and congregational worship can then be conducted in our present translation, with the most animating fervour and devotion.

The inertion of these remarks will oblige your wellwisher, LAICUS.

Dublin, 17th March, 1836.

PRESBYTERIAN HOME MISSION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX PRESBYTERIAN.

DEAR SIR,-In accordance with the promise made in your last Number, I proceed with my remarks on our Home Mission.

To the observations contained in my former letter on the disadvantages attendant on the present mode of conducting our Mission-on the object which we ought to contemplate in pursuing this work-on the agency requisite for its accomplishment-on the mode of obtaining this agency, and on the motives urging us to immediate and active exertion; to the observations thrown out on these various points, few, if any, objections, will be made by those ministers who have gone out on the service of the Mission, and who are, therefore, practically acquainted with the subject.

There is one of these topics, however, which merits a

more lengthened consideration than I was able to give to it in my former letter; one which lies at the bottom of all our plans and operations, for the future. It is this:-By what means, under God, is a Missionary spirit to be awakened in our Church? How shall we succeed in exciting our people to feel a deep and unwearied interest in the cause of Missions, whether foreign or domestic? Permit me, Sir, on this point, respectfully to offer the following suggestions :

I. Let Presbyterians adopt more energetic methods of rousing the attention of the congregations, within their bounds, to the subject of Missions. It is not enough that ministers be directed to address their own people, frequently and fervently, on the guilt and misery of the dying world, and on the obligation of the Church to take instant heed to the example and command of the Lord Jesus. It is desirable, also, that Ministers should exchange pulpits, and thus bear additional and varied testimony to the danger of trifling any longer with the authoritative argument of our Saviour and Judge-"Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." This plan was adopted last year, I have learned, by some of our Presbyteries, and with much success. Let measures be taken to permit every member of the Presbytery to preach, on Missions, in the pulpit of one of his brethren; or, let one or more members be selected out of the Presbytery, for this work; or, as was hinted in my last letter, let Presbyteries enter into a friendly correspondence with each other, and exchange representatives, for this purpose. These ministers, coming from places considerably distant, will, perhaps, prove more acceptable to the people, who are fond of a little novelty: while their visit will testify the deep interest which is felt by the members of Synod in the Missionary cause. The discourses preached on these occasions should be premeditated with just care-they should abound both with argument and illustration. The exposition of Scripture should be illustrated and recommended to the memory and heart, by references to the records of Missionary exertion.

II. Again: To prepare our people for entering, with spirit, into the object contemplated by our Home Mission, they ought to be instructed in the leading points of the controversy with the Church of Rome.

Romanism is regarded, by a considerable portion of our

people, with indifference, and, by a much larger portion, with bitter and vehement abhorrence; but by neither of these parties with those feelings of hatred towards error, mingled with love towards its unhappy victims, which the Scriptures inculcate. Both classes require much instruction, before they are prepared to engage in Missionary enterprise. The careless should be roused from their guilty apathy, and made to feel the necessity of contending for the truth; while those who are mere Protestants in prejudice and in party, should be taught a more excellent way of defending their principles, than that to which they have been accustomed. They should learn that, while it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, it is not good to have zeal without knowledge. Now, it will generally be found, that if, in conversation, a controversy casually arise between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic, on points of doctrine, the latter has the advantage in the argument. This superiority arises, not, certainly, from the justice of his cause, nor, in many cases, from the power of his talent; but from the circumstance, that whatever know. ledge he has acquired of the Scriptures, from his catechism, or from his priest, has been communicated in a controversial form. The Protestant has not been accustomed to view truth in this attitude. He is satisfied that his catechism and confession are in harmony with the Scriptures, and he rests here; nor does he ever consider how the statements which he has read, or learned by rote, may be perverted, or apparently contradicted, by passages of Scripture plausibly advanced for that purpose, in distinction from the context. Hence it is, that, although fully convinced of the truth of his religious creed, he is often silenced and put to shame, by his well disciplined adver. sary; and, then, mortified and irritated by this unexpected result, he endeavours, by passionate invective, to compensate his lack of argument. Protestants, in general, and Presbyterians, no less than their brethren, have need to investigate the fearful errors of the Church of Rome, and the scriptural mode of refuting them. They need to have their minds exercised on this subject, and to be qualified to contend for the truth, not with the war-cry of faction, nor with the arm of flesh; but with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. While, in surveying the continents over which heathenism reigns, unmolested, they learn that the Gentiles are living without truth-without

honesty without purity-without social ties-without natural affection-without comfort upon earth-without hope for eternity-that the votaries of Heathenism, of every name, are sitting in darkness, and in the shadow of spiritual death;—let them, also, learn, in looking homewards within the narrow boundaries of our own island, that all the vital truths of the Gospel are shorn of their saving strength and efficacy, by Romanism; and let them be exhorted, as they value the immortal souls of the perishing millions of their countrymen, to come forward, and deliver them from the grasp of the destroyer. Let our students, especially, be instructed to prepare themselves on this controversy. They know not how soon their arguments may be put to the test. The Church of Scotland, in the better times of her history, was accustomed to issue emphatic injunctions from her General Assembly to her Ministers, to arm themselves for conflict with the errors of Popery. Had the same spirit continued to burn in the breasts of her sons, there would not now be 100 Romish Chapels erected in the land, where the cause of Bible truth, and of religious freedom, was once so nobly and triumphantly fought.

III. Another mode of exciting and sustaining an interest in Missions, is by holding Monthly Missionary meetings. At these meetings, the Minister is at at liberty to enter into more familiar details, and to dwell on a greater variety of topics, than is warranted by the usage of the pulpit. One main reason, as it appears to me, why Missionary meetings are not more interesting to our people, is, that they have no knowledge, either of the fields occupied by our Missionaries, or of the Societies from which the Missionaries have gone forth. A multitude of strange and unmanageable names of places and of individuals are read out in their hearing. They hear the sound, but they know not how these names are spelled, nor with what district of the world they are connected ;they listen to anecdotes, but they cannot give them any local habitation; consequently, they forget them immediately afterwards; or, even though they should remember their outline, they can give no vivid and satisfactory report of them to others. It would, therefore, be well, if the conductors of our Missionary meetings would make themselves more thoroughly acquainted with all the parts of the subject brought forward on these occasions; if they would examine the history of Missions, especially during

the last forty years; be ready to relate the origin and progress of our various Missionary Societies; trace out the several fields to which they have directed their benevolent exertions; delineate the trials of the Missionaries, their discouragements, their successes, their past history, their present prospects; illustrating these details with anecdotes, in order to sustain the attention of the people. This exercise will be most suitably conducted in a large room, where maps can be suspended, in which the Missionary stations ought to be coloured, or covered with wafers, or in some other mode made visible to the audience. The subject can be treated first geographically—that is, the lecturer, with the map of the world before him, may proceed from continent to continent, till he has visited all the Missionary stations: then historically-that is, he may give the history of the Missionary Societies and their Missions, in the chronological order of their formation. After having thus traversed the Foreign Missionary field, he can come home to his own country, and show how much of the land is yet to be possessed by the labours of our Home Missions. He can point out the insignificant progress which Protestantism has made in Ireland, after the long lapse of three hundred years, and that at the present moment, instead of extending its conquests, it is actually disappearing in many districts in the South and West, from before the adverse agencies that are combined against it. Surely Protestants will not continue to listen to these painful and humiliating facts, unmoved. Surely the motive of self. preservation, if no higher motive, will urge them, at length, to shake off their long and criminal indifference to the cause of Christ.

IV. The last paragraph naturally leads me to suggest another important instrument for sustaining an interest in Missions amongst our people. It is not enough that they should be instructed in the history of Missions, up to the present period. This knowledge must keep pace with the actual progress of Missionary effort. For this purpose, it is extremely desirable, that, both for home and foreign Missions, there should be published a little monthly tract, consisting of four, or, at first, of eight pages, presenting a condensed view of the intelligence received from stations at home or abroad, in every family of every congregation connected with the Synod. This little tract might be sold for one halfpenny, and circulated by an agency devised for that purpose.

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