proud cathedrals; for a religion that lives in forms is a natural and tolerant ally of that infidelity which seeks to exterminate not the outward show, but the inward life of true piety. The mummery of the priest will hide the heart of the infidel, and the corruption of hypocrisy strike hands with the corruption of the bold blasphemer. Then the State will be the synonyme of anarchy-Law the refuge and charter of violence-Justice the incarnation of partiality and revenge. Then stations of power will be the prizes of an ambition instinct with outrage and crime. Then the domestic altar will be overturned, the fireside will become a polluted place, and home will speak only of hell. Your schools, if they still live amidst such a storm, will educate men to villany, and stimulate children to crime. Revivals will cease; the Sabbath bell will be heard no more, or heard only as the dirge of all that is holy and lovely. The most sacred truths and ordinances of religion will become the sport of ribald tongues. Then the theatre, ever living with greatest vigor in times of greatest corruption, will be the crowded resort of the multitudes, who seek to drown their terrible present ills in its fictitious scenes and baseless excitements; while by its side will be seen the hall of the gambler-the steaming fountains of the drunkard-the temple of the courtesan. Then nightly merriment will issue in nightly broils, and frivolous amusements will consume the time that labor claims for her own. Then war will become the sport of the nation, and her heartless myriads will rush like blinded insects into the flame of that all-consuming fireglory. In such a sea of terror, crime and wo, our national institutions will go down; while energetic men, bold in their aims and strong in their purposes, will rise to the surface, and on the wreck of all that is excellent, rear the fabric of their despotic ambition. And to consummate the scene, the curse of Jehovah resting on the people, will consume their spirits, and send them in unregenerate crowds and premature age, down to the abode of the lost. Such is a faint description of what our nation will be, should the time come when in our land there shall be a famine of hearing the word of God. We are not ignorant serfs, accustomed implicitly to obey a superior. Then, like cattle, force might school us into decency. But with our intelligence, enterprise, and principles of independence, we are prepared, in such a case, to be the most abandoned, most debased, and most horribly wicked of all the nations that have ever trod the footstool. In proportion to the intelligence, the freedom, and the enterprise common to the masses of our countrymen, is their ability for ascending the loftiest heights of virtue, or descending to the lowest depths of vice. Who is responsible? On the Christians of this land, and of this generation, rests the responsibility of educating for a nobler destiny the minds that by scores of millions are soon to cover our plains and ascend our mountains. It is delightful to anticipate the results of a generous and self-denying action on the part of our churches, in the effort to provide for their own land, and for their own household, whose destiny is identified with that of the country in which they are to well. Your sons and your daughters, for generations to come, are to share in the predominant character and destiny of this nation. In acting well for our country, you are only providing generously for your own. Let our churches open their eyes to the responsibilities of their position and come up to this great work with the same strong purpose that distinguishes their pursuit of temporal blessings, and a scene of moral grandeur surpassing the brightest pages of history is opening upon us. Statesmen exult in the prospective development of our vast physical resources-in the multiplication of our queen cities and lovely villages-in our iron roads and the broad pathways of intercommunication afforded by our noble rivers-in our navy and wide spread commerce. Let them do so; it is a legitimate and patriotic pride. But we know that this is not the highest point of national greatness, and that there is a national economy far above the soarings of the mere political economist. We anticipate a race of men, of noble-men, of men great in intelligence, vigorous in enterprise, sublime in virtue, a race more elevated, and more deeply imbued with the spirit that pants to place the cross of Jesus on every pagan temple-on every mosque and every proud fortress of Satan, than the world has ever seen. Surely before this world is fully brought in subjection to Immanuel, there must arise a new order of mind, apostolic in fervor, confessors in self-denial, Christ-like in love for a dying race. Before such a generation of Christians the hoary idols of the pagan will fall, the sceptre of Muhammed will pass away, and the great anti-Christ of a baptized heathenism, who now sits as God in the temple of God, will retire to the darkest caverns of the earth. Correspondence of the A. H. M. S. ARKANSAS. From the Missionary in Benton Co. In our Sabbath school effort we meet with obstacles arising from the sparseness of the population and the want of books. Four schools are in operation in the county. That at Bentonville is quite numerous and interesting. If we had books it would be much more so. There is a want of Bibles and Testaments, and there are but two copies of the Union Questions (vol. 1) for the whole school. We have tried to raise a fund for a small library, but such is the scarcity of money that we have obtained but five dollars. The Bible class and Sabbath school at my house are about the same. The white children are quite regular, but the colored pupils are often away to hear other preaching in the neighborhood. The Sabbath school and Bible class at Fayetteville are constantly increasing in number and interest. Temperance and its opponents. The temperance cause is steadily on the increase in this county. We had a temperance celebration on the 6th July of considerable interest. We had processions, and marching, and appropriate music, and four addresses. A good impulse was given to the cause. Thirtythree signatures were added to the pledge, making in all over four hundred members in the county. The congregation present was about 250. At the close there were not more than ten who had not taken the pledge, and all of these but one publicly signified their friendship to the cause. Our efforts are waking up a strenuous opposition among some, (called here, by them selves, as well as others," Hard-shelled || and his church. Should the Catholics Baptists.") They are opposed to all in earnest attempt to establish themsocieties, and especially to the tempe- selves, and their system of formalism, rance society. They will excommunicate from the church, and depose from the ministry, any member who joins a Sunday school, Bible, tract, missionary or temperance society. They are now holding anti-temperance meetings, giving addresses, and challenging debate on this subject. The result doubtless will be favorable to the temperance cause. A Seminary founded. On the fourth we laid the cornerstone of the "Far West Seminary," with appropriate exercises and ceremonies. A large assembly was convened, and testified a deep interest in the exercises of the day. A good impression was made. The edifice, fifty-two and a half by twenty-three feet, two stories high, of brick, on a good stone foundation, is to be completed by Christmas. This building is designed ultimately for a preparatory school, but will be used as a college building till others can be erected. This will indeed be the Far West Seminary. We commend it to the prayers and patronage of Christians in the eastern and middle states. Above all, we commend it to God, and pray and trust, by his blessing, it will be built up and become a valuable handmaid to his glorious Gospel. Catholic wakefulness. The new Catholic bishop of the diocese of Arkansas, accompanied by one of his priests, is now on a visit to Fayetteville. His object, as is publicly stated, is to select a suitable site for a literary institution. What the result will be it is impossible to predict now. There are not more than four Catholics at present in Washington county. I do not think he will be favored by good people, but the wicked may be disposed to countenance his enterprise. He will doubtless be able to avail himself of funds from Europe, and if he shall put a literary institution of high character into operation, the wealthy wicked will patronize it. But we know that God can, and I trust he will, bring to nought every counsel devised against his truth fanaticism, idolatry, superstition and self-righteousness, I know of no part of our whole country more favorable to their designs than Arkansas, There are but few Protestant ministers among us who are in any degree prepared for the Catholic controversy. It is a controversy of no little difficulty, and requires such an acquaintance with ecclesiastical history, and with the writings of the "fathers," as very few possess. Papal policy-the way to meet it. A favorite agency with them in the U. S. is the establishment of schools, so conducted as to disarm prejudice, and thus make the most favorable opening to inculcate the peculiarities of their faith. Quite a number of youth, and these from Protestant families, have been sent out of the state to Catholic schools. All these became Catholics. If the Romanists establish such schools extensively in this state, (three are already in operation,) they will be patronized by great multitudes, especially of the wealthy planters in the South and East. If it be asked now what ought to be done to provide for the dangers thus threatening us, the answer is obvious. First, we must labor and pray, and pray and labor for a revival of religion, and continue to do so till the blessing is obtained; and then continue to do so that the blessing may be continued. The revival must be one which shall bring Christians together and bind them together. The pure fire of love must be kindled up in their hearts to consume sectarian strife and selfishness, and lead to a whole-hearted consecration to God and his service. Then sinners will be converted, and error, and formalisin, and idolatry, and false religion will flee away. Second; pious, prayerful, faithful, and wellqualified ministers, must be brought into this field, and sustained here to preach the pure Gospel, and to watch over and feed this whole people. Third; schools, seminaries or colleges, must be established for the education of all the people. The schools must be of a cha racter fairly to compete in literature with the Catholic schools, and we must equal them in the parental kindness with which the pupils shall be treated, and in the fidelity and zeal with which we inculcate the religious principles of the Puritans. Fourth; Sabbath schools and Bible classes must be set up and sustained in every town and neighborhood. Fifth; God helping us, we must win, by love and benevolence, the Catholics to the truth, as it is in Jesus. I trust that we shall not be forgotten by you when before the throne of grace. O, that you may be able to send us more ministers, and that pious young men and women could be induced to come to us as teachers. They would have a plenty to do, but would be badly supported. IOWA. fifteen or twenty scholars each. Dwelling houses are always open for preaching, and so far is this from being regarded as a sacrifice, it is often esteemed a privilege even by those who are not professors of religion. In one instance, however, thirty miles northwest of this, and about forty west of the line which divides the Old Purchase from the New, the congregation was so large that they could not be accommodated in an unusually large dwelling, but were obliged to meet in a neighboring grove, so that their house was literally" a house not made with hands." There is inspiration in the thought. I imagined that it was felt by every heart, and could be seen by every eye present; for a more delightful Sabbath I never enjoyed, and a more attentive audience I never addressed. The congregation assembled was not a company of wild hunters and ruffians, with their rifles in their hands, or carelessly thrown against a tree, who, many From Rev. B. F. Spaulding, Sac and eastern people seem to suppose, univerFox Agency, Wapello Co. The new purchase. It will be remembered that this portion of the West was first opened for settlement by the whites in May, 1843. The progress reported is truly surprising. In my first report I stated that the chief difficulty which attended my labor was the want of suitable places for public worship. In the progress of improvement this want has been partially supplied. A neat and commodious meeting-house, which in appearance would disgrace no New-England village, has been erected in a little town upon the banks of the Des Moines, in the northwestern corner of this county. It was done chiefly by the munificence of a private gentleman, and is open for worshippers of all denominations. In other parts of the county, school-houses have been built, and more will probably be completed before winter sets in. Three schools have been in successful operation for some months, two of them for most of the summer, and it is expected that others will be opened during fall. Three Sabbath schools also en established, consisting of sally and almost exclusively infest our frontiers, but a collection of intelligent and well-dressed families from the older states, and even the Atlantic shore, whose personal appearance and respectful conduct would not suffer from a comparison with many congregations that I have seen within forty miles of Boston. The fertile plains of Iowa furnish the arithmetic of the farmer, as well as the different from those afforded by the fancy of the poet, with materials very backwoods of Pennsylvania, or North Carolina, or any other portion of the Alleghany country, and the difference may be seen at a glance in the numerous stacks of grain, and extensive fields of corn which seem to have sprung up in his path as he has passed by. Privations of the early settlers. Still, let it not be supposed that there is yet any thing like wealth in any part of the New Purchase. Distressing want was the lot of many families for months before the harvest commenced. Suffering, which had been predicted for the winter by friends in the older parts of the territory, came in good earnest in the Spring. The mild weather and good travelling of the winter were followed by continuous rains, which ren pect is that it will be considerably increased within a few weeks, chiefly, however, by those who are already professors of religion. There has also been considerable interest among the Methodists and Baptists, and several additions to their churches. There is also a Sabbath school connected with a Methodist church in the southern part of the county. What number of scholars it contains I do not know. Prayer-meetings have been held occasionally in various places. The population, however, is so scattered that it is much more difficult to sustain a prayer-meeting here regularly than in the East, though I cannot say with certainty that the moral or spiritual difficulty, judging from the very small number that I have sometimes seen assembled in populous villages, is any greater. dered the roads almost impassable in the last of the Spring and the first of the Summer, so that those who had an abundance of grain 30, 40, or 50 miles distant, were still suffering for want of bread. A man with a large family, who was engaged in building a mill on one of our rivers, told me that he had spent more than a hundred dollars in attempts to carry grain from a farm in the Old Purchase, where he had raised it, to a distant mill, and bring it again to his family, and had not yet succeeded in "getting the first bushel home." A young man who had made a farm about twenty miles beyond this, was not long since returning to his father's house, because, as he said, "the starving families in his neighborhood had literally eaten him out of house and home, and still some of them had been for days without any thing to eat." I might multiply in- Books and tracts received from the stances of similar import, but it is un-Tract Society, and various Sabbath necessary. Providentially the rain schools and benevolent societies in Masceased just in time to gather the harvest sachusetts, through the Mass. S. S. Soof wheat which had been growing while ciety, have afforded invaluable aid in proit was falling. Suffering on a prairie is moting the great objects which your inno more strange than suffering at sea, structions have urged upon my attention. and both are cheerfully hazarded in the eager pursuit of wealth. I have often dined, with very grateful feelings, on a little corn bread and bacon, turning my horse loose upon the prairie to provide for himself, conscious that I was sharing my lot with those whom use had never inured to coarse or scanty fare. But I think that we may now say, with as much certainty as we can predict any future event, that the time of suffering for want of food, in this region of country, has passed by for ever. Crops which were very unpromising a few months ago, will be good, if not abundant. Sickness has been, and we think is still likely to be, far less prevalent than during the same months last year. Prospects of plenty and prosperity are now very cheering. Spiritual condition of the country. From Rev. C. Burnham, Brighton. The great rains. During the last two months we have been the order of the day. The roads had almost incessant rains, and mud has have been almost impassable, and for three weeks at a time have we been without a mail. On account of the wet weather our meetings have been very thinly attended. All things considered I trust we are the neighborhood who sympathize with on the advance; many are coming into us, and will ere long cast in their lot among us. In view of the responsibilities of the ministry I sometimes feel disposed to cry out, "Who is sufficient for these things?" and when I see and There has been a good degree of re- feel the corruptions of my own heart, ligious feeling in the circle in which I as I trust I have to some extent, I feel have labored, with some interesting constrained to say, "Save, Lord, or I cases of revival in individual hearts, perish!" Would that the feeling were both of professors and non-professors. || deeper and more abiding. A small Congregational church has At Richland our congregations are been formed in this place, and the pros-increasing both in numbers and interest; |