sins to be forgiven for the sake of Christ!' This was all I knew. I had only one thought, and only one way of expressing it, either to God or man. Mr. Smith asked me if I believed God gave his Son for me. I said, 'Yes.' He then asked, 'Do you believe that Christ has died for you?' I said, 'Yes.' He then brought me to the point and asked, 'Do you believe that God is satisfied with the atonement of his Son, and that now for his sake he forgives you?' I could not answer this, but cried to God for help, and was enabled to trust in the sufficient atonement of Christ on my personal account. At that moment I felt the pardoning love of God and cried out, 'I do save! I do save!' intending to say, 'He does save.' Mr. Smith said, 'No, it is Christ that saves you.' That was what I meant, and what I then proclaimed with a heart full of 'joy unspeakable.' I exhorted all to join me in praising the Lord, and had a most delightful sense of his love while we sang, 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow.' We then returned home rejoicing in God; but on the way I was tempted to believe it was all a delusion, till the apostle's words were applied to my mind, 'Above all, taking the shield of faith, whereby ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked,' and the temptation was utterly dispelled." Such was the place and manner of John Hunt's birth into the new life. Little did the preacher, John Smith, and little did the rough plowboy think whereunto his conversion would grow, or what a course was opening before him. To this time John's reading had not extended beyond that of his Bible. Between the ages of eighteen and nineteen he came into possession of a copy of the Pilgrim's Progress, a part of the Methodist Magazine for 1812, and a few tracts. "These," said he, "were my sole library for two years after my conversion." But better times suddenly dawned on him in his twentieth year. In the parlor of the man to whom he had hired himself he found the works of Wesley, Paley, and Dwight, and a copy of Horne's Introduction, each of which seemed to open a new world to him. He gave himself up eagerly to the reading of Wesley's Notes on the New Testament; "but the first book," to quote his own words, "that thoroughly got hold of me, was Mason on Self-Knowledge;" and it is impossible to say how far this work went to lay the foundation of the young reader's character. Strengthened by the wholesome and nutritious diet afforded by the books within his reach, his mind began to exercise itself, and lookers-on would never have suspected how, beneath that blue smock, there was a heart often beating high with the consciousness of a power it scarcely dared to credit. Whatever he read, however, John still kept his first book in the first place. As in all his after life, so now, the Bible was the center of his system of study. Some might suppose that his habits of reading would interfere with his other duties; but an interference occurred but once. That was one morning when his master gave him orders to take a load of corn to Newark. He rose betimes, fed his horses, and made due preparation for the journey; but while thus employed he must have got hold of some specially-interesting subject for thought, for he harnessed the horses and set off to market with an empty wagon. This, however, was only an exceptional case. No person more thoroughly served his employer. He was always earnest, always regular, always promptly at work. Nor was the labor of his hands hindered by the activity of his mind. Some passage of Scripture usually formed the topic of young Hunt's meditations; and he set himself to find the main points contained in it, and to trace out the truths which they indicated. Finding that he was much the better for this habit of daily meditation on a fixed passage, he spoke of it to some other members of the society, and recommended them to adopt the same plan. This seems to have deepened the impression felt by some good people, who had marked the earnest piety of the young man, that he was being prepared for a life of special usefulness. One day his employer asked him to give a short address on the following Sunday evening, when there was to be no service at the chapel close by. John was frightened at the thought, but as several others, for whom he had great respect, backed the request, he gave a timid consent. The house was full when he entered, but his heart being full of young, warm love, his thoughts somehow found ready expression in fit words. He had a call shortly afterward to speak in a chapel in another village. It was some time before he could say yes to the bearer of the message. This effort was a break-down. Attempting to speak, his thoughts became confused, and then took their flight altogether. their flight altogether. Sad and discouraged he returned home, and, after the style of many young preachers, said to himself, "I think I had better make no more efforts in public." Some friends, however, encouraged him, while others thought that so rough a plowboy ought to hold to plowhandles and harness and nothing else. With his trials he went oftener to the closet and found his spiritual strength increasing and developing. Some Sabbaths he had to walk fifteen to twenty miles to fill his appointments, not returning to his employer's house before midnight; yet he was always up Monday morning by four o'clock and at his toil. In 1835, through the intervention of friends, he entered the Wesleyan Theological Institute at Hoxton, then under the superintendence of Rev. Joseph Entwisle. He soon became a favor ite with the students there. He was earnest, fervent, and regular in prayer, and carried a moral power with him that was next to resistless. At the end of the year he had adopted for himself the following rules: 1. Commence the day with praising God for the mercies of the past night, and repeat the Lord's prayer. 2. As far as possible lay out the business of the day. 3. Bring every part of this business before God in prayer, and ask his help against the probable dangers of the day. 4. Read a portion of the New Testament on my knees. 5. Read a portion of the Old Testament and pray for my friends, relatives, the Church, and the world. Altogether this will occupy an hour. Night-1. Commit to memory a passage of Scripture. 2. Self-examination, confession, thanksgiving, prayer. In those days the Institution was favored with a glorious outpouring of the Holy Spirit. At a class meeting one day a young brother told how he felt that "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleansed from all sin." That thanksgiving cheered on several who had been secretly weeping before God and longing to be made holy. John Hunt, who had long been waiting for a richer baptism than he yet enjoyed, now opened his heart to receive it. "I knew," said he, "that the same grace which, through faith in Jesus, had already changed my heart, while it brought remission of past sins, could also end the perpetual conflict by which only I have since kept my ground." The time now came when he yielded himself wholly to the working of that grace. Let him tell the story of it himself: "I was praying in my closet, and saw very clearly that God's plan of saving was through faith in Jesus. I, therefore, came to the atonement, just as I was, polluted indeed, but not so much so that the blood of Christ could not cleanse me. As soon as I ventured I found the Lord faithful to his promise, and the blood of Christ, at that moment, cleansed me from all sin. Since then I have had constant peace and sometimes ecstatic joy. I have felt no sin, and, consequently, have been preserved from those troubles which inbred corruption used to cause. I now find daily what for years I have thought to be impossible-to live without condemnation. Thank God, all is peace, and calmness, and love! I begin in the morning to praise him the moment I rise, and thus endeavor to begin, continue, and end the day with God. I think it is possible to receive fresh blessings every moment, and to honor God every moment. Why not? Glory to God! it must be his will; and if it be my desire and I have faith, I see nothing to withstand it." As the session wore on John Hunt grew in knowledge and the love of God, and "was ready to go any where, to the ends even of the green earth, to preach the Gospel." His mind had been fixed on Africa for a long time as the place where he ought in the future to labor; but just at this time a great cry reached England from the far Pacific. In Tonga and the Friendly Islands the Wesleyan missionaries had been at work for some time and with great success. Within two hundred and fifty miles of these islands lay the larger and more important group of Fiji, which was frequently visited in the way of trade by the Tongans, who brought back horrible tales of what they saw and heard. After a time two missionaries were sent from the Friendly Islands to try to open a mission in Fiji. They soon found that but a little had been told of the dreadful condition of this group, where the most revolting cruelties and systematic cannibalism were all but universal. Then was sent to England that appeal, “Pity poor Fiji," which was issued from the Wesleyan Mission-House, and stirred the Methodist societies throughout the kingdom. In the beginning of 1838 Hunt received a summons to the MissionHouse, where he was asked whether he would go to Fiji. Startled at such an unexpected request, he returned to Hoxton much troubled, and making his way to the room of a fellow-student said, with quick, excited tones, "They have proposed that I go to Fiji." His friend felt almost shocked at this sudden announcement, and deeply sympathized with Hunt, whose whole frame seemed writhing with an emotion he had never shown before. He expressed his sympathy and spoke of the perils and hardships of a mission to those cannibals. "O that's not it!" exclaimed Hunt almost passionately, "that's not it!" "What is it, then?" Hunt's strong form was almost convulsed by some intense feeling. At last he said, "I'll tell you what it is. That poor girl in Lincolnshire will never go with me to Fiji; her mother will never consent." It was with no craven fear that the young man trembled, but with the yearning of his great heart toward her he had faithfully loved for the last six years, and who had nobly consented to share the missionary's life any where. But the dreadful things just heard about Fiji made him fear on account of that gentler one, who so long had leaned on his strong love. His friend advised him at once to write to Miss Summers, who was then at Leeds on a visit, and to all who were concerned, and trust in that God who, if he gave the call, would also make the way plain. And feeling the matter to be too great to admit of any thing but simple plainness, he sat down and wrote to "that poor girl in Lincolnshire" as follows: My Dear Hannah,-I have some strange news to tell you, and I am not able to use many words in making it known: you must, therefore, excuse my abruptness. I have been fixed upon by the Missionary Committee to go to the South Seas. You must, therefore, immediately return home and make preparations for becoming a missionary's wife to a most remote station for twenty years. No one knows my feelings, dear, for our dear friends. I hope the Lord, who has led us hitherto, will still guide and help us. I never had such difficulty in seeing my way. I believe it is of God: it is entirely unsought for by me. I need say no more. May our God help us and bless us in this most important and distressing affair! shall be at Newton, if possible, on Thursday. I hope to see my dear-my more than ever dear-Hannah at the same time. We have only a month or five weeks for every thing. God bless my dear! J. HUNT. I Whatever doubts the writer of this letter had, it is clear that he had none concerning her to whom he wrote. Their mutual love had been consecrated, as their costliest offering, to God, without any conditions, and both hearts were too true to draw back. I Hannah replied by letter, "It is all right. will go with you any where." There are some yes, many—“who profess and call themselves Christians," who would not have hesitated to tell Miss Summers that she would be justified in refusing to go. She had been brought up in comfort; she was not of robust health; and the privations and dangers of such a mission as that to Fiji were very great; and there are many Christian parents who would have refused a daughter for such a work. Hunt's parting with his fellow-students was affecting. "They seemed," he says, "as if they could not let me go, such was their affection." February 14th he left Hoxton for Balderton, the scene of his earlier life and labors. On March 6th he married Miss Summers, of Newton-onTrent, and in a few days after brought her to London to make final arrangements for their departure. March 27th the young missionaries were solemnly ordained in the Wesleyan chapel at Hackney, and three weeks thereafter, accompanied by the four General Secretaries of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, Messrs. Hunt, Jaggard, and Calvert, left for Gravesend. party sailed for Sydney, followed by many an earnest prayer for their safety and happiness, where they anchored August 24th, receiving from the Wesleyan brethren there, Messrs. M'Kinney and Watkin, a hearty welcome. Mr. Hunt and his companions remained in the colony about two months, during which time they visited the principal towns, and attended missionary meetings, and preached in different chapels. The good people in Australia were delighted with their visitors, and Mr. Hunt soon became there, as in England, a great favorite. Inducements of the most tempting kind were held out to him to forego his purpose of spending his life among the cannibals of Fiji; and special use was made of his wife's poor health to induce him to remain at Sydney, but all to no purpose. October 25, 1838, the missionaries left Sydney. The Rev. John Williams, of the London Missionary Society, who soon afterward lost his life among the cannibals of Erromanga, sailed, with a party of fellow-laborers, the same day. The company bound for Fiji were on board the Letitia, a small and shaky schooner of seventy-three tuns' burden. Their accommodations are not to be described. Anchor was cast off Lakemba, one of the Fijian group, Saturday, December 22d. The next day the whole party went ashore and spent thankfully their first Sunday in Fiji. Within the next few days the missionaries held their first Fiji district meeting, under the direction of Rev. David Cargill, A. M., who had been on the station about three years. Mr. Cross, the companion of Mr. Cargill in the opening of the mission, was now ill at Rewa, and had received permission to remove to Australia. His place had to be supplied. Rewa was a long way off, on Viti Léon, at the other side of the group. It was no light matter for a young man to go there with his young wife, to live alone among a savage people, of whose manners and language they were altogether ignorant. Mr. Hunt was requested to undertake this service, and forthwith gave his consent. January 7, 1839, the "Letitia" touched at Rewa. The natives were much surprised to see the missionaries disembark-and with Mrs. Hunt, as an object of wonder, they could not tire. They had never before, except in one instance, looked At once Mr. Hunt went upon a white woman. to work to learn the Fijian language, and in one month's time was able to address the people in their own tongue. The sights of cruelty, butchery, and cannibalism which pressed upon them at every turn, caused them sometimes to tremble and sink at heart. But I must reserve to another article the parOn the 29th day of April, 1838, the mission ticulars of the scenes through which they passed. THE MODERN SKEPTICISM. BY LUCY ALDRICH. ers, but generous and broad-minded-unparal leled examples of charity. Let us for a few moments examine this claim to originality, by comparing modern skepticism with pagan philosophy; then by a comparison of the same system with vital Christianity we will measure its boasted liberality. Glancing first at the fantastic, shadowy noth HE present age, in the opinion of its own generation at least, is to be characterized through all coming time as the era of universal reform. The great balance has at length been adjusted; science, government, religion-all things. are cast into the scale, and if any thing be founding of idealism, so earnestly defended by Hume wanting its day of reckoning must speedily come. The systems and institutions of the past are boldly challenged; and no faith, however sacred, no creed, however venerable, no system, however hoary with age, may cross the boundary line of the present till its time-stiffened lips have learned to pronounce the modern shibboleth. This system of rigid analysis is in keeping perhaps with the progress of the age, and by it alone is many a moss-grown error to be overthrown; yet it becomes us to take heed, lest in our eager search after a new faith we imbibe more of error than we have cast aside with the creeds of our fathers. Truth is seldom revealed to us by happy chances; we must search carefully for it, and be sure of our footing at every step. Every new-found truth must be subjected to rigorous tests; and every step in advance must be on the firm rock. Especially do we need to distinguish carefully between the true and the false, and to know at every step that our footing is secure in examining the self-styled religious philosophy of the day. This philosophy, claiming to be the herald of a new and more perfect faith, makes its advent under the most favoring auspices. The times are portentous; mind is all awake, and earnest men are every-where seeking after truth. The true, the beautiful, the good-these are sought with untiring zeal, and to those who patiently and carefully prosecute their search the truth shall surely be revealed. But there is a class of men whose eager haste and self-confidence have blinded their eyes to the simplicity of truth, and by them a fearful amount of evil is mingled with the good. Thus from Germany pours in upon us a tide of rationalism; atheistic France contributes to swell the tide, while the pantheism of Carlyle, adorned by every grace of rhetoric and strengthened by all the powers of a gigantic and penetrating intellect, meets with a ready response from once orthodox New England. These disciples of the new faith claim to have thrown off the shackles of superstition, and to have wrought out, by their own unassisted reason, a system of philosophy embodying all essential truth. They claim to be not only original think and Berkley, and admitted to some extent by the great German transcendentalist, we have but to return to the east, whence nearly all the varieties of religion have originated, and we shall find Buddhism teaching the same absurd doctrine. It was a strangely-inconsistent belief, even for a pagan creed, and its modern advocates made little improvement upon the speculations of their heathen predecessors. Too vague and unreal to meet the opposition of a world which, despite all theories to the contrary, still seemed to have some real existence, idealism faded before the advance of truth like mist before the morning sun. If we take the opposite and more popular extreme, materialism, we have but to go back along the line of centuries, and we shall find all the ancient systems of philosophy, amid a multitude of jarring dogmas, agreed upon the eternity of matter. The Gentile world knew not the simple story of revelation, "He spake and it was done; he commanded and it stood fast," and could not, therefore, decide the first question in every system of philosophy; namely, the origin of matter. The ancient philosophers could not conceive of its creation from utter nothingness; hence they admit its eternity and consequent intelligence. The pantheism of the present day, boldly asserting man's divinity, is but a repetition of these ancient theories. Purified, refined, sublimated, it may be, but still in essence it is the same. Brahmanism taught that "the first Being, alone and without likeness, was the All in the beginning; he could multiply himself in various forms." Plato and Aristotle, themselves disciples of the Gymnosophists, taught that matter was intelligent as a whole, unintelligent only in its parts; and the modern skeptic tells us that "all things are in essence one, and in form only are many." Eschylus declares that "Jupiter is air, earth, heaven-all is Jupiter." Pope repeats the same thought: "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, while Goethe gives us still another version of it: "No essence into naught resolveth, The Eternal through all forms revolveth." imbued with the doctrines of Spinosa, the most refined and spiritual of pantheists; and this influence, revealing itself in so many of his most beautiful poems, is openly acknowledged in his prose writings. He who has the heart to strip off the drapery of life and beauty, and transform the poet into the philosopher, will find in place of the apparently beautiful theory only a strange bundle of inconsistencies. Carlyle, deeply imbued with German life and thought, has thrown still another garb over the same skeptical theory. His entire system of "hero-worship" is based upon the essential divinity of man; and his view of the relation of the individual to his fellows, modified to some extent by the hopelessly-democratic atmosphere of Bunker Hill, pervades the present "liberal" literature of New England. The cause of this ready reception of his worship of genius, and his spirit of self-assertion, is easily ascertained. A universal necessity involves pantheism. The polished, insinuating, plausible heresy, which is so rapidly spreading among the descendants of the Pilgrims, is but the reaction of that unmitigated Calvinism to which they so long and so tenaciously clung, and from which the Puritan mind drank in, although unconsciously, the very essence of pantheism. Spiritualism also, however contemptible in its origin, is exerting its influence upon the religion and philosophy of the day. Commencing with a simple ghost-story, fabricated, as was believed at the time, for an April hoax, it was continued for purposes of notoriety and gain, till an outraged and indignant community drove the nuisance from their midst. Then, Proteus like, it began a series of transformations, adapting itself more and more to the purposes of those who were already arrayed against Christianity, till it has become but another form of the same wide-spread heresy, whose foundation-stone is man's essential divinity, Borrowing the spheres of Aristotle, and collecting a motley crowd of ancient and modern absurdities, it is yet so shrewdly adapted to the fancied wants of our nature as almost to defy the influence of reason and the empire of will. Hence the thousands of unwary souls that have been led astray by its influence, and lured along by its siren power, till their feet have at last "stumbled upon the dark mountains" of un belief. These are a few of the phases of modern skepticism. The professed aim of all is absolute truth; yet it is a significant fact, that the infidel philosophy of the present age is as far from the goal as was its heathen prototype. The claim of originality and rare intellectual discovery being set aside, there remains to be The considered the single boast of liberality. philosophers of our American Athens, and their disciples in the metropolis, complain loudly of the narrowness of creeds, the bigotry of sects, and the austerity of the Christian doctrines. They acknowledge God, and denounce his Church; admire Christ, and sneer at his holy disciples; extol the teachings of the New Testament, and break its commandments; build a heaven for the whole race, and carefully shun defilement from "the vulgar herd" on earth. The carpings of such inconsistency are an answer unto themselves, and need not a formal refutation. It would be an easy task to trace the course of unbelief, ever wandering away from the crowd in proud and selfish isolation, and to show that it brings no "glad tidings" to the race; that for the masses it has only scorn and contempt; that for man, as man, it has no sympathy, no balm of healing. But we need no such elaborate evidence. The contrast between skepticism and true religion is strong and clearly defined, so that we have but to place them side by side and see for ourselves which has the narrower, which the broader creed. Philosophy and Christianity each proposes to accomplish for man a great and necessary good: the former, by self-renunciation, to raise him above the weaknesses of his nature; the latter, by faith in the atonement, to restore him to purity and divine favor. The one addresses itself to the favored few; the other to all mankind. Thus Goethe plainly declares that there are no works of art or of soul for the crowd, "and that only here and there one may rise to the enjoyment of those blessings conferred by philosophy." Paul as boldly asserts that "there is no respect of persons with God." Carlyle's system of "hero-worship" is an absolute despotism; Christianity, though flourishing under all forms of government, is democratic in all its tendencies. Philosophy addresses its lifeless abstractions to the head; Christianity lays its hand upon the heart. Philosophy breathes its chilling influence upon the few and transforms them into statues; Christianity comes with life and power and speaks the dead multitude to life. Philosophy accompanies man to the farthest earth-shore, but leaves him alone to take the "leap in the dark;" Christianity guides him safely over the swelling waters, opens to him the pearly gates, and crowns him with immortality. IF thou wouldst be informed what God has written concerning thee in heaven, look into thine own bosom, and see what graces he hath there wrought in thee. |