be it civil, political, or religious, there Truth is, and in the nature of things must be, in danger of being shackled. The lust of power, the pride of party, the love of routine and precedent, of The child questions after it, and the old and wise find its search still worthy of their best efforts. Mankind will never compass all the truth of this earth and of life. Angels will through all eternity be occupied uniformity and dogmatic conformity, with the infinite expanse of God's Truth, while the blest in the heavenly realm will be forever employed with the True and the Beautiful. Then to find Truth and to follow her in all her ways, is the highest study of immortal man. Truth can be repressed but not conquered. When confined within narrow and strong walls, she will yet find means to communicate with her votaries, and they will be stirred up to a zeal, that will liberate her at any cost. Truth will eventually triumph over all error, while all falsehood will be exposed and crushed. Then if we would seek permanancy and perpetuity, we must first make truth our friend, and stand by her through all, but if we would reach shame, ignominy and defeat, we may accept error and follow after falsehood. The man that is entirely true to all his best instincts, and that is above all duplicity and all complicity with error, is the holy man. This, of course is to be received relatively; it is only as far as a man has seen Truth that he can follow her, and he that has faithfully kept to the light of Truth in his own heart, although he may be behind many a half-hearted follower who has had much light, is the better man. It is not what Truth we possess, but our being determined to sell all that we have for the Truth, that makes the Christian. One known error clung to will damage the claim of the most profound thinker, while an error unconsciously followed will not sully the loyalty of any childlike follower of the Truth. But we cannot be true without first being free. The slave cannot, as the creature of another will, be true. He has not the power of true action in himself. He is obliged to say what he does not believe, to do what he has not willed to do. All is false, for he has not Liberty, the twin sister of Truth. all agree to close the door upon liber-ty in the truth. When men are tied to the opinions of others in matters of thought and opinion, they will act and speak a lie. Their acts do not represent themselves, they are an untruth to them. Napoleon saw and recognized the necessity of free thought as a necessary means of progress in science, and granted especial immunities and privileges to scholars.. Wherever there is a shackle on body, soul or spirit then truth suffers. Then what is the atmosphere best adapted to the development of Truth? It is in the most liberal and the broadest Christian democracy, or rather theocracy, where all men are acknowledged as equal, and God, or His essence,. Truth as supreme. It is in this atmosphere that man can throw out his thoughts to the sunshine of truth, and where all error will eventually pale and vanish. Endeavor to shackle thought for fear error will grow, and you do but give wrong a hiding place, bring it out to the light and mankind will spurn it. An open field, a free tilt, and we need not fear the result, when Truth enters the list against error. Slavery, repression and cowardice, are the friends of error. Liberty, progression and courage, are the friends of Truth. Wherever there is an organization, The man that has faith in Truth exercises charity. He does not set at work to blow the cloak of error from off any one, but kindly asks the mistaken man to come out of his corner, and to walk with him in friendship, and as they go out in the genial sun shine, they talk of genial things, and by and by, the sunlight of Truth penetrates to his heart and warms. and quickens his blood, his self-will gives way, he feels the cloak an encumberance to his own reanimated nature, and gladly he throws it off. We cannot tear or force error out of its stronghold in the heart, but if by winning the man's confidence we can only get him to bring it out into the It is the season when summer and daylight and carelessly to turn it over autumn meet in a most genial temand look at it, it will vanish and fin- perature and when the impaired ally disappear before the light and health incident to the sultry months, heat of the Everlasting Truth. On the is becoming restored. When the contrary if we go with the uniform maturity and decay of an exuberant and bearing of a policeman, and de- vegetable undergrowth in our unsubmand that he surrender the false idol dued Western forests infected the air he worships in the secret temple of with malaria in the early history of his heart, he will slam the door of that this country, the periodic return of heart in your face, and all the powers intermittent fevers was a serious you possess cannot bring out that difficulty to be encountered in the image so that he and you may see its absence of Friends from their homes. deformity. Since so much of our soil has been brought into cultivation, and our forests are converted into grazing lands, there has been a corresponding decline in the recurrence of disease in our summer months. Seek truth and do not, by bigotry or fear, curb expression; believe that it is possible you may have some error. All truth does not rest with any one man, nor is any one so base but that he holds some truth, so we may learn from all and be the better for mutual interchange of thought. Truth is necessary for confidence, and confidence for peace, and peace for liberty. Then give us a free air and true expression, men and women that love truth and hate error, that love liberty and hate despotism in every form or guise. INDIANA YEARLY MEETING. H. Shall it not be held in the last week in the Eighth Month? EXPERIENCE is one of the lights of reason. Time will give us a record which we should pause to read. Habit is a second nature and is imperious in its demands that it remain undisturbed. Such as are accommodated to a certain order of things by time and habit, are not readily moved except by self-evident truths and the force of necessity. These reflections pass through the mind of him who would propose some more practical order for the general good of society and influence the many to yield their predilections for long, and, in many respects, satisfactory usage. Indiana Yearly Meeting, next Autumn, will have been established forty-six years. Ohio Yearly Meeting had chosen the first of Ninth month as the best season for holding this general assembly of the church. Our educational saystems have developed and matured under the favor of plenty and leisure, and that generous and liberal forethought that has marked the history of the free States in the West, in common with a corresponding progress in the East, and the working of our schools of every grade are clearly showing what are the fruits of experience. In cities, villages, and rural districts, there is a common experience, that from the University to the infant school, the sultry months of summer are unsuited to school and study. It is the fatal season for children. They then need rest and the mother's care. Age and manhood have need to be discreet in diet, exercise and exposure. Very few schools, where education has assumed a systematic form, can be found in session during these months. Schools of all grades should begin about the first of Ninth month, and continue two thirds or three fourths of the year, allowing time for appropriate vacation. Sessions could then be arranged to suit all grades of students for autumn, winter and summer schools. No order of Institutions are so much benefitted by this system as the High School and College. The time for holding Indiana Yearly Meeting is much in the way of the proper working of this system and in this Yearly Meeting the difficulty is felt in its greatest force. College, High School, and Common School In almost every case where application has been made, assistance has been given where, on personal visitation, it has been deemed suitable, and in many others it has been rendered during family visits without previous solicitation. under the management of Friends must be postponed for a month or six weeks, waiting for Yearly Meeting. In the olden times much space had to intervene between Yearly Meetings for travel. Now, time is almost annihilated by steam and rail, and we can look more to economy. The good thus done though limited, The last week in Eighth month, a has been beyond doubt, invaluable to time now unoccupied, is a season as the interests of the School. It has desirable as any other for holding shown the parent, and guardians that Yearly Meeting. The temperature, there is a practical interest taken in with rare exceptions, is well adapted the welfare of their offspring; it has to it. The first of that month is gen- given a zest to the attendance of the erally very warm, but about the 20th scholars; and the keen waiting for the there is usually an agreeable change. visitors, and the prompt and hearty For the last fifteen years there have thanks, show that the efforts of the been but two seasons when the ther- friends of the Mission are appreciated. mometer has risen above 82° at maximum temperature. The average maximum is about 78°. A temperature only comfortable with nights not chilly. A greater warmth is usually found before and after that date. The first of Tenth month has both heat and cold and a variableness that requires a double supply of clothing, and much attendant inconvenience in meeting it. The last of Eighth month is the most favorable time for farming interests. Harvests are then housed, and wheat sowing has not commenced. It is the season of plenty in vegetables and fruits. Hospitality can be shown best then, and at least expense. Ought not the change to be made? B. C. H. The lovely return thus rendered must be especially grateful to those whose hearts have been opened in our Mission cause. HEZK. B. BAILEY, Supt. CINCINNATI, 4TH MONTH 1st, 1867. For the "American Friend." "As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God." We as a Society have ever held this as a leading doctrine of the Gospel of Christ, but how often has the counterfeit been imposed on us by that enemy who if it were possible would deceive the very elect! While we have professed to substitute the substance for the shadow-the spirit for the letter and to acknowledge only the bishopric of Christ who is head. over all things to his Church-the REPORT OF FOWELL BUXTON SABBATH dispenser of the diversity of gifts all SCHOOL. SINCE our report of 12th month last our numbers have steadily increased, reaching over 400 scholars and forty teachers. By the kindness of friends we have been enabled to relieve over 150 of those attending our school with clothing. During the four months ending this date, we have distributed about 250 yards of girls' and 130 yards of boys' goods,and 100 pairs of shoes, with the addition of some hats, and a few ready made garments, have also furnished forty Bibles and Testaments and 255 Sabbath School Books, and about 300 Sabbath School papers. to be exercised under the influence of the one spirit, have not almost all our meetings been affected more or less by the counterfeit "formal disuse of form"-a prescribing of the diversity of gifts to the one and thus destroying the strength and harmony of the body, which God hath tempered together as it hath pleased him, setting every member in his own place in the body. Thence, instead of being aggressive on the enemy's ranks as was the primitive Church-spreading truth abroad and gathering souls into the fold of Christ, there has been a want of power, a blighting, a withering and a captivity. Oh, how many precious ones know the meaning of these things from painful experience. But I rejoice that the bands are breaking, that there is a widespreading revival, that there is a coming up, (in the language of Win. Penn) "out of all narrow spirits into the truly Catholic Spirit" which would have all men come to Christ and be saved-which would have all the gifts exercised in the Church-which would have every one (in the language of George Fox) "improve their talents-every one exercise their gifts and every one speak as the spirit gives them utterance; for the manifestation of the spirit is given to every one to profit withal." A forced conformity to uniformity is opposed to the teachings and practice of the primitive Church. Opposed to the leadings of the Spirit and wherever it has been introduced it has produced a blight in proportion to its reign. AN ANCIENT GEM. Written early in the seventeenth century, in the reign of Charles 1, by Dr. Peter Heylin. Given with a Bible. COULD this outside beholden bee If thou art merrie, here are aires, For the American Friend. The following exhortation of Geo. Fox shows his feelings on this subject: "Quench not the spirit nor despise prophesyings where it moves, neither hinders babes and sucklings from crying hosannah for out of their mouths will God ordain strength.-There were some in Christ's day that were against such, whom he reproved, and there were some in Moses' day who would have stopped the prophets in the camp, whom Moses reproved, and said by way of encouragement to them, would God that all the Lord's people were prophets! THIS subject has already been inSo I say now to you, Therefore, ye troduced in the AMERICAN FRIEND, that stop it in yourselves, do not and the articles that have a bearing stop it in others, neither in babes nor on it I have read with much interest. sucklings for the Lord hears the cries I have no desire to enter into an unof the needy and the sighs and profitable controversy in relation to groans of the poor. Judge not that nor the sighs and groans of the spirit which cannot be uttered lest ye judge prayer; for prayer as well lies in sighs and groans to the Lord as otherwise. Let not the sons and daughters be stopped in their prophesyings, but let the Lord be glorified in and through all who is over all, God blessed forever!" it, and yet am inclined to say a word. Your correspondent "Z." uses mild language when he speaks of having "observed a kind of sensitiveness on this subject." Stronger terms might have been used and equally appropriate, but believing that the opposition which the friends of revision meet with, proceeds, in many cases, from a desire to conserve what we all agree to consider precious, those sensitive ones may be our 'true friends," although at present in disguise. authority, is the only question that is Trusting that both parties are, in the to be put forever out of the circle of main, desirous of having a correct the appropriate topics for renewed translation of the Holy Scriptures, inquiry and consideration. I should the difference between them is not lament as much as any one the decay doctrinal, but of the relative fitness of any proper reverence for the past; of certain words to express that doc- but it is exacting a good deal of us, I trine. think, to require us to admit with unquestioning apathy that our forefathers have made up a case for us in regard to this particular subject, which is to be received as settled for An intelligent reader on comparing the version of the English Bible now in use with that "authorized" by King James, in 1611, must observe a difference in the orthography, at least, all time." of the two: changes silently intro- The writer of this essay, enjoying duced, simply for the purpose of the privilege of having occasional making the language of the Bible interviews with some of the active conform to the vernacular of the time. members of the American Bible UnIt is presumed that no such reader has ion, including Dr. Conant, one of the taken alarm at this, although the revisors, and Dr. Wyckoff, one of the changes thus made place the common secretaries, can cheerfully bear testiversion on the catalogue of "revised mony to their frankness in answering versions," as truly as any that have any questions he has put to them in preceded, or may succeed it in a more extensive way. relation to the work they have in hand. [The Library in the possession. of the Association numbered more than 3000 volumes, including 150 Bibles in various languages and versions.] The severest remark that I drew from either of them, (and that "There is a great deal of superstition in the world, and we are bound to give it no quarter." It may be well to remember that the influential scholars now engaged in the most prominent association, in this country, formed for the purpose of promoting revision, are far removed from the intention of laying was by letter,) amounted to this: waste the fundamental principles of Christianity. In their prospectus, they say, "The American Bible Union originated from a single motive, the The primary revisions published by love of the pure word of God." The the American Bible Union contain call by which it was summoned into the common version in the first colexistence, invited and welcomed all umn, the original text in the second, persons to co-operate who embrace and the revised version in the third, the principles of faithful versions regardless of name or sect. on each page, (quarto,) with critical and philological notes, occupying From another tract published by nearly one-half of the page including that Association, take the following copious reterences to lexicons, transremarks of Dr. Hackett, before the lations, versions, &c., of great value A. B. U., at its tenth anniversary, to any one engaged in a critical study 1859: "It has been said, and said of the Scriptures, be their acquaintwith much truth, that all the great ance with the original text ever so problems of human speculation come back to men after certain intervals of time for re-examination, that it is necessary for each generation to discuss many of them anew in accord- To show what has already been* ance with its own mental wants and done in revision we may take a pascharacteristics. It must be counted sage from Bagster's English Hexapla, strange indeed, then, if this question which has the Greek text of the New of the agreement of the English Testament, running across the pages, Scriptures, with the original Scrip- and six important translations in tures from which they derive all their parallel columns, below. We will humble, and free from any reflection designed to impair their value in the estimation of those who read them for devotional purposes. |