2. With an acknowledged good to be achieved, and evil to be remedied or prevented, full in his sight, I inquire of the man, who hesitates to begin, whether he can conscientiously be exonerated from lending his aid?

I know it is perfectly consonant with pride, and one of its dictates, to ask, when any project of usefulness is proposed-can I do this honorably? Will not my reputation suffer by my attempts to benefit others? If the employment be a very humble one, shall I not be ridiculed for my pains? What will my acquaintances say of me? Shall I run the risk of being degraded by it? These and a thousand similar doubts, must be solved, before the man,"halting between two opinions," will consent to begin a duty, which is too plain to admit of proof.

If the inquirer in such cases be not a willing slave to the silly maxims of honor; a mere foot ball for fashion's fools; if he be not incurably blind to the difference between the applause of men and the approbation of God, let him answer to his conscience this single question. Will it comfort you in the hour of dissolution, to reflect that the vain breath of man has been the standard of your actions? An excessive value placed on the esteem of men is a very common and fatal delusion. When it once becomes a fixed principle, every noble motive is excluded. On examination, that will always be found a sordid mind, which cherishes and boasts of an extreme sensibility to its own honor; that is so anxiously attentive to the opinions of others respecting its operations, that it dares attempt nothing, which they condemn, to frown at nothing which they approve.

The slothful servant was not punished for the misimprovement of many talents, but for hiding a single one. Many seek to excuse themselves from any share in works of beneficence, "because," say they, "we are so poor that we can do nothing to any considerable amount. The space we occupy is so exceedingly narrow, that if vacant it can scarcely be noticed, and if occupied ever so completely, it will not be observed." This, I fear, is the true ground on which multitudes plead an exemption from all endeavors to do good. If they could be placed on an eminence to command attention, they would exert themselves, that is, seek a still higher elevation; for such a gratification accords well with the self-exalting spirit, which, in different degrees, lurks in almost every bosom. But to labor in obscurity to scatter the means of happiness without praise; to lessen the sufferings of the community without increasing their own importance; to explore the recesses of misery without the encouragement of the public voice, or the smiles of our friends; to subject one's self to a great deal of pain in exploring the miseries of the wretched, and all this without hope of reward, or prospect of emolument,-is more than such men are willing to undertake.

I would request those, who aim only at conspicuous stations for the display of their talents, and will consent to toil for the public in no other, to contemplate the example of the divine Savior. Indeed he taught in the temple "as one having authority;" but when the occasion presented, he also seated himself in the synagogue with murmuring and malicious enemies. When fatigued with a toilsome journey, he was as willing to instruct the ignorant woman of Samaria, at the

For the Panoplist.

MARKS OF THE DIVINE DISPLEASURE IN THE PRESENT WORLD.

SUFFERING is inseparable from the condition of man. No stage of his journey is exempt from it, and through most of the seasons of his pilgrimage it constitutes the principal ingredient in his cup. Scarcely are his eyes opened, before pain assails him, and is through life either a constant companion, or a frequent visitant. But the anguish of his body is often forgotten, and even lost, in the keener distresses of his mind. The numerous objects which invite his attention, like butterflies pursued in the sunshine, generally elude his grasp; and if seized, wither at his touch, and die in his embrace. What at a distance dazzled his eye by its splendor, loses half its charms on a near approach; "all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief."

Some exhibitions of the displeasure, with which the present world is viewed by its Creator, meet us at every change of human affairs. Let us in this place notice one or two. Death, in its own nature, and in all the anticipations it presents to the mind, is a dreadful evil. Wherever life itself is desirable, the loss of it is contemplated with dismay proportioned to the strength of that desire. Probably, not all the causes which contribute to swell the fear of death are well understood; but even irrational animals share it with ourselves. They shudder with expressions of appalling terror at the final agonies of one of their species. In other natural evils also, they participate, apparently from their dependence on man, or connexion with him; and unquestionably those species which he has subjected to his control, and enslaved in the service of his pleasures, are inconceivably more wretched than others, which roam in freedom through their native forests. Nevertheless, from the pangs of the guilty conscience, and the dread of merited punishment, they are completely freed.

Although the divine Savior has deprived death of its most terrible features, and the transit from time to eternity can be contemplated with greater composure by his disciples, from the assurance of a resurrection to endless life,-still the gloomy vale which separates us from the untried world is shrouded in darkness, and none but fools and madmen rush into it with presumption, or advance with indifference towards the awful confines of a world of retribution.

The same truth appears on the face of the natural world. Immense regions are doomed to perpetual sterility. They are visited neither by the rains nor the dews of heaven. No genial sun quickens into life a luxuriant vegetation; nor temperate atmosphere protects or nourishes the foliage of the waving forest or the fields. Other regions parched by a burning sun, destroy the principles of vegetable life, and generate fatal diseases in animated nature. Their puny inhabitants, if they have any, are enfeebled by the poisonous exhalations around them, and by the noxious atmosphere they breathe. Some again, beneath the frigid zone, supply but a scanty sustenance to their wandering tenants. With incessant toil the famishing native gains but a precarious support for a comfortless existence, and quits life without ever having known those enjoyments found in temperate climes. His whole residence on earth is passed between the jaws of famine on one VOL. XVI.

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hand, and on the other, a toil so unceasing, and so severe, that nature seems incapable of enduring it.

Countries blessed with a milder climate, where neither the extremes of heat nor of cold are experienced, have generally been groaning beneath the iron sceptre of despotism. Their miserable inhabitants are trodden into the dust by governments the most oppressive, which a just God ever suffered to desolate the world. If the poor tenant of the soil have acquired some fruits of his honest labor, a rapacious landlord, an avaricious pacha, or viceroy, wrests from his hands all the gains of industry, and with it the ropes of support for a dependent family.

Of the whole time since the deluge, a large portion has been occupied in war. Looking at a race of beings, whose chief employment has been to destroy each other, whose principal aim secirs directed to the diffusion of misery in a thousand forms,-would it not appear that they are subject to some dreadful infatuation? Blinded by sin, and drunk with revengeful passions, how zealously do they perform the works of that roaring lion who always seeks whom he may devour? Are not the marks of Almighty indignation discover able in the state of such a revolted province of his dominions,—a province which has turned one part of its inhabitants loose upon the other, and exhausted itself in the work of destruction? Further, when it is recollected, that those, who have engrossed the honors of this same world, bave been its principal destroyers; that the highway to preferment and fame, among these deluded beings, is drenched with the blood of millions, and watered with the tears of widows and orphans without number; that men tolerate every species of error, however debasing, rather than truth; that they reject the only and all-sufficient remedy offered by God for the cure of such universal disorder and suffering,-what proof is wanting to show the supreme degradation of such a region? In what righteous judgment has God suffered these beings to raise the hand of a suicide against themselves; and, fond as they are of blood, and fertile in expedients for inflicting pain, how justly has he made them the executioners of his vengeance against sin.

It will be observed, that I have omitted to mention those tremendous displays of the divine displeasure, which are seen in the convulsions of the globe. Not because I think these a more equivocal testimony of God's disapprobation of the guilty world thus punished; but that my intention, in this short article, was to notice only those more general intimations of the designs of Providence, which are scattered over greater portions of the earth, and observable in the face of the ordinary affairs of nations, or of individuals. Should the reader wish to contemplate the signal visitations of Heaven, in which man's splendid habitations are changed at once into his grave,-let him turn to the volcanoes of Italy, and the earthquakes which have swept the cities of Catania, Lisbon, Messina, Lima, Roibamba, and Caraccas.

X.

MISSION CHAPEL AT BOMBAY.

To the Editor of the Panoplist.

SIR, I consider it as deserving very serious regret, that the contributions for erecting a Mission Chapel at Bombay have been so very insufficient; and that, for so long a period, that station has been destitute of a place devoted to religious instruction, and the public worship of God. I am sure, that if wealthy Christians among us were sufficiently aware of the immense importance of such a place, to the progress of Christianity there, the means for preparing it could not long be wanting; and I am as confident, that if only a considerable part of these means were sent from this country, there are many liberal individuals at Bombay, who would cheerfully make such contributions, as would supply the deficiency of our liberality.

1 am fully persuaded, however numerous may be the able missionaries and the well conducted schools, and however widely circulated may be religious tracts and Bibles, that the Mission at Bombay is exceedingly deficient in its means of propagating and establishing the Gospel, so long as it has no place for public instruction and public worship.

If it were for nothing else, such a building would be necessary, in a large commercial city like Bombay, as a significant mark, which should make known to the city at large, and to the immense number of comers and goers, that there does exist an establishment for the propagation of Christianity;-as a standard erected for the Lord Jesus, visible from all quarters, exciting inquiry in all.who see it, and so generally known, that the least informed inquirer may readily arrive at the source of the information which he needs.

There is another incidental advantage, worthy of serious consideration. There will be, in the eyes of the natives, (who despise no religion, but consider each as suitable and right for those who profess it,) a sacredness, attached to a place devoted to the worship of the Supreme God; which will promote a useful reverence for the missionaries themselves: and it will be difficult to impress them with the truth, that the objects of missionaries are solely religious, in any other way. Under every form of religion, right or wrong, there have always been buildings separated for religious purposes; and there is no way, in which religious instructors can so readily render their designs visible, and their persons revered, as by their ministerial connexion with a place of public worship.

But these reasons, though of very great importance, are quite inferior to another, on which rests the indispensable necessity of the provision in question. The missionaries are very faithful, according to their opportunities, in daily preaching to the natives; but one cannot fail to regret, that their instructions are too casual, and too scattered, to produce so deep and extensive an impression, as they otherwise might produce. In order to turn these casual and scattered instructions to good account, there is needed a place of known public resort, from which none could feel excluded, and to which all might be invited; to which those might go, whose curiosity had been awakened, or whose

consciences had been roused, or whose hearts had been softened, by the more casual instructions of the missionaries. In such a case, they would be brought under the means of grace, and, it might be hoped, would be led to repeat their visits, that they might hear more, and still more, of a doctrine, which presents, the more it is known, additional motives to curiosity, and stronger claims upon the feelings; until the blessing of the Spirit might fall upon them, causing them to renounce their idols, to worship the Supreme God, and believe on his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Not that I would limit the power of that Spirit, or imagine that one incidental hearing of the word may not be made effectual to the salvation of the soul; but that I believe it more consistent with the usual mode of divine operations, to bestow the converting influence of the Spirit, when there has been given the opportunity for a full apprehension, in the understanding, of the preached word. So fully am I persuaded of this, as to believe, that, generally speaking, should the incidental labors of the missionaries, on any occasion, be blessed in awakening the attention of the hearers, the whole advantage might be lost, for want of a suitable place for repeating the impression.

I would not, however, confine the advantages in question to the case of those, who may have become interested in the instructions of the missionaries. If a course of lectures were delivered on the historical parts of the Bible, combining with it all that can alarm the fears, and animate the hopes of sinful men, I should think it highly probable, that great numbers, quite indifferent to the true religion, would occasionally, and frequently, happen in, out of the general desire to hear something new, particularly from the lips of a Sahib. This is the more likely in a warm climate, like that of Bombay, where the whole business would be transacted with open doors, furnishing to all passengers an easy and unobserved ingress and egress.

The erection of a Mission chapel, besides farnishing the most important advantages to the heathen, would enable the missionaries to collect, (as the Baptist missionaries at Calcutta have done,) a regular congregation of half casts, who, besides receiving the blessing of stated religious instruction, would shortly furnish many useful assistants to the missionaries in every department of their work.

In a word, the missionaries must have a chapel, or they are but ill provided with the means of carrying on their work. They have been without one several years too long already; and I doubt not, much, very much, has been lost for the want of it. I do earnestly intreat all, who have it in their power, to contribute without delay to this great and good object. Let not the central mission of Bombay, the earliest American establishment among the heathen of the East, be any longer without a place devoted to the public service of God, and to the public instruction of the people. Let the contributions be made with the animating hope, that the walls, which they are designed to raise, will soon enclose attentive crowds of Hindoo hearers, and soon resound with the praises of the heathen to the Savior of the world. SAMUEL NOTT, jun.