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Away from the dwellings of care-worn men,
The waters are sparkling in grove and glen!
Away from the chamber and sullen hearth,
The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth!
Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains,
And youth is abroad in my green domains.

But ye-ye are changed since ye met me last!
There is something bright from your features pass'd;
There is that come over your brow and eye,

Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die!
-Ye smile, but your smile hath a dimness yet-
Oh! what have you looked on since last we met?
Ye are changed, ye are changed!-and I see not here
All whom I saw in the vanished year!

There were graceful heads, with their ringlets bright,
Which tossed in the breeze with a play of light,
There were eyes, in whose glistening laughter lay
No faint remembrance of dark decay!

There were steps that flew o'er the cowslip's head,
As if for a banquet all earth were spread;

There were voices that rang through the sapphire sky,
And had not a sound of mortality!

Are they gone? Is their mirth from the mountain passed ?
-Ye have looked on death since ye saw me last!

I know whence the shadow comes o'er you now,
Ye have strewn the dust on the sunny brow!
Ye have given the lovely to earth's embrace,
She hath taken the fairest of beauty's race,
With their laughing eyes and their festal crown;
They are gone from amongst you in silence down!
They are gone from amongst you, the young
and fair,
Ye have lost the gleam of their shining hair!
-But I know of a land where there falls no blight,
I shall find them there, with their eyes of light!
Where death 'midst the bloom of the morn may dwell,
I tarry no longer-farewell, farewell!

The Summer is coming, on soft winds borne,
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn!
For me, I depart to a brighter shore ;

Ye are marked by care, ye are mine no more.

I

go where the loved who have left you dwell,

And the flowers are not death's-fare ye well, farewell!

Queries on Church Government.

SEVERAL persons, anxious for the permanent prosperity of the Unitarian cause, wish for information, through the medium of the Christian Reformer, as to the best plans for constituting and regulating religious societies, and beg leave to ask,

Is a Unitarian congregation merely an assemblage of persons individually subscribing to a course of lectures on divinity, as they might in another place to a course of lectures on philosophy or elocution, the reputation or talent of the lecturer being the only point of attraction? Or should there be something to bind each member to the others?

Is it prudent to leave the management in the hands of minister and trustees; or has a committee been found by experience to be useful? How should such a committee be appointed? By acclamation or by ballot? By minister and trustees proposing a double list, for members to scratch from? Or by what other means?

Who should be admitted to vote? The mixed assemblage who are usually denominated a congregation, or persons only who contribute a certain amount, and who have continued to do so for a specified time?

If Mr. Wright's engagements afford him leisure, and he think the subject of sufficient importance, the proposers of these queries would be thankful if he would communicate the result of his information and experience; and if other persons will do so likewise, it may perhaps be of some utility to our cause generally.

Deism and Christianity; Voltaire and Paine.

[From the New-York" Christian Inquirer."]

IT is not a little amusing to observe the compliment which is sometimes passed, undesignedly of course, on Christianity by the Deistical writer. Even the gifted Paine,* with all his virulence, avows his creed to contain

* As Paine is frequently calumniated by persons who are unacquainted with his works and iguorant of his talents, the writer of the present paper would not have it understood that he uses his name with any kind of invidiousness. On the contrary, he feels all the respect for him, as a political writer, to which his works have the most indisputable claim, and he feels perfectly convinced, that when his theological works are forgotten, he will be enrolled among the benefactors of mankind, as having done more towards the simplification of civil and political government than any other writer.

the leading doctrines of Christianity, although, perhaps, from having viewed Christianity through the medium of corruption, he was unconscious of it. Paine says in his Age of Reason, "I believe in one God, and no more, and I hope" (how superior the Christian system, which completely ascertains the fact!)" for happiness beyond this life. I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy." Precisely the doctrines of Christianity, Mr. Paine; the wheat which has long been growing with the tares, but which you have not been able to discriminate in your ardour of theological warfare. And similar to this is a passage in Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, on which this paper is principally designed to comment. The passage is his fifth question on religion, and although it is designed, according to his sneering manner, to depreciate the pretensions of Christianity, like the passage which is already quoted from Paine, it reflects lustre on the religion of Jesus." Next to our holy religion," (says he, mistaking, like Paine and most other Deistical writers, the established religion of his day for Christianity,)" to be sure the only good religion, which would be the least bad? Would it not be the most simple? Would it not be that which taught a great deal of morality and few doctrines; that which tended to make men virtuous without making them fools; that which did not impose the belief of things impossible, contradictory, injurious to the Deity, and pernicious to mankind; and which did not take on itself to threaten with eternal punishments all who had common sense? Would it not be that which did not support its articles by executioners, and deluge the earth with blood for unintelligible sophisms?" "Would it not be that which taught only the adoration of one God, justice, forbearance and humanity?" Now, as it is very evident that this passage is a sneer at Christianity throughout, and that Voltaire designed it to be understood that Christianity was quite distinct from that religion which he would have considered as the least bad, or rather, as his meaning is, the very best, is it not complimentary to the Christian system, as the Christian system possesses all the excellencies of his "least bad" religion; and may not Voltaire be considered, in this passage, as an apologist for that system of religion which he misunderstood, and consequently rejected? For had Voltaire understood Christianity, had

he viewed it as contained in the New Testament, instead of as exhibited by monkery and priestcraft, he would not only have found that it was the "least bad," but that it was the best of all conceivable systems. He would have found that it was the most simple; that it taught a great deal of morality and few doctrines; that it tended to make men virtuous without making them fools; that it did not impose the belief of things impossible, contradictory, injurious to the Deity, and pernicious to mankind; that it did not take on itself to threaten with eternal punishment all who had common sense; that it did not support its articles by executioners, and deluge the earth with blood for unintelligible sophisms; that it taught the adoration of one God, (of one God only,) and justice, forbearance and humanity. That such might have been Voltaire's discovery had he lived in our day, is not improbable; but if it had not, the fault would have been his own, the error would not have been in Christianity. And for the purpose of shewing this, I shall offer a few strictures on the Christian system, in reference to Voltaire's features of the least bad religion. Christianity, then, I shall primarily observe, is the most simple religion; it is founded on the being of one God, who is powerful, wise, just, and benevolent; it is free from all subtle doctrines and scholastic terins; it has neither priests, nor temples, nor ceremonies, and is adapted to the multitude, the ignorant, and the unlearned. Jesus Christ came into the world commissioned by his heavenly Father to preach the doctrine of a final resurrection, and a state of future reward and punishment. He worked miracles to prove his divine mission; he exhibited the God of nature as the Parent of the human race; he exhorted men to repent and reform; and, finally, he was put to death, and raised from the grave, according to his own prediction, as a pledge to us that we should be raised, even as he had been. And if this be not a simple religion, the most simple that the mind can conceive, religion and simplicity must ever be distinct. But when Jesus taught, we read that the common people heard him gladly, for he spake as one having authority, and not as the scribes; that is, Jesus addressed himself to the hearts and understandings of his hearers by the simplicity of his doctrines, while the scribes were superstitious and dogmatizing, preserving the traditions of men. Jesus, likewise, taught few doctrines, but a great deal of morality. Morality, indeed, was his object,

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and doctrines were only taught by him as subserving to morality. The doctrines of Jesus were not abstract and subtle, astonishing the vulgar and confounding the wise, but they were rather leading principles upon which the whole fabric of morals stands. Doctrines, as prescribed by synods and churches, are merely the objects of assent and belief; but the doctrines of Christianity are of vital importance, and are a kind of moral cement to the temple of virtue. And thus the leading doctrines of Christianity, in guarding the Divine unity, in exhibiting the Divine goodness, in proclaiming human responsibility, and in asserting a future state of retributive justice, furnish principles of action, operating on our hopes and fears, which are of the most beneficial tendency. But while the doctrines of Christianity are clearly defined in the Christian Scriptures, they are not proclaimed as the tests by which the future condi tion of man is to be determined; they are important as supplying principles of action, as motives to virtue, but it is to virtue only that reward is promised, and to vice only that punishment is threatened. The New-Testament threat is not, Depart from me, ye disbelievers of doctrines, but Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity." And thus, as there is nothing absurd or ridiculous in these views, but as, on the contrary, they are quite consonant to the best convictions of the mind and deductions of philosophy, and as, if I may be allowed the term, they are a complete condensation of the Christian system, it is quite clear that Christianity is calculated to make men virtuous without making them fools, and that it does not impose the belief of things impossible, contradictory, injurious to the Deity, and pernicious to mankind, and which does not take on itself to threaten with eternal punishments all who have common sense. And again, as Christianity has no "unintelligible sophisms," nor yet "articles," it is quite impossible that it should arm the executioner, or deluge the earth with blood for their defence. But as Christianity teaches us to love our neighbours "as ourselves, to do unto others as we would have others do unto us, to render mercy in order that we may obtain mercy, to visit the sick, to succour the fatherless, and to aid the widow, to worship God who is a spirit in spirit and in truth, and to be perfect even as our Father who is in heaven is perfect, it is clear and evident that the Christian system teaches "the adoration of one God, justice, forbearance, and humanity."

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