sand of their sceptical theories. He is a new man, and the change was effected chiefly before discipline, or example, had time to work it. He is an hon est man, and soberly asserts that to his certain knowledge he did not perform the work himself. But where is the example to be found of such and so great a change, wrought by mortal means? The history of the human race is chal. lenged to produce it. To God then who created man, to Christ who redeemed him, and to the Holy Ghost who sanctifies him, be ascribed without abatement, or reserve, the power and the grace displayed in this and every similar instance of the conversion of a blind, and hardened and wretched sinner.

MONROVIA, WESTERN AFRICA, August 7, 1826.

To the Reverend Pastor, (if any,) the Deacons and Brethren

of the Congregational Church of Christ, in Champlain : RESPECTED AND BELOVED Fathers and BRETHREN:

A review of the sixteen years of my connexion with your body, in the holy ties of a common faith, and a common hope, while it overwhelms my mind with the number, and infinite value of the blessings derived to me from that connexion, produces, also, a painful conviction of having failed in many of the duties which it imposes. The delinquencies of which I have to accuse myself, are chiefly to be traced up to the neglect of that direct and frequent correspondence with your Pastor and yourselves, which it was equally my privilege and my duty to have cultivated. But, separated from you for so many years, and often, as at present, by a distance of some thousands of miles, I fear, I have almost ceased to be regarded by you as one of your numberand that I retain only a small interest in your affections and your prayers, which I desire might be the greater, as my privilege of being watched over, counselled, and encouraged by you, is the less.

It is my earnest wish and resolution, however, the grace of God assisting, to repair hereafter, by every means in my power, those neglects, and retrieve the many lost advantages which I have to regret as the consequence of them. And here I cannot repress the affecting recollection, that so many of our be loved and esteemed members-some of whom we all accounted fathers and mothers in our little Israel, when I last met you at the Sacramental Supper of the Redeemer, are now withdrawn forever, from our communion on earth, and can assist us no more, except by the example which they have left us, and the seed sown by their prayers and watered by their tears, now excharged for the joys and the praises of Heaven. But, I trust, your thinned ranks have been, from time to time, replenished by accessions from the world; anithat the engagement of the Almighty Saviour to his general Church, that "the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it," has been fulfilled, in respect to yo particular communion. But my want of exact information, in regard to yo

present state, is both an evidence and reproof of that neglect of my covenant engagements for which I blame myself: and desire forgiveness both from God and yourselves.

The books of the church will show that I became an unworthy member, in the summer of 1810; and from that period till September, 1816, while pursuing my studies at the school of a neighboring state, was permitted by my situation, occasionally to unite with you in worship, and the ordinances of the church.

From 1816 to 1819, without withdrawing or desiring to withdraw from my relation to your church, I enjoyed in Maine, the benefits of a very endeared connexion with another, which God had been pleased to gather out of the world, partly by my own instrumentality. The temporary nature of my engagements and residence in Maine, did not, I think, allow of my applying to you for a dimissory letter; but I think, I then erred, in not asking, and using, if granted, a certificate of my standing, accompanied with your recommendation to the communion of sister churches.

A similar neglect was indulged during a residence of three years ensuing, in the City of Washington; and, to add to my present regrets, I believe I did not in that whole time, inform you of the circumstances in which I was placed in that city. I had received in Maine, a license limited to three years, to preach the gospel, but without ordination. At the expiration of that term, having engaged myself in the publication of a Religious Monthly Magazine, which occupied much of my time; I deferred, and at length relinquished for the present, the intention of applying for a renewal of my ministerial credentials. One reason for this course was the occurrence of some doubts as to the expediency of such an application; believing, and I think perceiving myself to a certain extent, useful in another line of duty. The circumstance of there being no Congregational Churches and Ministry of the orthodox faith in that part of the United States, also had an influence, I fear, too much influence, to dissuade me from resuming the Ministry, to which I had in a manner 'consecrated myself. I have often since lamented that I did not, at that time, freely correspond with my brethren in Champlain, on those subjects. God might have blessed their counsel; and it was equally my privilege and duty, to have recourse to it for direction. I wandered in much darkness throughout this period, and suffered in the strife of conscience, on the one hand, and of uncertainty as to the path of duty on the other, many distressing conflicts.

My lot had been providentially cast with the second Episcopal Church in the City of Washington, which I found blest with an Evangelical Ministry, a pure faith, and a pious congregation. I addicted myself to the worship and communion of this particular congregation; and generally, to the service of the Episcopal Church of the middle States, until May, 1822, when having accepted of a joint appointment of the Government of the United States, and

of the American Colonization Society, to this country, I left the United States, and have since been an inhabitant of this country.

My duties here have been, and continue to be various; and my sphere of influence as a Christian as well as a man, every month extending itself. I am not left to an entire insensibility of my dread responsibility to God and this | generation; and of the folly of expecting to make one right step without a special Divine guidance. I cry to God for his all-sufficient grace, and have often been heard. And blessed be his name, my very heart ascribes to Him all the glory. In my present protracted affliction, while confined to my chamber, and for the most part, to my bed-his promises and his comforts quiet my impatience and sustain my spirits. It is not for my sake, He has given me well to understand, my brethren-it is not for my sake, but for His own great name, that he has afforded me so many tokens of His favor, and so signally approved of some of the works of my hands, in this dry and solitary land, where the waters of his sanctuary have never till lately, flowed.

The same faith which God enabled me to profess in Champlain, in 1810, has been the steadfast anchor of my soul, in the floods of heresy, the tempests of affliction, and the more dangerous, because more seductive sunshine of worldly prosperity, by which it has been successively assailed. I do not say that my views of the glorious doctrines of the Saviour, have not, from reading the Scriptures, and other means of improvement, been somewhat extended since that period-on a very few points they have undergone a change. But the grand system of Evangelical Doctrines held by our Church, and set forth in its "confession of faith" and approved formularies, I am fully satisfied is according to the only revelation which Jehovah has made of his will and his truth, to man. They are essentially, those alone by which the mind can be awakened, and Divinely illuminated-the heart changed-the soul sanctifiedthe true God seen in his own character-Christ exalted-the principalities and powers of this world and of Hell subdued-and our anxious hopes and desires crowned in the end with eternal life. These are their blessed fruits wherever God owns them in all the world; and he does own them as his peculiar doctrines, wherever they are published. The poor children of Africa have, in this country, had their hearts opened to receive them; and they have "converted their souls." The reception of this holy faith produces on the most ignorant and savage, equally as upon the enlightened and polished, the peculiar characters of self-abasement, penitence and conformity to the Divine image. And this faith is found to be the only faith which can accomplish such effects. Wherever it is neglected, the life of holiness in such as are called Christians, disappears. Wherever it is decried, vice, and sin are seen to erect themselves, triumphantly, in a thousand forms.

Let us then, my brethren, hold fast ¡the profession of so excellent a aith without wavering; and O, may we look well to it, that we hold it not in arighteousness. We have a glorious, but a most righteous Master; He h given us all, and I do not think it humility to deny it, many talents—and will

be as speedy as we know him strict, in calling us to account for them. You are in the bosom of a Christian community; and He there, my brethren, has laid you out abundance of work, without which, your own souls and the souls of many others, cannot be saved. To me is appointed, with perhaps equal obligations and fewer privileges, in this land of darkness, the great labor of planting his Church, and making provision for the sheep and lambs of his flock. Much depends on my fidelity-strengthen my weakness by your prayers, my brethren. And may the Author of the great salvation we are hoping and laboring after, multiply to us abundantly, the graces of his Spiritperfect in us that which is lacking-and bring us safely to his eternal glory, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

JEHUDI ASHMUN.

MONROVIA, SABBATH MORNING, MAY 27, 1827.

To my Three Youngest Brothers.

DEAR BOYS :-It is my lot to have been wholly separated from you, almost from your infancy. I have a faint recollection of your features, in early childhood; but no knowledge whatever, of your present dispositions or even of your persons. And, as little as I know you, I am probably more a stranger to you, than you to me.-But there is still a strong and mysterious tie of endearment which unites us, and renders your interest and welfare most precious to my heart. I cannot feel towards any one of you as towards a stranger. You are my brothers; partners of the very blood which warms my bosom-it would afford me the most sensible pleasure, if the climate of this country were not too dangerous, to have one or more of you with me in Liberia; I have almost thought of sending for you-but am not willing to run so great a risk of sacrificing your health and life, merely to gratify my private feelings. Were you with me, it would be my delight, to be of some service in training you to future usefulness, respectability, and happiness. Nor is this desire less, because you are separated from me by a wide Ocean. But how shall I do you good?—If I had money to send, which should enrich you, would this do it? So far from riches being of use to you in the end, they might not-probably would not, render you one particle the happier, even in the present world-and would certainly endanger your salvation in the world to come.

Could I raise you to posts of distinction and honor, as you advance in life, the elevation might only increase your power of injuring yourselves and others. It might only be to lift you from the ground, in order to give you a heavier and more ruinous fall. Temporary and vain distinctions in this poor life, are often, even while life lasts, the occasion of deep disgrace-and I am afraid too commonly prepare the soul for endless disgrace and mortification, after life is at an end. Had I the power to command with a word, all the pleasures and delights of this earth, and at a word, to make them all your own, my dear bro

thers, I should not, dare not, confer on you so cruel and fatal a gift. "Wherefore? Because I love you not? God knoweth." No-but, because he who made the world, has told us, that all these things are only snares and temptations to such as are living in it; has warned us, as we regard his authority, and our own safety, to forsake and dread them, as the enemies of both.-I am afraid that all this shocks you. "What," you ask, "deprive us of the hope of 'wealth, distinction, and pleasure, in life; and what do you leave us?-Would 'you consign us, young as we are, to gloom and indolence? Take away the 'prospect of these things, and what motive have we to study?-to improve our'selves?-to industry, and action?-What can our hopes take hold of, to keep ' us from dejection and misery?" I know well, what a hard task I have, to answer these inquiries to your satisfaction. I am afraid after all, that I cannot satisfy you. Take away those things from three-fourths of the world, and I know well that they have nothing left; that they are as wretched as sin and a world of troubles, can render them. But, my brothers, I must remind you, at first, of two great delusions, belonging to those objects of worldly attraction, which I have warned you against. The first is, That the riches and honors, and pleasures of this life, are no such matters at all, as your imaginations represent them. It is but a little of any of them, that I have tried—but that little has proved to me, that, one and all, are “vanity and vexation of spirit." There is no substance, nor reality, in them all. They are shadows, which, seen at a distance, appear to be substances. The whole world, almost, are gone away after them. The Devil makes them reflect a dazzling brightness into the minds, especially of the young. The example of so many thousands, many of them men of sense and learning, has, also, a surprisingly imposing effect, and most are deceived, and will not own their deception, till it is too late to escape its consequences. There are no such things then, in this world, or any other, as your young hearts represent to you, the riches, pleasures and distinctions of the world, to be. This is the first delusion I spoke of. The other is, that these things, have an influence on the mind, which no one knows, till he has suffered from it. They place God at a distance they harden and brutalize the heart, and feelings; they make repentance ten thousand times more difficult; they give a certain stoutness of feeling to the worst and most God-provoking dispositions of our nature. They bring error and unbelief, in torrents and floods, into the mind. Understand me. These are the certain effects of wealth, fame, and worldly enjoyment, when not sanctified with God's blessing. And these effects will stay with the soul, as long as the soul exists, no matter in what worlds, or what local position. When this world shall have been turned into a heap of ashes, then, my dear brothers, such as sought their portion in it, shall be lamenting its effects upon their immortal natures. But your young hearts have, perhaps, never imagined such a sting to exist in these desirable objects-nor such a curse to follow after the unsanctified enjoyment of them. Here then is the second delusion the world is endeavoring to put upon you. Fair as her portion is in the prospect-'tis foul and deformed as hell itself, to which it leads, after you have