no sense of duty, or sympathy of affection with his father or mother, his brother or sister, his friend or neighbour, his wife or children; no reverence to his God; no sense of futurity in this world or the other-all is swallowed up in the mad, selfish joy of the moment.

"Is it not humiliating, that Mahometans and Hindoos should put to shame the whole Christian world by their superior examples of temperance?

"Is it not degrading to Englishmen and Americans, that they are so infinitely exceeded by the French in this cardinal virtue? And is it not mortifying beyond all expression, that we Americans should exceed all other eight millions of people on the globe, as I verily believe we do, in this degrading, beastly vice of intemperance?

"I am, Sir, your obliged friend and humble servant, "JOHN ADAMS."

The Curse of Disobedience.

[From "Devotional Verses." By Bernard Barton. 12mo. 1826.] "And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron." Deut. xxviii. 23.

APPALLING doom! yet hearts there are
Its fearful truth have found,

Have known a heaven where sun nor star
Its radiance sheds around.

A heaven of brass from whose stern cope
No living waters welled,
Whereon the rainbow, arch of hope,
The eye hath ne'er beheld.

An earth of iron whose barren breast
Seemed icy, cold and dead,
Where sterile paths, by joy unblest,
In endless maze were spread.

Oh! such a heaven and such an earth
Are no delusive dream,

To which wild phantasy gives birth,
Howe'er the worldling deem.,

They who have trod that hopeless path,
Beneath that rayless sky,

Have known the hour of righteous wrath
These metaphors imply.

These know how God's most holy will
Can mar creation's face,
And leave the disobedient still
No pleasant resting-place.

One only hope for such remains-
Repent, return and live;
He who no penitent disdains,

New heavens, new earth can give.

Simple obedience shall restore

Green fields and sunny skies,

And hearkening to his voice bring more
Than Eden's paradise.

:

Mr. Worsley on Lay Preaching with an Account of a Tribute of Gratitude and Respect to Mr. S. Gibbs, from the Congregation at Devonport.

Plymouth, June 12, 1826. THE distinctive mark of the Independents and Presbyterians in the Church History of England, at one period was this--that the latter would not admit into the number of its ordained ministers any persons who had not been educated with a view to the pulpit; whereas the former were not so particular on this head, but freely admitted among the number of its preachers auy persons who rendered themselves acceptable to their congregations by good natural parts and a facility in public speaking. This distinction has long ceased. Both these classes had shewn their contempt of what was called holy orders, and soon they learned to respect pretended holy orders as little they may well be all given together to the winds. Yet the Independents have been of late much more guarded as to the qualifications of their ministers; while the old Presbyterian societies, which are now for the most part become Unitarian, have had the advantage of ministers educated under the respectable names of Kippis and Rees, Enfield and Barnes, Ashworth, Robins and Belsham; and, more, recently still, of those gentlemen who are at the head of the York College, and are now sending out young men eminently qualified to supply in our larger and wealthy congregations the places of their fathers as they retire off the stage; many of whom, there is reason to believe, will be able champions and zealous friends of the pure doctrine

of the gospel when the present race of ministers is no

more.

But so much has the number of our societies increased within the last twenty years, that it would not have been possible to provide them with ministers educated with a view to supply them; and many must have wanted instructors, had we not obtained useful auxiliaries from the Methodist and Calvinist connexions, who have fallen into Unitarian views and joined our ranks.

By another means we have been greatly assisted. Lay gentlemen, as the pride of Churchmen has called them, have in many places kindly undertaken to conduct our public worship; and so great have been the facilities they have obtained in this labour of love, from the numerous publications which have been recently sent into the world, that in many instances no want of a regular minister has been experienced, and societies have been upheld and have flourished under the generous care and zealous exertions of these unclerical men.

This is a circumstance that has ever afforded me the greatest pleasure. When we look back upon the early history of the church, and see that before the establishment of the celebrated college of Alexandria, the preachers of Christianity were for the most part unlearned men, that the Christian world at large was, in the second century, "reproached for its illiteracy," (see Robinson's Ecclesiastical History,) and that it was through the instrumentality of this very school, that the corruptions of Christianity crept in; when I read that it was the unlearned many in the church that long resisted the urgent pleas of the schoolmen to admit their mystical divinity, that they "loudly cried out for the monarchy," that they charged it home upon the philosophical Christians, "that they were for worshiping two and even three Gods, while themselves acknowledged but oné God, the Father, the Monarch;" when I consider the extreme simplicity of the gospel as it appears in the evangelical history, and that it was this simple doctrine that the common people heard gladly, I am inclined to ask, Where, for the purpose of Christian teaching, is the necessity of school-learning; and why may not a man of a good common understanding, if he possess a clearness and freedom of speech, stand up and exhort his brethren in the great truths of the gospel? And how unwise those societies must have been who, be

cause they could not maintain a regularly-bred minister, have suspended their worship, and suffered their meeting. houses to fall to decay or pass into the bands of other sects-a circumstance which we have seen taking place in many parts of England, but which, I trust, will not take place any more among that class of Christians to whic we belong.

Great encouragement is held out to small societies to employ, for inaintaining Unitarian worship, their own abilities, in those instances with which we are acquainted in different parts of the kingdom, of the Unitarian 'doctrine being in this manner first planted and afterwards cherished by lay preachers, (I use the term purely by way of expla nation, for I cordially embrace them as brothers,) until it has grown up into a numerous and respectable church; and still greater encouragement in those cases of individual exertion in which our lay friends have trained themselves to the business of public teaching, and rendered themselves so essentially useful in this good work, that it can scarcely be said a minister is wanting to assist them.

This neighbourhood furnishes a striking instance of the value of such services, and it affords me great pleasure, in conveying to the pages of the Reformer the documents which will accompany these remarks, to record the grateful sentiments of the Unitarian Church at Devonport, twe miles from this town, towards their intelligent and excellent friend Mr. Silvanus Gibbs, whose name has been often seen in the pages of the Repository and the Refor mer, and whose writings have shewn the Unitarian public how well he has merited the token of respect which his hearers have presented to him.

I shall not state the circumstances relative to the forma tion of the society at Devonport, formerly Dock, which are related in the subjoiued papers, but shall add, that, impressed with a sense of the great obligation they lie under to Mr. Gibbs for his unwearied and truly acceptable ser vices, his hearers first thought of imitating the example of our friends at Framlingham and Teuderden, and presenting him with a useful piece of plate. To this, when mentioned to him, he objected, but yielded to the proposal afterwards made to procure for him a copy of Mr. Belsham's Translation and Exposition of the Epistles of Paul, which were directed to be bound in the handsomest man

ner possible in Russian leather. In order to accomplish this object, a subscription was set on foot among them, the amount of which being found much to exceed the sum ́ required, it was determined to add to this excellent commentary, Kenrick's Exposition of the New Testament: thus furnishing their friend with two valuable sources of information, from which he may draw and supply them with sound critical remarks, the best moral lessons, the most instructive and edifying subjects of contemplation for the disciple of Christ Jesus.

I shall only add my cordial testimony to that of my neighbours, an industrious society, whose dependence is entirely on their weekly gains, most of them being employed in the labours of the Dock-yard, of the value of the services of Mr. Gibbs so long enjoyed by them; how great a pleasure it affords me to know, that they have justly appreciated the value of those services and given proof of it, and the hope I entertain that other societies similarly circumstanced will not be regardless of the great obligations they lie under to men of activity and of talent, who, without the prospect of any temporal gain, exert themselves in this manner to maintain a drooping cause and keep alive the spark of divine truth. I. WORSLEY.

On Sunday afternoon last, the society assembled in the large room in which their meetings are held, when Mr. Nicholas Rundell addressed Mr. Gibbs as follows:

"MR. SILVANUS GIBBS,

"We are now assembled to present you with Mr. Kenrick's Exposition of the Historical Books of the New Testament, and Mr. Belsham's Translation and Exposition of Paul's Epistles. These works are intended as a small token of our gratitude for your disinterested and very useful labours in this place, and as a testimony of the zeal and unwearied perseverance which you have manifested in disseminating what we believe to be the pure, unsophisticated doctrines of the Scriptures, and in uniformly enforcing their superior tendency to produce virtuous conduct; as without a corresponding practice the most clear and correct religious notions are of little worth.

"More than six years have elapsed since a room was opened in this town for public worship on Unitarian Christian princiles; during which period we have happily enjoyed, what we hope ever to esteen an important and invaluable privilege, nainely, the means of socially worshiping the Oue God and Father, as the disciples of the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,' which we could not have otherwise.