deportment; I will now exhibit, from sources of information equally authentic, their comforts in a temporal respect, and their prospect of future growth and prosperity. Mr. Wilson, who has resided among them for many years in the capacity of a preacher, gives the following account: "Liberia, for eligibility of situation, is not often excelled, and the facilities held out for a comfortable living, are rarely equalled; industry and economy are sure to be rewarded with a generous competency; for proof of which I refer you to a Williams, a Roberts, a Barber, and others who, a few years ago, possessed very limited means, but are now living in all the affluence and style which characterize the wealthy merchant and gentleman in Virginia." Mr. Elliott, after a long residence in Africa, and enjoying opportunities for extensive observation, remarks, "that the colonists all seem comfortable and contented; they are engaged in getting timber, in building houses, and clearing the country, in which they are making good progress; the land is fine, and a little back from the sea is rich and productive; indigo, coffee, pine-apples and other fruits grow wild. I have visited the coast from Sierra-Leone to a hundred miles leeward from Cape Palmos, and think that Bassa-Cove* is the best spot that could have been selected for a colony; the reports that the slave-trade has been carried on at the old colony are utterly false; very few are intemperate, and the traffic in spirits is much diminished through the influence of temperance societies; some few are discontented, but these are the worthless and the idle." The testimony of another Colonist, dated Monrovia, March 3, 1835, is equally satisfactory. "God in his providence has been pleased to spare my life, and my health is so good, that I intend to open my my school soon; I don't think that sickness and mortality have been more common here, since my arrival, than in different parts of the United States; the settlers are generally civil and moral; religion has formed a connexion with temperance, and an intoxicated person is rarely seen; there is a Bible-class and a Sabbath-school at the Cape; taking into consideration the great 'field that is ripe for harvest,' and that there are some to labour therein, we may thank God and take courage." And Dr. McDowal, the colonial

*The Colonies recently established by the Colonization Society of NewYork and Pennsylvania, are located at this place.

physician, mentions in a letter dated Edina, near BassaCove, May 26, 1835, and received to-day," that the men in the colony are busy putting up their houses on their farm lots; in general they say they are contented, and would not go back to America. This is particularly the sentiment of the most intelligent among them.”

Such is the situation, both in a temporal and spiritual respect, of these colonies, and with what emotions of pleasure must the Christian philanthropist contemplate these scenes of order and felicity? How is his imagination delighted while it draws a contrast between the former dependent, depressed, degraded condition of the colonists, and their present privileges, and future prospects? How is he animated to go on in the execution of a scheme fraught with blessings incalculable to children of the same family with himself? What pleasure must it afford to all who are co-operating in this scheme of benevolence to learn from testimony not to be questioned, that their beneficiaries appear temperate, industrious, prosperous in their secular pursuits, enjoying all the comforts of life, enjoying also the means of cultivation both mental and moral, and many of them apparently exulting in that liberty with which the sinner is made free by the Son of God!

That

I intended in this letter to have presented our prospects of sending, through these colonies, the blessings of civilization and Christianity to the tribes of Africa; but that must be reserved as the subject of another communication. through the divine benediction upon the efforts of the benevolent institutions of our country and world, the earth may be speedily filled with the knowledge of the Lord, is the prayer of

Your fellow labourer in the Gospel,

Rev. LEONARD WOODS, Jun'r.

ALEXANDER PROUDFIT.

ART. IV. EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

By REV. GEORGE B. CHEEVER, Salem, Mass.

The Evidences of Christianity, stated in a popular and practical manner. By Daniel Wilson, A. M. Vicar. Boston: Crocker & Brewster; New-York: J. Leavitt, 1829, 1830.

Essays on the nature and uses of the various Evidences of Revealed Religion. By Gulian C. Verplanck, Esq. New-York: Charles Wiley, 1824.

THE work which we place first at the head of this article, seems to be generally regarded, for practical use and a holy influence, as the best of all the works that have been written on the important subject of the Evidences of Christianity. It commands a position which no other work has completely filled. While it occupies thoroughly the ground of the scholar in learned and logical argument, it makes its appeal to the consciences of all men, and commends itself especially to the pious feelings of the Christian. It contains an immense mass of information, gathered from every source, and is distinguished likewise for a noble elevation and comprehensiveness of view. It gives prominence to great principles, and pursues them, and in the pursuit, collects and pours in upon the mind a vast multitude of thoughts and observations, cumulative as to the argument, and illustrative of its nature and application.

Among the works to which Bishop Wilson refers, as having come under his notice in the study of the subject, is that volume, the title of which we have placed beneath his own. "To these names," the Bishop observes, after a list of authors whom he has consulted," he has peculiar satisfaction in adding that of an American writer of singular talent, with a good deal of the mind of our Bishop Butler, Mr. Verplanck, whose work abounds with deep and original thought. A reprint has not yet been made of this masterly work."

This praise is high, and well deserved. We hope to be able, on some future occasion, to present a separate review of the merits of this volume. Meantime, we cannot but express our suprise, that among the multitude of works constantly reprinted in this country from England, a native work, so original and profound as that of Mr. Verplanck, should have been neglected. It contains pages, whose

thoughts might make the subject-matter of volumes; and yet it is hardly to be found in our book-stores.

It is highly pleasing to recognize in this writer an appeal to a nobler philosophy than that which has so long ruled the general mind; an appeal to "those mysterious, but certain, first truths and rational instincts, which are implanted in the breasts of all men, and which prepare them to confess the power of a Creator, to apprehend his perfections, and to know the obligation of his laws. The germs and seeds of all intellectual and moral knowledge, they are not the less efficient, because they are not embodied in words, nor sorted and fashioned into systems. If philosophers will not confess them to be of reason, they must then be considered as something nobler and more divine than reason itself. They may lie dormant, in the darkness of ignorance, or the corruption of gross vice; but when the occasion which is to call them into energy arrives, they develope themselves, we know not how heaven's beams shine upon them, and they burst into life and power."

This truly eloquent and philosophic passage is extracted from the 69th page of Mr. Verplanck's volume.

While Mr. Verplanck gives a proper place to the "external corroboration" of Christianity, as "well fitted to command attention, and to invite to serious examination, thus giving a more authoritative character to its whole system of doctrines," he at the same time unfolds the superiour power and importance of its internal evidences. "It appears to me to be not less the sound conclusion of reason, than it is the doctrine of revelation itself, that the leading and practical truths of religion are made manifest by their own light, and present themselves to be judged by their own evidence. Like all important truths, not directly cognizable by means of the senses, they must and do require patient attention; and, like other truths having a moral and practical tendency, they may be shut out from our minds by pride, evil passions and prejudices; and their reception or rejection will of consequence depend much upon moral causes, external to the mere exercise of the reasoning power: since there is no better ascertained law of our nature, than that in moral enquiries, whether relating to action or opinion, the tendencies of a stubborn will necessarily have a strong controul over the decisions of the understanding."-p. 62.

After an exhibition of the manner in which the Christian

religion addresses itself to man, he observes: "Surely there needs no laboured argument to prove that there are common principles of our nature, rational faculties and moral qualities, for which all this was intended and adapted, so that if the revelation be true, it will be seen and felt to be so, not indeed. by every man, and fully and in all its parts, but still quite distinctly by all who give it the reception which it requires. If it be from God, it bears upon its face that it was made for man, since it treats concerning him, and is fitted for his needs and uses; and it cannot be that man should have no witness in himself, which he may question concerning its truth."p. 65.

"The most unlettered Christian may, independently of all external evidence, found his faith upon proofs, never, it may be, formally brought out in words, and seldom taking in his mind the logical form of argument, or which he is able to unfold with precision to others; but still, upon most strictly rational proofs, drawn from his direct perceptions of the conformity of the doctrines which he believes to his own individual nature and reason, his duties, his weakness, his vices, and his instinctive and irrepressible hopes and fears; of the agreement of the precepts and examples of revelation to whatever his understanding can conceive to be 'true, honest, just, lovely, and of good report;' from the untaught and unuttered testimony which the promptings of his own heart afford to the value of the assistance, the consolation, the pardon, which it offers; from the congruity of what it teaches of his Maker's being and government with his own partial and dim, but not less irresistible convictions of infinity, eternity, omnipotence of immutable justice, goodness and wisdom; convictions, to which it is probable that no effort of his reason could have ever led him, but which, when once presented to the intellect, and considered without self-willed opposition, are immediately felt and acknowledged. Knowing and feeling all this, he rejoices to find that which was the dark surmise and the anxious wish of his heart, declared by revelation and confirmed by his reason..

"All these views are so congruous to our nature, as rational and moral beings, that I cannot doubt that they do constantly present themselves secretly and silently to the thoughts of thousands of Christians wholly unaccustomed to general speculations, and completely unable to communicate the grounds of their own belief to other minds. Thus is afford