tions usurped the seats of peace, innocence and joy. Their eyes were opened the charm was brokenthey felt themselves justly liable to eternal ruin; naked and exposed to the penalty of the covenant, they vainly attempted to fly from the presence of their offended God. But neither fig-leaves, nor all the trees of the garden could screen them from the piercing eye of Omniscience. The criminals are arrested-Adam endeavours to throw the blame upon the woman, and she upon the serpent-but all in vain; they had acted freely, and against the clear light of truth and the majesty of Heaven. They are, therefore, condemned. Adam is doomed to a life of toil and labour, which is to terminate in death-"dust to dust and ashes to ashes." Eve, as first in the transgression, is to bring forth children in pain and multiplied sorrow, and to be subject to the will of her husband. The serpent, which aforetime had probably inhabited trees, and fed on delicious fruits, and held a respectable rank among animals, is sentenced to go upon his belly and eat dust all the days of his life. But, in the sentence of the serpent, there is one redeeming clause: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Here is the incipient revelation of a Saviour: the serpent and his seed are the wicked one and his emissaries; Jesus Christ is the seed of the woman-as concerning the flesh, the offspring of a virgin-manifested to destroy the works of the devil. On this foundation our first parents were now directed to repose their trust. And that all hopes from the violated covenant might be given up, the man, who had been, in a measure like God, able to discern between good and evil, was now driven from the garden, and the access to the tree of life was guarded by the cherubim, armed with a flaming sword, lest the offenders should profane the sacrament intended to seal and guarantee

to the faithful, blessings which were now forfeited, and not to be attained but through the mediation of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven.

Alas for our fallen nature! "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!" Reader, do you receive the divine testimony, on the humbling subject of this lecture; and do you feel yourself to be a degenerate plant of a strange vine, a guilty, helpless sinner? Then, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will, thereby, secure an interest in a covenant which is ordered in all things and sure. But remember, that unless Christ be in you, the hope of glory as the gospel is true, there is no warranted hope for you; for "neither is there salvation in any other." "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." John iii. 36.. W. N.

THE LATE HURRICANE.

On the 3d of September last, it pleased the Author of the winds to visit our sea coast, from the Capes of the Delaware to Narragansett Bay, with one of the most violent gales ever experienced in this part of the country. It blew in different places from every point of the compass, within a few hours; and was so powerful as to prostrate not only the standing corn, but lofty trees, and in some places brick edifices.* The fruit trees were completely stripped of their autmnal bounties, and in many places the leaves seem to have been whipped to pieces on their boughs.

The most important consideration,

* A large new brick church, belonging to the Methodists in New Haven, was blown down nearly to the foundation. The wind seemed to clip off the tops of the waves, and blew so violently that they could not rise very high. The salt spray was carried up into the country so as to cover windows and the sides of houses with a deposit of salt, and to change the leaves of the trees, many miles from the Sound.

however, is this, that many lives were lost, and many persons, no doubt, went down to a watery grave without any preparation for their last change. In a storm, sailors have but little time for reflection, so long as any duty is to be done the ship in which they are embarked. Every exertion must be used to keep her in trim, and make her weather the storm; so that when destruction comes by some sudden catastrophe, the mariners not unfrequently go to the bottom in the hurry and bustle of their professional business. All who are to be destroyed by the waters, cannot flatter themselves with such time for reflection as is afforded to mere passengers, incapable of handling a rope; and to seamen, who float on the quarter deck, or on spars, and are doomed to die a lingering death, after the tempest shall have passed over their foundered bark. And even to these, when far from land, the clear shining after the rain, and the calm, afford but little opportunity for meditation and prayer. They are chilled with cold; in danger from the monsters of the deep; in anxious desire, and almost in despair, of being taken up; and so find that a temporary and uncertain preservation from death, under such circumstances, is but little to be wished for, with a view to becoming wise unto salvation.

Wisdom would dictate, that every man should make his will, and make his peace with God, before he committed himself to the proverbially faithless deep. Let him be prepared to die, any how, and at any time; and then let him embark, with perfect confidence in that God who holds the winds and the waves in his hands. To ordinary fortitude, let truly Christian courage be added, and then one may have peace within, while the elements are raging around him: then, while the plank which supports his feet is sinking from his weight, or is dashed with his lifeless body on the rocks, his soul may realize that it has an anchor, sure

and steadfast, within the veil, and is moored to the Rock of Ages.

These remarks have occurred to the writer, in consequence of his having been exposed to a premature death in the late hurricane, in company with sixty-four other passengers in the steam-boat Connecticut, captain Bunker, bound from New Haven to New York. This elegant and firm boat, (or rather ship, as it should be called,) left port at six o'clock, P. M. and had not sailed more than an hour before a tempestuous wind arose from the south-west, which rendered it prudent to come to anchor under cover of the land near the light-house. Here we hoped to ride out the gale, and probably should have done so, by the power of the steam engine in co-operation with our anchors, had not the wind suddenly shifted, about ten o'clock, into the south-west; which made the vessel drag her anchors towards a rocky portion of the shore. The night was very dark, and the wind repeatedly carried the tops of the waves in clouds of foam over our eyes, so that we could scarcely distinguish the elevation of some rocks which fringe that part of New Haven harbour, and might have been dashed on them, without knowing it, had not some friendly lights, in a private dwelling, continued to warn us of our danger. At about 11 o'clock, as nearly as I can now estimate the time, the wind blew a perfect hurricane, and seemed to me a more awful minister of divine power than even the winged lightnings of Jehovah,-for the last are soon over; but the wind roared in awful majesty for hours together. We now found it impossible to keep off from the shore any longer, while at anchor: so we slipped our cables and let them go, at the same time putting the engine in motion, that we might bear up into the wind, and if possible make for the inner harbour, or the opposite shore.

At this critical juncture, the wind broke one of our water wheels, and

rendered all the power of steam useless to us. The seamen then attempted to hoist up the mainsail to the wind, that we might accomplish our object; but no canvas could stand before such a tempest. Now every hope of managing the vessel, and keeping off the land, was reluctantly given up: we could do nothing but let her drive. The seamen ceased from their exertions; and for a little space I heard no voice but that of the tempest. Presently after I heard, as I held on to the companion-way, near the middle of the ship, the voice of prayer arising from almost every part of the deck. "O God," one and another cried, "must we perish thus? Save us, for Christ's sake!" Between eleven and twelve we drifted, sideways, over a rocky point, on which I judged from my perceptions that the vessel thumped slightly six or eight times, and were carried high and dry on a sand beach. In attempting to come by the boat, that we might carry a hawser on shore, the boat was mashed between the sides of the vessel and the sand. In a few minutes after, the wind abated, and nothing was necessary but to let ourselves down by a rope into the sand; and those who had clung to the deck, while the waves dashed over them repeatedly, with their boots and a part of their clothes off, prepared with a table-leaf or something else to assist them in swimming, had only to congratulate each other that all had escaped safely to land. More joy and gladness I never saw manifested, than while we stood, drenched, under the cover of a little copse of evergreens, which seemed to assure us, that the waves would not go over us any more, while they afforded us shelter from the wind.

Not long after 12 o'clock at night, we all reached the house which had kept up the friendly lights for us during the hurricane; and here it was unanimously requested that the writer should lead in solemn thanksgiving to Almighty God for the gracious deliverance which he had

wrought for us. It seemed as if every heart could respond, Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

This was literally the case with us; but alas! how soon do men forget the deliverances which God has accomplished for them, and laugh at perils when they are past. Some, who did not cry unto the Lord from their heart, when they howled on their beds, or from the midst of the waves, were not safe on land a few hours, before they began to blaspheme the God of our salvation. Others began to think, that their danger had not been so great as they had imagined. Yet we were cast on a sand beach between two rocky points, not more than a quarter of a mile distant on either side, and this was done in the darkness, when no skill had any influence in saving the vessel from being dashed into a thousand pieces.

Surely, storms, tempests, perils, shipwrecks, and deliverances, will not, of themselves, convert sinners, and make them thankful. A mightier wind than that of the tornado must blow on them, or they will never become alive to God. 'Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:and ye shall know that I am the Lord."

E. S. E.

Reviews.

CONSTITUTION &c. OF THE PRES

BYTERIAN CHURCH.

(Continued from page 408.)

That part of the constitution of our church which comes under the denomination of Discipline, has undergone the most important alterations. Many additions and improvements have been introduced; none however of such a nature as to discard or change any of the leading principles by which our judicatories have been accustomed to govern their proceedings. The value of the improvements, consists, not in the introduction of any new, but in a happy and lucid expansion of old, principles, embodied in a variety of particular rules, calculated to enable the feeblest intellect to understand them, and the manner of applying them, in the proceedings of our ecclesiastical courts.

The several chapters on this subject state the general principles of discipline, and explain the nature both of private and of public offences: they prescribe the manner in which process of discipline is to be conducted, first, in regard to members of the church in general, and then in relation to a minister of the gospel: they treat of the competency and of the credibility of witnesses, and exhibit the various ways in which a cause may be carried from a lower to a higher judicatory, viz. by the records of the lower, by references, by appeals, or by complaints: they describe the nature of dissents and protests, and show the effect of new testimony on a cause either pending or already decided: and finally, they state the extent of jurisdiction which sessions have over members of a church, and presbyteries over ministers, that have been dismissed by them; and define the time within which a certificate of church membership shall be valid testimony of the bearer's

VOL. I.

good standing; and a process of scandal may be instituted against an offender.

On all these points, the rules of our present constitution have gone into a detail much more minute than the former rules; the effect of which will, it is believed, be to facilitate the transaction of business, to render the proceedings of all our judicatories more alike, and to preserve inexperienced members from mistakes into which they were apt to fall, for want of more specific and definite rules to guide them in the application of more general principles.

The alterations made in this part of our constitution deemed worthy of particular notice, are the following.

Previously to the present amendments, it was necessary to serve on a witness or an accused person three citations, before he could be suspended from church privileges, on the ground of contumacy; but now the rule requires only two citations. A judicious alteration; for under the operation of the former rule, a crafty person had it in his power to create by management great delay in the exercise of discipline, and to subject a judicatory to serious inconvenience.

In the rule, chap. iv. sect. 15, of Actual Process, the word open has been omitted. Formerly the rule stood thus: "The trial shall be open, fair and impartial." Now it reads, "The trial shall be fair and impartial. The witnesses shall be examined in the presence of the accused," &c. The present rule, while it secures to the accused every right and privilege he can reasonably desire, and answers all the ends of justice, will put it in the power of an ecclesiastical court to prevent the spread of scandal, whenever decency and propriety may require the exclusion of a multitude of persons who have no other motive for attending the trial than curiosity. Other reasons toe might be assigned 3 M

that will justify a judicatory in determining to conduct a trial in a more private way, than has heretofore been the practice.

Authority is now given to a session to excommunicate an obstinate offender, without consulting presbytery; but, by some oversight, a corresponding alteration has not been made in another part of the constitution. The consequence is, a session cannot restore a penitent who has been excommunicated, without having previously obtained the advice and consent of the presbytery, although they can, without such advice and consent, inflict this highest censure. See Directory for Worship, chap. x. sect. 8.

But

The old constitution ordained this rule: "No crime shall be considered as established by a single witness." Some put on this rule a wrong interpretation, by concluding it demanded two positive witnesses to substantiate an accusation. the rule made no such demand. It only required more than a single witness and surely in those trials in which the testimony of one positive witness was corroborated by strong circumstantial evidence derived from other witnesses, more than the testimony of a single witness was adduced, and consequently the requirement of the rule was fully met. Under the Mosaic law, the life of a man might, in a certain case, be taken away on the testimony of a single witness. See Deut. xxii. 25-27. This rule has been altered and explained in our present constitution, thus: "The testimony of more than one witness is necessary in order to establish any charge; yet if several credible witnesses bear testimony to different similar acts, belonging to the same general charge, the crime shall be considered as proved."

A difference of opinion formerly prevailed in our judicatories, in regard to the effect of an appeal; some believing that it arrested all further proceedings in a cause, but that it

could not undo a thing that had been done before the appeal was entered; and others, that it not only stayed all proceedings, but continued a person in an office from which he had been deposed, or in the enjoyment of privileges from which he had been suspended, before the appeal was made. The question is now settled by the following plain and judicious rule : "The necessary operation of an appeal is to suspend all further proceedings, on the ground of the sentence appealed from. But if a sentence of suspension, or excommunication from church privileges, or of deposition from office, be the sentence appealed from, it shall be considered as in force until the appeal shall be issued." It is true, that under this rule an innocent man may possibly suffer; and it is equally true that, under a different rule, the peace, comfort, and honour of churches would certainly suffer from the art and management of unworthy professors of religion; and that the cause of truth might be greatly injured by the preaching of an heretical minister, because he could not be arrested in his wandering career, till his appeal from a sentence of deposition were issued; which he might, by going from the presbytery to the synod, and from the synod to the General Assembly, keep off for nearly eighteen months. This rule secures to an accused person all the advantages that ought to result from an appeal. No pious man should wish to resume the exercise of all his privileges in that church by which he has been suspended, until his appeal, be sustained, and his innocence asserted by a higher court of Christ. And if a minister of the gospel, while innocent, shall possibly be subjected to inconvenience and even hardship from this rule, yet he ought patiently to submit to them from attachment to the cause of truth and religion, which would be exposed to great injury by the establishment of