venly race, that we should deem it too carnal to comport with our claims to spirituality in the service of God? Was it a confirmation to their faith, a help to them in their journey to heaven? And shall we slight it as unworthy of our acceptance, and deserving of no more regard than an antiquated rite of Moses? It is not to be ranked among those indifferent matters concerning which Paul says, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." Rom. xiv. 5. It is a prescribed duty, which should be acknowledged and practised by every professing Christian. J. J. J. (To be continued.)V.241.

INDIAN AFFAIRS.

The President of the United States is now pursuing a system of measures, in relation to the Indian tribes within our borders, which deserves the approbation, and entitles him to the thanks of every true Christian. Without giving a preference to any religious denomination, he appropriates the funds put || at his disposal for this purpose, among the different missionary establishments, for the support of the Indian children who attend the schools attached to these institutions. Through our government, many hundreds of these little ones of the forest are now learning to read, write, keep accounts, and practise the most useful arts. They are forming the habits of civilized man, and will be prepared eventually for citizenship.

With the spirit which animates our present chief magistrate, the superintendent of Indian trade, colonel Thomas L. M'Kenney, is evidently influenced, in affording every facility of communication between the missionaries and their friends, and the Indians, which is in his power. He is an agent well suited to promote the benevolent designs of the executive; while at the same

time his zeal honours and gratifies the generous sentiments of his own mind. We tender the President and colonel M'Kinney our hearty thanks, and in so doing are confident that we express the gratitude, not only of the different Presbyterian churches, with their 1500 ministers in the United States, but of all the Christian congregations in our land.

We have heard but one dissentient voice, indeed, from any quarter, and that has just sounded forth from Red Jacket, one of the Seneca chiefs in the state of New York. We strongly suspect, however, that Red Jacket has been prompted by some enemy of Christianity, and that some insidious infidel indited his Letter, while he professed to act only as an amanuensis; or else, that the chief designed to please his Governor, by following his fashion of attacking the administration of the federal government. At any rate the letter was transmitted to the legislature of New York by governor Clinton, and thus has come before the world; when he might have kept it on the files of state for his own private information and guidance.

After complaining of the depredations of the white people on the timber belonging to the Senecas, of the frequent thefts of their horses and cattle, of the imprisonment of the Indians for debt, and of the injury done to their hunting and fisheries, Red Jacket proceeds to say,

"Our great father, the President, has recommended to our young men to be industrious, to plough, and to sow. This we have done, and are thankful for the advice, and for the means he has afforded us of carrying it into effect. We are happier in consequence of it. But another thing recommended to us, has created great confusion among us, and is making us a quarrelsome and divided people; and that is the introduction of preachers into our nation. These Black Coats contrive to get the consent of some of the Indians, to preach among us; and whenever this is the case, confusion and disorder are sure to follow: and the en

croachments of the whites upon our lands are the invariable consequences. The governor must not think hard of me for speaking thus of the preachers. have observed their progress, and when I look back to see what has taken place of old, I perceive that whenever they came among the Indians they were the forerunners of their dispersion; that they always excited enmities and quarrels among them; that they introduced the white people on their lands, by whom they were robbed and plundered of their property; and that the Indians were sure to dwindle and decrease, and be driven back, in proportion to the number of preachers that came among them.

"Each nation has its own customs, and its own religion. The Indians have theirs, given to them by the Great Spirit, under which they were happy. It was not intended that they should embrace the religion of the whites, and be destroyed by the attempt to make them think differently on that subject from their fathers.

"It is true, these people have got the consent of some of the chiefs, to stay and to preach among us; but I and my friends, know this to be wrong, and that they ought to be removed. Beside, we have been threatened by Mr. Hyde, who came among us as a schoolmaster, and a teacher of our children; but has now become a black coat, and refuses to teach them any more, that unless we listen to his preaching, and become Christians, we will be turned off our lands, and not allowed to plague us any more-we shall never be at peace while he is among us.

"We are afraid too, that these preachers, by and by, will become poor, and force us to pay them for living among us and disturbing us."

The President is here blamed for the enmity which the Pagan Senecas feel against the Christian Indians of the same little tribe; and impliedly for sending black coats among them: but the truth is, that Mr. Hyde was sent to the Senecas by the Missionary Society of New York, years before any thing was contributed by our national government for the support of schools among the aboriginals of our wilderness. The black coats were preaching Christ to the Indians of New York before Mr. Monroe was ever a candidate for the presidency; and since his election to office, he has never done any thing directly or indirectly towards sending any VOL. I.

preacher to any nation, unless it may have been by his own private donation as a Christian man, who does not lose his individuality nor his character as a private member of the church of God, by becoming the beloved ruler of the union, by the nearly unanimous suffrage of his fellow citizens.

If Mr. Clinton, who is in our esteem possessed of a powerful mind and influence, would ever fill the chair of the union, we would advise him not to wound the feelings of the Christian people of these United States, by giving currency to the Pagan philosophy of Red Jacket, that Christianity would be no blessing to the Indians. If this Indian chief writes to inform him, that the President wishes the Senecas to become Christians through the preaching of the truth, even this his Excellency Gov.Clinton might have political motives for keeping to himself. There are too many hundreds of Christian ministers in the state of New York, for Mr. Clinton to succeed by a dead set against them, even in the Red Jacket, and with the bow and arrows of an Indian chief. E. S. E.

ON FAMILY WORSHIP.

This duty is eminently conducive not only to domestic happiness, but to the general prosperity of religion. If God be not acknowledged in our family circles, there will be but little hope of our regarding him with suitable reverence in our more public deportment.

It is alleged by some, that we are not required, in the scriptures, to celebrate divine worship in our families, and that, therefore, however decent the practice may be, it is not obligatory. To this specious objection, we reply, that whatever is strongly recommended either in the general tenor of sacred writ, or by the example of those pious characters, whose faith and practice we 2 F

are directed to imitate, is binding upon us, as we would be followers of them who, through faith and patience inherit the promises. Christianity teaches us our duty, by laying down the general principles of religion and rules of conduct, from which we are to ascertain how we should act in particular cases. Some duties are so easily deducible from those general principles which are expressly taught in scripture, that a formal precept would seem unnecessary to secure attention to them.

If we wish to know what is duty on the subject now before us, let us look at the conduct of those holy men, of whom the world was not worthy. See Joshua, the successor of Moses, and the leader of Israel: his language was, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." How can this resolution be reconciled with the neglect of family worship? And, when we are told that Job offered sacrifices for his children, and that he did so continually, or statedly, are we not compelled to consider him, as maintaining family worship? When we are informed that David, on a certain occasion, went home to bless his household, is it not natural to suppose that he retired to his family for the celebration of domestic worship, after having spent the day in discharging the duties of his public office? What are we to think of Daniel, who prayed in his house with his windows open towards Jerusalem, at the peril of being cast into the den of lions? But a greater than these is here. Did not our blessed Lord, by so frequently || taking his disciples apart to pray with them, leave us an example of worshipping God in a family capacity?

When we read, in the epistles of Paul, of several churches said to have been in private houses, may we not conclude that these churches were nothing more than certain happy families, where religion sweetened every domestic comfort;

where the worship of God was celebrated with so much order and constancy as to attract the apostolic benediction, and the approbation of Heaven? If we have not an explicit command for the duty which we are now recommending, we certainly have, in its favour, the uniform practice of the most eminently pious of all Christian denominations. This fact is not unworthy of notice, inasmuch as it supposes that good men generally have considered the duty to be at once reasonable, pleasant, and profitable.

Let us appeal, readers, to your consciences, on this subject. If family worship be not enjoined upon you formally and in express terms, is it not a reasonable service? As families do you not receive daily proofs of the divine munificence? Does not an indulgent Providence defend you and your children by day, and watch your defenceless slumbers by night? Are not the mercies of the Lord renewed every morning, fresh every evening, and repeated every moment of your lives? Now, can you permit these mercies to pass from day to day unnoticed and unacknowledged? Can you do so without subjecting yourselves to the charge of ingratitude to your heavenly Benefactor? Surely, where benefits are received in common, they ought to be acknowledged conjointly by the recipients. Whatever arguments prove the propriety of public worship, may be urged with peculiar force in favour of domestic worship; because the circumstances of a family are more nearly alike than those of a congregation, which must be composed of several families.

Indeed, wherever religion of any kind is professed, we see some traces of domestic worship. The heathen have their household gods, to which they offer prayers and sacrifices and shall not we, who enjoy the meridian blaze of gospel light, raise our domestic altars, and present our stated tribute of adora

tion and praise to the Father of mercies, when we are so fully authorized to expect a gracious acceptance through the merits of his Son? If we do not,-if we withhold from the only wise God, whom we are taught to worship in spirit and in truth, those devout expressions of homage which the pagans offer to their dumb idols, how shall we escape the doom of that servant who knew his Lord's will, but refused to perform it? Will it not be more tolerable for the heathen world in the day of judgment than for us?

View the subject in another point of light. Consider the advantages which may result from the conscientious discharge of this duty.

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To your own souls it may be calculably useful. If you have a relish for spiritual services at all, these devotional exercises, in your domestic circles, where there are none to molest you, or make you afraid, will have a happy tendency to promote your growth in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. They will secure to you reading of a portion of sacred writ every day, which would, otherwise, through the pressure of worldly affairs, be often neglected. By statedly recommending yourselves, your families, and all your possessions to the care and protection of, heaven, you would become more sensible of your dependence on God for every comfort. This sense of dependence would excite gratitude to your bountiful Benefactor, and guard you against an inordinate. pursuit of the world's treasures or honours. Frequent acknowledgment of your failures in the discharge of relative duties, would render you more careful to ponder your path, that you might walk before your families in the statutes and ordinances of the Lord blameless. To bespeak, in the morning, the guidance of heavenly wisdom through all the duties and trials of the day, and, in the evening, to acknowledge

ance with the divine perfections, and with their own sinfulness, and need of a Saviour. By the habit of attending to the several parts of divine worship at home, they will be the more likely to derive benefit from the public services of God's house. But if the attention of families be not frequently called to the things of religion in the course of the week, the instructions of the pulpit will be in a great measure both uninteresting and unintelligible to them. Whatever good impressions may be made on their minds by the exercises of one Sabbath, will probably be totally effaced before the next. In short, it appears next to impossible to train up our children and servants in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, if we habitually neglect family worship. What will our good advice, our catechising, and our authority signify, if these means be not sanctified by prayer, and enforced by a corresponding example of piety and devotion?

Having thus briefly stated the duty, in its obligations and its probable advantages, we earnestly and affectionately press the necessity of attending to it. And this we do, with that awfully solemn prophetic

imprecation full in our view: "Pour out thy fury upon the Heathen, that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name." Jer. x. 25. With this fearful sentence sounding in your ears, readers, dismiss your excuses and objections. Tell us not that the duty, if it be one, is generally neglected, and that you are afraid of appearing singularly || strict, or overmuch righteous. That it is so generally neglected, is the reproach of our age. It ought not to be neglected; and you are not to follow a multitude in the omission of duty, any more than in the practice of evil. No association, in sin, however powerful, can escape the malediction of God. "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished."

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Have the courage, then, to dissent from the practice of the multitude. Look at Abraham, and Joshua, and Job, and David, and Daniel, who are now inheriting the promises. These were singularly pious. They served God with their households, in the midst of idolatry, corruption and prevailing error. ye, and do likewise. Your encouragement and obligation to the duty are strong and indubitable. Your children are looking to you for instruction and example. You cannot bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, unless pray with them and for them. Of all relative duties, those of a parent are perhaps the most important to the prosperity of the church and the salvation of souls.

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hearts, and make them pious; but you can use the means which God has prescribed, and which he ordinarily blesses. The maxim is generally true: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." As you would be happy in your families, call in the influence of family religion. Let the spirit of the gospel predominate in your domestic circles, and you will probably have less cause to complain of vexatious servants and undutiful children. To enforce the discharge of relative duties, religion presents the most powerful and persuasive motives, drawn from heaven and hell-from the torments of the damned and the joys of the blessed. Remember it is the blessing of the Lord that maketh both rich and happy. "The house of the wicked shall be overthrown, but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish. The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, but he blesseth the habitation of the just." Say nothing, then, of the time necessary to be spent in family instruction and worship. A reasonable portion of every day thus spent, will be spent to the best purpose. It will have a tendency to promote subordination, order and harmony. It may be the means of securing the aged from petulance and severity, and of guarding the young from indolence, prodigality and error. The sacred scriptures contain instructions suited to all circumstances and relations in life. Parents and children, masters and servants are here taught their responsibility to the Great Parent of the Universe, before whom all must appear, to give an account of the deeds done in the body. Prayer renews and deepens the impressions of divine truth upon the heart. If, therefore, you would secure the divine blessing upon yourselves, your children, your servants, and all your possessions, worship God in the family, and teach your households to keep his