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PAMPHLETS. Rev. Nathan Munroe, of Bradford, has published a lecture on the "Qualifications of the Teacher," delivered by him before the American Institute of Instruction at Bangor, in August last, and printed at the expense of that body. It is verily gratifying to find so much common sense in connection with a subject so tricked out with transcendental frippery, as the subject of education has been for several years. The lecture, which would seem to speak the mind of the Institute, earnestly insists that the teacher, as a prime qualification for his calling, should believe in the divine authority and inspiration of the Bible. Rev. Mr. Whiting, of Lawrence, has published his sermon, preached at the dedication of his house of worship in the "new city." He is a man by himself, and so very unlike all other mortals, that he will never be guilty of the affectation of trying to write as common folks do. This sermon contains some very solemn and affecting passages. We have received the Minutes of the General Association of New York for the last year. The statistical returns are sorrowfully defective, but in the eight, out of ten, minor Associations, which are reported, there appear to be 122 churches, 86 ministers, and above 8,000 members. "The Lord make his people an hundred times so many more as they be!"- Rev. Dr. Pierce's Election Sermon has made its appearance. Every one who has seen Dr. Parr's wig, if we may believe Sidney Smith, may from thence form a just opinion of the manner in which that dignitary constructed his Spital Sermon. So, on the contrary, every one who reads Dr. Pierce's Election Sermon, may form a sound judgment as to the whole aspect of the beloved and honored patriarch of Brookline. It is square-built, hearty and hale; with a benignant visage and beaming eye. Of course, no one would scrutinize a discourse pronounced on such an occasion with a view of settling that most perplexing problem, and most mysterious point in modern. divinity, to wit, the real theological sentiments of the worthy Doctor.

MONTHLY RECORD.

Next Election Sermon.. Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, President of Amherst College, has received and accepted the legislative appointment to perform this service; one of the usages in which the old religious sentiment of our fathers survives to our times. He will discharge this duty in the best manner and spirit; and in such sort, that, if the fathers of our commonwealth could speak from their graves, they would say: "We now see that we did not live, and toil, and suffer in vain!" A seat in the legislature seems, with many, to be at the summit of earthly felicity; but they who are so happy as to obtain it by the suffrages of the people at the next election, will be in more enviable plight than usual, when they shall sit, whether as Pewseyites or Pew-ritans, in the roomy slips of the venerable Old South, to hear the next "election sermon."

State Temperance Convention. A very large and respectable Convention of the friends of Temperance, from all parts of the State, was held in Boston, on the 15th and 16th days of February. It is many years since an assemblage of the kind has been held. This one seems to have been called forth by the statements made by his Honor, the mayor of Boston, in his inaugural speech, which, in this way, has done some good; while there is good ground for the belief that the policy of the city government will not return to the odious and senseless practice of licensing iniquity. In the Convention, the highest and fullest testimony was borne to the zeal and stedfastness of the ministers and the churches in supporting and carrying on the Temperance Reform.

Hollis Professorship of Divinity. Rev. Dr. Gannett is making some effort in the Board of Overseers to induce the Corporation of Harvard College, to fill the vacancy in the Hollis Professorship, or in some other way to make provision for the spiritual wants of the students. We like this movement, provided it be rightly directed. Let the Hollis Professorship be honorably filled by a soundly orthodox and truly pious man. And if the Unitarians dare not trust him alone, let them provide means for sustaining another laborer of their own sort; even as in the German Universities, they have professors of every shade of theology and neology. Let them run the race of usefulness together, and see which will do the most, by the blessing of God, to elevate the mind and heart of that interesting community.

The Late David Hale, Esq. This good man has left his tabernacle of clay, as well as his " Broadway Tabernacle," for a mansion in a city infinitely more glorious than the empire city of New York. Mr. Thompson's sermon on occasion of his death, is admirably adapted to do good among "business men." Only we could not but smile at the seeming simplicity with which the theology of Dr. Griffin, who was Mr. Hale's spiritual father, is called "Hyper-Calvinism!" Even the Princeton men, who professedly abjure that ism, did not regard Dr. Griffin as sufficiently Calvinistic for them.

ORDINATIONS.

Jan. 18. Mr. Javan K. Mason, Hampden, Me.
Mr. Artemas Dean, Jr., Johnson, Vt.

Feb. 7.

Jan. 4.

66 23. 66 25.

66 31. Feb. 15.

INSTALLATIONS.

Rev. E. P. Dyer, Hingham, Mass.
Rev. Henry Kendall, East Bloomfield, N. Y.
Rev. A. L. Stone, Park Street Church, Boston.
Rev. James L. Merrick, South Church, Amherst.
Rev. G. W. Bourne, Mariners' Church, Boston.

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THIS is the acknowledged title of the book of books. Nor do we know that the propriety of it, as designating the most peculiar feature of that wonderful work, has ever been directly brought in question. Yet we constantly hear objections to the Bible, which betray a most unfounded and injurious doubt on that point; for each of them, if rightly interpreted, would be substantially this: "I am holier than the Bible!"

It is certain that no claim can be higher than that made by this book, upon the reverence, confidence, and submission of all men. It challenges all human and angelic inspection, when it declares, that "every word of God is pure." We do not, indeed, claim for it an accommodation to all the conventional notions of the successive ages and stages of society through which it is to pass; nor a prudish conformity to the morbid delicacy and refinement which may be found in any coterie of "mutual admirationists;" nor a symbolizing with all the pseudophilanthropy which, from age to age, is seen rivalling its pretensions.

Nor shall we here undertake a vindication of the claims of the Scriptures to be the true and only standard by which all moral sentiment and principle, all manners, customs, maxims, and notions, are to be tried; and by which the public taste is to be formed. We intend merely to relieve candid minds from difficulties which, even if unnoticed by themselves, greatly hinder that cordial, simple, confiding employment of the Scriptures, by which they become "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,

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for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."

We have known an entire and immense sect make what they call the indelicacy of the Scriptures one of many reasons for refusing the use of them to children and the unlearned. Of the sincerity of the Council of Trent, and its adherents, we may not be competent judges. But we are compelled to demand, whether the world has gained by exchanging the word of God for the inquiries of the confessional, irresponsible, guarded from exposure to the public eye, poured for centuries into the ears of women and children by such men as Rome has permitted to exercise this ghostly function? Has the world gained in purity and happiness, by substituting this for the popular use of the Bible; for the perusal, by every human being, of that which his Creator has judged it safe and necessary for him to hear? We repel the impious charge, that the Bible is not a safe book, a proper book for any human being, and all human beings. Even if it were true, that it contained passages whose direct tendency, unless guarded against, would, in the present state of human nature be hurtful, it would be no more than is true of many things in what we call "nature," whose authorship must certainly be traced to a holy Creator; who designed not. injury, but benefit by all his works; and yet, who so constructed the world that men might be injured, nay, would be injured by many things in it, if not carefully guarded against. Hurtful animals and poisonous substances have their place and work in this beneficent structure; and man will be injured by them, if he is merely careless; much more, if predisposed to self-destruction. We admit, however, the existence of no such hurtful tendency in any part of the Scriptures, except by wilful perversion. We have the most conclusive evidence that it was all given by inspiration of God;" written by "holy men of God," who "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" and is "all profitable." We may not be able to shew all the design of each passage, but we have seen so much importance in many passages, that this fastidiousness would have excluded, as to justify our resting with entire confidence in the conviction, that if we knew more, we should see the same importance in all. We admit that the Bible contains many passages which, all agree, should not be read in promiscuous assemblies, as society now is.

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If any person, then, is disquieted by these features of the sacred writings; or, if he is shaken by all that is said about the vindictiveness of Moses and David; or, the record of crimes committed by the very authors of some of the books, let him begin anew his examination of the subject, by inquiring what the scope of the work is. We do not believe that any man ever doubted whether the whole intention of the authors of that book was, to produce perfect moral purity in man. We can conceive of one saying: "If I should take the spirit of the Jews for a model, I would hate my enemies, and glory in exterminating them; or, if I should adopt the language and sentiment of many of the Psalms, I should be vindictive." But we will not now stop to defend Moses or David in these matters. The question we here propose is not, Whether the Jews were commissioned to destroy the Canaanites? or whether there is not a profound and vital principle involved in the question of the imprecatory Psalms, which our philanthropic skeptics appear never to have contemplated? But we inquire, Whether any man believes that the aim and intention of the writers of that volume is, to make men revengeful and warlike? and whether Jesus Christ, in sanctioning and commending the Old Testament, as he did, aimed to make warriors and vindictive men? We might rest this point on that appeal. But we ask again, Whether any man ever rejected the divine authority of the Bible on account of its injurious influence on his character? or whether he earnestly desired to become holy, and found that book a hindrance to him? or whether the long battle which that book has fought, has been against the holiness of mankind, and against the holiest of men?

We believe that no such case as we have just described, unless accompanied by insanity, is on human record. The work contains two grand divisions; the law-system, and the gospel-system. The precepts of the Bible are the embodiment of all moral purity. The man who should perfectly obey them, would be like a spotless angel, moving among a race of sinful men. The penalties and threatenings all move in the same line. They exhibit the whole character, government, and providence of Jehovah, as set for the defence of moral purity, and the extermination of all moral evil. The rewards set before men in this book, are all holy in themselves, and encouragements to holiness. Into the heaven which is set forth, "nothing that defileth," can enter.

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