others, of the most rapturous delight, and exclaiming, 'Oh, what is yonder!-what is yonder!-what glory!-it is not only the happiness, but the glory that is yonder; what a scene! what a place!'At length she seemed to be so overwhelmed with delight and amazement, that she was unable to articulate. It turned out that she had been dreaming, and that in her dream she thought she had obtained the privilege of a view of the celestial country. Just as she awoke, brother Robert happened to come in from the adjoining room, when she said to him, 'Robert, I have just been in heaven, and Oh, what I have seen, what a blessed and glorious place; and whom do you think I saw? I saw my dear little Jane there: O, if you had just seen the sweet little darling, how happy she was;' thus showing, that whether awake or asleep, her thoughts were but little engaged with the things of the world. Next day, brother Robert being obliged to leave for Selkirk, asked on his taking leave of her, if she wished to send any word with him to her friends there. In a calm, solemn, and emphatic tone of voice, she replied, 'Yes, I have one message to send to them, and only one, and it is this, Just tell them all to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and they shall be saved.' In the course of the evening, she became, to all appearance, considerably worse, and expressed herself satisfied that death was not now far off. On the following day, she held up her hand before her face, and as a proof how near she was to glory, told me to look how very spent it was; at the same time she requested me to take from her finger her marriage ring, as it would no longer stay on, her fingers being so much spent. As I proceeded to comply with her request, she looked rather wistful, knowing that it was never again to be replaced, and she had only worn it for a twelvemonth.

"In speaking of the Saviour and of eternity, her language was so lofty and sublime," says Mr. Little, "that I felt as if no longer in the presence of my earthly companion, or of a mere human being, but under the celestial voice of a glorified spirit, already within the portals of heaven, and conversing in heaven's loftiest lan guage, looking down upon this, our lower world, with all its riches and honours, as mere vain and empty toys; and, compared with the glorious eternity that was now stretching out before her, as unworthy of a moment's notice, save for the myriads of never-dying souls that were passing along its path on their way to eternity;

and while she thus discoursed in such sublime and heavenly strains, the profound and hallowed joy which now filled and swelled her soul, baffles all description. 'O,' she would exclaim, 'O, I really cannot describe how happy I feel!' and when prayer was made at her bedside, she would turn up her eyes, rolling with deep and holy joy, towards heaven, and triumphantly wave her hand (the only part of her body she was able to move) backward and forward before her face, while the calm and hallowed serenity of her countenance proclaimed that her thoughts were far, far away from the world, and that her soul was joyfully shouting, 'O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?'

"After another brief pause she requested us all, naming each of us one by one, commencing with myself, to come forward in the order in which she named us, and to give her the last parting kiss; this being done, she then desired us, naming us all again, and in the same order, to take hold of her hand (apparently intending this farewell grasp to continue till death should unloose it), and after taking hold of her hand in the way she requested, she said, calmly and sweetly, but with a firm tone of voice, 'I think I am now going to die; but do not weep, for I am happy, happy, happy.' And now a scene, perhaps the most glorious and sublime that could pass before the vision of a human being, was witnessed by those who stood around her dying pillow; on her brow the terrible majesty of death sat in awful stillness, as if subdued by the sweet and holy serenity which reposed on her pale countenance: her eye, beaming with intense and hallowed joy, proclaimed that a deathless soul was within, smiling at mortality, and exulting at the note of ransom, at the blast of the eternal jubilee which was breaking on its ear; and thus standing in the most perfect consciousness in the very gateway between time and eternity, between earth and heaven, she raised her eyes with a holy and hallowed gaze towards heaven, when the new Jerusalem appeared to burst on her view, and, raising her voice, she exclaimed, 'Ó, yonder he is; yonder he is! O do you not see him? do you not see him? Yonder he is, waiting with open arms to receive me! O could you see what I now see, cherubims and seraphims surrounding the throne, crying and singing Hallelujah! hallelujah! hallelujah to the Lamb who was slain from the beginning of the world;-O yonder

he is! yonder he is! Do you not see him? do you not see him?' and again, raising her sinking voice, named me, and pointing and directing my attention upwards with her finger, again exclaimed, 'Do you not see him? do you not see him? look! yonder he is; yonder he is!' Reclining back her head, she appeared as if she intended not to say any more, and we now stood waiting, in breathless suspense, the arrival of the solemn moment, and still having hold of her hand - in the way she had previously desired. Observing us in this suspense, she broke the general silence, and coolly remarked, 'Perhaps it is not going to be just so very quick,' when Mrs. Campbell and my mother retired back a step, lest their standing longer so near might be inconvenient for her breathing freely. In the course

of a minute or two she requested to know the hour of the day, when her aunt informed her that it was just twelve o'clock; she then asked for a tea-spoonful of cold water, and which Mrs. Cumming had just given her, when, lifting up her eyes, and casting a holy gaze to heaven, she calmly and sweetly looked for a moment; and now her eye is fixed, her heaving bosom gently sinks to rest, the soft breath ceases to fan the halfformed smile which lingered on her lip, all is tranquil, all is still; she sleeps-it is the sleep of death." Mrs. Little had just finished her eighteenth year.

We are happy to announce to our readers, that a brief Memoir of this very remarkable person may be shortly expected from the pen of her bereaved hus

band.

CONVERSATION BETWEEN DR. PALEY, DR. WILLIAMS, REV. JOHN NEWTON, AND ROBERT BLUNT, A QUAKER.

Williams.-Do you, Dr. Paley, hold that "the knowledge and profession of Christianity cannot be maintained in a country without a class of men set apart by public authority to the study and teaching of religion, and the conducting of public worship?"

Paley.-I do, Sir; and my convictions rest on the following arguments. Christianity is an historical religion, and founded on facts related to have passed, on discourses holden, and on letters written, in a remote age and distant country of the world. Moreover, the religion, having been first published in Judea, and built on the more ancient religion of the Jews, is necessarily connected with the Sacred Writings, the history and the polity, of that singular people; and the records of both revelations are preserved in a language which has long since ceased to be spoken. Books coming down from ages so remote, and under causes of unavoidable obscurity, cannot be understood without study and preparation. The language must be learned; the writings contained in these volumes compared with one another and with themselves; authors contemporary, or connected with the age, country, or subject of our Scriptures, must be consulted, to interpret doubtful

VOL. I.

passages, and to explain allusions to objects and usages no longer existing; the modes of expression and the habits of argumentation then in use must be known, and can only be learned at all from an acquaintance with ancient literature. And lastly, to establish the genuineness and authenticity of the canonical Scriptures, a series of testimony, recognizing the notoriety and reception of these books, must be deduced from times near to those of their first publication, along the succession of ages through which they have been transmitted to us. But besides this, the literature of the order is not all; the more ordinary offices of public teaching and conducting public worship call for qualifications not usually found amid the employments of civil life. Indeed, the eneinies of Establishments have acknowledged that it is barely possible for a man not educated for the work to acquit himself with decency as a teacher of religion. Little objection to this argument can be drawn from the example of the Quakers, who, it may be said, furnish an experimental proof that the knowledge and profession of Christianity may be upholden without a separate clergy; for these sectaries exist in conjunction with an Establishment, and enjoy, with other Christians, the blessings which result from the labours of its ministers. For these reasons I contend that an order of clergy is necessary to perpetuate the evidence of

G

revelation and inculcate its duties; and that for this purpose they must be secluded from other employments. This circumstance I mention last to give it prominence, because I hold that in it is contained the substance of the controversy. Now, Sir, I hope you are satisfied that my opinions are not without foundation, and that the adherents of Establishments have an answer both ready and rational for those who feel disposed to interrogate them.

Williams.-Never till now, Doctor, was I so satisfied

Paley (with complacency.)-Of their correctness! Very candid, Sir. You see the importance of explanation in reconciling differences.

Williams.-No, Sir, of their incorrectness! Your reasoning is, I think, completely aside from the point. You lay down a series of statements, most of which, even if true in themselves, are altogether incapable of any application whatever to the proposition you maintain. Would you really venture to publish these opinions, Doctor, assigning the above reasons for them, and thus appeal to the tribunal of the national judgment?

Paley. Indeed, Sir, I have done so almost verbatim in my "Moral Philosophy," and feel assured there is not in the work a chapter more approved by the whole Bench of Bishops and the clergy of England; and can the proposition which sustains such an ordeal be unfounded?

Williams. I believe you, Doctor, and the reasons of their approval are not obscure. But men and names apart, let us examine the subject in the light of reason. The question was, Can the profession and knowledge of Christianity be maintained in a country without an Established Clergy? It was not whether teachers be necessary; whether, such necessity being assumed, learning be indispensable to them; and whether, learning being conceded, exclusive separation from secular employments be essential in order to the right fulfilment of their duties. These things have nothing to do, I conceive, with the argument. ministers may exist, though not appointed by political associations: learning may exist without a union between Church and State, for it has flourished when there was no such national church. The soil in which it lives, and grows, and is matured, is mind-mind unfettered. And an order of men may be exclusively devoted to the work of the ministry, apart from a national church and from any legislative interference whatever.

For

Such, Sir, is the proposition in debate. The sum of your proofs is, that a knowledge of ancient languages, and of Jewish customs, and of the historical evidences of Christianity, some capability for speaking, and seclusion from the cares of business, are indispensable to the ministers of religion. We grant all these things to be expedient, or, if you will, necessary for a minister. These we rank among the meanest of his qualifications. These, we hold, he may have to any extent, and yet be very unfit for the ministry of the gospel, though patronized by all the potentates on earth; yea, and be after all no Christian. Now, had you been contending for the necessity of academic institutions, colleges, and universities; or setting yourself against those who ridicule the plea for learning and leisure, and who maintain that a rustic, buried in the drudgery of manual toil, is equally quali fied for a public instructor with the man of profound and varied knowledge and cultivated mind, the man whose days and nights are devoted to the study of the word of God and to prayer,-your reasoning would have been a part, though but a small part, of the course to be pursued. But in pleading for the legal establishment of a regular clergy, such an argument has no application whatever. You proceed, moreover, as if there were no medium between a man's being one of such a clergy, and his being ignorant of the very elements of knowledge, or overwhelmed in a business foreign to the engagements proper to a minister of religion. Such an assumption is indispensable to your argument. You virtually assert that learning and leisure must stand or fall, flourish or fade away, according as there shall, or shall not, be an established clergy: that the ministers of the Dissenting portions of British Christians must of necessity be shrouded in ignorance, and all men of business. Indeed, Doctor, you seem to have forgotten the very existence of Dissenters, although they are a demonstration of the falsity of your argument.

I suppose, Sir, you have erred from the fact that the English Universities are shut against conscientious Dissenters, thence inferring that common sense and the lore of village schools make the sum of the attainments of the Dissenting ministry. But if you examine into the state of things, you will find that there are among those whom Churchmen affect to despise, scholars not a few who might safely encounter, no matter in what

department of knowledge, the ablest of the Church's champions, whether of Oxford or of Cambridge. Nay, Doctor, many think that you owe half your fame to one of these sectaries. They say, You plundered the spoils which he amassed through many a long year. You made your honey from flowers of his planting; and you have been loaded with praise and emolument, while that great scholar has, unheeded, gone to sleep with his fathers! In a word, you confound learning and the necessity of an established clergy; and having attempted to prove the necessity of the former to ministers of the gospel, you hold that you have demonstrated the necessity of the latter to Christianity! Had you not reasoned better in the schools of Cambridge, you had not been Senior Wrangler!

Paley (indignant and sarcastic, but composed.) Please to temper your triumph, Sir. You have only proved, as you would have it, that my arguments are inapplicable; not that my proposition is false. If one witness fail to substantiate a charge, shall we give up the proof when others are present? Can you disprove my position, seeing you profess to have demolished my argument?

Williams. Why, Doctor, I should feel less afraid to attack than to defend it.

Paley. I presume, then, you are now prepared to enter on the discussion; but as I am anxious that the case, on our part, should be as complete as possible, ere you begin, I beg you will hear Mr. Newton.

Williams. I know of none to whom I can listen with more satisfaction.

Newton.-Gentlemen, I am a Churchman from choice, though many of my earliest friends were Independents, and I exercised my gifts with them for a while. Without prejudice or interest, and with considerable knowledge of both communities, I am a friend, and, as far as my weakness enables me, an advocate of the church that I belong to. I do not, however, plead that Establishments are of express Divine appointment, nor contend for

any one in preference to another, but for the principle on which they all proceed-the division of a nation into parishes, and the settlement in each of these of a person with a ministerial character, to promote the good of souls; and the conferring on this man such privilege and prerogative as may secure his independence, augment his influence, and thus increase his usefulness.

Williams.-Your argument then, Sir, is founded solely on expediency, which

must be determined by utility; for the degree of the latter measures the degree of the former. Whatever can be said whereby the evidence of utility is affected, affects to the same extent the expediency of a union between the churches of Christ and the governments of the world. If it can be shown that there is not only no utility in such a union, but evil, and only evil, then of course the doctrine of expediency is false, and must be given up. I desire to be satisfied of the utility of such an alliance, not in reference to the purposes of government, or the interests of the clergy as a body, but to the interests of the kingdom of Christ as a whole, and the good of nations.

Paley. I deem that, Sir, a clear and fair statement of the question; and Mr. Newton will point out wherein consists the utility on which he founds his doctrine of expediency.

Williams.-Ere he begin I would make a remark on Mr. Newton's principle. Experience teaches us to hesitate about measures originating in principles founded on expediency; for this has been the source of innumerable evils in morals, religion, and legislation. This was the baleful light by which the disciples of Loyola steered their way through an ocean of enormity to take possession of the hearts of sovereigns and the thrones of empires. On what principle did Pharaoh project the murder of all the male children of the Israelites? On that of utility! On what did Athaliah massacre the seed royal? Utility! On what did Herod send forth his executioners to destroy the smiling babes of Bethlehem? Utility!

Blunt.-John Newton maintains that state patronage and support to the churches of Christ are expedient, because they are useful. The arguments which demonstrate their usefulness are just those which demonstrate their expediency. Let then their usefulness be shown, not to monarchical policy and priestly interest and influence, but to the real interests of Christianity, and the accomplishment of those ends for which it hath been established in the world. Let this be the criterion of utility, and we have no objection to abide by the consequence.

Williams.-Gentlemen, I explained myself before, and quite agree with my friend Mr. Blunt. I had farther to remark on the proposition of Mr. Newton, that it arraigns the wisdom of God, and involves a charge against that system of means by which Christianity was propagated, in spite of an array of the most

saw.

determined and cruel hostility, and by which it was preserved from destruction under a succession of persecutions, by the most powerful government the world ever Can there be produced from the annals of the Apostolic age a single vestige of parochial circumscription, of regal patronage, and of aristocratical prerogative, in ministerial appointment? No, gentlemen; all that the church of God owed for centuries to the kingdoms of this world was hardship and sorrow, confisca tion of goods and extinction of life, the murder of its ministers and the massacre

of its people. You argue for privilege and prerogative, to augment influence and increase usefulness. Thus pleaded Edmund Burke, who would have the "priests as princely as possible." But the privilege of the Apostles consisted in the suffering of shame, the endurance of bonds and afflictions, the being set forth as appointed unto death, a spectacle of extreme distress to angels and to men; in being pressed out of measure, above strength, so as to despair even of life; driven by the burning scourge of the persecutor from city to city, in weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in stripes and imprisonments, in tumults and deaths! Such was their treatment, and yet they turned the world upside down: they went forth like an impetuous torrent, swollen by a thousand tributary streams, and swept away, with energy irresistible, the battlements and barriers of the strongest citadels of heathenish superstition. But you virtually affirm that this order of things was defective-that their success was incomplete and that it would have been improved by an accession of influence derived from a union with human polities. Every advocate of Establishments must allow, that there cannot be traced the slightest vestige of state patronage and support, friendship or interference, in any record of the primitive Church. Such incontestably was the state of things; it must have been right or wrong-sufficient or defective. Take your choice.

Do

you say right, and allow that the divinely appointed system of means was sufficient? Do you then pretend to improve rectitude and supply sufficiency? Or, say you wrong and defective? Are you become the correctors and instructors of the Most High? You contend for evil; you attempt to unite light with darkness, a holy society with an impious one. You contend for impossibility; because while each retains its own peculiar spirit and

distinctive features, the parties cannot be united; the sure issue of an endeavour to join them will be the complete destruction of elements which are essential to the constitution of the church of Christ. This is demonstrated by the fact, that every such junction has proved destructive of the true features of its primitive appearance. These considerations go far to overthrow my confidence in Mr. Newton's principle of expediency.

Newton. Gentlemen, I shall lay down an outline of my reasons in support of this doctrine, without expansion, and leave you to judge for yourselves. The universal badge, and form, and name of Christianity, in many corners of our land, owe their very existence to our Establishment. On the exclusive principles of the stricter Dissenters, millions of our coun trymen who have been baptized, whose ears are weekly greeted by the sound of the parish bell, would have at this moment been wandering in the wildness of heathenism, strangers to almost every thing sacred. Had there been none other than dissenters, why, we should have beheld only a rag and a tatter of religious profession, instead of that ample covering which, by the hand of the state, has been stretched from margin to margin of our sea-girt isle. Christianity would have existed among us a little smoking flax, having not wherewith to warm us, instead of that expanse of flame which reaches the skies, and spreads abroad on all nations a tide of warmth and spiritual illumination. How, without this union, could Christianity ever have attained its present deep-rooted settlement in this and other lands? It must else have resided among us in the character of a pilgrim and sojourner, just such as are the missionary stations in foreign climes, and the churches connected with them-poor shivering outcasts, the ready prey of colonial policy and idolatrous barbarity. Whether is happier, he who is driven about as a fugitive and a vagabond, or he who has a place and a name? Again; consider the advantages of state and aristocratical patronage. Since the taste of men is so various, their whim and caprice so endless; since the minds of the multitude are so obtuse, and their capacity for judg ing so imperfect, what tumult, disorder, and anarchy must abound in the election of ministers, but for the wise provision made by the state! That there is not more of this among dissenters at present, arises from their poverty and feebleness, the former not admitting of faction and