with them that did rejoice; taking a lively interest in whatever was the happiness of mankind, reconciling those at variance, strengthening the ties of brotherly love, endearing the social relations, and enriching his conversation with the fragrance of charity, and the sweet savour of peace. Having served the Church of God almost half a century, he received the summons to go up and die, in prospect of the promised inheritance. During a long season of languishing, and the frequent paroxysms of a most disheartening and vexing distemper, he consoled himself with the firm belief, that his sufferings were precisely such as infinite wisdom and goodness had allotted for his particular case; and, therefore, he neither despised the chastening of the Lord, nor fainted under his severe rebukes. Whenever the terrors of death fell upon him, they were dispelled by a holy trust in that Divine Providence, which opened a safe passage through Jordan into the promised rest. He could, therefore, exclaim, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff comfort me." The same night in which he expired, and after his speech had become, for the most part, unintelligible with regard to his bodily wants, and his senses seemed nearly closed upon this world, he still recovered strength to join with us in the Lord's prayer, which he repeated with a clear and distinct voice, and concluded with a hearty Amen. We then proceeded to commend his soul into the hands of the Father of Spirits. Having lived in charity, he died in faith and hope, and has been gathered to his fathers in peace. On the present occasion let us pay a tribute of respect to the memory of our much lamented father. He was a man of great vivacity of intellect, and genuine goodness of heart. His education, his sentiments, and his manners, were liberal. His conversation and deportment were easy and unaffected, always indicating good will, and generally exciting strong personal attachment. Having a ready discern. ment of character, he knew how to please and instruct by "a word fitly spoken;" and was so courteous and kindly affectioned as to approve himself, even on a short acquaintance, an intimate friend. In conversation, his peculiar sensibility often manifested itself in sudden emotions, and by frequent interchanges of tears and smiles; it was like a cheerful sun brightening with his rainbow a weeping sky. With habits strongly social, he was an excellent companion, a warm friend, an affectionate husband, a tender parent, a kind brother, an obliging neighbour, and a real philanthropist. In his disposition, he was open, generous, hos pitable, and without the least tincture of avarice. As a citizen, he had great urbanity of manners, liberality of sentiment, and condescension to men of low estate. As a parish minister he was faithful, assiduous, and affectionate; loving his people most tenderly, he was, in return, dearly beloved. A most endearing and well known trait in his character, was his tender concern for the poor and needy, with unremitting exertions for their relief. Strong in his attachinent to the doctrines, government, and worship of the Church, he cherished a sincere good will towards all men, loving their persons while he discerned their errors, and exhibiting the admirable example of disagreement in principle, without the breach of charity in practice. His piety was lively, and his devotion fervent. Susceptible of the highest ecstacy from the impression of sacred music, he delighted, most rapturously, in the praises of the Lord: and we shall not soon forget with what enkindling energy and affecting solemnity he uttered the prayers, and with what emphasis and life he read the lessons in our public service. In the desk his power was universally acknowledged. His full heart was ever ready to his subject: the flowing tear, the changing voice, the involuntary pause, the impassioned recovery-manifested the deep emotion of his soul, and diffused through the sacred assembly, an overpowering sympathy, opening the understanding and arresting the heart. As a preacher, he was plain, practical, and impressive. As a divine, he embraced, in full, the doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as expressed in her creeds, her articles, and her liturgy; these he believed to be scriptural, primitive, and truly evangelical; and as in his parochial instructions, he always spoke the language of the Church, he was happy in observing as great a uniformity of sentiment among his people, as can be expected in an age when there is such diversity of religious education. Having often seen the pernicious effects of a false, misguided zeal, he had a settled dislike to religious enthusiasm; believing that the power of Godliness is best promoted by a due attention to its form. On the whole, his character is enriched with so many good qualities as to be highly valuable, his " name is as ointment poured forth," and his memory as "the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed." Sacred to the memory of the Rev. BELA HUBBARD, D. D. Rector of Trinity Church, New-Haven. Born at Guilford, August 27th, 1739. He expired, in this city, December 6th, 1812, in the 48th year of his ministry, and the 74th of his age. Amiable in all the relations of life, he was an able, tender, and diligent pastor; the friend of the poor, and the comforter of the afflicted. Eminent for his charity, he was greatly beloved. After a long life of successful labour in the edification of the Church, he departed in faith and hope; ardent for the crown of righteousness. In testimony of their affectionate regard to the memory of their beloved pastor, a grateful people have erected this monumental stone. FOR THE CHRISTIAN JOURNAL. Shrewsbury Episcopal Society. AT a meeting of several of the members of Christ Church, Shrewsbury, on Whitsun-Tuesday, 1819, convened for the purpose of establishing a society auxiliary to the Episcopal Society of New Jersey, the following constitution was adopted. Art. 1. This society shall be auxiliary to the New-Jersey Episcopal Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and Piety. Art. 2. Every person who shall pay into the treasury the sum of seventy five cents annually, shall be a member of this society. Donors of eight dollars or more in one payment, shall be members for life. All the money collected is to be transinitted to the parent society, upon the condition of its returning one half the amount of the sum sent in Bibles, Prayer Books, Tracts, &c. as may be necessary. Art. 3. The Rector of the churches of Shrewsbury and Middletown, shall be, ex officio, President of this Society. Art. 4. There shall be elected annually a Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and seven Managers, who, together with the President, shall form a Board of Managers for transacting the business of the society. They shall form their own by-laws, supply their own vacancies, and take such measures as they may judge best calculated to promote the objects of the society. A majority of them shall constitute a quorum to do business. Art. 5. There shall be a stated meeting of this society on WhitsunMonday of every year, when an annual report of the Managers shall be laid before the society; at which time also subscriptions shall fall due. Special meetings may be called whenever the Managers may direct, of which they shall give due notice. Art. 6. No alteration shall be made in this constitution, unless it be proposed at a meeting of the society regularly convened, and be acceded to, at a subsequent meeting, by a vote of two thirds of the members present. Officers for the ensuing year. Rev. JOHN CROES, jun. ex officio, Pres. JOSEPH VOORHEES, Vice-President. LITTLETON WHITE, Treasurer. BENJAMIN HOLMES, Secretary. Anthony Holmes, Jacob White, Jacob R. Holmes, Samuel Holmes, jun. Woodward Dennis, Edmond West, Gabriel West, Managers. The following interesting Character of a COUNTRY CLERGYMAN is extracted from the Wild Irish Boy. WE entered the hall, which was filled with all the Protestant population in the neighbourhood, about forty persons. I knew how service was performed in the country churches: the rector of the parish was absent, and I expected from the curate what may be expected from a man who, amid obscurity and indigence, has sullied and lost whatever he possessed in early life of the habits of a gentleman and scholar. The service was performed by a man who gave me new ideas of religion and its ministers for ever. Let me indulge in speaking a few words of this man, whose agency in my narrative may justify the digression. His name was Corbett. He had been a curate six and forty years. He sought not to be any thing else. The religion he professed had taught him, "having food and raiment, to be therewith content;" and the same influence extending to his habits, had enabled him, by temperance and prudence, to obtain all he thought necessary in life. He was married, and had a son whom himself had educated; and who, like himself, was in the ministry. When I speak of the effects of his mode of prayer and preaching, I speak of the effects I witnessed in the course of a constant attendance on him. He not merely read prayers, but he prayed, and with such deep and fervant feeling, with emphasis so obviously suggested, not by the art, but by the nature of supplication; with pauses so strongly marked by solemnity of recollection, and a suspension of the act, without a suspension of the feeling, that his congregation almost unconsciously joined in the responses, which were originally intended for their utterance, and felt the force of habit and indolence yield to the holy energy with which he poured out his petitions. I never heard a man preach as he did. He was a scholar, to whom few I have ever met with were superior. He was a man delighting in conversation, in which, if light he could amuse, and, if argumentative, he could instruct more than any man I ever listened to. But in the pulpit, he laid aside the wisdom of words, and the weapons of fleshly warfare altogether. That he was a scholar you felt not; you felt not that he was a man of rich imagination, or of strong reasoning powers; you felt not that he or his discourse could be referred to any class of mind or composition that could assist you to judge of them in a temporal sense. But you felt irresistibly that he was a believer, pleading with the power of conviction; that he was a religionest, speaking from experience, commending a life he lived, and a felicity he felt: that he spoke and acted on principles which, though beyond the range of existence, were not beyond the range of reality; principles which he made present and vivid, and substantial alike by the force of eloquence and the force of example. He was a speaker, who, of all others I ever heard, succeeded most in averting your attention from himself to his subject. It was long after his sermons had concluded, that you could think of the preacher: like the priest in the Jewish hierarchyhe disappeared in the cloud of incense himself sent up. The christianity he preached, was such as a man would preach who abstracted from the influence of prejudice, and habit, and self wisdom, had sought his system in revelation alone, and found and formed it there. It was neither a frame of doctrinal niceties, curiously constructed, and totally unfit for use; nor a formulary of habitual observances, at which the constant attendance of the body may excuse the absence of the mind. It was a system, of which the principles were operative, in which opinion held its relation to practice; christianity was described as a dispensation exhibiting certain facts to the belief; and the belief, is subdued by these facts, suggesting the most important and active consequences to our minds and our lives. It may be thought there was something in this mode of representation too argumentative and consequential for the comprehension of a rustic audience-it was not so. Though his positions were strong and important, they were clothed in a language, whose peculiar and providential felicity is, that it is the universal language, the first language that religion talks to the ear of infancy, the language that genius reverences and ignorance understands, the language of the poet and of the saint, the language of divinity and of the heart, the language of the scriptures. He spoke as a father pleading with a wayward child; he spoke as a judge with a criminal, to confess and be forgiven; as a guide with a wanderer, to return and to rest. When he finished his sermon, it was not with Cowper's "well-bred whisper." He appeared for some time engaged in prayer; an effusion of mind so solemn and deep, that most of the audience involuntarily joined in it; those who did not, were awed and silent. When he came down, and walked among us, though the thunder of his eloquence was hushed, his consequence spoke still. He had descended from the mount; but his visage retained the brightness of that high place. If I write of this man, I shall write volumes. When I could approach him, I introduced myself to him, solicited his acquaintance, and praised his discourse in those broken and tumultuous sentences, which are all that wonder and reverence leave us breath for. He put by my praises with a courteous humility, that declined the common traffic of commendation for vanity. FOR THE CHRISTIAN JOURNAL. Messrs. Publishers, THE business of writing for a public journal is altogether foreign from, and, perhaps, in strictness of propriety, does not comport with my humble station in society, or my usual avocations; yet I feel an invincible desire (and that desire has completely overcome whatever of modesty and diffidence I may possess) to express the high gratification I derived from the perusal of the Report of the Board of Directors of the New-York Protestant Episcopal Sunday School Society, published in the last number of your valuable Journal. Having been once ardently attached to the gay and fascinating pleasures of the world, and having an experimental knowledge of the almost irresisti ble influence they have over the animated and fervent feelings of " the youth just starting into life," I cannot sufficiently admire and commend the Superintendents and Teachers of those Schools, for the noble and magnanimous devotion of their time and talents to the promotion of the best temporal and eternal interests of the rising generation. Can any thing present a more gratifying sight to man, or be more acceptable to heaven, than the avidity with which our youth, of both sexes, who possess the most abundant means of procuring and enjoying the various pleasures and gratifications of life, voluntarily enroll themselves as the preceptors and benefactors of children drawn from the abodes of poverty, ignorance, and depravity? Misanthropic and frigid indeed must be that heart, if the contemplation of such a scene will not warm it into enthusiastic admiration. Noble, generous youth, while you erect to yourselves an imperishable monumentwhile you shed a brilliant lustre upon the human character, you are conferring benefits and blessings, infinite in value, upon the heretofore neglected sons and daughters of poverty, wretchedness, and vice; and I doubt not that in the "great day of the Lord," when "every man's work will be tried of what sort it is," many of your pupils will, with joyful lips and grateful hearts, bear testimony to your pious and assiduous care in preparing them, by example and instruction, for the enjoyment of that never-ending felicity and glory which is reserved in heaven for all the faithful followers of the Lamb slain for the sins of the world. Go on, pious, excellent youth; you cannot want motives to perseverance while there is a single dwelling in our city whose inmates are ignorant, depraved, and without that " righteousness which hath the promise of the life that now is, and that which is to come;" while you daily witness the salutary effects of your benevolent exertions, or while you enjoy the unspeakable satisfaction of knowing that your " work of faith and labour of love" will be acknowledged and awarded by нім that sitteth upon the throne, and judgeth the hearts and actions of men. Among the officers of the institution I recognize the names of several of our most worthy citizens, particularly that of the venerable Col. Platt. Although advanced in the vale of years; at a season of life when the fervency and ardour of youthful feelings have generally subsided into a calm and gentle current, we behold this meritorious revolutionary officer devoting himself to the cause of Sunday school instruction, with all that energy and intrepidity of feeling that we are told characterized the morning of his life, while serving in that army which, under the smiles of a gracious Providence, achieved the independence of his country. Fathers in Israel, what a noble example-how pre-eminently worthy your imitation-what a decisive and salutary influence must such examples have upon your sons and daughters, in conducting them in the " way wherein they should go!". Having penned a few of the many reflections that occupied my mind after reading the report, permit me to trespass for a moment longer while I propound the question, Why are not all the schools connected with the several Episcopal Churches in this city united together under the direction of this society, and the members of "our Zion" estranged from each other in this excellent and Christian work? To this interrogation it is replyed by some, That the Episcopal Schools not now in union with this society were formed under the auspicies of the "Sunday School Union Society," anterior to the formation of an Episcopal Society; that, therefore, they are bound to remain under its direction; and that a separation, under any circumstances, would be almost a wanton violation of those kind, amiable, and charitable feelings by which Christians of different denominations are bound together. I cannot but express my respect and esteem for these feelings. They bespeak mildness and amiability. But are they indulged upon correct principles? Have they a proper direction? Is a separation in any degree incompatible with the most affectionate, cor dial, and liberal feelings of good will towards other denominations? Is an exclusive attachment to principles we confidently believe are true, and scripturally founded, at all inconsistent with that "charity that hopeth and believeth all things?" But are there not reasons for a separation cogent and imperious? In my humble opinion there are, and I beg leave to state at least a few of them. It is well recollected, that when the subject of Sunday Schools was first introduced to, and claimed the attention of the Christian public in this metropolis; that while their great utility and perfect practicability in countries possessing a superabundant and indigent population, was admitted on all hands; yet there were many who could not at once bring themselves to believe that in a country like ours, with a comparatively thin population, enjoying so abundantly and munificently the benefit of free, common, and parochial charity school education, the Sunday School system could be productive of any substantial benefit, for want of the proper subjects for instruction. This sentiment prevailed extensively among Episcopalians, (who could not be supposed indifferent for other and less worthy motives, for their fathers and elder brethren of the Church of England were the first to begin, and have since unremittingly cherished the system) and it is confidently believed was the operative reason why the "Protestant Episcopal Sunday School Society" did not spring into being as soon or sooner than the "Sunday School Union Society." Meanwhile the experiment is made, a number of parochial schools are formed, including a few Episcopalians. The success of that experiment far exceeded the hopes and calculations of the most sanguine, and entirely revolutionized and settled the opinions of the heretofore incredulous and sceptical. Was this incredulity and scepticism unreasonable ? Certainly not. While a liberal portion of praise is deservedly awarded to other denominations for having taken the lead in the glorious |