land, entitled, The Christian Recorder and British and Foreign Religious Intelligencer; the first number will appear in January. The conductors of this magazine avow themselves friendly to the cause of Peace Societies, and will not fail to give a faithful record of their progress and proceedings. The Christian Recorder will have an extensive circulation among the members of the United Secession Church, consisting of upwards of three hundred congregations in Scotland and England, as well as the Sister Church in Ireland, consisting of nearly one hundred congregations. The friends of Peace will thus have their cause pled and their proceedings reported in a new and most extensive field, as it is presumed the Christian Recorder will be read monthly by one hundred and thirty thousand individuals. We subjoin the following extracts from the Prospectus, as indicative of the spirit with which the above periodical work is intended to be conducted: "But in our editorial capacities as Christian Recorders and Religious Intelligencers, it shall be our con stant study to cultivate the things which make for peace, and tend to godly edifying; it shall be our most delightful employment to record the triumphs of Divine Grace at home and abroad-to elevate the inspired volume in the esteem of our readers, and, if possible, arouse even the careless and unthinking to a serious consideration of its all-important contents." "The last and not the least division of our work is entitled The British and Foreign Religious Intelligencer. Here we shall know no party,- -our readers will not be under the necessity of hunting over the Magazines, Missionary Chronicles, Heralds and Registers of their respective religious societies. They will find our Intelligencer a faithful narrator of the progress of Religious Education and Christian Missions, at home and abroad, and at once a Baptist, a Methodist, a Moravian, a Presbyterian, an Independent, an Episcopalian, and even a Papist and a Unitarian; for, while the state of the Protestant cause will chiefly occupy our attention, our Religious Intelligencer will never lose sight of the enemy." POETRY. แ ON READING MONTGOMERY'S BATTLE OF ALEXANDRIA." Harp of Memnon, sweet and charming, By Montgomery's fingers prest, Every Briton's courage warming, Soft compassion melts to hear thee, Check thy rising patriot feeling, Think not murdering War is glory, So shalt thou, calm pleasure beaming S. C. LINES Occasioned by the efforts now making to disseminate WHAT gifts, what grace, has Heaven bestow'd on thee, "With all thy faults" a land of freedom still; With real glory, and unsullied fame. Yet one foul stain thy just renown shall mar, E'en when thou deal'st destruction on thy foe, Toil, want, and mourning in thy rural seats, O England! when thou weepest in the dust, Plymouth. C. THE HERALD OF PEACE. FEBRUARY 1821. The duty of Christians, especially of the Friends of Peace, at the present time. HE Friends of Peace have ear TH nestly desired that the last dreadful struggles between France and the combined Powers, in which so many hecatombs of human victims were immolated at the shrine of the Demon of War, might prove to be the expiring throes of the horrid monster! They fondly hoped that the splendid military attire, the glittering weapons of death, and all the pomp of martial parade, might henceforth only be retained, if retained at all, as a source of amusement, or bloodless though unprofitable occupation, for the thoughtless and the gay. But these expectations are already overcast. The direful foe of God, of man, and of all moral good, yet lives! and is even now flapping his hateful wings over the classic and fertile plains of Italy! Will he be again permitted to feast himself on human misery, and drink the blood of thousands, without one effort being made on the part of Christians to rescue the unhappy prey from his grasp? Will the followers of the meek, the holy, the compassionate Jesus, tranquilly wait till the sword of death has commenced its awful work; and then as quietly watch its ravages and de VOL. III. solations, without openly bearing a single testimony against its barbarous and iniquitous progress? If others can reconcile their minds to a line of conduct so imbecile and indifferent, surely the professed Friends of Peace will be peculiarly censurable in doing so! And although the subject should seem to involve a political question, and may, by some persons, be on that account deprecated; yet, as we feel that it is a matter which, independent of every political consideration, Christian philanthropy ought to contemplate with the deepest interest and concern, we dare not remain silent. We dare not shrink from the imperative duty of raising our feeble voice against any threatened attack which one Power may meditate against another. And we call upon our fellow-christians, of every denomination, and of every country, to unite with us in respectfully, and with a proper spirit, remonstrating against the violation of the peace of Europe. Let it not be demanded, as objections, "What good can the Friends of Peace effect by such a proceeding? "What influence have the humble disciples of Christ over the potent rulers of the earth?" If we look upon it as an effort merely human, the answer would be "Little, very F little." But if we regard it as the cause of God, and if he shall see fit to prosper the attempt, benefits the most extensive and efficacious will ultimately, if not immediately, result. Let us not forget the powerful consequences which arose from the denunciation against Nineveh, uttered by a solitary and cold-hearted individual amidst the tens of thousands of its proud and profligate inhabitantsNor that the precepts of Peace, which we inculcate, proceeded from the lips of One far greater than the prophet Jonah. But granting that, according to all human expectation, a different issue arise to our labours, will it not be a delightful subject for reflection, that we have endeavoured to save multitudes of our fellow-beings from wretchedness, ruin, and death? And will not a just and merciful God equally approve the effort, if sincerely, though unsuccessfully made, as though it had accomplished its benevolent purpose? Could we extend our voice to every Christian assembly throughout Europe, we would urge them to join in this blessed work. They ought certainly to express themselves to the hostile governments in respectful language, but at the same time with the confidence inspired by the purity of their intentions and the divine authority and excellence of their cause, remembering that these governments are professedly Christian, and therefore, that arguments drawn from the New Testament ought, upon them, to produce a strong impression. If the contrary happen, greatly as they might deplore the fact, there would remain no room for self-condemnation; and although the progress of the devouring sword may afterwards give them anxious and painful concern, they will feel that they have not, by their silence and apathy, contracted any of the guilt which attaches to the advocates for War, and the agents employed in the perpetration of its atrocities. Let us suppose a respectable deputation from the united Christian Churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland, proceeding to the assemblage of Princes belonging to the Holy Alliance, and calmly remonstrating with them on the inconsistency of War with the principles of Christianity: may we not view them as addressing the Emperor of Russia in the following language SIRE, "The encouragement you have given to the circulation of the scriphas excited the most pleasing emotures, and the establishment of schools, tions in our hearts; and we have been grateful to God for placing over the innumerable tribes of European and Asiatic Russia, a Sovereign desirous ciples of humanity, civilization, and of spreading among them the prinChristianity. But oh! pause, we pray you, ere you sanction the irruption of armed bands upon a country smiling under the blessings of peace. Ask possibly be reconciled with the reliyourself, whether such a measure can gion of Jesus Christ, which you profess, and which was intended, and is eminently calculated, to produce" on earth peace, good-will towards men." Will that Saviour, Sire! on whom you depend for your eternal salvation, edness and slaughter of his creatures? regard with complacency the wretch Retire, then, Sire! from councils so antichristian-Return to your immense territorial possessions, and devote a life, which we pray God long to tual and religious improvement of the preserve, in promoting the intellecuntold population of your vast empire. Let the light and life-giving influence |