6 ings, placed his hands over his eyes, unwilling to gaze longer on the terrible scene. Remember,' said the stranger, in a voice of kind warning, that thou hast been taught the fate of the worldly and sinful-forget not the lesson which thou hast received. And now raise thy eyes; for it is time that thou shouldst behold better things.' "Selim raised his head at the bidding of his companion; and, lo, the former vision had faded away, and he saw before him a low narrow postern, through which a few lowly men were entering with earnest looks and modest step; and each one bore a staff, on the top of which was a cross. "Now,' said the stranger, look through the open postern; and tell me what thou seest.' "I see," said he, " a narrow path, but there are few flowers or fruit, and but little attraction, and the path is, to all appearance, rugged, steep, and difficult, so that those who attempt to walk in it must expect much toil and travail.' there are fountains of living water, and quiet resting-places beneath refreshing shades." "The youth marked with admiration all these objects which the guide described, and longed to ask him what was the termination of this path; but the stranger anticipated his request. That which most encourages the pilgrims in all their toils,' said he, 'is the temple of glory, which crowns yon summit straight before them, so bright and glorious to behold, that the eyes may scarcely bear to rest upon it. But it is the sure and certain hope of reaching at last that goodly palace, and resting from all their labours, and dwelling for ever in peace-the sure faith that it is prepared for them by One who is their greatest friend this it is which causes those pilgrims to endure, without repining, all the toils of the ascent, and persevere continually in the strait path which leads from the gate of life.' "The young Selim stood for a while speechless, in deep contemplation of the scene he looked on, which, though at the first it had possessed little attraction, yet now that he saw the termination whither it led, was far more beautiful and engaging than any thing which had appeared in his former vision. 6 "Thou hast seen,' said the stranger, solemnly, the two ways of life--the one the broad way, which leadeth to destruction; the other the strait way, which leadeth to life. Which wilt thou pursue?' "The way of life,' said Selim, eagerly. "Take, then, this staff; and may God protect thee!' "It is so,' said the stranger; but you will mark that those who lean resolutely on their staves fail not to make their way; and though there seem formidable difficulties and obstacles in the path, yet they are not so great as may at first appear. There is ever a way to surmount or to avoid them. The path may seem utterly blocked up, but there is always an opening left in the rocks, through which the traveller may pass. And though there is no throng of travellers to widen the path, and help each other onward, yet they are not comfortless and companionless. See those friends who take sweet counsel together "So saying, the stranger placed in his as they walk onward, and smooth for each hand a cross similar to that which each of other the rugged path, removing the briars the pilgrims bore. At the same moment the and thorns by which it is obstructed. Look! whole scene seemed to float vaguely before there is a husband leading on his feebler the eyes of the youth. His senses became partner; and there a wife, arrived at a place bewildered; he heard the bleating of sheep of safety, beckoning to her husband, and in- around, and looking up, he found himself viting him to follow her; and there are two lying, as if just awakened, at the mouth of parents leading their children by the hand, the cavern. Before him was the vast plain guiding their steps, comforting and directing which he had gazed on with wonder on the them. And if at any time a persevering pil- preceding evening, and near him a shepherd grim stumbles on the way, and, in his faint- || leaning on a crook, by whose direction he ness and weariness, calls on God for help, descended from the mountain, and, with a seest thou not the bright form of ministering calm and earnest step, pursued his onward angels hovering around him in the air, bring- journey." ing comfort and refreshment; and then he arises and resumes his journey with a light step and grateful heart; and though the path is at times rugged and difficult, especially at the first, yet are there every where sign-posts large and legible, which he who runs may read, and guides ordained by God, to point out to the pilgrims the way in which they should go. And see! the path itself widens as it proceeds, and becomes less steep and rugged, until, towards its close, the travellers arrive at a gentle and easy ascent, where We give another instance of the Christmas compositions of Mr. Primer's scholars, which, being a poetical attempt, must be received with indulgence. Christmas in the Olden Time. Christmas e'en now we gladly hail; E'en now we burn the log of Iol, The cake was cut at Hallow e'en; Thou mightst have graced the lays of Pindar, Yet in times past thou'st shared the fate Forbade thy rule throughout the land; You gained your ancient rank and station. The Months decked out in order duc; At night the foremost in the play, St. George in arms, a prancing nag on, Next comes, with crosier and with mace, Mongst them with staff and wooden daggers, Attired like Palm, the knave of clubs- For always at the end, the Evil The mumming o'er, the dancing ceased, But now these boist'rous sports are o'er, In soldier Thresher's swaggering face, Then Beelzebub, by some strange art, The champion "drags him out to slaughter, And Misrule's ancient fees are now Collected for the Zany's plough, By a knave decked out in female dress, They may be "wise and merry" too. The last six lines were added by the suggestion of Mr. Primer, as a sort of moral. "I have no objection," said he, to young people amusing themselves, and having as much fun as they choose, under certain restrictions. First, romping and boisterous games are more suited to children, or boys and girls, than to those who are older; unless sometimes a good-natured elder brother and sister, or it may be even a papa or uncle, exerts his talents for the amusement of a group of children;-this is all very well. But for young men and women, more of refinement and reserve is suitable. Again; though we call them Christmas gambles,' I would not have them on Christmas-day, which should be kept religiously; still less on Christmaseve, which is appointed by the Church to be observed as a fast. It would be well if people would always look at the almanac before fixing their days of amusement. There is another custom, also, in some part of the country which I do not like, that is, dancing the old year out and the new year in. Rather than this, we had much better adopt the practice of the Methodists, who devote the last hours of each year to religious worship. Certainly there is something too awful in the fact of bringing to a close so large a portion of life, and entering upon a new division, to admit of its being properly devoted to mirth; so, at least, it appears to me. There is a time for all things. When we have dedicated to religion those portions which the Church or our own solemn feelings demand, there are plenty of long winter-evenings left for harmless mirth and merriment. There is one more observation which I must make with regard to the verses on Christmas in the Olden Time,' namely, that there is serious objection to the introduction of any representation of the devil in such sports, however common the practice may have been. He is far too formidable a being to be lightly spoken of. I hope no one will think me too straightlaced and precise. All I recommend is, that a due reverence for sacred seasons and subjects should be preserved, and an abstinence from trifling with serious things; and then I am quite willing that young people should exercise their wit and fancy, and be as merry and joyous as they please." MORMONISM. As there is a Christian, so is there an anti-Chris- much abused; and hence grew up the sects of the Freethinkers-who happily, however, held but a very short reign in this country. 3. The next attempt was more successful. It admitted the faults of the two former developments of dissent; gave up the strict unbending doctrine and discipline of Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, as indefensible; and boldly affirmed that no forms at all were necessary; that it did not matter much what a man believed, or where he worshipped, provided he had certain feelings ;yea, and that these feelings were so sufficient and conclusive, that it mattered not either what a man's life had been, if he could only feel in a certain way that to be saved, in fact, a man need only think that he would be saved. These are the Wesleyan Methodists-the last, and therefore the only living, development of dissent in England. 4. We had the pleasure, in our two last Numbers, of announcing, on their own authority, the commencement of decay among this body of schismatics. We rejoiced in the fact, not as imagining that the Church was destined really to have peace, but only at being allowed to witness another testimony of God's faithfulness. It appears now that "the feet" of their successors are even at this time "at the door." A little book, lately published in England,1 may be considered "the cloud 1. At the Reformation, at least as soon as the dan- like a man's hand," which foretells the coming of gers which beset the agents in that great religious || another tempest. The next sect that will be permovement were past, when men were seeking mitted to vex the Church, it appears probable, anxiously, but doubtfully, for the truth,-this evil will be the Mormonites. What the exact tenets of spirit assumed a bold form, and affirmed that these people are, it is perhaps not necessary very Scripture, if rightly expounded, yielded a full and accurately to inquire; and the task is so disgusting perfect rule both of practice and faith, which was that we would gladly be spared it. Suffice it to quite at variance with the teaching of the Church. say, that it is a kind of hodgepodge made up of all It was true that these overthrowers of the Church previously existing heresies-or rather a further were not agreed in their views of what Scripture development of the one dissenting spirit. It rests taught; and hence resulted dissent in its original its claim, first of all, upon the usual plea of liberty triple form one party called themselves Presby- of conscience: "we claim (say they) the privilege terians, another Independents, and a third Baptists of worshipping Almighty God according to the or Anabaptists. These were a most pugnacious dictates of our conscience." Next, with the Wesrace of people: conquered in argument, they ap- leyans, they believe in instantaneous "conversion ;" pealed to the sword; murdered the monarch and with the Baptists, they hold the necessity of imthe primate, and deluged the country with blood. mersion; with the Irvingites, they believe in the 2. By the mercy of God, the religion and Church gifts of tongues, prophecy, revelations, visions, of Christ were restored to this land; and the peo-healings, interpretations of tongues; with the Sweple had seen so much of the true spirit of Presby-denborgians, they hold the Bible as far as it goes, terians, Independents, and Baptists, that there was no more danger to be apprehended to the Church from that quarter. The Presbyterians have since become Unitarians, i. e. they do not acknowledge Christ as the Son of God, the Saviour of the world and the two latter are now rather to be regarded as political than religious sects. But meantime the enemy of God was not inactive: he began to insinuate that there was no truth in religion, whose very name men had lately seen so but profess to possess another revelation from God through their prophet, Joseph Smith; with all dissenters, they despise the regular and uniform piety of the Bible and the Church, and reconcile their own salvability with the indulgence of many 1 "The City of the Mormons; or, Three Days at Nauvoo in 1842." By the Rev. H. Caswall, A.M., author of "America and the American Church," and Professor of Divinity in Kemper College, St. Louis, Missouri. 18mo, pp. 82. London, Rivingtons. sins. Smith himself, indeed, is represented as an utterly immoral man; and so have been the founders of more than one form of dissent before these "Latter-day Saints" (thus they delight to call themselves) but, as Mr. Caswall justly remarks, they will not scruple, when convenient, to throw Smith overboard, while "his doctrines, somewhat refined, may (if God does not in his mercy interpose) be a rule of faith and practice to millions." Mr. Caswall, who has been amongst them and seen them, apprehends that there is great danger of their increase; and our own observation tells us that it is by no means unlikely. It is a fact that, at this present moment, there are upwards of 100,000 of these deluded persons—a large portion of whom are Englishmen, who have been decoyed out there by some fanatic preachers that have been sent into this country. And who is there at all conversant with the state of religious feeling among the lower classes, who sees how ready the people are to follow any self-sent preacherthe more extravagant the doctrine the better-and who remembers the success which has been absolutely obtained by the very clumsiest impostors (such as Thom in the county of Kent)-who can doubt that any form of error may gain converts? We shall now proceed to give a more detailed account of this damnable heresy. The city of Nauvoo, the head-quarters of Mormonism, is a wild place in the unsettled state of Missouri (in the United States of America, of which country Mr. Smith is a native), 230 miles from the conflux of the Missouri and Mississippi, 1500 north of New Orleans, and 2000 miles west of New York. This Joseph Smith, now about 37 years old, declares that the angel of the Lord appeared to him and directed him to a certain cave where were deposited the golden plates of "the book of Mormon," also the Urim and Thummim of Israel, and the golden breastplate of the high priest. These were in due course exhumed; and they are thus described by Smith's mother, a woman who seems not so much a dupe of her son's knavery as an active agent in his imposture. "I have myself seen and handled the golden plates; they are about eight inches long, and six wide; some of them are sealed together, and are not to be opened, and some of them are loose. They are all connected by a ring which passes through a hole at the end of each plate, and are covered with letters beautifully engraved. I have seen and felt also the Urim and Thummim. They resemble two large bright diamonds, set in a bow like a pair of spectacles. My son puts these over his eyes when he reads unknown languages, and they enable him to interpret them in English. I have likewise carried in my hands the sacred breastplate. It is composed of pure gold, and is made to fit the breast very exactly."-The City of the Mormons, p. 27. This new revelation, "like Mahometanism, possesses many features in common with the religion of Christ. It professes to admit the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments; it even acknowledges the Trinity, the atonement, and divinity of the Messiah. But it has cast away that Church which Christ erected upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, and has substituted a false church in its stead. It has introduced a new book as a depository of the revelations of God, which in practice has almost superseded the sacred Scriptures. It teaches men to regard a profane and ignorant impostor as a special prophet of the Almighty, and to consider themselves as saints while in the practice of impiety. It robs them sometimes of their substance, them, beneath a shade of deep spiritual darkness, and too often of their honesty; and finally sends into the presence of that God of truth whose holy faith they have denied."-pp. 2, 3. The Book of Mormon has been published in an English edition, at Manchester, for the use of the "latter-day saints," under which name they are known here; but this is a mutilated edition; the genuine one "Contains five hundred and eighty-eight duodecimo pages, consisting of fifteen different books, purporting to be written at different times, and by different authors, whose names they respectively bear. The period of time covered by these spurious records is about a thousand years, commencing with the time of Zedekiah, and terminating with the year of our Lord 420. It professes to trace the history of the American aborigines, from the time of their leaving Jerusalem, in the reign of Zedekiah, under one Lehi, down to their final disaster near the hill Camorah, in the state of New York; in which contest, according to the prophet Moroni,' about 230,000 were slain in a single battle, and he alone escaped to tell the tale. These records, with which various prophecies and sermons are intermingled, are declared by Smith to have Egyptian character,' and discovered to him by an been written on golden plates, in 'the reformed angel in the year 1823." 1—pp. 62, 63. A general view of their doctrine may be gathered from the preacher whom Mr. C. heard. "He began by stating the importance of forming correct views of the character of God. People were generally content with certain preconceived views on this subject derived from tradition. These views were for the most part incorrect. The comGod, a partial God, a cruel God, a God worthy mon opinion respecting God made him an unjust only of hatred; in fact, 'the greatest devil in the universe.' Thus also people in general had been 'traditioned' to suppose that divine revelation was confined to the old-fashioned book called the Bible, suited to particular circumstances and particular a book principally written in Asia, by Jews, and classes. On the other hand, they supposed that this vast continent of America had been destitute of all revelation for five thousand years, until Columbus discovered it, and the good, pious, precise ་ 1 Smith's mother speaks of "fifteen years ago" as the but in this passage Mr. C. dates it 1823: there is an error time of the pretended revelation (see Mr. Caswall, p. 26); somewhere, which we cannot explain. Puritans brought over with them, some two hundred years since, that precious old book called the Bible.' Now God had promised to judge all men' without respect of persons. If, therefore, the American aborigines had never received a revelation, and were yet to be judged together with the Jews and the Christians, God was most horribly unjust; and he, for his part, would never love such a God; he could only hate him. He said there was a verse somewhere in the Bible, he could not tell where, as he was a bad hand at quoting,' but he thought it was in the Revelation. 'If it's not there,' he said, 'read the whole book through, and you'll find it, I guess, somewhere. I hav'nt a Bible with me; I left mine at home, as it ain't necessary.' Now this verse, he proceeded to observe, stated that Christ had redeemed men by his blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and had made them unto God kings and priests. But in America there were the ruins of vast cities, and wonderful edifices, which proved that great and civilised nations had existed on this continent. If the Bible was true, therefore, God must have had priests and kings among those nations, and numbers of them must have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. Revelations from God must consequently have been granted to them. The Old and New Testaments were therefore only portions of the revelations of God, and not a complete revelation, nor were they designed to be so. 'Am I to believe,' said he, that God would cast me or any body else into hell, without giving me a revelation?' God now revealed himself in America just as truly as he had ever done in Asia. The present congregation lived in the midst of wonders and signs equal to those mentioned in the Bible, and they had the blessing of revelation mainly through the medium of that chosen servant of God, Joseph Smith. The Gentiles often came to Nauvoo to look at the prophet Joseph-old Joe, as they profanely termed him-and to see what he was doing; but many who came to laugh remained to pray, and soon the kings and nobles of the earth would count it a privilege to come to Nauvoo and behold the great work of the Lord in these latter days. "The work of God is prospering,' he said, 'in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; in Australia, and at the Cape of Good Hope, in the East and West Indies, in Palestine, in Africa, and throughout America, thousands, and tens of thousands are getting converted by our preachers, are baptised for the remission of sins, and are selling off all they have, that they may come to Nauvoo. The great and glorious work has begun, and I defy all earth and hell to stop it.'-pp. 11-13. We have said that this soul-destroying pestilence has already infected England, and that many, especially in Lancashire, have become its unhappy victims. The way in which these emissaries of Satan pursue their blasphemous work is thus described : "In England, the preachers of Mormonism generally begin by insinuating among the astonished natives of rural villages, or the weak and wavering classes in larger towns, that our Bible has suffered by translation, and that it is deficient and incomplete in many particulars. They next declare that the Book of Mormon and the revelations bestowed ... On on Smith and Rigdon are additional favours from the Deity, designed to explain the obscurities and supply the deficiencies of our Scriptures. It never enters into the minds of their dupes to inquire as to the credentials of these preachers. They are the eye-witnesses of no miracle: they see no dead raised to life, no dumb qualified to speak, no blind enabled to see. One night the Mormon elder commences by observing to his congregation that he does not know what to say, but that he will say whatever the Lord shall put into his mouth. another night, he gravely announces his intention to read a portion of the old Scriptures for edification; invariably, however, taking care not to confine himself to any particular subject, but to have as extensive a field as possible, in order to weave in, from time to time, such portions of the 'Book of Mormon' as he knows to be best adapted to effect his object. . For the continuance of the fraudulent scheme, they proceed to enact a mock ordination, choosing out of the whole body of converts certain individuals who are deemed most trustworthy. These assume their blasphemous calling on the pretended sanction of the Deity, immerse converts after dark, confirm the parties next day, and administer, in the course of two or three days at the farthest, a mock sacrament, to individuals who, in the bewildered state of their minds, scarcely know their right hand from their left. It is under the very convenient cloak of night, however, that Mormonism in England performs most of its operations. It is then in the zenith of its glory, converting ignorance into the tool of delusion, chaining it fast by iniquitous discipline, order, and system, and trying with all its energy to make the worse appear the better cause. In such beguiling hours, the secret 'Church-meeting' is held, to the exclusion of every individual except the initiated. High and mighty is the business transacted on such occasions. It consists of exhortations to stand firm, instructions given, explanations offered, visions and revelations stated, gifts received for the Bishop of Zion,' confessions made, threatenings held out, converts reprimanded, apostates excommunicated, the successes of Mormonism described, and suggestions offered for removing the difficulties in its way. Inquiries are made in reference to other particulars: for example,What kind of people reside in this neighbourhood? What places of worship do they frequent? What opinions have you formed as to the natural bent of their respective dispositions? Will they be disposed to join us, or will they exercise an influence against us? Are they principally in the humble walks of life, or are they of some knowledge and understanding?' If the answer to these and other questions be apparently favourable, the necessary advice is given to the first converts how they may prevail upon more. Suggestions are thrown out how to persuade; and the next step is, to urge in every possible way the grievous sin of baptising infants, and the absolute necessity of dipping, as the sine quá non, the only effectual path to everlasting salvation.""-pp. 63-68. The assumption of the title of "latter-day saints" by these people strikes us as peculiarly ominous. It is a step, no doubt, in advance towards the coming of antichrist, which is to mark the “latter days," |