lative questions that have ever been brought into the circle of debate have been always kept there. They often remain,' he says, 'for a long time unnoticed,-despised perhaps, and with good reason,—but they never vanish out of the ring.' Now is this the fact? Can we point to no single question, once agitated, and now laid aside, most probably, forever? Was there not a question in the early christian church, whether converts should or should not undergo the Jewish rite of circumcision? Is not this question settled? There was another question, whether it was lawful to eat meats sacrificed to idols. Is not this at present 'out of the ring?' Are there no speculative questions, once most seriously and warmly canvassed, which are now so completely out of the ring, that nobody remembers what they were about, and cannot even tell their names without turning to an ecclesiastical history? And what if such questions are sometimes revived in a feeble and dying condition, or still remain lingering in some obscure corner of the church; is it nothing that their importance is gone? And what if a valuable truth is never received by every mind in Christendom, is it nothing that controversy carries it to the majority of the intelligent, and that from weakness and contempt it has been brought out into notice and honor? That an absurdity maintains its hold on some or many minds, proves nothing but that there always will be ignorant and stupid people in the world; a truth of which we entertain no doubt.

But how, it is often asked, are the common people to know what to think, or how to act, when the wise and educated so constantly disagree? What are we poor sinners to do,' inquires Old Experience, 'when such learned men as yourselves flatly contradict each other?' You are to do precisely what you were put into this world to do. You are to use your reasoning faculties, you are to employ, according to your opportunities, the judgment and discrimination with which you have been endowed in common with the rest of your race. People who have not time nor capacity for extensive and original research, must come to almost all their religious conclusions, except the simplest, by the examination of opposite opinions as they have been discussed in controversy. If they do not examine, they will inevitably be prejudiced, narrow minded, and ignorant. If they do examine, they will meet, it is true, with differing sentiments on many subjects; but we are utterly unable to see why a man's judgment should fail him, the mo

ment he comes to two conflicting propositions. What was the faculty of judgment given to him for? For the very purpose, as we should think, of choosing, of deciding, of building up his convictions. Now controversy furnishes him with the means of doing this. It places before him the two sides of a question. And what if there should be twenty sides? Let him find out by his natural reason, the candle of the Lord within him, on which of all these sides lies the greatest probability. And even if he comes to the conclusion that the truth is on neither side, he has still come to a conclusion, and it is controversy which has helped him to it.

We have before remarked, that it is to the abuses only, to which controversy is liable, and which it too often falls into, that the arguments against it will apply. The existence of these abuses we acknowledge and deplore; but we do insist that they may be remedied. We insist that controversy may be, and often has been carried on in a manly, vigorous, and decided, and at the same time a fair, candid, and charitable manner. In some manner it must be carried on, so long as mankind disagree with one another in opinion, and set any value on truth. And furthermore we believe that it not only must be, but ought to be carried on, because we esteem it to be the very life of improvement, and are persuaded that the benefits which it confers, far outweigh the abuses which it suffers. Now what is our duty and proper course? To do our utmost to reform and banish these abuses? or set ourselves to silence controversy itself, which we cannot do, and ought not if we could? Can we not effect the former? Is human nature in so abject a state, and christian charity at so low an ebb, that we can none of us discuss a topic, or expose an error, without vilifying each other, and heating ourselves up into a glowing passion? We have better thoughts of humanity, and better hopes of its improvement, than to think so. And we exhort those gentlemen who have been exerting themselves to put a stop to all controversy, to employ their undoubted talents in the far more practicable, and far more useful service of making controversy what it ought to be. Let them leave what is impossible, and devote themselves to what is possible and useful. Let them exercise, as occasion offers, the difficult, but certainly not impracticable, and the more honorable because difficult, virtue of controversial charity, and they will be doing a great good. If a viper should come out of the fire which is

warming a whole circle, and fasten on the hand of any individual, let him, as St Paul did, shake the reptile off; and he will be doing a much wiser thing than if he should angrily address himself to put out the fire.*

For ourselves, our course has been long since taken on this subject, and we have not the least intention of forsaking it. We have enlarged and in some respects altered our work, but it was with the design of embracing a greater variety, and a wider field of topics, and not of deserting any general ground which we had hitherto maintained. We shall probably advert less than before to subjects of a merely local and temporary interest, but both friend and foe entirely mistake us, if they suppose that we are to abandon controversy, and give up the strenuous defence of religious truth. We mean to speak on more questions than before, and to speak upon all as openly and decidedly as ever.

ART. IX.-Memoir of Mrs Ann H. Judson, late Missionary to Burmah, including a History of the American Baptist Mission in the Burman Empire. By JAMES D. KNOWLES, Pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Boston. Boston. Lincoln & Edmands. 1829. 12mo. pp. 324.

WE have read this volume with much interest. It exhibits a life of remarkable adventure, exposure, and sufferings, sustained, as we doubt not, by an unwavering trust in God, and by many excellent virtues. Whatever diversity of opinion may be entertained as to the wisdom, or even the propriety of the course, which was at first voluntarily adopted, and afterwards, in part from necessity pursued, no one can read these Memoirs without admiration of the constancy, heroism, and self-sacrifice, which almost without an exception, from her first departure from her native land to the day of her death, Mrs Judson seems to have maintained. Some allowances, undoubtedly, must be made for the unavoidable colorings of biography. The partiality of friendship, and even the mere attempt at description, will give a prominence to incidents and virtues, to which they are not entitled. And sometimes, without any intention to ex

*The motto of the tract by Old Experience, is, There came a viper out of the heat. Notwithstanding his signature, Old Experience, we understand, is not an old man.

aggerate, an action or a quality may be made to appear extraordinary, which to the eye of the actual observer, and viewed in connexion with the passing circumstances of real life, would seem to be entitled to no special regard. Thus it is, that biography, however on the whole true and faithful, becomes a deception. And when death has once put its seal to a character, the sacredness due to the memory of the departed, our love of their virtues, quickened by our sense of their loss, and forgetfulness of their failings, disposes us to give a value to what had never before seemed extraordinary, and to confer praises, which, as long as they were living among us, even friendship itself would have thought extravagant.

We would not be understood to apply these remarks particularly to the subject of these Memoirs, but as just limitations to biography in general. The incidents in the life of Mrs Judson are, without the slightest exaggeration, of the most extraordinary nature, such as the records of few indeed of her sex, and not many of ours, can exhibit. They demanded, and they produced, uncommon qualities. In the most literal and extended meaning of the terms, her history might be recorded in the very words of the most faithful and patient of all christian missionaries. For, for months and even years, she was in journeyings often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst.' Of every one of these dangers, her history, which we have no reason to doubt is authentic, gives some examples; and though it is impossible to say, with what fears and doubts and misgivings, never recorded, and by herself soon forgotten, they may have been attended, yet with all the allowances, that can be made for these, her character must have been marked by extraordinary energy and a most sustaining faith.

We believe the most prominent events of her life, connected as they inseparably are, with the history of foreign missions, have been repeatedly published. And probably the readers of the Missionary Herald, and of similar publications, will not find much in this volume, not already familiar to them. Still, it has the merit of a faithful compilation, and particularly, the merit, which in such works is not to be accounted small, of permitting the subject to speak, that the reader may judge for himself. The most prominent passages of Mrs Judson's history may be briefly recapitulated.

She was a native of Bradford, in this State, the daughter of pious and respectable parents, still living; and was educated in the academy of that town, being a companion and cotemporary there of Mrs Harriet Newell, whose name and early death are justly celebrated in the annals of foreign missions. She is represented as pursuing her studies with success, as an object of affection and esteem with her friends, giving early evidence of that ardor of temperament, decision, and perseverance, which were afterwards so remarkably developed in her life. She is represented as a gay, volatile girl, of a joyous spirit, fond of dress and amusement, and thinking little of religion. She was early taught by her mother, who, however, she tells us, was herself then ignorant of true religion, to abstain from the vices, to which children are liable, and therefore she said her prayers night and morning, and abstained from her usual play on Sundays. All this she afterwards considered as indicative of a very worldly heart; and in her private journal, she presents it in strong contrast, stronger, as we believe, than just views of religion will warrant, with the deep and serious convictions, of which, at about the age of sixteen, at a time of awakening in Bradford, she became the subject. She then discovered the vileness and depravity of her heart, thought she saw new beauties in the way of salvation by Christ, and under these feelings, and with many devout resolutions, became a member of the church in Bradford. The various exercises of her mind from this period are detailed in her journals and letters with evident tenderness and sincerity.

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"The event,' says her biographer, which determined the nature of her future life, was her marriage with Mr Judson.' Her acquaintance with him first commenced at Bradford, when he was attending an association of ministers there, and was soon followed by an engagement of marriage, including the resolution to take part with him in his great missionary enterprise. As events of this class always find a ready interest in the human breast, and as this marriage was attended with peculiar circumstances, we shall extract a letter addressed by Mr Judson to the father of the lady, requesting his consent; and it will be freely admitted, that he was seeking no slight favor.

'After mentioning to Deacon Hasseltine, that he had offered marriage to his daughter, and that she had said something about consent of parents,' Mr Judson proceeds, as remarks the compiler, in this eloquent' strain ;