and Creek Missions, and $42 32, for contingent expenses, a balance of $453 69 is reported in the Treasury. Since the last Report, the board has recognized the Tennessee Conference Auxiliary Society, the Ohio Conference Auxiliary Society, and the Missouri Conference Auxiliary Society, each of which has placed its funds under the direction of the Parent Institution. At the last session of the Genesee Conference, the members formed themselves into an Auxiliary, and appointed a Conference Missionary. The increase of auxiliary and branch societies as far as has come to the knowledge of the board, since the last anniversary, is thirty-six, which, added to those then reported, make the whole number to be fifty-two. While a few of these seem to languish, the most of them are very active, and afford full evidence of a growing interest in the grand cause of truth and righteousness. The information contained in the preceding detail of the operations of this Society, precludes the necessity of adding much more. But we cannot conclude without adverting to one or two circumstances which are calculated to give increased energy and activity to Missionary exertions, particularly among the hea then Tribes. It has been a question among theorists, whether it be practicable to evangelize a barbarous people before they become civilized.. This question has been recently completely put to rest, by the most irresistible of all evidence, that of actual experiment. The conversion of the Wyandotts, and some others of our Indians, is a demonstrative proof of the power of the Gospel to reform the savage heart, even before the light of civilization has enlarged his understanding, and changed his mode of living. And this truth is fully developed and confirmed in the early history of the Church, and the labours of the primitive preachers and evangelists. When they went forth to preach "Jesus and the Resurrection," they did not wait for the slow process of civilization to prepare the way for the introduction of Gospel truth; but they addressed themselves in the name of the Lord immediately to the heart, and poured the light of divine truth into the understanding; and civilization followed as an effect of religious reformation. So our modern Missionaries, following, though at a respectful distance, the footsteps of their venerable predecessors in the Missionary field, have witnessed similar results. The natives have bowed their necks to the yoke of Christ, have felt the transforming power of truth upon their hearts, and the work of civilization has commenced under the influence of religious excitement, which, it is hoped, will eventuate in their complete emancipation from barbarian thraldom. Thus, while Christianity shall reform the heart, science shall enlarge and refine the understanding, and the arts of civilized life, meliorate and adorn their conduct in domestic and civil society. Another remark is, the delightful co-operation of the several Christian sects in spreading the wing of divine mercy over the heathen world. Time will not permit an enlarged notice of a theme so consoling to the heart of the Christian philanthropist. Indeed, the frequency with which it is brought into view seems to supercede the necessity of doing this at present. But while the labours of this Society are religiously consecrated to the service of the Methodist Church as a branch of the great militant Church, the board of managers willingly award the deserved meed of praise to sister branches, however they may differ on some nonessential points of minor consideration. While the integrity and purity of the Gospel are preserved inviolate, and the external order of the Church is kept free from the pomp and splendour of worldly glory, Christian prudence and charity mutually prompt the followers of Jesus, to reciprocal love and to a practical cooperation. Peace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. A concluding remark is, the universality of the character of the Society whose labours are sketched out in this Report. It knows no geographical lines as limits to the field of its operations. It is only limited by its means. It gives no preference to colour, to nation or country; but directs its plans of benevolence to all those tribes of men who are destitute of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and the means of salvation. Its primary intention is expressed in these comprehensive words:-To assist the several annual Conferences to extend their Missionary labours throughout the United States, and elsewhere. This covers every spot of ground unoccupied, whether civil or barbarian, which may come within the sphere of its means to occupy and cultivate. It is to assist in extending their Missionary labours, &c. most distinctly intimating that it is but an extension of the original system of diffusing gospel light by means of an itinerating ministry, so as to include those waste places, which could not otherwise be cultivated. The character, therefore, of the Society is both domestic and foreign. While it looks at home with a compassionate eye on the desolate places of our moral world, it extends its hand of mercy to more distant regions, desirous to afford relief to the forlorn and helpless. In viewing this characteristic of the Society, the board would point to their Spanish neighbours in South-America, who have so recently began to breathe the air of civil liberty. What a wide field is here opened for the full exercise of Christian benevolence and lissionary enterprize. If it be entered with spirit in the name of the Lord, may we not hope for the same success which has followed the labours of God's servants elsewhere?"Before Zerubbabel the mountains shall become a plain, and the beadstone" of the Christian edifice "shall be brought forth with shoutings, crying grace! grace! unto it." While our brethren in the old world are successfully prosecuting their great Missionary plans, by which they are illuminating the East with Gospel light and truth, let the Christians of the New World be no less assiduous to irradiate the dark places of their moral hemisphere with the enlightening beams of the Sun of Truth and Righteousness. Then shall the East call to the West, and North to the South, and hail each other blessed in the Lord. Under these impressions and prospects, the board of Managers once more commit their cause into the hands of that God, whose munificent eye hath watched over their affairs; and likewise commend it to the prayers and liberality of their brethren and friends, relying upon their co-operation to give efficiency and success to their counsels. While they offer a tribute of praise to God for His continued help, they would present their thanks to their brethren for their prompt and effectual aid. To the Auxiliary and Branch Societies they owe much for their zealous activity, for that spirit of liberality which has distinguished their operations. By thus continuing to replenish the funds of the institution, the Superintendants of the Church will be enabled to select and support those men of God, who shall yet explore and cultivate the remotest sections of IMMANUEL'S LAND. DEAR BRETHREN, Obituary. To the Editors of the Methodist Magazine. Our beloved brother BUCK, has gone to a world of spirits, and the following account of his life and death I here present you, to be published in your excellent Miscellany, if you think proper. ELIJAH HEBARD. Jamaica, Long-Island, May 15, 1823. DAVID BUCK was born in New-Jersey, September 12, 1771. When about eighteen years of age he embraced the Lord Jesus by faith, and received a sense of sins forgiven. His name appears first on the Minutes of Conference in the year 1794, when he was stationed on Delaware circuit. In 1795 on Newburgh, and in 1796 he was received into full membership among the travelling ministry, ordained deacon and stationed on Long-Island. In 1797 he was stationed on Reading, and in 1798 he was elected to the office of an elder; but in consequence of the indisposition and absence of Bishop Asbury, he was not ordained until the year following, when he was stationed at Albany. In 1800 in Brooklyn, and 1801 and 1862 Brooklyn and Long-Island; and in 1803 he located through bodily infirmities, and settled on this Island, at Hempstead Harbour, where he resided until the day of his death. Perhaps few local preachers have laboured with greater acceptance and usefulness than brother Buck. For about twenty years he has preached almost every Sabbath in the neighbourhood of his residence and the adjoining places, and yet few preachers could collect a larger congregation of attentive and willing hearers. He was an excellent and powerful preacher. At Quarterly-Meetings and Camp-Meetings, whenever he spoke he was heard with interest and delight. God was with him, and the sacred unction usually attended his word, and hundreds on this Island have cause to bless God that they ever heard him proclaim the sound of salvation. He held the office of circuit steward, and other offices in the church, and his instructions and meet you in Glory. "Yes," said he, with admonitions were received with respect; and perhaps no person could be taken from us whose death would be more deeply and universally lamented on this circuit. The circumstances of his death were as follows: He had been engaged in his domestic concerns through the day, and the weather being warm, he sat in the evening about half an hour with his coat off, and took a violent cold; which ended in a violent fit of the gravel, a complaint with which he had been afflicted for many years. He suffered for about ten days the most excruciating pain; but he suffered with that fortitude, that patience, and that calm and cheerful submission, which characterize the Christian. He asked his companion one day, "Have I been impatient?" To which she replied in the negative. About four days before his departure, sister R. Searing, a neice of his, said to him as he was sitting in a chair, "Uncle David, you feel, I trust, that heaven is your home." "Yes," said he, "Ruth if it were not for that at such a time, I know not what I should do." About three days previous to his death, sister Starkins addressed him in words like these: "Brother Buck, you have long been as a father to us in this place; you have long toiled in the ministry; you have spent your time, your talent, your sweat and your strength in preaching Jesus and him crucified; and I hope it will not all be in vain. I hope to THE CRUCIFIXION. emphasis, "I hope so," and added, “I have felt for some time past as if my work was almost done. I see nothing here worth living for." The last twenty-four hours of his sickness, his pain in a great measure left him; most probably in consequence of a mortification having taken place, and he from the ease he felt, supposed himself to be better; but on Thursday morning about three o'clock, those who attended him, supposing him near his end, called up the family, and his son Valentine, coming to the bedside said, "Papa, do you not think you are about to leave us ?" to which he replied with his usual calmness, "I feel no indications of it at present;" the son said, “Papa, we suppose that mortification has taken place, and that that is the cause of your ease. Do you not think it is possible?" "Yes," replied he, "it is possible;” “and are you ready to go," continued the son: "Yes," replied the father, "I have no wish to stay." And when spoken to afterwards by sister Starkins concerning his departure, he said, "My conscience is pure, there is nothing that I am conscious of that I have cause to fear or dread." These were the last words which he uttered, and about one o'clock, on Friday morning, May 2, 1823, his immortal spirit fled, we have reason to believe, to the regions of the just. He has left a widow and six children, with numerous relatives and friends, to mourn their loss. Poetry. By James Montgomery. We should feel some difficulty in pointing out any sonnet in the English language possessed of so much real power and sublimity.) [Port Folio. I asked the heavens-" What foe to God hath done This unexampled deed?"-The heavens exclaim, "Twas man; and we in horror snatched the sun From such a spectacle of guilt and shame." I asked the sea; the sea in fury boil'd, My wave in panic at his crime recoil'd, That still I groan and shud·ler at the past." Page 218 of the present volume, line nine from top, erase the word common. 231 It is stated in a note by the Editor, that the dividend from the Charter Fund for the present year, has been only $100 to each of the annual Conferences previous to the Baltimore Conference. Subsequent information bas convinced us that the Trustees were correct in their statement, because they had authorized the Conferences to draw $120-but by some mistake the Missouri, Mississippi, and South-Carolina Conferences drew only $100, which circumstance caused the error in the above note, and which we take pleasure in correcting All the Conferences subsequent to Baltimore and also Virginia, have drawn $120. The reader will also notice an error made in numbering the pages-from p. 248 to 257, page 253 ought to be p. 249 and so on in order to p. 256. The reading however is correct. THE Methodist Magazine, FOR AUGUST, 1823. Divinity. A DISCOURSE ON FUTURE PUNISHMENT. (Continued from page 248.) I WOULD close this examination, already made longer than I intended, by a few general reflections. upon the Treatise under consideration. While this scheme of salvation is professedly built upon the gospel, it is remarkable that it has less to do with the scriptures than almost any other production. In general the author makes no more use of the word of God, than if he were writing a book upon geography. Hence it is not to be wondered at, that there should be found a striking coincidence of the sentiments of this book with those we meet with in deistical authors. The doctrines here taught respecting the nature, cause, and effects of sin, are in ⚫trict accordance with those held by Deists. The representation of the commonly received doctrine of atonement, and the objections to it, together with the character given of the Saviour, appear to have been taken from the "Age of Reason;" while the system throughout, and the general character of the reasoning in support of it, are such as would not be likely to offend the most fastidious unbeliever. The natural tendency of this work, and especially the liberty taken with the scriptures in it, is not calculated to edify Christians, nor to make bad people better; but rather to unsettle the mind in divine revelation, and open the flood gates of error and licentiousness. Having thus examined the Treatise upon Atonement, and not finding the salvation of all men established therein, I come, SECONDLY, TO show that the wicked are sentenced to everlasting punishment in the future world. This proposition naturally divides itself, and presents us, 1. With the certainty of future punishment, and 2. With the endless duration of it. VOL. VI. 36 I. The certainty of future punishment. 1. It is said by some, that the wicked receive all their punishment in this life; and it must be acknowledged that a course of disobedience is frequently attended with much pain, and chastised with severe and repeated strokes of God's rod: but this is not always the case and in no instance do they receive the whole of their deserved púnishment here. Nay, what they suffer in this world is not so properly punishment, as a course of discipline intended for their reformation. Some indeed forfeit their lives to the laws of their country, and die by the hand of the public executioner. But what shall we say of those who commit crimes of such a nature, or under such circumstances as to elude censure and punishment in this world, if there is no punishment in the next? While the highwayman robs, perhaps to save himself from jail, and is punished with death for his, crime, a tyrant at the head of an army ravages whole states; he pillages on the right and on the left; he violates the most sacred rights; the most solemn treaties, he knows neither religion nor good faith. Go, follow his footsteps, see countries desolated, plains covered with the bodies of the dead, palaces reduced to ashes, and thousands of miserable inhabitants driven from their homes in despair! Inquire for the author of all these miseries. Will you find him, think you, confined in a dark dungeon, expiring on a wheel or a gallows? Lo! he sits upon a throne, he lives in a royal palace, fares sumptuously every day, is surrounded by a host of sycophants and idolaters who live upon his favour, and minister to his appetites and passions. But what is divine justice doing all this time? It is looking on, and reserves a terrible punishment for this offender in the future state. After death is the judgment, when all his iniquities shall be brought to light, and punished as they deserve. How many have made themselves rich by a traffic in human beings, and by the unrewarded labours and sufferings of the children of Africa! Sunk in the sordid love of gain, and alike deaf to the cries of humanity and the denunciations of justice, they have torn these unfortunate creatures from their country and friends, carried them into foreign lands, sold them like cattle in the market, and thus subjected them to every indignity, privation and hardship, which their merciless masters saw fit to inflict upon them; and all this with the favour or connivance of human laws. But what is divine justice doing all this time? It is looking on, and reserves a terrible retribution for these offenders in the future state. "These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye who forget. God, and imagine there is no future punishment, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. |