'Remember, a good Conscience and Sin cannot live together: Let but this bird sing sweetly within, and let Heaven and Earth come together,-thou shalt A most affecting account of his courage, firmness and tenderness of heart, in his last moments, is given. He preached to his fellow convicts the day after his condemnation. He was dragged to the place of execution on a sledge, and compelled to witness the execution of his friend, Cooke, the former solicitor general. Some one insulted him with assisting in the murder of the King. Peters answered mildly, that he did but trample on a dying man,' assuring him, that he had nothing to do in that affair.' The executioner having finished his work, rubbed his hands besmeared with blood, before him, and asked him, how do you like this work, Mr. Peters?' 'I am not, I thank God, terrified at it,' replied the dying hero. You may do your worst. We scarcely remember any thing, that goes more directly to the heart, than his language, deportment and messages on the scaffold. His last words were 'Oh! this is a good day,' and, says the venerable historian, he smiled, when he went away.' Edward Norris, his successor, who had been a clergyman in England, exercised a peaceful and useful ministry, and died universally beloved, and lamented. The history of the ministry of his successor, John Higginson, is identified with that of the colony to its seventieth year. 'He was,' says the author, 'a beautiful specimen of the primitive New England ministers.' He survived to see ninety three years. Cotton Mather's Magnalia is hallowed by a delightful prefatory commendation, written by him at the age of eighty-two. In an honorable and virtuous old age, cheered by the full hope of heaven, his grey hairs were encircled with their appropriate crown of glory. Time and space would fail us, if we were to follow the author in his happy outlines of the character of the reverend and famous' Nicholas Noyes; the promising George Curwen, whose sun set at noon; the talented and energetic Mr. Fisk, whose ministry was turbulent and unhappy; the beloved and lamented John Sparhawk; the acute and refined Thomas Barnard, and the admired Asa Dunbar, who resigned his ministry, after he had exercised it seven years. He was succeeded by the present senior pastor of the church, well known for his attainments in natural philosophy, and for an improvement of the air pump, known as widely, as the em pire of science. The acquaintance of the writer of this article with him, both as a clergyman and a gentleman, has already extended beyond thirty years. The claims of this church, to be considered the earliest protestant establishment of the kind in America, have been admitted on the ground, that it was the first, which became a distinct and fully constructed religious society. The excellent and pious pilgrims at Plymouth, it is true, had maintained Christian worship for years, previous to the organization of this church. But they considered themselves a dependent branch of a society, whose church and pastor were in Leyden.. The author proves by reference to the founders, that the original congregational church platform, as established in 1629, was a form strictly independent. The following was the definition of such a church. 1. In the first place our Fathers defined the matter of a Congregational Church to be a body of men gathered by voluntary association, proposing to form themselves into an organized community for social worship as Christians, and possessing in themselves, previous to a covenant, or profession, or to the assumption in any form of the ecclesiastical estate, all the powers, rights, faculties, and privileges, which are needed to construct and constitute a church of Christ.' A second cotemporary principle grew out of it, and has been asserted by all pure congregational churches from that time to this. It is the independence of the congregational churches of all external jurisdiction. With guarded jealousy did the stern and unbending men of those times watch over this principle. Roger Williams was conspicuous, in asserting this doctrine. He had already become obnoxious to some of the ministers, who liked something, that looked a little more like a hierarchy.— Associations, and consociations, and presbyteries were well understood to contain in them elements of a hierarchy, a bench of bishops, a conclave of cardinals, and finally a pope. Our forefathers were much in the opinion, that worship and religion are invisible concerns between God and the soul; that they need not numbers, nor laws, for their exercise, and that whatever of these great pursuits is not purely voluntary, is worse than mockery. But Roger Williams acted upon the doctrine too early in the day. In a winter of storms, through dark and icy forests they cast him out; and he wandered on in the firmness of an unbroken and free spirit, to a place, which in grateful commemoration of a sustaining Providence, he called by that name. There, as every one knows, now stands the second largest and most flourishing town in New England. We desire, that the reader may know, how this good and persecuted man said, and sang, (for he was a poet too) his gratitude to the Almighty. "As the same sun shines on the wildernesse that doth on a garden, so the same faithfull and all-sufficient God can comfort, feede, and safely guide even through a desolate howling wildernesse," or, as he has expressed the same sentiment in verse, for Roger Williams also was a Pilgrim Poet: Lost many a time, I've had no guide, No house, but hollow tree. In stormy winter night, no Fire, No Food, no Company God makes a path, provides a guide His glorious name, while earth remains He cultivated perfect good will with the Indians, and invariably received kindness in return, which he thus sings. 'How kindly flames of nature burne In wild humanitie. God's Providence is rich to his, Let none distrustful be. In wildernesse, in great distresse These Ravens have fed me,' In the year 1636 the celebrated Sir Henry Vane came from the parent country, governor of Massachusetts, a man of various and extraordinary accomplishments, but at the same time a religious fanatic. The excitement, produced by Mrs. Hutchinson, was at its height. He plunged into it, heart and soul, and would have used the power of his office to deter mine it. But Hugh Peters sharply rebuked him to his face,' and plainly insinuated, that if governors would concern themselves only with the things of Cæsar, the things of God would be more quiet and prosperous. Every reader versed in English history, knows that the death of Sir Henry Vane is deemed one of the sublimest incidents, which it records. The weak king forfeited his word, proved his worthless ingratitude, and allowed him, whom he had called friend, to be sacrificed. A friend requested the dying hero to petition the king to fulfil his promise. No,' said he, if the king does not value his word, more than 1 do my life, let him take it.' He would have spoken to the multitude when on the scaffold. The music drowned his voice. That is a bad cause,' said he, 'which will not bear the words of a dying man.' Abundant attempts were made to introduce creeds, uniformity, and the like. The pilgrims would never submit to any on authority. Nothing would force upon them even a psalm book, which they did not like, unless the party requiring could bring a text of scripture to bear upon it! Second only to the simple and perfect independence of the puritan churches within themselves, was this grand principle, necessarily connected with the first, and growing out of it. "While they take care, according to Apostolic injunction, that all things be done decently and in order, it is their duty not to impose any thing, by way of subscription or declaration of faith, upon those who desire admission to the ordinances, which may not conscientiously be complied with by sincere Christians of all denominations."' These grand axioms, if we may so call them, are the broad and immutable foundation of religious liberty, cousin german to civil liberty, the two necessarily subsisting together in mutual dependence. The author proceeds to unfold the historical evidences of the fact, that this first protestant church in America has invariably adhered to the position, that every church is strictly independent of all others. He proves, that once, if not oftener, it has resisted the interference of the influence VOL. III.-No. 6. 7 of all the churches in New England, in the form of a council. He forcibly delineates the mischiefs, that always have resulted, and from the nature of things, always must result from this sort of rcligious domination. Every church, he thinks, ought to confine itself to the jurisdiction of its own concerns; and he has drawn, in strong relief, the character of those would be cardinals and popes, of which our churches have always had their full share, who, by superior talent, diligence, energy and capacity for jesuitical and court management, have always contrived to take a goodly portion of what the French call petits ministres in tow, whirling them to their direction, as feathers fly round a mill-stone. These are your old lady minister gossips, who go about the country, and manage revivals, and blow them up, if they are too flaccid, and let some of the gas escape, if the steam is too high. These are your men, who gather a disaffection in a parish, and give two or three silly and consciously incompetent quarreller's ghostly counsel, and impart to them the grace of perseverance in the quarrel, and rules to manage it, until it finally becomes a respectable broil, that makes itself felt by minister and people. These are the men, that instruct the disaffected in what point their minister is heretical. These are the men, who sound the tocsin, and raise the war cry, heresy! heresy! The church is in danger. The pillars of the moral world will totter, if these things are not changed. The church history of our country is full of the biography of congregational cardinals and Presbyterian popes. The author regrets the prevalence of this domination, and raises his warning voice to recall the churches to that spirit of contentment with the management of their own interior concerns, which would once more bring peace and concord to the church of Christ. We seldom meet with eloquence more brilliant and impressive, than the closing exhortations, and the affecting recollections of this discourse. We could quote many of the author's figures, which seem to us to evince great vigor of imagination, as the following, illustrating the truth, that rightly conducted disagreement of opinion leads to true concord. 'The clear and simple truth would proceed from the multiform shapes of human opinion, precisely as the serene and translucent light constituting that "circular splendor which we call day," is produced by an endless variety of shades of color, mingling and melting into a compound in which they each disappear.' We should hope but few would read the following passage without being affected. 'Time, in the revolutions of the seasons, will have crumbled the very stones, raised by faithful affection to mark where our dust may repose. The musing and contemplative, as they bend over their worn surfaces, will endeavor, perhaps in vain, to decipher the language which sorrow and love may have written there. Our spirits will have been restored to Him who gave them. Oh, how short and fleeting is the life of man! We look backwards, and the only objects which meet our view, are the crowded tombs of our ancestors! We look forward-and, almost at our feet, we see ours opening to receive us! Beyond, there is nothing disclosed to mortal vision, except those summits of time raised by oc easions like this. We see their lofty peaks, lifted dimly, one after another, along the interminable space, with centuries of untried being lying shrouded in darkness between them.' No one of our readers, who bethinks himself for a moment, of the principles involved, and the recollections evoked in this discourse, will think, we have dwelt too long upon it. The history of the germ of those churches, which have since extended from the sea to the remotest interior forests, cannot be uninteresting. Nor can it fail to instruct us, to recal the venerable shades of the very elite of the puritans, as the author has done, that we may see, what sort of persons, these ancient men, of whom we have heard so much, in reality were. We can say, in simple truth, that we do not remember, when we have perused a historical document at once so instructive and interesting. We assure our readers, that, in our judg. ment, no pamphlet will more amply repay perusal, than the entire, of which this is but a meagre abstract. We close by one remark, which has been most forcibly suggested to us by this document. The bells of the orthodox churches have chimed the tune, The spirit of the pilgrims. Orthodox creeds, they assure us, are in the spirit of the pilgrims. So far from it, every page of the early history of our churches shows, that even Calvinists would not allow the articles of their creed to be drawn out to be subscribed by others. Not a word of Calvinism in the covenant of this first protestant church in America, though it is admitted that the church was originally of Calvinistic fabric. They allowed no one to dictate faith to them, not they. To persecute others was an amusing sport; and it kept their hand in the use of the craft of the age. But when they were themselves invited to put on the yoke, which had been prepared by a creed maker, a cardinal in domestic knit blue stockings, or a doctor in Israel, whatever were his garb, or pretensions, their necks were of brass, and their sinews of steel. Outline of an Essay on the future progress of Ohio. The following smacks of a full, though immature and youthful mind. The writer has said many true things, some important ones, and some things, which he would not have so said, after he shall have disciplined bis brilliant mind with the discrimination and experience of years. We do not think it either wise, or safe, or useful, to predicate any reasonings on the supposition of the failure of our union. These are predictions, talks, and conjectures, which have a manifest tendency to verify their own calculations. The dissolution of our union ought to be an interdicted and ineffable phrase. ED. Whether the state of Ohio be contemplated by the politician in anticipation of her future wealth and grandeur, or by the philanthropist, as the secure home and fruitful birthright of future millions, the prospect is equally gratifying and ennobling. Considered as a member of our national confederacy, her geographical position is most fortunate. Her in |