It will be seen by the above that not only has the very coldest day ever experienced in Philadelphia, PHILADA., Third month 2, 1866. There being a manifest need in the Society of THE CHILDREN'S FRIEND. Its object will be to afford a medium through Liberal in feeling, it will combine the useful with With this object we ask for the hearty co-opera- The paper will not be issued unless a sufficient Size, 7 by 11 inches. Sixteen pages. TERMS, $1.50 per year in advance. All who forward their names prior to the Fifth All letters should be addressed to ESTHER K. SMEDEEY THE RUSSO-AMERICAN TELEGRAPH.-The bill an- JAMAICA. In the House of Commons, on the 13th Madame Dora d'Istria has been admitted in place CONGRESS.-Among other bills and resolutions the 16 was offered and adopted 'calling upon the President perpetuate slavery, have been fed and warmed OOKS FOR SALE:-Journal of Hugh Judge, price... an occount of the salary they have been. allowed; B Journal of John Comly, (600 pages)... 6'0 70 6.00 1.00 75 75 1.16 00 EMMOR COMLY, No. 131 North 7th St., Phils. the oaths they may have taken before entering upon HOUSE.-A bill to continue in force and amend the protection of persons in their civil rights was reported It was re- THE FREEDMEN.-Superintendent Eberhart reports in the usual English branches, having several EMMOR COMLY, 131 N. Seventh St. bined, Russ' Scissor Sharpeners, Spring Scissors for Sewing 310tf. No. 835 (Eight Thirty Five) Market St., below Ninth. 2 ws 13t 5wm wnfnd. Peaches, Apples. Onions, Sweet Potatoes, Round Potatoes, H. RIDGWAY & CO. 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OF FRIENDS. Extracts from Clarkson's "Portraiture of Quakerism"....... 17 18 .. 19 20 MADE TO At Publication Office, No. 131 North Seventh Street, Extract from a Letter............. SECOND DOOR ABOVE CHERRY. TERMS:-PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. The Paper is issued every Seventh-day, at Three Dollars per annum. $2.50 for Clubs; or, four copies for $10. Agents for Clubs will be expected to pay for the entire Club. The Postage on this paper, paid in advance at the office where it is received, in any part of the United States, is 20 cents a year. AGENTS.-Joseph S. Cohu, New York. Henry Haydock, Brooklyn, N. Y. William H. Churchman, Indianapolis, Ind. EXTRACTS FROM CLARKSON'S "PORTRAITURE OF QUAKERISM." (Continued from page 2.) The second objection is, that the Quaker discourses have generally less in them, and are occasionally less connected or more confused than those of others. It must be obvious, when we consider that the Quaker ministers are often persons of but little erudition, and that their principles forbid them to premeditate on these occasions, that we can hardly expect to find the same logical division of the subject, or the same logical provings of given points, as in the sermons of those who spend hours, or even days together, in composing them. With respect to the apparent barrenness, or the little matter sometimes discoverable in their sermons, they would reply, that God has not given to every man a similar or equal gift. To some he has given largely; to others in a less degree. Upon some he has bestowed gifts, that may edify the learned; upon others such as may edify the illiterate. Men are not to limit bis spirit by their own notions of qualifications. Like the wind, it bloweth not only where it listeth, but as it listeth. Thus preaching, which may appear to a scholar as below the ordinary standard, may be more edifying to the simplehearted than a discourse better delivered, or more eruditely expressed. Thus again, preaching, which may be made up of high-sounding words, and of a mechanical manner and an affected Put your Children to Bed- OBITUARIES· · · · · · · · · Friends' Social Lyceum·· Gibbons' Review of "A Declaration," &c.- Care of the Chronic Insane in Penna. Hospital for Insane-... 28 29 tone, and which may, on these accounts, please the man of learning and taste, may be looked upon as dross by a man of moderate abilities or acquirements. And thus it has happened, that many have left the orators of the world and joined the Quaker Society, on account of the barrenness of the discourses which they have heard among them. With respect to Quaker sermons being sometimes less connected or more confused than those of others, they would admit that this might apparently happen; and they would explain it in the following manner. Their ministers, they would say, when they sit among the congregation, are often given to feel and discern the spiritual states of individuals then present, and sometimes to believe it necessary to describe such states, and to add such advice as these may seem to require. Now these states being frequently different from each other, the description of them, in consequence of an abrupt transition from one to the other, may sometimes occasion an apparent inconsistency in their discourses on such occasions. The Quakers, however, consider all such discourses, or those in which states are described, as among the most efficacious and useful of those delivered. But whatever may be the merits of the Quaker sermons, there are circumstances worthy of notice with respect to the Quaker preachers. In the first place, they always deliver their discourses with great seriousness. They are also singularly bold and honest, when they feel it | formity and obedience thereunto. And seeing to be their duty, in the censure of the vices of they may certainly know this, they may also as individuals, whatever may be the riches they certainly know that the spirit of Christ dwelleth enjoy. They are reported also, from unques- in them; for God is love, and he that dwelltionable authority, to have extraordinary skilleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.' in discerning the internal condition of those who attend their ministry, so that many, feeling the advice to be addressed to themselves, have resolved upon their amendment in the several cases to which their preaching seemed to have been applied. As I am speaking of the subject of ministers, I will answer one or two questions, which I have often heard asked concerning it. The first of these is, do the Quakers believe that their ministers are uniformly moved, when they preach, by the Spirit of God? I answer the Quakers believe they may be so moved, and that they ought to be so moved. They believe also that they are often so moved. But they believe again, that except their ministers are peculiarly cautious, and keep particularly on their watch, they may mistake their own imaginations for the agency of this spirit. And upon this latter belief it is, in part, that the office of elders is founded, as before described. The second is, as there are no defined boundaries between the reason of man and the revelation of God, how do the Quakers know that they are favored at any particular time, either when they preach or when they do not preach, with the visitation of this spirit, or that it is, at any particular time, resident within them? Richard Claridge, a learned and pious clergyman of the Church of England in the last century, but who gave up his benefices, and joined the society of the Quakers, has said a few words in his Tractatus Hierographicus, upon this subject, a part of which I shall transcribe as an answer to this latter question. And if we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.' In the same manner he goes on to enumerate many other marks from text of Scripture, by which he conceives this question may be determined." I shall conclude this chapter on the subject of the Quaker preaching, by an extract from Francis Lambert of Avignon, whose book was published in the year 1516, long before the Society of the Quakers took its rise in the world. "Beware," says he, "that thou determine not precisely to speak what before thou hast meditated, what soever it be; for though it be lawful to determine the text which thou art to expound, yet not at all the interpretation; lest, if thou doest so, thou takest from the Holy Spirit that which is his, namely, to direct thy speech that thou mayest preach in the name of the Lord, void of all learning, meditation, and experience; and as if thou hadst studied nothing at all, committing thy heart, thy tongue, and thyself, wholly unto his spirit; and trusting nothing to thy former studying or meditation, but saying to thyself in great confidence of the divine promise, the Lord will give a word with much power unto those that preach the Gospel." (To be continued.) THE TRUE CHRISTIAN LIFE. Little words, not eloquent speeches or sermons; little deeds, not miracles nor battles, nor one great act or mighty martyrdom, make up the true Christian life. The little constant sunbeam, not the lightning; the waters of Siloah, "that go softly" in their meek mission of refreshment, not "the waters of the river "Men," says he, "may certainly know, that great and mighty," rushing down in torrent they do believe on the Son of God, with that noise and force, are the true symbols of a holy faith that is unfeigned, and by which the heart life. The avoidance of little evils, little sins, litis purified for this faith is evidential and as- tle inconsistencies, little weaknesses, little follies, suring, and consequently the knowledge of it little indiscretions and imprudences, little inis certain. Now they, who certainly know that dulgences of self and of the flesh, little acts of they have this knowledge, may be certain also indolence or indecision, or slovenliness or cowof the spirit of Christ dwelling in them; for ardice, little equivocations or aberrations from 'he that believeth on the Son of God, hath high integrity, little touches of shabbiness or the witness in himself;' and this witness is the meanness, little bits of covetousness and penspirit; for it is the spirit that beareth wit-uriousness, little exhibitions of worldliness and nes,' of whose testimony they may be as certain, as of that faith the spirit beareth witness to." Again-" They may certainly know that they love the Lord above all, and their neighbor as themselves. For the command implies not only a possibility of knowing it in general, but also of such a knowledge as respects their own immediate concernment therein, and personal benefit arising from a sense of their con gaiety, little indifferences to the feelings or wishes of others, little outbreaks of temper and crossness or selfishness or vanity; the avoidance of such little things as these goes far to make up at least the negative beauty of a holy life. And then, attention to the little duties of the day and hour, in public transactions, or private dealings, or family arrangements; to the little words and tones; little benevolences, or forbearances, or tendernesses; little self-de E nials, self restraints, and self-forgetfulness; this doctrine, whether the Spirit proceeds little plans of quiet kindness and thoughtful directly and solely from God, or from God consideration for others; punctuality and through Christ. The Greek church taught, method, and true aim, in the ordering of each day-these are the active developments of a holy life, the rich and divine mosaics of which it is composed. What makes yon green hill so beautiful? Not the outstanding peak or stately elm, but the bright sward which clothes its slopes, composed of innumerable blades of grass. It is of small things that a great life is made up; and he who will acknowledge no life as great save that which is built up of great things, will find little in Bible characters to admire. -Bonar. From "Reason in Religion." THE REVELATION OF THE SPIRIT. BY FREDERIC HENRY HEDGE. and still teaches, that the Spirit is wholly and only from the Father. The Latin or RomanCatholic Church maintained, and still maintains, that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. And the Latin church is right: the interior meaning of that doctrine is that the spiritual creation, like the material, is based on intelligence. There can be no holiness without insight. The Holy Spirit is that particular agency of God, direct or indirect, which concerns itself with the moral and religious education of mankind. It is God acting in this particlar way as distinguished from God in nature. Self-manifestation-the revelation of himself in rational minds-must be supposed to be the The New Testament speaks of "the Spirit" end of all God's doing. The visible universe is very much as the Old Testament speaks of one revelation,-intelligible only when viewed Jehovah or "the Lord." When the Old Testa- as such. "Day unto day uttereth speech, and ment says, "The Lord spoke," or "The word night unto night showeth knowledge." Nature of the Lord came," to this or that prophet, the reflects to intelligent minds the divine wisdom New Testament substitutes Spirit,-"Jesus was and love. But nature could never convey the led by the Spirit into the wilderness," "The most distant idea of moral good. The truth Spirit said to Philip," "The Spirit said to which we attempt to express, when we say that Peter," &c., &c. The same thing is meant in God is just, that God is holy; the fact of a both cases, but the different phraseology makes moral law, duty, conscience, accountableness,a difference between the two dispensations. The these have no prototype or symbol in nature. same fact, the same power, is differently con- This is something of which nature is unconceived. In one case it is formal, concrete,-anscious. The animal world exhibits something of individual. In the other it is liberal, diffusive, instinctive love, something of blind attachment, -an influence. When the Jew thought of his Jehovah, it was somewhat as the Gentile thought of his Jove. He thought of him as a powerful individual, as a wise and strong man. When the evangelists thought of the Spirit, they thought of it as a breath, a vision, a whisper in the heart; a subtile influence informing the mind, inspiring the will, directing the life. but nothing like justice, holiness. This is "the way which no fowl knoweth," which "the vulture's eye hath not seen," and which" the lion's whelps have not trodden." "The abyss saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not with me." We should know God only as mighty, wise, and beneficent, never as holy and just, were there not another creation and revelation co-parallel with the material,-the moral creation, the revelation of the Spirit, in which God is revealed as moral law, and as moral and Spiritual good. The personification of the Spirit in the New Testament is merely rhetorical; but the church, not satisfied with a figure of speech, converted the rhetoric into dogma. They constituted the Spirit a distinct person in the Godhead. No The element and medium of this moral creaharm in this, if by "person" is meant nothing tion is the moral nature which always accommore than a manifestation. But with many panies conscious intelligence, here and wherthe idea of persons hardens into that of inde-ever conscious intelligence is found. Its ma pendent individuality. The Spirit is conceived terials are rational souls. Of these "living as a being, distinct from the Father, instead of a character of or in God the Father. This was not the intent of the doctrine, as defined by the councils of the Church. It conflicts with the accompanying doctrine of the "procession," as it is called," of the Holy Ghost." The Spirit is said to proceed from God. And this procession was not once for all, but still continues. It is not a past transaction, a fact accomplished, but a present and constant process. The language is not "proceeded," but "proceeds." The question arose in the ages which developed stones," the divine Architect, the Holy Spirit, compiles the Spiritual fabric which all good men are helping to build, and whose completion will be the consummation and the crown of time. The Christian Church, in the vision of the apostles, was identified with that fabric," Christ himself being the chief corner-stone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." The Christian Church in their theory is not only the product, but the earthly representative and embodiment of the Holy Spirit. At once, both |