"LEANDER VAN Ess, to whom the attention of the christian pub- From that time he felt an ardent lick has of late been so much di-desire to promote a more general rected, is a native of Germany, of Roman Catholick parents, about fifty years of age, and a man greatly distinguished by his natural genius, the extent of his acquired knowledge, the solidity of his erudition, his genuine piety, and his enlarged benevolence.

In early youth he manifested an ardent desire for learning, and Assisted by a learned relative, was sent by his parents to a Bene-he published the first edition of dictine monastery, in which he his New Testament about fifteen spent several years, indeed, till it years ago; which was so ably exwas suppressed during the late po- ecuted and so favourably received, litical changes and revolutions on that it soon obtained the sanction the continent. Though naturally of several episcopal authorities. of a very lively temper, he prac- After his version had undergone tised at one time all the austeri- various corrections and careful reties of the monastick order; and visions, to render it still more even went so far as to wear a gir- conformable to the Greek original, dle round his loins studded in- it was recommended to the atten

tion of the Committee of the Brit- || fond of retirement; laborious and ish and Foreign Bible Society, by indefatigable; eloquent in the several of the most distinguished pulpit, nervous and fluent in his Protestants as well as Catholick style; a complete master of his divines of Germany, and they felt own language, he writes and happy to assist this noble cham-speaks the Latin, is an excellent pion of scriptural truth in its cir- Greek and Hebrew scholar, and, culation. It is a delightful con- in fine, is possessed of very genesideration, that by the combined ral information. exertions of British and Continen- his learning, and his christian phiHis talents, tal christians, he has been ena- lanthropy have rendered him justbled, in the short space of fifteen ly celebrated on the Continent. years, to circulate upwards of During the late war, an epidemic 523,000 copies of the New Testa- disease broke out among the solment, besides more than 10,000 diers. Bibles in different languages Though he has experienced much opposition on the part of the bigot-came infected; scarcely any one ted adherents to the court of Rome, yet there are hundreds of his Catholick brethren in Germany who have most effectually aided him in carrying on this blessed work.

together in the Castle of Marburg. About 600 were crowded The contagion spread; many be

would venture near the sick and dying, when Leander Van Ess, at the risk of his own life, went amongst them, administered medicines, food, and christian instrucstrument of rescuing many from tion, and became the happy intemporal and eternal destruction."

which has been received in the From the latest intelligence United States, it appears, that this pious, and eminently liberal

high gratification of being joined and he had the by an able fellow labourer of his own denomination.

The good already accomplished by the dissemination of the seed of divine truth is incalculable. Infidels have been reclaimed, profane and profligate persons have been reformed, mere formalists have been convinced of their hypoc-minded man, was not weary in risy, and led to embrace, by a living well doing. He was distributing faith, a crucified Redeemer; sin- the oracles of truth with zeal cere believers have been edified and success; and built up in their most holy faith, mourners have been comforted,the weary and heavy laden refreshed, the feeble strengthened, -the wavering confirmed-and all have been encouraged to evince the genuine nature of their christian faith by a holy and consistent life. Some striking facts of the blessings thus produced are related in a late publication of Leander Van Ess, which contains particulars of a most interesting and affecting nature. He is now engaged in the translation of the Old Testament, the first part of which has already left the press. His private character is exemplary. He is modest, yet full of holy courage; cheerful, yet dignified in his deportment; active, yet

American Bible Society, his name In the tenth Report of the and services are mentioned in the following terms of kindness and respect.

He

the Managers have so often men-
Dr. Leander Van Ess, whom
tioned with applause, has been
greatly favoured in his disinter-
ested and difficult labours.
has now distributed upwards of
five hundred and fifty thousand
copies of the sacred volume.
And another professor in the Ro-
fluenced
man Catholick communion, in-
has prepared a
by his pious zeal,
New Testament, which is spok-
version of the

en of in terms of approbation." We regret to learn, however, from a published letter of the Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, that disease had partially, at least, withdrawn him from his labours. Among other interesting facts it is stated, that "Leander Van Ess is also continuing his labours with every encouragement, but he appears to be somewhat alarmingly ill. We feel

disposed to pray that he may be spared to us yet a little while. We seem as if we could scarcely bear to lose him at present; however, God is all-sufficient. He mentions that his two assistants appear fully competent to carry on the work. His communications breathe a truly good spirit"he seems as one who is living unto Him who gave himself for us, and to him to die will be gain.”

RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

ON WHAT TOPICS CHRIST SHOULLA to hear.
BE HEARD.

66

Many philosophers had been heard discoursing variously upon human fallibility and corrupGOD has done much to have his tion which they could see, but which own beloved Son duly accredited. they could not cure. If we listen When he brought him into the to them on the topics most mateworld he demanded for him the ad-rial to our happiness, both presoration of angels, and a multitude of the heavenly host proclaimed with songs the happy event. Whilst he lay in the slumbers of infancy at Bethlehem, an eastern star turned its lustre towards the honoured spot, and seemed to acknowledge the incarnate Maker. At his baptism, the heavens were opened to make way for the descending attestation of the Holy Ghost.

Now in the context, two of the illustrious dead. Moses and Elias, appear conversing with him on the bloody exodus which he was soon to accomplish at Jerusalem. From the scene of glory which covered his transfiguration, a voice is heard: "This is my beloved Son, hear him.”

Many prophets and wise men had been heard prior to Christ. They had spoken as the Holy Ghost directed, and being impelled by a divine movement, had thus given forth the oracles of God. They claim attention in proportion only as they give heed to him whom we are now required

ent and future, we shall perceive
that they only led to bewilder,
and dazzled to blind" what they
obscurely imagined Christ has
placed before us in the full splen-
dour of demonstration. What
they thought probable, he has
made certain.
Where they grop-
ed in darkness, he has shed a
light which eclipses theirs, as the
sun eclipses the dim taper. He,
therefore, may be heard,

1. In confirmation of the anticipations of reason and nature in reference to our immortality. The total and ultimate extinction of the mental ray, is an apprehension which nature disallows. Through all her works she gives signs of a deathless being, and supplies many intimations of the state which must succeed the present. That no atom of a material substance, however small, can be annihilated by any effort of man, is a fact which creates a decided presumption, that no principle of an intellectual substance, however small, can be destroyed. For if the Creator has so guarded

the sensible elements as to render | when we turn from her ambiguous

the minutest portion of them proof against destruction, much more will he protect that etherial element which has flowed from his own inspiration.

In the amplitude of the soul, there is a further anticipation of the same thing. In desire, it is even broader than the earth, and of dimensions larger than the sea. When these are taken in, its immense capacity is not filled. Still there reigns a feverish discontent which constitutes at once its wretchedness and glory. It denies the competency of earth to satisfy its anxious cravings, and, therefore, reaches after immortality.

oracles, and listen to God's beloved Son, we shall find these momentous conjectures reduced to certainty. His religion verifies what reason only dreamed of, and brings forward in a form so simple and intelligible that a child might grasp it, a proposition, under the uncertainty of which, forty ages had groaned. He has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light, and hence submits the question, "What shall it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Fear not them who kill the body, and have no more that they can do, but fear him. who, after Without a deathless being, we ehe he hath killed, hath power to cast should furnish no proof of wisdom into hell." Immortality is assumin our formation. It is a contra-ed by the Saviour as essential to diction to the customary economy the being of man, and as insepaof divine power to suppose, that rably connected with the adminiswe are animated by a heavenly tration of divine providence, for spark, only to have that spark ex- surely it cannot be this animal life, tinguished forever after a few the little breath which moves these years; that this goodly structure lungs in respiration, that he puts should be erected with so much in competition with the whole care and skill, only to be hurled world. It is the deathless nature into irrevocable dissolution after a of the soul which gives it such a short course of action. The great value. This cannot die. Though it architect has made nothing in should covet death with intense devain; his single movements ex-sire, it cannot die. Live it must, tend their effects to an endless succession, and leave on all the conditions of existence a tendency towards ultimity. The life that now is, furnishes no documents evincive of an ultimate being. Here all is preparation, trial, and subordination. Nothing is final, 2. Reason too, cherishes some nothing has attained the extreme expectation of the retributions gradation; and, therefore, the which await an imperishable being. mind reasonably anticipates a She infers an operative governhereafter, and stretches its con-ment, from the penal consequenceptions towards eternity to find that grand consummation of moral entity, in which every thing shall assume a finished and changeless

character.

Such are the thoughts which reason gathers as they lie in the dark mazes of speculation. But

though excruciated with ten thousand nameless agonies, or plunged into the depths of unmitigated despair. Live it must, because God so ordains, though annihilation be gain compared with such a being.

ces of a dissolute morality in this life. For when the experience of all ages asserts that one course of life leads to a miserable result, and that another leads to happiness and honour, what is it, but the voice of nature proclaiming the genius of that moral legisla

tion to which an immutable Godtwixt the evil and the good, and has subjected his intelligent crea- shall operate after the resurrecture s. He has incorporated into tion. From the same authority the whole body of nature, a code we learn, that those who shall be of laws more certain in their found liable to the censures of effects, and more absolute in their divine justice, shall go away into sanctions, than any human ordi- everlasting punishment, but the nations, however perfect. The righteous into life eternal. executive power of his govern- The same disproportion betwixt ment is not confided to any inter- the sin and punishment which mediate agents, but executes its we see in nature, may also be own provisions by an inherent ca- seen in the institutes of the Sapacity. Hence, it needs not the viour. The felicity of the good, vigilance nor the arm of the mag- and the sufferings of the wicked, istrate to give it force and terror, shall equally sustain an eternal but acting with a sort of sponta- duration, because the awards of neous energy, it arrests and pun- the eternal Judge shall be irreishes with certain vengeance every||versible. For if in nature he has transgressor. This is not a doubt fixed a measure of punishment ful matter; the whole history of which exceeds the apparent ofhuman guilt proves it. We read fence, without any impeachment it in the ruined health and wasted of his administration; why may fortune of every votary of licen- not the same principle regulate tious indulgence. Nor do the pu- the penal inflictions of his moral nitive measures of nature always government? It gives no man appear commensurate with the pleasure, much less the christian, crime. Her displeasure, in many to believe in the eternity of future instances, pursues the innocent torments. No christian adopts posterity of the offender, and over-this as a part of his creed from takes them in distant generations. mere pleasure. It is the evidence Thus the revealed law which of the fact that forbids the contraannounces a visitation of the fath-ry sentiment. The fancy of a er's sin upon the children, is only universal restitution would be the law of nature expressed in most grateful to the charity of words. The certainty and promp- every believer, if it were any titude with which she resents the thing else than a fancy. It would violation of her laws in this life, be an immense conception, superinduces the apprehension of a re- seding all the efforts of moral and tributive resentment beyond the religious inculcation, were it not grave. But as based upon a fallacy. things now stand, it is something too good to be true, that is, too congenial with our corrupt inclinations.

ex

This subject, so faintly held in the creed of reason, is placed beyond all question by the doctrines of Jesus. In John v. 28, 29, his words are full and plicit in confirmation of this point. For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation." The judgment to which he here refers, shall carefully discriminate be

3. The spirituality of his religion is another subject on which we should hear the Saviour. To urge the worship of God in spirit and in truth, must have subjected him to the charge of bold innovation. The homage paid to the Deity had been associated with corporeal display, and was therefore hardly distinguishable from the material symbols with