family to leave behind him when he is gone. It is a noble bequest. Such parents have lived to a high purpose. Their children, their community, their country, will rise up and call them blessed. They have done the world the greatest favour that can be done by mere man. What is wealth,. what are all provisions for sensual pleasure, what are the prizes of ambition, compared with these? What are bequests of funds for the support of men devoted to benevolent works, compared to a family of devoted labourers, whose faithful service will draw from the field of its action its own support? Such public and wide-spreading good is done in the narrow circle of a well conducted household. However simple and obscure the movements, and wanting in what is visibly imposing or sublime, (and the more so the better,) there is the still and steady working of intellectual and moral machinery, which, like the private laboratory of the chemist, though seldom seen or thought of, supplies a large circle with its remedial and wholesome compounds.

But think of the contrast. What a curse do those parents inflict on society who let loose from their ill-conducted household, as from a nursery of demons, a family of undisciplined, ungovernable creatures, against whose alien and ungenial natures society must keep a guard as long as they live. The scene of this pestilential process may likewise be private, hidden from the public view, and beyond the reach of public remedy; like an infected ship at sea, which is preparing to discharge from its filthy and suffocating bilge a pestilence over all the shore when it arrives. But the signs of the want of family discipline appear in the waywardness of the children, while yet they are young. Given up to idleness, knowing no restraint but such as they are wont to defy; having no domestic exercise for entertainment and profit, and nothing to keep them at home but their bed and board, and dreading their home for their leisure hours as a place of confinement; familiar with drunkenness, profaneness, and all the captivating forms of youthful dissipation; what have the parents or the community to hope from such children, and what in the range of human perpetration have they not to fear? Virtuous children are a crown of glory from the Lord.

J. W. Y.

FAMILY PRAYER.

A person of great quality was pleased to lodge a night in my house. I durst not invite him to my family prayer, and therefore for that time omitted it; thereby making a breach in a good custom, and giving Satan advantage to assault it. Yea, the loosening of such a link might have endangered the scattering of the chain.

Bold bashfulness, which durst offend God whilst it did fear man! Especially considering, that though my guest was never so high, yet, by the laws of hospitality, I was above him, whilst he was under my roof. Hereafter, whosoever cometh within the doors, shall be requested to come within the discipline of my house; if accepting my homely diet, he will not refuse my homely devotion; and sitting at my table will be entreated to kneel down by it.-Fuller's Good Thoughts.

Bistorical and Biographical.

A PRESBYTERIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

MANY treasures of our Church History are irrevocably lost; and many more, now accessible, will be soon covered over by the diluvium of time, unless gathered up without delay.

The Board of Publication, under the superintendence of its assiduous editor, has done excellent service by publishing the old records of the original Synods, and republishing the Minutes of the General Assembly from 1789 to 1820. Individuals, also, especially Drs. Alexander, Hodge, Davidson and Foote, have contributed rare and rich materials for portions of our ecclesiastical history. But a great work is yet to be accomplished in the wide field of historical literature. Biographies of the early fathers, histories of our particular churches, the statistics of our denominational progress, notices of our institutions of learning, a view of Presbyterian literature, including valuable republications, and many other interesting and important topics, appeal for scholarlike research, persevering labour, and systematic antiquarian zeal. Few persons will deny the importance of ing the precious records of our Church history.

preserv

There are three ways of accomplishing the object in view; through the General Assembly, by isolated individual effort, or by an association animated by congenial sympathies and co-operating with a single purpose. We think that little reliance can be placed upon the General Assembly, partly because such a body has other things to attend to and cannot be readily induced to spend time, talent and money for inquiries which have no immediate connexion with missionary objects; and partly because experience has shown that the General Assembly has utterly failed to accomplish any thing valuable in the premises. As early as 1791, the Assembly undertook to gather historical materials, and revived its recommendations to the Presbyteries from year to year, until finally in 1804, a committee consisting of Dr. Green and Mr. Ebenezer Hazard, was appointed "to write the history of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.' This committee reported progress the next year, but in 1813 requested to be discharged; when the whole subject was committed to Dr. Miller. In 1819, Dr. Green was associated with Dr. Miller. No history, however, ever appeared from these venerated men, who were the most competent of all others for the work. Dr. Green indeed published two chapters of a Church history in the Christian Advocate of 1825 and 1830, but these were merely preliminary. After such an experience, there does not appear to be much probability that the Assembly with the multiplicity of its

business, and its committees already burdened with miscellaneous and professional duties, could be prevailed upon to prosecute the matter with the requisite energy and perseverance, if at all.

Shall the reliance be upon the occasional efforts of individuals? So far as our brethren have engaged in historical inquiries, they have been highly successful. Dr. Alexander's Log College, Dr. Hodge's Constitutional History, Dr. Davidson's History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky, Dr. Foote's Histories of North Carolina and Virginia, the contributions of K. H. in "The Presbyterian," and a few other productions have been of the most essential service in this department. But it is obvious that where so much time and not a little expenditure are required, and such unremitting perseverance in systematizing even the records of the present generation, the entire subject cannot, except in a very precarious and imperfect manner, be left to the random efforts of individuals.

The advantages of an Association to perform the work are such as these:

1. An Historical Society will concentrate the efforts of all who take an interest in the subject. The General Assembly, composed of all kinds of minds, and convened for very different objects, lacks the esprit du corps necessary for such inquiries. An association will not only gather together men who are all engaged in a common object, but it will concentrate their labours.

2. It will keep the subject prominently before the public. Many old letters, sermons, pamphlets, &c. now concealed, will be found to possess a public value, and will be delivered over to those whose very organization is a standing advertisement. In various ways a sound state of public sentiment, nurtured by an active association, will contribute to collect historical materials.

3. It will stimulate individual inquiry. Our brethren, who have a taste for such pursuits, will be encouraged to prosecute them under the auspices and influences of a public body, which appreciates, invites and preserves the fruits of their study.

4. An association can raise the necessary means to carry on the work. Some of our brethren cannot even afford to pay the postage on letters, much less incur the expenditure of copying documents, of travelling for the purposes of examination, of printing, &c. &c.

5. It will follow the guidance of experience. Other Historical Societies have been eminently successful in their aims. For example, the New Jersey Historical Society, recently formed, has brought to light documents, incidents, biographical characteristics, statistics, &c. of great interest.

6. It will rally a Church feeling. No denomination has materials in its history for more heart-felt gratitude to God than the Presbyterian Church. The whole tendency of a Presbyterian Historical Society, in its aims, efforts, publications, anniversaries, &c. will be to honour the Church which God has so signally blessed in past times with great and holy influences in Church and State.

7. It will form a library of old books, pamphlets, manuscripts,

&c. illustrating our ecclesiastical history. Such books are becoming more and more scarce. The few that remain ought to be collected together, as well from their intrinsic worth as for convenience of reference.

8. It will secure the co-operation of our Church Judicatories in all practicable modes within the sphere of their influence. Much may be done by Presbyteries and Churches to facilitate the object in view, and to gather many interesting statistics of permanent value.

9. There is an elevating influence attending the investigations of history. Studies of this nature are an important branch of learning. They require and invite scholarship, and in their general tendencies are of service both to those who pursue them and to those who avail themselves of the literary labours of others. An Association for historical purposes is a lyceum, a school of learning, a knowledgereceiving and knowledge-imparting institution.

Considerations of this nature induce us to throw out, in this public manner, the suggestion, whether there ought not to be a PRESBYTERIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

If the suggestion meets with suitable favour, measures will be taken to call a meeting of all those interested in the subject at some convenient place, and at as early a day in the autumn as may be practicable.

NOTICES OF DAVID BRAINERD.

WHEN Brainerd engaged in the Indian mission, he supposed he should have no need of the property left him by his father. He set himself to think which way he might spend it for the glory of God, and no way presenting to his thoughts wherein he could do more good with it than by being at the charge of educating some young person for the ministry, of good abilities and well disposed, he selected a dear friend, Nehemiah Greenman, and acquainted him with his thoughts in that matter, and so left him to consider of it till he should see him again. Greenman was a native of Stratford, Connecticut, and was residing in 1742 at Southbury. Brainerd had seen much of him during his visits to the ministers of those places, and had a special friendship for him. Three days after giving him intimation of his thoughts, he rode in the afternoon to Southbury, and conversed again with him on the important affair. "He appeared much inclined to devote himself to that work, if God should succeed his attempts to qualify himself for it." He was then about nineteen or twenty, and was 66 soon put to learning," and was sustained by Brainerd till his death, when he was in his third year at College. Brainerd wrote to him from Boston, after he had "lain for more than three weeks under the greatest degree of weakness,

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"I

expecting daily and hourly to enter into the eternal world." have a secret thought from some things I have observed, that God may perhaps design you for some singular service in the world. O, then, labour to be prepared and qualified to do much for God."

Greenman graduated at Yale in 1748, and was licensed a few weeks after, by Suffolk Presbytery, on the 20th of October. He was then in feeble health, and after labouring awhile on Long Island, he went into New Jersey. Edwards wrote to McCulloch, of Cambuslang, July 6, 1750, of some little revivings in New England, and something in several parts of New Jersey, particularly through the labours of Mr. Greenman. He was installed at Pittsgrove, in West Jersey, December 5, 1753, and died there in July 1779, having about a year before resigned the charge.

When the Correspondents of the Scottish Society had engaged Brainerd as a missionary, their design was to send him at once to the Forks of Delaware, but the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania insisting on the removal of the Indians, they sent him to the Indians east of the Hudson, near New Lebanon. In May 1743, Horton, the missionary to the Indians on Long Island, went to Smithfield in Monroe county, Pennsylvania, to visit the tribes in the Forks, and ascertain more fully the state of things.

In the spring of 1744, Brainerd crossed the Hudson at Fishkill, and travelled by way of Goshen to the Minisinks; and on the 13th of May arrived at a place called by the Indians Lakhauwotung, within the Forks of Delaware. The word is printed Sakhauwotung in S. E. Dwight's edition of Brainerd's life; but an inspection of the original diary, written in a fair clear hand, shows that the initial letter is an L. Lecha is the German spelling, and Lehigh the common one of the name; the Forks, was the English designation of the tract bounded by the Delaware and Lehigh rivers and the Blue Mountain. At the time of his coming, there were two settlements from the north of Ireland; the one on the Delaware being called Hunter's Settlement, and the one on the Lehigh, Craig's Settlement. These constituted a congregation under the care of New Brunswick Presbytery; what is now Mount Bethel being called on the records Forks North, and what is now Allen-township, Forks West.

Brainerd's home was near where the church of Lower Mount Bethel stands. In July, about two months after he came, he heard of a number of Indians at Kauksesauchung, more than thirty miles westward of where he usually preached. This was the district between Biery's Bridge and Cherryville, which within the memory of the living was commonly called the Indian land. The creek was called Kollesocky, and the village which has grown up around the Crane Iron Works, is called Catasauqua. This, however, was only a temporary home of the Indians, and they invited Brainerd to visit them at their abode on the Susquehanna. "This invitation gave me some encouragement in my great work;" in October, having Byram, of Mendham, New Jersey, for a companion, he started for the Susquehanna. A journey of three days, two of them through a