the omission of friendship as a capital defect in Evanglical ethics, does not seem to have thought very clearly on the subject.

The friendship of the virtuous is both inculcated and exemplified in the Holy Scriptures. Not indeed the isolated and selfish attachment of two individuals; but the more generous attachment which even the Chinese pagan, Mencius, desired to attain,- -a friendship for all virtuous men-first, of his own village, then of his own nation,-next, of the whole world,-and lastly, of all the pious dead, by studying and praising their works.

We incline to think with Soame Jenyns, that the selfish friendship which has been so much extolled by philosophers, pcets and divines, is not very compatible with the genius and spirit of the Gospel. Bishop Porteus is unwilling to go with the elegant defender of Christianity just referred to; and argues, as others had before, that our Savior himself had a peculiar friendship for the beloved disciple John, and for the family of Lazarus. But this was a friendship, says the bishop, the direct opposite of those celebrated instances of pagan friendship, of which we hear so much in ancient story. The characteristics of these commonly were, a haughty and overbearing spirit; a vindictive, implacable, and impetuous temper, regardless of justice, honesty, and humanity in behalf of those partners in iniquity whom they ehose to call their friends. Such wild extravagances as these, as well as those confederacies in vice, which young men, even now, sometimes compliment with the name of friendship, are indeed diametrically opposite to the genius of Christianity. Such friendship is strongly forbidden. The friendship of the world that is of the vicious-is enmity with God. Alas! what can such friends do in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment.

Friendship has a place in the ethics of Confucius; but he takes the term friend, in a loose vague sense, as it is sometimes used in common language now, when Chinese speak of flesh and wine friends;'-the friends of good cheer. He said, “There are three sorts of friends who do one good; three that do harm. The plain-spoken, the sincere-hearted, and the wellinformed, are useful friends; those of pompous, showy exterior, of easy, soft compliance, and of flattering lips, are hurtful friends. He said again, "Have no friend inferior to yourself (i. e. in knowledge or virtue)." On two occasions, he advised that onc friend should not often reiterate his expostulations to another. "If a friend will not listen," says he, "desist; for by perseverance you will create distance, and bring insult on yourself." Tsǎngtsze, another worthy of the Confucian school, examined himself daily, whether he had adhered strictly to truth in all his dealings with his friends. Those who are required to adhere to truth with all men, whether friends or foes, as Christians are, can have little occasion for this special self-examination. But friendship, patriotism, and love, to the degree to which they have been

carried, and are daily carried by the selfish or the mistaken, inasmuch as they withdraw from God and the creatures those affections and services which are due, in order to bestow them, with a lavish hand, on the region, or on the individual that has been set up as an idol, are not only undeserving the name of virtues, but are vices. The "pro patria" often heard in the mouths of some Christians of Europe and America, vitiates even their benevolence; because it is evident, the glory of their own nation is a motive which takes precedence of the glory of God, and the good of men. "It was one great object of the Christian religion to introduce into the world a temper of universal benevolence and goodwill. With that view, its business was not to contract, but to expand, our affections as much as possible; to throw down all the little mean fences and partitions made by seas or rivers, literal mountains or artificial hills, within which the human heart is too apt to intrench itself, and to lay it open to nobler views, to a large and more liberal sphere of action." Voltaire has spoken well on the subject before us. "Friendship," said he, "is a tacit contract between two sensible and vir tuous persons. Sensible, I say, for a monk or a hermit may not be wicked, and yet may live a stranger to friendship. I add, virtuous, for the wicked have only accomplices; the VOluptuous have companions; the designing have associates; the men of business have partners; the politicians have factious bands; idle men have their lounging connections; princes have courtiers, flatterers, favorites, &c., but virtuous men alone have friends." Let the followers of Voltaire listen to this testimony of their apostle, who on his death-bed, though surrounded by "accomplices, companions, associates, courtiers, and flatterers,died friendless," his associates playing at cards, whilst he was in the agonies of death!

In a worldly sense, "every man is (or would be) friend to him that giveth gifts." The rich hath many friends, but the poor man is despised of his neighbor. Wealth maketh many friends.

Flesh and wine friends' are indeed numerous enough, but a friend that loveth at all times, in adversity as well as prosperity, a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, is rare; and is not at any man's option. No man can compel the friendship of others, and therefore to have a friend is a happiness, but a not duty. The most friendly feelings and sentiments are, moreover, often rejected by the other party. Therefore it is no man's duty to have friends, any more than it is to be rich, and prosperous. If a good man have them, he must not idolize them, nor "suffer sin " upon them. Trust not in a friend,-that is, to diminish your trust in God your Savior. Woe to the man who trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm! Yet on the other hand, the Christian must still love his poor brother, his virtuous friend, though in the midst of scorn, destitution, and persecution. The Christ an must lay down his life for his brother, in cases of extremity; and no greater love hath any man than this that a

man lay down his life for his friend. Ye are my friends, saith the blessed Jesus to his disciples. I have not called you servants but friends. Abraham, the father of the faithful, was called the friend of God. The men of an apostate world may deny to the Christian the blessings of their friendship; but since he has the eternal God, the Almighty Savior as a friend, he can well dispense with the boasted boon.

From the whole, then, of this inquiry, as Porteus says with great simplicity, it appears that whoever cultivates the duties described by the gospel, wll be of all others the best qualified for a virtuous friendship. But, what is of far more consequence to the world in general, he will also be the best qualified to live without it. Friendship is a blessing, which, like many others in this world, falls to the lot of few; but to the friendless, it must be no small satisfaction to find, that a connection which they often want the inclination, and oftener still the power, to form, is not enjoined, is not recommended, is not even mentioned, in the gospel, and that they may go to Heaven extremely well without it. A faithful friend is indeed, as the son of Sirach no less justly than elegantly expresses it, the medicine of life; but for those who are deprived of it, Christianity has otheir medicines, and other consolations in store. Our earthly friends may deceive, nay desert us, may be separated from us, may be converted into our bitterest enemies; but our heavenly friend, Jesus Christ will never leave us, no, never, never, forsake us!

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PEACE. Salam, peace be to you,' has for many ages been the Asiatic salutation. The term implies a wish for every good, for what is life without peace? "Where envy and strife are,' where war is, "there is confusion and every evil work." The Chinese Tsing-gan, I wish you repose,' or peace, is not unlike the Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian, Salam.

We shall, as we have opportunity in the progress of our work, plead the cause of peace. War, if justifiable at all under the Christian dispensation, is very rarely so. We are much inclined to go with the Friends, called Quakers, on the subject of peace; and to enlist ourselves as soldiers in the armies of Ameriica and Europe, that fight for peace,-viz., the Peace Societies. We heartily pray, that the reign of Messiah, whose advent was hailed by a multitude of the heavenly host, saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace," and whose name is "the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace," may soon become universal.

IDOLATRY. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any like. ness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.” Exod. 20 : 3−5.

That to us is a god on which we bestow our greatest esteem and warmest affections; that which calls forth the most ardent workings of our minds. Hence covetousness, considering wealth the chief good, is declared to be idolatry. Here is the principle of idolatry without the image.worship. But the imageworship is equally abhorrent to the Divine Being.

President Dwight,-of whose work entitled "Theology explained and defended," we are happy to say, several copies have reached China, and one of them is in the English Factory's Library,has two able discourses on the "falsehood, injustice, and ingratitude; the pride, rebellion, and blasphemy of idolatry, whether internal or external." These we can cordially recommend to the perusal of our readers in China. The learned deists of Europe, and many sceptical Christians, see no harm in idolatry. It is nothing but a little harmless folly; or even a little well intentioned, and they have no doubt, acceptable worship. Whilst they doubt the declaration of Holy Scripture on this subject, they have no doubt of the certainty of their own antiscriptural surmises. The fact is, that deism and scepticism lead men back to the darkness of mere paganism. Lord Shaftesbury's theory, that a regard to rewards or punishments, destroys the nature of virtue, and makes it mean and mercenary, is only the hundredth edition of what proud and atheistical Chinese pagans had published, centuries before: forgetting that his theory supposes the very principle he denies; because, to do good for the sake of an approving conscience, or to avoid remorse, is admitting a present reward and punishment, and, therefore, is just as mercenary, as if the reward or punishment were to come a hundred or a thousand years hence, and to to be awarded by the Judge of all the earth.

The excellent writer, to whom we have alluded above, in a Sermon on the revealed character of the Almighty, as a Father to his people, winds up by showing what a poor, miserable view the philosophy of men, both ancient and modern, has given of the Deity. "Whole classes of philosophers," says he, "existing through several ages and several countries, were either sceptics or atheists. Others taught that God was material; that he was fire mixture of fire and water; a combination of the four elements, &c.-And the efforts of modern philosophers have been equally vain and useless. Hobbes taught that, that which is not matter is nothing; Chubb, that God does not interpose in the affairs of this world at all; Hume, that there are no solid arguments to prove his existence; Bolingbroke, that it is more natural to believe many gods than one. Voltaire, that God is infinite; Toland, that the world is God."

Is it not then true, that the rejection of Christianity is a retrograde march of intellect back to mere paganism? And is it not true also, that the neglect of Christ's salvation, is always accompanied with a complacent regard of that which God hates, the abomination of idolatry? Hear, O Israel, Jehovah, our

Lord, is one God. To what will ye liken me, saith Jehovah ? The graven images of their gods are an abomination to the Lord thy God. "In that day (God grant that it may soon come !) every man shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which their own hands have made unto them for a sin-and the gods which have not made the heavens and the earth, shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens."

BRAHMINS. Have any of the Brahmins become Christians? We often hear this question triumphantly asked by the opposers of missionary efforts in India; and some of the friends of missions seen too anxious to answer in the affirmative, as we believe in truth they can. But, supposing none of the Brahmins have believed, and that only the ignoble, the poor, and the wretched are among the converts to Christianity, what inference could then be drawn by the enemies of missions? None that suggest themselves to us, which would not as effectually have put down Christianity itself, on its first appearance in the world. The pride of those, who "estimate the goodness of a cause by the external eminence of those who are its abettors," long since triumphantly demanded concerning Jesus; "Have any of the rulers or any of the Pharisees believed on him ?—But this people, who knoweth not the law, are cursed." The able Rev. Joseph White, who preached the Bampton Lecture against Mohammedanism, at Oxford, in 1784, thus paraphrases the above quotation.

Who are His followers and associates? They are such as would of themselves bring discredit on any cause, abstractedly, from the consideration of its own merit. Do any of the rulers of the people, any of the great powers of the Sanhedrim, any persons of distinction, either of depth of learning, or dignity of character;-do any such persons acknowledge this Jesus, who lays claim to the name of the Messiah; or attach themselves to him under that exalted and distinguishing character? No. The people who know not the law; who never studied its principles, who have been accursed and excommunicated for want of a due obedience to its institutions, are the only supporters of this novel sect. On their voice, the ignoble founder of it rests his pretensions; and by their patronage only, his presumption is maintained."

For rulers, Pharisees, and accursed people, you have only to substitute mandarins, Brahmins, and Pariah outcasts, and the reasoning now is exactly the same that it was, in the mouths of the enemies of Christ, eighteen hundred years ago. Not many

mighty, not many noble, are called. But, because few or none of the rulers and Pharisees believed, the Apostles were not discouraged, did not stop in their work; nor will the missionaries in India be disheartened, and desist from their labors, should but a few, or none even of the Brahmins be found among the followers of the Lord Jesus.