printed an interesting tract on the mythic genealogies of the west Saxon kings. A society has been formed in Bonn, under the direction of A. W. Von Schlegel, to erect a monument to the memory of BeethoA printer at Blandenberg has produced a Bible printed from iron stereotype plates A general German biography has been com

ven

menced at Jena. It is to consist of twelve volumes.

The London Quarterly Review says of professor Tschirner's Fall of Heathenism, (Der Fall des Heidenthums), that there is no work, in which the genius of the conflicting systems, paganism and Christianity, is portrayed with a happier union of calm philosophy and zeal for the true religion. The first volume, and that apparently not having the last revisal from his hand, is all that has been published. Tschirner was a pupil of Schröck the German ecclesiastical historian, and the continuator of his great work. He has explained with great judgment and comprehensive knowledge of the philosophic writings of the period, the reaction of Christianity upon heathenism itself — in other words, the gradual refinement of paganism from an incoherent and multifarious polytheism, into a kind of theism, with an infinitely numerous, yet subordinate daemonology. M. Beugnot, a French writer, has published a prize essay on the same subject, taking up the history where it was left by Tschirner. Without the depth and comprehensiveness of the German, M. Beugnot has executed his task with very creditable judgment and learning.

ITALY.

Count Luigi Serristori of Florence is now publishing a statistical work on Italy, in numbers. The first and second, comprehend the Sardinian dominions and the island of Corsica, and the third and fourth, embrace the duchies of Parma and Lucca, Monaco, San Marino, and the kingdom of the two Sicilies. The other Italian States will follow.

RUSSIA.

During the last few months, five printing offices, a lithographic printing office, and five booksellers' shops have been established in Moscow.

In 1834, the returns to the synod give the births and deaths of members of the Greek church as follows:

Excess of births, 615,680. The rapid increase of the population must in a few years raise the number of inhabitants to 70,000,000.

There are fourteen military schools in Russia, including 4767 cadets. Three marine schools have 924 cadets. The army is 803,000 strong. The navy embraces fifty-four ships of the line, thirty-five frigates, and 1097 gun-boats, row-boats, etc.

The Wesleyan missionary society are attempting to effect the translation of the Bible, for the benefit of the Foulahs, and the surrounding tribes. In that part of the country watered by the Senegal and Gambia, and called by the French geographers Senegambia, are the Foulahs, Mandingoes, and Jalloofs. It is proposed to translate the Scriptures into the Foulah or Mandingo language, or into both. The Foulabs seem to have a different origin from the other negroes of Western Africa, and their language is, perhaps, radically different from that either of the Mandingo or Jalloof.

Mr. Wilson, American missionary at Cape Palmas, remarks, that the people of that settlement cannot go more than twenty miles in any direction, without meeting a language that they cannot understand. Within thirty-five miles of that place, along the winding beach, are three distinct dialects.

The gospels are printed in the Namaqua language. Luke and various catechisms and hymn-books are printed in Sichuan. Rev. J. Brownlie and the chief Tzatzoe are translating the Scriptures into the Caffre. The whole Bible in this tongue will be soon printed.

AUSTRALASIA.

The missionaries of the church missionary society among the natives in New South Wales are paying constant attention to the collecting of words, and analyzing them, forming a vocabulary, and arranging matter for a grammar. Various portions of the Scriptures are in the process of translation.

The population of the islands included under the name of New Zealand, is about 180,000; of which number nearly 45,000 have more or less of intercourse with the missionaries; 300 have been baptized into the christian faith. There are about 800 adults who have been taught to read. The New Testament has been translated into the New Zealand language directly from the Greek.

THE

AMERICAN

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY.

NO. XXVI.

APRIL, 1837.

ARTICLE I.

THE POWER OF SPIRITUAL JOY.

By the Rev. Thomas H. Skinner, D. D., New York.

EXPOUNDING the rule of duty to those who have violated it, tends in the first instance if they have ingenuous minds, to exercise them with sorrow, but that sorrow ends in joy. The children of the captivity, who by warrant from the king of Persia, returned to the land of their fathers, had for a long time been destitute of spiritual instruction, and almost as a matter of course had fallen into spiritual insensibility and unconcern. But they were somehow led to gather themselves together as one man to hear the word of God;* and Ezra the scribe, with certain Levites, his assistants, read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused the people to understand the reading. The effect was an illustrious instance of the heart-melting power of divine truth a deep sense of sin in the entire assembly. All the people wept, when they heard the words of the law. An unusual spectacle in this hardhearted world! An immense concourse of men all in tears before God on account of their sins! Well might the ministers of religion hasten to fulfil the commission, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. It is needful that sinful men should * Nehemiah 8: 1. 33

VOL. IX. No. 26.

sorrow, but there is nothing desirable in sorrow on its own account, and God works it in his chosen, only that by means of it, he may open a fit channel into their breasts for the consolations of his Spirit to flow in. Hence Nehemiah the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest, the scribe, and the teaching Levites, dismissed that great assembly of mourners with these gracious words: This day is holy to the Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep: go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy unto our Lord; neither be ye sorry, FOR THE JOY OF THE LORD IS YOUR STRENGTH.

As is the sorrow of a penitent heart, such is the nature of the joy to which it leads. Both are the fruit of the Holy Spirit. There are joys of a different kind. There is a natural joy which one feels after escaping out of great danger, or being unexpectedly blessed with worldly good. There is also a religious joy which springs from mistaken impressions. These are not the joy of the Lord; they are but for a moment; they pass away, and leave the heart void, desolate and despairing. The joy of the Lord, the same which fills the eternal mind, is the only joy that meets the desires and exigencies of any rational being. To all rational minds, of God, angels and men, there is but one true happiness. Angels are not happy, and men are not happy, unless they share the happiness of Him who is over all, blessed forever. With Him is the fountain of life; —not a rill, not a drop of bliss in the universe, which that fountain does not yield. They who go elsewhere for happiness, wander into boundless deserts, where all is drought, and burning winds, and vast desolation. What is the exhilaration of the animal spirits, what mere intellectual delight, what the pleasures of sin, the utmost indulgence of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, to that immortal spirit in man which bears the image, and pants for the blessedness of God. How can a man be called happy, when almost every thing belonging to him that raises him above the brute, is either wholly portionless, or is tantalized with what is no more suited to its nature, than shadows or dreams to sustain the bodily life.

And now what is this joy of the Lord? It is joy arising from the same causes, terminating on the same objects, and yielding the same results as that which the infinite Being himself possesses, without measure. Its spring is holiness; its objects are the divine perfections and works; its results are the various

forms of true beneficence and kindness. It is the joy of holy love; of complacency in God and goodness, and of benevolence to his creatures. It is delight, sensible and satisfying delight, such as forms the boundless and fathomless ocean of heavenly beatitude. As existing in sinners of mankind, its precursor ordinarily, as has been intimated, is holy sorrow; and its medium is a living union with Christ, by faith. It is, as shared by them, the purchase of the Saviour's precious blood, and the fruit of the renewing influence of the Spirit of God.

Our object, however, at present is not so much to describe this feeling, as to show the power of it, as a practical principle. The joy of the Lord is OUR STREngth. It is the spring of our greatest efficiency for good; the great mover and inciter of the soul to holy action and achievement; the sustainer also of our energies in accomplishing our benevolent undertakings; what, above all things keeps the mind going cheerfully forward in its spiritual efforts and adventures, and bears it on without fainting or weariness to a successful issue of its struggles and conflicts. We propose to offer a few remarks in illustration of this senti

ment.

Joy is the achiever of almost every good or noble thing which is done under the sun. There is nothing like it to make the spirit of man erect, resolute, persevering, patient and indefatigable. Almost universally, where there is great labor, at least, available labor, there is also great mental delight. The exceptions do but confirm the general principle. Men may be impelled to labor by ambition, by necessity, by fear, by avarice; but unless their labor becomes itself delight, what great thing, or noble thing, or what thing worthy of their pains, do they ordinarily accomplish? Consult the sons of the muses, the toilers at deep investigation and exact analysis, the makers of those books, the best products of human labor, that come forth into the community like living luminaries to pour the light and heat of mind through ages to come: Consult all successful artists, jurists, statesmen, merchants and agriculturists; and you will find, that these several classes of laborers are held to their respective sorts of work, mainly by the chord of sensible delight or pleasurable interest in the object of attention. Who would anticipate brilliant success from any course of exertion in which the man went forward under some other impulse than that of lively interest in his work? Where there is no delight, the heart will not be found, and what can a man do in one sphere, when his