CHEROKEE MISSION.

RECENT accounts from the missionaries at Brainerd give reason to believe, tha:] the work of the Lord is advancing among the Cherokees. The school at Talony consisted of 25 children in May; that near Fort Armstrong of about 20 early in June; and at Creek-path, a very promising school was formed, and a number of adults had become quite serious. Mr. Butrick hoped there were some real converts, among whom were the father and a sister of Catharine Brown. Catharine herself had undertaken to teach a school of female children, which immediately contained twenty.

Among the interesting things, which have recently taken place, in reference to this mission, is the arrival in New England of David Brown, a younger brother of Catharine, with a view to obtain a thorough education at the Foreign Mission School. He spent some time at Providence, Boston, Salem, and other places, before he went to Cornwall. The amiable manners, good sense, apparent piety and conscientiousness of this youth were such as to commend him powerfully to Christians, with whom he became acquainted, and to raise high hopes of his future usefulness among his own people. He was present at the monthly concert in Parkstreet Church on the first Monday of July, and added not a little to the interest of the occasion.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, RELATIVE TO RELIGION AND MISSIONS.

A LETTER, inclosing a donation of $12, dated July 4th, contains the following

sentences:

"I wish this to be considered as my first annual contribution towards the sup port of a heathen child, at one of the charity boarding schools, under the care of your missionaries in Ceylon. Should it please a kind Providence, to whom I owe all that I am and all I have, to spare my life, and prosper me in my daily calling, I purpose, on each return of the birth-day of our civil liberty, to renew the offering of my mite towards recovering one of my fellow sinners from the yoke of spiritual bondage, and bringing him to the glorious liberty of the sons of God."

A letter received sometime ago, from the Secretary of a Juvenile Benevolent Society, contains the following passages: "We have read with peculiar interest several accounts received from the missionaries, now laboring for the civilization of the unfortunate natives, who still inhabit the deep forests of our country. While our hearts have been cheered with the success and encouragement, which have attended them, we have been grieved at the thought of their being obliged to reject any, who manifest a disposition to be instructed. They are certainly engaged in a very arduous undertaking; and such unwearied exertions are well entitled to the patronage of all, who are not entirely destitute of humane feelings. Should our remittance assist in rescuing one child of ignorance from a state of darkness and stupidity, and bringing him to an acquaintance with the Supreme Being, and a sense of his own duty, both to God and man, our warmest expectations will be amply fulfilled."

A considerable time ago, the Treasurer of A. B. C. F. M. received a letter, inclosing $7 for Foreign Missions, from which the following extracts are made. "The donor has esteemed it the duty of every Christian to devote a portion of his substance to pious and charitable uses; but has never, till within seven or eight months, thought it his duty to give, as, in case of his decease, his creditors would have suffered, and he could not conscientiously give what was not strictly his own. About a year since, reading Newton's life, and finding that this good man devoted one tenth of his substance to the Lord, he formed the resolution of doing the same, when his debts should be paid, so that it might be done consist ently with justice. Pursuing this plan, he has in six months found himself able to give $26 37, of which the inclosed is the last. So far from being impoverished by giving this sum, the donor has found, that the nine tenths of his receipts exceed what he had any just reason to suppose the whole would be,by about $45."

To the Dispersed of the Children of Judah-Peace and Prosperity. IT has of late pleased the Almighty God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, to cause many to inquire after the welfare and happiness of his ancient chosen people. Many among the Gentiles are, at this day, touched with a sense of your situation, and disposed to sympathize with you in your afflictions. They deem it their duty to promote your deliverance from the calamities, which you suffer, and - would account it no small happiness to be employed as instruments, in the accomplishment of so desirable an end. Such feelings and sentiments may be considered as intimations of good to Zion, and as tokens that the Lord still keeps his people in remembrance. On this account it will seem less strange, that a humble individual should attempt to address you; and to urge upon your attention a subject of high concern to your nation. I advance no other claim to be heard, than that the topics treated of are important, and that I address you in the utmost sincerity, and with the best wishes for your happiness, I expect that you will judge for yourselves, of the strength or weakness of my arguments. I shall be the last man to desire you to submit your understandings to the control of another; or to believe in any fact without evidence of its truth. The sources from which I derive my arguments, yourselves will allow to be legitimate;-they are those Sacred Writings, which you justly receive as divinely inspired; and well authenticated historical facts. For obvious reasons, in my quotations of the former, I make use of the English translation; but if, in any case, you hesitate with regard to the true meaning of the language, it is both expected, and wished, that you will satisfy yourselves by comparing it with the Hebrew.

The particular points, to which your attention is invited, in the following pages, may be stated in these questions. On what account have your people, for nearly eighteen hundred years, been dispersed among all the nations of the earth; your temple been in ruins; and Jerusalem trodden under foot? On what account have your people, for so long a period, suffered so severe, so singular, and so unceasing calamities? The solution of these questions must surely be interesting to you; nor can they fail to engage the attention of all others, whose VOL. XVI.

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hearts are not dead to every humane sentiment, and every generous emotion. It is surely time, that your condition should cease to be regarded either with indifference, or derision, by the Gentiles; and that these instruments of God's indignation towards his people, should learn to deprecate a service, which, however it may vindicate the justice of Heaven, can afford to themselves no cause of triumph, or congratulation. Should you be so happy as to discover the true cause of the Almighty's visitation,-the real source, from which your singular calamities have proceeded, you could not fail to understand the remedy, which you need; nor, one would think, how much it behoves you to embrace it. If, in what follows, I shall appeal to ought beyond what is contained in your Sacred Writings, or in well authenticated historical records, dismiss me, at once, from your remembrance. But, whatever legitimate conclusion shall be derived from them, I trust that you will receive it; and that you will not reject what I have to offer, because I am a Gentile. I know it to be possible, that a Gentile may be your friend; and believe that you know that the truth, by whomsoever uttered, ought to be embraced. I have too much confidence in your understandings to believe, that you could easily be induced to submit to any error of my suggestion, even if the means of detecting it were less fully in your possession. Much less is such a submission to be expected, against the united force of former habits, and the bias of previous opinions.

Suffer me now to turn your attention to the subject proposed. In the treatment of it, I shall endeavor to use as much brevity and precision, as are consistent with its proper elucidation.

In the book of your law are written these remarkable words.* "But it shall come to pass if thou wilt not hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes, which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out.” After these general introductory denunciations of the divine wrath, there follow several others, which are more particularly specified. In language still more remarkable, the Prophet then goes on to say, "Morcover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes, which he commanded thee. And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever. Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies, which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the

*Deut. xxvii, beginning with the 15th verse. † Ibid. 45th verse and onward.

earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation, whose tongue thou shalt not understand, a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard. the person of the old, nor shew favor to the young. And he shall cat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land until thou be destroyed; which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee." Again he says: "If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law, that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD; then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance." Soon after, it is added: "And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from one end of the earth, even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest, but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind; and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life." That the several evils thus predicted, and denounced, have most emphatically come upon your nation, who will deny? That they still continue to be felt, with only such exceptions as must necessarily be made on account of the ever-varying circumstances in human affairs, who will question? Without adverting to the earlier periods of your national history, and without commenting on many minor events, the Ten Tribes first received a conspicuous share of the judgments which the prophet predicts, and have long since been blotted from the list of nations. The Tribes of Judah and Benjamin were next made examples of the divine displeasure, and experienced a share of the predicted calamities, when they were carried captive to Babylon. I say that each of these grand divisions of the seed of Jacob received a share of the divine displeasure, at those several periods, because the foregoing quotations contain some specifications of wrath, which do not serve to characterize the judgments connected with those two grand events, and which cannot be referred to any other of a remoter date. In the case of the Ten Tribes, the Lord did not bring against them "a nation from far, from the end of the earth;" "a nation whose tongue they did not understand." Their conquerors were the Assyrians, a neighboring people, and who spoke a dialect of the same mother tongue. Nor did the Assyrians, in some other respects, entirely agree with the exact particularity of the sacred historian. They were not remarkable for the swiftness of their victorious progress-for the fierceness of their countenance-for their disregard to the persons of the old

* Deut. xxviii, 58th verse and onward. Deut. xxviii, 63d verse and onward.

nor for shewing no favor to the young. The movements of their armies were greatly incumbered with needless equipage, and impeded by useless retinues; their greatest prowess was tinctured with effeminacy; while grey hairs have, probably, commanded more respect among the nations of the East, in general, than among any other; nor, so far as I am informed, were the Assyrians, in particular, ever remarkable for their rigid, unkind, or neglectful treatment of tender years. These Tribes were not at their captivity, "scattered among all people, from one end of the earth, even unto the other." On the contrary, they were removed to Assyria and "put in Halah, and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes;"* and it has not yet been discovered, that either they, or their descendants, ever migrated beyond these places of their original transplantation. It is further to be observed, that since the time of its first occurrence, this captivity does not appear to have been remarkably distinguished from other national expulsions, of which history gives us many examples. When once cast off, those tribes seem to have been no longer the subjects of any peculiar dispensations of Heaven, excepting so far as they have been preserved from an absolute commixture with other nations.-Nor were the gods of the Assyrians, to which the captives paid homage, such as "neither they, nor their fathers had known;" but were precisely the same to which both they and their fathers had already prostituted themselves, and had, on that very account, long provoked the Lord to jealousy.

The like remarks may be applied to the captivity of Judah and Benjamin by the Babylonians. These latter did not come "from far," but from a neighboring country;-their language was a dialect of the Hebrew; they were not peculiarly remarkable for the swift achievements of victories--for the fierceness of their countenance for their disregard to the persons of the old-nor their refusing favor to the young. Instead of being "scattered among all people from one end of the earth, even unto the other," the captives were confined to the Babylonish provinces. A remnant of the people were even suffered to continue in their own country, and had lands assigned them there by the Chaldean king. With the Chaldean gods, the Jews had, for a long time, been but too wel acquainted. The "plagues and sore sicknesses" which they experienced, nationally, and politically, in consequence of this captivity, however distressing they might have been for a season, were not of that "long continuance," which Moses threatens. They lasted but seventy years; at the expiration of which time Judah was restored to his own land, and the temple was rebuilt. But, in fact, if we except a few of the first years, "these plagues and sore sicknesses" were not characterized by any peculiar severity, beyond what was commonly experienced by captive nations. On the contrary, your fathers, during that captivity, enjoyed, through the divine interposition, many favors, privileges, and distinctions. which were not allowed to other cotemporary captives. Their yoke, though really one, was made lighter than might, under all circumstances, have been expected. The Most High showed them many signal tokens of his watchful 2 Kings xvii, 6.

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