we cheerfully insert in our pages, with the single remark that, upon a perusal of its contents, we do not see a sufficient reason for changing our former views. We think Dr. M. has satisfactorily proved the doctrine by other arguments, and therefore does not need this in order to sustain him in those precious and delightful sentiments which he entertains on this subject; and, in our opinion, the introduction of a doubtful argument, under these circumstances, diminishes the effect of those which are strong and convincing. But perhaps our readers may not agree with us in this opinion; and, that they may have the materials for forming a correct judgment, we insert Dr. M.'s letter entire, including a much longer quotation from the work than was given in our notice last month.-Ed.

REV. AND DEAR BROTHER :—

PRINCETON, Feb. 25, 1856.

I thank you for the favourable estimate you have been pleased to express of a book with which I have had some connection, entitled, "My Father's House," &c.

Among the arguments contained in that volume in favour of the doctrine of infant salvation, you call my attention to a particular one, and request me to reconsider it, expressing the opinion that the author "will find cause, on a review of the subject, to abandon it as invalid." Will you have the kindness to insert in the next number of the Magazine the entire paragraph in which that argument is contained, [which I have had transcribed and herewith forward for that purpose,] that your readers who have not the book may see precisely how it is presented therein?

"The rule which an apostle lays down [For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel:' Rom. ii. 12, 16] as that by which God will be governed in judging the heathen world at the last day, leaves us no room to doubt as to the salvation of all-the children of heathen as well as of Christians-who die in infancy. The standard of judgment is the light or knowledge which men have severally enjoyed. The heathen will not be judged by the revealed law or the Holy Scriptures, because they have never had this revelation. They will be judged according to the light which they possess, which is commonly called the light of nature. Having sinned against this light, they must give account thereof in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. If the heathen will not be judged according to the revealed will of God because they have been ignorant of it, it is certain that infants who die before they have any knowledge of it will not be judged by it. And they are just as ignorant of the light of nature as they are of revelation, and cannot be judged by it; and, therefore, we conclude that there is no law which will condemn them on the day of judgment. Their intellectual faculties have not yet been developed; hence it is impossible for them to know God, or the invisible things of him, from the things which are clearly seen-namely, his works. It is impossible to teach them to understand God's holy Word. In other words, God has made no revelation of any kind to infants, whose intellectual faculties remain in embryo. Even were we to concede that the Scriptures are silent, as some have maintained, on the question of the salvation of infants, we might here perhaps discover the reason: the Bible was not written for them-is not addressed to them. If they are not referred to 'in its overtures of mercy,' it is equally true that they come not under its proclamation of duty' nor its threatenings of future punishment. And the salvation of the infants of pagans, of infidels, and of the most wicked men, is, in the light of this rule of judgment, just as certain as the salvation of the most devout and faithful Christians. There is no respect of persons with God.' Rom. ii. 11. He is perfectly impartial, and

treats all on precisely the same principles. All are alike ignorant of the written law, and as yet have not had a law written on their hearts; consequently, there is no standard of judgment by which any of them can be condemned. When the books are opened, the only one with which 'the small' who stand before God will have any concern is the book of life. There will be nothing in the book of nature, or the book of God's written law, or the books of memory and conscience, in which they will have any concern."

:

On the foregoing you remark, (1) "That the apostle had no reference in that passage to infants, but adults, and that it cannot be applied to infants without a perversion of its original design." Your readers will see that I did not pretend or imply that the apostle had any such reference. And they will see, with equal clearness, that there is a striking analogy in respect to the rule of judgment in the case of the heathen and that rule in the case of infants. The heathen are not judged by the written revealed law of God, because they are "without" it; nor will infants be judged by that standard, for the same reason,-viz. they are without it; nor will they be judged by that standard against which the heathen have sinned and by which they are condemned- -the law written in their hearts, or the light of nature; for they are without this too. You say, (2) "That the apostle does not teach that the heathen possessed sufficient light to save them, but only to justify their condemnation." Neither does "My Father's House," in the paragraph under consideration, nor in any part of it, advance the sentiment that the heathen had sufficient light to save them; on the contrary, it distinctly maintains [see pp. 320-323] the doctrine of the apostle, that the heathen can no more abide the test by which they are to be tried than those who have the gospel can stand the severer test by which they are to be judged. Again, you say, (3) "That the argument derived from it [the passage in Rom. ii. 12, 16] for infant salvation is inconsistent with those which follow, and with other parts of Scripture which teach the fall of all mankind in Adam, infants as well as adults, and that their salvation is an act of grace, through the righteousness of Christ imputed to them and the work of the Holy Spirit regenerating their corrupt natures; whereas this argument assumes that they are saved as an act of justice." I confess I cannot see wherein there is any want of consistency between the reasoning that neither the rule which will condemn those who possess the gospel nor the rule which will condemn the heathen in the day of judgment will be made the standard of judgment in the case of infants, with the doctrines of Scripture that all mankind fell in Adam, and that the salvation of infants is an act of grace, and is the work of the Holy Spirit, all of which doctrines are maintained in this volume. If they have original sin, how can they be saved as an act of justice? or how can they be saved without an atonement or without the renewing work of the Holy Spirit? Now, the atonement of Christ, according to the apostle, (Rom. v. 12-21,) has so far removed the penal effects of the sin of Adam that no man will be finally condemned irrespective of inherent depravity or actual transgression. In referring to such as have sinned without the written law, (Rom. ii. 12,) but against light sufficient to render them inexcusable, he limits the condemnation to those who have actually sinned against this light. Considering, then, what is here said respecting the ground of condemnation of such as are without the written law, in connection with the reasoning in chap. v., it appears that, as the ground of condemnation in question cannot apply to infants, because they are not yet a law unto themselves, are acquainted

with no law whatever, there is no law that will condemn them on the day of judgment. The redemption of those who had "not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression," according to the apostle's reasoning, is to be taken for granted. He introduces the case of infants for the sake of illustrating the "exceeding riches" of divine grace in saving actual transgressors. The reasoning of the apostle "also supposes," says the Rev. David Russell, Dundee, in an admirable work on "The Salvation of all Dying in Infancy," published in Edinburgh in 1823, as quoted by the Rev. Dr. Smyth, of Charleston, South Carolina, in his work on the doctrine of infant salvation, "supposes that justice in the infliction of punishment is limited to desert, while grace, when not obstructed in its exercise by the claims of offended righteousness, can be imparted in the most unlimited abundance, according to the good pleasure of the divine will. It seems then necessarily to follow that, under the present dispensation, no exclusion occurs where nothing additional to the sin of Adam has taken place, since all obstructions in the way of the honourable exercise of mercy and grace have been completely removed by the infinitely precious sacrifice of Christ." "Those that perish," says Dr. Hodge, remarking on Rom. v. 17, "perish not because the sin of Adam has brought them under condemnation, nor because no adequate provision has been made for their recovery, but because they will not receive the offered mercy." Yours respectfully, JAMES M. MACDONALD.

Bousehold Choughts.

MEDITATIONS ON THE SICK AND THE DEPARTED.

METHOUGHT the angel of death was hovering over our household; for our youngest-born, a boy of a twelvemonth in age, was drooping, and apparently about to die. It was an anxious period. Death, we thought, was commissioned to nip the tenderest bud in our nursery; but we were enabled by grace to say, "It is well"— the will of the Lord be done!

While anticipating the severing of the tie which bound this precious lamb to life and entwined him around his parents' hearts, we were led to reflect upon scenes connected with eternity, and past occurrences and future probabilities occupied our minds and thoughts.

Six years since, a lovely babe of twenty months was removed by death from the family group, and taken, we believe, to Jesus' bosom. He was a child of the covenant; for we had devoted him to God at birth in our hearts and in our approaches in prayer to the throne of the heavenly grace, and we renewed this covenant by going to the altar of God with the infant in our arms, and, in the presence of the church and in view of heaven and its inhabitants, offering him to the Lord in baptism, and having the name of the Father,

the Son, and the Holy Ghost, named upon him. This dedication, we trust, was made in faith, and we felt that God accepted it; and we believed, when he called our little one away from earth, he took him to dwell with Him in heaven.

While the babe was lying ill, his countenance assuming each moment a more deathlike appearance and his breath becoming shorter and more laboured, the scenes connected with Willie's death came more forcibly to remembrance. Oh, how vividly could we see his glazed eye and convulsed frame, and hear the low plaintive moan, and finally behold the death-struggle! Then we thought of heaven, and his glorious rest there. Six years in heaven! He was but a babe when he left us. Now his intellect has expanded; his capabilities of enjoyment have increased; his powers are infinitely enlarged; for he has been an angel in heaven for six long years! We cannot comprehend the full meaning and extent of these ideas, nor ever will be able to, while we see through a glass darkly. But when we arrive at the paradise of God, and see as we are seen and know as we are known, we will be able to form some adequate conception of the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

While watching our little one, apparently breathing his feeble life away, the chamber was a solemn place, and seemed mysteriously sacred; for in imagination an angel was hovering over it. It was a heavenly spirit, too, in whom we felt no ordinary interest; for we thought it not inconsistent with reason or revelation that our angel Willie might have been sent to earth to bear the spirit of his babybrother to the skies. Is this visionary and improbable? We think not. We feel that the word of God authorizes the belief in ministering spirits; and why should not these ministering ones be the spirits of our departed friends-those who loved us when on earth, and whom we loved, and in whom we took a deep and tender interest?

How comforting, how precious, are the truths of the gospel and the consolations of religion! How can those be supported in the hour of affliction and adversity who repudiate these truths and lightly esteem these consolations? Blessed be God for a Saviour, the Bible, and the comforts of grace!

These reflections have not been unprofitable; and we trust, too, that the providence which removed our cherished Charlie from our embrace has proved, by the blessing of God, wholesome discipline, to wean us from earth and draw our thoughts and affections to heaven, where we can now by faith contemplate two cherub children. The bud was bitter; but we think the fruit has been sweet, and that we can say, in confidence and submissive love, "It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good."

We are all rapidly passing away. Soon, all of us will have finished our course, and gone to account to God, our judge, for the deeds done in the body. May we so live that death may not sur

prise us, when commissioned to remove us from earth, but may find us ready, and waiting our summons, having our loins girt about with faith, and our lamps trimmed and burning!

Perhaps some loved departed one is already on the wing to attend us to our heavenly home. Our child, our parent, our partner, our brother or sister, may be sent as a ministering spirit to introduce us to the presence of our God and Saviour and to the glorious company of saints and martyrs who surround the throne, and who cease not, day or night, to ascribe glory, and might, and thanksgiving, and praise, to Him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever. R. M. E.

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 26, 1855.

THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN.

OUR present object is to throw out some general thoughts involved in the idea of training.

1. In the first place, there is danger of our children becoming perverse and crooked. The Bible very clearly affirms this tendency, and also gives a sufficient and satisfactory reason for it. As to the tendency, its statement is "The wicked are estranged from the womb they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." Ps. liii. 3. The inspired explanation of this is thus presented: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." Ps. li. 5. If this be so, then verily the earliest moments of being are commenced with the principles of perversity and wrong within us. So says "the wise man:" "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child." Here foolishness, as in almost all his writings, means sin, or a wicked perversity in view of the divine law. And the statement, too, is made very comprehensive and general:-"a child," i. e. any child. Now, notwithstanding all the theories which have been formed concerning the purity and innocence of infancy, it is far better, because it is safer, to take this inspired and divine testimony for our guide and warning, and, in accordance with it, to believe that the seeds of waywardness and wrong are within the child-all children,—and, therefore, within our own children, or those from time to time brought under our influence. For they who believe that the elementary principles of wrong are there, surely, more deeply and anxiously than others, must feel that there is danger not only of their proving finally ruinous to the soul, but also of being acted. out in a corrupt and corrupting life.

But even those who might be disposed to differ here, and theorize in the face of these teachings of revelation, must agree, as to the outward exhibitions in real life, that there is manifested an earlyvery early-proneness to wrong, and that the dispositions and steps. of childhood are very early and very often out of the way. If