at death is as unequivocally affirmed in the New Testament as any thing can be. Only two or three brief references are proposed.

Matt. XXV, 46: "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." There ought to be no controversy concerning the import of these words. Aionion is the Greek word rendered in the first clause everlasting, and eternal in the second. This adjective, in the same number, gender, and case in both clauses, predicates respectively the duration of the punishment of the wicked and of the life of the righteous. If it means an indefinite period in one case, it may well be assumed, in the absence of all intimation to the contrary, that it means an indefinite period in the other. As far as this verse is concerned, every reason which can be assigned for limiting the punishment of the wicked holds good for limiting the happiness of the righteous.

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It avails nothing to say that aionion is applied to things of only temporary duration. In every case the context and nature of the thing spoken of will prevent misapprehension. Examining the words to which the adjective is joined, we find that it is always used "to denote the longest period of which the subject mentioned in each case is capable.". A "servant forever" is a servant during the whole period of his natural life, as long as he can be a servant. Everlasting hills" and 'everlasting mountains" mean hills and mountains remaining while the earth stands, as long as the conditions necessary to their continuance are undisturbed. When, therefore, Christ declares the punishment of the wicked to be everlasting, he must mean, unless he was ignorant of the purport of his own words or intentionally deceptious, so long as the wicked exist, that is, for ever and ever. A denial of their immortality is the only escape from this conclusion.

In respect to this word aionion, we further give the conclusions of one who, by his ripened scholarship and patient study of God's word, is worthy to be heard:

(1.) "It is the only word in the Greek language that fully expresses the idea of perpetual duration. Plato and other classic authors use this word for endless duration, or eternity, as distinguished from the idea of time. It denotes the ceaseless course of things."

(2.) "Jewish writers in the Greek tongue use this word for the idea of endless duration." The Seventy, in making their translation of the Old Testament for the Hellenistic Jews, have rendered the Hebrew word meaning eternity, and which is almost exclusively used to denote this attribute of Deity, by the word aionion; for example, Gen. xxi, 33: " And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting (aionios) God."

(3.) "Out of a little more than seventy passages in the New Testament in which this word is used, in upward of sixty it clearly expresses eternal duration. Many of these passages refer to the being of God; others to the happiness of the saints. This is the word, and the only single word, to express the eternity of God's existence and the eternity of the blessedness of the righteous." The proof as to the signification of the word in the verse quoted is indeed overwhelming; it can mean nothing else than unending duration.

Another passage, which there is no mistaking, is Rom. vi, 23: "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Death in the first clause is obviously placed in opposition to eternal life in the second. The two members of the sentence are clearly antithetical. Hence we are compelled to supply eternal before death. The antithesis, every rule of right interpretation, requires it. It will then read: "For the wages of sin is eternal death," etc.

The utter hopelessness of the finally condemned in their future state is a logical inference from the positive statement of Scripture that their punishment will be identical in nature and duration with that inflicted upon wicked angels, (Matt. xxv, 41): “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

We give one more passage, the reply of Jesus to Martha, the sister of Lazarus, (John xi, 26): "And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die;" (literally, shall not die forever, οὐ μὴ ἀποθάνη εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα,) implying that all who did not believe in him should die forever.

How could any thing be more clearly set forth than is the eternity of the punishment of the wicked in the New Testament?

The subject we have discussed has in it, it must be confessed, nothing pleasant to contemplate. Horrors run all

through it. There is, however, little in the condition of the sinner here, while rejecting or neglecting the great salvation, and thus evidencing the most shocking ingratitude and impious self-sufficiency, that is pleasant to contemplate. The single feature of his case that gives relief is that divine mercy now bears with him and holds out the possibility of recovery.

Unpleasant as the subject may be, it belongs to the ministry to study it, to understand it as a part of divine revelation, and to preach it. We may add, clear and strong scriptural expositions of the subject, and earnest enforcement and appeal based upon them, such as distinguished the early Methodist preachers, were never more needed than now.

It should not be the only theme of pulpit discourse, but it should be among its themes. The certainty of future and eternal punishment should not be the only incentive presented to lead men to salvation; but it is one of many incentives; for some characters it proves the most effective, and should never be altogether passed by. Surely, it is kindness to tell dying men the fearful doom awaiting them, except they repent and be converted. It is cruelty unmeasured, immeasurable, either for fear or favor, to lift no warning voice while they are drifting away to endless woe, all the while flattering themselves with hopes which are doomed to remediless disappointment.

The doctrine of future and eternal punishment should be preached solemnly, tenderly; the whole manner of the preacher, when he presents it, should indicate the deepest compassion for souls; he should never be so ready to weep as when warning guilty men to flee the wrath to come. "Were you able to preach the doctrine tenderly?" said M'Cheyne to a brother minister, who spoke to him of a sermon upon endless punishment. In the treatment of such a subject, boisterous declamation, harsh denunciation, all extravagance of fancy, is nothing else than sin.

"Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." "Son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand."

ART. III. PETER CARTWRIGHT AND PREACHING IN THE WEST.*

[FIRST ARTICLE.]

THE rapid expansion of population in America is certainly one of the most remarkable facts of contemporary history. When the barbarians overran the Western Empire in the hour of its fall, the motive which drew them toward the rich and fertile regions of Gaul, Italy, and Spain is sufficiently apparent: they were to exchange their huts for palaces, their poverty for the treasures of those who commanded the world. All the advantages, all the attractions of a superior civilization, combined to inflame their cupidity. The United States have, however, for now nearly a century, offered us the spectacle of a movement quite the reverse. Here, an irresistible impulse urges far away from the sea-coast, far from the centers of commerce and intellectual activity, a young and vigorous people; cities are abandoned for the forests, civilization for the desert. To-day the route is well trodden, and the masses of the population, ever increasing as they move westward, have already before their eyes the example and the successes of two generations. Yet how great are the obstacles and dangers which still await the emigrants! The farther they advance from the sea-coast the more sparsely populated are the regions they traverse, the poorer the roads, and the more rare and difficult to obtain are sustenance and aid.

Soon the pioneer stands face to face with solitude; he can reckon only upon himself for subsistence and security; he must find all resources in his own arm; must be himself laborer, artisan, and soldier. In the hour of danger, whether it is sickness, famine, or a hostile hand that knocks at the door, he is too distant from human ear to make his voice heard; he falls unobserved, and it is chance only that shall

*We published not long since in our Quarterly an article on Wesley and Methodism, by Remusat, au eminent French statesman, taken from the Revue des Deux Mondes, Paris. We now give an article from the same periodical on a kindred subject, nearer home. It is interesting to survey Western Methodism from such a stand-point. The numerous errors in detail we have thought it unnecessary to correct for our readers. The general views are true and striking.-ED.

reveal his misfortune or the violence he may have suffered. If at the present period not a year passes without the occurrence of some marked calamity, it is easy to understand how great must have been the peril of emigration at the close of the last century.

There was land enough every-where: Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia had not, when Ohio and Kentucky received their first colonists, the fourth of their present population; the unoccupied and arable lands which still abounded in these States invited from every direction the industry of numerous laborers; neither food nor social security were lacking.

Nevertheless, the more distant regions of the West exercised already upon the imagination so strong an attraction that thousands of families determined to abandon their homes and risk all to reach the valley of the Mississippi. For this purpose it was necessary to surmount the Alleghanies, and traverse innumerable forests which were infested by savages. Kentucky only too justly claimed its Indian name, "The Bloody Ground." This region was not the property of any particular tribe; the Indians who dwelt upon the banks of the Ohio and the Tennessee looked upon it as a sort of neutral territory, as an immense reserve, where they were privileged to hunt their game, and from which they were determined to exclude every stranger. Therefore they resisted with fury the encroachments of the Americans. There was then no road through the woods; hardly was a narrow path found, utterly impracticable for wheels. The emigrants carried all their movables upon horseback. Single families did not make the venture alone, but caravans were formed and guides were taken, young and vigorous men who were well accustomed to the hardships of the way, familiar with the region, and good marksmen. One could not then pass a day's journey in the woods without finding some scalped corpse; while in one place and another a commemorative name of sinister import, as Camp Defeat," recalled some act of frightful butchery.

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When the father of Peter Cartwright left Virginia for Kentucky, in 1790, he joined one of these caravans, numbering one hundred families, every man of them carrying a gun, while they had also an armed escort of a hundred men. The company, despite their numbers, were constantly harassed by