New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-02-21
TEACHING Or PREACHING {.

the a. u. I. L NJ, lndt 4, W say VI '"' -NA'-
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions az
which question of unusual interest and importance
is TO be discussed. 1t appears that dlher-
euce of opinion has arisen among the MISSIONARIES
employed By the Board as to the most ef'ctnal
method Of carry ing On their operations for the con-
version Of the heather. One set of these MISSION
ary laborers hold that preaching and oral insrnc-
tions constitute the great means to be relied upon
for bringing the numerous nations of heathens into
the Christian fed, and of course in their view
missionaries should mainly be selected and educated
with view 10 that method of operation. Another
set or school Of the missionaries maintains that
teaching, the establishment Of schools and the
diffusion of printed books will prove the most
efrectusl agency for operating upon the heather
mind: and this is the great question TO be discussed
at the Albany meeting with view to the future
policy and practical operations of the Board
This question of preaching and teaching which
thus divides the missionaries abroad has not been
without powerful effect upon our churches aud
ecclesiastical organizations at home. The original
colonial founders of our American churches all
agreed in making learning the cornerstone OF the
ecclesiastical organizations which they Iabored to
build up Hence they were led to look to schools
as great meals of unfolding and diilusIrg reA-
gious knowledge. The preamble OF the early CO.
lonial law of Massachusetts,, which required every
township to maintain a school for reading aud
writing, and every town of hundred house
holders grammar school with teacher qualified
ssto fit youths for the university alleged as
reason for the enactment of this law-the germ,
by the way, of our whole American Common
School system-that it is zone chief PROJECT OF
"that old deuder Sathan to keep men from the
"knowledgc of the Scriptures, as in former times
.'keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these
'latter times by persuading men from the use OF
"toreues, so that at least the true sense and mean
"ing of the original might be clouded with false
CLOSES of saint-secming decciyers.'
The first man in America to Start a contrary
doctrine, and to extol oral instructions in religion
coming direct from mans mind Of not indeed
direct from Heaven, has been by some supposed
YVES the famous Samuel GrOtOn, one OF the fathers
of Rhode Island. sort Of prototype oil our
modern tropscendentalists, who received so much
harsh ussgc and such an ill character too
from his Massachusetts contemporaries. The same
idea was taken up BY George Fox and the
Quakcrs 1t was revived by tho "New-LlghtS'
of the time of Whitfield. II had much accept
arce with the early MethOdists, and it formed the
groundwork OF all the operations OF the great
American Reviyast school by which many of our
existing ecclesiastical organizations have been
built up, and all Of them so essentially modified.
Atone tmecamp meetings, and prOtracted meet
irgs, and preaching adapted to such occasions and
addressed less to the understanding than to the
emotions seemed in danger of supersedng all other
religious methods But within the last twenty
years Il very powerful reaction ia to be observed,
and that, too, strongest perhaps in those sects
which hitherto had appeared to esteem learning
the least-a reaction toward education, literature
and books, as powerful instruments Of religious
culture The question, therefore. 10 be discussed
at Albany does not relate simply to the heather
ard the best means Of converting them. l. inter-
ests us also here at home, where perhaps there is
Is much missionary ground open to occupation as
anywhere else.
With respect to the two rival methods OF relg-
ious incubation aud edfcatiOn, it does not strike
Us that there is any necessary conflict between the
method of oral teaching and that by missionary
schools and books. Nor can we see why they
should not both go on together, or the other
taking precedence according as the special gifts OF
the missionaries or as the circumstances OF those
among HON they labor, may seem TO dictate in
each particular case. II, however, it is necessary
to decide the question peremptorily between teach
ing BY word OF mouth and teaching through the
medium of print, it appears to US that the expe-
rience Of the last half century furnishes a lesson
not without a pretty strong bearing on the case.
Formerly books and even periodicals, were only
for the select few. Now they are for everybody
and the development in this direction goes on every
day with increased energy. Not onyis the periodical
press taking upon itself many of the functions in
the enforcement of rights and the preservation OF
order hitherto exclusively performed by the magis-
trate and the courts of aw-it is fast entrenching
also on the pulpit, and that too, not merely the
guardian of morals, but as teacher Of dogmatic
theology. Already We have large, influential,
able and widely circulated class of journals, known
as religious newspapers some of them with
one or two pages, or perhaps an entire separate To-
Ito devoted TO secular afiars-which epapers, it
may be suspected, are not only fast superseding
the Whole Duty Of Man and Practical Piety Sunday
reading in pious families, but it is to be feared &C.
casonally serve to tender cOnsciences as a make
shift at least on stormy Sundays instead of regu-
lar attendance at church
1t is true that the periodical Journal is as yet
mainly Western institution. But the tract circu-
lates all the world over. Among the heather Of