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How precious, bow divine, bow glorious, O bow sweet the lovely, the dear Savior was to me. My tuiud is lull, but i must close lest I weary your patience. Ttie love of my soul to you my sister ; give my love to all tbe saints with you. Farewell, NANCY DUTTON. Lawkencevillb, Ala., Nov. 10, 1860. Brethren Editors -.—Being desirous of letting tbe readers of your highly interesting paper know something of the power and demonstration of the goodness of God in bringing lost and ruined sin tiers to a knowledge of that glorious and heavenly truth, salvation by grace, in this portion of his moral vineyard, is the prompting cause why I should write anything for publication, knowing mv inability so to do. But as bro. Patman said in his communication not long since, the Old Bap tists are not critics, but if their communications are simple, they are ais.* edifying to those who are brought to a knowledge of the truth aa 1 hope and trust in Gud. It has been the ease with the au thor, and here let mo slate to the brethren aud sis ters that God has, as I hope, extended his good ness and mercy to me, in bringing me from na ture’s darkness into the glorious liberty of the Son of God. I had been for a long time somewhat concerned about getting religion, and thought like the most of people, that I could get it of my own free will. I had not thought of the declaration of Scripture which says, “ Os his own will begat he us,” noi did I much think salvation was by grace, nor did I want it so at that time, for I wanted to get religion myself, or at least do something as re gards getting it. Still I read that the children of God were horn, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. In short, 1 thought all such Scriptures meant some thing else beyond the comprehension of mortals, and would shudder at the idea of believing such doctrine as the Old Baptists preached. But when it pleased God to awaken me to a true sense ol my sinful situation, it was then, and not until then did I plead for mercy. Right here I gave up the do and live religion, as some call it; when 1 was convinced it could afford me no relief. I now plead for mercy in the wounds of a crucified Re deemer. % I could read of heavenly promises to tbe children of God, but none could I apply to myself, only the woes pronounced against vio lated the righteous law of God, which I felt to be a violator of, and that time s past numbering. My condition became miserable—l plead for mercy night and day, until God was pleased to reveal himself to me, the fairest amongst ten thousand, and altogether lovely. Then I was able to see and feel, and lealiza the glorious promises of God to his children, and could say and feel that salvation was of grace and not of works lest any man should boast. It is the gift of God. Then J could say Amen to the preaching of the gospel, when preach eel in its purity, as it was at our Association, at County Line church this year by a great many of tbe brethren. Still I have had my doubts and fe-ftrs that I was deceived, and no Christian, and SOUTHERN BAPTIST MESSENGER. if I joined the church, I would injure the cause.— I finally resolved to talk to our dearly beloved and esteemed bro. Htdms, about rt, which I did, and he gave me strong consolation, and advised me to join the church and be baptized, which I did, to gether with a cousin of mipe the Ist Saturday in Nov., and we were baptiz-d the next day by Eld. M. W. Helms, who is our Pastor at County Line, and who is a strong defence for the Old Baptists in this portion of country. There are a great many of the churches revived up here this year; some additions hv baptism, as high as twenty-one. Dear brethren, I will close at present, by sub scrihing myself your unworthy sister, if one at all, in hope of eternal life, which God, who caQnot lie, promised before the world began. S ALL IE E. HOLMES. Brethren Editors —According to promise I continue the subject on teaching. It is worthy of remark that teachers sometimes teach their own children, but by far the greater number is the chil dren of others, not so with our heavenly Teacher, lie only teaches Ilis own children, the pupils are all brothers and sisters, hence, it seems so unnatur al that they should ever so far forget their duties to each other and the great obligation they owe to their Teacher as to fall out and strive with each othei, but then they are still in the flesh, and some times become carnally minded, that is death to our spiritual enjoyment. When we have the mind of Christ and crucify the old man with his affections and lusts, there is no cause for the entrance of any thing that mars our peace or produces confusion ; our peace is always in proportion as we have Ills mind. As the children of God have one common ob ject in view, and are all actuated, when in their right mind, from one spirit, peace is the result, but when one is moved by the dictates of selfish influ ences and passions under their control, and another moved by ihe spiritual promptings, there is confu sion, for the flesh and spirit can never harmonize, they are contrary the one to the other; there is a perpetual warfare, both striving for the pre-eminence: if one for the moment should conquer, war is again declared and prosecuted with renewed energy, neith er will ever yield while life lasts, and to talk about this old body becoming so sanctified as that, it will obey the Spirit, do its bidding while in this mortal state, is to say the least of it, but to deny the Scrip tures. I will not deny but that our bodies some times become, or rather seem to become, very re ligious. We flatter ourselves that we shall now lay by our armour, hostilities having ended, and we desu-e a furlough, but mistaken soul, the body has only granted a truce in order that it may re cruit its munitions of war, and marshal anew its host, and while we unsuspecting of danger, and unprepared for defence, are resting in fancied se curity, we are attacked in front and rear, our sword, shield and helmet are not at command, and if the Captain of our salvation does not then make His appearance, we feel that we must surrender at dis cretion. But He beholds us and is near enough to vanquish the host of hell, He fights our battles for us, gives us our armour, teaches us the art of warfare; with these, when we are in His service, one can chase a thousand, and two put ten thou sand to flight. We never could overcome thus far but for His teaching, but He has never yet taught us to war upon our brethren. He has command ed that we fight the aliens, the uncircu incised Phil istines; we are to wage on exterminating warfare, to destroy ail, both small and great. No compro mise, no quarter is allowed, no entangling alliances are to he made, when’ our enemies are made to bite the dust we must not stay our hands and pity, but still cry, “ The sword of the Lord and o* Gideon.” But the flesh argues that it looks so unkind to deal thus severe, and there can be no haim in sparing some of the choicest young men and maidens, and that if they should get too umuly, why then we can make them “ hewers of wood and drawers of water,” arid then some of the spoils look so nice that surely God would not object, especially as we intend to offer them in sacrifice to Him. This is the device of the devil, a snare, and if we listen, in roads are made, our peace is destroyed, our lan guage is corrupted, we marry among the uncir cumcised, we soon learn to worship their gods, be come corrupted by such unholy alliances, and in turn God’s wrath and anger is poured out upon us. We now cannot stand before our enemies, they now lead us into captivity, we groan under our task masters, look and cry unto God, again have to put away our unlawful wives, the Lord, be cause we are His chosen people, hears oui cry, comes to our relief, makes us valiant in the fight. Be not deceived, “Evil communications coriupt good manners,” it is impossible to escape corrup tions when we wed it. But the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual, hence, in their use our carnal natures are not to be exhibited, neith er our Captain left it discretionary with us whether we will fight or riot, hut He has summon ed us to the war, and we are cowards if we desert. Nor has he left us to manufacture our own arms, they are all ready, and always in the armory of heaven. In this warfare there is order, no break ing ranks, no fighting, but according to His direc tion. But He has taught us as thoroughly the art of war as of peace. His teaching upon both subjects is equally binding and equally efficient.— Divided we present to our enemies an easy prey, united we are “ Fair as the moon,- clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.” Our ene mies cannot stand before us, they are routed.— But whenever we imagine that we can dispense with the teaching of our Captain and fight on our own resources, and forour own self-aggrandizement m order that fame may be spread abroad without having the good of His kingdom at heart, then we shall meet with an inglorious defeat, for no man is to be crowned except he strive lawfully. His word is to be our text book in war; by no other tactics can we succeed carrying out its teaching. Under the leadership of our Captain we are invin cible, unconquerable, when we depart from that we are as weak as other men, and liable to be captur ed as prisoners of war. I will not notice at length our arms and their uses, for it would occupy too much space. 173