“Much has been urged against Shakerism, much has been said against their covenant; but, I repeat it, _that_ individual who is prepared to sign the church covenant, stands in an enviable situation: his situation is, indeed, an enviable one, who, devoted to God, is prepared to say of his property, ‘Here it is, little or much; take it, and leave me unmolested to commune with my God. Indeed, I dedicate myself to what? not to a fanatical tenet; O, no! to a subject far beyond; to the worship of Almighty God, the great Creator and Governor of the universe. Under the influence of his love, I give my all: only let me worship according to my faith, and in a manner I believe acceptable to my God!’ “I say again, the world cannot produce a parallel to the situation which such a man exhibits—resigned to the will of Heaven, free from all the feelings of earthly desire, and pursuing, quietly, the peaceful tenor of his way.” REFORMATION. This term is used, by way of eminence, to denote that great change which took place in the Christian world, under the ministry of Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, Melancthon, and others, who successfully opposed some of the doctrines, and many of the practices, of the Roman church. It commenced at Wittemberg, in Saxony, in 1517, and greatly weakened the Papal authority. It was from causes seemingly fortuitous, and from a source very inconsiderable, that all the mighty effects of the reformation flowed. Leo X., when raised to the Papal throne, in 1513, found the revenues of the church exhausted by the vast projects of his two ambitious predecessors. His own temper, naturally liberal and enterprising, rendered him incapable of severe and patient economy; and his schemes for aggrandizing the family of Medicis, his love of splendor, and his munificence in rewarding men of genius, involved him daily in new expenses, in order to provide a fund for which, he tried every device that the fertile invention of priests had fallen upon, to drain the credulous multitude of their wealth. Among others, he had recourse to a sale of indulgences.