power of the world; yet he lingers, and looks, and admires, while the devil portrays the glory of the world to entangle his affections. A third prays against covetousness; and yet he is extending his business to the injury of others who need the means of subsistence, or increasing that hoard which has already entangled his heart and awakened his fears. A fourth is asking Divine direction respecting some speculation, some enterprise, or some new course which he has in prospect. But he may defraud others. He will have to make a compromise with irreligion. He will have to violate the sanctity of the Sabbath. He will be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. Can there be needed an answer from heaven? Must God speak from the mercy-seat? If he did speak, it would be to utter the reproof of Gilgal. He would say to the prostrate suppliant, "Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus on thy face? Put away the evil thing from thee." If he did speak, it might be to say, "Go," that, like Balaam, the self-willed suppliant might be filled with his own ways. It was Sometimes he will impress the answer only on a bankrupt heart. The aspiration of the soul is for higher enjoyment. The christian would live on high, would rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. This is an experience he should seek; God is willing to impart it; but such elevated enjoyment is compatible only with thorough self-abasement. He must sink down into the dust before God if he would be lifted up. when the prodigal for very shame shrank from an injured parent, saying, "I am not worthy to be called thy son," that the soft kiss of a reconciled father was impressed on his cheek. It was when the Psalmist had been drawn from the horrible pit that a new song was put into his mouth. The highest elevations of christian enjoyment are often reached from the lowest depths of humiliation. The strongest impressions of Divine love are generally made on an insolvent heart. Sometimes the answer is put at some extremity in the christian course. It is to be found in yonder gloomy spot which the christian is striving most anxiously to avoid. Circumstances are tending to some crisis which the christian is deprecating, but which God intends to make the point of deliverance. The saint must climb the Hermonites, or thread some lonely wilderness, that he may find the place of help. David would fain have been spared the evacuation of his palace. Must he become a fugitive? Must his very home be wrested from him? Shall his enemies triumph? Must he be bearded by every vagabond that chooses to walk by his side and cast dust at him? Could not God have interposed before? If the help had been given only a few days earlier this humiliation had been spared. Would not parental kindness give an earlier assistance? He must hear the roaring of Jordan. He must learn to pant after God with all the desire of the thirsty hart as it seeks the water-brooks. It must be known that God can save in an extremity. Christian! mark the dignity of One who has said, "Whatsoever ye ask in my name, it shall be done for you." And observe his firm countenance and upward look as he adds, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." HINTS FOR THE HEART. Suffering christian, remember, Jesus is thy pattern. He suffered, and suffered as none other did; but no murmur ever escaped his lips, no mark of discontent can be traced on his countenance, no hard thought of God ever agitated his spirit; and he says, "I have left you an example." Seek grace from him at his throne of grace, that you may imitate him in your present trial. Our two great lessons are, to believe the Saviour's word, and love the Saviour's person; or, to believe all that God has said, and love all that God loves. Faith and love make us like Jesus, and devote us to Jesus. The life of Jesus was a life of absolute dependence on his Heavenly Father. He had no home, no income, but was cast upon Divine Providence, which tried him often and severely; but he still exercised faith, walked in fellowship, and manifested contentment. God is not only merciful in pardoning our sins for the sake of Jesus, but just; and he glorifies his justice and mercy equally in our full and everlasting pardon. Satan is in earnest to ruin souls, therefore we should be in earnest to save them; he is earnestly at work in the pew, therefore we should be earnest in the pulpit. The heart of God loves us, the mind of God thinks for us, the mouth of God speaks to us, and the hand of God works for us; this being the case, must we not be safe? should we not be happy? The sighs, groans, and cries of the Lord's people never miss their way. God says, "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself;" but no one else seems to have noticed him. If any thing we do is right, let us maintain and vindicate it; if it is questionable, for the sake of others let us abstain from it; but if it is wrong, let us at once confess it and forsake it. That which hurts our pride is very likely to be right; but while we are smarting from the stroke, we are not in a proper state of mind to decide about it; let us therefore endeavour to wait for a season of calm, quietly to investigate it. True humility will bear any thing without injury; but a proud spirit will kick even a rock of flint in its folly. The life of Jesus was a life of absolute submission to his Heavenly Fa ther; this was his happiness, his holiness, and his honour. Just such should our lives be; in every thing and at all times we should say, “Not my will, but thine be done." God is love; therefore the love of God must be infinite, eternal, immutable, wise, just, free, omnipotent, and holy. God's whole nature is thrown into his love. We must learn to live independent of the creatures by living upon God, or we cannot be happy; he that feels dependent upon what is fleeting, changing, and uncertain, never can enjoy settled peace. Satan daily accuses us; let us therefore daily confess our sins, obtain pardon, and seek tokens of the Divine approbation; so his accusations will never injure us. There may be uncertainty with us, there is no uncertainty with God; let us therefore commit ourselves to him, trust in him, and leave ourselves with him. God speaks to us in his word, let us hear what he says; God works for us in providence, let us observe what he does: in working he will never contradict what he has said. He that opposes the sins of professors, should be prepared to suffer for it, and to suffer most from those from whom he would least expect it. Christ and his people are one family, all loved with the same love, and led to the kingdom by the same way, the way of the cross. He that is most like Christ will be most disliked by carnal professors; but he will, nevertheless, have a witness in their consciences to his correctness and consistency. Two of the most powerful things in the pulpit are kindness and energy; wherever they are combined, the preacher will be successful. We are most afraid of men when we are least afraid of offending God; the fear of God always keeps the fear of men in subjection. Nothing relieves the burdened mind like prayer, or the telling out before the Lord all we feel, fear, and desire, and feeling his presence, interference, and blessing. New-Park-Street, London. JAMES SMITH. Biblical. INFIDELITY TESTED BY FACT. BY THE REV. SAMUEL MANNING, OF Frome. No. 5. CONTINUANCE, NO. 2. The argument of our last paper is strengthened and confirmed by the fact, that Christianity has, in every age, been assailed by infidelity, and beset with corruptions. Partly from its requirements being such as man is indisposed to yield to, and partly from the corruptions with which its purity has been associated and sullied, there have always existed persons who have discredited its claims to divinity. Infidelity is no modern production, but is contemporaneous with Christianity itself. Christianity still exists, not because it is unassailed, but in spite of opposition. If infidelity were something new, we might fear lest the system we are defending should prove unequal to the assault; but when eighteen centuries have failed to prove it "a cunningly devised fable," when the citadel in which we have entrenched ourselves has held out so long a time, we need scarcely fear. Why has not the Gospel long ago taken its place among the other exploded errors of the age in which it was itself born? Why has not infidelity long ago triumphed over this, as it has over other systems of falsehood and deception? Again, not only the fact, but the very forms, of infidelity are all old. Almost every objection which has been brought against the truth of the Gospel, was brought during the first three hundred years of its existence, and was then replied to. Fifteen centuries have only witnessed a revival and repetition of the old arguments against it, and a constant accumulation of arguments in its favour.❤ The quiver of the infidel was soon exhausted against this adamantine rock. "The infidel has shot his headless darts away, Then gleaned his blunted shafts, and aimed again." It is, indeed, just possible that some fresh weapon may yet be forged, that some fresh mode of assault may yet be discovered; but it must be admitted, that the experience of eighteen centuries affords a strong presumption against its being successful. Some fresh antagonist may possibly detect the lurking fallacy and falsehood of the gospel; but as sixty generations have failed, we may confidently await the issue, and our opponents must themselves confess that the probabilities are in our favour. Again, the opposition of infidelity has rarely been directed against the central fundamental truths of the Gospel, but against something merely incidental to them, or some corruption or misrepresentation of them. Suppose that the assaults of the enemies of the Gospel had been successful, what would the majority of them have accomplished? They would have merely disproved the truth of some unimportant incidents of the Gospel history, leaving its main facts untouched, and thus only have shewn that the evangelists, like other honest historians, were liable to mistake, and that their histories, disagreeing with one another in these minute particulars, were not the result of collusion, were not cunningly devised fables and forgeries, which would have been made to agree in all these minutiæ. Or else they would have proved that the Gospel has been mournfully corrupted and misrepresented, abused to the purposes of tyranny and priestcraft, and degraded by wicked men to serve their own selfish purposes. That this has been so, we sorrowfully admit; but to prove that the church has been corrupt, is one thing, -to prove that the gospel is false, is another. Suppose it proved that there are the minute discrepancies, contradictions, errors, asserted-what then? Does it follow that, therefore, the narrative of the character, life, death, and resurrection of Christ, against which no such charges are brought, are also false ? Or if doubt be thrown on some of the miracles, or the application of some of the prophecies, is the whole narrative, supported by so many collateral proofs, likewise a fiction? Granting (as we do) that religion has too often been abused to selfish purposes,-to statecraft and priestcraft, does it prove that, therefore, the thing itself is false and evil? Nay, it rather proves that it must be true and divine, to have outlived such abuses, and borne up under such accumulated corruptions. The grossest superstitions, and the most accursed despotisms, have sheltered Let it be borne in mind that we are speaking of the system of Christianity not of Judaism-are defending the gospel simply. The infidel objectious of modern science apply solely to the Old Testament. themselves under its sacred name, and reigned by arrogating to themselves its divine authority. Could they have done so had it been as false and fallacious as is prefended? When they died out, as all lies must die out, or were swept away, as all dishonesty and fraud must be swept away, this has still remained. Whence comes it that it has survived the wreck and ruin of those systems of human polity with which it has been associated? The only satisfactory answer is, that this is due to its own inherent truth and divinity-its truth preserving it from the inevitable fate of falsehood, its divinity guarding it from the invariable law of mortality. Tales and Sketches. THE THREE REGRETS. FIRST REGRET. "How sorry I am that I am not like that happy Jack Fisher! There he runs across the end of the field; his mother lets him go just where he likes, while I am stuck in this room, and obliged to pore over these dull, stupid books; and what is the use? What is it to me whether the world is round or square? And as to languages, I hate them." Thus spoke Charles Vivian, a lad of twelve years old, as lounging about, and with a mournful countenance, where he sat with his lesson-book spread before him. SECOND REGRET. It was a beautiful morning, and as Charles entered the gate of the garden which led to his uncle's house, he could not help thinking of the time when his parents were alive and possessed a similar abode which he then enjoyed. As he approached the door, his cousin, John Marlow, a young man of his own age, ran out to meet him, and to receive the congratulations which Charles offered; this being young Marlow's twenty-fourth birthday, upon which occasion there was a gathering of relatives and friends to commemorate the circumstance. The two youths had been friends from their cradles; their talents, when children, were considered to be about equal; but events proved the difference between time lost in talents neglected, and time used in the cultivation of good abilities. John Marlow had passed through college with great honour to himself, and there was no doubt in the minds of those who could form the best judgment, that an ample fortune was at his command, the just reward of his talent and diligence in his profession. The chief point of value in his character, however, was the influence he obtained over the minds of many of his young friends. For having been convinced of his state as a sin ner while yet a boy, he sought and found peace in Jesus Christ; and, entering the university as a christian, passed through it in so consistent a manner, that even those who disliked his religion, could not but respect his character. He had made many attempts to awaken in the mind of Charles an interest about his soul, but without success. The parents of Charles were pious people, and had made him quite familiar with the doctrines of the christian religion, but those doctrines had no power on his heart. The day passed off happily enough. It was a pleasant sight to behold the father and mother tenderly regarding their only son, so universally honoured and beloved, and who was yet humble amidst all; his sisters looking at him with fond delight, and more aged friends, whose piety and experience led them to understand, as well as rejoice in, the value of such a character, and the effects it was likely to produce. The next morning Charles left his uncle's house, and during his short and solitary journey to town, his thoughts were occupied in running over what had passed on the previous day, as well as some parts of his own history. At last he sighed deeply and exclaimed, "Ah, it is too late now! How grieved I am that I was so foolish in neglecting my own interest! Had I been more industrious, and used my advantages while I had them, I also might have been like John, instead of being a merchant's clerk with a pitiful salary." Tears stood in his eyes, as he entered the narrow court which led to his dark counting-house; but there was more of wounded pride than sorrow in those tears. THIRD REGRET. Five years and more had elapsed since the day when these last words were uttered. Charles sat at his desk, and a servant, who came into the office, presented him |