sentence is a classical allusion, epigrammatic point, striking antithesis, poetic figure, or quaint play upon words; and, in most, these are happily employed in the illustration of revealed truth. That which might otherwise be regarded as medicine, distasteful but salutary, is thus made a feast of fat things-a banquet of perpetual sweets. I do not urge an imitation of their quaintnesses, puns, and semibarbarisms, for the taste of our several times is very different; but an imitation of their studious habit, and an appropriation of their collected wealth. They were not, I humbly conceive, better men, in any respect, than we, but they were better students: hence the pith, and power, and prodigious accumulation of their matter. Make yourself master of the stores they have gathered to your hand, and be as diligent as they to enlarge your possessions, by collecting from more recent sources all that modern literature has contributed to the enrichment of man.

But to pass on-parodying what the wisest of men said of understanding, I would say of the Scriptures, with all your reading, read the Bible.

This I know, from your devout habits, I need not enforce upon you, because you relish the privilege as well as allow the duty.

Permit me, however, to advise a constant use of the same copy, that you may at once, for personal convenience as well as with a view to future engagements, acquire an acquaintance with the very appearance of the typography and the position of your references on the page. A topical memory as well as a textual one I have found of immense value, as well as an attainment greatly conducive to my own comfort.

Read the common English version, with a view to familiarize yourself with the terse, nervous, and beautiful language of our translation, and habituate yourself to quote it with a strict attention to correctness, where it does not convey a sense glaringly false.

May I recommend the practice of committing some portion of it daily to memory, however small, and this in consecutive order. If your Bible lie upon your table in the morning while dressing, you may easily fix a few verses in the memory, which shall form a delightful subject of contemplation at different periods during the day. The apostolical epistles, the Psalms, the discourses of Christ, and portions of the Prophets, would be suitable for such an exercise, and would, once yours, become truly what the poet has vainly called the things of earthly beauty, a joy for ever." Whatever other helps you use for the better understanding of the word of God, may I beg you will not neglect to read a copy of the Bible containing parallel passages, nor a frequent reference to the places pointed

Bagster's Polyglott is, perhaps, as well adapted as any other for this purpose. The references are, generally speaking, judicions enough, and the size of the volume renders it portable. I have learned more divinity in this way than in any other whatsoever. I have proved that Bishop Horsley's emphatic commendation of this plan is in no particular too strong.

III. Upon THE CHOICE OF YOUR COMPANIONS I will now say a

ord or two.

From the affectionateness of your disposition, as well as the yearning of our common nature for sympathy, you will, doubtless, be led to form companionships in the house. Remember then that there can be no friendship where there is not esteem. I would choose the best man in the college for my friend if he would admit the claim. The man who is most studious, most regular, most humble and devout, is the person-is the only person worthy to become the "aλog eyw," the second self. If to these he should add corresponding tastes and feelings,

66

"O make him the pulse of your heart, for you've found

The green spot that blooms on the desert of life."

Do not make an idle man your friend. Not merely will you in this case, as in most others, be eventually inoculated with your friend's disease, but beyond all other vices is this infectious. The idle man must have society; but it is clear that studious society is not that which he wants. He must have persons as idle as himself. Beware then, if you would secure a reputation for diligence, and retain the habit of diligence, beware of the idle man.

Beware also of the ignorant man-the man that is contented to remain so the vain and self-satisfied-the man who complacently quotes the argument of Agrippa's "vanity of the arts and sciences," without possessing the erudition of Agrippa, which made himself the living refutation of his book.

Avoid, moreover, the loquacious man. The greatest talker I ever knew was also the greatest booby, yet was he a minister of many years standing. Whatever be your companions you will be thought like them, and you will become like them. I should be sorry to see you a mere talker; you will lose weight by it in the academy and the world. "What will this babbler say?" Let your ambition be always higher than to be considered the agreeable rattle, the amusing anecdotist of your party. "Words without knowledge" will often escape the man whose lips are ever' open. I would therefore encourage a habit of silence,-not carried to unsocialism or notoriety, (for to be remarkable in society is almost certainly to be unhappy,) but let taciturnity rather than its contrary be your characteristic. Against vicious and impure companions, if by any possibility you could be associated with such in your academic career, I need not Your sensitive virtue will here be your best protection. Seek in your friend the same high character you would establish for yourself. Avoid the shame of having to blush for your friend's faults, as well as the peril of being contaminated by his habits. Let him alone be your friend whose character promises excellence in future life, and whose principles will withstand the wear and tear of circumstance and time.

warn you.

And be assured, that whatever character your companions or you yourself obtain in college, will usually and justly go with you through life. I never knew an exception to this rule, and I have seen its truth repeatedly confirmed. The man who failed to secure respect in his disciplinary career, I have invariably found to exhibit

N. S. VOL. III.

4 E

the same features when thrown into a larger field, and to be as contemptible in the church and the world as in college. Mighty issues, then, you will perceive, depend upon your prudence in conducting yourself in your novel circumstances.

In your intercourse with your fellow-students, exhibit that politeness which has been well defined "benevolence in little things;" that deference for the opinions and concern for the comfort of others, which are no less a duty of Christianity than a requisition of society. Yet maintain along with this courtesy of demeanour a self-respect which will not allow you to join in or approve of violations of conventional or moral decency. Even in your select religious circle, you will probably hear and see at times something which you cannot approve. I would not put you forward as censor of the community. It would ill become your years and station. Without saying a word, a look, a grave silence, will in such cases be a sufficient and effectual rebuke.

May I beg, that in conversation you will shun, in repeating an anecdote, for instance, any needless introduction of the name of the evil one, an impropriety of which many make light who shonld know better, and that you will never pronounce the name of deity except with habitual reverence.

Avoid, too, the adoption of a few paltry conventionalisms of speech which are in vulgar use with some religionists, and which certainly deserve no better name than cant. Do not say, for instance, “Let us engage," for "let us pray;" do not say, "I have been to the ordinance;" say rather, the Lord's Supper." Do not say the Sabbath; our sacred day is not the Sabbath. It is better to say, "the Lord's Day," or, in conversation with worldly persons, "Sunday." Besides the incorrectness of these familiar instances, I consider it wrong to affect singularity without reason in our forms of speech, or to run the risk of disgusting men with the reality of religion, by presenting it to them in a needlessly offensive guise. Further; do not encourage the habit of hearing sermons in a critical spirit, nor (the vice of students,) that of canvassing their merits in a censorious style. Whenever ministers or students hear a sermon, they are, for the time being, under the law, and exposed to the sanction of hearers. "Take heed how ye hear."

Avoid, also, the practice of many, of wandering about on Sunday from place to place, in search of the excitement of novelty. I be lieve nothing wars so directly against edification as the dissipation which such a mode of spending the Lord's Day will induce. I would advise your selecting some suitable minister in the neighbourhood of your residence, with whom and whose church you may, whenever practicable, unite in the observance of the ordinances of the gospel. Such an arrangement will be the happiest substitute for the privileges of home, and will have a beneficial influence upon your character and comfort. Hence the rule prevailing some years since at the Church Missionary Institution, at Islington, commends itself to my judgment, even while I might reluctate against the infringement of natural liberty it seems to involve. The students were required

habitually to attend either of two prescribed places of worship; exception to this rule being admitted, I believe, only on very rare occasions. The intent of the rule was good, and I should think the results must have been satisfactory.

I have not professed in this letter to say very much about your personal piety; I have taken that for granted. That is the foundation upon which all your habits and attainments are to be built, and to it you must look as the fixer of your eternal destinies. From your personal responsibility no public engagement will ever release. you. You will be just as much bound to be a holy, humble believer in Jesus, if a minister to thousands, as if you were the merest uninfluential unit in creation. Never forget this. Never, therefore, look out upon others, without looking in upon self; and never look forward to the work of the ministry, without looking onward further still to its close and the reckoning; and never look downward upon human duties, and studies, and responsibilities, without looking upward for directing, sustaining, sanctifying, and persevering grace. Let all your studies bear upon your being qualified to be "a good minister of Jesus Christ," and every act of your ministry upon the great day of account.

May I beg, that should the Lord count you faithful and put you into the ministry, you will, as far as circumstances admit, make Chaucer's parish priest your model, probably a sketch of the immortal Wickliffe.

"But riche he was of holy thought and werk,

He was also a lerned man, a clerk,

That Criste's gospel trewely wolde preche;
His parishens devoutly wolde he teche.
Benigne he was and wonder diligent,
And in adversite ful patient :

And swiche he was, yproved often sithes
Ful lothe were him to cursen for his tithes,
But rather wolde he given out of doute
Unto his poure parishens about
Of his offring and eke of his substance.
He could in litel thing have suffisance;
Wide was his parish, and houses fer asonder,
But he left nought for no rain ne thonder,
In sicknesse and in mischief to visite

The ferrest in his parishe, moche and lite
Upon his fete and in his hand a staff."

Or rather, I should say, making "the teacher sent from God" your pattern, "consider the apostle and high-priest of our profession, Christ Jesus." Heb. iii. 1.

But here I close these very miscellaneous hints, having scarcely concerned me to adhere to the division proposed to myself when I began.

These hints are confessedly defective. A hundred things will arise in the course of your residence at college, in which, far from parental or pastoral sympathy and advice, you will have to throw yourself back upon your own good sense and the divine guidance. A less compendious communication than mine would not have relieved you from such a predicament.

Should this letter, however, have no other value, you will receive it at least as a token of christian regard and pastoral solicitude. As such I commend it to you. Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things." 2 Tim. ii. 7. LORD bless thee and keep thee. The LORD make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace

Thine with affectionate concern in the bonds of the gospel,

PASTOR.

ON THE NATURE OF CHRIST'S PRESENCE WITH HIS MINIS TERS, IN ANSWER TO THE REMARKS OF T. K.

(To the Editor.)

Most cordially do I thank your correspondent T. K. for his manly and christian observations on a review of mine lately inserted in your miscellany. I bless God that I love truth more than any opinion of my own, and as I have in successive periods of my life, embraced first Christianity and then the principles of dissent, from a conviction of their truth, I am ready to follow whithersoever conviction may lead. I shall ever esteem that man my best friend who delivers me from error, and imparts to me truth: defeat in such a contest is moral victory. I doubt not that my brother is also a sincere inquirer, and that he has penned his animadversions with a kind desire to instruct me. I ask of your correspondent therefore, if he shall see any reason to prosecute this question, two conditions; and as a protestant minister, (for such I take him to be) I have no doubt of his willingness to grant them. First, that he bring forward in this discussion no argument but that which is unquestionably deduced from the sacred Scriptures, and that secondly, he be willing to receive such scriptural authority, though the view for which that authority is adduced be entirely new to him, and be indeed opposed to some view which he has already entertained if it be not a fundamental truth, and, in fact, though such view be contrary to the general opinion of the sect to which he is united. If such conditions be not exactly consistent with the avowed principles of protestantism, I feel that I have as yet to learn what protestantism is.

Suffer me then to offer my opinion at greater length than I felt was proper in the review to which I allude, and let me first take off the edge of that prejudice with which the language of T. K. involves my opinion from, I am convinced, an unintentional mistake.

The question at issue between us, is not whether the Lord Jesus be present with his ministers particularly, or with his people generally in the preaching and hearing of his word, or whether he give that moral influence which adapts and makes efficient his truth to the conversion, sanctification, and comfort of those who receive the gospel, both which T. K. appears in the concluding section of his strictures to suppose that I deny, but which I do most heartily and