our world (though it be to an infinitely better,) is deeply lamented by all who knew him, and most by those who knew him best. When on my visit to Sherborne last autumn, I saw the flourishing state of the congregation, and rejoiced in the success of his labours, little did I think that I should so soon have to mourn for his death. Deeply do I feel for dear Mrs. Weston and his daughters; few have sustained the loss of a more excellent and amiable husband and father. O may they enjoy the consolations of the gospel under their bereavement ;-nothing else can support them. I am also exceedingly grieved for the congregation. To be deprived of a faithful minister in the midst of his usefulness is a severe trial: and a Mr. Weston is not to be found every day. O may the Great Head of the Church appear for them in their desolate state, and direct them to a pastor of a similar spirit."

The following extract from the letter of the Rev. J. Prowis, Methodist minister at Sherborne, is also gratifying.

lowing particulars of which are extracted from the Sherborne newspaper of that day.

"This afternoon the mortal remains of the late Rev. James Weston, the deeply lamented minister of the Independent church and congregation in this town, were deposited in the family vault. So highly and universally was he beloved, and so anxious were, not only the members of his own congregation, but the inhabitants in general, to testify their respect to his memory, that a Public Meeting took place at the Townhall, and a procession was formed, which moved in solemn order to the deceased's residence in Airaman Street, from whence, on the tolling of the church bell, the body was removed, the pall being supported by six neighbouring ministers; and the whole mournful train, amounting to about 400, proceeded to the Chapel in Long-street, where the burial service was performed in an impressive manner by the Rev. Mr. Saltern, of Bridport. The chapel was lined throughout with black clothmany of the shops were closed, and the spectacle altogether was the most imposing we have ever witnessed on such an occasion."

As the last token of respect, the church and congregation could pay to their dear deceased pastor, they obtained permission from the family to bear the expenses of the funeral, and have resolved to erect a marble tablet in the chapel to perpetuate his memory: On the following Sunday evening, the Rev. T. Durant, of Pool, improved the trying bereavement in preaching a funeral discourse to a most crowded congregation, from 1 Thess. ii. 19, 20. and thus closed the whole solemnity by carrying forward their attention to that important period, when the people shall meet their beloved pastor again, and many of them prove to him a crown of rejoicing in the presence of the Lord Jesus at his coming.

LETTERS TO A YOUNG PERSON

ON INFIDELITY.

LETTER VII.

The Prophecies which Christianity contains, and the effects it has produced. My young Friend,

I HERE send you my last Letter on the Evidences of Revealed Religion; for I am unwilling to carry the correspondence farther, not for want of further arguments, but for lack of time to give them that development which would be their due. The proofs I design to unfold in this sheet are, those which arise from the prophecies contained in the Christian Scriptures, and from the effects Christianity has produced.

That prophecy is an appropriate evidence of a religion which professes to come from the Omniscient mind, the only Being to whom all futurity lies open, we have already seen; and those predictions which the Jewish revelation contained, we have found accomplished in Christ. But we have now to reflect on those prophecies which are peculiarly Christian, because they were delivered either by Christ, or the apostles whom he sent as his ambassadors to the world.

First, then, Jesus Christ predicted his own ignominious and violent death. This no impostor would have done; for this would have left him no chance to escape with honour; since he either must have died, according to his own prediction, (and then what would he have gained by the imposture?) or he must have lived under the infamy of a convicted impostor. But when a person foretells that he shall be condemned and executed by the government of his country, he seems to put it into the power of his enemies to confute him; for they might say, "We will not give him the honour of martyrdom, that he may not seal

the truth of his own words: he shall live to be laughed at." Thus it is related that when James, Duke of York, urged Charles II. to put Milton to death, the dissolute monarch replied, “Is he not old, and poor, and blind? then let him live, out of spite to him." But Jesus Christ said to his enemies, "When ye have lifted up, (i. e. hanged up) the Son of man, ye shall know that I am he," (i.e. the Messiah.) They knew that he promised to rise from the dead on the third day after he should be crucified; and yet they crucified him, so exactly according to his own predictions, as to show that Omniscience had dictated those predictions, and infinite Providence secured their fulfilment. Find any thing like this among impostures, if you can.

Again, Jesus Christ foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, and the present state of the Jewish people. Luke xix. 41. "And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side. And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand :) Then let them who are in Judea flee to the mountains: wo to them that are with child, and that give suck in those days! For there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this

time, no, nor ever shall be.""There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into other nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Matt. xxiv. Mark xiii. Luke xxi.

any

The fulfilment of the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem is recorded by Josephus, who is generally considered to be a Jew; and though a late writer has endeavoured to show that he was a Christian in disguise, it is enough for us to know that an eye-witness published the history, immediately after the event, and that he was never contradicted. Now, if one should say, "This was a mere guess at probability, that Jerusalem should be thus destroyed;" I reply, nothing could have been more improbable. The Romans were not accustomed to treat the conquered nations thus: Judea was now become a quiet province of the empire, and what probability was there of a city already in their hands, and garrisoned by their troops, suffering from the horrors of a siege. Yet, according to Christ's prediction, the event followed, and there was not one stone left upon another. And when the Saviour prophesied that the Jews would be dispersed among all nations, till the fulness of the Gentiles should come, what probability was there of such an event? There never was any thing like it in the world. The Babylonish captivity lasted only seventy years, and the Jews, during all that time were captives to one single nation, living in a mass in the capital; so that they were not likely, in that time and those circumstances, to melt down among the Gentiles. But, that a people should be scattered over the whole

earth for nearly two thousand years, and never melt down among the po pulation of any one nation, but remain as distinct at the last as they were at the first moment of their dispersion, shows a special counsel of Heaven, which must have lain open to the mind that predicted the strange unparalleled event.— Wherever, therefore, you see a Jew, you see the truth of the Christian religion proved by a standing miracle. Had the Jews, by originally believing the gospel, or by since melting into the mass of the Gentile world, ceased to be a distinct people, infidels would have said there never was such a people, and never could have been. But now God has overruled their unbelief, to prove the truth that demands our faith, and made their aim to display his glory.

The rise of Antichrist, and the grand corruption of the Christian religion, were foretold in the Christian Scriptures. Let any read the New Testament, and mark the simplicity, purity and benevolence of the religion it teaches, and then look at Popery with all its pomp, its pride, its tyranny, and fierce bloody persecutions; and say, whether it was probable that such a religion should suffer such a corruption. Yet this was predicted:. "There shall come a falling away first, and that Man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all

that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.-And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way: And then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with

the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs, and lying wonders; and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." 2 Thess. ii. 3-10. That this prediction concerning the corruption of Christianity by the church of Rome was fulfilled, we know by the words of a Roman Catholic priest. Eustace, in his Classical Tour in Italy says, "The Pope is brought into the Cathedral of St. Peter's in a chair, on men's shoulders, and is placed in a throne above the high altar, where he puts his feet on the altar, and the people adore him." After hinting at the answer that might be given to what the Protestants would say of the adoration of the Pope, as the Catholics themselves call it; Eustace goes on to admit, "that it is a pity that a custom introduced in a barbarous age should be retained. For is there," says he, "no place to be found for the feet of the sovereign pontiff, but he must put them on that very altar on which is offered the body and blood of Christ as a propitiatory sacrifice for sin?"

Who does not see here the man of sin, sitting in the temple, shewing himself that he is God, and exalting himself above all that is called God, or is worshipped? for the Catholics call the consecrated elements on the altar God, and worship them.

The diffusion of the gospel over the whole world was prophesied of in the Christian Scriptures. The evidence that arises from the fulfilment of this prophecy will appear, if you consider that the reli gion of Jesus was not like that of Mahomet, admitting polygamy and blood here, and promising eternal

sensuality hereafter. It was, therefore, unlikely that a religion that waged war with every sin, and was exposed from the first to the most bitter hatred and spite, should make its way through the whole world. But the gospel has spread, is spreading, and now bids fair to spread over the whole world. This is the more remarkable, as it was never to be propagated by force, and was not committed to the kings, orators, or philosophers of this world, but to the fishermen of Galilee. Let us now see how the effects of Chris tianity prove it true.

The effects produced by the gospel, in that very time and place, when and where it could be most easily confuted, if false, show that it was true. An impostor would not have chosen that time and place for its first efforts. The high priests said to the apostles of Jesus, "Ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and attempt to bring this man's blood upon us.' " This shows that Jerusalem, the very city where Christ was crucified, was already so imbued with the conviction of Christ's innocence, that the rulers were now afraid of incurring the odium of having been the instiga❤ tors of his death. Christianity never could have produced such effects in such a time, and at such a place, if it had not been true.

The effects produced by the religion of Jesus on the first Christians show it to be divine. The very enemies of the Christians, the Roman governors, in their letters to the emperors, own that the Christians were a harmless people; and the Apologies of the Christian Fathers to the emperors and senate, appeal to the whole world in behalf of the character of the first disciples of Christ, as so holy as to prove the divinity of the word that made them what they were.

The same excellence of character