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When the poor are unbefriended;

When we will not pity lend;
Christ accounts Himself offended,
Who is every creature's friend.

Let us not be so ungrateful,
Thus his goodness to reward;
Selfishness indeed is hateful,

In the followers of the Lord.

When a selfish thought would seize us,
And our resolution break :

Let us then remember Jesus,
And resist it for his sake.

Hymns for Infant Minds.

SHORT LECTURES ON THE CATECHISM.

NINTH COMMANDMENT.

THE Ninth Commandment is of much larger extent than it may at first appear to be. It forbids us to take a false oath in a Court of Justice; and this is indeed a dreadful crime directly against Almighty God, whose name we solemnly call upon to witness what we say. To swear a false oath, then, is a most daring defiance of the power of the Almighty, and shews a mind so unmoved by all the awful appeals of Religion, that any one who can commit this crime may well tremble for the state of his soul. The commandment forbids us to bear false witness against our neighbour. By this we see that those who break this commandment are not only guilty of a direct rebellion against God, but that the injury they commit is against their fellow-creatures likewise. A false oath may not only ruin the character, or the fortune, of a fellow-creature, but may even take away his life. So that a false witness may have upon him the crime of robbery of the worst kind, and often of murder too. We must not, however, understand the Ninth Commandment only in the sense of taking a false oath in a Court

of Justice against our neighbour; we may injure his character and his peace, and do him a most cruel injury, by circulating false reports concerning him, or even by putting true circumstances in a false light. A kind-hearted person would endeavour to conceal the faults even of an enemy-how cruel and base then must that mind be which would publish and misrepresent the defects of a friend. Truth must belong to the Christian: he must observe the Ninth Commandment; he must not bear false witness, because falsehood is hateful to God. He must consider, too, the injury which he is doing to his neighbour; and how much misery he may cause to him by false reports, by scandal, or by misrepresentation. We are to do as we would be done by.

GOOD FRIDAY.

[Want of room has obliged us to make a considerable abridgment in our Correspondent's printed Address,]

THE very name of "good," given to one single day of a week, which was called amongst the first Christians" the great and the holy week," shews us what the Reformers of the English Church thought of this day. I do not think you will say they were wrong in marking it by this title of honour, above all other days, however holy, or however dear; since on it, we commemorate the death of our Saviour Christ. All serious persons feel the necessity of keeping the Sabbath Day holy; and they know its worth, as a day of rest from labour ; and of prayer and thanksgiving to their God-but if

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Christ, our passover, had not been sacrificed for us;" Sunday would have been to us no day of Christian rejoicing: we might indeed have rested from our labours, and have gone to Church to confess our offences and acknowledge our wretched

ness; but it would have been without any wellgrounded hope of pardon; because the "ransom which Christ gave for us all, that he might redeem us from all iniquity," would not in that case have been given, and we should have been miserable; for our repentance could have had no influence in gaining forgiveness, assistance, or reward. Again, we celebrate Christmas Day with prayer and praise; that day, upon which Christ was born into the world, and began the great undertaking, which was to end in man's salvation. But, it is his death, which completed that great scheme. This was the purpose for which he came into the world, and which makes his birth a matter of such unspeakable joy to us. For though it certainly was a most astonishing proof of kindness and humility that that Being who, St.John tells us," was from the beginning with God, and was God" himself, should give up for a time the glories of heaven, and take a body like ours, that he might instruct and improve us; yet, that he should willingly, for our sakes, submit to insults, sufferings, and the most cruel death, that our weak endeavours to follow those instructions might be accepted, is surely an infinitely greater benefit; and therefore it certainly demands our inward thankfulness, and outward veneration. The birth day of a dear child, of a beloved friend, or parent, or wife, is often kept amongst us, by some difference in our way of treating it, which proves how joyfully we regard it: and the sad day, which has taken from us any of these near and dear relations is marked, as each year comes round, by thoughts, which turn away from this world to our lost treasure, and to the place where it is now laid up. But how should we be forced to think of these different days, if we could not join them in our minds with the event which Good Friday presents to us? My brethren, our joy would be misplaced; for we never could rejoice over a creature born into

this world to partake of its corruptions, and fall into its temptations, without a Redeemer to deliver him from the consequences of sin; and a Sanctifier to restore his fallen nature: while our grief for those who are gone would be doubly bitter; for it would be a sorrow without hope," without that assurance we now have, that the repenting sinner will be forgiven through the "perfect satisfaction" made by Christ, and that from henceforth "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord."

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If then we feel these things; if such are amongst the benefits we derive from the death of our blessed Lord; if in his blood our guilt can be washed away; if through his merits, not our own, we obtain remission of our sins, and the inheritance of everlasting life; is it right to pass over this day of unspeakable mercies and eternal blessings like any common day of the year? My brethren, reason, justice, common gratitude, and self-preservation, all forbid it.

How then should this day be observed? With as much respect and reverence as Sunday, by closing our shops, putting a stop to our business, and going with our families to our places of public worship, with serious thoughts upon the awful situation in which we are placed in this world, and of the deadly nature of sin, which demanded so wonderful a sacrifice-by every performance which a man's own conscience, honestly consulted, tells him will have the best effect in opening his heart to a sense of his own offences, weaknesses, wants, and dependence, and in disposing it to seek after that salvation, which he will attain only by seriously embracing the faith and practice of Jesus Christ.

Bury Rectory-Lancashire,

H. G. B.

REMARKS

On the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the Sunday next before Easter.

COLLECT.

Question. WHAT was the motive of God in sending his only begotten Son into the world?

Answer. His tender love towards mankind. 1 John iv. 9, 10. ..

Q. For what purpose did it please God to send Him?

A. That He might take upon Himself our flesh. Q. What is the meaning of this?

A. That Christ being born of the Virgin Mary, took upon Himself the nature of man with all its infirmities, sin only excepted.

Q. Why did our blessed Saviour do this?

A. That as all men had sinned, so He, as man, might pay the penalty of sin. Rom. viii. 3.

Q. How did He do this?

A. By suffering death upon the cross.

Q. What do we learn from this?

A. To follow the example of his great humility. Phil. ii. 6-8.

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Q. In what does humility consist?

A. In not thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, Rom. xii. 3.; in having a just sense of all our weaknesses and defects, and in performing the lowest offices, when necessary, for the good of our fellow-creatures.

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Q. How is humility the foundation of other Christian virtues?

A. By inclining our hearts to believe what God has revealed, and by making us. sensible of our own wants, and thus leading us to Him, who is "the way, the truth, and the life." John xiv. 6

Q. What virtue do we pray for in this Collect? A. The virtue of patience, which the Apostle

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