With those few neighbours that then courfed more freely and affectionately. moft awakening fermons we have. came to me, I dif I chose the best and And I spent fomewhat more time with them in fuch exercises, without being careful about the fuccefs of my undertaking. Since this, our company increased every night. For I dare deny none that ask admittance. Laft Sunday I believe we had above two hundred. And yet many went away, for want of room to ftand. We banish all temporal concerns from our fociety. None is fuffered to mingle any discourse about them, with our reading or finging. We keep close to the bufinefs of the day, and when 'tis over, all go home. I cannot conceive, why any should reflect upon you, because your wife endeavours to draw people to church, and to reftrain them from profaning the Lord's day, by reading to them, and other perfuafions. For my part, I value no cenfure upon this account. I have long fince shook hands with the world. And I heartily wish, I had never given them more reason to speak against me. As to its looking particular, I grant it does. And fo does almost any thing that is ferious, or that may any way advance the glory of God, or the falvation of souls. As for your propofal, of letting fome other person read, alas! You do not confider what a people these are. I do not think one man among them could read a fermon, without fpelling a good part of it. Nor has any of our family a voice Atrong enough, to be heard by fuch a number of people. But there is one thing about which I am much diffatisfied; that is, their being prefent at family prayers. I do not speak of any concern I am under, barely because so many are prefent. For thofe who have the honour of fpeaking to the great and holy God, need not be ashamed to speak before the world: but because of my fex. I doubt, if it is proper for me, to prefent the prayers of the people to God. would fain have difmift them before prayers; fo earneftly to ftay, I durft not deny them.. Laft Sunday I but they begged To the Rev. Mr. Welley, in St. Margaret's An Extract from A SURVEY of the WISDOM of GOD in the CREATION. THE [Concluded from page 268]. HE Ear confifts of an outward porch and inner rooms. The porch, fomewhat prominent from the head, is of a cartilaginous fubftance, covered with tight membranes and wrought into finuous cavities. Thefe, like circling hills, collect the wandering undulations of the air, and transmit them, with a vigorous impulfe, to the finely ftretched membrane of the drum. This is expanded upon a circle of bones, over a polished, reverberating cavity. It is furnished with braces that ftrain or relax, as the found is faint or ftrong. The hammer, and the anvil, the winding labyrinth, and the founding galleries, these and other pieces of mechanism, all inftrumental to hearing, are inexpreffibly curious. Amazingly exact must be the tension of the auditory nerves, fince they answer the fmalleft tremors of the atmosphere, and diftinguish their moft fubtil variations. Thefe living chords, through the echoing tuned by an almighty hand, and spread ifles, receive all the impreffions of found, and propagate them to the brain. Thefe give exiftence to the charms of mufic, and the ftill nobler charms of difcourfe. But the ear The eye is useless amidst the gloom of night. hears through the darkeft medium. The eye is on duty only in our waking hours: but the ear is always acceffible. As As there are concuffions of the air, which are difcernable only by the inftruments of hearing, fo there are odoriferous particles wafted in the air, which are perceivable only by the Smell. The noftrils are wide at the bottom, that more effluvia may enter; narrow at the top, that when entered they may act more ftrongly. The fleams that exhale from fragrant bodies, are fine beyond imagination. Microscopes that fhew thousands of animals in a drop of water, cannot bring one of these to our fight. Yet fo judiciously are the olfactory nets fet, that they catch the vanishing fugitives. They imbibe all the roaming perfumes of Spring, and make us banquet even on the invifible dainties of Nature. Another capacity for pleasure our bountiful Creator has bestowed, by granting us the powers of Tafle. This is circumftanced in a manner fo benign and wife, as to be a standing plea for temperance, which fets the fineft edge on the tafte, and adds the most poignant relish to its enjoyments. And these senses are not only so many fources of delight, but a joint fecurity to our health. They are the inspectors that examine our food, and enquire into the properties of it. For the discharge of this office they are excellently qualified, and most commodiously fituate. So that nothing can gain admishon, till it has past their scrutiny. To all thefe, as a neceffary fupplement, is added the fenfe of Feeling. And how happily is it tempered between the two extremes, neither too acute, nor too obtufe! Indeed all the fenses are exactly adapted to the exigencies of our present flare. Were they ftrained much higher, they would be avenues of anguish, were they much relaxt, they would be well nigh ufelefs. The crowning gif, which augments the benefits accruing from all the fenfes, is Speech. Speech makes me a gainer by the eyes and hears of others; by their ideas and obfervations. And what an admirable inftrument for articulating the voice, and modifying it into fpeech is the tongue? This little col lection lection of mufcular fibres, under the direction of the Creator, is the artificer of our words. By this we communicate the fecrets of our breafts, and make our very thoughts audible. This likewife is the efficient cause of mufic: it is foft as the lute, or fhrill as the trumpet. As the tongue requires an easy play, it is lodged in an ample cavity. It moves under a concave roof, which gives additional vigour to the voice, as the fhell of a violin to the found of the strings. Wonderfully wife is the regulation of voluntary and involuntary Motions. The will in fome cafes has no power: in others fhe is an abfolute fovereign. If the command, the arm is ftretched, the hand is clofed. How eafily, how punctually are her orders obeyed!-To turn the fcrew, or work the lever, is laborious and wearifome. But we work the vertebræ of the neck, with all their appendent chambers; we advance the leg, with the whole incumbent body: we rife, we spring from the ground, and though fo great a weight is raised, we meet with no difficulty or fatigue. That all this should be effected without any toil, by a bare act of the Will, is very furprizing. But that it should be done, even while we are entirely ignorant of the manner in which it is performed, is moft aftonishing! Who can play a single tune upon the fpinnet, without learning the difference of the keys? Yet the mind touches every spring of the human machine, with the most masterly skill, though fhe knows nothing at all of the nature of her inftrument, or the process of her operations. The eye of a ruftic, who has no notion of optics, or any of its laws, fhall lengthen and fhorten its axis, dilate and contract its pupil, without the leaft hesitation, and with the utmost propriety exactly adapting itfelf to the particular diftance of objects, and the different degrees of light. By this means it performs fome of the most curious experiments in the Newtonian philofophy, without the leaft knowledge of the science, or confcioulness of its own dexterity! Which fhall we admire moft, the multitude of organs? Their finished form and faultlefs order? Or the power which the foul exercises over them? Ten thousand reins are put into her hands: and the manages all, conducts all, without the leaft perplexity or irregularity. Rather with a promptitude, a confiftency and speed, that nothing else can equal ! So fearfully and wonderfully are we made! Made of fuch complicated parts, each fo nicely fashioned, and all fo exactly arranged; every one executing fuch curious functions, and many of them operating in fo myfterious a manner! And fince health depends on fuch a numerous affemblage of moving organs; fince a fingle fecretion ftopped, may spoil the temperature of the fluid, a single wheel clogged may put an end to the folids: with what holy fear, fhould we pass the time of our fojourning here below! Trufting for continual prefervation, not merely to our own care, but to the Almighty Hand, which formed the admirable machine, directs its agency and fupports its being! A SCHEME of SELF-EXAMINATION, ufed by the first Methodifts in Oxford. Sunday. LovE OF GOD AND SIMPLICITY: means of which are Prayer and Meditation. 1. "H AVE I been fimple and recollected in every thing I faid or did? Have I 1. been fimple in every thing, i. e. looked upon God, God, my Good, my Pattern, my One Defire, my Difpofer, Parent of Good; acted wholly for Him; bounded my Views with the present action or hour? 2. Recollected? i. e. Has this fimple view been diftinct and uninterrupted? Have I, in order to keep it fo, ufed the figns agreed upon with my Friends, wherever I was? Have I done any thing without a previous perception of its being the Will of God! Or, without |