have dared to preach the gospel, have drawn down upon them the frowns of their lukewarm brethren, whose influence with a worldly, irreligious magistracy, has generally prevailed. Thus a very numerous body of Dissenters has arisen and increased, and the pure truth of the gospel of Christ is extensively prevailing, not only by the direct ministry of zealous pastors, but by itinerant preachers, and by several periodical publications, which are eagerly read by the people.

"Notwithstanding this hostility, vital godliness is rapidly advancing in Switzerland, not only among dissenters, but among those of the established church. Sunday schools, and others on the British system, have been established in several cantons, and they are greatly flourishing, auxiliary to the gospel."-Church History through all Ages, p. 419-421.

MISSIONARY INSTITUTION AT BASLE.

Bâsle is the largest city in Switzerland, though not so populous as Geneva, the latter city containing about 25,000 inhabitants, while the former is supposed not to contain much more than 16,000. The origin and progress of the Bâsle Missionary Institution, of which we give an engraving in the first page of this Number, we extract from No. 37 of the Church Missionary Society's Papers.

'It was in the last calamitous war, in the year 1815, that the spirit of Missions struck its first roots in the hearts of some Christian friends at Bâsle, in Switzerland. In this eventful year, a Russian army encamped on one side of our town; and, on the other side, the fortress of Huningen began to pour out a dreadful torrent of bombs against our dwellings. In these sorrowful moments, the Lord of the elements sent a very violent east wind, which had a wonderful effect on the fire of the enemy. The bombs were exhausted in the air before they could reach our homes, without injury to any life of the inhabitants. While the fire of the fortress was, in a remarkable manner, quenched by the wind of God, a holy flame of missionary zeal was kindled in the hearts of some Christian friends. They resolved to establish a Missionary Seminary, as a monument of this most remarkable salvation of our town, and to train up a number of pious teachers for the instruction of the Heathen and Mohammedan tribes, who were sent from the interior of Asia to be our deliverers."

The Rev. Theophilus Blumhardt, in 1822, stated in his speech, from which the above was taken-"In the first year, 1816, we had only a few rooms, inhabited by a small number of missionary scholars: by the sixth year, the blessing of God had enabled our Committee to prepare a Missionary College. In the first year, we had an income of little more than 501.: in the sixth year, the blessing of our Lord increased it to about 50007. In the first year, our Society consisted only of a small number of Christian friends at Bâsle: by the sixth year, more than forty Auxiliary Societies had been established, in Switzerland, in Germany, and among the Protestants of France, to support the work of our God. In the first year, a very small number of Christian friends met together in our monthly prayer meetings: and now, the grace of the Lord has opened, in many parts of the Continent, cathedrals, and churches, and halls, to the heavenly influence of the Missionary spirit. This is the work of our gracious God, and unto Him alone be all the praise and the glory for ever!"

The number of students also greatly increased. Mr. Blumhardt began, in 1816, with two. These soon increased to ten. In the latter part of 1818, nine more were received: in the beginning of 1821, thirteen: towards the close of 1822, twelve and about the end of 1823, eleven; making a total of fifty-five.

The course of studies continues four years, and the whole of each week-day is laid out for study, except necessary recreation, from five in the morning till ten at night. Mr. Blumhardt has the direction of the Biblical and Theological studies. The Rev. Mr. Haendel is rector of the Institution, and the Rev. Mr. Schlatter instructs them in languages and general knowledge.

One who had been a student in this seminary for three years, writes of it: "It is an Institution of God -a house of peace and love-an altar, from which daily ascend fervent prayers, both for the salvation of him who prays, and for the perishing souls of the Heathen and so long as the spirit of prayer, zeal, love, and humility, remains thus therein, so long will it be a house of God, and a blessing to thousands."

Surely every Christian will include this Institution in his supplications at the throne of the heavenly grace, when he bears upon his heart the Church Missionary College at Islington, with the Colleges of the London, Baptist, and other kindred Societies for the promotion of the same glorious object, in every part of the world!

THE WISE TAKEN IN THEIR OWN CRAFTINESS. Mr. Editor, CONSIDERING that any communications relative to the first circulation of the Holy Scriptures in English would be acceptable to your Readers, I send you the following.

H.

"Tunstal, bishop of London, with Sir Thomas More, being sorely grieved by Tyndal's translating the New Testament, anno 1526, at Antwerp (in which place Tyndal had sought refuge), devised how they might destroy that false, erroneous translation, as they called it. It happened that one Augustine Packington, a mercer, was then at Antwerp, where the Bishop then was. This man favoured Tyndal, but showed the contrary unto the bishop. The bishop being desirous to bring his purpose to pass, communed how that he would gladly buy the New Testaments. Packington hearing this, said, My lord, I can do more in the matter than most merchants that be here, if it be your pleasure; for I know the Dutchmen and strangers that have bought them of Tyndal, and have them here to sell: so that, if it be your lordship's pleasure, I must disburse the money to pay for them, or else I cannot have them; and so I will assure you to have every book of them that is printed and unsold.' The bishop, thinking he had the matter secured, said, 'Do your diligence, Mr. Packington: get them for me, and I will pay whatever they cost; for I intend to burn and destroy them all at St. Paul's Cross.'

Then Mr. Packington went unto Tyndal, and declared the whole matter; and so, upon comport made between them, the bishop had the books, Packington the thanks, and Tyndal the inoney.

"After this, Tyndal corrected the same New Testament again, and caused them to be newly imprinted, so that they came thick and threefold over to England. When the bishop perceived that, he sent for Packington, and said to him, How cometh this, that there are so many New Testaments abroad?' Then answered Packington, Surely I bought all that were to be had; but I perceive they have printed more since. I see it will never be better so long as they have letters and stamps: wherefore you were best to buy the stamps too, and so you shall be sure. At which answer the bishop smiled, and so the matter ended."

IGNORANCE OF DEISTS,

THE CAUSE OF THEIR OPPOSITION TO REVEALED RELIGION.

"I have often wondered," says Bishop Watson, "what could be the reason that men, not destitute of talents, should be desirous of undermining the authority of revealed religion, and studious in exposing, with a malignant and illiberal exultation, every little difficulty attending the Scriptures, to popular animadversion and contempt. I am not willing to attribute this strange propensity to what Plato attributed the atheism of his time-to profligacy of manners-to affectation of singularity to gross ignorance, assuming the semblance of deep research and superior sagacity;-I had rather refer it to an impropriety of judgment, respecting the manners, and mental acquirements, of human kind in the first ages of the world. Most unbelievers argue as if they thought that man, in remote and rude antiquity, in the very birth and infancy of our species, had the same distinct conceptions of one eternal, invisible, incorporeal, infinitely wise, powerful, and good God, which they themselves have now. This I look upon as a great mistake, and a pregnant source of infidelity. Human kind, by long experience-by the institutions of civil society-by the cultivation of arts and sciences-by, aз I believe, divine instruction actually given to some, and traditionally communicated to all; is in a far more distinguished situation, as to the powers of the mind, than it was in the childhood of the world.

"The history of man is the history of the providence of God; who, willing the supreme felicity of all his creatures, has adapted his government to the capacity of those, who in different ages were the subjects of it. The history of any one nation throughout all ages, and that of all nations in the same age, are but separate parts of one great plan, which God is carrying on for the moral melioration of mankind. But who can comprehend the whole of this immense design? The shortness of life, the weakness of our faculties, the inadequacy of our means of information, conspire to nake it impossible for us, worms of the earth! insects of an hour! completely to understand any one of its parts. No man, who well weighs the subject, ought to be surprised, that in the histories of ancient times many things should occur foreign to our manners, the propriety and necessity of which we cannot clearly apprehend.

"It appears incredible to many, that God Almighty should have had colloquial intercourse with our first parents; that he should have contracted a kind of friendship for the patriarchs, and entered into covenants with thein; that he should have suspended the laws of nature in Egypt; should have been so apparently partial, as to become the God and governor of one particular nation; and should have so far demeaned himself, as to give to that people a burthensome ritual of worship, statutes, and ordinances, many of which seem to be beneath the dignity of his attention, unimportant and impolitic. I have conversed with many Deists, and have always found that the strangeness of these things was the only reason for their disbelief of them nothing similar has happened in their time; they will not, therefore, admit that these events have really taken place at any time. As well might a child, when arrived at the state of inanhood, contend that he had neither ever stood in need of, or experienced the fostering care of a mother's kindness, the wearisome attention of his nurse, or the instruction and discipline of his schoolmaster.

:

"The Supreme Being selected one family from an dolatrous world; nursed it up by various acts of his

providence, into a great nation; communicated to that nation a knowledge of his holiness, justice, mercy, power, and wisdoin; disseminated them at various times through every part of the earth, that they might be a 'leaven to leaven the whole lump,' that they might assure all other nations of the existence of one Supreme God, the creator and preserver of the world, the only proper object of adoration.

"With what reason can we expect, that what was done to one nation, not out of any partiality to them, but for the general good, should be done to all? that the mode of instruction, which was suited to the infancy of the world, should be extended to the maturity of its manhood, or to the imbecility of its old age? I own to you, that when I consider how nearly man, in a savage state, approaches to the brute creation as to intellectual excellence; and when I contemplate his miserable attainments, as to the knowledge of God, in a civilized state, when he has no divine instruction on the subject, or when that instruction has been forgotten (for all men have known something of God from tradition), I cannot but admire the wisdom and goodnesss of the Supreme Being, in having let himself down to our apprehensions; in having given to mankind, in the earliest ages, sensible and extraordinary proofs of his existence and attributes; in having made the Jewish and Christian dispensations, mediums to convey to all men, through all ages, that knowledge concerning himself, which he had vouchsafed to give immediately to

the first.

"I own it is strange, very strange, that he should have made an immediate manifestation of himself in the first ages of the world; but what is there that is not strange? It is strange that you and I are here,that there is water, and earth, and air, and fire,—that there is a sun, and moon, and stars,-that there is generation, corruption, reproduction. I can account ultimately for none of these things, without recurring to Him who made every thing. I also am his workmanship, and look up to him with hope of preservation through all eternity; I adore him for his word as well as for his work his work I cannot comprehend, but his word hath assured me of all that I am concerned to know, that He hath prepared everlasting happiness for those who love and obey him."

PROVIDENCE ENGAGED FOR CHRISTIANS. "All things work together for good, to them that love God."Rom. viii, 28.

To love my God is bliss below,

To see his face is heav'n above.
O blessed thought! I there shall know
That truth of truths, that God is love!
Yes, I shall see that love sublime
Watch'd o'er each earthly scene I knew;
And every woe that chequer'd time,
As proofs of love I there shall view.
O teach me now thy word to trust,
To see thy ways in heaven's own light,
And feel, although a child of dust,

That I am precious in thy sight.
Then shall my joyful lips proclaim

The wonders of a Saviour's love:
My rising soul shall catch the flame
That glows throughout the hosts above.
But stay, my soul, thou canst not here
Soar up with seraph's burning wing:
O let me gain their glorious sphere,
And I as loud as they will sing!

S. F. W.

Letters to a Mother, upon Education.

Dear Madam,

LETTER XIX. On exciting Fear.

In my last Letter I made a few observations upon the nature of fear, and the impropriety of its being excited in the mind of your child in reference to any being. Some of the objects were adverted to, such as thieves, murderers, child-stealers, animals, and insects. The remaining objects remain to be alluded to.

The water is an object, respecting which fear is often excited by the nurses. In order to preserve a young child from being drowned, the nurse tells him about certain horrible and dangerous creatures, who, if he goes too near the water, will seize him by the pinafore, drag him in, and devour him. This is her theory of death by drowning. Hereby, however, that venerable personage has perverted the imagination of her innocent pupil, and has rendered him the subject of a timorous dread in reference to water. Be it your enlightened task to show him, that we live by breathing the fluid called air, but that we could not live in the fluid called water, because we could not breathe in it. I will suppose, however, that, agreeably to a former Letter, you have taken care that swimming should be an accomplishment early acquired, and that the management of a boat should follow as soon afterwards as possible. Happy the parents who reside on the sea-coast, where their children, while almost yet infants, learn to sport with the spray and to laugh at the rolling billows; and at an early period to ply the adventurous and easy arın, and rise and fall with the restless flood, and with a bosom to which fear is a stranger, enjoy the sublime emotions of the experienced swimmer! Compared with the coward boy bred in an inland county, unused to this exercise, and cautioned whenever he stirs abroad against going near water, and who is afraid even of a ditch of more than ordinary dimensions, such children seem to me to have acquired a new faculty, a new mechanical force, by which they avail themselves of health, of enjoyment, of mental exhilaration, and even of mental grandeur, which to him must be unknown. Let your son learn to swim very early, and you will save hin and yourself much anxiety arising from this

source.

Darkness is another object by which fear is often excited in the mind of children. This is to be traced to the same source: the child is threatened to be put into the dark hole, into a dark room, or darkness is peopled with a host of imaginary beings.

A child ought to be taught to know no difference, and to dread no inconvenience from the darkness, except that he cannot find things so well, and must use a little more caution in going about the house, the fields, the public roads, &c. lest he should injure himself by contact with different objects. Owing to improper treatment in childhood, the late Dr. Priestley, who certainly as a philosopher deserved that celebrity of which he was not worthy as a theologian, confesses, in one of his later letters, that he had never remembered to have felt "quite at ease in the dark." No force of reasoning in after-life can conquer or eradicate an early impression. Unhappy impressions! which, to serve some transitory and insignificant use of making a child obedient, prevent perfect tranquillity for much of the rest of his time on earth. If a child is not taught to dread darkness, he will never have the idea; and if he never has the idea till after twelve years old, I think he will be secure from it for ever.

The ideas of danger usually associated with darkness are those of being surprised by thieves and murderers, who the child may have been led to imagine likely to

conceal themselves in his bed-room, under the bed, amid the folds of the curtains, and even up the chimney. I believe every observer of children has seen or heard of children the wretched slaves of such terrors. They have arisen from the cruel habits of the nurse, who has intimidated her helpless charge by telling him of "The Old Man," who will have him if he is not good, and a variety of similar disastrous methods of conducting education. But the chief cause of the dread of darkness in the mind of a child arises from the representations often made to him respecting fairies, genii, witches, ghosts, and evil spirits. The darkness becomes literally peopled with such terrors in his imagination; and many an unhappy infant has lain awake half the night, with a beating heart, unable even to look out of bed, for fear of seeing a ghost standing "all in white" at the end of his bed, or in the act of "drawing his curtains." Hence, the impression of the existence of invisible beings, which is perhaps almost instinctive, and of the possibility of the appearance of dying friends, which cannot be disproved, but which I really believe to be supported by some invincible facts, becomes the torment of a child before reason has gained ascendancy, nor does it cease to afflict him even when it has.

The poet Burns is an instance of this nature. I quote the following passage from his Life, written by himself. Although the passage is by him used in a different sense, it is equally applicable to my present purpose. "In my infant and boyish days too, I owed much to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. She had I suppose the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted bowers, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry; but had so strong an effect upon my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors." There have been and still are many persons in the world suffering from the same causes. You will, I am sure, agree with me, that the less they influence your offspring the better. Yourself will never exhibit fear of this kind. You will labour to keep his mind free from its tormenting influence. He shall be able to move about in darkness with the same tranquillity as in the light to dread no evil which man can do to him, because he shall be conscious of not having injured any one- and certainly not to dread any fabulous being. Neither will you ever tell him stories in order to disprove the reality of such things: these will do mischief. You will teach him to endeavour to remove a coming evil by every allowable means within his power, and then, if inevitable, to submit to it as the will of God. You will teach him not even to fear death, because it is an inevitable evil, the will of God, and the entrance to a new stage of being. Foreboding will be always a forbidden employment in your code, it being, in the language of Johnson, a nobler employment of the understanding to obviate the evils which actually befal us, than to anticipate those which may." I have heard a story of Nelson when young (1 know not whether it be authentic or not), who in one of his earliest voyages, which was to the arctic regious, having been absent till an undue hour upon the ice, was reproved by his captain, who added, that he wondered "fear did not drive him home." Nelson is reported to have said, "I do not know what fear is."

66

May your child be as ignorant of it, in reference to every object, real or supposed.

I am, dear Madam, yours, &c.
CLERICUS.

THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS. "FEAR not thou, O my servant Jacob-I will save thee from afar off-I will make a full end of all the nations, but I will not make a full end of thee."Jeremiah xlvi, 27, 28.

THE preservation of the Jews through so many ages, and the total destruction of their enemies, are wonderful events, and are inade still more wonderful by being signified beforehand by the spirit of prophecy, as we find particularly in the passage before us. The preservation of the Jews is really one of the most signal acts of divine Providence. They are dispersed among all nations, and yet they are not confounded with any. The drops of rain which fall, nay, great rivers which flow into the ocean, are soon mingled and lost in that great body of waters: and the Jews, in like manner, it might have been expected, would have been mingled and lost in the common mass of mankind; but, on the contrary, they flow into all parts of the world, mix with all nations, and yet keep separate from all. They still live as a distinct people, and yet they nowhere live according to their own laws, nowhere elect their own magistrates, nowhere enjoy the full exercise of their own religion. Their solemn feasts and sacrifices are limited to a certain place: and that has now been for many ages in the hands of strangers and aliens, who will not suffer them to come thither. No people have continued so long unmixed as they have done; not only of those who have sent forth colonies, but even of those who have remained in their own country. The northern nations have come in swarms into the southern parts of Europe: but where are they now? The Gauls went forth in great bodies: but what traces of them are now remaining anywhere. In France, who can separate the race of ancient Gauls from other people who have settled there? In Spain, who can distinguish between the first possessors, the Spaniards, and the Goths and Moors who conquered and kept possession of the country? In England, who can pretend to say with certainty which families are derived from the ancient Britons, and which from the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans? The most ancient and honourable pedigrees can be traced only to a certain period, beyond which, there is nothing but conjecture, obscurity, and ignorance. But the Jews can go up higher than any other nation, and can deduce their pedigree from the beginning of the world. They may not know the particular tribe and family, but they know certainly that they all sprung from Abraham. And yet the contempt with which they are treated, and the hardships they have undergone, should, one would think, have made them desirous to forget and renounce their original; but they profess to glory in it: and after so many wars, massacres, and persecutions, they still subsist, they still are very numerous. What but a supernatural power could have preserved them in such a wonderful manner? Nor is the providence of God less remarkable in the destruction of their enemies, than in their preservation. For, from the beginning, who have been the great enemies and oppressors of the Jewish nation? The Egyptians, the Syrians, the Babylonians, the Syro-Macedonians-especially Antiochus Epiphanes and the Romans. And where are now these great monarchies? Have they not vanished as a dream? The Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, were overthrown and subdued by the Persians; and the Persians were the restorers of the Jews, as well as the destroyers of their enemies. The Syro Mace

donians were swallowed up by the Romans, and the Roman empire was broken into pieces by the northern nations; while the Jews are subsisting as a distinct people up to this day. What a wonder of providence is it,

that the vanquished should so many ages survive the victors, and the former be spread all over the world, while the latter are no more. Nay, not only nations have been punished for their cruelties to the Jews, but single persons likewise. The first-born of Pharaoh was destroyed, and Pharaoh himself, with his host, drowned in the Red Sea. Most of those who oppressed Israel in the days of the Judges, came to an untimely end: Nebuchadnezzar was stricken with madnessAntiochus Epiphanes and Herod died in great agonies, Flaccus, governor of Egypt, was banished and slainCaligula was murdered in the flower of his age.

But where are now, since they have absolutely rejected the gospel, and been no longer the peculiar people of God-where are now such visible manifestations of a divine interposition in their favour? The Jews would do well to consider this point; for, rightly considered, it may by divine grace be an effectual means of opening their eyes, and of turning them to Christ our Saviour.

But though the above two verses in their primary and inore extensive sense, undoubtedly relate to the continued preservation of the Jews in general, as a people distinct from all others, yet, in a secondary point of view, they may have respect to God's constant and peculiar care of his spiritual seed, styled Jacob and Israel, being the small remnant in the church of Christ, whereof Jeremiah, Baruch, &c. then in Egypt, were a part; which favoured remnant (though while here they are in a state of captivity and tribulation among their enemies, the ungodly men of this world, with Satan at their head) have a comfortable and gracious promise given them, that their faithful God and Saviour will never forsake his elect, but will gather them to himself out of all kingdoms on the earth, and keep every individual of them to the end of time, by the almighty power of his grace, through faith unto eternal salvation.

ILLUSTRATION OF ACTS VII, 59.

S. T.

AND THEY Stoned stepHEN." A CRYER went before him who was to die, proclaiming his name, his crime, and who were the witnesses against him. When they were come within two or three yards of the place of execution, they stripped the criminal naked, except a small covering for decency about his middle. The place of execution from which they threw down the malefactor was above twice the height of a man, upon which he was made to ascend, with his hands bound. When he had ascended, the witnesses laid their hands upon him, and then stripped off their upper garment, that they might be fitter for going through the execution. (Thus the witnesses who stoned Stephen committed their upper garments into the hands of " a young man, named Saul.") From that high place one of the witnesses threw down the criminal, and dashed his loins against a great stone, which was laid there for that purpose. If that did not kill him, then the other witness threw from the same height a great stone upon his heart as he lay on his back and was stunned with his fall. If that dispatched him not, then all the people fell upon him with stones till he died.

MY SCRAP BOOK.

LEAF IV.

"The Bee that wanders, and sips from every flower, disposes what she has gathered into her cells."-SENECA. ORIGINAL LETter of the REV. ROBERT HALL, to the Rev. William Button, on his Resignation of the Pastoral Office at Dean Street, Southwark.

My Dear Brother,

October 7, 1815.

I am pretty certain I did give you information respecting *********, and am surprised the letter should have miscarried. I am sorry you should have felt any perplexity about it.

But to hear of your labouring under such anguish of mind in consequence of the treatment of your people, gives me much more concern. 1 had previously heard of your resignation of the pastoral office, and supposed it to have been an entirely voluntary act on your part. Not a breath to the contrary had transpired to me till last night, through the medium of Mr. James of Bristol, in a letter to his wife, now upon a visit to us at Leicester. I now find the step you took was at the suggestion of part of the people. Their conduct towards you is certainly extremely unnatural and ungrateful; es pecially when we consider that you were the former of the congregation, and have continued in the relation you stand in to them, so long. But let not this unkind usage, my dear brother, affect you too much. It is but a part of the church, Í find, and the sinaller part, which have betrayed this insensibility to your merit and to your services. There are not a few who still cherish towards you the sentiments of esteem, affection, and gratitude you are entitled to. I hope, my dear Sir, you will not fall into a state of depression on account of this fresh instance of the ingratitude and unsteadiness of mankind. You are not the less esteemed and beloved by your real friends. The wise and good will not think worse of you on account of what has occurred; you will have a larger share, if not in their esteem, in their sympathy, and in their prayers, than ever. Permit me also to remind my highly revered friend, that he has experienced nothing but what some of the greatest and best of men have experienced in an equal degree. Witness the illustrious Edwards, who was repelled with every mark of scorn and contumely, and cast off by a congregation in which he had been most eminently useful, of which he had long been the pride and ornament. Witness a still greater, St. Paul, who, after he had been instrumental in the salvation of the Galatians, came to be regarded as their enemy. What unspeakable indignity did our Saviour meet with, what base ingratitude both from enemies and friends, amidst the most unparalleled displays of benevolence! It may be well for us to meditate upon such things, lest we be weary and faint in our minds. You have just reason, my dear Sir, to be thankful that the Lord has preserved you holy and ornamental through such a series of years, and that you have been enabled to serve God, so long and so faithfully, in your day and generation. You have also, I have no doubt, many souls for your hire.

One of the objects of my writing at present is, to request you will take an early opportunity of paying us a visit at Leicester. We shall esteem ourselves greatly favoured by your company as long as you find it convenient; and it will be the endeavour of Mrs. Hall, not less than myself, to make you as happy as lies in our

The chapel in Dean Street, was built for Mr. Button in 1774, and he was pastor of the church assembling there, more than forty years.

P. S. Mrs. James desires to be most affectionately remembered to you and Mrs. Button.

Calamities, God's extraordinary means of reforming sinners, may penetrate that heart, which the common occurrences of life could not reach, or affect because though God's hand may be legible in the latter, yet it is only so to an attentive observer: but violent afflictions will rouse the soul, just as a hurricane does the body, from the most profound repose. Seed's Serm., vol. i, p. 200.

Riches oft beget in us a fondness for the present scene of things, and a deadness of affection towards God and heavenly things. But afflictions set the soul free, and leave it disencumbered in the pursuit of heaven. Convinced by melancholy proof of the insufficiency of worldly things, we take sanctuary in the fulness of the Divine sufficiency. Finding ourselves disconsolate in a barren and dry land, where no water is, we desire those rivers of pleasure, which flow at God's right hand for evermore. Seed's Serm., vol. ii, p. 33.

What I understand in Scripture, is excellent; and I do not question but what I do not understand, is so too. St. Austin.

Dangerous Consequences of the Sins of our Youth.How just reason have we oft, with Job [ch. xiii, 26], to suspect, that in the strokes that fall on us in riper years, God is making us to possess the iniquities of our youth? How much reason have we, with holy Augustin [Conf. lib. i], to confess and mourn over the sins of childhood, and trace original corruption in its first out-breakings, even up to infancy. I here observe, what an exact register, CONSCIENCE, God's deputy, keeps; how early it begins to mark, how accurate it is, even when it seems to take no notice, and to what length it will go in justifying God's severity against sinners at the last day; how distinctly and clearly it will read it out, and how far up it will fetch its accounts of those evils which we mind nothing of, when God shall open its eyes to read what is written, and discern those prints, which, as Job says, God sets upon the heels of our feet, and give it a commission to tell us of them, when the "books shall be opened, and the dead, small and great, shall be judged out of them." Rev. xx, 12. Life of Halyburton, p. 16.

Death of a Christian.-A Christian that walks with God here, when he leaves the world (to use the words of a dying saint) changes his room, but not his company. God was always with him on earth, and he shall be ever with God in heaven. — Dr. Bates, p. 392. S. J. B*****.

PSALM LXXXVII, 7.

"All my springs are in Thee."

As streams, that from their fountains part,
Soon parch'd and dry must be,
So, Lord, will this poor helpless heart,
Unless supplied by Thee.

But, like a river, peace shall flow,

And bright each pathway shine, Whilst I my Father's presence know, And call the Saviour mine.

S. F. W.