XXXVI.-Rev. G. Whitefield to Portsmouth, June 24, 1753, For this let men revile my name, regards for you will not permit me to be unmindful of you; I beg therefore how you are, whether that violent inI may know, by some method or other, flammation is removed or abated, &c. A life so dear, so valuable to many, is an important one; and as far as we may desire it, we can't but beg its thread may be, by a kind hand of Providence, drawn out many years. And while it is so, O may your soul be as a watered garden! I doubt not you have tasted yt the Lord is gracious; yt you have seen the excellency of Jesus and the beauty of holiness, the infinite sufficiency, and the sole all-sufficiency of a God in Christ, to fill and felicitate your soul, and that you have acted conformably to such principles; yt, as a fallen creature, you have long agoe fled for refuge to an incarnate God, a dying Redeemer; reposing your humble and steady affiance in him for all that salvation yt you need, and at the same time bowing to his authority, and esteeming it as one grand article of this salvation, yt you are made willing and obedient. Friend, abound more and more in this May you, my honoured sort of application, to this most suitable and excellent Redeemer ! You know you continually need him, as the Lord your righteousness, as you are ever incurring guilt, and as your strength and wisdom in your race and warfare; you him for vital influences, as he is your know you are every day to live upon Head; and the nearer you keep to him, the more you go out of yourself, in a way of humble, serious dependance upon him, and expectation from him, you will find yourself more safe and God that; that lays such a sure and easy. Blessed Gospel! well worthy of satisfactory foundation for man's recovery and everlasting safety, and yet teaches us to attribute all to God, and ascribe every part of our salvation to XXXVII.-Rev. R. Pearsall to the free grace of God in Christ. Could I see you on Tuesday evening, before you went to Hackney; could dear Mrs. Savage, and your dear little maid come and drink a dish of tea with us, I will endeavour to be at home. My most cordial respects and affections await them and you. Be pleased still to add to my innumerable obligations, by continuing to pray for my very dear, dear Sir, Yours, ་་་་་་་་་་ a Lady. (To the Editors.) G. W. GENTLEMEN-The following letter, written, I presume, more than half a century ago, by the excellent Mr. Pearsall, of Taunton, to a pious and distinguished lady in that neighbourhood, Mrs. T. you may insert in the proper place in your useful Magazine. T. G. Saturday Morning. GOOD MADAM-As I found you so greatly indisposed on Wednesday, my May the Divine Spirit be the Spirit of consolation to you; shew you (as vation is near you, and your own. the angel to Hagar) yt the well of salDirect acts of faith, though they don't necessarily draw after them reflex, yet frequently repeated, many times do. Frequent renewals of penitent applications to a dying Redeemer, serious breathings after the light of God's countenance, a course of close walking with God, in humble, steady obedience and tenderness of conscience, and all accompanied with a becoming submis sion to the sovereign will of God, are wont, in due time, to be honoured with peace and consolation. May He who is the consolation of Israel, (the character of Christ, wch I mean to insist on to-morrow,) come, by his Spirit and promises, the one the agent, the other the instrument of consolation, and open all his excellencies and all bis love to yourself, and thus turn your winter into a pleasing and fruitful summer; and then may experience, not only more peace, but larger degrees of spiritual strength, and enlargedness in the waies of the Lord! n My humble service to Mr. W. and lady ; and if they go their journey, may it be a prosperous one in all respects! I shall hope to hear that you are better; and in that hope subscribe myself, Honoured Madam, Your most respectful hble Serv1, ་་་་་་་་་ XXXVIII.—The Protector, Oliver Cromwell, to his Daughter. At a recent sale of autographs by Mr. Southgate, of Fleet Street, an original letter of the Protector Oliver was sold for five guineas and a half. This letter is addressed to his daughter (not the Lady Claypole), and is characteristic both of the writer and of the age. Although it was printed in the Times Journal, and therefore does strictly come under the description of unpublished letters, to which this department has been exclusively devoted, yet from the ephemeral character of a newspaper, and the interest connected with the letter, we are induced to present it to our readers. It is as follows: not Ed. "October 25, 1646, London. "Deare Daughter,-I write not to thy husband, partly to avoyd trouble, for one line of mine begitts many of his, which I doubt makes him sitt up too late; partly because I am myselfe indisposed att this tyme, havinge some other considerations. Your freinds att Ely are well: your sister Claypole is (I trust in mercy) exerceised with some perplexed thoughts. Shee sees her own vanitye and carnal minde be wanteing itt. She seeks after (as I hoped alsoe) that which will satisfie; and thus to bee a seeker is to bee of the best sect next pardon, and such an one shall every faythfull humble seeker bee to the end. Happie seeker, happie finder. Whoe ever tasted that the Lord is gracious without some sense of selfe vanitye and badnesse? whoe ever tasted that graciousnesse of his and could goe lesse in desire, and then pressinge after full enioyement? Deare daughter, presse on. Let not husband, let not any thinge coole thy affections after Christ. I hope hee will be an occasion to inflame them. That which is best worthy of love in thy husband is that of the image of Christ hee beares. Looke on that and love it best, and all the reste for that I pray for thee and him do soe for me; my serand generalesse. I heare she is very vice and deare affection to the generall kind to thee; it adds to all other obligations: my love to all. "I am thy deare father, "OLIVER CROMWELL." The following memoranda are affixed to this letter:-" Mind, this letter I had from my mother Limmington, who had it from old Mrs. Warner, who had lived with Oliver Cromwell's daughter." "Mind second, this account was given by one of Mrs. Warner's family of S-y, from whom I had the original in September, 1751. E. D." POETRY. THE CONTRAST. Two lines along my life I see, One brightness, and one shade; This the kind gifts of God to me, That the returns I made. Here, love divine gave every good, All fulness for my needs; There, cold and base ingratitude Against the hand that feeds. Here, memory turns and sees him die, That I to him might live; But of that life he died to buy, He would not shrink to own my name, But ah! what strange and guilty shame Homerton. JAMES EDMEston. "THE STING OF DEATH IS SIN." WHILE on we journey here below, When sorrows, like the billows roll, We shrink, alas! from death's cold bed, But oh, amid this darker night, Has spoiled the grave, and vanquished There, by the eye of faith I view VERSES ELIZA T. Inscribed upon certain Articles of Taste in- THANKS be to Him who prais'd on earth And thanks to Him whose power employs, To aid that kingdom's spread, which will Strangers of India's burning strand, Yet would that band to thee impart, And may God speed it well. A day draws near when death shall close And seal thy spirit's doom: So live, that that hour's note to thee India thy sun of glowing flame And Ganges! thy majestic tide Rolls in its course a Moloch god; By mothers' hands, with infants' blood. Idolatry and crime shall cease ; For lo! the vict'ries are begun, In thee, of Christ's all-conquering And o'er thy shores that word shall run, ་་་་་་་ A FRIEND THAT STICKETH closer tHAN For friendship is a brittle thing, In such a world as this. A brother, bound by nearest tic, No city strong, or fortress high, Though every fair and hopeful scheme, Take courage, and in this exult, Thee and thy friends to sever; J. 5. REVIEW OF BOOKS. The final State of the Heathen. An THAT the subject of these publi- the import of their language, and, irrespective of system, to yield implicit subjection unto their decision. We cannot, therefore, judge the articles now on our table, superfluous. With many, however, there is hend that all such enquiries ena previous question; they appredanger a presumptuous intrusion Lord has reserved to himself, and into the secret things which the that they are virtually forbidden by the highest authority. Let us hear Mr. Burder in reply. "Two separate causes are conceivable, either of which may have induced the Saviour to answer that person as he did; the cause may have been something improper in the question itself, or something wrong in the inquirer's mind. That there is no inherent impropriety in the question itself, seems obvious from the circumstance that, in other parts of Scripture, init refers. Nowhere, indeed, are we told formation is given on the subject to which what proportion the number of the saved will bear to that of the lost, but we are assured that the number of the saved will be not small but great. Jesus declared that many shall come from the east, and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven ;' and John, in the Apocalypse, after describing one hundred and forty four thousand of the people of Israel among the saved, speaks of a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues." "It is exceedingly probable that the person who proposed the above question, was one of a large class, not yet extinct, who busy themselves, and harass others, with speculations about things difficult of comprehension, and of little practical benefit while they neglect the weightier matters of the law,' and are never asking each for himself, with a desire to have an agreeably to the answer-What shall I answer, and with the intention of acting do to be saved? Such may have been the character of this inquirer, and this may have been the reason that our Lord, question, Are there few that be saved ?* instead of giving a direct reply to the chose rather addressing the whole company present, to utter that solemn, and 3 R practical exhortation, Strive to enter in at the straight gate.' "A subject which is not wrong in itself, may be impertinent under given circumstances. In every science the elements and rudiments demand the first attention of the learner; more abstruse things must be deferred till these are mastered; and to no study does this remark apply with greater force than to that of Theology. Not a single step is taken towards heaven, till a man not merely understands, but actually makes use of those fundamental truths, relative to the state of human nature, and to the work of Christ, which are so plain that a child may comprehend them." "But after the first principles of the doctrine of Christ have been engrafted into the mind, there can be nothing wrong in a man's seeking to know whatever is knowable in the Christian scheme, provided that the time allotted to the less useful inquiries be not disproportionably large, and that the investigation of such topics be conducted in a spirit and temper becoming the disciple of Christ. Teachers of religion are peculiarly called upon to enter occasionally on the consideration of the more abstruse points of Theology. These are subjects which they do not conceive to be adapted for discussion in the pulpit; on which, nevertheless, they find it necessary to meditate in the closet; partly for the satisfaction of their own minds, and partly for the sake of qualifying themselves to converse with those speculative persons, in whose way they are occasionally thrown, in a manner neither disgraceful to themselves, nor injurious to the cause of truth. "Of this description is the subject appointed for our consideration to-day. What is likely to be the final condition of six hundred millions of mankind, who are sitting in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death.--And what is the state of those thousands of millions who have already lived and died in similar circumstances, are questions which every man, not altogether destitute of benevolence and piety, will acknowledge to be of deep interest. And never was there a time when correct views on this subject were more desirable than they are now. The zealous efforts which Christians are making to abolish Heathenism, and to spread the light of the Gospel through the world, force it on public attention. Not that the duty of making such exertions depends on any particular opinions which may be formed on the subject before us. Whatever will be the final state of the Heathen, it is manifestly incumbent upon us to endeavour to ameliorate their present condition; and experiments, numerous and decisive, prove, beyond the possibility of mistake, that no means for im proving the temporal circumstances of mankind have ever been discovered, at all comparable, in point either of expeditiousness or of completeness, with the Gospel. The duty of evangelizing the Heathen is, moreover, rendered obligatory, irrespective of consequences, by the explicit command of the Son of God, addressed primarily to his Apostles, and virtually to his servants in every succeeding age, till the commission be quite fulfilled, Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.' "—pp. 3--6. On the other hand, some, with Mr. Grinfield, appear to have over-rated the importance of such inquiries, considering that the affirmative determination of the question is the best, if not the only effectual reply to the argument against Christianity, drawn from its very partial promulgation. To this plausible objection a more solid answer is produced; in the fact, that this partial promulgation of the Gospel arises not from the will of its author, but the criminal neglect of his disciples. His commission was, ' Go preach the Gospel to every creature ;' he enjoined, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations and had the zeal and diligence of its first preachers been followed up by their successors, but a few years, or at the most but few generations, would have passed before Christianity would have become as universal as mankind. Let professed Christians, then, meet this cavil of the sceptic by an appeal to the will of Christ, and an ingenuous confession, that shame and confusion of face belong to them for having disregarded that will, and suffered the nations to remain unpitied, strangers to the mercy provided for them. The avowed object of Mr. Grinfield is, to prove "the Salvability of the Heathen," continuing strangers to the Gospel. He does not appear to maintain that any of them, as heathen, will be saved, but that through the mediation of |