but as to peace in my heart, I had as yet not the least experience of it.

"The good providence of God led me to Geneva. Such was the anguish of my spirit that I did not know where to turn for comfort. But it was here that my God, in his infinite compassion, took pity on me. O Holy Bible! what blessings dost thou pour into the heart of a poor sinner, when the Holy Spirit brings him to the feet of the Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world!

"Some of the passages that especially were the means of bringing me that peace which the world cannot give, are the following:-1 Pet. ii. 24; 1 John i. 7; Gal. ii. 13; Col. ii. 14; Rom. iii. 20; Eph. ii. 3, &c. But I must stop, for my quotations might comprise most of the Word of God."

It is plainly to this interesting person that Dr Merle D'Aubigné refers, in his speech before the "Foreign-Aid Society" in London, when he says: "Another Spaniard, who had formerly been priest and almoner in the Carlist army, and who had received from Don Carlos the order of Isabella, arrived at Geneva a few months ago. I always recollect his first visit. He had acknowledged the errors of Popery, but not the truths of the Gospel. How do you think you shall be saved,' I said to him. By works,' he answered; but by works which the grace of God alone enables me to perform.' I immediately imparted to him the doctrine of justification by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ. Then that fine dark, gloomy, and Spanish countenance brightened up, as if the sun had fallen upon it-joy beamed from his eye, and over his whole face. I never saw such a transformation. He is one of the four priests who abandoned Rome, and who published a work a short time ago, which is translated into English. These four priests have been studying all this winter in our school of theology, among our students. We have now temporarily sent into France the ex-almoner of Don Carlos, and the chevalier of Isabella. The Catholic, with his cross upon his breast, has not been afraid to become a simple colporteur of the Bible. He is a man dear to me. May Spain abound with such men!"

Such are four recent and most interesting cases of conversion to God. They warrant one or two general inferences.

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the winged arrow. Let this encourage us in regard to the circulation of the Word in Popish countries. Had it not been for it, humanly speaking, these priests would not have been brought to the knowledge of the truth, at least not at so early a day in their history. No one can tell what rapid changes may appear, even in lands apparently the most hopelessly benighted. It is not necessary to wait for the slow operation of Protestant agents. The Spirit may work by the Word ere friends or foes are well aware. 2. We see how false is the charge, that Evangelical religion makes men gloomy and miserable. facts of the cases which have been quoted prove the very reverse. They show that salvation by free grace is the first thing to make sinners truly happy, and that the opposite system-the system of nature-is the very nurse of misery. How wretched were all the four priests while under the dominion of self-righteousness!-how happy were they as soon as brought under the power of a gratuitous salvation! And as it was with them, so it has been with multitudes. Free grace lays a foundation for immediate happiness. Many who receive may not enjoy it so quickly; but they have a warrant, in the nature of the case, to do so. Salvation is as finished and sure to the believing soul the first moment that it receives the truth as it can be at any future period. It is no fault of the free grace of the Gospel that believing sinners do not always or immediately rejoice. How rapid were the happy changes described in the tract before us! but not more rapid than many changes recorded in the Scriptures of the same nature. Let us never forget the joy-the immediate happiness, of a gratuitous salvation, contrasted with the intense, protracted, and ever-growing misery, of a salvation by the works and services of the sinner. Let us think how honouring joy is to true religion-how glorifying to Christhow recommendatory to his kingdom. Strange, that the Gospel should be blamed for the want, or the opposite, of the very thing in which it excels! Such, however, are the perversity and blindness of the human heart, while all the time clinging to what is essentially wretched. Ah! when will the victims of self-righteousness, whether Popish or Protestant, be entitled to rejoice in the joy of the poor converted priests?

ing it ever there. How elevated and sanctified the state of mind which breathed forth such sentiments as these!

"How great was my happiness when, thus disencumbered of a service which is but a kind of spurious Judaism, and of vain ceremonial observances, I lived according to the spirit of true Christianity, and, leaving the deceptive adoration of saints, worshipped only the Father, to whom I sought access by the Son alone! What unction in those heart-conceived prayers addressed to the Eternal by the mediation of Jesus Christ! It is in such true prayers that the humble soul feels the presence of God, and proves all the power of the Spirit. How little to be accounted of are the conflicts, how light the persecutions, of the world, when one can thus pour out one's soul before the Eternal! How firm our standing in this life of faith!"

THE UNANSWERABLE ARGUMENT.

SCENE I. THE PASTOR'S STUDY.

"HAVE you conversed with our Infidel and scoffing friend, Mr R--, on the subject of religion, to-day ?" said the venerable pastor to a neighbour who sat near him.

"I have, and at great length; but was unable to make the least impression upon his mind. You know that he is a man of extensive reading, and is a perfect master of all the ablest Infidel writers. He regards the fortress in which he has entrenched himself as impregnable. You know his ready wit; and when he finds he cannot talk you down, he will laugh you down. I can say no more to him. He made my errand the butt of ridicule for the whole company." "Then you consider his case hopeless ?"

"I do indeed. I believe him to be given over of God to believe a lie; and I expect to see him fill up his cup of iniquity to the very brim, without repentance, and to die a hardened and self-ruined man."

"Shall nothing, and can nothing more be done for him ?"-and the pastor arose, and walked the floor of his study, under the influence of deep agitation; while his neighbour leaned over the table, with his face buried in both his hands, lost in silent meditation.

It was now a solemn time in the parish. The preaching of the pastor for many Sabbaths had been ull of earnestness and power. The Church was reatly quickened. The spirit of prayer prevailed. Many were inquiring what they should do to be saved. Many, too, were rejoicing in hope, and the whole community were moved, as with one silent, but mighty impulse.

But unmoved, unconcerned, stood the Infidel, amid the many changes of heart and mind which were going on around him, proud of his position, and confident in his strength; and able, as he believed himself to be, to resist every influence, human and divine, which might be brought to bear upon him. The pastor had often approached him, and had as often been repulsed. As a last resort, he had requested his able and skilful neighbour, a lawyer of piety and talents, to visit Mr R, and endeavour to convince him. But it was like attempting to reason with the tempest, or still the thunder, or soothe the volcano.

SCENE 11.-THE ELDER'S CLOSET.

none but God could hear, was poured out a voice from a burdened soul. The elder was upon his knees. His bosom heaved with emotion. His soul was in an agony. That voice of prayer was continued at intervals through the livelong night. In that room was a wrestling like that of Jacob. There was a prevailing like that of Israel. It was a pleading with the Most High for an unwonted display of his power and grace, with the confidence that nothing was too hard for the Almighty. It was a night of prayer of entreaty of importunity. It was prayer, as a man would pray for the life of a friend who was on the eve of execution.

SCENE III. THE PRAYER MEETING.

The meeting was still and solemn as eternity. The house was crowded to its utmost capacity. It was a cheerful evening, and the astrals threw their mellow light over the dense assembly. Now the song of praise resounds from all parts of the room, and there is a heart in the utterance which belongs not to other times. Now the voice of one and another ascends in prayer; and such prayer is seldom heard except in the time of genuine revivals of religion. The silent tear steals down many a cheek. The almost inaudible sigh escapes from many a bosom. An intense interest sits on every countenance, and the voice of prayer is the voice of all. One after another arises, and tells the listening company what "the Lord has done for his soul." There stands Mr R, once the Infidel-now the humble believer in Jesus. He is clothed in a new spirit. His face shines as did the face of Moses when he had seen God face to face. He is a new creature in Christ Jesus.

"I stand," said Mr R, "to tell you the story of my conversion." His lips trembled slightly as he spoke, and his bosom heaved with suppressed emotion. "I am as a brand plucked out of the burning. The change in my views and feelings is an astonishment to myself; and all brought about by the grace of God, and that unanswerable argument. It was a cold morning in January. The sun was just rising, and sending his dim rays through the fleecy clouds. The fire was burning, and I had just begun my labour at the anvil in my shop, when I looked out, and saw elder B approaching. He dismounted quickly, and entered. As he drew near, I saw he was agitated. His look was full of earnestness. His eyes were bedimmed with tears. He took me by the hand. His breast heaved with emotion, and with indescribable tenderness he said: Mr R, I am greatly concerned for your salvation-greatly concerned for your salvation;' and he burst into tears. He stood with my hand grasped in his. He struggled to regain self-possession. He often essayed to speak, but not a word could he utter; and finding that he could say no more, he turned, went out of the shop, got on his horse, and rode slowly away.

"Greatly concerned for my salvation!' said I' audibly, and I stood and forgot to bring my hammer 1 down. There I stood with it upraised greatly concerned for my salvation! Here is a new argument for the truth of religion, which I have never heard before, and which I know not how to answer. Had the elder reasoned with me, I could have confounded him; but here is no threadbare argument for the truth of religion. Religion must be true, or this man would not feel as he does. Greatly concerned for my salvation!'-it rung through my ears like a thunder-clap in a clear sky. Greatly concerned I ought to be for my own salvation, said I-what shall I do?

sin. Old elder B

has rode two miles this cold morning to tell me he was greatly concerned for my salvation. What shall I do? what shall I do ?'

"I do not know what you can do,' said my now astonished wife; 'I do not know what better you can do, than to get on your horse and go and see the elder. He can give you better counsel than I, and tell you what you must do to be saved.'

"No sooner said than done. I mounted my horse and pursued after him. I found him alone in that same little room where he had spent the whole night in prayer for my poor soul-where he had shed many tears over such a reprobate as I, and had besought God to have mercy upon me.

"I am come,' said I to him, 'to tell you that I am greatly concerned for my own salvation.' It is a faith"Praised be God!' said the elder. ful saying, and worthy of acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, even the very chief;' and he began at that same Scripture, and preached to me Jesus. On that same floor we knelt, and together we prayed; and we did not separate that day till God spoke peace to my soul. I have often been requested to look at the evidence of the truth of religion; but, blessed be God, I have evidence for its truth here"-laying his hand upon his heart "which nothing can gainsay or resist. I have often been led to look at this and that argument for the truth of Christianity, but I could overturn and, as I thought, completely demolish and annihilate them all. But I stand here to-night, thankful to acknowledge that God sent an argument to my conscience and heart which could not be answered or resisted, when the weeping elder came to me to tell me how greatly concerned he was for my salvation. God taught him that argument, where he spent the night before him in prayer for my soul. Now I can truly say, I am a happy man. My peace flows like a river. My consistent, uncomplaining wife, who so long bore with my impiety and unbelief, now rejoices with me, that by the grace of God I am what I am-that And here permit whereas I was blind, now I see. me to say, if you would wish to reach the heart of such a poor sinner as I, you must get your qualifications where the good old elder did-in your closet; and I as he did-on his knees. So it shall be with me. will endeavour to reach the hearts of my Infidel friends through the closet and by prayer."

He sat down overcome with emotion, amid the tears and the suppressed sobs of the assembly. All were touched; for all knew what he once was all saw what he had now become.

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Time, on his noiseless wing, pursues his rapid flight." Years have gone by-and the good old elder has been numbered with the dead. But the converted Infidel still lives—an earnest, honest, faithful, humble Christian.

man.

THE GANGES.

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At certain seasons and constellations, bathing in this river is exceedingly meritorious; the act delivers the sinner, with three millions of his ancestors, from the punishment of hell; and the crimes of a thousand At such festivals I former births are atoned for.

have seen tens of thousands on the road, travelling to the sacred stream. The town of Burdwan was sometimes crowded with those pilgrims, and swarms of them were seen bivouacking at night under trees in the open air. These poor people often travel two or three hundred miles to obtain the benefits promised. On their return, they take kulsees, or large round vessels, full of water, home with them, to convey some of the same blessings to their friends who At sacred spots, such as have remained behind. Benares, one hundred thousand men are often seen assembled on the banks of the Ganges, especially at the time of an eclipse. As soon as the shadow of the earth touches the moon, the whole mass, upon a certain signal given, plunge at once into the stream; and, from the pressure of the water, a mighty wave rolls towards the opposite shore, which sometimes upsets boats filled with people. When all is over, the poor people get out of the water, and return home, under the delusive idea of having obtained remission of sin and perfect purity. The sins which are afterwards committed run on to a new account, which is to be cleared off at their next visit. In performing these ceremonies, not the least idea of a deeper and symbolical meaning enters the mind of the Hindu-the Shasters teach nothing of the kind; no, the river is a god personified-it is the water which cleanses, sanctifies, and raises the soul to heaven. The mind has been petrified by the religion which ascribes divine virtue to visible and material things.

The Ganges is the dying-bed and the grave of the Hindu. He is very anxious to breathe out his soul on its banks, in order that his last sins may be blotted When the patient out by the sight of its water. appears to approach death, he is removed from the circle of his friends, and carried away. Let the heat be parching, or the wind blow cold, the dying man is set down on the river's brink, being, when poor, sometimes barely covered with a rag.

I have often been a spectator of this revolting scene. Once, I remember two sons prepared their aged father for death. It was a morning in January, when the piercing northerly wind is severely felt in Bengal. They poured several basons full of water over his head; and then they placed the shivering body in the stream, and rubbed the upper part of it with mud, at the same time calling the names Gunga, Ram, Narayun, in his ears. The sight of the dying

father went through my heart: but this is to die happily, in the opinion of the Hindus. The Shasters promise him all the glories of Shiva's heaven; he will shine there brighter than a thousand suns; and millions of virgins are standing ready for his service, with coaches and palankeens in abundance. Surely the shores of the Ganges belong to "the dark places of the earth, which are full of the habitations of cruelty."

Once a wicked Brahman died, and Yama, the god of the infernal regions, took him into hell. His corpse was, as is usual, burned; a crow flew away with one of his bones, and let it fall into the Ganges; no sooner had it reached the water, than his soul left hell, riding in a splendid chariot to heaven. "Truly," said an excellent missionary, with the River Ganges in his sight, "no tyrant has ever brought greater misery over the earth, than those religious legislators have done who made a god of that river." Millions are, through this, annually drawn away from their homes; fornication, and other crimes are committed by the pilgrims on the way; and hundreds of thousands are dragged from a dry and clean dying-bed, to breathe out their lives in this watery grave. The dying person often sees the stake erected on which his corpse is to be burned: nor is the body allowed to get cold; but as soon as life is extinct, it is put on the pile, and the fire kindled. Instances are not rare, when the body was not really dead, and when it rose up, as the flame began to scorch it. In such a case the Hindus believe a bad spirit has entered the corpse, and knock it down with bamboos. The skull, which cannot be consumed in the fire, must be crushed by the nearest relative, that the soul may escape. In performing this dreadful operation he often sprinkles his garment with the brains, which have become liquid in the fire; the ashes are then thrown into the river. The poorer classes make far less ceremony, and throw the body in as it is, and frequently it is again cast on shore. I have seen dogs, jackals, and vultures, fighting for and devouring the corpses, and crows sitting on the floating carcasses, tearing off the flesh. In times when fevers and cholera prevail in large towns, hundred and thousands of bodies are daily and weekly thrown into the river, and the fires on which they are consumed continue burning day and night: in those seasons the shores of the Ganges resemble a charnelhouse.

I one day witnessed on the shores of this river a striking contrast between Christianity and Hinduism. Ön walking along the banks near the town of Colgong, I discovered a monument in memory of the child of a British officer. During his passage down the river, from a distant station, his infant died, and he had to perform the mournful duty of burying the body on the shore, desecrated by heathen abominations. The following epitaph, which I read on the tombstone, called forth my deep sympathy:

"Dear little babe, thy spirit's fled,
Thy tender frame lies here,
And o'er thy loved remains we shed
The bitter, bitter tear;

But Faith within the Saviour's arms
Views thee removed from pain,
And Faith the sting of Death disarms,
And says 'We'll meet again;'
When we through Christ shall be like thee-
Heirs of a blest eternity."

Shortly afterwards, I saw near the same spot two Hindus carrying the body of their deceased or dying relative to the river side. They deposited it on the sand, and walked several times round it, making various ceremonies. One of the men then laid hold of the head, and another of the feet, and having walked slowly into the water, and torn off the cloth

hich it was wrapped up, they flung the corpse

into the stream; they then washed their hands, and walked away in sullen apathy.

Suicide is thought peculiarly meritorious when committed near this river. The wife belongs to her husband, even after his death, and great is her sanctity if she follow him immediately on his decease; hence the suttee, or the burning of widows. with the bodies of their husbands; but this inhuman custom has been abolished by a law enacted by the East Indian Government. There are, according to an anatomical sketch of the Shasters, thirty-eight millions of hairs on the human body. The widow who allows herself to be burned will dwell as many years with her husband in heaven. In most instances the poor creatures are said to have been persuaded to it by the Brahmans. Many have jumped down from the pile as soon as the flame touched them, but have been forcibly thrown into the fire again.

In holy places where two rivers meet, suicides by drowning are frequently committed. Leprous people kill themselves by having a grave dug on the banks; a fire is kindled therein, and the poor wretch throws himself into it. By this means he hopes to acquire the merit of entering into a healthy body at his next transmigration.

And who can number the crowd of innocent babes who were sacrificed to Gunga, before the Government made it a capital crime? At a great festival in the island of Gunga Sagor, near the mouth of the Ganges, hundreds of mothers, who had made the cruel vow, threw their little ones into the water, to be devoured by sharks and alligators. One thing is certain-so long as Hinduism exists, human sacrifices will never be entirely abolished, though the Government may continue to issue orders against it. Many a cruel mother is yet throwing away her helpless babe to the jackals at night, especially if it be a girl. Protestant Missions in Bengal.

THE MONKS AT MOUNT SINAL FROM the inmates of St Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, who, including both the regular clergy and their lay-assistants, are twenty-three in number, my fellow-travellers and myself received much kindness. Like all the other recluses of the Greek Church, the monks belong to the order of St Basil, the rules of which they rigidly observe. Their seclusion they do not seem to have improved for the cultivation of deep and rational devotion, for pursuits of study, or for evangelistic effort, in which-if their perpetual vows, through which they deprive themselves of their Christian liberty, could be overlooked-some apology might be found for their situation. Some of them confessed to me that, in the multiplicity of their public authorized services, they could dispense altogether with private prayer and the perusal of the Scriptures. It was painful, indeed, to witness the manner in which they conduct divine worship in the church of the convent, dedicated to the "metamor phosis," or transfiguration. The lengthy Greek service, they read and chanted with the greatest irreve rence, and altogether unintelligible rapidity. Their ceremonious genuflections, and prostrations, and invocations, before the pictures of the saints, the