fading leaf-the withering flower-the tale that is told, are some of its Scripture emblems. At one period, the ordinary term of human existence was a thousand years. Seventy years, less than one-tenth of its former measure, is the utmost that the many now arrive at. Some pass a little beyond it, "yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." But how few of those who read this page will ever reach their fourscore years! Think of this, my soul! Like a staunch murderer, steady to his purpose, What, then, is your life? Knowing that you must die, and stand in judgment—that at any moment the weary wheels may stop-that the blood may mount to thy brain, or chill at thy heart-O turn you to feeling and to thoughtfulness- - betake you to reflection, to penitence, and to prayer. From all these shadows--yourself a shadow as fleeting as any-turn away, and lose yourself amid the grand, the awful realities of an endless, an advancing immortality. Hasten to Jesus from the wrath to come-fron the undying worn of remorse-from the unquenchable fire of torment. O how have you been living! What precious time have you killed, what costly privileges have you abused, what useful talents have you buried, what pro perty have you squandered, what Sabbaths have you broken, what a God have you hated, what a Saviour have you despised, what a Holy Spirit have you slighted, what a salvation have you neglected, and what a soul have you, shall II say-LOST! Is it not a wonder that you are not now beyond the reach even of infinite mercy that you are not now in hell, lifting up your eyes in torment, calling in vain for a drop of water to cool your parched tongue? But the long-suffering of God waiteth now, as it did in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing. The Ark of salvation is finished-its door is open-it hath not left the shore-over its por tal, in letters of gold, it is written: "Gov so LOVED THE WORLD, THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BLGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHOULD NOT PERISHI, BUT HAVE EVERLASTING The uncertainty of its continuance is a view of time no less solemn and instructive. How treacherous does it often appear! Blooming with health, budding with promise, beguiling with hope, it sheds its brilliant light around our path, and again, like a meteor, in a moment disappears. I met my friend but yesterday; his manly countenance was redolent of health; his bright eye beamed with gladness; his warm hand pressed mine in fond affection; and he spoke of coming joys and pleasing anticipations, with a voice whose deep and mellow intonations seemed to rise from the very fountain of health. I called upon him to-day, and was ushered into his chamber. There reposed his body as it was wont to do, as in calm and placid slumber, but he himself was not there; he had, in the still watches of night, passed suddenly away. I called to him, but he heard not; I spoke to him, but he answered not again. took his hand in mine, but it was cold as a clod; I pressed my lips to his, but they were as marble. My friend had laid himself down to sleep, but he woke no more, nor will wake again until the archangel's trump shall sound," Arise ye dead, and come to judgment." O by what an uncertain tenure do we hold our present lease of life!-the strongest often the first to droop; the fairest often the first to die. votaries of worldly pleasure and pursuit! think of it in connection with your sweetest and most lasting joys. Are they not horn but to die? Compress them between the periods of feeble infancy and grey decrepitude, what is their value? Take an inventory of them, when you come to lie down upon your bed of death, what is their What fruit will ye have in them then? See! they pass before you, one by one--rank, birth, beauty, health, estate, honour, pleasure, each casts its farewell look upon you as it flits away. But what avail they now? Will they smooth your dying pillow? Will they cool your fevered brain? Will they bring back to the heart the warm and genial current of life? Will they bribe the king of terrors to stay awhile? Will they fit the soul for its passage to eternity? In that awful moment, when the curtain parts asunder, and lets down the light of the judgment-seat, streaming upon your pillow, what will be all the bygone joys and delights of the fancy, of the taste, of the imagination, of the intellect-the "lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life?" Awful moment! Tremendous crisis! See sum? Ye LIFE." As one lying under the curse and the condemnation of the law-doomed as a cri minal, helpless as an infant, abject as a slave, lost and ruined as a sinner-escape for thy life; look not behind, nor stay in all the plain, but flee, this moment flee to Christ, the Ark of salva tion, the City of refuge. The day of a finished and free salvation has come, in which it is your mercy and your privilege to receive and avail yourself of the wondrous tidings of God's par don through Christ, "in whoni [poor sinners] have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." In the spirit of a humble, beseeching penitent, must you receive this great and gracious boon of God's forgiving love. Think not to obtain it on the ground of your own worthiness, or to purchase it by works of human merit. If you receive salvation not as a gratuity, the free gift of God, you receive it not at all. "It is of faith, that it might be by grace." If, then, it is of faith, simply believing on the Lord Jesus, then it is no more of works LIFE, THE ANTECEDENT OF IMMORTALITY. 555 and more emphatic words, Christ is his life. And thus is this great and spiritual truth set forth: "Hath quickened us together with Christ."-Eph. ii. 5. As in Salvation, therefore, is as free to the vilest of vile as God can make it; yea, "without money and without price." Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that Ye are dead, and your hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, life is hid with Christ in God."- Col. iii. 3. come, buy wine and milk without money and "Who died for us, that we should live together without price." Are you prepared to avail with him." -1 Thess. v. 10. "Dead with yourself of this condescending proposal, and to Christ". "Risen with Christ." Such are the accept this gracious gift? It may be you are terms, and they might be greatly multiplied, just the one which its full and free invitation which set forth this amazing truth-the beembraces. Are you thirsting for true happi- liever's oneness with Jesus, and his consequent ness? Come, then, and draw water out of these life in, and from, and with him for ever. wells of salvation. Are you weary? Jesus is the first Adam he died, so in the second Adam your soul's rest. Are you heavy ladened? he lives. As he fell in the first, so he rises in Jesus is the sinner's burden-bearer. Are you the second. So that the renewed, pardoned, bowed down with grief and pain? Jesus un- and accepted believer stands before God as one covers his stricken bosom, and bids you come who was dead with Christ, was buried with and lay it there. Have you spent your all upon Christ, rose again with Christ, and is ascended physicians of no value, and are nothing better, up on high with Christ. The resurrection of but rather grown worse? Jesus is a great Phy- Jesus, was the resurrection-life of all represician-one touch of his hand will make you sented by him. As when he stirred in the whole. Do you feel yourself to be the greatest tomb, and broke from its imprisonment, he resinner in the universe? Jesus died and rose ceived a new life, a resurrection life, a life unagain to save to the uttermost all that come unto known, unfelt before; so all his members, who God by him. O what a Saviour is he! So are not merely joined to him, but infinitely lovely, no object of beauty surpasses him. So more, are one with him, partake of that new, loving and compassionate, no affection or ten- risen life, such as they never could have posderness like his. So precious, all other objects sessed had not Jesus risen again from the dead. lose their sweetness and their value in compari- The Head coming back to life, was the transson. So dear, that life were a blank and heaven mission of a new principle of life through every itself were no heaven without him. Repair to member of the body. Thus much for the behim, then, just as you are, and my life for lever's new, heavenly, and immortal life. yours, if he will not save you from hell, and fit you for heaven: "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out"-" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." You If you are in possession of this divine life, dear reader, then you will be found exemplifying in the minute detail of your daily walk and conversation, its practical influence. will be walking in the holy liberty of a dear child, as one who stands not only in, but as one with Christ. Oglorious privilege! What honour! what security! what glory! what happiness! All your interests are the Lord's for time and for eternity! You will live, too, as one whose conversation is in heaven, because your Life is there. Risen with Christ, you will rise daily in spirit and affection above the things that are on earth. You will come out of the world, and be sepa But I turn for a moment to the CHRISTIAN LIFE. It, too, is the antecedent of immortality, but an immortality, O how glorious! It can, in truth, be affirmed only of the believer in Jesus, that he lives. What an awful blank is a man's life until the moment of his spiritual quickening by the Holy Ghost! All has been moral death. His soul dead, his faith dead, his works dead, his religion dead. The dark pall of spiritual death wraps all in its fearful folds—the awful, and, if sovereign grace inter-rate—a holy, humble, self-denying, cross-bearfere not, the certain prelude of the "second death." But the believer lives. God the eternal Spirit has breathed into his soul the breath of a new, a spiritual, and a divine life. "You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and in sins." But let us inquire more particularly into this great truth. Many are too content with mere superficial or crude ideas of its nature. We do not reject the term regeneration, nor the grand idea the word imparts, in our estimate of the spiritual life of a child of God; but we do not rest here. We think something beyond this is implied. UNION TO CHRIST is that doctrine which gives the truest, and the most perfect and vivid idea of the life of God in the soul of the regenerate. The belierer lives only as he is one with Christ. in other ing follower of your crucified but risen and exalted Head. You will be seeking to draw more life from him, remembering that he came not only that you should have life, but that you should have it more abundantly. Hastening from all below, you will long to depart, and to be with Christ. Exiled in spirit from the worldly and creature attractions around you, you will be looking for, and hastening unto the coming of your Lord. "And when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." This house is to be let for life or years; QUARLES. "BROTHER COMSTOCK;" OR, TRIALS OF THE MISSIONARY. THE Rev. Mr Kincaid, a Baptist missionary, in addressing lately the Baptist Convocation at New York, gave several interesting particulars regarding the Karens, a people in the west of Asia, in the country of Arracan, among whom he had been labouring. The mission was commenced in 1837, and the Gospel has taken root among them with promise of an abundant harvest. They have the New Testament in their own language, and a part of the Old. They have a great desire for literature; and all the books they now possess have been written by Christian men, and are deeply imbued with the spirit of Christianity. There are three thousand converted Karens, twentysix churches and preachers, and a large number of children in charge of the missionaries. Previous to 1837 the people had never heard the name of Jesus, so that the progress of the work has been wonderful. Mr Kincaid, after giving his statement, referred, in touching narrative, to a brother missionary, named Comstock, who had laboured long in the same field, and who, with his wife and children, had since died. The passage may be useful, as prescuting an affecting view of the trials and sacrifices incident to missionary life. He said: Of all the men I ever knew, brother Comstock was the most laborious. He laboured faithfully and zealously for six years, seeing but one single convert in all that time. With all this I never heard him speak as if he was discouraged. He was always full of hope, and laboured on as if he knew the end was certain. I shall never forget my parting scene with brother Comstock and his wife. They had come down to the coast to see us off, and one evening while we were at their house, word was sent from the ship, which lay about two miles off in the bay, that we must get ready to go on board. Mrs Comstock, being then too unwell to go the length of the ship, took her two children, and walked with them towards a grove of tamarind trees near the house, and when she had walked some little distance she paused a moment, and looked at each of her children with a mother's look of love, and imprinted a mother's kiss upon the forehead of each; then she raised her eyes to heaven, and silently invoked blessings on their heads, when she turned and walked again into the house. Brother Comstock, and his two children, who were to return with us, for the purpose of being educated in this country, came off to the ship together, and when we had descended to the cabin, he entered one of the state rooms with his children; there he knelt with them in prayer, and then, laying his hands upon their heads, he bestowed a father's blessing upon them, tears all the while streaming down his cheeks. He took his leave of me with a gentle pressure of the hand, and I followed him to the side of the vessel, watching him as he descended into the small boat which lay alongside, and which was to convey him to the shore. When he reached the boat, he turned his face up to me, still bedewed with tears, and exclaimed, "REMEMBER, BROTHER KINCAID, SIX MEN FOR ARRACAN." I never saw him again, and the very day we took on board a pilot off Sandy Hook was the day on which sister Comstock died. I mention these things, to prove to those who think that they make great sacrifices in contributing a little to the cause of missions, that they know nothing of sacrifices at all. The last words of the brother wh made such sacrifices, were, "Six men for Arracan." His grave is now at Ramsee. Sister Comstock's grav is at the same place, under the tamarind trees ne. the place where she lived and laboured so many year and her children lie by her side. In Ramsee is the grave of sister Abbott; and there her children lie to have known what it was to make sacrifices for the Ah! my friends, could you have seen them, you woul missionary cause. Brother and sister Stilson an there alone, by the graves of those with whom the had toiled and laboured; and I ask you, in the word of brother Comstock, Shall we go back without th "six men for Arracan?" "SIX MEN FOR ARRACAN!" THE mother stamped a burning kiss Upon each little brow; So dear a sacrifice as this She never made till now: And chatter on, in merry tones, To see the gallant ship. Beside those young and cherished ones He breathes one prayer, he prints one kin, Rose up and clung to heaven. Why lingers he upon the shore? Why turns he towards the deck? Perhaps to say farewell once morePerhaps one look to take. O no; but calm as angels now That kneel before the throne, He said, My brother, when you stand In that delightful, happy land, Where all our fathers sleepWhen you shall hear their Sabbath-bell Call out their happy throngs, And hear the organ's solemn swell, And Zion's sacred songs, Tell them a herald, far away, Where midnight broods o'er man, Bade ye this solemn message say— "Six men for Arracan." While in that happy land of theirs THE JEWELS. They feast on blessings given, There dwells a lonely man, Sweet home-ah, yes! I know how sweet, I've known what heartfelt pleasures meet- Where childhood's joys began, O when the saint lies down to die, To fairer, happier lands, And east one thought on man; A POPISH MIRACLE. DURING the contest between Don Miguel and Don Pedro for the throne of Portugal, an incident oeIeurred which affords a good illustration of the character of Popish miracles. In one of the Madonna churches of Lisbon there was worshipped an image of the Virgin, which was held in the greatest repute by the inhabitants, in consequence of the numerous miracles said to have been performed by it in former times. The priests thought that making this image speak in favour of their patron, Don Miguel, would be an irrefutable argument with the people for his pretensions. With this intention, a novena was ordered in honour of the image, and the church splendidly decorated for its celebration. The people assembled in crowds from all parts of the city to pay their devoirs to the Virgin, and to hear the panegyric preached in her honour. The preacher, after enumerating the many benefits, temporal and spiritual, which the people derived from their devotion to the Queen of Heaven, and afterrelating the many miracles performed by the image then and there worshipped, turuing toward the image itself, and casting himself on his knees before it (in which idolatrous act he was imitated by his audience), he addressed to it a fervent prayer for the good of the Church, and implored it to manifest, by a miracle, whether she was well pleased that Don Miguel should reign over the kingdom of Portugal. The image (mirabile dietu !) at the conclusion of this fervid appeal, bowed its head in sign of assent three times in succession before the eyes of the assembled multitude, all of which, with one voice, simultaneously cried out, "A miracle! a miracle-long live Miguel the First, the chosen of the Virgin, and the beloved of Heaven!" This miracle was repeated frequently on the following days of the festival, and in presence of a still greater concourse, attracted by its fame, which spread in an incredibly 557 short time, not only through Lisbon, but through the greater part of Portugal. It was even repeated by the Miguelite officers to their soldiers at the head of the ranks, and had, as was intended, the effect of exciting their zeal in the cause of the petty tyrant -as Miguel proved himself to be for the comparatively short time that he was in possession of the usurped throne. The last day but one, however, of its acting was destined to open the eyes of the people, and to give them an idea of what priestcraft is capable of in order to arrive at its ends. At the close of the sermon, and when the preacher turned, as usual, to apostrophize the image, and to implore it to signify its pleasure and assent to Miguel's government by moving the head, as it had done the seven preceding days, since the commencement of the nocena, the image retained its inanimate position, to the great disappointment of the people, whose expectations were so highly wound up, and to the consternation of the priests, who were privy to the cheat. The request was repeated with some additional flowers of rhetoric from the preacher, and the most stunning vociferations from the people; but all in vain-the image neither moved its head nor changed its position. At length, on the preacher's repeating the request the third time, and hinting that the Virgin was angry on account of the presence of some freemasons, who mingled through curiosity among the crowd of worshippers, a voice was heard issuing from the inside of the image, and complainingly crying out, "It is not my fault that the Virgin does not move her head, for I have pulled the cord till it broke, and what can I do more?" The voice was distinetly heard by every one; but the speaker was invisible. At last, one of those who were present, more courageous than the rest, attempted to approach the image, but was repulsed repeatedly by the priests, who well knew the consequence of the discovery; but being seconded by some others equally desirous of unraveling the mystery, he at length succeeded in coming close to it, and, on removing the folds of the garments with which such like images are decked out, he found an opening in the side, large enough for the admittance of a full-grown boy, whom he pulled out, and who was immediately recog nised as the nephew of the bishop, placed there by his unele, for what purpose it does not require an extraordinary degree of acuteness to guess. The whole secret was now explained; the people met the discovery with the ridicule it so well merited, and little was wanting that they did not massacre on the spot the impostors who got up the cheat. These thought it their best plan to consult for their own safety by flight, which they immediately made good through the doors of the sacristy, amid the hisses and curses of the infuriated populace. THE JEWELS. (A Tradition of the Rubbins, translated by Coleridge.) THE celebrated teacher, Rabbi Meir, sat during the whole of one Sabbath-day in the public school instructing the people. During his absence from his house his two sons died, both of them of uncommon beauty, and enlightened in the law. His wife bore them to her bed-chamber, laid them upon the marriage-bed, and spread a white covering over their bodies. In the evening Rabbi Meir came home. "Where are my two sons," he asked, "that I may give them my blessing? I repeatedly looked round the school, and I did not see them there." She reached to him a goblet; he praised the Lord at the 66 going out of the Sabbath, drank, and again asked "Where are my sons, that they too may drink of the cup of blessing?" They will not be far off," she said, and placed food before him that he might eat. He was in a gladsome and genial mood, and when he had said grace after the meal, she thus addressed him: "Rabbi, with thy permission I would fain propose to thee one question." "Ask, it then, my love!" he replied. "A few days ago, a person intrusted some jewels to my custody, and now he demands them again; should I give them back again ?" "This is a question," said Rabbi Meir, "which my wife should not have thought it necessary to ask. What, wouldst thou hesitate or be reluctant to restore to every one his own?" "No," she replied; "but yet I thought it best not to restore them without acquainting thee therewith." She then led him to the chamber, and stepping to the bed, took the white covering from the dead bodies. "Ah, my sons, my sons!" thus loudly lamented the father; "my sons-the light of mine eyes and the light of my understanding-I was your father, but ye were my teachers in the law." The mother turned away and wept bitterly. At length she took her husband by the hand, and said: "Rabbi, didst thou not teach me that we must not be reluctant to restore that which was intrusted to our keeping? See, the Lord gave, the Lord has taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord!"" "Blessed be the name of the Lord!" echoed Rabbi Meir, "and blessed be his name for thy sake too; for well it is written: Whoso hath found a virtuous wife hath a greater treasure than costly pearls; she openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kind ness.""" APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. THE BISHOP AND THE MISSIONARY. "THINK not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." This is a text against the spirit which keeps alive the arrogant dogma of apostolical succession. "We are the children of Abraham," boasted the Jews."We are the successors of the apostles," is the boast of others in our day. But as the Baptist rebuked the former, so may the latter be rebuked. It was not mere carnal descent from Abraham which could profit; but "they which are of faith," we are told, these are the children of Abraham." In like manner, it is not mere ministerial orders, received in an unbroken ordination-chain from the apostles--even could that be proved, which it cannot-which would avail as a ground of confidence or boasting. It is those who are "strong in the faith" by which the apostles overcame, stedfast in the apostles' doctrine," and abundant in the apostles" "labours," who are their true successors in the only sense in which they can be said to have had successors at all. “They who on noble ancestry enlarge, For a Jew to boast of his descent from Abraham, We met lately with a good illustration of this c fashionable boasting about apostolical succession, and sufficient material at the same time for proving its absurdity, in a work entitled "Polynesia," by Bishop et Russell of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the well-known compiler of several works for the "Edinburgh Cabinet Library." In speaking of the missionaries whose labours have been so signally blessed in the South Seas, he says: "They act as pioneers-they prepare the way for the advance of a more regular force; they cut out a path in the wild thicket or morass, by which their successors may proceed to complete the work begun with so much labour; they sow the seed with an unskilful hand, perhaps, and on ground little cultivated, but whence, at no distant day, a crop will spring to enrich and beautify the whole land. The missionary in due time is followed by the Churchman, who syste matizes the elements which the other has created. Like a wise master-builder, the latter poliches the materials already in some degree prepared to his hand, and erects with them an orderly edifice, complete in all its parts, and having for its foundation the lively stones of an apostolical priesthood, qualified to affer the oblation of a spiritual sacrifice.” The bishop, of course, reckons himself among the apostolical priesthood, but refuses the title to the rude, unskilful missionaries! It appears never to have entered his imagination that they could by pos sibility be apostolical. But here the bishop treads on ground which burns him. He could not have brought his apostolical pretensions into a more dangerous collocation, or one in which comparisons surely and deservedly damaging both to him and to his cause are more inevitably called forth. One is tempted to ask: Who most resembles an apostle? he who, as the missionary, spends his days and years in proclaiming to the Heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ, and is made the means of turning whole islands to the Lord; or he who, as the author, sits at home writing books on all imaginable subjects, enlivened only with passages so cold and presumptuous as the above? Bishop Russell might decide the question in favour of himself, and all of a like mind in the kingdom might back him; but a hopeful appeal would lie to Chrs tianity and common sense. Take, for example, such 21 a man as John Williams. Follow him from his conversion to his martyrdom. See him taking his life in his hand, and, burning with a zeal which labour could i not diminish, nor difficulties damp, nor persecution destroy, going from island to island, denouncing to the idolatrous and often savage barbarians, the gods whom they ignorantly worshipped-charging upon them the multitude and grossness of their sins, telling them of the blood of the covenant by which they might be cleansed from them all, and striving to con strain them by love, or to persuade them by terror, to flee from the wrath to come, and yield themselves to God-till, the Spirit inspiring the preacher, and |