some strange thing hath overtaken you. Remember you have one who now hates you because the Father hath loved you. He narrowly watches for your halting: he will aim his darts at your soul, while he spreads a net for your feet, for he longs to have you that he may sift you as wheat. Expect then such sifting times. Be not ignorant of Satan's devices; but resist him in the faith.-A hell-deserving sinner resting simply on Christ's blood for pardon, and his grace to help in every time of need. And why? Simply because he has said it in John v. 24. The word, the word alone is your warrant; in the hour of temptation, in rummaging over your graces for some warrant from them to believe, you just fall into the snare the devil has laid for you, for he will take good care so to confound your view, that you shall see nothing but sin. However, dear friends, “All things are yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied unto you.'

SOVEREIGNTY OF GRACE.

REV. SIR,-If you think the following account worthy a place in your little penny periodical I shall be gratified to see it there; hoping, under the divine influence of God the Spirit, it may tend to set forth the sovereignty of grace, which in our day is so lamentably dishonoured. M. L. E.

I AM going to relate to you a simple narrative of an aged sinner. It matters not in what part of this our

county of Cornwall he lived, or what his name. His manner of life was vagrancy and imposture. Often has he been known, for the purpose of exciting the sympathy and eliciting alms from the humane and unsuspecting, to limp on crutches, and as oft to shoulder them and flee when he has perceived himself observed stealing wood or other articles in the neighbourhood of his wretched hut. Such then were the works of him of whom I speak what I know. But the time came that he renounced his evil pursuits, and why? Why, simply because he could not practise them; age and infirmity had forbidden it: but his language was as profane and dreadful, or rather more so than it had previously been, which plainly proves that affliction, unaccompanied by the grace of God, tends rather to harden the heart than to soften it. But, my reader, think you your or mine is different from his of whom I speak, though we may have been kept from doing as he has done, or saying what he has said? and in proof I refer you and myself to the word of God in Gen. viii. 21,-" The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth;" also Matthew xv. 19,-"For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man." And may it be the good pleasure of the Spirit to lead us to Christ, who is exalted to give repentance unto his people. But to return, was this poor man to perish everlastingly? Was he to die as he had lived? You and I might look on his case as desperate, as hopeless: but the things which are impossible with man are possible with God. This poor man's days were dwindled to the shortest span:' his seventieth

year, together with an attack of bodily sickness confined him (to his bed. I called to enquire for him; I repeated my calls; I found him at length inclined to speak to me, not of his bodily pain, but of the distracted state of his mind. The Minister called and spoke to him of Jesus Christ the friend of sinners. 'I have no hope,' was his only answer. I never saw misery and despair so strongly depicted on the countenance of any. He knew not the Scriptures; he only knew himself, and for this knowledge he was not aware he was indebted to the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to convince of sin. The time at length came when it pleased God to favour Zion,—for there is a set time to favour her. Salvation was come to his house, forasmuch as he also was a son of Abraham. The heavy cloud was taken from his mind, and his soul was laid at the foot of the cross of Jesus, and he was calm and in his right mind; and the Lamb of God was his peace. No sooner had this mighty change been wrought in him, than he heartily longed for the ordinances of religion. He requested the Lord's Supper might be administered to him, and the worthy Minister was sent for accordingly. Truly might we say of him, the lion was become a lamb.' He spoke but seldom; but there was much to be gathered from his few expressions of the truth and depth of his repentance which proved that Jesus had manifested himself to him as he does not unto the world. He often said, 'What a blessing it is to be called to serve God in youth, but I am a worn out old man!' and then would he sigh deeply at the retrospective view of his life and conversation. When I would say to him, Remember me at a throne of grace, uncle Tom,

he would say, 'I do in my poor way like.' His symplicity was great; truly might he be termed a little. child, willing to be taught by any whom he thought loved the Lord Jesus Christ. The intercessory prayer of Christ, recorded in the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, he would listen to with great delight especially would the twenty fifth verse arrest his attention. His life bore testimony to the new principles which had been vouchsafed him from on high: he, the lawful captive of Satan, had been delivered, (for we are all by the transgression of Adam the property of Satan,) the prey was taken from the mighty by the stronger than he,-even the Almighty Jesus. But, I would tell you, this poor old disciple of the Lord was now sufficiently recovered from his sickness to reach the Parish-Church: and many a time, when he has passed my window, I have thought of the palsied man in the gospel, to whom Christ said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee, take up thy bed and walk." It was truly gratifying to see him come into the house of God;-his body bent by age, and his soul looking towards the holy Jerusalem: I have often regarded him from my pew, and thought, would God I were you; would God I were as fully convinced of my repentance from God as I am of thine. But, I thank God, I have been taught better things, that is to say, to rely simply on the teaching of God the Spirit, who has made me feel my helplessness and misery; that I have destroyed myself, but in Christ is my help. When I called on my old friend one day I found him much discomposed in his mind. I asked him why he was so sad? The reason of which he, with some hesitation, told me, that a person had been telling

him he was very wrong, because he did not join himself to the class, as it is termed, at a Chapel in the village, and strongly condemned him for absenting himself. But my friend had been better taught; he knew that confessing to man, and speaking of self was useless. But he loved to meet the dear children of God, and speak with them of Jesus who alone can do helpless sinners good. He could not be prevailed on to leave the Church. He was struck with her services, and attached to her Minister, of whom he would say, 'I can understand him, for he speaks simple like.' The time had now approached when he was called on to leave this world for another, that is, a heavenly. He was seized with an attack of sickness, which in a fortnight brought him to the house appointed for all living; and I and my few Christian friends felt our loss, which was his gain. One of our little flock had been taken from us, and we lamented him, because he was humble, as all Christians are; and in this consisted his humility, he ascribed all his salvation to Christ, and to him alone; he regarded himself as altogether unworthy of the Saviour's love. My old friend died at that season of the year when the falling leaves remind us we all must fade as they. His funeral was conducted on a Sunday evening: his corpse rested in the Church during the service, and an appropriate Sermon was preached on the occasion. That sweet hymn,—

'Jesus, thy blood and righteousness

My beauty are, my glorious dress,'

was sung, being the one selected by him for the purpose. And now my poor narrative of a hoary sinner is ended. But my reader must pardon the intrusion of