tude his name read over from Sabbath to Sabbath, place, or can they hear all? If they can hear all, with a prayer offered for the deliverance of his soul they are omnipresent; if omnipresent, they are gods. from purgatory. After the lapse of two or three Thus we have as many gods as saints. But if they years, on a certain Sabbath, the name of her hus- hear but in one place, then nine thousand nine hunband was omitted from the list. The fact filled her dred and ninety-nine out of the ten thousand are praywith mingled joy and fear-joy, thinking that her ing to an absent saint! This one thought, reverend husband had escaped from purgatory; and fear, lest sir, very early in life impressed my mind, and was she had done something to offend the priest. On not the least powerful among the causes which led timid inquiry, she learned that his soul was yet in me, eventually, to reject the authority of your Church. purgatory, but that she had forgotten to send in the More of these causes in my next. yearly tax at the time it was due. The tax was promptly paid, and the name was restored on the next Sabbath. With this fact, sir, I am entirely conversant; for that widow was my own mother, who sought the release of the soul of my father from patory. Can you wonder, sir, that this incident made a deep impression upon my youthful mind, or that it shook my faith in your whole system? And, as far as memory serves me, Father M was an amiable man, and above the ordinary level of the men of his calling. Another fact which early impressed me in reference to purgatory was this: Your Church makes a distinction between mortal and venial sinners. The former go to hell for ever the latter go to purgatory, "whence they are taken by the prayers and alms offered for them, and principally by the holy sacrifice of the mass." Now I always saw that the most mortal sinners, that every body would say went to hell, could always have masses said for them, as if they went to purgatory-provided their friends could pay; and that less mortal sinners, that people would say went to purgatory, were sent to hell, if their friends could not pay for masses for them. And their souls were kept in purgatory a long while when their friends paid promptly every year; but the souls were soon prayed out whose friends could not pay long for them. Facts like these, sir, very early impressed my mind, and shook my faith in the religion of my parents and priests. And when in maturer years I could more fully consider them, they actually led me to reject religion as a fable cunningly devised by priests. THE ENGLISH AND SCOTCH SABBATH. (From Hugh Miller's "First Impressions of England and its People.") scene. I LODGED within a stone-cast of the terminus of the Again: to pray to angels or saints is a doctrine of your Church. I am quite familiar with your explanations of it-with the distinctions which your writers make to free it from idolatry. Perhaps, ere these letters are concluded, I may return to this subject; I have only to do now with some of my early impres-greatly less connected with the fourth commandment sions in reference to it. In our parish chapel there were a great many pictures of saints. Whose pictures they were I do not remember. But on Sabbath morning, an hour before mass, I have often seen the poor people, and even some more wealthy and refined, walking on their knees from the one picture to the other, and counting their beads, and bowing before them with external acts of the most profound and sincere worship. Although then I thought differently, I have not now a doubt but that it was idolatry. But the idea that struck me was this: Here are some praying to Peter, or Paul, or John; the same pictures are hung up in ten thousand chapels all over the world, and in all these chapels persons are praying to them. Can these good saints hear but in one BAD SIGNS. Walter Scott, that the Scotch, once metamorphosed into Englishmen, make very mischievous Englishmen indeed. Among the existing varieties of the genus philanthropist-benevolent men, bent on bettering the condition of the masses-there is a variety who would fain send out our working people to the country on Sabbaths, to become happy and innocent in smelling primroses, and stringing daisies on grass stalks. An excellent scheme theirs, if they but knew it, for sinking a people into ignorance and brutality-for filling a country with gloomy workhouses, and the workhouses with unhappy paupers. Tis pity rather that the institution of the Sabbath, in its economic bearings, should not be better understood by the utilitarian. The problem which it furnishes is not particularly difficult, if one could be but made to understand, as a first step in the process, that it is really worth solving. The mere animal that has to pass six days of the week in hard labour, benefits greatly by a seventh day of mere animal rest and enjoyment: the repose according to its nature proves of signal use to it-just because it is repose according to its nature. But man is not a mere animal: what is best for the ox and the ass is not best for him; and in order to degrade him into a poor unintellectual slave, over whom tyranny, in its caprice, may trample rough-shod, it is but necessary to tie him down, animal like, during his six working days, to hard engrossing labour, and to convert the seventh into a day of frivolous, unthinking relaxation. History speaks with much emphasis on the point. The old despotic Stuarts were tolerable adepts in the art of king-craft, and knew well what they were doing when they backed with their authority the Book of Sports. The merry unthinking serfs, who, early in the reign of Charles the First, danced on the Sabbaths round the maypole were afterwards the ready tools of despotism, and fought that England might be enslaved. The Ironsides, who, in the cause of civil and religious freedom, bore them down, were stanch Sabbatarians. In no history, however, is the value of the Sabbath more strikingly illustrated than in that of the Scotch people during the seventeenth and the larger portion of the eighteenth centuries. Religion and the Sabbath were their sole instructors, and this in times so little favourable to the cultivation of mind, 30 darkened by persecution, and stained with blood, that, in at least the earlier of these centuries, we derive our knowledge of the character and amount of the popular intelligence mainly from the deathtestimonies of our humbler martyrs, here and there corroborated by the incidental evidence of writers such as Burnet. In these noble addresses from prison and scaffold-the composition of men drafted by oppression almost at random from out the general mass-we see how vigorously our Presbyterian people had learned to think, and how well to give their thinking expression. In the quieter times which followed the Revolution, the Scottish peasantry existed as at once the most provident and intellectual in Europe; and a moral and instructed people pressed outwards beyond the narrow bounds of their country, and rose into offices of trust and importance in all the nations of the world. There were no societies for the diffusion of useful knowledge in those days. But the Sabbath was kept holy; it was a day from which every dissipating frivolity was excluded by a stern sense of duty. The popular mind, with weight imparted to it by its religious earnestness, and direction by the pulpit addresses of the day, expatiated on matters of grave import, of which the tendency was to concentrate and strengthen, not scatter and weaken, the faculties; and the secular 153 cogitations of the week came to bear, in consequence, a Sabbath-day stamp of depth and solidity. The one day in the seven struck the tone for the other six. Our modern apostles of popular instruc tion rear up no such men among the masses as were developed under the Sabbatarian system in Scotland. Their aptest pupils prove but the loquacious gabbers of their respective workshops-shallow superficialists, that bear on the surface of their minds a thin diffusion of ill-remembered facts and crude theories; and rarely indeed do we see them rising in the scale of society: they become Socialists by hundreds, and Chartists by thousands, and get no higher. The disseminator of mere useful knowledge takes aim at the popular ignorance; but his inept and unscientific gunnery does not include in its calculations the parabolic curve of man's spiritual nature; and so, aiming direct at the mark, he aims too low, and the charge falls short. BAD SIGNS. LET us point out some of those things that indicate in Christians a spirit of conformity to the world, dangerous to the Church, and hurtful to their own growth in grace: 1. A neglect of prayer-meetings, and week-day lectures at the house of God. Full often the heart of a pastor, and the hearts of a few faithful souls, who long for the spiritual health of Zion, are grieved, when,,instead of a throng, some three or four only assemble to pray for reviving mercies, or to listen to instruction upon eternal realities. Why are these meetings neglected? Because the world and its al lurements are more attractive than the knowledge and blessing of God. 2. A greater readiness and zeal to attend a social party, a musical soiree, or some trifling exhibition, than to be at the place of worship and the solemn assembly. An eminent prelate, we are informed, lately preached to perhaps a dozen hearers in a considerable city; the members of his church were at a dancing party. conscience for the neglect of duties, and for indulging 3. A disposition of mind to find excuses to satisfy in amusements which were, by former and older Christians, considered inconsistent with holiness. Why are they so desirous to mingle in scenes and dissipation which were, by their parents, regarded as injurious, if not positively sinful? Does it not show a hankering after forbidden pleasures, and a wish to soften down the strictness of the Christian rule of life? Especially, why so desirous to call those things "innocent" and "harmless," which they admit the preacher could not practise, without being recreant to his profession, and false to his high commission? How low must be the standard of piety, when a greater number of professors can be found assembled at a social party, than can be collected for a lecture the church to take part in the dissipation? Are not or prayer-meeting, and when some of them neglect such professors conformed to the world? Are they letting their light shine? Are they the salt of the earth? Are they living epistles, known and read of all men? Does such conduct preach Jesus Christ and his salvation as the one thing needful? Do they not grievously wound the Saviour in the house of his friends? For such Christians, let their friends pray "May God enlighten them." A FORGOTTEN WAY OF DOING GOOD. THE most common mercies are the least regarded, for the reason that they are common, so much so as to come as matters of course. Blessings of very inferior value, if conferred at certain intervals, or in unusual circumstances, attract more attention, and more certainly call forth praise. The air we breathe is of incalculable value. If the proportion of its constituent parts were but very slightly altered, we should suffer great inconvenience or even suffering and death. And yet this wise disposition of the constituents of the common atmosphere, is less regarded than the occasional breeze which refreshes us on a hot day. So, too, common and every-day facilities for selfimprovement, and for doing good to others, are less regarded than occasional striking opportunities, and special openings of Providence, as the phrase is. Common conversation, for example, a privilege which all enjoy, which all are capable of exercising, and which, if rightly improved, would be found a most powerful instrument for producing good impressions upon the minds of those with whom we have intercourse, is very little relied on as a means of usefulness, compared with the confidence we feel in other measures. If our neighbour's thoughts, and feelings, and principles, are to be changed and turned to God, to truth and duty, we suppose it must be brought to pass through some thrilling sermon, or stirring providence, or in the midst of some great revivals, and not by the still small voice operating through simple, every-day means, such as any right-minded man can use, as well as the eloquent and the learned. It would be well if all who are in the habit of looking only, or chiefly, to extraordinary, striking, and rare instrumentalities, which few can exert or command for the benefit of our fellow-men, should begin to feel that they have resources in every-day life which the most moderate talents can wield; that mere striplings with sling3 and pebbles may slay the Goliaths of the world as well, or better, than chosen champions in mail and king's armour. This instrumentality which we have referred to, of common conversation among individuals of the plainest education and natural talents, needs but the infusion of a single element to make it a regenerator of society. The apostle gives a complete direction when he says, "Let your conversation be seasoned with grace." That direction, complied with among the professed friends of Christ, would kindle in thousands of social circles the hallowed fires of religious feeling, and change materially and in a short time, the moral atmosphere in which we live. It is true that spiritual conversation presupposes a considerable degree of spiritual-mindedness. But it is equally true that such conversation is a cause as well as an effect of a devout frame and temper of mind. Speaking of the things of religion, tends to warm the heart and deepen the feelings of him who speaks. Like every other exercise in duty, spiritual conversation is twice blessed-blessing him who gives, and him who takes. He who will employ his powers of conversation in the spirit of true piety, for the promotion of religious feeling in the hearts of those with whom he has intercourse, will not fail soon to find the opportunities and the means of usefulness, as well as a most efficient means of self-improvement. The fitness and purifying tendency of Christian conversa tion is finely depicted in Cowper's admirable poem on the subject, the whole of which might be read with profit and delight, by all who wish to do good to their fellow-men, and glorify God in the use of the tongue : "Though life's valley be a vale of tears, A brighter scene beyond that vale appears, QUESTIONS. Is it not strange that many talk of keeping God's commandments, and never remember that this is the commandment of God, that we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another? How many think of rearing up a building whose top shall reach heaven itself; and quite forget to lay their foundation upon the rock-Christ Jesus! What numbers talk of repentance, and never repent of the greatest of all sins-unbelief! Thousands cry Peace, peace, to their own souls. who never obtained peace by Jesus Christ; and think no more of peace through his death, than through that of Julius Cæsar. But will such self-assumed peace stand at the bar of God? LIFE IMBITTERED-AN ARGUMENT FOR ETERNITY. How the world falls to pieces round about us, YOUNG THE CROSS AND THE CROWN. THE PRESENT LIFE PROVED UNWORTHY OF OUR ONLY REGARDS. THOSE, sure, must be little, narrow souls, that can make themselves a portion and a sufficiency out of what they enjoy here; that think of no more, that desire no more. For what is this life but a circulation of little, mean actions? We lie down and rise again; dress and undress; feed and wax hungry; work or play, and are weary; and then we lie down again, and the circle returns. We spend the day in trifles; and when the night comes, we throw ourselves into the bed of folly, among dreams, and broken thoughts, and wild imaginations. Our reason lies asleep by us; and we are, for the time, as arrant brutes as those that sleep in the stalls or in the field. Are not the capacities of man higher than these? and ought not his ambition and expectations to be greater? Let us be adventurers for another world.-Burnet. THE CROSS AND THE CROWN. On reward truly great, above desert, yea, above con'ception! A crown for a few groans! an eternal crown of life and glory, for a short and momentary suffering! How just is St. Paul's account, that "the afflictions of this present life are not worthy of the glory which shall be showed unto us!" O Lord, let me smart, that I may reign; uphold thou me in marting, that thou mayest hold me worthy of reigning. It is no matter how vile I be, so I may be glorious. What say you? would you not be afflicted? Whether had you rather mourn for a while, or for ever? One must be chosen; the election is easy. Whether had you rather rejoice for one fit, or always? You would do both. Pardon me, it is a fond covetousness, an idle singularity, to affect it. What! that you alone may fare better than all God's saints? that God should strew carpets for your nice feet only, to walk into your heaven, and make that way smooth for you, which all patriarchs, prophets, evangelists, confessors, Christ himself, have found rugged and bloody! Away with this self-love, and come down, you ambitious sons of Zebedee; and ere you think of sitting near the throne, be content to be called junto the cup. Now is your trial: let your Saviour see how much of his bitter potion you can pledge; then shall you see how much of his glory he can afford you. Be content to drink of his vinegar and gall, and you shall drink new wine with him in his kingdom. Our hearts shall be so full, that we cannot choose but sing, and we cannot but sing melodiously. There is no jar in this music, no end of this song. O blessed change of the saints! they did nothing but weep below, and now nothing but sing above! We who sowed in tears, reap in joy: there was some comfort in those tears when they were at the worst, but there is no danger of complaint in this heavenly mirth. If we cannot sing here with angels, "On earth peace," yet there we shall sing with them, "Glory to God on high ;" and joining our voices to theirs, shall make up that celestial concert, which none can either hear or bear part in and not be happy. 155 But, alas, where is my love?-where is my longing? —where art thou, O my soul? What heaviness hath overtaken thee? how hath the world bewitched and possessed thee, that thou art become so careless of thy home, so senseless of spiritual delights, so fond of these vanities? Dost thou doubt whether there be a heaven? or whether thou have a God and a Saviour there? O far be from thee this atheismfar be from thee the least thought of this desperate impiety. Woe were thee, if thou believedst not! but O thou of little faith, dost thou believe there is happiness, and happiness for thee, and desirest it not, and delightest not in it? Alas, how weak and unbelieving is thy belief!-how cold and faint are thy desires! Tell me what goodly entertainment hast thou met with here on earth, that was worthy to withdraw thee from these heavenly joys?—what pleasure in it ever gave thee contentment? or what cause of dislike findest thou above? O no, my soul, it is only thy miserable drowsiness, only thy security. The world, the world hath besotted thee, hath undone thee with carelessness. Alas, if thy delight be so cold, what difference is there in thee from an ignorant heathen, who doubts of another life; yea, from an epicure, that denies it? Art thou a Christian? or art thou none? If thou be what thou professest, away with this dull and senseless worldliness-away with this earthly uncheerfulness; shake off at last this profane and godless security, which hath thus long weighed thee down from mounting up to thy joys. Look up to thy God and to thy crown, and say with confidence, O Lord, I have waited for thy salvation. What is death, but the taking down of these sticks, whereof this earthly tent is composed! the separation of two great and old friends till they meet again! the jail-delivery of a long prisoner! our journey into that other world, for which we on this thoroughfare were made! our payment of our first debt to nature! the sleep of the body, and the awaking of the soul? Hast thou been wont, O my body, when the day hath wearied thee, to lie down unwillingly to thy rest? Behold, in this sleep there is more quietness, more pleasure of visions, more certainty of waking, more cheerfulness in rising: why, then, art thou loath to think of laying off thy rags, and reposing thyself? why art thou like a child, unwilling to go to bed? Hast thou ever seen any bird, which, when the cage hath been opened, would rather sit still and sing within her grates, than fly forth unto her freedom in the woods? hast thou ever seen any prisoner in love with his bolts and fetters? Did the chief of the apostles, when the angel of God shined in his jail, and struck him on the side, and loosed his two chains, and bade him arise quickly, and opened both the wooden and iron gate, say, What, so soon! yet a little sleep? What madness had it been, rather to slumber betwixt his two keepers, than to follow the angel of God into liberty! Hast thou ever seen any mariner who hath saluted the sea with songs, and the haven with tears? What shall I say to this diffi dence, O my soul? that thou art unwilling to think of rest after thy toil, of freedom after thy durance, of the haven after an unquiet and tempestuous passage? How many are there that seek death, and cannot find it, merely out of the irksomeness of life! Hath it found thee, and offered thee better conditions, not of immunity from evils, but of possession of more good than thou canst think; and wouldst thou now fly from happiness, to be rid of it ?Hall. LOVE OF NATURE. How is it that a scene of quiet beauty makes so much deeper an impression than a startling one? The glorious sunset I had witnessed on that sweet lake-the curving and forest-mantled shores-the green islands -the mellow mountains-all combined to make a scene of surpassing loveliness; and now as I lay and watched the stars coming out one after another, and twinkling on me through the tree tops, all that beauty came back on me with strange power. The gloomy gorge and savage precipice, or the sudden storm, seem to excite the surface only of one's feelings; while the sweet vale, with its cottages, and herds, and evening bells, blends itself with our very thoughts and emotions, forming a part of our after existence. Such a scene sinks away into the heart like a gentle rain into the earth, while a rougher, nay sublimer one, comes and goes like a sudden shower. I do not know how it is that the gentler influence should be the deeper and more lasting, but so it is. The still small voice of nature is more impressive than her loudest thunder. Of all the scenery in the Alps-and there is no richer on the earth-nothing is so plainly daguerrotyped on my heart as two or three lovely valleys saw. Those heaven-piercing summits, and precipices of ice, and awfully savage gorges, and fearful passes, lie like a grand but indistinct vision on my memory; while those vales, with their carpets of green sward, and gentle rivulets, and perfect repose, have become a part of my life. In moments of high excitement or turbulent grief, they rise before me with their gentle aspect and quiet beauty, hushing the storm into repose, and subduing the spirit like a sensible presence. O, how I love nature! She has ten thousand voices even in her silence, and in all her changes goes only from beauty to beauty. And then when she speaks aloud, and the music of running waters— the organ-note of the wind amid the pine-tree tops -the rippling of waves-the song of birds-and the hum of insects-fall on the ear; soul and sense are ravished. How is it that even good men have come to think so little of nature, as if to love her and seek her haunts and companionship were a waste of time? I have been astonished at the remarks sometimes made to me on my long jaunts in the woods, as if it were almost wicked to cast off the gravity of one's profession, and wander like a child amid the beauty which God has spread out with such a lavish hand over the earth. Why, I should as soon think of feeling reproved for gazing on the midnight heavens, gorgeous with stars, and fearful with its mysterious floating worlds. I believe that every man degenerates without frequent communion with nature. It is one of the open books of God, and more replete with instruction than anything ever penned by man. A single tree standing alone, and waving all day long its green crown in the summer wind, is to me fuller of meaning and instruction than the crowded mart or gorgeously built city.-Headley. SELF. IF I could but be master of that house-idol, myself, my own, mine; my own wit, will, credit, and ease; how blessed were I! Alas! we have more need to be redeemed from ourselves than from the devil and the world. Rutherford. The honey that you suck from your own righteousness will turn into gall; and the light which you take from this, to walk by, will darken into black night upon the soul.-Wilcox. Many who have escaped the rocks of gross sin, have been cast away on the sands of self-righteousness.— Dyer. When thou believest and comest to Christ, thou must leave thy own righteousness behind thee, and bring nothing with thee but thy sins. You must leave behind all your holiness, duties, humblings, &c., and bring nothing but your wants and miseries; else Christ is not fit for thee, nor thou for Christ. A disposition to establish our own righteousness as a ground, cause, or condition of our acceptance with God, is a weed that naturally grows in every man's heart.-Anon. Some people, it is to be feared, follow the gospel, as a shark follows a ship-for a dinner.-Madan. SUFFERINGS. OH how sweet are sufferings for Christ! God forgive them that raise an ill report on the sweet cross of Christ! Our weak and dim eyes look only to the black side of the cross; and this occasions our misfully on their backs, shall find it just such a burden takes concerning it. They that can take it cheeras wings to a bird, or sails to a ship. prison and in banishment. Losses and disgraces are Christ is strong, even when lying in the dust, in the wheels of Christ's triumphant chariot. In the sufferings of his saints he intends his own glory and he does not shoot at random, but always touches the their good; this is the two-fold mark he aims at, and point he purposeth to hit.-Rutherford. Sufferings are comfortable when they overtake us in the way of duty.-Manton. There is as much difference between the sufferings of the saints and those of the ungodly, as there is between the cords with which an executioner pinions a condemned malefactor and the bandages whereof the one is to kill; of the other, to cure. with a tender surgeon binds his patient. The design undergo many crosses, but no curses.—Arrowsmith. Believers STABILITY. THOUGH you get strokes and frowns from your Lord, yet believe his love more than your own feeling. The world can take nothing from you that is truly yours; and death itself can do you no hurt. It is not your rock that ebbs and flows, but your sea-Rutherford. |