40 FACTS RESPECTING THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.

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TRY, TRY, TRY.

AHAZ WITH HIS NEW ALTAR.

A MAN that is once fallen from truth, knows not where he shall stay. From the calves of Jeroboam is Ahaz drawn to the gods of the heathen; yea, now bulls and goats are too little for those new deities; his own flesh and blood is but dear enough; "He made his son to pass through their fire." Where do we find any religious Israelite equally zealous for God! Neither does the holiness and mercy of our God require so cruel a sacrifice; neither is our dull and niggardly hand ready to gratify him with more easy obediences. O God, how gladly should we offer unto thee our souls and bodies, which we may enjoy so much the more, when they are thine; since zealous pagans stick not to lose their own flesh and blood in an idol's fire!

He that hath thus shamefully cast off the God of his fathers, cannot be long without a fearful revenge. The king of Israel galls him on the one side, the king of Syria on the other. To avoid the shock of both, Ahaz does not betake himself to the God whom he had offended, who was able to make his enemies at peace with him, but to Tiglath-pileser, king of Assur. He that thought not his son too dear for an idol, thinks not God's silver and gold too dear for an idolatrous abettor.

Oh blind superstition! How did the gods of Syria help their kings when both those kings and their gods were vanquished, and taken by the king of Assyria? Even Damascus and its altar were the spoil of a foreign enemy: TRACT MAGAZINE, NO. 63. MARCH, 1839.

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how then did the gods of Syria help their kings, any other than to their ruin? What dotage to make choice of a foiled protection! But had the Syrians prospered, must their gods have the thanks?

Of all the kings of Judah hitherto, there is none so dreadful an example, either of sin or judgment. No marvel, if he be branded by the Spirit of God, with, "This is that king Ahaz!" What a fearful plague did this noisome deluge of sin leave behind it in the land of Judah! Who can express the horror of God's revenge on a people that should have been his? Pekah, the king of Israel, slew a hundred and twenty thousand of them, amongst whom was Maaseiah, the son of Ahaz. Oh just judgment of the Almighty! Ahaz sheds the blood of one son to an idol: the true God sheds the blood of another of his sons in punishment.

Yet the hand of the Lord is stretched out still. Soon, what other is miserable Judah, than a prey and spoil of all the neighbouring nations?" For the Lord brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel; for he made Judah naked, and transgressed sore against the Lord." As for the great king of Assur, whom Ahaz purchased with the sacrilegious pillage of the house of God, instead of an aid, he proves a burden: however he sped in his first onsets, he distressed Judah, but strengthened it not." The charge was as great, as the benefit small: sooner shall he eat them out, than rescue them. No arm of flesh can shelter Ahaz from Divine vengeance. From Bp. Hall.

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THE TRACKS IN THE CLAY.

ON passing along the fields at no great distance from a country village, I came to a narrow neck of ground which was bounded on the one side by a pond, and on the other by a steep rock, but the narrow neck or strip of ground itself was a miry clay.

This miry strip of ground was a sort of defile, a narrow passage from the higher fields and roads to the lower. All the footpaths from the adjoining meadows, and all the lanes from that part of the neighbourhood met there; so that travellers on foot and on horseback, gigs, wagons, and carts; horses, pigs, sheep, and cattle, all had to pass through the defile.

As I paused for a moment, sitting on a stile, and looking down into the defile, I was struck with the numerous tracks or marks left in the clay. Here were the traces of wheels of various kinds; there the iron-shod hoofs of horses and the divided hoofs of cattle had left their impression; while the footmarks of men, women, and children were clearly discerned. In one place the ring of a patten marked the clay; in another the light step of a female, who had trodden carefully on her toes, was seen; and in a third, the hobnailed shoe of a labouring man had prest firmly and deeply on the yielding clay. A musing fit came upon me, and I thus pursued the current of my reflections.

"This narrow neck of land, this clayey defile, sets forth no unimportant lesson for my consideration; for not only those that have passed this place, but every human being also, leaves a track behind him in the pathway he pursues through the world. It may be light and faint, or it may be heavy and strongly marked, but some trace or other he is sure to leave.

"How many a king has waded through slaughter to a throne!' ruled his subjects with a rod of iron, and oppressed those whom he ought to have governed with justice, judgment, and equity!' How many a hero has spent his life in the destruction of his fellow men, shedding the lifeblood of countless multitudes merely to gratify vain glory and ambition. These have left a track behind them by which we trace their unworthy career.

"What a difference there is between the track left by the good man, and the track of the wicked, 'The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble,' but the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day,' Prov. iv. 18, 19.

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"Look at the track left by the desperately wicked. youth he was idle and a sloven, a truant and a speaker of lies. He grew up a drunkard, a sabbath-breaker, and a blasphemer. His occupation was poaching and thieving; till at last as a murderer he died on the gallows. You may trace his career in his slatternly wife and vagabond children; every one that speaks of him holds his memory in abhorrence, and you may read his history in the Newgate Calendar.

"The track left behind the kind-hearted Christian is of

another cast. He feared God, and delighted in obeying his will, he loved his fellow-creatures, and found pleasure in doing them good. Go to the Sunday-school; every boy knows the kind instructor who gave up so much of his time for his advantage. Go to the alms-house; the widow blesses his memory. Pay a visit to the churchyard, and read the verse inscribed upon his tombstone, Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace,' 'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.' Trace him from his youth to his age; through life and through death. He has left a track behind him by which he is known.

"And now, what track wilt thou leave behind thee? or, rather, what track art thou now leaving behind thee? will thy memory be blessed or cursed? The track thou wilt leave, thou art now making; every flying day, every winged hour, is a part of thy brief career. Love God, fear God, obey God, and honour God! live the life of the righteous, then shall thy latter end be like his. Love even thy enemies; bless them that curse thee, do good to them that hate thee, and pray for them which despitefully use thee, and persecute thee. Do these things, and thy track may be traced with joy; neglect them, and it will be pondered with sorrow."

A SWISS FARMER.

AN old Swiss farmer was one day gathering fruit from a high tree near his house, when he fell and so injured his spine as to be bed-ridden for the rest of his life. Before this accident he lived in drunkenness and in the neglect of every family duty; he was also a profane swearer, and an enemy to all he called "momiers," or methodists. When it pleased God to deprive him of the use of his limbs, he was exceedingly angry, and his violent temper showed itself in perpetual and blasphemous exclamations against the justice and goodness of God. He suffered at first extreme pain of a spasmodic kind, and when these attacks came on, he was a terror to all around him.

One day he thought he would reckon up his grounds for complaint against the Most High, by enumerating the many virtues of his heart and actions, and thus he would prove to