a sermon that has a pinch to it!" Carnal professors and easily awakened sinners rejected it;-and those, most, of course, whom it pinched most. It was not so much in the manner of it, as the matter of it. Many can bear the manner of a

preacher, however rough and unpolished, if he is something of an original, and amusing. Herod heard John the Baptist gladly, and began to practice some things which suited his disposition. But when John pinched the conscience of his royal hearer regarding his besetting sin, off went his head.

8. Hearers I have had before now, which reminded me of children beginning to learn their alphabet, with dislike written on their faces A, B, C, etc., conveying no meaning; and evidently unable to perceive any connection between such dull and senseless sounds and the art of reading, all was irksome and uninteresting! Repentance, Prayer, Faith, etc., etc., in like manner, are irksome lessons to those whom we would set to learn the alphabet of experimental religion. They know not, or are unwilling to perceive the connection between these, and the future pleasure of reading their "title clear to mansions in the skies!"

9. An hour's amusement, or an hour's amazement, never enters into my plans with my hearers. No; but rather their immediate repentance and conversion. If they are "amazed” at this, it may save them from eternal amazement and horror; and my predictions, so often found fault with, may become preventions. People begin to profit, usually, when they desire to profit. Till then we must keep on preaching, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. I awoke out of a deep sleep the other morning, with these words of a devoted servant of Christ, now in heaven, occupying, and passing and

repassing over my mind: "Faith is the master-spring of a minister. Hell is before me, and thousands are shut up there in everlasting burnings. Jesus Christ stands forth to save men from rushing into the bottomless abyss. He sends me to proclaim his ability and his love. I want no fourth idea; every fourth idea is contemptible; every fourth idea is a grand impertinence!" There is safety for me nowhere else, and no longer than I tie myself irrevocably to these principles. Then let men or fiends assail, God will not suffer me to be greatly moved.

10. To day I was thinking of Numa, the philosophical and humane emperor of the Romans. The enemy was advancing upon his army, while he was in the act of "offering sacrifices to the gods." To one who informed him of his peril, he replied, "I am about the service of my God," which he considered a sufficient guarantee for his safety. The thought cheered me! "Let him fight who has a mind to it," said one of old. "I am not so mad as to fight against him that trusts to have God his defender and deliverer!" He was about to march an army to chastise a neighboring prince, a pious and good man. The spy returning, reported that when this prince was informed that war was intended against him, he quietly said he would commit the whole cause to God, and give himself to fasting and prayer. "Then," said the monarch, "let him fight who," etc. If certain persons have not taken leave of their senses, let them reconsider the matter, and be of the same mind with this sagacious monarch!

CHAPTER VIII.

HINTS FOR PROFESSORS.

HRISTIANS! are you aware, as you should be, that

or, as

the eye of the world is upon you? New converts! are you awake to the same fact? St. Paul urges a "cloud of witnesses," as a reason why we should "lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us;" the old negro (who, if he tasted liquor at all, was sure to get drunk, and was overcome again and again) called it in his prayer, and with tears running down his cheeks, "the sin that doth so easily upset us!" Ay! and the world can easily detect us when we are upset by a temptation. Hearken to a reply designed for an ear you know not, but connected with an eye that has been upon some of you, to the injury of its possessor.

2. They tell an old fable in a certain country through which I once travelled, of Inconstancy desiring to have her likeness taken, but no artist would undertake it, because her features were so changeable. Old Time, however, at length consented to do it; but being at a loss for a suitable canvas, he selected the face of Man, upon which he drew the picture of Incon stancy; and so, said the fable, man, ever since, has been constant in nothing but inconstancy! It is sad that some professors of religion are too frequent in their illustrations of it.

But you cannot be ignorant, although not a Christian yourself, how many things there are to assail the stability of those who are trying to do well. The waves of the Atlantic are uncountable; but you might as well try to number them as to count the waves of temptation which buffet a Christian on the voyage of life. One who passed through much trial before he entered the heavenly port, said a Christian, like oil, should always be uppermost on the waters; distinct too, and unmixed with the world, and steadfast in the integrity of his character, midst all the agitations of a tumultuous world; and that Christians must constantly be holding a counter-motion to the course of the world, and the corruptions of the times! Worldlings, though they practise not this themselves, readily detect the cessation of it in professors. To provide for this, sir, God has ordained a "life of faith on the Son of God," and continuing “instant in prayer." Constant and instant, is the idea. Inattention to this may produce some of those aberrations you have noticed, and not wilful hypocrisy or self-deception.

3. An excellent divine in Scotland, I remember, made the following shrewd remark, that there is just this difference between certain men of the world, and certain orders of sincere but imperfect members of churches: that bad men are worse, and good men are better than they appear; that the attainments of a believer are always beneath his aims; his desires loftier than his deeds; his wishes are holier than his works. Give other men their will, he contended, let them have full sway and swing for their passions, and they would be worse. than they are; give that to the sincere believer, and he would be better than he is!

4. Not a word, however, against your critique, in the main.

Many such borderers there are, trimmers between the church and the world; somewhat like one who, in matters of faith and practice, tried to keep in with both Christians and Jews, yet was neither; reminding one of Sheridan's simile of the blank page between the Old and New Testament! They are a continuation of that careless race noticed by our Lord in his time, who heard his sayings, and did them not. He likened them to a man who built his house upon the sand. (Matt. vii. 26, 27.) In the catastrophe which befell that house, he would have us to apprehend their final calamity. It is well, however, you should remember, that in the wise builder, who built his house upon a rock, he indicates another class of professors; and a succession of such continue down to our times!

5. Those to whom you refer, are called in Scripture "unstable souls; ""unstable as water" was the patriarch Jacob's figure, adding that such "never excel; "-like water, that takes the shape of bucket, tub, or tumbler into which it may be emptied,they take the form and spirit of any company into which they may be cast; but, as Milton remarks, "all are not of this stamp ;' many there are "who faith prefer and piety to God." In the texture of their firmness, such resemble the adamant, which is more likely to break the vessel that would seek to conform it to its shape, than to be broken or moulded by it! If you have met with none such, you have been singularly unfortunate. Millions of such have passed through this world, since the days of Ezekiel, of whom God spake-"Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead against their foreheads; as an adamant, harder than flint, have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house." This fact may serve to