neutralize the effects of the examples upon which you animadvert. Antidotes to poisonous substances are a provision of Providence!

6. Not a word, then, against your critique, if confined to its proper limits. I believe with Aristotle that we may well suspect that man's profession whose practice contradicts it. Socrates would allow no distinction between knowing and doing. He would admit no difference between two certain Greek words-although any Greek scholar in our times would insist upon a difference-as one implies wisdom alone, and the other word wisdom joined to action. But the old philosopher insisted that a do-nothing wisdom was a know-nothing wisdom-next to no wisdom at all! But to know and to do-to know good and to practise it ;-to know evil and to avoid itthe union of these two, he considered to be wisdom!

7. The practical is the most prominent feature of New Testament theology and character. A shrewd observer of man remarked that the difference between divinity and science is this: that it is not enough to know, we must do it! Look around you, my friend! Are there not some within your circle of observation who show proofs of godly fear? some who show you how a Christian ought to live in his daily walk and conversation? Who, in fact, are inscribing upon the minds with whom they are brought in contact from year to year, the truth of the religion of Jesus Christ, as well as the memorial of their own worth, legibly, to such, as the stars in the brow of heaven. But, as there are spots in the sky where no stars do appear, yours may be a mind upon which true Christians have had no opportunity to make such an impression. The loss is yours, Perhaps the truly good have been shy of

if such be the case.

your company. If so, have they had no reasons for it? Nero complained that he never could find a faithful servant. He who recorded the complaint, remarked that it was no wonder: for those that were good, cared not to come about him; and those that were bad, he cared not to make better, as being desperately wicked himself!

Hume, the infidel, who observed to one, that he never yet found a Christian that was not gloomy, received a very proper reply that if it were so, it was not to be wondered at, as a sight of him was enough to make any Christian gloomy! Reflect upon that! The best of God's people may have kept themselves out of your way; or, your selections for criticism, like those of Voltaire, have been unfortunate; or, your companionship have been with men of another order altogether; -common occurrences, any of these! There is a difference be

tween the spirit of that man who is a

friend at heart toward

Christians, though not one himself, and the spirit of him who is at enmity with them, and on the lookout for faults to confirm him in his infidelity! I was told of a skeptic the other day, who, after his conversion, confessed that during thirteen years he had watched a certain plain, humble, praying woman, to find something in her character to confirm or strengthen him in his infidelity; but he watched in vain. At length he thought it high time to secure an interest in Christ. He did so, and confessed the course he had taken. That Christian woman little suspected how much depended upon her faithfulness!

8. How this revival is stirring up skeptics! It was said of Jesus, when a child, that he was set for the fall and rising of many in Israel; and for a sign to be spoken against ;-by

whom the thoughts of many should be revealed. We may say the same of this great work of God. It is well! This is the time for the Gospel to be looked at!-now that it is among us, as a fresh charter from heaven, which multitudes are now, disposed to consult as the charter of their salvation ;— now, when it is opening many hearts, as Jesus himself opened the heart of Lydia under the preaching of Paul and Silas;— now that hearts hitherto shut against the truth, are flowing open under the penetrating word of Gospel power;-now that people are believing who never believed before; and tongues hitherto mute upon the subject, are day and night rehearsing the goodness of God;-so that were Chrysostom among us, he might say once more, they live well who lived evilly before; and obey now, who never obeyed before!-now is the time for skeptics to be astir!-the best time for them and for us!

9. It is well! The old adage, "They may laugh who win!" applies finely to Christians just now! Wind and tide are in their favor! Glad therefore certain clubs are alive and stirring, with eyes wide awake, nor turned askance, but looking straight before them, as Solomon advises; and a good hope we have that "the eyes of their understanding" may be opened also. We hail their presence as a good omen-can bear their bad manners with better heart and more patience now, than when religion was prostrate, and the Gospel, from some cause, powerless. We may reason with them, as did Paul with the unbelieving Jews, and in the presence of mighty and incon. testable facts!

10. He who believes with one of the fathers of the Christian Church, that "the whole business of a minister in this life is to heal the eye of the sinner's heart, that God may be

seen," will not think me out of the way of my calling, to meet on their own ground for the purpose; ay, and pay all possible attention to them. "The whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." But let all professors of religion beware, when such men get their eyes opened, that they by their inconsistencies and misconduct do not blind them again. God will require it of them, if they do.

11. Opposition I care nothing about. Better that than indifference. "Opposition is the evil angel that dogs the Gos pel," said Calvin to the French king. An evil angel it is to some, and has often made the saints smart for it. But I have oftener had to complain that public indifference is an evil angel also, and, under some circumstances, the worst of the two. That is the reason I can bear opposition with fortitude or cheerfulness. When winning souls to Christ, I can "laugh at the shaking of a spear," like Job's leviathan. God is converting many sinners, some of them notable sinners and skeptics; of whose conversion we may say as one did of a bell, it is not possible to turn it from side to side, without reporting its own motions! no, unless its tongue were tied. These have had their tongues unloosed, and they give glory to God, till the place rings again with their voices; and by them many are called and recalled to go to work in the vineyard. Like bells they do indeed report their own motions, when turned from Satan to "the Lord's side," by the hand of Gospel power! Hallelujah!

CHAPTER IX.

METHOD WITH QUESTIONISTS.

HRISTIANS credulous? By no means! Christians think closely. They have the largest liberty to can

vass every doctrine of Protestantism; indeed, every truth of Christianity! I believe with an old writer that all Christ's scholars are questionists, though not question-sick, like some of those who swarm around us at the present time; not triflers, like those in 1 Tim. vi. 4, who were 66 doating about questions, and strife of words;" or those perverse disputers-men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truthor those light and feathery souls, recorded in Ephes. iv. 14, "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine." Those who belong to Jesus Christ are of a more substantial order, rooted and grounded in the truth, and built up in their most holy faith.

2. I have no objection to "questions," provided they are serious and important; otherwise you may receive a reply after the manner of the ancient philosopher, to one who asked him seriously, whether he did not think it a pleasing thing to see the sun?- “That is a blind man's question." There are some questionists who deserve a similar rebuke.

3. Nor am I fond of curious questions, more curious than