WHY DON'T YOU GO TO CHURCH?

"Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attend unto the prayer that is made in this place. For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually." 2 Chron. vii. 15, 16.

"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."-Matt. xviii. 20.

"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.' -Heb. x. 25.

"O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise be thankful unto him, and speak good of his name."-Psalm. c. 3.

READER, you know very well, that Christ and his Apostles, and his holy Church, in all ages, have taught us, by precept and example, to assemble ourselves together. You will not deny, or pretend to doubt, the usefulness or the necessity of public worship. Do you you who are reading this paperattend public worship constantly? Do you attend it generally? If not-Why don't you go to Church? Answer this faithfully. Remember, you will have to answer when it will be too late to remedy what is wrong. You will have to answer before the judgment-seat of God, and you know not how soon.

Remember, too, that we, the Ministers of the Church, who even now put the question, speak in Christ's name, and deliver God's message. With that high authority we ask, Why don't you go to Church? Alas! we have often been compelled to ask this question. Do you deny that you ought to worship God in his temple? No. Why, then, do you neglect it? Î must attend to my family, says one; I have no shoes, says another; my dress is not good enough, says a third; I have not been able to get ready, says a fourth; it is cold, it is wetI have an engagement; I have letters to write; I always sleep late on Sunday; I have not got a good pew. In short, there are hundreds of excuses of the same sort made, and, we lament to say, by hundreds who have the means and opportunities of going to Church, but do not go.

But we have another question to ask you, if you, Reader, are in the habit of making some such excuse to your conscience; and we pray you deal with yourself faithfully-put it home to your heart. Suppose that the minister, instead of leading you to join in praise to your heavenly Father, or in prayer to your offended God-instead of teaching you what to do to be saved, and warning you to flee from the wrath to come-were, after detaining you the usual time in Church doing nothing, to stand every Sunday at the door, and present to every poor member of the congregation half-a-crown, and each member in moderate circumstances two guineas, and to each rich one five; how many Sundays do you honestly think you should miss Church? Most probably not one in the whole year. Instead of having to ask, Why don't you go to Church?

he would not have room for his congregation. We should hear nothing about your dress; nothing about cooking for your family; nothing about the cold or the wet; nothing about your getting up late; nothing about your engagements; nothing about your pew. You would be thinking only how to be in time, and would gladly take your post in the aisle, or anywhere that you could get a place. Every corner would be crammed; old and young, rich and poor, healthy and sick, would be there.

Is not this the truth? Can you deny it? You may, perhaps, smile at it. But, beware-it is no subject for mirth. For what is the true inference from this? That you would find no difficulty at all in going to Church for a miserable piece of money, when you will not go for the love of Christ, for the honour of God, or for the salvation of your own soul! Halfa-crown, a guinea, or five guineas, as the case may be, is more precious in your sight than God's blessing and your soul's eternal safety. All the frivolous excuses usually made would not weigh against a piece of silver or gold; yet they are allowed to overbalance the salvation of your soul, duty to God, and love of the Lord Jesus.

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Do not imagine that we speak this to the poor only. We speak to the rich, as well as to the poor. Here we have no respect of persons. The rich man and the man of leisure is even more to be condemned in this than the poor. dress you all, brethren; read and reflect-let not the Christian freedom of our reproof offend you, and raise your pride. We speak as ambassadors of Christ, we beseech you to consider what we say. Go to Church yourselves; make your children and your dependents go; for, on the day of judgment, before the Searcher of all hearts, our question, "Why don't you go to Church?" will again be present to your trembling souls.

O! remember, that ye cannot serve God and mammon." What will ye do in that day, when the self-deceiver and worldly "shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth?"* What will ye do when, to your horror and eternal remorse, you shall hear that "your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten? Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh, as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasures together for the last days."+

Be wise now, lest ye be miserable for ever.

Isaiah ii. 20, 21.

James v. 2, 3.

TALES OF THE HOLY LAND.

NO. X.-JUDAS RETURNING THE THIRTY

BY GEORGIANA BENNET,

PIECES.

Author of "The Studio," "Ianthe," &c., &c.

THE Chief Priests having delivered the Son of God into the hands of the Roman Governor, met in the Temple. They were suddenly disturbed by the entrance of a man with a pale and haggard face, dishevelled hair, and eyes rolling in the frenzy of madness. He placed himself before the chair of the High Priest, and gazed wildly around him at the terrified assembly.

Even the haughty Caiaphas quailed as his eyes met the startling look of the intruder, his cheek grew pale, and the habitual frown upon his brow relaxed. But he soon recognized the form that stood before him: and if he had not done so, the faltering words that broke from the livid lips of the Apostate would have revealed who had thus ventured to be announced into the Council Chamber.

It was Judas Iscariot-the traitorous apostle-the betrayer of his Divine Master.

"Take back your money!" he hoarsely murmured, tendering to Caiaphas the thirty pieces of silver which he had received for betraying the Holy One to the Chief Priests. "I have sinned in accepting your offers, take back the money for which I have sold the innocent to death, and let the guiltless go free."

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"Keep it!" replied the High Priest, scorn flashing from his eye and curled lip, "what is thy guilt to us? thing we use such men as thou but as the mere tools of our will. HE whom thou hast once professed to serve, this JESUS of Nazareth-may be a GOD, but even then we are not answerable for the evil thou hast done. Keep the pieces and leave us. If this man be indeed the MESSIAH, thou hast sealed thy doom, for GOD will assuredly renounce thee for ever. Go-traitor as thou art,-we heed thee

not! Away!"

The trembling and maddened Judas raised his eyes to the face of the High Priest, and gazed on its lineaments as though he would read the secret thoughts of the ambitious spirit within. Those features wore an expression of triumphant hate and disdain, and the Apostate felt that for him there was no more hope. He flung the silver at the feet

of Caiaphas, and uttering an unearthly cry of agony and despair, fled from the Temple.

That sound had struck a chill of horror through the hearts of all present, and for some moments after the departure of Judas they sat in moody silence, for they felt a secret dread lest the High Priest, in renouncing Judas Iscariot, had also spoken the doom awaiting all who had persecuted JESUS of Nazareth. The silence was broken by the High Priest, who enquired what should be done with the money, for as it had been "the price of blood," it could not be returned to the Treasury. It was decided that they should lay it out in the purchase of a field to bury strangers in; thus unconsciously fulfilling the words of the prophet Jeremiah, and adding another proof to those already accumulated, to show that JESUS was the MESSIAH.

And where was the Apostate? Driven to desperation by the taunting words of the High Priest, and by a review of his own horrible treachery,-unable to bear the abhorrence of good men,-shrinking from the fearful wrath of JEHOVAH, which he felt was about to fall upon him,-shunned even by the wicked, as one who had surpassed all others in the enormity of his crime; when he rushed from the presence of the High Priest, he sought the deepest recesses of a grove near Mount Calvary, and concluded his career of evil by impiously ending his own life.

SONNET.

UPON THE DEATH OF MRS.

"Weep not that so soon she is gone to be blest,
She gave to her God the first fruits and the best.
Can the labourer cease from his labour too soon?
She wrought all the morning, and rested at noon."
C. NEALE.

THE fire-god uprisen in majesty lay,
When they told me thy spirit had passed away;
Glad Nature was robed in her mantle of green,
And happiness smiled o'er the spring-tide scene;
When, lo! as a warning from Heaven's bigh throne,
Thou wert summoned away to the pilgrim's home.
Earth's path was too rugged, life's story too drear,
And God bade thee enter a holier sphere,
Where sorrows dismay not, nor terrors afright,
In a region encompassed by glory and might;
Where unwearied thou chantest the song of praise
Mortality's weakness forbade thee to raise ;
Where thou waitest an angel in robe of white,
To welcome thy band to the kingdom of light.

C. O.

WHAT IS THE CHURCH DOING?

IT has been said in a recent charge of one of our Bishops, the Bishop of Ripon, that there had never been any ten years since the Reformation in which the Church of England had so much extended her influence as in the last ten. This was shown to be the case in what is now the Diocese of Ripon, by the increase of Clergymen, the increase of Churches, and the increase of Schools. It is not our intention, in this paper, to bring forward the statistics of the Diocese of Ripon, much less of the Church generally; but to add a few facts to the many which are from time to time brought forward, and which show that there is activity among us, both at home and abroad. Not that we have anything to boast of. If we had done all that is required of us, we should still be unprofitable servants. But we may, nevertheless, review what is done, as an encouragement to still greater endeavours.

One encouraging circumstance in our present state is, the interest which men of property are taking in the increase of Church accommodation, and the noble way in which they often come forward to build and endow, to enlarge, or to restore Churches. Take, for instance, one or two cases, which are mentioned in the Ecclesiastical Gazette for September.

First, there is a case in Lancashire

"The Earl of Ellesmere has given a site, and has consented to bear the whole expenses consequent upon the erection of a new and spacious church at Walkden Moor, near Worsley, in the parish of Eccles. The necessary arrangements having been completed, the foundation-stone was laid, with the accustomed ceremony, by Lady Brackley."

Here is another case in Hertfordshire-.

"The new church at High Cross, in the parish of Standon, Herts, has been consecrated by the Lord Bishop of Rochester. This beautiful church, containing nearly 400 sittings, the larger portion of which are free, has been built and endowed, and also a parsonage and school-house erected, at the sole expense of Lady Giles Puller, of Youngsberry."

Here is a third case in Wiltshire

"The new church of Kingston Deverill has been con