How sweetly do these words fall on the mind's ear when, under conviction of unfaithfulness, or when enveloped in a cloud of spiritual darkness and gloom, we kneel in silence, but in sorrow-in inexpressed, but in fervent emotions of soul before the THRONE OF GRACE. It seems as if that choir of angels which announced the Saviour's birth, bringing tidings of great joy, were again commissioned to leave its high abode, and to visit the sorrowful suppliant, and to tell in strains of heavenly harmony, the love of God to man: "I will have mercy!" What an anthem for the angelic host to sing, and for man to hear! Mercy! mercy! Oh, how heaven's eternal arches ring with the sound! "Tis he who is seated on the Throne of Light -he whom countless myriads of pure and holy spirits ever magnify and adore he who was the framer of this vast universe,

"Worlds on worlds Ten thousand add, add twice ten thousand more!"

"T is he who sends a gracious message to that poor, dark, trembling man just treading the threshold of life's busy and ambitious labours, and stooping under the sorrowful remembrance of many a duty heedlessly passed by many a parental admonition slighted-many a chiding stir of conscience hushed-many a recollection of God's holy law in mind, when life disowned its right to rule. This was an array of conviction, which, to one unpractised in the world's seductive arts to one who felt the law was holy, and that God was just-bore heavy tidings. Tell, who can, the weighty ponderings of a mind visited by the Spirit of the living God-a mind to which a ray of light is imparted piercing the outer garb of all our acts, and tearing off the garment by which ignorance and sin had hitherto obscured them. Thus he revolved the mighty question, and thus held converse with himself: "Where shall I turn? What do to change the

darkened aspect of the past, and, for the future, walk with certain step in virtue's path? Where lies my strength to shun the ways of death, and climb to heaven? The prize is worth the struggle: the award our greatest sacrifice. A crown of glory! Oh, how great the prize! And shall a life of suffering be esteemed a price too high by which to obliterate the past, and to purchase an eternal diadem? This falls below its worth. But let me struggle with my inward foes and strive, as far as human action can, to merit it."

"Haste, Spirit of Truth!" said the gracious King of heaven-the great I AM the Lamb slain to take away the sins of the world. "Haste thy work! Tell him I am his strength, his righteousness. The crown is mine to give. Sacrifice and suffering cannot buy it. These I would not. Mercy is my will. Bid him trust; bid him hope; bid him abide in me! I am the light of the world."

In

But can there be a period in man's existence when this announcement will not fall like choicest music on the soul, and calm its fears? Take the man more advanced in life's stageone who has toiled through many of its summers, and braved many of its wintry storms-one who is still contending with opponent forces; but his arm grows weak, and he feels as if drifting from the object of his aim. Painfully has he learned that life is a troublesome sea: its promises phantoms, and its gifts but dross. weariness he sits down and recalls the past in retrospect again visits the starting point-when manhood first called him to active toil; and in his way he meets with many a sad remembrance of worldly love and Christian slothfulness. Here a grand memorial of error meets him, with a long train of adverse events and trials which trace their parentage to the same sourcethis one false step. Then contagious inconsistency, with its blighting, blinding influence on younger minds, wrings his heart, and makes him stoop his head to wipe away the

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bitter tears of sorrow, which the strong emotions of a soul sensible of the wrong done, cause to spring forth! Then again, deep moral guilt, forgotten for years, and never before seen in its black, its base, its horrid features, speaks burning words of accusation and reproach.

Appalled at his own image, and torn with the consciousness of wasted strength, of perverted faculties, and of time misspent, sorrow overwhelms him, and he sees no way of escaping or of averting the anger of divine justice. "I am undone," is the continued cry of his soul! "I am undone! What remains of life is too short to repair the past. Oh, where can I flee from myself, where hide myself from an offended God!" Oh, who can tell the bitterness of that soul into which hope finds no entrance!

"Spirit of the living God," said the Saviour of man, "Heavenly Comforter, speed to that despairng one, deceived by the world, and bleeding under its cruel lash! Tell him that I have riches which are imperishable, and that are freely given. Tell him that my blood cleanseth from all sin; that it is accepted by the Father, the just and holy God, as an all-sufficient atonement for the sins of the world, and that it was shed for him. Tell him to fear not, but trust: to hope still, and to abide in me. Let the weary and the heavy-laden come to me; in no wise shall they be cast out. Mercy is my will!"

But hear the sad lament of that afflicted one! He knows not the hand that strikes! How deep his tone of grief! 'Tis not a murmur, but a sigh of the spirit, a breathing of the soul, which pain, bereavement, loss, and solitude press out. The dearest object of his heart has been taken from him. Ties the finest, sweetest, tenderest that man knows, lie rent and torn. Years of toil in honour's course, in which the heaven-brought precept,

"As thou that others should to thee So do to them," was his guide, have ended, not in wealth, in peace, or ease, but in fruitless labour, in loss and need. Time has added years to him, but it has taken strength from him. The hand,

the head, the heart, once so prompt at duty's call, how cold, how slow, how dull now! Ah! the vicissitudes of life, and fortune's reverses, with their thousand-pointed arrows ever wounding the breast in which love and honour dwell, are but paintings in the sunshine days of smiles, of prosperity and ease. So we may converse with those who walk the surface of another planet, or in sympathy put on the chain of a fellow-creature, and walk his solitary cell-they are but words! Facts have a sting which none can feel but those into whose hearts the shafts of life's mutations enter. But this is often mercy's special work, to shew that life's best joys, its richest gifts, are but a meteor glare which, though pursued with vigorous step for years, at last elude our grasp. In the school of affliction, of bereavement, and of loss, we often read deep and valuable chapters in the science of human life, but the consolations of mercy are needed to support the drooping spirit even under its most loving chastisements.

"Therefore go, heavenly Comforter, and shew him-mournful and stricken -that all things work together for good to them that love God, and bid him hope and trust in me," said He who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities!

But a deeper case of sympathy still awaits our notice. See there, what time has done! It has whitened every hair, stiffened every joint, and closed the ears and eyes of that bewailing old man. The outward world is now shut out. His converse now is all within and with the past. MEMORY, still faithful to the traces which passing acts there graved, carries him to scenes of twenty, fifty, sixty years ago. There sights unwelcome meet him. To this, and that, and that it points as standing records of delinquency, of sin unpardoned, of condemning guilt. He shudders at the sight. But worse, far worse is yet to be disclosed. "Thou hast now," said this faithful companion, "reached the utmost circle of the years allotted to man; thou hast had years of health; thou hast had talents in thy keeping which might have flowed in streams of blessing through every rank of thy

fellow-man; thou hast seen many doors of usefulness open to thee, but all have been passed by; thou hast seen many cases of ignorance in those less gifted than thyself, where thou mightest have done service; thou hast witnessed many instances of calamity and suffering which thou mightest have alleviated, but tenderness and love found no home in thy breast. How often has thy offending brother asked thy pardon, but thou wouldest never obey the Gospel precept, and with cordiality take his hand, saying "I FORGIVE!" How often has he who owed thee but a hundred pence been pursued with hard words, and with harder deeds, until payment was made! How often hast thou in the hour of thoughtless joy, given countenance to that which conscience told thee was sin! How often hast thou promoted and aided that in others which thou knewest would be the sting of death! Thy days have been thousands; thy mercies tens of thousands. Thy opportunities of doing good, and of imparting blessings to thy fellow-creatures, exceed the powers of remembrance, and the calls of grace to seek good for thyself cannot be told-they surpass enumeration. But all have passed away, neglected, slighted, unimproved. Say, therefore, on what single act of thy long and favoured life thou wilt dare to stand before the Judge of all, and present thy plea for acquittal, for acceptance, for reward! Say how thou wilt get thy debt of ten thousand talents remitted! Thy strength is gone; thy faculties are impaired; the world is to thee a place of darkness, man an invisible object, and but a short remnant of thy days is left!"

O memory! faithful indeed are thy records, but cease the recital,"

said this man of years and of sorrows! "They are all pangs to which there seems no relief at hand, and none to be found. Gone, gone! What a dreadful word when it tells of opportunities gone-of mercies gone-of faculties gone-of life gone! Ah, when will man be wise! When will he forsake the unsatisfying pleasures of the world, and in the days of health and vigour apply himself to that which will yield him peace in death! But the day of grace is past! for ever, for ever past! Not a single act of my life now brings joy to my breast; not a single act on which I dare stand for justification. I have nothing wherewith to wipe out the stain of the least of my offences. I HAVE LOST A LIFE! Death eternal must come next; eternal darkness, pain, and woe! Who can endure the thought, or yet escape it! This is loss incalculable agony unspeakable! No relief-no rest-no peace-no hope! Oh, how vain is sorrow now! Lament how vain! How vain our promises!"

"Spirit of Love," said He whose soul was made an offering for sin, and who maketh intercession for transgressors, "Spirit of Love! hear the sorrowful forecastings of that wounded, that deceived heart. He knows not that to the uttermost of man's transgressions my blood avails. The sands of life are nearly run, but heal that broken spirit. Take of the things of mine, and shew them unto him. Tell him that I died that he might be presented holy, unblameable, unreprovable in the sight of God the Father. Bid him hope, bid him trust in me, and thus there shall be joy in heaven that another of the dead is alive again, another of the lost is found. Mercy! mercy is my will!"

recent events have brought about is no more than this, that they have forced greater caution and reserve upon the party, without in any re

spect altering its principles; and that so, while the danger of a schism is put off, at the same time, the corrupting influences of Tractarian principles are exerted with less alarm and less interruption than before.

Some persons were so startled and offended by the noisy and violent tone in which the sentiments of the extreme section were proclaimed, that they were inclined to think that there must be an essential difference between them and the quieter and more decorous members of the party, who were guilty of no such outrages against decency and good taste. And there is no lack of writers who are anxious to confirm and extend this impression, and to persuade us that now that we are no longer annoyed by this sound and fury, we have no danger to apprehend.

But I am sure that this would be a grievous mistake. In what is of most moment, I know of no very material difference between any of the sections of the party. The hostility to the great principles of the Reformation, which has been so ungovernably displayed by the extreme section, has been felt more or less strongly, in different degrees, by other sections. And, according to such differences, according, also, to differences of habit and temper of individuals, it has been expressed with very different degrees of clearness and strength. But it has been a characteristic of the movement from the first and through all its stages, nor do I see any reason to think that has ceased to be the case. In particular, I think that it is impossible not to see that the distinguishing doctrine of the Reformation, which is distinctly embodied in the formularies of our Church-that which sets forth God's gracious scheme for man's pardon and renovation, his justification and sanctification-is hardly less an object of distrust and fear, to very many members of the party who forbear from any open demonstrations of hostility to it, than to those who so furiously assail it. And it can hardly be doubted, that the covert enmity of the one is likely to do its work much more effectually than the most outrageous invectives of the other.

A congregation which was told by its minister, that he viewed the Reformation with deep and burning hatred, as the very embodiment of the sins most opposed to the principles of faith and dutifulness; that the doctrine of justification by faith only, as adopted in the articles of the Church, is a hateful heresy, a souldestroying heresy, which cannot be held consistently, even by the devils, and which is more fundamentally at variance with our better and higher nature than atheism itself; and so forth-would be much more likely to be revolted and alienated from their teacher, than corrupted by him. But the same congregation might be in great peril if, instead of such furious rhapsodies, they heard sober and decorous discourses, in which the Reformation was never railed at, but in which the doctrines of the Reformation were never distinctly brought forward-appearing only in an undercurrent of bitterness against popular religion and its professors-never openly condemned, but never commended, and never taught: discourses in which religion was presented as a thing of form and sense, and rites and observances, in which faith seemed to be assigned no object but in the authority of the Church and the efficacy of the sacraments; and these, too, not efficacious by confirming faith and increasing grace-not acting indeed through faith, or any of our mental faculties or moral dispositions, but directly and physically on the soul and body, by virtue of supernatural powers with which the elements are endued by the act of consecration -such discourses might infuse a good portion of the whole cycle of Roman doctrine, and prepare an easy way for the rest, into many a congregation, which would recoil from any fragment of undisguised Romanism. There are, indeed, it is to be feared, few congregations so established in the truth as not gradually to be imbued with such principles when so taught. And, in fact, such false religion is so congenial to human nature, that, speaking generally, it cannot be steadily taught without being extensively embraced.