of doing it; the corruption and depravity of human nature is especially seen in this, that men are proud, and that the characters we most admire are the high spirited and stout hearted; in short the very persons whom God least of all regards, and with whom he is most highly displeased. If indeed we consider what we are, what we have been, and what we have done, we shall perceive the truth of that declaration, Pride was not made for man; it is not suitable to his character, it ill becomes his situation; for when we have done all, we are but unprofitable servants, who have only done that which we ought to have done; we have then no claim upon God, for he as Sovereign Lord of the universe has a right to command, and we are bound to obey, and if we do not, we justly incur the penalty attached to disobedience, however severe that penalty may be; yet who is there among us that can say we have ful. filled any one of his requirements? if we examine ourselves by the Divine Word, if we try our conduct by the infallible rule there laid down, we shall find that in every situation, in every relation of life, we are transgressors, and that we have neither done justly nor loved mercy, nor walked humbly with our God: hence we must adopt the language of the ancient church, and say, we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; we must lie down in shame, confusion of face must cover us; we must every one of us say as holy Job, “Behold I am vile, I abhor myself;" and it will be well if with him we can add, "I repent in dust and ashes."

It is this humility, this lowliness of heart, this poorness of spirit, which God requires, and which Jesus Christ hath pronounced blessed: it produces indeed the most blessed fruit; for while we thus

contemplate ourselves as guilty, evil, and polluted, we are led invariably to apply unto Jesus Christ for salvation. The truly convinced sinner is conscious that he can escape in no other way; that by the works of the law he cannot be justified; that the requirements of Scripture infinitely exceed his attainments; and hence he is compelled to renounce all dependance on himself, and to depend on Jesus Christ alone. He looks unto him for strength, he labours and strives continually to show his love to his Lord and Master, by doing those things which he hath enjoined; and he rejoices that through the blood of the all-atoning Sacrifice, God is now reconciled to him, is become his Father and, his Friend, is engaged to protect and provide for him, and that finally he will not fail of his promises, but will most certainly bring him to everlasting life, and make him an inheritor of his heavenly kingdom.

You then that desire to come before the Lord-to bow before the most High God, draw near in this appointed way. God is a kind, and a gracious, and a merciful God; he will not cast you out, if only you apply unto him through his Son Jesus Christ, however unworthy you are of the least benefit of his hands; however great may have been your past sins; however multiplied your transgressions; however aggravated your offences; he is now ready to receive and bless you. If you apply unto him for pardon and reconciliation, he will blot out your transgressions, he will love you freely; he will cause all his goodness to pass before you, and will finally bring you to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord, To whom, with the Father, and the Holy Ghost, be honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

V. M.

WERE We to judge of the female character from the writings of novelists, or even of poets, we might be induced to think with the satirist, that Black, brown, and fair' were women's sole distinguishing characteristics. The day is indeed past, we trust, when such erroneous estimates will be adopted in any extent; but at the same time there is reason to fear, that many indulge very unworthy ideas of female excellencies, and consider women in general as the mere subjects of tender feelings, and ofttimes the martyrs or the dupes of misplaced affections. That because lovely in themselves, love is their grand and master passion, to which they are ever prepared to sacrifice filial duty and Christian devotedness. Such ideas, however, are at once incorrect in fact, and lead to most unworthy ideas of that sex, whose patience and fortitude, whose selfdenial and resignation, whose holy composure and fervent piety justly claim our highest admiration, and would at once extort the admiration of mankind, were it not that the modesty and retiredness of the female character, veil from general observation unnumbered graces and excellencies.

These remarks have been suggested by a scene of real life which, has fallen under the notice of the writer. The following is not a narrative founded on fact, but a real history, a Tale of Truth, in which imagination has no share. There is not a fact distorted and exaggerated; it may have its parallel, but as an afflictive dispensation it can scarcely be exceeded.

Clericus married young, with an income barely sufficient for a decent maintenance, and totally inadequate to the wants of a family rapidly increasing. His connexions were affluent, and his expectations of assistance were warranted by the

ties of consanguinity and the oft repeated promises of an ample provision. Disappointment succeeded disappointment; wills were opened successively, but to prove how fallacious is dependance on the promises of the rich. The wealth of those who revelled in superfluity was increased, and he, to whom a small portion had been redemption from misery, was forgotten, The years of his youth and manhood were thus spent in a perpetual struggle with adverse circumstances, in a constant warfare with importunate creditors, and not unfrequently in those evasions of which his generous nature was ashamed. We pass over these melancholy scenes, we will not expose the days of humiliation and the sleepless nights of an honourable minded debtor. To silence the clamour of one, he borrowed of another at a rate of interest ruinous as usurious. But the catastrophe was approaching-he was thrown into prison. During the progress of these convulsions it pleased the Almighty to visit him with afflictions which had brought many a head to an untimely grave. He saw the promises of youth blighted in two of his sons, by the most dreadful of all visitations-madness. A third embarked on a military appointment abroad, and was never heard of-he perished with the crew. But the heaviest grief is yet behind. The youngest of five daughters, a being of the rarest mental acquirements, and, if such adventitious circumstances can give interest to suffering, of great personal beauty, had witnessed the growing troubles of her family, and sunk beneath the blow. She had borne privations without repining ---she had administered the consolations of filial affection to her parents in the hour of their calamity-she had exerted her talents, and contributed by such exertion

the portion of a dutiful and pious child to the common stock-she had kept alive the sinking spirits by her cheerful vivacity-she had hoped against hope she had spoken of brighter prospects and better days, until assurance had half mingled with her prayers. But the hour of separation was fatal to her reason— the previous excitement had left her weak and exhausted-the parent on whom she doted, with an attachment rarely equalled, was removed from his home, and her mental aberration was complete.

It is next to impossible that in a Christian country such aggravated afflictions could pass unknown or unrelieved. The extreme point of human suffering had been reached;-and, to the honour of the age in which we live be it recorded, that in the space of á very few months a sufficient sum was raised by the exertion of friends to ensure an almost permanent provision for Clericus and his family. Of him we would say, that, clinging to that" anchor of the soul, sure and stedfast,"-dependance upon God, he was strengthened to endure the trials allotted him with a composure and resignation which that philosophy only which is the gift of heaven could bestow. But the returning comforts of her parents brought no light to their bewildered child. Each mode of treatment, medical and moral, was practised for her relief, but in vain. From the commencement of her disease, and through its melancholy progress she exhibited no violence; and now all was as

'The calm stillness of the misty day.'

Still in the flower of her youth, and with beauty almost unimpaired, she presents the most afflicting of all spectacles. Yet is this awful visitation cheered by the consolations of religious hope, and its horrors are mitigated by the tender and sisterly assiduities of two, the gentlest of human beings. Never

was afflicted reason so tenderly nursed and watched and soothed. Oh, how anxiously is every word, nay, every look interpreted, which affection would anticipate as the dawn of returning light. Oh, send us back to all our privations, to all the contumely and unkindness which poverty must produce from the hard-hearted portion of the world, but restore to our prayers 'the favourite and the flower,' sensible of our caresses and rejoicing in our love.' We speak not-we dare not speak the language of hyperbolical encomium, or of idle adulation but, to look upon this ministration, constant and unwearied, without feeling that it partakes of the employment of angels and blessed spirits, is impossible. To witness the entire and intense devotion of this sisterly affection to its office of mercy-the suppression of every agonized feeling-the cheerfulness, real or assumed, which the performance of their duty requires, and, above all, their pious submission to His will, who ordereth all things in wisdom,-Oh, who can witness this, nor learn that in the school of adversity the heart is made better." *

Ye, who have given your hours and your sorrows to tales of fictitious woe, who have wept over the interrupted schemes and baffled hopes of the heroine of romance, whose tears have flowed in graceful sympathy for her who abandoned herself to every selfish indulgence, turn for one moment to a scene by which your sex is dignified and ennobled, and learn what woman can endure, supported by the grace of heaven. Oh, give these daughters of sorrow one gentle prayer, that their piety may not fail of its reward on earth; and, above all, think of their afflictions, and be still; remember their griefs, and take your lot in peace.

Nor is it over the ruins of an

* Eccles. vii, 3.

ordinary mind that these patient sisters are destined to mourn; it is not for the restoration of a common understanding, that their hourly attentions are exerted, There is no spot to which the eye can turn, which does not remind them of their loss. There was no elegant accomplishment, worthy the attention of woman, in which this afflicted being did not excel. Deprivation by death would have brought its consolations; the grave would have been the entrance to a happy immortality. We need not dwell on the painful distinction.-Every word, spoken without aim, or end, or consciousness, is a dagger to the eager ear and heart of those who fondly catch at the slightest indications of returning reason: whilst the face that once brightened with intelligence-the eyes that kindled with intellectual fire, respond to no excitement, and sympathize with no communication.

Yet, under every discouragement, these ministering spirits neither droop nor faint; their wounded sensibility seeks for no relief, but in the performance of a duty, of which they can see no termination. Consolations they have, but they are not of this world. The wind is

mercifully tempered to their need; and

'He who afflicts not willingly, nor grieves,

But to improve the spirit he receives,' is their solace and their stay.

The moral of this rapid and imperfect sketch is apparent. Many may indeed suggest that sorrows sacred as these should be buried in silence, and female delicacy may shrink with instinctive apprehension from all publicity and display : but the influence of such examples from real life may perhaps strengthen and confirm the virtuous purpose, inculcate the most useful lessons of fortitude, patience, and resignation under affliction, and teach that the more heroic virtues may find their exercise even in the domestic circle; and that occupation, most dignifying to their sex, most useful to their fellowcreatures, and most acceptable to heaven, may be quietly and unostentatiously practised, unconnected with that passion, without which the tale of the novelist is tame, and the pages of the poet are considered vapid and uninteresting.

of the soul.

-a flood of light above the brightness of the sun has often illuminated the gloom of despondency, and tranquillized the tumults This light is not that cold speculative light which amuses only the understanding; it is the light of life, a light that vivifies, invigorates, and warms the affections, and at the same time enriches the soul with the lovely fruits of righteousness and true holiness. The black Ethiopian may look long enough at the visible sun and not

APRIL 1827.

J. S.

be changed; but he who thus looks to the Sun of Righteousness, shall be enlightened and transformed into that divine image which has been so awfully defaced by the fall. For what is the gospel but the gracious interposition of celestial mercy for the deliverance of fallen man! It is mercy coming down from the throne of righteousness in the person of our Redeemer, that she may brighten the prospects, and revive the dejected spirits of the humble penitent. When all around him is dark and tempestuous, she opens to him a refuge from the storm; safe and secure, he hears the thunders

T

only at a distance, and lifts up his eyes to heaven, radiant with hope and glistening with gratitude. The gospel is emphatically the glory of sinners, not of the innocent but of the guilty. Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; He came to seek and save that which was lost, and requires only a serious sense of our need of mercy, and an earnest application unto him that we may obtain it. Indeed the cross of Christ exhibits such an assemblage of all that is sublime and lovely in moral excellence,―such unsullied holiness, —such inexorable justice, combined with such an unfathomable depth of divine love, that it tends far above all other subjects in the Scriptures, to rectify the inverted order which sin has introduced, and to form the Christian character. It alone reveals Christ's righteousness in the remission of sin; it magnifies justice in the way of pardoning it, and mercy in the way of punishing it. It shows justice more awful than if mercy had been excluded, and mercy more attractive than if justice had been dispensed with. In short, it is a scheme of reconciliation, planned with such unerring wisdom, that it magnifies the law, and makes it honourable; whilst it delivers the criminal, who broke the law. Hence both the sinner and the law have just ground to glory in the cross of Christ, as the wisdom and the power of God unto salvation.

Whilst we may and ought to trace out, (as far as the Scriptures authorize) the deep and manifold wisdom of God in the congruity or adaptation of the means to the accomplishment of this great momentous end, and thus endeavour to confirm our faith by concentrating the different component parts of the gospel into one grand simultaneous view, we must still remember that this enlarged consideration of the internal evidence and harmony of truth ought not to divert us from a pre-eminent regard to the doc

trine itself,-to that amazing and transcendent expression of love, by which our salvation was finished,— by which death was disarmed of his sting, and the kingdom of heaven opened to all believers. This tremendous hour was the noontide of everlasting love, the meridian splendour of eternal mercy. All the preceding manifestations were like the obscure twilight, "that shines more and more to the perfect day;" and that perfect day, which dispelled the shadows of Judaism, was, when Christ hung suspended upon an ignominious cross, and darkness covered the land. The spiritual blessings antecedent as well as subsequent to it, are to be resolved into his meritorious obedience, and more especially into his expiatory and penal sufferings on the cross. In short, the cross of Christ is an object of such incomparable brightness, that it spreads a retrospective, as well as future glory round it to all ages, generations, and nations. The history of this sublunary world-its changes and revolutions, except as they relate to the kingdom of Christ and its glory, are comparative trifles,--the sickly dreams of a vain philosophy. Even the mighty fabric of the material universe is made to subserve the spiritual interests of this kingdom, and when the eternal purposes of the Almighty shall be accomplished, "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be

burned up." Thus hath Christ crucified been the subject of God's decrees before the world began, for the fulfilment of which it continues to be preserved. It is no wonder that the ancient patriarchs, who lived so many centuries before the Christian era, and saw at a distance the day of Christ, rejoiced in the anticipation of his advent. Prophets, and kings, and holy men spake of it; angels are represented as desi. rous of looking into the mysteries of