again, let me not be understood to be calling upon every man to become an apostle and a preacher. No; though happy is he, and more honoured, perhaps, than all others, who is called to the high and holy office of preaching the Gospel; yet each man has his duty, and let him endeavour faith ully to discharge it. But, at the same time, every "good man" must have the spirit of Barnabas; and must, according to his means, devote himself to the promotion of the same great ends. There are heathens yet to be taught; there are persons, bearing the name of Christians, yet to be converted, and God demands their souls at your hands. You are to strengthen the exertions of others employed in the ministry; you are to aid the cause of missions; you are to circulate Bibles; you are, under Divine grace, to reclaim the profligate, to bring the wanderers back to the great" Shepherd and Bishop of their souls;" you are to ensure to yourself witnesses who, at the bar of God, shall rise up to call you blessed-to acknowledge that your time, your money, your labour, your prayers were the main instruments in the hands of God of their safety and joy. Such, at the awful hour of judgment, shall be the witnesses to the faith and practice of every "good man ;" and God does not call him good who does not, at least, endeavour to secure them. 5. I conclude by noticing a fifth feature in the character of Barnabas that he was zealous for the bodies as well as for the souls of his fellowcreatures; for their temporal as well as their eternal welfare.-You find him continually carrying the gifts of one church to another. And it is expressly recorded of him, that he sold all his own property to increase the general stock of the Christians.Here, then, is another feature of the "good man.” His benevolence must not be confined to advice that costs him nothing-to exertions for the spiritual benefit of others, which, perhaps, he can make without much sacrifice. It must extend to the bodies of his fellow-creatures; it must descend as low as the lowest wants and sufferings of human nature. It must not only "compass sea and land to make one proselyte" to God: but bind up the wounds, and smooth the pillow of the miserable and afflicted. Such, then, was Barnabas; such is the "good man" of the Scriptures. And God grant that such men may be multiplied! May we not be satisfied till we discover these features growing in ourselves! May we not think of comfort till we find that we are at least praying for them, and that God is beginning to answer our prayers! Barnabas, amidst all his attainments, felt the value of the Saviour whom he served; and proclaimed the name of Christ as the "only name given under heaven whereby we can be saved." And let us, whatever be our progress or deficiencies, rest in the same Saviour, that we may inhe rit the same salvation. MISCELLANEOUS. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVAN- IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS INDEPENDENCE is the effort of infancy, the aim of childhood, the dream of youth, and the idol of mankind;. nor does age itself which chills the warmth of our blood, and abates the ardour of our pursuits, deprive us of the fond hope of being the centres of our little systems, where, though we may permit other luminaries to be dependent upon us, yet we hope to enjoy the privilege of being independent of them. In this sense, independence is only another name for pride and, however this principle of action may be disavowed or disguised, it is the great exciting motive with the majority of mankind. The greatest wisdom of the merely natural man will not shew him that in aiming at independence he pursues a shadow which must for ever elude his grasp. It was the saying of no less a personage than a monarch, that even kings themselves are only the upper servants of their subjects. If we examine this more minutely, we shall find, that the king is dependent upon the ministry, the ministry réciprocally upon him, and both upon the parliament; the members who compose that parliament are dependent upon their constituents; the rich man is dependent upon his possessions; the strong man upon his health; the man who is in honour upon popular opinion; he who is in place upon character, or even upon caprice. Superiors are often shewn to be dependent upon inferiors, and these perhaps of so contemptible a class as to be overlooked and despised in some such way as Goliath despised David. All will allow the poor are dependent upon the rich, and the workman on his employer; but it is not every one who can see that the rich are scarcely less dependent upon the poor, or the master upon the labourer. It has been often seen that the man upon whose will whole nations have depended has been himself dependent upon his vilest passions; and hence Horace's conviction that he who govern ed his own spirit ruled over a more extensive empire than he who stretched the bounds of his dominion from one end of the globe to the other. It was in aiming to be independent of God, that Satan was cast out of heaven, and Adam out of Paradise; and the flattering prospects of independence (although its attainment be utterly impracticable) is still the "unreal mockery" with which Satan deludes the fallen sons of a fallen father. It was in reference to the vanity of the expectations of the world in this particular, that Swift (a" prophet of their own,") said, "I have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in public affairs and councils governed by foolish servants, and I have known men of valour cowards to their wives." With regard to the boasts which are made by many persons of their independence, we shall generally find that they who talk loudest on this head are the least entitled to do so, either from their personal merits or their actual situations in life. Upon this point, Burke has a fine passage: "Men," says he, "are never in a state of total independence of each other. It is not the condition of our nature; nor is it conceivable how any man can pursue any considerable course of action, without its having some effect upon others, or of course without producing some degree of responsibility for his conduct. The situations in which men relatively stand, produce the rules and principles of that responsibility, and afford directions to prudence in exacting it." I have been led to pursue this train of reflection for a short time, not perhaps as strictly illustrative of what is termed independence of mind, but as appearing to be collaterally connected with that subject, and as likely to operate in the way of caution at the very threshold of an inquiry of this kind, since the purest species of independence which we can well conceive must needs be more or less mixed with the baser matter" of pride and vanity; and, but for the transmuting power of true religion, would soon degenerate into the very spirit which has been adverted to. must be confessed, notwithstanding, that man, even in a state of nature, however fallen from his origi It nal dignity, still presents a noble comingled That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger "His nature is too noble for the world : When we come, however, to analyse this independence of mind which passes current on the world; which figures in the page of history, or sparkles in the numbers of poetry; when we come to reduce it to its primitive elements, and, above all, to try it by the test of Divine truth, it will be found, as weighed in such a balance, to be lighter than vanity; and, when touched by the spear of Ithuriel, it will start up in its proper shape. It originates for the most part in a false estimate of ourselves, and our own merits ; in an unhallowed regard for the opinion of man, and an inadequate sense of the value of His esteem whose "favour is life." Its radical defect is a preference of the creature to the Creator. It proposes to itself an immortality of fame, which, even if it could be realized, as it never will, would in no way benefit its possessor, and which, so far from deriving any warrant or sanction from the precepts or promises of Him who knew what was in man and what was good for man, is often found to be in secret alliance with our great enemy, in direct opposition to the first principles of the word of God, and at open war with the voice of conscience in the soul. Nor do these remarks, I apprehend, apply only to the more gross and palpable forms in which independence of mind may display itself on the great theatre of public action, but, like the subtle power assigned by Young to death, it "Plays its weapon in the narrower sphere Of sweet domestic comfort, and cuts down The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss." It steals unperceived into the family circle, and intrudes upon our social, shall I say our religious, converse ? do it that they may obtain a corrupti. ble crown;" and "they that take the sword shall perish by the sword :" but in the cases alluded to, faith is found acting upon the express injunction of our Lord, Fear not them who kill the body, and, after that, have no more that they can do; but fear Him who, after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell." They do fear God rather than man; they "endure as seeing him who is invisible," and "great is their reward in heaven." But to descend from this mount, and view the subject as more immediately applicable to ourselves How are we interested in the question of independence of mind? If we could even trust our faith that we should be able to exercise it on occa sions of public trial (which I suppose none of us will be sure that we should,) it is clear that to such trials we are not called in the present peaceful state of the church and the world. Yet as things now are, and viewing ourselves in connection with all about us, it is perhaps not too much to assert that the true Christian alone possesses real independence of mind; and it may be no loss of time to consider upon what principles this may be affirmed. It will hardly here be necessary to supply examples of the manner in which the phrase of independence of mind is abused by nominal Christians of all classes; among whom it is only a soft name for a proud spirit, as economy is another word for avarice; indiscretion, for vice; pleasure, for sin; and puritanism, for holiness. But we may pass on to the more grateful part of the subject which respects independence of mind as found in the true Christian, exercised upon Christian principles, and guard. ed by Christian cautions. And here "the noble army of martyrs rises at once to our view, and we behold the men" of whom the world was not worthy "brought before kings and rulers" for the sake of a despised and crucified Master; preaching righteousness to a world which chose death rather than life; witnessing a good confession, though the Holy Ghost had first testified to them that 1. He is independent of the world.only "bonds and death" awaited them He is not of the world, as Christ was as their reward; and counting not not of the world, but is the native of their lives dear to themselves, so that another country, and the subject of they might finish their course with another Sovereign. He is a citizen joy, committing their eternal inter- of no mean city;" and when vilified ests to the Saviour in the midst of a and persecuted by those who know shower of stones, and singing halle him not, he can appeal to his own lujahs and hosannas as they ascend- King as the Roman Christian aped in the fiery chariots of pagan and pealed to Cæsar. He looks forward papal persecution. This is a grate to the day when the earth is to ful theme, and it would be easy to be burnt up, and sees that a conenlarge. It is perhaps the highest flagration like that will consume example that can be given of inde- the stubble and chaff which others pendence of mind. In ordinary acts are building their peace upon ; and of heroism, the absence of a spiritual therefore he learns to form a promotive and the mixture of human per estimate of earthly treasures passion are essential defects: "they and to be independent of them, having his treasure elsewhere. Thus, if the possessions of the world come into competition with his better inheritance, he knows how to choose the good and refuse the evil, and prefers to lose an employer rather than offend God. 2. He is independent of life, because he is to live for ever; and though he may fear death when his faith is not in exercise, yet, in his better moments, he knows whom he has believed, and is persuaded that He is able to keep that which he has committed to him against that day. Besides, although it were otherwise as to the state of his assurance, yet the covenant that is made with him is ordered and sure, and is not for feited by his fears although it is exalted by his hopes. 3. He is independent of opinion.He applies another rule and measure to his conduct than the world does, even the unerring word of God; and when many consider him melancholy or mad, he knows that they who mourn now are blessed and shall be comforted, and that the same misjudging world said of his Master that he was mad and had a devil. When he is thought a fool, he knows that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, and that the wisdom by which he is directed is justified of her children. 4. He is independent of circumstances and events, of changes and rever ses.-Something of this sentiment is expressed by Watts in his lyrics, "I'd have a life to call my own That shall depend on heav'n alone; As it is an axiom of mathematics that every thing great contains in it something that is less, so the Christian, in having so much more real independence of mind than the worldling, can lay claim to every advantage attached to this spirit which the unbeliever may boast, whilst he possesses it in a form that is refined and purified, and divested of the grossness and feculence of its natural elements. Hence the Christian has been often found the best patriot; and Baxter and Bunyan did not urge or promote the cause of liberty and Protestantism (in other words, the cause of independence of mind) at all the less because they preached and wrote laboriously for Christ; nor did Colonel Gardner fight the worse, or bleed the less willingly, because he went to battle in the Christian armour or served under the banner of the Lord of Hosts. 5. The Christian is independent of himself.-This is perhaps that which most effectually promotes and secures his independence of mind. He is saved by grace:-he stands not in his own strength, but is strong in the Lord: because Christ lives, he lives also. His independence of mind is no more his own than any grace or virtue in his stock, and only exists for a moment as it is fed and nourished from a higher source. The whole secret of his independence of mind is, that he has a mind which depends upon God, and therefore does not depend upon man, or which, in other words, is, as to man, an independent mind. Now here is the great distinction between Christian and worldly independence of mind. He who has not God for his support never can carry a mind which is independent either of others or himself, but is the slave of one or the other, and often of both at the same moment. 6. He is independent of enemies.When Crates the philosopher wrote under the brand in his cheek inflicted by Nicodromus, "Nicodromus fecit," there was something equivocal in this; but when a man upon Christian principles returns good for evil, and his character becomes so established for divine forbearance, that men can say of him as Shakespeare said of Cranmer, |