This is a highly practical subject, to persons of all classes and conditions in life. Sooner or later, everybody must expect to suffer insults or injuries, more or less hard to bear, so that it is the duty of every one habitually to cherish a forgiving spirit. Those who do, will find the duty comparatively easy, while those who do not, will have hard work of it.

Let us see to it, as occasions arise, that we forgive," not in word, but in deed and truth." When the emotions of scorn and contempt spring up in the mind, they are so nearly allied to an unforgiving spirit, that it may well be questioned whether it is not making a distinction without a difference between them. We confess that, though the remark is so common, I can forgive, but cannot forget, it always strikes us unpleasantly. It somehow carries suspicion upon the very face of it. It proves that the wound is not healed, and we are afraid that something besides remembrance of the wrong helps to keep it open. It is better to forgive from the heart, than to say you can; and if you must say so, what necessity is there for adding, I cannot forget. The meaning, we suppose, is, the injury was so grievous that it can never be erased from my memory. Be it so; but we are strongly inclined to think that those who most heartily forgive, in general say the least

about it.

PERIODICAL BENEFICENCE-TRY IT. PAUL gave order to the churches of Galatia, and then to the church in Corinth, and through them "to all in every place, that call on the name of Jesus Christ"-that each one of them should, on the first day of the week, lay by him in a treasury for charitable uses, a portion according to his income for the preceding week, and thus sustain a regular habit of giving, irrespective of the occasional calls for such gifts. Now it must be confessed that this rule, though so reasonable in itself, and so evidently binding on all, has in a great measure fallen into disuse. What Divine Wisdom devised, as the best way of sustaining the energy of beneficence in his Church, and the best method of raising supplies for evangelising, has thus been practically set at nought.

Yet here and there one has practised according to this rule, and found a rich advantage in it-has found his own growth of grace promoted by the con

stant habit of giving the little that he could-has found his heart kept in better sympathy with the cause of Christ, and more alive to the claims of Christ upon him-has found his habits of expenditure of money better regulated, and his own thrift promoted-has found the blessings of heaven following him in many a branching stream-has found rich satisfactions in the very act of nursing such a treasure for Christ, and paying out his Lord's money from itthus acting as the steward of the manifold grace of God.

Now though we might be so bold in Christ as to enjoin that which is convenient, and which God has distinctly required, yet, for love's sake, we rather beseech the reader to make the experiment of the advantages of acting under this rule. If you are not wholly convinced that the command is so clear as to leave you no excuse in the neglect of it, you may yet see that no harm can come of the experiment. If you have any doubt of its practical utility, and its binding force, the best of all ways is to apply the practical test. There is no law against trying it. Try it for a yea:, and if you find it not conducive to your spiritual health, not adapted to train the mind to holy feeling and action, you will then have a clearer conscience in your neglect of it.

Now

We are the more desirous that the trial should be made, because the great objection, which before trial stands in the way of it, is in truth the strong reason in its favour. The objector says, The sun which I can afford to give from week to week is so small as to be hardly worth the giving, and therefore it is best to give only at such intervals as will enable me to give a considerable sum. the truth is, that persons of small means can give a little every week, without feeling the loss, and so reach, at the end of the year, an amount which they never would and never could give at any one time. Many a poor person, impelled by a strong desire to give something considerable to the cause of Christ, has, without any consideration of this rule as binding on him, and impelled by the necessity of the case, fallen into the substantial observance of it, laying aside from week to week a little, tbus producing sums greater than could be spared by any other means. And a little experience will show that this is just the way for those who can spare but small sums to sustain effective beneficence. It

is the poor man's way of making many rich. Those who have large means and large hearts, have less need of such confinement to such a system. This rule was evidently constructed more especially for those whose ability is small, and they indeed are the great mass of Christians-and hence the smallness of your ability is the very reason why you should act according to it.

Others, perhaps, feel that the type of their piety in other matters is not such as would make such a systematic labouring of beneficence congruous with the other elements of their character. This rule, they think, becomes those who have reached a high order of piety, but not themselves. But in this they make a mistake, like the preceding.

It was

made for those who have little piety, as the best means of increasing their stock, as truly as for those who have but little money. There is probably no one rule of Christian life by which even babes in Christ will find more sure assistance in advancing from one degree of grace to another.

Let, then, the reader make the experiment at once; let your ability or your piety be less or more, here is a Divine rule for causing your poverty to abound to the riches of your liberality. Try it, for no injury can come of the trial. Try it, for many have found a great advantage in it. Try it, for it may be the opening of a new era in your spiritual history. Try it, for the wisdom of God has devised it for the kindest purposes affecting yourself and the world.

OBSTACLES TO CHURCH-GOING.

1. Indolence-Religious duties require effort in order to their performance. It is often much more congenial to indulge a love of ease than to make the effort to go regularly to all the public services and all the social meetings. You return from your business perhaps wearied, and it would be quite pleasant to spend the evening lounging over a newspaper, or in conversation; or the weather is unpropitious; hence your place, with that of many others, is left vacant, and the minister spends his time and labour among the empty benches.

2. Unconverted connections and friends sometimes exert an unfavourable influence on church-going. However congenial those we love may be on other subjects, there is often a wide difference as to religious matters. An unconverted husband

or wife may have no taste especially for social meetings, and will not go with you to attend them. They see no necessity for so many meetings; they prefer having your company at home; and instead of resisting their appeals to you to neglect your duty, and endeavouring to take them with you to the means of grace, which might be blessed to their salvation, you are overcome, and tarry at home, and, at last, perhaps dwindle down to the wretched measure of but one visit a week to the house of God, and that on the morning of the Sabbath.

3. A sense of mortification and false delicacy on account of misfortunes, is also an obstacle to church-going. Wounded pride often accompanies worldly reverses. Those who have been the subjects of such changes, not wishing to expose themselves before the gaze of their former friends, seek retirement, and sometimes will not go even to the house of God. This hindrance to church-going is heathenish; it is wicked.

4. Others stay away from many of the meetings of their fellow-Christians, because it has never entered into their account to make attendance on such meetings a part of their religious duties. They have no objection to others going; think it well enough to keep up such meetings, and that the elders, and some of the more active members, should sustain them; but as for them, they had thought, being at church once, or at most twice, on the Sabbath, was as much as could reasonably be expected of most professors of religion, and they had never laid out their accounts for doing more. Hence, although there are social meetings, such professors are not found at them; they stay at home.

5. But the most common and the saddest obstacle among professing Christians to church-going, is the want of spiritual-mindedness. The piety of many is at a low ebb; they have but feeble hungerings and thirstings after righteousness; but few pantings after God; and hence really lack the heart for those hallowed scenes where God is wont to meet with his waiting people. Had you more of the spirit of fervent piety, would your place, then, be vacant at the prayermeeting or in the house of God?

Reader, forget not, for these or any other reasons, the assembling with the saints at all the services of the church you belong to, as the manner of some

is.

THE NEGLECTED BIBLE. JOHN HOWE, in a sermon on the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, thus proceeds :

may

"And a little to enforce all this, it not be altogether useless, nay, I think it may be worth our while to tell you a short passage which was not long ago told me by a person, (whose name is well known in London, and I hope savoury in it yet, Dr. Thomas Goodwin), at such time as he was president of Magdalen College in Oxford. There I had the passage from him. He told me, that being himself in the time of his youth, a student at Cambridge, and having heard much of Mr. Rogers, of Dedham, in Essex, purposely he took a journey from Cambridge to Dedham, to hear him preach on his lecture day-a lecture then so strangely thronged and frequented, that to those who came not very early there was no possibility of getting room in that very spacious large church. Mr. Rogers was, as he told me, at that time he heard him, on the subject of discourse which hath been for some time the subject of mine, the Scriptures. And in that sermon he falls into an expostulation with the people about their neglect of the Bible; (I am afraid it is more neglected in our days;) he personates God to the people, telling them-Well! I have trusted you so long with my Bible: you have slighted it; it lies in such and such houses all covered with cobwebs: you care not to look into it. Do you use my Bible so? Well! shall have you Bible no my longer.'

"And he takes up the Bible from his cushion, and seemed as if he were going away with it, and carrying it from them; but immediately turns again, and personates the people to God, falls down on his knees, cries and pleads most earnestly, 'Lord! whatsoever thou dost to us, take not thy Bible from us. Kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods; only spare us thy Bible, only take not away thy Bible.'

"And then he personates God again to the people: 'Say you so? Well! I will try you a while longer; and here is my Bible for you; I will see how you use it, whether you love it more, whether you will value it more, whether you will observe it more, whether you will practise it more, and live more according to it.'

"By these actions, as the doctor told me, he put all the congregation into so strange a posture that he never saw any congregation in his life. The place was

a mere Bochim,' the people generally, as it were, deluged in their own tears; and he told me himself, when he got out, and was to take his horse again to be gone, he was fain to hang a quarter of an hour upon the neck of his horse weeping, before he had the power to mount; so strange an impression was there upon him, and generally upon the people, upon having been thus expostulated with for the neglect of the Bible."

DYING BEFORE THEIR TIME.

"Do you not expect to die?" said a thoughtful friend to a young lady who was enumerating, with great animation, the pleasures she was expecting to enjoy.

"I shall die when my time comes," was the flippant reply.

"Persons sometimes die before their time."

"I do not see how that can be possible," said the careless one, who left the room in order to avoid further conversation on an unpleasant subject.

That many die before their time is a truth taught by observation, and by the Word of God. There are many who evidently shorten their days by their vices. But in addition to the physical consequences of some sins, there is a connection, by the ordination of God, between sin and shortness of days. It is expressly said that the wicked shall not live out half their days. Again, God says to the sinner, "Why shouldst thou die before thy time?" Ecc. vii. 17.

Who would wish to die before, his time? Who would enter the unseen world, and stand before an angry God before his time? Who would wish to taste of the agonies of the second death before his time?

All desire length of days. All anticipate a good old age. If a rule could be given for its certain attainment, it would be followed by all. Thousands would follow it implicitly, who utterly disregard the rule for securing eternal life.

Reader, if you cannot lengthen your days, you can avoid shortening them. Cease from sin. Go to Christ for pardon and for grace, that you may not die before your time, and that death, when it must come, may be an introduction to life.

TO WHOM WILL YOU GO?

The season of sorrow will come !—What will you do then? To whom will you

To

turn for consolation? To your gay companions? They will desert you. the remembrance of past pleasure? It will torture you. To the world you have idolized? It has no balm for a wounded heart. To the God whose love you have slighted? Will you not fear to look at Him in affliction, whom in prosperity, you have insulted and despised? Would not one hour of a Christian's consolations-one smile of a Saviour's love-be then felt to be worth all the gratifications this world ever gave?

The hour of death will come !-What will you do then? When the world is giving way under your feet-eternity opening on your view-your body tortured with pain or sinking in decay your soul hovering on the brink of a dark and fearful abyss, unillumined by one

ray of light from heaven, down which it dare not look, yet must plunge into its blackness of darkness for ever-what would you then not give for such feelings as animated the pious Leighton? Illness attacked him, and he rejoiced, as, "from the shaking of the prison doors he was led to hope that some of these brisk blasts would throw them open, and give him the release he coveted.'

The day of judgment will come !-And what will you do then?

The ages of eternity will come !—And what a thought! Eternal woe! Too horrible to think of! What will it be to endure? The idea is dreadful. What will be the reality? What a home for eternity! And yet will you prefer Satan to God as a master, and hell to heaven as a home.

THE NATURE OF THAT FAITH BY

WHICH WE ARE SAVED.

"the

Dr. Pye Smith, in a Letter on the Religious Opinions of the Swiss Dissenters (published in the Congregational Magazine for December, 1826), adverting to the old Protestant divines of the Continent, observes that many of them made their descriptions of faith "so comprehensive as to include the whole of experimental and practical religion." With respect to the peculiar expressions used by others, he remarks, that "they appear to have only designed to convey the idea of earnest and exclusive RELIANCE on the Saviour for the blessings of redemption;" and that one of them concisely, comprehensively, and beautifully defines faith as flight of a penitent sinner to the mercy of God in Christ." The doctor conceives that "the leading idea conveyed by many passages in Luther, on the Epistle to the Galatians, and scattered through his other works is an entire committing of the soul to Christ, and resting only upon his righteousness for deliverance from despair, and guilt, and death, and for the obtaining of holiness and eternal happiness." In his judgment, there appears also "reason for understanding the language of appropriation used by Calvin in his Institutes and in his Catechism, as chiefly intended to impress the necessity of personally realizing and applying the blessings of the Gospel in opposition to the spurious faith of orthodox opinions." According to the Synopsis Purioris Theologiæ, "the proper act of faith is fleeing to the Saviour; and it entirely consists in the reliance of the soul upon him." The following definition of faith is given by Stapfer, of Berne, a divine whom Dr. Smith regards as one of the glories of Switzerland: "It is that act of a regenerate person whereby, out of a holy assent to the testimony of God upon the salvation wrought out by Christ, he renounces all self ́dependance, and cordially gives up himself to the Lord Jesus for salvation."

OBERLIN'S MOTHER.

It was through the instrumentality of his admirable mother that, during Oberlin's youth, he was savingly converted to God. A celebrated preacher, named Dr. Lorentz, excited a great sensation in Strasbourg, by the ardent zeal with which he preached a crucified Saviour. Oberlin's mother, attracted by the general report, went to hear him, and was so much struck with the powerful manner in which he set forth the grand doctrines of redemption and remission of sin, that she entreated her favourite son (John Frederic) to accompany her on the following Sunday. Being a student in the theological class at the university, and having been warned by his superiors not to go, it was with some reluctance that he suffered his mother to persuade him to accompany her. In compliance with her urgent solicitations, he, however, at last acceded, and was so much delighted with the evangelical truths he heard preached, that he became a regular and diligent attendant of the doctor's sermons, and this circumstance probably contributed to strengthen his religious impressions, and to confirm him in the resolution he had made in childhood.

The mother of Oberlin had the unspeakable satisfaction of beholding her son solemnly dedicate himself to the service of God at the age of twenty; a reward the greatest that maternal piety could receive.

CYRUS AND THE WIFE OF TIGRANES.

Cyrus had taken the wife of Tigranes, and asked him what he would give to save her from servitude? He replied, "All that he had in the world, and his own life into the bargain." Cyrus, upon this, very generously restored her, and pardoned what had passed. All were full of his praises upon this occasion, some commending the accomplishments of his mind, others those of his person. Tigranes asked his wife, whether she did not greatly admire him? "I

never looked at him," said she. "Not look at him!" returned he; "upon whom, then, did you look ?" "Upon him,” replied she, "who offered his own life to redeem me from slavery." This charming example should be copied into our behaviour in the house of God; where we should behold and contemplate the beauties and perfections of that blessed Person alone, who actually did give His life a ransom for us.

CLAUDE LORRAINE.

Claude Lorraine studied his art in the open fields, where he frequently continued from the rising to the setting sun. He sketched whatever he thought beautiful or striking, and marked, in similar colours, every curious tinge of light on all kinds of objects. These were afterwards improved into landscapes, universally allowed to be superior to those of all other artists who have painted in the same style. In like manner Shakspere and Ben Jonson travelled and associated with all sorts of people, to mark different traits in the characters and tempera of mankind, which were afterwards worked up into their ⚫ inimitable plays. Every writer should follow these examples, and take down thoughts as they occur in reading or conversing, to be ready for use afterwards when he sits down to compose.

MICKLE AND GARRICK.

Mickle, the translator of the "Lusiad," inserted in his poem an angry note against Garrick, who, as he thought, had used him ill by rejecting a tragedy of his. Some time afterwarde, the poet, who had never seen Garrick play, was asked by a friend in town to go to King Lear. He went, and, during the first three acts, said not a word. In a fine passage of the fourth, he fetched a deep sigh, and turning to his friend, "I wish," said he, "the note was out of my book!" How often, alas! do we say and write bitter things of a man on a partial and interested view of his character, which, if we knew it throughout, we should wish unsaid or unwritten!

BOERHAAVE.

"The

Boerhaave, through life, consecrated the first hour after he rose in the morning to meditation and prayer; declaring, that from thence he derived vigour and aptitude for business, together with equanimity under provocations, and a perfect conquest over his irascible passions. sparks of calumny," he would say, "will be presently extinct of themselves, unless you blow them;" and therefore, in return, he chose rather to commend the good qualities of his calumniators (if they had any) than to dwell upon the bad.

THE DISPUTATIOUS PHYSICIANS. Two learned physicians and a plain honest countryman, happening to meet at an inn, sat down to dinner together. A dispute presently arose between the two doctors on the nature of aliment, which proceeded to such a height, and was carried on with so much fury, that it spoiled their meal, and they parted extremely indisposed. The countryman, in the mean time, who understood not the cause, though he heard the quarrel, fell heartily to his meat, gave God thanks, digested it well, returned in the strength of it to his honest labour, and at evening received his wages. Is there not sometimes as much difference between the polemical and practical Christian ?

CONTINENTAL USES OF THE CON-
FESSIONAL.

Prince Paskewitch, the Russian governor of Warsaw, has published a circular, addressed to all the Roman Catholic bishops in Poland, requiring them to make it imperative upon the inferior orders of the clergy that the latter shall divulge all political secrets entrusted to them in confession. The effect of this order is to convert the priesthood into a body of spies upon the community to which they minister; and, as the autocrat of Russia is himself the Pope of the Greek Church, as well as the head of the secular power, it is not likely that his own simple mandate would meet with much attention; but then it is affirmed that the Court of Rome itself is a party to this nefarious arrangement.

INFALLIBILITY.

"If I were bound to call any man master upon earth, and to believe him upon his own affirmative and authority, I would, of all men, least follow him that pretends he is infallible, and cannot prove it. For that he cannot prove it, makes me as uncertain as ever; and that he pretends to infallibility, makes him careless of using such means; which will morally secure those wise persons who, knowing their own aptness to be deceived, use what endeavours they can to secure themselves from error, and so become the better and more probable guides.”— Jeremy Taylor.

THE LUNGS.

On examination, the lungs will be found full of innumerable little holes, like a sponge. These holes are the cells into which the air enters when we breathe. So great is their number, that they have been calculated to amount to 170,000,000, forming a surface thirty times greater than the human body. Every one of these cells is provided with a net-work of blood-vessels, by means of which the blood is brought into immediate contact with the air over every portion of their surface. When this great amount is taken into consideration, we shall at once feel how necessary it is to supply pure air to the lungs with every breath we breathe.

FLOWERS.

By all means remember the flowers. A gifted essayist remarks, "Flowers are a proud assertion, that a ray of beauty outvalues all the abilities of the world." Others declare them to be the handwriting of angels. Surely they are at least beautiful vignettes, on God's epistle of love to man. Let us cultivate them, and try to learn something of their hieroglyphical meaning. Perhaps, if we could read them, they would indeed prove to be the songs of angels, their odours imitating their melody.

REMOVE THE EXTINGUISHER.

Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, said to John Newton: "Sir, I have collated every word in the Hebrew Scriptures seventeen times, and it is very strange if the doctrine of atonement, which you hold, is there, and I have not found it." "I am not surprised at this," said Newton; "I once went to light my candle with an extinguisher on. Now, prejudice, from education, learning, &c., often forms an extinguisher. It is not enough to bring the candle; you must remove the extinguisher "