hear even the voice of man, much less prepared to attend to the voice of Christ calling thee to repent, believe, obey, and be for ever blest. The future may come, but only to call thee suddenly, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, to appear before God in judgment, "to give account for all the deeds done in the body." To-day, then, fellow-traveller to eternity, whilst thou mayst attend to the Saviour's voice, speaking to thee through his word-today, while the gospel trumpet is sounding its alarm in thy ears-to-day, improve the season of opportunity. Incline thy ears and hear; come unto the Saviour that thou mayst live, and it may be well with thee in time, and throughout eternity. Remember there will be to thee a day of future reckoning-for sermons heard, means of grace enjoyed, for being favoured with a knowledge of the revealed will of God. Uncertain is the period of thy privileges. "Yet a little while is the light with you; walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you”— the darkness of death and the grave. There will be no place for repentance; there will be no call of mercy sounding in thy ears; there will be no gracious invitation extended to thee, if in life thou hast despised and neglected the Saviour's voice. Hear, give diligent heed then, while it is called to-day! lest lifting up thine eyes in hell, being in torment, thou shalt find that"In that lone land of deep despair, No sabbath's heavenly light shall rise; No God regard thy bitter prayer, No Saviour call thee to the skies." A MAN OF ONE IDEA. LUTHER, like all great reformers, was a man of one idea; but that one idea was not what historians have generally supposed; it was not civil liberty, nor liberty of opinion, nor opposition to forms, nor any abstract love of truth, but the one idea was, JESUSSAVIOUR. No human being ever felt with deeper anguish what it was to be lost. Language cannot have a more terrible earnestness than that wherein he has described the death-agony through which he passed when he felt his sins, and the majesty of God, and the desperate hopelessness of any effort to approach him, or bring his fallen nature up to that immeasurable height of purity. "It was all over with me," he says; "the sin of my nature tormented me night and day; there was no good in life, sin had taken possession of me; my free-will hated God's judgments, it was dead to good; anguish drove me to despair: nothing remained but to die and sink to hell.” "Let them threaten me with banishment and death, with the torture and the stake," he says in a later letter, "what is all this to me? it all makes no impression on me; it is all the merest trifle to the agony I endured in my religious life before I found a Saviour." Now, to a soul in this state of religious anxiety, the whole Catholic system is one great and gloomy barrier, standing between it and its Redeemer. Luther struggled like a giant; he fought as for life, and broke through the dark obstacle and found a Saviour; he found, he embraced, he believed, he felt, he knew that he was saved; and he felt it with a joy as mighty and overwhelming as had been his anguish. Thenceforth, there was to him but one mighty idea-SALVATION and a SAVIOUR! POWER OF PERSONAL HOLINESS. NEVER will the church meet her solemn responsibilities, until her children, bursting asunder the shackles that bind them, and rising out of the slough of earthliness in which they are sunk, come up to that high measure of evangelical sanctification which the voice of Scripture and the exigencies of a dying world alike demand of them. There is a moral omnipotence in holiness. Argument may be resisted, persuasion and entreaty may be scorned. The thrilling appeals and monitions of the pulpit, set forth with all the vigour of logic, and in all the glow of eloquence, may be evaded or disregarded. But the exhibition of exalted piety has a might which nothing can withstand; it is truth embodied; it is the gospel burning in the hearts, beaming from the eyes, breathing from the lips, and preaching in the lives of its votaries. No sophistry can elude it, no conscience can ward it off: no bosom wears a mail that can brave the energy of its attack. It speaks in all languages, in all climes, and to all phases of our nature. It is universal-invincible; and, clad in immortal panoply, goes on from victory to victory. Let Zion, through all her departments, but reach this elevated point, and how rapid and triumphant would be her progress! With what overpowering demonstration would her tidings be attended! What numerous and ever-flowing channels would pour into her treasury the requisite means; and what hosts of her consecrated sons would stand forth, to publish on every shore the mandates of her King! And how richly would the showers of Di vine influence be shed down, quickening into life the seed which she scatters, filling the desolate places with verdure and joy, and changing this blighted earth into the garden of the Lord. VALUE OF RELIGION. "Scripture is the only cure of woe: That field of promise, how it flings abroad Its odour o'er the Christian's thorny road; The soul, reposing on assured relief, NOTHING, to every person whose views are enlightened and dispassionate, is so valuable, so momentous, as religion; the religion of the New Testamentthe religion of the cross of Christ; that religion which flows from heaven, which is derived immediately from the Saviour, which centres in the Redeemer's character and work, and which is communicated and enjoyed by the agency of his Spirit. It is identified with everything that is great and ennobling; it is associated with everything that is engaging and lovely; it is inseparable from everything that is holy; it is allied to everything that is benevolent and useful; it is connected with everything that is happy. It embraces all that is essential to our best interests in every condition of life, and in the prospect of every change of life. If this religion, so clearly unfolded by the Son of God, be understood and enjoyed by us, what that is really valuable can we want? if it be not possessed by us, what that is in the highest degree desirable and important do we not require? quently realized in the increased sensibility of the ear; or if health forsake us, friends and books may diminish by their presence the evils of the catastrophe; or if the riches we have accumulated in the course of years, take to themselves wings and fly away, our industry may retrieve the ruin, and our latter days may become more prosperous than the first. There is no earthly loss for which there is not, in some degree, compen It is "the pearl of great price," to enrich us forever. It is the "balm of Gilead;" a celestial cure for every wound-a celestial remedy for every disorder. It is the "well of salvation," opened with the express design to purify and bless. It is "the water of life," intended and calculated to enliven, to fructify, and to render happy throughout eternity. Nothing that is earthly, however costly and precious, can for a moment be compared with the religion of the Bible; indeed, every-sation. But there is and can be none thing else is valueless, and utter va- in the whole range of infinity, or in nity, when compared with it. Let, the cycles of eternity itself, for the loss then, the first, the last, the unceasing of an immortal soul. Its ruin is beinquiry be, "Is this religion ours? yond the reach of equivalent or recoours to have, ours to enjoy ?" Do we very. Its fall is for ever; misery must estimate it aright? Do we appreciate and will be its unmingled element, and its excellence? Have we felt its power? fallen spirits its only company, and a Are we sensible of its importance? Do perpetual and unanswered miserere its we realize its priceless blessings. Ne- only cry. The message addressed now ver let us think of comparing anything will be addressed to it no more. The with religion; should we do so, we are echoes of its departed accents will chargeable with ignorance the most pro-alone endure, and fill the vacant confound, with error the most pernicious, with folly the most criminal. THE LOSS OF THE SOUL. IT is irrecoverable. It cannot be repaired in the round of eternity. If I lose health, I may recover it; if riches, I may retrieve them; but if I lose my soul, the loss is irreparable. No sunbeam shall penetrate the abyss, to guide the lost soul back to happiness; no rainbow shall bespan the great gulf, an arch of transit to the skies. There will be no opening of those prison-doors for ever. It is also an irreparable loss. There can be no compensation adequate to its magnitude and value. If one lose the sense of sight an equivalent is fre science with unutterable remorse; and the recollection of misused mercies, and neglected opportunities, and rejected overtures, will occasion agony, of which the fire that is never quenched, and the worm that never dies, are but the faint types and symbols. A lost soul is a thing so awful, so peculiar, that nothing in the annals of the universe can parallel it. The fall of Satan is scarcely less calamitous. The curse must cleave to it for ever, corroding and wasting, and yet never utterly destroying it. Eternal existence will serve as the pedestal on which it is sustained amidst everlasting woe; and life, so ardently desired on earth, will be deprecated as the sorest judgment. OF THE VOYAGE OF LIFE FROM slipping is now at an end. THE CRADLE TO THE TOMB. THE body of man resembles a ship, wherein the soul embarks at birth to cross the stormy sea of life to eternity. The five senses are generally the mariners of this frail vessel, and its rudder is self-love. Its compass is pleasure, and folly constitutes its flag; its favouring gales are the deceitful flatteries of the world, and its sails are a tissue of human instability. Its cordage are the trifles that occupy its weak mind, and its anchors are fallacious hopes. Its cargo consists of crimes, and the port to which it is bound is that of repentance and despair. It is, of course, by no means astonishing that a vessel so weak, so badly equipped, and so imprudently managed, should so frequently be lost, and the soul suffer shipwreck against the numerous and hidden rocks in the vast ocean of There he enjoys that rest which his past labour merits. There his soul, quitting its frail bark, enters into those delicious abodes that are prepared for the blessed. CHURCH AND STATE DOINGS. A8 AT home, abroad, everywhere, we hear the world, before it can reach a port of Clergy, fired with indignation, forth safety. with adopt legal measures to set aside the appointment! Of competency and incompetency they make no account; in their view this is a question, not of scholarship, but of churchmanship,and no churchman, no professor! How law will settle the matter, time will tell; but in the court of the nation's common sense, the question is long since determined. Imprudent youth, from its natural blindness, embarks with facility, unprovided with what is essential for so dangerous a passage, and too frequently abandons the helm to the guidance of its passions. But the wise man takes for his compass the will of The English Church, to is awakenGod, and piety for his rudder. He re-ed from its lengthened slumber by a gards the afflictions of life as his favourable winds, and his sails are filled by patience. His mariners are the virtues, and God himself is his pilot; his cordage is constancy; his anchors a firm hope. The cross is his banner, and his flag is of a celestial colour. His cargo consists of good works, and consequently the port he finally arrives at is the kingdom of eternal felicity. It is there he lands, and all danger of question relative to the appointment of a new Bishop. The Puseyite and Papal Clergy, Episcopal, dignified, and working, are roused to a pitch of unusual exasperation against their creator, the Government of the day, for fessor of Theology to the See of Heredaring to appoint an accredited Proford. According to them, he is a heretic; but, notwithstanding his heresy, they have allowed him, for many years, to teach Divinity in the University of Oxford, to hundreds and thousands of the national ministry, When Christ was on Earth, be it never A Republican Church was no part of But the dire Revelation of Satan to "Churchman, Vol. 2. "The BROWNISTS are a Political and Commercial Club, and, when in power, CUT OFF THE HEAD OF CHARLES THE FIRST. And lately, in the Island of OTAHEITE, interdicted under the severest Penalties any other form of Worship but their own. "The most Disturbed Districts in England are those where dissent most prevails. "By their Fruits ye shall know them."" But while the provincial priests are pursuing their vocation of outrage and injustice, their city brethren are not idle. In the parish of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, the following distraints have just been made: These were all taken under warrant, signed by WILLIAM TAYLOR COPELAND, Alderman of the Ward. These are the deeds of Mother Church! And are these the proofs of her apostolicity? We say the Church: between what is done for the Church in this matter we cannot distinguish and by the Church; we can make no distinction between the beadle and the bishop. Behold, then, the apostolic band! See Bishop A., breaking into the Friends' Meeting-house; there he is, loading his truck with forty-two chairs! There is Bishop B., see him emerging from Mr. Butler's shop, rejoicing in a bundle of ninety-seven brushes! See Bishop D., all bedizened with the fruits of his plunder,-four sacks of flour, value 107.! See Bishop E., issuing forth from the shop of Charles Gilpin, with a canvass bag in his hand, containing the spoil of the till, 6l. 7s. 10d.! "Successor Which?-Paul, or of the apostles!" Judas? See Bishop F., there he is, smothered under the load of seventy pieces of paper-hangings! Last comes Bishop G., with a mitre of twelve coppers on his head, value 8l. 148.! |