God? Whither now can he turn? whither flee for refuge from his angry Judge? Alas! there is no escape. His riches cannot profit him now. The whole world could not redeem his soul from destruction; and while his heirs are striving about his great wealth, his soul is writhing in interminable anguish. Careless reader! take heed lest this be thy case. Thou art in the same condemnation. Perdition is with thee only a question of time! Thou art condemned already, and "the wrath of God abideth" on thee! But, on repentance towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that wrath may yet be removed; therefore repent, believe, and live! THE SABBATH. COULD we for a season prosper without the Sabbath, is it possible to shake off our allegiance to God, or to evade the retributions of his righteous providence? Who wields the orb of day? Who guides the seasons? Who sends adversity, and measures out prosperity? Have we so soon forgotten the weakness of our infancy, and our cries to God when men rose up against us? Have we reached an eminence from which God cannot thrust us down? Can we dispense with his protection, and set at naught his institutions, and run successfully the race of an irreligious prosperity? Be not deceived. What fleets and armies could not do, the hand of suicide may accomplish, emancipated from Divine restraint. Proud and fearless of Heaven as we may be, in one hour our destruction may come. The decree is universal: "The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish." And God has not departed from the helm of universal government, or put beyond his power the instruments of punishment. In our country's bosom lie the materials of ruin, which wait only the Divine permission to burst forth in terrific eruption, scattering far and wide the fragments of our greatness. Give up the Sabbath-blot out that orb of day-suspend its blessed attractions, and the reign of chaos and old night would return. The waves of our unquiet sea, high as our mountains, would roll and dash, from west to east, and east to west, from south to north, and north to south, shipwrecking the hopes of patriots and the world! Who, then, is the patriot that would thrust our ship from her peaceful moorings, in a starless night, upon such an ocean of storms, without rudder, or anchor, or compass, or chart? The elements around us may remain, and our rivers and mountains; our miserable descendants also may multiply, and vegetate, and rot in moral darkness and putrefaction; but the English character, and our glorious institutions, will go down into the same grave that entombs the Sabbath; and our epitaph will stand forth a warning to the world: "Thus endeth the nation that despiseth the Lord, and gloried in wisdom, wealth, and power." A CORPSE IN A BALL DRESS. THE gay circles of London have been rendered the subjects of a momentary stupefaction, by the death of a young lady at a ball, which has just appeared in the public papers. This circumstance brings to our remembrance an article we recently read in a Foreign Journal, in which the writer says: "I was present, a few days since, at the funeral of a young lady who had suddenly fallen a victim to that fearful disease, which has been so prevalent the past season, the dysentery. After the usual religious services, and before the coffin was closed, I approached with others to view the lifeless remains. Judge of my astonishment, when I found the corpse arrayed in the fashionable finery of a ball dress! I subsequently learned that she had a few weeks before attended a dancing assembly in the neighbourhood, for which occasion this dress was procured; and that just before her death she had requested that she might be buried in it. Her wish was obeyed; and there, as her friends and associates gathered around to gaze on the countenance they should behold no more, there met them the strange spectacle of death tricked off in the attire and ornaments which had so recently been displayed in the ball-room. "A corpse in a ball dress! And why not? If it were a proper garb to be worn at all, if prepared for an occasion in which it is fitting for an immortal and accountable being to participate, it was proper for the body when about to be laid away for the resurrection morn. We feel it no incongruity for the bride who is smitten in death as she comes from the altar, at which she has pledged her affections, in God's own ordinance, to the companion of her choice, to be laid to rest in her bridal white. The soldier, who has died gallantly in the defence of his country, may be buried on the battle-field, 'With his martial cloak around him," with no shock to our sense of decorum. Why not, then, the lover of the world in the costume of pleasure? If the business of the ball-room be appropriate for the employment of the solemn hours of probation, why not use its decorations to give a fitting adornment to their close? "A corpse in a ball dress! Why not? She is going to a banquet. The festive hall is prepared, and its guests awaiting her coming. That beautiful face, those once blooming lips, that graceful form which moved so lightly in the mazy dance,' are soon to be a prey to corrup tion and worms. The ribbons and roses will then adorn it well. The snowy robe of the latest Parisian fashion' will set off her charms in the most becoming manner. There will be feasting and riot in that narrow house;' why not wear there the finery devoted to pleasure? Who seeks not to honour it and its guests, by appearing in a costume worthy of it and of them? "A corpse in a ball dress! Yes, let her strange request be complied with. She would doubtless afford consolation to those parents who had educated her to love these gaieties, who had taught her to prefer them to the pleasures of God's service, and the adorning of a meek and quiet spirit in Christ. They will need support in this hour of affliction. She was their youngest child, their best beloved. As they come to She admiration of those pleasures, then let them follow them without restraint. If they can feel that it is wise, it is becoming, for those who are hastening to eternity to spend thus its precious hours death and the judgment, let them dance on, and fear not the issue. But if not, if they feel that they could not die thus, if they would shrink from wearing the habiliments of their gaiety when borne to their last resting-place, then let them pause, reflect, and hasten to secure instead the unfading robe of a Saviour's righteousness. 'Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but KNOW THOU THAT FOR ALL THESE THINGS GOD WILL BRING THEE INTO JUDGMENT.'” take a last look of one so dear, how soothing will be the thought awakened by that attire! How cheering a token of her preparation for death, and of the felicity of that state upon which she has entered in eternity! How satisfy--that it will fit them the better for ing the recollections it will call up in their minds of their own parental faithfulness in training her for immortality, and the destinies of the future life! How welcome the premonition it will afford of that hour in which she and they will meet before the judgmentseat of Christ! Yes, if they can gain any comfort in their grief from beholding it, let the admired dress be put upon that lifeless frame, and let Death, for once, show to the fairest advantage, under the recognized garb of Pleasure! "A corpse in a ball dress! would, it may be, address her companions and among them him to whom she was betrothed, and who was present in the circle of mournersand would bid them continue in the amusements in which they had so recently mingled. She would, perhaps, have them behold how fitting those amusements to those who are so rapidly descending to the grave. She would have them see their value to cheer a dying hour, and prepare the soul for its approach into the presence of its Maker. She would incite them, by the impressions of the scene before them, to pursue the gaieties of life with renewed zest; and when they had thus filled up a few more days of mirth and folly, get ready to come and lie down beside her. "A corpse in a ball dress! Let the young and the gay consider the spectacle. If they see in it congruity-if in the juxta-position there witnessed between the pleasures of life and its end, they see aught to enhance their INDIRECT INFLUENCES. "FILL up the window-cracks, and place list around the door!" we say as winter advances; for the cold and chilling temperature may creep in through the small unseen crevices, and imperceptibly rob us of the comfort of our warm fire. How like are the influences which through life work upon our spiritual body, to the unseen cold, coming in through the unseen channels. Stilly and invisibly sweeping along through unnoticed ways, those influences steal upon the soul, and work their results. We notice them not, and do not suppose their being. Unseen, they catch not our sight; and unnoticed, they beat upon our pathway uncared for, though forming our destiny for good or for evil. They are spirits, bad or good, that are invisible around us, the "leadings to right or to wrong," meeting us every day, at every footstep: some pointing upward, some leading downward; some restraining, some urging onward; some dragging, some enticing: all hard at work incessantly upon the spirit of man! How slight and insignificant in themselves! Slight words-what are these? Small actions-what are they? An unnoticed circumstance, a look, a pressure of the hand, a slight evidence of feeling, the slightest of all slight things -what are these insignificant matters ? Persevering industry, and assiduity, and patience-how impotent appear these at first! Early associations, which memory had nearly left behind, we thought-how can they affect us? The multitude of little transactions that are daily passing, and which none but Omniscience can know-have these any serious effect at all? But the solid stone has been worn away by the insignificant rain-droppings. The slight cold has brought death to the fair, unsuspecting one. The spark of fire has devastated a mighty city. The slight infection has borne men in hundreds to the common pit, and laid whole countries in sickly ruin. And the soul-who shall begin to tell of the effect of small things upon it? Encompassed on all sides, the heart and mind are continually being a field of action for indirect influences. Onward, onward, onward they are leading our willing spirits. They cease not ever, but work amid trouble and joy, light and darkness, poverty and riches, depravity and innocence-every possible position of life. Think of early childhood. See the circumstances that there act upon the young spirit. How many, in their after years, when being led into vice, have felt the influence of the early education of the heart, the influence of a mother's care, and have proved the memory of a mother's love to be an amulet against ruin! "Oh! in our sterner manhood, when no ray Of earlier sunshine glimmers on our way, When girt with sin and sorrow, and the toil Of cares, which tear the bosom that they soil Oh! if there be, in retrospection's chain, One link that knits us with young dreams again, One thought so sweet we scarcely dare to muse On all the hoarded raptures it reviewsWhich seems, each instant, in its back ward range, The heart to soften, and its ties to change, And every spring, untouch'd for years, to move It is the memory of a mother's love!" Those influences upon childhood were apparently slight; but how mighty in their consequences! And as we advance, slight circumstances, slight words, slight expressions, all act powerfully upon us. How many a son of God can look back and see his conversion from sin and darkness beginning in the apparently most insignificant trifle-a stray word, a stray expression, or a remembered phrase, directed by a high hand to his soul! How many a being has fallen into ruin through some slight thing that was unnoticed and uncared for! How many great deeds and noble, have been prompted by the very slightest influence ! How many wars have been commenced under circumstances which would not have for a moment led to a belief of such results! Finally, our most important actions, as well as our least, can all be found to be consequent upon the slightest things imaginable; and indeed, we are continually, by our conduct, exclaiming in the words of St. James, "How great a matter a little fire kindleth!" Eternity will be an unraveller, by whose hand we shall see what momentous results have proceeded from the imperceptible influences of time. Chains of ruin have been commenced by the slightest particle of guilt. Crowns of glory have been commenced by the slightest particle of heavenly light. CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. Two Irish girls in the family of a lady of my acquaintance, not long since requested permission to go out. The lady asked where they wished to go. The elder of the two hesitated to reply. But the other, a bright, intelligent girl, freely replied that they wished to go to the priest, to get their sins pardoned, Said the lady, "The priest has no power to pardon sin; he is only a man, and none but God can forgive sin. If you have done wrong, you must go to him for forgiveness." "But," said the girl, "our Saviour confessed his sins to the priest." "Our Saviour," replied the lady, "never committed sin. He was perfectly holy, and had no sin to confess; but what sins have you committed that trouble your conscience to night ?" "O," said the girl, "sometimes we get angry, and then we stoear a little, and tell some lies." She might have added, "And steal now and then;" but this confession was quite out of place here. Perhaps she confessed it to her priest, but being young, and receiving small wages, it is more than probable that her conscience, enlightened only by Jesuitical training, did not accuse her for supplying the deficiency in her wages by depredations on the property of others. Be this as it may, it was but a short time after when she was detected in purloining many small articles of wearing apparel, some of them quite valuable, and other articles from different members of the family. When her guilt was detected, and she saw there was danger to her temporal interests, she had the hardihood and presumption to ask the lady from whose wardrobe she had purloined, to save her from losing her place by telling her mistress the articles were given her! Unhappy girl! There was reason to suppose her guilty of crime of even deeper dye; and so hopeless seemed her depth of depravity, she was hurried out upon the world, without a character, to almost certain ruin. But with regard to her desire to confess and receive absolution, it is evident she had gone on in sin till she felt that should she die suddenly, she was in danger of at least a terrible purgatory, and she wished the old score wiped away, when, with a lightened heart, she could commence a new catalogue of transgression, from which she could be relieved in the same way when it should become too formidable. And who does not see that such is the legitimate tendency of this system of spiritual treatment? Oye Popish priests! "blind leaders of the blind:" yourselves wilfully so; they, from their deluded confidence in your treacherous guidance. Is it not enough that ye must "fall into the ditch," and bring on yourselves the woes denounced on the |