ask forgiveness?" She was sorry, and, I think, truly sorry. But could regret undo the deed, or take away the pain? Perhaps she has learnt a lesson by what she did; but do you not think the consequences might have been more serious? Supposing some other part of the face had been struck-that delicate organ, the eye, for instance-it might have ended in the loss of sight, and have proved a discomfort and injury for life. I know a person who became blind from a much less likely cause. "Be kind to each other." If you are not kind, you will not be happy. Do you not know that happiness depends very much upon yourself? People expect to be happy by looking outside of themselves, and, for that very reason, are always unhappy. I have sometimes seen families that are very unhappy, and that don't deserve to be happy, because they don't try. Look at that sister. How reluctantly she yields to the wish of her brother! and how she grumbles, and chafes, and frets! Look at that son. How carelessly he listens to his father's words! With what a bad grace he reads the book, or gets the lesson, or goes the errand, and does it at last only because he is forced! Here you see unkindness in its small, and often unobserved beginnings. There is the little seed lodged in the little heart, which shall afterwards be more noxious than weeds to the garden, or tares to the corn. Without prompt and uncomplaining kindness, you will be unhappy, and will make others so. "Be kind to each other." Otherwise you cannot be loved. People never love the unkind. They may try to please them, for the sake of gaining some temporal advantage; they may flatter them, in order to get the heavy cloud from their brow; but to love them is out of the question. The unkind even do not love the unkind; and as well might we expect goodness to be wedded to badness, as expect those who are kindly to have any affection for those whose dispositions are the very opposite. What child ever loved a churlish, peevish man? What man ever loved a sour and unobliging young person? You may be well-educated, you may be clever, you may be rich, you may have respectable connections and friends; but with all these, without kindness, you will be unloved; and without these, if you but have a kindly, gentle, generous spirit, you may command admiration and esteem. Would you secure regard, the regard of the thoughtful, the wise, the good?—would you have your memory cherished, your presence desired, your voice eagerly listened to?-it must not be by any shining parts, or splendid talents, or grand display of any sort, but by that silent, unobtrusive kindness which fails upon us as gently as the dew, and blesses us before we are aware. "Be kind to each other." For God is kind; and at one time or other, either now or hereafter, he is sure to punish unkindness in us. Does he not often punish the unkind now? An unkind father alienates the affections of his child: an unkind child loses the watchfulness, the thought, the love of his parent. What havoc unkindness makes in families, because God withholds his blessing! Nor should we feel the slightest surprise that God does not bless parents, and sisters and brothers, when they are not "kind to each other." Suppose you were to lose that sister to whom you are now unkind: how often would you think about her then! You would reckon up every unkind word you had spoken, every unkind deed you had done, and wonder whether they had anything to do with her sickness or her death. What bitter things you would write against yourself! How you would promise, if God would but send her back again, to love ¦ her, to make her happy, to do anything, or to suffer anything, for her good! But all your regrets are of no avail now; all your tears cannot restore her now. God is punishing your unkindness in this world; and what sort of punishment awaits you hereafter, when you meet face to face those whom you ought to have loved, but did not, here, we leave to your own thoughts to tell. "Be kind to each other; J. B. L. The Cabinet. CHRISTIANITY REFORMING AND BLESSING SOCIETY, BY REFORMING AND BLESSING INDIVIDUALS. THERE is a higher and better law of progress for man, than the thing called the optimism of philosophers, which sacrifices the interests of individuals to the interests of the race-a law that shall bless the race by blessing every individual; a law which, starting in every individual soul, shall create a community of life, liberty, and love. We shall find it in Christianity alone; the Christianity of Christ and his apostles. Christianity has indeed been perverted into an iron organism, stern as fate, and relentless as the fiercest forms of despotism, where the organic church claims to live and sustain itself, though millions of human hearts are held in ignorance and superstition, or are scattered like dust before its triumphant chariotwheels. But the Gospel Christianity, in opposition to the Church Christianity, is the friend of individual man. It is like a man having an hundred sheep, who, if he loses one sheep, goes into the wilderness and searches for that sheep until he finds it, and laying it on his shoulder, returns rejoicing. It is like a father yearning over his prodigal son, and welcoming his return. It is the sympathy of angels rejoicing over the repentance of one sinner. It is the condescension which pities and relieves the distresses of one poor creature at the table of the Pharisee, undiverted by his scorn. It is the charity which, disregarding the attentions of a venal multitude, hears the cry of a poor blind beggar, heals him, and sends him away rejoicing. It is the forbearance which says to a sinning, brokenhearted being, "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more.' It is the grace which promises, "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.' It is the love which proclaims, "Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden; and I will give you rest." It is the tenderness which takes a little child into its arms, and says, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven;" and "whosoever receiveth one such little child in my name, receiveth me." It is the patience which teaches one believing spirit sitting at its feet to learn the one thing needful. It is the forgiving spirit which prays for its murderers, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." It is the unselfish benevolence which, amid the agony of the cross, turns to the penitent thief, and says, To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise." 66 Christianity values humanity not as an organic whole, but as a community of souls. It counts humanity as the jeweller counts his treasures-by the individual diamonds. It makes its provisions for individual man; it gives its invitations and promises to individual man. It does not construct a mystical organism, and say, Be merged in this organism; but it says, "Let him that is athirst come, 282 CHRISTIANITY REFORMING AND BLESSING SOCIETY. and take of the water of life freely." Every man is dear to Christianity; it embraces and nourishes all the interests and hopes of every human heart. It comes to each one as truly, as perfectly, as richly, as if he were the only object of its love. Every man may look to Jesus Christ as his dearest and best friend in particular, by whose grace and power he is perfectly secured for ever, so that every hair of his head, as it were, is numbered. It is not a system which sacrifices individuals to compass general ends; but it compasses general ends by saving individuals. It redeems humanity by redeeming individuals. The philosopher and the High-Churchman would accomplish the civilization and regeneration of the world by the State and the Church. Christianity will accomplish it by visiting every human soul with its truth, its spirit, and its love. Conquerors will become an obsolete force, State policies an exploded wisdom, political economy a useless science, the Church an antiquated institution, when, by this new covenant of heaven, the law of love shall be written in every heart, and put into every mind, and, through the efficacy of the great sacrifice made on Calvary, the sins and iniquities of men shall be remembered no more. If such is the object of Christianity, how much has yet to be done to render this and other lands Christian! Who can contemplate, without deep emotion, the following picture, presented by a very intelligent and competent colporteur, of a district not on pagan shores, but of a so-called Christian land? And who can restrain his grateful acknowledgments to God, for establishing an agency so well adapted for supplying such a field with Gospel truth, and for crowning it with his smile and favour? "The coldness in religion, the prevalence of a perfect novel mania, even among professing Christians, and the activity of Satan's colporteurs in circulating trashy and corrupting reading from family to family, made the demand for spiritual food limited. I found several young ladies so devoted to novels, that they told me they seldom looked into a Bible. Many families had not a page of reading matter in their houses. More than one-fourth of all the families visited in the quarter were entirely destitute of Bibles or any religious books. Most of the heads of these families seemed to regard neither God nor man. I was obliged to make grants to many poor families, or leave them without the truths of the Gospel. “I found much ignorance prevailing. In one family of ten members, not one could read. In another of nineteen members, only one could read a little, and he was a kind of preacher. A girl, sixteen years old, could not tell who made her: there never had been a Bible in that house. Many families had seldom, if ever, heard a gospel sermon; and in conversation with them on religious subjects, I had to talk to them as to children, that they might understand me. We fear that many of these families must perish from extreme ignorance, without a knowledge of Jesus, unless reached in some other way than by the ministrations of God's house. "In connection with a pious brother, I visited five families within a quarter of a mile of a village containing five churches, all of whom were without Bibles. The head of one of the families that were in a very destitute condition was on a sick-bed. I gave him a Bible and some books. When I next met him he said that the reading of the Bible had seemed 'mighty good' to him, and, by the help of God, he would henceforth lead a new life. In another house the man told me that he had a Bible; but when I proposed worship, and asked for his Bible, his countenance betrayed him, while his little boy, six years old, said, 'You knowed you had no Bible;' and his mortified wife added, Why did you tell that story? You knowed you had no Bible.' I gave her a Bible and Baxter's Call. 66 Although I had much to discourage me during the quarter, I am not wholly without hope of some good following my efforts, through God's blessing. In many of the families sinners were anxious about their souls, with whom I was glad to leave the ‘Anxious Inquirer,' by Mr. James, and the Rise and Progress,' by Dr. Doddridge. A young man who had been a great reader of novels was led to abandon them. At my suggestion he read Pike's Persuasives, and the Anxious Inquirer,' which, we hope, led him truly to Christ. He now has the ministry in view, having a great desire to labour for precious souls. One of his companions has been awakened by reading Baxter's Call and Pike's Persuasives. A lady attributes her conversion to reading the Pilgrim's Progress.' An humble Christian was so aroused to duty by the tract, The Spirit of Christ Exemplified,' that he gave it to a pious neighbour, saying that they would henceforth have a weekly prayer-meeting, if it was composed of only two persons." THE CHURCH'S INVITATION, AND THE MINISTER'S ACCEPTANCE.* "Therefore came I unto you, without gainsaying, as soon as I was sent for; I ask, therefore, for what intent have ye sent for me?" ACTs x. 29. MY DEAR FRIENDS,-We appear before each other this day, under circumstances at once the most interesting and solemn interesting, if you consider that two parties, the minister called and the people calling, a few years ago strangers, are brought together by a providence as wonderful as it is important and monitory; and solemn, considering the issues which must inevitably result from such a connection for, like our Divine Master, "we are set for the rise or fall of many in Israel; to the one we are the savour of death unto death, to the other of life unto life; and who is sufficient for these things?" Anxious, while entertaining these sentiments, to improve this the time of our mutual and gracious visitation, the words read have suggested themselves as peculiarly seasonable and appropriate. Passing by the interesting occasion on which they were spoken, which you can reflect upon at The substance of a discourse delivered in the Independent Chapel, Idle, Yorkshire, October 1st. 1848. your leisure, let us direct your attention or ministers. Verily we do not believe them. How contrary to all right ideas of things are such sentiments! for if, as is insinuated, nature be sufficient for all the purposes of piety, why then was revelation added, which institutes and enjoins these observances as adapted alike to our physical, intellectual, social, and moral being? But "we are persuaded better things of you," and hope that, having invited the preacher to become your minister, you will deem it only consistent and dutiful regularly and prayerfully to attend upon his I. The invitation.-To say nothing of the prayerfulness which should precede it, the wisdom which should dictate it, the unanimity which should character-ministrations. Nor, where the requi ize it, and the conduct which should follow after it, from whom has it emanated? to whom has it been presented? for what purpose has it been given? From whom has it emanated? From whom ought it to emanate ? The Crown? the State? the Bishop? the Squire? the Board? the Conference? We repudiate all such patronly or Governmental interference, direct or indirect, as usurping the rights with which Christ invested his church, saying, "Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them; but it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister," Matt. xx. 26. "And they"-the people -"chose Stephen," Acts vi. 5. Vox populi, vox Dei-" The voice of the people is the voice of God." To whom has it been presented? To a minister. But some tell us that they have risen above the formalities of the pew, and the ministrations of the pulpit; that to them every day is a Sabbath, every object a preacher, and every place a temple; and therefore they have no need of either ordinances site ability is not wanting, do you deem the curriculum of a College indispens able; for though generally, perhaps, the prophets were taken from the ་ schools," exceptions were made in behalf of others, as in the instance of Amos, who prophesied even in the king's palace*; thus showing that while God sanctifies the use of means, he is by no means confined to them; nor would you dare to limit him, your own good sense, in such a case, remon strating that because one thing is right, another need not be wrong. But if any choose, notwithstanding, to speak of the one to the disparagement or exclusion of the other, let them know that there have been, and there are, as Cowper tells us, "Whom schools dismissed, and colleges untaught."t *"So, in recent times, unindebted to any similar institutions, have extraordinary men appeared,-a Warburton, that Titan of intellect; a Baxter, that seraph of religion."-DR. HAMILTON. + "Universities never educated any man; every mind educates itself. Milton owed little to Cambridge, and Gibbon still less to Oxford. If those seminaries had never existed, both those minds would |