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his sins, which were Christ's real murderers. Did any man ever feel that he deserved damnation, as he who sees the sinfulness of sin in the cross of Christ ?

We learn that we are the chief of sinners by learning that Christ died for such. No convinced sinner ever felt his wants supplied till he came to Christ. No such sinner ever came to Christ, and wished for any other Saviour. His blood cleanseth from all sin. His grace is all-sufficient. His power is resistless. His truth can never fail.

The adaptation of Christ's work and sufferings to us, proceeds from his having borne our nature. Their wondrous efficacy with God arises from the fact that he was God. Paul calls his blood the blood of God. We may truly call him a divine sufferer. He is the Son of God and the Son of man in two distinct natures and one person for ever. Blessed Saviour! thou art all in all to me.

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

A GENTLEMAN who was endeavouring to raise a sum of money for a good object, applied to the late Nathaniel R. Cobb for a donation. Taking it for granted that he must fully explain all the circumstances which rendered charitable contributions necessary, he commenced his story, and was proceeding with the minute detail, when Mr C. interrupted him by saying, "My good brother, what do you want? Just say what is my proportion, and the money is ready." Thousands of times within the last twenty years has this incident come to my recollection, and always with an instructive import. Especially has it taught me a lesson with reference to prayer. Seldom have I repaired to the throne of grace without a recurrence of the inquiry, "What do you want?" What do I Prayer is the expression of felt want. feel? Let me, then, present my petition for the supply. This will concentrate my thoughts and feelings. This will give definiteness to my language. This will render my prayer simple and earnest.

Sometimes, when I endeavour to join with another in prayer, I am reminded of the question, "What do you want?" Many public prayers are exceedingly loose and desultory. How often is it apparent that the petitioner, though he asks for many things, wants nothing in particular? His prayer is a service that fills up a prescribed number of minutes in the time allotted to worship; but it indicates no definite desire, no feeling of need, no deep longing of soul for any specific favour. Such prayers do not much help the spiritual mind in its devotions. The truly praying soul will break away, and throw itself directly before the mercy-seat, presenting its own desires, and urging its own requests.

When I read the prayers of good men, which inspiration has recorded, I find them all definite and explicit. It is easy to see what was wanted, and how much it was wanted. And occasionally I hear a prayer that approximates very near to these models in unity, precision, and brevity. The petitioner manifestly knows what he wants, and why he wants it, and where he must obtain the supply. It is good, with such a leader in devotion, to draw near to God.

THE REASON WHY. SUPPOSE a prayer meeting had been appointed at

Laodicea. Think you it would have been well attended? Why should it be? None of them felt his need of Divine aid. They were all satisfied with: their present condition. They would probably assign as the reason for non-attendance, want of time; but the real reason would be, no such sense of want as required the merciful interposition of God. Is not this the reason why many professors of religion are habitually absent from the meeting for prayer, to ask for gold tried in the fire, that they might be rich? Were they conscious of their nakedness, they would feel the need of prayer, to obtain the white raiment with which they might be clothed. Did they realize their blindness, they would rejoice to come together and ask for the eye-salve that would cause them all to see.

Reader! are you of this class? Then you have the Laodicean spirit, and should earnestly ponder what the Spirit said to that Church.

PLENARY INSPIRATION.

"Let every

It may be said, "May not we be permitted, while conceding the miraculous and other evidences of Christianity, and the general authority of the records which contain it, to go a step further, and to reject some things which seem palpably ill-reasoned, distasteful, inconsistent, or immoral ! ” man be fully persuaded in his own mind." For ourselves, we bonestly confess we cannot see the logical consistency of such a position, any more than the reasonableness, after having admitted the preponderant evidence of the great truth of Theism, of expecting some phenomena as apparently at variance with the Divine perfections; and thus virtually adopting a Manichæan hypothesis. We must recollect that we know nothing of Christianity except from its records; and as these, once fairly ascertained to be authentic and genuine, are all, as regards their contents, supported precisely by the same miraculous and other evidence; as they bear upon them precisely the same internal marks of artlessness, truth, and sincerity; and historically, and in other respects, are inextricably interwoven with one another; we see not on what principles we can safely reject portions as improbable, distasteful, not quadrating with the dictates of "reason," our "intuitional consciousness, and what not. This assumed liberty, however, is, as we apprehend, of the very essence of Rationalism; and it may be called the Manichæism of interpretation. So long as the canonicity of any of the records, or any portion of them, or their true interpretation, is in dispute, we may fairly doubt; but that point' once decided by honest criticism, to say we receive such and such portions on account of the weight of the general evidence, and yet reject other portions though sustained by the same evidence, because we think there is something unreasonable or revolting in their substance, is plainly to accept evidence only where it pleases us, and to reject it where it pleases, us not. The only question fairly at issue must ever be, whether the general evidence for Christianity will overbear the difficulties, which we cannot separate from the truths. If it will not, we must reject it wholly; and if it will, we must receive it wholly. There is plainly no tenable position between' absolute infidelity and absolute belief. And this is proved by the infinitely various and Protean character of Rationalism, and the perfectly indeterminate, but always arbitrary, limits it imposes on itself. It exists in all forms and degrees, from a moderation

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THE RECKONINGS OF ETERNITY.

which accepts nearly the entire system of Christianity, and which certainly rejects nothing that can be said to constitute its distinctive truth, to an audacity of unbelief, which, professing still vaguely to reverence Christianity as something divine," sponges out nine-tenths of the whole; or, after reducing the mass of it to a caput mortuum of lies, fiction, and superstitions, retains only a few drops of fact and doctrine -so few as certainly not to pay for the expenses of the critical distillation.-Edinburgh Review.

EARL FITZWILLIAM; OR, HONESTY THE BEST POLICY.

A FARMER called on the late Earl Fitzwilliam to represent to him that his crop of wheat had been seriously injured in a field adjoining a certain wood where his lordship's hounds had during the winter frequently met to hunt. He stated that the young wheat had been so cut up and destroyed that in some parts he could not hope for any produce. "Well, my friend," said his lordship, "I am aware that we have frequently met in that field, and that we have done considerable injury; and if you can procure an estimate of the loss you have sustained I will repay you." The farmer replied, that, anticipating his lordship's consideration and kindness, he had requested a friend to assist him in estimating the damage, and they thought that, as the crop seemed quite destroyed, fifty pounds would not more than repay him. The Earl immediately gave him the money.

As the harvest, however, approached, the wheat grew, and in those parts of the field which were most trampled the corn was strongest and most luxuriant. The farmer went again to his lordship, and being introduced, said, "I am come, my lord, respecting the field of wheat adjoining such a wood." His lordship immediately recollected the circumstance. "Well, my friend, did not I allow you sufficient to remunerate you for your loss?" "Yes, my lord, I find that I have sustained no loss at all; for where the horses had most cut up the land the crop is most promising, and I have therefore brought the fifty pounds back again." "Ah!" exclaimed the venerable Earl, "this is what I like; this is as it should be between man and man." He then entered into conversation with the farmer, asking him some questions about his family-how many children he had, &c. His lordship then went into another room, and returning, presented the farmer with a check for one hundred pounds, saying, "Take care of this, and when your eldest is of age present it to him, and tell him the occasion that produced it." We know not which to admire most, the honesty of the farmer on the one hand, or on the other the benevolence and the wisdom displayed by this illustrious man; for while doing a noble act of generosity, he was handing down a lesson of integrity to another generation.

CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH. THE children of pious parents-those who should be trained up under Sabbath-school and Bible-class instruction, and, what is yet more important, who should be enjoying the daily instructions and influence of the Christian family-these children are passing along year after year unconverted. The flower of their life is being cursed with sin. They may or they may not be kept within the limits of good morality; the temptations to immorality may be in many cases too strong for the stamina of susceptive youth to withstand without sustaining grace. But whether

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moral or not, it is perilous to their future welfare to pass through the first twenty years of life uncon. verted. The minds of children in religious families, come in contact with so much truth during their minority, that ordinarily their destiny for life and for eternity is fixed within that period of life. The question whether their hearts shall yield to this truth, or shall not, is decided. It is scarcely possible for any mind to hold this question practically in suspense beyond a limited time. A little practice in resisting the claims of truth augments the power, and hence increases the probability, of making such resistance. With the greatest wisdom, God has made the minds of the young constitutionally plastic-has made the period of their dependence on parental care and training very long; and now, these measures of his providence conspire with the promises of his grace to proclaim earnestly to Christian parentsYouth is the period of your child's conversion. This is the day of hope. If you fail now, you can have little hope of success ever after.

Yet there are at this moment thousands of Chris

tian families in our churches, whose children are coming up to manhood without conversion. They become habituated to resist the claims of the gospel; they form habits of irreligious thinking and acting; the hopeful period for conversion glides away; they carry from a Christian home into an ungodly and ensnaring world only a seared conscience, a deep dislike of religious restraints, and a fund of religious knowledge which has mainly if not entirely lost its power to interest, and perhaps utterly its power to move and to melt. Alas! how faint the prospect that such graduates from Christian families will ever retrace their steps-will ever again come into a hopeful state for being influenced by the truth and the Spirit! of God! If there be reason to hope in individual instances, is there not still more reason to fear in the mass of cases that such youth will be the worst foes of the gospel-the most unpromising subjects for religious impression!-Oberlin Evangelist.

THE RECKONINGS OF ETERNITY. IN speaking of the profound spiritual lethargy which so widely and strongly prevails among men in view of the solemn realities of the coming world, Dr Chalmers thus discourses:

"Though creatures of a fleeting and fantastic day, we tread on earth with as assured footsteps, as if, instead of its shortlived tenants, we were to be everlastingly its lords. And the laugh, and the song, and the festive gaiety, and the busy schemes of earthliness, all speak a generation fast locked in the insensibility of spiritual death. Nor do the terrors of the grave shake this tranquillity-nor do the still more awful terrors of the judgment-seat. That day of man's dissolution, which is so palpably at hand, and which sends before it so many intimations, fails to disturb him. That day of the world's dissolution, when the trumpet shall be sounded, and the men of all nations shall awake to the high reckonings of eternity, and ruins of one mighty conflagration, and the wrath that this earth, and these heavens, shall be involved in the now is suspended in this season of offered mercy,|| shall at length break forth into open manifestation on all the sons and daughters of ungodliness-this

day, which, when it cometh, will absorb every heart in one fearful and overwhelming interest-now that it only is to come, and is seen through the imagined vista of many successive centuries, has no more effect than a dream of poetry. And, whether from the dimness of nature's sight to all the futurities of the spiritual world, or from its slender apprehension of that guilt, which in the sacred eye of heaven is so enormous-certain it is, that men can travel onward, both to death and to the judgment, and say Peace, peace, when there is no peace."

RELIGION OF THE HANDS.

'I AM bringing up my daughter," said Lord Byron, "in a Catholic convent; for, if she is to have any religion, I desire that she may have her hands full." How well does this random sneer characterise the

religion of which he speaks? It is a religion which gives full employment to the whole man, except the essential part of him. It employs the feet in pilgrimages and processions, the knees in genuflections, the hands in crossing, the tongue in Pater-Nosters and Ave-Marias, the lips in kissing the toes of marble apostles, and the shrines of pictured saints; it occupies the eye with the pomp and circumstance of imposing exhibitions, the ear with its solemn anthems and miseries, and the imagination with the terrors of purgatory; but it leaves the understanding groping in a darkness which it has no disposition to dispel, and the heart weltering in a corruption which it has no means to eradicate.

EARLY INSTRUCTION.

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RELIGIOUS instruction should be begun early. The intellectual nature must not be allowed to anticipate the moral; but religious truth must shine forth, and mingle its rays with the early dawn of the mind. Advancement in knowledge of any kind greatly depends upon early cultivation. But the condition of our moral nature is such as to require in a special manner the illuminating, preventive, and quickening influences of religion. Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it." The fulfilment of the promise depends upon early beginning, even in childhood; and if the work be postponed there is no promise of success. In the same spirit our blessed Lord left to his church the injunction: "Feed my lambs." "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The Divine love and care of the rising generation are signally illustrated in the authoritative provisions, to instil early into the youthful mind the principles of piety and truth. In direct conflict with this divine method, is the general system of State instruction in this country. The wisdom of the world arrays itself against the wisdom of God.

ONLY ONE BRICK UPON ANOTHER.

EDWIN was looking at a large building which they were putting up just opposite to his father's house. He watched the workmen from day to day, as they carried up the bricks and mortar, and then placed them in their proper order.

very much taken up with the bricklayers: pray, what might you be thinking about? Have you any notion of learning the trade?"

"No, sir," said Edwin, smiling; "but I was just thinking what a little thing a brick is, and yet that great house is built by laying one brick on another." is in all great works. All your learning is only one "Very true, my son. Never forget it. Just so it little lesson added to another. If a man could walk all around the world, it would be by putting one foot before the other. Your whole life will be made up of one little moment after another. Drop added to drop makes the ocean.

"Learn from this not to despise little things. Learn also not to be discouraged by great labours. The greatest labour becomes easy, if divided into parts. You could not jump over a mountain, but step by step takes you to the other side. Do not fear, therefore, to attempt great things. Always remember that the whole of yonder edifice is only one brick on another."

THE MYSTERY OF THE CROSS. O HOW full of mystery is the death of Christ! Why must the only-begotten Son of God, the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person, become incarnate, suffer, and die? O mystery of mysteries! An incarnate God, a suffering Christ and Saviour! How fearful and terrible must the divine law be, since the assumption of its penalty involved such sufferings-filled heaven and earth with darkness! How sad sin must be, since it could only be expiated by such a sacrifice! The cross not only points up to the mysterious heights of divine love, but down to the mysterious depths of sin in the human heart. It stands forth equally the exponent of a mysteriously gracious Deity, and of a mysteriously depraved and lost humanity.

Fragments.

FORGET YOURSELF.-True humility does not so much consist in thinking badly of ourselves, as in not thinking of ourselves at all.-School of God.

A philosopher, being asked by what means he had acquired so much knowledge, replied, " By not being prevented by pride from asking questions when I was ignorant."

So far as I ever observed God's dealings with my soul, says J. Brown of Haddington, the flight of preachers sometimes entertained me; but it was Scripture expressions which did penetrate my heart, and that in a way peculiar to themselves.

Vanity is satisfied with great words, but pride requires great works.-Campbell.

The moment we permit ourselves to think lightly of the Christian ministry, our right arm is withered. -R. Hall.

refreshing and comfortable to them that behold it As the light, because of its beauty, is a thing very as Solomon says, "It is a pleasant thing to see the sun"-so is truth a most delightful thing to the soul that rightly apprehends it.-16.

God delights to indulge his people, but not to

His father said to him, "My son, you seem to be spoil them.

THE CHRISTIAN TREASURY.

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THE HELP OF THE SPIRIT. BY THE REV. W. S. PLUMER, D.D.

THE Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. I never heard a more precious truth than that. To me it would be all in vain that Christ has died, and that salvation is offered, had not the Spirit been poured out. I never should truly repent, or believe, or love, or hope, but for this blessed divine agent. And as he begins, so he finishes the work of grace. He is twice in Scripture called the Spirit of grace. There are three reasons of this title being given. First, He is gratuitously given to us. We have no claims upon him. His work is no more of debt than that of Christ was. Secondly, He is most loving, gentle, and condescending. He is as compassionate and kind as the Father or the Son. He is infinitely gracious. Thirdly, He is the author of all gracious and pious affections and views in the soul. Every Christian virtue is "the fruit of the Spirit."

THE SPIRIT. It means the Spirit of God, infinite, eternal, unchangeable. He is called the Holy Spirit, because he is holy, and because he is the author of all holiness among men. He is called the free Spirit, because he acts most freely, and not at all by constraint; and because he cannot be purchased with money, or price, or human merits. He is sovereign, and divides his gifts severally as he will. He is twice called the good Spirit, and well he may be, for in every sense he is good. All his titles are honourable, and show that he is to be greatly feared and loved. He is a divine person.

This Spirit helps. He helps believers. He helps them notwithstanding their infirmities. Indeed their weakness furnishes the occasion for his kind aid and amazing condescension. If a man rejects God's Holy Spirit, God rejects that man. If a man feels no need of the help of the Spirit, he is dead in trespasses and sins, and knows it not.

The Spirit helpeth our infirmities. When and how does he help us? Not by granting miraculous gifts, not by revealing future events, not by imparting gifts of healing, and of tongues; but He helps us in prayer. Blessed Paul is very bold, and says "The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." He is the great

author of all acceptable prayer. He teaches us in the Scriptures, which he inspired, what we ought to pray for. He opens our eyes to understand those Scriptures. And he puts into our hearts longing desires for those good things for which he has taught us to pray. Having given us holy desires, he nourishes, excites, and gratifies them. A good writer says: "He spiritualizes our natural affections, fixes them on proper objects, and enlarges and enlightens their natural activity. When sin is recollected, he awakens anger, shame, and sorrow: when God is represented to the mind in his glory and justice, he overspreads the soul with holy awe and humble fear. When the Lord Jesus and his redemption are upon our thoughts, the Holy Spirit warms and raises our desire and love. We are in ourselves cold and dead to spiritual things: He makes us lively in prayer, and holds us to the work. He begets holy reverence for God, while we adore him. He works in us delight in God, and longing desires after him, fervency and importunity in our petitions for spiritual mercies, submission and resignation to the will of God in temporal things, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and hope in the promises of God, while we plead with God for an answer to our prayers. He also fills us with holy joy and exultation in God, while we recollect in prayer his glories or his benefits, and awakens all the springs of thanksgiving."

No prayer thus offered is unavailing. It al ways is acceptable to God, and profitable to men. Such prayer is mighty, is effectual. It changes Jacob into Israel. It shuts and opens heaven, it shuts and opens the mouths of lions, it shuts and opens prisons, it shuts and opens the grave.

vail.

It prevails. It ever shall pre

The Spirit helpeth our infirmities by giving us fortitude and peace in the day of trial, sometimes more, and sometimes less, but always according to his wisdom and mercy. The promise is, As thy day is, so shall thy strength be. This the Spirit makes good. So he enabled Paul and Silas at midnight to pray and sing praises to God. So he has given to his people in every age, songs in the night season. 'Tis he alone who can inspire the shout of triumph in the midst of exquisite sufferings. He has often

done it, and he will do it to the end of the all malice and evil-speaking, and cherish all world, in the cases of all that believe. those gentle affections and ways which please Him! The Spirit, like the dove, dwells not in strife, and noise, and war.

He helpeth our infirmities in our conflicts with sin and temptation. Were God's people converted, and then left to themselves, the work thus begun would soon be utterly defaced. But we are changed from glory unto glory by the Spirit of the Lord. The carrying on of the work of grace in the heart is through sanctification of the Spirit. He is the true well of water, springing up to everlasting life. He works by enlightening, persuading, and enabling the soul to renewed acts of holiness. He works effectually. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard against him. His standard is mighty. His grace is irresistible. His power is Omnipotent. This is the promise of God,-"I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”

Believers in all circumstances need the help of the Spirit, and when they seek it aright they shall receive it. "If ye, being evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" This is the strongest kind of reasoning known even in Scripture. It is the argument à fortiori. It marks all doubts as unbelief, and all unbelief as heinous sin. So that if God call us to very new, difficult, or heavy duties, all we have to do is to obey. He made apostles out of fishermen and publicans. He made the immortal dreamer out of the tinker Bunyan. If he will, he can raise out of the stones children unto Abraham. The Spirit of the Lord is not straitened. He has all resources, all compassions. He is wherever a broken heart is. His ear is ever open to the cry of the righteous and afflicted soul. If you are poor, He can make your poverty not only a means of grace, but also a means of present joy, so that you shall glory in tribulation. If you are sick, He can sanctify your sickness, and make your chamber none other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven. Many a time, in the saddest outward condition, or when engaged in pursuits full of peril, ere the soul is aware, it is made like the chariots of Aminadab. In short, the blessed Spirit is sanctifier, comforter, and guide to all the saints. Without Him they can do nothing. With Him they can do all things, and suffer all things.

How highly His presence and aid should be prized! How earnestly should we cry to Him for help! How carefully should we put away

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A MISSIONARY EXCURSION IN FRANCE. BY THE REV. LEON PILATTE.

PARIS, NOV. 13, 1849. THE Evangelical Society of France requested me to employ a spare week in making a missionary tour in the departments of Sarthe and Orne, where a new field of labour is opened.

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I left Paris on the 31st of October, at six o'clock in the morning, by the road for Chartres. I will not speak of the historical localities through which we passed in order to arrive at the immense plains of the Beauce, the monotony of which the purity of the air and the brilliancy of the sun seem to increase My travelling companions kept up a discussion, but it was impossible to join in their conversation. At half-past ten we arrived at Chartres. I was greatly disappointed at learning on my arrival, that I could not leave under twelve hours for the place of my destination. What shall I do, thought I, in this unknown As I traversed the silent and deserted streets of the city? The Lord had prepared me work for the day. city toward the antique cathedral, I met an old greyheaded Popish priest. I asked him, in saluting him, said he to me. "Yes," replied I, “a stranger here which was the shortest road. "You are a stranger," against my will, having to wait twelve hours for the conveyance which is to take me on my journey." The good man was talkative, and after we had walked some minutes together, "Stay," said he to me, "till I go home; I wish to give you a small volume of poetry which I published some years ago; it will aid my reply, he left me, and soon returned, bringing the you in passing the time;" and, without waiting for volume with him. Indeed, sir," I said to him, you are so kind that I am unwilling for you to leave thus, at least until we shall have talked a little more." "Willingly." In two minutes I was seated in the cabinet of the old priest. I quickly introduced religious subjects. "For how long a time," said I to the old man, "have you been devoted to the salvation of souls ? There is one question the most serious of all, to which a thousand different answers are given. I wish to lay it before you-What shall one do to be saved? To be saved!" replied he, hesitating a little; "oh!... many things are ne cessary. nevertheless, if one wishes to secure his salvation he can come to a decision." Then followed a truly serious conversation. On his side he showed me (alas! without saying a word of the grace of Jesus Christ) all that Popery requires from its disciples. On my part I showed him the troubles, the anguish of an awakened conscience, that no ceremonies and no works could appease in presence of a holy God. "Ab, well!" he exclaimed, "it is important to do all the Church requires, and leave the rest to the mercy of God." Ah, sir!" said I in turn, "I know another way and a better, for it procures for me peace of mind-a peace which passeth all understanding." "And what is that?" said he with lively interest. I expounded to him the evangelical doctrines of sin, of grace, and of the assurance though with hesitation. From time to time, struck of pardon. He listened with pleasure; he approved, with the truth, he exclaimed, "Perfect! perfect!" We conversed for a long time. As I expressed to him my opposition to Popery, and my reasons for being a Separate, "No matter," said he, "you belong to the interior Church." I exhorted him to

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