soul, to point sinners to the Lamb of God, to point to his atoning blood, and cry behold the way to God: and that my hearers living and dying without finding salvation in Jesus Christ, must perish for ever. And, brother Banks, amidst all the changes I have passed through since that day, I never felt condemned for preaching that sermon, if, indeed it might be called a sermon. God enabled me, that day, to tell out what I felt, what I had really passed through, and to his name be all the praise. After service Mr. K. invited me to tea at his house, when I was introduced to the company of a young man who I learned was a student in some dissenting college or academy, being trained up for a parson, a young man quite of gentlemanly manners; and Mr. K. proposed that we should go together in the evening to the village of Charlton, about a mile from Wantage, and that one of us should preach in the open air, and the other read a chapter, expound it, and engage in prayer. Which was to preach we were to agree between ourselves going along. I very readily agreed that he should preach; but before I arrived at the place of our destination, I found that there was a lightness and frivolity about my companion that quite disgusted me. When we arrived, I commenced, after singing an hymn, by reading the 55th of Isaiah, and commenting on it, as I went along; and the college gentleman preached, and a ranker free-willer I never heard from that day to this. (To be Continued.) TRIALS CONNECTED WITH THE GOSPEL MINISTRY. By the late Thomas Lord. "I WOULD not speak of myself, but I have been so tried, when I have come to speak his word, so much darkness, and many things I never calculated upon, when I first set out on pilgrimage; when I have been going to preach, and no text; when I have cried to God, my heart has felt as hard as a rock; when I would have spoken of the power of God, I have had no feeling, and I have felt I must give it up; and the Lord is my witness, if God had not been stronger than I, this would have been the case. The prophet Jeremiah said, 'I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name.' But he could not forbear; for the Lord stood by him his word was in his heart a burning fire, shut up in his bones; he was weary with forbearing, and could not stay. Thus when the Lord has blessed ine, and blessed the word, worked in me to will and to do, how cheerfully have I gone saying, Lord, I am ready for any thing to obey your com mand, though I have come to the resolution never to preach again; by and by the Lord brought up this text, But I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.' They cried and their cry came up unto God.' Another testimony I received, and I knew it was from the Lord by the effect that followed. The Lord spake home to my soul, I shall never forget it: 'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.' I said, it is enough Lord, I do not care where I go, I can preach night and day, at all times, and seasons, and under all circumstances. I thought I could live upon this for ever. But alas! alas! how soon it was gone! Yea, if the Lord did not stand by me, and support me, when the enemy makes such thrusts at me, I must fall. He came, that old enemy, and met me with this: These words are not in the Bible. I, my friends, was staggered; I sought for a month, but could not find them; when I found it was the word of God, I was like the woman who had found the lost piece of silver, and called her friends to rejoice with her, for she had found the piece which was lost. So had I; here was Î, tried and tempted about the work. The Lord brings home a promise; then another; I was then met by satan, it was not in the Bible; but he was proved a liar. Again, when in trouble, and shut up, I was ready to say, 'Send by whom thou wilt send, only send not by me.' soul felt angry, like to Jonah; he told the Lord to his face he did well to be angry. Ah, say you, I am ashamed of you, you should keep these things to yourself. So I am ashamed of myself, and willingly would I keep these things; but lest, some poor creature be tempted in like manner, I speak of them. The slips and slides, the anger of Jonah, the crime of David, and the swearing of Peter, all are left on record for our comfort. I was enabled to carry my case to the Lord, I knew he would bring my case right, and I was enabled to bless him for these very things being in the Bible. Another time the Lord withdrew himself, and I was led to grope in the dark, and soon the enemy kept me company, and worked up such scenes in my heart as I can never disclose. Here, thoughts as black as night, and like pitch, for months tormented my soul. I thought my case worse than Jonah's, thought my heart seemed harder than his, and if Jonah's Lord had not been with me, I do not know what I should have done; but he stood by, and in his own time brought me out." My "And now if there are persons present, who see no beauty, nor taste any sweetness in the precious truths we have been endeavouring to lay before you, I have one solemn Scripture for you to ponder over-' -'If our gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are lost.' Amen."-WATTS WILKINSON. The Royal State Bed PREPARED FOR THE SPOUSE OF CHRIST. YES! yes, friend PEAK, you me mistake, You are a brother-isn't he another? And when we die, be rais'd on high, But this you know, while bere below, Within the vail, Till then they fail The eve and morn at creation's dawn, The eve and morn of saints new born, And then forsooth, comes day the fourth, The sixth began the work's not done, The work is done, the Sabbath begun, This is the rest, where saints are blest, This is the rest, where saints are blest, 'Twas evening-tide when Jesus died, The first sweet dawn was sabbath morn, A soul thus blest, finds gospel rest, Dead works are passed away; 'Tis finished! tis, as God did his, Upon the seventh day. Dead works are naught--the bed too short 'Tis true! my bed must all be new, The plague is there, I do declare, The work-house man, whose work's not done, This is the bed where saints are wed, Lord, without you what can I do? Jesus and I how blest we be, Ecc. iv. 11. Whom God hath stript, should not be whipt Into the Bridegroom's breast; No: they are drawn to Christ alone, And in his bosom rest. He may be loath who has a cloth, Mark xiv. 51 Which round his body wind; But when it's gone, to Christ he runs, The soul finds rest in Jesu's breast, The word reveals, the Spirit seals, The old husband dead, to Christ we're wed, We are made one with Christ the Son, Jesus my head rose from the dead, He is my life, I am his wife, As women fair desire to bear, The above rhymery was written to a dear friend of mine, who scolds me in a letter of his, for dropping a hint of my views concerning a preacher that he often hears. Now be it known, that I am no judge of any man's eternal state before God. No: I am not in the chair of the judge, nor in the chair of the scorner of christian men. And that which I said, was not spoken concerning the man's state of grace, or eternal state of glory before God; but concerning his present ministry. And that his ministry was a bed neither long, wide, nor soft enough to shelter iny weary, careworn soul upon; and that I thought I should take cold under his covering. seen. For For indeed I cannot keep my soul warm, with all the rags and coverings that I can procure, unless I have that heaven-woven covering from the Lord-"love, which covereth all sin." The covering of Christ's righteousness, dyed in his own blood. if any one attempt to cover me "with a covering that is not of his Spirit," I am still cold, and great part of my nakedness is And the plague and death is in the old covenant bed, though many souls, without feeling, tasting, or smelling the plague in it, go out of this world very easy upon it. But my weary soul needs a bed long and wide as eternity, and as soft as a down bedthe bosom of a covenant God in Christ. And not one feather of the righteousness of the flesh in it; for that bed which a poor blind pharisee dies on at ease, would be a bed of thorns, "thorns to the flesh," to the spouse of Jesus, to tempt her. "The messenger of satan to buffet" her, tempting her that grace was not sufficient to save her. A WATCHMAN ON THE Walls. Leicester, Dec. 14, 1846. The Last Moments of a Sinner saved by Grace. DEAR SIR-According to my promise, I now take my pen to give you an account of the last moments of my brother's death, who died triumphant in the Lord, Sep. 11, 1846, having been brought into a saving knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus within the space of one year from the day that the Lord was pleased to cut him down under the ministry of that dear man of God, HENRY LANGHAM. Although the time was short, it was attended with great tribulation; and at times was brought to a sweet and full assurance of his very merciful deliverance from the law. He was called to travel along many a dark and thorny road; but bless the dear name of our adorable Redeemer, he fulfilled his precious promise in our brother. I need not go through a long detail of circumstances, only would just say, it pleased the dear Lord to send home the arrow of conviction by words that were spoken by Mr. L. when preaching at Mendlesham, Suffolk; the words were these, 'In Christ, eternally saved; out of Christ eternally damned.' The word came like a hammer to his soul; to use his own words. If the Lord never uses brother LANGHAM again as an instrument, this stands a testimony of his call to the work of the ministry. I trust the Lord will still go on to bless his labours with abundant success, for he has made him an able minister of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. 2 Cor. iii. 6. To return to the account of my dear brother, you may be sure after being brought into love and fellowship with the dear Lord, it did not bring a dislike to the family of God; so far from this, these were the only people that he loved, as he said in his last letter to me, what are all nature's ties when compared to that tie which binds us together in Christ?' Especially was his love set upon Mr. L.; they were indeed companions in tribulation; and my brother said to Mr. L. three weeks before his death, that his time here would be very short. He was soon after seized with the typhus fever, in which he suffered most acutely. To convey the whole affair I will here give the letter that I received from Mr. LANGHAM, which is as follows: tasting death for the whole elect. The blood of Christ had for ever washed away the sins of our brother; and though the dear Lord suffered the enemy to attack him very sharply so that the struggle was hard indeed, of which I was an eye-witness; yet in the midst of the conflict it was clear that victory was sure; as the result of the battle proved, for so earnest was our poor brother in the conflict with the great adversary, that he actually clenched his hands at him; after that, he lay exhausted for a few minutes; and then as though carried beyond mortality, he was heard to say-They are singing-Glory! Glory!' And when I asked him whether it was to him that loved us, and washed us from our sins? : He said, 'Yes!' I asked him whether he now believed that those things that I was enabled to deliver from time to time was the truth of God? He replied firmly, 'Yes!' Thus the Lord enabled him to bear his dying testimony, to the truths of the ever-blessed gospel as he lived upon them, so he died upon them. To use the words of friend STEGGAL, they that wished to know what living was, should have seen him; and they that wanted to know what dying was should have seen him. It was one of the hardest struggles that ever we saw, and we have seen a great many; so sharp was the conflict with death that he shook the room, and his poor joints snapped and cracked in the agonies of death; thus proving that the righteous have bands in their death; but the Lord at last broke the bands, and he lay the last five minutes in perfect ease, and then quietly breathed away his soul into the hands of his God, to appear as another trophy of the Redeemer's blood. Thus proving the truth of that saying, They go from strength to strength, till they come to appear before God in the heavenly Zion, the church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven; and we know that those whose record is on high, shall find the Lord God to be their defence in the hour and article of death, for precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Our blessed covenant God was pleased to shew forth powerfully the effect of divine grace in our brother, for when the fever was Mendlesham, Sep. 28, 1846. at the highest point, divine grace shone the DEAR SISTER IN THE LORD:-I am about to brightest: when the fever was raging, our make an attempt to comply with your request brother's mind was carried to the Rock that is in giving you a statement of the last mo-higher than we; it was then that he proments of our departed brother, who died in the Lord, triumphant, shewing forth the victory of our most glorious Christ over sin, death and hell, for his body's sake, the church, proving by his death those precious words, recorded by Hosea; 'I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death,' which he did by Here the power of his voice failed him. The VOL. III. claimed the foulness and blackness of him- "There is a fountain fill'd with blood, K Friday before his death friend BRAME was up stairs with him, when he exclaimed that he felt that he had a soul in him, and that he felt Christ in him: he then said that he saw himself in Christ, and saw Christ in him ; that he felt himself in Christ and felt Christ in him. See, here, my sister, how the dear Lord flung himself into the bitter waters of death, to render them sweet to our departed brother; poor, I will not call him, because he is now rich to all eternity, having now taken possession of his eternal rest, waiting for the adoption, that is to say, the deliverance of the body from corruption, to put on incorruption, when mortality shall be swallowed up in immortality. And at this point I would wish to bear testimony to the care, kindness, and watchfulness of his poor wife; the parting stroke was one of the sharpest that ever I witnessed on both sides, for he never parted with her so long as he could look at her, but his eyes looked as though he would have taken her with him. The portion of divine truth upon which my mind rested, was one that was greatly blessed to our brother, during the time that I was speaking at Wetheringsett; after that I had done speaking, he told me he believed that there was seed sown that day, the result of which must be left to another day, as I have not heard anything of the effect yet, but being so blest to him perhaps might make him think so. The words are in Rev. xx. 6. I find you are still in the dark; our Father does see fit at times to shut us up in the dark, that we may know how to value the light, and to let us know that the light is not our procuring, though often we procure the dark room for ourselves; he has promised the rod as well as the blessing. May the best of blessings attend you and your's, prays your unworthy brother, in the bonds of the Gospel, H. LANGHAM. MY DEAR FRIEND IN CHRISTIAN LOVE AND And, now may the dear Lord enable When I first felt conviction, it was about sixteen years ago; the Lord shewed me without I was regenerated or saved, by and through the blood of Christ, I must be lost for ever and ever. I was so distressed in my soul that I was not able to go to my employ; it appeared to me that I was going, and must go to hell, which I justly deserved; when I got upon my knees to cry for mercy, my mouth was stopped. Oh! the anguish that I felt! It is easier felt than described. It appeared to me that I saw the flames of hell flashing before me; and I was like Job-'I forgot to eat my bread.' One morning as I was in my distress, I got up from my breakknees to beg of the Lord for mercy; and as it fast table, I went up stairs to go on my appeared to me, I felt a rap at my breast, and it pressed me off my knees; I could not say a word. Oh! I thought I was going to lose I was so for three or four days; my senses. I could not work: as for the Bible, I did not dare touch, or look into it. I looked into 'Mason's Portion;' and there I dropped upon these words, In all their afflictions, he was afflicted;' it seemed to lighten my distress;' I was then enabled to go to my employ. When I was in my shop by myself, I was enabled to beg of the Lord to make it manifest to me, whether the work was of himself or not; and, bless his dear name, he sent these words into my soul with power'THOU SHALT OBTAIN MERCY.' This took my heavy trouble away; and a little hope SIN blew out the light of nature.-Old Author. rose up in my soul, with Who can tell, but Much more might have been said, that my brother expressed in his last hours. To a dear brother he said, on entering his room with his poor quivering lips, 'I am going to leave you; I am going home; going to be with Jesus.' This he said with great cheerfulness, with the tear rolling down his cheeks. His brother asked him if he would not like to get well again. He said 'No; I have no wish for that; I am going to sing Hallelujah! What a mercy, answered his brother; we shall soon follow you, when we shall meet around the throne above. Dear soul, thou art singing above, the Lord may appear for a poor wretch like "I love the Lord with mind and heart, And all his works I praise." here in this world, and be damned at last. Oh, how my soul sunk down in great distress, and so full of rebellion that I thought I must go out of my mind. But when I saw those sheep in the field, I did not want to be a sheep then: oh, no; I wanted then the sheep to help me to bless and praise the Lord; and when I saw Mr. RAYNSFORD, I was obliged to break out to him and, say 'Bless the Lord, oh, my soul;' &c. and I wanted no dinner; oh, no; for I was then feasting on real dainties; oh, such feasting as that, my friend, is better than all the feastings of this world; let the world have their dainties, and give me some of the good old wine of the kingdom; and let who likes have the rest; for, I can say, it was sweeter than honey or the honey-comb, and better than ten thousands of worlds. And I know when the soul has the love of God shed abroad in the heart, the dear Lord will have all the praise, and all the glory; and shame he will take to himself. That comfort and consolation lasted for three or four days; then the Lord withdrew his presence from me. But, I had, now and then a little sip by the way; but sometimes the devil would set in upon me in this manner, and say, 'where is your hope now?' 'but,' says he, 'see how you are in debt; why, you a child of God? no;' says the enemy. Oh, how I have sunk down, because I could not pay where I owed. One morning in parThat morning I could not work; I know by ticular, I was so distressed because I could heart-felt experience, that is a thing as im- not pay, and then satan told me that I should possible for a poor soul to work, when he is never be able to get out of debt, and that I blessed with an overflowing of that precious should go to hell after all; and in my troulove, as it is when he is in soul-trouble. Then ble at that time I was under the temptation I went several miles to get with some of the to destroy myself, but the Lord has kept me Lord's dear people; and I ran, and cried, up to the present moment, and it is of the and laughed and sung, and wanted trees and Lord's mercy that I am not consumed; and hedges to help me to bless and praise the sometimes I am delivered out of my trouble Lord. I could truly say that my feet were without any word applied, and that has disset upon a rock, and he had established my tressed me. But the Lord now and then goings, and put a new song in my mouth. sends a word of comfort into my soul. I I know that it takes all worldly things away : never shall forget when he sent these with for at that time, I had not got more than power, I have loved thee with an everlastabout four-penny-worth of bread to eat, and I ing love, and therefore with loving-kindness did not know where to get any more when have I drawn thee.' Oh, the joy that I felt that was gone; but that was no trouble to at that time; I was brought down then at poor unworthy me: no; I was feasting then the dear feet of Christ with humility. And upon the paschal Lamb of God. I could once I heard Mr. R. with such power, two say then with David in the 103rd Psalm-years ago, that I was so overwhelmed with 'Bless the Lord, oh, my soul, and all that that precious love from above, that I felt is within me, bless his holy name.' I that I could have freely gone to the stake; was obliged to go and see that dear man of God, and to proclaim what the Lord had done for my poor hell-deserving soul; and I went through a field where were some sheep, and that brought to my mind, about a month before, as I was in great distress, both in temporal and spiritual things, where I met some sheep. Oh, how I did wish I was one of them, or anything but an human being. Ah, says the devil, you will be always tried and once the power of that love flowed in |