THE Dear brother Skelton,-May grace and peace be multiplied unto you, through the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the almighty anointings and effectual workings of God the Spirit, thereby making you fruitful and faithful in every good word and work, and abundantly willing to spend and be spent in the cause of Christ, for the real good of his people, and the exaltation of his all glorious name! May you continue preaching the everlasting gospel, with the ability God hath given to you, and may many signs follow, proving thereby the Lord is with and in you of a truth. I have a desire to send these lines to you, through the medium of the EARTHEN VESSEL; but on her wharf are so many parcels waiting for passages that makes the matter doubtful; yet I shall try the case, therefore, I must not be rambling about, nor give a long preface to this letter; if so, my parcel will get put up on the old file. pocrites? aye, and a good one too. But that soul once brought by the mighty Doctrine of Eternal Punishment for Sin. hand of God, naked and bare, before the searcher of hearts, stripped of such stuff, and compelled to look this way and the other for some refuge, in which to hide his guilty head, struck from every false one, till driven to that eternal rock that shelters him from every wintry blast; that soul, in a peculiar way too, views the hand of a covenant God in his preservation; and he parts with free-will from that time for though he sink ever so deeply in trouble, does he have recourse to free-will to help him out of it? No. Is he tortured with doubts and fears?-His path surrounded with difficulties? - Darkness hovering over his head? Can free-will help him out of this? No. He is a living witness that if that could have helped him, he would not remain in such a state. Oh, had it been possible for the devil to have furnished professors with a more suitable doctrine for his own interest, he would not have neglected doing so; he is too active for that; and had it been possible for hell to have produced gayer spangles with which to ornament this doctrine Oh! to be in possession of divine life! than human merit, hell would gladly What a treasure! How the children of have brought them forth to dress up in God do pant to know if the work going the most fascinating colors, this infernal on in their souls is of the right kind; lie. Who knows the nature of this lie ? and that it is not fleshly excitement. Not those who are rolling it as a sweet Absalom (the fleshly) says, 'Oh, that I morsel under their tongue; or the clean were made judge in the land, I would do headed opinionist who knows nothing of every man justice! Oh, let me have my experience. It is the soul compelled by liberty, I want to pay my vows.' Oh, grace to cry with the apostle Who the deception of the heart, its aim, if let maketh thee to differ? Ah, it is then loose, shall be to destroy the Spirit, or the soul feels the very thing, that is a bring it into bondage. 2 Samuel xv. 7. stench in God's nostrils, is hateful to his But, I not only look at Absalom, as followers. But amidst all the doubts, being a striking type of our fleshly mind, fears, unbelief, trials, persecutions, and but also of an empty professor; in this other shakings of the soul in the rock, professor you shall, if you trace him out, what a sweet mercy that the foundation see the very features of Absalom-a more of our God standeth sure; yes, and the artful man never existed; malice will lay soul in the rock shall sing of the rock; in his heart for years, and when he shall the soul in the rock shall boast of the have an opportunity to spit it out, it rock; the soul in the rock shall cleave shall be brought about by a profession of to the rock and finally, the soul in the the greatest kindness. 2 Samuel xiii, 27. rook, however tossed in the sea of trou--see Judas also: but awful were the ends ble, shall find these words fulfilled in the experience of his soul to the very letter, 'And it fell not, for it was founded upon CHARLOTTE. a rock.' He will give grace for a living hour; and grace for a dying hour; but we want a present Christ to live upon.-J. H. Evans. of these men, who once pretended to have so much kindness for the poor. But, where am I going? My intention was to inform you the character that you, with the Watchman on the Walls of Zion, at Tunstall, brother Day, and the Harleston Trumpeter, sustain in the eyes, or estimation of a watchman and commander on board a little ship which sails 3 from another quarter. Surely, I shall from Coddenham to Stonham, Suffolk, not be wrong in saying, what I believe when he was assailed by the enemy in to be a libel on your character-namely, the way following: You know (says the that your aim is to sow discord, and to strike at the fathers who were in the church before you were born. This is indeed what I have heard of you by a little man, in Suffolk. I come then to notice a rather singular circumstance relative to a poor cabin. boy, that sometimes sails with the men on board the Earthen Vessel. This cabin-boy was in company with one of the Suffolk ministers, some few months since, when he was instrumental in delivering him out of a dreadful snare. I wish to be explicit here, it may be some poor dear child of God is in this trap, for I know not what evil there is on the earth. This, then, is the wicked temptation: the devil had been persuading this minister, to believe that the word everlasting' did not mean 'eternal; and that, therefore, the punishment of the wicked would not be eternal. True, he said, ‘the fire shall not be quenched, but it shall consume the wicked, and burn them into annihilation.' The cabin-boy answered, if such is the case, then I need not fear hell so much; nor is Christ's death so precious and valuable ; however, (says the poor boy) Spira did not believe such a doctrine, for he said, while he was standing, as it were, on the wharf of the bottomless gulf, I would not (says Spira) refuse to endure the heavy weight of the wrath of that great God for twenty thousand years, so that I might at length attain to an end of that misery which I now know will be eternal.'' Soon after this the boy left the house, little thinking the devil had fastened himself, or sown this seed of hell in his mind, nor did he know the minister was delivered from the temptation until the boy met with him again; and then the boy told this minister 'he was a wolf in sheep's clothing.' He asked, Why? was it because of what I said to you at my house? if so, let me tell you, I was perfectly delivered from that snare, by the words of Spira;' and then some rather edifying conversation ensued. · devil) that the word everlasting does not He so he did not turn to his Bible. Some- Lastly,-Let me tell you how thisawful temptation troubled the boy; and I remain, yours, in hope of eternal how he was delivered out of it. He was life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. walking along a certain road, leading C. C. The Backslider Reclaimed. "Stand! stand! thou rebel!" Justice cries; "For all attempts to flee are vain ; And thou thy guilt cannot disguise, For guilt hath reach'd the clouds again." "For vengeance, now, thy sins do call, And vengeance now I've come to pay: Beneath my sword thou now must fall, And what canst thou now dare to say?" "O, guilty! guilty! yet, do spare ! For I of sinners am the chief; O listen, listen, to my prayer, Remember the poor dying thief." Stern justice then with wrath enflam'd, His glitt'ring two-edged sword did shew; And in his rage he thus exclaimed, "Deceitful wretch, receive the blow." "Hold, justice!" cried a voice so sweet, "And tell me what is thy demand? His debts I'll pay, his bills I'll meet; And in his woeful place I'll stand; "Take off his yoke, set him at large; In sorrow he shall not repine; Come, mercy, write out his discharge, For I will own him still as mine. "My blood shall justice satisfy, My blood will cleanse the foulest stains: For sinners of a crimson dye, Shall prove the virtue of my pains. "For I remember Calvary still, 'Twas there his crimson crimes I saw; And there, for him, my blood did spill, To satisfy thy holy law.?" "And now I'm here, his cause to plead, I'll talk, and sing of thy free grace; O, grant, dear Lord, that I may lie, I then will hallelujahs raise To him that sits upon the throne: THOMAS HALL. Thirty-nine Questions to Unitarians. 1. Do we not read in the Word of God, of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven?' Is not the inscrutible manner of Jehovah's existence, one? Nay! is it not the highest, the most adorable mystery of all? Is it not a divine revelation, receivable solely, and alone, by a faith divine? Is not to rationalize it-to attempt to remove the mystery of it-to endeavour to make it plain to reason (one and all,) the same as to destroy it? Consequently, what other word can we apply to such conduct, (in a consistency with truth,) save blasphemy? 2. In professing a disbelief in any religious dogma which you cannot comprehend, are you not deceived? You believe that Jehovah, the great adorable God of heaven and earth, could have prevented the entrance And as of original evil into this world. your preachers often enlarge with eloquence and pleasure, on the beautiful words-' God is love,' how do you reconcile this glorious truth, with all the 'ills flesh is heir to,' the miseries, woes, pains, sorrows, anguish and torments, man has been subject to, nearly six thousand years? Is not this a truth which you believe but cannot comprehend? 3. Is not the doctrine of a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, as clearly, as fully, and as indisputably stated in Holy Writ, as the unity of the Godhead? Why, then, not believe both? Why do you reject half the Bible? 4. On the hypothesis that Christ is a mere man, how is he the Lord from heaven,' 'God's fellow,' the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person?' 5. Are not believers in the great, and ever-blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, pronounced blessed? And by the same eternal word, are not all who trust in man, pronounced cursed? Are believers, then, both blessed and cursed at one and the same time? 6. Do we not read-' The children being partakers of flesh and blood, he likewise, himself, took part of the same?' Does a mere man take upon himself flesh and blood? Who is this HE and HIMSELF? 7. Does not the awful hypothesis, that Christ is a mere man, involve the shocking absurdity that every man is the only begotten of the Father? If, then, the term 'only begotten,' cannot be applied to any mere man, does it not therefore belong to him, solely and alone as the eternal Son of the eternal Father, in truth and love? Leicester. (To be Continued.) J. H "Christ is the preserver of grace; all the grace that is in us, is in Christ Jesus; he keeps all our graces for us. As the beams of the sun is said to be in the sun, because they are preserved by their union with the sun, 'our life is hid with Christ in God;' hid as the life of a tree is hid in the root, as the being of a stream is hid in the fountain. And herein is the comfort of believers, that their condition is more stable and immutable, and safe, than ever Adam's was in innocency, for he had all perfections of a creature, but they were in his own keeping; but now all the grace that is in a believer is in Christ Jesus, by whom and in whom grace is safely preserved, so as it shall never perish." [85] The Living and Dying Experience of the late Elizabeth Howling. DEAR BROTHER BANKS: According to my implied wish, and agreeable with your expressed desire, I proceed to furnish the readers of the EARTHEN VESSEL, with anaccount of the dealings of the Lord, with, and in the behalf of, the late Miss Elizabeth Howling, whose immortal soul departed from its mortal tenement, on the night of Jan. 2, 1847, at Aldborough, in the county of Suffolk, to be for ever in the possession, and enjoyment of everlasting bliss, in an upper and brighter world, there to realise the presence of Jesus without a cloud between. ing all such manifested dislike and opposition, they have been brought, through the invincible power of God, to know and to feel themselves lost sinners, and to find by happy and heart-felt experience, that Christ hath died for their sins and hath risen again for their justification; the realization of which blessed truths having been wrought in their souls, through the work, the almighty operation of God the Holy Ghost; they have, (through grace,) on being taken away from the evil to come, left behind them a blessed, a soul comforting, a Christ glorifying, and grace exalting testimony, that they have passed under the rod, and were brought into the bond of the everlasting covenant, while we have beheld them as the prisoners of hope sent forth out of the pit wherein is no water, through the blood of the everlasting covenant. The truth of this latter position has been exemplified in the case, conversion, and death-bed experience of Miss Elizabeth Howling, of whom, and concerning which, the few remarks here penned were witnessed by an eye and ear witness to the great mercy manifested, and sovereign love displayed in the conversion and death of this object of eternal love, who writes as follows: Surely the Lord is yet pleased to make his hidden ones manifest even in these dark and gloomy days in which we live, and that in his own appointed time; and for which purpose he is pleased to work by such means as proclaim and declare his own sovereign will. As we behold his dear children in his own time born, (that is of the Spirit,) not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God; and thereby he bringeth to light the hidden things of darkness, which lay concealed and locked up in his infinite and eternal mind, according to his eternal purpose; and as things standing in his irrevocable and immutable decree; and Elizabeth Howling was born into this thus to every thing there is a season, and a world of sin and sorrow on the 26th day of time to every purpose under heaven; and March, 1807, and at an early age came to rethese times and seasons, wherein he bringeth side with her grandfather and grandmother, his purposes to pass, proclaim aloud his di- who brought her up with as much affection vine sovereignty, whether they declare the as though she had been their own child. counsels of his will, in the pouring out of Like all the rest of Adam's race, she was a his judgments, or the manifestations of his lover of worldly pleasure, and neither felt mercy; so that we exclaim with profound the sinfulness of sin, nor the necessity of acquiesence and holy reverence, 'He giveth being born again. Her dear grandmother no account of his matters;' while we behold was the subject of the new-birth, and thereby some of Adam's race, who from the first was made to feel herself a lost sinner, and dawnings of reason in them, have been ac- also to feel her soul washed and cleansed customed to sit under the sound of gospel from sin, in the fountain opened for sin and truth, and have shewn a sort of natural in- uncleanness, the precious, sin-atoning, allterest in, and attachment to truth, which, cleansing blood of Christ; she knew what it from connection and habit they have been was to feel her feet on the Rock Christ Jesus wont to attend to, yet have accomplished the the Rock of eternal ages, and to realise the number of their days without the least good joys of salvation, through the work_and ground to hope they ever experienced a power of the divine comforter, the Holy passing from spiritual death unto spiritual Ghost; lived a life of faith on the Son of life, through the life giving power of the God, whom she was made to know had loved Holy Ghost in the matter of the new-birth, her and gave himself for her: enjoyed much without which it is impossible an entrance of his spiritual presence, and for a long can be given into the kingdom of heaven; time before she departed hence, earnestly, and some others who have, in their connec- and familiarly used to pray with sweet neartions been encompassed about with God-ness to the feet of Jesus, and say, 'When, fearing relations and friends, in the midst of dear Jesus, will you take your weary, longing precept, example, and affectionate invita- pilgrim home, to dwell with you?' I cannot tions, as concerning the mere attendance on describe, (says. her daughter,) her fearlessoutward means of grace; yet have mani-ness of death, her holy longing to be with fested the natural opposition, and native enmity of the human heart against God, and against the ways of God; yet notwithstand Christ, her firm faith, nor half the blessedness wrought in her soul by God the Holy Ghost. She went home to glory on Tuesday M a quarter past five in the afternoon, December | quently returned, and her illness gradually 30, 1845, without a struggle or a groan; her increased, until it was considered needful to Saviour kissed her soul away, and took it to have medical advice; and about the 14th. himself. This dear parent of mine, (says of November she went to her bed, was blisElizabeth's aunt,) frequently used to say to tered, and every means used from that time me, 'Betsy, I believe Elizabeth is a child of to the day of death, but disease gained God;' I answered, at present I can see no ground, and although I have been accus. proof of that: no evidence whatever being tomed to witness the taking down of many given. Well, my dear mother has again of my fellow mortals by disease, yet never said, From what I have felt in communion did I behold sufferings so acute and disand wrestling with God, on her behalf I tressing as her's. At the commencement of believe it will be made evident that she is her illness I spoke to her of the state of her before she dies.' soul, (which I had been in the habit of doFrom her having been accustomed to reading for years,) to which things she would say, the Word of God daily, and hymn and other Well aunt, I do not think I shall die; but books to her grandmother, it is presumed she you well know I cannot convert myself.' I was not ignorant of the way of salvation by answered I am aware of that, but the Word Jesus Christ, and that without any works of says, 'Seek, and you shall find; knock, and the sinner by way of merit; that she knew it shall be opened to you;' yet the felt sense the demerit of sin, and the utter helpless- of need to seek and to knock with the will ness of the creature; but though she knew and power to do, comes from God, through these things, she felt them not. Oh! ye multi-the work and power of his Spirit put forth in tudes of cradle-trained, mere Sunday-school professors of the name of Jesus, so abundant in this day having a form of godliness, and being destitute of the power thereof, nothing short of almighty power, as displayed in the new birth, can constitute a vital religion, without which, dead creeds received by traditions from your fathers, and mere theoretical knowledge of Scriptural truth, and a mere profession of the same, will leave you without a refuge, and without a hope in the swellings of Jordan, and destitute of a leg whereon to stand before the bar of God, in God's tremenduous day of judgment. Elizabeth's health had been but very indifferent for three or four years, but after the death of her grandmother, she came to live with me, (says her aunt,) and appeared to gain health and strength, but manifested no love to the ways of God, to the preached gospel, or to family worship, which seemed a burden to her; her thoughts were occupied with earthly things expecting shortly to become a wife; but God's thoughts are not as our thoughts, which is our mercy, for he intended far different things for her, things which she knew not, and far more blessed than she had thoughts of. She went out in the September of 1846, to visit some friends at Woodbridge, and at Ipswich, and while staying at the latter place was seized by the English Cholera in a fearful manner, so bad that her friends did not expect her ecovery, but it pleased the Lord to restore r, at least sufficient for her return home Aldborough, but very weak and greatly red; and shortly after had a slight rese, which, by the blessing of God attendthe means used, subsided. But alas! fects were deep rooted, the seeds of dihad laid hold as with an iron grasp, on vital principle; pains in the bowels fre the sinner. At every opportunity, I took |