profiteth me nothing." But poor little churches, like poor disciples, don't make many friends. We must, however, have the poor among us, and we must have poor churches, that our rich brethren may have the opportunity of dispensing of the abundance wherewith the Lord has blessed them, even if there be those who won't give a shilling. "WON'T GIVE." Those are the true words, and there is no doubt about the meaning. It was not that he could not have given; for he could loan. The fact was, he would not. It was a small matter, and of little moment in his eyes Probably he had not read or thought of Matt. xxv. 45, "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me." We cannot but think of the cordial reception we had. He did not dream that we were coming to give him an opportunity, as one of the Lord's stewards, to lay out for his Master a small portion of what he had given him to manage for his glory. We had been with him, and knew him well. Most probably he thought that was our errand. He received us very graciously. When the object of our visit was known, it did not require any effort on our part to get out of his counting-room. Many might as well not give as do it in their way. They have a set-to on beggars-church beggars-and give them as much abuse as would be suited for some criminal conduct on their part. Of what have they been guilty? Merely this: There is a poor congregation, who have no comfortable nor decent place to worship God, far off from any other of their own faith, and some man comes among them, and persuades them to try and build a house, at the same time saying, that the churches of the same faith ought to help, and will help them to build and pay for it. They make the experiment, do all they can, get a preacher part of his time, and then go to the churches to ask help. Go to the strong, the established, probably the wealthy men of the same church-and ask help. Help us brethren to finish our little church, where we want to worship God. Help us to pay for the little church, which we have built for the worship of the living God. Yes, you rich men, who dwell in your ceiled houses, help us to secure a place where we may have the blessings of a preached gospel. Yes, says one, we will help you. "Here are five shillings; but there is no end to the extravagance of these country churches. People never ought to begin to build these churches until they have every thing secured beforehand." The history of those who have gone collecting for help to build and pay for churches will be a wonderful history. Wonderful to see the unwillingness of God's stewards to give him for his own house. VAIN CONVERSATION. I WAS sitting in the church on the morning of the Sabbath. The pastor read the first chapter of the epistle of Peter. In the eighteenth verse of that chapter the phrase "your vain conversation" occurs. The utterance of the phrase brought up an incident which had long remained dormant in my memory. It will at once be perceived, that the incident is connected with the text by a verbal association only. Benjamin A- was sixteen years of age. His temperament was ardent and impulsive, and his intellectual powers were superior to those of his associates. He had a thirst for knowledge which led him to employ in reading the few leisure hours he enjoyed. His father was an active, enterprising, and somewhat arbitrary man, who was willing to labour himself to the extent of his ability, and expected his children and assistants to do the same. Benjamin's days, therefore, were days of toil. He sought on the Sabbath the rest denied to him during the week. This caused him to neglect the sanctuary, and erelong to employ God's holy time in reading books which were indeed adapted to improve the mind, but wholly disconnected with the culture of the heart. His conscience became deadened, and his general bearing such as gave pain to the few who watched for souls, and who hoped to see his talents consecrated to the cause of Christ. In the mysterious dispensations of the Spirit, he was awakened during a time of general stupidity. He had not heard a sermon for months, nor had any one spoken to him of his sins. None of his acquaintances manifested the slightest solicitude respecting their souls. No alarming providence had taken place in the vicinity. Still young A-began to reflect on serious subjects, and erelong serious reflections filled his mind during his waking hours. Solemn and anxious feelings followed his reflections. These continued to increase in power till his distress was great. This was manifest to all who saw him. The few moments which he could redeem from toil and sleep were spent in reading the Bible and attempting to pray. He was very ignorant of divine truth, and understood but little of what he read. He became deeply convinced of his need of an adviser-of a Christian friend who should tell him what he ought to do. But how should he gain access to such a friend? From the rising to the setting sun he was engaged in severe labour. No one of those with whom he laboured was acquainted with the Saviour. His father was profane, his mother was in heaven. While he was thus earnestly desirous of meeting some follower of Christ, he was told by his father that, on the morrow, he was to convey two gentlemen, Mr B and Mr H, some thirty miles across the country. This communication caused the first emotion of joy that he had felt for weeks. Mr B was a candidate for the ministry, Mr Hwas a merchant and a leading member of the church. Soon after they set out, Mr H noticed the gloom which rested on Benjamin's countenance, and inquired if he were ill. He replied that he was well enough-he wished to add, except in regard to his soul; but diffidence, or false shame, or the lack of a serious bearing on the part of Mr H prevented him. Mr B. addressed several jocose remarks to him for the purpose of "raising his spirits," but perceiving that they did not meet with a ready sympathy, he desisted. The two friends then began to relate anecdotes for each other's amusement. Next followed some remarks respecting certain reports relative to matrimonial connections about to take place in the village -then there was an episode upon politics-then the discourses of the preceding Sabbath were mentioned. Benjamin hoped that something would now be said that would lead them to speak to him, or render it proper for him to speak to them, on the great subject which weighed down his soul. But he AIRS OF SCIOLISM. was disappointed. A few criticisms dispatched the topic, and another succeeded; and the day passed, and not a remark was made adapted to profit an anxious, inquiring sinner. The effect on Benjamin's mind was most unhappy. He was discouraged and grieved. At night, when he had taken care of his horses, in the darkness of the stable he threw himself on his knees in prayer. Suddenly he rose. "It is of no use," said he aloud; no one cares for me. I thought if I could be with Christians I could do better; but I might as well be with one as another." He went into the bar-room and spent the evening in listening to the conversation of those who habitually frequented that place. He went to bed without prayer, and rose in the morning with a far less clouded brow than he had worn for months. When he reached home, he was, to use the expression of one of the workmen, "himself again." His seriousness was at an end. He soon entered upon a bolder course of sin. He became profane, and erelong a scoffer at sacred things. hostility to religion became intense, and his influence over his companions most disastrous. His It is true, that after many years spent in rebellion, he was brought to submit to the Saviour, and he always believed that those years of rebellion were occasioned by the vain conversation of those professing Christians into whose company he was thrown, when he so earnestly desired to ask, "What must I do to be saved?" He always believed, that if they had, by becoming seriousness, encouraged him to make known to them the state of his soul, they could have given him counsel that would have led to his speedy conversion to God. He was not at all disposed to lay upon them the burden of his guilt; but he felt that they were the occasion of his perilling his soul anew, and of diminishing his usefulness for life. How important that Christians should at all times have their conversation in heaven! Is it strange that the Saviour said, "That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment," when an idle word may be the cause of the eternal ruin of a soul ?-New York Observer. AIRS OF SCIOLISM. (From an Article in the Edinburgh Review.) BUT we are at the same time fully convinced, that in our day there are thousands of youths who are falling into the errors and perils of infidelity, from sheer vanity and affectation; who admire most what they least understand, and adopt all the obscurities and paradoxes they stumble upon as a cheap path to reputation for profundity; who awkwardly imitate the manner and retail the phrases of the writers they study; and, as usual, exaggerate to caricature their least agreeable eccentricities. We should think that some of these more powerful minds must be by this time ashamed of that ragged regiment of most shallow thinkers, and obscure writers and talkers, who at present infest our literature, and whose parrot-like repetition of their own stereotyped phraseology, mingled with some barbarous infusion of half-Anglicised German, threatens to form as odious a cant as ever polluted the streams of thought or disfigured the purity of language. Happily it is not likely to an 66 537 "true be more than a passing fashion; but still it is a very unpleasant fashion while it lasts. As in Johnson's day, every young writer imitated as well as he could the ponderous diction and everlasting antitheses of the great dictator; as in Byron's day, there were thousands to whom the world "was a blank" at twenty or thereabouts, and of whose "dark imaginings," as Macaulay says, the waste was prodigious; so now there are hundreds of dilettanti pantheists, mystic sceptics, to whom every thing is a "sham," need of a great "prophet," a "seer," a unreality;" who tell us that the world stands in priest," a "large soul," a "godlike soul," who shall dive into "the depths of the human consciousness," and whose "utterances " shall rouse the human mind from the "cheats and frauds" which have They tell us, in relation to philosophy, religion, and hitherto every where practised on its simplicity.) especially in relation to Christianity, that all that has been believed by mankind has been believed only on "empirical "grounds; and that the old answers to difficulties will do no longer. They shake their sage heads at such men as Clarke, Paley, Butler, and declare that such arguments as theirs will not satisfy them. We are glad to admit that all this vague pretension is now but rarely displayed with the scurri lous spirit of that elder unbelief, against which the long series of British apologists for Christianity arose between 1700 and 1750. But there is often in it an arrogance as real, though not in so offensive a form. Sometimes the spirit of unbelief even assumes an air of sentimental regret at its own inconvenient profundity. Many a worthy youth tells us he almost wishes he could believe. He admires, of all things, the "moral grandeur," the "ethical beauty of many parts of Christianity; he condescends to patronise Jesus Christ, though he believes that the great mass of words and actions by which alone we know any thing about him, are sheer fictions or legends; he believes-gratuitously enough in this instance, for he has no ground for it-that Jesus Christ was a very "great man," worthy of comparison at least with Mahomet, Luther, Napoleon, and "other heroes;" he even admits the happiness of a simple, child-like belief in the puerilities of Christianity-it produces such content of mind! But alas! he cannot believe-his intellect is not satisfied-he has revolved the matter too profoundly to be thus taken in; he must, he supposes (and our beardless philosopher sighs when he says it), bear the penalty of a too restless intellect, and a too speculative genius; he knows all the usual arguments which satisfied Pascal, Butler, Bacon, Leibnitz; but they will do no longer; more radical, more tremendous difficulties have suggested themselves "from the depths of philosophy," and far different answers are required now. This is easily said, and we know is often said and loudly. But the justice with which it is said is another matter; for when we can get these cloudy objectors to put down, not their vague assertions of profound difficulties, uttered in the obscure language they love, but a precise statement of their objections, we find them either the very same with those which were quite as powerfully urged in the course of the Deistical controversies of the last century (the case with far the greater part), or else such as are of similar character, and susceptible of similar answers. We say not that the answers were always satisfactory, nor are we now inquiring whether any of them were so; we merely maintain that the objections in question are not the novelties they affect to be. We say this to obviate an advantage which the very vagueness of much modern opposition to Christianity would obtain, from the notion that some prodigious arguments have been discovered which the intellect of a Pascal or a Butler was not comprehen But all this is the quiet growth of faith and patience. It is not required at once, nor possible at once, but only the principle of it ceaselessly working. Miss Jane Taylor's story of the discontented pendulum is admirable in this application; we would call it for our purpose the unbelieving pendulum. Reflecting upon the amount of future duty it had to perform, and going into calculation what number of times it must swing every hour, and multiplying that by the hours in the day, and then the days in the month, and then the months in the year, and finding what an enormous multitude of times it must strike with the most perfect precision, punctuality, and perseverance in the year, ceaseless always at its duty, it was so distressed and terrified with the responsibility, that it suddenly stopped; nor could the clock be set in motion again till the pendulum was re sive enough to anticipate, and which no Clarke or Paley would have been logician enough to refute. We affirm, without hesitation, that when the new advocates of infidelity descend from their airy elevation, and state their objections in intelligible terms, they are found. for the most part, what we have represented them. When we read many of the speculations of German infidelity, we seem to be re-perusing many of our own authors of the last century. It is as if our neighbours had imported our manufactures; and, after re-packing them in new forms and with some additions, had re-shipped and sent them back to us as new commodities. Hardly an instance of discrepancy is mentioned in the "Wolfenbuttle Fragments," which will not be found in the pages of our own deists a century ago; and, as already hinted of Dr Strauss's elaborate strictures, the vast majority will be found in the same sources. In fact, though far from thinking it to our national credit, none but those who will dive a little deeper than most do into a happily forgotten portion of our liter-minded, that though in a year's time it would of ature (which made noise enough in its day, and course perform so many vibrations if faithful, yet created very superfluous terrors for the fate of it was never called to perform but just so many in a Christianity), can have any idea of the extent to which the modern forms of unbelief in Germany-minute, and only one in each present second, and that it had nothing to do with the future, but to take care so far as founded on any positive grounds, whether of reason or of criticism-are indebted to our English of the present. Take care of the minutes, and the deists. Tholuck, howevever, and others of his hours will take care of themselves. And just so, countrymen, seem thoroughly aware of it. take care of the days in Christ's service, day by day, in the minute duties of following Christ, and the months and years will take care of themselves. Christ will keep the clock in motion to-morrow, if the pendulum obeys him to-day. Each day we are to come to him for each day's grace. -Dr Cheever's Windings of the River of the Water of Life. THE CROSS DAILY. SOME persons seem to be always trembling at the thought and the mightiness of becoming a Christian, concentrating in their own minds, in the idea of becoming a Christian, almost the whole amount of a lifetime of self-denial, conflict, effort, watchfulness, work upon self and others. But that is all to be left to Christ and his grace. All the strength necessary for future obedience must be given by him, and when the time comes for its exercise, he will give it to the soul that is waiting on him. But at present you have only present duty to perform. You are to follow Christ for to-day; that is duty, that is Christianity. Christ must renew your strength every day, and every day you must come to him, saying " Give us this day our daily bread." If you think that becoming a Christian requires in you the exercise of a grace and strength sufficient to last you through life, it is a great mistake indeed. Becoming a Christian requires only present submission and trust, a willing heart, and a waiting on the Saviour now, without any respect to the future, except in the article of trusting in him for it. Out of that present trust springs the future. You are not required to produce the future, but to put the seed of it into the ground, as Christ gives it to you. The husbandman is not required to produce the harvest, but to begin with the first steps, and to follow on, trusting in the Lord of the harvest. Your trust and obedience to-day are the seed and bud of tomorrow, and out of the blossoms of to-morrow shall spring other buds and blossoms, and so on, until your daily existence shall be filled with fruit unto life eternal. The man who trusts in the Lord shall be like a tree planted by a river, her roots always nourished with moisture, her leaf ever green, not careful in the year of drought, nor ever ceasing at all from yielding fruit. To a certain extent this is true; but only to a certain extent. The church and its committees is not the power, but merely the channels through which that power is to be conveyed. The individual members of the church constitute the power; the church, without the co-operation of its members, is like a steam-engine without the steam, perfect in all its parts, adapted to all the ends for which it was founded, but lacking life, and therefore effect. 2. Another common error is, that if a church holds its own, that is, does not fall behind its usual annua? contributions, it has done its duty. This is a wide spread error, and one which paralyses all our efforts. This might be a truth if the world and the church were at a stand; but how far is this from the fact ! There is no such anomaly in the universe of God, as any of his intelligent creatures at rest. Progress is stamped upon him from his birth, and this progress is seen in temporal as well as in spiritual things. But it is a progress which has two directions, upward and downward. If a church then is not advancing, it is necessarily receding, and it is this retrocession which keeps back the cause of Christ. Let every church of Christ, "forgetting the things that are behind reach forth towards those that are before;" let every year behold an increase in contributions, so that we may keep up with the increase of population and of darkness. 3. Another error in which the people rest (and it OUR GUILTY CITIES. is an individual one), is, that they are but the dust of the balance, and can have no influence. Suppose each labourer in the tunnel, when preparing to blast the solid rock, should cast away his tools because he made little impression on the rock! It is only by the continued action of the iron upon the rock that the effect is produced. So each individual by his continual labours, no matter how small each act may be, will have an influence upon the world. Thus these errors, seemingly so insignificant, really paralyse the energies of the church. In looking at the vast territory which God has given us to cultivate, let us look at it in detail; let us see what lies within the range of our capacities to perform; let us see what part God has given us to do; let us ask how much money God asks of us to carry on his work, without respect to what he asks of others. If each individual member of Christ's church would thus conscientiously act, that cry for help from our own land and from other shores would speedily be answered with men and with means.-Presbyterian Treasury. THE RED BUD. EARLY in the spring you may see the Judas tree, as many call it, in full bloom. The Indians call it "the red bud." We prefer the latter as a common name, as it gives us a better idea of this beautiful shrub or tree. It is the pride of our forests in the early part of the season, as it is covered with a shower of beautiful glowing flowers of a bright crimson. It blooms before its leaves appear, and forms a lovely contrast with the large white blossoms of the dogwood tree. It answers well, and looks quite pretty, to be transplanted into yards and pleasure grounds. There is, however, one thing remarkable about the red bud. Its brilliant appearance collects many flies and insects towards it, particularly the humble bees. But, alas! it allures them around it only to destroy. Its beauty and loveliness are only external, and it has no intrinsic quality to recommend it. It is a deceitful opiate and deadly poison; for the poor insects, flies and bees that come there to suck its nectar, or gather its honey, fall down and die after fluttering among its crimson blossoms. So fatal is the pleasure, so fearful the enjoyment among its bright petals! for there you may see the ground strewed over with these unfortunate creatures. Dear readers, let us see in the deceptive red bud an emblem of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. We must never trust to outward appearances, but shun "the very appearance of evil." Sin allures its victims but to destroy them. It presents false colours to entice us from the way of life and "the path of the just;" and when it has once seduced, it will appear in all its naked hideousness. It will often cast the rainbow hues of pleasure around some forbidden object, and lead us astray, as if for some unexpected good. But O, how full of deceit for when we are fairly in its embrace, it will sting and poison us with its deadly opiate, till no spiritual life is left remaining. This tree bears no fruit. So of sin-it may indeed seem to bloom and put forth many attractive charms, but it yields no fruit but the fruit of death, "for the wages of sin is death." It somewhat resembles the peach tree, loaded with its thousand blossoms, whose delicious fruit all so highly appreciate. But it is very, very different in its tendencies. The false and deceptive nature of this tree, has induced some to call it the Judas tree, in allusion to him who, with a Let us, dear reader, flee kiss, betrayed his Master. from sin as from the paths of the destroyer, and all the paths too that lead to sin and destruction. Let us awake, and keep still awake, for danger is always 539 nigh. O let us flee to Christ! He only is able to keep us from the paths of the destroyer, and to save and guide us securely in the way of eternal life.Christian Advocate and Journal. THE ALPINE HORN. It is used THERE was a wild romance in its notes, which was OUR GUILTY CITIES. A A HEATHEN Monarch once rose up from his throne, mortal nature that shall live beyond the stars, and that shall survive when "the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll!" The shadowy vale of death will soon be past, and the thoughtless and guilty throngs will be found amid the severe and awful scenes of eternal justice! Christian, pray, pray, oh pray, for a revival of pure religion in the guilty cities of our land!-Barnes. THE CHURCHYARD. "Shun not the village churchyard, It may indeed remind thee ON a pleasant Saturday of the first week I spent in Oberlin I visited the silent land, which is a little to the south of the village. As I was approaching one grave, two golden-winged butterflies flew up almost perpendicular above the grave heavenward. Not far from this and over another grave was a marble slab, which bore upon its face a very striking device, namely, a small shroud or casement was represented upon a leaf where a worm had had its home as in a coffin; but the coffin was burst and its tenant was no longer there. But look above, and what do we see! It is not a worm, for it is soaring on wings towards the skies. How remarkable that God should give a crawling worm, a grovelling creature, a new and higher form of existence after spending its brief day in the dust! "Shall life revisit dying worms, And spread the joyful insect's wing, THE FLIGHT OF YEARS. YEARS rush by us like the wind. We see not whence the eddy comes, nor whitherward it is tending; and we seem ourselves to witness their flight without a sense that we are changed; and yet time is beguiling man of his strength, as the winds rob the woods of their foliage. He is a wise man, who, like the millwright, employs every gust.-Scott. WHY I CONTRIBUTE TO MISSIONS. JESUS CHRIST has commanded his ministers to go and preach the Gospel to every creature. They cannot go unless they be sent. They cannot be sent without money. This is my reason for contributing to the treasury of the Mission Board. Can any one give as good a reason for not contributing? INSENSIBILITY OF MAN. BETWEEN Walsall and Iretsey in Cheshire, is a house built in 1636, of thick oak framework, filled in with brick. Over the window of the tap-room is still legible, cut in the oak, the following Latin inscription:-Fleres si scires unum tua tempora mensem; rides cum non scis si sit forsitan una dies. The sense of which is: "You would weep if you knew that your life was limited to one month, yet you laugh while you know not but it may be restricted to a day." How sad the thought, that with this silent monitor, this truthful sermon before their very eyes, numbers And have revelled in soul destructive inebriation! yet this is but a likeness of what we see constantly about us. NEGRO PRAYER. A NEGRO missionary repeated to Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist, the following prayer, offered by a negro preacher at the ordination of another negro preacher. The language is as terse and comprehensive as it is singular to us : "Make he good like he say. Make he say like he good. Make he say, make he good, like he God!" That is, "Make him as good as he preaches. Make his preaching as good as himself. Make his preaching, make himself, as good as his God." CALIFORNIA. SOUTHEY, in his "Common-place Book," quotes from MAKE HOME PLEASANT. THE ordination of Providence, says a distinguished writer, is, that home should form our character. The first object of parents should be to make home interesting. It is a bad sign when children have to wander from the parental roof for amusement. A love of home is one of the strongest safeguards against vice, not to children only, but to men. Men who delight in their own firesides, are never seen lounging about bar-rooms and oyster saloons. Make home attractive to your children, so that they will leave it with regret, and return to it with joy; for this is a mighty preservative against vice. Fragments, THE fair features of a moonlit scene may all pass away under the clearer light of the sun. So the deformities of the human heart are made manifest to the enlightened Christian, which may have appeared almost faultless to him under the dim light of reason. Some regard religion only as a provision to make the close of life comfortable; they are wiser who regard it as the means of making the whole of life's journey cheerful and joyful. It may be well to wish to die the death of the righteous; it is better to determine to live their life. There are three wise men: He who leaves the world before it leaves him. He who builds his sepulchre before his death. And he who is at peace with his Creator before entering into his presence. A man who had lived much in society, said that his acquaintances would fill a cathedral, but that a pulpit would hold all his friends. All objections, when considered and answered, turn out to the advantage of the gospel, which resembles a fine country in the spring season, when the very hedges are in bloom, and every thorn produces a flower.-Bishop Home. |