for the naturalization of foreign Protestants. This The soul and body, with their opposite quali shows both that they were numerous, and that the feel- ties, their separation at death, and the transcendent ing of our country toward them was kind. So recently superiority of the one to the other, are the subas 1829, one of the money votes of the House of Com-ject of these words of the wise man: "The dust mons runs in these words: "That a sum not exceeding shall return to the earth as it was: and the spirit £5812:7:10d., be granted to his Majesty to pay the unto God that gave it." “To the earth as it annual allowance to Protestant dissenting ministers in was," such is the nature of the corporeal frame. England, poor French Protestant refugee clergy, poor Moulded, indeed, it is with exquisite skill into French Protestant laity," &c. This would intimate not symmetry and beauty, yet out of humble and only that Christian Churches but the government had base materials; and, as composed of these, liable taken up their case, and that for many years some regular to dissolution, frail, easily broken, a tabernacle of provision was made for them from the public purse of the clay to be struck at last by the Hand which reared nation. This private and public liberality is the more it, and to return to its original. But the spirit, creditable, when it is remembered that in 1709, when while now mysteriously combined with its "earthly warmly befriending the French Protestants, our country house," does not share in the corruptibleness of men had also to supply the wants of the persecuted Ger- its tenement, is not to be dissolved, is itself unman Palatinos. Dr Calamy states in his diary, that compounded, and allied immediately to God; and, on leaving its material lodging, shall return, without interruption of its consciousness, or a moment's delay, unto Him that gave it,-unto the Creator, Saviour, and Judge, to be disposed of through eternity by the Lord of life. Thus the author of the Book of Wisdom, by this solemn announcement of a well known but much neglected truth, would arrest our minds, would improve us in rendering us serious, and bless us in leading us to salvation. several thousands of these came over to Britain at this time,—that a large sum was raised which was carefully distributed among them by commissioners, that five hundred families were sent to Ireland, where, if I have not been misinformed, their descendants can still be traced, many to Carolina, and a number returned to their own country. Indeed Britain at this time seems to have been what we hope she will ever be the great asylum for the oppressed and the persecuted of all the nations of the world. (To be continued.) THE CONNECTION BETWEEN TIME AND ETERNITY: A DISCOURSE. BY THE REV. WILLIAM MUIR, D.D., Minister of St. Stephen's Parish, Edinburgh. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.' -ECCLES. xii. 7. That the soul, on being separated from the body at death, makes an instant transition into the world of spirits, is what the text has clearly determined; and this, moreover, is so unceasingly taught in the Sacred Scriptures, that we are surprised how an opposite doctrine should be held by any who profess to receive the Bible as the Word of God. Where do we find authority in the Bible for maintaining that the soul is alike in its qualities to the body, only a finer configuraTHE man who is wise according to the Bible- tion of matter, and between death and the resurestimate of wisdom, sets habitually before his rection partaking, with the corporeal frame, in mind the truth here solemnly announced. As he the dissolution of its powers? We find passages proceeds in his course through life, he looks with of Scripture, no doubt, where death is compared increasing stedfastness to the close of the journey, to sleep, and the stillness of the grave is paralleled and he takes occasion, from events and seasons in with the silence of night, and the calling up of human experience, to deepen the salutary im- the long sleepers at the resurrection is described pression of so serious a view. Anticipating that as an awakening of them in the morning from soon the goods and ills of his temporal condition their bed of dust. But these passages allude exare equally to pass away, he receives its advan- clusively to the body, and to that unbroken rest tages, and bears its calamities, in the calm and into which the weary frame sinks at the dissolvhumble frame corresponding with that anticipa- ing of its mysterious union with its companion. tion. Especially he draws, from the thought of Its companion, however, is of different qualities, his "latter end," what serves him for a test and and of a nobler mould, and meets at death with an excitement. Bringing the light of eternity to an opposite destiny. bear fully on the objects of time, he tries, by the searching illumination, his own actions, and schemes, and wishes, and learns the better which of them, as valuable, may be cherished, and which of them, as worthless, ought to be rejected. Above every thing, he connects the sentence of death passed upon all men with the promise of life given by the Saviour of sinners, and thus he gathers, from meditating on the dissolution of the body, the very means of excitement to the principles and affections of an eternal existence in the soul. While our consciousness, and many facts illustrating the human mind, might well intimate these things, the Scriptures explicitly and uniformly teach them. What can more plainly do so than the well known address of our Lord to the penitent on the cross? Surely, it is an immediate transition into the spiritual world that is promised by these words, "Verily, I say unto thee, this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise." Consider, too, how the Apostle Paul declared that he was in a strait betwixt two things," having, on the one hand, a desire to depart to be and friends of Jesus, we shall instantly "be present with the Lord." "At death, the souls of believers made perfect in holiness do immediately pass into glory, and their bodies being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection." "The dust returns unto the earth as it was the spirit unto God that gave it." "The dust shall return to the earth as it was." This declaration is made in pursuance of the doom which was pronounced on Adam in the day of the fatal trespass, or rather, it is the very language of the original sentence itself. Ponder it! with Christ, and having, on the other, a desire to | sent from the body, and that, dying as the disciples abide in the body for the benefit of the Church. But, according to the notion which I now oppose, why should he have experienced the least cause for hesitating as to which of the two was to be preferred, whether the remaining some time longer a zealous and useful minister of the Gospel, or subsiding into a state of unconsciousness, -for thousands of years a state of annihilation? He felt occasion of doubt between views of his own good and public usefulness. Being assured of a personal interest in Christ, he realized vividly the blessedness that awaited him on exchanging his earthly for a heavenly abode. And still assured how profitably his labours were given to the Church, he saw as clearly what advantages to the society of the faithful were to arise from his further sojourning among them. It was between these two things, his own interests and those of the Church, that the apostle hesitated, and not between his sinking into the sleep of ages, and his continuing on earth actively benefiting others, and deriving to himself the precious satisfaction which activity in such a work was so well fitted to give him. The same apostle declared, again, that when he should be "absent from the body, he should be present with the Lord." And there, also, he taught as directly as words can teach, that the soul, and the frame which it animates, are distinct, and that, on the dissolving of the inferior part of our nature, the principle that diffused life within continues unimpaired, and is ushered entire before its Creator and proprietor. And, surely, the text is itself as satisfactory on the subject as any other portion of Scripture. The wise author of this book having described the failure and decay of the body in language peculiarly affecting, he closes the picture of mortal dissolution by the words, "The dust shall return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." The truth is, the opinion concerning the soul of man that is usually named materialism is not only thus opposed by Scripture, but is obviously indefensible on any show of reasoning. For, what the materialists continually urge is this, that the Almighty may cause a certain form of matter to think. But, then, in reasoning on to a tenable conclusion, we must proceed on facts,-on what we know. In comparing mind and matter, we learn that their respective qualities are wholly different. And is it not from its qualities alone that we ascertain the nature of any object? And since not a quality discoverable in matter bears the slightest resemblance to the qualities of which we are conscious in mind, how should any man say that the materialism of the soul is the subject of a reasonable inference? The Scriptures, however, throughout tell us plainly that the soul and the body, with all the closeness of their present union, are yet separable and distinct; that the soul can exist apart from the body; that the parting asunder of the two shall take place at death, and for a season continue; that then we are to be ab I. The sentence is universal. It fell on Adam, comprehending, in its tremendous denunciation, his whole posterity along with himself. Though there was a suspension of it, as by a long respite, over him and his earlier offspring, yet, excepting to Enoch and Elijah, it has been remitted to none. They, instead of being “unclothed" by death, experienced what the glorious privilege is of having mortality swallowed up of life;" but they only. Read the Book of Genesis, the chronicle of ancient times, and patriarchs, and princes. What is the striking and ever recurring memorial there? “And the days that he lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died." "And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom: and when Husham was dead, Hadad reigned in his stead: and when Hadad was dead, Samlah reigned in his stead: and Samlah died also." Amid the heaps of mere names, we stand as if we were among graves with their broken and defaced inscriptions. The character of the men, their sayings, and their deeds, those objects, to them so vast, for which they wrought and struggled, the honours which adorned them, and which heralds on days of pageantry announced as immortal, all have sunk; and only a few letters survive to tell of their existence. How solemnising the thought of the ceaseless rise and decay of human beings! Race after race disappear, it is the commonness of the fact that, along with our native sensuality, renders us so indifferent to the awful event. But whatever be our indifference and sensuality, the event is going Time is still flowing as the dark stream that has rolled over the myriads of our predecessors in life. And how solemnizing! The torrent is fast bearing onwards to ourselves; and soon whatever distinguishes us shall perish too; and if our names are seen for a little on the surface, the scanty mediorial of us shall just tell that we "lived and died.” on. While the universality of the doom that " returns the body to the dust" forms an object of serious thought, there is much to increase the seriousness of it in the consideration, farther, that the sentence, which is universal, is, II. In the time of executing it on us, uncertain. Not uncertain, it is in the counsels of the Supreme Disposer of all events. Unto God, who "seeth from the beginning to the end," the "length of our days" is exactly known. He has set the limits to our continuance on earth. We cannot overpass his decree; and when his appointed hour comes, "he changeth the countenance of man, and sendeth him away." But he has covered up the period from us. We know, indeed, that, even at the longest extension of the term of life, the interval between the cradle and the grave is short; that, stretching our prospects beyond "the three score years and ten" to an extreme old age, still the sum of our days is a scanty item. But, who may presume on arriving at the verge even of that small amount? What place, in the intervening line, gives security against the execution of the sentence, that reduces the "dust to what it was?" Viewing our life as a pilgrimage, are we not, at all points of the course, liable to be stopped and hurried off from our fellow-travellers? Some merely breathe the air of this world; and the spirit, as if it had lighted on the ungenial climate, hastens away to the land of milder skies. Others are allowed to proceed to the earlier eminences in the journey, from which they discover the prospects of life; but are called to shut their eyes on the possession, and retire. Not many endure so long as to be worn out by protracted toils. Only a small and scattered company are seen, near the end, weighed down with the load of years to the dust of death.-Doubtless, we should adore the wisdom manifested by this arrangement. Had we received, at the entry upon life, the clear knowledge of the day when we are to depart from it, evil consequences had obviously been the result of this knowledge. The time of dissolution, if placed at a remote period, would have seemed too far off to excite fear; and thus would have betrayed into the carelessness of irreligion and the obduracy of impenitence; while those who should have beheld themselves, as with the grave opened at their feet, might have been "shaken in their minds" from needful duties, and even from the great duty of preparation for eternity. And besides, had this world abounded with two descriptions of beings, whose circumstances were so widely different, there would have been destroyed all sympathy between them; the one becoming utterly unfeeling and reprobate, and the other left to complete helplessness and misery. We are to adore the wisdom, therefore, by which He, from whose mouth proceeded the sentence of death, has otherwise arranged the seasons of executing this doom, "Unto dust shalt thou return." The time of carrying it into effect is, with regard to each of us, uncertain. And thus the ordinary concerns of life, in which we are bound to take a part, go on uninterruptedly. But, above all, this arrangement is fitted, if we reflect, to render us watchful, most seriously watchful. It is fitted to make us feel how terrible the hazard is of our delaying to prepare for eternity. It urges on us constancy in our vigilance. And, surely, the motives to immediate repentance, and to an instant choice of the Gospel, and a persevering attachment to Christ and his salvation, are pressed on us irresistibly by this conviction; how slight is the tenure of our possessions; how thin the partition that divides between us and the world of spirits; how the stroke that opens a passage for the soul, though it be delayed for years, may yet descend on us even the next hour; how the only thing of which we have the certainty and warrant is this, that we must soon quit the earthly house of this tabernacle, and that, if there be not provided for our souls the house eternal in the heavens, we are wretched and miserable outcasts for eternity. The serious character of these views may, III. Suggest another, which places the appointment of death before us as the decree of divine justice. In this solemn aspect the Sacred Scriptures uniformly represent it. When the awful sentence was first pronounced, the parent of our race stood trembling in the presence of his Lawgiver and Judge. And the Apostle Paul reasoning in his well known passages on the fall of Adam, concerning the effects of the original trespass, declares that, "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and that by the offence of one, judgment hath come upon all to condemnation;" and that this is proved by the fact, that "death reigned even over them who sinned not according to the similitude of Adam's transgression." And, however scoffingly the infidel may declaim against this account of the procedure by which such tremendous consequences have been entailed on the human race, and however he speak in derision of "the covenant which was made with Adam, not only for himself but for his posterity," yet who can explain, if they reject the Bible statement, why infants suffer and die as well as those who have voluntarily, in mature years, consented to the sin of their first parent? Must it not be allowed, besides, that traces of similar procedure are visible, and of daily occurrence? Few of us are so thoroughly separated from others, as to leave every one around unaffected by our conduct, whether it be good or bad. On the contrary, we are connected mutually, and at a great variety of points. To many beings our actions are of vast consequence. We may impart suffering or joy, injury or advantage, life or death to our fellow-men. Nohody questions that kings and princes may hestow immense blessings on their subjects when they hold the reins of government with the hand of righteousness; and, on the contrary, that unmingled calamities arise from the rule of the foolish, ambitious, and violent. But, in every rank, do we not see children sharing in the reputation of their parents, while we often find that the vices of men attaint, as with the brand of treason, the members of their families? When you prosper, your dependents, whose skill and hand did nothing to increase your store, partake of your prosperity, and theirs, also, is a portion of your bitter cup, when reverses have soured its ingredients. Each of us, in truth, on our small scale, has been placed as in a garden, to keep and to dress it, not for ourselves alone, but for others, who either are associated with us, or may succeed us. To cultivate the spot, carefully refusing every tree that is evil, and ren. dering it as a paradise, will be the means of blessing others, not less than ourselves. But to neglect it, and, (admitting the solicitations of the Tempter,) to forfeit the benefits, which were given us to cultivate, will not only injure our own souls, but make those who come after us weep because of our fall. Thus, even on a limited view, we trace the very same principle in operation still, which regulated the opening events of human history. The fact repels an objection; and, at the same time, it yields an illustration to the great | Scripture doctrine of our union with Adam, and the consequences which have flowed to us from that union. These consequences, visible in the transmission of diseases and death, from the fall till now, declare to us the immaculate purity and unchangeable justice of God. They remain and they are perpetuated as the standing marks of his displeasure at sin. They teach us what enormity is involved in rebellion against the divine law. To disobey God is ingratitude, and treason, and filial impiety, and folly, and pride, and profaneness, all And can we wonder that the evil, (which if it prevailed,) would unhinge the moral world and cast the orders of created intelligences into universal confusion, should thus have its essential virulence displayed in its exemplary punishment? Ah! there is not a calamity that wounds the heart, not a cause of sorrow that depresses the spirit, not a throb of anguish, nor a racking pain, nor a burning fever, nor a groan of expiring nature, but tells us that man has fallen, but announces the sad effects of sin. in one. Blessed be God! we know of a remedy even amid the fatal symptoms of so fatal a disease. And let us adore and praise his name, while considering, Finally, that the mortal doom issued against sin, as the decree of justice, is changed for every believer in Jesus into the message of mercy. Though "sin hath reigned unto death, grace now reigns through righteousness unto eternal life." Though the sentence which has gone forth must be executed on every son of Adain, it touches only the body of the believer in Jesus. His soul is ransomed by the blood of his divine Surety. The curse that was involved in the original sentence, and which would have extended the temporal death into spiritual and eternal, was endured by the Saviour. He endured it, and exhausted it; and instead of the curse the blessing is now the portion of all who "believe in his name." "If by one man's offence death reigned by one, much more they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, even Jesus Christ." The serpent's head is bruised. The law is fulfilled. The penalty is borne. Divine justice is satisfied. And divine love flows forth even to "the chief of sinners." What, therefore, though the language of the original sentence may remain? The whole spirit of the decree is altered to the Christian believer. It is a message of mercy. It is an invitation amid the sins and sufferings of a fallen world, calling the soul away to the region where is nothing to defile, no tempter, no iniquity, no more death, neither tears, nor sighing, nor any more pain. It is as the very coming of the gracious Friend who hath promised, saying, "Let not your hearts be troubled. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come unto you again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also." Have you been enabled by grace to "believe in Christ to the salvation of your souls?" Have you "received the Lord Jesus in faith, as made of God unto you wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption?" Is it your desire and prayer that you be found at last in him, not having your own righteousness, which is after the law, but the righteousness which is through the faith of Christ ?" Repenting of every evil way and evil thought, are you led by the Spirit of Christ, and following him along the path of holiness in humble but constant preparation for his holy and happy presence in heaven? Surely it is your privilege to regard the original sentence exchanged for you into the message of mercy. As there is a blessed reality in the Word of revelation, as there is rich meaning in the promises of the Gospel, as there is divine efficacy in "the blood of the cross," be ye sustained, and encouraged, and cheered, even on hearing the solemn words, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God that gave it." For "Where, O death, is thy sting? where, O grave, is thy victory. The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who giveth us the victory, through Jesus Christ." Now, since the doom pronounced over fallen man is universal, what folly to shut our eyes upon it with indifference, as if we might escape! Since the time of executing it on us is uncertain, what wisdom to be always ready! Since it has proceeded from infinite Justice, are we not, with the humbleness of penitent sinners, to be resigned to its infliction? And since it is actually changed into the message of mercy through Christ Jesus, O how earnestly should we seek, that, by the merit of his death, we may be delivered from the power of "the second death!" And if, on the warrant which the faith of the Gospel supplies, you cherish the "good hope through grace," in the prospect of an event that shall come, and that may come suddenly, then surely, for your improvement in the spiritual life, you will do what the wise man did,-you will set habitually before you the truth so solemnly announced by the text. As you are advancing in your course, you will look with the greater sted fastness on the close of the journey. It will give you both a test and an excitement in the path of righteousness. It will serve as the means of mortifying the passions of earth, and nourishing affections whose tendency is all heaven-ward. It will teach you to keep your heart loose from possessions which, it warns you, are soon to be relinquished, and calm under calamities from the bur den of which you are soon to be removed. It will show you the unreasonableness and wretchedness | be you earnest to gain the salvation which he preof ambition and pride, by setting before you the sents to your acceptance in the Gospel. Come mere handful of dust into which the mightiest and entreat the Giver of all grace that he may forms of human grandeur are at last shrunk. It bestow upon you the "unspeakable gift," and will conduce to the soundness of judging on what- thus enrich you for eternity. Come to the Faever is offered to your acceptance and pursuit in ther, that you be adopted into the divine family. this world; and it will help to animate you with Come to the Son, that the hope of glory be the heavenly mindedness which lifts you from the formed in your heart. Come to the Holy Ghost, low and perishing portions that are here, to the that you be sealed for the promised inheritance. glories and joys of the unfading inheritance. O! to be a child of God, a disciple of Jesus, an heir of heaven! That is gain to you. Though you have gained nothing more of earth than the few feet of dust into which your body shall be laid, if your spirit return to God that gave it, justified, sanctified, and redeemed in the Saviour's blood, that, that is gain to you, outweighing the cost of worlds. And thus you will meet with a counsellor, and monitor, and friend, and comforter, in the very subject which multitudes hasten away from in terror and disgust. Alas! why do any hasten from it, and with such feelings?-Why? Because they have not yet come to the Saviour; and they cannot think of the sentence of death as changed for them into the message of mercy, opening heaven to the pardoned sinner. Their soul is fixed on this world. They know of none but an earthly portion, or they desire no better. And hence the striking off their grasp from that, is to tear them from their chief good, and to drive them away helpless and hopeless. They cannot endure, therefore, to look forward to such an event. They hurry past the warnings of it. They rush into business. They immerse themselves in pleasures. They flee to the noise and madness of dissipation. They indulge in a thousand contrivances and all that they may repel, as an intruder, the thought of what is to come. But ah! is this safely done? Is it wisely devised? Is any thing gained by this? Can the nature of events be altered, or the course of time arrested by this? "O that men were wise, that they would consider their latter end." Shall we think, without secret shuddering, that, when "the dust returns to the earth as it was,"" the spirit," instead of returning in peace "unto God that gave it," is to be driven away in wrath? And why should we not desire earnestly to gain "the refuge from the wrath to come?" And desiring this, why should we not seek it now? Why should we postpone, day after day, year after year, to "consider our latter end," to consider "the things which belong to our everlasting peace ?" Wherefore reckon so boldly on our having future days and years granted to us? How is it supposed that we shall find a better and more convenient season than now for seeking reconciliation with God? Time may be given; and yet we may not have the opportunity; we may not have the will to seek it. And are we safe in delaying this to the close of life? What base ingratitude, besides, to resolve on neglecting the Saviour and his salvation, till we be forced to remember him by the overwhelming fear of destruction, or carelessly to put off the submission to him, till we have nothing to utter to him but broken and extorted cries for mercy amid the confusions of the fear of judgment! But "now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." Come and hear now, while God condescends to speak to you in love, beseeching you to be reconciled. Come and Ar the late anniversary meeting of the Cambridge Bible Society, the Rev. Professor Scholefield related the following anecdote of Mr Hone, the well-known author of infidelity, was travelling in Wales, on foot, and being the Every-Day Book :'-Mr Hone, in the days of his rather tired and thirsty, he stopped at the door of a cottage where there was a little girl seated reading, and whom he asked if she would give him a little water. 66 O yes, Sir," she said, "if you will come in, mother will give you some milk and water; upon which he went in and partook of the beverage, the little girl again resuming her seat and her book. After a short stay in the cottage he came out and accosted the child at the door,- Well, my little girl, are you getting your task?" "O no, Sir," she replied, "I am reading the Bible," "But," said Mr Hone, you are getting O no, Sir, it is no task your task out of the Bible." to me to read the Bible, it is a pleasure." This circumstance had such an effect upon Mr Hone that be determined to read the Bible too, and he is now, said Professor Scholefield, one of the foremost in upholding and defending the great truths contained in that holy book. RED SNOW, HAIL, AND RAIN. AT a time when the passion for scientific research is so On the 17th August 1818, Captain Ross, commander of the expedition sent out to explore Baffin's Bay, found, at 75° N. lat. and 67° W. long., on the points of rocks, a greenish crust, passing into the reddishit, deposited it in bottles, and brought it to Europe, brown and yellow. He collected a certain quantity of where it was submitted to the examination of several learned men, particularly to. Messrs Brown, Bauer, |