tion. Such is the miserable end of him who seeks, by the works of the law, to be justified before God.

hearts by the Holy Spirit, exhibits the danger of such a course; and the believer, strengthened with might by that Spirit in the inner man, goes forth to meet his Lord, seeking no covert but the strong tower of his adorable name.

BOWING AT THE NAME OF JESUS.

AMONG the innovations that are perpetually creeping in, changing the customs, and invading the institutions of our forefathers, who, after all, were, perhaps a little wiser than their descendants, I am often grieved to witness the growing neglect of a most seemly and reverential ob

And who shall then be safe when the quiver of the Almighty is scattered around and the dart of vengeance seems pointed at each guilty bosom? He shall be safe, who, rejecting all that earth can offer, renouncing all that flesh can do, goes forth into an unsheltered space, and casts himself upon the Lord alone. Does he dread the hand upraised to smite?—the shadow of that hand is his only hiding-place. O, let him but behold in it the hand that was nailed to the cross on Calvary; the hand from which trickled a crimson stream to wash away his sin; and, though it grasp the lightning that shall consume every servance,-bowing at the name of Jesus, unbeliever, it has no terrors for him. He when reciting the creeds of our Church. knows that the briars and thorns, yea, the One might naturally expect, that, in days oaks and palaces that man confides in, are when infidelity rears its brazen front with but set in array against God, provoking impudence unparalleled, when blasphehim to go through and consume them; mies abound, and scoffers walk on every but he who flies to Jesus, and, in the bold-side insensible to rebuke, the people of ness of simple faith, takes hold of his Christ would wax more jealous-would strength, shall find that in him is perfect security. Appointed to be the Judge of all men, Christ is terrible indeed to those who reject his rule. Rocks and mountains shall vainly be invoked to hide from the wrath of the Lamb such as now make light of his message of love. For them, all the terrors of the broken law remain; and from its vengeance nothing can shield them. But equally true it is, that to the humble believer this awful Judge is the surest of advocates; and the very power | that makes him terrible to others, seals the confidence of his children. They know him as one mighty to save; they know that, towards them,

"He hath still'd the law's loud thunder,

He hath quench'd Mount Sinai's flame."

In the hour of elementary strife, nature leads us to the lofty tree, while reason brings many plausible arguments to recommend such a shelter; but when science has revealed the peril of fleeing to it, he must be indeed infatuated who prefers not the open plain. In like manner, nature and carnal reason oppose the act of confiding faith, as the very madness of enthusiastic folly, and would fain persuade us to turn to some refuge of man's contriving; but the light of revelation, directed to our

become more tenacious of every badge distinguishing them as the worshippers of an insulted Lord. New light, however, seems to have broken in upon some of them, which I do not believe to have come from heaven, whencesoever else it may have emanated; teaching them that now is the time to relax in those points-the season to rob the Lord of those outward demonstrations of respect, which his enemies (who have no idea of spiritual service) delight to see withdrawn from him. "It is too popish," say some of these defaulters; "it is a mere bodily exercise, which profiteth little." Craving your pardon, my good friends, it is not popish. Popery yields little honour to Jesus: his name is not referred to in her services nearly so often as those of other mediators; his work is undervalued---his glory tarnished. He is not even once mentioned either in the confession or the absolution of that unhappy church. It is true, his image, and that of his cross, are exhibited as objects of idolatrous worship, and that to them a genuflexion is performed; but we, when, by doing reverence at the mention of his adorable name, as Jesus Christ, the Father's only Son, and our LORD, we enter a solemn public protest against the blasphemies of Socinianism, no more approximate

to popish superstition, than we do when verbally acknowledging the grand doctrine of the Triune Jehovah, which the church of Rome has never renounced. Popery is that which once was Christianity, now corrupted, defiled, and rendered void by man's traditions and commandments. Protestantism is Christianity, rescued and REFORMED upon the perfect model of Scripture. Our beautiful liturgy is no other than the Romish prayer-book, purged of all that the craft and subtlety of the devil, or man, had introduced to pollute a pure worship; and those who object to the beautiful symbol of the liquid cross marked on the brow of the baptised, "in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith | of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner, against sin, the world and the devil; and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end;" they who stiffen the neck and knee when an assembled congregation presses, as it were, into the participation of what, either as a privilege or a menace, is proclaimed to the whole universe, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow,---are in some peril of losing a substance, in their eager grasp after a shadowy spirituality.

the worship of God. To deny, or indeed to curtail, the homage of the body, in order to exalt that of the soul, is going against universal experience, and against the tenor of His injunctions, who knows better what is in man than man himself does.

To me, I confess, it is a very delightful moment of realization, in regard to the privileges of church-membership, when brethren and sisters, with one accord, do outward homage to the name of HIM who, in taking their nature upon him, never ceased to be God over all, blessed for ever. It is very meet that flesh, which he deigned to take into communion with Deity, should, with lowly and external reverence, hail God manifest in the flesh. "Jesus Christ our Lord," are words of mighty, of immeasurable import. The Saviour, the Anointed, OUR Saviour, our God, the Captain of our salvation, the Head of his body the church, which body (at least in profession) are we. It was he who wore our form, who bore our griefs, and carried our sorrows; who walked our earth a persecuted, afflicted man; who hung on the cross to atone for our sins; descended into the grave, that it might become the gate of life to us; and now, in the majesty of his eternal glory, visits our temples, and hearkens to our prayers. Let those who can, deny him the poor tribute of grateful reverence; so long as I have power to bend a muscle, my knee shall bow, in deep and willing adoration, at the glorious and beloved NAME of JESUS CHRIST my LORD.

THE LOVE OF MONEY.

Our rubric enjoins kneeling during the supplicatory portions of the service; and fast and far are our congregations departing from that command. Yet no man can have the face to assert that the bodily exercise of kneeling is not enjoined or implied as a duty throughout the New Testament; enforced, too, by the example of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. I do not know, because I have never tried, and I trust in God I never shall be induced to try, what degree of devotional feeling ONE of several things that are "too accompanies a sitting position, during the hard for me," and which I cannot by any worship of my heavenly King; but I very means comprehend, is the passion thus much question the advantages of such designated in Scripture, with the awful demeanour. While we remain in the character superadded, that it is "the root body, we cannot dissever the intimate of all evil." I can readily conceive that connexion subsisting between the outward money, as a means of procuring other act and inward thought; and it does ap- gratifications, may be coveted almost bepear an odd way of obeying the apostolic yond bounds. He who has a full purse exhortation, "glorify God in your body may cast his eyes over every stall in and in your spirit, which are his," to at- Vanity Fair, and select whatever pleases tempt such disjunction of mind and matter, them. He may command all that tends just where we are admonished specially to fulfil "the desires of the flesh and of to unite them in the service, and surely in the mind," in the worst sense of their

201

corrupt cravings; he may take a nobler | dulgence, I behold the unfolding germ of range, and minister out of his substance what will become a very evil tree. When I mark a purchaser striving to to the temporal necessities of his poorer brethren; or he may ascend yet higher beat down the humble dealer, who, perground, and, the love of Christ constrain-haps, consents to be robbed rather than ing him, scatter the bread of life in the lose a customer, I find the tree in blossom way of famishing souls. That the pos--and what blossoms! Often have I witsession of money, therefore, should ap-nessed a scene that crimsons my cheek pear to men of all characters a desirable with the blush of shame and indignation: good, so far as to render a cautionary some poor, industrious creature offering injunction needful even to the holiest of for sale a few baskets, or some other little God's people, is natural enough. But work of ingenuity, the pale face and there is a form sometimes taken by gaunt figure bearing witness how imthis money-loving principle that equally portant the trifle at which the article is amazes and disgusts me, when found priced must be to the seller; while the among those who profess more than buyer, who would not miss thrice the nominal Christianity; while, in all cases, sum, stands chaffering and "beating it is unspeakably contemptible and re- down" the distressed vender, until she volting to common sense. I mean the carries off the article at half its value, and glories in her disgraceful "bargain." passion for hoarding money. This does not always result from the love of money; for I have seen the pence so unfeelingly withheld from an industrious artizan, carelessly flung, within a few minutes afterwards, to some sturdy vagrant, who roared out his appeal to the very questionable charity of the donor. A scene in a stage-coach I never can forget: we were waiting for the moment of starting, when a poor woman, evidently in the last stage of consumption, offered some fine oranges at the door for sale. One of the passengers commenced bargaining (I hate the very word), and succeeded in tantalising the distressed creature until she emptied her whole store into his lap, with a despairing look, for what I, who had often filled a basket for such perishing outcasts, well knew to be far beneath the prime cost of the fruit; and as, while replacing his weighty purse, he chuckled and bragged over his capital bargain, I could hardly refrain from telling him that, by withholding the little profit on her stock, he had left that almost dying woman destitute of the means of replenishing it; and had, perhaps, wrested the morsel from the lips of a starving family. Oh, the love of money, taking this shape, slays many a victim among the honest poor; driving many more to crime and irretrievable ruin!

When a person lays by a sum, without any intention of spending it, and without any defined object of future usefulness to other individuals, is it, can it be of more value to him than an equal quantity of the dust that lies upon the earth's surface, or of pebbles that glitter in the brook? "Thou fool!" is the recognised title of him who lays up much goods for many years, in order to take his fill, to eat, drink, and be merry. Thou knave! may be safely superadded, when the wretched being grasps at gold, that it may lie by and canker, and the rust thereof be a witness against him, while the poor cry unto the Lord for lack of what he hoards in darkness. Still, the miser exercises a species of self-denial-preposterous and wicked indeed, but self-denial nevertheless-and that is a thing not voluntarily submitted to by many. Such characters do cross my path, and I gaze after them and marvel; but the number is fearfully great of those who come within the meaning of the text, and whose love of money, though they hoard it not, is a prolific root of evil, sprouting forth on all sides.

When I see a child, with a penny in his hand or pocket, carelessly glance at the half-naked figure and wan countenance of another child, crying for bread, while he retains his penny, in the cherished prospect of the cake or toy-shop, where he hopes to barter it for some superfluous in

VOL. II.

26

The love of money, under a very specious form, sometimes creeps into even our best religious societies, inducing their

managers to put the tempting idol in the | time; save and except an hour-glass of

place of God, where their funds are concerned. "Let us secure ample means, and God will bless our labours," is the, perhaps unconscious, error of those, who ought rather to say, "Let us seek God's blessing, and the means will be given." For this we have distinct warrant in Scripture; and it is lamentable to observe how little is looked for in simple faith, how much laboured for with confidence in fleshly wisdom and might, where we should expect the very reverse of this rule. If we could but get our minds fully impressed with the conviction, that the love of money is the root of all evil, we should detect and baffle the enemy at many points where he now carries on successful as saults, which we shall only discover by their consequences, when, perhaps, it is too late.

THE HOUR-GLASS.

capacious dimensions, standing on the
broad ledge of an old-fashioned casement,
near the left hand of its owner, who, with
quick, careful glance, failed not to detect
the last sand in the act of escaping, and to
reverse, in the twinkling of an eye, the
silent monitor. I was, even at an infan-
tine age, somewhat given to thought; and
happy was the day to me, when I could
obtain leave to go and ask our civil neigh-
bour for a few snippings of her many-
coloured materials, to eke out the ward-
robe of a two-penny doll. She was no
loser by it; for I was often permitted to
carry a basket of fruit, or choice vegeta-
bles, from our spacious garden, to regale
the old lady; and I took care so to time
my visits, as to ensure being present at
that adroit and interesting operation, the
turning of her hour-glass.

Many years have passed since then,
Many changes have I seen;

and, from this early recollection being deeply impressed, I cannot now cast my eyes on an old-fashioned hour-glass, but it becomes identified with that of the good sempstress. I seem to view it through the long, checquered vista that lies between me and the scenes of careless childhood; and as a rapid glance scans that intervening space, the hour-glass becomes a memento more touching than any classical association could render it.

THE perfection to which our modern mechanics have carried the art of watch and clock-making, with the abundance, and comparative cheapness, of those useful auxiliaries, has rendered the simple and once popular hour-glass quite a rarity among us. Perhaps its scarceness is one recommendation; for our proud, impatient spirits, ever athirst for something new and strange, spurn at what is abundant and common. One of my earliest recollections There is surely something more suitable leads me to the modest dwelling of a wor- to the stealthy lapse of time, in the noisethy old spinister, who followed the em- less and almost imperceptible fall of the ployment of a bonnet-maker, occasionally sands, than in the ticking of chronometers, repairing and remodelling chintz dresses, more practically useful. The deepening of fabric too valuable to be thrown away, vacancy above, the rising heap beneath, and of fashion too antique to suit the then and the falling away, from time to time, modern taste. I remember her, a tall, of that miniature mountain which gathers spare figure, seated in fashion as upright below-all have a meaning. I observe as the high back of her wooden chair, and that the sand in the upper division of the exercising despotic rule over two young glass, running from the centre, often leaves damsels, apprenticed to learn the mystery a hollow, producing deception as to the of her calling. A well-boarded floor, quantity actually subtracted. Clinging strewed with dry yellow sand, a small yet to the sides, it makes the vacancy look square bit of carpet laid precisely in front less; just as we love to deceive ourselves of the white hearth-stone, a little round- as to the proportion of our numbered days table placed before the mistress and just that has escaped. The pyramidical apwithin arm's length of the girls, and a de-pearance of the sand below, as the last mure tabby cat, purring on a low three-particles that fall produce an eminence, legged stool-these are all the particulars until, displaced by following grains, they that I can avouch for, at this distance of sink into the common level, vividly repre

sents the undue importance assumed by in order to ascertain how far the minds of events while yet very recent; although, these teachers are imbued with the truths while dwelling on their magnitude, we that they communicate to others. One well know that, displaced by other things, query, addressed to a very simple, unthey will soon be mingled with the com- learned man, who manifested great love mon mass of recollections. It were easy for the sacred book, was to this effect: to moralize at great length on the subject; "If you were threatened with persecution but I would rather spiritualize, and read and suffering for retaining your Bible, the lesson in its highest, holiest sense. would you give it up?" A pause ensued, "So teach us to number our days, that and the question was repeated, with a we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." demand for some reply. "Please your The days remaining to us we cannot num-reverence," said the poor fellow, "and ber, for we know not but that our very with submission, I think that question is last sand is escaping while we try to com- not rightly put." "How so? In what pute; but the days that are gone-O, way would you have it expressed?" what a testimony do they bear against us!" Why, then, sir, and begging your reveWe may have applied our time and facul- rence's pardon, I think you should ask me, ties to the acquirement of wisdom, accor- if I was threatened with such things for ding to the general sense of the word keeping my Bible, oUGHT I to give it up? among men; but our hearts-our most For, sir, how do I know what I WOULD do secret desires and ardent affections-how if I was tempted?" far have they been centered in the wisdom that is from above, and in "Christ, the wisdom of God?" An honest answer to this question, would send the greater number of us to the throne of grace, with the confession that we still have to be taught this application of heart to the purposes designed by our heavenly Father. Solomon trod the whole round of carnal and intellectual enjoyments, having his fill of all wisdom; yet how late in his long and prosperous life did he sit down to write "vanity of vanities" upon it all, and apply his heart to the God from whom, through the abuse of his abundant gifts, the favoured king had so deeply revolted! Let me number the days that are gone; and seeing how God has hitherto been robbed by me, let me strive to redeem the few that may still remain.

WHAT OUGHT I TO DO?

A STRIKING anecdote was related at one of the May meetings, by a clergyman from the south of Ireland, in proof of the real profit derived by some of the poorest classes from a free perusal of the word of God. At the periodical assemblage of men, generally of a very humble rank, who are employed to read the Scriptures in Irish to their poor ignorant countrymen, a series of questions are propounded by the clergymen who attend as examiners,

Such an instance of self-knowledge, and consequently of self-distrust, in one who had received no teaching but what the Holy Spirit had communicated to his soul, conveys an impressive lesson to many who live in the constant enjoyment of every help to divine study. From whence arise the frequent and harsh judgments that Christians are heard to pass upon their fellows, if not from a confident conceit on the part of the individual, that he, in similar circumstances, would have acted more consistently, more prudently, more decisively, or in some way more suitably, than his neighbour has done? The poor Irish peasant had evidently read his Bible with more profit to himself than such persons seem to do; and a little of his experimental knowledge of the traitor within, would often appear an acquisition worth bartering many of our higher attainments to acquire. What would I do in such or such a case? is, in fact, a question beyond the power of any man to solve: and by flattering himself that he can solve it, he does but nourish the self-confidence of a deceived heart. What ought I to do? is a safe and profitable inquiry. It sends the man to his Bible and to his God. The former teaches him both his duty, and the moral incapacity under which he lies of fulfilling it, or any duty whatever, in his own strength; at the same time it refers him to a power always to be acquired by believing