mercy upon me!-have mercy, as thou prisoner had already been brought into the town hall to be undressed for the first-whipping, when an official message arrived from the court of magistrates at P, by which notice was given that the real murderer of the Jew Elieser had there been detected and brought into prison, and that he had already confessed his crime. Our prisoner was now immediately sent back into prison, but showed into a better room; and after the lapse of a week, he was in the most honourable terms restored to full liberty. The most respectable inhabitants of the town expressed their concern for his undeserved imprisonment, and their cordial sympathy in his release. He replied, "Your interest in my case affects my heart; but I cannot accept your compassion, for by my imprisonment I have lost little, but have gained infinitely." Very soon after having been set at liberty, he inquired after a pious minister of the Gospel; the Rev. Mr. B. was recommended to him as a holy man ; to him he opened his heart, and related to him all that he had experienced both in his outward and inner man, and most earnestly entreated him, that he might be baptized and admitted to the Lord's Supper. This son of Abraham, now in his heart a believer, longed for the day of his acquittal, of which, conscious of his innocence, he had not the least doubt This desire was not so much owing to his natural love of liberty, as to a wish to confess publicly with the mouth, what he believed with his heart, and to be added by baptism to the followers of Jesus Christ. He spent his time every day in reading the New Testament, which now had become his invaluable treasure, and he repeatedly perused it from the beginning to the end, with increasing interest and joy. In his examination before the court of justice, he defended himself with freeness, but modestly; even his judges confessed that his conduct bore testimony to his innocence; and the visible calmness of soul he showed when the bloody knife found in his pocket was produced, and his modest declaration on that occasion, staggered the judges. As to the final issue of the trial, the prisoner was without fear, quietly waiting for the day when God himself would be pleased to make his innocence When the minister had thoroughly manifest by some providential incident. examined him, he wrote thus to his After having been detained in prison superior: "He who, like this Israelite, for fifteen months, he received his sen- has been taught of God, does not stand tence, by which he was condemned to in need of human instruction. I have be whipped publicly before the town- found him so profoundly informed of hall, on three consecutive days, and every truth of our religion, and at the then to one year's hard labour in the same time so firmly convinced of its citadel. A tear dropped from his eyes divinity, that I should deem it sinful when the sentence was communicated to refuse him baptism." Some weeks to him, but he returned calm and re- afterwards he was publicly baptized in signed into his prison. the parish church, and then admitted The day of execution arrived; the to partake of the Lord's Supper. THOUGHTS ON AFFLICTION. THE Christian, in his sufferings, is often tempted to think himself forgotten. But his afflictions are the clearest proofs that he is an object both of Satan's enmity and of God's fatherly discipline. Satan would not have man suffer a single trouble all his life long, if he might have his way. He would give him the thing his heart is set upon. He would work in with his ambition. He would pamper his lust and his pride. But God has better things in reserve for his children; and they must be brought to desire them and seek them; and this will be through the wreck and sacrifice of all that the heart holds dear. The Christian prays for fuller manifestations of Christ's power and glory and love to him; but he is often not aware, that this is, in truth, praying to be brought into the furnace; for in the furnace only it is that Christ can walk with his friends, and display, in their preservation and deliverance, his own almighty power. Yet, when brought thither, it is one of the worst parts of the trial, that the Christian often thinks himself, for a time at least, abandoned. Job thought so. But while he looked on himself as an outcast, the Infinite Spirit and the Wicked Spirit were holding a dialogue on his case! He was more an object of notice and interest than the largest armies that were ever assembled, and the mightiest revolutions that ever shook the world, considered merely in their temporal interests and consequences. Let the Christian be deeply concerned, in all his trials, to honour his Master before such observers. Affliction has a tendency, especially if long continued, to generate a kind of despondency and ill-temper; and spiritual incapacity is closely connected with pain and sickness. The spirit of prayer does not necessarily come with affliction. If this be not poured out upon the man, he will, like a wounded beast, skulk to his den and growl there. A sound heart is an excellent casuist. Men stand doubting what they shall do, while an evil heart is at the bottom. If, with St. Paul, they simply did one thing, the way would be plain. A miser, or an ambitious man, knows his points; and he has such a simplicity in the pursuit of them, that you seldom find him at a loss about the steps that he should take to attain them. He has acquired a sort of instinctive habit in his pursuit. Simplicity and rectitude would have prevented a thousand schisms in the Church; which have generally risen from men having something else in plan and prospect, and not the one thing. "What I do, thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter," is the unvaried language of God in his providence. He will have CREDIT every step. He will not assign reasons, because he will exercise faith. "A LOOK AT HOME." MR. MILWAY, a Dissenting minister at Ipswich, at an early period in the last century, preaching on one occasion on the sin of pride, he particularized on pride in dress; but remembering with sorrrow how applicable his observations were to the case of his own daughters, who were remarkable for their undue attachment to dress, and whom he had often vainly endeavoured to reform in that particular, he observed, with much feeling, "But you will say, Look at home. My good friends. I do look at home, till my heart aches!" CLASSIFICATION OF THE PSALMS BY BISHOP HORSLEY. Services of the Festivals of the Jewish PSA. 19, 104, 148, Sabbath. 78, 105, 114, Passover. 101, 135, 136, Pentecost. 65, 67, Feast of Tabernacles. A war song, 149. Thanksgiving for national deliverance Thanksgiving after a storm, hurricane, Upon placing the ark in Solomon's Prayer in seasons of national calamity, 89. Prayers for help in war, 44, 60, 61. Prayers in the time of Manasseh's cap- Thanksgiving for Manasseh's return, Prayers, lamentations, and confessions of the captives, 74, 77, 102, 106, 137. A king of Judah's inauguration vow, 101. Grand chorus for all the voices and all The blessedness of the righteous, and The extermination of the irreligious True godliness described as distinct The believer's scruples, arising from 3, 4, 10, 12, 13, 17, 42, 43, 54, 120, The believer's penitential confessions Believers lament their afflicted state in Prayer for grace and mercy, 5, 25, 26, Songs of triumph in prospect of the A believer's general praises and thanks- A believer's thanksgiving for the final The Church prays for preservation The Church prays for deliverance from the persecution of her enemies, The Church gives thanks for Messiah's The Church gives thanks for her final The Church gives thanks for the final 92. Messiah's prayers, 22, 35, 41, 56, 57, 61, Messiah's thanksgivings, 40, 117, 118, Messiah's accusation of the impenitent Messiah comforts the afflicted Israelites with the promise of the final excision Messiah predicts the final judgment, 75. God's judgment foretold upon the un- Biography. REMARKABLE DISPLAY OF DIVINE GRACE. In perusing the record of the triumphs great object of her desires and pur of divine mercy in the page of inspira- I was suits-an interest in the favour and friendship of God. After spending a number of years in the diligent performance of these outward duties, she at length became the victim of disease, and being stretched on the bed of sickness, and constrained in the issue to look forward to the approaching solemnities of death, she found that notwithstanding all the diligence and zeal with which she had been, as she imagined, engaged in the service of God, she had utterly failed in obtaining that which would support her mind in the view of appearing before the judgment-seat of Christ. called to visit her at this important crisis. When I entered the room, and inquired into the state of her mind, "Oh, sir," said she, "I have been a professor of religion from my youth. I have been employed as I thought in fulfilling all the duties incumbent on me as a professing Christian, in reading the Scriptures, in prayer, and in attending the ordinances; and in the prosecution of this course I concluded that I should certainly at last attain to the enjoyment of that hope which would sustain me in the prospect of eternity. But now," she added, "on looking back upon all that I have done, I find, that instead of performing any service which could be acceptable in the sight of God, my whole life has just been one continued course of transgression; and now," she added with great emotion, "I have no hope!" When she had uttered these words, her husband, who was sitting by (a sergeant or corporal in a regiment of veterans then in Edinburgh Castle) unable to repress his poignant feelings, exclaimed, "Oh, sir, if you had seen my wife sooner, she could have answered you satisfactorily upon every subject connected with religion; but now she is not in her right mind." "No," replied I, "but she is just coming to it." The reply was dictated by the strong and irresistible impression which I felt, that He whose office it is to convince the world of sin, and by whose almighty energy I was satisfied, those refuges of. lies, under which she had been attempting for so many years to find shelter, were now so completely swept away, would not fail also to convince her of righteousness. I immediately expressed to her the satisfaction it afforded me to hear the account she had given of herself. I told her that I considered it a great and an unspeakable mercy, that it had pleased God to open her eyes to see the folly, the criminality, and the danger of that selfrighteous course she had been prosecuting for so many years, and the utter impossibility of her standing before God on the footing of any obedience she could yield to a law she had so often violated by her transgressions. I showed her that the law of God denounced its awful and tremendous curse upon every soul of man that had failed for a single moment, or in one single instance, in yielding to it that perfect and spotless obedience which it demanded; and that by this law, she, in common with myself and all the human race, were justly condemned at the bar of God. I stated to her, at the same time, the indispensable necessity of atonement being made to that law for all the sins with which its transgressor was chargeable, in order to his escaping the execution of its dreadful penalty; and then I proceeded to explain to her, the fulness and the perfection of that atonement which Jesus, the God-man, had presented in the room of the guilty. I noticed, that by the shedding of his precious blood, all the claims of divine justice were fully satisfied-the honour of the divine government maintainedthe truth and the righteousness of God in the unutterably awful sentence he had passed against sin, fully vindicated, and yet a way opened by which he could extend the riches of his mercy and grace to the chief of sinners. I stated to her the divine, absolute, and unconditional freeness with which this great salvation was now proclaimed in the Gospel; and I pointed her attention to those declarations of the word of God, in which sinners were assured that, however great and aggravated and innumerable their offences were, they were nevertheless invited to come, and to receive a full and free salvation from the divine Saviour, without money and without price. And that even now, though on the very brink of eternity, if she would only welcome the blissful message that "God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son to die in the room of the guilty," and, renouncing for ever all confidence in her own righteousness, commit her eternal all into the hands of the divine Saviour, she should not perish, but have eternal life. Having stated to her all this, and more of a similar import, she looked upon me apparently with emotions of inexpressible surprise, and said, “I never heard that before," language which no doubt intimated that her mind had never |