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much thinking of religion; he heard it frequently said, that any other mode of prayer would endanger his salvation; and that the Gospel was not preached in churches the truth of which he did not take the trouble to examine, but took it for granted that what his Minister told him was right. He did not reflect that the doctrines he heard were contrary to the mild and benevolent precepts of the Son of God, who constantly, in all his proverbs and divine sayings, inculcates universal charity to all mankind. St. Paul, following his great Master's footsteps, speaks and instructs his hearers in the same manner. What can be more beautiful than the description he gives, in the Corinthians, of charitable feelings!" Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." The doctrines the old man heard were very different from these beautiful and instructive precepts: however, he did not stop to examine his Bible, nor could he, had he been asked, have given any reason for his faith. His latter days, as we have seen, were clouded with sorrow, and his thoughts at the awful hour of death were more directed to the misery of leaving his darling child, than to any religious fears or hopes of the future. His son, who was more ardent in all his feelings, who rushed into evil with the greatest impetuosity, and then would stop and shudder at the precipice before him, had not strength of mind, after his second lapse into sin, to struggle with his vices, which had now the complete mastery over him. He constantly attended the chapel, but there nothing soothed and comforted his troubled mind: he heard it asserted, that from the beginning a few only were predestined to eternal life, the rest to everlasting torments. He must, therefore, he feared, be of the latter number, let his repentance be ever so sincere; what good, therefore,

would accrue from laying aside his vices. He generally left the chapel full of the most gloomy thoughts, and drowned all reflection in drunkenness and riot. The miseries of his wife and infant family he did not consider himself as the author of. GOD had predestined all his actions; he was therefore only a machine, with no power of his own to do right or wrong but though from this dreadful doctrine he could look with selfish apathy upon the sufferings he had caused, he could not with the same calmness contemplate his end, which would consign him to endless torments. That important Christian virtue, hope, which St. Paul puts next to faith, according to the strict Calvinistic sense, can have no place in the mind; for there it is either presumption or despair. This wretched young man at last, overcome by his intemperate habits, began to exhibit symptoms of a rapid decline. He presented, at this trying moment, a perfect contrast to the pious and resigned Hurdlemaker. As his strength declined, his horror at the thoughts of what he was predestined to suffer was inconceivably dreadful. He had no comfort in prayer, because, according to his religious creed, it could avail nothing. His flushed cheek, his starting eye, and lips parched with fever, his restless impatience under restraint, filled his relations and friends, who surrounded his death-bed, with dismay. Sometimes, if a medicine was presented to him, he would dash the vial in pieces, and call out, with a hollow peremptory voice, for strong liquors; and if he were indulged in this wish, (for as he was past hope, it was useless to oppose him,) he would, after sipping the cordial, throw it away, and bitterly upbraid his friends for endeavouring to hasten his end. That awful moment at last arrived: he became insensible, but this insensibility did not calm his horrors; his inward and incoherent speeches betrayed the agonies of his mind; and though he no longer knew his weeping friends, they had the misery of observing that

horror and despair had fast hold of him, and left him not, till nature, quite exhausted by such bodily and mental sufferings, resigned him to the arms of death.

We have in the history of this young man a striking and awful example of the mischievous effects of that religious creed, which banishes hope from the human mind, and in consequence of which man is taught to look up to the Maker of the world, not as to a father that pitieth his own children, but to a relentless and stern judge, that withholds all pardon and mercy. To show how delusive and dangerous these doctrines are, I need only mention CowPER, one of the most amiable and exemplary men that can be pointed out. The following was written when his mind was obscured by the mists of enthusiasm

"Friends and ministers said much,
The Gospel to enforce;

But my blindness still was such,
I chose a legal course.

Much I fasted, watch'd, and strove,
Scarce would I show my face abroad;

Fear'd almost to speak and move,

A stranger still to GOD.

Thus afraid to trust His grace,

Long time I did rebel;

Still despairing of my case,

Down at His feet I fell.

Then my stubborn heart He broke,
And subdu'd me to His sway;
By a simple word He spoke,

Thy sins are done away."

But these warm and delightful feelings were not realised; for this amiable and excellent man's last moments were embittered by the deepest despair of that mercy he has, in the hymn before us, so pathetically described, as having found, where, indeed, alone we can find it, at the foot of the cross.

THE

POOR COTTAGERS.

In the same beautiful village where the Hurdlemaker resided dwelt a worthy pair; their humble neat cottage stood embowered with wood, and commanding a great extent of beautiful country, hill and dale, interspersed with the mansions of the great and opulent, The village church, seen partially rising in the midst of these peaceful scenes, made the retreat of the poor cottagers a sweet and interesting subject for the pencil of the artist, particularly if he could have arrived at that happy moment when the labours of the day were ended, and witnessed the old man enjoying the glowing landscape, on a summer evening, at the porch of his cottage, over which the woodbine was trailed, and formed a bower of great simplicity and sweetness. It is pleasant to contemplate worth in every station; and the peaceful inhabitants of this cottage presented an example which might with propriety be held up for imitation. Let us trace the actions of both from their youth to their declining years, now fast hastening them to that "bourne, from whence no traveller returns." The old man was the son of an industrious labourer, who worked hard to maintain a wife and five children: they all grew up, following the same humble occupation as their father; but this son only survived to close the eyes of his aged parents, and found himself, at the age of two and twenty, alone in the world, death having torn from him his four brothers, who all died in the prime of their youth and

strength, and the father and mother soon followed them to the grave. He was now the sole occupier of the cottage, which had been purchased by his father, though only a day-labourer; but he was enabled to save some of his honest earnings by his sober and frugal habits, which never allowed him to frequent alehouses, and waste his money and time in destructive habits of drunkenness and idleness. The cottager trod in the steps of his father, and was an example of sobriety of manners and conduct. He soon married a respectable young woman, who made him a kind and affectionate wife. But it is not the lot of mortals to pass through life without sorrow and losses: the young man's sunshine was soon overclouded by the illness of his wife. She had brought him three children, and some months after the birth of the last her health declined, and she soon showed symptoms of consumption. The young man beheld, with deep affliction, the daily wasting strength of his beloved partner: he looked at his little ones, and sighed with bitterness to think they would soon have no mother to protect them. In the midst of his grief he found the greatest comfort from the visits of the clergyman of his parish, who came very frequently to offer religious consolation to the departing wife of the young cottager. She was resigned and calm; her mind was not distracted by vain doubts or fears; she had been taught, from her earliest youth, by a pious mother, that faith and good works cannot be separated. She had seen the peaceful and happy end of this excellent parent, and showed by her conduct that she had cherished all those principles which had been taught her; and now that she lay on the bed of death, soon to be snatched away, in the prime of her years, from those tender ties which so powerfully attach one to life, she found the greatest consolation in reflecting, that her short life had been unmarked with any flagrant offences. Errors, no doubt, she had, and many; but the Gospel taught her to look up and