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mense.

The responsibility is cre- Discipline is interrupted, the church
is divided into parties, hard things
are said on both sides, the bond of
love is broken, tender minds are
grieved and retire, worship is but
thinly attended, and the enjoyment
of it is vanished; God's friends
mourn in secret, and his enemies
triumph, saying, Aha, so would
we have it! Truly it is a serious
thing to occasion the ruin of a
church of Christ! If any man de-
file the temple of God, him shall
God destroy !"-(Fuller's Works,
vol. iv. p. 530.)
Swansea.

ated of having increased the en-
mity of the world, of distracting
the feeble-minded, and of obliging
many to halt in the right way, and
perhaps to retrace their steps to
sin; and members of churches
have to answer for an evil, which
by itself would be one of the great-
est crimes of the avowed enemies
of the Gospel. It is not merely
an injury inflicted on the church,
it is the work of Satan in the world
--not merely a wound on a parti-
cular interest, which may be heal-
ed, but a virulent and rapid pesti-
lence, spreading widely, and for
years, beneath whose deadly in-
fluence many souls perish, long ON
after the fate of those from whom
the contagion first spread is sealed
for ever.

The writer of these remarks cannot forbear concluding with a quotation from the late devoted Mr. Fuller-a passage which applies with an awful precision to the circumstances under which this paper is penned :

"If it were duly considered how much the general interests of religion, and even the salvation of men, may be affected by the purity and harmony of Christian churches, we should tremble at the idea of their being interrupted by us. The planting of a church in a neighbourhood, that the Gospel may be preached, 'and the ordinances of Christ administered in their purity, is a great blessing. It is a temple reared for God, in which he designs to record his name, to meet with his humble worshippers, and to bless them. We have seen churches of this description in the midst of a career of spiritual prosperity, edifying one another in love, and gathering souls to the Redeemer's standard, all, in a little time, blasted and ruined by some unhappy event that has thrown them into disorder.

THE EVIDENCES OF GRACE IN YOUNG CHRISTIANS WHO HAVE ENJOYED THE ADVANTAGES OF A RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

YOUNG Christians who have been favoured with pious friends, and have enjoyed the advantages of religious instruction from their earliest days, are frequently discouraged because they cannot refer to any remarkable change in their experience, as evidence of their being born again of the Holy Spirit. The cause of their despondency, it is presumed, may be traced partly to their attributing sentiments and feelings to a religious education, which have their origin in the operations of the Holy Spirit; and partly to their looking for an extent and degree of evidence which can only be enjoyed after a considerable period of religious experience. Perhaps a few remarks on each of these points may assist in correcting their views and encouraging their hopes.

It cannot be doubted that a religious education has a great and salutary influence over the character. It stores the mind with valuable knowledge, directs it to important subjects, and, to a certain extent, trains it to correct thinking;

it also lays a restraint on the pas- Under the influence of this gosions, and is favourable to the verning sin they have been insenadoption of virtuous principles, and [sible to truth; self-deceived and to honourable and useful conduct self-complacent, they have not exin society. Nevertheless, a reli-perienced the sorrow of a contrite gious education is not religion, heart; they have not trusted in the neither does it ensure its posses- merit of a substitutionary sacrifice sion. It is to character what skil- for pardon, they have not sought ful workmanship is to metal, it sanctification through the word and gives to it form, adaptation, and Spirit of God. Their conduct may polish; but it cannot turn the iron have been unimpeachable towards and brass into silver and gold. men, and they may have attained There are latent evils in human to many things of good report; so nature, which no course of educa- that even to a Christian their defition can remove; there is a mental ciencies have not been visible, till darkness which no human teach- he has come to the stone on which ing can enlighten; there is a carnal they stumble, and to the rock of tendency in the heart, which no offence from which they turn aside. human power can eradicate; and There the radical evil has come to there is a waywardness in the will, light, and its influence has been which no human discipline can traced in every end proposed and subdue. They who have enjoyed in every motive cherished; all of the best education, and have stu- which fall short of the work of died morals and religion, have Christ, and the grace and glory of never, unassisted by the Holy Spi- God. Then has the whole fabric rit, seen the excellence, and im- of their sentiments, their virtuous portance, and advantages of godli-habits, and their religious performness in their true nature; but they ances, appeared but "wood, hay, invariably view them through the and stubble," resting on a sandy fallacious medium of prejudice. foundation; and although outward"The natural man receiveth not ly adorned after the similitude of a the things of the Spirit of God, for temple, yet within all has been they are foolishness unto him; dark and cold as the habitation of neither can he know them, because death. The edifice, without strength they are spiritually discerned." and without support, is exposed to Such persons, it is presumed, have every blast, and sooner or later always resigned themselves to the must inevitably fall. Happy are dominion of some baneful principle, they who, being convinced of their which has perverted the judgment, danger, flee to the hope set before and induced them to rest in some- them in the Gospel. The evidences thing short of the grace of God, therefore of a person being in a and the righteousness of Christ; natural state, or under the domiand however correct their general nion of sin, who has enjoyed the conduct, and however amiable advantages of a religious educatheir private character, still there tion, are often found to consist, has been some "wicked way in not so much in the positive evil them," which they have preferred which he does before men, as in before the way of holiness; and to what he neglects to do in private which they have obstinately ad- devotion and the more spiritual hered, in opposition to the most duties of religion; not so much in tender entreaties, the most power-outward deformity of character, as ful arguments, and the most solemn in the moral disease that preys warnings. upon the inner man; an insensi

bility to the pollution and guilt of sin, a thinking more highly of himself than he ought to think, a selfrighteous spirit, or a presuming on the grace of God while the heart is a stranger to its influence. These characterize a man as dead in trespasses and sins.

at one time than at another. And spiritual desires, love to God, and the enjoyment of the word and privileges of the Gospel, may vary with circumstances and seasons. The flesh will lust against the spirit, and Satan will suggest doubts and excite fears. Trials will exerThe evidences of a person being cise faith and put fortitude and born again of the Holy Spirit, are patience to the test, moments of now to be considered. These are light, and peace, and joy in befrequently, if not generally, in the lieving, may be followed by dark characters referred to, found to seasons of temptation, or painful consist, not so much in sudden and discoveries of the revival of dispopowerful convictions, alarming sitions which were considered as fears and deep despondency, fol- crucified and dead. As it is in lowed by lively hope and rapturous joy (which may sometimes attend conversions from open and flagrant wickedness), as in the gradual understanding and feeling of the truth as it is in Jesus; a mourning over past deficiencies and present insensibility; an habitual desire for scriptural knowledge, faith in Christ, love to God, and holiness of heart and practice; a conscientious attention to secret prayer and the means of grace in general; a watchfulness over the mind and heart; and a self-denial in many things which were once esteemed as innocent, or indulged in without remorse. A dependence also on the atonement and intercession of Christ, and on the teaching and other operations of the Holy Spirit, in order to the more satisfactory enjoyment of the blessings promised in the Gospel, and the promotion of the divine glory, will be felt and cherished by the convert; and viewed by all his pious connections with gratitude and hope.

Let not the young Christian, however, conclude, that all these evidences are enjoyed to the same extent and degree in every character, and at all times. Sorrow for sin. may be more poignant in some than in others, and more powerful

nature, so it is in grace; the germ
is often for a time checked in its
growth, by the unfavourable soil
in which it is placed, and the ver-
dure, and bloom, and fragrance of
spring are sometimes overcast by
dark clouds, and assailed by win-
try storms.
Let not the young
Christian, however, despond, as
though some strange thing hath
happened unto him, for similar
trials attend every believer. Nei-
ther should he be cast down and
write bitter things against himself,
because he is conscious of weak-
ness, and cannot understand the
whole counsel of God, and fre-
quently feels and profits but little
in reading, and hearing, and pray-
ing. Let him remember that he is
but a babe in Christ. For the
present, it will become him to take

the sincere milk of the word, that he may grow thereby ;" and after years of instruction and experience, his understanding will be better informed, his judgment more mature and correct, his love rooted and grounded in Christ and his salvation; and he will thus gradually come "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." As an antidote to present doubts and fears, let him look at the unlimited invitations and gracious promises of the

Gospel; in which the Saviour holds | each varied form, and painted each out encouragement to every sin- unrivalled charm, is not only dener to come unto him, and receive prived of exquisite enjoyment, but everlasting life. The conscious- derogates those intellectual faculness of sincere desire to know and ties which give him the pre-emido the truth, and "to be found in nence over the animal creation. In Christ, not having on his own righ-proportion as we extend our obteousness, which is of the law, but servation, we become more deeply that which is through the faith of conscious of our ignorance, imbeChrist, the righteousness which is cility and dependence, and of the of God by faith, which is unto all necessity of seeking the protection and upon all them that believe," of Him who "laid the foundation may be considered as one of the of the earth," whose "mercy is first effects of divine grace in the great above the heavens and whose heart; and "He that hath begun truth reacheth unto the clouds." the good work in you, will perform "Day unto day uttereth speech, it until the day of Jesus Christ." and night unto night sheweth knowledge." The ample volume of nature is spread open before us, and will well repay our attentive perusal; for God is its author.

Let the young Christian also consider the experience of those "who through faith and patience are inheriting the promies." They were men of like passions with

ourselves:

"Once they were mourning here below, And wet their couch with tears; They wrestled hard as we do now,

With sins, and doubts, and fears."

And say, if he who called, and justified, and placed in glory the once sanguinary Manasseh, the unchaste Magdalen, the persecuting Saul, with a multitude of prejudiced Jews, blaspheming priests, superstitious heathens, and scoffing infidels of every nation, has not given ample proof that he is both able and willing to save all who come to God by him? Loughton.

S. B.

When at midnight we behold radiant worlds like so many gems, bedeck the cerulean sky, and the crystal orb emitting a softened radiance on the darksome earth, we are filled with admiration and devout awe. Imagination fain would stretch her flight beyond the contracted limits of this lower creation, and silently expatiate amid countless worlds and systems of worlds,revolving harmoniously with inconceivable velocity in their appointed courses. Amazed at the matchless power of the august Architect, who but must exclaim with Israel's illustrious monarch, "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordain

NATURE VIEWED WITH THE EYE OF ed, what is man that thou art

A CHRISTIAN.

mindful of him? and the son of It is an ennobling employment of man that thou visitest him?" In the human mind to contemplate the immensity of his works the the works of Nature, and in them Creator has not been regardless of to trace the mighty power, the us, but in their design and adaptaconsummate wisdom, and the in- tion to promote our comfort and finite beneficence of their divine moral improvement, he has displayAuthor. The individual whose ed infinite wisdom and beneficence. heart is unsusceptible of one grateThe minute and simple portions ful emotion to Him, who sketched of the creation, the most insignifi

cant insect, weed, shell or pebble, ment of the divine purpose in the

even the dew drop that sparkles scheme of human redemption, when awhile upon the trembling leaf, evidence is afforded that permits affords an incontestible evidence him to appropriate to himself its of a divine hand. Its beautiful inestimable advantages. He detint is produced by the same rays rives from each natural phenomethat impart brilliancy of colouring non some useful monition, to to the costly diamond; and its advance his moral and spiritual sphericity is determined by the improvement. In those tremensame law that gave form to the dous engines of Omnipotence, the globe on which we dwell, and the volcano, the earthquake, the hurinnumerable spheres which are re-ricane, and the thunderstorm, he volving over our heads. Its ines-recognizes the mighty arm so catimable use in the process of vege-pable of protecting him from every tation marks it as the product of menacing danger. "The pillars of supreme intelligence. heaven tremble, and are astonished The philosopher, alas! often at his reproof." The Christian, bewildered in his speculations, with child-like confidence reposes forgets the invisible hand that on that awful agent created each atom, and assigned its laws and relations in the system of the universe; or, acknowledging a supreme agency in this ar- When the tempest gathers over rangement, he neglects to avail the vast expanse of ocean, and himself of those lessons of wisdom the waters thereof roar and are which it unfolds to view. But troubled, he views its rolling waves when Christianity is associated as a transient yet touching memowith philosophy, she invests her rial of the moment when his spirit discoveries with more attractive was overwhelmed by the billows graces, a more refined and exalted of sorrow; he remembers the omcharacter. Then the enlightened nipotent arm that restrained their votary of science tenders a devout fury and the voice that proclaimed, homage to the invisible author of "hitherto shalt thou come but no these matchless productions. farther." His faith is firmly fixed on the veracity of those promises which he knows are more immoveably secure than the rooted rock that bids defiance to the beating

The ancients contemplated their groves, grottoes, fountains, &c. as consecrated by the presence of some tutelar deity. To the Christian every object of nature

"Prompts with remembrance of a present God."

He realizes the truths so admirably expressed by the bard of feeling

"One spirit-His Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding

brows,

Rules universal nature.

"Who rides upon the whirlwind and directs the storm.

surge.

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His presence, who made all so fair, perceiv-little hills rejoice on every side."

ed,

Makes all still fairer."

Each gentle zephyr bears on its wing a token of divine beneficence,

He regards the course of nature and returns when the heart is suitas subservient to the accomplish-ably affected, laden with a contrite

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