character; but when, on the contrary, we find the miseries of human life, and no reconciled Father to cheer and support, how painful the thought! The

gentlemen are doing much to relieve our suffering poor; the noblemen have given liberally. The temporal wants have excited a deep interest. O that we were all as anxious about the immortal part, and deeply impressed with eternal realities! This is the work of the Holy Spirit.

I am very happy to hear of your mercies with respect to outward circumstances, and trust you are also full, and abound with inward consolations and holy delights. I am thankful that you have been blessed with bodily health, as I think it will be one means of enabling you to accomplish your very important studies with ease and comfort. Be careful of the blessing, endeavour to preserve it, while you wisely improve it. May you be taught of God, and made wise to win souls! O, it is a desirable attainment to increase in the knowledge and love of Jesus. May

you be favoured with a large portion of the spirit which animated St. Paul, when he said, "Yea, doubtless and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of Christ Jesus my Lord."

I can easily suppose you must be very much occupied till The enlightening influences of the Holy Spirit will assist you; and if filled with the spirit of wisdom, you will be fitted, consecrated, and sanctified for the honourable work assigned you.

***When I think you will have to inform the ignorant, correct the mistaken, rouse the secure in sin, comfort the dejected, establish the upright in heart, promote true holiness, and that you desire, by divine aid, to make sound believers and real converts; surely I ought to pray for a double portion of the Spirit to rest upon you.

You are well aware that the

Gospel must be preached with purity, plainness, fulness, faithfulness and affection, and a good example. "The Gospel must be preached with affection. Our Lord and his Apostles, even when they used the greatest faithfulness and zeal, never once forgot or trespassed on the law of kindness, and therefore their doctrine dropped as the dew-as the small rain upon the tender herb. Ten thousand hard and obdurate hearts have softened and dissolved at the recollection, that Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and prayed on the cross for those bitter enemies, who were tormenting him and embruing their hands in his blood." And again, with plainness. "To be able to deliver the pure and unadulterated word with unaffected simplicity and plainness-to exhibit a thought with precision-to clothe it in words which will convey it warm to the understanding of the hearers without altering its character or intended effect-to combine and arrange many thoughts in such a manner as to give each its proper situation and weight: this is a duty which requires no ordinary portion of learning, genius, judgment, penetration, and attention *.' But you have exceeding great and precious promises to animate, support, and cheer you; “Lo, I am with you alway;" and, "My grace is sufficient for you." This is the sure word of promise on which the Lord has caused you to hope.

Old Mr. S has been ill, but is again recovering. When the doctor smiled, and said, "Your pulse is better, Sir," he replied, "That is to say, I may still be a

* The passages marked by inverted commas, are acknowledged as extracts by the pious transcriber, who with her accustomed humility apologizes for introducing them with the observation, "You may have read this before, but I only stir you up by way of remembrance." She laments also the evil consequences which she herself had witnessed to result from a want of attention to the instructions contained in them.

was much pleased when I told him that there is a revival of religion in G- n. I have been thinking that Lady's sainted spirit will rejoice at this. She resided near G. —; and it was her ardent wish, and earnest prayer to God,

that those inhabitants of the mountains should hear of a Saviour.

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." Mrs. is sitting by me at present, and sends her best wishes to you, and desires an interest in your prayers. Accept our united kind remembrances. May the Lord bless you abundantly with all spiritual blessings; strengthen you with might by his Spirit in the inner man, and make you to increase in the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.

Continue to pray for me. I greatly need your prayers; and be

THE FOURTEENTH

I feel an interest in Mrs. W—

casion. O that we may stand together on the right hand of God! The promise that comforts me in all my petitions for her is this:

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the day of thy power." I trust you Thy people shall be willing in will yet see her adorned in the

beauties of holiness. Matt. xviii. 19. How is W-? I trust his

soul prospers, and that the afflictive blow has been sanctified

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to all the relatives. When I look to Jesus, I feel he is all-sufficient for all my wants: My people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord." The events of the year that draws to a close, have been calculated to humble me, to exalt the Saviour, and to make heaven more desirable.

DEARLY BELOVED,

IT is the duty, and ought to be the delight, of the Christian minister, to bear on his heart at all times the spiritual interests of his people; and, when not engaged in public ministrations, to be yet laying up something in store, which may profit their souls and tend to their edification. It is under the influence of these feelings, that I desire to impart to you the observations I made not long ago, during a visit to the Continent, upon the religion prevailing there; in the hope, that they may lead you to clasp the Bible more closely to your bosom, and to bless a gracious God, who has caused the light of the Gospel to shine with

so much purity on the land you live in.

1. The professed religion of the greater part of Europe is now, as it was formerly in England, Roman Catholic; that is, they regard the Pope of Rome as the supreme head of the church, as the successor of St. Peter, and Christ's vicar-general upon earth. In times past the Pope assumed the prerogative of granting pardon for sins committed however enormous, and even of selling indulgences for sins in contemplation; and so far was this monstrous usurpation carried at one period, that a scale of prices was annexed to crimes of different dye; and he who could comply with the Pope's terms, might pur

chase absolution even for adultery and murder; an absolution, which the people were taught to believe was the same as a pardon pronounced by God himself, and would equally exempt the offender from all punishment hereafter.

These abominations, which prevailed in this country before the Reformation, no less than on the Continent, are indeed, in these days of light and knowledge, in a great measure done away: but the spirit of the religion is still the same: the priest enforces his spiritual authority wherever he can; insists upon confession of sins to himself as a necessary condition to absolution, and makes pardon to depend on the penances imposed.

You will easily perceive how unscriptural is this proceeding; for, who can forgive sins save God only, and what is penance without penitence in his sight? Such a system is indeed too well suited to the corrupt nature of fallen man: for he would gladly perform the most rigorous penance and undergo any painful privation, rather than crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts." Far easier is it to confess your sins to a priest, than to offer the sacrifice of a broken heart to God: far easier to change your food-to abstain from meat-to fast for a time-than to strive against your besetting sin, to pluck out the right eye and cut off the right hand that causes you to offend: far easier, in short, to practise any bodily austerities, than to keep the heart pure within, and to bring every thought thereof in captivity to the obedience of

Christ.

2. Their churches are noble structures; and when you enter them, the lofty roofs, the massy pillars, and the long-drawn aisles, impress the mind with reverential awe; and you are led involuntarily to say, "Surely this is the house of God!" But this solemn feeling is soon painfully disturbed, when

you look around, and see so many paintings and statues, and images and reliques. Sure I am, that St. Paul's spirit would be stirred within him, were he now alive, and to witness what passes in a Roman Catholic place of worship: here he would see one poor suppliant kneeling before a crucifix and gazing intently upon it, as if it were animated and able to help him there he would see another bending before the statue of some favourite saint, repeating his prayers, presenting his offerings, and purchasing, as it were, by the trinkets that he leaves and the candles that he lights, the saint's intercession: he would see different services going on at different altars, with distinct congregations around them, just as the inclinations of the people lead to the worship of this or that particular saint.

It is in vain to say they worship the Saviour through the saint, and the invisible God through the visible image. A few reflecting minds may do this. But, as human beings, we are strongly influenced by what is before our eyes; and the habit of bowing down before the sign, will lead us in time to venerate the sign itself, and to give to the saint those affections which are due to the Saviour only. And I could not but observe, that the offerings to the Virgin, or some tutelary saint, for benefits received or evils averted, often exceeded those that were presented to the Son of God himself.

In our pure profession of religion, we are invited to carry our sins and our sorrows at once to the Saviour's bosom; to approach the throne of grace in humble confidence, with penitent and believing hearts; to plead the atoning blood of JESUS as our only propitiation; and without the intervention of saint or angel, to rely on him alone as our advocate with the Father, assured, that "whosoever cometh

unto him he will in no wise cast out."

3. But there is another feature of their public worship, that will affect you with still greater surprise. Co'rary to reason and to common sense, and in despite of the express command of Scripture, the service is performed in a tongue unknown to the congregation. The people understand one language, and the priest prays in another. He stands before the altar, which is covered with images, and candlesticks, and crucifixes-arrayed in gorgeous vestments of gold and silver-bowing the head-bending the knee-waving the hands-saluting the cup-raising the Hostand repeating the prayers in Latin. Meanwhile the people kneel and look on; they hear, but they understand not; no intelligible word of devout supplication reaches their ear; nothing to humble the sinner and exalt the Saviour: he that prayeth, is to them that hear, as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."

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Now, then, be more than ever thankful, that you have a form of prayer, in your own tongue wherein you were born; so judiciously composed, it has been said, that the wisest may at once exercise their knowledge and devotion, and so plain, that the most ignorant may pray with understanding; so full, that nothing is omitted, which is fit to be asked in public; and so particular, that it comprises most things which we would ask in private; its language simple and significant, most of the words and phrases being taken out of the Holy Scripture, or borrowed from the first and purest ages: so that, whoever takes exception at these, must quarrel with the language of the Holy Ghost, and fall out with the church in its greatest purity.

4. I am next to speak of the awful profanation of the blessed Sabbath on the Continent. And

here we witness another fatal feature of the Roman Catholic religion in its tendency to rest on the outward act of worship, rather than to cherish those holy and heavenly affections excited in the bosom; I mean, that contrition of spirit-that renouncing of sin and self-that love to the Saviour-that spiritual joy-that deadness to the world-and that communion with God. No sooner is the mass ended, and the forms of religion complied with, than all the world is mad for gaiety and pleasure. The shops are opened, the theatres are filled, the gambling-houses resorted to, and fêtes and fireworks, and cards and dancing, and music and mountebanks, and all that can turn the mind from seriousness, and the heart from God to the world, abound in every quarter: as if the people were eager to redeem the time which they considered to have been lost at church, and were determined, in return for their devotion, to have a double share of di

version.

What devout man can behold this, or hear of this, without great sorrow of heart? Alas! that in England, in this enlightened age, the day of the Lord is still so sadly profaned! Alas! that our public roads, and public gardens, and public houses, are so thronged on that holy day with lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God! But yet, blessed be his name, there are wholesome laws amongst us, which in a measure preserve, and which, if duly enforced, would mainly ensure the due observance of that sacred day; and there is too à goodly and a daily increasing company of Christians, who in their heart love the Sabbath; who call it their delight-holy of the Lord, and honourable; who regard it as a type and sweet foretaste of the rest prepared for them above. To them the church-going bell is indeed a grateful sound; they hasten with joyful feet to the courts of the

sanctuary; there they pour out their hearts in prayer and praise; there they wait to be fed and nourished by the good word of God. And

when they return from the temple, it is not to mix with the world-to dissipate the serious impressions excited in the house of God: no, they hasten home to commune with their own hearts in secret, to search the Scriptures, and to pray over what they have heard: and then they repair perhaps to the house of mourning to bind up the brokenhearted; or they seek to guide the steps of the infant to the Saviour; or they converse with those who fear the Lord, on their common salvation and thus they pass from one holy duty to another, and find the Sabbath not only the holiest, but the happiest day of the week.

5. But I pass by other painful errors and abuses in the Roman church, and close these remarks with one lamentable fact, which I conceive to be at the root of all that is wrong in their religion: it is, that the holy word of God, the Bible, is kept from the eyes and ears of the people. You, who have the Scriptures in every house, and are constantly exhorted to read and meditate upon them; you will scarcely believe, that in Roman Catholic countries the people are discouraged, and oftentimes positively forbidden, to look into that blessed book. Many of them have never seen it, and some are utterly ignorant of its existence. But what will you say, when I tell you that the Pope, not more than six years ago, in speaking of that benign institution the Bible Society-that blessing to the world and glory of our land-called it a crafty device, an impious machination, and a pestilence to be abolished? And why is the Roman Pontiff so hostile to the Bible Society? Well does he know, that if the Bible be circulated and read, all the cumbrous superstition of Popery will fall before it: well does he know,

it would be fatal to his usurped authority as Bishop over all the Christian world: that it would not support the secular power and splendour of the priesthood: that it would give no countenance to the Latin masses, and unmeaning ceremonies, and unauthorized invocations of the Roman Church; and therefore he would still seal up that blessed book, which God intends to be as widely diffused as the air and light of heaven; that book, which contains all that is sublime in doctrine, all that is holy in tendency, all that is consolatory to the human heart, all that is wanted to make us wise unto salvation.

Remember, our forefathers were Roman Catholics, even as others, and involved in the like superstitions. And what wrought the blessed Reformation in our church?The Bible. What has relieved us from penances, and pilgrimages, and Popish impositions ?-The Bible. What gave us a Liturgy in our mother tongue, and a simple and scriptural form of worship?The Bible. What reinstated the Saviour in that homage and adoration, which the saints and the Virgin Mary had usurped?- The Bible. What has led to better hallowing the sabbath?-The Bible. What is with us the poor man's riches, the sick man's medicine, the dying man's support?-The Bible. Yes, "the Bible, the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants."

O then rejoice and be thankful for the possession of this sacred volume, and all the blessings it has brought with it! Read it more frequently; study it more devoutly; pray more fervently for the help of the Holy Spirit to understand it. Above all, let your own life be a daily comment on the Bible; and while the Bible is dearer to you than life, lend your aid to spread it universally, that darkness, and error, and superstition may be dispelled from the earth. Pity and