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MY DEAR SIR.

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Gospel Magazine.

The very kind replies you send to your correspondents induce me to tell you of the painful, harrassing position I find myself in. Indeed, the dearth, the almost famine of the "bread of life," had, by God's blessing, created such a spiritual hungering and thirsting for food, that I was on the watch for a supply; one church after another had been filled up, as death took off the old incumbents. Again and again have I had to cry to the Lord to suppress, even in spirit, the murmur which would arise in my heart, and which my tongue was too ready to make known, as disappointment succeeded disappointment; heartily was I ready to welcome any Christian messenger whom the Lord in mercy would send, in the order of his Providence. Another church was opened by death; the presentation had been purchased by men fearing God, on purpose to put in a preacher of the Gospel; such a one they found it difficult to hear of disengaged. After months of waiting, one was recommended, whose name and character, talants and standing in the church, were unexceptionable. Truly it was an anxious time, and curious and puzzling the consequences. The church filled even to crowding, with the first families in the neighbourhood, many of the most talented men of the place, many most worldly men, and some true disciples of the Lord. Three following Sabbaths have I attended, and never heard more awful discourses; so that I was constrained to praise God I was on the Rock; he preached what was called most faithfully, warning the people of hell and its torments. "Save now I beseech thee"-declared that the Gospel had that night been preached to us (I mentally exclaimed, "Indeed it has not"); the sermon would rise up in judgment against us; who could say a month, a week, even the next moment was ours; therefore the urgency of the cry-save now. Surely this cry is the cry of a bleating sheep-one who has been aroused not by man but by the Spirit of God. The following Sunday-" How long halt ye between two opinions," and we were told the longer we halted, the more, as far as we could, we frustrated the grace of God. Now truly I am grieved, for I know for many, many years the cry to agony was with me-"Save, Lord; give me Christ as my Saviour, and let me rejoice in sins forgiven." By night my couch was watered with tears; by day I had no rest; constant in attending ordinances, and in good works, as generally so called, abounding, yet was I without hope, &c., and had to be taught, experimentally, neither the manner or time of receiving grace was in my power, or according to my will, but as the Lord had ordained. Indeed, this good man, and upright, and in earnest, as he is, seems to me only advanced as far as was Cornelius, in the first part of the tenth of the Acts; he alludes to Christ, but does not preach him as the " Alpha and Omega.' Indeed, indeed, I am distressed; for one friend says, "I beseech you, if Mr. G's message is to the Socialist, the worldling, and the blasphemer, and not for you; I pray you be silent, and throw not stumbling-blocks in his way." Amen. Again, the most worldly, the frequenters of billiard tables, the mere idling and loungers in life, and those who are only nominal Christians, approve the most of the sermonswords which you would think must annihilate them, and strike them dumb. They exclaim not against, but highly extol the minister and the ministry. I know not what they are at This is not the worst-but dearly beloved brethren and sisters in Christ, with whom I have taken sweet counsel, and walked in the house of God as friends-they extol the preaching, and declare

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they have no fault to find; I feel it must be they are under a delusion, and will come out of it; I tell them 30, and beg we may agree to differ in love. They grieve over me, and I for them; and often have I longed for you to be in the congregation, unknown to any of us, and boldly and fearlessly to judge between us. True, he speaks of the love of God as wonderful, and the gift of Christ his strongest proof of hatred of sin; his arguments and reasonings are just, but there is something working, which, alas! I can feel better than express. "The whole glory is nor given to God." This ministry, dear sir, has made a coldness between me and many I love in the Lord, yea, many whom I esteem to have far outstripped me in the heavenly race. I believe Mr. G has been told there are objectors to the message of good tidings as delivered by him, for he alluded to those who only came to criticise, listen, and pass a verdict on what they heard, and thought thus their duty ended. Thinks I to myself, I will consult a jury next time, but it shall be the writings of the apostles, and the verdict shall be given by the Holy Spirit's witness; and if he still speak not in accordance with the law and the testimony, I will withdraw, and again wait on the Lord for help. And truly if I am wrong and they are all right, I would gladly see it; but see it I must in the light of Scripture, before I can own it; and heartily would I pray that this dear servant of God may have his eyes opened to the eternal covenant of God made before this world was, between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; of a people given to Christ, for whom he died; quickened by the Holy Spirit, and, through the instrumentality of a preached Gospel, yes, and in many other ways drawn to Christ for life, pardon, and peace, and living on earth to his praise and glory, and who cannot bear to hear the honour due to God alone given in any way to the creature. I fear now I have not made my feelings clear, yet you will see I am troubled, and wonder at the concord of praise given to this ministry by light and darkness-by the sons of Belial (as all in their natural state are) and the children of God.

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[Beloved, in the summing up of your own epistle, you have so well, so scripturally judged of the matter in question, that we can scarcely discover any need of comment on our part. Blessed be God, ours is no contingent-no yea and nay Gospel; but it comes as the glad tidings of great joy to a chosen people, and is conveyed by the irresistible power of the Holy Ghost to an elect family, chosen before time, called in time, and glorified after time, out of every kindred, nation, tongue, and people. Whether the minister to whom you refer is (as you term him) a dear servant of God," we have no evidence to prove, nor do we wish to occupy the judgment seat; time alone can manifest what he really is in the sight of God. Of this, however, we are certain, that the major part of what he is at present doing will come to nought, as far as any spiritual and saving benefit is concerned. To urge upon mankind the exercise of a free-will power in the things of God, is nothing more or less than being engaged as an artizan of Satan-it is clenching a nail that the devil has driven. And, if ever the Spirit of the living God is graciously pleased to operate upon the heart of a sinner who has been so acted upon, his first work will be to wrench out the nail, and prove to that soul he is as utterly lost, helpless, and ruined in himself, as sin and Satan can make him. man that preaches a free-will doctrine, preaches only a partial destruction, and consequently sets forth the necessity of only a partial salvation. Such preaching may charm the natural ear, because it is less humbling, and less offensive; it may impart sobriety to the drunkard, and reform the Socialist (very good in its place), but if it merely infuses, in connexion with this reformation, a fleshly confidence and a pharisaic pride, it leaves its subjects farther from the kingdom of heaven than it found them; "for verily publicans and harlots shall enter the kingdom of heaven before these" (Matt. xxi. 31).

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As to your position, dear friend, painful as it may be to be censured by the minister -to be sneered at by the professor-and to be regarded with coldness by those you once knew and loved in the Lord-stand fast; be valiant for the truth. Ah, yes! consult the word of God-be much in your closet with him-and you shall find that he will strengthen and encourage you in every good word and work; whilst every thing that savours not of his great name, and redounds not to his glory, shall wear out and come to nought. The novelty will pass away—the itching ears will wish to hearken to something new; the poor parson's tale (if he be only a minister of the letter and not of the Spirit) will be told, and necessity will compel him to seek a fresh set of hearers, and the Lord's living family will be starved out; they will then return, acknowledge your judgment was right, and confess that they had been imperceptibly led away by the mere semblance of truth. If, on the contrary, the minister be really a sent servant of God, he will be compelled, by being led deeper into the mystery of iniquity in his own heart, to testify of the utter helplessness of man-his ruin by the fall-and his only recovery by the second Adam. This, then, will give offence-well nigh empty his church; the intelligence will quickly spread, and then shall gather together the blind, the lame, the halt, of the Lord's family; yea, a second David's army (1 Sam. xxii. 20) shall assemble, and the Holy Ghost will attend the word with quickening and comforting power. Mark if these things be not so.-ED.]

Letter to JOHN KENT, of Devonport, Author of "Original Gospel

Hymns."

[It has been the custom of the old gentleman for many years to walk from Devonport to Plymouth on the morning of Easter Sunday. He did so this year as usual, leaving his wife, the companion of his early days (as we understand), in perfect health. Shortly after his absence she was taken ill, and, in the course of an hour, breathed her last. Those who have read and valued his hymns will unite with the writer of the following letter and ourselves in wishing JOHN KENT all that support and comfort of which, under such a sudden and painful bereavement, he stands in need.-ED.]

MY VERY DEAR AND MUCH RESPECTED FRIEND AND FATHER IN THE GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, IN WHOSE NAME I DESIRE TO GREET YOU, AS BEING COUNTED WORTHY TO SUFFER WITH HIM, THAT YE MAY

BE GLORIFIED TOGETHER,

Previous to my leaving London, a few days since, I heard of the fatherly visit of your God, in once more dislocating the chain of your relative ties, and taking unto himself your kind and affectionate partner through all the stages of your pilgrimage, even her who was given to you as the wife of your youth, and reserved until you yourself are almost reached the ford of Jordan; and it is possible that the greater enjoyment we have of the mercy, the more keen we feel the stroke which removes the same; and I doubt not that, arrived as you are to that time when the grasshopper becomes a burden, you have sensibly felt this looking in of the Lord upon you, and find the winter of old age bereaved of another of its few remaining comforts. Yet would you have ordered it otherwise? or could you have ordered it better? The sands of your almost exhausted glass are running out with a certain steadiness which will ultimately bring you to the grave, and in this instance the Lord has removed the swaddling-band, which might be supposed to have held you firmer than all others to the earth, and by the safely housing of the dearest object that on earth you did possess, have saved you from the painful thought of leaving an aged and infirm widow, to drag on a solitary existence, which must have been the case had the Great Orderer of all things first loosened your silver cord; yet then all would have been right with Him who hath given the sweet command, "Let thy widows trust in me." I speak of my aged

friend now in the character of an earthly husband, exercised with those finer feelings of our poor fallen nature, when called to such trying circumstances; and though not hearing thy voice-nor the least probability that ever I shall again, until it bursts upon my astonished ear in the united chorus of the "blood-bought throng;" yet I do consider that you are so well satisfied with the arrangement of your covenant God, as to have, in the full exercise of faith, "buried your dead out of your sight;" well knowing that as she sleeps in Jesus, so she shall ere long appear with him. You can have no doubtful disputation regarding her, for long have you been "fellow-heirs of the same grace," and long have you been watching for that harvest-time, when Jordan overflows its banks. The gentle ripple of the consecrated stream, which contains no dread of danger since the feet of our glorious Priest were dipped therein, hath in its advancement reached her first, and though your natural eyes are dimmed through want of sight, and you were not present to witness the easy dismissal, yet with the eye of faith are you not permitted to trace her in her safe passage and final entrance to take possession of that mansion to which from eternity her name had been attached? As sorrowful, yet rejoicing, I mingle with you my tears of affectionate remembrance, accompanied with all the sympathy of a fellow-traveller towards you and yours under this innovation made by the hand of death, and bending my knee in prayer to God, would intreat the rod might be heard in its passing, in rejoicing. I no less meet you to unite with thankfulness in the faithfulness manifested to your departed wife by her covenant God and Father; just past the verge of threescore years and ten, she is saved the labour and sorrow that so proverbially attend the years that are numbered after; and while viewing with anxiety the bowing down of her aged husband and companion with a thousand forebodings relative to herself, with the stillness of a stone sinking into the bed of the ocean, all is passed away, and in the silent slumbers of the perfumed chambers of the grave, she rests in hope as one over whom death has no more dominion. Thus, my dear friend and father, you prove the sweet truth, "all things are yours, whether life or death," nor can either militate against you as interested in Him who is the resurrection and life of his people; and the preciousness of these things must and will increase as you draw nearer the time of your own departure, seeing it is the office of the Holy Ghost to take of the things of Jesus and to reveal them unto his people. The establishment of these things you have long known and felt, and need not that I should remind you of them; but as in the prospective before us this may close with us the intereourse of earth, a rehearsal of the Lord's righteous acts may not be unprofitable; and although your junior in years, who shall say but what a first entrance may be granted to me from this Mesech dwelling? I speak, it may be, too much from the heavy burden I have to carry by the way, and from what I fear sometimes is a selfish desire to depart; yet amidst all one thing I do know, blessed be God for the knowledge, "He is faithful," and faithfulness is mixed in all his actions; he has been faithful to you, and not unkind or unfriendly, though he has touched the hollow of your thigh. In your weakness his strength shall be perfected; the same in mine, and in all the members of the mystical body. Though I murmur, yet would I be taught by him submission. My affectionate regards to your dear family that is with you; dear Harriet I saw before I left London. To the Lord I commend you and them, not doubting he will comfort you with his blessed "fear not," when he calls you to go down to the Egypt of the grave. Yours, in Him,

A STRIPLING.

Shrewsbury, April 10th, 1812.

CORRESPONDENCE OF THE LATE YOUTHFUL
H. A. HARRIS.

LETTER VIII.—To J. AND I. S———.

MY DEAR FRIENDS,

Again, through the mercy of Jesus, I am permitted to write to you, wishing that He, in whom all fulness dwells, may fill your earthen vessel with his heavenly treasure, draw your spirits closer and closer to himself, and enable you to say, with unutterable happiness, "Abba, Father." What are transitory blessings of time, what are pleasures, what are the joys of earth, when compared with one moment's faith in, one glance at, the finished salvation of Jesus of Nazareth? And yet, the brightest views by faith are but little rivulets, flowing from the boundless ocean of the love of him who filleth

All in All.

"If such the sweetness of the stream,

What must the fountain be!"

Oh! that the time may soon arrive when we, a trinity of hearts, may join the spirits of the just made perfect in singing to the praise of our redeeming, covenant God.

"Bright clouds of spirits round the throne,

Praise him for glories all his own;

Oh may we join them there!"

St. Bernard says, "The name of Jesus is honey to the mouth, music to the ear, and a jubilee to the heart." May the Holy Ghost make him so to you and to me! As for me (oh! the unutterable baseness of my God-dishonouring nature!) I cannot write as I would of Emmanuel; I would raise him, and extol him, and bless him, until the very earth and heaven were bursting at the echo of my hallelujahs. And why am I so cold? Why am I so dead? Is it because he is less valuable? No. He is the same from everlasting to everlasting, but there is an eclipse; he shines gloriously, but not on me; he disperses the darkness, but not from me; he is full of warmth, but not for me; he is most ardently, most burningly beloved, but not by me. And yet I am in his hands, let him do as seemeth good in his sight. One single ray, one single sunbeam from the Sun of Righteousness, would cause my soul, my melting soul, to long to clasp him at his Father's right hand. Ah! this would not impoverish him! but make me rich beyond description. Pray each of you for your friend Harry; be not unmindful that I am but a young soldier, in an old enemy's country, and only stand as kept from falling. I have received no letter. What more can I say to my dear, my beloved friends? I shall not say what my feelings were when riding by your house; how the heart seems to bubble up into the throat when parting from those near and dear to us by a double tie of natural and Christian love! May He who is able keep you from falling, and present you faultless before the presence of his Father with exceeding joy. May your hearts, filled to overflowing with the blood of the covenant, enjoy that peace which smooths life, sweetens death, and longs for eternity; and at length, in the presence of the King eternal, join in the song of “Worthy is the Lamb,” with an unworthy, who, through Jesus, would subscribe himself,

6, Castle Street, Reading.

Yours, through eternal ages,

HENRY ALFREd Harris.

[We purpose, in the course of a few numbers, giving a portrait of this beloved young man, who died at the early age of three-and-twenty. At the very time these letters

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