. provide things honestly for themselves and family, they have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels, be bad neighbours ?-Ah! blush, you sons of wealth, who have opposed the general education of the poor. You who boast your love to your country, here is an opportunity to prove it,—educate her poor; you who complain of the growing prevalence of crime, here is an opportunity to stem its torrent,-instruct the young in the fear of the Lord; you who are fond of displaying the feelings of humanity, here put them to the test, by encouraging the general education of the poor,—it will crown your head with unfading laurel, and the evening of your life with sweet consolation. How elevated are Christian principles to those of the men of the world! The Christian devotes his time, his talents, and his possessions to God and to the benefit of mankind. The man of the world devotes his time to his own aggrandizement, and spares not to take the bread of the orphan and a pledge from the widow. Were it not the vital spirit of Christianity counteracting the world's principles and actions, to what a state of degradation would mankind sink! Encourage, O sons of Britain, pure and undefiled religion! Give praise to them who preach the everlasting gospel insincerity,wherever it hitherto hath flourished in purity, the countries have enjoyed an elevation of morals unknown to heathen lands, a civilization of manners that heathen philosophers never dreamed of, a stability and prosperity to the arts and sciences unknown to lands unblessed by its rays. Miserable is the lot of those to whom the gospel is hid, to whom the word of God is a sealed book; who can read that book without its opening their eyes to see themselves as criminals before God, to see their own hearts desperately wicked, and the nature of man degraded by sin; who, while reading of Christ's mediatorial sufferings and death as the atonement for sin, sees not the necessity of a Saviour, and themselves sharers in his atoning blood. The blindness of their sight and hardness of their hearts the Christians may lament,-but, ah! they cannot cure; it is only the divine light from above that can illuminate the understanding, subdue the hardened heart, and make it bend to the humbling doctrine, that all are dead in trespasses and sins, until they are made alive by the grace of God, and renewed by his holy Spirit. Those who reject this gospel, who boldly deny the truth of its Divine Origin, and the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, who spend their time in opposing its divine light, and their talents in breaking down its heavenly morality, are indeed objects of pity, I would weep over them, for they know not what they do. They are raising their arm to fight against their Creator, and exercising their ta lents to darken that light which, amid all opposi tion, hath burnt with undiminished splendour for so many ages. Though the papal power darkened the atmosphere, though the arch impostor, Mahomed, spread around his deceiving clouds of ignorance and error, though scepticism has lifted its bold front to deny the existence of that light,though grovelling atheism be pleased with sensual enjoyment, desiring no other portion, yet that light which shone with such transcendent lustre on the souls of the primitive Christians, and which hath now burst forth with such overwhelming glory, shall illumine all around until the whole earth be filled with the universal blaze. May its rays dispel the darkness of our souls, and may we rise to newness of life in Jesus. LETTER IV. And thou, Eternal Power! whose awful sway Thy mercy supplicate, if doom'd to die! Perhaps this storm is sent with healing breath From neighb'ring shores to scourge disease and death; With thee, great Lord! whatever is, is just. FALCONER'S SHIPWRECK. At Sea, 17th April, 1820. AFTER many tempestuous storms in life, here I am tossed on the ocean's billows, surrounded by more than a hundred sail steering their varied courses. By degrees they sink from my sight, the hull disappearing first, and then only the sails and masts seen skirting the blue horizon, until they are lost in distance. The great deep displays the majesty of God, and the greatness of his works; nought do I see but the floating barks of men on the bosom of the deep, and the glorious drapery of Heaven forming an azure canopy,-except, at times, a seagull or a porpoise sporting on the surface of the water. The grandeur of this scene insensibly leads the mind to the Author of all, even to him who gave the sea its decreed bounds,-" Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther," and here shall thy proud waves be stayed. In the solemn stillness of midnight, when the moon and stars throw a faint light over the dark abyss; in the midst of a number of vessels cutting the waves with the same breeze, and the sea rolling with awful violence, raising the ship on a billow's top, then dashing her in the midst of the waves, thundering on her sides as if she had struck a rock, and the surge breaking over her, sweeping all before it,-such a scene deeply impresses the mind, that in God alone there is safety! Were a plank to start, or even a sudden squall to take place, we might be overwhelmed in a moment; or strike against some latent rock, or be dashed to pieces by running foul of our neighbours. To him that is situated in such perilous danger, and marks not the Almighty hand that guides the silent spheres, and preserves on the deep as well as on dry land, these lines of Thomson may well be applied : "But wandering oft with brute unconscious gaze, |