grave, and to rise with Him to a new and holy life. Now the idolater was seen to cast away his gods, and the philosopher his speculations; and each found every aspiration of his soul more than satisfied in the doctrines of grace and of immortality! And the poor and illiterate marked no exclusion here. The light was from heaven, and it streamed alike on all. Philosophy had been exclusive-letters had been the inheritance of the initiated -but to the poor was the Gospel preached.'"

Mr. Noel proceeds to shew, that with the universality of this salvation was connected, in a peculiar mauner, the peculiar glory of Israel. After tracing, with great animation, the ancient privileges of this people, and shewing the connexion of these with the advent of the promised Messiah, he remarks: "If eminent individuals have ever been deemed to reflect the greatest lustre upon the nations which have given them birth; if the great and the good have left their names to be embalmed in the grate ful recollections of their country; if they have given their high example as models for the imitation of after ages-their virtues as beacons to guide the doubtful in times of darkness and of danger-in what terms shall we venture to tell of Him who claimed Judea as his native land, and lived and died amidst the descendants of Israel? For did ever man exhibit a character like his? In any land or age before his time did ever perfect wisdom manifest itself to the world? But in him were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.' To his mind the past, present, and future, were at once disclosed. He knew what was in man.' Before his inspection the human heart, in all its delusions, and its intricacies, and its corruptions, stood revealed. He delivered truth without any mixture of error, and he reasoned on that truth without infirmity. By him were actions weighed in the nicest CHRIST. OBSERV. APP.

scales, and qualities estimated at their real worth. He touched at once upon all the interests of man, and upon all the attributes of God. He drew back the veil of futurity, and there disclosed each human destiny-the bliss of heaven and the anguish of hell. He laid at rest the oft-agitated question which refers to man's chief good; and, with the equal force of authority and of mercy, asked, What shall it profit a man, if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? This is life eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.'

"Did ever virtue record its triumphs, as in his unparalleled history? Patient under injury, meek under provocation, disinterested in benevolence, generous in action, inflexible in purpose, undaunted in danger, majestic in poverty, awful in the midst of surrounding contempt, dead to all selfish aggran disement, and alive only to another's joy, his mind bent upon his Father's will, as the pole-star by which He steered his course through the waves which rolled around him, he could challenge even vindictive malice and satanic subtlety to affix one spot on his untarnished fame! Which of you convinceth me of sin?'

"Or did ever power erect its beneficent trophies in a disastrous world, as in his eventful destiny? At his command the blind received his sight, the deaf heard, and the lepers were cleansed; at his bidding the grave yielded back its dead, and the billows of the deep sunk into a calm, 'I am He that was dead and am alive again, and have the keys of hell and death!' In the very ebb of earthly comfort, in the very weakness of expiring nature, if his munificence was undiminished, SO was his power uncontrouled. His latest accents consoled a dying sinner, and enriched a bankrupt with the unfading crown of paradise."

But, resumes Mr. Noel, "The sounds of gratulation which pro

5 U

claimed the advent of the Son of man, have proved to the descendants of Abraham the very knell of their national distinctions. In the rejection of their Messiah they filled up the measure of their iniquities, and ere long they sunk beneath the frown of God and the instrumentality of invading foes.-Oh where is now the nation once beloved of God? Oh where the land once the fruitful paradise of the earth? How desolate that scene of antient grandeur! how degraded all its importance! how faded all its splendour! The brightness which Christianity shed over a benighted world soon gleamed no more upon the very plains whence the original glory issued! Palestine became the prey of tenfold darkness and desolation! Their civil and religious polity destroyed, their temple laid in ruins, their people diminished by cruel massacres, their children led into captivity and scattered through every region of the earth, they live the continued and awful monuments of Heaven's righteous retribution! To this very day they roam the world, a scorn and a proverb, consigned by more than the tacit verdict of the human race to contempt and degradation. Yet is there not some mystery concealed in this very state of abject infamy? Separated from the nations among whom they have lived; yea, possessed of some strange repulsive principle which operates under every climate and people; is there no character of a Divine interposition, no trace of a guiding Providence, connected with their unusual destiny? May no hidden mercy be treasured up, no future blessing be concealed, for this people, scattered' as they now are, and peeled, and trodden down of men?' Yes, my brethren, Emanuel is yet to be the glory of his Israel.' The gifts and calling of God are without repentance.' The time of mercy lingers not: the day of restoration is at hand. In a little wrath have I hid my face from thee,

Under the guidance of the inspired declarations, Mr. Noel goes on to contemplate a scene of greater triumph in behalf of the Jewish Nation, than all the history of their former fame. He then feelingly apostrophizes them as follows:

"Children of outcast Israel! accept the wishes, the hopes, the prayers, the sympathies of the Gentile church. We sigh over your prostrate greatness: we compassionate your desolate condit on. Too long have you collected the sad materials for your hostility to Christ, from the scorn and violence of those who have professed his name: too long have you seen in Christianity the semblance of devotion, but the reality of oppression : forgive our wrongs, and receive our regrets! We trace our own blessings to their fountain, and we find that fountain first opened in that very land from which you have been proudly driven! Your future glory has been our immediate light. Degraded by idolatry-the victims of conjecture, and the slaves of iniquity-we have found elevation, mercy, hope, only through our participation in your privileges! If the lines are fallen to us in pleasant places, and we have a goodly heritage,' that heritage was once all your own; and it shall be your own again. On your nation, scattered for your sins, is still fixed the paternal eye of God. Still are you beloved for your fathers' sakes; and long as has been your dwelling in the furnace of affliction, the flames have not consumed you, because, though unseen and unbeloved, your Redeemer has been with you, and his heart has been turned towards you! That Blood which your fathers shed shall yet prove the fountain in which all your sins shall be washed away: that Love which you madly scorned shall bury in the deeps: of oblivion all your offences: that Name you cruel

ly set at nought shall be the ban ner under whose foids you shall be led on to victory and to happiness: those Feet you nailed to the cross shall vet stand on the hallowed mountain of Jerusalem, and the 'place of their rest shall be glorious.""

After shewing the claims which the Jews have, in common with the heathen, to the pity and exertions of the Christian world, he adds:"But, in truth, there are claims which the Jew can urge in which the Gentile cannot share. In advocating the cause of Israel, I would ask, and strongly too, is the account of justice towards that nation settled? Is the long arrear of Gentile gratitude to that nation discharged? For to what blessing shall we refer in the long catalogue of our own mercies, which we have not derived from Israel?

"Amidst the sorrows and vicissitudes of life, do we find daily consolations from God? Under the terrors of conscience, do we behold a peaceful asylum in the cross of Christ? By the bed of dying worth, or at the oft-frequented grave of departed friendship, do we wipe away our tears in the prospect of a sure and certain hope of a resurrection to the life eternal? From whence do all these consolations flow? They flow to us from Judah. The Volume of God was penned by Jewish hands: the Gospel was proclaimed by Jewish lips: yea, that Sacred Victim on the crossthe world's only hope, the sinner's only joy-wears not even He the lineaments of the children of Abraham? And, without the blush of self-abasement, can we speculate any longer on our indifference to the Jewish cause, and coldly complain that we feel not here that energy of sympathy which we can feel on other appeals to our compassion? I solemnly declare, my brethren, that I consider this lukewarmness of Christians to the welfare of Israel to be a strong proof of the depravity of the human

heart-to be a fearful illustration of that principle of ingratitude by which we have all cast off our allegiance to our common Benefactor and our God!"

With one other claim in their behalf Mr. Noel concludes his appeal, and with this we also conclude our extracts from this animated and affectionate sermon.-" Think, then, my brethren, of all their former grandeur, and contrast it with their present desolation. Such a contrast raises, even under ordinary circumstances, a keen emotion in the hu man heart. No sympathy is so strong as that which is drawn forth by fallen greatness. The extent of the ruin is the very measure of that emotion, Why does the traveller fondly linger amidst the scenes of antient art, or power, or influence? Why for so many a year have the poet and the philosopher wandered amidst the fragments of Athens or of Rome? why paused, with strange and kindling feelings, amidst their broken columns-their mouldering temples-their deserted plains? It is because their day of glory is past. It is because their name is obscured - their power is departed their influence is lost! The gloomy contrast casts a shade over the renown and the destiny of

man.

"Similar emotions have, indeed, been often felt amidst the scenes of Jewish fame. The forsaken banks of Jordan where the Psalmist once might tune his lyre, and utter his prophetic songs-theblighted plains of Galilee, where the Saviour might often bend his lonely steps to cheer the widow's dwelling-the ruined city, once the terror of surrounding nations--the forgotten temple, whose walls once echoed back the accents of that voice which spake as never man spake,'-these images and memorials of former days have often produced a solemn sadness in the minds of those who have visited the shores of Palestine; and their feelings have responded to the affecting complaint, Thy holy cities

are a wilderness; Zion is a wilderness; Jerusalem is a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised Thee, is burned up with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid waste.'

"But is there no emphasis of sadness to be found in the sordid and degraded state of those who wander through the world forgotten and forlorn, though once the honoured servants, the favoured children of the Lord?

"Shall the sculptured stone, the broken shaft, the time-worn capital, even the poor fragments of some profane sanctuary-shall these affect so deeply the heart, and shall the moral ruin, the spiritual decay, the symptoms of eternal perdition, shall these vestiges of desolation excite no feeling in our bosoms? Oh! where a sight shall shuddering

sorrow find

Sad as the ruins of the human mind?

And where is a ruin to be found so mournful and so complete, as that which the moral aspect of Judah now presents to our view?"

PRAYER-BOOK AND HOMILY
SOCIETY.

WE presented, in our Number for June, a brief abstract of the last year's proceedings of this Society, and have since had occasion to notice with approbation Mr. Scott's sermon prefixed to its Eighth Report. A few additional particulars will not, however, be uninteresting to those of our readers who duly appreciate the importance of this institution. Were our own country, and our own language out of the question, there would still be an obvious necessity for such a society to march in the train of our Bible and Missionary institutions, and to translate and disseminate the invaluable formularies of our church, wherever an opening is made for their reception. No other society devotes its efforts wholly to the highly important and unexceptionable object of circulat

ing our established formularies without note or comment—an object of incalculable and greatly increasing importance, now that so many Christian churches are beginning to be planted among the heathen, to whom our prayer-book, next to the holy Scriptures, is the greatest treasure which cau be introduced. If the zealous members of our church would seriously weigh this consideration, the patronage of this Society, which has been hitherto rather select than extensive, would proportionably in crease.

The Committee report, that they continue to receive great encouragement in translating the Homilies into foreign languages. “[ thank God," writes a clergyman from the coasts of the Archipelago, "that this work has been com menced. For countries to be reformed, the Homilies have, in my mind, a decided advantage over all the tracts which are usually disseminated. They not only teach the doctrines of the Gospel, but expose error; they openly and expressly oppose idolatry, and rise up, as it were, a great army, to cut down the groves and level the altars of superstition. Notwithstanding the violent opposition of some the Popish priests-who seem to love darkness rather than light, I am happy to inform you, that the spark is not extinguished : the flax still smokes; the spirit of inquiry is yet alive in this once highly favoured land. Many will openly acknowledge their having fallen into error, their ignorance and want of instruction; and many more, who seem to glow with an ardent desire to have their understandings more enlightened that they may distinguish truth from error, begin to discern more clearly between bought absolutions and the atoning blood of Christ. Pray send me, therefore, as many Homilies in French, Italian, and modern Greek, as you can spare."This call was obeyed with alacrity;

and the same correspondent writes in reply, "Be assured, that the donation of Homilies was highly acceptable. As the Greeks are not, like the Romans, prohibited from perusing religious books printed in Protestant countries, they receive our Homilies in Greek and Italian with the greatest pleasure. Sometimes even a priest will beg some: in fact, they are universally received. For the Greeks and Romans our Homilies-founded on the Scriptures, and supported by the first fathers and martyrs of the Christian church-are of all tracts the best calculated. But what is the quantity, with which you have favoured me, when the immense sphere for their distributionnamely, all the islands of the Archipelago, and the populous coasts of Asia Minor and of Greece-are considered? Yet the seed sown is good; and, though small, it will, as we may fairly hope, produce fruit an hundred fold."

At Amsterdam and Ostend, Gibraltar, Sierra Leone, and the Cape; in Madras, Calcutta, Ceylon, and China; in Canada, and other parts of America also, the endeavours of this Society have been used to lead our countrymen into a clear and experimental knowledge of the provisions of God's grace.

The Committee received very urgent applications for Prayerbooks and Homily-tracts, from persons about to depart as settlers to the Cape of Good Hope. But they express their unfeigned regret, that the means placed within their reach were greatly disproportioned to the wants to be relieved: 125 Prayer-books, 200 enlarged Psalters, and 3,700 Homily tracts, constituted as large a donation as the funds of the Society could possibly afford.

The editions of the Common Prayer in Welsh and in Irish, our readers are already informed, have been completed, and put into circulation.

The Committee advert to com

munications received from India, on the subject of translations into some of the languages of the East. The Rev. Marmaduke Thompson, one of the Honourable Company's chaplains at Madras, having been informed by Mr. Fenn of this Society's desire to aid in procuring translations, or in reprinting those already made, in India, writes thus to the Secretary: "I rejoice in the communication made to me by Mr. Fenn. We do indeed want assistance of this kind, especially for the benefit of that interesting people, the Syrian Christians of Travancore." "In May last," he continues, "the Resident, Colonel Munro, wrote thus to me: The translation of the English Liturgy is much required. The Syrians are ready to adopt it; and its general introduction into their churches is exceedingly necessary for the purpose of effecting the entire abolition of the Roman Catholic usages that may prevail. In fact, next to the translation of the Scriptures, I consider that of the English Liturgy to be one of the most important objects to be accomplished.”

The Committee mention with much pleasure Dr. Rottler's Tamul version of the Prayer-book-the first complete version in any of the languages of India. The price of it is four pagodas, 17. 12s. sterling. The edition also contains but 1000 copies; a number which, considering the numerous Tamul congregations in all the South, and Ceylon, will be soon expended; and then it will be highly desirable to procure another edition, of a smaller and cheaper size. The Malayalim Prayer-book, it was hoped, was advancing prosperously in the hands of the Rev. Mr. Spring the chaplain of Tellichery, and the Church Missionaries, Mr. Norton and Mr. Bailey.

The issue of Prayer-books, Psalters, and the Book of Homilies from the Society's depository, during the last year, has been as follows: English Prayer-books, 9,372;