I was coming away from my last visit to his house, when I was met by the awful intelligence that another of my parishioners (a collier) had just been hurried into eternity, by a rope breaking as he was going to his work. I knew the man well: he had been a careless, drunken man; but not apparently so hardened as some others. He had, indeed, once within the last three months appeared at church, the effect I afterwards understood (upon inquiring into this unusual occurrence) of an impression made upon him by the dangerous illness of one of his children. The child, however, recovered; and he never entered the church again alive. I had often remonstrated with him, and he as often promised amendment at some future "convenient season. I now hastened to his widow, whom I found, as might be expected, especially in one who had little knowledge of the comforts which religion can afford even in such moments, in a paroxysm of the most extreme and violent grief at this most unexpected blow, and surrounded by a crowd of her neighbours: the body had just been brought into the house. This was, of course, not the moment for more than a general but earnest exhortation to all present to take this warning to themselves; and having knelt down and addressed a short prayer to God for His assistance to enable us so to apply it, I left, determining to wait until the necessary bustle and excitement of the funeral were over, before I made an attempt to bring home the awful lesson more nearly to the widow. I called again the morning after the funeral. The subject was a truly painful one to enter upon; and I resolved as much as possible to keep silence as to any surmises concerning the state of the deceased, whose doom was now irrevocably fixed; and from a knowledge of his former life I naturally concluded that such a subject must be almost insufferable to his immediate family. widow, however, soon relieved me from this scruple; for as soon as she had dried her tears (which, she assured me, were only shed upon her own and her children's account), she told me it was at all events a great comfort to her to know for certain that he was in heaven! For some moments I stood in utter amazement at this most unexpected intelligence. At length I said, "From whence

His

does this assurance come?" "Oh, Sir," she said, " the people who were about the pit's mouth distinctly heard him say, as he was falling, that if God would spare him, he would now sign for ever (alluding to the temperance pledge), and then he called out that he was converted, and those were the last words he spoke." It was in vain to attempt to show her how impossible it was that all this could really have been heard, or that he could have had time to utter half. She was deaf to all reason upon this point, and so I tried another method. "Had not your poor husband already signed the temperance pledge more than once, and broken it?" "Ay, yes, indeed; he had three times; but now he said he'd sign for ever, and besides he never before felt he was converted." In this manner she made herself deaf to all reason and arguments, and appears inclined, by all I can see, to go on much in the same careless manner as she did before this awful warning was sent to her, looking forward probably to the hour of her own death as the moment of conversion; and thus does it appear to have been lost to those for whose immediate use it would seem to have been sent. And may we not suppose that even was the poor departed collier permitted to send back a messenger from the regions beyond the grave, to warn those left in his house, the great enemy of souls would not be wanting in some expedient to blunt even that message to those who have so long and so obstinately refused to hear Moses and the prophets." Reader, beware lest you suffer the day of your visitation to pass unimproved, and "the things which concern your peace" be hidden too from your eyes! W. Č.

ABOUT GOD AND YOUR SOUL.

You have a body that must sooner or later die, you have also a soul that will never die. In the next world there will be a day of judgment, when you will be put on your trial for the sins you have committed in this world; so great will be the amount of those sins, that unless you have some friend sufficiently powerful to intercede successfully for you, you will surely be condemned to eternal punishment. But God does not wish that you should

meet so dreadful a fate; far otherwise: He has given His Son to die a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind; He has appointed Him to intercede for all who will put their trust in His merits and atonement, and who endeavour to live as He has commanded them. You may at the last day be found amongst that number, and thus be pardoned and received into heaven; or you may not be so found, and thus shall hell be your portion.

The Bible declares the man whose soul is lost as no ways profited, though he may have gained the whole world. Do you wish to set about this all-important work? First see your need of forgiveness; look at your past life, at the sins you have committed against God, the evil acts you have done, the evil words you have spoken, the evil thoughts you have encouraged. God was ever near you, heard you, saw you, has written these things down against you; He knows how much time you have given to the interests of your soul and His service,-how much you have given to worldly business and worldly pleasure.

Well, you must confess yourself a sinner, and it may be that at present you have no right to hope for forgiveness; you may be now living just as many a one you have known was living, when it pleased God to take them away suddenly. You perhaps heard their friends argue, that though they certainly were swearers, drunkards, Sabbathbreakers, &c. still they hoped God would forgive them. God hath given us no such hope in the Bible, which alone contains His will; for we read there that none but the penitent, the changed in heart, and they only for Christ's sake, can be forgiven. These had but little time for penitence, had no opportunity of proving that their hearts were changed; the fever, the sudden fit, the accidental blow, took them at the time for which they were utterly unprepared; and up to the moment of their last seizure they were living with little care for their souls, little appearance of being servants of God, showing in their conduct no fruits to prove their faith in Christ. What had they to do with the Saviour here? What will He have to do with them when they will so much need Him?

My friend, if you really wish to live with no fear of

what a sudden end may bring upon your soul, if you wish to obtain the comfort of knowing that at the day of judgment Christ will intercede for you, at once forsake, as far as you are able, all the ways of sin; pray to God to give you sincere penitence for all you have done amiss, to so change your heart that you may live better in future; reverence His name, keep holy His sabbath, go regularly to church, join in the prayers there offered for you, attend to the Gospel there preached to you.

Let the first object of your life be the salvation of your soul; the living in a humble sense of all you need of God, and of all the many blessings you daily receive from Him. Study your Bible; ask your minister or some religious friend to show you the parts in that holy book which concern you most; they are easy to be understood, and God you will see has promised to teach them to you. Remember, if you love your wife and children, that you still must be parted from them; but that if you all hold one and the same faith, all die in that faith, there will be one and the same eternal home for you all, even heaven, where you may hope to meet, never again to be separated.

I will only now add directions to enable you to find certain texts in the Bible, to prove to you that what I have now said "about God and your soul" is founded on the unerring, unalterable word of God.

Ecclesiastes xii. 7.-2 Corinthians v. 10.-2 Peter iii. 9.-Ezekiel xviii. 32.-Hebrews vii. 25.-St. Matthew xvi. 26.-Psalm cxxxix. 1, 2, 3, 4.-1 John i. 8, 9.-St. Luke xiii. 3.-St. John iii. 3, 16.-Proverbs xxvii. 1.St. James iv. 13, 14, 15.—St. Luke xii. 9.-St. Matthew vii. 22, 23.-Ezekiel xviii. 27.-Psalm li. 10.—Psalm cxlviii. 13.-Isaiah lvi. 2.-Jeremiah xvii. 22.-Ezekiel xx. 20.-1 Corinthians xiv. 15.-St. Matthew vi. 33.St. Luke x. 41, 42.-Psalm ciii.-St. John v. 39.-Psalm cxix. 130.-Psalm xix. 7.-St. Matthew vii. 7, 8.-St. Luke xi. 13.-St. John xiv. 26.

You cannot spend some part of a Sunday better than by looking out in your Bible for these texts, and comparing them with what I have now told you. From a Handbill for the Cottage Wall, by the Hon. and Rev. S. G. Osborne.

EFFECTS OF READING SOCIALIST PUBLICATIONS.

THE family of Mr. Parke, bookseller, Wolverhampton, were on Monday morning shocked by the discovery that one of Mr. Parke's apprentices, about 15 years of age, and of the name of Arthur Kenneth Hay, had committed suicide in the course of the previous evening. The unfortunate youth took tea with the family as usual on Sunday, and went out a short time afterwards, with the intention, it is supposed, of going to a place of worship. At supper time he was absent, and did not make his appearance in the house afterwards. The body was found quite stiff in a small room at the top of Mr. Parke's printing-office, used merely as a lumber room, about eight o'clock the next morning, and a phial was discovered near, which had contained prussic acid, no doubt the cause of death. The coroner's inquest is being held at the time of our going to press, and we shall not, therefore, go into all the particulars of this melancholy affair, but may, without impropriety, remark, that the mind of the deceased had latterly seemed to be much unsettled by the reading of Socialist publications, which he had procured without Mr. Parke's knowledge, and appears to have studied with much attention. The deceased, who was a youth of considerable promise, was a son of Mr. Thomas Hay, of Shrewsbury, and nephew of Mr. W. Hay, silversmith, of this town.-Wolverhampton Chronicle.

RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE KINGSTON, RICHMOND, &c. FRIENDLY SOCIETY.

1st. Object.-The object of this Society is to raise, by subscription, among the members thereof, a fund for the mutual relief and maintenance of its members in sickness and infirmity; and for securing, after their death, a sufficient sum for their funeral expenses.

2nd. Management.-This Society shall be under the management of a President, Four Trustees, a Treasurer, and Six Directors, who shall be annually elected at a public meeting of the members; one half of the directors to be chosen from among the honorary members.