people finally triumph over the king of terrors, yet many of them have suffered much in the anticipation of their conflict with the last enemy-have been in bondage through fear of death.'

But on this point, as Anne's father remarked, 'He who goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, was never permitted to open his mouth against her. She had a sister who died in the faith about two years ago. One day she said to her parents, Well, I don't know whether I shall know N. when I get to heaven, but perhaps I shall be so much taken up with the glorious Redeemer that I might not think of her, nor notice her for a long time, though she were nigh to me.' She charged her parents not to grieve for her as they had done for her deceased sister, and had injured their health; and tried to comfort them by saying, Sure it is not worth while grieving at the separation, it will be so short; we will very soon meet in heaven.' She gave minute directions concerning her interment, and desired them to put her corpse in a plain coffin, without any trappings; observing, that anything was good enough for the vile body.

On one occasion she expressed a degree of concern lest she might die two or three days before the Sabbath, which would render it necessary to bury her on that holy day, which she said should not be done if it could be avoided, and remarked that it would keep people from the house of God.

Three days before her death she became insensible, and on the third of June, 1846, she quietly breathed her last, being fourteen years and five months old.

Youthful reader; do you ever seriously reflect that you like A. Young, are subject to the ills of life, and exposed to the shafts of the King of terrors? That though you may now be healthy and strong yet this is no security against the encroachments of disease and the stroke of death; "Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble. It is appointed unto all men once to die, and after that the judgement." And if you go to yonder grave-yard and examine the graves and read the inscriptions on the tombstones, you will find that persons younger then yourself have been deposited in the narrow house appointed for all living. Or

perhaps while you read this, it will be recalled to your memory that some of your school-fellows or playmates, or it may be some of your brothers, or sisters have been visited by death, and are now laid in the land of forgetfulness. What is the language of all this to you? "Be ye therefore also ready." Are you ready? Have you any thing that would effectually solace you in trouble, comfort you in affliction, give you peace and tranquility in death, and joy in the prospect of meeting with God? The religion of Christ can do all this and much more. Do you possess it? Did you ever spend one hour in private, earnestly examining whether you were a Christian, whether your sins were pardoned, and Christ formed in you the hope of glory? If you think you are a Christian let me ask, why do you think so? Is it because you have felt yourself to be a lost, a hell-deserving sinner, and have fled for refuge to the blood of Christ? Persuaded that as the blood of the Paschal Lamb, sprinkled on the doorposts of the children of Israel preserved them from the stroke of the destroying angel on that awful night, when all Egypt's first-born were slain, so the blood of Christ applied to the conscience by faith, will secure you from the wrath of God, which will fall upon all the finally impenitent and unbelieving. If you say you do believe on the Son of God, has your faith purified your heart and produced love to Him who gave himself for you? Can you say, in the presence of the searcher of hearts, as A. Young said, "Yes I do, I do love Jesus. Because he loved me a poor sinner and gave himself for me?" And do you manifest your love to him by a cheerful and uniform obedience to his commandments? John xiv. 21. Remember, that the religion of Jesus is a pure religion, his salvation a holy salvation. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and Godly in this present world. Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. J. M.

POPISH SCENE IN DUBLIN. Passing the Metropolitan Catholic Church, as it is called, with a friend, he remarked, I had better step in for a moment and see what was going on. Just as I ascended the steps which lead to the entry, my eye lighted on a considerable mart of commodities, regarded by many devotees, no doubt, with much favour, as instruments of Catholic piety. I perceived relics of various sorts; trinkets, beads, images, pictures of saints, all exhibited for sale. Well, I entered with my friend. A crowd of worshippers met our view. Youth and beauty, and manhood, and wrinkles, and hoary hairs, were all there. I saw the mother, with her infant beside her, bending before an image; I beheld the young lady on her knees muttering her prayers and kissing a crucifix, I saw the active merchant worshipping with his face towards the altar with its imagery, I saw old women on their knees and counting their beads, many seemed engaged in reading, many lips were in motion, several priests were in attendance, and not a few were marching to the Confessional, to pour the secrets of the heart into the ear of

their ghostly guides. What I thus beheld was, I believe, a daily scene. I shall never forget it. It was error or false religion in earnest. All seemed devout, all seemed intensely engaged. How powerful the hold which superstition takes of the human mind! It fetters the understanding, blindfolds the conscience and pollutes the heart. Arise, O Church of God, and have compassion on the sister isle. What can enlighten its darkened children? What can turn those fervid affections into a pure channel, which are now wasting their vigour on the altar of superstition? The truth as it is in Jesus. Oh, when shall the star of hope arise on the emerald isle.— From the note-book of a Protestant visitor.

can we seek it with expectation to find it, but of him who is a God of peace and hath promised to bless his people with peace! It is God that hath promised to give his people one heart, and one way; yet for all these things he will be sought unto: O then let us seek peace, and pray for peace because God shall prosper them that love it.

The peace of churches is that which the apostle prays for in all his epistles; in which his desire is, that grace and peace may be multiplied and increased among them.

2. They that would endeavour the peace of the churches, must be careful who they commit the care and oversight of the churches to; as (1)—Over and besides those qualifications that should be in all Christians, they that rule the church of God should be men of counsel and understanding. Where there is an ignorant ministry, there is commonly an ignorant people, according as it was of old-Like priest like people.

How sad is it to see the church of God committed to the care of such that pretend to be teachers of others, that understand not what they say, or whereof they affirm. No marvel the peace of churches is broken, when their watchmen want skill to preserve their unity, which of all other things is as the church's walls; when they are divided, no wonder they crumble to atoms, if there is no skilful physician to heal them. It is sad when there is no balm in Gilead, and when there is no physician there. Hence it is, that the wounds of churches become incurable, like the wounds of God's people of old, either not healed at all, or else slightly healed, or to no purpose. May it not be said of many churches at this day as God said of the church of Israel, That he sought for a man among them that should stand in the gap, and make up the breach; but he found none ?

Remember what was said of old, Mal. ii. 7, The priest's lips preserve knowledge and the people should seek the law at his mouth. But when this is wanting, the people will be stumbling, and departing from God and one another; therefore God complains, Hos. iv. 6, That his people were destroyed for want of knowledge; that is, for want of knowing guides; for if the light that is in them that teach be darkness, how great is that darkness! and if the

blind lead the blind, no marvel both fall into the ditch.

How many are there that take upon them to teach others, that had need be taught at the beginning of religion, that, instead of multiplying knowledge, multiply words without knowledge; and instead of making known God's counsel darken council by words without knowledge? The apostle speaks of some that did more than darken counsel; for they wrested the counsel of God; 2 Pet. iii. 16. In Paul's epistles, saith he, are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." Some things in the Scriptures are hard to be known, and they are made harder by such unlearned teachers as utter their own notions by words without knowledge.

66

None are more bold and adventurous to take upon them to expound the dark mysterious and sayings of the prophets and Revelations, and the 9th of the Romans, which I believe contains some of those many things which, in Paul's epistles, Peter saith, were "hard to be understood;" I say none are more forward to dig in these mines than those that can hardly give a sound reason for the first principles of religion; and such as are ignorant of many more weighty things that are easily to be seen in the face and superficies of the Scripture; nothing will serve these but swimming in the deeps, when they have not yet learned to wade through the shallows of the Scriptures: like the Gnosticks of old, who thought they knew all things, though they knew nothing as they ought to know. And as those Gnos ticks did of old, so do such teachers of late break the unity and peace of churches.

How needful then is it, that if we desire the peace of churches, that we choose out men of knowledge, who may be able to keep them from being shattered and scattered with every wind of doctrine: and who may be able to convince and stop the mouths of gainsayers.

(2) You must not only choose men of counsel, but if you would design the unity and peace of the churches, you must choose men of courage to govern them; for as there must be wisdom to bear with some, so there must be courage to correct others: as some must be

instructed meekly, so others must be rebuked sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; there must be wisdom to rebuke some with long-suffering, and there must be courage to suppress and stop the mouths of others. The apostle tells Titus of some whose mouths must be stopped, or else they would subvert whole houses, Titus i. 11. Where this courage hath been wanting, not only whole houses, but whole churches have been subverted. And Paul tells the Galatians, that when he saw some endeavour to bring the churches into bondage, that he did not give place to them, no not for an hour, &c., Gal. ii. 5. If this course had been taken by the rulers of churches, their peace had not been so often invaded by unruly and vain talkers.

3. In choosing men to rule (if you would endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit, and the bond of peace thereby), be careful you choose men of peaceable dispositions. That which hath much annoyed the peace of churches hath been the froward and perverse spirits of the rulers thereof. Solomon thereof adviseth, That with a furious man we should not go, lest we learn his ways, and get a snare to our souls, Prov. xxii. 24, 25; and with the froward we learn frowardness. How do some men's words eat like a canker; who, instead of lifting up their voices like a trumpet to sound a parley for peace, have rather sounded an alarm to war and contention. If ever we would live in peace, let us reverence the feet of them that bring the glad tidings of it.

O how have some men made it their business to preach contentions, and upon their entertainment of every novel opinion to preach separation! How hath God's word been stretched and torn to furnish these men with arguments to tear churches! Have not our ears heard those texts that say, "Come out from among them, and be separate," &c., and "withdraw from every brother that walks disorderly?" I say, have we not heard these texts that were written to prevent disorder brought to countenance the greatest disorder that ever was in the church of God, even schism and division? whereas one of these exhortations was written to the church of Corinth, to separate themselves from the idol's temple and the idol's table, in which many of them lived

new

in the participation of, notwithstanding their profession of the true God; as appears, 2 Cor. vi. 16, 17, compared with 1 Cor. viii. 7, and as 1 Cor. x. 14, 20, 22, recites; and not for some few or more members, who shall make themselves both judges and parties to make separation, when and as often as they please, from the whole congregation and church of God, where they stood related; for, by the same rule, and upon the same ground, may others start some question among these new separatists and become their own judges of the communicableness of them, and thereupon make another separation from these, till at last two be not left to walk together. And for that other text mentioned, 2 Thess. iii. 6, where Paul exhorts the church of Thessalonica to withdraw themselves from every brother that walks disorderly; I cannot but wonder that any should bring this to justify their separation or withdrawal from the communion of a true (though a disorderly) church. For,

(1.) Consider, that this was not writ for a few members to withdraw from the church, but for the church to withdraw from disorderly members.

(2.) Consider, that if any offended members, upon pretence of error, either in doctrine or practice, should by this text become judges (as well as parties) of the grounds and lawfulness of their separation; then it will follow, that half a score notorious heretics, or scandalous livers (when they have walked so they foresee the church are ready to deal with them, and withdraw from them), shall anticipate the church, and pretend somewhat against them, of which themselves must be judges, and so withdraw from the church, pretending either heresy or disorder; and so condemn the church, to prevent the disgrace of being condemned by the church. How needful then is it, that men of peaceable dispositions, and not of froward and fractious and dividing spirits, be chosen to rule the church, of God, for fear lest the whole church be leavened and soured by them!

4. As there must be care used in choosing men to rule the church of God, so there must be a consideration had, that there are many things darkly laid down in Scripture; this will temper our spirits, and make us live in peace and unity the more firmly in things in which

we agree; this will help us to bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ, inasmuch as all things necessary to salvation and church communion are plainly laid down in Scripture. And where things are more darkly laid down, we should consider that God intended hereby to stir up our diligence, that thereby we might increase our knowledge, and not our divisions, for it may be said of all discoveries of truth we have made in the Scriptures, as it is said of the globe of the earth, that though_men have made great searches, and thereupon great discoveries, yet there is still a terra incognita, an unknown land; so there is in the Scriptures; for after men have travelled over them, one age after another, yet still there is, as it were, a terra incognita, an unknown track to put us upon farther search and inquiry, and to keep us from censuring and falling out with those who have not yet made the same discoveries; that so we may say with the Psalmist, when we reflect upon our short apprehensions of the mind of God, that we have seen an end of all perfection, but God's commands are exceeding broad; and, as one observes, speaking of the Scriptures, that there is a path in them leading to the mind of God, which lieth a great distance from the thoughts and apprehensions of men. And, on the other hand, in many other places, God sits, as it were, on the superficies, and the face of the letter, where he that runs may discern him speaking plainly, and no parable at all. How should the consideration of this induce us to a peaceable deportment towards those that differ!

5. If we would endeavour peace and .unity, we must consider how God hath tempered the body, that so the comely parts should not separate from the uncomely, as having no need of them; 1 Cor. xii. 23-25. There is in Christ's body and house some members and vessels less honourable; 2 Tim. ii. 20. And therefore we should not, as some now-a-days do, pour the more abundant disgrace, instead of putting the more abundant honour upon them. Did we but consider this, we should be covering the weakness, and hiding the miscarriages of one another, because we are all members one of another, and the most useless member in his place is useful.

If we would live in peace, let us re

member our relations to God, as children to a father, and to each other as brethren. Will not the thoughts that we have one father, quiet us; and the thoughts that we are brethren, unite us? It was this that made Abraham propose terms of peace to Lot, Gen. xiii., "Let there be no strife," saith he, "between us, for we are brethren." And we read of Moses, in Acts vii. 26, using this argument to reconcile those that strove together, and to set them at one again : "Širs," saith he, "you are brethren; why do you wrong one another ?" A deep sense of this relation, that we are brethren, would keep us from dividing.

7. If we would preserve peace, let us mind the gifts and graces and virtues that are in each other; let these be more in our eye than their failings and imperfections. When the apostle exhorted the Philippians to peace as a means hereunto, that so the peace of God might rule in their hearts, he tells them, iv. 8, "That if there were any virtue, or any praise, they should think of these things." While we are always talking and blazoning the faults of one another, and spreading their infirmities, no marvel we are so little in peace and charity; for as charity covereth a multitude of sins, so malice covereth a multitude of virtues, and makes us deal by one another, as the heathen persecutors dealt with Christians, viz., put them in bears' skins, that they might the more readily become a prey to those dogs that were designed to devour them.

"Evil

When

8. If we would keep unity and peace, let us lay aside provoking and dividing language, and forgive those that use it. Remember that old saying, words corrupt good manners. men think to carry all before them, with speaking uncharitably and disgracefully of their brethren, or their opinions, may not such be answered as Job answered his unfriendly visitants, Job vi. 25, "How forcible are right words; but what doth your arguing reprove?" How healing are words fitly spoken? A word in season, how good is it? If we would seek peace, let us clothe all our treaties for peace with acceptable words; and where one word may better accommodate than another, let that be used to express persons or things by; and let us not, as some do, call the different practices of our brethren, willworship, and their different opinions,

doctrines of devils, and the doctrine of Balaam, who taught fornication, &c., unless we can plainly, and in expressness of terms prove it so. Such language as this hath strangely divided our spirits and hardened our hearts one towards another.

9. If we would live in peace, let us make the best constructions of one another's words and actions. Charity judgeth the best, and it thinks no evil; if words and actions may be construed to a good sense, let us never put a bad construction upon them. How much hath the peace of Christians been broken by an uncharitable interpretation of words and actions? As some lay to the charge of others that which they never said, so, by straining men's words, others lay to their charge that they never thought.

10. Be willing to hear, and learn, and obey those that God by his providence hath set over you; this is a great means to preserve the unity and peace of churches but when men (yea, and sometimes women) shall usurp authority, and think themselves wiser than their teachers, no wonder if these people run into contentions and parties, when any shall say they are not free to hear those whom the church thinks fit to speak to them. This is the first step to schism, and is usually attended, if not timely prevented, with a sinful separation.

11. If you would keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, be mindful, that the God whom you serve is a God of peace, and your Saviour is a Prince of peace, and that "his ways are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace;"and that Christ was sent into the world "to give light to them that sit in darkness, and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet in the way of peace."

12. Consider the oneness of spirit that is among the enemies of religion; though they differ about other things, yet, to persecute religion, and extirpate religion out of the earth, here they will agree; the devils in the air, and the devils in the earth, all the devils in hell, and in the world, make one at this turn. Shall the devil's kingdom be united; and shall Christ's be divided? Shall the devils make one shoulder to drive on the design of damning men, and shall not Christians unite to carry on the great design of saving of them? Shall the