inconceivable weight hath God, hanged upon a puff of breath!

3. And since matters stand thus, it is to be admired what shifts men make to quiet themselves in so dangerous a state as most souls live in; quiet and unconcerned, and yet but one puff of breath betwixt them and hell. Oh, the stupifying and besotting nature of sin! Oh, the efficacy and power of spiritual delusions! Are our lives such a throng and hurry of business, that we have no time to go alone, and think where we are, and where we shortly must be? What shall I say? If bodily concerns be so weighty, and the matters of eternity such trifles; if meat, and drink, and trade, and children, be such great things; and Christ, and soul, and heaven, hell, and the world to come, such little things in your eyes, you will not be long in that opinion, I dare assure you. There is no more than a puff of breath, a blast of wind, betwixt this world and that to come; a very short step betwixt time and eternity: there is a breath which will be our last breath; respiration must terminate in expiration; the dead are the inhabitants of, and the living are borderers upon, the invisible world. This consideration deserves a dwelling-place in the hearts of all men, whether regenerate or unregenerate. Regenerate souls should ponder this with pleasure. Oh, it is transporting to think how small a matter is betwixt them and their complete salvation! No sooner is your breath gone, but the full desire of your hearts is come; every breath you draw, draws you nearer to your perfect happiness. Now is your salvation nearer than when you believed, Rom. xiii. 11.; therefore both your cheerfulness and diligence should be greater than when you were in the infancy of your faith. You have run through a considerable part of your Christian course and race, and are now come nearer the goal and prize of eternal life. Oh! despond not; loiter not now at last, you who were so fervent and zealous in the beginning. It is transporting to think how near you approach the region of light and joy. Oh that you would distinctly consider where you lately were-where now you are-where shortly you shall be!

THE LATE DOCTOR ROBERT MORRISON.

THE great Chinese scholar and missionary, the founder of the Anglo-Chinese College, the author of the great AngloChinese Dictionary, (a stupendous monument of human ingenuity, labour, and perseverance,) and the first translator of the beauties and blessings of Scripture into a language spoken by upwards of four hundred millions of the human

race, had to struggle against all the supposed obstacles of low birth and poverty. The son of a poor last and boottree maker, in the town of Newcastle-on-Tyne, he was himself an apprentice and industrious workman at the same humble trade. But a passion for knowledge and intellectual attainment-originating in his case, it would seem, in an over-mastering religious sentiment-seized him in early life, and every incident in his after career only proved what surpassing purity and enduring strength belong to such a passion. Excellence was with him, as with other great scholars who have equally proved their easy superiority to adverse circumstances, the simple and natural result of a strong determination to excel. A good memory and a lively sensibility to external impressions, are the only advantages we take him to have been at this period in possession of, besides the strength of resolution we have named. The last had its origin, in a peculiar religious fervour, which animated him to the latest moment of his life with an unselfish desire to benefit his fellow creatures.

Nothing can conquer a desire which originates in such a motive, and proposes as its object the acquisition of knowledge. The love of knowledge is, in itself, the attainment of knowledge. Poverty or toil discourages it in vain. It supplies the scarcity of time by the concentration of attention, and replaces comfort by self-denial. No man proved this better than the subject of this notice. No one ever proved more satisfactorily that the privileges and delights of intellectual cultivation depend upon the man himself, and not upon his external fortunes. The learned Doctor Morrison, surrounded by all the accommodations of study in his library and learned leisure at Canton, was not a more laborious or successful student than the last-maker's apprentice, who stole his leisure from toil-purchased sleep in the poor workshop of Newcastle.

TEXTS MISQUOTED.

FROM THE CONNECTICUT OBSERVER.

Error. For they rest from their labours, etc.

Correction. That they may rest. from their labours, Rev. xiv. 13.

Er. The merciful man is merciful to his beast.

Cor. A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast, Prov. xii. 10.

Er. That he who runneth may read it.

Cor. That he may run that readeth it, Hab. ii. 2.

Er. Who giveth us all things richly to enjoy.

Cor. Who giveth us richly all things, etc., 1 Tim. vi. 17. Er. I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins of the children of men.

Cor. Children of men not in the text, Jer. xvii. 10.

Er. Having the promise of the life that now is, etc.
Cor. Having promise, etc., 1 Tim. iv. 8.

Er. And to give you an inheritance among them that are sanctified.

Cor. Among all them which are sanctified, Acts xx. 32.
Er. Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden,

etc.

Cor. All ye that labour and are heavy laden, etc., Matt. xi. 28.

Er. And sitteth him on the pinnacle of the temple.
Cor. On a pinnacle of the temple, Matt. iv. 5.

Er. Behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy, etc.
Cor. Good tidings, etc., Luke ii. 10.

Er. The night cometh wherein no man can work.
Cor. When no man can work, John ix. 4.

Er. Testifying, etc., repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Cor. And faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, Acts xx. 21. Er. The liberal man deviseth liberal things, etc.

Cor. The liberal deviseth liberal things, etc. Isa. xxxii. 8. Er. I will pour, etc., the spirit of prayer and supplication,

etc.

Cor. The spirit of grace and of supplications, Zech. xii. 10. -Blended with Dan. ix. 3; To seek by prayer and suppli

cations.

Er. He is able to save to the uttermost all them that come unto God by him, etc.

Cor. He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God, etc., Heb. vii. 25.

Er. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them to bless them.

Cor. To bless them, not in the text, Matt. xviii. 20.

Er. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first works.

Cor. The first works, Rev. ii. 5.

Er. Clothed in his right mind.

Cor. Clothed, and in his right mind, Mark v. 15.

[A long list of the misapplications of Scripture might be made. Among those heard in Sunday-school meetings, none is more common than a perversion of part of the 18th verse of the 8th chapter of Isaiah: (" Behold, I and the children

66

whom the Lord hath given me")-which is used to express the happiness with which a teacher will enter heaven with his converted pupils; but the words are merely the beginning of an assertion of the prophet, having a totally different meaning. Behold, I and the 'children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts which dwelleth in Mount Zion." The use made of this expression in Hebrews ii. 13, is equally wide from the erroneous application referred to.]

GIN-DRINKING THE ROAD TO RUIN.

WHOE'ER sits down with thoughtful mind to trace
The different paths of ruin and disgrace,
May thus the dreadful list at once begin-
The readiest road to woe is drinking gin.

While multitudes unnumber'd, thoughtless, free,
Pursue this course of evil, all agree,

Who see them thronging down the paths of sin,
That ruin's broadest road is drinking gin.

With eager speed their downward course they rove,
And their succeeding days too clearly prove-
So fleet their progress when they once begin-
That ruin's shortest road is drinking gin.

Oh, turn thy back at once upon the place
Which leads to folly, misery, and disgrace:
Go on if thou destruction swift would'st win,
For ruin's surest road is drinking gin.

Avoid this snare which lurks in every place,
And seek, with all thy soul, the Saviour's grace:
The path is open wide to mercy's throne,
Christ is the heavenly way, and Christ alone.

If led astray in sin's bewildering hour,

Now seek the Saviour's pardoning grace and power,
Bend lowly down beneath his chastening rod,

And, saved from ruin, be a child of God.

Thus wilt thou 'scape the agony and strife

That gnaw the drunkard's aching heart through life,

And say to those who tread this path of sin

6

Avoid the road to ruin!-fly from gin."

UPON THE RUINS OF AN ABBEY.

Ir is not so easy to say what it was that built up these walls, as what it was that pulled them down; even the wickedness of the possessors.

T

Every stone hath a tongue to accuse the superstition, hypocrisy, idleness, luxury of the late owners.

Methinks I see it written all along in capital letters upon these heaps-" A fruitful land maketh he barren for the iniquity of those that dwell therein." Perhaps there wanted not some sacrilege in the demolishers: in all the carriage of these businesses there was a just hand that knew how to make a wholesome and profitable use of mutual sins; full little did the builders or the in-dwellers think that this costly and warm fabric, should so soon end violently in a desolate rubbish. It is not for us to be high-minded, but to fear; no roof is so high, no wall so strong, as that sin cannot level it with the dust. Were any pile so close that it could keep out air, yet it could not keep out judgment where sin hath been before admitted.

In vain shall we promise stability to those houses which TRACT MAG., THIRD SERIES, NO. 91, JULY, 1841. H