ascended the ship's side, I found this pious mate in conversation with a man who had just stepped on board as a labourer, but who had been an old sailor, and was now seeking a day's work. The words that first struck my attention were those of the mate: 'I never allow any man to swear in this ship; you are aware it is a sinful habit, and very grievous in the sight of God. Do you know, that by thus swearing you expose yourself to the wrath of God; and are you willing to have his vengeance poured out upon you? What! do you think God will not take notice of such heinous crimes? I tell you, this course, if continued, will lead you to hell.' Thus was this swearer admonished. I had come on board unperceived, and had taken my stand where I could see and hear all that took place on this occasion. As soon as there was an opportunity, the poor swearer, with tears running down his furrowed cheek, replied, Sir, I am sorry for what I have done, I really did not know I swore; oh! sir, I know it's wrong, but although I have been to sea forty years, no man ever told me what you have told me to day. I hope I shall never swear again.' 'I hope you never will,' replied the mate. 'Now you can go ashore, and recollect what I have told you;' and going over the side of the ship, in broken accents, he replied, God grant I may never swear more. God bless you, sir!' My eye followed him in the distance, and as far as I could trace him I observed him wiping away the falling tears with the sleeve of his pea-jacket. Turning to the mate, who had not till then recognized me, I said, 'Well, sir, you have been engaged in lecturing this morning. I trust the word spoken will have a salutary effect.' 'I hope it will,' he replied; the poor fellow appears truly convinced of his crime, and is gone away weeping.' At this moment, the mate turned aside his head, and with his handkerchief wiped his eyes; after a pause, he said, 'Ah! sir, only a few years ago and I could swear as round a hand as ever that poor fellow did; but God, who is rich in mercy, hath called me by his grace, and I can now praise him for what he hath done for my soul.' I questioned him relative to his conversion, and found the ship in which he then sailed had been his spiritual birth-place, and that the captain had been his spiritual father; but,' said he, I have a pious, praying mother, whom I have not seen since I have been brought to a knowledge of the truth; I am very desirous of going home to see my poor mother before she dies;' I replied, That's very natural, and she would assuredly rejoice to see you.' Again wiping the tears from his manly cheek, he said, Oh, sir, I am anxious to see my dear praying mother, and mingle my prayers with hers, at the throne of grace.'

6

UPON THE BLOWING OF THE FIRE.

WE beat back the flame, not with a purpose to suppress it, but to raise it higher, and to diffuse it more: those afflictions and repulses, which seem to be discouragements, are, indeed, the merciful incitements of grace. If God did mean judgment to my soul, he would either withdraw the fuel, or pour water upon the fire, or suffer it to languish for want of new motions; but now that he continues to me the means, and opportunities, and desires of good, I shall misconstrue the intentions of my God, if I shall think his crosses sent rather to damp than to quicken his Spirit in me.

O God, if thy bellows did not sometimes thus breathe upon me, in spiritual repercussions, (repressings) I should have just cause to suspect my estate: those few weak gleeds (coals) of grace that are in me might soon go out, if they were not thus refreshed: still blow upon them till they kindle; still kindle them till they flame up to thee.

TRACT MAG., THIRD SERIES, No. 107, Nov. 1842. M

UPON THE FRAME OF A GLOBE CASUALLY BROKEN.

Ir is hard to say whether is the greater, man's art or impotence. He that cannot make one spire of grass, or corn of sand, will yet be framing of worlds; he can imitate all things who can make nothing. Here is a great world in a little room by the skill of the workman, but in less room by misaccident. Had he seen this, who upon the view of Plato's Book of Commonwealth eaten with mice, presaged the fatal miscarriage of the public state, he would sure have construed this casualty as ominous. Whatever become of

the material world, (whose decay might seem no less to stand with Divine Providence than this microcosm of individual man,) sure I am, the frame of the moral world is and must be disjointed in the last times: men do and will fall from evil to worse. He that hath made all times, hath told us that the last shall be perilous; happy is he that can stand upright when the world declines, and can endeavour to repair the common ruin with a constancy in goodness.

UPON A SCREEN.

METHINKS this screen, that stands betwixt me and the fire, is like some good friend at the court, which keeps from me the heat of the unjust displeasure of the great, wherewith I might, perhaps, otherwise be causelessly scorched; but how happy am I, if the interposition of my Saviour, my best Friend in heaven, may screen me from the deserved wrath of that great God, who is a consuming fire!

A TRACT ANECDOTE.

Bp. Hall.

COMMUNICATED BY A CLERGYMAN NOW IN FRANCE.

In the early part of the year 1838 an English lady, residing near one of the principal towns in the north of France, gave a tract, entitled "Le Pauvre Infirme," to a female convict on her being released from confinement, the term of which had expired, and she was returning to her home in a neighbouring village. This tract seems to have worked no good on the receiver. In the spring of 1842 it was flung into the high road, soiled and torn, by one of her children. A man, named Felix, who earned his scanty bread by weaving, was passing at the moment. He picked up the misused and mutilated treasure, for to him it proved to be a treasure indeed. Felix had been educated in the ido

latrous religion of Rome. Being a man of powerful mind, he had discovered the idolatry and absurdity of that religion. He rejected it altogether, and was living as nineteen-twentieths of professing Papists live, in philosophical disbelief of Christianity altogether, and without God in the world, as he subsequently confessed. He took the tract home with him, for he lived at another village five miles distant. He read it. He read it again and again. He was so deeply interested in what he read, that he naturally supposed the owner of it must put a similar value on it. He carried it back, therefore, to the woman aforesaid, and offered to pay her its price. The woman abruptly told him that it was of no use to her or her children, and that he was heartily welcome to it. Felix did not cease to study the tract, because it was now his own. Renewed perusal of it soon taught him that he wanted another book, and that book was the Bible. He learned whence the tract had issued, and he respectfully, but earnestly, applied to the English lady for a copy of the Scriptures, expressly stipulating that it should be a Protestant copy. He was supplied with the object of his wishes for the sum of five shillings, as he could not be contented with anything inferior to a large print octavo. On receiving the Bible, he voluntarily promised that he would instruct his little boy in it. A month elapsed. He came again to the English lady with his Bible under his arm, looking pale, emaciated, and deeply dejected. The illness and death of his father had caused him a fit of sickness, and reduced his circumstances to so low an ebb, that he was come to entreat the lady to return him half the price of his Bible, and retain it till he could redeem it. He burst into tears as he made the proposal. The lady, of course, declined to take back the Bible, urged him never to part with it however great his worldly need, and advanced him the sum requested, by way of loan. Felix returned with his rescued book, praising God, and burning with the desire of living more and more to his glory, walking by faith. Soon after, a young man in the same village came under Felix's teaching, or rather, under the Spirit's teaching. out of Felix's book, of the same mind with him, and at once left the church of Rome. These two men began to pass their Sundays apart from their fellow villagers, in searching the Scriptures, in prayer, and edifying conversation. The

wife and child of Felix soon joined themselves to them, and thus there was a church in the weaver's house.

Soon after this, Felix began to attend the ministry of the Rev. , at the Chapelle Evangelique in the town of It was eight miles distant. There he made great advances in godliness. His convictions of sin became deeper; his desire of doing something in the Saviour's cause more ardent. The English lady employed him to distribute tracts for her. He distributed twenty the first week in his own village; eighty in the first month, besides selling many New Testaments and some entire Bibles. After awhile, he prevailed on the Rev. to visit his village pastorally, every alternate Sunday. This has been blessed. There is now a regular congregation formed of nearly twenty adults, who no longer bow to the idol of Rome, but diligently and prayerfully seek a knowledge of the truth as revealed in the oracles of God, growing in grace, and becoming wise unto salvation. Felix's health and circumstances are restored to a comfortable state. He is contented where he is, but willing to be employed as a colporteur on a larger scale, if a door be opened. H. T. A.

NOAH'S ARK.

THE ark outlived the deluge, and rested at length, with its refugees within it, upon Mount Ararat. In like manner, the Saviour rose from the many waters which threatened to overwhelm him. The waves dashed against the typical ark, and doubtless often ran over it, but they could not sink it. Thus the wrath of God, which will overwhelm all who are out of Christ, is itself overruled to promote the salvation of all who believe in Him. "All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me," Isa. liii. 6. "The Lord caused to meet on him the iniquity of us all," Psa. xlii. 7.

The influence by which Noah's refugees were collected in the ark, is the same with that by which sinners are gathered to Jesus Christ. In both cases the power of God is exerted. For it is evident that no rhetoric of Noah could have induced the stately lion, or the timid hare, to have entered into his ark. He might have invited and threatened till every argument was exhausted, and till his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, ere a single animal would have been induced to comply with his proposal. HE the Al