self-reproach, except so far as every man of tender conscience is sensible of innumerable sins, negligences, and ignorances in his best observances; for he had been a peculiarly watchful parent, and had left nothing undone that prayer, instruction, and example could afford for his children's spiritual welfare. The above passages incidentally afford a most beautiful illustration of his feelings as a Christian parent. Scarcely a syllable does he record in his secret diary of his son's temporal prospects; his most anxious desire is regarding his spiritual condition. He attests before God, in the simplicity of his soul, that " he had not sought great things for him ;" and that he felt far more acutely because the course his son had taken was wicked, than because it was mean and degrading. This last remark exhibits the very touchstone of Christian feeling. Happy is that parent who can truly after various family concerns, and how they had been conducted since she had been ill and thus we continued talking together till morning. "She continued much the same all the forenoon; was delighted with the conversation of Robert, whose heart also was delighted, as he said, to see his mother so well. Robert,' said she, we shall not live together much longer.'-' Yes, mother,' replied the child, I hope we shall live together for ever!' Joy sparkled in her eyes at this answer she stroked his head, and exclaimed, O bless you, my dear! how came such a thought into your mind?' "Towards noon she said to me,' We will dine together to-day, my dear, up stairs.* We did so. But, while we were at dinner, in a few minutes her senses were gone : nor did she ever recover them again. From this happy interval, however, I entertained hopes that her senses would return when she was delivered, and came to recover her strength. me; 6 "On Thursday the 23d instant she was delivered of a daughter; but was all the day very restless, full of pain and misery, no return of reason, except that from an aversion to me, which she had so long entertained, she called me my dear,' and twice kissed said she must die,' and 'let me die, my dear,' said she, let me die!' Between nine and ten o'clock, as there seemed no immediate sign of a change, and being very weary, I went to rest; but about eleven was called up again, just time enough to witness the convulsive pangs of death, which in about ten minutes carried her off. "Poor soul! What she often said is now true. She was not at home. . . . I am not her husband. . . . these are not her children . . . . but she has found her home. . . . . a home, a husband, and a family, better than these! It is the cup which my Father hath given me to drink, and shall I not drink it? Amidst all my afflictions I have much to be thankful for. I have reason to be thankful that, though her intellects were so deranged, yet she never uttered any ill language, nor was ever disposed to do mischief to herself or others: and when she was at the worst, if I fell on my knees to prayer, she would instantly be still and attentive. I have also to be thankful that, though she has been generally afraid of death all her life-time, yet that fear has been remarkably removed for the last half year. While she retained her reason, she would sometimes express her willingness to live or die, as it might please God and about five or six weeks ago, would now and then possess a short interval in which she would converse freely. One of our friends, who staid at home with her on Lord's-days, says, that her conversation at those times would often turn on the poor and imperfect manner in which she had served the Lord, her desires to serve him better, her grief to think she had so much and so often sinned against him. On one of these occasions, she was wonderfully filled with joy on overhearing the congregation while they were singing over the chorus, Glory, honour, praise, and power,' &c. She seemed to catch the sacred spirit of the song. "I mean to erect a stone to her memory, on which will probably be engraved the following lines : The tender parent wails no more her loss, Nor labours more beneath life's heavy load; The anxious soul, released from fears and woes, "To all this I may add, that, perhaps, I have reason to be thankful for her removal : however the dissolution of such a union may affect my present feelings, it may be one of the greatest mercies both to her and me. Had she continued, and continued in the same state of mind, which was not at all improbable, this, to all appearance, would have been a thousand times worse than death. The poor little infant is yet alive, and we call her name Bathoni: the same name, except the difference of sex, which Rachel gave to her last-born child." say that he has always thus made the Divine Law his standard, and has always felt the fear of God to be more promptly influential than any worldly bias; and would have preferred the "meanest" employment, if not "wicked," to all that wealth and taste and worldly honour could offer. In all the annals of parental suffering I know not that I could point out a more affecting passage than the closing part of that above quoted; or any thing more beautifully Christian, more sublimely full of faith and holy resig nation, than its conclusion: "Yet, O my soul, let me rather think of Aaron than of David." Truly, religion is worth something at such a moment. Nor is it uninteresting, or unedifying, to contemplate a man like Fuller, known chiefly to the world in far other aspects, and often involved in painful controversies, thus in the midst of home endearments, and without one feeling jarring within when all was jarring in the outer world. I know not that I would have pained your feelings with this narrative, if I could not have added something to relieve them; for a few days brought the afflicted father the joyful intelligence that the report of his son's death was unfounded-though I presume the account of his punishment, and consequent illness and danger, was true. Mr. Fuller's recorded remark upon hearing the reviving intelligence is characteristic: "I have received a letter from my poor boy. Well, he is yet alive, and within the reach of mercy." The soul of his child was still the first object of his solicitude. Whether his conduct as a parent was always judicious, I know not. It is possible that his very anxiety for his children's spiritual welfare might cause him to render religious instruction burdensome to them; and many a child has been injured by the recoil from an overstrained tension, which the infant mind could not bear. I remember, many years ago, an elderly lady telling me that she could not think how it was that her son, when he grew up, had so little taste for religion; for that she had done all she could to impress him with a sense of its importance: so much so, that, when he used to come home from school to his breakfast and dinner, she made him read the Bible till it was time to go back again, never allowing him to play about idly, like other boys; and that his evenings and Sundays were wholly occupied in religious reading, and prayer, and serious conversation, and learning the Scripture and catechisms: and yet, added she, “He does not seem to love the Bible." There is not, perhaps, much general danger of over-strictness in these matters in the present day; the tendency is usually to a lax rather than a rigid system of family religious discipline; yet the fault may be occasionally witnessed and if this were the case in Mr. Fuller's house (though I am not aware that it was), it is less remarkable that the young man, when he became first exposed to the vices of a London life-being also removed perhaps too early from home, before his character was formed-fell into the snare. It seems to me the great secret of religious domestic government, to make both servants and children habitually feel, that, though they might be more wicked in other families, they could not be more happy. A really well-ordered Christian household, neither lax nor morose, is the very gate of heaven. As you have followed this unhappy young man thus far, perhaps you might wish to know the conclusion of his narrative, which bears directly upon the subject of my letter. Many painful vicissitudes befel him, brought on by his own evil conduct. His last station was among the marines, with whom he went on a voyage to Brazil. On his return, he addressed his father in the most pathetic terms, entreating one more written testimony of his forgiveness, urging that he was on the point of sailing for Lisbon, "whence," says he, "I may never return." This was answered by an affecting epistle, of which the following extracts are all that can be found: " "My dear Robert,—I received with pleasure your dutiful letter, and would fain consider it as a symptom of a returning mind. I cannot but consider you as having been long under a sort of mental derangement, piercing yourself through, as well as me, with many sorrows. My prayer for you continually is, that the God of all grace and mercy may have mercy upon you. You may be assured that I cherish no animosity against you. On the contrary, I do, from my heart, freely forgive you. But that which I long to see in you is repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, without which there is no forgiveness from above. "My dear son! you had advantages in early life; but, being continually in profligate company, you must be debased in mind, and, in a manner, reduced to a state of heathenism. In some of your letters, I have observed you dashing, as it were, against the rocks of fatalism; suggesting as if you thought you were appointed to such a course of life. In others I find you flattering yourself that you are a penitent; when, perhaps, all the penitence you ever felt has been the occasional melancholy of remorse and fear. "My dear son! I am now nearly fifty-five years old, and may soon expect to go the way of all the earth! But, before I die, let me teach you the good and the right way. Hear the instructions of a father.' You have had a large portion of God's preserving goodness, or you had, ere now, perished in your sins. Think of this, and give thanks to the Father of mercies, who has hitherto preserved you. Think, too, how you have requited him, and be ashamed for all that you have done. Nevertheless, do not despair! Far as you have gone, and low as you are sunk in sin, yet if hence you return to God, by Jesus Christ, you will find mercy. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, even the chief of sinners. If you had been ever so sober and steady in your behaviour towards men, yet, without repentance towards God and faith in Christ, you could not have been saved; and, if you return to God by him, though your sins be great and aggravated, yet will you find mercy........ This affecting narrative cannot be better concluded than in the words of the late Dr. Ryland :-" As this poor young man foreboded, this was his last voyage. He died off Lisbon, in March 1809, after a lingering illness, in which he had every attention paid him of which his situation would admit. From the testimony of his captain, and one of his messmates, we learn that his conduct was good, and such as to procure him much respect; and, from letters addressed to his father and his sister, a short time before his death, we hope still better things; we hope he was led to see the error of his way, and to make the Lord his refuge from the tempest and the storm. "His death, under such circumstances, was less painful to his friends than it would otherwise have been; and, in a sermon preached the Lord'sday after the intelligence was received, in allusion to this event, from Rom. x. 8, 9, his father seemed to take comfort from three ideas: that, 1. The doctrine of free justification by the death of Christ is suited to sinners of all degrees. It asks not how long, nor how often, nor how greatly, we have sinned: if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. 2. It is suited to the helpless condition of sinners. We have only to look and live. 3. It is suited to sinners in the last extremity. It answers to the promised mercy in Deut. iv. 29: If from theNCE thou seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him. Some are far from home, and have no friend, in their dying moments, to speak a word of comfort.... but this is near! When Jonah was compassed about by the floods, when the billows and waves passed over him, he prayed to the Lord and the Lord heard him.'.... "Here he was obliged to pause, and give vent to his feelings by weeping; and many of the congregation, who knew the cause, wept with him! His heart was full, and it was with difficulty he could conclude, with solemnly charging the sinner to apply for mercy ere it was too late; for, if it were rejected, its having been so near and so easy of access, would be a swift witness against him." I have wandered, my dear friend, somewhat widely-from King David to Quintillian, and from Quintillian to Andrew Fuller-but I have not wandered from my subject; and if in my future letters I should make deviations quite as excursive, I trust they-I mean the examples, not my poor comments upon them-will not be found unimproving or unentertaining. If they should, the remedy is in your own hands; you may cut short the thread of my discoursings with a word: but should you hold the shears suspended, you may expect at least two or three more letters, "dum superest Lachesi quod torqueat;" but then "Clotho colum retinet; Lachesis net, et Atropos occat:" so that if you shall see fit to perform the part of Atropos upon this letter, there will be an end to the droppings of my lachrymatory. But I must not close my page on such a subject with a heathen allusion. I open the Book of books, and there I find the following, which, often as you have read it, is inestimably worth again transcribing, in connection with the tears of parents over their departed children. "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so also them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, That we, which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we be ever with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." : I remain, &c. &c. (To be continued). REV. J. SCOTT IN REPLY TO T. B. ON BELIEVERS BEING JUDGED ACCORDING TO THEIR WORKS. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. SIR,-Permit me to remark to your correspondent T. B. (Christ. Observ. Sept. p. 589) that we ought to be very careful how we impute to one another" novel and strange doctrines," upon insufficient grounds. It was no more my intention, in the note on which he animadverts, to deny that "there is nothing hid which shall not be manifested," than it is his to deny that the sins of the believer in Jesus shall be blotted out, and never rise in judgment against him to condemn him." In fact, to assert this latter position, which your correspondent, I doubt not," with his whole heart believes," was my object: but I had to assert it (which T. B. never intimates to his readers) against the particular misapprehension" and despairing conclusion, that, because we are to be " judged according to our works," therefore the man who is conscious that hitherto "the main course and tenor of his life" have been bad, has no other resource than to say: "The time is lapsed; death is at the door; what can be done now ?” (Narratives of the Plague, &c. p. 121, or 2d edition, p. 100.) This I endeavoured to obviate, not by denying "that the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed at the judgment-seat of Jesus Christ," but by urging, that, on a man's truly repenting and believing in Christ, all his sins" shall be blotted out," so as "6 never to rise in judgment against him to condemn him;" but that, according to the tenor of that " new life," which his faith will infallibly cause him to lead, he shall be adjudged a "welldoer," and "come forth at the resurrection of life" at the last day. (John v. 29; Matt. xxv. 31-46.) It is perfectly easy to understand how the impenitent shall be both judged "according to their works," and condemned for them but if T. B. has any better mode of explaining how the believer shall be "judged according to his works," while it is admitted that those works cannot justify him, than that which I have adopted, it may be well for him to state it. My aim was not "to support us against trembling at the consequences of that fearful disclosure," but to bar the conclusion, "There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go." T. B. should be more accurate. Twice he misquotes me-once materially-besides leading his readers to apprehend that the object of my note was quite different from what it really was. I am, &c. JOHN SCOTT. MINUTE VERIFICATIONS OF SCRIPTURE. For the Christian Observer. MINUTE coincidences and verifications of Scripture have been often and justly urged as striking collateral tests of truth. One of these, which has not been noticed, occurs to me in reading the Gospel of St. Mark. We find several references in the Evangelists to our Lord's miraculously causing the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. Should it be objected by the infidel, that such facts might easily be feigned, I would refer him to a circumstance, twice mentioned in St. Mark, which I think would go far to convince a scientific sceptic of the veracity of the narrative. In chapter ix. ver. 17, we find one of the multitude bringing to be healed his son, who had "a dumb" spirit. Much is said, in the succeeding verses, of the history and facts of this melancholy possession; but not a word is mentioned of the child's being deaf, as well as dumb. But when our Lord addresses the devil, verse 25, he says, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out of him." So also in chapter vii. verse 32, it is said, "They bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech;" and our Lord "put his fingers into his ears," as well as " touched his tongue.” Now it is well known in modern days, that the usual cause of dumbness is deafness; that it is very rarely any absolute organic or congenital impediment, arising from serious malformation of any of the vocal or enunciative organs, but simply the absence of hearing, for want of which the sufferer has no conception of spoken sounds. St. Matthew passes over the deafness altogether; and how came St. Mark to supply it? If, as we believe and know, he stated actual facts, the solution is easy; but upon any supposition which the infidel can feign, St. Mark must have studiously and craftily added this circumstance of the deafness, either from his scientific knowledge, or from his actual observation of similar cases. But can any one, who reads his Gospel, for one moment imagine such a crafty artifice; and all to deceive certain scientific inquirers eighteen hundred years after, by connecting deafness and impediments of speech together? I would confidently ask any candid sceptic, if such there be, whether he thinks that the state of science was such at that time in Judea, that a man, in inventing |