The neglect that would involve such fearful consequences, has peculiar aggravations, which the ungodly children of pious parents have often, when dying, felt to be terribly overwhelming. A minister of the gospel describes a scene of this kind that he witnessed on board a ship. As he was going to the ship, the heart-rending groans of a young man near death reached his ear, and when he mounted the deck were very loud indeed. He went to the sufferer, who eagerly stretched forth his hand, and, says the writer, "grasping mine with great strength, said, dear sir, pray for me, pray for me." I begged him to be calm, and said, I will pray for you, but pray for yourself. I will offer prayer; you must join with me." "Oh! no sir, I cannot pray-my God I never have prayed-no sir, I never shall pray, I feel I cannot, I cannot; I am lost, I am lost! Oh that I had never been born." I pointed out the value of the atoning blood of Christ-told him of the dying thief, but he would still cry out, "Sir, this is not for me, I am lost! my father is in heaven, my mother will be there. I broke my father's heart; I despised their prayers, their counsels, and their entreaties, and now I cannot pray, I cannot hope." I began to read the Scriptures; he stopped me, saying, "Pray for me directly." I prayed, but could not proceed for his groans and cries. After a little while he started up in his cot, and wildly shrieking and falling backwards, expired in agony indescribable.

Dreadful are such dying moments, but forget not that the aggravated sin which occasions this fearful look ing for of judgement and fiery indignation, incurs also everlasting ruin still more intolerable. How sad will it be if the efforts of fond and pious parents to bless and save you should

nation, and all their exertions to raise you to heaven should end in sinking you deeper in hell. How mournful that through your neglect, when they were most anxiously seeking your everlasting good, they were really but treasuring up for you "wrath against the day of wrath."

If their reflections are most painful when they see you numbered with the dead, what will your distress and misery be when you have entered the unseen world. How terribly distressing will be your views and feelings, when all your privileges are over, and all the vanities and pleasures for which you neglected Jesus are gone for ever.

What frantic horrors will seize your wretched spirit as it enters the place of woe. Oh if it could resist the execution of its doom-but it cannot. Oh if it could shun the avenging fiends that crowd around it, once its tempters now its tormenters― but it cannot. Oh if it could die again, and cease to be-but such a death will never come. Fury, rage, remorse, all torment the distracted spirit; but all effort to escape is vain, its doom is sealed. There is no hope, no pardon, no deliverance. When the worldly rich man died, “in hell he lifted up his eyes being in torments," he prayed not for deliverance but for the smallest possible alleviation of his misery, "Send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame." What a trifle; yet even this was denied to a lost soul. Your parents felt horror at the idea of your being thus for ever undone, but how will you feel when the dreadful fact is certain, and you cannot forget or drive this conviction away. Is this the place to which I madly bent my course, when I might have been travelling to heaven! This world of misery, this fire that never shall he quenched, that from which parents and ministers would

have saved me! Is this what they besought me to shun, when, wretched creature, I slighted their counsels and would none of their reproof! There is the Saviour, there is heaven; but the Saviour and heaven are lost to me! They entreated me to seek his favour. How happy should I be now if I had listened to their advice, but fool that I was, I would not, and now the day of mercy is past. This horrid prison, this hellish company, are my portion now for eternal years. As easy were it to hold the ocean in the hollow of the hand, as to conceive the agony, the remorse, and the despair, that a soul thus lost will feel. And shall that soul be yours?

If ungodly children should meet their pious parents at the great day of eternal judgement how dismal will be the meeting, and if they should not meet how mournful will be the everlasting separation. "Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." "God shall bring every work into judgement with every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil." "We must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it is good or bad."

Rev. i. 7.-Eccles xii. 14. 2. Cor. v. 10. What account of abused privileges and mercies will you then be compelled to render! How awful to you will be that reckoning day! Even your parents, now so anxious for your welfare, may then have to witness against you, that they strove to lead you to Jesus and that you would not hearken. A pious father had a dream that he thus describes. "I dreamed that the day of judgement was come. saw the Judge on his great white throne, and all nations were gathered before him. My wife and I were on

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the right hand, but I could not see my children. I said, I cannot bear this, I must go and seek them. I went to the left hand of the Judge and there saw them all standing in the uttermost despair. As soon as they saw me they caught hold of me, and cried, O father we will never part. I said, my dear children, I am come to try if possible to get you out of this awful situation; so I took them all with me, but when we came near the Judge I thought he cast an angry look and said, what do thy children with thee now? They would not take thy warning when on earth, and they shall not share with thee the crown of heaven. Depart ye cursed." At these words I awoke bathed in tears. The relation of this dream led to the conversion of most of his children. If the dream is solemn what would the awful reality be. How would you feel if passing through such a scene, you saw your parents welcomed to heaven, but heard as your doom, the dreadful sentence, Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

Look beyond these solemn scenes beyond them is eternity, vast, joyful, or dreadful eternity. When the solemnities of that last great day are over, when the Judge has left his great white throne, has taken with him to heaven all that knew his grace, and met his welcome, and has sent into everlasting punishment all that made light of his gracious calls and saving love, then if you die unconverted, how terrible will be your condition! how dreadful your eternal prospects! your parents, whose wisdom you would not follow, in heaven, and you, most miserable creature, in hell. Though once you dwelt under the same roof, yet parted now never to meet again. Their eternal years rolling on amid the bliss and triumph of the world of perfect holiness and joy; your dark and gloomy but

Eternity by all or wished or feared
Shall be by all, or suffered or enjoyed."

All this wretchedness will be more intolerable by the tormenting reflection that you were your own destroyer. If in the world of misery you could blame some one else as the author of your ruin, if you could believe that a fatal necessity or a want of means and mercies caused it, this would be some alleviation of everlasting sorrows; but while sinners generally will be compelled to feel that their destruction was by their own choice, none will feel it more than the ungodly children of pious parents. Privileges and blessings now little valued will rise in sorrowful review. What privileges had I, how precious and how many! My birth was not amidst idolatry and darkness; I was born in a family of God's people; much pains was employed to teach me the way of life; all gospel blessings were freely offered to me, and I was intreated to receive them; but alas, all was in vain. My parents prayed for me, but I prayed not; they yearned over me, with longing desires for my salvation, but I treated it with unconcern. More favoured than many, I was more guilty, and am now more wretched.

These solemn views are not cunningly devised fables.. If you seek not the Saviour, you will, too late, learn their truth, by dreadful experience, and will learn also that the

IV. Thus to you no alternative remains but that of turning to God, and becoming an heir of heaven, or of a life of aggravated wickedness, followed by more dreadful condemnation. You may be saved, or you must be lost You may be blessed with all the blessings of salvation, or you must sink accursed into everlasting destruction. You may be a child of God, or must be a slave of Satan. You may in a few short years be a happy saint in light, or you must be a wretched outcast with the devil and his angels. How awful is the contrast; but there is no middle way. One or the other you must choose, and not to choose life and blessing, is to choose death and cursing. O choose that good part which should never be taken away. Choose the Saviour and his service; to him devote your days. By all that is precious in salvation, by all the terrors of perdition, by all the bliss of heaven, by all the woes of hell, by all the love of God, by all the sorrows of Christ, by all the solemnities of eternal judgement-now choose whose you will be. Delay not: millions are undone for ever by delay In your case delay is more dangerous than even in that of the ignorant and careless. If you delay. you sin against more light than they, and more wickedly resist the Holy Ghost. You slight the Saviour at that time of life when most conversions are made; when the truths that should convert are most powerfully felt, and when the danger of hardening the heart is great. An aged man, in the hearing of Mr. Williams of Kidderminster, said to his son, "Son, though I have not myself been so religious and careful of my soul as I should have been, yet I cannot but have a tender concern for your everlasting happiness, and here I admon

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young woman, seek Harden not your heart Behold now is the behold now is the

J. G. P.

To the General Baptist churches of the New Connexion, the meeting of the Annual Association is the termination of what may be called their ecclesiastical year. To be perfectly in order, all the churches should forward to that assembly a written statement of their numbers, and of the changes which have happened to them by additions or diminution, from whatever cause, and also a general and impartial view of their spiritual condition. They should also appoint one or more delegates to represent them, and constitute a part of "the Association." The preparation of such documents devolves on the churches themselves, by whose sanction, as a fair report of their state, they are severally received by the associated brethren, and published in "the minutes" of their proceedings. The churches usually assume that their pastor will prepare a draft of their state, and submit it to them for their approval and adoption, or they appoint one or two of their senior and experienced brethren to discharge this service. The practice varies in this respect in different churches, and even in the same church: the pastor sometimes desiring others to share the responsibility, or from motives of delicacy declining to take it at all upon himself. Be this as it may, the church itself, when the document is presented to its meeting, and altered or modified according to the wishes of the members, becomes responsible for its substantial correctness, before it is forwarded to the annual association.

The preparation of the annual

states of our churches is an exercise far from being devoid of interest and importance, and it has occurred to the writer that a few observations and reflections on this subject may not be obtrusive or useless. We will suppose, then, that in our various churches the pastor and others are engaged in this process, and endeavour to follow them through it, and notice some of the many remarks and reflections which occur during its execution. First of all the statistics are sought for from the church book, the list of members, and of the additions and diminutions during the past year. Figures are sometimes uninteresting things, but here, as they represent persons, immortal souls, in their relation to the vital subject of religion, and their connection with a church of the Lord Jesus Christ, they become invested with a deep and solemn importance. The mind rests on them with devout pleasure, with joy and trembling, with unalloyed sadness, or with delightful hope. How many a christian minister and friend has felt this, when engaged in the exercise!

But let us proceed. The first list usually made is that of those who have been added to the church by baptism. As the names of these are told over, how many are the thoughts which occur to the reflective mind! "Here is the name of one whose conversion to God is a signal proof of the power and efficacy of Divine grace. Long living without God and hope, wandering in forbidden pleasures, or lost in the mazes of error and unbe