man reduced to beggary; and I have seen a small capital and stock improved to great riches.

To effect any purpose, in study, the mind must be concentrated. If any other subject plays on the fancy, than that which ought to be exclusively before it, the mind is divided; and both are neutralized, so as to lose their effect. Just as when I learnt two systems of short-hand. I was familiar with Gurney's method and wrote it with ease; but, when I took it into my head to learn Byrom's, they destroyed each other, and I could write neither.

THERE should be something obvious, determinate, and positive, in a man's reasons for taking a journey; especially if he be a minister. Such events and consequences may be connected with it in every step, that he ought, in no case, to be more simply dependent on the great Appointer of means and occasions. Several journies which I thought myself called on to take, I have since had reason to

think I should not have taken. Negative, and even doubtful reasons, may justify him in choosing the safer side of staying at home; but there ought to be something more in the reasons which put him out of his way, to meet the unknown consequences of a voluntary change of station. Let there always be a "because" to meet the "why?” «

I SOMETIMES see, as I sit in my pew at St. John's during the service, an idle fellow saunter into the chapel. He gapes about him for a few minutes; finds nothing to interest and arrest him; seems scarcely to understand what is going forward; and, after a lounge or two, goes out again. I look at him, and think, "Thou art a wonderful creature! A perfect miracle! What a machine is that body!

curiously,-fearfully,-wonderfully framed! An intricate delicate-but harmonious and perfect structure! And, then, to ascend to thy soul!-its nature!-its capacities!-its actual state!-its designation! its eternal condition!-I am lost in amazement!"-While he seems to have no more consciousness of all this than the brutes which perish!

SIN, pursued to its tendencies, would pull God from his throne. Though I have a deep conviction of its exceeding sinfulness, I live not a week without seeing some exhibition of its malignity which draws from me "Well! who could have imagined this!" Sin would subjugate heaven, earth, and hell to itself. It would make the universe the minion of its lusts, and all beings bow down and worship.

Ir is one of the most awful points of view in which we can consider God, that, as a righteous governor of the world, concerned to vindicate his own glory, he has laid himself under a kind of holy necessity to purify the unclean, or to sink him into perdition.

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IT is one of the curses of error, that the man, who is the subject of it, if he has had the opportunity of being better informed, cannot possibly do right, so far as he is under it. He has brought himself into an utter incapacity of acting virtuously: since it is vicious to obey an ill-informed conscience, if that conscience might have been better informed; and certainly vicious to disobey conscience, whether it be well or ill-informed.

THE approaches of sin are like the conduct of Jael. It brings butter in a lordly dish. It bids high for the soul. But when it has fascinated and lulled the victim, the nail and the hammer are behind.

I HAVE met with one case in my ministry, very frequent and very distressing. A man says to me "I approve all you say. I SEE things to be just as you state them. I see a necessity, a propriety, a beauty in the religion of Christ. I see it to be interesting and important. But I do not FEEL it. I cannot feel it. I have no spirit of prayer. My heart belies my head: its affections refuse to follow my convictions." If this complaint be ingenuous, it is an evidence of grace; and I say "Wait for God, and he will appear." But, too often, it is not ingenuous: the heart is actually indisposed: some tyrant holds it in bondage. The complaint is a mockery-because there is no sincerity of endeavor to obtain the object of which it pretends to lament the want-there is no sincere desire and prayer for the quickening and breathing of God's Holy Spirit on the torpid soul.

THE man who labors to please his neighbor for his good to edification, has the mind that was in Christ. It is a sinner trying to help a sinner. How different the face of things if this spirit prevailed!-if Dissenters were like Henry, and Watts, and Doddridge; and churchmen like Leighton! The man who comes prominently forward in any way may expect to be found fault with: one will call him harsh, and another a trimmer. A hard man may be reverenced, but men will like him best at a distance: he is an iron man: he is not like Jesus Christ: Christ might have driven Thomas from his presence for his unreasonable incredulity-but not sc! It is as though he had said, "I will come down to thy weakness: if thou canst not believe without thrusting thy hand into my side, then thrust in thy hand." Even a feeble, but kind and tender man, will effect more than a genius, who is rough or artificial. There is danger, doubtless, of humor

ing others: and against this we must be on our guard. It is a kind and accommodating spirit at which we must aim. When the two goats met on the bridge which was too narrow to allow them either to pass each other, or to return, the goat which lay down that the other might walk over him was a finer gentlemen than Lord Chesterfield.

To expect disease wherever he goes, and to lay himself out in the application of remedies, is that habit of mind which is best suited to a Christian while he passes through the world, if he would be most effectually useful.

THE Papists and Puritans erred, in opposite extremes, in their treatment of mankind. The PAPISTS, almost to a man, considered the mass of men as mere animals, and to be led by the senses. Even Fenelon fell into this way of thinking. Some few fine spirits were to be found, which were capable of other treatment; but the herd they thought capable of nothing but seeing and hearing. The PURITANS, on the contrary treated man as though he had nothing of the animal about him. There was among them a total excision of all amusement and recreation. Every thing was effort. Every thing was severe. I have heard a man of this school preach on the distinction between justifying and saving faith. He tried to make his hearers enter into these niceties: whereas, faith in its bold and leading features, should have been presented to them, if any effect was expected. The bulk of mankind are capable of much more than the Papist allows, but are incapable of that which the Puritan supposes. They should be treated, in opposition to both, as rational and feeling creatures, but upon a bold and palpable ground.

I HAVE seen such sin in the church, that I have been often brought by it to a sickly state of mind. But, when I have turned to the world, I have seen sin working there in such measures and forms, that I have turned back again to the church with more wisdom of mind and more affection to it-tainted as it is. I see sin, however, no where put on such an odious appearance as in the church. It mixes itself with the most holy things, and debases them, and turns them to its own purposes. It builds its nest in the very pinnacles of the temple. The history of the primitive ages of the church has also checked the disgust which would arise from seeing the impure state of things before our eyes. Folly and wickedness sported themselves even then, in almost all possible forms. I turn, in such states of mind, to two portraits in my study-John Bradford and Abp. Leighton. These never fail, in such cases, to speak forcibly to my heart, that, in the midst of all, there is pure religion, and to tell me what that religion is.

THE joy of religion is an exorcist to the mind. It expels the demons of carnal mirth and madness.

THE union of Christians to Christ, their common head; and, by means of the influence which they derive from Him, one to another; may be illustrated by the loadstone. It not only attracts the particles of iron to itself, by the magnetic virtue; but, by this virtue,it unites them one among another.

SOME Considerable defect is always visible, in the greatest men, to a discerning eye. We idolize the best characters, because we see them partially. Let us acknowledge excellence, and ascribe the glory where it is due, while we honor the possessor;