subtle objections may be brought against this principle: I may meet with some of them, perhaps: but my principle is on the shelf! Generally, I may be able to recal the reasons which weighed with me to put it there; but, if not, I am not to be sent out to sea again. Time was, when I saw through and detected all the subtleties that could be brought against it. I have past evidence of having been fully convinced: and there on the shelf it shall lie! When I have turned a CHARACTER Over and over on all sides, and seen it through and through in all situations, I put it on the shelf. There may be conduct in the person, which may stumble others: there may be great inconsistencies: there may be strange and unaccountable turns-but I have put that character on the shelf: difficulties will all be cleared up: every thing will come round again. I should be much chagrined, indeed, to be obliged to take a character down which I had once put up; but that has never been the case with me yet; and the best guard against it, is-not to be too hasty in putting them there.

INFLUENCE, whether derived from money, talents or connexions, is power: there is no person so insignificant, but he has much of this power: the little Israelite maid, in Naaman's family, is an instance: some, indeed, suppose that they have more power than they really have; but we generally think we have less than we in reality have. Whoever neglects or misapplies this power, is an unprofitable servant: unbelief, timidity, and delicacy often cramp its exertion; but it is our duty to call ourselves out to the exertion of this power, as Mordecai called out Esther (ch. iv:) it is our duty to watch against every thing that might hinder or pervert our influence; for mere regard to reputation will often carry many into error: who would not follow

Aaron in worshipping the golden calf? Even men of feeble public talents may acquire much influence by kindness and consistency of character: ministers are defective in resting their personal influence too much on their public ministry: time will give weight to a man's character; and it is one advantage to a man to be cast early into his situation, that he may earn a character.

THE instances of ARTIFICE which occur in scrip ture are not to be imitated, but avoided: if Abraham, or Isaac,or Jacob equivocate in order to obtain their ends, this is no warrant to me to do so: David's falsehood concerning Goliath's sword argued distrust of God. If any part of the truth which I am bound to communicate be concealed, this is sinful artifice: the Jesuits in China, in order to remove the offence of the cross, declared that it was a falsehood invented by the Jews that Christ was crucified; but they were expelled from the empire: and this was designed, perhaps, to be held up as a warning to all missionaries, that no good end is to be carried by artifice.

But ADDRESS is of a different nature. There is no falsehood, deception, or equivocation in address. St. Paul, for instance, employed lawful Address, and not artifice, when he set the sadducees and Pharisees at variance: he employed a lawful argument to interest the Pharisees in his favor: this was great address, but it had nothing of criminal artifice. In Joshua's ambushes for the men of Ai there was nothing sinful: it was a lawful stratagem of war: it would have been unlawful to tell the men of Ai there was no ambush; but they knew that they came out of their city liable to such ambushes. Christ's conduct at Emmaus, and that of the Angels of Sodom, were meant as trials of the regard of those with whom they were conversing

PRECIPITATION is acting without sufficient grounds of action. Youth is the peculiar season of precipitation: the young man's motto is "onward!" There is no such effectual cure of this evil, as experience; when a man is made to feel the effects of his precipitation, both in body and mind: and God alone can thus bring a man acquainted with himself. There is a self-blindness in precipitation: a precipitate man is, at the time, a blind man: That be far from thee! said St. Peter: this shall not happen to thee. As the Lord liveth, said David, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die!

There is great criminality in precipitation. A man under its influence is continually tempted to take God's work out of his hands. It is not a state of dependance. It betrays want of patience with respect to God; and want of faith: I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul. It discovers a want of charity: in a rash moment we may do an injury to our neighbor, which we can never repair.

Own

There are few, who do not feel that they are suffering through life the effects of their precipitation, He, then, that trusteth his own heart, is a fool. In precipitate moments we should learn to say, "I am not now the man to give an opinion, or to take a single step!"

METHOD, as Mrs. More says, is the very hinge of business; and there is no method without PUNCTUALITY. Punctuality is important, because it subserves the peace and good-temper of a family: the want of it not only infringes on necessary duty, but sometimes excludes this duty. Punctuality is important as it gains time: it is like packing things in a box: a good packer will get in half as much more as a bad one. The calmness of mind which t produces is another advantage of punctuality:

a disorderly man is always in a hurry: he has no time to speak with you, because he is going elsewhere; and, when he gets there, he is too late for his business, or he must hurry away to another before he can finish it. It was a wise maxim of the Duke of Newcastle-"I do one thing at a time." Punctuality gives weight to character. "Such a man has made an appointment: then I know he will keep it." And this generates punctuality in you: for like other virtues, it propagates itself: servants and children must be punctual, where their leader is so. Appointments, indeed, become debts: I owe you punctuality, if I have made an appointment with you; and have no right to throw away your time if I do my own.

IT is a difficult question in casuistry-How FAR A

MAN IS BOUND TO BETRAY CONFIDENCE FOR GENERAL GOOD. Let it be considered what consequences would follow from a man's disclosing all the evil he knows. The world would become a nest of scorpions. He must often mistake, and of Course calumniate. Such is his incapacity to determine what is really evil in his neighbor, and such are the mischiefs frequently arising from the disclosure of even what should be in truth evil, that he seems rather called on to be silent, till circumstances render it a case of duty to remain silent no longer. But, if this be his GENERAL RULE, i will be his duty to observe silence much oftener in cases of CONFIDENCE. Professional men-a min ister-a lawyer-a medical man-have an officia secrecy imposed on them. If this were not the cas -a distrest conscience could never unburthen itsel to its confessor. Incalculable injuries to healt and property must be sustained, for want of prope advisers. This applies in a very high sense to minister, considered as a confessor-a director

the conscience. An alarmed conscience will unfold its most interior recesses before him. It is said Dr. Owen advised a man, who under religious convictions confessed to him a murder which he had perpetrated some years before, to surrender himself up to justice. The man did so, and was executed. I think Dr. Owen erred in his advice. I thought myself right, in urging on persons, who have opened their hearts to me, deep humillation before God for crimes committed in an unconverted state; but, as it had pleased Him to give a thorough hatred of those crimes to the mind, and a consequent self-loathing and humiliation, and yet to allow in His providence that they should have remained undiscovered, I judged that the matter might be safely left with Him. Yet there may be cases, in which general consequences require that confidence should be betrayed. Such cases usually relate to EVIL IN PROGRESS. To prevent or counteract such evil, it may be necessary to disclose what has been intrusted in confidence. Yet the party should be honestly warned, if its purposes are not changed, what duty your conscience will require.

I HAVE felt twice in my life very extraordinary impressions under sermons, and that from men least calculated to affect me. A man of great powers, but so dissipated on every thing that he knew Dothing-a frivolous, futile babbler, whom I was ready almost to despise-surprised and chained me so, in my own church at Lewes, that I was thunderstruck: I think it was concerning the dove not finding rest for the sole of her foot: he felt the subject strongly himself; and in spite of all my prejudices against him and my real knowledge of his character, he made me feel it as I have scarcely ever done before or since. In the other instance, I