under the divine threatening for neglecting to come?

Why then do you not come to this holy and happy feast? Look to the Saviour. He, for you, came not to a feast of love, but to endure contempt, and hatred, and death. He, for you, tasted and drank to the very dregs, the bitter cup of divine wrath; and will not you take from his hands the cup of blessing?

Come, then, we entreat you. Let the days again return, when every one that calls himself a Christian shall be a faithful communicant. Let the days again return, when all baptized in the name of Jesus, and professing his religion, shall receive the memorials of his dying love.

How painful to see four-fifths of a congregation leaving the church when this most interesting and beneficial ordinance is just about to be celebrated!

CHRISTIAN FATHERS AND MOTHERS OF FAMILIES, set your servants and the elder branches of your family the example of attendance. They look up to you to guide them. You should not abandon this table; for you will hinder many by your turning back. If you say that you are sinful, and therefore afraid to come, why then do you not repent? The Saviour will receive every weary and heavy-laden sinner that goes to him.

CHRISTIAN SERVANTS, this table is open to you. It is your privilege, as believers in Christ, to be the Lord's freemen, and in his house to feast at the same table with the highest and the noblest of his disciples; they count you brethren and sisters; they rejoice to see you there, and to know that you are members of the one family of Christ. Cast not away

your freedom and your privilege: go to this table, and rejoice in the Lord.

YOUNGER MEMBERS OF A CHRISTIAN HOUSEHOLD, who have come to years of discretion and serious thoughts of your soul, refrain not from these holy solemnities. They will strengthen you amid the seductions of pleasure, establish you in the tempest of youthful passions, and give you wisdom and judgment amidst the inexperience of your early years. Perhaps you have just been confirmed: now then come and receive at this feast the grace which will strengthen your resolutions, and teach you to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts; and to live soberly, godly,' and righteously, in this present world.

To every one that names the name of Christ, we proclaim the invitation-- Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. We place the duty of obeying his plain command before every Christian reader; and charge it on every conscience.

CHAPTER X.

THE HAPPINESS WHICH WOULD FOLLOW ITS GENERAL AND DEVOUT OBSERVANCE.

THE Lord's Supper being an ordinance which is eminently calculated to promote our holiness and happiness as Christians, a reasonable prospect of a far more extended observance of it, in a right spirit, is so delightful, that the author (whose heart is deeply interested in such a hope) will for a little time dwell upon it.

The following considerations may tend to shew that THIS HOPE IS NOT wholly UNWARRANTED. The general prevalence of Christianity through the whole world, at a future time, cannot be questioned. The promise that the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea, is, among many others, clear and express. There is also in the scriptures, a marked connexion between the sufferings of our Lord, and the extension of his kingdom. I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me. His visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men; so shall he sprinkle many nations. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he

shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. Indeed, it is the doctrine of a crucified Saviour, fully proclaimed, and accompanied by the power of the Holy Ghost, that is the means of enlarging the kingdom of Christ, and building up his people in their most holy faith. We may well then suppose that an ordinance, commemorating a doctrine specially calculated to advance the conversion and edification of the world, would, were the Gospel more generally and fully received, be much more constantly observed.

We have scriptural authority to expect that the sufferings of Christ will always be remembered with peculiar affection and interest. After the affecting description given of those sufferings in the 22nd Psalm, it is expressly promised-all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. On this passage Diodati observes-" The true and lively knowledge of the sufferings and glory of Christ shall be given to, and preserved among all nations by the preaching of the Gospel; and especially by the Sacrament of his body, therefore called a remembrance." Luke xxii. 19.

The author has been in some measure led to these remarks, by the following interesting account of one of the first celebrations of this ordinance in New Zealand, an island hardly discovered, or scarcely known to Europeans, till the voyages of Captain Cook, in our late beloved monarch's reign.

The Rev. Samuel Marsden, first chaplain to the colony of New South Wales, in 1819, visited the missions established in this island. After mentioning

that divine service was performed on one occasion, on the Sunday, in a shed, where the four great men in New Zealand, (Shunghee, King George, Pomarree, and Racow) attended; Mr. Marsden says, "All behaved with decorum, and we hope that the day is not far distant, when they will know the joyful sound of the gospel, and have the Lord for their God, in the fullest sense. In the evening we had divine service; and afterwards, the holy Sacrament was administered in this distant land; the solemnity of which did not fail to excite in our hearts sensations and feelings corresponding with the peculiar situation in which we were. We looked back to the period when this holy ordinance was first instituted in Jerusalem, in the presence of our Lord's disciples; and adverted to the peculiar circumstances under which it was now administered, at the very ends of the earth, where a single ray of divine revelation had never till now dawned on the inhabitants."

Which of our Lord's disciples at its first institution would have imagined it should be observed through extended ages, and in the most remote parts of the earth! and why should we not now, who have seen such large steps taken towards such a result as we are considering, hope for a far more general observance?

Consider also THE EFFECT OF SUCH A REMEMBRANCE of Christ. Were the death of Christ duly and generally remembered, and had it through the abundant gift of the Holy Ghost, its right influence on men, they would no longer live to themselves, but to Him that died for them. Divisions would cease, and Christians all be one. John xvii. 21. The whole body would be ONE VAST FAMILY, have one will, one heart, one aim,