shall be now my endeavour to discover; and, I trust, that dull as an essay commonly is, your readers will not be unwilling to follow me through the investigation.

The great feature in District Visiting, is the concentrating on a few, that benevolent superintendence which would be less effective if diffused over a wider surface. It is founded on that principle of appropriation, which attaches man to everything he considers as his own, and which gives the value to possessions of every sort.

By virtue of this law of our nature, a deeper, livelier interest is taken in those who are overlooked; and the individuals who are directed to consider the portion of a street, as peculiarly their own, derive from the more intimate acquaintance with the state and feelings of the people visited, a pleasure, somewhat akin to that which we perceive in tracing the details of a landscape, when a gleam of sun carries light into its recesses, and draws many a grassy knowl, and many a shaded cottage into observation, which before had been hidden in the general obscurity.

On the other hand, if the visitor becomes more attached to the people by being led to regard them as his own; the people become infinitely more attached to the visitor, when viewed in this the true relation. At first, perhaps, the visits were regarded with jealousy and suspicion. It was a stranger who lifted the latch, and whose eye first explored the details of the cottage; and the purpose of a stranger is open to misconception, and can hardly be understood on a first explanation. But familiarity removes these feelings. Kindness carries its own evidence, and is, therefore, soon discovered; and for kindness, there is a deep unutterable longing, even in the most sunk and degraded of our species, which never fails to recognize the spirit that prompts the visit, and evinces its character by securing its stated recurrence.

With the excitement of this sentiment commences the first benefit of the system; and in the promotion and enlargement of this sentiment, we may perhaps say, consists the whole.

The act, which has succeeded in awakening the benevolent affections of those, who are generally the objects of this system; has produced in them a result hardly less important than that of returning animation in cases where life seemed extinct. A new state of being begins when this effect is accomplished; and the human creature, who through life has met with nothing. but the workings of selfishness in those with whom he was surrounded; who never saw them merry except when amused at the expence of others; nor ever knew them to be in earnest but by the harshness and severity he was treated with, comes into a new world, and is conscious

of a new nature, when kindness from another has elicited gratitude in himself, and gratitude prompts kindness in return.

This, then, we must regard as the first object to be aimed at in District Visiting; and where this is gained, the other consequences follow almost of course. The confidence once secured, the kinder feelings once awakened, the channel is opened through which the stream of moral influence may flow, and flow continually. The intercourse thenceforth will be of the most beneficial kind. The intelligence of one portion of society will be brought to bear on the ignorance of another; and those who from circumstances have been enabled to discern that which is theoretically true, may communicate their discoveries to those who are too much encumbered with the practical difficulties of life to discern. the connection between a remote cause and the effects which they are witnessing. The one

may be able to trace out the connection between want of order and want of comfort; between inattention to trifles and overwhelming burdens; between levity of mind and heaviness of spirit, which the sufferers themselves are incapable of perceiving; and this developement of the cause of the inconveniences they undergo, may be listened to with patience, and remembered with profit, when they feel that it is the remonstrance of a friend, not the reproof of an Inspector.

In truth, how many of the evils which belong to poverty, rise not from the want of means, but from the want of method; from the want of thought, the want of care, the want of that which a superior understanding might impart. A little domestic discipline might check the unruly tempers of children, which at present make a cottage miserable. make a cottage miserable. A little mutual forbearance might obviate the differences between man and wife, which at present destroy domestic happiness. A little self-denial might avoid the pressure of debt; a little moderation might avoid excesses prejudicial to health; a little economy might accomplish comforts which at present seem inaccessible. But these causes, thus pregnant with future good or evil, are too generally overlooked on account of their minuteness, and are lost out of sight in the hurry and bustle of providing for the daily wants of the body. But if the poor have not leisure to discern the importance of these trifling observances; there are others. whose situation in life enables them to see it, and who are capable of explaining their necessity. The comforts enjoyed by one class, are merely the conclusions come to by another class; but they are conclusions followed out and realized by the help of circumstances. Cleanliness, order, plenty form the comforts of the rich; but the value of these things has been learnt in suffering from their privation; and their possession is

now secured by habits which can hardly be formed or easily be maintained, except in conditions favourable to their growth.

It is natural, therefore, that persons belonging to one class should know the value of usages with which others are unacquainted; and they may, though themselves young and inexperienced, communicate lessons, the results of long traditional experience, which may operate beneficially on those who are visited; and throw a light on their condition, which would otherwise never reach them.

Nor will the benefits be wholly on one side. It is one of the most striking and affecting evidences of divine benevolence, that Society is so regulated, and the elements of which Society is formed are so constituted, that no one ever does good to others without deriving good himself. Kindness repays itself by the pleasureable sensations it elicits. We learn ourselves, while endeavouring to teach others--and all the good that is imparted brings back some return of good to the doer.

We hardly know where a more striking instance of this reciprocity of good can be pointed out, than in the intercourse we are now endeavouring to pourtray. The immediate, the primary intention, is that of doing good to the persons visited; the imparting of useful knowledge, moral principle, and general comfort. The secondary, the reflex effect, is that of benefit to the persons visiting; and that benefit is not merely the gratification of benevolent feeling, or the consciousness of acting in conformity with the will of God; but it is the acquirement of knowledge hardly less necessary to them than that, which they come, like the Ministers of a higher intelligence, to bestow on others.

The danger of the lower classes of society consists in their being so subject to the pressure of circumstances that they can hardly realize truths of a higher kind, or bring them to bear upon their own condition. The danger of the higher classes consists in their feeling so little of this pressure, that they forget the realities of their nature, and live in a sort of ideal state.

The refinements of civilization, the tone of literature, the language and usages of the world, combine to perfect this delusion. The wants to which our nature is subject are not felt as wants. Its weaknesses are concealed; its corruptions are palliated, and those who fancy that they know a little of every thing, know least about themselves. Nothing is better calculated to remove this illusion, and disperse the dream of an Ideal life, than a District Visit. Human nature is then seen off its guard, and en deshabille. Its real wants, and its real comforts, are then at once discerned; for they are seen not through any opaque or dazzling medium, but simply and

clearly; and if we admit the truth of the poet's remark, that "the proper study of mankind is man," there is no place where that study can be pursued with greater prospect of success, than in a District Visit.

This at least is certain, that the mind which grows fastidious and sickly in its ideal existence, which in the midst of ease, frets at imaginary wrongs, and is saddened by imaginary sorrows; may gain a healthier tone by becoming in this way acquainted with the realities of life. In the same way the comforts which had been undervalued, and blessings which had been overlooked, may be viewed with gratitude, when we have learnt to estimate them duly by considering the destitution of others. One objection we are aware may here be made, and it is an objection which deserves attention. In finding human nature en deshabille, it is probable that things may be seen and heard offensive to modesty, and in some degree injurious to moral purity; and thus much is due to the objection, that the age and sex of the Visitor ought both to be adapted to the district assigned, and the character of the persons visited. But admitting this, and recognizing to the fullest extent the importance of maintaining every guard to moral purity, it is necessary to add, that a distinction also should be drawn between that delicacy which the world idolizes, and that purity which the Gospel teaches; for of this we are convinced, that the golden calf which Aaron erected, was no fitter representative of the infinite and the unutterable Jehovah, than the refinement of a worldly mind is of the purity of a Christian Spirit.

The delicacy of the world recoils from that which would lower us in man's opinion. The purity of a Christian recoils from that which would offend God. Delicacy shrinks from that which is offensive to the senses. Purity from that which grieves the Holy Spirit. Delicacy may be compatible with the grossest sensuality; nay, is generally that which is courted as adding zest and refinement to sensuality. Purity can admit of no such associations, but abhors that which is evil, however disguised, and however recommended.

In this way we believe there are many things which offend delicacy, which still do not affect purity. To the pure all things are pure; and we can conceive that an Angel, who would shrink with horror from the pages of Lord Byron, or of our fashionable novelists, might visit an Irish cottage, and view the nakedness and want of its inmates, without any other emotions than that of tenderness and pity.

But I feel, sir, I have trespassed too long on your patience. Hereafter I may, if permitted, resume the subject; at present, believe me your obliged, Y. S.

SCRIPTURE PORTRAITS.

SATAN.

In the gallery of portraits, through which we are desirous of conducting our young friends, who are especially the objects of the present publication, there may be some presented to their view, from the contemplation of which they may, at the first glance, be disposed instinctively to recoil, and to pass on to some others of a more attractive character. There may be no trace upon the features of any of those qualities, which are calculated to command respect and veneration; none of those which awaken admiration, and kindle affection. On every lineament may be impressed the image of all that is forbidding and repulsive. And it is natural that we should prefer gazing on objects which bear the stamp of beauty, and be ready to turn hastily away from those, whose aspect presents only an air of deformity.

But it is by no means a mark of prudence to be so enamoured of that which is pleasing to the eye, and congenial with the taste, as to refuse to contemplate any thing of an opposite character, however instructive and profitable such a contemplation might be. Such conduct would be rather akin to the folly of the man, who would refuse a medicine essential to his health, because it might be distasteful to his palate.

The Beacon fire, giving warning of the approach of a foe, would be less pleasing to the beholder than some signal which would convey an intimation of the arrival of a friend: but it would not be less valuable, or less important. The light-house, by the sight of which the mariner is directed to steer his course, at a distance from the latent rocks where many a gallant bark has been wrecked, may be less pleasing, but is certainly not less useful than the capacious harbour, where his vessel, safely sheltered within, is in no danger from the tempest, which is spending its fury without.

To behold one of those glorious spirits which encircle the throne of the High and the Holy One; to gaze upon features arrayed in countless charms which shall never be impaired, and exhibiting the bloom of a beauty which never shall fade; to mark on every lineament the blended expression of majesty and meekness, of dignity and humility, of power and gentleness, of piercing intelligence, and rapturous devotion, and expansive benevolence, and glowing love, would be indeed most interesting and delightful. To look upon the features of a spirit who 'kept not his first estate," but was expelled with ignominy and ruin from that sacred band-a FALLEN Angel-may be less delightful, but not less instructive.

Could we but have seen that Angel before he fell, how striking a contrast would that countenance have presented with that which it now displays to our view.

Could we have gazed upon the face that was, before it was deformed and marred by the base passions which have eternally stamped their image upon it, we might have exclaimed in the language of the poet,

"See, what a grace is seated on that brow!" Alas! the language of another poet is now more appropriate,

"If thou beest he-but oh! how fall'n, how chang'd!"

Daring ambition, haughty pride, arrogant presumption, corroding envy, mean subtlety, deceit, and falsehood, revenge, hatred, malevolence, every atrocious principle by

which the mind of a fiend can be swayed, every malignant feeling by which the bosom of a fiend can be agitatedsuch are the prominent features of the frowning and repulsive portrait before us; such the dark colours in which, in the Scriptures of truth, is pourtrayed to the life the character of Satan.

Just in proportion as the character of an individual exhibits these features does he bear a resemblance to that fallen spirit, who is deformity personified.

And yet, in the eye of misjudging man, some of these features possess a winning charm. Ambition, pride, presumption are not unfrequently extenuated, nay, extolled, as the marks of a high and proper spirit, and the virtues, which stand in direct opposition to these vices, despised as the evidences of a mind which is mean, grovelling, abject, contracted. What ambition, pride, presumption are in the estimation of Him, who sees not as man sees, Satan stands in his word as a beacon to admonish us. For what but the indulgence of these feelings withered all the beauty, extinguished all the lustre, annihilated all the good, which distinguished and adorned the character of the Angel; transformed the Angel into the fiend; expelled him from the realms of light; loaded him with the "chains of darkness;" made him the wretched being that he is the wretched being that he must continue to be for ever?

Are we, then, tempted to murmur and repine against the sovereign will of God? to harbour in our bosom feelings of dissatisfaction at the station assigned us by the allotments of his providence? Let us remember the history of Satan, and beware. Let us reflect that this was the first germ of his misery and ruin.

Do we see the lust of revenge and the rage of malice lighting up their baleful fires in the eyes, and combining to give a hideous expression to the whole countenance? Stung and writhing beneath a sense of the ignominy of his expulsion from Heaven, and the misery which it involved, what but the desire to revenge himself on God, and envy at the sight of that happiness, of which he saw our first parents in possession, and himself destitute, prompted him to commence, in the too successful aim to seduce them to cast off their allegiance to the most High, that war against the holiness and happiness of man, which, with such unrelenting malice, and such unwearied energy he has continued to wage? Let us, then, take the alarm at the first risings of revengeful desires and envious feelings, as truly Satanic in their character, and hasten to seek at a throne of grace strength to resist and overcome them.

Do we observe in those features the expression of subtlety and falsehood? Was it "by his subtlety that the serpent beguiled Eve ?" And did he establish his claim to the title of the "Father of Lies," by the promise by which he allured her? Let us remember that he is still as subtle, and still as false, as he proved himself on that memorable occasion. Let us be ever upon our guard against his crafty devices;" for if "as a roaring lion he walketh about, seeking whom he may devour," as a subtle serpent he glides unsuspected, seeking whom he may deceive. That countenance can with the greatest facility change its habitual expression, and assume one as innocent as that of infancy in its cradle, as lovely, and fascinating, and foreign to the real character, as it is possible to conceive. Satan himself is transformed into an

D

angel of light." Let us, then, "Watch and pray." Are we, in viewing this portrait, struck with the expression of vast, intellectual power? Such power it were vain to deny that he possesses. We gain nothing by underrating the strength of an adversary. Though fallen, Satan is a spirit still, and has a spirit's intellect. How profound and consummate his knowledge of human nature! How intimate his acquaintance with every avenue to the mind, the imagination, and the heart of man! But to what purpose are his vast intellectual energies applied? The reply, it would be superfluous to give: the reflection, which it naturally suggests, we must not suppress. Knowledge and intellectual power unsanctified, unassociated with the principles and practices of godliness, only strengthen the lines, and deepen the colours of a copy in man of the portrait of Satan. How much more so, when intellectual power, as we too often see, openly espouses his cause, exhausts all its energies in his service, and is prostituted and perverted to the basest and most awful of all passions-the endeavour to beguile the young, the unstable, the unexperienced, the unwary, into the paths of infidelity and impiety, of irretrievable ruin, and unavailing despair. PASTOR.

Sunday Travelling on Railways.

Address to all Directors and Proprietors of Railways. GENTLEMEN,-Impelled by a solemn sense of duty, the Committee of the North Staffordshire Lord's Day Observance Society again respectfully address you concerning your travelling trade on that day.

The Decalogue being that moral and unrepealed law, which God has promulgated for the obedience of man; and "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy," being one of its commands; the Divine Saviour, moreover, having declared "The Sabbath was made for man," and by his own example, and by that of his Apostles, and the primitive Church, having authorised this religious rest to be observed on the first day of every week; therefore the most eminently pious men, of every Christian age, have concluded the Lord's Day to be of Divine appointment, and of perpetual obliga

tion.

The Sabbath resting upon this Divine basis, and its observance being confessedly subservient to the purpose of God's moral government, and promoting the best interest of mankind, we cannot wonder that the wrath of God followed fearfully upon its gross pollution by the Jewish Nation;* nor that immorality the most debasing, and calamities the most severe, have distinguished every Christian country remarkable for its desecration. Can, then, Great Britain, pre-eminently blessed as she is from on high, reasonably expect to escape similar judgments if she contract similar guilt?

Now it is not to be denied that to a great extent she has already thus sinned against her God, nor that in very influential quarters there is a disposition to involve our beloved country in the most flagrant and systematic violation of the Sabbath; and especially, in justification of the present address, we believe it can be proved, that our greatest Sabbath desecration is now being perpetrated by the Sunday Railway Travelling Trade,—

the greatest, because of the vast extent of its operations, which ramify, or soon will do so, into most districts of the kingdom,-the greatest, also, because it has the effect of perpetuating guilt like to its own, in other important companies-coach and omnibus masters being virtually obliged to run their conveyances on the Sundays, as those of the Railways run; and Canal Proprietors and Carriers continuing the yoke of Sabbath Slavery upon thousands of boat and wharf-men, not a little influenced, we fear, in doing so, by evil example of their rivals of the Railway trade,-the greatest, lastly, because the Sabbath desecration on Railways is, in some respects, more national than any other, supported as they are by an unprecedented portion of our mercantile and monied influence; and their vast concerns being, more perhaps than those of any other trade, the subject of legislative, and, therefore, of national

sanction.

However gross then and manifold may be our other Sabbath sins, a fearful aggravation of them is charge. able upon the Railways of the land, for our Directories have, as it were, overspread our country with a practical perversion of the words of our Lord, that "the Sabbath was made for man;'t and every where, in awful opposition to Jehovah you are preventing the people from "Remembering the Sabbath to keep it holy."

It seems, therefore, imperative that, in all affectionate plainness of speech, we charge home upon you this enormous guilt, even as openly as you are perpetrating it throughout the kingdom-the sight and sound of your Sabbath Trains inviting simple villagers, as well as more sophisticated townsmen, to rebel against their God:-it seems imperative that, since the heaviest judgments have invariably followed upon national Sabbath violations, and that your system involves you and the country in such violations to an alarming extent, we should contend with you, as Nehemiah, the civil Ruler of Israel, did with God's ancient people, saying, "What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath? Did not your Father thus, and did not our

"The Sabbath was made for man; and not man for the Sabbath,"-Mark, c. ii, v. 27.

It was made for man at all times—in his innocency even (Gen. c. ii v. 2, 3,—and therefore, more particularly for him, because most needed, since his fall into sin: It was made for the whole of man, as a being formed of soul and body-most especially for his soul, as a religious rest to prepare him for eternity; but also as a rest for his body to preserve it in time.

Hence it is plain that, while works of necessity, piety, and mercy, are allowed, yea required by the Sabbath law, for "man was not made for the Sabbath," all other works on the Lord's Day are trangressions of that law, not only because opposed to the Divine will; but because endangering the well-being of both soul and body, for " The Sabbath was made for man.”

A multitude of facts prove that Sabbath breakers are less prepared for the next world, and far less useful and happy in this, than Sabbath observers, and the most eminent professional men testify, that this periodical relaxation of the Sabbath is necessary to the mental and physical, as well as to the moral constitution of man. See for instance, extracts from Dr. Farre's evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons:-"The Sabbath was made for man, as a necessary appointment"-" One day in seven, by the bounty of Providence, is thrown in as a day of Compensation, to perfect by its repose the animal system.”– "-"A human being then is so constituted that he needs a day of rest, both from mental and bodily labour?" Certainly."

God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city, yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath."+

Motives of expediency have been often urged upon you:-it has been unanswerably argued that as operatives in Sunday Trades must be less conscientious and more demoralised than observers of the Sabbath, so there is reason to fear that your Sunday servants are placed in such a cruel position, that they must deteriorate in moral worth, and consequently become less trustworthy.

But we would influence your minds by what ought to be a vastly more effective lever than mere commercial expediency; and that is the principle of Christian patriotism; and the fulcrum upon which we would rest that lever is the word of God.

God hath commanded us to "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy," the substance of which cominand is ever obligatory:-God hath sooner or later fearfully punished all nations, if privileged as our own, which have ventured to violate the Sabbath :We are now grievously and growingly doing so; and, as companies, comprising, or about to comprise, the greatest influence-Government itself only exceptedyou, Railway Companies, are committing, sanctioning, and perpetuating a perilous amount of Sabbath desecration. As plainly then as we have felt it our duty to declare to you your sin, and its certain ruinous consequences, so earnestly would we implore you to reconsider the course you are now pursuing.

Those indeed who decline sharing in the Sunday profits may not be so culpable as the others, nevertheless as belonging to establishments, which extensively and systematically desecrate the Lord's Day, every Proprietor, as well as Director, is a responsible participator in the crime. No truly Christian persons, therefore, ought to remain connected with these Railways, except for the purpose more effectually to remonstrate against their Sabbath profanation, and with the determination, should their remonstrance prove fruitless to withdraw.

And, in conclusion, whatever may be the effect of this address should it only prove a testimony for Divine law, and not prevail against Sabbath violation-the Committee of this Society would express their conviction, that all sharers in Sunday-running Railways are injuring themselves and families, by participating in gain gotten at the price of transgression against God; that

Read Jeremiah, c. 17, from 17th. verse:-" And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burthen through the gates of the city on the Sabbath Day, but hallow the Sabbath Day, to do no work therein; then shall there enter into the gates of this city, kings and princes, sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain for ever."

"And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meat offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise, into the house of the Lord. But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath Day, and not bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath Day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.

they are, moreover, contracting the additional guilt of effectually inducing most extensive Sabbath violation; and that, should this country decline from that preeminence it has so long maintained amongst the nations of the earth-should foreign invasion and civil discord succeed to that peaceful prosperity with which Britain has been signally blessed; many causes indeed may occasion such a lamentable change; but that we forgot to keep the Sabbath Day, and profaned it will be the greatest and many parties may be accused of bringing to pass our national ruin; but none more justly deserving such a charge than the Capitalist concerned in our Sunday Railway Trade.

Finally, as members of a religious association—some of us Ministers of God, and guardians of the religion and morals of the public, and all of us servants of Christ, deeply interested in the present and future well-being of our Countrymen, we earnestly pray you by the obligation you lie under to God, to your neighbour, and to yourselves, to lay these things to heart; and may the Divine mercy direct you aright, and lead you to the adoption of that course which shall be to your own present and eternal peace.

On behalf of the Committee.

ABOUT thirty years ago, Mr. Smith retired from a pleasant country town in which he had for many years carried on a successful business as the principal Surgeon. He had seen many forms of death, some of his patients slowly sinking away into eternity in the full possession of their mental powers. Others he had seen hurried off into another world having barely had time allowed them to settle their worldly concerns. But his feelings had never been touched by the deaths he so often witnessed. Death was in his view an eternal sleep.

Upon his retirement from the active employments of his profession, Mr. Smith took a house in one of the most lovely spots to be found in England. South of his house was an extensive heath, which, though desolate in winter, was bright and gay through the spring and summer months, with many varieties of heaths and wild flowers. Eastward of his house stretched a magnificent forest, with the dun tenants of the forest shewing their branching antlers through its glades. A little further were the timeworn turrets of an ancient castle. All around him was the varied display of the love of God, who opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. But Mr. Smith's heart never looked beyond the creature to the Creator-though a christian by name, he was a professed infidel, and like too many, had only read the Gracious Revelation of God for the purpose of detecting, as he supposed, its inconsistencies, thus reversing the wisdom of his own profession, extracting poison from the best medicine, instead of drawing health-giving medicines from substances naturally poisonous. He had been one who through a long and successful life had made a mock of religion, but was himself reserved for that dreadful condemnation predicted, Prov. i. 26, "I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh.