Saviour comes again on earth to reign, and the Jew is called from every nation to Jerusalem, when his name shall again as of old be called noble; and his nation one to which all others shall bow down; where at this glorious period shall the Jews who have been long lost sight of as a part of that people, and considered as Gentiles, in some parts for many hundred years, where then shall they dwell? It may add one to the many other motives to promote the conversion of the Jew, to remember this; but surely there are few thankful for their own privileges as believers in the Gospel, who would not willingly extend them to others, and that our efforts for the conversion of the Jews in our own land are comparatively so trifling, may without doubt be traced in a great degree to the ignorence of the generality of christians concerning them to our not being aware that around us is a wide sphere in which an opportunity is granted of spreading the Gospel. We can consider this high race set apart by God, for espicial blessings, chosen to be a peculiar, a favoured people, from whom the Saviour of the world was to be born; who can consider all these direct signs to us that they were an especial a chosen people in the sight of God; but must with deep feeling endeavour, by every means in his power to promote their eternal and temporal welfare. The sons of Zion as of old, though dwelling among us, still mourn for the land of their fathers, the daughters of Jerusalem still weep o'er the fallen splendour of their nation and surely no sincere christian can desire or require any other motive than the single one of pleasing his God; to engage him in endeavouring to promote the conversion of the Jew, and in fervent prayer for the coming of that day, when both Jew and Gentile, shall be united under one King, a holy people, devoted to their God, and when the sufferings of the righteous among both shall be changed for that state of glorious happiness of which the Apostle declares, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heared, neither have eatered into the heart of man. the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. THE RACES. "NIMROD."-THE COCK-PIT. THE Clergyman of the Established Church of England is not only called upon to preach the salvation of a dying Redeemer, but he is the Established Teacher of Public Morals, having been appointed, not only by the Law of God and the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, but by the Law of the Land. We must bear in mind also, that the Christian Pastor is not a shepherd for one day only, but for every day of the week. Not a teacher for church hours only, but for all hours; that is, the week-day hours are the sphere of action for what he teaches as an Ambassador from God, in Church hours. Not only, therefore, as the Editor of the Christian Beacon, but as a Teacher of Public Morals, by Law Established, We would offer the remarks which follow. The races are about to begin, and the Christian Beacon cannot let the month begin without holding out its guiding and its warning light to Christian mariners on their voyage through life with regard to this subject. We do not speak of Chester Races, or Liverpool Races, or Manchester Races, but our paper may be held by the hand of many a person far from this neighbourhood, who may be the frequenters of the race ground. We are no advocates for Pharisaical strictness, but as consistent Christians, we cannot approve of the Race ground, and we ask any candid observer to say what is the effect of the Races, with all their accompaniments, ubon public morals. Taking the lowest ground, we hold the effect of the Races to be bad, and without hesitation we say so. We do not, however, sit in judgment upon those who differ from us. We think that where there is more of the profession of the religion of the pure and self-denying Jesus Christ, there should be more of the possession of a spirit of love and kindness towards those from whom we differ. And we believe that the more a person becomes acquainted with the life of a spiritual mind, the more deadened he will become to the pleasures of ungodliness; and that growth in grace will be always accompanied by an out-growth as to the childish vanities of the world. We have been much impressed by the remarks of a writer, who is known to be well acquainted with the subject, we allude to the writer who is known to the public by the name "Nimrod." He is, as may be supposed, an advocate for horse-racing, while he honestly says, and here we use his own words, "that there are objections to racing, we do not deny as there are to most of the sports, which have been invented for the amusement of mankind." However, as we may be reasonably supposed to know very little about the matter from our own personal observations, and as he does know a great deal more than many will like to have disclosed, we shall subjoin a few extracts from his observations on "The Turf." We pass over a sketch, evidently from nature, in which he describes the race over, and the question in each man's mouth, "Who has won?" and the "Hurrah! My fortune is made!" of one on the answer being given, and the appalling blow to another, as, pulling up his horse with a jerk, he hears the same answer, "Has won? Then I am a ruined man! Scoundrel that I was to risk such a sum! And I have too much reason to fear I have been deceived! Oh, how shall I face my poor wife and my children? I'll blow out my brains." However, I will pass from sketches to facts, first of all observing that many of my readers may remember a fact which agreed too well with that sketch. The death of the Hon. ——, a very few years ago, by his own hand, on the unsuccessful issue of a race at Epsom. "Woe befall the day when Englishmen look lightly on such inroads upon public morals as have lately passed under their eyes on race-courses." He then goes on to the detail of some of the systems of making money upon the race-course; after one of these details he adds, " It is proceedings such as these that are too often the cause of gentlemen on the turf swerving from the straightforward course: men-true as the sun in all private transactions -allow themselves to deviate from the right path on a racecourse, in revenge for what they deem to have been injustice. We could name several honourable and highly-minded gentlemen who have openly avowed this, 'Our money have been taken from us (they have declared) without our having a chance to keep it, and we will recover it in any way we can." "That secret fraud is the base upon which many large fortunes have in our day been built, no man will be bold enough to deny. How many fine domains have been shared among those hosts of rapacious sharks, during the last two hundred years! and, unless the system be altered, how many more are doomed to fall into the same gulph! For, we lament to say, the evil increases, all heretofore, indeed, has been tarts and cheese-cakes to the villain. ous proceedings of the last twenty years on the English turf. Strange! But how is it that exposures are not oftener made? The question is very easily answered. It is the value of the prize that tempts the pirate, and the extent of the plunder is now so great, that secrets is purchased at any price." Whatever may be the opinions of religious men on racing, and the attendant vices and iniquities of races, there is one practice which accompanies the Chester races, which we have good reason to know that many of the approvers of racing heartily disapprove, we speak of Cock fighting. We condemn it openly, for we detest it manfully. We would not be so silly or se senseless as to forget that "Christianity is not a religion of acts, but of principles." But there is no casuistry on which either the act or the principle of the Cock-fighter can be excused. It is a disgrace to our venerable City, an insult to our common manliness. And we call upon the good citizens of Chester to rise up and get rid of a practice which is now contrary to the law of the land, and is spoken of in the language of that law, (see Act on cruel treatment to animals, 5th and 6th year of William the Fourth, 1835,) as a great Nuisance and Annoyance to neighbourhood in which it takes place, and as leading to demoralize those who frequent such places. We make this appeal as from an Established Clergyman of the Church of England, and as a teacher of common morality, we enter our protest most solemnly against it. T. THOMAS, Printer, Eastgate Back Row, Chester. the WHO I am, and what I am, it matters not. I have no particular desire to keep back my name; but as I wish to appear before my reader simply as a witness, I shall give no other name but that of Witness. It was on the evening of that day which is called by those calling themselves Christians the Lord's Day, I found myself in the streets of an ancient city of Christian England. I stood upon the steps of an old church; the service was over, and the congregation gone. The season of Public prayer and praise had passed away for a time, the preacher's voice had been heard and had ceased for a time. I thought of the value of that time, that little time, and I wondered whether it had been improved or lost. "If every preacher did but consider the value of that half hour," said an admirable prelate, "when he has an hearing "when he has an hearing given him by a large assembly of immortal beings, and when he is commissioned to deliver the tidings of eternal life to every creature present. It were almost impossible in any other way to get together such a company twice perhaps in the course of every week, and to bring them to consent to give him a patient hearing-and then, when this has been done, alas, how sad it is to think that such a season is too often lost. I do not allude to the way in which it is lost by the hearer, that consideration is melancholy enough; but I grieve to think how often the important season is lost by the preacher, lost while he trifles, lost while he delivers a message which he has never yet been at the pains to study in its wholeness, in its grand and glorious simplicity, in order that he might preach it faithfully." It was time to leave the empty church, for the sexton was waiting to close the doors. I turned away. I was jostled almost off the steps which led from the church door, as I descended them, by a party of illmannered fellows, who came up arm in arm; but I saw that the minister of the said Church, who RECTOR OF ST. PETER'S, CHESTER. [PRICE 3d was just before me, had been treated in the same manner, and that one of the party had puffed the smoke of his cigar in his face, whether intentionally or not I could not tell. However, as the clergyman took no notice, but walked quietly on, I did the same. What a contrast did the streets of that old city present to the quiet building I had just quitted. They were thronged with noisy, ill-conducted people, and the public houses were beginning to be filled, and here and there a drunkard reeled along, and there were sights and sounds on every side ill suited to the Sabbath Evening of a Christian people. There was one room, perhaps there was more than one, so thickly crowded by men that they sat on one another's knees, and there were made the deep, close calculations of the gambler, and there hundreds and thousands of pounds were betted and taken, and there might be seen the careworn brow, and the eager look of many a well-known black-leg; and not only there, but in every quarter of the old city, the drunkard and the gambler and the bully, both of high and low life, were met together to profane the holy sabbath rest with the loud uproar of their vile and filthy revellings, and thus the Sabbath sun went down. The rest of the week was what might have been expected from such a sabbath, and, alas! that week was looked forward to as the festival week of the whole year by most of the inhabitants of that Christian City. Self and selfish pleasures, self, and selfish gains seemed to occupy the heart, to speak with the words, and to engross the whole man, and, in this way, the whole city seemed to be given up to idolatry. In the morning the Cockpit was open to those who were so dead to sense and to shame, that they could degrade their mere manhood, by making devilish cruelty their sport. In the afternoon came the Race-course, with its hundred accompaniments of vice and folly; and then followed the night with its false pleasures, and its riotous orgies of drunkenness and debauchery, a fit closing scene to such a day. .. The week was over, and I was the witness of another scene. At an early hour in the morning, a large assembly of men were met together at their temperate meal, and every one rose up, and every heart responded to the solemn voice by which the presence of God was acknowledged, and His Blessing implored. Calmness and cheerfulness sat on every manly countenance, and though varied were the subjects of conversation, one spirit seemed to pervade the whole companythe spirit of Christian simplicity and godly sincerity. The Holy Bible was opened by one well fitted to preside in such an assembly, and a profound silence prevailed. He read aloud, with à voice of solemn earnestness, one of the most awful portions of the Word of God-the latter part of the first chapter of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, the inspired account of the state of those who "did not like to retain God in their knowledge;" and who were, therefore, "given over by God to a reprobate mind." The subject was one which called for sorrowful contemplation, and the few remarks which were made upon it, were evidently those of a mind deeply impressed and affected with sorrow for the sins and the sufferings of his fellow men. Among the company present there was one gentleman who had been a resident in heathen lands, who well knew the wretched state of spiritural destitution of the heathen world, and who had himself seen the blessed effects of Christian light, and Christian love, and Christian life among them. He was an Officer in the Army, of approved judgment and tried courage, and a man of some rank in society; but every word that he spoke breathed not only of a spirit that "was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ," but of a mind which had become deeply imbued with the life and peace of the Gospel. The testimony of such a man, on such a subject, was very valuable; and the modesty and seriousness of manner with which he gave one clear statement after another, threw an interest, at once affecting and convincing over his words. But imperfect as this slight sketch may appear, I shall not bring before my readers a detailed account of the conversation of that morning. The incense of prayer went up from every heart, and the hymn of praise was sung by the manly voices of that large company. I shall not speak of all that I was the delighted witness of during the whole of that happy day, when every succeeding hour brought with it some fresh subject of sacred interest. Perhaps, at another time, I might have thought less of such a day. But I could not help contrasting its blessed hours with the day, I might almost say, with every day of the foregoing week, and while I thought of both, I thought also of the state of my country, unsettled, disturbed, and in the opinion of many, on the very eve of some mighty and most awful crisis. How wise, and how manly was the state of mind of those thoughtful and God-fearing men. It is easy to talk of methodism and bigotry, but surely such spirits are best fitted to meet and to grapple with the difficulties of a season of danger and dismay, On the other hand, how childish, how foolishly yet frightfully childish, was the state of those loose, selfish revellers; how deplorable such inconsiderate trifling in the midst of realities, which one would think were sufficient of themselves to sober any intelligent creature. On every side, some threatened peril. The misguided Chartists, and the blaspheming Socialists leaving no means untried to stir up the lower classes to insurrection, and to bring them into deeper misery than that in which they are at present involved. The manufacturing districts expecting daily some season of unexampled distress-the Church of Christ invaded on every side by open hostility, or jesuitical treachery; and a semi-papistical body rising up even within her own bosom-the government of the realm unsettled, and to many, very many, its principles and its plans most unsatisfactory in every sense. Surely the consideration of such dangers, be they near or distant, should be of itself enough to rouse men from a state of pitiable trifling, to thought and watchfulness and preparation, for the uncertain time of certain calamity. As a witness, I beheld what I have written as a witness, I come forward to record my testimony; and with earnest affection and entreaties to warn every man, as in the sight of God. In such a state of things, I consider any thing like timidity criminal. If I am a witness for God, I am also well convinced that the world and the worldly can expect no other language from me. "Men of the world," said the godly Cecil, "will ask concerning such an one, does the man believe what he professes? If he does, how is it that he bears with me in this, and goes with me in that? Surely the honor of his religion will wholly possess the man, and whatever he may lose or suffer, he will he determined that the honor of God and His Church shall not suffer." My friends, in the midst of your carelessness, your ungodliness, hear the voice of one sorrowful and earnest witness; but bear in mind that no human witness can turn you from your wilfulness and your delusion. There is one to whom I commend you. He who is the witness of your most secret thoughts. He who bears witness effort which is made within you to every silence the voice, and blunt the sting of co to science. He who must either bear witness with your spirit that you are for ever lost, a self-convicted and self-condemned child of wrath! or, having converted as well as convicted you, having sanctified and comforted you, having taken of the precious blood of God manifest in the flesh, and applied it to your conscience, purging that conscience from dead works to serve the living God, He shall bear witness with your spirit, that you are the child of God. Man's Empire over his Fellow-creatures. THERE is something very heart-touching when we come to consider the present state of this Empire, and compare it with what it was, when it first commenced. It was originally a grant from the Almighty Creator himself, who said to the yet innocent Adam, "Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Gen. i. 28.) Every creature, therefore, acknowledged Adam as its legitimate sovereign, and, as he was the image of God, paid him reverence, and looked up to him with love. And, as in a well ordered empire, they were at peace one with another. "The wolf dwelt with the lamb, and the leopard lay down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together........The cow and bear fed, and their young ones lay down together." (Isai. xi. 6, 7.) Alas! how deep do these words of the Prophet cut the reflecting heart. Thus shall it be, he says, at the restoration of all things under the dominion of the second Adam. How different has it been ever since the fall of the first Adam. In that moment the image of God, which his fellow-creatures revered in man, was shattered to pieces, and they worshipped no more. They fled from a countenance dark with evil passions. Instead of a peaceful legitimate monarch, they found him a cruel tyrant. Rebellion began, and has been unsubdued unto this day, and will be unsubdued until the reign of sin shall be subdued. How continually, in our calmest moments, even in those in which we are holding communion with God, are we rudely reminded of this universal rebellion. Go into the fields, praise God in thine heart for all the bounties and pure enjoyments which thou findest there. Be delighted to hear the merry song of that thrush whose strain seems in unison with thine own. But, ah! he has seen thee, and is gone! Observe yonder dog approaching without a master. He is one of a class which still maintains his allegiance to a considerable degree. Yet, see as he draws near how suspicious he looks. Now he turns out of the way, so that when he comes up to you he is far out of your reach on your right hand. He knows man too well to trust any but his master. Go into the desert, or jungles of the East, and there you will find the lion and the tiger ready to encounter you, as powerful rebels, face to face. Alas! go anywhere, and everything either flies from you, or flies at you. Screams of terror, or growls of defiance salute you on every side. They say, "Thou art a tyrant and not a king. Thou art no image of God. Thou art a fallen creature." And may they not add in scorn, "We are as we were. Thou art changed. Thou hast been degraded." Yes! man has sinned, and not they. Shall we evil entreat them, then, because they remind us of our degradation? O no! The true Christian heart accepts every warning and rebuke with thanks. It cannot be sufficiently humbled. It wishes to sink to the lowest depth of humiliation, that thence it may see the whole height of the redeeming mercy of its Saviour. It seeks every occasion to confess its sin, it earnestly desires to make every reparation. And what hearts must be those which can offer any unnecessary cruelty to our fellowcreatures, or be calm witnesses to such cruelty? Are they not in all their original depravity, unregenerate, unconverted, possessed by the evil spirit, and not by the Holy Spirit, lovers of their own selves, covetous, blaspheming, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, incontinent, fierce, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God? From such turn E. away. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? -nor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."-Rom. viii. 35, 39. Who has linger'd by the dead Height nor depth, nor pride, nor power, Y. હું SCRIPTURE PORTRAITS. No. 4.-Continued. OUR FIRST PARENTS. Be sure your sin will find you out," was the solemn and salutary warning addressed by Moses to the children of Israel in the wilderness. Long before the words had fallen from his lips, or been recorded by his pen, the truth which they express had been experienced. It was experienced in the Garden of Eden. Oh! sin, thou art an evil and a bitter thing! As they stand before Him," with whom we" all "have to do," to whom "every one of us must give account," whose ordeal none can escape, whose penetration nothing can elude, whose power no one can resist, from whose tribunal and sentence there can be no appeal, how altered the expression presented by the features of our first parents! No longer are their eyes lighted up with the joy with which they were wont to beam before sin had shed its blighting influence on the blossoms of their holiness and happiness. In vain would be sought that sweet and holy serenity of aspect, which had been a faithful index of the peace reigning within. Tumult, disorder, dismay, remorse, every feeling of bitterness and anguish within, we can scarcely conceive that the storm of passions thus raging there, would leave no trace without. No longer able to bear the glance of that eye, which they had been accustomed to meet with filial confidence, pale and trembling beneath the consciousness of guilt, and alarm for its consequences, with downcast look and faltering accents, they offer the poor plea in extenuation of their transgression, which divine Justice cannot admit. Adam would transfer the blame from himself to the Woman; the Woman would exonerate herself by casting it upon the Serpent. In vain! The tempter does not, indeed, escape with impunity; his sentence is pronounced; a sentence heavier than theirs: for with his no mercy is mingled. Over its dark cloud no rainbow of promise sheds its soft and lovely hues. But the circumstance of their having been tempted, does not shield them from the penalty of transgression. Nor can any but a delusive confidence be even reposed in such a plea. Oh! how infinitely important is it that we should now reject at once every plea that our deceitful hearts may suggest, with respect to which we cannot, on Scriptural authority, cherish a firm and a full persuasion, that it will be admitted as valid in Heaven's high court of judicature above. The falsehood of Satan, the truth of God, were now apparent. The awful penalty annexed to the prohibition of the divine command, was in curred; death spiritual, temporal, eternal. In that very day, spiritual death, a death "in trespasses and in sins," passed upon their souls. In their bodies were implanted those seeds of decay and dissolution, which would most surely, in the garner of the grave, render them a rich harvest for corruption and the worm. They became liable to all that is comprised in the awful expression, Eternal Death; "the worm" that "dieth not" the "fire that is never quenched;" the "outer darkness, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth;" "everlasting destruction. from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." On the very earth, as if now polluted by the steps of those who, in "blind unbelief," had dared to trample on Je hovah's sacred law, a curse is pronounced. And the arrival of the hour in which woman was to become a mother, was to be to her the arrival of anguish. Shall we not, then, again exclaim, behold the ravages which sin has made! In the mother's agonies, in the earth's barrenness, in every grave that is opened, in every tear that is shed, in every pang that is felt, in every effect and evidence of the corruption of our nature, behold them! Pain, sorrow, death, what are ye? The children of transgression; of a single transgression. How striking an evidence of the holiness of the law, of the holiness of the lawgiver! Yet, "in the midst of wrath," the Lord remembered "mercy." Into spiritual death the souls of the offenders had already sunk. Beneath the stroke of temporal death their bodies were to fall, and, though "fearfully and wonderfully nade," moulder into dust. But in the declaration that the "Seed of the woman should bruise the head of the Serpent," a mighty deliverer from eternal death was promised; one who should disarm temporal death of its sting, and wrest from the grave its victory; one, by whose allavailing mediation the Spirit should be "poured out from on high," by whose power the soul of fallen man can be rescued from spiritual death, and quickened into spiritual life. And if, as the poor exiles passed from Paradise, their once happy home, into the world's wide wilderness, the promise which had just been given, would speak sweetly and soothingly to their troubled bosoms, snatching them from despair, and bidding them look forward to better and brighter days, how may the believer in Jesus, who knows that in him, the seed of the woman, the promise has received its fulfilment, be upheld and comforted amidst all the trials and sorrows of the "house of his pilgrimage!" Yes! gracious and glorious Redeemer! though in thy "heel," thy manhood, thou wast bruised, for thou wast "cut off," yet in that manhood, taken into union with the God |