TIES IN FRANCE. SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF THE GOSPEL. THE annual report of this society, which was read at the anniversary meeting of the society in Paris, on the 20th of April last, dwells upon the faithfulness and effect with which its directors had followed up its original design, that of spreading the knowledge of the gospel throughout the French dominions. It appears that "the labours of the society had borne fruit, and that many souls had been led to seek unto the fountain of truth and depart from the way of error; a result which had been obtained without controversy or agitation, peaceably and noiselessly. result of this utter neglect of Christian duty. In | PROTESTANTISM AND PROTESTANT SOCIEhis own diocese, circumstances had occurred which went to prove the utter depravation of mind and spirit to which such neglect would naturally give birth. He spoke of matters that had happened within these few years. There was, in a sequestered spot of his diocese, a small island devoted as a receptacle for the most abandoned criminals. There they were shut up in wretched hovels during the night, and in the morning sent in boats to the neighbouring wood stations on the opposite coast. Here they are employed in felling timber, and in converting the heavy logs into huge rafts; often nearly the whole day up to the middle in water, surrounded by swamps, borne down by toil, and by the ever present sense of irremediable hopeless degradation. So dreadful is the punishment, that murder even has been committed, in order that the miserable criminal might be remanded to the gaol in Hobart Town, and thus be permitted to spend in comparative comfort that brief time which was suffered to intervene between the sentence of death and its execution. Here, again, it is needless to say, there are no spiritual instructors-no one to cheer them in their dreary labour-no one to watch the rising sigh of penitence, were such ever to heave from the breast of the wretched felon-no one to fan the latent spark of a yearning for religious consolation into a goodly and abiding flame. The possibility of reformation, so to speak, was taken from them, and they were doomed, it would appear, to have even in this world a foretaste of that hell which God had declared should be the dwelling-place of the impenitent and the ungodly. It was time to put a stop to such a system-time to wipe off the disgrace that rested upon us, as a nation, from having so long trifled with the awful interests of the imperishable soul of man-time to apply a remedy as extensive as the disease.” The good effects of ministerial labour already begins to tell. Many years, of course, must elapse before great effects are to be expected from the establishment of a regular ministry under episcopal superintendence; but we must wait in faith, labour in faith, and pray in faith. The spiritual desert may yet rejoice, and blossom as the rose. The felon, justly banished for ever from his native shores, an outcast and an alien, is not therefore necessarily debarred from the offers of salvation. He is still within the reach of saving mercy and of sovereign grace. A captive in a far distant land, he may yet be made to walk in that liberty wherewith Christ maketh his people free. He has stood a criminal at the bar of man he has heard the merited sentence from an earthly judge: he is paying the penalty of his crimes. But he has not yet been called to stand before the judgment-seat of God. There he may stand, seemingly hopeless as may be his case, and hardened his heart; but where sin has abounded, grace may yet more and more abound: the brand may yet be plucked from the burning, the bondman of Satan may yet be set free-the efficient cause, the sovereignty of almighty mercy; the efficient means, the preaching, by those who are sent as ambassadors for Christ, of a cloudless, free, and unfettered gospel. On no other method employed can the blessing of God be expected to rest, and consequently no other will be effectual. "In one department, an agent of the society, whose circuit extended over a hundred districts (communes), had been solicited from all quarters to hold meetings for the purpose of reading and expounding the scriptures. He had had the opportunity of visiting a considerable number of towns and villages, and presiding over meetings of 60, 200, and even 300 individuals, who had manifested a deep interest in the truths opened out to them. A second agent had been sent in aid of the first; and in one town, where his auditory had begun with 25, it had increased at the third meeting to 200. In another place he had on the first day 150, on the next 220, and on the third 250" (we should here observe that, exposed as the progress of the society is to the active opposition of the predominant Romish clergy, the report avoids giving the names of departments or places, lest the interests of the truth should be compromised). "In another quarter of the same department, a similar spirit has been awakened. One of the society's readers has collected round him 500 Romanists desirous to become acquainted with the pure doctrines of the gospel." A reader from another part of France reports as follows:-"I have been enabled to preach the word in an old monastery to 250 auditors. In another spot 500 are firmly resolved to sacrifice much, so that they may enjoy the benefit of evangelical worship; and to follow no other path in future but the religion of the bible. In another town the burial of a protestant collected 600 hearers and spectators together; and an importunate wish was expressed that a place of protestant worship might be opened." "At another point," the report adds, "one of our agents, who had been solicited to hold meetings in a district which he had not before visited, preached the gospel to a gathering of 300 persons. Tracts were distributed among them; and, after reading them attentively, the people came forward and besought him that the meetings for public worship might be continued. "An analogous movement had taken place at Villefavard, a place of between 600 and 700 souls in the department of the upper Vienne. A New Testament had fallen into the hands of the aged minister of the flock, and inspired him with a desire to be instructed in gospel doctrine. The people themselves having expressed a unanimous wish to hear a protestant minister, the committee of the society deputed the rev. Mr. Roussel to undertake the mission. After taking the proper steps, he preached to an audience of 400 individuals of peaceable dispositions and collected minds; and, after his preaching, a long and interesting discussion ensued..... The word had touched their consciences; the Spirit of God had breathed upon them. But the prefect of the department has endeavoured, in his official capacity, to thwart this work of peace and charity. Let not your hearts be troubled the greater the opposition offered to the society's agents, the more extensive is the sale of the scriptures. "The agents of the society consist of twenty ministers, eight preachers, ten teachers, five female teachers, &c. And it has a normal school for training masters, five pupils preparing themselves for orders, twenty-eight male pupils, and seven females under training for teachers. "The society began the year with a deficit of £63 (1,568 francs); and the expenditure for the past twelve months has been £3,736 (93,144 francs); making altogether £3,799. The receipts have been £3,753; so that the new year begins with a deficit of £46. MISSIONARY SOCIETY. to £2,824: the balance in hand-including that of last year, which was £1,613-amounted to £2,469. With this, and the continued support of the friends to missionary enterprise, the committee hoped to meet the extra expenditure which would be incurred during the present year." In the discussion which ensued, one of the speakers passed a high panegyric on the Christian conduct of the calumniated protestant missionaries in Otaheite; and colonel Saladin, of Geneva, called upon the ladies present to undertake the education of the infant daughters of the missionaries. RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY. frauds practised by the Romish priests exceeded all bounds. It was stated, for instance, that they circulated a version of part of the New Testament in which the word "Hugonots" was substi| tuted for "Gentiles," with intent to persuade their flocks that the Hugonots had crucified Jesus. S. K. C. THE JUDGMENT DAY: Mr. Lutteroth, at the annual meeting in Paris on the 23rd of April, read a report, which stated the number of tracts printed last year to have been 700,000, of which 600,000 had been sold. The year's expenditure was £1,193, and the income £1,027: the deficiency, including that of the preceding year, was £253. The deficit was occasioned by the increased demand for publications, not by any diminution in the receipts. Nothing could be more encouraging than the exThe twentieth anniversary of this society was tending spirit of inquiry which prevailed in reheld in Paris on the 25th of April. After a spect of religious matters. Translations had been prayer had been said and a hymn sung, the pre-made for the use of Lower Brittany, where the sident for the day congratulated a crowded auditory on the rapid and cheering success of the society's labours. But an hour of severe trial had hung over their missionary establishment in southern Africa, the Dutch boors at Port Natal having threatened to destroy them utterly. But, the British government having determined to take possession of the country on which the Dutch had settled, all cause for apprehension had vanished. The report announced that the horrors of cannibalism had ceased to exist; that witchcraft had disappeared, in common with other superstitious practices; and that the missionary press was actively employed in satisfying the eagerness of the natives for reading religious books. The change effected among them would have appeared incredible, had not the all-sufficiency of divine grace accounted for it. The gospel had borne fruit in abundance at every one of the society's stations, without any exception. The natives themselves had become zealous in propagating the gospel; the schools were flourishing; attendance upon divine worship was assiduous; candidates for the communion were in greater number than ever; family worship was universal; and patience under affliction and trials, as exemplary as the spread of the spirit of Christian charity. The knot of Christians at Bethulia, who were so poor that they frequently had not more than a single meal per day, had this year forwarded a contribution of £25 to the society. "Two new stations, called Berea and Bethesda, have been founded; and two additional missionaries, one as a minister and the other as a physician, had been sent out. The lamentable want of missionaries, and other circumstances, have prevented the committee from despatching any mission to the Society Islands, however anxious they were to extend their efforts in that quarter Several new congregations had become contributors to the society during the past year. The receipts amounted to £3,680, and the expenditure A Sermon, BY THE REV. CHARLES JOHN ELLIOTT, M.A., JOHN v. 28, 29. "Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." THE words which have now been read form a part of the discourse held between our Saviour and the unbelieving Jews, on the occasion of his coming up to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of the Passover, for the second time probably after the commencement of his public ministry. The grand doctrine which our Saviour inculcates throughout this discourse is that of his own Messiah ship, involving as it does, by necessity, that of his own true and essential divinity. Let us endeavour, bearing this remark in memory, to trace the connection which subsists between our text and the preceding part of the discircumstance which peculiarly claims our course recorded in this chapter The first attention is the remarkable manner in which our Lord (in the 17th verse of the chapter) vindicates himself from the charge preferred against him by the Jews, of the violation of the sabbath. He appeals not here, as he had done on former occasions, to the example of David eating the shew-bread, to that of the priests profaning the sabbath by offering the sacrifices, or to that of the people rescuing their cattle from destruction, or leading them forth to water: he stands not here to reconcile his conduct with the minute restrictions of the Levitical law, much less with the scrupulous rigour of traditional usage; but he at once falls back upon higher ground, and appeals to higher sanctions: he alleges the example of his Father: he rests upon his own divine authority. But Jesus answered them: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." He alleges the example of the almighty Creator of heaven and earth, who, though he rested on the seventh day from all his work, and hallowed that day as a season of perpetual observance, as a day peculiarly consecrated to his own immediate service and glory, nevertheless sustained and upheld and has ever since continued to sustain and to uphold, to direct and control-both the hosts of heaven and the armies of earth, and to overrule all the operations both of animate and inanimate nature by the word of his own almighty power, and for the promotion of his own essential glory. He appeals, moreover, to his own divine authority as the Son of man, and therefore the Lord of the sabbath. He thus places his actions beyond the reach of human control, and exempts his conduct from the range of human jurisdiction. The Jews, rightly comprehending the import of our Saviour's language when he spoke of God as his Father-clearly perceiving that his words imported not that ordinary relation to the Almighty in which they themselves stood, and in virtue of which they are spoken of as the children of God, but some high, some peculiar and incommunicable relation, which no mere mortal might arrogate, which no created being could without blasphemy assume the Jews, I say, rightly comprehending the meaning of our Saviour's language, sought the rather to destroy, as one who had violated their law and blasphemed their God, him who, although they acknowledged not his divinity, and were ignorant of the object of his mission, had come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. The inference which the Jews derived from our Saviour's language, and which, had it been false, would doubtless have been disclaimed by him with a mingled sense of righteous indignation and of holy jealousy for his Father's honour, receives not any refutation from the solemn words in which he now addresses them. "Then answered Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise; for the Father loveth the Son and showeth him all things that himself doeth; and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel." That there may be some difficulty in determining the precise import of these words when they first fall upon the ear I will not deny; but that not only no support whatever for the fallacious and presumptuous dogmas of Socinianism can be extorted therefrom, but that they do on the contrary necessarily involve the divinity of the speaker, a moment's reflection will suffice to evince. Of what mere man, I would ask, could it be asserted that he can do nothing of himself, nothing as emanating from human weakness or infirmity, nothing as defiled by the stain of original sin, or polluted by the guilt of actual transgression? Of what mere mortal, I would ask again, could it be predicated, that what things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise? To whom, but to the eternal Son of God, could it be declared, that the Father showeth all things that himself doeth? Surely such perfect conformity of will and of purpose, nay, more, such an identity of power, and so perfect a comprehension, and so intimate an acquaintance with the counsels and designs of Deity, attest, beyond the reach of scepticism, the true and essential divinity of him to whom such attributes are ascribed, and of whom such power is predicated. With confidence, then, may it be asserted, that never were words more grossly perverted, or an inference more falsely derived, than when evidence for the soul-destroying doctrines of Socinianism has been wrung from language so expressive of the attributes of deity-that never has more daring presumption been evinced, or more reckless hardihood displayed, than when so explicit an assertion of his own divinity, on the part of him who is emphatically "the Truth," has been construed into a denial of those attributes and perfections which are by the very terms employed so unequivocally assumed. But, as if to preclude the possibility of any erroneous inference being deduced from his language, our Saviour leaves not the doctrine of his own essential deity unconfirmed by additional evidence; for he proceeds (ver. 21) to assert, in the most distinct and unequivocal terms, his own participation with the Father in that power by which he recalls to life the dead: "For, as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will." And again he declares, " For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." And he proceeds immediately to assign as the reason of this act of his Father's administration, and as the end therein proposed, "That all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father." And yet again, as if still further to vindicate his own essential deity, and to leave without excuse those who should still presume to deny the truth of this grand and fundamental doctrine, our Saviour, by the twice repeated asseveration, Verily, verily the sure precursor of the enunciation of some grand and momentous truth-proceeds to direct the attention of the Jews to the life-giving efficacy which accompanied his words, as evinced alike by their power to quicken and to energize the careless soul, and to speak life and animation to the senseless clay. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live; for, as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given the Son to have life in himself, and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." As though our Saviour had said, "Great, indeed, must be the power of the Son of man, seeing that the words which I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life; seeing that they have power to quicken and to energize the careless soul, and to breathe life and animation into the senseless clay. Great, indeed, must be the power of the Son of man, seeing that it is mine to recall the departed spirit, and to reanimate the lifeless dust. Presumptuous, indeed, must he be who calls in question my authority, or who asks of me, 'What doest thou?' seeing that it is mine, in common with the Father, to breathe into man the breath of life; to cheer the heart of the widowed and agonized mother, by restoring to her arms the re-animated form of her once lifeless son; to pour consolation into the breasts of the sorrowing daughters of affliction, by bidding their deceased brother burst the barriers of the grave, and emerge from the narrow portals of the tomb. Great, indeed, must be the power of him whom ye have so presumptuously arraigned at the bar of your impotent tribunal, seeing that it is his to summon the nations before his bar, and the countless myriads of the universe before his throne! Great, indeed, must be the majesty of him whom now ye behold despised and rejected of men, seeing that this is he whom Daniel, in prophetic vision, saw coming in the clouds of heaven, to whom was given dominion and glory, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." But marvel not at this. Great as must be his power who can speak into life the dead, and whose words, when received into the heart by faith, impart to the believer life everlasting, hereafter shall ye see greater works than these: hereafter shall ye witness "the great Easter of the universe." The hour cometh when the unnumbered myriads of creation-peopled earth-whose bones have whitened on the outstretched plains, whose bodies have been entombed in the depths of ocean, or whose ashes have calmly reposed amid the deep tranquillity of the vaulted sepulchre; the hour cometh when the slumbering ashes of this corrupted multitude shall for ever be clothed with incorruption-when the unnumbered myriads of this mortal army shall for ever be invested with immortality: the hour cometh when the voice of the Son of man shall pierce through the utmost confines of the earth, penetrate the lowest caverns of the deep, re-echo through the deepest valleys, and reverberate from the surrounding rocks and mountains-when, at the accents of that all-penetrating voice, the earth and the sea shall give up their dead, death and hell shall deliver their captives, the charnel-house of corruption shall be despoiled of its inhabitants, the loftiest sepulchres, the proudest mausoleums, shall be robbed of all that is mortal, of the illustrious statesmen, the mighty monarchs, the victorious heroes, whose ashes have long reposed beneath their venerable piles, when all earth-born distinctions shall for ever cease, when all human pomp, and magnificence be for ever abolished, and when great and small, rich and poor, monarch and peasant, freeman and slave, shall hear and shall obey the startling summons, and muster, in silent awe and anxious expectation, around the dread tribunal of their incarnate Judge. "Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." My brethren, there is a simplicity and, at the same time, a majesty in these words, which renders it impossible to hear or to peruse them seriously without experiencing mingled sensations of admiration and of awe; and that notwithstanding our familiarity with the sublime and comprehensive ennunciations concerning a future state, of that revelation whose high and peculiar prerogative it is to bring life and incorruption (aplapriav) to light. With what strange emotions, then, of astonishment and of awe must words such as these have burst in upon the ears and thrilled through the breasts of those to whom they were first addressed! True, the patriarchal Job had expressed his firm and unwavering conviction of the truth of the grand doctrine which they unfold, when, in the language of implicit faith and unshaken hope, he exclaimed, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." True, the evangelical prophet had added his testimony to that of the patriarch, when, catching, as it were, a fuller breath of inspiration, he raised the drooping courage and rekindled the expiring hopes of the desponding church in that joyous and triumphant strain: "Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise." "Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs; and the earth shall cast out the dead." True, the prophet Daniel had still more distinctly enunciated the solemn truth which our text contains, when he foretold that the day should come when "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." But, notwithstanding the distinctness and the solemnity of these successive annunciations, in so great obscurity had the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments been involved previous to the advent of the long-predicted Messiah, that, whilst many of the Pharisees maintained the doctrine of the metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls into a succession of different bodies, and limited the resurrection solely to the just, the Sadducees not only utterly denied the truth of the resurrection, but also maintained the total extinction or annihilation of the soul as immediately consequent upon its separation from the body. With what strange emotions, then, must the thrilling words of our text have burst in upon the ears of those who had just now sought to imbrue their hands in the blood of the Just One, when they heard that, at the voice of him whom they had condemned as a malefactor, and would have destroyed as a blasphemer, the countless myriads over whom the stream of time had ever swept, and all who should thenceforth tread the stage of earth, awaking from the sleep of death, upstarting from their kindred dust, and re-invested with their long-forsaken tenements of clay, should be summoned into the immediate presence of him whom they should then behold, no longer in a servant's garb, rejected and despised, but as a conqueror, treading his enemies in the winepress of his wrath, and as a judge, pronouncing over his convicted criminals the sentence of final condemnation, the decree of everlasting perdition! "Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." But O, my brethren, what imagination may conceive, or what tongue describe, the solemn pomp, the dread realities of that day when, at the sound of the archangel's trump, the sheeted dead shall awake, the bars and barriers of the grave shall be unloosed, the narrow portals of the tomb out-stepped, and the widowed soul, re-united in indissoluble bands to her long-forsaken tabernacle of earth, shall enter upon her new and untried state of being, the heir of an immortality of unutterable bliss, or destined to endure, through the countless ages of eternity, the deathless pangs of unutterable woe. Before the overwhelming majesty of that day of final assize the human imagination staggers; and, in the outstretched effort to unfold its awful decisions, the mortal tongue falters. Such dread realities I presume not to pourtray: rather, my brethren, suffer me, during the few moments which yet remain, to direct your attention to the broad distinction of character so clearly marked out in the words of our text, and, on the one hand, to the happiness which is reserved for those who have done good, and, on the other hand, to the misery which impends over those who have done evil. "Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." And surely, if it be more incumbent upon the minister of Christ at one time than it is at another to insist upon that vital distinction of character which is so clearly laid down throughout the whole of the inspired volume, between those who truly serve the Lord and those who serve him only by outward profession, it is in times like the present, and in days like those in which our lot has been cast. Living, as we do, in the most highly favoured of all the countries of the earth-en |