These two men were well met, and wrought hard together in praying and visiting, though William had ceased to preach. In course of time our friend removed to Felling Shore. In the world all christians have tribulation to pass through. Our friend had his share; he was bereaved of his wife, and was induced to leave his old friends the Wesleyans, for conscience sake on points of church polity, and consequently he became identified with our Community. He now renewed his strength, and set forth in the vineyard of God with new delight to pluck poor souls out of the fire; and his labours were abundantly blest. In visiting he was very successful; in prayer most powerful-when he prayed heaven seemed to bow down; in seeking up the strayed from the class and church, he scarcely had his equal. He now married again, and found a help-meet during his pilgrimage. When the imagination and the feelings are highly wrought upon, and are not kept under due restraint, serious consequences frequently follow. And where the christian is found in such a case, Satan may be allowed to put forth his temptations to distress him. Something of this kind occurred to our Brother; he became so nervous that both his health and peace suffered, and for some time he was afraid to pray lest he should blaspheme, and could do but little work, going for a few hours and then returning home again. This was inconvenient at the works, and caused some who could not sympathise with our Brother, to murmur at the supposed indulgence. To the honour of the employer, J. Allen, Esq., be it stated, our friend received from him much sympathy and help. In due time our Brother fully recovered his wonted health and vigour, and became more active, if possible, than ever in the service of Christ and building up the church; his light broke out again and refreshed many; his zeal provoking his brethren to love and good works, and while he had any strength left, he employed it for God. But the time drew nigh when our friend was to die, and cease from his labours on earth. In September, 1844, symptoms of consumption showed themselves, and he gradually grew weaker and weaker. The strong man bound himself and turned his face to the wall to meet the last enemy death. Through the whole of his last illness he was calm and resigned, his faith was firm, his hope as an anchor was cast within the veil, his love was ardent, and his patience exemplary. He received all his friends with delight, and talked over the affairs of the church with unabated interest. Being asked if he had any fear of death, he said, "No; I have a bright prospect beyond the grave; my peace is made, Christ is my salvation :" and while his friends engaged in prayer, he would allow his whole soul to ascend in his fervent Amens. Some time before he died, his speech failed him, but then he cast his soul into significant looks, and penetrated the very hearts of his friends by his gracious smiles. How sweet, how desirable to smile at death. This our brother did, till the chariot of the heavenly convoy came; then he calmly breathed his last, and went to heaven. He died on Tuesday, July 29, 1845, aged 48 years. His death was improved in our chapel at Felling Shore, (where he had been very useful and highly esteemed) by the Rev. W. Cooke, from that text, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." Our brother's history makes manifest three things;-1st. that God delights to save sinners. None are too bad for his grace, if they repent and believe. For 24 years our brother was the servant of sin and Satan, but when he sought the Lord with all his heart, the Lord was intreated of him, and made him a vessel of honour. Let none despair, for it is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, even the chief. 2nd. The faithful christian has power with God in prayer: our Brother had. Soon after his conversion, he was lamed in one of his legs; the disorder resisted the power of medicine; but not the power of prayer. Our friend turned in fervent prayer to the Great Physician—he prevailed; he felt as though a hand touched the leg, and it was as well as ever. His first wife was once ill; much concerned for her, he fell on his knees in the works, and pleaded for her recovery; he knew he was heard, and went home to see, and found his wife well. This is not the age of miracles; but prayer will prevail with God. "All things when ye pray, believe that ye have the things ye ask for, and ye shall have them." 3rd. Man, when converted, should labour to spread the savour of the knowledge of Christ amongst men. There is every thing in Religion which is sympathetic and expansive; it moves us to seek the wandering souls of men, and turn them to a pardoning God. All talents, be they many or few, must modestly, but zealously, be employed for God. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. Gateshead, July, 1846. H. WATTS. ORIGINAL ESSAYS, COMMUNICATIONS, ETC. AN ESSAY ON PROGRESSION. Βέβαιον οὐδὲν ἐν βίῳ δοκεῖ πελειν. WHETHER it be true that worlds are daily created and daily perish, we cannot tell; but this we know that all in nature, as we behold her, is progressive. She is not a sluggish mass-but an active principle, a well organized whole. She does not indulge in the caprice of "to be or not to be" in two successive moments. The speed of volition does not characterize her productions or her parts, but as she was so she is. Gradual but certain; slow but sure, her every evolution brings her nearer the intended result, whether it be to form or to destroy. The happy medium so often recommended, has a pleasing illustration wherever we look into creation, proving, without an exception, that "Consistent wisdom ever wills the same, and exhibits to one generation what will be seen by another. The first years of our era,† in their general features, bear an analogy to the first years of the world, and these, in their great distinctions, to the one now passing. Time speeds on in its wonted tenor, allowing to man a certain knowledge of its measurement by artificial means, without a capability to contract or to expand it, to hasten its progress or arrest its course. The seasons successively invade each other, the one seemingly anxious to trench on the period of its forerunner. As formerly, a generation rises in health and vigour, and its predecessor sinks under a weight of cares and years. Pleasures, like the vernal flowers which bloom and blossom and decay, spend a charming but a brief existence. Joys, we say, are transient, a proof that they perish by progression. The commencement, the continuance, and the end, form a comment on all things created. What an epitome of comparison has the Almighty given! As each wave that rises sinks again into the bosom of its fellows, so do the multitudinous productions of nature perish, to give place to the perpetual fecundity of providence. The decaying and productive process wheels round in a continual gyration, and as the circle defies the observer to point to its sides, so does this agent of an all-powerful Being deride the vain attempts of observation to tell where it begins and where it ends. The parts of creation, however dissimilar, constitute a beauteous and harmonious whole, sufficiently distinguishable from each other, and yet so mysteriously connected for the success of every result, that only the broad line of a marked difference can be recognized, which nevertheless is ever varying. The universe is not an immense machine poised and at rest, but the mani Democritus, and after him Epicurus, taught that there are, "innumerabiles mundi, qui et oriantur, et intereant quotidie."--Cicero, De Finibus. + Ce mot d'Ere signifie un denombrement d'anneés, commencé à un certain point que quelque grand événement fait remarquer.-Bossuet, Hist. Universelle. festation of power and wisdom conjoined to pour forth unceasingly multiplied proofs of disinterested mercy and love. In human actions there is the same progressiveness. Each offers an illustration and a proof. The means in the performance of all is labour; the end, completion. Time is necessary to both. The hut and the stately edifice consume the labourer's time and the artist's skill: the one requires the labour of weeks, the other, in some instances, perhaps the labour of years. So Providence has ordained. The fact is before us and, always seen, scarcely attracts our passing notice, never excites our astonishment. Yet in this arrangement who can doubt there is the impress of divine wisdom, might we not say of divine justice ? Man has fallen from his first estate. He is no longer an inhabitant of the garden of the Lord, or the possessor of unasked-for bounties. Spontaneous fruits are no longer gathered, and uninterrupted Spring no longer sheds its verdure and its flowers. A mighty change has been wrought by the right hand of the Most High. Earthly gifts are not obtained like heavenly blessings,-" Ask and you shall receive." The consequence of the curse is seen and felt,-seen in every object, and felt by every individual. A wish gives not conception to a scheme, nor does the ardour of expectancy ensure success to a project. We are told of the lute of Memnon's statue becoming vocal when the rays of the morning sun fell upon it, but now no music meets the ear, no pleasing sights attract the eye, unless caused or formed by human invention, aided by human perseverance. Fancy may "fire the chosen genius," or imagination" paint the finest features of the mind" and revel in the description "Or of sweet sound, or fair proportioned form, but she cannot give them a consistency: she can in the wide range of poetic praseology, or amidst the innumerable combinations of cabalistic words, turn them to "sterner stuff." The curse is, "in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," and hence was called into exercise the heavengiven powers of man. We can separate and combine, but we cannot create. The elements of our best and nobliest works lie before us. The artist's colours are ready, and he disposes; the sculptor's block is fresh from the quarry to receive the form his chisel may enforce; the poet's imagery is spread through nature, and his fancy collects, and his judgment disposes. But in all crafts, whether useful or ornamental, whether requiring the higher powers or only ordinary qualifications, time and attention are indispensible requisites. The food that we receive is raised by providence as the fulfilment of a promise, and as the reward of the labour and patience of the husbandman. In no department where either excellence or necessity is the object and the end, does the best beginning suffice; there must be a perseverance, which rests only in attainments, and this in every case supposes progression. As man's works are not the creations of a moment, so neither do they perish. As their construction consumes successive portions of time, so does their destruction. They are new or old, according to the relative period in which they are. Our forefathers raised massive structures, and temples shrouded with solemnity, and they rejoiced at these recent creatures of their hands; and we now view them as the remains of antiquity, casting back a dim twilight on the modes, the manners, the bias, and the prepossessions of ages over which centuries have rolled. The finest specimens of architecture of the present age will wax old and be in ruins, when another people, not yet in being, shall possess the land. The oak, one of the most durable of trees, is not an inapt type of all other things with which we have to do. It arrives at maturity, seems to defy time, but slowly falls to decay. "The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees, The ivy-crowned pinnacle and tottering dome, attractions to the curious, remain from year to year, monuments of a by-gone time, but yet imperceptibly falling to dust. Always exposed to the varying action of the elements, they are always approaching nearer and more near destruction, until at length a confused heap is all that marks where they stood. And it may be asked, would there not be a period, were the Almighty not to consume it, when the world's self would fall to atoms? It is no argument against such a supposition, to point to the long vista of ages to roll by, the first of which we may consider not to have passed. All shorter than eternity shall pass, and matter, unless changed, has not a place in eternity. It is left to poets to say, "Eternal matter never wears away;" though it is neither poetically nor philosophically true, that matter is eternal. The days of Diogenes Laërtius, who asserted there were two eternal principles, God and matter, are no more, and the knowledge of such opinions having formerly existed is one of those trifles which are carefully preserved in the extraordinary records of learning. The philosophy of the eighteenth century, which revived the atheistic doctrine of the world's eternity, has already passed, as to its influence, and will be noted in the history of the science as a remarkable effervescence caused by the meeting of superstition and rabid irreligion. The tendency of all things created is to destruction, but it has been ordained by heavenly wisdom that destruction shall be progressive. We pass to the powers of the human mind, which are gradual in their development. As the rose is first a bud, and slowly opens to the rays of the sun, so does that which is most attractive in man become slowly displayed by the beams of incessant nurture and care. The world abounds in mysteries and wonders, and, perhaps, there cannot be found one greater than man is to himself. The germ is there, but time is required to send forth its shoots. The diamond is in the mine, but it has to be sought after; and not only so, but when found, it has to be cut and polished. The Creator has ordered all things wisely. Were the beings which are made, to come into the world with their powers partially developed, death might be the consequence or moral evil. Nature, unsophisticated and capable of admiring and appreciating, would be overwhelmed by the contemplation of the wondrous works of God! Every sense would be called into exercise and at once, and there would be an immediate prostration. As Moses could not look on the glory of God and live, so such a being as we suppose could not view the beauties of creation and continue to be. The prisoner immured in the lightless dungeon cannot |