but his prayer was heard because he alone had remained faithful among all the prophets of Israel. In Jesus Christ, have we who sin, an Advocate with the Father? It is "Jesus Christ the righteous." Like him would we be the honored instruments of the divine benevolence to our brethren?-Like him, then, we must be "holy, harmless, and separate from sinners." Like him would we become intercessors and advocates with the Father of mercies ?— Like him, then, we must be merciful. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy-not to themselves alone, but for those also whose cause they plead. Like Jesus would we mediate a peace between any one of our brethren, and the God who hath declared that there is no peace to the wicked?-We then, like Jesus, must be at peace in our own minds, and be able to look up with a truly filial spirit, to the Father whose child we would lead back to him penitent and reconciled. Do we invoke the divine blessing on those around us, who are bound to us by ties of kindred and affection-ties stronger than the chains of death? Does our parental love prompt us to present our children before the throne of God, with the prayer that they may be his children on earth and in heaven?-Let us not forget that, if we would hope for audience, we must in our prayers for them lift up holy hands. And when, by filial love, we are drawn around the deathbed of an earthly parent, the consciousness that we have honored our father or our mother according to the commandment, will increase our faith, that our intercessions for the departing spirit will be heard, by Him who heard, in his intercessions, his holy Child Jesus, and who will hear him always.

BY REV. JOHN FOSTER, D. D. BRIGHTON, MASS.

ON THE DIVINE INFLUENCE, IN THE CONVERSION OF SINNERS.

I CORINTHIANS, xv. 10.

By the grace of God I am what I am; and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with

me.

THE life of St. Paul furnishes many incidents equally remarkable and instructive. View him in the several stages before, and at, and after the time of his conversion, --and in each you will find matter of admiration and astonishment. You first behold him "breathing out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lordpersecuting them even to strange cities ;" and, under a commission, which he had solicited and obtained of the high priest, hastening to Damascus, in order, "if he found any of this way, whether men or women, to bring them bound to Jerusalem." In the midst of this mad career, you see him suddenly arrested by a miraculous interposition. of Heaven, and convinced of the impiety of his designs. From that moment, you discover nothing of his former hostility to the church of Christ,-but witness a constant succession of laborious, unwearied, persevering endeavors to advance that cause and religion, which he had hitherto spared no pains to extirpate from the face of the earth.

With a manifest reference to these facts,-when he had enumerated the different appearances of our Lord to others, he tells the Corinthians,-"Last of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am; and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."

By the grace of God" the apostle here intends that divine agency, through the assistance of which he was reclaimed from the error of his ways, and led to embrace and obey the gospel. In this sense, among other important acceptations, the phrase has been justly applied in all succeeding ages. Hence some, not properly distinguishing between the conditions of the world now, and when Christianity was first promulgated, have imbibed and inculcated an opinion that the moral change in every individual, who is brought to "the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus," requires an exertion of almighty power equally miraculous and perceptible: that all who are made the subjects of this change, must not only be conscious of the previous strivings of the Holy Spirit, but of the time, before which it was not, and after which it is effected, and consequently be assured of their salvation.

But in my apprehension, the conversion of Paul is not to be made the test of conversion in general. His case was peculiar. Deeply prejudiced against the name and religion of Christ, as well by the mode of his education, as by the example of his connexions and associates, more than ordinary means were necessary to reconcile him to the doctrines of the cross. The case of the age in which he lived was also peculiar. Christianity," a stumbling block to the Jews, and to the Greeks foolishness,"-was "every where spoken against," and had to struggle with the wisdom and wickedness of the whole world. It was, therefore, indispensable to the conviction of gainsayers, htat miracles of various kinds should be wrought. In