not lament for me, for I can be much better spared than you. To a Christian friend he said, "I am happy, because Jesus is precious to me." When asked by his father if he was afraid to die, he answered, “No;" but he added, “I have found it very difficult to bring my mind up to the point to be willing to part with you, but I now long for God to take me to himself."

On the evening preceding his death, and when unable to speak, except in a whisper, he said to a Christian friend, when leaving the room, "Farewell, but we shall meet again in heaven."

The time of his departure was now nearly at hand. He moved to his father, intimating that he wished to be raised a

little higher in bed. After the lapse of a very short period of time, he whispered again, "Father, I am dying," and then gently breathed his last.

This narrative says to all, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord;"-it counsels parents to be careful to instruct their children out of the Word of God, and to follow up all their instruction by a holy and prayerful example; and it loudly and solemnly admonishes the young to guard against trifling with the convictions of conscience;-to avoid yielding to criminal self-indulgence, and to be scrupulously careful not to neglect the best interests of the soul.

1. HE has been regularly inducted into office. He was called to the work by the highest authority; and the validity of his ordination has never been disputed. Much as some of his sermons have been disliked, I believe all the denominations claim him as belonging to them, and it is well to see a point in which they are all agreed.

2. He is certainly an old preacher. The first parents had a specimen of his preaching before they left Eden, and he has not failed of preaching somewhere a day, if he has an hour, since. Some people think a minister should stop preaching after a certain age, and I think some would be glad if this old preacher would stop. And some have taken a good deal of pains to stop him; but I never heard of their success. Indeed, I have known cases when the more they opposed him and tried to put him down, the louder he preached, and they had to give it up. Notwithstanding his age, he has lost nothing of the power and vigour of his voice. From what I know of him, I should not think that age, however great, will ever stop

him, or any other agency, but the authority which first set him to work.

er.

3. He is a very discriminating preachHe is an archer that seldom loses an arrow. He comes directly home to men's bosoms, as if he had something to do there. The hearer has no difficulty in ascertaining what he is about. "What would he be at?" is often asked under sermons, but not when Conscience is in the pulpit.

4. He is a bold preacher. Scowls, frowns, and threats, are all lost upon him. What he has to say, he says right on, no matter who is in the audience. He does not wait for people to come to specified places to hear him; he fear lessly goes after them into the parlour or the palace, lifts his voice to the king on the throne, utters his rebukes in the hall of revelry or the den of robbers. There is no timidity or cowardice about him. He tells the truth out and out, without any kind of compromise, or any sort of reference to the feelings of his auditors. It may raise a dreadful storm in the bosom, and hate the preacher they may most cordially; but he lays on

the match without shrinking, and it matters not who stands in the way of

the shot.

5. He is certainly a very awakening preacher People who are good at the business of sleeping under other preachers, never get asleep under this one. The moment he begins, all previous drowsiness departs. Most people had rather be asleep when he preaches; and hard many of them try to reach such a state of unconsciousness. But he knows what chord to strike to keep them awake, and awake they will be while he is in the pulpit, take what pains they may to be slumberers. One of his gentlest whispers will make sleep an exile; and when he speaks in the fulness of his power, it is as if every bone was breaking, and every nerve was snapping. The crash of all nature about his ears, would not more effectually keep the hearer awake.

6. He always has something to say when he preaches. Some preachers get along somehow without this. They can have utterance by the hour, and say but little-some of them nothing. But all who have heard this preacher affirm that there ever was sound and solid matter in his discourse. He has no rhetorical flourishes - no tricks and subtleties of speech-no sound in the place of sense no thunder without lightning. He has a message where he goes an earnest and important errand, whomsoever he addresses. crowds a good deal into a small space, and makes the hearer feel there is abundance of matter in a few words.

He

7. He is a very effective preacher. Some preachers seem to have no more effect upon their hearers than a child's breath in stopping a hurricane. But hard hearts have melted, iron wills have bowed, deeply-loved objects have been forsaken, inveterate sinful habits have been abandoned, the very deepest depths of the human soul have been stirred: all these things have been done by this preacher. Effective! Look at David

wetting with his tears the parchment on which he wrote the fifty-first Psalm! Look at the king of Babylon as his eye fell on the hand-writing on the wall! Look at Judas as he dashed on the pavement of the temple the price of the betrayal of his Lord! And then at Peter weeping bitterly over his denial of him! Here was preaching to some purpose-and Conscience did it. And there never was a human being deeply and powerfully moved by the grand and momentous interests of religion, but this preacher had been uttering his terrible voice in the depths of the guilty soul. Verily, the history of human hearts testifies he is an effective preacher.

8. He preaches everywhere. Preaching is usually done at stated times and places. But here is a preacher who has no confinement of this sort, and he can skilfully adapt his discourse to any capacity. There goes a pouting stubborn child; this preacher is there. There is a reckless and ungodly young man, and the preacher is there. He is preaching in that parlour, where domestic peace is broken by a profligate husband or an ill-tempered wife. He is down in that forecastle, making that wicked sailor tremble. He is shaking a thousand people with fear in that great congregation, and at the same time, he has gone out on that pleasureexcursion, and is making the ears of those Sabbath-breakers tingle. He makes the open villains of yonder penitentiary hear him, and so he does the but a little smaller villains who are yonder, at midnight, counting the day's hard bargains. While he thunders in the ears of that impious blasphemer, he sharply admonishes that professed disciple's omission of prayer. He is the greatest busybody about preaching ever known. In season and out of season, night and day, at home, abroad, on the land, on the sea, in cell, or attic, or parlour, he drives a great business. He is never tired, never frightened, never sick, never discouraged, never dies.

As one generation of his hearers passes away he makes the next his auditorsalways, therefore, has plenty to hear him, and hear him they must, though the majority hate most intensely the preacher and his subject.

9. He will never stop preaching. He not only preaches this side of the grave, but beyond it. All who have heard him here will also hear him there. He will preach in heaven. All the audience then will love to hear him. When they were in the world for a while, they disliked the preacher as much as any others. But after the working of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, they came to take great pleasure in this preacher before they died. And now in glory they like him better than ever. It is one of the highest pleasures of that world to hear him. He has not a word to say that does not fall on their ears like the sound of the most delightful music.

But he will preach elsewhere than in heaven. No preaching in this world was so loud as his to prevent people

going to the world of woe. But they would not hear him. They tried to fill their ears with every other sound rather than with his voice. And they did get rid of him for long periods together, and hoped they should never hear him again. But they will. He will preach the louder for all the ill-treatment given him in this world. He will preach some old sermons which it will be anything but a comfort to hear. And he will have a great many texts furnished by the hearers themselves. And he will preach long. They had short sermons from him once, and those were too long for them, and thankful were they when he was done. But he will keep on preaching, though his hearers may "say in the morning, Would God it were evening! and in the evening, Would God it were morning!" And to any who should inquire when he will stop, there will be but one answer -Their worm dieth not! Who will be the happy and who the sad hearers of this GREAT PREACHER?-From the New York Observer.

THE word judgment is used in the Sacred Scriptures in various senses, but we now employ the term to signify those providential dispensations of God by which men are visited for their sins, either in the way of punishment or chastisement. The difference between punishment and chastisement is, that in the first case the judgments inflicted are really the execution, in part, of the penalty of the law of God; the other are such as are inflicted by a loving Father for the correction and amendment of his children. Often, however, the same terms are applied indiscriminately to both kinds of dispensations.

The ideas of many persons, and those

are found not merely among the ignorant and unlearned, are very erroneous on the subject of the judgments of God. They entertain the opinion, that nothing which comes to pass in the ordinary course of nature, the cause of which we can trace, is to be considered of the nature of a judgment of God. Some time towards the close of the last century, or the commencement of the present, a reverend and learned professor in a university published a small system of logic, intended to be studied by the under-graduates. The book was respectable as a very brief compend; but in giving an illustration of false reasoning, he observed that many

have

persons considered the yellow fever as a judgment of God, sent upon us on account of the sins of the people; whereas, the reverend author remarked (as though it were conclusive), that the yellow fever was produced by natural causes which could be ascertained. According to the principle involved in this remark, nothing can be properly considered a judgment of God which can be traced to a natural cause. And, consequently, since miracles ceased, there have been no judgments of God in the history of the world. This is to exclude the Governor of the universe from the world with a witness. Few would be willing to adopt this conclusion who have any faith in God and his providence. Others suppose, that remarkable afflictions, out of the common course of experience, may be reckoned judgments, but not those common af flictions which befall men every day. Both these classes of error arise from an inadequate conception of the extent of Divine providence; and with many the error is rather practical than theoretical. If the question were proposed to them, Does the providence of God extend to all events, small as well as great? they would readily answer in the affirmative; but notwithstanding this, they never think of referring common events to the providence of God; and therefore are not affected with a sense of his goodness in their prosperity, nor humbled to a penitent confession of their sins in adversity. It is true, some maintain a general while they deny a particular providence; they allow God to have some hand in the revolution of empires and downfall of thrones; but not in the minute and trivial affairs of men. But the fact is, that in the order of events, in the history of the world, there is an indissoluble concatenation of the great with the small; the revolution of a kingdom may depend upon a single word—yea, a single volition. A general providence cannot be maintained, whilst a

universal and particular providence is denied. The doctrine of the Bible is most decisive and clear on this subject. According to our Lord, providence extends to the life and death of the smallest animals-yea more, to the perishing of a single hair of our heads. The whole history of the Old Testament is a history of a particular providence, in which the care of God extends to all events, of every kind, but in such a way as not to interfere with the free agency of men. And the whole book of prophecy supposes the truth of a providence which extends to all events, and even to all the free actions of men.

The notion that events brought about by natural and known causes are not judgments, is at war with most of the denunciations of God's vengeance against sinners, in the Old Testament. God's most common judgments on sinful nations are war, famine, pestilence, and destructive animals-destructive to human life, or to the productions of the earth intended for the sustenance of man. These judgments are not miraculous, but natural causes of punishment. And the whole catalogue of judgments, threatened in the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, are afflictions produced by natural causes. The most common insects are often made the instruments of inflicting judgments on a rebellious people. The locust, the grasshopper, the palmer-worm, and the caterpillar, are among the executioners of the Divine judgments; as well as the inanimate elements, the hail, the lightning, and the inundation of waters. Thus it is said, "He gave also their increase unto the caterpillar, and their labour unto the locust. He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore-trees with frost. He gave up also their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts." (Psa. lxxviii. 48.) Again, in the prophecy of Joel, we read,

which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten, and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten, and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten."

Among the many curses denounced by Moses against the Israelites, in case of disobedience to the commands of God, were grievous diseases of various kinds. "The Lord shall smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with an extreme burning." The Lord shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head." "And the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues and of long continuance. Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wert afraid of, and they shall cleave unto thee. Also EVERY SICKNESS AND EVERY PLAGUE, which is not written in the book, that is the book of this law, them will the Lord bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed."

The CHOLERA, whence is it, and why has it come? The infidel will answer,

it is a matter of chance; the rationalist will ascribe it to nature, and deny that Providence has anything to do with it; but the believer will acknowledge the hand of God in this sore judgment which is now desolating our land; and he will be disposed to humble himself, and to call the people around him, not to a mere formal observation of a day of fasting, but to sincere and deep repentance. He will acknowledge that for this desolating judgment there must be a cause-a moral cause. God has been provoked by the wickedness of this people, and by the dishonour cast upon his name by men "in high places," by men in authority-by the desecration of his holy day-by the neglect of his holy worship-by the enormous avarice and insatiable ambition of the people-by the lewdness and intemperance, yea, by the bloody murders by which the land has been defiled. And we need not expect the scourge to be withdrawn until real repentance is exercised, and a reformation begun. Or, if the pestilence depart, IT WILL COME AGAIN UNLESS

WE REPENT.

A CAVILLER once asked Dr. Nettleton, "How came I by my wicked heart?" "That," he replied, "is a question which does not concern you so much as another, namely, How you shall get rid of it. You have a wicked heart, which renders you entirely unfit for the kingdom of God; and you must have a new heart, or you cannot be saved; and the question which now most deeply concerns you is, how you shall obtain it." "But," said the man, "I wish you to tell me how I came by my wicked heart." "I shall not," replied Dr. Nettleton, "do that at present; for if I could do it to your entire satisfaction, it would not in the least help you towards

obtaining a new heart. The great thing for which I am solicitous is, that you should become a new creature, and be prepared for heaven." As the man manifested no wish to hear anything on that subject, but still pressed the question how he came by his wicked heart, Dr. Nettleton told him that his condition resembled that of a man who is drowning, while his friends are attempting to save his life. As he rises to the surface of the water, he exclaims, “How

came I here?" "That question,” says one of his friends, "does not concern you now. Take hold of this rope." "But how came I here?" he asks again. "I shall not stop to answer that ques