"Follow me."-To follow Christ's example is like walking in a path which the Saviour's previous footsteps have trodden into smoothness, and lighted with the lamp of his own spirit.Caroline Fry.

"He shall not be afraid of evil tidings."-What we term casualty is really Providence accomplishing deliberate designs, but concealing its own interposition; how comforting this reflection!-Hervey.

Opposite effects of Christ's love.—The love of Christ is both uniting and separating. It unites to his people, while it separates from the world.-Anon.

Unite meekness with wisdom.-Wisdom is mighty, meekness is mighty; but the meekness of wisdom is almighty. -Dr. Reed.

A calm is deceitful.-The absence of temptation is of wonderful importance in establishing our self-complacency. Sarah Stickney.

Woman's sphere. The peculiar mission of woman, and the peculiar source of her influence, consist in the application of large principles to small duties the agency of comprehensive intelligence on details. Woman's Mission.

66

The hairs of your head are all numbered."-There is infinite littleness in despising small things. Woman's Mission.

Suspect not evil.-There is no word or action, but may be taken with two hands, either with the right hand of charitable construction, or the sinister interpretation of malice and suspicion; and all things so succeed as they are taken. To construct an evil action well is but a pleasing and profitable deceit to myself; but to misconstrue a good thing is a treble wrong—to myself, the action, and the author.Bishop Hall.

Slander cannot make the subjects of it either better or worse. It may represent us in a false light, or place a likeness of us in a bad one. But we

are the same. Not so the slanderer; the slander that he utters makes him worse, the slandered never.-Lacon.

"God chooses the weak things of the world to confound those that are mighty." God's mightiest victories have been won by instrumentality, which man has most despised-School of God.

Forget yourself.-True humility does not so much consist in thinking badly of ourselves, as in not thinking of our selves at all.-School of God.

TO MINISTERS. — So far as I ever observed God's dealings with my soul, the flights of preachers sometimes entertained me; but it was Scripture expressions which did penetrate my heart, and that in a way peculiar to themselves.-J. Brown, of Haddington.

Do not preach so much to please as to profit. Choose rather to discover men's sins, than to show your own eloquence. That is the best lookingglass, not which is most gilded, but which shows the truest face.-Thomas Watson.

"Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech, or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God."-Paul.

Infant Baptism.-" I cannot but take occasion to express my gratitude to God for my infant baptism, not only as it was an early admission into the visible body of Christ, but as it furnished my pious parents with a good argument, (and I trust through grace a prevailing argument) for an early dedication of my own self to God in my childhood. If God has wrought any good work upon my soul, I desire with humble thankfulness to acknowledge the moral influence of my infant baptism upon it."-Henry.

H. H. H.

CHRISTIAN UNION.

(Lines composed for, and read at, the recent meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in Glasgow.)

'Tis said, when absent kindred meet,

Though sever'd long for many a year, As strangers in the crowded street,

Or strangely brought together near,-
The secret promptings of the heart

Betray the mutual tie of blood,
And looks, more true than words, impart
The tokens of blest brotherhood.
Thus, hidden ties together bind

True Christians when assembling here,
One hope, one Saviour, and one mind,

No stranger-where 'tis strange to fear: No bickering words shall mar their peace, No differing themes distract their prayer, Blest moments, when contentions cease, Blest dwellings, when the Lord is there! If Christ be found where two or three

Are gathered in His gracious name, Far more when o'er the travelled sea And land come men of holy fame. From different homes, by different ways, Here hast thou brought them, here be Thou,

Great Father, to accept their praise,— Here with thy Spirit bless them now! J. R. LEIFCHILD, A.M.

Oct. 11th, 1849.

THE DOOMED MAN.

(From the Christian Treasury.)
THERE is a time, we know not when,
A point, we know not where,
That marks the destiny of men
To glory or despair.

There is a line, by us unseen,
That crosses every path;
The hidden boundary between
God's patience and his wrath.

To pass that limit is to die,

To die as if by stealth;

It does not quench the beaming eye,
Or pale the glow of health.

The conscience may be still at ease,
The spirits light and gay;

That which is pleasing still may please,
And care be thrust away.

But on that forehead God has set,
Indelibly, a mark,
Unseen by man, for man as yet
Is blind and in the dark.

And yet the doom'd man's path below,
Like Eden, may have bloom'd;
He did not, does not, will not know

Or feel that he is doom'd.

He knows, he feels that all is well,
And every fear is calm'd;
He lives, he dies, he wakes in hell,
Not only doom'd, but damn'd.
O where is thy mysterious bourne,
By which our path is cross'd;
Beyond which, God himself hath sworn,
That he who goes is lost!

How far may we go on in sin?

How long will God forbear?
Where does hope end? and where begin
The confines of despair?

An answer from the skies is sent:
"Ye that from God depart!
While it is call'd to-day, Repent!
And harden not your heart."

VERILY THERE IS A GOD.
"They will not see, but they shall see."
Isa. xxvi. 11.

WITH reckless laugh and lip of scorn,
Men went their way, at eve and morn,
In field, or fair, at home, abroad,
And inly said-" There is no God."
Disease, commissioned, stalked the land,
Death's angel smote with fearful hand;
Fell high and low,-till, spirit-awed,
Men asked-" And is there not a God?"

Religion rose, and beckoned where
The Lord might hear and answer prayer;
They went, they cried-"Put up thy sword!"
And, bowing, felt," There is a God!"

Sept. 23, 1849.

THE HOPE OF ISRAEL. (From the Jewish Herald.)

E. S.

Subject to a stranger's sway,

From whose laws thou wouldst be free,

Wilt thou not obey to-day,

Israel's King's divine decree? Captive under Satan's thrall,

Break thy bonds! arise and flee! Haste thee on, at mercy's call! 'Tis thy Saviour speaks to thee.

Thy Messiah, David's Lord,t

Man of Nazareth‡ 'tis He, O believe His gracious word,

And His love will welcome thee.

Dan. ix. 25; Johni. 41.

↑ Psalm cx. 1; Mark xii. 36. Deut. xviii. 15; John i. 45.

Essay on Christian Baptism. By BAPTIST W. NOEL, M.A. 12mo. pp. 320.

Nisbet.

OUR readers will expect that we furnish some account of the above-named volume, and to this we now proceed.

When Luther lived and Henry reigned, and the storms of the Reformation were agitating the surface of ecclesiastical society in Europe, the pedantic tyrant of England undertook to answer the Reformer and refute all his allegations by writing a book in defence of the seven sacraments of Rome. Of course, the popish world were delighted, extatic, overjoyed at such a prospect. Mutual congratulations passed at the thoughts of so royal a helper. Now the matter would be settled: the tempest calmed: the monk refuted: heresy quashed: and popery triumphant still. Great was the transport when the regal production appeared. It was a prodigy. The world had never seen the like. Nothing now remained to be feared, or desired. The dispute would soon end. The waves of the Reformation would soon subside, and leave the sea calm and unruffled as before. The cardinals may repose in safety: the pope continue to wear his triple crown; and "Defensor fidei" be attached to that of England henceforth and for ever. It need not be intimated what was the issue. The monarch died. Luther lived. The Reformation triumphed. And in the very kingdom from which the royal missal had emanated, its glorious truths and principles most prevailed.

We know not whether such musings or anticipations ever entered into the minds of any on hearing, not certainly that a royal, but an "honourable" personage was about to produce a book on the long-pending con. troversy of Baptism, and to try his mighty hand at the settlement of a dispute in which so many had laboured in vain. We say we do not for certainty know, but we just deem it possible that it may have been so, and that some, in their zeal of party and honest attachment to their own cause, may have

been moved to transport at the prospect of such a distinguished advocate coming to their aid. Nay, even we ourselves must confess to some sort of misgivings, and nervous appre hensions, lest after all, our Pædobaptist predilections should be shaken, and our convictions upturned by the skilful aim and ponderous assault to which they would be exposed. We almost trembled. We knew not what the consequences would be. And whether or not we should be able to remain firm at the anchor-hold of conscious truth and integrity in the opinions which on this subject we had formed, was, for the first time in our lives, a question of no trifling concern. Most thankful are we now to be perfectly relieved, to have passed the test, to have endured the storm, and to remain secure and at ease at our anchor-hold. The oracle has spoken, but we cannot think in very clear or unambiguous terms. The champion has advanced, and the assault has been made. For ourselves, we are somewhat astonished at its feebleness, and fear not its results. It required, and still will require, a mightier hand than even his to shake the firm foundations on which the "doctrine of baptisms," as administered after the manner of Independents and other Pædobaptists, stands.

We confess, and we do it with all sincerity and truth, and with no small esteem for the excellent author, that we are greatly disappointed on reading this production of his pen, especially in comparison with, and after the perusal of, his former noble volume on the inconsistency of a state alliance with the Church of Christ. There he was at home, at rest, his heart right, his head clear, his pen correct, and his work remains unanswered and unanswerable. The "crown rights of the Son of God" were a theme congenial with his enlightened and evangelic soul, and we honour the man who, standing near the high places of the earth, with associations of the most alluring kind, and with ecclesiastical preferments within his reach, had he chosen to accept them, with the Bible in his hand and

the love of truth in his heart, would willingly sacrifice all, and lift up a standard to the people against the invasions of Cæsar on the dominions of Immanuel, and the usurpations of earthly monarchs of the throne of the Eternal. Again we say, all honour to our truly honourable friend for such a deed! and long may he live to realise the inward satisfaction and the heartfelt joy of having rendered such service in that way to the cause of truth and of God!

But we think it would have been more to his honour, and even more to the usefulness of his former work, had he stopped there, or at least, had paused (whatever his private views may have been) before committing himself to a controversy, to which it might be previously supposed he would not bring altogether a candid and impartial mind. Brought up in a community that abuses one of the positive rites of Christianity, the very rite in question, by substituting it for spiritual regeneration, and familiar with that delusion from his earliest to his riper years, it was not to be expected that he would be altogether free in his estimate from the influence of such a perversion, or that he would be the man, however excellent and competent in other respects, to separate the precious from the vile. Accordingly we think we perceive in the volume before us the rebound of an active and indignant spirit at the perversions it had so long witnessed, and another instance in which, even in the best of men, human nature is fond of extremes. Infant Baptism, as administered within the pale of the Establishment, propagates a dangerous delusion: ergo, there is no such thing at all! But then the opposite of error is not always truth. The best thing corrupted may become the worst; but this does not prove that it has no existence or reality. There is a difference between the use of a thing and the abuse of it still. The popery of France towards the close of the last century produced infidelity, but that did not disprove Christianity. Take away the rubbish, perhaps the precious gem will appear. So we think it is here.

We

The essay before us, which we have read with all careful attention, and on which we desire to report with all truth and candour, is, we think, and we judge will be so held by all reflecting persons, an entire failure. speak not, of course, of its pure evangelism, its Christian spirit, or its sincere devotion, for of all these we were sure from the pen of its excellent author, and well knew that no production of his would betray an absence of the spirit which should adorn the work of every Christian writer. But if we must speak, as our vocation requires, of its arrangement, its composition, its argument, its fairness, or its power to produce conviction, why then we have to return a verdict

unfavourable, and with entire satisfaction state that if this be all that can be said, our Pædobaptist friends have nothing to fear. They may sit contented still, and satisfied that the "good old way" which their forefathers have handed down to them, and which many of the excellent of the earth have so long loved and enjoyed, will not yet be forsaken or forgotten. "Magna est veritas, et prevalebit."

As our duty was, and as all readers should remember to do, we naturally looked into the preface first, wishing to understand from the author's own statement his mode of procedure, and design. To the latter, of course, there can be no objection. Any author has a right to propose what object he pleases. But the former appeared to us somewhat questionable. Especially we were a little amused with the amount of preparation for the controversy, and the explicit avowal of immediate conclusion. The writer tells us that "he determined to form his judgment entirely by the study of the Scriptures, and of such authors as advocate the baptism of infants." The first part of the determination was most proper and laudable: but before he concludes his prefatory remarks, he states that he "assumes in his Essay that the word baptism means immersion, and that to baptize is to immerse," which certainly was rather an important item in the thing to be proved, and for which he and we are equally bound to "search the Scriptures." And as to the second part of the proposition - his consultation of the writers proposed-this appeared to us somewhat limited, for, in the list he has appended, we think some of the most powerful and satisfactory are omitted. The productions of such men as Turretine, Pictet, Wall, Williams, Edwards, Isaac, Thorn, and some others, would probably have communicated some additional rays of light to his mind.

The assumption to which we have referred in the preface, and which is nothing more or less than a "petitio principii," pervades the whole volume, and with it, we regret to say, a spirit of dogmatism and peremptory conclusion which we did not expect from so intelligent an author, but which we are apt to think our Baptist friends in general are inclined to indulge. A little more fair reasoning, and a little less of assertion, would, we judge, mightily improve many of their productions, not excepting even the present. For instance, our author introduces one of his sections by observing, "Many Baptists, knowing that infant sprinkling is not the baptism enjoined by Christ," &c. Now this again is the very point in question, and which the volume proposes to discuss in order to prove. They may assume it, presume it, imagine it, believe it, if they will, but to know a thing, with the absolute certainty here implied, in