sleep, and set our imprisoned faculties free. How fit is it at this hour to raise to God the eyes which he has opened, and the arm which he has strengthened; to acknowledge his providence; and to consecrate to him the powers he has renewed? How fit that he should be the first object of the thoughts and affections which he has restored! How fit to employ in his praise the tongue he has loosed, and the breath which he has spared!

But the morning is a fit time for devotion, not only from its relation to the past night, but considered as the introduction of a new day. To a thinking mind, how natural at this hour are such reflections as the following:-I am now to enter on a new period of my life, to start afresh in my course, 1 am to return to that world, where I have often gone astray; to receive impressions which may never be effaced; to perform actions which will never be forgotten; to strengthen a character, which will fit me for heaven or hell. I am this day to meet temptations which have often subdued me; I am to be entrusted again with opportunities of usefulness, which I have often neglected. I am to influence the minds of others, to help in moulding their characters, and in deciding the happiness of their present and future life. How uncertain is this day! What unseen dangers are before me! What unexpected changes may await me! It may be my last day! It will certainly bring me nearer to death and judgment!-Now, when entering on a period of life so important, yet so uncertain, how fit and natural is it, before we take the first step, to seek the favour of that Being on whom the lot of every day depends, to commit all our interests to his almighty and wise providence, to seek his blessing on our labours, and his succour in temptation, and to consecrate to his service the day which he raises upon us. This morning devotion, not only agrees with the sentiments of the heart, but tends to make the day happy, useful, and virtuous. Having cast ourselves on the mercy and protection of the Almighty, we shall go forth with new confidence to the labours and duties which he imposes. Our early prayer will help to shed an odour of piety through the whole life. God, having first occupied, will more easily recur to our mind. Our first step will be in the right path, and we may hope a happy issue.

So fit and useful is morning devotion, it ought not to be omitted without necessity. If our circumstances will allow the privilege, it is a bad sign, when no part of the morning is spent in prayer. If God find no place in our minds at that early and peaceful hour, be will hardly recur to us in the tumults of

life. If the benefits of the morning do not soften us, we can hardly expect the heart to melt with gratitude through the day. If the world then rush in, and take possession of us, when we are at some distance and have had a respite from its cares, how can we hope to shake it off, when we shall be in the midst of it, pressed and agitated by it on every side. Let a part of the morning, if possible, be set apart to devotion; and to this end we should fix the hour of rising, so that we may have an early hour at our own disposal. Our piety is suspicious, if we can renounce, as too many do, the pleasures and benefits of early prayer, rather than forego the senseless indulgence of unnecessary sleep. What! we can rise early enough for business. We can even anticipitate the dawn, if a favourite pleasure or an uncommon gain requires the effort. But we cannot rise, that we may bless our great Benefactor, that we may arm ourselves for the severe conflicts to which our principles are to be exposed. We are willing to rush into the world, without thanks offered, or a blessing sought. From a day thus begun, what ought we to expect but thoughtlessness and guilt.

Let us now consider another part of the day which is favourable to the duty of prayer; we mean the evening. This season, like the morning, is calm and quiet. Our labours are ended. The bustle of life has gone by. The distracting glare of the day has vanished. The darkness which surrounds us favours seriousness, composure, and solemnity. At night the earth fades from our sight, and nothing of creation is left us but the starry heavens, so vast, so magnificent, so serene, as if to guide up our thoughts above all earthly things to God and immortality.

This period should in part be given to prayer, as it furnishes a variety of devotional topics and excitements. The evening is the close of an important division of time, and is therefore a fit and natural season for stopping and looking back on the day. And can we ever look back on a day, which bears no witness to God, and lays no claim to our gratitude? Who is it that strengthens us for daily labour, gives us daily bread, continues our friends and common pleasures, and grants us the privilege of retiring after the cares of the day to a quiet and beloved home? The review of the day will often suggest not only these ordinary benefits, but peculiar proofs of God's goodness, unlooked for successes, singular concurrences of favourable events, signal blessings sent to our friends, or new and powerful aids to our own virtue, which call for peculiar thankfulness. And shall all these benefits pass away unnoticed? Shall we retire to repose as insensible as the wearied brute?

How fit and natural is it, to close with pious acknowledgment, the day which has been filled with divine beneficence !

But the evening is the time to review, not only our blessings, but our actions. A reflecting mind will naturally remember at this hour that another day is gone, and gone to testify of us to our judge. How natural and useful to inquire, what report it has carried to heaven. Perhaps we have the satisfaction of looking back on a day, which in its general tenor has been innocent and pure, which, having begun with God's praise, has been spent as in his presence; which has proved the reality of our principles in temptation; and shall such a day end without gratefully acknowledging Him in whose strength we have been strong, and to whom we owe the powers and opportunities of Christian improvement? But no day will present to us recollections of purity unmixed with sin. Conscience, if suffered to inspect faithfully and speak plainly, will recount irregular desires, and defective motives, talents wasted and time misspent; and shall we let the day pass from us without penitently confessing our offences to Him who has witnessed them, and who has promised pardon to true repentance? Shall we retire to rest with a burden of unlamented and unforgiven guilt upon our consciences? Shall we leave these stains to spread over and sink into the soul? A religious recollection of our lives is one of the chief instruments of piety. If possible, no day should end without it. If we take no account of our sins on the day on which they are committed, can we hope that they will recur to us at a more distant period, that we shall watch against them to-morrow, or that we shall gain the strength to resist them, which we will not implore?

One observation more, and we have done. The evening is a fit time for prayer, not only as it ends the day, but as it immediately precedes the period of repose. The hour of activity having passed, we are soon to sink into insensibility and sleep. How fit that we resign ourselves to the care of that Being who never sleeps, to whom the darkness is as the light, and whose providence is our only safety! How fit to intreat him that he would keep us to another day; or, if our bed should prove our grave, that he would give us a part in the resurrection of the just, and awake to a purer and immortal life. The most important periods of prayer have now been pointed out. Let our prayers, like the ancient sacrifices, ascend morning and evening. Let our days begin and end with God.

ON THE CHARACTER OF THOMAS EMLYN, WITH EXTRACTS.

THERE are probably few of our readers who are ignorant of the name of Emlyn, or who do not know something of his history. But many of these, perhaps, have merely heard of his sufferings for conscience sake, without having become acquainted with the excellence of his character, and great practical piety of his life. For the sake of such, we are induced to make the following extracts. They are from the remarks and reflections he made at the time of his imprisonment, and whilst he was suffering the severest reproaches and calumnies for having published his "Humble Inquiry into the Scripture Account of Jesus Christ." They prove that the spirit of the gospel was quite as near his heart, as the desire of ascertaining its true doctrines. It would be difficult, we think, to name any martyr, in any age of the church, who has borne persecution with more courageous firmness or more admirable meekness. Others, it is true, may have undergone more severe persecutions, and endured more intense bodily torture. But the sufferings of Emlyn, though not so great, were as well calculated to prove how deeply the Christian principles had penetrated his character, how thoroughly they influenced and controlled his human feelings, and had enabled him, like his Lord, to suffer without threatening, and be reviled without reviling again. And he went through his trial faithfully. His example, which is edifying to all, should be cherished with particular admiration and love by those, who with him have departed from the form of established words in human creeds and systems, and have thought it better to take their definition of Divine Unity from the scriptures alone.

But,

We are sensible, indeed, that patience in martyrdom, is no infallible proof that the doctrine for which one suffers is true; if it were, then the doctrines of the papists and of the reformers would be equally true, for each have had their martyrs. It only proves that the sufferer believes them to be true. notwithstanding, the spirit in which he endures may teach the most useful lessons; and the example of Emlyn deserves to be cherished, because it proves that a blameless life, a forgiving temper, ardent devotional sentiment, and unqualified submission to the Divine will, do not depend for their existence upon those doctrines which are disputed among men, but upon the principles which are common to all; it proves that he who departs from the standard of orthodoxy, does not therefore depart, as some would have us believe, from those principles

which fortify, support and console-from that truth which sanctifies; it proves to us, that a belief in the strict unity of God, implying that Jesus Christ whom he sent to save us is not God, is no less consistent with a spiritual state of mind, fervent devotion, and practical excellence, than the more incomprehensible doctrine, which has so often been asserted to be alone capable of producing them.

There is a well-known sermon of his, entitled Funeral Consolations, which sets in a beautiful light his religious sensibility. Many of our readers have doubtless seen it, and derived comfort from it in their afflictions. Let them look at it again, and remember, if they thought not of it before, that it was written by a man, who, shortly after giving this evidence of piety, and great attachment to the religion of the gospel, was persecuted as a blasphemer, and shunned as an enemy of the faith.

It is only necessary to add, his crime was the believing that our Saviour Jesus Christ, was not the Almighty God. For publishing his sentiments on this subject, he was accused of blasphemy; was tried by a court of justice, under circumstances of peculiar hardship and aggravated insult; was not allowed to speak in his own defence; and his counsel were so brow beaten, that they dared not speak for him. His sentence was "a year's imprisonment, pay a fine of one thousand pounds, lie in prison till the fine should be paid, and find security for good behaviour during life." He laid in prison more than two years, because he was utterly unable to pay the fine; and meanwhile the horrors of imprisonment were aggravated by the neglect and unkindness of his brethren in the ministry, and his former friends. "Only one," says he, "vouchsafed me so much as the small office of humanity in visiting me when in prison; nor had they so much pity for the soul of their erring brother (as they thought me) as to seek to turn him from the error of his ways.' It is difficult to restrain our feelings of indignation at the cold-hearted bigotry and narrow-minded cruelty, which are exhibited throughout this whole transaction. How great, therefore, our admiration at the humility, meekness, and forbearance, which shone in all the deportment of the persecuted man!

It is time to come to the extracts. The first passage forms the conclusion of his "Narrative."

"And thus after two years, and above a month's imprisonment, viz. from the 14th of June 1703, to the 21st of July

* See Emlyn's Works, vol. 1. Also Christian Disciple, for April 1817.