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bat the peace-speaking blood of Jesus. It is this, and this alone, that can quiet the clamours of a guilty conscience, and minister peace to the soul in the hour of dissolution. Through faith in the Son of God, whose blood was shed for the remission of sin, you will overcome the world, and overcome the fear of Death, Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee. I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand; I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me at that day; and not to me only, but to all them who love his appearing.'

ADJUTOR.

The following Meditation was written by that pious and exemplary man, the Rev. Moses Brown, Vicar of Olney, Bucks. Mr. B. was a man of true piety, and most amiable disposition; and was the honoured instrument of much good during his ministry at Olney. Numbers of the parishioners were brought to the knowledge of truth; and several have borne testimony, with their dying breathi, to the great benefit they have derived from his ministry. Mr. B. was under the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, having a family of 18 children, and a very small revenue; he therefore accepted the Chaplaincy of Morden College, Blackheath, while Vicar of Olney; and the late venerable John Newton was presented to the Curacy by the pious Earl of Dartmouth (the Nobleman to whom Mr. N. addressed the first 26 Letters in his Cardiphonia) who had formerly appointed Mr. Brown Vicar. Mr. B. was author of two poetical pieces, entitled An Essay on the Universe,' and Sunday Thoughts; and also a translation of Professor Zimmerman's Excellency of the Knowledge of Jesus Christ.'-From the consideration that the following Meditation may be made useful to some amongst the many readers of your valuable Miscellany, I am induced to solicit its insertion therein. 1 remain, Rev. Sir, yours, &c.

Dublin.

ADOLESCENS.

How fragrant is the air of these delicious fields! How sweet the surrounding prospects! furnished out for my entertainment by the hand of the God of nature! Has he put so much refreshment into every perfumed breeze? crowded such a variety of different pleasing colours, shapes, and essences, into so many little flowers? given to such diversity of fruits: and foods their contrary, yet grateful flavours? afforded such innumerable multiform prospects to engage the eye, one single sense? such an interchange of melodies to entertain the LI

XIX.

ear, and contrived, by no less than five different mediums of senses, to give gratification to the mere animal faculties, which are by far the most ignoble part of me, that I might behold him in this glass of nature, this mirror of wonders?

Hail, sweet fields! Here let me meditate!

Here let me sit alluring is the scene

:

Where the gay bank spreads soft its native couch
Of velvet verdures, and embroidering flowers.
How vast a landscape, kenn'd from far,
Breaks on my 'wilder'd eye, in roving lost!

From field, farm, village, park, dale, stream, and grovel
Gay primrose lawns, array'd in vernal gold,
Or daisy,interlaid of chequer'd hues :

With herds and flocks, wide-feeding round at will:
And woods nut-brown; where, ever and anon
Some opening glade I meet, with ranging troops
Of timorous deer, viewed here and there between;
And here and there a branch of some fair stream
Silv'ring the vale.

Its murmurs rolling to a neighb'ring wood;
Beneath whose quiv'ring shade the sunny beams
Dance on the chequer'd stream, with shifting light;
And in its mirror shew the finny tribes,

That o'er the shining pebbles make their chace.

If I lift my eyes upwards, how shall I conceive of his awful infinity, who can place a world, ten thousand times the magnitude of ours, at so remote a distance, as to appear but as a lucid point, a little twinkling star! If I bend them downwards, what instances are everywhere of amazing power, that could produce an appearance of order and beauty out of so mean and irregular. a collection of dust and atoms! Hast thou provided such stately furniture for these lowest apartments of thy universal palace, and for thy meanest attendant ? O what then are the grandeurs that adorn thy presence-cham ber! What those magnificent mansions, where thou displayest the rays of thy beatific glory, in the higher and better worlds!

Has created goodness all these beauties? A little earthly spot on which I tread and gaze (embellished with his least adumbrations) so fair a form,-such lovely charms? O then, how much more infinitely lovely is He, who has given these things all their loveliness! who puts into them whatever sweetness they contain, or can convey! These are but copies, ah! faint copies all! of the goodness of their fair Öriginal! Where is the perfect uncreated Good? Where the enamouring essence of Loveliness itself? Where is the Original Beauty? I can discern Him in every thing around me: discover in every smallest part of formed matter, some vestigia of the Deity. The Former of these accomplished works was also my former. Where art thou, my all-apparent, yet unperceived Maker? How shall I hold converse with Thee? How approach Thee? Am I no better able to conceive of Thee than these

trees, those brutes, this clod that bears me? Am I not related to Thee by mind and spirit? ordained a priest of this thy mute creation? Nay, am I not thine by nearer relation and union? The brother and associate, the lover and friend of thy dear incarnate Son! A member of his body; one with Him, and thereby one with Thee! adopted in thy eternal purpose, regenerated by thy Spirit, and purchased to thyself by his blood! Hath he said I go to my Father and to your Father? And shall I not then call thee my Father? And may I not converse with thee as a Father? Present everywhere, present always, present now, while thus I am surrounded with imagined solitude and secrecy, and meditating with delight, upon thy beauteous works!

But, O! what new beauties and pleasures does it put into every scene, when I consider this world I am now viewing is the kingdom of my Father! Mean as I am in my obscure condition here, censured, overlooked, or despised, I am yet a royal child, and the inheritor of a glorious, a sure, though invisible crown! Let the great vain men of this earth take their vanish ing portion; divide this contested spot into little, momentary, uncertain possessions, which they falsely call their own; delude themselves with a conceited happiness, and adore their sensual idol, a little, little, little while, and the God I live to, and converse with here, my Father and my God, will trans late me to a state of far higher honours. It is his good plea sure to give me a kingdom incorruptible, undefiled, and which fadeth not away, (characters opposite to this changing, polluted, and perishing scene) reserved in heaven, for me. Here he is training me up by his Spirit, in the princely life and temper, meeting me in the academic retirements of groves and shades, till I am ripened for the opening glories of my coronation-day.

1

O happy retirement!-O heavenly solitude!that always affords me the presence of my Father and God! where I may at all times find thee, speak to thee, and receive the delightful intercourses of thy converse and love! Happy poverty! where thou, never-failing Fountain of fulness and riches art my inexhaustible portion! Happy, banishment! that can at no small distance ever separate me from thee! Happy prison! where thy society cannot, for one moment, be excluded! Happy bed of sickness! where thou art continually by to cheer and support me! Happy hour of death! when my spirit is expired, but only into thy ever-circling and paternal arms! Happy condition! extending itself to all places, all circumstances, and through all duration! Happy creature! both bere and for ever possessed of the inseparable, intimate presence and favour of

A Gob,- A FRIEND, Á FATHER.

A HELP TO THE BLIND.

A CERTAIN Philanthropist, observing some poor blind men, very humanely furnished each of them with a Staff to help them on their way; but they, instead of thanking him for his kindness, availing themselves of the aid thus afforded them, and assisting each other in the use of it, quickly fell into disputes respecting its length, breadth and thickness; till, being unable to adopt the same conclusion, and equally unwilling to agree to differ on the subject, forgetting the end for which the Staff was bestowed, and the purpose to which it should be applied, in the heat of their contention, they actually employed it as a Cudgel, with which they beat one another most unmercifully.

Who is there that does not instantly see the folly and crimi nality of such conduct! But may we not say to the angry disputant on subjects of religious controversy, as Nathan, at the close of his parable, said unto David, 'Thou art the man?' The Bible, which is mercifully given as a guide to the blind, appears to be taken up by some of this description, for no other purpose but to beat it about the head of his antagonist. Were such persons well acquainted with the nature and tendency of the doctrine for which they profess to contend (supposing them to have truth on their side) and did they feel its influence on their hearts, they would learn to state their views of truth in the spirit by which that truth was dedicated, and in conformity to the rules prescribed in the sacred volume, wherein it is revealed; laying aside that petulance and rancour, with which the pages of most polemical writers are so deeply tinctured: * for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God; and the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. NIL.

I CANNOT DIE!

'IN August last, four men named Marshall, Sawer, Wakelin, and Atkinson, were executed near Lincoln. They severally addressed the surrounding multitude, hoping that their unhappy situation would serve as an awful warning. Wakelin had been a great comfort to his fellow-prisoners; and in the hours when the Clergyman was not with them, read to them continually. Atkinson had given one of the best proofs of repentance of his crime, by having given to the governor of the

gaol, bills to the amount of £35 to be sent to Messrs. G. and C. of Boston, whose property he declared it to be, lamenting that that was all the return he could then make to them. Just before the moment of the scaffold falling, Atkinson turned to shake hands with Wakelin, and in so doing shifted the knot of the halter from his ear, to under the chin. Marshal, Sawer, and Wakelin, seemed to be dead in two minutes after suspension; but at that time, to the inconceivable horror of all around, Atkinson cried out, O God! O God! I cannot die, I cannot die!-lift me up Thee motion excited by such a scene can be but faintly imagined. A soldier had the presence of mind to run to him,-lifted him up a little, and then, by hanging at the body, mercifully put a speedy end to the misery of the poor creature by accelerating the death which the sufferer had sought, but had so feelingly expressed that he could not

obtain.'

Mr. Editor, When I first read the above I did what your readers will, I am persuaded, also do I felt keenly for the fellow-mortal, and fellow-sinner who had suffered under circumstances of perhaps unprecedented distress; but many a time since then, the words I cannot die!' have crossed my mind, and made an impression which, probably, may last as long as I live. They came with peculiar force lately when under the ministry of a pious and lively minister, who, discoursing on the immortality of the soul, and shewing it to be one of the truths which a believer should have constantly and closely girded about him, said, 'Here I stand; and the life given to my soul must exist for ever. If I would put a period to its life, I should not be able,-it must exist eternally. Men may, and will, hereafter call to the rocks and the mountains, in the vain wish (but conscious that they have not a glimpse of hope) that they would fall on them, and crush them to annihilation; but no! they must exist for ever.'

I could then have almost realized the doleful piercing cry of the poor malefactor, I cannot die! Ah! methought, that poor man expressed strongly the excessive agony he felt when despairing of relief, though it was attainable and at hand; but if in hell, where the worm dieth not, and where the fire shall not be quenched, I should lift up my voice, deeply agonized with excruciating torture, yet looking forward to eternal duration, and ceaseless anguish,-O with what deeper horror should I shriek out my woe, Oh I cannot die! I cannot die!

That poor inan called upon God; and I cannot but think that hope mingled with his earnest cry; but in that disinal region I could not call upon God in a spirit of prayer, for hope would be for ever excluded. Divine vengeance would be in continual and terrible array against me; conscience would for ever condemn, fearfulness would possess me, and anguish