Canopus, and the glory of its Pharaohs? Where is Tyre, and where is Carthage? Where the seven churches planted by the apostles? Where the pure knowledge and holy practice they once inculcated? Gone-some few broken fragments of the one, and some few eclipsed remains of the other, are indeed to be found; but their glory is departed, and their very remembrance is likely to perish from off the earth!"

But Sicily and its volcano, its ruins, and its neighbouring coast, displayed too much of the grand operations of nature, and of the awful visitations of God, to pass unnoticed even by a more thoughtless being than myself.

It was impossible to stand on the shores of Messina without feeling some awe in the contemplation of surrounding objects. If the eye turned southward, it beheld the towering summit of Mount Etna, pouring forth its clouds of smoke, and occasionally emitting the vivid flame ; and when it retired to survey nearer objects, it saw in many places little else than melancholy ruins of what had once been the habitations of men, the chambers in which the tabret and the pipe, the viol and the harp had sounded-the ruins of whole ranges of buildings, whose lofty tops many years ago caught and reflected the first rays of that day's sun, who before he went down saw the convulsive

earthquake hurl them into their present forlorn and prostrate state, behold the sea cast its waves on the unresisting shore, and sweep its crowded and despairing people into one common grave.

My then confused and scanty knowledge of the human heart will account for my surprise and perplexity, when standing by these ruins, thoughtful and distressed, I saw the natives pass and repass, utterly unmindful of the scenes which so much engaged my attention. Surely, I said to myself, these people are stupid and hardened in the extreme, who can every day behold yonder volcano, and every day live in the very midst of these ruins, and yet every day take the lead in all manner of sin!

Alas! poor moralizer! thou couldst see the mote in thy brother's eye, but thou didst not discern the beam in thine own; otherwise thou wouldest have ceased to marvel at the Sicilian's indifference, and have asked thyself, how it was these reflections on God and his judgments could vanish from thine own mind, the instant the objects which gave rise to them were withdrawn from thy sight?

While I pass over many occurrences in silence, there is one which I cannot but notice: it took place a few weeks after my becoming acquainted with the Village Sermons. Sitting

alone, and reading the Pilgrim's Progress (another good book, now for the first time looking into it,) I felt much interested; and though I understood but little of its spiritual import, I made a general application of it to myself. I considered life as a journey, beset with innumerable dangers, and myself as a traveller surrounded by so many and great difficulties, that I deemed it almost impossible but I must one day fall under them, and never reach the celestial city. It was no trifling season. I closed the book, and for the first time in my life wept over myself as a sinner exposed to much spiritual evil and many peculiar snares. Then it was I experienced what some may condemn. as enthusiasm, but what I at this day humbly hope was the still small voice of God. While weeping over my forlorn condition, these words, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee," were impressed on my mind with such power, that, had a voice pronounced them, they could not have been received more distinctly. I had then never seen or read them to my knowledge, but from that instant I felt confident they were a part of Holy Writ, and conceived some hopes of their being sent as an assurance of the Lord's mercy and goodness to me.-And will the Almighty never leave, never forsake me? I said to myself. The thought filled my eyes and my heart, as

they had never been filled before, and as I cannot describe to others.-But ✪ what a base ungrateful wretch did I soon prove !-The world and its honours-the flesh and its luststhe devil and his wiles, shortly united to quench this ray of the Spirit; and they but too well succeeded! On our voyage home I could not forget that more than six years had elapsed since I turned my back on the Lord's house, and all the mercies of a quiet family. And I knew also, that often during the last two years of our abode in the Mediterranean, I had pleased myself with the thought of attending his courts if I lived to return. But when that event took place, and some favourable opportunities did offer, I neglected them all, gave myself to the service of Satan, and polluted the Lord's sabbaths, seeking my own pleasure, and doing my own will. Such was the state of things when the E was put out of commission, and I joined the D--, to offend still more, and to receive yet greater mercies.

No. VI.

GOD SPEAKETH ONCE, YEA TWICE, YET MAN PERCEIVETH IT NOT.

ALAS! poor sinful, wretched, rebel man! Little does it avail that some pronounce great things in thy praise; little does it change the nature of things, though they " spend all their powers of rant and rhapsody" in eulogies of moral rectitude! "All is but the tinkling cymbal and high-sounding brass; smitten in vain !" For thy Maker's voice is disregarded. He who formed thee from the womb, proclaims, "Although the ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib, Israel does not know, his people do not consider." They consider neither his calls of mercy nor his voice of judgment, but are ever disposed "to revolt more and more, seeing the whole head is sick, the whole heart faint.”

Do any of my readers doubt this Bible statement? Let them look abroad; let them " examine themselves truly!" or let them peruse these brief memorials of a stranger; and the result will be, a conviction that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."