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it a conspicuous object a long distance off; and the stream of regular worshippers every Sunday to be seen wending their way to the house of God must be regarded as a rebuke to the lukewarm Syrian, many of whom do not attend their church oftener than twice or thrice a year, and then only to see an 'exhibition of the eucharist,' and hear prayers in a language which they do not understand. The heathen, too, may be led to see that ours is a religion which we love, and which, far different from their own, is worthy of being loved. On my way home I had to pass through a sacred grove, composed of large trees and dense jungle, affording a harbour for snakes and monkeys, with which it is infested. These creatures are accounted favourites of Kalee, the goddess who is here worshipped in a small temple; and they are surely fit companions for this female demon, who is described as a mixture of mischief and cruelty. How deep the degradation, and how pitiable the state, of those who rely upon and worship the loathsome being close to this grove! Not ten yards from it lives a Syriac Christian. It might be expected that he would at least maintain a silent protest against the heathenism with which he lives in such immediate contact; but, instead of this, he fires the gun on festive days from morn til! night, in honour of the sanguinary goddess Kalee,' and goes share and share alike with a brahmin, a nair, and a chagee, in the offerings made at the temple. Thus the fetters of heathenism are rivetted on the victims by a professing Christian. These things are well known to the priests of the Syriac church; but no one rebukes the offender. There is at present no one in that church who feels competent or called upon to rebuke and punish such daring misconduct. I went into this man's house to tell him of his sin; but he was not to be found. This case is but one of many of the same kind. Lately I saw a Syriac woman who had been making offerings to Satan for the recovery of a sick child! -(The rev. J. Hawksworth to the Church Missionary Society).

AFRICA.-Africa is in the greatest temporal misery. It is, indeed, "a dark part of the earth, full of the habitations of cruelty." We feel completely at a loss to give you any idea of the sufferings of our fellow-men, our fellowcreatures in that land. We dare not describe them. Those things which we have seen, and which we know to be true, are too horrifying and too distressing to be mentioned here. Infanticide prevails in many lands; and not only are the infant twins put to death by the mother who has borne them, in one of the districts of Africa; in another the children are destroyed, and the mother is driven from her house to the yam-farm, to be the companion of the slaves of her former husband. At Bimba (and we did not find it out until the beginning of last year), when the mother dies, and the child is too young to be supported in that savage land without nourish ment from the breast, the grave is made, the corpse of the mother is put into it, the infant is placed in her arms, and the living child is interred with the dead parent. Badagry was a place of blood and robbery, and disgraced by abominations of every description. It was there that Lander saw the great fetish-tree, bearing its horrid fruit of human skulls; and there the great slave-market

But

was formerly held for that part of the coast. now, thank God, the slave-market is gone, and the fetish-tree has died away. The sound of the gospel has been heard there: many who have listened to it have been saved, and have joined the innumerable throng which will praise the Redeemer for ever and ever!-(Rev. J. Clark and J. Martin).

To SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS AND CHILDREN.-Jesus at Bethlehem in the manger; Jesus in his meek obedience in his mother's house; Jesus with his disciples; Jesus in the synagogue (the church of those times); Jesus in prayer on the mountain; Jesus manifesting his Godhead by walking on the sea; Jesus at Gethsemane; Jesus on the cross at Calvary, (" that is the central point of the gospel"); Jesus in the grave; Jesus rising again from the dead ("here is the point of life and death"); Jesus ascending up to the Father; Jesus now sitting at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, and there ever living to make intercession for us-let this be the range of your instructions, dear teachers: let these great truths sink down into your hearts, dear children; and then, in God's good time, we shall all, teachers and children, be found holy and happy together, with Jesus in his kingdom; which may God in his infinite mercy grant, through Jesus Christ our Lord!

DARKNESS AND LIGHT.

H. S.

THE world, which is "the many," is not moved by any thing so readily as by appeal to the senses: "the few," who have been enabled to cast off this earthly bondage for the "easy and light" yoke of Christ, are moved of the Spirit, and worship God therefore both in spirit and in truth. Herein, as it appears to me, consists the true distinction between the Roman and protestant churches: the one is of the world, and her teaching, rites, and institutions are consequently so many appeals to the senses; the other is of God, and her doctrines and usages are therefore divine means for engrafting the spirit of holiness in "the inner man." In the one, the darkness of the world enshrouds the truths of Christ's gospel, or overlays them with distortions: in the other, the clear and bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness exhibit them in all the fulness of their saving grace and glory. The one seeks to effect her carnal ends by outward appliances, by charms and delusions, snares and menaces; the other, to accomplish God's purpose by persuasive preaching to the inner man, by simplicity and godly sincerity; by such a conveyance of the divine verities, in her teaching and her practice, as may enable her to win souls to Christ. To conceive then, as do some at the present day, that there can be a point of reconciliation, or a common ground of communion, or a mean of unity between the two churches, is to conceive that truth can ever throw herself into the arms of error, the world cease to be enmity against God, light ally itself with darkness, and Belial become one with Christ!

Yet, however dark the Roman church may be, her darkness is not altogether without an occa

sional glimpse of light. But she has taken the virgin coin of Christ's religion, and so gilt it over in her own mint as to render the beauty of the original impression undiscernible to the vulgar eye. Take the following in proof: it is the translation of a Latin hymn, ascribed to St. Xavier:

"O God, my spirit loves but thee!

Not that in heaven its home may be,
Nor that the souls which love not thee
Shall groan in flames eternally.
But thou, on the accursed tree,
In mercy hast embraced me :
For me the cruel nails, the spear,

The ignominous scoff didst bear,
Dark and unutterable woes,

Thy bloody sweat, death's pangs and throes;

These thou didst bear-all these for me,

A sinner, and estranged from thee!

And wherefore no affection show,

Jesus, to thee, who lov'st me so ?

Not that in heaven my home may be,
Not that I die eternally,

Nor from the hope of joys above me;
But even as thou thyself didst love me,
So would I love, and ever love thee,
Only because my King art thou,

My God for evermore, as now (Amen).”

Kipp, the American tourist, from whose "Christmas holidays in Rome," the above hymn is borrowed, observes "that he (the Romanist) may before breakfast, every day of his life, obtain for himself at least more than four thousand three

Father, .... and are built u pon the foundation of the apostles and prophets; Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone" (Eph. ii. 13, 18, 20). We may, indeed liken the church of Rome to a goodly city, shrouded in a dark, palpable mist, into which the wayfarer cannot enter without stumbling at every step and running imminent peril of his life; while the church of the Reformation, the church of Christ, stands as a city upon a hill, basking in the clear sunshine, and lighted up by it in every winding and at e very corner; so that the pilgrim treads its ways without peril or hindrance, assured of reaching in safety the sweet restingplace he seeks.

S.

NATIONAL PUNISHMENT FOR NATIONAL
SINS:

A Sermon,

BY THE REV. T. W. RICHARDS, M.A.,

Curate of Holbeach, Lincolnshire.

JER V. 9.

"Shall I not visit for these things?"

hundred years' indulgence, and the remission WHEN Moses apportioned to the tribes of of two-thirds of his sins, with only a little bodily Reuben and Gad an inheritance on this side labour; and for the expense of sixty cents (less Jordan, he warned them against sinning than three shillings) he may liberate two souls against the Lord by refusing to assist the from purgatory"! Yet the head of a church, so other tribes in gaining possession of Canaan, apostate from the faith of Jesus as this, styles and enforced his warning with these remarkhimself "the vicar-general of Jesus Christ," his able words: "Be sure your sin will find 66 representative upon earth." Surely it were more in character with his vocation were he to you out." And we cannot think that, under style himself" vicar-general of the prince of this the divine blessing, the inquiry will be altoworld." Was the latter "the father of lies from gether unprofitable, which sets itself to ascerthe beginning"? the Roman pontiff dares to ap-tain whether it be a general truth, or a truth proach the very altar of the Crucified with a "lie in his right hand;" for, as Mr. Kipp tells us, "the altar of the church of St. Peter's, in Rome, is privileged every day for ever with the liberation of one soul from purgatory for every mass which shall be celebrated at the same. And in almost all the churches are inscriptions like the following "Ogni messa celebrata in quest' altare libera un' anima dal purgatorio" (Every mass celebrated at this altar liberates one soul from purgatory). Alas! how does it not sicken the soul to follow Rome in her anti-Christian meanderings, and track her, one by one, through the endless chain of nets and snares which she lays for entrapping souls. Not less true is it now than it was more than five hundred years ago, when Dante wrote of" the city of the seven hills:"

"Where gainful merchandize is made of Christ, Throughout the live-long day."

O how sweet, how tender and compassionate the love of Christ, who has enabled our dear church to say to her children, "But now in Christ Jesus, ye, who sometime were afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For through him," and him alone, "ye have access by one Spirit to the

which applies only to the two tribes, that sin is sure to find out the sinner; whether there be evidence in the history of nations, or the lives of individuals, that the commission of sin necessarily brings down upon the transgressor or the body of transgressors the signal visitation of heaven. We of course know full well, because it has been expressly declared, that not one iota of iniquity shall fail of its due penalty either in this world or hereafter; that the evil thought and the adulterous look and the idle word shall then, if not now, come under the scrutiny of the Judge, and entail upon the offender a sentence proportioned to its enormity. But the warning of Moses to the two tribes seems rather to apply to their existence or their well-being as a nation; and the threatened consequence of their disobedience is rather a temporal visitation, than any punishment at a future reckoning. If their sin was to be punished by a national visitation, it must take place in this world, whilst they ex

isted as a nation, and not in another state, cent, and has carried into effect the principle: where their nationality would be at an end." Shall I not visit for these things?" Never It is true that the nation consists of indivi- let nature stand as a barrier between ourduals, and that national disobedience may selves and our God: give not to secondary therefore be made up of individual sinful- causes the honour due unto the First: forget ness; but still you could scarcely call that a not the Operator through undue regard to national visitation, which would not come the instrument. It is the Omnipotent, who into operation till the nation no longer ex- is busy amongst us. Whether it be the isted, although there might be the most just upspringing blade of grass that arrests our apportionment of penalty to every individual attention, or the stupendous working of the commission. Moses, then, was speaking of planetary system, or the national calamity, or a temporal effect of disobedience, in his the individual affliction, whether we are warnings to the two tribes; and our inquiry marking the progress of the material world, is directed, not to the actual punishment of or the events of the living world, it is God, sin either here or hereafter, but to the tem- working, it is true, according to laws previporal consequences implied in the certainty ously established, but working as certainly as that our sins will find us out; to the evil though miracle stamped the operation, and which we may expect to arise to us in this working, too, either for our present comfort, world, when God, looking down from heaven or for our everlasting good. And it is the among the children of men, sees the nation fact that the Almighty adheres strictly to the idolatrous, or the family godless, or the in-laws which were given at first, that causes dividual iniquitous, and asks amongst heaven's glorified multitudes the solemn and fearful remonstrance: "Shall I not visit for these things?"

his operation to fall with so little effect upon the great mass of humankind. You can give no other account of the inefficacy of God's visitations upon the transgressor than this, Now, there is in all of us too great an in- that the employment of natural means as clination to overlook the hand of the Al- channels of the visitation induce him to bemighty; so that what is in reality the imme- lieve it rather the result of accident than the diate operation of his counsel, and designed purposed operation of heaven. How frefor the good of some one or other amongst quently is the hand of Providence busy us, comes before us as nothing more than the amongst us, and producing wonderful comordinary effect of natural principle. We binations of events, which would suffice to lose sight of the great First Cause, by our bring the infidel to acknowledge his God, overdue regard to secondary causes. We and the sinner to obey him, were there only ascribe so much to what we are pleased to miracle observable in the transaction! But, call "nature," that in the ordinary occur- just because the result is brought about by rences of the material world we scarcely re- the ordinary process of nature, therefore God cognize the finger of God. But what is is not recognized as the author; and not one nature but the continued operation of the soul more is reckoned among the righteous. Omnipotent?" Hitherto my Father worketh, But in vain shall we look for miracle to conand I work," says our Saviour to the Jews; vince us of sin, and of the necessity of turning and what is this work but the presiding over to the Lord our God. We have Moses and laws which himself has established, and the the prophets; and we must not look for one carrying into effect properties which him- returned from the dead. It may be observed self had imparted? Is it simply the for- throughout all the dealings of God with man, tuitous concurrence of circumstances that that, where natural means are sufficient for brings down to insignificance the nation the end proposed, miracle is never employed; which had grown great by conquest, till all that the Almighty never departs from the law parts of the earth acknowledged its do- which he has established, and which we call minion? Is it nothing more than the acci-"nature," unless absolutely necessary for the dental reverse of fortune that hurls from his accomplishment of his purposes. lofty position the man of affluence and power, or that the house with bread enough and to spare is reduced on a sudden to affliction, to beggary and distress? I would rather believe that the eye of Almighty God, from whom no secrets are hid, has been fixed upon that man or that nation; that he, who is about our path and about our bed, has marked the guilt that was hid from the world, or the criminality that was reckoned as inno

However natural, therefore, be the visitation which has fallen upon the nation, or the family, or the individual; however correctly you may be able to trace the course of circumstances which brought about the calamity; however clearly you may demonstrate that the different action of one minute spring in the complicated system of occurrences would have produced a directly contrary result, and have made that a blessing

which is now
a curse, you have yet no
right to conclude that that very spring was
not guided by the finger of God himself, con-
trolling the events of the world without need
of the intervention of miracle, so as to bring
down upon the object of his vengeance a
penalty which was due to sins flagrant and
unnumbered, sins which had produced that
fearful threatening of abused patience: "Shall
I not visit for these things?"

What hath withholden from them honour and esteem in all succeeding ages, and caused their oppression by many people, and their neglect by all?-what but a national sentence pronounced upon a national sin? what but the people's denying the holy and just One in the presence of Pilate: "His blood be upon us, and upon our children"? And these things happened unto them for ensamples. Most highly, therefore, does it conNow, the truth that righteousness exalteth cern us to inquire whether we have profited a nation implies also the truth that national by these awakening manifestations of God's depravity will with no less certainty bring wrath, or have wandered as deeply into the about the depression, if not the ruin, of a paths of iniquity and infidelity as the nations nation. And, when we witness the wrath of whom the Lord has already destroyed from God following upon the transgression of an the face of the earth. Alas, alas! truth individual, we must believe that the divine compels us to confess that iniquity is marchvengeance is yet in a higher degree excited, ing through the land with triumphant step; when the mass of a people, who have flou- that sabbath-breakers, profane swearers, rished under the favour and protection of murderers, drunkards, and and such like, heaven, renounce allegiance to their great far exceed in number the few who have Benefactor, and yield themselves servants to chosen the better part, never to be taken Satan and to sin. There is no room for away. And with the ensamples before us wonder, if under the provocation of the mul- of national ruin incurred by national sin, titude the Lord should whet his sword and and with records in our own history of the bend his bow, that his soul be avenged on hand of God lying heavy upon us, I know such a nation as this. If, with all the light not why we should regard our country as of a divine revelation, and all the advantages specially guarded from calamity, when there of peace and prosperity, the vast majority of is abroad among our people an amount of the nation continue deaf to the calls of depravity that swept from this earth nations grace, unreclaimed by the offers of mercy, and kingdoms once as prosperous and powerunmoved by the threatenings of vengeance, ful as ourselves. How long the great Gowho shall express surprise if the destroying vernor of the universe may suspend the dread angel receive commission to go forth on the sentence against a guilty land, it is not for work of destruction, and a national plague us to determine. We have in scripture hisas just as severe assert the authority of laws tory more instances than one, in which the despised and statutes disregarded? This is abandoned nation had its sentence respited no idle speculation. The old world brought through many ages. But we shall look in upon themselves destruction by a deluge, an vain to sacred or profane history for the ac universal ruin by an universal sin; for God count of a nation remarkably immoral or saw that the wickedness of man was great wicked, which was not sooner or later as reupon the earth, and that every imagination markably punished, and, if still unrepentant, of the thoughts of his heart was only evil as remarkably cut off. Our Sodom, it is continually." The sentence of utter destruc- true, may be spared for the ten righteous tion was pronounced against Nineveh, that that are therein; but still it can scarcely be great city, because its wickedness had come safe to presume upon the mercy of our God, up before the Lord. The men of Nineveh, when he can in a thousand ways destroy the however, repented at the preaching of Jonah; wicked without destroying the righteous. and the national penitence averted the na- Far better would it be, if each individual tional downfal. The idolatry and impiety would begin by reformation of himself, and add of the nations of Canaan incurred the venge- to the "righteousness that exalteth ance of heaven; and they were exterminated by withdrawing, by the power of the Spirit, by the Israelites under Joshua as their from the crowd of the careless and indifferent, leader, and under God as their director. What and joining the ranks of the good soldiers of a standing monument, too, of national visi- Christ Jesus. Far better would it be, if, after tation are that once highly-favoured people, effecting by the blessing of God the reformathe Jews, living in the most crowded habitation of his own character, each one would tions of Christians, and yet most emphatically a distinct people! What was it that laid in ashes their city, the glory of the eastern world, and their temple, the glory of their city?

a

nation"

labour to bring about the same reformation in others. Far better would it be, if the man of property, after numbering himself with the righteous of the land, and whom want

of leisure or inclination prevents from going | nations around us: infidelity and deism have about to make proselytes to his righteousness, done their work in our own days, as they did would give the assistance of his wealth to in ages long since passed away; and we feet expel the moral darkness and promote the that there is the same God watching us, and piety of the people. But, if, when our know- ruling us, who watched and ruled the nations lege of science and art has been on the ad- of Egypt and Canaan, and that now, as then, vance, we suffer the knowledge of God to religion-Christianity-is our only national fall away; if, when our soil has been a stranger anchor, that our faithful adherence to the to the ravages of war, and the noise of the Omnipotent can alone secure to us the probattle has been heard only in the distance, mise (and there can be no security without we lay ourselves open to every attack of our the promise): "I will be to them a God; and spiritual enemy, and make no effort to further they shall be to me a people." the cause of God either in ourselves or in the people; if, when we have been the objects of unparalleled mercy, and lived under the light of a religion reformed from the corruptions of past ages, infidelity has marched onwards and sin has triumphed and depravity increased in our nation, then have we by no means reason to think lightly of the warning, that our sin will find us out, or to imagine ourselves, as a nation, secure from the expostulation of a merciful but an avenging God: "Shall I not visit for these things?""

But we remarked, and your experience will bear us out in the assertion, that we have not been altogether without our warnings. Even now the earth hesitates to give forth her increase, and the din of civil commotion has ere now called forth our special watchfulness and our special prayers to the Almighty. And, if we believe, as we must believe, that our state is safe only when our people are pious, then be it ours to add to our faith, by divine grace, the fruits of virtue and holiness; then be it ours to promote among our people the knowledge of the Lord, and the cultivaWe have seen, then, in cases recorded in tion of religion. And think not, that, when scripture history, that "righteousness exalteth we speak of the promotion of the gospel a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people." in our land, we speak only to those who And we would ask, when fruits have failed have taken upon themselves the high and in one part of the kingdom, and pestilence responsible office of reasoning with you, sabhas walked through the land; when civil bath after sabbath, on "righteousness, temperwar and commotion have fallen as a plague ance, and judgment to come". We speak to of Egypt upon the nations around us; when all. We tell you all, as citizens of the state, the kings of the earth have fallen, and thrones whose prosperity ye hope for and pray for, have yielded to the madness of the people; that ye must each of you put forth your hand when the olive-branch of peace has withered to promote Christianity and the worship of in the pestilential atmosphere, and national God in your neighbourhood, your people, ruin has followed, as it always must follow, your house. Never think, my brother, whoupon insubordination and riot and disorder-ever thou art, that thou art privileged to do we would ask, why has this country, why has England stood firm amid the storm and the tempest? and why has England's queen maintained her position at the head of the mighty nation? The fact is before us, that, although we have as a people had warnings amongst us, and the black cloud of anarchy, although it spent not its fury upon us, has, nevertheless, hovered over us in its gloomthe fact is before us, that we stand singled out almost from the nations as chosen to march onwards in peace and prosperity. The fact is before us, and we naturally inquire, why is this? Why, there can be given no other answer than this-because England takes its stand upon Christianity, and England's queen is the nursing mother of her people in the knowledge and worship of Jehovah. Look back to the nations of old: the knowledge and worship of Jehovah always carried prosperity to the people; idolatry brought with no less certainty ruin and desolation. Look to the

nothing. Thou art a soldier of Christ Jesus; and no soldier of Christ Jesus is without his post of duty. The cultivation of the gospel and the spreading of the knowledge of Christ is not the care only of the ordained minister and the village schoolmaster: it is the duty of all. Ye are all soldiers, watching for the interests of Christ. Ye may not occupy commanding positions in the army of the Saviour; but remember that the rank and file have their duty; and, whoever ye are, and in whatever rank ye walk, when ye yourselves have believed, then teach to your children and your people the knowledge of God and of Christ. Masters, teach your servants: give them example, and withal give them precept. Sabbath after sabbath finds you worshipping God in the congregation of the faithful. So far all is well. But where are those who week after week give their labours to your soil, or their care to your house? Alas! it is a thing to be la

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