his own hand, set the waves of his children's | tion must be done still " as unto the Lord"natural carnality and worldliness at flow, must be done, regarding the pupil princiwho, I say, is to wonder, if he should not pally in the character of a candidate for imfind himself capable of saying to them after- mortality as a member of Christ, a child of wards, "Thus far shall ye go, and no fur- God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of ther?" who is to wonder, if, instead of the heaven. It must be done so as to make delight which he anticipated in witnessing every thing else in his course of education their graceful sweep and fertilising influence, either tend to, or harmonise with, the grand he finds the honour of his name, the comfort and ultimate design of making him "meet of his age, and the prospects of his children, to be a partaker of the inheritance of the buried together underneath a tide of outraged saints in light:"-as the child of a prince or a decency and ruinous expense? It is "godli- nobleman might advantageously be instructed ness that has the promise as well of the life in a variety of useful arts; but the instructhat is, as of that which is to come." The tion given him in these would be subordinated only way to train a child with the hope of to the object of his becoming master of the finding him a blessing to us, is to direct him accomplishments requisite to qualify him, to the holy and inexorable law as the stand- not for filling some inferior station in soard of obligation to which he is required to ciety, not to do the office of an artisan, or conform; to shew him, in the mirror of its to become a proficient only in abstract science, spiritual and extensive precepts, his own na- but to occupy the public and distinguished tive and absolute deformity-his contrariety place his birth assigned to him on the by nature to a holy God-his condemnation theatre of his country's politics, or in the at his bar-his alienation from his life. It is ranks of those entrusted with the destinies of to satisfy him of the need in which he stands, empires. And thus the training required by in consequence, not merely of the name of the promise of the text is, in the first place, Christian-not merely of one or of another primary and systematic. In the second place, of the benefits proposed to us in the Gospel it must be prayerful, as well as energetic. of the Saviour, but of Christ in the full glory It must be education, which does not merely of his complex person-Christ in the undi- go to raise the altar, and prepare the sacrivided application of his mediatorial work-fice; it must as well be education which Christ in the sanctifying operations of his covenanted Spirit-Christ in the freeness of his And secondly, in order to his going by this 66 calls down the fire from heaven, but for which, the understanding may be the seat of a barren information, or the conversation one that renders a cold and unacknowledged homage to Jehovah; but the perfume of a genuine piety will still be wanting, and the tokens of reconciliation and acceptance be desired in vain. It was by prayer that the apostle Paul evinced that care of all the Churches," which "came upon him daily." The American mother, who had become famous by the uniform and extraordinary piety of all her children, was able to give no account of the success which had attended her in training them, unless it was that every office she had rendered them was done with prayer-that if she dressed them, it was never without, at least, a silent aspiration that they might be clothed with the garment of Christ's righteousness when she washed them, that they might be "washed from all their idols, and that from all their filthinesses God would cleanse their souls." Providing them their meals suggested to her an ejaculatory suppli cation, that they might be fed with "the true bread that cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world ;" and every requisite exertion to promote their welfare in this present world was outrun by her desire for their spiritual benefit, and rendered the occasion of stimulating her entreaties, that they might be partakers of "the true riches." An unpraying parent is a Pharaoh | to himself. He is condemning himself to make bricks, while he denies himself the straw he needs to make them with. Without the Divine blessing, the most evangelical course of education would do no more to form to habits and affections of consistent piety than the precepts of the Shaster or the Koran; and for this blessing God will also be inquired of. He will have the specialty and sovereignty of its communication; he will have the urgency of the need in which we stand of it; he will have the inconceivable importance of our possessing it; he will have these principles distinctly recognised and correspondently expressed. If it is If it is prayer which is required as one of the most indispensable elements to form a useful minister, prayer is not less indispensable as the condition of a parent, who shall present himself at length before the throne of the Eternal with the privileged exclamation, "Behold I and the children whom God hath given me." And, thirdly; prayer itself is not to be expected to be availing except a correspondent and consistent example gives effect to the instructions which we give ourselves, and which we depend and call on God to bless. Example teaches more forcibly than precept. If the divine blessing is to be regarded as the supernatural fire from heaven, without which the altar of a spiritual education will be raised in vain, a consistent example may in this case be regarded as the atmosphere, without which the sacrifice is not to be expected to kindle into flame, or the incense of an edifying Christianity expected to ascend in odours to the skies. And hence the reason; hence, at least, an abundant account, why it is that the hearts of our children either never kindle with devotion, or that their piety smoulders as it were without an influence to blow it into flame: it is for want of a consistent example in the parent. For here, it is to be remembered, that, in reference to the education of our children, it is not sufficient that we should, on the whole, be entitled to the character of exemplary and consistent Christians. It is necessary that our example should be consistent in the points of view in which they contemplate it, and in which they are capable of appreciating, and likely to be influenced by it. Eli was, undoubtedly, a holy man; but his parental example was the ruin of his children. Philip Henry tells us, that "a man is really as he is relatively." Supposing this, however, to be true, it would only prove that we are most of us, in our real properties of Christian character, far below the level at which we stand, it may be, in common estimation. For how few maintain, amidst the intimacies of interior habit, under the inspec 66 tion of close and continued observation, in the absence of the restraints from evil and incitements to good which meet us on the stage of public intercourse how few maintain, under these circumstances, the full and adequate consistency of Christian character! In proportion, indeed, as our spirit is really renewed, in that proportion, the more closely we are observed, and the further we are followed into the privacy of our retired and unrestrained developments, the more the evidence of our Christianity, in the estimation of the spiritual observer, will accumulate. The best Christians are, however, far from being all spirit; they are men "compassed with infirmities" and "beset with sins:" and thus, the more familiar the scenes in which we meet with them; the more frequent and varied our opportunities of observing them; the more we see them amidst what they are tempted to regard as little calls of duty, or under the solicitation of what they are equally tempted to regard as little sins; the more they come under our observation in the exercise of irresponsible power-under the irritation of daily and unavoidable collisions, or solicited by characteristic and inveterate propensities, which they also may indulge without rebuke,-in that proportion they are likely to display before us inconsistencies which, on great occasions, or on the theatre of public observation, would not follow them. Now it is precisely in these circumstances that we meet the observation of our children, and, in too many instances, neutralise, by our misconduct, the force of our instructions. Incapable of being edified by our spirituality, prone even to cavil at us on account of it (except as it is accompanied by properties of moral character commanding their respect), our children are depraved by our weak and unprincipled indulgence, alienated by our severity, scandalised by our perverse tempers or our carnal self-indulgence, or permitted to contract the weeds of vicious habit and propensity through our neglect. We give them, indeed, serious and affectionate advice; we impose upon them definite and disagreeable restraints; but we are too selfish or too busy, too much absorbed in occupations, pleasures, anxieties, or feelings of our own, to undertake the task of that detailed and parental superintendence of the formation and progress of their character, which alone is education. We allow them, at the same time, to observe us in the exhibition of what they soon begin to recognise as inconsistencies; and whether these appear in forms (such as those of illtemper, or a want of pecuniary liberality) which involve annoyance and distress to them, or whether as weaknesses and follies sufficiently congenial to them in themselves, they equally, or, at least alike, impair the force of our authority, and tend to fix them in a state of insensibility to our instructions. Thus the want of a consistent example continually neutralises the instructions of the Christian parent. His children are either "provoked," according to the case which the apostle contemplates, or they are "becoming vile," and they are not "restrained," as was the case with Eli's children; or, like Absalom and Amnon, they inherit the parent's corruptions while without his piety, and live under the dominion of sins which in him were occasional temptations or the indwelling corruptions of a believer whom they infested, while they did not reign in him. And hence, accordingly, the necessity, in order to meet and exhaust the idea of training up a child in the way wherein he should go, for a consistent exemplification, in addition to an industrious and a prayerful inculcation of the truth of the Gospel. And thus trained up in the way wherein he should go, the believer has in the text, as well as in many similarly gracious declarations, an assurance that his babes shall prove a heritage, and not a curse, to him; that they shall grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord in youth; and that they "shall not depart from him" in their age. JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA.* AFTER five hours' march, during which the stream seemed to get further and further from us, we arrived at the last plain, at the foot of which we were to find it; but though at a distance from it of two or three hundred paces, we saw nothing but the desert and the plain in front, without a single trace of valley or of stream. I imagine it is this illusion that has caused some travellers to say and believe, that the Jordan rolls its waters in a bed of pebbles between banks of sand in the Desert of Jericho. Those travellers had not been able to attain the river; and seeing from a distance one vast heap of sand, they could not fancy that a cool, deep, shady, and delicious oasis was hollowed out between the platform of this monotonous desert, and invested the full waves and murmuring bed of Jordan with curtains of verdure that the Thames itself might envy. This is the truth, however. We were first confounded by it-then charmed. When arrived on the edge of the last platform, which terminates very abruptly, we had before our eyes one of the loveliest valleys that ever was beheld. We rushed down into it at full gallop, attracted by the novelty of the spectacle, and by the moisture, coolness, and shade that reigned within it: it was one continued grassplat of the brightest green; where here and there grew tufts of rushes in blossom, and bulbous plants, whose large and brilliant corollas enamelled the grass and the foot of the trees with stars of every colour. There were groves of tall and slender shrubs, whose branches fell back like plumes over their numerous trunks; lofty Persian poplars, with light foliage, not rising into pyramids like ours, but spreading their branches freely on every side, strong as the oak, and with bark which glittered smooth and white in the changing rays of the morning sun; forests of willow of every species; and tall osiers, so thick, that it was imposFrom De Lamartine's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. sible to penetrate them, so closely were they interwoven by innumerable liane plants (a sort of convolvulus), which crept round their roots, and, twisting from stem to stem, formed an inextricable network between them. These forests extended, as far as we could see, along the sides, and on both shores of the river. We were camp in one of the glades of the forest, to penetrate on foot to the edge of the Jordan, which we did not yet see. We advanced with difficulty-sometimes in the thick brushwood, sometimes in the long grass, and length we found a spot where grass alone bordered the sometimes through the tall stems of the rushes. At edge of the water; and here we dipped our hands and feet in the flood. It might be from a hundred to a hundred and twenty feet wide; its depth appeared considerable, and its course as rapid as that of the Rhone at Geneva. Its waters are of a pale blue colour, slightly tinged by the mixture of grey earths which it flows over and undermines on the banks, great masses of which we heard to give way from time to time, and fall into the stream. The banks are perpendicular, but filled with water up to the rushes and trees which cover them. These trees are continually undermined by the water, and their roots frequently hang naked over it; they are, therefore, often uprooted, and, want obliged to alight from our horses, and establish our ing sufficient support for their weight in the earth, they lean over the stream with all their branches and all their leaves; which dip into it, and stretch, like verdant arches, from one side to the other. Occa sionally one of these trees is carried away, with a pordown the stream; its liane plants torn up and twisttion of soil that it grows on, and floats in full leaf ing amidst its branches, with its nests, and its birds still perched upon its branches. We saw several of these pass during the few hours that we rested in this charming oasis. The forest follows all the sinuosities of the garden, and weaves for it a perpetual garland of leaves and branches; which dip in the water, and cause a light murmur on its waves. An innumerable quantity of birds inhabit these woods. Our Arabs warned us not to walk without our arms, and to advance with precaution, because this coppice and thick underwood is often the haunt of a lion, a panther, or a tiger-cat. We saw none, however; though we often heard, amid the shady thickets, a noise like that of the howling of these mighty animals, made by them in piercing the depths of the woods. We walked for an hour or two on the most accessible banks. We continued our route: drawing towards the highest mountains of Arabia Petræa, quitting and revisiting the Jordan according to the sinuosities of its course, and approaching toward the Dead Sea. As one draws near the Dead Sea, the undulations of the ground gradually diminish, and the slope inclines insensibly towards its shores; the sand becomes spongy, and the horses, sinking in at every step, advance with difficulty. When we at length perceived the reverberation of the waves, we could no longer restrain our impatience; we set off at full gallop to precipitate ourselves into the first that lay sleeping before us, shining like molten lead on the sand. . . . . The shores of the Dead Sea are flat on the eastern and western sides; on the north and south the high mountains of Judea and Arabia close it in, descending nearly to its waves; those of Arabia, however, are not so near, particularly on the side of the mouth of the Jordan, where we then were. The shores are completely desolate, the air is fetid and unwholesome; and we felt its influence during the whole time we were in the desert. A sense of heaviness in the head, and a slight fever, injurious atmosphere. There is no island to be seen: attacked us all; and only quitted us when we left this about sunset, however, I fancied I could distinguish two, at the extremity of the horizon, towards Idumea. The aspect of the Dead Sea is neither funereal nor gloomy, except to the imagination. To the eye, it is a shining lake, whose immense and silvery surface reflects the rays of light like a mirror. The beautifully shaped mountains throw their shadows even to its borders. It is said that no fish exists in its waters, nor bird on its banks. I cannot decide this: I certainly neither saw petrels, sea-gulls, nor those beautiful white marine doves, that swim all the day on the waves of the Syrian Sea, and accompany the skiff's on the Bosphorus; but at some hundred paces' distance from the Dead Sea, I shot at and killed some birds, resembling wild ducks, that rose from the swampy borders of the Jordan. If the air had been really mortal to them, they would not have thus braved so near its mephitic vapours. . . . . The sheet of water presented every where the same appearance of silvery brightness and perfect stillness. Mankind has well preserved the faculty given to them by God in Genesis, of calling things by their proper names. This sea is splendid; it illuminates, it inundates, with the reflection of its waters, the immense desert which it covers; it attracts the eye, it interests the mind-but it is dead! neither sound nor movement exists on it. Its surges, too heavy for the wind to act upon, do not roll out in sonorous waves; nor even does the white edge of its foam break on the pebbles of its sides. It is a sea that seems petrified. LITURGICAL HINTS.-No. XXX. "Understandest thou what thou readest?"-Acts, viij. 30. FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. THE COLLECT is one of that class which were retained from ancient liturgies at the Reformation. As it stands in our Prayer-book it is an exact translation of the original Latin form. It is a prayer for escape from the dangers that surround us with regard to our eternal interests; and it is necessary, therefore, that we should set out with a confidence that God is able and willing to deliver us from those dangers. We express this confidence in the words (1.), " O God, the Protector of all that trust in thee," God is he that giveth strength and power unto his people" (Ps. Ixviii. 35). He is elsewhere declared to be " a shield unto them that put their trust in him" (Prov. xxx. 5). But we must rely on him, if we would be sure of his protection: "the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord; he is their strength in the time of trouble; the Lord shall help them and deliver them; he shall deliver them from the wicked and save them;" but it is only "because they trust in him" (Ps. xxxvii. 39, 40). But why need we go to God at all for protection? the following words declare the reason (2.), "without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy." We may say of our spiritual foes as Jehoshaphat said when he was in fear of his enemies, "O our God, we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do; but our eyes are upon thee" (2 Chron. xx. 12). If we wish to gain the victory over the enemies of our souls, it must never be said of us, 66 This is the man that made not God his strength" (Ps. lii. 7); but we must continually apply to Him who "giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might increaseth strength," since we have the sure word of his promise, that, if we so "wait upon the Lord, we shall renew our strength." As nothing is strong without God, so neither without him is any thing holy. Christ told his disciples that, if they would exhibit the fruits of holiness, it must be by a power communicated from himself: "He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing" (John, xv. 4, 5). The Corinthians were "sanctified by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. vi. 11). II. Thus far is the invocation: the remainder of the collect is the petition, (1.) "increase and multiply | upon us thy mercy." We have so often provoked God by our sinful departure from him, that, if he still listens to our prayer, it will be an instance of his mercy being enlarged towards us. Before we present the petition, therefore, we do, as it were, prepare him to expect that it will demand a larger display of his mercy than any hitherto shewn. Such was David's frame of mind; "O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation: hear me, O Lord, for thy loving-kindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies." (2.) “That thou being our Ruler and Guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal." God has promised to grant that which we here pray for: "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go; I will guide thee with mine eye" (Ps. xxxii, 8). Did he not assure Israel of old of his guidance: "I am the Lord thy God, which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go" (Is. xlviii. 17)? And did not the holy Fsalmist exult in the knowledge that this guidance should never fail? "This God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even unto death" (Ps. xlviii. 14). But we implore God's guidance for the especial end, that our connexion with this world may not cause us to perish in the world which is to come. Time and eternity-the one how short, the other how long; the one how insignificant, the other how momentous ! And yet time is not unimportant when we reflect on its relation to eternity; and that there is a danger of our so passing through the life that now is, as to lose the blessedness of the life which is to come. How necessary then to keep a steady view "not on the things that are seen, but on the things which are not seen; the one being temporal, the other eternal!" (2 Cor. iv. 16-18). How important to be "looking for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God!" (Heb. xi. 9, 10); and clearly to resolve with ourselves that we will evermore "have respect unto the recompense of the reward." "Sin In the EPISTLE (Rom. viii. 18-23) we are comforted under present afflictions. "The apostle experienced an abundant measure of the sufferings of Christ; but upon the most exact and deliberate computation of them, he found them not worthy to be compared' with that glorious recompense which shall be bestowed on Christians, or that glory which shall be revealed' to them, and accomplished in them. So that it would be the greatest folly imaginable for him to shrink from the pursuit of this promised felicity through the dread of the most terrible of these transient sufferings." has filled the world with suffering, yea, with unspeakable disorder and misery; all creatures seem to proclaim man's fatal apostacy, and to recommend the inestimably precious salvation of Christ. Men every where are most evidently at war with their Maker and with each other, so that the earth is become a great slaughter-house and burying-ground to its inhabitants; and the animals are forced into the service of men's lusts by a most abominable perversion; and the creatures of God are made his rivals, in that men generally, every where, and through every age, 'have worshipped the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for evermore.' Thus the creation groans under bondage' to human depravity; every part of it seems to abet man's rebellion, or to be an instrument of his crimes; and the more reflecting even of the heathen could see the strange state of the world, though they saw neither the cause nor the cure of it. But the Gospel opens a brighter prospect; a glorious crisis approaches, of which all things seem in anxious expectation. When the children of God shall be manifested,' and separated from his implacable foes, a complete deliverance from this bondage will be given to all, except Satan and his obstinate adherents; and sin, deformity, vanity, and misery, shall be seen no where but in the bottom less pit. May we then give diligence to ensure our interest in this redemption, and to possess the firstfruits of the Spirit, the earnest and pledge' of our inheritance. Then our groans under our share of this universal ruin, while we wait for our final adoption, will be hope we shall learn to disregard the perishing things which are seen, and patiently to expect and wait for the good things which are unseen and eternal.”* In the GOSPEL (Luke, vi. 36-42) we have our Lord's exhortations to mercy, justice, and sincerity. We are commanded to be merciful, in imitation of God, who is merciful to the unthankful and evil. Exercise to others (says our Lord) the charity which thinketh no evil, which bears, believes, and hopes all things; and then others will exercise the same towards you. God will not judge and condemn you, men will not. Forgive others' trespasses against you, and God will forgive your trespasses against him. Devise liberal things, and, as God is not unrighteous, he will pay it again; for God shall incline the hearts of others to give to you as liberally as you have given to them. You shall reap as plentifully as you have sown; for it is God's ordinary rule to deal retributively with men even in this world; they who have dealt rigorously shall receive the like treatment; while kindness shall fall on the head of the beneficent. Do not put yourselves under the guidance of ignorant and erroneous teachers; such were the pharisees at that time, and such are all now who follow the traditions of men in things relating to God and the conscience; or who are led by common opinion, or by the course and custom of this world; for can those who are blinded with pride and prejudice lead those who are already in darkness, into the right way? Expect not better treatment in the world than Christ your Master had; but let every one that is "perfect," every established and firmly rooted disciple, be " as his Master," dead to the world, laborious, self-denying, condescending, benevolent; then he will be "perfect," a complete disciple, because a genuine imitator of his Master. Beware of censoriousness; for, if you take upon you to rebuke and reform others, you ought (to be consistent) to be fully aware of your own faults: it is absurd to pretend to be so quicksighted as to spy small faults in others, which are like a mote or particle of chaff in the eye, while you see not the larger defects, which are in the proportion of a beam of timber in your own eye. It requires a clear eye, as well as a skilful hand, to cast out that small defect from his eye; but how can thine eye be clear, when filled with the larger defect? Be solicitous for the purification of thine own character, if thou wouldest be thought sincere, and not a "hypocrite," in thy zeal to purify another's. The Cabinet. PRAYER. When one man desires to obtain any thing of another, he betakes himself to entreaty; and this may be observed of mankind in all ages and countries of the world. Now what is universal may be called natural; and it seems probable that God, as our supreme governor, should expect that towards himself, which, by natural impulse, or by irresistible order of our constitution, he has prompted us to pay to every other being on whom we depend. The same may be said of thanksgiving. This is the conclusion to which our unassisted reason brings us, the proof of which is fully confirmed by the repeated exhortations to prayer which revelation has afforded us in the Scriptures.-Paley. FAITH AND LOVE.-Nothing is better than peace, whereby all war is destroyed, both of things in heaven and things on earth. Nothing of this is hid from you if ye have perfect faith in Jesus Christ, and love, which are the beginning and the end of life: faith is Rev. T. Scott's Commentary. the beginning love the end; and both being joined in one are of God, All other things pertaining to perfect holiness follow. For no man that hath faith sinneth; and none that hath love hateth any man,St. Ignatius. THE SAVIOUR'S PASSION.-All creatures in heaven and in earth are moved at our Saviour's passion. The sun in heaven shrinking in his light, the earth trembling under it, the very stones cleaving in sunder, as if they had sense and sympathy in it. Shall sinful men alone be unmoved by it; they to whom it appertained, and for whom it procured unspeakable blessings?-Bishop Andrews. Boetry. THE EXECUTION OF A MURDERER. BY THE REV. T. E. HANKINSON, M.A. For the Church of England Magazine. THEY led him forth!-'tis not for words to speak The horrid hue that settled on his cheek; As all the blood that flush'd that face of fear Had gathered into blue stagnation there; And left his lip and brow,-e'en death might fail To paint thereon a tint more ashy pale. A faintness fell upon him as he came To that dark place of suffering and of shame; For though he spake not aught, nor changed his look, His weight fell heavier, and his strong frame shook. "Oh God!" he moan'd, and darted his fierce eye Up to the clouds that frown'd along the sky; "I thought they said, that mighty One above Was something full of pity and of love: I shew'd no mercy-well deserve to see The Friend of all a bitter foe to me! The sky feels hot above me--and my fate Flares in my face. Oh, mercy!-'Tis too late!" This to himself: he saw, heard, spake to none; He seem'd to stand before his God alone. He tried the stairs, and reel'd-they dragg'd him on; And there he stood-the fatal goal was won! Then burst, in one wild, deafening, maddening yell, The voice of execration; wing'd from hell Rain'd the hot curses round him, far and near; Peal'd from its thousand tongues a city's damning pray'r. And he the wretched being, on whose path Burst that fell storm of vengeance and of wrath, Who caught from manhood's shout and childhood's cry, In one full curse, his death-sleep's lullaby,— He was low kneeling when that fierce yell rung Upon his ear-a moment-up he sprung! But oh, how changed! no longer feeble, tame, Death in his eye, and palsy in his frameThe demon check'd, and cow'd, and trampled, now Resumed his throne upon his lip and brow; And both were crimson'd-from his dark eye broke Glances that blasted like the lightning stroke: He strode across the platform, and low bow'd His head the while to hide him from the crowd, The false boards, as he pass'd the fatal spot, Rock'd to so fierce a tread; he heeded not; He reach'd the palisade-the indignant cry Assail'd him, as he paused, more furiously: Then to his height he drew him, and at once Let loose the gather'd lightning of his glance; |