practical, fruit-bearing wisdom, in the conduct of worldly affairs, to be systematically influenced by the fear of the Lord. Is one in office tempted to commit or connive at an act of secret treachery, by betraying a public trust, surreptitiously to acquaint himself and his understrappers with circumstances that the other would keep secret? he is met by the solemn injunction "That no man go beyond or defraud his brother in any matter, for God is the avenger of all such." Is he tempted to help forward the promulgation of a Christ-denying blasphemy, perverting the right ways of the Lord, under the Christian name? He has his admonitory warning: concerning those who, while professing the doctrine of Christ, transgress, and abide not in it." If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed; for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.” Here, “ the fear of the Lord" would give wisdom to shun the consequences of speeding the work of such as labour to destroy the faith which they profess. Again, if carnal policy suggested the expediency of conniving at the advancement of an idolatrous system, such as Popery notoriously is; not in the New Testament alone, but through the whole volume of inspiration, from first to last, rolls a sustained peal of thundering denunciation against such criminals, and the fear of the Lord, and of the power of his wrath would hold back the boldest from an act of provocation so daring. And oh, how would all the influences of that holy fear be concentrated upon the point at issue wherever the poor of the land were concerned ! "There is mercy with thee; therefore shalt thou be feared." There is mercy with thee;

thou art the judge of the widows, a father of the fatherless thou O Lord, carest for the poor! Therefore shalt thou be exceedingly feared by such as would oppress the helpless. The stoutest heart must tremble at the terrors of the Mighty One when he ariseth to judge the cause of the poor: the hardest heart must melt beneath the pleadings of divine tenderness on their behalf, illustrated and enforced as they are by the sublime fabric of divine legislation, and the earthly ministration of Him, God manifest in flesh, who went about, poor himself, to carry healing and salvation to the poorest of the poor. We do but here glance at those instances already enumerated, where England has lately sinned herself almost beyond the reach of hope, to point at the restraining power that would, in each particular, have withheld her rulers from their fatal course: and where others have been found to sacrifice conscience itself to a cowardly dread of seeing the government of the country pass into other hands, who among them would have ventured upon such dereliction of principle, had his mind been imbued with the terrors of that declaration which stands out in characters of flame upon the record of God's revealed will:"Thus saith the LOLD; cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD: for he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inherit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited."

Again, we solemnly ask whether the prevailing system of instruction is calculated to impress the youthful mind with such intimate connection as the Word of God asserts to exist between the piety of

nations and their prosperity? Or whether that which they are taught to consider as the glory of a people, successful wars, extensive conquests, the forcible subjugation of other lands to their power, and a monopoly of wealth and influence, be really a prosperous state, or one tending to call down retribution from the Judge of the whole earth for the wrongs and the sufferings wantonly inflicted on weaker brethren. Brethren, for “hath not God made of one blood all that dwell upon the earth?" If conscience bears witness to the justice of this appeal, enough has been said; our work is done. If not, we cannot hope, by extending the view, to accomplish the object of our labour. While we have been striving to demonstrate the evil nature of the tree, it has suddenly put forth blossoms and borne fruit so nauseous, so poisonous, that we may safely leave our readers to judge of the plant by its produce. God forbid that any of them should perpetuate the noxious growth in the homes that God has given to them, and as yet preserves from the invader's foot and from the spoiler's hand!

A race may be rising up who shall repair the breaches, and restore us what the locust and the catterpillar have eaten in their desolating course. Such a race cannot be reared unless on principles wholly opposed to the godless delusions now in vogue. We have cited the curse, the fulness of which has been invited by the wickedness or the folly of public] men; we will, now set before them the context, the blessing which we earnestly pray may be sought by and sealed to every family within the boundaries of our long favoured empire. "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is: for he shall be as a tree planted by the

waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.” C. E.

"ARDENT minds, inflamed with an inward spirit, be come possessed by some great neglected truth. Their heads are filled with one thought, and their hearts with one feeling! And at first, acting within the existing system and striving to reanimate it; or, if rejected thence, jostling rudely against it, they have been, from age to age, the means employed, either for the accomplishment of the necessary change, or for that rebuke which condemns the generation which was deaf to it, and vindicates the ways of God to man! Such, under the law of Moses, were the prophets, not usually taken from the priestly caste, but summoned forth by a special commission, to rebuke the sins of people and governors, and, by a stern discipline, to regenerate them both. Such, in the very crisis of the Western Church, were Vigilantius and Jovinian, wrestling manfully, though hopelessly, against the existing system, and like all rebellions which are suppressed, rivetting only more perfectly upon the human mind that enormous burthen of error which they valiantly attempted to upheave. Such were Luther and the heroic Reformers of the sixteenth century.”—Rev. J. Garbett.

LINES

BY A DISTINGUISHED DIVINE OF THE DUTCH

REFORMED CHURCH.

O! THAT the soul of Luther
Were on the earth again!

The mighty soul whose mightier faith
Burst ancient error's chain;

And flash'd the rays of God's own word
Through superstition's night,

Till the Church of God that sleeping lay,
Awoke in Christ's own light.

For there are banded traitors strong,
Who fain would round us cast

The fetters that our fathers wore
In those dark ages past.

The Church! the Church! they loudly boast; The Cross! the Cross! they cry;

But it is not God's pure church they love,

Nor the Cross of Calvary.

They would knot again the painful scourge,

And fire the martyr's pile,

And the simple poor of God's free grace

With mystic words beguile.