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sions, &c.? Here are persons who would starve editors, publishers, printers, and paper-makers-the whole concern-into a premature grave!—who say, "Send me your paper," implying of course that they will send the money in return, yet never send it; and yet they want to know all about the progress that is making in converting souls to God, and what is doing among the heathen. Is not this strange, that having never learned as yet to practice the first and easiest lesson of honesty, they should wish to read every thing about godliness and vital piety! So I concluded to head the article, “Do you pay for a religious newspaper?"

Do you, reader? If you do, continue to take and read, and pay for it; and be slow to withdraw your subscription. Give up many things before you give up your religious newspaper. If any one that ought to take such a paper, does not, I hope that some one to whom the circumstance is known, will volunteer the loan of this to him, directing his attention particularly to this article. Who is he? A professor of religion? It cannot be. A professor of religion and not taking a religious newspaper! A member of the visible church, and voluntarily without the means of information as to what is going on in that church! A follower of Christ, praying daily, as taught by his Master, "Thy kingdom come," and yet not know. ing, nor caring to know, what progress that kingdom is making! Here is one of those to whom Christ

said, "Go, teach all nations;" he bears a part of the responsibility of the world's conversion, and yet, so far from doing any thing himself, he does not even know what others are doing in promoting this great enterprise Ask him about missionary stations and operations, and he can tell you nothing. He does not read about them. I am afraid this professor of religion does not love "the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob." Ah, he forgets thee, O Jerusalem!

But I must not fail to ask if this person takes a secular newspaper. O, certainly he does. He must know what is going on in the world; and how else is he to know it? It is pretty clear then that he takes a deeper interest in the world than he does in the church; and this being the case, it is not difficult to say where his heart is. He pays perhaps eight or ten dollars for a secular paper-a paper that tells him about the world, but for one that records Zion's conflicts and victories, he is unwilling to pay two or three! How can a professor of religion answer for this discrimination in favor of the world? how defend himself against the charge it involves? He cannot do it; and he had better not try, but go or write immediately and subscribe for some good religious paper; and to be certain of paying for it, let him pay in advance. There is a satisfaction when one is reading an interesting paper, to reflect that it is paid for.

But perhaps you take a paper, and are in arrears for it. Now suppose you was the publisher, and the publisher was one of your subscribers, and he was in arrears to you, what would you think he ought to do in that case? I just ask the question. I don't care about an answer.

18. Detached Thoughts.

It is not every broken heart which constitutes the sacrifice of God. It depends on what has broken it-whether the experience of misfortune, or the sense of sin-the sorrow of the world, or the sorrow of God. Both break the heart, but it is a different fracture in one case from what it is in the other. God values the latter; and hearts so broken he mends and makes whole.

Some sinners repent with an unbroken heart. They are sorry, and yet go on, as did Pilate and Herod.

A sinner must come to himself, as did the prodigal, before ever he will come to Christ.

The consummation of madness is to do what, at the time of doing it, we intend to be afterwards sorry for; the deliberate and intentional making of work for repentance.

When a Christian backslides, it is as if the prodigal son had re-acted his folly, and left his father's house a second time.

There is a mighty difference betwixt feeling • I have done wrong," and feeling "I have sinned against the Lord."

Some sinners lay down their burden elsewhere than at the feet of Jesus.

Ministers should aim in preaching to puncture the heart, rather than tickle the ear.

He who waits for repentance, waits for what cannot be had so long as it is waited for. It is absurd for a man to wait for that which he has himself to do.

Human friends can weep with us when we weep, but Jesus is a friend, who, when he has wept with us, can wipe away all our tears. And when the vale of tears terminates in the valley of the shadow of death, and other friends are compelled to retire and leave us to go alone, Jesus is the friend who can and will enter and go all the way through with us.

It is better for us that Christ should be in heaven than on earth. We need him more there than here. We want an advocate at court.

When a family party are going home, it is common for one to go before to make all ready for the rest, and to welcome them. "I go to prepare a place for you," says Christ to his disciples.

Procrastination has been called a thief-the thief of time. I wish it were no worse than a thief. It

is a murderer; and that which it kills is not time merely, but the immortal soul.

Surely the subject of religion must be the most important of all subjects, since it is presently to become, and ever after to continue to be, the only and all-absorbing subject.

The obstacle in the way of the sinner's conversion possesses all the force and invincibleness of an inability, with all the freeness and criminality of an indisposition.

In vain will sinners call upon the rocks and mountains to hide them. Nature will not interpose to screen the enemies of her God.

What strange servants some Christians are!-always at work for themselves, and never doing any thing for Him whom they call their Master! And what subjects!—ever desiring to take the reins of government into their own hands!

It is one of the worst of errors, that there is another path of safety besides that of duty.

The man who lives in vain, lives worse than in vain. He who lives to no purpose, lives to a bad purpose.

The danger of the impenitent is regularly and rapidly increasing, as his who is in the midst of a burning building, or under the power of a fatal disease.

- How many indulge a hope which they dare not examine!

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