out; and now we will come to three Protestant widows-very old, and sustained, as their only regular allowance, by a shilling per week! Next door, up-stairs (or steps), lay a poor old couple, the man 72 years of age, destitute. This was a very touching case. Sick in their beds, but they listened to Gospel tidings with earnest attention. My friend spoke of the nature of prayer, and with all the tractableness of a child, the poor old man learnt the cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner, for Christ's sake;" and as we left that cabin, the poor old man was to be heard exclaiming, "God be merciful to me a sinner, for Christ's sake." No Virgin Mary, no blessed Peter, but simply God, for Christ's sake."

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Oh, may we not hope that at least some one heart may be savingly touched? Shall all the cries for blessings on us lead to no thoughts of any feeble remark made upon the occasion, or shall they all (as the poor aged Roman Catholic quaintly remarked)" pass away as smoke?" We know not. We must leave it. God alone can touch the heart. Our course herein is plain, "As much as in you lies, do good unto all men, especially to the household of faith." The thoughtfulness of the people (starving as they are) was strikingly exemplified at one cabin. They pressed around the door, and withinside as usual, and then I said, Now, we cannot relieve you. We know you are distressed; we need not that you should tell us of it; but these cases we must visit first; and then if our funds last, or we can get more, you shall not be forgotten. We will visit you at your cabins.' "Thank your Reverence." "Blessings on your Reverence." "The blessings of the great God rest upon you." Long life to you." "We will not annoy you-but we are in great distress." Ah! and they were. Language cannot describe it. Words fail-the pen refuses to do it justice. It must be seen-it must be seen, to be known or properly thought about, for till this very day I never really knew what Ireland was ! I write now, in quiet; and within a quarter of a mile, I might take the man who doubts my word, into one street alone, where I will venture to say I will produce one hundred souls who are lying down this night upon the bare earth, or upon a handful of straw, without having tasted a particle of food for hours-it may be, for the day! The aid afforded these two days has produced the greatest sensation; and yet, what is that aid? Simply, in the capacity of a steward, have I divided into portions of meal, of half-a-stone a-piece, the funds with which I have been supplied; yet such is the distress-such the awful privation, that the poor famishing families are accepting this half-stone of plainest, cheapest meal, as the greatest boon; and with extended hands and uplifted eyes, they cry for blessings on the giver. Whence comes this but from the deepest, direst distress?

Oh, when I think of the season now approaching-of the amount of money that will be squandered away in dainties-in mere luxuries— in my own loved country, I say inwardly, "Oh, would that I could take you with me through these scenes; could you hear as I heard just now, as I stood within a cabin, the father tell of his dying child;

buried last Sunday; no food; water alone was its nourishment, and upon that it died! Oh that countenance! those sickly children! that man a cripple by sheer want! I say, could you have beheld with me those scenes, methinks it would render less acute the appetite for dainty-food; and for once your Christmas and your New-year's fare, would be of plainer kind, that thereby your poorer brethren in Ireland might reap the benefit!"

Sunday (20th.)-Having heard late last night, that the doctor had been to the poor man lying ill with the dropsy, and refused to "tap" him, because it would be putting him to unnecessary pain, 66 as he could not last until Christmas-day, near as it is," I have been again this day between the services to see him. Found the readiest access—a hearty welcome. He had himself but little hope of recovery; talked to him about his poor soul, and found a precious freedom in saying a few brief sentences to him, and to those by whom I was surrounded, about the love-the blood-the all-sufficiency of Christ. Surely “a great and effectual door" is opened to these Popish cabins by means of this famine. These poor Roman Catholics listened to me this day with peculiar interest; and, as they pointed to the relics of the meal, and to the poor children that stood around, saved from starvation, exhibited the most pleasing gratitude. Oh that the Lord may touch the heart; oh that the eternal Spirit may send home the arrow of conviction, and in deed and in truth, cause the cry to burst forth from the innermost soul, "God be merciful unto us, sinners!”

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Gospel Magazine.

BROTHER BELOVED IN THE LORD,

A.

The question of "M. A. W.," of Bristol, and your pithy reply, with the when in Italics, have had the effect of rousing me, at all events to clear myself from any suspicion of idleness or indifference to the cause of God and his truth, or to the welfare of the Editor and readers of the Magazine. I believe if your readers knew how fully every moment of my seven days is occupied, from five o'clock in the morning until ten or eleven at night, they would cease to wonder that they do not often see my name. The spiritual oversight of a parish with upwards of 2000 inhabitants, involving the care of Sunday and daily Schools, with nearly four hundred children, visiting the sick and poor at their houses; seven sermons, or lectures, each week; the care of a pupil or two in my house; the editing of my little "Christian Cottager's Magazine;" a correspondence on business matters and Christian intercourse, exceeding 100 letters per month; with the reading absolutely necessary for the fulfilment of all these duties, leave me but little time for writing as I

could wish.

Yet I have not neglected the GoSPEL MAGAZINE, having obtained several new subscribers this year.

You suppose I am at Astley. Yes, blessed be God, I am, through evil report, and through good report, kept to this day, hoping, trusting, labouring; "yet not I, but the grace of God that is in me," God's word is blessed by his Spirit unto the hearts of his people, and therein do I rejoice."

If I am silent in the pages of your Magazine, the Lord sometimes opens my mouth on your behalf, and on behalf of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, in whom, theirs and yours, I still remain, ALFRED HEWLETT.

To the Editor of the Gospel Magazine.

DEAR MR. Editor,

I have thought many times of sending you a line since I became acquainted with your periodical, but thinking there was no lack of correspondents, I could not persuade myself to write. However, on your saying you should like to receive a handful of letters by every post, I thought there might be room for a line from an unknown one.

I am happy to say that the contents of your Magazine, and especially your own remarks, have often refreshed my spirit. I have frequently thought I must be walking in a lonely path, but I find you know something of the crooks and turns which are to be found in the path that the children of Zion are treading through this vale of tears. Ah! well do I remember when pressed down with weighty cares in outward circumstances, that your leading article was to me "like apples of gold in pictures of silver;" and the truth of that portion of Divine Scripture was verified in my soul's experience, "A word spoken in season, how good it is!" My heart is knit to yours on account of your instrumentality having been made a blessing to my soul. Some would think it unkind to wish to see our friends in difficulties because we are there; but I consider it to be indispensably necessary for those who are raised up by the Lord himself, to assist in the comforting, building up, and establishing of his dear Church and people, to know the way, by experience, in which they are to walk; as saith the Scripture, "The husbandman that laboureth, must first be partaker of the fruit:" so the Shepherd must go before the flock to lead them in the way God would have them go.

In our neighbourhood we have no lack of those who style themselves the under-shepherds of our beloved Lord (both Church and Dissent); but whether they are really so, the day of final accounts will disclose. We have no lack of those who preach a yea-and-nay gospel, which puffs up the fleshly mind of the carnal professor; but "the sincere milk of the word" does not run in every street, although we

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the Spirit; and be it remembered, that God cannot truly be served in any other language, for "God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth; for he seeketh such to worship him." Moreover, it is with one consent they do this; for however they differ as to their manner of doing it, still as to the fact, they are resolved to serve the Lord, and to say, Though other lords have had dominion over us, yet by thee only will we make mention of thy name." Again, they are a nation of kings, for this is their song :"Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." They are also lords, seeing that it is declared, "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's.' Being, then, a kingdom of kings and lords, they have One over them who is called, "King of kings, and Lord of lords (Rev. xix.)—i. e., he is King of Saints who constitute the royal priesthood and holy nation. The King of this nation requires his subjects to come out and be separate from the world; and he also turns the hearts of the world to hate his people: so that they are men wondered at, not understood, scoffed at, and often even slain for the testimony of Jesus. But Jesus their King reveals himself as their anointed King, Priest, and Physician. He sets the prisoner free, takes away his filthy prison garments, and pours the oil of joy and comfort into his wounds. He sends his ambassadors as messengers of peace, and bids them cry, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people; speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her iniquity is pardoned." Such preachers are also directed to lay man, with all his glory, low in the dust, that the Lord alone may be exalted in that day; and therefore, on the one hand, they are bid to cry, that "all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass." Still they are bid to assure this royal nation, that "the word of the Lord endureth for ever." And by this word being brought into their hearts, they have been born of God, and so made manifest as "the righteous nation which keepeth the truth," unto whom the everlasting gates of the heavenly Jerusalem are ever opened (compare Is. xl. 1-10, with 1 Peter i. 21-23).

Such, then, being the nation for whom this Magazine has ever been intended, we cannot easily be at a loss to find out what their National Flag must be-viz., the banner of covenant and unchanging love; and that this banner has been kept constantly flying, and is still not half lowered, but flying at the very top of the mast, proclaiming to the whole world, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good-will towards men."

We have undoubted Scriptures to warrant us in taking this to be the national flag of the Lord's people. For instance, the Church, in the Song of Songs, whilst solacing herself in contemplating on the beauty and glory of Him, who is at the same time her King and Husband, thus speaks, "He brought me into the banqueting-house, and his

banner over me was love" (Cant. ii. 4). This banner, which is given to the Lord's people, is not to be concealed, but displayed; and on no account are we to conceal our colours, or through fear of our enemy, to sail under false colours belonging to another nation, lest we be taken as pirates; for thus it is written::-" Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed, because of the truth" (Ps. lx. 48).*

May the Lord keep the contributors and the readers of this Magazine ever jealous for the honour and glory of this their banner, so that we may say, "We will rejoice in thy salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners." Besides this National Flag, there has (so to speak) ever been a pennant, or smaller flag, kept flying, the motto of which has been, "Union in Christ, the head, without any consideration to what party or sect the brethren in the truth may belong."

It is most important at all times that the friends of the GOSPEL MAGAZINE should keep this in remembrance, and my purport in writing this paper has been, at the opening of the new year, to bring this prominently forward. Be it then ever remembered that, with the exception of five months in the year 1840, the different Editors of the GOSPEL MAGAZINE have never considered, in their adoption of the papers sent, whether the individuals contributing were Churchmen or Dissenters, nor either what kind of Dissenters they might be. I conceive that the first requisite has been,-Is the paper consistent with the National Flag, of covenant love and blood? 2nd. Is it to edification and profit? 3rd. Does it touch on any of those points on which the friends of this Magazine have agreed to differ as being of minor importance, compared with the doctrines of the glorious gospel of the ever-blessed God? We do not, in the slightest degree, say, or even insinuate, that a friend of this Magazine must necessarily depart from any position of truth, as to discipline, church government, mode of administering, &c. By no means; for these are not unimportant points, and we do not waive them in their place; but we consent to meet as friends of this Magazine, on the broad basis in which we are all united-viz., " Salvation belongeth unto the Lord-thy blessing is upon thy people."

Our position as members of the Church of Christ is far-yea, very far, more important than our belonging to this or that Church. No doubt every Christian should attach himself to some Church or company of believers on earth; but in the pages of the GOSPEL MAGAZINE we acknowledge no such distinction. In fact, it has often been impossible to discover to what party the individual contributor belonged. May the Lord keep us from ever even desiring to pull down this pen

* In many of our Bibles this passage reads "feared thee;" but this is a mis-print, and has been corrected in the Bibles more recently printed; for it should be," to them that fear thee."