with these words, "My friends, that which I am going to read in your hearing, I believe to be as true as the Revelation of St. John the Divine, because the person whe saw it prayed for my poor soul all the night before I was converted." A profound silence ensued, and the vision read-and to my great surprise, the moment he ended reading, one of the young women cried aloud, "It is the eternal truth of God," and instantly fell on the floor-to all appearance, as dead as a clod. Her brother also asserted the same, and shook so violently, that he could not stand, and a number of others were very much agitated. As I stood gazing and wondering at what was passing, these words fastened on my mind, "We have a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts;" and the more I mused on Peter's description of the Scriptures of truth, the less I thought of the vision and its effects. I was, however, taught one useful lesson by observing their eccentricities, enthusiastic notions, and heterodox opinions-viz., how to appreciate a regular, judicious, and religious education. I think it served, under God, as an instrument to keep me from being deluded with the religious corruptions so prevalent at that time, and which have ever since so grievously prevailed throughout the province. Freewillism and Arminianism, like a dense fog, have almost entirely enveloped, our religious horizon, by which means, the true light of the gospel is, in a great measure, excluded and shut out from the minds and understanding of all, except a few. There is but here and there one, on whom the rays of truth shine with their full lustre and clearness, enabling them rightly to discern between the truth and error; and they are esteemed monsters, and avoided as infectious, by nearly ninetenths of the inhabitants. That it is our indispensable duty, as well as highest privilege, in all our ways, to acknowledge God, and to give up ourselves without reserve, with all our temporal and spiritual concerns to his government, and cheerfully acquiesce in the dispensations of His providential dealings with us; justly believing that He will assuredly direct our steps-and being so entirely resigned to His will, as to have none of our own— being fully persuaded that the Judge of all the earth will do right, was very deeply engraven on my heart, and imprinted in my mind, at that time; and while I was enabled to walk under its happy influence, I enjoyed uninterrupted peace of mind, and experienced the fulfilment of that portion of Isa. xxvi. 3, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee." I also witnessed a number of singular and surprising interpositions of providence towards me, but it would be tedious to relate them, attended as they were with so many remarkable incidents. Grand Lake, New Brunswick, (To be concluded in our next). JOHN PALMER. 2 VISITS TO THE POOR-THE LUNATIC ASYLUM, W I HAVE sometimes thought there are those upon earth whom we may justly term the "the Lord's fools," not in reproach-not with a view to despise-but simply with Luke xvi. 8, have connected the idea that the Lord had appointed that the deficiency of natural understanding should be a means of preserving them from the snares of the flesh, the allurements of the world, and the temptations of the devil; and at the very time their natural faculties were in all but absolute disuse, their spiritual perception was probably drawn forth in lively and vigorous operation towards Jehovah, the Author thereof. I never, however, had so striking a confirmation of this supposition as on this day. The chaplain of the above asylum kindly conducted me through its wards, in which were a multitude of cases, some of the most painfully distressing kind. One would have gladly tarried and investigated the character of each, so peculiarly interesting did many appear to be; but passing onward through the cleanest and one of the most admirably arranged establishments in the kingdom, we came at length to one of the nurse's apartments, and into it were conducted two women: the one about 50, a meek, placid creature, of gentle and most grateful manners; the other, a cleanly-looking (as indeed they all were) dame just bordering upon four-score years; her hair white and silvery, her features strongly marked, her countenance dejected. The leading truths in God's word became the topic of conversation; questions were put to the younger of the two, and were answered with singular clearness and precision, and withal betokening a mind hoping (as she herself expressed it), that Jehovah's salvation was for her. But now turning to the elder one, my friend drew her out in a declaration of truth most clear and precious. Her first answer was in the language of the apostle Paul (1 Tim. i. 15), but the stress she laid upon the latter clause, "of whom I am chief,” was such as to betray she was the subject of deep heartfelt conviction. I could not entertain a doubt but God had sent his arrow into the conscience, and that she lay, in feeling, a smitten rebel before him. And all that afterwards dropped from her lips confirmed one in this opinion. Pasage after passage she quoted, and commented upon them most gloriously. "It was good to be there." One's soul was refreshed and invigorated. Salvation by Christ, the union of the church with, and completeness in, Him; its security-perseverance-and future glorification, were themes upon which she launched out with a clearness and an energy that were truly astounding. Would that I could recal her expressions, but they have mostly passed from my remembrance. One or two remarks, however, recur to me. A question was put to the younger of the two, "But what is Christ doing now?" "He sits," interrupted the elder one, as her companion was answering, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous ;' ""he sits as a Counsellor : but he has no need that their cases should be told him; He knows them all.” And spreading out her arms, and pointing to the palms of her hands, she added, with great emphasis, "Their names are on his hands, written as with an iron pen." "I will be a wall of fire round about her, and the (very) glory in the midst of her." "The gospel," she continued, with much solemnity, "never leaves a man as it finds him ; but it is made the savour of life unto life, or of death unto death." Her vindication of Jehovah's justice, truthfulness, and purity, was such as to make one fearlessly affirm, that none but a regenerate soul could adopt such language. It was the expression of a faith whose possessor was humbled in the dust before God, and by whom God was glorified. When faith and hope were spoken of, she added, "But something more is wanting. There must be love-the love of God shed abroad in the heart." "Peter's," said she, was at first only a natural affection, otherwise the Lord would not have said to him, 'When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.' He had not been converted then." Now here was her stumbling-block; this was evidently the source of her suffering and sorrow. "Do you doubt, then," it was asked, "the existence of the love you have been speaking of in your heart?" paused; her firmness of tone and manner left her; doubts seemed to crowd upon the mind-oppression seized her heart; and she spoke with hesitation and fear." But it is her mercy, and our mercy, reader, that the Lord seeth not as man seeth. He traces in her heart the operations of that love which is of His own enkindling, though as yet hardly apparent to herself, and He will magnify his own work in due season. 66 Sle The case of poor Frances Neale is a painfully interesting one. For upwards of forty years slie has beeu regarded a lunatic. It is said, that in earlier life she was seduced by a Popish priest. Reader, beware of "the Confessional," and the "Father Confessors!"-the remorse and the reproach which followed ultimately produced insanity. Yet, it is worthy of remark, how the Lord "in the midst of deserved judgment, remembers mercy." Though this poor creature has great struggles of heart and mind, on account of her present position, and, as she said to the chaplain a few days since, "She had found the devil in her stronger than ever that morning, because the Lord had placed her in that Asylum," yet there is mercy-sweet mercy-in the dispensation. A poor old creature, unable to sustain or to help herself, her Master, who loves her better than she loves herself, has kindly placed, her there, to be nursed, and provided for, in cleanliness and comfort, until He shall say to her, "Daughter, come up higher!" Here, some of you poor, nervous, Satan-harrassed souls, here is a case for you. Tell that cruel adversary, when next he preaches one of his dry lectures upon old age-a frenzied mind—and a lunatic asylum, that there is comfort in any and every circumstance for you; that your God can go with you, and will go with you, even to a lunatic asylum, if He sees fit to send you there; and, moreover, that He will turn what the world calls a prison into a palace, where He, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, will come and entertain His guests! Remember that a child of God can go nowhere without his Lord and Master and a whole host of angelic, though invisible attendants; and well does the poet say, "Were I in heaven without my God, "Twould be no heaven to me," "His smiling grace can cheer Each dungeon where we dwell; 'Tis Paradise when He is there, If He depart, 'tis hell." BACKSLIDING. No mention is made of backsliding in the New Testament, for the gospel axe is laid to the root, and not to the branches, of that corrupt tree of human nature which was virtually hewn down and cast into the fire of divine wrath in the day of the Lord's vengeance, when the curse of a broken law fell upon the Surety of a better covenant than that from which the ancient Israelites were so prone to backslide. Besides, the New Covenant of Grace (strictly speakiug) admits of no backsliding, as did the Mosaic, and that under which the first Adam was placed. Not that we dare plead exemption from this so named sin; and still less can we venture to affirm (either directly or indirectly) that an individual must be regenerated in order to backslide, for they are not "wholesome words" (1 Tim. vi. 3), and therefore cannot be consented to. The Holy Ghost having dropped the term backsliding in the Gospel, it might be desirable that Christians should do so too; especially as the word seems to convey an indefinite necessity that something be done on the part of the creature; for it is an utter impossibility that there should be any failure or defect in the Spirit's work upon the soul. "His work is perfect" (Deut. xxxii. 4). Backsliding (if the term be allowed) appears to consist in the perversion of those powers of the mind, whereby "that which may be known of God," "by the things that are made," is manifest even to the unregenerate, "for God hath showed it unto them, so that they are without excuse if they give Him not the glory (Rom. i. 19, 20). And the Scriptures afford many instances of honour put upon those who, in a natural sense, gave glory to the Lord witness the Ninevites at the preaching of Jonah; the mariners in the ship with him; King Nebuchadnezzar at his restoration; the blood-thirsty Jehu in executing the divine judgments; and the 66 renowned Cyrus, king of Persia, of whom the Lord declared, "I have girded thee, though thou hast not known me (Is. xlv.) Believers are exhorted to "yield their members (or natural powers) as instruments of righteousness unto God;" that as these members have been yielded "servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, so now (in the state of regeneration) yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness" (Rom. vi. 13, 19). But these members have in them a law of sin which is continually warring against the law of the mind " of Christ, and enticing them from the perfect freedom of the Lord's service, into the wretched thraldom of a miserable captivity, which draws away the child of God from his treasure, although it cannot take away his treasure from him, and hinders the outward and visible prosperity of the church, although it can do nothing against the truth, nor by any means impede the progress of grace; according to the Lord's own testimony, "I will work, and who shall let it?" (margin, turn it back— Is. xliii. 13). It is not possible that creature efforts should either advance or retard the work of divine grace. The Israelites, after the death of the false spies, were very determined to " go up unto the place which the Lord had promised;" but Moses, better instructed in the school of Christ, answered, "It shall not prosper; go not up, for the Lord is not among you. But they presumed to go up unto the hill top; then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites, which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah (utter destruction-Numbers xiv. 40-45). Again, when brought into the promised land, and the Lord's deliverances were fresh in their memories, they were fixed in their resolution to "serve the Lord" (Jos. xxiv. 18). But Joshua discouraged their fleshly decision, "Ye cannot serve the Lord; for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins." None but Incarnate Deity could serve God in human flesh; the Lord Jesus kept the law both naturally and spiritually, and his people are living witnesses to the completeness of his work; but a senseless inanimate stone was the most appropriate witness Joshua could find to bear testimony to the hardihood of the Israelites in thus resolutely taking upon themselves to serve the Lord. Now the Holy Ghost informs us that "all these things happened unto them for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition" (1 Cor. x. 11). He moreover confirms the same truth by positively asserting it to be "so that ye cannot do the things that ye would" (Gal. v. 17), and Paul, with genuine Christian experience and humility, confesses, "That which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate that I do" (Rom. viii. 15). God's covenant with the Jews as a nation, required of them a strict observance of the rites and ceremonies of their divinely-appointed worship; and their national prosperity was made to depend upon their obedience in these particulars. But neither conscience nor covetousness could avail to keep them steadfast in the covenant, and their continual backslidings bore testimony to the weakness of the flesh, the necessity |