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ferings of Jesus, as if they only concerned others, and not yourselves. Remember, as often as you are called to read your Bibles, that whatever the blessed Saviour did, He did for you; whatever He suffered, He suffered for you; all that He purchased with His blood, He bought for you; all that His saints enjoy in heaven, He designs and preserves for you. It was for you that He entered the world, as at this time, a feeble infant in the arms of His virgin mother; it was for you that He passed through the stages of infancy and childhood, that He might be made like unto you in all things, and know how to help your infirmities, by having shared in them Himself; it was for you that He went about His father's business, shewing in Himself how good, and how holy, and how excellent, was God's law; it was for you that He hungered and thirsted, being tempted in the wilderness-that He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; for you that He wandered foodless and homeless, not having wherewith to satisfy His hunger, nor where to lay His head; it was for you that His soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, when, in the garden of Gethsemane, the big drops of bloody sweat stood upon His brow, and where appeared an angel from heaven strengthening Him; it was for you He took the bitter cup of God's wrath, concerning which He prayed, "O! my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;" and when it was found not possible-for how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled?-it was for you that He took that cup, and drank of it, and drained it, and endured all its agony upon the cross, when the prince of darkness, who thirsted in vain for your blood, vented all his rage upon the Redeemer who delivered you, and Jesus cried out, with an exceeding great and bitter cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" O! my children, when you read of this-when you picture to yourselves the sun eclipsed, the air darkened, the earth quaking, the rocks rent, the graves opening, the Temple-veil torn asunder, all nature in convulsions, when Jesus expired upon the cross, remember that it was all for you: and learning from this how God loved you, consider within yourselves how you ought to love God, who first loved you; God, who is more watchful over you than the best of fathers, more patient with you than the tenderest of mothers; God, who commends His love to you, in that, while you were yet sinners, Christ died for you; God, who says to you this day, by my voice,-" Can a mother forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion upon the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee."

you

O, take heed, then, my dear children, that you do not forget God. From forgetting God, as from a root of bitterness, comes every sorrow and every sin. Those who begin life by forgetting God, lay up a large store of misery and destruction for their latter years. Remember God now, not only in your prayers which you say morning and evening-for I will not even suppose that there is a child in all this company, which does not, twice a-day at least, say its prayers;—not only when you open your Bibles to read them to the parent or the teacher-for there is not, or there need not be, a child here present, capable of uttering its Saviour's name, who is not taught to read its Saviour's word;-not only when you are in the church on the Sabbath-day, or, as on this day, gathered together at the beginning of another year, to hear of Christ; but when you are at home, when you are at play, when lie down, and when you rise up: nay,but I do not tell you when to remember God; I tell you rather, never to forget Him. Let every thing remind you of God, for every thing is from God. Is food pleasant to the hungry, and drink to the thirsty ?-both are from Him. Is it comfortable to be kept from the cold, when the piercing east-wind blows, and the frost is thick upon the ground? All is from Him. Will it be sweet, when you go from hence, to enter into the quiet room, and to sit by the cheerful hearth, and to tell the gentle mother, or the indulgent father, or the brother, or sister, or friend, who is not a very young person, what you have heard concerning God and Christ this day?-That home and its comforts, the father and the mother, the brother, the sister, the friend, are all from God. And this is not all God has given you. He is keeping better, far better things for you another state; things such as no eye hath seen, no ear hath heard, no tongue hath told, no heart hath ever conceived; things of which we are favoured only with a shadow, in all that Scripture tells of the sparkling crown, and the white robe, and the green palm, and the golden harp, and the sweet hymn which we shall never be tired of singing, nor God of hearing; but things, of which the best is, that we shall be made like Jesus, and that we shall see Him as He is. Oh! then, if you would attain to these things,-if, living long, ye would see good days; if, dying early, as so many children like you have done, ye would have not only the mother's tender hand and watchful eye to soothe you on a bed of sickness, but the love of God and of his Son, which speaks peace and comfort to the soulwhich would soothe all your pains by the assurance of eternal rest, and scatter the darkness of the soul by the light that comes from

in

heaven,-oh! see that ye remember your Creator in the days of your youth. God shewed His love to you when He said, “I love them that love me, and they that seek me early shall find me." Christ gives to you, to the least of you, all the encouragement you can desire, when He calls you the lambs of His flock, and when He says, " Suffer little children to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of God."

Come unto Him, then, my children--my dear young friends-come unto Him on this day, this first day of another year. Oh, come unto Christ; for you can never do it so well as now. Come unto Him, and tell Him that you have heard how He loves you, and that you will try to love Him; that, as He shed His precious blood for you, so will you give up yourselves to His service, and try henceforth to do His will. Never can you find a better opportunity than the present. Only do what we exhort you: remember Jesus when you go home from this place, and when you retire to rest, and when you rise again to-morrow morning, and every day, and every night. Remember, if wicked children or wicked men would tempt you to do wrong things, or to say evil words, how those children ought to behave who are the lambs of Christ's flock, and who are called by His blessed name. Remember this, and ask God so to give you His grace, that you may never forget it; and we venture to say, that, if you live, you will live happily; that, if you die, you will die hopefully if you are spared, you will be a comfort to your parents; if you are taken, you will only leave them for One who loves you far better, and will love you far longer than they; for when the dead child is put into the ground, either the love of the parent soon wears out, and the child is forgotten; or it is remembered and regarded, by the Christian parent, only as another angel in heaven; but God can never forget: "Can a mother forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." Oh, then, take care that you do not forget God-take care that you daily remember Christ. And may God Almighty bless you, and write all these words upon your hearts, for the sake of his dear Son!

I must not close without one word of exhortation to those who have accompanied their children hither this day, and who, I trust, will feel, that the substance of all that we have said is equally applicable to themselves; for unless they are converted, and become as little children, they shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. To you, my friends, let me commend, with all the energy which the text imparts to it, the sentiment

which you have heard expressed and echoed from this place, that "it is the example of the parent, or of the teacher, that educates the child;" though I would present that sentiment to you this day in another form. If you would not that your children, your charge, should forget God, do not you forget Him. Do not even, from false shame, or cowardly fear of those who deserve no such consideration at your hand, ever appear to have forgotten Him. Do not place your children under the lamentable necessity of looking away from their natural guides, when they look for the path that shall conduct them to their Saviour. It is a daily sermon, and, oh! how much more effective than an annual address, when the example of the parent, the language which the child learns earliest to understand, says, "Be thou a follower of me, as I also am of Christ." Ah, brethren, sunk as we are in depravity, and entrammelled in the bondage, the tooalluring bondage of the world, some impression might be made upon the stagnant surface of the moral world, if parents would but listen to us, when we entreat them, for the children's sake of their own bowels ;-if they would but be careful to avoid the reproach of the child's death-bed, should the child be taken first, and die, and make no sign. Ask yourselves, my beloved friends, whether there is any effort on which we may, with greater confidence, expect the blessing of the Lord to rest, than the endeavour of the parent to be made an example to the child? Would ye but enter on the new year, parents and children, with such desires and such designs, formed in faith and seconded by prayer, we think we might venture, without usurping the prophet's mantle, to foretell to you a happy year,a year that would be happy if ye lived, and not less happy if ye died,-not less happy for the parent or the child, whichever God might call first, though the one would be made childless, and the other orphaned by the blow. For let the eye grow dull in death-let the cold earth close over all that once was active in motion, instinct with life, and warmed with love-grant that the eye which hath once seen us shall see us no more,-do we not live to God? are we not remembered of Him? "Can a mother forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." O there is no death, in the full savour of its bitterness, to those who have learnt to live by faith; for "whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."

* In a sermon for the infant-school, by the Rev. Thomas Snow, M.A., rector of St. Dunstan's in the West.

The Cabinet.

SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.-Take a striking instance of the tenderness and sympathy of the Saviour, as presented to us in the narrative of his visit to Mary and Martha, on the death of Lazarus. Although he perfectly well knew the miracle he was about to perform-for he saw the triumph over death travelling on the wings of time, and could read with accuracy the joy attendant upon such a restoration-yet he wept, he sympathised. Had he sent one of his disciples to raise Lazarus from the dead, I question much whether he would have wept; he would have too eagerly anticipated the future joy, to have sympathised with their present short-lived grief; but the Saviour's sympathy was far more exquisite.-Howels.

BAPTISM. That the Church is often disappointed, and that in after-years we are compelled to mourn over the alienation from God, of those, over whom, as infants, we have united in the prayers and thanksgivings of the Church, only proves, that while our Church is true to her God, and to his revealed word, by suppressing nothing of all the blessings which he has promised to his people, we parents are, in too many cases, untrue to the best interests of our children, and to our own souls, by not coming to the baptismal font with more enlarged and Scriptural views of these blessings, and that our children have not improved the gift of God, which is in them, but have permitted the holy seed to remain unwatered by the dews of the Spirit, for which they have neglected to ask, and uncultured by the aid of the great Husbandman, whom they have forborne to seek.-Rev. Henry

Blunt.

GOODNESS OF GOD.-When God created the human species, either he wished their happiness, or he wished their misery, or he was indifferent and unconcerned about both. If he wished our misery, he might have made sure of his purpose, by forming our senses to be so many sores and pains to us, as they are now instruments of gratification and enjoyment; or by placing us amidst objects so ill suited to our perceptions as to have continually offended us, instead of ministering to our refreshment and delight. He might have made, for example, every thing we tasted, bitter; every thing we saw, loathsome; every thing we touched, a sting; every smell, a stench; and every sound, a discord. If he had been indifferent about our happiness or misery, we must impute to our good fortune (as all design by this supposition is excluded) both the capacity of our senses to receive pleasure, and the supply of external objects fitted to produce it. But either of these (and still more both of them) being too much to be attributed to accident, nothing remains but the first supposition, that God, when he created the human species, wished their happiness, and made for them the provision which he has made, with that view,

and for that purpose. Contrivance proves design; and the predominant tendency of the contrivance indicates the disposition of the designer. The world abounds with contrivances, and all the contrivances which we are acquainted with are directed to beneficial purposes: evil, no doubt, exists, but is never, that we can perceive, the object of contrivance. Teeth were contrived to eat, not to ache; their aching now and then is incidental to the contrivance, perhaps inseparable from it; or even if you will, let it be called a defect in the contrivance, but not the object of it. You would hardly say that the sickle was made to cut the reaper's fingers, though, from the construction of the instrument, and the manner of using it, this mischief often happens. We never discover a train of contrivance to bring about an evil purpose. Since, then, God has called forth his consummate wisdom to contrive and provide for our happiness, and the world appears to have been constituted with this design at

first; so long as this constitution is upholden by him, we must, in reason, suppose the same design to continue. We conclude, therefore, that God wills and wishes the happiness of his creatures. And this conclusion being once established, we are at liberty to go on with the rule built upon it, namely, " that the method of coming at the will of God, concerning any action, by the light of nature, is to inquire into the tendency of that action to promote or diminish the general happiness.”—Paley.

THINGS ANCIENT.-The love of things ancient doth argue staidness; but levity and the want of experience make men apt unto innovations.-Hooker.

Poetry.

REPLY TO STANZAS BY ALARIC A. WATTS,"THERE IS A THOUGHT," &c.

WHAT is that thought that lifts the soul
Above the woes that cling around it?
And bids the wheels of triumph roll

O'er each unhallow'd wish that bound it,
From hopes and communings sublime,
To perishable things of time?

The star that flung her lonely ray

Across its earthly path may perish; And one by one into decay

May sink the hopes it loved to cherish; But heaven's undying light hath shed "Eternal sunshine on its head."

The pilgrim-spirit owns that here

His path is strew'd with thorns of sorrow; And hails with joy a beam appear,

To guide him to a brighter morrow;
The same unfading beam from high,
That lit his sorrows to the sky.

Love warms his breast and lights his eye,
While thoughts of heaven within are springing,
And holy hopes, that cannot die,

Around his inmost soul are clinging;
His Saviour's love hath fill'd his breast,
To light his path to realms of rest.

This is the thought that lifts the soul
Above the miseries that bound it,
While joys unutterable roll

Their hues of mantling glory round it;
And sprinkle on the bursting tomb
The brightness of immortal bloom.

EVENING HYMN.

W. S. M.

'Tis sweet at evening's close to stray
Where scented wild-flowers skirt the way;
And from the mountain's summit tall,
To note the shadows as they fall.
'Tis sweet the full-orb'd moon to view,
Careering through yon vault of blue;
Or mark her pale and trembling beam
Reflected from the silver stream.

'Tis sweet to raise the kindling eye,
To watch the cloudlets as they fly;
And while on friendship's arm we lean
To muse in silence on the scene.

But sweeter far, O Lord! to meet
With Christians at thy mercy-seat;
And break that calm that round us reigns
With pure devotion's mellow'd strains.

For ah! though fair the robe of light
That wraps yon empress of the night;
And fair the flower, the mount, the rill;
Yet, Jesus! thou art fairer still.

Thou art the bright, the spotless Lamb,
The likeness of the great I AM!
And every beauteous form we see,
Derives its excellence from thee.

Then, ah! what language shall we find,
To paint thy love to lost mankind;
When God in human nature came,
Endured the cross, despised the shame?

souls of the sultans. Constantinople contains about twenty of these turbehs. The Turkish burial-grounds are always placed near the towns, and, being kept clean and adorned with verdure, are agreeable yet impressive objects: they are never imagined to be haunted - a circumstance more to be attributed to their attractive appearance than to any strength of mind peculiar to the followers of Mahomet. Indeed, one can see no reason why the resting-place of our departed friends should be in the most dirty and melancholy spots, or why their remains should be so often and so unnecessarily disturbed.-Laurent's Classical Tour.

CARDS.-If there is any thing which unites contempt and commiseration, it is the spectacle of a man going down to the grave with a pack of cards in his hand.-Gilpin.

GEN. xxi. 8. "And the child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.”—Ön the day that the child is to be weaned, they carry it to the mosque (in the manner

Strange that the love which wrought such things, perhaps that Hannah took Samuel to the house of the

To us no genial influence brings;

While o'er the tale of fancied woe
So oft our soft compassions flow!

Oh, let thy boundless grace constrain

Our souls to love thee, Lord, again!
Change, Jesus! change these hearts of stone,
And make us from this hour thine own.

Miscellaneous,

H. E.

TURKISH BURYING-GROUND AT SCIO.-Near the town, on the sea-shore, is seen a vast burial-ground, appropriated to the Turks: the cause of its being so extensive is, that their religion forbids the burial of more than one person on the same spot of ground. The graves are indicated by stones, inscribed with gilt Arabic characters; they are shaded with cypress, aloes, and the other trees by most nations regarded as expressive of grief. Viziers, and other great men, have a rubbe, that is, a tower and monument, beautifully built, placed over their graves. People of a middle station have two stones placed upright, one at the head, the other at the feet: one of these stones has the name of the deceased, elegantly written; to which is added, sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse, a prayer, at the direction of the heir, such asMay God shew eternal mercy to him! If a man is buried, upon the top of the stone is a Turkish turban; if a woman, another sort of ornament is placed there. The stone at the feet is the same in both. The sepulchral chapels, erected in memory of some saints of Islamism and of the sultans, are called turbeh. These buildings are generally placed in the gardens of the mosques founded by these princes: they are very richly adorned. The grave, which is in the middle of the chapel, is covered with a wooden chest, wrapped in red velvet, enriched with gold and precious stones, and having different verses of the Koran embroidered on it: towards the side, where reclines the head of the defunct monarch, is sen a piece of the veil which covered the shrine of Mecca (for no Moslem must be buried without a piece of that sacred cloth), over which is a muslin turban. Silver rails, incrusted with mother-of-pearl, surround the grave, at the extremities of which are two lofty chandeliers with tapers. The interior of these chapels is magnificently adorned with marble, porcelain, and golden inscriptions. Lamps, ever lighted, hang from the roof, and the turbedhars, or keepers of the tomb, are constantly reading chapters of the Koran, for the repose of the

Lord when she had weaned him, 1 Sam. i. 29); and, after having performed certain acts of devotion, they return home; and, collecting their friends and relations, they give a feast, of which they make the child also partake. The coincidence with Scripture is here remarkable. "And the child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned."-Morier's Second Journey through Persia, &c.

HOWARD AT THE BASTILE.-Even to the gloomiest of those dungeons did he wish to penetrate; and, in the hope of being able to draw from these abodes of hopeless misery some information for the completion of his great design, he would not have hesitated to trust himself in the power of the keepers of a prison like this, in the strongest of these cages, surrounded by an insurmountable wall and an impassable ditch, which prevented the possibility of escape. With this view-and I am here adopting the unassuming account which he himself has given of so bold and so dangerous an enterprise-" he knocked hard at the outer gate, and immediately went forward, through the guard, to the draw-bridge before the entrance of the castle; but while he was contemplating this gloomy mansion, an officer came out of the castle, much surprised, and he was forced to retreat through the mute guard, and thus regained that freedom which, for one locked up within those walls, it would be next to impossible to obtain." "In the space of four centuries, from the foundation to the destruction of the Bastile, perhaps," observes one of his biographers upon this singular, but characteristic adventure," Mr. Howard was the only person that was ever compelled to quit it reluctantly." It was, however, in all probability most fortunate for himself, and for the cause of humanity, which he had so nobly espoused at all personal risks, and through all personal privations, that he quitted it, as he did; for, had he advanced but a few steps further, his laudable curiosity might have cost him dear.

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THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.

[Continued from No. II.]

Ir has been shewn, we trust, beyond a doubt, that the Sabbath was instituted in Paradise; that it was an ordinance commemorative of creation, and, therefore, that its authority is as enduring as creation itself. And, here, if our reasons be admitted, the argument might close, for it is conclusive. But, in the succeeding dispensation, the Mosaic, the observance of the Sabbath becomes a matter of express commandment, under an economy, which, for the most part, was of a temporary nature: it has been objected, therefore, that the law of the Sabbath fell to the ground, when the economy that contained it disappeared. But we have already proved, in effect, that this objection has in it no strength; for we have, in the book of Genesis, a simple statement that God sanctified the seventh day because of his finished work of creation; that the patriarchs obeyed the command to sanctify it; and that when the people came out of Egypt, Moses recalled them to the ordinance of the Sabbath, as a thing suspended only, but not forgotten. All this amounts to a powerful evidence of the lasting obligation of the Sabbath it creates, at all events, a strong presumption, that as its origin is dated from the beginning of time, so its force remains to the end of time; a presumption which will not be disappointed by subsequent inquiry, and which receives no check from the transient character of the Mosaic institution. For in what part of that institution is it that we find the law of the Sabbath? In the Decalogue; in that code of laws which has a character perfectly peculiar, and stands within an

VOL. I.-NO. XV.

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enclosure, separating it from the other part of the system in which it is found. The Ten Commandments make, indeed, a part of that system, which is, in general terms, called the "ceremonial law;" but they are not a ceremonial part of that law. Here is the detection of the fallacy on this question. The Decalogue is the moral law of God, between which and all ceremonial institutes there is the very widest interval. The ceremonial law was only for a time, and for special ends : it had no meaning, nor even being, before it was appointed; its use was, to prefigure and point at some future greater thing, of which it was only, as it were, the anticipative shadow; and it was entirely annulled when that greater object appeared. But the Ten Commandments rest upon eternal and unchangeable principles-principles which spring from the essential character of God himself; which had their beginning with his own uncommencing being, and so are wholly independent of any circumstances of time or place. The fact that they were promulgated at a particular moment in the world's history, takes not away from their eternal independent nature; for there is nothing in the Decalogue which was not first in the conscience of unfallen man. The finger of God, which wrote the Ten Commandments upon the two tables of stone, had long before written their substance upon the "fleshy table of the heart" of our first father. Some of these commandments, it is true, are enforced by motives drawn from the circumstances of the Jewish historysuch are the first, second, and fifth, as well as the fourth, with which we are particularly now concerned; but this does not affect the foundation on which the commandments rest:

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