nied, no doubt, with sharp misgivings, and immediately followed with confusion and alarm. At the sight of a virtuous friend, you reddened with shame; the growing apprehension of discovery oppressed your life; and fatally, alas! you quitted the shelter which a parent's or some benefactor's wing would have still afforded. The partner of your crime cared not that he had broken up the peace of a family; he soon became weary of his victim, and then thrust her forth upon the unpitying world.

Ah! did you not despond too soon, and desponding, did you not form the desperate resolution to make an end of life, or to sin yet more? Had you even then sought a gracious God, he would have soothed the wanderer, and opened a door of hope for you.

But, alas! you proceeded to fill up the measure of iniquity. You sought an intimacy with those whose habits of impurity were confirmed. You entered on the ignominious trade of prostitution. What were your gains? Let your sad experience tell ! Shame, confusion of face, disease, a prison, hospital, or penitentiary ! And what have been the gains of your sisters in prostitution? Three in one house of ill fame in New York, within a short time, committed suicide: one drowned herself by jumping off the dock, the other two poisoned themselves; a fourth killed herself by stabbing with a fork to the heart. Suicide is as common among prostitutes as murder among Algerines. There are hundreds who have attempted to destroy themselves, by opium and laudanum, but by medical aid have been restored. Others have jumped into the river but have been rescued. Hundreds die annually in the hospitals at Bellevue, and thousands disappear from the beds of the adulterers and adulteresses, and none to relate their sad death. They left the virtuous walks of life, and soon disappeared.

The keepers of the houses keep silence; their present victims feel all the pangs of them that have gone before, and soon follow them to a dreadful judgment. It is supposed by those that have fully investigated this matter, that few see many years, after giving themselves up to public prostitution.

Now answer candidly these questions, what will you do? will you go to the grave with all your sins upon your head, and with suicide too on the top of all the other black catalogue? Be persuaded. Before you again go to your chamber to ask what gain or pleasure has all my wickedness brought me? and will not my end be as awful and as sudden as that of those who have walked with me in lewdness, but now sleep in death?

"What then," you ask, "shall we do? Is it possible in some measure to retrieve our character? Remains there a hope? Are we not banished from virtuous company? Do not the modest shun and abhor us, as all human beings fly from the plague " For the sincere and broken hearted there are assuredly grounds of encouragement. But think not that sorrow and tears are an effectual reform: you must cease to do evil, and learn to do well. There is a place provided by the bounty of a few Christians, at No. 16 Centre street. Many have therein recovered health, profited under religious instruction, and been restored to friends or put into a capacity of earning an honest and decent livelihood.

Perhaps even now a mournful voice is asking-"where is my sister?" or " where iny child? Some heart longs to melt over you; some lips are prepared to say,, "she was lost and is found; she was dead, and is alive again; it is meet that we rejoice." Above all, there is a God, who, though you have not considered it, has witnessed all your conduct, and all your misery. "Choose the profound of midnight, and the deepest cavern, his eye perceives you as clearly as in the public street in the midst of day." Such, we are informed, was the language of one whom an unfortunate vainly solicited to attend her home. The unexpected remark fixed like an arrow in her conscience; she represented to herself the guilty scenes on which the all seeing God must have frowned: she sued for mercy; forsook her shameful occupation; and from that time, devoted her life to industry, purity, and all the pursuits of a genuine Christian may you go and do likewise.

The door is not yet shut against you. Should father and mother refuse you a sight of them, should the world extinguish all the hopes you placed on its candor, there is one greater than all, who will not only receive you, but do abundantly more than you can venture to ask. The Lord God is merciful and

ready to forgive. You have heard that Jesus, his beloved Son, came into this depraved world with the design to save sinners. The seventh chapter of Luke records an affecting instance of salvation: to you it applies with unspeakable interest, for it describes the mercy of which one criminal like you became a partaker. And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner," that is, one addicted to lewdness, "when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and annointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him, for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering, said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor which had two debtors; the one owed five hundred pence, andthe other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both: tell me therefore which will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most: and he said unto him, thou hast rightly judged. And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet; but she hath washed my feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss; but this woman since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not annoint; but this woman hath annointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him, began to say within themselves, who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he saith to the woman, thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." The same Jesus, though we see him not, retains all his authority and grace. Go to him in prayer, and entreat him to pity, to save, and to direct you. We know from his character, from his promises, from the whole scope of his gospel, what his answer will be. He will say, "Thy sins are forgiven;"" go in peace."

Are you young, and but lately led astray? Draw back your foot this instant. Rush from the destructive path. It were ten thousand pities to thicken the clould that has begun to hide from you the light of Heaven; and to employ the energies of youth in preparing arrrows which shall pierce and poison the last hope of drooping age.

Despise not this perhaps the last token of God's compassion which, if despised, will ever reach you. Read this address, and consider it, and pray over it; and who knows whether we shall not hereafter meet a crowd of penitents, ransomed from this miserable class, and invited to dwell among the faultless and the happy before the throne! We will cherish the idea, while a single gleam discovers the prospect to be still open.

Return, O daughter of reproach. Let one hour after such an age of dissipation be devoted to thought; Show kindness to yourself Why should you add bitterness to the bitter? Why refuse an application to the God of grace? The excellent of the earth say, Come; the Divine Spirit saith, Come. Come to the fountain of grace and purity. Come to the footstool of that throne from which smiles were shed down upon the publican. Come to the tender hearted Christian, who will pity, direct, and encourage you. Come to the cheering ordinances of religion. "Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye sepa→ rate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."

Blessed language! Can any thing, but a heart of stone, be insensible to its persuasive import? A prayer rises from each devout reader, that you, whom it principally concerns, may feel all it is calculated to impress. Oh, that you may also pray, and that your sorrow, your amendment, your entire conversion to God, may form the solid demonstration that prayer has obtained an answer. The stranger who puts this into your hand is anxious to promote an event so glorious. In return for his good intention, comply with one request-Having read this tract, lend it to whom you think will read it too; and resolve, at least for yourself, that you will remember and esteem and fall in with its recommendations.

THE MAGDALEN.

The words and music by the late Rev. Philip Hawker, of Plymouth, Eng.

The child of sin and wo, Ah! whither shall I flee?

REV. ABSALOM PETERS,

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY,

ENTITLED

"A PLEA FOR UNION IN THE WEST," Published in the Cincinnati Journal, in the course of the months of December and January last.

ALSO,

MR. PETERS' REPLY

TO THE

Rev. Dr. J. L. WILSON'S

FOUR PROPOSITIONS

SUSTAINED AGAINST THE CLAIMS

OF THE

AMERICAN HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

WITH AN

APPENDIX.

New-York :

PRINTED BY CLAYTON & VAN NORDEN,

No. 42 William-street.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The "Official Reply," the full title of which is retained in the title of this Answer, is a pamphlet of 32 pages, recently published in Philadelphia, and extensively circulated. Had my "Letters" been fairly represented in this pamphlet, and the occasion of them fully stated, the necessity of a large portion of the present publication might have been prevented. But the writer having so far failed in what is due to his opponents in this discussion, as to omit the publication of the letter from the Cincinnati Presbytery, while he gives prominence to his own answer to that letter, by inserting it as the first Article in his "Appendix," I have thought it proper, and even necessary, to accompany my remarks on the " Official Reply," with the previous correspondence in its order. This, for the convenience of the reader, I have thrown into an Appendix, containing

I. A letter from a Committee of the Presbytery of Cincinnati, to the Rev. Joshua T. Russell, Cor. Sec. of the Assembly's Board of Missions, respectfully urging the appointment of a United Agency to conduct the business both of that Board and of the American Home Missionary Society, as far as might be desired in the western states. II. An official letter of the Secretary of the Board of Missions, in reply to the foregoing, and disapproving of a United Agency for the purpose proposed.

III. Six Letters, entitled, a "Plea for Union in the West," in reply to the above letter of the Secretary of the Board.

This arrangement is intended to exhibit a fair view of the whole subject, that the intelligent friend of missions may be enabled to judge whether there is not something which himself may do, both by his counsel and his prayers, to promote that union in the work of Home Missions, which, it would seem all must desire, and which it is the object of this publication to promote.

New York, April 25, 1831.

ABSALOM PETERS.