and untiring in his endeavours? or, been too easily discouraged? have you have you folded your hands in ease, and left to be performed by others what you ought to have accomplished yourselves? These new year's reflections may be extended and generalised by Christians of every rank and standing in the church. Ministers, deacons, private Christians, may find something in them to reprove and to stimulate. Let the present year be entered upon by all in a new spirit. Let past failures and negligences awaken deep repentance; and lead to the adoption of a more holy and devoted course. Let the Spirit of all grace be sought by fervent and reiterated prayer. Thus may all who name the name of Jesus hope to be more useful and happy in the future than they have been in the past. Chelsea. J. M. NOTES OF THE LAST ILLNESS OF MRS. HEMANS. "For she was born beyond the stars to soar, Ir is peculiarly delightful to the intelligent and devout mind to learn, in any instance, that an individual possessed of superior acquirements, and pre-eminent talent, is under the influence of the grace of the gospel, and that that individual enters eternity, reposing unlimited confidence in the love and atonement of the Redeemer; and when this person is one who exerts a commanding power over his age, as a writer, whether in prose or poetry, it is most refreshing to ascertain that the divinity of the Christian religion is recognised; that the claims of that religion are felt; that the preciousness of that religion is experienced; and that, in the dying hour, the supports of that religion are enjoyed. Few writers of the age, it is obvious, have imparted so much pleasure to persons of cultivated minds, poetic taste and sensibility, in every district of the land, as the late Mrs. Hemans; and in the productions of few female authors do we find more beautiful specimens of Of light, and fadeless joys above." A few concise notes to exemplify the correctness of these observations, may prove interesting and beneficial to every enlightened believer in Jesus who peruses these pages, and may augment the gratification of those who often read her exquisite poems—“ A Domestic Scene;" "the Graves of a Shortly after her arrival in Ireland, where Mrs. Hemans died, she was extremely unwell. When among the mountain scenery of the fine county of Wicklow, during a storm, she was struck by one beautiful effect on the hills it was produced by a rainbow diving down into a gloomy mountainpass, which it seemed really to flood with its coloured glory. "I could not help thinking," she remarked, "that it was like our religion piercing and carrying brightness into the depth of sorrow, and of the tomb." All the rest of the scene around that one illuminated spot was wrapt in the profoundest darkness. During her last illness, Mrs. Hemans delighted in the study of sacred literature, and particularly in the writings of some of our old and choice divines. This became her predominant taste, and it is mentioned respecting her, that the diligent and earnest perusal of the Holy Scriptures was a well-spring of daily and increasing comfort. She now contemplated her afflictions in the right manner, and through the only true and reconciling medium, "and that relief from sorrow and suffering, for which she had been apt to turn to the fictitious world of imagination, was now afforded her by calm and constant meditation on what alone can be called the things that are." " When the cholera was raging in Dublin, she wrote to a dear relative,"To me there is something extremely solemn, something which at once awes and calms the spirit, instead of agitating it, in the presence of this viewless danger, between which and ourselves we cannot but feel that the only barrier is the mercy of God. I never felt so penetrated by the sense of an entire dependence upon Him, and though I adopt some necessary precautions on account of Charles, (her son), my mind is in a state of entire serenity." While the work of decay was going on surely and progressively, with regard to the earthly tabernacle, the bright flame within continued to burn with a steady and holy light, and, at times, even to flash forth with more than wonted brightness. On one occasion she finely expressed herself, when there was a favourable change in her condition,— "Better far than these indications of recovery is the sweet religious peace which I feel gradually overshadowing me, with its dove-pinions, excluding all that would exclude thoughts of God." This gifted lady wrote, with peculiar beauty, on another occasion, "I wish I could convey to you the deep feelings of repose and thankfulness with which I lay, on Friday evening, gazing from my sofa upon a sunset-sky of the richest suffusions, silvery green and amber kindling into the most glorious tints of the burning rose. I felt its holy beauty sinking through my inmost being, with an influence drawing me nearer and nearer to God." Her confidential attendant, a most interesting young female, devotedly attached to her mistress, expressed herself respecting her in the following delightful and impressive manner, "It may well be said this was not her rest. She ever seemed to me as a wanderer from her heavenly Father's mansion, who knew too much of that home to seek a resting place here. She often said to me, I feel like a tired child, wearied and longing to mingle with the pure in heart.' At other times she would say, 'I feel as if I were sitting with Mary at the feet of my Redeemer, hearing the music of his voice, and learning of him to be meek and lowly,' and then she would say, Oh, Anna, do not you love your kind Saviour? The plan of redemption was indeed, a glorious one; humility was, indeed, the crowning work. I am like a quiet babe at his feet, and yet my spirit is full of his strength. When any body speaks of his love to me, I feel as if they were too slow; my spirit can mount alone with Him into those blissful realms with far more rapidity." The sufferings of Mrs. Hemans, prior to death, were most severe and agonis ing, but all were borne in the most uncomplaining manner. Never was her mind overshadowed by gloom : never would she allow those around her to speak of her condition as one deserving of commiseration. Her sister finely remarks, "The dark and silent chamber seemed illumined by light from above, and cheered with songs of angels, and she would say, that, in her intervals from pain, no poetry could express, nor imagination conceive, the visions of blessedness that flitted across her fancy, and made her waking hours more delightful than those even that were given to temporary repose. At times her spirit would appear to be already half etherealised. Her mind would seem to be fraught with deep, and holy, and incommunicable thoughts, and she would entreat to be left perfectly alone, in stillness and darkness, to commune with her own heart, and reflect on the mercies of her Saviour. She continually spoke of the unutterable comfort which she derived from dwelling on the contemplation of the atonement, and stated that this alone was her rod and staff, when all earthly supports were failing. In the heaviest affliction, she desired the assurance to be given to one of her friends, that the tenderness and affectionateness of the Redeemer's character, which they had often contemplated together, was a source, not merely of reliance, but of positive happiness, to her : "The sweetness of her couch." The powers of memory, for which Mrs. Hemans had always been so remarkable, shone forth with increased brightness while her outward frame was so visibly decaying. She would lie for hours without speaking or moving, repeating to herself whole chapters of the Bible, and page after page of Milton and Wordsworth. The conviction of the inestimable value of affliction, as the discipline of Heaven, was ever present to her mind, mingled with the deepest humility, the most entire resignation, an equal readi ness to live or die, a saying with the whole heart, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy word." "I feel," she would say, 66 as if hovering between heaven and earth," and she seemed so raised towards the sky, that all worldly things were obscured and diminished to her view, while the ineffable glories of eternity dawned upon it more and more brightly. In her physician, Dr. Croker, Mrs. Hemans was wont to say, she had at once a physician and a pastor. He frequently read to her from a little book which she dearly loved, and which he had first made known to her, a selection from the works of Archbishop Leighton. The last time of her listening to it, she repeatedly exclaimed, "Beautiful! beautiful!" and, with her eyes upraised, she appeared occupied in communing with herself, and mentally praying. When her spirit was nearly gone, she said to her darling Charles, and her faithful sister Anna, that she felt all at peace within her bosom. Her calmness continued unbroken till, at nine o'clock, on the evening of Saturday, May 16, 1835, her spirit passed away, without pain, or the endurance of a struggle, and the pleasing hope is cherished, was translated, through the mediation of her blessed Redeemer, to that uninterrupted "rest which remaineth for the people of God." The remains of this gifted lady were deposited in a vault beneath St. Anne's church, in Dublin, almost close to the house where she died. A small tablet was placed above the spot where she lies, inscribed with her name, her age, and the date of her death, and with the following lines, from a dirge of her own : "Calm on the bosom of thy God, Fair spirit, rest thee now: E'en while with us thy footsteps trode, His seal was on thy brow. Dust, to its narrow house beneath : Soul, to its place on high: They that have seen thy look in death, No more may fear to die." 11 ON "THE LIVELY ORACLES." A HOMILY FOR THE TIMES. Acts viii. 37. An oracle denotes something delivered, in the form of a revelation, by divine wisdom. The oracles of the heathen world were but a grand imposture, borrowed, in mimic show, by their priests, from the supernatural appendages of the patriarchal and Jewish worship. Wherever the light of heavenly truth has penetrated these false oracles have been silenced, and the deluded worshippers of dumb idols have been brought to listen to "the lively oracles" of God. The word "oracle" is first employed in Scripture, to denote the most holy place, from whence the God of Israel revealed his will to his ancient church; for it is recorded of Solomon, 1 Kings vi., that "against the wall of the house he made chambers round about, both of the temple and of the oracle ;" and again, in the same chapter, "the oracle he prepared in the house within, to set the ark of the covenant of the Lord; and the whole altar that was by the oracle he overlaid with gold; and within the oracle he made two cherubims of olive tree, each ten cubits high." Hence, too, the Levitical priesthood are said in 1 Kings viii. 6, to have 66 brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place, into the oracle of the house, to the most holy place, under the wings of the cherubims." Hence, also, it is written, 2 Chron. iv. 20, that "the candlesticks with their lamps, were to burn before the oracle, of pure gold." Thus it was, that the sacred spot, whence God communicated his will to his church of old was styled the oracle, because there he gave forth the intimations of his holiness, justice, and truth; and because there he communed with his people from off the mercy-seat, and from between the cherubims of glory. It may be observed, however, that though, in the first instance, the sacred writers restrict the application of the word "oracle" to the hallowed residence of the ark, the mercy-seat, and the shechinah, they proceed, in a further stage of divine revelation, to apply it to all the several communications of God's will to the children of men, in whatever way imparted, whether by the mouth of prophets, or by the office of the Jewish high-priest, or by any other method in which the Most High revealed himself to his blind and erring creatures. Thus, when the word is used in the plural number,—and it is generally so used, it denotes the revelations contained in those sacred writings, of which the nation of Israel were made the depositaries. Hence, in the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, Moses is described by Stephen as having received "the lively oracles" from God, that he might impart them to the Israelites. Hence, when Paul enumerates the advantages of the Jews, he declares, that "unto them were committed the oracles of God," Rom. iii. 2. It was thus that the phrase came to be applied to all inspired writings in general; as when the apostle to the Hebrews charges them with ignorance of the grand outline of the written word; he says, "When ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God." We are justified then, in regarding the terms "oracle" and "oracles," as expressly denoting a revelation of the will of God, and as absolutely restricted to such revelation. They describe the whole of that sacred volume, in which we have truth without any mixture of error, and of which alone it can be affirmed, that it is "able to make us wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus." It may be profitable, in these critical times, to invite attention to the Scriptures, considered as the oracles of God, I. LET US INVITE ATTENTION TO THE SCRIPTURES CONSIDERED AS THE ORACLES of God. 1. They are divine oracles. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." In the several parts of this divine book, "holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Of the two grand departments of revelation, the Old and New Testaments, it is thus written, " God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son," Heb. i. 1. The best description, then, of the Bible is, that, from first to last, it is God addressing himself to the children of men. The human agents that, in certain cases, intervened, do not break in, in the slightest degree, upon this grand and solemn view of revealed truth; for what Paul said of his instructions to the Corinthians, may be said with equal truth of every other part of Scripture,"Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual," I Cor. ii. 13. The Bible, reader, is the only divine oracle, which God has given us to consult. All other books are human and erring productions; but this is the word of the living God,—the express revelation which he has given of himself and of his great salvation. All other pro fessed oracles are but the inventions of men; to listen to them is to forsake our only sure guide, and to yield that homage to man which is due only to God. Much is said and written, in our day, on the subjects of tradition and church authority; but to those who contend most vehemently for these bewildering tenets, may we not say, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God;" " ye make void the law of God by your traditions ;" 'ye be blind leaders of the blind." Tradition! what had been the value of the written word, if tradition had been added to it as a rule of faith? Church authority! what is it? what can it be, in reference to the divine oracles, open to all, with a command to all to "search" into their sacred contents, if it be not to perform that office, which Paul gives to the church in his first Epistle to Timothy, iii. 15, "The church," says he, "of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." "The truth," here spoken of, is the divine oracles, and the office assigned to the church is not that of authoritative interpretation, but that simply of exhibiting as on a conspicuous column, displaying as on a visible platform, the truth of God to a benighted world, that thus it may be enlightened and saved. As God by his holy oracle has spoken to the children of men, it will be at their peril if they listen to any other voice but his; and whenever the church puts herself in the place of God, we must say to her, as God did to the professed teachers of his people in days of old, "To the law, and to the testimony; if they speak not according to these, it is because there is no light in them." 2. They are sure oracles. The credentials of the Bible, as a divine revelation, are so indubitable, that the more they are examined, the more firm and fixed will be our conviction of their truth. He who binds this precious volume to his heart hath not believed a cunningly devised fable; but may well" give a reason of the hope that is in him, with meekness and fear." He can speak of its adaptation to the present lapsed and miserable condition of human nature; he can tell of the light, and peace, and holy influence it has shed upon his once bewildered, unhappy, and polluted mind; he can point to its triumphs in himself and others ; he can show its consistency with itself, and its perfect harmony with the moral character of God; he can exhibit its long series of fulfilled prophecies; he can prove the historical truth of the miracles which were wrought in confirmation of its life-giving doctrines; he can tell the bitterest enemy of re |