never would confess to her that he was in pain, but always maintained that he was " quite willing to go to heaven." By degrees, nature, exhausted by suffering and agony, began to grow feebler and feebler, and the spasms were proportionably less violent; but his ideas wandered, and after two hours' unquiet slumber, his soul, without any apparent pain or struggle, left its earthly prison, and flew to join the ransomed thousands of those innocents whom Jesus loved, and to chant with them the new song" of the redeemed of the Lamb. It was about ten o'clock at night when he ceased to breathe; and, to my astonishment, no mark of the agonies he had endured was visible on his lovely and placid countenance, it was beautiful even in death. The corpse, having been washed, and dressed in a long white robe, was laid out on the bed on which he usually slept; and the attachment of the poor Hindoos covered it, on the following morning, with sweet fresh flowers. Scarcely a word was spoken which had not some reference to the virtues of this pious and amiable child. His little sister told us a thing, of which his father even was as ignorant as we were, of no common nature. For a long time past, every Sunday, on returning from church, he was accustomed to seek out a retired corner of the house, where no eye could see him, but that of his heavenly Father, and there pour out his soul in prayer. We learned from his father, that, whenever he had any pocket-money, he used to visit the huts of the poorer natives, and relieve their wants, as far as his means would extend.

Such was John S. at the age of six years and a half, for he was no more when he died! His funeral was attended by the general, and most of the officers of the garrison, who knew and loved him, young as he was; but that which stamped on the melancholy procession a more peculiar interest, was the number of poor natives who accompanied it with tears, and who, at the moment of committing the corpse to its last earthly home, pressed forward to throw each his little handful of earth on the coffin which held all that now remained of him who once enjoyed amongst them the blessed title of "The poor man's friend."

A small monument has since been erected to his memory, on which are simply recorded his name, age, and death, together with the words of Jesus when he took up a little child in his arms, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

How deeply interesting is the above narrative, and how strongly illustrative of the work of Divine grace in the soul of a child! Such instances afford encouragement to the very earliest possible endeavour to instil into the infant mind the life-giving principles of the Gospel. How wretchedly erroneous are those views that would exclude religious instruction from the young, and suffer the mind to remain uninfluenced, as it is termed, by all dogmatical views of religion! May God avert from our land the destruction of right principle and holy feeling which must result from any universal system of education which is to blot out from the catalogue of books for instruction, the record of his revealed will; and which, while it may improve the intellect and cultivate the understanding, would leave the soul in ignorance as to the only means whereby its pollution may be cleansed, and its guilt wiped away!

The Cabinet.

PRAYERS AND TEARS.-The more we pray, the more the heart is in heaven; so that prayer itself is a blessed benefit. Time will come that all our prayers and tears shall meet us. God puts our tears in his bottle; God reserves our prayers, not one of them is lost; and we shall in time receive the fruit of them.-Lightfoot.

SELF-CONFIDENCE.-There is in every one such a strong desire to have something to boast of, that we are for ever liable to fall away from a simple dependence upon Christ; so that we cannot too often be reminded that our all of hope depends upon him. If we are looking to ourselves at all, and thinking that any thing we have done has any share whatever in making us acceptable with God, we have let go that faith in Jesus which is the only thing that can ward off the wrath of God. If we depend at all upon ourselves, we depend altogether, for there is an end of faith; and we must stand by the judgment which God will pass upon our works, and take the consequences.

GOD INDEPENDENT OF MAN.-If we are wicked, we hurt not God, but ourselves; if we are righteous, the benefit is to us, not to him.-Bishop Bull.

THE FALLEN AND REDEEMED STATE OF MAN.When man was first created in the image of God, and subjected to probationary discipline in paradise, his trial was, whether he would continue in his original integrity and happiness, or, by disobeying the Divine commands, fall into a state of guilt and misery. Adam fell, and in his unhappy fall involved the whole multitude of his descendants, who are all born in sin, and have become children of wrath, and inheritors of corruption. But our all-wise and all-merciful Creator had permitted this catastrophe, only in anticipation of a remedy that should suffice to compensate, nay, immeasurably overbalance, the evil. A Saviour for our ruined world is found: in the blood of the everlasting covenant, and in the gift of the Holy Ghost, means are provided for our deliverance both from guilt and from corruption: and henceforward our trial is, not whether we will stand, but now that we are fallen, whether we will avail ourselves of the means thus graciously vouchsafed for our restoration, and submit to be redeemed and sanctified; or whether we will reject the Saviour, resist and grieve the, Holy Ghost, and receive the grace of God in vain. On the necessity, therefore, of being both redeemed by the blood of Christ and sanctified by his Spirit, I have on all occasions zealously and copiously enlarged. I have shewn you that, as guilty creatures, we have no means in ourselves of escape from the wrath to come; that we cannot, even by repentance, atone for past transgression, nor, by any sacrifice which we are capable of offering, absolve the justice of God. I have shewn you, that no man could redcem his brother, or make agreement to God for him; that neither angel nor archangel was adequate to the mighty task of expiating the enormous aggregate of human guilt-that the victim must be Divine; and that even this Divine victim, to complete his glorious undertaking, must become incarnate, that as man he might be capable of suffering, and as God might give a value to his sufferings. I have pressed upon you, at the same time, that, as corrupt beings, we are by nature utterly unfit, even were our guilt atoned for, to be admitted into the presence of a holy God: that we are quite unsuited in respect of habits, taste, and character, for the pure society and the spiritual employments of the heavenly regions; that in this our state of sinful vileness we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; that our help must come from God; that our only resource is to be found in the regenerating and renewing influences of the Spirit of holiness, first putting into our minds good desires, and then enabling us to fulfil them. On the one hand, therefore, I have taught you that without faith it is impossible to please God: on the other, that without holiness no man shall see the Lord.-Rev. W. Sinclair's Sermon at Whitchurch.

THE WISE.-There are but two classes of the wise: the men who serve God, because they have found

St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans explained by G. B. 12mo. Nisbet.

1

him; and the men who seek him, because they have found him not. All others may say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?"-Rev. K. Cecil.

THE JEWS AN EXAMPLE TO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. -What is the line of conduct which the proceedings of Jehovah with the Jews hold forth to Christians as the guardians of religious truth? Our weapons are not carnal, but spiritual. Those weapons, however, we are bound to use with unremitting energy. With them we are as much commanded to pull down the strongholds of evil that exalt themselves against the Redeemer; with them we are as much called upon to overthrow every communion and heresy which prevents and obscures the brightness of the Gospel,-as were the Jews to destroy the Canaanites and their gods. We must keep the covenant which was sealed by Christ's blood with unwearied fidelity; we must watch over it to observe its ordinances, to defend its purity, to promote its honour. We must throw down by reasoning the altars of every false religion that opposes its strange fire to the holy sacrifice of the cross. We must break in pieces the idols of selfishness and philosophy that men set up in their understandings and their hearts, and teach them to make the form of sound words in the New Testament the only form of doctrine to which they bow, the image of the Redeemer's righteousness the only image which they adore. We must neither spare men's heresies, nor have mercy upon their impieties. We must never be unequally yoked with the unbeliever, nor, for the sake of transitory peace, or some worldly interest, make a league with the misbeliever, or the denier of the Saviour's deity, and the Spirit's sanctifying work. With the word of God, as with a sword, we must cut through the cavilling distinctions of philosophy falsely so called, and permit no unauthorised mode of worship to exist unrebuked before our eyes. We must root out by conversion every adversary of the Lord; and labour, by the transforming of their minds, to bring them out of darkness into light, and from the synagogue of Satan into the assembly of the saints. Like the Jews, we must be very zealous for the Lord God of Hosts; for, like them, we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that we should shew forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into his marvellous light. The difference lies not so much in the work in which we are engaged, as in the means by which it is to be accomplished. To them was given the awful charge of cutting off God's enemies from the earth by the arm of the flesh: to us there is only committed the gentler office of cutting them off by persuasion and argument from the regions of error and the life of sin. If in this acceptable employment we do in any wise draw back from the sacred obligation that rests upon a Christian people,the obligation of promoting to the utmost what they believe to be the Christian truth, there is no more for us than there was for the Israelites a hope that We shall escape the sorrows and sufferings that flow naturally from our negligence in spiritual things. If, content to enjoy the truth for ourselves, we permit others to live and to die in their errors undisturbed, We cannot but expect that God, in his wrath against cur selish lukewarmness for his honour, will allow the existence of the error to be prolonged, and to become a snare by its wiles, and a scourge through is increase, both to the peace and principles of us anal our posterity. It is but a righteous act of vengeance upon a careless Church.-Rev. C. Benson.

WANT OF CONSIDERATION.-The great evil with the mass of men is, that, so far at least as eternity is concerned, they never think at all: once make them think, and you may make them anxious; once make tem anxious, and they will labour to be saved. When a man considers his ways, angels may be said

to prepare their harps, as knowing that they shall soon have to sweep them in exultation at his repentance.Rev. H. Melvill

DANGER OF DELAY.-Remember, though God promises forgiveness to repentant sinners, he does not promise they shall have to-morrow to repent in. Make much of time, especially in the mighty matter of salvation.-Thomas Aquinas.

Poetry.

TRUE WISDOM.

(For the Church of England Magazine.)

How anxious is the mind

On earthly things intent; The pleasures, honours, gains to find, On which its thoughts are bent!

How much will it endure

Of watchful toil and care, Some worthless bauble to secure, Or some more fatal snare!

And shall my mind, O Lord,

Be careless to pursue

The things which thine unerring word For life hath brought to view?

Shall I be slow to hear

The offers of His love,
Who was content our sins to bear,
That we might dwell above?

Shall I refuse to stand

And knock at wisdom's door,
Till I have learned, at her command,
To grieve my God no more?
Thy grace, O Lord, bestow;

That all my care may be
Thy will in Christ thy Son to know,
And so to live with thee,

HYMN.

X. Y. N.

Written for the Music of the Russian Evening Hymn.
(For the Church of England Magazine.)
FATHER and Lord, who reign'st in heaven,
To thee all glory, praise be given;
Once more before thy throne we bend
In prayer to thee, our day to end.
O may the heartfelt song we raise
Join with thine angels' hymn of praise!

For thy parental kindness shewn
In dangers pass'd unseen, unknown-
For shielding by thy guardian arm
Thy servants, Lord, this day from harm-
We humbly thank thee, and implore
Thy mercy still as heretofore.

Though error lead our steps astray,
Or cloud with doubts thy Spirit's ray;
Though guilt's dark stream around us flow,
Still hear us, Lord, reject not thou:
Worthless in all, we only dare
Through Jesus' name to breathe this prayer.

BISHOP STEWART.-The society must advert to the grievous loss which has been sustained by all friends to the propagation of the Gospel from the death of the late Bishop of Quebec. The impaired state of health, consequent upon a life of unremitted labour, had induced his lordship to petition for the appointment of a coadjutor, and, upon the arrival of the Bishop of Montreal in Canada, to resign to him the episcopal charge of the entire diocese, and try the effect of a voyage to this country. He arrived in London early in the last winter, and was able to enter into communication with the society, and express his unabated devotion to the object which he had pursued during so many years. But the attacks from which he had suffered while in Canada returned shortly after his arrival here with increased severity, and ended in causing his death. The character and services of this lamented prelate are too well known to require a lengthened description. Closely connected with several of the noblest families in England and Scotland, he renounced all the prospects opened to him by birth, and entered into the service of this society as a travelling missionary in America. Again and again Dr. Stewart traversed the forests of Canada, exposed to all the severity of the climate, visiting the scattered settlers, administering the sacraments and other rites of the Church; and, by his advice, and exhortations, and extensive charity, preparing for the building of churches, and the gathering of congregations, throughout the land. Over and above the funds with which he was furnished by the society, he made repeated collections of money among his personal friends in England, for the purpose of assisting in the erection of additional churches; and he may be regarded as, in a great measure, the founder of a large proportion of the buildings now dedicated to the service of Almighty God in the Canadas. Subsequently to his elevation to the see of Quebec, to which he succeeded upon the death of Bishop Mountain, in the year 1825, his more especial care was bestowed upon Upper Canada, whither the tide of emigration set in with the greatest force; and he has been affectionately greeted as the father of the Church in that thriving province. His altered position and circumstances, when holding a visitation as bishop in districts which he had previously traversed as a missionary, made no alteration in his simple habits and unaffected piety. His course was pursued to the end with evangelical perseverance and humility; and it is impossible to contemplate the effect of his ministrations among so large a number of voluntary exiles from their native land, without hearty thanks to God for raising up such a servant, and supporting him under so many trials, and pouring forth so rich a blessing upon his labours.-Report of Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, for 1837.

THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.-On the outside of the market-house at Devizes, in Wiltshire, is put up a large handsome stone, on which are these words:"The following authentic relation is to deter all persons from calling down the vengeance of God, or taking his holy name in vain. Thursday, Jan. 25, 1753, Ruth Pierce, of Pottern, agreed with three other women to buy a sack of wheat. One of the three collecting the money, and discovering some wanting, demanded it of Ruth Pierce, who said she had paid her share, and rashly wished she might drop down dead if she had not; which she instantly did, on repeating her wish, with some money concealed in her hand, to the amaze and terror of the crowded market." -Plain Englishman.

SEE OF NORWICH. Before the year 1096, when this see was founded, the bishops of the East Angles, as this part of England was then called, had their residence first at Dunwich in Suffolk, St. Felix being the first bishop, A.D. 630: he was a native of Burgundy, and had the honour of having converted the inhabitants to the Christian faith. Under Besus, the fifth bishop, the diocese was divided, the episcopal chair of this division placed at North Elmham; and this is the first notice of the partition of the principality into Norfolk and Suffolk, probably from their relative situation. About 870, the sees were again united, and have ever since so continued. In 1075, Herfast, then bishop, removed it to Thetford; at which place it remained only nineteen years, when Herbert-de-Losinga founded this cathedral, of which he became the first bishop. Richard Nix, 1501, was the last bishop of the Church of Rome. The thirty-two succeeding prelates were of the Protestant foundation, down to our late venerable and justly respected diocesan, Dr. Bathurst. The present bishop, Dr. Stanley, is therefore the thirtythird.-Norfolk Chronicle.

MAGNIFICENT SUN-SET IN THE VALLEY OF THE NILE.Poets and travellers speak with enthusiasm of the sun-sets of Italy, Switzerland, and Greece. I have seen the sun go down in each of those countries, but never with half the splendour which on this day accompanied his disappearance: and could I succeed in reflecting upon the reader's imagination half the grandeur of this gorgeous show, he would unquestionably concur with me in thinking that, but for its evanescent nature, it was far more worth a voyage to Egypt even than the pyramids. No sooner had the sun's disk disappeared behind the Libyan desert, than the whole western sky along the edge of the horizon assumed a colour which, for want of a better term, I shall call golden; but it was a mingling of orange, saffron, straw-colour, dashed with red. A little higher, these bold tints melted into a singular kind of green, like that of a spring-leaf prematurely faded; over this extended an arch of palish light, like that of an aurora borealis, conducting the eye to a flush of deep violet colour, which formed the ground-work of the sky on to the very skirts of darkness. Through all these semi-circles of different hues, superimposed upon each other, there ascended, as from a furnace, vast pyramidal irradiations of crimson light, most distinctly divided from each other, and terminating in a point; and the contrast between these blood-red flashes and the various strata of colours which they traversed was so extraordinary, that, I am persuaded, no combination of light and shade ever produced a more wonderful or glorious effect.-St. John's Egypt.

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I

worm, Thou art my sister and brother,though the hour has come when the body must become dust and ashes, and moulder away till not an atom shall remain in the course of a few years, to declare even the wreck of what once was human ;-it appears, say, like a mockery, to tell that dying man, that so certainly as he has borne an earthly body, so certainly shall he bear the spiritual body, which shall be of the same nature with that which Christ has borne, which shall be gifted with the same powers of ascending above the earth into heaven, which shall remain with him, and which shall be one with him, as a child of the same family is one with his father and with his brother. This, I say, appears to be impossible: but listen to the language of Scripture, listen and believe.

We shall be changed into the same image, says St. Paul. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also be like him. When Christ shall appear, we also shall be with him in glory. Whatever be the meaning of this phrase, it is equally used to express the same appearance of Christ himself, of Moses and Elias at the transfiguration, and of the bodies of the righteous dead who shall ascend at the judgment-day: they shall all be one in form, in appearance, for they shall all appear in glory. And the strongest expression yet remains. If we turn to the beginning of the second epistle of St. Peter, we shall there read, "through the knowledge of Him who hath called us to glory and to virtue, are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these (by these promises) you might be partakers of the divine nature:" that is, the Gospel of Christ is given to us, that if we receive it in the heart, we may become of a spiritual nature while we live, and partakers for ever of so much of the divine nature as the human nature will enable us to receive. We shall be one with Christ, even in his nature, as far as it is possible we can be capable of becoming united with him.

Biography.

JOHN MASON GOOD, M.D., F.R.S., &c. &c. &c.
[Concluded from No. XCVII.]

PREVIOUS to his removal to London, as has been
observed, Mr. Good had adopted Socinian views, and,
on his arrival there, had become a member of the
congregation meeting in Essex Street, Strand. The
range of Socinianism is very extensive, and of this
it may not improbably boast. It comprehends within
its pale men by no means agreed as to what is really
scriptural truth. Its standard is continually fluctuat-
ing. Some of its adherents differ but little from the
maintainers of Arian doctrines, while others are as
little removed from downright Deism.
It would ap-
pear that to the latter class Mr. Good certainly did

not belong. He disapproved of the flippancy with which mysteries were spoken of, and of many of the rash speculations of the day. He had a reverential regard for the word of God, probably imbibed in his early years. Its perusal afforded him a high intellectual treat. He delighted in the criticism of some of its obscurer passages. Some of his notes and commentaries at this period are unquestionably the production of a man of reading, though fearfully imbued with the taints of that neologian mode of interpretation, which has wrought such mischief in many Protestant communities abroad. His mind, however, seems to have been far from satisfied with the views he entertained. The chilliness of the system was little suited to his feelings; and, had time been permitted for serious examination, not only of the sacred volume, but of his own heart, he would doubtless at a far earlier period have been brought to a clearer discernment of the truth; but, engrossed in the arduous duties of his profession, and in subjects more or less remotely connected with it, he does not seem to have given to religious truths that calm and deliberate investigation which they require.

Mr. Good had been a member of Essex Street

Chapel for fourteen years, when a sermon preached by Mr. Belsham, the stated minister, appeared to convey to his mind notions of the most dangerous tendency. His feelings upon the subject will best be understood by an extract from a letter, which he immediately wrote to that gentleman, probably not without a severe mental struggle, and which testifies that he was alive to the dangers which must inevitably cism even under its most plausible and least offensive result from the slightest countenance given to sceptishapes: "It is with much regret I feel myself compeiled," he writes, " to discontinue my attendance at the chapel in Essex Street, and to break off my connexion with a society with which I have cordially associated for nearly fourteen years. I sincerely respect your talents, and the indefatigable attention you have paid to Biblical and theological subjects. I have the fullest conviction of your sincerity, and desire to promote what you believe to be the great cause of truth and Christianity; but I feel severely that our minds are not constituted alike; and being totally incapable of entering into that spirit of scepticism which you deem it your duty to inculcate from the pulpit, I should be guilty of hypocrisy if I were any longer to countenance, by a personal attendance on your ministry, a system which (even admitting it to be right in itself) is, at least, repugnant to my own heart, and my own understanding."*

Mr. Good now gradually surrendered the peculiarities of the Socinian creed, and began to view with a more favourable eye those doctrines in which he had been originally educated. The sermons of the present venerable Dean of Winchester (Dr. Rennell), who then preached in the Temple Church as master, appear to have further convinced him of the propriety of the step he had taken, and proved to him the reasonableness of many of those doctrines which he at one period regarded as untenable, "He as yet, however," to use the language of his biographer, "scarcely adverted to them but as mere speculative opinions, simply preferable to those he had just abandoned. It was long before they assumed the character of principles of action, and issued, by God's blessing, in the transformation of his heart and affections." Nor is this a singular case. There is, indeed, a chilling orthodoxy of opinion, as little calculated to warm the heart and inspire the soul with vitality of religion as downright heterodoxy. Correct views may be enter tained as to many of the great leading doctrines of the Gospel, and yet the freeness and fulness of the

Ample refutation of the various unscriptural statements put forth by Mr. Belsham from the pulpit and the press will be found in Archbishop Magee's work on the Atonement.