thou faithful unto death," the flesh says, "Spare thyself, and secure the comfort of this life." A dog follows two men while they both walk one way, and you know not which of the two is his master; stay but a little till their paths separate, and then you will quickly see who is the master.-Flavel.

HUMILITY.

Christians! walk humbly. Your state needs reliefyour best state; your graces need strengthening and supporting. You had your being by grace, so you have your standing by grace. As strengthening and relieving mercy works towards you, so will ye do well; as that declines, so will you faint and do ill. "As we have received mercy, we faint not," says the apostle. Our supply of strength is from relieving mercy; if that be suspended, we faint. As we are humble, so are our relieving receptions; and as these are, so we faint not. Our strength is by daily bread, by daily divine concurrence,-that suspended, our life and livelihood are gone.

Eyeing too much what we have will soon make this sad suspension. Forget all, trust not in parts, no, nor trust in graces. Your best state is vanishing, your gold rusts, your grace needs grace, your state as a Christian needs strengthening power to carry it along, -the house upon the rock will else fall, when storms and winds beat. Mercy and compassion began your blessed state,—these must finish it; walk as those who have all your fortune at their feet of mercy. A Christian is strongest when he is weakest in his own sense. "When I am weak, then am I strong. Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmity, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

FITNESS FOR HEAVEN NECESSARY.

We need not only a title, but a fitness for heaven. A title to a property must be a perfect one, or it is no title at all; if there be a flaw in it, the right of inheritance is gone. But the fitness for the enjoyment of a property may be more or less complete. Two men may have

a title to equal properties; but one may be much more fitted for the enjoyment of it from his previous habits, dispositions, and information, than the other. It is so with the future rest. We have all of us, if Christians, the equal password; that password which needs but to be mentioned, and we range the whole universe; we become free of heaven and earth in “Christ, and him crucified." But each of us may have different degrees of fitness, from the convert of yesterday to the martyr that seals by his blood the principles that he has been taught by grace. But more or less such fitness is required. In fitness for it we shall grow.

Our daily life shall be a constant struggle to put on all excellency, and to be made meet by the Spirit of God for the kingdom of heaven. These two are inseparable. There is no such thing as a man being entitled to heaven and not being fit for it. There is no such thing as one being fit for heaven and not entitled to it. These two are inseparable.

WAR AGAINST VICE.

Revealed religion teaches patience under suffering; but it is misunderstood when it is supposed to inculcate quiet submission to wrong. It requires men to war against vice in themselves first, but also in society. It is opposed to confusion, and tends to harmony and order. To restrict its sphere to individual improvement, is to leave to the Deist and Atheist the highest sphere of general society. Humboldt regards mankind as "one great brotherhood, advancing together towards the attainment of one common object, the free development of their moral faculties." When men begin to combine against vice, and see that to repress immorality by all lawful means, is to propagate that religion which Jesus died to give us, when it shall be a chief aim of society to convince every one of its members, by all possible motives, that it is for his own best interest and happiness to live by the law of love to God and man; then, and not till then, shall we see any great and permament improvement in the social condition of the world; then there will begin to be a public conscience against vice;

then men will be judged, not by their success, but by their merits. Then villany will not be triumphant, or triumphant villany will not be applauded.

Thompson's Christian Theism.

PRESENT AND FUTURE.

If a man dies in battle, by accident, or by disease, survivors generally confine their thoughts to the effects which the event may produce on the temporal relations of the individual. Had he a family? Has he left provision for them? Or did he suffer much pain? Had he skilful physicians, &c. The other view of the event, which is infinitely more important, is this, that man whose lifeless body lies before us, has left this world forever; death to him has proved an event of unspeakable importance; he is in heaven or hell; it matters not whether he was rich, and beloved and venerated, or whether he died the death of a hero, and suffered much or little pain; but it does matter whether he was a Christian in the Bible sense of the term; for if he was not his doom is eternally fixed, and he has become an heir to everlasting perdition. His death may have produced little impression on the community in which he lived, but it was everything to him, as it has sealed him an heir of salvation or damnation.

A PASTORAL LETTER.

The following is a beautiful pastoral letter addressed to the churches. Its brevity may commend it to some, its antisectarian character to all. Its authority is unquestionable, and if its advices were heeded, the most desirable results would follow.

"We beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves." PAUL.

ESCAPE FOR THY LIFE.

This call, or entreaty, would scarcely be needed, if your dwelling was enveloped in flames, and a way of escape was before you. Nor if you, a prisoner in some gloomy dun

geon, saw at length the door opening wide for your escape. How strange, then, that you remain careless and unconcerned, when your deathless, immortal spirit is in danger every moment of being "cast into hell-fire!"

Better, far better, that the body consume to ashes, than the soul be consigned to everlasting torments; better that it rot in an earthly dungeon, than that thy immortal spirit live in the prison-house of despair. Light and transient are all the sicknesses and sorrows of time, compared to the gnawings of the worm which never dies; of the fire which cannot be quenched; of the scorpion sting of a guilty, selftormenting conscience.

Escape for thy life; "flee from the wrath to come;' hasten to "the city of refuge; " secure an interest by faith, in "the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ;" for the avenger of blood is at thy heels, and thou art condemned already."-American Messenger.

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EUSEBIUS.

When Valens, the Emperor, sent messengers to win Eusebius to heresy by fair words and large promises, he answered, "Alas! Sirs, these speeches are fit to catch little children but we, who are taught and nourished by the holy Scriptures, are ready to suffer a thousand deaths rather than suffer one tittle of the Scriptures to be altered." When the Emperor threatened to confiscate his goods, to torment, to banish, or to kill him; he answered, "He needs not fear confiscation, who has nothing to lose: nor banishment, to whom heaven only is a country; nor torments, when his body will be destroyed at one blow; nor death, which was the only way to set him at liberty from sin and sorrow."