still unawakened. Had her supplications never reached the mercy-seat; had the great High Priest failed to present them; or did the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ refuse to hear her cry? O awful thought, must her husband perish? Such were the thoughts which agitated her mind. She was in an agony; but her surest and only unfailing resource was prayer, and casting aside her unbelieving doubts, she wrestled with God during the greater part of that forenoon. At noon her husband returned home, and without noticing his wife or children, passed into a back chamber. When called to dinner he made no reply. His wife then went into the chamber, and found him seated with his face covered by his hands. To her inquiries he still kept silence. At last, weeping, she said to him, "Husband, what is the matter, what have I done, that you will neither speak nor look your own wife in the face?" "Woman," he replied, while the tears gushed through his clenched fingers, "Woman, the hand of God is upon me. God has this day brought all my sins to my remembrance, and I am overwhelmed." It was now the wife's privilege to point her husband to the Lamb of God, and by the grace of God, he too became a trophy of redeeming power. But they had unconverted neighbours, and encouraged by the gracious answer vouchsafed to the wife's prayers, they besought the Lord for the conversion of others. A weekly prayer-meeting was established. God poured out his Spirit. The house was too small for the number who attended. It was enlarged; but the company of believers still increasing, a house of worship was built, and a church organized. It exists to this day, and many are still being added to the number of believers in that Welsh hamlet. Such were some of the returns of the prayers of that pious woman. THE CROW'S NEST FOR CHILDREN. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. WE have to acknowledge communications from "H. H., Aberdeen;""S. S., Crieff;" "J. M. T., Greenock;" "James Allan, Coatbridge;" "D. B., Alexandria;" "James Robert Paton, Taylor Street, Glasgow," and, as usual, very full and interesting answers, from a great many young friends in Dunse. ANSWERS TO QUERIES PROPOSED LAST MONTH. I. Moses, though "very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth," complained of the burden which God had laid on him, and prayed God to kill him out of hand. Num. xi. 11-15. Elijah at one time became so impatient as to request God to take away his life. 1 Kings xix. 4. Jonah was very angry with God for sparing the penitent Ninevites, and said, "it is better for me to die than to live." Jonah iv. 1-8. The disciples James and John requested permission to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans, forgetting that Christ "came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Luke ix. 54-56. II. In various passages Moses described the land to which the Israelites were travelling, but the passage which contains the greatest number of characteristics is Deut. viii. 7-9. III. Joseph seems to have been in the habit of swearing "by the life of Pharaoh." Swearing by the life, or head, of a superior, is a very common conversational oath in Asia, even at the present day. The atmosphere of some places, and especially of kings' palaces, is seldom very favourable to spiritual health and pure morality. Evil communications corrupt good manners. See Gen. xlii. 15, 16. IV. The widow's son at Nain-the ruler's daughter-and Lazarus. V. The kings who withstood Moses, were Sihon and Og, and their country was given to Gad, Reuben, and the half tribe of Manasseh. See Deut. xxix. 7, 8. VI. Ahaziah was slain by JehuAthaliah by the order of the priestJoash by his own servants, and Amaziah by conspirators. VII. This priest was Jehoiada. VIII. One of Paul's finest definitions of the gospel is contained in Rom. i. 16. IX. The passage where Christ refers to the amusements of children is Matt. xi. 16. QUERIES TO BE ANSWERED NEXT MONTH. the temple, but afterwards repented and removed it? IV. Who sold the Jews for slaves, and were themselves afterwards sold into slavery, according to prophecy? V. Who was the first Gentile admitted into the Christian church, not required to conform to the Mosaic observances? VI. In what part of Mark's gospel is the growth of religion in the soul, compared to the growth of a seed in good soil? VII. Which were the three occasions I. When were the Israelites first when the Israelites were numbered in called Jews? II. What are the different meanings of the term flesh in the New Testament writings? III. Which king set up an image in the wilderness? VIII. Is there any passage in the New Testament which expressly reprobates the slave trade, at least in one of its earliest stages? Extracts from the Pages of the Living and the Dead. A SKETCH OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY PREVIOUS WITHIN the walls of the old Tron Sat lusistis mecum, ludite nunc aliis," and who had come up determined to fight rather pro focis than pro aristhere were many young men buoyant with hope, and with desire that the tide of reformation might advance to the removing of those things that are shaken, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. There were lay representatives from every class of society which the country comprehended-nobles and baronets, judges and high-sheriffs, gentlemen of landed property, advocates, merchants whom commerce had enriched, enterprising farmers, and humble men whose moral worth was "their wisdom and their way." Meeting in Edinburgh, whose former fame as the mental metropolis of the empire still reflected a bright light upon it, crowds of intelligent and interested spectators filled the house in dense rows day after day. In the centre of this eager assembly may be distinguished, sitting at the clerk's table, with his face towards the Modeand disciple of Dr. George Hill, and the rator, Dr. George Cooke, the relative acknowledged leader of the Moderates. Near him sits Principal Macfarlan of Glasgow. At the corner of the table, near by the clerk, is Dr. Mearns, of King's College, Aberdeen. In the front seat, on the Moderator's right hand, sits Mr. Whigham, advocate, and Mr. Milne, of Milne-Graden, and Mr. Robertson of Ellon. Around the last are gathered many of the northern lights, whose speech perplexes southern ears. On the same side, and generally on the second or third seat back, is Sir Charles Fergusson of Kilkerran, whose fluency made him pass with many a stranger as an able speaker, and who was generally the first to commence the cannonading of argument, by animadverting on the minute or on some point of form. The rest of the seats on the right are filled with the rank and file of the supporters of Moderatism. On the Moderator's left, sometimes at the clerk's table, but as often occupying a corner of a form, with his hat placed over the handle of his umbrella, and his eye fixed on vacancy, is Thomas Chalmers, "ava "ardowy. Dr. Candlish is seen in busy intercourse with two or three members at a time. Dr. Cunningham is resting his huge head on his hand, and seems patiently awaiting the coming combat. There is the modern Warriston, Alexander Dunlop, advocate, weak in voice, but vigorous in argument. Beside Sir David Brewster sit Sheriff Monteith and Sheriff Speirs, Dr. Patrick Macfarlane, and Dr. Mackellar, closed in by the dense crowd of those who, by their position, profess their preference of the evangelical principles and party. At the bar, arrayed in gown and wig, are seated the accomplished Lord Advocate Rutherford, and his formidable opponent, the laughter-loving Patrick Robertson. -Memoir of D. M. Makgill Crichton. DAVID MAITLAND MAKGILL CRICHTON IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, A GENTLEMAN of a very striking figure has just entered the Court, evidently a member of some note; for there runs along the gallery a hurried whisper, and we may here and there see an extended finger pointing him out to a stranger. He is an erect, muscular, lathy man, some six or seven inches above the ordinary stature. His height, at the lowest estimate, cannot fall short of six feet two inches; and the mould into which his large frame has been cast, 'the square-turned joints and length of limb," indicate mingled strength and activity. He is standing manfully in the breach in the present conflict in behalf of the church, and has to encounter many an assailant; but were the breach not a figurative, but an actual and ma terial one-such a breach as the cannon of Napoleon made in the walls of Jean d'Acre-and were that gentleman's well-pointed arguments converted into a good half-pike, there are many very ingenious men in the opposition who would entertain serious objections against joining issue with him on the question of prac ticability. The countenance is marked by the lines of resolution and firmness. The complexion is dark, indicating what phrenologists term the bilious temperament, and the facial angle unusually full approaching more nearly to an angle of ninety than is at all common in even the Circassian type of head. He has risen to speak. Mark the clearness and power of the tones. Some of his remarks have provoked the anger of the opposition, and there rises a confused Babel-like hubbub of sound, loud enough to drown any two ordinary voices. Not that of the speaker, however. The clamour subsides and the speaker proceeds. The ideas are as clear as the tones in which they are conveyed, and there is much readiness of wit and great lucidity of statement; but the chief element of the speaker's power is his felt sincerity. He can say severe things of Moderatism, with its dead, inefficient form of Christianity'; a body without life, and in which the fermentation of putridity has long since begun. He can say severer things still of the aristocracy; of the self-seeking and exclusive spirit which led them of old to grasp what should have been in reality the patrimony of the people, the educational and ecclesiastical fund of the country, through which schools and churches should have been erected and endowed; and very severe things of their mean and narrowsighted policy in the present day. We have before us Mr. Maitland Makgill Crichton of Rankeilour, a gentleman, one of whose ancestors in the male line was the friend of Knox, and a fellowworker with him in the cause of refor mation; who can show ranged among his family portraits the portrait of that General Leslie who led the armies of the Covenant; and who is the undoubted representative in the present day of the and visibly present, to pursue the amusement under His meek yet searching glance ?" SOURNESS AND SEVERITY THE RESULTS OF EXCESSIVE SELF-CONTROL. The DURING the great fast of the Mahometans, the Ramadan, observed by severe abstinence from food through all the hours of daylight, travellers have noted the querulous and contentious spirit that seems for a time to reign through a Turkish city. After the forty days fasting which Jonah observed in common with the Ninevites, he yielded to this law of human weakness, and, contemplating God's mercy to the heathen penitents, he was "greatly displeased," and "very angry." devotees of Hindooism, whose austerities are most rigid, are notorious for a general irritability of temper. The ascetic, in all ages, has laid himself open to the charge of sourness. Turn over the monkish illuminations, preserving the features of some Romish worthy, the saint of his diocese or age, and the lineaments bespeak a stern violence, or a querulous discontent. The austerity of habitual self-restraint was seen in Jerome. It was visible in Calvin, as compared with Luther. He avoided allowable relaxations, and the consequences were visible in his severity of temper, and even inflexibility of charac ancient Lords of Crichton and Frendraught, though he has not yet asserted the title. QUEEN ELIZABETH AND OLIVER CROMWELL. QUEEN ELIZABETH would allow no portrait of herself but such as was faultless and flattered, and often caused the too truthful artist to be subjected to punishment. The plain sense of Oliver Cromwell raised him high above all such infirmity of feeling. "Paint me as I am," said he to the painter before whom he sat, "with all my scars about me." WHAT BUNYAN WISHED HAD BEFALLEN MR. PREJUDICE. BUNYAN in his Holy War says, that ARE AMUSEMENTS ALLOWABLE TO THE DOES the Bible forbid all cheerfulness Nature, art, and society, all may minis ter. Richard Baxter, and Andrew RELIGIOUS DREAMS. A MAN applied to the Rev. Rowland Hill for admission to his church, and began to give an account of his experience by relating a dream. "We will tell you," said Mr. Hill, "what we think of your dream, after we see how you go on when you are awake.” THE MILLION TESTAMENTS FOR CHINA. Ir may be interesting to our readers to know what steps are being taken to accomplish this noble undertaking. The work is already in progress. The printingpresses in China are busily employed. Letters have been recently received by the Bible Society from their corresponding committee, and plans are matured for printing 250,000 copies in China in eighteen months, dating from the 1st of January, 1854. The Bishop of Victoria The Bishop of Victoria guarantees to furnish from his stations, 85,000; Dr. Medhurst, 115,000; Dr. Legge, 50,000. It is proposed that another quarter of a million should be printed in London in the same period, for which wooden blocks will be sent from China. Thus half a million will be ready in eighteen months, and if similar expedition be employed in the remaining portion of the work, the whole will be completed in three years, a much shorter time than had been anticipated. All English missionaries are working most heartily and lovingly in carrying out this gigantic scheme of Christian liberality. It will no doubt give great satisfaction to the public when they are informed that the committee of the Bible Society, at their sitting on Monday, passed a resolution for the printing of 50,000 copies of the entire Bible in Chinese at as early a period as practicable. The funds for the New Testament have been readily supplied, nor can it be doubted that the Bible Society will receive prompt and generous aid to carry out this new feature of their plan for supplying China with a large instalment of the word of God. NEW SPECIMEN OF POPERY. ONE brilliant illustration of Catholic charity has just been witnessed in the Protestant canton of Geneva. In a village where Papists happen to be in the greater number, the "Evangelicals" have been in the habit of worshipping in a cottage, where they received the ministrations of a neighbouring pastor. On Sunday, January 27, the mob broke in upon them while they were at prayer, made a great noise, smoked cigars, insulted the females, and endeavoured to provoke a quarrel with the men. This failing, the assailants gathered in great force, dragged out the worshippers, assaulted the pastor, wrenched the Bible from his hands and tore it up, and then endeavoured to set the house on fire; but in this they failed. The Council of State, informed of the outrage, directed legal proceedings to be taken, sent a sufficient force, and arrested several of the offenders. We give this as an instance of the insolence of Romanism in spots where it can gather a little majority for itself, although the great majority of the State be Protestant, and affords it the most perfect toleration. THE AGE OF BRIBERY. THE age of bribery has come. France pays Protestants equally with Catholics. Geneva has her public funds for the Romish curé as well as the Unitarian presbyter. Belgium is not less liberal. But we need not pass for examples into other regions. Britain has been first among the foremost; and with great pecuniary liberality-for she has a prodigal passion for pay-she salaries Proford, Presbyterians, Independents, Metestants and Papists, Maynooth and Oxthodists; nay, even Mahometans and Hindoos share in Britain's bribery bounty. THE ALARM WATCH. A LADY, who found it difficult to awake so early as she wished in the morning, purchased an alarm watch. These watches are so contrived as to strike with a very loud, whirring noise, at any hour the owner pleases to set them. This lady found herself effectually roused by the long, rattling sound. She obeyed the summons, and felt better all the day for early rising. But after a time the lady grew tired of early rising, and when she was wakened by the noisy monitor, she merely turned in bed and slept again. Just so is it with conscience. If we obey its dictates, even to the most trifling particulars, we always hear its voice clear and strong. But if we allow ourselves to do what we have some fears may not be quite right, we shall grow more and more sleepy, until the voice of conscience has no longer any power to awaken us. |