friends, and let me beseech you as brethren, to indulge and cherish a charitable and generous disposition; and whatever you give, give cheerfully, for remember the Lord loveth the cheerful giver, not only to His own cause, but to every other good cause that demands your attention. And bear in mind that what you give grudgingly your blessing does not attend; you place a sort of drawback upon it, and thereby divest it of the power to achieve the end for which you give it, and then you attach somewhat of blame to the recipients for not making better use of your bestowments. Do not treat your relatives whom you assist as your inferiors, but treat them as your equals with all tenderness and affection; treat them as you would if they possessed thousands, and depend upon it, it will save you many a remorseful thought, and preserve you from many a frowning providence, and the hidings of your heavenly Father's face, and give you consolation on your dying bed; for if a cup of cold water given in the name of a disciple shall in no wise lose its reward, greater gifts will receive their rewards also.

Now I think you may plainly see, that to cherish the grace of charity is one essential means by which Christians may rise to eminence, not only in the natural life, but spiritual life also; and may the allwise Benefactor, the Giver of every good and perfect gift, grant unto you in this life peace of conscience, every temporal mercy and favour, enriched by His heavenly smiles, and in the life to come an abundant reward in the mansions of blessedness, is the earnest prayer of your faithful friend, Tiverton. J. FAREBROTHER.

THE APPOINTMENT.

IN the ever-varying circumstances of social life, individuals often have or make what are termed appointments. There are business appointments, which cannot be neglected; appointments of pleasure, which it is very often desirable

should not be forgotten; and appointments of duty, which ought not to be laid aside.

All this variety of appointments do not invariably fall to the lot of the same person's experience in an equal ratio. On the contrary, they may be taken as characteristics of different classes. The business man, punctual as the clock, every day may be seen on his way to his mill or his shop; and the same hour daily witnesses his appearance at the counting-house, the mart, or exchange. These are his chief appointments. The man of pleasure may be seen at the fashionable resort for the season, and omits no opportunity of forming one of a party in a pic-nic, or a larger and more distant excursion. Others have appointments of duty in visiting the poor, the sick, or teaching the ignorant, which must not be neglected, and require their diligent attention.

But these and other various appointments, in the conventional sense of the term, fall to the lot of comparatively few persons. The lives of others—the vast majority, indeed-exhibit only an undeviating round of monotonous drudgery, without change in the way of anything that can properly be dignified by the title of an appointment. But one, however, there is which is common to all—"It is appointed unto men once to die." Yes, death is the destiny of every living child of Adam; and while we know that it is so, that it is an appointment for each and allfor ourselves as well as others-we fear that it commands but a very small proportion of our thoughtful preparation, when compared with that which is bestowed upon other less important appointments relative to the fleeting events of the present life.

In reference to these words of the great Apostle, notice first

The universality of this appointment. It includes all men, the whole human family. With the few exceptions of the two who were translated without having seen death, and of those who may be alive at the last trump" (1 Cor. xv.

52), all have been or will be subject to death. Calculations have been made as to the numbers of the human race that have lived since Adam, which-whether more or less correct is at present immaterial-serve to impress the mind with the vast number of human beings who have lived, died, and returned to their native dust. The total number is inconceivable, and, in any case, must be many times that of the present population of the world. And all this vast multitude-those that have already lived and died, those that are now living, or that may be born unto the end of time-only the before-mentioned exceptions, have had or will have this one appointment in common-" to die," to return unto dust! Surely this is a fact sufficient to strike every person with solemn awe, when he reflects that of all the intelligent, active, useful, and benevolent men he may know, none are exempt from death; and further, that the same decree is binding upon all the rest of the human family, with a very few of whose personal history he can be but partially acquainted, while of even the names of the vast majority he is entirely ignorant. But further,

notice, in the second place

This appointment, though certain as to its universal eventuality, is yet uncertain as to time, in the case of every individual. The certainty that death will come to all, and likewise the collateral fact of its uncertainty as to when, are truths both old and admitted on all hands, without the shadow of dispute; but because they are so, we are not therefore justified in lightly noticing them-putting them on one side as trite and indisputable, or as suggestive of unpleasant topics which we cannot permit to occupy our attention, if only for a few moments.

Earthly appointments are made beforehand; the time is fixed in the future, and we make our preparations with that time in full view. Were it otherwise, we should still prepare. Were a friend to say he would call and take us on a long excursion with him at some future

date, and we believed him, and desired to go with him, we should naturally prepare against our departure, that so, whether he came at a moment's notice or sent us a longer intimation of his approach, we should in either case be found prepared for the journey. But did we know that such a journey was to be peremptory, whether we would or not, and that it would include total and final separation from the friends we loved, with what dreadful awe should we contemplate the possibility of our summons coming soon, or when we were least expecting it, and, consequently, with what solemn earnestness should we go about our preparations! And yet this is but a faint analogy of the journey we have all to take. The appointment we are speaking of is sure to come; the decree is inexorable, and cannot be nullified; its time is very uncertain in the case of every individual; and its result is to separate us, if not for ever, at least for a time, from those we love, and for ever remove us out of the present scenes. Death comes to men at all ages. It takes the infant that has just begun its existence; the bright-eyed, joyous child from among its toys; the youth of early promise; the man of middle age, possessing family ties, full of engagements, and eminently useful as a citizen; and the old man who has run his course, and whose whitened hairs are to him a

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crown of glory," alike with him whose character may have evinced opposite traits. Sometimes he comes suddenlywithout notice-in a moment! In this manner death takes occasionally one, at other times scores, and even hundreds of precious lives away at a single stroke, as in the case of accidents by sea or on land, to say nothing of the sudden death which numbers meet when they mutually engage in all the horrors and carnage of war. Others are carried to their last account by disease, making a more or less rapid progress towards its consummation. But in the experience of all, the same uncertainty is a uniform characteristic. The arrows of death are flying thickly about us, and we see first one and then

another, sometimes the most unlikely, fall by our side, and we silently wonder who the next will be, and in what manner or how soon our own end may

come.

And it is well that this uncertainty of death should be so; for would not life be rendered anything but the pleasant thing it is to most of us, if we knew the exact day and hour when we should. die? Hence the uncertainty of death may be indeed, it doubtless is—a wise and benevolent provision of the Author of our being to secure a greater amount of happiness unto us, His dependent creatures, than would otherwise be possible; while at the same time it teaches us most solemn lessons to be always ready, for "in such an hour" as we "think not," very often the "Son of man cometh."

Thirdly, this appointment is final. "It is appointed unto men once to die." We may keep an appointment in this life, and it may be renewed at another time, we going about our business as before in the meanwhile. But this appointment comes only once to each individual, and as it finds us we must go into the world of spirits. However much we may then wish we could live again, and again have an opportunity of preparing for death, it will be of no avail.

From that bourne no traveller e'er returns. How seriously, then, ought we to view our respective relations to this appointment! And more especially is its solemnity increased by a consideration of its after-consequences-" after this, the judgment"-after death, the final decision by the great Judge of our future state of existence and reward, "according to that we have done, whether good or bad." By the fact that death comes to all once, and only once, the importance of immediate preparation, and so being ready whenever our time may come, is greatly enhanced, seeing that, though certain to come, the time when death will come is hid from us among the uncertainties of the future.

This lesson is frequently brought

home to every one who has arrived at years of maturity by the oft-repeated warning voice of God's providence. In looking back through the years gone past, we can point out how one here and another there has fallen by the hand of death, and been taken away from the haunts of men occasionally under very peculiar and even thrilling circumstances, and some of whom were our personal friends, relatives, or less familiar aequaintances.

And as time rolls on, those that still live are aware of a rapidly-decreasing number of their early associates; of those who twenty, thirty, or forty years ago started in life together, the greater number have already ended their journey, as the comparatively few who remain can testify. Within the short period of the past three months, the writer of these lines can count no fewer than eight whom he has known more or less intimately, that have been summoned to their last account. The first was a young man of great talent and promise of future usefulness in his several capacities as a Sunday-school teacher, large employer of labour, and a civil magistrate; but his health had been for some time greatly impaired by a disease at first chiefly induced by excessive exertions of body and mind. Little over thirty years was the limit of his course. next was a young man of about the same age, resident in the Metropolis, equally useful in his more limited sphere, but cut down, after only a few days' sickness, by a painful disease, bringing on lock-jaw, and, like the first, leaving a widow and family to mourn his loss. The next was a tradesman, also in this town, as was the first, in middle age, and also married; after a few weeks' sickness, he was borne away from his sorrowing family. The fourth was a person in humble circumstances, and (though his health had before given way) whose end was doubtless accelerated by the endurance of privations similar to those which have been the experience of thousands in consequence of the cotton

The

famine. The fifth was one more advanced in years, likewise in humble circumstances, but who had long been laid up by indisposition: he was resident in a distant part of the country, and a relative of the writer. The next

was a leading man in this town, a magistrate and an alderman in the towncouncil, who had run a long, honourable, and useful career, beyond the three score and ten years of the Psalmist. The seventh had been a most useful public man, down to a recent date, as a magistrate, and in other capacities during his life, which was lengthened out to fourscore and six years. The eighth was a young man of generous sympathies, and great future promise, only brother to the first mentioned, a magistrate and an alderman in the town council. He was carried off by an insidious fever in the twenty-ninth year of his age, a few days only intervening between the health and vigour of youthful manhood, and the cold silence of death; leaving a widow and five young children to mourn their sudden bereavement.

In the varying particulars of this list of death's recent victims we have an illustration of the uncertainty when it may come. The useful man, the man of social rank, the man of humbler circumstances; the old and venerable, the young and promising, alike are seized, remorselessly hurried away from the scene of their labours; the tears of the young and dependent loving and loved ones being of no avail in preventing their being made widows and orphans; while the place which once knew them, now knows them no more for ever. Vacant places there are: the public vacancies will soon be filled up,

but others will remain still void, and well-known faces are missed by loving relatives and friends.

Reader, are you prepared to die? Ere this year has rolled away, many now in health will have gone to their last appointment, and the writer himself, or you, may be among that number. You do not know. Perhaps, for yourself, you hope not. Ah, again we say, you know not the day, nor the hour, when the Son of man will come to you. Is it not, therefore, the wisest and best course to be prepared? "Prepare to meet thy God," is alike the language of reason and revelation. Prepare now, and delay it not until some indefinite time in the future. In the written record of His will, God has furnished us with a plan of salvation, through the all-sufficient merits of a suffering Re. deemer, by, which the chief of sinners may attain the inheritance of the "spirits of just men made perfect." Let this be your constant and prayerful study, that so, when the summons comes for you to keep this last, greatest, and most important of all appointments, you will be able to look death steadily in the face, its terrors being lost to you by the eye of faith piercing beyond the tomb; and, having found peace in believing, when your last moments are at hand, you may be able to add the testimony of your experience to the truth of the Apostle's words, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who hath given me the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." -1 Cor. xv. 55-57. Ashton-under-Lyne, Jan. 21.

C.

ACTIVE FAITH.-A man came to our Lord with a withered arm, and asked that it might be healed. Our Lord told him to stretch it out. He had faith in the power of Jesus; he stretched out his arm, and it was sound as the other. What should we think of this man, had he waited until he had decided the question whether his faith, or his willingness to be healed, or the stretching out of his arm, had the precedence in point of time or im

portance? There is a passage of Scripture which puts this question of the initiative in a strong and startling point of view (Eph. v. 14), where the difficulty of a dead man rising, and the summons to him to rise, are brought into juxtaposition, as if at once to silence our reasonings, and to compel us to cast ourselves on the life-giving power of Christ.-Bishop Shirley.

1. GoD is faithful in what He does. I see a farmer in the field sowing corn. He is taking it in his hand and scattering it over the brown mould. He has been doing so from morning until night, and day after day. He has thrown away in this way many bags-full of precious grain, worth many pounds of money, and sufficient to have fed his family for many months to come. He cannot gather it up again; and he does not mean it to be carried away and eaten by the fowls of the air. After he has scattered it, as if he wished it to be more completely lost, he draws harrows over the soil, which cover up the seed until scarcely a grain of it can be seen. "What waste!" we might say. "What a pity he did not keep that corn to make loaves and cakes for his children!"

"No," you say, "it is not waste. He means that corn which he has thrown into the soil to be seed. He expects it to spring up and produce a far larger quantity. It would have been waste to have eaten it. It is not waste to cast it into the ground."

Very true; but how does he know that it will ever spring up? The weather is so cold, that nothing is springing. And though it should become warmer, may not something hinder it from springing up after all?"

You say in reply, "It always springs. There has never been a year since the creation when seed did not spring up and corn grow."

Just so; you are quite right. God has always given us seed-time and harvest from the beginning; and by so doing has taught the farmer to expect that He will do so this year too. And the farmer, trusting in God's faithfulness, sows his corn and is not disappointed. God is faithful to His own doings; and as these gave the farmer reason to expect, his corn grows.

It is true the crop is not always

equally good. Sometimes we have very cold, or very wet, or over-dry seasons, when the earth yields little. God sometimes wishes to chastise men for their sins, or to teach them their dependence on himself for their food, and for these or other reasons, of which we know nothing, He gives them at times only a scanty supply. But still there is always seed-time, and summer, and harvest, and the earth producing more or less. From the beginning of the world until now, all nations have been kept alive, because God in this way has fed them. And still He is faithful to His own doings; and the farmer who sows his seed is not disappointed.

Now, God is just as faithful to His deeds in other things as He is in this. If the history of His dealings with men give us good reason to expect that He will do anything, we may be sure that He will. If He has always punished sin, and so given us reason to expect that He will punish sin in future, we may be sure that He will punish it. If He has always pardoned the penitent, and so given us reason to expect that He will pardon them in future, we may be sure that He will pardon them. He has always rewarded the righteous, we may be sure that, sooner or later, He always will reward them. If what He has already done in and for His own children gives us reason to expect that He will do great things for them in time to come, great things He will do. God is faithful. He will not disappoint the expectations which He has taught us to cherish.

If

2. God is faithful to His word. Long ago, in the garden of Eden, God permitted man to eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden but one. Of that one He said, "Thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Satan persuaded man that God's word was not true. He said, "Ye