praved self-love, which is seldom overcome, and which has destroyed thousands. Such a man was Paul,-rendered such by Divine grace.

Like mankind in general, he once boasted of his supposed excellencies and advantages, of his eminent talents and learning, his social and religious position. But he had undergone a great spiritual change. His natural and corrupt disposition had been crucified; and he could now exult in that, on account of which many others despised him. And, however much he might be disparaged by his enemies, he was really a greater man than he would have been, if possessed of all natural excellencies, and had commanded the homage of a world. Paul displayed the highest moral grandeur when he exclaimed, "Most gladly, therefore, will I GLORY in my infirmities."

Some who are the subjects of personal defects and afflictions, groan and murmur under them, as well as use all possible methods for their removal. Others, who feel the impropriety and inutility of this, submit to their trials with a degree of calmness and resignation, hoping that they will ere long cease; while, if they might, they would joyfully be delivered from them at once. But the Apostle declares that he would glory in his sufferings; he would rejoice on their account, esteeming it an honour to endure them. Nor was this a mere hasty assertion,-a vain-glorious boast. It was a deliberate and well-weighed decision. It was based on considerations the most important and powerful, which would certainly lead him, by the aid of Divine grace, to carry out his resolution. What, then, was the grand principle on which he formed this admirable determination? -"that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

Paul obviously did not glory in his infirmities as infirmities merely, or considered in themselves. Had this been the case, he would not have prayed for their removal; it was from the relation they sustained to something else,-from their intimate and inseparable connection with something better, that he considered his afflictions a ground of exultation.

Nor was it chiefly from a consideration of their utility to himself,-the bearing they would have on his eternal happiness,--that he rejoiced in his trials. This, indeed, was one reason why he and his brethren were patient and cheerful under their sufferings. Hence, in his epistle to the Romans, he says, "We glory in

tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience," &c. And in addressing the Corinthians, he adds, "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Such truths as these are. eminently adapted to make Christians glad, even under the heaviest sorrows of the present life. But the Apostle was looking at the way in which a becoming endurance of his infirmities would promote the interests of the Redeemer, -at the occasion they would afford for the display of his omnipotence and grace, as well as of the excellence of the Gospel; and at the degree in which they would thus extend his kingdom on earth, when he exclaimed, "Most gladly," &c. The natural tendency of this great and good man's trials, as in every instance, was to depress and humble,-to excite a fretful and impatient temper. But this effect was counteracted. He felt that "the Saviour's grace was sufficient for him; that his strength was made perfect in weakness." He was abundantly sustained and consoled under his accumulated troubles; enabled to welcome sorrow instead of shrinking from it; and amply fitted to perform his duties with vigour and efficiency. In this way "the power of Christ rested upon him." Christ was eminently glorified in him and by him. His perfections were exhibited; the faithfulness of his promises was illustrated; and the adaptation and glory of his Gospel were made manifest. These were results which the great Apostle delighted to contemplate. No object was so dear to him as the honour of his divine Master. He knew no consummation so devoutly to be wished and sought as the universal display and recognition of the Redeemer's glory. To secure this end he laboured most arduously, made the greatest sacrifices, and endured the most acute sufferings. Yet, had it been possible, he would have done, surrendered, and suffered a thousand fold more. Whence arose such sublime moral heroism, such unparalleled self-denial? The love of Christ constrained him! He thus judged, "That if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but to him who died for them, and rose again." Admirable man! most faithful and honoured servant of the Lord Jesus, could we but more fully breathe thy divine spirit!

Probably some Christians contemplate

never

the magnanimity of the Apostle with despondency, fearing they can attain such holy elevation of sentiment and purpose.

They sometimes feel it difficult to bear their trials with patience, to say nothing of rejoicing under them. Yet they have no need to despair. They have the same Saviour, the same grace, the same promises, as the Apostle had. Let them, then, strive to pray,—to meditate, and to regulate their spirits as he did, and they shall ultimately be triumphant. They shall be enabled to say, "Most gladly," &c.

The ungodly knows nothing experimentally of the spirit which these words breathe. He lives to himself; he has no concern for the Saviour's glory. When he meets with difficulties and trials, he is peevish and fretful, and is ready to think that God deals harshly with him. To such a man the language of the Apostle appears mere rhetoric, extravagance, and enthusiasm.

Reader! is this the view which you take of the declaration of the great Apostle of the Gentiles? Or, can you, in any measure, sympathise with him in his zeal for the honour of Christ? Are you living to his glory, and have you such a regard for it as makes you willing to do and suffer what he pleases? If so, be thankful that Divine grace has made you to differ from your former self, and from many of your fellow-creatures. If not, O do not rest until you have consecrated yourself to Christ by faith,until you can cordially unite with the universal host of believers in the affirmation, "For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself; for whether we live, we live to the Lord, and whether we die, we die to the Lord; so that, living or dying, we are the Lord's."

J. G.

"THE NIGHT COMETH." 'The night cometh, when no man can work."JOHN ix. 4.

I." The night cometh." Thus far it is future. Hitherto the sun is in our heavens; the day is ours,-the day of our life and of our privileges. Everything betokens this to be the time for work, the greatest work,-to do the will of God. The crimson flood which courses through our veins says, "It is day." The throbbing heart and beating pulse say, "It is day." The hand which moves obedient to the will, the thoughts which rise and are expressed, the joys

and sorrows which are felt,- all say, "It is day." The possibility of hope, times of gracious privilege, kind teachings given, merciful calls renewed to us day by day, join in assuring us that this is the period of repentance, of faith, and of labour, in the service of our God and Saviour.

From as many points come voices telling us to "work,"-" work while it is day." The convictions of death and judgment, of the existence of heaven and of hell,-of the necessity of personal religion, of the uncertainty of even the morrow, direct the mind to the inspired exhortation,- -"work." The difficulties which rise up, crowd upon crowd before us, together with the dangers which beset us, say emphatically, "work." The many lusts to conquer, the many habits to be corrected, the knowledge spread out before us, which we have yet to gather, agree in warning us against idleness, and in demanding earnest "work." And not only as we are personally concerned, but also in relation to others, are we called on to be up and doing. The ignorance of some,-the wayward sinfulness of others,-the neglect of religion on the part of many,-souls rushing on, each as if eager first to be smitten with the bolt of Divine wrath,-these facts unite to impress upon our mind the circumstance that there is much yet to be done in the "field" of labour.

Then it should be considered, that not only is there a period appointed for labour, but also that the allotted time for the performance of that labour is very limited. 'Tis but a "day," and then cometh the " night," when no man can work.

"The night cometh." Then the day is already partially spent. Has your work kept pace with the passing hours? Have you every hour been looking on to "the night," and has the prospect quickened your activity? Are you so advanced with your labour, that when the first token of approaching night appears, you may be able calmly to set all in order before the deep gloom envelopes you? Has every duty received its just share of attention? Have you, as the first great concern of life, sought satisfactorily to yourself, in your meditative moments, and in the light of God's word, forgiveness of sin, and life everlasting through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ? Have you faithfully devoted your energies to the furtherance of God's cause, through seeking the salvation of your "neigh

bour?" Have you so spent your time that you can reasonably hope, at the approaching close of day, all will, in review, appear pleasingly complete? Happy being! if you are of the faithful ones whom, when your Lord cometh, he shall find doing." Thrice happy pilgrim! if every fleeting moment has been so employed, that no bitter pang shall arise within the breast from the fact of an illspent day.

"The night cometh." It will offer you rest from your toil. Hard has been your labour, constant has been your care,perpetual have been the attacks of your foes, but now draws on the hour of repose. Soul! wearied though willingly employed, a little more effort,-a few more endeavours to serve thy Lord,-a short time of labour yet, then shalt thou rest,-rest peacefully, sweetly, refreshingly. "I heard a voice saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for they cease from their labour." The hour of " night" draweth on, when the Great Shepherd shall eternally cast over thee his guardian wing. Soul! battle on; shrink not, though numerous hosts of mighty foes encompass thee about, and aim at thee their weapons of death. No harm shall befall thee; the shield of Israel's God shall come between thee and any shaft which may threaten thy life. Strive, for the night cometh, when the darkness which shall cover thee from thy foes shall prove the last earthly evidence of the nearness of heavenly joys.

"The night cometh,"-cometh to give notice of, and to usher in, a glorious and eternal day. Hail, then, "the night." Hail darkness; yea, death's darkness,harbinger of celestial brightness,-of glory unfading. Let us draw near.

Al

ready the shades of evening are falling -the gray twilight is deepening into sable night-the thick darkness is gathering apace. 'Tis night,-'tis passing,'tis day, and what a day!

II. "The night cometh," to find the careless and idle still unprepared. Life, perhaps a long life, has been spent in sloth, or, at best, misspent in busy trifling. The matters of life and death, such as should have occupied the attention of a being intelligent and immortal, have been suffered to lie unheeded, while those born of earth, and of but little worth, have been eagerly sought. How man has chased bubble after bubble, attracted by the varied colours of the sunbeam as it danced upon its breast,

forgetting while in pursuit of the present airy emblem of nothingness, how every former bubble, if not ere he reached it, yet when in his grasp, burst and vanished. The man has been at play all through life, never has given himself seriously to work the work of God; and now, when the day is about to close,- when deep sleep is about to fall on him,when every preparation should have been finished, now the idler begins to strain his eyes to discover how he is situated, by what surrounded, and what is before him. When the light is being withdrawn, he begins to ask what are the many duties which demand his attention. After the freshness and vigour of morning and of mid-day have been wasted in folly and in sin, he sets about doing a work which called for his earliest and noblest powers. The concerns of a whole day are thought to be accomplishable in an hour, often in a fragment of it. Eternity is made to depend for its character in the history of this man, as far as he can determine it, upon the hurried and unnatural preparations of a moment, and that moment amongst the last and most troubled of his life.

"The night cometh," dark and stormy. No ray to cheer,-no star to lend its light; nought to show the path-way to life, no day to succeed the darkness, but deeper and more terrible "night." Nothing to dispel the sadness from the heart, or in any way to vary the condition of misery, unless it be the variety occasioned by the increase of misery.

The recollection now and again of past privileges serves as the angry flash to increase the intensity of the darkness in which the guilty soul finds itself; while the conflict of thoughts and feelings, like the warring elements of nature, help to overawe and prostrate the unpardoned spirit.

"The night" is come,-the opportunity of "work is over, and that for ever!

L. T. L.

salary does not support him. You fulfil your contract, I suppose. You give him all you agreed to, but his family has increased, and he can't make the two ends of the year meet. He does not complain, but he cannot help feeling anxious. He wants to educate his children; but he can't pay the bills, and he has nothing else to give them. Hadn't you better try the experiment of raising his salary? Has not the Lord so ordained, that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel?" Is it right to keep him upon short allowance, when you have enough and to spare! If you were to add one or two hundred dollars, where there are so many to bear the additional burden, (if you choose to call it so,) you would hardly feel it, but he is embarrassed and dispirited by having to bear it all. Why not relieve him at once, and save him the necessity of asking you to help him, or asking for a dismission.

You say he seems to be depressed. Perhaps you don't pay him his salary punctually, and he is obliged to purchase family necessaries on credit and at an advanced price, and can't pay his bills when they become due, because you have kept back the only means he has of fulfilling his contracts. Is it strange that he is depressed, and even grieved, under such circumstances of embarrassment? Would you be willing to take his place?

Some hidden anxiety seems to be preying upon the mind of your minister, does there? Perhaps, poor man, he has been obliged to contract debts and to pay interest, and his creditors begin to grow uneasy and importunate. If he has done the best he could with his scanty income, and fallen behindhand in your service, will you not help him out if you can, and if not, will you wonder any longer that he is cast down and discouraged?

"I wonder what ails our minister. He does not preach such able sermons as he used to. It is evident he does not study so much." Well, whose fault is it,

his or yours? Perhaps he is compelled to keep school, or labour half the time with his hands to support his family. Give him enough to live on, and then, if he " serve tables," instead of giving himself to prayer and the ministry of the word, entreat him. If you are few and weak, and unable to pay him a full salary, and he is willing to stay and serve you as best he can under the embarrassment, be thankful that you can have even this, till you get stronger and able to support him, so that he may give himself wholly to the work among you.

"I wonder what ails our minister. He has grown exceedingly dull lately. He used to be much more earnest in the pulpit than he is now. What can the matter be? Are not souls as precious as ever, and in as much danger of being lost? What can ail him?" Let me ask, by way of answer, What ails you? Do you pray for him as much as you ought, or as much as you once did? May not your own neglect in this regard be one of the reasons why he has grown dull and prosy? Ought you not to try the experiment of remembering him daily and earnestly at the throne of grace, and see how it will affect his preaching?

You can't see into his being so dull. You are a professor of religion, I take it, and as much bound to be in a right religious frame as your minister. Is he duller than you are? When he looks down upon your pew, don't he frequently see you nod, or your head down in the midst of his sermon, and many others in the same predicament? If so, the wonder is, why you can wonder at all what ails him. Is it strange if his heart sinks within him under such circumstances of

discouragement? "As iron sharpeneth iron, so the countenance of a man his friend." Try the experiment. Let him see that you and all the rest of his church are wide awake, and attentive to his discourse from beginning to end, and then, if he is lolling and prosy in the pulpit, go away wondering what ails him."

THERE are few things that more strikingly illustrate the providence of God, and the purposes of grace, than the conversion of men. It often happens that the enjoyment of a means of a character the most excellent, and in a measure the most abundant, leaves an individual un

awakened, unenlightened, and consequently impenitent and unbelieving ̊; while the same individual, by a very casual and apparently unimportant circumstance, will be struck down, as by the blow of an invisible hand, and from that moment become a new creature.

Multitudes, also, who have been living beyond the reach of ordinary means, have, in a way the most unlikely, been brought into contact with the truth, which, on a first hearing, has proved the sword of the Spirit, transfixing the soul, which has thus died unto sin, and been made alive unto God. The late Rev. Matthew Wilks, a man of great worth and great usefulness, who, for fifty-three years, was pastor of the Tabernacle, Moorfields, London, when a thoughtless youth, heard of some preaching affair in a house or barn adjacent to the place of his residence; the intelligence fired his curiosity to know something about it. He was, moreover, too proud to go in and take his place in the meeting; but he listened through the key-hole of the door, and through that aperture a word reached him which became the power of God to salvation, and commenced that course of lengthened and laborious service in the cause of his God which has given him a name and entitled him to a high place in the records of British Christianity. Within the range of our acquaintance was a youth who heard two ungodly persons speaking in terms of admiration of a certain young minister who had come to a particular chapel: at that moment this youth was attending no place of worship, but the conversation he heard prompted him to repair to the place in question, where he was immediately brought to the knowledge of the truth, and from that time has continued faithful to the Lord, and one of the most zealous labourers of the age he lives in. But we

must cite a case of a still more striking and interesting character:

A Christian minister, some years ago, on returning from preaching in a village, was asked by an individual to direct him to a certain place. The request was attended to, and when the stranger was thanking the minister for his kindness, the latter replied, "Take care, my friend, you are in the right way at last." These words appeared long to sound in the man's ears, and what could the gentleman mean by them? was an inquiry often presented to his mind, and at length it led to the salvation of his soul. Some years had passed away, with all their attendant cares, joys, and sorrows, when the minister was solicited to preach at Ludlow, Salop. After the service, he was requested to visit a member of the church, who was in dying circumstances. As soon as he approached the dying man the latter fixed his eyes upon him, and, with a peculiarly significant look and emphatic voice, said, "Sir, I know you! I know you!" "Know me!" replied the minister; "how can that be? for I am a stranger here." "I know you, sir," again he replied. "Do you not remember," said he, "some years ago, a person asking you the way to such a place, and your returning with him, putting him in the right path, and when you were parting saying to him, My friend, take care you are in the right way at last?'" "No, I do not," replied the minister; for it had completely escaped his memory. "Yea, you did, sir," rejoined the dying man, "I have not forgotten it, nor ever shall forget it. right way at last;' O, sir, am I in that way now? I cannot live long, I feel that I am dying; tell me, O, tell me if I am in the right way." The minister questioned him as to his faith in Christ, and on other important points, to which the dying man returned suitable and satisfactory answers. The minister then affectionately and earnestly recommended him in prayer to God, and left him; and in a few days his mortal career ended.

IN continuance of our remarkable facts, extracted from the History of New England, by the celebrated Dr. Cotton Mather, we shall select an instance which, at that day, excited considerable attention throughout the Christian world, relative to a Major Gibbons, which is one of the most remarkable to be found in the records of maritime dangers and deliverance. Hard beyond all hardness must be the man who stands unmoved in the view of a display so obvious and striking of the Divine Hand. The genius of Infidelity itself ought to stand appalled, and feel constrained to exclaim, "Surely this is the finger of God!”

WONDERFUL STORY OF MAJOR GIBBONS.

Among remarkable sea deliverances, no less

'The

than three several writers have published that wherein Major Edward Gibbons, of Boston, in New England, was concerned. A vessel bound from Boston to some other parts of America, was, through the continuance of contrary winds, kept so long at sea, that the people aboard were in extreme straits for want of provision; and seeing that nothing here below could afford them any relief, they looked upwards unto heaven in humble and fervent supplications. The winds continuing still as they were, one of the company made a sorrowful motion, that they should by a lot single out one to die, and by death to satisfy the ravenous hunger of the rest. After many a doleful and fearful debate upon this motion, they came to a result that it must be done. The lot is cast; one of the company is taken; but where is the executioner that shall do the terrible office upon a poor innocent? It is a death now to think who shall act this bloody part in the tragedy. But before they fall upon this involuntary and unnatural execution, they