confidence in an unfailing providence rendered stronger, never was the divine goodness more signally displayed towards her, in both spiritual and temporal blessings, than when she was reduced to the greatest extremity her last shilling lost!

"Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed" (Psalm xxxvi. 3).

A. L.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN PRISCILLA AND PHEBE, ON THE DUTY OF THE MEMBERS OF CHURCHES ΤΟ CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS THE SUPPORT OF THEIR PASTORS.

Priscilla. Well, my dear sister, how do you get on in your new place; I hope you are comfortably situated? I am happy to see you more frequently at our weekly meetings than you were while in your former situation.

Phebe. Thank you, beloved friend, I am as comfortable as I can expect to be, as a servant of all-work; to be sure I am not like you, with a home of my own, and an affectionate husband to provide for me; but still I enjoy many mercies for which I ought to be thankful.

Pr. It is, to be sure, a great mercy to be provided for as I am by providence; but I know what it is to be a servant of all-work too; and, after all, such a situation, where a young woman is concerned to do her duty, has many advantages. I suppose you have good wages, as your employers are considered very kind and liberal towards their

servants.

Ph. As both my master and mistress are real christians, they are anxious for me to enjoy as many opportunities as possible for public worship; but I sometimes think that, considering I have now been out several years in service, my wages are not what they ought to be; for, after all, six pounds are no great amount for a person of my years and experience.

Pr. Though it is not the largest sum given, even in the country, yet, considering the price of women's clothing, a careful, industrious, christian girl may manage very well with it, and even lay by something at the year's end. But as your income has lately been increased, I hope you will advance, in proportion, in your contribution for our beloved pastor.

Ph. Why, I pay already one shilling and sixpence a quarter for a sitting; and I am sure if all did in proportion to that, according to their several ability, he would receive a very considerable salary. But, pray, does he complain that he has not enough? I should be very sorry for him to be in needy circumstances.

Pr. I have never heard that he does. Indeed, I believe he is too modest and selfdenying to utter a word of complaint, if he can possibly manage without it; but should we not all be anxious not to put him to the pain of being compelled to complain?

Ph. I wonder there should be any difficulty in making up what is promised him, as, on the whole, the chapel is pretty well attended. Why do not the deacons make all who occupy the pews pay for them?

Pr. My dear friend, we have no law but that of love to induce people either to attend public worship or to assist in the support of a gospel ministry; besides which, if the unconverted be urged much to give their money, it is to be feared they may be led to imagine that religion is a mere worldly affair, managed on worldly principles, and thus a prejudice may be formed in their minds against the gospel itself. At all events, we can best and most effectually teach them by our example. If we give liberally and cheerfully, they may be induced to do so too; but if they see us framing excuses for withholding what we can afford, no wonder if they close their hearts and hands against every demand. We who profess to love the Saviour should show our love to his ministers.

Ph. Why, then, do not the deacons and others, who can afford it, do more?

Pr. Perhaps we are all very deficient in this duty; but the pastor's support ought not to be left to a few; all should lay by for this object as God has prospered them, and then that which is now often felt as a burden would be found light and easy.

Ph. It seems, however, hard for a poor girl like me to be expected to pay for others.

Pr. My dear sister, not at all. Has not more been done for us than for them? Does not the Master whom we profess to love and serve tell us, that where much is given much is also required; and that the labourer is worthy of his hire? You and I have both lived in ministers' families, and know that their style of living is very different to that of most of the tradesmen who

usually attend on their ministry. And how should it be otherwise? Think of what is expected of them; the appearance they and their families are required to make in public; the appeals made to them for almost every kind of charity in the neighbourhood where they reside, as well as the drainings from their little store by the sick and poor, in their daily visits to the abodes of the destitute.

Ph. I remember when I lived with Mr. Trueman, that he often came home and talked of the destitution he had been witnessing, lamenting his inability to administer aid where it was so much needed; and many a time have I been sent to the poor sufferers with a little food from his table, when I have known that it could be ill spared from the scanty dinner which had been provided.

Pr. And yet you think it hard to contribute towards the support of our beloved pastor!

Ph. No, my dear; only hinted that I could not do more.

Pr. Why, if you were to double your contributions, you would still be a gainer by the religion you profess.

Ph. How so?

Pr. Why, both of us have naturally a taste for fine clothes, and were it not that religion teaches and enjoins what is prudent and plain, we should foolishly spend a great deal more than we do, in making ourselves ridiculously fine, rather than neat and becoming, in the situations we are called to fill in society. There are many vain and foolish girls who spend every shilling they can get in decking off their persons, in a style of dress so exceedingly improper, that no wise and discreet lady likes to engage them in her service, and no thoughtful, prudent young man, one would suppose, would ever be disposed to choose one of them as the soother of his sorrows, and the manager of his household. Now, if such thoughtless creatures were brought under the power of the gospel, it must, at least to a great degree, preserve them from such expensive and ridiculous conduct; and though they would be required to devote a portion of their earnings to the cause of Christ, yet they would not only be real gainers in the end, but much more respected by the wise and good.

Ph. I feel, my dear Priscilla, the justice of your remarks, and will do as you recommend; and as my means have been in

creased, so I will increase my subscription to the support and comfort of the minister, whom, above all others, I have reason to honour and love.

Pr. I am very glad to hear you say so, and hope your example will be followed by many others. If all did according to their ability, the servants of Christ would be much more free from care and anxiety, and, consequently, more useful to their people; for being free from fear, with regard to their temporal affairs, they would preach the word more boldly, and, consequently, be more likely, under the divine blessing, to diffuse a spirit of peace and joy among their people.

Ph. I once heard a wealthy professor say, that it was better for ministers to be poor, that poverty kept them humble, and that they preached most experimentally when they were tried.

Pr. That professor said so to save his money. If poverty be good for the minister, it must be good for the people; if riches endanger the minister, they must hazard the condition of the people. But the Great Head of the church has not left this matter to the mere caprice and selfishness of his professed followers, but has ordained "that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel." And the churches were so attentive to the claims of their pastors in the days of the apostles, that Peter deemed it necessary to exhort ministers not to enter upon the office of a bishop or pastor for the sake of filthy lucre. Now, if ministers had not been paid better then than most of them are now, there could have been no need for such an exhortation.

Ph. Well, my dear friend, you must admit there are many calls for money on the disciples of Christ in the present day. There is the Foreign Mission,-the Home Mission, the Irish Society, the Bible Society, and I know not what beside; so that for some object or another, appeals are being made almost every month in the year.

Pr. Well, dear sister, you must admit that all these societies are worthy of the support of those who love the Redeemer, inasmuch as they have his glory and the everlasting good of men for their aim and end.

Ph. I freely admit all this; but one cannot do every thing. If I must contribute to all of them, I shall not be able to give so much towards the support of my own pastor.

Pr. I have heard ministers say, more than once, that those churches which are the most liberal in their contributions for foreign objects, are generally the most just and generous in their conduct and spirit towards their ministers at home. But if we are so circumstanced that we can only contribute to one object, our own minister has the first claim. His is a debt, and not a charity; and christians must be just before they are generous. To withhold from him that we may be able to give to other objects, even though those objects may be good and benevolent in their design, is to give that which is not our own.

Ph. Thanking you, dear friend, for your kind and good counsel, I must bid you, for the present, farewell.

AQUILA.

THE VOYAGE OF "THE DUFF."

Who has not heard of the ship Duff, and of her missionary voyages, and of her pious and excellent Captain, James Wilson? At six in the morning, August 10, 1796, she sailed from London for the Southern Pacific ocean. The missionary flag, three doves bearing olive-branches in their bills, was raised to her mast head, her sails were given to the favouring breezes, and to the music of a hundred voices singing the hymn,

"Jesus, at thy command we launch into the deep." she turned her bow to the billows, to convey the beloved men with whom she was freighted to the pagan islands to which they were destined. These men, Cover, Eyre, Jefferson, and Lewis, with twenty-five others, formed the first company sent out by the London Missionary Society for the reclamation of the heathen world to Christ. A new era in the history of missions dates from the sailing of this ship. Amid peculiar trials and many divine interpositions she pursued her voyage: she doubled the stormy Cape in safety-she visited Otaheite, the Marquesas, and other islands-she landed her missionaries on the islands selected for the commencement of the work of missions; and after a three years' voyage, whose narrative forms some of the most delightful chapters in the history of modern missions, she returned home to England, to make another at a subsequent period.

The narrative of this voyage was soon published in London, dedicated to the king.

It excited extraordinary attention among all classes in England, by the revelations which it made of the awful degradation of the islanders of the Pacific. The book was published in America, and although there were no Tract Societies to print it, nor colporteurs to scatter it over the land, it obtained, for that day, a wide circulation.

At that time there was a village rising amid the woods of Western Pennsylvania, composed mainly of Presbyterian emigrants from Scotland and Ireland, a people whose influence in shaping the institutions of our country has been great indeed. In this village there was neither church nor settled pastor, nor stated means of grace. It was occasionally visited by a missionary, whose visits were long anticipated with pleasure, and remembered with gratitude. By some kind providence a copy of the narrative of the voyage of the ship Duff was conveyed to this village. A good new book was then regarded, when there were so few in circulation, as a great acquisition to a family and even to a village. The volume went from house to house, until it was read by nearly every family in the settlement. In one of these Scotch families was a fine boy, on whose mind its perusal made a very deep impression, and who, although not then pious, made a resolve that if ever he should become pious, he should go as a missionary to the heathen.

Soon afterwards this town was visited by a missionary, whose preaching was greatly blessed. A delightful revival accompanied his labours, and some conversions occurred in every family, without an exception, in which the little volume had been read. The young boy, to whom I have alluded, was among the first subjects of the good work; and faithful to his resolve, he commenced a course of preparation for the work of the ministry, and of a missionary. Circumstances which he could not control, just as he was concluding his studies, gave an entire change to his subsequent life, but without in any degree calling off his mind and affection from the heathen world.

It was to him a day of joy when his first son was born. Remembering the vows which he once made, but which he was prevented from fulfilling, he dedicated that infant son to God, and to the work of missions. That son was hopefully converted in his youth; and when prepared for the work of the ministry, devoted himself to God as a missionary. He went to India,

where feeble health permitted him to remain only a few years; but in those years he laid the foundation of missionary operations in Northern India, which from their commencement have been so remarkably successful. Seeking health at a sanatarium among the Himalayas, he laid a tract upon the table. It was read by an officer and a physician attached to the English army, and was blessed to the conversion of each. How wonderful are the ways of God! These men, unimpressed by christian ordinances at home-thrown amid circumstances only calculated to wean them from God-abroad, at the very end of the earth, and at the farthest possible remove from gospel institutions, are brought to embrace the gospel by a tract! Surely, "there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few."

This father had a second son born to him, whom, like the first, he consecrated to God and to the work of missions. Early in life he was made the subject of saving grace, and devoted himself to the ministry. The heathen world opened before him; and although endowed with talents and acquisitions which would have made him the ornament of any pulpit in our land, he selected down-trodden, perilous Africa, as the field of his labours. The fact that so many missionaries found in Africa an early grave, seemed only to strengthen his resolution to go there. And he was induced to yield his preference only by his brethren, who wished him to enter the wide field just then providentially opened in China by the success of the British arms. No more able or promising missionary has the church of God sent to that country. There, for a few years past, he laboured with untiring zeal, respected and beloved by all with whom he had to do. And when the centre of many high hopes and expectationswhen best qualified to discharge his duties -when exerting a wide influence at home and abroad, and in the zealous pursuit of his one great object, the conversion of China to God, the christian world has been called to mourn his death by the hands of cruel pirates. Long will the winds that sweep over the Chinese seas be regarded as singing his requiem. And although his grave is amid the pearls and corals of the ocean, many a voice will be heard rising from it through coming generations calling

upon the sons of the church to devote themselves to the salvation of China.

It is not for me to say, nor for man to know, all the influence of that one book in preparing the way for that revival of religion-in preparing the mind of that young man to receive the impress of the Holy Spirit-in inspiring that faith which led the father to consecrate his infant boys to the work of the ministry, and of missions-in laying the foundations of influence in India and China, which will continue increasingly for ever. Yet the narrative teaches us,

1. The real value of a good book. What would be the blessing to the church of the ministry of such men as Baxter, Doddridge, Whitefield, continued in its vigour for a thousand years. And a 'good book, more eloquently than they, and to far more numerous people, may preach for that number of years twice told! Well may any man exclaim, O for grace and strength to write a good book or tract !

2. It teaches the importance of circulating good books. Aboy found an old volume of poetry, covered with dust, on the sill of the window in his father's house. Its perusal led him to attempt poetry, and he became one of the greatest of English poets. We know not what we are doing when we secure a serious perusal for a good book. We may be putting springs in motion that will never cease acting for good. Perhaps the voyage of the Duff was sent to that little Pennsylvanian village by some pious man. If so, and had he never done any thing else. would he have lived in vain? If that missionary had never done any thing else than lay that tract upon the table of the hotel upon the side of the Himalayas, would he have lived in vain ?

3. It teaches us what fruits we may expect from parental fidelity. None can tell how many holy ministers, devoted missionaries, or self-denying members of the church we owe, under God, to parental consecration from the hour of their birth. Let every parent that reads this article consecrate anew his children to God; and although they may not become lights on high to guide the movements of the church, they may become centres of influence in the circles in which they are to move; and if they do no more, they may lay a tract upon a table.-American Messenger.

A FEW WORDS TO YOUNG MEN.

BY THE REV. C. M. BIRRELL.

I was struck lately, when musing over the imperishable journals of Henry Martyn, to find him-after he had reached the highest honours of the University, had gone to a foreign soil, and had translated the New Testament into two distinct languages, spoken by some millions of people-exclaiming, "How little have I done for Christ, and I am this day seven and twenty years of age!" "Seven and twenty years of age!" how many of us at that period had scarcely discovered that we were immortal creatures! The reflection brought to my remembrance the fact, that our Lord entered on his work before his boyhood was over; and that the evangelists, while maintaining absolute silence in respect to many years which preceded and which followed his first appearance in the temple, make that incident stand forth boldly, as if to say, "Whoever means to do any thing for the world must begin early. He who withholds his youth from God has very little else to give him. What follows will be little more than the filling up of the outline previously projected. The finished piece will partake of all the deficiencies of the first sketch."

Why, young men, are there so few of you who take up a firm position on the side of Christ? I am afraid some of you consider

a fervent love to him, accompanied by a profession of his name, as a somewhat weak or mean thing. You reckon it more manly, noble, independent, to be your own masters, and to keep aloof from many whom you see have taken a religious course. It must be admitted that some persons of the weakest capacities and of the humblest condition in life have embraced christianity. It has, indeed, more adherents of that description than any other system which the world has ever had proposed to it. But to despise it on that ground would be to exhibit an ignorance of what is really great and noble, which I trust none of you will ever cherish. If piety were the cause of weakness, the mother of imbecility, the nurse of superstition, you might contemn it; but there is not a man, on the contrary, be his abilities high or low, who is not immediately elevated by the reception of it. The wretch who embraces it is no longer mean; he ascends

to an eminence which places him above all the wisdom of antiquity and all the thrones of kings. The philosopher who talks proudly about the nature of the deity and the destinies of the human race, is but a babbling child compared to the clown who has daily conference with God. He alone is a man, who loves Christ. He alone reaches the summit for which his nature is fitted, who holds habitual intercourse with heaven. Of all delusions, that is the greatest which supposes the knowledge of God to be ignorance, and companionship with God to be

meanness.

But perhaps there are some of you who ground your objections more upon what you conceive to be the gloom of religion. It is, you think, a very serious, heavy, melancholy thing. Nor will I pretend that it is not so to one who forces himself through its outward services without really loving it. I cannot conceive of many things more forbidding to one whose heart remains attached to sin and to the world, than the exchange of the noisy mirth of companions and the glare of purchased entertainments for study of the word of God which he does not understand, and for conversation on religious topics which he neither understands nor likes. It is not christians of that description that we desire you to become. We would force you to nothing. We would have you act from the genuine impulse of your heart. We would have you to retain the fullest liberty of spirit, and to choose what gives you the most delight. We only want you to look fairly and heartily at the blessedness of true religion. If it were in your power to sum up all the advantages and pleasures which this globe ever presented, and to say," All these are mine,have you anything which can give me greater satisfaction?" we could only smile at your simplicity, and tell you that we have that which cannot stand a comparison, because it is totally beyond any. We can point you to Him who is above all, from whom all things come, and in whom all good dwells. Can you imagine any thing equal, in the power of conveying happiness, to the conviction of having the love of the Creator of heaven and earth resting on you; of having an Almighty hand guarding and guiding you in every turning of your way upon