who will not receive it. If there were less bigotry among professors of religion and more charity, the publication of truth would do no harm, however opposite it might be to common notions. It is bigotry that does the mischief, and not truth; it is the spirit of persecution, and not diversity of sentiment.

SUDDEN DEATHS.

Upwards of a dozen persons in this neighbourhood have died suddenly within a very few months. On Sunday, the 7th of January, James Walmsley of Ashton, Member of the Methodist New Connexion, expired very suddenly. He had been employed in the Sunday School at Hurst Brook during the forenoon, and was just preparing to take his dinner in the school room, when apoplexy seized him, and he became speechless Medical aid was procured, but to no purpose. He was removed to his house in Ashton, where he expired in the evening. He was not unprepared for the event. He had been engaged in the service of God for many years, and he was employed in labours of piety and love to the last. He had also some expectations that his end was not far off. He had been admonished by the rupture of blood vessels about the head at different times, that his death would probably be sudden, and that it would not be very long before it took place. He declined being nominated as a candidate to represent the circuit in next conference on this ground, observing to his friends that he might be in his grave before that time, and that he expected no less. He had addressed the children of the Sabbath school in the forenoon with peculiar earnestness and affection, as if he knew that his day was come. In asking a blessing on his food he had given out the lines

"Be present at our table Lord,

Be here, and every where adored, &c. and when he had done singing the two last lines, "Thy creatures bless, and grant that we, May feast in paradise with thee,

he sunk into the arms of death.

A few Sabbaths before, the doctor was fetched out of Chapel while I was preaching in a neighbouring town, to a man that had hung himself; but it was too late. This man had been a drunken and ungodly man, and had made his burden too heavy to be borne.

Not long before while I was at a woman called Jones was burned to death in her own house under very peculiar circumstances. Her eldest son had come of age just before, and the festivities of the occasion had scarcely con

cluded. Perhaps those very festivities caused the premature death of the unhappy mother. It is awful to pass from foolish feasting, by such strange ways, into the eternal world

Another sudden death took place lately at Stalybridge. Betty Andrew of Rough Town, near Mossley, had gone to see her sister-in-law at Stalybridge, and died within an hour or two of her arrival. Her sister-in-law was taken ill about the same day, and died in a few weeks. Betty Andrew was a pious woman, and her end was peace.

A person a short time before died in a public house at Stalybridge. He had been sitting drinking, and when it grew late, he leaned his elbow on the table, and his head upon his hand, as if about to sleep. He remained in this state a long time, till they thought it time to awake him, but when they touched him he was dead.

Another man who was employed in building a Mill chimney in Mossley, fell down and was killed about the same time.

Peter Shaw, a very pious man, a member of our Society in Mossley, died in his class meeting, and Ann Shelmerdine, a member of ours at Heyrod, died almost as suddenly a few days afterwards. Peter Shaw seemed to have an expectation that something unusual was about to happen. He had for nearly thirty years been a very exemplary Christian, but for some weeks before his death he was more zealous and heavenly than ever. He spoke more frequently of good things, and ran more eagerly after the means of grace. He also let drop expressions that showed that his mind was under some more than usual impressions. A fortnight before his death he dreamed of Ann Shelmerdine, and went to speak to her in consequence about religion. When he got to the Heyrod be found to his great pleasure that she had begun some time before to live to God. Peter returned home very thankful that his young sister was in the right way, and within a week of one another both died suddenly and went to meet each other in a better world.

These are some of the cases of sudden death, which have taken place in my immediate neighbourhood within a few months. Several others have come to my knowledge, chiefly of a frightful character. One a miser, who hung himself, another a drunkard who by an opposite course came to the same end. Another was a young lad who was drowned while bathing, and another was a young girl who was carried off suddenly by inflammation. These are all intended to make us thoughtful of our latter end, and to lead us to employ our life while it remains, in doing the work for which we were born, and preparing for a happy eternity. Death was sent into the world to drive out sin, and to make us holy, and it is made to come to us in so many awful forms to strike our

hearts more powerfully. Let us hearken to the solemn warnings, and if we have begun to serve God, let us labour in his cause more zealously; and if any have not yet given themselves to God, let them make haste and delay not, to keep his commandments. In the list of sudden deaths which I have given, we find both saints and sinners. Both characters died suddenly, but yet there was a difference in their end. Few that read this account will fail to say, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." Of the ungodly three die by their own hands, one is consumed mysteriously, another dies in an Alehouse. Of the godly one dies, in the Sabbath school, where he has been teaching wisdom to the rising generation, another dies in his class surrounded with praying friends, a third dies in the bosom of her family, and a fourth on a visit to her relatives. All die peacefully, and leave the world full of hope of a blessed immortality. Living and dying, religion has still the advan tage: there is nothing like religion. "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come."

DEATH BED REPENTANCE.

To think of neglecting religion in youth and health, and of beginning to seek its blessings in sickness and old age, is as foolish as if a man should think of wasting his fortune in youth and health, and of seeking to obtain another fortune when about to die. He would find that money was not to be obtained by mere praying, and that he had fixed upon the wrong time for obtaining it by any other means. It is the same with religion. Religion is no more to be had by praying for alone than money is; and sickness and old age are as unfit for other means of obtaining the blessings of religion, as for pursuing plans of getting money. The proper time for getting both is the bloom and vigour of life, and those who wilfully refuse to seek them then will seek for them in vain in sickness. Religion is not the business of death, but of life, and there is not a promise of mercy to a death bed repentance from the beginning of the Bible to the end. Men are nowhere said to be judged according to their death, it is always according to their life; and it would be strange if God should allow the sins of a bad life to be set aside by the prayers of a penitent death. Life is our sowing time, and as our sowing is, so will our harvest be. It is too late to change the crop, when God is putting in the sickle.

WORDS OF THE WISE.

Act not the shark upon thy neighbour; nor take advantage of the ignorance, prodigality, or necessity of any one for that

is next door to fraud, and, at best, makes but an unblessed gain.

It is oftentimes the judgment of God upon greedy rich men, that he suffers them to push on their desires of wealth to the excess of over-reaching, grinding or oppression, which poisons all they have gotten: so that it often runs away as fast, and by as bad ways, as it was heaped together.

RESPECT-Never esteem thyself, or any other man, the more for money; nor think the meaner of thyself or another, for want of it: virtue being the just reason of respecting, and the want of it, of slighting any one.

A man, like a watch, is to be valued for his goings.

He that prefers a man on other accounts, bows to an Idol. Unless virtue guide us, our choice must be wrong.

An able bad man is an ill instrument, and to be shunned as the plague.

Be not deceived with the first appearance of things, but give thyself time to be in the right.

Show is not substance: realities govern wise men.

Have a care therefore, where there is more sail than ballast.

HAZARD. In all business, it is best to put nothing to hazard; but where risk is unavoidable, be not rash, but firm and resigned.

We should not waste time in grieving for what we cannot help but if it was our fault, let it be so no more. Amendment is repentance, if not reparation.

Consideration would often prevent, what the best skill in the world cannot repair.

Where the probability of advantage exceeds not that f loss, wisdom never adventures.

To shoot well flying is well; but to choose it has more of vanity than judgment.

To be dexterous in danger is a virtue, but to court danger to show it, is weakness.

DETRACTION Have a care of that base evil detraction. It is the fruit of envy, as envy is of pride; the immediate offspring of the devil: who, of an angel, a son of the morning, made himself a Serpent, a Devil, a Beelzebub, and all that is obnoxious to the Eternal Goodness.

VIRTUE is not secure against envy. Men will lessen what they will not imitate.

Dislike what deserves it, but never hate: for hate is of the nature of malice, which is almost ever to persons, not things, and is one of the blackest qualities sin begets in the soul.

MODERATION OF PASSION.-It were a happy day, if men could bound and qualify their resentments with charity to the offender: for then our anger would be without sin, and the better convict and amend the guilty.

We must take care to do right things in a right way; for a just sentence may be unjustly executed.

PASSION.-Passion is a sort of fever in the mind, which always leaves us weaker than it found us.

But being an intermitting fever, it is curable with care. Passion more than any thing deprives us of the use of our judgment; for it raises a dust very hard to see through.

It may not unfitly be termed the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason.

I have often thought that a passionate man is like a weak spring, that cannot stand long locked.

And it is certain that those things are unfit for use, that cannot bear small knocks without breaking.

ATTENTION TO YOUTH.

There is no man that ever understood the interest of mankind, of families, cities, kingdoms, churches, and of Jesus Christ the King and Saviour, but he must needs know that the right instruction, educa tion, and sanctification of youth, is of unspeakable consequence to them all. In the place where God most blessed my labours, (at Kidderminster, in Wor cestershire, my first and greatest success was upon the youth. And (which was a marvellous way of Divine mercy,) when God had touched the hearts of young men and girls with a love of goodness, and delightful obedience to the truth, the parents and grandfathers who had grown old in an ignorant worldly state, did many of them fall into a liking and love of piety, induced by the love of their children, whom they perceived to be made by it much wiser and better, and more dutiful to them.

BAXTER.

Mercy Triumphant: or teaching the children of the poor to write on the Sabbath-day proved to be in perfect agreement with the word of God with plain and full answers to all objections urged against the practice by W. Nunn of Manchester, J. A. James of Birmingnam, and the Wesleyan Methodist Conference. Published by R. Groombridge, 6, Panyer Alley, Paternoster-Row, London; and may be had from him by all Booksellers

Published by I. Davis, 22, Grosvenor street, Stalybridge; Banks and Co., Exchange-street; Heywood. Oldham-street, Manchester; R. Groombridge, 6, Panyer Alley, PaternosterRow, London; and may be had of all Booksellers.

I. DAVIS, PRINTER, STALYBRIDGE.