CHRISTIANITY, ITS REQUIREements and CONSOLATIONS.

MARCH 4.

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Be ye holy in all manner of conversation.-Our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

THE great care of the man who is content with the form of godliness without the power, is, that every thing should be right without; while the true christian is most careful that every thing should be right within. It would be nothing to him to be applauded by the whole world, if he had not the approbation of God and his own conscience. Real religion is, therefore, a living principle. Any one may make a show, and be called a christian, and unite himself to a sect, and be admired but for a man to enter into the sanctuary; to hold secret communion with God; to retire into his closet, and transact all his affairs with an unseen witness; to walk with God like Enoch, and yet to smite on his breast with the publican, having no confidence in the flesh, and triumphing only in Christ Jesus-these are the life and acts of a devout soul.

Practical christianity may be comprised in three words; devotion, self-government, and benevolence. The love of God in the heart is a fountain from which these three streams of virtue will not fail to issue. The love of God also is a guard against errour in conduct, because it is a guard against those evil influences which mislead the understanding in moral questions. In some measure it supplies the place of every rule. He who has it truly within him, has little to learn. Look steadfastly to the will of God, which he who loves God necessarily does; practice what you believe to be well pleasing to him, leave off what you believe to be displeasing to him; cherish, confirm, strengthen the principle itself which sustains this course of external conduct, and you will not want many lessons, you need not listen to any other monitor.

But amid the excellent rules of duty which christianity prescribes, it holds out the richest consolations. It offers even to the irreligious, who relent amidst their sufferings, the alleviation springing from the inestimable promises made to penitence; any other system, which should attempt to console them, simply as suffering, and without any reference to the moral and religious state of their minds, would be mischievious, if it were not inefficacious. What are the principal sources of consolation to the pious is immediately apparent. The victim of sorrow is assured, that God exercises his paternal wisdom and kindness in afflicting his children; that this necessary discipline is to refine and exalt them, by making them "partakers of his holiness ;" that he mercifully regards their weakness and pains, and will not let them suffer beyond what they shall be able to bear; that their great Leader has suffered for them more than they can suffer, and kindly sympathizes still; that this short life was not meant so much to give them joy, as to prepare them for it; and that patient constancy shall receive a resplendent crown. An aged christian is soothed by the assurance that his almighty Friend will not despise the enfeebled exertions, nor desert the oppressed and fainting weakness of the last stage of his servant's life.

Thy gracious words, O Lord, we hear,
And cordial joys they bring ;
Frail nature may extort a groan,
But death has lost its sting.

72

EFFECT OF INDULGING WRONG INCLINATIONS.

MARCH 5.

But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?

THE naturally good properties of every human being may be happily developed or dreadfully perverted. A wise education, discreet associates, suitable employment, daily caution and anxious will raise man to great virtue. prayers, The fatal effect of indulging wrong inclinations is seen in Hazael. When the prophet foretold "thou shalt be king over Syria," he contemplated his future self with detestation.-We are alarmed when we think how short a time has intervened between the most magnanimous sentiments and the most unworthy conduct. "Though I should die with thee yet will I not deny thee." "Verily, I say unto thee, that this night before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice." "But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing." "And it came to pass on the morrow he took a thick cloth, dipped it in water, and spread it on the king's face, so that he died, and Hazael reigned in his stead."

Men are deceived by the force and liveliness of their present sentiments and feelings; and as the tide of passion is often equalled in its reflux to its flow, the transition is easier than is generally allowed. Beware then, ye, whose hearts are yet untainted with deliberate wickedness, of the first suggestion of evil. What can compensate the loss of the cheerful days and the sweet slumbers of innocence ? Hazael longed for a crown: he obtained it its price was murder—was he a happier man? He secured it, by multiplying crimes and terrific guilt-was he happier for his triumph? When the sweetness of pleasure is heightened by the flavour of innocence; when the acclamations are re-echoed by the voice of conscience and of heaven; when the smile of wordly prosperity meets the unclouded sunshine of the soul, and comes as the harbinger of future joy, it is of some value. But a soul untuned and jarring with itself, makes but harsh discord of all outward harmonies; and you cannot expect to see the blessed azure face of heaven reflected from the foamy surface of a troubled sea. Desire indulged, soon ripens into action, and this action becomes the model of future actions increasing in atrocity. Here is the decisive point. Take not one step, yield not once-postpone not a single turn-forget not for one moment the rules of wisdom. He who courts an encounter with sin, is generally vanquished.

We are never to forget 'that temptation once victorious prevails easier at each succeeding onset, till the accumulating strength of habit rolls on, with accelerated speed, to inevitable destruction. He who acts wrong to-day, does, by that deliberate fault, hang bonds and entanglements on all his future actions. Let us pause, let us tremble in time.

Our Saviour has warned us of the insidious nature of evil"watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation," Abstain then most carefully, young man from the beginning of sin-dash the poisoned cup from your lips-call on all the energies of your soul to rescue your innocence-entrench yourself in good works and safe habits-fortify every avenue of your imagination by holy thoughts, useful duty, and friendly counsel, and thus put up an everlasting barrier to the follies of the world.

Thou shalt not have in thy bag diverse weights, a great and a small; thou shalt not have in thy house diverse measures, a great and a small; but thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have.

JUSTICE respects the rights of others, and refrains from all injurious purposes. Some rights, men are born to-such as the use of their limbs, and the uncontrouled exercise of their faculties; they are therefore entitled to the product of their labour and thought. The sower has a right to reap.-Where labours are intermingled, a community needs laws to prevent disorder, and these are obligatory on every friend of the common good.-Another source of right springs from voluntary mutual engagements, which must be strictly fulfilled. The strongest obligation is to do no wrong to any; to hold all rightful claims as sacred.

All restraint upon personal liberty, uncompelled by previous aggression, is a wanton breach of justice.

More criminal is it to forge chains for the mind; to prohibit the exercise of reason and compel man to violate his conscience. It is to rob him of his chief prerogative and defraud the Creator of the only acceptable homage.

Next to the undisturbed use of our bodily and mental faculties, justice maintains the exact observance of those civil laws, by which the disposal of property is regulated. Criminality here is measured by the necessity and value of regular government.

Contracts for mutual aid, promotive of social bliss, when formed on equal principles, are to be held strictly sacred and inviolable. Justice obliges us to abstain from all slander. Reputation is property, and he who vilifies any one, violates every principle of honesty and every bond of society. Slander is high treason in the social circle. It throws a blight upon the fairest fruits of life.

Justice is one of the pillars of the world. Its maxims make the civil code of almost every country, and are enforced by all the sanctions which human wisdom can devise. Even outcasts resort to it in their guilty confederacies.

But where man's eye cannot penetrate or his hand reach, there, the claims of justice are felt by the upright; and the reasonable expectations of a fellow being are weighed in the impartial scale as much as though defined by statutes and enforced by penalties. Far beyond all compacts, are the demands of reason and conscience on the just man. He scorns to weigh his neighbour's and his own advantage in a different balance, or measure it by a different rule. In comparing his own rights with those of others, his jus tice stretches into the domain of generosity; in comparing the claims of others between themselves, his generosity never deviates from impartial rectitude. Indeed justice and generosity, when genuine, not only accompany each other but actually spring from the same source. He therefore deems it pleasure, expediency and religion, to do to others as he would have others do to him.

May we, O Lord, with true delight,

To all, the test of duty pay;

Tender of every social right,
Obedient to thy righteous sway.

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WISDOM OF GOD SHEWN IN HIS PROGRESSIVE TRUTH.

MARCH 7.

I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it. We speak wisdom to them who are perfect.

A

THE plans of infinite wisdom are marked by a perfect consistency. The different dispensations of religion are successive parts of the same great system; the gradual opening of the purposes of the Almighty; each dispensation being admirably adapted to the peculiar ends it was intended to serve; and to the state and character of those to whom it was given. As a wise parent, in forming a plan for the education of his children, comprehends in it various and opposite arrangements, and employs many contrivances and illustrations to convey instruction to the infant and the child, which are altogether superseded in the more advanced periods of education, by direct addresses to the understanding and the heart; so has God, in the undeviating prosecution of the plan of infinite wisdom, led his church, through the succeeding stages of infancy and childhood, to the enjoyment, under the gospel dispensation, of the full privileges of maturity and manhood. In contemplating the edifice of the church, we see the gradual progress of its advancement under the forming hand of the great Architect: we trace it, if I may be allowed the expression, from the Tuscan simplicity and homeliness of the patriarchal ages, through succeeding stages of enlargement and melioration, till it appears in Corinthian magnificence and perfection,-a progress not arising in this case from the gradual developement of inventive genius, but from the gracious adaptation of the building to the circumstances and necessities of its occupiers. He who, fixing his eye on one particular part of the edifice, or limiting his attention to one stage of its progress, without regard to the unity and completeness of the whole design, should presume to censure the plan, would resemble, in ridiculous arrogance, the puny insect, settling on the dome of a magnificent temple, which in its utter incapacity to comprehend the harmony and adaptation of its parts, should stigmatize the bold projection of the columns, and the angular roughness of the cornice, of which it discovered not the symmetry or use, as proofs of the ignorance and absurdity of the architect. In contemplating the church at any particular period, we must not confine ourselves to an examination of the state at the moment, but must view it in connection with the history of former and after ages; and must unite each link in the chain of the divine dispensations with those vast and glorious results, ever present in the eye of God, which, the more they are contemplated, will produce the deeper conviction of the infinite wisdom and grace of Him who "worketh all in all.”

We live under the full light of christian truth, and are therefore bound by obligations proportionate to our superiour advantages, to walk worthy of our holy vocation. The Jews were ignorant. If a dawning of light better suited that morning of times than a meridian brightness, we are to thank God for preparing the world for the highest and hardest lessons. To whom much is given, of them much ought to be and will be required. Let us remember then what we have in store; and that all must be used to our infinite gain, or neglected and perverted to our inconceivable loss.

Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.

DEATH is, in itself, a most serious and distressful event. It is nature's supreme evil-the abhorrence of God's creation-a foe from whose touch every living thing recoils. So that to shrink from its ravages upon ourselves or upon those whom we love, is not an argument of weakness, but an act of obedience to the first law of being a tribute to the value of that life which is our Maker's gift.

The disregard which some of old affected to whatever goes by the name of evil; the insensibility of others who yield up their souls to the power of fatalism; and the artificial gaiety which has occasionally played the comedian about the dying bed of "philosophy falsely so called," are outrages upon decency and nature. Death destroys both action and enjoyment-mocks at wisdom, strength, and beauty-disarranges our plans-robs us of our treasure-desolates our bosoms-breaks our heart strings-blasts our hope. Death extinguishes the glow of kindness-abolishes the most tender relations of man-severs him from all that he knows and loves-subjects him to an ordeal which thousands of millions have passed, but none can explain; and which will be as new to the last, who gives up the ghost, as it was to the murdered Abel-flings him, in fine, without an avail from the experience of others, into a state of untried being. No wonder that nature trembles before it. Reason justifies the fear. Religion never makes light of it; and he who does, instead of ranking with heroes, can hardly deserve to rank with a brute.

He who, in one respect is associated with angels and archangels, who may look upon a Being of infinite perfection as his Father, and the highest order of spirits as his brethren, may, in another sense, say to corruption, "Thou art my father, and to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister." How often is the life of man, even in its fairest and loveliest, its most splendid, most admired, and most flattering appearances, suddenly and prematurely cut down, like the expanding flower of the morning, in all its vigorous freshness and all its glittering pride and beauty, falling before the scythe.

Earthly friends are taken away, but our heavenly Father lives; gourds wither, but the tree of life always flourishes ;-the cisterns are broken, but the fountain remains entire ;-worldly property is lost, but the inheritance is safe ;-death comes, but the believer is then gathered to his own people, and enters his native home.

The question then comes to this: What is that which fits us for the enjoyment of God, in the future state of separate spirits? We may bring this matter to a very sure and short issue; by saying it is that which makes us like to Him now.-This only is our proper qualification for the enjoyment of him after death, and therefore our only proper preparation for death. For how can they, who are unlike to God here, expect to enjoy him hereafter? And if they have no just ground to hope that they shall enjoy God in the other world, how are they fit to die ?-So that the great question, Am I fit to die? resolves itself into this, Am I like to God? For it is this only that fits me for heaven, and that which fits me for heaven is the only thing that fits me for death.