which shape our minds, and model our characters. What though the infidel scoff at religion, and stamp his New Testament in the dirt? Yet are its principles and precepts constantly at work blessing his body and his mind; and he can no more shake them off, than he can annihilate himself. They will keep adding to his temporal comfort, however much he may abjure them. They began this work before he was conscious of good or evil, nor will they cease while life lasts. Though he become a fiend incarnate, and says in the folly of his heart, "No God," yet he will admire and praise many things in community, which are either directly or indirectly the product of the Gospel; and which never could have been without it.

Such is its constant, all pervading, irresistible influence in a community.

Parents, for how much would you allow this element to be extracted from the combined influence, which is to form the characters of your children? Would a

tythe of your income, laid up for them in dollars and cents, equal the value? Would this, without one ray of Gospel influence on their natures, make them as amiable, or affectionate? To say nothing of the blackness of darkness" which must impend the future, and hold, in rayless gloom, every rational hope of heaven, would it secure as much temporal enjoyment to themselves? The writer is aware that these questions are in

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measure powerless, as they would naturally come to some minds; because even christian parents do not conceive what the real state of society would be, if every vestage of true religion were removed. We must not simply compare two communities in Christendom; the one enjoying all the institutions of the Gospel, in full vigor; and the other, in a great measure, deprived of them. This would be like the sun in its undiminished radiance, compared with the same sun when obscured by

clouds, and obstructed by terrestrial vapors. If you would have anything like a true picture of Heathenism, such as would be, in this land, without the Gospel, or any of its influence, you must take away every herald of salvation, and paint this fair heritage all over with the darkest moral shades-convert every church into a pagan temple—and fill it with all the forms of idols, which the combined art of men and demons have been able to invent-break down every family altar, or make it the pedestal of a strange God. But this would not complete the scene; for there would still exist the Bible, a light shinifig in a dark place; and prayer would go up from many pious hearts, remaining in secret to weep over the desolations of Zion. No! The moral destroyer must go on with a slaughterweapon in his hand, till the very remnants of pious feeling are destroyed-and every unholy passion and appetite is left to its unchecked, native tendency. This

would be something like the heathenism. which, at this moment, shrouds a large portion of the human family.

Now say, parent, are the blessings of the Gospel worth a tythe of your income? Then pay the tenth; pay it heartily; pay it ever more. For there are hundreds of millions just in this situation; and Christ, with all the imperativeness of universal authority, has commanded you to do it. The New Testament says you owe the Gospel to the heathen. And, if it does not require a tenth, to give it them, why has not the work been done, while you have been giving less? Why is the harvest perishing almost every where, because there are no means to send laborers into it? If you are sure that this debt to God does not amount to a tenth of your income this year, explain the reason why so many missionaries sink under their excessive toil; why so many Schools are disbanded; why a deficiency of funds, should paralyze the press, and

keep the Bible from flying on the wings of the wind, alighting every where to bless the wretched with light, and life? When disposed to treat this subject as visionary, or even in any manner short of compliance with its principles, ask the Savior as you sit down to commemorate his dying love, what he means by all the lessons of self-denial which he has given, both in example and precept. Ask him what he meant by making this self-denial so essential an element of christian character, that no man could be his disciple, unless he put it in practice. While you look upon the emblems of his suffering, ask why he should be so visionary, that while he was rich, and infinitely happy in the homage of all the heavenly hosts the enjoyment of his own, and the glory of his Father, he should voluntarily become poor, that we might become rich at the expense of his poverty ?-Especially, why he should be so tenacious of his visionary schemes as to enjoin, upon all his followers, coopera