(Ps. cxlii. 4; Matt. xx. 7). God has sent | Let me add, in conclusion, one word on May He who is the great Head of the Church in earth and heaven enable you to answer these questions with a good conscience and well-grounded hope! May he open your hearts, like Lydia's, to attend to the things that are spoken! May he uphold you with his perpetual care! May he grant grace more abundant measure to the ministers of his word and sacraments, that their labours may be made effectual to the great purpose of the Gospel! May they be enabled so clearly to discern the truth as it is in Jesus, and so faithfully to maintain it, that they may both save themselves and those that hear them! THE THANKFUL CHRISTIAN.* It has long been my opinion, that if we could ascertain From "Pastoral Recollections." By a Presbyter. 18mo, 1837. enjoyment from the gratification of his desires than indisposed, to draw a just line of distinction between | daily leads you to repentance, and binds you more the use and abuse of religion; and is ready and glad closely to his service: his 'service is perfect freedom."" to embrace every opportunity to charge upon true "I hope so; for he is good both to my soul and body: godliness what applies only to perverted notions of he supplies my wants, and sometimes fills my soul godliness. It is much to be feared that the beer-shop with love and joy which I cannot find words to utter." receives and entertains many a lingering customer, "You attend the house of God on his holy day, I hope, who would gladly sit at his own fire-side, surrounded my friend?" "O! yes, sir, I go regularly morning by his wife and children, and enjoying their innocent and afternoon." "Where do you attend on Sundays?" little gambols, did the wife's domestic and religious "I go where I always used to go, and my forefathers habits but lead her to consult the comfort and temper before me, to the church." "I am glad to hear of her husband, as well as her own selfish gratification. it, and I trust you find it good to be there, my The husband, when he comes home after the toil and friend?" "Indeed, sir, I do so." "Do you hear the heat of the day, or drenched with rain and shivering and understand pretty well?" "I understand the with cold, finds that his wife is gossipping in some neigh- sermons middling well; but I understand the Church bour's dwelling or at some nocturnal religious meeting-service, and follow in the book; and while the service the little children half asleep-the fire nearly out-the is read, I often feel my heart full of comfort and hearth-stone unswept-the evening meal unprovided; | delight: it would not make much difference to me if and he is tempted to seek, in the beer-shop, a society, there was no sermon. We can have nothing better, solace, and comfort, which he is denied at home. sir, than the prayers, except the Bible." "You say How many husbands are steeled against religion, and rightly, Maria; for what are the services of the Church, turn drunkards, through the mistaken zeal and imbut the doctrines, the promises, the commands, and prudent habits of a wife who professes godliness, but the warnings of the Scriptures, turned into prayers, who has not learned that true religion teaches and pleadings, confessions, and thanksgivings?" requires its professors to seek the things of others as well as their own, to be "keepers at home," to "guide the house," and to follow the maxims-" a time for every thing, and every thing in its time;" a place for every thing, and every thing in its place;" "waste not, want not." O! there is a charm which rivets the man to his home and to his hearth, when and where he can repose his weary limbs amid the many officious attentions of his domestic little circle, and refresh his exhausted frame with the provisions, though few and scanty, offered by the hand of her who is the partaker of his joys and his sorrows, and feel the clingings and the climbings of the smiling urchins who entwine around his paternal heart. To close and to sanctify these little domestic enjoyments with prayer and supplication, with praise and thanksgiving, to the Father of all mercies, is to smooth the rugged path of Efe, and to organise a society for usefulness here, and for happiness hereafter. From such a cottage you hear ascending, not the wranglings of discord, but the sweet voice of harmony; not the bitter cursing and swearing of the brutal drunkard, but the prayer and the supplication of the man of God; not the murmurings of discontent, but the thanksgivings of a grateful Leart. But from this digression I must return. 66 Maria M-, on my first, as on every subsequent visit, was diligently employed in her calling, that of a cardsetter, an employment usually committed to women and children, and affording but a scanty return. Maria's eyes being very weak rendered the work more tedious. I found, on inquiry, that by this occupation she usually earned about eighteen pence a-week. How do you live with so small an income?" "That is what my friends often ask me, and I tell them that God blesses my little means; I am often helped, when and where I least expect help, and, I thank God, never want. I want nothing so much as a thankful heart." "I hope that the goodness of God has led you, and Card-setting is putting into the leather prepared and perfarated, the small teeth, or pieces of fine wire properly formed.-a tedious process. These cards are used in preparing or carding the wool, previously to its being spun. In my subsequent visits to this excellent Christian, I found her piety and her consolation of a high order. Glowing, I may truly say, as she sometimes was, with love to her blessed Saviour, who had first loved her, and with gratitude for his daily mercies, there was nothing in her conversation that savoured of enthusiasm or vain-boasting. "We are nothing of ourselves," were the conviction and confession of this excellent saint. Nor was she,as is the unseemly custom of too many of our modern prattling pietists,-swift to speak and slow to hear (thereby inverting the apostolical precept), or anxious to proclaim, at every turn and corner, her religious knowledge, experience, and attainments; for she was lowly in her own esteem. God's Holy Spirit had taught her to know herself, and self-knowledge excludes boasting. But whenever the subject of religion was introduced, a string in Maria's heart was touched, which soon vibrated. And I must confess, without any affectation of humility, that I never departed out of Maria's cottage, without feeling ashamed of my own low and poor attainments, compared with her own, in experimental religion. Ah! my friend, there is many a salutary admonition, many a humiliating lesson, and many an encouragement, to be derived from visits to the abode of worldly poverty: and it is a question whether the pastoral visitor or the visited derives the greater advantage from pastoral intercourse with the flock, when that intercourse is properly regulated. By winding your way into the cottage, you wind your way to the hearts of its inmates; and by the exhibition of a benign aspect and Of the beneficial influence of pastoral visits in promoting practical religion, there is a strong testimony borne in the address presented to the late Rev. T. T. Thomason, on his leaving India. The following quotation from that address the writer takes the liberty of presenting to the reader:-"On your first arrival among us, you commenced a round of pastoral visits to the families of many of the Old Church congregation. These parochial visits led to the adoption of social worship among families where such a practice had not been observed before; while they added fresh fervour and earnestness among those with whom family worship had been already established."-Life of the Rev. T. T. Thomason, by the Rev. J. Sargent, p. 309. a benign feeling, you convince them that in you they may meet with the tenderness and faithfulness of a friend and a shepherd. And thus do you prepare the ground for the reception of the heavenly seed, the "word of God." Nor let it be deemed a wasted time which is spent in listening to the tales of distress and difficulties in temporal concerns, which the poor frequently pour forth into the ear of their pastor. On these themes they claim our sympathy, our counsel; and they introduce subjects, which, though unconnected with the great object of our visits, may always be judiciously and beneficially directed to that object. To the tale of bodily distress or temporal calamity, our great Exemplar, while tabernacling among men, never turned a deaf ear, but exhibited his sympathy with, and relieved the distressed. In your quiet, unostentatious intercourse with the flock, do you learn what are the various workings of the human heart; what are the difficulties which arise from different temperaments, habits, and circumstances, and which impede or oppress the pilgrim in his onward course; or what are the errors by which the simple are beguiled, and the cavillings and objections which fill and influence the ungodly against the truth. The shepherd who only leads his flock to the best pasture on the hills and mountains, but never watches over the flock, never attends with vigilant care to the health and state of each individual sheep, never carries in his arms the weak, the tender of the flock, never stands between the unsuspecting sheep and the greedy wolf, but is content to leave the flock to feed indiscriminately, as best it may, on the pasture;--such a shepherd would scarcely deserve the name, or to be entrusted with a flock. Analogous to the conduct of such a shepherd is that of the minister of God's holy word, who is content with discharging his public function, who is satisfied if, by preaching even "sound doctrine," he is to his hearers "as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument" (Ezek. xxxiii. 32); and who, having placed before his charge wholesome food, leaves the sheep to wander, to be led aside, to be wounded, and to perish, by neglecting to follow up his public instruction and exhortation with being "diligent to know the state of his flocks, and looking well to his herds" (Prov. xxvii. 23). But to resume my narrative. My stay in the parish was not long and after my departure frequently heard, on inquiry, the gratifying tidings that Maria M- was holding on her way, and waxing stronger and stronger. To the end of her days she found the fulfilment of the gracious promises, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Heb. xiii. 5); "Bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure" (Is. xxxiii. 16). When no longer able to earn her wonted pittance by the labour of her hand, friends were raised up for her; and her venerable pastor provided her with the bread that perisheth, as he had, by his ministry, fed her with the bread that endureth unto life eternal. You will have observed, in my conversation with Maria M, that she did not place her dependence upon, or draw her comfort from, the sermon alone. She heard, she understood, she felt, and, with humble voice, she united in, the solemn services of the sanctuary. Her Sabbath religion did not consist in going "house from place to place to hear a sermon, but in worshiping God; she regarded the Lord's house as a of prayer." Nor did she deem the pure word of God, so abundantly read in the public service, less weighty than the exposition or the preaching of that word: to her, the pure fountain of divine truth, the naked Scripture, was not less refreshing and sweet than the mixed streams, human commentaries, which flow from the fountain. To "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness" is the most ennobling employment of a rational being; to confess his sins in a humble posture of body and soul before the mercy-seat-to supplicate the Divine mercy and forgiveness through the sin-cleansing blood of Christ-to entreat the vivifying, enlightening, and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit-is the most becoming employment of a sinful creature: to pray for his daily bread, as well as to render thanks for mercies past, is an incumbent duty of a dependent creature; and to intercede for the whole family of man, of every clime and colour, is most befitting a creature who is heir to the same trials, afflictions, and sorrows, which more or less befall the whole brotherhood. For these employments our Church provides an admirable aid in her " form of sound words." May the few" pastoral recollections" of Maria Mserve to convince the reader, that in the obscure and lowly abode of worldly poverty, the true riches may be happily enjoyed, as both the foretaste and the pledge of that glorious inheritance laid up in heaven for all "who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity," and serve him faithfully unto the end. If CHURCH AND STATE.-It is obvious that if a Christian state recognises Christianity at all as a part of her constitution, she must recognise it according to some particular form of discipline, no less than of doctrine. I see not how she can do otherwise. the state is to take any cognisance of religious truth and religious ordinances, it must do so definitively. It could do so no otherwise at the period of the Reformation; it can do no otherwise now. Then, indeed, there was no difficulty. The only thing which the legislature had to do, was to accept, in behalf of the laity, that reformation of religion which had been embraced by the clergy; and to add the sanction of parliament, to that previously given by convocation, to the restoration of the ritual of the Church, thus reformed in doctrine, to a conformity with the ancient model. The case now is different. Then the Roman Catholics were the only religious dissidents of any importance; now there are many sections of nonconformists. But, I ask, to what extent can the legislature take cognisance of this difference? Shall it cease to recognise Christianity at all, because the inhabitants of the land are not agreed amongst themselves either as to what opinions they shall hold, or according to what forms they shall worship? or shall it extend its sanction, indiscriminately, to all? (for, by the supposition, selection or favouritism is out of the question). The consistent advocate of separation must embrace the former alternative: and, indeed, it would be manifestly impossible for the supreme power of the state to adopt the latter, without giving its No express sanction to whatever might be heretical in doctrine, as well as whatever might be extravagant in worship. Accordingly, the former is the view taken by the consistent advocates of disuniting the Church from the state. "Leave religion," they say, "to herself: she needs not the aid of royal bounties or legislative enactments. She is independent of all such human assistances; and to interpose the civil power in her behalf is derogatory to her high origin and native energies." But, then, their consistency must not stop here. Upon their own principles they must refuse to allow of any interference on the part of the legislature in matters of religion. Christianity must be expunged from the statute-book, and discarded from the proceedings of our legislative assemblies, and banished from our courts of justice. If it be true that the civil authority has nothing to do with the promoting of religion, no act whatever must receive the public sanction for supplying the means of Christian instruction either at home or abroad. The ignorant poor in our own island, and the uninstructed habitants of our colonies, and the multitudes of heathens subject to our influence or dominion in our foreign possessions, must equally be abandoned to the luntary efforts of individuals. Neither can any the authority be interposed for the suppression efice and irreligion. The laws against profaneness, aphemy, and infidelity, must be repealed. protection whatever can be afforded to the peaceable and religious from the most open and daring violatens of the Sabbath. Every man must be left at berty not only to espouse, but to propagate printiples the most injurious to man and the most disbonourable to God. For by what standard can such offences be tried (so far as they do not by overt acts affect the property, or peace, or safety of individuals), if Christianity be no longer acknowledged as the law ef religion in the land? I would not willingly overcharge the picture, for the sake of discrediting the opinions of those who differ from me in a question like this; but, I own, I see no middle course between either upholding, by legislative sanctions, the Protestant Christianity of the Church of England, and providing for the instruction of all classes of our people in its doctrines and duties, on the one hand; and, on the other, the entire abandonment (so far as the acts of the civil power are concerned) of the great balk of the population to the unrestrained operation of ignorance, infidelity, and vice. The real question at issue in this controversy appears to me to be-not Whether the Church of England shall retain her ascendency, but whether true religion shall perpetuate hir existence, in our land. The contest is not between the Established Church and those who dissent from her, but between Christianity and infidelity— ween religion and no religion. If we unchurch Le state, we shall, in my humble opinion (if God in his mercy interpose not), unchristianise the nation.Archdeacon Hodson's Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Stafford. BENEFITS OF FAMILY WORSHIP." Surely there cannot be a more rational or promising commencement of our daily occupations as members of a Christian family, than a common offering of prayer d praise to God.... How improving, when the Lasiness of the day is over, again to assemble in the presence of the Lord; to render him an account of our proceedings; to acknowledge our own defects, and his exceeding mercies; to be assisted by the word of Divine truth in banishing from our minds the cares nd vanities which had too powerful a hold upon them ring the day; and so to be prepared and purified r the more secret and particular devotions of the Camber."-Bp. Blomfield's Sermon on Family Worship. WILLING OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S COMMANDS.-One of the surest tests by which we may try ourselves, is the light in which we are in the habit of viewing the commandments of God. If we come to the performance of them with all the unwillingness with which slaves take up burdens imposed by a severe taskmaster; if it is our great object to reduce them within the narrowest limits, so as to give the utmost latitude we can to indulgence; to disregard the spirit, and adhere to the letter of the law, where the former would thwart our inclinations, and the latter does not happen to reach them; in short, to gain heaven with the least possible sacrifice of present enjoyment;-if such is our aim, this niggardly and unwilling submission to the law of God affords no proof of our having that spirit of adoption, that renewal of the heart, which mark the children of God and heirs of his kingdom. Nay, it rather proves that we are as yet strangers to that "constraining love," which makes the yoke of Christ easy, and his burden light.-Sermons by the Rev. John Marriott. Poetry. AN EVENING PRAYER. LORD of my life, whose tender care Before thy throne I bow : I bless thy gracious hand, and pray Humbly, O Lord, I come to thee, Sinful before thee fall; My life, my hope, my all: I pray thy grace my wayward heart To live alone to thee: Take me, and claim me for thine ownMake me but thine, and thine alone. O may I daily, hourly, strive In heavenly grace to grow! Dead else to all below: With prayer my humble praise I bring Lord, teach my heart thy love to sing - Thou, blessed God, hast been my guide, And when this life's sad journey 's past, In my Redeemer's name, for all Bend from thy throne of earth and skies, And bless my evening sacrifice. Chelsea. NINETEENTH PSALM. NEW VERSION, BY COLONEL BLACKER. (For the Church of England Magazine.) LORD, supreme in glory dwelling, Of thy wond'rous power and might Earth and heaven rejoice in telling, Day to day, and night to night. Through each clime, to every nation, Trumpet-tongued, by sea, by land, Nature speaks her adoration Of the great creative hand. See, the sun in bridal splendour Tells from whence his glories rise; See the moon her homage render As she climbs the spangled skies. Glorious thus thy word, it beameth O'er the soul supremely bright, Speaking Him whose love redeemethJoy of nations-light of light. Some may strive for earthly treasure, Gold of Ophir's richest mine; Sons of luxury and pleasure For their honied sweets may pine: Be thy grace my soul's possession, Ruling every turn of mind, Till each thought and each expression In thy sight acceptance find. Miscellaneous. Ω. SCOTTISH EPISCOPACY.-We are fortunate in having an example how Christians may lawfully separate from an established Church; and how they ought to behave in their separation. The Episcopalians of Scotland thus separate, because they deem themselves bound to remain in a communion governed by the apostolic order of bishops, which the national establishment has lost or rejected. Their principle rests upon the plain duty of obeying at all events the spiritual authority which God has appointed from the foundation of his Church, whether it be recognised or neglected, established or persecuted, by the civil power. But they acquiesce without murmuring in the poverty and obscurity to which the non-conformity exposes them; and they make no attempt to disturb the existing arrangements of the country. They separate, not because Presbyterianism is established by the state, but because Episcopacy has been ordained by God: and since obedience for conscience' sake, under whatever trials or discouragement, has been their ruling principle, we cannot wonder, however we may admire, at the noble example they display of uncomplaining meekness and devoted loyalty. They who are true to God will always be loyal to their king. Far otherwise they, who, deeming all orthodox sects indifferent, and of equal authority in themselves, yet contend, that if the state sanction any one of them, that one ought therefore to be resisted. Thus they canonise rebellion; and truly they honour their patron saint.-From Osler's Church and Dissent. LOCUSTS IN THE EAST.-Such a visitation as a swarm of locusts, indicative of the vengeance of an Almighty power, can only be conceived by those who have witnessed their sweeping and dreadful ravages. Indeed, in some countries the calamity reaches to such an extent, as actually to compel the inhabitants to lay in stores of provisions, lest they should suffer famine in consequence of their visit. I once happened to be near a cloud of these insects, which darkened the sun, and extended for several miles. The whole ground was literally covered with them. They leap like grasshoppers, making at the time a hissing noise. It is asserted that they have a government similar to bees. They follow the wind; and when the king rises, he is attended by a host of them, which proceed in one compact form, similar to a disciplined army on a march in the same direction. They come chiefly with the east wind. That they have a royal leader, however, is contradicted by Solomon (Prov. xxx. 27). The Arabs eat them in a fried state with salt and pepper; and they were unquestionably permitted as food under the Jewish dispensation (Lev. xi. 22), at which time there were different species of them. These insects are also mentioned in the description of the ruins of the city of Nineveh (Nahum, iii.). Solomon also alludes to them in connexion with "dearth, sickness, and pestilence," in the sublime prayer offered at the consecration of the temple (2 Chron. vi. 28). Their grand objects of attack are vines and fig-trees, which they so completely strip of their leaves as to convert them in a moment into an image of winter; and the husbandman, at the "rising of the sun," joyfully beholding his fruitful fields, promising bountiful crops, beholds, before its "going down," his hopes blasted, and the fair landscape become a desert. This is exactly agreeable to their practice of old (Exod. x. 15), where we are told, "Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it" (Deut. xxviii. 38). swarms of locusts arise from immense tracks of waste land, which affords them shelter from the heat.-Rae Wilson's Travels in the Holy Land. The THE KING'S SUPREMACY.-The very system of religion which the king is bound by the word of God to establish and maintain debars him from the assumption of any sacerdotal function. If we find from that word, which confers upon him all his authority, and is to be the rule of his conduct, that the exercise of functions purely spiritual has been conferred by Divine authority upon an order of men set apart by a special commission from Christ himself, then it follows that this is one principle of that religion which the civil magistrate is authorised to establish. His very authority, therefore, becomes at the same time his restraint. As the commission issued by the great Founder and Sovereign of the Church not only conferred those powers on the first heralds of his word, but secured their transmission by a legitimate succession throughout all ages to a regularly authorised ministry, so the civil ruler is bound to establish and support this Divine institution, but not to change it. He has, therefore, no power either to execute, or to qualify any to execute, functions which are purely spiritual; but is bound to maintain in its integrity that which is so obviously the ordinance of God.From Falloon's Apostolic Church. TO SUBSCRIBERS. Vol. III. is now ready, price FIVE SHILLINGS, embossed cloth. Vols. I. and II. may still be had, uniformly bound, price HALF-A-GUINEA the Set. Single Numbers and Parts may at all times be had from the commencement. LONDON:-Published by JAMES BURNS, 17 Portman Street, Portman Square; W. EDWARDS, 12 Ave Maria Lane, St. Paul's; and to be procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country. PRINTED BY ROBSON, LEVEY, AND PRANKLYN, 10 ST. MARTIN'S LANE, |