most hurried and interesting of all! Religious thought or devotion is to be considered an item of business,-met and disposed of accordingly! Then the mind is free from other pursuits. Such is precisely the idea of practical religion cherished by multitudes of those who, by profession at at least, claim the appellation of the Master, "Ye are the lights of the world."

Truly has it been asked by another, "How can the soul give itself to the service of God, or even the thoughts to him, when all the soul is wanted to run the race here? What mockery is that, when we pray to God to make us contented with such things as we have, when this is the very last thing we desire; and when we are determined to run with the swiftest and wrestle with the strongest? Can the man who tasks every power of his soul to gain money, in order to spend it in keeping up with the world, do anything for his spiritual elevation and permanent enjoyment? Who can rightly pray for a family, when he sets before them the example only of the worldly man, and can hardly spare them time to caress them? How does this spirit so poison the air, that the voice of prayer will not go up even from the closet, except as an echo from the sepulchre of the soul! How does it chase from the fireside the joys of home and home scenes, and make the family circle, where the sweetest virtues ought to flourish, a strange place, and a barren and desolate garden ?"* To all these dangers, temptations, and evils are they exposed, who, notwithstanding the voice of Christian truth in their ears, still suffer themselves to be led astray from it by the absorbing desire of gain, the deceitfulness of riches! Oh how forcibly here come home the words of divine truth,-" He that loveth silver, (that is, supremely,) shall not be satisfied with silver." Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly in all things to enjoy ; that they do good; that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

Eternal life! The knowledge of God in Christ Jesus! This, then, constitutes the true wealth of the soul. Without this, the mind is a moral waste; with it, a garden of the Lord. Happy they who find it, "for the merchandise thereof

is better than the merchandize of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold."

Here, then, are essential and serious hindrances in the way of religious culture. And they should not remain. They should be set aside. We should seek to know the exact value of the world and the things therein. Thus shall we learn to use as not abusing them. Then may we have cares and riches; but our God and his grace will claim more thought and affection than all. The language of the full and eager soul will be, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon the earth that I desire beside thee."

"Perish each undue ambition

That this erring heart hath known;
Yet how rich is my condition,

God and heaven are all my own!"

2. Again. POLITICS may be considered another hindrance in the way of spiritual culture and advancement.

We are a nation of politicians. This comes of the very structure of our government. Officer-making and political scheming employ much of the time of our people. In city and in country, with all classes, and I had almost said, with all ages, political science shoots out beyond all other sciences. There is scarcely an indolent hanger-on at the village inn, who has not on his mind great and weighty thoughts about the affairs of the nation. Political newspaper reading and discussion seem to have the ascendancy in the interviews of the day, and in the long councils at night.

And in all this how much breath is wasted,-how many hours utterly lost,-how many things thought and uttered which should never have found favor with true men, yea, with freemen! And how few are thus truly fitted to discharge aright the political duties they owe to their country!

It is a fact too palpable to be denied, that few, comparatively, of our ultra politicians are religious men. They cannot come out of the hot strife for opinion and place, long enough to sit at the feet of Jesus, and hear his words. In proof of this, look at some of our political and legislative bodies when in agitation! What spirit, too, often predominates?-that of Christ, or of the Prince of darkness? Against political interestedness and zeal I would not raise a murmur. Let these exist. But not to claim more of our attention than Christianity,-not to lead us to the worshipping of idols, to the following after political party leaders, repeating, parrot-like, political watchwords and harangues,

and entering life and soul into the affairs of this or any other nation beneath the sun, to the neglect of those higher and holier principles, the doctrines and precepts of that kingdom whose sovereign is God, whose people the moral universe, the foundations and laws of whose government will abide through eternity!

Multitudes of nominal Christians have too much of political business and capital on hand, to warrant much, if any, advancement in Christian grace and holiness. They ought oftener to cast aside their political sheet for the Bible; to suspend their loud and profitless political debate for secret religious meditation and prayer; and to exchange at least some of their deep anxiety about political men and movements, for attention to their own moral defects, subjugation of their perverse passions, and the discipline of their own souls. Would they do this, their country, their whole country, would be quite as safe, they wiser and far better prepared to render it essential service in the day of need, and God far more highly honored in their thoughts and actions. In connexion with our political interests and opinions, let us think of these things.

3. One other hindrance let me name. It is that of MATERIALISM.

We do not reason so much from the spiritual as from the temporal. We trust rather in that which can be seen and felt with our material eyes and hands. Thus striveth the flesh against the spirit. This evil operates in the suggestion of doubts concerning the future. In consequence of it, multitudes secretly suppose that death may be the utter extinction of our being; that we shall have no resurrection; that when this present physical organization shall be dissolved, when these eyes shall no longer see, nor these ears hear, nor this tongue speak, nor this heart throb with emotion, then our being will be swallowed up, not of life, but of death! And why not? We have seen, we have known, materially, no other existence.

Thus reasons the understanding clogged by the merely temporal, and little swayed by the inner life of the soul, And into the heart where the word of truth has made its appeal does this evil come, choking that word and rendering it unfruitful. The soul cannot run freely its heavenly race,it cannot mount upon eagle's pinions to the lights and enjoyments of the upper world. Striking and undeniable evidence of the apostolic affirmation, that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God !"

Now we need a counter action here. The Word of God is our directory to a spiritual life. It lifts us above the heavy atmosphere of the temporal to the clear skies where life perfected and immortal reigns. It has raised man so that all the trials, and afflictions, and evils of the present existence appeared as lightness itself when compared with the far exceeding and eternal weight of glory beyond it. It led Paul to say, "The life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. For me to live is Christ; but to die is gain." It led Cowper to exclaim, as his last song,

"O burst thou the bands that detain
My soul from her portion in thee!
O strike off this adamant chain,
And make me eternally free !"'

if

Such a life, such a power, such a heaven may be ours, we are careful that a gross materialism does not arrest the progress of divine truth within, so that the Word with us becometh unfruitful.

I might add more, but have I not already declared as many hindrances in the way of our spiritual improvement as we can at present encounter? And may I not ask the reader to search and see how far these sayings apply to him? Depend on it, if God has made a revelation of his truth to us, that truth is full of the riches of heaven. If Christ calls it, it is a message of grace and salvation.

"The kingdom of heaven," says our Saviour, "is a treasure hid in a field." In this life, which a gracious Father has given us, the treasure of heavenly truth may be found. But if we seek it in the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, in the din of political strife, or in the grossness of materialism, we shall not find it. This kingdom cometh not with observation,-it is "not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."

True, cares we must have,-riches we may gain, prompt may we be to the call of our country, and much may we feel of the pressure of that which is material and temporal upon that which is unseen and eternal. But, then, let us understand that although in a measure blended with, yet the Christian life extends far beyond these interests and associations, and takes hold on the immortal. These must pass

away. That remaineth.

THE MORAVIAN MISSIONARY.

BY MRS. L. J. B. CASE.

His hut is where the drifted snows
Throw back the sun's faint ray,
And o'er the iceberg's glittering spires
The Arctic moonbeams play.
Though like those snows the golden hair
He brought to that stern clime,
His heart has kept its Christian Love,
Unchilled by frost or time.

Beneath the pale Auroral light
He treads the trackless wild,
To bear the gospel's blessed balm
To misery's smitten child.

And what to him those wintry skies?

The breath of summer bowers

Is o'er his soul, and life is full

Of sunshine, song and flowers!

The brave Moravian,-lo! he dares
Swart Afric's burning sands,
To bid the stream of Life gush forth
Amid those desert lands.

And where Death rides the poisoned gale,
And there is none to save,

He plants the Saviour's banner high,
E'en o'er his early grave!

There are bright isles of tropic bloom,
Where beauty ne'er grows dim;

But hopeless human beings pine,
With gyve on mind and limb,-

There goes the young Moravian,-there
He sells himself a slave,

That he may teach those fettered souls,

Freedom beyond the grave.

And there are lands where men cast forth

The leper lone to die,

And brother from his brother turns

A cold, unpitying eye;

Yet by that dying leper's bed,

A noble form is seen;

No tokens of disgust or fear
Are in his placid mien.

VOL. III.-NO. XI.

43*