and reached the eternal resting-place appointed for all the children of God, without any necessity for my being made acquainted with his state! But God delights in the happiness of his creatures; and if He gave each of us an additional cause to pray, and another object to pray for, was it not benevolence? Was it not love, free, unmerited love? Such circumstances just give us a glimpse of the love and benevolence of the Supreme Being, which in such richness and fulness are imparted to His people.

It is needless to enter into the particulars of the conversation which now took place. My object is not to produce excitement by any romantic tale, but to prove the utility of speaking the truth at all times. Suffice it to say that he fully confessed himself to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. His cause and His word were subjects uppermost in his mind and in his heart; and he now confessed that since we last parted, the mercy and goodness of God had followed him.

How different now was his whole conduct and conversation! Instead of dissimulation, candour and honesty were stamped upon his character, and made still more conspicuous by that natural boldness of disposition for which he was remarkable. Instead of assumed gentleness, there was the meekness of grace; instead of intellect devoted to the folly of this world, there was a mind filled with the wisdom which cometh from above, and enriched and adorned with the knowledge of God, and his Son Jesus Christ. Well, indeed, might the Apostle say, “Behold, all things are become new."

I saw him once again, three years afterwards; he was on his way to the South of France. The disease which had so fearfully ravaged his family, was now about to lay him low beside six of his brethren; and he had now to prove in his happy dying testimony, that there is no hope, no comfort, no peace, no rejoicing, except in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I shall never forget our separation for the last time. Far advanced towards death, and sensible of its approach, he could not part from the friend whom he regarded as his best on earth, to see him again no more on earth, without some evidence of feeling; and, however upborne above earthly trials, by his principles and his faith, nature still had an influence over his affections, and he was almost choked with

agitation, before he could pronounce his last prayer for my happiness, and our future meeting in heaven. He lifted up his poor withered hands, and his eyes still brilliant, through a flood of tears, as he with much difficulty uttered,

"Oh, may that God, whose never-failing grace, and whose never-wearied patience and love have presided over my destiny, and made you the instrument of bringing the vilest sinner to the knowledge of his salvation, may his unbounded and unmeasured love, his abiding, sustaining, directing, and consoling presence, and the bright shining of his countenance, be your portion here, and the earnest of eternal glory hereafter. Oh! may you

Here he could not go on; his heart was overcome by agitation; and while he covered his face with his hands, I took the opportunity of leaving the room, and saw him again no

more.

He died six months afterwards at Nice, stedfast in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[Scenes of Death, by John Thwaites, M.D.]

THE BLESSINGS RESULTING FROM THE FREE CIRCULATION OF THE BIBLE.

ALL history, sacred and profane, attests the spiritual barrenness and misery of the world without the knowledge of God. As of the material creation, so it may be said of the spiritual, that it " was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face" of it, until the "Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light." No desert so dreary as a godless land-no wilderness so waste and howling as that valley of dry bones, on which the Sun of Righteousness has not risen to chase away the clouds and dissipate the moral gloom. Ye shall know them by their fruits, said our Lord. What then does the world produce, where there is no free course for the word of God? Does it bring forth fruit? Is it a smiling land, teeming with all the riches of moral fertility? Is there any seed springing up, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear? Is there any love of God? any zeal for his glory? any jealousy for his honour? any devotion to his cause? and longing for the extension of his kingdom? Is there any practice of

the personal, and social, and domestic virtues? any preference of the interests of others over selfish feelings? any caring for the state of others, as respects soul or body? Is it not all a struggle in the race of life for private ends? an unmitigated and unqualified rivalry? a contest of passions and selfishness, an accumulation of sufferings and moral evils, a world of envy, and malice, and all uncharitableness, testifying too truly that God does not reign there-that the kingdom of another master is set up there-that the prince of darkness is enshrined in the affections of the inhabitants, and their hearts are given up to his idolatry? Is it not a waste rather than the fruitful field of grace? Is it not a wilderness, instead of a garden of God's planting? Is it not a parched and thirsty land, instead of that rich and fertile soil on which the heavens drop down fatness, and the skies pour down righteousness? Is it not the habitation of dragons, and not of the redeemed of Christ-the elect of God, holy and beloved? But contemplate the subject in a more limited view: contract the survey: analyze the heart of an individual which has not been visited with the free course of the word, and has known nothing of the saving truths of the Gospel. Is there a single flower there that blossoms for eternity? Fragrant though they may be, and fair to the eye, are they not withering and fading sweets, springing up in a night, like Jonah's gourd, and perishing like other transient and unsubstantial vanities, before the setting of a summer's sun? Is there a single fruit there which will be gathered into the garner at the harvest of God's gathering? Is there a single precious thing there which shall be called the Lord's when he makes up his jewels? All is dark, and superstitious, and grovelling: corruption is at the core; the withering influence of profligacy prevails; the image of God is defaced, and a deep moral degradation settles on the mind, and holds it in that wretched slavery which is represented in Scripture under the affecting figures of blindness and captivity, night and death. And now reverse the picture; contrast its features with the face of a country where the word of the Lord has had free course and been glorified. Look, for instance, at our own land; however low and imperfect be the exhibition of Christianity which it presents, yet it is undeniable that whatever of power and moral strength we enjoy as a nation, whatever of character and credit, whatever influence, and whatever

weight,—all our successes and all our glories-all the pleasantness and peace of our domestic relations, the happiness of our homes, and the comforts of our families—all that is is kind, and amiable, and beneficent in society-whatever is of good report either in our public or private life,-is due to the unreserved and unfettered circulation of the word of God throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom. Corrupt her religion, and you destroy the talisman of her greatness. Restrict the free course of her Bible, and she is shorn of her glory; the source of her strength is dried up, the crown is fallen from her head, her riches and honour are departed. He whole history exemplifies the importance of those eternal verities of which her prince is reminded at that solemn season of inauguration, when the Church presents him with the book of life, "the most valuable thing that this world affords." "Here is wisdom. This is the royal law. These are the lively oracles of God. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this book; that keep and do the things contained in it; for these are the words of eternal life, able to make man wise and happy in this world, nay, wise unto salvation, and so happy for evermore, through faith that is in Christ Jesus."

[From a Sermon preached before their Majesties, October 4, 1835, by Charles Richard Sumner, D.D., Bishop of Winchester.]

THE DRUNKARD RECLAIMED BY READING A TRACT.

THE following anecdote was related by John Eastward, of Yorkshire, a hawker:-As I passed through a village in Yorkshire, I asked a poor woman to buy a religious tract. She replied, "Away with you and your tracts!" I turned round and threw one in at the door, and the wind carried it under the table. The man of the house came home, saw it, took it up, and read the title, Wonderful Advantages of Drunkenness; he left his dinner, and put it in his pocket. After he got to his work, he read it again. In the evening his companions missed him at the ale-house; and when they saw him, they inquired where he was on the preceding evening. He said he had been reading a religious tract. At this account of himself, they one and all laughed, and said he was

man.

going to turn Methodist. His neighbours said, "John P. was sober last night;" which quite surprised them, as this seldom occurred. But from this time he kept from the public-house, and began to pay his debts. His wife told all who inquired about him that the cause of this great change was reading a religious tract, entitled The Wonderful Advantages of Drunkenness, which a poor man had thrown in at their door. After being away two years, I returned to that neighbourhood again. I stopped at a public-house, about two miles distant from the village before named, and offered my tracts for sale. One of the persons in the room, with a dreadful oath, said I was one of those ranters or Methodists that had made their companion mad. The woman of the house said, "Do you call him mad? Then I wish you were like him; then you would pay the five pounds you owe me; for he has paid me every farthing he owed me, and all in less than two years." On entering a house, about a mile further, I was informed, that the tract I had thrown, two years before, into a poor man's house, had made him another At length I arrived at the village. A woman looked very hard at me, and said, "Are you not the man who sold me some tracts about two years ago?" I said I was. Then she said, "I have eighteen-pence, which a friend left for you, and now you must go with me to the house where you threw the tract in, which the wind carried under the table, and I am quite sure the woman will not tell you to go away now." As soon as I entered, the woman informed her I was the old man she so much wished to see. She cried out, "What! that dear man who threw in the tract?" and, running, she took hold of my hand, and said, "I humbly beg your pardon for what I said; I was in a passion, and vile and wicked." She bade me to sit down to dinner, and said her husband would be there in a few minutes. As soon as he came in, she told him who I was. He took me very kindly by the hand, and said, "Blessed was that hour when you threw the tract into my house, and thrice blessed is that God who directed you to one so wicked. I was then poor and wretched; spent most of my time in the ale-house: but now, thank God, I have a house of my own, and it is my greatest delight to come home after the labours of the day, and talk of the goodness of that God which directed me to the reading of the tract, The Wonderful Advantages of Drunkenness.”,