and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding." "Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom." So John the Baptist says, "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice." So St. John in the Revelations, says, " And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband;" and the angel says, "Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife:" and again, "He saith unto me, Write, blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb." So I might go on multiplying, without end, these allusions; none of them, we allow, expressly and formally say that marriage was a Divine institution; for why should it be thought necessary to say so when it was universally allowed; but all confirming it, all alluding to it, all representing the great value and dignity in which it was esteemed by the Saviour of the world and his apostles. When any figure is wanted to describe the glory and the happiness of the Church, it is the bride that is immediately brought forward: when any great crime on the part of the favoured people of God is alluded to, it is under the expression adultery; when any great sorrow or affliction is pourtrayed, it is under the figure of a widow.

And lastly, we may add to this, the many personal directions as to the duties of husbands and wives, such as St. Paul: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it:" and then, again, "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord." But why use these words, as unto the Lord? Because it was by Him and through Him that they stood in that mutual relationship, and that therefore it was for the Lord's sake, the author of that relationship, that they were to do as the Lord directed.

LIFE AND DEATH.

I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing.-Deut. Xxx. 19.

Ar a little weekly meeting which I instituted for the purpose of assembling the females in my district together, to unite in prayer and in the reading of God's word, there were two women, at one period, who attended very constantly, and for whom I felt a deep interest. When I first became acquainted with them, I found them very worldly and dead in sin, without a hope or a thought respecting a future state. It pleased God to make use of this very humble means of awakening them to a sense of their sinfulness, and a desire to seek that Physician who alone could cure and cleanse their souls, and make them meet for heaven. It happened that they resided in the same house; they were also both suffering from distressing circumstances, though of a very different nature Mrs. W, with a large family of children, was experiencing the heavy affliction of a bad and neglectful husband, who, while spending his earnings in an unlawful manner, left herself and the children in penury and distress. She found in the Gospel truth a balm for her twofold sorrows; a Saviour for her sins, and a heavenly friend and comforter in her afflictions. She experienced that the weary and the heavy laden, in coming to Jesus, found how easy was the yoke, and how light the cross in his service, and under his wing. She became patient and meek under her daily trials, and thus afforded a substantial proof of the power of the Spirit of grace working in her heart.

Mrs. H her next floor neighbour, had created her own miseries; the habit of excessive drinking rendering both herself and her husband miserable. She was by no means of the lowest grade of life, having been brought up in a very respectable manner, and her husband earning a decent livelihood. She felt often the deepest remorse at her conduct, and her incapability of resisting a sin that had so great a hold of her, and in a moment of anguish and half intoxication, she swallowed a dose of laudanum, in order to put a period to her wretched existence. By prompt medical assistance, and the application of the stomach-pump, her life was preserved, and as she gradually recovered from the effects of the poison, she evinced much horror at the crime she had com

mitted, and gratitude for having been thus rescued from everlasting perdition. She began to attend our little meetings: expressed an earnest desire to lead a new life, and to follow that God who had, in mercy, preserved such a sinner: the awful truths of Scripture came with force and power to her mind, and she was enabled to lay aside her inveterate habit, and subdue this heinous sin. The neighbours were all astonished at the alteration. The drunken female that had before excited their disgust had become sober and industrious, and cleanly; and many around gave glory to God for this wonderful change.

Sum

Three months passed away in this happy manner. mer arrived, and I left town for a season, but at so short a distance that I was still able to visit it once a week, and to hold the little meetings as usual. What indescribable pleasure did the presence of these two poor women give me, to enter the little apartment, week after week, and find them assembled with the rest, and with an earnest desire to learn the truth as it is in Jesus. How impossible it is to express by words the feelings that swell the hearts of Christians when our heavenly Father deigns to allow them the sweet privilege, the unmerited pleasure of discovering that his Holy Spirit has shed his influence, and blessed the humble effort of teaching the ignorant, and carrying the Gospel light to those who sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death! Is it to warm our cold hearts with more fervent love? Is it to incite us to more ardent zeal, to a more unreserved and devoted dedication to the glory of God, that the reward of our labours of love should be so infinitely above their desert? so that our very nothingness becomes something in the gracious hands of Him, who blesses the motive that guides us, while He compassionately passes over our utter insufficiencies.

Alas! I have too often to lament, that the loving kindness of my God has not warmed me, has not incited me with the zeal and the enlargement of heart, that his manifold and gracious favours should have produced. How many trivial circumstances have served to damp my ardour. How many unimportant events have drawn my time and my thoughts from the great work of seeking to win souls to Christ, and endeavouring to follow up with care and diligence the awakened conscience, and with a jealous eye to watch over the slightest symptom of backsliding! One day Mrs. H

was absent from the Prayer-meeting; it was the first time; many occurrences might have caused it, and my hurried visit to town, with other matters to engage my mind, soon made me forget the circumstance. The next week arrived; Mrs. H was not at the meeting. I was, no doubt, equally hurried, as I had always been on my weekly visits to town; but yet, that I should be so careless, so thoughtless about the precious soul of a fellow-creature, who had been so lately rescued from the fangs of sin and temptation; nothing but duties the most imperious, should have prevented me from ascertaining the cause of her absence, from visiting her, and repeating the powerful truths that had enabled her, for such a time, to resist so powerful a sin.

Poor Mrs. W. never failed in her attendance, and the portion of Scripture selected for our reading on that day was somewhat remarkable, on account of the events which so immediately followed. It was the 23rd Psalm. Few people, converted or unconverted, can listen to it, or meditate upon it, without being in some measure affected. It was so with our little assembly. The verse in which the psalmist beautifully describes his faith in the strength of the Redeemer, even in the hour of death, excited great attention; especially Mrs. W -'s countenance and manner proved how deep an impression it made upon her heart. I never saw her again. The same evening she was seized with the cholera, and carried off in two hours! yet, happily, leaving every hope in the minds of those acquainted with her, that she died in faith in Christ.

It was not till my return to the meeting the following week that I heard of the sudden removal of one that had so much excited my interest. In her death I felt that I could rejoice, having an assurance that her soul had clung to Jesus, and had found peace through Him. But this intelligence was followed by another truly distressing. Mrs. H- was also gone; her spirit had fled during the same week, but under most awful circumstances. A wretched female who had been the cause of leading her at first into vice, hearing of the change which had taken place in her conduct and life, had been using every influence to bring her back to her former evil ways. The slave of Satan finally succeeded, and for ten successive days the poor creature was never herself, from the effect of drinking; this brought on a

premature death, and in this awful state she was called into the presence of her God. One Christian neighbour attended her dying hours, and at intervals entreated her to call upon the Lord, who was yet at hand to save. Deep and terrific groans were the only answers that the dying sinner could utter, and she expired, leaving a melancholy example of the consequences of intemperance, the power of besetting sin, and the subtle vigilance of Satan in alluring his victim from hope and happiness into the dreadful abyss of lasting ruin.

What a feeling of solemn awe pervaded our next meeting; the affecting detail of the departure of two of our companions, who had so short a time before been uniting their voices of prayer and 'praise with our own. One had been hastily carried off by an acute and agonizing disorder, allowing neither time or power for prayer or preparation, and the other expired (we fearfully supposed) in the power of Satan, and under the wrath of God. Two of our little assembly had been thus suddenly snatched away, and we were left. What warnings from God to redeem our mis-spent time, to wrestle with Satan, to conquer sin! I trust that we did not separate that day without these awful events being blessed to our souls, by making a lasting impression of the horrors of sin, of the value of the never-dying soul, and the necessity of living constantly in a preparation for eternity.

With bitter self-reproach I must ever deplore my careless and sad procrastination in not investigating fully the cause of the absence of poor Mrs. H- from the meetings; a kind Christian visit; a solemn admonition; a prayer offered up with and for the grievous backslider, might have proved effectual; might have rescued her from the bottomless gulf into which she was plunging. Alas! how much have I left undone that I might have done! How many opportunities have I lost! How many sins of omission as well as of commission have I to weep over, and which lay me low in the dust; while at the foot of the cross I ardently seek for the double cure of the sins of my heart, that both the guilt and the power may be washed away in the blood of the Redeemer !

Procrastination in the matters to which this detail alludes, proceeds, too often, from selfish negligence of the welfare of the souls of our fellow-creatures, and we are too apt to be satisfied with this slothfulness and want of love, by arguing that