evidence of thy Christian benevolence. He farther stimulates him to this act of charity, by declaring the confidence he had in his obedience; thus encouraging him to the duty, by intimating the certainty of his compliance. An additional lesson is given to religious professors, not only that their being Christians includes their being charitable, but that no act of charity should infringe on the rights of justice.

We conclude, by remarking on the union of judgment and kindness in Saint Paul's conduct respecting Onesimus. He sends him back to Philemon at Colosse, as a proof, on the part of Onesimus, of penitent humility, and on the part of Paul, of impartial equity. At the same time, he more than takes away his disgrace, by honouring him with the office in conjunction with Tychicus, of being the bearer of his public epistle to the Colossian church. He confers on him

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him the farther honour of naming him, in the body of his epistle, as a faithful and beloved brother.

How different is this modest and rational report by an inspired apostle, of a penitent criminal, a convert of his own; one who had survived his crimes long enough to prove the sincerity of his repentance by the reformation of his life; how different is this sober narrative by a writer who considered restitution as a part of repentance, and humility as an evidence of faith, from those too sanguine reports which are now so frequently issuing from the press, of the conversion of criminals brought to execution for violating all the laws of God and man!

The Gospel presents us but with one such instance; an instance which is too often pressed into a service where it has nothing to do; yet we far more frequently

quently see the example of the penitent thief on the cross, brought forward as an encouragement to those who have been notorious offenders, than that of Onesimus; though the latter is of ge-neral application, and the former is inapplicable to criminals in a Christian country; for the dying malefactor embraced Christianity the moment it was presented to him. This solitary instance, however, no more offers a justification than an example of fanatical fervors; for if it exhibits a lively faith, it exhibits also deep penitence, humility, and self-condemnation. Nor does the just confidence of the expiring criminal in the Redeemer's power, swell him into that bloated assurance of which we hear in some late converts.

For, in the tracts to which we al lude, we hear not only of one, but of many, holy highwaymen, triumphant malefactors, joyful murderers. True, indeed,

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deed, it is, that good men on earth rejoice with the angels in heaven, over even one sinner that repenteth. We would hope many of these were penitents; but as there was no space granted, as in the case of Onesimus, to prove their sincerity, we should be glad to see, in these statements, more contrition and less rapture. May not young delinquents be encouraged to go on from crime to crime, feeling themselves secure of heaven at last, when they see, from this incautious charity, that assu rance of acceptance which is so frequently withheld from the close of a life of persevering holiness, granted to the most hardened perpetrators of the most atrocious crimes?

As it has been observed, that the baskets of the hawkers have this year abounded in these dangerous, though doubtless well-meant tracts, may not the lower class in general, and our servants

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vants in particular, be encouraged to look for a happy termination of life, not so much to the dying bed of the exemplary Christian, as to the annals of the gallows? A few exceptions might be mentioned, honourable to the prudence, as well as to the piety, of the writers of some of these little narratives.