fixed the wanderer to thee; to have made her, from that time, cry unto thee Thou art my Father, the guide of my youth.', Then thou didst surround me with many duties, which, I felt, required Divine assistance to perform; thou gavest me some sense of my responsibility, and some measure of communion with thee. 1 "After a time thou sawest fit to relieve me of some of my cares. My brother and sister went to England, and I had but one with me. Then, O Lord, my foolish heart began to hope for happiness, and rest upon the earth, and thou permittedst me to wander far from thee in search of them. The praises of friends, and an undue desire to possess them, farther led me astray, and being surrounded by more than usual temptations, and subject to the society of worldly people, I forgat God; and, in the fear of not recommending religion, I laid it aside in my intercourse with them. This was the means which Satan and, my wicked heart used to draw me aside from my God; and oh, how nearly had they succeeded! But blessed be God, I trust I am not entirely left without a witness by him; I trust I have a deeper sense of the deceitfulness of the human heart, and of the only ground of a sinner's hope, even Christ's finished righteousness. "When I take a review of only the past year of my life, and see how many sins I have committed, how many resolutions I have broken, Oh what cause do I see for humiliation and selfabasement. At first, it almost drove me to despair; now, I trust, the blessed effect has been to drive me to the Saviour, to make me admire and adore more the fulness of his atonement; to look off from myself, and behold Christ as one altogether lovely, the chief among the ten thousands. "I still have many wants. O God, may I never be satisfied with present attainments, but continually press forward to new degrees of holiness and resemblance to thee. I need a more thorough acquaintance with the oracles of God. I need a greater desire for communion with God, and a greater capability of joining with his servants in prayer. I need to keep a greater watch over my tongue, and to guard against frivolous and useless conversation; and not only so, but to introduce subjects of more importance. I need a more perfect command of my temper and inclination. I need a greater sense of my obligations to my dearest Lucy, the responsibility resting on me to instil Divine truth into her mind, and to lead her to a knowledge of her Saviour. I need a deeper sense of the importance of time, and a better appropriation of its hours. I need a greater sense of my obligations to do something for God, and to give up my own comfort and convenience for the promotion of Christ's cause. I need to see the foolishness of a love of dress,* how much it is beneath the attention of reason, much less of religion. I need to guard against vain thoughts, a love of flattery or admiration. I wish to let my example be such as to evidence the reality of my professions, so that in every act, and in all my intercourse with mankind, a Christian spirit and temper may be manifest. I want a new heart. O Lord, thou knowest my wants better than I do myself; help me to pray earnestly to thee to supply them, and teach me the best means to obtain them." On the same day she thus wrote to her sister Sarah: “Sept. 18, 1827.—I am, my dear sister, twenty years old to-day. I feel that in all probability a large portion of my time has passed away. I have been endeavoring to take a retrospective view of my past life, and I most sensibly feel to how little purpose my time has been spent, and what a solemn account I shall have to render to that God who knows not only every word of our tongues, but discerneth our most secret thoughts and purposes. So great were my early advantages, that I should have made great improvement; and yet some of the best years of my life are gone, for ever gone, with the remnant of time's wasted years,' and I am only making resolutions to begin to act the great business of life. I have attained to mature years, and have only the feelings of a child. I have been taking a particular review of the three years and six months since our dearest mother was called to a better world. I have had many mercies to be thankful for; my situation has been pleasanter than I ever anticipated. I have enjoyed the friendship of many excellent persons, friends of God; and although my happiness has not been unmingled, yet She was at all times remarkable for her plainness, and neatness of attire. it has been sufficient to demand in return an entire devotion of myself, all that I am, and all that I have, to the Father of mercies. Yes, it appears to me, that these years have been a series of making and breaking resolutions. Very few things can I see as an evidence of my union to Christ; but this one thing I do learn every day I live, that if I am ever saved, it must be through the intercession of Christ alone. This I have always believed, but never realized it as I have of late. It is my only hope, and when I see how complete is the redemption purchased by Christ, how free and unlimited, then, and then only, can I look with confidence or composure to the hour when heart and flesh must fail, and every other refuge not founded on the rock Christ Jesus. I may have entered on my last year; the summons may have gone forth, 'this year thou shalt die.' Oh may the thought quicken me to greater diligence. I can leave the event to God, in the hope, that whenever it does come, I may be enabled to glorify him in death as well as in life. "It gives me great pleasure, dear Sarah, to look back on the evidence left by our dearest mother, of her preparation for death. Her life evinced it, so that had it pleased God to remove her suddenly we should still have had no doubt of her state; but her triumph in the hour of death, her support in it, the confidence she expressed in Christ, her last words, all show that strength was perfected in her weakness, and that God verified his promise, 'As thy days so shall thy strength be Dearest Sarah, may we die the death of the righteous, and may our end, like her's, be peace." BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. A FEW books lie upon the Editor's table. Amongst them we are happy to find Barnes's "Notes explanatory and practical” on the Acts and Romans, carefully revised by the Rev. Samuel Green.† From our having seen only the first part of this edition, we were not aware of the progress made in it. To what we have already said in praise of this cheap and admirable work,‡ * On that day fifteen months she was conveyed to her last resting place. See our Volume for 1850, p. 475. + London, B. L. Green.. we can add little, except that our anticipations have been fully realised. Mr. Green's editorial labors have been concientiously executed, and afford a guarantee for the reliability (to use a word of Southey's) of Sunday school teachers, and those likely to find the greatest use for this volume. In an "Appendix" tó the commentary on the Romans, he contends earnestly and convincingly, for what we conceive to be the orthodox faith, in opposition to a little word heresy on the part of Mr. Barnes, who, we believe, after all, to mean nothing inimical to the biblical doctrine of justification by grace through faith. We, nevertheless, honor the sensitiveness of Mr. Green on this im portant point, and refer to it merely in proof of his careful and advised supervision of the work. On the "Notes" themselves, comment is superfluous. The assurance we derive from them, that the words of God are "pure words, as silver, tried,” is very consolatory to the Christian. They come from the furnace of criticism more lustrous than before, and we bring virtue out of them at every touch. Many instances we had selected in proof of this assertion; but on more mature consideration, refer the reader to the work itself, which, at its present price, is attainable by all. Another work from the same pen, albeit issued at the low figure of two-pence, deserves our most thoughtful and attentive remark. Christianity as applied to the mind of a child in the Sunday school,"* is a sound, healthy, philosophical, and practical sermon, which should be read and re-read by every teacher of children and youth. We are glad to see in our own country a growing assimilation to the common sense school of our transatlantic brethren who have long been in advance of us in the rationale of instruction. The work under notice, presents us with an exact analysis of its title. The Child, Christianity, and the Sunday school, come each before us in its proper order. We have neither space nor will to follow our author throughout the whole of his lucid and forcible argument, as our readers may possess the work at so small a cost; but we cannot resist the temptation to make one extract which strikes us as both original and apposite. * London, B. L. Green.. ₹ "It is a remarkable circumstance in the Scripture account of the Incarnation of the Son of God, that he did not at once assume the human form in its mature and manly proportions; that the second Adam did not appear on the stage as the first did, already a man, in shape and stature the most noble and beautiful of the race; that his first utterances were not those amazing declarations of wisdom which, when he grew to the stature of a man, so clearly showed that he was more than any human being had been; but that he appeared as a child, with all the innocent characteristics and sympathies of a child; and that his manhood was but the proper development of what he was in his earliest years. True, little is known of him then; but what is known is just adapted to illustrate the point before us. He was pure and truthful; he was obedient to his parents; (Luke ii.51)) he was respectful to the teachers and doctors of religion; (Luke ii. 46, 47;) he "grew in wisdom and in stature," and "in favor with God and man." (Luke ii. 52.) The imagination easily fills up the remainder; for when these things take root in the heart of a child-when you find in him purity and truthfulness; when you see him obedient to parents; when you perceive a spirit of inquiry on the great subject of religion, you have all the elements of character that will, in their combinations and developments, produce eminent virtue. Now the circumstance to which I am adverting, looks as if the system was intended for the mind of a child. It creates the feeling in the mind of a child, that religion is designed for him; that he has an interest in what the Saviour did; that he has not been left out in the arrangement for salvation; and that the earliest feelings, hopes, and joys, and perhaps the pastimes and the amusements of the Saviour of the world were like his own. Then there is to be added to this the thought, that the life of the Saviour was the proper development of what he was in childhood, and of what every child should be. We carry with us, in our study of the New Testament, the recollection that, from being a child, he grew up to be what he was; not that he appeared at first on the earth in the full form and majesty of the Son of God.", "Little Things! What are they? "Little Duties," says Edinburgh, Kennedy. |