when men of Mr. Roe's stamp are regarded by many with more of suspicion than of cordial brotherly affection) that though entering upon the ministry at a period when dissenting and schismatic crudities were industriously circulated, and when some of his brethren, led away by the ignis-fatuus delusion of a pure and unmixed communion of saints on earth, abandoned their mother church for the modern and unsound principles of dissent, not one individual among those eighteen who had been educated at least scripturally in the Sunday-school at St. Mary's deserted his colours, or forsook the church in which through the providence and grace of God he had received the outward designation and the inward life of a Christian. This too was a cause of much joy to their revered instructor. and his heart rejoiced in her prosperity.

He loved the church,

I'M GOING HOME.

BY THOMAS RAGG.

A poor aged Christian, who had passed upwards of seventy years on earth, seeing her friend weeping around her death-bed, exclaimed, "Mourn not, I'm going home."

'I'm going home, prepare the bridal wreath!
My Saviour bids my happy spirit come.

Damp not with tears the Christian's bed of death;
Rejoice! I'm going home!

Earth hath its cares: for three-score years and ten
My lot has been 'midst thorny paths to roam;

I would not track those desert scenes again,

'Tis past! I'm going home!

The dove hath found her nest-the storm-tossed,
A place of rest beyond the dashing foam

Of grief's wild billows; thither am I bound:
Joy, joy!—I'm going home!

Earth's flowers all fade,-there fadeless roses blow;

Earth's sunniest light is shaded by the tomb;

Earth's loves all slumber in the vault below-
Death dwells not in that home.

I see the city of the blest on high,

With the freed spirit's ken, I come! I come!
Ye calling voices, catch my heart's reply,
Home! home! I'm going home!'

ON SELF-KNOWLEDGE.

Of all the subjects to which man can direct his attention, undoubtedly the most important is the study of himself; of his origin, his nature, his capabilities, and his destiny. What am I? Whence am I? Whether am I going? What are the objects for which I was created, and what the best means of attaining them? are questions big with interest, and which cannot fail of oft presenting themselves to a reflecting mind. Perhaps there are few individuals to whom these or similar questions have not sometimes occurred, but when we look upon the vast amount of ignorance, and the awful prevalence of vice, in our professedly Christian country, we need no other evidence to prove that with the great majority of men, if thoughts like these have ever arisen in their minds, they have been allowed to pass away unnoticed and unimproved. All knowledge is worthy of our pursuit, and useful for us to possess, but as one "star differeth from another star in glory," so one kind of knowledge excelleth another in degree, and the highest degree of knowledge is to know ourselves.

We may, by the aid of science, traverse the heavens and become acquainted with the unchangeable laws which regulate the motions of its vast and innumerable orbs; we may penetrate the bowels of the earth and read the wonderful histories which geology relates of our world and its inhabitants in ages far remote from ours; we may dive into the depths of the ocean and compel its treasures to minister to our necessities, or enhance our luxuries; we may visit the uttermost parts of the world, and behold the different races with which our globe is at present peopled, with their interesting variety of manners, and customs, and religion, and policies; in fact, we may run through the almost illimitable extent of human knowledge; but, with all this, if we have neglected to study ourselves, to become acquainted with our own nature as rational and immortal beings, we have sacrificed the real for an imaginary good; have mistaken the means for the end, and have failed in learning that which it most behoves to know. As I have before remarked, all knowledge is useful, but of a truth it is only really so when it leads us to a knowledge of the great originator of our being, and of the relations in which we stand to him, and the first step to the acquisition of this knowledge, which, like the rudiments of every other science is the most difficult to be obtained, is the knowledge of ourselves.

Six thousand years have now well nigh passed, since man first inhabited this terrestrial globe, and each successive era of his existence has been characterised by some peculiarity which distinguishes it alike from those that precede and those that follow: to confine our attention to our own country, we find these distinctions broadly marked in the progress of our ancestors from a condition the most rude and barbarous, to a height of civilization and refinement unequalled in the annals of the world. The present age has been titled the Age of reason,' and justly so, for there never was a time when knowledge was so universally diffused, or when a spirit of inquiry so earnest and

energetic in its nature so generally pervaded all classes of society; it is much to be regretted however that while this thirst for information has led to an unprecedented success in the cultivation of the physical sciences, and each successive day contributes to the stores of information we already possess of the mysteries of nature, so great an indifference should be manifested by the generality of men to the acquisition of that knowledge which has the greatest claim attention the knowledge of our ourselves.

upon our

BRINGING OUR CHILDREN TO CHRIST.

FROM BISHOP MACILVAINE.

"A child is born—a son is given."-How soon is the nurture of the Lord to begin? We answer, As soon as the nurture of his parents' love and care. His race for eternity is begun : let effort for eternity, on his behalf, be also begun. No time is to be lost. "Seek first," in his behalf, "the kingdom of God." But how? By a "work of faith." A son is given; let that son be immediately given to God. Let an earnest desire that he may be the Lord's, entirely at his disposal, aud sanctified by his grace, be the first and strongest desire of the parent's heart. Let it be expressed to God in all the fervour of a mother's love, carrying the lamb in her bosom to the Lord; and every day be the repetition of such prayer. It requires the faith of a truly Christian heart, to feel that any precious good can come to the unconscious babe and suckling, from such labour of love. But where there is a true faith in the power, and riches, and fulness of the grace that is in Christ Jesus, there will be a precious confidence that, out of such mouths, the Lord can 66 perfect praise," and unto such babes the Lord can reveal his love; and that for such souls, it is indeed well worth the parent's while to pray.

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But what else? The child must be brought to Christ. The example of the mothers in Israel must be imitated. The great object is, to bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; and in order to this, the work must begin with the Lord, and the child must be brought to the Lord. It is precisely the same in this, as in all other religious works. They must " begin," as well as "continue and end," in God, in order to be righteous in his sight. A sinner has not taken the first step in the salvation of his own soul, till he has come to Christ. All his future goings depend on that. It is the germ of his Christian life. He gets "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," only when he goes to Christ, as the Lord and Giver of all. Now the office of a parent, for the passive babe committed to his charge, is precisely the same as that of a sinner for his own soul. The corner-stone of his work for that babe, must be Christ. The whole structure of his training, must grow up on that elect and precious foundation. To build on any other, and

expect afterwards to inlay the aid of the Lord, as part of the structure, inserted by the way, is to reject the Lord from the only place he will ever occupy in any thing. Other foundation can no man lay." This laid, we may build thereon, besides gold and precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, and so "suffer loss," but not the loss of all, because the basis is good. But, without this, though we heap all the best materials within the reach of man, the structure cannot endure. It is built upon the sand.

But how can "the young child" be brought to Christ? The pious parent is ready to say: Oh that I knew where I might find him, as those mothers in Israel found him; how I would go out unto him, and beseech him to take my little one into his arms, and lay his hand upon it, and bless it!' But, Christian believer, have you not found him? Have you not come to him, as a very present help, and a most precious Saviour? You found him, when first you felt your need of him, as a helpless, perishing sinner; and when, renouncing all self-righteousness, you cast your soul and your sins upon him, for peace with God. You find him every day, when you live by faith upon him, as all your strength, and all your hope. He is nigh thee and never leaves nor forsakes thee. But can you not find him when you take your lamb in your bosom, as well as when you go merely for your own soul? If thou believest with all thy heart thou mayest."

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But, you answer, if the parent has been exercising a true faith in prayer to the Lord in behalf of his child, has he not brought him to Christ? Unquestionably! But still there is another way, a more visible mode of exercising the same faith, and the same prayer, unto the same great end, which the parent must observe, if he would "fulfil all righteousness." Every sinner, who truly repents and unfeignedly believes in Christ unto salvation, has come to Christ; but there is a visible act, an outward expression of faith, and repentance, and obedience, in which, according to his Master's law, he is to come to Him, and before men to confess Him. His faith and obedience are both defective, till that be done. That act is baptism. By baptism, he "puts on Christ" professedly, as by faith he puts on Christ spiritually. He is "baptised into Christ." baptised into Christ." Now as the coming of the sinner to the Saviour requires this outward and visible sign and seal of the faith by which he comes, so, when the Christian parent would fully bring his child to Christ, besides doing it in the spirit, he must do it also in the outward act which the Lord has appointed for that purpose; just as Mary, the mother of the Lord according to the flesh, thought not she had done her duty in offering him while a babe unto God, though doubtless her faith and prayers were as strong as ever mother's have been since, till she had gone up from Nazareth to Jerusalem, and "presented him" in the temple.

THE RELIGIOUS TRAINING OF OUR CHILDREN MUST BE A WORK OF FAITH.

(From the same.)

THIS labour of love must be a work of faith in this: That while we are diligently using the means, and those only which are expressly appointed by the word of God, or coincide with its principles; and

while looking, not to any ability in these means themselves to accomplish the object, but wholly to God, for the increase, knowing that he only can work in the child" to will and to do of his good pleasure; we are bound to work under an animating and strengthening expectation of the blessing. To keep us from being "weary in such well doing," we must believe that we "shall reap if we faint not.' To keep us "steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in this work of the Lord," we must believe that "our labour is not in vain in the Lord."

Christian parents are generally of far too little faith in this work, partly because of a very imperfect view of the ground on which they are expected to build their hopes of success; but in a great measure, because they take a wrong view of the whole experience of those who are supposed to have laboured in the field.

It is customary to mass together all those parents who profess and call themselves Christians, or who may be supposed, from their good repute as Christian people, to have done their duty towards their children, and then, as if the trial had been fairly made by all these, to measure the prospect of a favourable result in any present effort, by the results of their experiment. Cases of overt departure from religion among the children of such parents, because tangible and easily discerned, are marked and remembered, and made to count at least for as many as they are. Cases, on the other hand of humble, modest, and gradual progress in the knowledge and experience of religion, because not so easily discerned, nor so well understood by those who generally institute this investigation, are often overlooked, and never count as they ought. Meanwhile, it is little considered in how many instances of failure, there have been essential departures from the principles and spirit of the work essential deficiencies of the great spiritual requisites for its faithful performance; and how few parents, comparatively, have truly sought for their children, first and importunately, in faith and with all diligence, "the kingdom of God and his righteousness.'

Suppose the prospects of success in the preaching of the Gospel were judged on such principles; that without any consideration of the great varieties of knowledge, wisdom, holiness, and faithfulness, to be found among ministers bearing the same commission, the general probability that sinners will be converted by the faithful preaching of the truth, in the spirit of Christ and dependence on his grace, were estimated by the success of the few ministers of whom we may accidentally have heard.

Go to the husbandry of nature, and suppose that among those who till the ground, the number having no adequate knowledge of their business, and none of the care and diligence required in it, were as great as that of the parents who, though professedly Christian, and perhaps in the main really so, we have reason to believe are unskilful or unfaithful in the religious bringing up of their children; who, in such a state of things, would be surprised at finding, in many a field, no good fruit, and in many a stall, no herd? who, if he saw a wide appearance of poverty and failure, would think of ascribing it to any want of general and regular connection between a fruitful harvest and a well-ordered and diligent cultivation.