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cal strain than usual. A gentleman whelmed with emotion, he retired from who occasionally heard him said to one the meeting to a field, where he gave of his constant auditors: " Pray, has himself away to his Savior, and the not the doctor been ill lately?" Why Spirit spake peace to his soul. It was do you think so?" "Because the ser- but a few days after this happy event, mon was more evangelical than he S. returned to our village, (where his usually preaches when he is in full parents still reside,) and the humble, health." meek, and gentle air which his manly countenance had assumed, in place of the haughty, discontented form, was apparent to every one. I was confined to my house by indisposition, and was delighted to welcome him who had scarcely entered my dwelling since his return from the city. He modestly gave me an account of the change in his feelings and happiness, in presence of some members of my family, and solicited a private interview. On retiring with him, he said to me, with tears in his eyes: " My mind has been sorely troubled by the recollection of some things I did in your store. I was tempted to take sundry small articles, for my own use, without your knowledge or consent, amounting, I should think, to five dollars, and I cannot rest until I have paid you for them!!" A crowd of reflections rushed into my mind. I felt overwhelmed for a moment with a sense of the goodness of God, in so counteracting all his plans as to save him from the vortex which was opening before him. He had begun to rob his employer, and, as the progress in vice is rapid downward, had not a kind Providence interposed, S. would, in all probability, have become, ere this, a tenant of the state prison, and brought down the gray hairs of his parents with sorrow to the grave. I pointed out to him, as I trust, faithfully and profitably, the finger of God in his rescue, and encouraged him to persevere unto the end. It is now nearly two

(m) GOD MEANT IT FOR GOOD. -A few years since, says a writer in the Pastor's Journal, I was engaged in a wholesale mercantile business in the city of New-York; but ill health and other circumstances compelled me to close it and remove to the country. My young men were most of them from pious families; some were warm-hearted Christians, and all of them succeeded in finding eligible situations but one. S. was my youngest clerk; his talents were respectable; his conduct, as far as I could judge, was irreproachable; but my best efforts, and those of his friends, could not secure him a situation. After months spent in vain endeavors to find an opening in the business of his choice, and a year occupied on a foreign voyage without success, he returned to the country and engaged reluctantly in a mechanical business, which his father followed, near the place where I had settled. I saw him but seldom; but when I met him as his friend, I was treated with marked coldness. I was at a loss to account for it, and at length demanded an explanation, when I found the whole family considered me culpably to blame in not procuring him a situation in New-York, after I had no longer occasion for his services. It was indeed a mystery even to myself, that the path to manhood chosen by S. and his friends, should be so hedged up as to compel him to walk in another. S. however continued his mechanical pur-years since this interview, and S. has suits, and, in the providence of God, was directed to the neighborhood of a protracted meeting. He was the child of many prayers, and had more than once lived through an awakening unchanged, though not unaffected. He was now drawn, by an impulse he could not resist, to attend this meeting, feeling that it might be the last strivings of the Spirit. With trembling he took his place on the anxious seat, and, over

continued to give evidence of the sincerity of the change, and bids fair to become an ornament to society and a pillar in the church of Christ.

14. Gratitude for Affliction. (a) GRATITUDE FOR SLA. VERY.-In the Southern section of the United States, an African slave, whose name was Jenny, was observed to fail in

her labor, and indications of some dis- | very short time she became totally blind. tress were visible in her countenance. This, it will be thought, must have been She was asked for the cause; she re- a severe trial, at such an age, under any plied, "Jenny's heart is sick." She circumstances, but more especially to was sent from the field, to the house, to one who had always derived her chief obtain relief; but none was gained. pleasure and enjoyment from her little She spent her days in silence; only say stock of books. Mary, however, had ing, "Jenny's heart is sick." One day learned from her Bible, that "God doth she met her mistress, who was very not afflict willingly, nor grieve the chilanxious for her case, in the yard, and dren of men ;" and she felt assured that cried out, "O mistress, Jenny is going he would, in some way or other, make to die, and be lost. Who will take this affliction tend to her eternal good. care of Jenny's baby when she is gone?" " Many people pity me," she said one Such was her distress at that moment, day, to a lady who was talking with her, that she sunk under its weight motion- " and say, it is hard to be blind; but I less at her mistress's feet, who had her don't think it at all hard. Perhaps, if taken kindly to her house, and attended I had not lost my sight, I should have with care. Thus she continued for grown proud. I was very fond of readsome days, scarcely able to walk. But ing, and I should perhaps have thought one day, having got a short distance in- too much of knowledge; I might have to a forest, she there cried to God in her been puffed up, and therefore the tempdistress, and God graciously heard her tation was mercifully taken from me. mourning voice, and poured into her The Lord knew that I needed some sick heart the balm of Gilead, which trial, and he chose this for me. I am gave her immediate relief. On this glad he did, for I should not have known occasion, when the light broke in on her what to have chosen for myself; I am afflicted soul, and the pardoning love of sure I should not have chosen this. God in Christ was seen by faith, she What, be blind! No; for then I should said, "All the trees around cry, Glory! not be able to read, or to go about. I and all the angels cry, Glory! and Jen- should not have chosen any thing that ny cry Glory, too!" She now said, was painful. I sometimes think," she when Jenny was in her native country, continued, "how many trials this keeps she had no God, she knew no God! But me from, which I should not have known in America, Jenny has learned there is how to bear!" a God, and that he is hers. In Africa, Jenny had no Jesus, she had no one to tell her of Jesus. But she thanks God that she was ever brought to America to hear of a Savior. In Africa, Jenny was ignorant of sin, and the wrath of God; but in this favored land she has been made acquainted with her sinful and dangerous state, and the way of salvation through a precious Redeemer. Now Jenny lived, and sung, and looked forward to the hope of glory, as the end of sorrows, and certain reward of all who, through faith and patience, wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus unto eternal life. Happy affliction! Blessed African!

(c) THANKFUL FOR BLIND. NESS.-A blind boy, who belonged to the Institution in Dublin, when dying, assured a correspondent of the Tract Magazine that he considered it as one of the greatest mercies of Heaven that he had been deprived of his sight; because this was the means the Lord employed to bring him under the sound of the gospel, which was now the joy and rejoicing of his soul. So much wisdom and truth is there in the beautiful language of the poet :

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Good, when he gives, supremely good,
Nor less when he denies ;

E'en crosses, from his sovereign hand,
Are blessings in disguise."

(d) MARTIN LUTHER'S WILL.

(b) BLINDNESS A BLESSING.— Mary had learned to read, and at an-In the last will and testament of this early age took great delight in her Bible; but before she was eighteen years old, her sight began to fail her, and in a

eminent reformer occurs the following remarkable passage:-"Lord God, 1 thank thee, that thou hast been pleased to

AGED, THE.

welfare of others. One of the first ob15. Conversion of the Aged. jects of his solicitude, was his mother. (a) THE YOUNG CONVERT She was upwards of ninety years of AND HIS AGED MOTHER.—At a age; deaf, dim-sighted, and very invillage, in the Hastings circuit, (says firm; totally in the dark as to the nature the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine,) of true religion, and altogether unconwhere the Gospel was introduced by cerned about her best interests. The the Methodist preachers, a poor laboring preaching was removed to her son's man was induced to hear the Gospel. cottage, which was situated about a mile By the blessing of God it proved effec- from his mother's residence; he wished tual to his salvation. Having felt the to bring her under the sound of the power of divine grace himself, he was Gospel; but her infirmities, and his anxiously concerned for the spiritual | poverty, presented considerable difficul

a poor, feeble old woman let her stick | he said, "I am going to fetch the rug fall, and stand a moment in perplexity, from my grandfather's bed, that he may not knowing whether she dared to stoop wrap it round him and go a-begging!" to pick it up or attempt to reach her Tommy went for the rug, and brought home without it. Just by the spot where it to his father, and said to him, "Pray, the accident happened, a group of boys father, cut it in two, the half of it will were playing at marbles; some of them be large enough for grandfather, and took no notice, others rudely marked perhaps you may want the other half the poor old woman's distress; but one when I grow a man and turn you out kind-hearted lad threw down his mar- of doors." The words of the child bles, ran to her assistance, and helped struck him so forcibly, that he immeher into her house. She thanked him, diately ran to his father, and asked and said, “God Almighty's blessing be forgiveness, and was very kind to him upon you, for your kindness to a poor till he died. old woman!" The gentleman saw and heard the whole, and made inquiry after the lad, in whom he felt deeply interested. He found that he was already in the Sunday school, and, in all probability, had there learnt the Scriptures, that inculcate reverence to the aged. From that time he had him instructed in writing and accounts at an evening school; when old enough, he assisted in apprenticing him, and in course of time had the satisfaction of seeing him a respectable and flourishing tradesman.

(e) THE UNKIND SON REBUKED. There was once a man who had an only son, to whom he was very kind, and gave every thing that he had. When his son grew up and got a house, he was very unkind to his poor old father, whom he refused to support, and turned out of the house. The old man said to his grandson, "Go and fetch the covering from my bed, that I may go and sit by the way-side and beg." The child burst into tears, and ran for the covering. He met his father, to whom

(d) THE RUSSIAN PRINCESS.A Russian princess of great beauty, in company with her father, and a young French marquis, visited a celebrated Swiss doctor of the eighteenth century, Michael Scuppack; when the marquis began to pass one of his jokes upon the long white beard of one of the doctor's neighbors who was present. He offered to bet twelve louis d'ors that no lady present would dare to kiss the dirty old fellow! The Russian princess ordered her attendant to bring a plate, and deposited twelve louis d'ors, and sent it to the marquis, who was too polite to decline his stake.

The fair Russian then approached the peasant, saying, "Permit me, venerable father, to salute you after the manner of my country," and embracing, gave him a kiss. She then presented him the gold which was on the plate, saying, "Take this as a remembrance of me, and as a sign that the Russian girls think it their duty to honor old age."

17. AGENTS OF BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES.

(a) THE SCOFFER CONFOUND- | acter, and especially on its lavish exED. When the late Rev. Joseph Hughes, A. M., was once travelling in the service of the Bible Society, he found by his side, upon the coach, a grave and respectable looking person. In conversing on topics of general attention, they soon came to the Bible Society. His companion launched forth, in vituperative terms, on its utopian char

penditure; noticing, in a marked way, the needless and extravagant travelling expenses of its vaunted secretaries, as well as their enormous salaries. No one, from Mr. Hughes's countenance and manner, could have conjectured that he was a party concerned." But what," he mildly expostulated, "would be your conclusion, were you informed