you more than half suffused with tears, told us more forcibly than language could express, how tenderly he loved us-while his lips, quivering with tremulous anxiety for the result of his message, gave utterance to an interrogation which many of the semiChristians of modern times would have treated with cool indifference. Why won't you come to Jesus Christ, and be saved? Do need no think you Saviour? Impossible! Do you imagine that he is unable to save you? Do you suppose he is unwilling to save you? Impossible! Why won't you then come to Jesus Christ, and be saved? Do you think you are in no danger of being lost? Do you imagine that the misery of a lost soul is less tremendous than the scriptures have described? or that the happiness of a redeemed spirit is less joyous? Impossible! Why then won't you come to Jesus Christ, and be saved? There was no profound argumentation employed to prepare the rustic audience for these pointed questions, and yet they came with a force, which no one could resist and as the people were retiring I heard one and another saying, ah! why do we not come to Jesus Christ, and be saved? ་ As I sat nearly opposite the two females who entered along with me, I could not avoid noticing their behaviour, which formed a striking contrast to the simple and devout attention the cottagers paid to the sermon. Sometimes they listened with apparent seriousuess, but more than once I saw the smile of contempt, and the look of scorn; and in one part of the sermon, when the preacher was speaking of the entire depravity of the human heart, one of them made an effort to leave, which the other very prudently checked: but when this simple question fell from his lips, the most restless' of the two became still and thoughtful, and I had the pleasure of seeing the tears falling from her eye, even while she ap-peared unconscious of having shed any. After service I introduced myself to the Rev. Mr. S-; and when I told him what I had seen, he replied, "if Sir, that lady should be converted, she will be a living witness of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ,' whose testimony will command attention. "I have" he added, "no personal acquaintance with her, nor was I aware that she was present this evening, till I saw her retire, but I have long known her character; she resides at C a village about a mile and a half distance, and is one of the most facetious, intelligent, and interesting females in these parts, but she is a professed infidel: and though most of her relations and friends are religious, yet she will rarely consent to attend any place of worship with them. She says that the scheme of revelation is a cunningly devised fable, got up by the priesthood in the darker ages; and palmed upon our hopes and fears by the policy of our rulers; and unhesitatingly avows that it is the duty of every person who feels a proper respect for the dignity of his own species, to employ all his influence to explode the delusion. She will not, I understand, enter into any formal discussion, on the subject, because she says no evidence could induce her to believe it-no not if she had seen the miracles performed which are ascribed to the agency of the apostles-and often quotes the inconsistent conduct of its professors, to shew that its moral tendency is unfavourable to the growth of social or public virtue." Some weeks after this interview with the Rev. Mr. S, I happened to be spending a few days at his house, when he received a very polite note from Mrs. F, requesting that he would do her the honour of a call. This invitation was accepted, on condition that I would accompany him, and an eminently pious female friend, who was intimately ac-quainted with her. We chose an evening when he had no official engagement at his "rural temple," and we were received with every expression of a warm and generous friendship. She endeavoured to assume her native ease and sprightliness; but I felt conscious that she was labouring under a strong mental depression, which she was anxious to conceal. The conversation very naturally turned on the scenery around us; which was beautiful, even when stripped of its rich foliage, and verdant bloom; and when she pointed to a double row of fine elm trees, whose thick and extended branches overshadowed a favourite walk, I could not refrain from repeating the following lines of Cowper: "Meditations here. May think down hours to moments: Here the heart And learning, wiser grow, without his books." "But," said Mrs. F. " to quote from the same author "Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have, ofttimes, no connexion. Knowledge dwells Very true," said the Rev. Mr. S. "and hence we sometimes see those who are endowed with the greatest intellectual talents, and enriched with the largest stores of knowledge, acting the most foolish parts in the drama of life; and terminating their career without any hope of a blissful immortality." This allusion to a future world, brought over the countenance of Mrs. F. a gloom, which no effort could dispel; and more than once I saw her suppressing the sigh which was anxious to escape from the interior recess of woe. "We have high authority for saying," I remarked, that it is not good for the soul to be without knowledge; but considering the relation in which we stand to God, and the character which we sustain as sinners against his righteous government; there is no knowledge so essential to our felicity, as a knowledge of his character, and the way in which his favour is to be conciliated. Without this, we are left in absolute uncertainty respecting our final destiny, which must be perplexing and horrifying, in proportion as we seriously meditate on the capabilities of the human soul to suffer or enjoy in a future state of existence. Hence arises the necessity of a revelation of his will: and as this must relate to men of every rank and situation in life, it ought to be committed to writing, that it may be preserved from that mutilation and incorporation with human opinions, to which an oral tradition is necessarily exposed. This revelation we have in the Sacred Scriptures: its purity and adaptation to our moral condition, are strong internal evidences of its genuineness, and I am at a loss to conceive how any one can reject it, without wantonly committing an act of suicide on his own peace. It delineates our character, as guilty, depraved, and unhappywith the most perfect accuracy: and points our attention to a Savicur, who came to save, and to bless us, and to fit us for a nobler life than we can ever live on earth." Mrs. F. was deeply affected by these few observations, she burst into tears, and left the room, but soon after returned, offering us an apology for her weakness, and her rudeness, as she termed it, her excessive nervous irritability which had considerably affected her spirits during the last few weeks. The apology was received, but after a moment's pause, I looked at her with as much benignity as I could threw into my countenance, and without any further hesitancy proposed the following question: "Pray Madam, is not your mind powerfully affected by those religious truths which you once rejected as the fallacious opinions of man?" "Yes Sir," she replied, "it is, and has been ever since my last visit to the farm house kitchen. Until that evening I rejected the gospel as a cunningly devised fable, and generally looked with pity or contempt on those who embraced it, but then I was convinced of its divinity, and by the force of an evidence, which I had not previously examined." "What fresh evidence of the divinity of the gospel," said the Rev. Mr. S— " did you receive that evening, for I do not recollect advancing any?" "The evidence Sir, she replied "of experience, for the gospel came not in word only, but in power, and I could no longer resist it. Curiosity led me to that sequestered house of prayer. I was rather pleased with the style in which you addressed the people the first time I heard you, and I resolved to hear you again. The evening on which I repeated my visit, was unusually serene, an emblem of the calm tranquillity of my mind. The pride of my heart rose up against the statement which you gave us of the entire depravity of our nature, and I should have left in disgust, had not the friend who was with me prevented; but when you proposed that simple yet important question, why won't you come to Jesus Christ, and be saved, I felt as though an arrow had pierced my soul, and from that hour to the present, I have been suffering the agonies of a wounded spirit." 66 66 But," said the Rev. Mr. S- as that interrogation was no direct proof of the divine origin of the gospel, how came it to produce such a plenary conviction in your mind?" "That question, Sir," Mrs. F. replied, "has more than once presented itself to me; and it has created some strong doubts of the correctness of my present belief; but now, I can no more reject the gospel as false, than I could before receive it as true. That interrogation came with a power which was super-human; and its impressions on my heart bore the stamp of the same agency; and now Sir, the only question which I wish resolved is this, " may I be permitted to hope that, that Saviour whom I have so long rejected, and so often, and so grossly insulted, will ever condescend to cast one tender look of compassion on me?”· "In the conversion of a sinner," said the Rev. Mr. S "it pleases God to display his sovereignty, no less than his power and his grace, and hence he generally accomplishes it in a way which compels us to acknowledge his direct and immediate agency. Had he chosen to have convinced you of the divine origin of that system of truth, which you have so long rejected; by the slow and rational process of a logical argumentation, your judgment might have been convinced, while your heart might have remained unaffected by its awful and sublime communications but by convincing you of your guilt, and of your danger, and of the necessity of a mediator, and a Saviour, he has rendered that argumentative process unnecessary, by, compelling you at once to seek the consolations of mercy as essential to your felicity." "Oh! yes, Sir," she added with great earnestness, "they are essential to my felicity, indeed they are, but I fear they will be withheld; what plea can I urge for mercy? On what basis |