the HOLY SPIRIT; the necessity of regeneration and holiness of life; and the eternity of future punishment. "I had an opportunity of meeting with many of these men in the course of my travels; and some of them, whom I heard from the pulpit, convinced me, that they were themselves deeply penetrated with a sense of the importance of those truths which they were engaged in preaching to others; that they had entered the ministry from no worldly motive, but were actuated by a sincere desire to advance the spiritual reign of their divine Master, and promote the best interests of their fellow-men; and that they were living under an habitual impression of that solemn account which all who have taken upon them the charge of souls, will have to give to the Chief Shepherd, at the day of final decision. They are men who are dead to the world, and devoted in heart and life to the service of their REDEEMER. Their private walk exhibits the general tendency of the holy doctrines they teach; and their public discourses are earnest, energetic, animated, pointed, and faithful.

"Such of the Clergy as are of the New School, the number of whom is

happily not very great, treat divine things in quite a different manner. Instead of drawing the matter of their sermons from the Scriptures, they gather it from the writings of heathen Philosophers;-and the morality found in these authors, which, at the best, is but dry and insipid, absolutely freezes when transplanted into Iceland. The divine inspiration is discarded, and all the cardinal and fundamental points of the christian faith are entirely omitted; or, when they are brought forward, it is only with a view to turn them into ridicule. The influence of such Socinian and semi-deistical principles on the individuals who propagate them, is abundantly manifest. They are entirely men of the world. The awful realities of an approaching eternity have made no suitable impression upon their minds; and levity, callousness, and indifference, mark the whole of their conduct. Nor are the effects resulting from the dissemination of their tenets, on such as imbibe them, less visible and injurious. Their minds become imbued with scepticism and infidelity; every vestige of religion disappears; and immorality, of one description or another, generally occupies its place."

of a sounding-board." The Doctor, with his characteristic mildness, said, "Friend, you are mistaken; you hear much better out of the church than in it. When a man's worldly business is concerned, he is so sharp-eared, that he can hear even a whisper; but the Preacher needs the voice of JOHN THE BAPTIST to rouse Sleepers." This silenced the satirical Farmer, who felt conscious of having frequently indulged in a nap during the Doctor's sermons.

"On the road between Siout and Tahta I met a body of Bedoween horsemen. I never had an opportunity of viewing these people more to advantage than at this time; and

I must observe that I never saw a finer set of men in my life. The horses were very strong, though not in full flesh. The riders were clothed only with a kind of mantle,

made of white woollen, of their own manufacturing, which covered the head, and part of the body. They had very small saddles, contrary to the custom of this country; were armed with guns, pistols, and swords; and were going to Cairo to enter into the service of the Bashaw, who could find no other expedient for suppressing this body of freebooters, than offering to give them good pay, horses, and arms, and to send them to Mecca. This proposal had its due effect; for all the young men have embraced it, and left the old men and women in the deserts. In this manner the Bashaw entertains hopes of getting rid of the greater part, if not all, of these people, who are detested in the country, and, in case of any insurrection, will always avail themselves of it, to plunder. I passed through their camp, at the time of their convention with the Bashaw, so that I escaped unmolested, and perhaps unnoticed, as I was covered with a large burnoose of their own fashion, and my beard was pretty long. Their tents consist of four sticks set in the ground, about a yard in height, to which is fastened one of their shawls as a cover, with another behind, so as to form a kind of shelter from the sun, wind, or dew. They generally pitch their camps near a fertile spot, but always at the foot of the desert, so that in case of surprise they are soon in their native country; like the crocodile, which enjoys the land, but when disturbed, or at the approach of any person, im

mediately plunges into the river, as a place of safety. The women were all uncovered, and the children entirely naked. They are very frugal in their diet, and never drink any strong liquor. They are Arabs, but no more like the Arabs of Egypt than a freeman is like a slave. The Egyptian Arabs are accustomed to obey, but will not do any thing unless compelled by force. They are humbled, because they are continually under the rod; and indolent, because they have no interest in any thing. But the wild Arabs, on the contrary, are constantly in motion, and labour to procure provisions for their beasts and themselves; and being in perpetual war with each other, their thoughts are incessantly employed in improving their arts of defence, or in obtaining plunder."

This description, as illustrative of the peculiar character of ISHMAEL'S descendants, drawn by the pen of Inspiration, nearly four thousand years ago, is highly interesting:

And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him." (Gen. xvi. 12.) Habits and dispositions so remarkable could only have been known to the Divine Omniscience; nor could this branch of the vast family of ABRAHAM have been preserved, like their more favoured brethren of Judea, in a state of separation from surrounding nations, but by the special Providence of GoD. "Bold Infidelity, turn pale, and die!"

A. B.

"THE Balsam produced by these trees was of such consequence, as to be noticed by almost all the writers who treated of Judea. PLINY says, This tree, which was peculiar to Juria, or the Vale of Jericho, was more like a vine than a myrtle. VESPASIAN and TITUS carried each one of them to Rome as rarities; and POMPEY boasted of bearing them in his triumph. When ALEXANDER the Great was in Juria, a spoonful of the balm was all that could be col

lected on a summer's day; and in the most plentiful year, the great royal park of these trees yielded only six gallons, and the smaller one only one gallon. It was consequently so dear, that it sold for double its weight in silver. But from the great demand for it, adulteration soon followed, and a spurious sort grew into common use at a less price.' *

"JUSTIN, indeed, makes it the source of all the national wealth; for • PLINY, Nat. Hist. c. 25.

in speaking of this part of the country, he says, The wealth of the Jewish nation arose from the Opobalsamum, which only grows in those countries; for it is a valley like a garden, environed with continual hills, and as it were enclosed with a wall. The space of the valley contains two hundred thousand acres, and it is called Jericho. In that valley there is a wood, as admirable for its fruitfulness as for its delight; for it is intermingled with palm-trees and opobalsamum. The trees of the opobalsamum have a resemblance like to fir-trees; but they are lower, and are planted and husbanded in the same manner as vines. On a set season of the year they sweat balsam. The darkness of the place is besides as wonderful as the fruitfulness of it; for although the sun shines no where hotter in the world, there is naturally a moderate and perpetual gloominess in the air.'*

"JOSEPHUS says, "This is the most fruitful country of Judea, which bears a vast number of palm-trees, besides the balsam-tree, whose sprouts

JUSTIN'S Hist. 1. 36.

they cut with sharp stones, and at the incisions they gather the juice, which drops like tears.'

"At the present time there is not a tree of any description, either of palm or balsam, and scarcely any verdure or bushes, to be seen about the scite of this abandoned city; but the complete desolation with which its ruins are surrounded, is undoubtedly rather to be attributed to the cessation of the usual agricultural labours on the soil, and to the want of a distribution of water over it by the aqueducts, the remains of which evince that they were constructed chiefly for that purpose, than to any radical change in the climate or soil." (pp. 299, 300.)

This description of the Balm of Canaan illustrates the allusion made to it by the Prophet JEREMIAH, (viii. 23,) and at the same time proves the costly nature of the present sent by the Patriarch JACOB to the Governor of Egypt, when his sons went down into that country to obtain a fresh supply of corn.

A. B.

+ JOSEPH. Ant. Jud. 1. xiv. c. iv. 1.

(From "LACON, or Many Things in few THE Christian does not pray to be delivered from glory, but from vain glory. He also is ambitious of glory, and a candidate for honour; but glory, in whose estimation? honour in whose judgment? not of those, whose censures can take nothing from his innocence; whose approbation can take nothing from his guilt; whose opinions are as fickle as their actions, and their lives as transitory as their praise; who cannot search his heart, seeing that they are igof their own. The Christian, then, seeks his glory in the estimation, and his honour in the judgment, of Him alone, who "From the bright empyrean, where He sits, High throu'd above all height, casts down his eye,

norant even

His own works, and man's works, at once to view!"

Murmur at nothing;-if our ills are reparable, it is ungrateful; if

DR. CHALMERS, in the close of the last Extract from his Work, quoted in our Number for March, has referred to Methodism, with his usual liberality; and we are reminded by this reference of the manner in which precisely the same views and principles, which are unfolded in the Eighth Chapter of this most valuable Work, formerly operated in the hesitating mind of MR. WESLEY, and waged sharp but happily successful conflict with the habits of his order, and the prejudices of his education. In the dearth of clerical labourers, in so vast a field, he set open the door, under judicious control and superintendence, to lay-administration; he encouraged the agency of the pious, in every direction, in spreading the light through their respective neighbourhoods; and by this means, under the divine blessing, he increased his own usefulness a thonsand fold, and, instead of operating individually, powerful as that individual operation was, he became the director of a vast system, which remained at work in his personal absence, and was continually pouring into the Church of CHRIST its contributions of conquest from the world. Nor can we omit to remark how fully his conduct in this respect, so often the subject of ignorant or unthinking obloquy, is justified by the conviction which is at last forcing itself upon the minds of so many zealous Ministers, in both the Establishments of the empire, that the moral want of the nation is so wide and pressing, that it cannot be supplied, but by calling forward in aid of the Ministry those very persons, of different ranks, whom that Ministry has already brought under an effectual religious influence, to enlist themselves under its banners in an offensive warfare against the "darkness of this world." And now, when so many excellent per

sons of different denominations begin to feel for the spread of true religion, just as he, and a few others only, felt, in the opening of his career of apostolic labours, the same means of usefulness, substantially, though not in form, appear indispensable to yet more large and general success.

Nothing indeed has been so unfortunate for the Protestant part of Christendom, and for England in particular, as the prejudices which have prevented the adoption of that auxiliary and subordinate agency, by which the usefulness of the regular Ministry might have been so much extended. How pitiable is the sight, which may be so often witnessed in our own country, of a faithful and zealous Minister of the Establishment, tracked with the eye of jealous distrust through all his walks of usefulness, lest he should carry the services of preaching and exhortation out of the precincts of his own church, and encourage a lay-administration even in the humblest departments of devotion and zeal! A body of Christians, the fruit of his labours, rise up around him; but the use he can make of them is extremely limited. Would he be authorized to suffer the oldest and most experienced of them to engage in extempore prayer in a meeting for that purpose, even when he himself should preside? Would he be authorized to encourage them, in any systematic manner, to visit the sick, and the families of the vicious, in his parish, however large it might be, as his auxiliaries, and there to pray, exhort, and read the Scriptures,-though the end of their efforts would be to increase the congregation at Church, and to root the Establishment in the deep affections of the poor? Such measures, alas! would not be generally approved ; and thus is the usefulness of the best of our National Clergy greatly limit

*

ed, as well as that of many sober and prudent persons who have been the fruits of their ministry.

We are no friends to the violation of any order, in a Church, which can be founded upon the Holy Scriptures, or upon fair inferences from them. Waving controversial points, we hold it to be quite clear, that it was the design and appointment of the HEAD OF THE CHURCH, that there should be men set apart, in every age, from all worldly pursuits and cares, in order to be, in a special sense, the Ministers of the Churches, and the Evangelists of the world. With DR. CHALMERS, we think that learning is necessary for Ministers, though not for all Ministers in the same degree; and that, both for the acquisition and application of this, and for the full execution of all the duties of the Ministry, an entire devotedness to the office is absolutely requisite. Hence the Ministry, properly so called, becomes a profession; and an Order is created by divine appointment. With the men of that order, whatever difference of opinion there may be as to the method of admission into it, the doctrine of the Gospel is deposited as a trust, under special obligation to teach and to defend it. The rule of the Church of CHRIST is also placed in their hands; not indeed as an unchecked and unadvised executive power, but still as an efficient and an official one. To them pertains, not only the preaching of the Word, in its highest sense, but also the administration of the two Sacraments; because they both suppose an authority to allow or to deny their administration, which authority can be lodged no where but in the Pastor, however different churches may guard or direct its exercise. But whilst we hold these principles to be sacred, because clearly scriptural, and feel them to be of incalculable importance, we still contend, that there is a wide field for the usefulness of many other pious persons, who are not called to this office, but remain in their respective worldly professions and pursuits. It is perfectly consistent with this, in our view, that where the number of true Ministers is inadequate, experienced Christians should read and

explain GoD's holy Word; and exhort their fellow-men to flee from the wrath to come. They cannot do this with the peculiar authority of Pastors; but they may do it, and by GoD's blessing are effectually doing it, as men judged qualified for this subordinate office by their Pastors, and by portions of the Church of GOD. It is consistent with this, that one neighbour should instruct and warn another; that one experienced Christian should "teach the way of GoD more perfectly" to humble inquirers; that Christians should have their meetings for social prayer; and that in conducting educational, or mere alms-giving Charities, they should instruct, admonish, and pray with those who are placed under their care, or brought accidentally under their notice. All this ought to be done, and, if it is to be a permanent benefit, must be done, in connexion with some branch of the Church of CHRIST, and under the direction of its Ministers; for otherwise, the order which CHRIST himself has established is broken down ;-but, in subserviance to that order, it ought to be encouraged, as the only means of making the Church "the light of the world" in the full degree of its efficiency.

DR. CHALMERS admits the possibility of evils resulting from calling this subordinate agency into operation; and this must be granted. In the present state of human nature, it is impossible to excite any kind of active power, without incurring some danger. Miraculous gifts, in the primitive Church, were by some, as at Corinth, exhibited for ostentation; and probably became fatal to some of those who were endued with them. The liberty of teaching, then enjoyed, led in some instances to schisms which were founded on no principle, and might be resolved into the mere vanity of the teacher, and impatience of discipline among his hearers. But the number and magnitude of the evils anticipated are often much magnified, and the remedy is nearer and more effectual than has been allowed. If, indeed, the regular Ministry of any church should have become generally supine and worldly, and erring in doctrine,