soul brought into the light and liberty of the church of Christ, looking for, and hasting toward the Sun of Righteousness for health and safety-"for glory and for beauty." The lukewarm, grovelling, fettered, formal section of the church, looks up with wonder at the moving pageant, and exclaims with that traitorous doubt which tells too well the secret of its own existence"Who are these that fly as a cloud?" O ye of little faith! are they not the very converts you have been for ages professing to expect, and are you staggered and astonished that God has poured you out a blessing, for the amplitude of which you were actually unprepared? This, and more than this, is to be had for asking.

The cloud moves forward. The self-same hand that raised it, guides it on its way. It tells the church, by a simple and silent allegory, to go from strength to strength; it shows her how vast an extent of privilege remains to be possessed. It whispers of the light, and love, and blessedness that lie between it and the heaven of heavens, and says as plainly as mute nature is allowed to speak—“ All things are yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's"-enter upon all the rights of Sonship, and partake, so far as flesh and blood can do, of the glory hereafter to be revealed in all its fulness.

Look! now it seems to burn like molten gold. But its beauty is extraneous; it is a dark, cold, sluggish mass of waters, owing all its richness of tint, its warmth, its excellent brightness, to the sun that smiles upon it! How like the church of the redeemed! Cleaving to the dust, barren, lifeless, soulless, without form or comeliness, till the quickening grace of Christ steeps it in unearthly glories; what is it unless renewed day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, by the unslumbering energies of God's good Spirit?

And now it lies, a passive, floating, filmy tissue on the bosom of the evening breeze, sublimed and spiritualized till it seems almost to merge in the ethereal heaven-lifted into closer contact with the Sun and Source of all its beauty, and losing every trace of earth. So was it with Paul when caught up into paradise, he knew not whether he had shaken off the body of this deathwhether he was unclothed, or so clothed upon, that mortality was swallowed up of life. So will it be with all who follow on to

know the Lord; with every fresh accession to the church of Christ; with the whole family of the redeemed itself, when all its members have drank into the same spirit, and have found rest— implicit and unbroken rest-on the bosom of the Beloved.

Darker and darker grows the cloud; but it gains in substance what it may have lost in beauty. It sails along those depths of blue in stately silence; a vessel fraught with mercies, even for the unthankful and the evil. So, in some phases of the Christian church, the outward splendors melt away when most emphatically she is all glorious within. Her fertilizing influence is peculiarly apparent when, coming down from Tabor, she journeys through the shadows of the thirsty wilderness, and blesses all around her with the waters that go softly. She must not bask away her opportunities of usefulness even in the audience-chamber of the God of glory.

But look again! What wild, grotesque, appalling forms have grown out of that little cloud. A black frowning mass, fringed with angry fires, it seems the miniature-type of Sinai! And so it is of that Sinai, the covenant of which gendereth to bondage. Its awful pinnacles glow fiercely in the sickly and disastrous light of strange parhelia. Mock suns have risen upon the church; its glory is departed; its True Sun has set! Its members "desire again to be in bondage;" their feet are stumbling upon the dark mountains, and with sacraments and symbols for its altar-lights, they make the darkness visible.

Sad were the thoughts awakened by this closing pageant of the skies. My mind reverted to the leaven now unhappily fermenting the church of my beloved country, to the spread of popish error, of ritualism, and formality; and the music of the Mass rung in my ears, when I longed to feel the power of the songs of Zion in my heart. I mourned over churches desecrated, by the substitution of unmeaning shews for the simple exhibition of the Cross-for altars cumbered with sacrifices which should have ceased to be offered when the Saviour "made an end of sin"-for mysteries, and saints, and intercessors, and genuflections, and gyrations, and a thousand heresies that clouded the spotless glory-the unapproachable simplicity of the gospel.

And then my reflections wandered back to their first channel. The doves-"that flock, that beautiful flock"-rose again before

my mental eye: I heard the eager beating of their pinions; I saw their outstretched necks, their wings covered with silver, and their feathers with yellow gold, as they caught the glories of the sky; and I dwelt with grateful comfort on the oneness of their purpose, their singleness of eye and aim, their resolute and ardent determination to gain their home. To fly away, and be at rest, was all they needed.

Did I want more; and was not this to be found in Christ? Why then should I touch, or taste, or handle those vanities which perish with the using, if, finding Him, I found everything? T.

THE GUILT OF ROMANISM.

WE envy not the Romish Church, her gorgeous cathedrals, her splendid ceremonies, and her pompous ritual. Her sin is not the splendour of her worship. Her guilt is her concealment of truth. When Alexander the Great desired Diogenes to ask of him any favour, the, cynic replied, "I have but one favour to entreat of your majesty, that you would be pleased to stand aside from between me and the sun in the firmament, that it may warm me." In like manner we crave neither the riches, nor the power, nor the greatness of the Church of Rome; all we demand and we demand it in the name of God, is, that she would stand aside, or withdraw the tinsel ceremonies wherewith she veils or extinguishes the truth, and allow millions, and millions more, to gaze on the holy lustre of that Sun of Righteousness which shines resplendently in the firmament of heaven, whose presence is light, whose beams are immortality, whose smiles bear, as angel visitants, salvation to the cottages and cabins of the earth's population. The church of Rome bids you look to the miserable mass-to torturing, but false purgatory,-to priestly absolution, —to a wafer—to a phantom refuge-to a helpless pope,—to the Virgin and Saints; but Protestantism pours forth her deep and glorious inspiration, in her own fervid and imperishable tones:"Behold the LAMB OF GOD that taketh away the sins of the world!"-" Transubstantiation," &c.

THE JEWS.

AND what think you, my dear young friends, of the Jews? You do not despise them. You do not deem the whole nation to be depraved beyond all others because you have met with individual cases which confirm the popular prejudice. You probably regard them with veneration as the most ancient, honoured, and remarkable of the human family. You venerate them as descendants of the man whom God declared to be his friend. In their history you love to trace the dealings of God with the people of his choice. And you view them as ensamples of the fearful consequences of unbelief and neglect of the Divine testimony: Their present condition affords you an unanswerable evidence of the truth of the sacred record, and perhaps you have some indefinite feelings as to their probable restoration. But have they no claim on you for far more than this? Since to them were committed the Oracles of God, and to them pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all God blessed for ever since the first preachers of the gospel of your salvation, and the penmen of every word of that book which you love beyond all treasure, were all Jewssince they are yet to be as a dew among all nations, and “the receiving of them, to be life from the dead," to the whole world, should not you, as young and vigorous members of the church of Christ, be seriously enquiring what service the God of Israel expects at your hands, on behalf of those to whom you are so deeply indebted your elder brethren, and a people yet dear to your heavenly Father.

It is not my intention to dwell upon what would seem to be your duty, but feeling the importance of your age, and of your position in respect of the church and of the world, I would affectionately summon you to a prayerful and intelligent consideration of the subject.

1st. Study well, and devoutly and humbly all that the word of God records and promises concerning the Jews, with an especial desire to ascertain your duty in reference to them.

2nd. Beware of such views of the Divine purposes as would interfere with your own dependent and zealous agency. Such

B b

views would render you equally inert in the cause of the salvation of the Gentiles. Precepts are your rule, and promises your guarantee.

3rd. Let the Jews and all that concerns them enter very much into your course of reading, observation, and enquiry. They are themselves evincing a spirit of awakened attention, and (if I mistake not) of respect and kindness towards christians, which should be met on your part by intelligence and sympathy, and brotherly affection. The account recently published by the deputation from the Church of Scotland to Palestine, &c. will open to you many trains of thought, and cannot fail deeply to interest you in the cause of Israel.

4th. Bear them on your hearts before God in secret and in social prayer. He has not said to you as He did to the ancient prophet, "Thou shalt not pray for this people any more?" but He directs your minds to the example of the Great Apostle, whose "heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel was, that they might be saved."

5th. Once more, if you would do good to the seed of Abraham, be consistent, spiritual, eminent christians. You must learn to love the brethren of your Lord by getting very near to his heart. You must recommend his religion by exhibiting his spirit. Your piety must have so much of loveliness and holy cheerfulness in it as shall provoke "the Jews to jealousy," and make them anxious to know the secret of your happiness. Derive a fresh motive for eminence and consistency in personal religion from the duty you owe to the perishing but observant Jew.

Dear young friends, talk much and pray much together on this subject. "They shall prosper that love Israel; and blessed shall they be who bless him." "Behold He cometh quickly, the Son of David, the King of Israel, and His reward is with Him." O love Him, expect Him, and you will not neglect the Jew. AN ELDER BROTHER.

MR. MOFFAT PREACHING TO THE NATIVES. MOSHEU, a Coranna chief, repeated his visit to our station, bringing with him a large retinue, which included his brother, their wives, and other relations. Nothing could equal our sur