Rev. Robert Cowe, of St. Andrew's, Man- | much success, maintained your constitution, ❘ overlooked; but to be, as I trust they are, chester; the Rev. Vernon Moore White, of Liverpool, Rev. Hope Waddell, late of Jamaica; Robert Barbour, Esq., Major Anderson, Thomas Greig, Esq., &c., &c. On removal of tea, the Rev. Mr. Munro delivered the following Address to the Members of the Society. The Rev. Gentleman was listened to with the greatest interest and attention, and was warmly applauded during the delivery, and at the close of his address. Several excellent speeches were also delivered on interesting subjects, by the Rev. Messrs. Cowe, Waddell, and various friends and members of the Society. The evening was spent in the most delightful and satisfactory manner, so that it was not without regret (when the appointed hour for separating arrived) that the company bade each other "good night." THE ADDRESS. It is with pleasure, Mr. Chairman, that I have an opportunity of meeting, on this annual occasion, with the Young Men's Society and their friends. I gladly obey the call given me, to address this assembly, on the nature and ends of that Society. Not that, in doing so, I can advance anything which its members do not already know; but simply with the view to encourage them in their on goings, and to apprize the strangers who have favoured us with their presence, of its con stitution and objects. This I can do only in a general way; leaving it to others who more familiar with these, to impliment what I may omit, to fill in the colouring of the view which my hand must be contented faintly to sketch. Your Society, I observe, is an Association of youths, meeting monthly, in a simple and unexpensive way, communicating in turn the results of their reading and reflection, in written papers; preceded by friendly fellowship, and followed by conversational debate. This intercourse is regulated by rules fitted to combine order of procedure with freedom of opinion. Such is your constitution. I conceive it to be well-adapted to your objects. These objects are own mutual improvement, your mental, moral, and religious; and the extension, so far as you can, of Christian care to others. Here, I cannot refrain from quoting some words from the address circulated by you lately, among those who, by country or by religious profession, have claims on us all, persuading them to give heed to the means of grace and improvement : "Upon you, then, fellow-countrymen, endeared to us by strong national ties, upon you who have hitherto cared little for these things, we would affectionately urge the improvement of your present advantages. Have you forgot the hal'owed stillness that pervades the Sabbaths of your native land? Have you forgot the instructions of your early home, where, seated round the paternal hearth, on the evening of every returning Sabbath, you learnt the Divine, the essential truth, that 'Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever?' Have you forgot that you are the children of those who suffered and died, that they might transmit to us our most precious privileges? Or are you shielding yourselves under the glory which encircles your national character, and saying in your hearts, with the Jews of, old, We have Abraham to our father? This very circumstance increases the measure of your responsibility." So far your excellent address. And now I must say, it is a just ground of gratulation, that you have for so many years, and with and advanced your objects. Your associated body, like other sublunary bodies, is in continual process of change. But while its parts change, its form and functions remain. Many young men have, I know, passed through this Society, and gathered from it that improvement which has contributed, in no small degree, to their success, and their usefulness in the greater Society of the world, whether their lot has been cast in contiguous scenes or in distant lands. I feel assured that not a few of these look back with satisfaction to their connexion with you, and in the sultry cities of India, or the commercial marts of America, remember with gratitude the Young Men's Society of the Scotch Church, Manchester. They date from it, perhaps, some habit, or identify with it some idea which, in their altered circumstances, they find to be strengthening and profitable. Thus, as the little seed, carried on the wind's wings, or on the water's currents, is borne to some spot which, in its development, it may embellish and bless; so, the sound notions which, with out observation, are suggested at your Meetings, are found in after years and in remote lands to embellish, as with fair flowers, and to bless, as with rich fruitage, the lives of those by whom they have happily been received. It cannot fail to be reckoned as a gracious and a graceful feature in your Association, that, while you aim to be inquirers in secular knowledge, you desire also to be Christian disciples; that, while your object is to furnish and equip the understanding in everything which may make you intelligent citizens, you wish to subordinate this to the revealed will of God, as well as to employ this in his service. It is well that it is so. To divorce intellectual acquirement from religious faith, is perilous in the extreme. But by thus secure their mutual uniting them, you strength. Ever let them be as twin together, and then each will be not only upheld in its power, but hallowed in its value. Like those twin brothers, (and you will permit me, while standing among you the classical reminiscence,) like those twin brothers, Castor and Pollux, in the one mortal, the other immortal, who, as the ancients tell us, mutually vowing an violable friendship, signalized themselves by deeds of benevolence during their life, and who, after their removal from earth, sharing between them both the immortality originally belonging to the one, were advanced to form a constellation in the skies, that thence, while receiving his homage, they might give their guidance to the mariner on the midnight deep;-so, like them, intellectual acquirement and religious faith, the one human, the other heavenly, being also united, blend their unextinguishable beams, to guide and gladden the youth, through life, on to the better country. Or, to adopt the exquisite over language of the elegy gy sung by David, the mighty, "They will be lovely in lives, and in your death they will not be divided." your Now, I cannot conceive of any form of Association better fitted than your Society is, to produce salutary effects in the given case. It draws together young men of nearly the have recently left the paternal roof. It resame age and of similar views, many of whom moves them, so far, from the inducements to less desirable unions. It presents a sphere for their unfolding powers, and a circle for gratefully prized. Yet this is not the whole. All of you have received a liberal education in your early home, and in the earlier season of your life. But this is an acquisition which, if it is not increased, will be lost. We are apt to say of a young man entering on business, that "his education is finished." His education finished! This is a popular error of thinking, it is a popular blunder in speaking. Our education is never finished. It is a great point if we can say, it is fairly begun. We are always to be learners. For, if we don't be learning, we must be unlearning. Whatever skill we may have acquired red in the application of our faculties, whatever rudimental knowledge we have in former years obtained, whatever impressions have been produced, whatever maxims or habits have been implanted, they will perish if they are not improved. Look at the sucker that has struck its slender roots into the thin soil. It must have fresh earth, fresh dews, and fresh sunshine, year by year; else, never, never will it expand into green magnificence, bearing on its branches the golden and mellow fruit. Now, your Society meets this desideratum. It unfolds the rudimental elements of your previous education. It fosters among those who have entered into the business of the world, the spirit of self-cultivation. It gives an object and a zest to your private reading and reflection; and it encourages the growth of those principles and practices which beneficial to the soul as well as to the body, for eternity as well as for time, which make you useful to others, no less than to yourselves. are Besides this, the circumstances of most of you here, are trying in their operation. Having left a home of leisure, you are immersed in a scene of bustle and activity. You live in a place where business, while it no doubt quickens and improves; yet, as it is usually pursued, engrosses (too much, perhaps, for personal improvement) the faculties and the heart. Its tendency is to usurp the understanding, and to propel, in one direction, the mental energies. Thus the mind, under its influence, is liable to be reduced to the condition of a field which, without rotation of crops, becomes scourged and sterile, by being forced, year after year, to yield the same mo some of the choicest sources of notonous produce. Manchester manufacture, Manchester trade, Manchester topics, from the pattern of a calico to the projected architecture of an exchange, from the quality of a cotton wool fibre to the tested strength of an iron bar, from the revolutions of a spindle to the revolutions of a Cabinct, these all are exciting, absorbing, exhausting to the action of the mind. Immersed in these, the youth is liable to lose the power of appreciating some of the noblest objects of his existence; and to forget his enjoyment. Immersed in these, he may, unless due care be taken, become devoid of all capacity and taste for aught else; -so that, when they have served their desired purpose, and when he retires from the turmoil possessed of a competency or a fortune, he must remain, to the end of his life, incapable of exercising those forms of thought which lend life its value and its glory. How can it be otherwise? He has, during his previous career, been incapacitating himself for these. And the process, to which he has been subjected, has, like the slow working of the coral insect, been raising an adamantine barrier their expanding social affections. It gathers gliding on with a murmuring motion over its But your Society is an apparatus fitted to | may be seen, now forming into pools, or Permit me, while commending the constitution of your Society to others, to encourage you in the prosecution of its objects. Fail not, I beseech you, to evince its beneficial effects on yourselves, by becoming a blessing to your fellow-creatures. Conjoin speculative knowledge with practical duty, literary accomplishment with useful labours in moting the religious well-being of all to whom your opportunities and influence may extend. This, this, believe me, will draw down a blessing from heaven, on your youthful Association, and multiply a thousand fold its happy results. pro I would not, on this auspicious occasion, be the man who would cast among you the shadow of melancholy. I would not willingly usher into this chamber, whose lights are now shining down on young heads and glad hearts, one needlessly gloomy thought, which might come and stand like a spectre at a festival. But, oh! my dear friends, we know not how long any of us may live. We cannot tell how short a while, he of the bloomiest cheek and the brightest eye, may be spared to improve his own mind and benefit the lives of others. While our time is passing, let it be so passed that, when we come to die, we may give a good account of the stewardship of our faculties; and enter to taste of those enjoyments intellectual, spiritual, and enduring, which await the wise and good, in the society of a higher world. May your Society be a preparative for this to the youths now before me, and to the youths of generations that are yet unborn. BIBLE RIVERS AND LAKES. (From the Christian Treasury.) The Kedron. PASSING out of Jerusalem by the gate of St. Stephen, which looks to the south, you descend to the torrent of the Kedron. A bridge of one arch is here thrown over its deep and rocky bed. During nine months of the year it is mostly dry; but in the rainy season it is a wintry torrent, rapid and swollen. Its channel leads to the Dead Sea, and, in its course, is marked by its picturesque spots. Thus, where the Convent of St. Saba crowns a rock on its banks, midway betwixt Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, its deep sides sink into a dell through which the waters of the brook In the neighbourhood of Jerusalem it is that the Kedron is invested with the deepest interest. Here every object which it passes speaks to the heart. Now it kisses the foot of the Mount of Olives, where oft our Saviour was wont to repair in company with his disciples. Again, it skirts the Garden of Gethsemane, with its eight venerable olive treesthe scene of Jesus' bloody agony. Through the Valley of Jehoshaphat, "as through a valley sacred to sweet peace," its scanty waters it distils from stone to stone with gentle motion; here gliding past the crowded tombstones of the humbler Hebrews; there passing the more adorned resting-places of Jerusalem's ancient kings-the pillar of Absalom and the tomb of Zacharias. Over this brook did David pass, when fleeing from the face of Absalom (2 Sam. xv. 23); and over it did Christ go, in that night of sorrow and amazement when he was betrayed into the hands of sinners (John xviii. 1). It was by the Brook Kedron, that the good kings Asa and Josiah burned the idols of their apostate predecessors, and recalled to Israel the departed favour of Heaven. Such is a general description of the principal Bible Rivers and Lakes. In contemplating everything connected with this once beloved land, the mind yields itself to sadness; and the train of bright recollections, which every spot of it recalls, throws an additional gloom over its present desolations. Lebanon no longer rejoices in the multitude of her cedars; the vine of Sorek is withered up; the excellency has departed from Carmel; and the rose of Sharon has drooped its head and died. No spreading vineyards, few cultivated fields, no flourishing cities or smiling villages attest the industry and happiness of its people. The religion which once dignified its inhabitants, and still consecrates its soil, has disappeared; while, through this scene of sorrow its rivers flow, and mourn in their courses for their diminished glory. But though Palestine at present wears the appearance of a land which has felt the curse of Heaven, Memory yet loves to linger around it as the scene of events the most interesting to our race, and Hope looks forward to those bright days of returning prosperity of which her prophets have spoken. "And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the Heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel; so will I save you, saith the Lord, and ye shall be a blessing: fear not, but let your hands be strong." Jerusalem shall yet be safely inhabited, and she shall be called a city of truth. But while this will be a day of returning mercy to Judah, it will be a day of trouble to the nations who have trodden down that goodly land. The dispensations of mercy to the one, and of judgment to the other, are inseparably conjoined in the sure word of prophecy: "For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat (the valley of the judgment of God), and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land." The Red Sea may again be smitten, and Egypt become a desolation-the great River Euphrates will be dried up, and the Turkish power be destroyed; but the bare channels of Palestine's streams will be covered, and "all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, even living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea; in summer and in winter shall it be." The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. EXTRACTS FROM AN ADDRESS TO A (Continued from our last number.) I HAVE spoken to you, my beloved brother, with all freedom, but with all affection, on two points of vital importance: first, your private character as a Christian man; and secondly, your public character as a Christian minister. Let me farther address you in reference to your character and duties as pastor of the flock. I do not consider this subject of inferior moment to anything I have yet submitted to your consideration. Your private walk as a Christian pastor will have the most powerful reflective influence on your pulpit ministrations. It either deepens and seals the impressions made on your audience by your discourses, or it exposes you as an inconsistent and hypocritical formalist, playing your part as best you can in the public assembly of God's people. If all the seriousness and solemnity of a minister be left behind him in the pulpit, and if worldliness or levity characterize him in private life, his people must soon lose all respect for his person and his work. If Jesus and his cause, the claims of the soul and eternity, be descanted on in powerful and glowing language in the church, and hardly ever referred to in private conversation; then be assured, he is pulling down through the week what he built up on the Sabbath-nay, he is steeling the minds of his people altogether against Gospel ministrations, and forcing them to believe that he is a mere pulpit-machine in the sanctuaryhas made the ministry a stepping-stone to a little pelf, or a little fame: and placing his soul in awful jeopardy, rendering his salvation almost impossible even to a God of grace, he prostitutes the most solemn office under heaven to the gratification of a carnal and unrenewed nature. Remember, that one thoughtless and unguarded act-one foolish and ungracious expression-one unclerical and unchristlike movement, may do an injury to the Messiah's cause, that by ten years' pulpit ministration you may not be able to repair. Many a powerful preacher has been wholly useless to the church, in consequence of his inconsistencies in private life. The dead fly destroys the flavour of the most precious ointment. While on the other hand, I have known a minister of moderate mental attainments, and feeble powers as a pulpit orator, and yet by the holiness of his life, and the godly consistency of his whole demeanour, he had unbounded influence among his flock, was loved and reverenced by all who knew him, and left a divine unction, a savour of Jesus' name behind him in every circle where he moved. In the pulpit and in private there was no contradiction. His private deportment was the development and confirmation of his public discourses. Not merely with his lips, but with his life, he preached the Gospel. He was an ambassador of Christ in all places, and under all circumstances. In the church he preached with artless simplicity, but he prayed with irresistible fervour. He was not only a minister in the pulpit, but equally so in the social circle-at the marriage-feast in the house of mourning-and in the chamber of death. The gay and volatile revered him; the young loved him as a brother and a friend. He lived and breathed in an atmosphere of religion. He was an "epistle of Christ, known and read of all men." His work was always pleasant, always prosperous; for the Holy Spirit rested upon him in all his labours. Oh! let me implore you, for the sake of Christ's honour, the establishment and extension of our church, the salvation of immortal souls-by every solemn and momentous consideration, to keep thyself pure in private life, and in every place let it be seen that you are an ambassador of Christ. I do not exhort you to singularity or moroseness in the social circle. Pleasantness and peace, love and joy, are fruits of the Spirit of God, and a monkish austerity is a feature, not of Christ, but of Antichrist. But in the society of your people there is a dignity and a sacred decorum that should never forsake you. And I would counsel you to frequent no company, and resort to no house where you must leave your Master outside, where you cannot sacrifice on the family altar, and introduce the celestial song of praise and the reading and exposition of the oracles of God. Social intercourse with his people is a source of swectest enjoyment to a pastor. The meeting of old and young, of relatives and friends, in smiling and happy conviviality, is an oasis in the day's journey in this busy and trying world. There are rosebuds in that green spot scattering their fragrance all around; but oh! remember, every rose has its thorn, every pleasure its temptation, and see to it that all your social enjoyments be guarded and hallowed by Christlike piety. Beware of engaging in any secular occupation. "No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please Him who hath called him to be a soldier." These are the words of the Holy Spirit:-"Give thyself wholly to these things, that thy profiting may appear to all." Now, if we understand this language in its plain simple acceptation, then, we maintain, that a Christian minister should be occupied with one work, one great work only-the establishment and extension of the church, and the salvation of souls. To this overwhelming object all he is, and all he has should be consecrated; and whether by the press, the pulpit, or the platform-the private meditation or the pastoral visit, his time and talent and energies should be spent in exhibiting Christ for the redemption of fallen world. a The minister who, instead of wholly devoting his life to the spread of the Gospel, is also engrossed with some secular calling, will experience a sad result in the barrenness of his own mind, and in the spiritual barrenness of his people. We have in our church no internal heresy rending the body of Christ; we are perfectly agreed, in the same mind and in the same judgment, on all points of orthodox theology; but if our clergy be worldly men, bent upon earthly pursuits-serving God upon the Sabbath, and serving their own secularity six days of every blessed week, then there is a disease at work in the ecclesiastical body-a cancer, gradually, but certainly, eating out all vital godliness. The church has a name to live, but is in reality dead. The Reformed Church of France, the Church of Confessors and of Martyrs, in her purest days, when she was not a rich, but a poor and struggling church, enacted in the National Synod at Paris, in 1559-"That no minister, together with the holy ministry, practitioner in law or physic, and those who employ themselves in law or physic, or in any other worldly and distracting shall be a grown up in their youth, and your daughters like "corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace." That little boy, to whom you now affectionately teach the simple elements of divine truth, will give you his manly arm to rest upon when you are tottering in old age. That little girl, whose head you stroke in approbation when she has timidly repeated her catechism and psalms and hymns, may yet attend you on the bed of sickness with all a Chloe's christian love. and totally to devote themselves to the duties | lings till they become "trees of righteousness, My brother, make the young the objects of business, shall be exhorted wholly to forbear, I of your church, training up the tender sap Remember, with much tenderness, the children of sorrow. When the harrow of affliction is passing over the soul, that is the best season to sow the seed-the hour to scatter over it the exceeding great and precious promises. An opportunity then lost may never be recalled. It is the duty of the afflicted to "send for the elders of the Church;"-but, if you know of a case of affliction, and stand upon your dignity, or loll upon your couch neglecting the sufferer, because through care lessness, or ignorance, or timidity, or poverty, an invitation has not been sent to you, ah! how could you stand acquitted before Him in judgment, who, unsolicited, and in the midst even of frowns and contumely and persecution, went about continually doing good? To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction-nay, to visit any abode of sorrow-to soothe and save any agonized soul, is the very essence of pure and undefiled religion. And never, never forget it, that the heart you gain for Christ in affliction, the bosom you then fill with the consolations of the Gospel, may be a pillow for your own head in the hour of sickness and death. Even a cup of cold water, the very least mark of attention and love shown to a disciple, especially an afflicted disciple, shall in nowise lose its reward. I recommend to you, with the greatest earnestness, the regular pastoral visitation of your flock from house to house. For this part of your ministration we can plead high apostolic example. The Apostle Paul preached the Gospel publicly, and from house to house. (Acts xx. 20.) And if, in the midst of his multiplied labours-flying, like the angel in apocalyptic vision, from country to country, and from continent to continent-from Europe to Asia, and from Asia to Europe again, if he had time for domiciliary visitation - if he felt it to be a duty and a privilege to do so, as an ambassador of Christ, oh! should not we, with all fidelity and affection, walk in his sacred footsteps. Suffer me to say, after upwards of twenty years' experience in the ministry, that you never can be a successful minister in this church, nor in any church. without constant, cordial, faithful visitation of your flock. Some object to this work, because it takes them from their study, and deprives them of the opportunity of cultivating their own minds. I know the minister should be a student all his life, and I reprobate the idea of preaching, without prayerful and thorough preparation. But, ah! there have been hours, and days, spent in perfecting a trope, and polishing a sentence, and elaborating from a text a system of abstract, dry, heartless metaphysics, that would have been infinitely better spent in talking to the aged believer about the things of God, and encouraging the young to begin the Christian race. In visiting a few families in one day, I have acquired more valuable knowledge, have got more insight into human naturelearned more about the spiritual workings of the human breast found out the wants, and cares, and temptations of God's people have had my own heart refreshed, and my mind more enlightened and enlarged, by the confidential outpouring of all that was in their bosomshave got better lessons in the science of appropriate and practical preaching, than I could gain in twelve months by volumes of the trash that is flung upon the world by ministers who will not work, like Paul, from house to house, but who waste their precious time in authorship, as dead, and dull, and worthless, as their own dull, and heavy, and insipid pulpit ministrations. The greatest of living pulpit orators, and one of the most popular of religious writers, found time, in the midst of his studies, for the regular visitation even of the poorest family in his parish. And if you wish to be looked on as the friend and brother of your people: if you wish to have their hearts' affections engaged in behalf of yourself and your ministry: you will be no stranger in their houses and at their firesides. How does the physician become acquainted with the diseases of his patients? By standing at a distance from them and giving them some general advice? By no means. He enters into their houses--he goes into the sick-chamber day after day-talks to them privately and personally of their whole bodily condition, and thus is enabled to prescribe accurately for the disorder; and, after a few years of hard labour, he stands, as an experienced physician, at the head of his profession. There is a disorder of sin universally spread over every family and member of your congregation; and if ever you intend to be any thing but a mere general declaimer, and an expounder of mere general truths, you will dwell among your own flock; become acquainted with their easily-besetting sins; their wants, their trials; their attainments in the knowledge and faith of the Gospel; their omissions and commissions; their condition as a regenerate or unregenerate people; their habits with regard to family and closet prayer: and then, with all this accumulated knowledge, you will compose your discourses, not to exhibit to them your learning or your oratory; but you will hold up a mirror in which they will exactly see the state of their own souls; you will send barbed arrows home to the conscience, and they will retire from the sanctuary in deep humiliation of mind; not eulogising or censuring the preacher, but condemning themselves: and looking to Jesus the great is said, became a burning and shining light | laid on the table very full documents contain over the dark land of Abyssinia. And life. The aged will rise up when you enter, senior children, when catechism and psalms one pressing to be nearer than another, while their r smili smiling happy faces indicate the plastic a ing an account of the Presbytery's preliminary proceedings in the case; all which being approved of, the permission craved was granted. The Presbytery of Lancashire laid on the table extract minutes relative to Mr. Kerr Johnstone, formerly Congregational Minister, at Perth, Scotland; who has applied for ministerial admission into this Church, and asking permission to admit him. The Presbytery was authorized to admit Mr. Johnstone, on condition of their being satisfied that he holds the tenets contained in the Church's doctrinal standards. Mr. Hamilton submitted a draft of an address to the ministers who have lately resigned connexion with the Established Church of the Canton de Vaud, which was remitted to the Moderator and Mr. Hamilton to ex tend, with instructions to transmit it in due form. ADDRESS OF COMMISSION OF SYNOD TO THE FREE CHURCH OF THE CANTON DE VAUD. BELOVED BRETHREN, - When one member sufis the spot to which the eye of our own and the sister Churches in this country is at this moment directed with the deepest interest, and from week to week we have awaited tidings with painful and prayerful solicitude. And although it be only to assure you of the sincerity of our affection and the earnestness of our sympathy, now that we are assembled for another purpose, we cannot forbear addressing to you these rapid lines of Christian remembrance and fraternal affection. fers, all the members suffer withit. Your Canton Amidst all its costly sacrifices and gloomy congratulate prospects, honoured Brethren, we loving, confiding, attentive, prosperous church, you will be faithful and you on being permitted to lift up this testimony for the Saviour's sup supremacy, and for the freedom and loyalty of his ransomed Church. Your Redeemer liveth. He is exalted at the Father's right hand a Prince and a Saviour; and what men will not suffer him to be on earth, he is in heaven. He is Head over all things there, and the day is coming when He will be acknowledged Head over all things here. Meanwhile, from his Mediatorial throne, we doubt not, he regards with approbation the tribute which, in the face of a sceptical and antichristian world, you have been enabled to render to his reign and royal rights. Fear not, for to his faithful servants he will give the crown of life. To complete this good confession nothing is lacking now, except the harmony, the spirituality and devotedness of the sequel. It is not for us to offer counsel or suggestion; but now that the Church and the world have directed their wondering regard to your movement, we pray that yourselves and the faithful in your several flocks may be preserved in such affection to one another, and in such fidelity to your exalted Head, that foolish men may have nothing to gainsay, and those who love our Lord Jesus nothing to lament. Physician, and the balm of Gilead as the only remedy for sin. Behold that child awaking from death to life. (2 Kings iv. 33-35.) But how did the prophet of God act? By standing at a distance from the cold corpse. Oh no, he went very near the child. "Helay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm." And if you have the prophet's anxiety to restore dead souls to life, you will not only stand in the pulpit, but will come down to their private dwellings; you will draw very near to them, and in holy COMMISSION OF SYNOD OF THE PRES- brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, earnestness you will talk to every member of the flock; comforting the aged, guiding and guarding the young, strengthening the weak hands and confirming the feeble knees: and you will be loved of all, prayed for by all, and, under the blessing of God, your pastoral Instruction and paternal love will unlock the obstinate sinner's heart and surrendering himself to Jesus he will say, "God is with you of a truth." Philip was sent by the Lord to Preach to one soul. With alacrity he executed the commission: and the eunuch of Ethiopia, it * The venerable Chalmers. we are blessed in our own souls and our own BYTERIAN CHURCH IN ENGLAND. THIS Court met (pro re nata) at Liverpool The Presbytery of London craved permis- Now, dear Brethren, the God of peace, that that great Shepherd of the sheep, through THE POWER OF CHRISTIANITY. A Converted Atheist, from "Philosophy of the I KNEW that there were those in the world Intercourse with mankind, who seemed so sincerely and so entirely an Atheist as the individual whose case is now introduced. The first time that I met him was at the house of his son-in-law, a gentleman of piety and intelligence. His appearance was that of a decrepit, disconsolate old man. In the course of conversation he unhesitatingly expressed his unbelief of the existence of a God, and his suspicion of the motives of most of those who professed religion. I learned from others that he had ceased in some measure to have intercourse with men-had become misanthropic in his feelings, regarding mankind in the light of a family of sharks, preying upon each other; and his own duty in such a state of things, he supposed to be, to make all honest endeavours to wrest from the grasp of others as much as he could. He used profane language, opposed the temperance reformation, and looked with the deepest hatred upon the ministers of religion. His social affections seemed to be withered, and his body, sympathizing, was distorted and diseased by rheumatic pains. 1. This old man had for years been the subject of special prayer on the part of his pious daughter and his son-in-law; and he was finally persuaded by them to attend a season of religious worship in the Church of which they were members. During these services, which lasted several days, lays, he passed from his Atheism. The change seemed to surprise every one, and himself as much as any other. From being an Atheist, he became the most simple and implicit believer. He seemed like a being who had waked up in another world, the sensations of which were all new to him; and although a man of sound sense in business affairs, when he began to express his religious ideas, his language seemed strange and incongruous, from the fact, that while his soul was now filled with new thoughts and feelings, he had no knowledge of the language by which such thoughts are usually expressed. The effects produced by his conversion were as follows-stated at one time to myself, and upon another occasion to one of the most eminent medical practitioners in this country. One of the first things which he did after his conversion was to love, in a practical manner, his worst enemy. There was one man in the village who had, as he supposed, dealt treacherously with him in some money transactions which had occurred between them. On this account personal enmity had long existed between the two individuals. When converted, he sought his old enemy, asked his forgiveness, and endeavoured to benefit him by bringing him under the influence of the Gospel. 2. His benevolent feelings were awakened and expanded. His first benevolent offering was twenty-five cents, in a collection for charitable uses. He now gives very liberally, in proportion to his means, to all objects which he thinks will advance the interests of the Gospel of Christ. Besides supporting his own Church, and her benevolent institutions, no enterprise of any denomination, which he really believes will do good, fails to receive something from him, if he has the means. During the last year he has given more, with a design of benefiting his fellow-men, than he had done in his whole lifetime before. 3. His affections have received new life. He said to me, in conversation upon the subject; "One part of the Scriptures I feel to be true-that which says; 'I will take away the hard and stony heart, and give you a heart of flesh.' Once I seemed to have no feeling; now, thank God, I can feel. I have buried two wives and six children; but I never shed a tear I felt hard and unhappy; now my tears flow at the recollection of these things." The tears at that time wet the old man's cheeks. It is not probable that, since his conversion, there has been a single week that he has not shed tears; before conversion, he had not wept since the age of manhood. An exhibition of the love of Christ will, at any time, move his feelings with gratitude and love, until the tears moisten his eyes. 4. Effect upon his life. Since his conversion, he has not ceased to do good as he has had opportunity. Several individuals have been led to repent and believe in Christ through his instrumentality. Some of these were individuals whose former habits ren dered a change of character very improbable who had fallen into the habit of intemperance, is now a respectable and happy father of a respectable Christian family. He has been known to go to several families on the same day, pray with them, and invite them to attend religious worship on the Sabbath; and in the eyes of most individuals-one of them, when some difficulty was stated as a hindrance to their attendance, he has assisted them to buy shoes, and granted other little aids of the kind, in order that they might be induced to attend Divine service. A most remarkable fact concerning this old man has also come to the knowledge of the author. When conone of his first acts, although he had verted, heard nothing of any such act in others, was to make out a list of his old associates then living within reach of his influence. For the conversion of these he determined to labour as he had opportunity, and pray daily. On his list were one hundred and sixteen names, among whom were sceptics, drunkards, and other individuals, as little likely to be reached by Christian influence as any other men in the region. Within two years from the period of the old man's conversion one hundred of these individuals had made a profession of religion. We can hardly suppose that the old man was instrumental in the conversion of all these persons; yet the fact is one of the most remarkable that has been developed in the progress of Christianity. 5. Effect upon his happiness. In a social meeting of the Church where he worships, I heard him make such an expression as this: "I have rejoiced but once since I trusted in Christ-that has been all the time." His state of mind may be best described in his own characteristic language. One day, while repairing his fence, an individual passing addressed him: "Mr.-, you are at work all alone." "Not alone," said the old man; "God is with me." He said that his work seemed easy to him, and his peace of mind continued with scarcely an interruption. I saw him at a time when he had just received intelligence that a son, who had gone to the south, had been shot in a personal altercation, in one of the southern cities. The old man's parental feelings were moved, but he seemed even under this sudden and distressing affliction to derive strong consolation from trust in God. e a 6. Physical effects of the moral change. As soon as his moral nature had undergone a change, his body, by sympathy, felt the benign influence. His countenance assumed a milder and more intelligent aspect; he became more tidy in his apparel; and his "thousand pains" in a good measure left him. In his case there seemed to be a renovation both of soul and body. This case is not exaggerated. The old man is living, and there are a thousand living witnesses to this testimony, among whom is an intelligent physician, who, hearing the old man's history of his feelings, and having known him personally for years, and the obvious effects which faith in Christ had produced in this case, combined with other influences by which he was surrounded, was led seriously to examine the subject of religion, as it concerned his own spiritual interest. By this examination he was led to relinquish the system of "rational religion" (as the Socinian system is most inappropriately called by its adherents), and profess his faith in orthodox religion. LEGH RICHMOND. AN INCIDENT. As I was one evening proceeding towards a church in my native city, for the purpose of hearing the Rev. Legh Richmond preach an anniversary sermon, a gentleman accosted me, and inquired the way to the Temple Church. I told him I was going thither, and would be pleased to show him. He was upwards of fifty years of age, with a remarkably pleasant countenance, and wore spectacles. He was lame, owing to a contraction of the knee-joint, and so he took my arm, which, with a boyish freedom, I offered him. "And pray," said he, "are you going to hear Legh Richmond?" I replied that I was, and anticipated great delight in doing so; as I had perused his "Dairyman's Daughter," and his "History of Little Jane, the Young Cottager," with great delight. The old gentleman smiled placidly, leaning a little heavier on my arm, and talked to me about heaven until my eyes ran over with tears. There was such a winning sweetness in his tone, and he spoke so affectionately, that I could not but love him, stranger though he was. When we arrived at the church door, crowds were pouring in. "I must go to the vestry," remarked my new acquaintance, "I dare say you will see me again;" and we parted. The service had been read by the regular of the place, and the he psalm before clergyman the sermon was being sung, when the preacher of the evening slowly, and with some apparent difficulty, ascended the pulpit stairs. He bowed his greyish head for a moment on the cushion, and then looked on the congregation. It was the gentleman with whom I had walked to church-the author of that touching beautiful narrative, which I cannot even now read without tears" The Dairyman's Daughter;' -LEGH RICHMOND WAS BEFORE ME!-From the Boston Atlas. CANTON DE VAUD. DEBATE IN THE GRAND COUNCIL ON THE DISRUPTION. " THE Federal, a Genevese journal, of 23d November, contains a report of a long and interesting discussion that took place in the Grand Council relative to the state of religion in the Canton de Vaud. At their sitting on 18th November, the President stated that a great number of petitions had been presented, some approving, others disapproving, of what the Council of State had done in reference to the National Church. Before proceeding to the discussion, M. Eytel read the Repo Report of a Commission appointed to deliberate on a measure that had been proposed for approving of the conduct of the Council of State, and grantingit full power for carrying out measures deemed necessary in the present state of the Vaudois National Church. The Report con. demned the ministers for refusing to read the proclamation, and thereby setting an example of insubordination to those in authority. The |