harmony should be removed out of the | tion, in reliance on the agency of the way. Christians must value and love Holy Spirit-to secure blessings which each other more. Then, the prosperity | you require—which your families need of the church should be dear to your-which the church demands — and hearts; the increase of its friends—the | which are so important for the world. multiplication of its converts—the augmented energy and efficiency of its supporters and advocates. Now, at the beginning of the current year, let your solicitude on behalf of the church be livelier and more intense than ever. Resolve, V. That you will concentrate your energies for the glory of Christ this year, more decidedly than you have previously done. There should be there must be this disposition; and it must be growingly unfolded. The glory of the Saviour, Christians, should be the grand object of your lives; and, every year, that object should be more distinctly recognized-more highly appreciated more powerfully felt. Enter, therefore, on the present year, under the influence of this spirit, whatever the acquirements you have made-the talents you may possess the influence you may exert the opportunities you may command-let all be given to Christ-be employed in his service-be consecrated for the advancement of his honour. We sadly want, in the professedly Christian church, more of this concentration of mind-of heart-of influence-to subserve the glory of the Son of God. Our energies are divided, they are partially developed in the service of the Redeemer-and, indeed, are often sadly frittered away. Resolve, VI. That you will abound more in the true spirit of fervent and wrestling supplication this year, than you have hitherto exemplified. Determine, as you begin the year, that you will pray more ; - pray more frequently -more largely-more affectionately more fervently. That you will go to the throne of grace with a fixed resolu The year 1853 should be one of special prayer, in relation to individuals, families, and Christian societies every where. We want light to be shed-error to be corrected-infidelity to be checked the church to be revived-the progress of Romanism to be stayed-a pure, healthful, elevated piety every where to prevail, and, hence, there must be importunate and universal prayer among the disciples of Christ. There has been much neglect here-neglect for which we ought to be ashamed, and which has resulted in numerous and sad calamities. Let the evil be remedied at once. Christian brethren, throughout the empire, throughout the world, let us pray more. Let it be our fixed, unhesitating, universal determination; one which, by the grace of God, we will carry out-that a general blessing may be communicated. The Resolves to which we have been concisely referring are noble determinations for you to express, at the commencement of the current year, and practically and consistently to maintain, until its termination: and you must do it, would you " redeem the time "-illustrate your profession honour your Lord-live increasingly for eternity. Ministers of the gospel! the above are fine resolves for you; avow them— firmly maintain them-never shrink from adherence to them! If the principles they involve be exemplified, what an elevation will be given to your character-what sanctity will be imparted to your spirit-what benevolence, usefulness, and grandeur will be associated with your efforts! Parents everywhere! no resolutions can be more important for you as you begin the year-when you contemplate the responsibility of your positionthe sacredness of your trust-the ar duousness of your engagements-and | Lord, and to be assimilated more com the vast importance of entering into the true spirit of your duties. pletely to his holy and gracious image. Let, then, the present year be one of special determination-special dependence on Heaven-special prayer to the Redeemer-and special exertions that the church may be enlarged and elevated. Let it be a year of special selfimprovement - commence it, individually, with a resolution to be wiser, humbler, holier-in every sense, better;-thus God will be with you-his light will guide your steps-his presence will be enjoyed by your families Teachers of the young! no resolves can be more necessary for you, that your plans may be wise-your instructions sound-your labours well-directed -your efforts signally blest. Commence the year under the influence of the temper so warmly inculcated, and it will be a year of blessing to yourselves and others. Many a youthful mind, this year, will be illumined many a youthful heart will be impressed and permanently benefited--his benediction will rest on all your through your instrumentality. Members of Christian churches throughout the land! do not be indifferent to the great principles we have been earnestly recommending and enforcing. Every year you must be advancing in all that is wise, holy, benevolent, and useful. The beauty of your character must be more fully seen the excellence of your sentiments must be more broadly unfolded -the power of your religion must be more deeply and extensively felt. You are to "grow" in everything that is amiable, lovely, and divine, and, as the years are rolling away, and eternity, with all its stupendous and awful scenes, is advancing, your solicitude must be intense, to be more like your engagements-his promises will sustain THE GLORIOUS TWO THOUSAND. ANCIENT Greece had its Thermopylæ, sublime defeat. It was when two thouat which three hundred noble spirits sand of her true-hearted sons, and faithresisted the overwhelming force of Per- ful ministers, resisted arbitrary power, sia, when her millions came to rob the and refused to bow to the yoke of spiriconfederated states of their land and tual bondage which a capricious monliberty; and by that heroic band were arch, and a haughty priesthood, had the hosts of Xerxes withstood and prepared to impose upon them. All defeated. England, too, has her moral honour be to their memory! Theirs Thermopyla in the past, which wit- was the struggle of right against might nessed a nobler struggle than that of of liberty against tyranny-of truth Greece, equal endurance, and a more and conscience against the inroads of error and the usurpations of men. More was included-more was at stake than in any conflict the world had yet seen. And in proportion to the superiority of the principles involved, the cause at issue, and the consequences that ensued, was the moral heroism of the encounter, and the sublimity of the result. "I paint for eternity," replied the artist, when inquired of why he bestowed so much pains upon the canvas; and so might each one of these illustrious sufferers have said, to whose brilliant but affecting history in our annals we now briefly refer. The alliance of power with ambition, priestcraft, falsehood, or tyranny, must necessarily become a mighty engine for the oppression and wrong of mankind, and for effecting a large amount of desolation among the most precious interests of the people over whom it may be permitted, for however limited a period, to have sway. It matters not what restraining qualities there may be in the character, or what alleviating circumstances in the conduct, of the individual or individuals, raised to such distinction amongst their fellows in the present world as to be invested with such power; the natural exercise of it, and its certain tendency, in all cases, is to evil, evil only, and that continually. The family, the community, the nation, the visible church of God, whichever happen to be the sphere of its influence and operations, is sure to be injured thereby, dislocated, divided, corrupted, and, if some antagonist force prevent not, destroyed. Its progress is sure to be from bad to worse; its doings always inflicting deeper and deeper injury on the oppressed. And were it not that the "only wise God," our adorable Creator and Ruler, has placed in human nature a barrier beyond which its impugners cannot pass-a point at which the spirit of resistance rises up with stern rebuke to say to that power, "Hitherto shalt thou go, but no further," universal devastation and ruin would ensue. It is the same "whether it be done against a nation, or against a man only." Tyranny is contrary to nature. Wrong cannot always maintain its throne. Humanity will not be always oppressed and down-trodden. It will rise. It will vindicate itself. Perhaps, it may avenge its injured rights; and if it be not sanctified and controlled by superior principle it undoubtedly will. Sooner or later the day of reckoning and of recompense will come. "Righteousness" only "exalteth a nation." And till it be exercised, and till it gain the ascendency, suffering may be great, and the sufferers many; but we may be assured of this, that in proportion to their integrity, their purity of conscience, their moral worth, and religious feeling, will be their power of endurance, the firmness with which they oppose oppression, and the fervour and determination with which they throw it off at last. These remarks would receive ample and abundant confirmation had we space to glance at that period of our history which intervened between the decease of the celebrated daughter of Henry the Eighth, and the consummation of that act which has rendered the twenty-fourth of August, 1662, for ever memorable in our national and ecclesiastical affairs. James the First, a weak and unprincipled monarch, held possession of the reins of power for about twenty-two years, as if on purpose to show to mankind how little honour a royal name could acquire, and how much evil the union of superstition, duplicity, and kingcraft could inflict on a nation unhappily subject to its sway. Charles ascended the throne, with all the graces of person and the promises of youth on his side, but it was soon to throw these and all other advantages away by union with a Popish queen, a dissolute minister, and an ambitious ecclesiastic for his primate; and to prove to the world that whatever other causes conspired, or whoever were the individuals employed to bring about his sad catastrophe and tragic end, for that dishonoured fate he had in reality none to blame so much as himself; nor to any cause can the philosophy of history so justly assign it as to his own prevarication, obstinacy, and illegal impositions. The British people are not to be trifled with as Charles supposed. The human conscience is not to be fettered as he and his ambitious minister Laud imagined; nor are the spiritual rights of a whole people to be confiscated by one fell sweep of the pen of tyranny like that which, in the reign of his son, signed, against protests the most reasonable, and promises the most sacred, the celebrated "Act of Uniformity," the iron rule of the State Church establishment within these realms. approved of the doings of the liberal party in the late reign, or suspected of an inclination towards a more spiritual religion than he and his courtiers preferred. Measures of the utmost severity were therefore concocted and proposed against the Dissenters and Puritans of the day, and, however righteous and innocent they were, condemnation and confiscation shortly awaited them. Haughty ecclesiastics combined to harass them. The most rigorous statutes were enforced against them. The magistrates, for the most part men of a sycophant spirit, were but too eager to carry those statutes into effect. The jails were consequently soon crowded with prisoners. And "among the suf ferers," says Macaulay, "were some of whose genius and virtue any Christian society might well be proud." A few steps more and the consummation was attained! This was the construction of a Bill, and its introduction into parliament, at the instigation of the king and the high episcopalian party, to enforce uniformity in every The mighty Oliver was no more. The civil wars had passed away. That awful period of England's struggle against prerogative and misrule, with all the bitter feuds it engendered; the prevarication on the one hand, and the noble principles on the other which it displayed, had come to an end, and the na-punctilio of the worship and discipline tion had settled down to a state of comparative repose, as much so at least as reascended arbitrary power would permit it to do. Tired of bloodshed, strife, and woe, the great parties of the land were happy to be at peace, and so would gladly have continued, had not the unsubdued spirit of pride, tyranny, and falsehood still prevailed in high places. A second Charles filled the throne, who, untaught by all his father's misfortunes, and unimpressed by all the mournful events which yet cast their shadows over him, indulged in every kind of lasciviousness and excess, and left the affairs of state to take care of themselves as best they may. With these predilections and tastes he had brought, however, the insatiable love of power, an inherent regard to Popery, and an avowed determination to be revenged on all those who, by their principles or their conduct, were supposed to have of the Church of England, so minute that none could evade it, and so stringent that no room was left for liberty of conscience or judgment in the matter. Its object was to narrow the door of entrance to ecclesiastical privileges, and to take care that none should come at the possession of them, or be permitted to exercise their ministry, who would not in all things acknowledge the Divine right of the king to invade the boundaries of conscience, and prescribe in what terms and by what rules, homage should be rendered to the Great Supreme. The most frivolous ceremonies were solemnly enacted by law. The mode of Divine worship was required to be as uniform as that in which the military shoulder or ground their arms on parade, or offer the appointed salute if royalty be passing by. Doctrines the most contradictory, and declarations the most heterogeneous, were affirmed to be equally true: and by so- | him," the "called, and chosen, and faith lemn oath was every one required to avow that all and every thing contained in a book of human composition, written by various authors, compiled at different times, abbreviated from the popish missal, or handed down by uncertain tradition from some of the Fathers, was literally, strictly, and universally in conformity with the revealed will of God. All this, moreover, was imposed at the bidding of an earthly monarch, a fellow-mortal, sitting in the temple of God, and acting as God, presiding over worship, regulating the of ferings of broken and contrite hearts at the footstool of the Eternal, enacting in what terms the suppliants of his mercy should pour forth their desires at his throne, and by what rules His messengers should proclaim his word. The gifts and graces of God's servants were thus to be laid aside, or measured and gagged by human law; the worship of the sanctuary was thus to be hewn and shaped, not" according to the pattern showed in the mount," but to that proposed and enjoined in Pilate's hall; and the offers of the "great salvation" propounded to a guilty world only in unison with the prescribed formulas and mandates of an intruding and unlawful power. Was it to be endured? Were the honour and glory of a heavenly Sovereign, and his right to bestow upon his servants what qualifications he pleased for the exercises of his worship, and the edification of his people, to be laid at an earthly monarch's feet? Were the rights of the King of Zion, so dearly bought with his blood, and attested by a voice from the excellent glory," to be so lightly esteemed by his friends, and trampled upon, with their connivance and without their opposition, by his foes? Was one of the "many crowns" which adorn his brow as the Sovereign of conscience, and the "Lord of all," to be assailed, and soiled, and obscured by the machinations of his adversaries, and those "who were with ful," to look on with indifference and unconcern? Was His redeemed church and people to allow of this? It was impossible. If they had held their peace, "the stones would have cried out." If they had been silent, and not protested, and not endured almost any thing which tyranny could inflict, rather than assent to such spoil, conscience had been defiled, the church of Christ invaded with its own consent, the temporal interests of humanity exalted above the spiritual, and the world have gone back, like the shadow on the dial of Ahaz, by ten degrees, to this day. They did not, they would not comply. It was not in human nature, nor in the principles of grace implanted in it, so to do. The Spirit of God came upon them, like as on Gideon, and Jephthah, and the mighty of old. They were nerved for the conflict. They were strengthened to endure. They were prepared for the sacrifice, cost what it may; and to part with all on earth they held most dear, rather than assent to what they could not believe, and vow obedience to that which they saw to be a direct infringement on the crown-rights and regal honours of the Son of God. The "Act of Uniformity" was the crowning act of the violation of the claims of conscience, and usurpation of the dominion of God, which this, or perhaps any land, ever beheld. It was resisted. There were two thousand men in Israel who would not bow down to Baal, or worship the golden image, which an earthly power had set up. Liberty of conscience, and liberty of worship, were too precious to be sacrificed at the shrine of expediency, or to be parted with for any compensation whatever which worldly patronage could secure. They were willing, therefore, to suffer the loss of all things, and resign the dearest comforts and enjoyments of the present life, rather than defile their conscience, or unworthily betray that sacred cause |