For the promises to Israel. Isa. xxxiii. 20-24; lx. For his promises to the Gentiles. Is. Ixii. 2;

Acts xi. 18.

For the Lord's coming. xi. 17; xxii. 20. For this Prayer Union. xxx. 25.

Isa. xxvi. 8, 9; Rev.

2 Chron. v. 11-14;

For all his mercies. 1 Sam. xii. 7; Ps. cxlv.

Intermixed with all of these subjects, there may be prayer for things, or places, or persons, pertaining to each of us individually, so that, while we are interceding with God for the world and the Churches, we may make special mention of our own land, our own city, or town, or village, or congregation, or friends. Let nothing be forgotten; but all things in which we are interested every where, be remembered before the Lord. Who knows how much of blessing He may yet have in store for us? Who knows but He may yet turn from his anger and deal bountifully with us, healing our backslidings, and making all his goodness to pass before us? for He is merciful and gracious, long-suffering and slow to wrath, and it repenteth him of the evil.

THE THEATRE.

BY WILLIAM SYMINGTON, D.D., GLASGOW. THEATRICAL entertainments are confessedly among the pleasures to which youth are addicted. They are favourites, we believe, in particular with young men. This amusement consists in acting characters, accompanied with scenic representations. Its existence can be traced to the earliest periods of Grecian and Roman history. It is still sought after in modern times. Though not so common in Britain as on the continent, there is after all scarce a city or town of any size in our country which has not one or more theatres; and even places of inferior size receive occasional visits from strolling parties. This kind of amusement is countenanced by persons of all ranks, from titled wealth and royalty itself down to the very lowest of the populace; and the matter of the entertainment is skilfully regulated to suit the taste of all classes, from the rulers of the land to the apprentices of the workshop. We speak not of what the stage is capable of being made, but of what it is, and what it always has been. We may fairly be excused from spending time in discussing the merits of a beau ideal, which, however much talked of, has never yet been realised-a pure stage. We address ourselves to matters of fact. We take things as we find them, and ask leave to apply our tests.

Of the dramas that are commonly acted, some of course are better, and others worse. But we speak on good information when we say, that they are all more or less profane, impure, and defective in the morality they teach. Is not the name of God frequently invoked in a light and irreverent manner? Are not prayers sometimes offered up in a way calculated to burlesque this holy ordinance? Are not licentious characters introduced, base maxims sported, double-entendres spoken, and wanton, immodest ges

plauded? While vice is palliated, are not the honest virtues of life often held up to ridicule? Are not false principles of honour commended? Is not the mind familiarized to scenes of guilt, and horror, and pollution? And is not a spurious sensibility for scenes of fictitious misery engendered, which is only fitted to create a distaste for what, after them, is likely to be regarded as the dull monotony of common life? Do not the most profligate of both sexes frequent the theatre, as affording a favourable opportunity for following after their base and wicked practices? Is it not a fact that every attempt to shut out certain characters, in the view of realizing made it in such pecuniary loss as to compel them to the idea of a pure stage, has involved those who have return to the former method of loose and indiscriminate admission? A pretty strong proof this of the frequent such places of amusement. We say nothing low standard of morals which exist among those who of the character of the great majority of actors, further than that it is not certainly calculated to give us the highest idea of the moral influence of the profession they have seen meet to adopt. And the exceptions taken to the plays themselves, apply, be it observed, to the very best that are produced,-to those of the far-famed "Bard of Avon" himself, and even to some that have come from the pen of men invested with the sacred office. All this is quite notorious, and defies contradiction.

Christian consistency? Surely, for those who profess

How, then, can this amusement stand the test of

to be born from above, to be under the influence of the holy, self-denying, ennobling principles of the gospel of the Son of God, to be living above the world, and journeying heavenward,-for such to take pleasure in witnessing the profane, impious, immoral, childish scenes which enter so largely into this species of public entertainment, is altogether out of character. How can any man, not lost to all sense of decorum and propriety, ever allow himself to be one day at church, and another at the theatre; one day mingling with the worshippers of a holy God, and another with such abandoned characters as frequent these haunts of dissipation; to-day, it may be, uniting in the celebration of the most sacred rites of religion, to-morrow listening to some licentious comedy, or profane and ribaldrous farce! The law of Christian consistency must sit light indeed on the consciences of those who can give themselves up to such grotesque alternations. Why, virtuous Pagans themselves might read such a lesson. It would be no difficult matter to gather from the writings of heathen philosophers, testimonies against the stage which might put to the blush the lax morality of professing Christians. Mr James of Birmingham tells us, that a catalogue of authorities against the stage was made in the time of Charles II., which ❝contains every name of eminence in the heathen and Christian worlds; which comprehends the united testimony of the Jewish and Christian Churches; the deliberate acts of fifty-four ancient and modern, general, national, and provisional councils and synods, both of the eastern and western Churches; the condemnatory sentence of seventy-one ancient fathers, and one hundred and fifty modern authors, Popish and Protestant; the hostile endeavours of philosophers, and even poets, with the legislative enactments of a great number of Pagan and Christian states, nations, magistrates, emperors, and princes. Now must not this," adds Mr James, "be regarded in the light of a very strong presumptive evidence of the immoral tendency of the stage? Does it not approach, as near as can be, to the general opinion of the whole moral world?"

The test of utility will be found to be as fatal to the practice of play-going as that of consistency. Even on the score of bodily and mental recreation, little, we presume, can be said in its behalf. When the late hours to which the amusement is protracted, the vitiated atmosphere that must be inhaled, and the exciting nature of the performances themselves, are taken into the account, it seems more calculated to exhaust than to recreate. On the higher ground of moral good, it is less likely still to stand the test. We urge the criterion of Solomon, and demand an answer to the question, "What doeth it?" What has it done, what can it ever do, for man's best, his eternal interests? What can it do for its votaries in the way of preparing them for sickness, for death, or for judgment? Who, on a bed of languishing, would ever think of finding consolation for his consciencestricken soul, by reflecting on the entertainments of the theatre? Who does not shudder at the thought of being summoned out of the world from the midst of such scenes? We hear much, it is true, of the theatre as a school of morality; but who would choose to be called to the bar of the righteous Judge of all, with no other preparation than the morality that had been acquired in this school? A school of morality, forsooth! How comes it, pray, to exert so little influence on the teachers, and to attract towards it persons whose moral character is at the lowest point in the scale? Truly the morality cannot be of the most refined quality which is acquired where the scenes, the company, the music, the sentiments, the performances, are all more or less of a voluptuous character. "Blessed are the pure in heart;" and if you would seek to attain to this blessedness, my young friends, let me beseech you to shun

the fascinations of the theatre.

We need not spend much time in applying the other tests. The amusement in question is not the less indefensible when tried by the value of time, and conformity to the example of Christ. Such as contract a fondness for the theatre, give evidence of their being but little alive to the weight of the apostolical admonition, "But this I say, brethren, the time is short." And there are few, we presume, even of those who are most addicted to this species of entertainment, who would not feel shocked at the bare supposition of the Redeemer having spent his time thus. If every one must perceive the outrageous incongruity of supposing it consistent with the dignified and holy character of the Saviour to have frequented the theatre (the very statement of the supposition is felt to border on profanity), they who feel themselves bound to be not of the world, even as he was not of the world, will pause before they venture on any such indulgence. Indeed, when the moral dangers with which this species of entertainment is surrounded, are duly weighed; when the company with which it brings the young into contact, the scenes with which it tends to familiarize its votaries, and the nature and tendency of the moral principles it inculcates, are seriously considered; and when the dire experience of thousands, who have traced their ruin to their having formed an unhappy attachment to this species of entertainment, is taken into the account; is it going too far to say, that there is one short word of three letters, employed to designate a portion of its accommodation, that may be viewed as not inaptly descriptive of the whole? or that the satirist exceeded the bounds of truth, when ne spoke of the inscription on one entrance as applicable to the entertainment as a whole-the way to the Pit! Tell me not of those who have indulged in this amusement, and yet have escaped its demoralizing tendency. What of that? Because some constitutions resist the plague, is the plague innocuous,

and ought all men recklessly to expose themselves to its virulent influence? Young men, if you have any respect for consistency of Christian character, if you have any desire for the enjoyment of spiritual good, if you have any regard for the value of time, if you would aim at being conformed to Him who was not of this world, you will never cross the threshold of a theatre.

THE SNARES OF YOUTH.

BY THE REV. JAMES HARPER, D.D., LEITH.* Ir is in the practical study of religion that men, whether in youth or in age, find their security against the assaults of temptation. Hence the importance of commending the subject to the young when their characters are forming, and when, through inexperience, their dangers are peculiarly great. Were your attention fixed on the truths, and duties, and sanctions, and hopes of religion, how strong should you be when evil influences assail you! Conversant with the grandeur of eternal prospects, with the "things lovely" which the gospel unfolds, with the value of the immortal soul, and all the solemn verities of Divine revelation, false appearances, though fair, would not impose on you; fleeting pleasures would not enslave you. Your language to the tempter would be, Let no man trouble me; wist ye not that I am about my soul's business? I have a joy of which no intermeddling shall deprive me. Depart from me, bloody men!"

66

What need of such influences to brace the character of youth for the conflict with evil in which all must be engaged? Without the aids of religious principle, how soon and how fatally does the young man fall a prey to the arts of the destroyer! It is when the word of God abides in him he overcomes the world and the wicked one. It is here he finds his armour and his strength against sin in its most voluptuous enticements, and against the "foolish jesting" of the scorner, who would mock him from the sobriety of his way. If there be among you any mistaken youth who has already entered on a course of forbidden pleasure, O that he would take warning and beware! Yet a little while, and you may become so enslaved to vice that ordinary means of reformation shall prove not even a check on your headlong career. Accustomed to the reproofs of conscience, you will at length be able to repress or to disregard them; your resolutions to amend will grow weaker day by day; remonstrance will fall powerless on your ear, or excite but a transient compunction; and what shall the end of these things be? Alas! there is not a broken-down debauchee at the corner of the streets, with haggard visage and shivering limbs, but may be taken as a type of what you shall become if your present course continue till its fruits be accomplished. There they stand like beacons, warning you of the shoals and breakers on which multitudes cast away their hope; like death's heads,

* Forming part of an admirable lecture by the author, in "Lectures t, Young Men on their Educational, Moral, and Religious Improvement," delivered in Glasgow, by ministers of various denominations, and published by Mr

Collins.

VI. they received the honour of knighthood; and by Charles I. they were created baronets of Nova Scotia in 1629.

It is pleasant, in reviewing the religious history of any servant of God, to trace the appearances of a similar character in the line of his ancestry; and accordingly in the present instance,-from the fact of the Baronet of the day having been constituted by Cromwell sheriff of Galloway; of another appearing in Middleton's list of the year 1662 with a fine of £600 attached to his name, a list composed, according to Wodrow, of persons, "generally speaking, of the best morals and most shining piety in the places where they lived, and chargeable with nothing but being Presbyterians;" of a third refusing the test oath under James, and ejected by the Privy Council from his office, and supplanted in it by Graham of Claverhouse, for the countenance which he gave to field conventicles, but restored at the Revolution, and appearing as a member of Convention under William; as well as a fourth, described by Sir Walter Scott as "famous in Scottish tradition, and a soldier brave to the last degree," who, in a critical moment, defended the Protestant cause at the seige of Blair Castle by Lord George Murray, and who, to his last days, maintained the worship of God in his family,-it is satisfactory to be able to infer, that as Timothy could look with comfort, in his Christian career, to those who had gone before him, so Sir Andrew Agnew was only true to hereditary character, when he boldly and indomitably contended for the honour of God on many a well-fought Sabbath field.

The hero of Blair, old General Sir Andrew Agnew, who fought under the Earl of Stair at Dettingen and Fontenoy, and died in the year 1771, was succeeded by his fifth son, Sir Stair, whose oldest son Andrew, a captain in the army, married, during his father's lifetime, the Honourable Martha De Courcy, eldest daughter of John, 26th Lord Kingsale, Premier Baron of Ireland. The marriage took place on the 21st May 1792, and was prematurely dissolved by the death of Captain Agnew, on the 1st September following, during a temporary stay at Lochnaw Castle. The late Sir Andrew Agnew was the fruit of this marriage. He was born at Kingsale on the 21st March 1793; and to his upbringing the widowed mother devoted herself with tender solicitude, remaining at Kingsale, where, with the exception of a short season in the south of England, he received the rudiments of his education. It embraced all the departments of knowledge usual at the period, and he gave himself to it with that conscientious application which was characteristic of his ever upright character. Living in Ireland amidst the services of the Church of England, young Mr Agnew was bred a member of that Church; and to it he continued to the end of his life much attached, though in the maturity of his age he became a joined member of the Church of Scotland, and followed it at the Disruption into the Free Church. Thus, he used to say, "The Church of England was my mother Church; the Church of Scotland the Church of my fathers."

On the death of his grandfather, which took place in 1809, he removed with his mother to Scotland, and resided very much during the winter in Edinburgh, and summer at Lochnaw. He ever maintained an honourable and strictly moral character; but still yielded to the ways of the world in its frivolous pleasures. The levities, however, of fashionable life did not sit easily upon him. Young as he was, he felt a thirst for that graver knowledge, which, now comparatively common, was then less highly prized among our aristocratical youth. He accordingly placed himself, for a time, under tuition at Oxford.

In due time leaving Oxford, he returned to Scotland, and again found himself in Edinburgh; occa sionally also visiting Cheltenham, London, and Bath, with his mother. It may be believed that at this time he was in some hazard, considering the circles in which he was a welcome guest, in regard to that great connection in life which ever exercises so much influence on a man's futurity. But it pleased God to direct him, in the choice of a wife, to one who, bred in the school of Christ by a godly mother, and herself a subject of divine grace, had the comfort to witness his gradual progress upward from mere worldly uprightness and amiability, to that union with Christ, fruitful in humility, self-denial, and self-devotedness, which have placed him high in the list of the worthies of the Cross and of Scotland. This lady, now his mourning widow, but not sorrowing as others which have no hope, was Madeline, tenth daughter of Sir David Carnegie of Southesk, Baronet, heir of the forfeited honours of the Earldom of Southesk, and of Agnes Murray Elliot, a descendant of the family of Minto, now Lady Carnegie, who still survives, showing forth in a green old age that most beautiful variety of the Christian character-the Christian Lady. No doubt, in all ranks there is to be found that "Christian aristocracy," which, resting on the gracious affections and heavenly bearing of the renewed heart, is traceable no less in the cottage than in the palace-no less among peasants than among princes-nay, in regard to which it may be said, that, whilst it more commonly appears among the poor than among the rich, nevertheless, as if in recompense for the fearful sentence upon the "many wise, many mighty, many noble," wherever it pleases God that ANY of this high clas do become subjects of Divine grace, the combination of worldly nobility of character with Christian purity does impress a double glory on those who, in the economy of grace and of providence, are thus distinguished.

It must be unnecessary to say that the marriage of Sir Andrew Agnew to Miss Carnegie was a happy one. Always a man of honour and amiability, when he came to unite with his lady in the knowledge of God, there did not fail to be that love and reverence which are prescribed in that best of "Manuals of Married Life," the twelve last verses of the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, as the sure secret of domestic peace. They lived variously at Lochnaw, Edinburgh, and London.

The history of Sir Andrew's call from dark ness to light during this period was interesting. It was gradual, though marked by strong and decided feelings, as first the understanding and then the heart became enlightened. It was hastened by an evangelical sermon in the winter of 1818 from the Hon. and Rev. Gerard Noel, the effects of which at first were delight with the interesting doctrines pro-" pounded, but afterwards a shrinking back from the serious consequences to which they led. Though himself singularly upright, pure-minded, and opposed, to vice, and though affectionate and amiable in so remarkable a degree by his nature, that it might truly be said of him, he appeared to man's eye "not far from the kingdom of heaven;" yet in his then unrenewed state, the holiness and separation from the world required by the Bible did certainly give offence. The charge of utter sinfulness before God appeared exaggerated if not groundless, and he would not hear the preacher again who had brought these things to his ears. For a time even the very subject was interdicted, and deep doubt rested on its future course. Still, however, even then, while turning from the truth as presented by man, he felt drawn towards the truth as declared in the Scripture; and when