God-if this is to become a day of wordly amusement, then the threatenings of the prophets will be executed also upon us. If our people are to be permitted to spend hours, even on the Sabbath-day, in giving way to intemperance, then may we expect that the restraining power of God on the rebellious wills and affections of sinful men, will be removed, and that anarchy will be the result. Oh! let all Christians earnestly pray that our rulers may be endued with God's Holy Spirit, and thus have "understanding of the times." Then shall short-sighted expediency and worldly policy yield to Christian principle, and the commands of God be observed. 66 Happy is that people that is in such a case; yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord." But we must not overlook the events of the past year. The noble struggle for civil and religious liberty in Sardiniathe blow aimed against the monastic system, and the desire for the Scriptures among many of the subjects of that kingdom-the concurrent increase of idolatry in the Church and priesthood of Rome, in the recent antichristian dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and the expressed dependence on the Virgin Mary, for aid and for success ;-the spirit of inquiry, which is arising in France, and which has been in part excited by the decision in favour of this dogma; the symptoms of returning life exhibited in Spain, so long the victim of civil and religious despotism; the promise of returning reverence for the Holy Scriptures, and of escape from the mists of Neologian infidelity in Germany; the remarkable openings for the circulation of revealed truth throughout Turkey, and the returning of so many of the Armenian and Nestorian Churches to a more simple and scriptural form of faith; -the wonderful efforts making for the spread of the Gospel by our kinsmen of the vast transatlantic Continent, and the success which has attended those efforts; -the first fruits, at home, of what we may hope will finally be a harvest of immortal souls, in priest-ridden and unhappy Ireland; and lastly, the spirit of inquiry, here and there, among the people of Israel; while the gathering of the clouds of the political horizon around the nations of the East, seems to portend the rising importance of that quarter of the globe; these things call upon the believer to stand on his watch-tower, to have his loins girded, and his light burning, that he may be like unto a man that waits for his Lord. All these events call for prayer. Then, let earnest, united, persevering prayer, ascend, for all ranks at home and all nations abroad. Thus may we expect peace and prosperity, and the life, the energy, and the success which the Holy Spirit alone can impart. Grace, mercy, and peace, be multiplied unto all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. So prays your affectionate brother, WILLIAM MARSH. Beckenham Rectory, December, 1855. A WORD TO SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHERS. The following thoughts are principally selected from the writings of Dr. Cox, founded on 2 Kings iv. 26. "Is it well with the child?" It is scarcely possible to form a correct estimate of the immense moral power which may be wielded by humble, devoted, and prayerful Sabbath School Teachers. How important their work! They are training minds for eternity, and the well-being of unnumbered ages depends on their assiduity and success. Theirs it is to sow an imperishable seed, to prepare for the harvest of the earth, and to people the yet unoccupied mansions of light. In proportion to the importance of their work in its nature and results is their responsibility; and those who feel aright cannot regard them without deeply sympathizing with them in their labours, and encouraging high hopes in reference to the spiritual good they may be the means of effecting. The moment a young person is announced to you as a Sunday School teacher, a thousand sympathies are awakened in the bosom with him, with the children beneath his care, with the possible condition of posterity, for whose character he is in some degree responsible with the church of God in connexion with which he is training the rising race, and with the world at large, whose general amelioration his labours have a tendency to promote. It is to be feared, there is wanting on the part of many Sunday School teachers a proper estimate and vivid sense of the real nature and importance of their work. Is not that which should be their high and sacred aim too frequently forgotten, and the labours of the school engaged in without any definite, determined and holy resolve to endeavour to save a "soul from death"? My desire is to awaken in their hearts a more intense longing for the eternal salvation of their youthful charge. Let me then in addressing you as a Teacher of the young, earnestly exhort you to remember that each child in your class has a soul that must be saved or lost eternally. It is a band of young immortals, and you have professedly devoted yourself to promote their best and highest interests. You have taken them beneath your spiritual care, to instruct, feed, and train their souls for eternity. Each individual demands your prayerful solicitude. Let the momentous inquiry, "Is it well with the child?" be ever pressing on your heart-in your solitude in your prayers-in your seasons of preparation-and in your labours with your charge. Inform their minds, cultivate their hearts, seek the salvation of their souls. Deal not in generalities, but in direct and individualizing considerations. Shew your children, that they have souls to be saved, that they must live for ever, that they are candidates for everlasting life or death. Let your solicitude for them be real, profound, apparent, kind and prayerful. Remember that the impartation of scriptural knowledge is only preparatory, and accessary to the exercise of every sacred influence you can command, and bring to bear upon your hearts. Use the truths you teach from God's word as the moral power God has put into your hands with which to work upon the immortal spirit. Have an implicit confidence in the gospel as the "power of God unto salvation." It is the sword of the Spirit, the instrument He uses to renew, sanctify, and save. That blessed gospel you possess with all its glorious doctrines, heavenly revelations, gracious invitations, and encouraging promises. Believe it heartily, and use it heartily in dependance on the ever blessed Spirit for success. Sow the heavenly seed. Scatter it among the youthful minds of your class, and pray that it may find its way into their hearts, remembering that, "Paul may plant, Apollos water, but God giveth the increase." Let each one of your youthful charge now pass in review before your mind; and in reference to each, let the solemn question be asked, "Is it well with the child?" Is it? or Is it not? Have you reason to believe that the heart of that child has been renewed by the Holy Spirit, that the soul has found pardon and peace at the cross of Christ? You tremble, it may be, as you feel constrained to say, It is not well. Then let me urge upon you the inquiry. Have you been as earnest and constant in prayer and effort for the salvation of that precious soul as you might have been, or as you ought to have been? Oh! how does the heart condemn for lukewarmness, how does the spirit mourn over indifference! Let then the time past suffice to have felt and acted thus. Now "gird up the loins of your mind" afresh, nerve yourself to your work, bring to bear upon your trembling and often discouraged soul, all the gracious and cheering assurances of help and success which God has given you. Be stimulated and encouraged. You are co-workers with God; and God will work with you, and by you, if only in earnestness and prayerfulness of spirit you engage in his service. "Abound in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord." Let there be no longer half-hearted desires, no merely spasmodic efforts, no merely occasional anxieties for the salvation of the children under your care; but let a steady and abiding feeling of solicitude rest on your spirit which will find frequent expression in the inquiry of earnest concern, "Is it well with the child ?" Long, pant, pray, labour that it may be well-altogether well-eternally well the soul saved and heaven secured. Amen and Amen. Bath. T. N. Things Lew and Old. THE SALVATION OF THE YOUNG. "Shall the lively period of Youth, the soft and impressible season when lasting habits are formed, when the seal cuts deep into the yielding wax, and the impression is more likely to be clear, and sharp, and strong, and lasting ?-shall this warm and favourable season be suffered to slide by without being turned to the great purpose for which, not only youth, but life, and breath, and being, were bestowed? Shall not that "faith without which it is impossible to please God,-shall not that "holiness, without which, no man shall see the Lord," shall not that knowledge, which is the foundation of faith and practice,-shall not that charity, without which all knowledge is "sounding brass and a tinkling symbol," be impressed, be inculcated, be enforced, as early, as constantly, as fundamentally with the same pushing into continual progress, with the same constant reference to first principles, as are used in the case of those arts which merely adorn human life? Shall we not seize the happy period when the memory is strong, the mind and all its powers vigorous and active, the imagination busy and all alive; the heart flexible, the temper ductile, the conscience tender, curiosity awake, fear powerful, hope eager, love ardent shall we not seize this period for inculcating that knowledge, and impressing those principles which are to form the character and fix the destination for eternity? Hannah More. REMARKABLE CONVERSION. A striking instance of the sovereignty of Divine grace occurred a few years ago in the conversion of a poor labourer in Staffordshire. Although he knew there was a bible, he was entirely ignorant of its contents. He was in the habit of working on the Lord's-day as on other days. One Sabbath his master desired him to go to the field, to stub up a load of turnips for the cattle. He had partly done so when, as it seemed to him, a voice said "Thou God seest me." He could not get quit of the impression. Every turnip as he dug it up seemed to repeat the words. He became alarmed, and leaving his work only partly accomplished he returned with his half-load to the cattle-yard. Feeling that he could not work, and knowing there was a place of worship, though at a considerable distance from the farm, he resolved to go. Great was his astonishment when the preacher announced as his text the very words which had so alarmed him when in the field-"Thou God seest me.' Then for the first time he knew the words were in the bible. The following week he pursued his employment with a very distressed mind-still haunted as by a voice saying "Thou God seest me.' The Sabbath came. His master desired him to get a load of turnips and to be sure he brought a better load than the last. The man replied "I cannot work to day." " Why," said the master, are you ill?" The man related what had occurred, upon which he was dismissed for not obeying his master's orders. As the poor man walked away he remembered another place of worship at a considerable distance and determined to go there. He did-the text was the same as on the former Sabbath-"Thou God seest me.' In great distress he spoke to one or two of the congregation who persuaded him to look up to God for guidance and mercy. But pray he could not-his sins stared him in the face, he was sure his soul would be lost unless something more was done for him than he could do for himself. He got a little work here and there during the following week. On the return of the Sabbath he went to a third place of worship, and for the third time the text was Thou God seest me." The man now felt himself laid bare before the eye of a holy God - the thoughts of his heart were revealed. He was wretched, and knew not what to do to be saved. On the fourth Sunday he determined to go to another place_of worship, at a still greater distance. He did. The text was "Thy sins which are many are all forgiven thee." Having heard of the way of salvation he was encouraged. He found now that he could pray, and soon obtained mercy and liberty. Having a wife and six children he began to talk to them and pray with them, and his efforts for their salvation were crowned with success. Subsequently he went about endeavouring to explain the scriptures in the cottages of the poor, until, through the deadly opposition of the farmers, who refused him employment on account of his methodistical ways, he was obliged to seek occupation elsewhere and embarked with his family for New South Wales. Brighton. MISS F. REVELATION OF THE TRINITY. There is no ground to conclude that prior to the promulgation of the gospel this doctrine had any claim on the faith of mankind. The early christians in their eagerness to obtain for christianity the patronage of philosophy professed to find the doctrine in the writings of Plato: but had they maintained instead of a Trinity, a duality, or a quaternity, the same writings would have equally befriended them. The humble pretensions of the Jewish system were satisfied with proclaiming the existence and unity, or oneness of God, in opposition to the "lords many" of the heathen: the allusions which the system contained to the triplicity of the divine nature awaited, like so many dormant seeds of truth, the rising of the Sun of Righteousness to quicken and draw them forth from their obscurity. Now we are thus commissioned" Go, baptizing into the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit."—Harris. SETTLED PEACE. The moment we begin to rest our peace on anything in ourselves, we lose it; and this is why so many saints have not settled peace. Nothing can be lasting that is not built on God alone. How can you have settled peace? Only by having it in God's own way. By not resting on anything, even the Spirit's work within yourselves, but on what Christ has done entirely without you.-Then you will know peace; conscious unworthiness, but yet peace! The more you see the extent and nature of the evil that is within, as well as that without you, the more you will find, that what Jesus is, and what Jesus did, is the only ground on which you can rest. Them that Sleep. A GOOD SOLDIER OF JESUS Or Reminiscences of the Late Captain HEDLEY SHAFTO JOHNSTONE VICARS was the son of an officer in the Engineers, who himself lived and died in Christ. His dying hand was laid upon the head of his eldest son, then twelve years of age, with the charge and the prayer that he might be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. The five years which followed developed in the boy a bold and hardy spirit, great simplicity, honesty, and openness of character, and very warm and tender domestic affections. On Christmas-day 1843, his mother received the letter which accorded a commission to her son. On Good Friday 1855, a despatch written by the same hand, informed her in what manner the career then opened to him had been closed. At parting, she placed a Bible in his hand, which was neglected, and even lost; and his life for several years, first in the Mediterranean and afterwards in the West Indies, was that of a young soldier, foremost among his companions in enterprise and amusement, but living without God in the world. In Jamaica, the cholera raging around him, and sweeping off tens of thousands of the inhabitants, awoke a greater seriousness of mind; and his letters spoke the language of remorse for particular errors and deficiencies towards his earthly parent, but not yet of any return to God. ministry of the garrison chaplain, Dr. It was at Halifax, under the faithful Twining, that the great change was begun and established. An earnest serthe Bible arrested his attention. mon on the duty of the personal use of opening the precious volume, the words seth from all sin," took forcible hold which speak of the blood which "cleanupon his mind. With characteristic honesty of spirit, he resolved that the duty of regular reading of the Scriptures On should never be omitted. He saw not yet to what it would lead him; but it With his usual openness and courage he was a duty, and it should be done. placed a large Bible on his table, that his brother officers might see what he meant henceforth to be the law of his life. Scenes of astonishment and pity, of ridicule and anger, ensued; but the open Bible survived them, and accomplished its intended work of banishing from that room the language which had been heard in it before. Mean-time, the great truth which had so vividly shone upon him from its pages became the life of his soul, and free forgiveness through the blood of the cross was thenceforth the centre of his thoughts and fountain of his hopes. Thus the Word of God was the in strument, and the cross of Christ was its "power," and the religion thus formed bore the stamp of its origin in a character eminently simple and fervent, evangelical and consistent. Early in the year 1852 came a letter written in a new strain, speaking of "a purifying process gradually but surely taking place within," and breathing a wish (oh, how well fulfilled!) :—" I was always foremost and daring enough in sin: would that I could show the same spirit in the cause of Christ!" And he did show it at once. His open, honest nature hid nothing of the standard at which he aimed, or of the motives which led him to aim at it. He sought to do good,-made himself the companion of the sick and the teacher of the ignorant; in a very short time he could speak of three soldiers, 66 once great sinners, nearly as bad as myself," who had followed him in turning to the Lord; while his letters to his family increasing in affection, expressed the greatest anxiety for their spiritual welfare. "Never," writes Dr. Twining, "in the course of my ministry, did I witness any thing to exceed the rapidity of his growth in grace, or his earnest, self-denying labours in the cause of Christ." In the spring of 1853, the 97th returned to England, and a year passed, a happy one to him, and to those who loved him,-among the foremost of whom were thenceforth numbered some to whom he had been before unknown. Everywhere he was followed by affection and respect. There was no mistaking the spirit of the Christian in the manly independence, the genuine humility, the open, unselfish heart, and the singleness of purpose, which ever seemed to say, "One thing have I desired, one thing I do." In the camp at Chobham, and in the places were he was quartered, while he entered with all his heart into the interests and duties of a soldier, his lips and life held one unchanging story of the love of Christ. During this period, day after day, he was to be seen in company with a London City Missionary visiting from house to house and from room to room, in the courts and alleys of Westminster. In a letter which he afterwards addressed to the missionary, he says:- "Of the physical, moral and spiritual destitution and wretchedness of the miserable beings located in the lanes and alleys of the "Great Metropolis" I had heard much, but in visiting with you in Westminster, the abodes of poverty and vice, I had sad but abundant proofs that the reality far exceeded the description. I do not so much refer to their bodily wants (which are great) but rather to their spiritual necessities; while, amidst much that was in this respect sickening and heartrending, I thought I observed amongst several of these poverty-stricken creatures an anxious and enquiring spirit, proclaiming that light was beginning to dawn in upon their long darkened hearts; and amongst others, evident proof of decided conversion, so far as man can judge." In May 1854, he sailed for the Piræus. All know the trial to which the regiment 66 was there subjected. To use his own expression while in the midst of it, "Nothing but death, death on every side." He rose to the occasion,-rather let us say, the grace of God which was in him" did so. Now hearts were opened to his influence which had been closed before, both among his brother officers and the men. He passed hours by day and night in the cholera and fever hospital, and brought the Word of God and prayers to the bed-side of the sick and dying. He volunteered for funeral parties, read the service, and addressed the survivors by the side of fast-multiplying graves. The opposition which he had encountered gave way before such proofs of the reality of his religion, and love and respect succeeded. His own soul, mean-time, sinking more deeply into the truth of the gospel, was kept in peculiar peace; and the thoughts of a removal to the immediate presence of his Saviour grew daily more attractive to his mind. "Death is dreaded as a fearful thing to go through; but I think, with Jesus very near me, I could welcome it to-morrow. The prospect of meeting in a few hours that glorious Saviour, whose love we can never conceive here in all its magnitude, makes me long to depart and be with Christ." With all the earnestness of one who was a soldier in heart, he had longed to be at the seat of war, and had felt it a distinct exercise of resignation to the will of God to be satisfied with military inaction. At last the order came, and on November 20, he landed in the Crimea. Previous to his embarkation, he addressed the following letter to a friend in England. PIREUS, November 2nd, 1854. The order is come at length for the 97th to hold itself in readiness for immediate embarkation, to join Lord Raglan's army. We are all busily preparing for active service; but I hasten to write a few lines of farewell, as these are the times when one's heart is most powerfully drawn towards the friends it loves. Ere this letter reaches you, we should probably be in front of the enemy. God alone knows whether we shall ever meet again in this world; but, after all, what are a few short years of enjoyment of Christian friendship compared to the endless eternity before us? The French troops are anxiously expecting their transports to take them to the seat of war. Our whole regiment, officers and |