Is there no heart that you can repose on, no face to beam on you with kindness? There is a friend in heaven, and his loving-kindness is better than life. Do I encounter the haughty looks and wrathful countenances of fellow-worms? Am I ground to poverty, chained to heartless and to fruitless toil, the very life breath of hope squeezed out under oppression? Am I driven away into exile from the home of my fathers, and the scenes of my youth? Does the demon of bigotry pursue me with its curses and its hate, to the very world of retribution? I make my appeal to a friend and guardian on high. His favour is infinite indemnity for the world's unkindness. He causes earthly evils to turn out to our everlasting salvation. What a relief is there in pouring out the griefs of our hearts before him. The sighs of the distressed are not hidden from him.. In all our afflictions, he sympathizes with us. "God marks the sorrows of his saints, Their groans affect his ears; Thou hast a book for my complaints, What a place is heaven! It is our home... It is our Father's house. Think of what this world is, what a strange land-what a wilderness-how full of ills and sorrows, and what a retreat-what a refuge-what a resting-place is heaven. There the wicked cease from troub ling, and the weary are at rest. No wrong, or toil, or sorrow can enter there. No poverty is there, nor cold, nor hunger, nor nakedness. No pain, no sickness, no death.. All tears are wiped away. This is the residence of hearts. Here dwell the vast family of love. Joy reigns here, unbroken and unending. And, is not Jesus here, our Friend our Brother, the Beloved of souls? And, does not the face of our Father beam here, in cloudless be.. nignity? In this world, what are we but strangers and sojourners; and instead of seeking our rest here below, should we not, with our face fixed on heaven, move forward with pilgrim step, and cast a pilgrim eye on every thing around us. Let us therefore, be daily removing hence, in intention and preparation. Let heaven be our rest. Let heaven be our home. Let our hearts be there. There let us lay up. our treasures. There let us fix our affections. There let. our hopes expatiate. With heaven let us cherish constant correspondence and intimacy, as we desire to reach. it at last, and make it our chosen residence for ever. Let the Christian heart encourage itself in the promise of Je sus, "In my Father's house are many mansions.-I go to prepare a place for you:-and I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." "Let the Christian say, 'I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever,-for ever with the Lord.” How unlike heaven is this world. How unlike the Spirit that reigns above, is the state of society around us. What an unhappy country is this. Every where we see the tears and hear the groans of the oppressed. Man tyrannizes over man. The rich plunder the poor. Neighbour is at variance with neighbour. Discord reigns. Hatred, faction, and strife prevail. The very Bible, and religion, and church of the Redeemer are perverted into instruments of dissention, domination, and plunder. Men seem converted into demons; and the passions that agitate society are the very elements of hell. Whence come these wars and fightings? Not from above. They come of our lusts. These things ought not to be. The character of the blessed God is that which we should admire and imitate. The mind in us, should be the same mind which was in Christ Jesus. The fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, meekness, gentleness, goodness, is that which should be in us and abound. Regarding each other as strangers and pilgrims, professing Christians should treat each other as fellow-travellers, as children of the same common Father, and as companions who intend to dwell together throughout eternity. Let us imbibe the Spirit of our holy religion. Let us live as brethren. Let us regard every man as our neighbour. We are fellow-passengers; and by an interchange of sympathy and kindness, and a reciprocation of good offices, we shall ease each other's hearts, lighten each other's burdens, help each other's joys, and be more closely knit together in brotherly affection. A word fitly spoken, how good is it. It may remove an error, correct a vice, soothe the wounded spirit, and awaken in some soul far from God, a train of reflections, that will determine it to arise and return to its Father. Have we our faces towards heaven? Are we in the way everlasting; and should we not invite and engage all we can to come along with us? Why should we feel such incapacity and aversion to address our fellow-creatures, on the sub ject of the grand concern? It is to be lamented that, among Christians at large, even among members of the same church and of the same family, there is so little interchange of thought respecting divine things, so little conversation that is "good to the use of edifying." Those who are engaged in the same employments feel pleasure in speaking of the things that interest them. It would be so in the things of religion, of the soul and heaven, were we as much alive to these concerns, as we are to the interests of the body and of time. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh; and our forwardness to speak of all other subjects to the exclusion of spiritual things, is an evidence that, however commendable in many respects" the spirit of the age" may be, as a spirit of lib erty, and a spirit of intelligence, it is not distinguished as a spirit of piety. The little incidents, as well as the great events of life, are fraught with useful lessons. Indeed great events are of rare occurrence, and our history is chiefly made up of an aggregate of lesser incidents. These we too generally allow to pass away without reflection, and without improvement. The history of no human being, however splendid and eventful, is so important to man as his own, let his life be ever so obscure and confined. It becomes us accordingly, to note the every-day occurrences of life. Without this we cannot become proficients in that wisdom which experience only can teach. We cannot know ourselves, walk circumspectly, watch against temptation, or apply the precepts of the word of God, so as to order our affairs with discretion, and walk with wisdom in a perfect way. Some pass through life in a kind of moral somnambulism. They are awake enough to inferior interests, but the higher interests of themselves and their fellow-immortals, 'are a complete blank to them. The senses and the appetites engross them. The present and the earthly govern them wholly. The animal is alert and vivacious; but the mind, the heart, the spiritual affections are in a state of dormancy. Their hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, terminate on things that perish. Eternity is excluded from their plans, and their pursuits. Heaven is not the object of their exertions or their sacrifices. God is not in all their thoughts. Their souls are asleep fatally asleep to the great salvation. They sleep while " they wake: they are dead while they live. How like are they to the beasts: that perish. How must it shock angels to behold rational and immortal creatures, with judgment and eternity before them, live as if hell were a fiction, as if death were the extinction of their being, and as if the Redeemer had offered his high sacrifice of atonement in vain! To the spiritual mind, every thing suggests a lesson of spiritual improvement. In every brother of the species, we recognize a fellow-immortal. All the political agitations of the country, and all the conflicts of the nations, we regard as controlled by him who is head over all things to the church, and who makes all subservient to her purification and universal spread. All the events of life, we consider under the superintendence of a friend, who is infi nitely wise and kind, who numbers the hairs of our head, and makes all things work together for our good. The smallest incidents which befall us, become monitors of wisdom and virtue. The very scenery of nature, to the spiritual mind, becomes associated with the truths of religion, and the things which are seen and temporal, becomes types and images of the things which are not seen and eternal. How fair and how reviving is the warm shining of this vernal sun! What is this in comparison to him who is the light, and life, and salvation of souls? See yonder stream which sweeps broad and beautiful through the green pastures, diffusing verdure and fertility along its banks. So refreshing to the church, are the influences of the Holy Ghost-the river of the water of life, which flows from the throne of the Lamb, and the streams whereof make glad the city of God. What lovely objects are the trees of the garden, white with blossoms or laden with fruit. More lovely far are those living trees of righteousness that bear fruits of goodness, and never fade. What, in truth, may not be spiritualized? Do I take my daily food? My soul must daily feed upon the word of life. Do I perform my daily ablutions? Let my soul come daily to the blood of sprinkling, and supplicate the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Am I on a journey? I am reminded that I am on my passage through a strange country. Do I retire to my rest from the labours of the day? Let me think of lying down at last in the bed of the grave, and entering on that rest that remains for the people of God. Do I go forth in the morning and listen to the song of birds, and behold all nature lit up and bright with the glorious sunlight? Methinks it is as if God smiled on the earth; and as if God smiled on the soul; and the joy and sunlight of nature, are images of the peace that reigns within, "The soul's calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy. Thus the contemplative and spiritual mind finds employment every where, and draws materials of thought and of improvement from common scenes and ordinary It finds Occurrences. "Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, ADVICE TO A STUDENT OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit."-SOLOMON. TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX PRESBYTERIAN. SIR, I HAVE Conversed with many of your constant and intelligent readers, who seriously complain, that when, "from a sense of justice," you published in your last Number so extended a communication from "A Student of Moral Philosophy," you did not accompany it with a key, by which your readers might be able to ascertain the writer's meaning. I confess, that I also should be disposed to join in the complaint, were it not that from. the little I can see of the interior of the Article, through some crevices of comparative intelligibleness, I am fully of opinion, that had I the key, all the valuables within would not be worth the trouble of turning it in the lock. What Wiseacre can have been the author of such an unfledged production? Is he in any sense a Student of Moral Philosophy? I have heard it conjectured, and think it not improbable, that he has been one of those boys, whose private habits he appears so well to know, who in some religious town, probably Edinburgh or Glas. gow, conjoin the trade of vending smutty songs and religious tracts, to pilfering and stealing; and that he has acquired the smattering of literature displayed in that Article, by reading the contents of his basket. Should this have been the case, it would fully account for his bitter hostility against tracts and their distributors, as it is P |