temples of the muses, or change them into houses of prayer and bring before our imagination the awful realities of the eternal world, with so much force, as should compel us to think, with perpetual awe, on death and future judgment." "Oh, dear," exclaimed Miss Denham, "they are awful realities indeed. When I heard him, he alluded to dear Miss Patterson, who took cold on returning from the play; and died, you know, Sir, a few weeks afterwards?-Oh! she was a lovely creature. She was too good to live on earth. Had she been religious, she would have been a saint. But she often used to say, that her grand-papa left his religion to her aunts, and his fortune to his grand-children. Mr. Ingleby, after condemning plays, &c. as anti-christian, made a long pause, and then proposed these questions, with so much magisterial solemnity, that my pulse began to beat with feverish rapidity. Should you like to pass from the theatre to the judgment seat of Christ? Should you like to leave the gaieties of this world, to associate with the awful realities of another?' There was, Sir, so much stillness in the church, as he went on in this strain of awful eloquence; and so many people, so prodigiously affected by what he said; and such a serene smile on his countenance, when he turned off to speak about our Saviour, that I do really think, if I had not been very decided, that I should have become as religious as any of them." "I hope," said Mr. C, "that you will never go again, for evil communications corrupt the best of hearts." "Go again!" exclaimed Mrs. Denham, "not if she have any respect for her own happiness, or ours. Why, to hear this about the sermon, is enough to frighten any good Christian; what would it have been to have heard the sermon itself!"

to

My readers, who are but superficially acquainted with the religious habits, and style of conversation, which prevail in high life, may be induced to imagine that I have given a high colouring some parts of my descriptive statement; but I assure them that I have not. Indeed, had I quoted the epithets, and the phrases, which, I know, are

sometimes employed, when a certain description of fashionable Christians, with their anti-evangelical pastor, venture to discuss religious subjects, and animadvert on religious people, my pages would be too disfigured to pass through the hands of my reader without giving pain.

It is to be lamented, that many of our intelligent and amiable members of society, who excel in that department of knowledge to which they devote their minds, are as ignorant of the nature and the design of Christianity, as the ancient Scythian, or the modern Barbarian. They imagine that they are Christians, because they are born in a christian country; that they are good Christians, because they sometimes go to church; and that they are safe for another world, because their conscience does not condemn them for the practices, in which they now indulge themselves.

Yes, you are a Christian in Britain, as you would have been a Mahommedan, if you had been born in Turkey; but take up the Scriptures, and examine if the moral design of Christianity has ever been accomplished in you. Have you been born again? No. That subject you ridicule, because you do not understand it. Have you had repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ? No; and if these subjects were pressed upon your conscience with all the affection of apostolic compassion, and ardour of apostolic zeal; you would retire offended, if not disgusted, with the minister who dares to be earnest in such a cause. Are you crucified to the world by the moral influence of the death of Jesus Christ? Crucified to the world! The very phrase, though scriptural, grates offensively in your ear! Crucified to the world! Oh, no! You are devoted to its pleasures, its follies, its amusements. Shut up the theatre, abolish cards, interdict the visit to the concert, the assembly, and the ball ; and how would a large portion of our modern Christians be able to support life?

You may imagine that you are a good Christian, because you sometimes go to church; but an occasional visit to a material temple will not produce

that moral transformation of the mind, which is essential to fit you for the felicity of another world. You may reject these queries which I have proposed to you; but before you reject them, permit me to urge you to search the Scriptures, and endeavour to ascertain, if they have not a paramount claim on your attention. Can you be a Christian, unless you possess the spirit of one, and are in some degree conformed to the spirit of Jesus Christ? And allow 'me to ask, What theatre did he ever visit? What concert, or ball, did he ever sanction by his presence? When did he ever ridicule the new birth, repentance, faith, or separation from the habits and pursuits of this world? Ah, when? When, and at what place, was the visit ever paid? On what occasion, or in whose presence, was the sarcasm ever uttered? Ah, when? Never. Never. No, never.

But it ought not to excite our surprize, to see the great majority of fashionable life passing away their time amidst the gaieties and follies of the world, when they are often sanctioned, if not encouraged, by these men, who ought to teach them better, both by precept and example.

Yes, we have ministers of religion, who are among the first in society to hold up to ridicule and contempt, the essential doctrines, and self-denying precepts, of their own faith; and attempt, as far as the influence of their example can extend, to banish all serious and devout piety from the social circle. They see no barm in customs, which the spirit, and even the letter, of the Scriptures condemns; and sanction by their presence these scenes of human folly and crime, which have captivated and ruined thousands, who were once the ornaments of their father's house.

Such ministers will not only sanction the customs of this world, but will discountenance all serious piety, and declaim against their evangelical brethren, as disturbers of the peace of the church. If Christianity be a cunningly devised fable; if the life of faith, and practical devotedness of soul to God, be a mere fanciful conception of the mind; if heaven and hell be the fairies of romance, brought into the pulpit to terrify the credulous, and please the sanguine, I should not

hesitate to pronounce a heavy censure on those ministers who bring forward these subjects so often, and who discuss them with so much ardent and impassioned eloquence.

But if Christianity be true, if the final happiness or misery of the human soul depend on faith in Christ; if the glories of heaven, and if the terrors of hell, exceed the power of man to describe, ought not the ministers of religion to come among the people with a force, and an energy of manner, which shall rouse them up to a serious contemplation of these great and and awful, and almost overpowering subjects? Ought they not to teach by example, as well as by precept? and by the purity of their morals,-by their religious habits and style of conversation,-give strong and unequivocal proofs that they preach what they believe, and believe what they preach?

But let no Christian, whatever rank he may hold in society, or whatever degree of reputation he may have attained for intelligence, or good sense, or for amiability of temper, presume to hope that he will ever be able to make a scriptural profession of religion, (after he has felt the power of it,) without exciting the displeasure, if not the opposition, of his irreligious relatives and friends. They will not object to the religion of forms and ceremonies; to the religion, which is confined to the temple, or the bed of sickness; to the religion, which allows of a conformity to the gaieties and follies of the world; and which frowns from its presence all references to death, to judgment, to heaven, and to hell;-but the religion which consists in the moral renovation of the mind, they despise:-they regard it as a strange thing, and ridicule it as contemptible.

J. S. Hughes, Printer, 65, Paternoster Row, London.

[No. 27.

Thou

"O Thou King, eternal, immortal, invisible. Thou dwellest in that light which no mortal eye hath seen, or can see. sands of angels and of redeemed spirits bow down before Thee ten thousand times ten thousand minister in thy presence, and perform thy pleasure. The whole host of heaven worshippeth Thee." [See page 8.

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