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delay be the greater or the more astonishing. He lives, moves, sleeps, and wakes, on the brink of destruction! He is in jeopardy every moment, and yet he is secure, careless, fearless! What infatuation!

I turn from this class of perishing men to those who have exercised "repentance towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ;" and hope the number may be great of whom this may be affirmed. Devout, consistent, and exemplary Christian, son of God, and servant of Christ, the year through which you have lived has greatly added to the matter of your stewardship, and consequently to your responsibility. You have had duties to discharge of a very important kind to the perishing world around you. Safe yourself, you are required to be faithful to your friends and fellow-creatures. Such offices of love, of course, commence with those next to you. Is there no friend near, perhaps dear to you as your own soul, who is still "not in Christ?" If so, has their condition awakened in you the deepest solicitude, and have you tenderly, but faithfully and constantly, been warning them to "flee from the wrath to come?" If you have not, how do you reconcile it with your conscience? Is it consistent with such affection to them, and with due regard to the honour and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ? What have the last twelve months been given for to them and to you? Have you suffered the whole of that period to pass over you without once witnessing for the Lord, and without imploring them to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ? If you have been negligent, only think of the position which you and they have sustained towards each other! You might have been called out of the world, and have been deprived of all further opportunity of pointing them to Christ! Would not the thought have intolerably embittered your dying moments? Would you not have felt that their blood was upon you? Or they might have been summoned into eternity, and been for ever removed from the voice of instruction or of warning! Would not the event of their death have pierced you like a sword? Had you followed them to the tomb, and beheld their dust deposited in its last long resting place, would you not have shuddered to think of the state they had lived in, and for aught that appeared to the contrary, died in, while you had left unused the appointed means for their salvation? Would not the remembrance and the reflection have hung like a millstone upon your spirit?

Do you reply to the effect that you taught them and warned them by your example? This, so far as it goes, is good, and it is one of the conditions of successful admonition; since, in order to a man's teaching others with success, he must teach himself; but example is not enough. But you say you were also the conscious subject of a constant and sincere desire for their salvation. This, too, is good, for without a desire it is difficult to see how men will earnestly use means to accomplish that or any other object; the command of the Saviour to his disciples, however, was, not that they should desire the salvation of the world, but should go and testify in his name to God's love and his own sufferings on their behalf. But you say, further, Heaven is witness to your constant prayer that they might be converted from the error of their ways. This likewise is good and laudable; it is, moreover, a satisfactory proof of your desires; for where there is sincere desire, there will of necessity be prayer; and without prayer, it matters not what else be done, since it wants the prime element of integrity. It is only he who prays much for men's salvation that will teach them successfully to "know the Lord." All this is good, but there is a something still wanting. There must be the communication of the truth as it is in Jesus by word or writing, directly or indirectly. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God; and while the other matters to which we have referred are duly attended to in their own place, they are all but means to an end. The sword of the Spirit is the word of God; and that Word must be published if souls are to be saved.

Without enlarging, as we are confident that your hearts and consciences are with us, we will rest satisfied with this statement, and entreat that you will now proceed, without the loss of another moment, to redeem the time which has already been thrown away; and determine, by God's help, that for the future you will teach "every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord," until all shall have known him "from the least unto the greatest." In that event you succeed or you fail; if you succeed, you have saved a brother; if you fail, you have delivered your own soul.

Finally, one word with respect to yourself. If you will walk wisely, you will institute the following inquiries respecting the year that has passed. If you find all right, then thank God and take courage; but if anything shall be discovered amiss, you

will, by the help of Divine grace, set about the correction of it, that you may start afresh in your career of heavenly service The following, then, are the points on which it may be expedient that you question yourselves:

Is my example in spirit, speech, and deportment such as to commend the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Are my desires true, intense, and habitual for personal usefulness in promoting the salvation of men and the glory of the Lord?

Is my prayer believing, confiding, fervent, hopeful? Does my heart in that respect correspond with the delineations set forth in the Scriptures of truth?

Seeing that my heavenly Father is glorified when I bear much fruit, am I fruitful? Am I in very deed a "tree of righteousness, of the Lord's right hand planting?" Have I my "fruit unto holiness," and is it thence evident that my "end is unto everlasting life?"

Am I growing in knowledge and understanding in the mysteries of the kingdom of grace? During the year that has passed, have I improved my acquaintance with the Inspired Page; with my own heart; with the power of grace in my soul; with the strength and deceitfulness of corruption; with the church of Christ; and with the world?

Have I been growing in grace? What have I put off of the old man? What have I put on of the new? Have I been duly concerned about this; and has it frequently and anxiously occupied my thoughts by night and by day? Have I made it, in deed and in truth, the business of my existence?

Finally, have I been straining after conformity, in all respects, to the perfect model set me in the history of the Lord Jesus Christ? Have I deemed it the greatest object on earth to conquer sin, to succeed in the pursuit of holiness, and to imitate the Lamb? Has it been my primary object to grow up unto Him in all things who is the Head?

These, beloved reader, are some of the points on which it may be well for you to examine yourselves, inasmuch as, substantially correct upon these points, you will be substantially correct in everything else; but extensive failure here will be attended with extensive failure in everything.

December 12, 1855.

C.

SOLOMON'S FALL.

with a willing mind; for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever." Was ever parental counsel more affectionate, more faithful? Was ever warning more impressive more awful?

Of all the great characters known to the Scriptures, the most remarkable, in the early stages of his existence, was Solomon. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the outset of his career-his love of wisdom, his delight in God, and his solicitude to do the thing that was right as a sovereign. But the sun which shone so brightly soon became clouded, and sad were the consequences of his departure from the Lord, who had so eminently gifted, and so signally honoured him. "And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, which appeared unto him twice." The language concerning him, originally addressed to his father David, was such as bespake the Divine favour, and ought to have made upon him a lasting impression. "Behold, a son shall be born to thee who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about; for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give quietness and peace unto Israel in his days. He shall build a house for my name, and he shall be my son, and I will be his Father; and I will establish the throne of his king-monial alliance with the Court and dom over Israel for ever." What condescension, what honour, what glory! What obligation ought such a display of the Divine goodness to have laid upon him to live and act as no king had ever lived or acted!

David fully appreciated the greatness of the Divine goodness, as is evident from his address to his son: "And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and

Solomon was the most magnificent intellectual specimen of human nature that, up to the time of his birth, had ever existed. The greatest were but little compared with him; and considered morally, he was not less distinguished. The result was, a Court such as no kingdom ever before enjoyed, and the exercise of an influence upon all surrounding nations never previously exhibited. The whole was a spectacle-the wonder and the glory of the earth. But for the knowledge we possess of human nature, we should have deemed it impossible that such a man should ever have departed from God; depart he did, however, and that departure was deep and awful. He began to err soon after he was raised to the throne. His matri

Family of Pharaoh was, to say the least, a very doubtful measure; perhaps it were more correct to say, it was a violation of the law. Some take for granted the piety of Pharaoh's daughter, but this is done without evidence. They take the fact of his marriage as proof presumptive, that she was one that feared God-a proselyte to the Jewish faith. But is it not clear, that the same principle would equally

apply to the rest of his wives, and with what truth the sad event shows? Had they been converts, would they have succeeded to turn him from the worship of the immortal, the invisible, the only wise God, to do homage to stocks and stones? It is to be remembered, that he "offered sacrifices in high places," whereas the altar in the Tabernacle was the only proper place both for him and for his people. This was the place, and no other was lawful. This error was continued for at least eleven years, and paved the way for the sad departure which subsequently took place the erection of those temples to Heathen Divinities, and the other deplorable concessions which ensued. The love of the world came on apace, and was succeeded by gross carnality of affection. He had realized the lamentable words cited in Deut. xvii. 16, 17, setting forth to the coming king the cautions which were to prevent mischief: "But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold."

Now there was no point on which Moses legislated with so much solemnity and so much decision as on that of strange marriages. According to its importance was the provision made for preventing it; and hence, in the same book, chap. vii. 3 and 4, it is enjoined, “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them;

thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son; for they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve their gods." The reader will please to observe here, that the mischief was to arise from the female side, which, notwithstanding its comparative weakness, was to succeed in turning the stranger astray. Now in spite of all this, we find Solomon connecting himself by marriage with all the heathen kingdoms and princes far and near-the Moabites, the Amorites, the Edomites, the Zidonians, the Hittites, and many others, and thus his heart was turned away from God. He not only suffered idolatry, he sympathised with it. Again, forgetful of the solemn injunction, Deut. vii. 5, "Ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire,"-in the teeth of all this, Solomon favoured idolatry, building temples for its gods, and that in the heart of Jerusalem; and this, it is said, for all his "strange wives."

How vain, then, is wisdom without grace; and how feeble is grace in the absence of holy fear and humble vigilance, and constant looking to the strong for strength. R. K.

BE A CHRISTIAN. By the late Mr. Jay. THINK of the danger of hesitation. If you stop without a full decision, the impressions you feel will soon diminish and decline. And are not some of you instances of this? You were once easily alarmed; but your tremblings have ceased. You have

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