never think to lay by, for the service of God, a portion of that store which God has blessed.

You remember (and I speak to those who know and love the truth as it is in Jesus) the words of the Apostle Paul: "Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." (1 Cor. xvi. 2.) And in many other places he encourages them to sow plenteously, and applauds the Corinthians for their ready forwardness in distributing to the necessity of the saints. 1 would, therefore, simply ask you, how much of your weekly or annual gains do you give to Christian purposes? I speak not now of poor rates or the like, for that is a matter of law and necessity: but how much do you voluntarily give to the buying Bibles for your poorer brethren; how much to build churches; how much to spread the blessed Gospel among the heathen nations? (Some give one-tenth, some one-twentieth, and some one-fifth of their whole income.)

To leave other arguments, I would appeal to your love of God, with a reference to that day of judgment when you will have to account for your talents, which are lent you of the Lord. After the example of the Apostle, I would recommend you to lay by, every week, or month, a certain sum, for the best distribution of which you might consult the clergyman of your parish.

Take this example by way of encouragement: two shillings a week (which, if your income is £100 per annum, is only onetwentieth of the whole, and a small proportion to devote to God) will buy, at the year's end, about six Bibles, and sixty Testaments, and sixty Prayer Books; or, in most country villages, will educate six or eight children, all the year round. How many a heart might you thus, at a small and reasonable sacrifice, cheer and gladden; and, by the blessing of God, how many a soul might you help on, on its way to heaven.

Consider the subject with prayer, and an earnest desire to do the will of God, after the example of Christ.

A YORKSHIRE VICAR.

2 CORINTHIANS i. 20.

"All the promises of God in Christ Jesus are yea, and amen, unto the glory of God by us.'

What are the promises, but so many bonds and engagements of a Covenant God in Christ? In them the Lord hath pledged him.

self to his people, as they stand related to Christ; and by the fulfilment of them, they prove his faithfulness: so that, strictly speaking, God's promises are our charter; his word, our security. If the Lord's people would seek, from the Holy Ghost, to make general promises applicable to their own particular state and circumstances, they would often find the Lord speaks by them to their souls. "I would rather have God's amen, and his yea and verily,” said an old afflicted servant, than the promises, or oath, of all the men upon earth." But if we never make use of God's promises; never exercise faith upon them; never bring them before the throne for payment; nor make memorandums, when they are paid; how shall we know their value, or God's love and faithfulness in their accomplishment?

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I am fully persuaded that if the people of God would make it their uniform custom, morning by morning, with the first return of day, and if possible, before the heart hath power to break in upon the mind, thus to have recourse to God's word, and (as David said he did) "to hearken what the Lord God would say concerning him," they would find, and perhaps frequently before night, sufficient cause to bless God for his faithfulness in the accomplishment. Nay, sometimes, indeed, they would discover the word to be so immediate, and direct to the present moment, as if the Lord had left, for a while, the whole world to draw right to them in those visits of his love. Like the patriarch at Bethel, they would be constrained to say, "surely the Lord is in this place (or in this word), and I knew it not!"

It was thus the holy men of old walked with God. They communed with the Lord, and the Lord with them, through the medium of his word. They made known their wants, and the Lord made known his grace. Prayers went up, and answers came down; and he "made all his goodness to pass before them;" so that, from father to son, they could hand down this truth: "not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord hath promised; but all had come to pass as it is this day."

HINTS TO PARENTS.

In all your instructions have a care of tedious length, and make up the shortness of your discourse by its frequency. When thou wouldest accustom a child to any useful quality, begin be

times, a little now, and a little then. As the precepts by which a wise man should guide his life, should be compendious and brief, so much more should it be for young ones. Long exhortations burden their memories, and may occasion the loathing of spiritual manna; and just as physicians would prescribe for their bodies, "little and often," so must Christian parents deal with them in the things of God. A young plant may quickly be over glutted with manure. Line must be upon line, and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, while we drive the little ones very gently, as Jacob did towards Canaan.

Parents should begin early to teach their children their way to heaven. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." By the bending of young trees, and putting young fruit into glasses, you may form them into what shape you please. Gardeners begin to graft so soon as ever the sap begins to arise in the spring, and the bud of the stock to swell and enlarge. God commanded in the law, more lambs, kids, and pigeons to be offered upon his altar, than those of older growth. First fruits and green corn must be presented to the soul, to intimate the dedication of children while they are young and tender; thus the sooner you sow, the sooner you may reap; for the benefit of timely instruction is scarcely imaginable. When David was ready to die, Solomon, the text says, was young and tender, and yet his father instructs him in many grave and excellent lessons, for when Solomon came to the crown, he was but eighteen or nineteen at most: how young then must he have been, when his father and mother began to instruct him, and lay their preceptive charge upon him: this is like the tying and claying on of the graft upon the stock. Powerful words, rather than many, are to be sought and used.

It is good to urge upon the minds of children, some notable remembrance of the great day of the Lord. The holy and learned Mr. Bolton, upon his death-bed, in 1639 did so to his children; and reminding them of the spiritual instructions he had given them before, hoped they would remember it; and verily believed that none of them durst think to meet him at that tribunal in an unregenerate state.

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Be very careful to set a guard upon the first sproutings of sin in their conversation; check every evil word at the first hearing. man may pull off a tender bud with ease, but if he let it grow to a

branch, it will cost him some pains; for when one just begins to sin, then he kindles the eternal fire. If thou suffer a child to go on in sin unregarded, unchid, thinking it too little to mend at first, that sinful folly will be thine own scourge in the end. God many times whips an aged parent, by that child which was left unwhipt at first. Adonijah, we are told, had well-nigh broke the design of David, about Solomon's being set on the throne whom his father had never displeased, by saying, why hast thou done so; that is, never checked him for his faults. Reproofs will go very hard to that child in youth, whose childhood was passed without them.

Preserve thy children from evil society. Children are like the polypus that turns into colour of that rock or weed in the sea, that lies nearest. Imitation is natural to children, and an evil example with the corrupt heart within, is far more likely to be followed than a good one, and many a godly parent has had a broken spirit through the ungodliness of children, made vile by companions they did not forbid.

Let seasonable and kind rebukes be always proportioned to the offences of children, and gently use all persuasions to draw and allure them in the ways of God; and try to satisfy them, by the rewards of glory and sweet society of heaven, that God is able to fill their souls with such joys as are not to be found on earth beside.

Take heed of making the worship of God irksome by its undue length in the family; and especially sanctify the hours of the Sabbath by spiritual conversation, at home, that shall be interesting and profitable. Examine them of what they heard in the sanctuary, as our blessed Lord did by his beloved disciples, "Have you understood all these things?" and when they were alone, he expounded more fully to them the words he had spoken.

DANGERS OF THE TIMES.

ADDRESSED TO BIBLE AND MISSIONARY COLLECTORS, DISTRICT VISITORS, SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHERS, ETC.

The age is active, not contemplative, and the same may be af firmed of the church. This spirit has not been barren of all bene fit, but it has its own dangers. The most prominent practical defect in the church at present is the want of contemplation. Such is their zeal for the welfare of others, that men have little time to attend to their own welfare. We have chosen the easier work of the two: it is really less laborious to improve others than to im

prove ourselves, while there is in it more apparent labour, and often more apparent and immediate success. There is such a de

mand for external work, on the part alike of the laity and clergy, as leaves to both but little leisure, and too often little inclination for the hidden work of the heart. There is much more honour paid to the command, "be instant in season and out of season,' than to that equally important precept, "meditate on these things;" and accordingly, in the midst of a growth in zeal, and growth in activity, and growth likewise in liberality, there is often scarcely any perceptible growth in grace, and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Christians either have too little time, or take too little, for "looking unto Jesus," and "considering" him.

There is no blessing descending on the land adequate to the means that are in operation. There is good wrought, and there is good increasing; but the enlarged result is not proportioned to the large instrumentality. The cause is probably this, that we take too little time either to confess to God, or to pray to him, or to thank him, or to meditate on his name. In the midst of much working for him, he himself is slighted. If God is lightly honoured; if any thing is preferred before him; if his secondary service, in the way of works done in his name, is advanced before the primary service of honour, and fear, and love to himself, we cannot expect a blessing. He is a jealous God, and will have no God before him; and we may possibly be making an idol of his very service, while we are forgetting himself. Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord; let us pray in secret, that the seed so freely scattered may quickly spring; that in the multitude of means which are opened up, "the valley being now full of ditches," those ditches may speedily be filled with living water. The times are perilous; and the merely active Christians will feel themselves but ill at ease, if the time shall arrive of suffering, rather than of working. The value of much communion with God, and knowledge of his ways, will then be manifest.—Extract from Rev. A. Moody's Introduction to ‘Boston on Fasting and Humiliation.'

THE OFFICE OF REASON IN THE STUDY OF THE

SCRIPTURES.

"The carnal mind cannot discern the things of the Spirit of God; they are foolishness unto it, because they are spiritually discerned." Unassisted reason may wander through the wide field of revelation, and in its perversion only become more and more perverted, more deeply entangled in the mazes of error and labyrinths of its own framing; but reason is not therefore to be discarded, but to be employed in ascertaining whether the Scriptures are the word of God; whether they are a revelation from God to man. That point ascertained, we should read them, not with a reasoning but a believing mind. Thenceforth humbly receiving the testimony