so to the person practising it. It has been said, "no cover was ever made large enough and cunning enough to cover itself;" but whether it be successful in the eyes of others or not, the certain effect of it is to darken the mind where it is indulged. The conscience is quaintly called, by an old writer, "God's officer;" but when habituated to deception, its eyes are blinded, and it loses the power of keeping the heart, of distinguishing between right and wrong, between good and evil; and traitors enter the garrison in the dress of friends without detection.

"When the sun shines, the dial's shade
Shews the true time, and never lies;
Let truth your every word pervade,
Clear as the sun."

Thoughts, words, and actions, the whole line of life, should point with undeviating sincerity to the standard of truth: within, and without; within, in the depths of the heart, there should dwell neither error nor deceit; without, the outward conduct should be a faithful answer to the inward truth. But as the sun-dial can mark the hour only when the sun shines upon it, so will our hearts, to point thus to the standard of truth, require to be illuminated by " the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," even the "Sun of Righteousness."

The Cabinet.

THE CHARACTER OF GOD'S PEOPLE.* -Who are the people of God? Are we all his people? Are we all included? We are, in a certain sense. We are his, because he is our Maker. We are his, because we are accountable to him. We are his, because our life, our breath, our very being, is dependent on his sovereign will. We are his, because we have been baptised into his Church, and were thus made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. This is all true; but it is not the point. Are we all his, emphatically? Is there that union, that child-like submission, that fellowship, that love to an unseen, self-existent, holy God, which the term implies. The consciences of many will assent when I say that this is often very uncertain; and hence you see at once the importance of the inquiry. The people of God are habitually in earnest about religion. They think it a serious, all-important concern, the one thing needful. This at the very least must be the case. The people of God are not all vigorous and strong in faith, but they all wish to be so; there are many weak and feeble amongst them, but all are sincere and in earnest. They do not trifle as the world does. You will not hear them talk as the world does about piety and pious people. They do not put off religion; and, what is a still more charac teristic mark, they do not wish to put it off. If they feel, as they often do, disinclined to duty, disinclined to prayer, a little weary in the exercise of devotion, or the use of the various means of grace, they seck to get rid, not of these instruments and aids to piety, but of their disinclination to them. They do not leave off praying, but add to their prayers another, that they may love prayer. They do not lay aside their Bible, but look therein to learn how they may more truly value and love it. They do not cover their sins, because the sight of them is grievous, but mourn over and confess them, and bring them to their Saviour, that the burden may be removed.

LOVE AND GRATITUDE.-Many writers seem to me to place too much of the life of religion in gratitude. It is true that time, nay, that eternity, would be too

This extract from Sermons by Rev. J. Bateman, will give some idea of the simplicity, force, and piety, of the whole. The author, now Vicar of Marlborough, was chaplain to the present Bishop of Calcutta, and the volume was published at the bishop's request. To many of our readers this will be a suflicient coinmendation.

short to pay the debt we owe to Him who loved us, and gave himself for us. But though ceaseless gratitude is due; though duty and happiness here unite and it is "a joyful and pleasant thing to be thankful"-it is nevertheless the property of love to beget love; and where the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, gratitude in a great degree merges in that higher and master principle of the soul. Gratitude, when it is experienced as the ruling sentiment, always implies some distance from the object. If a stranger confers some unexpected favour, or if at some perilous crisis an enemy hasten to my relief, a sense of obligation instantly arises, and I feel at a loss for words to express my thankfulness. Not so with the partner of my bosom, or with the friend that sticketh closer than a brother. They may spend the live-long day in offices of kindness, or pass the sleepless night in ministering to my every want in pain and sickness; and love, not gratitude, is the return they seek; it is the only recompense which friendship prizes, or which tenderness will receive. Nay, it is a thing well known, that where affection, once warm and ardent, insensibly begins to decline, one of the surest and saddest symptoms of the change is, that gratitude begins to pay the debt of love. Heart is no longer bound to heart; distance has commenced; and kindnesses are felt as favours, because they are no longer valued as proofs of love. It is the same as it respects the movements of the heart towards God. In those instances which remind us of our immeasurable distance from the Majesty of heaven, the Divine favours and mercies call forth principally the sense of gratitude; but when, at still happier moments, we draw nigh unto God, and God draws nigh unto us; when we dwell in God, and God in us,-then the tributary stream of gratitude is lost in the full tide of that affection which pours itself into the boundless ocean of love. Thus temporal deliverances, and all the bounties of an indulgent Providence, find their return in gratitude, because these are recognised as the condescensions of the Creator to the creature. The same emotion also predominates in the soul when we contemplate God's mercies in the forgiveness of sin; for this implies the infinite distance of a pardoned rebel from his great sovereign Lord. But when God manifests himself in Christ Jesus as the soul's repose, and the heart's desire; when we feed upon the bread that came down from heaven, and drink of that water which can satisfy the deepest thirstings of the spiritual nature,-I would appeal to the subject of this happy experience (for he alone can tell), whether the sense of favour is not lost in the enjoyment of the blessing. To sum up the whole matter: all that we can give to God is but the reaction and return of what he gives to us. If God, then, gives us any thing short of himself, we instinctively repay that gift with something short of ourselves; and thus it is that gratitude is offered for temporal and for lesser spiritual mercies. But where the great blessing is vouchsafed; where God withholds not himself, but reveals and communicates his own essential nature to the soul,-the soul in return gives back itself, without reservation and without limit, unto him; and all its affections centre in the fulfilment of the first and great commandment. From Rev. H. Woodward's " Thoughts and Reflections."

THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIAN HOPE.-The first pillar that props it up is the almightiness of God. "Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee," says our Saviour. Talk not to me how the seas should be turned into dry land, or how the poor can be raised up to sit with the princes of the people; or how stones can be raised up to be children of Abraham; or how palsies and fevers can be cured with a word. I will stop all gaps of infidelity with this one bush, "That God is able to do it." He that is made by no cause

cannot be confined in his being; and be that hath no bounds in his being can have no bounds and restriction in his power. And if any fancy start out of our weak brain, to cavil that somewhat is impossible to God, it is soberly spoken by one, that "it were better to say that this could not be done, than that God could not do it." There is no possibility, therefore, for Christian hope to despair, because all things are possible to God. There is no horizon under heaven or above heaven that hope cannot look beyond it: for that comfort that is commensurable with the strength and power of God is as large as can be contained in the heart of a creature. But if you lean upon the help of men, aud hosts, and angels, they are slender reeds, and will give you a fall: as God said of the vain trust of the Jews," They shall be ashamed of Ethiopia, their expectation." How many do I see to sink under a little sorrow, because they have too much temporal comfort! The world is too liberal to them; it hath given them of all things so largely, that they have not the patience to want any thing: as God told Gideon, that he had too much of man in his army to depend upon the Almighty for victory, and he bade him retain but the thirtieth part, and his foes should flee before him. Throw all the miserable comforts out of doors for rubbish, and cast yourself upon the strength of God, and upon that alone, and then say, "Lord, receive me; for I have driven all other solace from me, that I might enjoy thee alone; now I am ready for my Saviour, for there is none to help me but only thou, O Lord."-Bishop Taylor.

THE DUTY OF PRAYER.-What man is he that can help offering up his morning sacrifice of devotion, when, awaking from sweet sleep refreshed and renewed, he beholds all things, as it were, new created? The sun arises, and finds the cattle on a thousand hills waiting for his appearance, and all the birds of the air ready to pay their tribute of thanksgiving for the return of his glorious and enlivening beams. And shall man-man, for whose use and benefit all these things were made,-shall man alone lie buried in sleep, or, when arisen, forget to worship his God? Shall he not rather rouse all his affections at once, with these and the like strains of the sweet singer of Israel: "Awake up, my glory; awake, lute and harp," every organ of my body and faculty of my soul; "I myself will awake right early. O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee. I will sing of thy power, O Lord, and praise thy mercy betimes in the morning. I will magnify thee, O God, my King, and praise thy name for ever and ever. Every day will give thanks unto thee, and praise thy name for ever and ever." Now is the time for us to take a view beforehand of every thing that is to be done in the day, to offer it to God with purity of intention, and pray for his grace to direct us in all things: but more especially in those instances in which we are most likely to need it; as the constitution, temper, situation, and circumstances of every person in the world make some particular temptations more dangerous to him than others. Again: who that was in his senses, when the evening closes upon him, and consigns him to the darkness of the night, would venture to go to sleep (when, for aught he knows, he may awake in another world), without having first examined himself concerning the thoughts, words, and actions of the day, and so confessed and repented him of the sins therein committed, as to have rendered himself a proper object of the Divine mercy through Christ, into whose hands he should now commend his spirit, as he would do with his dying breath? Blessed is he who thus begins and ends the day with God, and so passes a life of piety and peace. His sleep shall be sweet indeed. And sweetest of all shall be that last sleep, out of which he shall awake to glory in the morning of the resurrection.-Bishop Horne.

ETERNITY. Eternity! O word of a vast comprehension, how doth this world, and the duration of all things therein, vanish and disappear at the very naming of thee! It is impossible to use exact propriety of speech in discoursing of this matter, and therefore we must express ourselves as well as we can. Before we were, there was an infinite space of time which no finite understanding can reach; and when we die, and shall be no more in this world, an endless eternity of time (if I may so speak) succeeds and follows, in which infinite duration our poor life intervenes, or comes in as a handbreadth, the space of a few minutes, as a small isthmus, or creek of land, between two boundless oceans. In short, our life in this world is but a little point of time, interposed between an eternity past and an eternity to come.-Bishop Bull.

Poetry. LINES,

On reading a Poem expressing an opinion that the Attachments of Life are unknown to the Saints in Heaven.

Frome.

BY CHARLES BAYLY,

(For the Church of England Magazine.)

SWEET poet, say not so

Of those who truly love

'Twould wound the faithful heart to know

It could not love above,

And that the ties which bind us here
Revive not in a brighter sphere.

O no! but rather say,

Attachments kindled here,
Will there, amidst eternal day,

Bright and more pure appear;
That love and hope, from passion free,
Shall bloom in immortality.

The good made perfect there

Welcome with holy kiss

The souls they lov'd so dearly here
To everlasting bliss;

They strike their lutes, and every string
Sounds praises to their heavenly King.

DISTANT CHURCH-BELLS.*

UP steeps reclining in the autumnal calm,
The woodland nook retired, and quiet field,
Upon the tranquil noon

The Sunday chime is borne;

Rising and sinking on the silent air,
With many a dying fall most musical,

And fitful bird hard by,
Blending harmoniously.

The moon is looking on the sunny earth;
The fleecy clouds stand still in heav'n,
Making the blue expanse

More still and beautiful.

If aught there be upon this rude, bad earth, Which angels, from their happy spheres above, Could lean and listen to,

It were those peaceful sounds.

• From "The Cathedral."

There is unearthly balm upon the air,
And holier lights which are with Sunday born,
That man may lay aside
Himself, and be at rest.

The week-day cares, like shackles, from us fall,
As from our Lord the clothings of the grave,
And we too seem with Him

To walk in endless morn.

Not that these musical wings would bear us up,
On buoyant thoughts too high for sinful man,
But that they speak the best
Which earth hath left to give,

Of better hopes, and prayer, and penitence,
Rising in incense on the sacred air,

From many a woodland spire,
Or hill-embosom'd tower.

Miscellaneous.

THE SERVANT IN SICKNESS.-This is your time of trial, and what provision are you making for it? Here I must speak to you on the duty of strict economy. There is hardly a week passes, but I meet with some instances of servants taken ill, who are destitute of any means of support; forced to find a miserable lodging wherever they can, they are soon obliged to part with their clothing to satisfy their common wants: they are next driven to seek precarious aid from charity, and to press as a burden and incumbrance on some poor lodging-house keeper, whom they are obliged to leave at last in debt. But I implore you to put an end to this degrading system. Be independent when sickness comes; lay up out of your present wages against the demands of illness; study economy in dress; waste none of your income in trifles and finery; maintain your true nobleness of character. I have known most praiseworthy instances of aged parents being supported, or greatly assisted, from the earnings of their children when in service; this is "honouring your father and mother," in a manner most becoming the Christian character, and acceptable to God. I would strongly recommend you to deposit your earnings from time to time in the savings' bank, in such small sums as you can spare. Besides being perfectly secure, and not liable to be spent in a careless manner, your money will there be constantly increasing by the accumulation of interest. It speaks well for a servant's character that she has money in the savings' bank. But presuming that you are making, and will continue to make, a due provision for future wants in this life;-what is your prospect in another world? This is the chief part of my instruction to you. It is, we know, a most important point gained, if the tone of character among our domestic servants be raised, if we find them persons of principle, of integrity, of solid worth, as members of our households, this is most desirable. (God grant that this humble effort may contribute to make them such!) But we have far higher aims than your personal respectability and domestic virtue. We look on you as part of the "Church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood;" you we are to gather from the midst of this present evil world, and to present you to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls. All your duties or difficulties here will soon come to an end. Our relative characters as masters and servants will soon be lost. Eternity will ere long receive us; we are rapidly passing through life; the Lord is at hand; the trump of God will soon awake the dead; and you and

From "Pastoral Address to Female Servants." By Rev. W. B. M'Kenzie, M.A., Minister of St. James, Holloway.

I must come forth to judgment! To that closing scene we direct you, where we must appear: then all our labours terminate; your duties as servants, as well as those of your employers, will be impartially investigated. Then what do you personally know of the Lord Jesus Christ? I would urge you to immediate and solemn self-examination. It will not then be enough that you shall have pleased your master, or your associates; but to have this testimony, that you have "pleased God." The world has hitherto pleased, engaged, and satisfied you. No, the world never satisfies; its highest pleasures disappoint; it may offer you its fountain of delight, but whosoever drinks of these waters will thirst again; the deeper he drinks, the more feverish and impatient is his thirst. "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."

CATHEDRAL MUSIC.-England is entitled to boast that her cathedral music is superior to that of any other country, and that, while the music of the Church in Italy, and even Germany, has degenerated, ours Our retains the solemn grandeur of the olden time. services and anthems, too, are more vocal than the masses and motets of the Romish Church; for, in these, the voices are very frequently subordinate to the rich and powerful instrumental symphony which accompanies them. Our cathedral music is accompanied by the organ only; a kind of accompaniment that is not liable to the changes which orchestral music is constantly undergoing, and, from its grave and solid style, is calculated to support and enrich the vocal harmony without withdrawing the attention from it. The more independent vocal music is of instrumental accompaniment, the less it will be subject to the mutability of taste and fashion; and this is one cause of the durability of our cathedral music. Its choral harmony, too, is of surpassing grandeur, when performed with sufficient vocal strength; but, unfortunately, this is seldom the case in our cathedrals and churches. The body of vocal sound being too feeble to fill the edifice, the organist endeavours to supply the defect by the loudness of his playing. But two and two do not always make four. By doubling the quantity of vocal sound, the greatness of its effect may be doubled: not so when the added quantity of sound is instrumental. This addition, indeed, frequently subtracts from the effect of the whole; for the listener is painfully employed in straining his ear to separate the tones and words of the choristers from the mass of instrumental sounds in which they are smothered. The choral establishments of the cathedrals are, at present, inadequate to do justice to the grand and solemn music which they have to perform.-Hogarth's Musical History, &c.

RUINS OF JERICHO.-The glory of this famous city is departed, and a solitary square tower, called by the monks the house of Zaccheus, is all that remains on the site of the once grand fortifications. A few hedges of wild cactus have supplanted the walls that fell under the blast of Joshua's trumpet; and since the days of Hiel the Bethelite, none has been found bold enough to fly in the face of the solemn denunciation against the rebuilder of Jericho. A few, very few, mud huts, tenanted by naked Arabs, and scarcely visible till closely approached, constitute the modern village of Rihhah, the Turkish name for Jericho. Here we pitched our tents, and the pilgrims strewed the plain

around.-Elliott's Travels.

London: Published by JAMES BURNS, 17 Portman Street, Portman Square; W. EDWARDS, 12 Ave-Maria Lane, St. Paul's; and to be procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country.

FRINTED BY

ROBSON, LEVEY, AND PRANKLYN, 46 ST. MARTIN'S LANE.

THE STUDY OF PROPHECY.

II.

IT was the object of a former essay to set forth the advantages of an acquaintance with prophecy to those who lived under the old dispensation: the object of the present will be, to prove that such an acquaintance with these prophecies cannot fail to have a most beneficial effect upon ourselves:

I. In establishing more securely our own faith. The evidence arising from prophecy may be fairly regarded as among the very strongest; and it will be recollected, that to these prophecies concerning the Messiah, and to their exact fulfilment in himself, our Lord referred, and more especially after his resurrection, when he terms the apostles "slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken;" when he affirms that "Christ ought to have suffered these things, and enter into his glory," that is, that it was quite in accordance with the whole strain of prophecy that he should have been crucified, dead and buried, and should, on the third day, rise again; and then, beginning at Moses, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things that referred to himself. And thus we find St. Peter, on the day of Pentecost, expostulating with the Jews, convincing them. of their guilt, and proving, by reference to prophecy, that Jesus, whom they had crucified, was He of whom David spoke: while a similar effect was produced by his appeal to the same evidence, when the people ran together unto him and John, in the porch of the temple called Solomon's, astonished and amazed at the miracle of healing wrought on the lame man who sat begging at the gate. The study

VOL. VII. NO, CXCIX.

PRICE 1d.

of fulfilled prophecy, then, we may expect, will have the important effect of establishing us more securely in the faith; and were those who call in question the Bible as the revelation of God to his creatures, and who in the pride of an unsubdued and unsanctified heart deny the Lord Jesus Christ, to study these prophecies with greater care, and with humble prayer for the Divine guidance, there is little doubt. but that they would be speedily brought to the acknowledgment of the truth. It will be observed that I say the study of fulfilled prophecy; for it is most important to keep the distinction in mind between that which is fulfilled, and that for the accomplishment of which we have yet to look. "I must express the conviction of my mind," says one admirably well qualified to judge on this subject, and one to whose patient investigation of the Scripture testimonies to the divinity of the Messiah the Christian Church is under the deepest obligations,-"I must express the conviction of my mind, that it is not the immediate duty of all Christians to engage in this branch of scriptural inquiry-the study of unfulfilled prophecy; and this conclusion rests upon the plain reason, that God has not made that the duty of any persons for which he has not furnished them with the necessary means. But the larger part of sincere and devout believers cannot command the time which those long and laborious disquisitions require, in order to pursue them advantageously; and, if they had sufficient leisure, without neglecting plainly incumbent duties, they are not possessed of that acquaintance with philology and history, which is manifestly indispensable to investigations of this nature. Let not such excellent persons regret

FF

their disability: they have other and more. profitable objects to engage their attention and to fill their hearts; they need not occupy themselves with a light shining in a dark place, when they can walk under the brightness of the Sun of Righteousness,—the clearly revealed doctrines and promises, the precepts, examples, devotional compositions, and historical illustrations of the divine word." It had been well, had these judicious remarks been adopted as the rule of conduct by many in our own day, who seek to be wise above that which is written, and to pry into the secret things which belong to the Lord our God, who have been led away from the sober interpretation of divine truth, and too often to interpret the most mysterious prophecies of the sacred volume according to their own crude fancies.

II. The study of fulfilled prophecy will increase our admiration of the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty. It has often been. urged as an objection to the truths of Christianity, that it is utterly inconsistent with our notions of infinite benevolence to suppose that the Most High would have suffered so many ages to pass before the advent of the Messiah; and that had he intended to make a revelation of his will by a messenger especially qualified for the work, that messenger would have appeared at a much earlier period. From an acquaintance with prophecy, however, we learn, that even before the Almighty passed the sentence of condemnation against the guilty pair, a Deliverer was promised. The light of revelation was not poured in upon man at once and with full splendour: the obscurity of the dawn went before the brightness of the noonday. The will of God was at first made known by revelations dark and mysterious; to these succeeded others more clear and perfect, in proportion as the situation of the world made it necessary. Throughout the whole chain of prophecy, however, we behold the Divine mercy to man set forth. We have seen that these prophecies were the stay, and the comfort, and support of God's servants in every age of the Church; and the fulness of the time did not arrive for many ages, when it should please God to send forth his Son; yet, the propitiatory sacrifice made by that Son on the cross was as effectual to the removal of the transgressions of those who lived before, as of those who lived after his advent. It is their ignorance of the divine plan of mercy which induces unbelievers to cavil at the word of God. Would they but patiently study its hallowed pages, would they but derive its sincere milk, that they might grow thereby, would they but come unprejudiced to the investigation of the truth,-they would be soon led to adore that mercy, which even from the

earliest times promised a Deliverer,- one mighty to save, who should reverse the sentence of condemnation, and restore man to that liberty, and light, and felicity, which he had forfeited by transgression.

III. But an acquaintance with fulfilled prophecy is calculated to excite us to active diligence in the great works of the Christian calling, more especially those which refer to the advancement of the kingdom of the Redeemer. Such an acquaintance assures us that God's word standeth for ever sure; that every jot and tittle thereof will be accomplished; and that whatever impediments may appear to stand in the way of the accomplishment of his purposes, they must all be finally overcome. Now God hath expressly assured us that the time will ultimately arrive, though he hath not pleased to state the precise period,for the times and seasons are in his own hand

when all men shall know him, from the least even to the greatest. He hath positively declared that the dominion of the Messiah shall be from sea to sea, and from the river unto the end of the earth. We cannot, therefore, doubt the exact fulfilment of his word. Every obstacle must disappear, every impediment be removed, in the accomplishment of an end so desirable, an object so glorious. He deigns to employ the agency of man; he purposes that man shall be to his fellow-man the herald of peace the messenger of salvation; that the kingdom of the Redeemer shall be enlarged by human exertion, blessed and rendered efficacious by his good Spirit. Here, then, is a call to active diligence in seeking to promote the knowledge of the Saviour among men ; here is a motive which should lead us to be stedfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Many, indeed, are the discouragements in the way of Christian exertion in this particular; but the encouragements infinitely surpass them. The spread of Christianity may be slow, it may be gradual, it may scarcely be perceptible, it may appear to some to be impossible; yet ultimately we are assured it will cover the earth, even as the waters cover the channel of the great deep. And what, it may be asked, have we done towards the accomplishment of an event so glorious? If we trace with gratitude and delight the gradual development of the plan of mercy, from its first dawning in paradise until it burst forth in splendour in that adorable Saviour who was the light of the world, the Sun of Righteousness; if we meditate with thankfulness on His advent in the flesh, whose testimony was the spirit of prophecy,---we shall pray for the speedy accomplishment of those prophecies which declare his ulterior triumphs in the world; we shall, according to our several abilities, seek to promote the