ON THE DIRECT WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT.

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and height, of that religion taught the believer by the Holy Spirit. Under his gracious tuition and sure demonstrations," all the great truths of the Bible are confirmed to you by a new and "strong commanding evidence ;" you obtain a clear knowledge of your "right to the tree of life," and learn to give, with "soundness of speech,' an answer to every man that asketh a reason of the hope that is in you."

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4. Further, it is only when God speaks to the penitent's heart, assuring him, by the direct witness of the Spirit of pardon and reconciliation, that he receives pardon from on high to fulfil "the first and great commandment," "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." Man's reasonable soul, conscious of her natural pollution and desert of punishment, dares not, cannot, love God, without an adequate motive. This cannot be supplied while she sees in "the curse of the law" the sentence of "everlasting destruction" recorded against her, and feels she is imbedded in the "mire and clay " of "enmity:" nothing short of the Spirit's own assurance of forgiveness, and consequent divine change effected by the presence of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, can produce the love of God in the human heart. Before we can "love God with all our heart, and with all our strength," we must know that "God is love." Yea, we must, by the Spirit, "know and believe the love that God hath to us. Then it is, and only then, we can say, feelingly and joyfully, "We love him because he first loved us." No works of righteousness effected by our poor instrumentality can reach the case. I must know from "the skies" that by the "shedding of blood" I have forgiveness of sins: then my soul and all within me breaks out in songs of seraphic joy, "O Lord, I will praise thee," and love thee; "for though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me."

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5. Once more: by God's direct testimony to our acceptance in the Beloved," "the things which are eternal," with all their "solemn weight," are brought to bear on our inmost soul." "Faith's interior eye" is opened, and God and eternity are before us. The benign perfections and attributes of the "King immortal, eternal, invisible," the immortality of the soul, the smoke of the "everlasting fire," and the brightness and blessedness of the "eternal weight of glory," are all vividly presented to us as the great realities with which we have to do. We walk by faith, and not by sight. Our thrilling relationship to the infinite God, the greatness of redeeming love bestowed upon us, the consciousness of the unutterable danger from which we have escaped, and the assurance of being on the way to a blissful immortality, all conspire to stir the moral powers of our souls to their utmost depths. What astounding motives are here brought into immediate contact with the believing heart! motives to guard against sin,motives to pursue after perfect holiness, motives to submit to the rod of affliction, motives to join in perpetual songs of praise, motives to love our brethren with pure hearts fervently, and most gladly to spend and be spent for the salvation of sinners! God! the cross! the soul! what duties, what privileges cluster here, when by the light of heaven, the witness of the Spirit, we see things as they are!

6. One other remark, and I have done. If we would "finish with joy," it must be by the presence and aid of this witness. When the believer approaches the cold, the dark, the deep streams of Jordan; when life is ebbing out apace; when the Judge is at the door; what can he turn to and trust in? His innocence since his conversion? his fervent devotions? his extensive usefulness? the favourable opinions of men? Nay: these will not do the soul rejects these with loathing; earnestly exclaiming, "Miserable comforters are ye all!" What, then, is it that is wanting at this awful crisis? It is the testimony, the renewed testimony, of pardon and adoption from "the

Spirit itself;" the Spirit of Christ now sent forth into the heart, crying, Abba, Father; the presence of Jesus, and the "whisper, I am his." Receiving this, he sings in holy triumph,

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My soul would leave this heavy clay,

At that transporting word;
Run up with joy the shining way,
To see and praise my Lord.

"Fearless of hell and ghastly death,
I'd break through every foe;
The wings of love and arms of faith
Would bear me conqueror through."

C.

EXAMPLE TO MERCANTILE ESTABLISHMENTS.
(To the Editor of "The Christian Miscellany.")

"NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS; FERVENT IN SPIRIT."

in

On the 2d of November, 1846, after a drive of several miles from the country, at half-past seven in the morning, I dropped unintentionally into the extensive and busy warehouse of I heard singing, "the voice of rejoicing and salvation," in one of the upper rooms. The senior clerk said to me, "Our men are engaged in morning prayer: will you not step up and see them? Do, Sir." At once deeply interested, I ascended, and entered a room thirty-five or forty feet long, furnished with benches, having comfortable backs, closely placed, and at the upper end was a table and a large fire. How was I surprised and delighted to find from fifty to one hundred, (for every seat seemed occupied with its complement,) chiefly porters, in their white frocks, all sitting in the stillness and seriousness of family devotion! At the table sat an interesting, devout labourer, giving out one of our beautiful hymns, with a tenderness and pathos that touched my heart; while the singing was conducted with a sweetness and harmony that charmed and edified. The Hymn-book was offered to me; but I declined it. After singing, I was again requested to lead their devotions. The Bible lay open on the table, at the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew. I read the appropriate parables of the virgins and the talents. We then fell on our knees and worshipped the God of all commerce in earth and skies; when every man rose to attend the call of subsequent duties. I felt it no common privilege to join with those praying porters and devout clerks; and the scene, so good, and coming so unexpectedly, I assure you, Mr. Editor, has left an impression on me I shall not soon forget. Is not this an example to all commercial establishments; an example worthy of general imitation? Here is a noble room for the daily worship of God in the heart of a range of warehouses, and the large number of hands employed therein have a regular portion of time allotted them for that holy purpose. Nor is time whiled away here: the porters and clerks are all required to be on the premises at six o'clock every morning, or pay a small fine in case of delinquency, as well as forfeit the master's daily pecuniary reward for punctuality. Some of the men live four miles distant; but the habit of punctuality is so established, that certain of them have never been once subject to the forfeiture through a long course of years. Precision, order, energy, and exactness, are principles engraved on every department of the vast business here conducted. But everything is "sanctified by the word of God and prayer ;" and therefore it is no matter of astonishment to those who have faith in the Bible, that the energetic and

worthy proprietor of this exemplary mercantile establishment, in addition to his having much peace and piety among his men, has risen from small and low beginnings to great wealth and prosperity. "Him that honoureth me, I will honour." A WESLEYAN MINISTER.

THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS.

AND for what are we expected to surrender all the divine and delightful visions and foretastes of never-ending felicity? Why, for the vain conjectures, the random guessings, of a wildering scepticism; which would take from us our peace, our Saviour, and our heaven; and give us, in return, the idle rovings of miserable uncertainty, or the gloom and desolation of absolute despair. The evil genius of Deism, my brethren, would blindfold us, and conduct us to the brink of a precipice, and bid us leap: but it tells us of no angel waiting to receive us, and bear us in safety to a better world, where we shall again open our eyes on the light of the living, and be ravished with the prospects and enjoyments of heavenly bliss. Ah! no. It would lead us onward darksome, and disconsolate, and shivering with anxiety lest we should fall down, down, down into the gloomy gulf of annihilation, where thought, and reason, and happiness, and hope-where our souls, our being, our all, must be lost, lost for ever!

Which of us does not shrink from the dreadful experiment? Methinks I hear you, as with one voice, say, "Let it not be mine; let it not be mine. Let the Deist unchain the fiends of war, and overwhelm the earth with blood, and carnage, and desolation : let him seal up the clouds, and poison the winds of heaven, and charge every blasting breeze with pestilence and death: let him extinguish the stars, and blot out the sun from the firmament: let him, with infernal madness, seize the torch of destruction, and fire those magazines which are intended to hurl all nature into convulsion, and flames, and ruin. But, O let him not attempt to murder my soul, to bereave me of existence, to rob me of immortality! Perish the doctrine that would distract my heart with doubts! and perish everything like doubt, which has been occasioned by my looking off from the light of heavenly truth!"—Rev. John Bryant.

A FRAGMENT,

Written at the Tomb of Lord Byron, in Hucknall, near Nottingham, by Richard Winter Hamilton, LL.D., May 27th, 1829.

THE sepulchre of perverted genius has a voice: it warns the pilgrim who visits it to employ his humble endowments to better and nobler ends of existence, and to anticipate the crisis when all, whether noble or obscure, gifted or unlettered, must give account unto God. To those who may have the "five" or the "one" talent, it speaks: while Heaven lends a stronger emphasis, and a more solemn utterance, to the monition," Occupy till I S. DUNN.

come!"

CHURCH ORDER.

ST. PAUL inculcates the necessity of order and subjection, especially in the church. Those who are impatient of rule, are generally those who wish to tyrannize; and those who are loudest in their complaints against authority,

whether civil or ecclesiastical, are those who wish to have the power in their own hands, and would infallibly abuse it if they had. They alone who are willing to obey, are capable of rule; and he who can rule well, is as willing to obey as to govern.-Dr. Adam Clarke.

ON DEVOTIONAL SINGING.

"THE spirit and the understanding" are seldom united in our congregational singing. Those whose hearts are right with God have generally no skill in music; and those who are well skilled in music have seldom a devotional spirit, but are generally proud, self-willed, contentious, and arrogant. Do not these persons entirely overrate themselves? Of all the liberal arts, surely music is the least useful, however ornamental it may be. And should anything be esteemed in the church of God but in proportion to its utility? A good singer among the people of God, who has not the life of God in his soul, is vox et preterea nihil, as Heliogabalus said of the nightingale's brains on which he desired to sup, "He is nothing but a sound." Some of them who sing with the understanding without the spirit, suppose themselves of great consequence in the church of Christ; and they find foolish superficial people whom they persuade to be of their own mind, and soon raise parties and contentions if they have not everything their own way; and that way is generally as absurd as it is unscriptural and contrary to the spirit and simplicity of the Gospel.-Dr. A. Clarke.

SORROW.

So general and so natural is the path of sorrow, that to be a man is, in some degree at least, to be a man of sorrow. Sorrow was the curse pronounced upon Adam when he fell: "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat" of its fruit "all the days of thy life." The same affliction was the curse pronounced upon woman: "In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children; thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." And how are these fatal curses realized in ourselves! Wherever we are, whithersoever we turn, sorrow and grief arrest our eyes; wretchedness, disease, and death, are each hour employed in securing affliction for man. In sorrow we are born, in sorrow we live, and in sorrow we die. But grief is by no means equal; and although "man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward," still all do not suffer in the same degree. Nor is it by man's external circumstances or appearances that we can judge what he inwardly bears: the bursting and the breaking heart may be hid beneath the sweetest smile; the most acute suffering may be concealed beneath apparent comfort; and the most agonizing emotion beneath an outward calm. So it is. But God knows and sees what each one suffers. Let us never attempt to determine; for he, too, frequently endures the most who, to man's frail eye, appears the happiest. To judge each other is presumption it is attempting that in which it is impossible to succeed: it is taking to ourselves that which belongs alone to God. Rather let us rest quiet in the assurance, that whatever our sufferings here, we shall, if faithful, be fully reompensed in everlasting glory.

DONOR.

THEOLOGY.