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suggestions through the press on this head will perhaps be regarded as quite superfluous. Nevertheless, it is possible that some who wish for a change, but hardly know how to bring it about, may be thankful for a few hints.

It is not necessary, then, for the accomplishment of the object, that the minister should be superannuated, nor a poor preacher, nor an unfaithful pastor, nor remiss in any of his sacred duties. It is not necessary that the majority of the parish should wish to throw him off, or that he should even be unpopular with more than a very few of his congregation. Let but two or three influential men settle it in their minds that he must and shall go, and there are ways enough to get rid of him.

Let them first feel their way cautiously to ascertain whether any, and if any what amount of, incipient dissatisfaction may be secretly lurking in the minds of those who are ostensibly his friends, and not prepared to take sides against him. Let them, where it will be safe, throw out hints and innuendos calculated to excite injurious suspicions and to prepare the way for open hostility. If the minister is comparatively young, and if, under his devoted labours, the congregation has been greatly increased and strengthened in a few years, and they want a more popular preacher, let them say, "He is a very good man, and did well enough when we were weak and few, but we must now have a man of more experience and talent;" let them tell him so plainly, or intimate as much; and though to favour them when they were poor, he may have got along as he could upon the smallest salary, and now has a dependent family upon his hands, he will probably ask for a dismission, and go out he knows not whither.

If the minister is much past middle age, however faithful and useful he may have been, or however able he may still be, to discharge all the duties of a preacher and pastor, let those who want a change (it is not much matter how few) say that "he is growing dull, and does not interest the young people," or that he preaches old sermons, and to make sure of that, let them put down his texts, while they do not remember, nor care to remember anything else. Or let them say he does not visit his people, or for want of any plausible definite charge, let them say that "his usefulness is at an end," and by repeating it everywhere they will probably, in time, persuade

many to believe it, without any other evidence, and thus shove him off.

If he is very reluctant to go, and there is no other way to coerce him, and the congregation is weak, let them sign off, or withdraw their support, and in this way frighten those who wish to retain him into acquiescence with their wishes. This, in feeble parishes, will ordinarily succeed, when other measures fail.

If the minister is neither too young nor too old to keep his place; if he is acknowledged on all hands to be an able preacher, and the great body of the people cling to him, and he cannot be "starved out," let not the few who have set their hearts upon ousting him despair of ultimately carrying their point. Let them aim at his moral and ministerial character-not by any direct attack at first, but by crafty insinuations-by taking up flying stories and repeating them-by prying into all his dealings, and trying to make him out dishonest in some money transaction-by taking down his words in different conversations, for the purpose of convicting him, when the convenient time comes, of contradictions and falsehood. It may require considerable patience and some trouble to bring the matter to a crisis, and when they have done they may not be able to prove anything deserving of censure; but it is not much matter. The great thing is, to keep up an agitation, which, in nine cases out of ten, will sooner or later accomplish the object. And where no criminal charges are brought against the pastor, by a disaffected minority, however small, abundant experience proves that it is a much less difficult matter than one would suppose to worry out the majority of the church and parish, or the minister, or both. It requires nothing more than a settled purpose to accomplish the object, whether right or wrong, and perseverance to the end. Let the agitators give the friends of the pastor no peace, and those who wish to retain him will, one after another, become wearied out and say, “It is of no use to resist any longer. We shall never have any quiet while he stays." And thus, at last, the majority will give it up and let him go. they hold on, the minister will find his situation so uncomfortable that he will ask for a dismission, and the end will be gained.

Or, if

The foregoing are some of the ways to get rid of a minister. If, in some cases, none of them should succeed, it may

"I CAN FORGIVE, BUT I CAN NEVER FORGET."

safely be left with those whom it may concern, to contrive other ways equally successful. But whether it be right and just for a few disaffected individuals to agitate parishes that would else be satisfied, and constrain the pastors to vacate their pulpits, is a question which they must meet another day, and at a bar where ministers and people must all stand together and be judged. Undoubtedly there may be good reasons, in some cases, for wishing for a change, and taking measures to bring it about in an open, honourable, and equitable way. But where a minister is doing good (though perchance not the ablest man in the country), and the great body of the people are satisfied with him, two or three disaffected members ought to pause a good while, and pray a great deal, before they disturb the peace of the church and congregation by demanding a change. They cannot oust a pious and faithful pastor by such a course, without being held to answer for it another day. And let them remember, that driving one servant of Christ out of the vineyard is no way to induce him speedily to send them another. It is not uncommon for parishes thus vacated to remain unsettled for a long time, nor for them to get a poorer, instead of a better, minister when the vacancy is supplied. As "where two or three are met together in the name of Christ," he is with them to bless them, so in the heavenwide case, where two or three are banded together to shove off a faithful pastor, they will probably at last succeed, but not with His approbation, who "holdeth the stars in his right hand," and whose prerogative it is to "send forth labourers into his vineyard."

"I CAN FORGIVE, BUT I CAN NEVER FORGET."

BY REV. DR. HUMPHREY.

YES, you can forgive, but do you, even as you hope to be forgiven? We are afraid, from the tone and manner in

which many persons "lay the flattering unction to their souls," that they deceive themselves in this matter. They really think they exercise a true spirit of forgiveness, but when their resentment is kindled up, by the bare mention of the names of those who have injured them, you have unmistakeable evidence, in the flash of the eye and the flush of the cheek, that something besides memory is left behind.

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Most certainly there is such a thing as a forgiving temper. It has been exercised by thousands towards enemies, who have despitefully used and persecuted them." It is true, too, that an injury may be forgiven, when it is impossible ever to forget it. The faculty of memory is not subject to our control, as our resentful feelings are. We cannot always erase the distressing record, if we would. Indeed, the more we try to forget, the more vivid and lasting we make the remembrance. There are those, unquestionably, who can say truly, that they heartily forgive, but who can never forget. Who they are God knoweth, and it is recorded in the book of his remembrance.

But let us never forget, that "the heart is deceitful above all things, as well as desperately wicked." We are naturally prone to flatter ourselves, that our feelings and motives are right, when the Searcher of hearts sees that they are wrong. The truth is, it is a hard matter really to forgive an enemy-one of the hardest things in the world. We may see that we ought to forgive him, whatever harm he has done us, or meant to do. We may be convinced that we must forgive him, or we cannot be forgiven by our Father who is in heaven. We may try hard to do it, as a matter of duty-of necessity; and may persuade ourselves that we have succeeded, while the spirit of resentment, if not revenge, still lurks in our bosoms, ready to show itself in words, or looks, or actions, to others, however we may conceal it from ourselves.

This being the danger, we ought to watch our emotions with a holy jealousy; and each of us to pray with the Psalmist, "Search me, O God, and try me, try my heart and reins, and see if there is any wicked way in me. When

any one has tried to injure us in our reputation, or outward estate, let us first have undoubted evidence of the fact, and when that is forced upon us, we may seek restitution and proper acknowledgments. If we succeed, well; but if we fail, what then? Why, we must forgive him. We cannot pardon him. We have a right to feel the injury keenly. We have a right, where the facts justify it, to say that he has done us a great wrong; but we must forgive him the wrong, whether he repents it or not. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink."

This is a highly practical subject, to persons of all classes and conditions in life. Sooner or later, everybody must expect to suffer insults or injuries, more or less hard to bear, so that it is the duty of every one habitually to cherish a forgiving spirit. Those who do, will find the duty comparatively easy, while those who do not, will have hard work of it.

Let us see to it, as occasions arise, that we forgive, "not in word, but in deed and truth." When the emotions of scorn and contempt spring up in the mind, they are so nearly allied to an unforgiving spirit, that it may well be questioned whether it is not making a distinction without a difference between them. We confess that, though the remark is so common, I can forgive, but cannot forget, it always strikes us unpleasantly. It somehow carries suspicion upon the face of it. It proves

very

that the wound is not healed, and we are afraid that something besides remembrance of the wrong helps to keep it open. It is better to forgive from the heart, than to say you can; and if you must say so, what necessity is there for adding, I cannot forget. The meaning, we suppose, is, the injury was so grievous that it can never be erased from my memory. Be it so; but we are strongly inclined to think that those who most heartily forgive, in general say the least about it.

PERIODICAL BENEFICENCE-TRY IT.

PAUL gave order to the churches of Galatia, and then to the church in Corinth, and through them "to all in every place, that call on the name of Jesus Christ" that each one of them should, on the first day of the week, lay by him in a treasury for charitable uses, a portion according to his income for the preceding week, and thus sustain a regular habit of giving, irrespective of the occasional calls for such gifts. Now it must be confessed that this rule, though so reasonable in itself, and so evidently binding on all, has in a great measure fallen into disuse. What Divine Wisdom devised, as the best way of sustaining the energy of beneficence in his Church, and the best method of raising supplies for evangelising, has thus been practically set at nought.

Yet here and there one has practised according to this rule, and found a rich advantage in it-has found his own growth of grace promoted by the con

stant habit of giving the little that he could-has found his heart kept in better sympathy with the cause of Christ, and more alive to the claims of Christ upon him—has found his habits of expenditure of money better regulated, and his own thrift promoted-has found the blessings of heaven following him in many a branching stream-has found rich satisfactions in the very act of nursing such a treasure for Christ, and paying out his Lord's money from itthus acting as the steward of the manifold grace of God.

Now though we might be so bold in Christ as to enjoin that which is convenient, and which God has distinctly required, yet, for love's sake, we rather beseech the reader to make the experiment of the advantages of acting under this rule. If you are not wholly convinced that the command is so clear as to leave you no excuse in the neglect of it, you may yet see that no harm can come of the experiment. If you have any doubt of its practical utility, and its binding force, the best of all ways is to apply the practical test. There is no law against trying it. Try it for a yea:, and if you find it not conducive to your spiritual health, not adapted to train the mind to holy feeling and action, you will then have a clearer conscience in your neglect of it.

Now

We are the more desirous that the trial should be made, because the great objection, which before trial stands in the way of it, is in truth the strong reason in its favour. The objector says, The sum which I can afford to give from week to week is so small as to be hardly worth the giving, and therefore it is best to give only at such intervals as will enable me to give a considerable sum. the truth is, that persons of small means can give a little every week, without feeling the loss, and so reach, at the end of the year, an amount which they never would and never could give at any one time. Many a poor person, impelled by a strong desire to give something considerable to the cause of Christ, has, without any consideration of this rule as binding on him, and impelled by the necessity of the case, fallen into the substantial observance of it, laying aside from week to week a little, thus producing sums greater than could be spared by any other means. And a little experience will show that this is just the way for those who can spare but small sums to sustain effective beneficence.

It

is the poor man's way of making many rich. Those who have large means and large hearts, have less need of such confinement to such a system. This rule was evidently constructed more especially for those whose ability is small, and they indeed are the great mass of Christians-and hence the smallness of your ability is the very reason why you should act according to it.

Others, perhaps, feel that the type of their piety in other matters is not such as would make such a systematic labouring of beneficence congruous with the other elements of their character. This rule, they think, becomes those who have reached a high order of piety, but not themselves. But in this they make a mistake, like the preceding.

It was

made for those who have little piety, as the best means of increasing their stock, as truly as for those who have but little

oney. There is probably no one rule of Christian life by which even babes in Christ will find more sure assistance in advancing from one degree of grace to another.

Let, then, the reader make the experiment at once; let your ability or your piety be less or more, here is a Divine rule for causing your poverty to abound to the riches of your liberality. Try it, for no injury can come of the trial. Try it, for many have found a great advantage in it. Try it, for it may be the opening of a new era in your spiritual history. Try it, for the wisdom of God has devised it for the kindest purposes affecting yourself and the world.

1.

OBSTACLES TO CHURCH-GOING.

Indolence-Religious duties require effort in order to their performance. It is often much more congenial to indulge a love of ease than to make the effort to go regularly to all the public services and all the social meetings. You return from your business perhaps wearied, and it would be quite pleasant to spend the evening lounging over a newspaper, or in conversation; or the weather is unpropitious; hence your place, with that of many others, is left vacant, and the minister spends his time and labour among the empty benches.

2. Unconverted connections and friends sometimes exert an unfavourable influence on church-going. However congenial those we love may be on other subjects, there is often a wide difference as to religious matters. An unconverted husband

or wife may have no taste especially for social meetings, and will not go with you to attend them. They see no necessity for so many meetings; they prefer having your company at home; and instead of resisting their appeals to you to neglect your duty, and endeavouring to take them with you to the means of grace, which might be blessed to their salvation, you are overcome, and tarry at home, and, at last, perhaps dwindle down to the wretched measure of but one visit a week to the house of God, and that on the morning of the Sabbath.

3. A sense of mortification and false delicacy on account of misfortunes, is also an obstacle to church-going. Wounded pride often accompanies worldly reverses. Those who have been the subjects of such changes, not wishing to expose themselves before the gaze of their former friends, seek retirement, and sometimes will not go even to the house of God. This hindrance to church-going is heathenish; it is wicked.

4. Others stay away from many of the meetings of their fellow-Christians, because it has never entered into their account to make attendance on such meetings a part of their religious duties. They have no objection to others going; think it well enough to keep up such meetings, and that the elders, and some of the more active members, should sustain them; but as for them, they had thought, being at church once, or at most twice, on the Sabbath, was as much as could reasonably be expected of most professors of religion, and they had never laid out their accounts for doing more. Hence, although there are social meetings, such professors are not found at them; they stay at home.

5. But the most common and the saddest obstacle among professing Christians to church-going, is the want of spiritual-mindedness. The piety of many is at a low ebb; they have but feeble hungerings and thirstings after righteousness; but few pantings after God; and hence really lack the heart for those hallowed scenes where God is wont to meet with his waiting people. Had you more of the spirit of fervent piety, would your place, then, be vacant at the prayermeeting or in the house of God?

Reader, forget not, for these or any other reasons, the assembling with the saints at all the services of the church you belong to, as the manner of some

is.

THE NEGLECTED BIBLE. JOHN HOWE, in a sermon on the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, thus proceeds :

may

"And a little to enforce all this, it not be altogether useless, nay, I think it may be worth our while to tell you a short passage which was not long ago told me by a person, (whose name is well known in London, and I hope savoury in it yet, Dr. Thomas Goodwin), at such time as he was president of Magdalen College in Oxford. There I had the passage from him. He told me, that being himself in the time of his youth, a student at Cambridge, and having heard much of Mr. Rogers, of Dedham, in Essex, purposely he took a journey from Cambridge to Dedham, to hear him preach on his lecture day-a lecture then so strangely thronged and frequented, that to those who came not very early there was no possibility of getting room in that very spacious large church. Mr. Rogers was, as he told me, at that time he heard him, on the subject of discourse which hath been for some time the subject of mine, the Scriptures. And in that sermon he falls into an expostulation with the people about their neglect of the Bible; (I am afraid it is more neglected in our days;) he personates God to the people, telling them-Well! I have trusted you so long with my Bible: you have slighted it; it lies in such and such houses all covered with cobwebs: you care not to look into it. Do you use my Bible so? Well! shall have you Bible no my longer.'

"And he takes up the Bible from his cushion, and seemed as if he were going away with it, and carrying it from them; but immediately turns again, and personates the people to God, falls down on his knees, cries and pleads most earnestly, 'Lord! whatsoever thou dost to us, take not thy Bible from us. Kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods; only spare us thy Bible, only take not away thy Bible.'

"And then he personates God again to the people: 'Say you so? Well! I will try you a while longer; and here is my Bible for you; I will see how you use it, whether you love it more, whether you will value it more, whether you will observe it more, whether you will practise it more, and live more according to it.'

"By these actions, as the doctor told me, he put all the congregation into so strange a posture that he never saw any congregation in his life. The place was

a mere Bochim,' the people generally, as it were, deluged in their own tears; and he told me himself, when he got out, and was to take his horse again to be gone, he was fain to hang a quarter of an hour upon the neck of his horse weeping, before he had the power to mount; so strange an impression was there upon him, and generally upon the people, upon having been thus expostulated with for the neglect of the Bible."

DYING BEFORE THEIR TIME.

"Do you not expect to die?" said a thoughtful friend to a young lady who was enumerating, with great animation, the pleasures she was expecting to enjoy.

"I shall die when my time comes," was the flippant reply.

"Persons sometimes die before their time."

"I do not see how that can be possible," said the careless one, who left the room in order to avoid further conversation on an unpleasant subject.

That many die before their time is a truth taught by observation, and by the Word of God. There are many who evidently shorten their days by their vices. But in addition to the physical consequences of some sins, there is a connection, by the ordination of God, between sin and shortness of days. It is expressly said that the wicked shall not live out half their days. Again, God says to the sinner, "Why shouldst thou die before thy time?" Ecc. vii. 17.

Who would wish to die before, his time? Who would enter the unseen world, and stand before an angry God before his time? Who would wish to taste of the agonies of the second death before his time?

All desire length of days. All anticipate a good old age. If a rule could be given for its certain attainment, it would be followed by all. Thousands would follow it implicitly, who utterly disregard the rule for securing eternal life.

Reader, if you cannot lengthen your days, you can avoid shortening them. Cease from sin. Go to Christ for pardon and for grace, that you may not die before your time, and that death, when it must come, may be an introduction to life.

TO WHOM WILL YOU GO?

The season of sorrow will come !—What will you do then? To whom will you

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