delivered in thy extremity, and yet, hast thou forgotten the hand of God, that plucked thee from the jaws of death? Q sin, thus ungratefully, no longer, lest, in some evil hour, a worse thing befall thee.

THE DRUMMER AND HIS
BOY.

When on a preaching tour with a friend, we met with a pious drummer, belonging to a regiment quartered in a town which we visited. We invited him to sup with us in the inn. After supper we requested him to favor us with his history, which he did with great modesty and seriousness, in the following words, which are as nearly his own as I can recollect. "I have been (said he) twenty-four years in the army and navy together. Till four years ago I was the wickedest wretch in either. Our regiment was then at Hull. I was seized with an unaccountable melancholy, it was not about religion. I do not know what it was, but I was miserable. One evening, as I was walking on the comtaon, very unhappy, I observed a

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church lighted up, which convinced me there was a sermon in it, but I durst not go lest my comrades should laugh at me for going to sermon on a week day. I knelt on the common and prayed to God to give me courage to go to church. When I arose I went directly to church. The minister was preaching upon believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Immediately when 1 was seated, the minister said, "If it could be of the smallest service to the meanest person present, I would come down from the pulpit, and on my bended knees beseech that person to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." Thought I, this must be a mighty matter surely, that a gentleman would come down from the pulpit, and on his bended knees beseech a poor drummer to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That, with the remainder of his sermon, made a deep impression on my mind. I went home to my wife; she met me at the door : I said to her "Jane we are all wrong, we are living like beasts, we know nothing about believing in the Lord Jesus Christ," Poor thing! she trembled, for she thought I was gone mad; but said 1, " Jane, I am not mad, but you and I are going to destruction. I understand the bible will tell us every thing; but we have not a bible, and though we had, we cannot read it." “O, (said she) we can buy a bible, and our little boy, who is only twelve miles off, can read it to us." Accordingly we sent for

our boy, and also bought a bible. When he came home, we desired him to begin at the first page and read forward to the end of the book. We gave him always two suppers to keep him from sleep, for he got drowsy with reading. I used to rise very early in the morning to hear more of the bible, but I would say, it is cruel to awake my boy so early, and would give him another hour of sleep: then he rose and began to read where he had stopped the preceding night, and we both sat listening to our boy reading the book. He read slow, for he had many hard words to spell. At length God opened my poor blind eyes to see that Jesus Christ was the very Saviour I stood in need of. O how happy I was! our boy read onward, and the Lord was pleased to, open the poor blind eyes of my wife, so that she saw in Jesus Christ just what I saw. Now we became one of the happiest -families in all Hull.

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I had put myself to school that I might learn to read, and in a few months I was able to read nearly as well as my little boy. I determined that my house should be a house of prayer; and my door open to all that should choose to come. I told my comrades I had now begun to pray to God, and read his word, every morning and evening; and I should be glad of their company at these times. Several attended

to make sport. When I could not make out a long word, then they all laughed, but I thought, now a few months ago I would have laughed at these things as well as them, but if God opens their eyes as he has mine, they will laugh no more at these things so I read on as well as I was able. By and by some of them became very serious, but drink and wicked company, did them much injury. One of them however remains very stedfast to this day.

In a letter from the Rev. John Campbell of Kingsland, to the Rev. John Newton, Rector of ST. MARY WOOLNORTH, Lombard Street.

REFLECTIONS.

Mr. Newton remarks to his valuable correspondent, "Your story about the drummer and his boy, is very affecting, and shews the sovereignty and power of grace, which can work upon any person, in any circumstances, either by, or without the use of public means, with equal ease. I trust the number of the Lord's hidden ones is not small. We sometimes meet with such, in places where we do not expect to find them. I think this is a great advantage of our established Church. I am told there are about ten thousand pa

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rishes in England; I believe more than nine thousand of these are destitute of the Gospel but they have public worship on the Lord's-day. The liturgy is in an evangelical strain, and four chapters of the bible, and about a thirtieth part of the book of Psalms, are statedly read. By the Lord s blessing on these helps, I believe many people, who perhaps cannot read, are made wiser than their teachers; and I think were it not for the church service, nine-tenths of the kingdom, would, in a little time, be as ignorant and wild as the American Indians. "

THE BASTINADO.

On the fifteenth of November, 1779, Mr. Antes, returning from a short country excursion, to Grand Cairo, was seized by some of the attendants of Osman Bey, a Mameluke chief; and, after stripping him of his clothes, they demanded money; which he not having about him, they dragged him before the Bey, telling him that he was a European, from whom he might get something. In order to extort money