advantage over him, and prompted him, on a sudden excitement, to make the rash and dreadful attempt of pestroying himself.

How mysterious are the movements of Providence, and how astonishing the forbearance and the mercy of God! A learned and moral character is permitted to go to murderous lengths in unhallowed zeal, and, just when his greatest atrocities are about to be perpetrated, he is met by the God of justice! But, instead of beholding the arm of vengeance, we hear the voice of mercy and love; the hardened persecutor is made a partaker of the faith which he once destroyed, and the very attempt to destroy is made the means of spiritual life to himself and to others. Such was the case of Saul of Tarsus; and such has lately been, in part, the case with an inhabitant of the parish of Clerkenwell, from whom I have received a letter, informing me that he had been tempted to destroy himself; that he had shot himself with a pistol; but that the mercy of God had met him in his bold career, and saved him from death; and now, recovering from the wound which his guilty hand, purposing selfdestruction, had inflicted, that he was overwhelmed with a sense of God's mercy and his own crime, and requested me to preach a sermon on the occasion, in order to warn others, by his example, against

the same crimes and excesses, and to encourage the afflicted to look to the mercy of God.

He knew the course he was pursuing would make him miserable, and yet he followed it; he knew he was plunging into eternal misery, yet an infidelity of heart emboldened him to go forward. What was the consequence? A rash attempt at self-murder! Oh, dreadful result ! This was the end of disobedience, bad company, self-conceit, and of a wilful and revengeful disposition. To such a precipice, alas! the devil may drive those who suffer themselves to be led captive by him at his will!

I hope his calamity may be the means of spiritual life to many, and of precaution against selfmurder to others. To make the subject more deeply interesting and important, I have selected the wondrous case of Saul of Tarsus, on which to raise the observations which this remarkable deliverance may suggest to us. We shall take occasion to consider,

I. Saul's wondrous conversion, and the deliverance of this rescued suicide.

II. The lessons which the subject should inculcate.

I. Saul, not content with the blood of Stephen, still breathed out, as we are informed in this chap.

ter, threatenings and slaughter against the disciples and saints of the Lord. But God marked him as he marks the actions-yes, and the motives and views-of every man living: He is on our right hand wherever we go, and whatever we do: He can abate the pride and confound the malice of men in an instant. In his mad career Saul was arrested; not, however, in judgment, but in mercy. He was convinced that his way was perverse and criminal by an audible voice from Heaven: he was struck blind, that the eyes of his mind might be opened; he was brought humbled and penitent, like the prodigal, to his Father in Heaven; and from his late rage, resembling the violence of Samson's lion, came his spiritual strength and sweetness.

Before he went with letters from the high-priest, to imprison men and women for the testimony of Jesus: now we shall see him writing epistles to confirm them in this faith. This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.' And if God stops the way of a violent sinner, strikes him to the earth with his own weapon, and, in the hours of languishing, breaks his rebellious spirit, and subdues him to penitence; causes him to acknowledge his guilt, and opens his mouth in praise to extol his mercy, and call on all, like the Psalmist, 'Come unto me, all ye that fear God, and I will

tell you what he hath done for my soul;' truly we ought to say,This is the Lord's doing:' let us record it for the instruction of others-yea, for the generation that shall come after us--- that they may hear and fear, and do no such wickedness;' that they may praise the Lord for his goodness, an declare his wonderful works to the children of men.'

The preparation of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.' Some are brought to reflection, to a review of their guilt, to penitence and conversion, in solitude; others by thoughts on their bed; others by strange incidents and overruling providences; in journeys; by bereavements; by acts of madness and violence; and the loaded pistol and the ball of death, drawn by a man's own hand, is converted by God into the instrument of life and salvation to his soul:

'God moves in a mysterious way,

His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.'

It perhaps is not generally known that Cowper went home and wrote this beautiful and affecting hymn after a frustrated attempt at suicide, in which he was convinced there was the hand of God.

Religion ceased to control this youth, and he no longer had the fear of God before his eyes.'

And I ask, what is there to which a man may not be driven when principle is gone? He is like a ship which has lost its anchor, driven about and tossed, the sport of every billow, dashed by the next gust upon the rocks, or foundering in the quicksands!

His dreadful attempt at suicide, the steps which led to it, and the providential manner in which it was arrested, are very remarkable. Stripped of principle, this rash youth became the subject of Satan's influence, who seemed to lead him captive at his will.

you

O! ye parents, fancy the feelings of his friends. when the news roused them from their beds that their son had made a desperate attempt to imbrue his hands in his own blood! and, if would never experience a similar consternation, dry up the grand source of vice, by giving your children a proper, a right education. Let them not grow up ignorant of themselves, careless of the great ends of their being, neglectful of the important duties which they were sent into the world to discharge, and their high des tiny to reign with God for ever, and their danger of perishing with the devil and his angels. Accustom them to read, and think, and talk of heaven and of hell; to look forward to a judgment to come; and to reverence their Maker and their Judge.

D