receive it; and he that doth not, let him produce a better. Farewell. "My dear children, the milk and honey are beyond this wilderness. God be merciful to you, and grant that you be not slothful to go in to possess the land. "JOHN BUNYAN." Let this suffice for the present. Such a letter, and from such a place, must have made a sunny day at Bedford. Let every reader remember who wrote it, and when! THE GERMINATING PERIOD. IN the life of individuals and of nations, the provision of the materials of originality, experience, and power in the character, is confined, for the most part, to a particular and an early period. "The child is father of the man." Our great modern poet has put this great truth into a child's ballad, but it is for men to reflect upon. In the development, whether of individuals or of nations, it is true. The early studies of genius are wrought into the mind like beautiful pictures traced in sympathetic ink, and they afterwards come out into view in the influence they exert in all the mind's productions. The first studies of Rembrandt affected his after labours; that peculiarity of shadow, which marks all his pictures, originated in the circumstance of his father's mill receiving light from an aperture at the top, which habituated that artist afterwards to view all objects as if seen in that magical light. What is thus true in the course of individuals, is as true, on a vast scale, in the development of the literature and character of nations. Now our practice of the science of self-culture and self-discipline is to a great degree extemporaneous and late; nor do we sufficiently avail ourselves of others' experience. It is certainly important to discover what has been the nourishment of other minds, and then to apply your knowledge. It is not certain that the same discipline, through which Burke or Coleridge passed, would be as good for other minds as for theirs; but there must have been some qualities in their mental culture, some processes in their growth and development, which, discovered and applied by us, would be useful. For example, if Mr Coleridge tells us that in early life he found in certain rare and neglected volumes, some trains of thought that set him powerfully to thinking, you may be quite sure that the same excitement would be favourable to a susceptible and growing mind now. But it may happen that the seed which will grow in one patch of ground will not in another. You may raise a good crop of potatoes where you cannot raise wheat, and the soil that will bear a wheat crop one year, will do better laid out in corn and melons the next. Now Nature seems to require something of the same alterations in the cultivations of mind; at any rate, there is no monotony. An age of great classical erudition may be succeeded by an age of deep philosophy, or these both by an age of physical science and railroads: and you may not be able, without difficulty, to trace the laws or causes of this change. If you cut down a forest of pines, there will spring up in its place a growth of the oak or the maple. So in the world's mind there are the germs of many developments, to which external accidents may give birth, some in one age, some in another. There is a singular analogy between the goings on of life in the natural and in the moral world; and Nature many times suggests lessons which she does not directly teach. Nature is suggestive in her teachings; and so is the word of God; and so is everything that in its teachings at the same time awakens and disciplines the mind. But there is a period, after which even suggestive teachings and suggestive books lose their power. There is a germinating period—a period in which a good book goes down into the soul, as a precious seed into a moist furrow of earth in the spring, and germinates; a new growth springs from it. It is different from knowledge; it becomes the mind's own, and is reproduced in a form of originality; its principles become seeds in a man's being, and by and by blossom and fructify. This, I say, is a particular period, and it does not last. A man who has passed it may read the same book and know it perfectly; the acquisition of knowledge goes on through life, but knowledge as life— knowledge as the creator of wisdom, not so. It is all the difference between an oak set out, and one that grows from the acorn. I have in my mind some volumes which have exerted a refreshing and inspiring power over many young minds, but with older ones the power does not seem to exist; it is like putting a magnet to a lump of clay. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; and the time in which a good book thus dies in the soul, is particular, and analagous to the springtide of the seasons. An ear of corn may fall into the ground and die in midsummer; but it will not be reproduced; and just so with books and principles in men's minds: if the sowing of them be deferred till the midsummer or autumn of the soul, though they may enrich the soul, they will not produce a harvest; there may be the green blade, but the full corn in the ear you will never see. So also it is with the seeds and habits of our piety; our character and attainments, not only in this world, but in eternity, will be the fruits of the germination of divine things in our souls now. Let me pray you, therefore, to take care of the germinating period of your being; for when you have passed through it, though you may have the same books to read, and the same means of study, they will not affect you as they once would. There is a tide in the deep souls of men, as well as in their affairs, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; and if you omit it, the loss and the misery will be yours. Suffer me now to leave your minds beneath the influence of one more aphorism from the wisdom of Lord Bacon. "For if you will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is not anything you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of the earth, and putting new mould about the roots that must work it."American Biblical Repository. MISSIONARY ADDRESS TO THE YOUNG. SUGGESTED BY THE CLAIMS OF THE PRESENT CRISIS. It is the year of jubilee! The London Missionary Society anoints her head with the oil of joy, and arrays herself in white garments. Fifty summer suns have shone on the field of her toil. Her beginning was small, but her latter end is greatly increased. At first she laboured in a corner, unknown and fainthearted-sowing the seed, and reaping no harvest; but now many a desert place, through her exertions, enriched with the river of God, is filled with fruit, and the valleys also are covered over with corn. "The voice of joy and thanksgiving is heard in the tabernacles of the righteous" on this, the year of her jubilee. "The right hand of the Lord is exalted, the right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly." Beloved young friends, this year has claims on you, beyond any that have been urged on you before. The long tried and faithful supporters of the London Missionary Society are becoming old and grey-haired. They have borne the heat and burden of the day, and they are worn out with hard service; the shades of evening are gathering round them as precursors of the shadows of the grave. Soon it shall be said of them, "They rest from their labours, and their works do follow them." It is to the rising generation that they intrust the charge they have so ably sustained. O youth of this favoured land! a goodly host ye are, girt with the strength and fervour of a life not yet worn with care, and not yet dimmed by disappointment: what might ye not do in the cause of God, if, to the energy and warmth of your early years, there were added the fire of a holy ambition kindled by the Saviour's love? What might not your religious fervour avail? Where might ye not carry the gospel of the kingdom? From the days of infancy your hands have clasped your Bible, and on your opening minds were the truths of revelation poured. Many prayers ascend for you to heaven; many hearts are intensely interested on your behalf; and, when the people of God speak of you to one another, their eyes are filled with tears. The church of Christ cherishes you as her children. She regards you as in a state of training preparatory to your being employed in her cause; and, when the number of her agents is thinned by the hand of death, as it must be in a dying world, she looks to you to take the vacant places of those who are gone to heaven. And who is it that has caused you to be thus nurtured on the bosom of Christian love? Who has gathered you round the well of the water of life, and permitted you to let down your buckets, and draw,—while multitudes of your fellow-creatures are afar off, dying of thirst in the desert? It was He who, while He communicated to you this abundance of privilege, accompanied it with an equal abundance of obligation. There is no greater work before you than to fulfil the obligation. Receive the deposit which the people of God solemnly commit to your care. The eye of the church is fixed on you, to see if you will discharge your responsibilities. The eye of a dying world is turned towards you, tearfully gazing to know whether you will pity its need. Awake to the greatness of the demand which is made upon you. Awake to the Divine strength in which alone you will find your ability to meet it. Awake to some perception of that love, which led the Son of God for your sake to deny himself, and which should constrain you to practise self-denial for his sake. Let the word be recalled! Shall we speak of self-denial, when the honour of our Master is concerned? Shall we hesitate about sacrifice, when the sacrifice is made to God? Can that be a sacrifice which is given to Him? "There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come, life everlasting." The question must be put to our consciences-"How much owest thou unto thy Lord ?" Let pastors ask of their people, "How much owest thou?" Let parents ask of their children, "How much owest thou?" Let brothers and sisters say to each other, "How much owest thou?" Let friend ask of friend, "How much owest thou?" Christian, take the inquiry with you into your closet, in the still hour of communion with your own heart; and in the apprehension of the vastness of redeeming love, question yourself "How much do I owe unto my Lord? If I am pardoned through his blood, -if I am justified through his righteousness,-if I am sanctified by his Spirit,-if I am saved by his mercy,-eternity will fail to unfold the length and breadth, and depth and height of what I owe. "Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small; Demands my soul, my life, my all." Dear friends, eternity will cast a new and strange light on what the world accounts great and noble. He alone shall be found rich who is rich towards God. The poor widow that cast into the treasury all her living, and they who, like her, prize |