of them who forget God—in the crowded drawing-room, where the midnight hour comes and goes, and still leaves the thoughtless votaries of fashion absorbed in that which doth not profitit were a befitting question to address to the professor of religion, What doest thou here? Art thou come on some purpose of reformation, as Whitefield was minded to resort to Moorfields, in the Easter holidays, that he might preach "remission of sins" to the perishing throng there convened? If so, as thou art not a Whitefield, and a drawing-room is not Moorfields, it is to be feared that there is a want of judgment in thy choice of time and place. If not so, then thou art verily guilty. A soldier of the cross gives the lie to his profession, when he carouses in the enemy's camp. "Arise and depart, for this is not thy rest: it is polluted." Hast thou not a Bible, that thou hast never read, "Be not ye partakers with the children of disobedience ?"

The consequence of an unholy alliance between the church and the world is, that the church has caught from the world many false opinions and usages. By the carnally-minded, wealth, and splendour, and power are esteemed, and poverty is despised. By what right do followers of the truth know aught of these distinctions? 66 Hearken, my beloved brethren; hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him ?" The friendships of the world are proverbially summer friendships. "The rich hath many friends." But when the clouds of adversity gather round the man, they hide the faces that were wont to smile on him; as, on a tempestuous night, the clouds of the sky obscure the stars. Shame upon the church, that her afflicted members are suffered to weep in secret, and to say, "My friends scorn me, but my eye poureth out tears unto God." Shame upon the church, that she has forgotten that the despised and afflicted are entrusted to her special charge and sympathy by Him who said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." "A brother is born for adversity." "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

Though the church has sullied her purity by entering into a covenant with the gods of the land, whose remembrance she

ought rather to have blotted out from under heaven, it is allowed that the disciples of Christ were never meant to be exclusives. Their Master talked with publicans and sinners. The tares and the wheat are to grow together till the harvest. This companionship must be looked upon as dangerous, and yet necessary. The warmest heart is likely to be chilled by it. Would you throw a single burning coal upon a hill of ice, the ice may melt as long as the coal retains its heat; but the heat will be quickly lost—an apt image of the peril that attends the soul when exposed to the touch of worldly society. If every Christian, in his intercourse with the ungodly, would keep in view their salvation, the danger to himself would be much less, and his usefulness to others would be much more. It happened that on a Sabbath day, when several intimate friends were dining together, one of them, afraid lest unsuitable topics should be discussed, determined to prevent their introduction. In the hearing of God, prayerfully-in the hearing of man, mildly-he said, looking round the table, " It is a question whether all of us will go to heaven or not." The word was as an arrow in the conscience of more than one then present; and there are some now before the throne of God, who were first led to reflection at the dinner table that day. Not less faithful, though, it is to be feared, less happy in its results, was the remark of Dr Johnson to his friend Garrick, who was busily showing him his houses, his gardens, his statues, and his pictures at Hampton Court“Ah, David, David, these are things that make a death-bed terrible."

But the disciples of Christ, in their intercourse with the ungodly, are not faithful. Is it that their desire for the glory of their Saviour leads them, through a mistake, to determine that, lest they should hold up a caricature of religion, they will hold up no religion at all?-or is it that cowardice restrains them from fearlessly proclaiming the truth, lest the wrath of a Demetrius and his fellow-craftsmen be aroused? Let but religion be displayed a divine, omnipotent thing-not, as too often seen in the lives of its professors, but undefiled as it first came down from heaven-as it breathes through the writings of the apostles-as it glowed in the bosom of Paul—and all men shall confess its divinity and own its power. Let the cross of Jesus be lifted up, and the church be

seen lying prostrate at its foot, and the ungodly will stand mute, motionless, aghast; nor shall the power of the spell be loosened till they be moved to throw themselves down in like prostration, whilst the cry shall burst from their lips, “God forbid that we should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!" We have thus completed our view of society, intellectually, morally, religiously. Let every reader of these pages set about a reform. Let not friendly intercourse be consumed in mere trifling. As leaven in the mighty mass of human society, the disciples of Christ have never yet awakened to the responsibility of their position, and to the glory of the success that awaits their efforts. A powerful engine is in their hands-the more powerful, because imperceptible in its workings. If each would cultivate his own sphere-if each would make his own garden fragrant with the flowers of righteousness and love, the face of the world would speedily be clothed with the beauties of holiness. And then, when society shall be so impregnated with right principles, that nothing selfish, nothing wicked, nothing deceptive, nothing frivolous, can take root in it-it shall flow on, a crystal stream in which heaven is mirrored-the inhabitants of earth shall walk together in a sacred fellowship, and God himself shall dwell amongst them and be their God.

SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATION.

THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.-Rev. ii, iii.

Ephesus has disappeared from being a city, and its "candlestick is quite removed out of its place." There are traces of a stadium 700 feet long, and of a large theatre, no doubt the same as that into which "the multitude rushed with one accord"-Acts xix. 29. But there are no remains of the temple of the great goddess Diana, silver medals of which, mentioned under the name of shrines, used to be cast and sold to her votaries. Each pillar of this temple was a single shaft of pure Parian marble, and the whole building cost the labour of 220 years, yet all is now buried out of sight under the soil. A few peasants, all of them Mahometans, have their huts there. God has left the city; for "its salt had lost its savour." The

fervent love of Onesiphorus-2 Tim. i. 18-was not imitated in the next generation. Paul's glowing words to "the saints which were at Ephesus," exhibiting Christ's love in order to keep theirs alive, were forgotten "-Eph. iii. 18, 19; the elders did not imitate his tears and labours-Acts xx. 31; the hearts of the people were no more stirred by the fervour of ApollosActs xviii. 25; and even the epistle from Patmos, and the residence among them of the beloved disciple till the day of his death, could not prevent their falling from their "first love." All her faithful ones have long ago been removed to "eat of the tree of life that is in the midst of the paradise of God"— Rev. ii. 7.

Smyrna has a population of 120,000, of whom 9,000 are Jews, 1,000 Europeans, 8,000 Armenians, and perhaps 20,000 Greeks. The Armenians and Greeks form the nominal church of Smyrna, the degenerate successors of the tried, but richly endowed Christians of the days of John; yet it is the most flourishing of all the cities where the seven churches stood, perhaps because God remembers his faithful witnesses who here poured out their blood for his cause.

May it not be for a similar reason that Pergamos, where Antipas was his faithful martyr, is still a prosperous town? It is now called Bergamo, and contains 1,500 Greeks, and 200 Armenians, amidst 13,000 Mahometans. It stands in a magnificent plain, with a strong acropolis, occupying a majestic hill above the city. This was the place where "Satan had his seat,” commanding the whole of the gay and rich city at his will more effectually than did the frowning battlements of the Acropolis. It was the most warlike of all the cities, being the capital of the kingdom of Attalus, and hence is addressed in a warlike strain by him who had the sharp two-edged sword-Rev. ii. 12.

Thyatira, called now Akhisar, or "white castle,” stands in a plain, embosomed in groves, and is still, as in former days, a busy scene of manufactures. The dyers of the town are noticed in ancient inscriptions; and our friend Mr Calhoun has very lately verified what has been observed by other travellers, that to this day the best scarlet dye in all Asia is produced here, and sent to Smyrna and other places for sale. Lydia's occupation remains characteristic of the place to this day-Acts xvi. 14. Two churches, one belonging to the Greeks, the other to the

Armenians, keep up the memory, though they do not retain the living faith, of the primitive Christians.

Sardis, now Sart, has no Christians, even in name. Pliny Fiske found one Greek at the spot, who was so true a Sardian, "having a name to live while he was dead," that he was using the Lord's day for grinding his corn. All that were worthy, have long since gone to walk with Christ in white-Rev. iii. 4, and have left no successors. Among its many ruins, two ancient churches can be traced-perhaps remnants of those edifices within whose walls the throng of formal worshippers who had only a name to live used to assemble.

Philadelphia is now called Alah-Sher, the high city, or city of beauty, because of its splendid situation in the midst of gardens and vineyards, with the heights of Tmolus overhanging it, and in front one of the finest plains in Asia. Its comparatively retired situation might be one of the means used by God in fulfilling the promise, "I will keep thee from the hour of temptation that shall come upon all the world"-Rev. iii. 10. It has five Greek churches, and its one solitary and ancient pillar has been often noticed, reminding beholders of the promise, “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out"-Rev. iii. 12.

Laodicea, now Eski-Nissar, or old castle, stands upon a hill. Some interpreters discover a literal fulfilment of the words, “I will spue thee out of my mouth"-Rev. iii. 16, in the earthquakes which often occur here, and the fire that then bursts up from the ground. But even the utter emptiness of a place once so populous, is an exact fulfilment of the threatening on the place itself; though it is only that eye which penetrates the shades of death, and sees the self-satisfied Laodicean cast out as vile, into outer darkness, that can discern how full has been the accomplishment. It has remains of three theatres, and of a circus that could contain 30,000 people-places perhaps occasionally visited by the luke-warm Christians there, who saw not the sin of tasting the world's gaieties, while they also "drank the cup of the Lord." In Paul's days, they were a people separated from the world; a people for whom he had much wrestling in prayer-Col. ii. 1., iv. 15, 16; but the current of the world was too strong for the generation that succeeded.—Narrative of a Mission to the Jews from the Church of Scotland,