are yet (even independently of the final result) infinitely more blessed than those of the impenitent and unbelieving.

The third class consists of persons who have died unhappily, and who had apparently no scriptural ground for dying otherwise. It includes in its vast scope an indefinitely varying range of characters, from the ordinary sinner, who, dying, "makes no sign," to the blasphemer of Ferney himself, whose agonizing groans and execrations spoke-though how imperfectly!-the tortures of his departing soul. Here we may place also sceptics of that more common class, who fear eternity without believing in the Scriptures, and who tremblingly expect a future state of rewards and punishments, without any trust in Him who alone" hath the keys of hell and of death." In fidelity may, indeed, boast that some of its disciples have met death with composure, and even with cheerfulness; but who shall so hold the

balance between rival horrors as to decide whether the death of a Hume or a Voltaire is to be preferred; whether to quit the world in false repose, and "in hell to lift up one's eyes," be a better or a worse lot than to foresee and to shudder at the destruction which the agonized conscience discerns no way of avoiding?

The fourth class consists of those who die happily, and whose happiness is well-founded. Of such persons, several instances have been already brought forward: nor is the present age destitute of numerous witnesses to the power of the Gospel in the hour of dissolution. There are, indeed, many motives for the true Christian's meeting death, not merely with acquiescence, but even with pleasure. The pious and amiable Melancthon was accustomed to console himself with the following reflections, which he recorded as some of the reasons why he himself should not grieve to quit the present world:-" Thou shalt bid adieu to sin: Thou shalt be freed

from cares, and especially from the rage of controversialists: Thou shalt enter into light: Thou shalt see God: Thou shalt behold also his Divine Son: Thou shalt comprehend all those wonderful secrets which thou couldst not understand in the present life: Thou shalt know why we are framed as we are: Thou shalt learn also the mystical conjunction of the Divine and human natures in Jesus Christ."

This holy man might have been justly mentioned among the preceding examples of persons who, in their last moments, deeply felt and penitently confessed their sinfulness and guilt; but who, amidst all, blesssed God that Christ had become their Saviour and Redeemer. The passages of Scripture which gave Melancthon most delight and comfort upon his death-bed, and which he was accustomed frequently to repeat, were chiefly those which speak of faith in Jesus Christ. The three following were among the number: "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "Whoso seeth the Son, and believeth on him, hath eternal life." "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God."

Thus fixing his hopes upon an immutable foundation, his aspirations after immortality became daily more fervid and intense. He appropriated to himself the words of St. Paul, «I have a desire to depart and be with Christ;" and so completely was his mind engrossed by scriptural ideas, that he is said to have chaunted in his sleep, in the manner then customary at public worship, those affecting words of our Lord before his Last Supper: "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suf fer: for I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God."

Resembling our own Hooker in many important respects, he resembled him in this also, that the word

peace dwelt upon his lips even in death. He adopted, as many pious men in every age have done, the exclamation of Simeon; "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Like Hooker, he had "lived to see the world made up of perturbations:" and though both of these excellent men sacrificed much, and indeed every thing but their conscience, for peace, yet, from the nature of the controversies in which they were engaged, neither of them had been permitted to enjoy it upon earth. But Melancthon was now about to enter that state" where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest." He was at peace with God through the reconciling blood of his Redeemer; he was at peace with his own conscience; and as for the world, he was quitting at once its pleasures and its cares for evermore. He possessed all that he had long sought; his heart was full; and when asked by a friend if there were any thing more which he desired, he replied in that brief but emphatic exclamation,

Aliud nihil-nisi cœlum.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

ALTHOUGH I am not a regular fisher of men, I am frequently employed as a mender and washer of nets; and, as an angler, I occasionally wander along the shores of the wide and populous waters of this world. In more direct terms, your correspondent is a lay-member of the Established Church, anxious to promote her spiritual interests; and honoured in being encouraged by pastor, to assist in superintending the schools of the parish, and to visit the sick and the dying.

his

But great are my difficulties. Like others, engaged in similar pursuits, I feel almost every step of my progress embarrassed by the ignorance, ingratitude, derision, and CHRIST, OBSERV. No. 311.

hostility; or, by what is worse perhaps than all the rest, indifference; or, if not by absolute indifference, yet by a certain cold assent to religious truth, delivered with a tone and manner more discouraging than a denial. Added to this, it is melancholy to observe the readiness with which irreligious men apply to themselves such passages of Scripture as exclusively belong to the faithful servants of God. It may, perhaps, surprise many, to allege as one cause of this last mentioned error, a disregard of the importance of the pronoun. The remark may sound trivial; but I request my reader to suspend his opinion, till he has followed me to the close.

I went the other day to visit a tradesman, in circumstances of considerable and increasing prosperity. He was also a man of extensive reading, and whose literature was by no means lost upon him; as he exercised industriously both his memory and judgment, and was able to analyze, combine, and digest what he gathered from books. Being overtaken by a dangerous distemper, though not confined to his bed, nor much distressed by pain, our intercourse was as free as usual; and I found him not disinclined to discourse even on religious topics. Indeed, we pursued these with an evident intention, on my part, to warn him of the possibly fatal issue of his illness.

My patient, like the generality of persons in his condition, readily assented to all my remarks on the four last things,-death and judgment, heaven and hell. He also seemed to acquiesce unreservedly in my statements respecting_the power and grace of the Son of God; the necessity of fleeing to Him as a refuge from the wrath to come, and as the only means of escape from everlasting misery. I wondered, as I had frequently done before, at the tranquillity, and apparent freedom from all alarm, manifested by a man who had lived, not indeed what the world calls a wicked life, but a 4Q

life without God; absorbed in secular cares; and floating down the stream of time, as one who seemed never to recollect that it would terminate in eternity. He was, in fact, a sober and sedate man of the world; too busy to be a libertine, and too fond of money to afford himself leisure for dissipation. Yet, this individual suspected himself to be within the reach of death, without any of that apprehension, and solemnizing dread of the invisible state, which has, in many instances, saddened the last days even of the faithful themselves.

Such an example of spiritual blindness may, of course, be accounted for by your readers without any explanation of mine. But I think, that religious persons, when instructing either the healthy or the sick and dying, do not sufficiently advert to the circumstance, that all who "profess and call themselves Christians," except the comparatively few among them who are to serious purpose believers in Christ crucified, fondly appropriate to themselves those encouragements and promises which are delivered in the Gospel as exclusively applicable to the true believer. When reading to my patient the tenth chapter of St. John, as describing the Saviour under the character of the good Shepherd; and which I selected, in order also to draw a lesson on the character of the sheep; I observed, as I read on, that my companion listened to the detail, as though it really afforded him cone solation and peace and before I had attempted to comment on the chapter, he broke out into several exclamations on our Saviour's mercy and goodness in laying down his life for the sheep. His remarks, as will be supposed, were indefinite and inconsistent; but the leading idea in his mind evidently was, that the Redeemer had done all things necessary for his salvation, and that he himself had nothing to do but, without concern or self-examination, passively to accept a boon

common to him and to all mankind.

How important, thought I to myself, is the right use, in religion, of pronouns! Here is a man, who speaks of Christ as our Saviourthe universal phrase of nominal believers; and, like them, never inquiring, first, whether he has any claim to include himself among such as really possess a saving interest in the blood of the cross! There was no examination, whether he had been gathered within the fold of the sheep, and had gone in and out, and found pasture; and when I read"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand," he appeared to derive consolation from the words; but without once pausing to ask, to whom they properly belonged. Yet, upon the faithful apprehension of these pronouns, depended the application of the Saviour's promise.

It is impossible for me to describe the difficulty I encountered, but did not overcome, in labouring to convince my patient, that all Scripture must be interpreted by its own rules of unalterable truth; that it is not a book of indiscriminate application, addressing the wise and the unwise, the sincere and the hypocrite, as though it were, if I might so speak, equally the property of all men, whatever were their endeavours, hopes, and objects; but, that it had a distinct and exclusive message to characters of every kind, who might read in its pages severally for their learning. This was a doctrine hard to be understood by the individual to whom, in the present instance, it was addressed. As it was, he wrested the words of St. John,-I dare not say, to his own destruction, but certainly, for the time, to the purpose of administering to himself consolations which it was impossible he should understand and value.

I might adduce numerous other illustrations of the mistakes and in

minister idly classifies them with himself; and seems to concede, that he and they, though they agree to meet one day in the week, in the Sunday dress of religion-one party to teach, and the other to be taught, -yet, when the hour of ceremony is over, that they may return again to the world, with a mutual understanding, that the lesson of the pulpit shall be forgotten for the next six days, both by the preacher and his hearers.

But if a clergyman really magnify his office, in assuming his Lord's authority, by duly exhorting and rebuking, and by pointedly describing the difference between the formalist and the practical believer, and sharpening the weapons of his warfare with the you and the yours of the apostolic age, he must expect no quarter from the party whom such fidelity will infallibly convert into a foe. He will, on the other hand, find his ministry acceptable to the contrite and poor in spirit, who will hail him as a faithful and wise steward of the mysteries of God. Nothing is so useless as a sermon wasted in barren generalities. The congregation retires from church, without its thoughtful memhers being able to say, that they have felt themselves addressed, while the common mass of the attendants praise the "excellent sermon," just delivered; but which was not excellent, because it awakened no conscience, and excited no devotion.

The public addresses of Jesus Christ, and his early disciples, produced a definite effect; and though it was sometimes little better than an ardent but transient degree of admiration, yet it generally left at least a painful remorse in the minds of the audience, discovered to them their guilt and their enmity to the Gospel of Christ, and altogether left the scoffer without excuse. But our Lord and his Apostles employed personal application; and even when they did not distinctly do so, yet none, in that primitive age, could mistake their intention, or suppose

that they indiscriminately spoke one and the same language to the holy and unholy, the faithful and the reprobate. How often, in contemplating their example, and in comparing the merciful severity of their Divine Master with the compromising spirit of some of his professed servants, have I silently exclaimed, "Go, and do ye likewise!"

As a layman, I feel, indeed, as though I were stepping out of my place, in thus instructing those whom I recognize as appointed to instruct me.

But I am certain of this, that a devout minister of Christ will be the last man to resent lay intrusion, if it tend to assist him in his work; if it disclose the feelings of any individual, who, from the circumstance of occupying a lower station, possesses at least the advantage of surveying the heights above him. I have taken, as already intimated, the place of a catechist, or deacon, in the concerns of the church; and, as such, have probably been admitted, in many cases, to a greater share of confidence among the sick, than has been given to their clergyman; whose visits were, of course regarded, as more official, and therefore admitting less familiarity. In any event, I offer the above hints, because, in common with many other attendants at the churches, even of pious and exemplary clergymen, I am constrained to say, that we-I feel here the high import of the pronoun-too often go home without a consciousness that our instructors have spoken the word of God with all boldness.

I have been frequently reminded of Mrs. H. More's complaint, that the fishers of men make the meshes of their nets so wide, that the prey they might otherwise have taken, are often able to slip through; and we might have added, that in cases where the nets have been framed with sufficiently narrow meshes, yet, from the delicacy of the threads employed, the woven been easily broken. No wonder that such fishermen might adopt

snare has