intermittent, and occasional here. It is a thing of times, and seasons, and circumstances. And what fluctuation is there in it-now hot and now cold! But unconverted souls are always imperilled, and that peril becomes more imminent with the lapse of time. They are carried forward with terrible rapidity towards perdition! Concern for them, then, should not resemble mere floods and mountain torrents, that now dash and foam, and then suddenly disappear; but the deep broad river's continuous flow.

This concern must not terminate in mere emotion.

There is too much of sentimentalism in the religious concern of many for souls and for God,-a tendency to spend itself in tears, and thus indulge in feeling, that is utterly powerless and inoperative.

1. It should lead to prayer-find utterance before God-like Abraham, pour itself out in fervent, importunate intercession. The sighs and tears of believers are acceptable, precious to God, when, having reference to the condition of sinners and to his glory, they are brought to him, and presented in connection with intense and believing prayer. "For all this will I be inquired of by the house of Israel." They have power with God. They are princes before him. Ask," "and says, ye shall receive." Emotion must not evaporate in mere sighs, but lead to those strong cries that shall enter with power into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. "The Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear." And "when the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory."

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2. It should prompt to vigorous effort. Just as it is not enough to feel for the temporal necessities of those around us, and to say, "Be ye warmed," and "Be ye clothed," so it is not sufficient for the salvation of souls and the honour of God merely to feel and to pray. "Let him know that he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way saveth a soul from death, and hideth a multitude of sins." God saves by human instrumentality. "I will teach transgressors thy ways," said David, "and sinners shall be converted unto thee." Hold forth the word of life. Beseech men to be reconciled to God. Cry, "Come, take Compel them

the water of life freely." to come in."

This concern, if genuine, will have refer

ence to objects that are near, and not exclusively to those that are remote.

There is much of the romantic oftentimes mingled with concern for the souls of men. Many profess to have the deepest sorrow for perishing souls in China, India, and Africa, who have little, if any, feeling for souls in England. They will weep for souls at a distance, and be indifferent to souls in their families, among their kindred, and in their neighbourhood. If he who "provides not for his own, especially those of his own household, has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel," so if we profess to feel for souls at a distance, and neglect those at our right hand, then we are deceiving_ourselves, and our religion is vain. Real concern for souls will have regard to the near first, and then to the remote. "This ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."

This concern will be in the proportion of our piety.

He that is most intimate and constant in fellowship with God, looking upon his glories, and delighting in his character and law, will be the most jealous for his honour. And he who most values his own soul, and most highly estimates salvation for himself, will be most anxious for the well-being of others. Deep, gushing tenderness for souls that are ready to perish, must be the result of a clear perception of the evil of sin, and a deep impression of the realities of the world to come. If, then, there be little faith in the invisible, and slight sympathy with the holy and the Divine, there cannot be deep concern for souls and God. Here is an unfailing test of piety.

This deep concern must precede the conversion of the world to God.

It is

Christians must think, and feel, and pray, that they may act for the world. "The world lieth in wickedness." dead in trespasses and sins, and therefore must be acted upon, in order to salvation. And who shall weep over the world's necessities and woes but those who have wept tears of penitence for themselves? and who shall pluck souls as brands from the burning but those who have themselves been snatched from the flames? The history of religion from the day of Pentecost to the present has shown that the tide of hallowed feeling flows out from the Church into the world. When Christians feel deep concern for souls and God, there is a resistless outgoing of influence upon the ungodly. Sinners feel that the deep emotion, the

tears, the prayers, and the efforts of Christians on their behalf present the strongest evidence of their sincerity, and the momentous importance they attach to salvation and the world to come. And it is vain to expect the ungodly to be deeply affected until Christians manifest a tender concern for souls and God.

What a change would this produce in our families! Husbands, wives, parents, children, brothers, sisters, masters, servants, intensely anxious for the salvation of each other! What prayers, what efforts would there be! Were this deep concern for souls and God to pervade the entire Church of Christ for a single year, it would shake the world!

Dear reader, are you a Christian? Do you complain of the lukewarmness and apathy that pervades Christians generally? Do not be satisfied with complaining of others. Ask yourself, Do I feel aright? Seek a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit. Go, ponder the dishonour that is done to God by sin, and the peril to which transgressors are exposed. Seek to sympathize most thoroughly with the Psalmist, when he said, "Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law." J. W. R.

POWER OF PRAYER.

THE Holy Spirit saith, concerning the most indifferent actions of a good man, a man of faith, that they are sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. In the the Word of God and prayer the Divine Spirit is at work with the soul, and in the bosom of this triune harmony of effort and of influence, it will not go wrong. The mind will be kept, quickened, and strengthened, as well as the heart. Indeed, in the Word of God and in prayer, in the prayerful use of the Word of God, the mind and the heart powerfully act and re-act upon one another. Hence, one of the most transcendant intellects that ever yet lighted on this orb in the shape of humanity, once put the following aphorism into language:"Never yet did there exist a full faith in the Divine Word, by whom light as well as immortality was brought into the world, which did not expand the intellect, while it purified the heart; which did not multiply the aims and objects of the understanding, while it fixed and simplified those of the desires and passions."

The same great writer, in an aphorism more frequently quoted, has declared that

"an hour of solitude passed in sincere and earnest prayer, or the conflict with, and conquest over, a single passion or subtle bosom sin, will teach us more of thought, will more effectually awaken the faculty, and form the habit of reflection than a year's study in the schools without them." Where the mind and heart are thus at work harmoniously, though it be against some great evil that has got a lodgment within ourselves, the self-conflict is the very thing that gives self-government, the very discipline, for the want of which many a naturally noble nature is ruined. It is in such selfconflict that the Holy Spirit teaches the government of the thoughts; and it is in such self-conflict that the Holy Spirit teaches the habit of prayer; and it is in such self-conflict, coming continually to Jesus, that the soul by degrees rises from conflict to victory and peace, and acquires a great love for prayer; and when the habit is fastened by love, and love inspires the habit, then the soul mounts up, as on angel's wings; then that begins to be realized, which was illustrated so wonderfully in the experience of that living and dying youthful saint among the mountains of Nestoria, My heart is burning, my heart is burning! When the heart is thus on fire, it carries everything before it; it sets everything else on fire, it makes every effort easy.

But the soul must come to Christ. This self-conflict is good only at the foot of the cross. If you grapple with your adversary anywhere else, you will be thrown by him. If Satan can get you alone, apart from the presence of the Saviour, O, how he will sift you! Beware, then, lest thou say within thyself, in a time of apparent peace, satisfaction, and strength, Mine own hand and mine own arm hath gotten me the victory. If you are on the mount, go and sit humbly, yea, anxiously, at the feet of Christ; it is the only place of safety. And if you are in conflict, pull your adversary, even while wrestling with him, towards the Saviour, and call upon Christ continually. Sometimes it will be little things, sometimes it will be great ones, with which you have to wrestle. Little things are great ones, away from Christ, and great things are little ones, if Christ be with you. Sometimes the Christian, if off his guard, will be caught and entangled, will stumble and fall, at a little thing, so small, that he would have despised the warning, if any one had told him that he would meet his greatest

danger there, and would have despised himself at the very thought of giving way to such a trifle, losing his self-command, losing his temper, or perhaps betrayed into greater guilt, by a thing in itself absolutely contemptible. The truth is, it is never safe to be off one's guard, never safe to be travelling without the Saviour. How beautifully instructive is that incident in the "Pilgrim's Progress," where Christian, after passing safely, and without stumbling, through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, beset by the most devilish and malignant adversaries, and after overtaking Faithful and getting beyond him, suddenly stumbled and fell at some little unevenness in the road, while he was looking back and vain-gloriously smiling, not taking good heed to his feet. He had gone over the whole of the hill Difficulty without stumbling, but here the first pebble tripped him up. He was off his guard; he was vain-gloriously smiling; he was forgetful of his dependence on his Saviour. Thus we see that a little thing is a great one, away from Christ. A little folly may possess and lead captive the whole heart, if it be caught away from Christ, and a single passion may so blind and absorb the heart, that there shall be no listening to anything else.

A missionary from St. Helena, Rev. Mr. Bertram, was once describing the obstacles he had encountered, and the difficulty of his efforts in winning souls to Christ, and even in gaining the first remotest degree of fixed attention with the heart to the subject of religion. I was at one time, said he, trying to converse with the captain of a whale-ship on the great importance of religion, and the worth of the soul, when he broke out most abruptly and said, "It is no use, no use, Mr. Bertram, your conversation will have no effect; no sir, no effect whatever. I cannot hear or understand you. I know nothing of your subject. I have been out twenty-one months looking for whales, whales, nothing but whales. I have been ploughing the mighty deep in search of whales, and sir, I am bound to have a whale. And now, sir, if you could look into my heart, you would see nothing but a whale there!" The confession was given with the frankness of a sailor; it was honest, it was true. Whatever it be that absorbs us, apart from Christ, and is made an idol in the heart, prevents, while it is there, the possibility of attending to him, loving him, obeying him. It may be an object of the land or

of the sea, a Leviathan of ambition, riches, care and anxiety, or the brooktrout among green pastures; whatever it be that the heart is set upon, away from Christ, that is the strong man armed, in full possession, excluding all new comers, or at least all that come with God's title. Indeed it is not every one who will confess with so much honesty and frankness what is in his heart, what prevents him from giving his attention to higher things; but every man has his idol, or his multitude of idols, one to his farm, another to his merchandise. The good missionary had found some with bags of gold, others with worldly honours, pride, popularity, fine houses and grand furniture in their hearts; and thousands with sensuality, rum, hatred, malice, cruel revenge,-idols worse, in reality, than all the deformities of heathenism in idol shape. And he found it true that a man cannot see, hear, or know anything of truth, religion, or God, while there is the whale in his heart.

So the excellent Archbishop Leighton once said, with that sweet and rich spiritual wisdom characteristic of him, "The heart may be engaged in a little business as much, if thou watch it not, as in many and great affairs. A man may drown in a little brook or pool, as well as in a great river, if he be down and plunge himself into it, and put his head under water. Some care thou must have, that thou mayest not care. Those things that are thorns indeed, thou must make a hedge of them, to keep out those temptations that accompany sloth, and extreme want that waits on it; but let them be the hedge; suffer them not to grow within the garden." Oh, that is a heavenly act indeed, that can thus make, out of the very cares and necessary anxieties of life, a hedge, keeping the heart close to God, suffering it not to go astray from him, making it tremblingly and anxiously sensible of its dependence on the Saviour, and leading it to incessant, earnest, heartfelt prayer! That is the way to grow in grace; that is the way to have all things work together for good; that is the heavenly alchemy that turns the basest things to gold; there is such power in persevering, fervent prayer.

LOVERS OF PLEASURE.

"Lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God," is a mark of the Divine displeasure but too clearly delineated in the countenances of its devotees.

usages, fathers' decrees, ancient laws, nor anything that fighteth with Thy holy ordinances and blessed commandment; but faithfully believe, and steadfastly confess, that to be true godliness which is learned in the Holy Bible, and according unto that to order my life unto the praise of thy holy name.

THOUGHT NEVER DIES.

"It is a terrible thought," says Cooper, in his "Two Admirals," "at an hour like this, to remember that nothing can be forgotten. I have somewhere read that not an oath is uttered that does not continue to vibrate through all time, in the wide-spreading current of sound-not a prayer lisped, that its record is not to be found stamped on the laws of nature by the indelible seal of the Almighty's will."

THE GOSPEL.

Professor Dwight says, "So comprehensive are the doctrines of the Gospel, that they involve all moral truth known to man; so extensive are its precepts, that they require every virtue, and forbid every sin. Nothing has been added to them by the labour of philosophy, or by the progress of human experience."

PRAYER.

As the sails of a ship carry it into harbour, so prayer carries us to the throne and bosom of God; but as sails cannot, of themselves, speed the progress of the vessel, unless filled with a favourable breeze, so the Holy Spirit must breathe upon our hearts, or our prayers will be motionless and useless.

THE MISERIES OF THE RICH. With all his hoardings, Rothschild was by no means a happy man. Dangers and assassinations seemed to haunt his imagination by day and by night; and not without grounds. Many a time, as he himself said, just before he sat down to dinner, a note would be put into his hand, running thus-"If you do not send me immediately five hundred pounds, I will blow your brains out." He affected to despise such threats; they, nevertheless, exercised a direful effect upon the millionaire. He loaded his pistols every night before he went to bed, and put them beside him. He did not think himself more secure in his counting-house than he did in his bed. It must be moreover confessed, that the members of the synagogue generally did not entertain the same respect for him as the foreign Jews do for the Rothschilds of Frankfort. Some thought he might have done more for his brethren than he did; and that if he had only used the influence which he possessed with government, and the many friends which he had at court, all the civil disabilities with which the British Jews continued to be stigmatised would have been abolished when the proposition was first mooted. "But Rothschild," said an intelligent English Jew to the writer, "was too great a slave to his money, and all other slavery was counted liberty in his sight."-Margolioath's Jews in Great Britain.

IMPORTANT STATISTICAL FACT. From a recent statement of Lord Glengall, it appears that, at the present time, the Roman Catholics outnumber the Protestants in Ireland by barely 500,000. "In 1821," his lordship

observes, "the Protestants numbered 1,900,000 in a population of 8,000,000; now, in 1851, the Romanists have decreased 1,700,000; and in a population of 6,500,000, the Protestants are only in a minority of 500,000. The Protestants did not die of famine and disease, and few have emigrated. The conversions to Protestantism have been numerous, and the huge fallacy of the numerical majority of the Romanists in Ireland will soon evaporate when the real truth becomes known to the English public. Romanism is on the decrease in Ireland, although among a particular class in England it may have some converts."

MILTON'S DAUGHTERS.

The Chetham Society has published documents, showing that Milton's eldest daughter, Anne, could not write; that his second daughter, Mary, could not spell; and that his third daughter, Deborah, was much in the same condition, though it has been so often said that she was her father's amanuensis, and that she read to him in Hebrew, Greek, and Italian, without understanding a word of any one of the languages.

INCOME AND EXPENDITURE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

By a return of the public income and expenditure of the United Kingdom, in the years ending the 5th of January, 1849, 1850, 1851, it appears that in the year 1849 the total income was £58,980,734; in 1850, £57,647,392; and in 1851, £57,431,796. The total expenditure in 1849 was £58,090,734; in 1850, £55,480,656; and in 1851, £54,938,534, showing in 1850 a surplus of £2,166,736 income over expenditure, and in 1851, a surplus of £2,493,262.

WISDOM.

Beauty is a fine thing; money is a precious thing; an extensive demand is a good thing; but knowledge and wisdom are superior to them all. 66 My son, receive instruction rather than silver, and understanding rather than choice gold."

TIME.

The first and principle rule in regard to the economy and right improvement of time, is to habituate ourselves to watch it; otherwise, from mere heedlessness the precious possession will pass from us, as if it were a thing of no value. "WHY NOT?"

Mary F was a Christian. She often spoke to others of their souls' salvation. She was introduced to an impenitent young lady, in whose spiritual state she felt a deep interest. After conversing a short time on other subjects, Miss F said, "Miss T- -, are you a professor of religion ?" Miss T- was much surprised at such a question from a stranger. She answered in a low voice, "No, I am not." 66 Why not?" asked Miss F—, in a sad tone. Miss T -'s eyes filled with tears; she could not answer. No more was said. The Why not?" rung in her ears for many days, and the more she pondered the question, the less able was she to give a satisfactory answer. At length the Saviour sent his Holy Spirit to win her heart to him, and she is now a professor of religion.