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CHRISTIAN PHYSICIANS.

contrast between the wise man and the wit, the believer and the infidel-HALLER and Voltaire. But instead of dwelling on distant or foreign instances, I would hasten to the nearest and most recent parallels.

No doubt many here have read the last days of Dr THOMAS BATEMAN. His history is interesting as the transition from materialism to the faith of the gospel, and as the change from worldly morality and honourable conduct to that gospel's higher standard of holiness. It was a year before his death that, after some serious conversation, he one Sabbath allowed a friend to read to him Scott's " Essay on the Inspiration of Scripture." His clear and vigorous intellect accompanied every sentence with intensest earnestness, and, as powerful minds are apt, perhaps saw the argument more forcible than the judicious author puts it. When the essay was ended, he exclaimed, "This is demonstration! complete demonstration!" and begged his friend to read to him the account in the Gospel of Christ's resurrection. For some days his quickened mind was all avidity for Scripture, and, as he had nearly lost his sight, he constantly employed those around him in reading to him from the Bible; and, as one morning soon after he expressed it, "It is quite impossible to describe the change in my mind. I feel as if a new world were opened to me, and all the interests and pursuits of this have faded into nothing in comparison with it." And though he saw from the first the atonement's sufficiency, and had no distrust about his personal forgiveness, he could only speak with bitter tears of his former life of irreligion and rebellion against God. Led on step by step, he soon reached the peace unspeakable of a confirmed believer; and though he had often feasted on intellectual pleasures, and had quaffed with undisguised delight the cup of human praise and professional success, and had entered with exuberant zest into most worldly amusements, he now for the first time tasted true happiness. "The blessing of his conversion," he frequently declared, was never out of his mind; it was a theme of perpetual thanksgiving; and he never awoke in the night without being overwhelmed with joy and gratitude in the recollection of it." And

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once, when a friend inquired if there were no interruption in his joyful emotions, he answered, "For some months past, never; and never the smallest rising of anything like impatience and complaint." There must surely be a glorious reality in that religion which made fame and fortune so suddenly look like dross in the eyes of a man lately burning with ambition; and there must be a divine attracttion in that Saviour who drew away from gay society and a lifesome world this brilliant man in the vigour of his power, and made him exclaim, as he felt death's palsy creeping up his limbs, "Oh yes! I am GLAD to go!"

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There are few members of another profession for whom I confess a more entire admiration than Dr MASON GOODE. Devoted to his calling, and distinguished by his abundant acquaintance with its numberless details-his publications proving him a master of its science, and withal most successful in its practice he had all the enthusiasm for other branches of know ledge which the more expansive natures exhibit and whilst an adept in many, and striving to be simple and familiar in all, he was a sciolist or tyro in none. Those who have read his notes to Lucretius, and Job, must be impressed with the extent of his scholarship; and from these translations and his "Book of Nature" united, we have carried away a delightful idea of their author's picturesque eye and gorgeous fancy. We recognise the devout and scientific musings of a St Pierre dissolved in the sunny verse of Thomson. And when we are told that the popular lecturer, the bookish scholar, the extensive author, the fervent poet, and the busy practitioner, was no less the fond father and the cheerful but instructive companion, we confess that there are few from whom we would sooner take a lesson in the art of living. And though something must be ascribed to a constitutional activity, more may be traced to a scriptural and deepening piety. Even in the days when he frequented a Socinian chapel, the fear of God was before his eyes, and he wished to be more devout than his meagre creed permitted. But when he was graciously guided into the "truth supreme," when in "God manifest in the flesh" he found a resting-place for his spirit and a rapture to his inert convictions, there came a new comfort over his home; and in the personality and affectionateness of this better creed he found fresh beauty in every object, and a new incentive to every exercise. And though it is asking you to form an idea of one departed by showing a lock of hair, yet as a little sample of those pleasant thoughts which blossomed along our London streets as a busy but cheerful Christian trod them, I may read the following:

"Not worlds on worlds in phalanx deep
Need we to prove a God is here;
The DAISY, fresh from Winter's sleep,
Tells of his hand in lines as clear.

"For who but He that arch'd the skies,

And pours the day-spring's living flood,
Wondrous alike in all he tries,

Could form the daisy's purple bud?
"Mould its green cup, its wiry stem,

Its crimson fringe so nicely spin;
And drench in dew the topaz gem
That, set in silver, gleams within?
"And fling it unrestrained and free,

O'er hill and dale and desert sod,
That man, where'er he walks, may see
In every step the stamp of God ?"

But, perhaps, the finest specimen of living Christianity lately recorded in the medical pro-) fession is the instance of Dr HOPE. My medical hearers are acquainted with those con

tributions he made to the literature of his science, and of which, of course, I only know by report. But there is something truly sublime, which any reader may appreciate, in that power of application and heroic self-command, to which, under God, he owed his rapid rise and enduring reputation. Averse to the profession, he forced himself to enter it, because it was his father's wish; and, naturally revolting from research into the structure of the corporeal frame, he compelled himself to be a skilful dissector, and became one of the most famous anatomical draughtsmen whom England has yielded. Nor have we a nobler specimen of devoted industry than in the self-denial with which he closed his eyes on magazines and newspapers and amusing literature till his great and laborious works were ended. And there is something spirit-stirring in the swift and steady rise to the high places of the faculty of the youth who came to London with only one private acquaintance there. But the grandest thing of all is to see how this vigorous mind was at once strengthened and softened by the grace of God. Whilst travelling in Italy he got acquainted with a pious English family, and impressed by the happy scene he witnessed there, he wrote to his brother, "Whatever the world may say, my dear George, it is a clear case to me that the saints have the laugh on their side. If wishing would add me to their number I would get enrolled to-morrow." And it was not long till he got "enrolled." Soon after his settlement in London he felt constrained to bestow all the energies of his calm and comprehensive intellect on the study of revealed religion; and under the teaching of God's Spirit he was soon guided into a conclusive belief of the great saving truth. To that Divine Redeemer whom he then discovered his soul clave with an affiance which the events of life never shook, and which death only made final; and with a singleness of aim betokening the child of God, he learned to look on every step in his professional rise as an additional advantage for promoting God's glory in the world. And there were three things in his eminently intelligent but no less practical piety which we think can never be too often repeated, nor too much sought after his reverence for the Sabbath, his constant recourse to prayer, and the death by which he glorified God. On the Lord's-day he always attended public worship twice, and he usually contrived to secure several hours for the study of his only theological textbook, the Bible. And so much did he honour the Divine command, “Remember the Sabbathday, to keep it holy," that twice over he cheerfully risked his appointment to an important office, rather than canvass, or do "any work" on that day. And rejoicing in God's special providence, believing that to omnipotence there is nothing arduous, and to omniscience nothing too minute, he was a man of prayer. "No work

was commenced without asking for the Divine blessing; no important step taken without applying for the Divine guidance; when harassed by professional vexation, it was by prayer he regained his wonted serenity; and, when surrounded by difficulties and threatened by disappointment, in prayer he found a strength not his own, and submission to the will of God, whatever that might be." And just as his life. was devoted to God, so the Lord wonderfully supported his servant when he came to die. In his fortieth year, stricken with a mortal malady, his clear foresight told the end and nearly fixed the date. But having already completed the grand preparation, his main anxiety was to fill up the nine months on which he counted with! work that should serve his generation. He continued to practise as long as his strength permitted, and then stopped, only reserving time to complete two medical memoirs, and as he found that his handbreath would hardly suffice for this purpose, he tried to redeem the ebbing hours by discontinuing his daily exercise. Closing his town residence and bidding good-bye to his patients, he escaped to Hampstead; and though he knew that it was the house where in a few weeks he must take his last look of earth, he never gazed on spring with such youthful glee as the morning after arriving there. He was only once in his carriage after that. It was to visit Highgate Cemetery, and fix all about his funeral. ~And as, in his own view, the grave was all streaming with the light of immortality, he was anxious that others should see it as he saw it himself, and calling to him his only child, he would say, "You see, Theo dore, what a lucky fellow I am. You have your fortune to make; but mine is ready made for me. I am going to my heavenly inheri tance. You know how hard I used to work formerly to get fees for you and mama; but all that is over now-my toil is at an end." The radiance of the better country had so settled all around him that his dearest friends felt heaven open for him; and every indication of nearer departure sensibly cheered himself. His trust was all in Jesus. “I have often taken a practical chapter of the New Testa ment, such as the winding up of one of the Epistles, or the Sermon on the Mount. I have determined to act up to it during the day; but, alas! I often forgot it altogether, and when I did remember it, how miserably did I fall short of it! This, more than anything, showed me the original sin in my nature, and threw me on the promises of Christ. I found it was useless to rest too much on details; but I took fast hold upon the grand leading truth, that Christ is an all-sufficient satisfaction for sin." And at last one happy midnight, when he found himself dying, he called to his wife and said, "I will not make speeches; but I have two things to say." The first was an affectionate farewell to herself; and in uttering it

ARE YOU A SABBATH SCHOOL TEACHER?

he was seized with violent coughing. When
that had abated, she reminded him that he had
something else to say, and begged him to take
the earliest opportunity.
"The second is soon
said. Christ is all in all to me. I have no
hope except in Him. He is, indeed, all in all."

ARE YOU A SABBATH SCHOOL TEACHER?

to men.

IF you are, you are engaged in a good work. Yes, it is good, both as acceptable to God, and as profitable It is good in its direct operation, and good in its reflex action. It is not merely teaching the young idea how to shoot, but, what is still more important, it is teaching the young and tender affection what to fix upon, and where to entwine itself. Nothing hallows the Sabbath more than the benevolent employment of the Sabbath school teacher. It is more than lawful to do such good on the Sabbathday. It has great reward. Continue to be a Sabbath school teacher. Be not weary in this well-doing. Do not think you have served long enough in the capacity of teacher, until you have served life out, or until there shall be no need of one saying to another, "Know the Lord." What if it be laborious? It is the labour of love, in the very fatigue of which the soul finds refreshment.

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But perhaps you are not a Sabbath school teacher. "I am No, I am not," methinks I hear one say. not a professor of religion. You cannot expect me to be a teacher." You ought to be both, and your not being the first is but a poor apology for declining to be the other. The neglect of one obligation is a poor excuse for the neglect of another.

You seem

to admit that if you professed religion, it would be your duty to teach in the Sabbath school. Now, whose fault is it that you do not profess religion? But you are "not good enough," you say. Then

you need so much the more the re-action of such an

occupation to make you better. The way to get good. is to do it." But I am not a young person." And what if you are not? You need not be very young in order to be a useful Sabbath school teacher. We don't want mere novices in the Sabbath school. If you are not young, then you have so much more experience to assist you in the work. Do Sabbath school teachers become superannuated so much earlier in life than any other class of benefactorsso much sooner than ministers and parents? There is a prevailing mistake on this subject.

But you are married, you say. And what if you are? Because you have married a wife or husband, is that any reason why you should not come into the Sabbath school? Many people think that as soon as they are married, they are released from the obligation of assisting in the Sabbath school. But I do not understand this to be one of the immunities of matrimony. As well might they plead that in discharge of the obligation to every species of gooddoing. Such might, at least, postpone this apology till the cares of a family have come upon them. And even then, I wonder how many hours of the Sabbath are devoted to the instruction of their children, by those parents who make the necessity of attending to the religious culture of their families, an apology for not entering the Sabbath school: and I wonder if their children could not be attended to in other hours than those usually occupied in Sabbath school instruction; and thus, while they are not neglected, other children, who have no parents that care for their souls, receive a portion of their attention. I think this not impossible.

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But perhaps you say, "There are enough others to teach in the Sabbath school." There would not be enough-there would not be any, if all were like you. But it is a mistake; there are not enough others. You are wanted. Some five or six children, of whom Christ has said, "Suffer them to come to me," will grow up without either learning or religion, unless you become a teacher. Are all the children in the place where you live gathered into the Sabbath school? Are there none that still wander on the Lord's-day, illiterate and irreligious? Is there a competent number of teachers in the existing schools, so that more would rather be in the way than otherwhere I live, there are boys and girls enough, ay, wise? I do not know how it is where you live, but too many, who go to no Sabbath school. It is only for a teacher to go out on the Sabbath, and he readily collects a class of children willing to attend; and where I reside, there are not teachers enough for the scholars already collected. Some classes are without a teacher; and presently the children stay away, because, they say, they come to the school, and there is no one to attend to them. He who said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not," knows this; and he knows who of" his sacramental host" might take charge of these children, and do not. They say every communion season, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and the Lord replies, "Suffer little children to come unto me." And there the matter ends.

But I hear one say, "I was once a teacher." And do you not blush to own that you became weary in this species of well-doing? "But I think I taught How long did you teach? Till there long enough." were no more to learn? Till you could teach no longer? Are you dead? If not, you are resting from your labours rather prematurely. This excuse resembles one which I heard of, as from a lady of wealth, who, having for several years been a subscriber to the Bible Society, at length ordered her name to be struck off, alleging that she thought she The world was not supplied: oh, no, not even the had done her part towards disseminating the Bible! country; and her means were not exhausted. But she had done her part! Had she done what she could? The woman whom Jesus commended "had done what she could." But this is a digression.

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But one says, "I want the Sabbath for myselffor rest and for improvement." And who does not? Are you busily employed all the week? So are some of our most faithful teachers. You ought to be diligent in business" during the days of the week. "Six days shalt thou labour." "But is there any rest in Sabbath school teaching?" The soul finds some of its sweetest rest in the works of mercy, and often its richest improvement in the care to improve others.

But perhaps you say, though with some diffidence you express this objection, that you belong to a circle in society whose members are not accustomed to teach in the Sabbath school. Do you mean that you are above the business? You must be exceedingly elevated in life to be above the business of gratuitously communicating the knowledge of God to the young and ignorant. You must be exalted above the very throne of God itself, if you are 66 But I should have above caring for poor children. to mingle with those beneath me in rank." Ah, I supposed that Christianity had'destroyed the distinction of rank; not indeed by depressing any, but by elevating all. Should Christians, all cleansed by the same blood and Spirit, treat other Christians as

common?

"But I am not qualified to teach." If you are not

in reality, you should undertake teaching for the sake of learning. The best way to learn any thing, is to teach it. If you really think yourself not qualified, your very humility goes far towards qualifying

you.

"Oh, it is too laborious: there is so much selfdenial in it." And do I hear a disciple of Christ complaining of labour and self-denial, when these are among the very conditions of discipleship? Is the disciple above his Master? Can you follow Christ without going where he went? And went he not about doing good? Pleased he himself?

Ah, I know what is the reason of this deficiency of Sabbath school teachers, and I will speak it out. It is owing to a deplorable want of Christian benevolence in them who profess to be Christ's followers. They lack the love that is necessary to engage one in this labour of love. They have no heart for the work.-Nevins.

GOD WILL RIGHT HIMSELF.

THE SUDDEN DEATH OF A SON.

NINE REASONS FOR RESIGNATION.

To Mistress Craig, upon the death of her hopeful son,
who was drowned while bathing in a river in
France.

You have so learned Christ as now in the furnace
what dross, what shining of faith may appear, must
come forth. I heard of the removal of your son, Mr
Thomas. Though I be dull enough in discerning, yet!
I was witness to some spiritual savouriness of the
new birth and hope of the resurrection, which I saw
in the hopeful youth, when he was, as was feared,
a-dying in this city. And, since it was written and
advisedly appointed, in the spotless and holy decree
of the Lord, where, and before what witnesses, and
in what manner, whether by a fever, the mother:
being at the bed, or by some other way in a far
country (dear patriarchs died in Egypt, precious to
the Lord, have wanted burials), your safest way will
be, to be silent, and command the heart to utter no
repining and fretting thoughts of the holy dispensa

tion of God.

1. The man is beyond the hazard of dispute; the precious youth is perfected and glorified.

2. Had the youth lain year and day pained beside a witnessing mother, it had been pain and grief lengthened out to you in many portions, and every|| parcel would have been a little death; now his holy Majesty hath, in one lump and mass, brought to your ears the news, and hath not divided the grief into many portions.

LET us avoid sin, as much as we may. And, though we cannot stay ourselves from going in, let us stay ourselves from going on: lest our God complain against us. If we make him sorrowful for a time, he can make us sorrowful for ever. If we anger him, he can anger all the veins of our hearts. If, instead of serving God by our obedience, we make him serve with our sins, he will make us serve with his plagues; if we drive God to call a convocation of heaven, and earth" Hear, O heaven! hearken, O earth; I have nourished children, and they have rebelled against me;" if he call on the mountains to hear his controversy, he will make us call on the mountains to help and hide our misery. "And they said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us," &c. If we put God to his querelam, controversy, and make him a plaintive, to enter his suit against us; he will put us to a complaint indeed. "Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish." He will force us to repent the time and deeds that ever made him to repent that he made us. He will strike us with such a blow, that there needeth no doubling of it. "He will make angripe, when it was fastened sure on your part, I know utter end; destruction shall not rise up the second time." As Abishai would have stricken Saul, at once, "And I will not smite him the second time."

We cannot so wrong God, that he is deprived of power to right himself. His first complaint is (as I may say) in tears; his second in blood. I have read of Tamerlane, that the first day of his siege was honoured with his white colours, the second with fatal red, but the third with final black. God is not so quick and speedy in punishment; nor come his judgments with such precipitation. Nineveh after so many forties of years, shall have yet forty days. He that at last came, with his fan in his hand, and fanned but eight grains of good corn, out of a whole barn full of chaff, a whole world of people, gave them the space of one hundred and twenty years' repentance. If Jerusalem will not hear Christ's words, they shall feel his hands. They that are deaf to his voice, shall not be insensible to his blows. He that may not be heard, will be felt.

3. It was not yesterday's thought, nor the other year's statute; but a counsel of the Lord of old: and "who can teach the Almighty knowledge?"

4. There is no way of quieting the mind, and of! silencing the heart of a mother, but godly submission The readiest way for peace and consolation to clay vessels is, that it is a stroke of the Potter and Former of all things; and since the holy Lord hath loosed the

that your light, and I hope that your heart also, will yield. It is not safe to be at pulling and drawing with the omnipotent Lord. Let the pull go with him, for he is strong; and say, "Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."

5. His holy method and order are to be adored: sometimes the husband before the wife, and some times the son before the mother; so hath the only wise God ordered; and when he is sent before, and not lost, in all things give thanks.

6. Meditate not too much on the sad circumstances -the mother was not witness to the last sigh-possibly, cannot get leave to win the son, nor to weep over his grave; and he was in a strange land. There is a like nearness to heaven out of all the countries of the earth.

7. This did not spring out of the dust. Feed and grow fat by this medicine and fare of the only wise Lord. It is the art and the skill of faith to read what the Lord writeth upon the cross, and to spell and

I AM WEARY.

construct right his sense; often we miscall words and sentences of the cross, and either put nonsense on his rods, or burden his Majesty with slanders and mistakes, when he mindeth for us thoughts of peace and love, even to do us good in the latter end.

8. It is but a private stroke on a family, and little to the public arrows shot against grieved Joseph, and the afflicted, but, ah! dead, senseless, and guilty people of God. This is the day of Jacob's trouble!

9. There is a bad way of wilful swallowing of a temptation, and not digesting it, or laying it out of memory without any victoriousness of faith. The Lord, who forbiddeth fainting, forbiddeth also despising. But it is easier to counsel than to suffer: the only wise Lord furnish patience. It were not amiss to call home the other youth.

I am not a little afflicted for my Lady Kenmure's condition. I desire you, when ye see her, to remember my humble respects to her. My wife heartily remembereth her to you; and is wounded much in mind with your present condition, and suffereth with

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EVERY-DAY WRETCHEDNESS.

Do we wonder at the wretchedness obtruding itself amidst the bustling magnificence of our great towns? A slight insight into the mental and moral destitution of the neglected classes would remove our surprise at their defects, and lead us to wonder rather that, with such associations, so much of a fine humanity yet remains amongst them.

I see now a squalid mother with four children by her side, whom she loves like a savage. She wears the rags of a widow's weeds; she lives by the compassion of passers-by, who fling her pence to avoid the pain of her presence; she cannot smile, and never had any reason to do so; her heart is strong in the feeling of fatality; she doubts not that her wretchedness is the inevitable appointment of a Power whose name she has never heard but in blasphemy, and with which the idea of love would be the most unlikely association. Her husband died in an hospital, where a medical student gave him a tract which he could not read, and whispered at last, in his dying ear, of Jesus and the resurrection; and in death the man wept and wondered that such words had never reached his ear before. His parents and his wife's parents were vagabonds and outcasts, and it was never known that any of their generation I could read. The creed of the Egyptians under the Pharaohs was a creed of light, compared to the pal. pable darkness of their minds. That haggard widow can only be a whispering beggar in the metropolis of calculation and commerce. What wonder! Two little girls creep feebly by her side; their faces are livid, and withered, and sad; they will soon die. The baby on her bosom is also wasting away. But the diminutive boy, about nine years old, standing

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at the corner, begging of those speechless ladies with feathered bonnets, has some vigour in him; he was born when his mother's heart was warmer, and his father was drudging on with some hope in his ignorance. That boy will, if left alone, probably be a thief, and come to the gallows, or be sent to Norfolk Island. He is shrewd, quick, sensitive, and already heroic in his efforts to cheat mankind, whom he supposes to be all against him. How shall that child be improved? He dwells in the midst of uncleanness and cruelty, catching the contagion of sin | from the expression of almost every face, and he is in sympathy with polluted humanity in every form. How shall that susceptible young being be transformed in the spirit of his mind, so as to grow godlike, while all the influences about him tend to make and keep him hideous within? Educate-educate; stamp burning truth upon his soul; show him that you are in sympathy with heaven; impress the character of Jesus on his mind; let him feel the Saviour's love in yours; let him see how you adore actively, because the Maker of worlds, and of souls and of! bodies, is pledged to redeem us from all evil. Teach him the Lord's Prayer; bid him look abroad upon the universe of light, and give him the key to its glories; give him knowledge, and you will then furnish him with motive for behaving as if he might| hope to become an heir of God. That boy may be either a Barabbas or a Barnabas. Under the guardian influence of Christian associations, and the spirit that unites souls in the love of a glorified Master, who was once crucified for them, the incarnated inheritance of evil would be exchanged by that boy for a godly heritage; and, instead of growing up as an Arab amongst men, he would be able to smile like an angel, even if they should stone him, for he would still look into heaven and pray for them.Dr Moore.

I AM WEARY.

WEARY of pursuing objects which I can never overdiversions and sports. I was soon wearied of one, take. In childhood, I wearied myself in childish and asked for another. I wanted something new. Every new amusement or toy was the best, but it soon became old, and ceased to satisfy. I wanted "something else." When grown to youth, I was scarcely less a child, and none the less wearied than formerly. I sought a new class of pleasures, and had an increase of dreamy plans for future life; but found myself no more satisfied with anything attained, and no less restless in the pursuit of something just before me, than when I was a little child. If I acquired one desired thing, I had scarcely begun to enjoy it then I had no rest, but must straightway be off in hot before a new object glittered in the distance, and pursuit, and not one in a thousand of the glowing things which dazzled my eyes ever came to my pos session. So has it been, more or less, through my whole life. I have wearied myself in the pursuit of Will-with-the-wisps, or in hunting for air castles and fairy lands, far more than in prudent labour for substantial good. I have left valuable realities to chase after "airy nothings."

Weary of pursuing what is not worth the pains

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