him to improper places. This plan, too, not succeeding, he offered to lend him money, in the hope, it is supposed, of entangling him, and getting him into his power, and at the same time causing him to lose the confidence and countenance of his Protestant friends. By the grace of God, Francisco was enabled to escape the snares thus laid for him, and to resist all the wicked and cunning schemes of Popery to pervert his principles, entangle him in its meshes, and involve him in ruin. But though disappointed and hitherto foiled, the agent of Popery determined to make one effort more. He called with a cab for Francisco, and invited, pressed him, to take a drive with him. This Francisco absolutely declined, and he began now to be seriously alarmed at the persevering attentions of his Popish countryman. In this alarm his friends in London in some measure participated. When the unscrupulous means which Popery is known to employ for accomplishing her ends are considered, it is not surprising that fears began to be entertained for poor Francisco's safety. Once in the hands of the agents of Popery, the poor stranger, who could neither speak nor understand a word of our language, could easily be disposed of so as to cause no farther trouble as a convert to Protestantism, and a witness for the truth. Francisco dreaded lest he should be kidnapped. Under this fear he refused to leave the house, and became very sad and dispirited. In this state Dr. Kalley found him when he came to England in July 1845. Right glad was poor Francisco to see again his old friend and teacher. Arrangements were now made for his leaving England, and in a few weeks he sailed from London to occupy a sphere of labour in the far distant land to which he had been called.

PREACHING CHRIST.*

BY THE REV. JAMES SHERMAN.

DEAR BROTHER, let Christ have a prominent place in your sermons. Rather be accused of sameness, tautology, and wandering from your subject, than fail to introduce him. Why, he is the bread of life, on which starving souls are to feed, and hunger no more-the water of life, which thirsty souls are to drink, and never die; he is the "tree of life," under which weary souls are to repose, and find his fruit sweet to their taste. Omit him, and you cease to be a good minister of Jesus Christ. Rather adopt the language of Paul as your motto: "Whom we preach, warning every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus."

From a useful selection, for ministers and preachers, just published, by the Rev. Dr. Burns of London.

Oh! shall

you:

May I say, Whom should you preach but Christ? and came from heaven on an errand of mercy for Brother, he laid aside his robes of light and glory, you: he assumed human flesh, took upon him the form of a servant, and tabernacled on earth for he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, to save your precious but sinful soul: he gave you his good Spirit, called you out of darkness into his marvellous light, counted you honour he can confer upon a mortal-and he intends faithful, and put you into the ministry-the highest to purify and glorify you, and keep you for ever in his presence in mansions of eternal peace and joy! about him? Why, his very name, as Bernard says, you ever need any exhortation to preach should be "honey in your mouth, melody in your ear. and a jubilee in your heart." The very stones would cry out against you, if you should hold your peace, and not magnify Christ with the best member that you have. Therefore, let the deity and glory of Christ, which, like a mine of gold, runs through the whole of Scripture; the atonement of Christ, which is the basis of a sinner's hope; and the example of Christ, the perfect model of a saint's deportmentbe the leading and constant topics of your ministry. Faithfulness to your commission, and love to your Master, demand that you should" fully preach the Gospel of Christ."

Do not be afraid of introducing the distinguishing doctrines of the Gospel often into your sermons. Many pious ministers, from a dread of Antinomianism, that worst of Satan's heresies, spreading among their sparingly, mentioned the truths which are the great congregations, have occasionally only, and then very source and motive of all evangelical holiness. But the apostles did not so preach Christ. They preached the doctrines practically, and the precepts evangelically. They based practice upon doctrine. From what in modern language would be termed the high doctrines, they drew the most powerful incentives to holiness.

Will preaching the sovereign love of God, lead men to sin against him?" According as he hath chosen us in him, that we should be holy, and without blame before him in love "-"We are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, be loved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth."

Will the finished salvation of Christ ?—No; it is represented as producing similar fruits: "Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all ini quity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zeslous of good works." Will the doctrine of justification by faith in the imputed righteousness of Christ? -Our Saviour publishes the doctrine of justification, as a motive to abstinence from sin: "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more." Licentiousness cannot abound among your hearers if you thus preact applied to the conscience by irresistible motives, pro The doctrines will necessarily, when thus practically¦ duce the most correct morality. As Bishop Horne beautifully remarks, " To preach practical sermons, as they are called-i. e., sermons upon vices and vir tues-without inculcating those great Scripture truths of redemption and grace, which alone can excite and enable us to forsake sin and follow after righteousness; what is it but to put together the wheels and set the hands of a watch, forgetting the spring which find in the Bible, dear brother, preach. It will not is to make them all go?" Whatever, therefore, you be necessary that you should give undue prominence to offensive truths, or that you should confine yourself to the phraseology of particular schools; but, far as in you lies, preach the whole counsel of God.

Then, as Robert Hall eloquently remarks, "a morality more elevated and pure than is to be met with in the pages of Seneca and Epictetus will breathe through your sermons, founded on a basis which every understanding can comprehend, and enforced by sanctions which nothing but the utmost stupidity can despise; a morality, of which the love of God, and a devoted attachment to the Redeemer, are the plastic soul, which pervading every limb, and expressing itself in every lineament of the new creature, gives it a beauty all his own. As it is the genuine fruit of just and affecting views of divine truth, you will never sever it from its parent stock, nor indulge in the fruitless hope of leading men to holiness, without strongly imbuing them with the spirit of the Gospel. Truth and holiness are in the Christian system so intimately allied, that the warm and faithful inculcation of the one lays the whole foundation for the other."

BY THE REV. J. A. JAMES.

PREACH CHRIST.-The pulpit is intended to be a pedestal for the cross, though, alas! even the cross itself, it is to be feared, is sometimes used as a mere pedestal for the preacher's fame. We may roll the thunders of eloquence, we may dart the coruscations of genius, we may scatter the flowers of poetry, we may diffuse the light of science, we may enforce the precepts of morality from the pulpit; but if we do not make Christ the great subject of our preaching, we have forgotten our errand, and shall do no good. Satan trembles at nothing but the cross: at this he does tremble; and if we would destroy his power, and extend that holy and benevolent kingdom, which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, it must be by means of the CROSS.

CHRIST CRUCIFIED.-Yes! give me but a barn, the very shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral, and give me a Iman who shall preach Christ crucified, with something of the energy, which the all-inspiring theme is calculated to awaken; and in spite of the meanness of the one, and the magnificence of the other, you shall see the former crowded with the warm and pious hearts of living Christians, while the matins and vespers of the latter, if the Gospel be not preached there, shall be chanted to the cold and cloistered statues of the mighty dead.

BY THE REV. DR. CHALMERS.

I cannot but record the effect of an actual though undesigned experiment which I prosecuted for upwards of twelve years. For the greater part of that time, I could expatiate on the means of dishonesty-on the villany of falsehood-on the despicable arts of calumny-in a word, upon all those deformities of character which awaken the natural indignation of the human heart against the pests and disturbers of human society. Now, could I, upon the strength of these warm expostulations, have got the thief to give up his stealing, and the evil speaker his censoriousness, and the liar his deviations from truth, I should have felt all the repose of one who had gotten his ultimate object. It never occurred to me, that all this might have been done, and yet the soul of every hearer have remained in full alienation from God; and that even could I have established in the bosom of one who stole, such a principle of abhorrence at the meanness of dishonesty, that he was prevailed upon to steal no more, he might still have retained a heart as completely unturned to God, and as totally unpossessed by a principle of love to him, as before. In a word, though I might have made him a more upright and honourable man, I might have left him as destitute of the essence of religious principle as But the interesting fact is, that during the

ever.

461

whole of that period in which I made no attempt against the natural enmity of the mind to God; while I was inattentive to the way in which this enmity is dissolved, even by the free offer on the one hand, and the believing acceptance on the other, of the Gospel salvation; while Christ, through whose blood the sinner, who by nature stands afar off, is brought nigh to the heavenly Lawgiver whom he has offended, was scarcely ever spoken of, or spoken of in such a way as stripped him of all the importance of his character and his offices: even at this time I certainly did press the reformation of honour, and truth, and integrity among my people; but I never once heard of any such reformations having been effected amongst them. If there was anything at all brought about in this way, it was more than ever I got any account of. I am not sensible that all the vehemence with which I urged the virtues and the proprieties of social life, had the weight of a feather on the moral habits of my parishioners. And it was not till I got impressed by the utter alienation of the heart in all its desires and affections from God; it was not till reconciliation to him became the distinct and the prominent object of my ministerial exertions; it was not till I took the scriptural way of laying the method of reconciliation before them; it was not till the free offer of forgiveness through the blood of Christ was urged upon their acceptance, and the Holy Spirit given who ask him, was set before them as the unceasing through the channel of Christ's mediatorship to all object of their dependence and their prayers; it was not, in one word, till the contemplations of my people were turned to these great and essential elements God, and the concerns of its eternity, that I ever heard in the business of a soul providing for its interest with aforetime made the earnest and the zealous, but I of any of those subordinate reformations which I am afraid at the same time, the ultimate, object of my earlier ministrations.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A MISSIONARY. (From the Presbyterian Missionary Chronicle.) It was a very hot day in August 184-, and I was lying on a couch suffering from debility induced by the heat of a tropical summer. While thus reclining, the physician of the place, a serious and moral man, but at that time making no professions of piety, called to see me. He said he had a patient recently brought from a neighbouring city, and dangerously ill of a disease at that time prevailing, who expressed a wish to see an evangelical clergyman; and that he (the physician) would be much pleased if I would call on him. I went immediately, and on being shown into the sick-room, found a young-looking man, who held out his hand and expressed much gratification that I had called. His Bible was lying on a chair at his bedside, and it was not many minutes before he had told me fully and frankly his state and feelings. He was the son of a pious man, who had done much for the cause of missions in his own land. He himself had united with the Church in his youth, and for several years maintained a fair character, and thought himself a Christian. Of late, however, and especially since coming to this heathen land, he had greatly backslidden, and, as he said, had so far forgotten his While in this profession as to fall into open sin.

state he was attacked with a disease which had

already proved fatal to several persons; and though

there was at first nothing very alarming in his own case, yet it had aroused him to think on his ways, and the Spirit of God seemed to have brought his sins strongly to his remembrance.

When I saw him he was in great distress, fearing lest he had committed the unpardonable sin, and that there could be no hope for him. A few minutes' conversation showed that the instructions of his excellent father had sunk deep into his heart, and that he was tolerably well acquainted with the doctrines of religion, so that it was an easy and a pleasant duty to give him the instructions his case required. Doubtless there are those in our days who commit a sin for which there is no repentance, and for which we are not commanded to pray; but there was no evidence that such was his case, and on this point his mind was relieved. He feared, however, that he was not one of the elect could there be hope for him? I told him my belief in the doctrine of election was as firm as my belief in my own existence; but God's secret decrees were not the rule of our faith and practice. Repent and believe, and be saved; let him make his calling sure, and the question of his election need not trouble his mind. To this he freely assented, and then, with tears in his eyes, and the utmost earnestness, asked if I thought it possible God could or would forgive so vile a backslider as himself. Taking up his Bible, I opened it at the beautiful passage in the 14th chapter of Hosea: "Take with you words, and turn unto the Lord: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously," &c., and read and explained the whole chapter. Never did it appear so rich and precious to my own soul, and the sick man heard it with entranced attention. When it was finished, he exclaimed, "What precious words these are! Will you not pray with me?" After prayer, and a little further conversation, I left him, promising to see him again in the evening.

About sunset I called again, and found his disorder making rapid progress, so that occasionally he seemed to be wandering in mind. But his thoughts were on his soul's concerns, and towards Christ; his mind was calmer than when I first saw him, and though he expressed much fear of death, yet he seemed to apprehend fully that the grace of Christ was his only refuge, and I could not but hope that his faith was fixed on the Saviour; and with a mind much lightened in regard to him, I returned to my room. The exposure and exertions of the day, in my weak state, were too much for me, and a sleepless night left me with but little strength in the morning. As the day proved stormy, it seemed imprudent to venture out, and accordingly I wrote a note to the physician, requesting him to inform me if his patient should wish for me, as otherwise I could scarcely leave the house. The kind-hearted physician himself had some conversation with him, and finding him (in the intervals of his delirium), to be much more peaceful, and apparently hopeful, did not send for me. He died in the night, and when I called early the next morning I found him laid out, with an expression of countenance like one who had gone in peace.

Among strangers, we buried him in a stranger's grave; for, excepting the physician and myself,

there were none in the place who knew him. He had but recently arrived in this country; and, as we found in a day or two after, his partner died of the same disease on the same day.

Soon after his death I wrote to his mother (his father being dead) an account of his last moments, and of the hope I had that he had found the great salvation. Several months passed away, and amidst other events, the above was almost forgotten, when one day a small package from a distant land came into my hands. It contained a beautiful copy of the memoir of Mr. M'Cheyne, and a note breathing "the most heartfelt gratitude,” and the assurance of "earnest and constant prayer for my welfare." For some reason unknown to me, the writer wished to be unknown; but I could not avoid associating her (for it was a lady's hand) with the person spoken of above. Is it not true that bread cast upon the waters is found after many days; and that often in a way not anticipated? The parents of that young man "bestowed much labour" in forwarding the cause of missions, and the dying hours of their son were cheered and consoled in a strange land by a missionary of a different country, and a different denomination. I went in weakness to visit him, without a thought of reward; but how often has the thought cheered me since, that in a distant land there is one (or more) whom I have never seen, whose fervent prayers are offered up on my behalf.

JOHN BAPTIST'S MESSAGE TO CHRIST.

BY THE REV. P. FAIRBAIRN, SALTON. "Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said unto him. Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another ?"-MATT. xi. 2, 3.

THIS message of John to Christ is so different from what we are naturally disposed to look for in John, that the great majority of commentators will not believe that he was properly the author of it; they think it must have proceeded from his disciples rather than himself, and that only for their satisfac tion did he allow the question to be submitted by them to Christ's consideration. This supposition, however, made for the purpose of saving John's credit at the expense of his disciples', derives no countenance from the words of the inspired historian. There the whole matter is referred to John himself, as distinctly as language could do it. He does not simply authorize the disciples to go, but sends them with words which he himself puts into their mouth; and the circumstance that led to his doing so was, not their, but his having heard in prison of the works which Christ was performing. Nor, when our Lord replied to the question put to him, did he seem to entertain the least idea that others, rather than John, were here concerned. On the contrary, as if to exclude the possibility of this supposition, he gives the reply a very pointed and personal applica tion: "Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see.” It is not conceivable that the mild and tender Jesus would have aggravated the