sternest opposition to expect, the moment the exten- I It would be impossible, within the limits to which we must confine ourselves, to enumerate the plans which they formed for the Mission, for translations of the Sacred Scriptures, and for education; or the obstacles which tried the strength of their principles. Neither is it possible to individualise Dr Marshman's efforts in every case; for so complete was the unity of their designs, that it seemed as if three great souls had been united in one, so as to have but one object, and to be imbued with one impulse. But with this unity of design there was necessarily a division of labour; and we may briefly state, therefore, the particular objects which engaged Dr Marshman's time and attention. In 1806, he applied himself diligently to the study of the Chinese language, and was enabled to publish a translation of the entire Scriptures, and a grammar in that tongue. The Lall Bazar chapel, erected at a time when the means of religious instruction in Calcutta were small, and when religious feeling was at so low an ebb, that even Martyn could not command on an evening a congregation of more than twenty, was mainly indebted for its existence to Dr Marshman's personal efforts. When the erection of it was suspended for lack of funds, he went about from house to house raising subscriptions for it; and for his pains was exhibited in masquerade, at an entertainment given to Lord Minto, as a "pious Missionary begging subscriptions." To him the Benevolent Institution in Cal " His friend Dr Leyden was present at the masqued ball; and as it was said that the subscription list was very full, Dr Marshman endeavoured to discover his representative, that he might ask for the funds; but Leyden would never disclose the nane; which led Dr Marshman to tell him, that there was more humour than honesty in the transaction. cutta was indebted for its birth and subsequent vigour. The idea of it was struck out when Dr Leyden, Dr Marshman, and Dr Hare were dining together; and the prospectus, drawn up by Dr Marshman, was carefully revised by Dr Leyden. He continued to act as secretary to the Institution, to the last moment in which his health permitted him to act. He was also associated with Dr Carey in the translation of the Ramayun into English, of which three volumes were published. To the plan of native schools he gave up much time and labour; and the valuable Hints,' which he published in the form of a pamphlet, just at the time when the first efforts were made for education in India, twentyone years ago, was deemed worthy of being incorporated with one of the leading publications in England. In 1826 he revisited England, after an absence of twenty-seven years, and travelled through the United Kingdom, endeavouring by his public addresses, and in private conversation, to urge on the cause of missions; and there are many now in India to whom this notice will recal, with a melancholy pleasure, the warmth and animation which he was the means of communicating to their minds on that subject. He visited Denmark, and was graciously received by his Majesty Frederick the Sixth, to whose steady and uninterrupted protection the Mission may be said to have been indebted for its existence, when assailed by the British Government. His Majesty was pleased to grant a charter of incorpora. tion to Serampore College, upon Dr Marshman's petition. He returned to Serampore in May 1829, and joined Dr Carey and his associates in superintending the Mission under the new form of an independent association, which it had acquired. In June, 1834, he was deprived of his venerable friend and colleague, with whom he had been permitted to act for thirty-five years. He bore the separation with more firmness than was expected; but the dissolution of such a union, cemented by the noblest of all undertakings, and sanctified by time, made a deep and visible impression on his mind. All the veneration and affection of his younger associates could not fill up the void created by the loss of Dr Carey. He appeared among us as the solitary relic of a past age of great men. The activity of his mind, however, though with occasional interruptions, continued till the mind itself appeared to be worn out. The calamity which befel his daughter, Mrs Havelock, at Landour, in October 1837, produced a severe shock to his feelings, which, added to increasing infirmities, brought him gradually lower and lower. About six weeks before his death, he was taken out on the river by the advice of Dr Nicholson and Dr Voigt, but his constitution was exhausted. Yet when the excitement of this short excursion, which was extended to Fort Gloster, had given him a small return of strength, both bodily and mental, the energy of former days seemed again to come over him, and he passed several days in arranging plans of usefulness, the accomplishment of which would have required years. At length, on Tuesday the 5th of December, be gently sunk to rest, without pain or sorrow, in the lively enjoyment of that hope which is full of immortality. His form was tall and athletic. His constitution appeared to be constructed of iron. He exposed himself to all the severities of an Indian climate with perfect impunity. He enjoyed, till within the last year of his life, such uninterrupted health as falls to the lot of few in India. During thirty-seven years he had not taken medicine to the value of ten rupees. The strength of the body seemed to be admirably adapted with the structure of his mind, to fit him for the long career of usefulness he was permitted to run. He was peculiarly remarkable for ceaseless industry. He usually rose at four, and despatched half the business of the day before breakfast. When extraordinary exertions appeared necessary, he seemed to have a per fect command over sleep, and has been known for days | together to take less than half his usual quantity of rest. His memory was great beyond that of most men. He recalled facts, with all their minute associations, with the utmost facility. This faculty he enjoyed to the last day of his existence. During the last month of his life, when unable even to turn on his couch without assistance, he dictated to his daughter, Mrs Voigt, his recollections of the early establishment of the Mission at Serampore, with a clearness and minuteness perfectly astonishing. The vast stores of knowledge which he had laid up in early life, and to which he was making constant addition, rendered his personal intercourse in society a great enjoyment. His manners and deportment, particularly towards his inferiors, were remarkable for amenity and humility. To his family he was devoted almost to a fault, so that his enemies found in this subject a fertile field for criminationwith what generosity of feeling let every parent judge. During a union of more than forty-six years, he was the most devoted of husbands, and as the father of a family of twelve children, of whom only six lived to an age to appreciate his worth, and only five survived to deplore his loss, he was the most affectionate of parents. The leading trait of his character, more especially in the earlier part of his career, was energy and firmThis, combined with a spirit of strong perseverance, enabled him to assist in carrying out into effect those large views which he and his colleagues delighted to indulge in. His piety was deep and genuine. His religious sentiments were without bigotry. But the most distinguishing feature in his life was his ardent uess. zeal for the cause of missions. This zeal never for a was, moment suffered any abatement, but seemed to gather strength from every new difficulty. The precious cause, as he latterly denominated it, occupied his dying thoughts as it had occupied his living exertions; and the last question which he asked of those around him "Can you think of any thing I can yet do for it?" This zeal was united with a degree of pecuniary disinterestedness which has seldom been surpassed. He considered it bis greatest privilege that God had enabled him to lay on the altar of his cause so large a contribution from his own labours. With the means of amassing an ample fortune, he did not leave behind him, of all his own earnings in India for thirty-eight years, more than the amount of a single year's income of his seminary in its palmy days. We owe some apology for the length to which this notice has been extended; but the subject scarcely admitted of our saying less. To some, even this lengthened memorial of the last survivor of the three men who were, under God, the means of giving a spiritual and intellectual impulse to India, which will be felt during the present century, will not be displeasing; while others may possibly find some excuse for the length to which filial veneration has extended a tribute of affection, for one to whom the writer is indebted for whatever can be deemed valuable in life. THE DUTY WHICH CHILDREN OWE TO THEIR PARENTS: BY THE REV. ROBERT S. CANDLISH, A.M., (Continued from p. 171.) which should lead you to discharge your obligation to your parents, is declared to be the authority of God," Honour thy father and thy mother, because, or inasmuch as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee." According to the other view, the same consideration of the divine authority furnishes a measure of the obligation which it enforces," Honour thy father and thy mother, in the way and manner in which the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to honour them." The first of these views has been already illustrated. The second remains to be considered. you owe to your parents, may be gathered partly II. The extent of the duty which, as children, from a review of some of the particular precepts and instances in Holy Scripture on this subject, and partly from the application of the general principle of this direction, " honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee." God is very full and explicit in its precepts and 1. On the subject of filial duty, the Word of examples. Thus, (1.) respect, reverence, in heart, speech, and behaviour, is strongly enjoined. "Ye shall fear every man his father and his mother." Levit. xix. 3. Of the children of the virtuous her blessed." Prov. xxxi. 28. woman it is said, "that they arise up and call And it is recorded of Joseph at the court of Egypt, "that he bowed himself with his face to the earth" before his aged father. Gen. xlviii. 12-and of Solomon, the king, that he rose up to meet his mother, when she came to him, "and bowed himself to her, and caused her to sit at his right hand.” 1 Kings ii. 19. On the other hand, all irreverence, in thought, word, or deed, is awfully denounced. "Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or mother; and all the people shall say, Amen." Deut. xxvii. 16. shall be put out in obscure darkness." Prov. xxviii. "Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp 24. "There is an evil generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother." Prov. xxx. 11. Thus you are to honour your father and your mother, by giving to them your respect, your reverence. (2.) Obedience also is enjoined, obedience both active and passive. You are to do the will of your parents. You are to submit to their chastisements. dren, the instruction of a father." Prov. iii. 1. Hear, ye chil"My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother." Prov. i. 8. The Lord Jesus went down with Joseph and Mary to Nazareth, and was subject to them, thus magnifying this commandment of the law under which, as born of a woman, he was made. the other hand, it is specially mentioned as one of the saddest features of the last times, that men shall be "disobedient to parents." 2 Tim. iii. 2. 66 On “Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy It is stated as the great sin of the sons of Eli, God hath commanded thee."-DEUT V. 16. THE latter clause of this text, may be regarded either, I. As assigning the ground or reason of the duty enjoined in the first clause; or, II. as fixing its extent. In the former view of it, the motive and the immediate occasion of their destruction, "that they hearkened not to the voice of their father," when he remonstrated most affectionately with them. 1 Sam. ii. 25. "The eye that mocketh at his father, and refuseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the | tion is allowed; no room left for any reservation. young eagles shall eat it." Prov. xxx. 17-such is the awful sanction by which the right of a mother as well as a father to obedience is enforced. Nor may their right to require submission to their chastisements be questioned. "We have had fathers of our flesh," says the apostle, (Heb. xii. 9,) "which corrected us, and we gave them reverence;" we were bound to do so, even though they may have chastened us, "after their own pleasure" more than "for our profit." A fearful doom, accordingly, was denounced, in the law, "against a stubborn and rebellious son, who would not obey the voice of his father nor the voice of his mother, and who when they chastened him, would not hearken unto them." He was brought before the elders, and the men of his city stoned him to death. Deut. xxi. 18. (3.) Finally, it is a part of filial duty, to show all fidelity and render all good offices to parents. Thus Joseph made provision for his father's old age; and it is said of him "who wasteth his father, or who robbeth his father or mother, that he causeth shame, and is a companion of destroyers." Prov. xix. 26; xxviii. 24. Again, "Hearken unto the voice of thy father, and despise not thy mother when she is old." Prov. xxiii. 22. Our Lord accordingly indignantly exposes the iniquity of those who, under pretence of devoting it to a sacred purpose, withheld their substance from their parents, Matt. xv. 4; and the Apostle Paul particularly gives directions regarding a poor widow having children; before receiving help from any other quarter, "let her children learn first to show piety at home, and to requite their parents." 1 Tim. v. 4. Such are the claims of parents on their children. Nor will the infirmity or fault of parents excuse children from the duty of honouring them. The two sons of Noah did well when they decently covered their father's shame. The levity of Ham was cursed. To refuse to minister to a parent's comfort and credit; to aggravate his disgrace or embitter his loss, implies no trifling guilt. To proceed farther in violence is deadly sin, "for he that smiteth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death." Exod. xxi. 15. Thus frequent and emphatic are the testimonies of the Word of God to the duty of honouring your father and your mother, in all the ways in which they can be honoured, by reverence, by obedience, by services and offices: And thus terribly is the opposite offence judged. And let no man say that the obligation of this duty is at all relaxed or restricted by its being placed on a footing of subordination to the duty which you owe to God. On the contrary, 2. The general principle of this direction confirms the view of its extent, which these particular precepts and instances give. "Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee." The ground or reason of this duty is the commandment of God. The duty, therefore, must be as extensive as the commandment, which is altogether unlimited. No excep If, indeed, your filial duty rested on any other foundation, if you were to honour your father and your mother from other considerations, then there might be occasion to introduce into the general rule of reverence and submission, certain qualifying and modifying clauses. Thus, if you are to honour your parents, merely out of a sense of fitness and propriety, the fitness and propriety may often seem to point the other way. Circumstances may materially affect the relation in which you stand to your parents, and of these circumstances you must be entitled to judge. How, for instance, is it right or fitting, reasonable or proper, that you should yield respect and obedience to one, in many or in all things, your inferior? weak or unworthy; and, as you think, rather needing to be ruled than competent himself to rule? Again, if your duty rests upon natural affection, or a feeling of gratitude, and you acknowledge the claim which your parent's kindness gives him over you; may not that claim be forfeited in your esteem, or weakened, when that kindness is withdrawn? Have you not, in fact, found that in honouring your father and your mother, while you know them chiefly after the flesh alone, you are continually tempted thus to limit and qualify the duty? You do, indeed, intend to honour them, and on the whole you do not treat them with studied disrespect or disobedience. But, alas! in how many trifling instances of every-day occurrence, do you claim, on various pretences, a sort of exemption from the rendering of real and actual reverence? You omit some service, or some courtesy, or some attention, with which your parent might reasonably expect to be gratified. You give indulgence to some levity or folly which you know would displease him. But, he does not perceive the neglect: He does not notice the offence: There is no harm done to him; and you are not seriously to be blamed. Or, you are provoked by his treatment of you,-you deem yourselves harshly used,-you cannot but be vexed and angry, your looks are sullen,-your temper is dogged. Certainly you are not at that moment honouring your parent:-but it is his fault, and you cannot help it. Or, presuming on his easy and indulgent placability, you cease to stand in awe of his authority, and while you take unseemly and unwarrantable liberties, you plead in excuse that, he is encouraging you. Or, as you advance in years, you begin to cast off your former feelings of veneration and dependence; you affect now a superiority over one to whom you were wont fondly to cling, (but you can now do without his help;) you cease to cultivate his society or to seek his counsel as once you used to do; and all the while you justify your coldness and estrangement, as a natural effect, it may be, of your altered circumstances and relations, while after all your real love is not affected. Alas! there are too many causes which readily occur to explain, to your own satisfaction, your failure in rendering all that you owe to your parents, the decline of their influence than man. On this universal principle the special precept does not infringe. There are cases and questions, in which you must decline all human jurisdiction, when it comes into competition with the declared will of God. But still even these rare cases, these hard questions, do not ex and authority over you, and the diminished reverence with which you regard them. Indeed, on any principles of mere natural conscience or natural affection, it will not be easy to bring home to you, on account of such instances as these, any very poignant sense of guilt; for you readily persuade yourselves that if at any time, or in any re-empt you from the duty of honouring those spect, you honour not your father and your mother, with that entire cordiality with which you should honour, or with which you once honoured them, they and not you are changed, they and not you are responsible for the change, if, indeed, it be not wholly accidental and unavoidable. almost, on the cross, was spent in commending his mother to the disciple whom he loved. whose jurisdiction you are compelled to decline. You will honour them all the more on that very account. You will meekly receive their censure; yield to them a double homage in all things lawful; pray for them always; remembering the instance of the Lord Jesus, who did, indeed, set aside the interference of his mother in a matter But if now you know your parents, no longer concerning His heavenly Father's business, whose after the flesh merely, but as in the Lord, and if first miracle, however, was at that very time peryou honour them, not from any variable consider-formed, to oblige his mother, whose latest breath, ations of natural feeling, but from a regard to the Lord your God, then you honour them now consistently, constantly, unreservedly, at all times, The views suggested in these Discourses, of the and in all circumstances alike. In all your treat- duty which a child owes to his parent, may seem ment of them, you consider yourselves as dealing, to impart to the relation between them, too sanot chiefly or in the first instance with your father cred, too awful a character. Who is there who or your mother on-earth, but with your Father in may venture, on these terms, to regard himself as heaven. Oh! if you would but realize this thought, a pious son? Alas! your own hearts now conand carry it out into all your intercourse with demn you. Even according to the estimate which those to whom God has bound you so closely, natural sense and feeling prompt, it is a painful what a pure and holy fervour would it inspire into and bitter thought, to recal the past years of your all your sentiments of filial piety,-what profound intercourse with a father or a mother, long since, reverence, what generous devotion would uni- it may be, removed from your embrace. formly fill your souls,-how far removed from all many visions of offences and injuries, of kindthe changing influences of ordinary human re- nesses ill-requited, and pain wantonly inflicted, lationships would be the serene and heavenly does the sad day of separation draw out from their course of this divine affection! There would be long retreat! How sensitive does the conscience no eye-service then; no impatience,-no irritabi- become,-how tenderly alive the affections that lity, no resentment even of what may seem vex-long seemed dull and cold! O who can stand atious interference,-no honouring of your earthly, any more than your heavenly, father, with your lips, while your heart was far from him; no presumptuous taking advantage of his infirmity, no disingenuous pleading in regard to his real claims over you. You would recognise the command-ther, or a tender mother, is severed, by absence ment in all its breadth,-a commandment to the full and faithful observance of which, God especially binds you, inasmuch as he specially undertakes to reward you,—the first commandment with promise. Honour then your father and your mother; -heartily, honestly honour them. By all docility and respectful homage, by all affectionate and tender assiduities, by all submissive deference to their counsels and commands,-by meekness, lowliness, love, bearing their burdens, soothing their sorrows, covering even their sins,-not easily provoked to wrath, not soon wearied,-consulting their wishes, seeking always their peace, their honour, their best and highest good; by all these means, show your uniform, grateful, and dutiful sense of all that you owe to them for their own sakes, as well as in the Lord. "Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing Into the Lord." In all things. Make no exoption, no reserve,-save only one,-if, indeed, it be an exception. You ought to obey God rather How the knell of that deep sigh, which whispers in the startled ear a parent's buried wounds! They were silent long; but now each one of them has voice and utterance, and a tongue to move a very stone. When the tie which bound you to a venerable fa or by death, how much more sacred does the parental character appear in your esteem! Infirmities which you were wont to exaggerate, or at which, sometimes, your eye even mocked, now vanish from your sight. Claims once disregarded without a pang, now rise into gigantic magnitude. Instances of coldness or cruelty, which you once tried to justify, now stand out before you in awful prominence. You mourn, alas, as bitterly as vainly, over lost opportunities of repairing former wrongs,-over days of intimacy now gone to return no more. How gladly would you recal but one of their many hours, that you might be able to give one pledge, however brief, of the love and honour which now you feel as you never felt before. And if, in addition, the image of your parent rises to your view, not only clothed with his own beauty, but invested with the sacred authority which God has delegated to him, how keenly is your self-reproach aggravated! You feel that you have been very far indeed from duly recognising the holy nature and ends of this relation, which, The mountains tremble, and the deep to deep doth utter cry, Whilst "echo from her thousand caves" sends back a dread réply! Dark clouds and wind obscure the moon,-the timid stars in fear And wages long, with tempest-gust, the elemental war! of all that subsist on earth, comes nearest, in its character, to the high and pure majesty of heaven. Your father, your mother, now removed from this Euroclydon, with lightning haste, now mounts his viewless car, scene, which reflects its own familiar rudeness on whatsoever is most refined, and its own irreverence on whatsoever is most divine, appear, not as sharing along with you the faults and frailties of a corrupt world and an evil nature, but simply as your father, your mother, whom, independently Nor plead His promises in vain ;-aghast, though undismayed, altogether of these faults and frailties, God commanded you to honour. And the recollection of your intercourse with your parents, when you view them as passed into the rest of God, may well cut you to the heart, as you deeply feel how unworthy And summoned worlds shall trembling stand before the judgmentyour treatment of them has been, of what then they were, as well as of what they now are. may They call on Him whose mighty voice rebuked the angry wave,— If storms on earth are terrible, how terrible the hour seat! Now only is the time for aid,-seek now and thou shalt find Remembrance of thy special care on that eventful night; Belfast. WILLIAM M'Coмs. But why do we dwell on this awful theme? Not that the soul may be harrowed, or the affections torn, by fruitless remorse; but that a wholesome warning may be laid to heart. If it be indeed too late to remedy the evil,-if your parents The terrors of thy majesty,-the triumphs of thy grace. are already taken from you,-still it may not be useless to cherish these solemn thoughts. You may be the sadder on account of them, but you will be the wiser and the better. It is good that your sin should find you out now. It lead you to a deeper searching of your ways, and may issue in a better adjustment of your relation to the great God in heaven, and to those of your own people among whom you still dwell on earth. And if you have still the opportunity of applying the lesson which such retrospection teaches, if the old man, your father, is yet alive, let it be your frequent, your constant habit, to anticipate, amid the days of your sojourn together, the sad period of your separation. Look forward to the hour which must soon come to part you. And ask yourselves, in regard to all your dealings with him, how what you are now doing will look, when you take a view of it across the intervening solemnity of the tomb. The anguish of bereavement will, in itself, be sufficiently intense. Let it not he embittered by any thing in your conduct now, on which will be compelled then to cast back a self-accusing eye. Let your devout prayers your father and your mother, let your pious services, and your kindly offices, be such as may soothe their spirits while they live, and, by the blessing of God, minister some comfort to your souls, when they are gone before you to their long home, some good hope, through grace, that they and you may again be reunited, where all sorrow and all sin are unknown. CHRISTIAN TREASURY. Assurance. As for assurance, I cannot but think all who are truly converted must know that there was a time in which they closed with Christ; but then, as so many have died only with a humble hope, and have been even under doubts and fears, though they could not but be looked upon as Christians, I am less positive than once I was, lest haply I should condemn some of God's dear children. The farther we go in the spiritual life, the more cool and rational shall we be, and yet more truly zealous. I speak this from experience.WHITEFIELD. you Knowledge and Ignorance-As there is a folly in wit, so there is a wisdom in ignorance. I would not be ignorant in a necessary knowledge, nor wise above wisdom. If I know enough, I am wise enough; if I seek more, I am foolish.-WARWICK. (Spare Minutes.) Of the Measure of Cares.-It is fit there should be a limit to human cares; otherwise they are unprofit able by oppressing the mind and confounding the reason; and profane, as savouring of a spirit which promises to itself a sort of perpetuity in the things of the world. For we ought to be of to-day, on account of the shortness of life; and not of to-morrow; but for using, as some one has said, the present things, for the future will be present in their turn; so that the care of present things is enough. Moderate cares, indeed, whether they be of family, or of the public, or of things fold. First, when we extend the series or succession intrusted, are not stigmatized. But the excess is twoof our cares to an over-length and remoteness of time; as if by our preparation we could bind down the Divine Providence; which, even among the heathen, was ever held as ill-fated and presumptuous, was commonly received, that those who attributed much to fortune, and were awake and ready for present opportunities, were eminently successful. But such as seemed of a deeper prudence and design, and who trusted that they had well considered and provided for all things, were unfortunate. The second excess in our cares is, where we delay longer than is For it AWAKE! awake! ye slumbering ones, strange sounds are in the sky, fit making our complete deliberation, and coming to a As if the brazen gates of heaven were opened suddenly! The reeling earth,-the heaving sea,-the blast's continued roar, — resolve. For who is there amongst us, capable of using so great a care as may fully suffice to extricate him, or even to determine that he cannot be extricated; and who does not often reconsider the same things, |