he has freely bestowed the assistance of his name, his influence, and his purse, has found it necessary to seek the exalted platform, or even the humbler bench below, only as an occasional stimulus, and one which must be used with caution. The heart is seriously injured to which the exhibition of its sentiments, and the applause of the crowd, has become necessary or gratifying. The degree of worldly respectability which now attaches to the profession of Religion has had its share in the evil of undue communion with the world. Many are now become bold and active members of the external church of Christ, who possess but little of that pure, and peaceable, and gentle wisdom which cometh from above. But with all such characters, if they are found regularly at church or chapel, if their names are registered in the evangelical subscription lists, and they are heard or seen at these religious theatricals; with all these, and with their friends and connexions, who are, of course, one step still further removed from the Gospel-standard of character, the modern Christian ventures to associate. Hence the habits and manners, the compliments, the silly vices, and the trifling spirit of the world, insinuate themselves, by this silent influence, into the Church of Christ; and it is only in the few hurried minutes of closet devotion, which the whirl of religious dissipation allows, that the Christian feels the real difference between himself and his companions. The distinction of "a peculiar people" is disregarded, and modern refinement would not allow it to be mentioned in a mixed assembly. This will proceed in an increasing ratio, and the effect upon the rising branches of each succeeding family is more and more destructive. Another evil, and one which, in a great measure, results from the former, is a practical unbelief of those principles on which, as Christians, we profess to act. The scriptural distinction between a child of light and a child of darkness, between "him that serveth God and him that serveth him not,' is never sufficiently taken up, even by real Christians, as a principle of practice. The mind acquiring, in its intercourse with men, an indifference to religious truth, does not practically perceive that the world "lieth in the wicked one, and that the friendship of the world is enmity with God;" that the degree of rebellion in the, carnal unchanged heart is such that God looks on it with abhorrence, and calls upon his children to come out and be a separate people. The amiable natural character of men in that commerce and intercourse which relate to this world, and the specious systems of assumed morals with which skeptics and infidels adorn their exterior character, are admitted as realities; and the abstract wickedness of the heart, that hardens itself against the powerful pleading and merciful solicitations of God in the Gospel of his Son, is passed over. Even pious ministers, from an injudicious and almost indiscriminate intercourse with their hearers, are apt to forget the immense power of that machine with which God has intrusted them, and abandon the valuable opportunity of instruction, or speak with unbelief and sinful timidity. There is a want of reliance upon the unseen and mysterious agency of that one Spirit which ordereth, restraineth, and changeth the unruly wills and affections of sinful men. Intercourse and communion with the world, and conformity to its habits, have given rise to a third evil, which certainly demands correction. The spirit of profuse expenditure, which characterizes all classes in the present day, is, at length, strikingly visible in the professed Christian Church. The same gilded extravagance is visible in the furniture of their bouses; the same luxurious waste upon their tables; the same weak regard to the forms and fripperies of fashionable dress; the same desire for foreign articles of embellishment; the same mania for a continental tour. In these respects, a Christian of the present day is seldom known from the most consummate devotee to the laws of fashionable taste. Certainly, (to forestal a stale objection,) we need not wear the russet livery of a religious profession, nor mark the amount of our piety, by the bareness of our walls, and the degree of our domestic inconvenience: but while the believer lounges on his gilded couch, rests his Bible upon a richly inlaid table, and casts his eye with complacency upon the interminable folds and festoons of drapery and fringe that adorn his windows, it is rather in congruous to be reading with approbation, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world; for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world." A fastidious attention to meats and wines, to the delicacies and luxuries of the palate, is peculiarly incompatible with a highly spiritual mind; but in an especial manner is it painful to see the young Christian aping the loose habiliments and lounging airs of Bond-street, and the younger women who profess to value the incorruptible ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, endeavouring to give interest to their character by the attitudes and distortions, and the tawdry glitter, of a Parisian belle. Even in the lowest sense of the passage, this is not keeping our garments unspotted from the world. Modern Christians err in the choice of their reading. It is very evident that real religion always excites a desire for mental improvement. It lifts the character of the peasant far above the usual standard; and it gives to those possessed of greater advantages an eagerness to be well-informed. Many professing people, especially the young, devote a large portion of their time to reading; and, for want of cautious and well-educated advisers, are not judicious in the choice of their books. They read rapidly, and read every thing. Every moralist who scribbles a romantic tale, with a slight sprinkle of evangelical sentiment, and every rake who prints a poem, takes his turn and whenever an idle and licentious lord chooses to protrude upon the public the exfoliations of a diseased imagination, the religious world must run mad after them; and the young Christian female, because she has the most leisure, is the first to be well versed in the brilliant pollutions of his page. Some abstract works upon the principles of population must be turned over by the finger of virgin purity; and the hours of instruction must be worse than wasted on calculations which (let it be said with reverence) even the delicacy of the Christian Observer cannot sanctify. The mischief is, that because Christians mix with the world, they are tempted to inform themselves upon the topics of the world, and for this purpose the pamphlets, and poems, and reviews of the day, and all the promiscuous and unseemly ebullitions of the metropolitan press must be sought and devoured, to the neglect of more wholesome and substantial nutriment, and the lamentable vitiation of a spiritual taste. The Christian is ashamed, in these trifling matters, to be left behind by a literary world, with whom his deep research and superior practical knowledge, on subjects “too bright for human vision," will pass for worse than nothing. Here even some of the champions of the faith have failed, from a wish to show the world, notwithstanding the high and peculiar dignity of their character and the solemnity of the subjects on which they are called particularly to treat, how agreeably and prettily they can trifle; how like the world they can talk without belonging to it; how dexterously they can tread the verge of the precipice without falling. It is difficult indeed to mark the literary limits within which Christians may safely range, and bigoted notions on such a subject would do serious injury; but certainly, at present, they hold an intercourse too promiscuous with the literature of worldly and irreligious men. A valuable minister, now living, once said-" As my children have grown up around me, my copy of Shakspeare has been ascending the shelves of my library. It has now reached the highest; and I must shortly discard it wholly, lest they should touch that mass of fascinating mischief." Modern Christians err in the spirit with which they hear their religious instructors. The day in which they "submitted themselves to their teachers and spiritual pastors," is gone by. The tables are turned; and now every experienced hearer sits in judgment upon the style, the manner, and the creed of his minister. The provision of the Lord's house is now so ample in the metropolis and some other populous towns, where this spirit most displays itself, that the spiritual taste is become pampered and fastidious. The matter, the originality, the arrangement, and the illustrations of a sermon are subjected to a conceited critical examination the practical benefit to be derived from plain and wholesome instruction is the last consideration that occurs; and a minister who stands up before such a people, feels that he is rather passing the fiery ordeal of uncandid criticism than breaking the bread of life to a hungry and expecting multitude; nay, further, that he will experience less charity from many of the professed Christians of the congregation than from the 1 proud, the prejudiced, and even hostile hearer. If ever it should please God, in his righteousness, to cause the godly minister to cease from among us, and once more to "hide our teachers in a corner," how thankful would many conceited people be for that light bread which they now loathe and despise. Let them go, even now, where this fulness of bread has not been known, and where they see simple-hearted, affectionate bearers eating with thankfulness the plain and homely food of the Gospel, and thriving on an humble and unobtrusive ministry, let them blush for their own barrenness, under a richer and more lavish cultivation. These remarks have already reached beyond the limits at first prescribed, and perhaps beyond the utmost indulgence which can be shown to an unknown correspondent; but if the importance of the subject should obtain them a place in the pages of the Observer, the subject may at some future time be resumed. CEPHAS. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I MEET with some persons who, writing on the friendship of the world, and conformity to the world, which we are in Scripture warned against, seem to take it for granted, that the Gentile world was primarily intended, and that these warnings must therefore be applied to what is called the Christian world with several limitations, mutatis mutandis. But is this the real fact? Was not the Jewish world, so to speak, intended in very many of these passages? I do not mean the Mosaic dispensation, as some would generally interpret "this present world," and similar phrases: mean the nation of the Jews in the times of Christ, as much as the professed church and people of God, at least, as any Christian nation now is; yet, generally formalists in religion, and worldlyminded in their spirit and conduct, "children of this world," not "children of the light." When the brethren of our Lord said to him, "If thou do these things, show thyself to the world ;" and when he answered, "The world cannot hate you, but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works of it are evil;" was the Gentile world, or the Jewish intended ?* Again; "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world; therefore the world hateth you."t 99 66 Were the Jews, or the Gentiles, the world which thus hated Christ; and out of which he had "chosen the eleven apostles," whom it hated for his sake? Again; "When the Comforter is come, he will convince the world of sin". ; "because they believe not in me.' "Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice." Were idolatrous Gentiles here meant by the world? Were not the Jews in general, and especially the elders, priests, and scribes, intended? Again; "I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them; because they are not of the world, as I am not of the world." Was that world which had hated the disciples of Christ, constituted of Gentiles, or of Jews? Of idolaters, or of the professed worshippers of JEHOVAH ? Jaines, when he said, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world," was writing "to the twelve tribes that were scattered abroad," and not * John vii. 4. 7. See John viii, 26; xiv. 17. + John xx. 18, 19. John xvi. 8. 10. 20. either to Gentiles or Gentile converts. And his strong language: "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?""* "Whosoever, therefore, will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God;" was addressed to Jews: and the Jews were not much disposed to the friendship of idolatrous Gentiles, or, indeed, of any Gentiles. When St. John says, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him;" he speaks of no other idolatry than that which is common to nominal Christians as well as heathens: "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust of it: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." All then who are lovers of money, pleasure, honour, pomp, power, and worldly things, rather than of God, belong to the world, whether called Jews, Pagans, Mohammedans, or Christians: nor can I see any ground to conclude, that, in the admonitions of the other apostles on this subject, though addressed to churches chiefly constituted of Gentile converts, any distinction between the Gentiles and the worldly-minded Jews around them was intended. In general, I suppose, that all who are not of the true church, "the church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven," are of the world, whether called Gentiles, Mohammedans, Jews, or Christians; and, under one form or other, are the servants of the god of this world;"‡ and that we must know who are not of the world, and who are, not by names, or titles, or profession, but by the spirit which they manifest, and the conduct which they adopt, connected with the doctrine of God our Saviour, which they profess, and adorned by the spiritual mind and the fruits of the Spirit. Of these we must judge as well as we can, with fairness, candour, and humble cautiousness, according to the sacred Scriptures. And wherever the spirit, maxims, fashions, and conduct of "a world lying in wickedness," are predominant, thence we must separate ourselves, avoiding all needless intimacy, and having no further intercourse than that of relationship and necessary worldly concerns, or such as appear to us, on mature consideration, more likely to benefit them than to injure ourselves or mislead our brethren. Indeed, I cannot conceive that any thing, except a mind greatly imbued with love of the world, can induce a man to go, except at the call of duty, into any company or place of concourse, for the sake either of good cheer, or agreeable, or genteel, or learned company, or more recreation, where it would be deemed an outrage on decorum to introduce a peculiarly Christian topic, even in the most prudent and unexceptionable manner. (2 Cor. vi. 14-18.) I am, 4 FAMILY SERMONS.-No. C. Matt. xxiv. 44. Therefore be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh. THE words of the text contain an extensive and important exhortation, backed by a most awful and affecting motive. We are exhorted to be habitually prepared for the coming of Christ, and the motive presented to us is because we know not how soon he may come. 1. The exhortation, "Be-ye also ready." We are here on our trial for eternity, in the view of the all-seeing God. From him we have received all our talents; to him we must account for their use; and he has appointed a day for this express purpose. For this day it is that we are to be ready, ready as servants to account to their masters for any trust reposed in them. In this state of readiness several things are implied. 1. That we have seriously attended to the reality and infinite importance of this event. Before we can feel much concern about the coming of Christ, we must be deeply convinced of the infinite worth of our souls, of the awful nature of the eternal state, and of the necessity of being prepared for it. This conviction will lead us seriously to examine how our past lives have agreed with the word of God, and how far our hearts have been formed and ruled by it—and whether our habitual temper and conduct be such as will bear the test of that great and terrible day of the Lord when every man's work will be tried of what kind it is. It seems impossible that we should think of our souls which never dieof a state of exquisite happiness or misery which will never end—of a day of judgment when our final doom shall be unchangeably fixedand not seriously inquire into the state of our souls, and into the consequences of Christ's coming with regard to ourselves. If then we are strangers to such inquiries, we may be assured that we are not ready for the coming of Christ, and therefore have the greatest reason to be alarmed at the idea of the suddenness of his coming to judg ment, when he will condemn all whom he shall find unprepared for it to endless and inconceivable misery. 2. Being ready for Christ's coming further implies, that we have used our best endeavours to prepare for it. We cannot be sensible of the worth of our souls without |