Mrs. Garnon had been favoured with an unusual measure of health. After a residence of nearly a year and a half in the colony, including the rainy season of 1817, he wrote thus, at the beginning of May, 1818—

"I am happy to record again the tender mercies of our heavenly Father toward us. We are still in the enjoyment of good health and spirits, which are a great treasure in Africa. I do not know that either of us has had a head-ache, more than what we might have expected in our native land. I pray that we may ever feel truly grateful to God for such signal mercies.

"My wife is always very busy; whether in Free Town, or at Leicester Mountain. While there, she gained considerable strength, and was enabled to exert herself very much among the children. A mutual attachment was soon formed between her and her little charge; and they expressed much concern when "mammy" left them. She has had the colonial girls' school for some time under her charge: this, and her own engagements, fully occupy her hands. We find it needful to regard the divine admonitionWork while it is day. The uncertainty of life in Africa calls upon us

to do, with all our might, whatsoever our hand findeth to do.”

And when his Lord came, he found his servant thus labouring. In less than three months after writing this, he was called, at an early hour of his day of toil, to enter into the joy of his Lord.

And he maintained the same spirit to the last. A very few weeks before 、 his death he wrote to the secretary—

"The bishop of London has honoured me with a very excellent and judicious letter. We are, I trust, doing some good; but our situation, in Free Town, is peculiar. Pray for us, that we may be filled with all wisdom."

But his work was done! He is now no longer the subject of pain and weakness. No imperfection now mingles with his services-no temptations assail him-no shades of sorrow tinge his highest enjoyments. The sun shall no more smite him by day, nor the moon by night. He shall hunger no more, naither thirst any more; for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed him, and lead him to living fountains of waters. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.

MY DEAR J.-The approaching recurrence of your birthday has suggested to me, that a letter, containing a few observations appropriate to such an event, would not be unacceptable and might be of use to you. Seasons of this nature break the continuity of our daily pursuits, summon us to stand still awhile and cast our thoughts back into the past or urge them on to the future, and fill us with emotions of awe, gratitude, and devotion.

Our birthdays remind us of our origin. We are then made conscious that we are advancing in life, and we naturally look back in thought to the period whence our progress began. Serious reflection on the commencement of our being, is well calculated to arouse feelings of humility and a sense of our entire dependence upon the will of God. The earliest period of our lives to which our memories can reach, presents us with an image of ourselves little flattering to our pride. Helpless, ignorant, full of caprice and waywardness, we were then just beginning to grope our way in the world, holding by the hand of our parents, and dependent on them for our support and our ideas. Around us was then, as now, a vast and magnificent world, replete with marvel and mystery: filled with astonishment, we turned to our elders with eager questionings, and, conscious of our intellectual blindness, looked about for some one to lead us by the hand. Our friends led us and taught us; but how imperfect was our apprehension, how absurd the notions we sometimes entertained, with what smiles of pity do we call to mind the estimates we then formed of persons and things! Men, at all events, cannot assume the haughtiness of Milton's Satan, and say:

"We know no time when we were not as

now.

We are able to trace the growth of our intellect, and, in a great measure, to ascertain the sources of the little

knowledge we possess. What have we which we did not receive?

But this consideration ought to awaken gratitude as well as humility. Born in other lands, and under other circumstances, how different might have been your lot! But it has pleased God that you should be born of pious parents, in a Christian country, where the Gospel is fully preached, where equal laws are administered, where the advantages of learning are open to all, and where public opinion is, generally speaking, on the side of propriety and virtue. We must remember, however, that this circumstance increases our responsibility. Our advantages are confessedly great: how have we profited by them?

Our birthdays also lead us to inquire into the purpose of our being. If we look into our nature, we discover that we are composed of two diverse principles-flesh and spirit. By the former we resemble the rest of the animal creation: like them, we eat, drink, and sleep, suffer pain, or receive pleasure, and like them we die, and mingle with the dust. But we have a reasonable nature which they do not possess, which can be made capable of understanding spiritual things. Hence we may infer that a creature thus endowed cannot have been created merely for sensual enjoyments-so brief and unsatifying in their very nature-but that loftier joys and pursuits, a wider field of exertion and contemplation, are reserved for man. So we find that, in all ages, a sense of immortality has prevailed -displayed, it is true, in a rude and strange manner, but still existing and influencing the conduct of the wildest and fiercest tribes. From the deepest condition of physical degradation has man been seen struggling towards the throne of God. Joined with the coarse and dirty habits, the reckless cruelty, the childish ignorance of savage life, have been found aspirations after a better world. The voice of the whole of humanity, from its lowest to its highest development, has

pronounced that this present life is the introduction to another. And when we have roamed together through the varied scenery of hill or dale, or gazed on the ever-new loveliness of the ocean, or the ineffable glories of a summer-sunset, or when we have sat amid the congregated works of the wise and good of various ages, has not the thought forcibly struck you that man must be capable of something far better than the trivial employments to which his daily wants necessarily subject him, and have you not experienced a desire to feel after, if haply you might find, that Great Being from whom have come the wonders of nature and the inspiration of genius? Has not the impression of a future state-of scenery still more lovely, of enjoyments more pure and lasting, of ideas more entrancing and sublime-vividly presented itself to you, and forbid you to rank yourself with the beasts that perish? Your own heart therefore has echoed the universal voice of nature, and whispered that your spirit cannot die.

But we are not, as you well know, left to the feeble guesses of unassisted reason on this important point. Revelation has confirmed the majestic truth: life and immortality have been brought to light through the Gospel, which has not only set before us the bright hope of a better world, but has told how its possession may be secured. Prize then, more and more, the volume which has proclaimed tidings so blessed to our fallen race, and cheered man's lowly path in this earthly wilderness by visions of the future, which, like flowers from Eden, delight both by their own beauty, and by the intelligence which they bring of the glorious garden where they grow.

The great purpose of our existence is the glory of God: its great duty to fear and to love him. "Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."

But man is a fallen being: hence he is utterly unable of himself to keep the commandments of God, and to fulfil the purposes of his creation. The life even of the good man, is often a constant struggle. When the

individual is sheltered from notorious vices, he is still liable to led into error by his very virtues themselves. His love is apt to rise into idolatry—his generosity into profuseness-his prudence into parsimony. Sin mingles with his every deed, word, and thought. Hence arises the necessity of a righteousness better than his own, through which he may stand before a holy God: hence the need that his best actions should be cleansed in the blood of Christ, and that he should be upheld by the continual aid of the Holy Spirit.

By his birthday the Christian is reminded of his new birth, of that mysterious change which took place when a new nature, having new desires, new hopes, new knowledge, was implanted within him, when he ceased to live wholly for the world and began to live unto God. Of this new birth a type or figure was exhibited in your baptism: and may the inward and spiritual grace, of which that rite was the outward and visible sign, be realized in your heart and exhibited in your life!

Our birthdays, the anniversaries of the commencement of our life, lead us to look forward to its end. We learn from the departure of our fellow-men that the end of our own life must eventually come. The term of threescore years and ten allotted to humanity is but a span, even when we are permitted to reach it; but this is seldom the case. Diseases and casualties are ever waiting to snatch from us the few days which the course of nature allows, and to disperse by some sudden blast that vapour of life which is tending by its very nature to vanish away. It becomes us, then, to keep in view the brevity and uncertainty of life, and to pray that grace may be afforded us to look beyond its end. While young, the necessity of fixing our hopes on something beyond this visible, diurnal sphere may not so immediately be acknowledged; the succession of changing scenes, the business or amusements of every day, and, above all, the hope that in the darkness of the future may lie hid still untried sources of enjoyment, keep the mind continually

active in the chase of some present though temporary advantage. But when age has crept upon the man, when repeated disappointments have damped his energies; when on looking back upon the days he has passed, he sees a dreary waste where are scattered the leaves of withered flowers-his early pleasures-where spreads the lava of the volcano-the dark remains of exhausted passionswhere yawn the chasms of the earthquake the void places left by the removal of those he loves-how dreadful must it then be to have no hope of heavenly joys, no expectation of an eternal spring after the chill of death's winter has frozen the current of his life. Pray, then, fervently for the illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit; seek earnestly a knowledge of Jesus Christ, through whom alone you can be delivered from the tyranny of sin, and receive a sure hope of a joyful immortality.

Of the uncertainty of all earthly blessings we have lately had a clear proof in the convulsed state of Europe. We have seen thrones overturned or shaken we have seen confusion and dismay prevailing where, a few days before, all seemed prosperity and peace. Let us pray, therefore, that these fluctuations may not be without their use for us: let us learn from them to fix our hopes upon the Rock of ages, to seek for happiness in the love of God and our neighbour: and to look for our reward in heaven

that home of tranquility and holiness, where sin cannot enter, where the thirst for knowledge will find inexhaustible means of gratification, where friendship will exist without separation and without alloy, and, above all, where the glorified believer will" see God."

Our birthdays awaken very different emotions according to the time of life in which we consider them. "My birthday'-what a different sound That word had in my youthful ears!" says one of our poets. But may to you every birthday bring with it a fuller feeling of the goodness of your heavenly Father, a firmer faith in the Redeemer, and a brighter hope of endless joy! And may you be able to look back upon the days of our earliest acquaintance-when you were a creature so gentle that on stealing up to gain a nearer view of some concealed bird, the little songster was unalarmed by your tread, while the butterflies settled on your shoulders, and even allowed their slender bodies to be touched by a being as peaceful as themselves-may you be able, I repeat, to look back upon those days, not with feelings of regret, but with a grateful consciousness that you have, through the blood of the atonement sprinkled upon your heart, attained an innocence far purer than that of the boy!

With many prayers for your temporal and spiritual welfare, I remain, your affectionate friend, M. N.