First we have a long, inflated, ful-gospel; not in an angry, conten

some article of biography to do justice to the memory of some eminent minister; and then towards the middle of the publication, comes what is called the Obituary, consisting, sometimes, of half a dozen pages, recounting the triumphant deaths (all triumphant!) of private Christians. Now though I do not object to an occasional article on either of these subjects, let me warn you against the indiscriminate abuse which is made of them by your competitors. That field is already more than occupied; the subjects are become so stale and hackneyed that I can assure you the generality of intelligent readers begin to nauseate them. You must therefore strike out a new path, or you will not succeed. The human mind delights in variety, and when we look around us and contemplate the works, and ways, and word of God, how infinitely diversified are they all! To render your publication interesting, you must be studious of novelty, for without it you will never long secure the attention of your readers. But let me not be mistaken on this head: I do not mean that you should be perpetually treating us with newfangled sentiments in religion: There is no occasion for that, in order to attain the object referred to.

tious, clamorous temper; but, "in meekness instruct those that oppose" the truth. Remember that "the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God;" and that his servants must not strive, but be gentle unto all men." In this way your publication may do infinite service to the cause of truth; and while your pages are, from month to month, thus occupied, you will take the most effectual means of disarming your opponents, should you unfortunately have any, of their hostility.

Be select in regard to the articles which you print! You have done well in soliciting contributions from correspondents; but, after all, you must exercise a sound, and discriminating judgment upon the pieces sent you, and accept or reject, regardless of fear or affection, if you would keep up the character of your Magazine. Take warning by the many examples that are before you, and mark the consequence of printing indiscriminately whatever trash you may receive! On this topic, you must allow me to speak plainly, for I feel its importance as it regards the value of your work. A pretty extensive acquaintance with the religious community authorises me to say that there exists a very general dissatisfaction with most of the magazines with which The works of creation; the yours will come into competition. wonders of Providence; and espe- Nor is there any thing surprising cially the sacred scriptures, will in this. Examine the articles of furnish an inexhaustible treasury, which they are made up, indea never-failing source of useful and pendent of what I have already delightful topics for your work. mentioned. How flimsy! how Let truth, revealed truth, be the vapid! how uninteresting! what basis of your publication. Stick a tax do they impose on the readclosely to that; and never com-er's patience! Here, Mr. Editor, promise her holy cause from an I look for the discriminating chaunhallowed complaisance to any rater of your journal to manifest names or any authority however itself; and to explain to you my great among men. Defend "the form of sound words"-" the faith once delivered to the saints," a gainst all its assailants wherever you find it attacked; but let it be done in the true spirit of the

meaning, I will take the liberty of quoting a paragraph from a little volume now before me, only in adapting it to my purpose, I must substitute the word writer for that of speaker.

"How does it happen that one it is capable of producing great writer shall gradually invade and and important results. The celebenumb all the faculties of my brated Beza wrote an eulogy on soul as if I were handling a tor-Luther, in which he boasts that pedo; while another shall awaken" the Reformer's pen had conand arouse me, like the clangor of quered all the power of Rome." the martial trumpet? How does We still want a reformation-in the it happen that the first shall infuse manner of conducting our religious his poor spirit into my system, magazines, and I shall rejoice to lethargize my native intellects, and see your work effect it. I foresee bring down my powers exactly to the difficulties with which you will the level of his own? or that the have to contend. Sir, the truth is, last shall descend upon me like an and you ought to be aware of it, angel of light, breathe new energies that the religious magazines to into my frame, dilate my soul with which we have been so long fahis own intelligence, exalt me into miliarized, have vitiated the public a new and nobler region of thought, taste to such a degree that, while snatch me from the earth at plea-with one class of professors, all sure, and wrap me to the seventh heaven? Whatever may be the solution, the fact is certainly as I have stated it. I am acquainted with a gentleman who never sits down to a composition, wherein he wishes to shine, without previously reading, with intense application, half a dozen pages of his favourite author. Having taken the character and impulse of that writer's mind, he declares that he feels his pen flow with a spirit not his own; and that if in the course of his work, his powers begin to languish, he finds it easy to revive and charge them afresh from the same never-failing source."

relish for the grand and substantial doctrines of Christianity has dwindled into a fondness for old wives' fables, the very name "evangelical" has among others become a term of ridicule and reproach! From this degraded state of things you must strive to extricate us. Take therefore your measures; assume that elevated ground which has been reserved for you; appreciate, if possible, in its utmost extent, the importance of divine truth, and let us find you valiant for it. Give us nothing in your pages that is not, in one way or other, subservient to the interests of that sacred cause; and the consequences will soon become apparent.

I

The application of the doctrine contained in this extract is too You will compel your comobvious to need pointing out; but petitors to provide better enterif there be in it any truth, it be- tainment for their readers, or you comes no less important to a man will induce the latter to forsake what books be reads, than what them. They must either raise their company he keeps! And you, tone, or they will sink into conMr. Editor, may take a lesson tempt, and in either case we shall from it in regard to the manage-hail you as a public benefactor. ment of your work. Before you am too old to render you much print any article, ask yourself the service, but while I survive you question cui bono? To what useful may now and then expect to hear purpose is it directed; and never from me, provided you can digest imagine that merely because an the freedom of my animadversions; article has been written it there- and at any rate, the success of your fore deserves to be printed. The undertaking has the cordial good press is a mighty engine when wishes of properly directed; and though your publication be small, I am confident that, if wisely conducted, Walworth, Dec. 15, 1814.

Your friend, &c.
SENEX,

left to conjecture what that cause was;-the apostle has himself recorded it in few words, when, rehe ferring to the Son of God, says, "Who loved me and gave himself for me." Gal. ii. 20.

It is obvious from every part of his apostolic writings, that this event had taken the firmest hold of Paul's mind; it engrossed all its powers, and filled him with wonder and amazement. And assuredly there was in it that which was divinely calculated to produce such an effect. That God's own Son, "the brightness of the Father's glory, and express image of his person"-HE, by whom all things were created, both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible"

the universe depends for its support;-that HE should voluntarily yield himself " to be made a curse," to rescue a guilty rebel from the wrath that is to comeshould submit to poverty, sufferings and death-a death shameful, painful, and lingering, in order that a vile wretch might escape deserved destruction-this was the consideration that kindled a flame of love in the soul of the apostle which all the waters of affliction, through which he was subsequently called to pass, could never extinguish.

If we except that of the Son of God, there is not in all the Scriptures a more interesting character than that of the Apostle Paul. Before his conversion to the christian faith, he was remarkable for his zealous attachment to the religion of his forefathers. The account which he gave of his own conduct, before King Agrippa, when apologizing for the change that had passed upon his mind, and upon whose Almighty arm exhibits a memorable instance of frankness and candour. "I verily thought with myself," says he, "that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth; which things I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death I gave my voice against them; and I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities." Acts xxvi. 9-11. But no sooner did a ray of heavenly light dart into his benighted mind, discovering to him "the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord," to which he had previously been an entire stranger, than his zeal became equally ar-ject the doctrine of his atonement dent, to promote HIS glory, in all his words and actions. A change so astonishing, and to which it would be difficult to find a more apt similitude than that of an impetuous river, the course of which was instantaneously turned from east to west by the shock of an earthquake, must have had an adequate cause; but we are not

VOL. I.

The extraordinary zeal which the apostle manifested in the service of his divine Master appeared altogether unaccountable to his former acquaintance, as indeed it still must do to those who deny the divinity of the Saviour, and re

for sin. King Agrippa thought him mad! and he was far from being singular in that opinion. But how did Paul defend himself against such an imputation. “If we be beside ourselves," says he, "it is to God; or if we be sober it is for your cause; for the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for

all then were all dead; and that he | the deep. In journeyings often, died for all, that they who live in perils of waters, in perils of should not henceforth live unto robbers, in perils by my own themselves, but unto him who died countrymen, in perils by the heafor them and rose again." 2 Cor. then, in perils in the city, in perils v. 13-15. Here is the true solu- in the wilderness, in perils in the tion of the whole difficulty; the sea, in perils among false brethren; mystery of that which appeared so in weariness and painfulness, in inexplicable to the apostle's un- watchings often, in hunger and believing cotemporaries. "I was thirst, in fastings often, in cold once," says he to Timothy, "a and nakedness; and beside those blasphemer, a persecutor, and in- things that are without, that which jurious, but I obtained mercy, be- cometh upon me daily, the care of cause I did it ignorantly, in un- all the churches." 2 Cor. xi. 23. belief." 1 Tim. i. 13. And this is -28. Surely such a course of what deeply affected his mind, and life as that which is here exhibited, filled it with supreme love and must have been actuated by pringratitude to the Saviour. Paul ciples above the power of nature; could never forgive himself, that but it would be difficult to account he should have been so besotted for it in any man of a sound mind, in ignorance as to oppose the except upon the theory above adclaims of Jesus to the honours of duced. And that it was love to Deity, and pour contempt upon Christ which animated the apostle that vicarious sacrifice by which is plain from every part of his his soul had been redeemed from everlasting destruction. To consider himself any longer his own, now appeared highly irrational. He had been 66 bought with a price;" the immense price of the blood of the Son of God, Acts xx. 28. Col. i. 14. and he felt himself bound by every obligation of duty, gratitude, and love, henceforth to live unto Him who died for him and rose again.

history. When entreated by his friends, upon one occasion, not to venture himself in Jerusalem, observe his reply. "What mean ye to weep, and to break my heart, for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem, for the name of THE LORD JEsus.” Acts xxi. 13.

Examine, candidly, the tenour of his preaching, and you will find it invariably directed to exalt the character of the Son of God, and to display the riches of his grace in the salvation of a lost world.

And his life, from the period that he first knew Christ, to the end of his days, was one uniform expression of pure and fervent love" Unto me, who am less than the to the Saviour, for the riches of his mercy and grace. Trace him in all his apostolic labours, and you will see full proof of this; in all he did, and in all he taught. Mark the account which he has left upon record, of his manner of life. "In labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft: of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one: thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in

least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." Eph. iii. 8. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." 2 Cor. viii. 9. "Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man; and

being found in fashion as a man, preacher of such a wilderness was he humbled himself, and became not the least of my motives. On obedient unto death, even the entering I was struck with his death of the cross." Phil. ii. 6-8. preternatural appearance. He was "Great is the mystery of godli-a tall and very spare old man; his ness, God was manifest in the head, which was covered with a flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen white linen cap, his shrivelled of angels, preached unto the Gen- hands, and his voice, were all tiles, believed on in the world, re-shaking under the influence of a ceived up into glory." 1 Tim. iii. 16. palsy; and a few moments ascerThese are a few specimens of the tained to me that he was perfectly doctrine which the apostle uni-blind! formly taught concerning the person and work of his divine Master, and it is quite sufficient to evince to every unprejudiced mind that he was a firm believer in the Deity and atonement of Christ, and, consequently, that those who are now labouring to impugn these doctrines, have no better claim to the christian character than Saul of Tarsus had, while he was a blasphemer" of the Son of God! IGNOTUS.

SOME ACCOUNT OF

JAMES WADDELL,

A blind Preacher.

66

The first emotions which touched my breast were those of mingled pity and veneration. But ah! how soon were all my feelings changed! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees than were the lips of this holy man! It was a day of the administration of the sacrament; and his subject, of course, was the passion of our Saviour. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times: I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose, that in the wild woods of America I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic a new and more sublime pathos than I had ever before witnessed! As he descended from the pulpit to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner, which made my blood run cold and my whole frame shiver! He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour; his trial before Pilate; his ascent up Calvary; his crucifixion; and his death. I knew, the whole history; but never, until then, had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so coloured! It was all new; and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate that his voice trembled on every syllable, and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of description, that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes !