his days; or he is enjoying some exquisite pleasure of this life, and his sleep is very sweet and pleasant to his soul: but the robbers carry off his property, and the owner still sleeping in his imagined happiness, they set fire to his house. He still perceives not his danger, till the flames spreading upward, he sinks in the general destruction, and awakes in the midst of that fire which consumes and destroys him.

O unconverted sinner, this is thy case; here, here is the picture of the soul asleep in sin. The great plunderer, Satan, is in your dwelling, and robbing you of your best treasures. The very fire of disease and death is lighted to consume you, and yet you are asleep ! BICKERSTETH.

DIFFICULTIES OF UNBELIEF.

THE difficulties of believing are few and trivial, compared with those which must attend on a state of unbelief. The perplexities resulting from the greatness of the Divine nature, are no more than were to be expected from the manifest greatness of the Divine works. R. VAUGHAN.

"TAKE UP THY CROSS."

"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me," Matt. xvi. 24.

TAKE up thy cross, the Saviour said,
If thou wouldst my disciple be:
Take up thy cross, with willing heart,
And humbly follow after me.

Take up thy cross, let not its weight
Fill thy weak spirit with alarm,
His strength shall bear thy spirit up,
And brace thy heart, and nerve thy arm.

Take up thy cross, nor heed the shame,
And let thy foolish pride be still,
Thy Lord refus'd not e'en to die
Upon a cross on Calvary's hill.

Take up thy cross then, in my strength,
And calmly sin's wild deluge brave;
"Twill guide thee to a better home,

It points to glory o'er the grave.

Take up thy cross, and follow me,

Nor think till death to lay it down;

For only he who bears the cross

May hope to wear the glorious crown.

Extracts of Correspondence.

FOREIGN.

From the Secretary of the Madras Religious Tract Society. MADRAS.-We return you our sincere thanks for the grant of paper and tracts (five cases) received by this vessel, (the Vansittart,) and for your consignment of books, received in case, No. 6. The two cases for Bellary and the case for Bangalore have been duly forwarded.

Your Society, my dear sir, is greatly honoured to be permitted to send these little messengers of mercy to the four corners of the earth. May their glad tidings be received and believed by multitudes to their everlasting salvation. They are of eminent importance in India. They reach many a place where the living voice could not come, and address themselves to many a heart that would otherwise be without appeal or entreaty in this land of prejudice, jealousy, and distrust. And shall we not believe that God will give his blessing? He is already blessing us. Our hopes of a future abundant harvest are continually refreshed. May "the little one become a thousand, and the small one a strong nation. May the Lord hasten it in his time."

From a Correspondent.

ISLAND OF ST. HELENA.-Your gratuity of English and Chinese tracts has been highly acceptable, and I trust will be duly appreciated, and for them we return you our warmest thanks. If you send us any more books during this year to dispose of, we shall feel obliged if you will send a few more English tracts, and a continuation of the Tract Magazine. We also wish to receive a number of "Dew-drops," "Gems," and "Texts of Scripture," those little works having been rather eagerly sought after. The perusal of your Reports has so interested me, that I am endeavouring to establish a small Tract Association here for your Society, but I fear (even if I succeed) that it will be but a very small one.

From the same."

In my last I intimated that an Auxiliary Tract Association would be soon set on foot here by a few persons, and having succeeded in collecting £10. for your Society, I have the pleasure now to remit to your Treasurer that sum in a bill on the East India Company, and sincerely trust that this "beginning" in so good a cause will thrive, though the contribution is very small.

DOMESTIC.

From a Correspondent at Cork.

IRELAND.—I have been requested to solicit from the Committee of the Religious Tract Society, a grant of tracts for circulation among the seamen who resort to this port, and who, generally speaking, are very anxious to procure such publications. We therefore trust that your Committee will be so kind as to make a grant, which will enable the friends who have the management of the Bethel ship in this river, of whom I am myself one, to lend and distribute a sufficient number to each ship which trades with this place. And as there are very many Welshmen among the crews, we would thank you to send us some tracts in the Welsh language.

There is little doubt but that the Lord is doing much among the seamen who frequent this port; and there are at present many pious masters, mates, and seamen before the mast, who regularly attend all our prayer meetings, and frequently take a part in the services, both English and Welsh; and so much do they value the privileges which they enjoy on board the Bethel ship, that they have lately subscribed among themselves nearly £20. to assist us in repairing and otherwise fitting her up; so that we are exceedingly anxious to supply them with those publications which are so well adapted to keep alive whatever impressions may have been made upon their minds, as well as to awaken them to the serious consideration of Divine things.

From a Correspondent in Wiltshire.

June, 1833.

A YOUNG female of this place, who had been for some years living on the wages of iniquity, was, by the free grace of a God of mercy, arrested in her progress of vice, and became in every sense of the word "a new creature." About a twelvemonth after her change of heart, she became the wife of a respectable tradesman, residing six miles distant from here. The evening previous to her marriage she came to the rectory, requesting the loan of a few quarterly missionary papers, also of a few tracts. Very few days elapsed after her removal to her new abode, before she began to show an anxiety for the souls of those around her. One of her nearest neighbours was a very old man, whose long life had been one continued scene of rebellion against his Maker, and who still persevered in the only remaining external vices which his age and infirmities yet enabled him to indulge in-drunkenness and swearing. He resided with a married daughter, a person of very decent outward habits of life, though a stranger to vital godliness of heart. She, however, expressed herself greatly

obliged for the tracts, which her new neighbour read to her; and after hearing "The Swearer's Prayer," for she could not read, she exclaimed, "Oh, if my poor old father would but read that, who knows but through the blessing of God it might soften his heart." It was agreed that the new neighbour should take it in on the following evening as by accident, and as he determinately rejected all reference to religious subjects, the daughter contrived that the reading should take place just as the old man began his supper, by which means alone she could secure his attendance. She closely observed his countenance, and thought he seemed to be listening attentively, though evidently striving at the same time to assume an air of indifference and inattention. To her great disappointment, however, he remained quite silent on the subject of the tract the whole evening; but on the following morning he asked her to borrow it for him, which she did; and seeing him much affected by the perusal, she joyfully ran to communicate the intelligence to her new neighbour, who then had much conversation with the old man. He had nothing to say, but would now patiently sit and listen, whilst the tears actually rolled down his withered cheeks. The result was, that on the following Sunday, for the first time within the memory of any of his neighbours, he went to his parish church; and having done so for three successive Sundays, the clergyman, on the Monday following, went to the cottage, and, with an air of evident astonishment and pleasure, addressed the old man: "Robert, I have often been to this house on a Monday to threaten you with imprisonment for your drunkenness and disorderly conduct on the preceding sabbath; I am now come to express my pleasure at the change in your habits, and to inquire what can have produced it." The poor old sinner, instead of the hardened look of defiance with which he was wont to answer, now sat silent and humbled, and with pale, quivering lips, and eyes filled with tears, he pointed to the tract which lay beside him, "The Swearer's Prayer." The clergyman took it and read it, and I rejoice to add, was so convinced, from this circumstance, of the benefits arising from the distribution of tracts, that he immediately applied to a neighbouring clergyman, who is in the habit of circulating them weekly to a great extent, and inquired how and where he could procure them. He was quickly supplied, and in less than a fortnight he distributed them in person from house to house throughout the whole of his parish, and also in two hamlets adjoining, which are likewise under his ministerial charge.

As the reading of a single tract has thus, through Divine Providence, been permitted to be the means of bringing a soul from darkness to light, what may not be hoped from its being also the means of such an increased circulation of your publications?

HEROD AND THE INFANTS OF BETHLEHEM.

O STRANGE condition of the King of all the world! He could not be born in a baser estate; yet even this he cannot enjoy with safety. There was no room for him in Bethlehem; there will be no room for him in Judea. He is no sooner come to his own, than he must fly from them: that he may save them, he must avoid them.

Had it not been easy for thee, O Saviour, to have freed thyself from Herod a thousand ways? What could an arm of flesh have done against the God of spirits? What had it been for thee to have sent Herod five years sooner unto his place? what to have commanded fire from heaven on those that should have come to apprehend thee? or to have bidden the earth to receive them alive, whom she meant to swallow when dead? We suffer misery, because we must; thou, because thou wouldest. The same will that brought FEBRUARY, 1834. [2nd Edition.] c