bed of his beloved child, he was himself called upon to depart.

On the 26th of April,' says Mr. Wilberforce, he had engaged to visit the Isle of Wight. He did not arrive, but we heard that he was detained at home by a slight indisposition. Saturday the 27th, his illness increased. Medical assistance was called in. It was supposed to be a relapse of the influenza, and no sort of danger was apprehended. Such was the course of each succeeding day; there were some distressing symptoms, but none which spoke of immediate alarm. On Thursday, May 2, an eminent surgeon, well acquainted with his constitution, was summoned from London, and pronounced him free from any symptoms of immediate danger, yet that very night was the work of death begun; and on the next morning, peacefully and without a struggle, he resigned his Spirit into the hands of the God who gave it. During the course of his illness it was necessary to administer repeated opiates. In the feverish

slumber which resulted from them his mind wandered, until recalled by the voice of another; and his lips spoke without the exact rein of reason. Yet even then his expressions were of the same holy nature as those which he uttered in more collected moments. From his full soul there poured forth unceasingly the pure streams of a renewed Spirit. I have the greatest fear,' he said, ' of saying something in delirium which may dishonor my God. I have heard of some good people who have been permitted to do so, and I have a horror of it.' This was his fear; but so far from its accomplishment, when his reason wandered, his mouth was filled with praises. He was reasoning with sinners, or speaking with unusual clearness and beauty of the deep things of God. When he was first laid down upon that bed from which he never

rose, he said to one near him Now from this bed to glory, or else to live more than I have ever lived to the glory of my God.' His humility of soul was strikingly exhibited in the course of this last struggle. Look at me,' he said, to those around him, look at me, the vilest of sinners, but saved by grace! Amazing, that I can be saved.' And this was heard to be his continual language-exalting the grace of God which was able to save even him. He thought too at this time of the welfare of those around him. He desired that an especial message might be delivered from him to all his people. I would have you,' he said, 'seek out every drunkard, swearer, and sinner in this place, and warn them of God's wrath against their sins. Tell them that all I have said to them is true. That on a bed of death I more than ever felt its truth-that a death-bed is no place for repentance.' Tell,' said he, the children of this place from me, to hate sin, to strive against it, and above all things to beware of putting off the time of beginning to serve God.' Throughout the whole of this time his soul appeared to be eminently "athirst for God."

Wrestle for me,' said he, in broken accents, but with deep earnestness, to a Christian friend who stood by his bed, Wrestle for me, that I may go hence to glory, or else to live more like the saints in glory;' and at another time, when speaking of his earnest affection to his family, and his great happiness in them, he added with emphasis, but to be holy, to be perfectly holy, how gladly would I leave all of you, to be holy. Nor were there wanting in his case some of those unusual supports with which the Lord at times upholds the goings of his servants when they enter upon the dark valley of the shadow of death. His exceeding self-suspicion, and

his habitual sobriety of feeling might not unnaturally have prevented the expression of any lively emotions of assured joy at the apprehension of the near approach of eternity. He had moreover a nervous shrinking from the act of dying, yet it pleased God to pour at this season a flood of heavenly light upon his soul: he passed the streams well nigh dry-shod. 'I am safe,' was his rejoicing testimony, though a miserable sinner -saved by grace, I have not a doubt; and calling to him one eminently beloved, he said, You know that I have always had a horror of superstition; I believe that I inherited it, but I wish to tell you of the extraordinary revelation of himself which it has pleased God to make to my soul;' and then do not misunderstand me, I do not mean by any vision but by unusual spiritual communion with himself.' The words, glory, glory,' were heard breaking from his lips as his countenance kindled into holy fervour; and his lips spoke of that bright light' which, when asked, what light?' he explained to be 'the bright

light of the Sun of Righteousness.'

No less than four times during the last night which he spent upon earth was he heard repeating to himself in solemn ascriptions of praise to God, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. Amen.' And when, just before the last struggle, one said to him, the everlasting arms are under you,' he answered with eager joy, I know they are-I feel them-that is enough.'

It was 'enough' for him. He had been found faithful. His Lord, on whom he relied, was able to deliver him; he forsook not his servant who trusted in him; but even as he passed through the waters which separate this world from the next, he put a new song into his mouth, and filled his tongue with the praises of his Lord. And now he rests with him. That pure soul has attained the sinless state for which he panted; he is with that Saviour whom he loved; he has tried the promise of the Lord, and found his word true: "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." "

MY DEAR FRIENDS,-Your spiritual welfare is the object of my unceasing solicitude, whether I am present with or absent from you; and sincerely, though feebly, do I pray that you may not only "be ready to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear," 1 Pet. iii. 15; but also, that like Enoch, you may walk with and please God, Gen. v. 22, 24; Heb. xi. 5: that like the martyr Stephen, you may in your last moments look up, and with the eye of faith behold, what he beheld with his bodily eyes, "the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God," Acts vii. 55, 56; and that, like the innumerable multitude which surrounds the eternal throne above, you may ascribe salvation to

God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." Rev. vii. 10.

For a long period it has pleased our heavenly Father, who does all things well, wholly to suspend my ministrations among you. To me it has doubtless been a season of suffering; but suffering has induced reflection, and reflection has caused humiliation before God-has led me to see more fully my vileness and unprofitableness, and to confess that it is of the Lord's mercies I am not consumed, because his compassions fail not." Lam. iii. 22. In my retirement it has been a cause of thankfulness that you have, with few exceptions, been regular in your attendance upon public worship; that you have not been shaken in your attachment to the church of which you are members; and that you value the labours of those who

have " spoken to you the word of the Lord." The love of novelty is one of the evils of our fallen

nature, and in the present day it has risen to an alarming height. Its destructive workings are manifest in the church, as well as in the state; and they are subversive of union, contentment, and peace. A "heady, high-minded" individual, who has made but little progress in the acquisition of selfknowledge, but possessing like Talkative in the Pilgrim's Progress, a flippant tongue and a censorious disposition, too often succeeds in entrapping the unwaryin exciting the fears of the scrupulous-and in leading those who have but a slender acquaintance with the Scriptures to embrace the most distorted views and the most extravagant opinions. Of such beware. The spirit of proselytism may exist where the humble, peaceful, kind, gentle spirit which breathes throughout the gospel has no place.

66 esteem

There is a mutual bond between a pastor and his flock, and they have their respective duties to perform. He is not to neglect them, neither are they to grieve him; but, on the contrary, to him very highly in love for his work's sake," 1 Thess. v. 13; not for his own sake. He is not selfcommissioned or self-sent,--the message which he delivers is not his own, but God's, and therefore it is their duty to hear with attention- to obey with cheerfulnessto speak with tenderness-to act with forbearance, and thus to prove that the gospel is valued, because it is felt. Although you have "ten thousand instructors in Christ," 1 Cor. iv. 15. I can, with the firmest persuasion of its truth, affirm that there is not one who regards you with such affection, who so rejoices in your joy, or sympathises with you in your sorrow, as the individual who now

addresses you. Convinced that "my glorying" in this respect cannot be made void, I would warn you against error of every kind-and entreat you to place confidence in your legitimate teachers, and to consult them when you may be assaulted by those who would reject revelation altogether, or would, in adding to or taking from it, weaken its obligations; or who seem to perceive no harm in the extravagance of the enthusiast, in the bigotry of the superstitious, or in the awful, soul-destroying delusion of the Antinomian, who unblushingly declares that the law, the eternal and unchangeable law, which requires unsinning obedience from every intelligent being, is no longer a rule of life to the believer. If zeal were exhibited, not in dividing brethren, not in drawing away members from one communion, in which the "word of truth is rightly divided," to swell the ranks of another; but in sending the gospel to those who have it not, time would be redeemed, a Christian spirit cultivated, love and union promoted, souls saved, and God glorified.

Envenomed arrows are now shot forth from various quivers against our church, and we hear a cry on all sides, "down with her, down with her, even to the ground." Psalm cxxxvii. 7. This very cry proclaims her excellence, for if she did not hold, defend, and propagate the truth which is contained in the Bible-if she were not now shaking herself from the dust, and with renewed energy calling her principles into operation, she would be allowed to pursue her course undisturbed. She has had, like other churches, her gloomy days of apathy on the one hand, and of fiery persecution for Christ's sake on the other; but the angel of the covenant has never forsaken her. If she were to be given up, like Israel of old, to "the wild boar of the wood, Psalm lxxx. 13, is it MARCH, 1840.

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reasonable to suppose that the number of her faithful labourers would be so greatly increased? that new churches would be erected in such numbers, in places where they are most needed? that her ordinances would be attended by crowds, who once thought lightly, if at all, of them? that the zeal of all orders within her pale would be so exercised as it is? that there would be such an unprecedented liberality in the support of Scriptural schools for the poor, in the establishment of seminaries for the education of the children of the clergy, and of a fund for the support of their widows, &c.? Above all, would the " all, would the "Spirit be poured down from on high" in such an abundant measure upon her missionary labours, as at Kishnaghur,* and elsewhere? See Judges xiii. 23. Error is not to be found in her doctrines, ungodliness in her precepts, or intolerance in her spirit; and she directs all her members to the Bible, exhorting them to examine by that book whether they are in the faith, and to "judge themselves that they be not judged of the Lord," (1 Cor. xi. 31, and Communion Service.) Let your

attachment to her then be a cordial, a sincere, and an enlightened attachment, not one of prejudice and bigotry.

At the commencement of the last year, the Lord caused his mighty voice to be heard throughout our guilty land, and by a storm whose fury exceeded what had ever been witnessed by its oldest inhabitant, trees were uprooted, houses were destroyed, lives were taken away, and terror spread far and wide, Psalm xxix. What a mercy, to have been spared through the dan-gers of that awful night! Had

* See the Letter of the Bishop of Calcutta, in our No. for Sept. 1839, p. 354, which contains the gratifying intelligence of the renunciation of idolatry by the inhabitants of between fifty and sixty villages, and the administration of Baptism to about 1000 individuals.

the invisible agent which was employed by Him who "sitteth upon the circle of the earth," Isa. xl. 22, as the instrument of his vengeance, hurried you into eternity, what would have been your state ever since? You were alarmed then, but are you alarmed now? You uttered the language of prayer then, but has "the long-suffering of God led you to repentance?" Rom. ii. 4. Your consciences then bore testimony to your sinfulness and guilt; but has that conviction abided with you, or has it not rather evaporated, and left you in the state of the person described in Isa. xxvi. 16?

Amidst the lightning's flash, and the thunder's roll, and the tempest's rage, how should you have relished the boasted pleasure of a dance, or of any other amusement equally silly and unprofitable? Is it wise then now to take delight in the things which are in reality enjoyed only when God is forgotten, and when his judgments are out of sight? Is it wise now to riot or waste precious time in indulgences which, under other names, and perhaps with some slight variations, constitute the happiness of the heathen upon earth, and are looked forward to as forming an ingredient in the happiness of the mahommedan paradise? If these things cheer the spirits, kindle animal desires, and afford gratification, it is a proof of the melancholy fact that those who engage in them are strangers to sobriety of mind, know not wherein true enjoyment consists, walk in a path from which the true Christian turns away with a sickened heart, and one which the Saviour whom he hopes to meet when he comes in his glory, never trod; a path in which the most determined votary of pleasure would shudder at being found, if he were about to be grasped by the icy hand of death. Cessation from these things will not indeed prove a man to be a child of God, but the pursuit of them will prove the existence of a worldly spirit, and

the unsubdued influence of "the carnal mind, which is enmity against God," Rom. viii. 7. Thus a feather will show which way the wind blows; and a straw cast upon the water will prove in what direction the stream runs. The belief of the truth, 2 Thess. ii. 13, effectually turns the sinner, whoever he be, not merely from idols, but also from vices and follies, and causes him to bring forth the fruit of righteousness. Decision has ever been a striking feature in the character of the Lord's servants; and if we hold primitive doctrine, we are bound to exhibit primitive practice. Consult the following passages: Rom. xii, 1, 2; xiii. 1214; 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15; Gal. v. 24; Eph. iv. 22— 24; 1 Pet. ii. 1—3; iii, 8 – 17 ; 2 Pet. i. 5-8; 1 John ii. 15, 16; 1 John iii. 3.

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You have learned from the Catechism, you have heard from the pulpit, you have read in your Bibles, what is the way of salvation; but do you walk in it? Do you delight in it? Do you prefer it to every other? It is a way of holiness and usefulness. David speaks of running in the way, Psal. cxix. 32; so does St. Paul, in Heb. xii. 1; and certain it is that the genuine disciple, led by the Holy Spirit, and impelled by a fervent zeal, prays that he may not, like Lot's wife, be suffered to look back, or like Demas, forsake the "service which is perfect freedom," for the world's gain; or like the apostles themselves, in the hour of their Lord's extremity, flee from the dangers and terrors of the cross. To you much is given, and of you much will be required, Luke xii. 48; and "to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." James iv. 17.

You wish to die happily. Oh that it were equally your wish to live holily-to have no "fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness," to have 66 your conversation in heaven ;" and to "adorn