knowledge and the faith of His two-fold nature, who is both God and man. Let us make it then one of our Epiphany employments, thus to meditate upon the miracles. And then let it be our continual endeavour to carry out in life and action all that we shall learn. Then shall there be a witness in our souls, that nothing can ever touch or move. And when the miracles of grace, and the discipline of life are over, God shall crown our spirits with that greatest, mightiest of all, by which He will raise up His own accepted children, in the likeness of their Lord. JOHN HENRY PARKER, OXFORD AND LONDON. Tracts for the Christian Seasons. FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY. The Mohawk Mission. PROPER LESSONS: Morning, Isaiah lix.; Evening, Isaiah Ixiv. THOUGHTFUL persons cannot but be struck at times, with the manner in which Almighty God permits different branches of the Holy Catholic Church to carry out, in greater or in smaller ways, some of those wonderful prophecies concerning the spreading of the Gospel, whose promises are so full of comfort. It has been the privilege of the Church of England to have many opportunities of this kind presented to her, as well in times past, as at prescnt. And it is a matter of no little comfort to those who love her, to know that many of these opportunities have been improved; while, at the same time, it cannot but be an occasion of humiliation, although it ought also to awaken to present diligence and earnestness, to feel that many more have been neglected. There is further comfort also, to be derived from the reflection that any person who should sit down and try to recollect all that had been done by our Church, in calling nations that she knew not into the one fold of Christ, would fall very far short of the reality. Hidden and unknown saints are a characteristic of the Church; humble and forgotten labours are a characteristic too. And as in the visible world, many of its grandest features and its sweetest places, are those on which few eyes have looked, so in the Church, many of its holiest members are unknown, and many blessed works on which the heart loves to dwell, and over which the memory delights to brood, are little known, or almost quite forgotten. An American priest, whose pastoral life has been mostly spent amongst the scenes of which he writes, is permitted, in God's providence, to recal to his English brethren, some of those labours of their common mother, by which, in days of lukewarmness and laxity, she still manifested her divine life, and seemed to answer in her own person to the prophet's words, "Behold thou shalt call a nation whom thou knowest not." It would seem that the glorious season of the Epiphany is the fittest of all seasons for such remembrances. One of the most beautiful portions of the state of New York, is what is called the valley of the Mohawk. It is about a hundred miles in length, and is watered by the river bearing that name, which running through its whole extent from west to east, joins the Hudson about one hundred and sixty miles from its mouth. Occasionally in passing along the valley, one meets with massive precipices rising almost perpendicularly to a great height, whose worn and ragged surfaces attest the fearful strife that once attended the bursting through of the waters, which are here broken into rapids and sometimes into waterfalls. But usually a belt of rich and highly cultivated meadow spreads on either side the river, which sometimes stretches out into extensive fields, called by the country people flats, dotted over with venerable trees, and snug farm-houses. In all cases, these flats or meadows are bounded by high hills and mountains, on most of which the self-planted forest still waves; while at frequent intervals, thriving villages and towns call off the eye, and suggest the thought of rapid improvement and advancing cultivation. It was in this valley, before one civilized man had set his foot within its pleasant places, and while the primeval forest covered all the land, that the Mohawks, the most powerful of the five confederate tribes who went under the general name of the Iroquois, esta blished themselves. These five nations were by far the most remarkable of all the aborigines of North America. In point of capacity they far surpassed the tribes by which they were surrounded. All this held especially true of the Mohawks, whose name therefore was held in great respect among their neighbours, and formed the most fearful battle-cry that they could hear. Such was the soil in which, somewhat more than a century ago, our Church was called to do her Master's work. It was on a bright autumnal afternoon in the year 1712, that, accompanied by an Indian guide and interpreter, the first missionary of the venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, drew near to one of the two Mohawk villages. He was expected by the tribe, who had learned some time before at Albany, that the good queen whom they had been taught to call their mother, had determined to send some one to them to instruct them in her own religion; and often had his expected coming been talked over in the long summer twilights, and many had been the speculations as to what it was that he was coming to teach. Thus the missionary's coming was looked to with interest, and he was already clothed in |