are simply aiming to have all things brought to be as Christ would have them to be. Tens of thousands of that enormous wickedness of our days, Sunday newspapers, issue in polluting streams of ungodliness every Sabbath.

The PERIODICAL LITERATURE of the metropolis in the number of its publications, probably considerably exceeds 250,000; and this number is sent out four, or twelve, or fifty-two times in the year, according to the various intervals at which each quarterly, monthly, and weekly publication is issued. How vast these extensive means of influencing and leading aright the public mind! This literature has at command genius and talent; it has skill, discernment,-and, occasionally, even extended learning, in everything relating to letters, and taste, and arts, and science, and the things of this life. It occupies innumerable minds in its preparation and in its perusal, but as to a large part of it (with some bright exceptions) it is yet silent, at best, on saving knowledge, and shuts our God out of his own world; and often is the Christian pained in it by the avowal of sentiments directly contrary to the revealed truths of the inspired Word. Ignorance of God and his truth, is the prevailing character of that reflection, as well as excitement, of the public mind, which we behold in the journals and periodicals multiplying through our country from London. And, then, if we proceed to consider the astonishing mass of publications daily

issuing from the press, exceeding calculation and enumeration in its amount, we see the verification of a fountain sending forth sweet water and bitter, and out of the same mouth, as it were, proceeding blessing and cursing.

The DANGER of this IGNORANCE, unseen and disregarded as it may be, is awfully tremendous. The true danger of Nineveh, was not the vast mass of human beings collected together, the weakness of the government, or faults in the administration of it; the real danger was, their wickedness came up before God. When they put away that wickedness-the danger ceased. Oh, instructive lesson to us in London, would we but learn it! Spiritual ignorance is not, as many suppose, an excuse for sin. God has given his truth with such light and clearness that it is a soul-destroying sin crying out for vengeance. When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, it is to take vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The INWARD EVIL is great and ruinous. While men are wholly pursuing their worldly and ungodly plans, they are full of darkness, weariness, and misery. Amidst all the present excitement of their minds, their fears, and their hopes, "the way of peace have they not known." O, how painful it is to see immortal beings thus under God's righteous judgment, labouring in the very fire, and the people wearying themselves for very

vanity. The wicked are like the troubled sea not rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. peace, saith my God, to the wicked.

when it can

There is no

The DANGER TO SOCIETY, is much greater and wider than can be at present discerned. The restraining hand of God is yet upon the spirits of men. Не горо пого withholdeth, will withhold till he be taken out of the way. (2 Thess. ii. 7.) Thus, selfishness and ungodliness cannot yet bring forth its full misery. But let the present, and as we have reason to think temporary, and now short Divine restraint once be removed, and just as many of us have seen in the first French Revolution, devastation and destruction would burst forth on every side. The volcanic matter is deeply spread, not under the material earth, but in the very hearts of the men of this generation. Through the indulged evil passions, and love of sin, and wilful unbelief of its own inhabitants, there is hidden in the present state of men's minds in London, all the materials of a more tremendous destruction than the burning lava of Ætna, or Vesuvius, can make; or than the earthquakes that have overthrown mighty cities, ever occasioned.

There is, indeed, in the full prevalence of this sin, that which is the true source of all danger,-IMPENDING JUDGMENT from the Most High. Wonderfully have we, as a nation, been preserved in many and great trials. Rescued again and again have we been—from the grasp of Popery, but we have come once more under

the spell of the subtle harlot, who makes the inhabitants of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication, and thus have put ourselves afresh in the way of those judgments that shall consume Popery. Our Government increases its grant to the maintenance of acknowledged idolatry in Maynooth. Our Government pays near 15,000l. for the maintenance of Popery in our colonies, exclusive of India, in which nearly 2,0007. more is paid for the propagation of error condemned so clearly and so strongly in God's Word. Apostasy has become the character of our prevailing Christianity; and no wonder, in the corruption of the best, the only true religion, that London, with respect to a large mass of its population, rises not above the level of heathen nations in moral conduct and the knowledge of God. What can we expect, then, but the speedy and heavy chastisements of Almighty God, visiting in righteous wrath a nation thus returning evil for his goodness?

With this is the still farther everlastingly ruinous evil, THE PERISHING OF IMMORTAL SOULS. Probably one hundred human beings each day, four each hour, on the average, are dying, out of the two millions of London. We have seen how large is the proportion of these living without Christ, having no hope, and without God in the world. Think of immortal souls thus constantly perishing; perishing for ever in the sight, and within the reach, of all the privileges of Christianity in our own land,-the land in which the Church of

Christ is favoured more than in any other country, with means and full advantages for rescuing those souls from destruction, did we but duly fulfil the high office to which God calls us, when he says, If any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

When we look at London as it really exists, what a mystery it is of God's patience, and long-suffering, and goodness! We see the intense eagerness with which, in its more crowded streets through the day, the ceaseless flow of its population is hasting to and fro as if to escape death, or to save life; and when we mark the ardour of each in his respective occupation, and the worn anxiety of many a countenance, after rejoicing in the thought, that the true, and perhaps hidden, servants of God are largely mingled with the thronging crowds everywhere, and so it is yet preserved from destruction, we cannot but fear that the prevailing character of this moving mass of immortal beings, is a care for the things of this life, and a total disregard of the will and glory of their Creator, Redeemer, and Comforter; and the high and heavenly and eternal blessings which he promises to them that seek him. And this being the case, how can we but conclude that the long-suffering and patience of God will at length issue in a day of wrath and righteous judgment on them who refuse to know