'Lo, I

and guilty spots of his conscience, to the fountain opened. am with you alway,' and it is not possible for one man to converse with his friend more affectionately, or urgently, or sorrowfully, than we have heard him communing with an unseen Saviour. The things seen are temporal; the things not seen are eternal; and so persuaded was he of this-so constantly alive to the greater solidity and surpassing glory of the things not seen, that though few possessed a mind more susceptible, he regarded the beautiful forms, and joyful incidents of earth as merely the shadows of lovelier scenes and anticipations of happier events elsewhere-as the paper packing and rustling integuments given to the children to amuse themselves withal, till such time as they should be summoned up to sit with their elder Brother amid the bright realities of the heavenly places. And so intent was he on the glory hereafter to be revealed, that he often looked like one standing behind the dull door of flesh, and listening if there were no movement on the other side-longing till he should enter in, and be ever with the Lord. The light of his faith so shone, that many who had not themselves felt the powers of the world to come, in his society felt there was such a world. Again, some Christians are phlegmatic and cold-hearted. They believe the gospel, but they do not sufficiently love the Saviour. Of Mr M Cheyne it might truly be said, the love of Christ constrained him.' He had pressed into a holy intimacy with his ascended Saviour, and had surrendered his soul to the fervour of an unreserved affection, and made no secret of it; for me to live is Christ.' It was with a reference to the Lord Jesus, and with strength derived from him, that he did almost all his works. There were, therefore, about these works a grace and finish, and an intensity pervaded them, such as no abstract principle could impart, and his feeblest word had in it a memorable weight and melting power. Then, on the other hand, some happy and warm-hearted believers are not sufficiently humble and devout. They have too little of the temper and mien of the seraph which Isaiah saw. They are not sufficiently reverential. The highest attainment of the renewed nature is to love God for what he is in himself,-by the door of Immanuel's mediation to pass up into delighted contemplation of God's infinite glory, adoring fellowship with Father, Son, and Spirit. There is nothing which so sublimes and purifies the soul, as this basking in the beams of the uncreated light,-nothing which so elevates the affections, and gives the believer such a world-forgetting aspect, as this high intercourse with the Eternal. All in all-complacency in God-satisfaction in himself delectation in his attributes, and absorption in his will, are the very crown and consummation of religion. Few in these latter days have attained to more of these than the ethereal Edwards. Aided by his mighty intellect but still more aided by the word of

God, and strengthened mightily by the Spirit in his inner man, he had gained such insight into the unfathomed altitudes of the Divine perfections, as left an impress of astonishment and abasement over his habitual walk on earth,-a sublime humility, as of one bowed down with an exceeding weight of glory,—a majestic astonishment, of transcendent intellect awe-struck by beholding that High and Holy One before whom our genius is but folly, our knowledge a laborious ignorance, and our purity a mere specious pollution. His perceptions of the majesty, sovereignty, and grace of God, had left a trace of such sweet solemnity all over him, that his very aspect was awakening, and his cumbersome efforts to embody in unequal words manifestations which, even after they were revealed to him, his heart could not conceive, make some passages in his memoir, and in his writings, singularly expressive. Amongst theological authors Edwards was the favourite of Mr M Cheyne. He had drunk deeply of the self-same spirit. His mind was full of reverence and godly fear. He was too filial to be capable of flippancy, or any unholy freedom; and his exalted views of God's infinite glory invested his own character with a majesty of holiness, as solemnising as the beauty of his holiness was attractive and winning.

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And as the minister or private disciple, who is intent on glorifying his Master, should seek to have his soul pervaded by those deep principles of faith and love, and godly fear, which constitute the intensity of Christian character,—the burning' of the light, without which all profession is a mere phosphorescence, the flickering of a cold and ineffectual flame,-so he should seek to render his conduct attractive by those more obvious amenities, those world-ward graces which constitute the pleasant shining' of this light,-the good works which lead men to glorify our Father in heaven. Of these, we fear, that some earnest Christians are too neglectful. Conscious of their own sincerity, or engrossed with some great object, they do not sufficiently cultivate whatsoever things are honest, lovely, and of good report, and even allow themselves to be excelled by worldly men in those beauties of character which, though subordinate, are not insignificant. Attention to the wants of others, care for their comfort, and consideration for their feelings, are Christian graces, but not graces for which all Christians are conspicuous. Christianity allows us to forget our own wants, but it does not permit us to forget the necessities of our brethren. It requires us to be careless of our own ease, but it forbids us to overlook the comfort and convenience of other people. Of this the Lord Jesus was himself the patHe was sometimes a-hungered, but in that case he wrought no miracle. But when the multitude had long fasted, he created bread to supply them, rather than send them away fainting. And though his great errand was to save his people from their sins, he

tern.

went continually about saving afflicted people from their sorrows. And in this disciples should resemble him. Though they know that the soul is more worth than the body, and the interests of eternity more precious than those of time, they also know that it is after these things that the Gentiles seek; and therefore if they would win the Gentiles, they must attend to their personal wants, temporal comforts. Nay, more, as a system of universal amelioration, Christianity demands our efforts for the outward weal of our worldly neighbours, and our delicate attention to the minutest comfort of our Christian brethren. It was on this principle that Oberlin, seeking the salvation of his peasant-parishioners, felt that he was not going out of his way as an evangelist, when he opened a school for their wild-goat children, when he taught themselves many humble but useful arts hitherto unknown in the Bande-la-Roche,-when he set them to the planting of trees, and clearing of roads,-when he established an agricultural society, and published a calendar, divested of the astrological falsehoods with which their almanacks were wont to abound. Oberlin's Christianity would have prompted these humane and beneficent actions even though no ulterior good had accrued from them; but first in the tour of their villages, and then in their conversion to God, he had his abundant reward. And it was on the same principle that the apostolic Williams, brim-full of sense and kindness, came down like a cornu-copia on his South Sea Islanders, and by startling them with the prodigies of civilisation, and enriching them with its inventions, at once conveyed an idea of the beautiful spirit of the gospel, and conciliated their affection to its messenger. And it was on the same principle that the benignant Wilberforce,-himself the best practical view of Christianity, was so studious of the feelings, and so accommodating to the wishes of his worldly friends,-so abounded in those considerative attentions to all around him, which only a delicate mind could imagine, and a dexterous skill could execute, was so anxious to convey remonstrance and reproof in a way which might rather touch the conscience than offend the pride, and would subject himself to all sorts of inconvenience in order to carry a ray of gladness from the social circle into the sick man's cottage, or to temper with his own diffusive gladness the bitter cup of some humble disciple. The steam which sets in motion the huge fly-wheel, and is thus the actuating power of a large and productive mechanism, accomplishes by a single effort a wholesale service; and the stream which, like the rivers of Damascus, divides itself to a thousand little gardens, and bequeaths a several portion to each tree as it passes, makes little show and is spent at last. The philanthropy of Wilberforce did both. It achieved a wholesale service when it abolished the trade in slaves; but it accomplished a service scarcely

less, when, wimpling on its quiet way, it shed a gladness through so many homes, and poured a cup of cold water round the roots of many a pining tender plant, which might have perished, but for such timely aid. No disciple can resemble his Lord who does not maintain a benignant bearing to those around him. Grace was infused into the lips of Jesus, None in the guise of humanity was ever conscious of such power within; none ever gave outlet to inherent power in rarer coruscations. His gentleness made him great; and so engaging was his aspect, so compassionate his mien, that frail mortality could lay its head securely on his bosom, though Omnipotence slept within. Believers should in this resemble Jesus. They should be mild and accessible, and, like the Sun of Righteousness, should carry such healing in their wings, as to make their very presence the harbinger of joy. It was said of Charles of Bala, that it was a good sermon to look at him. And so much of the mind of Christ should reside in each disciple as to make that true of him which the old elegy says of Sir Philip Sidney:

A sweet attractive kind of grace,

A full assurance given by looks,
Continual comfort in a face

The lineament of gospel-books ;

For sure that count'nance cannot lie,

Whose thoughts are written in the eye.

To make reprisals on the world, it is needful to elevate the church. Without the Holy Spirit's quickening power, living epistles have no more converting virtue in them than the written or spoken word. But certain it is, that the most pregnant means of awakening personal solicitude about salvation, or of confirming that solicitude where once it has been awakened, is the impressiveness of regenerated character-the consistent example and holy life of ministers, parents, or Christian friends. It is for consideration whether this means of grace, this converting ordinance,(Matt. v, 13-16) exist among us in all the efficiency of which it is capable. We are disposed to think that the believer in Jesus who, ambitious of eminent holiness, and intent on the utmost usefulness, would avail himself of all the hints and maxims of character contained in Seripture, and would, in childlike implicitness, leave himself in the hands of the transforming Spirit, might attain an elevation of excellence, and exercise an influence in commending the gospel, at which others, if not himself, would wonder. In Robert M'Cheyne we have seen what the urgency of preaching, perpetuated from home to home in a holy life, and heavenly conversation, and enforced by that Spirit of promise on whom he so habitually depended, can accomplish. And it would be in burning and shining lights like him should He who walks amidst the golden candlesticks be pleased to supply his church with

such that we should descry the dawning of Scotland's better day.

ART. VII-A Report of the whole Proceedings of the late General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland relative to the State of Religion in the Land, containing the Deliberations of Friday the 17th, of Tuesday the 21st, with the Sermon of that day, and of Tuesday the 28th of May. With an Introductory Narrative, by the REV. A. MOODY STUART. Edinburgh: Bell and Bradfute.

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For want of a charge against the Free Church, more substantial and poignant, it has been of late very much the policy of those who bear us no favour, and grudge us all success, to assert that we are overrun with a spirit of arrogance and shameless boasting. Whoever had entered the Assembly of the seceders on any day during their late sittings, could scarcely have failed to hear some note of triumph sounded, on a comparison of their condition with that of the Church, which they first deserted in a body, and then taunted with not having their places instantaneously supplied. He would have heard how devoted was the piety of their clergy-how warm the zeal of their people-how they had in every quarter monopolized the field of Christian labour, and left nothing for their spiritual rivals to do. He would have left them, fully persuaded of their conviction, that if some human frailties did fall to their lot-if they had not altogether reached the perfection of spiritual attainment, still they were the purest specimen of a Christian church, at present existing, and that they had left in the church they had forsaken, little deserving the name of a church at all. But he might, perhaps, if he were a man given to looking deeper than the surface of things, see some occasion to doubt, whether a little more blindness to their own perfections might not be fully as healthful a sign of their condition, as the keen perception of them which they displayed; whether it were not one of the characteristics of high spiritual attainment to be slow to admit the belief of its own existence and the intense self-laudation sounding in his ears on every side, would certainly impress him with the fear that they were indulging in food too stimulating and exciting to be of much benefit to their spiritual health. Had the same man entered the General Assembly of the Established Church, he would have been convinced, that the reviled and decried Church of Scotland was passing through an ordeal out of which she would come chastened, purified, and strengthened, while her arrogant rival was admitting the growth of a high-minded spirit, which would, according to all analogy, unless checked, wither up the whole life of godliness within her."