If we die without the last, we die without hope, and must awake to everlasting shame. The reasonableness of these assertions. will appear with commanding evidence, if we attempt an illustration of them by comparisons drawn from the wants of man, and his anxious method of expressing those wants, in the various exigencies of human life. While men live in luxurious ease, and fare sumptuously every day, they do not know the value, and consequently feel not those grateful sensations which a just and proper estimation of their blessings is calculated to excite. But see the weary worn-out traveller, with what anxiety he meets the welcome refreshment of an inn, or the necessary indulgence of "Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!" How wishfully he looks forward to the hour, or the place which presents the pleasing recreation! Nothing else can please, nothing else can satisfy, nothing else can divert; deny him this, and you take from him more than mountains of gold; but in this possession all his wishes terminate. To give another comparison more striking still, see the hunger-bitten son of forsaken poverty:-What can relieve the tediousness and pain of suspended subsistence?" How eagerly he longs for food! Want and hunger look through his eyes with penetrating anguish, and give force and energy to his importunate request. Now if a sense of corporal want is capable of exciting such amazing solicitude about the food that perisheth, what feelings, I ask, must a proper conviction of spiritual want produce in the soul, when it beholds itself by the light of Divine grace," awfully hovering in a scale of probation, which is just going to turn for heaven or hell?" And be assured, that, until you feel a concern suited to the greatness of your wants, and the imminence of your danger while you continue an alien from God, you never can be prepared to receive the blessing of pardon, any more than you can form just and proper conceptions of its value, importance, and necessity. Leaving you, therefore, with prayer to God, to his mercy and your own reflections,

How

"I pass on to offer some remarks, as proposed, on the dreadful situation of those, who having thrown off all religious and prudential restraint, impudently say with the proud monarch, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him?" Thou wretched slave of sin, why wilt thou contend with thy Maker! long wilt thou continue to do despite to the Spirit of his grace, and sin against thy own soul? I need not labour to convince thee of thy guilt; thy conduct speaks with irresistible argument; conscience hears the sound, and faithfully acts her part. Thou canst not resist her remonstrances. but yet thou wilt not suffer them to produce conviction. Although the baneful effects of iniquity have spread themselves over all thy better powers, thy memory, mind, and will; although thy body groans beneath

their weight, and rotting as it moves, most awfully displays that sin brings shame; although thy reputation staggers, and disgrace threatens; although thy wife, the partner of thy soul, the sharer of thy griefs and cares, with tears of affectionate concern, forewarns thee of the approaching storm, and points to thy infant defenceless offspring! Although thy wasted substance and embarrassed circumstances-thy physical debility and moral depravity-thy aching head-thy disgusted feelings, and the whole circle of thy degraded life, unite their consentaneous evidence, to rivet upon thy mind the irrefragable truth that sin is its own punishment, still thou persistest in thy murderous design of plunging thy soul into utter darkness! Stop man, and consider! Consider, and turn to thy God! He graciously condescends to expostulate with thee, and declares, for thy encouragement, in his word, that, although "thy sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Blessed effects of Divine grace! Draw near, and taste that the Lord is gracious. He calls, he invites, he allures, he woos thee to himself, as the only substantial good, the true source of thy happiness, and the supreme felicity of thy nature. Thou hast long been a restless wanderer after rest; cast out and banished from the light of heaven-plunged deep in thickest darkness, and immersed in gross sensuality; thy poor soul has lost its support, and deviated far from its centre. The perplexing cares of the world have added to thy calamity. Complicated disasters attend thy walk, and furnish fresh materials for the wretch's grief and the sinner's pain. The gnawings of a guilty conscience, the goadings of remorse, and the sorrows of disappointment, prey upon the vitals of thy peace, and attest the truth of God when he declares, that "There is no peace for the wicked." But still there is balm in Gilead which may be procured, there is a Physician there who will prescribe, without money and without price. Every thing in nature tendeth to its centre. The diamond and the stone necessarily tend to their parent earth. The body of man is gross and gravitating, and will shortly be fed upon by worms; but his soul, being the breath of God, can have no such principle in its composition; and being of consequence immortal, must be utterly incapable of defect or decay. It is everlasting in its duration, and infinite in its desires; therefore nothing less than an infinite good can possibly allay its thirst, or bound its ardent aspirations. Consider its dignity! A portion of the Deity! A spark Divine! A beam ethereal! Reflect upon its worth! outliving time-existing without end; capable of endless bliss or everlasting pain; and now, under the influence of these thoughts, and in the strength which God imparts, force thy way beyond flesh and blood, and lay hold on the hope set before thee. In the name of Jesus Christ the righteous, come to the pardoning

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God for life and salvation. I conjure thee in that name. seech thee by his tender mercies, flee from the wrath to come. intreat thee by the hopes of heaven, and the fears of hell-by the beauty of holiness and the deformity of vice; by all thou hast suffered in sin-by all thy Saviour has suffered for sin; by the happiness of the good-by the torments of the wicked-by the length of eternity-by the shortness of time, cast thy serpent-bitten spirit at the foot of the cross. Come, sinner, the Master calls thee. The Spirit and the Bride say come. Angelic choirs wait to tune their joyful harps to the heavenly song, and growing joy transports the mind of God while he repeats it-"This my son was dead and is alive again; this your brother was lost and is found! Earth too shall be glad, and all the sons of Zion shout for joy." But above all, thy soul shall rise, with new created splendor, into a calm possession of its own powers, and into a blessed participation of the Divine nature. Emerging like a sun filled with light, the darkness of thy own nature shall fall before thee, and a voice from the sacred word proclaim behind thee, in confirmation of thy glorious happiness, "Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee!"

An intelligent reader of the foregoing extracts is naturally led to conjecture that the Lord was preparing the writer of them for more extensive usefulness in his church. Accordingly we find, that after sustaining, for a considerable time, the office of a local preacher, and giving full proof of his piety, talents, and usefulness, he commenced itinerant in the year 1796. And, although at this. time brightening worldly prospects courted his stay, and, to my certain knowledge, afterwards solicited his return, he zealously. pursued his course unmoved. On this peculiarly interesting occasion, he writes as follows:

"Thursday, 22d of December, 1796, I left Bristol, and arrived safe at Stroud, where I was affectionately received by brother and sister Jenkins. Here is a lovely home for a young preacher; the society being also disposed to serve us.

"Friday 23d, I devoted myself to God in the service of the ministry. Trials of various kinds I expect to meet with. The Lord help me to bear them with Christian fortitude. I think I have counted the cost of fully determining to live and die a Methodist preacher."

He afterwards travelled in the Birmingham, London, Liverpool, Stroud, Dursley, Sheffield, Chesterfield, Margate, and Brentford, circuits. If his labours and success in the other circuits resembled what many witnessed in the Dursley and Chesterfield circuits, great will be the company of those who will be his joy and crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord; and amongst "those who turn many to righteousness," he will "shine as a star" of no mean magnitude, "for ever and ever."

The first time I saw Mr. Williams was at Dursley, immediately after the Manchester Conference, 1803. We had not been long together before he requested me to retire with him. He then told me the state of the circuit, and the plans which he thought most likely to promote its prosperity. Whatever were my thoughts at the time, I had reason ultimately to approve of the whole, as the most judicious that could possibly have been devised. "One thing," said he, "we must sacredly observe, and that is, to be" each other's firm friends." This remark, which can never be unseasonable, or too much regarded by the preachers of the gospel, itinerants especially, was peculiarly suitable to our circumstances. The demon of discord and division had done incalculable mischief through the circuit, setting many of the people one against another, and turning the hearts of nearly the whole of them from the travelling preachers.

At the same interview he said, "I have no idea of the supremacy of a superintendant," and declared his determination not to monopolize any power or advantage connected with his office, but to distribute them with the exactest equality. On this I shall not comment further than to remark, that this conduct was the very reverse of that despotism, with which he was charged by some, who disliked his conscientiously strict attention to discipline.

The first time I went round the circuit, what with the extent of country over which we had to travel, the smallness of the congregations, and the sterile appearance of the societies, I was greatly discouraged. He affectionately smiled at my depression, and did all in his power to remove it. At our first quarterly meeting, such was the poverty of the circuit, that it could not pay us our quarterage, which was then, I believe, only three pounds each! But, thanks be to God, the wilderness soon began to rejoice, and to become a fruitful field; and some parts of it as a garden which the Lord hath greatly blessed. At the end of two years, we had the pleasure of perceiving that our number of members was more than doubled, our hearers increased manyhundreds, and several new chapels built and building. In one society, where we found eighteen, we left eighty of the most steady, intelligent and kind people that I had ever seen. success is attributable, under God, chiefly to the wise plans, the able, pointed, and pathetic discourses, the zealous and indefatigable conduct of Mr. Williams. At the Leeds Conference in 1806 we were appointed together to the Chesterfield circuit, which had just been taken from Sheffield, and embraced the whole of the Peak of Derbyshire. Although much labour had been bestowed, and many gracious showers had descended upon this extensive field, yet, owing to its vast extent, and the inability of the preachers residing in Sheffield, to bestow upon it sufficient attention, the country too much resembled a neglected, unsightly

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waste, which only needed the application of proper means to render it beautiful and fruitful. Eminently fitted, indeed, was our dear brother for the superintendance of such a country; and greatly did his gracious Master own his noble well-directed efforts. It was found necessary to revive and enforce some parts of our excellent discipline, especially that part of it which respects the support of the cause of God amongst us, by small weekly and quarterly contributions. This easy and efficient mode of raising money originated amongst the Methodists, and is now applauded and adopted by different denominations of Christians, especially in aid of Bible and Missionary Societies; and, therefore, to refuse to conform to it, is most strange and unnatural, in any of our members. In the whole of the Chesterfield circuit, however, at that time, there was scarcely a society, if one at all, that did not object to the plan. But by steadily, firmly, and meekly adhering to the rule, shewing, at the same time, its reasonableness, possibility, necessity, and advantages, I believe all the societies gave up their objections. And it is surely worthy of remark, that the two societies which first yielded were the first to experience a gracious revival of the work of God. While he was on this circuit he wrote to a friend as follows:-" With respect to myself, I can truly say, that my duty is my delight. I often feel a great pleasure in my labours. I bear about me a deep impression of the value of immortal souls; and, next to my own salvation, to be instrumental in promoting the salvation of others, appears to me the most valuable end of life."

This was, I have no doubt, a true picture of his ardent soul. But the sword was at this time too keen for the brittle scabbard. It was during his first year's labours on this circuit, that the foundation was laid for those diseases which so early removed him from the vineyard to his reward. Finding, one Sabbath morning, that his horse had lost a shoe, or was a little lame, he got him put out to grass, and walked up and down the hills of the high Peak, a considerable number of miles, and preached his usual number of sermons. The weather was very hot, and his perspiration excessive. Almost immediately after, he was laid by in Chesterfield, and, though he revived so far as to be able to do considerable execution against the kingdom of darkness, in the name of the Lord, yet, I believe, he never fully regained his wonted strength. How changed did he appear when I saw him at the last Sheffield Conference; but far more so at Leeds the year following. When he attempted to speak in the Conference, his once strong, well-tuned voice, became tremulous; and his once firm and well-strung nerve, became like a reed shaken with the wind. At this time, our kind friends in Wakefield, hearing, with concern, of his enfeebled state, sent him an affectionate in VOL. XLI. FEBRUARY, 1818.

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