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ficient, he thinks it not mean nor troublesome to ask assistance, and plead the cause of the destitute. He does not stop to inquire who is my neighbour? By the ties of humanity he feels his heart knit to the whole human race. While he looks up with devotion and gratitude to the common Parent, he looks around him with kind and tender attachment, and says, "Are we not all his offspring?" These amiable and humane dispositions rise to a still more exalted benevolence, under the experienced influence of the divine Saviour's grace and benignity. In one affectionate embrace the Christian clasps the whole world. Even to enemies and strangers he wishes to stretch his relieving beneficent hand. Though no returns in kind should be made, nay, though acts of generosity or friendship should meet with insensibility and ingratitude, the ardour of his liberal charity cannot be damped, or diverted from the honourable pursuits of goodness and mercy.-From Sermons by Balfour.

ON AUTUMN.

Let the young go out, in these hours, under the descending sun of the year, into the fields of nature. Their hearts are now ardent with hope-with the hopes of fame, of honour, or of happiness; and in the long perspective which is before them, their imagination creates a world where all may be enjoyed. Let the scenes which they now may witness moderate, but not extinguish, their ambition: while they see the yearly desolation of nature, let them see it as the emblem of mortal hope: while they feel the disproportion between the powers they possess and the time they are to be employed, let them carry their ambitious eye beyond the world; and while, in these sacred solitudes, a voice in their own bosom corresponds to the voice of decaying nature, let them take that high decision which becomes those who feel themselves the inhabitants of a greater world, and who look to a being incapable of decay.

Let the busy and the active go out, and pause for a time amid the scenes which surround them, and learn the high lesson which nature teaches in the hours of its fall. They are now ardent with all the desires of mortality; and fame,

and interest, and pleasure, are displaying to them their shadowy promises: and, in the vulgar race of life, many weak and many worthless passions are too naturally engendered. Let them withdraw themselves for a time from the agitations of the world; let them mark the desolation of summer, and listen to the winds of winter, which begin to murmur above their heads. It is a scene which, with all its power, has yet no reproach; it tells them, that such is also the fate to which they must come; that the pulse of passion must one day beat low; that the illusions of time must pass ; and "that the spirit must return to Him who gave it." It reminds them, with gentle voice, of that innocence in which life was begun, and for which no prosperity of vice can make any compensation; and that angel who is one day to stand upon the earth, and to "swear that time shall be no more," seems now to whisper to them, amid the hollow winds of the year, what manner of men they ought to be, who must meet that decisive hour.

There is an eventide in human life, a season when the eye becomes dim, and the strength decays, and when the winter of age begins to shed upon the human head its prophetic snow. It is the season of life to which the present is most analogous; and much it becomes, and much it would profit you, to mark the instructions which the season brings. The spring and the summer of your days are gone, and with them, not only the joys they knew, but many of the friends who gave them. You have entered upon the autumn of your being, and whatever may have been the profusion of your spring, or the warm intemperance of your summer, there is yet a season of stillness and of solitude which the beneficence of Heaven affords you, in which you may meditate upon the past and the future, and prepare yourselves for the mighty change which you are soon to undergo.

If it be thus you have the wisdom to use the decaying season of nature, it brings with it consolations more valuable than all the enjoyments of former days. In the long retrospect of your journey, you have seen every day the shades of the evening fall, and every year the clouds of winter gather. But you have seen also, every succeeding day, the morning arise in its brightness, and in every succeeding

year, the spring return to renovate the winter of nature. It is now you may understand the magnificent language of Heaven-it mingles its voice with that of revelation-it summons you, in these hours when the leaves fall, and the winter is gathering, to that evening study which the mercy of Heaven has provided in the book of salvation; and while the shadowy valley opens which leads to the abode of death, it speaks of that hand which can comfort and can save, and which can conduct to those " green pastures, and those still waters," where there is an eternal spring for the children of God.-From Alison's Sermons on the Seasons.

THE CHRISTIAN MOTHER AND WIFE.

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What a public blessing, what an instrument of the most exalted good, is a virtuous Christian mother! It would require a far other pen than mine to trace the merits of such a character. How many perhaps who now hear me, feel that they owe to it all the virtue and piety that adorns them; or may recollect at this moment, some saint in heaven that brought them into light to labour for their happiness, temporal and eternal. No one can be ignorant of the irresistible influence which such a mother possesses in forming the hearts of her children, at a season when nature takes in lesson and example at every pore. Confined by duty and inclination within the walls of her own house, every hour of her life becomes an hour of instruction, every feature of her conduct a transplanted virtue. Methinks I behold her encircled by her beloved charge, like a being more than human, to which every mind is bent, and every eye directed; the eager simplicity of infancy inhaling from her lips the sacred truths of religion, in adapted phrase and fa miliar story; the whole rule of their moral and religious duties simplified for easier infusion. The countenance of this fond and anxious parent all beaming with delight and love, and her eye raised occasionally to heaven in fervent supplication for a blessing on her work. O what a glorious part does such a woman act on the great theatre of humanity, and how much is the mortal to be pitied who is not struck with the image of such excellence! When I look to its consequences direct and remote, I see the plants she

has raised and cultivated, spreading through the community with the richest increase of fruit; I see her diffusing happiness and virtue through a great portion of the human race. I can fancy generations yet unborn rising to prove and to hail her worth, and I adore that God who can destine a single human creature to be the stem of such extended and incalculable benefit to the world. It is scarce possible for the human mind to offer an argument more powerful in support of an institution like this, to those whose views are Christian and public.

In the character of wife we find a virtuous woman equally existing for the happiest purposes. Marriage, it is true, is often a state in which neither of the parties is much the better for coming together. When all study and consideration of their worth is put out of the question in the motives that bring on the connection, the result must generally be, and naturally is, both unfavourable to their felicity and their manners. Judge what a miserable business it is that terminates at best, after a short period, in a compromise to detest each other, with ceremony and politeness, and pursue their respective ways of folly or depravity, according to their fancy; a case where terms of endearment are used that the heart disavows, and a mask of union and affection put on in the vain hope of blindfolding the world. Yet such, I fear, is the fate of many, many a pair, and must ever be so where the only inducement to the state is passion, interest, or the pride of alliance. Nothing, however, is more true than what the apostle has asserted, that a Christian wife is the salvation of her husband. For surely if any thing can have power to wean a man from evil, it is the living image of all that is perfect, constantly before his eyes, in the person whom, next to God, he is forced to reverence and respect; and who, next to God, he must be assured, has his present and future felicity most at heart; who joins to the influence of her example, the most assiduous attention to please, who knows, from the experience of every hour, where his errors and vices may be assailed with any prospect of success; who is instructed, by the close study of his disposition, when to speak, and when to be silent; who watches and distinguishes that gleam of reflection which no

eye can perceive but her own; who can fascinate by the mildness and humility of her manner, at the moment she expostulates and reproves; who receives him with smiles and kindness, even when conscience smites him the most with a sense of his neglect and unworthiness; who has always a resource at hand in his difficulties, and tender apologies to reprieve him from himself; and a gracious presentiment ever on her lips, that the day will come when he will know how to value the advantages of good conduct, and the unruffled serenity of virtue. Yes, my brethren, the ministry of such a woman is daily found to work the reformation of our sex, when all other resources fail; when neither misfortune, nor shame, nor the counsels of friendship, nor the considerations of hell or heaven, have any more effect than the whistling of the elements. Merciful God! how zealously should we therefore labour to diffuse such characters through the people; and how little perhaps do we reflect, when we turn to these orphans, to what sacred, what glorious ends they are destined.-From the Works of the Rev. Dean Kirwan.

RELIGIOUS RETIREMENT.

Religious retirement takes off the impression which the neighbourhood of evil example has a tendency to make upon the mind. The world, my friends, is not in general a school of virtue, it is often the scene of vanity and vice. Corrupted manners, vicious deeds, evil communications, surround us on every side. From our first entrance into life, we become spectators of the vicious, and witnesses to the commission of sin. This presence of the wicked lessens our natural horror at a crime, it renders the idea of vice familiar to the mind, and insensibly lulls asleep that guarded circumspection which ought always to be awake. Besides this contagion of evil example, the unhappy proneness of men to imitate the manners of those with whom they live, adds strength to the temptations of the world. Our favourable opinion of the person extends to the action he commits, and by our fatal fondness of imitation, we do what we see done. Our way then in the world lies through snares and precipices; we see and we hear at the peril of our souls.

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