but Thou? It is, O Lord, by the secret converse of the soul with Thee, that we shall learn profitably to converse with others. All the light we can reflect must first be borrowed from Heaven--all the love flowers we can scatter, must first be gathered by us, whilst we are in soul with Jesus in the heavenly places of light and love (Eph. ii. 6; 2 Cor. i. 3-6.)

The afflicted man whose case I narrate, after a considerable period of time had elapsed, appeared to become interested in my visits. The beautiful tracts of the Religious Tract Society were carefully perused, and I was enabled to commence catechetical instruction, to which I am extremely partial.

I discovered he had very vague ideas respecting his condition, and did not appear to consider more necessary than to repent and reform.*

I endeavoured to enlighten his mind respecting salvation, and to impress him with due views of the exceeding sinfulness of sin; but he had never in

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* A lady being visited with a violent disorder, was attended by a latitudinarian physician, who insisted that repentance and reformation were all that either God or man could justly demand, and denied the necessity of an atonement by the sufferings of the Son of God. The lady had not 'so learned Christ." On her recovery she invited the doctor to tea, and in the course of conversation observed, that her long illness had occasioned him many journeys and expenses; she further observed, I am extremely sorry that I have put you to so much trouble and expense, and also promise that on any future illness I will never trouble you again; so you see I both repent and reform, and that is all you require.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders and remarked, "That will not do for me." Why then, alas! should he deem it would do for God?

youth been taught these things-a stranger he to a pious mother of whom he could say,—

"When she taught me the prayer,

When she heard me the page,

Which if infancy lisps,

Is the solace of age,"

or to family prayer, which, as Cecil truly observes, "is a vast engine of power to the whole domestic circle, says there is a God, and inspires a reverence for his character. It proclaims a life to come, and points to the spirit land. It fixes the idea of responsibility in the mind. Religion begins in the family. One of the holiest sanctuaries on earth is home. The family altar is more venerable than any altar in the cathedral. The education of the soul for eternity begins by the fireside. The principle of love, which is to be carried through the universe, is first unfolded in the family."

My young friend, who had received no proper religious training in his youth, grew up wild and dissipated. A situation in a counting-house was procured for him, which he did not possess sufficient habits of application to retain; and being a remarkably handsome figure, and of genteel address, he found little difficulty in obtaining admission into one of those remarkable regiments, the Queen's Life-Guards.

The Almighty Spirit of God now appeared to be bringing the instruction he received to bear with power upon his heart. His heart, we hopefully believe, began to be affected with a sense of his sinfulness. He evidently became affected with a sense of the coming scenes of death and judgment.

It is impossible to conceive a higher character or office than the Missionary office, ministering con

tinually the Gospel ministry-"the ministry of reconciliation" to a lost world. Whatever earthly degrees or titles he may lack, it is the unalterable decree of God that, if faithful, the Missionary purchases to himself "a good degree and great boldness in the faith."

We have escaped the mists of Rome, and have no sacrificial altar on earth; our sacrifice is sacrificed for us by "the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all," Heb. x. 10. Types and shadows have passed away; the all-glorious antitype and substance has said, "Lo, I come." We trust to the Spirit of God only savingly to affect the soul, and instrumentally to "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God," Eph. vi. 17. Man is saved neither by wafer, nor by priest, but by faith in Christ.

When one human being is made the instrument of conveying to another those unspeakably glorious influences which faith imparts-faith, blessed faith, of which it has been said so truly,

"Soft peace she brings whene'er she arrives,
She forms our actions and she guides our lives;
Lays the rough paths of peevish nature even,
And opens to the soul a glimpse of heaven,"

-it then not unfrequently happens, that the benefited person conceives an extravagant estimate of the benefiter. This is of course likely especially to be the case with the ignorant. The tie is always of a most tender character, and is divinely compared to the tenderest tie of earth, (Gal. iv. 19.)

My young friend one day, after appearing much refreshed by my praying with him, and indeed I felt a peculiarly grateful influence of the Holy Spirit myself, said to me, looking in my face with

the most loving expression conceivable, and with great deliberation, "Do you know I think sometimes you are an angel, for ever since you have visited me all is so altered."-A messenger of mercy to him indeed!

I well recollect one poor man who was brought to a hopeful knowledge of the truth through visitation. He lay dying, and his relatives were present to witness his departure. I prayed with him, as it proved for the last time, not conceiving he could attend much to me, as he had hard work to die. On turning to leave, however, we were all startled at his suddenly raising himself upright in bed, and throwing out his long arm of skin and bone towards me, and with the pallor of death in his face, he said, in a loud tone of voice, "There goes the best friend I ever had," and then sunk back again. We were all astonished, as his existence was afterwards numbered only by minutes, and capability of effort even to speak appeared to have gone. The gratitude must have been intense, indeed, that enabled him to make that effort.

The soldier whose office it had been to guard the life of a queen was about to yield up his own life, at the command of the King of kings. His gigantic frame was dissolving. How different his appearance when, with the glitter of military pageantry, and clangour of arms, he reined in a noble steed! But there is no discharge in the war of death:

"Some men with swords may reap the field,

Plant crimson laurels where they kill,
But their strong nerves at last must yield,
They tame but one another still.

Early or late

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

"The garlands wither on the brow,

Nor vainly boast arms' mighty deeds,
Upon death's purple altar now-

See here the martial victim bleeds.
All heads must come

To the cold tomb;

Only the actions of the just,

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust."

I cannot well prolong this narrative by detailing the gracious expressions the dying soldier uttered. He was hopefully brought to a saving knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, and read good books, and prepared to meet his God.

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His poor mother, although unconverted, was not without natural affection. He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." He was, moreover, her chief earthly dependence.

There is hardly a more affecting scene upon earth, than to behold a mother sitting by the couch of her dying child, tending his last moments. What a baptism of suffering is on her brow! She suffered at the birth of that child-she is suffering now at his death. Who ever loved a mother enough? The tear just now starts in my eye, whilst I remember many a pang I inflicted in youth on a deceased mother, although I think I could sometimes have died for her.

Poor Mrs. sat weeping by the bedside of her son as if she would say:

"My child, my child, and can it be,
So sad a change has passed on thee?