amid all the changes and revolutions of the material; and it will survive "the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds." So it is, so will it be with your souls. They are connected by indissoluble ties with the permanent, the everlasting. They are immortal. They will live, and their faculties remain unimpaired, when the body lies mouldering in the dust; when time shall be no more; when the immense fabric of the material world shall have passed away; and their existence will be continued for ever. The spiritual is the eternal world; that department of being which has no end. Although, therefore, we have a spiritual and immortal soul, by which we are now connected with the spiritual, eternal world; yet, properly speaking, we do not enter the eternal world until we die. At death we cease to have to do with time, and dwell simply in eternity. On this account that world to us is future; but, when separated from the body, we become its real living inhabitants. That world includes two separate places and states of being, and they involve retribution and reward. The present world is a place of trial; the future-the eternal world-a place in which men are recompensed according to their deeds. Some leave their probationary state guilty and polluted, some pardoned and purified. These having different deserts, must and will have a different recompense, live in different states. Hence God has provided a heaven for the holy, and a hell for the wicked. One is a region of purity and blessedness, the other a place of darkness and woe. The former is the dwelling-place of God, holy angels, and sanctified spirits; the latter is inhabited by devils and wicked human beings. If then these things be so, if the spiritual alone is eternal, and adequate to meet the most important wants of man; if it include the fearful alternatives of endless happiness or misery, is it not, must it not be inconceivably more important than the material, which is obviously beneath man's capabilities, unable to give true happiness, and so soon to be no more. Allowing this, therefore, I would add, the spiritual part of your nature demands your chief attention; your spiritual and eternal welfare should be the grand object of your life; and to this great end all material concerns and interests should be regarded as secondary and subordinate. This is evidently the suggestion of true wisdom, the dictate of true piety, and in perfect accordance with the divine will. This order of things, however, man has wickedly and foolishly reversed. Depreciating his higher nature, and cleaving to the dust; he has placed the material before the spiritual, and made the things of time and sense the chief, if not the only objects of his pursuits. This is the great cause of his ruin; his sin, his moral degradation, and misery. Never, therefore, can man be raised to that eminent position for which his Maker fitted and designed him; never can he attain to real intellectual and moral excellence, and social happiness, until, in rightly estimating the relative importance and claims of the material and spiritual, in following the dictates of conscience and obeying the voice of God; he devotes his first and supreme attention to the spiritual part of his being. He may progress in general knowledge, accumulate wealth, and rise to honour; he may carry out plans of political and social reform, but it is not the province of these things to remove the real cause of man's misery, and to raise him to real spiritual dignity and bliss. Man needs a thorough spiritual reformation. His heart is not in its right place; his affections lead him astray from the centre of truth, the fountain of light, and the source of happiness. He is a moral renegade, a prodigal, a wanderer. He has left his heavenly Father's house, and gone into a far country, and devoured his substance, the elements of his moral well-being, with harlots and riotous living. Restore him to his right mind, induce him to cease his wanderings and return home to God; let him learn his heavenly Father's will, and regulate his conduct by a supreme regard to the claims of his spiritual being-his higher nature—and then, and not till then, will he be truly good or truly happy. To effect this is the grand design of the gospel. This the gospel alone can do. When accompanied by the Divine Spirit, it enlightens the understanding, purifies the affections and the conscience, imparts a new and holy nature, and thus leads him from the material to the spiritual, from earth to heaven. Therefore, my friends, study the gospel. Acquaint yourselves with its interesting facts, its sublime doctrines, and its holy precepts. Imbibe its spirit, obey its laws. Abandon at once the sordid, the corrupt and corrupting materialism of the age; not only that of the head, but also that of the heart and the life. A few here and there hold the unphilosophical and antireligious notion that man has no spiritual nature, but is simply a material being. This opinion is necessarily opposed both to morals and religion, it is generally associated with avowed infidelity and wickedness. Against this growing evil all should be put on their guard; their minds should be well furnished with correct views of human nature, and with sound arguments for the spirituality and immortality of the soul, and its connection with the spiritual, eternal world. Materialism in theory, however, is much less to be feared than materialism in practice. This is an evil of far greater magnitude, and attended with more fearful results. It pervades society, corrupts the conscience, undermines the foundations of piety in the soul, and forms the greatest barrier to the progress of the gospel. Its seat is in the heart, not the head, and like some evil disease, it vitiates the entire moral constitution, produces a total disrelish for divine things, and makes its subjects emphatically earthly creatures. Indeed, all the vices that have ever degraded human society, are simply so many forms of practical materialism: they have their roots in a disposition to subject the spiritual to the material. Selfishness, avarice, sensuality, oppression, fraud, hypocrisy, worldly ambition, together with all other moral and social evils, are but different phases of materialism. What a many-headed monster is practical materialism; and how insidious and wary are its movements. It accommodates itself to all tastes and professions; it wears a garb of many colours; creeps into all classes, communities, and nations; and thus acquires a kind of ubiquity, which renders it a formidable enemy to the best and holiest interests of the human race. This is the great foe with which Christian ministers, and all true reformers, have to grapple; with nothing less than its utter destruction must they be content, for the regeneration of the world will never be effected so long as it exerts its regal power. The spiritual must possess sove reign and universal rule; and the material must be the willing and faithful subject and servant. To accomplish a state of things so devoutly to be wished," there must be fervent prayer, hearty cooperation, and persevering effort. But the most lamentable of all is, that this odious materialism of the heart and life is the great crime, and weakness, and degradation of the professedly Christian church. How many who call themselves Christians, and who ought therefore to be influenced by a supreme regard to the spiritual, and to "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," are, nevertheless, influenced principally, if not solely, by a regard to material interests and pursuits. Their creed is scriptural, their theory good; their heart and their practice are bad. They admit the supreme importance of spiritual things, but devote supreme attention to material things. They receive the bible as a divinely inspired book, and as a perfect rule of faith and practice; yet, at the same time, reject its holy instructions, and yield to principles of an opposite character and tendency. They believe their souls will outlive their bodies, but act as if their bodies would outlive their souls. They acknowledge the deep solemnity, the overwhelming importance, and superior claims of the things which are unseen and eternal; but the seen and the temporal cloud their mental vision, penetrate and mould their moral character, and draw forth their deepest and most active sympathies. The utterance of their lips is, "One soul is worth more than ten thousand worlds;" but the more powerful utterance of their lives, and that which indicates their materialism, is "We grudge a single sixpence towards the salvation of souls." They say, "The world will never be truly blessed.until the religion of Christ has universal sway;" but they count a day devoted specially to its more general and rapid diffusion as a great personal sacrifice and dead loss. Shame upon such professing Christians! ye are a disgrace to your religion, stumbling blocks in the way of others, great barriers to the world's regeneration. No wonder that the church is dead, low, feeble, stationary; no wonder the labours of ministers and others in the church are to a great extent fruitless; that sinners are not in greater numbers converted, that infidels increase, that the "world still lieth in the arms of the wicked one." Only let the church arouse itself from slumber, let true spirituality of mind pervade its members, let a regard for spiritual things be their predominant sympathy, and be manifested in a suitable course of life, then will they exert a moral influence upon an ungodly world, which will destroy its prejudices against the gospel, wither its infidelity, secure its heart, and speedily bring it to the feet of Jesus. Haste, haste, happy day! When wilt thou dawn, when shall thy glory appear! In conclusion, my friends, and especially you of the working classes, on whose behalf this and preceding lectures have been delivered against this fundamental evil, this justly dreaded enemy to all that is good, and noble, and godlike-practical materialismwe caution you. Avoid it. Keep at the remotest distance from it. If you do not it will ruin you. We point you to your higher nature, to your soul, and we say, study its nature, learn its unspeakable value, make its welfare your all-absorbing object. We point you to an eternal world in which, in a state of happiness or woe, you must live; and we say, keep this prominently in view in all your engagements, and while you need not overlook your temporal interests, seek first, and most earnestly, your eternal welfare. Remember there is a God, you have immortal souls, there is an eternal world-a heaven, a hell; and let these solemn facts exert their legitimate influence upon your hearts and lives; and you will at once possess true happiness, gradually rise in moral excellence, and safely walk in the path to eternal glory.-A Lecture delivered by the Rev. C. Mann at Yar mouth. MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES, ANECDOTES, &c. A VISIT TO JERUSALEM. UNDER the conviction that the city was much nearer than I found it, I pressed forward before my companions, eager to catch the first glimpse; but I discovered, as I reached one spot after another, which I thought would surely be the place whence that glimpse would be obtained, that I had greatly miscalculated the distance. The road was very solitary. I never once, within the space of six miles from the city, met a single human being, until the last mile was reached. And yet this was the favoured city of God; the high place of religion; whither the tribes went up, from all parts of the land; and towards which the heart of every true Israelite was continually turning! These roads were thronged then. And now, how changed! How vividly the language of Jeremiah, in his Lamentations, suggested itself! The whole of the first two chapters most affectingly and exactly express the moral, and, to a great extent, the physical condition of modern Jerusalem. I reached a point of the road, at the summit of one of the hills, whence I looked eagerly for signs of the city, but only wild stony ranges met my eye; brown and sterile rocks; many of them terraced to the top, but with no signs of vegetation upon them. A little further on, a valley opened, cultivated and verdant, with a large building like a convent upon the top of the hill, that enclosed it on the north west, and a small village nestling at the foot of another hill, opposite. There were now two paths, and I hardly knew which to take; so, as there was no one within sight whom I could ask, I passed on, by what appeared the most beaten track, lying between huge fragments of rock. The road itself was composed of porphyry, and gradually wound round the head of the valley I have referred to. This was the road that led to Emmaus, in which the disciples were joined by Jesus, after the resurrection. A little beyond was a santon, or tomb of some Moslem saint; and a short distance further, on emerging from a depression in the road-Was it a dream? a sunny vision of cloud land? Was it a vivid remembrance of some gorgeous pictures I had once seen, of the celestial city, beheld by the shepherds from the delectable mountains, which flashed just then across my excited brain, or was it a reality? Was it JERUSALEM that lay before me? the city so "beautiful for situation," and once "the joy of the whole earth?" Were the white walls, that gleamed like alabaster in the afternoon sun, those for whose possession Moslem and Crusader had, age after age, striven in deadly conflict? Were those the mountains that engirded her as of old, and of which her royal bard had sung, as illustrative of the defence that God was to his people? Was that hill beyond, with its cluster S of white buildings, the mount from which the Saviour had ascended, and at whose foot lay Gethsemane, that sacred spot, with its wondrous and solemn history? Were those the mountains of Moab, glowing with purple hues, apparently but three or four miles from the city; and that knoll at my feet just without the walls; was that Calvary, where the Saviour had died?-A rush of feeling, such as I had not known for many years, passed over me: and the pent-up tide of emotions swept across my soul with a torrent's force. That city that olive-clothed mount -the garden at its foot-the midnight hour-the unutterable agony; this, knoll, outside the walls, where the cross was reared, and the awful scene of the death of the Son of God was beheld-all were there. Trembling with intense and overwhelming excitement, I sat down upon a fragment of a rock by the way side, and looked long and earnestly at the objects before me. My feelings had been wrought to the highest pitch, and as my head drooped heavily, I burst into tears-I had no power to restrain myself-but wept long and passionately, as if my heart would break. The intense and yearning desire of years was accomplished. I had seen JERUSALEM. The remembrance of her past history, with all its thrilling incidents, from David's days to those of David's greater Son; and from the time when her children had invoked the curse of God upon her, to the present hour,-mingled with more personal reflections. I thought of home, and those that made it home to me; of beloved friends, to whom my soul was knit by holiest ties, and over whose eternal welfare I had been called to watch; of brethren in the work of God, with whom I had for years been permitted, in harmony and happiness, to labour; and for all,-for myself, my flock, my family, and my fellow servants in the Master's vineyard, my heart sobbed out an earnest, and, I hope, accepted prayer, on that low hill side, within sight of Jerusalem. There are moments in one's existence into which the feeling of years is crowded, and these were such moments passing over me now-the memory of which burns itself into the soul in ineradicable characters. I wished to be alone, and I was; and yet I would have given all I possessed for loved ones to have been sharers with me in the emotions of that hour. As I walked slowly on towards the Jaffa gate, my companions overtook me. We were all reserved and silent, because no words could have expressed what we all felt; and when we were met by the Dragoman, who had come out of the city to escort us to our lodgings, we followed him mechanically along the half-deserted streets. As we passed under the archway, and trod the broken pavement of the street, almost unconsciously our lips exclaimed, "Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem!" Just as we entered, the Armenian Patriarch rode in, attended by his servants; and while' he passed to the right, to his splendid palace on Mount Zion, we followed our conductor through narrow and dirty streets, and along a part of the Via Dolorosa, until we found ourselves located in the house of a converted Jew, in the Bezetha quarter, close to the Damascus gate. Dr. Macgowan, the excellent physician to the Mission, happened to be visiting a patient in this very house at the time of our arrival, to whom our letters of introduction were delivered. Before sunset, we took a stroll along the walls of the city, nearly to St. Stephen's gate; and weary, more with excitement than physical fatigue, we retired to rest, on the eve of the Lord's day, reflecting with much delight upon the fact that the first sun which we should see rise in Jerusalem, would be that of the Sabbath. As I undrew the curtains of my room, and looked out of the window, the moon was shining upon the houses on Mount Zion, and lighting up the cupola of the Mosque of Omar, and that of the Holy |