borders of eternity, and enable him, when surveying the elements of peril which gather around his path, to say, "None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I may finish my course with joy." In his latest testimonies concerning him, Dr. Morrison observes, "At this moment, and for some time past, he is thinking much and acting much, under the vivid impression that he has to give an account to his Saviour; and it is often a solemn question with him, "What shall I say to Jesus, when I see him as he is, if I am afraid of men, and neglect his work now." Besides ardent piety, his secular calling, that of a printer, has rendered him eminently useful in the peculiar circumstances of the Chinese mission, in which, for a long time, books were the only, and still are the chief, means by which the gospel can be disseminated. Without this knowledge, he could not have travelled with his companion into the interior, procured his blocks, and printed his books for immediate distribution. The light in which the Chinese authorities regard all attempts to propagate Christianity, and their efforts to suppress it where it was known to exist, as evinced by the edicts published in the early period of the history of the mission, render the exercise of great prudence constantly necessary; and this, in the opinion of his earliest friends, Leang Afa possesses in an eminent degree, yet with a spirit of vigilance which urges him to seize every opportunity for promoting most effectually the work to which his life is devoted. Prudence and activity are not always associated; but in the instance in which Afa, for the purpose of distributing his books, mingled with the retinue of the government Examiner of schools, in one of his journeys through a large portion of his native province, it was strikingly exemplified, as well as at the public examination of the candidates for literary degrees in the city of Canton, in the autumn of 1833, when he went and distributed, with great activity and address, large numbers of his books among the students, who had come from distant parts of the province to compete for the distinctions conferred. The characteristics of Afa, already noticed, shew him to be peculiarly suited, by natural and acquired endowments, for the period in which he lives, and the work in which he is engaged; and it is impossible not to feel interested in an individual who is the first of an order of agents that will, in all probability, be chiefly employed by the Most High in effecting the moral and spiritual renovation of one of the most ancient and extensive communities of mankind ; to whose efforts future generations, in remotest posterity, will look back with delight, and whose character and labours, with those of the honoured individuals by whom his own mind was enlightened and his own movements guided, will be regarded with gratitude and veneration by ministers and churches that shall exist in coming ages, when China shall be numbered with the nations that shall be blessed in the Redeemer, and shall rejoice to call him blessed. MISSIONARY STANZAS, ADAPTED TO THE GREEK HYMN, BY THE REV. THOMAS GRINFIELD, A. M. I. "Go forth to every nation! "Bear through the world at large Glad tidings of salvation!" Was this their farewell charge? And oh, atoning JESUS, Is Thine, of all below, The only Name that frees us Then why have we, directed To make thy mercy known, Unfeelingly neglected A lost creation's groan ? Why those fraternal millions, Whom, nigh two thousand years, Death's hideous shade pavilions, Nor hope their sorrows cheers? Rise, Christians, from your slumbers! Disperse in thickening numbers Lo! how the prospect brightens your Each field, how soon it whitens, The wilderness disclose's, (For heaven has crown'd your toil,) A paradise of roses, Where'er you dress the soil. Not Greenland's arctic rigour, The scenes prophetic story To longing faith unroll'd; Scenes of millennial glory Late-dawning we behold. Else why this wondrous motion, Where all was death before? Great Lord! till Thee it pleases, Oh, bid Thy Spirit's breezes, Then, (haste the blissful vision !) All earth, with bright transition, Shall vanish into heaven! "THE MAN shall be as a hiding place from the wind; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."-Isa. xxv. 4.; xxxii. 2. THE LIFE-BUOY OF THE SOUL. BY THE REV. C. S. STEWART, A.M. CHAPLAIN IN THE NAVY, U.S.A. THE calling of the midnight watch first reminded two youthful voyagers on the distant Pacific, that the conversation in which they were engaged had been prolonged to an unseasonable hour. It was the signal for one, as an officer of the ship, to take the post of duty in command of the deck; and the customary salutations of a separation for the night were abruptly and hastily interchanged. A careless spectator might not have observed any thing peculiar in the manner in which these were made; but one accustomed to the study of his fellows would have read, in the expressive grasp of the sailor's hand, and in the subdued tones of a manly voice, some unaccustomed state of mind, some deep feeling of the heart. Nor would he have been deceived in the fact, though he might have mistaken the cause. A cloudless, sultry, and listless day at the equator had been suddenly succeeded by a gloomy and foreboding night, with every indication, in a wild and ragged sky above, and a deeply heaving and moaning sea below, of some further, and not distant, change:a change which might come upon the lonely bark with a power alike destructive, whether exhibited in the rending fury of the lightning, or in the desolation of a tornado. But it was not, that, under circumstances |