try. You well know, that nothing could strike the tongue of authority with so fatal a palsy, as the very thought of unworthiness in them to whom the word of authority is committed. You likewise know, that the majesty of truth has no ally on earth more powerful than the righteousness and the sanctity of them that are called to be the ministers of truth.-Rev. C. W. Le Bas's Visitation-Sermon.

CHRISTIAN ZEAL.-We have great reason to suppose that much good remains undone, because we have not boldness of zeal properly adapted to our present circumstances. We are too much alarmed at objections, too much given to calculate natural probabilities; we magnify the obstacles, we lose sight of the all-sufficient power. True, it may not be God's will; but we are to try whether it is his will: the result alone can prove it, whilst we cannot take upon ourselves to be the judges beforehand, but only the obedient instruments for the work of the Lord, whensoever and wheresoever he may be pleased to shower down the riches of his mercy. Christian zeal is in no age to be diminished; it cannot look back and say, How great things are done! it presses forward to those which remain undone; it is the same principle now as in the days of the apostles; and it is to be hoped that many attempts for the salvation of souls are made in the present day, in a revival of the apostolic spirit. The Reformation, the zeal of our Protestant forefathers, was of this nature. A spirit of ready, enlightened, and courageous zeal, aiming only at the welfare of men's souls, desirous of the conversion of vast multitudes perishing in ignorance; assured of the happiness produced among mankind by the extension of Christ's kingdom.-Rev. H. Butterfield.

COMMUNION OF SAINTS. The holy communion between the Church on earth and the Church in heaven, as constituting together that one mystical body, of which Christ is the head, is plainly inculcated in various parts of our Prayer-book. In one collect, we call upon that " Almighty God, who has knit together his elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of his Son Christ our Lord;" beseeching him to "give us grace so to follow his blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys which he has prepared for them that unfeignedly love him." In another, we beseech him "of his gracious goodness shortly to accomplish the number of his elect, and to hasten his kingdom; that we, with all those that are departed in the true faith of his holy name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in his eternal and everlasting glory." In another, we "bless his holy name for all his servants departed this life in his faith and fear; beseeching him to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of his heavenly kingdom." And in another, all who have been fed at the table of the Lord "with the most precious body and blood of their Saviour Jesus Christ," most heartily thank God for "assuring them thereby of his favour and goodness towards them; and that they are very members incorporate in the mystical body of his Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people." It is plain, therefore, that in the judgment of our Church the devout contemplation of the Christian cloud of witnesses is one of the holiest and happiest occupations in which we can be engaged; one of the surest methods of obtaining the height of holiness, and the depth of peace here; and one of the most effectual preparatives for that perfection of bliss which awaits the triumphant Church in the regions of eternity. And, assuredly, such associated love, in this its fullest and highest sense-a love by which we realise in all its blessedness" the communion of saints" spoken of in the apostles' creed, is beautifully suited to animate and encourage us under all the trials, the discourage

ments, and the difficulties of our earthly pilgrimage.— Rev. R. Anderson.

WATCHFULNESS implies a due regulation of the body, as relates to the refreshment of sleep: and in this view it furnishes a useful hint to those who plead that they cannot spare time from their necessary avocations for reading and prayer. Let such honestly ask themselves, whether they could not, without any injury to their bodily health, but, on the contrary, with much benefit to it, abstract another hour from those now devoted to sleep, for the purpose of devoting it to God and to the refreshment of their souls. But the watchfulness here spoken of is principally of a spiritual nature; a watchfulness over the frame and temper of our minds, and over the circumstances in which we are placed, so far as they are influential upon our spiritual state. It is a watchfulness against the assaults of that wily and powerful adversary who goeth about seeking whom he may devour; who with ever-waking vigilance watches each avenue which our sin or negligence may leave open, in order to enter and make a lodgment in our souls. It is a watchfulness against the snares and temptations of a world which lieth in the wicked one, which is at enmity with the blessed God, and of which Satan is "the prince" and "the god;" a world whose friendship is enmity with God; and which, if any man love, the love of the Father is not in him. It is a watchfulness against the solicitations of our own corrupt nature, and especially against that sin which doth most easily beset us. It is a watchfulness against the indulgence of evil tempers and wandering thoughts, and vain conceits of our own goodness or ability: a casting down imaginations, with every high thing which would exalt itself against God in the sanctuary of the heart, and a bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. In a word, to watch is, in the apostle's mind, practically to offer that daily prayer to God, "Lead us not into temptation."-Rev. J. M. Hiffernan.

CLERICAL CONSISTENCY. We may remember, brethren, that there was a time when the prophet Elijah, overwhelmed by the terrors of the moment, terrified by the threats of Jezebel, and still more by the faithlessness of the people, yielded to the storm which he seemed incapable of stemming, and fled for his life into the wilderness. We read again, that the word of the Lord came to him as he was sleeping, and that its language was, What doest thou here, Elijah? While idolatry is triumphing at court; while ignorance is covering the people; while God is forgotten by high and low, and none is standing up for the truth, What doest thou here, Elijah? And will not the same word follow the man of God at present? Will it not repeat to each and every one of us hereafter, whatever our employment, whatever our condition, at all times and in all places, What doest thou here? I need hardly speak of the places where the world assembles; for the world is ready, now-a-days, to anticipate the question, and to greet the clerical intruder with asking, What doest thou here? The world itself, blind to its own inconsistencies, is quick and sharp in marking ours; and intimates plainly enough that a clergyman is out of his place when he appears as one of them. But the question must be asked when the world is silent; and at every time and place you must be prepared to hear, and you must be prepared to answer to the question, What doest thou here? Is it thy Master's service, or is it thine own will that thou art doing? Is it to win souls to Christ? is it to awaken the dead in heart; to bind up the wounded spirit, to pour in the wine and oil of the Gospel, that thou art going from house to house? or is it to while away time which ought to be otherwise employed; and to seek in the world, or from men, that degree of comfort which the man of God ought to find in God and in the things of God? At other times you may be found engaged in study. Again the ques

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tion comes, Man of God, what doest thou here? Are you searching the word of truth, that you may be able to give to each his portion in due season, teaching yourself that you may teach others; or are you gratifying mere literary curiosity, and feeding the vanity of a carnal mind? Are you at rest in the retirement of your own home? Man of God, what doest thou here? Is not thy Master's cause in danger? is not his flock scattered abroad? Are not his sheep in peril, and must not thou give account of every one that is lost through thy indifference? O my brethren, what a name is it that we are bearing! What warnings and what motives, what fears and what hopes, are not included in it! Take it, then, as you will, from this day as your own; but take with it the admonitions, the pledge which it conveys. Remember, that henceforth you no longer are your own. Devoted to the service of Him who has called you, forget the things that are behind, and reach forth to those that are before. Consider yourselves no longer as your own masters, as free to choose your occupations and pursuits; but remember that the service of this day impresses on your life a character which is indelible; and while it elevates you to the highest distinction which man can contemplate for himself, it involves you in the most fearful responsibility which man can undergo.-Chancellor Raikes's Visitation-Sermon.

Poetry.

ON THE OMNIPRESENCE OF GOD.

BY MISS A. BEALE.

(For the Church of England Magazine.)

O THOU, who didst with holy theme inspire
The voice that woke great Judah's tuneful lyre;
Thou, to whose glory Israel's harp did raise
Melodious notes, her king glad songs of praise,-
Give to my muse a flight on seraph's wing,
Transport her heavenward, grant her power to sing
Thee great, thee good, our omnipresent King.
Jehovah name to which the mighty bow,
Where heaven, earth, air, and sea extend, art thou;
Where northern lights diffuse their brillant glow
O'er fields of ice, o'er pathless wilds of snow;
Where earth's extremities are lost to sight,
Midst frozen waves, unsearchable as night;
Where man is not, and verdure, tree, and flower,
Have never been,-thou dwell'st alone in power :-
In the drear wilderness, in desert wild,
Where springs the oasis, solitary child
Of desolated mother,-thou art seen :-

In those sand-bounded isles of brilliant green
That freshly bloom beneath the Arab skies,
Like scattered remnants of thy paradise-
Where dwell the great and mighty of the land
(How small to thee! small as one grain of sand
To earth and ocean), where the mighty dwell
In gilded hall, or in sequester'd dell,
Where kings, thy nether delegates, do reign,
To thee sub-minor orbs, that wax and wane
At thy command; where frown the stately towers
Of prince and potentate; where earthly powers,
And riches, honours, titles, rank, and fame,
Their share of sublunary greatness claim,-
There, there art thou! thy sceptre wielded high,
Lord of all lords, great God of earth and sky!
But turn we to the poor and lowly cot,
The abode of misery, the humblest spot

Through earth's extended circle-to the bed
Of sickness-to the dying and the dead,
Where orphans shed affliction's bitter tear,
Grief's incense, clinging to a parent's bier,-
Where parting spirits linger in their flight
To realms of darkness, or to realms of light,-
Where anguish'd friends watch life's expiring spark,
And linger breathless e'en when all is dark,—
There art thou present, in each grief hast part,
Canst still the troubled soul, the throbbing heart;
Canst bless, when life, and light, and hope seem fled,
To living man the chambers of the dead.

And where thy servants humbly bend the knee
In prayer and praise, and humbly lauding thee;
Where, at thy altar, hearts in reverence bow
To thee, as God and Father,-there art thou;
Thy Spirit, hovering round the blest abode,
Dwells in the midst of those who seek their God-
Fills with its unseen presence heaven and earth-
Was, ere the rolling worlds themselves had birth;
And when those worlds no longer are, shall be
Still omnipresent to eternity.

Weston, near Ross, Herefordshire.

LINES ADDRESSED TO A DYING FRIEND. BY W. L. NICHOLS.

(For the Church of England Magazine.)

FLY, gentle spirit, from a world of woe,
From scenes of sin and sorrow haste away;
We would not keep thee, lingering here below,
From realms unfading, and a brighter day.
But as we follow on life's darksome road,

May thy example guide our pilgrim-feet,
And light us onward to that blest abode,
Where pain shall cease, and friends again shall meet.
For thou hast fought of faith the goodly fight,

And soon shalt rise, the soul's last conflict done, And, glory beaming on thy raptur'd sight, Wave thine immortal palm in joy that heaven is won.

Bath.

GOD'S GOODNESS IN THE SEASONS.*
LORD, wheresoe'er the sun doth shine,
Thy creatures taste thy love divine,
And still throughout the varied year
Thou mak'st thy bounteous hand appear.
Thy breath calls forth the flowers of spring,
While round the hills and woodlands sing;
Thy mercy sends each genial shower,
To temper summer's sultry hour.

From "Metrical Paraphrases; or, Selected Portions of the Book of Psalms." By the Rev. Robert Allan Scott, late of Balliol College, Oxford, Curate of Sheriffholes and Woodcote, Shropshire. London, Rivingtons. 1839. A neatly got-up little volume, dedicated to the Dean of Lichfield, reflecting great credit on Mr. Scott's taste and poetical talents. The numerous selections of metrical paraphrases, &c., however, render it almost impossible to recommend one in preference to another. It will be a great point gained, when there shall be a fully authorised collection of Psalms and Hymns for public worship. The subject is one of great importance. While we have one liturgical service, we ought to have one book of devotional psalmody.

ON THE ATONEMENT. BY THE REV. JOHN SPENCE, M.A. Rector of East Keal, Lincolnshire.

II.

Ar the conclusion of the former essay, the question was proposed-for building up the sincere Christian on his most holy faithwhence arose the necessity of atonement for sin? The answer to this question, it was remarked, was to be considered in a twofold point of view.

I. Atonement was necessary, because fallen man, having lost all moral power of self-recovery, could in no sense atone for himself; he could in no sense become his own saviour. In point of guilt, he had reduced himself to the state of fallen angels, "who kept not their first estate." Like them, he had voluntarily broken his Maker's righteous law, disbelieved his truth, rejected his sovereignty, stained his glory, and done dishonour to his holy name. Sin had" fixed a great and impassable gulf" between him and God; and beyond it stretched forth a land of thick darkness and eternal death. Nothing, therefore, could ultimately have prevented the execution of the law's threatened penalty, "dying thou shalt die," but the interposition of One who could pay that penalty in the sinner's behalf, "One mighty to save." Hence we see that "without shedding of blood there could have been no remission of sin;" no acquittal from guilt incurred; and no restoration to the forfeited favour and enjoyment of God. Without this wonderful provision of wisdom and mercy, sin must have terminated in the destruction of the sinner; God must have remained to him " a consuming fire." This reason, how

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ever, is by no means the only one to be assigned for the necessity of Christ dying for There is another reason, and a very conclusive one too, which many sincere believers in the atonement either inadvertently overlook, or very imperfectly understand. For,

II. Without this propitiatory sacrifice, the law "would not have been magnified and made honourable," its claims would not have been upheld, its unchanging truth would not have been vindicated; nor would the glory and the harmony of the Divine perfections have been inviolably secured, nor would their holy nature have been unfolded to the admiration and lasting love of angels and the whole redeemed and sanctified family of God.

By keeping this latter important truth in view, we shall be enabled to form a right conception of the sufferings of Jesus substituted in the place of sufferings due to us for our sins: in other words, by taking the revealed will of God for our guide, we shall see the necessity of Christ's atonement, if we duly consider what is meant by sin being called in Scripture "the transgression of the law" (1 John, iii. 4). Now, by the term law is clearly meant the moral law; for it is only by this law" that every mouth can be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God" (Rom. iii. 19). But the moral law, we are assured, is none other than a pure and bright transcript of the Divine mind, and is in itself, and in all its requirements, "holy, just, and good," and therefore calculated, in every respect, to promote the creature's greatest good. It was enacted to be a rule of duty, and a safeguard for securing the highest

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interests and happiness of all God's intelli- | gent creatures in all parts of his universal empire. I say universal empire; for we are not to suppose, as is by many unthinkingly supposed, that we are the only moral responsible agents in the universe of God. Scripture at once corrects the mistake. It assures us, that this world of ours, peopled with human beings, is intimately connected with another world of bright and holy intelligences, who have never sinned, but who are still as much the subjects of moral government as ourselves. "To love the Lord our God with all the heart, and soul, and mind, and our neighbour as ourselves," is an universal law, as binding in its obligations on the inhabitants of heaven and hell, as it is binding on the inhabitants of earth; for it would be equally absurd and monstrous to suppose, that the wilful rebellion of the creature, be he fallen man or fallen angel, can ever annihilate or even weaken the unrelinquished claims of the righteous Lawgiver, though that rebellion has morally disabled him, because he is voluntarily disinclined (the very essence and measure of his guilt) from yielding the homage and obedience required. Now sin is emphatically the transgression of this universal law; and its inflexible language to every subject placed under its authority is, "this do, and thou shalt live;" but in case of one single failure, "the soul that sinneth, it shall die" "whosoever shall offend in one point, he is guilty of all." Had God, then, in the character of the supreme Governor of a whole moral universe, and the pledged guardian of the law which he himself had made, and made too for securing the happy order and highest welfare of all his rational and intelligent creation "in all places of his dominions;" had he, I repeat, connived at the transgression of it in the case of Adam, he would have substantially abrogated it; he would have looked on moral evil with indifference; he would have impeached the rectitude of his own moral government, and would have subverted its very foundations, by shewing himself regardless of maintaining the law's unchangeable sanctions and righteous authority. Such a procedure would have appeared an appalling mystery to the adoring "sanctities" of heaven, who had never transgressed the law of their Creator in one single instance: they would have stood amazed, and questioned the holiness, justice, and goodness of the law, had they beheld rebellious sinners translated from earth into their unspotted mansions, brightened with their glory, admitted to bear a part in their hallowed employments, and share in their blessedness, when the supreme Lawgiver had expressed no abhorrence of their

sins, and no determination to exact the penalty of disobedience, and vindicate the honour of his own righteousness and truth. Such a sight would have convulsed the thrones of angels and archangels, of cherubim and seraphim, and have sent a feeling of consternation and dismay through all their shining ranks and orders. On the contrary, having witnessed the infliction of the penalty of the law on their rebellious brethren, they doubtless must have expected to witness a similar infliction on rebellious man; for it must not be overlooked, that the glorious scheme of human redemption, "the manifold wisdom of God, was not then made known by (or through) the Church to these principalities and powers in heavenly places " (Eph. iii. 10). Here, then, we see the moral necessity of atonement for upholding the authority and maintaining the sanctions of moral government; we see how the holiness of God, which delights in contemplating the supreme good of all his intelligent creatures, and his justice, which is bound to maintain that good, required the atonement-required it, as the indispensable medium through which these Divine attributes could be vindicated, and illustriously displayed to God's "whole family in heaven and earth;" and so displayed as to be in perfect harmony with the free gift of grace and salvation to the proud rebels of a distant revolted province of his dominions.

The atonement, then, under this scriptural view of it, is not one God appeasing another God, as its opponents are pleased either to misunderstand or misrepresent it; but it is what the inspired volume records to be the "manifested mystery of godliness," which, previous to the incarnation, "was hid in God from ages and from generations:" it is the development, when "the fulness of time was come," "of the eternal purpose, which the Father purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord;" and which purpose, when developed, exhibits, as already stated, the peculiar mode adopted by him, as the supreme Ruler of the moral universe, for upholding the rights of moral government; for maintaining the efficacy of law; for establishing its unaltered and unalterable sanctions in the esteem and reverence of all his obedient, intelligent creatures; and for securing to them its beneficial provisions and ends.

In its benignant aspect and influence on the eternal interests of our guilty, ruined race, emphatically called "the ministry of reconciliation," the atonement constitutes the adequate basis-the fundamental element, as it were of an administration by a Mediator, which, in pardoning sin, secures from impeachment all the divine attributes; an administration wherein " mercy and truth,