This is

his enemies, until death closes the scene. his last enemy, and over this also he will be victorious. In eternity he will reign with God and his Christ over all creatures. Rev. iii. 21. Then will he be seated on a throne, high and lifted up, with his fellow-Christians to judge the world, associated with their great head in this great work. 1 Cor. vi. 2, 3. Reader, are you called a Christian? Examine

yourself whether you are united to Christ and do partake of his unction. If not, you are deceiving yourself with vain hopes, and the end of your journey, unless God change your state by his grace, will be perdition. If you are, cherish your inestimable privileges, and walk worthy of your high vocation.

SELECT SENTENCES.

If you would so see the sinfulness of sin as to loath it and to mourn for it, do not not stand looking upon sin, but first look upon Christ as suffering and satisfying.

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Wilcox.

Prove your conversion, and you need not doubt of your election.

Allein.

Is a father to be blamed for striking a cup of poison out of his child's hand? Or God, for stripping us of those outward comforts which would run away with our hearts from him?

Madon

!

KNOWLEDGE is power," in the same sense

in which every other instrument may be denominated power; viz. as a means to an end. By itself it is as inefficient as any material weapon whatever. The weapon is useless without a hand to employ it. No better is knowledge detached from a sound head. It would be wasting time to prove that mere learning is among the most feeble and inert of human things. Prodigies of erudition are frequently destitute of common sense; and, in the practical business of life, in all that relates to the direction of men, are more impotent than children. Such reservoirs of unassorted facts answer one good purpose, and only one; they furnish materials for those who can think. Heavy plodding industry must be content with the useful property, and the humble praise, of a pioneer for brain. Learning, therefore, although indispensable to an "ability to teach," will not, of itself, impart that ability. To give it its proper effect two things are necessary:

1. Good sense.

2. Good sense well disciplined.

On the first we have already expressed our opinion; but its great importance will excuse a few additional remarks.

Were we reduced to the alternative of choosing between good sense without learning, and learning without good sense, we should not hesitate for a moment. Good sense, alone,

ble learning, alone, almost ale always respectaNo being is so credulous, so easily duped, so regularly absurd, so good for nothing upon an emergency, so utterly incapable of conducting affairs, as a man whose memory is stored with all manner of informa tion, yet is destitute of understanding to use it rightly. Whenever he comes into collision with native vigour, however uncultivated, he is sure to provide the means of his own overthrow. He brings forth his learning with the confidence of victory, and is amazed to find his artillery wrested from him, and turned instantaneously upon himself. Without the sagacity to perceive his errour, he is in danger of repeating it as often as he turns disputant. A fact is to him a fact; and the odds are infinitely against him, that out of the million facts at his command, he shall select the one least likely to serve him, and that when, by the misapplication of one part of his learning he has drawn himself into difficulty, he will be unable, with all the rest of it, to draw himself out again. The Christian story is full of examples of this mismanagement. Even the pulpit, where the preacher ought at least to be considerate, is doomed to dishonour, when occupied by indiscretion. There are many subjects which must be handled, but which require caution, dexterity, and delicacy. It is most humiliating to see a whole congregation in a sweat lest the preacher should violate the rules of decorum, and to be assured that the peril is in exact proportion to his quantity of knowledge. One learned sermonizer cannot advert to the structure of the human body, and show the divine wisdom in the functions of the animal economy, without being as filthy

as if he were literally dissecting a carcass. Another never touches the scriptural doctrine of the new birth, without similes and parallels of the most offensive kind. And if he lay hold of the subject professedly, never fails to entertain the female part of his audience with a system of midwifery! On all topics involving the relations of the sexes it seems impossible for some very good men to avoid such habitual coarseness as wounds and shocks every decent ear. These things are abominable. They proceed from a want of good sense. Learning is no compensation for such insults to human feeling. When they arise, as in a few instances they do, from a disregard to the courtesies of life, they are mere brutality.

These blunders and rudenesses good sense will never commit. Want of facts will greatly cramp its. power, but will not debase it with trash, nor carricature it with folly. There is nothing which more surely tries it than the adaptation of subjects to circumstances, and the mode of treating figurative and historical passages.

Men of great literature, and even of good manners, who never offend against modesty, make most absurd mistakes in delivering to one audience discourses fit for another of entirely different character. They are very apt to do so, if they have allowed themselves to be absorbed in a particular theme. Their favourite must be the favourite of all the world. Abstruse demonstrations, which years of study have rendered familiar to themselves, must, of course, be evident to the mechanic and the husbandman. An English divine, who was deeply enamoured of the study of Opticks, and was a very distinguished proficient in all its minutie, could scarcely preach on a text in the bible without sliding into his darling discussions Accordingly, having

to preach to a plain country congregation in Kent, he lectured them with much pith and animation, on his dioptricks, and catoptricks, his refractions, reflexions, and angles of incidence. They were greatly edified, no doubt: and the preacher was much delighted. It happened, however, that in going from church to the house of a substantial farmer, bis host thus accosted him. "Doctor, you have given us an excellent sermon to-day: but I believe you made one mistake." "Mistake!" exclaimed the Dr. "Sir, that is impossible, it was all demonstration!!" "True, your Reverence," quoth Hodge, "but them there things that you preached so much about you called HopsTICKS; now in our country, here in Kent, we call 'em Hop-POLES." We think we have heard, in the course of our lives, sermons nearly as well adapted to time and place, and quite as instructive to the people.

The injudicious treatment of types, parables, and all figurative language, has been so common, that it ceases to surprise and almost to displease. Habit gradually renders us insensible to faults which, at first, strike us with great force; and the unquestioned piety of many public teachers serves as a mantle for even their absurdity. In every walk of life, superiours will be imitated by inferiours. Blemishes are much more easily copied than excellence; and when the aberrations of thought 'have imparted respectability to a bad taste, the evil becomes almost incurable in minds of a secondary order. The irregular sportings of an active and untrained imagination, seduce, by their glare, the footsteps of imitation; and, what was, in the original, a splendid defect, becomes in the copy an unpardonable offence. Thus have successive generations of preachers regularly improving upon bad models, displayed their ingenuity in marring the beauty of the Scripture, in