thought and feeling of your past and present good health, to the worst and most self-injuring of uses.

"I AM IN GOOD HEALTH,”

these words have often turned aside the appeals of Religion. She has spoken to you in the secret thoughts of your own heart, she has addressed you by friends, by a text of scripture, by a preacher; but all has been turned aside by the one sentence, "I am quite well now." Perhaps, indeed, you have not said the words, but have you not thought them? Has not that thought enabled you to hear very composedly the most solemn warnings? Had the opposite thought been in your mind, "I am sick unto death;" "Consumption will this year carry me off;" "A fatal disease is preying upon me;" "Hundreds are dying in rapid succession around me, I may very likely be next;"-had these been your thoughts at the time, how different would your feelings have been under the same warnings! All to whom these remarks apply, are surely "despising the longsuffering and forbearance and goodness of God."* That "goodness leads them to repentance;" they use it to keep off repentance! If, friend, you are doing this, I will trouble you with only two observations.

One is, that it is very selfish, very unworthy of you, to think of religion only as a passport to a safe eternity. It is so truly. It must be. God cannot give up to eternal suffering, those who love him. When looking upon all the uncertainties of life, the sufferings of the righteous as well as the wicked, the one event which so often befals both, one thing the wise man could affirm as certain, "Yet verily," said he, "I know that it shall be well with them that fear God."+ Still, though God is too good a parent and master to let any one "fear Him for nought," yet woe to us if we think to bargain with the Almighty to use our health for ourselves, and our şick-beds to gain his favour! Think of it, friend, and ask yourself, Will God be so trifled with? Would even a fellow-man allow you (pardon the expression) so to make a market of him? No, friend, you owe yourself-body, soul, and spirit-to Him who gave you all. You are every moment God's. If the health which God gives you makes you feel and act as if you were your own, not His, then you are selfishly using God's mercies to your own ruin.

My other observation is, that though you are in good health now, you may not be to-morrow. "Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,"§ is a fact forced now upon our attention, by every newspaper, by every post, perhaps by every daily enquiry in our own town. The mysterious and fatal cholera has revived with virulence in many places. Not the stoutest heart now but must have been visited with the thought, "In a few hours may be ill-too ill to live-and in * Rom. ii. 4. † Ecclesiastes viii. 13. Job i. 9 § Prov. xxvii. 1.

eternity." We know of an individual who said, "there shall be no cases of cholera in this township." In a few hours afterwards he was the second victim to it!

We write not to alarm any, but to remind all of the fact that fear of cholera is one of the greatest predisposers to it; that no one can at this time expel fear by the useless thought, "I am in good health now;" but that there is One who came into this world expressly "to deliver those who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage.'

Reader, you are well! Yes, but it is just the healthy whom God is now alarming. Generally you are sinfully at ease because of your health; now you cannot be so. "Seek your God while he may be found." Seek those whom your conscience tells you to be "friends of God;" unbosom your thoughts to them, they will gladly advise you. But forget not to lay all your fears, and all your causes of fear, before THE ONE who says, "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out."+

"OH, SIR, HE IS USED TO IT!"

Having occasion to go into a blacksmith's shop, whilst the son of Vulcan was lustily plying his sledge hammer to weld the bright and heated metal, and asking how it was that a spaniel lay so unmoved amidst the shower of burning sparks, it was replied, "Oh, Sir, he is used to it!" Well, we thought, and so it is with our unconverted hearers; we often wonder how they can remain unmoved, alike by the fiery denunciation of Sinai, or the bright and melting beams of Calvary. But "they are used to it."

So a man who, when he first went to reside near a rushing, impetuous waterfall, could get no sleep for the roaring of the flood, afterwards slept as soundly as if all was as still as death-for “he was used to it."

Another, whose master wished him to rise at five o'clock every morning, had an alarum placed in his room-a time-piece which makes a loud rattling noise, at any hour for which it is set. At first, John was effectually aroused by his clamorous monitor. But after a time, he thought, when thus awakened, he would just turn on the other side for a little nap before he rose; and having trifled with it thus, it soon lost all power to arouse him for "he was used to it."

UNCONVERTED HEARERS OF THE GOSPEL! is not this illus

trative of your case. You are yet in a careless and prayerless state, and to you pertains that fearful declaration of the Saviour, who now invites you to his cross, but whom you will soon behold as your judge upon his throne: "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their *Heb. ii. 15. † John vi. 36, 37.

deeds are evil." You may trifle with this matter now, but how will it present itself on your dying bed? The writer, not long since, was summoned to the bed-side of one of his dying unconverted hearers, and never will he forget the fearful exclamation, "Oh, Sir, how many sermons have I heard, and I have neglected them all; I shall never hear another!" This proved too true; for the unhappy individual was soon deprived of reason; and death, in a few days, closed the awful scene on this side eternity.

Surely you must be somewhat moved, when, probably, others in the same pew, or members of your own family, are giving their hearts to the Saviour, and you see them welcomed into the church of Christ, and sitting around his table. And thus, as the same sunbeams melt the wax, but harden the clay, the gospel, which has been the savour of life unto life to others, may prove the savour of death unto death to you. Yet,

"While the lamp holds out to burn,

The vilest sinner may return."

The Judge has not yet pronounced the awful sound, "Depart;" but is now saying, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Fly, then, to the arms of his mercy, and cry,

"For ever here my rest shall be,

Close to thy bleeding side;

This all my hope and all my plea,
For me the Saviour died."

Bury St. Edmunds.

CORNELIUS ELVEN.

LATE REPENTANCE.

Being called to visit the death-bed of a young man who was dying in great agony from cholera, he said to me, "I cannot talk now, Sir, I can scarcely think; but I have been thinking of what I heard you once say in a sermon to the young, that it was the greatest folly to put off repentance to a death-bed; I trust I have not done that." Poor fellow, I thought, certainly this is no time for repentance, or seeking the Lord. And yet we find persons are continually presuming upon the future, though so many are seen in health, but are taken and removed within a few hours. Sin stupifies the soul. It hardens the heart. It fetters its captive. It hurries its victim as noiselessly as possible to hell. Should any one read this paper who has never wept over sin, sorrowed after the Saviour, and made salvation the one grand object of pursuit; to such a one I would say, delay no longer. Your danger is great. Your life is uncertain. Your doom, if you die in your sins, will be most awful. Oh, think of an endless state of existence. Of existence without hope. Of existence under God's frown. Of existence in agony so great, in torment so

dreadful, that it is represented by being cast into a lake of fire, by being cast into outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. You must repent, or thus perish. God has given you space to repent. Time is allowed for this express purpose. Think of sin, and think of what it cost the Saviour to procure pardon for it. Think of God, how he has borne with you, how he has pitied you, how he beseeches you to be reconciled unto him. Your past thoughts have been all wrong. Oh, think again, change your mind, confess your sin, seek the Saviour, and never rest until you enjoy the assurance of pardon in your own soul.

But the Few can

If you could be certain of repenting by and by, late repentance is always bitter. There is bitter remorse arising from a sense of having abused the Lord's goodness, and despised his tender mercy. The review of the multitude of sins committed, and the aggravation of those sins, make it bitter. So, also, does a sense of the injury done to others, for the impenitent man injures all about him. He performs no duty aright. He fills no relationship as he should. uncertainty that attends a late repentance makes it bitter. believe that it is real, or feel satisfied of the state of the professed penitent. There is no time to prove it. There is no opportunity to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Uncertainty must always hang over a late repentance; the writer has never seen one case with which he has felt satisfied. If, therefore, you would escape bitter remorse, if you would be spared the most agonizing distress of mind, if you would repair the injury you have already done to others, instead of increasing it,-if you would not leave all your judicious relatives and friends in a state of uncertainty about you,— do not delay repentance. Look to Jesus at once, who is exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and the remission of sins. Repent, ye sons of men, repent; Hear the good tidings God has sent, Of sinners sav'd, and sins forgiv'n,

Narratives, Anecdotes, &c.

THE FALSE AND TRUE HOPE.

It is lamentable to think of the many false foundations upon which men are building their hopes for eternity. One says, "God is merciful, and when I come to die, if I only say, 'God be merciful,' I shall be sure to be saved." Another says, "I have not been so bad as some; I have attended the house of God, and said my prayers, and have never done any harm; God cannot but save me when I die." Others, who cannot make their boast of what they have done, or what they have not done, but have lived all their days in open rebellion against God, when visited with sickness, and by it brought near to the borders of death, fancy that if they send for the clergyman, and he administer to them the sacrament, they are at peace, and prepared to die.

The writer has seen many instances of delusion similar to the one last mentioned. At T. in the county of Devon, not long since, lived a young man, aged twenty-two years. In the latter end of August, 1848, he broke a blood vessel, which ended in consumption and death. He had lived a thoughtless life, fond of the pleasures of the world; and for many months after disease had made such inroads on his constitution, there were no thoughts of death and eternity. At length a minister in that part of the town called upon him, and found him drawing near the gates of death. He enquired of him what his prospects were as to his state before God. "Oh," he said, "I am not afraid to die, for I have taken the sacrament; I have eaten the very body, and drank the very blood, of Christ." In surprise the minister said, "What! do you believe this?" His answer was, "Yes; for the clergyman told me it was so. "And did you," said the visitor, "find the bread tasted like flesh, or the wine like blood ?" He said, "No; but I was told it was so." The minister finding him under such fatal error, read to him the conversation between Christ and the ruler of the Jews, mentioned in the 3rd chapter of John, and explained to him that no outward forms nor ordinances could avail any thing, but that man must be born of the Spirit, without which he could not enter into the kingdom of heaven; and on coming to the 14th and 15th verses, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life," he remarked, "You see it is faith in Christ alone that can save the soul; so must a sinner look to the Saviour and be healed; as there were no other means of salvation to the perishing Hebrews, so there is no other name or way given under