addresses one word to you. Oh, to be a criminal, a self-convicted criminal, then! Oh, to be doomed to everlasting punishment, by the Saviour who died for sinners, but who is now the Judge of all!

What will you be in eternity? This depends upon what you are in time. In time we sow, in eternity we reap. If you live in sin, you will die in sin; and if you die in sin, you will be eternally punished for sin. If you now reject Christ, you will be for ever banished from Christ. If you live the enemy of God in this world, you will be treated as the enemy of God in the world to come. What will you be in eternity? No question can be more solemn, or more important. What are you now? Are you a saint, or a sinner? Are you a believer, or an unbeliever? Are you an obedient child of God, or a disobedient rebel in his kingdom? Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Eternity will confirm what we do in time. Here the vessel is formed and figured, eternity is but the fire which hardens and renders the figures indelible. What you are now, you will be for ever. But if you are a sinner now, if you are unhappy now, you need not be always so. The blood of Jesus will cleanse you from all sin, and the grace of Jesus will make you truly happy. No one will force you to hell. If you go there, it will be because you choose to go there. God says, "As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth." Jesus says, "Whosoever will let him come unto me; but ye will not come unto me that ye might have life."

Reader, life and death, heaven and hell, salvation and damnation, are set before you, and you must make your election. If you seek death, if you say hell, if you choose damnation, you will have an eternity to suffer for it, and repent of your folly. Upon your present course depends what you will be at death, at judgment, and in eternity. May you repent of sin, believe in Jesus, be reconciled to God, so will you be happy at death, justified at the judgment, and glorified throughout eternity.

"Wide as the reach of Satan's rage,

Doth God's salvation flow;

'Tis not confined to sex or age,
The lofty or the low.

While grace is offer'd to the prince,

The poor may take their share;
No mortal has a just pretence
To perish in despair.

Come, all ye vilest sinners, come,
He'll form your hearts anew;
His gospel and his heart have room
For sinners such as you.

His doctrine is almighty love;

There's virtue in his name,
To turn the raven to a dove,
The lion to a lamb."

New-Park-Street, London.

JAMES SMITH.

Narratives, Anecdotes, &c.

A NARRATIVE OF DEATH-BED CONVERSION.

A few weeks since I was asked by a member of the church under my care, to visit a person in deep affliction, who had expressed a desire to see me. On calling on the patient, I was introduced to a young man about twenty-three years of age, previously a stranger to me, of pleasing appearance, of much natural shrewdness, and of gentle and amiable manners. Consumption had made such inroads on his health that there was evidently but little strength remaining, not enough to enable him to converse without great exertion. Death had marked him as his prey, and so ill was the sufferer, that it seemed as though the grim monster had reluctantly granted him a brief respite from his silent dominions. After a remark or two, I said, "You entertain, I presume, no hope of recovery ?" He answered, "No." "Are you happy," I enquired, "in the prospect of the great change which is so soon to pass upon you?" In the most placid manner he said, "Yes! I have no fear of death; none of those miserable feelings of which some complain in prospect of it." "I am glad to find you so composed, if your composure be well founded. From what considerations do you derive the happiness of which you speak ?" "Well, Sir," the gasping patient said, "I have usually comforted myself with the thought, that if there is a God, he will take care of me." "It is late in the day," I said, "for you to talk suppositiously on subjects of the first moment to all, but especially, under the circumstances, to you; I am sorry to hear you say, 'If there is a God !"" "Oh, don't mistake me, Sir," was the reply, "I believe in the existence of God; no thoughtful man can look on the wonders around him, or think about his own person, without being convinced that there is a great Omnipotent Being; but I do not think, Mr. Mursell,” said he, with much emphasis, "that the bible God is the true God,there appears to me to be a good deal that is strange and foolish in the bible." "Have you been accustomed," I asked, "to mix with the people calling themselves Socialists ?" "No; I have never had anything to do with them, nor ever liked them." "Have you frequented public worship at all ?" "Not a great deal; mostly, when I went anywhere, it was to the Unitarian place; but I have heard you of late, till I became too unwell, on Sunday nights."

more so,

I looked with deep concern on the interesting patient, and all the from perceiving the perfect candour and simplicity of his spirit. I said, "You have been very frank, and I thank you for it; my time is gone; I will call again to-morrow morning; possibly, however, you may be dead before then; you must, therefore, allow me

to be candid and faithful too. It is, then, my firm and solemn belief, that if you die in your present state, you will be lost for ever. There is a way of escape. This is revealed in that Bible which you despise.” I pointed him to the Saviour of sinners, and entreated him to think over what I had said by the morning, should we meet again.

I found him on the following day anxiously waiting for further conversation. "I gathered from my interview yesterday with you," I said, "that you believe in the existence of God." "Oh, yes, Sir, I do." "Have you any doubt as to a future state of being ?" He said, "No; I think there is another world beyond this." "If there is another world, if men are to live for ever, do you think it likely that the blessed God would leave us in uncertainty about it? Is it not probable that he would place so momentous a question as this beyond all doubt ?" "Well, I think it is." "Well, unaided reason could never ascertain it,-could go no further than conjecture respecting it; hence the necessity of revelation. This great doctrine of man's immortality is set at rest for ever in the bible. If, then, you believe in the existence of God, and in the reality of a future state, what are your views as to your preparedness to enter into that state? Do you regard yourself as a sinner before God?" "Well, Sir," he said, "that perplexes me. I have never fallen into the practices that some men live in: intemperance, and other vices, I have always avoided, and it has been my care to act morally and uprightly. I am perplexed when you ask me about sin." "I am glad," I said, "to hear you have avoided the open vices which so disgrace society; but you might have been withheld from these by aversion to low company, self-respect, friendship, worldly interest, and various similar motives, not from the fear of God, from love to him, from a dread of his frown, and an appreciation of his favour. According to your own confession, you have not thought much about Him, or lived in communion with Him; you have lived without God in the world. You have lived in a sinful state you see, whatever might have been the complexion of your outward life." "Oh," said the listening man, "that's sin is it? Now I see. Oh, that's the sinner to be sure! Oh, I have lived without God! Oh, I wish I had my time again! Oh, that I had listened early to such advice!" Light seemed to stream in upon his mind, a sense of danger seized him while he felt for the first time the evil of sin. After a little pause, he thoughtfully said, "Do you really think then, Sir, that all the people who have no bible, Mahomedans, and heathens, and others, perish ?" "Those who are not blessed with revelation, will never be condemned for rejecting it. Those who are without law will be tried, and, if guilty, will perish without law. But you and I have the light of revelation, and if we reject it, our condemnation will be aggravated indeed. These questions, I admit, are important; but you have no time to spend upon them. You say you believe in the divine existence,-in the immortality of man, and

acknowledge your sinful state?" "Yes, I do." "Is it then, in your opinion, at all likely that the ever blessed God should suffer you and me to live estranged from him, and in utter neglect of his authority and law, and not only you and me, but all mankind, and that through successive generations, without taking any notice of it; that he should, in fact, treat his sinful and rebellious creatures as though they were obedient and holy? Could you honour such a being as that?" He answered, "No." "Well, then, he has given us his revealed will to teach us our guilt and our danger, and to assure us that he will vindicate his own honour. But God is good as well as holy, merciful as well as just, he therefore resolves to save sinners, to pardon and to bless them. The bible, which you have till so lately despised, tells us how God can be just, and yet justify the ungodly; how he can save the transgressor, and at the same time honour his law. And this is the invaluable book which you have neglected!" On these grounds I proceeded as plainly and faithfully as I could to set forth Christ crucified before the dying man, and, recapitulating the heads of our conversation, implored him to reflect especially on the latter portion of it, and to look up in prayer to the Saviour for his gracious instruction and blessing; and I would, if he should live, see him the next day.

The following morning, though much weaker than I had found him before, he evinced a most anxious interest in the sole object of my visits. Entering on the conversation himself, he said, "You told me yesterday to pray to the Saviour for his direction and blessing. I have tried to do so;" and he added with painful emphasis, "but, oh, it is hard work for a dying man to pray, who has never prayed before;" then, with marked and overwhelming emotion, lifting his feeble hands to heaven, said, "All I could say, Sir, was-Lord Jesus, have mercy on my poor soul!" Desiring me to pray for him, we united in the exercise, at the close of which he burst forth in the language of fervent supplication, and with intense feeling implored the Saviour of sinners not to reject, but to receive him. From this time he appeared to have hope and to realize peace. His conversation was constantly about Christ, his love, his preciousness, his work. His spirit became calm, and his views of truth surprisingly clear. As I took leave of him, day after day, never expecting to see him again, he was resting his hopes upon the sacrifice of the Son of God, and rejoicing in expectation of his glory. In this frame of mind he continued, to the astonishment of many who surrounded his bed, till early on the following Sabbath morning, when he died, with the name and the praises of the Redeemer on his lips.

I do not deem it wise, as a general rule, to attach much importance to instances of such late repentance, much less to make them the subject of remark; but this case, as far as my experience has gone, is unique. The evidence of the genuine transition in the last hours of

life, from darkness to light, was such as to bear the closest scrutiny, as to disarm suspicion, and to break down, in my breast, a cherished incredulity. Besides watching the interesting scene with all the care I could, with a view to the detection of fallacy or delusion, I enquired of those who were in constant attendance on the patient, whether by night or day, and found that but one theme, and that to him a totally new one, occupied his mind, and that but one solicitude filled his breast. To be found in Christ, and to go to him, constituted the new-born ambition of his soul.

I could not but reflect in leaving the dwelling of one whom in charity I must regard as a dying penitent,-1st., If this man had been a believer in Christ, and in the enjoyment of the hope which the gospel inspires, and I had gone and preached deism to him, is it possible to imagine him throwing away the one that he might accept the other? Did a true believer in Christ ever turn deist in his dying hours? 2ndly., What is to be thought of that latitudinarian theology, which attaches no importance to positive belief, which looks upon all men as equally safe, whatever be their principles or their creed, that holds it, for instance, of no importance, as to ultimate results, whether the atonement of Christ or human works form the basis of hope? 3rdly., Though true religion had been neglected in this case till the time of death, and though the patient entered amidst its shadows with a "lie in his right hand," he once had a pious mother! Who can trace the connexion, in the profound economy of infinite wisdom and grace, between means and ends, between the anxieties of the praying parent, and the late-born faith and hope of her expiring son ? Leicester.

J. P. MURSELL.

THE SOLDIER'S WIFE.

(An extract of a letter sent by a poor woman to her husband, a soldier.)

Dear Husband,

A long time has elapsed since I wrote to you; during which time many changes have taken place with me, and most likely with you. But I have to bless God that I have entered upon one glorious change: it is, that I have enlisted myself as a soldieress, under a most blessed Captain, and for most abundant bounty. Only a little time ago I was a warrior for Satan; he was my captain, and led me captive at his will. At his direction I cursed, I swore, profaned my Maker's sabbaths, aud lived in neglect of his ordinances; however, blessed be God, he gave me to see my course was a wrong one, and that if I persisted in it, I should not only lose the bounty of eternal life, but gain for myself eternal condemnation.

Perhaps you will be anxious to know how I came to enlist in this army; my kind Captain sends out a number of recruiting officers of