WHERE WILL BE MY ETERNAL HOME?

When the pains and pleasures of mortal life shall have been long ended, when its losses and its riches shall have long passed away; when, if you are a child of God, ten thousand years of the unbroken calm of heaven shall have succeeded the feverish dream of life, or, if you are destitute of the Saviour's grace, ten thousand years of wailing and despair shall have followed the few vain moments of worldly pleasure,-what, then, will be your prospects? Eternity is stamped upon them all, whatever be their nature. Eternity! Eternity! Life or death to eternity! heaven or hell to eternity! All the riches of salvation, or all the poverty of utter ruin -to eternity! And in eternity a period will arrive when the language on which we have spoken will be inexpressive-when ten thousand years will bear no more proportion to the immense duration that will have elapsed since you left the world, than a moment bears to all those years; when events that took place ten thousand years before, will seem but at the distance of the twinkling of an eye, compared with the mighty ages that you will have spent in bliss or in woe. Then, instead of having to say, "It is ten thousand years since I felt my last sorrow, or enjoyed my last delight," you will have to exclaim, "Years, countless as the sands that formed the bed of earth's oceans, have parted since heaven became my home, and still eternal day fears no eclipse:" or, "Years, numberless as the drops that formed those oceans, have rolled away since hell became my prison, and still the gloom of eternal night admits no ray of cheering hope." Oh, reader, this is no fiction, but solemn truth, for God's holy word affirms that eternal life or eternal death awaits every human being. human being. But if it is truth, why are you so careless about it? Why do you give all your attention to the poor affairs of time, while you neglect and forget the solemn, all important concerns of eternity?

THE APPEAL;

A Magazine for the People.

"Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayst be wise in thy latter end."

A PAGE FOR THE YOUNG.-"I DID NOT OBEY MY PARENTS."-Cover, p. 3. CHRISTMAS DAY.-Cover, p. 4.

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TO OUR READERS.

Dear Friends, The last month of the year naturally invites us to review it. Twelve times we have presented our "Appeal" to you,-twelve times you have listened to us. We trust these appeals have not been altogether unblessed. In eternity we hope that some of you will be the holier and happier for reading our pages. What a marvel, that a halfpenny tract may, through God's blessing, be the commencement of eternal holiness and happiness in an undying soul! A halfpenny tract may be the servant of the Lord, to call many a soul into his fold and kingdom! So humble, so inexpensive an agency may change the everlasting destinies of hundreds of immortal souls! If our responsibility be great and solemn, if we are accountable to God for endeavouring to lead you to the knowledge and love of the truth, so must our readers too give account for every word they have heard or read adapted to do them good.

And are we not also under every obligation to DO GOOD in this way as well as to receive it? Every reader can recommend "The Appeal" to another, can lend it to read, can offer to procure it, can induce another to purchase it. SIXPENCE A YEAR, -α halfpenny a month,-is within the reach of all. We have had repeated accounts from servants, who have either sent their own, after reading it, to a neighbour, or bought a second to send; one even purchased five for this purpose. Such a spirit, if common amougst all classes, might "save innumerable souls from death, and hide a multitude of sins."

Ours is a "People's Magazine." For the people we write; the people we aim to interest and benefit; and, hence, to the people we chiefly look, to circulate, as widely as possible, what is honestly and affectionately meant to serve them.

* Our January Number will, as usual, be specially adapted for a New Year's Tract.

LOUIS KOSSUTH.

Louis Kossuth is now become in England, almost as much as in Hungary, a "Household Name." In a "Magazine for the People," he claims a foremost place. His merits and his sufferings have alike endeared him to the hearts of freemen throughout the whole world. Slander, detraction, and calumny have not of course been wanting, but have sooner than usual been shamed into silence, and established but more firmly the reputation they were intended to shake. It is generally, and we think justly, considered, that amidst all the revolutions and changes of the last three or four years, Kossuth is the name which will be prominent in history, and will share with posterity the honours universally accorded to the Cromwells and Washingtons of the past. Like them he stands forth the embodiment of the noblest of causes, the cause of Constitutional Freedoin,-of Freedom and Order against Tyranny and Perfidy. Like them, too, he has shewn the utmost personal disinterestedness. All three differ much in many respects, but resemble each other in their steady and unflinching devotion to the cause of the People, combined with profound attachment to Law and Order.

Unlike them, however, he is at this moment unsuccessful. The treachery of the President of the French Republic, and the cold sneers of Free England's Prime Minister, encouraged the Russian despot to pour forth his savage hordes in aid of the perjured tyrant of Austria, and to overwhelm the noble people, who had driven from their boundaries the numerous hosts of their treacherous emperor. Yet here the greatness of Kossuth has only appeared the more conspicuous. Hungary was overpowered. Kossuth fled. Kossuth was confined in a prison. Austrian and Russian savages demanded him openly for the gallows. Mahomedan Turkey, more humane than Popish Austria and equally Popish Russia, refused to imbrue its hands in the blood of innocence. Kossuth is liberated, and comes here an exile from his oppressed country. Yet he is honoured. Defeat, imprisonment, and a crushed father-land, have increased rather than diminished his popularity and his honours. That country, though for the present overwhelmed, still almost adores him; the enfranchised peasants and the admiring nobles alike worship him, and curse the traitor emperor, while the two greatest states in the world, England and America, are rendering him enthusiastic homage. Kossuth, the defeated, wears on his head the laurels placed there by the noblest hearts of the noblest nations, while his conqueror, the Emperor of Austria, wears on his sceptre-bearing hands the manacles of semibarbarous Russia. Kossuth, the defeated, still brightly hopes that Hungary will yet be free, prosperous, and happy, while his cowardly conqueror, burdened with overwhelming debt, applauded only by the

paid-for shouts of his soldiers, upheld only by an immense standing army, his throne resting only on the unstable foundation of the bayonet, trembles himself on his tottering throne, because Kossuth is yet free!

May he be spared by a merciful Providence to see his nation all he has aimed that it should be. May his pen and his voice prove more powerful than the muskets of the oppressor, and rouse the united nations to forbid the barbarism of Eastern Europe to trample down, one by one, the civilized peoples of the West.

War, indeed, we deprecate in almost every case; but if there be a just cause for war, that cause is freedom, and law the guarantee of freedom. The cause of Hampden, the cause of Cromwell, the cause of Washington, the cause of Kossuth. And if there be one sword which ought to be resisted by the sword, it is that of perjured traitors to a People's Rights,-the sword of Charles the First, and of the Austrian Emperors. Happy for us that our liberties are won. As Kossuth himself observed, "We can obtain by peaceful development every reform worth having. We enjoy the blessed privilege of living under a sovereign who is herself the personification of Freedom." This witness is true. Much as may doubtless be altered for the better (none feel this more than we do), we have such ample means of inviting public attention, and arousing public zeal, that the slightest approach to violence in England becomes a crime of the deepest dye. Be it remembered that Kossuth never fought himself till he marched the Hungarians against those barbarous Croats whom Austria itself denounced as traitors, and ordered the Hungarians to drive from their boundaries, while it soon turned out that Austria was the traitor, and had stirred up the Ban of Croatia to attack Hungary.

Oh, when shall the Prince of Peace reign? when shall Christian nations be not nominally but really such? It is, indeed, painful to think that the butcheries, cruelties, and oppressions of Austria and Russia, not to mention those of other Continental powers, are perpetrated by governments professing to be christian! One fact in con

nexion with this, however, must never be forgotten, -the Bible in these countries is a prohibited book. There is no country where the Bible is freely circulated, and the people free to follow out what they believe to be its dictates, which does not enjoy as much political liberty as has ever yet been realized. The emperors who have banished Kossuth, have banished Kossuth's Bible too; England and America, who have so enthusiastically welcomed him, have long enjoyed both a free Bible, and freedom to obey its teachings. Believers in the Bible won English freedom from the half-popish Charles the First, and belief in a Bible, open to all, has been, till now, the bulwark of English freedom. "The Bible, and the Bible only, is the Religion of Freemen." Ecclesiastical and political tyranny are alike foes to the Bible.