others, most need the aid of religion, and for whom, of all others, the Gospel was designed. Let me not be under

stood to utter an indiscriminate condemnation on existing institutions. In many of them I recognise instruments of incalculable value. True it is, there are others, and these the most expensive and showy, the constitution of which I dislike, the inefficiency of which I blame, and the corruptions of which I denounce. But others have too well done what they left undone, and too opportunely come to stay moral devastations, to meet with any word from me but that of hearty commendation. Nor can I deem it any disparagement of the faithful ministry of Christ, or the humbler, yet invaluable services of the Sunday teacher of the juvenile poor, if I venture to express a doubt whether they have effected all that we need. Every agent of benevolence has its work and its sphere. If it does the one and fills the other, this is all that we can expect. What it does not undertake, other labourers must perform.

Existing institutions are, then, I repeat, insufficient for the work. Such is the strong and unequivocal language of fact. Reason, if needs be, would corroborate experience. How, it would ask, can a ministry meet the wants of the depraved poor, that never comes in contact with them? How can the servant of Christ benefit those who keep at a distance from his ministrations? Our temples may be termed centres of Christian light; but the light radiates within, rather than without; and to many it is light hidden under a bushel. Our preachers may be men of God, and eloquent in the Scriptures; but of how little good can their learning or piety be, while there remains a great gulf between them and the irreligious poor. It is a well known fact, that of the persons who attend public worship, many are of great worth, none scarcely without some excellence of character. Those who most need them, keep entirely away from Christian services. They are carried to the church on their birth, they go to the church at their marriage, and again they are carried to the church on their death; and these are nearly the only occasions on which many enter a Christian temple.

The Sunday-school seems to answer the end of christianizing the poor, better than the public services of religion. It assumes more of what we propose for general adoption-an invasive attitude. It goes, in the spirit of our Lord's command in the text, into the streets and lanes

of the city, and brings in many of the ignorant and depraved. But the worst characters it leaves, I fear, unapproached. It leaves unapproached all those who have not a desire for improvement. It places itself in a neighbourhood, and cries aloud, "Ho! every one that thirsteth, come-yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price." But all do not thirst. The moral and spiritual affections, sin impairs, often destroys. The thirst with many is to be created. They need to be approached individually; to have shown to them their depraved and lost condition-their wants-and their native capabilities; and how the one may be supplied and the other cultivated; and where they may find mercy and grace to help; and in what way true happiness and peace are found, and the mortal be clothed upon with immortality. These things they need to have shown to them, with that earnestness which their importance demands, and that pity and affection which the sight of depraved yet divine natures is fitted to awaken. And this is what the Sunday-school does not pretend to do, and which it was not designed to do. Nor can it carry to a sufficient extent its moral and spiritual superintendence over those whom it has under its care. At the best, its influence is exerted only during a few hours in each week. During the great portion of their time, even the children who receive its benefits are subject to the counteracting (as in too many cases they are) influences of their own homes, and the yet more depraving influences of those masses with whom, though young, they are called to labour. Scarcely, however, have they received the rudiments of a Christian education, before the Sundayschool altogether loses sight of them. The majority quit the school at the most critical period of their lives; associate with those who are themselves depraved, and take no little trouble to corrupt others, whether from thoughtlessness, or to gain the countenance which a partnership in wickedness is thought to afford. Who then takes up the work which the Sunday-school has terminated? What warning voice makes itself heard at the very moment when most needed? The teacher's influence has ceased; has the minister's begun? In a thousand cases it never does begin; and the very youths, of whom many a Christian hope was formed, and for whom many a Christian heart prayed, while the hand was bountiful and the tongue spoke-enter on a course of gradually darkening wicked

ness, till every good impression is obliterated, and every natural emotion poisoned.

I cannot think it a good answer to say, that the depraved might, if they chose, repair to the public ministrations of Christian ministers, any more than I could be satisfied with the physician who, instead of removing my disorder, bade me be whole-or the professing Christian who, instead of ministering to my wants, bade me be fed and clothed. Such is not the spirit in which Jesus regarded human depravity. He came to seek as well as to save that which was lost. The whole-such was his maxim-need not a physician, but they that are sick. There is more joy in heaven-it is his own language-over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance. Go out quickly-I repeat his benign command-into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor and the maimed, and the halt and the blind. In the true spirit of benevolence, Jesus pitied the worst most. He had love indeed for every human being, and with a divine complacency his soul contemplated those who were without guile; but remembering that he came on an embassy of mercy, he looked with the tenderest regards on the lost sheep of God's fold. He did not seat himself in the chair of Moses, and perfunctorily expound truths which he did not feel; but he went about doing good; he travelled up and down the land, on his godlike mission of love; he taught in the synagogue and in the humblest cot. Wherever there was sickness, he hastened to remove it— wherever sin, he was present to enforce repentance and offer pardon. In a word, he did what he commanded, and went into the streets and lanes of the city, and ministered as there was need, alike to individuals as to congregated multitudes.

Of such a ministry there was, in the time of our Lord, but too much need. Ancient institutions had lost their vigour by age, or been outstripped by the progress of society. New wants had arisen, new states of mind had been developed; Jesus furnished new supplies and instruments fitted to the changed condition of his age. By intercourse with other nations, and by the shameful neglects of their authorised teachers, the bulk of the Jewish people had become fearfully depraved. Of the next generation, Josephus speaks in the darkest terms; and the men of his day were the offspring, and as the offspring so

the image, of those who rejected and crucified Jesus. In this wicked and abandoned condition, the Saviour comes to them, in order to supply the deficiencies of the Mosaic institutions, and meet prevalent disorders with effectual remedies.

And,

Christianity, then, authorises a going forth to the work of beneficence. Jesus himself gave as well as received a mission. He brought, and he bid others carry the Gospel to all nations. He addressed, and his example and the whole spirit of his religion call on others to address, individuals to become all things as circumstances may require, in order to win men from sin to holiness. therefore, it authorises also a change of moral agency, where a change is needed. Christianity was itself a change —a change to meet the moral condition of the day—a change to remedy the insufficiency of existing institutions. And Christians, then, are not only warranted, but are called on, to adapt their ministrations according to the circumstances in which, in each succeeding age, they may find their fellow-creatures. The great aim of their lives should be to do good-the means must vary with the varying phases of society. And if we interpret strictly the example of our Lord, perhaps we should have to conclude, that those do mostly a Christian work, who go forth and go about as heralds of the Gospel. The priesthood of his day, sat in the temple and taught; and that was one reason why they felt so little what they said, and effected so little by what they said. But Jesus, placing honour and dignity in real beneficence, traversed the land, and carried light and gave peace where the proud and learned priesthood had left gross darkness and pain. Certainly we may conclude from these premises, that a ministry devoted to those who, whether by others' neglect or their own indifference, are ignorant and depraved, is in unison with the example of Jesus Christ, and the spirit of his religion.

(To be Concluded in our next.)

On Self-Knowledge.-No. 2.

REASON has been aptly compared to a lamp, by means of which, man is enabled to guide himself; but this holds true merely of life and its concerns: for this purpose it is

peculiarly fitted; and hence, here only is to be found its legitimate sphere of action, here only does it shed its light. Beyond these limits its incompetence is clearly perceiv able, its usefulness is destroyed, and its misapplication, like the talismans of eastern fable, either produces effects the reverse of those anticipated, or at least ends in bewildering and abortive results. Thus, speculations on the commencement of man's being, a subject beyond the province of reason, lead to absurd perplexities; whilst the grave, on the other hand, is an equally inscrutable barrier, beyond which man cannot carry his researches; and the ideal scenes which fancy creates and clothes with reality, prove, on examination, to be visionary and fleecy dreams.

But the same beneficent Creator who imparted to man a ray of heavenly light, by which to conduct himself in this life, also granted to him a knowledge of his true situation that he is destined to an eternity of existence, to which this state of things is a preparatory induction, and consequently, that his actions here will afford the requisite credentials of his eligibility to enjoy future happiness, or testimonials that his moral and mental condition requires corrective discipline. It is Revelation alone, from which we can derive any information on such peculiarly interesting subjects, as-why man is-why he exists herewhat are the purposes intended by his being called into. existence and what his future prospects and destination.

What then is man? He is a being fashioned by the hands of an all-wise Creator, mortal and peccable. He is endowed with powers by which to discriminate good from evil, and also to govern his actions, or make his choice, according to the dictates of his judgment. He is favoured with a revelation from God, which points out with clearness and precision, the line of conduct which it is necessary for him to pursue, in order to obtain future but superlative good; it pourtrays the reverse of the picture, and it leaves him perfectly free to make his election. It informs him that he was created for the purpose of enjoying eternal happiness, for which he must fit and prepare himself by the proper exercise of the faculties which he possesses; that for this end he is placed in a state of trial and probation, by which to be purified and strengthened, and his powers cultured, exercised, and improved; that, if his actions are consistent with the rules given to him, and he has endeavoured in all things to fulfil the will of