Jesus was surely present with us, while these deeply taught, ragged, half-starved boys and men reasoned and communed together on the things of God with such earnestness, intelligence, heartiness, and love, as I have never witnessed before: it was very affecting. They gave chapter and verse for all their quotations on doctrinal and experimental truth.

I said to one little orphan, who did not look more than three years old, but he is eight, "Do you ever pray to God?"-" And, indeed, yes, ma'am." "What

do you say to God?"-"I ask Him for his Holy Spirit." (Luke xi. 13.) "What will the Holy Spirit do for you ?"—" Indeed, He will guide me into all truth.” (John xvi. 13.) "Do you ask God to do any thing for your heart?". Sure, I ask Him to give me a new heart, and a right spirit." (Ps. li. 10.)

"Here, little boy: come and walk with me (to another boy). Do you love Jesus?"-" Indeed I do, for He has shown great love to me; He died to save sinners.' "Has He shown you any love since He went up into heaven?"-" Indeed, He has: for He ever liveth to make intercession." (Heb. vii. 21.) "What is intercession?" "Being a mediator: for there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." "What is a mediator?" "One who pleads, ma'am." what is it to plead?" "Indeed, it's just this-Jesus stands between God and us: and when God would condemn us for sin, He takes our part, and is on our side."

"But

Some of the men repeated whole chapters; they appeared to have much affection for each other; and they all (with the exception of a poor man who carried a large and heavy box) declined to accept any remuneration for carrying our luggage, through this difficult and most fatiguing mountain pass. We could only wonder, and adore the mighty grace of God, which had so rapidly transformed these poor depraved, blind Romanists, into heirs of that bright inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for the people of God! We pursued our way, and parted from them with emotions which I cannot express. At the confirmation there were four hundred converts present. Mr. O'C. said to me, "These men whom you have

seen are true Christians I have no doubt, but they differ: some sit at Jesus' feet, and feed on his word; others go about serving Him, and He loves them all!"

At Tourmakeady a fearful persecution is going on: a man lately had his ear torn off; and a poor widow, a Romanist, one Sunday heard the missionary preach; it pleased God so to bless the Word to her, that she sought further instruction; the priest threatened her, but the following Sunday she took her two fatherless children in each hand, and fearlessly walked to church, meeting the popish congregation. The police protected her; but that night, when she was in bed with her babes, the Romanists came, and beat her most cruelly; since that night (three months ago) she has gone out as soon as it becomes dark, and hidden under hedges and bushes as best she might. She says, when winter comes, and she can no longer brave the cold and frost, she expects they will fulfil their threat and kill her!

At Castelkerke an old man was confirmed, who had been the priest's clerk for forty years! At Salruck, thirty were confirmed.

On Friday we proceeded to Ballyconree, where one hundred and fifteen were confirmed. We were a large party on the road, and Mr. D. was most heartily cheered, as we passed through the villages and all along the road, crowds of converts running by the carriages, and cheering at intervals. We visited the Orphans' Nursery; seventy-seven little, helpless, starved, ignorant children have been rescued from popery, well fed-(only two meals a day!)-well clothed, and well taught. Truly it was a sight to melt a heart of adamant--to see their bright beaming faces of love and gratitude fixed on Mr. D., as he entered that abode of peace, and their shouts "Caed mille failtha" for Mr. D.," fell like the sweetest music on the ear! One little orphan is dying, and she is so happy! She said, "I long to go and be with Jesus!" Mr. D. poured out a prayer of love and pity for this little one; commending her to the Great Shepherd, who he assured her would gently carry her in his

2 "A hundred thousand welcomes!"

bosom, and lead her by the still waters of salvation, to the throne of her Father and her God in heaven!

A large congregation of converts, and all the orphan children assembled in the school-house at Ballyconree; the Bishop confirmed the one hundred and fifteen converts; the service was read partly in Irish by the missionary, Mr. Ryder (a converted Romish priest), and partly in English.

On Saturday, two hundred converts were confirmed in the parish church of Clifden. Sunday, we breakfasted with the Bishop, and then went to the Sunday-school; it was crowded with adults and children, many of whom had scarcely a rag to half cover them, and bore the most fearful marks of starvation in their face, and hands, and legs: no power of my pen could enable you to realize their appearance! But they seemed thirsting for the water of life. After having prayed, we all sang that hymn (which I am sure I shall never hear without the happiest recollection of Ireland), " There is a fountain," &c. Oh! dear friend, how I wish you could have listened to the voices which shouted that verse:

"Dear dying Lamb! thy precious blood

Shall never lose its power;

Till all the ransom'd church of Christ,

Be saved to sin no more."

M. D.

REFLECTIONS.

ONE of the severest exercises of the faith of a real Christian is in the case of apparently unanswered prayer. In the early verses of the 6th chapter of Galatians, St. Paul points out the necessary connexion between sympathy for others, and watchfulness over our own spiritual state :- -"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden."

There is one law which man, sinful and disobedient as he is, must obey :- "It is appointed unto men once to die.'

--

We naturally have an anxiety to be employed. We cannot long sit perfectly unoccupied. We take up a book; we walk; we do something, it may be the merest trifle, yet still a something: but for the soul there is naturally no such anxiety to do any thing.

I have seen it sometimes written on bills announcing some silly show: "Great attraction!" O miserable world where such follies are attractive. To the Christian they are not so.

Put little confidence in dreams and portents: evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign."

"An

Do not pride yourself upon being better than others: even an evil spirit could find other spirits more wicked than himself (Matt. xii. 45).

The object of our being is, that we "should seek the Lord" (Acts xvii. 26, 27).

Prayer is often compared to the fragrant incense; for it ascends up to God's throne acceptably through Christ, and is grateful like a vial full of odours to the worshipper who pours it forth.

Blessed are the paths where the redeemed walk in safety. The vulture's eye, the eye of the evil one hath not seen them, and there the fierce lion cannot tread.

E. D.

THE SECOND COMING OF OURLORD.

REV. xxii. 20.

"He which testifieth these things, saith, Surely I come quickly; Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

THERE is a peculiar solemnity in all those passages of Holy Scripture, where God Himself is expressly the speaker. Truly, all Scripture is his word—and whether the agent of a divine communication be a prophet, an evangelist, or an apostle, they all have, each one, an equal claim to our cordial and implicit faith; forasmuch as they spake, not of themselves, but as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. But there is a surpassing impressiveness, when the King, eternal, invisible, the only wise God, speaks in person (if I may so say) to a subject world. That voice of thunder, which shakes the solid earth, and which is mighty in operation through the en

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tire universe, which at the first created all things out of nothing, and which, at the last closing scene of time and mortality, will blot out the heavens and the earth which now are;-this voice of the Almighty God may well gain and fix the attention of an awe-struck world. My readers, may this same voice savingly gain and fix your attention and mine-to the end that we may behold Him and rejoice, when He shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation. I now proceed to consider-1. The solemn declaration of the Lord Jesus. "Surely I come quickly." Here the faithful and true witness stands forth to be believed on his own word. In Rev. i. 7, St. John, speaking by inspiration, had made a similar statement of Christ's second appearing. "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen." And in considering this truth of our Lord's second coming, which awaits an accountable world, what transcendent glory enters into the description-not that word or thought can rise to the awful grandeur of the theme -for even the inspired language of Scripture itself describes it as past description; and while revelation intimates some of the great circumstances which will attend that majestic event, yet mortal expectation cannot fitly anticipate the brightness of its exceeding glory. Whatever is written in Scripture of Christ's second coming, is more by way of similitude, or contrast, than of positive description. In glory it will surpass the sun without clouds, when He goeth forth in his strength-"that day will burn as an oven;"-in its sudden approach it will "come as a thief in the night." And, finally, Holy Scrip ture speaks of the comfort and blessedness, which, at the coming of his Saviour, will flow eternally into the soul of every obedient believer in his name, as "fulness of joy;" rivers of pleasures; "joys unspeakable and full of glory." When indeed, in the fulness of time, Jesus Christ came upon earth in the likeness of sinful flesh, that coming was marked by weakness and humiliation. For, though this would have been condescension deep, yet He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He