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formed. Their evenings and Sundays are chiefly spent in amusements, singing, drinking, card-playing, and other games. Since the temperance reformation there has been a great improvement among them.

The

"Now the question arises, as it has vainly done a thousand times before, what can be done to bring the power of religion to the relief, comfort, and improvement of these men? They are an active and generous class of men, very much like the sailor, and open no doubt to a similarly good influence. only conceivable method appears to be that of the colporteur system. Is it not worthy of a strong effort? The lumbermen will buy Bibles and other books. What is wanted is the right kind of a man to begin this vast missionary work.

"Notwithstanding what I have said of the severe weather and rude fare in the camps, the lumber merchants, who live here comfortably and even luxuriously, are in the constant habit of visiting the camps in the winter, where they fare as their men do; and if the merchant can go for gain, will not the colporteur go for Christ and the love of souls? We are prepared to go forward in the work as soon as you can furnish us with a colporteur."

A CHILD'S PRAYER.

A MINISTER of the gospel relates that two elderly persons, a gentleman and his lady who had grown grey in infidelity, ascribed their conversion to the following interesting circumstance. The gentleman had been a respectable lawyer, and had retired from the profession on an independent property. He had all his life been a sceptic, and had, to some extent, persecuted the church. As he was sitting in his parlour one day reading a newspaper, he observed his grand, or adopted child, a Sunday-school scholar, only seven years of age, clasp her hands as she walked across the room and pray with great earnestness," God be merciful to me a sinner. Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me." the child be conscious of sin?" said he to himself; and he called her to him, and inquired of her why she prayed so. "Because my heart tells me that I am a sinner." The interesting incident induced a new train of thoughts. He was led to view man as a sinner, and to see that, with whatever justice innocence might look for a reward of virtue at the hands of God, guilt could not, and that therefore if man is not saved by a Saviour he must inevitably be lost. The

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delightful consequence was, that by the grace of God he was afterwards converted, and became the happy instrument of the conversion of his wife, whom also he had in the days of his scepticism made an infidel. The child belonged to a Sundayschool that was favoured with the constant prayers of the church with which it was connected.

GEMS.

CHRIST'S LOSS OUR GAIN.

Он what a melting consideration is this! that out of his agony comes our victory; out of his condemnation, our justification; out of his pain, our ease; out of his stripes, our healing; out of his gall and vinegar, our honey; out of his curse, our blessing; out of his crown of thorns, our crown of glory; out of his death, our life. If he could not be released, it was that you might. If Pilate gave sentence against him, it was that the great God might not give sentence against you. If he yielded that it should be with Christ as they required, it was that it might be with our souls as well as we can desire.

NOVEL-READING.

Flavel.

So long as the slightest shade of uncertainty rests upon a question, we are not fond of dogmatizing; but there is, at least, one deliverance about works of fiction, in the safety and soundness of which we feel altogether confident. Did we hear of any one acquaintance who had now bidden his conclusive adieu to them all, we should not have the slightest apprehension, lest either the moral or intellectual of his nature should at all suffer by it. Did we hear of him, on the other hand, much and greedily addicted to the perusal of them, we should tremble for the deterioration of both.

Dr. Chaimers.

TRACT ANECDOTES, FACTS, ETC.

THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.

From La Réformation, a French paper.

THE Religious Tract Society of London has been gradually extending its business to such a degree, that during the past year, it has circulated eighteen million copies of its tracts and other publications, in more than fifty languages. Such great activity must require resources on a large scale. And on visiting its place of business, we are not nearly so much astonished by

the sight of such extensive warehouses, as by the reflection of what a mass of work is carried on in so small a space. The warehouses occupy five floors of a house in Paternoster-row, near St. Paul's cathedral. The building is 110 feet in length; there is a railway in each room for transporting packages; and a well, in which a platform ascends and descends by means of pulleys, forming a communication with the different floors. By pipes hidden in the walls, orders are transmitted to various parts of the house. The Tract Society constantly employs about 600 workmen, printers, bookstitchers, binders, artists, engravers, etc. The collection of engravings, formed during many years, cost more than 200,000 francs (8,500l.) It is not generally known amongst us, that this Society in addition to its tracts, properly so called, has reprinted numerous theological works of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the best epoch of English theology. It has also just undertaken the publication of a series of works (The Monthly Volume) whose authors are distinguished by their acquirements in various branches of knowledge, and which are intended to show practically, that true piety and true science, far from being incompatible, as the unbeliever asserts, are necessarily a mutual help to one another.

DO YOU LOVE WHAT YOU GIVE?

Travelling lately with friends in the south of Devon, I stopped for a few moments at the door of an inn by the wayside. We were soon waited upon by the landlady, a respectable female rather advanced in years. I handed a tract to her. She looked at it and said, "Do you love what you give?" "I hope I do. You know something, then, of these great truths?"

"I did once;" and the tears flowed too fast to allow much more. It was plain that she had declined from the happy ways in which she had once walked.

I could only repeat a few of the many passages addressed by the God of love to backsliders, and lift up a silent prayer on her behalf. But the words followed me, and they may suggest many a serious and profitable hint to those who are distributing among their fellow creatures the words of eternal life; while to those who can be satisfied to enjoy their spiritual food alone, the question reversed might lead to another result,-"Do you give what love? you

TRACTS IN ORISSA.

C. Y.

Mr. Phillips, stationed at Jelleme, communicates the fol

lowing facts:- "Upwards of thirteen years ago a man from the eastern corner of the province travelled upwards of 200 miles to Pooree, to attend the car festival. He then obtained a tract and carried it back to his village, where the perusal of it introduced light into a mind hitherto dark as midnight. He continued to read it till his convictions induced him to abandon idolatry, and follow the teachings of his tract. Whether he obtained any other tract or further information I know not, but he continued to walk in the way of truth, so far as he had been able to discover it, till he died, which was a year or two since. His younger brother then, amidst the loud lamentations of his aged mother, adopted the same course, and has recently found his way to Jellasore, where he avows his intention to become a Christian, and gives this account of his brother. This, we are happy to believe, is only one among many similar instances of the influence of these silent messengers of mercy.

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"In an interesting revival of religion in our native boarding-schools, several of the boys referred to our tracts and books as first inducing serious impressions. Little Henry and his Bearer was mentioned by one or two, but upon inquiry of Solomon (our dear Khund boy) what first impressed his mind, he replied it was the Call to Unconverted Sinners (in Oriya of course), and especially the words, Turn or die.' He afterwards became a candidate for baptism, and we hoped to add him to the visible church, but he was, with two other dear boys, suddenly cut down by the cholera. We grieve not for him, however, as for those of whom we have no hope. But shall I thus dismiss the record of our poor boy? May not some eye glance on this brief notice, to whom the words which first impressed his mind are as applicable as to the poor barbarous Khund? Yes, ye young, ye gay, ye refined, ye amiable, whether in America or England, you must 'turn or die.' Oh may these words prove to be one of the arrows of the Holy Ghost, piercing your heart and leading you to turn and live!"

WHOSE CENT WAS THAT?

A missionary, on his return home to America, attended a Tract Society meeting. He held in his hand a tract printed in the language of Burmah. As he held it up to the meeting, he said, that a copy of that little book had been the means of converting the son of a native chief. "This tract," said the missionary, "cost one cent," (or halfpenny.) Whose cent

was that? It will never be known here, but it will stand recorded throughout eternity, as the offering of Christian faith and love."

Whose cent was that? which gave the word

Of life and love,

To bid the heathen, when he heard,

To look above?

No more to worship idols vain

Of wood or stone,

But trust in Him who death has slain,

And saves alone.

Whose seed was sown in faith and prayer,
And watered well

With tears of love divinely fair,

No one can tell :

Yet in the long, unending day
Beyond the tomb,

"Twill be transplanted where it may
For ever bloom!

Go, reader, send thy gift in prayer,
Though small it be,

Perchance it may such riches bear

To answer thee;

The songs of joy shall be increased,
And hearts shall burn,

While all the wanderers of the east
To God return.

THE SONG OF ANGELS AND SAINTS AT THE CLOSE OF THE JUDGMENT DAY.

REV. v. 13.

An Angel.

I SING that grace which kept my feet
When my companions fell,

Else had I been with rebel hearts
Consigned to chains and hell.

Chorus of Angels and redeemed Spirits.
Vast and unbounded is his grace,
To God the Lord be all the praise.

A redeemed Infant.

'Tis wondrous grace for which I pant
Eternal thanks to give;

I fought no foe, and yet with you
Who fought the fight I live.

Chorus.

To God the Lamb be all the praise,

All condescending is his grace.

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