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sent blessing which he secures upon his labours, and the much sin which he escapes, he establishes a habit of which he will find the benefit down to the latest hour of life.

or a Coleridge, whilst all the while it is
cajoling him out of his energies, and
soothing him into a self-complacent sim-
pleton. Against these fireside enemies--
these foes of his own house, the wise
scholar will
wage perpetual battle.
And whether in regard to entertaining
books you adopt the rule of never open-
ing them till each day's work is done, or
in regard to society adopt John
Urquhart's rule of only spending one
evening in the week at the abodes of
friends; and in regard to such idle habits
as we have just been naming, do as most
British scholars have done, and renounce
them altogether,-whatever be the system
you adopt, I cannot urge too earnestly
that the student makes the man, and the
College decides his life-long destiny.
Spare no effort to fill the present months
with feats which by and by may furnish
pleasant memories, and to store your
minds with thoughts and wisdom which
may give you wholesome influence in your
after age. And when tempted to relax
or rest too soon, remember who has said
it," Seest thou a man diligent in his
business? He shall stand before kings:
he shall not stand before mean men."

And next to Sabbath observance, let me inculcate week-day industry. Indeed the very Sabbath will want its relish unless an industrious week has gone before it. I now mention Industry in its bearing on character as much as in connexion with professional success, and I may read a passage which exceedingly struck me in the Life of a strong-minded Welsh minister:-" I am an old man, my dear boy, and you are just entering the ministry. Let me now and here tell you one thing, and I commend it to your attention and memory. All the ministers whom I have ever known, who have fallen into disgrace or into uselessness, have been idle men. I never am much afraid of a young minister when I ascertain that he can and does fairly sit down to his book." ." And what the old Welshman remarked of ministers might be extended to all the learned professions. God has graciously so arranged it that people meet fewest temptations in the way of their lawful calling. But the student is beset with hourly temptations to neglect that calling. There is society. He is invited THE SABBATH.-The following obserto spend the evening with some family, vations are from an author not always and the music and the animated talk and very remarkable for the strictness of his the gay companionship, are such a plea-philosophical and religious opinions :sant change from his own dull chamber, that he is not sorry to get another invitation, and by and by his evenings are all engulphed in amusement, and his drowsy mornings drowned in ennui. And there are idle but entertaining comrades-clever but careless fellows, who, if you will only let them, will lounge about your rooms all day, and only leave you when it is time to sleep. And there are nice but non-professional books,--reviews and poems and romances, which always look more tempting than the literature of your own department, and if you yield to that most plausible form of laziness, non-professional reading, the night will be far advanced, and your faculties will be fairly spent, before you can set about the College theme. And there is the student's traitor, the flattering and false cigar, which represents the broken wall of the sluggard's garden as a picturesque ruin, and its weeds as the flowers of fancy, and promises to smoke him into a Foster

* Christmas Evans, p. 185.

"A candid account every seventh day is the best preparation for the great day of account. A person who diligently follows out this preparatory discipline, will seldom be at a loss to answer for his conduct, called upon by God or man. This consideration leads me necessarily to condemn a practice authorized among Christians, with very few exceptions, that of abandoning to diversion and merriment what remains of Sunday after public worship, parties of pleasure, dancing, gaming, anything that trifles away the time without a serious thought, as if the purpose were to cancel every virtuous impression made at public worship."— Lord Kaimes.

IT is a thing human to fall into sin; devilish to persevere therein; angelical or supernatural to rise from it.

TRUE repentance is a thorough change both of mind and manners.—Luther.

THE Sweetness that follows victory over sin, is a thousand times beyond that sweetness that is in sin.

THE CONVERSION OF INVETERATE SINNERS, THOUGH DIFFICULT, NOT IMPOSSIBLE.

BY THE REV. D. MUNRO, NORTH SUNDERLAND, NORTHUMBERLAND.

THERE are two grand devices which the great adversary of souls employs for the purpose of preventing the salvation of sinners. If they are secure and careless he tempts them to presumption, until by travelling on in the broad road that leadeth to destruction, iniquity prove their ruin. But if they are awakened to a sense of the guilt of sin, and of the danger of their state, he endeavours to tempt them to despair. And, in either case, if Divine mercy do not interpose, they utterly perish, and that without remedy. For, as on the one hand carelessness leads to presumption in sin until it terminate in death eternal, so on the other hand despair leads to callousness about salvation until the time for repentance has totally expired. The secret cause of the everlasting destruction of a multitude of sinners is to be found, we apprehend, in this that the guilt they have already contracted and the depravity of which they are daily conscious lead to despondency with respect to their conversion, and not unfrequently to despair of the mercy of God. The condition of such individuals is similar to that of the Jews of old, who being wholly devoted to idolatry are represented by an ancient prophet as saying, "There is no hope: 110: for we have loved strangers, and after them will we go." They considered their own case as past hope, owing to the greatness of their guilt, which they thought it was impossible for God to pardon, and to the strength of their corrupt propensities, which they thought it was in vain to attempt to resist.

It is precisely thus that an awakened sinner, who has been habituated to the indulgence of sin, is prone to judge of his own character and prospects. And it is, indeed, a most interesting and momentous crisis in the history of the sinner when this is the case. It is that point in his history at which, after many deviations from the path of rectitude, and innumerable transgressions, it may be, of a heinous and highly-aggravated nature, he is convinced of sin and of righteousness, and of judgment to come, by the Word and Spirit of God, and constrained to cry out, "What must I do to be saved?" It is quite possible, that amid the alarms

and agitations of a guilty conscience and the fears and forebodings of future vengeance, and reflecting upon his former habitual aberrations from the path of moral rectitude; and above all, when he considers his inveterate evil propensities, and how his iniquities have taken fast hold of him, he may be plunged into the deepest despondency and feel as if there were no hope for him. He has loved the world and the things that are in the world so obstinately, and has cleaved to them with such determination in the time that is past, that he thinks it impossible that the adamantine chain of cherished carnal affections which binds him to his sins can ever be dissolved, or that he can emerge into the glorious liberty of the children of God. And thus it may be extremely difficult to persuade him to believe in the bare possibility of his conversion; or, that though he has destroyed himself, there is hope in Israel concerning him, because God hath laid help for sinners on one mighty to save. And, therefore, instead of seeking deliverance from the burden and bondage of his trangressions, he is tempted and sorely tempted to continue in sin; for nothing so effectually enslaves the soul to sin as despair of Divine mercy, and nothing is more adapted to produce despair than habits of inveterate depravity. And thus it is that if the sinner who has gone on in his trespasses for a long time be at all awakened to a sense of his danger and of the necessity of salvation; there is a tremendous hazard that Satan and his own accusing conscience may concur in suggesting to him the impossibility of his salvation, as if his iniquities were too great to be forgiven and his corruptions too strong to be subdued. Hence he naturally concludes that it were best to banish his convictions altogether, and to abandon himself to those lusts and appetites which have so long and so imperiously domineered over him. There can be no doubt that this is the state of many when they are first arrested in their career of carelessness and dissipation and visited with impressions of seriousness.

And what renders this state of mind a matter of such momentous importance is

that it makes the conversion of the sinner | the cleaving adhesion of inveterate habits exceedingly difficult, as he will not, whilst weighed down by despondency, or wellnigh overborne by despair, be persuaded to exert himself in supplicating Divine mercy and in forsaking his sins. With God there is mercy that He may be feared, and plenteous redemption that He may be had in reverence. Nor is any sin too great for sovereign grace to pardon, nor any corruption too strong for almighty grace to subdue. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from the guilt of all sin, and His Spirit can purify the most polluted and unholy. But despair ruins immortal souls because it makes them reckless of perdition and urges them on to self-destruction. If the sinner have no hope that his salvation can be effected, he ceases to strive against sin or to desire deliverance from the galling bondage of corruption. He goes on frowardly in the way of his own heart. While there is a prospect of being saved, there is an exertion put forth to secure salvation. But if there be no prospect of being saved, a man just as naturally abandons himself to despair. If the sinner thinks that he can neither be justified nor sanctified, he becomes perfectly callous and indifferent and regardless of the consequences of his conduct. There is no hope of his moral and spiritual amelioration. This acts as a sedative and soporific upon all the energies and activities which he might otherwise put forth, nor do we know of a more melancholy and deplorable spectacle in our fallen world than that which is exhibited in the case of him who is convinced of sin, and of the certainty of a future reckoning, but who is at the same time prostrated and paralyzed into utter impotency by the cheerless suggestions of despair.

We conceive that the state of mind which we have thus attempted briefly to describe is not at all uncommon, though it may be concealed. The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a multitude whom no man can number, stretched on the rack of a wounded and an agonized conscience, have felt the utter hopelessness of their own moral and spiritual condition, though they may not have given utterance to their feeling in overt expression. They have despaired of their own moral and spiritual renovation; and, that as the Ethiopian cannot change his skin, or the leopard his spots, so neither can they who have been accustomed to do evil learn to do well; they have felt

which it has hitherto defied them to relinquish, and the iron has entered into their souls; they may have formed many resolutions of reformation, and may have firmly determined from time to time to give up their sinful practices and sensual gratifications, and to lead a new life. But temptation has again recurred with overpowering influence, and they have been plunged in the mire of pollution, and their goodness has proved but as the early cloud, and as the morning dew, which quickly passeth away. And all this sad experience of their own frailty and instability has served to engender a habit of deep despondency with respect to the very possibility of their conversion, insomuch that they are disposed to abandon the prospect of it in utter despair of its ever being realized; they have been so often defeated in their attempts at self-reformation that they are ready to give up attempting it at all; they see no hope of ever being reclaimed to the path of rectitude. The tyranny of evil habits has established such a strong dominion in their souls that they find they are completely enslaved, and they therefore fear that they can never be set free. And while this is the prevailing sentiment within them they will do nothing to effect their spiritual emancipation. They will sit still, or rather they will continue in sin, reckless and regardless of the consequences. Their hope is lost, and their hearts being desolated of all the cheering inspirations that arise from the hope of escaping from moral thraldom, they surrender themselves as willing and unresisting captives to divers lusts and passions. And unless they be made to see that there is a prospect of deliverance for them, they will go on in sin until they have filled up the measure of their iniquity and wrath has come upon them to the uttermost.

It is therefore obvious that it is of the most vital importance to the salvation of awakened and self-convicted sinners, that they should be persuaded that there is hope for them in God, that they lift up the hands which hang down and confirm the feeble knees, and make straight paths for their feet. Blessed be God that the whole Bible teems with promises and prospects of encouragement to every repentant and returning sinner, and no objection that may be suggested by a mistaken view of the doctrine of the Divine decrees, should hinder any individual from labouring to

make his calling and his election sure. "He that confesseth and forsaketh his

sins shall find mercy." "Cease to do evil, learn to do well; come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." We need not multiply quotations. Suffice it to observe that notwithstanding the grievousness of the sinner's transgressions, and the enormity of his offences, there is hope concerning him, because one hath travailed in the greatness of his strength who is almighty to save.

The conversion of inveterate sinners, though difficult, is not impossible. The power of God can accomplish it, and that in defiance of all the improbabilities that may seem to attend it. If we will only put confidence in His sure word of testimony and realize the omnipotence of His grace, we shall pass from death unto life, and be translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son. And this marvellous, stupendous transition will be made contrary to what the awakened sinner, deeply penetrated by a sense of his own vileness and worthlessness, may consider practicable or possible. The things which are impossible with man are possible with God, even as all things are possible. He worketh and who shall let it? He calleth the things which are not as if they were, and is able to raise up children to Abraham even of the stones of the field. Divine grace achieves miracles from age to age, and produces a new creation and a moral and spiritual resurrection where it might least have been expected. God is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we can think or conceive. He made man at first and He is able to re-create him, and so to transform him in the temper and disposition of his mind, that old things shall pass away and behold all things shall become new. Let us not judge of God by ourselves or limit the high and holy One of Israel in His sublime and sovereign operations. For His thoughts are not as our thoughts, neither are His ways as our ways. He doeth wondrously both in pardoning iniquity and in purifying from its pollution. If we will but believe we shall see the glory and experience the goodness of God.

That is right and good merchandize when something is parted with to gain more.-Tertullian.

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THE BOOK OF PSALMS.

IT is a peculiar honour of the Presbyterian Church always to have given preeminence to "the Book of Psalms," in the praises of the sanctuary. And we trust that this will long remain a distinguishing honour; that no desire of novelty, no influence of example, no stooping to prejudice, nor turning aside to expediency, will avail to displace this Divine book from the high place it occupies in the services of our Church. We would recall the following weighty words of the Rev. Edward Irving, addressed to a minister of the Presbytery of London in an ordination charge many years ago: -"Concerning those Psalms, I would not forego one out of the collection for all the Paraphrases, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs of these Methodistical times. They are the essence of Divine truth, the divinest of the inspirations of the Spirit, upon which I charge thee to admit no modern innovations, and in their stead to take no modern substitutes." "The Psalms," says Bishop Horne, "are an epitome of the Bible adapted to the purposes of devotion." "Composed upon particular occasions, yet designed for general use; delivered out as services for Israelites under the Law, yet no less adapted to the circumstances of Christians under the Gospel; they present religion to us in the most engaging dress, communicating truths which philosophy could never investigate, in a style which poetry could never equal; while history is made the vehicle of prophecy, and creation lends all its charms to paint the glories of redemption. Calculated alike to profit and to please, they inform the understanding, elevate the affections, and entertain the imagination. Indited under the influence of Him to whom all hearts are known, and all events foreknown, they suit mankind in all situations, grateful as the manna which descended from above, and conformed itself to every palate. The fairest productions of human wit, after a few perusals, like gathered flowers, wither in our hands, and lose their fragrancy; but these unfading plants of paradise, become, as we are accustomed to them, still more and more beautiful: their bloom appears to be daily heightened; fresh odours are emitted and new sweets extracted from them. He who hath once tasted their excellences will desire to taste them yet again; and he who tastes them oftenest will relish them best."

We have thought it right to say thus much concerning the Book of Psalms and our old version of them, because a great deal of groundless alarm has resulted from the Synod's resolution to prepare a hymnbook for the use of Presbyterian congre

The glory of the Psalter is the fulness name of the Scotch Psalms, the Scotch wherewith it testifies of Christ. It treats having had the good sense to adopt and of his incarnation, birth, life, passion, retain them, but they are English out and death, resurrection, ascension, and king- | out, and have been used in the English dom. The ancient Jews were always Presbyterian churches from the seventaught to regard Messiah as the capital teenth century down to this day. object of the Psalter. Believers under the Gospel understand the things which are written in the Psalms, both concerning the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. "Ever since the commencement of the Christian era, the Church hath chosen to celebrate the Gos-gations in England. We hope that the pel mysteries in the words of these ancient hymns rather than to compose for that purpose new ones of her own. The Psalms have advantages which no fresh | compositions, however finely executed, can possibly have; since, besides their incomparable fitness to express our sentiments, they are, at the same time, memorials of, and appeal to, former mercies and deliverances; they are acknowledgments of prophecies accomplished; they point out the connexion between the old and new dispensations, thereby teaching us to admire and adore the wisdom of God displayed in both, and furnishing, while we read or sing them, an inexhaustible variety of the noblest matter that can engage the contemplation of man.

Besides the Divine excellency of the Psalms in themselves, it is something to know that we are worshipping and praising God in the very language that was used by prophets and apostles and saints and martyrs of the olden time. In the words of this book the adorations and praises of the Church have been offered up in all ages. The early Christians perpetually used them, and the writings of the Fathers are full of expositions and applications of them to the Gospel kingdom. And down to the latest times of the world the Psalter will still, with increasing fulness and propriety, give expression to the prayers and praises of the Church.

Of the various translations of the Hebrew Psalter into English metre, though some may be in certain parts more smooth, there is none half so plain and agreeable to the text as the version used in our Presbyterian churches. It was made under the direction of the Long Parliament by a Committee of the Westminster Assembly, and chiefly taken from the version of Rous, Provost of Eton College. They generally go by the

* Bishop Horne's Commentary, Preface.

pious indignation of these good people will be appeased when we assure them that there is no intention to supersede the Psalm-book nor to substitute any modern compositions. There is not a minister nor ruling elder of the Church who has not too much good taste and good feeling to think of such a thing. But, in the books now in common use there is an appendix consisting of "Translations and Paraphrases," always bound up with the Psalms, and frequently employed in public worship. These Paraphrases were introduced into the Church of Scotland during the latter part of last century, in the days of moderatism and declension. Some of the translations are admirable, but others are poor and inappropriate, and several contain positive heresy and false doctrine. It is to take the place of these Paraphrases, not of the Psalms, that a hymn-book is being prepared. There are other parts of the Holy Scripture suited for praise besides the Psalter, and other Divine songs are left on record besides those of the Sweet Singer of Israel. But on this subject we are not here called to enter. The matter has been several times before the Synod, and the propriety of having a collection of hymns has been declared, while the use of the Psalms heretofore has never been called in question.

In order to keep the Psalms distinct from hymns and paraphrases, and to set forth more clearly their superiority and distinction, we think it would be well to have the Psalms of David printed by themselves, with a short preface explanatory of the origin and authorship of the English version. At present our books bear that it is "the version allowed and appointed by the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland." Who cares whether that venerable body appoints them or not? It is as much to us if the Free Church or the Irish Synod allow them. We should like to see an edition set forth

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