the world-ready to perish-under guilt that would ruin the universe-did you never pray for mercy? Brought up in the enjoyment of the gospel, and often told of that Savior, who died for just such sinners as you are, did you never go to that Redemer in the dust, at the foot of his cross, acknowledge your vileness, and sue for an interest in his pardoning and atoning blood? Look, I beseech you, at the sacrifice that God has made for you. Look at the sins, which have separated between you and God. Consider the infinite debt which you owe your Maker, and your infinite inability to pay that debt, and then say if you ought not to pray for a discharge. Consider that you are not only a debtor, bankrupt, and in prison, but a criminal condemned already, and awaiting the day of execution to arrive. Another has undertaken to discharge your debt, and waits but for you to ask his aid. He has consented to suffer the penalty of the law in your stead, and justify you in the presence of your condemning Judge, but he will extend the benefits of his clemency to you only on condition that you will ask, believing. You are a sinner, dying in your sins. Death is feeling for your heart-strings now, and will soon break them. The frail thread of life holds you out of a burning hell. You must perish unless you pray. Pray, and perhaps you may be saved."

With such words I urged the duty of prayer on this dying friend, and the insensibility with which they were heard, was as great as that with which the multitudes of sinners listen to the same entreaties, when death does not appear so near. The work of death is going on, and that youth does not pray. I went from his bedside, reflecting that, perhaps disease had made him still more insensible than those in health, and if I made the appeal to them I might meet with more success.

Some of them have doubtless read this, and wondered that a sinner could die without prayer. But is it not more strange that one can live without prayer? Can you lie down at night and trust yourself to sleep without prayer, when you know that you are in the hands of an angry God, who holds you in being, and might in an instant drop you into devouring fire? Can you presume on his goodness, without so much as asking him to keep you,

while you cannot keep yourself? Can you wake in the morning, and begin the business of the day, without once thinking of Him who watched you while you slept, and whose hand was your shield? Can you pursue the world, and never ask his aid in whose hand are all your wayswho must favor your plans or they will fail? And these are but common obligations. These would bind, though there were no such thing as sin and misery, or holiness and heaven. A wretch, who believes there is a God and denies every thing else, ought to pray. But you believe more than this. You believe that the Bible is the word of God, and that every word of that book will have a certain fulfilment. You know that you must pray or God will never have mercy on your soul: and knowing this, and knowing that God is waiting to be gracious, you refuse to pray.

Should the king come to the door of your cell, where you were waiting for the day of death to come, and offer to grant a full and instant pardon, if you would fall down on your knees, and confess with penitence, your sin, and trusting in his unbought goodness, would plead with him. for mercy; would you plead? If he should come to you on the scaffold, as you were on the point of suffering the penalty of the law, and make you the same offer; would you pray? There is not a more miserable evasion of duty than the plea which many put in that they cannot save themselves, and, therefore, it is of no use to try. You do not feel the force of that objection. If you did, you would pray. Were you in captivity, dependent utterly on the will of your master for life and death, you would put all your hope of escape in prayer. You would fall down before him, whose chains were on you, and plead with earnestness and tears, that he would have compassion, and let you go. And the more sensible you were of the impossibility of deliverance, except through the mercy of your master, the stronger would be your supplications, and the more abundant your tears. And if you felt your dependance on God for deliverance from hell, you would go down on your knees and beg for your life as a dying man.

No; God has constituted an inseparable connexion. between your salvation and prayer. Your prayer wil

not make you better, or God more kind. But if you are saved he must save you, and he will be inquired of by you to do this thing for you. And oh! if you never prayed, pray now. If you have, pray more. Cry mightily unto God. Besiege his throne.

"Perhaps he will admit your plea,
Perhaps will hear your prayer."

No. There is no perhaps, or peradventure, in any promise that God ever made. "Ask, and ye shall receive," not perhaps ye shall receive." "Seek and ye shall find," not peradventure ye shall find. "Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."

Love your Enemies.

A SLAVE in one of the Islands of the West Indies, who had originally come from Africa, having been brought under the influence of religious instruction, became singularly valuable to his owner, on account of his integrity and general good conduct. After some time, his master raised him to a situation of some consequence in the management of his estate; and on one occasion, wishing to purchase twenty additional slaves, employed him to make the selection, giving him instruction to choose those, who were strong and likely to make good workmen. The man went to the slave market, and commenced his scrutiny. He had not long surveyed the multitude offered for sale, before he fixed his eye upon one old and decrepio slave, and told his master that he must be one. master appeared greatly surprised at his choice, and remonstrated against it. The poor fellow begged that he might be indulged; when the dealer remarked, that i they were about to buy twenty, he would give them the old man in the bargain.

The

The purchase was accordingly made, and the slaves were conducted to the plantation of their master; but upon none did the selector bestow half the attention and care he did upon the poor old decrepid African. He took

him to his own habitation, and laid him upon his own bed; he fed him at his own table, and gave him drink out of his own cup: when he was cold, he carried him into the sunshine; and when he was hot, he placed him under the shade of the cocoa-nut trees. Astonished at the attention this confidential slave bestowed upon a fellow-slave, his master interrogated him upon the subject. He said "You could not take so much interest in the old man, but for some special reason: he is a relation of yours, perhaps your father?"-"No, massa," answered the poor fellow, "he no my fader." "He is then an older brother?" 66 'No, massa, he no my broder!" "Then is he an uncle, or some other relation ?" "No, massa, he no be my kindred at all, nor even my friend!" asked the master, "on what account does he excite your interest ?" "He my enemy, massa," replied the slave; "he sold me to the slave dealer; and my Bible tell me when my enemy hunger, feed him, and when he thirst, give him drink."

"Then,"

John Newton.

Two or three years before the death of this eminent servant of Christ, when his sight was become so,dim, that he was no longer able to read, an aged friend and brother in the ministry, called on him to breakfast. Family prayer succeeding, the portion of scripture for the day was read to him. It was taken out of Bogatsky's Golden Treasury; "By the grace of God, I am what I am." It was the pious man's custom on these occasions, to make a short familiar exposition on the passage read. After the reading of this text, he paused for some moments, and then uttered the following affecting soliloquy:

"I am not what I ought to be! Ah! how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be! "I abhor what is evil," and I would "cleave to what is good!" I am not what I hope to be! Soon, soon I shall put off mortality and with mortality, all sin and imperfection! Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was-a slave to sin and Satan; and 1

can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, By the grace of God, I am what I am?

Andrew Fuller.

"I DON'T know," said a gentleman to the late Andrew Fuller, "how it is that I can remember your sermons better than those of any other minister, but such is the fact." "I cannot tell," replied Mr. Fuller, "unless it be owing to simplicity of arrangement; I pay particular atttention to this part of composition, always placing things together which are related to each other, and that naturally follow each other in succession. For instance, added he, suppose I were to say to my servant, Betty, you must go and buy some butter, and starch, and cream, and soap, and tea, and blue, and sugar, and cakes,' Betty would be apt to say, 'Master, I shall never remember all these. But suppose I were to say, 'Betty you know your mistress is going to have friends to tea to-morrow, and that you are going to wash the day following; and that for the tea party, you will want tea, and sugar; and cream and cakes and butter; and for the washing you will want soap, and starch and blue;' Betty would instantly reply, 'Yes master, I can now remember them all very well!""

The Force of Truth.

A GENTLEMAN was once asked in company, what led him to embrace the truths of the gospel, which formerly he was known to have neglected and despised! He said, My call and conversion to God, my Savior, were produced by very singular means; a person put into my hands 'Paine's Age of Reason.' I read it with attention, and was much struck with the strong and ridiculous representation he made of many passages in the Bible. 1 confess, to my shame, I had never read the Bible through; but from what I remember to have heard at church, and accidentally on other occasions, I could not persuade myself that Paine's report was quite exact, or that the Bible was quite so absurd as he represented it. I resolved,