and his hand becoming colder and colder in mine, I asked a pious woman near me, if she thought he would perceive it if I endeavoured to disengage myself from his grasp; she said not, and as gently as I could I drew my hand away but continued looking at him. After a while a change came over his features, which I can compare to nothing but the gleam we sometimes see passing over a corn-field in an autumnal day-it was not light, but there was the lighting up of the now almost inanimate clay— it was not what we call expression, and I believe when I have called it a lighting up of the features, not the countenance, premising, that it was not actual illumination, I have done all I can to convey the idea to those who have, or those who have not met with a similar phenomenon. It rapidly passed away; we all fell on our kness, and prayed again, commending the parting spirit to its Saviour God. I felt that my business was done; I left the house, and in two or three hours he had ceased to breathe.

Here was a soul exclusively taught of God.-How many a soul may have been thus taught who were denied the means of grace, now so abundantly poured forth and so neglected?-He who is the Teacher can tell, and He alone.

H. M.

SUNDAY VISITING.

I AM desirous to beg a page in the Christian Lady's Magazine on a subject of immense importance, as it respects the best interest of many of the rising generation. I allude to the custom too common in boarding schools of setting apart Sunday as the day for visiting.

Let me not however be misunderstood. If parents, in placing their children at school, feel desirous of superintending their religious instruction on the Lord's day themselves, I see no real objection to their receiving them to their own homes on Saturday evening, and returning them to the charge of their instructors on Monday morning. I am even disposed to allow that many advantages may attend this plan, when the parents are really pious-for who so fit as the natural protectors of children to instil into their young minds the feeling of grateful love to the God of their father and their mother? It keeps up, too, the feeling of family affection-and it may be, for the " eye affecteth the heart," that parental prayers are poured forth with increased fervour, when the beloved objects of affection are bending round the family altar.

I cannot believe that in schools of a decidedly religious character, indiscriminate visiting will be allowed; but there are persons, who are, as it were, between darkness and light, and who may not know

the extensive evils of their "sins of ignorance." It is to such persons, desirous to do right, but ignorant of the broad requisitions of the law of God-that I would appeal-intreating them to take into especial consideration the high importance of strict attention to Sabbath duties. "He that despiseth little things, shall fall by little and little," and equally true is it that many are kept back in their Christian course by apparent trifles. With children, however, nothing is trifling, and I call upon every superintendent of a school to look well to this, and, with the sole exception made in the commencement of this paper, to pause and to pray before accepting any invitation for any pupil. Firmness and decision will be necessary, but they bring their own reward.

Sunday callers too should be discouraged. A quiet statement that a visit any other day would be more convenient and agreeable, will in general be sufficient; and I can speak from my own experience that when this is done with politeness-for Christians are not required to lay aside the forms of society, but the contrary; and when the real reason is stated, -the importance of Sabbath duties, offence will not be taken.

The evils of a contrary practice are great, as it respects the instructor and the instructed. How can the former hope for the blessing of the Lord upon his labours, while he habitually neglects the divine law? A blessing too being peculiarly connected with the observance of the Sabbath? "The Lord rested the seventh day, and hallowed it." His own improvement in character is closely connected with Sabbath employments, and it is an old and true saying, that example teaches more forcibly than pre

cept. So strong is my feeling as to the importance of the charge of education, that I cannot help thinking the beautiful remark made by Robert Hall respecting a faithless minister, applies, in a degree, to a faithless instructor-' He is like an unskilful pilot, who is denied the satisfaction of perishing alone.' It was to directors of schools that Cecil said, 'Your name is Legion, for ye are many.'

Then the instructed-how can the evil be calculated? Habits are formed, from the repetition of the same act, and early habits are strong indeed. I consider the loss of instruction-the breaking of the links of a chain-the least of the evils of Sunday visiting. The breach of the law of God, the dissipation of mind on the day that He has peculiarly set aside for His service, and that authorized by persons whom they are bound to respect and obey; can we expect such things to be pleasing to Him who made the Sabbath for man, to be employed in the service and to the glory of the gracious Giver.

I will conclude with extracting from Sir Matthew Hale's Advice to his Grandchildren, some important remarks on the subject before us. They are well known, but they may be new to some into whose hands this paper may fall; and if only one person read them here for the first time, I cannot regret the trouble of transcribing them:

It is a certain truth that we never spend any time with better husbandry, or more advantage to ourselves, than that time we spend in the service of God, and to his honour and according to his will; and ungrateful is that man who thinks it much to consecrate one day of seven to the special service and honour of him that doth not lend him the seventh

to live, but the other six to his ordinary employments.

'I will acquaint you with a truth which above forty years' experience and strict observation of myself, hath assuredly taught me. I have been near fifty years a man as much conversant in business, and that of moment and importance, as most men; and in all this time I have most industriously observed in myself and my concerns, these three things:

First, That whenever I have undertaken any secular business on the Lord's day, which was not absolutely and indispensably necessary, that business never prospered or succeeded well with me.

Secondly, That always the more closely I applied myself to the duties of the Lord's day, the more happy and successful were my business and employments of the week following.

And Thirdly, that although my hands and mind have been as full of secular businesses both before and after I was a Judge, as it may be any man's in England, yet I never wanted time in the six days to ripen and fit myself for the businesses and employments I had to do, though I borrowed not one minute from the Lord's day, to prepare for it by study or otherwise. Therefore I grew preremptorily resolved never in this kind to make a breach on the Lord's day, which I have strictly observed now for above thirty years. This relation is most certainly and experimentally true, and hath been declared by me to hundreds of persons.'

S.