The amount collected and apportioned is as follows:-Total, £3,853 16s. 10d. Proportion for Home Missionary Society Irish Evangelical Society £1,435 15 3 991 16 11 1,416 5 8 9 19 0 £3,853 16 10 Lessons by the Way; or, Things to Think On. INFLUENCE. It is not position that gives influence; it is character. What men are determines their power over others; not where they are themselves, not the places they stand in. When Diogenes had been captured by pirates, and was about to be sold as a slave in Crete, he pointed to a Corinthian," very carefully dressed," saying, "Sell me to that man; he wants a master!" His wish was granted him; and the event demonstrated his sagacity. Character overcame position; that man bought " a master in buying Diogenes! The case was an extreme oue; the principle is as common as the air we breathe. Let Christians improve it, for the glory of their Redeemer. Let them seek holy influence, through holy character. If you would do much for Christ, be much like Christ. From the humblest sphere, His Spirit reigning in your bosom, will put forth a hand of power upon those who stand above you in the world's esteemin your own, perchance-and by daily beauty of" an unpretending but pure "life," you may prevail, where social rank, and mental culture, and the spell of oratory, leave the heart callous against the truth. Conquer yourself by faith, by charity, by patience, and this shall make you conqueror of others for the Lord. "the Nay, lowliness of position may be, itself, a source of strength. "Influence ascends more than it descends; many a one resists that of his superiors, against which he is on his guard, and yields to that of his subordinates, of which he is all the while unconscious. Influence in spiritual things follows the one law of all influences, which gain in power as they are most concealed." CONSECRATION OF WEALTH TO GOD. The time will come, and I cannot but hope that it is near at hand, when all the difficulty about funds for the spread of the gospel will be done away, when Christians will learn a lesson, which hitherto they have been very slow to learn, that the richest enjoyment of wealth is to give its increase to the treasury of the Lord; and that the sweetest of incentives to labour is the hope of gaining something that we may aid in furthering the cause of God. The excuses for our want of liberality are utterly futile; they are worse, they are often impious. If we are Christians, let us act like Christians,and not dishonour the sacred name by a base, selfish, avaricious spirit, which keeps back from the treasury of the Lord what is due. If we are Christians indeed, we owe not only our wealth but VOL. XV. ourselves to the Redeemer, who bought with a price. Was he willing to purchase our salvation by pouring out his blood; and shall we be unwilling to give liberally of what he has given us, to promote his cause? The very heathen will rise up in judgment against narrow-hearted Christians; for they expend ten times as much on their idols as these do in supporting and propagating a religion which is truly divine, and which is the only hope of salvation. Oh, that men would remember that they are but stewards; and that God will require a strict account of the manner in which they disperse what has been committed to them! FUTURE PUNISHMENT NEAR. Perhaps the distance at which imagination sets the prospect of future punishment may have a more general influence in diminishing the effect of God's merciful warnings, than any sceptical doubt about the intensity or duration of the sufferings of the wicked. The Spirit of God means to awaken us from this delusion, when he tells us, by the apostles and holy men of old, that "the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." He means by these declarations to remind every man that his particular doom is near; for, whatever may be the season appointed in the secret counsels of God for "that great and terrible day, when the heavens and the earth shall flee from the face of him who shall be seated upon the throne, and their place shall be no more found"-whatever may be the destined time of this public catastrophe, the end of the world, with respect to every individual, takes place at the conclusion of his own life. In the grave there will be no repentance; no virtues can be acquired-no evil characters thrown off. With that character, whether of virtue or of vice, with which a man leaves the world, with that he must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. In that moment, therefore, in which his present life ends, every man's future condition becomes irreversibly determined. THE WORTH OF A SOUL. When we endeavour to estimate theworth of an immortal soul, we are utterly lost in the attempt. The art of spiritual computation is not governed by the same principles and rules which guide our speculations concerning earthly objects. The value of gold, silver, merchandize, food, raiment, land, and houses, is easily regulated by custom, convenience, or necessity. Even the more capricious and imaginary worth of a picture, medal, or statue, may be reduced to systematic rule. Crowns and 2 E sceptres have had their adjudged valuation, and kingdoms have been bought and sold for sums of money. But who can fix the adequate price to a human soul? "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" The principles of ordinary arithmetic all fail here, and we are constrained to say that He alone who paid the ransom for sinners, and made the souls of men His purchased possession, can comprehend and solve the arduous question. They are indeed bought with a price; but are not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. We shall only ascertain the value of a soul when we shall be fully able to estimate the worth of a Saviour. Household Hints. RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS. CHRISTIAN FRIENDS,-In these days much is said of the importance and necessity of the revival of religion; and it is well. The need of it everywhere is confessedly great. In bringing about so glorious a consummation, a vast variety of instruments must be employed; and among these the first place is due to you! You alone, full of the Spirit of God, and with "the word of Christ dwelling richly in you," could do much to realize it; while, on the contrary, you could do not a little to baffle the efforts of all others united. How honourable, then, as well as awful and responsible, is your position! Ought it not to occupy your last waking moments, and enter the mind the first in the morning? A great and good man, Dr. Hamilton, thus addresses you : Prayerless parents, your irreligion may prove your children's damnation. They might have been within the fold of the Saviour by this time, had not you hindered them when entering in. That time when God visited your family with a heavy stroke, they were thoughtful for a season; but there was no church in your house, to give a heavenly direction to that thoughtfulness, and it soon died away. That evening when they came home from the Sabbath-school so serious, if you had been a pious father or mother, you would have taken your boy aside, and spoken tenderly to him, and asked what his teacher had been telling him, and you would have prayed with him, and tried to deepen the impression. But your children came in from the church or school, and found no church in their father's house. Their hearts were softened, but your worldliness soon hardened them. The seed of the kingdom was just springing in their souls, and by this time might have been a rich harvest of salvation; but in the atmo sphere of your ungodly house, the tender blade withered instantly. Your idle talk, your frivolity, your Sunday visitors, your prayerless evenings, ruined all. Your children were coming to Christ, and you suffered them not. And you will not need to hinder them long." Dear Fellow-Parents! These words are not less true than terrible. They describe a state of things which fills the land, and is hurrying myriads of the rising race away from the church into the world, and through the world into perdition! AN AGED FATHER. CURE FOR FITS. For a fit of Passion.-Walk out inthe open air; you may speak your mind to the winds, without hurting any one, or proclaiming yourself to be a simpleton. For a fit of Idleness.-Count the tickings of a clock. Do this for one hour, and you will be glad to pull off your coat the next, and work hard. For a fit of Extravagance and Folly.-Go to the workhouse, or speak to the ragged and wretched inmates of a jail, and you will be convinced "Who makes his bed of briar and thorn, Must be content to lie forlorn." For a fit of Ambition.-Go into the churchyard and read the grave-stones; they will tell you the end of ambition. The grave will soon be your bed-chamber, the earth your pillow, corruption your father, and the worm your mother and your sister. For a fit of Repining.-Look about for the halt, and the blind, and visit the bedridden, and afflicted, and deranged; and they will make you ashamed of complaining of your lighter afflictions. For a fit of Despondency.-Look on the good things which God has given you in this world, and at those which he has promised to his followers in the next. He who goes into his garden to look for cob inestimable than may be valued. She is any good man's better second self, the very mirror of true constant modesty, the careful housewife of frugality, and dearest object of man's heart's felicity. She commands with mildness, rules with discretion, lives in repute, and ordereth all things that are good or necessary. She is her husband's solace, her house's ornament, her children's succour, and her servant's comfort. She is (to be brief) the eye of wariness, the tongue of silence, the hand of labour, and the heart of love. Her voice is music, her countenance meekness; her mind virtuous, and her soul gracious. She is a blessing given from God to man, a sweet companion in his affliction, and joint co-partner upon all occasions. She is (to conclude) earth's chiefest paragon, and will be, when she dies, heaven's dearest creature. Popery. STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. We have no sympathy whatever with those who laugh at the fear of Popery. They are no philosophers; they are no historians; but men who close their eyes, and then, with confidence and song, march onward to the precipice! The grand preparation for Popery is the decay of true piety, and the introduction of a cold and passionless formality. That preparation, alas! is now going forward. Monasticism continues to spread in Germany with amazing rapidity. To the church historian this is a fact of grave importance, for it is one of the undeniable proofs that the Roman Church is again laying hold of the masses of the people. In 1853, there were in Germany 23 religious orders or congregations of men, with 373 houses or convents, and about 8,000 members, and 174 religious communities of women, with about 6,000 members. Since 1853, the increase has become larger every year. The legislative restrictions from which they had to suffer before 1848 having been removed, they appear in almost every part of Germany. Thus the Grand-duchy of Baden, where the permission for establishing the first institution of this kind was given in 1846, has now 17 houses alone of the Sisters of Charity. Among the states which furnish numerous candidates for the new convents, Prussia stands almost foremost. In rapidity of extension the Sisters of Charity excel all the other orders, as they possess the confidence of the Catholic population to a very high degree, and attract in many places also the admiration of Protestants. The establishment of the Sisters at Berlin, the first idea of which belongs to a young workman, who handed for this purpose to the priest 30 dollars, the fruit of his savings, seems especially to be very prosperous. During the year 1857 it received nearly 3,000 patients, 2,235 of whom were Protestants. With almost equal rapidity spreads the Order of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, which is of very modern origin, having been founded in the present century by Bishop Wittmann, of Regensburg. The number of its convents, which are mostly in Germany, amounts already to 102. This order has also 2 noviciates in the United States, at Milwaukie and Baltimore, and houses at Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Detroit, New York, New Orleans, and several other places. Among the many applicants for admission, especially to the female orders, we find not rarely members of the highest aristocracy, who generally render to the cause of monasticism great services, not only by the prestige of their name, but also by opening for it new sources of material support among their rich relations. Also the Jesuits, not yet the most numerous, but the most active and cunning among all the monks, are likewise multiplying their houses, especially in Austria and Prussia. The German newspapers report frequentl their appearance in the larger cities, and sometimes drawing large audiences to a "mission" of one, two, or three weeks, sometimes giving a course of lectures on the most important points of the Roman Church, and taking great pains to assemble for them civil and military officers, and the leading men of society. How do matters stand in the United States ? Far from satisfactory. In 1808, fifty years ago, there were about 7,000,000 of people in the United States mostly Protestants in name. There were at that time but 1 Romish diocese, 2 bishops, 58 priests, 30 churches, 2 ecclesiastical institutions, 2 female academies, and 1 college in the whole land. Now in 1858, we have 41 dioceses, 39 bishops, 1,872 priests, 2,053 churches, 35 ecclesiastical institutions, 29 incorporated colleges, 134 female academies, and 20 colleges not incorporated, and a catholic population estimated at 4,000,000. Besides its other means of answering its interests, the Papal Church has 18 weekly newspapers, conducted in French, German, and English. It will be seen from these statistics that the ratio of the increase of the Papal body has greatly exceeded the ratio of the increase of the population. While the whole population is only four times as large as it was fifty years ago, the Romish Priests have increased to twenty-five times their number in 1808. What say our fool-hardy English Protestants to these things? Will they frivolously reply, "Well, thank Heaven, it is not so in England?"-Beware! England has as much to fear as to hope. Does the self-satisfied respondent really know how the matter stands ? We greatly doubt it. Let him read, then, and he shall learn. The "Monthly Letter," for August, of the Protestant Alliance, states that the efforts of Romanists in the suburbs of London are rapidly increasing. The following facts in reference to a single locality may be taken in illustration. In the Elgin Road, Notting Hill, is a convent consisting of three large houses, at which there are between twenty and thirty nuns, and a large number of children under instruction. Connected with the convent is a chapel, which is attended by persons in the neighbourhood. Opposite to the convent, a Popish College for 300 young ladies is in the course of erection, for the purpose of ensnaring the daughters of the residents in the locality. Within five minutes' walk is a monastery, with a large church and school attached. These institutions are under the immediate superintendence of Dr. Manning. At Westbourne Grove, a short distance from the above-named places, is another monastery, with its church and school. At Kensington a convent with school and chapel have lately been greatly enlarged. At Turnham Green, Hammersmith, and Brook Green, churches, convents, schools, or other Popish establishments have rapidly appeared, and rooms have been opened for Romish worship, in numerous villages and hamlets around. In 1829, there were in England and Wales 449 Romish chapels or churches; the present number is 894. In 1829, there were 477 priests; there are now 1,200. In 1829, there was not a monastery or convent; now there are 23 monasteries, 106 convents, 11 colleges, two of which are under the sole superintendence of the Jesuits. What say our friends now? He is alike bold and brainless, presumptuous and infatuated, whose ears are not made. to tingle by such intelligence. Ecclesiastical Affairs. NON-ATTENDANCE AT CHURCH-MEETINGS. very small proportion of those entitled to come are present from month to month. After making all reasonable allowance on the ground of sickness, lawful pre-occupation, absence from home, &c., we are compelled to con clude, as the result of somewhat extensive inquiry on the subject, that there is a general neglect of church-meetings by But a those who could be there if they would. We believe it to be the fact, with regard to most of the churches of our order in Canada, (says the Canadian Independent,) that the church-meetings" are the worst attended of all the meetings held in connexion with the church. Of course, some diminution is to be expected from the fact, that none but members can attend these, while other meetings are open to all comers. |