should no longer live the rest of our time," &c.

1 Peter iii. 19, as explained above, lays a foundation for the following remarks:

1. The resurrection of Christ is an indubitable fact, confirmed by the testimony of heavenly witnesses.

2. It is a truth of primary and fundamental importance, in the preaching of the gospel and in the faith of Christians.

3. Angels have exercised, and do still exercise, a ministry of high importance to the church of Christ. 4. Their benevolence is deeply interested in the welfare of man. M.

preached, for attending on praying societies, and for religious conversation. He generally carried about with him a copy of Watts' Psalms and Hymns, many of which he had committed to memory. For some weeks before he was seized by his last sickness, he was under deep concern about his eternal welfare. He gave up all amusement, or play, among the boys of the town, and upon coming in from Latin school, which he had attended for seven or eight months, retired to a room by himself; where he spent his leisure time in reading the scriptures, and Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. His mother and I frequently urged him to go out and play, or take exercise for his health. But to this he had no inclination. And his conversation on his death-bed, as well as before, evinced that he had read the books abovementioned with attention.

From the commencement of his sickness, he was apprehensive that he would not recover. I had been absent, performing ministerial duties in a vacant congregation; and on my arrival at home on Tuesday afternoon, the third day of his sickness, he, with great earnestness, requested me to pray for him. He was much concerned about his sisters; and told his mother in private, to put them in mind of their duty. He talked to his eldest sister when there was no person in the room but themselves, and pressed on her the duty of secret prayer, telling her, that for some time previously, he himself had prayed three times a day in secret.

His disorder proved very obstinate from the first. His sufferings were extreme; and his patience was exemplary. He very frequently cried out in the acuteness of his pains, "Lord! have mercy on me," and, "Lord God Almighty! have mercy on me, for Jesus Christ's sake." He observed to his mother that, "we are such sinful creatures, is the reason we have to suffer so

much." At one time he said to her, "O, Ma! how good the Lord is, that he has spared us so long, and has not cut us off long ere this!" He often observed that his complaint was a "terrible disorder;" and he once said to his mother, "If I should get over this sickness, I think I can say with the Psalmist: It is good for me that I was afflicted; before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word.""

He one day requested his mother to read to him in the Bible; and upon her inquiring where he wished her to read, he mentioned the third chapter of John's gospel. Afterwards he enjoined it on her to urge his sisters" to seek the Lord, and to seek him early; and to pray that they might be born again born of the Spirit-that they might be baptized with the Holy Ghost." Surprised at the manner in which he spoke on the subject of regeneration, she said to him-" John, where did you learn so much about the new birth?" "I learned it," said he, "from that third chapter of John which you read to me."

Watching with him one night, I lay on the side of the bed; and on his becoming a little restless, I inquired what he wanted? "I want you," said he, "to pray with me, and to teach me to pray." When telling him how he should pray, "I do," said he, "but I get so confused."-This was toward his last, when he was very weak. At one time, when none was present but his mother, he said: "O, Ma, it is a sweet thing to die in Jesus!" At sometimes again, he discovered great anxiety respecting the state of his soul, and his preparation for heaven; and when there was no person with him but his mother, he would pray audibly, "that the Lord would pardon his many sins for Christ's sake-that he would take him for his child; would wash him in Jesus' blood; would sanctify him, and prepare him for heaven;

and at death, would take him to himself." Such was the substance of his prayers. She expressed some fears to him, that, if he recovered, he would forget his views, and feelings, and pious resolutions when sick. He then charged her in a very earnest manner, not to let him forget or neglect his duty, if he should get well; but to remind him of his sickness, and of the necessity of prayer, and a holy life. It was but seldom that he appeared to entertain any hope of recovery. He appeared much better on the Friday before his death, which cheered up the family considerably; but he called his mother to him, and told her privately, that he had but little hopes of his recovery. That night he became worse, and continued very ill and restless the whole night. Towards daybreaking, he appeared to be near his last. None were with him, except his mother and myself. We let him know that we considered him much worse: "Yes," said he, "death is approaching fast:" these words he pronounced with great calmness and deliberation. I then awoke the rest of the family, and he shook hands with his sisters and cousin, bade them farewell, and charged each of them, when he was dead and gone, to mind the one thing needful. At this time, he could not speak above his breath. We supposed him dying for a considerable time that morning (Saturday). I said to him, "John, I think you are dying;" he replied "Yes, I think I am." I asked him if it was hard to die, or if he was afraid to die? "No," said he, in very soft accents, and with an air of the utmost composure

"Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are ; While, on his breast I lean my head, And breathe my life out sweetly there." The last line died on his lips, through failure of his strength.

Shortly after this a young man entered the room, with whom Joh

had conversed freely and frequently respecting his spiritual concerns, previously to his sickness. On this young man he fixed his eyes, and stretched out his hand towards him; when he approached the bed, he took him by the hand, bid him farewell, and requested that he would pray for him. In the same manner he acted with two lads, who attended the same school with himself, and who were also under serious impressions.

A number of persons were assembled in the room to witness his exit; and though he had not spoken above his breath for a considerable time, he exerted himself so as to speak loud enough to be heard all through the house, and said "I bid you all farewell; and oh! mind the one thing needful; I beseech you, my sisters, mind the one thing needful: seek the Lord, and seek him early." Then turning to his mother, he said; "Ma, do you help them to seek the Lord." Two of his sisters were older than he, and one of the same age with himself he and she were twins.

He professed a willingness to die, if he were sure that he was prepared for heaven. On this subject, he at times manifested deep concern. To comfort him, I reminded him of what Christ says in the character of wisdom, Prov. viii. 17.-"I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me." Now, said I, do you not love Christ? "O! yes, I do, with all my heart," was his reply. Upon his exhorting those around him again "to seek the Lord, and to seek him early," I observed to him, you have been seeking the Lord; "I have sought him," said he; I hope, said I, you have found him. To this he nodded assent. He several times told us to speak to him as little as possible; for it hurt him to speak.

་་

After waiting on him between three and four hours, expecting to

witness his departure, we perceived him somewhat revived; and he lived twenty-four hours after that. He was perfectly sensible to the last, but not able to converse much. On Sabbath morning, I asked him if he knew what day that was? He answered, "Yes." I subjoined, it is the Sabbath-" I know it," said he. I then observed to him, that yesterday morning about the same time, I did not think that he would be alive so long. He replied, "neither did I." A few minutes after, when there was no one with him but a young woman who had resided several years in the family, he turned towards her, and looking her full in the face, said: "Susan, death is drawing near; and I must go and travel to my God!" She immedidiately called the family in; but he spake no more. In death's cold embrace, his looks were intelligent, but his tongue refused to perform its office; and he departed without a struggle or a groan.

We had a great desire that he might be spared to us; but wish to repress every murmur, and to submit patiently to the will of God; to rest satisfied with the disposal of heaven, and to say, with pious and afflicted Job"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Six of our children now sleep in the dust, cut off in the morning of life, whose early removal we have to lament; but I trust that we do not mourn as those who have no hope. On the glorious morn of the resurrection, "them who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."

Mifflintown, September, A. D. 1823.

J. H.

From the Amulet, or Christian and Literary Remembrancer.

THE SHIPWRECKED.

Br L. A H.

THEY rolled above me, the wild waves-
The broken mast I grappled yet;
My fellow-men had found their graves,
On me another sun had set.
But, merciless the ocean still

Dash'd me, then calmly round me lay, To wake another human thrill,

As tyrants torture ere they slay.
But when the foaming breakers rush'd,
And pass'd o'er me, or bore me high,
Then into circling eddies gush'd,

I struggled yet I knew not why;
It was hope that bade me cling
Still to that only earthly thing,
I knew not then His mercy gave
To keep me level with the wave.
The tempest, when the day was gone,
More fiercely with the night came on;
But howling o'er the trackless sea,
Gave neither hope nor fear to me;
Despair had made me brave my fate,—
To die-thus lone and desolate.
1 saw another morning sun,
But yet my struggles were not done :
A passing billow wafted then

A comrade's body to my side,
Who lately, with his fellow-men,

Had bravely stemmed the dashing tide.
His calm cheek and half-open eye
Betokened that in agony
His spirit had not left him,—he
Seemed as if slumbering on the sea.
I calmly gazed, and without dread,
Upon the dull eye of the dead;

But when his cold hand touch'd my cheek,
My voice came from me in a shriek :
At mine own voice I gazed around,
'Twas so unlike a human sound;
But on the waters none were near,
Save the corpse upon its watery bier,
And hungry birds that hovered nigh,
Screaming his sole funeral cry.
My sum of human pangs to fill
There came a calm-more deathly still,
Because its sullen silence brought
A dull repose that wakened thought.
How my limbs quivered, as the sea

By some less gentle breeze was stirred,
As if I every moment heard
The ocean monsters follow me!
Then came the sun in all his might,
To mock me with his noon-day height:
When the waves lay beneath me long,
I felt his power grow fiercely strong
Above me, and would often dip
My burning brow and parched lip,
To cool them in the fresh'ning wave,
Wishing the waters were my grave.
But oft the sea-bird o'er me flew,

And once it flapped me with its wing:

That I must be its prey I knew,
And smiled at my heart's shivering;
But yet I could not bear to see

Its yellow beak, or hear its cry
Telling me what I soon must be ;-

I moaned, and wept, and feared to die. And as the chill wave grew more chill, The evening breeze became more still, And, breathing o'er the awful deep, Had lulled me, and I longed to sleep : My senses slept, my head bowed low, The waters splashed beneath, then broke

Suddenly o'er my aching brow,

With a convulsive start I woke,
And, waking, felt them o'er me float,
While gurgling in my parched throat.
Where'er I drifted with the tide,
My comrade's corpse was by my side.
Still to the broken mast I clung,
At times aside the waves I flung,
All day I struggled hard; but when
Another and another came,

Weaker and weaker grew my frame,—
I deemed that I was dying then.
My head fell on the wave once more,
And reason left me,-all seemed o'er;
Yet something I remember now,-

I knew I gazed upon the sky,
And felt the breeze pass o'er my brow,
Along the unbroken sea to die;
And, half with faintness half with dread,
The spirit that sustained me fled.

There was an eye that watch'd me then,

An ear that heard my frequent prayer; And God, who trod the unyielding wave, When human efforts all were vain, Ere the death-struggle, came to save, And called me back to life again.

*

I thought that I was yielding life,
To perish in that mortal strife,
And calmly lay along the sea,
That soon would calmly pass o'er me;
But my clench'd teeth together met,
As if with death I struggled yet-
That I was stemming it once more;

And then again the sea-bird's cry
Was mingling with the billows' roar,
As I laid down my head to die.
Returning reason came at last,

And bade returning hope appear: That remnant of the broken mast, And my dead comrade-both were near;

Not floating o'er the billows now,

For they had drifted us to land—
And I was saved-I knew not how-
But felt that an Almighty hand
Had chased the waters from the strand.
Beside the corpse, and by the wave,

I knelt and murmured praise to Him,
Who, in the fearful trial, gave

Strength to the spirit and the limb!

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S NEW TES

TAMENT.

(Continued from page 220.) One prominent feature of this anomalous production is, that it professes to reject every adopted or anglicised word. Dr. George Campbell's labours in favour of immersion give him some aid in this particular. Complaining of our translators, the Dr. says, "some words they have transferred from the original into their language, others they have translated." He wishes that they had not transcribed the word baptism, but given it a dipping translation. He considers baptism even now "a foreign name. For this reason," says he, "I should think the word immersion (which though of Latin origin, is an English noun, regularly formed from the verb to immerse,) a better English name than baptism, were we now at liberty to make a choice." When great men sicken into a prurient longing to carry some wrong point, what weak arguments they will sometimes use! Now I would inquire of the literary world, if it be not as true, that BAPTISM, though of Greek origin, is an English noun, regularly formed from the verb TO BAPTIZE, as that immersion, "though of Latin origin, is an English noun, regularly formed from the verb to immerse?" Both these words were originally foreign, and both are now naturalized; and if there be any difference, it is in favour of baptism, because this, being more generally known and understood, is more completely domesticated. Besides, the connexion of the term, in the scriptures, shows that immersion would be a perversion instead of a translation of the original. It was evidently this consideration which sometimes made Dr. Macknight follow our Bi

ble in transcribing. He does not say "All were immersed into Moses in the cloud and in the sea," as my opponent's incomparable has said for him; but he says "all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea." When a man's zeal against the adoption of Greek words leads him not only to publish Dr. Campbell's weak argument, but to invent a fact for Paul, and forge a translation for Macknight, I am ready to say, in reference to a reproof once given to an incompetent imitator of Pindar, "Dr. Campbell was bold, but thou art impudent."

Scores of alterations where this word is concerned, are confessed in the Appendix; and after he was taxed with the fault, he shows that they were promised in the Prospectus, which, however, is not published with the work, and is in direct opposition to the promise contained in the title-page. His prospectus reads as follows, viz. "There is also one improvement of considerable importance which ought to be made in this work, and to which we shall attend. Sundry terms are not translated into English, but adopted into those translations from long usage. Those terms are occasionally translated into English by Campbell and Macknight; but not always. We shall uniformly give them the meaning which they have affixed to them, wherever they occur, and thus make this a pure English New Testament, not mingled with Greek words, either adopted or anglicised." Here is a promise that he will make his translation such pure English, that it shall not contain any adopted words, such as Martyr, Archangel, Myriad, Mystery, Schism, Blasphemy, Denarius, Exroclydon, Tartarus, Abyss, Hades. Some of these words, such as My