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RESIGNATION,

"Would you not prefer to live?"

He shook his head, and gasping, said, 'I wish I was gone.'

We prayed with him for the last time, and bade him adieu for ever. He said, For twelve hourI——,' but could not proceed for want of breath. He took his hand out of bed, however, lifted it up, as one in supplication, and bowed his head. A young man, I believe his son, we left with him, reading the German Bible to his expiring father.

This evening four rooms in the Almshouse were visited, besides the one in which I preached; and in two of them prayers were offered by my Christian friends, Mr. Bleeker and Mr. John Steel. The latter gentleman heard the blind W-R

read a part of a chapter, and attended to several children, who repeated hymns, and were well compensated by his liberality.

I went to the bed of W-F-; but he was gone; and blessed be the Lord who took him away! Now his eyes, which were sealed in natural blindness for twenty-seven years, through the excess of lust, will no more prevent the light from shining into his soul. There is good reason to believe, that he went from the cellar of the Almshouse to glory.

An aged woman, Mrs. GH-, requested to be remembered in our public prayers, and was visited with personal instruction.

"You are sick and aged,” I said.

'Yes, and that a'n't the worst of it; I'm good for nothing. This she said, snarling at herself.

"All which you say is very true."

'I have a hard heart: I am a poor, wretched sinner,

THE DISCONSOLATE BELIEVER.

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great distress; I'm so wicked that I'm afraid Christ will not receive me.'

"If you are wicked, you need a Saviour; and if your heart is hard, he can soften it."

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Ay, but how shall I get it softened? Ive pray'd a great while that Christ would make me feel.-O I wish he would!'

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"Christ is more willing to make you holy, than you are to be made holy. You need not say that there is any reluctance on his part."

'Dear gentleman, you must know more about the blessed Saviour than I do; but I wish that he would have mercy on me, and give me a new heart. I want to trust in him, and love him.'

Here I remembered in what manner my friend, Dr. M'Leod, addressed a pious woman on a similar occasion, and therefore I demanded,

"Pray tell me, what have you got against the Lord Jesus Christ?"

She lifted up both hands and eyes in great astonishment, and with the strongest expression of horror, said,

Got against him! got against him! Why, nothing! He came into the world to save poor sinners, and I have nobody but him to look to!'

"Oh! then it seems that you have much to say in his favour. Do you believe that he will lie?" 'No, no, never!'

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Believe, then, that he is able and willing to save you; and, hard as your heart is, give yourself into his hands."

Great indeed is her humility and fervour; but she has been looking to her polluted heart for con

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BLIND DONALLY.

solation, and thought Jesus would reject her for the very reason that she is so vile as to need his pardoning love.

Poor blind Donally is a pattern of patience and faith. She wants nothing but the pardoning and sanctifying love of her dear Redeemer.

Last of all, we visited a cellar full of the vilest of black people; but one of them appeared to think and feel, and I should have entertained some hope of her experimental knowledge, had she not introduced some thing about "the strange visions which she saw long ago." Visions should not come in place of the word of God; fancies should not be mistaken for a rational, as well as spiritual, faith in Jesus.

I am sorry to state that, in many instances, I have met with poor people, who knew none of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity; but verily believed themselves pious, because they had seen in some church remarkable sights. Some have attempted to persuade me, that they have verily seen a glorious personage, whom they took to be the Lord Jesus. Granting, however, that all these wonderful forms have passed before the mental vision of a swooning person, what then?

"He that believeth not, shall be damned."

Actually to see Christ in the flesh, would not renew and sanctify the heart. A vision of myriads of angels would not produce saving faith. Prophetic dreams would not constitute a covenant union between the sinner and the Lord of Life. "Be not deceived;" 'Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

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A LEARNED LAWYER.

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March 1st.

NOT long since, after Mr. John Stanford had preached in the State's Prison, a lawyer, a prisoner, requested, and obtained leave, to ask publicly a doctrinal question.

Beside Mr. Stanford stood several persons, whe were lately professional gentleman, and one who had been professor of the learned languages in a University. All were prisoners.

"Pray," said the lawyer, NED CRAIG," how can you reconcile the general invitations of the Gospel with the doctrine of a particular election ?"

Before the whole audience, Mr. Stanford turned to the learned part of his hearers, and said, "These gentlemen know, that it is not customary to teach children abstruse doctrines in any science, until they have first learned their grammar. I am no polemic, and preach to you the plain Gospel; but you must learn the A, B, C, of divinity before I attempt to explain the subject of your inquiry.

The prisoners generally resented Ned's impertinence, for they considered him as intending to embarrass their favourite teacher.

By the politeness of Mr. Stanford, I am permitted to present the reader with a copy of the Latin address, of which the author's translation was published in my former Journal. That a prisoner, without books, should thus elegantly write, will certainly surprise most of our English Latinists.

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A PRISONER'S ADDRESS.

"ANNI NOVI DONUM;

Reverendissimo JOHANNI STANFORD, Artium Magistro, Theologie Doctori, hominumque amico, Cum diffidentia,

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Dedicatum est.

"Si liceat, me miserum, in carcere clausum, et ignominia circumtectum, te salutare; memor, anni præteriti, multorumque tuorum laborum ad illuminandas nostrum mentes imperitas, tibi beneficia divina rogo. Tui conatus, in consolandis moerentibus, trahendisque animis ad peccantium Servatorem, gratias poscunt. Non mihi verba sunt, quibus mentis mei cogitata enuntiare. Non blanditias, sed verum loquor. Est tibi suavitas in modo loquendi, quæ miserimos solatur, et benignitatem dicentis perspicue indicat. Dum corpus dolore languescit, animum cum evangelii alimento nutris.

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"Ut cera dura igne calefacta sit, ita tuis sermonibus corda obstinata ad accipienda, veritatis divinæ vestigia parata sunt; atque, dum mens in dubio errat, viam ad felicitatem æternam monstras.

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Pro tuis officiis benignis, quibus sæpissime politi sumus, prosperitatem tuam, hoc anno novo augeri, ætatemque longam in terris te conterere, precor; atque, quando vitam mortalem relinques, Deus ad superos te accipiat; ubi, adjunctus beatis, Dei Agnique laudes in æternum modulare.

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"Ita precatur,

"Januarii primo die, annoque Domini 1812. "Nota bene. In linea ultima, pro Dei, ejus lege.”

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