THE PARISH CHURCH.

I was lately travelling through a very dreary and uncultivated part of Cornwall, where the surrounding desolation cannot fail to impart a corresponding gloom to every thinking mind, and to impress on the Christian's notice the solemnity of that declaration, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake." Some tracts through which I had that day passed seemed to participate in the doom pronounced against Babylon of old, "I will

N

sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts." An unexpected turn in the road brought us in sight of a parish Church, whose high square tower rose from amidst a small cluster of cottages. There was nothing particularly striking in the building or the situation, yet the train of feeling it awoke in my breast cheered and beguiled the remainder of my journey.

I was struck with the truth of the remark that we are constantly surrounded by objects capable of affording the most solemn admonition and instruction, which pass unnoticed before our accustomed gaze. I had seen many, very many churches before, but the ideas which the sight of this excited were quite new to me. It seemed to stand as a witness between God and man, a pledge of God's long-suffering love to sinners. I forgot then that there were who loved to say, "I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas." I hailed it as "a place where prayer was wont to be made." Prayer, the mode of communication between the creature and the Creator; prayer, the voice of the contrite sinner; prayer, the language of the adoring saint. Man, wherever we meet him, is a being at enmity with God. Whether we view him in the crowded bustling city, where business and pleasure seem his only care, or in the smiling village-the fabled abode of peace and purity, but alas! not of the peace which the Holy Spirit breathes, nor of the purity the Gospel teaches, or, as here, in the humble cottages scattered o'er the wild moors; the language of the heart towards the Almighty is, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." But oh! the depth of the love of God. He seeks and searches

out the lost and wandering sheep. He condescends to reason with his rebellious children like a tender father; and his language towards sinners is still the same as to Israel of old, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die? for I am merciful, saith the Lord, neither do I keep mine anger for ever." And He, the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity, bends from his high dwelling-place to hear the sigh of the contrite heart; and, while the prayer offered in secret finds acceptance with him, looks down with especial favour where two or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus Christ. To the eye of the traveller there is something particularly cheering in the constant succession of parish churches he meets with in his journey; they appear as so many folds to which the sheep around may flee for shelter in times of danger and distress, where they may learn to look upward to that one fold in the realms of glory, where no strife and division shall vex from within, and no evil beast disturb from without. And though he must sigh at the thought lest some of those who there minister in holy things hold not up to their people's notice Jesus, the only Way-Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, in whom whosoever believeth shall live though he die-Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who gave his life for the sheepstill every such building becomes sanctified in his eyes. when he looks on it as "a place where prayer is wont to be made;" and if he has been brought up a member of that Church, deep and searching are the thoughts that should rise in his mind. Within her walls has he been admitted from his earliest youth to all the outward privileges of the children of God, and her roof is, in all probability, the last of mortal rearing which

shall shelter his breathless and decaying body, when his spirit shall have returned to him who gave it. What if her crumbling masses should start up against him in the day of Judgment, denouncing him as belonging to that awful multitude whom God described to the Prophet of Israel, "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honour me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." They come before me as my people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy word, but they will not do them; with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their idols." Oh! wretched and melancholy state! To have stood at the gate of the kingdom of heaven, without once striving to enter in; to have sat on the brink of the well of Life, and never tasted of the stream; to have knelt before the throne of grace without once reflecting that God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit.

I will conclude with entreating all those who are, I will not say, members of the Church of England, I will take a wider, higher stand, I will say all who desire the furtherance of Christ's kingdom among men, that the sight of a Parish Church may henceforth awake in them a passing prayer, that God of his infinite mercy would pour down a blessing on the Christian Sanctuaries established in the land, that they may not serve merely to gratify the eye of the man of taste who travels through happy England's varied scenery, but that they may serve as way marks to the weary traveller who has set his face Zion-ward through the wilderness of this world-storehouses of the bread that endureth for ever, wells of living water springing up into everlasting life. A TRAVELLER.

READING-A MEANS OF GRACE.

THIS is an age of reading; great boasts are made of the multiplicity of books, and the demand for them; but that reading is not at all generally a means of grace a very slight observation will discover. Other ends are aimed at besides growth in grace. Reading is the instrument by which we acquire knowledge, and knowledge, we are told, is power; and so it may be in a worldly way. It gives, for instance, the power of tracing the path of a comet, of comprehending the mighty energies of steam, and so on. But is such knowledge an acquisition in grace? It confers power it is true, but doth it confer holiness, doth it confer happiness? We fear not: somewhat else must be had recourse to for this; somewhat else must be found to fill and satiate the mind of man,-that mind originally formed for the reception, study, and comprehension of the Lord of heaven and earth,-that mind which, since its first alienation through sin from him who so fearfully and wonderfully made it, can be filled and satiated