the gliding months of the most affectionately united pair, cannot be retarded even by all the solicitations of love. Countless multitudes of our race die in infancy. The father's hopes, and the tender mother's broken heart avail nothing. Often the most beautiful flowers soonest fade: yea, "We all do fade as a leaf."

The rapidity and uncertainty of human life are most strikingly set forth in the word of God, in similes at once familiar and humiliating. "My days are swifter than a post. They are passed away as the swift ships." "We spend "We spend our years as a tale that is told." "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass." "What is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." Job ix. 25, 26. Psalm xc. 9. Isaiah xl. 6, 7. James iv. 14.

Seeing that time is so swift, and the life of every human being is so short and uncertain, we should all most anxiously seek to be ready for our departure to the glorious and everlasting world above; or our winged moments will soon bear us away to endless perdition. There is no middle state beyond the present life. The bible reveals but two. In a very little time we shall be in heaven or hell for ever.

Dear reader, do these facts habit

ually dwell in thy mind; or are they treated as unwelcome strangers ? Art thou really "born again ;" "born of the Spirit;" "born from above?" Hast thou repented of thy sins, so as to feel heartily disgusted with them, and turn away from them, from the principle of love to God? Art thou often grieved, do thine eyes frequently flow with tears in secret, for having so dishonoured the greatest and best of beings, corrupted others by thine evil ways, and so nearly ruined thine own soul? Is Jesus Christ precious as thy saviour? Is thy whole dependence on him for thy salvation? Is it thy supreme and delightfully prevailing desire "to glorify God and enjoy him for ever?" Then give him all the praise. Let every day of this new year witness thy increasing love and zeal for the honour of his glorious name, the advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom over all the world, and the eternal salvation of millions. Go on "looking unto Jesus." close. Our conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil, will be very short, and the victory gained through faith in him who is "mighty to save.' "When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory."

Our time of labour will soon

O how delightful thus to live habitually ready and waiting for the bliss of heaven. Ready, through the merits of Jesus and the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, to join the society of an innumerable com

pany of angels, and "the spirits of just men made perfect;" but above all, ready for the glorious presence of the Triune Jehovah, who through eternity will most effulgently manifest himself in the person of Jesus Christ to all the heavenly host.

Such an existence, stretching out beyond the present momentary changing scene to that which cannot end, is worthy of the name of life; it is pure, celestial, and divine, and is rendered eternally secure to all the children of God by him who said, "Father, I will that they whom thou bast given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory." "Because I live, ye shall live also.'

Verily this will be the cousummation of that life in which our reunited

bodies and souls shall participate, without being again such troubles and pains to each other as they are while in this present evil world. "We shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

Yes, "changed" by him who died for us and rose again; "who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself." "We shall be like him; for

we shall see him as he is."

tears.

"How sweet the prospect is,"

even while we pass along this vale of "But what must it be to be there," within the more than pearly gates of "the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem;" to see the glorious throng before the throne; to be "present with the Lord ?" How overwhelming the assurance that by every look and gracious word of love he will welcome us, the chief of sinners, to live, and bow, and sing among them there! Well might the poet think that he heard him say,

"Come in thou blessed, sit by me,
With my own life I ransomed thee,

Come taste my perfect favour:
Come in, thou happy spirit, come,
Thou now shalt be with me at home,
Ye blissful mansions, make him room,
For he must stay for ever!"
J. P.

WE hear a great deal in our day about simple theology and cheap divinity for the masses; but it seems to have been forgotten by many, that the most simple, most easy, most glorious, most captivating, and most majestic exhibition of the divine character

is given us in the cross of the Redeemer. It is so simple, that a child can understand it, it is so profound and majestic, that angels desire to look into it.

Every perfection of the Deity is here displayed to our view; hence the cross has been called the prism in which you

see each attribute of Jehovah distinctly, and the mirror in which the whole assemblage of his excellences shine forth in one effulgence of glory. Here we have analysis and synthesis in their highest and completest form. We understand nothing, until we have analysed it, or taken it to pieces; and our idea of the whole is made up of the various parts, and thus we compose it anew, or employ synthesis. Our idea of the air, of water, of bread, as a whole, is synthetic. Our view of their elements, or parts, is analytic. The more extensive the analysis, the more complete the synthesis. No man comprehends a watch as a whole, unless he understands its parts. The watchmaker takes it to pieces-this is analysis: and then he puts it together again: this is synthesis. Had we time, we could show, that all human beings, from the cradle to the grave, whether men or women, savages, or philosophers, employ analysis, and synthesis. The infant in the nursery spends one-half of his time in pulling his toys to pieces, to know what they are made of, and the other half in trying to put them together again. No one can tell the pleasure he feels, in severing one part from another, and then in uniting them afresh; and this pleasure be it remembered, is the pleasure of knowing and doing. The philosopher is only a child of larger growth, with the universe for his nursery, and all creation for his playthings.

Now, if to know other objects be a matter of so much gratification; how much more delightful must it be to become acquainted with our Creator. Here we have the fountain of all power, wisdom, goodness, justice, fidelity, truth, love, and mercy; so that if

creation, or providence, or redemption, are great and glorious, Jehovah must be infinitely more so; because he who made all things, must himself be far more interesting than anything that he has made. Hence the poor woman, or the clown, who studies the divine character as revealed in Christ, is more of a philosopher than the man of science, or the astronomer, who merely examines our world, or measures and admires the stars. Every object in creation is a glass in which several of the divine perfections are seen; but for the full development of his character we must go to the cross. The Lord Jesus was not a perfect mirror in which the Father might be fully seen, until he expired on Calvary. Hence the words of Paul, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ ;" and again, "I determined to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified." It was not merely Christ; but "Christ crucified," that was the object of supreme study. And this determination was formed by the apostle, not only that without the death of Christ there could be no atonement; but because the full glory of the eternal is no where else seen. In some objects or deeds, divine power appears most prominent; in others infinite wisdom; in others, inflexible justice; in others, boundless love; and in others tremendous wrath; and thus the elements of the divine glory seem as it were, scattered and divided. Earth is a mirror-heaven is a mirror-and hell is a mirror-in which his face, under different aspects, is seen. How glorious in the temple above! How awful in the abyss below! and how varied with cloud and sunshine on the earth we tread. But in the cross, his whole

perfections appear reconciled and

blended.

"Here his whole name appears complete,
Nor wit can guess nor reason prove,
Which of the letters best is writ,
The power, the justice, or the love."

Do we want the sublimest view of power or wisdom, we turn to the cross. Here we have "Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Nothing short of infinite wisdom could have devised the glorious plan of Redemption; and nothing less than omnipotent power could have borne our curse, or have undertaken to execute so stupendous a work, as the renovation of fallen man. Do we desire to see justice and vengeance in all their rectitude and terror, they nowhere appear so full of majesty as in the cross. Are we anxious to behold infinite condescension, love, pity, compassion and mercy, the cross is the only point in which they can be viewed in their meridian glory, and what is more, they are blended in one halo of glory, so that each adds to the splendour of the other. Until the Lord Jesus cried, "It is finished," the full glory of Jehovah had never been seen even by angels; and yet the effulgence is here so chastened, that the

infant and the clown can look at it without being dazzled. The Son of God, as a bleeding dying Saviour, is the "brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person, who when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high." The "captain of salvation was perfected through suffering," not merely as mediator, but as the glorious representative of the Godhead to both archangels and men. The cross, is the poor man's looking-glass, in which he can see Jehovah and live. Faith in the atonement, reveals more wonders than all the telescopes or philosophical apparatus and discoveries that have ever been heard of. Here we have the perfect analysis and synthesis of the divine character: a book, and a universal language which all read and understand; a primer for the child, and a volume of monosyllables for the clown. Here we have classics for the scholar; an eternity of beautiful thoughts for the poet; science for the philosopher; virtue for the moralist; benevolence for the philanthropist; theology for the divine; and a treasure of divine wisdom, "which angels desire to look into." We may therefore justly say, that here we have cheap d'vinity for the million.

We have heard a good deal of murmuring because we have not brought out in the New Magazine more of the distinctive principles of the Connexion; but we are rather surprised at this complaint. When we entered Lady

Huntingdon's College, we were told that our body was a very scriptural one. Some indeed informed us, that it approached nearer to Bible perfection than any other sect under heaven; and coming from such venerable lips

and hoary heads, we really believed it: and as this is the real opinion of many of our friends, we have thought that in preaching or writing evangelical truth, we were announcing the doctrines of the Connexion. It is true we have not deemed it necessary to reprint every month the fifteen articles contained in the College report, and which were copied, with some alterations, from the Prayer Book. If any of our friends wish this, they had better have the Fifteen Articles stereotyped, and employ some London publisher to send them a new copy, every twenty-eight or thirty days, seeing it could be done. for a very small-price.

For our own part we consider, that we have highly complimented the members of the Connexion in the plan we have pursued; for, in the first place, we concluded that our brethren and sisters were so thoroughly versed in the fifteen articles, that they did not require to have them re-iterated every month. To din a man with his alphabet from seven years old to seventy, would not say much for the teacher or the scholar. And then, secondly, we felt rather at ease, for we supposed that so long as we ranged about some where or other from Genesis to Revelation, we were tolerably sound in the faith. If we did not get beyond the covers of God's Book, we had persuasion that we were good members of our scriptural body. We also were half inclined to think that the words of the Apostle were worthy of some consideration, "Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection." This of course

means, that even "the principles of the doctrine of Christ," do not always require to be repeated in the same set phraseology. They are the foundation, and a glorious foundation too, but then we must build upon them, or else the Church will never be "edified" or "built up." A man who is always working at the foundation, will never raise an edifice, any more than a pedagogue, who teaches nothing but A, B, C, will not succeed in making very good readers.

A word to the wise on this subject is enough. Our fifteen articles do not contain all the Bible; nay, there is no creed nor catechism under heaven that can epitomise, or abridge and embody the Scriptures. As only Jehovah can contain himself, so only the Bible can embody the Bible. Our motto is, "the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth"-and we imagine that with such a creed, we are as orthodox as any one can desire. And we have such an idea of the range of divine thought in the Word of God, that we should as soon hope to press the whole material universe into a nut shell, or to confine the omnipresence and immensity of Jehovah in one of the silver shrines of Demetrius, as to condense the Scriptures into Fifteen Articles, copied from the Prayer Book. The Magazine has hitherto kept within evangelical bounds, and has consequently been free from heresy. The most suspicious, and in many cases the most heretical beings on earth, are those who repeat their creed two or three times of a Sunday, and perhaps every day in the week. We have not so learned Christ.