of the Cross, is it not a witness that the power of God was in it? Christianity is the only system of religion that blends with its doctrine universal love; to it was left to inculcate the works of charity; it refines the soul from its grovelling propensities, and enjoins us to return kindness to the unthankful, good for evil, blessing for cursing, and to love our neighbour as ourselves, patience in tribulation, and resignation to the will of God; it turns the profligate to sober habits, the unfeeling to sympathetic tenderness, the rude to do as he would wish to be done by, and draws the cords of love with so tender a tie, that a brother's wounds vibrate in the bosom of his brethren. It has softened the barbarism of war, made the poor rich, and the man of an humble and contrite heart highest in the estimation of God.

Without charity, the profession of religion is vain. "God is love," and obedience to his commands is love to him and to our brethren of mankind. Gentle are the bands of love; it nurses the orphan with a mother's care, soothes the afflicted, and relieves the destitute without respect to clime or colour. England long has been famed for bowels of compassion to the afflicted, and for making provision for the helpless; long may she draw forth the tender feeling to the destitute, and dry the tears of affliction; it is that which will make her loved at home and revered abroad.

Smithfield of old was the place where the martyrs suffered death. These men, for the truth of the gospel, preferred death to life; triumphing in their sufferings, they disdained mean compliances, and a sinful denying of the Lord Jesus Christ. They considered it better to suffer than to sin,-better to lose this present life than to suffer to all eternity! By burning them in Smithfield, their enemies supposed they heaped indignity on their head; but him who has the approbation of the Eternal the world's ignominy cannot injure, and the place of his death cannot tarnish his glory. That these men suffered for such a cause is a disgrace to England, and that it was done at the instance of her governors, perpetuates her infamy, and marks her out for the visitation of retributive justice, when the innocent blood shall be required. The church of Rome was the great instigator of these horrid cruelties, but the church of England followed hard the Roman footsteps in the persecution of the Puritans. It was of little consequence to the sufferers, whether the church of Rome or of England gave the order for execution, if both trampled on the holy prerogative of conscience. And did these holy and pious men prefer death to a sinful compliance with the church of England? How does their conduct reprobate the lukewarmness of the present day, when many enter the holy ministry more for the love of gain than the glory of God, and bend with submis

sive meanness to the mandate of power, whether it be consistent with the word of God or not! If the reformation from popery was a glorious work, to reform every ceremony of religion that is not sanctioned by the word of God would be still adding to its glory. It would be well for kings not to assume a lordship over the heritage of God, lest they heap upon themselves and their people the vengeance of Heaven; for God hath declared he will take vengeance on them who have slain his saints : "Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shall be, because thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and of prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy."

In the view to the west, Newgate raises all those saddening ideas attendant on crime. Hard is the lot of the imprisoned debtor, secluded from all the social intercourse of happy human faces, and perhaps from all the fond endearments of an affectionate family, he is left to pine in misery, musing in solitary sadness on former days when the glad rays of the sun cheered his heart. Pause, O man! before you imprison your brother for payment of that which he hath not; think, if that God before whom you stand, pass over your sins (the least of which is a greater violation of his justice than any sum of money one man can owe to another), you ought also to pass over the trespass of your brother fallen

in poverty. In the parable, he that had been forgiven a great sum, when he met his fellow-servant who owed him a small sum, he thrust him into prison-What was the consequence? His lord delivered him over to the tormentors. He who spake this parable is Judge of all. Pity will shed a tear over the fallen man who has violated the laws of his country, forfeited his liberty and life, taken by the hands of justice, cast into a dungeon, there to brood over his crimes, his day of death appointed, and the prospect of the awful future agonizing his soul. The inadequacy of human laws to punish crime is a strong evidence of a future judgment. In society, we frequently find the perpetrator of the greatest crimes skulking amid his fellows, while the unfortunate thief dies the death. We see many, for stealing the value of a few pounds, suspended on a gibbet, while the murderer is allowed to escape; and how many of those titled criminals make it a study to undo innocent females, to defile the marriage bed, and who, by encouraging the unwary in gambling, rob them of their property, still we see these men allowed to escape, yea, even caressed in society. O! think, ye high-born criminals, who are above the reach of the law, that if these men who are caught in its snare must undergo such appalling judgment, what must be your doom at the judgment day! Think, ye sons of wealth, who reject the precepts of the gospel, and

abandon yourselves to your heart's lusts in leading youth in the paths of sin, nursing in them the habits of profligacy and indolence, and casting abandoned on the world the female-victims of your lust. Pause and reason! Have these companions of your guilt been nursed by the tenderness of a mother, and hath a father's love watched over their infant years? Perhaps they have spent their little all in nursing them to maturity. With what anxiety, and with how many tears and sighs have they watched the progress of their tender years! and you, with ruthless hand, destroy in a day the blossom of their hope, and lay in ruins the pride of their life! O, think! if there is a God to whom vengeance belongeth, what must be your punishment, if you thus abandon yourselves to the ruin of others! and that there is, your guilty conscience declares, and that there will be a future retribution, wickedness allowed with impunity to triumph over innocence is an unanswerable argument.

The theatres, Covent-Garden and Drury-Lane, are only distinguished from the surrounding buildings by the extent of their roofs. Theatrical amusement is the most refined enjoyment of the man of the world; but the meanest joy of the Christian is higher far than it; the peace of mind which is peculiar to the Christian is not to be bartered for all the world's joys, which can be obtained only by the wealthy. Christian joys are given