that it is by the grace of God that he is what he is. Our Saviour in the days of his flesh gave great praise to persons of this description; to the Serophoenician woman he said, "I have not seen so great faith, not even in Israel !" Out of ten lepers that were cleansed, only one returned to give God the praise!

In the early periods of Christianity, the change from licentiousness to holiness was so great, that it was visible to all, and was acknowledged as the finger of God; no previous system of religion had been able to change the heart of man; philosophy changed manners and refined the taste; but the heart remained unaltered, though its desires were more under restraint. To the mean pride of wealth or power, succeeded that of intellect or acquirements, and frequently they boasted of eradicating the finest feelings of our nature. Envious and avaricious people changed from coveting power and wealth to being courted by princes as men of wisdom, and were looked up to by the vulgar as beings of a superior order; the love of fame became their ruling passion, and all their boasted wisdom centered in self-love. But the preaching of the gospel made the proud, humble, the avaricious, generous,-the envious, self-denying, the cruel, merciful,-the unforgiving, lovers even of their enemies. On account of this wonderful change, all were constrained to acknowledge the power of God; but in our days of

circumspection the change is not so visible to the world; all are nursed under the influence of Christian principles; and to act contrary to them sets public opinion at defiance. From that circumstance, many may live and die bearing the name of Christians, without experiencing the power of religion. To the individual who feels its power, the change is so great, that he requires no farther evidence that it is from God. Providential interference in our circumstances in life gives us great joy; when the path of life is strewed with thorns, when the dark night of adversity is settling around, when hope seems as it were cut off; to find the thorns smoothed, and see the cloud of night clearing away by a power we see not, but whose works witness his agency, it makes hope revive, and rise into assurance, that this power who has delivered will still deliver. The wicked experience the kindness of Providence, though they know it not: kind is our heavenly Father in sending his rain on the just and upon the unjust; but the latter see not his wonder-working power, that shieldeth all those that trust in him,

The joy of deliverance from the world's fascinating pleasures is great; they who have been carried away by the stream of vice, who felt with anguish their powers of resistance unable to withstand its furious torrent, and who were tortured with remorse at every plunge they made in its abyss; to

be delivered, and that suddenly, from such overwhelming destruction, must create unspeakable joy. It must make them exclaim with the Psalmist of old, “He hath taken me from a fearful pit, and delivered me from the miry clay; he hath established me upon a rock, and put a new song in my mouth."

The Christian's joy is of a social nature, and the prosperity of Zion raises it to the highest climax. How rejoicing to his heart to read of the labours of missionaries, and the accomplishment of prophecies, to see praise in babes perfected, and the full-grown heathen bending to Emanuel! His heart must be filled with joy, and his lips with praise to the Giver of all good, because his eyes have seen his salvation. But what adds sorrow and anguish to the sons of earth, is joy to the Christian's soul; when drawing near the hour of dissolution, like the race-horse nearing the post of victory, he bounds along the course with redoubled vigour; so the Christian's faith rises towards consummation; the man of sin dies within him, and the glorious prospect of heavenly joys makes him long to be with Christ, which is far better; and he is constrained to rejoice that the day of his redemption is drawing nigh. That we may run this glorious race, and obtain the inestimable prize, is my earnest wish.

LETTER XXI.

With what an awful world-revolving power
Were first the unwieldy planets launched along
The illimitable void! Thus to remain,
Amid the flux of many thousand years,
That oft has swept the toiling race of men,
And all their labour'd monuments away,
Firm, unremitting, matchless in their course;
To the kind-temper'd change of night and day,
And of the seasons ever stealing round,
Minutely faithful. Such the all-perfect Hand
That poised, impels and rules the steady whole.

THOMSON.

Edinburgh, 12th November, 1821.

LIFE's shifting scenes warn us of the last change, when time shall be to us no more, and eternity begun. The unfixed nature of our present mode of being gives scope to the highest hopes; and the freedom of our constitution, with the impress of Deity on the soul, raises high the expectation, that at a future day we shall shine in all the splendour of our elder brother. The vicissitudes of our lot are made, in the hands of Providence, the means

of bringing us to the obedience of the faith. God, in his providence, acts towards us as free agents, responsible for the deeds done in the body; and what lays us low may be the principal means of leading us to Jesus. David's sin was ever before him; and perhaps it was the principal means of keeping his spirit humble, and touching his Psalms with that plaintive eloquence so soothing to the afflicted soul. What is the royal diadem, if stained by crime? What the world's applause, if the conscience upbraid? Every individual has his prevailing sin; and every Christian has his heart's sorrow, that lays him low when pride would rise: these heartaches, these unceasing sorrows, may turn out our greatest blessings.

The cup of life is mingled with joys and sorrows. Few enjoy uninterrupted prosperity, and there are few without their joys; but it is the province of religion to moderate the joys and sooth the sorrows, to make even the heart that is humbled by sin to rejoice in the Man of sorrow, in Him who on the cross was bruised for iniquity. The ebbs and flows of fortune raise or depress the spirits of mankind; we see those who are cast down in poverty hang the head as a bulrush; but the prosperous are full of spirits, disdaining to cast an eye on fallen poverty. In the world's favour there is no moral worth, and their frowns more frequently convey applause than scorn. Why should the son