before and after, that were to be saved, all their guiltiness met together on his back upon the cross; and whosoever of all that number had least sin, yet had no small burden cast on him; and to give accession to the whole weight, "every man had his own way of wandering," as the prophet there expresses it, and he paid for all; all fell on him. And as in the testimony

of his meekness and patience, so in this regard likewise was he so silent in his sufferings, dealt most unjustly with him, yet he stood as convicted before the justice-seat of his Father, under the imputed guilt of all our sins; and so eyeing him, and accounting his business to be chiefly with him, he did patiently bear the due punishment of all our sins at his Father's hands, according to that of the psalmist: "I was dumb; I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it." Therefore the prophet immediately subjoins that of his silent carriage to that which he had spoken concerning the confluence of our iniquities upon him: "As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." And if our sins were thus accounted his, then, in the same way, and for that very reason, of necessity his sufferings and satisfaction must be accounted ours.Leighton.

THE FIRE OF LOVE.

No duty is acceptable without the holy fire of love. Love is to the soul of the believer as the wing to the bird, as the sail to the ship. Love is the fulfilling of the law. Imperfect, in many respects, as our obedience to that law will be and must be, yet in love it may be perfect. "Faith without works," we read, "is dead," or powerless; and truth without love is cold; and zeal without love is selfish; and even martyrdom without love is a rejected sacrifice. Let love therefore be without dissimulation; for the strength of our faith is really and precisely as the strength of our love. This is the vital principle of our whole religious profession. It is the inestimable jewel of our crown, and reflects the image of a divine nature. There is no gold so inestimable as our precious faith; and in combination with this faith there is no jewel so fair, there is no crystal so clear, there is no flower so fragrant as love. It is the very element of heaven; it is the music of immortal intelligences; it is the glory of the church triumphant, and the happiest benediction of the church militant.Dr. Redford.

SATAN'S ARMOUR.

THE armour with which Satan furnishes his followers is directly the reverse of that Christian armour described by Paul the apostle. Instead of a girdle of truth, he girds the sinner with the girdle of error and deceit. Instead of the breastplate of Christ's righteousness, he furnishes him with a breastplate of his own fancied righteousness. Instead of the shield of faith, the sinner has the shield of unbelief, and with this he defends himself against the curses of the law and the arrows of conviction. Instead of the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, he teaches them to wield the sword of a tongue set on fire of hell, and furnishes them with a magazine of cavils, excuses, and objections, with which they attack religion and defend them-. selves. He also builds for them many refuges of lies, in which, as in a strong castle, they

proudly hope to shelter themselves from the wrath of God.-Dr. Payson,

HOLINESS.

UNLESS we strenuously aim at universal holiness we can have no satisfactory evidence that we are the servants of Christ. A servant of Christ is one who obeys Christ as his master, and makes Christ's revealed word the rule of his conduct. No man then can have any evidence that he is a servant of Christ any further than he obeys the will of Christ. And no man can have any evidence that he obeys the will of Christ in one particular, unless he sincerely and strenuously aims to obey in every particular; for the will of Christ is one.-Ibid.

HAPPINESS OF HEAVEN.

ONLY to be permitted to contemplate such a being as Jehovah; to see goodness, holiness, justice, mercy, long-suffering, and sovereignty personified and condensed; to see them united with eternity, infinite power, unerring wisdom, omnipresence, and all-sufficiency; to see these natural and moral perfections indissolubly united and blended in sweet harmony in a pure, spiritual being, and that being placed on the throne of the universe ;-to see this would be happiness enough to fill the mind of any creature in existence. But in addition to this, to have this ineffable being for our God, our portion, our all; to be permitted to say, This God is our God for ever and ever; to have his resplendent countenance smile upon us; to be encircled in his everlasting arms of power, and faithfulness, and love; to hear his voice saying to us, I am yours, and you are mine; nothing shall ever pluck you from my hands, or separate you from my love, but you shall be with me where I am, behold my glory, and live to reign with me for ever and ever; this is too much: it is honour, it is glory, it is happiness too overwhelming, too transporting for mortal minds to conceive, or for mortal frames to support; and it is perhaps well for us that here we know but in part, and that it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Oh! then, in all circumstances, under all inward and outward afflictions, let God's Israel rejoice in their Creator let the children of Zion be joyful in their King -Ibid.

LOSS OF FRIENDS.

WHEN Christians speak of losing a Christian friend, let them think what they mean, and beware of forgetting their spiritual relations and their blessed hopes. Those who fall asleep in Jesus are not lost to those who survive them. They are only parted from them for a time, to meet again, and to meet at home. They are no more lost than a dear friend is lost who goes home before us, after we have sojourned for awhile at a distance, and whom we are soon to follow, and know where to find. But to our society, our counsels, our plans, and our labours here below, they are lost; and the loss will be deeply and lastingly felt in proportion to the greatness and variety of the excellences by which in life they were distinguished and endeared.Dr. Wardlaw.

MEANS AND ENDS.

WHEN some people talk of religion, they mean they have heard so many sermons, and per

formed so many devotions, and thus mistake the means for the end. But true religion is an habitual recollection of God and intention to serve him, and thus turn everything into gold. We are apt to suppose that we need something splendid to evince our devotion; but true devotion equals things. Washing plates and cleaning shoes is a high office, if performed in a right spirit. If three angels were sent to earth, they would feel perfect indifference who should perform the part of prime minister, parish minister, or watchman.-Newton.

POPERY AND PUSEYISM. THROUGH the grossness of her professors and the fraud of deceivable traditions, the gospel is dragged so downwards as to backslide into the Jewish beggary of old cast rudiments, attributing purity or impurity to things indifferent, that they might bring the inward acts of the spirit to the outward and customary service of the body, as if they could make God earthly and fleshly because they could not make themselves heavenly and spiritual. They began to draw down all th divine intercourse betwixt God and the soul into an exterior form, pretending a necessity of joining the body in a formal reverence and worship circumscribed. They hallowed it, they fumed it, they sprinkled it, they bedecked it, not in robes of pure innocence, but of pure linen, with other deformed and fantastic dresses, in palls and mitres, gold and gewgaws, fetched from Aaron's old wardrobe, or the Flamen's vestry. There was the priest set to con his motions and his postures, his liturgies and his lurries, till the soul, by this means of overbodying herself, given up justly to fleshly delights, bated her wing apace downwards; and, finding the ease she had from her visible and sensuous colleague, the body, in performance of religious duties, her pinions now broken and flagging, shifted off from herself the labour of high soaring any more, forgot her heavenly flight, and left the dull and droiling carcase to plod on in the old road and drudging trade of outward conformity.—John Milton.

RELIGION AND LIBERTY. RELIGION and liberty God hath inseparably knit together, and hath disclosed to us that they who seek to corrupt our religion are the same that would enthral our civil liberty.-Ibid.

UNION AND CONTROVERSY. THERE be who continually complain of schisms and sects, and make it such a calamity that any man dissents from their maxims. It is their own pride and ignorance which causes the disturbing, who neither will hear with meekness, nor can convince, yet all must be suppressed which is not found in their syntagura. They are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and permit not others to unite those dissevered pieces which are yet wanting to the body of truth. To be still searching what we know not by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we find it, (for all her body is homogeneal and proportional,) this is the golden rule in theology as well as arithmetic, and makes up the best harmony in a church; not the forced and outward union of cold and neutral and inwardly divided minds. . . Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we wrong the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and under

standing which God hath stirred up. What some lament of we rather should rejoice at, should rather praise this pious forwardness among men to re-assume the ill-deputed care of their religion into their own hands again. A little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grain of charity, might win all these diligences to join and unite into one general and brotherly search after truth, could we but forego this prelatical tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men. How

goodly and how to be wished were such an obedient unanimity as this! What a fine conDoubtless formity would it starch us all into!

a stanch and solid piece of framework as any January could freeze together!-Ibid.

MILTON ON FORMS OF PRAYER. THEY whom God hath set apart to his ministry are by him endued with an ability for prayer; because their office is to pray for others, and not to be the lip-working deacons of other men's appointed words. If prayer be the gift of the Spirit, why do they admit those to the ministry who want a main gift of their function, and prescribe gifted men to use that which is the remedy of another man's want; setting them their tasks to read, when the Spirit of God stands ready to assist in his ordinance with the gift of free conceptions? And let it be granted to some people while they are babes in Christian gifts, were it not better to take it away soon after, as we do loitering books and interlineary translations from children; to stir up and exercise that portion of the Spirit which is in them? Another reason for liturgy is the preserving of order, unity, and piety,-and the same shall be my reason against liturgy. For obedience to the Spirit of God is the best order that a Churchman can observe. If the Spirit manifest the gift of prayer in his minister, what more seemly order in the congregation than to go along with that man in our devoutest affections? Nor is unity less broken, especially by our liturgy, though some would almost bring the communion of saints to a communion of liturgical words. For what other reformed church holds communion with us by our liturgy, and does not rather dislike it? And among ourselves, who knows it not to have been a perpetual cause of disunion? Lastly, it hinders piety, rather than sets it forward, being more apt to weaken the spiritual faculties, if the people be not weaned from it in due time. For not only the body and the mind, but also the improvement of God's Spirit is quickened by using. Whereas they who will ever adhere to liturgy, bring themselves in the end to such a pass, by overmuch learning, as to lose even the legs of their devotion.

That which the apostles taught hath freed us in religion from the ordinances of men, and commands that "burdens be not laid" upon the redeemed of Christ; though the formalist will say, "What! no decency in God's worship?" Certainly, readers, the worship of God, singly in itself, the very act of prayer and thanksgiving, with those free and unimposed expressions which from a sincere heart unbidden come into the outward gesture, is the greatest decency that can be imagined. Which to dress up and garnish with a devised bravery abolished in the law, and disclaimed by the gospel, adds nothing but a de

formed ugliness; and hath even afforded a colourable pretence to bring in all those traditions and carnalities that are so killing to the power and virtue of the gospel.

MILTON ON THE PARTIAL REFORMATION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH.

If we have indeed given a bill of divorce to popery and superstition, why do we not say as to a divorced wife, "Those things which are yours, take them all with you, and they shall sweep after you." Why were we not thus wise at our parting from Rome? Ah! like a crafty adulteress, she forgot not all her smooth looks and enticing words at her parting; "yet keep these letters, these tokens, these few ornaments,

I am not all so greedy of what is mine, let them preserve with you the memory of what I was, those

fair and lovely in you sufferves to be

tender reformers dolingly

overcome with harlot's language. We are deep in dotage we cry out sacrilege against those who in zeal have demolished the dens and cages of her unclean wallowings. We stand for a our covenant.

popish liturgy as for the arrayers are from

And so little does it appear our

the heart, that multitudes of us declare they know not how to pray but by rote. They object that if we must forsake all that is Rome's, we must bid adieu to our creed, and I had thought

So.

WEST INDIAN MISSIONS. To the Editor of the Christian Witness. MY DEAR SIR, I have now the pleasure of resuming the correspondence on the state and prospects of our West Indian missions. In my last I stated some particulars relative to the extensive immigration of Portuguese and Hill Coolies now going on into this colony, and of the unhappy influence it must have upon all Christian effort in the country. It is necessary to return awhile to this subject, not only to resume the thread of my remarks, but also, if possible, to impress upon the minds of the benevolent British public the necessity of keeping a sleepless watch upon colonial policy. That_the unlimited introduction of ignorant Portuguese Roman Catholics from Madeira, (just such as those that have driven the philanthropic Dr. Kalley from Madeira, and who are already even here beginning to display their intolerance,) and of half naked, filthy, many of them diseased idolaters and Mohammedans from Calcutta and Madras, the very refuse of the streets of the east; that these things shall not retard the progress of moral amelioration amongst the people of the West Indies, for whom we have so long and so expensively cared, it would be inadness to doubt. Immediately upon the receipt of the news by last packet of Lord John Russell's intended alteration of the sugar duties, the Guiana Times and the Royal Gazette filled their columns with the oftrepeated cry of "Now we must reduce wages, and without delay must fill the colony with people." And they will do

There is nothing to prevent them. There is no representative assembly in this colony; but a self-elected, irrespon sible court of policy, all planters, transact the affairs of this province with closed doors; and, as I have already stated, by their enormous taxation of the necessaries of life, provide for their unwieldy, unne cessary, unjust, and infamous scheme of immigration, or in other words, their inundating the country with hosts of foreigners to crush the native labourer with low wages and high-priced provisions. Then observe again the astounding iniquity of the scheme of East Indian immigration. Previous to the arrival of the deluded Coolies, the court of policy guaranteed that at the end of five years every Coolie wishing to return to his native country should be re-conveyed thither free of all expense to him. the faith of this stipulation thousands have already come hither, and fifteen other vessels are chartered to this colony, to bring 300 each, and to arrive by Christmas, every Coolie thus costing the country £40 sterling! But now they are either all here or on the way, the Government papers almost daily reiterate the demand that "this expensive requirement of transhipping the Coolies at the end of the five years must by all means be got rid of"They may stay here and work, or die, or starve; having got them here, although they bargained to send them back again, they say, We must get rid of this stipulation; and when they

say,

On

"We must," they mean," We will." Perhaps some readers of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS may deem these remarks too

political, although upon a moment's reflection they will see how deeply our missionary stations must be affected by the existence of such evils. To explain this, let me state the present condition of one of the Society's largest stations in this colony. Two years ago nothing could have been more cheering than its prospects. There was a large daily school of 120 to 140 children, and a sabbath, school of twice that number; a congrega tion averaging 1000 people, and a church of upwards of 300 members; and the receipts, arising from these various sources, were not only amply sufficient for the missionary's support, but such as to justify the erection of a spacious and beautiful chapel. This station, too, had a peculiar interest attached to it, for it was the scene of the devoted and venerable Wray's labours, and also of the missionary martyr Smith. At the present time the circumstances of this same station are these: many of the people have become totally indifferent and careless about attending Divine worship at all; many members of the church have left to return to the world, or to join the less expensive form of the Establishment; the daily school, from February this year, has averaged only from 50 to 60; the station is burdened with a very heavy debt, arising from the erection of the new chapel; and the receipts of the station afford scarcely a subsistence for the missionary. In fact, in order to make the receipts sufficient for this, the missionary has been obliged to part with his horse, (a thing absolutely indispensable in a tropical country, for walking is impossible under a vertical sun, and there are no public conveyances,) so that he cannot visit a single estate to see the sick or afflicted,' or for

r any purpose. The parents say they must send their children out to work, many of them before they can read or write at all, in order to make a little money for their joint support; and in many cases this is doubtless true, though too often the excuse arises from sheer indifference, and the unwillingness to pay the monthly trifle required for their children's education. Nor is this a solitary case; the main features of this representation would be borne out by the facts connected with many stations now in my thoughts.

From these considerations thus hastily thrown together, for my engagements prevent much leisure, two or three things will be obvious.

1. The position of the Missionary So

cieties at home (and here I refer chiefly to the London Missionary Society) is one of very great difficulty and perplexity. At the period when in the fulness of our hearts we anticipated the speedy arrival of the time when our West Indian stations would take upon themselves the burden and duty of self-support, we could not, or at any rate we did not, foresee the sad reverses of fortune which have since overtaken us. The Society acting upon our expressed hopes enlarged the sphere of its labour, and incurred additional annual expense by the occupation of new stations. To this they were urged also by the strong tide of public feeling, which turning from the West, set in towards China and the East Indies. The income of the Society, only kept up to its present point by most laborious and anxious effort, is now totally inadequate to the maintenance of all their stations, east and west, on an efficient scale. What can the Directors do? is the question which I may well excuse myself from answering, but it is evident to those on the spot that something must be done, and that speedily, to prevent some stations from being wiped out of the map of the Society's operations for ever. Were I at liberty to mention facts in my possession in connection with our stations here, and in Jamaica, and also with our esteemed and beloved brethren of the Baptist denomination, many of whom are labouring under accumulated anxieties, and may perhaps be reduced, so I am credibly informed, to the extremity of selling school-houses or chapels to clear off chapel debts, it would cause many an anxious thought at our Mission Houses. This leads naturally to another remark, namely,

2. That the situation of many of our missionaries in the West Indies is just now one of extreme delicacy and danger. Let us suppose a case. A missionary in the prime of life, with a family growing up around him, calling every natural anxiety into daily, almost hourly exercise, sees the following facts stare him in the face. My people," he says, in the depression of his solitary hours, "are some able but not willing, and some willing but not able to supply my necessary wants even with the exercise of the utmost economy: the resources of the station are not sufficient to enable me to keep a teacher, so that myself and wife are obliged to discharge this onerous duty; the consequence is, that household duties and the education of

my own children are necessarily neglected. I am unable to visit my people when sick, or requiring pastoral admonition; the heavy debt upon the chapel presses like a continual burden upon our progression; the chapel is unfinished, and the dwelling-house so fast going to decay that it is unsafe to live in it during the rainy season. What shall I do? After many years' labour in the West Indies, would it be wrong in me now to seek a quiet settlement in some country village in England, where I might regain my former strength, be useful, and educate my children apart from the debasing influences with which they are constantly surrounded?" Such are some of the disturbing thoughts that often cross my mind; for this is my case, and with slight alteration might be made that of many other missionaries now in the West Indies. Am I not then justified, my dear sir, in saying that the position of some of us is one of extreme delicacy and danger; so delicate that perhaps already I have written too much of private affairs for public benefit, and so dangerous that our stations seem jeopardized by the existence of this state of things. But at the risk of trespassing too far upon your columns, although I trust through your kindness to address the thousands of British Christians that read the faithful and true WITNESS, allow me to make a third remark by way of removing misapprehension.

3. Perhaps on reading this some friends may suppose that all the evils to which I have alluded arise solely from immigration. Now I do not mean that. I only mean to assert that this is one of the chiefest causes of the perplexing difficulties that are coming thick and threefold upon our stations in this colony. These difficulties are not imaginary. I know that every word I have written will find a response in the hearts of many missionaries in Demerara, Berbice, and Jamaica. The fons et origo mali, the interior evil upon which these exterior evils are now so fearfully acting, is the unenlightened and unsanctified character of our church members. That we have many holy and devoted men and women amongst us, translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son, I make no doubt; therein do I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. But—and it is a lamentable but-there is a sorrowful drawback to be made; our numerical strength does not represent our real strength. Immediately after the advent of freedom, most of our churches received

large accessions. This arose naturally from the great excitement, which happily partook of a religious character, on the part of the native population, so that all churches and chapels were filled with delighted multitudes. Under this excitement many applied for admission into our churches, and upon the only principles upon which we can act, that of an outward and credible profession, they were gladly recived into church fellowship. And for a time they did run well. Then had the churches rest, and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied. But now the love of many waxes cold. And unkindness to their pastors, indifference to their wants, negligence of the sabbath, and constant defalcation upon every trial of their temper or integrity, have led many of us sorrowfully to say, "I have somewhat to say unto thee, because thou hast left thy first love: remember therefore from whence thou art fallen." Thus, as in the churches of Judea, Corinth, Laodicea, &c., many have counterfeited saintship, proving by their after conduct that they never knew the grace of God in truth. And oh! what a bitter and unending_trial is this to a faithful minister: and how difficult is it when once a person is in the church to find a just cause for putting him out of it! But already this letter has proceeded to too great a length; I intend with your permission, at some future opportunity, to unfold through you to the British public the invasion of our borders, and the robbery of our churches, by the unjust planting of Wesleyan stations in our very midst! It is an ungenerous and unmanly thing to invite popular Independent ministers to preach and speak on Wesleyan missionary platforms, while their agents abroad are endeavouring to supplant us in every possible way. I am glad to see that the Patriot, of August 3, has taken up the matter, and has justly denounced such proceedings as an "abuse of their confidence and a waste of their liberality which the friends of Missions will not endure with patience." And it is a mockery and a delusion to invite us to Christian Union, and to an Evangelical Alliance, when our hearts are divided, and our people harassed and worried by repeated and jesuitical attempts to persuade them to leave our communion for the boasted excellence of Wesleyan Methodism. If I write strongly, (you I know will excuse this,) it is because I feel