26 tion, and is thus driven to enquire, what he must do to be saved. Here the very next question takes him up, tells him how he may escape the wrath and curse of God due by sin, and explains this, under the heads of faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, and the ordinary means of grace. Even in this subordinate arrangement, the condition of the enquirer is kept steadily in view. The only direct answer which can be given to the question, "What must I do to be saved?" is repent and believe ;" and agreeably to this, the only points immediately explained in the Catechism, are faith in Jesus Christ, and repentance unto life. Repentance is the turning of the heart from every thing else to God, as reconciled in Christ; and faith is the looking at Christ believingly, as the gift of God, and receiving him as the salvation of the soul. But this very "looking at Christ," and "turning of the heart" to God, as reconciled in Christ, imply some knowledge of his will, and create a desire for the enjoyment of other ordinances. And these next follow, under the teaching of the word, the observance of the sacraments, and the exercise of prayer. An awakened and repenting sinner seeks early and earnestly to know the will of God. The Catechism meets him, offering instruction respecting the profitable reading of the word, and waiting on the ordinance of preaching. But supposing him to be in some measure instructed, he yet desires to receive seals of the covenant, and may never before have partaken of any of its signs. The nature, use, and proper observance of the sacraments are therefore now unfolded. And last of all comes prayer, not as if the individual were up till this time considered prayerless, but because it is now that he especially requires to be taught how to pray for such things as he ought; and this, because it is now that he declares himself to be an heir of those promises on which prayer rests, and through which it obtains blessings. The prayer of the soul, like breath in the natural body, is essential to life, and, like it, begins properly as soon as we are born anew. But though this be its begin ning, its end is unseen. The renewed soul becoming more and more conformed to the will of God, enters more and more into the spirit of prayer, and finds, in the simple but comprehensive example with which the Catechism concludes, materials more and more fitted for guiding its intercourse with the Father of spirits. 3. Even children might, on these principles, be taught to greater advantage than they usually are. Instead of begianing to instruct a child, respecting the abstract character of God, the distinctions of personality in the Godhead, the doctrine of decrees, and other matters of difficult comprehension, I would begin my attempts to instruct him, with the meaning and application of each succeeding commandment, and onwards to the end; by which time, he would have materials out of which to conceive of God, of his purposes and works; and his mind would be also, in some measure, prepared for more abstract processes of thinking. 4. Much of the apparent abstruseness of this little work would in this way disappear, and on the same principle on which science becomes comparatively easy, when perceived in a proper course and by proper means. Depart from the arrangements of a Linnæus and Jussieu, and the beautiful order observable in botany will appear confused and perplexing; or invert the order in any process of mathematical enquiry, and the evenness of the way along which we find an easy path, will be rugged to the master, and impassable to the pupil. And strange were it, indeed, if an arrangement so exact and so weil adapted to its own special ends as that of the Catechism, should nevertheless leave each Question to be taken up, like some cube cast on a gammon board, in any order and with equal intelligence. 5. If these principles and distinctions were more observed, more justice would be done to the merits of the work, and it would be rendered more generally useful. Burying alive of Widows in India.-The burying alive of widows manifests, if that were possible, a still more abominable state of feeling toward women than the burning them alive. The weaners (caste or tribe of of this tribe is deluded into the determination not to weaners) bury their dead. When, therefore, a widow survive her husband, she is buried alive with the dead body. In this kind of immolation, the children and relations dig the grave. After certain ceremonies have been attended to, the poor widow arrives, and is let down into the pit. She sits in the centre, taking the dead body on her lap, and encircling it with her arms. These relations now begin to throw in the soil; and after a short space, two of them descend into the grave, and tread the earth firmly round the body of the widow. She sits a calm and unremonstrating spectator of the horrid process. She sees the earth rising higher and higher around her, without upbraiding her murderers, or making the least effort to arise and make her escape. At length the earth reaches her lips-covers her head. The rest of the earth is then hastily thrown in, and these children and relations mount the grave, and tread down the earth upon the head of the suffocating widow -the mother! Why, my dear friend, the life of the vilest beast that walks upon the earth is never taken away by a process so slow, so deliberate, so diabolical as this. And this is the state of your sex in British India!-In how many situations, where we expected it not, are we reminded of the testimony of the divine 2. Each division may thus be turned to its own pro-word; in every part of the heathen world, in the miseper use. Suppose, for example, that I were asked in what book a clear outline of the Christian faith might be found and studied, I would at once say, "In the first thirty-eight Questions of the Assembly's Shorter 1. By using the Catechism in the right observance of these distinctions and principles, we shall be better able to understand each question in its true and proper meaning; and the reason why such questions as Effectual Calling and Justification are so far separated from Faith in Jesus Christ and Repentance unto Life; and how, in general, the doctrines of the gospel, as contained in both parts of the Catechism, should not be together. These things happen, simply because we have, in the first, a speculative system, and, in the latter, a practical directory. The doctrines of the Gospel are necessary to both, but require to be presented in different forms, so as the more perfectly to secure the different ends contemplated. rable state of woman, what a confirmation of the denunciation,-" To the woman, He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow."-Genesis, iii. 16. Ward's Letter to Miss Hope of Liverpool. SACRED POETRY. TO A FRIEND ENTERING THE MINISTRY. HIGH thoughts at first, and visions high The Word we hear seems so divine, Of all his sinning suffering race, Will hear that Word so full of grace, But soon a sadder mood comes round- Go weeping, that men will not cease To strive with Heaven, they weep and mourn, That suffering men will not be blest That weary men refuse to rest, And wanderers to return. Well is it, if has not ensued When all unfaithful thoughts have way, To seek with toil and fruitless strife- Then if spring odours on the wind To search into her hidden things, Or if we dare not thus draw back, And the rude throng of men! to dwell Like incense heavenward, and with care, Oh! let not us this thought allow Than if in fear to lose the bloom, When strength decays, or hope grows dim, Who has the golden oil divine, Wherewith to feed our fading urns, Who watches every lamp that burns Before his Sacred shrine. REV. C. TRENCH. THE FOOLISH LOVE OF THE WORLD. Judge in thyself, O Christian! is it meet You delve for dross with mattocks made of gold. AS THY DAY, SO SHALL THY STRENGTH BE." LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. It is to the children of God you are obliged for the support of the world; they, as it were, bear up the pillars of it; and that moment God has called in his last elect, the world will be burnt up. When Lot lingered, the angel took hold of his hand, and the hand of his wife, and the hand of his two daughters, and brought them out of the city, for the angel said, "I cannot do any thing till thou be come to Zoar," and when he had got safe to Zoar, God rained fire upon Sodom.-M. Wilks. Interesting Facts.-Gibbon, who in his celebrated History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, has left an imperishable memorial of his enmity to the Gospel, resided many years in Switzerland, where, with the profits of his works, he purchased a considerable estate. This property has descended to a gentleman, who out of his rents expends a large sum annually in the promulgation of that very Gospel which his predecessor insidiously endeavoured to undermine, not hav ing had courage openly to assail it. Voltaire boasted, that with one hand he would overthrow that editice of Christianity, which required the hands of twelve apostles to build up. At this day, the press which he employed at Ferny to print his blasphemies, is actually employed at Geneva in printing the Holy Scriptures. Thus the self-same engine, which he set to work to destroy the credit of the Bible, is engaged in disseminating its truths. It may also be added as a remarkable circumstance, that the first provisional meeting for the re-formation of an Auxiliary Bible Society at Edinburgh, was held in the very room in which Hume died. And sold by the Local Agents in all the Towns and Parishes of Scotland; and to be procured of every Bookseller in England and Ireland. Subscribers in Edinburgh and Leith will have their copies delivered regularly at their own residences, every Saturday morning, by leaving their addresses with the Publisher, or with John Lindsay & Co., 7, South St. Andrew Street.-Subscribers in Glasgow will, in like manner, have their copies delivered, by leaving their addresses at the Publishing Office there, 32, Glassford Street. Subscription per quarter, of twelve weeks, 1s. 6d.-per half-year, of twenty-four weeks, 3s.-per year, of forty-eight weeks, Gs.-payable in advance.-Monthly Parts containing four Numbers each, stitched in printed wrapper, Price Sixpence. THE DIVISION OF MANKIND INTO BY THE REV. JAMES BUCHANAN, THE Family Arrangement is a divine institution. PRICE 1d. except a strong natural affection would prompt him to undergo. But for this natural instinct, the Family Arrangement could not serve the beneficent purposes for which it was designed. These purposes are, to draw forth into exercise, and, by exercising, to develope and strengthen, the moral and social affections of infant humanity-to bring children from their earliest infancy under a course of training-to form in them habits of subjection to authority-of submission to a superior will-of order, and regularity, and self-denial in their daily conduct, and thus to prepare them, as it were in a private nursery, for the intercourse, and business, and duties of manhood;-these, in reference to the present and visible world,—but far more in reference to the world invisible and eternal,-to secure for them, from their earliest infancy, the benefit of a father's counsel and a father's care: to teach them betimes the lessons of piety, commended with persuasive power by the lips of a parent, whom God would have to be at once a master and a priest in his own house, and to give them, by the type of an earthly father, some idea of the character in which He himself best loves to be known, even as their Father in Heaven! The institution of families seems to be one of God's chief ordinances for the education of the world. Even did the children of a family receive no set lessons-they are so placed by a wise Providence, that they cannot fail to derive from their connections a large amount of useful information; they pick it up, day by day, from the conversation and example of those who are older and more experienced than themselves; and all the advantages which they derive from the intimate and familiar intercourse of domestic life, must be ascribed to that wise arrangement by which one generation of human beings is linked to anotherso linked, that the current experience and knowledge of the world, are transmitted imperceptibly, and almost without an effort, from sire to son continually. The parent is invested with absolute authority; --but that this authority might be tempered in its exercise with mercy and compassion, and that power so despotic might not degenerate into tyranny, God has implanted in every parent's heart a love for his offspring, insomuch that, although previously he may have neither felt nor shewn any peculiar liking for children, yet no sooner is his child born, than the instinct comes into play, and his heart yearns over the little one with a new and hitherto unknown tenderness. This parental affection is perfectly disinterested, being irrespective of all personal profit or advantage, and contem- Here, then, is the whole human race divided, plating only the comfort and welfare of its objects; as it were, into myriads of little communities, each and it is not only so disinterested, but so strong with its own natural head and protector, to whom, and self-denied, that it prompts the parent to sub- by a powerful instinct, every child looks up with ject himself to many hardships and privations in reverence, and from whom he hears without quarthe upbringing of his children, which nothing else I rel, and believes without hesitation, the instruc tions that are given, at a period when he is neither | Hence God takes one of his chosen titles: may The family institute being a chief means of the world's education, the question arises, Ought Religion to be made an exception to that general rule which prescribes the duty of a parent to instruct his children? If so many civil and secular advantages flow from the family arrangement, in consequence of the means thereby afforded for the diffusion of common knowledge amongst mankind, shall we suppose that God had no respect, in this remarkable arrangement, to the diffusion of religious and moral instruction? On the supposition that there is a God, and that man is capable of religion, this exception cannot, on any ground, whether of reason or of expediency, be for one instant admitted; for this were virtually to affirm, that God has less regard for the diffusion of knowledge, in proportion as the subject to which it relates is important to mankind. In the Bible, God declares that the very end for which the Family Arrangement was devised and established, was, that by means of it, religion might be maintained in the world, and transmitted from father to son for ever " Did not God make one? Yet had He the residue of the spirit, and wherefore one? that He might seek a GODLY SEED." (Malachi, ii. 15.) It was, then, with a view to raise up a Godly seed, that the Family Arrangement was formed; and as this can only be secured by the religious instruction of youth, it follows that the teaching of religious truth is the first duty of parents-a duty so fundamental, that it rests on the very end for which marriage was ordained. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF AMONG the many illustrious names which adorned the learned divine, that he was acknowledged, by universal ferred to the New College, which had been founded by Cardinal Wolsey, and which was supplied, through his influence, with the most illustrious men in the kingdom. The peaceful course of academic life on which he then entered, was interrupted by the keen discussions to which the spread of the Reformed principles gave rise ; and as he had been bred up in the Romish faith, and had hitherto enjoyed no opportunity of judging of the new opinions, but from the representations of those who were opposed to them-it is not to be wondered at, that he regarded them with an unfavourable eye, and exerted his great influence to give the death-blow, to what he sincerely, though ignorantly, considered a pestilential heresy. At an earlier period, he had signalized himself as the champion of the established religion, in a public disputation with the celebrated Hooper, afterwards Bishop of Worcester; and when, during the tolerant reign of Edward VI., the influx of the persecuted Protestants of the Continent into England became greater, and the utmost encouragement was given to the professors of the Reformed faith, insomuch, that many of them were preferred to the highest places and Peter Martyr was established as Divinity Lecturer at Oxford-all eyes were turned to Gilpin, as the best qualified to controvert the doctrines that were so zealously and powerfully taught by this continental divine and his associates. The advocates of Popery saw, with the utmost anxiety, that the whole University were carried away by the eloquent discourses of the new teacher of theology-and that unless some immediate and decisive steps were taken, it would be lost to their cause for ever and, accordingly, they went, from day to day, with the most urgent solicitations, to Gilpin, to come forward in the defence of the common faith, and vindicate it from the attacks that threatened the stability and existence of the established form of worship. But Gilpin's mind, though not convinced, had been greatly staggered, by his former discussions with Hooper, as to many of the tenets and practices of the Church; and when he at length yielded to the pressing demands of his friends, to engage in a public controversy with Martyr, it was less in the character of a partisan, than of one who was desirous of discovering on which side the truth lay. No sooner was his determination known, than the curiosity of the public was wound up to the highest pitch-the friends of both parties made the most assiduous and extensive preparations, and long before the hour of meeting, the great hall of the College was crowded by an immense throng of people, divided in sentiment, and each confifrom the powers of the dent of the success of his cause, respective champions. It was a deeply interesting and solemn meeting. Martyr began the proceedings of the day, by stating at length the opinions of the Reformers on the various points of Christian doctrine and dutyand by showing that the prevailing notions on these subjects were destitute alike of support from Scripture and the writings of the Fathers. Gilpin listened with the most profound attention to his long and learned discourse; and when at length it came to his own turn to take part in the debate, he rose with the utmost solemnity, and in the midst of an assembly, who waited in breathless expectation, to hear him enter on an indignant and overwhelming refutation of his adversary, he declared himself so struck with the force of Martyr's reasoning, and with a comparison of the weakness of his own arguments with those of the Reformer, that he had nothing to reply, and abruptly gave up the contest, by declaring his resolution never again to engage in the controversy, till he had obtained all the information of which he was desirous, and well sifted the arguments on both sides of the question. Such an honourable acknowledgment betokened a mind that was a sincere lover of truth-and Peter Martyr, contrasting it with the conduct of the rest of his opponents, remarked, "That they were such hot-headed zealots, he had no great concern about them; but Mr Gilpin was so up- Sufficeth them: the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, some idea may be formed of the Herculean labours |
