peace. We have public hopes and fears. We distrust one minister, and we repose on another. We recal one general or admiral, because he has lost the national confidence, and we send out another with a full tide of hopes and expectations. We find something in men and measures, as the suffi cient cause of all sufferings or anticipations. But a religious man enters the cabinet. He sees, in all public fears and difficulties, the pressure of God's hand. So long as this pressure continues, he knows that we may move heaven and earth in vain: every thing is bound up in icy fetters. But, when God removes his hand, the waters flow; measures avail, and hopes are accomplished.

WE are too apt to forget our actual dependance on Providence, for the circumstances of every instant. The most trivial events may determine our state in the world. Turning up one street instead of another, may bring us into company with a person whom we should not otherwise have met; and this may lead to a train of other events, which may determine the happiness or misery of our lives.

LIGHT may break in upon a man after he has taken a particular step; but he will not condemn himself for the step taken in a less degree of light: he may hereafter see still better than he now does, and have reason to alter his opinion again. It is enough to satisfy us of our duty, if we are conscious that at the time we take a step, we have an adequate motive. If we are conscious of a wrong motive, or of a rash proceeding, for such steps we must expect to suffer.

Trouble or difficulty befalling us after any particular step, is not, of itself, an argument that the step was wrong. A storm overtook the disciples

in the ship; but this was no proof that they had done wrong to go on board. Esau met Jacob, and occasioned him great fear and anxiety, when he left Laban; but this did not prove him to have done wrong in the step which he had taken. Difficulties are no ground of presumption against us, when we did not run into them in following our own will: yet the Israelites were with difficulty convinced that they were in the path of duty, when they found themselves shut in by the Red Sea. Christians, and especially ministers, must expect troubles: it is in this way that God leads them: he conducts them "per ardua ad astra." They would be in imminent danger if the multitude at all times cried Hosanna!

We must remember that we are short-sighted creatures. We are like an unskilful chess-player, who takes the next piece, while a skilful one looks further. He, who sees the end from the beginning, will often appoint us a most inexplicable way to walk in. Joseph was put into the pit and the dungeon: but this was the way which led to the throne.

We often want to know too much and too soon. We want the light of to-morrow, but it will not come till to-morrow. And then a slight turn, perhaps, will throw such light on our path, that we shall be astonished we saw not our way before. "I san wait," says Lavater. This is a high attainment. We must labor, therefore, to be quiet in that path, from which we cannot recede without danger and evil.

THERE is not a nobler sight in the world, than an aged and experienced Christian, who, having been sifted in the sieve of temptation, stands forth as a confirmer of the assaulted-testifying, from his own trials, the reality of religion; and meeting, by his warnings and directions and consolations, the cases of all who may be tempted to doubt it.

THE Christian expects his reward, not as due to merit; but as connected, in a constitution of grace, with those acts which grace enables him to perform. The pilgrim, who has been led to the gate of heaven, will not knock there as worthy of being admitted; but the gate shall open to him, because he is brought thither. He, who sows, even with tears, the precious seed of faith, hope, and love, shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him; because it is in the very nature of that seed, to yield, under the kindly influence secured to it, a joyful harvest.

ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE

CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.

On a Minister's Qualifying Himself for his Office.

WHEN a young minister sets out, he should sit down and ask himself HOW HE MAY BEST QUALIFY HIMSELF FOR HIS OFFICE.

How does a physician qualify himself? It is not enough that he offers to feel the pulse. He must read, and inquire, and observe, and make experiments, and correct himself again and again. He must lay in a stock of medical knowledge before he begins to feel the pulse.

The minister is a physician of a far higher order. He has a vast field before him. He has to study an infinite variety of constitutions. He is to furnish himself with the knowledge of the whole system of remedies. He is to be a man of skill and expedient. If one thing fail, he must know how to apply another. Many intricate and perplexed cases will come before him; it will be disgraceful

to him not to be prepared for such. His patients will put many questions to him: it will be disgraceful to him not to be prepared to answer them. He is a merchant embarking in extensive concerns. A little ready money in the pocket will not answer the demands that will be made upon him. Some of us seem to think it will. But they are grossly deceived. There must be a well furnished account at the banker's.

But it is not all gold that glitters. A young minister must learn to separate and select his materials. A man who talks to himself will find out what suits the heart of man: some things respond: they ring again. Nothing of this nature is lost on mankind: it is worth its weight in gold, for the service of a minister. He must remark, too, what it is that puzzles and distracts the mind: all this is to be avoided: it may wear the garb of deep research, and great acumen, and extensive learning; but it is nothing to the mass of mankind.

One of the most important considerations in making a sermon, is to disembarrass it as much as possible. The sermons of the last century were like their large, unweildy chairs. Men have now a far more true idea of a chair. They consider it as a piece of furniture to sit upon, and they cut away from it every thing that embarrasses and encumbers it. It requires as much reflection and wisdom to know, what is not to be put into a sermon, as what is.

A young minister should likewise look round him, that he may see what has succeeded and what has not. Truth is to be his companion, but he is to clothe her so as to gain her access. Truth must never bow to fashion or prejudice; but her garb may be varied. No man was ever eminently successful in his ministry, who did not make Truth his friend. Such a man might not see her, indeed, all her beauty and proportions; but, certainly, he

saw and loved her. A young minister should remember that she does not wear the dress of a party. Wherever she is, she is one and the same, however variously men may array her. He, who is ignorant of her prominent and distinguishing features, is like a musician who plays half score: it grates on every well-formed ear; as fatal error finds no corresponding vibration in the renewed heart. Truth forms an immediate acquaintance with such a heart, by a certain fitness and suitableness to its state and feelings. She is something different from the picture which a churchman draws of her. A Dissenter misses her perfect figure. A Frenchman distorts her features in one way, and an Englishman in another. Every one makes his own cast and color too essential to her.

Knowledge, then, and truth, are to be the constant aim of a young minister. But where shall he find them? Let him learn from a fool, if a fool can teach him any thing. Let him be every where, and always a learner. He should imitate Gainsborough, Gainsborough transfused nature into his landscapes, beyond almost any of his contemporaries; because Gainsborough was every where the painter. Every remarkable feature or position of a tree every fine stroke of nature was copied into his pocket-book on the spot; and, in his next picture, appeared with a life and vivacity and nature, which no strength of memory or imagination could have supplied.

There is a certain wise way, too, in which he should accustom himself to look down on the pursuits of all other men. No man of eminence in his profession is destitute of such a partial feeling for his profession; though his judgment may remonstrate with him thereon, as an unfounded partiality. The minister, however, is REQUIRED So to view all other pursuits. HE alone is the man, whose aim is eternity. He alone is the man whose office