Society, which is ever open to the powerful argument of Consistency, but there would flow a revenue into her hands for increasing her missionary efforts, a hundred-fold. Ah, brethren, when millions of heathen remain to be converted, and there are so many lands where the Bible has scarcely found its way, and so many overgrown districts at home overrun with infidelity, and so many poor live and die knowing nothing of Christian sympathy, is this a time to load our tables with viands, our cellars with wines, and our wives and daughters with feathers and flowers? I am not one who would refuse a degree of expenditure consistent with rank, but I see no difference of principle between 'the pride of life' exhibited in costly wines, expensive furniture, exquisite dress, and that displayed in the public ball-room, or the 're-unions of fashion."

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It is an awful statement, that Money expended upon all the institutions of charity and religion, forms but the lowest fraction of a tithe of what is prostituted upon the excise of unnecessary luxuries.”

Nor is it a less awful statement which was made on a public occasion this year by one of our bishops, that the money spent annually in one article of luxury, that of ice, viz., £500,000, exceeds the amount raised for our public religious institutions. We thankfully lay before our readers Mr. Bromby's call to individual reformation:

:

"The present state of the church, and the present judgments of God, will be placed by the thoughtful Christian in juxta-position. In the ordinary mode of accounting for national judgments, we are too apt to assign general sins, and thus the remedy lies beyond our reach. But, although national sins call for national judgments from God, and national humiliation on our part, let us remember that nations are composed of individuals. Reader, if you, as an individual, are justly liable to any of those inconsistencies at which my warning has been directed, you are first called upon to take the beam out of thine own eye,' before

you speculate upon the sins of our Rulers. In answer to the demands of charity and missionary love at home or abroad, what is your annual sacrifice? Those demands may multiply; and if the church be faithful, they will multiply (for the increase of our Societies is a bright promise of good). Are you accustomed to murmur, as some are now murmuring, at the prospect of repeated calls from Ireland? Your duty is not to count up your contributions, but to compare the demands which God sends with the remaining income over which he has made you stewards. Are not these clear calls from him to curtail

your expenses? And if the majority of Christians-I had nearly said, if all-curtailed them manifold, their rule would yet fall short of Apostolic precedent. 'But would you apply the peculiar rules of primitive Christianity to times so changed, and bind them upon the practice of all ages?' I answer, I would not be guilty of the absurdity of requiring a community of goods, but if the brethren are in need; if famine and pestilence scourge the land; or if the Lord open doors of hope to his church in varied portions of the world; then the times and claims become more like Apostolic times and claims, and at least the same spirit should be manifested as when those who possessed lands or houses, sold their possessions, and distributed them to all. (Acts iv. 34, 35.) I do not say that there is no vital Christianity where such distribution is not made, but I do say, that if there be not the disposition, the readiness to follow the self-denying practice of the Apostles, in order to meet the growing wants around us, we have not the spirit of the apostles, we have not the Spirit of Christ; and 'if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.'-(Rom. viii. 9.")

Mr. Bromby's concluding remarks are specially deserving of attention:

"Be not afraid of the charge of being legal. If to conform your lives to the standard of the apostolic epistles be legal, be content to bear the charge. The Gospel does not supersede, but presents motives

to the practice of the moral law. None but those who are spiritually alive can truly mortify the deeds of the body.' Here is the criterion, as well as the promise of life, 'If ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, (the fleshly principle which the natural man cannot possibly mortify,) ye shall live.' (Rom. viii. 13.)‘ Begin then at once to prove that you live for God. Do all things for His glory. Whether in your pursuits or tastes, whether in your conversation or your dress, whether in your drawing-room or your equipage, 'whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do,' do all so manifestly to the glory of God, that others may see a reality, a something substantial, in your love to the Redeemer. Gentlemen, tradesmen, servants, as Christians ye are all one in Christ; and ye are all bound to the one engagement of spreading his Gospel. Think of your characters, your obligations, your privileges and your reward; think what you have, and what others are that have it not. O how unfaithful, since the Apostles, has the church of Christ been! Dark

centuries intervened, and the progress of the kingdom of God was altogether suspended. Redeem the time. Multitudes are daily perishing, while you have locked up the means of their salvation. Lo! He who said 'Occupy till I come' is at hand.

"Let every head of Christian families, and every Christian domestic, begin a consistent reduction of expenditure. Let the weekly savings be laid up, to meet the present exigencies, as God shall bless you. The habit once formed, let it never be lost. If only for consistency's sake, 'be faithful unto death.' Consistency is the mightiest weapon in the Christian's armoury. But fresh channels will open. The despised Missionary is ready to exchange your silver and gold into the pearl, which shall enrich the heathen or the Jew, and the loan will return with tenfold usury into your bosom. If you would traffic where gain is sure, and insolvency impossible, invest your 'all' in the market of wisdom. 'Her merchandise is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold,' (Prov. iii, 14.)"

Equally seasonable and important is Mr. Benson's concluding exhortation :-

"Break up your fallow ground by prayer for the Holy Spirit. That prayer, if sincerely offered, and in the name of Christ, will be surely answered. Then, in the power of that Spirit, change, once for all, your excesses for moderation; and so mortify your lusts by abstinence. Break off for ever, through the same spirit, your sins by righteousness; your love of the world by the love of Christ; your pride by humility; your confidence in the arm of flesh by trust in the living God; your religious lukewarmness by a holy zeal for truth; your contempt of poverty by kindness to those born in it or on whom it falls; and your greediness for the gain and honour, and enjoyments of this life, by labouring for the treasures and glory and pleasures which are at the Lord's right hand for evermore. Then, whatever you may suffer for a time, the peace, that passeth all understanding, will be yours at the last."

There is another most important ground, on which we would urge the importance of reform in Christ's professing Church. Mr. Bromby remarks at the outset of his address

'There is an increasing number who are daily lamenting the growing luxury of their professing brethren, and many, despairing of the return of the self-denying spirit of apostolic days, are deluded into a schismatic and more exclusive communion of their own.'

Yes, it is indeed too true, that many, in such despair, are going over to Rome on the one side, and far more to the Plymouth brethren on the other. We hold both parties to be inexcusable, and we firmly believe the step they have taken to be as unavailing as it is unnecessary. There is no royal road to heaven, save the King's highway of Scriptural demarcation. Neither is any militant Church infallible or perfect. The tares and the wheat must grow together until the harvest, and sin and infirmity are inseparable from every thing human. Moreover, the old remark, “cælum non animum mutant

qui trans mare currunt," applies fully to such a movement. It is not the ecclesiastical locality, but the individual mind, of which such persons should complain. Ministers may be complained of, and friends may prove unprofitable, and the low state of holy, self-denying practice may be mourned over, yet if our own evil hearts are the biggest source of sadness and disappointment, we ought rather to charge home upon them all our failures in a religious course, than upon external influences; and so doing, seek to make a better improvement of our existing circumstances, rather than fly off to the experiment of other resources. Old Adam, and our grand spiritual adversary, will follow us, we may depend upon it, into cells and convents, as well as into a brotherly community of goods, and cut us out work enough everywhere. We firmly believe that men very rarely change their religion, to become separatists and schismatics really to their spiritual satisfaction. But still, we must own that we do ardently long that the Church's healthfulness and consistency should cut off the temptation, and that an extended "return of the self-denying spirit of apostolic days," should remove occasion from those who seek occasion. And yet, if fasting is desired, does not our Church recognise and expect its exercise? And if regard for the poor, and acts of charity are de

sired as the very element in which we are daily living, the very breath we are drawing, does not our Church actually call us to and expect such continual exercises? Is there any thing to prevent our Christian young women from being practically Sisters of Mercy, or rather do not the circumstances of the suffering and the poor around us loudly call for it? What is there in holy, practical, selfdenying, unselfish charity, and personal religion, that our Church does not recognise and demand and provide for? Where else can we be more Scripturally taught, or where better reduce to practice what we have learnt? We must look, then, to the appliances and privileges of our Church, rather than to the falsity and unworthiness of individual professors. Still, we ardently long for the professing Church to be clothed with glory and honour. We long to have her distinctly recognised as the spouse of Christ. We long that she should shine with a less sullied brightness. In proportion as this is the case, the inducements to depart from her enclosure will be diminished; and the Jews, too, will cease to protest against their conversion to Christianity, on the ground that they should only change the love and union and other advantages of their own community for the vices and inconsistencies of Christians.

A POPISH Bishop of Bohemia, passing by the town of Herrnhut, called on the bishop of the Moravian Brethren residing there. In the course of conversation, the Romish prelate asked his host, which of the two was the richer in his opinion? "I don't know," replied the Moravian bishop, "all that I can say is that I am rich. I have all that is needful to clothe

and feed me; I can even give something to the poor." "And what is the amount of your salary?" asked the popish prelate. "Three hundred dollars."

"Ah! what a happy man you are," said the other; "I have three hundred times as much revenue, and am hardly out of debt at the end of the year."