REV. DR. GEORGE TURNER, SAMOA.

DR. TURNER, in his interesting work, entitled, "Nineteen Years in Polynesia," gives the following particulars regarding the conversion of a native:—

"After a time," says the native, one of my children died, then another, and a third, and a fourth. My wife and I began to think that God was in this way punishing us for the neglect of His Word. I was struck, too, at this time, with what the teacher said to me. He said that my children were safe in heaven, and that I might go to them, but they would never come to me. I determined to go to them, and began afresh to seek salvation. I felt, also, a strong desire to devote the remainder of my days to the service of Christ."

JEREMY TAYLOR.

WHY should Jesus be an Infant, but that infants should receive the crown of their age, the purification of their sainted nature, the sanctification of their persons, and the saving of their souls by their infant Lord and Elder Brother.

EVANS.

YOUR heavenly Father never thought this world's painted glory a gift worthy of you, and therefore He hath taken out the best thing it had in your sight that He might Himself fill the heart He had wounded with Himself.

REV. JOHN NEWTON.

I AM willing to believe, till the Scripture forbids me, that infants of all nations and kindreds, without exception, who die before they are capable of sinning "after the similitude of Adam's transgression," who have done nothing in the body of which they can give account, are included in the election of grace; and that the words of our Lord with respect to another class of persons, are applicable to them : "It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish."

DR. JOHN PYE SMITH.

OUR dear child was thus early taken into the bosom of the covenant Redeemer, the tender Shepherd who gathers the lambs in His arms, and who has declared, "of SUCH is the kingdom of heaven."

CONSOLATION.

PARENTAL ANXIETY REMOVED BY THE EARLY DEATH OF CHILDREN.

REV. DR. JOHN MACFARLANE, LONDON.

THE ardent love you have for your children is not altogether pleasurable. It necessarily carries you into many anxious thoughts about their welfare. In this sense, they are a burden to you, and this burden becomes all the heavier the more you love them. Your own experience of this world has not exalted it, as a place of residence, in your estimation. You have tested its promises, and found them false and vain. You have tasted its pleasures, and found that they "bite like a serpent, and sting like an adder." You have groaned under its pains and penalties, and you have found out that help from man is in vain, and that miserable comforters are all that crowd around you in the night seasons of your soul, and sore disquietudes. You, therefore, tremble when you think of your darling infants living to be cast upon such revolutionary periods in the troubled life of man, wherein, though they may

preserve their integrity, they must endure hardships, but in which, also, they may lose their precious souls for ever. Their futurity, then, is at once your main difficulty, and your most fertile source of anxious foreboding. Now, has not their early death solved this difficulty for you, and ought it not, therefore, also to be your consolation? You will never have any more anxiety on their account. The various hiding-places in your hearts, from which these anxieties spring upon you, have been searched, and by death have been completely emptied.

THEIR EDUCATION IS COMPLETED.-They "know as they are known." Your utmost wish in this respect was to give them, if not a learned, at least a useful education. But God has been better than your wish. They are now in knowledge far beyond the most splendid scholars and most profound philosophers of this and of every age. Their intellectual stature is only to be accounted small when compared with the wisdom of God Himself. Neither before angels, nor the spirits of the just made perfect, have they to veil their faces.

THEIR HOLINESS IS PERFECTED.-Not one of the infirmities they inherited from you now appertains to them, they are "holy as God is holy." Did you tremble at the thought of their exposure to the temptations of Satan and the flesh? Be assured now that they are more than conquerors through Him that loved them." Exquisitely beautiful now are those dear creatures in all the graces of the family

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of God. Their thoughts, their desires, their actions are at this moment in perfect harmony with the mind of the Holy One of Israel. The same mind that is in Christ is in them; they do the will of their heavenly Father, and He is pleased with them every moment, and every moment delights their happy souls with His approving smile.

THEIR HAPPINESS IS CONSUMMATED.-You were not at ease as to measures for their future provision, and even with respect to the most likely ones, you feared that they might fail. To make them comfortable for life you were ready to sacrifice much, and you never wearied in efforts to secure for them an honourable independence. Their futurity was upon your minds all the day, and oft took from you the sleep of all the night. Surely, then, you may cease from lamentation, when you are certified that, as they shall sin no more, so neither shall they suffer any more. They are as happy now as they can be. God has provided for them in heaven. They are now inheriting the promises. They are now in actual possession and enjoyment of "that inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." Within them is a "well of water springing up into everlasting life;" without them is the perennial flow of the river of life; above them is the unclouded sun of God's favour; and around them are gathered the inexhaustible fountains of celestial bliss. They are so happy now that they are for ever singing. And if ever there should be a "Selah" to their song, it is only to draw