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Death," by Charles Smith, printer, which obtained the first prize, L.20, offered by the Alliance; and "The Creed of Despair," by Matthew Spears, ironfounder, to which the second, L.15, was awarded. The two together present a graphic view of the principles and operations of infidelity among the working classes in Great Britain. Both compositions display abilities of a high order-the first, by a London printer, excelling in abundant detail and eloquent statement of facts, with appeals founded on them, and addressed both to the understanding and the heart; the other, by a Glasgow moulder, and equally characteristic of the nationality of its author, is more marked by the philosophising spirit; the facts, which are fewer in number, not passing into principles of action so rapidly as the strong attraction of the Englishman's full heart makes his facts to do; but being subjected to a ratiocinative faculty that loves to cling to them till it has drawn from each every important deduction it is fitted to yield, bearing on the subject. Concurring fully in the award which has assigned to the two essays their relative position in the volume, we earnestly recommend both to all who take an interest and what Christian in Great Britain does not ?-in the spiritual condition of the classes who have, under God, made Great Britian what it is-the emporium of successful industry to the wide world.

NEW-YEAR'S DRINKING.*

BY REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D.

THE Duke of Wellington, during the Peninsular war, heard that a large magazine of wine lay on his line of march. He feared more for his men from barrels of wine than batteries of cannon, and instantly despatched a body of troops to knock every wine barrel on the head.

Christmas and the new year we fear as much. Like him, we cannot remove the temptation-shut the dram-shop, and break the whisky bottle-but we are sure that, unless you will be persuaded to avoid it, the approaching seasons will prove fatal to the life of some and the virtue of many. At no other season of the year does our town present sights so distressing and so disgusting. Well may Christians pray, and parents weep, and our churches be hung in black; there are more young men and women ruined, more bad habits contracted, and more souls lost then, than at any other season of the year.

We never see a man, or-oh, shame!a woman, with their whisky bottle and with their "happy new year," pressing drink upon others, without thinking of that old murderer Joab, when, taking Amasa by the beard, and saying, "Art thou in health, my brother?" he stabbed him under the fifth rib. You intend no ill. No more does the fool who casts firebrands, saying, "It is in sport, it is in sport." You know that

This earnest, rousing, and seasonable paper, published in the form of a hand-bill by the "Scottish Society for the Suppression of Drunkenness," has been sent us for notice in the Magazine. As the best testimony of our approval of the tract

in thousands of cases these customs lead to ill, and issue in ruin.

What unlooked-for mischief comes of the drinking customs, we saw a melancholy instance of but last Martinmas. Late in the evening of the day after the term, a young woman knocked at our door. Her good clothes were all draggled in the mire, and the traces of the night's debauch were visible in an otherwise comely countenance. It was sad to see her, but sadder still her story. She rose on the morning before, a decent servant, with wages, and character, and virtue, and self-respect, the respected child of respectable parents. She was afraid to face them; and now she stood, a lost, shameless creature, begging for pity and a shelter. She had left her place, and on her way to another met with some companions; they persuaded her to taste a little spirits, and then a little more, and still a little more, till, first maddened, and then stupified with drink, she became insensible, and woke to find herself robbed and ruined. What a revolution drink and these fourand-twenty hours had wrought in her history! It reminds us of a stone which our hand has loosened on the hill-top-first it moves a little, then, caught by a tuft of grass or bush of heather, it halts an instant,. then moves again, and now begins to roll slowly, then quickly, then it flies, then it leaps madlike on, till at length it thunders down on some rock below, and is shivered into a hundred fragments.

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Twenty years ago, while a clergyman was

nd its object, we have deemed it proper to quote sitting at his book on a beautiful summer

entire.

afternoon, he heard a foot on the gravel,

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celebrated writers," says Mr Spears, formerly quoted, “are sold either in volumes, or in parts or numbers; the price of the last being generally twopence. Thus the writings of Paine, Volney, Mirabaud, &c., are made to suit the means of working people. Such parts of the works as relate directly to the subject of infidelity are printed in a cheap form, seldom exceeding one shilling. In this manner are sold Hume's Essay on Miracles,' Voltaire's Important Examination of the Holy Scriptures," and others. The works of R. D. Owen, and a great number of essays, pamphlets, and periodicals by various modern authors, are in the same way printed at a price that the poorest may be able to obtain them. There are in each large city, one or more booksellers' shops, where the books sold are principally works of this description; they are published in London, thence supplied to these booksellers, and thus distributed over the kingdom."

And how most effectually shall Christians, in the Spirit of God, raise up a standard against these inroads of the enemy? To convert infidels by argumentation is, we fear, a task next to hopeless. The evil spirit in this instance, will go out by no other door than the one by which he came in ; and that was not the head but the heart. The love of sin, and the desire to cloak it from the observation of faithful conscience, lead to the wish that the Bible were untrue; and the wish is father to the thought. The exposure of false reasoning will seldom be of much avail, unless, at the same time, the conscience be helped to assert its authority; but if, through the afflictions and alarms of providence, conscience be re-instated on its throne, the intellect will see more clearly to do its office of apprehending truth. "There are voices," beautifully observes Mr Smith, "which may reach his heart, though he be deaf as the adder to that from human lips. From a sick couch-from a dying bed-from an infant's grassy grave, or an honoured parent's tomb, the self saine warning accents may arise that resounded in olden time through the wilderness of Judea ; and, as did the voice of the desert prophet, may herald the coming of Him who is yet mighty to say-to save even the infidel and the scoffer * * * There come times of dejection and humiliation, even for the proudest; the storms of adversity and sorrow that sweep in wintry wrath the surface of society, may reach him as well as another; and when he is cast down to the ground in the solitary face to face struggle with personal calamity, it is no great marvel if the fabric which pride alone had suffered to rear and to maintain, be shivered at the blow." But while waiting God's time for bringing home truth in his own way, it becomes Christians to watch carefully lest they themselves be strengthening the hold of error upon the unbeliever's mind. To regard him, on the one hand, with complacent approval, as if we reckoned his unbelief no very important matter after all; and, on the other hand, to frown upon him continually as if our reprobation of his error made us careless as to any means of convincing him of the truth, are equally to be avoided; and yet to steer a middle course between them is sometimes no very easy task. Above all, Christians had need to see that they are not fortifying him in his prejudices against the Gospel, by the inconsistency of their own lives with its divine and holy precepts, a cause which, as they who best know life in the workship attest, tends more than any other within the control of Christians themselves, to aid the diffusion of infidel principles among our working men.

To strengthen the young and inexperienced against the assaults of the scoffer, it is well that he have ready access to such works as Bishop Watson's" Apology for the Bible," and Leslie's "Short and Easy Method with the Deists," as well as new publications appearing from time to time, adapted to new turns of the deistic controversy. But it is still more important that he be well grounded in his knowledge of the Bible itself. Our Lord used no other defence in meeting the great tempter; and if a man have the word of God dwelling in him richly, he will usually find in it enough either to turn back at once the assault aimed at him, or to maintain himself firmly on the ground of his faith, till he have time to examine more fully, the point assailed.

For the principal quotations embraced in this paper, as well as for many of the facts embodied in our own remarks, we are indebted to a volume entitled "Prize Essays on Infidelity,” just issued under the sanction of the Evangelical Alliance, by Messrs Partridge and Oakey. The volume includes two essays-"The Shadow of

Death," by Charles Smith, printer, which obtained the first prize, L.20, offered by the Alliance; and "The Creed of Despair," by Matthew Spears, ironfounder, to which the second, L.15, was awarded. The two together present a graphic view of the principles and operations of infidelity among the working classes in Great Britain. Both compositions display abilities of a high order-the first, by a London printer, excelling in abundant detail and eloquent statement of facts, with appeals founded on them, and addressed both to the understanding and the heart; the other, by a Glasgow moulder, and equally characteristic of the nationality of its author, is more marked by the philosophising spirit; the facts, which are fewer in number, not passing into principles of action so rapidly as the strong attraction of the Englishman's full heart makes his facts to do; but being subjected to a ratiocinative faculty that loves to cling to them till it has drawn from each every important deduction it is fitted to yield, bearing on the subject. Concurring fully in the award which has assigned to the two essays their relative position in the volume, we earnestly recommend both to all who take an interest and what Christian in Great Britain does not ?-in the spiritual condition of the classes who have, under God, made Great Britian what it is—the emporium of successful industry to the wide world.

NEW-YEAR'S DRINKING.*

BY REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D.

THE Duke of Wellington, during the Peninsular war, heard that a large magazine of wine lay on his line of march. He feared more for his men from barrels of wine than batteries of cannon, and instantly despatched a body of troops to knock every wine barrel on the head.

Christmas and the new year we fear as much. Like him, we cannot remove the temptation-shut the dram-shop, and break the whisky bottle-but we are sure that, unless you will be persuaded to avoid it, the approaching seasons will prove fatal to the life of some and the virtue of many. At no other season of the year does our town present sights so distressing and so disgusting. Well may Christians pray, and parents weep, and our churches be hung in black; there are more young men and women ruined, more bad habits contracted, and more souls lost then, than at any other season of the year.

We never see a man, or-oh, shame!a woman, with their whisky bottle and with their "happy new year," pressing drink upon others, without thinking of that old murderer Joab, when, taking Amasa by the beard, and saying, "Art thou in health, my brother?" he stabbed him under the fifth rib. You intend no ill. No more does the fool who casts firebrands, saying, "It is in sport, it is in sport." You know that

*This earnest, rousing, and seasonable paper, published in the form of a hand-bill by the "Scottish Society for the Suppression of Drunkenness," has been sent us for notice in the Magazine. As the best testimony of our approval of the tract nd its object, we have deemed it proper to quote entire.

in thousands of cases these customs lead to ill, and issue in ruin.

What unlooked-for mischief comes of the drinking customs, we saw a melancholy instance of but last Martinmas. Late in the evening of the day after the term, a young woman knocked at our door. Her good clothes were all draggled in the mire, and the traces of the night's debauch were visible in an otherwise comely countenance. It was sad to see her, but sadder still her story. She rose on the morning before, a decent servant, with wages, and character, and virtue, and self-respect, the respected child of respectable parents. She was afraid to face them; and now she stood, a lost, shameless creature, begging for pity and a shelter. She had left her place, and on her way to another met with some companions; they persuaded her to taste a little spirits, and then a little more, and still a little more, till, first maddened, and then stupified with drink, she became insensible, and woke to find herself robbed and ruined. What a revolution drink and these fourand-twenty hours had wrought in her history! It reminds us of a stone which our hand has loosened on the hill-top-first it moves a little, then, caught by a tuft of grass or bush of heather, it halts an instant,. then moves again, and now begins to roll slowly, then quickly, then it flies, then i leaps madlike on, till at length it thunders down on some rock below, and is shivered into a hundred fragments.

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Twenty years ago, while a clergyman was sitting at his book on a beautiful summer afternoon, he heard a foot on the gravel,

B

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celebrated writers," says Mr Spears, formerly quoted, are sold either in volumes, or in parts or numbers; the price of the last being generally twopence. Thus the writings of Paine, Volney, Mirabaud, &c., are made to suit the means of working people. Such parts of the works as relate directly to the subject of infidelity are printed in a cheap form, seldom exceeding one shilling. In this manner are sold Hume's Essay on Miracles,' Voltaire's Important Examination of the Holy Scriptures," and others. The works of R. D. Owen, and a great number of essays, pamphlets, and periodicals by various modern authors, are in the same way printed at a price that the poorest may be able to obtain them. There are in each large city, one or more booksellers' shops, where the books sold are principally works of this description; they are published in London, thence supplied to these booksellers, and thus distributed over the kingdom."

And how most effectually shall Christians, in the Spirit of God, raise up a standard against these inroads of the enemy? To convert infidels by argumentation is, we fear, a task next to hopeless. The evil spirit in this instance, will go out by no other door than the one by which he came in; and that was not the head but the heart. The love of sin, and the desire to cloak it from the observation of faithful conscience, lead to the wish that the Bible were untrue; and the wish is father to the thought. The exposure of false reasoning will seldom be of much avail, unless, at the same time, the conscience be helped to assert its authority; but if, through the afflictions and alarms of providence, conscience be re-instated on its throne, the intellect will see more clearly to do its office of apprehending truth. "There are voices," beautifully observes Mr Smith, "which may reach his heart, though he be deaf as the adder to that from human lips. From a sick couch-from a dying bed-from an infant's grassy grave, or an honoured parent's tomb, the self saine warning accents may arise that resounded in olden time through the wilderness of Judea ; and, as did the voice of the desert prophet, may herald the coming of Him who is yet mighty to say-to save even the infidel and the scoffer * * * There come times of dejection and humiliation, even for the proudest; the storms of adversity and sorrow that sweep in wintry wrath the surface of society, may reach him as well as another; and when he is cast down to the ground in the solitary face to face struggle with personal calamity, it is no great marvel if the fabric which pride alone had suffered to rear and to maintain, be shivered at the blow." But while waiting God's time for bringing home truth in his own way, it becomes Christians to watch carefully lest they themselves be strengthening the hold of error upon the unbeliever's mind. To regard him, on the one hand, with complacent approval, as if we reckoned his unbelief no very important matter after all; and, on the other hand, to frown upon him continually as if our reprobation of his error made us careless as to any means of convincing him of the truth, are equally to be avoided; and yet to steer a middle course between them is sometimes no very easy task. Above all, Christians had need to see that they are not fortifying him in his prejudices against the Gospel, by the inconsistency of their own lives with its divine and holy precepts, a cause which, as they who best know life in the workship attest, tends more than any other within the control of Christians themselves, to aid the diffusion of infidel principles among our working men.

To strengthen the young and inexperienced against the assaults of the scoffer, it is well that he have ready access to such works as Bishop Watson's "Apology for the Bible," and Leslie's "Short and Easy Method with the Deists," as well as new publications appearing from time to time, adapted to new turns of the deistic controversy. But it is still more important that he be well grounded in his knowledge of the Bible itself. Our Lord used no other defence in meeting the great tempter; and if a man have the word of God dwelling in him richly, he will usually find in it enough either to turn back at once the assault aimed at him, or to maintain himself firmly on the ground of his faith, till he have time to examine more fully, the point assailed.

For the principal quotations embraced in this paper, as well as for many of the facts embodied in our own remarks, we are indebted to a volume entitled "Prize Essays on Infidelity," just issued under the sanction of the Evangelical Alliance, by Messrs Partridge and Oakey. The volume includes two essays-" The Shadow of

Death," by Charles Smith, printer, which obtained the first prize, L.20, offered by the Alliance; and "The Creed of Despair," by Matthew Spears, ironfounder, to which the second, L.15, was awarded. The two together present a graphic view of the principles and operations of infidelity among the working classes in Great Britain. Both compositions display abilities of a high order-the first, by a London printer, excelling in abundant detail and eloquent statement of facts, with appeals founded on them, and addressed both to the understanding and the heart; the other, by a Glasgow moulder, and equally characteristic of the nationality of its author, is more marked by the philosophising spirit; the facts, which are fewer in number, not passing into principles of action so rapidly as the strong attraction of the Englishman's full heart makes his facts to do; but being subjected to a ratiocinative faculty that loves to cling to them till it has drawn from each every important deduction it is fitted to yield, bearing on the subject. Concurring fully in the award which has assigned to the two essays their relative position in the volume, we earnestly recommend both to all who take an interest and what Christian in Great Britain does not ?—in the spiritual condition of the classes who have, under God, made Great Britian what it is-the emporium of successful industry to the wide world.

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NEW-YEAR'S DRINKING.*

BY REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D.

THE Duke of Wellington, during the Peninsular war, heard that a large magazine of wine lay on his line of march. He feared more for his men from barrels of wine than batteries of cannon, and instantly despatched a body of troops to knock every wine barrel on the head.

Christmas and the new year we fear as much. Like him, we cannot remove the temptation-shut the dram-shop, and break the whisky bottle-but we are sure that, unless you will be persuaded to avoid it, the approaching seasons will prove fatal to the life of some and the virtue of many. At no other season of the year does our town present sights so distressing and so disgusting. Well may Christians pray, and parents weep, and our churches be hung in black; there are more young men and women ruined, more bad habits contracted, and more souls lost then, than at any other season of the year.

We never see a man, or-oh, shame!— a woman, with their whisky bottle and with their "happy new year," pressing drink upon others, without thinking of that old murderer Joab, when, taking Amasa by the beard, and saying, "Art thou in health, my brother?" he stabbed him under the fifth rib. You intend no ill. No more does the fool who casts firebrands, saying, "It is in sport, it is in sport." You know that *This earnest, rousing, and seasonable paper, published in the form of a hand-bill by the "Scottish Society for the Suppression of Drunkenness," has been sent us for notice in the Magazine. As the best testimony of our approval of the tract

in thousands of cases these customs lead to ill, and issue in ruin.

What unlooked-for mischief comes of the drinking customs, we saw a melancholy instance of but last Martinmas. Late in the evening of the day after the term, a young woman knocked at our door. Her good clothes were all draggled in the mire, and the traces of the night's debauch were visible in an otherwise comely countenance. It was sad to see her, but sadder still her story. She rose on the morning before, a decent servant, with wages, and character, and virtue, and self-respect, the respected child of respectable parents. She was afraid to face them; and now she stood, a lost, shameless creature, begging for pity and a shelter. She had left her place, and on her way to another met with some companions; they persuaded her to taste a little spirits, and then a little more, and still a little more, till, first maddened, and then stupified with drink, she became insensible, and woke to find herself robbed and ruined. What a revolution drink and these fourand-twenty hours had wrought in her history! It reminds us of a stone which our hand has loosened on the hill-top-first it moves a little, then, caught by a tuft of grass or bush of heather, it halts an instant,. then moves again, and now begins to roll slowly, then quickly, then it flies, then it leaps madlike on, till at length it thunders down on some rock below, and is shivered into a hundred fragments.

Twenty years ago, while a clergyman was

nd its object, we have deemed it proper to quote sitting at his book on a beautiful summer

entire.

afternoon, he heard a foot on the gravel,

B

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