Father-for life is short. Seek from his touch. My dear,' said the Lord now. 'And, in the short time that remains, Sunday Anecdotes. 2 Cor. vi. 15.-' An Infidel.' Jan. 3.-The celebrated Hume was dining at the house of an intimate friend. After dinner the ladies withdrew ; and in the course of conversation Mr. Hume made some assertions, which caused a gentleman present to observe to him, 'If you can advance such sentiments as those. you certainly are what the world gives you credit for being-an infidel.' A little girl, whom the philosopher had often noticed, and with whom he had become a favourite, by bringing her little presents of toys and sweetmeats, happened to be playing about the room unnoticed. She, however, listened to the conversation, and, on hearing the above expression, left the room, went to her mother, and asked her, 'Mamma, what is an Infidel?' 'An Infidel, my dear,' replied her mother, why should you ask such a question? An Infidel is so awful a character that I scarcely know how to answer you.' 'Oh, do tell me, mamma,' returned the child, 'I must know what an Infidel is.' Struck with her eagerness, her mother at length replied, " An Infidel is one who believes that there is no God, no heaven, no hereafter.' Some days afterwards, Hume again visited the house of his friend. On being introduced to the parlour, he found no one there but his favourite little girl; he went to her, and attempted to take her up in his arms and kiss her, as he had been used to do; but the child shrunk with horror he, 'what is the matter? Do I lieves there is no God-no heaven A God! a God! the wide earth shouts, MARK ii. 5.-Thy sins be forgiven thee.' Jan. 10.-A Jew talking with a little black girl, a Sunday scholar, in Jamaica, said to her, 'How can a little girl like you know that Jesus Christ can forgive sins? Can you tell me how I can know it?' 'Yes,' she said, and repeated the lines'Go to his bleeding feet and learn, How freely Jesus can forgive.' JOHN xiv. 23.—If a man love me, he will keep my words.' Jan. 17.-'My dear child,' said a teacher to his Sunday scholar under alarming illness, have you any reason to suppose that you love the Saviour.' 'I hope I can say, sir, that I do love Him,' was the reply. 'And what induced you to conclude in this manner?' added the teacher; 'you have, I trust, scriptural evidence for the opinion you express.' 'Why,' said the little girl, 'because I love his word, I love his house, I love his people, and I believe that he loves me.' If we the Saviour love, We keep his holy word: ISAIAH lxiii. 16.- Thou, O Lord, art our Father.' Jan. 24.-During a dreadful storm of thunder and lightning, a lady suffering greatly from nervous debility, became alarmed. Her daughter, an engaging little girl, went up to her and said, 'Mamma, don't be alarmed-you have no reason.' And why, my child, should I not be terrified? How awful the thunder is! 'Oh,' mamma, I am not frightened; it is only God speaking to us, and he is our Father in heaven.' LUKE XVI. 26. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.' Jan. 31.-' A young lady at a boarding school once asked me,' says a minister of the gospel, 'this question,'' If I should go to hell when I die, and pray to God when I am there, cannot I go to heaven afterwards?' I replied,-no, my dear; do you not remember what your little hymn says: 'Then 'twill for ever be in vain, To pray for pardon or for grace; To wish I had my time again, Or hope to see my Saviour's facc.' ROBERT AND HIS MOTHER.— As little Robert and his mother were detained at home one sabbath, by the severity of the storm, his mother requested him to take his Bible and read to her. 'Oh, mother,' said he, 'why can't we have a meeting? I will read, and then you can explain it to me, so that I can understand what I have been reading; and we can sing and pray, and have a nice time, can we not? Where shall I read ? am almost through Luke, all but the last two chapters; shall I begin there?' I have no objection,' said his mother. He read until he came to the verse, 'To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise.' 'Why, mother, this wicked man did not repent until just before he died; then the Saviour took him to heaven. Why need I be a good boy, I mean a Christian, till just before I die? The Saviour will take me to heaven then.' 'My boy, do you know how long you will live?' 'No, mother, how can I tell?' 'It often happens that you go to bed quite well, and before morning we are suddenly aroused by your having the croup; and sometimes you have it so severely, that if you did not get relief soon, you would die; do you think you could have time to think of God and your sins, and to repent, when you were suffering so much pain?' 'I am afraid not,' said Robert, seriously. I once knew a girl,' said his mother, who was more rosy and healthy than you ever were, who went to bed perfectly well, and when her sister called her to breakfast, she could not wake her, for she slept the We cannot tell sleep of death.' when our time shall come. Do you not think it is best to prepare while you are in health?' 'O yes, mother, I never thought that I might die suddenly; and if I love the Saviour when I am young, I can do something for him, and then I shall be happier in heaven, shan't I?' Do our little readers think as Robert did? Two EYES.-A lad in an alphabet class, at Leeds, was asked by his teacher, if he knew why God had given us two eyes, and two ears, but only one tongue? After a pause, the lad replied, 'That we might see and hear twice as much as we speak.' Printed and published by JOSEPH GILLett, of No. 3, Clarence Street, Chorlton-uponMedlock, in the parish of Manchester, at the Office of GILLETT and MOORE, No. 2, Brown Street, Manchester, in the County of Lancaster.-JANUARY 1st, 1847. THIS ENGRAVING, taken by permission from Pinnock's Introduction to Geography and History, which we commend to all our readers, represents the fearful confusion caused by the mysterious hand writing on the wall of the palace in the night of Belshazzar's revelry. Irrespective of his intemperance, which, we may fear, excited the displeasure of God, his profanity was awful, in taking the vessels which had been plundered from the temple at Jerusalem, and devoting them to the abominable gods of heathenism. Sometimes judgment is slow, as in the case of Cain; at other times it is quick, as in the case of Ananias. So it was here. While the impious revelry was at its echo, a supernatural inscription was seen on the wall. Belshazzar could C not decipher it. Why did he not conclude it was in his favour? Why not boldly disregard it? Conscience was too strong for his creed. It foreboded the worst. All intimations of au eternal world and of a supernatural power are terrible to the unconverted; hence his knees, smote, his heart throbbed, his soul quailed. Daniel, whom we see in the picture, explains the inscription, and warns him. But he had become able to despise warnings, and this last one was useless. So we are satisfied that death-bed alarms and prayers are if useful, generally more so to the living than to the dying. Reader, are you regarding the warnings which the providence and word and spirit of God are uttering in your ears? Those warnings are the earnest voice of love to thy soul! CONVERSATIONS ON BRITISH The devoted men called Puri CHURCH HISTORY.-No. XI. By THE REV. J. K. FOSTER. The Establishment of Proiesiantism. IN the days of James the First, one of the keepers of the parks of Windsor, occupied a small neat lodge in the royal grounds, whose name was Forester. He and his wife were both partakers of the grace of God, and, of course, anxious to bring up their beloved children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Although, at this time, Windsor Castle had not received the general improvements made by Charles the Second, and by later sovereigns, yet it was a splendid edifice, and worthy of the first monarch of the world. It was originally built by William the Conqueror, on one of the most eligible sites in the neighbourhood of London: it had been enlarged by Henry I. when Edward 11. who was born here, reconstructed the whole; and added St. George's Chapel, the gorgeous place for the stalls of the Knights of the Garter-an order which he established. The castle had received improvements from later monarchs, and the parks especially, from Elizabeth: and in the valley, Eton College reared its turreis,'Where grateful science still adorns Her Henry's holy shade,' tans* and Nonconformisis having failed to effect a more entire and spiritual improvement in the church, were quietly suffering and mourning over the remaining corruptions; and the political and exclusive papists, exposed and baffled in their plots to enslave the nation, were compelled to be still: the established church, or perhaps it would be better to call it, the endowed state church, may be considered as being, in forms of worship and general character, much the same as it is now; only that in James's days its members had a much greater hatred to Popery, than they manifest at present. ་ Is 'Father,' said John, will you tell us how it happens that Religion has so much to do with kings and their governments. it our duty to be of the same religion as our king? soppose he were a Roman Catholic, a Mohammedan, or a Buddhist? When we have had popish kings, then the nation has professed popery; and when a weather-cock king, for Thomas Bold gives that name to king Henry VUI. then, as if religion turned with every wind of passion, we have gone round the compass; and now a Protesiant sovereign bas established episcopal protestantism, although even he, I am told, was a Presbyterian on the other side of the Tweed. Brown tells me, his father says, "it had been better for the world if princes had exercised more personal piety and and the winding Thames divides the rich meadows with its silvery stream. The prospect from Windsor Terrace, for beauty of scenery and richness of associations, must remain unequalled to every lover of nature, civilisation, and reli̟-public candour: these excelgion. It comprehends London. At the wicker gaie, arched over with honey-suckles, on two moss banks studded with daisies, Forester and his youthful family, John, Mary, and Ann, were seated, on a fine summer's afternoon, for the purpose of conversiog about the change made in our national religion by the Reformation. lencies," he adds, "would have recommended true religion, and have removed the bribe of court favour to hypocrisy. For whilst *Strictly speaking the Puritans were those who desired further purifications of the church, after the Reformation; the Nonconformists were those who disapproved of the Bartholomew Act, passed 1662. Both names have now merged into that of Dissenters. good men will rather sacrifice wordly interests than their consciences, bad men will yield to the temptation to please the sovereign by pretending to believe what they either dislike or what they do not understand. Profession is worth nothing in the sight of God, if it do not follow an enlightened understanding and a sincere and devout heart."" 'I believe,' replied Forester, 'Brown is so far right; and that the time will come when kings and queens shall possess more generally than they have done the piety and candour which he commends; and that then they will exert a power over their subjects of a fair and profitable character, and be indeed nursing fathers and nursing mothers to the church. This, my children, is, however, a subject which you will not clearly understand: indeed it is a subject very imperfectly comprehended by the very best and wisest men of this age; for most are contending, not so much for perfect liberty of conscience, as for securing the royal patronage for their own party. I wish you, my dears, not only to remember, that the more Christianity resembles the world, the less is it like that inculcated by our Lord and bis disciples; but also, that it has chiefly to do with your hearts in the presence of God, and not in the sight of man.' and mode of worship settled, but directly to the word of God, and serve him* according to the dictates of their own consciences. 'It would, however, be unjust to the truth were we not to remark, that so long had Christian princes been accustomed to interfere with religion, that it was taken for granted it was their duty to do so; and, as the Roman Catholic ruler had established Romanism, so ought the Protestant to establish the principles of the Reformation. There was least a necessity of our sovereign undoing many things which had been sanctioned by royal authority.' at Perhaps,' interrupted Mary, ' dear father will tell us of a few of those changes which have taken place in religion from the time of Cranmer to the present.' The father approved of Mary's request, and resumed. 'I wish, my dear children, always to try to form clear and orderly views of things, and to treasure up great events in their memories. You must know, then, that after many a struggle and alteration during the reigns of Henry viii. Edward vi. Mary, and Elizabeth, as well as under our present gracious king James, the national church has received many advantages, among which we may place the following: 1. The Pope of Rome has no power in these realms; but our own sovereign, who is controlled by the Lords and the Commons, governs in both civil and church affairs. 2. The doctrines of popery were changed for those so beautifully defined in the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England. 'I think, then,' said Mary, 'I now know what our Saviour meant, when he declared, "My kingdom is not of this world." 'Yes,' added Joba, ' and the kingdom of God is within you.' 'You are both right,' rejoined the father, the kingdom is spiritual and in the heart, and the king is our Lord Jesus Christ himself. I hope, too, at some *A few of the Nonecnformists and future time, the ministers of conference at Hampton Court in the many of the High Church party held a religion will not apply to Hamp-presence of James, and the Nonconton Court, to Windsor, or to the forming ministers were treated with a want of candour and regard to equity, Parliament, to have their creed both by the bishops and the sovereign. |