die.

These bodies are doomed to death; and we must all sleep in the grave. It is unavoidable. Prepared or unprepared, forgive en or unforgiven, these tabernacles of clay must mingle with the dust from which they were taken; and our spirits must ascend to judgment. O that each reader might think now of his latter end; and, while time is bearing him onward so rapidly to the grave, flee to Jesus for pardon and eternal life.

Connected with the cure of his diseases, the Psalmist blesses the Lord for redeeming his life from destruction.

The method by which the lives of men are usually terminated, is disease. But death does not always wait for the slow progress of sickness. Innumerable causes may destroy life instantaneously. Iron handed war strikes down millions. David was a warrior, and often exposed to imminent perils. But wherever we may be, we are in danger. God is our only refuge. His arm defends us, and it is because he has preserved us, that we are alive. Death has been busy around us the past year. Many of you has he clothed in mourning. You miss some who once mingled in your domestic circle. Why are you spared? Before another year shall have closed, you too may die. Let us so number our days, as to apply our hearts unto wisdom. But the Psalmist mentions another blessing:

3. Who crowneth thee with loving kindness, and tender mercies. Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.

God has not merely given us life, but he has supplied our wants. The earth has yielded an abundant harvest. How vast an amount of provisions is requisite for the support of so many millions of human beings, without reckoning the countless myriads of other animals. But God satisfies the want of every living thing.

But in addition to the necessaries of life, how many other mercies have been granted. You have had, and still have, affectionate friends; you have the means of intellectual and religious instruction; you enjoy a complete freedom, under a benign government. Loving kindness and tender mercies crown your lives, and ought to excite your gratitude and lead you to repentance. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me? should be the inquiry of every heart; and the joyful reply should be, "I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord; I will pay my vows unto the Lord now, in the presence of all his people." Gratitude for the mercies bestowed ought to make you liberal in your charities to the poor, especially at this inclement season, when so many suffer the accumulated evils of sickness, cold and hunger. A desire for the happiness of mankind should make us active in the promotion of all those plans which aim at the moral regeneration of the world.

But besides individual mercies, how many blessings have been vouchsafed to your families and friends! Your own happiness is intimately connected with theirs, and with the tribute of thanksgiving on your own behalf should ascend to God a mingled song of praise for the benefits which he has granted to your friends. 2

JAN. 1830.

With so many, and so varied causes of gratitude, how ought we all, at the commencement of the New Year, to praise our great Benefactor, humble ourselves in his presence, for our numberless sins, and implore him to guide us by his counsel through the year on which we have entered. Whether any of us shall see its end, is known to God alone. Some eyes which read these lines will, it is probable, be closed in death before the year shall have fulfilled its course. Let each reader inquire," Is it I ?" Am I prepared? Have I been reconciled to God by faith in his Son? And am I a partaker of the glorious hope of the Gospel?

MEMOIRS OF REV. JOSEPH COCKIN.

Mr. Editor,

The following extracts are from the memoirs of my once highly esteemed and beloved pastor, late preacher at Halifax, England. They give an abridged account of his Christian experience, and of the means which led to his entering on a course of Theological Studies, in a letter to his son. Hereafter, if requested, you shall have a narrative of his ministerial labors, which, it is believed, for talents, zeal, and success, have seldom been surpassed.

S.

I was born on the 12th of March, 1755, at Honley, a considerable village in the parish of Almondbury, in the West Riding of the county of York.

My first religious impressions were when I was about thirteen years of age. The manner of the change was something remarkable, as I had never heard an evangelical sermon in my life. I had been one evening at the vain and sinful sports which were too common among the boys in the neighborhood; my father's house being at some distance from the village, I felt, on my way home the most painful sensations of tormenting fear, and I fully thought there was but a step between me and death. I had the sentence of condemnation in my conscience; and I felt that it was an awful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. In great agitation of mind, I arrived at home, where I found my mother and another woman conversing about one of their acquaintance who was lately dead. The woman said, that it was a mercy for her that she was gone, for she had been very uncomfortable while here. To which my mother replied, that there was no reason to believe that any person could be happy in the world to come, who had not been born again in this world. This sentence stuck fast in my mind, and I pondered it very seriously.

In this state I retired to rest, or rather to bed, without saying a word, and passed such a night as I had never spent before, nor indeed have ever done since. My life with all its sins passed before my mind in awful review. I thought of God, and was troubled, and my spirit made diligent search. Heaven and hell, with all their realities of pleasure and pain, of joy and sorrow, were alternately felt, and my soul struggled under the interchangeable sensations of hope and fear. O Lord! I remember these things with humiliation and gratitude, and bless that gracious hand which

brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

Now it was that, for the first time, I voluntarily bowed my knees in prayer. I had gone to bed, as heretofore, thinking to go through the accustomed course of repeating the Lord's prayer and the creed; but I felt that I wanted something more, and I desired a more free and enlarged access to God.

I ran over the commandments to see how many of them I had broken, and how many I had kept; and, being wholly ignorant of the spirituality of the law, I thought I came off pretty well. This gave me some relief, and I began to take courage; but still I had a secret fear that my case was worse than I apprehended, and it seemed an awful thing to be self-deceived. These reflections were accompanied with earnest addresses to God, which I believe were truly sincere, though they were very simple.

It was then my object to do something that would satisfy the justice of God, and would make atonement for my transgressions, and, as the mediation of Christ was foreign to my mind, it was natural for me to think of amendment of life, and of a due regard to the devotional and practical parts of religion. I therefore resolved to break off every sin, and to engage in prayer and reading the Scriptures. The task which I set myself was, to perform these duties so often during the day, and to arise so many times in the night for the same purpose. My great consolation was, that I was then but thirteen years of age, and that in thirteen years more, I should be so good as to have a surplus of duties which would be sufficient to wipe off the old score, and then the remain. ing part of my life would furnish a righteousness which could not fail to entitle me to the kingdom of heaven.

With these hopes I began resolutely to abandon every act of transgression, and to perform the number of duties I had imposed upon myself. My motives were the fear of punishment, and the prospect of reward-the only motives which can actuate the soul in the situation in which I then was. Sometimes I succeeded according to my wishes, and at other times came sadly short; but the deficiency always excited a resolution of being more watchful and diligent in time to come. Alas! the next attempt was seldom better than the former. Thus I went on a considerable time, sinning and repenting, resolving and failing, without gaining any ground in my Christian course, or obtaining any knowledge of the nature of the gospel.

However slender my acquaintance with the cross of Christ was at this time, I felt the offence of it very severely. The whole town where I lived was at rest and quiet. No innovation had disturbed their repose for many years. They were like-people like-priest, going every one his own chosen way, and all the downward road. The Lord's day was literally a day of sports, and religious worship was only a pretence to assemble the people for their commenceThe old hue and cry was raised against me that I was gone mad; and when I have walked along the road, I have seen people looking after me as if I had been an object uncommon in the cre

ment.

ation of God.

Whatever malevolence could invent, or virulence could utter, I had to encounter; and, what made it peculiarly trying, there were very few either to encourage my spirits, or to bear part of the burden.

Had this opposition been without doors only, I could have borne it; but I proved the truth of what our Lord says, "that the father is against the son, and the son against the father, and that a man's enemies are they of his own household." My father's mind became irritated by his acquaintance, and he resolved to rescue his son from the danger to which he thought him exposed. It was suggested to him, and he imagined, that I should ruin myself; and that persons of my sort had no respect among men; that they never got forward in life; and that they became incapable of the happiness of existence by abandoning themselves to melancholy and despair. To avert these evils he began by expostulation; and when that did not succeed, his opposition became more direct, and he tried the weight of authority. But I continued unshaken, and his measures had no other effect than to make me more zealous, in the cause in which I was engaged.

My path now began to be strewed with thorns. I was forbidden to persist on pain of expulsion from the family, and I was narrowly watched and waylaid to prevent my getting off by stealth to attend the means of grace. But none of these things moved me, and such was the state of my mind at that time, that I should have gone if I had been certain it would have cost me my life. Nor do I yet see that I was wrong in what I did. Human authority does not reach to a prohibition of what is a duty to God; and, although parents ought to judge for their children while they are in their minority, it does not follow that, from mere caprice and ignorant prejudice, they may prevent their attendance where they can receive the most good.

I proceeded for some time, struggling with obstacles, and yet holding on my way. At last, however, the threatened expulsion came, and I was turned out young and helpless to the mercy of the wide world. And yet, what was very singular in this case, I felt no sort of uneasiness though I had not sixpence in my pocket, and was not fourteen years of age. My trust in God carried me through, and my mind was sweetly stayed upon that promise, "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up."

The particulars and the consequences of this expulsion must now be related, as I reckon it among the principal mercies of my life, gloomy as it was in appearance, and painfully as it operated on the mind of my poor mother, who felt on the occasion much more than I did.

One night I was kneeled down at prayer by my bed-side, and in that situation I heard my father coming up stairs to bed. I knew he had to go past the place where I was, and my heart beat with uncommon agitation, and I felt a trembling over my whole body. I made an attempt to rise, and instantly that passage occurred to my mind, "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words,

of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels." Much allowance must be made for my ignorance at that time. Rising from a duty, which is professedly secret, cannot be wrong when a person is disturbed, or the room is unexpectedly invaded. Be this as it may, my conscience was for downright integrity. I resolved to continue my posture, and did so. My father passed by without saying a single word. Thus far this little occurrence went off very well. But the next morning when I made my appearance, I was ordered to prepare myself for quitting the house, nor could the command be reversed. The tears and importunity of my mother availed nothing, for go I must. It was alleged that we had been happy before we got hold of Venn's religion, but since then there had been no rest, and that it should have no more continuance in that house.

Accordingly I set out like Abraham, not knowing whither I went, but God graciously directed my steps to the very house which of all that were in the world was, I believe, the most suitable for me. In returning home from the church at Huddersfield, I had frequently heard a tall, elderly man speak with much affection of the things of God, and I thought he was a person of the right sort. As soon as I had left my father's house, and had leisure and calmness of mind to think, this good old man presented himself to my view. I thought if I could get admission into his house, it would be a blessed asylum for me, and would make me the most happy creature living. Sometimes I feared, sometimes I hoped, and sometimes I prayed, but still kept pressing forward to the village where he resided. My great comfort was, that he was a clothier in the same line of business with my father, and in which I had been brought up. But then I apprehended he would object to my age, and perhaps he would doubt whether I was telling him the truth. Necessity, however, and ardent desire, will surmount many difficulties. At last, I arrived at his house, and, with a trembling hand, knocked at the door. I got admittance; but when I should have spoken, my tongue faltered, an error to which it was not very liable, but at last I got out the nature and object of my business. I told the plain and undisguised truth; and the simplicity of the narration, and the manner in which it affected my mind, were, I believe, what gained it credit. This good man considered me in the state in which I really was-banished for religion, and sent of God to him for protection. He welcomed me to his house, set me to work, and by various acts of the most endearing kindness truly cheered my heart. Under his roof I continued the space of a year, without exception, the happiest and most improving year I ever spent in my life.

We had a meeting for prayer and religious conversation in the house on a Monday evening; at which upwards of sixty people at tended; and which was one of the most respectable for knowledge, experience, and gifts, that I ever knew, or perhaps ever must. From this meeting in a private house, and in a small country village, several very able and useful ministers went out, who are now filling eminent stations in the church of God.