in her room. F. read a part of Revelation, only a few verses, and prayed. Dearest Priscilla said in prayer, "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty ;" and may we be enabled humbly to acknowledge that "Just and true are all thy ways, thou King of saints." She wished F. to leave the chair next to her, that her sister Louisa Hoare might take it, and repeat aloud what she said, as follows:-"I wish to express the longing desire and prayer of my heart, that the best of blessings may be with you all, individually and collectively; that all you have done for me all your kindness-may be rewarded; and that whether our time here be long or short, we may all of us be good, faithful, and valiant soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ unto the end; and I much more especially express my desire that this blessing may be with dearest Fowell

and Hannah."

22nd. We read one of Thorpe's interesting letters. P. sent her love and messages to several. When on the bed she prayed, "Enable me, O Lord, to cast myself wholly, unreservedly, and humbly on thy love; and grant, that although now I see thee not, yet believing, I may rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory!" Quiet assembly of us all in her room in the evening. F. C. read, at her desire, the hymn on the death of a believer, and that on the death of Stephen. 23rd. We met together as usual in her room. F. C. read the thirty-fourth Psalm. She afterwards desired me to say, "Though there is nothing said on the present occasion, how much I hope that, through the power of the Redeemer present with us, we may experience what is conveyed by this text, 'Be still, and know that I am God.'"

24th.-J. J. G. read, in her room, passages in Isaiah and Revelation, and spake of the beautiful condition of the departed saints,-of those who were written in the Lamb's book of life. Dearest Priscilla said to him, "Tell everybody (all our circle,) how much it is my desire that we may possess our souls in patience."

of the verse. She said to H., "What a comfort to have such attendance!" I think she said, some days ago, there was nothing for which she could desire so much to recover, as to pay more attention to the sick.

4th. She said to F. C., "One thing I have learned, and I wish thee to feel and remember it-that all suffering is short. The time for trial and suffering is but for a moment. Let us have patience while it lasts. Do remember this." To P. B. she said, how very much she hoped she would cultivate the blessed habit of patience and forbearance under little difficulties.

6th.-On giving her some medicine, when very low, she paused and said, "Now when my flesh and my heart fail, do thou be the strength of my life, and my portion for ever."

8th. When Fowell had carried Priscilla to bed, she stopped him. She wanted to speak to him. Her cough prevented her for some time. Then she said, "Oh, the sufferings of the slaves!"

10th.-J. J. G. came. He sat by her, and she asked him where that text was, "They that walk in darkness and have no light, let them trust in the Lord, and stay themselves upon their God." She seemed low and ill. She said, "I wish to know if I have anything more to do."

[To be concluded.]

PHILANTHROPY OF COMMON LIFE.

There are those who, with a kind of noble but mistaken aspiration, are asking for a life which shall, in its form and outward course, be more spiritual and divine than that which they are obliged to live. They think that if they could devote themselves entirely to what are called the labors of philanthropy, to visiting the poor and sick, that would be well and worthyand so it would be. They think that if it could be inscribed on their tombstone that they had visited a million of couches of disease, and earried balm and soothing to them, that would be 27th.-Mr. D.* came. Dearest Priscilla took a glorious record-and so it would be. But let him most affectionately by the hand as he was me tell you that the million occasions will come sitting by her, and said, "I feel a strong inter--aye, in the ordinary path of life, in your est in thee, and an earnest desire that thou mayest be made a partaker of the hope and consolation of the gospel." Mr. D. checked her, and said he could not allow her to speak and hurt herself on his account. When he arose to take leave, she said, "I desire a blessing may be with thee: it cannot hurt me to say this."

"March" 3d.-We read and sat in her room. In the evening she was moved into the armchair, the six sisters surrounding her. She appeared in some distress, but soon repeated these words, "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me;" asking for the conclusion

*Her medical attendant.

houses and by your firesides-wherein you may act as nobly as if all your life long you visited beds of sickness and pain.

Yes, I say, the million occasions will come, and each varying hour, in which you may restrain your passions, subdue your heart to gentleness and patience, resign your own interests to another's, speak words of kindness and wisdom, raise the fallen, and cheer the fainting and sick in spirit, and soften and assuage the weariness and bitterness of the mortal lot. These cannot be written on your tombs, for they are not one series of specific actions, like those which are technically denominated philanthropy. But in them, I say, you may discharge offices f

[Orville Dewey.

not less glorious for yourselves than the self-ces of conforming to it, they are to be ventured. denials of far-famed Sisters of Charity, than the Obedience is to be unconditional,-no questions labors of Howard and Oberlin. They shall not about the utility of the law,-no computations be written on your tombs; but they are written of the consequences of obedience,―no presumdeep in the hearts of men-of friends, of chiling upon the lenity of the divine government. dren, of kindred all around you; they are written "It is important so to regulate the understandin the secret book of the great account! ing and imagination of the young, that they may be prepared to obey, even where they do not see the reasons of the commands of God. We should certainly endeavor, where we can, to show them the reasons of the divine commands, and this more and more as their understandings gain strength; but let it be obvious to them that we do ourselves consider it as quite sufficient if God has commanded us to do or to avoid any thing."

DYMOND ON MORAL CULTURE.

Our great deficiency is not in knowledge, but in obedience. Of the offences which an individual commits against the moral law, the great majority are committed in the conscious ness that he is doing wrong. Moral education, therefore, should be directed not so much to informing the young what they ought to do, as to inducing those moral dispositions and principles which make them adhere to what they know to be right.

The human mind, of itself, is in a state something like that of men in a state of nature, where separate and conflicting desires and motives are not restrained by any acknowledged head. Government, as it is necessary to society, is necessary in the individual mind. To the internal community of the heart the great question is, Who shall be the legislator? who shall regulate and restrain the passions and affections? who shall command and direct the conduct?To these questions the breast of every man supplies him with an answer. He knows, because he feels, that there is a rightful legislator in his own heart he knows, because he feels, that he ought to obey it.

By whatever designation the reader may think it fit to indicate this legislator, whether he calls it the law written in the heart, or moral sense, or moral instinct, or conscience, we arrive at one practical truth at last; that to the moral legislation which does actually subsist in the human mind, it is right that the individual should conform his conduct.

The great point then is, to induce him to do this, to induce him, when inclination and this law are at variance, to sacrifice the inclination to the law and for this purpose it appears proper, first, to impress him with a high, that is, with an accurate, estimate of the authority of the law itself. We have seen that this law embraces an actual expression of the will of God; and we have seen that even although the conscience may not always be adequately enlightened, it nevertheless constitutes, to the individual, an authoritative law. It is to the conscientious internal apprehension of rectitude that we should conform our conduct. Such appears to be the will of God.

Obedience to this internal legislator is not, like obedience to civil government, enforced. The law is promulgated, but the passions and inclinations can refuse obedience if they will. Penalties and rewards are indeed annexed, but he who braves the penalty and disregards the reward may continue to violate the law. Obedience therefore must be voluntary, and hence the paramount importance, in moral education, of habitually subjecting the will. Parents,' says Hartley, "should labor from the earliest dawnings of understanding and desire, to check the growing obstinacy of the will, curb all sallies of passion, impress the deepest, most amiable, reverential, and awful impressions of God, a future state, and all sacred things."-" Religious persons in all periods, who have possessed the light of revelation, have in a particular manner been sensible that the habit of self control lies at the foundation of moral worth." There is nothing mean or mean-spirited in this. It is magnanimous in philosophy, as it is right in morals. It is the subjugation of the lower qualities of our nature to wisdom and to goodness.

The subjugation of the will to the dictates of a higher law must be endeavoured, if we would succeed, almost in infancy and in very little things; from the earliest dawnings, as Hartley says, of understanding and desire. Children must first obey their parents and those who have the care of them. The habit of sacrificing the will to another judgment being thus acquired, the mind is prepared to sacrifice the will to the judgment pronounced within itself. Show, in every practicable case, why you cross the inclinations of a child. Let obedience be as little blind as it may be. It is a great failing of some parents that they will not descend from the imperative mood, and that they seem to think it a derogation from their authority to place their orders upon any other foundation than their wills. But if the child sees-and It should therefore be especially inculcated, children are wonderfully quick-sighted in such that the dictate of conscience is never to be things-if the child sees that the will is that sacrificed, that whatever may be the consequen-which governs his parent, how shall he effi

ciently learn that the will should not govern himself?

The internal law carries with it the voucher of its own reasonableness. A person does not need to be told that it is proper and right to obey that law. The perception of this rectitude and propriety is coincident with the dictates themselves. Let the parent then very frequently refer his son and his daughter to their own minds; let him teach them to seek for instruction there.

There is one consequence attendant upon this habitual reference to the internal law which is highly beneficial to the moral character. It leads us to fulfil the wise instruction of antiquity, Know thyself. It makes us look within ourselves; it brings us acquainted with the little and busy world that is within us, with its many inhabitants and their dispositions, and with their tendencies to evil or to good. This is valuable knowledge; and knowledge for want of which, it may be feared, the virtue of many has been wrecked in the hour of tempest. A man's enemies are those of his own household; and if he does not know their insidiousness and their strength, if he does not know upon what to depend for assistance, nor where is the probable point of attack, it is not likely that he will efficiently resist. Such a man is in the situation of the governor of an unprepared and surprised city. He knows not to whom to apply for effectual help, and finds perhaps that those whom he has loved and trusted are the first to desert or betray him. He feebly resists, soon capitulates, and at last scarcely knows why he did not make a successful defence. It is to be regretted, that, in the moral education which commonly obtains, whether formal or incidental, there is little that is calculated to produce this acquaintance with our own minds; little that refers us to ourselves, and much, very much that calls and sends us away. Of many it is not too much to say that they receive almost no moral culture. The plant of virtue is suffered to grow as a tree grows in the forest, and takes its chance of storm or sunshine. This, which is good for oaks and pines, is not good for man. The general atmosphere around him is infected, and the juices of the moral plant are often of themselves unhealthy. In the nursery, formularics and creeds are taught; but this does not refer the child to its own mind. Indeed, unless a wakeful solicitude is maintained by those who teach, the tendency is the reverse. The mind is kept from habits of introversion, even in the offices of religion, by practically directing its attention to the tongue. "Many, it is to be feared, imagine that they are giving their children religious principles when they are only teaching them religious truths." You cannot impart moral education as you teach a child to spell.

From school or from college the business of life is begun. It can require no argument to show that the ordinary pursuits of life have little tendency to direct a man's meditations to the moral condition of his own mind, or that they have much tendency to employ them upon other and very different things.

Nay, even the offices of public devotion have almost a tendency to keep the mind without itself. What if we say that the self-contemplation which even natural religion is likely to produce, is obstructed by the forms of Christian worship? "The transitions from one office of devotion to another, are contrived like scenes in the drama, to supply the mind with a succession of diversified engagements." This supply of diversified engagements, whatever may be its value in other respects, has evidently the tendency of which we speak. It is not designed to supply, and it does not supply, the opportunity for calmness of reflection. A man must abstract himself from the external service if he would investigate the character and dispositions of the inmates of his own breast. Even the architecture and decorations of churches come in aid of the general tendency. They make the eye an auxiliary of the ear, and both keep the mind at a distance from those concerns which are peculiarly its own; from contemplating its own weaknesses and wants; and from applying to God for that peculiar help which perhaps itself only needs, and which God only can impart. So little are the course of education and the subsequent engagements of life calculated to foster this great auxiliary of moral character. It is difficult, in the wide world to foster it as much as is needful. Nothing but wakeful solicitude on the part of the parent can be expected sufficiently to direct the mind within, while the general tendency of our associations and habits is to keep it without. Let him, however, do what he can. The habitual reference to the dictates of conscience may be promoted in the very young mind. This habit, like others, becomes strong by exercise. He that is faithful in little things is intrusted with more; and this is true in respect of knowledge as in respect of other departments of the Christian life. Fidelity of obedience is commonly succeeded by increase of light, and every act of obedience and every addition to knowledge furnishes new and still stronger inducements to persevere in the same course. Acquaintance with ourselves is the inseparable attendant of this course. We know the character and dispositions of our own inmates by frequent association with them and if this fidelity to the internal law and consequent knowledge of the internal world, be acquired in early life, the parent may reasonably hope that it will never wholly lose its efficacy amid the bustles and anxieties of the world.

THE PROPHET EZEKIEL.
[Continued ]

"I will be magnified among the people, and exalted among the nations."

EXTRACT FROM MEMORANDA OF JOHN BARCLAY.

The very important decision, as to the line of life which I am to pursue, has often for this year past given me much anxiety and inward exercise--it has often been the cause of restless nights and anxious days, and even, I have reason to believe, to the injury of my health of body, as well as of mind. The anxiety which it excited in me, seems however to have been misplaced; because I ought to have been desirous to know what was right to be done in the case, and how, and when, rather than to find out what could be contrived or thought of by my own skill and management. There ought to have been more of that simple reliance and dependence, that trust and confidence, which is the behavior and feeling of a babe towards its mother; how quiet, how calm it slumbers in her arms,-how safe and happy it is whilst there. My soul, take heed, lest after having experienced marvellous deliverances,-after having been, like the Israelites of old, led in the day-time" with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire,"

The crowning point in testimony to the power and sufficiency of the divine Spirit given by this ancient father in Israel, is clear and lucid, under the figure of the rising waters, connected with the measuring of the temple. Its fulness and efficacy are also established. They issued from under the threshold of the door of the house of the Lord eastward; they flowed on the different sides from within and without. "He measured and brought me through, and they rose to the ancles," and at every measurement they increased, until the spreading sheet became a river that could not be passed over; and very many trees grew and waved their branches on the sides of it. It ran by the way of the desert, refreshing the parched and dry places; the east country also was gladdened by its issuings, and on it rolled until it met the sea, and wherever it passed, life and healing went with it. The trees should be for meat, their leaf should never fade, nor the fruit be consumed; a spontaneous growth yielding continued supplies for meat and medicine, flourished beside this enduring stream of pure waters, appropriately called the "River of Life." To drink it, invigorates heart and mind, to bathe in it, strengthens the soul's energies; after having been fed as with manna in the and to suffer it to flow through the inner temple, it purifies and fits every apartment for some useful purpose. How analogous is this description to that of John the divine, given in Revelations showing the unfoldings of divine truth to be the same in all ages.

wilderness, and thy thirst quenched with water as from the rock,-take heed lest after all that has been done for thee, thou shouldst, through unwatchfulness or unbelief, in the least degree doubt the strength of that hand that upholds thee, the depth of that wisdom which is directing thee, the providence of that eye which slumbers not, the extent or continuance of that love, from which nothing but sin can disengage thee.

This brief sketch shall close with the Prophet's own illustration of the character of the king of Tyre-"Thus saith the Lord God: Thou sealest up the sum full of wisdom, and perfect Whatever is to be thy lot, whatever task is in beauty; thou hast been in Eden, the garden assigned thee in the vineyard, wherever may be of God; every precious stone was thy covering; the scene of thy earthly tarrying, whether afflicthe workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes tions surprise thee as a flood, or thy pleasures be was prepared in thee, in the day thou wast cre- as a full flowing fountain, "hope thou only in ated; thou art the anointed cherub that cover- God," for "from him cometh thy salvation." eth. I have set thee so. Thou wast upon the Neither give place to doubt or disbelief, nor to holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and very much anxiety or disturbance of mind, redown in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou specting what may befal thee: never fear,— wast perfect in thy ways, from the day thou wast there is one that provideth for the sparrows, created, till iniquity was found in thee." But O, there is one to whom every event is in subjection, solemn warning. "The multitude of thy mer--He is good: from his hand "proceedeth not chandise has filled thee with violence, and thou evil;" and he hath said, "there shall no evil hast sinned; therefore I will cast thee down as happen to the just." In the mean time, in all profane, and destroy thee; thy heart was lifted thy watchings and waitings, in all thy wants and up because of thy beauty, and thou hast cor- weariness, cease not to think of his mercies, his rupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness; goodness, his tender dealings with thee; be and I will lay thee low before kings, and they mindful of these things; hide them not, be not shall behold thee; I will bring thee like ashes ashamed of them; but show "to the generation upon the earth in the sight of all these." to come, the praises of the Lord, and his strength and his wonderful works that he hath done." Surely, my soul, if thou doest thus, if thou rememberest that God has been and will be thy rock, and thy redeemer,-if thon trustest in the Lord, and makest him thy hope,-thou shalt

Here we see the folly of priding ourselves upon possessions or accomplishments of any kind, however brilliant, or powerful; having nothing but what is received, and the source whence all these flow must be revered.