SACRED POETRY. THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT. O SACRED star of evening, tell In what unseen, celestial sphere, Too pure to rest in sadness here. O'er paths by holy angels trod, reading, yet, as the tract was brief, he was induced to Through heaven's high dome the song to raise, I was obliged to chain him to the bench by the week When seraphs strike the golden lyre In everduring notes of praise? The bright wave of eternity! 'THE VOICE of Love. BY THE REV. JOHN LONGMUIR, A. M. Look unto thee! Can pomp and pride Aught more attractive shew, To cleanse and pardon flow? For those that love thee now. I look for strength to stand his wiles, Unmov'd as Zion hill. Look unto thee! Amid the wrath Of wind and stormy wave, And, cloth'd in righteousness thro' faith, MISCELLANEOUS. An American Apprentice.-At a meeting of the Religious Tract Society, in America, the Reverend G. F. Davis stated the following facts:-In the town of South Reading, Mass, where I laboured more than eleven pleasant years, is an extensive manufactory of tin-ware. Among the numerous apprentices was a young man, who had become very unruly and vicious. On the day of the annual fast, in 1825, a daughter of his master, a little girl of ten or twelve years of herself unconverted, age, put into his hand a tract. He was by no means fond of together, to keep him at work. He was the worst boy I had in the whole establishment. No punishment seemed to have any salutary influence upon him. I could not trust him out of my sight. But now, Sir, he is completely changed; he has really become a lamb. He is one of my best apprentices. I would trust him with untold gold. I have no objection to his being received into communion. I wish all my boys were prepared to go with him." At the time of his reception, I preached from the words of Paul to Philemon, respect. ing the runaway Onesimus, Which aforetime was unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and me ;" and the text was considered by the master and myself as peculiarly applicable to the case. Archbishop Tillotson.-There are some children who are almost ashamed to own their parents, because they are poor, or in a low situation of life. We will, therefore, give an example of the contrary, as displayed by the Dean of Canterbury, afterwards Archbishop Tillotson. His father, who was a very plain Yorkshireman, per haps something like those we now call " Friends," ap proached the house where his son resided, and inquired whether "John Tillotson was at home." The servant, indignant at what he thought his insolence, drove him from the door: but the dean, who was within, hearing the voice of his father, instead of embracing the oppor tunity afforded him, of going out and bringing in his father in a more private manner, came running out, exclaiming, in the presence of his astonished servants, “It is my beloved father;" and falling down on his knees, asked for his blessing. Obedience and love to our parents is a very distinct and important command of God, upon which he has promised his blessing, and his promises never fail. The calm retrospect of the Past. That great and farfamed scholar, Grotius, on his death-bed, spoke thus: "Ah! I have consumed my life in a laborious doing of nothing! I would give all my learning and honour, for the plain integrity of John Urick!" This John Urick, was a religious poor man, who spent eight hours of the day in reading and prayer, eight in labour, and only eight in sleep and meals. 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Subscription (payable in advance) per quarter, of twelve weeks, 1s. 6d.-per half-year, of twenty-four weeks, 38.-per year, of fortyeight weeks, 6s.-Monthly Parts, containing four Numbers eac stitched in a printed wrapper, price Sixpence. type Plates of Thomas Allan & Co. THE SCOTTISH CHRISTIAN HERALD, CONDUCTED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF MINISTERS AND MEMBERS OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 66 THE FEAR OF THE LORD, THAT IS WISDOM." VOL. I. No. 29. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1836. PRICE 14d. THE TRANSFORMING INFLUENCE OF BY THE REV. JAMES RANKEN, Ir is a great and ruinous error which possesses many minds, that true religion can consist with an unregenerate nature. Men call themselves Christians, assume the outward garb of piety, and seem to feel satisfied with their profession and their practice, and yet, all the while, exhibit no certain and decisive manifestation that they are really Christ's, nay, even indicate by their temper and deportment that they are none of his. How very much opposed is this to what the Saviour describes by a homely but most appropriate figure,— that like unto the operation of leaven hid in meal, so is the operation of the truth in man! And what is the operation of the leaven? Does it take away any of the essential properties of the substance with which it is mingled? Or does it at all destroy the original and legitimate use of these? No. But by diffusing itself, it so acts upon the meal, as to transform it, as it were, into its own likeness. So is it with the word of the Gospel, wherever it comes with demonstration of the spirit and divine power. The soul, which was full of the old leaven of malice and wickedness, is emptied of this evil influence, and filled with the new leaven of sincerity and truth. The essential attributes of that soul are nowise changed. It has the same powers of understanding, will, and affection, that it had before. But though its fundamental properties remain unaltered, it now differs from what it was, in this respect, that its thoughts, feelings and desires, are moved and regulated by a new impulse, marked by a new character, or directed towards a new end. The fact of the matter is, that when the Word of the Lord reaches the heart, it brings every high thought and every vain imagination into captivity to Christ. Doubtless, it finds much to contend with in the souls of sinners. For very dark, and exceedingly perverse are these souls. And they hate the light, and they love the darkness, and they roll iniquity like a sweet morsel under their tongue. But "the word of the Lord is mighty and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the divid ing asunder of joints and marrow, and proving a quick discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Hence, it obtains the victory over the opposing prejudices, and the corrupt propensities of man. It comes, in all the resistless omnipotence of heavenly truth, to level the bulwarks, to arrest the violence, and to overturn to the very foundation the seat or the sovereignty of sin. And how blessed and glorious are the results which the Gospel brings to pass! Not only is the soul in which it is experimentally felt, checked in the career of guilt, convinced of its wickedness, and led to the fountain which is opened for all manner of sin and of uncleanness, but even more than this, it is made a new creature. On the page of God's Word, the holy image of Christ is described, and his followers are admonished to be of the same mind as was manifested by their Lord, and to be ever walking even as he walked. Now, it is when this comes home with divine power to the heart, that all old things pass away, and that all things become new. The leaven of grace is then at work, the process of regeneration is going forward, the dispositions, habits and actions, are transformed from what they were,-and he who, but lately, bore the image of the earthly Adam, now bears the image of the heavenly, the Lord Jesus Christ. Such, then, is the necessary and certain consequence of the reception of the Gospel. Indeed, so very necessary and certain is this consequence, that it is the test and mark of real Christianity. Where the kingdom of heaven has come, in other words, where the truth as it is in Jesus has been heard and believed, there, of necessity, Christ is formed in the soul, the hope of glory,—that soul is made the partaker of a divine nature,—it manifests its new birth, by living no longer unto itself, but unto the Lord, and it is ever advancing in nearness of intimacy and assimilation of nature unto him, who quickened and made it alive amid a death in trespasses and sins. The dissemination of the Gospel leaven, is the mean which the Saviour employs to form a peculiar people to himself. By this instrumentality, he has gathered, and is even now gathering from the ends of the earth, a large and a wide-spread Church. True, there exists among his followers a diversity of sentiment respecting some specula tive points of faith, and also as to the ordering and the government of the spiritual household. And these differences have been so magnified and made important, through the remaining weakness and imperfection of the saints, that the Christian world has been divided and subdivided into many sects and parties. Yet, as the truth as it is in Christ is one, so all, of every name, and in every place, who have received that truth, are one likewise. That is to say, they are all members of one spiritual body, they are all bearing one divine likeness, and their hearts and their hopes are all fixed on one heavenly home. The leaven of the one and the same Gospel is pervading and hallowing each and all of their souls. And though the little differences which have arisen here may, to a certain extent, mar the entire cordiality which should subsist between the disciples of one Lord, and prevent them from outwardly uniting to celebrate their common God and Saviour's praise, still the unity of the faith is nevertheless maintained; for the prayers of many thousands of worshippers are ascending to the mercy-seat, through the one Spirit, and in the name of the one Mediator; and their eternal confidence is placed on "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world ;" and their desire, and their aim, and their endeavour, all are, to love, and to be like, and to be with the Lord. -a breaking off from the grosser indulgences— an observance of what is decorous—and a having a name to live, but it is also a laying aside of all known and allowed sin-a mortifying of the flesh, with all its evil lusts and propensities-a renounc ing of the devil and all his works—and a striving after the knowledge, the love, the likeness, and the enjoyment of the Lord. The thoughts, words and actions, are very different from what they were. They are now characterised by purity and peace, by charity and faith; and the reason is, that the whole man has been renewed. The light of life has illumined the natural darkness of the soul-the springs of thought, will, and affection, have been cleansed and purified at the fountainhead-their once polluted streams have been copiously replenished from the pure river of Godand therefore they now flow on in holy harmony with his blessed will. Such is the wide extent of the Gospel reign. It reaches every intellectual faculty and every moral power of man. Nor does it halt in its regenerating course, till it has remodelled the constitution of his ruined nature, and reimpressed it with the glories of Jehovah's image. Now, if such is the universality of Gospel influence, when brought to bear upon individual man, how mighty and extensive must that influence be when applied to the species at large! In the beIt is, indeed, very wonderful to think, that that ginning, the Gospel day was, indeed, one of small Gospel which is so discordant with the worldly things. Few, comparatively, were given to benotions of men, so opposed to their corrupt lusts lieve. The leaven of truth had then only comand passions, and so decided in condemning their menced to operate; but soon its mighty agency guilt, should yet be able to reach their hearts, to was seen extending over an ampler sphere. In subdue, to soften, and to reclaim them. And yet spite of all the opposing efforts of ignorance, it is a fact, that multitudes, whose spiritual state superstition, and vice, the Word of the Lord ran was apparently hopeless, have been convinced, and prospered. Multitudes were daily added to converted, and saved. And has not this even been the Church of such as should be saved; and the accomplished, after every lesson of morality, every company of believers were all of one mind and dictate of prudence, and every affectionate remon- one spirit. The love of Christ was the indissostrance had been repeated, and re-repeated, but luble bond of their union; and so conformed were all in vain? And has not this been brought about they unto him, and so knit together in holy afby that simple truth which maketh wise unto sal- fection, as to elicit this approving testimony even vation? But how that truth operated, when every from their very persecutors,-" Behold how these other means of reformation failed, is, and must Christians love one another!" That same Gospel remain, a mighty mystery. The most learned which was the instrument of achieving so much among men have been unable to explain how the good in bygone days, has been operating in like natural leaven insinuates itself throughout, and manner ever since. Doubtless, its light has often produces such a transforming effect on a material been in a measure obscured, its progress retarded, substance. And, if that which is corporeal ex- and its success diminished, through the artifices, ceeds the range of human knowledge, how much the errors, and the wickedness, of unbelieving and more that which is spiritual! Still this does not ungodly men. But still it holds on its glorious in any wise disprove the reality of the transform-course-quickening the desires-spiritualizing the ing influence of the Gospel; for the strongest and the most incontrovertible evidence of this fact is presented on either hand, in the faith, and the hope, and the charity, now manifest in the life of those who formerly had their conversation according to the flesh, and walked after the course of this present evil world. The universality of the work which the Gospel accomplishes, is one of the most important features of that saving operation. When the truth takes effect upon the human soul, it is not then a mere outward and partial reformation which takes place affections-irradiating with the light of heaven the faculties of the soul-and, step by step, conducting the creature to the restoration of the Creator's image, and finally, to that state of meetness, whereby he can look on God's face and live. And thus will it continue to proceed, until the sav ing knowledge of Christ has gone forth to gladden and to bless every kindred and tribe and people. Then shall the leaven of the Gospel be found to have leavened the whole mass of mankind-its transforming influence shall be apparent in the glorious change which shall have taken place in the aspect, not of a limited district or society of men, but of the human family at large. "The wilderness and solitary place shall then be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." Thus it is that the truth as it is in Jesus operates, to the regeneration both of individuals and society in general, shewing itself to be a powerful instrument in the hand of God for the furtherance of that happy period when the cry shall be raised, that "the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ." DEATH-BED SCENES. No. IV. "The Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save." THE business of the day was closed, and that most comfortable of all domestic sounds the music of lock and bar moving in the outer doors-had given intimation that, for what remained of the night, there was to be no more going out or coming in, and that an hour of quiet meditation might now be securely enjoyed. There are times when the truths you have been studying every day, and, to a certain extent, appreciating, break in upon the mind with as much freshness as if it had never greater freedom afterwards, I simply put one or two general questions, especially as her mother, (who had and the female who had cailed me, were present, the come from some distance in the country to attend her,) false kindness of friends being often a great hinderance in such cases. 1 spoke of the sin and ruin into which we had fallen, and of the redemption provided in Christ, and then engaged in prayer. As soon as this exercise was concluded, the sufferer said in a firm tone, and with a stronger voice than she could have been expected to command, to her mother and the other female, “I desire that you two will leave the room, both of you, for I wish to speak with the minister alone." She then told me that she had, for some weeks, been in great distress about the salvation of her soul, and could find no relief, but rather grew worse.' Her trouble of mind was aggravated by the circumstance that as often as she endeavoured to pray, her heart was filled with blasphemous suggestions, so that she was compelled to give up the attempt as vain. Wishing to know something of her previous history, I inquired if her husband was alive? She replied in the words of the woman of Samaria, "I have no husband;" and then, of her own accord, proceeded to give the following account of her self: She had been born of parents in humble circumstances, but being an only child had received a good education. At the age of fifteen she had gone to serbeen in contact with them before, and you kindle with vice, and during the twelve succeeding years of her life had been servant in various respectable families. surprise and self-reproach for having carried about with One of these was of the number of "the families that you "pearls of great price," without knowing their call on the name of the Lord," and was distinguished value. This was just such a season, and the thoughts not merely by the form of godliness, but by the fear that engaged me were these:Is it true, then, that of God. Her mistress instructed her with much care there is a redemption for sinners that the blood of and regularity in the doctrines and duties of religion, Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin-that eternal life is in reserve for us wretched worms of the dust? And especially in preparation for the Sacrament of the Sup per, of which she then partook. At this period of her how have we been making so little of truths so great life she took delight both in public and private exer-how have we been so sickly and spiritless in ourcises of devotion, and could not have been happy under selves so cold, and remiss, and sluggish in conveying any omission of secret prayer or reading of the Word. to perishing souls the tidings of grace abounding to the She found pleasure in the perusal of works on religichief of sinners? While I was occupied with this train ous subjects, of which she possessed not a few of her of reflection, the street-bell rung-an interruption the own. On this portion of her history she dwelt with more annoying, that it was unexpected. I was informed sweet, yet sad remembrance. Subsequently she had that a woman desired to see me, and recognised the wellserved in other families, in some of which, to the detriknown face of a residenter in the district of which I ment of her spiritual welfare, she saw little or nothing had charge, who was in the habit of letting lodgings to of the fear of God. But this temptation she easily the working class of people. She apologised for calling so late, by saying that the case was urgent. A female withstood, when compared with the trial to which she was afterwards subjected, to live in a house where there who was living in her house, had been delivered of a was the form of godliness apart from its substance. child eight days before, and had made a bad recovery To what she learned here she ascribed the commencefrom the first, but was now much worse, and dangerment of her spiritual declension. The outward form of ously ill. The patient had just called her to her bedside, and said, "I have one request to make of you it religion was carried so far as to the maintenance of family worship, but the cnaracter of the family was is the last I shall ever make, for my time is short-pro-worldly in their whole walk and conversation. Even mise not to refuse me." "I will not refuse you." "I am afraid to be left alone, and have to beg that you will not leave this bed-side to-night, but go now and bring a minister or elder to pray for me-run, and lose no time." She had accordingly come to ask me to visit the dying woman; the request was too important not to be gladly complied with, and I went immediately with her.* I found a female who seemed to be about thirty years of age, (her age was twenty-seven,) and apparently in a very weak state, but with an air of cleanliness and neatness about her person which I had scarcely expected to see. Supposing that she might open her mind with This is one instance, out of many that might be adduced, to lustrate the benefit of every workman in the great vineyard having a particular district for the sphere of his Labours, the inhabilants of which shall account that they have a claim on his services, Com their mere residence within the assigned locality. The sufferwas unconnected with any Church, and the mistress of the house had then no connection with my own Congregation, yet she never hesitated to come, even at a late hour, and ask the service she desired. If such habits were once restored, chuch-going habits would speedily follow, Secret on the Sabbath afternoon, when they had returned from led, and thoughtlessness with her soon resulted in flagrant sin, which, when it could no longer be concealed, compelled her to resign her situation. Feelings of shame prevented her from accepting the invitation to return home, which her parents then made, and she hired the room in which she now was, supporting herself in the meantime on the earnings of her previous industry, and intending afterwards to hire herself out as a nurse. The same keen sense of shame must have prevented her from meeting me sooner, for she had now lived several months in the house, during which time I had visited the family, and remember to have expressly inquired if there were no others under the roof who could join in our exercises. While burdened with a sense of her own guilt, she appeared still to have felt her superiority to most of those who were now around her, and expressed strong disgust at the profanity and dissipation she had often been compelled to witness in those who lodged in the same house. This was quite accordant with the testimony of the neighbours, who described her as remarkably modest and reserved. And if she blushed in the presence of man, she also blushed and was ashamed to lift up her face to heaven, for she had "forsaken the guide of her youth, and forgotten the covenant of her God." She was afraid to open the Bible, and never attempted to worship either in public or in private. But although she was unhappy she was not anxious, and had very much given up all concern for her soul. In this state of cheerless heathenism, she continued without any attempt to flee from coming wrath till the period of her confinement, from the commencement of which she had become sorely alarmed at the thought of approaching judgment. And now her case was more distressing than ever, for there was not merely danger of her being cut off, but little hope of her recovery. She was learning too late the bitter truth that "the wages of sin is death;" for the death she saw before her was the direct consequence of her own guilt. She found herself stretched on a bed from which she was never to arise, with the awful consciousness that she "had destroyed herself," and was but "reaping the fruit of her own devices." Under these circumstances it was but too easy to believe the sincerity of her declaration, to which her look and voice added painful emphasis, when she exclaimed, " nobody can tell the misery I am in." When this poor unfortunate woman sent for a minister or elder, she had probably no very definite idea of what she wanted. Fler misery was extreme, and she desired relief, but without any clear conception of what nature the relief should be, or by what means it could be administered. Two things, however, she appeared to have mainly in view; first, that as she could not pray for herself, some other might pray for her—this had been done; and, secondly, that she might be directed to some means of regaining her former peace of mind—this was a harder task. From her own description of her state while under serious impressions, in which there was nothing that decidedly marked such conviction of sin and such discernment of Christ as are taught by the Holy Spirit, connected with her subsequent fall, which, however, sad as it was, could not of itself disprove her interest in the covenant of grace; from these two considerations taken in connexion, I came to the conclusion, that the religious pleasure she had once enjoyed was, in all probability, nothing more than the self-approbation which the natural mind often enjoys in the sense of discharging its duty, and especially when its peace has never been disturbed by any open breach of the divine law. To bring back the mind into this state of self-approval after the conscience has been deeply defiled, were no easy task, and would at least demand a long perseverance in the path of duty; so to restore it within a few days of death, was probably beyond the limits of vossibility. But if this end was unattainable, it was likewise undesirable; it would have but been saying peace, when there was no peace I told her, that if I rightly understood her case, I could point to no way by which her former happiness might be regained; that I feared she had been resting not on Christ and his finished work, but on her own duties, and making them her Saviour; and that the house she had built had fallen, because it had not been founded on the Rock; that I was therefore glad that she had been taught her inability to pray, because, had she been able to resume just such habit of prayer as she had once known, it might have prolonged her self-deception; but that while that old peace was marred for ever, there was held out to her "a peace that passeth understanding" in the blood of Jesus; that in the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness, she might wash that night and be clean; and that, if she were content, as a guilty and helpless sinner, to rest on Christ as her only Saviour, she would even yet have "a conscience void of offence," and her "sins, which were as scarlet, should be white as snow." I suggested further, that the sin which had been so heinous in itself, and had seemed so ruinous in its result, might have graciously been permitted for the very purpose of uprooting a self-righteous confidence which must have ended in death. As this view of her case was evidently new-not that the statement of the doctrine was strange to her, for with it she was quite familiar, but that she had never made the same application of it to herself-I therefore left it to work its own way; desirous only that she should understand what was meant, but not expecting her instantaneous assent. To yield assent at all must, indeed, in her situation, have been peculiarly trying; for if it is always painful for the sinner, before he has learned to rest on the righteousness of another, to have his own righteousness broken from under him, it must be doubly so when death is near, and when, just in proportion as there is little time to work good in the future, the mind clings, with trembling tenacity, to whatever fancied good hath been wrought in the past. In reviewing her life, she saw that "the earth which had drunk in the rain of heaven," had been "bearing briars and thorns, whose end is to be burned;" but while she could, therefore, look only for fiery indignation, there was one little field that had yielded a harvest of wheat in the midst of surrounding deserts, and on that spot her eye was ever resting, and finding something to soothe in her dark sea of troubles; and needful as it was, one almost felt it cruel to take the torch and set that field on fire, and leave one barren waste. The poor distracted sufferer had asked for peace, and this was bringing a sword; rob bing her of the only semblance of peace that remained, though not without pointing her to a better peace. left her without asking or wishing her to express any opinion on what she had heard; but she had listened throughout with the most eager and intelligent atten tion, (so as to induce me to speak longer than her strength was perhaps well able to bear,) and begged me to return on the following day. I Next morning I found her apparently better in bodily health, but in the same disquieted state of mind. I read the 51st Psalm slowly, which she heard with an interest that made every word seem weightier and more precious than it had ever appeared before. In explan ation, I pressed the necessity of her seeing that she ha sinned against God, and that the most aggravated transgression of the life was but the overflowing of the foun tain of sin in the heart, (ver. 4, 5.) I stated, that her guilt was so great, that it would be righteous in God to pronounce against her sentence of eternal condemnation, ("thou art clear when thou judgest;") yet that, in consequence of the death of Christ, it was equally righteous in him to save her, ("deliver we from blood-guiltiness, and my tongue shall sing alvad |