ness, your strength, your hope, your eternal all. May the Holy Spirit sanctify you, and abide in you while you live, and not leave you in death. O my father, may the one thing needful be supreme in your mind. Strive to make your calling and election sure. All things are ready, come unto the marriage. Accept salvation as a free gift; for you have nothing to pay. Christ has dearly purchased it with his own blood, and his atonement is sufficient. O my father, can you not trust in Jesus as the surety? Can you not confide in that God in whom you live, and move, and have your being? May you find comfort in God. May Christ be formed in you the hope of glory. May you find a peaceful death-a happy deliverance from sin-a joyful entrance into the holy city, through the merits of Christ-there may I meet you, my dearly beloved earthly parent.

Adieu for time

J. C.

To my Brother: My dear brother, while I now write, you are in a distant land. While you read, remember that the hand which wrote this is cold and stiff in death, and the soul which indited it is in eternity. Mourn not for your sister, she is gone to a just God. Mourn that you are so little conformed to God. Strive against sin-depending on the strength of Christ, until you gain a complete victory. You have professed love to Christ-honour his religion, daily visit him in your closet, and keep yourself unspotted from the world. Live near to God. Examine your heart by his word-pray for the Holy Spirit. Overcome pride: humility is a shining grace: it well becomes such poor depraved creatures as we are. Watch over your heart; for it is a deceitful thing, and will betray you, before you are aware. Be afraid of offending God; for, is it not more dreadful to offend God than to be lost forever? Love the glorious cause, and let it be your study, to be instrumental in building up the peaceable kingdom of the Redeemer on earth. Set your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth. Consider that all you possess is the Lord's, and you must give an account

how you use it. Pity the poor and afflicted. Pray without ceasing. Seek for godly repentance. Work faithfully in the Lord's vineyard; but depend not on your works, for the blood of Christ alone can cleanse you. Through his merits, I hope to meet you in the holy city, and ascribe all honour to the sacred one in three, forever and ever, Amen. Farewell till we meet in eternity. J. C. To my Sisters:

My dear sisters, perhaps I shall not be able to speak to you in my dying moments, and I therefore write a few words for you to read when my body is cold in death. When you come around this body and behold it lifeless, stiff, and cold with death, think of the evil of sin. Think of your own mortality, and prepare to follow me. Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. O may you feel the great importance of spending your precious time in preparing for eternity. O eternity! your sister now knows something about it; soon you will will know something about it too. O let not the world take your minds off from eternity, and cheat your souls to everlasting death.-When you visit my grave, may you learn a lesson of wisdom, and return with solemn and profitable reflections on the wages of sin and death. From gazing on my grave, turn your eyes round the yard, and see what sin has done. Where are the souls that once inhabited these mouldering bodies? Some, it is likely, are weeping and wailing in eternal torments; others are clothed in eternal beauty, perfect in holiness and happiness. O my sisters, do not be stupid about these most important concerns. Give your earnest attention to the welfare of the soul, and the glory of God. Do not forget what Jesus has done for the redemption of the soul. Do not rest on any thing short of the blood of Christ, for salvation. You know that the scriptures say, there is no other name given whereby we can be saved. You know that in ourselves we are undone by sin. The holy word of God tells you where the remedy is-Repent, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. J. C.

"with fear pulling them out of the fire;" of others he could have compassion making a difference." And when a case of incorrigible perverseness, accompanied with daring effrontery occurred, and it became necessary for him to rive the flinty rock, he could rebuke with severity.

But not withstanding the occasional variety in his language and mode of address, which his great object demanded, yet there are some circumstances, which would obviously tend to give his discourses a considerable degree of uniformity; i. e. would make them uniformly Didactic.

It will be recollected that St. Paul was a Missionary. His appropriate business was to plant the gospel. He had to take his hearers "de novo," to commence with first principles, and could scarcely stay longer in a place than to instruct his flock in the rudiments of Christianity.

The Jews, his brethren, were not to be charmed into Christianity by the graces of elocution: If he would persuade them to be Christians, he must go to the law and and the testimony." He must understand and practice the laws of sacred interpretation. He must reason with them out of their own scriptures, "proving and alleging that Jesus is the Christ."

To the Gentiles certainly, the whole system was new. He carried "new doctrines and strange things to their ears ;" and here the only thing that could avail, were facts and plain obvious first principles.

The epistles of St. Paul too, though written to Christians, were written mostly to those who were but partially instructed in the fundamental doctrines-to those who "needed that some one should teach them again, which are the first principles of the oracles of God." Of course we cannot expect consistently with the great object the apostle had in view; the

higher strains of impassioned eloquence. He could not speak in enticing words of man's wisdom, nor like the celebrated orators of Greece and Rome, make his fervent appeal merely to the natural sympathies and passions of the heart.

2. The apostle's object made his discourses practical. It has been justly remarked, that the preaching of St. Paul, more than that of any other apostle, was doctrinal. His great learning-his profound and discriminating intellect-as well as his inspired wisdom, qualified him for this. But there is one circumstance which ought never to be overlooked. St. Paul's learned, critical, doctrinal discourses, are PRACTICAL. He never pushes his researches beyond the point of practice. He never loses the Christian in the philosopher. He studied only that he might render himself approved as a workman. He entered the field of human science, only that he might discover what he might bring to the confirmation of practical truth. He explored the deep things of divine revelation, only that he might find arguments to enforce duty, or considerations to inspire devotion:

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Thus if he alludes to the Olympic games, in which they that run in a race, run all, but one receiveth the prize;" his object is to induce his brethren to run with more alacrity the christian race. If he alludes to the soldier's panoply, and the soldier's conflict-his object is to induce Christians to "put on the whole armour of God; and fight, not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places." If he unfolds the sublime doctrine of the resurrection, his object is not to amuse the curious, by ingenious speculation, but to disarm the last enemy of his sting, to enable the dying Christian to exclaim in the agonies of dissolving nature, "O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory!" That he might say to his beloved brethren,

"Therefore be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, in as much as ye know that your labour is not vain in the Lord."

If at any time he is led into the mysterious depths of Divine Sovreignity, his object'is not to show the acuteness of his penetration,—not to establish some abstract principle, to make out an article of his creed, or prove a favourite point in his system of divinity. But he is labouring with a view to a case in hand. Here are Jews and Gentiles before him. The providences of God toward both, have been dark and mysterious. His object is to investigate the subject, in order to vindicate the goodness and justice of God in the calling of the one, and the rejection of the other; and as if conscious that the subject was too deep for the human intellect, he emerges from the abyss with the exclamation, "Oh the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"

3. The apostle's object made his eloquence persuasive. It would have this effect in two ways-indirectly by its influence on himself, and directly, by its own weight and solemnity on the minds of his hearers.

First; It had an influence on himself. It summoned and concentrated all the energies of his intellect, gave weight and stability to his judgment, interest to his countenance, earnestness to his gestures, and deep feeling to his utterance; imparting to his whole demeanor, an indescribable significancy. Every look, every gesture, would be as another tongue speaking things unutterable.

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Secondly It would have a direct influence on the minds of others. The end for which he spoke, as we have seen, was not to amuse but to save his hearers. The object which actuated the apostle in bring

ing forward all the great truths and doctrines of revelation, rendered them doubly solemn and affecting. The doctrine of human depravity, for instance, when presented not with a view to make out a system of divinity; but for the clear purpose of making men feel their depravity, and thus to lead them to the Saviour would come home with dreadful interest. They would not probably retire extolling the preacher, or congratulating themselves on account of their orthodoxy; but condemning themselves on account of their sins. Such was the devotion of the apostle to his object, that it could not be concealed. He compels you to look to the end he is pursuing, and not at him. This rises and is magnified, till it fills the mental vission, and you know not, and care not, by whose instrumentality the image is presented. It seems not to be St. Paul, but the Judgment which makes Felix tremble. Not St. Paul, but his reasoning, which almost persuades King Agrippa. Not St. Paul, but the truth he declared, which made the Jews" cry ont, and cast off their clothes, and throw dust into the air."

It is true that the highest effect of eloquence is not to be attained by a single trait or characteristic of the speaker; but there is, to say the least, something noble, something truly affecting, to see a great man willing to forget himself;-who in his concern for others, is willing "to impart to them, not the gospel of God only; but his own life also;" -who compels you by his own example to overlook the littleness of private interests, and fix your admiring eyes on scenes momentous as the judgment, and solemn as eternity.

Such is a concise view of the eloquence of St. Paul. If the principles which we have laid down and endeavoured to illustrate are correct, we have the foundation for several interesting remarks.

First. We see the reason why so many attend more to the preacher, than to the truths he delivers. Louis XIV. once said to Massillon, "When I hear other preachers, Í usually go home praising them, but when I hear you, I go home condemning myself." It is a lamentable fact, that the preaching of the gospel, which was ordained of God as the instrument of snatching immortal souls from perdition, should be converted into the mere instrument of charming their fancies. O, it is dreadful, to see an assembly of candidates for eternity, sitting for an hour to speculate on the preacher !

to watch his motions, to be delighted only with the melody of his voice, the smoothness and grandeur of his periods, and the sprightly images of his fancy!-and then carelessly retiring from the house of worship, remembering only what they never should have noticed, and praising what perhaps ought rather to be condemned,-the manner of the preacher! But so it is. Nor must the fault be attributed to the people alone. Shall not the hearers attend to what the preacher does? If his object be to please by his gestures, his language, or his wit; shall they not be pleased with his language or his wit? How can he expect that his hearers will be solemn when he trifles? How can he expect that even the truth will go to their hearts when it does not come from his own?

When a minister sees in his audience an air of levity or indifference, here an idle gaze, and there a wanton smile-he ought to pause and ask himself-am I preaching in God's stead to this assembly? Do I feel for their welfare? Am I preaching for Christ? He ought to consider, whether he and his people are not too justly described in the language of God to his prophet; "They come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words,