our Maker, who is merciful, will forgive the infringements on the sanctity of the sabbath, which we could not avoid without incurring the charge of singularity.'

"But your Maker expects,' I rejoined, that you should obey the simple dictates of his revealed will; and as your life is so uncertain, the only opportunity you possess for preparing for another world appears to be the present day.'

"True, 'replied my companion, but we cannot be content to sadden all our lives by the continual anticipation of an event which may happen at a very distant period.'

"Here our conversation abruptly terminated, and casting my eye upward, I beheld my native star. I gazed at it for a moment with conflicting emotions, and then inwardly rejoiced that here I have no continuing city, but I seek one to come.

"There remaineth a sabbatism for the people of God. But are sabbaths on earth welcomed and improved as prelibations and earnests of its eternal felicity?"-(The Stranger'sM.S.S.) ARCANUM.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE DONATION TO THE NATIVE FEMALE SCHOOLS IN INDIA.

Central School, Calcutta, Sept. 28, 1831. DEAR SIR.-I had the pleasure of your letter dated May 2nd, 1830, which I read at our next committee meeting, and now beg to return our united and sincere thanks to the committee of "The Youths' Magazine," for their liberal donation of £25. I have forwarded to London, by the "Nereide," a copy of our latest report, and a circular I have just prepared, for the information of our lady friends at home more especially; but I think you may like to see it, as it contains some remarks respecting some native orphan, I have with me, which are not mentioned in the report, and will spare me repeating the same subject.

In reference to some information for your juvenile readers, what shall I say? Much passes in review daily before ourselves, calculated to convince us that our labor is not in vain, but we have no conversions of which to speak at present. The work of the Lord in this Heathen land is progressing, however, slowly, and it is the Lord's work, and therefore must and will prosper. I will just mention one little anecdote, which may at least be pleasing to little children.

Last year having occasion to visit the Upper Provinces, and expecting to be on the Ganges six or seven weeks, I took a native catechist to address the heathen and circulate tracts, having four other native Christians on-board. I entreated them, on leaving home, to bear in mind their high responsibilities to their Lord and Saviour, and to allow no one day to pass without pointing some heathen sinner to the only Refuge.

The youngest of our party was one of my little orphans, named Anna, about nine years of age, and her first public effort was as follows: Our boat having pulled up for breakfast, Anna was, seated outside, when a tall middle aged brahmin came down to the river with some small flowers in his hand, which he began to arrange. The following dialogue ensued:

Anna.-Brahmin, why do you do that?
Brahmin.—I am worshipping God.

Anna. O then you don't do it right! You should pray to Him.
Brahmin-Child, I am praying to Him.

Anna.-If you pray to God for his Holy Spirit, then you will be a Christian.

Brahmin.—I am a holy person, and this is God's command. Anna.-Brahmin, you make a mistake: God gave ten holy commands; that which you are doing is not one of them.

The Brahmin then rose, smiled upon her, and left the spot, This was told to me a few days after by one of the other Christians, who heard, but did not interfere in, the above dialogue.— Indeed, this little girl was very useful to us the whole way. Frequently as we walked along the bank to give tracts, the people I would not take the books from our hands, and the women and girls would all run away, being afraid of us; but Anna was allowed to get in the midst of them. Upon these occasions it was deeply interesting to see this little creature standing tip-toe to assist the men in reading the tracts; (of course we met no women who could read, and very few men in the villages.) When the people were unwilling to take the books from her, she would look affectionately upon them, adding, "Take it, brother, take it. It is God's word. It will tell you about Jesus Christ.-What! brother, refuse God's word." This is a hurried but faithful statement, which you can use or reject of course. M. A. WILSON.

ILLUSTRATION OF SCRIPTURE.

ON THE BARREN FIG TREE, MARK XI. 12-14 and 20-21. THE Palestine fig-tree, according to Dr. Hales, regularly bears two crops a year, and occasionally a third; the boccore, or early fig (noticed by Isaiah xxviii. 4.) which comes to perfection in the middle or end of June; then the kermez, or summer fig, begins to be formed, though it rarely ripens before August. About the beginning of autumn the same tree not seldom throws out a third crop, of a longer shape, and darker complexion, than the kermez, called the winter fig, which hangs upon the tree after the leaves are shed, and ripens, provided the winter proves mild; and is gathered as a delicious morsel in spring. Jesus being hungry, and seeing leaves on the tree, which shewed that it was alive, though it was not a regular fig season either for early or for summer figs, yet went to it in a reasonable expectation of finding, perhaps, some winter fruit thereon; but when he came he was disappointed, for he found nothing on it but leaves, whereupon he doomed it to perpetual barrenness, in the hearing of his disciples. This curse instantly took place; for when they passed by again the next morning, they saw the fig-tree not only stript of its leaves, but withered from the roots.-Townsend on the New Testament. CRITO.

REMARKS ON THE REFERENCE OF "M.M.S." TO THE SABBATH, Page 120.

In these days of rebuke and blasphemy, when irreligion and profaneness lift their heads on high, and the contempt or neglect of the sabbath and its sacred obligations is become a crying public evil, and almost a national sin, I was grieved at reading in your number for April, a statement respecting the nature and obligations of the Lord's day, which is calculated to do much harm. The statement is made in an article called a Sunday at Boulogne, and signed "M. M. S." and the natural effect of it must be, to lead the young and inexperienced to imagine that the Lord's day is not the Sabbath day, and that the obligations to keep it holy depend not upon any divine, but mere human authority, and from the generally well-written

and interesting nature of the article, it becomes more necessary to animadvert upon such opinions, and I trust to your candour to insert these remarks in your widely-circulated Magazine, that the antidote may every where accompany the poison.

The writer says, "The Sabbath, it seems, experienced its first completion by the rest of the Saviour in the grave, and was then, in fact, done away with as incumbent on the church." Now, supposing for a moment that the Sabbath was a 66 type which received its first completion in the rest of our Saviour in the grave," it is a strange mode of reasoning to say, that the fulfilment of a type does away with a positive command. To prove this, it ought to be shewn that the Scriptures assert the Sabbath to be such a type, and designed to last only till its first completion. But the Scriptures assert no such thing: the command, to keep holy the Sabbath, is enforced by a very different reason; it was to be kept holy, in memory of a past event, not in expectation of one to come. "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, because God rested on the Sabbath day, from all his works, and hallowed and blessed it." Where is there any reference to a type, or to the limited duration of the command ?-in all this none whatever. The whole is mere gratuitous assertion, and may safely be dismissed from the argument. The apostle indeed, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, does intimate that the Sabbath is a type-but a type of what?-Why of something yet to come-of that "rest which remaineth for the people of God;" and, therefore, on the principle of M. M. S., Christians are bound to keep the Sabbath holy now, and will be so bound, till it is "fulfilled in the kingdom of God." Whatever relation then may be supposed to exist, or really does exist, between the Sabbath and the resurrection of Christ, the natural inference from that connexion is, not that "the Sabbath is done away with as incumbent upon the church," but that the Lord's day, as a matter of course, takes place of the day on which the Jewish Sabbath was kept; and the people of Christ, in observing the Lord's day as their Sabbath, keep the fourth commandment "not according to the letter which killeth, but according to the spirit which giveth life." So the great Dr. Owen concludes from Heb. iv. and argues that a new day of rest, accommodated to the new

church state, arises from the rest which the Lord Christ entered into upon his ceasing from his works." The patriarchs kept a Sabbath as a memorial of God's resting from the work of creation; the Jews kept a Sabbath in memory of that and also of their own resting from Egyptian bondage; and as learned men have shewn, and there is every reason to believe, their Sabbath was observed on a different day from that of the patriarchal Sabbath the day being changed like the beginning of the year, on their coming out of Egypt, and Christians must observe their Sabbath, in memory of the finished work both of creation and redemption, and in anticipation of that eternal Sabbath for which the church of God is still waiting. The simple state of the case is this.-The fourth commandment, according to the spirit (and indeed according to the letter also) requires us to keep holy a seventh day, after six days' of labor, as the Sabbath of the Lord our God." The first day of the Jewish week, is the seventh day, which was observed as a Sabbath by the apostles, and by the Christian church from the very time of Christ's resurrection to the present day;-this Scripture and history prove; and thus the observance of the Lord's day, as the Christian Sabbath, rests upon the authority not of man, but of him who is the Lord of the Sabbath. With these reasons, which are founded upon much more plain and positive testimonies of Scripture than any notions of the typical nature of the Sabbath, the humble disciple of Christ, who desires to do his will however made known, will be abundantly satisfied, and instead of perplexing himself or others with nice and curious disquisitions which are vain and unprofitable,' will seek a blessing in the conscientious and devout observance of the Lord's day, in dependance upon the divine promises, and as all experience testifies, will assuredly find it. But "The Lord's day," says the writer, "is by no means the same as the Jewish Sabbath, and its real duties cannot be enforced like the Jewish Sabbath. It is to be observed by the unbeliever because it is the law of the land, and a privilege." Now, who ever said or thought that the Lord's day was the same as the Jewish Sabbath, or that its duties were to be enforced like those of the Jewish Sabbath? But, if by this it is meant to be insinuated that the fourth commandment is not binding upon Christians, and that the duties