for time and eternity depends! Oh, if Satan, (the great enemy of your souls) hath moved you, by the influence of the love of this present world, by the lusts and passions of your own corrupt nature, by the spirit of pride, or love of sensual indulgence; by the fear of man to walk no more with Christ as his disciples, that ye may shun the cross, the self-denial, the finger of scorn, let it be so no more! If ye have set within your hearts any idol, dear as the right hand-covetousness, sensual pleasures,-an acquaintance with which stands in the way of an acquaintance with Christ, enslaves you in their miserable bondage, oh look upwards to the Son who alone can set you free indeed. And may God the Holy Spirit so apply his word that those who are yet in bondage may feel the misery of that bondage, and seek the happy liberty of the gospel through the Son who can make them free indeed: that those who have attained that blessed freedom may feel more and more its joyful effects, and shew more and more its holy power, to the glory of God, and their own present and eternal welfare. MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE. Conversations with Candidates for the Lord's Supper. JAMAICA MISSION. Feb. 13-A time of refreshing indeed! A visible manifestation of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit among us! Twenty new Candidates enrolled on our lists this morning! These were selected out of many: several could not as yet be received. And who are the selected? Mostly those who have attended with us for a considerable time-men and women known with a great deal of accuracy, and well reported ofproposed first by some communicant ready to state his acquaintance with their Christian experienceall examined separately by myself, and required to give a reason for the hope that is in them. Seven out of this number of Candidates were young females from sixteen to twenty-one years of age, from Mrs Dixon's class; and recommended to me by her, from an intimate acquaintance with them at least a year's standing. May the Lord preserve these lambs of his flock! I have, on many occasions of a like nature, wished that some one of our esteemed Committee could take a peep at us, and see how the Lord is honouring their Mission in this part of the world. Feb. 26-Breakfast was scarcely finished, when a young man called to acquaint me with his religious experience, and to have his name entered as a candidate for the Lord's Supper. As he was an intelligent person, had attended me from the first day of my coming to the district, appeared at all times solicitous. to see, and hear, and learn all he could-without, I am sorry to say, any great practical effect upon his conduct—I detained him a considerable time in conversation. The chief point on which I wished to talk with him was, How could he be so long apparently pleased with the means of instruction, and greedy to learn reading, writing, and ciphering-constant in his attendance at Church, and at Evening Prayers, with scarcely an omission-and yet remain uninfluenced for a long time in his character? He said he really could not tell; for he was always very fond of learning the Bible, and fond of Prayers; but he could not do as he wished-leave off all bad practices. I reminded him, that although his temper was so mild, and he so regular in his duties, both in his calling and at the house of God, yet be once lived in a way of which he was now ashamed, and that his father had once brought him to me as a stubborn and refractory boy. 'Yes,' he said, he remembered all that well; and felt himself quite low when he remembered it.' He then detailed, at some length, his thoughts upon, and his experience of, the deceitfulness of the heart; and avowed, that his feelings and motives were now totally different from what they had been before. He said he was never struck with the importance of Religion until I came into the neighbourhood; but since that time, his heart' quite take to it in a different manner;' so that he began to consider that it was his duty to come to me, particularly since I had preached about the good Samaritan, and the command of the Saviour to Simon Peter to launch out into the deep. He could not, he said, 'stay away any longer.' I must say, that this young man, whose conduct I have witnessed almost every day, when not away from home, for the last two years and a quarter, with his respectable abilities, and the influence he has thereby gained and exerted in the best of causes, would be an ornament to any communion.-Church Missionary Record. 'PRAYER MOVES THE ARM THAT MOVES THE WORLD.' Whence is this? The secret of the mystery consists in this, that prayer is a spiritual act; it is the operation of the Spirit of God. No heavenly desires, no confessions of sin, no breathing after God, can rise in any human breast without the direct and immediate gency of the Holy Ghost; he worketh in every man ; his visitings are witnessed in every conscience; without him we are not only asleep, we are dead in soul. If then the Spirit be the source of all prayer, it necessarily follows that all he suggests will be according to the will of God, Rom. viii. 27. It is obvious that he cannot and will not inspire any desire but what is in full accordance with the holy mind. Our will, then, in prayer, is the will of the Spirit of God; the object to which our desires are drawn, is the object which God desires; the strength of our affection towards it is the power of the Spirit working in us; the earnest importunity which we exercise in prayer is the expression of the intensity of the Holy Spirit's desire for the accomplishment of the object. The success, then, which attends believing and fervent prayer, is the crowning act of him who begins, continues, and ends, all good works in us. The mystery then is explained; the prayer prevails because God inspired it; he works in us to ask, because he purposes to perform; the prayer that precedes is as much his work, as the blessing which follows is his gift; prayer is part of the blessing. But it may be objected, It is presumptuous to say or imagine that all our prayers are inspired by the Holy Ghost," 6 But remember, we now speak only of true spiritual prayer. Alas, the great majority of our prayers are but collections of words. To read over a page or two of devotional expressions is not prayer; to pour forth an extempore address to God is not prayer; these may bear the appearance, but we now speak of the reality of prayer. True prayer is the utterance of the heart; the sacred term of prayer ought never to be applied to any thing beside. When then we state the scriptural position that the heart is dead towards God, and not only cannot utter, but has nothing within it to utter before him, we must arrive at the conclusion, that wherever, in the universal family of man, there is a conscience partially or fully enlightened; a heart faintly stirring towards God, or earnestly inquiring after him; that conscience and that heart derive their light and their desires only and entirely from the Spirit of light and life, of grace and of supplications. Presumption, then, lies not in saying, "Thou, Lord, hast wrought all our works in us ;" but in imagining that we possess the good in ourselves. The deepest humiliation leads us to say, "I cannot think a right thought of myself." The presumption consists in saying, I need not the Spirit of God to assist me to pray. See Jude 20; Ephes. vi. 18. Reader, this is a solemn heart-searching truth. O how it condemns our cold, formal, heartless prayers! They never reach the ear of the Lord God of Sabaoth. If you would prevail in prayer, your whole heart must be engaged in your petitions; be in earnest; let your application to the true Physician be as much a reality as is your consultation with him who relieves |