This will impart a happiness which can be derived from no other source, this will prepare us for all the sorrowful changes of life, and make us willing to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better than to abide in this sinful world. O, then, let us not live in suspense, with regard to a matter of such deep, infinite concern. Let that solemn admonition ever sound in our ears, and rouse us to an immediate and a deliberate search into our state and character, as in the presence of the Omniscient God-" Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for many will seek to enter in and shall not be able."Late REV. JOHN RUSSELL of Muthill.—Letter to a Young Man. stage of his own soul, and, reflecting upon himself, he may behold a heaven opened from within, and a throne set up in his soul, and an Almighty Saviour sitting upon it, and reigning within him: He now finds the kingdom of heaven within him, and sees that it is not the thing merely reserved for him without him, being already made partaker of the sweetness and efficacy of it.-John Smith's Select Discourses. Vanity. O in how many vanities doth vain man place his glory!-Owen. To the impenitent.-My friends, God offers you the water of life, without money and without price. Every one may come and take of it if he will, and is not this Religion a source of Consolation. These are the sufficient? Would you have the water of life forced occasions which force the mind to take refuge in reli- upon you? What is it that you wish? My friends, I gion. When we have no help in ourselves, what can will tell you what you wish. You wish to live as you remain, but that we look up to a higher and greater please here, to disobey your Creator, to neglect your power? And to what hope may we not raise our eyes and Saviour, to fulfil the desires of the flesh and of the hearts, when we consider that the greatest power is the mind; and at death, to be admitted into a kind of senbest? Surely there is no man, who thus afflicted, does sual paradise, where you may taste again the same pleanot seek succour in the Gospel, which has brought life sures which you enjoyed on earth. You wish that and immortality to light. The precepts of Epicurus, God should break his word, stain his justice, purity, who teaches us to endure what the laws of the universe and truth, and sacrifice the honour of his law, his own make necessary, may silence but not content us. The rightful authority, and the best interests of the unidictates of Zeno, who commands us to look with in- verse, to the gratification of your own sinful propensidifference on external things, may dispose us to conceal ties. Look back to those who have passed the great our sorrow, but cannot assuage it. Real alleviation in change through which we must all pass. Think of the the loss of a friend, and rational tranquillity in the pros- patriarchs who died before the flood. They have been pect of our own dissolution, can be received only from perfectly happy for more than four thousand years, yet the promises of Him, in whose hands are life and death; their happiness has but just commenced. Think of and from the assurance of another and better state, in the sinners who died before the flood. For more than which all tears will be wiped away from the eyes, and four thousand years they have been completely wretchthe whole soul shall be filled with joy. Philosophy ed, and yet their misery is but begun. So there will may infuse stubbornness, but religion only can give be a time when you have been happy or miserable for patience.-DR SAMUEL JOHNSON. four thousand years, and for four times four thousand years, and yet your heaven or hell will even then be but beginning.-PAYSON. Decay of Vital Christianity.—Alas! we are a company of worn out Christians, our moon is on the wane ; we are much more black than white, more dark than light; we shine but little; grace in the most of us is sorely decayed.-BUNYAN. "All things are Yours."-I cannot be poor so long as God is rich, for all his riches are mine.-BERNARD. Why will ye die?-The Lord has confirmed to us, by his oath, that he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that he turn and live; that he may leave man no pretence to question the truth of it and so earnest is God for the conversion of sinners, that he doubles his commands and exhortations, with vehemency; "Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die?" Is there an unconverted sinner that hears these vehement words of God? Hearken then to the voice of your Maker, and turn to him, by Christ, without delay. Would you know the will of God? This is his will, that ye immediately turn. Shall the living God send such earnest messages to his creatures, and they not obey? Hearken then, all you that live after the flesh; the Lord, that gave you your breath and being, has sent a message to you from heaven; and this is his message, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?" He that has ears to hear, let him hear. Shall the voice of the eternal Majesty be neglected? If he do but thunder terribly, thou art afraid. But this voice more nearly concerns thee. If he did but tell thee, thou shalt die to-morrow, thou wouldst not make light of it. But this word concerns thy life or death everlasting. It is both a command and an exhortation. As if he had said to thee, "I charge thee, upon the allegiance that thou owest to me, thy Creator and Redeemer, that thou renounce the flesh, the world, and the devil, and turn to me, that thou mayest live. I condescend to entreat thee, as thou either lovest or fearest him that made thee; as thou lovest thine own That you may have Christian Assurance, see that you act like a Christian.-Though I think it worthy of a Christian to endeavour the assurance of his own salvation, yet, perhaps, it might be the safest way to moderate his curiosity of prying into God's book of life, and to stay a while, until he sees himself within the confines of salvation itself. Should a man hear a voice from heaven, or see a vision from the Almighty, to testify unto him the love of God towards him, yet, methinks, it were more desirable to find a revelation of all from within, arising up from the bottom and centre of a man's own soul, in the real and internal impressions of a godlike nature upon his own spirit; and thus to find the foundation and beginning of heaven and happiness within himself: it were more desirable to see the crucifying of our own will, the mortifying of the mere animal life, and to see the divine life rising up in the room of it, as a sure pledge and inchoation of immortality and happiness, the very essence of which consists in a perfect conformity and cheerful compliance of all the powers of our soul with the will of God. The best way of gaining a well-grounded assurance of the divine love is this, for a man to overcome himself and his own will: "To him that overcometh shall be given that white stone, and in it the new name written, which no man knoweth, but he that receiveth it." He that beholds the Sun of Righteousness arising upon the horizon of his soul, with healing in its wings, and chasing away all that misty darkness of his own self-life, even thine everlasting life, Turn and live; as ever will and passions, such a one desires not now the starlight to know whether it be day or not; nor cares he to pry into heaven's secrets, and to search the hidden rolls of eternity, there to see the whole plot of his salvation; for he views it, transacted upon the inward thou wouldst escape eternal misery, Turn, turn; for why wilt thou die ?" And is there a heart in man, in a reasonable creature, that can once refuse such a message, such a command, such an exhortation as this? O what a thing then is the heart of man!- Baxter, SACRED POETRY. THE CREATION. began, "Pray forgive," &c. No sooner did the stub born girl see him on his knees, on her account, than her pride was at once overcome, she burst into tears, FROM the throne of the Highest the mandate came forth, and on her knees earnestly entreated forgiveness, nor The word of Omnipotent God; And the elements fashion'd, His footstool the earth, By the word of Omnipotence, valley and hill And they play'd in the waters, and brows'd on the earth, And though, like a worm, he was form'd of the clod, did she afterwards occasion any trouble. African Hospitality. When the celebrated Mungo Park was in Africa, he was directed by one of the native kings to a village to pass the night. He went, but as the order was not accompanied with any provision for his reception, he found every door shut. Turning his horse loose to graze, he was preparing, as a security from wild beasts, to climb a tree and sleep among the branches, when a beautiful and affecting incident occurred, which gives a most pleasing view of the negro female character. An old woman, returning from the labours of the field, cast on him a look of compassion, and desired him to follow her. She led him to an apartment in her hut, procured a fine fish, which she broiled for his supper, and spread a mat for him to sleep upon. She then desired her maidens, who had been gazing in fixed astonishment on the white man, to resume their tasks, which they continued to ply through a great part of the night. They cheered their labours with a song, which must have been composed extempore, as Mr Park, with deep emotion, discovered that he himself was the subject of it. It said, in a strain of affecting simplicity :-" The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk, no wife to grind his corn." Chorus, "Let us pity the white man, no mother has he," &c. Our tra From the work of creation, which rose by His word veller was much affected, and next morning could not Mr Raikes.-The following fact is related by Joseph Lancaster, to shew the kind, condescending, and judicious conduct of Robert Raikes, the excellent founder of Sunday Schools in England:-He was frequently in the habit of visiting the parents and children at their own houses. One day he called on a poor woman, and found a very refractory girl, crying and sulking. Her mother complained that correction was of no avail, as obstinacy marked her conduct, and it was very bad. After asking the parent's leave, he began to talk seriously to the girl, and concluded by telling her that, as the first step towards amendment, she must kneel down and ask her mother's pardon. The girl continued sulky. "Well then," said he, "if you have no regard for yourself, I have much regard for you. You will be ruined and lost if you do not begin to be a good girl; and, if you will not humble yourself, I must humble myself, and make a beginning for you." So saying, he knelt down on the ground before the child's mother, and putting his hands together with all the ceremony of a juvenile offender, depart without requesting his landlady's acceptance of the only gift he had left, two out of the four brass buttons that still remained on his waistcoat. A Burmese Female.-The history of the first Christian mission in Burmah, shews the beneficial influence of tracts. The first inquirer was drawn to the zayat by a tract; and Mah-Men-la, one of the most interest-" ing of the female converts, received her first impression from one of these silent messengers. Her history will be read with interest. It appears that she was long anxious to search the sacred books; and, after much solicitation, her husband taught her to read. She attentively studied the holy books of Burmah, which left her mind in the same inquisitive state as when she commenced them. For ten years she had continued her inquiries, when one day her neighbour brought her a tract, written by Dr Judson, from which she derived her first ideas of an eternal God. She then became anxious to know the residence of the writer, but could not ascertain it till the chapel was built. In consequence of the blessing of God upon Dr Judson's instructions, she became an intelligent and decided Christian, and died in the faith of Christ. Not long before she expired, her mind was cheered by the prospect of communing with Mrs Judson, and other pious friends in heaven. But just as she thought on this subject of consolation, she exclaimed, But first of all, I shall hasten to where my Saviour sits, and fall down and worship and adore Him, for his great love in sending the teachers to show me the way to heaven." 66 Published by JOHN JOHNSTONE, at the Offices of the SCOTTISH CHRISTIAN HERALD, 2, Hunter Square, Edinburgh, and 19, Glassford Street, Glasgow; J. NISBET & Co., HAMILTON, ADAMS & Co., and R. GROOMBRIDGE, London; W. CURRY, Junior, & Co., Dublin; and W. M COMB, Belfast; and sold by the Booksellers and Local Agents in all the Towns and Parishes of Scotland; and in the principal Towns in England and Ireland. Subscribers in Edinburgh, Leith, and Portobello, will have their copies delivered at their own residences regularly, by leaving their addresses with the Publisher.-Subscribers in Glasgow will, in like manner, have their copies delivered, by leaving their addresses at the Publishing Office there, 19, Glassford Street. Subscription (payable in advance) per quarter, of twelve weeks, 18. 6d.-per half-year, of twenty-four weeks, 3s.-per year, of fortystitched in a printed wrapper, Price Sixpence, eight weeks, 69.-Monthly Parts, containing four Numbers each, ON THE SUFFERINGS OF THE FIRST CHRISTIANS, BY THE REV. W. B. NIVISON, Formerly one of the Ministers of the Scotch Church in Amsterdam. THE apostles and first founders of the Christian Church, were exposed to a variety of the most severe sufferings in publishing the new faith which they had ventured to embrace. The power that enabled them to work miracles, was not exerted to prevent or even alleviate them. In this respect they were placed on precisely the same footing with their divine Master, who was made perfect through suffering, and who seldom or never employed his omnipotent power in removing it from himself. The apostles and evangelists, in all their writings, speak of suffering as a necessary part of the Christian warfare, and prepare their fellow-disciples for enduring it, by pressing upon them many topics of powerful consolation. Sometimes they discourse to them of the abundant supplies of grace, which the blessed Comforter had been sent to impart. Sometimes they recal to their remembrance the example of their crucified Lord, and his commandment, "to take up their cross and follow him." Sometimes they represent suffering to be only a return of love on their part, to that good and gracious Being, who had so lately commended his love towards them, in sending his Son to die for their sins. Sometimes they inform them of their being preordained to suffer, by a decree of the Supreme Disposer of events, who had important ends to serve by their suffering. Sometimes they describe to them the virtues and graces, which suffering has a natural tendency to produce. And, in short, they endeavour to bring forward every argument and every motive, which it was possible for them to draw, either from natural or revealed religion, in order to reconcile the minds of the new converts to the pain and shame of persecution,-which was too certain to prove the miserable lot of all who dared, in those unhappy times, to confess publicly that "Jesus was the Christ." The severe sufferings so heroically endured by Vol. II. PRICE 1d. the primitive Christians, are often and justly adduced as a part of the general evidence in support of the Christian revelation; and indeed it is impossible for any person, who dispassionately examines it, to doubt for a moment of its weight and importance. When any number of men believe so firmly in the truth of any doctrine, or system of doctrines, as to allow themselves to be deprived of every worldly advantage, and even of life itself, rather than renounce this belief, it is probable, to a certain degree, from this single consideration, that their faith is built on a solid foundation. They may, indeed, have failed in appreciating the evidence that first moved them to believe; and if such a charge can be made out against them, their sufferings, however painful they may be, and with whatever firmness they may be borne, cannot be received as satisfactory proof that this previous and necessary work has been properly performed. But, at the same time, they do afford very unexceptionable evidence that their faith is sincere, and that they have not embraced or professed opinions without being impressed with a deep sense of their truth and utility. And the higher we suppose the degree of suffering to which they submit, and the greater the fortitude they display in enduring it, so much the stronger do we make the presumption in favour of their system of faith. If we study with any attention the lives of the early converts to Christianity, we cannot fail to be convinced that there never was so numerous and so respectable a body of men, who were so long, so constantly, and so cruelly persecuted for professing or propagating religious tenets, which they firmly believed to be true, and the knowledge of which they conceived to be essentially necessary to the best interests of mankind. Had these sufferings been confined to a few of the more distinguished Christians, the circumstance of their being singled out from the great body of believers might, perhaps, have led them to glory in their singular fortune, and to consider its painful disadvantages amply compensated by the honours paid to their eminent merit by their admiring contemporaries, or by the hope of posthumous fame from the applauses of a grateful posterity. But the general and indiscriminate persecution, that spared neither age, nor sex, nor rank, prevented the rise of this selfish sentiment, and purified the spirit of martyrdom of every low and unworthy motive. Even the more humble desire of supporting a character they had once assumed, and might be unwilling or ashamed to lay aside, could not be gratified in numerous instances; for many of their distresses were private and unknown, or of such a nature as to elude observation, being produced by the fastings, and fatigue, and labours, and anxieties they were obliged to undergo in maintaining their new faith, or in discharging its sacred functions. In these, often the heaviest of their afflictions, they were supported only by the testimony of an approving conscience, and by their confidence in the ever watchful guardianship of their Almighty Protector. It were Before finishing this first branch of the argument, almost impossible for any candid person to peruse it may be proper to observe, that the evidence for the account of the dangers and hardships to which the truth of Christianity, arising from the sufferSt. Paul was daily and hourly exposed, from the ings of its early professors, is much strengthered interesting moment of his call to the apostleship by considering the source from which they derived on the road to Damascus, to the awful period of their knowledge of the new religion, and also by rehis martyrdom under the iron despotism of Nero, flecting upon the nature of some of its doctrines. without being persuaded that no other motive ac- First, we may remark, that these religious opinions tuated his conduct, during the whole of that long were not received at second-hand, from the mere and eventful time, but the single and sincere de- report of others, but were authenticated to them by sire of preaching "Christ crucified," arising from the authority of their own senses. The first puba deep-rooted conviction of his being both "the lishers of the Gospel did not believe in the docwisdom and the power of God," and the "only trines of the Gospel, because they were taught hy name given under heaven among men by which a man of unblemished character and of profound we can be saved." Nor were it an easy task to wisdom; but because they were taught by a man, explain, even plausibly, how he was led to choose who, along with these moral and intellectual exsuch a life of care and misery, unless we admit cellencies, could produce the surest credentials of him to have believed not only in the divine origin a divine commission, and prove by works, which of Christianity, but also in his having himself re- no human power could perform, that he was what ceived a divine commission to publish it to the he affirmed himself to be, the Son of God and the world. To suppose that either he, or any other promised Messiah. These works were not of an of the apostles, engaged in such a laborious and uncertain or ambiguous character, but were clearly dangerous work for the sake of deceiving man- seen, and strongly felt, to be the effects of a superkind, is to suppose them to suffer without that natural agency; and they were so openly and pubconsciousness of personal sincerity, without that licly performed, as to be placed completely within trust in the divine favour, and without that de- the observation of the senses, of all the senses pendence on the divine grace, which were alone that were competent to examine and appreciate able to support, and which, they solemnly declare, them. If the art of the juggler had been ever so did alone support them during the whole period ingeniously practised, it could not have escaped of their missionary labours. And it is, besides, detection, for in most of the cases it could put on to suppose them guilty of such deep cunning, and none of its usual disguises; and even if it had such base hypocrisy, as are wholly inconsistent attempted to do so, little advantage would have with the manly simplicity, the honourable inte- been gained from the attempt, for not the gaze of grity, the unaffected benevolence, and the zealous the curious, not the look of the mere speculative piety, which, even in the judgment of their ad- inquirer, but the eye of an enemy, the piercing versaries, uniformly distinguished them both in eye of an enemy, was fixed with the most searchpublic and private life. Or, if we are inclined ing scrutiny on every turn of its winding, and on rather to maintain that they were actuated by a every step of its movement. And, secondly, many desire of future fame, in being the first founders of the Christian doctrines, such as the incarnation, of a new religion, while they were all the while the passion, the resurrection, and the ascension of aware of its falsehood, we must remember it will the Saviour, were facts, of which they were not be necessary for us to maintain, at the same time, only assured by the authority of Christ himself, that they were capable of foreseeing the future but of which they were themselves eye-witnesses. success of the Gospel, when, from their secret Christianity has justly been called a "religion of knowledge of the imposture, they must have had facts," because some of its principal doctrines are every reason in the world to expect its speedy facts, and because the principal evidence on which decline and final extinction. Indeed, the project we are required to believe it, is composed of mirain question is, in all its views, a scheme of worldly cles, or supernatural facts, exhibited before the | aggrandisement so daring in its conception, so difficult in its management, and so hazardous in its execution, that we may justly pronounce it impossible for so wild an idea ever to have entered the imagination of a few plain and unlettered men, as the first preachers of the Gospel, with hardly any exceptions, most certainly were before they were endowed with inspired knowledge and miraculous power. So that, in whatever light we choose to consider the painful and continued suffering which the primitive converts were compelled to endure, we shall find that we invariably strengthen the moral proofs in favour of the sincerity of their faith, and, indirectly through this medium, the presumptive evidence in support of the religion itself. senses, and exhibited for the express purpose of | so as to be able to cross the sea again to its native home." furnishing a train of reasonable and satisfactory evidence. So that it may be safely affirmed, that the two circumstances I have now adverted to, add considerable force to our former reasoning, which was meant to shew, that the sufferings of the first Christians afford a clear proof, not only of the sincerity of their faith, but also, to a certain degree, of the truth of the religion to which their faith was directed. But there is another view of the sufferings of the primitive church, which is still more important than the former, and will appear to many far more decisive in the presumptive evidence it affords for the truth of the Gospel, though, perhaps, it has not been so frequently taken notice of, nor so fully illustrated by the advocates of revealed religion, as its importance might seem to merit. I allude to the moral qualities that distinguished the passive fortitude of the first believers during the whole period of their sufferings, -from the day they began to be persecuted, till the hour they were honoured with the crown of martyrdom. These moral qualities will be found, on examination, to be essentially different from those that belong to the character of any other body of sufferers, who may deserve to be compared in number and respectability with the company of Christian believers. Our limits will not permit us to state them at present, but they will form the subject of the second part of this argument. SKETCH OF THE When the monk had returned, after performing the kind injunction of his master, Columba thus addressed command on thee his blessing, my dear brother." The him: "For this act of mercy and hospitality, may God man that to an inferior animal displayed such tenderness, could not fail to be merciful and compassionate to his brethren; and, therefore, we find that the promotion of peace and good-will among men was one of his leading objects; and when some person had the audacity to request of him to bless his dagger, "God grant then,' blood of either man or beast." answered he, "that it may never shed a drop of the His purity of life, and his self-denial, were all along a practical commentary upon the duties which he inculcated; and while ever anxious for the ease and comfort of others, he was so regardless of his own, as to submit to every toil and privation, denying himself the most common comforts of life, choosing no softer couch than the bare ground, with a stone for his pillow, and subsisting upon the simplest and the scantiest nourishment. There were other qualifications besides, that tended, in the eyes of an unsophisticated people, to give a lofty, which his medical skill effected, through the most simalmost a supernatural air to his character. The cures ple and unostentatious means, were often regarded as miraculous; and the discovery of probable consequences from known causes, which a sagacity naturally discerning, and rendered more acute by long converse with the world, enabled him to deduce, assumed in the eyes of many occasions this sagacity was displayed so as to imwondering savages, the mystic garb of prophecy. On press the minds of the people with terrific ideas of his power. Having once met a plundering chief, who had then, for the third time, spoiled the property of a pious friend of Columba, the holy man remonstrated, threatened, and entreated the robber to leave his booty, and make restitution; Columba's petitions, instead of pro HISTORY AND CHARACTER OF COLUMBA, ducing the desired effect, were replied to with scoffs THE APOSTLE OF THE HIGHLANDS. BY THE REV. DONALD FERGUSSON. (Continued from page 181.) THE difficulties which thwarted Columba's exertions to Christianize the Western districts of Scotland, were, as we have seen, numerous and powerful; but there was that in his character and conduct which, while it challenged observation, and dared opposition, was admirably calculated to triumph over obstacles. Fearless of danger, undismayed in the midst of difficulties, Leedless of personal comfort and safety, his moral intrepidity and hardihood, so congenial to the habits and feelings of a rude and warlike race could not fail to claim their respect and esteem. And such characteristics, when blended with others of a softer complexion, by degrees sapped the foundations of their prejudices, and opened an access to their affections. The foe of outrage and violence, the oppressed found him a ready advocate,-the injured had shelter under his protection,-the needy was never "turned empty away" from his habitation, and the wayfaring stranger was ever welcome to share his hospitality. There is a chapter in the life of Columba, by Adomnan, entitled, "of a circumstance which, though small, ought not, I think, to be overlooked;" and the incident, there recorded, is most simply but strikingly illustrative of bis kindliness and tenderness of heart; "a crane on its light from Ireland, had become so exhausted before reaching Iona, that it was obliged to alight before reaching the shore; Columba observing it, and foreseeing its tate, ordered one of the monks to save the poor bird's life," Bring it," said he, "to the nearest house, feed it, and take all the care you can of it for three days, until it be well refreshed, and recover its strength, and indignities. He followed them to the sea-shore, still persisting in his importunities, and having completely failed, he, at last, in righteous indignation, raising his hands to heaven, prayed God to glorify himself by avenging and protecting his people. Perceiving, probably, that the vessel was overloaded, and that the sky gave indications of an approaching hurricane, he said to his companions, "God will not always bear to have those who love him thus treated; that dark cloud, already forming in the north, is fraught with this poor man's ruin.' The cloud spread,- -the storm arose, overtook the boat, and betwixt Mull and Colonsay the robber and his plunder sunk together. Many other incidents are on record, equally striking in their character, and less easily accounted for on natural causes. These we may hesitate to believe, but it is wise not to deny, for we are unable to decide how far God might have vouchsafed to favour his faithful servant, encompassed, as he was, by so many dangers and difficulties. Be this as it may, such indications of superiority had the effect of inspiring a people, naturally superstitious, with sentiments of deep awe, partaking, however, not so much of the character of terror as of reverence, on account of the many soft tints of tenderness and affection that were blended with the majestic and severe in his character. By such means, then, he gained the object which he ardently desired, a hearing from the rude heathens whom he had come to Christianize; and when once he had overcome the difficulties of the dialect, so as to require no interpreter, the power of his eloquence, his popular address, and his imposing manners, were brought to bear upon their minds and feelings with prodigious effect; while his own uniform consistency of conduct, his cheerfulness and benevolence, and above all his deep acquaint, |