family. As her knowledge of the language increased, numbers of the natives thronged the house to converse with her on religious topics; and, besides inculcating upon the native females habits of industry and neatness, she embraced every opportunity of calling their attention to their immortal interests. To the superintendence of the schools, also, she paid peculiar attention, and in every department of the missionary work in which she felt she could be useful, she zealously and .actively engaged. By the blessing of God, on the labours of the Missionaries, many of the natives were led to inquire into the truth of Christianity; and, at length, on the 5th of May 1820, a Christian Church was formed at Huahine, consisting of fifteen members. Of these, several were females, and Mrs Ellis viewed them with peculiar interest, as sisters in Christ, and fellow-heirs of glory. She commenced a meeting for prayer and spiritual instruction, intended for those females who wished to unite in Christian fellowship, and she had much reason to be thankful to the Great Head of the Church, for the measure of success which attended her efforts. Along with Mrs Barff, a sister Missionary, she made it a regular practice to visit the sick, and on these occasions she was always welcome, and by her tender sympathy and kindness, she won upon the hearts of the natives, so as to lead them to listen with the utmost attention to her faithful and affectionate At the urgent request of Mrs Orsmond, who was the only European female in Borabora, Mrs Ellis proceeded to assist her in the duties of that station. In returning, however, to Huahine, she was exposed to the greatest inconvenience and even danger. Though the weather was mild when the boat in which she embarked left Borabora, it soon after changed, and a storm having arisen, the boatmen found it impossible to reach Huahine, and were compelled to return to Raiatea. After remaining a week there, detained by contrary winds, Mrs Ellis was anxious to proceed homewards, more especially as the time arranged for Mr Ellis's return was almost arrived. They set out, accordingly, but the boatmen, with all their exertions, were unable, after toiling for a day and a night, to remove further than a short distance from the shore of Raiatea. Mrs Ellis was, accordingly, landed at Utumaoro in that island. 'The want of proper nourishment, and excessive fatigue, were accompanied by so much indisposition, that when the boat reached the shore, Mrs Ellis was obliged to be carried from it to the nearest native hut; this appeared unoccupied, but, on looking round from the mat on which she had been laid, a solitary female was perceived kneeling beside a scarcely breathless corpse, and offering, apparently in great distress, and with frequent sobs and cries, her prayer to Him who seeth in secret, and is a very present help in trouble. As soon as her first paroxysms of grief had somewhat subsided, this Christian female came, and tenderly sympathised with her guest; told her the other inhabitants of the neighbourhood had gone to the missionary On the 24th of February, Mr Ellis, in company meetings, but that she had remained to attend on her with a deputation from the London Missionary Society, afflicted husband, who had expired as the boat approachthen at the Islands, embarked for the Sandwich Islands, ed the shore. Weak and faint as she was, Mrs Ellis leaving his wife and family at Huahine. Speaking of endeavoured to direct her mind to the only source of their departure, and of the wives of the native Mis-made, there was reason to hope that the widow was effectual support; and from the observations that were sionaries by whom they were accompanied, Mrs Ellis thus writes in a letter to a friend : counsels. "Sister Barff and I continue our meeting with the females. We often find it a season of refreshing to our own souls, and do hope it is beneficial to the dear natives. We had a very affecting meeting with them at the parting of our two dear sister (native) Missionaries. Many of them could not speak for tears; indeed, there was not a dry eye in the room. 'We grieve to part with our dear sisters,' said they; we shall never again see their faces at our meetings for conversation, at our meetings for prayer, at our meetings for public worship. We have been used to listen to them with delight, when they have exhorted us with affection, and prayed with and for us; but now we shall hear their voices no more. But we will not keep them back; the work is God's; and if teachers had not been sent to us, we should now have been dwelling in darkness and the shadow of death ;-we should now have been killing one another, murdering our dear babes, and sinking into hell: but God had compassion on us; he has sent his good Word to us, and caused our hearts to believe that Jesus Christ alone is the Saviour of sinners, and to desire him for our Saviour and shall we not be willing that others may know this good Word and Saviour also? Yes, Go sisters! and we will not cease to pray that Jehovah may bless you, and that all the world may know the only true God, and Jesus Christ the Saviour of sinners.' This, and much more to the same purport, was the language of their lips, and, we believe, the language also of their hearts. They prayed very fervently for them, and we hope their prayers will be answered. It reminded us much of those delightful meetings we had in our native land on the eve of our own departure." not a stranger to the comforts and hopes of the Gospel.' During the whole of the day and the succeeding night, Mrs Ellis was unable to leave the mat on which she had been laid, but in the morning, as she was anxious to reach home, she and her children were carried on board, and after spending another day and night in the deep, they reached Huahine in safety. Mrs Ellis's health was for some time in a weak state from the effects of this voyage, but by the kind attentions of Mr and Mrs Barff, she at length recovered. The protracted absence of her husband, however, was a source of great mental anxiety to her, and more especially as there was reason to suspect that the ship in which he sailed had been seized and plundered by pirates. In this state of painful suspense, the utmost attention and kindness was shewn her by the natives. To this gratifying trait of humanity in a recently barbarous people, Mr Ellis thus adverts: The chiefs and people of the settlement had always shewn the warmest attachment to the Missionaries, but their kindness to Mrs Ellis, during the protracted absence of her husband, was as grateful to her as it was honourable to themselves. They used to designate her their little lonely widow, and seemed anxious to testify their solicitude to alleviate the distress which they knew she must feel. Whenever they were successful in fishing, they always sent her a part of what they had taken; and if the weather was stormy and the sea rough, they used to say, that their anxiety on her account prevented their sleeping; and frequently, in seasons of tempestuous weather, one or two of the chief women of the island would sleep in the house with her, to mitigate the distress which her solicitude at such seasons might occasion. When a pious and valuable female servant, who married, left her, the chiefs went and persuaded another truly pious and attentive native to go and live with her; and by these, and numberless attentions, truly acceptable at the time, manifested a vigilance of benevolence and a strength of affection scarcely to be expected in persons among whom the feelings and offices of Christian sympathy and friendship were of such recent growth." When he left Huahine, Mr Ellis expected to be absent only three months, but from various circumstances, he was detained for eight months, and it was no small relief, therefore, to the agonized feelings of his wife and family, when his arrival was announced. In the course of this visit to the Sandwich Islands it had been arranged by the deputation from the Parent Society, at the urgent request of the American Missionaries, that Mr and Mrs Ellis should quit their present station and remove to the Sandwich Islands. The same vessel, accordingly, which brought Mr Ellis to Huahine, conveyed an invitation to that effect. To leave a people among whom they were so much respected and loved, was no ordinary trial; but as the invitation offered a prospect of greater usefulness, they came to the resolution, however reluctantly, of complying. (To be concluded in our next.) RECORDS OF CREATION. ON THE FORMATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF COAL. BY THE REV. JOHN ANDERSON, THE perfect adaptation of the earth to the nature and accommodation of the various orders of creatures, which live in it, is manifest to the most careless observer. Plants derive their nourishment from the soil in which they grow, and, by an organization the most skilful, are enabled, every one after its kind, to extend and perpetuate the species. Animals subsist on the materials which the earth thus annually and abundantly supplies to them, at once finding exercise and enjoy ment in searching for the food which the instinct of each leads it to select. Man, so superior to them all in beauty, structure, and intelligence, has more wants to supply, and is exposed to inconveniences from which they are almost entirely exempted. His food requires, in many instances, artificial preparation, to enable him to sustain his health, or to restore it when lost; and, in consequence of his extreme sensitiveness to the influence of climate, he seeks for shelter and warmth to protect him against the inclemency of the season. The materials for the accomplishment of both purposes, he finds prepared for him in the bowels of the earth, hid for ages beneath his feet, and by his skill and ingenuity, it is drawn forth as his necessities or his pleasures may demand. We have already considered the qualities and composition of this useful deposit, formed, as it were, out of the very waste and prodigality of nature; and who does not see in this a wonderful instance of the goodness and wisdom of Him who does nothing in vain, and who, in framing the world, designed every part of it for use? The circumstances under which it has been formed we have also adverted to, leading us back to a period when the surface of the globe, as to the relative position of land, rivers, lakes, estuaries, and sea, in the economy of nature, must have been materially different from what It now is, We shall in this paper attend to some of those other contrivances by which the coal has been so wonderfully preserved, and at the same time rendered so easily accessible to man. Nothing appears, at first sight, so confused and irregular, as the condition of the earth's crust immediately beneath the soil. That confusion and irregularity have, apparently, only been increased by the many convulsions by which, at successive periods, it has been shaken to its centre. But when we look a little closer, we find a divine purpose in the qua lity of the materials, as well as in their arrangement; and, in those disturbing forces to which they have been exposed, we discern the clearest proofs of an overruling intelligence continuing, throughout all ages, to superintend and control their various operations. 1. Consider the situation of the coal metals. They do not lie exposed upon the surface, but are generally found at a considerable depth in the earth; and how many are apt to complain of this, thinking that, if a different arrangement had prevailed, much needless this suffice it to reply, that the constituent elements of labour and expense would have been prevented? To coal are such, that, by exposure on the surface, the mineral would, in a comparatively short period of time, have run to waste and decay. Even a thick covering of earthy mould would not have been sufficient to protect it, as is manifested in the case of those out-crops which, from having been long exposed to the action of the weather, have become so deteriorated in quality, as to be utterly useless. God, therefore, purposely "hid the treasure in the earth," and so inclosed it, that the floods could not wash it away. 2. Attend, in the next place, to the nature and character of the rocks by which it is protected, and along with which the coal is invariably associated. These consist of sandstone, shale, and clay ironstone, which uniformly occupy the same basins with the coal, and alternate with it sometimes to the number of a hundred beds. Such a series of well characterised rocks, not only act as a guide by which to point out the localities of the valuable mineral, but they serve the double purpose of facilitating the excavation of it, by affording at once a safe roofing to the mine, and an easy passage for the drainage of the water which accumulates in the pits. No other class of rocks would have been so suitable. Our mountain masses of granite, and other primitive rocks, would have been wholly unfit; no borings could have been effected to any extent; the operations underneath would have been equally diffi cult, if not altogether impossible; and through such hard, compact substances, the drainage must have been impracticable. 3. But, perhaps, a still more remarkable indication of design arises from the elevated and inclined position into which the coal-strata have been thrown. Had they remained in the position which they originally occupied, in the lakes and estuaries in which they were deposited, and covered with the vast accumulations which have subsequently taken place, their depth would have been utterly beyond the industry of man to have reached. But the waters have disappeared, having accomplished the purpose for which they were intended, and the rocks formed beneath them have lifted up their heads; not uniformly, however, and in one continuous unbroken mass, but divided into smaller sections, and inclined in every possible direction. The wisdom of this will appear from two considerations. From their inclined position the various beds of coal are worked with greater facility than if they had been horizontal; a level is produced for the drainage of the water; and the edges of the coal, by being turned up, are brought nearer the surface. But these advantages are every one of them increased, almost incalculably, by the division of the coal-field into limited sections; by this means, less water is allowed to accumulate than if the bed had been indefinitely extended, and its lower extremities are likewise prevented from being plunged to a depth that would be inaccessible. Nothing, in short, can more unequivocally prove contrivance and design than the disruptions and elevations which mark the course of the coal-metals, by which the originally continuous stratum, over the length and breadth of many miles, is broken up, and its several portions arranged in a series of successive tables or steps of a stair, rising one behind another, and all gradually upheaved towards the surface, from the lowest points of depression. 4. The contrivances, however, are yet more complicated by which the Author of nature has rendered this valuable mineral subservient to man's use. Every coal-field is furnished with a system of checks, in the shape of faults or dykes, against floodings, fire-blaze, and other accidents that may occur in the operations of mining. These faults or dykes consist usually of clay, the detsitus of the associated rocks, or of more compact whinstone, with which the fractures, produced at the period of the elevation and disruption of the coalbeds, have been filled up, and which serve to insulate, or contract to more workable dimensions, the various sections into which the seams of coal are divided. They present the appearance of a vertical wall, cutting the strata at right angles, and, though often occasioning much inconvenience and disappointment in stopping the progress of the work, yet, as every experienced collier well knows, forming, upon the whole, his greatest safeguard, and essential to his operations. Besides damming up the water and preventing one pit from being flooded by another, these faults, by interrupting the continuity of the various seams of coal, and causing their truncated edges to abut against the inflammable material, afford a preservative against the destructive ravages of fire to which particular seams are freqently exposed, and which would otherwise continue to burn until the consumption of the entire field was effected. coals went forth at his feet." No words could more beautifully or precisely describe the origin of those whinstone rocks which exist in every coal-field, and are so curiously injected among the strata, and by which, in the opinion of all geologists, they have been elevated, upheaved, and tossed into the various positions which they now occupy. Such are a few of the facts connected with the arrangement and distribution of the coal metals, in whatever quarter of the globe they are found. Is it possible to resist the conclusion, that in such a disposition of things there are the clearest indications of contrivance and design? The dance of atoms, imagined by the philosopher of antiquity, could never have terminated in the perfect order and harmony of the heavenly bodies, by which innumerable systems of worlds are maintained, each hung upon nothing, and duly preserved all of them in their respective spheres. Equally impossible is it to contemplate a disposition of things so adapted, and indeed so indispensable for availing ourselves of the mineral treasures of the earth-essential to our wants, and ministering so directly to our social comfort and improvement and yet to refer the whole to the blind operation of fortuitous causes. Could any of us look back, and observe the various methods employed by Providence for our preservation here and salvation hereafter, from our infant days to the last period of life, it would give us infinite pleasure, and the retrospect would end in admiration of the divine wisdom, and gratitude for the divine goodness. Could we, in the same manner, trace back the ways of God, and the method of his dispensations from the creation to the consummation of all thingssurveying, as we would, a system of wise and benevolent contrivances, prospectively subsidiary to the wants and comforts of the future inhabitants of the globe, and to the advancement and completion of which, the various revolutions and convulsions that have affected the surface of our planet have been made subservient we should still rise higher in pious gratitude and holy adoration, as more wisdom would appear in a more extensive plan, and more goodness in the multiplicity of means devised for its accomplishment. Is not such a review of God's doings actually, in some measure, in these geological speculations presented to us? Impossible, indeed, it ever will be for the human mind to embrace all the mysteries of creation; but thus admitted to the mighty wonders of the interior, we are almost enabled to trace the history of the moving atoms from their chaotic disorder into their arrangement in the visible universe, to see dead matter assuming the forms of life and animation, clothing the earth for a season with luxuriance and beauty,-buried for ages under the solid rock,-and again out of coldness and death affording light, and warmth, and power to the successive generations of men. 5. But, in order fully to appreciate the importance of all this machinery, consider the original extent of a single coal-basin. In Scotland this valuable mineral is chiefly confined to that extensive district which forms the great valley of the Lowlands, and which separates the primitive rocks of the Grampians, as its northern boundary, from the transition chain of the Lammermuirs, which may be geologically considered as its southern limit. The coal metals do not, indeed, occupy the whole of this space. But a line drawn from the mouth of the Tay, passing through Stirling and the northern extremity of the isle of Arran, and another, nearly parallel to it, from St Abb's Head on the east coast, to Girvan on the west, will include between them the whole of the coal-fields of Scotland, with the exception of the insulated coal-basins on the Nith and the Esk in Dumfries-shire, and the more limited patches that have been worked in Roxburghshire, and on the coast of While we are thankful, then, for this domestic Berwickshire. Now, even admitting a considerable article, of every day use, and from which so many inclination from all sides of the basin towards the com- sources of comfort and pleasure arise, let us regard the mon centre, yet how difficult must have been the arrangements by which the mineral has been so effecoperations, or rather how comparatively useless almost, tually preserved and brought within our reach, as so in extracting the coal, lying, as the seams originally many proofs of the wisdom and goodness of Deity. did, nearly horizontal, throughout the length and The coal deposit forms one of the most singular and breadth of this extensive area? Mark, then, the wis- best defined sections of the interior of the earth with dom and beneficence of God in elevating the whole to which geology has made us acquainted. It is one and a higher position, dividing it into various convenient entire, unlike anything which has preceded, or anything sections, giving a greater inclination to the beds, and that has occurred since the era of its formation. A introducing faults, for the more convenient working practical question, therefore, will here naturally sugand preservation of the whole. Behold, too, the sim-gest itself, is coal still forming? In answer to such plicity of the agency by which these results are effected. "The Lord cometh forth out of his place; he putteth his hand forth upon the rock; he looketh on the earth, and it trembleth; he toucheth the hills and they smoke; the mountains are molten under him; and the valleys are cleft; before him went the pestilence, and burning a question, it is not easy to say what is going on in the depths of the ocean, and it is difficult to determine what changes may yet be effected upon our peat mosses, which approach nearest in character to, and possess most of the requisites for, the formation of coal. But still, there can be no doubt, there does not at present exist the same condition of things which did formerly, to assist either in the production and accumulation of the vegetable material, or to facilitate the conversion avail would it be to man, who would inevitably be swept off the earth in the elevation of the strata from the depths of ocean in which they were deposited? Geology reveals the undoubted fact, that our planet has been subjected to many and most extensive changes before it was reduced to its present condition. These, from the beginning, have been all rendered subservient to the comfort of man. The next, upon the same scale of magnitude, would inevitably prove the destruction of his race. Now, then, as announced both by the Word and the works of God, is the day of man's salvation-the allotted and final season of his improvement till the new heavens and the new earth will receive the righteous as their everlasting of it into this substance. And if there did, of what habitations. THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF TRUE religion IN THE SOUL : A DISCOURSE. BY THE REV. DANIEL CAMERON. Minister of Bridgegate Parish, Glasgow. "I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."-JOHN Xvii. 26. THE Lord's prayer is a specimen of the prayers sinners should present to God for themselves, and this intercessory prayer of Christ is a specimen of the prayers which he presents to God for them. It embraces many precious and consolatory truths, on which at present we cannot enlarge. Having, in the course of it, prayed first for his immediate disciples, and then for all who should believe on him through their word, that they might be sanctified and preserved from the evil that is in the world, he then prays for their final glorification: "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." This request Christ supports by several considerations, such as the righteousness or justice of his Father, his foreknowledge of the Father's purposes and will, which enabled him to know what was proper to ask, and what his Father was willing to grant, and the knowledge which his people had of him, his person, work, and intercession, and his mission from the Father for the fulfilment of his will. Then, in our text, the Redeemer affirms, that he had executed his mission, by declaring the Father's name unto sinners, and by effecting in them the grand end of his mission, the implantation in them of the love of God, and their union to himself. This text presents us with a brief statement of the nature and the origin of true religion in the soul, to both of which points we shall briefly direct your attention. I. We shall briefly illustrate from our text, the nature of true religion in the soul. Now it is here said to consist of the love of God in them, and of the inhabitation of Christ in them. 1. True religion consists of the love with which the Father loved Christ, being in the soul. The phrase of the text is so peculiar, that some attention is necessary to discover its meaning. The words seem to intimate, that Christ prayed that the very love with which God loved him might reign in his people; but this is impossible, for the love of God is infinite, uncreated, and immutable, which cannot be affirmed of the love of any creature. The words seem also to teach, that Christ prayed that God, his Father, might love his saints with all the very love with which he loved Christ himself. Now, although Christ might present such a request to his Father on that the very kind of love, for its light and conbehalf of his people-although he might pray solation, which the Father manifested to him in unbounded fulness, might be cherished towards his saints in its necessary degree-and although such is essential as a foundation of love to God in the sinner, yet neither does this seem to be all the meaning of our Saviour's words. He prays for his people, not so much that God may love them that this love of God may be vouchsafed to them, with a special and distinguishing affection, but and may operate in them as it operated in him. In short, our Saviour's words comprehend two leading ideas, both of which are necessary to be realized, in order to the production of true religion in the soul of man: 1st, He prays, that God would favour his people with inward manifestations of that particular love wherewith he loves his beloved Son; and, 2dly, He seeks this, in order that this love of God in them may operate upon their hearts for the production of all those loving affections and heavenly principles which so fully and perfectly abounded in himself. On the first of these ideas we shall not at present dwell, as it will fall to be considered under the second head of our discourse; but let me direct your contemplations to the other, that true religion in the soul consists in the exercise of those holy and loving affections which operated in the bosom of Christ towards his heavenly Father; for he in our text, "that the love wherewith God loved him might be in his people." Now I find four things that distinguished the love of Christ to his Father, and which always, in some measure, distinguishes it in the believing soul. 1st, His was an exclusive love. He loved God his Father "with all his soul, with all his heart, with all his strength, and with all his mind," and thus kept the first and greatest commandment. Never was the claim of God to the creature's deepest affections so thoroughly acknowledged and acquiesced in by any saint or any angel as it was by Christ; and never did God sit on the throne of any heart so secure of its homage, and so honoured in the alacrity of its obedience, as he sat on the throne of his own Son's affections. No creature, however lovely, did for a moment become an idol, and no sin, however fascinating, did for a moment diminish the intensity of his love. His eye was as open as any man's to the glorious landscapes of prays the greatest wrath; when the sword of his justice was entering his soul, and pouring it out in sighs, and groans, and streams of blood, an offering for sin, even then when all other creatures, in similar circumstances, would shrink from glorifying God, and would feel their love for him confused and suspended, even then did Christ manifest for his Father and his glory the most patient and persevering love. He neither shrunk with trembling from the anticipation of them, nor did he hasten their termination when he was experiencing their utmost bitterness and oppression, but with a love for God, who saw them to be necessary for the glorification of his perfections, with a love that was patient and unquenchable, and that stood forth in his soul with unconquerable energy, in the face of every dispiriting circumstance did Christ endure the cross, and despise the shame, and sustain a burden of guilt and woe that would have sunk into ruin irrecoverable a universe itself. Now this exclusive, active, patient, and persevering love of Christ towards his Father, is the love which he prays may be in each of his people, and which is found in each in a greater or less degree. Without it, brethren, it is self-deception to imagine that true religion exists in your souls. For as the very essence of all right religion is the love of God in the heart, and as Christ is exhibited as the image to which all must be conformed, so his love to God is the exemplar of the love which all must experience before they can pretend to the possession of real inward. religion. We do not affirm that our love must necessarily be as perfect as Christ's, and that without this we are destitute of religion in the heart, but we affirm that we must have a measure of conformity to his. Like his, it must be so exclusive as to give to God an habitual supremacy in the affections, and as to triumph over the domination of corruption and the enthralling fascination of idols. Like his, it must be so active as to manifest itself in a career of re the firmament above, and of the earth around, which make so many the ardent worshippers of nature, rather than of nature's God. And his eye also gazed on the forms of human beauty that passed before him; and his mind could balance, with the justest exactitude, the full amount of happiness which every creature yields in the possession; but nothing, nothing was ever sufficiently attractive to draw off his love from God to itself. And, 2dly, Christ's love to God was an active and operative affection. It did not slumber in dreaming inactivity within the recesses of his bosom, like that of many now, who seem to love God with an idle sentimentality, that is too effeminate to glorify him with active and laborious services in his cause. But Christ's love to his Father was so lively and energetic, that he tells us, "it was his very meat and drink to do his will, and to finish his work." So that if you read his life with attention, you will find that many of his discourses were preached, and many of his miracles were wrought, and many of his journeys were travelled amid hunger, and fatigue, and storms, which would have made even an angel drop his wings, and pause in his flight on his errand of mercy. But the Saviour's love was so active, that he would rather at any time glorify his Father, and execute his will, than waste his hours in even necessary refreshment and repose. And, 3lly, Christ's was a patient and persevering love. The fulfilment of his work was connected with many difficulties and discouragements, but these had no effect in diminishing the strength of his love to God, or in suspending its exercises towards him; he still continued amid them all to love him with all his heart, although too, they were such as were peculiarly fitted to exhaust his patience, and to weary out his constancy. What trials, for example, were more calculated to discourage and weaken his devoted attachment to his Father, than the bitter revilings which he endured from men for the heavenliness of his dis-ligious well-doing and zeal for the promotion of courses and works-for the testimony that he bore, in their hearing, to the character and glory of his Father? What temptations could have been more skilfully adapted for withdrawing his affections from God, than those with which Satan assailed him in the wilderness and on the cross? How cunningly, at one time, did the tempter endeavour to represent his Father's deportment towards him arising from hatred and alienation, and how fiercely at other times, did he assault him with his most potent and fiery darts, in order to awaken in his bosom jealous misgivings of his Father's kindness, and drown in them his affection for him? And above all, was it not an amazing trial of his love to be deserted by his Father, yea, and for a time to be visited with the inflictions of his wrath? If any thing is fitted to exhaust our love, it is great and oppressive suffering inflicted on us by those whom we love, yet these the Redeemer endured in an unspeakable degree, and his love for God still triumphed in undiminished ardour and activity. When his Father seemed to frown upon him with the glory of God. And like his, our love to God must be patient and persevering. It is not enough that we love him when the sunshine of his favour illuminates our way, when he makes our very enemies to be at peace with us, and when all around us, in short, wears such a smiling aspect that it would manifest the most monstrous ingratitude and baseness not to love him; but we must persevere in loving him when the manifestations of his love to us are withdrawn, and when louring clouds encompass his throne,—when reason would argue that he has thrown us out of his protection and regard,-when devils mock our faith in him with their atheistical insinuations,—and when a malignant world seems moved with the horrid purpose either of annihilating with its persecutions our love to him, or of pouring out our lives on the altar of martyrdom, a sacrifice to its hate. In tribulations like these we must love God exclusively, actively, patiently, and perseveringly, if we would vindicate our claim to the possession of that religion which both sanctifies and saves the soul. |