they had never heard him pray! He left them, and passed into eternity, and they had never heard him offer one prayer for them! Reader! Did this man do right? When he meets that family at the judgment-seat of God, will it appear that he did right? Have you friends, near and dear, for whom you have not daily prayed the last year? If so, Is this right? Do conscience and God say you have done right? Look back and see. During the past year, a man was held up in life, preserved from sickness, fed, clothed, sheltered and surrounded with mercies by God. The man was busy and active all the year; but he did nothing for the glory of his Maker. He spoke many words, some brilliant, some witty, some severe, some cruel, (all of them now living in God's memory)-but he said nothing for the glory of God and the salvation of men. Oh! if what he said, and all he said, during this short year were engraved on a rock to stand for ever, to be read by every passer by, what a record would that be! What a reponsibility is attached to our words! Mornings and evenings have opened and closed in mercy; sabbaths have come with their sweet and solemn calls, but during all the year, this man has lived without God, has not thanked him for his mercies, has not obeyed his voice, has not tried to live for eternity. The year is thrown away. Whatever he may do hereafter, to all eternity he will feel, that the past year has been thrown away. Is this right? Has this man done right? Reader! Is this man yourself? What a fearful account have you to give for your time, your actions, your influence, your words, your thoughts, for the year now gone! Look back and see! LET US LOOK FORWARD. We are now beginning a new year. Should you live through this year, (and that question is one of awful uncertainty,) it will be an important period to you. A year rolling over an immortal and accountable being, will do more than carry him onward towards the judgment. It will do much towards fixing habits upon him which will decide his eternal destiny. The wind let loose upon the ocean for a given period rolls up the waves upon the shore, not merely while it blows, but the waves continue to roll long after the wind has retired to slumber. Just so one period of time commands another, and one set of habits determine what shall follow; and thus one year, with an iron grasp, takes hold of the year which is to follow. It is this, that will make the coming year so important to my reader. Go through this year with a moral character decidedly wrong, and, should you live, you will find that the next year you are bound in cords that are new, and in withs that are green. This year will have much to do with all future time that you spend on the shores of time, and much to do with the uncounted ages which will meet you, after you have launched on the ocean of eternity. Pause, then, a moment, and look forward. If, during this year, some professed Christians shall forget their vows, and have their love grow cold, and go backward, and walk no more with Christ, will they have to say, at the day of accounts, that you aided and encouraged them by your influence, in praying Christ to depart out of our coasts? If the heart of your minister should faint; if the waters of life flow not in the sanctuary; if the sabbath-school is not a blessing to the youth and children; if those whom you love most are not converted to God; if your own soul lives in darkness and doubts, will these things be owing to you because you are unfaithful to God and to your own soul? Look forward, forward, my reader. You now stand on the threshold of a new year. You hail it with joy. You hope to live through it; if you do, Will you redeem the time, and spend it in the fear of God? You hope to gain property, and to be prospered in business; if so, Will you now promise to use it as the steward of the most high God? You hope to be surrounded with friends and kindred; if you are, Will you set them an example that will be likely to lead them to Christ, and not to cause them to curse your name and memory for ever? You hope to have the Lord's day rest, the Bible, the preached word, and the offers of eternal life. I hope and pray that you may. If you do, will you improve these mercies to the salvation of your soul? Oh! give me the promise, before you lay down this little monitor, that if this year be your last, it shall be improved the best, and that every day you will look forward to your end. CALLS OF USEFULNESS. Call on a feeble-minded Christian. Visitor. I HAVE brought you a book, Andrew, calculated to strengthen your mind, and to do you good under your heavy trials. A sailor in a storm looks not so much to the roaring billows, as to the good ship which enables him to surmount them; and God's people, in like manner, should · regard their troubles less than the God of all consolation, who can sustain them under every calamity. Andrew. You are right, but I am so feeble-minded, that the lightest blow from the hand of affliction makes me stagger. I know that it ought not to be so; but I seem to have no strength. Visitor. Christian men should not be behindhand with worldly men in enduring calamity. Let me tell you of a circumstance of which I have just been reading. A wildfowl shooter, on the low flat shores opposite the Isle of Wight, pursued his game with such ardour, that before he was aware of the tide coming in, he was surrounded by the water. In whatever direction he ran he was compelled to return, till at last he was cooped up in a little space which every moment grew less. Being a man of some self-possession, he stuck the barrel of the long gun he had with him deep into the mud, and resolved to hold by it until the ebbing of the tide. As he well knew that a common tide would not rise higher than his waist, he considered himself pretty safe, though very uncomfortably situated. The water came nearer and nearer, till it covered the spot on which he stood, and then rippled over his feet. Soon after it gained his knees, his waist, and his bosom. Some circumstances of an uncommon kind occurred to make the tide rise higher than ordinary, and button after button disappeared, till the water ran over his shoulders. What a situation! This was enough to try the stoutest heart; and as he could not tell how much higher the waters might rise, he gave himself over for lost. Life, however, is too precious to be parted with without a struggle, and he held fast by his long gun that he might not be borne away by the flowing waters. After remaining for some time in this fearful and almost hopeless situation, he suddenly thought that he saw the uppermost button of his coat begin to appear, and never sure was man so delighted at the sight of a button. It was long before he was quite certain that the button was fairly above the water, the waves being blown against him by the wind. At length, a second button appeared, then a third, and, by degrees, the whole of his dress. As the waters fell, his spirits rose, so that he was able to sustain himself by means of his gun, till he could walk with safety to the shore. Now, if a man, deriving no support from religion, could, under such trying circumstances, manifest presence of mind, how much more ought a Christian calmly to endure the greatest dangers. Let the floods of affliction come upon him, let the waves of trouble roll around him, he should still cling to that hope which is "as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast," even the hope of salvation through his Saviour Jesus Christ; nothing doubting that He who holds the sea in the hollow of his hand, will, in his own time, rebuke the overwhelming flood, saying, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed," Job xxxviii. 11. Andrew. While you are talking with me I feel strong as though I had faith to remove mountains, and power to bear tribulation without murmuring, but when left to myself I shall be weak as water. Visitor. I hope that I shall not leave you by yourself, but that you will have His presence, who can not only weaken the strongest opposer of his will, but also strengthen the weakest believer who trusts in his mercy. Call on a youthful Reader. Visitor. What a heap of books you have on the table. Some of them of little worth, I fear, judging by the first I have taken up. This book of riddles contains many very silly things. Did you ever read "The Believer's Riddle ?" Youth. No, sir, I do not know what you mean. Visitor. It is a book full of riddles of a different character to those that this little book contains. are all taken from the Bible; but I will give them. "I'm sinful, yet I have no sin; All spotted o'er, yet wholly clean: Can you at all make out the meaning of it? Youth. No, sir, that I am sure I cannot. The riddles you one of Visitor. Well, then, I will explain it to you. A believer in Jesus Christ, one who has been convinced of sin, and who has fled for refuge to the cross, and found mercy, is still a sinner; for all men have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; but yet he is without sin, because God has accepted the atoning sacrifice of his Son for every truly repentant sinner. He is spotted over with the leprosy of evil, for all men have become altogether filthy, from the crown of the head to the sole of the feet; but he is wholly clean, because he is washed, and purified, and made white in the fountain opened for uncleanness. He is black as midnight, when considered in himself, but fair as heaven itself when regarded in the Redeemer. And now having explained one riddle to you, perhaps you will be the more ready to find out another yourself. I will, therefore, leave one with you, and you can tell me your opinion on it when I see you again. "The work is great I'm called unto, Yet nothing's left for me to do: Hence for my work Heaven hath prepared Call on One setting a bad Example. Visitor. Come, I have caught you just as you are going out. How is it, Timothy, that you set your neighbours so bad an example? Here are you on God's holy day, vending newspapers, as well as all kinds of trumpery publications, thus drawing away the hearts of those around you from Divine things. This is a bad way of getting a living. You are deceiving yourself if you suppose that it will answer your purpose. Your father, Timothy, was a God-fearing man, and would have shrunk from setting so bad an example. Timothy. I don't see what my example has to do with |