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the times and the seasons' we can know nothing; even inquiry into the secret is forbidden. Yet do we remember the vision is for an appointed time,' and he that shall come will come and will not tarry.' (Hab. ii, 3, 4; Heb, x, 37, 38.)

Our safety and our happiness, our profit and our honor, is to be found at our posts; to be occupied with realities; to refuse to be engaged by trifles; to lend our strength to nothing undeserving our hearts' affections, and mental energies. Yet to be slow to no good work; but, whatsoever' our hands find to do, to do with our might.'

We hear increasing complaints of the sad condition of our churches; lamentations are frequently well-founded; rejoicings seldom; repinings too rife, but searchings too backward.

There is doubtless the canker-worm of an indolent spirit amongst us, which almost insensibly creeps into our service -whether of brain, tongue, or heart.— Indolence abroad and at home; in church and family; in our mutual intercourse and our closets. Our closets! ah, do we know what these are? Do we talk alone with God? Do we watch

JANUARY.

for his answer? Do we search his word in faith and expect his blessing thus?

Oh, brethren, while we weep for the 'daughter of Zion'; while we cry, 'Is there no balm in Gilead?' while we pray for the healing and revival of the church; let our first seekings be concerning our own vineyards-we are each integrals of one whole. Influence on others we must have. Small or large, good or bad, our example will be plainer than our precepts, our practice mightier than our preaching.

One of the most powerful instrumentalities for health and usefulness, and one widely neglected-and as surely vindicating its value by the disease and darkness consequent on its disuse-is the earnest study of the Word of God.

If the minister would be full in the pulpit, this is the means of his preparedness. If the hearer would feel delights in the sanctuary, it cannot be expected apart from this source. If the teacher would be apt, and find it a pleasant path to go before his scholars, growing familiarity with the word shall be his sufficiency. Nor are the entrances to this field hard of approach-the gates of this rich pasture ground are open-wise pioneers have left landmarks of their pilgrimage, and a cloud of witnesses thrown a cheerful light upon the way. In such an occupation the result is not doubtful. The Word of God can ne'er be sincerely searched without finding apples of gold in baskets of silver. No spot in all the field is barren; it is the garden of the Lord, and yields twelve manners of fruits. May we each month eat and grow thereby, and at the close

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PREACH THE WORD. 'Fully to preach the word of God.'-COL. i, 25. IN our previous paper we concluded by intimating that self should be merged in the dignity of the preached word. It is a high honor to be made a preacher of God's word, and that office has high duties and responsibilities attaching to it, and none more than this, that the minister should be careful not to stand in the proper course of God's truth, which should have free course, run, and be glorified. God's gifts were bestowed to glorify the Giver; and this important consideration should, like Moses's serpent, swallow up all other considerations, and extinguish all other importance.

Those gifts should be entirely engaged in fully declaring the mystery which had been for ages and generations hidden in types and sacrificial parables; and which were fulfilled and amplified in Christ's life and death, resurrection, and ascension. Christ in all his attributes, offices, and mission, and in all their various bearings and relations, should be the preacher's constant concern; touching which we cannot now treat; but there is one subject, however, which is much neglected in the ministrations of God's preachers holding the doctrines of grace, viz., the responsibility of the sinner before God: He who is under the law to God-he who is under the galling yoke of sin-he who is in the gall of bitterness, the subject of the reign of death.' (Rom. v, 14.) Man is not sufficiently told that by the deeds of the law, no flesh in God's sight can be justified.

Many religionists, holding the glorious truths of the gospel, enshroud themselves in their own theory; and express themselves that God will have his own elect, without concerning themselves about man's responsibility; and, indeed, they see no necessity for any concern of the kind, being convinced that God's

purpose of grace will certainly be attained; but the answer to such is simple and obvious, for if such views of God's purposes of mercy were universally held, then preaching would be useless and vain, and God would be left to work without, instead of by and in, the means. God has determined to use instrumentality; and it should be the desire and delight, both of preacher and people, to be instruments in God's hand to carry out the purposes of the covenant of all grace.

Many preachers in their pulpit addresses appear to speak as if they were wholly surrounded by saints, and not by sinners as well. The apostles did not so act. They warned and persuaded, but did not offer. They showed responsibility and demonstrated dutynot responsibility to be spiritual, which only God's grace could effect; not duty to believe spiritually to the saving of the soul; they, knowing that spiritual faith and repentance were the gift of God, but knowing also the terror of the law, they warned men. The wicked and transgressors are to be warned, and warned prayerfully and earnestly; and the apostle Paul rejoiced even in the prospect of death that he was free from the blood of all, and that he had not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God.' (Acts xx.) And then he more especially addressed the overseers of God's flock, and charged them to watch and remember how that, by the space of three years, he had not ceased to warn every one night and day with tears. Jesus wept, and why should not his servant Paul? Sin may always be watched against, and wept over, and every true minister of Christ will often weep over sinners.

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'Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.' (2 Cor. v, 11.) The gospel minister may both warn and persuade men. The apostle spake boldly disputing and persuading.' (Acts xviii, 8.) He expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets, from morning till evening; and this is the kind of preaching required at the present day. (Acts xxviii, 23.) The persuasion here meant is not a persuasion to be spiritually saved without the power

of God-without the Spirit who bloweth where he listeth-but it is a persuasion touching the condition of man as a sinner; and his liabilities under the law, and such like questions; it is the use of persuasive arguments to the reason, judgment, and conscience of man, as a sinner.

An unbeliever has duties and responsibilities, as well as the believer. It is his duty to believe the revelation of God touching the glorious Redeemer. He is bound to believe that he is the fulfilment of the prophecies and the satisfaction of the holy precepts; otherwise he is not bound to believe the truth of God's revelation; he is bound to believe the record which God has sent into the world; and when the Creator speaks, the creature is bound to hearken. As creatures of God's power we are bound to ascertain our Maker's will.

Man is under law to God, and, consequently, it is the duty of every preacher to tell his fellow creature their duties and responsibilities; and that preaching which does not fully demonstrate man's state by birth and practice, is not preaching Jesus out of the law of Moses. The doctrines of grace, as held by many teachers, have been considered repulsive; which is greatly owing to the manner in which they have been advanced. Grace, mercy, and love, can never, in themselves, be repulsive. The vestibule of the gospel is the law, and the latter should be faithfully preached to all, pointing out clearly the curse of God upon all unrighteousness, and how, by the deeds of the law, no flesh living can be justified. Then every mouth would be stopped before God. It should be shown how the claims of the law can be met, viz., only and wholly in Christ; then Christ would be preached out of the law.

God has not thought proper to declare how many are to be saved; or when those who are destined to salvation will be called. The command has gone forth that the whole word of God shall be preached, and it is often lamentable to hear sermons without any warnings to sinners; without their duties, liabilities, and responsibilities, being forcibly and fully set before them. God's ministers should reason, as did Paul, of 'righteousness, temperance, and judg(Acts xxiv, 25.) And

ment to come.

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if God blesses the serious appeal to the reason and conscience, fixing fast the arrow of conviction, and constraining the hearer to cry out, What shall I do to be saved? the minister will have great reason to praise his God in blessing his instrumentality.

When Paul thus reasoned with men, he did not deny the glorious gospel of mercy; for no man advocated more than he did the sovereign mercy of our God, but, as a good master builder, he sought to remove the rubbish before he began the gospel building. He commenced by showing the utter depravity of man; cutting from under him all refuges of lies all fancied meetness or worth. He did not preach exclusively to the saint, but he no where called upon the dead to spiritually live; neither did he tell the dead in sin to raise themselves beyond their natures, yet who was more successful in his ministrations? O that men would take Paul as a type and pattern of preaching! He advocated no offered grace, no coaxing or coquetting, but, by the foolishness of preaching' he destroyed, through God's blessing, the worldly wisdom of men, and proved all the excellency of salvation was in God.

The Society alluded to in the preface of the last number of the HERALD, is formed for the purpose of more especially advancing the doctrines of grace in all their sovereignty and glory; and while the sinner is laid low in the dust, to maintain his awful condition before God as a creature. Its object is to show more earnestly and zealously, the duties and responsibilities of the sinner's state, and also to define clearly the duties and responsibilities of the Christian as a renewed creature. May God give it good speed! It is a good thing to be zealously affected in a good work. Not to be grieved at the state of men, and not to have love towards our fellow creatures in the gall of bitterness, is to practically deny the philanthropic spirit of Christianity. As God is essentially a God of mercies and forgiveness (Dan. ix, 9), and as Christ is a merciful High Priest, so the saints should be merciful. (Heb. ii, 17; Matt. v, 7.) 'Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness,' etc. (Col. viii, 12. )

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It often follows that the pulpit teachings have an undue influence upon the prayers of the people. The pew is often the reflex of the pulpit, consequently, if the pulpit is deficient in the kind of teaching we should like to see enforced, the pew will lack that spirit of anxious concern and zeal for souls. We have often listened with pleasure and profit to a most excellent and urgent appeal to God made at our prayer meetings, and when the brother has concluded, we could ask ourselves whether God has any of his elect yet to call? or whether there were yet any sinners to be gathered in?

We have in this and a former paper been endeavoring to show that erudition and excellency of speech may exist with a faithful promulgation of God's truth. Every minister is bound to improve the gifts of his office, and if he is not talented, he can be truthful, for truth is infinitely of more importance than mere talent; consequently, the plain minister in holy things may rejoice and take courage if he faithfully discharge his mission, to the best of his ability and according to the gift he possesses. Pure truth is always preferable to talent and error, for we are not of the opinion of those who think the pure gold of the sanctuary should be alloyed in order to make it more fitting for circulation.

Let that minister who is talented improve his talents, and let him who is deficient covet earnestly the best gifts. If he should not attain to eloquence, let him use sound words which cannot be condemned: for, as Lord Bacon says, 'discretion of speech is better than eloquence.'

The pursuit of knowledge should be the constant aim of the minister; and in proportion as the ministry in its tone and character is raised, so will there be a corresponding benefit and improvement in those who are ministered unto. Knowledge always carries with it its own recompense of reward, and it yields to its seekers a plenteous usury, in some twenty, some sixty, and some a hundredfold.

The ill-informed and well-informed, are bound alike to progress; for it has been well observed that knowledge is like ferns, which are limited to no

country, and like corn, prescribed to no particular class.

E. W. L

'I WISH YOU A HAPPY NEW YEAR!'

ALLOW, dear reader, the adoption of the usual compliment at this period of the year, in its best, purest, and most exalted application. How rapid the flight of time! how swift the pilgrimage of man from the cradle to the tomb, and while loitering in a gay sensibility, death is ever bending its bow, and getting ready its arrows for its departure!

Another short year has run its course. Eternity has ingulphed another of those momentous divisions of the world's predestined age. 1856 is gone-for ever. It is now a portion of eternity. What is done, is for ever done. O eternity! how are our most mighty thoughts, our highest altitude of numbers, our most perfect instruments of measure, lost and overwhelmed in thee! Mysterious, mighty, incomprehensible reality! Always at the meridian height; never lessened by the largest deduction; no contraction-no diminution; vast, boundless, amazing eternity! A few more moments-two or three more revolutions of the wheels of time-and both writer and reader shall drop into thy bosom of infinity; and who can describe, paint, or conceive the depths, heights, lengths, breadths of those glories and felicities which await the child of God-the saints of the Most High? It is in the prospect of this immortal bliss, having some small but delightful estimate of the infinite superiority of heaven's joys, to the transitory, flying, fading pleasure of earth, that I would reiterate my wish, for you to possess a happy new year, upon the threshold of 1857.

But you may inquire, What constitutes or makes the new year a happy one? Now the man of business will find happiness, when, upon taking stock, and examining his books, he ascertains that, during the past year, he has made some important additions to his already acquired property. This will give him satisfaction in the past, and serve him for still greater strides in the future. So also with the heir of