they are its facilities for a busy movement of circulation, which con fer upon it, in our apprehension, a mighty superiority over a mere system of Dissenterism. It is true, that the movement is in a great measure internal; and for this reason it does not bear upon it ostensibly the character of missionary enterprise. But surely a missionary object is as much fulfilled by the movement which comprehends all who are within, as by the movement that extends to all who are without. The precept of "Go and preach the Gospel to every creature," includes an application to the outcasts at home as well as the outcasts abroad and on the very principle which inclines us to the frame-work of a Missionary Society, do we feel inclined to the frame-work of a National Establishment.” We cannot but express our high approbation of the good sense and sound Christian philosophy displayed in these sentiments, and we like them not the less because they appear to us to be a legitimate developement of that principle acted upon and recommended by the Apostle, when he said he taught publicly and from house to house.

We could wish to see every Minister of our Church take the same view of the nature and peculiar responsibility of our Establishment, and set forward with a holy zeal to discharge the duties which it imposes, and avail himself of the facilities which it provides. They would thus roll away the reproach that has been cast upon the Established Church, and what is of more importance, would as fellow-workers with God, promote the salvation of souls, and be honored instruments in extending the Redeemer's kingdom. If there is only zeal on the part of the clergy, and a proper sense of duty, there can be no obstacle to that which we would recommend except, in some places, too large a population. We know that in many town parishes the immense number of parishioners would prevent the possibility of a Minister being individually acquainted with them all, and the despair of complete success often prevents even an attempt. We are aware too that some country parishes extend over such a surface as no individual exertion can reach. But these things ought not to be: Ministers ought to be multiplied in towns in some proportion to the numbers of the people, and parishes in the country ought to be so divided that there may at least be a possibility of a Minister discharging his sacred office with satisfaction to himself, and with advantage to his flock. Let only a higher sense of pastoral duty be admitted; let only the principle of responsibility as to each individual in a parish be recognized, and we should quickly see the cases in which the application of the principle is impossible, decrease in number. With regard to the people themselves there exists no obstacle, they would receive with gratitude the personal attention of their Minister, and even those who did not value the spiritual object of his visit would feel the kindness which it displayed, and would appreciate the conscientious discharge of duty which it exhibited. Kindness and perseverance would with God's blessing produce great results; men even the most hardened

would in time be irresistibly influenced by truths unceasingly and affectionately obtruded on them.

If the circumstances of an established local Minister give a peculiar facility to his exercising a pervading missionary influence over all the population of his parish, so those very circumstances tend to make his exertions less effectual if they are confined to his public and necessary ministrations. If he only goes through the public services of his church, visits the sick when called for, and instructs the children who are sent to him for instruction, he is always considered by his people as doing that for which he is paid, and therefore doing it only because he is paid. If he goes not beyond that which the law exacts, and common custom has prescribed, he leaves no impression upon his flock of his personal interest in their spiritual welfare, from a lively concern about his own; he exhibits to them no proof of his belief in the awful realities about which he ministers, no evidence of his interest in those souls committed to his charge. Should a dissenter open his chapel, built by no legal provision, and there give in equal number his unpaid services, he would indeed afford evidence of his love for souls and his zeal for his master's glory; but if the Minister of a well endowed Establishment does no more for the people of his parish, he has no reason to expect them to consider him alive either to their spiritual interests or his own. He must take some step beyond that which the letter of the law prescribes if he would convince them that not the mere formal duty of his church, but true Christian zeal warms and animates his heart. It is then he can expect to be blessed to his people when his conduct among them would justify him in addressing them like Paul: not only "ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and justly, and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you," but also, "ye know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you as a father doth his children."

The Established clergy have peculiar facilities for doing this; they have a peculiar obligation to do so, and there lies consequently upon them a peculiar necessity, if they would exercise their ministry with effect upon others and with comfort to themselves. We rejoice to think of the increasing number of those who would take heed to their ministry to fulfil it.

It only remains for us to remind such, that this requires not only zeal and good intentions, but system and regularity. They must number the families; they must be acquainted with the individuals; they must mark down the children; they must keep an account of the visits which they pay, and note the persons they have seen and those they have not seen. This requires more than a burst of enthusiasm or an occasional impulse or excitement. It demands a well ordered division of time, and a regulated and chastened habit of mind; and it will exhibit what the Apostle so much valued in the Thessalonians—the "work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the sight of God and our Father."

But shall we despair of seeing all this exemplified by the ministers of our church? Shall we fear lest they give up their van tage ground and abandon the field to other labourers not so suited by their circumstances to execute the work? No; "we are persuaded better things of many of them, and things which accompany salvation, though we thus speak." But we would stir up their pure minds by way of remembrance, and we feel assured that the most active and zealous labourer in our church will be thankful to us that we are not negligent to put them in remembrance of these things, though they know them and are established in the present truth.

THOUGHTS ON A NEW YEAR.

There is no theme almost, on which the poet, the moralist, or the historian, has been more frequently tempted to enlarge, than on that of the uncertainty of all human expectations. And there is a reason for this-they are certain of exciting some degree of interest in their readers, from the conviction, which must ever present itself, of their liability to experience this truth in their own particular case. What one worldly possession is there that has not withered in the owner's grasp? what one thing is there of all that men call good, that has not, at some time or other, cheated their pursuit? What scheme, however well laid, but may terminate in disappointment? There breathes not the man on earth who must not confess his liability to hope, yet be deceived. Crowns have been exchanged for dungeons; wealth for beggary; health for disease; good fame for loss of character; and that permanence which thousands dreamed of in the possession of them, turned to instability itself. The snow does not dissolve more rapidly before the sunbeams, than does many an ardent expectation of the human heart; though, for a time, perhaps the fulfilment of it seemed beyond the reach of mortal contingencies. It is a truth (and some would say a melancholy one) that to be a man, is to be born to an inheritance of many disappointments; that there is nothing in this life on which the heart can expand its affections, that may not, in the moment, " flee away," and leave the very recollection of its former existence, but "as a dream when one awaketh."

It is a lesson, therefore, that man should often press upon his fellow-the necessity of being moderate in his expectations; and the lesson comes, indeed, enforced by such a host of instances, that its importance cannot be denied, at least in part. It is a lesson which addresses all; for there is none who may not be, himself, an evidence of the danger of neglecting it. But it is a point deserving our particular attention-that, as concerns the most important subject which presents itself to man's consideration, no warning is given, because no dread exists. Upon the dan

ger of being disappointed in our expectations concerning the ultimate allotment of our souls, the cautionary code of this world's prudence is completely silent. It can bid the wealthy beware, that "riches make unto themselves wings, and fly away;" it can say to the strong," remember the days of feebleness, for they shall be many." It can tell the doating parents, of those who loved as fondly, yet saw the desire of their eyes taken away at a stroke and it can lower the pride of conquest with that truth"the race is not always to the swift, or the battle to the strong." But it has not a word for the self-deceiver in religion. Man may have his hope as high as heaven, and be in bondage all the time to hell. He may be the victim of the most fatal delusion to which his nature makes him liable; yet, never, in all that wisdom which this world admires so much, meet even a hint to warn him of the greatest of all dangers, or bid him pause, and think whether a man may not hope for future glory, and be disappointed.

Now, there are two reasons which may be assigned for this deficiency. The first and the greatest is, that concerning spirituals this world is altogether indifferent. To unconverted men (that is to the great majority,) there is nothing in the thoughts of heaven to bid their pulse beat high, or in the thoughts of hell to check the full career of their indulgence. These are to them possibilities at best, of which they think but little, and care less. To that carnal mindwhich, as the Apostle tells us, is "enmity with God," nothing connected with His name can waken attention, or command regard. This world might pity the aspirant to some earthly dignity, whose hope was disappointed; but, what sympathies has it could it have, for him who thought to reach a heavenly crown, but failed in the attempt? He who finds himself in the next world a condemned sinner, when he thought to be a glorified saint, has, indeed, suffered a loss, which the boundless ages of eternity never will enable him to calculate. But this is a loss which the children of this world cannot appreciate. It forms no part of their morality—that sentence, "unless a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." It is no warning of their's, that solemn one, "let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.” And we can see plainly why they should not; we have observed already one cause that success in spiritual things forms nothing of this world's good; against disappointment in them they have no preparatory caution. But there is another reason also: he who is shipwrecked in this voyage of life, awakes the alarm of his fellows, by his visible afflictions. The man who falls from worldly wealth or greatness to poverty or degradation, may live, and be the monument of his own desolation. This earth is full enough of witnesses to the uncertainty of earthly hopes; we have but to cast our eyes around, and we shall behold disease and beggary; the young, widowed; the aged, childless. We may hear the " sorrowful sighing of the prisoner," and the lamentations of him who watereth his sick "couch with his tears." We want no evidence to prove, that in things temporal, man may hope and be deceived;

The victims of the worst

but in things spiritual it is not so. deceit deceit about their souls, are beyond the reach of human sympathies. Their ruin no man can behold, for the grave has closed its mouth upon them. Suffer they may; but their sufferings are in that place which is beyond the range of mortal eyes. Of the millions which annually pass from a life of deception to an eternity of misery, this world can receive no report; for, from the place of the dead there is no intelligence.

Well,' our readers will say, 'these remarks may be just and 'true enough, but what connection have they with the subject of a New Year? What have they to do with it? Every thing,' we reply. If there be a period more fitted than another to call men to reflection upon the subject of self-deceit in spirituals, surely it is when a new series of twelve untried months are coming to pass upon the souls of thousands the same stale cheats which their predecessors have already done, ere they went to join "the years before the flood."

The coming time is rich in promise, is it not? But what has the past time effected for us? And the short epoch now departed, never to return, was once to us, future; as bright with its visionary harvest of golden expectations never reaped, as that which now lies before us in all the shadowy richness of undefined enjoyment. Alas! let none do us the injustice to think we would willingly throw a damp over that season when the whole family of man rejoices together; but seriousness does not necessarily imply sorrow, and we would entreat our too careless fellow-mortals and fellow-sinners, while hailing with delight the coming of a new portion of fast fleeting time, to take one thoughtful retrospective glance at that despised one which is now sinking into the thickened shadows of obliviousness. It is the fashion of this world to speak of its old calendar as the most completely worthless of all books. Ah! could we read upon its pages, the records of our follies and our vices; could we find in them the memorial of what we have done and what we have left undone upon occasions now unheeded and forgotten; they would be to man the most instructive and most humbling records which could meet his eyes. The days indeed are gone, and the deeds they witnessed are done, but they shall be revived and bear a solemn testimony before the presence of Him who sitteth upon the throne for ever and ever; a testimony which shall consign us either to an eternal heaven or an eternal hell!

The coming year will certainly do much for thousands. It will gratify the raised longings of every class of our species from expanding childhood to matured age. It will give toys and thrones. It will alike emancipate the buoyant spirit of youth from the petty thraldom of schools and universities, and free the politician from the bondage of a long court attendance, to put him into the possession of place and power. It will make many possessors of wealth, which prodigality itself shall not be able to exhaust, and