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ation of what he used to call his "wretched, priest-ridden countrymen;" indeed he scarcely ever alluded to the spiritual state of Ireland without the appellation of " that unhappy country."

In conversing on the errors and superstitions of Popery, he generally attributed much of its pernicious and demoralizing influence to the examples and teachings of a wicked and licentious priesthood, and frequently would he exclaim, "What an awful account those men will have to give at the judgment seat of Christ!"

During his last affliction I often saw and conversed with him on the solemn subjects of death and a future state, and always found him in a state of calm confidence respecting his acceptance with God. He unhesitatingly exclaimed, I know in whom I have believed." Indeed so completely did he seem to be delivered from doubts and fears, and so firm and unshaken was his trust in the vicarious sufferings and atonement of the Saviour, that I have made mention of it afterwards to brother Lawley, who sometimes visited him in company with me. The only thing which appeared to prey on his spirits was the unprovided state in which he should leave his wife and children; but from this pressure he was soon relieved by a dependance on him who has said, Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me." In his latest conversation respecting the Mission he deplored the necessity of withdrawing any of our agents, especially from the benighted south and west of Ireland. But that the flourishing station of Limerick should be abandoned occasioned him much grief. Limerick !" he would exclaim, "if I should not live to see it, yet I hope the time is not far distant when it will again become the sphere of our Missionary labours."

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Of the nature and ultimate consequences of his disease he was quite conscious, and would not allow any medical expense to be incurred, as he said it would be a waste of money-his days were numbered, and he wished to close his eyes to all below that he might be with his "dear Saviour." The nearer he approached the eternal world the more composed and happy was his mind. One circumstance, however, in connection with his quitting the ministry, had given rise to, and up to this time tended to perpetuate, feelings of not the most scriptural and Christian character. It was this: from something which he had either heard or imagined, an impression was made on his mind, that the discontinuance of his services on the Mission was owing to certain statements affecting his abilities, and prejudicial to his ministerial qualifications, which had been privately communicated to the Committee and to Conference. I had remonstrated with him frequently on the subject, and endeavoured to show him the absurdity of such notions, inasmuch as his case had been fully and fairly represented to a deliberative assembly of Christian men, who would never give ear to ex parte statements, should there be one found so unkind as to make them. But it seems that his mind was not fully relieved until after an interview with an old and respected friend, the day before his death, to whom he opened his mind, and who gave him such counsel and exhortation that the spell was broken-the tempter dislodged, and his freed spirit seemed now to stand on the summit of Pisgah and eagerly to wait for the moment when God should bid it fly. To his weeping partner he said, "I shall not go to-day, so that you may all go to bed;" but to a friend who stood near him he observed, "I shall not be long, as I feel myself hourly getting weaker. Well, I

am perfectly safe and happy in the prospect of eternal life;" and summoning all his physical energies he exclaimed,

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dt moit de rude “My Jesus to know, and feel his blood flow, li tisa is cly on 'Tis life, everlasting, 'tis heaven below." Tubbs IBU

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In this composed state of mind he continued through the night, com pletely resigned to the will of God and waiting for the time of his departure. Towards the dawn of morning he became exceedingly feeble, and was not able to articulate so as to be understood; but by the moving of his lips and waving of his hand he gave sufficient indications of his peace with God, his victory over the last enemy, and the glorious prospect which was bursting on his ravished sight, and at ten o'clock on the morning of January 22nd he resigned his spirit into the hands of that God who gave

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ST), I VIRTUE, KNOWLEDGE, AND GODLINESS,*.bm

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"And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity."-2 Pet. i. 5, 6, 7.

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We select virtue, knowledge, and godliness as the subjects of this discourse. Faith is the beginning, the centre, the foundation. Although, in the order of experience, we repent before we have justifying faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yet there must be faith relatively to repentance. Some religious truth or doctrine must be believed by a sinner, before he can repent of his sins. He that cometh unto God must believe that he is. But, to justifying faith, virtue is to be added, as it is not necessarily included in faith, in all its degrees.

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I.—VIRTUE AND KNOWLEDGE. The first meaning of the "word virtue, is courage or fortitude. Heroes were called virtuous, that is courageous In an age of martyrdom courage is necessary. When those whose duty it is to confess their faith in Christ are threatened with persecution and death, their confession is not non-resistance or passive obedience in the usual sense of the term, for they are commanded not to confess or profess faith in Christ under the penalty of death. When by renouncing or denying, suffering and death may be avoided, it requires courage to meet the danger. To courage, knowledge must be added. The distinction betwixt courage and knowledge, is greater than that betwixt faith and courage. It is not by adding faith to faith, nor by adding courage to courage, that we add proportionably to our knowledge. Each is connected with different and peculiar modes of mind and emotions. We

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*Extracted from tc The Christian World," a religious periodical under the table editorship of the Rev. T. H. Stockton, of Philadelphia.

often hear "believers called timid believers. There may be want of courage without an error or defect of faith There is in many good people a natural or constitutional want of courage; they shrink from the trials and dangers of religion. The English Reformer Cranmer is an example of a want of and of it. At first his

failed, and he signed per containing his recantation Courage

But when he found that his enemies were determined to burn him, he held his right hand in the flames, before they approached his body, saying, it ought to suffer first for holding the pen, and made a most distinct confession of his faith bar mor

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ut bor We see according to our theory of composition of parts of religion, that faith may combine with fear and with courage, and that the results vary, showing some remote analogy to certain chemical compounds; as when two or more substances chemically unite and produce a substance differing from them all. With the heart man believeth unto justification, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. But if the believer be threatened with death and is prevented by feat from cohfessing with his lips what he believes in his heart, how can he realise salvation? Behold! the importance of adding courage to faith. Fears may overcome or suspend the action of faith. "And I say unto you, my friends, be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do: but I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear; fear him, who after he hath killed hath power power to cast into hell, yea, I say unto you, fear him." Luke xii. 4, 5. This is opposed to "the fear of man, which bringeth a snare." It is a motive which, in effect, produces courage to die for religion. To add courage then, we must bring the greater motive to bear against the less. So Moses did not fearing the wrath of the king. In the same relative manner, hope of a greater reward mayo overcome a a hope of a less reward. Moses had respect unto the recompense of rew of reward. Natural fear is much greater in some persons than in others. But perhaps no one is so courageous at all tiines; and under all dangers, as to rise above all fear. Thus the fear of God may be added to justifying faith. Few persons seem to have experienced gracious pardonin the removal of all their guilt, whose attention was not fixed mostly upon that one great interest. Faith differs from reason in this as well as in some other respects. Reason takes the widest range of inquiry and evidence, and must-have time to arrive at final conclusions from all the data to be obtained. Faith in the promise of a personal promiser may accept the thing promised upon the veracity of the promiser. The modes of the mind in reasoning, as as in Den believing, may differ so much as not to require the time in the latter case that must be taken up in the former This is the ground of the opinions, respecting sudden ob quick conversions.The application of the promises is believe and be saved, believe now; nothing remains, but to believe in order to receives Believe that you have it, and you shall have it. Believe that the promise you have is true, and you shall have the fulfilment of it. You need not wait until you make out in your own mind a logical demonstration of the whole case in all its bearings. Should Id you succeed in doing so you will not by this means experience the truth of the promise unless you believe. This is not contrary to analogy. Confidence in men determines us to take their word. Actual demonstration adds nothing to truth itself; its effects are only in our minds.

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But the highest confidence in the promises of the gospel make little or no permanent physical change in our timidity. If the righteous man be as bold as a lion, he is not so by nature alone, otherwise his courage must have its origin in nature alone and not in religion. But an unrighteous man may be naturally as bold as a lion. It is then the fear of the superior authority of God which emboldens naturally timid persons. Certain persons are said to have more courage than conduct, that is, than knowledge how to conduct their courage. Knowledge, in its origin and its progress is no otherwise connected with courage than as industry and perseverance in study require resolution. A mere determination to form knowledge (so to speak) may become a hindrance to its attainment. We never become wiser by jumping at conclusions. All knowledge in the human mind begins in elements or alphabets, that is, in the smallest division. Letters are the smallest division of language, and the numbers in the decimal scale the smallest division or the signs of numbers. The ignorance of an alphabet has kept whole races of men ignorant of the art of reading and writing, and must keep them so for ever.

Religious knowledge, also, has its elements or first principles. The first principles of the Christian religion are: "There is one God, and one Mediator betwixt God and man; the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." In all moral knowledge, or knowledge of right and wrong, there are first principles, which belong not to, nor can be supplied from, other sciences.

But there are two modes of adding knowledge. The one in regard to isolated minds individually, and the other in regard to minds collectively, or in a state of social organization. Every man by study and reflection, with or without a teacher, may add to his knowledge and become wise for himself; that is, from habits which he cannot transfer to others. But organized bodies, or churches, may add to their knowledge by adding to their number learned and wise men, who can communicate their superior knowledge to those who are not equally learned. It is agreed by all that the twelve originally chosen apostles were not educated in colleges. And the prevailing opinion among learned men is, that their inspiration did not supply their minds with all the qualities or qualifications which a regular collegiate course of education is calculated to produce; or, in other words, that inspiration did not produce in their minds the modes and habits, in the same degrees, of men disciplined from their youth to systematic studies. Education supplies to the mind in a peculiar manner the art of thinking and of communicating thoughts to others, which we say not cannot be supplied by inspiration, but was not supplied to the twelve. It pleased God, therefore, to choose a thirteenth apostle, a Benjamite, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, one among the most able teachers in Jerusalem. By this course of education he became eminently prepared to be an apostle to the Gentiles. He was a chosen vessel to bear the knowledge of salvation to the nations. What an amount of knowledge was added to the ministry, and through it to the churches and to the world! St. Paul was not disobedient to his peculiar calling. He laboured not in other men's line of things-he built not upon other men's foundations, but endeavoured to preach the gospel where Christ had not been named. As a wise master builder he laid the foundation and other men built upon it. The great controversy about justification was conducted chiefly by this master builder. Knowledge derived from

education seems to have been required for this purpose, as the opponents of justification by faith were educated men. In an argument upon such a subject, it is not only necessary to know the truths of one's own position, but also all the resources of the antagonist's, to know the wants of the church and the world, and their remedies.

Different kinds of knowledge and modes of communicating them, become necessary to preach the gospel to different races and nations of men with success. The Lord, by the conversion and calling of St. Paul, furnished to the apostleship knowledge already prepared by education. It requires much time to complete an education. In so short a life as ours, education must be begun early, not only because the young faculties are susceptible, but also that time may be gained to use the knowledge thus acquired. The twelve, we may presume, were somewhat advanced beyond their first state of manhood, when they were chosen by their Master. They had, indeed, the benefit of his private and public instructions; but he assured them that they did not fully understand him, but that his words should be brought to their recollection when they should receive the Comforter.

We, as a church, are perhaps too apt to overlook this means of adding knowledge in the order of Providence, and hence a jealousy of learned or educated preachers, if not envy of their talents. The appearance of St. Paul in the apostleship became an era in the church. His letters to the churches are the sources from which ages past have derived knowledge, and ages to come will learn the foundation-doctrine of justification by faith alone. But we should bear in mind that the knowledge of others cannot supply the place of our own personal endeavours to incorporate it into our own minds. Let us not suppose then, that because we have faith and courage, we need not knowledge. Our minds do not retain what they have learned unless we are habitually aiming to learn more. All our faculties, when they cease to advance, do not remain stationary long, but soon begin to decline.

II.-GODLINESS. Add to knowledge, godliness. In medical recipes it was common, we are told, in former times, to combine several things of the same kind, or of less efficacy than the principal, or of no efficacy at all: but this cannot be said of St. Peter's prescription, for each of his articles is not only different from the others, but has a peculiar efficacy of its own. Godliness is an abbreviation of Godlikeness, as manliness is of manlikeness. Godliness-the likeness we are to be like-exceeds all human likeness. There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, through which we may be made partakers of the divine nature. Divine or spiritual influences are familiarly spoken of in the Holy Scriptures. The gift of the Holy Spirit; the abiding presence of the Spirit in us, and agency working in us both to will and to do, are all superhuman. Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Be ye followers of God as dear children. Godliness presupposes a God, and our knowledge of him; likeness or imitation cannot be conceived if there be nothing to be resembled. An Atheist, or person without God, cannot be godly or pious; but may he not be manlily moral? Courage, and knowledge, and patience, and other moral qualities, have been found among Atheists. All ungodly or irreligious men have not been equally criminal; but human morality cannot supply the place of godliness, or be raised to the same elevation; it may, however, be destroyed by un

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