ence and successful prosecution of the various elements of its organization, -"gifts and graces" freely and most unselfishly devoted to the outworking of its aims,-that it has proved a Grand Success, and is girdling the globe with its beneficent agencies. Men, like Dr. Coldstream, are public benefactors, and merit a large amount of the esteem of their fellow-men. But it is ever the case that their chief reward is on high and in eternity.

The combination of his love of natural history with his love of the Bible and of christianity, is beautifully illustrated by the following extract from a letter which he wrote in 1835 to a friend, who had sent him a snowdrop:

"Your sweet snowdrop received a most cordial welcome. It delivered a long message to me, which, as you desire it, I shall note down for your correction and emendation, (for perhaps I did not catch the meaning of every expression).

"It spoke to me thus:-Learn of me that life may suddenly appear in the midst of desolation and death. For I have risen into the full enjoyment of my being from amongst the decaying remnants of a former generation, and have found myself almost the only living thing in the garden where I grew. I have been made, and clothed, and adorned by God. You see how perfect is my structure-how completely adapted to my circumstances and wants-how admirably fitted to my enjoyment of a brief existence-how beautiful-how graceful-how delicate it is! Consider well my growth'; think well of my bulb, with its provision for gradual extension and renovation; of its energetic action in the very midst of chilling frosts, which threaten to destroy almost all other vegetable lives; of my eagerness to behold the returning sun, even when the surface of the ground is mantled with snow; and think of the singular vigour of constitution with which our Almighty Creator has endowed my tiny form, so as to enable me-one of the weakest of plants-to brave unhurt the winter's rudest blast. See how much I am cared for by your Heavenly Father; and if he 'so clothe' me, 'shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith!' In what do I apparently differ from other plants? Can you see why I should be able to live and enjoy myself in circumstances which prove fatal to other seemingly more hardy flowers? Can you, with all your boasted intellect, give any other reason for this, than that it is the will of God? Hence learn of me to trust in His Almighty power, which will perfect strength in your weakness. Even your cold affections and slender intellect He can so quicken as to enable you to glorify Him in your day and generation. He can fit you to brave with impunity and with profit the rigours of adverse fortune-even the storms of cruel mockings and scourgings'; and he can enable you to resist unto blood, striving against sin. By my peculiar form and circumstances you may well be reminded of Him who grew up as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground." And, so reflecting, you may surely well take up the song of your favourite Cowper and say

Winter has a joy for me

While the Saviour's charms I read,
Lowly, meek, from blemish free,

In the snowdrop's pensive head.

"So speaks the snowdrop to my fancy. It is a dear little messenger, and shall occupy a prominent place in my repository of memories."-pp. 105-7.

There is a gentle playfulness in this snowdrop-letter, which we like exceedingly. There is, too, an interblending of the outer and the inner, in a healthy and youthful spirit, which is very pleasant to witness. The same youthful healthiness of intellect and feeling is exhibited in another and graver letter which he wrote, long afterwards, to his children. We quote it :

“MY DEAR LITILe Children, Allan, Jessie, Katie, and, Sandy,—I have got a copy of a letter written by a good old man, 1765 years ago, that is, when your fiftieth great-grandfather lived,-in which are these words, My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.' And so do I wish to write-Do not sin.

These are little words-even Katie can read them and understand them. But I know that you do sin in many ways. You do what you ought not to do, and you do not what you ought to do Now, in the same old letter it is written, 'If any sin, he has a friend who will ask God to pardon or forgive him.' And who is that good friend? The old letter says 'JESUS CHRIST.' And in the letter of the old man I read these words, Little children, your sins are forgiven you for Jesus Christ's name sake.' He laid down his life for us.' The love of God was shown in his sending his only Son into the world' to suffer and to die for our sins, instead of us-the sinners. Now, even you little children are sinners, therefore you need Christ. When your skins are dirty, you need water to wash you clean; when you are hungry, you need bread to eat; when you are thirsty, you need water to drink; when you are weary, you need a bed to rest on; and just so when you sin, you need Christ to take away the guilt of your sin. I Hope and pray that you will all come to Christ, and get His blessing, even a clean heart. I love you all with a great love.-J. C."—pp. 172–3.

Dr. Coldstream died on Sept. 17, 1863. He had been for long an invalid; and, though frequently enjoying temporary respites and rallyings, which enabled him, now and then, to return to his patients, or to do some work for his beloved Missions, at length his physical system could hold out no longer. Professor Balfour says:

"On Wednesday morning, the 16th, he became very ill. It was a day of suffering and of strong consolation. The eye of faith was steadily directed to the Cross, and bis sufferings were mitigated by thinking of what was there endured for him. The frequent utterance during the paroxysms of pain was 'Looking unto Jesus-None but Christ. In the evening of that day he felt better; his spirit was in great peace, and he enjoyed the reading of psalms and hymns. The 31st Psalm was very precious to him, and the hymns, Jesus the Son of God,' and 'How sweet the name of Jesus. sounds." He did not know that the last billow of life's stormy sea had been breasted. At midnight the Master came, and, fearing no evil, the faithful and beloved servant walked through the dark valley. Only half-an-hour before the spirit fled did he recognise that he was dying. With a smile he intimated that he felt that 'to be with Christ was far better. At six o'clock in the morning of the 17th he was taken up. He had often said during the summer, Death has no sting, Christ has taken it away;" and according to his faith it was unto him.

Servant of Christ, well done!

Rest from thy loved employ;

The battle fought, the vict'ry won,

Enter thy Master's joy."-pp.212-3.

Professor Balfour has erected a chaste monument to the memory of his dear and honoured friend in the handsome volume that contains Dr. Coldstream's Biography. In reading it, many, we trust, will be drawn toward the divine Saviour, and will take heart to do what they can for that Saviour and for the souls for whom he gave himself a sacrifice.

The Saviour's Bible; a Plea for the Old Testament. By Newman Hall, LL.B. London: Nisbet. A delightful and most valuable little book. Mr. Hall finds in the Saviour's use of the Old Testament a proof of its divine authenticity and authority. In working out his argument, he felicitously introduces almost all the New Testament references that our Saviour makes to the ancient "volume of the Book," and he thus gets occasion to spread out before the reader's mind, a rich variety of instruction and suggestion as uttered direct by the lips of the Great Teacher himself. Altogether, it is a charming little work, which we could wish to see scattered far and wide over the length and breadth of all the denominations that are embraced within British society. There is a blessing in it;-a blessing for ministers of the gospel,

and a blessing for the people of their pastoral charge.The Peep of Day: or a Series of the earliest Religious Instruction the Infant Mind is capable of receiving. With various Illustrations of the subjects. London: Hatchard. This edition of The Peep of Day, with which we have been favoured, is the hundred and ninety-first thousand. We are glad to learn that the book has obtained so immense a circulation. It deserves it. For, though there are here and there ideas expressed which we do not deem to be correct, yet, taken as a whole, it is beyond any other work we have met, the happiest, and most delightful, for minds emerging out of infancy. It was, above all others, a favourite in our own family; and we would earnestly recommend young parents to procure it for their little children. It is a sort of infantile New Testament. For months upon months it will prove a fascinating and instructive companion for the nursery, especially on Sabbath days. The book can now be had in a very cheap form.-A Discourse in reply to the question, WHAT IS FAITH? By Alexander Stewart, Minister of Zion Chapel, John Street, Aberdeen. Airdrie: Christian Times Office. 1865. Mr. Stewart exhibits in this Discourse not only general strength of intellect, but special aptitudes for exegesis on the one hand, and philosophic discrimination on the other. "God so loved the World." Glasgow: Scott & Allan, 1865. A most precious tract. -Diagnosis of Aural Disease. By T. E. Smith, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng. London: Baillière. We are no judges of the scientific value of this book; but we notice that the London Medical Review commends it, and says, that "it is the production of one of the most practised aural surgeons of the present day.". Essays on Baptismal Regeneration; Theories examined, Errors exposed, and dangers demonstrated. With Addresses on the position and duty of the Church of England. By John Campbell, D.D. London: Snow. 1865. A book full of interesting information on the controversy that has of late been revived in England on the subject of Baptismal Regeneration. It is characterized throughout by remarkable intellectual energy. Poems of Purpose, and Sketches in Prose of Scottish Peasant Life and Character in Auld Langsyne, Sketches of Local Scenes and Characters, with a Glossary. By Janet Hamilton. Glasgow: Murray 1865. It is only by means of this volume that we have made the acquaintance of Janet Hamilton. She is a veteran of more than three-score years and ten,-"whose only schoolroom," she says, "was a shoemaker's hearth, and her only teacher a hardworking mother, who, while she plied the spinning wheel, taught me at her knee to read the Bible,-the only education she or I, her daughter, ever received." "I was never learned," she adds, "and never tried to write, till I was fifty years of age, when I invented a sort of caligraphy for my own use, to preserve my compositions till I gave them off to be written by my husband or son." Reared in such circumstances, Mrs. Hamilton, by the sheer force of innate superiority of mind, has developed wondrously into an actual poet, an embryo politician, and a lively litterateur. The maturity of her powers seems to have come late. But in the slowness of their growth, there were healthfulness and soundness. And, as there must have been from the first breadth and depth, the result is mellowed playfulness and vigour and buoyancy, at a time when the energies of more precocious or more over

taxed spirits have become effete.

There is not an atom of senility in

the soul of Mrs. Hamilton. In poetry, though she does not soar into the highest regions, or wave her wings with perfect rhythm, she nevertheless does mount, and there is beauty and sublimity in many of her evolutions. In prose,-which is her real forte,-she walks with ease, and nimbleness, and grace; but ever carries as she walks that weight of judgement, and gravity of well-balanced feeling, which gives force to her tread.The Lips of Prayer opened to Purpose. By Thomas Thompson, M.A. London: Hamilton, &c. The spirit that pervades. this book is most delightful; and many important ideas are scattered over its genial and fervid pages.

CONCLUSION OF

LETTERS FROM AN ABSENT PASTOR TO HIS FLOCK.

[NOTE. THE FOLLOWING ARE THE CONCI.UDING LETTERS OF THE SERIES. IT IS BY URGENT SOLICITATION, THAT THEY ARE GIVEN, THAT THE SERIES MAY BE COMPLETE.]

XXXVI.

LEYDEN, March 30, 1856.

To the Independent Church and Congregation assembling for the Public Worship of
God, in N. D—
St. Chapel, G-

MY BELOVED BRETHREN AND FRIENDS,-When I last wrote you I was in Germany, meeting daily with people with whom I was able to hold some measure of intercourse through the medium of their own language. Now I am in Holland, surrounded by a people whose language is, still more intimately than the German, allied to our own, but with which I am almost totally unacquainted. Nevertheless I can here, as well as elsewhere, make full use of my eyes; and, as many of the people are more or less acquainted with German, or French, or English, I am not entirely shut out from articulate intercourse. On leaving Münster, from which my last letter was dated, I had a delightful three-days' journey on foot to Emmerich on the Rhine. The day on which I arrived at the Rhine was one of the finest that ever dawned on our earth. All nature above and below seemed glad; and I too was glad. When I reached Emmerich I found the townspeople crowding out to the country,-evidently luxuriating in the clear, warm, balmy sunshine. I too felt that I could not remain in the town. I hastened out to the glorious river, and wandering down its banks to a place of solitude, I bathed my wearied feet in the delicious waters. The majestic stream reminded me of the Clyde, though it is much broader and grander than the Clyde is at Glasgow. Next morning I crossed the border between Germany aud Holland and travelled onward to Utrecht, one of the beautifully clean Dutch towns. The Dutch are remarkable for habits of cleanliness; and it was obvious, on the most cursory inspection, that every street in Utrecht was perfectly purged from all those open physical impurities that fester so abundantly in the ancient cities of other lands. This outward cleanliness is pleasing to the eyes of the moralist. Just as truly as the body is intimately connected with the soul, just so truly is there naturally a close connection between the outward purity of the one and the inward purity of the other. There was a great amount of wisdom couched under the favourite practical maxim of Whitfield and Rowland Hill," Godliness is first among the virtues, but cleanliness is second." In the evening of the day on which I arrived in Utrecht, I took a meditative walk along the lime-tree promenade. It is said to be the finest in Europe, and was spared by LouisXIV. of France at a time when his spirit,-elated by success and actuated by intense

antipathy-would not yield to spare any thing else that was precious in the eyes of the inhabitants of the town.

From Utrecht I went to Amsterdam, the largest and the finest city of Holland. It is a wonderful city, and reminded me of Venice. It is intersected in all directions by canals, which are enlivened to the eye by hundreds of boats. Much business is transacted through the medium of these boats; and there is a generation of people who have no other home than on the water. The canals of Amsterdam differ from the canals of Venice in having quays along their sides,—a peculiarity that greatly facilitates the transaction of business, and that renders the streets, in the middle of which they lie, delightfully broad. There are about three hundred bridges in all within the city, and the majority are made to open so as to allow masted vessels to pass.

I visited the objects of special interest in the city, including the magnificent palace, the museum, and the principal churches. I was peculiarly interested in "the great church," called "the New Church," in the immediate vicinity of the palace. It was the church in which Arminius used often to preach in the presence of the chief inhabitants, and in which he began to lift up his testimony against the peculiar tenets of the dominant Calvinism. I was also much interested in visiting the Remonstrant church, which was founded and is still supported by the followers of Arminius. Attached to it is the Remonstrant academy and the valuable library of the academy. I had expected, on leaving home, to see Professor Van der Hoeven if I should visit Holland. He presided over the academy, and was a lineal descendant of Arminius. He was somewhat interested in our Scottish movement, and had a little communication with me. Soon, however, after I left home, I saw in a French newspaper a notice of his death. It was some gratification to me to see the apartments which he occupied, and to look upon his beautiful portrait hung up in the same room which contains the gallery of all the great Arminian theologians. While visiting the Remonstrant church, a party entered to receive the ecclesiastical solemnization of their marriage. In Holland marriages are contracted before the civil magistrate; but persons who recognise a higher element in the relation than that which is exhausted in merely temporal and terrestrial society, repair from the town-house to the house of God, and have their legal contract solemnized. I was pleased with the simple but significant solemnity, and was glad to hear the pastor dwell with emphasis upon the glorious definition of the moral relation of the Divinity to man,-“God is love." Although ignorant of the Dutch language, I knew so much of it, as to recognise with pleasure the above definition in the oft-recurring words of the officiating preacher, "God is liefde." The preacher informed me that the chapel was crowded every Sabbath day. It is not a large chapel, but it is substantial, and has two galleries, and, of course, an organ. The centre of the area is, according to the Dutch fashion, occupied with chairs, instead of being covered with pews.

On leaving Amsterdam, I went to Haarlem-celebrated all Europe over for its flowers, and for the great organ in its principal church. After viewing the objects of interest in the town, I walked out to some of the many adjoining gardens, already gay with the variegated colours of the early flowers. I also visited the king's pavilion, in which there is a fine collection of paintings, chiefly by Dutch masters. Afterwards I took a walk of several miles' length to a place called Hartekamp, where the great naturalist Linnæus spent a long period of his life under the hospitable roof of his wealthy patron, Mr. Gifford, and where he composed some of his immortal writings. From Hartekamp I walked over to the margin of what used to be the Haarlem lake, and saw one of the three enormous steam-engines by which the waters were pumped up and discharged into streams running above the level of the lake, so that an immense tract of country was reclaimed for agriculture. The same engines are constantly employed to prevent the re-accumulation of the waters, and the whole district is guarded by gigantic dykes from the flowing waters that roll their streams on a higher level. From the top of these dykes one sees some of the most astonishing triumphs of the industry and perseverance and forethought of man. Extraordinary industry and perseverance and forethought are peculiarly needful in a people, whose country is in constant danger of being submerged by the floodings of its rivers or by the tidal swellings of the surrounding ocean.

From Haarlem I have come to Leyden. It is a place famous in history for the patriotism of its citizens when beleaguered by the Spanish army, and reduced to the greatest extremities for the want of food. For their extraordinary endurance and heroism they got from the Prince of Orange their choice between a university and the