unknown to her; the faded cheek and restless eye, and haggard brow will speak for her, when the feverish hour of excitement is over, and will say, that the way of peace, holy, and calm, and blessed, is far above out of her sight.

They "whose portion is in this life," whatever may be their pursuits or situations, cannot in sincerity lay claim to the possession of peace. Were we to ask such

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as haste to rise up early, and late take rest, and eat the bread of carefulness," had they with all their getting, acquired the blessing of peace, they would most probably readily admit that it is not yet their's. Like the light seen through the dim vista of a dark intricate wood, its fair form seems in prospect to smile upon them, and beckons them on through their toils and wearisome labours with the hope of obtaining rest at the end. They are content to toil through years of hardship, in the hope of being able to say, I shall die in my nest, I shall be safe from fear of evil." PEACE is the basis towards which they bend their weary steps across the desert of the world; its dry and yeilding sands do not much aid a progress to the object of their desires; life is almost spent, old age, the utmost limit they had assigned themselves for the attainment of their object, comes rapidly on, but yet they resolve to reach it; their efforts are redoubled; now a step but divides them from the possession of that peace, the hope of which has consoled them through long years of toil and care; the step is made-and they sink into the grave.

Just when all has been accomplished, when the long-looked-for time has arrived, when the barns were completely full, and he then ventured at last to say, Soul, take thine ease;" another voice says, "Soul, take thy flight."

SEPTEMBER, 1839.

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But how many obtain all they desired, and find in the possession only" Vanity and vexation of spirit." Who sits down satisfied, and says, Now all my wishes

are accomplished, all my wants supplied, there is nothing I wish remedied, nothing I desire to be added, nothing I want removed?'

There was once a courtier promoted by his king to great honour, and his feet was set above all the princes all the king's servants, and all that were in the king's gate reverenced Haman: one day he went forth from the Persian court loaded with fresh honours, joyful and glad of heart, but ere he reached his home, his joy and gladness were turned to wrath and indignation; he had not yet attained all he desired; and what was it that was yet wanted? a bow from a poor Jew. Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, and though the king had said to him, "The silver is given to thee and the people also," all the glory of his riches and honours availed him nothing without a bow from Mordecai, and in the struggle to obtain this, or avenge his slighted dignity, he lost his life.

The king of Israel entered his palace heavy and displeased, and lay down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread, why? because Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard hard by his palace, and to obtain this little garden, he and his wife committed murder.

And still are the same dispositions in the breast, there is always something to be desired; the poor and lowly think that peace and rest must abide with the wealthy and noble; and the wealthy and noble fancy that peace must be found in the lowly cot, the secluded abode, and the humble sphere.

Thus the experience of many a heart will bear at least a secret testimony to the assertion, that

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there is but little real and abiding peace enjoyed in its hidden recesses: thousands feel this and groan in secret anguish, and wander further and further away from the blessing they wish for.

Of outward peace, we know, from every day's report, this sinful world is destitute. We see the weak become the prey of the strong, and the simple of the designing, and the snare of the fowler laid to entrap the unsuspecting. Peace is not known where crime and woe dwell with their victims, and sin and sorrow brood in darkness; its sounds are not heard in the family habitations wherein

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men are not of one mind," from whence strife and discord, confusion and envy, banish the little happiness which a fallen state might otherwise yield. It is not

known amid the glare of artificial gaiety, when youth and age, loveliness and deformity assume the mask of pleasure, and often with equal pains teach the lip to wear a smile that does not spring from gladness of heart. Neither is it better known in the wilds where art has never come, where nature, horrible nature, is only seen: for there the feast of blood is prepared, and the savage luxuriates in the tortures of his fellow-men.

Peace on earth was soon brought to a conclusion, and in the far-off valley and busy town, in the retirement of the domestic circle and the haunts of noisy and vapid dissipation, in the secret hearts which know their own bitterness, and in the uttered groans which issue from thousand others, shall we find abundant testimony to its loss.

SIR-In looking over some odd numbers of the Episcopal Record, an American religious publication, I met with the following article on meetings for social prayer, which appears to me deserving of consideration; and I shall therefore be glad to see it inserted in your pages, though you may very possibly not agree with all its positions. COLLECTOR.

It can scarcely be denied by any careful student of the word of God that it is the duty of private Christians to watch with constant solicitude for the growth of religion among themselves and those around them, and to pray for a blessing on the labours of the ministry, and on all the means of grace. question here arises-Is it their duty to do these things singly and separately, or ought they to associate for the purposes expressed? Is it the duty of private Christians to meet for prayer and religious improvement?

A

do

It is clear that the laity may any and every thing, in spreading religion, for which a ministerial commission is not needed, or was not specially designed. The question before us, then, is reduced simply to this, Is a ministerial commission needed, or was it specially designed, for all cases of social prayer and exhortation? In appointing his ministry, does it appear to have been the design of Christ that private Christians should never meet for prayer and exhortation among themselves, without the presence of a minister, as the sole officiating organ? Is a ministry necessary, and designed, not only for all occasions of regular, stated, public worship on the Sabbath, and other appointed days, but also for all other occasions of

Christian meeting for prayer and exhortation? This question must, we conceive, be answered in the negative, because,

1. It can never be shown that

the ministry was intended for presidency over all possible occasions of social religious exercise. While the New Testament is full of evidence, that the administration of the Sacraments, the preaching of the word, and ordination to the ministry, are exclusively ministerial acts; and while it contains enough of indirect proof, that the public worship of the church was always to be under ministerial direction, it yet shows nothing like a disposition to confine social prayer and Christian exhortation to the ministry alone. And to us it seems a strange supposition, that the Christians of the first age never met to cheer, encourage, strengthen, and help one another under their trials, by prayer and exhortation, without the presence of an apostle, or some other ordained minister of Christ.

2. The system, which would confine presidency over all acts of social religious worship and exhortation, to the ministry, contains, within itself, the principle of a tendency to formalism, and spiritual decay, in the church. It is a system, which says to every one, but the few on whom ordaining hands have been laid, "Be still 1; say nothing; do nothing; a system which tends to take every thing off from private Christians, and to throw every thing upon the clergy; which concentrates, instead of sharing responsibility; and thus gradually stops the movement of the great body, by laying all the weight on one part. The ministry cannot do every thing; and when every thing is laid upon them, they first necessarily, and then by choice, neglect, first, smaller, and then larger portions of their duty; while private Christians, understanding that social prayer and exhortation belong not to them, become, first, unaccustomed to religious conversation, then, afraid to give expression to their religious convictions and emotions, at length,

disinclined to any exercise of the kind, and, finally, more or less lifeless, dead, to all the great interests and duties of religion itself. Religion, among them, loses its social, heart-stirring character. The chasm between the clergy and the laity widens. The former, having all things to do, do as they choose. The latter, having little or nothing to do, except to listen and look on, listen and look with indolent awe. Every thing of meaning, significancy, power, life, it begins to be supposed, resides in ministerial acts. All things tend too strongly to exalt the value of outward ceremonies, and to increase the fondness for outward show. Formalism creeps in. The ministry, being left, or urged to do every thing, as a matter of duty, grasp at every thing for the sake of power. It is, first, a sort of sacrilege for private Christians to say any thing; at length, it becomes presumption for them to think any thing, except as the clergy dictate. Arrogance begins to clothe the ministers of the meek and lowly Jesus; and the church herself, yielding to the tendencies of a great and strongly marked system, takes her way towards the depths of spiritual death.

We pretend not, in these discussions, to write histories, or to utter prophecies. But, we venture to say, that such as we have described them, ever have been, and ever will be, the tendencies of the system to which we are referring. Nothing, in establishing systems of things, should be avoided so much as extremes. It will not do to lay every thing, of privilege and of duty, on the shoulders of the clergy. It will not do to take every thing of action and of responsibility from the consciences of the laity. Both should be kept active, both alive to responsibility in every thing which properly belongs to either. Such a ministry

as that of the Episcopal Church in this country has little to fear, and much to hope, from keeping private Christians alive, and engaged in all duty, especially in the duty of social prayer and exhortation. The tendency of our system is, at all times, sufficiently full of restraints. What might run into general arrogance, vanity, and officious intermeddling, with others, can with us, under the salutary influence of the Episcopate, and under the sobering power of our Liturgy, be, with great ease, kept in the healthful channels of spirituality, life, and order. The last thing we have to fear is, that our private Christians will either pray too much, or talk too much, when religion is their theme.

The direct reasons for meetings among private Christians, for social prayer and exhortation, are various.

They are necessary for the growth of the church in real spirituality and religious activity. We do not deny the possibility of a private Christian's living in a spiritual and active state, without such meetings; but we do doubt, seriously, the practicability of keeping the church, as a church, in such a state, without such meetings. It often happens that parishes are destitute of a minister for months together. Unaccustomed to meet for prayer and mutual encouragement, what becomes of the communicants ? They are like coals of fire, scattered about on a cold, dark hearth: they go out, and die. And even when they have a minister, if they are discouraged from ever meeting by themselves, they never will meet, we venture to say, except under stiff and formal relations; so that, as a general thing, they will never be like coals of fire gathered together, till, in their contact, they warm, and glow, and finally burst into a flame. They will always

*This statement it must be remembered has reference to America.

live in cold distance from each other, and in listless indifference to the vital interests of religion in the church.

The meeting of private Christians among themselves for prayer and exhortation is one of the great means of making them feel, before the world, their entire committal in the cause of Christ, and their high obligation to Christian consistency. Attendance on public worship, and even on the sacrament has ceased to be, in the estimation of the world, a distinctive badge of Christ's converted followers. *

The world will allow men to attend both, without demanding of them any thing of specially high and distinctive Christianity in their lives. And as this is not expected of them, they can go to church, and even to the Sacrament without feeling themselves pledged to any thing very special in their Christian walk and conversation. But,attendance on the meetings of private Christians for social prayer, and mutual edification can never be otherwise than a voluntary act, an act to which nothing in the customs of the world can lead men-an act to which nothing can lead but either rank hypocrisy, or a real love of prayer, a vital interest in Christ, and a willingness to be known as his peculiar, his world-renouncing followers. Let communicants, then, become attendants on such meetings, let them become known as those, who are willing, without any influence from the fashion, or custom of the thing, but purely from a sense and a love of the duty, to go and kneel down with the humble, praying, faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to speak there of the goodness and grace of God in saving lost men, and of the power of his

*This is by no means the case in this country. Are we quite right in considering attendance on any humanly devised ordinance as a more certain sign of true religion than attendance on a divine appointment?

Spirit, in renewing and sanctifying the heart;-let them take this stand, and, unless they are very hypocrites, they cannot but feel themselves wholly and for ever committed to the cause of Christ; they cannot but feel, more than ever, their high obligations to Christian consistency before men ; they cannot but feel as the first Christians felt, when, in the face of an opposing world, they announced themselves the followers of the lowly Jesus, and knew that, thenceforward, they had nothing more to do with the world but to bless it, and nothing more to hope from it but its cold frown, or its cruel persecution; that they were past the separating line, and must never turn, never look back, but go with Christ, to suffering or to death, just as fidelity to his cause might require. The church is always in need of just such a test of Christian faith and character as this, and, without such a test, can never be safe against the intermixture among its members of all earthliness, worldly fashion, and dead inactivity.

The meetings of which we speak, for social prayer and mutual edification, are excellent schools for the seriously inquiring, who wish some time and place, to which they can resort for sympathy, guidance, and strength in their new-sprung hopes of life, and in their new-born purposes of giving themselves away to the Saviour. For want of such a time and place, among Christians themselves, we have little doubt that many hearts are continually becoming chilled at the very beginning of their anxieties and solicitudes, and sinking back again into cold discouragement, or into satisfied worldliness; and that thus, much of the labours of a minister are lost, which might otherwise have brought forth rich, ripe fruit unto eternal life. Multitudes are afraid to go and open their hearts to

their minister, who would rejoice in an opportunity, without any open avowal of their feelings at first, to throw themselves among serious and lively Christians, and thus to gain courage, strength, and decision for the step which is to place them before the world, as irrecoverably the followers of the crucified. For want of such an opportunity, they suppress their feelings, till suppression drives them away, or the world weaves new toils for their hearts, and they become again more than ever insensible to the truth.*

The same meetings are likewise excellent schools for developing and bringing to light just that kind of talent, and just that stamp of piety, which the church needs in gathering around herself an able, faithful, and well-skilled ministry. They are schools, in which the evidences of true Christian experience are thoroughly taught, deeply felt, and clearly seen; and where strong, and fairly proportioned, and decided specimens of Christian character are trained; just such characters, as are needed for standard-bearers, for guides, for spiritual comforters and enlighteners, over the people of God. O, how different from those, who so often offer themselves for the ministry, they know not why; with but the dimmest perceptions of the Spirit's work of renewing the heart, or in utter darkness as to the nature of that work; and who press on in their preparations for becoming nothing but blind leaders of the blind," till "both fall into the ditch.'

We do not say that there are no other times and places than those,

* Observations of this nature seem to imply that there is not much of pastoral visitation among our American brethren. Is there not, we would ask, some danger lest in advocating social prayer we should lose sight of the supreme importance of family prayer? This has certainly been found in England a too common result of private religious meetings.