tence? Thy case is indeed fearful, and enough to make the soul shudder; but O, it may not be too late. Mercy that is infinite, may interpose, and he who pardoned Manasseh, who restored Peter, who recalled the disobedient prophet, may extend his mercy and saving power to thee. And thus may you, fallen as you are, sunk and degraded as you are, be healed. Your soul, like Jonah's, may be restored; and blessed, O blessed for you if it be so; blessed, although the means employed to bring you to the path of life and obedience be as severe as those used to reclaim the disobedient prophet. Blessed for you, if, out of the ruin of your earthly hopes, and out of the bereavement of all the idols which have led you from him, arises your spiritual restoration, so that you are found once more, an humble, penitent, spiritually-minded believer at the foot of the cross! "That thou mayest remember and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God."

but who have fallen from their steadfastness; | forth the flowers of faith, and love, and peniwho by sin have inflicted a deadly wound upon their souls; who, like wretched Cain, have fled from the presence of the Lord and have stifled the remonstrances of an afflicted conscience by plunging into the vortex of worldly care or worldly pleasure; so that the sense of sin, the fear of God, the dread of judgment, all of which were once quick and powerful, are now cold and lifeless things; and all the graces of the soul which once bloomed in early and delightful promise, now hang decayed and withered. The fountains of spiritual thought and feeling seem to be dried up; the faith, once so living and powerful; the confident expectation of things hoped for has degenerated-died away into a nominal assent; the love, once so warm and glowing, has waxed cold; the penitence, once so deep and fervent, is no more; the spirit is gone, and what is left behind? The memory of things that were, but now are no longer; of motives which have lost their power; of principles which have ceased to operate; of hopes which no longer animate, and desires which no longer exist. And you are sleeping, perhaps, as insensible to the perils around you as the prophet Jonah amidst the waves and storms. The bustle, the tumult of earthly cares, the eager chase of earthly vanities intoxicate the mind or fence it round, and render it impervious to serious reflections, so that it cries peace, peace, where there is no peace.

O, brethren, to you, if any such there be before us, we address ourselves with all the urgency of affectionate remonstrance. "What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God." There is but a step between thee and God; thy condition is such as makes the angels weep; thou hast cast away that which is better than thousands upon thousands--the precious jewel of your immortal soul. The Spirit which was wooing thee on to heaven, after long and painful strugglings and importunities and strivings, has taken his departure and left thee alone. There is a calm, but it is the calm which goes before the storm; there is ease, but it is the ease which tells that the mortification has begun. O sleeper, awake! To thee, even to thee we say, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light; rend your heart, who knoweth if he will repent and leave a blessing behind him? The blackness of darkness has gathered around thee; but who knoweth but the light may pierce through it, and dart a quickening beam into thy soul? There is the signet of death upon thee; but who knows but Omnipotence may awaken thy soul into life again, quicken thee who art twice dead? Who knows but that the parched wilderness may again put

But, my brethren, these words admit of a more extended application than we have as yet assigned to them; they come, in a greater or less degree, pointed to us all. When we remember our high vocation, how near we are to our great account; when we reflect on the awfully momentous consequences which are dependent on this passing hour of probation; when we think of the Master whose steps we are pledged to follow; when we remember that the Christian life is a warfare, and call to mind what vigilance, what activity, what jealous care and circumspection all this requires, and then turn our eyes inwards; O brethren, which of us does not see in these words, that which addresses itself to our own case with pointed application? "What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God." Does it not seem to say, "watch and pray, arise and be doing?" Why this spiritual indolence? Why this neglect in the cultivation of your graces? Why these omissions? Why this creeping on in the divine life, instead of pressing forward? Why this shrinking from the battle, instead of taking the fore-front? Why this listening to the enervating strains of the syren voice of pleasure, instead of "enduring hardness" as the good soldier of Jesus Christ? The life of grace in the soul is like a fire that needs constant stirring up; even "pure minds, (writes St. Peter) need to be stirred up by way of remembrance." "I have not written unto you" said the beloved disciple, "because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it.' "Watch and pray" said the Redeemer, “lest ye enter into temptation." He saw the storm

gathering, and soon were the sleeping disci- | how deeply the conviction of "the one thing ples to learn the humbling and bitter lesson how the pleasures, and honours, and riches of of the infirmity of human purpose when the world appeared, in the view of the exceedgrappling with the might of temptation. Ah, ing weight of glory-lighter than the foam yes, it is by such insensible degrees that an upon the surface of the waters; let him then enemy steals upon us; it is by such plausible call to mind the gradual weakening of these pretexts he covers his attacks. There is so impressions, as the hours of the day rolled on; much inflammable material within us, "that how difficult he has found it to maintain, when sin which doth so easily beset us," does so in contact with the world, that impression, baffle all human resolutions and precautions, which was, in the morning, so fresh and strong, nature pleads for indulgence in our hearts in the retirement of his closet. He mixes with with such constraining, such resistless impor- his fellow men; the world-the great world tunity, that except we watch and pray, is the idol before whose shrine thousands, stand at our post in panoply divine, strong in and tens of thousands, are bending in worship. the Lord, and the power of his might, we Every thing around him reminds him of the must be overcome. importance of it. The world's interests, the world's cares, the world's pleasures, are the all-engrossing theme; nothing else is thought of. Worldly influence, worldly knowledge, worldly power, are the presiding stars. the bustle and stir of the public halls, in the eager crowd of the senate, in the despatch of the counting-house-amidst the busy and anxious throng moving onward-amidst the collision and shock of men-all eager in the great chase, all intent on the great object, every brow loaded with earthly care-every eye fixed and brightened with excitement, he catches the infection, and a sort of haziness, or mist, gathers over the awful and sublime pictures of futurity, which he contemplated with such thrilling interest in the morning. Thus has he gradually and almost insensibly caught the spirit which is abroad; the opiate has bewildered even his judgment; the emulation and rivalry has excited even him. He has felt cares and pleasures beginning to engross his affections, so that what appeared in the morning as nothing less than nothing, and vanity-he finds himself, ere the lapse of a few hours, gazing upon, in a stupor of mingled interest and wonder. This is, I believe, familiar to most of God's servants, and they who have most experience of the holy exercises we speak of, know best the difficulty of maintaining a spirit of wakefulness. Nevertheless this spirit of wakefulness may be maintained; through divine grace it may be done" the lights may be kept burning, the loins girded." The soul may be preserved from the illusions which bewilder the millions. The Christian. may walk amidst the snares and fascinations of the world unseduced, uncontaminated; he may, through grace, be so elevated in soulso spiritualized and sanctified in affections, that he can look down with mingled pity and indifference upon the vain cares of men. may feel, in the inmost core of his heart, the emptiness of human distinctions, and have his mind's eye bent with unaverted glance on the lofty destiny which awaits him the high

It is, we know, hard to keep awake. A sense of weariness is apt to come on. "The patient continuance in well doing" can only be secured by constant, by daily, by hourly supplies of divine grace. The hands are apt to hang down-the eye of faith to grow languid the tongue of prayer to falter. It is hard in a world like this to preserve the wakeful posture of mind. It is hard in a world which can so engross the heart, so to live as, "although in it, yet not to be of it." To live under a deep and abiding conviction of its emptiness; and it is hard amidst its conflicting interests, and all the claims which it has upon our attention and solicitude, to sit loose to it, and to remember it is not our home. It is hard to view it as we ought to view it-view it as the traveller views the houses and lands, and groves, and gardens, and waters, which cross his path-seen for a moment, then past and forgotten; it is hard for Christians to feel its sorrows and disappointments, as they ought to be felt by Christians--feel them as the passing stranger feels the inconveniencies of his journey brightened in every step by the prospect of home and its endearments. There are not many in this world who can realize the spirit of the apostolic Leighton, and preserve that frame for years, in which a good man might wish to die. O, to be convinced of this, let a man appeal to the records of his daily experience; let him look at his frame of mind when he arose from the bed of slumber and refreshment, and in the calm and silent hours of the morning, before the stir of earthly cares and business began, poured forth his soul to his Creator and Redeemer, in all the intenseness of grateful devotion, meekly kneeling upon his knees; let him think upon the deep conviction of earth's vanities, which he was enabled in that hour to realize, and needful," was inwrought into his soul, and how the thought of death and eternity arose and expanded, in all their awful magnificence, before his view, and filled his mind, to the exclusion of every other; let him reflect

He

seph's river, which I so named (being the first settler afford to my wounded bosom; for, with the little

prize of his calling. "His conversation may be in Heaven," there may his heart dwell, there may his affections centre; while the earthly house of his tabernacle is pitched in this world's wilderness. Like the Israelite of old, when commemorating his deliverance from Egypt's chains, he may stand, pilgrim-government price of land being one dollar per acre. like, with staff in hand, and sandals on his feet, in the posture of one upon the eve of departure; and his prayer, morning, and at mid-day, and eve, may come, Lord, (if it be thy will) come quickly," "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

be

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"The country round me, having begun to be settled wide field for ministerial duty. The extent of my only about three or four years ago, offers everywhere a circuit as yet is only eighty miles, visiting the extremities every quarter of a year, and the places with

this beautiful land of Gilead, in the region of St. Joon it) because of the balm which God caused it to means I had, I was enabled to obtain a sufficient surface to afford, by the labour of myself and my family, a competency, and to have something wherewithal to glorify God in the building up of his Church. The Eighty acres of the estate thus providentially acquired I dedicate as a glebe for the maintenance of a clergyman in the parish of Gilead, and I am now making all possible preparation for the erection of a church. Never was there a finer soil, better water and timber, nor can the world produce more beautiful scenery, or lands better adapted for immediate fruition. No clearing is required, where, amidst the most majestie trees, there are spaces left of many acres (each from Is this an imaginary picture? Is it real-ten to a hundred), where nothing is wanting to the ized? It has been. Where are such to be production of a luxuriant crop but to fence and plough found? I may not be able to individualize, the field. but I believe the Lord has "his hidden ones;' and such I am sure there are even now to be found within the precincts of this church. My brethren, your conscience needs no hint from me to put the enquiry individually to your hearts, are you of the number? If you be, O then, what thanks and praise should you render to him who hath dealt so lovingly with you?"Bless the Lord, O my soul," will be the spontaneous, unprompted effusion of your heart."Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.' But, if, on the other hand, a glance at your condition serves but to re-in erecting a saw mill, to prepare the requisite timber, mind you painfully of the distance you fall short of this standard, O let this conviction have its perfect work, let it rouse and animate you to shake off the dull spiritual sloth which now oppresses you, let it quicken your dili-school. A distant relation of mine, who will be adgence after higher attainments. If you are reposing in the arms of carnal ease and indolence; if dreams of earthly pleasures and interests are floating before your lulled pray God to break the spell, and may his Spirit address you in the word which is omnipotent, which never called in vain: "What meanest thou oh sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God."

MEMOIR OF BISHOP CHASE.
(Continued from page 153.)

senses,

BISHOP Chase retired for a time to a beautiful spot of ground, on the river St. Joseph, in the territory of Michigan, from whence he wrote as follows to one of his attached friends in the country :

Bishop Chase to the Bishop of Sodor and Man. "Gilead, Brank County, Michigan Territory, June, 1833.

"MY VERY DEAR LORD AND BEST OF FRIENDS,After resigning the diocese of Ohio, I proceeded westward, preaching every Sunday, and performing divine service, wherever I found persons sufficiently intelligent to say "Amen," to my "giving of thanks," according to the primitive liturgy of our Church. travelled up the Lake Erie, and across the country to

I

in ten or fifteen miles much oftener. I have as yet kept the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsunday in my own parish at home in Gilead, and have always administered the holy eucharist to my family, and a few faithful and pious neighbours. This I do in a room of my house, rudely fitted up for that purpose. and, small as are our means, yet my children and dear Nothing do we long for more than a decent church; wife join me in full determination to erect one as soon as possible. With this end, having most providentially discovered a mill seat, with the command of a half from our dwelling, and secured the title to the copious water power, not more than a mile and a land on which it is situated, we are now engaged

so that, in the course of the coming autumn and spring, we hope to have it in our power to say, that in the collection of materials our church is begun, Having ample soil, and of the best quality, I see no impediment to the establishment of a self-supporting mitted to holy orders, by Bishop Griswold, this fall, and will immediately come from the eastern diocese, has expressed his willingness to enter into my plans, and to be my faithful friend and supporter. If you ask why I do not ordain him, I answer, it is my wish to avoid everything that may be construed into a semblance of making a division in the Church: not even one episcopal act have I performed since I came may be said that God has lifted up my head, by his to this place. When the time shall arrive in which it

(although there is nothing in our canons to forbid it),

blessing on my endeavours to benefit his primitive Church here in the wilderness, then I trust my friends will have cause to rejoice. Till then, here I am, endeavouring by God's grace to be patient in tribulation, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity.'

"July 6th.

tion and enjoyments. If it be asked how, without a "But to return to the subject of my present situasalary of any name or sort, or any income from any fund or patrimony, do I contrive to maintain myself and family of little ones, keep up hospitality to all who, having found out my retreat, still visit me in considerable numbers, and lay by something to build the church of God? I answer, all this is done by labour and economy. We all rise with the sun, are at labour till divine service and breakfast; we then resume our employment till noon, when two hours are spent in dinner, reading, and refreshment; this over, we go to our work again, till the evening shades