ject at the close of your introduction, after all the introductory or explanatory remarks.

II. Method.

1. Let the heads be distinct, not only in words but in meaning; let them in no respect include one another.

2. Divide your subject naturally, as the words and sense require. Let your subject appear to divide itself.

3. The divisions ought to contain the subject.

4. Divisions should not be numerous.

5. The heads or divisions of a subject should be expressed as clearly and concisely as possible.

6. Avoid too many sub-divisions. Under one general head there should be but one series of divisions; throw subordinate consider-. ations in the body of the other. Avoid trite divisions, as justification, sanctification, adoption, humiliation, exaltation, prophetic, priestly, and kingly offices. They look as if they were copied from some old system of divinity.

8. Seek variety of method in different sermons; when the leading notions are drawn from the text, the sermon produces the most effect. III. Illustration and amplification.

1. Consider what methods are necessary. Let them rise in the form of a climax. Let the order be luminous and natural.

2. Consider what passions are to be moved, what figures of speech will be appropriate. Attend to the pathetic. Remember warm emotions cannot last long.

3. Ask yourself, When shall I address the conscience? Let there be some sprightly thoughts, if possible, at the end of each division.

4. Keep in view the light which other passages of Scripture throw on your discourse, and whether it can be illustrated by any other passages. Exhibit causes, point out examples, make appeals. IV. The peroration or conclusion.

1. Let the strength of your subject be conspicuous in its close. Inferences, properly drawn, are desirable in this part of the dis

They should be drawn from the subject, not too many very select, and not break unity. In forming inferences, the variety of characters we would address must be kept in view.

2. Pay attention to the final close. It should be made with neatness and force, sometimes by a consoling, sometimes by an alarming passage of Scripture, and sometimes by didactic admonition.

PESEVERANCE AND BENEVOLENT ZEAL.

REV. J. W. FLETCHER.

A POOR Collier, now living at Madely, and upwards eighty years of age, relates, that in the former part of his life he was exceedingly profligate, and that Mr. Fletcher frequently sought opportunities to warn him of his danger. "For," added the poor man, "he used always to run after such wicked fellows as I was, whenever he saw us, in order that he might talk with us and warn us." Being aware of his pious vicar's intention, this collier was accustomed, as soon as he saw him, to run home with all speed, and close the door before Mr. Fletcher could reach it: and thus, for many months together, he escaped his deserved reproofs. The holy man, however, still persevering in his attempts, on one occasion out-ran this determined sinner, and obtained possession of his house before him. The poor man, awed by the presence of his minister, and softened by the persuasive kindness of his manner, was greatly affected, and received those religious impressions which soon ended in a thorough change of his character.

Another of his parishioners, who is still living, relates the following characteristic circumstance: When a young man, he was married by Mr. Fletcher, who said to him as soon as the service was concluded, and he was about to make the accustomed entry, "Well, William, you have had your name entered in our register once before this." "Yes, sir, at my baptism." "And now, your name will be entered a second time. You have no doubt thought much about your present step, and made proper preparations for it in different ways." "Yes, sir." "Recollect that a third entry of your name, the register of your burial,—will, sooner or later, take place. Think, then, about death, and make preparations for that also, lest it overtake you as a thief in the night." This person is also now walking in the ways of the Lord, and states, that he often adverts to this and other things which his serious and affectionate pastor found frequent occasions to say to him. Cox's Life of Fletcher.

BY THE HON. AND REV. BAPTIST W. NOEL, M. A.

PREACHED IN ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL, BEDFORD ROW, LONDON, WEDNESDAY Morning, MARCH 24, 1847.

The day appointed for a General Fast and Humiliation.

CAUSES FOR HUMILIATION.

Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. John vi. 37.

An extended famine and distress, both in Great Britain and Ireland, by which multitudes have already perished, and by which many more are, alas! likely to perish, should certainly call every humane person to much reflection, and to much commiseration for those sufferers; and if these their great necessities are to be mitigated, if not altogether removed, by considerable sacrifices to be made by the country at large, this may well call us the more solemnly to consider the calamity which God has permitted to overtake us. And I think no one can have a devout mind, who does not see in that calamity an occasion for much reflection upon our own sins; for without pretending to ascribe any particular judgment that God sends upon the world to any particular cause— without pretending to say why he has particularly afflicted one portion of the empire, and involved the nation at large in great distress, we must feel, that the time in which our sympathies are greatly excited by an unforeseen calamity, is a proper time in which we should humble ourselves before God for our sins gener

ally. Without assigning any cause to the national calamity, any calamity which befals us, ought to call us to reflection, and make us feel the mercy of God in not afflicting us more grievously; and likewise the possibility that severe chastisements may fall upon us, for our undeniable transgressions. And therefore, my brethren, it seems fitting that Christians should mourn over the sins of their nation, should consider those public offences against God, by which he is dishonored, by which the nation is dishonored likewise, and by which his anger may be excited against us.

There are many habits which must obviously be offensive to the divine Being, both in this country and the neighboring one of Ireland.

We cannot but see, that this calamity has been brought upon that people. The extravagance and oppression of many of the landlords of Ireland have involved their tenantry, the laboring classes, in a great degree of poverty and distress, which, upon any failure of the one crop, upon which their lives depended, must have brought about such a catastrophe as this.

The Protestant clergymen of Ireland also have evidently been guilty of great transgressions against God, in that they had not taken, at least, one effectual means of raising that people from their ignorance, and therefore from their poverty, which they might have done by preaching the gospel of Christ in their own land. It must be offensive, I believe, to Almighty God, that thousands of men, professing to be ministers of Christ, in Ireland, should have instituted and carried on no extensive home mission, by which the gospel might be brought to the doors of the Roman Catholic population, when they knew well that they would never come into their parish churches.

It seems to me, that every Protestant must feel, that the Roman Catholic priests of Ireland have offended God in keeping his Word from the people, to a great extent, which has so manifestly and undeniably tended to keep them in a state of superstition and ignorance, with which their present calamities are closely connected.

And these people themselves have offended against God by consenting to that spiritual bondage, in which they were placed, and when that Word was offered to them, turning away from it with credulous alarm, or with superstitious enmity.

But our own country has also offended against God. There has been no legislative measure taken, of any sufficient magnitude

I had almost said of any magnitude-up to modern times, by which this distressed state of Ireland might be relieved; but something like this extraordinary calamity was needed, to rouse the legislature from that apathy, with which they had regarded those miserable mud hovels, that wretched fare, and that nakedness of millions of the population.

I cannot but acknowledge that our legislature has likewise sinned against God, in its endowment of false doctrine. To pay from the public purse for the teaching of those doctrines which we know to be false, which are opposed to the glory of God and the welfare of man, under any political considerations whatsoever, disguise it as men may under any fair pretensions, seems to me, at least, to be an evil crying out to God for his anger. And if we should proceed further-not only to endow a seminary, in which priests should be educated in superstition, but to endow the priests themselves throughout Ireland, and thus make every one of us partakers of the crime of actually proclaiming what we know to be falsehood, it seems as if we were rather asking God for his vengeance, than imploring his mercy.

At the same time, this is only one among the many obvious sins, which may still more, perhaps, be asking for God's vengeance upon us at this time. We must feel, that great offences are committed against God in this country, and in our own church, so manifest, that we wonder men do not more concentrate their attention upon them.

It is a discredit to our church, that there should have been seventy professed ministers of the gospel, who within a few years have apostatized from enlightened truth, and joined a church which is marked in Scripture for the divine judgments. And if this were all, we might leave these persons to their own consciences, to whatever degree they might be mistaken; but the circumstance that they have sprung from a class of hundreds more, whom prudential considerations still retain within the bosom of the Church of England, and against whose departure from the truth no measure whatsoever is taken of discipline, to guard the pulpits of our land from the doctrines, with which they are poisoning the minds of many, seems to ask for the divine anger.

And this seems to me even small, compared with another mischief, which because we are familiar with it we shut our eyes to, or bear it as though there were some necessity laid upon us. Is it