criminating, and scriptural preaching has the present generation been blessed! I fully believe that, in this respect, few among the ages that are passed have been raised so high in point of privileges. We may fairly infer, therefore, that much thoughtfulness and valuable impression have been produced, that have not yet appeared on the surface of society; and that when, "after so long a time," men come to the determination, that they must and will confess Christ in the church, we greatly err, if we suppose that religion is a new theme of thought to them, or that, in their pious resolves, there is any thing "sudden," in such a sense as implies a want of serious consideration, or the absence of a thorough acquaintance with the solemnity and sacredness of the Christian profession.

Now, at the opening of the year 1850, I cast my eye over our highly-favored land. It is a mighty field, where the fallow ground has been broken up, the clods have been pulverized, and the good seed put in, and covered with earth. Why should we not expect an abundant harvest? God has wonderfully taken hurtful influences out of the way. The thunders of war are hushed. The din of political strife has died away. The ravages of cholera are, at least for a time, arrested. We wait only for the showers of divine grace to make the plants in the garden of God spring up, and produce fruit in rich abundance, beyond all that "kings and prophets" ever saw. No such extensive preparations preceded the revivals under John Knox and his fellowlaborers, when, in a single generation, a nation was born to God. No such extensive preparation preceded the "great awakening" under Edwards and the Tennants. Why, then, should not the church, at this day,

"expect great things," and "attempt great things"? Why not hope for the return of sinners to the ark of safety in such multitudes, that the prophet, in vision beholding it at the distance of many centuries, was constrained to exclaim, "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as doves to their windows?"

GROWTH IN KNOWLEDGE.

THE Holy Spirit hath said, "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Absolute perfection is not possessed by the newly-converted soul, and hence the command to "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." There is a growth in knowledge, as well as in grace, enjoined on the believer. Inattention to this fact has often occasioned erroneous sentiments among pious people. This life is but our birthday. Saints will grow in acquaintance with God and things divine through all eternity. And yet how prone are we, in the very commencement of our religious course, to fancy ourselves fully qualified to pronounce without hesitation on the most high and solemn questions that relate to the things of God! Many a Christian has been kept in darkness for years, by reason of some hasty decision concerning the doctrine of the gospel, rashly made in the very infancy of his Christianity. O that all Christians, and especially the young, would treasure up in their minds that precious counsel of the Holy Spirit, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding"! God has given us a "sure word of prophecy" for our direction, to which we do well to "take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place." But O, what mournful

inroads has error made in the church, when the professed friends of the Redeemer have not followed the light of God's word, but have "leaned to their own understanding"!

In a clear night, when the multitude of stars that are scattered over the heavens, apparently without any regularity or order, are visible to the naked eye, should you tell the man who is utterly unacquainted with the science of astronomy, that these luminous specks are worlds, many of them larger than the globe on which he stands, and that they are all moving with admirable harmony, according to the plan of their Author, he would think your statement altogether incredible; for he sees nothing like order or harmony in all that strikes his eye. In like manner, the man who leans to his own understanding, and is not sufficiently attentive to the voice of God, when he looks around him on the multitude of events which daily occur, and sees in them much that to his eye is confusion and disorder, he feels confident that those who maintain that God is "working all things after the counsel of his own will," are grossly mistaken. He fancies that he sees conclusive proof that Satan and wicked men are driving the world before them, and that the counsel of God does not prevail. Your assertion of the regular movements and harmonious revolutions of the heavenly bodies, is confidently denied by the ignorant man. He tells you it cannot be true; for it contradicts the testimony of his senses. Why does he think so? Because he concludes he has a full view of the whole creation; whereas it is but a small portion that his eye is capable of taking in at once. And the man splits on the same rock, who, because the events which take

place around him are different from what he thinks are wisest and best, therefore affirms absolutely that God cannot have appointed them so, and is not "working all things after the counsel of his own will."

"One part, one little part, we dimly scan,

Through the dark medium of life's feverish dream,
Yet dare arraign the whole eternal plan,

If but that little part incongruous seem.”

We have a record of excellent men, in ages long past, who, for a time, were in darkness on this subject. When Joseph was forced away from his aged and affectionate father, and sold in Egypt for a slave, and there for many years confined in a dungeon, how dark, how full of perplexity, was the whole transaction! Indeed, there is no evidence from the history that as yet it had ever entered Joseph's head, that this was God's plan for advancing the glory of his great name, and the interest of his Zion; and that one day he would see the harmony, and beauty, and grandeur of that whole dispensation, now so mysterious and dark. Joseph appears to have looked only at the agency of man in the transaction the agency of his brethren who sold him, the merchants who brought him to Egypt, the Egyptians who imprisoned him. Hear his language to the chief butler: "For I indeed was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews; and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into this dungeon. Think on me when it shall be well with thee, and show kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house." (Gen. xl. 14, 15.) But Joseph lived to see the day when the plan of God was ripe for accom