On a Sailor's Life.

In the trade to Africa for slaves, and in the management of ships going on these voyages, many of our lads and young men have a considerable part of their education.

Now, what pious father, beholding his son placed in one of these ships, to learn the practice of a mariner, could forbear mourning over him?

Where youth are exampled in means of getting money so full of violence, and used to exercise such cruelties on their fellow-creatures, the disadvantage to them in their education, is very great.

But I feel it in my mind to write concerning the seafaring life in general.

In the trade carried on from the West Indies, and from some parts of the continent, the produce of the labour of slaves is a considerable part.

And sailors who are frequently at ports where slaves abound, and converse often with people who oppress them without the appearance of remorse, and often with sailors employed in the slave trade, how powerfully do these evil examples spread among the sea-faring youth!

I have had many opportunies to feel and understand the general state of the sea-faring life amongst us, and my mind hath been often sad on account of so many lads and young men being trained up amidst so great corruption.

Under the humbling power of Christ, I have seen that if the leadings of his Holy Spirit were

faithfully attended to by his professed followers in general, the heathen nations would be exampled in righteousness. A less number of people would be employed on the seas. The channels of trade would be more free from defilement. Fewer people would be employed in vanities and superfluities.

The inhabitants of cities would be less in. number.

They who have much land would become fathers to the poor.

More people would be employed in the sweet employment of husbandry, and in the path of pure wisdom, labour would be an agreeable, healthful employment.

In the opening of these things in my mind, I feel a living concern that we, who have felt divine love in our hearts, may faithfully abide in it, and like good soldiers, endure hardness for Christ's sake.

He, our blessed Saviour, exhorting his followers to love one another, adds, "As I have loved you." John xiii. 34.

He loved Lazarus, yet in his sickness did not heal him, but left him to endure the pains of death, that in restoring him to life, the people might be confirmed in the true faith.

He loved his disciples, but sent them forth on a message attended with great difficulty, amongst hard-hearted people, some of whom would think that in killing them they did God service.

So deep is divine love, that in steadfastly abiding in it, we are prepared to deny ourselves

of all that gain which is contrary to pure wisdom, and to follow Christ,'even under contempt, and through sufferings.

On Silent Worship.

Worship in silence hath often been refreshing to my mind, and a care attends me that a young generation may feel the nature of this worship. Great expense ariseth in relation to that which is called divine worship.

A considerable part of this expense is applied toward outward greatness, and many poor people in raising of tithe, labour in supporting customs contrary to the simplicity that is in Christ, toward whom my mind hath often been moved with pity.

In pure, silent worship, we dwell under the holy anointing, and feel Christ to be our Shep herd.

Here the best of teachers ministers to the several conditions of his flock, and the soul receives, immediately from the divine fountain, that with which it is nourished.

Within the last four hundred years, many pious people have been deeply exercised in soul on account of the superstition which prevailed amongst the professed followers of Christ, and in support of their testimony against oppressive idolatry, some in several ages have finished their course in the flames.

It appears by the history of the Reformation, that through the faithfulness of the martyrs, the

understandings of many have been opened, and the minds of people from age to age, been more and more prepared for a real spiritual worship.

My mind is often affected with a sense of the condition of those people, who in different ages, have been meek and patient, following Christ through great afflictions; and while I behold the several steps of reformation, and that clearness to which, through divine goodness, it hath been brought to our ancestors, I feel tender desires, that we who sometimes meet in silence, may never, by our conduct lay stumbling blocks in the way of others, and hinder the progress of the reformation in the world.

It was a complaint against some who were called the Lord's people, that they brought polluted bread to his altar, and said the table of the Lord was contemptible.

In real silent worship the soul feeds on that which is divine; but we cannot partake of the table of the Lord, and that table which is prepared by the god of this world.

If Christ is our shepherd, and feedeth us, and we are faithful in following him, our lives will have an inviting language, and the table of the Lord will not be polluted.

On the example of Christ.

As my mind hath been brought into a brotherly feeling with the poor, as to the things of this life, who are under trials in regard to getting a living in a way answerable to the purity

of truth; a labour of heart hath attended me, that their way may not be made difficult through the love of money in those who are tried with plentiful estates, but that they with tenderness of heart may sympathize with them.

It was the saying of our blessed Redeemer, "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." There is a deep feeling of the way of purity, a way in which the wisdom of the world hath no part, but is opened by the Spirit of truth, and is "called the way of holiness," a way in which the traveller is employed in watching unto pray. er; and the outward gain we get in this journey is considered as a trust committed to us, by Him who formed and supports the world; and is the rightful director of the use and application of the product of it.

Now except the mind be preserved chaste, there is no safety for us; but in an estrangement from true resignation, the spirit of the world casts up a way, in which gain is many times principally attended to, and in which there is a selfish application of outward treasures.

How agreeable to the true harmony of society, is that exhortation of the apostle! "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also ou the things of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus."

A person in outward prosperity may have the power of obtaining riches, but the same mind being in him which is in Christ Jesus, he may feel a tenderness of heart towards those of low degree; and instead of setting himself above them, may look upon it as an unmerited favour