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them, and soon we shall bid them farewell. But I will leave you a remembrance; I will give you a treasure which will serve for " light to your feet, aud a lamp to your path." See, here is a New Testament, my dear friend; this is the word of God; it contains the glad tidings, and it will be your delight if you examine it sincerely, and if you receive all the truths it contains as if God were speaking them to you himself. May it be blest to you and to many others, and may we one day meet again before the throne of the Lord, and praise him together eternally.'

The herds-boy received the gospel with respect. He seemed affected by my last words, and kept near us, as if it required an effort to leave us. It was time to return. The air had become keen, night was coming on, and we bade adieu to the young goat-herd. This simple meeting, and these few words exchanged with a poor boy, left on us a sweet and solemn impression, and a sensation of that joyful hope which one occasionally experiences, when one has been enabled to sow some seed of the word of life. We know that wherever it falls, even upon a rock, if God blesses it, it will bear fruit, and we intrust it to him. Thus it is that the most trifling circumstances, when they are enlivened by the expectation of what God may do with them, assume peculiar character, which gives them an importance and a charm.

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We passed a quiet night in our little cabin, shaken as it was by the winds. It consisted of only two rooms, a kitchen and a goathouse; and the partition was so thin, that beasts and men might have thought themselves lodged together. Our guides awoke us at day-break. We had a long journey before us, for we wanted to reach

Courmayeur that evening, and we prepared for our departure without loss of time. The sky was clear, and the air sharp; the first rays of the sun were enlightening the tops of the mountains, while all beside was still in the shade. The scene was as calm and grand as on the preceding evening, In this desert place the return of day brought with it no noise, or mark of animation. As before, we heard only the torrent and the bells of our young herds-boy's goats; for he had led them out of the stable, and there he stood, with his eyes fixed upon us, saluting us with his hand, and watching our departure. We cried out adieu to him, and I added, Remember us.' He answered me with a motion of his head. We set forward, and for a long time we could see the little goat-herd in the same place, following us with his eyes; at length the road turned, and we saw him no more. I retraced some steps to make him one more friendly sign, which he returned again and again, and then I rejoined my companions. As we proceeded I thought on his juvenile faith, which the reading of the Word of God would donbtless enlarge and strengthen. I said to myself, this poor child, destined as he is to live among these mountains, almost always alone, far from the corruption of towns and their temptations, needs as much as myself to know and believe that Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life," and the faith, which is my compass in the midst of a more stormy and rocky sea, is still indispensable as a guide to him, who has above all things to fear and to contend with his own heart. I seemed never to have better understood, that the gospel addresses itself to all, and that, be a man's situation what it may, he is in want of these glad tidings.

M.

THE TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL ADDRESS, OF THE MINISTER OF IVER TO HIS PARISHIONERS.

JANUARY 1, 1833.

MY DEAR FRIENDS.-When I look back on the events of the past year, and call to mind that appalling pestilence, with which our country in so many places, and our own parish amongst the rest, has been visited,-can I begin my pastoral Address for the year, on which we are permitted to enter, by a more suitable acknowledgment, than "that it is of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not!" Can I call you to the exercise of a more seasonable duty, than to pour out your hearts in thanksgiving to Him, who has " spared, when we deserved punishment, and in His wrath remembered mercy?"

Yes, He who sent this awful visitation, has himself arrested its progress: He, who commissioned the destroying angel to go and slay through the length and breadth of the land, after a while, graciously repented him of the evil, and said in accents of tender commiseration, "It is enough: stay now thine hand!"

Oh! how can any one be so blind as not to see, and so hard of heart as not to confess, that the desolating Cholera was a scourge sent direct from the Almighty to the guilty nations of the earth? Its cause is a mystery, and its cure a mystery still! We are as yet, and may perhaps for ever, remain ignorant of its origin, and its remedy. At one time its source was thought to be in the air-at another, in the water-at another, in the earth! Many a time has a sure and unfailing remedy been announced; and just as often has it mocked the discoverer's hopes. And as we know not how it came, nor how it went, neither do we know, should it return upon us,

how to meet and to defeat its violence. Surely minds unaccustomed to acknowledge God's interference in the world, can hardly fail to perceive, it was His doing, though

unseen.

But the real Christian does not acknowledge a providence only, when he cannot assign a secondary cause he would not the less see, nor the less own, the hand of God, had the cause and the cure of this fell disease been as well understood, as they are confessedly unknown. The Most High works by these very agents-air, earth, water; but still it is not less His work, than if wrought by his immediate fiat, and He were heard in an audible voice to say to the disease, "Come, and it cometh: go, and it goeth!"

Now, if under the pressure of such visitations, prayer to God were not a commanded duty, still the real Christian would instinetively flee to prayer, as his relief and solace in the hour of calamity! -how much more, when it is a duty so affectionately urged upon us by God himself! and to the due performance of which the promise of His help is inseparably annexed. "Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee." Psalm 1. 15. "Thou shalt make thy prayer unto Him, and He shall hear thee." Job xxii. 27. "Is any among you afflicted? let him pray." James v. 13. "The

prayer of faith shall save the sick." James v. 15. Many such prayers, I doubt not, have gone up from believing hearts, since this dreadful visitation reached our shores-and from some, I would fain hope, whom I am now addressing.. And who can say, that these prayers have not moved Him, who moves the world,

to mingle mercy with his just judgment, and not to suffer His whole displeasure to arise?

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But, if it was our bounden duty and our best resource, to flee to Him in the hour of danger--and commend ourselves and all that were dear to us, to His guardian care and covenanted mercy Christ; surely now, that the heavy cloud seems to have passed away, it is not less our duty, nay, it should be the delight of our hearts, to fall low upon our knees before his footstool, and to thank him with a gratitude as deep and as intense, as if we had seen his arm stretched out in open day, to protect us and our families; or had heard his voice controlling the pestilence,Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther!"

Oh, let the fond parent, as he looks with delight upon his darling children, remember, by whose sovereign grace it is, that, while so many were taken, his were left! Let the husband bless the Lord, for sparing to him the wife of his bosom; and the wife confess his goodness, that she is not now widow indeed.' Let the families, where death has not made a breach, encircle his throne with thanksgivings, who suffered not the plague to enter their dwellings, but bade the destroyer pass by their door.

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Neither the Mortality, nor the Mercy, must ever be forgotten!

Alas, how many dwellings, where health and joy had long resided, were on a sudden changed into houses of woe! Hundreds, nay, thousands were snatched, from the enjoyment of life and the bosom of their families, without any warning, and if unprepared, undone for ever. A few days of writhing agony, terminated the life of most; a few hours, the existence of some. Not a few-awful to relate!were summoned into the presence of a thrice holy God from scenes of drunkenness and revelry, from riot and debauchery. They were

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cut off in the midst of "sins going before them to judgment."

Others there were, a goodly number I trust, to whom sudden death was sudden glory-who died, as they had lived, resting calmly on the only sure foundation. They found, that "neither life nor death, nor things present nor things to come, could separate them from that love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Of one such I can confidently speak -- a near and dear relative* who died of this fatal malady in thirty hours. She found HIM faithful to the last, "whom not having seen she had loved,"-and when heart and flesh failed, and all hope of life was gone, declared with her parting breath, Jesus is precious, very, very precious to me!'-Oh my friends, what has the world to offer, compared with such a hope at such an hour?

And now let me put the question round to each of you, with the utmost solemnity, and as in the sight of the heart-searching God! How would it have fared with you, had you been of the Twenty thousand seven hundred, who fell victims to this dire disease within the borders of our own land? Were you prepared to meet your God, and answer at his bar for the things done in the body? Had you ever felt His Spirit at work with your consciences; and convinced of your guilt and danger, as sinners, had you fled for refuge to the hope set before you, and made your peace with God through the blood of the cross? Was your life consonant with your profession, and your conversation such as became the gospel? Then you might have faced the cholera with its deadly hue and its frightful agonies, without dismay then you would have had a good hope through grace, that your sins were forgiven, and your heavenly Father recon

*Mrs. Ward's sister.

ciled; and though your last sufferings might have equalled those of the martyr Stephen, you would, like him, have fallen asleep in Jesus, and awaked to a joyful

resurrection!

But, oh, I dare not indulge this bright hope of some, whom I am now addressing. God knows the sorrow of heart with which I utter it; but my conscience compels me to speak out! Are there not those amongst you, who are living without God and without Christ in the world; and who, had they died of cholera, would have died without hope, and gone where hope never comes? What would have become of the Sabbath-breaker, of the blasphemer, of the drunkard, of the dishonest, of the licentious? Had death overtaken you in your career of wickedness, while sinning with a high hand against God and your own soul, how would your last moments have been embittered by the remembrancehad reason and reflection been spared-of an ill-spent profligate life! What an agonizing review in the closing hour-to think of privileges abused, warnings disregarded, the Bible neglected, Sabbaths profaned, God's name insulted, his people mocked, heaven slighted, hell deserved!

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Do you now laugh at the threatenings of the Most High? Do now jest with your gay and thoughtless comrades about the torments of hell? Do you say, the cholera has abated its fury, and a sudden death need no longer be apprehended? and therefore you will return, as the dog to his vomit, to your guilty pleasures, saying, To-morrow will be as this day, and more abundant.'

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draw in contagion-the next drop of blood that mounts to the brain, may break in on its mysterious recesses, extinguish life-and hurry you into Eternity! Oh, who can bear a miserable Eternity!

Do you ask me, who will be consigned to everlasting burnings, and to the worm that will never die?--I answer without hesitation, you, and you, and you-if you will not turn and repent,-if you persist in your evil ways-if you continue to turn a deaf ear to the voice of conscience-and resist the strivings of God's Spirit, and count the blood of the covenant an unholy and a worthless thing!

Oh think, how many have already gone into eternity, who were sharers in your sinful excesses! Count the names of those, who lie in the burying place of the dead, whom perhaps you were the means of seducing into sin, or hardening in their iniquity! Were you now cut off in your present evil courses; were the blood that now flows in your veins, chilled in its progress, and suddenly stopped; were an angel commissioned once more to send a pestilential blast across the land, and to mark you out as the first who should sicken and die, what would become of your soul through this vast, this endless eternity?

Oh, let not these solemn warnings be disregarded too many have been slighted already: these may perhaps be the last I may give, or you receive! Be wise, ere it be too late! Trifle not with convictions! If you now feel some misgivings of conscience, stifle them not; rather seek some secret place, where you may weep bitterly for your past negligence, and your many transgressions. But, mind, bring forth fruits meet for repentance ! Turn at once to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! See, that : you renounce your ing sins, though dear to you as a right hand or a right eye! Pray

O foolish and unwise, do not madly deceive yourselves-God has many more arrows in his quiver, beside the cholera! Diseases innumerable await his bidding in the midst of life you are in death! The next breath you draw, may

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for grace to renew your hearts and to reform your lives!

What a poor thing, after all, is that REFORM in Parliament, on which your minds were so passionately set, compared with the renewal of your hearts, and the REFORM of your lives! and those ELECTIONS, so eagerly contested throughout the country,-can they bear competition with making your calling and election sure?"

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We have, blessed be God, a representative in heaven, one who ever liveth to make intercessionone whom the Father heareth always; one who holds not his high appointment of Saviour by your choice, but has bought it with his own blood!-Be it your grand ambition to be CHOSEN of Him, and your earnest desire to bear the marks of his ELECT! Renounce all, that is inconsistent with his holy service--your evil principles, your evil companions, your evil practices. Flee from temptation. Shun those haunts of vice, those plague spots of the land, those abominable beer-houses! Return to your forsaken church! Read your neglected Bible! Bend your unaccustomed knee to God in prayer!

Read

Be assured, He willeth not the death of a sinner, and would gladly record of you, as of one of old; "This my Son was dead and is alive again-He was lost and is found."

This would be indeed REFORM -the only REFORM that will make your condition truly blessed.

The alternative, remember! isRUIN!

Make then this Reform your chief concern ! I beseech you, do so, by the mercies of that God, who has so long borne with your neglect, and yet waiteth to be gracious-by the precariousness of life and opportunities-by the worth of your immortal souls, and the terrors of the second death!-by the bliss of heaven, and the pangs of hell!—and, allow me to add, by the joy which such a Reform will cause to your ministers and godly friends on earth-yea, to the spirits of the just made perfect in heaven; and amongst these, to my own dear departed child,* who in the latter days of her sojourning here, so eagerly sought your spiritual welfare, and whose early, but happy death, was hastened perhaps by her affectionate zeal to win others to

that Saviour, whom she had found so precious to her own soul!

BUT, SHE, BEING DEAD, YET SPEAKETH!

Oh then, in the strength of Christ, make, like her, a wise, a happy, and a lasting choice; and rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, choose, if need be, to suffer affliction with the people of God; for, so doing, you will also choose their comforts on earth, and their glory in heaven!

I remain, my dear friends, your affectionate minister, and faithful servant in Christ,

EDWARD WARD. *Jane Ward, who died in the Lord, April 15th. 1832.

ON PSALMODY.

DEAR SIR,-You called the attention of your readers lately to the subject of selections of Psalms and Hymns for the use of churches; which are becoming very generally adopted, and to which the attention of every pious clergyman has been

more or less directed. The subject is so important to the interests of true evangelical religion, as to be worthy of the notice of a

Christian Guardian.' Perhaps your experienced correspondents will say more on this head, and

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