your freedom and your privilege: go to this table, and rejoice in the Lord.

YOUNGER MEMBERS OF A CHRISTIAN HOUSEHOLD, who have come to years of discretion and serious thoughts of your soul, refrain not from these holy solemnities. They will strengthen you amid the seductions of pleasure, establish you in the tempest of youthful passions, and give you wisdom and judgment amidst the inexperience of your early years. Perhaps you have just been confirmed: now then come and receive at this feast the grace which will strengthen your resolutions, and teach you to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts; and to live soberly, godly, and righteously, in this present world.

To every one that names the name of Christ, we proclaim the invitation- Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. We place the duty of obeying his plain command before every Christian reader; and charge it on every conscience.

CHAPTER X.

THE HAPPINESS WHICH WOULD FOLLOW ITS GENERAL AND DEVOUT OBSERVANCE.

THE Lord's Supper being an ordinance which is eminently calculated to promote our holiness and happiness as Christians, a reasonable prospect of a far more extended observance of it, in a right spirit, is so delightful, that the author (whose heart is deeply interested in such a hope) will for a little time dwell upon it.

The following considerations may tend to shew that THIS HOPE IS NOT wholly unwarranted. The general prevalence of Christianity through the whole world, at a future time, cannot be questioned. The promise that the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea, is, among many others, clear and express. There is also in the scriptures, a marked connexion between the sufferings of our Lord, and the extension of his kingdom. I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me. His visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men; so shall he sprinkle many nations. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he

shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. Indeed, it is the doctrine of a crucified Saviour, fully proclaimed, and accompanied by the power of the Holy Ghost, that is the means of enlarging the kingdom of Christ, and building up his people in their most holy faith. We may well then suppose that an ordinance, commemorating a doctrine specially calculated to advance the conversion and edification of the world, would, were the Gospel more generally and fully received, be much more constantly observed.

We have scriptural authority to expect that the sufferings of Christ will always be remembered with peculiar affection and interest. After the affecting description given of those sufferings in the 22nd Psalm, it is expressly promised-all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. On this passage Diodati observes-" The true and lively knowledge of the sufferings and glory of Christ shall be given to, and preserved among all nations by the preaching of the Gospel; and especially by the Sacrament of his body, therefore called a remembrance." Luke xxii. 19.

The author has been in some measure led to these remarks, by the following interesting account of one of the first celebrations of this ordinance in New Zealand, an island hardly discovered, or scarcely known to Europeans, till the voyages of Captain Cook, in our late beloved monarch's reign.

The Rev. Samuel Marsden, first chaplain to the colony of New South Wales, in 1819, visited the missions established in this island. After mentioning

that divine service was performed on one occasion, on the Sunday, in a shed, where the four great men in New Zealand, (Shunghee, King George, Pomarree, and Racow) attended; Mr. Marsden says, "All behaved with decorum, and we hope that the day is not far distant, when they will know the joyful sound of the gospel, and have the Lord for their God, in the fullest sense. In the evening we had divine service; and afterwards, the holy Sacrament was administered in this distant land; the solemnity of which Idid not fail to excite in our hearts sensations and feelings corresponding with the peculiar situation in which we were. We looked back to the period when this holy ordinance was first instituted in Jerusalem, in the presence of our Lord's disciples; and adverted to the peculiar circumstances under which it was now administered, at the very ends of the earth, where a single ray of divine revelation had never till now dawned on the inhabitants."

Which of our Lord's disciples at its first institution would have imagined it should be observed through extended ages, and in the most remote parts of the earth! and why should we not now, who have seen such large steps taken towards such a result as we are considering, hope for a far more general observance?

Consider also THE EFFECT OF SUCH A REMEMBRANCE of Christ. Were the death of Christ duly and generally remembered, and had it through the abundant gift of the Holy Ghost, its right influence on men, they would no longer live to themselves, but to Him that died for them. Divisions would cease, and Christians all be one. John xvii. 21. The whole body would be ONE VAST FAMILY, have one will, one heart, one aim

and one labour. It would be felt that there is one Lord, one faith, one hope, one God and Father of all, above all, through all, and in them all. Righteousness and truth, goodness and kindness, would generally prevail. Love to God, and love to each other, would fill the earth as they now fill heaven; and in some much lower, but happy degree, these words would be fulfilled: Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

It was once said of the three thousand first converted to the Christian faith-they continued stedfast in the Apostle's doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayer. May we hope that this description will hereafter be true, not merely of one body of believers in one place, but of all the various and multiplied nations of the earth in every land.

A late writer, in the following paraphrase on that petition in the Lord's prayer, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven, has delightfully intimated the blessedness of such a conformity to the divine will as we may then expect, "In heaven thy will is the inviolable law. Myriads of ministers encircle thy throne, who cease not to celebrate and serve thee with uninterrupted praises, and unerring obedience. Oh that such fidelity were found on earth! that the sons of men did even now resemble that celestial society, to which they hope hereafter to be united! were animated with the like holy ardent zeal, and could give themselves to God with the same entire devotion! We are blind and vain, but thou art wise and good. Wise therefore in thy wisdom, secure under thy care, great and happy in humility aud subjection,