half of a society,* whose single object is to communicate a knowledge of the Scriptures of truth to those who must otherwise, in great ignorance, worship that God whom these Scriptures will declare to them. To them this knowledge, which is always necessary, besides all other knowledge, is peculiarly important, as it must to a large extent serve instead of all other knowledge. Ignorant of all things else-let them learn to know their God. And their learning even this, depends much, under God, on the continued existence and prosperity of the society whose cause we plead. Inhabitants of a rude and rocky soil, variously intersected by lakes and mountains and wide arms of the sea; belonging, also, to parishes of unwieldy and unmanageable extent, and poorly provided with pastors and teachers; these mountaineers, in the remoter districts of our land, were long left literally to perish for lack of knowledge, experiencing little, and often nothing, of the precious advantages which, through the admirable machinery of our national schools and churches, their more favoured fellow-countrymen in the Lowlands enjoyed.

And whatever zeal has lately been kindled in their behalf in other quarters-and it is a noble zeal in a noble cause--still be it remembered, that this society was the first-not many years ago-to rouse the public mind from its long lethargic neglect of our northern brethren. To this day, it is instrumental in communi

I have hesitated about retaining this appeal. But the omission of it might be misconstrued. And the claims of the Gaelic School Society are not in the least diminished since this discourse was delivered in its behalf, during the first meeting of the British Scientific Association at Edinburgh, in September 1834.

cating to several thousands, in upwards of fifty schools, the benefits of a strictly Scriptural education.

It has been calculated, that nearly four hundred additional schools would yet be necessary to put our Highland parishes even on the same footing, in regard to a provision of education, with the now poorly and inadequately provided parishes of the Lowlands. In such destitution, can the exertions of this society be dispensed with? May we not heartily wish it Godspeed, as a useful and valuable auxiliary of our churches in these outskirts of their territory?

It is a society whose management is such as to claim implicit confidence. The teachers are chosen men;men of sound piety and principle. And while they confine themselves faithfully to their own proper province, they strengthen the hands of the pastors within whose bounds they labour, and who have often found in the society's agents their most valuable coadjutors. Finally, it is a society whose labours God has been pleased in a remarkable degree to own and bless. The testimonies of success are most interesting. The accounts are most affecting of the spirit which the people evince; their eagerness to learn, and their love to those who teach them. Not children only, but aged and venerable patriarchs, have flocked to these schools; -the infant, scarcely yet able to tread firmly, conducting the hoary grandsire, provided at his own request, by this very society, with the aids now necessary to his dim eyes, that he may yet learn, ere he die, to read for himself the Word of the living God. Nor is it unusual to see a family of three generations sitting all together on the same rude bench, and conning over the same well-worn spelling-book. Hence, when a

school is removed from one place to another, according to the society's plan, that all may in turn receive some benefit; the inhabitants have been known to come forward, almost with tears, to prevent the departure of the teacher, as of their best friend. And at much sacrifice of their own scanty resources, they have sought to raise among themselves the sum necessary to retain his services a little longer.

These are the men now stretching out their hands to you in their famine ;-not for bread-but for the Word of God. And are they to be refused?

We are all wont to speak with enthusiasm of Highland scenery and Highland character. Men of science find in the rocks and caves of our wild northern clime, the materials of their profound inquiry, and the elements of their most enlarged speculations. Men of taste admire her romantic glens and towering hills. Men of imagination are roused by the records of her heroism. Men of feeling are touched by her warmhearted hospitality. The patriot owes a debt of gratitude for many a hard-fought field. And all of us alike, from some sort of tender or lofty association, will own that region of poetry and fancy almost as if it were our own home.

Shall we not, then, contribute a substantial token of our kindness? Shall we not give our alms and our prayers to help on this labour of love;-that our brethren, long overlooked, may now through our means, by the blessing of God, be taught to read for themselves, in their own tongue, the wonderful works of God?

NATURAL AFFECTION DISTINGUISHED FROM THE

FAITH AND LOVE OF THE GOSPEL.*

"Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment."-LUKE xvi. 27, 28.

WHETHER this narrative is to be regarded as a real or fictitious history, it must have been recognised at the time as extremely probable. Many a Pharisee was present who might have passed for the original of the purple-robed and sumptuously-fed lord,-and whose conscience might remind him of the beggar left to

* "There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments. and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence."-Luke xvi. 19-26.

starve and perish at his door. And the reverse of the picture must have appeared very likely to be correct. The scene which our Lord drew from the unseen world, -the vivid representation which he gave of what takes place in the abode of departed and disembodied spirits, -was quite in accordance with their own opinions. They could go along with him when he told them of hell, or hades, the receptacle of souls,—and of the two departments there appropriated, the one as the restingplace of saints taken to Abraham's bosom, the other as the dreary mansion of torment. They professed fully to believe in the instant separation of the good and the wicked,—the great impassable gulf,—and the unmitigated agony of the hopelessly condemned.

And still, though some particulars in this description may be accommodated to the imagination then commonly formed of the unseen state, the essential spirit of it must be regarded as true. It may not be sufficient to prove the correctness, in all its details, of the prevailing Jewish view upon this subject. One thing, however, it does prove; that whithersoever souls go after death, and wheresoever they are, they enter immediately either on joy or on woe. Their state is fixed; and it is fixed for ever. As the tree falls so it lies. There is no work or device beyond the grave; no passing from misery to blessedness; not so much as a cup of cold water to cool the burning tongue.

Thus adapted, as it certainly is, to the opinion of an intermediate state between death and judgment, in which the souls of the good and evil, already finally and for ever separated, wait for their reunion with their bodies as for the full consummation of their blessedness or pain,the parable is altogether opposed to the very different