of all hearts is to evil, is there a sober man who believes it will do, to blot out penalty and cover up the pit? Then you may do what you please-commit any crine in the long and gory catalogue; only keep clear of human justice, there is no other to fear; and if, perchance, you are too hard-pushed by the human avenger, and are likely to suffer, you can take the friendly steel and open the vital passage, and your imprisoned soul shall go clear, and go up where the Being who rules over all awaits it, and who will open heaven to your blood-stained spirit, and kindly say, "thou persecuted one, come in hither, I will protect you, for I am the friend of liars, and murderers, and adulterers, and all such." Is God such a being? Is such a message true? Will it do good? Will it restrain men? Will it humble them and make them feel that sinning is bad business, and that sin is an abominable thing, and bring them to repentance, and reform them, and make them holy? There is no need of any words on this point. There is power in fear-in the fear of hell: and ministers must be allowed to preach the doctrine of hell, or all their preaching will be vain and nugatory. Let it be done in the just proportion; above all, let it be with the right spirit-a tender spirit. The denouncing prophet ought to be a weeping prophet; his warnings and uttered woes accompanied with his tears; then will there be a melting and subduing efficacy. 5. We are now brought to the pre-eminence of the gospel as a store-house of influence-a system of reform and redemption. It is perfect-absolutely complete. The gospel does not drop the motive of fear; it keeps it, and adds thereto the motive of hope. The danger abides. Hell is not abolished, but burns still. But the way of escape is opened, and made clear and adequate for all who will go in it. Here are good news; the Saviour come; atonement made; the love beyond degree; the free invitations; the great and precious promises; fields of hidden wealth; pearls of greatest price; unsearchable riches, victories, kingdoms, and crowns of eternal glory-all spread out and attracting, one would think, with resistless force. Here the whole Deity is known; here the whole plan is unfolded; here the whole man is addressed, not one motive, but all motives that can have power on character or conduct, meet and press him. Here the Christian preacher's privileged position; and what might not we expect now, as the result of his reasonings and appeals? If the one message of wrath bore down those guilty myriads, what will not be the case in these days, when that message of wrath comes strengthened and doubled by the added voice of mercy? If he who spake from earth, was so heard, how will not he be heard, who now speaks from heaven? It were easy here to turn and charge upon the great mass now living, an unwonted obduracy, hearing the gospel as they do and still repenting not. They repented at the preaching of Jonah and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here." They repented under an unmixed message of condemnation, when they knew not that repentance would avail to deliver them. You have been addressed -have been apprized of the coming ruin, and assured of the full and overflowing redemption; and, yet, you have not repented. They had but a single warning-the same, bare, gloomy iteration -"forty days and ye perish ;" and they repented. Ye have had line upon line, precept upon precept, argument linked with argument, motive piled on motive, sermon coursing sermon, for years upon years of Sabbaths, and still have not repented. And here we strike upon one of the great difficulties of preaching, on these old foundations. It lies in the fact, that preaching has been so long, and frequent, and faithful. Jonah's was a new message; uttered in unaccustomed ears; at the first sound of it, those ears were eager and erect, and those limbs shook with the fear of the coming woe. It was so well adapted, and all so fresh, that the people were arrested and most deeply affected. But, now, truth, which came down divinely arrayed, has grown threadbare from age and use, is cast out and goes begging. The people have had so much of it that they do not care much about it; they have come to hold it very cheap. They, have heard it, till hearing is mere habit, or decency, or ceremony. It has been heard, till it has lost much of its power to interest and amuse the mind. That oft-used phrase-gospelhardened, is, perhaps, rhetorically barbarous, but it is terribly significant-gospel hardened! hardened by such an instrument, by such a manifestation, a revelation of love, God's solicitude for the soul, His invitations and earnest wooings to win it, His melting influence upon it, how could these harden but by perversion and resistance? The guilt of such a course, who can tell? And the condemnation, who can describe or indicate its severity and weight? ARTICLE VII. SICKNESS IMPROVED. By REV. JONATHAN BRACE, New Milford, Conn. Sickness Improved. American Sunday School Union, Philadelphia, 1848. We have been interested, and we hope profited, by the perusal of this little volume. It is intended for the chamber of sickness,-to dispel the gloom which often shrouds that place, by letting in the light of heavenly truth. We have felt the need, which this book, published by the American Sunday School Union, is fitted to supply. Often have we cast about in vain, for some appropriate evangelical treatise which we might put into the hands of sick and convalescent ones. As trouble is the lot of mortals, as man is born unto it, so is he born to illness. Few there are who have never known what sickness is,-few who have never been taken from their business and pleasures, and prostrated upon a bed of pain; while many of the children of men, are "all their lives long subject" to those "woes, which sickly flesh and shattered nerves impose;" and to such, a volume adapted to their case, will prove a welcome, and by the aid of Divine grace, a blessed visitor. It is not, however, every one who can write such a volume. In addition to other qualifications, the writer must have been himself a patient,-experimentally known what it is to have had "days of illness and wearisome nights appointed unto him,"-have a disciplined spirit, chastened, refined, and exalted by suffering. For the truth which meets the deep yearning wants of a sick chamber, must come from such a chamber. They breath truth that breath their words in pain." 66 "There is a great want," says the pious McCheyne, “about all Christians, who have not suffered. Some flowers must be broken or bruised, before they emit any fragrance. All the wounds of Christ sent out sweetness,-all the sorrows of Christians do the same. Commend me to a bruised brother, a broken reed,—one like the Son of Man. To me there is something sacred and sweet in all suffering-it is so much akin to the "Man of sorrows." And we may add, that it is these, these bruised ones, who have acquired experiences which health fails to impart, who are alone qualified to address seasonable words, to those exercised with sickness. It is a fact, that God's most devoted people do suffer, and have, from the time that Lazarus-" he whom Christ loved was sick"until the present hour; nor can it be doubted, that wise and good purposes have been subserved by their sickness. As there is something of good in the worst of men, there are likewise advantages in the worst of evils. No evil is so unmixed as to be without an attendant blessing. A great law of compensation runs throughout the universe. Afflictions and losses have their corresponding returns, are balanced by more or less benefits. This is true of the couch of disease and pain. Even from thence often flows good, and great good to the suffering patient, and to others. There are advantages of sickness; and it will comport with the design of this brief article, to mention what these advantages are. 1. God, then, designs by sickness, to reveal to us our true cha racter as sinners. Je There would have been no sickness, had there been no sin. hovah whose justice is inflexible, and whose benevolence is boundless, would not afflict His innocent creatures. He afflicts not those angelic intelligences who maintained their allegiance when others rebelled, and are now rejoicing on high. That high and holy order of beings, know not by experience what sickness is, and continuing undefiled, will never know. It is the guilty only who suffer. Trouble is wedded to sin. Hence is our heritage of woe. This our Maker would have us realize, and brings upon us sickness that we may realize. The mere fact that disease fastens itself upon us, and we are bowed under its power, proves conclusively that all respecting us is not right,-that we have sinned, and are obnoxious to Him who hates sin. God intends that we shall acknowledge and feel this fact: and well knowing that when the mind is engrossed with the active concerns of life, we are not in a favorable condition to do it, sends the shaft of sickness, to bring us to our senses and to truth. There is 2. Sickness, also, naturally leads to self-examination. nothing to which mankind are more prone, than to a stupid forgetfulness of themselves. They are so absorbed in making provision for the body, that they cannot be brought to pause in their career, and attend to the interests of their souls. They cannot be made to meditate upon their state as rational and immortal creatures, nor contemplate the solemn relations which connect them to God, their neighbors, and eternity. Fancying that the stream on whose bosom the unthinking multitude are borne rapidly forward, is setting towards the realms of bliss; they pass heedlessly and unconsciously along, deaf to invitations and remonstrances. But when sickness takes hold of them, they are forced to stop. Removed from the busy, tumultuous crowd, from their vices and follies, and confined to the chamber and the couch, the mind naturally turns in upon itself. The man emphatically comes to himself,"-enters his own heart and sees what is there. He has leisure to do it; business is at a distance. He has facilities for doing it; his dwelling is still and tranquil. He has motives to do it; he knows not what will be the issue of his sickness. How many can attest the benefit of illness to them in this particular! There is nothing like it, to make one acquainted with his real condition. A person learns more about himself during a few weeks of sickness, so this sickness is not so severe as to lock up his mental faculties in inactivity, -than he ever knew before. He enquires as to the nature of his past feelings, and how he came thus to feel; what has been the character of his past conduct, and how he came to behave thus ;and what is likely to become of him, if the icy hand of death, following that of disease, should touch, chill, and consume his vitals. The silent, solitary, sick-room, is of all places and schools the best, to learn that hallowing wisdom embraced in the adage, γνωδι σεαυτὸν. 3. Sickness likewise shows us, how frail and dependent we are. When in perfect health, the sinews knit in strength, the nerves strung harmoniously, the blood coursing the veins with an easy, placid flow, and the entire frame robust and vigorous, we are in- "Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans As a sick girl." Yes, Cæsar, the noble Cæsar, sick—“that eye of his, whose bend did awe the world, lost its lustre," and that muscular arm of his, which swayed the sceptre of empire over trembling millions, a child might govern! A sick fellow mortal is the weakest of the weak, and in the hour of his weakness, he must be obliged to others, yes, obliged to them for their assistance, or die. It is good for man to feel this dependence. It is good for him to feel that his sufficiency is not of himself, that he needs "under him the everlasting arms;" that he requires too, his neighbor's services, and must so conduct, as that in the day of trial, he can have those services. The tie of dependence binds man to man. It is a chain of sympathy. In sickness we know the worth of friends. Gold may purchase attentionsfor gold in such a world as this, is almost omnipotent-but gold cannot purchase genuine love; a love which delights in self-denials to make you happy. Gold will purchase medicines, and the nurse's care; but as that nurse lifts the draught to your lips, you know that |