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they provide meat for their offspring in the best manner they are able.

Suppose you provide largely for your children; suppose that you leave them wealthy; yet, if you leave them not the blessing of God, what will wealth avail? Wealth with a curse, is worse, far worse, than death; and, it would be much more happy to see your children in their graves before you, if you had reason to hope they died in the Lord.

I beseech you, therefore, now to think seriously on these things; you know not how soon God may call you into eternity. Let not the present time be lost. Acquaint your children with the Bible. Pray with them in your families; pray for them in your closets. Set them a universally good example. Neither speak nor do any thing unbecoming the characters of Christians. Let them see that you love Christ; that you fear to offend your heavenly Father; that you delight in sprituality, and that you draw your sweetest consolations from religion. So instruct and so walk before your children, that you may die in peace, and leave them with comfort, if God should unexpectedly cut you down by death in the very midst of life.

THE BANTERING DEIST.

A DEIST Once conversing with a plain honest Christian, and thinking to silence him by banter, and knotty questions, asked him what his God was? He answered," A Spirit." Then he inquired of him, how large he was? He replied, "So large as to fill immensity, and so smal as to dwell in the humble and contrite heart."

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RELIGION Would have no enemies, if itself were not an enemy to vice. MASSILLON.

THE WILFUL LIAR'S DREADFUL APPEAL.

A man that beareth false witness against his neighbors, is a mall, and a sword, and a sharp arrow.

The mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.

SOLOMON.
DAVID.

In the year '87, a man, whose name shall be concealed in tenderness to surviving relations, waited upon a magistrate,near Hitchin, in the county of Hertford, and informed him that he had been stopped by a young gentleman of Hitchin, who knocked him down, and searched his pockets; but, not finding any thing there, he suffered him to depart. The magistrate, astonished at this piece of in. telligence, despatched a messenger to the young gentle. man, ordering him to appear immediately, and answer to the charge exhibited against him; the youth obeyed the summons, accompanied by his guardian, and an intimate friend. Upon their arrival at the seat of justice, the accused and the accuser were confronted; when the magistrate hinted to the man, he was fearful that he had made the charge with no other view than that of extorting money, and bid him take care how he proceeded; exhorting him, in the most earnest and pathetic manner, to beware of the dreadful' train of consequences attending perjury.

The man insisted upon making oath of what he had advanced; the oath was accordingly administered, and the business fully investigated; when the innocence of the young gentleman was established, he having, by the most

incontrovertible evidence proved an alibi. The infamous wretch finding his intentions thus frustrated, returned home much chagrined; and, meeting soon afterwards with one of his neighbors, he declared he had not sworn to any thing but the truth; calling God to witness the same, in the most solemn manner, and wished, if it was not as he had said, his jaws might be locked, and that his flesh might rot upon his bones; when, terrible to relate! his jaws were instantly arrested, and the use of the faculty he had so awfully perverted, was denied him for ever; and, after lingering near a fortnight, he expired in the greatest agonies, his flesh literally rotting upon his bones. From this awful narrative, let us learn, first, to provide things honest in the sight of all men; secondly, to respect the reputation, and promote the happiness of our neighbors; thirdly to cultivate the love of truth, from conviction of its importance to our personal and relative welfare; fourthly, the danger of appealing to heaven for the attestation of our innocence, while under the dominion of guilt; and, finally, the dreadful and fatal consequences which may punish villany and impiety, even in this life, and which must incessantly aggravate the torment beyond the grave.

A SOLEMN CALCULATION.

"THE aggregate population on the surface of the known habitable globe, is estimated at 895,300,000 souls. If we reckon, with the ancients, that a generation lasts thirty years, then, in that space, 895,300,000 human beings will be born and die; consequently, 81,760 must be dropping into eternity every day; 3,407 every hour; or, about 56 every minute! How awful is the reflection!"

Reader, is it not the most dreadful infatuation to trifle with eternal things, on the brink of that awful world, into which more than

"A thousand wretched dying souls have fled

Since the last setting sun?"

WATTS.

Thou art yet in the number of the "living, who know that they shall die." Oh! may it be thy concern and mine, so to "number our days, that we may apply our hearts to that wisdom," which makes men "wise unto salvation, through faith, which is in Christ Jesus."

COMPARISON OF HOPES.

Dum spiro, spero!.. .Dum expiro, spero.

"THERE still is hope," the worldling cries,
"Whils there is life and breath!"

The Christian looks beyond the skies,
And looks for life in death!

A FREE PARAPHRASE ON THE LORD'S PRAYER.

OUR Father, who in heaven art!

Whose grace to wo doth joy impart,

O, hallowed be thy name!

May thine eternal kingdom come;

And, when I stand to take my doom,

Preserve my soul from shame.

Through the short space that time shall run,

On all the earth thy will be done,

E'en as in heaven above:

Give us this day our daily bread;

And while our mouths are richly fed,

O fill our heart s with love!

Our every trespass, Lord, forgive;
And the same grace shall men receive,
Who against us offend;

O, keep us from the trying hour;
And, when oppress'd by satan's power,
Thy gracious succour send!

For thine's the kingdom, mighty God!
O happy state, O blest abode!

The power and glory's thine:

And when the bounds of time are past,

Thy kingdom shall for ever last,

Eternal and divine.

ON SEARCHING THE SCRIPTURES.

THE following rules are very useful: 1st. No part of scripture appears mean, if it be rightly understood. 2d. Though there be a most lively and alluring simplicity, in the true explication of scripture, yet, nothing but spiritual experience can make that evidence rightly understood. 3d. As a passage of scripture truly understood, under the illumi nating influence of the Holy Ghost, doth by its own light and power, manifest itself to be the true mind of God, it is not safe to deal too much in criticisms; as they are apt to lead men into uncertain speculations. 4th. If a truth be manifested to our conscience, as clearly taughtor enforced in many places of scripture, we ought to hold it fast, notwithstandingmanyapparent difficulties, still waiting on the Lord, till he solve them in his own time and way. Prov. ii. 1-7. 5th. Though every adult child of God be, in his own measure, enlightened in the knowledge of the scriptures, by the Holy Ghost, all of them ought earnestly to endeavor to obtain more and more of his illuminations

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