FAMILIAR LETTERS.—No. II. ADVICE TO A SON RESPECTING HIS MOTHER. * DEAR SIR,-I was duly favoured with your very agreeable letter, by Mr. L—, for which accept of my sincere thanks. Any interest which any of my old acquaintance take in my welfare, is to me truly gratifying. Mrs. P. was taken from us suddenly, and to me unexpectedly, on the 11th of February, 1814; and, notwithstanding her long distress, we feel her loss, and will do for a long time. It behoves us, however, to say "Good is the will of the Lord." * When your father died, I accompanied his remains all the way to the grave, and assisted in the last service that could be done to him. I was happy from time to time to hear that you were well, and that you have been so comfortably provided for, as to this life; and am glad that you also attend to the things that belong to our peace. Too often are these forgotten in the bustle of active life; too often are they altogether out of view by those who trade in the mighty waters, and are sometimes in port, and sometimes afar off upon the seas. Faith, however, in our Lord Jesus Christ, is our sheet-anchor amidst the vicissitudes and storms here. A life of holiness ends in the desired haven at last. These will be of eternal moment, —while, in a very little time, we must close our eyes on the evanescent enjoyments of this life. * Your mother, who is going about in her ordinary way, bids me say, that she is rather frailer of late, although I do not observe much change. She is regularly at the meeting. She seems happy indeed, at the prospect of a visit from her only son; and, if health permit, you must not disappoint her. It will be a satisfaction which you cannot fully appreciate, till you experience it in the return of some one or other of your own children, after long absence. * The nations are again to be embroiled in war. What a pity, that the result of the late struggle in Spain was the re-establishment of the inquisition, etc.! It will be difficult, I think, to make the Bourbons sit on the throne of France, however iniquitous the man may be, who has lately dispossessed them. I have not forgotten my pledge to the public, for another volume, if the Lord will. * June, 1815. When I wrote you, I said your mother was rather complaining. Immediately after I had despatched my letter, she was seriously ill. Again she got a little easier, but since has relapsed more than once. She is, at present, scarcely able to be out of bed any part of the day, and is frequently not quite collected. She * These extracts written to one who was very highly distinguished for his filial affection, may from their simplicity, strike to the heart careless children, who never enquire for their mothers. How affecting the monthly table of wrecks from Lloyd's List! But if the pastors of the christian church were to present their weekly Chronicle of the tears, and wrecks of widowed, aged mothers, in the sea-ports of the kingdom, whose sons have suffered them to pine away without inquiry by letter or in person, it would be found, that grief swallows up as many as the devouring deep. There are honourable exceptions. Careless sailor!-enrol yourself as one of the number. Write to your mother by the next post, send a remittance if she needs it; tell her of the probable day of your arrival, she waits as anxiously for the tidings, as you do for the wind and tide that are to carry you to your desired haven.-PHILOPAIS. wishes, above all things that are connected merely with this earth, to see you, while in the land of the living. I have no doubt, that when you bow your knees at the throne of grace, you remember the mother who bare you; but she is anxious to see you, while she is in the body, and will not be satisfied till she have this pleasure. If, therefore, your avocations at all permit, take your passage in the first smack, and see your mother. If I may be allowed to mention myself, I went regularly farther, by land to see mine; and since I was deprived of her, notwithstanding all my other connections, I have felt a want which is never to be supplied in this world. If you cannot come immediately, write and tell your mother the reason. July, 1815. Your mother was extremely happy, as you may well believe, to hear that you were all well; I participate in her pleasure, as I too once, and indeed long had a mother who was glad when she heard of my welfare. * * The scenery of Plowarth is in perfection; every thing apparently luxurious, and every seeming ground of complaint cut off, provided the crops were three weeks earlier. But when shall all our wishes be gratified? * I have heard no account of any proposals in Scotland for any nearer union between our separating brethren, the Burghers and us, than what has obtained since the breach. In Ireland there has been a late meeting of delegates on both sides for this purpose, at least it was to take place, but I have not heard the result. It will be precisely what it has been before, I suppose, a drawn game. Were their lot unfortunately at Nismes, or were protestants permitted to exist in the ill-fated kingdom of Spain, at this moment, their union might be speedily effected: but there is less hope that it will obtain where every one sits at ease under his own vine. Greenlaw, Berwickshire, CURIOUS EXPERIMENT. October 29, 1734, Philipe d' Archery and the officers of the ship in which they were sailing to the Isle of Bourbon, took a glass bottle, well corked; and lest there might be some small opening imperceptible in the cork, they covered it with white wax, and also a coat of tar. Over all they bound parchment, in a way that appeared to them impossible for the water to penetrate into the bottle. However, having lowered it in the sea to the depth of 130 fathoms, they drew it up, and found it entirely filled with water. The water was found to contain three-fourths less salt than the common sea water. The weight of a column of 120 fathoms of water had forced the fluid through all the cork and covering, and by this forced filtration had made it fresh, or free from a portion of the salt. Forlorn and heartless philosophy! Creature of the earth, and content to cleave for ever to the dust!-content to forego, without a sigh, those prospects now clear in the noon-tide of revelation, which the wisest pagans looked to with anxious concern, though then discerned only in the dim twilight of conjecture! Annihilation-gloomy thought! Unhappy men, who wish for nothing beyond the present momentary dream,—who, satisfied with the unsubstantial shadow of felicity, give up the substance, and would willingly be after death, as though they had never been! What objects, then, are commensurate with the moral powers of man? what is there to meet his capacities and desires for happiness, if this world be his all? What are the noblest monuments of human skill and genius? What are all the traces which the earth bears of the existence of former generations of mankind-the pyramids and the colossal fragments, the ruined cities, and the tombs of by-gone ages-what are they, but the sad memorials of a being, whose existence was an abortion-the mausoleums of the soul-the mockery of everything worthy of the name of hope-the dismal emblems of a mortality more sombre than that of death; and which tell the chilling and heart-withering tale, that there was once such a being as man! One reflection alone, is more melancholy than the idea, that man's being ceases for ever at death. Do you ask, “what is that reflection?" It is this, that man may, by his conduct in this life, hazard a still more awful catastrophe! I refer to the consequences of a wilful and deliberate resistance to the authority of God, notwithstanding all the solemn warnings, and all the merciful invitations and promises of his word! "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad;" and awful will be the condition of those who shall stand at that bar, after having persisted, for a lifetime, in closing their eyes to the broad light of christianity; in "walking in the darkness" of hardened impenitency, and in the determined rejection of the atonement of the Saviour, without which there is no remission of sins! Ah, my friends! even if christianity were a matter of doubt, no danger would be braved by him who believes. Is christianity true?-Then, to the unbeliever all is lost!-by spurning from you the offers of the gospel, you risk the shipwreck of your whole being; and suicidal is that conduct by which the soul becomes its own destroyer! It will avail the unbeliever nothing, then, that he has been able to steel his mind against conviction :-the dread reality will stare him in the face! There are many rejecters of christianity now to be found who were early instructed in its truths; and, possibly, they may congratulate themselves how completely they have succeeded in stifling the voice of conscience:-they may even boast of their deliverance from all fears of death! Conscience may sleep now :-no warnings may reach it-no friendly remonstrances disturb its deep and delusive repose. But are we sure that the approach of death, and the rude conflict with this last enemy will not arouse it?-that it may not start at visions more ghastly than those which now beguile it-at spectres which are now regarded as imaginary, and only matter of merriment---at other thoughts than those which now hold it as by a spell, and render it seared and adamantine to all impression? Eternity and the judgment-seat may then no longer seem a fable! Death-beds have told Y strange tales! We have affecting evidence that they did so when Voltaire, D'Alembert, and Paine, were about to be summoned into the presence of their Judge! Did we ever hear of a man being tortured with the agonies of remorse on the ground that he had believed in Christ—that he had served God,—that he had spent his life in promoting christian principles? But it may be said,-Hume died bravely, and with a joke on his lips, respecting the fable of Charon and his boat; an exit worthy (some may think,) of such an event as the final extinction of a rational and moral being. Yes, such a death is also possible. Vanity and pride may conceal its misgivings, or no misgivings may be felt; for the Scriptures speak of some who "have no bands in their death." But there is a death beyond the grave! May we, through the grace of God, escape that "second death!" May He preserve us from all the blinding infatuation of evil! May He enable us to make a consecrated use of the inestimable gift of reason, and rightly estimate the limitation of its powers!-DR. HOPPUS. CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW WORKS. WARD'S LIBRARY OF STANDARD DIVINITY. ESSAYS ON THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. Reprinted from the American Biblical Repository. Medium 8vo. Price Four Shillings and Fourpence. THE REFORMED PASTOR :-Showing the Nature of the Pastoral Work. By the REV. RICHARD BAXTER. Reprinted from the Edition of 1656, with an Appendix. Medium 8vo. pp. 160. London:-Ward and Co. Paternoster-row. Both of these works are of great practical utility to the student and the pastor. That of Baxter, is a standard book with every one who would faithfully fulfil the duties and obligations of the sacred office. And the more deeply and prayerfully it is studied, the greater the ease with which the minister of Christ may hope to apply himself to his difficult and laborious task, both in private and in public. If he is "to watch for souls"—to "take heed unto the flock of God, over which the Holy Ghost hath made him an overseer;" it is of the utmost importance that he should be familiar with the means most likely to conduct him to the end in view. Nor is it possible, that he could be in possession of a better code of instructions, than what is supplied in the REFORMED PASTOR. Especially should every candidate for the holy office make the book his study; that when he does enter on the onerous duties and responsibilities of the pastorate, he may know how to behave himself in the church of God." The ESSAYS ON THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY, too, will be found of great service in supplying important hints, both as to the most efficient modes of exhibiting truth from the sacred desk, and also as to the best methods of following up the ministrations of the pulpit among the various classes to whom such ministrations are addressed. The Essays originally appeared in the American Biblical Repository, (a work of no ordinary merit,) and, with one exception, are all American productions; yet as that work is but little known on this side the Atlantic, we think the publishers have done well to introduce the Essays into their important series. Both works have our most cordial recommendation. EXTRACTS FROM HOLY WRIT, AND VARIOUS AUTHORS; Intended as Helps to Meditation and Prayer principally for Soldiers and Seamen. By CAPTAIN SIR NESBIT J. WILLOUGHBY, R. N., C. B., K. C. H. London:-Printed for the Author or Compiler, for Gratuitous Circulation, by T. H. Coe, 27, Old Change, Cheapside. We have most sincere pleasure in introducing this second and enlarged edition of the gallant Captain's work. The first impression was |