mortality, and of heaven, and of hell; the truth couched under the symbols of the Levitical law, and the predictions of inspired prophets, and fully exhibited in the gospels of evangelists and the letters of inspired apostles. Again I ask exultingly and rapturously, what are the discoveries of Newton, or of Davy; or the inventions of Watt, or of Arkwright, compared with these? Viewing man in his relation to immortality, as a sinful and moral agent, what is art or science, compared with revealed truth? And shall we, can we, be otherwise than earuest in the promulgation of this truth? Shall we touch such themes with a careless hand, and a dronish mind? Shall we slumber over truths which keep awake the attention, and keep in activity the energies of all orders of created intelligences, and which are the objects and the resting place of the uncreated mind? Let us look at the earnestness with which the sons of science pursue their studies; with what enthusiasm they delve into the earth, or soar on the telescope to the heavens, or hang over the fire; with what prolonged and patient research they carry on their experiments, and pursue their analysis; how unwearied in toil, and how enduring in disappointment, they are; and then how rapturously they hold up to the world's gazing and wondering eye, some new particle of truth, which they have found out after all this peering and prying into nature's undiscovered secrets! Ministers of the gospel, is it thus with the men who have to find out the truths of nature, and shall we who have the volume of inspired, revealed truth open before us, drone and loiter, and trifle over such momentous realities? Shall the example of earnestness be taken from him who analyses man's lifeless flesh, to tell us by the laws of organic chemistry, its component parts, rather than from him who has to do with the truths that relate to the immortal soul? Shall he whose discoveries and lessons have no higher object than our material globe, and no longer date than its existence, be more intensely in earnest, than we who have to do with the truth that relates to God and the whole moral universe, and the truth that is to last through eternity? What deep shame should cover us for our want of ardour and enthusiasm in such a service as this !'— P. 27.

The entire work is executed in the earnest spirit of this passage, and presents to the Christian minister every part of his official duty in the full blaze of its eternal consequences, both to himself and others. If the rising ministry should imbibe the spirit and catch the ardour of this eminently useful author and preacher, the next generation will undoubtedly present a revived church in all its sections. It is a highly favourable augury, that already a fourth edition of this work has been called for. This alone is a rare fact for such a work, and an omen of much future good.

The Church in Earnest' is a most appropriate companion to the former, though complete by itself. It is an earnest appeal to the Christian community upon its principles and professions, and for variety, power, and practical efficiency, may be said to

surpass its predecessor. If the Christian church is teachable, impressible, and not quite given up to lukewarmness and worldliness, here is an appeal, moving and powerful enough to call forth new life, and brace every nerve to fresh exertion. Every Christian man and woman should read and ponder it well.

6

The first chapter exhibits the design to be accomplished by the church, as regards the present world.' The second is occupied with a brief comment on the epistles to the seven churches of Asia, tending to illustrate the nature of earnestness in religion,' and to sustain the proposition-that the Lord Jesus Christ takes a deep interest in the spiritual welfare of all and each of his churches, and that he watches minutely the character it exhibits, and deals with it accordingly. The third chapter treats of earnestness in personal religion; the fourth of earnestness in the way of individual exertion and direct action for the salvation of souls. The fifth enforces earnestness in family religion, and is replete with instruction of the most valuable kind to pious heads of families.

The activity of churches in their collective capacity occupies the sixth chapter; the seventh treats of the causes that operate to repress this earnestness in religion; the eighth presents 'inducements to earnestness; the ninth, examples; the tenth states the means to be used to obtain a higher degree of earnest piety in the churches; and the eleventh appropriately cheers the Christian reader, by an outline of the millennial state of the church as portrayed in prophetic vision.

We would strongly recommend the third chapter on personal religion to the attention of our readers. It clearly and powerfully sets forth the true spring of all earnestness in promoting the cause of Christianity in the world. The instrument must be adapted to the work. But we abstain from extract upon this part of the subject, to make room for the following important passage from the fourth chapter, on direct action for the salvation of souls. The information therein communicated cannot be too generally known, nor too deeply pondered, by all Christians whether earnest or not. There is enough in it to make those earnest who were never so before, and those who are, much

more so.

Look at the moral aspect of your country. It is now more than three centuries since the Reformation from popery; almost two since the era of toleration; more than one since the revival of religion by the labours of Whitfield and Wesley; nearly seventy years since the setting up of Sunday-schools by Robert Raikes; fifty since the spread of evangelical religion in the church of England; forty-three since the establishment of the Bible Society, and a little more than that since the formation of the Religious Tract Society, and somewhat less since the invention

and promulgation of the popular systems of education by Bell and Lancaster: to say nothing of the various institutions, such as Home Missionary Societies, Town Missions, District Visiting Societies, and other organizations, which have since been set up for improving the spiritual condition of the people. The Bible Society has issued twenty million copies of the Scriptures. The Tract Society has sent out nearly five hundred million copies of books and tracts; other institutions have added millions more of bibles, tracts, and prayer-books. Churches, chapels, and schools have been multiplied beyond all precedent in former times. And yet what is the moral condition of the people of England, of protestant England at this moment? The town in which I live contains, with its suburbs, about two hundred and ten thousand inhabitants, and of these perhaps not more than forty thousand above twelve years of age, are ever at public worship at the same time. Take from these all Roman catholics, unitarians, and other denominations who do not hold evangelical sentiments, and what a small portion remains out of the whole population who are enjoying those soul-converting means of grace, which stand so intimately connected with eternal salvation. Where are the bulk of the remainder, and what is their state and character as regards eternity? This is but a specimen of other large towns, and of the state of the metropolis. What then, it may be asked, is the spiritual condition of this land of Bibles, of sanctuaries, of ministers; this valley of vision, this land of light?'

'If, however, it were merely the paucity of means of doing good we had to complain of, it would be a matter of less grief and horror; but let any one think also of the agencies, instruments, and means of doing evil, which are in active operation. The moral, or rather demoralized, condition of a large proportion of the people of this country is beyond the conception of those who have not been inquisitive into the subject. All persons know the prevalence of drunkenness and sensuality, and most are impressed vaguely with the idea that there is a great deal of infidelity at work; but the depths of iniquity, the stagnant, pestiferous sinks of vice which are ever sending forth their destructive miasmata into the moral atmosphere, and poisoning the souls of the people of these realms, are neither known nor conjectured by those who are ignorant of the statistics of the kingdom of darkness.'

'A writer to whom the religious public are much indebted, has lately published a work entitled, The Power of the Press,' in which he has set forth a statement, derived from authentic sources, and sustained by unquestionable evidence, which is enough, if any thing can do it, to circulate a thrill of horror through the whole nation, and to rouse into activity every friend of his Bible, his country, and his God.

"This indefatigable investigator informs us that 11,702,000 copies of absolutely vicious and Sabbath-breaking newspapers are annually circulated in these realms; while the issues of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Trinitarian Bible Society, the Coldstream Free Press Bible Society, and the grants of the Religious Tract Society, did not amount last year to one-third of this immense number!

'But a more fearful revelation still remains. There are about seventy cheap periodicals, (varying in price from three halfpence to one half

penny) issued weekly; and supposing an extensively circulated series of popular works issued from Edinburgh, the tendency of which is believed by many to be injurious, are omitted, there remain at least sixty of a positively pernicious tendency. Of these the most innocent is one which has perhaps the largest circulation. It is said to issue 100,000 weekly. But though vicious principles are avowedly repudiated, yet a depraved and disordered imagination is fostered in this journal, by the introduction into its pages of French novels, and similar trash, as a principal feature. Then comes a less scrupulous paper, with a weekly issue of about 80,000; followed by six papers, all a degree lower in the scale of corruption, with an average weekly circulation of 20,000 each, or yearly sale for the six, of 6,240,000. And lastly comes a catalogue of intolerably polluting trash, which closely examined, will make the Christian shudder at its contemplation; wondering where readers can be found, and amazed at the neglect and indifference of the church of Christ. The works thus alluded to, may be classified thus; 1st, infidel; 2nd, polluting. Of these two there are circulated a yearly average of 10,400,000.

'But even beyond this dreadful limit, there is a very large annual circulation, into which the writer dare not enter, so awfully polluting is the character. In the last mentioned class, engravings and colourings are employed to excite the lowest passions. It is true, these last works are supposed to be sold by stealth, but they are easily procurable from the same sources as the papers and periodicals before mentioned. The vendors of the one generally procure the other; moreover, the unstamped journals previously alluded to, usually contain advertisements of these works; and as the sale of these journals is large, they obtain a wide circulation for the filth, which bad as they are themselves, they would profess to abominate.

Now if we sum up the entire yearly circulation of the different kinds of popular, but manifestly pernicious, literature, which have been passed in review before the reader, it will stand thus:

'What has been done (by the press) to meet this evil? Putting together the annual issues of Bibles, Testaments, Religious Tracts, newspapers, and periodicals of every kind, we find a total of 24,418,620, leaving a balance of 4,443,380 in favour of pernicious and corrupting literature.'

'Let it then be imagined, if imagined it can be, what must be the moral state of multitudes in this country, when nearly thirty millions of such pestiferous publications are annually going out among the masses of our population. Let the minds of all Christian people be fixed upon these facts. Let them dwell upon the insult offered to God, the ruin

brought upon souls, the injury done to morals, and the mischief perpetrated in the nation by such a state of things. Friends of Christ, lovers of your species, professors of religion, you must pause and ponder these statements. You must not read and dismiss them, as you would the statistics of political economy. The writer of these facts has haled you to the very door of Satan's workshop, and has thrown open to you the scenes of that awful laboratory of mental and moral poison. He has shewn you authors, compositors, printers, engravers, publishers, booksellers, vendors, by myriads, all busy and indefatigable to do-what? To destroy the Bible-to pull down the cross-to dethrone God-to subvert religion-to uproot the church-to turn man into a thinking and speaking brute, and as a necessary consequence, to overturn all morality, to poison the springs of domestic happiness, to dissolve the ties of social order, and to involve our country in ruin. Is this so, or is it not? If it be, you are summoned to ponder this awful state of things, and to ask, what can be done to arrest this tide of ruin, this awful cataract of perdition, which is dashing over the precipice of infidelity into the gulf of the bottomless pit, and precipitating millions of immortal souls into the boiling surges and tremendous whirlpools below. Hell is in earnest in ruining men's souls, if the church is not in earnest in saving them.’— p. 92-98.

These two works, addressed to the two constituents of every portion of the evangelical church, are both admirably executed, and seasonably offered to public attention. They are adapted with great skill to the present condition and prospects of the church. Never were such demands for energetic effort in propagating Christianity made upon its advocates, never had it so wide and promising a field before it. Providence seems surrounding it with invitations to onward movement. Mountains are sinking into plains before it. The strong holds of error are tottering to their foundations. Christianity is the only religion in the world that maintains its position and is advancing. Mohammedanism and heathenism are sustaining serious infractions and diminutions. Popery must soon be shorn of its temporal power, gradually yield its impious usurpations, and remedy its corruptions, or fade before the spreading light of truth. Just as barbarism recedes before the march of civilization, so must superstition contract itself to narrower and still narrower limits, before the flood of light which is streaming from the Sun of Righteousness. But the church, the aggressive body, that which should be everywhere an army of invasion, pursuing sin in every form and in every place, is not in action, or is only partially efficient. The Great Captain calls to arms, but many remain in their tents; some sleep and others trifle, while not a few aid the enemy's cause by their indifference, or openly follow their pernicious ways. Mr. James has most forcibly and eloquently spoken, as a faithful herald both to the officers and