have the will and the ability to bless those round about you! You will neither merit nor obtain heaven by your gifts, give what you may; for what can you bestow that God has not in his goodness already conferred upon you! but you will thereby cheer hearts that are drooping, and minister to your own peace and joy.

Householders! Look about you, and as you value comfort, try to extend it to others. Know you none to whom a garment would be as a gift from Heaven? You are not wont to be blind to a rent in your own coats; then open your eyes at this frosty season, to the rents in the coats of your poorer neighbours.

Matrons! Ye know what poor defences cotton petticoats and gowns are against the frost and the snow; and hundreds there are who have no better. To such, a flannel petticoat, or a well lined stuff or cloth cloak, would be a gift that would warm the very heart of the wearer. Be persuaded to be a little more charitable than ordinary.

Churchmen! Let not the words of the litany be a heartless, profitless petition, when ye put up the prayer to the Father of mercies, "That it may please thee to succour, help, and comfort all that are in danger, necessity and tribulation. That it may please thee to defend and provide for the fatherless children and widows, and all that are desolate and oppressed."

Dissenters of all denominations! Be not behindhand with your brother Christians, but rather strive to outdo them in deeds of charity. Your Bible tells you, "It is more blessed to give than to receive, and that "God loveth a cheerful giver," 2 Cor. ix. 7.

And you, who are called Quakers, but more appropriately "Friends," now prove yourselves to be "friends in need and indeed" to the poor.

To all, and to every one possessing the means, and especially to those who have an abundance, I speak urgently. Glance a kindly eye over your stores, look over your pickle tubs, your dried hams and flitches, your stock of salt butter, and grocery, and especially your wardrobes. The cold wintry wind is whistling abroad while I write : it may be pleasant music to those who are wrapped up in good broad cloth, and comfortable flannel, but somewhat sharp and discordant to him whose thickest coat is thin and threadbare, and to her whose scanty

gown and petticoat are fitter for July than January.

See what you can do for the decayed householder, the superannuated matron, the widow and the fatherless, and let not the comforts of your bed and board, let not your food and raiment cry out against you, "You have received liberally, but you give niggardly. You are well clothed, but you pity not the naked; you warm yourselves, but you leave others to starve!"

The poor often excuse themselves from attending Divine worship on the Sabbath, on account of their clothes. They are ashamed to go in so poor a coat, or in so wretched a gown; and how is this case met? Why by the observation that they should go to worship God, and not to regard or to be regarded by men. No doubt this assertion is a correct one; but when we make it, can we act up to it? We all too much regard the opinion of others in Divine things, and must not wonder that the poor do the same thing. We should, therefore, bear a little with their weaknesses and common infirmities. If the gift of a garment may be the means of sending those to the house of God, who otherwise would not attend, it is a gift well bestowed; for it may be a means, not only of shielding the body from the cold, but of defending the soul from temptation and sin.

I feel my deficiency in thus pleading the cause of the poor, and can only hope that with the blessing of the Most High, the bitter and biting blast of winter on the one hand, and the humanity of your hearts on the other will plead it better. We shall all do well, especially in trying seasons, to remember our poorer brethren, and to bear in mind the words of the wise man, "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself," Prov. xi. 24, 25.

DANGERS OF YOUNG MEN.-No. I.

MY YOUNG FRIENDS,-In order to appreciate the evil which it is in your power to do, by a life of irreligion and sin, it is necessary to consider the circumstances of responsibility in which you are placed; the physical, intellectual, social, and moral constitution with which you

are endowed; the nature and amount of your obligations, as they respect yourself, your parents, your family, your Maker, civil society, the Divine government, the temporal and everlasting welfare of all to whom you stand in any way related, or whom your influence can ever reach; the good which you may do, and the ultimate amount of good which you may destroy. Consider also, what high authority it is which has said, "One sinner destroyeth much good."

Capacity to rise high in excellence and glory, is capacity to sink deep in ruin and perdition. The lobster has not capacity to rise much; for the same reason he has not capacity to sink much. The brute is incapable of procuring to himself, on the one hand, anything more than a few physical and transient benefits; for the same reason he is incapable of procuring to himself, on the other hand, anything more than a few physical and transient evils. Not so with man. The same capacities and opportunities which enable him to rise to the everlasting character and enjoyments of angels, enable him to sink to the everlasting character and miseries of devils. Let us then notice some of the evils which it is in your power to do to yourself and to others.

I. To yourself.

1. You can ruin your physical constitution. You can do this, even by many means which the brute itself cannot command. You can employ your superior intellect in inventing and contriving ways to enervate your body, induce incurable disease, and conduct you, through a course of severe sufferings, to an early grave. Some of the most inter.se physical agonies which I ever witnessed, were those which a young man brought upon himself by sensual vices. Many a young man has, in a very short time, inconsiderately and wickedly ruined one of the finest constitutions ever framed; so that he has either dug for himself an early grave, or compelled himself to drag out an existence so useless and miserable, as to have considered death itself almost better.

2. You can ruin your pecuniary interests and prospects. By a course of indolence, inattention, waste, prodigality, amusements and pleasures in your early years, you may fatally exile yourself from all the means and hopes of ever rising from a state of abject and servile dependence. And even if you have

begun and proceeded well for a season, you are not secure. It may cost a man years of toil to obtain the means of a comfortable and honourable subsistence; but a few short hours may decoy him into those improvident measures, to which that man is exposed, who "hath an evil eye," or "hasteth to be rich," which will reduce you to poverty and mortification for life.

3. You can ruin your intellect. This is a talent committed to your keeping and culture, far more precious than all the treasures of silver and gold. You may waste it by neglect; you may enervate it by indolence and indulgence; you may derange it by excess; you may debase it by sensuality; you may rend and destroy its fine mechanism by sinful passions; and by how much higher than the brute you might rise, through a right use of your intellect, so much deeper than the brute may you sink, through the abuse of it. No ruin is more common, nor yet more disastrous, than that connected with a fallen intellect.

4. You can ruin your conscience. You may silence its faithful admonitions; you may stifle its convictions of truth and duty; you may falsely educate it, so that it will put evil for good, and good for evil; you may defile it; you may sear it, "as with a hot iron;" you may so utterly ruin its integrity and its power, as that this faithful advocate of the Divine law will no longer disturb your sinful course, but the more you sin the less will it admonish you-thus leaving you unrebuked to fill up the measure of your iniquity. What earthly ruin more dreadful and hopeless, than that of a prostrated or perverted conscience!

5. You can ruin your reputation. However difficult it may be to secure a good name, it is very easy to lose it. It is of slow growth, but it may be destroyed in a day. An eminently wise man has said, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." Yet in a single hour, the corruption previously cherished and ripened in your heart, may fix a dark stain upon your fair name which no tears can ever wash away, or repentance remove; but which will cleave to you, to be known and read by all men till the grave receives you from their sight. You may even render yourself an object of the universal disgust and abhorrence of the good, and of the taunt and scorn of the wicked; so that wher

Do you now ask me how much you, owe your parents? I cannot tell; neither can you. You can never love them so much as they have loved you. But I can tell you how you may pay the whole debt-all they ask-all they wish enough to make them forget all their sacrifices for your sake, and thank God a thousand times for such a son; it is expressed in two short words-Do well.

And is it possible that you can refuse so reasonable a demand? Yes, I tremble, when I think of the tremendous power lodged in your bosom; you may requite all the love, labour, anxiety, sorrow, prayers and tears of the best of parents, with coldness, ingratitude, obstinacy, perverseness, and a determined course of evil doing; you can blast all their fondest hopes and cloud their brightest prospects; you can cause them to rue the day in which you were born-yes, you can, as many a ruined son has done, bring down their " gray hairs with sorrow to the grave !"

None but a parent's heart can know the anguish of parting with a sweet babe. But there is an agony deeper and more inconsolable than that. It is occasioned by a vicious son. I have seen one of the tenderest and best of mothers console her mind on the death of a darling child, by the hope that it was with Christ in a better world. On the same day I have seen another mother pour forth, from a heart which no consolations could reach, tears of bitterness over a perverse and wicked son, and have heard her say, "The death of an infant is nothing to this; would that my son had died in his infancy!"

And now, will you conduct yourself in such a manner, as to bring this affliction upon your parents? Will you turn their day into night, and their night into wakeful despair? Will you cause them to wish that you had never been born, or had died in infancy? Or will you rather, by well-doing, pour the richest of all earthly blessings into their bosoms, become their honour and their joy, and cause their declining day to go down in brightness and in hope?

member!

Go look into that domestic circle. It is a numerous, prosperous, and might have been a happy family. By diligence, with the favour of Providence, the father has secured the means of educating his children, and setting them forth in life with every needful advantage. A domestic, affectionate, and devoted mother, has done her part well towards diffusing sunshine and happiness over the household. The daughters are all that could be desired, to make themselves and their family realize the perfection of domestic bliss-intelligent, industrious, amiable, accomplished, pious. The sons, too, with one exception, are acting well. To most beholders, it is the happiest of families, and frequently an object of envy !

Yet look again more closely. Do you not see the mark of anxiety and affliction on that father's brow? Do you not sometimes discern the unutterable yearnings of a mother's heart depicted on her countenance? Do you never find those sons looking gloomy and sad? Do you not sometimes observe the cheeks of those daughters crimsoned with shame and their eyes red with weeping? What meaneth all this? There is one dissipated son and brother! He is the disgrace and torment of the whole family. He perhaps went from home a fair and promising youth-but he is fallen! And who shall count the tears and the sufferings which his fall has already occasioned? Who can tell how many sorrows yet remain to that distressed and afflicted family, from the conduct of this wretched member? How malignant is sin, that it can shoot its venom so widely, and strike its fangs so deeply, causing the innocent to suffer with the guilty!

But this is not all, nor the worst part. A son, and especially an elder son, has great moral influence over the whole family to which he belongs. Suppose you are living at home with your sisters and younger brothers around you; if you take the downward course, the probability is great, that you will draw some or all of them downward with you. In how many families do we see striking illustrations of this! How frequently does it happen that the happiness of a numerous family turns, in a great measure, upon the character and course of one or two of the elder brothers?

principles or vicious inclinations in a community, spreads a moral contagion around him. He can poison the minds of his associates with infidelity; he can corrupt them by his example; he can allure them into vicious practices; he can teach them to make light of serious truths; he can urge them to profane the sacredness of the sabbath; he can even seduce female innocence and cause others to practise his infernal arts; he can render himself a thousand fold more dangerous and destructive to a community, than ever was cholera, yellow fever, or any other pestilence. Many, many a young man has done all this. If an inscription, faithful to truth, were to be put upon the tomb-stone of many a youth, who has urged his way through a course of vice to an early grave, it would read-"This young man perished not alone in his iniquity!"

4. You can do much towards the destruction of our civil and benevolent institutions. You can easily pursue that course which, if all pursued it, would establish them upon the Rock of Ages, extend the blessings of Christianity to distant lands, and make this nation the rejoicing of the whole earth till the end of time. Or you can take one which, if all pursued it, would soon dash our institutions to the dust, and bring back the world into a long night of desolation and woe. If the bright visions of prophets are to be realized, and the happy reign of light, and peace, and truth are to come, it must be effected in a great measure through the agency of young men of Christian principles, whose chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever. If our civil and religious institutions are to sink, if iniquity is to triumph, and a reign of darkness is to tyrannize over the earth for coming ages, it will be effected principally by the perverted power of young men, destitute of Christian principles, reckless, vain, pleasure-loving, selfish devotees of "the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life.'

5. You can be instrumental to the perdition of souls. All the other evils to which I have referred, are lighter than a feather, compared with this. You cannot but know something of the power and certainty of moral causes; you cannot but be aware that an influence is continually emanating from you for good or evil, to affect the characters of others; and if you have any faith in the truths of Divine inspiration, you believe

that there is a connexion between the character formed here, and the condition of the soul hereafter. You are, then, touching moral chords now, which will vibrate in eternity. In that world of retribution you will therefore be recognized as accessory to the salvation or perdition of souls. How easy it is for you to put forth a disastrous influence tending to shut up the kingdom of heaven against men! How easy to countenance the impiety, dispel the seriousness, pervert the consciences, and harden the hearts of your associates! How easy thus to encourage and help them on in the downward way to perdition! By a single profane jest, you may dissipate a salutary impression made by a sermon or some other cause, upon the minds of your companions, and thereby dispel their convictions of truth, and prevent their becoming pious. You may instil infidelity into their minds; you may encourage them to take shelter in refuges of lies; you may prejudice them against religion; and thus, by various means, you may exert such an influence around you through all your way to the grave, that with a most awful and tremendous emphasis it will at last be said of you, "That man perished not alone in his iniquity;" but he took multitudes down with him to ruin! And if in eternity, they who have turned many to righteousness will shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever, will not they who have turned many away from righteousness, sink into the deepest depths of shame, condemnation and woe ?-Hubbard Winslow.

THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

WHEN a telescope is directed to some distant landscape, it enables us to see what we could not otherwise have seen; but it does not enable us to see any thing which has not a real existence in the prospect before us. It does not present to the eye any illusive imagery; neither is that a fanciful and fictitious scene which it throws open to our contemplation. The natural eye saw nothing but blue land stretching along the distant horizon. By the aid of the glass, there bursts upon it a charming variety of fields and woods, and spires, and villages. Yet who would say that the glass added one feature to this assemblage? It discovers nothing to us which is not there; nor, out of that por