silken thread, twined by a mother's fingers, becomes in fact the cable that holds fast to its anchor on life's stormy sea, a living vessel, freighted for immortality. One single memory -spanning the long interval of years, like an electric wire, connects age with childhood, carries the thought back to a mother's presence, bows manhood as of old at her knee, and teaches it still to lisp its infant prayer. It is too holy a thing for the rude assaults of temptation to sunder, too strong to be rent by the scoffer's breath. What a lesson of encouragement to parental fidelity! You tremble for souls committed to your charge, as Eli of old trembled for the safety of the ark of God. He thought of the field of battle, and the uncertain issue of the conflict. You think of the stern struggle of probation, in which integrity, peace, and immortal hope are all at stake, of the bitter conflict in which the soul's eternal interests are imperiled. The hour will come when no father's care, and no mother's love will guide these erring feet or strengthen this fainting spirit, when the home of childhood will be among the things of the past, and the fireside benediction of hallowed influences will have no visible memorial. And yet you can send forth that child armed with a panoply that temptation shall assail, perhaps in vain. You can clothe it about with memories that seem airy and evanescent, indeed, but which may be more enduring than the iron mail. A simple, fervent, devoted piety, faithful to its solemn charge, has many a ground for hope. Its expectations may be long deferred. Its eagar an ticipations may be doomed to defeat. The restraining influences of the past may seem strained even to breaking, but He who makes his strength perfect in our weakness, can and sometimes does make these the lines along which his own omnipotent grace will flash, to warn, admonish, and save. The Actress. AN actress, in one of the English provincial or country theatres, was one day passing through the streets of the town in which she then resided, when her attention was attracted by the sound of voices, which she heard in a poor cottage before her. Curiosity prompted her to look in at the open door, when she saw a few poor people sitting together, one of whom, at the moment of her observation, was giving out the following hymn, which the others joined in singing: "Depth of mercy! can there be Mercy still reserved for me?" etc. The tune was sweet and simple, but she heeded it not. The words had riveted her attention, and she stood motionless, until she was invited to enter by the woman of the house, who had observed her standing at the door. She complied, and remained during a prayer, which was offered by one of the little company; and uncouth as the expressions sounded, perhaps, to her ears, they carried with them a conviction of sincerity on the part of the person then employed. She quitted the cottage, but the words of the hymn followed her. She could not banish them from her mind, and at last she resolved to procure the book which contained it. She did so, and the more she read it the more decided her serious impressions became. She attended the ministry of the Gospel, read her hitherto neglected and despised Bible, and bowed herself in humility and contrition of heart before Him whose mercy she now felt she needed, whose sacrifices are those of a broken and a contrite spirit, and who has declared that with such sacrifice she is well pleased. Her profession she determined at once and forever to renounee; and for some little time excused herself from appearing on the stage, without disclosing her change of sentiments, or making known her resolution finally to leave it. The manager of the theater called upon her one morning, and requested her to sustain the principal character in a new play, which was to be performed the next week for his benefit. She had frequently performed this character to general admiration; but she now, however, told him her resolution never to appear as an actress again, at the same time giving her reasons. At first he attempted to overcome her scruples by ridicule, but this was unavailing; be then represented the loss he should incur by her refusal, and concluded his arguments by promising that if to oblige him she would act on this occasion, it should be the last request of the kind he would ever make. Unable to resist his solicitations, she promised to appear, and on the appointed evening went to the theater. The character she assumed required her, on her first entrance, to sing a song; and when the curtain drew up the orchestra immediately began the accompaniment. But she stood as if lost in thought, and as one forgetting all around her and her situation. The music ceased, but she did not sing; and supposing herto be overcome by embarrassment, the band again commenced. A second time they paused for her to begin, and still she did not open her lips. A third time the air was played, and then, with clasped hands and eyes suffused with tears, she sung, not the song, but "Depth of mercy! can there be Mercy still reserved for me?" It is almost useless to add that the performance was suddenly ended; many ridiculed, although some were led, from that memorable night, to "consider their ways," and to reflect on the wonderful power of that religion which could so influence the heart and change the life of one hitherto so vain, and so evidently pursuing the road which leadeth to destruction. It will be satisfactory to the reader to know, that the change in Miss was as permanent as it was singular; she walked consistently with her profession of religion for many years, and at length became the wife of a minister of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. God Willing to Pardon. It is wrong to think of God as implacable, and of Christ as interposing and prevailing upon him to let him take the sinner's place; nor are we to think of Christ as having taken us out of the hands of an angry Judge, and that to Christ alone we owe our pardon; that God was a stern creditor, who needed to be satisfied, and that Christ was our true friend, who kindly discharged the claim. The death of Christ was not the procuring cause of willingness on the part of God to forgive sin; it was the means chosen and appointed by God himself, by which it would be consistent for him to forgive sin. โ BY REV. GEORGE B. IDE, D. D., PASTOR OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, SPRINGFIELD MASS. DUTY, INDIVIDUAL AND IMPERATIVE. "WHAT is that to thee? Follow thou me."-JOHN 21: 22. SUCH was the rebuke which our Lord addressed to Peter for neglecting his own duty, while inopportunely concerning himself about the duty of another. The Saviour had commanded the Apostle to follow him. The Apostle having risen up to obey, turned around and saw John also following; and being the same impulsive and variable creature that he had ever been, his curiosity was at once excited, and his thoughts diverted from the service required of himself to the question of what should be the course of John, and what particular part Christ had assigned him to perform. Hence, instead of going forward directly in his own work, he stood still and asked: "Lord, what shall this man do?" To this unseasonable inquiry our text is the answer. if Christ had said: "Your question is entirely irrelevant. John shall do has no connection with your responsibility. It is as What duty is personal, present, imperative, and independent of the state and conduct of all others. I have commanded you to follow me. It is yours to obey, directly, unhesitatingly, and for yourself, without being influenced by what those around you may do or not do." Such was the scope of the text as it was originally spoken. But apart from this special application, it contains a general truth of great and vital importance. It teaches us that our obligation to obey and serve Christ is individual, immediate, and unchanged by any obstacles that may arise from the deportment of others, or from the delusion of our own minds. Many there are who, when urged to follow Christ by embracing his salvation, and devoting their hearts and lives to his cause, allow themselves to be deterred by some inquiry foreign to their duty, or by some real or imagined difficulty with which they have no practical concern. Such may be found, in great numbers, both among those who profess to be religious, and those who have never submitted to the claims of the Redeemer. To each of these classes the text conveys a most appropriate admonition. For the sake of brevity, however, I shall leave the former wholly out of view, and confine myself exclusively to the latter. It is my wish to address those unconverted persons who refuse to comply with the overtures of the Gospel, until every extraneous question which they can ask is settled, and every fancied impediment which they can conjecture removed out of their way. I. The first class which I shall mention, as coming under this description consists of those who hesitate to yield themselves to Christ, because they cannot understand all that the Bible contains. It admits not of question that there are in the Scriptures some "things hard to be understood"-deep and inscrutable problems which no human intellect can solve. This results necessarily from the weakness of our faculties, and the infinite nature of the subjects of which Revelation treats. It is to be expected that our feeble reason, which meets a thousand enigmas even in the affairs of this life, should find itself baffled and confounded whenever it attempts to grasp the mighty secrets of eternity. But "what is that to to thee?" These mysteries belong only to the field of speculative truth-to those recondite matters of the celestial world which are wholly dissevered from thy present wants and duties. All that is practical, all that relates to the condition of man as a sinner, to the method of his recovery by the atoning death and justifying righteousness of Christ, and to the obligations which press upon him in these circumstances, is entirely plain and simple. How irrational is it for men to reject blessings of which they have a conscious need, and to disregard commads which they know and can comprehend, because there may be other points connected with them which their limited powers can not fully explore! You would ridicule the folly of him who should refuse necessary food until he could trace out all the hidden processes of digestion and nutrition. Not less absurd are you in refusing to become religious because you can not unravel all the mysteries of religion. There is no difficulty in any thing that is essential to your salvation. You know both from the Bible and from your own consciousness, that you are guilty and condemned; that you have broken the divine law, and are liable to eternal death. This you can understand. You know that God, though just and holy, is full of mercy to the children of men, and that he has given his Only-Begotten Son to be their Redeemer, and to open by his obedience and sufferings a way for their deliverance. This you can understand. You know, too-for the Gospel emphatically proclaims it—that if you repent and believe in Christ, you shall be pardoned and saved. This you can understand. Then do it. Go at once to the Saviour and commit your everlasting interests to his hands. This you can do, and this is all you need do. Whatever obscurity may appear to your dim vision to hang over the higher realms of truth, the fact of salvation by faith in Christ is clear and intelligible to the weakest capacity. There is here no darkness, no mystery. All is distinct and palpable as the day. What madness, then, is it to turn away from the gracious offers of the Gospel, from the plain duties that are vital to your happiness, because the scheme of redemption, which propounds those offers and prescribes those duties, may involve other topics too vast for your comprehension ! An emigrant is journeying across the great American Desert to the Land of Gold and the Clime of the Sun. He is perishing with thirst. The scanty supply of water which he took with him has long been exhausted, and for many weary miles no spring or brook, and not even a stagnant pool left from the winter snows, has met his eye. Nothing is visible wherever he looks but the blazing sky above, and the hot, arid waste around, brown with drought, or white with drifting salt. With staggering limbs, and parched lips, and swollen tongue, and brain on fire, he drags himself forward, battling with death, yet feeling that he must soon give over the struggle. At length, just as he is about to abandon all further effort, and lie down in despair to die, his ear, rendered acute by suffering, catches the low, faint murmur of a distant stream. Hope and the love of life revive at the sound, and with all his remaining strength he hurries towards it. As he comes near he sees a spring of water gushing out, cool and clear, from the side of a rocky bluff, splashing and sparkling in its little basin, and gliding away in a gurgling rill. But just as he is on the point of putting his lips to it, and quenching his thirst with full draughts, he stops and says to himself: "Whence does this water come? Is it from rain falling on the mountain-top, percolating |