he was sent by the especial mercy of God, to warn the infatuated King of his approaching death.—Adam Clarke. FUTURE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. Among excellent arguments for the immortality of the soul there is one, drawn from its perpetual progress to its perfection, without a possibility of ever arriving at it; which is a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved on by others, though it seems to me to carry great weight. How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul, which is capable of such immense perfections and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, shall fall away into nothing almost as soon as it is created? * * Would an infinitely wise Being make such glorious beings for so mean and brief a purpose? Would he give us talents not to be exerted, capacities never to be gratified? How can we find that wisdom that shines in all his works, in the formation of man, without looking on this world as only a nursery for the next, and believing that the several generations which rise and disappear in quick succession are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity? There is not a more pleasing consideration in religion than this of the perpetual progress which the soul makes toward the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at a period in it. To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength, to consider that she is to shine forever with new accessions of glory, that she will still be adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge, carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man. Methinks this one consideration of the progress of a finite spirit to perfection, will be sufficient to extinguish all envy in inferior natures, and all contempt in superior. The cherub that now appears as a god to a human soul, knows that a time will come when that soul shall be as perfect as he now is; nay, when she shall look down on that degree of perfection. It is true the higher nature still advances, and preserves his superiority, but he knows that how high soever the station may be of which he stands prepossessed, the inferior nature will mount up to it, and shine in the same degree of glory. With what astonishment and veneration may we look into our own souls, where there are such hidden stores of virtue and knowledge! Such inexhaustible sources of perfection !— Addison. GOD'S ANGELS. How many times have we been strangely and unaccountably preserved in sudden and dangerous falls? And it is well if we did not impute that preservation to chance, or to our own wisdom or strength. Not so: God, perhaps, gave his angels charge over us, and in their hands they bore us up. Indeed, men of the world will always impute such deliverances to accident or second causes. When a violent disease, supposed incurable, is totally and suddenly removed, it is by no means improbable that this is effected by the ministry of an angel. And perhaps it is to the same cause that a remedy is unaccountably suggested either to the sick person, or some one attending upon him, by which he is entirely cured. It seems what are usually called divine dreams may be frequently ascribed to angels. We have a remarkable instance of this kind related by one who will hardly be called an enthusiast, for he was a heathen, a philosopher, and an emperor: I mean Marcus Antoninus. "In his meditations, he solemnly thanks God for revealing to him when he was at Cajeta, in a dream, what totally cured the bloody flux, which none of his physicians were able to heal." And why may we not suppose that God gave him this notice by the ministry of an angel?— Fohn Wesley. PRESENCE OF SPIRITS. It appears to me no way contrary to reason to believe that the happy departed spirits see and know all they would wish, and are divinely permitted to know. In this, Mr. Wesley (the founder of Methodism) is of the same mind, and that they are concerned for the dear fellow pilgrims whom they have left behind. I cannot but believe they are. Nor doth it seem contrary to reason to suppose a spirit in glory can turn its eye with as much ease, and look on any object below, as a mother can look through a window, and see the actions of her children in the court beneath it. If bodies have a language by which they can convey their thoughts to each other, though sometimes at a distance, have spirits no language, think you, by which they can converse with our spirits, and by impressions on the mind, speak to us as easily as before they did by the tongue? And what can interrupt either the presence, communication, or sight of a spirit? "Walls within walls no more its passage bar Than unopposing space of liquid air. Though it is allowed we may have communion with angels, various are the objections raised against the belief of our communion with that other part of the heavenly family,-the disembodied spirits of the just. If there is joy throughout all the realms above, yea, "more joy over one sinner that repenteth than over the ninety and nine which went not astray," how evident it is to an impartial eye that the state of both the one and the other must be known there, together, with the progress of each individual! Have not spirits faculties suited to spirits, by which we may suppose they can as easily discern our soul as we could discern their body when they were in the same state as ourself? If "he maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire," cannot a spirit be with me in a moment, as easily as a stroke from an electrical machine can convey the fire for many miles in one moment, through thou sands of bodies, if properly linked together?—Mrs. Mary Fletcher (an early English Methodist). LOVE OF TRUTH. He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or church, better than Christianity, and by loving himself better than all.-S. T. Coleridge. THE TRUE PRIEST-REFORMER-AND ONE ARMY FOR RIGHT. We have repeatedly endeavored to explain that all sorts of Heroes are intrinsically of the same material; that, given a great soul, open to the Divine Significance of Life, then there is given a man fit to sing of this, to fight and work for this, in a great, victorious, and enduring manner; there is given a Hero-the outward shape of whom will depend on the time and the environment he finds himself in. The Priest too, as I understand it, is a kind of Prophet; in him there is required to be a light of inspiration, as we name it. He is the Uniter of the people with the Unseen Holy. He is the Spiritual Captain of the people; as the true Prophet is their spiritual King, with many captains; he guides them heavenward, by wise guidance through this earth and its work. The ideal of him is, that he too be what we can call a voice from the unseen heaven, the " open Secret of the Universe," which so few have an eye for! He is the Prophet shorn of his more awful splendor; burning with mild equable radiance, as the enlightener of daily life. This is the ideal of a Priest in old times, in these, n all times. One knows very well that, in reducing ideals to practice, great latitude of toleration is needed. But a Priest who is not this at all, who does not any longer aim or try to be this, is a character of whom we had rather not speak. Nay, I may ask, is not every true Reformer, by the nature of him, a Priest first of all? He appeals to Heaven's invisible justice against Earth's visible force; knows that it, the invisible, * * * * * * * is strong and alone strong. He is a believer in the divine truth of things; a Seer, seeing through the shews of things; a worshipper, in one way or the other, of the divine truth of things. Every man is not only a learner but a doer; he learns with the mind given him, what has been; but with the same mind he discovers farther, he invents and devises somewhat of his own. No man believes or can believe exactly what his grandfather believed; he enlarges somewhat, by fresh discovery, his view of the Universe, and consequently his Theorem of the Universe, which is an infinite Universe, and can never be embraced wholly or finally in any conceivable enlargement. * He finds somewhat that was credible to his grandfather, incredible to him, false and inconsistent with some new thing he had discovered or observed. So with all beliefs whatsoever in this world, all Systems of Belief, and Systems of Practice that spring from these. Surely it were mournful enough to look only at this face of the matter, and find in all human opinions and arrangements merely the fact that they were uncertain, temporary, subject to the law of death! At bottom it is not so; all death, here too we find, is but of the body, not of the essence of the soul; all destruction, by violent revolution or however, is but a new creation on a wider scale. Odinism was Valor; Christianity was Humility, a nobler kind of valor. No thought that ever . dwelt honestly as true in the heart of man, but was an honest insight into God's truth on man's part, and has an essential truth in it which endures through all changes, an everlasting possession for us all. * And on the other hand, what a melancholy notion is that which has to represent all men, in all countries and times except our own, as having spent their lives in blind condemnable error, mere lost pagans, Scandinavians, Mahometans, only that we might have the true ultimate knowledge! All generations of men were lost and wrong, only that this present little section of a generation might be saved and right! They all marched forward there, all generations since the beginning |