and we should call corresponding action here infidelity. Indeed, we believe there is more infidelity, than Roman Catholicism, this day among the intelligent class of Italians. Thus, while by adapting itself to the institutions of every new country into which it introduces itself it gains a foothold and spreads, it loses in its own land, by adhering to its old superstitions and nonsense, which the spirit of the age rejects. We believe th3: Italy in heart is nearly half infidel, and that Paris itself is scarcely more sceptical than the very seat of his Holiness-ROME. What this infidelity will work is more than any one can tell. What influence it will have on political matters will depend on circumstances which no one can foresee or predict. But one thing we think is certain-however much the form of the Catholic religion may prevail, the pope will constantly lose power till his spiritual will become what his temporal throne now is, a mere shadow. Indeed, there is a tradition now in Rome among the lower classes that this is the last pope that will ever sit on the throne. We are surprised to find this in the mouths of the ignorant. Whether Italy will ever assume again, under any dynasty or form of government, her appropriate place among the nations of the earth, is very doubtful. If she does, she will be the first nation that has grown old with decay, and again become regenerated. In this respect, nations follow the law of human life. If age once seizes upon them they never grow young again. They must first die and have an entirely new birth, while this new birth never immediately succeeds the death. Everything there is old

cities, houses, and churches. The whole economy of outward life must be changed to fit the spirit that is now abroad in the world. Indeed, we have no faith in the multitude of conspiracies with which Italy is filled. The struggling spirit is not strong enough, or at least cannot be sufficiently combined. The poor and suffering have become too poor. They are beggars that do not care enough for liberty to fight for it; while those who should guide the popular will, seem to lack the steady energy that inspires confidence. The love of pleasure and its pursuit take from the manliness of the Italian character, so necessary to a republican form of government. The northern provinces are far better in this respect than the southern. In Genoa, for instance, there is a great deal of nerve and stern republicanism remaining which may yet recall the days of Spinola. But the moral and religious renovation is a still more desperate undertaking. It is easier to revolutionize a corrupt church, than reform it, as Luther most fully proved. But a religious revolution in Rome necessarily involves a political one, and reason as men will; they must go together. The church and state are one and indissoluble, and the death of either involves the destruction of the other. But "what is writ is writ," and religion must yet revive amid those ruins. The scarlet robes of the cardinals correspond so perfectly with the description in the Revelations, that the Protestant believer is startled as he looks on them. They seem to wear the insignia of the condemned, and flaunt out before his eyes the apparel which utters beforehand their doom.

A PRIVATE letter, received from a missionary in India, contains the following interesting account of the death of a little child, one of the first fruits of missionary labors at the station.

"A branch of this dear native church is forming in heaven. Two have gone to join the redeemed host during the year from our orphan girls. They had not been admitted to communion, but they were the acknowledged lambs of the flock. They both died rejoicing in Christ, though both quite young, about ten years. The death of one was truly triumphant. She was sick but a short time, yet she was

sensible that the time of her departure was near. She looked at the narrow coffin, and the dark grave, and at the mysteries of eternity, and in view of all, rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory. She had fixed her hope on Christ, she had committed her soul to him, she was assured he would never leave nor forsake her. All was bright around, before, and within her, as she calmly awaited the arrival of the messenger that was to take he hence. The night before her death, after the prayers of the family had been closed in the adjoining room where she could hear, her teacher, Mrs. T.,

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went to her and asked her if she would say her prayers before she went to sleep. I have said them, was her reply. Dear girl, she felt that her Saviour was near, and her joyful soul could not wait until a late hour before she poured out her feeble accents into the ear of him who died to save her. She had no desire to get well or to stay with us; she longed to go and be with Jesus, and be free from sin. She died about nine o'clock in the morning, and as her spirit was departing, she called for the reading of the 14th chapter of John. What a beautiful chapter for meditation at the moment of crossing Jordan! Happy spirit! she has entered the mansions which her Saviour had gone before to prepare for all them that love him. She is now satisfied, having awaked with his likeness. Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like hers.'"

This incident awakened in my mind interesting reflections connected with the missionary work. We are too apt, in watching the results of these labors, to look for such as are of a general and public nature, and to overlook those, which, though far less pretending or imposing in their appearance, are by no means possessed of less interest. The accounts, too, which we have in public journals and documents, dwell more upon the outward aspects of the cause, than upon the private details of the work which are often by far the most interesting. It is therefore refreshing, as we are looking towards the land of darkness, straining our eyes to catch even the glimmerings of light, to be transported across the wide ocean, and though surrounded by the blackness of paganism, to be permitted to take our stand by the dying bed of a heathen once, but one now redeemed and justified, and just ready to be glorified through the blood of Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. And the more refreshing is it when we look back a few years and remember what must have been the state of the one now falling asleep in Jesus, had she remained ignorant of Christ and of his salvation. A dark cloud hung over her at her birth. The day had not dawned, nor had the day-star arisen upon her heart. All around was darkness, and had not God in his mercy sent, and man in obedience to his grace carried, thither the sweet message of his love, darkness would have still brooded over her soul. And how cheerless would have been the closing scene! No Saviour's arm could have been underneath to support the wasting frame and the sinking spirit. No sweet consolations could have min

gled with the pains of the dying strife. No hope of heaven could have shed its hallowed radiance around her couch, and lighted up the dark and uncertain future. All, all must have been hopeless and cheerless. But how different the scene now that she has heard the glad tidings of great joy, and they have been carried to her heart by the spirit of God! There is no shuddering fear of the grim messenger, but he is welcomed with a smile as the harbinger of glory, the messenger of him who, having redeemed, has sent to call her home. She starts not back from the dark grave, but says,

'Since Jesus has lain there, I heed not its gloom,' and cheerfully walks down into the tomb. Hope, bright heaven-born hope, irradiates the future and points to the land of the blest, where the sorrows of earth shall never enter, and its sins shall ne'er be known. As sweetly and peacefully does she fall asleep in death to awake in heaven, as ever in smiling infancy she closed her eyes at night to open them again in the morning. With joy we follow her spirit in our imagination, as it leaves the clay tabernacle and ascends to him who gave it, to rejoice eternally in his presence.

The peculiar fitness of the portion of Scripture which this little orphan, and once heathen, but now Christian child, selected as the theme of meditation while she walked through the dark valley, had never so forcibly struck my mind before; but what could be more appropriate at such an hour! "Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." These are just the words for a dying saint to dwell upon, while leaving the shores of time and launching upon the broad ocean of eternity; and more than once, since receiving the letter from which I made the extract, when called to attend the children of God to the brink of the flood, as in the discharge of duty I am often called, I have taken the Bible and read these touching and sweetly consoling words of the Redeemer; and methinks that when I come, myself, to lie down upon a dying bed, nothing can give me more peace or more effectually drive away the fears of death, than to hear this gracious assurance from the Saviour, that he has gone to prepare a place for each one of his friends in the mansions of his Father's house, and that where he is there we shall be also.

G.

C. M.

THAT "Old White Meeting-House," and the Grave-Yard," and good Mr. Rogers, have come back to me with such freshness of lineament and power of impression, that I have half flattered myself into the idea that those who read these sketches, have caught something of the same regard for those scenes that fills my own old heart. And why should they not love them as well as I? These are no fancy sketches, and their charm lies not in my pen or pencil; rather the lights and shades in which I must clothe them, are a damage to them, and it is, therefore, an aim of mine to spread them out just as they lie in my mind's eye, so that, as far as possible, the reader may see them just as I see them, though he cannot love them as one must who can say, with the school-boy who displays his knowledge of Virgil by reciting in Latin, " All of which I saw and part of which I was!”"

But

And now, as faithful historians, come we to the people of that congregation. Come from your graves, old men and women of my native parish, come stand up before me while I draw your portraits and write your history! they come not. Of all that were the men and women grown when I was a boy, how few of them are there now! A few years ago I broke away from the city, and made a flying visit to the old town. I reached there on Saturday. No one knew me. A friend, yes, one whom I had grown up with from childhood, and knew me as well as an own brother, nodded to me as I passed, as they do to all strangers in the country, but the smile of recognition was wanting, and I felt truly a stranger in a strange land. I stopped and claimed his acquaintance without mentioning my name, and he looked steadily at me, but declared he had never seen me before. Alas, what work time makes with us! I look in the glass, but can see no change; and why

should others find it out? Yet I see it in them, and they in me. Tempora mutantur," &c. Times change, and we change with them. We are hastening to the great and last change.

On Sunday I went to church in the new meeting house on the site of the old one; and what a change was here! The square pews had yielded place to the modern cushioned slips, the high pulpit overhung with a threatening sounding-board which I was always afraid would one day fall and crush poor Mr. Rogers when he preached so loud as to make it and me shake, had been supplanted by a railed platform and desk. But these were nothing to the change in the faces of the people. Those old familiar faces! Where were they? I looked here, and I looked there, and everywhere, but I found them not, and shall not find them till the 66 old marble" of the grave-yard breaks at the sound of the last trump, and the tomb resigns its trust. Holy men; the salt of the earth; men of faith and prayer; men of God! Some of you were like Enoch, and no wonder that God took you ; one was like Elijah, and went after him; and many of you were men of whom the world was not worthy, and so earth lost you that heaven might gain you! Peace to your ashes! O that each of you had left a son in your own image to perpetuate your name and your virGood men were always scarce, and will be scarcer now that you are gone.

tues!

They were farmers mostly, those men were. They wrought with their own hands in the fields and the threshing-floor, and were INDEPENDENT men, if there ever were independent men on the face of the earth. There was no river, or canal, or rail-road, by which their produce could be transported to market, and by which the vices of the city could be transported to them; and thus were they saved from many of the sources of corruption that blight the vil

lages which the march of improvement has reached. Often we see a secluded hamlet where purity and peace nestle as in their native heaven, till the rage of the times drives an iron pathway right through its heart, a great tavern rises by its side, fashion, folly and vice, come along in the cars and stop, and then farewell to the quietness and virtue of that rural abode. Not so was it with our town. When the harvest was gathered and threshed, the farmers loaded up their wagons with the great bags, and drove off thirty or forty miles to market, and returned with some of the comforts, and a few of the luxuries, of life; the rest of their wants being readily supplied from the farm and the country store. Thus were their days spent in the peaceful pursuit of the most honorable and worthy calling to which man was appointed. Fewer temptations, and more pleasures, cluster around the path and home of the farmer, than of any other man. He is not free from the reach of sin or sorrow, it is very true, and who is? Adam was a farmer, and the forbidden tree stood in the middle of his garden, and sin entered and made his Paradise a prison. But of all earthly callings, there is none in which there is so much to lead the soul to God, to take it away from the vanities of the world, to train the mind for communion with heaven, and prepare it for unbroken intercourse with heavenly and divine things, as in that of the farmer who with his own hands tills the field, breaks up the fallow ground, sows the seed, prays and waits for the early and latter rain, watches the springing of the grain, rejoices in the ripening ear, gathers the sheaves in his bosom and with thankful heart fills his storehouse and barn, and sits down content with the competent portion of good things which have fallen to his lot.

But let us come back to our farmers. They were men of principle and prayer. I will give an instance of the power of principle among them. Long, long before the era of the present temperance reform, Mr. Rogers, the minister, awoke to the evils resulting from the use of ardent spirits, even in an agricultural district like that in which he lived. The farmers, in those days, were wont to purchase their rum by the barrel and to drink it freely, not only without any apprehensions of its ever doing them any harm, but in the firm persuasion that they could not do without it, and that it was one of the blessings of Providence, of which they should make a free use with thankfulness. But Mr. Rogers, with a long-sightedness for

which he was remarkable, foresaw the mischief the practice was begetting, and determined to lift up a standard against it. Accordingly, the Old White Meeting-House" thundered with an anti-drinking blast, in which the evils of the practice in all their moral, physical, and social bearings, were set forth in words that fell like burning coals on the heart, and electrified the congregation. The good people wondered and meditated. There must be something in it, or Mr. Rogers would not have brought it home to them with such pungency and power. They thought of it with earnestness. Mr. Rogers visited some of the largest farmers and proposed to them to try the experiment of "haying and harvesting" one season without rum. It was such a strange idea, that almost every one said it would be impossible to find men to do the work, and the crops would rot in the field. But two or three of the best of them were induced to try it. The result was most happy. They gave the hired men the usual cost of the rum as an advance upon their wages; they were perfectly satisfied. The work was done in better time and in better style, and the experiment was pronounced on all hands, successful beyond controversy. The result was proclaimed through the town. next year it was tried by several others, and soon it became a general practice among the farmers of that congregation, although the date of the temperance reformation is some years this side of that movement which was as decided and important as any one instance of reform which has ever since been made. Indeed, I have now a sermon which this same Mr. Rogers preached against the use of intoxicating drinks, from the text, "Who hath woes," &c., and which was delivered and printed before 1 was born, yet I can remember the opening of the modern temperance reformation.

The

Yet there was very little intemperance even prior to this period. There were a few drunkards whose portraits I would add to these sketches, but that they are very much like unto modern drunkards; and their portraits are not very pleasant pictures. There was not, however, one in that whole town so given to the use of rum, as a man whose house I passed yesterday, and who is now on his thirteenth hogshead of rum; he is seventy years of age, he buys his rum by the barrel, and drinks steadily, year in and year out, and hopes to live to exhaust some hogsheads more! The generation of such men, we trust in God, is rapidly drawing to a close, and that they may leave no