being for two years and a half closed, under the ministry of one who loves to labour for the outcasts of his native land. There is a work progressing even here: much more in Ireland. Whenever a sifting day arrives, it will amaze the most sanguine to survey the vast quantity of good grain now buried amid the chaff. Self-sown, as it were, that is to say, directed by the hand of God without the intervention of presiding men, our Mignonette spreads with rapid increase, and the produce of an inch covers many a rood of ground. Oh, that there were more universally, among the Lord's people, a heart to cherish the young plants, to fence them from the foe, to shelter them from the frost, and spread them yet more widely by the aid of judicious cultivation! What kings and statesmen, ecclesiastics and warriors, have failed in attempting, until the numbness of despair has paralyzed their efforts, even that is being effected, by the slow and imperceptible, but sure progress of Irish Scripture Readers. The cabin inmate is christianized, and thereby the turbulent, sanguinary rebel becomes a peaceable, loyal subject, both to his earthly and his heavenly Ruler. The axe is laid to the root: while it lopped the branches its movements were alike conspicuous and vain; now they are equally retired and successful. To cut at the foundation of the evil, and to lay the foundation of the good work, we must go low; and with the lowly is wisdom. Let us keep our eye upon the operation, raise our heart to the Lord, and extend our hand to the workmen, unwearied as they are in well doing: we shall then both see and share the sure and precious promise, 'In due season ye shall reap, if ye faint not."

66

C. E.

THE DESOLATE HERITAGE.

ISAIAH XLIX. 8.

"WOE to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt!" Isaiah xxix. 1. Thus spake the prophet of the Lord; yet were the palaces of Zion still excelling in beauty; yet were the walls of Jerusalem still strong with towers; yet poured the gay rejoicing multitudes through her spacious streets. But, as when the Spirit of God led the prophet Ezekiel to see the abominations which the ancients of Israel did in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery, so did Isaiah behold the transgressions of the people, their separation from the covenant of their God, and the swift desolation which should follow and thus, however flourishing may be our outward condition, however prosperous our ways, if in our hearts we are serving the world and its vanities, and not our God, then is our heritage desolate : "for what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

Not one stone is left standing on another, of all those goodly edifices, of which Christ said, "Seest thou these great buildings?" The chosen land is " as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water," Isaiah i. 28; but it is not more desolate, more barren, more forsaken, than the soul whose sins have separated it from God, which is alien from

Christ, and a stranger from the covenant of the promise, Eph. xi. 12.

As the miserable heir of a wasted patrimony beholds his dilapidated mansion, the ruined walls, the windows no longer fringed with a light wreath of filmy vine-leaves, but darkened with twisted and straggling boughs, excluding alike the air and the day; the noxious plants forcing themselves through the crevices, and springing up in a rank luxuriousness even on the floor of the summer-parlour; the garden and the pleasant places overgrown with weeds, and choked with rubbish; the flowers, planted and nursed in perfect beauty, now stifled by a thick canopy of useless vegetation, or piercing through its shade, only to show a pale and sickly blossom, almost degenerated into the likeness of a weed:-he surveys the scene with sorrow, but, sunk in poverty, can neither repair the broken walls, nor restore the beauty of the wild deserted land. Thus mournfully sits the soul amidst her ruined inheritance. She has spent her money for that which is not bread, and her labour for that which satisfieth not, Isaiah Iv. 2. and she has no power to repair her fall, or return to her first state of virtue and happiness. She has warm affections, but they cleave to the earth; she has an eye which looks forward to immortality, but behold! its golden porch is filled with the shadows of death, and the torch of faith, which alone would enable her to see beyond them, is still unlighted. Many an evil weed springing up troubles her, and those few fair flowers of her blessed estate, (for once, in the days of her first creation, she was as the garden of God, and watered abundantly with the dew of his Spirit,) put forth but pale and sickly leaves.

Her very virtues are tainted with corruption, her imagination is become vain, her foolish heart is darkened, Rom. i. 20. But God hath said, "The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose ;" and he hath given Christ" for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages." Isaiah xlix. 8.

At this season of the year the Church commemorates the advent of Christ; and the song of the angels at his birth is echoed on earth, by many a renewed and grateful heart, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men." Let us then look well into the evidences of our being faithful followers of our Redeemer, and privileged to join our voices in that heavenly anthem of glory and peace. Not greater is the difference between the waste and solitary place, where the voice of gladness is heard no more, and all joy hath ceased, and the desert" which rejoices and blossoms as the rose," -than between the soul lying barren under the curse of sin, and the soul which by the outpouring of the Spirit is become as a fruitful field. Nor is this difference only in name, profession, or opinion; it is a thorough alteration of the character, and of the feelings of the heart. Turn, turn! Repent! change! is the language of the Bible; and the necessity of this change is fully intimated by the sacrament used by the church of Christ, (and instituted for that purpose by the Lord himself,) to signify the admittance of the soul, as a subject of his spiritual kingdom “Buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life," Rom. vi. 4; even as the corpse of the

redeemed is committed to the grave in corruption, in dishonour, in weakness, and raised in incorruption, in glory, in power, so should the change of the soul be from the sins and pollutions of its fallen nature, to the purity and excellence of its new life. Therefore he who believes his soul to be the purchased possession of Christ-one of that happy number given to him by the Father-should, for the proof that his hope is well founded, look upon that once desolate heritage, and see whether the breach be indeed repaired. Isaiah lviii. 12. Yet "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." Zech. iv. 6. If instead of the thorn comes up the myrtle, (Isaiah lv. 13), it is the evidence of God's kingdom in the heart-not the cause; for "their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord"—but still the

evidence.

Let us then search and see the sublime strain of truth which pervades the writings of the prophets, shines forth like the Shechinah from the mercy-seat, clearly indeed, but concealed from the multitudes without by the vail of the temple. In Christ the vail is done away; the glory of God in the face of Jesus is beheld by the meanest of his true disciples. It was one of the promises concerning the kingdom of Christ, that the "wayfaring man should not err therein." "I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring; and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses," is written in the prophecy of Isaiah. But the apostle, speaking of the fruits of the Spirit, uses more plain and simple language; "Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance"-these can be read and dis