scarcely been sensible of their sufferings, so great has been the peace and happiness they have experienced in the expectation of exchanging this mortal life for a glorious immortality!' "I cannot bear,' he exclaimed, 'to hear of such things; they might have been mine, but they are not. The people you speak of have served God in their health and strength, when I despised and rejected him--they went to the home in the diligent search and expectation of which they had patiently lived all their days. I have never entertained God in all my thoughts-I have endeavoured to banish him thence; I cannot meet him as my friend-I have all along been his enemy; I dare not meet him as my foe-and yet I must do it. Oh how shall I contend with One so much mightier than I?-I cannot submit to One whom I have so long and so heartily opposed. If you can keep my poor, tottering frame together for a few months something might be done; I might change my purposes.' 6 "Alas! replied the physician, these are vain suggestions; a very few days must finish your earthly course: let me prevail upon you to employ them more profitably than in seeking to avoid what is inevitable. Mercy is yet to be found if you seek it with all your heart; God is nigh unto those who call upon him faithfully; and though your time is very short, yet enough remains to obtain pardon and peace if you seek it earnestly; but do not defer it-you cannot live through another week.' "Then,' he retorted in an agony, 'before the end of another week I shall be-(and he paused) yet why do I hesitate to speak the truth plainly, when the fact will soon prove itself? before the end of another week I shall be in hell!--I shall be ?—I am there now-for what is hell but the truth seen too late? I now see and feel the truth I have so long despised and trampled on, and that is hell-it is begun already, and will continue for ever-it is the worm that never dies, the fire that never can be quenched.' "My friend,' rejoined the doctor, 'the conclusions you draw, as respects yourself, are hasty in the extreme; whilst there is life there is hope and mercy with God, that he may be feared: he may yet be found; only seek him whilst space and opportunity are yet afforded you.' cannot re of a clergyman, or to receive religious instruc- "And feeling the awful consequences of sin,' interposed the other, will lead you to seek for deliverance from the cause as well as the effect. Consider how the promise is added to the invitation-Ask, and ye shall receive.' "True,' said he, another proof, if an additional one yet was wanting, to demonstrate that I have no concern in it. I have never asked he gave God for any thing; what he gave me, me unasked, and I have employed all to oppose his will. He will hear my prayers, and reject them with abhorrence. My parents were kind, tender, and forgiving, but I wearied them out; and what can I expect from God? Must not similar conduct procure a similar reward?' "No,' resumed the physician, 'God is far more kind and patient than any earthly parent; more ready to hear than we are to pray; and wont to give more than we either desire or deserve.' "Ah,' he returned, 'that fixes another sting to rankle in my guilty conscience. He gave me abundance-advantages superior to mostmore than I then desired, and, I now feel, more than I deserved. How have I employed all his benefits? To the injury of others; and now he turns the mischief upon my own head. A gamester's hand is against every man; and now he makes me feel his wrath, not as an individual sinner, but as a transgressor against him and the whole family of his creatures, whose wrong I have ever sought, when I supposed it might be for my private advantage. Why should I expect mercy who have never shown it? I have trampled upon mercy; and now slighted, abused, rejected mercy calls incessantly for vengeance.' "After a short pause, which no one attempted to interrupt, as the horror which his last expressions, uttered with terrible energy and evident distress, had silenced every one, he turned to the doctor, and began, Why do you thus plead with me? I tell you, I have been the enemy of the human race; and would have plundered you or the best friend I have upon earth. Why do you not join to torment me? Ah! you already have a powerful avenger; and pours your God has declared himself on your side. He has taken up your cause, his fury upon me. If this is only the anticipation, what will be the reality? Ŏ misery without end, and suffering interminable.' pp. 234 "I cannot seek him,' he replied; 'I neither "His mental agitation became extreme, and down "The physician having interrupted him, to remind him that length of time was not necessary for repentance, and that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin,' he replied, "I have trodden that blood under foot; if it is found upon me, it must be as a curse, not a blessing. I have had the benefit of it offered me, but I have rejected it with unceasing hardness and impenitence. Oh, the golden opportunity that has been refused, and is now lost for ever! Is not that hell enough of itself? What need be added to it? Then to bear the wrath of God for ever!-a fire burning, but not consuming; to be the sport and companion of devils-to dwell with everlasting burnings!' "The debility which had gradually increased upon him for several preceding months, and by which he had been brought to a state bordering upon dissolution, seemed overcome by the impulse which the agitation of his mind communicated to his body. He experienced a temporary increase of strength, a morbid revival, under which he displayed an energy and activity of thought equal to what he had exerted at any former period of his life. The effect of this was only to exhaust the little corporeal power that remained, and accelerate his death." pp. 239, 240. "In the delirium which prevailed during the last few hours of his temporal existence, the same awful expectations of futurity harassed his disturbed mind, and he alluded with fearful dismay to many circumstances, besides those before referred to, but particularly to the widow and orphans. During one of these, he suddenly raised himself upon his bed, and, uttering a piercing shriek, he fell backward and expired." pp. 243, 244. From the Spirit and Manners of the Age. THE PASCHAL MOON. THOU Paschal Moon! memento, guide, and sign, Bright chronicler, pursue thy mystic way; That orb hath borrowed from a source divine Transcending glories to outblaze the day. I woo thee not, thou fair unconscious thing, Full to my heart the life-conferring theme: Majestic walking through the azure air, Vicegerent of the night, thy Monarch's praise declare. Say, what am I? a spirit dark with crime, Pent in a crumbling tenement of clay; Such thou hast seen through many an age and clime, In untold myriads crushed and swept away: Swept from this goodly realm of life and breath, To the deep reservoir of all-devouring death. Such as, in proud Egyptian's rebel land, O'er fields of devastation reckless trod, Mocked the deep scourging of the red right hand, And fierce defiance hurled on Jacob's God: Matured in sin, Jehovah's self would brave, Rush'd to the impious strife, and perish'd in the wave. Aye, Paschal Moon-thy broad unshrinking eye Gazed on that mighty wreck-but who are they Whom God's own fiery banner, streaming high, Marshals and leads triumphant in array They from whose path the rolling waters sweep, While charger-like, they tread, unstumbling, through the deep. Defiled with sin, dissolving into dust, Shone they more pure than Egypt or than me? Reigns He not yet who made the sinner just? For there my sins have met, my griefs repose, There bows Omnipotence beneath their weight. No crimson drop, wrung by th' unearthly strife, But teems with healing balm, and renovating life. Am I accurs'd and sinful? He was made Sin, and a curse-the righteous Lord is He? His righteousness is mine-His blood hath paid My ransom-thou beheld'st him on the tree, But floods of fire thy glimmering orb shall drown, When, summon'd from the grave, I claim my Saviour's crown. And can I-dare I? shall this sullen tongue, That scantly, coldly murmurs forth His name, Swell the rich chorus of Hosannas, sung Where seraph hosts ecstatic joy proclaim? This soul that calls the cleaving dust her own Soar to the dazzling gates, and seek the sapphire throne. Oh thou, whose bidding earth and heaven fulfil, Whose awful word the trembling fiends obey, Conduct thy wanderer to the holy hill, My sun, my shield, illume and guard the way; A step more feeble, or a heart more frail, Have never linger'd here, to faint in Baca's vale. I seek not summer days and sunny skies, Nor flowers, in life's rough wilderness to bloom; But let me in thy likeness, Lord, arise Through the undreaded portal of the tomb! I'll ask no resting-place, till I repose On the sweet pasture plains where life's pure river flows. CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH. From the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine. MEMOIR OF MRS. MARIA CALDER, Late wife of the Rev. Frederic Calder: by the Rev. William M. Harvard. JOHN MACARTHA SHARPE, Esquire, the fa ther of Mrs. Calder, being the Solicitor-General of Grenada, in the West Indies, that island became the earliest scene of her mortal existence. Her maternal grandfather was the late Sir Gillies Payne, Baronet, of Tempsford-Hall, Bedfordshire; who also possessed considerable property in the West Indies; and the families on both sides have long been extensive proprie tors of estates in those colonies. The worthy and benevolent baronet, who received by inheritance his plantations abroad, cherished an honourable solicitude for the comfort and education of his negroes. In consequence of an unequivocal expression of his sentiments, made to the managers of his estates, the Missionaries of our Society were permitted a ready access to them, for the religious instruction of the slaves: and the results of that permission were highly gratifying It reflects honour on the parties concerned, that the example of Sir Gillies Payne was followed by other slave-proprietors among his relatives and acquaintance; and that from the earliest establishment of our Missions in the western world, converted Africans on their several estates have been in Christian communion with us. We have now the pleasure to trace the sav ing goodness of Him that heareth prayer, to one individual branch of the Baronet's family. His daughter, Mrs. Sharpe, Mrs. Calder's mother, had been ten years a resident in the West Indies; during the whole of which period, as she has often since observed with suitable regret, she had never read the Bible, and had gone to church but once! It is indeed to be deplored, that the state of European society in the western world, at that time, rendered it possible for a person to move for so many years in its most respectable ranks with so little of Christianity. But though we may hope that in many of our foreign possessions some considerable improvement in regard to religion has taken place, since that time; yet there is reason to fear that, in some few of our colonies, cases are still to be found approaching too nearly to a parallel with this. It is now considered an undoubted fact, that Christianity, properly received by the negroslave, elevates him in the scale of being. And the experience of many years has taught the Such a case presents a distressing evidence world, that, when the natural depravity of the of a propensity to live without God, which is African is made to yield to the force of reli- common to our nature. And this, however regious principle, his character frequently pre- volting it may appear to a devout and wellsents very valuable and amiable qualities. At-regulated mind, is precisely what would be the tachment to the ordinances of religion, and gratitude to their benefactors, are virtues very commonly displayed by the converted children of Ham; and from feelings of such a description it may easily be supposed that the pious slaves on the Baronet's estate would persevere in offering fervent prayer to God in behalf of him and his family, through whose immediate interference and direction they were privileged to hear "the word of truth, the Gospel of their salvation;" and were brought to the enjoyment of a spiritual and moral freedom, which sanctified and sweeetened their cup of bondage. Of negro gratitude one of our Missionaries has related the following anecdote, which is deserving of record:-After preaching one day on an estate belonging to the Baronet, a slave of the congregation presented her infant child for baptism, requesting that it might be named "Sir Gillies Payne;" and on being given to understand that the whole could not be adopted as a Christian name, the grateful negress evinced a painful disappointment, at being unable thus to perpetuate the memory of her valued owner by having his entire name and title attached to her beloved child. Those who have themselves proved the efficacy of devout prayer, will not think it improbable that the grateful supplications of pious and holy negroes may often have produced favourable effects on the temporal and eternal welfare of their proprietors. Inspiration assures us that "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." That such prayers are sometimes answered in blessings upon those for whom they have been presented to God, may at least be inferred from such narratives as the present. The reader will feel a sacred satisfaction in knowing, that several individuals belonging to the family of Sir Gillies Payne, even in circumstances apparently unfavourable for such a result, have been made partakers of true religion; have been, in life, faithful to their Christian profession; and have borne to the last a satisfactory testimony to the ability and willingness of Christ to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him. state and practice of every human being, if left to follow the bias of the unrenewed heart. It is felt that this is not the place to extend an argument on this point; and yet it was impos sible not incidentally to notice so marked a confirmation of what the Holy Scriptures invariably teach us, in relation to this solemn and melancholy fact. We should scarcely expect that one in such a state of mind would have imagined herself to be religious; and yet Mrs. Sharpe at that time considered herself to be sufficiently so; and when she was afterwards brought under a general conviction of her sin fulness, she was actually at a loss to account for the feeling, by charging herself with any particular sin: so great is the reaction of moral evil, so blinding and hardening is sin, and especially that species of sin which has the Almighty for its immediate and only object. Happily the case assumes a more inviting and gratifying aspect. The respected lady referred to was, by the mercy of God, and possibly in some measure in answer to the prayers of some of those sable and degraded beings she had been accustomed to despise, brought to a better state of mind. In allusion to the change she was led to experience, may be truly said, that the blind received sight, the dead was raised, and, by a train of circumstances which may be briefly noticed with interest and advantage, the sheep which had been long going astray was ultimately turned to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls. The acts of a gracious and superintending Providence are perhaps never more evident, certainly never more pleasing and instructive, than when they are sometimes beheld in the chain of circumstances, by which families or individuals are brought under the influence of real religion. The Son of God, as Mediator, has received all power, both in heaven and on earth, that he may render it subservient to his designs of love to our fallen race. In relation to his providential dispensations, there is a sense in which we may hear him, in effect, saying to us, as in another sense he did to his servant Peter, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." Like Job, we look for him on our "right hand where he doth work," yet we "behold him not." With a general conviction that he is managing all things for our good, we are nevertheless sometimes unable to trace out the exact course of his proceeding. On all these points we shall know hereafter; either by some elucidating circumstance in the present world, or after our entrance on that more perfect state which awaits us in heaven, "where that which is in part shall be done away," and we "shall know even as we are known." But many of the dark and distressing dispensations of Providence towards men before their conversion, are divested of much of their mystery by that single event, and by it are made to appear most prominently in a character of divine compassion, which secures to God in Christ their gratitude and love and devotion to all eternity. The situation in which we have seen Mrs. Sharpe placed, as a West Indian resident, was not one in which her conversion to God would have been deemed an event of probable occurrence. And had she remained in that part of the world, it is more than possible her little family would have risen up deeply marked by all the fashionable Atheism of their prayerless parents, and would have entailed a curse upon souls unborn, by extending the baleful influence over the succeeding generations. But a mournful event was permitted to alter the probable current of their affairs. Mr. Sharpe, with the intention of bringing his family home to England for education, went on board a ship lying in the harbour of Grenada, to examine her accommodations; when he was attacked by an infectious fever which had raged in the vessel, and in a very few days died, leaving his disconsolate widow and five children to pursue alone their voyage to this country. On their arrival in England they were affectionately received and cherished by Mrs. Sharpe's own father, at Tempsford-Hall, in the vicinity of which the following circumstance had previously occurred. In the village of Tempsford resided a general Baptist, who was one of the Baronet's tenants, and who was accustomed (such was the fervour of his religious feeling) to travel twen ty miles on the Lord's Day to join in divine worship, with a congregation of his own Communion. On one occasion, in conversation with a Christian friend, this pious Baptist observed, that since he had been in Bedfordshire God had so greatly blessed him, that he knew not what grateful return to make for His goodness to him. His friend, in reply, said," Go home, and take the Methodist Preachers into your house." He immediately rejoined, "By the help of God I will:" and on his return home, he embraced an early opportunity of inviting them to make his home their occasional abode, for the purpose of introducing preaching into the village. The same overruling Providence influenced the heart of Sir Gillies Payne to give his consent that one of his cottages should be used as their new place of worship. And the hand of the Lord being with them, the Methodist preaching was rendered instrumental of gathering together a small congregation of the villagers, a few of whom, under serious impressions, were formed into a Society: and having received the truth in the love thereof, were brought by happy experience to prove the Gospel of Christ to be the power of God unto salvation. Though Sir Gillies Payne did not range himself among those who make an especial profession of religion, yet he was a decided and public friend to religious liberty, almost to latitudinarianism, and truly respected the Christian profession in others, when accompanied by a holy and consistent life and temper. It is supposed that one of the principal reasons inducing him thus to sanction and forward the introduction of our Preachers into the village of Tempsford, was the conduct of his coachman; who, by divine grace, had honourably sustained a Christian character in the eyes of his master for many years; and by whom, as an expression of his good opinion, he was placed, after so respectable a servitude, in a small farm belonging to the family. As the preaching-cottage did not form a part of his farm, the good man applied to his landlord to have it so attached, for the purpose of giving a character of greater permanency to their religious services; but the venerable Baronet gave him his promise that they should never experience any molestation in their possession of the house for that pious purpose; and his word gave the friends all the security of a lease. The few who enjoyed the advantages of worshipping God in the cottage, were doubtless strongly attached to their estimable landlord; to whose tolerant and liberal principles, under the divine blessing, they were indebted for access to those means of life and salvation. But it was probably much more than they ever expected, that the saving influence of the truth they felt would extend from the cottage to the hall, or that any of the members of the Baronet's family should be associated with them as fellow-worshippers. Yet it is well often for us to be reminded that the ways of God are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts. It was to a company of comparatively poor but pious individuals, who for some time afterwards were in the habit of conducting their worship in an upper room, that the Son of God once said, "Ye are the light of the world!" Where there is a decided consistency of character in those who worship God, how humble soever their outward condition, they may possibly become the objects of observation, as well as the medium of usefulness, to an extent far beyond their own hopes and expectations. This was the case with the praying villagers of Tempsford. Some time after the death of Sir Gillies Payne, Mrs. Sharpe and another lady were passing the cottage; and being attracted by the singing, at the suggestion of her friend she accompanied her from a motive of curiosity, and went in to see what was doing. It was a prayer-meeting; and as the person engaged offered a petition especially for their honourable visiters, Mrs. Sharpe was much interested in their proceeding, and gratified with such a mark of attention from them, though she did not feel that she needed any thing, and could hardly refrain from wondering that they should have prayed for her, considering religion as chiefly necessary for the poor and the uncultivated. But her sentiments soon experienced a change; for while another of these humble and devout Christians was engaged in fervent prayer to God, Mrs. Sharpe was led to discover that they were animated by a spirit of fervent piety, to which she was herself a total stranger. The importance of possessing such a pious concern, to be approved of God, impressed her as it had never done before. She saw and felt it desirable, above all things, to pursue with becoming solicitude this chief end of mortal existence. Under the immediate workings of the Holy Spirit, her conscience, awaking from its slumbers, pronounced a verdict of condemnation against her for her long-continued negligence of God, and of her soul. She was deeply smitten to the heart with the fearful apprehension of the sentence of a higher tribunal; and from a painful sense of her lost state as a sinner, she never rested, from that time, until, by a penitent faith in the atoning blood of Christ, she received the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins, through the tender mercy of our God. cerns of the soul, and of the eternal world. Nor was she so far left to the resources of a fallen nature, as to be suffered, by a regard to human favour, to receive the grace of God in vain. That was indeed a memorable era in the family history. It is not improbable that in that one incident the eternal well-being of many will hereafter be found to have been involved. And there are individuals now in heaven, (of whom it is not to be doubted that our valued friend, the late Mrs. Calder, is one,) who for that single event will ascribe unceasing praise and glory to God and the Lamb. In her subsequent intercourse with the religious cottagers, amongst whom she had found the pearl of great price, Mrs. Sharpe needed, on the one hand, much Christian prudence, not by a careless degree of familiarity needlessly to shock the feelings of her own family and friends; and on the other, the cultivation of a temper of conscientious fidelity to God, not to be ashamed of the humble instrumentality He had been pleased to sanction to her soul's salvation. By simply looking for divine direction, ever fearful of leaning to our own understanding, we may at all times be enabled to discover the happy medium, even when surrounded by the most perplexing difficulties. And young Christians should ever in this way seek to be preserved from extremes; as well from a due regard to the honour of religion, as to their own comfort, and the eternal benefit of their immediate connexions; to whom it is in the should prove, not a candle put under a bushel, but one set in a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in the house. It is truly lamentable to see persons with the best intentions, obscuring the light of which they have been made partakers, and casting away all probability of acquiring a useful influence over their unconverted friends, by an impetuous and untempered disregard of the way of duty in this respect. It was natural that Mrs. Sharpe should repeat her visit to the place, however uninviting its exterior appearance, in which her mind had undergone so mighty an alteration, and where she had become the subject of impressions evincing their heavenly origin by their heavenly tendency. And this was her justification for what by some of her family was viewed as an indecorum. They thought of the preach-order of God that every converted person ing-cottage, not only with the same contempt which she herself had formerly felt, but also with warm displeasure. No opprobrium was in their estimation too great to mark the place in which they considered their relative had so grossly degraded herself and them, by worshipping God with those who were so greatly her inferiors. But it had been one tendency of genuine repentance in its effects on a spirit naturally haughty and imperious, to relax the energies of the native pride, and to reverse the feeling of self-exaltation. She could cordially adopt the language of the Apostle Paul, "I am less than the least of all saints." And so often had her soul been blessed beneath the lowly roof where they were accustomed to assemble, that she could speak of it as the Patriarch Jacob did of his less commodious praying-place at Bethel: "This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Mrs. Sharpe, being of a decided and independent constitution of mind, was not so much exposed, at the commencement of her religious life, as some have been, to a timid and temporising policy. And though her decision caused her to suffer under some forms of persecution from a few of her family and social circles, yet she was, by divine grace, enabled to remain steadfast and unmoveable. At that time, she had been bereaved of her benevolent and affectionate father, and was living in the vicinity of her brother, Sir John Payne, who had succeeded to the title and estates. She could not have forgotten that she was a widow, with a rising family, whose interests it devolved on herself to guard and promote. But no temporal consideration was allowed to outweigh, in the scale of importance, the momentous con Individuals in subordinate life, can in general form but an imperfect idea of the difficulties which attend a religious profession on the part of those who are found in a higher situa tion than themselves. There is a happy medium also for them to learn; and which they should conscientiously observe, in point of demeanour towards such persons. By the small Society in Tempsford, Mrs. Sharpe was ever approached with a modest respect. In their humble dwellings, to which she was accustomed to pay short visits, as a learner in the school of Christ, she always met with an affectionate welcome, and acquired the knowledge of many a useful lesson. Nor did she entirely omit opportunities of rendering herself helpful to those of them with whose unobtruding temporal necessities she thus became acquainted. How delightful thus to behold the rich and the poor meet together, under the smile, and in prosecution of the great and universal plan, of the Lord who is the Maker of them all! Her visits to the house of the good man already mentioned, as having so honourably served her father in the capacity of coachman, were rendered peculiarly profitable to her; and it was of course, to him and his family, a gratifying cir cumstance to observe the devout decision of |