pray to Jesus Christ for me-she is certainly gone to Heaven. But what shall I do without her to teach me my lesson, and to tell me about God? O my good, best friend is dead!" "Not your best friend, my child. God is your best friend; and if you give him your heart, he will be your Father, and whenever you die, you will go to him, and meet your friend Eliza too. You shall live with me while I live, and when I die, there will be one from under my roof to follow me to the grave. And you," said he, turning to his affectionate congregation, who were almost all, to an individual, standing before him, “you will receive my sincere thanks for your kind sympathies in this hour of sadness. Though my heart is almost ready to burst with its pangs, yet I should be wanting in duty towards you, and towards my Master, should this opportunity pass without my urging its improvement. You are aware that among all the doubts of hardened men, none have ever dared to deny that we are mortal. How often have we all been called to stand around the lifeless clay of our friends and neighbours, and as we conveyed thein to the cold mansions of the dead, how solemn has the voice come to our ears, Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh!' Who stands before me, whose heart has never been troubled with grief at the loss of friends? Where is the person who has never been called to weep at the departure of those who were dear-the mother whose offspring perished from her bosom in the very bud of its existence-the parent-the child-the husband-the wife, have all alike seen the gates of the eternal world open, and their friends and neighbours pass out, never to return! We all know these warnings; we know that we must soon follow; and inly can I not persuade you, my friends, to look beyond the verge of the grave, and even now begin to lay up treasures in heaven. O do this, for you are immortal, and cannot cease to exist. Do this, for you are probationers, and must one day die. Do it, for your time is uncertain, and you may die soon. When this morning's sun arose, the corpse that is lying beside me, was in the flush of health, and bid fair to sojourn here for a long time to come. But she is gone, and left us in this wilderness world, till a few rolling suns shall see us placed as low as herself. You will soon follow your pastor to yonder grave-yard, for besides the infirmities of age, I have an assurance within me, that I shall have but a few more opportunities to warn you to prepare for death. Consider, then, your being, your destiny, your characters, your lives, and see whither you are going. Let the voice of my dear child reach you as it issues from the shroud, Unto you, O men! I call, and my voice is to the sons of man.'"

The good man ceased, for the multitude of feelings and thoughts which rushed upon him, choked his utterance. But there was something in his calm and heavenly look, in his solemn and trembling voice, and in the attending circumstances, that made an impression upon his audience never to be effaced. We all were mute as if listening to a voice from the world of spirits; and I presume no one will ever be free from impressions there received; and it is not unlikely that the great day of account will exhibit results of that occasion which were never imagined on earth.

On a cold autumnal day, but a short time since, I visited the graveyard of this village. I was alone, and the memory of the past came rapidly before me as I saw the neat white marble raised over the sleeping dust of Eliza S. Her father too was lying beside her, for he was right in predicting his labours on earth were almost closed. The father and mother were here waiting for the arrival of the great decisive day;-and the daughter was lying between them. They were lovely in their lives and in their deaths were not separated." I was sad while viewing the simple inscriptions on the stones, and not a little affected when I found the following lines on the tomb of Eliza, which appeared to have been etched with a penknife by her father ere he died.

Beneath this stone so feebly reared,

Eliza gently sleeps ;

Here shall the sighs of grief be heard,—

For here a father weeps!

Here rest Eliza, free from pain,

And free from mortal care :"

Parent and child will meet again,

And wiped be every tear!

T. S.

THOUGHTS ON THE LATE FEVER.

To the Editor of the Christian Herald.”

WHETHER the late fever in this city is to be regarded as a judicial visitation of Providence, for certain specific sins of the people, or as involving nothing different, in this respect, from the ordinary experience of mankind, under the Christian dispensation, is a question about which there seems to be great diversity of opinion. Many suppose that this visitation was sent judicially, and not upon the principles of the ordinary dispensations of Providence; and some, whe occupy the station of public teachers, have ventured not only to pronounce it a judicial infliction, but to specify the particular sins for which it was a punishment. I am not aware what proofs they may have advanced in support of this opinion; but their views of the subject are attended with difficulties which I apprehend are insurmount> able. Some of these I take leave to state, in the hope that the consideration of them may lead to reflections more correct and more consistent with revelation and experience.

I believe as firmly as any one that all the miseries and afflictions of mankind are the fruit of sin; and suppose it entirely proper to say, with respect to what are termed judgments, calamities, and so forth, that in a general sense they are inflicted in consequence of the sinfulness of men. Many sinful practices are followed by immediate affliction, pain or misery, in one form or another; according to what we term their natural tendency. In cases still more numerous, where pain and misery are experienced, no extraordinary degrees of wickedness can be alleged to have immediately preceded them; and in

general, it is undoubtedly true, that mankind suffer nothing of affliction and misery in this world, in comparison with their guilt and their just deserts in the sight of God. I suppose that in the administration of Providence under the mediatorial government, there is no such rule upon this subject, as there was under the Theocracy, when men, having filled the measure of their iniquity, were dealt with judicially, and the utter destruction of whole cities and nations was made a type of the eternal punishment which is to come upon the wicked in the future world. Without enlarging upon this subject, which is capable of a very clear illustration from the Scriptures, I proceed to the practical difficulties of the case in hand; assuming that if this fever had been sent judicially as a punishment for certain sins, the cause, the infliction and the effects, would correspond with the like cases under the ancient dispensation, which are referred to, and reasoned from, by those who hold the affirmative of this question.

First, then, it is natural to ask why the fever was sent upon the city the present instead of last year, or year before, since no other great calamity occurred in place of it during those years? Why in 1819, and not before, since 1805? Can it be shown that there has within two or three years been an extraordinary increase or aggravation of those sins which are alleged as the cause of the visitation? Is there more wickedness and less piety in proportion to the number of inhabitants than formerly? Did the guilt of last year, added to that of former years, fill up the measure of iniquity? Why then was not the place destroyed? Why, upon the principle supposed, has no general calamity fallen upon London for a century past, though the same sins which are referred to as the cause here, have, probably, to a far greater extent, prevailed there for a thousand years.

Secondly. Why did not the calamity or judgment fall wholly or at least chiefly upon those most guilty of the sins specified? Why were not the chiefs and ringleaders of flagrant immorality punished? Why was there not, as under the Theocracy, a marked and effectual discrimination between those who feared God and those who feared him not? These and many similar questions touching the reasons of the administration of Providence in the different cases, demand an answer. Thirdly. Why has this calamity been withdrawn and no other taken its place, if it was a judicial visitation? Have the alleged causes ceased to exist? Have the people at large repented and reformed? Has any shadow of change taken place for the better in this respect? On the contrary, is it not notorious, and matter of general remark, that every description of immorality and impiety is indulged in since the fever with more audacity and greediness than at former periods?

Fourthly. Have the effects of this visitation upon the community, or upon any portion of it, been answerable to the magnitude of the causes alleged? Is it clear that the inhabitants have suffered more by this calamity than they would have suffered in the ordinary course of Providence without it? Is it not known and acknowledged, that fewer of the inhabitants have been sick during the late season than is common when there is no yellow fever; that there have been fewer deaths

than is usual in the same period of time, especially in the summer; that other forms of sickness during this fever in a great measure disappeared; that the instances of other modes of sickness were comparatively mild ?—If this was a special judgment sent to punish certain sins, where are its effects?

Fifthly. If this visitation was a special judgment upon this city, what shall we say of hundreds of places in the interior of the country where sickness has prevailed much more generally and fatally than here, in proportion to the population?

I might multiply inquiries of this nature, but it were superfluous. But it may be asked, why disturb the common notion upon this subject, which if it be erroneous may be supposed to have some salutary influences? I answer :

1. They are, I apprehend, mistaken, who imagine that any good effects result from the common opinion upon this subject. This opinion has no doubt some transitory influence upon the fears of the sordid, the ignorant, the superstitious, and the impenitent generally, of all descriptions; but it is transitory; it is mere panic, and when the subjects of it have got out of town, or otherwise imagine they have escaped the danger, they manifest increased hardness of heart, and greater boldness in iniquity. This fear and panic, so far from awakening men's minds to a sense of their guilt, and their obnoxiousness to endless misery after death, or to a sense of their obligations and duties towards God, seems, so far as I know, to affect them rather as animals, than as rational and accountable creatures.

2. If the common opinion upon this subject had some good effects, still it is safer and better to inculcate correct than erroneous views of this and every other question affecting the doctrines of Revelation, the events of Providence, and the duties and religious concerns of men. Indulging the current notion, wicked men who escape the calamity, are apt to bless themselves for their good fortune, and to imagine that they are spared for some merit of their own, instead of feeling that the continuance of their lives, when they are secure, and apprehend no danger, is as great an instance of Divine forbearance and mercy, as when they are filled with fear and consternation; that there is no safety living or dying without repentance and obediencc to the Gospel, and that they are held by the enduring bonds of moral obligation and the laws of God, to answer at the bar of judgment for the deeds done in the body, and there to be dealt with judicially, according to their deserts. Here they experience little else but mercy, being respited till the day of judgment from the judicial consequences of sin. Those mercies and afflictions of this life, which flow in the ordinary course of things from the apostacy of the species, do not discriminate the evil from the good, and these dispensations, which display the Sovereignty of God, are not peculiar to any class of characters, or any definable instances or degrees of guilt, or any certain conjuncture of outward circumstances. When the period of mercy and forbearance terminates, retribution will succeed, and the wicked will be judicially punished. L.