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To the third heavens, and even now seemed to join,
With that celestial company of saints,
And angels, who adore around the throne

Of God. Oh! how unearthly was his transport,
And over death how signal was his triumph.
In his calm eye joy undissembled beamed
And hope seraphic lighted up his features,
While in his peaceful breast 'twas all but heaven.
Death sped his fatal dart. His soul released
From its frail tenement, left a mourning world,
And with attending angels winged his flight
To heaven.

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PIOUS CHILDREN ARE UNITED TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IN THEIR SERVICES.

From Nott's Sermons for Children.

"THE Lord Jesus requires that service which flows from a loving and obedient heart. A child that loves, may be as true a servant as the grayheaded sage. If he is weak and ignorant, and falls short of doing for want of power and skill, the Lord will still approve and accept, as he did the service of the poor woman who poured the ointment of spikenard on his head, of whom he said, 'She hath done what she could.' An apostle can receive no higher approbation; a little child will receive no less. The Lord Jesus is no hard master; he appoints not to children man's work. If they yield him a cheerful, hearty service, in obedience to his words, they are his approved, accepted servants.

"They are also useful servants. Christ needs not the services of either men or children. He can do all that he wishes done, without the help of either; yet he condescends to employ the services of both. He uses the services of children in governing and enlarging his kingdom. Their example spreads around them a spirit of obedience; their hearty submission to his holy reign, is an honour to his government, and their praises of his Gospel are made the power of God unto salvation,' Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings,' he perfects his praise. Though his name is excellent in all the earth; though he has ordained the moon and the stars to show forth his glory in their nightly march, yet he employs the praises of babes and sucklings to still the enemy and the avenger. So lovely, so powerful, is children's praise, in the sight of him who reigns and shines in all."

A LOVELY SIGHT.

THERE are many lovely sights, but there are few so lovely as a little child reading the Bible. It is beautiful to see a bee sucking the honey out of a fragrant flower, but it is far more beautiful to see a little child reading the Bible. It is beautiful to see a little bird sitting apon a lovely tree, and to hear it singing a sweet song, but it is far more beautiful to see and hear a little child reading the Bible.

REVIEW.

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, by the late Rev. JOSEPH MILNER, A. M. with additions and corrections by the late Rev. ISAAC MILNER, D. D. F. R S. Second American edition, comprising some account of the lives of the Authors, and an original Index. Boston, Armstrong: New-York, Haven: 5 vols. 8vo., pp. Vol. I. 401– Vol. II. 409—Vol. III. 397—Vol. IV. 383—Vol. V. 406.

(Concluded from page 7.)

IN our last number we presented our readers with a brief sketch of the life of the Rev. Joseph Milner, author of one of the most valuable and useful books which have distinguished the present age of the church. Whoever has read even the short statement referred to, and much more those who have perused the original account, will have been forcibly impressed with the strong fraternal affection which distinguished this good man, and which prompted him, in the first moment of improved circumstances, to devote the first fruits of his prosperity to the relief of his younger brother Isaac. That affection was fully reciprocated, and it adorns the characters of both the brothers, in a degree inferior only to the amiable and exemplary filial piety which they both manifested towards a feeble and indigent mother. Their father, formerly a master weaver, failed in business, and was so far reduced in his pecuniary means that on one occasion, when Isaac needed a Greek book to go on with his studies, he purchased it for him one Saturday night instead of a joint of meat for next day's dinner, not being able to buy both. On the death of this strong minded man, the education of his son Isaac was not only interrupted, but from necessity finally abandoned. He was placed by his mother in a situation at Leeds, in which he could have an opportunity of learning certain branches of the woollen manufactory. Here he not only attended diligently during the appointed hours, but before he went to his work in the factory, rising in winter many hours before day break, and working by candle light, and (with his brother Joseph) plied the shuttle incessantly for the aid of his mother, left in an ill state of health to get a scanty living by the labour of her hands. How few young lads would have given so early, and so excellent an example of affectionate self-denial! In this as in every other instance, filial piety met with its reward.

So

By the kind interference of his brother, young Isaac was soon released from his voluntary toil, and applied to pursuits more congenial to his taste, and more worthy of the strength and activity of his mind. well had the rudiments of classical learning been fixed in his memory, that our young weaver was ready without delay to take charge of some of his brother's classes in the grammar school at Hull, where he continued with credit and usefulness to himself and others, until in 1770 he was entered a sizer of Queen's College, Cambridge.

"He took his Bachelor's degree in 1774, when he attained the high honour of being at once the senior wrangler of his year, and the first Smith's prize man. So strongly, indeed, was his superiority over all his competitors marked upon occasion, that, contrary to the usual practice, it was deemed right by the ex

aminers to interpose a blank space between them, and he was honoured with the designation of Incomparabilis, a distinction which has never been conferred, but in one other instance. Nor was his academical fame confined to his mathematical proficiency, for he was not less eminent in other walks of literature and science. In theology, we learn from Bishop Watson, that he was so deeply read, that when he kept his act, the divinity school was thronged with auditors from top to the bottom, and their curiosity was amply gratified by listening to what the prelate terms a real academical entertainment The circumstance of these disputations being held in Latin, proves also that Milner must have made great progress in classical knowledge.

Such high academical honours were sure of meeting with their reward; and we accordingly find, that in the following year he was elected a fellow of his college, In 1783 and 1785, he acted as moderator in the schools; was nominated in 1782, one of the proctors, and in 1783, a taxer of the University. In the latter year he was also chosen to be the first Jacksonian Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and Chymistry, in which sciences he had previously given several courses of public lectures in the University, with great acceptance. Whilst at college he formed an intimacy with Mr. Wilberforce, whom he is said to have been instrumental in bringing to the decided adoption of those views of religion which he has since so steadily maintained, and adorned by a life consistent in all points with the profession which he makes. By his means Mr. Milner was introduced to the acquaintance of Mr. Pitt; and in the year 1787, these three eminent men set out together on a tour to the Continent, in which they had not proceeded far before Mr. Pitt was recalled home in consequence of some change in the ministry, which led to his elevation to the premiership. His companions accompanied him to England, where their intimacy was continued uninterrupted by any differences, until first Mr. Pitt, and then Dean Milner were removed by death; leaving, we fondly hope, the survivor of this interesting trio to linger long behind his departed friends, cheered in the close of a long and useful life, by a recollection of the good which he has been permitted to effect, by the active devotion of the strength and vigour of his days to the cause of religion and benevolence."-Vol. I. p. 31.

The following year he was elected president of the College and took his degree as Doctor in Divinity, and immediately commenced, and successfully accomplished a much needed reform in the interior discipline of this institution: He introduced to its fellowships men eminent for their talents in other colleges, and, during his presidency, Queens College was celebrated for the number of pious young men who studied there for the Christian ministry, and who are now some of the most popular and zealous clergymen of the Establishment among that class of its teachers, termed opprobriously by some, but as an honourable distinction by others, evangelical. In this view his long residence at Cambridge, and that of his pious and liberal friend, the Rev. Charles Simeon, may certainly be considered highly beneficial to the church of God.

In 1781, he was raised, probably through Mr. Pitt's influence, to the deanery of Carlisle; and in 1788 he was placed in the chair of the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics-a situation which had been filled successively by Isaac Barrow, Sir Isaac Newton, Whiston, Saunderson, Colson, and Waring-the most eminent mathematicians of their day. He also twice filled the office of Vice Chancellor of the university.

Thus have we seen the poor fatherless weaver's boy, who gave his cold and dark mornings to confining and irksome labour to support a feeble mother, marked by that eye which seeth in secret, and led by that invisible but strong hand which delights to draw virtue from its seclusion, and to place humility on high, through a succession of gradually brightening seenes, till he was elevated to one of the most distinguished

stations in his country, and associated both by literary honours and personal intercourse with her most eminent men. His highest honour, however, consisted in his usefulness in the church, to which he added in giving many valuable ministers-which he presented with the fruit of his brother's labour-and whose vital interests he ably and triumphantly defended in the controversy with Dr. Herbert Marsh, (now Bishop of Peterborough) respecting the British and Foreign Bible Society.

His own personal ministry was much broken in upon by ill health, to which he was a victim all his days. Yet the following extract from his own words will show that his labours were neither destitute of fruit nor wanting in that evangelical spirit which ought ever to characterize the servant of Jesus Christ.

"There is one thing evidently taking place, at which it is lawful for me to rejoice; and at which, therefore, I will rejoice; namely, that I hear more and more every year of the blessed effects of some of my labours. These smiles of the Head of the church are, to my mind, the most delightful thing by far that I meet with in this world; and, I thank God, that the effect which they seem to bave on my mind, is to dispose me to be more simple in my addresses, to use less disguise, and to rely less and less on any human schemes and artifices for making the Gospel more palatable. Such plans never did answer; they do no good at the time, and afterwards the remembrance of them is sure to prove either a burden or a snare, or both, to the conscience. To live the life of the disciple of Christ in all our intercouse with men, and to act the faithful part, I find a much harder task; and, I must say, that I invariably succeed better by coming out from among them. I do this much more than I have done, though I never gave very greatly into the practice."-Vol. I: p 37.

"These are sentiments worthy of a dignitary of the church, and remind us powerfully of some of the dignitaries of the church of England in its best daysdays which it wants but such men as Milner, for its bishops and its deans, to revive again, Placed as he was in a situation which peculiarly exposed him to opposition, and ridicule for preaching and maintaining the unfashionable doctrines of our venerable reformers, and of the articles and homilies of the church, of which they were the ornament and pride, he was not deterred by the senseless charge of Methodism from boldly and fully declaring the whole counsel of God. Convinced, as he himself avowed, that "the preaching of the word is still, as it always was, the great means used by God in bringing about conversions;" he prepared, in the latter years of his life, many more discourses for the pulpit than his strength permitted him to deliver. That strength, however, he tried to the utmost; and when he was engaged in the work which he loved, the importance of his subject would sometimes lead him to preach for an hour at a time, though he was well convinced such an exertion was too much for his weak state of health. His friends, immediately after his death, gave us reason to hope, however, that his labours would not be lost; but that some of the sermons which he could not deliver from the pulpit, would be permitted to edify the Christian public from the press; and we are happy to record the partial fulfilment of that promise, in the recent appearance of one volume of those discourses, whose merit has induced a general wish, in which we most cordially participate, for a continuance of the selection. Expectations are also held out, by their editor, of the publication, at some future, and we trust at no very distant period, of a treatise, left behind him in a tolerably prepared state for the press, on some of the most important of those doctrines of the Gospel, which formed the basis at once of the dean's ministration and his faith."-Vol I. pp. 37, 38.

"For the last few years of his life, his health and strength rapidly declined, though he witnessed their decay with the utmost resignation and composure; endeavouring, as he himself wrote to a friend, to "make it his prayer, that the afflictions which he suffered might not be removed, until they had brought about and finished the work which our gracious and merciful high Priest intended them to perform" Informed by his physicians some years before his death, that with h a pulse as his. a man's life was not worth one minute, he could say, without

fear or regret, "how loudly all this says, prepare to meet thy God!" A few weeks before his decease, the dean had come up to town on business, and took up his abode as usual in the house of his old and valued friend, Mr. Wilberforce. He embraced the opportunity of a short residence in London to have medical ad vice, but the gentlemen who were called in had no idea of his disease being attended with any immediate danger; nor did he himself appear, indeed, to entertain more than his general and long fixed conviction of the extreme uncertainty of the continuance of a person of his shattered health in this world. His conversation, however, was at times peculiarly serious; and he lost no suitable opportunity of bearing his testimony to the importance of the doctrines of grace, of personal piety, and an entire submission to the will of God. At times be seemed to have a conviction of his approaching end. On one occasion he said to a clergyman long known to him, and who was about to return into the country, "God bless you! take care where you and I meet again-that is every thing." Not many days before he was confined to his room, on taking leave of another friend, who was setting out on a long voyage, after bidding him farewell with the rest of the company, the dean called him back; and as he shook hands with him again, said, "Farewell! God bless you-my heart will be with you, and with all, - I trust, who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity. Time is short,-let us hope to meet on durable ground" A day or two before his death, he made an attempt to engage in prayer with his servant who attended him, desiring him previously to read to him the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel; a portion of Scripture which many years before he had pointed out to a friend as a favourite with him, especially that verse of it in which our Lord assures his disciples, "In my father's house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you." When the reading was over, the dean put his hand to his forehead, and said, "I cannot tell what is the matter with me, but I cannot think; my mind is gone." night previous to his removal, the oldest, and one of the most affectionate of his friends, came to his bed-side, when he uttered, with great bodily weakness, a word or two, which convinced him that he was looking for another and better world. On Sunday morning, the 1st of April, about eleven o'clock, he suddenly extended his limbs, and in three sighs closed his earthly pilgrimage, and entered on his heavenly rest, having attained the 70th year of his age."-Vol. I. p. 34, 35.

The

Having completed our design in noticing these volumes, that of giving a short account of the lives of the eminent authors, we have only to recommend their pious example as a pattern worthy of imitation by all who aspire to Christian excellence. The prayers of Christians should embrace earnest supplication that the Lord would send forth more such labourers into his harvest ;-men burning with a holy desire for the conversion of the world, and who are through divine grace enabled rightly to divide the word of truth and give to each his portion in due

season.

Entelligence.

INDIA WITHIN THE GANGES.-BOMBAY MISSION,

FROM the information concerning this mission, which the Missionary Herald, papers, and letters before us contain, we shall endeavour to collect a brief view of its progress from our last notices, (pp. 46, 469, and 550,) to the 15th of August. 1822.

In a letter of that date, addressed by the Rev. G. HALL to WILLIAM TAYLOR MONEY, Esq. M. P. he observes, that the various operations of the mission advance as encouragingly as could reasonably be expected,

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