attendance, was at once performing an act of justice and of self-denial. He would not detain him from his rightful owner, though he was so great a comfort to himself in his forlorn confineIt was also a fine occasion of pressing on Onesimus, that the return to his duty would be the surest evidence of his conversion.

ment.

Thus anxiously for an offending slave does he seem to touch every spring of pity in the heart of his friend, Who would imagine that the man, who thus labours the cause of so obscure an individual, had the superintendence of all the Christian churches in the world?

But with Saint Paul rectitude is always the prevailing principle. His zeal for his convert never makes him lose sight of the duty of restitution. Destitute, and a prisoner himself, he offers to make good the loss which Philemon might have sustained by his servant's misconduct. He candidly reminds him, however, how much the spiritual obligations of Philemon, his convert also, exceeded in value the debt due to him from Onesimus; though he refuses to avail himself of the plea. Thy servant, perhaps, owes thee a paltry sum of money thou owest me thine own self.

With his characteristic disinterestedness, he not only thus pathetically pleads for him who ́was to receive the good, but for him who was to do it; as if he had said Give me ground to rejoice in this evidence of thy Christian benevo

lence. He farther stimulates him to this act of charity, by declaring the confidence he had in his obedience; thus encouraging him to the duty, by intimating the certainty of his compliance. An additional lesson is given to religious professors, not only that their being Christians includes their being charitable, but that no act of charity should infringe on the rights of justice.

We conclude, by remarking on the union of judgment and kindness in Saint Paul's conduct respecting Onesimus. He sends him back to Philemon at Colosse, as a proof, on the part of Onesimus, of penitent humility, and on the part of Paul, of impartial equity. At the same time he more than takes away his disgrace, by honouring him with the office in conjunction with Tychicus, of being the bearer of his public Epistle to the Colossian church. He confers on him the farther honour of naming him, in the body of his Epistle, as a faithful and beloved

brother.

How different is this modest and rational report by an inspired Apostle, of a penitent criminal, a convert of his own; one who had survived his crimes long enough to prove the sincerity of his repentance by the reformation of his life; how different is this sober narrative by a writer who considered restitution as a part of repentance, and humility as an evidence of faith, from those too sanguine reports which are now so frequently issuing from the press, of the

conversion of criminals brought to execution for violating all the laws of God and man!

The Gospel presents us but with one such instance; an instance which is too often pressed into a service where it has nothing to do; yet we far more frequently see the example of the penitent thief on the cross brought forward as an encouragement to those who have been notorious offenders, than that of Onesimus; though the latter is of general application, and the former is inapplicable to criminals in a Christian country; for the dying malefactor embraced Christianity the moment it was presented to him. This solitary instance, however, no more offers a justification, than an example, of fanatical fervors; for if it exhibits a lively faith, it exhibits also deep penitence, humility, and selfcondemnation. Nor does the just confidence of the expiring criminal in the Redeemer's power swell him into that bloated assurance of which we hear in some late converts.

For, in the tracts to which we allude, we hear not only of one, but of many, holy highwaymen, triumphant malefactors, joyful murderers. True, indeed, it is, that good men on earth rejoice with the angels in heaven over even one sinner that repenteth. We would hope many of these were penitents; but as there was no space granted, as in the case of Onesimus, to prove their sincerity, we should be glad to see, in these statements, more con

trition and less rapture. May not young delinquents be encouraged to go on from crime to crime, feeling themselves secure of heaven at last, when they see, from this incautious charity, that assurance of acceptance which is so frequently withheld from the close of a life of persevering holiness, granted to the most hardened perpetrators of the most atrocious crimes?

As it has been observed, that the baskets of the hawkers have this year abounded in these dangerous, though, doubtless, well-meant tracts, may not the lower class in general, and our servants in particular, be encouraged to look for a happy termination of life, not so much to the dying bed of the exemplary Christian, as to the annals of the gallows? A few exceptions might be mentioned, honourable to the prudence, as well as to the piety, of the writers of some of these little narratives.

315

CHAP. XVIII.

SAINT PAUL ON THE RESURRECTION.

BEFORE the introduction of Christianity, so dark were the notices of a state beyond the grave, that it is no wonder if men were little inclined to give up the pleasures and interests of one world, of which they were in actual possession, for the possibility of another, doubtful at best, and too indistinct for hope, too uncertain for comfort.

If a state of future happiness was believed, or rather guessed at, by a few of those who had not the light of Revelation, no nation on earth believed it, no public religion in the world taught it. This single truth, then, firmly established, not only by the preaching of Jesus, but by his actual resurrection from the dead, produced a total revolution in the condition of inan. It gave a new impulse to his conduct, it infused a new vitality into his existence. Faith became to man an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast. This anchorage enables him to ride out the blackest storms; and though he must still work out his passage, the haven is near, and the deliverance certain, "while he keeps eye to the star, and his hand to the stern."

his