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saint had endured the conflict, passed the fiery trial, had obtained the promise, and realized the blessing, even in old age. Verses 17, 18, O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth; and hitherto have I declared Thy wondrous works' Now also when I am old and gray headed, O God, forsake me not until I have showed Thy strength unto this generation, and Thy power to every one that is to come: verses 19, 22, 23, Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high, who hast done great things; O God, who is like unto Thee!' I will also praise Thee with the Psaltery, even Thy truth, O my God; O thou Holy One of Israel:''My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto Thee, and my soul which Thou hast redeemed.' This exaltation seems to proceed from the answer to the prayer, verse 9, Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.' The thirty-seventh psalm is very appropriately preceded by the thirty-sixth, which sets forth the grievous state of the wicked, and the excellency of God's mercy: I have been young, and now am old,' &c.

The following suggestions are well worthy our very serious consideration :

1. That God in His word, on all occasions, has manifested a very tender regard for His aged servants.

2. That the aged, in the pristine state of the Church, were the strong hold of the believers, and the way marks to life and glory; holding fast their integrity and steadfastness in the faith even down to old age, they became living witnesses and practical epistles of Divine truth.

3. Although we have now the surer word of prophecy or revelation, and the experience of thousands of saints before us, yet we are bound by Christian obligations to regard the aged with tenderness, and with the deepest veneration and respect.

1. God honored the aged; His delight has ever been with the faithful in the decline of life. Abraham was faithful and obtained a promise in his old age, and became the father of the righteous. 2. This promise was confirmed to his son Isaac in his old age. 3. It was realized by Jacob, the father of Israel, after trying his faith; and blessings were showered down upon him in his old age. Isaiah applies the promises to Jacob's posterity, who loved God, But thou İsrael, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. Fear not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.' The same consolation which was manifested to the patriarchs was extended to Elijah, Elisha, Samuel, and David, and to all the aged saints of God down to good old Simeon; who, having lived to see the fulfilment of all the predictions of the prophets as to the appearance of the Redeemer on earth, 'took him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy SALVATION, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.'

God manifests a tender regard for the aged. This is manifest, in granting them grace according to the season of affliction: when the members of the body begin to fail, when the senses begin to be locked up by the infirmities of age, when the powers of the mind begin to fail, He pours out upon them at such a season the consolations of His Holy Spirit. The long Scriptural account of the triumphs of such through life and in death we need not now repeat. We need not present an aged John whispering to his little flock, Little children, love one another! We may come down to our own days and period of life, and tell of some who have lived until they had forgotten the names of their own children, the names and persons of their own sons and daughters, yet when spoken to respecting the tender mercy of God, with a countenance beaming with delight, a recollection never lost, they have raised their hands and clapped them in holy ecstasy, and shouted the Redeemer's praise! Here then are the triumphs of a living faith! It extends to all circumstances and afflictions of life; God gives grace to meet death, to conquer, to triumph, and to shout 'victory' in and through the name of the Holy One of Israel!

2. The aged, in the pristine state of the Church, were the strong hold of the believers, &c.

It has been a language often repeated by aged saints, 'Why does God let me live? Why do I yet suffer? I have outlived my generation; there are but few of my friends now alive; I am old and forsaken, and almost forgotten; I do not desire life; I stand like a useless tenement, beaten almost to pieces by the storms of life; I desire to lay my wearied and trembling limbs low in the grave. Having been long looking out for the coming of the chariot of my Master to convey me to my desired home, I am ready to say, O why does He delay His coming?' I have seen the aged servants of God lift up their languid eye and look toward the hills of Zion, and seem to have a longing desire to be loosed from their prison of clay. To one thus anxious to depart, I freely expressed my opinion. I told this old saint that it was probable that God protracted many lives of His aged servants to try the patience and Christian virtues of the rising generation-the duty toward the aged was well understood that the performance of this duty from children was expected by the Lord even under a darker dispensation!--that on the other hand they stood as in times of old, in place of the old patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, as guides, as way marks, to direct the rising generation the way to heaven. Then said she, 'The Lord's time is my time!' and this some years afterward was her dying expression. Let this be the language of the aged!

I have often thought that it might be made to appear, that the aged servants of God were like the mounds or monuments, or heaps of stones thrown together to direct the way through à desert or unsettled country. Such monuments were used in the hilly country of old in Judea. By such means the traveller is led on from point to point; and though it may be said it is often a rough road, yet it leads up to JERUSALEM! Though often difficult, by those way marks we may be making our direct approaches to a delightful city. Old veterans of the cross! stand to your posts a few fleeting years, and combat a few more difficulties; stand fast until a few more beating storms shall pass over,

and as living witnesses you may be the means of saving souls, and of adding many stars to your crown in glory. I never cast my eye on an aged minister of the Gospel without the strongest sensations. During the last year, I witnessed what I had not done for many years, namely, the state of one of these men of God, and when about to depart, offered the last prayer before he bid the world adieu. How thankful I felt that God had given me grace to treat him as an aged father in the Gospel! God himself has pronounced old age, if found in the way of righteousness, to be honorable, and has commanded us to reverence the aged!

3. We are bound by Christian obligations to regard the aged with tenderness and with the deepest veneration and respect.

It is probable that my own peculiar situation in youth has impressed this subject on my mind with more force, than it would have otherwise been, had it not have fallen to my lot to be as a speckled bird in my early day. And that was in relation to the old professors of religion. When I became a member of the Church, at the age of about twentyone, I have no distinct recollection of but one youth, about my age, who was then taken in as a member of the Church north-west of the river Ohio! and the young man who forms this exception is now a preacher, and my mind was waked up to this subject by an unexpected call to see me this day! Then in the bloom of youth, old fathers and mothers in Israel were my companions at the house of prayer; and ah! solemn thought! they have nearly all gone, having entered through the gates into that holy and happy city. From this early association with the aged, I have experienced the most lasting benefits.

We live in an evil day; and although it is a season for mental improvement, and a period of a great and glorious enlargement of Christian experience, yet there is much danger of losing sight of our proper way mark. If there is much light spread abroad, there is much ignorance, and many false systems are propagated through the world. There is a strong propensity manifested by the present generation to inquire what our forefathers have been doing? And in an attempt to separate truth from error, the good from the evil, we are too often disposed to listen to the counsel of our own desires, and for the want of a practical experience and a thorough knowledge of mankind and of the depravity of our own hearts, we are too apt to set at nought and wholly to disregard the experience and admonition of the old servants of God.

If we have more light and knowledge than they possessed in their day, it is because they were the giants, and we the dwarfs on their shoulders; and a dwarf, by being placed on a giant's shoulders, can see farther than the giant himself..

But let us turn our attention to our duty toward the aged. There is something in regard to the aged servants of God which excites our attention and awakens our sympathies. It is like looking on one from another stage of being! It is like conversing with the preceding generation! There stands an aged disciple of Jesus before me, which causes me to reflect on ages past. Do I desire to speak of events beyond the flood? Then speak and learn of NOAH! Do I wish to learn meekness and perseverance? Then speak to Moses, he was forty years with the children of Israel in the wilderness! Do I desire to

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learn patience? Then turn about and converse with Job! Hear his doleful tale-stripped of every thing but his confidence in God, and though condemned by friends and enemies, he holds to his integrity; and God calls him four times my servant Job! Do I wish to learn lessons of submission, in waiting patiently for God's time? Then ask good old Simeon if he was wearied in well doing! Ask him if there was not more real joy and gladness in his heart when he took 'Jesus in his arms,' than amply compensated him for all his sorrows and afflictions in waiting so long! If we wish to learn lessons of Christian humility, look to Jesus in the garden, and hear Him say, Father, not my will, but thine be done!' Hear John in the decline of life preaching to his little flock, 'Little children, love one another! If you wish to learn lessons of experience, and how God wrought with generations now past and gone, go to that aged father and mother in Israel. Their hoary heads, their furrowed cheeks, their trembling limbs and faltering voice, mark them out as sufficiently ancient to speak of those things. They will tell you that in their day it was a hard struggle-that it was a great conflict that it was through much tribulation, after much prayer and the shedding of many tears, before they found the pearl of great price; and nothing short of abiding grace, and daily bread, could have sustained them! But O! the duty to aged parents; my pen trembles; my parents are now in glory. I often reflect on my own neglect of duties, and aimost envy the sister that bore the larger share of duty in smoothing their sorrows and afflictions in life. I shall never forget the expressions of Rev. A. W. E. in 1827. Having led to the house of worship an aged father (near one hundred years old) and a servant of the most high God, and conducted him to his seat in the congregation -my two sisters bearing forward the pious old mother in like manner, it appeared as if the two had been brought forward from beyond the flood. The preacher in closing his discourse looked around him, and in a flood of tears remarked, Had I an aged father and mother alive, I would take them to my bosom; I would wipe away every trickling tear from their furrowed cheeks; I would cheer them as to the prospect of another and a better world. Yes, I would take them in my arms and carry them to the house of prayer; I would bow down at their feet in the morning and in the evening, and ask God to bear them as lambs in his own bosom through the dark and gloomy valley of the shadow of death!' No one can conceive, but those who were there, and heard and felt the force of the expression, the powerful impression this made. May the Lord so remember all his old servants in the decline of life. THEOPHILUS ARMINIUS.

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EDUCATION.

COMPARATIVE STATE OF INSTRUCTION IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES.

In the July number of the Annals of Education and Instruction, there are some interesting observations upon the condition of the literary institutions of this country, compared with those of Europe. The

article was communicated to the American Lyceum by Mr. Woodbridge, the editor of the Annals. The opportunities for the profound study of every branch of science and literature in Europe, are greatly superior to those in our own country. The princes of many of the smaller states of Europe, whose power or talents do not permit them to become conspicuous by their conquests or political influence, find a wide field for distinguishing themselves, by becoming the patrons of the arts and literature. How striking and painful the contrast is in our own country, need not here be mentioned. 'An unhappy jealousy,' remarks Mr. Woodbridge, exists against the attempt to elevate the standard of science and literature, lest they should be made the instruments of establishing a literary aristocracy. It is forgotten, that even in despotic governments, the nation of literary men has ever remained a republic. Another encouragement to the profound studies to which the scholars of Europe devote themselves, arises from the fact, that in many countries it is the surest, if not the only road to distinction.— 'The offices of state are assigned by inheritance or patronage, in such a manner that most of the community are for ever excluded from the hope of becoming statesmen.' 'But in the United States, the road to distinction and wealth is through an active or political life. Every citizen is called upon to take a part in the political, social, and religious concerns of the community, and every one, who possesses high intellectual power, is called upon to an extent, which absorbs all the time and strength which is not demanded by the labors necessary for subsistence. At the close of the preliminary observations, of which we have given a slight sketch, Mr. Woodbridge presents the following tabular statement of the number of students in the universities and colleges of the respective states of this country, and of the principalł nations of Europe. The materials for the former, were derived from the American Quarterly Register, and for the latter, from the Weimar Statistical Almanac for 1831-a work of high authority.

It is a matter of regret, that our government do not embrace in the decennial enumeration of the inhabitants, statements respecting the common schools, and the number of pupils, academies, high schools, colleges, and professional schools. In this way, a literary census of great value might be taken, with very little trouble or expense. From period to period it would furnish a most satisfactory exposition of the state and progress of literature and education, and materials for comparison between the several divisions of the country, and between this country and Europe.-Am. Quarterly Register.

Comparison of the number of students in the United States with that of the countries of Europe.

The number of academical students in the United States is here estimated at 3,475; theological students, 663; legal, 88; medical, not far from 2,000. They belong to the several states as here apportioned. For want of data, however, the medical and legal students were divided among the various states according to their population.

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