The great truths which burst the tenfold night Of heathen error, with a golden flood

Of endless day.'

Talk they of morals? Oh, thou bleeding love!
The grand morality is love of thee.

YOUNG.

"It is said, that when Baxter first came to Kidderminster, he found it overrun with ignorance and profaneness. He found but a single house or two, that used daily family prayer in a whole street; and, at his going away, but one family or two could be found, in some streets, that continued in the neglect of it. And on the Lord's day, instead of the open profanation to which they had been so long accustomed, a person in passing through the town, in the intervals of public worship, might overhear hundreds of families engaged in singing psalms, reading the scriptures, or other good books, or such sermons as they had taken down on hearing them delivered from the pulpit. The number of his stated communicants rose to six hundred; of whom he himself decla red, there were not twelve concerning whose sincere piety he had not reason to entertain good hopes. Blessed be God the religious spirit which was thus happily introduced, is yet to be traced in the town and neighbourhood, in some degree."

The wonderful effects produced by the preaching, and other labours of the late Mr. Fletcher, at Madeley, are pretty well known. I wish every minister of the gospel would read his Portrait of St. Paul, as published by Mr. Gilpin. It is an excellent work. The various traits in St. Paul's character are drawn in a masterly manner; and

the traits that Mr. Gilpin has given us of the author, shews that the worth of immortal souls was deeply impressed on his heart. He took heed to himself and his doctrine, as one that was soon to appear before the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls, to give an account of himself and those committed to his care.

Such as will read that work, and Dr. White head's Life of Mr. Wesley, must learn that God is still with such as faithfully dispense his word, and boldly declare that there is no other name given under heaven whereby men can be saved; that other foundation can no man lay than that which is already laid, which is Jesus Christ. It was by thus preaching Christ, that three thousand were converted by one sermon preached by Peter.

"Jesus, the name high over all
In hell, or earth, or sky!
Angels and men before it fall,
And devils fear and fly.

Jesus, the name to sinners dear,
The name to sinners given!
It scatters all their guilty fear
kador. It turns their hell to heaven."

In Mr. Wesley's Life we learn, that plain men, without any pretension to learning or great talents, have, by preaching Christ crucified from a real heart-felt love to Christ, and to their fellow-creatures, seen their labours attended with the most wonderful effects; sinners have been first pricked to the heart, and after that have been en abled to believe to the salvation of their souls, and

have ever after lived so as to adorn the gospel of Christ in all things; so that the world have taken knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. The life that they henceforth lived was by the faith of the Son of God, who loved them, and gave himself for them, to redeem them from this present evil world, and hereafter from the wrath of God, which is ready to be manifested against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of

men.

'Jesus the prisoner's fetters breaks,
And bruises Satan's head;

Power into strengthless souls it speaks,
And life into the dead.

Thus does God by the foolishness of preaching save them that believe. By this "foolish preaching," as it is called by the world, the hearts and lives of thousands and tens of thousands have been totally changed; drunkards became sober; adulterers became chaste; the covetous were made liberal; the extravagant, careful; and the most ignorant were made wise unto salvation, and able to give a rational account of the religion of Christ; the brutish were civilized; the passionate were made gentle; the proud were made humble and meek; the cruel and hard-hearted were made merciful and tender-hearted; the unjust became just in all their dealings; slanderers and back biters were made partakers of that love

that thinketh no evil, hopeth all things believeth all things, and covereth a multitude of the sins of others; the selfish churl became friendly; liars spoke the truth; blasphemers became ador ers of God; thieves provided things honest in the sight of all men; rebels became loyal, and prayed for the King and all in authority; smugglers, and their encouragers, learned to render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's; sabbath-breakers learned to spend the day in religious worship and pious exercises; the idle became industrious. In short, like the apostles, they turned the world upside down, knowledge arose out of ignorance, order out of confusion, light out of darkness, happiness out of misery, heaven out of hell.

Who can reflect on these wonderful changes without acknowledging that this must be the work of God? The powers of earth and hell have a thousand times been stirred up against this work in vain. The gates of hell have not been able to prevail against it. It has increased, is increasing, and God grant that it may never be diminished, but increase a thousand fold.

What says my old friend to all this? Will you also be his disciple? Methinks I hear you say, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Methodist.

"O that the world might taste and see
The riches of his grace!
The arms of love that compass me,
Would all mankind embrace

Fly, sinners, fly into the arms
Of everlasting love,'

I am,

Dear friend,

Yours.

LETTER XXV.

'The weary and burthen'd, the reprobate race
All wait to be pardon'd, thro' Jesus's grace.
In Jesu's compassion the sick find a cure:
And gospel salvation is preach'd to the poor."

DEAR FRIEND,

HAVING those serious views of sacred subjects, I was more than ever desirous that the poor ignorant, thoughtless people in my neighbourhood should be awakened and made sensible of their dreadful state; but how to effect this I was at a loss: for in giving away the religious tracts, I found that some of the farmers and their children, and also three-fourths of the poor, could not read; that some of the farmers hated the clergy on the score of tythes; so that some of those that now and then went to church were not likely to receive benefit from those they hated Others of them would neither go to church themselves, nor let their families go. Many of the poor also lived in the total neglect of all public worship; and spent the sabbath, some in alehouses, others at pitch-and-toss, fives, and other