not To-morrow been deceiving you all last year? Do not as many excuses for living at a distance come with to-morrow, as can be invented to-day? Have you not thus lost the whole of your To-days, with the pleasure and improvement of living near to God, and promoting his glory? Have you not, by this confidence in To-morrow, lost many, many opportunities of usefulness, which she will never bring back to you again? While you have thus been intending to seek more earnestly your brother's welfare, the Judge has said to him, This night thy soul shall be required of thee! How long, then, will it be ere you say Farewell, To-morrow! My maxim is, Vive hodie, carpe diem.'

Romsey.

J. B.

AN ORIGINAL LETTER.

Sir,

To the Editor.

The following short Letter from the late Rev. David Jones, of Langan, to the Countess of Huntingdon, it is presumed, will not be unacceptable to your Readers. Those who knew him, will easily recognize their old friend; and to such as were unacquainted with him, it may give as good an idea of the man and his manner as might be conveyed in so few lines. A FRIEND.

To the Countess of Huntingdon.

My dear and truly honoured Lady, July 23, 1782. THANKS to your Ladyship for your kind favour, which I received by yesterday's post. Don't be cast down: the ark in which you are will never give you up to the waves; ride on, therefore, without fear: though the billows may rage and foam, you will not be disembarked till you are brought safe to your desired port. If you think in earnest that you will sink, I had rather go to the bottom with you than swim with your enemies: this is the very truth. But if sink we must, Heaven shall hear our hosannahs (and perhaps hallelujahs too) from the bottoms of the mountains, and out of the belly of hell. Salvation shall be our song, and heaven shall be our rest for ever.

Your Ladyship may expect to see such a poor creature as I am, in a few weeks, at the College. My friend -- promises to meet me there. I must stay a few Sundays at home first; then I will try to give your chapel a Sunday-moming sermon; and, in the afternoon, somewhere below Talgarth. My wife joins me in love and duty to your Ladyship and Ever, ever yours,

Lady Anne.

D. JONES.

ON THE NEW YEAR.

This year thou shalt die. Jer. xxviii. 16.

THAT Death is uncertain, only in the time of its arrival, is a truth long since uncontroverted, and which the experience of mankind is daily confirming. It was said by the prophet Jeremiah, to one whose days were appointed, and the number of his months, as in the mottu, This year thou shalt die.' To whom, on the present commencement of a new year, this is applicable, the great Disposer of life and death alone can

tell.

To many this is certain :

"The reverse is sure to none.

But since we know it must be so to many, and, for aught we know, it may be to us, it becomes us individually to take it into serious consideration. Should it be me, how am I prepared for so great a change? Have I improved the past? Do I prize the present, and only use it for the glory of God and my soul's eternal interest? To what purpose am I a monument of sparing mercy? Since last the revolving seasons brought the period to which I am again arrived, the Spring has smiled, the Summer has glowed, Autumn has presented the golden harvest and the purple vintage. Nature then, it seems, has not been inactive. She has amply answered the end of her institution, and given seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; but has my heart and conduct displayed the blossoms of grace, the mature powers of fervent zeal, and the peaceable fruits of righteousness? Has it not rather resembled the barren aspect of Winter, cheerless and unprofitable, frozen by the chill blasts of indifference, and resemnbling it in all but the hidden energy of vegetation? To the most active of the people of God this will, in some measure, apply; for who among professing Christians has lived up to the profession which he makes? Again; when we consider the thousands of instances, seen aud unseen, in which we have been preserved, when there was but a step between us and death, we can but admire the grace which has excepted us from the number of those who have fallen by various means of accident or disease.

'Death's thousand doors (as Dr. Young expresses it) stand open, and we are hourly pressing forward, and often, as it were, just at the entrance;' but Mercy draws us back, or closes the dark gate. There the King of Terrors holds his gloomy court, and grins horribly at the crowds of victims who hourly swell the number of his sacrifices; but there is a door, by which the rigoteous are admitted, where half his terrors are not seen, where Jesus guards the passage to eternal bliss.

Here then the language of inquiry again recurs: Am I of that number? Am I washed in the blood of the Lamb? Has the Son made me free? Then am I free indeed. Do I find the influence of divine grace resisting the inward corruptions of my nature? If so, give God the praise, the work is his, and he will crown it with everlasting glory.

this year

O Christian, if the motto be indeed applicable, what a scene of triumph is before you! This year thou shalt indeed overcome all thine enemies; this year thou shalt escape from all the evils of life; thou shalt bid adieu to pain, to grief, to sin;-this year thou shalt see the King in his beauty; this year thou shalt be satisfied with his likeness, and see him as he is; this year thou shalt begin the song of the redeemed, and commence the eternal hallelujah, -For this year thou shalt die!

To you, unconverted and unawakened sinners, what shall I say? Your prospects are truly awful. Death is at hand; judgment must follow. Eternity is before you, and you are unprepared for all. Ere another year, what thousands must be added to the inhabitants of the shades of death! and you may be of the number. How shall you escape? - for the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against you, his law condemns you, his justice pursues you, his terrors will shortly surprize you; but his gospel offers you peace and salvation. See, the banner of the Cross is unfurled! Fly! take shelter under it! You have not a moment to lose; for know not but this year thou shalt die!' MARIA.

you

A CONCISE VIEW OF

THE PRESENT STATE OF EVANGELICAL RELIGION THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

NO. V.

[Continued from p. 471.]

ASIA.

In a religious view, this most populous region of the world affords a scene truly afflictive. Darkness, as the shadow of death, is spread over all the nations of the east. The empire of China alone is said to contain more than three hundred and thirty millions of immortal souls; and not a beam of gospel light and truth hath yet arisen upon them! The population of the whole continent is supposed to exceed two inousand millions, and involved almost in the same spiritual blindness and ignorance.

This vast quarter of the globe is occupied by three great bodies of men; consisting of Pagan Idolaters, Mahometans,

and Christians, chiefly of the Greek church. The number of the first far predominates. Japan, Corea, China, Tonquin, Siam, the Burman Empire, Thibet, Tartary, Indostan, with other countries of the east, offer a melancholy prospect to a Christian's heart. He cannot extend the pale of salvation where God's revealed word affords no ground for hope. The laxity of miscalled Charity contradicts every sound principle of real Christianity. As but one name is given under heaven among men, whereby they can be saved, how should they be lieve in Him, of whom they have not heard? or, How obtain eternal life, but by the knowledge of the true God, and of Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent? That the gospel should be preached to every creature under heaven, is the injunction of the divine Master to his faithful disciples; and these milbons among the Heathen, perishing for lack of knowledge, ery with a voice which should awaken the attention, and rouze the zeal of every man who hath felt the value of his own soul, to rush to their help, and pluck the 'brands from the burning. The call is imperious; and cannot be neglected in any land where Christ's kingdom is established, without great unfaithfulness to the divine Master, and criminal insensibility to the value of the souls redeemed by his most precious blood. The perishing Heathen claim our first concern and services!

The Mahomedan superstition, next in extent thro' this region of the earth, hath spread far and wide its baneful influence. It would carry me too far to trace the swarms of locusts rising from the bottomless pit, as they darken the sun, and extend the cloud from Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, through all lands from the remotest east to the Pillars of Hercules. Great part of Asia submitted to the sword, and to the seductions of the arch-impostor: vast countries, where once the cross spread its triumphant banners, are reduced to the basest servitude, and the light put out in obscure darkness; and the like inroads has the Crescent made on the idols of Paganism, and holds with them, through all this region, a divided empire, By these two unclean spirits, from the mouth of the beast and of the false prophet, is this fair portion of the earth spiritually made desolate!

Christianity once flourished in Egypt, Asia Minor, and the east. It is now reduced to the lowest ebb. No longer a graceful form in the beauty of holiness, the Greek church exhibits only the meagre skeleton of her former beauty and glory; and threatens her final extinction. Debased by superstition, and sunk in immorality, though the name and forms - are subsisting, the temple totters from its foundation, and is throughout dilapidated, -the divine Inhabitant is filed! In. characteristic excellence, such as should adorn the Christian name, it can claim no preference to the Paganism and Ma

homedanism among whom it continues to subsist; and the Latin church seems just as degraded: their zeal exhausted in mutual anathemas, and more employed in biting and devouring one another, than in forming any plan, or exerting any labours of love for the salvation of those around them. Where tolerated, the Greek church hath lost all power, wealth, and respect, - despised and oppressed by its conquerors; and only permitted to exist under tribute. In a body still numerous and widely extended, a few may yet be found, according to the election of grace, who, having the Scriptures in their churches, may be taught of God, and believe to the saving of their souls; but where such are to be found, I have not yet discovered, among Copts of Armenians, Nestorians or Eutychians, as all appear sunk in the lowest depths of ignorance and superstition, and destitute of the life and power of godliness.

--

With such inauspicious prospects the heart is ready to faint, and sink in despair of attempting a task so apparently hope less, as reviving the stones of the desolate temple from the rubbish of ages, and infusing new life into the torpid mass: but Charity never faileth, and Faith can pierce through the thick cloud of difficulties. Who art thou, O great mountain before Zerubbabel? - thou shalt become a plain. We read what hath been done by feeble instruments, from how small beginnings the most astonishing events have arisen; we have beheld a few poor fishermen evangelizing the world, and in the name of their divine Master, in the face of dangers and opposition from Earth and Hell prevailing. Some flaming spirit, like Jacob Baradeus, or Luther, may arise to kindle up the expiring embers from the ashes that seem destitute of every vital spark. The Lord's hand is not shortened, that he cannot save, nor his ear heavy, that he cannot hear: he is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. The residue of the Spirit is with him; if he will work, none can let it. We have the same promises as of old to encourage the attempt: he hath engaged to be with us always, even to the end of the world; and his charge is equally binding on us in all ages, as on those to whom he enjoined, Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature: he that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.' Awakened by his awful voice, though late, to a sense of duty, a few of this land have associated to renew the arduous task, in dependence on Him who can bring strength out of weakness, and save by few as by many. Oh, that all that are in Asia may hear once more the word of the Lord, and be turned from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God!

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[To be continued.]