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them was gathering strength. They began in a week or two to drop hints that they really thought it too much to be ever going twice to church, and twice to church, every Sabbath, and every Sabbath, and more especially as they were SO closely engaged all the week, and seriously advised him to take a little relaxation-one half of the Sabbath occasionally; and very kindly offered to accompany him in a walk to the country. They talked continually of their master's tyranny, and how they had given him such pert and clever answers, and even insinuated that they did not think it far out of the way to appropriate a little thing for their own use, since their wages were so small. He heard all this, his soft waxen heart was impressed, his memory was polluted, and he never could forget these Sabbath conversations.

He changed his master in order to better his situation; but still his companions clung to him, and he to them. They would make appointments to meet him at a certain place on Sabbath morning; and after being separated from him a week, would hail him as an old friend, and ask many kind questions as to how he had prospered in his new situation. He now began to think, "Can I not try some of those things that I have heard so much about? I am sure I need a few pence for pocket money as much as John or James." From that moment he began to possess himself of little things, which his master after a while began to miss; but never suspecting him, the thing went on. Once, when returning

from going a message, he found the means of entering his master's desk. He abstracted a considerable sum of money. It is needless to say that this brought upon him the frown of the civil authorities, and he was lodged in jail,

What was the cause of all this disgrace to this young man? It was strolling on the Sabbath-day.

IV. Drinking is a great snare to young men.

We cannot enter upon its fatal consequences. O young man! are you entering upon a habit of drinking? Are you only just begun to get introduced into the society of drinking companions? Look to the end.

Let the following extracts from the pen of a young man who had gone through a lengthened course of dissipation, be a "word of warning" to young men in danger of forming intemperate habits. This young man was educated at a most respectable educational institution, and held lucrative situations as a teacher, both in Britain and America; but when he wrote the following for me he was the occupant of a narrow cell, clothed in garments stamped with the brand of infamy. He writes as follows:

"My present almost insupportable misery I ascribe to one, and only one thing, namely, a neglect of God's holy word. At one time I was under the influence of this blessed book. I delighted in hearing it read, and in reading it to others. It was the rule of my conduct; and all my actions, even to the minutest, were squared by it. A change took place, Gay society,

and the immoderate use of intoxicating drinks, gradually weaned me from its sacred contents, and in due time (that is, the devil's time), I lost sight of it altogether. My course was now downward, and in a short period I became a drunkard. A drunkard! Oh, horrible! some will say; but my answer must bedrunkard!

"I have travelled over a good part of the North American continent; met with persons from almost every nation in the world; seen and mingled in scenes which may be conceived but cannot be described; and in all this I never heard of, much less saw, any who suffered in person or estate from a diligent, prayerful, and believing perusal of God's word: while on the other hand, however, I saw many (open revilers of God and his word), and heard of ten times as many more, who must have either died of some loathsome disease, and consequently gone to a premature and disgraceful grave, or been useless cripples for the remainder of their lives. Let me advise all, therefore, but especially the young, whose thoughts, tastes, feelings, and affections require to be reduced to one harmonious whole, to ponder and think well. The pleasures that spring from the life of a libertine-who runs foul of nature and the Being who created him out of nothing-who exposes to disgrace his mother-who stunts in their growth the modest blushes that render a sister so lovely-and who would by his example convert this fair world into a pool of moral pollution-these pleasures, I say, are more apparent than real. The

truth is, of all men the libertine is the most wretched."

V. The theatre is another snare to young men.

"The theatre a snare to young men!" exclaims some one in surprise; "it is an innocent amusement." It is not long since a newspaper editor informed the public that it is the "most moral of all amusements." An innocent amusement! Oh, I wish you heard the deep-heaved sighs and saw the briny tears that I have heard and seen, in consequence of fortune squandered, character ruined, and hopes blasted, from theatre-going; you would not need arguments to convince you that the theatre is a dangerous place.

One day, in going the usual rounds of visitation, with Bible in hand, speaking the words of salvation from cell to cell, I entered the cell of a young man of polite address and intelligent expression. He was engaged at crank labour. The sweat sat in clammy drops upon his brow. My heart melted in sympathy over him, as he lifted his large naked hand to wipe off the perspiration which was now trickling down his faded cheeks. I entered into conversation with him regarding his best interests, and in the course of our conversation certain things fell from him deserving of being recorded; and at my suggestion, he gave the following account of himself in writing, with full permission to publish it :

"I was born at or near M, in the parish of I-, on the 7th of March, 1835. At the age of ten years I went as an errand-boy to a

seedsman, with whom I remained eleven months (having been only three years at school, and my education deficient), and afterwards was apprenticed to a printer, with whom I have been the whole of my time as a tradesman.

"Having acquired in a few months a knowledge of the trade to a certain extent, I was early put to the 'case,' to arrange types for printing; and by application and industry, soon earned a good deal of money. At this stage of life, being very young (about eleven years), I was fascinated by gaieties and superfluities, such as the theatre and ball-room, the former of which I often frequented, and THERE was my mind first decoyed from the paths of virtue. What with the brilliancy of the lights, the lofty tone of expression, the gorgeous apparel, the thrilling music, and the excited audience, together with the delicate and refined accentuation of the female performers, so excited was my imagination, that I continued for evenings successively to attend that place; and this, I consider, was the first step toward evil communications and evil society.

"Thus I lived in a land of imagination. I considered the common realities of life as stale, and consequently my mind was unfit for occupation the next day.

"The frequenter of the theatre soon becomes thrown into indecent society, and it follows, as a natural consequence, that the gin-palace is as often frequented as the theatre. As one morbid desire soon rouses another, it not unfrequently happens that the stimulant of liquor excites

a desire for indecent conversation with the female sex, and hence all the other evils will follow in their train. May the youth that is undefiled take warning, and NEVER go inside a theatre; as, if he does, it will inevitably be his fall, sooner or later."

VI. The ball-room and the gambling-table are great snares to young

men.

How long do you think a young man may attend the ball-room till he is ruined? About six weeks on an average! How do I know this? By the testimony of an officer of police, who waits at the door of a ball-room ready to apprehend the pickpockets that attend it. He said, "I just see them about six weeks on an average, and then they drop." What becomes of them? Do they get reformed, and forsake the dance? Only in a few cases. What becomes of them? Our police and prison registers can tell what becomes of many of them.

Young man, with gold-ringed finger, and ivory-headed cane, and elegant form, do you attend the ball-room? Then I would seriously advise you to begin to consider how you will look in a prison dress. How will it suit your ringed finger to turn the crank machine 14,000 times a day, and sleep upon a deal board with a cross bar at the top? Do not say I talk foolishly; I speak from what I have seen. Only about eighteen months ago I saw a young man doing this, who was educated for Cambridge, and with whom I could have read Homer and Virgil.

On the gambling-table I must say little: I will just say, however, to a

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But I will tell you of something without money and without price,Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is a ligature which binds the soul to Christ, and holds it away and keeps it away from the snares of the devil. How is this? Because faith is not only a bond of union, but a channel of grace; and the grace transmitted through this channel so sanctifies the soul, that it becomes too holy and too much like Jesus to have any relish for such unprofitable amusements. "Flee youthful lusts."

Dear young men of Great Britain and Ireland, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."

*** This abridged tract may be had in full of Wertheim and Macintosh.

The Christian Household.

FILIAL AFFECTION OF AN AFRICAN.

WHILE the late Dr. Philip was at one of the mission stations, five persons made public profession of their faith in the Gospel. Most of these were foreigners, who, by the wars in the interior, had, in the mysterious providence of God, been brought by a way they knew not to find an eternal home by becoming fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and often did they endeavour to describe, with native eloquence, the distinguishing love and mercy of that God who had directed their feet to the Kuruman mission. Mamouyasti, one of these, some years after died in the faith. She was a Motabele captive,

and had accompanied Mr. Moffat from the interior; had remained some time in the service of Mrs. Moffat, and early displayed a readiness to learn to read, and much quickness of understanding. From the time of her being united to the church to the day of her death, she was a living epistle of the power of the Gospel.

"One day," says Mr. Moffat, "while visiting the sick, as I entered her premises, I found her sitting, weeping, with a portion of the word of God in her hand. Addressing her, I said, "My child, what is the cause of your sorrow? Is the baby still unwell?' 'No,'

she replied, 'my baby is well.' 'Your mother-in-law?' I inquired. 'No, no,' she said, 'it is my own dear mother who bore me.' Here she again gave vent to her grief, and, holding out the Gospel of Luke in a hand wet with tears, she said, 'My mother will never see this word, she will never hear this good news!" She wept again and again, and said, 'Oh, my mother and my friends! they live in heathen darkness; and shall they die without seeing the light which has shone on me, and without tasting that love which I have tasted?' Raising her eyes to heaven, she sighed a prayer, and I heard the words again, 'My mother, my mother!' This was the expression of the affection of one of Africa's sable daughters, whose heart had been taught to mourn over the ignorance of a fardistant mother. Shortly after this evidence of Divine love in her soul, I was called upon to watch her dying pillow, and descended with her to Jordan's bank. She feared no rolling billow. She looked on the new-born babe, and commended it to the care of her God and Saviour. The last words I heard from her faltering lips were, "My mother!""

How affecting is this evidence of the power of filial love in the heart of a poor African! She longed to give the bread of life to her poor mother, who never heard of Jesus and the way to heaven.

ON EARLY HABITS. JOHN LOCKE, the celebrated author and philosopher, in his work on Education, thus addresses mothers:

"The child not being permitted to drink without eating will prevent the custom of having the cup often at his nose, a dangerous beginning and preparation to good fellowship. Men often bring habitual hunger on themselves by custom. And if you please to try, you may, though he be weaned from it, bring him by use to such a necessity again of drinking in the night, that he will not be able to sleep without it. It being the lullaby used by nurses to still the crying children, I believe mothers generally find some difficulty to wean their children from drinking in the night. Believe it, custom prevails as much by day as by night; and you may, if you please, bring any one to be thirsty every hour. I once lived in a house where, to appease a froward child, they gave him drink as often as he cried, so that he was constantly bibbing. And though he could not speak, yet he drank more in twenty-four hours than I did. Try it when you please, you may with small as well as with strong beer drink yourselves into a drought. The thing to be minded in education is what habits you settle; and therefore, in this, as well as in all other things, do not begin to make anything customary, the practice whereof you would not have to continue and increase. It is convenient for health and sobriety to drink no more than natural thirst requires; and he that eats not salt meat, nor drinks strong drink, will seldom thirst between meals, unless he has been accustomed to such unseasonable drinking. Above all, take care he seldom, if ever, taste any wine or strong drink. There

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