have you ever thought of carrying that boy to Christ? Have you ever thought of going to Jesus and wrestling with him in prayer? Have you ever interceded with him in the closet? Oh, try; there will you find comfort under such trials as these; there, and there alone, have you a right to expect the blessing which would gladden your hearts, and save the soul of your child alive. I do believe we are all guilty in this matter; that we have not so prayed for our children as we ought, especially where hardness of heart, and blindness of spiritual things overshadow their minds. Then you should go to Jesus, and plead as for yourselves (we do not say plead as for the happiness of your children)—“ Have mercy on me, my son, my daughter, is grievously vexed with a devil." My dear friends; prayer is the only thing, in the exercise of which I can recommend you with a good scriptural hope of success. Whatever your family trials may be; whatever the irreligion of the husband, or the wife, the father, or the mother, the brother, or the sister, may be, cry unto Jesus; spread the case before him. Plead his all-sufficiency; acknowledge your unworthiness:-" Yet, Lord, the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their master's table.” And oh, my dear friends, let us learn finally this example, and copy this example, of faith and perseverance. What if the answer do not come to-day ; if it be postponed for a week, a year, yea, or years-what if we only hear the voice of God, announcing the blessing as we are departing out of life; will it not be an ample recompense to all our diligence in prayer? That as we leave this lower world, we have the evidence of the Spirit of God that our family and friends are brought into a state of covenant salvation; and that before the dimness of death has deprived us of vision, we are privileged to see those so near and dear to us, as members of our own domestic circle, turning unto God -giving themselves up to the Lord to supply our places when we are removed to the house appointed for all living, a seed to serve God in their day and generation. Let us, therefore, take encouragement; let us be strong in the Lord. Let us be prayerful, and we shall be successful: let us believe, and it shall be according to God's word, and our abounding necessities. THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. REV. J. A. JAMES*. TABERNACLE, BRISTOL, SEPTEMBER 25, 1834. "God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us. That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee."-PSALM, lxvii. 1—3. THE Psalm from which the text is selected, is one of the most beautiful of those inspired epitomes in which the Church, under the older economy, chanted the praises of her God, confessed her faith in the promises of the Messiah, and uttered her longing desire for their great and glorious consumination. The Psalm refers to the coming of Christ, the promulgation of his Gospel, and the conversion of the Gentiles. There can be no reasonable doubt that his advent was the "mercy" that God was to show to his ancient people: the prospect of the accomplishment of this hope, formed, amidst every season of personal, domestic, and national calamity, the chief source of consolation in the breast of the pious Jew. The scheme of mediation which was accomplished by the sacrificial atonement of the Saviour, was emphatically God's "way." The Hindoos have a tradition that our world was once united to the source of light and love, and was the scene of untainted purity, and undisturbed peace: but by sin it became severed from the fountain of love and light; and has ever since been sinking deeper and deeper, like a smitten and vagrant spirit, into darkness and misery; and that at length literal darkness will cover the whole world; when some benign spirit will raise it up out of its abyss of misery and darkness, and unite it again to the fountain from which it is now separated. My brethren, all this is literally true, taken from its traditional and adventitious circumstances, and connected with the discovery of the Word of God. The benevolent Spirit has come, and our world is being lifted up, to be restored again to the fountain of happiness and holiness. And its restoration, through the mediation of Christ, is emphatically God's " way." It is not the invention of an impostor, nor a human device: it is a scheme prompted by the love, devised by the wisdom, accomplished by the power, demanded by the justice, and applied by the grace of God. It is God's "way," and he has made himself answerable for all the results. In resting our hopes of eternal life upon the sacrifice of Christ, we are not at a peradventure; we are not waiting in trembling anxiety for the disclosures of eternity, to ascertain whether we have been resting upon the rock or the sand. • Anniversary Sermon for the Bristol Auxiliary Missionary Society. What is called in one expression, God's " way," is called in the next, God's "saving health." Man, at his creation, was in the highest spiritual condition: there was no moral disease in his soul: his understanding was all consciousness, his heart all love, his life all holiness. But Adam fell; and from that moment was smitten with disease incurable by any except Almighty power. He has communicated the hereditary taint to all his posterity; and of the whole human race it has been said, that they are covered, as respects their minds, with "wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores," which have not been healed up, nor mollified with ointment. But God has devised a method of cure. We have it in the Gospel. My brethren, there are men who talk of the perfectability of human nature upon principles purely scientific: they would restore the heart from the dominion of sin, without the Bible, and govern society without God. Their ignorance is equal to their impiety, and their impudence equal to both. For they have made their assertion in the very face of history, which tells us the experiment has been tried, and tried under every possible advantage, and tried without the smallest success. Education, political economy, systems of jurisprudence, will not meet the case; and nothing but "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God" will restore the man to sanity and moral health: and this will be the case; for it is God's "saving health.” Having thus very briefly explained the two leading expressions of the passage, I go on to consider, under the first head of discourse, the principles which pervade this beautiful prayer; in the second place, the object to which these principles tend, and in which they meet; and lastly, the order of means here established by which this object is to be accomplished. May the Spirit of God assist both the preacher and the hearer, while we meditate on these important subjects. In the first place, I am TO ILLUSTRATE THE PRINCIPLES THAT PERVADE THIS BEAUTIFUL PRAYER. The first that meets our eye is humility. Here is no claim upon justice for any favour; here is no word of merit; here is no appeal to equity: it is the trembling voice of penitence supplicating mercy: "God be merciful to us." Ah! my brethren, we must look to him, for we can look nowhere else. If we look to ju tice, it writes our sentence of condemnation; if we look to holiness, it approves the sentence; if we look to power, it is ready to execute it; if we look to wisdom, it is ready to furnish the power and the means to accomplish this dreadful end. It is mercy-free, rich, sovereign mercy, alone that can be our friend and it is our friend: and having called on wisdom to devise means of salvation, and having devised it through the sacrifice of Christ, all the other attributes of Deity turn round, and smile with mercy upon us, and join in our salvation. In the second place, look at the patriotism that meets us in this prayer: "God be merciful to us"-to us Jews. "Look down," as if the Psalmist had said, "upon Judea, thy chosen, thy favourite land." The national predilections of the Jews were strong even to a proverb; as is exemplified in that exquisitely pathetic song which poets have attempted to imitate, which came from the lips of the exiles of Judea and from their hearts too, as they sat down upon the banks of Babylon's rivers, and exclaimed, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning: if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth: if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." And who can wonder at their attachment, or who can blame it? They had no ordinary motives for the love of country: they had something more than the struggles of liberty against oppression, science against barbarism, and literature against ignorance, to cherish their feelings of nationality, and to fan the flame of patriotism. Judea, their country, was the land chosen of God to be the scene of the most wonderful of all his works-works which are to fill immensity with glory, and eternity with praise. And can we be astonished that the Jews should be attached to the soil and the air of such a country as this? Oh no. What feelings of pious exultation might the Jew indulge at that day, when he compared his own country with the state of surrounding nations. While darkness brooded over the sons of superstition, and the pale orbs of science and philosophy shed their pale, disastrous light upon the world, his countrymen possessed, in the knowledge of the true God, a purer system of government than Plato ever imagined, or Cicero ever taught. But although we have no such reasons as these to boast of the land that gave us birth, yet that man should abjure the name of Englishman who does not love his country, or expatriate himself from the shores which he dishonours by a want of attachment to his native land. Where shall men find reasons for national attachment, if they are not to be found here? I speak of it not as an Englishman merely then I might refer you to your noble institutions, the work of ages, the wonder and the envy of the world: I might refer you to this country, which is the temple of freedom, where civil and religious liberty are enjoyed: I might tell you of our equal laws, and their incorruptible administration; I might talk of the extent of our commerce, the splendour of our science, and the stores of our learning: I might tell you it is the land of your fathers, the land of your cradle, and which will be, in all probability, the land of your sepulchre. But I am addressing you to-night as a Christian minister : and, brethren, it is in view of the spiritual privileges of my country that I feel my most grateful exultation. Look at your Bible societies: look at your Missionary societies: look at your Tract societies. What object of misery or of guilt has not been contemplated by the inventive mind of English mercy, called forth by the grace which comes from heaven, and the spirit of benevolence? I love thee, my country: "I love thee when I see thee stand "I love thee when I hear thy voice And now from shore to shore proclaim Then we have reasons for patriotism, brethren: we will say presently how this patriotism should show itself. The next principle of the prayer that meets us is mercy: for it was not a selfish principle in the mind even of a Jew: "God be merciful to us, and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us. That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations." Think what the state of the world was when the Psalmist presented this prayer. Upon the mountains of his native land, as far as the eye of imagination could reach, he could see nothing but nations sunk in sin-the abominable idolatries of the Gentilesthe dark places of the earth filled with the habitations of cruelty. If he looked to the vast outspread in the east and north, there was Assyria, then in the zenith of its glory, with ten thousand altars smoking with sacrifices to the false deities they worshipped. If he looked to the south, there was Egypt, the fertile source of every idolatry, its temples crowded with besotted devotees. If he looked nearer home, in the bloody rites of Moloch, he saw fathers leading the most beloved of their sons, and mothers the most beautiful of their daughters, to immolate them at his shrine. If he turned his eyes to the commercial shores of Tyre, he witnessed the groves of Ashtaroth filled with his detestable rites. If his eye went down the Mediterranean, and Europe had been then thought of, he saw the commonwealths of Greece, and the ancient nations of our quarter of the world, cradled in superstition, and wrapt in the swaddling bands of idolatry. Nothing but what was seen on the hallowed soil of Judea-nothing presented itself to his pious and compassionate mind, but nations cursing themselves, as they were insulting God, with the crimes of idolatry. And he must have had a heart of stone, and not a heart of flesh, if, with such a scene around him, he could have said otherwise than from the very bottom of his heart-" Oh God! be merciful to us; that thy way may be known on earth, thy saving health among all nations." And what hearts you must have, my hearers, and what hearts must we ministers have, if we can do otherwise than look abroad upon the world lying in wickedness, without the tenderest compassion, and without having all the bowels of compassion moving within us! "Let But, fourthly, we speak of the piety that is apparent in this prayer. the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee." And you will particularly remark that it was not mere compassion for the miserable condition of the heathen that moved in his breast; but zeal for the glory of God, tender concern for the honour of Jehovah. Let me to-night attempt to elevate your minds. Weep: you ought to weep for the miserable condition of the heathen. Weep again; and weep other tears, and tears more sorrowful, for the dishonour done to God by idolatry. We must not give up ourselves to religious philanthropy; there must be zeal for the glory of God. Oh, what were the deities that men worshipped! A great author has said that they were "little else than |