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sincerity, that brother's blood || rarely be received amiss; your

will be found upon your garments. How will you meet him at the day of judgment? How will you answer it to his Master and to yours?

And now if it be inquired, in what way the duty of christian watchfulness is to be performed, I answer

Tell him of it first. Do not circulate a story to his disadvantage, and injure him before you attempt to do him good. And after you have seen him, let it still be private, unless the cause of Christ require that you should make it publick. The very fact of your making it known, may destroy the effect of all your other efforts.

brother will love you the better for it. He will see that it proceeds from sincere affection. Let the righteous smite me, said the Psalmist, and it shall be a kindness, and let him reprove me, and it shall be an excellent oil which shall not break my head. For yet my prayer shall be in their calamities.

5. This duty must be performed prayerfully. You are about to exhort a brother for his good. God alone can direct you to speak to him aright. God alone can prepare his mind to hear you with profit. Go to God then with the whole case. Spread your motives before him. Let your heart be warmed with love to your 2. Let it be done between him || brother. And from the throne and you alone. In this manner of grace as a poor sinner yourself, you can speak more freely. He who needs pardon, and support, will hear more readily, and feel and sanctification, go to your more solemnly. The pride of his brother with the message which heart will not so readily be a- God shall give you to speak. In wakened, and what you say will this frame, and with this dependbe more likely to produce its in-ance, you may expect a blessing tended effect. to his soul and to your own.

3. Be perfectly frank and un- 6. And lastly, do it with ambiguous. Let him know pre-self-examination. Why beholdest cisely what you mean. Do not be hinting and talking around it, so that he cannot know whether you mean him or no. So did not Nathan. He said, Thou art the man. So did not Paul. I withstood him to the face, said he, because he was to be blamed. Plain dealing will, in such cases, pro-reprove your brother in the spirit duce the best effect.

4.

thou the mote that is in thy broth-
er's eye, and considerest not the
beam that is in thine own eye.
Look at your own heart. Con-
sider whether you are not guilty
of the same transgression, or of one
yet more flagrant. Examine your
own motives. Are you going to

of envy, or malice, or ill-temper,
or personal animosity. See to it
that ye first repent of
your own

sin.

But then let it be done affectionately. You come not in the character of a dictator, or of First take the beam out of an informer, or of a Judge, but as thine own eye, and then shalt one poor sinful brother, to recal to thou see clearly to take the mote his duty another poor sinful broth-out of thy brother's eye. See to er whose sin you lament, and it, that every feeling of personal whom you love as your own soul. animosity be done away, and that Let him see that you are perform- you are going to the discharge of ing a duty most trying to yourself, this duty purely from a love to purely out of love to him and to souls, and for the honour of your the cause of your common Lord. Master who is in heaven. Did we An admonition of this nature will thus admonish our brethren, we

should live better ourselves, and our admonitions would seldom fail of their proper effect.

These remarks have already been protracted to so great a length, that we have barely room to suggest a few considerations which should prompt us to the discharge of the duty which has been recommended.

1. It is a duty which you have promised to perform. In uniting yourselves with a christian church, each one of us has solemnly promised to watch over every other, not for their halting, but for their good. This obligation we solemnly and voluntarily assumed in the presence of God, and angels, and men. We have never yet been released from it, nor can we be till death. Was that promise solemn mockery, or were we in earnest ? How have we kept this vow? Have we not seen many an occasion for the practice of it, and yet are there not many of us who have never yet in a single instance, told a brother of his fault. Ah! were we ever as ready to admonish a brother in love as we are to talk about his failings, how vastly different would be the state of practical piety amongst us !

2. It is the greatest kindness that we can manifest to another. If a man is ruining his property, it is surely kind to set before him the danger. If he is walking blindfolded towards a precipice, it is surely kind to warn him of the peril. And tell me if it be not kindness to set before that man his danger, who is destroying his soul, and bringing a stigma and a disgrace upon the cause of the blessed Redeemer? And not only is it so, but it will in most cases be so esteemed. If it be done in the spirit of the gospel, a brother will love us the better for it. He will see that we are seeking the good of his soul, and will honour our sincerity and

piety. And even let the result be what it may, if we act in the Spirit of Christ, he will see that we lose not our reward.

But lastly, Christ himself hath commanded us thus to act towards an erring brother. an erring brother. If thy brother sin against thee, go tell him his fault between him and thee alone. And the whole genius of Christianity urges us to the performance of this duty. Without doing thus, how can you testify your love to your brother? and he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen.

If this be the case, it is unnecessary that I should say a word in reply to the many objections which may arise against the practice of the duty which we have recommended.

Do you say it is revolting to your feelings? I say Christ hath commanded it. Do you say, I may make myself enemies? I say Christ hath commanded it, and he hath said, Be not afraid of those that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. Do you say, it is the duty of others as well as myself? I answer again, Christ hath commanded it, and by bringing the case to your knowledge he hath specially commanded you. And he hath said every one of us must give an account of himself unto God. This one consideration, Christ hath commanded it, is a sufficient answer to every objection, and you cannot refuse obedience without disobeying him, grieving his holy Spirit, and bringing darkness and his displeasure upon your own soul.

Let us then henceforth yield a humble and cheerful obedience to this command of our ascended Redeemer. Let a spirit of frankness, and kindness, and love to the souls of each other, and to the cause of Christ, reign in our hearts. us strive together in love for the purity of the faith, ever remem

Let

from the truth, and one convert
him, let him know that he which
converteth a sinner from the error
of his ways, shall save a soul from
death, and shall hide a multitude
.of sins.
Y.

bering that if any of you do err || fancy with acute intellect, which would have excited more admiration than it has done, if it had been dedicated to the amusement of the great and learned, instead of being consecrated to the far more noble office of consoling, instructing, and reforming the poor and the forgotten. It was then too early for me to discover that extreme purity, which, in a mind preoccupied with the low realities of life, would have been no natural companion of so much activity and order, but which thoroughly detached you from the world and made you the inhabitant of regions where alone it is possible to be always active without impurity, and where the ardour of your sen

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, TO REV. ROBERT
HALL.

Messrs. Editors,

In your last Magazine you were pleased to insert a notice of the sermons and pulpit talents of the Rev. Robert Hall. As almost every thing connected with that great and good man, imparts some interest, I have thought fit to place at your disposal, a letter, which I suppose has never been published, and which was addressed to him by that eminent civilian and statesman, Sir James Mackintosh. They were fellow-sibility had unbounded scope students at a Scotch University, where they formed an acquaintance, which has ripened into the most sincere and ardent friendship. The letter appears to be designed to console and cheer the too sensitive spirit of his friend, who had just recovered from a short turn of insanity. It may be regarded moral excellence, as the homage of tal

as a merited tribute to intellectual and

ents to christian virtue.

Yours, &c. A. W.

"Bombay, Sept. 21, 1805.

"My dear Hall,

It happened to me a few days ago, in drawing up, (merely for my own use,) a short sketch of my own life, that I had occasion to give a faithful statement of my recollection of the circumstances of my first acquaintance with you. On the most impartial survey of my early life, I could see nothing which tended so much to excite and invigorate my understanding, and to direct it to high, though perhaps scarcely accessible objects, as my intimacy with you.

Five and twenty years are passed since we first met, but hardly any thing has occurred since, which has made a deeper and more agreeable impression on my mind. I now remember the extraordinary union of brilliant AUGUST, 1826.

amidst the inexhaustible combinations of beauty and excellence.

It is not given us to preserve an exact medium. Nothing is so difficult as to decide how much ideal models ought to be combined with experience; how much of the future ought to be let into the present. In the progress of the human mind, to ennoble and purify, without completely raising us above the sphere of our usefulness, to qualify us for what we ought to seek, without unfitting us for that to which we must submit, are great and difficult problems which can but be imperfectly solved. It is certain that the child may be too manly not only for his present enjoyment, but for his future progress. Perhaps you, my good friend, may have fallen into this error of superior natures :-from this error has, I think, arisen the calamity with which it has pleased Providence to chasten you; which to a mind less fortified by reason and religion, I should not dare to mention, and which I really consider in you as little more than the indignant struggle of a pure mind with the base realities that surrounded it, the too fervent aspirations after regions more con

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My habits of life have not been favourable to this train of meditation. I have been too busy and too trifling; my nature would perhaps have been better consulted if I had been placed in a more quiet situation, where speculation might have been my business, and visions of the fair and good my chief veneration.

genial to it, and a momentary much in bringing it into contrast blindness produced by the fixed with the model of ideal perfection, contemplation of objects too bright as in gently blending some of the for human vision. I may say in fainter colours of the latter with this case, in a far grander sense the brighter lines of real and exthan that in which the words were perienced excellence, thus brightoriginally spoken by the greatening the beauty instead of broadPoet, "And yet the light that led ening the shade of the scene which astray, was light from heaven."must surround us, till we waken On your return to us, you must from this dream in other spheres surely have found consolation in of existence the only terrestrial produce which is pure and truly exquisite, in the affections and attachments which you have inspired, which you were most worthy to inspire, and which no human pollutions can rob of their heavenly purity. If I were to prosecute the reflections, and indulge the feelings which at this moment fill my mind, I should soon venture to doubt whether for a calamity derived from such a source and attended by such consolations, I should yield so far to the vain opinions of men, as to seek to condole with you. But I check myself; and I exhort you, my most worthy friend, to check your best propensities for the sake of attaining their objects. You cannot live for men without living with them. Serve God by the active service of men. Contemplate more the good you can do than the evil you can only lament. Allow yourself to see the great loveliness of human nature amidst all its imperfections, and employ your moral imagination not so

When I approach you, I feel a powerful attraction towards this which seems the natural tendency of my mind; but habit opposes obstacles, and duty calls me off, and reason frowns on him who wastes that reflection on a destiny independent of him, which he ought to reserve for actions of which he is the master.

In another letter, I may write to you on miscellaneous subjects; at present I cannot bring myself to speak of them. Let me hear from you soon and often. Farewell, my dear friend.

Yours ever most faithfully,
JAMES MACKINTOSH.”

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attention of the christian community, and that the exertions of the Boston Society have already been crowned with such encouraging

success.

We say that the subject of Prison Discipline has been most strangely and lamentably neglected. Strangely; for it is wonderful that a whole community has not been aware of the worse than fruitlessness of its efforts and the glaring inconsistency of its penitentiary systems. We add lamentably, for the direct tendency of our prisons, is to render crime more frequent, and iniquity more degrading and incorrigible.

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with him; and then at the expira-
tion of his sentence, turn him
loose upon the world, initiated in
every art of villany, having be-
come tenfold more the child of
hell than before, to pursue a bolder
and more dexterous course of de-
predation, and to teach the less
abandoned the very arts which we
have caused him to learn.
it is in the pursuit of such a sys-
tem as this that we have been
expecting crime to be diminished,
and vice to be rebuked away from

us.

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And

Now to show the absurdity of this system, it seems only necessary to remark how totally it is at There is in morals as in physics, variance with the whole genius of a scale below zero as well as a the gospel. Jesus Christ died for scale above it. The misfortune those who were wholly destitute of and the fault of the age, has been any claim upon his compassion. that our efforts for the benefit of "For scarcely for a righteous our fellow men have been directed man will one die, yet peradvenalmost exclusively to those who ture for a good man some would are above this dividing point. If even dare to die; but God coma man has been guilty of no fla- mendeth his love to us in that, grant offence against the well while we were yet sinners, Christ being of society, we are willing to died for us. And still more, the labour for his good, and to elevate universal practice of Christ illushim to a higher grade of moral ac-trates the fact that no class of soquisition. But let him sink only one degree below it; let him commit a crime which brings down upon him the hand of punitive justice, and we feel as though the bond of brotherhood were severed, and efforts for his reformation were neither demanded by the genius of philanthropy nor the spirit of the But the present system is not gospel. We consign him over- less averse to the dictates of sound such we do aver is the present ten-wisdom, than to the genius of the dency of almost every penitentia- gospel. And here we cannot but ry in the civilized world-to irre- remark with pleasure, how closely Vocable degradation, and to eter-allied is true wisdom with christian nal death. Be he young or old, benevolence. The present system be it the first crime or the tenth, is evidently unfeeling and inhube his punishment for one year or man, and the results of it are the for twenty, we associate him with multiplication of crime, and the the most abandoned villians, we increasing insecurity of our posplace it out of his power without sessions and our lives. The cure a miracle to regain his caste, we for these evils, is the total revomake him feel that he has no sym-lution of the principles on which pathies with the virtuous world, the present system is formed. It is and that they have no sympathies to treat criminals, though they may

ciety was more the object of his regard than publicans and sinners. The Son of Man came to seek and to save those who were more emphatically lost. And surely the spirit which he hath given us” should work the same results in our own conduct.

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