upon the heavens in the help of his people, and in his excellency upon the skies." He felt assured that, although he and his fellow-countrymen were despised, persecuted, and down-trodden, nevertheless, the day of liberty would dawn, the year of jubilee would come, and their entire emancipation would be realized. Nor was he disappointed. Exod. xiv. 26-31. He had faith in Christ, and esteemed his reproach greater riches than all the treasures in Egypt. Thus it appears that Christ was known in Egypt. And this shows that christianity in some of its phases is as old as the world —the religion of the Bible is one. Men in all ages have been justified and saved by faith either in the Messiah to come, or in the Messiah already come. The believing Israelites in Egypt enjoyed the same kind of blessings that christians do now. They loved the same God, had access to the same throne of grace, and rejoiced in the same Saviour. They fought under the same banner, were actuated by the same faith, and thus sought to secure the same glorious heaven. They endured the reproach of Christ, and had respect unto the recompense of reward. Moses believed in Jesus, the promised seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed.

By faith he viewed a glorious inheritance. "He had respect unto the recompense of reward." He paid much attention to it, and prepared for it. "He looked not at the things which are seen, which are temporal; but at the things which are not seen, which are eternal." He looked beyond men and time to the great tribunal when he would have to give an account of the deeds done in his body. Faith in God as the sovereign, in Christ as his Redeemer, aud in heaven as his eternal reward, was the grand victorious principle by which he triumphed. He entered fully into the spirit of the Saviour's problem, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul." -Matt. xvi. 26. On the one hand, he beheld Pharaoh's court with all its pomp, glitter, wealth, honour, popularity and pleasure; and on the other, the afflictions of the good and faithful, the reproach of Christ, and the claims of Jehovah; and as a wise man, he despised the world with its tran sitory pleasures, and chose religion with its eternal realities.

What a noble instance of decision of character. He no sooner made his choice, than he got away from the scene of temptation, pollution, and death. "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible."-Heb. xi. 27. O how unlike

"The hoary fool, who, all his days,
Hath laboured in continued sorrow;
Still, on he goes, and fondly lays,
The desperate bet upon to-morrow.

To-morrow comes; 'tis noon, 'tis night;
This day, like all the rest, it flies;

Still, on he goes to seek delight, to morrow,
Till, to night, he dies."

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What self-denial was manifest in this choice. Now this is a part of practical godliness. Hence, says the Saviour, If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me." Moses did this. When he had "grandeur, title, high-connexion, and the blandishments of an Egyptian court within his grasp, when his ears must have been assailed with the plans intended to reduce and trouble the hated Israelites, he made the noble and heroic choice, rose in all the inspiration of his valour to plead their

cause, to lead the people, and to fight the battles of the God of Israel,-renounced all the refined and attractive allurements which never address the sensual in vain, and joined his fortune and his fame with the sect everywhere spoken against '

Behold in this choice an example for the imitation of all; but especially for the young. In the scriptures of truth there are many delightful instances of youthful piety. Joseph was a pious young man, his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the arms of the Mighty God of Jacob." And what shall we say of Samuel, Obadiah, Josiah, Timothy, and many others, all of whom feared the Lord from their youth. We rejoice in the remembrance of such juvenile piety, and commend it for your imitation. Now then, make your choice. Repent and believe in Jesus.

"This is the time; no more delay;
This is the acceptable day;
Come in, this moment, at his call,
And live for him who died for all."

B. W. B.

THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY AND THE PEOPLE.

No. 1.

BY THOMAS GOADBY.

..

IT has become fashionable of late years to speak and write very much about the people. No longer does the accomplished historian ignore them as besotted serfs, whom the dignity of history forbids him to notice; no longer does the ambitious politician sneer at them as a riotous and seditious rabble; no longer does the lordly aristocrat affect to despise them as the lower orders, or the common herd. The people of these days are the sovereign people. Associations are organized for the vindication of the people's rights; charters are referred to as the conservers of the people's liberties; reforms are pointed out as the effect of the people's power. The public of these degenerate times is a discerning" public, an intelligent" public, an enlightened" pubic Your modern orator finds an audience fit though unshaven in the crushed and jammed assemblies of the masses. Your modern writer publishes a cheap edition of his works for the library of the working man. Your modern statesman is returned triumphant to the Commons House of Parliament on the shoulders of the eternal people. All professions, all sects, agree in paying suit to king Plebs, and crowding like obsequious courtiers to the dingy palace of the sovereign mob. Amongst these lovers of the people and the people's cause, the religious community occupies a prominent place. Christianity, tired of its silver slippers, and its kid gloves, desires a more homely dress, and prays that it may be adorned in the cow hide of the clod hopper, and the fustian of the artizan. The tide of religious fervour having in past days-days of reformation and revival-set in towards the people, has in these last days flowed perhaps more strongly than ever towards them. When the storm of revolution had cleared the political horizon of Europe,-when free trade, cheap bread, and a Chartist demonstration had quieted the hungry multitude at home,—when there was a lull in political agitation, and a pause in the out-cry against popular grievances,-out came the priests of the sanctuary, and the doctors

Home

of the law from their holy retirement, to take advantage of this propitious calm. Prize essays about the working classes were written by the score. Lectures on popular elevation and social progress were delivered by the hundred. Tracts, sermons, and religious periodicals for the people were issued by the thousand. New life was infused into religious educational institutions. Ragged schools sprang up every where and flourished. Ragged kirks were talked of and in some districts established. missionary operations were brought more prominently into notice. Town missions were started, and the heathen at home were spoken of in terms of greater commiseration than the heathen abroad. Amid all this the census of religious worship was taken. and then came out startling and apalling facts, to quicken the ardour and inflame the zeal of Exeter Hall and the evangelical public. It was every where loudly deplored that the present condition of large masses of our population was irreligious, infidel, sensual, and Godless. While we were sending the gospel to the benighted aborigines of Australia, it appeared that we had some four millions of our fellowcountrymen who were altogether out of the range of ordinary religious influence. From these our workhouses, our gaols, our penal settlements, were supplied. These were the supporters of the beer-shop, the brothel, the theatre, the gin-palace. These furnished the ranks of secularist, infidel and Mormon. These bought the penny romance, the three-halfpenny tragedy, the obscene tale and the bawdy song. The attention of the religi ous world thus awakened and aroused, is still directed to the outstanding population. A sort of Spurgeonism" is manifested even by Rectors in gowns and bands, and Bishops in lawn sleeves. The Episcopalian vies with the Dissenter in his anxiety to convert the irreligious multitude, and to enfold the poor and needy in the warm bosom of the Church. Indeed a cynical outsider might justly say, the working classes are now in the mar ket, and it seems they will be knocked down to the highest bidder

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That the people occupy a far different position now from that which they occupied centuries ago, is apparent to the most casual observer of the signs of the times. The growth of manufactures, the expansion of our commerce, have given them an importance, numerical and national, which at no other era of our history, or indeed of the world's history, they possessed. They form by far the largest proportion of our population, and while they are the most numerous, they are also most in need of whatever philanthrophie societies, or the benevolent church may be able to do for their welfare. Not that they are more prone to sensualism and vice than the wealthy and opu lent. Not that they are more sunken in irreligion, and practical atheism, or more deficient in self-government and self-respect than those above them in the social scale. But they are less under the restraints of social refinement and conventional respectability; they are less able to avoid the fearful consequences of vicious and immoral habits. If they sin, they must suffer the penalty that sin exacts in this world,--they cannot pay to escape it. No golden bridge can they build over the gulf of secular perdition. Their defection from virtue and morality is more fatal to themselves, more inju rious to social order, aud more detrimental to social advancement, than the equally, in a moral point of view, damnable delinquences of the rich and great. The sins of St. James are got up in decent pharisaical millinery, spangled with jewels and perfumed; but the sins of St. Giles are naked, foul and loathsome to the eye. Making all the allowances that charity dic tates, nevertheless, the actual condition of the working classes is sad and

humiliating. They are to a large extent, low and corrupt in their morals, degraded in their tastes, gross and sensual in their pleasures, and, as a consequence, wretched and unhappy in their homes. Many, very many, honourable exceptions there are to this rule, enough to show us that the exceptions might be the rule, yet in the main, such is their actual, social, and moral condition-unclean-ungodly-unhappy.

Now the question we propose to discuss is, what have Christian Ministers to do in this matter?-what is their part in the great work of the moral and social elevation of the people? They cannot with impunity shut their eyes to the wants of the people. They cannot say that they possess nothing that the people lack, and that the people ought to have. Christianity is not, never was, never can be, a class religion. Its glad tidings are to all people. Its salvation is for every man. Its mission is to every creature. It speaks to man as man, and it regards not the accidents of condition, rank or birth. At its introduction, this was its boast:-"to the poor the gospel is preached" and of its Divine Founder it is said, "the common people heard him gladly." If ministers are engaged in the preaching of Christianity, they have something for the people, which they are commissioned to offer to them, and which above all things we think they need. Leaving out of view religion, as the only thing that can prepare man for the future world,- -a point on which there can be no difference of opinion, we maintain that religion is the only thing that can fit a man for this. Of all the influences that can be brought to bear upon the working-classes, a healthy religious influence is that which will best promote their social elevation. Were we to question them concerning their chief want, they would give us various replies. Some would say it was political emancipation. Give us our people's charter, and we can elevate ourselves. Now, that political freedom would tend in some cases to promote popular progress, we firmly believe. A man that has to choose a party in politics, among a people to whom bribery and corruption are daily growing more odious, must think, and if he thinks at all, there is some hope of him. He would feel himself to be of importance in the state, and acquire dignity and self-respect. But that this would be the result in all cases, the freemen of our old boroughs forbid us from supposing. They have the elective franchise, and what are many of them? swinish. ignorant, vicious, finding their vested interests in any public nuisance that decent people wish to remove, and bawling perpetually in demagogic phraseology about the bloody heel of despotism on the neck of their chartered rights.

Others of them might say, let us have better wages, and we shall soon reform our condition. We cannot educate our children; we cannot make our homes happy; we cannot clothe ourselves decently; we are starved down to vice and ruin. But we know too well that wealth alone would do nothing for them. If they are faithless over a few things," so will they be "over many." Though poverty may drive them to crime, they oftener make their own poverty by their own untbriftiness and extravagance.

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Among the various remedies that society proposes are secular education and teetotalism. Much doubtless has been done; much more might be done by means of schools for the people. But these reach only the young. Adults you cannot teach unless they have a desire to learn; and suppose you could create that desire, and induce working men to avail themselves of the advantages of evening classes, free lectures, public libraries, people's colleges, mechanics' institutes, are moral results sure to follow? In the black

What

calendar of crime, do we not find the names of many men of considerable culture, and of not a few who have been trained for the liberal professions? And as to intemperance, there is much evil associated with it we admit, but we think the grave and learned judges go too far when they say that nine-tenths of the crime of the country are caused by drunkenness, and lead us to infer, remove the drunkenness, and you will remove the crime also. The intoxicating cup may be associated with crime. Drunkenness may be a condition of its growth, as rain is a condition of the growth of grain; but the cause of the growth is in both cases deeper,-in the grain itself, in the man himself. And with man other conditions might be found equally productive of crime. It is too much to say, that if we were a sober people, we should be a virtuous people. The Brahminical Sepoy is a vegetarian and a teetotaller too, but he is savage and cruel as a tiger, crawling and subtle as a serpent. The kingdom of God, the kingdom of virtue, honesty and rectitude is not founded in meat and drink. What the people want is a principle stronger than repressive or prohibitory law-a power that penetrates deeper than secular education-an influence more genial and heart-warming than the chilling hydropathy of teetotalism. they want is religion, everything else may fail-that cannot. Christianity goes to the root of all social evils-the heart of man,―changes and renews that. Christianity teaches the basis of all social elevation-self-reliance, independence of man-dependence only on God. Christianity inculcates the pledge of all social progress-moral and spiritual growth. Christianity transfigures the whole life and character of man. Make men good christians and they are good citizens, good neighbours, good parents and children at once and they are so because of their christianity. Freedom, affluence, knowledge, sobriety, may be attended with moral and social elevation, and they may not, but christianity MUST. Religion goes where secular education and monkish ascetism can never reach, down into the deep founts of action, the hidden springs of thought and life, and there it exerts its transforming and purifying power, and it effects what it alone can effect, a thorough moral and social regeneration. This is its great work, and where that is not done, nothing is done, where that is wanting, religion has no place. We think, therefore, that it is beyond dispute that the great want of the people is not political emancipation, secular wealth, secular education or total abstinence, but religion-the religion of Jesus Christ. Who then shall take it to them? who shall be the apostles of the people? who are the men best adapted for this work? Ordinary christian ministers have a knowledge of this world-renovating man-transfiguring faith, they have also sone degree of ability and power in announcing its doctrines and enforcing its principles-are they the men who should go forth to the people, or should a distinct class of men, evangelists, missionaries, apostles, be sent forth? These questions we shall endeavour to answer in our next.

PRAYER MEETINGS.

It is sometimes remarked, that prayer meetings are not so interesting and profitable as they might be. The writer of these lines has felt the justice of the remark, and believes that if the following suggestions were generally carried out the remark would soon cease to be made.