extract.

"I send you an address as it appeared in our newspaper here.I had a mournful pleasure in writing it, and it has occurred to me that it might be useful to some of your juvenile readers; and should you deem it right to insert it, I shall pray that it be blessed to them. may I may, possibly, at some future day send you an account of my beloved child, who was, I believe, as great a blessing as ever God conferred upon a parent."

We shall be highly obliged by the communication of such account, and are convinced it will prove interesting and edifying to our numerous readers. The following address was read at the Sunday school, Kilkenny, on the Lord'sday after the death of Mr. Roe's be loved daughter.

nature and unsatisfying in its enjoyments. Is it then a matter of wonder, that I should feel an increased anxiety about your spiritual welfare? Is it not rather my duty, contemplating as I now do the lifeless remains of a beloved child, who could desire to give you another was all that the fondest parent word of exhortation, and to endeavour, under the Divine blessing, to make the season of my sorrow, the season of your profit? My dear child has been taken from the privileges which you have risen this day to partake of; but she once enjoyed similar ones, and greatly did she her a day of rest: she expected its prize them. The Sabbath was to arrival with delight-she spent it in meditation, prayer, and praise. The Bible was the book which she loved above all others: it was her constant study; and in the knowledge she received from it, we have another proof, if we wanted it, that whilst the things of God are “hidden from the wise and prudent, from those who are proud and selfrighteous, they are revealed unto babes." The Sunday school was to her a Sabbath recreation, and greatly did she regret its loss, when illness confined her to the house, and separated her from her class. But the benefit she derived from the Sabbath, from the Bible, and from the Sunday school was not small or fleeting. No-it was substantial and durable, and she felt it to be so in that most trying hour of death, when flesh and heart faint; in that hour she had no trust but in the blood of her Redeemer, and she had no fear. Now, she does not want outward means-but you do. She has left her sorrows and temptations behind her you are either surrounded by or may look forward to them. It is then your bounden duty to examine whether you are turning them to good account, and

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whether you are deriving benefit from God's blessings. You have this day another proof that the stroke of death is not warded off by youth; and it is time for the youngest of you to know, that you may in an unexpected moment be called into eternity, and there learn, if you never did before, that God is holy and just-that while he gathers the wheat (the righteous) into his garner (heaven), he will burn up the chaff (the ungodly) with unquenchable fire. You have been taught the duty of keeping holy the Sabbathday, and of devoting it to the purposes for which our heavenly Father appointed it; and you may have observed, that it is sanctified by those whose minds are really influenced by Divine truth, whilst it is disregarded and profaned by all who know not that truth. Great will be your condemnation if you do not learn and begin to hallow it in your early days; for "to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." And there are few children now alive, who have had more pains taken with them, or who have received more instruction than you. Do you then love and welcome the return of the Sabbath-day? Do you upon that day abstain from the occupations which are lawful upon other days? Do you exhibit the solemnity of mind and deportment which is so suitable to it?

The Bible is put into your bands because it is God's book, and therefore the best book. The way of salvation, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, is more plainly stated there, and can be more readily learned by the humble mind, made willing to be taught by the Holy Spirit, than from any other. In that book are profitable lessons for the young as well as for the old; lessons which both equally needlessons which it is the interest of both to study closely. The evil mind of man may, and does often, turn a blessing into a curse, and even God's own book has been thus

abused; but woe to the individual who searches the Bible merely to gratify curiosity, or to encourage him in any thought, word, or deed which is evil. If any of you are disposed to shew in this way the depravity of your hearts, it would be better for you at once to close your Bibles and to study them no more, lest in the very perusal of them God might strike you dead for the insult thus offered to him. But I rejoice to think that there are many of you who search the Scriptures, that you may find, or grow in the knowledge of, true wisdom and true happiness. Go on in your humble inquiry; let no laugh, or sneer, or opposition stop you in it. The older you grow the more will you be convinced, that it is only in its sacred pages you can see the sure and steady light that will lead you through multiplied cares, disappointments, and sorrows, to the land of eternal rest. May the Holy Spirit be your teacher, and may he so apply to your hearts the truths and promises of the Bible, that you may never want counsel or comfort.

In general, you attend the Sunday school with regularity; but are you profiting by it? This question can be best answered by yourselves. Your teachers feel solicitous for your improvement, but unless you second their efforts by your own diligence, attention, submissiveness to order and to advice; and, above all, by prayer for grace to know that those who teach you from the Scriptures are your best friends; you cannot expect to derive benefit. Often refresh your memory by reciting the portions of the word which you have already learned, and ask your own consciences what influence they have upon you? Read diligently and carefully before-hand the chapter in which you are to be examined each Sunday, and let it appear to your parents and masters, that the hour spent in the Sunday school is not lost time. Do not, by your misconduct, give

and unreasonable; because we ought to be "ready always to give a reason of the hope that is in us, with meekness." (1 Peter iii. 15.) And it should also be considered, that, if there be a pride in reasoning, there is also a pride in not reasoning: accordingly Aristotle asserts, that the sententious man, who would have his assertions without proof admitted, is far more arrogant than he that desires to establish them by argument. And, in truth, to rest Christian doctrines on assertion, is to level their evidence to that of Transubstantiation and Mohammedanism, How much preferable the impartiality and research with which Joseph Mede commenced his study of the Apocalypse; Mr. Locke, of the Epistles; and Bishop Burnet, of the Scriptures, relating to the Seventeenth Article of the Church! How excellent is Dr. Doddridge's advice to the composer of a sermon; and how superior his Family Expositor to most other works of the kind, simply because he impartially endeavours to ascertain for us the sense before he impresses it upon us! Secondly; Admitting that we ought not to seek our own sense, but the sense of the Scripture, in investigating it, I would next observe, that, while we profess the Bible to be our religion, we are too often less acquainted with it than with books on religion written by man. Some will be found, who have never examined the Scriptures at all in order to discover truth; but who have taken their views from man, and from human writings, without bringing them to the law and to the testimony for confirmation or refutation. Some also there are of this description, who, through neglect of exercising their judgment on Scripture, either cannot or will not enter upon any discussion simply on Scripture grounds, but fly off from the point in question to any other topic: yet are they not the less dogmatical and severe towards others who differ from them. Some

of them, also, do, in effect, boldly assert, that "where mystery begins, religion ends." The only question, say they, which they wish to see resolved, and the answer to which, they feel assured, is written with a sun-beam in the Gospel, is, "What must I do to be saved?" The answer, they argue, is so clear, that "he that runneth may read it," and "the way-faring man cannot err therein; for if the Gospel, they add, be addressed to every creature under heaven, it is level to the capacity of the lowest of those creatures. Such persons make no distinction between the knowledge which is required universally and indispensably of all, and that which is required particularly of some, according to the gifts and talents committed to each; but that measure of information which they judge that the lowest capacity can receive, they believe to be all that is worth knowing to the highest. Such persons should beware, lest in their flight from the popish excess of mystery, they fall into the opposite excess of "speaking evil of the things which they understand not." (Jude 10.) Say what they will, "great is the mystery" of the faith; and it is the duty of every Christian, according to his abilities and opportunities, to advance in scriptural knowledge. (1 Tim. iii. 16; iv. 14-16.)

Others again there are, who neglect the appointed means for understanding the holy Scriptures, because they have assumed that the Holy Spirit may be expected, in the present day, to become to them the interpreter of any and every part of Scripture, while they neglect the ordinary means and method of attaining to Divine knowledge. But the same St. Paul who assures us, that without the light of the Spirit we cannot understand the book of the Spirit, instructs us also, that we must compare "spiritual things with spiritual" in order to understand them. (1 Cor.

ii. 7, 8-13.)-See Bishop Lowth's preface to Isaiah, the last page, and H. Horne, on comparing the author with himself. The abovementioned seem to be some of the causes which occasion, that, while we profess the Bible to be our religion in word, in deed we deny our assertion, and feel unwilling to bring our sentiments impartially to the test which we acknowledge.

Thirdly; There are many persons to whom these charges do not ap. ply, but who, nevertheless, do not, according to my judgment,know how to bring their deductions from Scripture to the test of Scripture; nor, in reality, to prove any thing, in which there is any difficulty, from Scripture. St. Paul, as has been before observed, states the true method; namely, THE

COMPARING OF THINGS SPIRITUAL

WITH SPIRITUAL: But where shall we find the modern interpreter of Scripture, who at the same time makes the most of this method, without additions or subtraction, by means of human reasoning and imagination? Indeed, I know of no author, except Joseph Mede, who ever attempted any thing of the kind.

The account of his method is contained in Bishop Hurd's Lectures on the Prophecies; a work which, perhaps, comes next in proximity to St. Paul's method. The ancient fathers understood, indeed, the use that might be made of this method, when they asserted, that the Scripture expresses nothing darkly but the same thing is elsewhere stated clearly, and usually at no great distance from the dark passage. But, more particularly, in using this means, after we have ascertained the genuineness of the text, and the exact literal meaning, we must make the most of the context, the particular book, all the books of the same author, and of all Scripture; and, I believe, we shall seldom find occasion to inquire farther into the meaning of such controverted texts as do not relate to

inscrutable mysteries. But we must beware of mixing prejudice, reasoning, and imagination, with this simple method. Let any one try it upon a chapter of the Bible, and he will then prove whether what I have asserted be true or not. Let him take, if he pleases, the first chapter of Genesis and let the question be, whether, besides a literal meaning, it has a spiritual one also. Let every passage spiritualized in any part of the Bible, have the words in which it is spiritualized written at length under the verse in Genesis. After this, let every word be looked out in a concordance; and if it has a spiritual meaning, let that spiritual meaning be subjoined to the word. Then, and not till then, let the judgment be formed. The same method may also be tried upon the first three chapters of the Apocalypse; concerning which the greatest commentators are divided upon the question, whether they are to be understood only literally, or literally and also figuratively, as describing seven states of the true Gentile church until the conversion of the Jews.

I will only add, that I have seldom met with an interpreter of Scripture who paid sufficient deference or attention even to the context. My limits do not allow me at present to add more. I have spoken freely, but, I trust, not improperly. I feel that the Bible is every day less studied and appealed to by the generality of religious persons, while they believe it to be the ground of all their doctrines. A great step has been gained by the distinction given to the pure word of God by the Bible Society. May it lead to really and truly bringing all our various views of religion to the Bible,-the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, as interpreted exclusively, and to the utmost, by COMPARING THINGS SPIRITUAL WITH SPIRITUAL THINGS!

A PROTESTANT.