and at length I attained the composure, the confidence, and the joy of which I have spoken.

My health, in the autumn, began steadily to improve; and I began to think of the world and its affairs again. But I trust that my anticipations, though bright and ardent, from the nature of my temperament, were, nevertheless, chastened and led by the spirit of Christianity. My sickness had been as a solemn sanctuary, wherein I had confessed my sins, received an unction, and made a covenant with God. I was now ready for the open performance of my secret vows.

There was one imperious Christian duty yet to be done. It was to acknowledge Christ before men, and partake of the memorials of his love. I saw no reasons for delay. How delightfully had my views of this act been changed, since my early life. I then looked upon it with trembling awe. I considered members newly received to the communion, as giving up their interest in this life, and henceforth devoting themselves to austerity and gloom. Next to the gates of the grave, those of the church were most dreadful of approach. I felt nothing of this chill and cheerlessness now. For what was it to sit at the rite of the supper? It was to partake of emblems, simply to remind me of Jesus. This do in remembrance of me, were his words, and why should I not remember him? Was it not most delightful to do so? Could there be but peace and joy in recalling him to mind, who had come from the bosom of the Father, to bring peace and joy to the world? Did he not give himself for me? Did he not die that 1 might live? What could be darker ingratitude, than a neglect of the simple rite he instituted for his followers, just before his tortures and death for their good? Did not Jesus come, moreover, to set an example, that man might imitate, and be happy? How important, then, that all means should be embraced, to recall the perfect model, that the imperfect might grow into a likeness thereto. Blessed institution, adapted to the wants of sensual, forgetful man! Happy those who make use of its aid!

Oh, it was an ever-memorable day, that solemn but cheerful Sabbath, in which I joined myself to the Church of Christ in my native town. My mind could not but be thronged with thoughts; reviews of the past, high resolves for the future; all the affecting and sublime considerations of a divine religion; faith, hope, charity; man, and Christ,

and God; Heaven and eternity. My soul was so possessed with these great and solemn subjects, that I was scarcely conscious of what otherwise I might have shrunk from, the pursuing, fastening gaze of the whole congregation, as I moved up the central aisle, and stood before the covered table of communion, and my venerable pastor, to assent to the brief and simple form of admission to his church. His voice trembled, and his eye moistened with unusual tenderness, as he spoke the words of reception to fellowship, and engaged to pray for, and watch over me, and asked my prayers and watching in return. I was the only young man he had thus received, for years, and it seemed as if he felt a more than pastoral, even a paternal affection for one who had alone, and unasked, entered into this new relation, so interesting to his office.

As the congregation retired, leaving me, for the first time, in the midst of communicants, most of them much my elders, I felt a sense of solitariness in the service, which should not be in the memorial of him who would comprehend all in the bonds of fraternal love. Had the young, who had all gone away, no gratitude, no desires after wisdom and purity, and that perfection of character which religion sets forth? But I had charity for the absent, for I well knew the reasons of their neglect, from the remembrance of my own early views. When I met some of my youthful acquaintance afterward, on the same day, there was a strangeness in their looks towards me, as if I was not the same being as before. Was it because I was no longer among the young, and had lost all my sympathy with the age? I endeavoured to manifest, by a cheerful serenity and a lively interest in their society, that I had not lost the vivacity and the freshness of youth, notwithstanding I had sat down with their parents in the solemnity of the sacrament.

Soon after this, I left my native home, no longer to consider it as my own proper place of abode. I exchanged its quiet seclusion for new, and strange, and more crowded scenes. I was now to meet the populous, trying, and more tempting world. But I trust that I had an armour of God, the preparation of the gospel of peace. I had embraced what is called Liberal Christianity; and I can with truth say, that it had great influence in keeping me unspotted from the world, and steadfast amid its changes. I have since lived some years, and been in various situa

tions. I have been disappointed in plans, have buried the beloved, have been sick and near death myself, and my religion has never failed to alleviate, cheer, and sustain. I have read and thought much, but my peculiar views have not changed, except as the dawn changes in spreading and brightening toward the perfect day.

Thomas Jefferson.

THE following truly valuable advice to a young friend, is extracted from a letter written by this celebrated individual, the ever-memorable author of that Declaration OF INDEPENDENCE, which asserted, and led to the establishment of the liberties of AMERICA:

"Time now begins to be precious to you. Every day you lose, will retard a day your entrance on that public stage, whereon you may begin to be useful to yourself. However, the way to repair the loss is to improve the future time. I trust, that with your dispositions, even the acquisition of science is a pleasing employment. I can assure you, that the possession of it, is what (next to an honest heart) will, above all things, render you dear to your friends, and give you fame and promotion in your own country. When your mind shall be well improved with science, nothing will be necessary to place you in the highest points of view, but to pursue the interests of your country, the interests of your friends, and your own interests also, with the purest integrity, the most chaste honour. The defect of these virtues can never be made up by all the other acquirements of body and mind. Make these, then, your first object. Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give up the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose, that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonourable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you. Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly. Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises; being assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the body does, and that exercise will make them habitual. From the practice of the pu

rest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death. If ever you find yourself environed with difficulties and perplexing circumstances, out of which you are at a loss how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and be assured that that will extricate you the best out of the worst situations. Though you cannot see when you take one step what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one, will untie itself before you. Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties ten fold; and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions."

A Contrast.

MANY of those who have assumed the ministerial character, have displayed their want of every qualification for the discharge of its duties, both in the pulpit and in the parlour. As to the pulpit; it has furnished a pillow for the drone-a stage for the mountebank-and a place of display for the actor, where the "start theatric, practised at the glass," has beeu exhibited to the delight of the ignorant, the grief of the pious, and the scorn of men of sense. As to the domestic circle, the minister, by profession, has too frequently presented himself there, in any light rather than in that which his sacred office demands,—the learned disputant, the retailer of thread-bare anecdotes, or the fiddle of the company while present, and the object of its derision so soon as he has retired. Let us oppose to all

this inconsistency, the frequently quoted but yet interesting description, of the estimable and consistent servant of God, presented to us by the poet Cowper; he pourtrays him as

Under men like these, religion cannot fail to flourishunder men like those, religion cannot fail to perish. The best cause would be wrecked with such for pilots; and religion is the best thing in the world, and the greatest disgrace religion has ever suffered, has been at the hands of its professed friends. It may well adopt the petition, "save me from my friends, and I will save myself from my enemies." "When parsons fiddle, may not laymen dance?" And thus it has happened, that the faults of the clergy has relaxed the morality of the laity, as well as brought dishonour on religion. Could those parsons of microscopic minds, who play the bear and fiddle to little societies, but see the dishonourable position in which they have placed themselves, and the disesteem which they suffer at the hands of all truly respectable men, they might perhaps either be amended, or see the necessity of quitting a profession which is, in however small a degree, a constraint upon them, and which they disgrace by their idle and unworthy demeanour. The case which we have now contemplated, is an extreme one. But among how many ministers does there prevail a worldly-mindedness, which is most hostile to their implied professions, and to their influence! We never see a minister dance, even though in private, without feeling pain. The man seems to us out of his proper place. We wish he felt so too. Cards, yet but too common in society, a minister might well, and ought to discourage, if for no other reason than this, that they preclude the possibility of introducing rational and improving conversation. We do not think it well for ministers to go very much into what is called society. Jerome thus speaks on this head: "Facile contemnitur clericus qui sæpe vocatus ad prandium ire non recusat. Nunquam petentes, raro accipiamus rogate." "A clergyman