sublimely replete with the most glorious and mysterious excellencies. Eternal life, salvation, and blessedness, are wonderfully comprised in it; greater than the mind of man can conceive, or human language describe. It is a sweet emollient for the lacerated conscience, a healing balm for the wounded heart. It opens a gleam of hope to the returning prodigal, discovers exuberant beauties and transporting glories to his enraptured eyes, and directs his march to Canaan's rest. It alleviates the pangs of sickness, and pours benignant radiance on the valley of death. Transcendantly delightful name! beyond the explanation of the inhabitants of time. Its rich and amazing import is more adequately known in the regions of cloudless day-of everlasting light. IMMANUEL ! JESUS! Ye hoary heads, silvered with years, and furrowed with sorrows, and just ready to repose in the slumbers of the grave, O let this name reverberate on your closing lips, and animate your souls with more than mortal joys, as they take their happy flight to congenial climes. And you young immortals and prattling children, let your stammering tongues learn to reiterate it with hearts touched with sacred fire, and be nobly ambitious to engage in that angelic employment, which commences in time, and runs parallel with the ages of eternity. Christians, lose not your temper and your time about empty forms and notions, but let this name be the animating theme of your social converse and retired contemplations; and as oft as it vibrates on your tongues, and pervades your minds, let your hearts burn within you with extatic fire, and your affections soar to worlds of light. Ah! ye poor deluded sinners, ye know not the felicity ye lose, while ye are strangers to praise, and ignorant of the harmony and rapture of this soul-reviving word, Awake,

Q

awake! and let your dormant powers vie with angels in adoringly celebrating this name, which all the host of heaven strive to extol and magnify in strains too sublimely grand for mortals to hear.

Write soon. Do not forget to love and pray for your affectionate aud obliged,

FANNY.

LETTER TO MISS S. P. B. OF LYNNFIELD.

Beverly, June 18, 1818.

I NEED your friendship, your correspondence, and your -prayers; and I trust you will confer on me the precious boon. Surely we ought to exert ourselves to benefit each other in our wearisome journey through this thorny desert and waste howling wilderness. The portentous moment in which our first parents ate of the forbidden fruit, "brought death into the world and all our woe." It changed a garden of Eden into an Aceldama, " a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and the shadow of death." It introduced war, carnage, and destruction, and all the variegated and complicated hardships and distresses under which nations bleed, and every individual more or less despondingly groans. It ushered in those envious and rebellious passions which exasperated Cain to embrue his hands in a brother's blood; and which have been the source of all the calamities and dire convulsions, and amazing revolutions which have taken place in the world. To these malignant passions, the consequences of that eventful moment, must be ascribed those intestine divisions and awful judgments which distract our beloved country, and those bloody wars, conflicting commotions, and heart appaling catastrophes, which cause nations to bleed at every pore, and agitate our globe to its very cen

tre. Ah, when we think of that deluge cf iniquity, which seems to inundate our guilty land, and threatens to swallow in its vortex all that is amiable and good, do not our spirits droop within us, and our souls tremble for the ark of God? But the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; let the earth rejoice, and all its isles be glad. Our Jesus sits on the holy hill of Zion, swaying the sceptre of the universe, ordering and regulating all its affairs, " from seeming evil still educing good," and making the wrath of man to praise him, and all creatures and things subservient to the good of his church, and promotion of his kingdom. He will overturn, overturn, and overturn, till he shall reign king of nations as he is king of saints-till the standard of the cross is erected in heathen climes, and his kingdom swallows up every other kingdom, and embraces all the nations of the earth. Precious thought! Do we not delight, with an eye of faith, to look over the lofty mountains of superstition, vice, infidelity, error, and immorality, to that glorious era of light and love, of joy and triumph, of peace and tranquillity? O for another day of Pentecost, when all shall be of one heart and one soul, when great grace shall be upon all believers, and when multitudes shall throng the gates of Zion, and with joy and gratitude smiling in their eyes, encircle the table of the dear Redeemer.

Have you, my friend, yet embraced the precious privilege with which Jesus has condescendingly indulged his humble followers, that of professing his dear name, and enjoying his covenant love? I regret that you had not, when last I heard. I should rejoice to hear that you had united yourself to a Christian church, and publicly avouched your attachment to Immanuel's cause, by "surnaming yourself by the name of Israel," Let me

tell you, it is not only an important duty, but an inestimable privilege, tending to corroborate grace, to enliven faith and love, and awaken to penitence, humility, zeal, and obedience. O can we refuse this token of our affection to Him, who bled, and groaned, and died, that our poor souls might live forever! Ought we not at such a time to appear explicitly on the Lord's side, to come out and be separate from the world, and all its ensnareing amusements and wicked customs! My beloved friend, do let us be decided and consistent Christians. Most soothingly and irresistably does our Jesus speak," Do this in remembrance of me." Where is the heart tinctured with grace, that is proof against this melting, dying command? Perhaps you might object, that you fear you are not a Christian. Examine then, and strive to ascertain your state. If you are unprepared for this duty, you are unprepared for death. And if you were now on a dying bed, would not the omission of this duty grieve and distress you? And let me just suggest, that this may be one cause of the doubts and fears that now trouble you; for God will honour them that honour him. I trust, my dear Miss B. that you are engaged in the cause of religion, and striving unremittingly to advance the interests of your dear Redeemer. O strive to extol and magnify his grace, and embrace every opportunity of recommending him to others.

The religion of many professors will not stand the test of scripture, nor of the final judgment. That religion which aims to unite God and mammon, would give half to God, and half to the world, and tries to retain the friendship of both; however well it may suit the carnal heart, and prevalent as is, yet it is not the religion of the cross; it will never save our souls. The religion of

Christ admits no mediocrity, no neutrality. It requires the whole heart, and all the energies of soul and body. It is incompatible with the friendship of the world; calls its votaries to be strangers and pilgrims here; to take up the cross and follow their Master, through evil report as well as through good report; to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and live soberly, righteously, and godly, looking for that rest which remains for the people of God.

O my friend, let us dare to be singularly good, convincing all around us that we have been with Jesus, and learned of him. If others are lukewarm, and say, "Spare thyself; there is no need of so much circumspection, self-denial, and zeal;" O let us beware of their base insinuations, and bear in mind, that "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force;" and not every one that says, Lord, Lord," shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of God; and it is his will, that we should be always abounding in his work, redeeming the time, walking circumspectly, and serving him with fervency of spirit. Your very unworthy, though loving friend,

F. W.

LETTER TO MISS N. J. OF BEVERLY.

Beverly, June, 1813.

THERE is, my dear Nancy, laid in Zion a precious corner Stone, a sure Foundation, upon which the church of God, and every individual believer is immoveably established. It is a Foundation, which affliction, persecution, and death, in all their most formidable terrors cannot shake, which the malice of earth and hell cannot undermine. Since its