for the sake of thy wounds and death. I cast myself entirely upon Thee."

The day before his death he was baptized: at his own request the Greenlandic language was used in the administration of the ordinance. How must the sounds of his native tongue have recalled to his mind the scenes of his early life, reminding him of his former degraded condition, and filling him with admiring thoughts of that God, who had so wonderfully sought him out, and followed him in all his perverse wanderings. Surely, such a retrospect, connected with his future prospects, was well suited to stir such affections in his soul, as would burst forth in the language of inspiration, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom and strength, and honour and blessing." On the 4th of October, God took his ransomed spirit to its eternal home.

All the circumstances of the life, and apparently premature death of this individual, remind us, that God's ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts. But as he proposes a wise and righteous end in all his

MYSTERY OF PROVIDence.

dealings with the children of men, it becomes us, humbly and reverently to enquire, why so many who gave promise of great service in the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ, have been like Karpik, removed by an early death. In reply to such an enquiry, we may confidently assert, in the words of an old writer, that God, in such dispensations, "will have it known, that though he uses instruments, he needs them not. It is a piece of divine royalty and magnificence, that when he hath prepared and polished such a utensil, so as to be capable of great service, he can lay it by without loss," and this may awaken some to "bless God that the weight of his interest, and of the cause of religion, doth not hang and depend upon the slender thread of this or that man's life. The God of the Spirits of all flesh,' can raise up instruments as he pleases; and will, to serve his own purposes, though not ours."

The early and unexpected removal of a Christian, qualified by the possession of peculiar gifts, to advance the best and highest interests of a country, is also calculated to re

mind us, that the affairs of the invisible world to which, the spirits of those who sleep in Jesus are translated, are incomparably greater and more considerable, than of this world, from which they are taken. The discomposure of mind which we suffer upon any such occasion, arises chiefly from our having too high and great thoughts of this world, and too low and diminishing thoughts of the other: we imagine this our little spot of earth to be the only place of business, and the rest of the creation to be vast empty space, where there is nothing to do: whereas our thoughts should follow the spirits of those who die in the Lord into the invisible world, and the eyes of our faith should behold them engaged in those nobler employments, upon which they enter of whom this world is not worthy.

CHAPTER IV.

Growth of Christ's kingdom-Establishment of the first Missionary Station in Labrador-Willingness of the Esquimaux to hear the Missionaries-An Esquimaux on his death-bed professes dependance on Christ-Some of the Missionaries make a voyage of Discovery-They are wrecked, and two of them drowned-The Stations of Hopedale and Okkak established-The Gospel preached with little effect -The causes which hindered its Progress-Cares and Pleasures of the world-Wonderful preservation of the Lives of two Missionaries.

In the well-known parable of the grain of mustard-seed, the Lord directs our attention to the wonders of the vegetable world, as illustrating the growth of his spiritual kingdom; but in order to enter into the full power and import of the similitude, we must assume the case of a person witnessing the wonders of vegetation for the first time. We can then

easily conceive how incredible it would appear to him, not having the evidence of experience, that the little seed should ever become a great tree, and however the springing up of the first tender blade, and the budding of the first leaves might stagger his scepticism, it would still recur with every blighting wind, and at length when winter seemed to extinguish the life of the little plant, he would relapse into his former incredulity. But still amid all the vicissitudes of seasons, and the alternation of hope and fear, of belief and doubting, the plant would gradually strike its roots, and extend its branches, until it had grown to those dimensions, which it had been appointed to attain.

It is thus with the growth of the Lord's kingdom in the earth, and it was thus with the branch of it, planted on the coast of Labrador. Whatever hopes might have been awakened among its friends, by the preparatory visits of Haven and Drachart, the subsequent tumults which broke out between the natives and the British, seemed to forebode that these hopes were fallacious. But the