Here the utmost circumspection is required. The sick man will look to his minister as to his father. He will place confidence in him, as one skilled in holy things.

He will probably ask, with a faultering voice, what are his prospects for eternity? But if he is deceived, and his counsellor encourages him, his false confidence will be strengthened, and a soul is lost forever.

It is important that a minister proceed in such a manner, that if the person is deceived he himself shall detect the deception. He should unravel the process by which the deception was induced, and endeavor to exhibit the sinner's heart to his own view. The minister should investigate the grounds of the present peace of the supposed penitent, and see if it did not originate from some misapprehension of the character of God, or the way of salvation. The nature of sin, as an offence against infinite purity, should be described. That law should be made to appear holy, just, and good, which threatens death to every transgressor.

Does he unreservedly submit himself to a sovereign God? approving his justice as well as mercy? Is sin hated for its intrinsic malignity, as an offence against a holy God?

The necessity of strictness in the examination will appear more obvious, if we consider the immense disadvantages, under which the work of repentance was commenced. A weak and distressed state of body; a mind enfeebled by disease; distracted thoughts, and extreme solicitude, operating with combined force, present an almost immovable barrier to the work of repentance. In this situation, how can one apply himself, for any length of time, to serious investigation? How can he confine his attention to the all-important concerns of his soul? Only one misconception may lead him to a wrong result, and to this he will be constantly liable. Every minister, with these considerations before him, should beware of being too much influenced by the sympathies and sensibilities of his nature. He should remember that the situation of an immortal soul is awfully critical, and if he is unfaithful it may be irretrievably lost. He must be affectionate, but plain. However painful and distressing the operation, the wound must be probed to the bottom. But shall the hopes of a dying man be dashed? Shall the light, which has dawned upon his soul be put out, and the darkness of despair again envelope his mind? Shall the only prop, which supports him, be removed at this trying hour? Yes, let all these be done, if duty requires it. To throw difficulties and doubts in the way of the real penitent, is indeed painful; but it is far preferable to becoming accessary to the ruin of one, whose hopes are built on the sand. P.

For the Panoplist.

ON SEEKING THE HAPPINESS OF OTHERS.

"Who went about doing good."

To delight in goodness itself, and to rejoice in the expressions of it in others, is one discriminating mark of the Christian's character; to do good one of his indispensable duties. Wherever he turns his eye, he

sees a wilderness producing briers and thorns. This wilderness is yet to be planted with that Vine, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations: but contrasting its present condition with its aspect on that glorious morning, when the Creator pronounced it "very good," his heart is melted into compassion in view of the unnumbered woes which sadden the face of this apostate world. But shall he fold his hands and sit still? If his heart be almost ready to break with anguish, he may exclaim, "Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears." He may be so far absorbed with his own sensibilities, and so much enfeebled by their indulgence, that the day for exertion shall be past before he arises to repair the wastes of the smoking desolation. At the approach of the long sleep, he may have accomplished almost nothing in any of the plans of benevolence; though he hailed their beginning, and desired their success. Courage first forsook him; the enemies were numerous, and the obstacles great. Strength subsided ere he put his hand to the work; the shades of evening are drawing near, and nothing is done. When his head is laid low among the clods of the valley, it may but too truly be said of him, as of many others, "he dies and leaves no cheering memorial behind him." What single misery has he diminished? what single calamity has he alleviated? In short, where is, or has been, the single immortal, who is, or will be, any happier, than if this man had never existed?

To the reader of this paper I suggest the following considerations. 1. Whether there is not, fairly within his reach, some practicable method of doing good?

Discarding the expectation of reaping without the toil of cultivation, let each one look around him, with a cordial desire of diminishing the quantity of human suffering. While he remembers, that a splendid part can be allotted to but few, and that the other parts are equally necessary to the perfection of a plan, let him immediately look at the condition of his country, his neighborhood, his friends, and family. If he be blest with an abundance, many of the sons of want and objects of public charity, may experience the comforts of his bounty. If Providence has placed him in a humble lot, and confined his influence within the narrow circle, let him not forget, that within that circle his activity is just as necessary, and his indolence as much a crime, as if the extent of his operations were measured on a grander scale. It is an egregious mistake of many persons, to suppose, because they are in circumstances of mediocrity, or perhaps of poverty, they are not accountable for neglecting every portion of the immense mass of suffering in the world. Had they fortunes, or were they placed on the high ground of public office, they would account themselves responsible for the abuse of such a high trust; but by individuals so poor,and of so little influence as themselves, nothing of lasting benefit to the community can be effected. Probably, no being gifted with reason was ever yet so perfectly degraded, as not to have influence with some one of his own species. Some circumstance, which he perhaps cannot name, has given him a hold on the opinions, the passions, and of course, on the conduct, of a neighbor, a relative, or an associate. This influence is the talent put into his hands to improve. For the use of it he is most solemnly accountable.

2. With an acknowledged good to be achieved, and evil to be remedied or prevented, full in his sight, I inquire of the man, who hesitates to begin, whether he can conscientiously be exonerated from lending his aid?

I know it is perfectly consonant with pride, and one of its dictates, to ask, when any project of usefulness is proposed-can I do this honorably? Will not my reputation suffer by my attempts to benefit others? If the employment be a very humble one, shall I not be ridiculed for my pains? What will my acquaintances say of me? Shall I run the risk of being degraded by it? These and a thousand similar doubts, must be solved, before the man, halting between two opinions,” will consent to begin a duty, which is too plain to admit of proof.

If the inquirer in such cases be not a willing slave to the silly maxims of honor; a mere foot ball for fashion's fools; if he be not incurably blind to the difference between the applause of men and the approbation of God, let him answer to his conscience this single question. Will it comfort you in the hour of dissolution, to reflect that the vain breath of man has been the standard of your actions? An excessive value placed on the esteem of men is a very common and fatal delusion. When it once becomes a fixed principle, every noble motive is excluded. On examination, that will always be found a sordid mind, which cherishes and boasts of an extreme sensibility to its own honor; that is so anxiously attentive to the opinions of others respecting its operations, that it dares attempt nothing, which they condemn, to frown at nothing which they approve.

The slothful servant was not punished for the misimprovement of many talents, but for hiding a single one. Many seek to excuse themselves from any share in works of beneficence, "because," say they, "we are so poor that we can do nothing to any considerable amount. The space we occupy is so exceedingly narrow, that if vacant it can scarcely be noticed, and if occupied ever so completely, it will not be observed." This, I fear, is the true ground on which multitudes plead an exemption from all endeavors to do good. If they could be placed on an eminence to command attention, they would exert themselves, that is, seek a still higher elevation; for such a gratification accords well with the self-exalting spirit, which, in different degrees, lurks in almost every bosom. But to labor in obscurity to scatter the means of happiness without praise; to lessen the sufferings of the community without increasing their own importance; to explore the recesses of misery without the encouragement of the public voice, or the smiles of our friends; to subject one's self to a great deal of pain in exploring the miseries of the wretched,-and all this without hope of reward, or prospect of emolument,-is more than such men are willing to undertake.

I would request those, who aim only at conspicuous stations for the display of their talents, and will consent to toil for the public in no other, to contemplate the example of the divine Savior. Indeed he taught in the temple as one having authority;" but when the occasion presented, he also seated himself in the synagogue with murmuring and malicious enemies. When fatigued with a toilsome journey, he was as willing to instruct the ignorant woman of Samaria, at the

For the Panoplist. MARKS OF THE DIVINE DISPLEASURE IN THE PRESENT WORLD.

SUFFERING is inseparable from the condition of man. No stage of his journey is exempt from it, and through most of the seasons of his pilgrimage it constitutes the principal ingredient in his cup. Scarcely are his eyes opened, before pain assails him, and is through life either a constant companion, or a frequent visitant. But the anguish of his body is often forgotten, and even lost, in the keener distresses of his mind. The numerous objects which invite his attention, like butterflies pursued in the sunshine, generally elude his grasp; and if seized, wither at his touch, and die in his embrace. What at a distance daz-` zled his eye by its splendor, loses half its charms on a near approach; "all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief."

Some exhibitions of the displeasure, with which the present world is viewed by its Creator, meet us at every change of human affairs. Let us in this place notice one or two. Death, in its own nature, and in all the anticipations it presents to the mind, is a dreadful evil. Wherever life itself is desirable, the loss of it is contemplated with dismay proportioned to the strength of that desire. Probably, not all the causes which contribute to swell the fear of death are well understood; but even irrational animals share it with ourselves. They shudder with expressions of appalling terror at the final agonies of one of their species. In other natural evils also, they participate, apparently from their dependence on man, or connexion with him; and unquestionably those species which he has subjected to his control, and enslaved in the service of his pleasures, are inconceivably more wretched than others, which roam in freedom through their native forests. Nevertheless, from the pangs of the guilty conscience, and the dread of merited punishment, they are completely freed.

Although the divine Savior has deprived death of its most terrible features, and the transit from time to eternity can be contemplated with greater composure by his disciples, from the assurance of a resurrection to endless life,-still the gloomy vale which separates us from the untried world is shrouded in darkness, and none but fools and madmen rush into it with presumption, or advance with indifference towards the awful confines of a world of retribution.

The same truth appears on the face of the natural world. Immense regions are doomed to perpetual sterility. They are visited neither by the rains nor the dews of heaven. No genial sun quickens into life a luxuriant vegetation; nor temperate atmosphere protects or nourishes the foliage of the waving forest or the fields. Other regions parched by a burning sun, destroy the principles of vegetable life, and generate fatal diseases in animated nature. Their puny inhabitants, if they have any, are enfeebled by the poisonous exhalations around them, and by the noxious atmosphere they breathe. Some again, beneath the frigid zone, supply but a scanty sustenance to their wandering tenants. With incessant toil the famishing native gains but a precarious support for a comfortless existence, and quits life without ever having known those enjoyments found in temperate climes. His whole residence on earth is passed between the jaws of famine on one VOL. XVI.

2

hand, and on the other, a toil so unceasing, and so severe, that nature seems incapable of enduring it.

Countries blessed with a milder climate, where neither the extremes of heat nor of cold are experienced, have generally been groaning beneath the iron sceptre of despotism. Their miserable inhabitants are trodden into the dust by governments the most oppressive, which a just God ever suffered to desolate the world. If the poor tenant of the soil have acquired some fruits of his honest labor, a rapacious landlord, an avaricious pacha, or viceroy, wrests from his hands all the gains of industry, and with it the hopes of support for a dependent family.

Of the whole time since the deluge, a large portion has been occupied in war. Looking at a race of beings, whose chief employment has been to destroy each other, whose principal aim seems directed to the diffusion of misery in a thousand forms,-would it not appear that they are subject to some dreadful infatuation? Blinded by sin, and drunk with revengeful passions, how zealously do they perform the works of that roaring lion who always seeks whom he may devour? Are not the marks of Almighty indignation discoverable in the state of such a revolted province of his dominions,-a province which has turned one part of its inhabitants loose upon the other, and exhausted itself in the work of destruction? Further, when it is recollected, that those, who have engrossed the honors of this same world, have been its principal destroyers; that the highway to preferment and fame, among these deluded beings, is drenched with the blood of millions, and watered with the tears of widows and orphans without number; that men tolerate every species of error, however debasing, rather than truth; that they reject the only and all-sufficient remedy offered by God for the cure of such universal disorder and suffering,-what proof is wanting to show the supreme degradation of such a region? In what righteous judgment has God suffered these beings to raise the hand of a suicide against themselves; and, fond as they are of blood, and fertile in expedients for inflicting pain, how justly has he made them the executioners of his vengeance against sin.

It will be observed, that I have omitted to mention those tremendous displays of the divine displeasure, which are seen in the convulsions of the globe. Not because I think these a more equivocal testimony of God's disapprobation of the guilty world thus punished; but that my intention, in this short article, was to notice only those more general intimations of the designs of Providence, which are scattered over greater portions of the earth, and observable in the face of the ordinary affairs of nations, or of individuals. Should the reader wish to contemplate the signal visitations of Heaven, in which man's splendid habitations are changed at once into his grave,-let him turn to the volcanoes of Italy, and the earthquakes which have swept the cities of Catania, Lisbon, Messina, Lima, Roibamba, and Caraecas.

X.