In 1784 the plan was adopted by several manufacturing towns in Yorkshire; in Leeds about 1800 poor children were speedily collected. In Stockport a spacious building was completed for the purpose of a Sunday school, 134 feet long, and 57 feet wide. Other places followed these laudable examples, and Sunday schools soon started up in various districts throughout the kingdom.

Early in 1785, the sensation reached London; and, under the auspices of Mr. William Fox, the Sunday school society was called into existence at the close of the year. From that period to the present, these schools have been gradually increasing, and from extending throughout Europe, they have found their way into every quarter of the globe. In their early stages they had to encounter some formidable opposition; but so apparent has been their utility, that most of their enemies have either become silent, or have been converted into friends.

For nearly thirty years Mr. Raikes lived to witness the growing extension of Sunday schools, and to reflect with thankfulness on the blessings of Providence, which had thus attended his early endeavours. About three years prior to his death, he was visited. by Joseph Lancaster, who, of that interview, speaks as follows:

66

"I was naturally desirous of gaining information and instruction from a venerable man of seventy-two, who had in a series of years superintended the education of 3000 children, who had been actively engaged in visiting both the city and county prisons, whereby he had gained an ample opportunity of knowing if any of the scholars were brought in as prisoners, and who, on appeal ing to his memory, which, although at an advanced age, was strong and lively, could answer- NONE.""

Mr. Lancaster adds, that when Mr. Raikes was first revolving the subject of Sunday schools in his thoughts, the word TRY was so powerfully impressed upon his mind, as to decide him at once to action; and he remarked to Mr. Lancaster-" I can never pass by the spot where the word "TRY' came so powerfully into my mind, without lifting up my hands and heart to heaven in gratitude to God, for having put such a thought into my heart."

From 1809 to 1811, the health of Mr. Raikes was visibly on the decline; and he was occasionally visited with symptoms that indicated an approaching dissolution. On the evening of the 5th of April, 1811, he experienced an oppression on the chest. A physician was immediately called in; but he soon declared that his case was hopeless; and in little more than half an hour he breathed his last in his native city of Gloucester, in the 75th year of his age. His mortal remains were buried in the ancient church of St. Mary de Crypt, Gloucester, and on a monument, subjoined to an epitaph on his parents, the following inscription appears :

VOL. XI. August, 1828.

31

}

Also, of
ROBERT,
Their Eldest Son,

By whom Sabbath Schools were first instituted
in this Place;
and were also,

By his successful exertion and assiduity,
Recommended to others.

He died on the 5th of April,
of our Salvation 1811,

In the year of his Age 75.

While the names of warriors who have fought for their country, and spread devastation through the territories they have ravished and desolated, are recorded on splendid public monuments, this humble inscription is all that distinguishes the grave of this virtuous philanthropist and friend of mankind. But perhaps the most durable monument to the memory of Mr. Raikes, may be found in the numerous Sunday schools now in active operation; and which in England and Ireland alone contain upwards of a million of children, and above ninety thousand gratuitous teachers; and the best tribute of respect we can render to his memory is, a persevering imitation of the bright example he has set before us, and bequeathed to posterity.

[For many particulars of this memoir, we are indebted to a "Sketch of the Life of Mr. Raikes," by W. F. Lloyd.]

MISCELLANEOUS.

FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY.

THE SEVEN APOCALYPTIC CHURCHES.

From recent " Letters from the Levant."
(Concluded from page 271.)

3. PERGAMOS. AGAINST Pergamos is adduced the charge of instability ;* but to its wavering faith is promised the all powerful counsel of the Deity;t the errors of Balaam and the Nicolaitans have been purged away; Pergamos has been preserved from the destroyer, and three thousand Christians now cherish the rites of their religion in the same spot where it was planted by the hands of St. Paul.

* Vide Rev. ii, 14, 15.

I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth, Idem, 16.

4. THYATIRA.

To Thyatira a similar promise has been made, and a similar result ensued. Amidst a horde of infidels, and far removed from intercourse with Christendom, the remnant still exists, to whom Christendom has been promised "the rod of iron" and "the star of the morning."*

5. SARDIS.

But by far the most remarkable is the catastrophe of Sardis; and the minuteness with which its downfall corresponds with its prediction, cannot fail to strike the

* Vide Rev. ii, 26, 27, 28:

most obdurate skeptic. A lengthened accusation of formality in doctrine, and the outward show of religion without its fervour, leads to the announcement, "I will come on thee as a thief in the night; thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee;" but "thou hast a few names even in Sardis, who have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy."* It is needless to trace the gradual decay of Sardis. Once the capital not only of Lydia, but of Asia Minor, its boasted pre-eminence intellectually and politically gave the first impulse to its decline. I am not sufficiently versed in theological lore to trace the gradations of its fall; but its overthrow came "like a thief in the night," during that earthquake, which, in the reign of Tiberius, levelled its proudest compeers with the dust. It did certainly undergo a temporary and sickly recovery; but it was only to relapse into a more slow but equally fatal debasement; and the moral Sart scarcely merits to be called the dust of Sardis. A great portion of the ground once occupied by the imperial city, is now a smooth grassy plain, browsed over by the sheep of the peasantry, or trodden by the camels of the cara

yan.

An ordinary mosque rears its domes amidst the low dingy dwellings of the modern Sardians; and all that remains to point out the site of its glory are a few disjointed pillars and the crumbling rock of the Acropolis. The first emotion on viewing these miserable relics, is to inquire, "Can this be Sardis?" Occasionally, the time-worn capital of a ponderous column, or the sculptured surface of a shattered marble, appear rising

* Rev. üi, 3, 4.

The

So

above the weeds that overshadow
them; incongruous masses of over-
thrown edifices are uncovered by
the plough, or the storied inscrip-
tion of some hero's tale is traced
upon the slab imbedded in the mud
of the cottage wall; but Sardis pos-
sesses no remains to gladden the
prying eye of the traveller, and no
comforts to requite his toilsome
wanderings in their search.
walls of its fortress, that bade de-
fiance to the successive arms of
Cyrus, Alexander, and the Goths,
are now almost level with the sur-
face of the cliff on which they were
once proudly reared; the vestiges
of the palace of the Lydian kings
are too confused to suggest the
slightest idea of its form or extent;
and the area of the amphitheatre as
silent as the voiceless grave.
far for the first clause of the pro-
phecy; and the second is not less
striking, if we may consider the lit-
tle church of Tartar Keuy as that
remnant "who should walk in
white." The modern hamlet of
Tartar Keuy has sprung up within
the last twenty years, at about three
miles distance from the wreck of
Sardis, the remnants of its Chris-
tian population having retired thi-
ther to seek protection for them-
selves, and a refuge for the unmo-
lested exercise of their present
faith, from which they had been
unceasingly prohibited by the tyran-
ny of Kara Osman, or Karasman
Oglou: the little community now
consists of about one hundred mem-
bers, who maintain for themselves
a priest, and contrive to keep in
repair the unadorned walls of their
primitive church. Such literal in-
stances are seldom to be paralleled,

6. PHILADELphia.

the seven churches on whom unPhiladelphia is the only one of qualified praise has been bestowed,

and to whom a permanent endu- that of total subversion.* It has rance is foretold.* Both its physical and political situation would seem to transpire in counteracting the fulfilment of the prediction; earthquakes and subterraneous convulsions on the one hand, and wars and ruinous invasions on the other; but it still endures, despite of both, and its community, though not the most numerous, is by far the purest in Asia. Her situation has many charms to interest her visiter; her widely scattered buildings, spreading over an eminence at the base of mount Tmolus, are thrown into the most picturesque points of view, to which her minarets and cypresses give the usual characteristics of Orientalism; whilst the remnants of Christian temples, rising amidst the waving olive groves which surround the modern representative of the sixth seminary of Christianity, and her associations with time, history, and prophecy, confer on her an interest beyond the power of modern incident to bestow.

7. LAODICEA.

To Laodicea the most summary of the denunciations is directed

Thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name, Rev. iii, 8.

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out, Ib. 12.

been awfully accomplished; it now stands rejected of God and deserted by man; its glory a ruin, its name a reproach! No wretched outcast dwells in the midst of it; it has long been abandoned to the owl and to the fox. Not one per fect or very striking object meets the eye; all is alike desolate and decayed. The hill appears one tumulus of ruins, from which the masses of fading buildings that present themselves, seem bursting above the surrounding soil. Alternately under the dominions of the Romans and the Turks, and ravaged by the successive wars and invasions of the generals of the lower empire, and the sultans who succeeded them, the history of Laodicea is a mere alternation of vicissitudes; earthquakes and internal commotion have conspired to aid the ravages of man, and centuries have perhaps elapsed since its total abandonment.†

* I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth, Rev. iii, 15, 16.

Eski-hissar, a miserable village which has sprung from the ruins of Laodicea, contains about fifty inhabitants, of whom two only are Christians, and possess a small mill in the hamlet.

For the Methodist Magazine.

GOD'S PROMISES IMMUTABLE.

ABRAM'S PROTECTOR AND REWARD.-A SKETCH.

"Fear not, Abram. I am thy protector-thy reward I will greatly multiply," Genesis xv, 1.

I. THE promise holds out to the faithful descendants of Abram, protection, defence, safety, and res

cue.

1. In the pilgrimage of life, the righteous are often waylaid by the wicked. In their lurking places the

wicked bend their bow, and make ready the arrow tipt with death; the arrow is drawn to the head with Satanic strength; it leaps from the string, and wings its way to the bosom of the upright in heart quicker than thought, Jehovah

Jesus spreads before the upright a fountain-they eat, and drink, an impenetrable shield; the poison- and live. ed arrow is broken, and falls powerless to the ground.