attempt to glorify God's cause, and to promote your welfare. May you consult the word of God, make that your guide through life; and you may then expect to realize the enjoyment of a state of bliss far better than that which your professed advocates represent to you in such glowing colours.

THE DISTINCTION OF SINS INTO MORTAL AND VENIAL

I WAS not aware, until recently, that Roman Catholics of this age, and in this country, make that practical use which I find they do of the distinction of sins into mortal and venial. For the truth of the following narrative I can vouch. An intelligent gentleman being, a few weeks since, expostulated with by a protestant lady, on his spending the whole of a certain sabbath in playing at cards, replied with the utmost readiness, and with every appearance of confidence in the validity of his apology, "Oh, that is not a mortal sin." Several similar examples of a resort to this distinction were reported to me. Now, can that system be the religion of Jesus Christ, which recognizes this horrible distinction, and puts such a plea as this into the mouth of a transgressor of one of the commandments of that decalogue which God's own voice articulated, and his own finger wrote? I cannot express the feelings I have, when I think of the multitudes who are forming a character for eternity under the influence of doctrines like these. What sort of a character must they form!

How completely at variance with the Scriptures is this distinction!" Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them-The wages of sin is death-The soul that sinneth, it shall die,” Gal. iii. 10; Rom. vi. 23; Ezek. xviii. 4. Is not all sin disobedience to God? and may he be disobeyed in any respect without guilt? Did ever a father of a family recognize such a distinction in the government of his children? Did Christ atone for what are called venial sins, or did he not? If he did not, then he did not atone for all sin. If he did atone for them, they must be worthy of death, since he died for them.

The truth is, all sin is mortal, if not repented of; and all sin is venial, that is, pardonable, if repented of. There is

no sin which the blood of Christ cannot cleanse from. And nothing but that can take away any sin.

It is not worth while to reason against such a distinction. I only mention it as one of the absurd and pernicious errors of the system to which it belongs. NEVINS.

SEEK CONVERSION TO GOD.

BECAUSE God will not admit one unconverted sinner into heaven. If you go on but one hour more in the love and practice of sin, you know not but God may leave you to yourselves. Oh what folly is it for men to delay repentance to the last! a continuance in sin will make the work of conversion more difficult.

What greater madness can there be than to plead custom for sinning against the living God. Why the oftener you have sinned the oftener you have wronged God.

A great hinderance of men's conversion is a foolish selflove that makes them unwilling to know the worst of themselves. They think it is every one's duty to think well of themselves. There is scarcely a greater hinderance of conversion than these false deceiving hopes of sinners, who think they are converted when they are not, and hope to be saved when they have no ground for their hopes.

From an old Author.

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out,” Acts iii. 19.

THE SHIPWRECK AT CALAIS.

AFTER a long day of fatiguing travel by the Paris diligence, accompanied by heat and dust, the evening was ushered in by a cool breeze and "a cloud as a man's hand" appearing in the horizon gave hopes of a refreshing shower. Little did we suppose that the storm was now beginning which wrecked the Amphitrite. The rain increased, and the half-clad peasantry hastened to the shelter of their hovels, the interior of which yields to the rapid glance of the traveller a scene of the utmost discomfort and poverty. At midnight, we reached Abbeville-on-the-Somme, and regretted that the dense clouds from which the heavy rain was still descending prevented our taking more than an imperfect glance at this fine old city, so rich in ancient architecture and the site of so many

interesting events in history. The beams of morning at last arose, and towards Montreuil, where we breakfasted, a few fitful gleams of sunshine cheered our dreary road, but soon gave way to stormy gusts of wind and incessant wet, which continued to the end of the journey. We passed Boulogne the day the convict ship was lost, arrived at Calais, and found the sailors unable to put to sea. After a night disturbed by the continued storm, the news which met us at the breakfast table was the appalling history of the Amphitrite, too well known to need any description here. The steam-vessel from London expected at eleven the previous night had not yet arrived. One vessel had come in under great distress and with much difficulty. A Danish ship about a mile off was toiling in great jeopardy, and many in the offing were seen wafted and dashed like feathers on the boiling waves, the poor mariners in the state described by the psalmist, "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth 'up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again unto the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end." A short time elapsed, and word was brought that the Danish ship had completely split asunder. We now hastened to the shore, where a scene terrific almost past description met our eyes. A raging sea deluging the shore and immersing the pier with sheets of spray and sand driven as if by a tornado, and reminding us of the sand-storm of the desert. The agitated deep "boiling like a pot," and the waves bearing onwards with furious haste parts of the broken ship and its valuable stores, shattered masts, casks of liquor, bales of cotton, indigo, staves, boxes, books, and seamen's clothes. Keeping our feet with great difficulty, we turned from this shocking sight to one still more heart-rending. Six men (followed by an immense crowd) were dragging along a corpse that had just been washed ashore. It passed close by us, and proved to be the body of a Danish sailor. A handkerchief was tied over the face, which, with the body, seemed greatly swollen, and appeared to have been in the water a long time. The foot half out of a torn stocking was that of a powerful man that doubtless had often trod the deck with all the dauntless activity of a sailor; his hands, bony and coarse, were pale, soddened with the sea-water, bruised, and the flesh torn as if with hard struggling for life. The poor dripping spectacle was carried past to share a foreign grave with fifteen others who were lost by the same

awful wreck. Were they prepared to meet their God? When, like Jonah, they were cast into the midst of the sea, when the waters compassed them about even unto the soul, and the depth closed in round about them, did they remember the Lord, did their prayer come up unto Him in his holy temple? Like sinking Peter, did they cry, Lord, save or we perish, or were their souls landed on the shores of an eternal world as strangers to God?

In the midst of this scene of storm and death, the wreckers, a depraved set of the lowest orders of Calais, in squalid rags, with baskets fastened to their backs, came down in crowds to seize upon anything valuable from the cargo, laughing and talking with glee over the plunder which the misfortunes of others had placed within their grasp. Parties of them covered the sands for miles on each side of Calais, the beach being thickly strewed with articles from the wreck which they carried off in triumph. We waited three days before it was deemed safe to venture across the channel. The storm at last abated. The sun shone, and never did its cheering beams call up more grateful feelings of heart to Him who maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. At the going out of the tide we wandered to the beach, where one complete half of the wrecked ship lay bottom upwards on the sands, the other half was carried away to the distance of five miles. We examined the bars, bolts, and iron of great strength, and found them twisted like bent wire, the sails torn and dripping like wet rags, and here a shoe, there part of a neckcloth, a box, or a book left among the multitudes of delicate pink and yellow shells which had been cast up by the tide.

Such are the awful effects of storm and shipwreck. Yet there is a storm, a wreck even more awful than has been here described. The storm of the wrath of God on the obstinately impenitent will wreck the soul. As we cannot brave this storm, is it not folly to neglect the offer of salvation from Christ Jesus, who has made a full atonement for sinners, and who invites us to make Him our refuge from the tempest, our hiding-place from the storm.

"Snatch'd from a darker deep,

And waves of wilder foam,

Thou, Lord, those trusting souls wilt keep,
And waft them home-

Home, where no storm can sound,"

Nor angry waters roar,

Nor troublous billows heave around
That peaceful shore."

NEHEMIAH BUILDING THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM. NEHEMIAH is resolved to kneel to the king his master, for the repair of his Jerusalem. He dares not attempt the suit till he have begun with God. This good courtier knew well, that the hearts of these earthly kings are in the overruling hand of the King of heaven, to incline whither he pleaseth. Our prayers are the only true means to make way for our success. If, in all our occasions, we do not begin with the First Mover, the course is wrong, and commonly speeds accordingly.

Who dares censure the piety of courtiers, when he finds Nehemiah standing before Artaxerxes? Even the Persian palace is not incapable of a saint. No man that waits on the altar at Jerusalem, can compare for zeal with him that waits on the cup of a pagan monarch. The mercies of God are not limited to places, to callings.

Thus armed with devotions, Nehemiah puts himself into the presence of his master Artaxerxes. His face was overclouded with a deep sadness, neither was he willing to clear it. The king easily notes the disparity of the countenance of the bearer, and the wine that he bears; and, in a gracious familiarity, asks the reason of such unwonted change. How well it becomes the great to stoop unto a courteous affability, and to exchange words of respect, even with their humble vassals!

Nehemiah dares not open his mouth to the king, till his TRACT MAGAZINE, NO. 69. SEPTEMBER, 1839.

K