further than you depart from evil and do good, and live and walk in the fear of God.

2. Use all possible means to edify yourselves and one another. Seek, by daily attention to the Scriptures, humble, fervent prayer to God, serious, devout meditation, and Christian conversation with each other, to grow in knowledge and in grace, to strengthen and fortify yourselves against all the temptations and evils to which you are liable, and to furnish yourselves unto every good work. Cultivate friendship and social intercourse with each other: when you meet together, spend not the time in light and frivolous conversation, but talk together, in a serious and candid manner, on the Scriptures and scriptural subjects, those things which relate to God and Christ, to your salvation and everlasting life and happiness. Promote union and have fellowship with each other in the spirit of Christ, and in the blessings and privileges of the gospel, and keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Shew mutual sympathy and kindness one towards another, and ever walk in love. Bear with each other's weaknesses and infirmities, and comfort and strengthen one another. Be of one mind, and study the things which make for peace and mutual edification. If ye do these things, I have no doubt the cause will revive and prosper among you.

3. Be regular and constant in your attendance on the public services. Think how discouraging it must be to your minister, after he has laboured and studied to prepare food for your souls, to find you are not in your places waiting to receive it; and consider what a bad example your non-attendance is to others. Make a point of being in your seats before the service begins, and leave them not till it is completely finished. Some persons seem to think it enough if they be present during the sermon; as if the solemn worship of God, the prayers, were not the most important part of the service; and as if they forgot that success and a blessing on our efforts depend on God, and is to be sought by prayer and supplication. Do not employ yourselves in turning over your books of tunes, and in thinking of the tunes, or in looking about you, and in criticising others, while the minister is conducting the devotional part of the service: such conduct must be offensive to God, and is disgusting to all truly devout persons; it is inconsistent with edification, and, indeed, with good sense and decency. You cannot reasonably expect the public

services to answer the end designed, nor the labours of your minister to be successful, any further than you unite in them in a regular, serious, and devout manner.

4. Do all you can to strengthen and encourage your minister, to countenance, second and promote the success of his labours and exertions: assist him in every practicable way, that you may be fellow-helpers to the truth. If you have the prosperity of the cause, the good of the congregation, and the success of your minister, at heart, these things will be remembered by you in your prayers to God. Make a point of taking as many of your family with you to the public services as can possibly attend. Carry on family worship, and endeavour to prepare your families, by your instruction and example, to attend properly to the word and worship of God in public; endeavour to draw your neighbours, friends and acquaintance to attend on your minister. Endeavour to promote the cause by the whole of your conversation, and in all your intercourses with society.

Finally, brethren, let every one of you set his shoulder to the work, and do all he can, according to his sphere, ability and opportunity, to promote the common cause of truth, righteousness and charity; let each labour to excel to the edifying of the church. If you do this, if you reduce to practice the advice I have ventured to give in this letter, I have no doubt but that you will prosper and increase, and the cause which you espouse will revive and flourish among you; but if, unhappily, you pollute yourselves with iniquity, if you be disunited, continue lifeless and indifferent, and especially if you bite and devour one another, no wonder ye be consumed one of another, if ye dwindle away and come to nothing. I pray God that this may not be the case, but that you may strengthen the things which remain, and so conduct yourselves that the blessing of God may be with and abide with you.

if

I have now, brethren, redeemed the promise I made, of addressing a letter to you through the medium of the Christian Reformer: I have addressed you with much plainness and faithfulness; and I pray God to bless you and your minister, and to revive his good work among you. It will be ever gratifying to me to hear of your prosperity.

I remain, ever faithfully, yours, &c.,
R. WRIGHT.

VOL. XIV.

THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD.

BY MRS. HEMANS.

[From "The Pledge of Friendship; a Christmas Present and NewYear's Gift," for 1828,-another of the beautiful Annuals.]

By giving her, in idea, a perpetual presence, I found that relief which others can only find by banishing things from their memories.De Vere.

FORGET them not! though now their name

Be but a mournful sound;

Though by the hearth its utterance claim
A stillness round;

Though for their sake this earth no more
As it hath been may be ;

And shadows never mark'd before,
Brood o'er each tree.

And though their image dim the sky,
Yet, yet forget them not!

Nor, when their life and love went by,
Forsake the spot!

They have a breathing influence there,
A charm not elsewhere found;
Sad-but it sanctifies the air,

The stream, the ground.

Then, though the wind an alter'd tone
Through the young foliage bear;
Though every flower, of something gone,
A tinge may wear ;

Oh! fly it not!-No fruitless grief
Thus in their presence felt,

A record links to every leaf,

There, where they dwelt.

Still trace the path which knew their tread,

Still tend their garden-bower,

And call them back, the holy dead,

To each lone hour!

The holy dead!-Oh! blest we are,

That we may name them so,

And to their spirits look afar,

Through all our woe!

Blest, that the things they lov'd on earth,

As relics we may hold,

Which wake sweet thoughts of parted worth,
By springs untold.

Blest, that a deep and chastening power,
Thus o'er our souls is given,

If but to bird, or song, or flower,
Yet, all for heaven!

SIR WILLIAM JONES AN ANTI-TRINITARIAN.

[WE extract the following passage in proof of the above position, from a very interesting work, the first volume of which is just published, entitled "Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Opinions of the Rev. Samuel Parr, LL. D., by the Rev. William Field," pp. 356-358.]

"Dr. Parr often asserted in the hearing of the present writer, as from his own knowledge, that so far from admitting the popular views of Christianity, Sir William Jones held those which are commonly distinguished by the name of Unitarianism. That assertion is, indeed, proved, as far as negative proof can go, by the passages from his writings produced by Lord Teignmouth in the Memoirs.' In all these it is impossible not to remark the total absence of every expression which might imply the admission of such a theological system as that attributed to him by hist biographer. Every one of his devotional pieces, and all his observations of a religious kind, proceed upon the principles of what the learned Dr. Lardner calls the ancient Nazarean doctrine, or that of the early Jewish Christians. In some degree, on the authority of these very passages, and still more on the decisive authority of Dr. Parr, the writer thinks himself warranted in placing Sir William Jones amongst the members of the Anti-trinitarian and Anti-calvinistic schools of Christian philosophers; and of adding his illustrious name to those of Newton, Locke, and Milton, of Clarke, Tucker,* Hartley, and Law.t"

LECTURES ON A CATECHISM IN A SUNDAY-SCHOOL.

A VENERABLE friend and correspondent has engaged to supply our younger readers, and such as are engaged in religious and charitably religious tuition, with a series of Lectures delivered many years ago to a Sunday-School. The text of them is the Catechism then used in the School, viz. Holland's Abridgment of Matthew Henry's. This will be successively given in the Lectures. Our friend, under

* Author of "The Light of Nature Pursued." + Bishop of Carlisle.

the signature of Neocomensis, contributed a few of them, in the year 1804, to Mr. Vidler's "Universal Theological Magazine:" he now proposes to publish the complete series in the Christian Reformer. Our elder subscriber.s will, we are persuaded, willingly see a few pages monthly devoted to the best interests of those on whom our hopes for futurity depend. ED.

LECTURE I.

MY DEAR CHILDREN,

I CANNOT begin this pleasing exercise, without returning you my public thanks, that by your great diligence you have called me to it so soon. Indeed, the attention which you have paid to every thing which you have been directed to learn, and the general regularity of your behaviour, has been a cause of great pleasure to all who are concerned in supporting the school. It gives us every reason to believe that you had before wanted opportunity only, and not inclination, to learn; and affords us the highest satisfaction that we should have been so happy as to be the means of providing you with this opportunity. Your improvement in knowledge and goodness is the only reward we can possibly desire; and you may be assured, that if you be not wanting to yourselves, no endeavour shall be wanting on our part to supply you with every advantage suitable to your stations, and to render your employment at the same time as agreeable and pleasant as we can.

The proof which you have now given of early diligence and attention, encourages me to undertake my part in your religious education with pleasure and satisfaction. And I hope I shall conduct it in such a way as not to make you out of humour with religion; but rather so as to persuade you that it is a pleasant thing to give thanks unto the Lord, to live in love and friendship with each other, and to be sober and chaste and temperate in all things.

The Catechism which you have just repeated, contains, in a small compass, every thing that is necessary, if properly observed, to make you religious and good. It is drawn up in as plain a manner as could well be done; and I doubt not you will easily understand the greatest part of it.

It is not, however, unlikely but there may be some things in it which many of you may want to have explained;