inquire into the best method of promoting and conducting it. The duty is difficult on account of the absence of those various helps which assist us in the performance of many others. Where there is nothing to arrest the outward attention, it requires a much greater effort of the mind to make spiritual things appear truly forcible and impressive. The natural senses, far from assisting us in contemplating heavenly realities, serve only to draw us away, and to make us wander from the great objects of attention. Even in the most heavenlyminded Christian, the wing that is spread towards heaven soon begins to flag: how much more, therefore, in the young, the ignorant, and the inexperienced! Yet there is no just reason why even these should not derive something of the benefit attached to the duty under consideration; and with a view to effect so desirable an end a few instructions may not be unimportant.

1. If, then, we would desire our meditations to be conducive to our spiritual welfare, they should be regular and frequent. As the body is not supported and kept in vigour by an occasional repast, but by daily nourishment, so the soul also requires a stated and frequent supply of holy meditation to keep it alive and active in Divine concerns. The time and mode of our religious contemplations must indeed differ according to our opportunities of serious leisure, and the ability which God may give us for this employment: but even in the youngest, the most illiterate, and the most engaged members of society, there is no adequate excuse for omitting the duty altogether. If we do not meditate, we cannot pray aright; a wider distance will be interposed between God and us; the Holy Spirit will be grieved, and our spirituality of mind will be greatly lessened, if not entirely lost. Our conversation and intercourse with the world cannot partake of the true spirit of the Go

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spel, if we do not value and cherish that spirit in our moments of retirement. We should therefore avail ourselves of every favourable season for this delightful and profitable work. But more especially should we engage in it, when the mind is more than usually drawn towards heavenly objects, when the heart is softened by distress, and when we feel most our need of a Divine Saviour, and a celestial Comforter. Upon a sick bed those often learn to meditate upon eternal concerns, who never thought of them before; but the desire of the true Christian is, in the days of health and strength, to live "the life of faith," and to walk daily with his God, in order that when affliction arises he may know whither to resort, and may find his heavenly Parent a God "nigh at hand, and not afar off," a "very present help in time of trouble.”

2. To make our meditations profitable, we should pray and strive to be enabled to conduct them with holy and devout affections. The heart needs much purification to render it fit for heavenly contemplations: it requires to be emptied of the world, and of all objects that would pollute it by their presence. There should be a solemnity when we think upon heavenly things similar to that which we should feel were an angel from heaven, or rather, were the great Judge himself to visit us, and enter into converse with us respecting our everlasting welfare. We too often lose the benefits of sacred reflection by a levity of spirit which prevents our adequately feeling the importance of the subjects in which we are engaged. Yet what can be more interesting and awful than death and judgment, heaven and hell? And what more worthy of engrossing our secret thoughts and leading us to such reflections as may be the means, by God's blessing, of our eternal salvation?

3. With a view still further to render our meditation profitable,

we should cultivate all the powers of the spiritual understanding, and all the graces of the renewed heart. Here there is ample and infinite scope. Whatever faith receives, meditation should lay hold of, and bring into powerful action. No devout feeling, no heavenly affection, no symptom of life towards God, or of deadness to the world, should be suffered to languish and decay. Every thing should be brought nigh, and appear in all its real importance. It does not require enlarged powers of mind, but a regenerate heart, to enable us to enter into this duty; and perhaps no person more enjoys the blessings connected with it than the poor and unlearned Christian, whose hopes are exclusively in heaven, and to whom no subject is so congenial as that of the infinite grace of God unfolded in his revealed word. This remark appears necessary to obviate the objection, that meditation and self-communion are duties that apply only, or chiefly, to the higher orders of intellect, and are of too refined and abstracted a nature for the youthful or uneducated Christian.

In affliction especially, sacred contemplation is a happy privilege, which we may all enjoy. Let us then, at such times, commune with ourselves, and inquire, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul! and why art thou disquieted within me?" Let us ascertain the cause; let us trace the evil to its source, and thus gain that self acquaintance which such an investigation, when humbly conducted, cannot fail to produce. Let us learn our sin, our infirmity, our guilt; feel more deeply our obligations to our Redeemer; cleave to him more firmly; mixing with our meditations devout prayer, which may give them a heavenly direction, and render them conducive to our happiness and spiritual advancement.

4. In order, lastly, to render our religious meditations not only profitable, but, as it is intimated in the

text, "sweet" and delightful, wer should learn to reflect upon the blessings treasured in the Gospel. in connection with our own wants, and should endeavour so to ascertain the reality of our religious character as to feel that we are not uninterested spectators, but real inheritors of all that we survey. Let us contemplate with the eye of faith all the glories of heaven, and the splendours of the unseen world; let us view a propitiated Creator in his infinite Majesty, and at his right hand his ever-blessed and co-equal Son returned triumphantly from his conquest over sin and death, and opening the kingdom of Heaven to all believers. Let us behold him also as a "High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities," and who is not only efficaciously pleading in our behalf, but is employed in sending down his Holy Spirit to "guide us into all truth," to comfort and sanctify our hearts, and to direct us in "the way that leadeth to life everlasting." Thus contemplating, in holy meditation, Him who bore our curse, whose hands and feet were pierced for our sake, and whose voice of pity and forgiveness invites us to partake of his salvation; let us deeply reflect upon all his goodness and our own ingratitude--his long-suffering and our provocation,

till those devout affections arise in our souls which may make our meditation sweet, as well as salutary, and which, while they humble us in the very dust, raise him to the throne in our hearts, and render it as much our real delight, as it is our bounden duty to do his will. Spiritual meditation thus conducted will give birth to ardent desires after God and holiness; so that we shall learn, in some humble proportion at least, to adopt the words of the Psalmist, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee;" and shall arrive at the emphatic conclusion of the Apostle, that "to live is Christ, and

to die is gain." To produce this effect we should earnestly use every assistance: we should join prayer, and reading, and Christian intercourse with our meditation; we should think upon the character and employments of the blessed inhabitants of heaven; we should contrast eternal things with the vain pursuits and unsatisfactory enjoy ments of earth; we should raise as high as possible our estimate of the value of the human soul, and the price paid for its redemption; we should contemplate in all its terrors that "blackness of darkness," that everlasting destruction which awaits the impenitent sinner, in order that we may duly appreciate that mercy which provided an all-sufficient Ransom, and bought us with the invaluable price of the Redeemer's blood.

From this subject we may derive the brief but important inference, of the awful condition of him who

lives" without God in the world." If God be not in our meditations here, we have no scriptural reason to expect he will be our portion hereafter. The love of heaven and heavenly thoughts must commence upon earth; for dying in an unrenewed and unholy state, there is no reason whatever to hope that our meditation of God will be any thing but an awful sense of his presence as our offended Judge, and a tormenting remorse at having neg lected to turn to him while the means of salvation were in our power. The happy contrast to this awful scene can neither be ima gined nor described; for "sweet" indeed, and infinitely blessed, will be the eternal contemplations of him who has known God upon earth, and to whom heaven itself is but the consummation of those holy pleasures which even in the present world he had begun to va. lue and enjoy.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. A FRIEND, with whom I was lately conversing, remarked, that it seem ed rather singular, that, apparently, so little regard was given, either in the pulpit or in religious publications, to a discrimination or classification in any degree corres ponding with the varieties of moral character that are every where to be found. Whether the remark be altogether just, and whether, if it be just, it deserves any discussion in the Christian Observer, I shall leave others to determine. I wish only to say so much on the subject as may give others an opportunity of investigating it more at large.

All serious and judicious persons will admit, that one of the most useful and proper studies of mankind is man; and it is evident that we can become intimately ac

ing familiarity, as far as possible, quainted with man, only by obtaiowith all the different moral aspects under which he appears. General positions and comprehensive views may be just and pleasing; but in order to the beneficial study of mankind, we must descend to minute particulars and to the examination of separate characters; as, in order to become acquainted with the productions of nature, we must carefully explore the species and the individual.

This statement being admitted, we may proceed to inquire whether such a view of the subject is sufficiently maintained and acted upon by those who undertake to instruct the world on the most serious and important subjects.

General truth, I allow, is displayed in great abundance; an ample repast is provided, and laid out in decent order; but I fear

that comparatively little attention is devoted to give each guest that which shall be most conducive to his spiritual health and welfare. It should, however, be considered that men are moral invalids: when therefore they come into the temple of wisdom, to sit down at her table, they should neither be sent away without a supply of aliment, nor be fed with that which is unfit for them, both of which evils naturally arise from that want of discrimina tion to which I allude.

But to be a little more specific in my remarks; may I not ask, with out being unreasonable, why those who are living regardless of religion, are generally addressed, both in books and sermons, under no other appellation than the vague term of sinners? Such a term is very easily used, and when properly understood, includes, I allow, the whole idea intended to be conveyed: but would it not be useful frequently to devote a few sentences to the delineation of real characters, rather than to generalize in that vague kind of declamation which most men are eager to repel, and which none are very ready to admit, as applicable to them selves.

There is a class of persons who are totally indifferent about religion; who who care but little whether they attend public worship or not; who are utterly regardless about what they hear; but they may be tolerably moral in their lives, and may therefore see no propriety in including themselves under the general term "sinners."

There is a class of people who, to the utter supineness and indifference of the former, add a vile and abandoned profligacy of character. They are the slaves of overt sin. To them drunkenness, swearing, sabbath-breaking, and similar vices are a mere sport.

There is a class of persons who are very careful to attend public worship, because they think

it their duty, if not really meritorious, to do so. They care but little about scriptural truth. Their lives, though they may be defiled' with many occasional offences, are adorned also with many moral virtues.

There is a class of persons, much resembling the former, whose morals are correct and their characters amiable: but they are strangers to the peculiar truths of religion. Not guilty of gross sins, and only enjoying the amusements and society of persons who are like themselves, they cannot suppose that any thing is wrong in their case. They are negative characters; they are without the palpable transgressions that mark the notorions offender, and they are without the palpable goodness that marks the character of the truly pious. Their great misfortune is, that they labour under a deplorable deficiency of several things necessary to constitute a true Christian.

There is one class of philosophers (for so they wish themselves in this wise age to be accounted), who admit religion in all its orthodoxy; who allow the Fall of Man, the Atonement, and the necessity of Renovation; but admission is all. We may add to this class another, which is composed of those ephemeral sages who reject revelation, and adore, if indeed they adore at all, the god of the poet, of the metaphysician, and of the philosopher.

There is a class among the great and opulent, who suppose that Christianity is desiged, almost wholly, for the poor and ignorant. They think it a mark of condescension in them to attend upon its ordinances: this, however, they submit to for the benefit of society; but they expect to be treated by their Creator as exempt cha

racters.

There is a class composed of those persons who are conscious that they are not what they ought to be.

They see that religion is excellent. They flatter themselves that they shall be wise and good at a future day. They are procrastinators.

There is a class composed of persons who in a certain manner understand and respond to all that they hear or read: but they labour under a sort of practical inability to regard as they ought, what they still know and feel to be true and important. Thus they continue to live carelessly, and in a manner inconsistent with their better judgment, and their correct but feeble inclinations.

There is a class of persons who respect religion, promote its interests, and put to shame many real Christians, by the unequivocal excellence of their moral conduct; but who yet afford many undeniable proofs that they are destitute of that truly spiritual knowledge and holy principle which are necessary to constitute us Christians at heart.

So much may suffice at present, on the varieties of character that are very easily to be discovered among those who are living without religion. Perhaps I ought here to bring forward that interesting body of persons who are really thinking about their spiritual welfare; but, having not yet arrived at any thing that deserves the name of fixed and settled piety, might easily be divided into a variety of classes. It would be very interesting to contemplate those moral noviciates in all their preliminary stages. We should see, alternately, the wavering and the firmness of the human heart; the animation of hope, and the trepidations of fear; the wise reaping in joy the recompence of wisdom, and the inconsistent reaping in shame and regret the punishment of inconsistency. We should discover those who are quick to learn, bold to determine, decided in abandoning the world with all its pomps and vanities; and those who are dull, and slow, and hesi

tating, and reluctant, and who quietly renounce one folly after another. Here we shall find the rash, the vehement, the inconsiderate, the enthusiastic, the uncharitable; and here also we shall find the timid, the cautious, the sober, and the gentle. Here are the fitful and the uniform; those who rapidly advance towards spiritual maturity, and those who make scarcely any apparent progress. But as I am attempting merely to throw out a few hints, I shall proceed no further with this part of the subject.

Again; I shall not stop to inquire. whether there be greater variety in the characters of those who do not, or of those who do, regard religion. I am inclined to think that the variety in each division is far greater than is generally supposed. Let us take a few illustrations:

Of sound genuine Christians, those sterling and dignified characters who both understand and adorn their profession, it is not my design to speak. Their views are scriptural: their lives are holy; and though they have their errors and imperfections, yet in the general tenour of their conduct, they are walking with God. It is to be lamented that this class is composed of a comparatively small number. They who rightly blend together truth, principle, and practice; who are wise without being cold, alive to divine things, without being morbid; and zealous, without being heedless and intemperate; are, it is to be feared, too few in any congregation.

There is a class of persons who have religion and passion, grace and nature, so mingled in their constitution, that they are a mystery to themselves, and to all around them. Their moral character is composed of a chaotic mixture of heterogeneous elements. They live amidst fluctuation and perplexity.

There is a class of persons who go far in religious truth, ac