promised blessings on the obedience of his children, endeavour to exercise faith in the promises while they pray, and when they find it difficult to do so, they pray for an increase of faith, using, meanwhile, the measure they possess that they may secure the measure they need, and, through it, the blessing for which they have approached the throne of grace. Now we are greatly mistaken, indeed, if this practice of piety is not disowned by our Calvinian brethren. We have no wish to pursue the question before us metaphysically, for we know the fog into which it would lead us; but the lowly learner in Christ's school sees the command to pray, and the promise that is annexed thereto. These are sufficient for him: upon his knees he falls, and fixing his faith's eye upon the passage, "Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing ye shall receive," he prays till he prevails. Thus it was at times with Mr. Warburton, albeit his creed forbade it. He was oppressed with a sense of need; he knew the power of prayer; and forgetting "decrees" and "fixed purposes," and remembering only the promise of his Saviour, he wrestled till the blessing was granted him. No Methodist Christian can tell a better tale than the following:-One day, before he began to preach, he was in sore trials in providence, and his wife, who had then a sucking child, had been a long time without food. While getting ready a meal, Mrs. Warburton dropped down in a severe fit. Poor Warburton was now involved in darkness, which lasted some time; for the fits being repeated, his wife's faculties were impaired, and nothing seemed in store for the poor husband but hardship and poverty. "O what scenes were pictured before my eyes," he says. "O how I sank into the very pit of despair. One night, when I had been to the prayer-meeting, my poor wife's case was so powerfully brought to my soul that I felt it impossible to carry it any longer." He went, therefore, into the middle of a large field, fell upon the ground, and began to wrestle with the Lord. could neither stir hand nor foot, and here I lay sighing, crying, and wrestling with the Lord. I begged he would not be angry with me, but I assured him I could not, must not, would not rise up (the italics are ours) from that place till he had answered my request. I told him I must either have my request or die on the spot. Here I lay passive in his hands for either life or death, and I said to him if it would be more for his honour to deny me my request and take my soul out of the body, his will be done. But by-and-bye he came with such glory and majesty, that my soul was quite overwhelmed with joy as he spoke the words' Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.' For a few moments I could neither speak nor stir. My poor soul answered him with humility, ‘Lord, my request is that my dear wife shall have no more fits.' He answered, It is done as thou hast requested.' My body and soul leaped up as a giant refreshed with new wine. Not one devil was to be found, nor even heard to whisper, for the sun had arisen upon 66 * * * "I my poor soul, and they had all gathered themselves together into their dens, and my delighted soul went to her work of praise and love. When I arrived home it was very late, and I found my wife in great distress and fear least something had happened to me; but I told her that all was well and right; 'you will never have another fit, for God has answered my prayers.' It is now between thirty and forty years ago, and she has never had one fit since.” We know the explanation which our Calvinian friends would give of this event; but we hesitate not to call it a triumph of faith; an answer to prayer; and to assert, that had not the afflicted petitioner fought this glorious battle that night in the centre of that field, or elsewhere, at some other time, we have no reason to say otherwise than that his wife would have remained a victim to the disease which had overtaken her. LAST DAYS.-Before he died debt and danger ceased to alarm him; and at the patriarchal age of eighty years, after a pastorate of forty-two years, the good old man fell asleep in Jesus. The story of his death, like that of his life, is told by his son John with circumstantial accuracy and great honesty. Many sweet visits did his Saviour pay him while "languishing into life." Once he said, "O what a blaze and a shout will there be when old John gets to heaven; one that has merited hell a thousand times over, the greatest debtor to mercy and the vilest wretch that ever lived. Bless him, bless him!" We have read the book before us with unspeakable pleasure, and with no little profit. To transcribe, and in some cases abridge the passages we have given the reader, has been to us a pleasant employment. We are thankful that Warburton was led to give the Church the story of his chequered life. Its literary faults and blemishes are lost in the vast fund of spiritual instruction with which the book abounds, whilst the peculiar doctrines which here and there meet us as we go along, only serve to show that while one can feelingly say, "I the chief of sinners am, but Jesus died for me," it is of comparative little importance whether we place election before or after believing, or whether we have been at the font or into the tank. J. S. We P.S.-Our article on Gadsby, in the last May number of the "Ambassador," has been favoured with a review in a Baptist periodical. The reviewer takes objection to one or two points, but the only one which we feel called upon to refer to is that which finds fault with our having said that Mr. Gadsby rejoiced in the oozing up within him of the baser attributes of a depraved nature. have referred to the part of Mr. Gadsby's works in which the paragraph occurs, and find that while we are right in saying that Mr. Gadsby did have those "oozings up" when old and afflicted, we were wrong in saying that he and others of the same creed regard them as indications of their election. It is the abhorrence with which they regard their depravity which they look to as a proof of their regeneration. We feel called upon to make this acknowledgment and correction.-J. S. 17 MINISTERIAL PROBATIONER'S TIME, AND HOW TO SPEND IT. AN ESSAY.* TIME is a possession of inestimable worth to man. "Part with it as with money, sparing; pay No moment but in purchase of its worth; And what its worth, ask death-beds; they can tell; Time, like life, is prized most when gone. Leigh Richmond, when dying, said to a brother minister, "Oh if you could see the value of the golden moments now as you will see them when you stand at the rim of the grave and look back, how earnest would you be your work." in 66 Time," says Professor Craik, "is the only gift or commodity of which every man who lives has just the same share. The passing day is exactly of the same dimensions to each of us, and by no contrivance can anyone of us extend its duration by so much as a minute or a second. It is not like a sum of money, which we can employ in trade and put out to interest, and thereby add to or multiply its amount. Its amount is unalterable. We cannot 'make it breed.' We cannot even keep it by us. Whether we will or no we must spend it, and all our power therefore consists in the manner in which it is spent." Here lies the grand secret of success in moral excellency and intellectual growth. We all have time, but it is the manner of using it that makes the dwarf or the giant, the fool or the philosopher. Time is in a peculiar sense the capital of the minister. He does not stand on a common base with other men. Worldly circumstances and prospects are not of such consideration here as in other spheres of life. The poverty or affluence of the home he has left behind are here set out of view. Whatever we have been formerly, we now stand on common ground. Here we are not recognised as men because we have reached the age of twenty-one. There must be mental training, intellectual growth, literary acquisition, before we reach to manhood. Dr. Beaumont, notwithstanding the advantages of an early liberal education, laboured about twelve years, we are told, with little more than general acceptance, devoting that time to those An essay read before the Ministers' Mutual Improvement Association of the Hull District, at Driffield, August 30th, 1866. preparatory studies which formed the brilliant and burning orator of after days. Wrench says, 66 "Young ministers are not to think the ten or twelve years spent in 'toiling and moiling' is lost time. No, it is the way and the only way to true manhood in this sphere. On entering the ministry we, as it were, start life afresh. Time is our capital, and success depends on the use we make of it. We may expend it wisely or foolishly; we may give our hours for much less than half their worth; or we may seize precious lore and heavenly treasure from each moment as it flies." " The time to be devoted each day to study we do not attempt with exactness to state. This we think should be regulated somewhat according to the physical constitution and mental aptness of the student. One man sooner than another reaches that weariness of the flesh which much study produces. One has a constitution demanding more attention and nurture than another, forbidding lengthened seclusion and application in the study. But apart from all this, no probationer can as a rule give excessively long days to his books. He is surrounded by so many other urgent duties that his time for study is greatly narrowed. But our heavy press of other duties, so far from inducing despondency, should brace us up with resolution to use well the time we have. Let us consider that the world's most intellectual men have not always been the men who have had most time for intellectual pursuits. Many of the ancient legislators and philosophers, many of the modern statesmen and divines, who have been heavily pressed with other duties, have done as much of other labour as other men, and yet have found enough time for the cultivation of the mind to lift them head and shoulders above their fellows. We think, however, the probationer should have (constitution permitting) on an average six unbroken hours per day for study. And by a proper systematic division of his time, six hours he may secure. If necessary, he might secure a little more, and in some circumstances he must content himself with something less. With regard to the spending of time, which is the main part of our subject, we remark, first, that to insure success the probationer should first lay down a plan. The importance of this cannot be too emphatically stated. Ranging over books in quest of we know not what, reading without an object and without a purpose, reading books instead of studying subjects, miscellaneous and unsystematic reading, is a course to be condemned as a waste of time, and unfriendly to the proper education of the mind. A man may pursue such a course for fifteen or twenty years, and at the end neither he nor his friends will be able to see that he has acquired mental strength by such a freakish career. He may have very many fragments of knowledge floating on the surface of his mind, but there is no world of living thought grounded in the depth of his being. His knowledge is too yague and general; he can touch on many things, but can really go into nothing; he has more than half wasted his time in the enervating work of playfully fishing for information instead of earnestly learning to think. Such a character is simply that of a smatterer. Thus even diligence will not secure success unless it be diligence in a right course. For the young student to traverse the field of literature, to go swimingly through scores of books and hundreds of periodicals, instead of thinking over, grappling with and mastering the essential branches of education, is a very grave mistake. If, therefore, the probationer would become anything more than a mere smatterer, he must lay down a plan, or one must be laid down for him, as is now done by the Conference. The same plan, however, we would remark, cannot be equally adapted to every mind. We think a little latitude should here be given to the student. To secure success, the plan should be as much as possible congenial to his mind. It should correspond with his mental aptitude. But notwithstanding these considerations, the majority of the subjects it must embrace are such as cannot be left to the option of the student, inasmuch as several of them form the groundwork of a common English education, and others are essential to the formation of an efficient Primitive Methodist minister. The plan should be such as to accomplish most effectually two objects the training of the powers of thinking and speaking, and supplying the most desirable information. We deem mental discipline quite as important to the young student as the acquisition of knowledge. It is not so important to learn how to think as to acquire information about which to think. What would be the use of a man collecting material for the building of a house if he had not the wisdom to make further use of it? Instead of its being formed into an edifice it must remain as heaps of useless lumber. The husbandman may cast abroad his seed, but if the soil is uncultivated his harvest prospects will not be very promising. Now the mind must be taught to think or it will be able to make little use of knowledge; it must be cultivated, its several powers strengthened by application to study, or it will yield a scanty harvest. We ought to strive to increase in wisdom as well as in knowledge, to become intellectual as well as intelligent. The mind, like the body, gathers strength by strenuous exercise. Take any limb, or the whole body, and put it through a proper course of gymnastics, and how every muscle which is called into action will be strengthened, how athletic the whole body will become, until that which could be done only with difficulty and fatigue can be done with comparative ease; so it is with the mind. Phrenology teaches that there is an organic development by mental exercise; and experience teaches that our intellectual powers |