"people will not lie." (Is. lxiii. 8.) It is the wicked who “love lying rather than righteousness." God "hates a lying tongue.” (Prov. vi. 17.) And do you wish to be hated by God? Do you wish to delight in what God abominates? Do you wish not to be amongst the number of God's people? Do you wish to love sin? Then you know what you may expect; to dwell for ever with your father; in endless torments, where the "wicked are cast." (Ps. ix. 17.) Oh! to be shut out of heaven. Awful, dreadful thought! and yet all who tell lies-all liars-must remain "without." It is declared so in the Bible. (Rev. xxii. 15.) Ye masters, beware how ye set so bad an example to those in your service; by causing them to deny the truth, and this for your own convenience.

Ye parents, study to bring up your children to hate the slightest deviation from the truth; check the first appearance of a lie; shew them the sin of it—"sinning against God"—tell them the consequences of such a line of life—and by your own conduct and words, let your children see that a lying tongue is to be dreaded.

Ye neighbours, deal honestly with all around, no matter what you may lose by keeping to the truth; for a while a liar may profit, but which is the most valuable to gain the whole world, or the salvation of your soul, by which you gain a better worldan incorruptible inheritance?

All, all, "hate and abhor lying." Let this be your constant prayer: "Set a watch before my mouth, and keep the door of my lips ;" and may this be the means of leading many of my readers to guard every word they utter.

EPAPHRODITA.

A PRAYER FOR MORNING AND EVENING.

O LORD GOD! I am an helpless sinful creature, but thou hast invited poor sinners to come unto thee, who alone art able to help them. O! give me a heart to feel the importance of eternal things; take away from me the heart of stone, which makes me so careless about the salvation of my soul, and give me a heart of flesh, that I may feel my lost condition through sin, and may flee to Christ for pardon. Teach me, O Lord! what Christ is made to sinners, and how his death on the cross saves them. Wash me in his blood, sanctify me by his grace, and clothe me in his righte ousness. O Lord! send thy Holy Spirit into my heart, incline me

to read thy word, and write it on my heart, teach me to pray to thee, and deeply to feel the wants of my soul. Turn away my heart from sin and folly, deliver me from the snares of Satan, the dangers of evil company, and from my own evil tempers. Give the same blessings to all near and dear to me, and do more for me and them than I have sense to ask or think, and bring me at last to thy heavenly kingdom, for the sake of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour. Amen.

WORKS OF DARKNESS.

"They love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." ALL the works of darkness are to be found in sin. Sins having for their nature darkness, they come from the prince of darkness; they are in accordance with the world that lieth in darkness; they are full of darkness, and they love darkness; for covetousness, observe, even poor covetousness, cannot dare avow himself-the covetous man cannot dare acknowledge himself yet his sin is enumerated amongst these works of darkness too. Oh! that it be not the prelude to utter darkness, spiritual and eternal darkness.

Ah! dear friends, we have but poor notions of sin. Every sin is that which deserves God's wrath: it has death for its wages, and eternal misery, if unrepented of, for its consummation. One sin, and out of Christ-lost! One sin, and out of Christ-lost! One leak can sink a vessel, one disease can destroy the health, one spark can consume a house, one capital flaw in the title-deed can take a man's estate from him; and, be assured of this, one sin lived in and unrepented of, the soul is lost for ever; therefore confine not your minds to gross sins merely, since all sins are the works of darkness. Why are they called unfruitful? I have no doubt that it has a special reference to this darkness, as the very cause of barrenness.

If the earth were left without the bright beams of the sun, it would be a mass of ice-one barren and unfruitful spot, filled with misery. Now, beloved, here lies the awful state of those who work these works of darkness. I do not say there is nothing so fruitful as sin. I was much struck with that expression of our dear departed brother Rees: "I would not say that nothing is so fruitful as sin, because I believe holiness to be quite as fruitful. All the

germ is in that seed, so all the fruits of darkness are in that sinin that sin that is in our hearts, that dwells in our hearts-that flesh in which there dwells nothing that is good."

My dear friends, just for one moment see sin's awful fertility! Look at Joseph's brethren-look at their sin! First of all, they sought to murder him; then they let him down into a pit; then, showing their base insensibility by eating, while their brother was in the pit; then they sold him, for covetousness sake; then they lie to their father; then they went, as hypocritical comforters, to comfort him-the very comfort which Satan must have suggested. See what there must have been in one sin, that can proceed from bad to worse till it issues in all sin! Look at the great master sin of all-the fall of man-how much of iniquity was there bound up in that one sin!

CHARITY, Or love.

GOD is love. Herein we behold the supreme excellence of the Divine character, and the effulgence of the Divine glory.

In that love, which the apostle calls charity, we behold the fairest image of our Creator, and the brightest ornament of the Christian character. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."

Hence we read of the

Forbearance of charity........... Charity suffereth long
Benignity of charity............... Charity is kind

A FAMILY OF SCOTCH EMIGRANTS.

HERE I have met an interesting Scotch family, from the neighbour. hood of Glasgow, consisting of the worthy parents, now turning down the hill, and a family of four sons and a daughter. The history of their migrations afforded me much interest. They landed, with their infant children, at New York, and there made their first essay in the New World. After beginning to take root, they were torn up by misfortunes. They then packed up all the family, and all their goods, in a waggon, and proceeded southward, all the world before them, not knowing whither they were going. In Virginia they settled a while, and made their early Scottish Eschool education available in teaching the children of the planters, from whom they experienced much kindness, and were entreated to settle amongst them. But again they betook themselves to their waggon, possessed by that wandering spirit which, once indulged by a Scotchman, though the most difficult of all men to uproot from his native soil, makes him roll on in search of adventures, and of happiness which, like the horizon, flies from him as he approaches. At length this worthy pair, with their waggon and family, reached Mobile, settled, and were beginning to take root, when the fire of 1839 burned the house they had built, and consumed all the earnings of several years industry. Nothing dismayed, instead of "folding their hands, and eating their own flesh," like the fool, they put their trust in Him who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. Amidst the plague which then desolated Mobile, they set about repairing their misfortunes, and have been enabled, through industry and economy, to save a few thousand dollars, with which they have purchased a dwelling-house and workshop, and with their family around them, promise again, by the blessing of God, to thrive and take root in this southern region. I was gratified to find the old man had assembled his children, after the Scottish fashion, "to worship God." Both parents could enumerate Scottish martyrs among their ancestors in Lanarkshire, and rejoiced to speak of their memory, and of the spirit of the martyrs

that seemed to animate the Free Church of Scotland. I felt quite at home at their table, and in their society; and was pleased to learn from an American lady, that the mother of this promising family, while a notable woman at home, took her part zealously and heartily in every good work in the Church, and was never to be missed at the meetings and conferences of the Church for prayer. This family is one of the best specimens of our Scottish emigrants I have met with. They emigrated before they lost all— when their fortunes were falling rather than fallen-before adversity had impaired their spirit and courage, soured their tempers, or reduced them to despair. With spirits unbroken with the best principles, and the best training of the sons and daughters of Scotland-they entered the New World, and, amidst all their ups and downs, they never lost their first love and early principles. Their misfortunes have only softened their hearts, and made them more feelingly alive to the goodness of God and the misfortunes of others. A colony of such families, so taught and trained, and so disciplined by misfortune, would make a noble nation.

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,-On reading the article from one of your correspondents in the " Friendly Visitor" for this month on " Poor Hearing," I was much struck with the contrast it exhibited to the introductory paper signed " W.," where sin and defects are, with equal faithfulness, pointed out, but in a loving Christian spirit, which at once removes all fear of any "pulpit task" or "pensnapper.' The unconverted heart will always try to find excuses for not obeying the Gospel; but I do not think the sound of the snapper will either win the heart to obey out of love, nor alarm it to obey out of fear. The whole paper appears to be written by one who had felt the lash, rather than one really anxious to induce and excite "the spirit of humble, fervent prayer both for themselves and others."

I almost wish your correspondent had been constrained to attend where a friend I know did, the two following Sabbaths after I read this article-where a most beautiful portion of Scripture was twisted from its right meaning, and accommodated to reprove some one who had failed "to fulfil their baptismal and confirmation vows, by receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. "Whoever neglected to embrace every opportunity that presented itself, of partaking of this Holy Sacrament, must be prepared to give up all his interest in the covenant of redemption-must be prepared to give up all hopes of salvation." Moreover, the reverend preacher rewinded his hearers of the comfort they would have on a dying bed to look back on their past life, if they had been faithful in the observance of both sacraments."

Faith in Christ was never once named, nor the Holy Spirit, in the whole of the discourse. At another, the following Sab