safety, sudden commotion came, as unexpected as the tropical tornado, or as the destructive whirlwind. The monarch became an exile, and thirty millions ceased to bow at the shrine of royalty, and paid their enthusiastic homage to an undefined republicanism. Rapine and violence seize the multitudes of the desperate and unprincipled, and a revolution which men were exaiting as the result of enlightened and better days, is suddenly baptized in blood, and Paris more than ever in the days of her former sanguinary conflicts became the theatre of atrocities which baffle description, and filled the civilized world with astonishment and horror.

The frightful shock affects nearly all the kingdoms of Europe, and the rippling of the waters disturbed the harmony of our own shores.

But who shall write the history of German disruptions, Neapolitan treachery, Italian throes for freedom, and Austrian and Danish sanguinary conflicts? In one of the chief pontifical cities the pope is published and advertised to all nations as the sceptred anti-Christ, and his tears derided as the production of treachery, imbecility, and superstition.

How restless and daring are the multitudes of the nations! Doth it not seem that crowns and sceptres, armies and navies, are no longer powerful, in the absence of just and wholesome laws, to overawe or rule the people?

No more do we see the signs of brightness or stability: our prisons are crowded with political offenders, and the various portions of the community seem to have little in common, and next to no sympathy with each other.

In the midst of civil commotion and bloodshedding, a disease of the most fatal tendency visits the northern portions of Europe, and with pestilential devastation sweeps from the stage of life and probation hundreds of thousands of our fellow-men. It in

sidiously advances until by slow degrees and faltering steps it reaches our own land. Already have many felt its fatal touch, and no one can even surmise the extent of the commission with which God has invested it.

Again, too, we have been visited with a partial failure in one of the most necessary productions of the earth, and Ireland is arranging her schemes of appeal for help for her miserable and perishing masses, to the government and benevolent of our nation.

flow obvious that the age of energy, emotion, and enterprize has set in. Where will it stop? What will it overturn? How shall it be directed? are questions alike momentous to the statesman, the pastor, and the patriot; yet, amid all the revolutions of the past year, we have had national peace, and our civil privileges and religious mercies have been uninterrupted. Yet with these we have had no inconsiderable amount of commercial depression and suffering. Numerous groups of our countrymen are migrating to other lands, and America, Africa, and Australia are being peopled from our crowded and perplexed population. What shall the end of these things be? Has Britain passed her meridian glory? Is the night of permanent want setting on her populous cities? Or is it only a temporary eclipse of her national brightness, which shall speedily pass away? There are niany strange anomalies among us: deep and general suffering, and fearful national profligacy and extravagance; an unnatural, rich, and pampered aristocracy, and a starving peasantry; a multitudinous standing-army and navy-a divided and powerless government-an oppressing state-church-an intolerable taxation-a declining trade, and a rapidly increasing people.

But is not the most fearful feature of the last year, the want of spiritual vigour, the absence of health and

We want a general revival of religion-an intense earnestness among all the followers of Christ. And this God requires of us; this our country requires; this the state of the world requires. Then let the sins and defections and unfaithfulness of the past year be bemoaned and confessed before God. Let us put on the garments of mourning and humiliation by genuine repentance. Let us turn again to the Lord, and seek his blessing. Ought we not to seek to imitate in spirit and united enterprize the children of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, and knew what Israel ought to do?

Let us put away the spirit of isolation and selfishness, and live to God, and thus live for the good of the world in which his providence has placed us. Let the new year witness

new vows and resolutions, which shall be embodied and exemplified in the months, and weeks, and days, as they pass before us.

The old, slow processes of reasoning and acting have become obsolete. We live in a day of rapid locomotion, and almost instant communication with distant cities, and our spirit, and plans, and labours should have the right mark of progress and improvement upon them, The eras of clay and even iron have passed away. Ours is the era of electrical power and dispatch, and the man who is right-hearted, that is, whole-hearted, on the side of God and the interests of souls, may crowd into the space of a week what former generations were contented to beat out so as to cover the surface of the year.

1848 has gone, but its indelible impress on countries, churches, and individuals will not only affect this year on which we have entered, but succeeding ones, until time itself shall be no longer.

IN Acts ii. 1-4 we have set before us the office and operations of the Holy Spirit as poured out upon the apostles, which was according to the prophecy of Joel. This prophecy appears to have been delivered about 723 years before its fulfilment, and it was according to the promise of the Saviour, and at the commencement of the economy of grace which was committed to his care. The narrative is concise, but circumstantial.

The least remarkable circumstances in the description given us, are those which establish the reality of the event which it records, and disprove the possibility of its having originated from natural causes. The end of the miracle would have been completely answered by an internal inspiration,

without any outward manifestation; but we are assured that the Holy Spirit revealed his presence by a visible appearance. They, the apostles, were not only filled with the Holy Ghost,' but, 'there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire,' and the whole occurrence was preceded by a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind. Had the evidence of the Spirit's descent consisted in a mere mental impression, the reality of the fact might be disputed, or the belief of it ascribed to delusion. But it being external and sensible, no more than the exercise of simple observation was necessary to enable the apostles to decide upon its reality.

And as it was real, so it must

have been preternatural. There is but one phenomenon in nature to which the extraordinary appearance can be at all assimilated, namely, the descent of lightning. But from such it was essentially distinguished; as the fire which descended assumed the form of cloven tongues,' and 'sat upon each' of the apostles.

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It was the manifestation of the presence of the Holy Ghost. Fire had long been regarded by the Jews as the shechinah, or visible symbol of the Deity. Exod. iii. 2, 3; Deut. iv.

24. With singular fitness and beauty was it chosen as the sign of that internal illumination which the apostles received. Nor could any form more natural or appropriate, than that of cloven tongues, be assumed by it, as the sign of a gift of languages.

But besides the wonderful appear ance which attended this event, the still more wonderful endowment which it conveyed is entitled to notice. And they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.' Here, there was evidently as little room for deception as collusion. At the time when this event took place, an innumerable multitude was collected at Jerusalem, from every part of the world, for the purpose of keeping the feast of Pentecost, this being one of the three periods wherein the Jews were required, by their law, to present themselves in the holy city.-Deut. xvi. 16. The miraculous powers with which the apostles were endowed, in the acquirement of languages, must have received the fairest opportunity of trial; and to such a test we are expressly assured that it was submitted.

Acts ii. 6, 7, 8. Had they been merely native Jews before whom the miracle was wrought, they must have

been unqualified to appreciate its effects. But as exhibited before the natives of every part of the civilized globe, from Parthia to Lybia, from Pontus to Arabia, their evidence, as to the effects produced, must have been decisive. Taking, therefore, into our estimate the number and adequacy of the witnesses, no period could have been chosen more wise and suitable than the present for attesting the Divine commission entrusted to the apostles.

Admitting that any credit is due to the account of the apostles, we must necessarily allow, that this extraordinary occurrence really happened, and proceeded from causes supernatural and divine. But as particularly illustrative of the consistency and design displayed in the event, it may not be unnecessary to call other circumstances into notice.

Let it be, therefore, observed, in the first place, that the whole occurence took place according to antecedent predictions. It was generally foretold by the prophet Joel, as Peter particularly observed. It was as ex

pressly foretold by the prophet Isaiah, who declared, that out of Sion should go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.'-Isa. ii. 3.

The time of its occurrence, as we shall shew, was chosen not without design; and the place of its occurrence was expressly designated by our Lord. And behold,' he declared, 'I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.'-Luke xxiv. 49. And the end which it was intended to answer was expressly defined: to such, the circumstances under which it happened were wonderfully accommodated. Ripley, 1848.