means of increasing self-love, dominion, and worldly gain, the Scripture describes such abomination by trading, among other things, in slaves, and the souls of men. (Rev. xviii. 13.)
Reader! there is reason to believe that this state of things now prevails too much upon the earth. The abomination of desolation is seen to stand, where it ought not, in the Holy Place; and the beautiful House of Prayer has become a house of merchandise! All sincere, inquiring minds will retire from the confusion, and take refuge in the high and lofty principles of celestial love and charity; for these are the mountains to which the Lord commands us to flee, when we leave the fallen church, or Bayblon the great. Brighter days are beginning to dawn upon the Christian world. The march of mind is onward, and truths rational and clear are now, in mercy, revealed. Let us look to the Lord Jesus, the true God and Eternal Life. He will teach and lead us into all truth, and convey us safely to the mountain of His holliness.
February Nineteenth.
PETER'S DENIAL OF CHRIST.
"I know not the man."—Matt. xxvi. 74.
IT is among the mysterious ways of Providence, that Peter, the first called to be an apostle, and who had said to his Divine Master, "Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee," Matt. xxvi. 35 (and so said all the disciples), should, nevertheless, be the first to deny the Lord, and to declare, solemnly,
