bent mountain, with which they are also of one piece. At the further end of this temple are three gigantic figures, the face of one of them is at least five feet in length, and of a proportional breadth. But these representations have no reference or connexion either to any known history or the mythology of the Gentoos. They had continued in a tolerable state of preservation and wholeness, considering the remoteness of their antiquity, until the arrival of the Portuguese, who made themselves masters of the place, and in the blind fury of their bigotry, not suf fering any idols but their own, they must have been even at some pains to deface them as they now remain, considering the hardness of the stone. It is said they even brought cannon to the demolition of images, which greatly deserved to be spared for the unequalled curiosity of them. Of this Queen Catherine of Portugal was, it seems, so sensible, that she could not conceive that any traveller would return from that side of India without visiting the wonders of this cavern; of which, too, the sight appeared to me to exceed all the descriptions I had heard of them.

About two-thirds of the way up this temple, on each side, and fronting each other, are two doors or outlets, into smaller grots or excavations, and freely open to the air. Near and about the door-way, on the right hand, are several mutilated images, single and in groups. In one of the last, I remarked a kind of resemblance to the story of Solomon dividing the child, there standing a figure with a drawn sword, holding in one hand an infant with the head downwards, which appears as if in the act to cleave it through the middle. The outlet of the other, on the left hand, is into an area of about seven yards in length, and four yards in breadth, at the upper end of which, as you turn to the right, presents itself a colonnade covered at the top, of ten or twelve feet deep, and

The Bible is a revelation of the gracious heart of God and the wicked heart of man.

in length answering to the breadth of the area; this joins to an apartment of the most regular architecture, an oblong square, with a door in perfect symmetry, and the whole executed in quite a contrary taste and manner from any of the oldest or best Gentoo buildings anywhere extant. I took particular notice of some paintings round the cornices, not for anything curious in the design, but for the beauty and freshness of the colouring, which must have lasted some thousands of years, on supposing it contemporary with the building itself. The floor of the apartment is generally full of water, its pavement or groundwork not permitting it to be drawn off, or to be soaked up. For it is to be observed, that even the cavern itself is not visitable after the rains, until the ground of it has had time to dry into a competent hardness. In the very sultriest days of the heats there cannot be imagined a cooler or pleasanter retreat; for, though the air be almost on fire round you, you are no sooner entered the cave than you are refreshed with a sensible coolness, the three openings above mentioned not only furnishing sufficient light, but a thorough draught of air, that does not so much convey freshness into the cave, as it receives it from constant temperature, preserved to it by its impenetrability to the sun, from the thickness of the mountainous mass above it. And even the light that comes into it through the portals has lost, by the way, all the force of those fiery particles to which it gives so great an activity.

Returning to my subject, the island contained nothing more that is worthy of notice. There are not above two or three huts upon it, which is not surprising, considering the little land there is to cultivate, and that there is no water on it but what is saved from the rain.Grosse's Voyage to the East Indies, in 1798.

THE MYSTERIES OF To appreciate an act, it is necessary to understand the aim of the actor. Ignorance on this point not unfrequently involves observers in perplexity or mistake. The old lady who lived contiguous to the great philosopher Newton, took him to be some silly man sunk in thoughtlessness of senility and second childhood, because she frequently saw him sedulously watching the soapbubbles which he created from a bowl of suds and a pipe. But when she learned that by means of these very bubbles he was intensely studying the laws of light, she readily changed her mind and viewed him in his true character.

Many of our perplexities concerning the mysteries of Divine Providence, as we term those acts of God which we cannot understand, grow out of our failure to keep in view the great aim of his government. We wonder what they mean and why they are permitted. Providences appear to us as strange, as inexplicable and inconsistent as did the act of the philosopher to his unreflecting and ignorant observer. Examined by the light of the Divine aim, they would wear the aspect of beautiful and loving consistency.

Can we know what that aim is? Is it revealed? May it be understood? We think so. To us it appears that the object of the atonement and government of the world is one and the same. In the former, God aims to restore a fallen race to purity; to "present every man perfect in Christ Jesus;" in the latter he directs the affairs of men so as to place them in circumstances most conducive to their salvation. This is distinctly asserted by the great apostle in his celebrated discourse on Mars Hill, where he expressly teaches that

HOPE. A bright and beautiful bird is Hope; it will come to us mid the darkness, and sing the sweetest song when our spirits are saddest; and when the lone soul is weary, and longs to pass away, it warbles its sunniest notes, and tightens again

DIVINE PROVIDENCE.

God governs the affairs of men so "that they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him, and find him;" and this delightful truth has the highest possible confirmation in the fact that the government of the world is in the hands of Christ. From his mediatorial throne goes forth the power which upholds the physical universe, governs the nations of the earth, and protects the hairs which grow upon a disciple's head.

What a beautiful thought is this! What light and lustre it sheds upon the common-places of life! What unity it imparts to millions of seemingly isolated events! Looking on the nations and on individual history, we see what appear to be a strange medley of mysteries, and wonders, and contradictions. We look again; we regard all these facts as God's means of making man sick of sin and desirous of purity, and the contradictions disappear, the mysteries vanish, and all things stand as consistent parts of a great and beautiful whole. Everywhere we see God teaching the people how bitter a thing it is to sin

- how unsatisfactory, and even wretched is life without his favourhow beautiful and blissful is virtue. Everywhere we see him maintaining the glory of his own character, untarnished by a single violation of the great principles of righteousness. Every fact is like a line of light tending to a common focus; and though in reaching its focal point it passes through a medium too dense for us to trace its passage distinctly, yet we may feel assured it will not fail of doing so; for the Lord is king, and he governs all things and all men in strict accordance with the ends of the Saviour's death.-Zion's Herald.

the slender fibres of our hearts that grief has been tearing away.

FIVE FACTS.-A firm faith is the best divinity; a good life the best philosophy; a clear conscience the best law; honesty the best policy, and temperance the best medicine.

THE Christian religion invests the individual with full, undivided responsibility. She never permits him to merge himself with his fellows, corporate or non-corporate; she never permits a single particle of his conscience to be yielded up on his entering any fraternity; she never permits one item of service to be withheld on the plea that co-partners are under equal obligation to perform it; she proposes to bestow her full glorious rewards on him singly, if he singly be worthy; she proposes all her woes to him singly, if singly he be unworthy.

By thus separating men from masses and amalgamations, by thus setting down each man apart, and constituting him an entirely accountability to breathe, to think, to desire, to will, to act, to attain, religion holds an influence in producing human activity of vast, incalculable power. Left with none to depend on but himself, he must act, or gain nothing he must act, or lose everything. No man has an oarsman to push him while he is asleep. He must up and strike for himself; lustily and alone must stem the tide, or be swept on hopelessly into uselessness, ruin, and oblivion. The associated fact, ever recognized in the Scriptures, if not by statement, certainly by inference, that the great ends of life, not attained personally, are not attained at all-that who,

TRUE METHOD OF REFORM.-Man's constant prescription for the elevation of man, is to alter his circumstances God's grand prescription for the improvement of man, is to change his heart. Man's plan is to give the patient a new bed-God's divine plan is to give the patient health. Man goes to the circumference, and tries by civilizing to get inward and ultimately to Christianize, God's plan is to begin at the centre, Christianize the heart, and then civilize the whole circumference of the social system.-Rev. Dr. Cumming.

MAXIMS FOR TEACHERS.-Franklin says, "If you want a good servant, serve yourself." I might startle you

succeeds not by his own labours has failed, and who wins not by his own prowess is defeated-this adds a perpetual and powerful influence to great and multiplied individual labours.

The conscious dignity with which religion invests men, by investing them with this conscious individuality, is an additional inducement to human activity. As a self-constructing, self-acting, self-responsible isolation among the works and intelligences of God, man is intensely prompted, in order to be worthy of himself, to attempt great outward efficiency and accomplishment. Brave a man may be, as an undistinguished ingredient of a body of soldiery; but detached and drawn forth singly for a daring exploit, the motive to chivalrous action is immensely augmented. By religion every man without exception is thus detailed and assigned singly to a momentous, a hazardous, a holy service. He feels the honour and importance of his position; he turns his eye upon the great interests dependent upon himself alone; his heart swells with noble, high purposes, as he thinks of the part committed all to himself to perform. Under a lofty and generous impulse, created by this consciousness a great instrument exclusively in his own hands, he will go out to almost incredible energies and labours.-White.

by saying, "If you want a good education, teach yourselves"-nor would the advice, if understood in too literal a sense, be sound; but it is true beyond doubt, that every man who has had really a good education has done more for himself than his best teachers have done for him; and it is equally true that many of the greatest men that ever lived have been self-educated. I believe the greatest difficulty is overcome when the scholar is made aware that with ardour and industry he may do everything for himself, and that without these good qualities no teacher can help him.