strains of eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language they may have been written. Sir William Jones. In every generation, and whereever the light of revelation has shone, men of all ranks, conditions, and states of mind, have found in this volume a correspondent for every movement towards the better felt in their own hearts. The needy soul has found a supply, the feeble a help, the sorrowful a comfort; yea, be the recipiency the least that can consist with mortal life, there is an answering grace ready to enter. The Bible has been found a spiritual world-spiritual, and yet at the same time outward and common to all. You in one place, I in another, all men somewhere or at some time meet with an assurance that the hopes and fears, the thoughts and yearnings that proceed from, or tend to, a right spirit in us, are not dreams or floating irregularities, no voices heard in sleep, no spectres, which the eye suffers but not perceives. As if on some dark night a pilgrim, suddenly beholding a bright star moving before him, should stop in fear and perplexity. But, lo! traveller after traveller passes by him, and each, being questioned whither he is going, makes answer, "I am following yon guiding star!" The pilgrim quickens his own steps, and presses onward in confidence. More confident still will he be if by the way-side he should find here and there ancient monuments, each with its votive lamp, and on each the name of some former pilgrim, and a record that there had he seen or begun to follow the benignant star! Coleridge. In this world we are children standing on the bank of a mighty river. Casting our eyes upward and downward along the channel, we discern various windings of its current; and perceive that it is now visible, now obscure, and now entirely hidden from our view. But being far removed from the fountain whence it springs, and from the ocean into which it is emptied, we are unable to form any conceptions of the beauty, usefulness, or grandeur of its progress. Lost in perplexity and ignorance, we gaze, wonder, and despond. In this situation, a messenger from heaven comes to our relief, with authentic information of its nature, its course, and its end; conducts us backward to the fountain, and leads us forward to the ocean. This river is the earthly system of Providence; the Bible is the celestial messenger; and heaven is the ocean in which all preceding dispensations find their end. – Dwight. A single book has saved me; but that book is not of human origin. Long had I despised it; long had I deemed it a class-book for the credulous and ignorant; until, having investigated the Gospel of Christ with an ardent desire to ascertain its truth or falsity, its pages proffered to my inquiries the sublimest knowledge of man and nature, and the simplest and at the same time the most exalted system of moral ethics. Faith, hope, and charity were enkindled in my bosom; and every advancing step strengthened me in the conviction that the morals of this book are as superior to human morals as its oracles are superior to human opinions.-M. L. Bautain. himself unblushingly declared to Lord Clarendon. Need I describe Voltaire, prince of scoffers, as Hume was a prince of sceptics; in childhood initiated into infidelity; in FRUITS OF INFIDELITY. boyhood infamous for daring blas- [ BOLINGBROKE was a libertine of phemy; in manhood distinguished intemperate habits and unrestrained for a malignant and violent temper, lust. Temple was a corrupter of all for cold-blooded disruptions of all that came near him-given up to the ties and decencies of the family ease and pleasure. Emerson, an circle, for the ridicule of whatever eminent mathematician, was "rude was affecting, and the violation of and vulgar, and frequently immo- whatever was confidential! Ever ral;" "intoxication and profane increasing in duplicity and hypolanguage were familiar to him. To- critical management with age and ward the close of life, afflicted with practice, those whom his wit attracted the stone, he would crawl about the and his buffoonery amused, were floor on his hands and knees, some- either disgusted or polluted by his times praying and sometimes swear-loathsome vices. Lies and oaths in ing." The morals of the Earl of their support were nothing to his Rochester are well known. Godwin maw. Those whom he openly called was a lewd man by his confession, as well as the unblushing advocate of lewdness. Shaftesbury and Collins, while endeavouring to destroy the Gospel, partook of the Lord's Supper, thus professing the Christian faith for admission to office! Woolsten was a gross blasphemer. Blount solicited his sister-in-law to marry; but, refused, shot himself. Tindal was originally a Protestant, then turned a Papist, then a Protestant again, merely to suit the times, and was, at the same time, infamous for vice in general, and total want of principle. He is said to have died with this prayer in his mouth, "If there is a God, I desire that he may have mercy on me." Hobbes wrote his "Leviathan " to serve the cause of Charles I., but finding him fail of success, he turned it to the defence of Cromwell, and made a merit of this fact to the usurper; as Hobbes his friends, he took pains secretly to calumniate; flattering them to their faces, and ridiculing and reviling them behind their backs. Years only added stiffness to the disgusting features of his impiety, coldness to his dark malignity, and fury to his impetuous temper. Throughout life he was given up to work all uncleanness with greediness." Such was the witty Voltaire, who, in the midst of all his levity, had feeling and seriousness enough to wish that | he had never been born !—Dwight. 66 ADVICE ON READING. I suppose myself addressing such young men as are under the blessed necessity of procuring their bread by the "sweat of their brow." I shall, therefore, be compelled to deduct largely from the twenty-four hours which make each day, that the young mechanic, artizan, clerk, farmer, etc., may pursue their appropriate daily toil. How many hours per diem shall we allow for this purpose? I think ten hours as much as any employer can reasonably claim at your hands. But some of you doubtless serve unreasonable men, whose avaricious claims cannot be satisfied with less than twelve hours. Possibly that unreasonable master is none other than yourself. Covetous of worldly gain, greedy of "filthy lucre," you spur on the jaded system. Let it, then, be twelve hours for labour; add to this eight for sleep and meals, and one for recreation; there then remain three hours for reading; giving six days per week, you have eighteen hours; to this might be added six hours every Sabbath, and allow you ample time for public and private worship. Here, then, you have two whole days a week, of twelve hours each, or within one day of fifteen weeks per year. Think for a moment what an amount of useful knowledge might be gathered from fifteen weeks of every year devoted to the reading and study of the right kind of books. Young man, be not among the loungers in the market-place, at the corners of the streets, or the doors of the public house. Flee the theatres, the saloons, and all such haunts of idleness and vice with which our cities abound. Gather around the quiet of the fireside the society of the great and good of different ages and of different climes, who have left behind them, on the printed page, their best and greatest thoughts; their "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." Say not, "I am doomed to labour for my bread, and therefore it is impossible I should ever rise to eminence, or even lay up any considerable amount of useful knowledge." Facts are opposed to the inference you draw from your position in life. A right use of evening hours has raised persons from humble stations in life to great eminence in the moral, the religious, and the scientific world. Examples innumerable might be set forth, but it is needless. Young man, the world may yet hear of you, and be the better for you, if you only resolve, by the help of God, that it shall be so. The reading and study of the right class of books will greatly aid you in carrying out this noble ambition. Get those books, read them, study them in the spirit of prayer. R. DONKERLY. The Fragment Basket. ECONOMY OF TIME. "Millions of money for an inch of time!" was the exclamation of a dying queen, whose reign had been filled with deeds of glory, and whose name was handed down to posterity as the "good queen Bess." It was a treasure which the wealth of empires could not buy; and so the spirit, disrobed of the empty pageantry of royalty, and unsupported by the presence of its fellow-worms, passed at once to the tribunal of the King of kings, to receive from him POWER OF HABIT. its trial and its recompense. But they will vibrate with a breath of that which was denied to the petition air. of one whose slightest wish had been the law of kingdoms, is now ours; and how shall we dispose of the precious boon, so that when we, too, shall be called to give an account of our stewardship, we may receive the approbation of our Judge, and the reward promised to his faithful servants? As the lives of many of us will be short, and as the plans which we have already marked out for ourselves in the future will many of them remain unfulfilled, how shall we best economise the golden moments as they pass, so that no remembrances of wasted hours will rise to fill our souls with unavailing regrets, and no record of misspent days bear witness against us when time itself shall be no more? IMPORTANCE OF TRIFLES. In this world nothing is a trifle. A painter was one day copying a portrait of Rembrandt. He took off shadow after shadow, light after light, line upon line most accurately; still the expression was wanting. Hundreds on hundreds of touches were valueless, till, by the aid of a microscope, he discovered one hairlike line below the eye; and this put in, the whole likeness came. So it is with all great things. It is only littleness of mind that cannot appreciate little things. Think how one trifling act, even the wavering of thought, will give a bias to the mind, and lay the foundation of a habit which nothing afterwards can alter. Think how, in a course either of virtue or of vice, all may be safe or unsafe up to a certain point, when, again, one little act consolidates the habit for ever. Before, there might be escape; now there is none. Before, heaven might have been lost; now it is gained for ever. Great occasions, violent temptations, gigan. tic efforts, superhuman prowess, these are rarely within our reach. And they are not required; they even diminish admiration. Our hearts are balanced on a point, and Habit uniformly and constantly strengthens all our active exertions; whatever we do often, we become more and more apt to do. A snufftaker begins with a pinch of snuff per day, and ends with a pound or two every month. Swearing begins in anger, it ends by mingling itself with ordinary conversation. Such i like instances are of too common notoriety to need that they be adduced; but as I before observed, at the very time that the tendency to do the thing is every day increasing, the pleasure resulting from it is, by the blunted sensibility of the bodily organ, diminished; and the desire is irresistible, though the gratification is nothing. There is rather an entertaining example of this in Fielding's "Life of Jonathan Wild," in that scene where he is represented as playing at cards with the count, a professed gambler. "Such," says Mr. Fielding, was the power of habit over the minds of these illus trious persons, that Mr. Wild could not keep his hands out of the count's pockets, though he knew they were empty; nor could the count abstain from palming a card, though he was well aware Mr. Wild had no money to pay him." 66 THE BIBLE IN ROME. When I was in Rome, says an eminent writer, in the winter of 1847, I was very anxious, for a particular reason, to obtain a copy of the Scriptures in Italian. I sought for one at all the booksellers in Rome, but without success, until one day, when I had nearly given up the quest as hopeless, I entered a shop not far from the College of the Propaganda. I made my usual inquiry for the Old and New Testaments in Italian, and the shopkeeper replied that he had one copy. Good," said I, and began to feel for my purse. "Stop," said the tradesman, very honestly, "you had better see it first." Whereat he mounted some steps, and after much diving, pulled out a 66 dusty copy of the desired work, in five or six volumes quarto, and the price of which, unbound, was, I am sure, not less, if it was not even more, than £4. It was, of course, an "authorised copy," with an enormous mass of notes; but to enjoin the people, the poor, the Roman poor, to read the Bible, of which the only copy I could find in Rome cost some twenty scudi or more, was little short of an impossibility. HENRY THE FOURTH. Henry IV., king of France, always made his children call him papa or father, and not the usual ceremonious title of “Sire,” or “Your Majesty." He used frequently to join in their amusements; and one day, as he was going on all-fours with the dauphin, his son, on his back, an ambassador entered his apartment suddenly, and surprised him in this attitude. The monarch, without moving from it, said to him, " Monsieur l'ambassadeur, have you any children?" "Yes, sire," replied he. "Very well, then," said the king, "I shall finish my race round my chamber." ECONOMY. George II., passing through his chamber one evening, preceded by a single page, a small canvas bag of guineas, which he held in his hand, accidentally dropped, and one of them rolled under a closet door, in which wood was usually kept for the use of his bedchamber. After the king had very deliberately picked up the money, he found himself deficient of a guinea; and, guessing where it went, "Come," said he to the 66 page, we must find this guinea; here, help me to throw out the wood." The page and he accordingly went to work, and in a short time found it. "Well," said the king, "you have wrought hard, there is the guinea for your labour; but I would have nothing lost." "GET UNDERSTANDING." There is no knowledge to be compared with the knowledge of God; no knowledge of God comparable to the knowledge of God as reconciled in Christ; no knowledge of Christ to be compared with the knowledge of his love; nor any knowledge of his love to be compared with that knowledge of it which subdues our hearts to his obedience, transforms our souls into his likeness, and raises up the soul to aspire after his enjoyment. Thus it is that "we joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement," Rom. v. 11. All other knowledge may swell the head sooner than better the heart or reform the life. A man may go silently down to hell by hypocrisy ; he may go triumphantly thither by open profaneness; and he may go learnedly down to hell, with great pomp and ostentation, whatever he knows, if he knows not the love of Christ ruling in him and giving laws to him, and conforming him both to the death and resurrection of his Saviour. KNOWLEDGE AND VIRTUE. A knowledge what to select, and how to pursue, is as necessary to the highest happiness as virtue herself. Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask of Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal. Mere knowledge, on the other hand, like a Swiss mercenary, is ready to combat either in the ranks of sin or under the banners of righteousness; ready to forge cannon-balls or to print New Testaments; to navigate a corsair's vessel or a missionary's ship. THE GRANDEUR OF MAN. "The birth of an infant," it has been truthfully said, "is a greater event than the production of the sun. The sun is only a lump of senseless matter; it sees not its own light; it feels not its own heat; and, with all its grandeur, it will cease to be: but that infant, beginning only to breathe yesterday, is possessed of reason, claims a principle infinitely superior to all matter, and will live through the ages of eternity." Let the immortal mind shed its lustre upon the world. |