bestirs himself for me in Europe? Who remains faithful to me? Where are my friends? Yes, two or three of you who are immortalised by this fidelity, ye share, ye alleviate my exile. | Such is the fate of great men. So it was with Caesar and Alexander, and I, too, am forgotten, and the name of a conqueror and an empire is a college theme; our exploits are tasks given to pupils by their tutor, who sits in judgment upon us, awarding us censure or praise. Such is soon to be the fate of the great Napoleon. What a wide abyss between my deep misery and the eternal kingdom of Christ, which is proclaimed, loved, and adored, and which is extended over all the earth! Is this death? Is it not life rather? oth of Christ is the death of a Oh, her ain weary heart wad close, CHINESE PRECEPTS. RESPECTING THE MIND.—Let not corrupt thoughts arise. Be not over-anxious, not grieved. Envy not those who have, nor despise those who have not. Complain not of Heaven, and blame not men. Think not of old evils, speculate not on distant things. THE BoDY.—Love not beauty without bounds. Be not greatly intoxicated. Stand not in dangerous places. Do not give way to anger. Do not associate with worthless characters. Do not enrage men who love to strike. HAPPINEss-Do not abuse the good things of Providence. Do not love extravagance. Be not over-anxious about being completely provided for. Think not of things which are above your station. Do not deteriorate the grain. Do not destroy life. THINGs IN GENERAL.—Do not neglect the relations and duties of life. Do not practise corrupt things. Do not oppose the commands of your parents or teachers. Do not speak much. Provoke not a guest to anger. Between two parties, do not speak swords here and flatteries there. Do not stir up troubles. Do not cut and carve the poor. Do not deceive and oppress the orphan and widow. Do not wrongfully accuse any one. Do not learn unprofitable things. WEALTH.—Be not ashamed of bad food and coarse clothing. Do not buy useless things. Be not over-fond of feasts. Do not learn to imitate the rich and great. WoRDs.--Do not talk of men's domestic affairs. Do not tell secrets. Do not conceal the errors of worthless men. Do not injure a person's parents. Do not put a stop to any good affair. Do not bring up other men's concerns (in conversation). Do not laugh at men's appearance. Do not blame a man for the faults of his relatives. Be not fond of ridiculing any one. Do not make up stories to injure men. Be not proud of your wealth. Do not complain of your poverty. Do not speak with a fierce aspect. Do not despise men's poverty. Do not interrupt men in conversation. Do not lie. Do not help and abet others to do iniquity. Do not write corrupt composition. Do not speak of grumbling or licentiousness. Do not . anything that has a beginning but no encl. WORDS OF THE WISE. OF JESTING.-Harmless mirth is the best cordial against the consumption of the spirits; wherefore jesting is not so unlawful if it trespasseth not in quantity, quality, or season. It is good to make a jest, but not to make a trade of jesting. The Earl of Leicester, knowing that Queen Elizabeth was much delighted to see a gentleman dance well, brought the master of a dancing sehool to dance before her. “It is,” said the Queen, “his profession, I will not see him.” She liked not where it was a master quality, but where it attended on other perfections. The same we say of jesting. Jest not with the two-edged sword of God's word. Know the whole artis learnt at the first admission, and profanerjests will come without calling. If without thy intention and against thy will, by chancemedley thou hittest Scripture in ordinary discourse, yet fly to the city of refuge, and pray God to forgive thee. Wanton jests make fools laugh and wise men frown. Seeing we are civilised Englishmen, let us not be naked savages in our talk; such rotten speeches are worst in a withered age. Let not thy jests, like mummy, be made of dead men's flesh. Abuse not any that are departed; for to wrong their memories is to rob their ghosts of their winding sheets. Scoff not at the natural defects of an which are not in their power to amend. Oh, 'tis cruel to beat a cripple with his own crutches; neither flout any for his profession, if honest, though poor and painful; mock not a cobbler for his black thumbs. He that relates another man's wicked jest with delight adopts it as his own. urge them, therefore, from their poison. If the profaneness may be severed from the wit, it is like a lamprey, take out the sting in the back, it will make good meat. But if the staple conceit consists in profaneness, then it is a viper, all poison, and meddle not with it. He that will lose his friend for a jest deserves to die a beggar by the bargain. Yet some think their conceits like mustard, not good except they bite. "We read that all those who were born in England in the year after the beginning of the great mortality, 1349, wanted their four cheek teeth. Such let thy jests be, that they may not grind the credit of thy friend, and make not jests so long till thou becomest oneAbridged from Fuller. SIN Not WEAKENED BY OLD AGE.I know scarce anything that calls for a more serious consideration from man than this ; for still they are apt to persuade themselves that old age will do that for them which, in their present fulness of strength and youth, they have not the reason, not the heart to do for themselves. Whereas the case is directly the reverse; for nothing will grow weak with age, but that which will at length die with age; which sin never does. The longer the blot continues, the deeper it sinks. Vice, in retreating from the practice of men, retires into their fancy.—South. Men are atheistical because they are first vicious, and question the truth of Christianity because they hate the practice of it.—South. Strong passions work wonders, when there is a greater strength of reason to curb them.—Tucker. Growth in grace manifests itself by a simplicity—that is, a greater naturalness of character. There will be more usefulness and less noise; more tenderness of conscience, and less scrupulosity; there will be more peace, more humility; when the full corn is in the ear it bends down because it is full.—Cecil. There is no saying shocks me so much as that which I hear very often, that a man does not know how to pass his time. It would have been but ill-spoken by Methusalem in the nine hundred and sixty-ninth year of his life.—Cowley. HOME MISSION, WHAT IS IT? | Are we doing what we might ? Oue praying people are looking with looking with For fifteen years we have had a Home interest to the China intelligence just now. Mission ;, thrice the time the Free “The land of Sinim" is convulsed by war; Church Society has existed. Our whole the mission operations are interrupted. It It Church has embarked in it, as one of our is a time for thought—for prayer.--But" main schemes. Something has been done. are not too many even of our godly people. But has the fifteen years' effort resulted not looking (as they ought) to our Home in anything like a church a-year ? Not Mission ? ' certainly of the class we mean.. How many What is the Home Mission ? scores of Engligh heathens have we, under Excavation of heathenism. ro God, reclaimed ? In Glasgow there are a hundred thousand We need, men specially set apart ; who ought to be at church, but never enter designated publicly, like our China missionit. On Sabbath the 15th of March, the aries, in presence of the Synod, for Home prayers and gifts of God's people were Mission labour among England's myriads solicited by the Free Church for the evan of heathen. Five millions of English people gelization of Glasgow. Thirteen stations go nowhere on the Sabbath. in various degrees of forwardness, exist! Yes, they go to the public-house, to the there, in connection with the Free Church. haunts of sin, to the dens of Satan. . Such men as Andrew Bonar and Alexander The Open-air Preaching movement is Cumming, both familiar to the thousand | making progress. But, in addition to it, raders of McCheyne's Life, have been we need sustained and special effort by found ready to cast, themselves on the Lord men doing nothing else than excavating. and go up to: His help against the mighty | Eminent men are needed. Where are one of hell, who holds these ten myriads they? In the fulness of Jesus, to be got, of Glasgowegians in his thrall. thence, by believing prayer. Correspondente. To the Editor of The Presbyterian Messenger. young men ? To say nothing of the SIR,-Considering what a field of national sins of drunkenness and prosusefulness lies, before our Church at titution, calling for prayer and effort present, I do hope, after the loss of so from every Christian, to arrest national many precious hours of the last Synod, judgment, and many other matters and so much feeling evaporated in en which must suggest themselves to every deavouring to prove the use of an reflecting mind. Organ to aid our Psalmody, as either ir? - Yours, . anti-Scriptural or anti-Ecclesiastical THE ELDER WHO“ DECLINED the much more vital questions may - - TO VOTE." now take the pre-eminence. How can Liverpool, 24th March, 1857. PSALMODY. wide-spread andsound education among S -I ber to thank you for giving my the masses? How can we best pro- former remarks on this important subject a mote the welfare of our pastors, and place in your last number. If you could free them from much of that pecuniary spare room for the further following obseranxiety from which they should be vations thereon, I should feel still further relieved ? How can we proyoke a obliged, and I will content myself with true Missionary spirit among the rising | making them a sort of running commen on some portions of the article headed “Hallelujah,” in your number for last 'month. I would premise that all parties who feel an interest in this subject are indebted to the author of that and a previous similar article, for bringing the matter so prominently forward. “Poetry and music are the great vehicles of praise.” The truth of this is verified in many ways, both in the pulpit and in the pew. Those who are capable of reading or reciting poetry with effect, are generally fond of and able to appreciate good music. “We have the same inspi golo as were sung in the ancient church.” “Of old they were sung in the unmetrical form.” There can be no doubt that they are referred to in 1Chron. xxv., and in 2 Chron. xxix., as being made use of “to give thanks and to praise the Lord;" and I humbl submit that we give reason for others . ing us “sour Presbyterians,” by our rejecting those lovely chants and anthems which are wedded to the inspired poetry referred to, and which we delight to listen to in other places of worship. As regards adding to the number of our metrical paraphrases and hymns, I consider it would be far better to learn to sing well what we have already got. “In Israel of old an educated song raised the sacred melodies in worship.” For the truth of this statement we have only to refer to the two chapters of 1st and 2nd Chron., to which I have above referred. If we are not to use “stringed instruments and organs,” as o in the last of the psalms, we ought to cultivate that best of all musical organs, the human voice. But here arises the great difficulty. Unfortunately this is not considered a part of education, and when people grow up to maturity without having their voicestrained to sing “in parts,” it is a positive fact (which I have had proved within the last few days, as well as on many previous occasions) that they would prefer the most common, humdrum style of singing, to the assistance of a good choir. It is in music, as in other things, a good taste cannot be forced, with any good effect, on those who have long been accustomed to a vitiated one. Hence the necessity of teaching the young, which are “the Church's hope.” There is no doubt but that this should be more a matter of “conscience” than it it is. We ought to consider it a duty to sing as well as to pray, both being equally §. upon our notice in the word of od, for while I find in one place the injunction to “pray without ceasing,” I find, in another the never-ceasing indications of a grateful heart, leading me to say, “I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” But how can we “join our cheerful songs with angels round the throne,” if we perform our part in an ineffective, careless manner, or do not learn to sing at all? The laws of harmony are founded in nature, and are true and unalterable; but we have to study and to learn those laws, to appreciate their beauty and to be able to reduce them to practice. I beg to repeat, what I wrote before, that “it is an anomaly, that whilst we devote” (properly, I, of course, allow) “so much time and attention in our church services to prayer and preaching, which are in due time to be done away with, we give, comparatively speaking, so little room to the exercise of praise, which we are happy in believing is to last for ever.” am, Sir, yours obediently, W. SINCLAIR. ORATORIOS. SoME time ago we received the following letter from an Islington correspondent:— SIR,--I think you would be conferring a benefit generally if you would favour the readers of the “Messenger” with your opinion as to the lawfulness and desirableness of Members of Churches and Chapels attending oratorios. I am satisfied that it may be lawfully done, but others are not of that opinion; indeed, it appears to be rather a vexed question, but I think six lines from your pen would put the matter in its proper light.—I am, Sir, A SUBSCRIBER. To THE SACRED HARMonic SocIETY, AND A MEMBER of THE ENGLISH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. We have long considered the question raised by our ...; a very important one, requiring far more attention from Christians, than it has yet received. For our own part we never attended oratorios, or countenanced them in any shape, because, we believe, that it is neither lawful nor desirable for Christians to do so. We do not consider it necessary at present to enter at length into a statement of our reasons for thinking so, because we find them ready for use in the following extract from a letter, which, many years ago, was addressed by a minister to his people. We are prepared to indorse his views entirely and fully, and we submit them to the prayerful consideration of our correspondent and all others, whom they may concern. |tion to the sacredness of the object desecrated. Now an oratorio, whether we regard its name or structure, is an address or series of addresses to God, “the greatest and best." . It is, if rightly performed, an act of worship. Praise and prayer are the loftiest occupations of created beings. They anihilate infinity, and place the soul in opposition with God. To do that, then, for amusement alone, which, offered from a pure heart, and with sorrect motives, is the highest homage of the creature to the perfections of the Creator, I cannot but call a gross profanation. Of course, I here reflect thiefly upon the employment of sacred words for such a purpose; because music, properly speaking, can have no sacredness in it, although there is a | style of composition to which we may, with conventional propriety, apply the name. It is not, then, to the instru mental department of such a perform: ance I now refer, the stateliness of . whose march, and gravity of whose tone may comport with the solemn character of the words; but to the making such words the vehicle of conveying to the ear “the concord of sweet sounds” they accompany, the string upon which the rich pearly notes of the music are strung, and which thus play but a subordinate part in the performance. Now, not in one case out of a thousand in which these performances are exhibited, are the words, the sentiments, the song, the chief attraction. The chief attraction is the music and the skill of the vocalist. Neither the performers nor the audience pretend that an oratorio is an act of worship, the grateful homage of reasonable men to the God of their life. To bring down, then, “the high praises of our God,” the words of the Holy Spirit, the eternal verities of Scripture, to the level of a sing-song or burletta: to reduce the hallelujahs of the sweet singer of Israel to a mere instrument, upon which some pular artist may display the flexibiÉ. and compass of his voice. Oh! this is a use of the sanctities of Scripture, from which every right-thinking, not to say pious mind, must, I conceive, revolt. But it will be said, are not very solemn and delightful emotions produced in every heart by the performance of the oratorio? Yes; I reply: there are certainly very pleasing emotions produced, and of a very sober, perhaps solemn cast, while you are under the spell of such performances. But there are two very grievous mistakes committed by those who advocate their continuance upon this plea, if, indeed, they be not intended sophisms. The one is, that these feelings are religious. Now, I contend, that it is not the words but the music which awakens the emotions described, as any one may easily ascertain who is familiar with the music of our best known and most highly-prized oratorios. The man must have ears of felt and a leaden heart who is not overpowered by the thunder of sound which bursts from an orchestra boasting hundreds of performers, melted by the softness |