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THE DYING UNBELIEVER.

SEVERAL years have passed since it was our lot to behold the last hours of an infidel. It was a fearful sight. The impression can never be effaced from the memory. Poor man! He had passed through many of this world's changes: and from wealth he had sunk with the wreck of fame and fortune. His family, one by one, had died around him. His wife, a few months before, had been laid in the grave. Consumption had fastened upon himself; and, friendless and forsaken, he lay upon his death bed, without a ray of hope-a single consolation to soothe his passage to the land of shadows.

It was a dismal stormy evening, carly in the fall of 18—, when we stood by the bedside of the dying man. He had requested a will to be drawn, that he might, as far as possible, provide for his only remaining child; and a young man had brought it, and began to communicate its contents

In the name of God. Amen.'

'No!' exclaimed the dying man, with fearful energy. 'No nonsense like that for me.'

'Well,' said the young man, soothingly, 'it is but the form.' 'What care I for your forms! I'll not be frightened though it is my last hour,' muttered he, faint with the exertion of speaking. There is no God-I fear none-I'll have no forms!'

The phrase was erased, and the reading continued. His hand was guided, that he might sign his name. He did it, but was not satisfied. He turned the paper over, to see that the divine name remained not on it, and exerted his little remaining strength to dash the pen across it, that it might be obliterated the more effectually.

He sank upon his pillow, utterly exhausted with the effort, and remained so for some time. The storm began howling without, and the rain pattered in huge drops upon the windows, the darkness being now and then dissipated by a vivid flash, followed by a deep intonation from the artillery of heaven. The storm without was fearful; but within the breast of the dying man there raged a storm of conflicting passions infinitely more dreadful. His countenance assumed a livid hue, his eye-balls rolled in their sockets, and he grasped the paper with convulsive strength. His appearance was horrible. We turned to the window to avoid the sight. When we looked again, there he was sitting upright in the bed, pale as the shroud, and his glaring eyes fixed upon the window, where the lightning was continually flashing.

'Away! away! I know you not,' he shrieked at the picture his bewildered fancy drew. He covered his face with his hands. 'No, no, no!' ho muttered, there is no God-there is fell back, and in an hour he was dead.

!' He

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WE found the elephants in prodigious numbers on the southern bank of Lake Ngami. They come to drink by night, and after having slaked their thirst-in doing which they throw large quantities of water over themselves, and are heard, while enjoying the refreshment, screaming with delight-they evince their horror of pit-falls by setting off in a straight line to the desert, and never diverge till they are eight or ten miles off. They are smaller here than in the countries farther south. At the Limpopo, for instance, they are upwards of 12 feet high; here they are only 11; farther north we shall find them 9 feet only. We saw specimens of the kuabaoba, or straight-horned rhinoceros, and we found that, from the horn being projected downwards, it did not obstruct the line of vision; so that this species is able to be much more wary than its neighbours.-Livingstone's Travels.

REPUTATION.

THE two most precious things on this side the grave are our reputation and our life. But the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other. A wise man, therefore, will be more anxious to deserve a fair name than to possess it, and this will teach him so to live as not to be afraid to die.

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DEMONSTRATION OF THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF SCRIPTURE PROPHECY.

'They shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.'

Eleven hundred thousand Jews are recorded to have fallen in the siege of Jerusalem, besides great multitudes in other places; nearly a hundred thousand were sold for slaves, and reduced to the most abject captivity in distant countries: the remains of that devoted nation have been dispersed as captives, or in a most dependent oppressed condition, throughout the kingdoms of the earth; and yet have been preserved a distinct people for above one thousand seven hundred years! This unparalleled event was doubtless intended, among other reasons, that they might be undeniable witnesses, or monuments, of the truth of the Scriptures; of that part which they roject, as well as of that which they retain. Jerusalem has ever since been trodden under-foot,' or governed with despotic sway, by the Gentiles; by the Romans, Saracens, Mamelukes, Franks, and Turks, who possess it to this day..

This prediction has already been so remarkably accomplished, that it may be said to contain a full demonstration of the truth of the Christian religion. No human or created sagacity could have foreseen such remote events; no conjecture could have been formed of them. It must have previously been supposed, that, if the Jews were dispersed among all nations, they would be incorporated among them. Their preservation as a distinct people, neither Christians nor idolaters, in the midst of their several conquerors and oppressors, being Christians or idolaters, is an event which has no parallel in the annals of the world; an event that could never have been expected or thought of if prophecy, from the days of Moses, had not excited that expectation..

The fulfilment of the prophecy to this present day conveys the most unanswerable proof of its divine original: and I am verily convinced, that, if men were as impartial and unprejudiced in their religious inquiries as they are in mathematical reasonings, no one, who well considered this prediction, and examined its accomplishment, could any more doubt of the truth of the Gospel, than learned men do of the theorems in Euclid.

[REV. THOMAS SCOTT.

BOYS IN AFRICA.

PICTORIAL PAGES.

ONE of the most common and terrible kinds of punishment inflicted upon disobedient boys is to rub red pepper into their eyes. Their screams and yells under the operation are savage beyond description, and it is a wonder their sight is not entirely destroyed. I have never known, however, a case where any permanent injury was inflicted in this way.-Wilson's Western Africa.

JOHN CASSELL.

I REMEMBER Well the effect produced in my mind while attending lectures, and reading books, at the time I was seeking to acquire an elementary knowledge of various popular sciences. Ample ground for reflection was furnished by the mere knowledge of the geological fact, that successive races of plants and animals existed before this globe was fit for the reception of man. And when evidence was adduced of the changes that had taken place on the earth's surface before man was placed upon it, nothing could successfully assail the conviction produced in my mind, that man was created, and that he could only have been created by a Great First Cause. Neither the Vestiges of Creation, nor any other hypothetical work, could uproot this conviction. When I began to hear and read of the peculiarities of man's organization, and his relation to external circumstances, physiology and anatomy demonstrated to me the perfection of design in the construction of the human system. Even the minutest parts of the creation, animate or inanimate, evinced the design of the Creator in their formation, while the whole visible world abounded with proofs of His benevolence. When I met with Sir Charles Bell's admirable Essay on the Human Hand, and the other Bridgewater Treatises, new light dawned upon my hitherto-benighted mind. As step by step I plodded on, this was my sheet-anchor- THERE IS A GOD, and all nature demonstrates Him to be all-wise, powerful, and benevolent!' The wonders revealed by the microscope and telescope greatly expanded my conceptions of His marvellous wisdom and power. Then from the external world my reflections would revolve back to man. I learned that man was an animal, aud that he had feelings and propensities common to all animals; but that, above and beyond all these, he was endowed with a mind peculiar to himself, and that his endowments constituted his superiority. I could discover no part of the works of God which did not show clearly the design of its formation; and as the eye of man was constructed that he might see, and the ear that he might hear, the mouth that he might masticate his food, the stomach to digest it, and various internal organs to separate the nutritious particles, and assimilate them into the various forms and organs which constitute the human body; so, to my understanding, did the various faculties and emotions of the human mind, as manifested by observation and consciousness, demonstrate that man was intended to know, to worship, and to serve God. The ability to exercise the faculties of adoration, hope, conscientiousness, and benevolence, seemed to prove clearly that the design of God, in endowing man with a nature so noble, was that he might derive his highest happiness from doing the will and advancing the glory of his Creator, and from promoting the welfare of his own species. I felt convinced that these powers and feelings would not have been implanted in man, had it not been intended that he should be a worshipping being. In reading the voyages of Captain Cook, Wallis, and others, I found that, on whatever shores they touched, the natives were worshippers; falling down, it was true, to idols of wood and of stone, and offering human and other sacrifices; but still, untutored savages as they were, endowed with a principle of reverence for a supreme being, and a desire to propitiate his favour, and to do his will; principles and desires, which, had they been exercised in reference to the true object of worship, as they have since then been in thousands of instances, would have elevated them far above the influence of their moral debasement. This universal desire to adore and worship, as clearly demonstrated to me the design of the Creator in the constitution of the human mind, as the muscles in the wings of a bird, or the optic nerves of the eagle, demonstrated that the former were designed to sustain the weight of a body in the air, and the latter for Intense vision.

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By thoughts and reflections such as these, the following points were established in my mind-First, that there is a God; secondly, that man was created by Him; and, thirdly, that the evident design of man's creation, as evinced by the peculiar constitution of his mind, was, that he should be a worshipping being that he should act under the influence of moral obliga tion. Then came the natural corollary, if man was intended to be a worshipping creature, some revelation must be made to him as to the way in which this design of his Creator was to be fulfilled. Man, left to himself, might create a god, or gods, according to his own imagination and desires; or he might set up the human mind itself for an object of idolatrous worship, as did Voltaire and the atheists of the Continent. Then I found that God, who had left none of His works in nature incomplete, had provided especially for the wants and desires of His masterwork, Man. While I saw, that, in the wide compass of external nature, there was nothing that could satisfy the eager cravings of the human soul, I found that He who placed within man a faculty, by the due exercise of which its possessor may attain the loftiest pinnacle of intellectual elevation, had not left him without the means of satisfying its ardent longings, and of attaining the purification of his moral and spiritual nature. Thus I was led to the BIBLE. There I saw the all-wise, all-powerful Creator, condescending to reveal His will to man; gradually unfolding the purposes of His love, laying a broad foundation for the hopes of man in the promise of a Divine Redeemer, clearly defining the path of duty, providing every needful consolation, assistance, and support; and thus ennobling, refining, and exalting the nature of man, and rendering him capable of enjoying supreme and everlasting happiness. And I saw, too, that the provision of infinite mercy and love was commensurate with the wants and desires of the whole human family, and that the Gospel of Christianity was destined to overturn every opposing system, till 'righteousness shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the deep.'

CHINESE INVOKING AN IDOL.

[John Cassell.

Ir is a very common practice for the Chinese, before engaging in any transaction of importance, to ask counsel of an idol. This is done in various ways, one of which is by throwing up, in the presence of the idol, two pieces of bamboo rcot, each having two sides, one flat and the other rounded. If both pieces, on falling, present the rounded side, the response is unfavourable; if both present the flat side, it is not so much so, but still not satisfactory; if one present the rounded, and the other the flat side, the response is in all respects favourable. [Missionary Chronicle.

THE ALTAR OF BURNT OFFERING:

OR, ISRAELITES INVOKING THE TRUE GOD. THE word altar is from the Latin altare (an altar), which is from altus, high. The altar of burnt offering, described in the twentyseventh chapter of Exodus, and appointed for use in connexion with the tabernacle, was a hollow structure, about eight feet in length and breadth, and five feet in height. The perpetual fire burning upon its summit was symbolic of God's great and continual displeasure against sin, and of the severe and eternal sufferings to which sin gives rise. Unoffending victims consumed on the altar shadowed forth the substitution and atoning death of the sinless Saviour, who 'died, the just for the unjust, that He might bring sinners to God.'

The altar had horns at its four corners, and to these trans gressors might flee for refuge, and be safe, teaching by emblem that sinners from all quarters, fleeing by faith to the Lord Jesus, and pleading the merit of His atoning death, offenders against God in all parts of the earth, who by faith cling to the Lord Jesus Christ, will obtain the remission of their sins and acceptance of God.

'Paschal Lamb, by God appointed!

All our sins on Thee were laid:
By Almighty Love anointed,

Thou hast full atonement made.
All Thy people are forgiven,
Through the virtue of Thy blood.
Opened is the gate of heaven:
Peace is made for man with G

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