hears the sweetness of music, but the soul that perceives all the relish of sensual and of intellectual pleasure. To lose a soul which is designed to be an immense sea of pleasure, even in its natural capacities, is to lose all that whereby a man can possibly be happy. Consider II. THE PRICE THAT THE SON OF GOD PAID FOR THE REDEMPTION OF THE SOUL. WHAT? Not the spoil of rich provinces, nor the estimate of kingdoms, nor the estimate of Cleopatra's draught, nor anything corruptible. For the salvation of the soul, God did a greater work than in creation. He was fain to contract Divinity into a span; He gave His Son to die. A soul in God's account is valued at the price of the blood, and shame, and torture of His Son. A soul is so greatly valued by God that we are not to venture the loss of it to save all the world. If God for His own sake would not have all the world saved by sin— that is, by the hazarding of a soul--we should do well for our own sakes not to lose a soul for trifles. Consider III. WHAT IT IS TO LOSE A SOUL. Hierocles thus explicates— "An immortal substance can die, not by ceasing to be, but by losing all well-being, by becoming miserable." Hell-fire is the common expression for the loss of the soul, for the Eastern nations counted burning the greatest punishment; and burning malefactors was frequent. "Brimstone and fire," so St. John calls punishment. Also "outer darkness," "blackness of darkness for ever," "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,” “unquenchable fire." If a man were condemned to lie in bed in one posture, without turning for seven years, would he not buy it off with the loss of all his estate. A thousand years is a long time to be in torment. Although Homer was pleased to compliment the beauty of Helena to such a height as to say, "It was a sufficient price for all the evils which the Greeks and Trojans suffered in ten years," yet it was a more reasonable conjecture of Herodotus, that during the ten years siege of Troy, Helena, for whom the Greeks fought, was in Egypt, not in the city; because it was unimaginable but the Trojans would have thrown her over the walls, rather than, for the sake of a trifle, have endured so great calamities. We are more sottish than the Trojans if we retain our Helena, any one beloved lust, a painted devil, and sugared temptation, with (not the hazard, but) the certainty of having such horrid miseries, such incalculable losses. The old rabbins, those poets of religion, report of Moses, that when the courtiers of Pharaoh were sporting with the child Moses in the chamber of Pharaoh's daughter, they presented to his choice an ingot of gold in one hand, and a coal of fire in the other; and that the child snatched at the coal, thrust it into his mouth, and so singed and parched his tongue that he stammered ever after. And certainly it is infinitely more childish in us for the glittering small glowworms, and the charcoal of worldly possessions, to swallow the flames of hell greedily in our choice; such a bit will produce a worse stammering than Moses had; for so the accursed and lost souls have their ugly and horrid dialect. Although God hath lighted His candle, and the lantern of His word, and clearest revelation is held out to us, that we can see hell in its worst colours, and most horrid representments, yet we run greedily after baubles under that precipice which swallows up the greatest part of mankind; and then only we begin to consider when all consideration is fruitless. Bristol. URIJAH R. THOMAS. GREATNESS OF THE SOUL. "THE soul endowed with understanding, reason, wit, judgment, will, memory, imagination; the soul, which in an instant flieth from pole to pole, descends to the centre, and mounts up to the top of the world; which in one instant is in a thousand several places; which fathoms the universe without touching it; which glows, glistens, sparkles; which ransacks all the treasures and magazines of nature; which finds out all sorts of inventions; which frameth arts, which governeth states, which ordereth worlds."-N. CAUSSIN. INFLUENCE OF GOLD ON THE SOUL. "A LIGHTED piece of paper laid flat on a piece of metal will go out, for the metal absorbs the heat and starves the flame: so does gold laid close to the soul cause the holy flame of love to God to shrink and die. The heart cannot embrace both God and money; and therefore, if it give its affection and solicitude to the latter, it is guilty of idolatry. (Col. iii. 5.).” Variations on Themes from Scripture. No. XXII. Subject: THE WRATH OF THE LAMB, "And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb." -Rev. vi. 16. T HERE is something of appalling significance in so para doxical an expression as this, of the "Wrath of the Lamb." The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world; the Lamb that stood as it had been slain; the Lamb brought dumb to the slaughter: the Lamb in whose blood were made white the robes of them that came out of great tribulation;-to associate with this image the utterly antagonistic idea of wrath, involves surprise, not to say shock, as well as reluctant effort. Once associated, the very antagonism of the conflicting terms imparts to their conjunction a portentous expressiveness. It makes the wrath trebly potent that it should be wrath, long suppressed, but at length discharged, of a nature essentially and exceptionally meek, patient, long-suffering, easy to be entreated, hard to be angered. In the previous chapter the same Divine Personage apparently had been symbolized as a Lion—the Lion of the tribe of Judah. It might have seemed, to the superficial, greatly more appropriate to have spoken of His wrath under this character-the wrath of a Lion. But how infinitely less striking, and everyway less suggestive, would this have been than the actual, and supremely forcible, expression, the wrath of the Lamb! The deferred and deprecated, but at last inevitable day of its manifestation arrived, who might abide it? The great day of His wrath come, who should be able to stand? Furor fit læsâ sæpius patientiâ, says the Latin proverb: patience, trespassed upon too often, is converted into wrath. And if, O patience, the long-suffering that is in thee becomes wrath, how great is that wrath! Plutarch says of the Roman populace, on the occasion of a certain tumult, "they thought that the wrath of Fabius now provoked, albeit he was naturally so mild and patient, would prove heavy and implacable”—all the more so, indeed, because of that natural disposition, now abused and overstrained. An eminent critic observes, in arguing that all great effects are produced by contrast, that anger is never so noble as when it breaks out of a comparative continence of aspect; it is the earthquake bursting from the repose of nature. Gibbon observes that the most furious and desperate of rebels are the sectaries of a religion long persecuted, and at length provoked. Charlevoix in his Histoire de St. Domingo, remarks of the sea of the Antilles and neighbouring isles, that it is commonly more tranquil than ours; "but, like certain people who are excited with difficulty, and whose transports of passion are as violent as they are rare, so when the sea becomes irritated, it is terrific." To apply Barry Cornwall's lines: "Look well upon 't: 'Tis the same murmuring creature scarce surmounts To madness by some wrong, or the moon's scorn, It jumps from its calm, and scales the skies, to show The biographer of Columbus and his companions is treating of the native Indians of those tropical islands when he says, "At length, by a series of flagrant outrages, the gentle and pacific nature of this people was roused to resentment, and from confiding and hospitable hosts they were converted into vindictive enemies." Mr. Perceval tells us of the Cingalese Indians, "They are mild, and by no means captious or passionate, .. though, when once their anger is roused, it is proportionably furious and lasting." It is a recognized characteristic of the Turks that, although not lightly provoked to anger, yet, when once thoroughly excited, their passion is furious and their resent ment deadly. Great Britain herself is by some referred to the same category. Wolcot writes on this subject, "Thick as may be the head of poor John Bull, As with one of the Titan forms in Keats's "Hyperion " 66 once tame and mild As grazing ox unworried in the meads; Now tiger-passioned, lion-thoughted, wroth." Thomson, indeed, expressly personifies "Britain" under a like figure-of soft deportment, aspect calm, unboastful, "suffering long, and, till provoked, As mild and harmless as the sporting child; The Very Reverend historian of the last years of Queen Anne records with zest how the Secretary was instructed to let the Dutch government know that "the Queen thought herself illtreated; and that they would soon hear what effect their measures would have upon a mild and good temper, wrought up to resentment by repeated provocations." One of the most distinguished statesmen of the following age is thus characterized by one who was nearest to him in blood, and certainly knew him best, "He has never been angry with me yet, that I remember, in his life; but if I were to provoke him, I am sure he would never forgive me he would be immovable, and I might beg, and pray, and write my heart out, to no purpose." Leslie reports of Lord Egremont that he would bear a great deal before he would take the trouble to be angry; "but when angry, it was to the purpose," and was proved in startling, staggering sorts of ways. Leigh Hunt's description of a certain overbearing despot at Christ Hospital includes a remembrance of "S., afterwards one of the mildest of preachers," starting up in his place, and pouring forth on his astonished hearer a torrent of invec |