such reason as you imagine to laugh | He offered as a ransom to surrender his so at a father playing with his child. own life and a large sum of money. You know nothing of that affection The soldiers who had it in charge to which parents have to their children; restrain your mirth till you have children of your own, when you will, perhaps, be found as ridiculous as I now seem to you to be."

THE FATHER'S DILEMMA. History informs us, that a father went to the agents of a tyrant to endeavour to redeem his two sons, military men, who, with some other captives of war, were appointed to die.

put them to death, informed him that this equivalent would be accepted for one of his sons, and for one only, because they should be accountable for the execution of two persons; he might therefore choose which he would redeem. Anxious to save even one of them, thus, at the expense of his own life, he yet was utterly unable to decide which should die, and remained in the agony of his dilemma so long, that his sons were both slain.

AFFLICTION.

CECIL AND THE BOOKSELLER.

Many years ago, a pious and devoted clergyman entered the shop of a prosperous London bookseller, with whom he was on terms of intimate and christian friendship. He inquired for his friend, and when told that he was at home, but particularly engaged, sent a messenger to him to the effect that he wanted an interview with him, if but for a few minutes. This message being delivered, the clergyman was invited to walk up stairs, into the bookseller's sitting-room. He entered the room, and found his friend sitting by his child's cot. The child was dying, but, with affection strong in death, it had clasped its father's hand, and was holding it with a convulsive grasp.

"You are a father," said the afflicted parent, "or I should not have allowed you to witness such a scene.'

surely God will not forsake such a man as this; will not suffer him to go on in prosperity, without some check, some reverse! And I see he has not. No; God has not forgotten you."

These were the sentiments of Richard Cecil on the design of affliction; and his friend, Thomas Williams, thankfully and joyfully responded to them. Within three weeks of his death, he related the incident, as it is related here, and the feeling of his heart was, He hath done all things well."

MR. DOD AND HIS PERSECUTIONS.

While the eminent Puritan minister, Mr. Dod, resided at Hanwell, he was the subject of much persecution and sorrow. Going once to see his relative, the Rev. Mr. Greenham, of Dry-Drayton, and lamenting the state of his mind to him, the worthy minister “Thank God, thank God," fervently replied, "Son, son, when affliction exclaimed the minister, as he instinc- lieth heavy, sin lieth light." This tively comprehended at a glance the saying conveyed great comfort to Mr. situation of his friend: "thank God, Dod, who rejoiced that God could make He has not forgotten you! I have affliction the means of his sanctification; been much troubled on your account, and used afterwards to say, that my dear sir. I have thought much"sanctified afflictions are spiritual about you lately. I have been much promotions." afraid for you. Things have gone on so well with you for so long a time, you have been so prosperous, that I have been almost afraid that God had forgotten you. But I said to myself,

THE SICK CHRISTIAN USEFUL.

Ann Meiglo, a poor distressed woman in the parish of Portmoak, when visited by Mr. Ebenezer Erskine, said to him,

"O, sir, I am just lying here a poor the world to encroach so much upon useless creature." "Think you?" his affections, as sensibly to diminish said he. "I think, sir, what is true, the ardour of his piety. The disease

if I were away to heaven, I would be of some use to glorify God without sin." -"Indeed, Annie," said Mr. Erskine, "I think you are glorifying God by your resignation and submission to his will, and that in the face of many difficulties and under many distresses. In heaven the saints have no burdens to groan under; your praises, burdened as you are, are more wonderful to me, and I trust acceptable to God."

SAVED FROM A ROBBER BY RAIN.

A merchant was one day returning from market. He was on horseback, and behind him was a valise filled with money. The rain fell with violence, and the good old man was wet to his skin. At this he was vexed, and murmured because God had given him such bad weather for his journey.

He soon reached the borders of a thick forest. What was his terror on beholding on one side of the road a robber, with levelled gun, aiming at him, and attempting to fire! But the powder being wet by the rain, the gun did not go off, and the merchant, giving spurs to his horse, fortunately had time to escape.

was dangerous, and the Lord adopted severe measures for its cure. First, his wife was removed by death; but he still remained worldly-minded. Then a beloved son; but, although the remedy operated favourably, it did not effect a cure. Then his crops failed and his cattle died; still his grasp on the worl was not unloosed. Then God touched his person, and brought on him a lingering, fatal disease; the world, however, occupied still too much of his thoughts. His house finally took fire; and as he was carried out of the burning building, he exclaimed, "Blessed be God, I am cured at last." He shortly after died, happy in the anticipation of a heavenly inheritance.

DIVINITY TAUGHT BY AFFLICTION.

A minister was recovering of a dangerous illness, when one of his friends addressed him thus: "Sir, though God seems to be bringing you up from the gates of death, yet it will be a long time before you will sufficiently retrieve your strength, and regain vigour enough of mind to preach as usual." The good man answered:

-“You are mistaken my friend; for this six weeks' illness has taught me more divinity than all my past studies and all my ten years' ministry put together."

As soon as he found himself safe, he said to himself: "How wrong was I, not to endure the rain patiently as sent by Providence. If the weather had been dry and fair, I should not, probably, have been alive at this hour, EFFECT OF ILLNESS ON DR. CHANDLER. and my little children would have It used to be said of Dr. Chandler, expected my return in vain. The that, after an illness, he always preached rain which caused me to murmur, came in a more evangelical strain than usual. at a fortunate moment, to save my life A gentleman who occasionally heard and preserve my property." And thus him, said to one of his constant it is with a multitude of our afflictions; auditors: "Pray, has not the doctor by causing us slight and short suffer-been ill lately?" Why do you think ings, they preserve us from others far so?" "Because the sermon was more greater, and of longer duration. evangelical than he usually preaches when he is in full health."

A CHAIN OF CALAMITIES.

A Christian whom God had prospered in his outward estate, and who lived in ease and plenty on his farm, suffered

66

THANKFUL FOR BLINDNESS.

A blind boy, who belonged to the Institution in Dublin, when dying,

assured a correspondent of the Tract
Magazine that he considered it as one
of the greatest mercies of Heaven that
he had been deprived of his sight;
because this was the means the Lord
employed to bring him under the
sound of the gospel, which was now
the joy and rejoicing of his soul. So
much wisdom and truth is there in the
beautiful language of the poet :-

"Good, when he gives, supremely good,
Nor less when he denies;
E'en crosses, from his sovereign hand,
Are blessings in disguise."

A TOKEN OF GOD'S FAVOUR.

Mr. Newton had a very happy talent of administering reproof. Hearing that a person, in whose welfare he was greatly interested, had met with peculiar success in business, and was deeply immersed in worldly engagements, the first time he called on him, which was usually once a-month, he took him by the hand, and drawing him on one side, into the counting-house, told him his apprehensions of his spiritual welfare. His friend, without making any reply, called down his partner in life, who came with her eyes suffused with tears, and unable to speak. Inquiring the cause, he was told she had just been sent for to one of her children, that was out at nurse, and supposed to be in dying circumstances. Clasping her hands immediately in his, Mr. N. cried, "God be thanked, he has not forsaken you! I do not wish your babe to suffer, but I am happy to find he gives you this token of his favour."

THE AGED.

CONVERSION OF THE AGED RARE.

The child burst into tears, and ran for the covering. He met his father, to whom he said, "I am going to fetch the rug from my grandfather's bed, that he may wrap it round him and go

In a sermon to young men, delivered at the request of the Philadelphia Institute, Dr. Bedell said,—“I have now been nearly twenty years in the ministry of the gospel, and I here a-begging!" publicly state to you, that I do not believe I could enumerate three persons over fifty years of age, whom I have ever heard ask the solemn and eternally momentous question, 'What shall I do to be saved?""

THE UNKIND SON REBUKED.

There was once a man who had an only son, to whom he was very kind, and gave every thing that he had. When his son grew up and got a house, he was very unkind to his poor old father, whom he refused to support, and turned out of the house. The old man said to his grandson, "Go_and_fetch the covering from my bed, that I may go and sit by the way-side and beg."

Tommy went for the rug, and brought it to his father, and said to him, "Pray, father, cut it in two, the half of it will be large enough for grandfather, and perhaps you may want the other half when I grow a man and turn you out of doors." The words of the child struck him so forcibly, that he immediately ran to his father, and asked forgiveness, and was very kind to him till he died.

THE RUSSIAN PRINCESS.

A Russian princess of great beauty, in company with her father, and a young French marquis, visited a celebrated Swiss doctor of the eighteenth century, Michael Scuppack; when the marquis began to pass one of his jokes

upon the long white beard of one of the doctor's neighbours who was present. He offered to bet twelve louis d'ors that no lady present would dare to kiss the dirty old fellow! The Russian princess ordered her attendant to bring a plate, and deposited twelve louis d'ors, and sent it to the marquis, who was too polite to decline his stake.

The fair Russian then approached the peasant, saying, "Permit me, venerable father, to salute you after the manner of my country," and embracing, gave him a kiss. She then presented him the gold which was on the plate, saying, "Take this as a remembrance of me, and as a sign that the Russian girls think it their duty to honour old age."

AMBITION.

THE WRESTLER'S REFLECTION. Philip, King of Macedon, as he was wrestling at the Olympic games, fell down in the sand; and when he rose again, observing the print of his body in the sand, cried out, "O how little a parcel of earth will hold us when we are dead, who are ambitiously seeking after the whole world whilst we are living!"

PYRRHUS AND THE PHILOSOPHER.

"for
then we may easily regain
Macedon, and make an absolute con-
quest of Greece; and, when all these
are in our possession, what shall we do
then?" Pyrrhus, smiling, answered,
"Why then, my dear friend, we will
live at our ease, drink all day long, and
amuse ourselves with cheerful conver-
sation." "Well sir," said Cineas,
"and why may we not do all this now,
and without the labour and hazard of
an enterprise so laborious and uncer-
tain ?" Pyrrhus, however, unwilling
to take the advice of the philosopher,
ardently engaged in these ambitious
pursuits, and at last perished in them.

NAPOLEON AND THE PEASANT BOY.

When Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, was making great preparations for his intended expedition into Italy, Cineas, the philosopher, took a favourable opportunity of addressing him thus:"The Romans, sir, are reported to be a warlike and victorious people; but if When Napoleon returned to his palace, God permit us to overcome them, what immediately after his defeat at Wateruse shall we make of the victory?" loo, he continued many hours without "Thou askest," said Pyrrhus, "a thing taking any refreshment. One of the that is self-evident. The Romans once grooms of the chamber ventured to conquered, no city will resist us; we serve up some coffee, in his cabinet, by shall then be masters of all Italy." the hands of a child, whom Napoleon Cineas added, "And having subdued had occasionally distinguished by his Italy, what shall we do next? ' notice. The emperor sat motionless, Pyrrhus, not yet aware of his inten- with his hands spread over his eyes. tions, replied, "Sicily next stretches The page stood patiently before him, out her arms to receive us." "That is gazing with infantine curiosity on an very probable," said Cineas, "but will image which presented so strong a conthe possession of Sicily put an end to trast to his own figure of simplicity and the war?" "God grant us success in peace; at last the little attendant prethat," answered Pyrrhus, "and we sented his tray, exclaiming, in the shall make these only the forerunners familiarity of an age which knows so of greater things, for then Lybia and little distinctions, Eat, sire; it will Carthage will soon be ours; and these do you good." The emperor looked at things being completed, none of our him, and asked, "Do you not belong enemies can offer any farther resist- to Gonesse?" (a village near Paris.) ance.' 66 Very true,' added Cineas, "No, sire, I come from Pierrefite."

"There is happiness," replied the man who was still the emperor of France and king of Italy.

ANCESTRY.

GEORGE III. AND THE PEERAGE. It is remembered as one of the liberal axioms of George III., that "no British subject is by necessity excluded from the Peerage.' Consistently with this sentiment, he once checked a man of high rank, who lamented that a very good speaker in the court of aldermen was of a mean trade, by saying, with his characteristic quickness, "What signifies a man's trade? A man of any honest trade may make himself respect able if he will."

LORD TENTERDON'S RETORT.

DISTINGUISHED MEN OF OBSCURE
BIRTH.

66

Euripides," says the Cabinet de Terture of Paris, "was the son of a fruiterer, Virgil of a baker, Horace of a freed slave, Anayot of a currier, Voiture of a tax-gatherer, Lamothe of a hatter, Sixtus the Fifth of a swineherd, Fletcher of a chandler, Masillon of a turner, Tamerlane of a shepherd, Greinault of a journeyman baker, Rollin of a herdsman, Molliere of an upholsterer, J. J. Rousseau of a watchmaker, Sir Samuel Romily of a goldsmith, Ben Jonson of a mason, Shakspere of a butcher, Sir Thomas Lawrence of a custom-house officer, Collins of a hatter, Gray of a notary, Beattie of a farmer, Sir Edward Sugden of a barber, Thomas Moore of a grocer, Rembrandt of a

miller."

The obscurity of Lord Tenterdon's birth is well known, but he had too much good sense to feel any false shame on that account. We have heard it related of him, that when in an early period of his professional career, a brother barrister, with whom he happened to have a quarrel, had the bad | JAMES I. AND THE EARL'S GENEALOGY. taste to twit him on his origin, his manly and severe answer was, "Yes, sir, I am the son of a barber; if you had been the son of a barber, you would have been a barber yourself."

THE LITTLE MURDERER.

King James I., in his progress into England, was entertained at Lumley Castle, the seat of the Earl of Scarborough. A relative of the noble earl was very proud in showing and explaining to his majesty an immensely large genealogical line of the family; the pedigree he carried back rather farther than the greatest strength of credulity would allow. "In gude faith, man," says the king, "it may be they are very true, but I did na' ken before that Adam's name was Lumley.

ANGER.

Eugene said, "It is my turn to whirl Two boys in a southern city, named the top." "No, it is not; it is mine," Augustus and Eugene, were playing said Augustus. They grew very angry top. They had but one top, which about it. Augustus at length said to they spun alternately. At first they Eugene, "You lie." Eugene struck played very pleasantly, but soon became him. Augustus struck back again. angry and began to speak unkindly. They seized each other in a great rage;