THE

YOUTHS' MAGAZINE;

OR

Evangelical Miscellany.

FEBRUARY, 1833.

HINDOO TEMPLE, BENARES.

THIS pagoda stands about the centre of the river face of the city of Benares. At this time large boats row in and out among these isolated domes. The foundation at one part seems to have given way to a certain extent, and then to have fixed again, leaving two of the towers of the temple in the remarkable position in which they appear.-Capt. Elliott.

Christian schools are now established, and various efforts made by the missionaries for the spiritual good of the benighted people of Benares. May its heathen temples totter to the ground or soon become the sanctuaries of the true God and Jesus Christ his Son. The remarkable circumstance that our country possesses power over so many of the teeming millions of India, should stimulate christians to greater efforts for the spiritual good of their fellow subjects. Has India been subjected to the dominion of Britain merely for commercial advantages? O no; but that we should spread the everlasting gospel among these poor ignorant idolaters.

་་

MILE-STONES.

Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, "Sermons in stones, and good in every thing."

THERE is a property common alike to genius and to piety, whether allied, or disunited; a kind of peculiar mental alchymy by which the possessor of either, if he transmute not all things to gold, transforms them all to good or fair.

When the man of genius walks abroad, and casts his eye upon the face of nature, dives into the depths of the forest, or saunters by the river's side, he gathers from his excursion, treasures of thought, images of beauty, illustrations and analogies without number, which forthwith glow upon his page, and flow like dew-drops from his fluent quill. If the man of piety take the same walk, pause by the same stream, rest under the shade of the same trees, or drive past the mile-stones on the same road, he finds,

Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in STONES, and good in every thing.

"We are travelling in the coach of Time," says Newton, a man of piety; "every day and hour brings us nearer home; the coach wheels whirl round apace; we never think the carriage goes too fast, and we are pleased to pass the MILE-STONES."

I must remind my young readers that in the early ages of the world there were no coaches or mile-stones. The traveller then took his staff in his hand and went forth a wayfaring man, tarrying for a night where kindness or hospitality offered him a shelter. Or he saddled his ass, or mounted his camel, and with provender for himself and his cattle he passed the desert, or crossed the mountain, solitary and unattended, or in bands. Such a traveller as the first was Jacob, who on his return from Padan-Aram said, “with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now am I become two bands." Such a traveller as the second, was Eliezer of Damascus, who probably carried with him both food enough for the young men, and provender for his camels.

Passing over the intermediate periods between the days of the Patriarchs, the introduction of Christianity, and the irruption of the barbarians into Europe, who, like a second deluge destroyed all the landmarks of civilization and refinement created by the Greeks and Romans-we come to a new class of travellers. The first of these

is the Knight-errant, mounted on his good steed, with his good sword in his hand, or his lance at rest, and he travels where there are no mile-stones, through woods and lawns, forests and streams, by tower and castle over many countries, in search of adventures; and either breaks the heads of those he meets with, or gets his own Spurzheim manipulated in his turn. So on he goes without the aid of postcoach and four, mail-coach and horn, carrying the history of his own achievements or disasters from "Britain to Byzantium."

The next, or cotemporary class of travellers, are more harmless than the beavered knight, for they are professors of the gai science, and the minstrel with his harp and song is a welcome guest in hall and bower, or wherever he pleases to sojourn; and so he sings past all his mile-stones. Next come the barefooted Carmelite and mendicant Friar, and they rest their lazy length as they pass the milestones. After them follow Pilgrim and Palmer, the one to the shrine of "our Lady," the other with his staff and scollop shell is bound for Palestine, and they cross themselves as they pass the weary milestones. Last, of this dark age, hurries on the Crusader covered with his coat of mail, armed cap à pié, and with his bagnerol at his saddle-bow takes no heed of mile-stones, but stains his path with blood, or dies himself in the trench.

The day of chivalry and superstition past, we have the scientific traveller; who scales mountains, dips into mines, fords rivers, crosses seas, measures Alps, and if he any where meet with a mile-stone, is sure to tell you in learned phrase whether it be granite, schistus or pudding-stone. Last comes the geographical traveller, and he wanders among hordes of savages, sleeps in huts filled with mosquitoes, dines on bananas and hippopotami steaks, in a land where there are no mile-stones; and when arrived at the end of his journey he hears the sea that surrounds his native island breaking in thunder upon a foreign shore, or sees the English Argosy that is to carry him to his wished for haven-declares that the voice of ocean never sounded so melodiously in his ear, and that the vessel seen against the moonlight sky looks in his impassioned sight beautiful as the gates of Paradise.*

These, my dear young friends, are specific varieties, but all men are generically travellers; life itself is a journey; years are the

* Vide Landers' Discovery of the Termination of the Niger. Vol. 3,

p. 270.