B. told the magistrate that it was a pity for so many people to be collected together, and on the Sabbath morning, too, without something being said to them respecting religion; and hoped he would deliver a short address to them on that subject. He replied, that as all religious services should begin with prayer, he could not perform that part of the duty, not having his prayer-book in his pocket. "However," said the gen tleman, "I am persuaded that a person of your appearance and respectability, would be able to pray with them as well as to talk to them. I beg, therefore, that you will be so good as to begin with prayer." After a few modest refusals, Mr. Baxter commenced the service with a prayer at once solemn and fervid, for which he was so remarkable. The magistrate was soon melted into tears. The man of God then delivered a most impressive sermon; after which, the magistrate stepped up to him and said, he felt truly thankful that Baxter had not come for he had never heard any thing which so much affected him in the whole course of his life. Baxter turning round to him, with a pathos not to be imitated, said: "Sir, I am the very Dick Baxter of whom you are in pursuit.-I am entirely at your disposal." But the justice having felt so much, during the service, he entirely laid aside all his enmity, and ever afterwards became one of the most decided friends of Nonconformity, and died, it is believed, a decided Christian. HUMAN LIFE. Ir is good to acquaint ourselves with the thoughts of others, but it is better to think ourselves. Reflection upon what has been and now is, constitues the chief source of knowledge. That we pause occasionally in the outward course of our pilgrimage, trace effects to their causes, examine existing circumstances, and ancipate their probable results, is both pleasing and profitable, and attended with the happiest consequences. Times of reflection, of sober thought, of timid anticipation of the future, are incident to our nature--are com mon to all they will flit across the mind in spite of the sallies of youth, the gayety of company, and the fash.ions of the world. The turning of these seasons to : Charity----Importance of Early Habits. 139 profitable account, is the parent of wisdom. If rightly improved they produce a salutary action upon the mind, and leave an impression as durable as the immortal spirit that receives it. Without such mental exercise, no man becomes wise or influential-no man acquires a permanent character for maturity of judgment or knowledge of human nature. Sterling worth and a discriminating mind are the results of patient and continued observation upon the ways of men. Omit them, and we glide along with the current of the times, mere passive beings, dependent upon capricious fortune and incidental circumstances for what shall form our character and shape our conduct to-morrow. We learn wisdom from experience and reflection combined, and in addition to our own, the history of others stands forth in bold relief, a fertile source from which to reap instruction, and by which to regulate the economy of living. CHARITY. THE exercise of the various affections which consti-, tute charity, is the first school of refinement, dignity, moral taste, discrimination and happiness, to be found on this side of heaven. Charity makes me the confidant of the human race; opens the bosoms of men to my inspection and perusal; discloses the inmost recesses of the soul; leads me into the secret hoarded mysteries of the heart; makes me a companion with God in searching and trying the reins; binds me to man, and him to me; and conducts me to a paradise of virtues, where every tree is loaded with life, and every bough drops joy and immortality. IMPORTANCE OF EARLY HABITS, WHEN you look forward to those plans of life, which either your circumstances have suggested or your friends have proposed, you will not hesitate to acknowledge, that in order to pursue them with advantage, some previous discipline is requisite. Be assured that whatever is to be your profession, no education is more necessary to your success, than the acquirement of virtuous dispositions and habits. This is the universal preparation for every character and every station in life. Bad as the world is, respect is always paid to virtue.-BLAIR. ELEGANT EXTRACT. I saw a mourner standing at eventide over the grave of one dearest to him on earth. The memory of joys that were past came crowding on his soul. "And is this," said he, "all that remains of one so loved and so lovely? I call, but no voice answers. Oh! my loved one will not hear? O death! inexorable death? what hast thou done? Let me lie down and forget my sorrow in the slumber of the grave!" While he thought thus in agony, the gentle form of Christianity came by. She bade him look upward, and to the eye of faith the heavens were disclosed. He had heard the song and transport of the great multitude which no man can number around the throne. There were the spirits of the just made perfect-there, the spirit of her he mourned! There, happiness was pure, permanent, perfect. The mourner then wiped the tears from his eyes, took cou rage and thanked God:-" All the days of my appointed time," said he, "will I wait till my change come;" and ⚫he returned to the duties of life no longer sorrowing as those who have no hope. GENIUS, BY MR. IRVING. Ir is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage, and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles. Nature seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities of art, with which it would rear legitimate dullness to maturity; and to glory in the vigour and luxuriance of her chance productions. She scatters the seeds of genius to the winds, and though some may perish among the stony places of the world, and some may be choaked by the thorns and brambles of early adversity, yet others will now and then strike root even in the clefts of the rock, struggle bravely up into sunshine, and spread ever their sterile birth-place, all the beauties of vegetation. The wings by which the godly soul flies towards God are not waxed to it, as the poets feign Icarius's to have been: but they grow out of itself, as the wings of an eagle that fly swiftly towards heaven.-SHAW. CHRISTIANITY. The real Christian can never be unhappy, bating the pressure of immediate bodily anguish, and even through the tortures of the rack, a steady belief in God must be a powerful and an enduring support. No earthly prospect, however desolate--no danger, however formidable can overcome him with terror or despair; for his thoughts are ever dwelling on something beyond, in the full peace and bliss in which a few brief struggles will place him. He may tread cheerfully the most repulsive and perilous passage, when he has the pledge of a heavenly Father, that he will conduct him to bliss. He embarks on the deep, and his ship may be tempest tost, yet what cares he when he knows that the howling winds only waft him homewards to everlasting joy. What is there to make him shrink-or weep-or tremble? What grandeur of character springs from this sacred religion? How majestic does its pure disciple appear descending into the shadowy abyss of death! He only is calm and happy when all around are writhing in anguish! What has the recoiling, the shuddering, bewildered, horror-stricken atheist to offer as a substitute for a spell so potent and sublime? What consolation has he, flung carelessly into the world, continually stung with so many kinds of anguish; and so lashed and lashed to his tomb? With what awful and exquisite grief must he stand, "Where the grave-mound greenly swells and feel that the being he loved has passed away, and is as if he had never been? To him the diseases of life wear the aspect of fiends. They are not the necessary evils which seem to purify him and prepare him for heaven. They are but the tortures of an accidental and monstrous state of abandonment and confusiona dark dream, for the enjoyments of which he has no foundation; for its wretchedness no reward; whose images are a delusion, whose hereafter is a blank. Truth is never alone in the heart; and it is very lively there, when it causes a man to seek Christ, to adhere to Him, and humble himself at his feet, drawing from his eyes tears of repentance, and disposing him to give all to God, and to his neighbor for God's sake. QUESNEL POETRY. THE CITY OF THE PLAGUE. "Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth in noon-day. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee." PSALMS XCI. It is the city of the plague, of mourning and of death, Who knowest best what is for us; we to thy judgment bow. AUTUMN SUNSET. Oh-there is beauty in the sky-a widening of gold K. H. Upon each light and breezy cloud, and on each vapory fold! The Sun hath gone in brightness down, and cast his banner back, A glory which the Earth knows not in its sunniest time of flowers. WHITTIER. |