The lesson taught me by these little events I did not easily forget, and I think their moral is too obvious to need elaborately enforcing. It may, however, be summed up in few words. First, do not expect that in your own strength you can make use of even the best opportunity for doing good.

Do not put off till another day any good which it is in the power of your hand to do at once.

And thirdly, do not despond because your means of doing good appear trifling and insignificant, for though one soweth, and another reapeth, yet it is God that giveth the increase; and who can tell whether he will not cause that which is sown to bear fruit an hundred-fold; who can tell whether to have even a penny to give under certain circumstances may not be to have no Copper-but a Golden Opportunity!

ORRIS.

"I SAW THE WICKED BURIED.".

"I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity." The life had been empty and hypocritical, and the funeral-rites carried on the soulless pageant. The wicked man was, notwithstanding his wickedness, anxious "to make a fair show in the flesh;" to be thought as holy as those with whom he had mingled in the sanctuary, and even after death, his representatives must award him so 'respectable' a burial, as should leave on the minds of the beholders an impression of wonderment, of awe, and of undefined reverence. He had lived in the gentlemanly observance of an outward form of religion, and he must not go down to the grave without leaving behind him the impression, that all the proprieties of a life ostensibly devout had been complied with.

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The royal preacher had just laid down the doctrine, that no man hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit," and he illustrates the remark by a startling incident. "And so, I saw the wicked buried!" His wickedness had not delivered one so notoriously given to it, who had added hypocrisy to overt

worldliness, and had again and again heard the words of truth without a thought of doing them. **

And what a common case is this! Little as there is of religious feeling in the funerals of those who make this world their all, the superstition is deeply rooted, that such hollow rites have an influence both on the destinies of the deceased, and the gaping veneration of the multitude. To be buried without this pageantry would leave unfinished the specious mockery of such a life as the world accounts respectable and proper.

It is not a little remarkable with reference to this subject, that where the consequences are most awfully momentous, the event is proportionably formal and heartless. As regards the good man, "to die is gain." Devout men go with him to the burial, and if the lamentation be great, it is not loud nor obtrusive. The heart that knows its bitterness, draws home to itself the sweet consolations of the gospel, and the trial that has thrown it open, tends only to give more abundant entrance to the Saviour. He is no longer an outside guest, but enters in to sup. But when we see "the wicked buried;" unless the pageant wins us for a little while from truth and soberness, we stand breathless and abashed with fear. The summer is ended, and he is not saved! Yet, with all formal complacency he is laid in the grave; and the relatives return home to forget every thing that affects the departed, in that which concerns themselves.

The chapter is not yet complete. The ponderous mausoleum rises over his remains, and carries on the lie of a self-righteous life. The inscription has no reference to his Maker. It is a ledger of one page only-his debtor and creditor account with a hollow and misjudging world. Already it is green with moss, and rusted with the dank dews of morning and evening. Its very obtrusiveness makes it hideous, and every chink and cranny seems a mouth that says, "This also is vanity."

And why is this, but because there has been no hope in his death? The material and visible are merged in the immaterial, and things unseen shut off the view of that which is actually

before us.

Terrors to come, without a shade of doubt,

In terrible reality stand out,

And lucid moments suddenly present

A gleam of Truth, as though the heavens were rent
While thro' that chasm of celestial light...

The Future breaks upon the startled sight;
Life's vain pursuits and Time's advancing pace,
Appear with death-bed clearness, face to face;
And Immortality's expanse sublime,

In just proportion to the speck of time:
While Death, uprising from the silent shades,
Shows his dark outline ere the vision fades;
In strong relief against the blazing sky,
Appears the shadow as it passes by;

T

And though o'erwhelming to the dazzled brain, by te These are the moments when the mind is sane. These thoughts have been suggested to our minds by the heathen pageantry of a soldier's funeral. Far be it from us to suppose that such a ceremony implies any measure of guilt as concerns the poor cold corpse with which it is associated. But as a glittering and undeniably touching piece of mummery, it probably has its place in glorifying the showy man-killing machinery, commonly designated "Our Standing Army," and holding out the mischievous allurement of a popular apotheosis, to the gathering thousands who follow in its wake.

We were walking thoughtfully along one of the obscure streets of a garrisoned town in England, when the shrill sound of music startled us from our reverie. Turning out of one of the side lanes, a body of soldiers, with their arms reversed, stepped forward two and two, in a quaint, slow, measured, mechanical gait, in which the solemn and ludicrous appeared pretty nearly balanced. Two fifes came next, wailing out their part in the Dead March, in the most thrilling and plaintive manner. The big drum followed tolling time, by a full startling stroke at measured intervals, the effect of which was awfully telling. Then came two lesser drums muffled with black cloth, rolling forth a low bass. The coffin was borne by six soldiers, and followed by a second troop, marching in the same toy-like mechanical measured step as those who had gone first. There was something so mysteriously solemn in the quaint stereotyped movement of the men, and the wild "alien sound" of the music punctuated by the abrupt booming of the great drum, that some of the spectators were moved to tears.

The procession entered the burial-ground, which was immediately closed to strangers. Waiting outside, we were soon startled by the harsh rattle of a volley of musketry over the grave. As the smoke rose above the walls, a fiendish laugh of drums and fifes burst forth, the effect of which was harrowing beyond description. A second round was fired, and again the wild, mad, tumult of instruments shook the air. After a third volley and a third chaos of martial music, the procession again fell into order, the big drum giving the accustomed signal. Off they went at a quick march, the band bursting out into the liveliest tunes, and the whole body of men hurrying joyously forward, as if anxious to shew which of them could soonest forget the great realities of Death and Judgment.

Such is but one of many similar conventionalisms, not only connived at, but actually encouraged and extolled in a land professedly christian. Heathenish in its origin, it gathers additional horror from its associations and its tendencies. Let our friends of the Peace Society see if the truthful temper of their weapons be not more powerful than the spurious poetry which would countenance such anti-christian abominations as these.

HISTORY OF A DOMESTICATED SEAL.

It is most interesting to trace the gradations in the scale of animated nature, from man downwards to the zoophytes, which latter again are in some particulars closely allied to the vegetable kingdom. We find that while every species is preserved distinct, "after his kind," (Gen. i. 21,) there are intermediate links in the great chain, assimilating each to some other totally different in habits and appearance, so that it becomes a puzzling matter to settle their distinctive denomination, as for example, no better name can be found for one Australian animal, than ornithorynchus the bird quadruped. Our young readers would find it a very amusing exercise, besides opening up for them stores of knowledge, geographical and zoological, and suggesting many interesting trains of thought, were they to originate and answer such queries as these-" What animal is the connecting

link between man as an animal, and the quadrupeds?" and "between these latter, and the birds or fishes ?" Trace also the particulars in which they resemble and differ from each.

The seal is a warm-blooded animal, breathes through lungs, and requires to inspire atmospheric air as necessarily as the terrestrial creatures. It brings forth its young alive, and suckles them, and is moreover clothed with a coat of fur, above a thick layer of fat, like that of the pig, so that it has been called the sea-dog, and also the sea-hog. These several characteristics would place the seal amongst the mammalia, where indeed it is generally classed; while on the other hand, it is of the shape, and furnished with the fins of, a fish; it inhabits the vast ocean and its stormy coasts, and its food consists exclusively of fish and other sea produce. A step nearer to the true fishes, (or scaly, cold-blooded animals,) presents to our notice the walrus and whale; while nearer to the land animals, we find the hippopotamus, otter, and other amphibia.

In these days, when a correct knowledge of the wonderful works of God is justly considered a necessary part of a good education, we trust it will not be inconsistent with the primary design of this Magazine to present our readers with a few notices of the British seals, the results of many years' observation of their habits and appearance, and of acquaintance with the localities they chiefly frequent. One great inducement for the present selection is, that there is no animal belonging to the British Fauna, about whose history more contradictory statements have been made. Even recent writers on zoology have been led into several mistakes, and have needlessly multiplied species and distinctions, and confounded names. This has arisen mostly from the great shyness and rarity of the animal, in those situations where accurate and intelligent observers were likely to meet with them; and farther reasons may appear, in the course of the following remarks, none of which are founded on hearsay, but on personal observation alone. Those who aspire to instruct the young, should above all others, be confident as to the precision of their own information.

There are but two species of seals that inhabit the British coasts, well-marked in their size, habitat, and instincts. They are distinguished as "the greater" and "lesser seal," or in