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HALLELUIAH!

I LOVE to pluck a daisy or a buttercup in my path, and to stick it in my bosom. Now there are daisies and buttercups to be found in the every-day occurrences of life, as fair to look upon as the flowers of the field.

There is a text of Holy Scripture which says, "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God," 1 Cor. x. 31. And a letter that I have but just received from a Christian correspondent in the country, supplies me with an excellent practical illustration. The whole epistle has in it but four short lines: the last two of these are as follow. “I am going out to dinner. Country delightful. Crops abundant. Halleluiah!"

Now, this is just what I like. Most people know that Halleluiah means, "Praise ye the Lord;" and we can all of us thank God for great favours, but how few of us put a Halleluiah to the record of our common mercies! It strikes me that it would be no bad method to find out the

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lawfulness of our pleasures, and the spiritual state of our affections, if we were each to ask this question in the midst of every enjoyment-"Can I put up a hearty Halleluiah at the end of it?”

THE BOOK OF TIME.

In a melancholy mood I turned over, in my fancy, some of the dark pages of the book of time. The volume readily opened where the page was inscribed, "CRIME."

It was the record of human deeds, but demons alone could have prompted them. All that is selfish, designing, dark, and deadly; all that envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness could suggest and execute, was registered there. I read, and as I read I trembled; for earth seemed crying aloud to Heaven to avenge the countless iniquities of mortal men. Hot-headed rage, red-handed murder, and cold-hearted villany, unsparingly pursued their wild career. Truly "out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies," Matt. xv. 19. I hurried through the shadowy paragraphs before me, and turned over the page.

"WAR" was the heading that I lighted on, and I sickened at the sight. War, relentless, bitter, accursed, and cruel, has flung its plagues upon

THE BOOK OF TIME.

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all nations. Fear goes before it, and famine and death tread upon its heels. I read with horror of sieges where fire and sword wasted the city; of battle plains where the war-horse trod fetlock deep in gore; of bayonets sheathed in human bosoms, and of murderous cannon sweeping down the multitude, as the mower cuts down grass with his scythe.

I pressed the leaves together in haste, and opened them at another part: my eye fell on the word "OPPRESSION." Could it be that man, to whom forbearance and loving-kindness are continually extended by the Father of mercies, could practise such remorseless cruelties! I pondered on the darkened page: the strong had oppressed the weak; the rich had ground the faces of the poor; miserable multitudes, unjustly accused, had stretched their fettered limbs in gloomy dungeons; and countless throngs of oppressed fellow-men, with agonizing groans, had perished in slavery.

I read no more: I closed the hateful volume, and could almost have howled out an anathema against human depravity. But in opening the book of life, the gospel of peace, I met with the words, "Thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things," Rom. ii. 1.

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THE BOOK OF TIME.

And had my heart within it the germs of these enormities? Yes, in its very core the seeds of sin were thickly set, and matchless grace and immeasurable mercy alone had prevented the acorn from becoming an oak, and the mustard-seed from springing up as the largest of all trees. My mouth was stopped, my heart was humbled. "Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me; then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer!" Psalm xix. 12-14.

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