according to our fancy. We are driven about by a constantly shifting wind of doctrine. Every year and every month we publish creeds concerning the Deity. We repent of our creeds, and we defend them; we defend parties, and again we curse them. By turns we are devourers and the devoured."-Hilary.

USELESS AND USEFUL READING.

MAGLIABECHI, the Italian, read many books, and had a most retentive memory. He lived as if the only object of his desire, the only end of his existence, and the chief want of his nature, had been to acquire knowledge. An old cloak suited him as raiment by day, and as a covering by night; and a straw chair was his substitute for a table, while another served as a bed. He sat from day to day, in his strawy couch, wedged up like a fixture and almost buried alive amid heaps of volumes, usually prosecuting his studies, and abstracted among the multitudinous ideas of his research, till he was overpowered by sleep. Surely, then, this Magliabechi became a very well-informed, wise, and erudite person?

No such thing. His highest attainments were fully, perhaps flatteringly, described in an observation which came to pass current respecting him, "That he was a learned man among booksellers, and a bookseller among the learned." Magliabechi was nothing more than a book worm, and of course spun no silk.

He attempted to become learned simply by reading; and, as he practised neither reflection upon what he read, the communicating of his knowledge to others, nor the reducing of his ideas to purposes of utility, he was, in no just sense, a scholar as regarded either his personal condition, or his influence upon society.

The maxim is a sound one, that "he who thinks to become wise by always reading, resembles a person who should think to become healthy by always eating." Ideas, like food, require to be digested; and the mind, like the body, needs exercise as well as aliment. Reading, in order to be profitable, must always be followed by meditation; and if it can be made uniformly subservient both to the instructing of others, and directly to the ameliorating of one's own conduct, it will yield a treble revenue of wisdom. The professing Christian, in particular, whose religious

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reading supplies him with a store of knowledge, a treasure of ideas, out of which his private reflections, his conversations with friends, and the actions of his life continually "bring things new and old," is a party fairly entitled to be called wise and well informed; and when he subordinates all his researches and all the uses for which he employs them, to the promoting of his Saviour's glory, in the faith and holiness of his own soul, and in the spiritual enlightenment of his dependant and his neighbour, he is then "wise unto salvation," and "a scribe" or a learned man "well instructed unto the kingdom."-Weekly Christian Teacher.

THE GREAT NATION'S EPITOME.

WHEN I first visited Paris, in the latter end of the year 1840, the war spirit was most prevalent. In every cafe that I entered, I heard rarely any thing but bitter invectives against England. At that time there took place the military and triumphal procession to accompany the remains of Napoleon to their final deposit in a magnificent mausoleum, stirring up all the former martial spirit of the French nation. Most of the English had quitted Paris; and to show the state of the public mind, I may mention that a little boy in a Sunday school one afternoon came strutting up to his teacher and said, as if he could hardly contain himself, Il nous faut la guerre,"-We must have war.

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Why so?" said the teacher.

"Notre honneur est blessé !"-Our honour is wounded!

How many wars have actually been undertaken on no better a pretext, than that our honor has been wounded, or a little bit of silk called a flag, insulted.-M. Rigaud.

OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD.

THERE is one little anecdote which I will just mention; it is about a person whose name is dear to my heart; I mean William Ladd, sometimes called " the Apostle of Peace, in America."

Ladd kept sheep, but his neighbour's sheep would break into his farm and eat his grain. He remonstrated and sent messages, but still they continued to come. At last, Ladd lost his balance, and he told his men that if the sheep came again they were to set the dogs at them, and if that would not do, to shoot them.

As he rode home his mind felt very uneasy about it; and the next morning he went to his neighbour, who was chopping wood, and he said, "Good morning, neighbour."

He never looked up.

"Good morning, sir.”

He gave a kind of a grunt.

'Well, neighbour, I am come about these sheep."

"Ah! the sheep. Is it right to be talking about shooting a poor man's sheep?"

"No, no ;" replied Ladd, "I was wrong, neighbour, altogether wrong; but I am going to make a proposal to you, which I hope you will accept."

"What is it?" said the man.

"Why, that your sheep should be driven to my homestead farm, and put along with mine till the fall of the year, and then shall take them back; and if any be missing, you shall pick an equal number out of my flock."

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"You don't mean so, neighbour, do you? Are you in earnest ?"

"That's another thing; but I will take care, neighbour, that my sheep shall not trouble you any more, and if it be requisite I will shut them up."-Hargreaves at Peace Convention.

CHRIST IN THE HEART.

THE following touching narrative of a visit to a dying schoolboy in Western Africa, is from the pen of a teacher :

"I visited one of my scholars, and was much affected by the manner in which the poor boy embraced me. During my previous visit to him I had much difficulty in reconciling him to the gracious dealings of God with him. His extreme weakness of body, together with great feebleness of mind, kept him confined to his bed. Satan was also permitted to harass him, and bring him under a horrible fear of death. All that I could say or do was of little use in quieting his mind. The poor boy almost despaired of any hope of salvation. He said, "I know God is my Father, and Jesus Christ my Saviour; but I cannot see them"he could not feel that they were reconciled to him. I read the scriptures to him, and prayed with him; and at last it pleased

the Lord to relieve him, delivering him from the fear of death, and his mind from darkness. To-day his heart seemed to be full of joy it was expressed in his countenance. When I went into his room, he said, "My Father is come to see me to-day." “What has made you glad, Thomas?” I said.

He replied, "Ah! God lives THERE, Jesus Christ lives THERE," laying his hand on his breast.

"What is God to you, Thomas."

'My Father, Sir."

"What is Jesus Christ to you?"

"He is my Saviour, Sir. I do not fear to die now: the devil has no power to trouble me now."

"But have you nothing for which to answer after you die, Thomas?"

'No, nothing. I know I have sinned; but Christ lives THERE: Christ died for my sins."

'What did Jesus Christ do for you?" "He shed his blood for me."

"Where is Jesus?"

"He is gone to heaven, to prepare a place for me. I will live again."-Quarterly Papers, Baptist Missionary Society.

ONCE FOR ALL.

"For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, and undefiled, and separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's, for this he did ONCE when he offered up himself.”—Heb. vii. 26-27.

THE greek word is εφαπαξ —once for all-perfectly, completely, not to be done again. If St. Paul had been professedly combating the doctrine of the mass, he could not have used stronger, or more exterminating language. He says, 66 we have not a high priest who needeth daily to offer up sacrifice." But in the church of Rome they have priests who need daily to offer up sacrifice. It is a fact, that at least 400,000,000 of masses have been offered up since the year 1801. A calculation below the mark is, that there may be about 30,000 priests in the world; suppose they offer a mass a day, that will be 210,000 a week, and 10,920,000, a year, or, during the last ten years, in round

numbers, 100,000,000, and during the portion of the century that is now expired, and by the same arithmetic, nearly400,000,000

masses.

CHARMED SERPENTS.

"Ef the Serpent bite, when hee is not charmed: no better is a babbler."-Eccl. x. 11. old version.

July 3.-Now was the time to catch all sorts of snakes to be met with in Egypt, the great heats bringing forth these vermin ; I therefore made preparation to get as many as I could, and at once received four different sorts, which I have described and preserved in aqua vitæ. These were the common viper, the Cerastes of Alpin, Jaculus, and an Anguis marinus. They were brought me by a Psilli (serpent charmer), who put me, together with the French consul Lironcourt, and all the French nation present, in consternation. They gathered about us to see how she handled these most poisonous and dreadful creatures, alive and brisk, without their doing or even offering to do her the least harm. When she put them into the bottle where they were to be preserved, she took them with her bare hands, and handled them as our ladies do their laces. She had no difficulty with any but the vipera officinales, (common vipers), which were not fond of their lodging. They found means to creep out before the bottle could be corked. They crept over the hands and bare arms of the woman, without occasioning the least fear in her; she with great calmness took the snakes from her body, and put them into the places destined for their grave. She had taken these serpents in the field with the same ease she handled them before us: this we were told by the Arab who brought her to us. Doubtless the woman had some unknown art which enabled her

to handle these creatures. It was impossible to get any information from her, for on this subject she would not open her lips. HASSELQUIST.

MAKING VOID THE LAW.

It was here (Saphet) that we first observed the Eruv, a string stretched from house to house across a street, or fastened upon tall poles. This string is intended to represent a wall; and thus, by a ridiculous fiction, the Jews are enabled to fulfil the