Napoleon's Views of the character of Jesus Christ.

"CAST thy bread upon the waters" is the Teacher's motto, and his encouragement. It will not only "be found after many days," but found, sometimes, where it was least expected. Here is an extraordinary instance. Count de Montholon, the faithful friend of Napoleon, relates a conversation of that remarkable person in St. Helena, in the words that follow:

"I know men," said Napoleon; "and I tell you that Jesus is not a man!

"The religion of Christ is a mystery which subsists by its own force, and proceeds from a mind which is not a human mind. We find in it a marked individuality which originated a train of words and maxims unknown before. Jesus borrowed nothing from our knowledge. He exhibited in himself the perfect example of his percepts. Jesus is not a philosopher; for his proofs are miracles, and from the first his disciples adored him. In fact, learning and philosophy are of no use for salvation; and Jesus came into the world to reveal the mysteries of heaven and the laws of the Spirit.

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Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, and myself, founded empires; but upon what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him.

"It was not a day or a battle which achieved the triumph of the Christian religion in the world. No! it was a long war, a contest for three centuries, begun by the Apostles, then continued by the flood of Christian generations. In this war all the kings and potentates on earth were on one side; on the other, I see no army but a mysterious force; some men scattered here and there in all parts of the world, and who have no other rallying-point than a common faith in the mysteries of the cross. "I die before my time, and my body will be given back to the earth to become food for worms. Such is the fate which so soon awaits him who has been called the 'great Napoleon!' What an abyss between my deep misery and the eternal kingdom

of Christ, which is proclaimed, loved, and adored, and which is extending over the whole earth! Call you this dying? is it not living rather? The death of Christ is the death of a God!"

Napoleon stopped at these last words; but General B- making no reply, the Emperor added, "If you do not perceive that Jesus Christ is God, I did wrong to appoint you General."

Those who are familiar with Napoleon's cast of thought and style of expression, will perceive in this passage strong marks of genuineness. Here is much of his depth, force, rapidity, and energy. These strange words seem to indicate, at least, intellectual submission to the claims of the gospel of Christ; and it cannot be proved that it was not accompanied with the homage of the heart. Such words were not an ebullition of enthusiasm. These were not thoughts of yesterday. Amid the tumults of war, and the convulsions of nations, Napoleon found time for reflection. It is an established fact that, at an early period, he read Dr. Bogue's Essay on the Divine Authority of the New Testament, with the deepest interest. It is well attested that he expressed himself convinced thereby of the Divinity of Christianity. It is equally certain that his chaplain, the Italian abbot, Bonavita, who was a liberal and a good man, received a splendid copy of the Bible from a gentleman connected with the Bible Society, with a request that he would give it to the ex-emperor, and that after Bonavita's arrival at St. Helena, Napoleon did actually read much in the Scriptures, and spoke of them with the profoundest respect. Again, it is certain, that during his residence at St. Helena, there was a revival of religion on the island, which extended to the soldiers who guarded the Great Captive, and among whom a meeting was held for exhortation and prayer but a few steps from his dwelling. Who will affirm that no drop of the shower of heavenly grace fell upon his troubled spirit? On his deathbed, he often pronounced the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. If the specific account of a conversion be wanting, there is yet much here to excite wonder, and something to encourage hope. Let us sow beside all waters.

The Royal Missionary.

A KING of England, of happy memory, who loved his people and his God better than kings in general are wont do, used, as the custom of the times then was, occasionally to take the exercise of hunting. Being out one day for this purpose, the chase lay through the skirts of "W. Forest: the stag had been hard run; and to escape the dogs, had crossed the river in a deep part. The dogs, however, could not be brought to follow it became necessary, to come up with it, to make a circuitous route, along the banks of the river, through some thick and troublesome underwood. The roughness of the ground, the long grass and frequent thickets, gave opportunity for the sportsmen to separate from each other, each one endeavouring to make the best and speediest route he could. Before they had reached the end of the forest, the king's horse manifested signs of fatigue and weariness; so much so, that his majesty resolved upon yielding the pleasures of the chase to those of compassion for his horse. With this view, he turned the first avenue in the forest, and determined on riding gently on to the oaks, their to wait for some of his attendants. His majesty had proceeded only a few yards, when, instead of the cry of the hounds, he fancied that he heard the cry of human distress. As he rode forward, he heard it more distinctly: "O my mother! my mother! God pity and bless my poor mother!" The curiosity and kindness of the king led him instantly to the spot: it was a little green plot on one side of the forest, where was spread on the grass, under a branching oak, a little

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pallet, half covered with a kind of tent: a basket or two, with some packs, lay on the ground. At a few paces distant from the tent, near to the foot of the tree, he observed a little swarthy featured girl, about eight years of age, on her knees praying, while her little black eyes ran down with tears. Distress of any kind was relieved by his majesty; for he had a heart which melted at human woe-nor was it unaffected on this occasion; and now he inquired, "What, my child, is the cause of your weeping-for what do you pray?" The little creature at first started, then rose from her knees, and pointing to the tent, said, "O, sir, my dying mother!" "What," said his majesty, dismounting and fastening his horse to the branches of the oak,-"What, my child, tell me all about it." The little creature now led the king to the tent. There lay, partly covered, a middle-aged female gipsy, in the last stages of a decline, and in the last moments of life. She turned her dying eyes expressly to the royal visitor, then looked up to heaven; but not a word did she utter: the organs of speech had ceased their office, the silver cord was loosed, the wheel broken at the cistern. The little girl again wept aloud, then stooping, wiped the dying sweat from her mother's face. The king, much affected, asked the little girl of her name, and of her family, and how long her mother had been ill. Just at that moment another gipsy girl, much older, came out of breath to the spot. She had been at the town of W- she had brought some medicine for her dying mother. Observing a stranger, she modestly courtesied, kneeled down by her side, kissed her pallid

lips, and burst into tears. "What, my dear child," said his majesty, "can be done for you?" "O sir,” she replied, “my dying mother wanted a religious person to teach her, and to pray with her before she died. I ran all the way before it was light this morning to W- and asked for a minister; but no one could I get to come with me to pray with my dear mother." The dying woman seemed sensible of what her daughter was saying, and her countenance was much agitated. The air was again rent with the cries of the distressed daughters.

The king, full of kindness, instantly endeavoured to comfort them. He said, "I am a minister, and God has sent me to instruct and comfort your mother." He then sat himself down, on a pack, by the side of the pallet, and taking the hand of the dying gipsy in his, discoursed on the demerit of sin, and the nature of redemption; he then pointed her to Christ, the all-sufficient Saviour. While the king was doing this, the poor creature seemed to gather consolation and hope; her eyes sparkled with brightness, and her countenance became animated; she looked upshe smiled; but it was her last smile, it was the glimmering of expiring nature. As the expression of peace, however, remained strong on her countenance, it was not till some little time had elapsed that they perceived the struggling spirit had left mortality.

It was at this moment that some of his majesty's attendants, who had missed him at the chase, and who had been riding through the forest in search of him, rode up, and found the king comforting the afflicted gipsies. It was an affecting sight, worthy of everlasting record in the annals of kings.

His majesty now rose up, put some gold into the hands of the afflicted girls, promised them his protection, and bid them look to Heaven. He then wiped the tears from his eyes, and mounted his horse. His attendants, greatly affected, stood in silent admiration. Lord L- was now going to speak, when his majesty, turning to the gipsies, and pointing to the breathless corpse, and to the weeping girls, said, with strong emotion, "Who, my lord who thinkest thou was neighbour

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unto these ?"

Reader,-"Go thou and do likewise."

A Good Daughter.

A GOOD daughter! There are other ministers of love more conspicuous than her,

but none in which a gentler, lovlier spirit dwells, and none to which the heart's warm requitals more joyfully respond. There is no such thing as a comparative estimate of a parent's love for one or another child. There is little which he needs to covet, to whom the treasures of an obedient, affectionate and God-fearing child has been given. But a son's occupation and pleasures carry him abroad, and he resides amongst temptation which hardly permits the affection that is following him, perhaps over half the globe to be wholly unmingled with anxiety, until the time when he comes to relinquish the shelter of his father's roof, for one of his own; while a good daughter is the steady light of her parent's house. Her idea is indissolubly connected with that of his happy fire-side. She is the morning sunlight, and the evening star. The grace, vivacity and tenderness of her sex, have their place in the mighty sway which she holds over his spirits. The lessons of recorded wisdom which he reads with her eyes, come to his with a new charm as blended with the beloved melody of her voice. He scarcely knows weariness which her song does not make him forget, or gloom, which is proof against the young brightness of ber smile. She is the pride and ornament of his hospitality, and the gentle nurse of his sickness, and the constant agent in those nameless, numberless acts of kindness, which one chiefly cares to have rendered, because they are unpretending but expressive proofs of love. And then, what a cheerful sharer she is, and what an able lighter of her mother's cares! What an ever-present delight and triumph to a mother's affections! Oh, how little do those daughters know of the power that God has committed to them, and the happiness God would have them enjoy, who do not, every time that a parent's eye rests upon them bring rapture to a parent's heart!® A true love will almost certainly always greet their approaching footsteps. But their ambition should be not to have it a love merely, which feelings implanted by nature excite, but one made intense and overflowing by approbation of worthy conduct; and she is strangely blind to her own happiness as well as undutiful to them to whom she owes the most, in whom the perpetual appeals of parental disinterestedness do not call forth the prompt and full echo of filial devotion.

Never Despair.

HOWEVER low you may stand in the intel