little on objects yet more worthy our noblest speculations and all our pains and curiosity, representing that happy state above, namely, the celestial paradise. Let us, I say, suspend our admiration of these terrestrial gaieties, which are of so short a continuance, and raise our thoughts from being too deeply immersed and rooted in them, aspiring after those supernal, more lasting and glorious abodes, where all the trees are trees of life, all the flowers amaranths, all the plants perennial, and where those who desire knowledge may fully satiate themselves, and taste freely of that fruit which cost the first gardener and posterity so dear." *

* Sylva-"
-"On the Horn-beam."

FABIAN'S DILEMMA.

A GOOD while ago, in those old days when men's minds were much divided between different ways of thinking, and their thoughts were perplexed as to whether this thing were true and that were not, this thing essential and that not-there lived a poor, simple, well-meaning but unlearned fellow named Fabian. He had married a very pretty young girl, who thought him perfection in everything; they were married in the oldfashioned way by an old-fashioned parson; and, though they were poor, they were as happy as the day is long when it is longest. Now, though it seemed that their happiness could not be increased, yet it certainly was so in the course of a year or so by the birth of a very sweet little boy. Meanwhile Fabian had been thrown, by the nature of his occupation, in the way of hearing somewhat, though not much, of the

party disputes of the day; and though he did not understand the premisses of the arguments, nor even the terms in which they were couched, he began to perplex his noddle about sundry questions of right and wrong.

"It seems," mused he, "that we are in a very benighted state. Many decided cases of fraud and imposture have clearly come out; the priests have led us by the nose, and made merchandize of our ignorance. Some holy and learned men, with much danger and obloquy to themselves, have exposed the abuses of the old system, and are pulling down the old structure as fast as they can, in order to re-build it better: or, perhaps, I should rather say, they are clearing away the outworks which have been suffered to encrust it, in order to let us have the original building in all its beauty and simplicity. Who will say to them 'thus far shalt thou go, and no farther?' Will they stop short at the right moment? That's one of the things I want to know. If, indeed, I could read, and had a Bible, I dare say I might gain some knowledge about it; but as matters stand, I am much at a loss. I am shaken in my

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faith in my old teachers, and out of reach of any better ones. It certainly appears that sundry things my forefathers blindly received have no warrant in Scripture: I learnt that much from an itinerant preacher I had the luck to hear last market-day; but then, if they are not to be received, what is? For instance, there are certain things called sacraments-Seven, I was originally taught to believe; but some of these are roundly denied and disproved. Well then, is there any good in any of them? Our new teachers abide by two. Unlearned as I am, there is a text I have heard which sticks by me,

This do in remembrance of me.' As long as those words remain recognised, therefore, for the words of our Saviour, we are clearly summoned to his table to receive the bread and wine as types of his flesh and blood, and in memory of his sufferings and death for us poor miserable sinners. But, baptism? How stands that? I was baptized, and so was Agnes, while we were little infants; but, from what I can gather, our Lord only enjoined it on grown people. Nay, my puzzle is, did he enjoin it at all? If I had

a Bible, and could read, I should know; but while one says No and another says Yes, what am I to believe? May it not be, along with sundry other observances now exploded, a mere form?"

While Fabian thus mused in his mind, of course his child remained unbaptized, in spite of the gentle remonstrances of Agnes, who being less of a scholar than her husband, was unable to help him out of his difficulty. It so It so happened that on the following market-day, a reformer again preached in the market-place, and though his subject was not that which occasioned Fabian's perplexity, it led him on his return homewards, to converse by the way with a neighbour who was a little more learned than himself.

"Although I have not a Bible," said this latter, "I can assure you that the words are in it on which your doubts in the first instance depend: because I read them with my own eyes in a copy of the New Testament that belonged to another. The words were spoken by our Saviour after his resurrection, and just