several guests, without tasting a single article? Such, however, is the conduct of those who hear the Word, without applying it to themselves, or considering the aspect it bears on their individual character. Go to the house of God with a serious expectation and desire of meeting with something suited to your particular state; something that shall lay the axe to the root of your corruptions; mortify your easily besetting sin, and confirm the graces in which you are most deficient. A little attention will be sufficient to give you that insight into your character which will teach what you need, what the particular temptations to which you are exposed, and on what account you feel most shame and humiliation before God. Every one may know, if he pleases, the plague of his own heart. Keep your eyes upon it while you are hearing, and eagerly lay hold upon what is best adapted to heal and correct it. Remember that religion is a personal thing, an individual concern; for every one of us must give an account of himself to God, and every man bear his own burden." "Is not my word as a fire," saith the Lord, "and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?"

Robert Hall.

It is a vanity to persuade the world one hath much learning, by getting a great library.

Few books well selected are best.

The genius of an author is commonly discovered in the dedicatory epistle.

Proportion an hour's meditation to an hour's reading of a staple author.

Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost.

Thomas Fuller.

PRAISE OF BOUNTY.

O sacred Bounty, mother of content,
Prop of renown, nourisher of arts:

The crown of hope, the root of good event,
The trump of fame, the joy of noble hearts,
Grace of the heavens, divinity in nature,
Whose excellence doth so adorn the creature.
Drayton.

FAIR WORDS.

Throughout the world, if it were sought,
Fair words enough a man shall find;
They be food cheap, they cost right nought,
Their substance is but only wind:

But well to say, and so to mean,

That sweet accord is seldom seen.

Sir Thomas Wyatt.

ANECDOTE OF ARCHBISHOP USHER.

་་

The motto to his Episcopal seal was, "Væ mihi si non evangelizarer "(wretched man that I am, if I do not preach the Gospel). One of his directions to accomplish that salutary purpose is excellent: "Meddle with controversies and difficult points as little as may be in your popular preaching; lest you puzzle your hearers, or engage them in wrangling disputations, and so hinder their conversion, which is the main design of preaching."

ADHERENCE TO THE COMMONWEALTH.

We must affect our country as our parents,

And if at any time we alienate

Our love or industry from doing it honour,
It must respect effects and touch the soul,
Matter of conscience and religion,

And not desire of rule or benefit.

Peele.

FAME.

Fame is the echo of actions, resounding them to the world; rare that the echo repeats only the last part, but fame relates all, and often more than all.

DELIGHTING IN GOD.

It much honoureth God, when the hopes of everlasting joys do cause believers to live much more joyfully than the most prospering worldlings: not with their kind of doting mirth, in vain sports and pleasures, and foolish talking, and uncomely jests; but in that constant cheerfulness and gladness which beseemeth the heirs of glory. Let it appear to the world that indeed you hope to live with Christ, and to be equal with the angels. Doth a dejected countenance, and a mournful, troubled, and complaining life, express such hopes? or rather tell men that your hopes are small, and that God is a hard master, and his service grievous? Do not thus dishonour him by your inordinate dejectedness? Do not thus affright and discourage sinners from the pleasantness of the service of God.

Baxter.

POISONING BY BOUQUETS STILL PRACTISED.

He was justly accounted a skilful poisoner who destroyed his victims by bouquets of lovely and fragrant flowers. The art has not been lost; nay, it is practised every day by the world.

Bishop Latimer.

*

THE BOLDEST FORGERY.

* To counterfeit the hand of God, is the boldest of all forgery: And he, without warrant but his own fantastic surmise, takes upon him perpetually to unfold the secret and unsearchable mysteries of high Providence, is likely for the most part to mistake and slander them; and approaches to the madness of those reprobate thoughts that would wrest the sword of justice out of God's hand, and employ it more justly in their own conceit.

Milton.

SONNET TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours,
Of winters past or coming, void of care,
Well pleased with delights which present are;
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flow'rs:
To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bow'rs,
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,
And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare;
A stain to human sense in sin that low'rs.
What soul can be so sick, which by thy songs
(Attir'd in sweetness) sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,
And lift a reverent eye and thought to heaven?
Sweet, artless songster, thou my mind dost raise
To airs of spheres, yes, and to angels' lays.

Drummond.