Practical. Flavel's Saint Indeed. Flavel's Touchstone of Sincerity, Hoare's Friendly Advice to Christian Hervey's Meditations. Parents. Alleine's Alarm. Baxter's Call. Beaufoy's Guide to Pilgrims. Cecil's Advice to Servants. Cheap Repository Tracts, 3 vol. Cottager's Monthly Visitor. The Week Complete. Halyburton's Great Concern. Henry's Pleasantness of a Religious Jesus Showing Mercy. with Norden's Poor Man's Rest. Religious Tract Society Tracts. Reynolds's Compassionate Address. Watts' and Howe's Meditations. (5) The Youth's Library; 50 Select Works. Christian Biography, by Tract So- Taylor's Picturesque Piety. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Brooks' Precious Remedies. Brooks' Apples of Gold. Cheap Repository Tracts. (6) The Nursery Religious Library; 40 Select Works. Having found a difficulty in selecting books for his own children, from the immense number published and publishing, the author thinks that parents may be glad to have the following hints and list. Children will very soon after they are able to read take an interest in reading: knowledge is to the mind what food is to the body, and the mind as naturally desires the one as the body does the other. It must ordinarily, in the first instance, be narratives, which will interest the infant mind, though the author is somewhat afraid of any thing like religious novels and indeed of all books which contain unreal views of human character and ordinary life. Children will soon be interested in things relating to God, and the great truths of religion, when brought before them in a simple and easy form. It has been seen that when they become delighted with reading from narratives, they will by degrees desire more solid books. The following are adapted to children under ten years WHATEVER objections might once have been raised to the instruction of the poorer classes, the progress of education and the advanced cultivation of the human mind, no longer leaves any option whether they shall be educated or not. The friends of religion will now only endeavour to improve such powerful engines to the utmost, by giving them a right direction and a Christian influence. A wise Christian will indeed see no cause for alarm, but rather much cause for hope and joy, in this advancement. He knows that his religion is of God, and that all the light that every human intellect and every human research can bring forth, will in the result, establish and extend that religion: it rejoices in the light of knowledge. In the mean time, the Christian must not be idle, but diligent. The first tendency of every human acquisition is, through the strong bias of our fallen nature, only to evil; and the evil can only be counteracted, and the tide rolled back, with an accession of strength by the heavenly, purifying, and sanctifying principles and influences of our holy religion. Great then is the value and importance of all religious societies, and all efforts for diffusing those principles and extending that influence. 1 In this view we may regard the subject of the present chapter, relating to PAROCHIAL RELIGIOUS LIBRARIES, AND THE DIFFUSING OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE BY TRACTS. On PAROCHIAL RELIGIOUS LIBRARIES, the sentiments of the Author are so fully expressed in the following remarks prefixed to the Catalogue of the Yoxall Parochial Library, that he cannot do better than quote them, in the hope that it may lead to the establishment of many similar libraries. The list of books added is not precisely the same as in the Yoxall library, though most of the books are included. Books are often presented to a library, and will do good also, which yet would not be those exactly chosen by one who had to buy them for that library. 'Among the different measures which have been devised for promoting the moral and religious improvement of a parish, the establishment of a parochial library, for the purpose of furnishing the inhabitants with the temporary loan of proper and useful books, has been found to be productive of great advantages. The beneficial tendency indeed of such an establishment, under judicious management and control, must be obvious. By providing the population with a recreation, not only innocent but improving, not only rational but instructive, it insensibly operates to counteract their propensity, and to weaken their attachment to other recreations of a very opposite character and tendency. There is scarcely any person, however constant and laborious his general occupations may be, but who, in the course of the week, has some little time unoccupied and surely, to furnish him, during such an interval from more serious avocations, with an employment, which at once may amuse, refresh, and edify him, and which, by attaching him to his own fire-side, and interesting the little circle collected around it, may prevent him from wandering abroad for company and amusement, is rendering to him, to his family, and to the community, no inconsiderable service. A man, who finds a pleasure in reading and cultivating his mind, will neither frequent the alehouse, nor molest the neighbourhood by poaching and thieving.— Such are some of the moral benefits arising from these parochial institutions. *Nor are the religious advantages resulting from them less clear The Bible indeed is THE Book, which of itself constitutes the poor man's library: and thanks be to God! there is no man, however poor, who, in these times, may not be in possession of a Bible. But while the Scriptures are the only foundation for religious knowledge and practice, and are able to make men wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus;" there are yet many other books, which through the divine blessing may be made profitable to them; which may assist them in understanding and applying the Scriptures, may aid their devotion, and promote in them spirituality of mind. The facility therefore, which the parochial library affords of procuring such books, is a privilege, of which those persons, who have not other means of obtaining them, may beneficially avail themselves. The Sunday is, or may be, for the most part a season of leisure; nor can those hours of the sacred day, which are not immediately devoted to the worship of God, be in general more profitably or consistently employed than in religious reading and study. And it is owing perhaps in part to the want of some little variety of books, which by diversifying the mode of information, might the more readily engage and interest the mind, that so many persons who are capable of reading, yet find the Sunday hang heavy on their hands, and waste so much of its precious time in listless and unprofitable idleness. But it is in seasons of sickness and affliction, that the value of the parochial library is principally to be seen. At these seasons, persons are not unfrequently confined for days, perhaps for weeks, or even months, to the sick chamber, or the fire-side, under circumstances the most favourable for the admission and improvement of religious impressions. At such times, then the opportunity of procuring a supply of useful and interesting books, may be of incalculable benefit to the invalid: since such a supply will not only tend to divert the mind and to relieve the weariness occasioned by a lingering confinement and a necessary cessation from ordinary occupations; but it may also lead, under the divine blessing, to a most seasonable and profitable improvement of the dispensation itself. Such a dispensation is often blessed by God to spiritual good. It is an instrument which he employs for preparing the heart to receive the good seed: and frequently a religious book, which at other times has failed of its object, has then found its way to the |