THE OPINION OF THE WORLD.

WHAT though the polite man count thy fashion a little odd, and too precise, it is because he knows nothing above that model of goodness which he hath set himself, and therefore approves of nothing beyond it: he knows not God, and therefore doth not discern and esteem what is most like him. When courtiers come down into the country, the common home-bred people possibly think their habits strange; but they care not for that, it is the fashion at court. What need then that Christians should be so tender-foreheaded, as to be put out of countenance, because the world looks on holiness as a singularity? It is the only fashion in the highest court, yea, of the King of kings himself.

A THOUGHT FOR THE AFFLICTED.

WHEN the traveller Park, sinking in despondency in the deserts of Africa, cast his eye on a little plant by his side, he gathered courage: "I cannot look around without seeing the works and providence of God." And thus asks the Christian: "Will God feed the young ravens ? Does he notice the falling of a sparrow? Should not I then hope in God? He that spared not his own son, but freely gave him up for us all, how shall he not, with him, freely give us all things? If comfort, therefore, were the best thing for me, he would have given me comfort."

ACTIVE BENEVOLENCE.

No man existing, be his station what it may, is exempted from the duty of inquiring what good he can do to others. That man must have seen little of mankind, who is ignorant of human misery; yet such knowledge is not to be acquired by those who converse merely with persons of their own rank; they must enter into the cottages and garrets of the poor; they must see them naked, hungry, and thirsty, exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, to the sudden attacks or slow wasting of disease; they must see the effects of their unruly passions, and their grovelling vices; they must be acquainted with all the consequences of ignorance and poverty. Evils like these must be known before they can be remedied; yet the generality of the upper ranks know little what their inferiors suffer.

BE LOWLY MINDED.

Ir thou art a vessel of gold, and thy brother but of wood, be not high-minded, it is God that maketh thee to differ; the more bounty God shows, the more humility he requires.-Those mines that are richest are deepest, those stars that are highest seem smallest, the goodliest buildings have the lowest foundations; the more God honoureth men, the more they should humble themselves; the more the fruit, the lower the branch on which it grows; pride is ever the companion of emptiness. O, how full was the apostle, yet how low was his language of himself,-"Least of saints, last of apostles, chief of sinners, no sufficiency to think, no ability to do;" all that he is, he is by

grace; thus humility teaches us in our doings to draw strength from God, not from ourselves; in our graces to ascribe their goodness to God, and their weakness to ourselves.

A BEAUTIFUL SIMILITUDE.

SUPPOSE a man confined in some fortress, under the doom to stay there until his death, and suppose there is for his use a dark reservoir of water, to which, it is certain, none can ever be added. He knows that the quantity is not very great; he cannot penetrate to ascertain how much, and it may be but very little. He has drawn from it, by means of a fountain, a great while already, and draws from it every day, but how would he feel each time of thinking of it ?—Not as if he had a perennial spring to go to: not "I have a reservoir, I may be at ease." No: but "I had water yesterday; I have water to-day; but my having had it, and my having it to-day, is the very cause that I shall not have it on some day that is approaching; and at the same time I am compelled to this fatal expenditure." So is our mortal transient life.

THE WONDERS OF CREATION.

WHAT mere assertion will make any man believe, that in one second of time, in one beat of the pendulum of a clock, a ray of light travels over 192,000 miles, and would, therefore, perform the tour of the world, in about the same time that it requires to wink with our eyelids, and in much less than a swift runner occupies in taking

a single stride? What mortal can be made to believe, without demonstration, that the sun is almost a million times larger than the earth? and that, although so remote from us, that a cannonball shot directly towards it, and maintaining its full speed, would be twenty years in reaching it; it yet affects the earth, by its attractions, in an inappreciable instant of time? Who would not ask for demonstration, when told that a gnat's wing, in its ordinary flight, beats many hundred times in a second? or, that there exist animated and regularly organized beings, many thousands of whose bodies, laid close together, would not extend an inch? But what are these to the astonishing truths which modern optical inquiries have disclosed, which teach us that every point of a medium through which a ray of light passes, is affected with a succession of periodical movements, regularly recurring, at equal intervals, no less than 500 millions of millions of times in a single second! that it is by such movements, communicated to the nerves of the eyes, that we see; nay, more, that it is the difference in the frequency of their recurrence, which affects us with the sense of the diversity of colour; that, for instance, in acquiring the sensation of redness, our eyes are affected 482 millions of millions of times; of yellowness, 542 millions of millions of times; and of violet, 707 millions of millions of times per second. Do not such things sound more like the ravings of madmen, than the sober conclusions of men in their waking senses? They are, nevertheless, conclusions to which any one may most certainly arrive, who will only be at the trouble of examining the chain of reasoning by which they have been obtained.

THE SAVIOUR'S VISITS.

His visits are always designed to humble us; and so long as they produce this effect, he will continue them; for the high and holy One who inhabits eternity, dwells also with him who is of an humble and contrite heart. But if we begin to grow proud of his favours; if we imagine that he blesses us with his presence, on account of any worthiness or excellence of our own; if we begin to look down with contempt on others who are less favoured, he will quickly withdraw, and leave us to shame; for while he gives grace to the humble, he sets himself against the proud, to abase them.

INDUSTRY.

MAN must have occupation, or be miserable. Toil is the price of sleep and appetite, of health and enjoyment. The very necessity which overcomes our natural sloth is a blessing. The world does not contain a briar or a thorn, which divine mercy could have spared. We are happier with the sterility which we can overcome by industry, than we could have been with spontaneous plenty, and unbounded profusion. The body and the mind are improved by the toil that fatigues them. That toil is a thousand times rewarded by the pleasure which it bestows. Its enjoyments are peculiar. No wealth can purchase them: no indolence can taste them. They flow only from the exertions which they repay.