Ir has often struck me, that one of the glaring evils characteristic of these latter days, that of despising dominion, is allowed to creep into places where it ought to be especially guarded against. It is not unusual among persons who profess to take the holy Scriptures as their daily and hourly guide, to hear the proceedings of those in highest authority commented on in a severe, censorious strain, for which there is no warrant in the word of God, and to which the whole tenor and spirit, no less than the letter, of our litur

"He died, for Adam sinned: he lives, for JESUS died." gical services are strongly opposed.

aside the governing powers that be, ordained of God, we seek good things for the country apart from the recognition of that ordinance. Do we recognise it aright, when, exercising what we conceive to be Christian liberty, we bandy severe remarks, even to the extent of speaking evil of dignities? Our sympathies are readily awakened by a scene of poverty and grief; why are they so deadened when contemplating the splendours that necessarily surround those who must often carry an aching head and anxious heart beneath the hereditary honours that devolve on them? How frequently do we find our own feet entangled in the snares spread by our crafty foe; and if every secret fall were publicly exposed, what a spectacle would the holiest of us become! Yet the humbling effect of this individual experience appears to be lost when the actions of the great come under review; though the enemy of mankind has a manifest interest in redoubling his efforts to ensnare them.

Among the godly men who were raised are in authority, that we may lead a quiet up to be the reformers of our national and peaceable life, in all godliness and religion, the fathers of our English honesty." We do greatly err, if, putting Church, no feature perhaps more prominently marks their characters than that of reverence for the kingly authority, even when, by its dreadful abuse, they were led to the dungeon, the rack, and the stake. They saw in the reigning monarch God's "chosen servant," appointed to be their sovereign. They knew that, the hearts of kings being in his rule and governance, every ordinance, whether for present prosperity, or wholesome affliction, to the militant Church, dispensed through the hand of that vicegerent, was to be received as coming from Him by whom kings rule: and it would be difficult to collect, from the voluminous annals of even Mary's reign, instances of deviation from this heaven-taught principle of loyalty. Rebuke was indeed administered occasionally by those who, coming as "ambassadors for Christ," delivered a message from him, even to crowned heads: but this was done reverently and carefully; while they who were commissioned so to do, ceased not to urge on their flocks the submission due from It is well known that the revered father subjects to their sovereign. Intercessory of our present king lived in the practice of prayer then held the place which is now continual intercession for his people; and too often usurped by severe animadver- that his prayer was accepted, let the stusion. "Lord, open the King of England's pendous mercies, the wondrous delivereyes!" were the dying words of exiled ance that exempted our nation from the Tyndal, when suffering strangulation at scourge which desolated Europe, testify. the stake in a foreign land; and many a Do we owe no debt of grateful love to the beautiful prayer of like import is recorded progeny of our Hezekiah? Does no seof that noble army of martyrs. Are we cret consciousness of especial obligation bid wiser, or more enlightened than they? A English hearts respond to the Divine call, royal deviation from the straight line, "Honour the king?" O, if one of us, yet even in comparatively unimportant mat- vigorous in life and strength, with every ters, cannot now be traced, but it calls advantage of spiritual knowledge, and forth a strain of observations such as our deep experience of the loving-kindness of pious fathers would have silenced with no the Lord, were to-morrow exalted to that light rebuke: and the evil effects of this giddy height, and surrounded with those unguarded concurrence in what is, alas! fearfully perplexing cares that it is now the too justly termed the spirit of the age, lot of one aged individual to encounter, are incalculable. In God's word we see how would he look around upon the the welfare of Christian subjects inse- Church that hailed him its temporal head, parably connected with the well-being of and from the inmost recesses of a trembling their king; and the scriptural means of heart, exclaim, "Brethren, pray for us!" promoting that well-being distinctly Let no Christian be beguiled into the sin pointed out. "I exhort, therefore, that, of omission in this most solemn and imperfirst of all, supplications, prayers, inter-ative duty; it is a sin that will be visited cessions, and giving of thanks, be made on his children's children. Be ours, in its for all men for kings and for all that full, its richly spiritual meaning, that sub

lime aspiration which the Holy Ghost put | given; and we ought by no means to aninto the mouths of Israel's high-priest and | ticipate the day, seeing that we cannot faithful prophet of old: "God save the anticipate or.calculate the measure of king: long live the king: may the king strength that God may see good to vouchlive FOR EVER!" safe.

THE GIPSY.

But I must return to the gipsy. The rencontre with her gave rise to a long train of thought, which occupied me during the rest of my walk. I was near an abode of "Do you want your fortune told, royalty, and could not but recall the touchma'am?" said one of this outcast tribe, ing anecdote of the beloved and venerated as we met, a short time ago, on a broad monarch George III., who, when hunting heath. I shrunk instinctively from the bold, near Windsor once, with his characteristic half-laughing stare of her brilliant eyes, tenderness of feeling, relinquished the enand, with a silent shake of the head, joyment of the chase out of compassion to walked on. This was followed by a feel- his exhausted horse, and, gently riding ing of self-reproach, that I could not stifle: alone through an avenue of the forest, was the circumstances were such, that I could led by the cry of distress to an open space, not have spoken to the unhappy creature; where, under a branching oak, on a little for a number of carriages, donkeys, and pallet of straw, lay a dying gipsy woman. disorderly persons, were there clustered Dismounting and hastening to the spot, together, on the occasion of some neigh- his majesty anxiously inquired of a girl, bouring fair or races; and I had difficulty who was weeping over the sufferer, in conducting two or three children over "What, my dear child, can be done for the disagreeable spot which we were you?" "Oh, sir, my dying mother wanted obliged to pass. But the question forced a religious person to teach her, and to itself on my mind, whether, if I had been pray with her before she died. I ran all so accosted under less unfavourable cir- the way before it was light this morning cumstances, I should have resisted the im- to Windsor, and asked for a minister, but pulse of natural aversion, and addressed no one could I find to come to pray with that poor depraved gipsy as an immortal my dear mother." The dying woman's soul, destined to an eternal, unchangeable agitated countenance bore witness that state of being, and evidently hastening she understood and felt the cruel disapalong the path of destruction. I could not pointment. The king,-O lovely lesson satisfactorily answer my own query; for kings!-exclaimed, "I am a minister; there is no aptitude in the natural heart and God has sent me to instruct and comto such work; and it is idle to speculate fort your mother." Then, seating himself on what we would do in circumstances on a pack, he took the hand of the gipsy merely suppositious. Many have, like woman, showed the nature and demerit of Peter, vaunted, in the hour of safety, how sin, and pointed her to Jesus, the one and boldly they would go to prison and to all-sufficient Saviour. His words apdeath for Christ's sake and the Gospel's, peared to sink deep into her heart; her who, when the trial actually came, were eyes brightened, she looked up, she smiled; made ashamed of their vain boasting, and and, while an expression of peace stole denied their faith: others, shrinking with over her pallid features, her spirit fled terror from the anticipated hour of temp-away, to bear a precious testimony before tation, in mistrust of their own experienced the King of kings, of that MINISTER's faithweakness, have, out of that weakness, been made so strong, that their names now stand enrolled among the boldest and brightest in the noble army of martyrs. The habit of fancying scenes and situations, with the part that we ourselves should take in them, is more hurtful than is generally supposed. "As thy day, so shall thy strength be," is the promise

fulness to his awful charge. When the party, who had missed their sovereign, and were anxiously searching the wood for him, rode up, they found him seated by the corpse, speaking comfort to the weeping children. The sequel is not less beautiful: I quote the words of the narrative. "He now rose up, put some gold into the hands of the afflicted girls, promised them.

"Nor peace nor ease the heart can know,
That, like the needle true,
Turns at the touch of joy or woe,

And turning, trembles too."

nis protection, and bade 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 going to speak; The property of the magnetic needle bebut his majesty, turning to the gipsies, and ing to point due north, whatever unsettles pointing to the breathless corpse, and to its position produces a wavering tremuthe weeping girls, said, with strong emo-lous motion, perhaps causing it to diverge

เ

tion, Who, my lord, who, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto these?"

greatly from its right aim, but never inducing it to fix, to rest, until it has recovReader, do you hold in affectionate ered that position How truly, how strireverence the memory of this English kingly does this portray the state of a heart, Hezekiah, now gone to receive a brighter which, having been touched by the magcrown than earth can give? Let, then, net of Divine love, finds its point of attrachis eloquent example plead with you, tion in Christ, and can, by the force of when God gives you opportunity of fol- that attraction, without any visible aid, lowing it. You will occasionally meet a remain steady, as though bound by many gipsy in your path, or some other poor cords, looking to him alone. Hold forth wanderer from the ways of God, to whom to such a believer any other refuge, any you can deliver the message of reconcilia-other hope, and it is as when you sudtion, whether they will hear, or whether denly reverse a mariner's compass: the they will forbear; and you know not but needle surprised for an instant out of its the Lord may even then be awakening in right point, hurries round, eagerly seeking that outcast's mind a desire for the teach- that from which it had been involuntarily ing, that you, if you know Christ as your diverted, and again settling with undeviaSaviour, can certainly afford. Remember ting precision. So the heart, rightly influthe good king's words, and the high enced, starts away from any suggestion authority whence he quoted them. Ask that would alienate it from its Lord, exyourself, "Who is neighbour unto this claiming, as it flies to him, "Whom have wounded soul?" and strive to be that I in heaven but thee? and there is none neighbour, pouring in the wine and oil of on earth that I desire beside thee." In Christian consolation, if the case be one proportion, also, to the force and abruptof awakened conscience; and if the spirit ness of the foreign and momentary imbe yet fulled in the fatal slumber of habit-pulse, is the jealous speed with which it is Has not the ual and allowed sin, sounding the call to resisted and overcome. awake, to arise from the dead, and receive Christian felt his heart, as it were, spring light from Christ. However bright the back to Jesus, with somewhat of indignant eye, and ruddy the cheek, and active the velocity, when aught else has been set frame, still the poor gipsy is dying, and so forth as a source of wisdom, righteousare you. Work while it is day; for the ness, sanctification, or redemption to him? night cometh, when you can work no longer.

THE NEEDLE.

In my younger days I was very fond of a pretty poem entitled "A Prayer for Indifference." I have since learned to pray for better things, and and to look for something more in literary composition than touching thought and graceful expression: but there is a stanza in that well-known little piece that I often think on, with a different application indeed:

But there is another species of distress much more trying than this. We sometimes see the compass, from being held in an unsteady hand, communicating to the needle a constant trembling motion, so that, while pointing aright, it still does not rest. This uneasy appearance gave rise to the poetical comparison already alluded to, and illustrates a state of mind familiar to multitudes of God's children. Peace and ease they cannot be said to know, being kept continually doubting whether they do indeed look unto Jesus in the way that he would have them. Conscience bears them witness that they are looking to nothing else; that they neither seek nor

peace and ease, in the consciousness that he is pledged, for time and eternity, to be its strength, its portion, its sufficiency, its

THE COVERT.

ATTENDING lately some lectures on electricity, I was struck by the earnest

wish for rest in any other quarter; and | tions and misgivings; but let it be true to that the desire of their souls is to make Christ alone, and it shall know both him their chief joy: but, either through infirmity of faith or knowledge, or else from having their minds and spirits unconsciously affected by bodily ailment, or ALL. from other causes foreign to their will, and beyond their control, they continue trembling, doubting, desponding. Not having a steady and clear view of Christ, they question their interest in him; these distressing doubts deaden and distract their prayers; such dead, distracted pray-ness with which the speaker dissuaded his ers farther obscure their already em- auditors from yielding to the temptation barrassed view; and so the heart, uncer- of taking refuge under an oak, during a tain of its portion, and tempted to look thunder-storm. He described this king more to its own wavering frame, than to of the forest as being the most unsafe of Him who cannot waver, and substituting all apparent shelters, from its peculiar tenfeeling for faith, dency to attract the electric fluid; illustrating, by experiments, the fearful consequences of the invited shock. The subject long occupied my mind, giving rise to reflections of more deep and solemn interest than the apprehensions of mere bodily destruction could excite.

"Turns at the touch of joy or woe,

And turning, trembles too."

There is a spiritual joy, and a spiritual woe, alike inimical to spiritual peace and ease. Excitement, on the one hand, will, in religion as in other things, produce a state of collapse, the more overwhelming from the contrast connected with it. Overmuch sorrow will swallow up the comforts that God has provided for his mourning children, and be nothing the better for them. Extreme depression certainly wrongs the Lord, though it is, perhaps, a safer state than undue elation; and peace, rest, ease, are found only in such. a fixed view of Christ, as presents him constantly to the soul as Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, out of whose fulness we have received whatever is ours, although it be but the knowledge of our emptiness, and may demand whatsoever we require, on the strength of that promise, "My God shall supply all your need, according to the riches of his grace in Christ Jesus." It is no uncommon thing for the Christian to sit down and number over his gifts, until he forgets that he is still, in himself, wretched, and poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked; or else to stretch himself along in utter despondency, restraining prayer for more, because he feels that as yet he has received but little in comparison with the acquirements of others, and his own desires. The heart may be "like the needle true" to its own sugges

When the judgments of the Lord are abroad upon the earth, when the thunder of his reproof is heard, and the lightning of his awakened wrath flashes before the startled eye of man, the sinner, consciencestruck, will look around, seeking a covert from the storm. In less alarming seasons he found a shelter that seemed to answer all his purposes-some system of man's devising; a stately specimen, it may be of the wisdom that is from beneath. A religion of forms, and words, and sentiments, has perhaps often helped to ward off the little peltings of a passing cloud, and moderated, or seemed to moderate, the scorching rays of temptation. It has helped to keep him externally decent; while others, who lacked such a shelter, walked about openly discomfited and defiled. Why should he now question its powers of defence? In vain is he cautioned, in vain admonished, that he trusts in a refuge of lies, and, by so doing, hastens to a swifter and more sure destruction. He credits not the warning voice; he clings to his old covert, his own righteousness, his moral respectability, his stated duties of lip-service and will-worship; and there he abides, until the fiery bolt descends, cleaving his vain defence, and smiting him with everlasting destruo