of the corruption of the people. Irreligion aud debauchery were on the ascendant. Amid its surging waves stood Milton, firm as a rock. Surviving the prosperity of his party, he was doomed to poverty, privation, obloquy, and danger. The blind old man was made the laughing stock of licentious wits; and his fond hopes for the liberties of England appeared doomed to disappointment; but he neither quailed before opposition, nor fainted under reproach. Nothing disturbed the holy magnanimity of his soul.

The world faded before him. He communed with Jehovah, and set his face heavenward. But what would have been the condition of his soul had it been otherwise? How crushed and lacerated would have been his heart? How despair would have struck its poisoned fangs into his spirit. Had he been without God at that dark crisis how melancholy would have been his lot! But he had the Ever-living as his friend and portion; and taking down his harp he struck it to one of the most heavenly lays that ever fell upon mortal ear. This sublime and affecting ode is not found in the ordinary volumes of his works. It was but lately discovered; and appears in the most recent Oxford edition of his poems.

But what would it be without the thoughts of God, of which it is so full?

I am old and blind!

Men point at me as smitten by God's frown;
Afflicted and deserted of my kind;

Yet I am not cast down.

I am weak, yet strong;

I murmur not that I no longer see;
Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong,
Father supreme! to Thee.

O merciful One!

When men are farthest, then Thou art most near;
When friends pass by, my weakness shun,

Thy chariot I hear.

Thy glorious face

Is leaning towards me; and its holy light
Shines in upon my lonely dwelling-place--
And there is no more night.

On my bended knee

I recognize thy purpose, clearly shown;
My vision Thou hast dimm'd that I may see
Thyself Thyself alone.

This thrilling and melting effusion of our great epic poet, breathes the very spirit of heavenly song. It is indeed as if he had caught the notes from “Angel lips." Who can read it without being moved? It is full of strength, of grandeur, of majestic repose, because it is so full of God. Invincible by calamity, uncrushed by sorrow was the brave heart, because "underneath" it were "the everlasting arms." Like some Alpine height attracting and defying the thunderblast, while its highest peak lies batheed in the serenest light, he seems to stand gathering around him affliction and reproach, and yet, in his higher nature catching and reflecting a glory more than mortal. The beautiful earth and the glorious firmament were shut out from his sight; but with unscaled mental eye he beheld God and heaven. He was strong in his conscious weakness, for he laid hold upon God. In the deep solitude of his blindness, and isolation from society, he could all the more distinctly hear the sound of his master's chariot. He was taken into that chariot, and was no longer Milton the blind poet, but Milton the far-seeing seraph. He had studied that despised, old book, the Bible, and had made Jehovah his habitation, therefore, he was "almost sacred.”— Sacred be his memory, and still more sacred the memory of those glorious truths about the character of God, which led him to feel in his blindness, that there was "no more night,” and which will chase away sin's last shadow from the soul of man!

Sunbeams of Chought.

THE INFECTIVENESS OF MERE HUMAN METHODS TO RENOVATE SOCIETY.

When some one was enlarging to Coleridge on the tendency for good of some scheme which was expected to regenerate the world, the poet flung into the air the down of a thistle which grew by the roadside, and went on to say "The tendency of that thistle is towards China, but I know, with assured certainty, it will never get there; nay, it is more than probable that, after sundry eddyings and gyrations up and down, backwards and forwards, it will be found somewhere near the place in which it grew.'-M'COSH.

THE MAMMON MAN.

"There are no propinquities to him in his very nature, indeed, he becomes as little human as that which he adores. Where his gold is buried his affections too are buried. The figure which Salvian uses in speaking of him is scarcely too bold,—that his sonl assimilates itself to his treasure, and is transmuted, as it were, into a mere earthly mass."-DR. THOMAS BROWN.

A GOOD BOOK.

A good book is the precious life blood of a master spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.-MILTON.

CLOISTERED VIRTUE.

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised, and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.-MILTON.

IMPOLICY OF PUNISHING OPINION.

The punishing of arts enhances their authority; and a forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the faces of those who seek to tread it out.-VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

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a Weekly Magazine,

OF CHRISTIAN EXPOSITION AND ADVOCACY.

Who knows not that truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power.-MILTON.

The clock strikes twelve. It is the knell of the departed year. Its moments are beyond recall; and yet it lives in its influence upon the future. That influence will never wholly die. This appears to me one of the most solemn and affecting of thoughts-a thought that shows life to be no trifle, and proves the folly of spending it in a trifling spirit. If I would, I cannot live unto myself. I am not a detached and insulated being-I am a part of a great whole,—a small link it may be, but still a link in the vast chain of universal being. The movements of that apparently insignificant link may propogate an influence to the extremity of the chain. The faintest breathings of my soul, if only embodied in action, may move chords whose vibrations will be heard for ever in the soft and holy music of gladness, or in the harsh, and horrible notes of despair.

The gentlest whisper may produce ripples on the lake of existence, which will lave the far-off shores of eternity. One cold look may freeze a soul into selfishness, which might have glowed with seraphic love. One word thoughtlessly spoken, may open fountains of bitterness in a spirit never to be healed. One heedless act may crush a heart, capable of everlasting growth in goodness and happiness. And the manifestation of that negative spirit, which boasts of its doing no one any harm, may repress sympathies that would have blessed the world. Of this wonderful fact of my nature I would not complain. For what would life be to me if I could neither be the subject nor the source of influence. Could I bear to be shut out from all sympathy with, from all participation in goodness-to stand all alone in the universe, without a sentiment of friendship, without a hope of love.

No. 4, Vol. 1.

THE DEFENDER.

It is this fact which shows the real value of life. Some would estimate that value by the amount of money a man can make. Life is important to them only as it multiplies their houses, their ships, their barns, their gold. The Christmas that comes to them with an unfavourable balance sheet brings with it the feeling of a lost year. Others value life for the opportunities it brings them of acquiring fame. To be known among their compeers as a man of vast knowledge, of profound genius, of statesmanlike ability is the ambition of their souls; and every step in life that brings them no nearer the goal of their desires is regarded as a false step. Others again value life only for the means it affords of gratifying animal appetites. In their slang, a man knows nothing of life, who has not plunged headlong into the frivolities, and dissipations of an effeminate age. The ball-room, the race-course, the theatre and the fashionable assembly are their favourite resorts. A life of seclusion and of thought would be to them a life of ineffable dulness.

Now, life is valuable, as it results in the originating of holy thought, in the cultivation of pure sentiment, in the development of noble sympathies, and in the performance of benevolent effort; as it contributes to the growth of the soul in all that is praiseworthy; as it is devoted to the glory of God and the good of man. Life is lost when devoted to selfish ends. It is a boon when it is filled with thoughts of God, and with efforts for the wellbeing of man. I must measure its value by the good I can do to others. O that I may never forget that I am spared to see a new year, in order that I may spend it in communicating blessings to my fellow-beings, and in reflecting the infinite love of the great Jehovah.

WHAT J. BARKER SAYS NOW.

Christians ought not to trouble themselves about reforms, about the advancement of natural science, the improvement of the arts, the cure of poverty, the abolition of slavery, the extirpation of disease, the prolongation of of life, the increase of national wealth, the cultivation of taste, &c., &c., if their principles are true. And they cannot do so, if they are impressed with New Testament views of the vanity of the world, the nearness of the world's destruction, and its visions of heaven and hell, as they believe they ought to be. The world in their eyes is a temptation and a snare. 1ts pleasures are danger and death. Their very bodies are foes to their souls. Even marriage itself is not safe. The desire to please a wife, even a christian wife disables a man from pleasing God as he ought Even the righteous can scarcely be saved. Many shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able. For every idle word; for every jest or humourous expression, they must give an account in the day of judginent. All these things are inconsistent with the Christian's calling. Even a smile may damn him for ought he knows. His God is a consuming fire. What, then, can he consistently do for the physical, the temDoral improvement of mankind? Let the dead bury their dead. Let the Gentiles seek after all these things. This is their country. Their citizenship is here, Ours is in heaven, We are strangers and sojourners; and our journey may end in an hour,

WHAT J. BARKER SAID IN 1842.

WHY WE SHOULD SPREAD THE GOSPEL.

While you labour for the spread of religion, you take the best way for reforming and blessing the whole world. Religion is "the one thing needful" for nations, as well as for individuals. Some look for happier times to new forms of