1834.] IMPROPER USE OF SCRIPTURE TERMS. 367 attainment is not so difficult as you imagine. The work is not left to our feeble powers. We have only to seek and wish to be led by this Divine principle, to desire with our whole heart this purifying change, to be willing to submit ourselves entirely to the direction of this heavenly guide, and we shall be led step by step, till the spiritual work is complete. Let me conjure you, as you wish for happiness, to reflect seriously upon your situation, to follow the Divine light, and expect no happiness but by it; yet I can feelingly speak to you, and I do declare, that, after pursuing happiness in the schools of the learned, in the philosophy of ages, in the pleasures of the world, I found her not, till I became acquainted with this pure and vital principle. Let me entreat, that you will often retire into inward silence, and, under a sense of your own weakness, sit as it were at the feet of Jesus, and learn of Him. You will find a strength given you, a consolation poured into your soul, that at present you have no idea of; all restless and irritable feelings will be overcome; every care will be diminished; every blessing will be doubled to you; and the evening of your days will close with peace and hope. Sent by F. C. IMPROPER USE OF SCRIPTURE TERMS. THE LATE PRIN CESS CHARLOTTE'S ABHORRENCE OF THIS PRACTICE. THE letter in page 328 of your last Number, signed J. S. B., interested me much. It is very common to hear careless persons using in their conversation passages of Scripture in a light and trifling manner; and the consequences of such a practice have been well pointed out by your correspondent. Parents cannot be too careful to prevent their children from mixing among those who have so little reverence for the Holy Scriptures as to be able to use their contents in so thoughtless a manner : I say thoughtless, because some persons, who have this practice, would be grieved to be reckoned among the profane; and they certainly would not be guilty of such irreverence, if they thought what they were doing. A solemn seriousness possesses a rightly regulated mind whenever religion is concerned; and he who can use a passage of Scripture in a trifling manner is thus proved to be without a right feeling on the subject. We often hear riddles, jokes, and puns, given in Scriptural phrases, or containing Scriptural allusions, or introducing Scriptural characters. These ought to be carefully avoided: they keep the mind from receiving right impressions, and they confirm a wrong tendency where it exists; and those who least wish it will find these wrong associations come into their minds, to their very great distress, whenever they hear or read these passages again. I am in a situation, Sir, which formerly gave me opportunities of knowing a great deal about the late Princess Charlotte. Her Royal Highness had a great reverence for what was sacred, and could not bear to hear any thing relating to Scripture treated lightly or carelessly. If any thing like a joke was made on Scripture in her presence, or a charade, or conundrum, or any sort of riddle or pun, was proposed, which used a Scripture name in a trifling sense, the fine face of the young Princess was presently contracted into such a look of deep displeasure towards the person who had given her pain, that he or she, or whoever it might be, would not soon be found to repeat the offence. If every person who wished well to the cause of religion would show, by their words, or their looks, their great dislike to all levity on things sacred, I submit, whether they might not be a check to a very dangerous practice, and be the means of promoting a reverence and respect for a subject which concerns every one of us far beyond any other subject which can occupy the mind of man. X. Y. Z. HARVEST THOUGHTS. MY COTTAGE Friends, DURING the course of a few months, we have seen the earth prepared by the labour of man for the reception of the seed; that seed, dry and inanimate, when committed to the ground, has produced first the green and tender blade, and then the full ear teeming with provision for man and beast. The rain, which was needful to moisten 1834.] HARVEST THOUGHTS. 369 the earth and swell the corn, and which has produced the abundance which "maketh the valleys to laugh and sing,' was restrained during the time of harvest, that the produce might" fill our garners with all manner of store." From the possessor of the soil, (to whose opulence and knowledge it is owing that the land is properly cultivated, and that the industrious poor find employment,) to the humble gleaner, we have all reaped the benefit of an abundant harvest, and "it becometh us well to be thankful!" No human power could have done these things: man may labour and sow seed, but God alone giveth the increase to Him therefore let us give thanks. When Noah came out of the ark, in thankful remembrance of his deliverance, he "builded an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings; and the Lord smelled a sweet savour." The imperfect service of fallen man has always been acceptable to the God of heaven and earth, if offered with a humble and thankful spirit; " and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." Gen. viii. In all ages of the world, "men have sinned and gone astray," yet God has not withdrawn this his gracious promise, though He has at times punished the iniquity of His people by withholding the abundance of the earth: and the wickedness of man has ofttimes been punished by famine and pestilence. Observe the fourteenth chapter of the prophet Jeremiah, where is foretold a famine, which fell on a wicked people, and which paints the distress of the people, both high and low. "And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters; they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads. Because the ground is chapped, for there was no rain in the earth; the ploughmen were ashamed, they covered their heads." In the eastern countries, want of rain brought on famine, pestilence, and other calamities; and thus acted as a punishment for sin. Covering the head was a sign. of shame and affliction, and the distress of the ploughman was occasioned by the deep cracks in the earth, which are the consequence of long drought, and which prevented the preparation of the ground for the reception of the crop. Nor was the distress confined to the human race; "the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass. The wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail because there was no grass." The animal creation, which God has appointed for the support and assistance of man, deserted their tender offspring, and perished. The cause of this heavy judgment is thus declared: "Thus saith the Lord unto this people, He will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins.' The prophet complains of false prophets deluding the people; and, in the name of the people, makes a confession of sins, and supplicates the Divine mercy. And happy is it for us, my friends, that we have ministers of the Gospel to lead us in the way of peace, and to intercede for us; for I fear we have, by our national iniquities and by our individual sins, deserved the punishment here described. Let us, in reading the Scriptures, observe that severe punishment is threatened "to those who do evil," in every station of life: let us earnestly pray for true repentance and amendment of life, and let us be thankful to God, "who visiteth the earth and blesseth it," for 66 are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? Art not thou He, O Lord our God? therefore will we wait upon Thee, for Thou hast made all these things." The Close of Sarum, Aug. 1834. GARDENING. E. Changing Seed Corn.-The changing of seed corn will be seen to be very requisite, if judiciously considered; the highest land lies above the level of the sea, the soil is not so fertile, nor the climate so genial, as low grounds; therefore, if a clean sample of any grain can be obtained 1834.] GARDENING. 371 from high land, and sown on soil that lies lower, the grain will increase in quality and size for three or four years on that farm. When the grain is observed to decrease, which it will do after the soil can improve it no farther, another change, as above, should take place. (Signed) WILLIAM GREY.-See Horticultural Register, No. 39, p. 411. Sept. 1834. Hedges for Cottage gardens.—In many parts of the country, all the plums, and even all the apples and pears which a cottager could require, might be grown in his ring-fence, by allowing the plants to grow to their natural height, and by trimming the sides of the fence to the height of seven or eight feet, allowing the shoots above that height to spread out either inwards only, or on both sides, according to the nature of the adjoining surface. We have seen such hedges in Worcestershire, and in different parts of the Netherlands and Germany, thirty feet high, three feet wide at the bottom, two feet wide at the height of eight feet, the space between forming an impenetrable fence, and twenty feet wide immediately above. When, from the soil or climate, neither the apple, pear, or plum, will make such hedges, the sloethorn may be used; the fruit of which will answer all the purposes of the damson, and bruised and fermented, makes excellent wine. In good soil, the sloe will grow thirty feet high. The white thorn should never be planted as a fence to a cottage garden, when the black-thorn can be got the latter forms as good a fence, and has but one objection,-its being prolific in suckers, which must be removed. A sloe hedge once established,-on the sheltered and warmest sides of it, different varieties of plums may be grafted; the more hardy kinds on the east and west aspects, and the better kinds on the south side of the northern boundary. If we reckon the effect of the south side of a hedge as equal to a third of the effect of a south wall, we shall find no situation in Britain or Ireland, in which apples, pears, plums, and cherries, may not be grown. The principle is, to form the hedge of a double row of wildings; and when it has grown five or six years, to cut down the inner row, and graft it with the cultivated varieties of the species. Apples on a crab |