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subject. Then, let us hope that we shall have this great public improvement effected without delay. One thing is certain, that we shall have those epidemical scourges which every now and then visit us with such cruel effect greatly mitigated in their virulence, if we cannot banish them altogether from among us.-Scotsman.

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EXTRACTS FROM DIFFERENT AUTHORS.

ALTHOUGH religion and true piety have the promise of both worlds, being the most likely, and even the most lawful way of promoting our temporal interests, according to that rule of our Lord, that if we "seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, all these things (the common necessaries and comforts of life) shall be added unto us;" yet, in the general course of Divine Providence, we may not expect an absolute freedom from the

usual calamities and common accidents of life. As men, we are liable thereto; as sinners, we deserve them. If sometimes the Divine justice withholds the conveniences, sometimes the comforts, sometimes the very necessaries of life; nay, in place of them, sends poverty and contempt, pain and sickness, distress and anguish; yea, withdraws his very presence for a season in the needful time of trouble; yet still we are to remember it is the Lord, and none other, from whom our sufferings come; that He is our Lord, and we his people; that it is a chastening from God Himself, and therefore must be just; a correction from a Father who delighteth in us, and therefore must be kind, and for our good. If it be to try our patience, and for the example of others, that our faith may be found, in the day of the Lord, laudable, glorious, and honourable, it will tend to the increase of glory and endless felicity. If to correct and amend whatsoever doth offend the eyes of our heavenly Father, a sincere repentance, with humble submission to his will, will turn it all to our profit, and help us forward in the right way that leadeth unto everlasting life. Whoso receiveth the afflictions of life with this spirit, and in this light, will not despise, but adore, the chastening hand of the Lord he will not be weary of his correction, but rather rejoice when he falls into divers temptations, knowing well, that "whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth."Wogan.

He that abuses his tongue to the service of vice, scatters poison and death around him; his breath is more contagious than a pestilence, for it reaches to the spirit -("a wholesome tongue is a tree of life; but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit" ")-and infects the mind; his words are more mortal than the piercings of a sword, for they slay the soul.-Wogan.

The conduct of a Christian.—It is the conscientious care of the good Christian to have his religion not only

5 Prov. xv. 4.

alive but active within him, by a serious use of those helps which may maintain it, and a no less watchful use of all such opportunities as may set it at work. He uses this world, but does not abuse it. He submits to those cares of it which belong to the duty of his station, but wisely and soberly declines those which his passions would prompt him to undertake. He enjoys the pleasures of this world with a thankful but a moderate and modest heart, with a sense sufficient to make him less uneasy under the necessary anxieties of life, but not enough to make him too fond of the enjoyments belonging to it. Neither the cares nor the pleasures of the world encroach upon his virtue, or rise so high as to overshadow it. His principal view is to be happy in the next world; his secondary view is to be as happy in this as the nature of it, and the expectation of the next, will admit. His virtue thus finds room to rise and flourish; whilst his worldly cares, the thorns which surround it, by being checked in their growth, afford him a clearer prospect of the state he is looking for, as well as an easier escape from this, whenever he is called to leave it. Thus disposed, his virtues increase in number as well as strength; for a single one well cultivated, like a single seed well rooted, will bring forth a manifold increase. Thus the good Christian stands, flourishing and fair, in the field of life, till death puts in his sickle; and then is carried home to the grave, like a shock of corn in its season, to increase the riches and glories of heaven.-Dr. Stebbing. Sent by the Rev. T. Farley.

EDUCATION FOR THE POOR.

THE amount subscribed for the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the principles of the Established Church throughout England and Wales, has now reached the sum of 135,8251. Os. 11d. This, be it remembered, is to meet local subscriptions, and that only for the mining and manufacturing districts another special fund is to be raised under the Queen's letter.

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MOUNT ETNA.

THE best comment upon the print will be afforded by two letters lately received from the immediate neighbourhood of Mount Etna, giving a description of the eruption which has taken place so lately as last November.

THE ERUPTION OF MOUNT ETNA.

Aderno, Nov. 26.

I wrote to you yesterday in great haste (as an opportunity for Catana and Messina was just offering) from a place which people call a convent, but which at the present moment scarcely offers a miserable shelter to the traveller caught by bad weather; where, before a sparing fire of dearly bought brushwood, he may dry his garments a little, and warm himself. During the time I was writing my letter the top of the mountain had commenced, with renewed vehemence and with tremendous noise, to throw out, at first, thick black clouds of smoke and vapour, and soon afterwards a mass of water, ashes, sand, and enormous stones, which flew away in every direction, and probably, at least to leeward, to a great distance. We did not think ourselves any longer secure in our place of refuge, and we left it to get nearer to the road leading to Aderno, as it now had become impossible, without much circuitous travelling, to reach Bronte, where I originally intended to proceed. We had, however, scarcely come into the open air, when we became aware that the present new volcano, half-way up the northwestern declivity of the mountain, had also begun again to rage, and to throw out a mass of fiery lava, which, (as every unevenness of the ground has been filled up by the streams of lava which have been flowing since the 18th,) poured down with immense velocity into the valley in a southern direction from Bronte. The vapour which this stream emitted, and the gas which developed itself, made breathing difficult. Being so near, we began to feel rather uneasy, and retired, therefore, towards Aderno, without, however, losing sight of the fire-stream. It had pursued in the mean time the direction taken before, and rolled itself with a roaring noise over the road, already destroyed and covered thirty feet high with dross

VOL. XXIV.

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