Thus, like an over flowing fountain-altar-the heart pours its unceasing streams of devotion into the ocean of divine love, from whence also it draws its sure hidden and secret supplies. Like an altar, it burns incense with perpetual fires, night and day.

Not only in the frame and position of his heart, but also in all his active devotions, does the saint look ever toward the Lord.

Piety does not exist only in the frame and position of the heart; it must express itself in positive acts of devotion. This calls for seasons of worship, and for forms of worship. At these seasons, and in the use of these forms, the eyes of the Christian must be ever toward the Lord.

God in Christ must ever form the centre of our worship. Toward Him must our eyes be directed in worship. All that we do, in the way of worship, must have reference to Him. The truth which we hear must be the truth as it is in Jesus. The prayers and praises we offer must be in the name of Jesus. Our pious meditations must end in Jesus. In Baptism and in the Holy Supper, we must find Jesus. All must be from Him, in Him, through Him, and to Him. All worship, of which He is not the beginning, the soul, and the end, is not the worship of God in Christ. However earnest, and seemingly devotional it may be, it misses its aim, because it does not look to the Lord. Like a bubble it falls in pieces, because it has no solid centre upon which to lean.

There are two classes of worshippers who err in this respect.

First those who, in their worship, look to mere indefinite spiritual objects and influence. With some it is the spirit of sympathy. With some the spirit of truth. With some it is their own spirit lashed up into activity. With some it is a kind of general spirit, which they vaguely suppose may be caught by the heart, as the air is inhaled by breathing. But what are all these without Christ as their centre and substance. Sympathy is nothing but nature, except in Him. Truth is nothing but notion, separate from Him. Human activity is nothing but will worship and passion, unless it is rooted and grounded in Him.

We may even deceive ourselves by persuading ourselves, that we can look with benefit to the Holy Spirit separate from Christ. As the Persons in the ever adorable Trinity are one in essence, so they are one in operation. "He shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me : for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you." Thus the Spirit Himself turns our eyes and hearts ever toward Christ.

Those err on the other hand, who rest in forms and ordinances as the end toward which religion looks. Forms and ordinances are indispensable in religion-as bark to the tree; as form is to life; and as body is to spirit. These are, however, not end, but means-not the best, but the good-not grace, but grace-bearers-not the ultimate object, but the channels, in which the substance flows, and by which the true object is reached.

Forms and ordinances stand in the same relation to grace as John the Baptist did to Christ. They exclaim: We are not He; but they point to Him, and say: "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world."

Forms and ordinances are not Saviours, but they are the Saviour's acts. In them, and through them, He approaches us, and communicates Himself He is in them as life is in the tree. As it pervades the branches,

to us.

VOL. XVII-22

the leaves, the blossoms, the fruit, so does the Saviour's grace pervade all the ordinances and forms of worship.

How plain it is, therefore, that the Christian, while he ought to use forms and ordinances, ought not to rest in them as their own end-but penetrate through them to the Lord of life who is their life-to the Lord of grace whose grace they bear. Only in so worshipping can we say: "Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord."

He that seeks the life of grace without forms, is a fanatical dreamer. He that seeks and trusts in forms without life is an idolater. He that seeks life in and through forms, has his eyes truly toward the Lord -and he will find Him as surely as the hungry man finds strength in bread, the thirsty man refreshment in water, or as we find soul in body.

OUR GRAVE-YARD.

BY NELLIE.

Who does not love to steal away awhile from the haunts of men to hold communion with our own souls in" the city of the dead?" "Tis there the solemn lesson is brought home to us, that we too must die; at some time, sooner or later, we must pass from this land of ours to that bourne, "from whence no traveller e'er returned."

Such thoughts as these were brought forcibly to our mind a short time ago, while gazing upon the green turf, beneath which are sleeping the forms of our "loved and lost."

Seven grassy mounds show their resting places; the turf above them is pressed by the footsteps of those who are lingering behind. Oft while lingering there, we think we hear spirit voices borne on the breeze from the spirit-land, telling us to be faithful while here. The first three of our departed ones left us in the sunny days of childhood, before the world had come with its sullying breath to taint their purity. And though the wail of sorrow went up from our stricken hearts, and the stroke was hard to bear, still we looked up to "Him who never forsakes" and remembered, "Thy will be done." Again the angel of death came among us and took one in manhood's prime. His future promised fair, and his earthly hopes were bright; but his hopes for eternity were brighter. Each day as he drew nearer his journey's end, he felt he was drawing nearer his RedeemAs we gathered round his bed-side to catch the last whisper, he bid us not mourn for him, saying: "I am only going home; life is but a vision, and I know we shall meet again."

er.

Did the "angel" leave us? No, it came again, and took a loved sister from our midst; took her just as she was budding into womanhood. The summons came unexpectedly; she was borne away without time to say "farewell." With the last dying breath we caught the whisper, "I'll soon be in heaven." Again we heard the mournful sound of clods falling on the coffin of a loved son; another link in the home-chain was broken, never to be re-united on this earth.

A few short months spun on and the "angel" came again, to summon our aged grandmother to the "upper courts." She was patiently waiting the summons and passed joyfully to her home. Another went away to a distant college to prepare for the ministry. Time after time he was called home to say a last farewell with loved ones. Just when his studies were completed, and he had gone forth to "preach glad tidings," his summons came to end his earthly career. Dying, he praised his Redeemer, and then passed home to God's presence above. Before any of his kindred could reach him his spirit took its flight. No mother's ears were there to catch the last whisper, or wipe the death damp from his brow. No sister or brother was there to raise his drooping head. Strangers alone were there to hear his mournings for absent friends. Strangers robed him for the

tomb. At an unexpected moment his loud summons reached us; again the wail of sorrow went up from our stricken household; the eldest of our loving band was gone: there was a breach in our home-circle-a void in our hearts, that can never be filled till we meet in heaven. The rains of summer and the storms of winter alike beat over their graves, but they heed them not; calmly they rest,

"Free from life's endless toil and endeavor,"

Though their graves are deep, there are graves in our hearts which are deeper. Daily memory repairs there alone to water them with tears, lest they should lose their greenness and beauty. Though the home chain here is broken, and the links severed, a time cometh when we shall enter into our "Father's house "to dwell forevermore. Only a few more days and we shall be gathered to our kindred.

They come on the wings of the morning-they come-
Impatient to lead some poor wanderer home,
Some pilgrim to snatch from his stormy abode,
To lay him to rest in the arms of his God.

INDIAN ANECDOTES.

AN INDIAN STUCK TO HIS BARGAIN.

Governor Dudley, of Massachusetts, told an Indian he wanted a calf killed, and that he would give a shilling to do it. "Give me shilling," said the Indian. Dudley gave him the shilling. He killed the calf, and then sauntered about. The Governor asked why he did not dress the calf? The Indian answered: "No, no, Coponoh, (governor,) that was not in the bargain!"

THE WITTY INDIAN SPEAKS HIS MIND.

An Ottaway chief, called Whitejohn, was a great drunkard. He was asked what he thought brandy was made of. "Well, I suppose it must be made of hearts and tongues; for when I am full of it, my heart is a thousand strong, and I can talk, too, as with a thousand tongues."

AN INDIAN'S IDEA OF EQUALITY.

An Indian chief was once asked whether his people were free? not, since I am free, although their king?" was the reply.

Why

"YES, YES, ME PAY YOU WHEN MY POWDER GROW." A white trader sold an Indian some powder, at an enormous price. To show the Indian that it was cheap (for he had objected to the high price), the trader told him if he sowed the powder, like grain, it would produce a hundred fold. The Indian prepared the ground, sowed the powder, waited a whole moon, (a full year,) but no hundred-fold yield was realized. Afterwards, the Indian got a large quantity of goods, on credit, from the white trader. The time for payment was fully matured, when the trader demanded payment for the goods bought on credit. "Yes, yes, me pay you when my powder grow."

The white trader, skulked, considered the account balanced. This is justice, he muttered to himself.

TRUE MEN AND WOMEN.

BY FRED.

The most pressing, crying want of our age, is true men and women. This want is not confined to any single nation or country, but is co-extensive with the human race. How many of the one billion of the human species, reach any thing like the highest type of manhood? How many, or rather how few, of the most civilized and enlightened portions of mankind, yea, how few in our own favored land, stand forth in all the intellectual, moral and spiritual grandeur of God's last and noblest creature upon the earth? History and observation both return the answer, comparatively very few indeed.

It is said of an old philosopher seen upon the streets at mid-day with lantern in hand, that when asked what he sought he sarcastically replied, "I seek a man.' Lived he amid all the resplendence of the sixth decade of the nineteenth century, it seems to us he would still experience similar difficulty in finding such a distinguished personage. He would surely encounter many bipeds, wearing the shape, the garments and general aspect of man, but on penetrating the outward shell and viewing the mental darkness and moral rottenness within, he would stand aghast and turn away with disgust at his kind, muttering to hims lf "ne crede colori.”

Look at the men, whom the people delight to honor and elevate to places of trust and office; who, all will admit, ought to be the exponents of all the manly character of the nation; in short, who ought to be men in the true and fullest sense of the word; and do you find them such? A very few of them loom up amid the vast crowd, clothed in all the majesty and true dignity of man, like so many lofty cedars towering above the general forest, whose names indeed will be forever green and fresh in the memories of a grateful posterity; for to them we owe our national existence and salvation. But the vast majority of our public men lack every element of true manhood, except perhaps a certain intelligence; for they are the slaves of vice in its most hideous forms, and lashed to their passions, like a man to a wild and ungovernable horse, they are borne away to ruin with only the occasional lightning flashes of their brilliant intellects, to illuminate their course and redeem their names from an infamous oblivion. But let us come down from those high places in the nation, through the highest classes of society to the lowest plebs in the land, and every where we find rascality, dishonesty, deceit, profanity, intemperance and ignorance, deforming and defiling, tarnishing and obscuring the Creator's fair image, and debasing and brutalizing man. Having made this tour of inspection with us through all grades and classes of society, you cannot help being fully convinced of the truth stated in our first sentence as to the greatest want of the age.