skill and power to overcome; "for the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force;" and yet how seldom we find people making the exertions which are necessary to reach it! They will spend years in cutting through rocks and mountains, for the sake of a little temporal advantage; but how often do we find them making any considerable effort with regard to the attainment of that great object, whose interests last through all eternity? When we had come down the precipice, we found at the bottom a small village, called the Baths of Leuk. There are hot-water springs here, which being also impregnated with mineral substances, are con against the rock on the other side, and perhaps throw them off their balance. I could not help learning a lesson from these poor animals of patience and prudence. How cheerfully they will walk along the whole day with a heavy weight on their backs! and how careful they are where they are about to tread! Snuffing with their nose and pawing with their feet, they will never venture on dangerous ground. On the top of this precipice is a lake called Dauben-see. Many mountainstreams run into it, and it has no apparent outlet; and yet it never overflows. I will tell you what this lake reminded me of. It reminded me of a person who is continually receiving spiritual knowledge and instruction flow-sidered beneficial for medical ing into his head, and yet whose spirituality always remains at the same dead level. Good books, faithful sermons, kind advice, and conversation with Christian friends, are ever pouring in streams of good things; but they never seem to raise his affections, or to deepen his love, or to increase his zeal and energy for his Saviour's cause. What becomes of all that flows in? It is involved in the same mystery as this lake. Perhaps much of it is evaporated. And I will tell you what this wonderful "pass suggested to me. I could not help thinking what a great deal of trouble men will give rive themselves, and what ingenuity they will exercise, in order to get over a worldly difficulty; but how differently they act in heavenly matters. Heaven is no easy place to reach; it is a long journey there, with numberless obstacles in the way, which require great purposes. People do not drink them, but bathe in them. Nor do they take an occasional bath, but sit in them all day long! There are large square pools within the houses, about three or four feet deep; and in these the invalids sit up to their necks in hot water, for many weeks together. They are enveloped in a kind of bathing dress for the purpose, and sit together in large companies, reading their books, enjoying their conversation, or eating their meals with small floating tables before them, from morning till night; entering in the morning, and coming out in the evening for supper and a night's rest. Some people it seems to benefit, some it appears to do no good. They all of them have a peculiar kind of appearance, such an appearance as you would fancy a man to have who lived in hot water instead of cool air, that of being half-boiled. I WISH! Do you? Then you have not yet done with that unprofitable business. You were fond of this when you were a child. But to how much purpose was the ocenpation? Did your wishes accomplish anything? Had you not better pray? There is a great difference between the two things; though some people think they are pretty much alike, and get easily into the habit of putting the wishing in the place of the praying. Many a one has wished things were so and so, and then stopped there. They did not get as high as prayer. Wishes are froth, mist. Anything light, transient, evanescent, will afford a good comparison. But prayer is finetwined linen; it is a goodly fabric. He that wishes, sails a pretty kite; he that prays, sends a strong ship to sea laden with a precious burden. He that wishes can sleep, and nod, and dream; but he that prays is wide awake. Wishes are smoke, light enough to be driven anywhere by any slight passing current of air; prayers go steady and strong in a specified direction, ploughing through cross seas, and indifferent, as the steamer, to the direction of the wind. I wish! But you had better work. Wishing is easy; that is the reason you love and practise it, likely. People can wish without moving a muscle. They can wish without thinking much, without feeling much, with doing nothing. Wishing people are apt to have very relaxed nerves, and very languid muscles. Wishes, instead of proving the existence of vigour and energy, intimate the market quite destitute of both. Wishing and working are seldom in the relation of parent and child, and it is usually a puny progeny when the relation does exist. Besides, wishes are pretty generally young rebels. They are insurrectionists in miniature. “I wish it were so-I wish it were not so I wish I had this-I wish I had that I wish I had not to suffer this." These are infant soldiers of a revolutionary army; they lift up their little hands against the government; they do not like the administration. Accuse them of rebellion, however, and they cannot be made to believe it. A wish a rebel!-how few think so! But all wishes are not rebels. No; many of them are such bubbles that there is not substance enough in them to have any character. In that case, they are not worthy to be indulged by a rational mind. But far too frequently are they the secret repinings of a mind dissatisfied with the arrangements of an allwise Providence, and indulging thus its sinful murmurings. Wishing wastes time. It does not take a great while, indeed, to give expression to a wish: but people fond of wishing have a a great many of them, and occupy many flying moments in that way. As drops make a shower, so wishes become showers by the aggregate of individual acts. Put all the vain, trifling, useless, and wicked wishes of a single individual who is in the habit of this thing together, and the time thus wasted, or worse than wasted, is no small item in the history of one's probation. ness, and some stripes of conscience, if it were sharp enough to discern and act in view of such folly. "I Wishes are sources of selfdeception. How many exclaim, and that countless times, wish I were a Christian-I wish my heart were right-I wish I had my portion with the people of God-I wish I knew more of the Scriptures," &c. This wish A little more on this topic. Wishes are parents of large families of idle, vain dreams and air-castles. Wishes usually re-ing for good things, it is be spect a good not within reach; lieved, is not seldom taken for real desires of the heart after spiritual good. It is taken as evidence of a mind somewhat, at least, set towards God and holy things. There seems, therefore, to be some goodness in it. Good wishes are mistaken for goodness -are put in the place of goodness itself-the spurious in the place of the genuine coin. Good wishes are a very cheap substitute, and it is to be feared a very common one, for prayer, effort, zeal, and energy in doing good. The one is so much easier than the other, that, with the additional motive that such wishes have a specious appearance of real goodness, they take the INTERPRETATIONS OF HARD TEXTS. "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin." PERHAPS this passage is considered by most readers as referring to a power given from God, from heaven above and this creates the difficulty of it, since the inference does not seem to flow conclusively from it, "there JOHN xix. 11. fore," &c. But regard "from above," as referring to the higher powers in the Jewish Sanhedrim, and then all is perfectly clear and satisfactory. This seems to be the natural and legitimate reading. GENEVA. ITALIAN CHURCH. Jutelligence. Few things have given me more interest than attending this little church. Finding I could be in time afterwards for the English morning service, I went on Sunday, July 27. We entered a neat commodious little chapel, which, I trust, will shortly be scarcely large enough for the purpose: but, at present, it is the day of small things. Yet the faithful are sowing in hope, and I trust there will shortly be a blessed and abundant harvest. They were singing, as we went in, very sweetly and correctly, a hymn, the chief purport of which was an earnest prayer for more grace and Divine love: and deeply touching it was, indeed, to hear such strains issuing from the lips of Italian converts. Just front ing me sat a monk and Tuscan priest, who have renounced Popery, and fled for their lives to this safe and peaceful shelter. They are interesting-looking young men, and the countenance of one especially indicated intense feeling. They will have every religious advantage in their present position, and in due time, it is hoped, will be able to return to their own country as preachers of the blessed Gospel. There is no doubt but a very large company of the priests are ready to follow them. Oh, that British Christians may be stirred up to more urgent and importunate prayer on behalf of the thousands who are now seeking water, and longing after something more satisfying than they have yet met with. The service was conducted by M. de Sancty, of whom I have heard frequently. He was a priest in Rome, in a high post, enjoying the special confidence of the Pope; when it pleased God to bring him into the light and liberty of the Gospel. He expounded the history of the woman of Samaria. His manner and action were animated and earnest, and his prayers very beautiful. The hymns were both sung to the tune of our 100th Psalm. It was to me a new thing to be joining in prayer and praise with a congregation of converted Italians, and I cannot easily describe what a time of refreshment and enjoyment it was. What an indescribable effect it has to find Christians of various languages and nations taught by the same Spirit, loving the same Saviour, and looking forward to the same home! FELIX NEFF'S SCHOOLS. THERE are few who have not heard of that blessed man, Felix Neff. Twenty-five years ago he was the means of effecting a great revival of religion in the High French Alps, where the Vaudois have remained since the cruel persecutions of former days, and retained the pure faith of Christ. His course was short, and he sunk under his labours at the age of thirty; but not before he had seen abundant seed springing up, and chiefly amongst the young, for whom he provided schools and masters. If you take a map, you will find this district in the south-east of France, in the department of Isere and the Consistory of Mens. I am glad to say that the good work, which has never wholly failed, is now reviving under the zealous efforts of an excellent pastor at Mens, Mons. Cadoret. He has just come over to Geneva to get some help, and he relates much indeed that is interesting. It appears that in this district there is a population of 6,000 Vaudois, scattered over the mountains and valleys amongst the Ro man Catholics. There are fourteen schools under the care of excellent teachers, many of whom are true Christians. There is also in Mens a Normal-school for training teachers, under the care of four professors. About 100 licensed masters have come from this school. They state that if they had more money to support them, they could receive several more pupils into the Normalschools, whom they are now obliged to refuse. The salaries of the teachers are only about 121. or 141. a year. On this scanty sum they often bring up large families of their own, and contentedly and cheerfully pursue their course of usefulness. It is stated that it is not fourteen, but forty schools that are wanted, on account of their widely-scattered condition. Their case is the more urgent, from the increasing efforts which the Papists are making to thwart the good work. Some Sisters of Charity lately arrived at Mens, and gave out from house to house that they would receive and teach for nothing any Protestant children that were sent to them. The priests have also established temporary schools. In this poor country ninetenths of the population are Roman Catholic, and very little money can be raised in Mens. They are obliged, therefore, to appeal to the sympathy of distant Christians; and I am sure that the appeal will not be made in vain. I feel confident that the memory of Felix Neff will lead many to feel it a privilege to help forward a work which he so prosperously began. Everything, too, in its present state encourages us to co-operate. Not only are there faithful, zealous pastors watching over the work, in whose judgment we may entirely confide, but it is evident that the Lord is still designing to bless abundantly the seed of the martyrs: for again, within the last four years, there has been a great revival of true religion in the schools. In one instance, the children have been the means of converting the master. More than 100 of them have been seen engaged in prayer together; and even children of ten years of age have been heard to express themselves with a clearness and a point on the great doctrines of redemption which is truly wonderful. I am sure that British Christians will feel themselves loudly called upon to show their sympathy for a people so long their predecessors in an acquaintance with saving truth, and who preserved an asylum for evangelical faith during the darkness of the middle ages. An excellent friend of mine in Geneva, Mons. d'Epine, has been doing all he can for them; but about 40l. is still wanting. It is much desired that this sum could be secured annually; I do not think there will be any difficulty. Not only the memory of Felix Neff, and the real good that the schools are doing, are calculated to awaken our interest, but also the importance of such a post with a view to future operations in Italy and other neighbouring countries, now not very accessible. I do not think that there is a more important object than to strengthen every outpost of Italy at the present moment. Let us, then, do all we can to uphold these schools in the Alps, and to supply them abundantly with Bibles and other useful books, which will by degrees find their way elsewhere. Will not the readers of this paper set to work to raise this little sum? Contributions may be sent to the Rev. Charles Carus Wilson, Spencer-square, Ramsgate, who will duly and thankfully forward them to Geneva. August 28th. W. |