themselves in this amusement: the question is, what is the difference between them? All of them are followed more from amusement than from any other motive, and all of them terminate more or less in the destruction of poor brute beasts. Fishing may farmers themselves have a much more expeditious way of ridding themselves of these obnoxious animals, and that is, by traps. Now, they can not only get them quicker by these means, but they can do it without breaking down fences, or injuring their fields in any other way, which is an evil that sports-be a quieter amusement, but I cannot men have not as yet always been so fortunate as to avoid. see in what respect it is a more harmless one. The reason why fishing is generally considered the least cruel, is this; the fishes cannot, like the beasts of the field, so plainly shew the agonies in which their existence is terminated; and many people, who would witness the death of a fish with A still stronger proof that the sportsman's pleasure is nearer to his heart than the farmer's benefit, is this; that if any rich country gentleman were to hear that one of his tenants had entrapped a fox, he would be so inveterate against him, as almost to dis-out ever giving one single thought of charge him from bis farm. This, I know, is a case by no means uncommon, and I would not have introduced it here, had I not good grounds for so doing. The killing of what is good for food, is the point next to be considered.Any one who has an object in view, and is very anxious of obtaining it, will undoubtedly make use of those means by which he can gain it the soonest; to suppose otherwise, is contrary to common reason. But does the sportsman act in this manner? If he saw a flock of partridges a short distance from him, would he try to kill as many as he could, that he might get sufficient for his wants, and so return home? or would he not wait till they arose, and had got at a convenient distance from him, and then shoot? The latter, I should imagine; and why? Is it because he pities the poor birds, and wishes to give them an opportunity of escaping? No: but for this reason to shoot them on the ground would not be sportsmanlike; and rather than put them out of their misery at once, he would prefer torturing them by a more lingering death. It is quite clear, that amusement in these occupations, if not the only design, is the principal one; and to argue that poor dumb animals were created for man to abuse, and to torment, is unreasonable as well as unjust. Man is undoubtedly the superior part of creation, and the Almighty has given all things for his use, but not for his abuse, as many erroneously imagine. I would now introduce "fishing," though, perhaps, it ought scarcely to be brought under the denomination of field sports. Many, who would by no means either hunt or shoot, indulge the misery it occasions, would be moved with pity and compassion, were they to see a hare torn by dogs, lying bleeding and expiring on the ground. In what has been said, my intention is not to condemn all those who indulge in these diversions, but rather to submit to their candid inquiry, whether they are consistent with humanity or not? If you acknowledge, that not to make use of the recreations allowed us by the Almighty, is despising our privileges and his goodness; I think you must also acknowledge, that seeking pleasure from the destruction of animals is likewise acting inconsistently with his mercy towards us. It is not probable that a just and merciful God would create animals for us to torment; and though we have dominion over birds, beasts, and fishes, that power was not given unto us that we might abuse them, but rather make a proper use of them. As we are commanded to be merciful, as our Father in heaven is, it is so far wrong to torment animals, that it is even a duty enjoined to behave with tenderness towards them. Should it be said, that they are below our notice; I would ask, are we below God's notice? for I conceive the difference between God and man to be much greater than between man and beasts; and if he shews so much mercy towards us, we ought also to do so towards them. I would by no means (as I mentioned above) be thought to condemn all sportsmen indiscriminately, as I have no doubt there are many kind-hearted, tender, and even humane, among them. I attribute it to want of thought, and too great familiarity with the sports. A butcher thinks no more of knocking down a beast than if it were a log of wood, because he is familiar with the employment. A sportsman sees no cruelty in chasing a poor fox or hare to death, from the very same reason. The same excuse cannot be made for man tormenting beasts, as for beasts tormenting one another; and if it is reason which makes man superior to a beast, I cannot see how he can shew his superiority in any other way than in the exercising of it. Let every sportsman consider whether he is justified in his occupation or not; let him candidly inquire into the propriety and reasonableness of it; and let him act, not according to the custom of the age, and the example of others, but to the dictates of his own conscience. It is neither charitable nor just that I should condemn him; but if he condemns himself, then is there sufficient evidence both against the propriety and lawfulness of these pursuits. W. C. ON FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY, AS (From Dr. A. Clarke's Commentary on 1. Love, is properly the image of God in the soul; for God is love. By faith, we receive from our Maker; by hope, we expect a future and eternal good; but by love, we resemble God; and by it alone we are qualified to enjoy heaven, and so be one with him throughout eternity. Faith, says one, is the foundation of the Christian life and of good works: Hope rears the superstructure; but Love finishes, completes, and crowns it in a blessed eternity. Faith and hope respect ourselves alone; love takes in both God and man. Faith helps, and hope sustains us; but love to God and man makes us obedient and useful. This one consideration is sufficient to shew that love is greater than either faith or hope. duration. However high, glorious, or sublime, the soul may be in that eternal state, it will ever, in respect to God, be limited in its powers; and must be improved and expanded by the communications of the supreme Being. Hence it will have infinite glories in. the nature of God to apprehend by faith, to anticipate by hope, and to enjoy by love. 3. From the nature of the Divine: perfections, there must be infinite glories in them, which must be the objects of faith to disembodied spirits;> because it is impossible that they should be experimentally or positively known by any creature. Even in the heaven of heavens we shall, in reference to the infinite and eternal excellencies of God, walk by faith, and not by sight. We shall credit the existence of infinite and illimitable glories in Him, which, from their absolute and infinite nature, must be incommunicable. And, as the very nature of the soul shews it to be capable of eternal growth and improvement; so the communications from the Deity, which are to produce this growth, and effect this improvement, must be objects of faith to the pure spirit; and, if objects of faith, consequently objects of hope: for as hope is "the expectation of future good," it is inseparable from the nature of the soul, to know of the existence of any attainable good, without making it immediately the object of desire or hope. And is it not this that shall constitute the eternal and progressive happiness of the immortal spirit; viz. knowing, from what it has received, that there is infinitely more to be received; and desiring to be put in possession of every communicable good which it knows to exist? 4. As faith goes forward to view, so hope goes forward to desire; and God continues to communicate; every communication making way for another, by preparing the soul for greater en2. Some say that love is the greatest, joyment; and this enjoyment must because it remains throughout eter-produce love. To say that the soul nity, whereas faith and hope proceed only through life; hence we say, that there faith is lost in sight, and hope in fruition. But does the apostle say so? I believe not. Faith and hope will as necessarily enter into eternal glory, as love will. The perfections of God are absolute in their nature, infinite in number, and eternal in their can have neither faith nor hope in a future state, is to say that, as soon as it enters heaven, it is as happy as it can possibly be; and this goes to exclude all growth in the eternal state; and all progressive manifestations and communications of God: and consequently to fix a spirit, which is a composition of infinite desires, in a state of eternal sameness, in which | must be objects of faith. 10. Every it must be greatly changed in its constitution, to find endless gratification. holy spirit feels itself possessed of unlimited desires, for the enjoyment of spiritual good; and faith in the infinite goodness, necessarily implies that he will satisfy every desire he has excited. 11. The power to gratify, in the Divine Being, and the capacity to be gratified in the immortal spirit, will necessarily excite continual desires; which desires, on the evidence of faith, will as necessarily produce hope, which is the expectation of future good. 12. All possible perfections in God, are the objects of faith: and the communication of all possible blessedness, the object of hope. 13. Faith goes forward to apprehend, and hope to anticipate, as God continues to discover his unbounded glories and perfections. 14. Thus discovered and desired, their influences become communicated, love possesses them, and is excited and increased by communication. 15. With respect to those which are communicated, faith and hope cease, and go forward to new apprehensions and anticipations, while love continues to retain and enjoy the whole. 16. Thus an eternal interest is kept up; and infinite blessings, in endless succession, apprehended, anticipated, and enjoyed. 5. To sum up the reasoning on this subject I think it necessary to observe-1. That the term faith is here to be taken in the general sense of the word, for that belief which a soul has of the infinite sufficiency and goodness of God; in consequence of the discoveries he has made of himself and his designs, either by revelation, or immediately by his Spirit. Now we know that God has revealed himself not only in reference to this world, but in reference to eternity; and much of our faith is employed in things pertaining to the eternal world, and the enjoyments in that state. 2. That hope is to be taken in its common acceptation, the expectation of future good: which expectation is necessarily founded on faith; as faith is founded on knowledge. God gives a revelation which concerns both worlds, containing exceeding great and precious promises relative to both. We believe what he has said on his own veracity; and we hope to enjoy the promised blessings in both worlds, because he is faithful who hath promised. 3. As the promises stand in reference to both worlds, so 6. My opinion, that faith and hope, also must the faith and hope to which as well as love, will continue in a future these promises stand as objects. state, will, no doubt, appear singular 4. The enjoyments in the eternal to many, who have generally considerworld are all spiritual, and must pro-ed the two former as terminating in ceed immediately from God himself. 5. God in the plenitude of his excellencies, is as incomprehensible to a glorified spirit, as he is to a spirit resident in flesh and blood. 6. Every created, intellectual nature, is capable of eternal improvement. 7. If seeing God as he is, be essential to the eternal happiness of beatified spirits, then the discoveries which he makes of himself must be gradual; forasmuch as it is impossible, that an infinite eternal nature, can be manifested to a limited and created nature, in any other way. 8. As the perfections of God are infinite, they are capable of being eternally manifested: and after all manifestations, there must be an infinitude of perfections still to 7. I conclude therefore, from these, be brought to view. 9. As every and a multitude of other reasonings soul that has any just notion of God, which might be brought to bear on must know that he is possessed of all this subject, that faith and hope will possible perfections; so the perfec-ever exist in the eternal world as well tions being the objects of knowledge, as love; and that there, as well as here, this lower world: but this arises from an improper notion of the beatified state, and from inattention to the state and capacity of the soul. If it have the same faculties there, which it has here, howsoever improved they may be, it must acquire its happiness from the supreme Being, in the way of communication; and this communication must necessarily be gradual, for the reasons already alleged; and if gradual, then there must be (if in that state we have any knowledge at all of the Divine nature) faith that such things exist, and may be communicated; desire to possess them, because they are good; and hope that these good things shall be communicated. REFLECTIONS ON THE GLORY OF "Fame's favourite minion! What will posterity say of him who agitated the half of Europe in the nineteenth century? They will ap it may endlessly be said, The greatest of these is love. With great propriety, therefore, does the apostle exhort, Follow after love; it being so essen-plaud his prowess and individual coutial to our comfort and happiness here, │rage; they will be astonished at the and to our beatification in the eternal effects produced by his desolating leworld; and how necessary faith and gions, and wonder at his temerity in love are to the same end, we have al- penetrating the consuming region of ready seen. Russia. The historian of future years will do him justice; the present cannot; our prejudices are too prevalent, some exalting him with enthusiastic fervour, and others debasing him with unmerited malignity. Were we removed a century or two from the period of the Corsican adventurer, our decisions would be more liberal and correct; and the actions of his eventful reign would outshine those of any other on historic record. His courage, talent, discernment, successes, discomfitures, manoeuvres, and extraordinary alternatives, endurance of varying climates, heat and cold, midnightwatchings, secret assassinations, ambition, unquenched by Russian snows, the last struggle of his aspiring spirit, his degradation, banishment, and death,-will interest the men of after years, and command their admiring astonishment. THERE is not a more moving spectaele in the world than a fallen hero: however great may have been his crimes, he is calculated to gain our sympathy and commiseration; as the height from which he falls requires him to be armed with more than common philosophy to sustain the shock; and he displays no less the man by bearing, than he did the hero by conquering. It has been doubted by many, whether Napoleon can lay just claim to the above title of hero. If we examine the pretensions of those of ancient days who received the appellative, we shall discover, that on the same grounds of bloody warfare and devastation, which placed the laurel on the brows of Titus, Alexander, and Cæsar, Napoleon is fully entitled to the glorious term. It is pleaded, that the obliterating offences of his career are sufficient to expunge his fame; but were the generals of Carthage, Greece, or Rome, a whit the less culpable? By no means. He was deceiving, cruel, remorseless, and vindictive-so were they: he despised and trampled on the feelings of our common nature-they did the same: he was a brave man, possessed of enterprise, military tact, and prompt decision, they also possessed these characteristics. The path of a conqueror is always paved with fluctuation and uncertainty; and, consequently, it requires all his sophistry to maintain it: hence his breaches of honour and integrity, his private murders, and midnight stabbings, are a necessary policy, requisite to preserve the halo of his glory. In the phraseology of history, Napoleon was a hero, and one of the greatest men that ever lived. We love to peruse the page of Grecian and Roman history, and pursue the hero in his track of subjugation ; but with what a more ardent feeling we read of the great transactions which have transpired in our day:Napoleon's rise and bravery; his successful accomplishment of the passage of the Alps; the expedition to Egypt, and the address he there displayed; the awful scenes at Leipzic and Moscow; his appalling retreat; exile to Elba; and his final effort at Waterloo, where the field rung with the name of him who had so often addressed the participators of his reverses, in that strain of impassioned eloquence which fixed his image for ever in their hearts; for they regarded him with the adora tion of a canonized prelate.-But, ah! brave Frenchmen! the day is not yours, your emperor himself despairs ; and the orb of "garish day" seems to smile in derision at your fruitless essays for mastery; ye are routed, your commander flies, and the awful mixture of carnage and destruction is unparalleled! Yet what is the horror, compared to the bleeding bosom of him whose hope has eternally fled? the whole of his army, with the exc tion of a few fugitives, stretched be- from the diminished power of the great neath the moon-beam, and he the mes- luminary. That the moon also has senger of his own discomfiture and an influence is the popular belief, and flight. Behold him at the transient it must be regarded as exceedingly bivouac, pensively musing on the con- probable. The rise of the tide, as sequences of the battle; how poig- produced by her, must eause a vibranantly his recollection goads him with tion in the fields of air; and the attracrecent occurrences; and the loud and tion itself may be supposed not less remorseless shouts of pursuing victory || effectual to produce a fluctuation in penetrate his leafy retreat, triumphing the atmosphere than in the ocean. It in his frustrated attempt, and adding was a reflection of this sort that led to the bitter draught placed before the illustrious Boyle to the invention him. The imperial dignity has forsa- of the barometer; and though it failed ken him; and that crown, with which to shew exactly what he expected, the the Pope had encircled his brows, has discovery has been a valuable one for fallen to the earth: he knew the only the purposes of science. resource left him was to abdicate. The failure of the reasoning à priori has been no less conspicuous in the researches into the changes of the air than its tides. The variations of the seasons, from wet to dry, and from stormy to serene, should have, from theory, returned in a cycle of nineteen years, such being the limits of the lunar and solar changes. But this is All is past.-The mighty one, who "cried, forsooth, because his arm was hampered," is at rest; and the tranquillity that reigns around his tomb is a striking contrast to the pursuits of his life. The peaceful island, and the drooping willows which reciprocally weep over the slumbering chief, appear at war with the din of Auster-known not to be the case; and though litz and Marengo. But he is gone, and from his example we may reap instruction.--The holy scriptures teach us the futility of trusting in our strength, by telling us of great men being tumbled from the pinnacle of their own erection, and their impiety punished with premature death: but conquerors reflect not on the retribution of Heaven, till it comes like the sweeping whirlwind; "For I the Lord have spoken it;" and their reckless course of bloodshed and impunity is cut short by the unimpeachable justice of an unearthly tribunal. Lambeth Road, May 1826. H. METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. (NO. II.) (Continued from col.719.) BETWEEN the tropics, the seasons are known to proceed with a very great degree of regularity. The wind changes, or continues to blow, in a uniform manner; and the wet and dry seasons are very rarely found to encroach on each other. There is no doubt that this is regulated by the annual march of the sun; and such being the case, it might very naturally be supposed, that the fluctuations of the atmosphere nearer the poles must be under the dominion of the same influence, though in a manner somewhat less marked, Un favourable or unfavourable seasons |