the wonder of her worth :-she is the nature of perfection in the perfection of nature, where God in Christ shows the glory of Christianity. May God enable the reader to embrace her with all his heart.-Written by N. Breton, in 1616. GROWTH IN KNOWLEDGE.-If I wish to be thoroughly acquainted with the beauties of a palace, I may feel that I need to examine it again and again. At an early period, I made a rough sketch, but the resemblance was extremely imperfect, the proportions were ill taken, and many beauties overlooked. Better informed admirers were satis time under distress of mind, and at times almost ready to despair; but at length he was also brought to a comfortable experience of forgiving love. Some time after, meeting his red brother, he thus addressed him :-"How is it that I should be so long under conviction, when you found comfort so soon ?" "Oh, brother," replied the Indian, "me tell you. There came along new coat; you look at your coat, and say, a rich prince; he propose to give you a I don't know, my coat pretty good; I believe it will do a little longer.' He then offer me new coat. I look on my old blanket: I say, This good for no thing: I fling it right away, and accept try to make your old righteousness do the new coat. Just so, brother, you for some time; you loth to give it up; but I, poor Indian, had none, therefore I glad at once to receive the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ."" HOIST YOUR COLOURS AT ONCE. 'Captain R- was one of those sensible men who know that, by an instant avowal of their real characters and feelings, as disciples of the Lord, they shall save themselves much probable embarrassment, and avoid many snares. He could not agree with some, who, in order not to startle or alarm prematurely such as they hope, nevertheless, to do good to, hold back the distin fied that I saw and could relish the excellencies of the building, while they told me I had much pleasure in reserve from continued observation. I have found it to be so. The palace is by no means altered since I first beheld it; but I have seen it in various states of the weather, in different lights, at different distances, from different quarters. Through the gracious condescension of the prince, I have even been allowed to draw near, and, in common with many others, to measure, though still very inperfectly, the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of it. I do not despise the first rough sketch. Blessed be the master who taught me to draw it. I confess, however, that I seldom compare it with the original, without feel-guishing badge of their service, and to ing that it needs some touches of correction or improvement. I see excellent drawings made by others, which I greatly admire, and acknowledge to be superior to my own. These afford me many an important lesson, but still they are not my standard; it is the object itself that is the model to us all. And when any delineation of it, whether by others or myself, is found to vary from the original, there can be no dispute, whether the pattern or the copy requires alteration.-Greville Ewing. THE RED INDIAN.-" Now is the accepted time."-An Indian and a white man being at worship together, were both struck with conviction by the same sermon. The Indian was shortly after brought to rejoice in pardoning Inercy, The white man was for a long the worldly become as worldlings, that they may gain the worldly,-a very dangerous and mistaken parody on the apostle's proceeding with regard to others. He never lost any time in committing himself, that he might the sooner be actively engaged; unreservedly throwing himself on Divine help, and the wisdom that cometh from above."-Judah's Lion. LIVING ON CHRIST.-The grace that leads to Christ previously comes from Christ; if I live on him, I feel that I am enabled to live to him: there is nothing will teach me to live above the world but living upon Christ. NEARNESS TO GOD.-I cannot express the good of keeping up a good correspondence and connection with God; let me live near him, and I am sure to live far off from sin, Poetry. "NOT NOW." FAINTER her slow step falls from day to day- Make the warm air such luxury to breathe; Not while bright flowers around my footsteps wreathe. "The spring hath ripen'd into summer-time: With silent steps the lord of light moves on; Greets my dull ear, with music in its tone. Tint the ripe fruits, and gild the waving corn; Shouts the halloo, and winds his eager horn: "Spare me awhile, to wander forth and gaze On the broad meadows and the quiet streamTo watch in silence, while the evening rays Slant through the fading trees with ruddy gleam. Cooler the breezes play around my brow: 1 am content to die; but O, not now!" The bleak winds whistle-snow showers, far and near, The spring is come again, the joyful spring: Again the banks with clustering flowers are spread; The wild bird dips upon its wanton wing The child of earth is number'd with the dead! The Children's Gallery. JOSEPH SAMS. ONE of the most remarkable characters of the present day, I recognized at Darlington, in the person of my old schoolmaster, Joseph Sams. I well remembered him, because he caned me twice at school for running errands for him; but since then he had made a great journey into the east in quest of biblical MSS., and here he was, no longer swaying the pedagogic sceptre, but surrounded by quaint and curious books. In listening to his narrative, I forgot the canings, and felt quite ready to run another errand for him, even at the risk of a third rap on the knuckles. He had been in Egypt, mounted one of the pyramids, and wrote a letter thence home; went up into Upper Egypt, and the Lybian Desert; across the Red Sea, where the Israelites crossed it, and followed their track along the wilderness, verifying, as he went, the different locations. He came to Marah, and found to his cost that the water were still bitter, thus, as he said, the more completely proving the truth of the Mosaic account-the sweetening of the waters, by the miracle of the time, being or'y effected for the temporary purpose of the Israelites, and the well being left again to its natural influ ences. lini have since made very familiar to the reader were here locked up in Joseph Sams's journal. He I found him in his Armenian cap, and looking considerably eastern. told me that he has an exhibition-room in London, where he keeps the curiosities collected in his travels, including mummies, and other relics of times that seem to belong rather to dreamland than to reality. He has there two signets of the Pharaohs, taken out of their tombs; one of great value, for which he has been bidden a hundred guineas. He related much concerning the modes of Egyptian burials, as that every profession and rank had their distinguishing signs buried with them: a warrior, some of his weapons; a king, his signet; a baker, some of his bread, of which he had a piece, of an equal date with that which Sarah baked for the sages under the oak of Mamre-a loaf of which now must be rather toughish nibbling. In a farmer's coffin was put wheat; and he had some as old, or older, than that with which Joseph filled the sacks of his brethren. Such are the singular circumstances of life. He went back, and talked of the old school-days-of teachers and scholars that were familiar to us both. What a vacuum! What numbers had gone a longer journey than to Jerusalem or Egypt! And here were we, after more than thirty years, metnot to act over again the running errands, and the canings for it--but to talk of sitting on the top of pyramids, in the tents of Arabs, traversing the wilderness of Sin, swimming in the Jordan, eating figs in Bethlehem, and smoking in the convent of Mount Carmel-just as if these famous places lay somewhere about the Land's End or in the Channel Islands.-William Howitt. He mounted Horeb and Sinai; went on into Palestine; visited Jerusalem, and every spot around it that had been trodden by and illustrated the history of Christ; swimming twice across the Jordan, and bringing a bottle of the water with him, part of which he has yet, having, however, given a few phials of it away. He then returned into Egypt the way that the sons of Jacob went to buy corn during the famine. He kept a journal, which he has, however, never published; and all this he did long before so many people were running hithier and thither, making no more of going to gather dates in Syria than a citizen used to do of going to get a cucumber in his suburban gar- IN the open air and clear sunshine of den; and what Wilkinson and Rossa- a spring morning, while listening to INSECTS. the joyous singing of the birds, I turned my eye upon a piece of water, and viewed, through it, the various things it covered. The sun darted his glowing beams uninterrupted on this spot. The smooth bottom began to elate itself in bubbles, and quickly after to send up parts of its green coat, with every rising bladder of detached air. These plants, which were continued in long filaments to the surface, soon reared their leaves and benumbed branches towards the cause of their new life at the surface. The dusky floor whence they had arisen being now naked and exposed to the sun's influence, disclosed myriads of worms, cheered by the warmth of the sun, unwinding their coiled forms in wantonness and revelry. Whole series of creatures began to expand their little limbs, and creep or swim, or emerge above the surface. In contemplating this scene I could but persuade myself that the source of the Egyptian enthusiasm, all that had given rise to their fabled stories of the production of animals from the mud of the Nile, was now before me. behind it only a thin skin, that had "Happiest of thy race!" said I, "how would thy brother insects envy thee, could they imagine what was now thy state, safe from the danger of the devouring fish, delivered from the cold wet elements, and free as the very air in which thou wantonest!" I had scarcely finished my ejaculation, when a cloud obscured the sun's face; the air grew chill, and hail came rattling down upon the water. The newly animated swarms of reptiles it contained instantly abandoned the transient pleasures they had enjoyed the last half hour, plunged to their orig.al inacNum-tivity in the mud again, and waited in tranquillity a more favourable season. They were now safe and at their ease; but the little beautiful fly, which I had before thought an object of their envy, was destroyed by the first falling of the frozen rain, and floated dead upon its watery bier. While I was ruminating à little creature, of a peculiar form and singular beauty, emerged from the mud. It soon began to vibrate its leafy tail, and to work the several rings of an elegantly constructed body, and to poise six beautiful legs, as if to try whether they were fit for use. bers of others followed it: in a few minutes all that part of the water seemed peopled by this species only. A number of these newly animated beings clustered together under the leaves of a tall plant, part of which was immersed in the water, and part above its surface. One of the insects, allured by the warm rays, rose higher up the plant, came boldly out of the water, and basked in the more free sun-beams under the open air. It had not stood long exposed to the full radiance of the sun, when it seemed on the point of perishing under his too strong heat. Its back suddenly burst open lengthwise, and a creature, wholly unlike the former, arose from within it. A very beautiful fly disengaged itself by degrees, and left I ruminated again, and determined never to be insolent in prosperity,never to triumph over my friend or neighbour because some favourable event had happened to me; hoped I might ever after remember that the poor fly neither knew how his peculiar good fortune came about, nor foresaw, in his enjoyment, to what ruin he alone was exposed.-Sir John Hill. EVENING IN AUTUMN. EVENING, when the busy scenes of our existence are withdrawn, when the sun descending leaves the world to silence, and to the soothing influence of twilight, has been ever à favourite portion of the day with the wise and good of all nations. There appears to be shed over the universal face of nature, at this period, a calmness and tranquillity, a peace and sanctity, as it were, which almost insensibly steal into the breast of man, and disposes him to solitude and meditation. He naturally compares the decline of light and animation with that which attaches to the lot of humanity; and the evening of the day, and the evening of life, become closely assimilated in his mind. It is an association from which, where vice and guilt have not hardened the heart, the most beneficial result has been ever experienced. It is one which, while it forcibly suggests to us the transient tenure of our being here, teaches us at the same time how we may best prepare for that which awaits us hereafter. The sun is descending, but descending, after a course of beneficence and utility, in dignity and glory, whilst all around him, as he sinks, breathes one diffusive air of blessedness and repose. It is a scene which marshals us the way we ought to go; it tells us that, after having passed the fervour and vigour of our existence, the morning and the noon of our appointed pilgrimage, thus should the evening of our days set in, mild yet generous in their close, with every earthly ardour softened or subdued, and with the loveliest hues of heaven just mingling in their farewell light. It is a scène, moreover, which almost instinctively reminds us of another world. The one we are yet inhabiting is gradually receding from our view; the shades of night are beginning to gather round our heads; we feel foraaken and alone, whilst the blessed luminary now parting from us, and yet burning with such ineffable majesty and beauty, seems about to travel into regions of interminable happiness and splendour. We follow him with a pensive and a wistful eye, and, in the vales of glory which appear to open round his setting beams, we behold mansions of everlasting peace, seats of ever-during delight. It is then that our thoughts are carried forward to a Being infinitely good and great, the God and Father of us all, who, distant though he seem to be, and immeasurably beyond the power of our faculties to comprehend, we yet know is about our path, and about our bed, and careth for us all; who has prepared for those who love him scenes of unutterable joy; scenes to which, while rejoicing in the brightness of his presence, the effulgence we have faintly attempted to describe shall be but as the glimmering of a distant star.-Dr. Drake GOOD LIVING. A GENTLEMAN of good estate was not bred to any business, and could not contrive how to waste his hours agreeably. He had no relish for the proper works of life, nor any taste for the improvements of the mind; he generally spent ten hours out of the twenty-four in bed; he dozed away two or three more on his couch, and as many more were dissolved in good liquor every evening, if he met with company of his own humour. Thug he made a shift to wear off ten years of his life since his paternal estate fell into his hands. One evening, as he was musing alone, his thoughts happened to take a most unusual turn, for they cast a glance backward, and he began to reflect on his manner of life. He set himself to compute what he had consumed since he came of age. "About a dozen feathered creatures, small and great, have, one week with another," said he, "given up their lives to prolong mine, which, in ten years, amounts to at least six thousand. Fifty sheep have been sacrificed in a year, with half a hecatomb of black cattle, that I might have the choicest parts offered weekly upon my table. Thus a thousand beasts, out of the flock and herd, have been slain in ten years' time to feed me, besides what the forest has supplied me with. Many hundreds of |