Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

ON TIME.

(From "LACON; or, Many Things in Few Words:" by the REV. C. COLTON.)

TIME is the most undefinable, yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of the lightning, at once exists and expires.-Time is the measure of all things, but is itself immeasurable, and the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undisclosed. Like space, it is incomprehensible, because it has no limit, and it would be still more so if it had. It is more obscure in its source than the Nile, and in its termination than the Niger; it advances like the slowest tide, but retreats like the swiftest torrent. It gives wings of lightning to pleasure, but feet of lead to pain; and lends expectation a curb, but enjoyment a spur, It robs beauty of her charms, to bestow them on her picture, and builds a monument to merit, but denies it a house: it is the transient and deceitful flatterer of falsehood, but the tried and final friend of truth. Time is the most subtle yet the most insatiable of depredators, and by appearing to take nothing, is permitted to take all; nor can it be satisfied until it has stolen the world from us, and us from the world. It constantly flies, yet overcomes all things by flight; and although it is the present ally, it will be the future conqueror of death.-Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counsellor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other; but, like Cassandra, it warns us with a voice that even the sagest discredit too long, and the silliest believe too late. Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it: he that has made it his friend, will have little to fear from his enemies; but he that has made it his enemy, will have little to hope from his friends.

THE LORD'S PRAYER ILLUSTRATED.
(From an Old Writer.)

Our Father, (Isa. lxiii. 16.) '

By right of creation, (Mal. ii. 10.)
By bountiful provision, (Psal. cxlv. 16.)
By gracious adoption: (Eph. i. 5.)

Who art in heaven, (1 Kings viii. 43.)
The throne of thy glory, (Isa. lxvi. 1.)
The portion of thy children, (1 Pet. i. 4.)
The temple of thy angels: (Isa. vi. 1.)
Hallowed be thy name, (Psal. cxv. 1.)

By the thoughts of our hearts, (Psal. lxxxvi. 11.)
By the words of our lips, (Psal. li. 15.)

By the work of our hands: (1 Cor. x. 31.)
Thy kingdom come, (Psal. cx. 2.)

Of providence to defend us, (Psal. xvii. 8.)
Of grace to refine us, (1 Thess. v. 23.)

Of glory to crown us: (Col. iii. 4.)

Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven, (Acts xxi. 14.)

Towards us, without resistance, (1 Sam. iii. 18.) By us, without compulsion, (Psal. cxix. 36.) Universally, without exception, (Luke i. 16.) Eternally, without declension: (Psal. cxix. 93.) Give us this day our daily bread,

Of necessity, for our bodies, (Prov. xxx. 8.)
Of eternal life, for our souls: (John vi. 34.)
And forgive us our trespasses, (Psal. xxv. 11.
Against the commands of thy law, (1 John iii. 4.)
Against the grace of thy gospel: (1 Tim. i. 13.)
As we forgive them that trespass against us, (Matt.
vi. 15.)

By defaming our characters, (Matt. v. 11.)
By embezzling our property, (Philem. 18.)
By abusing our persons: (Acts vii. 60.)

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil, (Matt. xxvi. 41.)

Of overwhelming afiliction, (Fsal. cxxx. 1.)

Of worldly enticements, (1 John ii. 15.)
Of Satan's devices, (1 Tim. iii. 7.)
Of error's seduction, (1 Tim. vi. 10.)
Of sinful affections: (Rom. i. 26.)

For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever: (Jude 25.)

Thy kingdom governs all, (Psalm ciii. 19.).
Thy power subdues all, (Phil. iii. 20.)
Thy glory is above all: (Psal. cxlviii. 13.)

Amen, (Eph. i.. 11.).

As it is in thy purposes, (Isa. xiv. 27.)
So it is in thy promises, (2 Cor i. 20.).
So be it in our prayers, (Rev. xxii. 20.).
So it shall be to thy praise. (Rev. xix. 4.)

DIVINE OMNISCIENCE:

AN ANECDOTE.

A FATHER said to his son, who was at a SundaySchool, and had attended to what he heard there, Carry this parcel to such a place." "It is Sunday," said the boy. "Put it in your pocket," replied the father. "GoD can see in my pocket," answered the child.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY::

AN ANECDOTE.

STEPHEN, King of Poland, said to those who persuaded him to constrain some of his subjects, who were of a different religion, to embrace his OWD, “ I am King of men, but not of conscience. The dominion of conscience belongs exclusively to Gop."

HINT TO YOUNG PERSONS WHO PROFESS ATTACHMENT TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. ONE of the young ladies, in a family of high respectability, lately thought it her duty to go to a different place of worship from that which the rest

ANCIENT CHARACTERS.

309

of the family usually attended. On a friend's asking her father how he permitted her to do so, he replied, "Why, to tell you the truth, Elizabeth had not a very good temper before; she was sometimes apt to be very warm, and I find her now so much improved in this respect, that I have no objections to her going to any church where she appears to get so much benefit." While we cannot but admire the good sense of such a reply, does not the anecdote suggest an important hint to every young reader who professes to have any discernment of christian doctrine, and to consider it a privilege to hear it faithfully preached? Let such see that they eminently adorn their religious profession by a temper and conduct becoming the Gospel. (INNES's Domestic Religion, p. 52.)

ANCIENT CHARACTERS.

No. IV.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

IT has been the fault of biography in general, and especially of ancient biography, that those who have undertaken to give an account of great and illustrious men have too often, by an excessive partiality for the characters they intended to pourtray, been led to overcharge their portraits with an undue proportion of virtues and excellencies, and to throw into the shade those ungovernable passions which, so far from raising their heroes beyond the standard of ordinary men, have indeed, as it respects moral worth, reduced them greatly below it. This fault has produced consequences of no light amount. For some persons, blinded with admiration of the talents of antiquity, have been led to imagine that the illustrious characters of Greece and Rome have exhibited the most perfect models of prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude,in short, of every personal and social virtue; while others, misled by false ideas of military glory, have been induced to prefer names distinguished for brilliancy of conquest, and thirst of dominion, to those

which are associated with the mild virtues of calm and peaceable government.

In no instance, perhaps, has this error been more conspicuous, than in the accounts which have been handed down to us of the life of ALEXANDER the GREAT. In order that the readers of the Youth's Instructer may not be left to form an erroneous opinion of this noted personage, I have drawn up a short sketch,-not of his life, strictly speaking, but of his exploits only, from which, I think, a more correct judgment of his real character may be formed, than by any other means.

On the day on which the temple of Ephesus was burned, ALEXANDER, the son of PHILIP, King of Macedon, was born. He was educated by ARISTOTLE, the most celebrated philosopher of that age; and became passionately fond of the poems of HOMER, which he afterwards carried about with him in a rich casket, taken from the spoils of DARIUS, King of Persia. On the death of his father, ALEXANDER ascended the throne at the age of twenty. One of his first exploits was to raze the town of Thebes, and to put up to sale 30,000 inhabitants which it contained. Being named Generalissimo of the troops of Greece, which his father had subdued, he conquered Asia Minor, and danced round the tomb of ACHILLES, the hero for whose memory he had a singular veneration.

After a great victory which he obtained over DARIUS, he became master of Susa. At the conclusion of a drunken entertainment, he burned the palace of XERXES; and afterwards carried off all the riches of Persia upon twenty thousand mules and five thousand

camels.

He caused PARMENIO and his son PHILOTAS to be put to death without any positive charge; and killed with his own hand CLITUS, his intimate friend, in a moment of anger. He caused MENANDER, another of his friends, to be put to death for a slight military disobedience. CALLISTHENES, being suspected by hin of a conspiracy, was arrested by his order, and thrown into prison, where he perished for want.

« AnteriorContinuar »