SHOP SIGNS IN RUSSIA. THE frequent paintings before shops and houses, convey the intended information in the shortest and simplest manner. The optician of Petersburg has all the glasses and instruments made by him painted on his shop window; the butcher has, at his door, a picture, often executed by no inexpert painter, representing a number of oxen, cows, and sheep, and himself presenting a large piece of meat to a lady who is passing. The streets, which otherwise are rather monotonous, are thereby rendered, in a high degree, entertaining. You see bakers' shops, where, outside the door, above, between, and below the windows, are painted representations of all the different forms of bread customary in Petersburg. The lamp-maker, instead of entering into a long description of the lamps which he manufactures, and of their different sizes and dimensions, submits them all in one view to the choice of the passenger on one large board. Nay, the pianoforte maker, the confectioner, and others who have no occasion to address themselves to the common man, have adopted this custom; and you frequently see boards, with pictures of violins, flutes, pianos, tarts, confectionary, sausages, pasties, hams, and wearing apparel, hung out from the first and second story. A Petersburg barber, indeed every barber in Russia, makes known his profession by the following picture: a lady leans back fainting in a chair. Before her, with a lancet, stands a surgeon, who is bleeding her; and from her white arm, spirts a stream of blood, which a boy is catching in a basin. A man is sitting near and getting shaved; and the whole picture is surrounded by an arabesque of tooth-drawing instruments, cupping glasses, and leeches. These paintings, in general, are pretty; and on those of the French marchande de modes, all the caps and fine laces are often beautifully executed. One would suppose that a single figure would be sufficient to denote all the articles in which a tradesman deals; but this is not the case. Not only must every sort of braces and stockings that a man has for sale be represented on his board, but likewise a complete dress for ladies and gentlemen. The coffee-house keeper exhibits a whole company sipping coffee and smoking cigars at their ease; and the goldsmith displays not only rings and stars, but whole-length generals and mi nisters, whose breasts and ten fingers glisten with diamonds, gold crosses of orders, and pearls. Many handicraftsmen, whose productions can scarcely be represented, for instance, the cloth-dresser, give at least, in the minutest detail, the whole of the implements which they use. The Russians are proud of these signs, and much might be said concerning them with reference to their character. You may frequently see at old ruinous kabahs, where beer and spirits are sold, large gilt signs with pompous paintings.-Kohl. [It used to be much the same in London a century ago. See the "Spectator."] THE PERAMBULATOR. BURNHAM BEECHES. IF you are fond of society, go to the Burnham Beeches, that the contrasting solitude may send you back again, with a more fraternal spirit and a keener appetite for communion with your fellow-men. If you are fond of solitude, go to the Burnham Beeches, that you may drink deep of peaceful retirement, and quaff to satiety the cool, the balmy, the soft and soothing influence of forest scenery. Oh how I love to gaze on the bulky stems and spreading branches of ancient trees, standing like warriors, bearing high their plumed heads, as if daring the raging winds to do their worst; or, like friendly bowers erected in the wilderness, to give shelter in the storm, and shade in the noon-tide beam, to the lower creatures of creation! There they stand, stately and graceful, adorning the goodly scene, rejoicing in the balmy breeze, and with their waving, sun-lit leaves, inviting the feathered race to hold a joyous jubilee amid their branches! And what has brought me here? It was by accident that my eye fell on the following paragraph in a periodical. It may be that you have read it as well as myself. "Within five and twenty miles of St. Paul's, the Great Western Railway will place us in an hour, having an additional walk of two miles, in the heart of one of the most secluded districts in England. We know nothing of forest scenery equal to Burnham Beeches. There are no spots approaching to it in wild grandeur to be found in Windsor Forest; Sherwood, we have been told, has trees as ancient, but few so entirely untouched in modern times." This was enough, for never was there a dearer lover of nature N in her retired scenes than I. The Great Western Railway has hurried me along from great London city, I have walked onward from the Maidenhead station, and am now gazing on Burnham Beeches. Perhaps you may have been at Exeter Hall, at a public meeting, when it has been crammed to suffocation, when the hot breath of the assembled multitude has tainted the atmosphere, and the clapping of a thousand hands has responded to the happy thought and word of some eloquent speaker on the platform. You may also have been present in London on the night of an illumination, when the public offices and public edifices have been blazing with a profusion of variegated lamps, in the shapes of crowns, and stars, and anchors; while the streets, peopled with thousands and tens of thousands of buoyant-hearted spectators, have been almost impassable. Or you may possibly have been jammed into the denser mass of human beings, congregated and wedged together, crushing, struggling, writhing, shouting, and shrieking, at a London fire. If you love a contrast, and have ever seen all or any of these exhibitions, you cannot do better than recall them to your memory when enjoying the cool, sequestered, impressive, and solemn solitude of Burnham Beeches. But let me take a rapid review of my pleasant walk to this place. Leaving the railroad station, and turning across the fields, I soon saw a sweet castle-like dwelling on one side my pathway, and a sober-looking church, with a tower, on the other; while still farther to the right the railroad signals were visible, with the proud towers of Windsor's proud Castle in the distance. The air was pure, the sky blue, the fields green, and the bushes and briers rich with varied hues, and abounding with sloes and blackberries. How balmy is country air! How sweet are country scenes! Men and women were labouring in the fields, the fragrant smoke from a score of weed-burning fires was grateful to the smell. Hips, hawthorns, wild plums, and the creeping plant called 'honesty" in full flower, adorned the hedges, while the ditches were choked up with a wild, tangled profusion, and boundless prodigality of dock and thistle, grounsel, quaking grass, and fern, mixed with the white-blowed nettle, the blue harebell, the purple mallow, the red poppy, and the yellow dandelion. At one place, I came to a wide-spread feast of blackberries, almost equal to those that I plucked in the years of my boyhood. With greedy pleasure, I picked the tip-toppers, regaling gratefully on a banquet that was fit for a prince. At some distance, I saw some very young children, with besmeared faces, occupied in the same manner. "They are feasting too," said I, "and why should they not? Bless their little hearts, there is enough for us all!" At the village of Lent, I turned aside among the green hillocks of the churchyard. On a wooden frame were written the following simple lines: "Weep not, dear friends, since happy I shall be, Weep for yourselves, and do not weep for me." Another inscription recorded the death of one Jane Bayley, who died at the advanced age of one hundred years. Passing through the village of Burnham, I rambled onward across the fields, enjoying the "rookeries and crookeries" that continually presented themselves. Pleasant were the shady lanes, and the retired branches from them to the sequestered meadows, and very grateful to the foot Here was a hole in the bank, whence a was the soft, cool grass on which I trod. colony of wasps had evidently been dislodged by some young marauders. There, small thread-like roots, with the suspended earth upon them, dangled in the sunshine, casting their playful shadows on the illuminated hollow beyond them; while yonder a furze bush in full bloom, a galaxy of golden glory, arrested my attention. The crow cawed far above me, the magpie uttered his jarring cry, reminding me of the noise made by small pebbles, when shaken together. I heard the sound of the hoe, though the la bourers were unseen. from a bush, plucked a blackberry from a I pulled a nut brier, and picked up a milk-white mushroom from the green turf. At one moment, I gazed around me, uttering an ejaculation of joy, and at another, burst into a song of praise. "O God, my heart is fully bent My tongue, with cheerful songs of praise, Awake my lute; nor thou, my harp, Prevent the dawning day." The scene gradually increased in interest. I passed the common, studded with woody clumps, while juniper trees increased in number as I proceeded, and pollard beeches of enormous size here and there stood apart, as though they had withdrawn themselves from the forest throng; their mighty boles and branches were arresting to the eye, and not less so to the heart. My mind was moved as I looked upon them. Huge and distorted, they stood clothed with influence. Age is theirs, and solemnity; Might, majesty, and grandeur, stern and rude, And silence deep, and sylvan solitude. This is indeed retirement! In wandering the wood and glades, I have neither seen the form, nor heard the voice, of a human being. Nature reigns and revels here in seclusion, and long has she held her sway. When once a solitary old man, as he sat on a stump in this place, was asked who planted the wood, "Planted!" he replied, "it was never planted: those trees are as old as the world." Look at the gnarled and twisted pollard yonder! Were that stalwart old forester endued with understanding, memory, and the gift of speech, what tales might he not tell of bygone years, of grey-headed gaffers taking shelter in the storm, of gypsies, bivouacking in the glade, and of ruffian robbers hiding themselves in the leafy labyrinth of the wood. As it is, he stands voiceless, save when the gentle or turbulent winds move him to murmur or remonstrate against their trespasses on his peace. My present emotions would make it a pleasant thing to me to pitch my tent, and dwell awhile in this sylvan solitude. It would be sweet to wander these glades, to muse in the coverture of overhanging branches, and to admire when the clouds of heaven were glowing with beauty, and the trees of the field were clapping their hands. Did you ever mark the ease, the softness, the grace with which the forest tree waves its branches, and turns up its leaves in the breeze? Did you ever regard with high-wrought emotion, the warped and mighty oak waging war with the enraged winds? It is, indeed, an arresting spectacle when the forest Anak is seen rocking, writhing, and struggling in the grasp of the tempest. His resistance is in vain; at last the tempest prevails, tearing him from his stronghold, and tumbling him, with a discordant crash, headlong to the ground. As I gaze on the massy beechen trunks around me, I think of cathedral piles, of Gothic arches, and goodly arcades; my fancy is busy with the scene, and brings before me a mixed confusion of sunshine, acorns, dried leaves, and golden fern; of timid hares and antlered stags, dappled deer, and fawns, and foxes; of polecats, bats, and bristled hedgehogs; of tree-climbing squirrels with spreading tails. I hear the cooing of the wood pigeon, the wild cry of the screech owl, the mellow pipe of the blackbird, and the hum of the busy bees. Now the sun is piercing with his mid-day beams the interstices of the wood, and now the silvery rays of the midnight moon are coldly glittering through the ebon branches. Imaginary scenes flit rapidly before me. The report of the sportsman's gun comes sharp upon the ear, the wounded pheasant flies heavily across the glade; and hark! the beagles are abroad, and the forest resounds with the wild cry of the hunters, and the murderous music of the clamorous dogs! This is a goodly place in which to act the traveller in miniature; to go MungoParking on a small scale; or to wander, like Catlin, the woods and wilds of North America. What is to hinder me from fancying myself among the Choctaws and Cherokees, the Crees and the Crows, the Pawnees, the Sioux, and the Camachees west of the Mississippi? The surrounding fields will do for a prairie, the cattle will make capital buffaloes, and the scream of the large bird which has just rapidly passed over my head, and disappeared among the trees, is no indifferent substitute for the war-whoop of the red man. But though the place may be fit for these things, it is still fitter to be visited by him who would ponder in uninterrupted solitude the vanity of earthly things, and deeply meditate on God's holy word. "What is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" Psa. viii. 4. "Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel," Isa. xliv. 23. The sun is setting, and the gloom thickens around; yet still I wander according to the impulse of the moment, as the numberless vignettes and deeper seclusions of the place attract my eye. The stately ash, and the silver-barked, feathery, fantastic birch, has each its charm; but the bulky beeches are the monarchs of the soil, rivalling one another in stature, strength, and beauty. Here one stands apart like an eremite, dwelling alone; and there, a giant group, in friendly brotherhood, are congregated. To describe the Burnham Beeches would be an endless task; but most of them have trunks of immense size, from ten to fifteen feet high, from the top of which start up goodly trees, apparently fresh and young. Some are small, smooth, solid, and sound. Some have knotted, enormous, and distorted boles, and roots grotesque and hideous, suggesting thoughts of satyrs and dragons, "Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire." Others are twisted, as though a giant had seized them by their pollard heads, and wrenched them round in his rage; while many are as hollow as age can render them. I have just entered one of these, that would comfortably shelter eight or ten men from the storm. The last rays of the retiring sun are gilding the ridges of red gravel that rise up in the forest scenery, one above another, to the table-land. I have explored all the depths and broken ground; pushed through the tangled gorse, and fern, and holly bushes, and brambles. I have gazed on the oaks, the ashes, the beeches, the juniper trees, and mused and revelled among them. I recommend every lover of nature once in his life to visit the Burnham Beeches. The sun has set, and the moon is in the sky, yet am I still wandering amid the arresting light and shade, the silvery glare and ebon gloom of this interesting and absorbing retirement. At this moment, the solitude and silence are perfect, if the faint rustle of a few waving leaves is excepted. I am lost; I know not which way to turn to leave the forest labyrinth; nor does it trouble me: it would not much ruffle my spirit to lay myself down for the night beneath these goodly trees. If I lost myself in the wood, still more have I been bewildered in the shadowy and winding lanes through which, at last, I have reached this place. As I wended my way by the light of the silvery moon, the unknown roads appeared to be as zigzagged as a Z. Some miles have I swerved from my proper path. Had I returned the same road by which I visited the Beeches, this might have been avoided. But no matter; I have had a delightful day! This is Salt Hill; Eton Montem is visible in the moonshine, and a walk of half a mile farther will bring me to the railroad station at Slough, from which place, all well, I shall soon be whirled to London. THE TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF MAN. Ir man be not utterly depraved, he must be in one of these two states: either perfectly good, without any mixture of sin; or good, with some admixture of evil and imperfection. The first of these suppositions carries its own absurdity upon the face of it. The second is plausible, and more generally received. Yet, it is not difficult to prove, that if a man had any remaining good in him, that is, towards God, he could not possibly be the creature that he now is. There could not be that carelessness about his eternal welfare, that deadness to spiritual things, which we perceive in every individual, whose heart has not been renewed by Divine grace. Man would not love pleasure more than God. He would not prefer the things which are seen and temporal, to the things which are not seen and eternal. He would not trifle with sin. He would not sneer at holiness. He would not habitually neglect to pray. All these things are utterly incompatible with the hypothesis, that man is only partially fallen from God. The very least spark of innate goodness, would imply a restless dissatisfaction in what is evil; an importunate longing to be freed from it. The man in whom such a spark of goodness existed, would breathe after lost communion with his Maker. He would prefer God's will and pleasure to his own. The honours that come from God only would be dearer to him than the most splendid tribute of human found in man before his reception of applause. Is any thing like this to be Divine grace? No. He lives "without God in the world:" chooses his own will and pleasure, and seeks his own glory. He is utterly selfish; therefore, he is utterly fallen. We find, then, that the doctrine of man's partial depravity involves absurd consequences. It leads to conclusions which are wholly at variance with fact. These reflections bring us back to the Scripture statement. We admit that the heart of man may yet be the seat of many noble and tender affections towards his fellow man. But in regard to God, we declare his affections to be alienated, his understanding darkened, his will depraved. "There is none that understandeth; there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one," Rom. iii. 11, 12.-M. J. Graham. THE EMIGRANTS. JOHN ANDERSON, not many years ago, was a farmer, though on a very small scale, in Cumberland, where he had married at a very early age, and without obtaining in his wife any other fortune than sound health, good sense, excellent temper, and steady religious principles. John himself had been well brought up by his father, who had been a petty shopkeeper in the town of, but one of the most Christian characters among its inhabit ants. John had looked carefully to his farming labour, was up early and late, drove his cow to the fair, when he wanted to dispose of one; took his corn to market, stood between the stilts of his plough very frequently; he was altogether a stirring active man, in no danger of begging in harvest, because, like the sluggard of Solomon, he would not plough by reason of the cold. He well knew that he would reap according as he sowed; and he was not so foolish as to dream, that he could "gather_grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles!" In short, he knew that he must work. Five years ago, a seven years' lease of his farm was about to expire, and his landlord desired to take the land into his own hands for some particular purpose, which John Anderson considered reasonable.This of course obliged him to look out for another farm; but finding great difficulty in settling himself to his satisfaction, and reading a report of the Sussex emigrants, which gave a very favourable account of their settlement in North America, he one day proposed to his wife that they should seek the far country also. "Mary,' said he, "we cannot abide here; our family is springing up and increasing, and our income is dwindling away; and if I take another farm for seven years, we may lose it at the end of that time, and we shall, in that case, be as unsettled as now; and as far from having an independence for the children. What, would you think of going to the New World?" Mrs. Anderson turned pale, and her pulse beat fast at the bare suggestion of leaving the fields and the hedgerows, the friends, and the relatives, that were dear to her; but being a reflecting woman, and willing to do the best for her family, she did not even at the first give a decided No. Her husband took occasion to touch upon the subject again and again, as favourable opportunities arose; he read all the little books he could procure on emigration, and went round to converse with those who could give him information. In short, the desire of flitting was strong upon him, and his wife saw that there was wisdom in his choice. "The land will be our own," said she, "if we reach it in safety, and that is a comfort." "The children," chimed in John, "will have a property in America, please God, when we are gone to a still farther country, and that for ever." "For ever!" added Mrs. Anderson, "is a long time at this side of the grave; but if they obtain the grace of God, and enough of this world's stores for plain food and clothing, we should be thankful, and not wish for more. Trusting in God, then, let us go forth to that land." Now the Andersons, at this time, had four children, three boys and one girl, the eldest of whom was twelve years old, and the youngest four; and they calculated upon the assistance which these "olive branches" would afford to them as they acquired age and vigour. John also had a nephew, the orphan son of a poor clerk, who had been buffeted by the world, and had just lived long enough to taste its unkindness, and to be convinced that pride, vanity, selfishness, and the disposition to turn aside from the distressed, are among the prevailing infirmities of man. That nephew was a stout fellow, who could handle an axe cleverly, and would, no doubt, readily accompany his uncle to the New World. So thought John, and he judged rightly. Preparations were accordingly made for the emigration of the whole family to Upper Canada, where Anderson had reason to believe God was worshipped more after their own manner, than in most other colonies; and this weighed considerably in directing his choice. He wished to preserve his family in the good and right way. How else could he have expected a blessing upon his progress? And though, for a time, he might not have very frequent opportunities of partaking of the full benefits of public worship, he could say with Joshua, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." "We will go," added he, "where we can at least sometimes assemble together to worship the Lord.” The sale of his little property produced about 2007. over the amount of all his debts; and with this sum the usual necessary stores of clothes and tools for the |