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of them necessary. Felony is unknown, indeed, the inhabitants, on leaving their houses, hang the door-key on a peg outside, that visitors may understand that they are not at home. This reminds us of the rosy pictures we have seen of England under the good old times of King Alfred. A tall ladder is placed against every house in case of fire; and this precaution is all the more necessary as the houses are constructed almost wholly of wood. Fires are, however, unknown. The church is like most Lutheran buildings-plain and unpretending; it contains sittings for six hundred persons. A funeral had just taken place as the travellers entered: "The body, instead of being laid in the grave when the ceremony was over, was taken to a small shed, with a grated wooden door, through which you might see the coffin lying upon trestles. I suppose this was to prevent the possibility of a living interment, although a less elaborate arrangement than the one we saw in Munich, when, in visiting their beautiful cemetery, we came upon a large horseshoe-shaped building, the sides opposite to us of glass, and found ourselves all at once face to face with the dead. It was divided into two compartments, one for the rich and the other for the poor." Captain Hutchinson states that he did not meet with one drunken man while up the countryindeed, to get intoxicated a man must journey some hundreds of miles. The travellers were now two hundred miles from the town of Quickjock, which for its unparalleled beauty was deemed worthy of being reached. The people at Stockholm were astounded that a foreign lady should venture upon such a journey, which was a thing unknown; not more than two or three travellers had ever made their way to the interior of Lapland. But why should not the Lapps have an opportunity of becoming acquainted with an English lady and gentleman-whom the Norwegians would call "wild geese," according to their wise saw, that English travellers are wild geese, for " they only come in the summer, we pluck them, and they fly away again." The tourists proceeded up the river, the scenery becoming less flat as the steamer went along. Villages lined the sides of the stream, and though the extensive falls rendered it compulsory soon to disembark, the travellers were privileged to enjoy an experience new to them. A gig was procured at Röbacken, the pony being driven by a strapping young maiden of seventeen," harder than any portmanteau," who was attired as a post-boy. Oh, the jolting! "How our rattletraps hung together without coming to bits, or how we escaped an upset is still a marvel to me." While they were holding on for dear life, the girl sat altogether unconcerned, without feeling any painful shocks or concussions. An evidence of the generosity of the Lapps was soon afforded: for a landlord and landlady lent their horse, and refused to accept any money in payment. Handshaking seems to be a more constant practice among the people than with us. Everyone in Sweden shakes you by the hand; and when all are so friendly and courteous the traveller should never forget to offer his hand at parting, even to the boatman and driver."

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Imagine a town of thirty inhabitants and three hundred houses! This is Jockmock. The houses are mostly shanties of rude construction,

* This arises from the absence of drinking-shops; a clear indication of the duty of our licensing magistrates. The fewer of those licensed slaughter-houses, called gin-palaces, the better. ED.

and are built for the Lapps and their reindeer in winter. But in summer they are deserted, their owners having gone to the mountains, “" driving their reindeer before them to feed on the summer mosses." The pastor of the town educates the children, but his life must be very lonely, and the sight of an Englishman, who had brought Testaments with him, was so rare as to make his visit quite an event in the history of his pastorate. The first real Lapp seen by the travellers was an old gentleman clad entirely in reindeer skin, ornamented with beads, buttons, and silver thread. Living in Lapland must be very cheap, when a lamb can be had for 4s. 4d., and a landlord's bill is 2s. 2d. for two days and one night. As for the mosquitoes, they were certainly very troublesome. "It was a continual fight with them the whole way, and our hats and nets were stained with blood. Several thin ones crawled through the meshes of the veils, although the maker had warranted them small enough. Unfortunately, we were seldom aware of the fact until the mischief was done; and in spite of the precaution of stopping now and then for an examination to see if any had effected an entrance, we suffered considerably." Still, the health of the travellers was excellent, the air being bracing; and it is said that the Lapps are never ill until just before they die, and a doctor is not to be seen for two hundred miles!*

All the churches are connected with the state, although in Sweden proper there is a large body which has seceded from the Establishment, and we infer from Captain Hutchinson's account that these form the really earnest and useful part of the religious community. On the Sunday, "all the little settlement of Quick jock appeared dressed in their best," the Lapps having their reindeer skins and numerous beads and jewels, and the Swedes dressed in black cloth. "Even the children wear black swallow-tail coats and trowsers, and a more comical looking little creature could not well be imagined than a tiny boy of four years old, whom we saw airing himself with his back to the fire, his hands under his coat-tails, just like "the good old English gentleman all of the olden time." The service was in Swedish, and was solemn and decorous, but the singing and chanting doleful and monotonous. The pastor was dressed in the usual Lutheran style. He held in his hand a large pocket handkerchief, resembling a towel, one end of which trailed on the ground as he walked to and fro, from the chancel to the pulpit. The people did not seem to be interested in the sermon, although the preacher's manner was impressive, and his matter, as far as we could judge, worthy of a better congregation."

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Here are a few curious little items we have picked out of this interesting volume:-The post goes out only once a month, and the visitors bought up all the stamps, so limited was the supply. . . . The ants are of enormous size-almost three times as large as our common ants. The roads to their nests (often four feet high) diverge from them in every direction, like the lines of railway from London in Bradshaw's map. . . . So friendly were the Lapps, that "we rose with heavy hearts on the morning to turn our faces once more towards the sunny South"" and the parting was very kindly . . . An eight roomed house, two stories in

Does this account for their being so well? We hope no wag will suggest this.-ED.

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height, provided with windows and doors, occupying about twenty-five feet square of ground, would cost in Jockmock, only twenty-five pounds. ... The pastor of this town "could not well be stout, considering his parish was one hundred and forty miles long by twenty-one broad. His predecessor, passing rich on forty pounds a year, had brought up a family of eighteen children." . . . " During our walk we were struck by the contents of some flower pots standing in a window, evidently much prized by the inmates of the cottage; however on a closer inspection, they turned out to be common turnips in full flower." . . . A pine log, thirty feet long, eight inches square at one end, and six at the other, would cost but 7d. . . . . .The total expense of journeying from Lulea to Quickjock and back-four hundred miles-was only twenty pounds. Captain Hutchinson very strongly recommends summer tourists to try Lapland. Should any one follow his advice, about which we have no doubt, we hope his example may be imitated, and that the poorer Lapps may be presented with copies of the Word of God.

IF are

On Harsh Judgments.

FROM A FRENCH AUTHOR.

are

they, who are always eager to judge harshly of others, could see the fearful and heavy indictment which they are preparing against themselves before God, they might, perhaps, be led to confine their judgments to their own conduct, and to leave alone the lives and conduct of others. For, in the first place, in condemning others, they pronounce sentence of condemnation upon themselves; and that, a sentence without appeal, and which, unless they truly repent before they die, will most surely be carried into effect. For if they criticise harshly the good actions of others, as though they required in them a more perfect fulfilment of their duty, by the same rule, be it known to them, and most justly will God require that more perfect fulfilment of his will from them; nor will he hold them to be good stewards of their own gifts, who have been harsh and unjust in their judgment of others. Or, if in passing judgment against the open sin of their neighbour, they have forgotten the restraints of pity and kindness, let them not hope for any better treasure in their hour of need; for Holy Scripture plainly tells us, that "he shall have judgment without mercy, who hath showed no mercy," John ii. 13. But when the judgment goes to condemn a good action, and men rush with eager haste to speak evil of another, God will seek no other witness against them than their own judgment, which clearly shows that they judge of others by themselves. Thus, Paul says, "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?" and, again, "Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another, thon condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things." Romans xiv. 4; ii. 1. He does not mean that he who judges another's fault, himself commits the same fault; for it is often not so; but that he who is always ready with a censorious judgment is, in his heart, prone to the fault which he condemns in another. As for example, a

man with an impatient temper, who sees another suffer quietly, will not believe that he is really patient, and, judging from his own heart, sets it down for dissimulation. Worldly and irreligious persons can see nothing but hypocrisy in those who are earnest and constant in their prayers and religious exercises; and the good works which they see others do, they deny to spring from any holy intention, but, judging from their own case, they attribute them to selfish and worldly motives; not to any pure desire to please God, but to a wish to stand well with men. Experience gives us abundant proof of this. For instance, two men are witnesses of the same good work, be it a religious exercise, or prayer, or fasting, or a charitable deed, and one, who striving for edification, grieves for himself that he has not done as much, and beats his bosom, and bewails himself, at the same time giving glory to God for the grace and virtue displayed in his servant. The other, who sees the same work, finds in it nothing but evil. And this is from no other cause than because men form their judgments, not by reason, but under the influence of their own passions and affections, and the worse they are, so much the worse are their judgments.

So, again, one man, seeing the sinful life of his neighbour, grieves for him, and tries to hide his sin, and to turn him from it; another thinks only of exposing it, and punishing him, and bringing him to shame; thus the very same thing which moves the former to compassion and pity, urges the latter to indignation and cruelty. Hence it is true, that he who passes a hard judgment on another, condemns himself; for as the root of evil in his own heart, such is the judgment which he passes on another. And although it is never lawful to pass a favourable judgment on an evident sin (for that would be to contradict God's law), nevertheless, by the moderation of our judgment, as well as by the effect which the sight of another's sin has upon our heart, may be known the good or bad condition of the heart.

They who feel within themselves an inclination to this vice of always seeing the worst in what others do, will do well to bear in mind that, in God's sight, they themselves are worse than all other sinners, and that they owe it to his grace alone, that they have not already plunged into every sin that human wickedness can contrive. Let them try earnestly to bridle their tongue, that, at least, their sin may be known only to God and themselves. Having done this, whenever such wicked judgments of others spring up in their hearts, let them drive them from them, and confess their misery and sin before God, and bewail that root of evil within them, which his eye seeth, and which is the source of all. Let them further exert themselves in trying to find out reasons for defending the conduct of their neighbours; and where that is not possible, let them confess themselves before God as far more culpable and wicked, as in fact he is, who is hard and cruel towards his fellows. And let them also consider that if the man they judge could see his own sin, as they see it who judge him, he would tremble and repent; therefore his sin is less by reason of his blindness, whilst theirs is made greater by reason of their maliciousness.

Where it is a man's duty, by reason of his office, to pass judgment on the conduct of others, let him first, with all humility, condemn him

self, that so he may be led to judge others in the fear of God. And further, let all bear in mind, for their greater abasement, that he whom God has preserved from committing sin owes him more than he to whom God has forgiven the sin he has committed; just as I owe more to one who saves me from a wound, than I do to him who cures the wound I have received. Accordingly St. Augustine says that God has pardoned me as many sins as he has prevented me from committing, which, as man, I might otherwise have committed. Thus everyone may, with truth, regard himself as equally bad with the worst man he sees; for, as the same father says, there is no sin which we can commit, which any man may not commit if God, who made man, does not keep him from it. Hence, when we see the sins of others, our part is to grieve for them, and to bless God for having kept us from them; for there is nothing in us to merit so great a mercy.

ONE

Work in the Olden Time.

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NE is tempted to enquire whether we of this age are made of the same materials as our predecessors of the last century. We find ourselves very soon wearied where they went onwards with ease. We find the worthy Dan Taylor riding his pony sixty miles one day, fifty-five the next, preaching the same evening, and then writing to a friend that he and his pony are in good spirits. The Society for Preventing Cruelty to Animals was not then in existence, or his reverence would have been locked up. He usually performed his journeys on foot, and we find him preaching in the morning and afternoon at Wadsworth, and then walking fourteen miles to take the evening service at Burnley, and finishing up the Sabbath by walking back again; yet he was up early the next morning at his usual toil. Surely this Dan was a lion's whelp, and leaped from Bashan." He finished one of his long excursions by an open-air service at Epworth, Lincolnshire. He preached at the waterside, and baptised. At noon he preached again, and intended to leave that evening, being Friday, for home; but he yielded to the presure put upon him for another sermon, and so after preaching again he went to bed. Next morning he started on what he called his "frightful journey." He rode Mr. A.'s Galloway twenty-four miles, and walked the remaining thirty-eight through the rain and the deep mire, which, he said," tired him very substantially." He, however, took so much rest in sleep that the next day, Sunday, he preached three times and kept a children's meeting, a leaders' meeting, and a short church meeting, with moderate ease and pleasure.

No doubt the muscular strength of the brother was very great, and those of a weaker organisation cannot be expected to do as much, but at the same time we must not allow our standard of work to sink too low. Soldiers of Christ must endure hardness. Ease and the Christian ministry ought not to be associated even in imagination. Young men, with your early vigour still upon you, work while your day lasts! Hearken not to the siren notes of indolence, but spend and be spent in your Master's service. Despise wind, weather, and weary ways, and to win souls defy fatigue and hardship."

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