He should like to see some of the rich men of the country giving support to one or two or more missionaries, according to the extent of their means, which they might do without any diminution of their present rank and state in society. He threw out the same suggestions to some of the rich churches of the country. Let them recollect that there were 600,000,000 of their fellow-men in the darkness and vice of heathenism. Let them attack that great enemy of human happiness, and attack it on its own shores. Let them increase their missionary labours, and they might expect, with God's blessing, to see results a hundredfold more than they could yet show."

Lord Gambier, the Vice-Patron and President of the Church Missionary Society, having departed this life only a few days before this anniversary, the Rev. Mr. Ward, minister of Iver, where is the seat of that lamented nobleman, referring to the venerable President, said, "I have been requested, and indeed enjoined, to recal to your recollection once more the ever-to-beregretted loss we have sustained in the death of the revered and beloved President of our Society. Much has been said, and most truly and touchingly said, of the Christian graces which adorned the life of this eminently good man. You have heard how he lived: it remains for me, as the minister of his parish, to tell you how he died. You will hear with concern that his last illness was attended with extreme suffering; but he bore it without a murmur, and it seemed as if God had determined that his faithful servant should glorify him in the fire, and that patience should have its perfect work.' When speaking to me of the acuteness of his pains, he observed, They interrupt my quietness, but they do not disturb my peace;' and he added, Though I do not, in my debilitated state, exercise lively faith, I have constant communion with my Saviour.' In referring to a meeting of a neighbouring Bible Society, over which he was to have presided, he said, 'Tell them they have my best wishes; and tell them besides, that, while I was enabled, I felt it my bounden duty and my delight to assist that good cause to the utmost of my power, considering that I thereby advanced the kingdom of my Redeemer.' In adverting to his approaching dissolution, he said with peculiarly solemn emphasis, When I am deposited in the ground, you will have to perform the service; you will say something over me: pray be as concise as possible; but remember these words,- God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life! This is my hope. That is my Rock of Ages, in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost!'"

Thus died this amiable and venerated disciple of Jesus Christ, leaving his memory embalmed in the hearts of all good men.

GENERAL SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING DISTRICT

VISITING.

THIS Institution, formed after the example of the Christian Instruction Society among the Dissenters, held its Fifth Anniversary on Thursday, April 25. The chair was taken by Lord Radstock. Collects having been read by the Rev. R. Munro, the Report was read by the Secretary. It stated, that the various districts under its patronage were divided into 845 sections, employing 573 visitors; 10,455 families were visited inonthly on an average; about 115,462 visits had been made during the past year, and about 102,622 tracts had been circulated; 2,941 children had been sent to schools of different kinds; 2,191 individuals had received medical relief; 47 had been sent to hospitals;

and 10,000 reliefs had been given, either in food, money, clothes, or coals. The receipts of the past year amounted to upwards of 645/.

The meeting was then addressed by the Hon. Captain Waldegrave; the Rev. H. Venn, of Hull; the Lord Bishop of Chester; the Rev. Daniel Wilson, of Islington; the Rev. W. Thompson, of St. Barnabas church, St. Luke's; the Rev. W. Monro; the Rev. H. Raikes; the Rev. S. Robins; the Rev. J. Hull, of Lancaster; and the Rev. G. Marsh, of Hampstead. Similar institutions have been formed in five cities, twenty-seven towns, and twenty-one parishes, which were reported as in prosperous operation.

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL SYSTEM.

AN Essay, with the above title, obtained a prize of fifty dollars from the American Sunday School Union last year; and it is republished by the Sunday School Union in London, price Two PENCE. It is an admirable little Tract, worthy of being perused by every Sunday school teacher, as will be seen from the following passages.

"In every age and country, the character and virtue of a people, the prosperity which they enjoy, and the institutions which they possess, depend almost entirely upon the nature of their instruction. And what means are better adapted to promote the highest interests of a nation in these respects, than the correct religious education of the individuals composing it? What but this can raise them from the savage to a civilized state; from slaves to citizens; from the grossness of sensuality to the dignified enjoyment of cultivated life? What will so effectually diminish their temptations to crime, give a proper direction to their valuable qualities, control those which are dangerous and hurtful, and even render them subservient to the best interests of society? These are questions of the deepest interest to the philanthropist and to the Christian. And while the world is impelled with such violence in opposite directions, while a spirit of giddiness and revolt is shed abroad upon the nations, the only safety is in the improvement of the mass of the people in knowledge, probity, and the fear of the Lord. In the neglect of these, the politeness and refinement of knowledge accumulated in the highest orders, weak and impotent, will be exposed to the most imminent danger, and will perish like a garland in the grasp of popular fury.' Yes, the only security is to be found in early religious instruction. This, the Sunday school, supplying parental neglect or deficiency, or assisting parental faithfulness, attempts to furnish.

Ignorance is not the mother of devotion, but sound religious instruction is the best preservative from superstition, fanaticism, and infidelity. Facts testify, that of those who at the present day become truly converted to God, a large proportion are those who have been brought up in Sunday schools. Of 787 hopefully converted to God in one district of North America within a year, 592 were either teachers or pupils of Sunday schools. In another district, reports from 50 towns give 150 teachers and 522 scholars, who in a single year made a profession of their faith in Christ, of whom 110 entered upon the study of divinity. Not less than 5,000 teachers, and 10,000 scholars, are estimated, by the annual report of the American Sunday School Union, to have been converted in the year ending May 1832. The number of conversions of persons connected with Sunday schools, reported during the first eight years of the existence of that society, was 26,393. A multitude of concurrent facts night be adduced."

Death-Bed Testimonies. COLLECTED BY THE LATE REV. WILLIAM BUTTON, No. VI.

REV. GEORGE HERBERT,

Rector of Bemerton, about a mile from Salisbury. Died of a Consumption in 1635.

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In the time of his decay, he was often visited and prayed for by all the clergy that lived near him, especially by the bishop and prebends of the cathedral church in Salisbury; but by none more devoutly than his wife, his three nieces (then a part of his family), and one Mr. Woodnot, who were the sad witnesses of his daily decline; to whom he would often speak to this purport: "I now look back upon the pleasures of my life past, and see the content I have taken in beauty, in wit, in music, and in pleasant conversation; how they are all passed by me as a shadow that returns not, and are all become dead to me, as I to thein; that as my father, and generations have done before me, so shall I now suddenly (with Job) make my bed also in the dark; and I praise God I am prepared for it; and that I am not to learn patience, now I stand in such need of it; and that I have practised mortification, and endeavoured to die daily, that I might not die eternally; and my hope is, that I shall shortly leave this valley of tears, and be free from all fevers and pain; and, which will be a more happy condition, I shall be free from sin, and all the anxieties that attend it; and this being past, I shall dwell in the New Jerusalem, dwell there with men made perfect, dwell where these eyes shall see my Master and Saviour, Jesus, and with him see my dear mother, and other relations and friends; but I must die, or not come to that happy place; and this is my content, that I am going daily towards it, and that every day that I have lived hath taken a part of my appointed time from me, and that I shall live the less time for having lived this and the day past."

These and the like expressions, which he often uttered, may be said to have been his enjoyment of heaven before he entered it. The Sunday before his death, he arose suddenly from his couch, called for one of his instruments, took it into his hand, and said, "My God, my Gon,

I

Thus he continued, meditating, and praying, and rejoicing, till the day of his death; and on that day he said to Mr. Woodnot, "My dear friend, I am sorry have nothing to present to my merciful God, but sin and misery; but the first is pardoned, and a few hours will put a period to the latter." Upon which Mr. Woodnot took occasion to remind him of the building of Layton Church, and his many acts of beneficence: to which he made answer, "They be good works if they be sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and not otherwise." After this discourse he became more restless, and his soul seemed to be weary of her earthly tabernacle; and this uneasiness became so visible, that his wife and three nieces, and Mr. Woodnot, stood constantly about his bed, beholding him with sorrow, and an unwillingness to lose the sight of him whom they could not hope to see much longer. As they stood thus beholding him, his wife observed that he breathed

faintly, and with much trouble, and that presently he fell into a sudden agony, which greatly surprised and distressed her, and caused her to inquire anxiously how he felt himself? To which he answered, "That he passed a conflict with his last enemy, and had overcome him by the merits of his Master, Jesus." After which answer he looked up, and saw his wife and nieces weeping to an extremity, and charged them, "If they loved him, to withdraw into the next room, and there pray every one alone for him; for nothing but their lamentations could make his death uncomfortable." To which request their sighs and tears would not suffer them to make any reply, but they yielded him a sad obedience, leaving with him only Mr. Woodnot and Mr. Bostock. Immediately after they had left him, he said to Mr. Bostock, "Pray Sir open that door, then look into that cabinet, in which you may easily find my last will, and give it into my hand." Which being done, he delivered it into the hands of Mr. Woodnot, and said, "My old friend, I here deliver you my last will, in which you will find I have made you my sole executor, for the good of my wife and nieces, and I desire you to show kindness to them as they shall need it. I do not desire you to be just, for I know you will be that for your own sake; but I charge you by the religion of our friendship to be careful of them." Having obtained Mr. Woodnot's promise to be so, he said, "I am now ready to die: Lord, grant me mercy, for the merits of my Jesus: and now, Lord, receive my soul." With these words he peaceably and calmly breathed forth his soul into the hands of Him who gave it, Mr. Woodnot and Mr. Bostock attending his last breath and closing his eyes.

(Note by S. J. B.)

Of this excellent man, Jeremy Collier, (H. D. vol. i), gives the following account. "HERBERT (George) a famous English poet, a younger brother of the noble family of the Herberts of Montgomery; born in 1593. He was a man of florid wit, obliging humour in conversation, fluent elocution, and great proficiency in the arts; which gained him so much reputation at Cambridge, where he spent his more youthful age, that he was chosen University Orator. At last, taking upon him holy orders, not without special encouragement from King Charles I, who took notice of his extraordinary parts, he became parson of Bemerton, near Salisbury, where he lived a seraphick life, converting his studies altogether to serious and divine subjects, which in time produced those divine poems, intituled, The Temple, and the Country Parson.' He died about 1635."

Chalmers says, "In the year 1630, Mr. Herbert married a lady nearly related to the Earl of Danby, and on the 26th of April in the same year, was inducted into the rectory of Bemerton, near Sarum; where he discharged the duties of his function in a most exemplary manner."

REFLECTIONS ON GARDENS.

A garden has ever had the praise and affection of the wise. What is requisite to make a wise and happy man, but reflection and peace? and both are the natural growth of a garden. Nor is a garden a promoter only of a good man's happiness, but a picture of it; and in some sort shows him to himself. Its culture, order, fruitfulness, and seclusion from the world, compared to the weeds, wildness, and exposure of a common field, is no bad emblem of a good man compared to the multitude. A garden weeds the mind; it weeds it of worldly thoughts, and sows célestial seed in their stead. Who cannot look on a flower till he reasons himself out of Infidelity?-Dr. Young.

SPRING MORNING.
YOUNG SPRING! that sittest on that daisy knoll,
With wreaths of infant green upon thy brow,
The new birds, fearless of the chill control

Of frosts and heavy skies, are blithesome now;
Music is pealing from each feathery throat,
To greet thy coming: at thy smile serene
New life and universal beauty glows;
And round thy presence float
Airs that are telling of the healthful green,
White hedge and blossoming rose.
Thine handmaid, the gay Flora, trips along,

Garlanded round with bloom, elate with glee,
Strewing the earth with flowers, that wake the song
Of their meek lover, the industrious bee.
She paints the blossom of the purple plum,

The downy peach, bright cherry, luscious pear,
And all the nurslings of the southern breeze:
When autumn days are come,

The pulpy fruit shall hang in ripeness there,
The treasures of the trees.

All Nature breathes luxuriance, and man

Catches the feeling from her ample page,
And Fancy builds some rainbow-colour'd plan,
Like those we know in youth, smile at in age:
The sloping hill and the sheep-spotted mead,
Touch'd by the sunny pencil, mantle o'er

With verdure, and black clouds have left the sky;
Gone is the oaten reed;

But thou canst glad man's heart unto the core,
And brighten Sorrow's eye!

THE SPIRIT AND PRACTICE OF POPERY. 'English Protestants in the present day, who view the doctrine of purgatory in an abstracted form, apart from the jugglery and practical absurdities with which it has ever been inseparably connected, can scarcely estimate the magnitude of its evils. We discern these more graphically when we read such statements as the following, which was stuck up three or four years ago in the churches of Madrid. The sacred and royal bank of piety has relieved from purgatory, from its establishment in 1721, to November 1826,

THOUGHTS ON IMMORTALITY. THAT we belong to a class of beings, whose existence will not cease with their present earthly life, but will continue elsewhere, although the body we now animate will decay and separate into its elementary particles, we believe from reason, from our intellectual feelings, from the consent of the best philosophers of all ages, from the traditions of all nations, and from the deciding communications of the Christian Revelation. We do not perish when our material frame dissolves: our thinking and feeling principle survives its fleshy limbs and organs, which are but the instruments of its use and pleasures here; and will, after the visible death of our corporeal frame, and in reunion with another, possess its consciousness, its sensitiveness, and its active powers, under such other circumstances as its Creator shall appoint.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE. "The dragons of the wilderness."- Mal. i, 3. "DRAGONS of the wilderness" are land serpents grown to an enormous size. In the earlier ages of the world, many kinds of animals, living undisturbed by man, grew to a size of which we have no examples in modern times. Amongst others, serpents attained in the unmolested recesses of the wilderness a magnitude which made them a terror to the inhabitants of the countries which they infested. Not to mention the serpent Python, which classic mythology states to have been slain by Apollo, and other similar instances, we have authentic historical evidence of one having been killed by Regulus, the Roman general, in his expedition against Carthage, which measured the astonishing length of one hundred and twenty feet. After destroying several of the Roman soldiers, it was at length killed by a large stone from one of the Roman engines. The skin was preserved in the Capitol, and an ovation decreed to its conqueror. Though from the increased population of the earth they do not attain to this enormous size in our days, yet they are still met with occasionally nearly fifty feet in length. Captain Stedman, in his Expedition to Surinam, describes one killed by him and his Negroes which measured fortyfive feet, and was of the thickness of the trunk of an ordinary-sized tree. It was of that species called the Boa Constrictor, of which some beautiful specimens are now being exhibited in Fleet Street, London, one of which is about fifteen feet in length, and as thick in the middle as a man's leg. At the same place are also two specimens of the Crocodile, each about four feet long, believed by many of the best commentators on Scripture to be

THE LEVIATHAN,

of which such an animated poetical description is given in the book of Job, chap. xli. In less populous ages they were found very much larger than at present. But they are known now to grow to the length of twenty or thirty feet, and to be very terrible in the great rivers of tropical countries. The Nile, the Ganges, the Oronooko, the Amazons, &c. are celebrated for their Crocodiles and Alligators, which are a terror to those who visit those streams.

These wonderful works of God are well worthy of notice; and though they are not grown to maturity, they will excite the admiration of those who delight to see particular passages of the Holy Scriptures illustrated by a reference to the wonders of nature.

TO CORRESPONDENTS-We must apologize to our Correspondents for the unavoidable delay of several valuable Communications, which shall appear at the earliest opportunity.

ANNUAL MEETINGS IN THE ENSUING WEEK. MONDAY, 13.-Society for promoting the due Observance of the Lord's Day, Exeter Hall, at Twelve. Sailor's Home, or Brunswick Maritime Establishment, Exeter Hall, at Twelve. Home Missionary Society, Sermon, Orange Str. Chapel, Six Ev. TUESDAY.-Trinitarian Bible Society, Exeter Hall, at One. Protestant Union for the Benefit of Widows and Children of Protestant Ministers, Congregational Library, at Eleven. Home Missionary Society, Exeter Hall, at Six Ev.

WEDNESDAY.-Home Missionary Society, Sale of Ladies' Work, Crown and Anchor Tavern, at Ten. Sunday School Union, Breakfast, City of London Tavern, Six Morn. Continental Society, Exeter Hall, Twelve.

THURSDAY.-Sons of the Clergy, St. Paul's Cathedral, at Twelve. General Society for promoting District Visiting, Sermon, St. John's Chapel, Bedford Row, Half-past Six Ev.

London: Printed and Published by C. WOOD AND SON, Poppin's Court, Fleet Street; to whom all Communications for the Editor (post paid) should be addressed; -and sold by all Booksellers and Newsmen in the United Kingdom.

PHAROS, and especially Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, stand connected with the first translation of the Holy Scriptures. Archbishop Usher places the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, in the eighth year of Ptolemy, and in the year 277 before the advent of Christ: this great work, in the merciful arrangement of the providence of God as the preparatory means of diffusing the gospel through all nations, is said to have been completed by the learned Jewish interpreters in the island of Pharos.

In the first number of the Christian's Penny Magazine we referred to this dispensation of Providence; and in a future number we purpose giving a brief history of the translation of the Holy Scriptures.

Ptolemy Soter having reigned in Egypt twenty years from the time of his assuming the title of king, and thirty-nine from the death of Alexander the Great, and having attained the age of eighty years, placed his son PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS on his throne, as copartner in the kingdom. Commerce had amazingly increased in Egypt during the long reign of Soter, and the famous light house, called PHAROS, was finished in the first year of Philadelphus, for the benefit of ships VOL. II.

in the Mediterranean Sea. Pharos was a small island at the mouth of the river Nile, over against Alexandria, the capital of Lower Egypt.

This most magnificent tower was reckoned one of the "Seven Wonders of the World." It was a square pile of building, consisting of several stories and galleries, with a lantern at the top, in which fires were kept continually burning for the direction of seamen in the night, and its light might be seen at the distance of one hundred miles. The several stories were adorned with columns, balustrades, and galleries, of the finest marble and the most exquisite workmanship; to which some add, that the architect had contrived to fasten some looking-glasses so artificially against the highest galleries, that the reflection of light was greatly in, creased.

This tower of Pharos is said by some ancient authors to have been six hundred feet on each side of its base, and three hundred cubits, or four hundred and fifty feet high; but this appears a mistake. Josephus, the Jewish historian, who had seen it, speaks of the Tower of Phasælus at Jerusalem, as "not less than that of Pharos," and that he describes as a square building

X

of forty cubits, or sixty feet on every side, and ninety cubits, or 135 feet high. Still this supposition of the lowest altitude for Pharos, must have rendered it very conspicuous at sea, as we may well imagine from a view of the Monument in London, whose whole elevation from the pavement is two hundred and two feet.

Dr. Prideaux remarks, "It cost in the building 800 talents. This, if computed by Attic talents, amounts to 165,000l. of our sterling money; but if by Alexandrian talents, it will come to twice as much. The architect who built it was Sostratus of Cnidus, who craftily endeavoured to usurp the honour of it with posterity to himself by this fraudulent device. The inscription ordered to be set on it being 'King Ptolemy to the gods the saviours, for the benefit of those who pass by sea;' instead of Ptolemy's name, he craftily engraved his own in the solid marble, and then filling up the hollow of the engraved letters with mortar, wrote upon it as he was directed. So the inscription, which was first read, was according as it was ordered, and truly ascribed the work to King Ptolemy, its proper founder; but in process of time, the mortar being worn off, the inscription then appeared to be thus: 'Sostratus, the Cnidian, son of Dexiphanes, to the gods the saviours, for the benefit of those who pass by sea; which, being in lasting letters deeply engraved into the marble, lasted as long as the tower itself. This tower has been demolished for some ages past. There is now in its place a castle called Farillon, where a garrison is kept to defend the harbour; perchance it is some remainder of the old work. Pharos was at first wholly an island, at the distance of seven furlongs from the continent, and had no other passage to it but by sea. But it has many ages since been turned from an island into a peninsula, by being joined to the land, in the same manner as Tyrus was, by a bank carried through the sea to it, which was anciently called in Greek the Heptastadium, or the seven furlong bank, because seven furlongs was the length of it. This work was performed by Dexiphanes, the father of Sostratus, about the same time that Sostratus finished the tower, and seems to have been the more difficult undertaking of the two. They being both very famous architects, were employed by Ptolemy Soter in the works which he had projected for beautifying, adorning, and strengthening the city of Alexandria: the father having undertaken the Heptastadium at the same time his son did the Tower, they finished both these works at the same time, that is, in the beginning of the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus."

ON THE SILVER MOUNTAIN OF POTOSI,
IN PERU.

A South American writer who ascended to the top of this mountain, has given us the following effusion on the good and bad effects of the riches it has produced. The sublimity, he says, of the surrounding scenery did not so much interest my feelings as the celebrated mountain which has poured forth its lavas of silver upon the world, to animate enterprize, and reward industry; to pamper the luxurious, and minister to the comforts of the sober and the virtuous; to disseminate knowledge and religion, and to spread the desolations of war, marshalling armies in the field, and pointing the thunder of navies upon the ocean; filling cities with monuments of taste and art, and overwhelming them with ruin; founding mighty empires, and levelling them to the dust; inciting, in short, to virtue and to vice, and being the source of much good, and the root of all evil in the world.

THOUGHTS ON THE SACRED HISTORY OF THE CREATION.

(Continued from p. 146.)

THE sixth stage or day of creation began with the formation of quadrupeds, insects, and reptiles, which completed the animals that inhabit our globe. Each were peculiar conceptions and inventions of the Deity: both in external figure and physical powers, these were so many new effusions of his rich imagination. The structure, and functions, and organizations of each had to be designed, and the whole plan having been fully settled, the mandate was given for their simultaneous existence, and the three orders of animals arose obediently to the command. The quadrupeds were those with which the pleasure, the sustenance, and the convenience of man, are more immediately concerned. Their clothing distinguishes them from the other orders of created beings; it is composed of soft, separate, flexible hair, little subject to injury; which is more plentifully bestowed on the inhabitants of cold regions, than on those which live in the warmer parts of the earth. In aquatic quadrupeds it is sometimes wanting. That they have also organs of sense corresponding with ours, we all well know. They see, hear, taste, smell, and feel, as well as we do, and some much more acutely; both the dog and the wolf have an exquisite sense of smell, the cat and some others can see in the dark, the lynx is acute both in sight and smell, the racoon is peculiarly sensitive in both smell and touch; others have a quickness of hearing superior to ourselves, and some are impressible by musical sounds. Au historian tells us that one of the Roman emperors had a troop of elephants disciplined to dance to music; the dog too sometimes howls at certain musical notes.

All quadrupeds utter sounds of some sort or other, which they can vary into so many tones as are necessary to give vent to their feelings, to denote their wants, or to communicate with each other. Each species uses particular sounds to signify to their fellows what they wish them to understand, and each seems perfectly to comprehend the meaning of the speaker. A monkey has been noticed to utter vocal syllables; and dogs have been taught to express human words, even so many as thirty, distinctly intelligible.

It is one of the great distinctions of the animal kind, that it is teachable to several intelligent actions. Even of the wild and ferocious, the largest part have been found tameable. The tiger, who may be considered as the fiercest of the fierce, has exhibited this improvement; so has the savage and voracious hyena. Crocodiles have been made harmless and docile; the leopard likewise. The wolf has also shown that it possesses what we may term affectionate docilities. The baboons become vigilant guardians of their protector's property. These facts prove that there is nothing in the nature of the wildest animals to make their future gentleness and sociability either impossible or improbable. We see by the dog and cat, that the carnivorous may be mild and friendly; and even the devourers and their prey may, by kind and judicious management, be trained to live peaceably and harmlessly together. Nothing appears more effectual to produce this pleasing melioration, than patience, persevering and gentle

treatment.

That animals have feelings and passions very analogous to our own, appears from many instances. Our rugged or oppressive conduct towards them, usually puts their resentful emotions into action: but many species show what must be called kind affections. Monkeys evince such to each other; cows will protect each other, and feel strongly for their young, and