ERRONEOUS SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS.

A correspondent of Notes and Queries having objected that Absalom's long hair, of which he was so proud, and which has, consequently, so often served "to point a moral and adorn a tale," had nothing to do with his death, his head itself, and not the hair upon it, having been caught in the boughs of the tree. To this another correspondent replies:-"Even allowing the silence of Scripture upon the matter, the tradition has certainly the basis of respectable authority to rest upon. Bishop J. Taylor thus writes in his Second Sermon upon St. Matthew xvi. 26, ad finem:-"The Doctors of the Jews report that, when Absalom hanged among the Oaks by the hair of his head, he seemed to see under him Hell gaping wide to receive him, and he durst not cut off the hair that entangled him, for fear he should fall into the horrid lake, whose portion is flames and torment, but chose to protract his miserable life a few minutes, in that painful posture, and to abide the stroke of his pursuing enemies. His condition was sad, when his arts of remedy were so vain."

THE PREDOMINANT PASSION.

It has been remarked that the predominant passion may generally be discovered in the countenance, because the muscles by which it is expressed, being always perpetually contracted, lose their tone and never totally relax, so that the expression remains when the passion is suspended. Thus, an angry, disdainful, a subtle, and a suspicious temper, are displayed in characters that are almost universally misunderstood.

THE PRIMORDIUM OF ENTITY.

The Hindoos believe that all living beings originate from an atom-like germ, virtually endued with life, but inert until placed in a proper medium, when it becomes an embryo. It is indivisible and indestructible, and will continue to the end of the world. When a man dies, his body restores to the earth and to the other elements all the augmentation of substance which it had received from them; but the atom-germ remains the

same.

"A POWER OF WORDS."

In Maccabees iii. 46, we read, “A power also of Syria, and of the land of the Philistines, joined themselves unto them." The word power here signifies a great many, a meaning which is

now considered a vulgarism. In Spencer's State of Ireland, we find an instance of power in this sense: "He, to work him the more mischief, sent over his brother Edward, with a power of Scots and Redshanks, into Ireland, where they got footing."

MANASSES' PRAYER.

I BOW THE KNEE OF MY HEART—that is, I approach Thee with the deepest humility and reverence. This highly figurative and beautiful expression is very common among the peasantry of some counties in Ireland. Bishop Andrews is the only English writer in whose works I recollect having met it.— Booker's Obsolete Words.

AMEN.

This is a Hebrew word, properly signifying "firmness," and hence "truth," which has been adopted without alteration in various languages. In many churches of England, the word Amen is pronounced aloud by the people: this was the ancient practice of the Christian world, and St. Jerome relates, that when the congregated people at Rome pronounced Amen, the sound was like that of a clap of thunder. They possibly attributed great efficacy to the loudness of their voices, after the example of the Jews, who imagined that this word, shouted forth with great force, had power to open the gates of heaven.

LUNACY AND THINKING.

There is no nation where madness is so rare as in Turkey, where the people, of all others, think the least. In France, Germany, and England-countries distinguished for intellectual activity-the number of suicides is greater than in any other countries.-Medical Times and Gazette.

ERRING MAN.

Dr. Chalmers says: "The little that I have seen in the world, and know of the history of mankind, teaches me to look upon their errors in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it passed through-the brief pulsations of joy, the tears of regret, the feebleness of purpose, the scorn of the world that has little charity, the

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desolation of the soul's sanctuary, and threatening voices within, health gone, happiness gone-I would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow man with him from whose hands it came."

ECCLESIASTICAL REFORM.

Lord Verubam (whom many persons still persist in styling Lord Bacon) asks "why the Civil State should be purged and restored, by good and wholesome laws, made in every third or fourth parliament, providing remedies as fast as time breedeth mischiefs, and contrariwise, the Ecclesiastical State should continue upon the dregs of time, and receive no alteration?”

PICTURES AND STATUES IN CHURCHES.

It was the opinion of our early reformers-Cranmer, Ridley, Redman, and other learned men (see Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for every Christian Man, published by the authority of Henry VIII.), that pictures and statues might be placed in churches, and ought not to be despised, but used reverently; and the injunctions of Queen Elizabeth and Edward VI. are directed against "monuments of feigned miracles." For the opinions of our leading divines and laymen on this subject, see Dr. Wilson's Ornaments of Churches Considered.

BEHAVIOUR AT CHURCH.

Dr. Wilberforce, when Bishop of Oxford, at the re-opening of Princes' Risborough Parish Church, preached an intensely earnest sermon from Habakkuk ii. 20—“The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence." After an exposition of his text the preacher said he had never until lately realized the full meaning of keeping silence. On a sick bed, one could not do better than pour out his soul and then resort to the eloquence of silence. The breath of petition must subside into the silence of submission. He then referred to the "great strong hulking men who came to church and were too lazy to kneel." His experience of that diocese extended to a quarter of a century, and its prevailing sin was to treat the Deity as being patronized by them when they came to prayer, and especially so when they came to the Holy Communion. His lordship then denounced the old four-cornered pews as harbours for laziness.

EMBLEMS BY QUARLES.

Proportion thy charity to the strength of thy estate, lest God proportion thy estate to the weakness of thy charity. Let the lips of the poor be the trumpet of thy gift, lest in seeking applause thou lose thy reward. Nothing is more pleasing to God than an open hand and a closed mouth.

Clothe not thy language either with obscurity or affectation: in the one thou discoverest too much darkness, in the other too much lightness. He that speaks from the understanding to the understanding is the best interpreter.

Fear death, but be not afraid of death. To fear it whets thy expectation; to be afraid of it dulls thy preparation. If thou canst endure it, it is but a slight pain; if not, it is but a short pain. To fear death is the way to live long; to be afraid of death is to be long a dying.

Cleanse thy morning soul with private and due devotions: till then admit no business. The first-born of thy thoughts are God's, and not thine, but by sacrilege. Think thyself not ready till thou hast praised Him, and He will be always ready to bless thee.

Use the holy Scriptures with all reverence. Let not thy wanton fancy carve it out in jests, nor thy sinful wit make it an advocate to thy sin. It is a subject for thy faith, not fancy: where wit and blasphemy is one trade, the understanding is bankrupt.

Demean thyself more warily in thy study than in the street. If thy public actions have a hundred witnesses, thy private have a thousand. The multitude looks but upon thy actions, thy conscience looks into them: the multitude may chance to excuse thee, if not acquit thee; thy conscience will accuse thee, if not condemn thee.

God is the author of truth; the devil is the father of lies. If the telling of a truth shall endanger thy life, the Author of truth will protect thee from the danger, or reward thee for thy damage. If the telling of a lie will secure thy life, the father of lies will beguile thee of thy gains, or traduce the security. Better by losing of a life to save it, than by saving of a life to lose it. However, better thou perish than the truth.

Let that table which God hath pleased to give thee please thee. He that made the vessel knows her burden, and how to ballast her. He that made all things very good, cannot but do all things very well. If thou be content with a little, thou hast enough; if thou complainest, thou hast too much.

WHAT IS HONOUR?

What is honour but the height, and flower, and top of morality, and the utmost refinement of conversation! Virtue and honour are such inseparable companions, that the heathens would admit no man into the temple of honour who did not pass into it through the temple of virtue. Princes, indeed, may confer honours, or rather titles and names of honour; but they are a man's or a woman's own actions which must make him or her truly honourable. And every man's life is the herald's office, from whence he must derive and fetch that which must blazon him to the world-honour being but the reflection of a man's own actions shining brighter in the face of all about him, and from thence rebounding on himself. It teaches a man not to revenge a contumelious or a reproachful world, but to be above it; and therefore it was greatly spoken by Caius Marius-he said, he valued not what men could say of him: for, if they spoke true, they must needs speak honourably of him; if otherwise, his life and his manners should be their confutation. And doubtless it is a truer and nobler vindication of a man's honour, to clear off and confute a slander by his own life than by another man's death; to make his innocence and his virtue his compurgator, and not to fight, but to live down the calumniatorsSouth.

GRATITUDE.

Gratitude is the main-spring that sets all the wheels of nature a-going; and the whole universe is supported by giving and returning, by commerce and commutation.-South.

THE GREAT RECKONING.

God will not let his people run away with the arrears of their sins, but, when they least think of it, calls them to an account. God may be angry enough with us while we outwardly prosper.

Where God intends utter vengeance, he lets men harden themselves to a reprobate senselessness, and make up their own measure without contradiction, as purposing to reckon with them but once for ever.—Bishop Hall.

YOUTH MELANCHOLY.

The keen susceptibility to pleasure and joy implies a keen susceptibility to pain, There is, probably, no time of life at