hoods of that kind, and they are not all confined to people of the world. Nothing is more important in a community than simple truth, and yet it is to be feared that nothing is more habitually disregarded. No professing Christian can do any good who has not an unimpeachable character for integrity and truth; and yet, who can lay his hand upon his breast, and say, before God, that he is in all cases a man that speaks the simple and unvarnished TRUTH?

For we are members one of another.We belong to one body, the Church, which is the body of Christ. The idea is, that falsehood tends to loosen the bonds of brotherhood. In the human body harmony is observed. The eye never deceives the hand, nor the hand the foot, nor the heart the lungs. The whole move harmoniously, as if the one could put the utmost confidence in the other; and falsehood in the church is as ruinous to its interests as it would be to the body if one member was perpetually practising a deception on another.

"Ye blind guides! which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel," Mark xxiii. 24.

Which strain at a gnat, &c. This is a proverb. There is, however, a mistranslation, or a misprint here, which makes the verse unmeaning. To strain AT a gnat conveys no sense. It should have been to strain our a gnat, and so it is printed in some of the earlier versions; and so it was undoubtedly rendered by the translators. The common reading is a misprint, and should be corrected. The Greek means to strain out by a cloth, or sieve. A gnat. The gnat has its origin in the water; not in great rivers, but in pools and marshes. In the stagnant waters they appear in the form of small grubs, or larvæ. These larvæ retain their form about three weeks, after which they turn to chrysalids; and after three or four days they pass to the form of gnats. They are then distinguished by their well-known sharp sting. It is probable that the Saviour here refers to the insect as it exists in its grub or larvæ form, before it pears in the form of a gnat. Water is then its element, and those who were nice in their drink would take pains to strain it out. Hence the proverb. See "Calmet's Dictionary," article Gnat. It is here used to denote a very small matter, as a camel is to denote a large object: "You Jews take great pains to avoid offence in very small matters, superstitiously observing the smallest points of the law, like a man carefully straining out the animalculæ from his wine; while you are at no pains to avoid great sins,-hypocrisy, deceit, oppression, and lust,-like a man who should swallow

ap

a camel." The Arabians have a similar proverb: "He eats an elephant, and is suffocated with a gnat." He is troubled with little things, but pays no attention to great matters.

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly," Matt. vi. 6.

Enter into thy closet. Every Jewish house had a place for secret devotion. The roofs of their houses were flat places for walking, conversation, and meditation, in the cool of the evening. Over the porch, or

entrance of the house, was, however, a small room, of the size of the porch, raised a story above the rest of the house, expressly appropriated for the place of retirement. Here, in secresy and solitude, the pious Jew might offer his prayers, unseen by any but the Searcher of hearts. To this place, or to some similar place, our Saviour directed his disciples to repair when they wished to hold communion with God. This is the place commonly mentioned in the New Testament as the upper room, or the place for secret prayer. The meaning of the Saviour is, that there should be some place where we may be in secret,-where we may be alone with God. There should be some place to which we may resort where no ear will hear us but His ear, and no eye can see us by His eye. Unless there is such a place, secret prayer will not be long or strictly maintained. It is often said that we have no such place, and can secure none. We are away from home; we are travelling; we are among strangers; we are in stages and steam-boats, and how can we find such places of retirement? I answer, the desire to pray, and the love of prayer, will create such places in abundance. The Saviour had all the difficulties which we can have, but yet he lived in the practice of secret prayer. To be alone, He rose up "a great while before day" and went into a solitary place and prayed. With him, a grove, a mountain, a garden, furnished such a place; and though a traveller, and among strangers, and without a house, he lived in the habit of secret prayer. What excuse have they who have a home, and who spend the precious hours of the morning in sleep, and who will practise no self-denial that they may be alone with God? O Christian, thy Saviour would have broken in upon those hours, and would have trod his solitary way to the mountain or the grove that he might pray! He did do so :-He did it to pray for thee, too indolent and too unconcerned about thy own salvation, and that of the world, to practise the least self-denial in

order to commune with God. How can religion live there? How can such a soul be saved?

1. In

The Saviour does not specify the times when we should pray in secret. He does not say how often it should be done. The reasons may have been; 1. That he designed that His religion should be voluntary-and there is not a better test of true piety than a disposition to engage often in secret prayer. He designed to leave it to His people to show attachment to Him often by coming to God often, and as often as they chose. 2. An attempt to specify the times when this should be done would tend to make religion formal and heartless. Mohammed undertook to regulate this; and the consequence is, a cold and formal prostration at the appointed hours of prayer, all over the land where his religion has spread. 3. The periods are so numerous, and the seasons for secret prayer vary so much, that it would not be easy to fix rules when this should be done. Yet, without giving rules, where the Saviour has given none, we may suggest the following when secret prayer is proper. the morning.-Nothing can be more appropriate than when we have been preserved through the night, and when we are about to enter upon the duties and dangers of another day, than to render Him thanks, and commit ourselves to His fatherly care. 2. In the evening.-When the day has closed, what more natural than to render thanks, and to implore forgiveness for what we have said or done amiss, and to pray for a blessing upon the hours of the day; and when about to lie down again to sleep, not knowing but it may be our last sleep, and that we may wake in eternity, what more proper than to commend ourselves to the care of Him "who never slumbers nor sleeps?" 3. We should pray in times of embarrassment and perplexity. Such times occur in every man's life, and then it is a privilege and a duty to go to God and seek his direction. In the most difficult and embarrassed time of the American revolution, Washington was seen to retire daily to a grove in the vicinity of the camp at Valley Forge. Curiosity led a man to observe him on one occasion, and the father of his country was seen on his knees supplicating the God of hosts in prayer. Who can tell how much the liberty of this nation is owing to the answer to the secret prayer of Washington? 4. We should pray when we are beset with strong temptations. So the Saviour prayed in the garden of Gethsemane (compare Heb. v. 7, 8); and so we should pray when we are tempted. 5. We should pray when the Spirit prompts us to pray-when we feel just like praying;

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when nothing can satisfy the soul but prayer. Such times occur in the life of every Christian; and they are springtimes" of piety-favourable gales to waft us on to heaven. Prayer, to the Christian, at such times, is just as congenial as conversation with a friend when the bosom is full of love, as the society of father, mother, sister, child is, when the heart glows with attachment; as the strains of sweet music are to the ear best attuned to the love of harmony; as the most exquisite poetry is to the heart enamoured with the Muses; and as the most delicious banquet is to the hungry. Prayer, then, is the element of being the breath, the vital air; and then the Christian must and should pray. He is the most eminent Christian who is most favoured with such strong emotions urging him to prayer. The heart is then full. The soul is tender. The sun of glory shines with unusual splendour. No cloud intervenes. The Christian rises from the earth and pants for glory. Then we may go alone with God. We may enter the closet, and breathe forth our warm desires into the ever-open ear of God, and He who sees in secret will reward us openly. In secret -who is unseen. Who seeth in secret-who sees what the human eye cannot see; who sees the secret real designs and desires of the heart. Prayer should always be offered, remembering that God is acquainted with our real desires; and that it is those real desires, and not the words of prayer, that He will answer.

DEATH AND THE CHRISTIAN.
AN ALLEGORY.

Ir happened one day that Death met a good man. "Welcome, thou messenger of immortality!" said the good man. "What!" said Death, "dost thou not fear me?" "No," said the Christian; "he that is not afraid of himself, needs not to be afraid of thee !" "Dost thou not fear the diseases that go before me, and the cold sweats that drop from my fingers' ends?" "No," said the good man, "for diseases and cold sweats announce nothing but thee."

In an instant Death breathed upon him, and Death and he disappeared together; a grave had opened beneath their feet, and in it lay something.

I wept; but suddenly heavenly voices drew my eyes on high. I saw the Christian in the clouds. He was still smiling; and when Death met him, angels had welcomed his approach, and he shone as one of them.

I looked in the grave, and saw what it was that lay there; nothing was there but the garment the Christian had laid aside.Lavater.

THE naturalist is never at a loss for matter of interesting investigation. If he be devout, as well as studious, all Nature becomes his instructor, and teaches him to recognize with gratitude and love the presence and the bounty of the Divine Creator:

"And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything."

What is in itself more wonderful, or what more calculated to encourage confidence on the part of the poorest saint, in the providential care of God towards His creatures, than the fact that " our heavenly Father," from generation to generation, unceasingly feeds myriads of living creatures with ten thousand different kinds of appropriate food? That without any error, or any failure, or any neglect, He ever suplies their wants, and consults their tastes, and maintains their being? Earth is the Covent-garden of the animal world. Vegetable life must abound, if animal life is to exist. Many animals live on vegetables alone. Entire tribes, it is true, live wholly on animal food; but the animals on which these tribes prey are themselves greatly dependent upon the vegetable world for support. Nature is a wonderful laboratory; nothing is lost. The animal form may be reduced by decomposition to dust, or may be burnt to ashes, and these particles of earth be dissipated by the winds; but not an element perishes, not an atom is wasted; the whole will revive in future plants, that will become the food of future animals, and will, as long as time continues, perform the same round of duty for ever.

Daily additions are being made to our knowledge of the varieties and numbers of animal life. Few men, however, reflect upon the vast mass of life by which they are surrounded. The citizen sees a few quadrupeds and birds, and the inhabitant of the country is familiar with herds of cattle, and flocks of the winged tribes; but how few contemplate the countless numbers of insect life. He who is teased by the gnats of a summer evening, perhaps knows not that one hour of that evening has brought into existence, along the course of his own river banks, an insect race more numerous than all the human population of Great Britain. He complains, perhaps, of the green water that stands not far from his habitation; but forgets that in it are

more animals, each in the perfect enjoyment of its existence, than there are human beings on the entire face of the globe. And shall it not add to our conception of the goodness and of the power of the blessed Creator to know that He has called all this mass of being around us into life that he might multiply happiness upon the earth, and that He has so proportioned the various kinds of animals, and their respective means of subsistence, that whilst there is immense abundance there is no superfluity, and though there is no lavish profusion, there is no real lack? Such is the providential supply, that if all animal existence were asked in the language of Christ to His disciples, "When I sent you uithout purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything?" Each would answer, "Nothing, Lord." Natural history teaches this; and if the student in this science can contemplate what he knows without pleasing and profitable reflections of this kind, he is failing to make right use of, and to derive rational profit from his instructive and interesting studies. It is advisable that every one, as he has opportunity, should visit every museum that may be within his reach; for though far from sufficing to convey an adequate idea of the fulness of creation, we shall thereby obtain some faint notion of its immense variety of races.

The fecundity of different animals bears a proportion to the certainty and abundance of their food, to their utility in the system, which allows them to prey upon each other in forming the food of other animals, and to their comparative length of life; the shorter period of existence, generally speaking, being allotted to the more productive and numerous species. Herbivorous animals are much more numerous than carnivorous; and the larger aniImals, both of the herbivorous and carnivorous tribes, are generally less numerous than the smaller ones. For one elephant there are millions of hares, and thousands of wolves and jackals for every lion. If the sheep and the antelope are more abundant than the wolf and the lion, though less productive, the cause is to be found in their greater facility of feeding. If the sheep and the antelope abound far more than the elephant, under no great difference of fecundity, it is because the latter requires more, though not dissimilar food. Two causes account for swarms of the

rabbit tribe, its extraordinary fecundity, and its abundance of food; whilst its very numbers point it out as designed in its turn to be the food of other animals. The carnivorous animals, in their turn, however productive they may be, are checked in their numbers by the defences, concealment, and means of escape of their prey. But for this they would produce their own checks, or ultimate extermination, by destroying their own sources of supply. The means of defence furnished to animals are not less useful therefore to themselves than to their enemies. Does not this evince perfection of design? Under the dominion of man, though the herbivorous species should increase, the carnivorous may diminish, he protecting the former more effectually, and becoming the enemy of their enemies. Thus in Britain man has destroyed the wolf, and only allows a few foxes to remain as the sport of country gentlemen, whilst the sheep and the oxen graze by tens of thousands upon our improved pastures.

Climate and situation, as well as food, tend to limit the numbers of various species of animal life. The rhinoceros can find but few places which it loves; the hippopotamus is limited in numbers by the extent of the rivers of a hot climate; the ant-bear by the nature of its food; and the chamois by the united influence of food, climate, and situation. The universality of the rat, not less than the extent of its population, is partly determined by its food, and partly by an entire absence of regard either to place or to climate, with, possibly, an instinct of migration superadded. If the ichneumon has really no other food than the eggs of the crocodile, the boundaries of its population must needs be rigidly marked. The amount of supply will be found the most general measure of the numbers of the population. It is a simple rule of political economy. As the supplies for any species vary, so will its numbers vary also.

The

Divine Providence is displayed in the sizes of animals. The Creator could have produced animals much larger than the hippopotamus and the elephant. He was not tied down to a definite strength in the bony material of animals, nor to a maximum power in their muscular fibre. In insects he has far exceeded these limits. quantity of food necessary for large animals would limit to comparatively small numbers those of great magnitude. One elephant consumes as much food as a thousand small animals, and as much as several thousand insects. Had the large species of animals abounded more, the smaller ones would have been correspondingly restricted, with a consequent diminution of

the number of lives, and the source of animal enjoyment. Useful as the horse and camel are to man, there is an obvious propriety in the size which these servants to the lords of creation attain; nor unnecessary to the tiger is its magnitude, when we consider that he is to prey upon the buffalo, or the size of the wolf, if sheep are to be his food.

The enormous populations under the smaller species of quadrupeds, as the migratory rat of the North, and the wellknown British shrew-mouse, which sometimes causes the surface of the earth to resemble a living mass,-will serve to satisfy us of the wisdom of the arrangement whereby the feathered tribes are so much more numerous than quadrupeds. It is evident that there must be a weight, which no power of wing could support under the existing force of muscle in birds, greatly superior as this is to that of any of the mammalia. The ostrich has wings, but is too heavy a bird to fly. The condor, and the lammergeyer, or the bearded vulture of the Alps, are the heaviest birds that can sustain themselves on their pinions :

"As when a vulture, on Imaus bred,

Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,
Dislodging from a region scarce of prey,
To gorge the flesh of lambs, or yeanling kids,
On hills where flocks are fed, flies towards the
springs

Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams;
But on his way lights on the barren plains
Of Sericana, where the Chinese drive
With sails and wind their cany wagons light."

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Passing over a few of the predatory and aquatic birds, which form neither a very large number of species nor a great population, the average weight of birds will be found to be less than that of the rabbit, and more frequently that of the rat, the mouse, and the shrew. The humming-bird, less than the shrew, it is well known, is the least of birds. Here, again, supply and demand keep pace with each other. Nature's commissariat department is in the hands of unsleeping vigilance and inexhaustible sufficiency. They sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns," saith the Great Teacher, gathering His instructions from natural history, as well as from the fount of Deity; "and yet your heavenly Father feedeth them." The grain required for a horse would feed a hundred sparrows: hence the abundant increase of grain and of seeds of every description. Large, however, as is the portion of vegetable food of birds derived from the seeds of plants, this is far from being the whole of their sup port. Grouse, the black cock, the swan, and many others, feed on tender shoots of shrubs, on buds, and on unexpanded flowers. Market-gardeners and others know full well how fond many of the feathered

tribes, like the thrush and the blackbird, are of fruits. That miniature of beauty, the humming-bird, sips the nectar from Flora's cups with as much avidity and ease as the bee herself.

Carnivorous birds are, perhaps, not less numerous than those that feed on herbs; but the predatory birds, that devour their fellow-denizens of the air, are few in kind, and very restricted in population. Their fecundity is low. Apparently, the reason of this arrangement is, that this species of food was made difficult of attainment. The law which prevents it is almost an exception when compared with the numbers in the division, and with the same law in quadrupeds. Of the strictly carnivorous, the much greater number feed upon fish, and upon dead carcases. In hot climates this is a most merciful provision, and is as necessary to the comfort of life, and to the prevention of pestilence and disease, as are the Boards of Health, wisely established in our cities and towns for the purpose of keeping our streets and lanes free from deadly miasma. Insects - and the races of these are innumerable, and their population, if not infinite, altogether inconceivable-are the great storehouses of the feathered race. They seem created to be the prey of birds, and hence they exist in their enormous and all but incredible numbers.

The power of flying is more than a mere indulgence to a favoured portion of existence. It is necessary to the existence of many species of birds. The construction of their bills and of their talons is in admirable fitness with the rest of their peculiar structure. By their bills, they can obtain from plants and trees the minute seeds, which no other form of animal could reach, even if any other desired such food. They can range from place to place, apparently without labour-for when does a bird give signs of weariness?-in search of what would not repay the toils of any other. They are able to feed on what else would be the minute waste improvidently cast far and wide, as with a spendthrift hand. Is all this chance? Is all this accident? And the acuteness of their sight, too? And the peculiar power of suddenly changing the focus of the eye, thus enabling them to see the most minute objects at great distances under sudden changes of distance, and while in rapid motion? What! is all this mere chance? All this mere accident? The true naturalist sees the care of his Heavenly Father, comes in immediate contact with the perfection of the Godhead, when he sees birds enabled to obtain their food amid recesses inaccessible to other animals; whilst their small bulk renders a single and an almost invisible seed too precious to them to be wasted. Shall not

man, created in the image of God, and designed to be the priest of Nature, offering ceaseless tribute of praise on the altar of love, admire the Divine wisdom, which, while scattering the superabundant seeds of myriads upon myriads of plants, has created animals to feed on these seeds? The American pigeon, in all probability, exceeds in number the united multitudes of quadrupeds, as the monkey, the lemur, and the squirrel, that feed upon grain and fruits. The sparrow, not less than the ostrich the shrew, not less than the elephant-the moss, not less than the oakthe grass-seed, not less than the cocoa-nut or banana, alike proclaim the paternal care of an all-wise and all-directing Providence; "Whose wondrous power

Presided o'er Creation's natal hour;" and whose unsleeping vigilance, maintaining in harmonious existence the vast variety of being, calls for our ceaseless adoration and praise:

"There is a voiceless eloquence on earth,

Telling of Him who gave her wonders birth;
And long may I remain the adoring child,
Of Nature's majesty, sublime or wild;

DEATH FROM THE WANT OF SLEEP. How long can one live without sleep? This question we have never seen answered. But an authentic communication has been made to a British society whose field of operations are in Asia, descriptive of a mode of punishment which is peculiar to the criminal code of China. It appears from this communication that a Chinese merchant had been convicted of murdering his wife, and was sentenced to die by being totally deprived of the privilege of going to sleep. This singular and extremely painful mode of quitting an earthly existence was carried into execution at Amoy, under the following circumstances. The condemned was placed in prison, under the care of three of the police guard, who relieved each other every alternate hour, and who prevented the prisoner from falling asleep for a single moment, night or day. He thus lived for nineteen days without enjoying any sleep. At the commencement of the eighth day his sufferings were so cruel that he implored the authorities to grant him the blessed opportunity of being strangulated, garroted, guillotined, burned to death, drowned, quartered, shot, blown up with gunpowder, or put to death in any conceivable way which their humanity or ferocity could invent. This will give us some idea of the horrors of dying because you cannot go to sleep.