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throne by the whole celestial choir:-"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." O, surely thou couldst not pray in vain for the pardon of sin, now made thy own at the instant of atoning for it with thy blood! If this thy prayer was not heard and granted we all perish for ever, inasmuch as we all have joined in thy murder.

What other words are those we hear from thee, more expressive of misery than the groans of the damned:-"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" Yet in these words, which, beyond all others ever uttered, mark the heinousness of sin, what consolation for him, could he taste it, who dies in despair!

Ah, what cry is that !-what darkness! -what shaking of the earth!--what yawning of graves !-what rending of rocks! The dead, the very rocks, hear thy dying cry, O Saviour of souls! The sun hides his face from thy death, who gave him being. Hell feels the stroke of that death which destroys him that hath the power of death, and, rousing her infernal fires, throws the upper earth into convulsions!

Such was the awful scene at the crucifixion of the Son of God! SKELTON.

PETER AND PAUL.

FROM St. Paul's expression, "before all," (Gal. ii. 14) it is evident that his rebuke of Peter took place on some public occasion.

The scene, though slightly mentioned, is one of the most remarkable in sacred history; and the mind naturally labours to picture to itself the appearance of the two men. It is therefore at least allowable to mention here that general notion of the forms and features of the two Apostles which has been handed down in tradition, and was represented by the early artists. St. Paul is set before us as having the strongly-marked and prominent features of a Jew, yet not without some of the finer lines indicative of Greek thought. His stature was diminutive, and his body distinguished by some lameness or distortion, which may have provoked the contemptuous expression of his enemies. His beard was long and thin. His head was bald.

The characteristics of his face were -a transparent complexion, which visibly betrayed the quick changes of his feelings; a bright gray eye, under thickly overhanging, united eyebrows; a cheerful and winning expression of countenance, which invited the approach and inspired the confidence of strangers. It would be natural to infer, from his continual journeys and manual labour, that he was possessed of great strength of constitution. But men of delicate health have often gone through the greatest exertions; and his own words,

on more than one occasion, show that he suffered much from bodily infirmity.

St. Peter is represented to us as a man of larger and stronger form, as his character was harsher and more abrupt. The quick impulses of his soul revealed themselves in the flashes of a dark eye. The complexion of his face was full and sallow; and the short hair, which is described as entirely gray at the time of his death, curled black and thick round his temples and his chin when the two Apostles stood together at Antioch, twenty years before their martyrdom. Believing as we do that these traditionary pictures have probably some foundation in truth, we gladly take them as helps to the imagination. And they certainly must assist us in realising a remarkable scene, where Judaism and Christianity, in the persons of two Apostles, are for a moment brought before us in strong antagonism.- Life and Epistles of St. Paul, by W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson.

THE SECRET-PRAYING CHRISTIAN. "HERE is one who was never known on earth; perhaps in all the right-hand company, none can recollect his name. He was very poor. He had no money to give to the cause of Christ-hardly the two mites; and he was very plain, simple, and unlearned. He could not express himself. But his name is Israel. He was a prince with God, and see how often he has prevailed. And here is another, who was bedridden for many years, could not work, could not visit, could not write; but she could pray. And see what a benefactress she has been. See this long list of affectionate intercessions for her relatives, and neighbours, and friends; these many supplications for the church and the world, for the unconverted, for missions, for mourners in Zion! And see the answers. What a Dorcas she has been, though she could make no garments for the poor. What a Phebe, though she could not stir a step. What a Priscilla, though she could expound the way of God to few-for her prayers often did it all. And here is another. He had just escaped from papal darkness, and was beginning to enlighten others, when he was put in prison; and after months of languishing, he went up from Smithfield in his chariot of fire, a martyr of Jesus Christ. He never preached. He was refused the use of ink and pen. He wrote nothing. He printed nothing. He spake to no one, for thick dungeonwalls enclosed him. But he prayed. From the height of his sanctuary the Lord looked down; he heard the groaning of this prisoner, and in the Reformation sent the answer."-Rev. James Hamilton.

Latural Bistory and Philosophy.

THE STUDY OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

NATURAL philosophy comprehends the study of the various objects and materials of the universe, which consists not of numerous independent existences, detached from and unrelated to each other, but of substances connected by various relations and dependencies, forming a whole which men of science very properly designate the System of Nature.

It is the province of the natural historian to describe material objects by informing us of their shape, colour, and sensible qualities. He tells us, for instance, that a piece of marble takes a fine polish, burns into quicklime, dissolves in aquafortis, is precipitated by alkalies, and is often found to be a mass of fossils, once animated, and playing an important part in the world of life. Thus, the description of any object, with the view of ascertaining its specific nature, can only be accomplished by taking notice of its various relations to other material objects. Science still remains ignorant of the essence of any thing, or what makes it that thing and no other, and must be content with the discovery of its properties or qualities.

Casual observers of Nature will see that there is an evident connection between all its parts by their various properties. All things on this earth are connected with each other by the laws of motion and of mind. Gravitation connects our globe with the solar system, which again has a natural connection with the fixed stars, by the sameness of the light which they emit with that emitted by the sun. This light moves with the same velocity, consists of the same colours, and exhibits the phenomena of refraction and reflection according to the same laws. The universe thus appears to be one system of being, the creation and domain of one infinitely great and glorious God, who, by His universal presence and power, challenges not only our scientific investigation of His glory, but our devout confidence in His care and love. "When I look abroad," says the illustrious Chalmers, " on the wondrous scene that is immediately before me-and see that in every direction it is a scene of the most various and unwearied activity-and expatiate on all the beauties of that garniture by which it is adorned, and on all the prints of design and benevolence that abound in it -and think that the same God, who holds the universe, with its every system, in the

hollow of His hand, pencils every flower, and
gives nourishment to every blade of grass,
and actuates the movements of every living
thing, and is not disabled by the weight of
His other cares from enriching the humble
department of Nature which I occupy with
charms and accommodations of the most
unbounded variety-then, surely, if a mes-
sage, bearing every mark of authenticity,
should profess to come to me from God,
and inform me of His mighty doings for
the happiness of our species, it is not for
me, in the face of all this evidence, to reject
it as a tale of imposture, because astrono-
mers have told me that He has so many
other worlds and other orders of being to
attend to; and when I think that it were
a deposition of Him from this supre-
macy over the creatures He has formed,
should a single sparrow fall to the ground
without His knowledge, then let science
and sophistry try to cheat me as they may
-I will not let go the anchor of my con-
fidence in God; I will not be afraid, for I
am of more value than many sparrows."
Devout science adoringly chants the praises
of Him who has brought forth the universe
by His power, and who maintains it by His
providence: "Thou, even Thou, art Lord
alone; Thou hast made heaven, the heaven
of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and
all things that are therein, the seas, and all
that is therein; and Thou preservest them
all; and the host of heaven worshippeth
Thee. Lo, these are parts of His ways; but
how little a portion is heard of Him!
the thunder of His power who can under-
stand? The heaven, even the heavens, are
the Lord's: but the earth hath He given to
the children of men."

But

The day may be considered gone by when the natural philosopher will be held up to ridicule because he is pursuing researches, the immediate and practical utility of which may not be at once obvious. All scientific history shows that speculations, apparently the most unprofitable, have frequently, after much lapse of time and expense of labour, proved of the highest practical value, and led to the most beneficial inventions. Dry speculations, in the hands of ancient geometricians, on the properties of the conic sections, and the dreams of Kepler about the numerical harmonies of the universe, are the steps by means of which modern science has risen to the knowledge of the elliptic mo

tions of the planets, and the law of gravitation, with its astonishing practical results. Boyle encountered the ridicule of the vain smatterers in science for prosecuting his researches on the elasticity and pressure of the air, because these sneerers could not see "what good would come of all this;" though "all this" paved the way for his successors in philosophy to provide society with the steam-engine, and thus to produce a series of national revolutions, of more consequence to the interests of mankind than any bill yet before Parliament, or any law yet enacted by Congress. Much as alchemy itself excites the sense of the ridiculous, and though astrology must be placed among the wildest vagaries of the human intellect, not a few who devoted themselves to these now exploded subjects of research were men of gifted intellect, to whom we are indebted for the existence of experimental philosophy, since they reasoned while they worked, not groping contentedly in the dark, but observing the relation of objects to each other, and noticing scrupulously the phenomena of the changes that transpired during the course of their somewhat chimerical, but, nevertheless experimental efforts.

Natural Philosophy teaches that no natural object is unimportant or trifling. Man may be taught the sublimest lesson from the least of Nature's works. The fall of an apple may raise the thoughts of Newton to the laws that regulate the motions of the planets; the situation of a pebble may afford Lyall evidence of the state of the globe which he inhabits, ages before man occupied it; the fragile shell of the nautilus, as the mollusc floats upon the wave, or sinks instantly at the presence of danger, may suggest the new submarine invention, which has obtained the approval of the most distinguished engineers of England and France, from its power of ascent and descent at pleasure, entirely independent of all suspension, with a facility of ascent and descent in the deepest water not unsurpassed by the nautilus itself. Children may stand round and scoff, while the grave man, with basin, tobacco-pipe, water, and soap, is, hour after hour, only blowing bubbles; and some children of larger growth may shake their knowing heads, and lift up their idle hands in ignorant astonishment, that so grave a man should thus, as they deem, waste his time. But the grave man, blowing soap bubbles, knows what he is doing. A principle in Nature may be as well and effectually elucidated by a familiar fact as by an imposing phenomenon. The colours glittering on a soapbubble are the consequence of a principle -the most important, from the variety of

phenomena it explains, and the most beautiful, from its simplicity and compendious neatness, in the whole science of optics. As the nature of prismatic colours can be made intelligible by this trivial object, from that moment to blow a soap-bubble, even with a tobacco-pipe, becomes an employment worthy of a sage.

Natural Philosophy furnishes its votary with an inexhaustible source of healthy, pleasurable, and intellectual excitement. Accustomed to trace the operation of general causes, and the exemplification of general laws, in circumstances where the uninquiring perceives neither novelty nor beauty, he walks in the midst of recognised wonders. Every object around him elucidates some principle, affords some instruction, exhibits some harmony, awakens some devotion. Questions are perpetually arising in his mind, keeping his faculties in constant exercise, and preserving him from the dissipation which leads so many into frivolous and degrading pursuits and pleasures. On land, at sea, from the mountain top, in the secluded valley, with the fragment of a shell in his hand, with the buzz of a fly in his ear, he is in the midst of the arcana of Nature, who becomes his able instructor and who thus conducts him to God-" who doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number." Such a man finds

"Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything;"

and possesses, in this intellectual enjoyment, a pre-eminence over his neighbour who indulges in pleasures of sense, in the fact of his capability of unlimited increase and continual repetition without danger of satiety or distaste. Observing, as he does, the calm yet energetic regularity of Nature, the immense scale of her operations, and the certainty with which her ends are attained, he finds that his pursuits tend to elevate and tranquillise his mind, and to possess him with confidence and trust in God. It teaches him his strength and dignity, calls on him to exercise and improve his superior faculties, opens to him an ever-extending field of interesting investigation and of invaluable discovery, puts him alongside of some of the noblest spirits and truest benefactors of mankind, and enables him to "walk with God," and commune, denizen of the earth as he is, with the Glorious Spirit of the Universe, not less truly than did innocent Adam when he heard the voice of God in the garden of Eden.

Miscellany.

THE GROUND OF ALL TRUE

REFORM.

IN all reformations, if you would have them genuine and lasting, you must begin at the bottom, like a coal fire, and kindle upward; if not, they will go out. If you merely lay your fire upon the top, it will not extend downward; but if you put it at the bottom, it will blaze through the whole. Thus, if you take the children, you secure the whole of society; and if you take the lower classes, you will be sure of the upper.

The only possibility of real progress in society is founded of God in individual regeneration by the Holy Spirit; and of this, Divine truth is the only instrumentality. They are vain nostrums, every one, which the philosophers and philanthropists of this world, without the gospel, would apply for the lasting amelioration or re-construction of society. In theory they are going to keep down all evil and misery, and to show the natural perfectibility of man; and they for ever throw the depravity and misery of man upon the bad management and unequal division of society; forgetting or denying that the depravity of man is the sole cause of social disorder and wretchedness; and that till that depravity is corrected, and men are brought to God, social misery will remain, whatever expedients are applied to remove it. You cannot quiet the troubled sea of human existence, or prevent its tempests while its depravity continues, no more than you could stay the rolling of the ocean while the winds blow and the moon is in her orbit. And whatever security you may think you have in any reformation, yet without God's hand in the gospel, and God's grace at the bottom of it, the particular evils will rise again with tenfold fury for their partial check, like a volcano into which you are playing your engines. They will come forward with unabated vigour at the opportune junctures in the future progress of events, like some great serpent, in the language of John Foster, meeting and glaring upon the sight again, with his appalling glance and uninjured length of volume, after a storm of missiles had sent him to his retreat, and been poured in there with destructive intention after him. You might as well stand at Vesuvius, and undertake to calm its eruptions with a fire-engine, as imagine to repress the evils of society by associations without the gospel. We say not this to

discourage philanthropic effort, but to base it where only it can be successful-on the institutions of the gospel, and on the Spirit of God. There are speculations and schemes that anticipate success independently of the gospel, and there are others that expressly disclaim the gospel; they are both alike destined to a disastrous overthrow. The schemes of pure reason and virtue will never conquer the love of sensual gratification, of distinction, of power, and of money.

It is a powerful passage in Foster's work on Popular Ignorance, to which that celebrated writer has exposed the absurdity of those philosophers and philanthropists who have eloquently displayed or projected the happiness of human progress with human nature unchanged. They must have forgotten upon what planet those apartments were built, or those arbours were growing, in which they were contemplating such visions.

"All the speculations and schemes," says he, "of the sanguine projectors of all ages have left the world still a prey to infinite legions of vices and miseries, an immortal band, which has trampled in scorn on the monuments and the dust of the self-idolizing men, who dreamed, each in his day, that they were born to chase these evils out of the earth. If these vain demigods of an hour, who trusted to change the world, and who perhaps wished to change it only to make it a temple to their fame, could be awaked from the unmarked graves into which they sunk, to look a little while round on the world for some traces of the success of their projects, would they not be eager to retire again into the chambers of death, to hide the shame of their remembered presumption? The wars and tyranny, the rancour, cruelty, and revenge, together with all the other unnumbered vices and crimes with which the earth is still infested, are enough, if the whole mass could be brought within the bounds of any one, even the most extensive empire, to constitute its whole population literally infernals, all but their being incarnate, and that indeed they would soon, through mutual destruction, cease to be. Hitherto, the fatal cause of these evils, the corruption of the human heart, has sported with the weakness, or seduced the strength of all human contrivances to subdue them. And the nature of man still casts ominous conjecture on the whole success. While that is corrupt,

it will pervert even the very schemes and operations by which the world should be improved, though their first principles were pure as heaven; and revolutions, great discoveries, augmented science, and new forms of polity, will become in effect what may be denominated the sublime mechanics of depravity."

The sublime mechanics of depravity! What else could all discoveries, inventions, arts, powers, turn into, under the direction of unchanged selfishness? The axe must be laid at the root of the tree, and there applied; and the gospel only can do it. The axe of the gospel is the principle of regenerating love and life, and every reform that has that in it is sure of suc

cess.

A SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. "WHAT is a special providence?" said a lady to a clergyman, who formed one of a cheerful winter's evening party, seated around a bright, blazing fire, which cast its ruddy light over an antiquely-wainscoted room in which they were assembled.

"My dear madam," said he, drawing his chair still closer to the hearth, "you have touched upon a subject which, perhaps, I can better illustrate by anecdote than argument."

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By anecdote that will be delightful!" said a chorus of voices.

"The story which I am about to relate," said the clergyman, "although positively one of the most remarkable of its kind, is yet no less strange than true. About fifteen years ago, I was appointed-I was then a young man-to a curacy in the town of Bradford, in the woollen district of Yorkshire. Soon after my arrival, the town was electrified by reports of robberies mysteriously perpetrated at a large mill in the neighbourhood; but, although of almost daily occurrence, and notwithstanding the most vigilant means were employed, all attempts to discover the guilty party were for a long time of no avail. The article stolen was cloth. The theft was effected by cutting pieces of a yard, or so, in length from the long rolls in the warehouse. The first intimation the firm obtained of the robbery, was by the return of a large quantity of goods upon their hands, marked, 'short lengths.' They felt their honour as men of business involved, and immediately a searching investigation took place. All the 'rolls' in the warehouse were remeasured, and the result proved that nearly one half of the stock had been tampered with. The 'hands' employed in the warehouse and mill were upwards of a thousand in number, and each was subjected to a long and painful inquiry;

nothing definite, however, was elicited. But although the theft was not brought home to any one, more than fifty persons were discharged on suspicion.

"Notwithstanding these precautions, however, reports of fresh robberies were from time to time circulated, and the thief seemed to bid fair to elude detection; but the daring delinquent was at length discovered. One of the partners in the firm, being called by business to Sheffield, saw there, exposed for sale in the window of a tailor's shop, a waistcoat-piece, of a pattern and quality made only, and that too very recently, by their own house-so recently, indeed, that to be fully prepared for the probable demand they were still manufacturing, and had not, as yet, sent a single piece into market. The gentleman immediately communicated with the police authorities; the tailor was waited upon, underwent a long examination, but stated a plain case, saying, in a few words, that the waistcoat-piece was part of a job-lot,' purchased from a man named James Burrows, of Bradford. This was sufficient. James Burrows was a confidential warehouse-clerk, in the employ of the firm, and positively the last person on whom suspicion would have fallen. He was a professor of religion; a man of some standing among his sect, being a local preacher, Sabbath-school teacher, and classleader.

"Returning to Bradford that same evening, the gentleman consulted with his partners. He had brought the piece of stolen cloth from Sheffield, and they resolved that, without Burrows's knowledge, every roll of that description should be unwrapped, until, by fitting at the point of severance, it was matched with the piece from which it had been cut.

"The whole night was occupied in this manner, but the piece was discovered; and, in the morning, Burrows was confronted with the proofs of his guilt. Taken quite aback, and finding denial or excuse equally hopeless, he confessed all, acknowledged that to the violation of trust reposed in him, he had committed all those robberies for which so many of his fellow-workers had been discharged with ruined characters, and pleaded hard for mercy.

"This, however, was out of the question: the firm was justly indignant. Burrows was committed for trial. They prosecuted, pressed the charge, conviction followed; and the judge, after remarking on the flagrant nature of the case, sentenced him to be transported for life.

"With a heavy heart, his wife and children-the latter six in number-bade him farewell; at the appointed time he left his native land, an outcast and a felon.

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