power of any man to foretell such an event, we cannot be silent when the omnipotence of God is assailed by insinuations of this kind. There is no argument like matter of fact: and it may therefore be allowed us to state, that earthquakes have more than once happened in London before this, and that our security against them rests not in the speculations of geology, or the impudence of scepticism, but in the will of God alone, and in his gracious and condescending declaration that judgment is his strange work, while mercy is his delight.

The prediction indeed to which reference has been made, appears to have rested upon historical rather than prophetical data. On the 8th February, 1750, an earthquake occurred in London, which returned with increased violence on the 8th of March. On the 17th of February, 1841, a slight shock was felt in Cornwall, and it was accordingly conjectured that it might return on the 17th March. An account of the former occurrence may perhaps, at this particular time, interest our readers, and we accordingly extract it from a recently published work upon our table.

A private memorandum-book kept at Peckham, about the middle of the last century, alludes to the earthquake there at noon on the 8th of February, and again on the 8th of March, 1750. "This event caused considerable excitement and alarm in London and its neighbourhood. The houses were shaken with such violence that the furniture rocked on the floors; the pewter and porcelain rattled on the shelves, and the bells rang. The commotion was accompanied by a noise resembling that produced by the fall of some heavy piece of furniture. The second shock was still more violent and alarming, as it woke the greater part of the people from their beds. It was preceded by a succession of thick, low, flashes of lightning, and a rumbling noise like that of a heavy carriage rolling over a hollow pavement. The shock itself consisted of repeated vibrations which lasted some seconds, and violently shook every house from top to bottom. Providentially no lives were lost, nor were any houses overthrown: the circumstance, however, made a deep impression upon many, especially as the two shocks were periodical, and might possibly indicate a third. A fanatic soldier, indeed, taking advantage of the panic, publicly prophesied that the next shock would happen on the

corresponding day in April, and totally destroy the cities of London and Westminster. This warning was not without its effect: the churches were crowded, the riotous and profligate were awed into sobriety and decorum, and the hand of charity was liberally opened. Unfortunately these impressions were evanescent, though they lasted long enough to fill the open fields around London with thousands of its trembling population on the dreaded day to witness the result. But every thing passed off quietly; their fears were soon forgotten, and the people, without any further misgiving, returned to their former evil courses."-Allport's History of Camberwell.

THE INFLUENCE OF A MOTHER'S HOLINESS.*

GEORGE GABRIEL was trained from infancy, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. He had, as almost always happens in instances of early piety, a truly Christian mother, though his father turned out the most cruel of husbands, and the worst of men. Deserted by him, and cast penniless upon the world, she came in the year 1827, to Fethard, with four children; the eldest, a boy about ten years old, and the three others girls, the youngest of whom was but a few weeks old. Never was there a more helpless group, or a more affecting sight. The mother, the picture of patience, and long-suffering, and submission to the will of God: those of the children whose characters had begun to form, exhibiting, under all their disadvantages, the happiest fruits of a pious mother's care. They really were examples to the whole parish; and Mrs. Gabriel, in many respects, more like an ideal character, than one in actual life Struggling with poverty, striving and working beyond her strength, she never asked for any thing. It is true she received what was freely offered to her by kind friends. But if they forgot her for a time, they never were reminded of her wants, or of her existence. And how she contrived to live during such intervals, was a matter which they often reflected on with wonder.

This affecting narrative is copied from the Rev. Henry Woodman's "Life of George Gabriel," a little work to which we rejoice to bear our unqualified testimony of approval. The touching story is told with so much truth and power, and is in itself so deeply interesting, that, we think, no parent can read it unmoved. We would also earnestly recommend the original work of which we have given a very imperfect abstract, to those youths who are just entering life, that they may be forewarned of the dangers that await them from evil associates, and conformity to the world, even in those things which a mistaken charity is to apt to overlook.

Her latter end was peace-her death-bed was none other but the gate of heaven. Relying, not on her own righteousness, but on the forgiveness of her unrighteousness, through the blood of the cross-no doubts nor misgivings disturbed the serenity of her soul. Passing through the valley of the shadow of death, she feared no evil, for she rested upon a Saviour's Almighty arm. Much as she loved all her children, yet during this last scene, George appeared, if possible, nearer to her heart than any other. From his hands, in preference even to her daughters, she received all her medicines; when she was thirsty, it was he who gave her drink; she was restless, when he was not by her, and said—" No one could settle her pillows like George."

It is of this individual that we are are now to speak particularly. George Gabriel was nurtured in the principles and discipline of pure and undefiled religion. And, as the necessary result of this, his character exhibits none of those marked features, and prominent points, which form the best materials for a striking portrait. His religion had little of excitement about it. It consisted not in warm effusions, in strong expressions, nor in those powerful emotions by which the soul is actuated, when rescued from the horrible pit and miry clay; it contrasts its present light, and liberty, and blessedness, with days of darkness, of cruel bondage, and of hopeless misery. Such a transition he had never experienced: such days he had never known. God was his hope, when he yet hanged upon his mother's breast: his piety grew with his growth, and strengthened with his strength; it was his life: it was himself. It was not visible in one part of his conversation more than another; or rather, it was the secret and invisible mover of the whole machine. It was a principle which lay at the root of his whole character; which made the tree good, and was best known by the quality of the fruit it produced. The child of a bad father, he seemed to have perceived from the earliest age, that it was his part, as an only son, to be, in all that he could, a husband to his mother. His filial piety would alone have manifested that the grace of God was upon him. With peculiar tact, and with a sagacity beyond his years, he saw how matters stood between his parents; and acted as one who knew and felt that it was his calling to be his mother's comforter. Of one trait of his habitual conduct in this tender office, as mentioned by those who were intimately acquainted with the fact. Before he was ten years old, when his unhappy father would, as he often did, conclude a day of cruelty by issuing forth for the night upon some deed of shame and darkness, nothing could induce this little boy to go to bed, or to leave his mother. He would forego his sleep, and hour after hour sit by her side, endeavouring to pour consolation into her wounded heart. Can it then be

wondered at, that, she should in her dying hour have looked to him to smooth her pillow, to prop her fainting head, and to close her eyes? What he was to his sisters, those sisters best could testify. Their tears of anguish for his untimely and irreparable loss, would tell his story better than the most laboured eulogium of the pen. His sisters could tell how the scanty earnings of his industry were thrown in to form a common stock with his mother and with them, as if even the thought of a separate interest had never once entered into his mind. They could tell how early he took upon him all a father's responsibility, and all a father's tender, anxious care. They could tellno others alone could know the whole, for the secret was kept from them, -how, when harrassed and driven almost beyond his strength by trials and disappointments, he would master his feelings, and assume a cheerful and unembarrassed air on his return to them, lest they should be discouraged, or be led to think that he was burdened by them. They could tell that in the last interview they ever had with him, he besought them not to slave themselves too much, and made them promise that they would not sit up that night at work, saying, that they should trust in Providence, and that, if to-morrow came, it would take thought for the things of itself.

To every means and ordinance of grace, he paid the most punctual attention. He delighted in the service of God's house. Of this cheerful piety and amiable simplicity, his conversation furnished abundant instances. But as it respects the interior movement of the mind-the hidden experiences of the heart-that secret history which concerns the intercourse of each awakened soul with God; on these matters it was not his habit to communicate.

But "let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." "Let not him that girdeth on his harness, boast himself, as he that putteth it off." George Gabriel had, with all his excellencies, certain points of weakness in his character. This his wise and pious mother knew, and often made it the subject of her admonition. In what appeared lesser matters, he was too easily led; nor was he sufficiently guarded in the choice of his companions. To this even his virtues in a certain measure contributed. His humility inclined him, in his comparative estimate of character, to take the lowest room, and to consider others better than himself. His charity thought no evil, rejoiced not in iniquity, and hoped all things; was slow to discern even the beam that was in his brother's eye, and covered the multitude of sins. His purity cast the veil of its own light upon the works of darkness, and misled his judg ment-because he judged of others by himself. Unpractised in vice, its secret cipher was unintelligible to him, and he was unacquainted with its

signs and signals. His "senses were not exercised to discern" the plague-spots of sin. He was not in the secret, when the sly allusion, the double meaning, the arch insinuation of low humour and vulgar cant, caused the loud laugh of triumph over innocence, decency, and virtue, in which the initiated alone can join. A friend who was much interested for him often said, "How can you contrive to make people wholly unlike yourself, so fond of your society?" To this and similar questions he would answer, "The truth is, I wish, if possible, to be on kindly terms with every one: my being in business indeed renders it on many accounts desirable that I should be so. But I assure you our intercourse does not go beyond a few civil words-I have no intimacy with such persons."

But alas! it is proved by too many facts, that he did not long continue on these distant terms with bad companions. Into their actual vices he never was drawn. As it respected these, he could at all times say, "60 my soul, come not thou into their secret ; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united." But nevertheless, in his compliances, he went further than could have been conceived possible. Though he preserved a strict sobriety in his own person, he was a party in scenes where others exceeded the bounds of moderation. Thus he became partaker of their sins; and if he did not himself the works of darkness, he had pleasure in those that did them." It is deeply affecting, and a thing most awful, to watch a soul in its descent, from light, and purity, and God, into the dark abysses and miserable abodes of sin;-to see how it struggles with those reluctances which, though vanquished step by step, prove that it does not without a pang let loose its hold on heaven; to see how the spirit, though clouds on clouds obscure it, will sometimes beam with a brightness which evinces that its native fires are not yet extinguished. Nothing is more painful to the mind, or touching to the heart, than to behold a young man precisely in the position in which we are now contemplating George Gabriel. He was retrograding day by day; but as yet he yielded ground with dubious and reluctant steps; although the sad evidence of his deterioration was not wanting. His mother's death, and the consequent absence of her counsels, left him more exposed to the assaults of temptation than before. One of his greatest snares was cards. In the sphere in which Gabriel moved, if it did not lead, as among the very commonest, to open breaches of the peace, it was connected with many gross indulgences which tend to brutalize the character. And though he "ran not to the same excess of riot" with his associates, he was constantly inhaling the fumes, and breathing the atmosphere of vice. In a word, this lately exemplary and good young man was descending rapidly from his former high estate.