had to be brought in and set down within arm's-length of the most unruly.

Being desirous of knowing experimentally the difficulties of the teachers, we volunteered to take charge of a class. Three boys were given us, nine, eleven, and thirteen years of age. In a few minutes one of them got tired, and went off to another class. We soon found that those remaining were twice as many as we could comfortably manage.

One, Daniel D, the son of an Irish labourer, a sharp and intelligent boy of nine, we were surprised to find, had considerable knowledge of some parts of divine truth: this we found had been acquired at a Roman Catholic school. We questioned and tried to instruct the two about man's ruin by the fall. Daniel answered well. We asked him," Are we all sinners?" "I don't know." "Are you and I sinners ?" I know I am." "What makes you think you are a sinner?" "Sir, I can't help being a sinner: these boys lead 'me away, and I can't get free from them." We told him all were sinners, and born under the wrath of God. His answer surprised us. "Ah! you mean original sin. I know we are sinners in that way." We pursued the conversation a little further, Daniel making intelligent remarks. But on asking him, "What then must we do to be saved?"

the lie of Satan came out. He answered, "We must receive the sacraments, do good works, and other things." We tried to show him the way of salvation by Christ. It was interesting to see this poor little fellow's willingness in following his blind guides. pointed out to us a "beautiful hymn," in a book which he pulled from his pocket, where he said he always carried it, seeming to value it much. It was a Popish book of devotion, entitled, "The Garden of the Soul."

He

Our other scholar was very different, and a much fairer specimen of the class of which the school was composed. He was a complete sample of the good-natured, hardened young vagabond. We got on pretty well at first, but he soon began with his mischief. Speaking of the fall, we asked Daniel whether, if he had apples, would he give any to his companion? His companion interposed with the remark, "I say, Sir; I like a beef-steak a deal better." He amused himself and the other by calling frequently during the evening, 66 I say, teacher; is that beef-steak ready for me yet?" We asked him his name and occupation, when, repeating some nonsense, he looked to Daniel, apparently to get him to share the sport of keeping us in the dark. This boy, with several others, on leaving the school, followed us along the street, asking for halfpence. He seemed, with all his drollery, to be cunning and selfish, and illliked by his companions. One young ruffian who had edged near the seat where he was sitting, cried out against him, and sprung at his throat, jamming him into a corner.

A teacher sitting near me had been trying

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to impress on one of the boys that his heart was hard and wicked, and his need of a new heart. On separating, the teacher was repeating this, when the boy tore open his tattered jacket, and, drumming fiercely on his breast, cried, "Mine's not a bad un, Sir; mine's not a bad un !"

Before dismissing, an intelligent and vigorous teacher from Yorkshire shortly addressed them. At first they were inattentive and restless: plans were tried in vain to arrest their attention, till he began to tell of a man who was hanged at the Old Bailey. In a moment every eye was fixed: the subject was evidently no stranger to their thoughts. The teacher said, "His name was John." A lad called out, "That's my name, Sir." With ready tact he answered, "It's my name too; but attend to me. He used to frequent a place in Gray's Inn-lane." "I knows it, Sir," cried another, "Fox's-court, Gray's Inn-lane,- a bad place." "That it is, Sir, I knows it." They continued in this way, while the address continued, to offer their assistance to the speaker.

While the last hymn was being sung, one more was carried to the door, amid the derisive shouts of his fellows. Some half-adozen near me then began to cross their legs, and imitate the stitching and hammering of a shoemaker at work, others at the same time pulling and dragging each other from their places.

On prayer being begun, they were told as usual to put their hands together. Some of them forthwith clasped their hands and dropped down on their knees on the floor, while others kept calling to their companions across the room.

Amid such scenes, anything like regular lessons it is of course almost impossible to teach. Books are provided; but few have the ability, and fewer the will, to read them. Nearly all that can be done is to attempt, by reiteration, to fix in the memory of these poor outcasts some of the leading truths that can make wise unto salvation. The teachers' labour here is emphatically a work of faith.

The class of persons at the school described are believed to be among the most abandoned in London; but this sketch may give an idea of the population for whom the Ragged Sunday-schools are designed. In this lowest layer of society strange characters are sometimes found, and strange answers received. Once, when a school was addressed about the barren fig-tree, a boy exclaimed, "I say, Sir, you have been for cutting down that 'ere tree two times already: I'd like to know what you'd be arter with it now?" Minister, visiting the school described, asked a boy, "How long have you been at this school?" With impudent wit he replied, "Just five minutes, Sir." Another boy was asked "Where do you live?" "I live where I can, Sir." Why, where do you generally sleep?" "Under a cart, Sir, when I can get

A

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one."

"And what do you live upon?" "Why, Sir, I do as they say in the Sundayschool :

'O all ye hungry starving souls
That feed upon the wind.""

A ruffian-like youth was once asked, "Have you a father or mother, boy?" He looked fiercely in the teacher's face, and answered, "Tell me, Sir, do I look as if I ever had a father or a mother?"

Our readers, like ourselves, will be ready to ask, Where were the men to be found to

persevere in such a work as this? On conversing, at the end, with the teachers present, we found that at first many had come, attracted by the novelty of the enterprise, and perhaps the romance of the work; but when they met with such trials, their zeal, having no deepness of earth, had withered away; the floor had been winnowed, and nothing but wheat was left. We had a warrant, in their mere perseverance, for the sterling worth of those who remained. They were quiet, serious, earnest men; seemingly men of faith and prayer.-Sunday-School Magazine.

THE ROMAN CENTURION

WAS the Commander of a subdivision of the legion, called a centuria. It consisted of one hundred men, and was the half of a manipulus, the sixth part of a cohort, and the sixtieth part of a legion. The Centurion was distinguished from the rest by the branch of a vine which he carried in his hand.

The short tunic was another mark of distinction: he was also known by letters on the crest of the helmet. The accompanying woodcut represents a Centurion with a vitis in his hand: this was the badge of office with which he punished his men.

The duties of the Centurion were chiefly confined to the regulation of his own corps, and the care of the watch. He had the power of granting remission of service to the private soldiers for a sum of money. The exactions on this plea were one cause of sedition in the Roman army.

There were thirty manipuli in a legion, and each manipulus was allowed two Centurions, one to each centuria; and to determine the point of priority between them, they were ereated at different elections. The thirty who were first chosen took the precedency of their fellows, and therefore commanded the

right hand; as the others did the left. The triarii had their Centurions elected first, next to them the principes, and afterwards the hastiti.

These distinctions afforded a wide field for promotion: first through all the orders of the hastiti; then through the principes; and afterwards, from the last order of the triarii to the primipilus, the most honourable of the Centurions.

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These officers were usually elected by the military Tribunes, subject, probably, to the confirmation of the Consul. There was a time when desert was the only path to military rank; but under the Emperors, centurionships were given away almost entirely by interest, or personal friendship. Some, indeed, were appointed to this rank at once, without previously serving in a lower capacity. D. A.

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FAULT-FINDERS;

OR, A WORD TO THOSE WHOM IT MAY
CONCERN.

WHEN the heart is right with God, evils very often diminish from without; an improved state of feeling produces an improved state of things. If fault-finders-those fungusroots of society, and fit only for the shelter of frogs and reptiles distinguished for croaking, and for their venomous qualities-were to consecrate the same time to prayer, carrying the injunction of the Apostle into effect, Brethren, pray for us," which they expend in correcting less faults than their own, and in perfecting better men than themselves, "the word of the Lord" would be much more free in its course, and would be much more likely to be "glorified." But there is a class of individuals who are for reforming all, except themselves, while they themselves require it most,-fault-finding constituting, itself, one of their leading defects.-Rev. J. Everett.

LORD CHESTERFIELD'S OPINION OF DR. JOHNSON.

THERE is a man, whose moral character, deep learning, and superior parts, I acknowledge, admire, and respect; but whom it is so impossible for me to love, that I am almost in a fever whenever I am in his company. His figure (without being deformed) seems made to disgrace or ridicule the common structure of the human body. His legs and arms are never in the position which, according to the situation of his body, they ought to be in; but constantly employed in committing acts of hostility upon the graces. He throws anywhere, but down his throat, whatever he means to drink; and only mangles what he means to carve. attentive to all the regards of social life, he mistimes or misplaces everything. He disputes with heat, and indiscriminately; mindless of the rank, character, and situation of those with whom he disputes: absolutely ignorant of the several gradations of familiarity or respect, he is exactly the same to

In

his superiors, his equals, and his inferiors; and, therefore, by a necessary consequence, absurd to two of the three. Is it possible to love such a man? No. The utmost I can do for him, is to consider him a respectable Hottentot.-Letters from Lord Chesterfield.

NIAGARA WHIRLPOOL.

THE whirlpool near Niagara Falls has of late become a receptacle of dead bodies. In addition to the two human bodies recently noticed, there are the bodies of two horses and a hog. These may be seen from the bank above, passing round a "funeral circuit" of a mile or more in circumference, each succeeding circuit drawing them nearer the vortex of the whirlpool, until each in its turn becomes submerged beneath the boiling element, again thrown violently from its angry embrace, to repeat its former evolutions. The sight of human bodies in the whirlpool is solemn and terrific: the blue waters seem to hold their prey, in defiance of human efforts to dispossess them, until, satisfied in revelling with the dead, it emits them through its narrow outlet into the rapids below, to be entombed in Lake Ontario.-Toronto Globe.

COLPORTEURS.

COLPORTEUR is a French word, which signifies literally "neck carrier;" and the persons to whom it is applied are pious men, generally speaking, of little education, who sling a satchel or bag filled with Bibles, Testaments, and Tracts, over their shoulders, and travel through town and country, from house to house, to sell the word of Gcd. This is, we apprehend, the humblest walk of the Christian ministry, but perhaps not the least important, and certainly, if special blessings are promised to the meek and lowly, not the least blessed. See the lonely man, his heart filled with Christian love, and his back loaded with the Bible, toiling along through summer's heat and winter's cold, at one time covered with mud,

and another sinking in the snow; sometimes faint and weary, sitting down by the way-side, like his Master at the well of Samaria, for the twofold purpose of resting the exhausted frame, and conversing with sinners about their souls' salvation. See him rudely repulsed from one door, reviled at another, threatened with personal violence at a third, yet persevering in the well-founded hope of being permitted here and there to drop the good seed of the word. See him when the shades of night begin to gather, in some strange settlement, far from any friend, and surrounded by those who have been taught from their cradle to hate the Bible and all who teach it. The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but he, like his Master, has not where to lay his head, until God, who provided for Elijah in the desert, opens some door to receive him. There, after godly conversation, and a coarse meal, for which he scrupulously pays, he wraps himself in his well-worn great-coat, and seeks repose on the floor, ready to start on the morrow for a similar journey.-Montreal Witness.

GEORGE THE THIRD'S ATTENTION TO BUSINESS.

THE Correspondence which he carried on with his confidential servants during the ten most critical years of his life lies before us, and it proves that his attention was ever awake to all the occurrences of the Government. Not a step was taken in foreign, colonial, or domestic affairs, that he did not form his opinion upon it, and exercise his influence over it. The instructions to Ambassadors, the orders to Governors, the movements of forces down to the marching of a single battalion in the districts of this country, the appointment to all offices in Church and State, not only the giving away of judgeships, bishoprics, regiments, but the subordinate promotions, lay and clerical: all these form the topics of his letters; on all his opinion is pronounced decisively; on all his will is declared peremptorily. In one letter he decides the appointment of a Scotch Puisne Judge; in another the march of a troop from Buckinghamshire into Yorkshire; in third the nomination to the deanery of Worcester; in a fourth he says that, "if Adam, the architect, succeeds Worsley at the Board of Works, he shall think Chambers ill-used."-Brougham's Statesmen.

PROGRESS OF A POUND OF COTTON.

a

THE following account of the adventures of a pound of manufactured cotton, will show the importance of manufactures to a country in a conspicuous manner. "There was sent off for London lately, from Glasgow, a small

piece of muslin, about one pound weight, the history of which is as follows:-The cotton came from the United States to London; from London it went to Manchester, where it was manufactured into yarn; from Manchester it was sent to Paisley, where it was woven; it was sent to Ayrshire next, where it was tamboured; afterwards it was conveyed to Dumbarton, where it was hand-sewed, and again returned to Paisley, when it was sent to a distant part of the county of Renfrew to be bleached, and was returned to Paisley; then sent per coach to London. It is difficult precisely to ascertain the time taken to bring this article to market; but it may be pretty near the truth to reckon two years from the time it was packed in America, till its cloth arrived at the merchant's warehouse in London, whither it must have been conveyed three thousand miles by sea, and nine hundred and twenty by land, and contributed towards the support of no less than one hundred and fifty people, whose services were necessary in the carriage and manufacture of this small quantity of cotton, and by which the value has been advanced two thousand per cent. What is said of this piece is descriptive of no inconsiderable part of the trade."

TIGHT LACING.

WE commend the following remarks to the tight-laced among the fair sex, as well of England as of America. They are from Headley's "Letters from Italy." "It is astonishing that our ladies should persist in that ridiculous notion that a small waist is, and per necessita must be, beautiful. Why, many an Italian woman would cry for vexation if she possessed such a waist as some of our ladies acquire only by the longest, painfullest process. I have sought the reason of this difference, and can see no other than that the Italians have their glorious statuary continually before them, as models; and hence endeavour to similate themselves to them; whereas our fashionables have no models except those French stuffed figures in the windows of milliners' shops. Why, if an artist should presume to make a statue with the shape that seems to be regarded with us as the perfection of harmonious proportion, he would be laughed out of the city. It is a standing objection against the taste of our women the world over, that they will practically assert that a French milliner understands how they should be made better than nature herself."

as

A LEARNED MAYOR. LORD MANSFIELD, when on a circuit at Shrewsbury, having been asked to dinner by

GAZA lies on the road leading from Akabah to Hebron, which passes along nearly the whole length of the great Wady-el-Arabah. It is on the sea-coast, in the country of the Philistines; and is a very ancient place, as we find it mentioned in Gen. x. 19, where it is given as one of the border-cities of the Canaanites.

In the division of the land, Gaza fell to the lot of Judah, and was taken by him with the coast thereof, but its inhabitants were not exterminated. Gaza was one of the five Philistine cities which gave each a golden emerod as a trespass-offering to the Lord.

Solomon's kingdom extended as far as Gaza; but the place appears always as a Philistine city in Scripture. After the destruction of Tyre, it sustained a siege of two months against Alexander the Great. Jonathan Maccabæus destroyed its suburbs; but Simon Maccabæus took the city itself, though not without extraordinary efforts.

It was attacked a third time by Alexander Jannæus, who spent a whole year in besieging it and punishing its inhabitants. then rebuilt by Gabinius.

It was

Herod received this city from Augustus; but upon his death it was united to the province of Syria.

Gaza is celebrated for the exploit recorded of Samson, (Judges xvi. 1-3,) who took the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of a hill that is before Hebron. The Philistines afterwards took Samson, and put out his eyes, and brought him to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass, and he did grind in the prison-house. He, however, pulled down the temple of Dagon, god of the Philistines, and slew, together with himself, "all the lords of the Philistines," besides men and women. (Judges xvi. 21-30.)

It was near Gaza (on the road from Jeru