adorned in spirit and in truth? They are always out of themselves, engrossed by the objects of their ambition, or their amusements. Alas, how can they understand heavenly things, when as Jesus Christ said, "they understand not earthly things." They cannot conceive what it is to enter into themselves by serious reflections; what would they then say, if one was to propose to them to come out of themselves, and lose themselves in God? Fenelon.

RETIREMENT AND PRAYER.

IF thus our Lord himself withdrew,
Stealing at times away,

E'en from the lov'd and chosen few,

In solitude to pray,

How should his followers, frail and weak,
Such seasons of retirement seek?

Seldom, amid the strife and din

Of sublunary things,

Can spirits keep their watch within,

Or plume their heavenward wings:
He must dwell deep, indeed, whose heart
Can thus fulfil true wisdom's part.

Not in our own spontaneous will
Can we the world shut out,
Say to our passions, "Peace, be still!"
Or check each rising doubt;

Alone by prayer, 'tis slowly won,

In the world's throng too rarely done.

How needful is it, then, for man

From things of time to steal,
Those of eternity to scan,

Their magnitude to feel:
The first are transitory, vain ;
The last for ever will remain.

Retirement must adjust the beam,
And prayer must poise the scales,
Our Guide, Example, Head supreme,
In neither lesson fails:

Oh, may we in remembrance bear,

He sought retirement-practised prayer.

B. Barton.

CHRISTIANITY, however, is not merely a religion of authority; the soundest reason embraces most confidently, what the most explicit revelation has taught, and the deepest inquirer is usually the most convinced Christian. The reason of philosophy is a disputing reason, that of Christianity, an obeying reason,—the glory of the Pagan religion consisted in virtuous sentiments, the glory of the Christian, in the pardon and the subjugation of sin. The humble Christian may say with one of the ancient fathers, I will not glory, because I am righteous, but because I am redeemed. Hannah More.

THE patriarchal father of the faithful, against hope, believed in hope; natural reliance, reasonable expec

BB

tation, common experience, all were against him. From all these impediments he averted his eyes, he raised them to Him who had promised; though the promise was so great as to seem incredible, his confidence in Omnipotence overbalanced all his apprehensions of any hinderances; with the eye of faith he not only saw his offspring, as if immediately granted, but all the myriads which should hereafter descend from him. He saw the great anticipated blessing, he saw "the star come out of Jacob, the sceptre rise out of Israel." Though an exclamation of wonder escaped him, it was astonishment untinctured with distrust, he disregarded second causes, difficulties disappeared, impossibilities vanished, faith was victorious. In this glorious catalogue of those who conquered by faith, there is perhaps not one who offers a more appropriate lesson to the higher classes of society, than the great legislator of Israel. Here is a man sitting at ease in his possessions, enjoying the sweets of plenty, the dignity of rank, the luxuries of literature, the distinction of reputation. All these he voluntarily renounces; he foregoes the pomps of a court, the advantages of a city then the most learned in the world; he relinquishes the delights of polished society; refuses to be called the grandson of a potent monarch; chooses rather to suffer affliction with his believing brethren, than to enjoy the temporary pleasures which a sinful connivance would have obtained for him: he esteems the reproach of Christ, a Saviour unborn till many ages after, unknown but to the eye of faith, greater than all the treasures of Egypt;

the accomplished, the learned, and the polite, will be best able to appreciate the value of such a sacrifice. Does it not seem to come more home to the bosoms of the elegant and the opulent, and to offer an instruction, more intimate perhaps than is bequeathed even by those martial and heroic spirits who subdued kingdoms, quenched the violence of fire, stopped the mouths of lions, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens ? These are instances of faith, which, if more sublime, are still of less special application. Few are now called to these latter sufferings, but many in their measure and degree to the other. May they ever bear in mind, that Moses sustained his trials only as seeing Him who is invisible.

Hannah More.

To change the heart of a sinner, is a higher exertion of power than to create a man, or even a world; in the latter case, as God made it out of nothing, so there was nothing to resist the operation; but in the former, he has to encounter, not inanity, but repulsion; not an unobstructive vacuity, but a powerful counteraction; and to believe in the divine energy which effects this renovation, is a greater exercise of faith, than to believe that the spirit of God, moving on the face of the waters, was the efficient cause of creation. In producing this moral renovation, God has to subdue, not only the rebel in arms against his king, but the little state of man in arms against himself, fighting against his convictions, refusing the redemption wrought for him.

Almighty goodness has the twofold work of providing pardon for offenders, and making them willing to receive it. To offer heaven, and then to prevail on man to accept it, is at once an act of God's omnipotence, and of his mercy.

Hannah More.

CHRISTIANITY was a second creation, it completed the first order of things, and introduced a new one of its own, not subversive, but perfective of the original. It produced an entire revolution in the condition of man, and accomplished a change in the state of the world, which all its confederated power, wit, and philosophy, not only could not effect, but could not conceive,—it threw such a preponderating weight into the scale of morals, by the superinduction of the new principle of faith in a Redeemer, as to render the hitherto insupportable trials of the afflicted, comparatively light,-it gave strength to weakness, spirit to action, motive to virtue, certainty to doubt, patience to suffering, light to darkness, life to death.

CHRISTIAN Writings have made innumerable converts to morality, but mere moral works have never made one convert to religion; they do not exhibit an originating principle. Morality is not the instrument, but the effect of conversion; it cannot say, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." But when Christ has given life, then morality, by the activity of the inspiring motive, gives