talismanic influence, and hence it was sculptured on the walls of their capital as a defence from their enemies.

The practice of divination by serpents was common among the Romans; when found in certain positions, these reptiles were regarded as good omens, at other times as evil ones. A serpent enfolding Roscius, when an infant, was considered as a sign of his successful career; but one in the house of Tiberius Gracchus, was supposed to denote his death. All the earlier nations were addicted to this practice, and hence the same word in Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek, has the double meaning of a 66 serpent" and "divination."

Strong traces of the same idolatry are apparent throughout northern and western Europe. Many traditions, analogous to the records of Scripture, were found among the ancient inhabitants of America, when their wilds were first traversed by their European conquerors. There is a drawing extant, of Haythaca, the Mexican Eve, in which she is represented as attended by a great serpent; and behind it are two naked figures, in the attitude of contending with each other. The Mexicans considered their famous serpent woman as the mother of two children; and in these we may recognise the Cain and Abel of the Mosaic

narrative.

It appears, indeed, that no nations were so geographically distant, or so discordant in religious sentiment, but that one and only one superstitious characteristic was common to all. The most barbarous and the most civilized bowed down with the same devotion to the same deity, and this deity either was, or was represented by, the same sacred serpent.* The origin of this practice must doubtless be traced to the great and subtle adversary of man. He who said to our Lord, as he showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me," Matt. iv. 9, might be expected to insinuate himself into the worship of the children of men. And most fearful was his success. The unenlightened heathen felt there is a God, and that he is good; he acknowledged too the existence of evil, and ascribed it to an evil agent, and as the latter appeared mighty as the former,

• Worship of the Serpent traced throughout the

World, by the Rev. J. B. Deane, M.A.

he worshipped both. Once darkened by this divided allegiance, the mind became gradually more feeble and superstitious, until sensible objects were first used as symbols, and ultimately elevated unto gods. Of these, the most remarkable was the serpent to whose worship many testimonies have now been adduced.

Nor is it less singular, that in most, if not all, the civilized countries, where the serpent was worshipped, there is some fable or tradition involved in his history, directly or indirectly, alluding to the fall of man. Here then a light is cast on the narrative of Moses; and the prototype of the serpent in these various superstitions, is manifestly the serpent in Eden.-W.

A CONTRAST.

CAPTAIN B. HALL has furnished the

following contrast between two officers with whom he was acquainted. "Whenever one of them came on board the ship, about him, in order to discover what his constant habit was to cast his eye that was out of its place; in a word, to was wrong, to detect the smallest thing find as many grounds of censure as posthe best preventive to neglect. The atsible. This constituted, in his opinion, tention of another, on the contrary, appeared to be directed chiefly to those points which he could approve of. One of these captains would remark to the first lieutenant, as he walked along, 'How white and clean you have got the decks to-day! I think you must have been at them all the morning, to get them into such order.' The other, in similar circumstances, but eager to find fault, would say, even if the decks were as white and as clean as the drifted snow, 'I wish, clear away that bundle of shakings;' sir, you would teach these sweepers to pointing to a bit of ropeyarn, not half an inch long, left under the truck of a gun. It seemed, in short, as if nothing was more vexatious to one of these offi

cers, than to discover things so correct as to afford him no good opportunity for finding fault: while, to the other, the necessity of censuring, really appeared a accordingly, we all worked with cheerpunishment to himself. Under the one, fulness, from a conviction that nothing we did in a proper way would miss approbation; while our duty under the other, being performed in fear, seldom went on with much spirit. We had no

personal satisfaction in doing things correctly, from the certainty of getting no commendation. What seemed the oddest thing of all was, that these men were both as kind-hearted as could be; or, if there was any difference, the fault-finder was the better natured; and in matters not professional the more indulgent of the two." Captain Hall adds, "It requires but very little experience of soldiers or sailors, children, servants, or any other kind of dependents, to show, that this good humour on our part towards those whom we wish to influence, is the best possible coadjutor to our schemes of management, whatever these may be."

THE PORTRAIT.

I ONCE had a friend unusually dear to me. I,loved her and she loved me, and we were as sisters. Alas! she died, and I with a sorrowing heart was called away to a distant neighbourhood. When I returned, after an absence of years, to my_native village, and to my own little study, to collect the few books and relics left behind that were dear to me, I found the portrait of my beloved friend, begrimed with dirt, and, in my opinion, irremediably injured. Strangers, to whom that face was nothing, had slighted, cast aside, and rudely used it. She who bore that image, was slumbering beneath a green hillock in the churchyard, and I had nothing left to love and keep for her sake. Yes, I had a lock of shining hair, but what was that? She had gazed upon me, smiled upon me, all but spoken to me from the canvass, and I had looked and lingered, and lingered and looked as though it were herself.

It was a bitter moment while I stood trying to recall the dear impression of a face, rendered doubly dear by death, remembering that now she was gone, indeed, for there was not a feature of that faithful portrait, that did not appear to my impatient and disappointed eyes, altogether confused and disfigured.

And now it is hanging, once more, over my head in a shady corner of my quiet reading room; yes! that very portrait is restored to all its freshness and reality. The dirt and the dimness are cleared away, the brow has resumed its lightness, the cheek its rose-bud tint, the lips seem once more to articulate, and the eyes, the soft eloquent eyes, look meekly down upon me, while I write, peering from out the shade, like lovely stars in a

twilight evening. I placed her in the shade, because she loved it best when living.

When we gaze on a magnificent mansion decorated with Corinthian columns, or on the sweeping archway of a massy bridge that strides across the current of a river, we stand marvelling and admiring, but unless we delight in architecture, the being who planned the admirable edifice remains unknown, unreckless, and unasked after; we love him not, for we feel as though he had done nothing for us. There is a proof of his talent! There is an exhibition of his genius, but cold beats the heart in the bosom of the gazer, there is nothing before him that awakens the overflowing of grateful feelings; the secret sympathies of the soul lie mute and unappealed to.

Not so do we feel towards the man who by the skilful use of his pencil has rescued for us, even from the grasp of death and the corruption of the tomb, the smile of a father, the affectionate mien of a mother, the laughing dimpled cheek of a darling babe, or the endeared expression of a beloved friend! While we look on what he has done, we love him for it, he has touched a responsive chord in our bosoms, he has opened the fountain of our freest tears.

The form of a friend is restored to me by the hands of the artist, who first gave it to the canvass, and who has now once again rescued it from the shades of oblivion. When it came home, I pressed it fondly, aye wildly to my lips, while grateful tears flowed from my eyes. Tears of gratitude to the Almighty Giver of all good, not unmixed with thankfulness to the being, who by the skilful ap· plication of his talent, had once more thrilled my heart with a smile that I had deemed buried for ever beneath the green grass of the churchyard, and flung again over my lonely pathway a sunbeam of former years.

Hast thou no portrait dimmed and defaced, and encrusted with the dust of earth? My appeal is unto thee, O backsliding Christian! Come with me, and I will show thee a fair and lovely portrait of former days. Whom beholdest thou in days past, as the light of God's eternal Spirit fell upon the sacred page of truth? Was it not the lovely image of Jesus thy Redeemer? Didst thou not long to behold it nearer? Didst thou not yearn to be transformed into the same image?

The day found thee breathing out thy | soul in praise, the night found thee kneeling in thy secret closet, and while bending before the footstool of the Eternal, these words expressed the desire of thy supplicating soul, "Grant me thy grace, O Lord!"

Turned the Lord a deaf ear to thy cry? Not so, daily didst thou grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Him who had drawn by his Holy Spirit, and set before thee the image of his well-beloved Son Jesus Christ.

Backsliding Christian! by thine apostasy the lovely portrait of thy Redeemer is defaced and hidden from thine eyes. Oh! "Repent, and do the first works," return unto the Lord, and he will take away thy dross and thy tin: he will purge thee from thine iniquities, and wash thee from thy sin. He will turn away thine eyes from beholding vanity, and give thee once more to behold the image of Him whom thy sins have pierced.

ONE INDIVIDUAL MAY DO MUCH.

ANY great moral or economical change in the state of a country, is not the achievement of one single arm, but the achievement of many; and though one man, walking in the loftiness of his heart, might like to engross all the fame of it, it will remain an impotent speculation, unless thousands come forward to share among them all the fatigue of it. It is not to the labour of those who are universalists in science, that she stands indebted for her present solidity, or her present elevation, but to the separate labours of many-each occupying his own little field, and heaping, on the basis of former acquisitions, his own distinct and peculiar offering. And it is just so in philanthropy. The spirit of it has gone marvellously abroad amongst us of late years; but still clouded and misled by the bewildering glare which the fancy of ambitious man is apt to throw around his own undertakings. He would be the sole creator of a magnificent erection, rather than an humble contributor to it, among a thousand more, each as necessary and important as himself. And yet, would he only resign his speculations, and give himself to the execution of a task, to which his own personal faculties were adequate, he would meet with much to compensate the loss of those splendid delusions, which have hitherto engrossed

TURKISH HONESTY.

ABOUT three miles from the town of Adalia, my servant found that his great coat had fallen from his horse; riding back for two miles, he saw a poor man bringing wood and charcoal from the hills upon asses. On asking him if he had seen the coat, he said that he had found it, and had taken it to a water mill on the road side, having shown it to all the persons he met, that they might assist in finding its owner. On offering him money, he refused it, saying, with great simplicity, that the coat was not his, and that it was quite safe with the miller. My servant then rode to the house of the miller, who immediately gave it up, he also refusing to receive any reward, and saying, that he should have hung it up at the door, had he not been about to go down to the town. The honesty, perhaps, may not be surprising; but the refusal of money is certainly a trait of character which has not been assigned to the Turks.-Fellows.

SKETCH IN AFRICA.

THE very name of Africa prepares us for danger and death. There roll the mighty Nile, the Niger, the Zaire, the Senegal, and the Gambia, their majestic floods. There are spread the vast, the lonely, the heart-appalling deserts of burning sand. There flies the pestilence abroad on the wings of the fierce winds; and man, and beast, and bird, are oppressed by all-subduing heat, and allconsuming thirst. The toil-enduring Arab, the patient abstemious camel, and the keen-eyed, heat-bearing ostrich, are overcome and overwhelmed in the insufferable glare and scorching atmosphere of the wilderness. We have threaded the winding mazes of the Fish river, and pierced the unbroken solitudes of the dark forests that skirt its banks; we have wandered a thousand miles from the Cape, and are now in Cafferland. How strange! how wild! how beautiful! The river rushes over the projecting rocks in romantic falls, enlivening the dark waters with snowy foam. The cliff to the right is fearfully high, and steep, and craggy; and the road winds round its very brink. What a pile of stupendous mountains rise in the distance, and how varied is the scene with wood and water, hill and valley. The tamarind, the walnut, and the thorny mimosa blend their branches with the banana, the date, and the cocoa nut. The vulture screams from the riven branch of a tree blasted by the lightning, and the flamingo sports his fiery plumage in the sun.

Even here the same God reigneth omnipotently as in European lands. His are the immeasurable deserts and solitary wildernesses, as well as the fertile places of the earth, peopled with unnumbered nations! "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised," 2 Chron. xvi. 25.

Right before us, yonder, is a missionary station; and on the left is another still more delightfully situated. Yes, here is the word of the Lord known; here the glad tidings of salvation are spread abroad. The heathen shall be the inheritance of the Redeemer, and "the uttermost parts of the earth be his possession." Hark! that was a musket shot! See, there are two men running at their utmost speed. What a fearful crash was that among the branches of the forest trees; they are pursued by a wounded elephant, from whose side the blood is gushing forth. Dreadful! he has overtaken one of them! he pierces

him with his tusks! he smites him with his trunk! he tramples him to death in his rage. Well for us that we are standing on this elevated ground, and yet even here we are not free from danger, unless we can say, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble," Psa. xlvi.

How helpless is man in these fearful solitudes, unless he carries arms to defend himself, and even then how great is his danger! Not far from this place an officer and his party were massacred by the fierce natives; their death is recorded on the fast-decaying tablets whic are erected over their graves. Look! look! yonder is a lion stealing with stealthy paces towards the fountain where the buffaloes are drinking; they cannot escape him, he must have come upon them from that dark ravine in the forest; what a size! what a shaggy mane! He is hidden now by the thick brushwood. Let us hasten on, we must wind up the cliff, yonder, after the travelling wagon drawn by oxen; the road is on the very edge of the precipice. There is a fort somewhere in this part of the country, where troops are stationed to intercept the predatory bands of natives on their way to the colony. A market is held to supply the soldiers, and when the signal is given, a hundred or two of the natives plunge into the river, swimming across it with milk, sacks of grain, pumpkins, Indian corn, just plucked from the stalk, and other produce of the country, for which the soldiers give in exchange coloured beads, buttons, brass wire, and odd bits and scraps of iron. On the second signal, all the natives again plunge into the water, and recross the river.

Do you see the little huts erected among the branches of yonder great tree? They are places of protection for the natives when pursued by lions. In those dirty pools there, the elephants sport themselves; water is refreshing in all places, but especially in such a sultry clime as this. Never, sure, did the eye gaze on a more imposing scene! the winding river appears more beautiful than ever. God is here, his glory is beaming from the skies, and his greatness is inscribed upon every part of his wondrous creation. "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created," Rev. iv. 11.

What a commotion there is yonder, down in the valley! The Caffers are hastening to defend their cattle kraal, menaced as it is by a party descending the zig-zag and broken pathway from the mountains; and see further down, on the very verge of the river, they are spearing the hippopotamus with their long lances. Danger and annoyance seem written on every place; in the desert is the lion; in the wood are the rhinoceros, the leopard, and the noxious snake; in the water is the crocodile. Where can we go without finding swarms of innumerable insects, and then, this oppressive sultriness! Yet here has the missionary wandered; and here has he pitched his tent. Drawn by his blameless life, and won by his friendly offices, the fierce natives gather round him with confidence. He learns their language, exposes the sinfulness of their idolatry, and points them to "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world," John i. 29.

APPEARANCE OF THE SEA.

Few Englishmen, who have not extended their nautical excursions to more than a hundred miles beyond the mouth of the British Channel, can form any correct idea of the appearance the sea presents throughout the greatest portion of the globe; or how little applicable is the term "sea-green," when the shallow and troubled waters of our own coast are exchanged for the clear and deep blue bosom of fathomless ocean. In the latter, the vast expanse of fluid presents one uninterrupted field of a lapis lazuli tint, the ultra marine of painters; and its lifting waves, crested with foam, bear a close resemblance to robes of the richest purple, edged with swansdown, or fine lace.

This intense blueness of the ocean has been ascribed to the salts of iodine con

tained in sea water; but it is more probable that the blue of our atmosphere, or sky, and that of the deep sea, have both the same origin, namely, the clearness and vast accumulation of their respective elements.-Bennett.

THE SCOFFERS.

AMONG the statements of the inspired volume, which have suggested difficulties to the mind of the devout reader, and

also furnished material for infidel objection, are the following, which relate to the prophet Elisha, after his leaving the city of Jericho. "And he went up from thence unto Bethel and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them," 2 Kings ii. 23, 24. The objector to Divine revelation has therefore portrayed a number of children, who, struck by the appearance of an aged man's head, surrounded him in sport, and gaily reminded him of the aspect of years, and then Elisha, as opposed to their mirth, pouring out his malediction, and quickly destroying them by the wild beasts of the forest. Nor can it be doubted, that other persons, of a far different character, have been unable to reconcile this act with the spirit of that prophet who, when called to attend Elijah, left the field he mother; and who, when relieving the was ploughing, to kiss his father and the child of the Shunammite to life, diswants of the indigent widow, and raising covered the tenderness of true benevolence. Attention is consequently solicited to the following considerations.

men.

In the first place, there is good reason to conclude, that the offenders were not little children. The term rendered "little" is frequently used to distinguish the from those more advanced in young often employed for servants and young years, and that, translated children, is Isaac is described by the same when, too, Joseph interpreted the dreams word, when twenty-eight years old; of Pharaoh, he is said to have been "a guard;" and here also it is used. As young man, servant to the captain of the ministering in the tabernacle, and mighty properly, moreover, might Joshua, when in valour, Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, or Rehoboam, when forty years of age, have been denominated children, as these dwellers in Bethel, since the word employed, in reference to them, is used in these and similar instances. Nor is such a mode of representation confined to the Hebrew. In our old English language, we find an analogy to it. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were, doubtless, of mature age, when they were