the Understanding," or whether that book was thrown under the table. We have often wondered how many persons in 100,000 who have begun it have read that book through. We have tried to do so many times, but never succeeded. How is this? Here is a passage we have just opened upon at random, which may explain the matter.

"Now, if it were revealed to us what sort of figure, bulk, and motion of corpuscles, would produce in us the sensation of a yellow colour, and what sort of figure, bulk, and texture of parts in the superficies of any body, were fit to give such corpuscles their due motion to produce that colour; would that be enough to make universal propositions with certainty, concerning the several sorts of them, unless we had faculties acute enough to perceive the precise bulk, figure, texture, and motion of bodies in those minute parts by which they operate on our senses, so that we might by those frame our abstract ideas of them ?"-Locke on the Understanding, book iv. chap. 6, sec. 14.

Here is a long sentence, and we stop half way at a note of interrogation; there is as much more before the full point is reached. We happen to have lying on our bookshelves "Caryl on Job," two vols. folio. One would almost as lieve be transported as be obliged to read it through. The divine is certainly not so dull as the philosopher. He had the talent of amplification to perfection. On the advice of Job's wife he has seven columns of annotation, observation, &c. He very gallantly takes the side of the woman, and lays her petulant foolish advice at the door of Satan :— "You see what preparation Satan directs Job into; he biddeth him curse God and die. Would not Job, think you, have been in a fit posture, in a fit frame for death, when he had been cursing God? Repent and die, pray and die; take fast hold of Christ who is our life, our way to life, and die, are the counsels and voice of the Holy Ghost; but Satan's language is curse God and die, sin and die, be impenitent and die, blaspheme and die."-Caryl on Job, chap. ii. ver. 9.

There is something that one can lay hold of in the old expositor, after all. What think you, my Lord of Oxford? No, we won't put Caryl under the table, but put him carefully in his old place on the shelf.

Dull Books. But it is an old proverb, "What is one man's meat is another's poison." Is it not so of food intellectual? Yet there are some subjects necessarily dull and dry, especially at first attempt to master them. A B C, and a, b, ab, seemed dull enough to most of us when we first sat down at the feet of some village dame. Reading Made Easy" sounded very pretty in our ears, but we thought it a great misnomer; it was anything but easy to us. It is true that when we did get on the way, and got hold of

"Old Mother Hubbard,

Went to the cupboard,
To get her poor dog a bone,"

or was startled by the question

"Who killed Cock Robin ?"

and went on to "Cinderella," "Jack and the Bean Stalk," and, above all, "Jack, the Giant Killer," with his great antagonist, thus soliloquising:

"Fe, fa, fum,

I smell the blood of an Englishman,

Be he alive, or be he dead,

I'll grind his bones to make me bread;"

Then

then we began to feel reading was not such a dull thing after all. there was "Chevy Chase," and the pathetic story of "The Babes in the Wood;" and we almost weep, even now, when thinking of

"Their pretty lips with blackberries

Were all besmeared and dyed."

Nor have we ever lost our reverence and respect for the feathered undertakers that covered their bodies with leaves. What a wonderful place, we thought, must 42, Long Lane, Smithfield, be! which we learnt from an advertisement was the place where all these books came from, and many more, which had not as yet reached our village.

"Don't read trash," is the sage advice of many a mentor. But who is to make the selection? Not "Dr. Dry-as-dust;" for as sure as fate all our juvenile favourites would have been condemned to the flames. It was a step in advance, however, when we went from "Mother Hubbard" to "I Don't Care," or the story of "Tommy and Harry," in the Universal Spelling Book; and, however an elder brother raised 10s. 6d. to purchase "Guthrie's Geography," we never learned to this day. But here was a treasure got hold of; and the brave endurance of pain in the tormented "Indian Warrior," as depicted in that book, is as vivid to our mind's eye as though it had been read yesterday. The "Pilgrim's Progress," "Robinson Crusoe," "Death of Abel," "Russell's Seven Sermons," and→→→ don't be startled, dear Dr.-for a volume of "Harrison's Novelist's Library" came into our hands, containing "Tales of the Genii" and "Tom Jones." Coarse and objectionable as is Fielding's book in many parts, yet the character of Squire Blyful and some others gave us an utter disgust to duplicity and low cunning, while the matchless character of Alworthy gave us a decided turn for the truly upright, honest, and good.

Dull Books! Since the period of our boyhood, what strenuous efforts have been made to render educational books interesting as well as instructive. Grammar, for instance. "The first grammar," says Wm. Cobbett, "that I ever looked into told me that 'a verb is a word which signifies to do, to be, or to suffer." What was I to understand from this laconic account?" Wm. Cobbett succeeded in making grammar a much more interesting subject of study than any of his predecessors. All honour to him! After all that Cobbett did there was yet a cry for something still more lively, and out came the "COMIC GRAMMAR," with its comic definitions, and its humorous cuts. Then, it may be, as the poet says,

"The force of Nature could no farther go."

Certainly not further than the following select vestry scene, which is in illustration of the "PERSONAL PRONOUNS."

"Mr. Haddoms, don't be personal, sir!"

"I'm not, sir."

"You har, sir!"

"What did I say, sir? Tell me that."

"You reflected on my perfession, sir. You said, as there was some people as always stuck up for the cloth; and you insinnivated that certain parties dined off goose by means of cabbaging from the parish. I ask any gentleman in the westry if that ain't personal ?"

"Vell, sir, vot I says I'll stick to."

“Yes, sir, like vax, as the saying is." "You're a tailor, sir!"

"You're a cobbler, sir!"

This illustration of the personal pronouns is personal enough undoubtedly. If we are not mistaken, his lordship of Oxford has been charged with Puseyite leanings; but one would think he is rather too lively to belong to the ascetic school. Be this as it may, looking at our periodical literature, from the halfpenny weekly to the six shilling quarterly, the public have given unmistakable intimations that they will not purchase dull books. DULL BOOKS. Human nature, in all ages, has had similar tastes, and the infinitely wise God, in giving his revelation from time to time, never gave a dull book. From the first line in the book of Genesis to the last in the book of Revelation, there is no sentence or paragraph equal in dulness to the one cited from John Locke. There is no ditchwater dulness in the Bible. It is a living spring, running amongst herbs and flowers. How strange that the notion should ever have obtained credence that the Bible is a dull book!

The Bible, while it reveals the great Eternal, and treats of the most profound subjects, is never dull. Its history is clear and concise. From its pages we learn that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," and all that the earth contains, with that particularly interesting account of the creation of man. It will be noticed, too, that many of the great doctrines, so necessary for man to know, come in, as it were, incidentally with historic facts. Just let us notice one. "God created man in his own image." This was God's moral and spiritual likeness, as is quite clear. Man's sad fall is clearly recorded, with all the particulars concerning it. The first birth, the first death, and that death a violent one, are set down.

It is not our intention, however, to give an epitome of the Bible. Lovers of history have here the history of individuals, families, tribes, nations, empires, and of the world. Here we see the foundations of cities laid; notice their enlargement, populations, trade, wealth, and then witness their decline, decay, ruin.

Here we have the biography of the great, the good, the wise; yea, of the

bad and foolish too. Here is poetry of the first order, from the address of Lamech to his wives (Gen. iv. 23, 24), to the song of old Simeon in the temple (Luke iii. 22-32). For true pathos, what have we equal to that scene amidst which Joseph said, "I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt." (Gen. xlv. 4.) The matchless sublime is found in Job, the Psalms, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and in some of the minor prophets.

The Bible is not only not a dull book, but one of the freshest, most cheerful companions which any one can have. Its histories are the records of most interesting facts; its biographies faithful portraits; its scenes beautiful pictures; its poetry sublime, elevating, and instructive; while its doctrines bring the great God down to man, and would, if man would be led by them, lead him up to God.

The Gospel History, O! what a history is it. Opening up to us the new dispensation, and charming our ears by the songs of heavenly choristers-"Glory to God in the highest; " while it places before us the babe in Bethlehem, the boy in the temple, and calls us to sit at the feet of the greatest, and at the same time the most interesting of teachers, who "spake as never man spake;" yea, and who acted as never any mere man could act, in healing all manner of sickness and disease of men, and even raising the dead; then terminating a life's work by offering up his own life as a sacrifice.

The Bible a dull book! Those persons must be both stupid and dull who think so. We thank the Bishop of Oxford for coming forth, as he has, in opposition to a drab literature. We are rather dull ourselves sometimes, and meditations among the tombs would tend little to remove the dulness. It is true a book may treat on solemn and even mournful subjects, and yet not be dull. For instance, Jeremiah's lamentations, and the narrative of the Saviour's agony in the garden. Variety in nature and in revelation is the rule followed by Infinite Wisdom. Publishers of periodicals generally have found out that variety is necessary. Publishers of religious books are beginning to find out that they cannot improve upon the DIVINE PLAN, and that if they would wish to secure readers, they must listen to such advisers as the Bishop of Oxford, and not publish DULL BOOKS. ALMA.

MEMOIR OF GEORGE TAYLOR.

GEORGE TAYLOR was born at the village of Freefolk, Hants, of respectable and God-fearing parents, on the 7th of October, 1794. His early life was marked by indications of that serious thought and decision of character which were so prominent in him in after life; and although his earlier profession of Christianity was followed by a period of lukewarmness and formality, he was never known to overstep the bounds of strict morality.

He left his father's house at the early age of thirteen, when his appren

R

ticeship commenced, and, marrying his master's daughter at its termination, he never returned permanently to the parental roof. The absence of homerestraint, however, instead of inducing habits of dissipation, as is too often the case, seems only to have deepened his thoughtfulness and his affection for those whom he had left. Addressing a letter to a younger brother at this period, he entreated him to give his heart to God, quoting the well known lines

"No room for mirth or trifling here,
For worldly hope or worldly fear,
If life so soon is gone."

Although his parents were strict members of the Church of England, they attended constantly with their children the evening services of the Wesleyan Chapel at Whitchurch, in the Andover circuit; and during his apprenticeship he became a member of the society and a Sunday school teacher; and so continued till his marriage; but removing then to a neighbouring village, he (probably from the lack of the means of grace to which he had been accustomed) declined in the divine life, and for several years retained only the form of godliness.

In the year 1837 or 1838, through the faithful preaching of the Rev. Peter Budd, for whose earnest and affectionate ministrations many will thank God to all eternity, he was again brought under deep convictions of sin, when he sought and found the Saviour, and again united himself with the people of God. Very shortly after his re-admission into the society he became a leader of two classes, and was strongly importuned to preach to others what he himself had found. In due course his name appeared on the plan as a local preacher. Those who knew him best testify with what punctuality he attended to his appointments, and with what fidelity he discharged the duties of an office which he reluctantly consented to fill. His faithfulness in the pulpit sometimes evinced itself in a plainness of speech that did not always meet with approbation, even from those who loved him best; but his fearless denunciations of sin in any form, proved that his sole aim, his heart's desire, was the conversion of sinners; and there are many who attribute their salvation, under God, to his ministrations. His uniform consistency of life secured for him the affection and esteem of his local ministerial brethren, and the majority of his hearers appreciated his Christian candour.

He was destined during his earthly probation to be the subject of many painful dispensations of Providence. The death of his wife in 1845 was a heavy stroke; but the trials that followed in rapid succession made him thank God, even in his agony, that she was taken from the evils to come. His three elder children each found a grave in different countries, in the prime of life, all far away from him, and he had to learn his loss from the hands of comparative strangers. His affection for his children had become a proverb with all who knew him. But he "knew in whom he had believed," and that "He doeth all things well;" and, notwithstanding these repeated