ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

AN ANCHOR TO THE SOUL.-In a gale off the coast, a vessel was driving ashore. Her anchors were gone, and she refused to obey the helm. A few moments more and she would strike. If any were saved, they must be tossed by the waves on the beach. In the midst of the general consternation that prevailed, there was one man calm. He had done all that men could do to prepare for the worst, when the wreck was inevitable; and now that death was apparently near, he was quietly waiting the event. A friend of his demanded the occasion of his calmness in the midst of danger so imminent. "Do you not know that the anchor is gone, and we are drifting upon the coast ?" Certainly I do, but 'I have an anchor to the soul."" On this was his trust. It entered into that within the veil. It was the ground of his confidence in the storm, and enabled him to ride securely in view of instant and awful death. This ancho every man should have who goes to sea. Life is a sea. It is often stormy. The soul needs an anchor in the hour of danger. Reader, have you this anchor of hope?

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THE GREATEST FOLLY.-There was a nobleman, who according to the custom of the age kept a jester or a fool; to whom on one occasion he gave a staff, saying, "When you meet with a greater fool than yourself, give him that." Not many years afterwards the nobleman fell sick, and seemed likely to die. The jester came to see his sick lord, and the latter said to his fool, "I must shortly leave you." "And whither are you going?" said he. "Into another world," replied the nobleman. "And when will you come again? within a month ?" "No." "Within a year ?" "No." "When then ?" "Never," replied the nobleman. "And what provision hast thou made for thy entertainment whither thou goest ?" "None at all!" "No, none at all!" said the fool; "Here then, take this staff you gave me, for with all my folly, I am not guilty of any such folly as this."

THE HUMAN FACE.-Were our health attended to, and the best feelings of the heart cherished, there would not be an ugly face upon earth. When intelligence beams from the eye, when purity and benevolence soften every expression, and nature's best rouge, health and modesty, paints the cheek, the countenance cannot be disagreeable. Even in the coffin, we have seen "a lovely appearance of death," intimating that Divine love had kissed away the soul, and left a celestial impress on the clay, which, though clothed in grave clothes, yet seemed to smile at the prospect of a glorious resurrection.

NO FEELING. How sad and hopeless is the condition of those who have no feeling on religion! One of the most fearful descriptions of character in the bible is that of those who, being past feeling, are given over of God to all manner of iniquity. Yet such, it is to be feared, may be found in almost every christian congrega

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

tion. They have lived through the impressions of their childhood, through years of faithful preaching, through revivals of religion, till now they are past feeling. Unmoved by the exhibitions of God's glory and Christ's compassion, of the blessedness of heaven and the woes of hell, they "despise the riches of the goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering of God, and after their hard and impenitent heart treasure up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God."

VALUE OF DIVINE TRUTH.-How excellent! how invaluable ! It is more precious than rubies, and all things good and fair are not to be compared with it. It is the light of our eye, the joy of our heart; the map of our pilgrimage, the charter of our inheritance. It reveals to us our danger while yet it may be shunned; and provides for us a refuge from the storms of life, and the abiding wrath of God. It "has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." It discovers to us an immense eternity; it pours before us the riches of both worlds; yea, it conducts us to the knowledge and enjoyment of that God and Saviour, compared with whom the riches of the universe are as a wasted and worthless portion!

THE POWER OF PRAYER.-Prayer can obtain every thing—it can open the windows of heaven, and shut the gates of hell; it can put a holy constraint upon God, and detain an angel till he leave a blessing; it can open the treasures of rain, and soften the iron ribs of rocks, till they melt into tears and a flowing river: prayer can unclasp the girdles of the north, saying to a mountain of ice, be thou removed hence, and cast into the bottom of the sea; it can arrest the sun in the midst of his course, and send the swift-winged winds upon our errand; and all those strange things, and secret decrees, and unrevealed transactions which are above the clouds, and far beyond the regions of the stars, shall combine in ministry and advantages for the praying man.

THE MOST EXCELLENT.-All believers unite in proclaiming Jesus Christ to be the help of the helpless, the health of the sick, the strength of the weak, the riches of the poor, the peace of the disquieted, the comfort of the afflicted, the light of those that sit in darkness, the companion of the desolate, the friend of the friendless, the way of the bewildered, the wisdom of the foolish, the righteousness of the ungodly, the satisfaction of the unholy, the redemption of the captives, the joy of mourners, the glory of the infamous, and the salvation of the lost.

INTERESTING OBJECTS.-A young saint; an old martyr; a religious soldier; a conscientious statesman; a great man, courteous; a learned man, humble; a child that understands the eye of his parent; a cheerful companion without vanity; a friend not changed with honour; a rich man happy; a soul departing out of time into eternity with assurance and triumph.

THE FIRESIDE.-THE PENNY POST BOX.

The Fireside.

THE BEREAVED HUSBAND.

THE lines beneath were sent to us by one who says that they were suggested by some observations addressed "To Husbands," at page 128 of our November number for last year. He adds, "I am a journeyman shoemaker and work alone; consequently I have much time for contemplation, and sometimes I embody my thoughts in verse, and as you kindly encourage communications I have ventured to send you these lines."

The Penny Post Box.

THE TWO GREAT EVENTS.

In our last we told you of one in England; we have now to tell you of the other in America—that is, in the United States, where a thing has been done which, as we said, is making men's ears to tingle! A great statesman once said, "Slavery is the curse of the civilized world." And it is. Englishmen may well be glad that they are now rid of it. Victoria has not a single slave in all her

FACTS, HINTS, AND GEMS.

vast dominions. We paid a great price to get rid of it: but it is gone! The United States of America boast of their liberty and equality. But there is one foul spot upon their flag of freedom. How it came there we know. Slavery existed in the land before they won their independence from England. But they did not erase it. Instead of that they kept it and made it larger, until it has grown to such a monstrous size that there are now, it is said, above two millions of slaves in the United States, whose degradation and sufferings have been most awful. No wonder that many of these poor wretches fled, at the risk of being hunted and shot down like beasts, from the slave states to the free states or to British Canada. Many good people in that country pity them, and would fain have broken up the accursed system as the English did, but instead of this, their iron-hearted rulers have now passed a law which permits a slaveholder to follow run-away slaves into a free state and seize them there, and gives rewards to those who apprehend them, and to the judge who condemns them! This is one of the foulest deeds ever done by the most despotic tyrants, and will be an everlasting disgrace to the men who did it. But it is not in human nature to bear such tyranny, and we expect to hear some dreadful intelligence from this land of pretended freedom, of attempts made by the blacks to obtain liberty, and of the cruel means used to keep them down. May God, who knew the sorrows of the Israelities in Egypt and came down to deliver them, open a way for the deliverance of these poor down-trodden, suffering, American slaves!

Facts, Hints, and Gems.

Facts.

POPERY is a daring usurper of the rights of both God and man.

THE POPE OF ROME blasphemously takes the names, and claims the honours, due alone to God.

THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS is made to supersede the Great Sacrifice

which the Son of God made for the sin of the world.

THE VIRGIN MARY is made to take the place of Jesus Christ-the one only Mediator between God and

man.

THE TRADITIONS OF MEN are made of greater importance than the word of the Everlasting God.

THE PRIEST assumes the attributes of Deity. He asks for confessions of sins to him which ought only to be made to God; and impiously pretends to forgive them.

EVERY MAN is required to surrender up his judgment and conscience into the keeping of a priest —that is, to unman himself.

LIKE SATAN it assumes all forms and shapes to accomplish its wicked purposes. Creeping and cringing where it has not power, until it gets hold of it, and then, by relentless cruelty, binding down or extirpating its victims.

FACTS, HINTS, AND GEMS.