ful and approved in one congregation, it would come to be earnestly solicited in another; and the ladies might as in most cases they ought to, wait the request. But even where the direction of the singing is not in their hands, but conducted on the present system, we still do not see how the musical ladies of a congregation could better use their expensive accomplishment, than by teaching the children of the Sunday-schools, and others, to join with feeling, correctness, and moderation; by which the clerk might be even yet outsung.

If it be thought that I have been dreaming, instead of listening, and mindless of what is daily before my eyes and in my ears, have let imagination range in things that have no reality; if it be said that music is an innocent plaything of man's secular estate, in which we may expend as much time as we please, and as much money as we please, and need render no account, it being only intended for our amusement; I think that such an opinion is contrary to the whole tenor of Scripture, to our condition on earth, and preparation for eternity; and I believe that God will some time vindicate his purposes in all that he has created, material or intellectual, and convince us that he gave us all the powers we have for better uses than we have made of them. When the children of Zion were captives in Babylon, they hung their harps upon the willows, and forgot their country's songs-how could they sing the Lord's song in a strange land?—their hearts were unstrung and tuneless, as their harps. But when they returned to Jerusalem, doubtless they strung the chords afresh, and learned anew the forgotten music, and sang again the song that Moses taught them; the psalms their kings and prophets left them. So, if the corrupted world return again

to the God it has forsaken, and the knowledge of him be established in all the earth, and sin and Satan be expelled from it; this talent, and every other, will find the use for which it was intended: will be made to subserve the holiness, as well as the happiness of man, and, before all things, the glory and worship of the Lord. How shall we think, then, of the long misuse? Or, if we never see a time when the earth shall be the Lord's, and the fulness of beauty with which he filled it be recovered from corruption, should we not as individuals, restored ourselves, endeavour to restore every thing to the holy purpose of its first creation?

GOODMAN HODGE.

The actions of men are oftener determined by their characters than by their interest; their conduct takes its colour more from their acquired tastes, inclinations, and habits, than from a deliberate regard to their greatest good...... The actions of each day are, for the most part, links which follow each other in the chain of custom. Hence the great effort of practical wisdom is to imbue the mind with right tastes, affections, and habits; the elements of character, and masters of action.

"ONCE on a time"-this is the way stories used to begin, and I am partial to it, because it is among the remotest recollections of my life, though I scarcely expect the memory of my readers will extend to a period of so much rudeness in nursery lore. My story is truth: if it seems incredible in the reading, let judgment wait the issue for the proof. There was a man, a day-labourer he had been; but having saved a little money from his earnings, he had now a small cottage of his own. Ambition, like many other things, enlarges in the feeding; and for ten years past, his enjoyment of the cottage had been disturbed by desire for a field that lay. beside it. The time came-the savings amounted to exactly the right sum, and the goodman bought the field. It was at this time I became acquainted with him, because, in some of my listening excursions, my path lay through this ground; and aware of the importance of the business on which I was intent, he never objected to let me pass. If I heard anything by

the way, it was but consistent with my profession; and if I tell what I heard, it is for others' benefit, not his wrong. It was a small, stony field: it had produced nothing yet, and did not look as if it intended it. One day, as I passed, I asked the goodman what he meant to plant. He said, "it was to grow wheat by and by; but being fallow ground, it would want a good deal of cultivating; it would be some time first:" and so indeed I thought; more particularly as he had expended all his substance in purchase of the field, and had not money left to buy a load of manure, or scarcely a spade to dig it. He did dig it, however, for I saw him often at the work whether he sowed it, I cannot say: most likely not, for nothing came up. Possession, still, is great enjoyment, as many a one knows, who has property that makes no returns; and for the first year, he was quite happy in the consciousness of having a field.

It

At the beginning of the second year, seeing him stand thoughtful on the path, " Friend," I said, "do you sow your field this year?"-"Why, likely I might," he answered, "otherwise, than that I have nothing to sow it with; and it would be lost grain, besides, the ground is not rich enough. In a few years I shall be able to buy manure for it, then you shall see a crop !" and the goodman's eye lightened at the thought of garners full in years to come. was during the same summer, that passing through the ground, a scene of unusual activity presented itself: : man, wife, and child, all were in the field, and all were busy. "What now, good friend?" I said; "this is no month for sowing wheat; and I cannot say your lapfull looks like it." Hodge answered, "It is ill sowing wheat upon a fallow field; but I am tired of looking at it as it is. Till the time

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that I can make it useful, I have a mind to make it pretty; and so we are planting it all over with these thistles." "Thistles!" I exclaimed. 'Why, yes," said Hodge, with the look of a man who has solid reasoning on his side-"I was walking, the other day, upon the common, thinking, as one may do, upon my fallow field, and how much money I wanted of enough to buy manure for it, when my eye was taken by some tall, red flowers, growing in plenty on the waste. They looked very beautiful. The fine broad leaves lay gracefully folded upon the turf; their fringed heads shone in the sunbeams, with colours that might have shamed the rainbow. Thistles are of no use, I know; but then my ground will bear nothing better at present -they will look pretty from the window, and will do no harm for a year or two: so here we are all at work. I have fetched them from the common: seed, roots, and all, and next summer we shall see." "Friend," said I, "I have seen many men dig up thistles, but I never thought to see a man planting them." "But, perhaps," said Hodge, with conscious superiority of wit, "you have seen them plant things not half so pretty." "But your wheat-how is your future crop to grow, if you fill the ground with thistles?""Bless your heart," said Hodge, with a look of contempt, "why then, to be sure, we can dig them up again-time enough yet-may be you a'nt used to digging." It was vain to resist the goodman's last argument, with all the hidden meanings with which his tone invested it-viz. that I had better mind my own business; that I was talking about what I did not understand; that I never had a field; and that, if I had, I should, in waiting, plant it over with thistles. Therefore I passed on. So did summer heats and winter's cold; and blithely the