tians, in respect to their own coldness and neglect of duty, when they manifest no disposition to be more active and faithful. These unmeaning confessions are often found a most convenient substitute for the performance of duty; and if we mistake not, many a lukewarm Christian has found in them an opiate to his conscience, which has lulled him to sleep many days. Wherever we see active efforts to forsake sin and an earnest desire to rise to a higher tone of religious feeling and action, there we may feel assured is true humility; but where nothing appears but confessions of delinquency, however deep or often repeated, we may rely on it, the genuine grace is not there. True humility is one of the effects of divine grace operating upon the heart. It discovers itself in heartfelt expressions of abasement before God, and in the modesty of our appearance, conversation, and pursuits, before the world. It is an essential and prominent part of Christian character; we have so much, and only so much, of true religion as we have of true humility. It is also essential to the Christian's comfort. Pride makes the soul restless and unhappy, but wherever genuine humility appears, whatever the external circumstances may be, there you may look with confidence for true happiness. We may also add, that a spirit of humility will go far towards rendering its professor useful. The usefulness of the proud man must be limited, not only because his pride will keep him in a narrow sphere, but because the efforts which he actually makes, being prompted by a wrong spirit, will not be likely to draw down upon them the blessing of God. D. O. B. *THE ORPHAN'S CURSE. THOMAS Baker, a tradesman of good character, resided a few years ago in the small town of - in the south of Ireland. His family consisted of a wife and six children, all of fair promise and healthful appearance. His character was good, and his small shop enabled him, with the assistance of occasional lodgers, to support them with comfort in the humble rank which Providence had assigned. A poor friendless orphan girl, whom they took from a charitable institution in the neighbouring city, was their sole domestic. She had become their apprentice at the age of nineteen, and for some time appeared to give them satisfaction, until her mistress fancied that she saw a freedom in Mary's manner towards some of her lodgers, and charged her on no pretence to enter the apartments belonging exclusively to them. This was a command more easily issued than obeyed; as being the only servant she had to attend on them in some degree; and soon after, unfortunately, her mistress met her coming out of one of their rooms. Exasperated at having her commands disregarded, Mrs Baker ran down stairs and told her husband that they must immediately part with Mary, as she had no doubt of her being a very badly-conducted creature, whom she could not, and would not, allow to remain longer in her house. But how to get rid of the poor orphan was the question. *This narrative has been authenticated to the Editor. She was friendless, and how could they cast her, without a character, on the world? Happy would it have been had they then applied in faith and prayer, to Him, who is emphatically called "Counsellor, for assistance and direction. But they thought not of, they sought not for, His guidance. They acted from the dictates of that worldly wisdom which every day's experience, as well as God's own word, declares to be foolishness, and they resolved to take poor Mary back to the Institution from whence they had originally procured her, alleging as a reason for so doing, that she was a girl they could no longer har bour in their house. The master of the establishment replied, "By your own account the girl is unfit to be received here. This is an asylum for the virtuous only, and should a person of her character get admittance, beside the danger of our young people being polluted by her conversation, we should find it nearly impossible to procure situations for them. Finding the argument thus against him, Baker put an end to it by running away, leaving poor Mary standing alone with her judges, who again told her that as she had forfeited the situation which they had procured for her by bad conduct, she must now look to her own resources for support. Her master, her cruel master, returned to his home, and no more was heard of the poor orphan until she was met in one of the back streets of that large city, by a poor woman named Clark, who had known her while a servant in her own neighbourhood. But O how changed! Poorly drest, miserably emaciated, scarcely able to support herself, the pale shadow of the once blooming girl, she stood there, a lost, heartbroken, miserable outcast! In answer to the ques tions of her benevolent interrogator, she replied that she was dying without a friend even to procure her admission to an hospital. Mrs. Clark advised her going even without recommendation to the hospital, and telling her story there, exactly as she had done to her. She did so to a benevolent physician, who kindly admitted her, and had she made him her friend by confiding to him her entire history, she might have been saved from ruin. But she neglected to do so, and on her recovery, she was accordingly discharged the Institution. In a few months she was again met by Mrs. Clark, who remarked how very ill she looked, and added, "I fear you have gone back to your old courses. "Yes, I have," was her fearful reply: "What could I do? obliged to quit the hospital, without a home, without a friend, or a shilling, there was nothing for me to turn to but my old course of iniquity." "Well," said Mrs. Clark, "apply once more at the hospital, and when restored to health, come to my house, where you can remain until you have strength to go again to service. In the mean time I will look for a place for you.' No-no;" she answered, "you have your own daughters to look to, and I will never bring my shame to them. But my present course will be a short one, you will soon hear of my dead body being found. But before I die I will leave my heavy curse upon the Bakers, who cast me on the streets, without house, home, or character, without relation or friend to look to for assistance. They liked me right well as a servant until the time drew near when I was to get some trifling remuneration for my five years' service, and then they became exceedingly unkind. Often was I stinted of food in their house, which the lodgers knew, and used to give it to me, and in re turn I was civil and obliging to them. But no more. As God is my witness, the day they turned me out of their house, I was as free from actual guilt as their youngest child, then a baby. And the day my mistress found me coming out of the lodger's room, I had been only in it for the purpose of taking shoes, which he asked me to get cleaned. But it will all soon end as far as I am concerned: yet they shall have my curse upon them before I go. Mrs. Clark, though a kind, was unfortunately a most ignorant, or, what the poor Irish term, an innocent woman; and quite uninfluenced by religion herself, she could not impart either its threats or promises to another, and unacquainted with the truth she could offer few arguments against the wretched girl's desperate purpose, and such arguments were only met by the former answer, "I will leave them my curse, and you will soon hear of my body being found." And found it was, a few days afterwards, cold and dead, with the arms wound round a post, over which, when full the tide flowed, and to which she must have clung, with the firm resolution of destroying herself. But to return to the Bakers. It has been remarked that they were a particularly healthful-looking family-but from the moment of Mary's untimely end-from that hour, they drooped and fell away. First, the woman, who had accused the helpless orphan, and driven her from the shelter which Providence assigned her, sickened and died. Almost immediately, she was followed to the grave by a very fine child; and in less than six months, the father, grown-up daughters, and only son, were hurried to the tomb with a rapidity sufficient to make the most thoughtless tremble.-In vain were the most celebrated physicians consulted; in vain |