Himself Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in hand-made temples, neither is He ministered to with men's hands as if He were in want of anything, seeing Himself is giving to all life, breath, and all things, and did make every nation of men sprung of one blood to dwell on the whole face of the earth, having appointed the times and the limits of their habitation, so as that they should seek God, if by any chance they might feel after and find Him. And, indeed, He is not far from every one of us, for in Him we live, and move, and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said For His offspring also are we.' Therefore, being the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, the sculpture of man's art and device. The past periods of this ignorance God having indeed overlooked, does now command all men in all places to repent; because He has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He has ordained, having afforded assurance to all men, in that He has raised Him from the dead." WHEAT OR TARES. "WHEAT or tares-which are you sowing, Fanny, dear, in the mind of this sweet little fellow?" said Mr Lincoln to his niece, Mrs Howard, as he lifted a child not yet beyond his fourth summer upon his knee, and laid one of his hands amid the golden curls that fell about his neck, and clustered above his snowy temples. "Wheat, I trust, Mr Lincoln," replied Mrs Howard, smiling, yet serious. "It is the enemy who sows tares-and I am his mother." There was a glow of proud feeling in the countenance of Mrs Howard, as she said, "I am his mother." It was Mr Lincoln's first visit to his niece since her marriage and removal to the city, some hundreds of miles away from her old home. "Even a mother's hand may sow tares," said the old gentleman. "I have seen it done many times. Not of design, but in thoughtless inattention to the quality of the seed she holds in her hand. The enemy mixes tares with the wheat, quite as often as he scatters evil seed. The husbandman must not only watch his fields by night and by day, but also the repositories of his grain, lest the enemy cause him to sow tares as well as wheat upon his own fruitful ground." "Willie," said Mrs Howard, speaking to her little boy, about ten minutes afterwards, "don't upset my work-basket. Stop! stop! I say, you little rogue!" Seeing that the wayward child did not mean to heed her words, the mother started forwards, but not in time to prevent the spools of cotton, scissors, needles, emery cushion, &c., from being scattered about the floor. Willie laughed in great glee at his exploit, while Mrs Howard gathered up the contents of the work-basket, which she now placed on a shelf above the reach of her mischievous boy. Then she shook her finger at him in mock resentment, saying "You little sinner! If you do that again, I'll send you off with the milkman." "Wheat or tares, Fanny?" Uncle Lincoln looked soberly at his niece. "Neither," replied Mrs Howard, smiling gaily. "Tares," said Uncle Lincoln, emphatically. "Nonsense, uncle ! " "The tares of disobedience, Fanny. You have planted the seed, and it has already taken root. Nothing will choke out the wheat sooner. The tares of falsehood you also threw in upon the newly-broken soil What are you thinking about, my child?" "The tares of falsehood, Uncle Lincoln ! What are you thinking about?" said Mrs Howard, in real surprise. "Did you not say that you would send him off with the milkman if he did so again? I wonder if he believed you?" "Of course he did not." "Then," said Uncle Lincoln, "he has already || discovered that his mother makes but light account of truth. Will his mother be surprised if he should grow to set small value upon his word ?” "You treat the matter too seriously, uncle. He knows that I am only playing with him." "He knows that you are telling him what is not true," replied Mr Lincoln. "It was only in sport," said Fanny, persistently. "But in sport with sharp-edged instruments playing with deadly poisons." The old gentleman looked and spoke with the seriousness that oppressed his feelings. "Fanny! Fanny! Truth and obedience are good seeds; falsehood and disobedience are tares from the Evil One. Whatever you plant in the garden of your child's mind will grow, and the harvest will be wheat or tares, just as you have sown. Mrs Howard did not reply, but her countenance took on a sober cast. "Willie," said she, a few minutes afterwards, go down to Jane and tell her to bring me a glass of water." Willie, who was amusing himself with some pictures, looked up on hearing his name. But as he did not like going off to the kitchen, he made no response, and let his eyes return to the pictures, in which he had become interested. "Willie" (Mrs Howard spoke with decision), "did you hear me?" "I don't want to go," answered Willie, "Go, I say! "I'm afraid." SCRIPTURE MISCELLANIES. "Afraid of what?" inquired the mother. "Afraid of the cat." "No, you are not. The cat never hurt you, nor anybody else." "I'm afraid of the milkman. You said he should carry me off." "The milkman is not down stairs," said Mrs Howard, her face beginning to crimson; "he only comes in the morning." 66 Yes, he is, I heard his waggon a little while ago, and he's talking with Jane now. Don't you hear him?" The little fellow put on, with remarkable skill, all the semblances of truth in his tone and expression. Mrs Howard did not look towards her uncle; she was afraid to do that. Willie," (the mother spoke very seriously), 'you know the milkman is not down stairs; and you know that you are not afraid of the cat. What you have said, therefore, is not true; and it is wicked to utter a falsehood." "Ho! ho!" laughed out the bright-eyed little fellow, evidently amused at his own sharpness, "then you're wicked, for you tell what is not true every day." "Willie !" "The milkman hasn't carried me off yet!" There was a world of meaning in Willie's countenance and voice. "You hav'n't whipped me for throwing my cap out of the window." "Willie!" ejaculated the astonished mother. "D'ye see that?" and the young rebel drew from his apron pocket a fine mosaic breastpin, which he had positively been forbidden to touch, and held it up with a look of mingled triumph and defiance. "You little wretch!" exclaimed Mrs Howard; '' this is going too far;" and springing towards her boy, she grappled him in her arms, and fled with him struggling from the room. It was a quarter of an hour before she returned, alone, to the apartment where she had left her uncle. Her face was sober, and her eyes betrayed recent tears. "Wheat or tares, Fanny?" said the old gentleman, in kind but earnest tones, as his niece came back. 66 Tares," was the half-mournful response. · “Wheat were better, Fanny." "I see it, uncle." "And you will look well in future to the seed in your hand, ere you scatter it upon the heart of your child." "God helping me, I will, dear uncle." "Remember, Fanny," said Mr Lincoln, that truth and obedience are good seed. Plant them, and the harvest-time will come in blessing. As a Christian mother, this is one of your highest and most sacred duties. God has given you a child that you may raise him for heaven; and He has furnished you with an abundant supply of the precious 269 seeds of love, truth, tenderness, and mercy to sow in his mind. Oh, scatter them broadcast over the rich soil prepared to receive them, and they will take root, spring up, and bear an abundance of good fruit in the harvest-time of his life."-Steps towards Heaven. SCRIPTURE MISCELLANIES. THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD. BY THE REV. DR ALEXANDER, PRINCETON. THE word judgment is used in the sacred Scriptures in various senses, but we now employ the term to signify those providential dispensations of God by which men are visited for their sins, either in the way of punishment or chastisement. The difference between punishment and chastisement is, that in the first case the judgments inflicted are really the execution, in part, of the penalty of the law of God; the other are such as are inflicted by a loving father for the correction and amendment of his children. Often, however, the same terms are applied indiscriminately to both kinds of dispensations. The The ideas of many persons--and those are found not merely among the ignorant and unlearned-are very erroneous on the subject of the judgments of God. They entertain the opinion that nothing which comes to pass in the ordinary course of nature, the cause of which we can trace, is to be considered of the nature of a judgment of God. Some time towards the close of the last century, or the commencement of the present, a reverend and learned professor in a university published a small system of logic, intended to be studied by the under graduates. book was respectable as a very brief compend; but in giving an illustration of false reasoning, he observed that many persons considered the yellow fever as a judgment of God, sent upon us on account of the sins of the people; whereas, the reverend author remarked (as though it were conclusive), that the yellow fever was produced by natural causes which could be ascertained. According to the principle involved in this remark, nothing can be properly considered a judgment of God which can be traced to a natural cause. And, consequently, since miracles have ceased, there have been no judgments of God in the history of the world. This is to exclude the Governor of the universe from the world with a witness. Few would be willing to adopt this conclusion who have any faith in God and His providence. Others suppose, that remarkable afflictions, out of the common course of experience, should be reckoned judgments, but not those common afflictions which befall men every day. Both these classes of error arise from an inadequate conception of the extent of divine providence; and with many the error is rather practical than theoretical. If the question were proposed to them, Does the providence of God extend to all events, small as well as great? they would readily answer in the affirmative. But, notwithstanding this, they never think of referring common events to the providence of God, and therefore are not affected with a sense of His goodness in their prosperity, nor humbled to a penitent confession of their sins in adversity. It is true, some maintain a general, while they deny a particular providence; they allow God to have some hand in the revolution of empires and downfall of thrones, but not in the minute and trivial affairs of men. But the fact is, that in the order of events, in the history of the world, there is an indissoluble concatenation of the great with the small; the revolution of a kingdom may depend upon a single word-yea, a single volition. A general providence cannot be maintained, whilst a universal and particular providence is denied. The doctrine of the Bible is most decisive and clear on this subject. According to our Lord, providence extends to the life and death of the smallest animals-yea more, to the perishing of a single hair of our heads. The whole history of the Old Testament is a history of a particular providence, in which the care of God extends to all events, of every kind, but in such a way as not to interfere with the free agency of men. And the whole book of prophecy supposes the truth of a providence which extends to all events, and even to all the free actions of men. The notion that events brought about by natural and known causes are not judgments, is at war with most of the denunciations of God's vengeance against sinners, in the Old Testament. God's most common judgments on sinful nations are war, famine, pestilence, and destructive animals-destructive to human life, or to the productions of the earth intended for the sustenance of man. These judgments are not miraculous, but natural causes of punishment. And the whole catalogue of judgments, threatened in the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, are afflictions produced by natural causes. The most common insects are often made the instruments of inflicting judgments on a rebellious people. The locust, the grasshopper, the palmer-worm, and the caterpillar, are among the executioners of the divine judgments; as well as the inanimate elements, the hail, the lightning, and the inundation of waters. Thus it is said, "He gave also their increase unto the caterpillar, and their labour unto the locust. He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore-trees with frost. He gave up also their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunder-bolts" (Ps. lxxviii. 48). Again, in the prophecy of Joel, we read, "Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten." Among the many curses denounced by Moses against the Israelites, in case of disobedience to the commands of God, were grievous diseases of various kinds. "The Lord shall smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with an extreme burning." "The Lord shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head." "And the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues and of long continuance. Moreover, he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wert afraid of, and they shall cleave unto thee. Also EVERY SICKNESS AND EVERY PLAGUE, which is not written in the book, that is the book of this law, them will the Lord bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed." The CHOLERA, whence is it, and why has it come? The infidel will answer, It is a matter of chance; the rationalist will ascribe it to nature, and deny that Providence has anything to do with it; but the believer will acknowledge the hand of God in this sore judg ment which is now desolating our land: and he will be disposed to humble himself, and to call the people around him, not to a mere formal observation of a day of fasting, but to sincere and deep repentance. He will acknowledge that for this desolating judgment there must be a cause a moral cause. God has been provoked by the wickedness of this people, and by the dishonour cast upon His name by men "in high places," by men in authority-by the desecration of His holy day-by the neglect of His holy worship-by the enormous avarice and insatiable ambition of the people-by the lewdness and intemperance, yea, by the bloody murders by which the land has been defiled. And we need not expect the scourge to be withdrawn until real repentance is exercised, and a reformation begun. Or, if the pestilence depart, IT WILL COME AGAIN UNLESS WE REPENT. CERTAIN RICH MEN. THE world does not claim all the rich men. Within the pale of the visible Church some of them are to be found. Wealth is no positive disqualification in the candidate for a celestial crown, but it is a mighty obstruction to his attainment of it. The Great Teacher has said, "How hardly sball they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" And again, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." This is sufficiently startling. It was very natural for Agur to pray, "Give me not poverty," inasmuch as it generally brings with it many hardships and privations; but, viewed in connexion with the time his thank-offerings. Mark his progress, ye who are becoming too much absorbed in the world! His commercial transactions were gradually, yet steadily, encroaching upon the limits which, in his fancy, he had fixed for them. His devotions were not abandoned, but abridged, and less fervent; his gifts to the cause of Christ were not omitted, yet sadly disproportioned to the increase of his substance. Wealth had rendered him not more, but less liberal; and he might have detected, had he examined his heart, that the cordiality and whole-heartedness which he had felt while a poor man, were exchanged for reluctance and selfishness, now that he was rich. He soon learned the art of excusing himself from the liberality which had once been his delight. His expenditures were more extravagant upon his own household; and while adding thousands to thousands, he daily became a poorer man in everything relating to the household of faith. Sad change! Where now was his religion? Not extinguished, perhaps, but obscured. Its vital power was no longer felt. The world, which had gained access to his heart, had chilled it. "I do not enjoy religion as I once did," was his confession; and how could he expect it, when he had embraced, and was actually worshipping, the god of this world? His family suffered too. They had become fashionable and proud Saviour's words, it was incomparably wiser that He added the prayer, "Give me not riches." The one exposes a man to perilous temptations, the other exposes him to dangers of a still more serious nature. It might be supposed that the Saviour, by His comparison of the camel and the needle's eye, absolutely affirmed the impossibility of a rich man's salvation. This is not exactly the case. He explains His own declaration by subjoining, "How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!" The salvation of such is clearly impossible. This qualification may seem to diminish the danger of riches; and yet, a little examination will shew that it only lessens it to a certain degree. How few among the rich are found who do not trust in their wealth! Not that they trust in its power to purchase heaven, but they repose in it as a sufficient inheritance, and are prevented by it from looking further. They are naturally disposed to say, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." By the influence of wealth the soul is seduced from God. It forgets its dependence on His providence, having found what it regards as a surer dependence. It becomes proud, haughty, inflated with high notions of its own superiority. It enjoys the obsequious flatteries, and even the envy, of others. It is tempted thereby into a thousand sins to which the poor man-nay, vicious; and although in the midst of is not exposed. It brings a multiplicity of cares, which are unfriendly to growth in grace. It binds the heart to earth, and makes all spiritual exercises exceedingly difficult. In short, it is so hard for a rich man to feel that he is "a pilgrim and a stranger on the earth," that it is next to impossible that he should so believe, think, and act, as to secure the crown of glory that fadeth not away. them was an altar, it had become dilapidated, and the sacred fire on it was extinguished. Now comes the decline of life. It was like the setting of the sun in a cloud. No cheering light was shed upon the evening's close. Faith had no supports to offer; Hope had no smile. In despondency he sank down into the grave, leaving suspicion in the minds of survivors, whether, indeed, death had been despoiled of his victory. Such was the beginning, such was the end. Oh, accursed love of gold, how many triumphant exits from life hast thou prevented! This rich man had made his will. Was it the last will of a Christian? Christ was not recognised in it; His suffering poor had no legacy by it; it never remembered that the Church of Christ had any wants. Sons and daughters were indeed remembered; and these are now expending those thousands in fashionable vice, which their Christian father had accumulated at the expense of his religious enjoyments, if not of his soul!-American Paper. Now for a few portraits. There was a certain rich man, who, when he was poor, waited upon God, and delighted in His service. Seemingly, he possessed godliness, and with it contentment. He had food and raiment for himself and his household, and little besides. Did you hear him pray?—he was fervent. Did you witness his contributions to the cause of religion?-they were according to the ability which God had given him, and were rendered with cheerfulness. He wished he could do more; nay, he was persuaded that, had he been intrusted with wealth, he would have consecrated it to the service of Him whom he professed to love as his chief joy. Perhaps this very thought became an inlet to temptation. He seemed to forget that God could accomplish as much with the two mites of the cheerful-giving widow, as with the rich gifts of the wealthy. His next thought was, how he could increase the means of his libera-Baxter. lity. The path of industrious exertion was before him. He taxed his powers more fully. Providence seemed to smile upon his efforts. With increased prosperity, he increased for a If you desire to be wiser, think not yourself wise enough. He that instructs one that thinks himself wise enough, hath a fool to his scholar; he that thinks himself wise enough to instruct himself, hath a fool to his master. As troubled water is unfit to receive the image of the sun, so, the heart filled with impure and disorderly affections, is not fit for divine communications.-Boston. THE HUGUENOTS. BY REV. W. MORLEY PUNSHON.* WE dwell upon the wars of religion and the tragedy of St Bartholomew, not to keep alive olden animosities, but to induce our thankfulness that we live in kindlier times; to inspire a more reverent appreciation of the priceless heritage of religious freedom; and not least, to impress upon our hearts the truth that banded armies and battle's stern array are no meet missionaries of "the truth as it is in Jesus." Oh, never, we may boldly say it, never did the cruelties of war, nor the tortures of tyranny, advance one iota the cause of our holy religion. The crusader's lance reclaimed no Saracen from his error. The scimitar of the Moslem might establish a military domination, but the fear of it wrought no spiritual change. Covenanters still gathered in the dark ravine, and raised the perilous psalm, though the sleuth-hound tracked them through the wild wood, and some whom the soldiers of Claverhouse had slaughtered were missing from each successive assembly. With the torture and the stake in prospect, the coward lip might falter, and the recreant hand might sign the recantation, but the heart would be Protestant still. Christianity is a spiritual kingdom, and no carnal weapons glitter in her armoury. To her zealous but mistaken friends who would do battle for her, she addresses the rebuke of her Master, "Put up thy sword unto its sheath again, for they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." A beautiful and healing presence! she comes to soothe, not to irritate to unite, not to estrange; and spurning adventitious aids, and disdaining to use common methods of aggrandisement, she relies for triumph upon her own kingly truth and upon that Divine Spirit who has promised to give it power. Oh, believe me, Christianity forges no fetters for conscience; she rejoices not, but shudders at the stream of blood! While, on the one hand, it were insult to the sincerity of faith to proffer boon in requital for devotion; on the other, it were foul felony of the crown-rights of man to rob even a beggar of a single motive for his worship; and that were an unworthy espousal which would wed the destiny of heaven to the intrigues of earth, and "hang the tatters of a political piety upon the cross of an insulted Saviour." Alas! that in our fallen nature there should be such a strange disposition to make persecution coeval with power. Calvin raised no voice in the Genevan Council against the sentence which adjudged Servetus to the stake. The fanatic Roundhead, in his day of power, searching the baronial hall for hidden cope and missal, was to the full as brutal and unfovely, *From an exceedingly rich and graphic little work, just published by Messrs Nisbet & Co. We hope our extract will induce many of our readers to procure the book for themselves. and because he had clearer light, more criminal than was the roystering Cavalier. The Pilgrim Fathers-men honoured for conscience' sake now as much as they were despised a century ago-were not long established in their Goshen home, when, remindless of their own sharp discipline, they drove out the Quakers into the Egypt of the wilderness beyond. The fact is, that persecution generates persecution, the lash and the fetters debase as well as agonise the races of the captive and the slave. Hence, wars have been waged, cities sacked, property pillaged, lives massacred, all, in the judgment of the perpetrators of the crimes, "for the glory of God." Hence, history presents us with so many illustrations of blood offered at the shrine of some Pagan Nemesis in the sacred name of liberty. Hence, also, there is yet among the marvellous inconsistencies of the world, a nation with the cry of freedom ever on its lips, defiant of all others in its rude and quarrelsome independence, and at its feet, with heart all wildly beating, and eye all dim with tears, there crouches an imploring sufferer-type of thousands like him-whose only crime is colour, who dare not lift himself openly, in the face of the sun, a say, "I myself also am a MAN." 66 and While, however, we admit this tendency, and watch over its beginnings in ourselveswhile we confess that in the sad wars of religion there were Michelades as well as Dragonades, Huguenot reprisals as well as Romanist massacres, we ought not to omit to notice one essential difference which should be ever kept in mind: when Protestants persecute, they persecute of their own malice aforethought," and in direct opposition to the rescripts of their holy religion-in the other system, persecution is no exotic growth, but springs indigenous and luxuriant from the system itself. Persecution, in the one case, is by Protestants, not of Protestantism; in the other case, it is not so much by Romanists, as of Popery. I rejoice to believe that there are multitudes of high-hearted and kindly Roman Catholics who are men, patriots, ay, and Christians too, in spite of their teachings in error. And I am proud of my country and of my humanity, when, in the breach and in the battle, on the summit of Barossa or in the trenches at Sebastopol, I see nationality triumph over ultramontanism, and the inspiration of patriotism extinguish the narrowness of creed. But if the spirit of persecution be not in the heart of the Catholic, it is in the book of Popery, in the decretal, in the decision of the Council, in the fulmination of the Pope. The Church of Rome can only save her charity at the expense of her consistency. Let her erase the "Semper eadem " which flaunts upon her banner. There is an antique claim of infallibility too put for ward on her behalf sometimes, which she had better leave behind her altogether. But she cannot change. When she erases penal sta |