in such wet weather, is likely to make her ill; and when she does call, she steals an hour from other pressing duties, and says, that she always comes when they permit; but, where there is a will, there is a way,' and if she really loved me, she might contrive to be with me oftener." These are unreasonable demands.

L-, directly he gains admission to the society of a friend, begins to apply to him for money, to patch up his almost ruined credit; a loan clenches his good opinion; ever so prudent a refusal, to ever so unreasonable a request, severs his attachment in an instant.

K- surrounds himself with friends, who can afford to give him luxurious entertainments. Take away the good dinners, and choice wines, and the cement of their union is lost.

Fashionable friendships are of all others, perhaps, the most heartless. Mrs. A. calls on Mrs. B.; they flatter and compliment each other in the most fulsome style, and separate to entertain the next circle they meet, by holding each other up to contempt and ridicule. Mrs. M. will not bestow the favour of her invitations upon those whom it would be a credit to know for their piety, their talents, and prudence; but she courts one for her fine house, another for her title, another because she moves in a fashionable circle.

From one she hopes for an introduction; from another the use of her carriage; and, with regard to a third, it will be counted an honour for her card to be left on the table.

To forsake our friends in their poverty is cruel indeed. I know an interesting instance of that genuine friendship, which follows its object from the summit of good fortune, step by step, down into the vale of obscurity, and there sheds its benign influence.

S. and E. were young friends in very respectable circumstances. After the marriage of S., a series of afflictions bowed down her spirit: her friend E. was ever at hand to sympathize. Poverty followed at the heels of other misfortunes;

E. was as kind as before the fortunes of S. declined. S. became a widow, with a dependent family. E. was not ashamed to own her friend, or to help her to obtain charity. S. is now living in a very humble abode, her dress is poor and mean; she looks like what she is, a decayed lady. E. moves in the same sphere as she always occupied. S.

is received by E. and her friends with the same respect as ever. She is not ashamed to walk with S. through the town, or to seat her at her table when there is company; nor when a haughty female, who employed S., thought fit to wound her feelings by rudeness, did E. hesitate to reprove that person, and assert the rights of her friend, in such a style, as made the proud and harsh behaviour of the other appear most contemptible. Nor is poor S. the only daughter of affliction befriended by E.; she is noted for never forsaking her friends in their poverty, so long as their conduct is correct.

A wise distinction is to be made between the poor, and the ill conducted. Y. is a character whom none of his respectable friends can notice with propriety, not on account of his poverty, though that is the effect chiefly of his ill conduct, but on account of his moral degradation, which is almost complete. Time after time have kind friends, hoping for his amendment, placed him in respectable situations; but he loses one by his idleness, another by intoxication, and a third by carelessness or passion. Meanwhile

The clothes that are on him are turning to rags, And thus he goes on till he starves or he begs."

Can the best disposed cherish friendship with such a being?

W- is a charming companion: he has wit at will; has seen life in its varied aspects; he is talented; persons who meet him are delighted with him, and hold themselves in readiness to serve him: but he is touchy and proud; an unintentional word offends him, a thousand would not persuade him to yield.

L has the character of being a most friendly woman. I call her a gossip not a funeral, a lying-in, an hysteric fit, or a wedding, but she is full of officiousness. She seeks excitement, she loves to be amused. The dull routine of duty in her own family, is neglected, and this neglect is interpreted into a disinterested sacrifice offered on the shrine of true friendship; whereas, it is really a personal gratification, partaking of curiosity, (so dear to woman's heart,) novelty, perhaps a portion of kindness, and a great deal of bad taste. Oh,' said L, when her cousin died in her arms, "what a scene I had to encounter! The children were neglected little objects, their clothes turned to rags

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for want of mending; the house dirty from the cellar to the garret; every closet was untidy, nor was there one useful article in readiness; valuable goods were found spoiled by carelessness: my heart ached to see it all." This heartache, however, instead of being assuaged by endeavouring to better the condition of things, appeared to be relieved only by making known, to a whole neighbourhood, the faults of the departed, whose dying breath had commended her helpless orphans to the care of this tatler.

How much more charitable would it have been to have cast a veil over the failings of one who could no longer defend herself, and, as a disinterested friend, to have done all that was possible for the house of mourning.

"Now in that house you're sure of knowing The slightest scrap of news that's going."

G

I fear that this is too true a description of many families, who, nevertheless, pass for worthy people. Suspect, reader, that your's is a gossiping friendship if you are a frequent visitor at such houses, sitting, perhaps, for hours, to the neglect of your duties at home, hearing and communicating gossip; these meetings are hotbeds in which the rank weeds of mischief spring and flourish. knows other persons' business better than her own; she surrounds herself with idlers, who will prate for a whole morning about the dress, affairs, and even motives of their neighbours. Ghas also vanity enough to suppose that she is an object of observation and interest to all about her-a centre towards which almost every action of her neighbours, in some measure, has a bearing. Her first eager question is, "Was my name mentioned at such and such a party?" Her second, "What was said of this, that, and the other person?" Those who will feed her vitiated appetite with a tale of flattery, or call up and join her indignation by repeating how she was defamed, are held to be her sincere friends.

The conduct of R- always reminds me of a wayward child among its companions, who, if it cannot have its own will, perpetually cries out, "Then "Then I won't play," and whimpering, retires to sulk in a corner. If R meets a committee, and the members venture to differ from him, and carry their point ever so fairly, he has been known, two or three times in the course of an even

ing, to declare that he would withdraw his name, and have no more to do with the society. In his friendships, he shows the same touchy and capricious temper. Hloves novelty in friendship; she is introduced to a person respecting whom she knows but little; she is delighted with the manners of this new acquaintance, a rapid interchange of visiting takes place, and she speaks of her new friend with an excitement of pleasure. I know one instance, in which the wife of a swindler, newly settled in the village, became her intimate companion, and proved the source of much discredit and anxiety to her. Another time, she formed a friendship with a stranger, who shortly after embezzled large property, was missing in the night, and has never been heard of since. I believe these proved to H the necessity of some knowledge of character before fixing upon her friends; but she still forms hasty attachments, which disappoint her expectations, and are broken off as suddenly as they were commenced.

Let us, in our intercourse with those we value, endeavour equally to avoid too great familiarity and reserve; for each tends to check the growth of genuine friendship.

To take uncourteous freedoms, and utter rude speeches, is surely a bad way of manifesting the warmth of our attachment. To throw off respectful manners is at all times to lay ourselves open to well-merited dislike. The unconstrained ease which should characterize our friendly intercourse, and which forms one of its delightful features, must never degenerate into a habit of taking unwarrantable liberties, which, though the aggressor may not be sensible enough to perceive and avoid, the subject of them may keenly feel, and not hesitate to resent. Let it not be supposed that the writer would here advocate an undue or formal attention to that worldly etiquette, a breach of which is considered to be unpardonable among a certain class: far from it; for this might partake of the nature of fashionable friendship, which has been already deprecated.

Nor would I wish that love and esteem should hide itself under a reserved exterior; rough-handed familiarity crushes the fair flowers of friendship; but a cold and heartless behavour kills the root.

Thus I have endeavoured to point out some few things relating to friendship,

IGNORANCE OF GOD IN SOUTH AFRICA. WE have heard of the praying mantis of the Hottentots, and it has been said that they yielded some kind of homage to that insect. To what extent this homage prevailed among that people, and what was its nature, I have never been able to learn, as I have never met with one of that people who knew any thing on the subject. The Namaquas and Corannas, who lie far beyond the Hottentot tribes, and who are the same people, having the same customs and possessing the same nondescript language, know nothing of such a worship. During my stay among the Great Namaquas, beyond the Great Orange river, where the Hottentot nation may be seen in its original and unmixed state, I have often taken up the mantis in my hand, and put the question to the gentle, the simple, the wise, and the unwise; but the reply invariably was, We never heard of such a worship. The name and the only name which these tribes have for God, is Tsuikuap, which, in its etymological derivation, signifies neither more nor less than a sore, or wounded knee. How this appellation was applied to the Divine Being, I cannot conceive; for all that is known of this great Tsuikuap, or wounded knee, is, that he was a great sorcerer, or perhaps, with more probability, a chief of ancient renown. The only instance of superstitious fear that I ever witnessed among the Great Namaquas was at a village where I was sojourning. During the night, the village was attacked by lions, and the women were loud and long in their cries and complaints against the sorcerer, who, they maintained, had entered into the lions to revenge their ingratitude to him for some services which he considered were not sufficiently awarded.

The Kafirs on the south-east coast have adopted the same Tsuikuap, or Utiko of the Hottentots, which evi

The Bushmen, again, descended, as I presume, from the Hottentot tribes, are, of all the inhabitants of South Africa, the most wretched and degraded. They are the common pirates of the desert, and, in many instances, they have been compelled to become so by the cruelty and avarice of those who have taken possession of their lands, their game, and their wild honey. They have neither house nor hall. Their most delightful home is in the unfrequented desert, or secluded recesses of a cave, or ravine. They remove from place to place as convenience or necessity requires, when a few branches and a little grass constitute the materials of their humble domiciles. They have neither flocks nor herds, and their earthly all the females carry on their backs. Though shrewd in their minds, and active in their dispositions, they have no name nor knowledge of a Divine Being.

When the missionaries commenced their labours among the Bechuanas, a people distinct, and in many respects superior to those tribes we have just been describing, did they find among them any thing like idolatry, religion, or religious awe? No, they found a nation of infidels! They possessed a copious language, a social and patriarchal government, and manners and customs indicating that they had descended from generations farther advanced in knowledge than the present. But was there any thing like legends among them, or altar dedicated even to an unknown god, to which the missionary could appeal? No! I stand here as a living witness to testify, that my ears have been hundreds of times stunned with roars of laughter, when with my veteran and faithful brother Hamilton, I have been labouring to inform their darkened minds, and convince them that there was one mightier than man, even the mighty God, the Creator of the ends of the earth; and my eyes have often beheld their derision and scorn when reasoning with them on creation, providence, and redemption. The name for the Supreme Being adopted by our first interpreters, was certainly the most suitable, and seemed to us to be all that remained of what once was-a name which is nearly the same with the

MALTA.

Ir appears from Homer, that the earliest inhabitants of this rock were the Phenicians. They are fabulously regarded as giants, and "a ruin still exists," says the Rev. S. S. Wilson, "not far from my residence, called the Giant's Tower. In 1519, before the Incarnation, the Phenicians took the island, and held it 448 years; after which they were expelled by the Greeks; these by the warlike inhabitants of Carthage, and the latter in their turn yielded to the Romans in the first Punic war, when Attalus took possession of the place. It was during their occupation that the holy apostle Paul was cast upon these shores, in the reign of Tiberius, and the creek where he was stranded retains the name of St. Paul's Bay. The first time I visited this creek was in 1820, when I killed a serpent near the spot where the blessed man shook one from his hand. Paul planted a church here. One, ten minutes' walk from my house, still bears the name of St. Publius, the individual named in Acts xxviii. Alas! the gospel introduced by St. Paul has been long supplanted by another gospel.' Rome has laid her withering hand on the once pure church of Malta, and replaced its truth by a system of paganism baptised with a Christian name."

Syriac, having the same signification, in its etymological import, namely, the high or heavenly One. But the views entertained by the few who knew any thing about it, were the very reverse of what the name implies; for all that they knew on the subject, was what they had heard from people in the north; namely, that this Morimo was a thing that lived in a hole under a hill, and being wise and cunning, sometimes came out and did malicious deeds, in killing cattle and inflicting diseases. But so little reverence had they for this foreign deity, if such it might be called, that I have heard them frequently say, "We wish we could get hold of this Morimo, and we would transfix it with our spears!" This Morimo, known to few, was only kept in remembrance by sorcerers and rain makers, and sometimes used as a bugbear. We could not possibly offend such a people by telling them that their gods were no gods, or that they were an ungodly nation. Our greatest difficulty was to get them either to think or reason with us on these subjects. They were to them sounds without sense, and it only excited their wonder that we should persevere in talking to them about things so palpably inconsistent with all the ideas that ever passed through their minds. I have visited many tribes, and conversed with individuals from many interior nations, but I never could, in one instance, discover that they had the shadow of an idea, that there existed any thing to be feared or loved beyond what could be tasted, seen, or felt. I have, many times over, directed them to the starry heavens, the beautiful order and succession of the seasons, day and night, and the endless variety of the handiworks of God; but alas! they never raised their thoughts so high, like brutes they lived, like brutes they died. Did time permit, I could give you many instances of their deplorable ignorance, some of them too ludicrous for the present solemn occasion, while we are pleading for never-dying souls, and endeavouring to bring the depth of their misery to bear on your Christian sympathies. Often have I been compelled to smile at their egregious ignorance, while my heart was heaving the deep sigh, to see the image of God so lost, and lost in the grossest darkness. -Rev. R. Moffat.

THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE.

THE Scriptures come to us as absolute truth, pure from any admixture of errors; we are therefore to receive them, not as the words of man, which ought always to be canvassed and examined, but as the words of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, whose knowledge is truth, and his essence is reality. Every communication from God is not only true, but imperative. It is the will of him whose will must be done. The authority of Scripture is therefore the authority of God. Whatever is affirmed in the sacred volume is proved. is written" is a decision which admits of no appeal. Every sentence in the Bible is as much sanctioned by the place which it occupies, as if, like the law given upon Mount Sinai, it were ratified by all the thunders of the heavens.-Douglas.

It

I like the heath-covered mountain and the bright yellow-blossomed furze; the the moor; the broken ground, thick with red sandy rock, festooned with pendant plants and clinging ivy; and the lonely pond, choked up with long grass, flags, and bulrushes. I like to slake my thirst bank; to see the yellow frog leap from at the spring in the hollow of the green the brink into the crystal water, gracefully diving to the bottom; and to gather fresh green water cresses in the limpid

terest.

I like to sit on the edge of a dry ditch, where the dog rose, and the bramble, and wild convolvolus, are seen; and the chickweed and hayrif grow together, with the dandelion. I like to stand in an old stone quarry, gorgeous with hanging creepers. I love to mutter to myself in the lonely lane, to speak aloud in the fields, and to sing on the wide-spread common, with my heart as well as my tongue

"When all thy mercies, O my God,

My rising soul surveys;
Transported with the view, I'm lost
In wonder, love, and praise."

I like to listen to the simmering sound of the grasshopper; the rapid tapping of the woodpecker against the hollow tree; the creaking cry of the corn drake in the mowing grass; the mellow pipe of the blackbird in the brake; the melodious song of the throstle in the copse, and the sweet melancholy music of the nightingale in the wood.

I like to see the ploughman at his work early, whistling a sprightly tune, while the lark is warbling above him; the shepherd, as he goes forth in the grey of the morning, with his shaggy dog; the hedger, with his mittens, boots, and bill hook; and the mole catcher laden with his traps. I like to look on the mower as he scythes down the long grass; to hear the laugh of the merry haymakers; and to see the reapers cutting the corn, and gathering the sheaves into the gar

ner.

I like to gather field flowers, the pale primrose, the yellow cowslip, the purple violet, and the daffodil, dancing in the breeze; to pick up the snow-white mushroom from the dewy grass, to pluck hazel nuts in the coppice, and the ripe blackberry from the straggling thorn. He who cannot feel thankful to God for a blackberry, has no right to pluck it from its thorny stem.

I like to steal behind the old oaks in a the deer, and the timid fawn, as they park, approaching unperceived the stag, lie in their lairs among the fern, or browze among the moss and tufted grass. To hide myself in the wood, that I may see the nimble squirrel mounting the tall trees, and springing to his dray, or leaping from branch to branch, poised by his spreading tail.

I like to sit in a retired nook, on the brink of a stream, overhung with tangled brushwood, watching the fish leaping from the waves, and the moor hen plashing among the roots of the trees, under the high bank; and to stand on the edge of an old moat, whose dark and neglected waters are covered with the broad leaves of the water lily, when the rat ventures forth, pushing his impeded way to the island in the midst, or plunging suddenly beneath the water.

I like the singing and the flight of birds; the waving of the yellow corn in the wind; the breezy, whispering sound of the leaves on the trees, and the sedge on the river's side; I love the fresh foliage of spring, the ruddy glow of summer, the rich tints of autumn, and the bracing air of a winter's day.

I like to sit on a stile, under a spreading oak, when the sun is somewhat declining in the west; to watch the busy world on the wing, the birds warbling above me, the butterfly fluttering joyously in the sun, the gnats dancing in the air, and the dragon fly darting along the surface of the running stream. I love to fling bits of paper into the babbling brook, and to watch their course; to gaze on the clear bright water as it ripples over the red sand or polished pebble stones; and to follow, with scrutinizing glance, the sharded beetle as he hides himself in the grass.

I like to wander in a wood, when the winds are abroad; when the trunks of the trees bend, the branches creak, and