Sameness deadens curiosity, and satiates enjoyment. We are so constituted, as to require constant changes for stimulating the mind, and giving relish to our exercises; and in each season of the year we find employments suitable to our faculties, and calculated to afford them agreeable aud useful occupation. Even in winter, cold and comfortless as it appears, how much do we find to make us both happier and better. The family circle, collected in the long evenings round the cheerful winter fire, feel those affections warmed which soften the heart without enfeebling it, and those domestic endearments increased by exercise, without which life is scarcely desirable; while the soul, enlightened and enlarged, is better prepared to receive impressions of religion, to love Him who first loved us: and, rising to more exalted views, to aspire after the society of the just made perfect, in the world of spirits.

The paternal care of the Supreme Being, thus strongly impressed on the mind, by contemplating the traces of his beneficence, which are every where conspicuous in the seasons as they revolve, are calculated to reassure the mind, in looking forward to that great change, of the approach of which we are forcibly reminded by the passing away of another year, of the short and uncertain period allotted us on earth. We, too, have our spring, our summer, our autumn, and our winter. Will another spring dawn on the winter of the grave? To the encouraging answer which revelation gives to this important question, is added our experience of the operations of the God of the seasons. Under his administration, nothing perishes, though every thing changes. The flowers die but to live again. In the animal world, many species sleep out the winter, to awake again in a new season. Nature itself expires and revives; even while she lies prostrate and rigid, an almighty hand preserves the germs of future life, that she may once more start from the grave, and run a new round of beauty, animation, and enjoyment. Is there not hope, then, for the human soul? Shall not the same paternal goodness watch over it in its seeming extinction, and cause it to survive the winter of death? Yes, there is hope here, but there is no assurance. It is from the word of in

spiration alone that the assurance of immortality springs. That book of unerring truth informs us, that after our mortal winter, there comes a spring of unfading beauty and eternal joy, where no cold chills, and no heat scorches ; where there is bloom without decay, and a sky without a cloud.

But let it never be forgotten, that the prospect which lies before us is not all bright and smiling. The same book of truth which reveals to us our immortal nature, informs us also, that, in the unseen world to which we are travelling, there is a state of misery as well as a state of blessedness; that we are now, step by step, approaching the one or the other of these states; and that each successive year, as it passes over our heads, instead of leading us upward to the unchanging glories which belong to the children of God, may be only conducting us downward, on that road which "leadeth to destruction."

And

This is inexpressibly dreadful! when we think of our own character and qualifications, we shall find nothing calculated to allay our terrors. We are the children of a fallen parent-ourselves fallen and guilty. If, from the elevated spot on which we now stand, at the commencement of a new stage of our journey, we look back on the scenes through which we have passed, and reflect on the transactions in which we have been engaged, what shall we discover that can recommend us to Him "who is of purer eyes than to behold evil ?" If, again, we look forward, what a scene of turmoil and disorder, temptation and danger, do we descry in a world lying in wickedness! When we think of the weakness of our own hearts, and of the enemies we have to encounter -so numerous and so formidable-we cannot fail to be appalled, and to experience the same kind of misgiving which led an apostle to exclaim, "Who is sufficient for these things ?"

But when, in the exercise of faith, we turn to the gospel, a more blessed view opens to us; for it is full of the most encouraging promises to those who will accept of them. It tells us of "the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and slow to anger, and abundant in goodness and truth," Exod. xxxiv. 6; and, in proof of this character, it reminds us of the impartial manner in which the Creator employs inanimate nature for

Two or three times it was destroyed by fire, and more than once the spire was struck by lightning. Among the names of those who were, at, different

Look at the awe-struck little urchins, that are gazing with timid air on the monument of Howard. Their attention has already been directed to the diminutive figures in bas-relief, representing the stern jailor with his key, and the poor famished prisoner being supplied with food by the philanthropist. At another time their little hearts will feel sensible of compassion; but now, while they lift up their eyes to the cold marble, the gigantic and motionless figure of Howard, they are rather frozen with awe than melted with pity.

The colossal figure of Doctor Johnson, on the opposite monument, represents the intellectual gladiator, the mighty lexicographer, in a standing attitude. Unlike the graven bust, in the title page of his dictionary, he stands erect, habited as a Roman, with a majestic mien, fixing the regard, and commanding the admiration of the spellbound visitor. The man of letters comes here, a pilgrim to the shrine of talent, and pays a willing homage to departed intellect.

And these, then, are the most enduring records of this world's admiration! What a tale of humiliation is told by the disfigured effigy. The mutilated marble, and the time-worn monument of the hero!

"These mouldering records make me feel ashamed That fame and glory have so little power To hand their greatness down to future times."

tion, may be mentioned, William de Belmeis, Osbert de Camera, Maurice, Belmois, and Roger Niger, Bishops of London. To these must be added, Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln; Ralph Baldock, Bishop of London, and Queen Elizabeth; the latter gave out of her own purse a thousand marks of gold, and added, also, to her gift a thousand loads of timber.

From the year 1631 to 1643 more than a hundred thousand pounds were received to repair St. Paul's, and the work was begun by Sir Inigo Jones. The chapels and altars of St. Paul's, before the Reformation, were very numerous, and the rites of the Romish religion were celebrated with great pomp and pageantry. With rich treasures, and two hundred officiating priests, it abounded in what was alluring and imposing to the eye: statues of the Virgin Mary, with huge tapers burning before them continually : caskets decorated with jewels, and filled. with relics; as well as rich censers, cruets and chalices, and basins of gold

and silver.

At one period beggars asked alms in the church, fashionable people made it a lounging place, and porters, with their packs, used it as a common thoroughfare.

Little respect was paid to the costly structure of St. Paul's during the civil wars that broke out; for then the work of desolation spread wide within its walls; the pavement of marble was torn up, the stalls were pulled down, while sawpits were dug in some parts, and horses stabled in others of the sacred edifice.

There is, indeed, abundant reason to believe that a Christian church occupied the same site at a very early period, and that this, when destroyed by the Dioclesian persecution, was again rebuilt in the time of Constantine the Great. It was after

the reign of Queen Elizabeth, by the carelessness of a plumber; the roof also was injured so as to cost many thousand pounds to repair; but the chapel spire never rose again. Below, the high altar in the east part of the choir, stood between two columns, and was adorned profusely with jewellery, as well as surrounded with images, beauti

her mind with valuable ideas and wise maxims for the conduct of life. She loved not the heated room, or the silly talk, or the contemptible customs, and the heartless feelings of fashionable worldlings. She loved her husband, loved her children, loved nature, and, above all, loved her God. With an expanding heart, she read of, and observed His works, enjoying them with the companion of her life, and teaching them to her children, as she walked by the way, and when they lay down and rose up. Her children rewarded her diligent labour by rising up and calling her blessed; her praise is ever ready on the lip of her husband. How has old age overtaken her on her road? Very plainly dressed, very much beloved among a kind circle of friends. The young and the aged alike esteem and revere her. She delights the child with her instructive tales; youth listen and weep, and fall in love with goodness; the wife in the heat and burden of the day hears of her past trials and mercies, and learns to hope afresh; the drooping spirits of her aged sister are cheered by her words; and they learn to lean on the same rod and staff which comfort her. Her old age is calm and cheerful, far from entertaining gloomy apprehensions of death; so firm is her faith, that she looks forward to it as the period when her infirmities and trials are all to be laid aside, and the promises of her God fulfilled in her behalf. This aged Christian and the votary of fashion first described, must both soon die. At the solemn moment of their departure, whose course of life will stand the test? Let us choose then this day whom we will serve.

CELEBRATED SCULPTURES.

spe

the study of Egyptian antiquities in particular is deeply indebted, presented to the British Museum the two monuments perfectly restored, and constituting the most beautiful and noble cimens of Egyptian art. In going through the vast galleries of the British Museum, in which the masterpieces of Greek and Roman sculpture attract our eyes on all sides, and still serve as models to young artists, desirous to find out the secrets by which the great masters of ancient art have rendered their productions immortal, we are everywhere carried away with admiration, particularly when, on entering the great hall of the marbles of the Parthenon, we find ourselves at once carried back to the age of Pericles, at which epoch the arts of Greece had reached their perfection. But these impressions, though augmented by the good taste which has arranged all the objects, will not prevent the visitor from stopping with reverential awe before the two lions of red granite which guard on each side the entrance to the grand gallery containing the colossal monuments of ancient Egypt, couched on their pedestals, the one lying on his right, the other on his left side, with their heads turned towards the spectator; they seemed more like petrified animals than the work of a sculptor. I do not believe that there exists in any European museum any monument so likely to change the opinion of those who see nothing in Egyptian art but a servile and tasteless imitation of forms consecrated by religion in the infancy of art and civilization, and who ascribe to the influence of the Greeks whatever traces of an elevated style are to be found in Egyptian monuments. It was this prejudice which led M. Rüppell to conclude, while he stood in the midst of the finest remains of the times of the Pharaohs, that these lions must have been sculptured under the influence of the Greeks. But, if the royal names inscribed on their breast, seem to approach the age of Psammetichus, there are still inscriptions enough on the bases of the two monuments to prove to us that they ascend at least to the seventeenth century before our era, and that we certainly admire in them productions of the best epoch of ancient Egyptian sculpture, monuments which have resisted the ravages of more than five-and-thirty centuries.