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seen him lashed unmercifully while pull

slowly after his companions. Short and trembling were his steps, as the breathing at the loaded cart; spurred unmerci

burst forth in straight lines of steam from his distended nostrils, and the smoke rose up from his panting sides. I marked the stiffness of the hind legs, his fore legs were bent forwards at the knees, and his swollen veins started out, branching in all directions along his neck, shoulders, and head, like the fibres on the under side of a currant leaf. I saw, too, the dark patches on his sides, where the traces had chafed them, and the foam-flakes that were spattered about the bridle and harness. It was sad to see how that creature's strength was exhausted, and his mettle and high bearing brought down. He staggered on to the stable; but I knew that at the dawn of the coming day he would again be roused to his labour. My heart ached as I gazed after him, and I could not help hoping that the poor brute had no power to wander back in his memory to the free and frolicsome days of his colthood.

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fully while gallopping at his utmost speed; goaded unmercifully while bending beneath an unreasonable load; banged unmercifully on the ribs with an iron windlass while straining his strength at the coal-boat on the canal; and once I saw him unmercifully urged forward in a mail-coach, till he dropped down dead on the road. If ye have horses, be merciful; and if not, urge those to be merciful who have. Ungrateful indeed shall we be to the horse, if we reward him with unkindness; and still more ungrateful to his Almighty Maker, if we show not mercy to His creatures, who has manifested so much mercy to ourselves.

SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE Rev. John A. Clark, writing from Malta, says-On our way to the Marina, several things met my eye, that seemed to furnish fresh illustration to various passages of Scripture.

The narrow road, leading through On a windy day I passed by the cot- fields and vineyards, along which we tage at the end of the common. Old passed, often had, on either side of it, Dinger was standing in the lane, by the a stone wall. The animals on which we crazy and creaking gate that was swing- rode seemed perpetually inclined, whening to and fro on its rusty hinges. His ever they encountered a slough, or any top-knot and fetlocks were in sad dis- strange appearance, to rush up against order, his mane tossed and scattered the sides of one of these walls; and it about on his neck, and his tail was driven was only by using the greatest precaubetween his legs. How the aged animal tion that we prevented our feet, several could sleep in the blustering wind I can- times, from being crushed. This pronot tell, but asleep he was, or at least pensity in our donkeys, strikingly reseemed to be so. There he stood, droop-minded me of Balaam's adventure in ing his head, and resting his hind foot on the tip of his shoe. His eye, for he had but one, was half shut, and his lower lip hung down as if it hardly belonged to his mouth. I looked on the raw shoulders, the swelled heels, and sticking-out bones of the poor brute with pity, and only comforted myself with the thought, that as his infirmities increased his sense of feeling would be deadened, and that, at the worst, his days of weariness and misery would now be but few.

going to the king of Moab, "The angel of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side. And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she thrust herself unto the wall, and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall," Num. xxii. 24, 25.

In our younger days, we have often wondered at that Divine prohibition, in the Mosaic law," Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together," Deut. xxii. 10. We had never seen an instance But enough, and perhaps more than of this, and it seemed so unnatural, that enough, unless I could acquit myself we could hardly conceive that the perverse better. Should the eye of a certain mind of man would be moved with a wish friend of mine, extravagantly fond of to yoke up these animals together, to carry horses, see these meagre observations, I on his agricultural operations. But in shall get curry-combed a little for the our ride through this island, we saw, poverty of my language on so rich a sub-perhaps in twenty instances, an ox and ject of remark; but we are often feeble when we wish to be powerful. For the last time, I say, I love the horse, and feel indignant at his ill treatment. I have

an ass, and often a cow and an ass, yoked together before the plough.

Another Scripture illustration, by which we were particularly struck, was

derived from the flocks of sheep and I awoke, I said, "There is nothing bet

goats that fed together, in the same field, or on the same common. The goats were of a finer breed than I had before seen, and the sheep had long coarse hairy wool; so that, in casting your eyes over the field, you could hardly say, at the first glance, which were goats, and which were sheep. The shepherd, I perceived, at evening brought the flock home, and separated them into two parts; putting the sheep by themselves, and the goats by themselves. The words of the Saviour never came home to my mind with greater force, than after witnessing this arrangement: "Before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left," Matt. xxv. 32, 33.

A PERSIAN TALE.

THE following story alludes to the pilgrimage to Mecca, which takes place every year, on certain days. The immense number mentioned as joining in it, may be explained by the fact, that it is considered an indispensable duty of every Moslem, at least once in his life, | if he has the health and pecuniary means necessary for it. The neglect of it, without a sufficient excuse, is sometimes pleaded against a witness in a Mohammedan court, as a reason why his evidence should not be accepted.

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ter than that I go and visit this man." So I set my face toward Damascus, and travelled till I arrived there: and when I was arrived, I asked for his dwelling, and they told it me. So I knocked at the door, and one came and opened it; and I said to him, "What is thy name ?" And he told me," Ali Bin Mawakkaf." Then said I, "Come, I have something to say to thee." When he had sat some time, I asked him, "What is thy trade ?" He said, "I am a mender of old clothes." Then I told him what I had dreamed: upon which he asked me my name: and when he heard it, he uttered a cry, and fell down at my feet. asked him, "What hast thou done, that thou shouldst find such acceptance?" He replied, "I had long been desirous of making the pilgrimage, but had not the means of doing so. At last I saved three hundred dirhems from my earnings; and this year I meant to have performed the journey. One day a woman, who was in my house, wished for something to eat from the house of our neighbour, and begged I would go and ask for it: so I went, and asked for some food. The woman came out to me, and said, 'For six days and nights my children have tasted nothing. To-day we found a dead ass, and I cut off part of the flesh, and I have cooked it for my children; and this shall not be withheld from you.' When I heard this, my heart was struck with grief, and I said to myAbdallah says-One year I went on self, 'My pilgrimage is yet in my house;' pilgrimage, and after my pilgrimage was and immediately I gave these three hunended, I had gone into my private apart- dred dirhems to this poor woman, and ment to sleep awhile. And while I was said to her, 'Buy food for thy children :' sleeping, I saw two angels descend from and when she had cooked it, I took part heaven; and one said to the other, of it to my neighbour.' When Abdal66 How many thousand pilgrims came lah heard this, he said, "The angel was this year to the pilgrimage ?" He re-right in his report, and just in his judgplied, "Eight hundred thousand." Then ment." the other asked, "And was the pilgrimage of any of these accepted?" He said, "No! not of one. When I heard this, says Abdallah, I was much troubled, and said to myself, Have so many come from the remotest parts of the world, with so much labour and trouble; through deep seas and by distant roads, and through deserts; and have they all lost their labour? Then said the second angel, "There is one, named Ali Bin Mawakkaf, in Damascus, who has not come on the pilgrimage at all, yet he has been accepted, and all his sins have been forgiven him." When I

A purer light falls on us than on Ali Bin Mawakkaf; we enjoy that of Divine revelation, which declares, that salvation is "not of works, but of grace." Yet we do not always estimate acts aright. The poor widow, who cast her two mites into the treasury, is said by our Lord, to have given more than the rich men, notwithstanding their costly gifts. God looketh at the heart. To a deed which excites public attention, and calls forth loud applause, he may have no respect; while, on one performed in secret, and when known calling forth no tribute, he may look with peculiar favour.

INVENTION OF THE RUSSIANS.

THE Russians have an extraordinary talent for imitation; but this, in my opinion, is nothing more than the effect of natural abilities, circumstanced as they have been. When the civilized world was laid open to them, and the acquisition of the French, German, and English languages introduced the Russian students into the temple of arts and sciences of the eighteenth century, they soon found they had every thing to learn: they beheld models placed before them in every department of knowledge; models, which they must first be content to imitate, before they could think of improving upon them. It is the general rule, that the scholar imitates, and the master invents; and this is applicable to the exercise of talent in nations as well as individuals.

New inventions in the arts, and useful discoveries in the sciences, generally proceed from nations that have cultivated both through many succeeding ages, and where the body of the people have been educated, by which the door is opened to the exercise of talent in all classes. It is painful to be obliged to state, however, that where remarkable instances of talent, for imitation, have appeared among the lower classes of the Russians, the individuals have generally, sooner or later, fallen into drunkenness, and have lived and died in misery: probably, their total want of moral cultivation, and of freedom, have driven some of them to this; for the faculty of imitation does not confer upon its possessor culture, either moral or religious, nor does it secure him from seeking gratification in the lowest vices. Few instances can be shown in which mere genius has raised a Russian peasant to honour and opulence: but how frequently is this the case in other countries, where the people are free!-Pinkerton.

THE PERAMBULATOR.
THE CEMETERIES OF LONDON.

SIN and sorrow may be called twins, for they both appear to have entered the world together; and if they are not always seen walking side by side, the latter is continually found to be treading on the heels of the former. No sooner did our first parents sin, than they hid themselves, through fear, from the presence of the Lord. No sooner did they forfeit Paradise by transgression, than the

sentence of death was passed upon them; "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," Gen. iii. 19. Truly, indeed, is it said in Holy Writ, "The wages of sin is death,” Rom. vi. 23.

And ever since those earlier days, have feebleness and strength, age and youth, gone down to the grave: we hear not only, but see, the humiliation of mortal man. "One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. Another dieth in the bitterness of his soul," Job xxi. 23, 25. And thus will it be with the goodliest and greatest, the mightiest and the meanest, until death shall be swallowed up in victory. They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them," Job xxi. 26.

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Under this general sentence of death, the committal of the lifeless body to the ground becomes a matter of importance. Where the inhabitants of the world are few, the burial of the dead is attended with little difficulty. The wilderness and solitary place of the savage, and the retired villages of civilized life, are differently situated, in this respect, to the populous town and crowded city. In the latter, sad spectacles are often seen, and fearful consequences frequently follow, the unhealthy accumulation of the remains of the dead. For these evils the establishment of cemeteries, somewhat remote from the busy haunts of men, appears to be the simplest, if not the only cure.

It would be a formidable affair to go back to ancient Memphis, and describe all the changes onward, from its farfamed resting-place of the dead, to that of Naples, and the white marble cemetery of Pisa, adorned with paintings and antique sarcophagi. All that I purpose to accomplish is, to give a brief sketch of the cemeteries of modern London. There may now be enumerated six of these; but, as part of them are as yet but im perfectly formed, it would be time thrown away to dwell upon them. The cemeteries which are at the present time the least known are one at Peckham, another, a private one, to the east of London, and a third at Stoke Newington. This latter one is regarded by many with much interest, from the circumstance of its being formed in Abney Park, where Dr. Watts so often strolled, while residing, for thirty-six years, in the hospitable mansion of sir Thomas Abney and his excellent family.

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The General Cemetery at Kensal Green, on the Harrow-road, is a mile and a half from Paddington. I have just passed through its archway entrance. The forty-six acres now lying before me form, for the most part, a gentle slope; the south part, bounded by the canal, being lower than the north. The ground is unequally divided, and the eastern, or lesser division, of four or five acres, is not consecrated. There are two chapels, one in each division; that in the western, with its colonnades and catacombs, is on a larger scale than the other.

The lofty surrounding wall, occasionally lightened and diversified with iron railing, has an imposing effect, and the trees, shrubs, and flowers, look fresh; but this unconsecrated part of the cemetery, where I now am, has not, at present many memorials of the dead. In a few years there will be a change in this respect, and the centre space, now undiversified with a single tomb, will doubtless be studded over with the sculptured records of death's achievements. One of the most striking objects now before me is an elderberry bush in full flower, standing like the guardian of the grave over which it is planted.

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Here and there a name that looks strange to an English eye arrests my attention. "Elie Raffin," from Switzerland. "Josephine Lach Szyrma,' a dutiful daughter of Poland, with "Charles Raqueiller," and "Stanislas Michael Albert Ratajski," the children of Polish refugees. Thus it is that the inhabitants of one country find a resting place for their mouldering remains in another. Already in this extended cemetery the remains of mortal men from the four quarters of the earth repose. They "slumber side by side, and the whirlwind cannot wake them."

In the consecrated part of the cemetery, the burial service is performed according to the rites of the church of England, but in the other part some other service is substituted. The line of demarcation between the consecrated and unconsecrated parts of the cemetery is marked by a ditch and gate; this line I have passed, and am now taking a survey of the vast area to the west. The birds are singing, the branches of the trees are bending to and fro, the leaves are rustling, and the breeze is gently breathing around. Hark! what a sudden and boisterous in-break there is amid the comparative quietude of the place. It is

the impatient panting of a steam carriage hurrying along the adjoining railroad; and now the loud whistle, or rather the wild war-whoop-like scream that gives notice of its arrival, is sounding shrill in my ears. Noisy, active life, and silent, motionless death, are dividing my attention.

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There is hardly a passage in Holy Scripture more frequently misunderstood and misquoted than that in the fourth chapter of the epistle of Peter, Charity shall cover the multitude of sins." Instead of charity being set forth as the love and mercy that would willingly cover the faults of others, it is usually represented as a quality which will cover over, and atone for, the sins of its possessor. The pyramidic monument beside me is another instance of this misconception. It tells the reader that he whose dust lies beneath it was "renowned for his charity, which did not cover a multitude of sins, but only heightened many virtues." A misconception on the part of another should make us doubly circumspect ourselves, lest we should fall into yet greater errors. "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law,” Psa. cxix. 18, 34.

The sun is shining, the clouds are sailing along the skies, and a profusion of trees of various kinds, with shrubs and flowers, ornamenting the sides of the cemetery, as well as the different parts where the monuments abound, by turns attract my eye. Within a few feet of the spot where I am standing, moulders the dust of one of the companions of my earlier days. I saw him committed to the tomb. He was my junior, yet here am I musing over his grave. Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is, that I may know how frail I am," Psa. xxxix. 4.

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The living love to honour their departed friends, by marking their deathstones with such information as they consider creditable to their memory. I have noticed the following records of this kind in my walk among the tombs and catacombs:-"An eminent printer." "Chief engineer to his highness Mohammed Ali Pacha.' "Head master of Reading school." "Some time principal store-keeper of the ordnance." respectable merchant." 'A faithful and confidential servant.' "Inspector general of hospitals." "A gallant and

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distinguished soldier." "Physician to king George IV." "Bishop of St. David's." Author of the History of Sumatra." Secretary of the Admiralty." These, and numberless other inscriptions appear, in which respect and affection for the dead is mingled with some degree of living vanity. Who is there among us that is quite content to be nobody and unknown?

Here is a massive granite pedestal without an inscription! What shall I write thereon? "Here lieth the dust of an heir of immortality!" or, "He went down to the grave an unrepentant sinner ?" What a solemn consideration it is, that "The grave can neither withhold the righteous from happiness, nor protect the wicked from unutterable Woe ?"

From the colossal pillars of the portico of the chapel, the view of the cemetery is a sweet one, and quite in character. There is no affected sentimentality; no littlenesses nor gewgaws to catch the eye. No child's play of making gardens, as in many parts of "Père la Chaise." All is vast, sober, chaste, fieldlike, and beautiful; rather sweet than romantic, and the prospect to the south is extensive.

A fluted pillar of pure marble, having the semblance of being suddenly broken, is meant to be symbolical of the sudden death of a young lady, aged 25, who was called away from the world without a moment's warning. "Her sun went down while it was yet day." "Reader!

when thou hearest that a fellow-mortal

has been suddenly plunged into eternity, think of the mercy that has spared thee.'

A painter, engaged in bronzing the iron palisades of a monument, has conceded, though somewhat unwillingly, that the gates of Hyde Park, near Apsley House, are bronzed "pretty well." He has just given me his card, that in case I should want any thing in his way, he may have the pleasure of serving me in a superior manner.

In another part of the grounds, observing a young man at work, coating over the sculptured letters on a marble tomb with size, before painting them black, I remarked to him, "Why that must be double trouble." "Yes, it is, sir,” said he with a black look, "but my here the sudden appearance of his master prevented him from finishing the sentence; otherwise, he would no doubt have informed me, that

master

his master was an unreasonable man, who cared nothing about the double trouble of his journeyman, for he never paid him for it. Oh the world! the world! With masters and servants, self-interest is as lynx-eyed in a burial-ground as at the Stock Exchange.

There are many fine monuments in the cemetery, but few of them will vie with the costly specimens in St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. There are, also, some fair inscriptions, but hardly any of a very striking kind; yet is the place full of interest, and the longer I linger among the tombs, the higher does the place rise in my estimation.

The colonnade of Grecian architecture on the north side is sure to attract the eye, and draw the feet of the visitor to the place, either before or after he has examined the chapel. There are catacombs in which two thousand coffins may rest undisturbed; and the number of monuments already erected is considerable. The north side of the cemetery is much more thickly peopled with the dead than any other part, probably on account of its elevated situation.

Death is indeed no respecter of persons; the infant and the aged are sleeping beneath my feet. There is the last house of Morrison, the hygeist, the celebrated vender of pills; and yonder is the high-erected monument of John Saint John Long, no less famous than the former personage for the peculiarity of his medical practice.

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And this is Norwood! Green fields, grassy slopes, woods, and handsome mansions rise in the distance; and here is the goodly cemetery of forty acres, which has drawn me from the busy city, whose cathedral is visible from the place.

I have stepped into the entrance-lodge, and turned over the ample leaves of the great parchment book, whose pages, formed into squares, correspond, on a miniature scale, with the forty acres of burial ground immediately around me. Every tree within my view seems to flourish but the cypress. From this spot I can count five cypress trees, absolutely withered from their natural green colour to a ruddy brown.

The monuments of the dead are at present few; and the cemetery presents that retired, grassy, leafy, flowery appearance, which, canopied by the clear blue sky, and breathed on by the balmy air, is truly delightful. Unconsciously I

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