The Fragment Basket. USEFUL RESOLUTIONS.-The following brief resolutions were formed by a young man before he entered college, and produced a character known and revered widely, and whose death was sincerely lamented: "For the future direction of my life, I resolve: "1. That I will make religion my chief concernment. "2. That I will never be afraid or ashamed to speak in defence of religion. "3. That I will make it my daily practice to read some part of the holy Scriptures, that I may become acquainted with the will of God, and be quickened, and comforted, and qualified to serve Christ and promote the interests of his kingdom in the world. 4. That I will every day reflect upon death and eternity. a time for several minutes together, playing in the air and falling into his hands by turns. I think I never saw greater severity than in this man's face; for by his wonderful perseverance and application he had contracted the seriousness and gravity of a privycounsellor; and I could not but reflect within myself, that the same assiduity and attention, had they been rightly applied, might have made him a greater mathematician than Archimedes." I have known a boy-and such cases are not rare-spend time enough in learning to read with the book bottom upwards, which he did with great fluency, to have made him acquainted with all the minutiae of the Latin grammar. This is not merely time wasted, but it is cultivating a taste for out-of-the-way things and useless acquirements. It is no small part of education and of 5. That I will daily pray to God study to know what you do, and what in secret. you do not, wish to know. "6. That upon all proper occasions I will reprove vice and discountenance it, and to the utmost encourage virtue and religion. "7. That I will dispute only for light, or to communicate it. "8. That I will receive light wherever and however offered. "9. That I will give up no principle before I am convinced of its absurdity or bad consequences. "10. That I will never be ashamed to confess a fault to an equal or to an inferior. "11. That I will make it a rule to do no action, at any time or place, of which action I should not be willing to be a witness against myself hereafter." All act upon it more or less, but few do it as a matter of habit and cal culation. Sir Walter Scott gives us to understand that he never met with any man, let his calling be what it might, even the most stupid fellow that ever rubbed down a horse, from whom he could not by a few moment's conversation learn something which he did not before know, and which was valuable to him. This will account for the fact that he seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of everything. Old-fashioned economists tell you never to pass an old nail or an old horse-shoe, or buckle, or even a pin, without picking it up; because, although you may not want it now, you will find a use for it some LABORIOUS TRIFLING.-There is a kind of laborious trifling which unfits the mind for anything valuable-it leads to a wide field which is barren and waste. "I once knew a shepherd," says an Italian author, "who used to divert himself in his solitude with toss-time or other. I say the same to you ing up eggs and catching them again without breaking them; in which he had arrived to so great a degree of per fection, that he would keep up four at with regard to knowledge. However useless it may appear to you at the moment, seize upon all that is fairly within your reach. "PEACE; BE STILL." Poetry. THE Ocean is fair when its azure vest But there dwelleth in glory, above yon sky, Is tinged with the gold of the glowing A Being too bright for mortal eye; west; When the moonbeam trembles upon its wave, And the winds are asleep in some coral cave: 'Tis quiet and clear-a picture given Of the heart that is blest with the peace of heaven. And he ruleth in heaven, and earth, and sea, And his power is felt by all that be: The ocean is held in his hollow hand, And its storms are hush'd at his command. And eternity vast is his mighty throne, But how alter'd the scene when the And infinity's depths are his alone, winds are high, And the "heaven of heavens" is his dwelling bright; Yet he stoops to earth from that boundless height, And enters the contrite sinner's breast, And cheers the heart with grief op prest, The Children's Gallery, AN EVIL OMEN. To the Sabbath-school Teachers of Eng land. AT an early period of our career we had occasion to animadvert with sorrow upon certain Musical Exhibitions, on Lord's-day, at Stockport; and, therefore, it may well be supposed we look with feelings of extreme pain on similar displays among our own people. A hand-bill has just reached us, announcing two sermons on the 20th of June, by one of our most excellent ministers, from a distance, in aid of the Sundayschool of a certain chapel, when "a selection of sacred music" was to "be performed by the Choral Society," which, according to our correspondent, "holds its weekly meetings at a common public-house." In the morning, at half-past ten o'clock, the service was to open with an Anthem! Before sermon, another Anthern! After collection, RECITATIVE, AIR, and CHORUS- Thus closed the display of the morning; RECITATIVE and CHORUS (Creation) So began and so ended a day of the Lord Jesus,-a day, we hope, which will be long remembered, and remembered only with bitterness, by those whose misguided zeal led to the grievous desecration. If such is the beginning, what will be the end? Where such monstrous medleys can be endured in God's house, and on God's day, the fact demonstrates that the work of declension is far advanced. Life, there, is being swallowed up of death! There the power of godliness is giving place and you will exult in the success of your holy labours. SOMETHING FOR LADS. thee away with a stroke!" Since the days of Annanias and Saphira God hath often done so, as a warning to the wicked. An awful instance lately oc to the form! The glory of the Lord is departing from all such places, and the temple of God is sinking into the temple of Apollo! Surely the time is come for all right-minded men to set their faces as a flint against all such desecrations of God's house and holy day. Enlarge-" BEWARE," said Elihu, "lest he take ment on this awful state of things is most desirable, but our space forbids. To say all in a word, Sabbaths so polluted cannot be seasons of devotion; a ministry invested with such accompani-curred at Liverpool, where a Mr. John ments cannot be an instrument of salvation! Such occasions never were, never will be marked by the conversion of lost souls! They only serve the deadly double purpose of quenching the Spirit of God in the church, and further hardening the heart of the world! A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT. TEACHERS,-Most of you have heard of Mr. Cobden, and know that he is a very enlightened, energetic, and practical man. He often enunciates a great principle from which many classes may profit. The following we consider as peculiarly applicable to Sunday-school teachers: "Great truths, no matter whether religious, political, or philosophical, are only PROPAGATED BY INDIVIDUAL EXER- Donnelly, of Newry, dropped down What a lesson! What an exposure! Reader! do no deed which might not safely and honourably be your last deed. Enter no place where it would be infamous to be found a dead man! Be this your standing motto: "THOU, GOD, SEEST ME!" THE VULTURE AND HER John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, Paul, and all the Apostles, laboured individually, and the result has been a change on the face of the globe. So did Wesley, so did Whitfield, in England, and mark the issue! Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, supplies a fine illustration. Calderwood, the historian, says, "His favourers were few, and his succésse bad in the beginning. Yitt did he never despaire, when in a manner all the worlde despaired. Peece by peece he recovered the castells and strenths, till at lenth, after the victorie of Bannockburne, where he putt king Edward II. to flight, he came to full and peaceable possession of the hail king-in the bush, and the kid in the pasture; dome." Go on, dear and valued friends, never despair! In due time truth will triumph among the youth of our land, "My children," said the old vulture, "you will the less want my instructions, because you have had my practice before your eyes; you have seen me snatch from the farm the household fowl, you have seen me seize the leveret you know how to fix your talons, and how to balance your flight when you are laden with your prey. But you remember the taste of more delicious food; I have often regaled you with the flesh of man." "Tell us," said the young vultures, "where man may be found, and how he may be known; his flesh is surely the natural food of a vulture. Why have you never brought a man in your talons to the nest ?" "He is too bulky," said the mother; "when we find a man, we can only tear away his flesh, and leave his bones upon the ground." "Since man is so big," said the young ones, "how do you kill him? You are afraid of the wolf and the bear; by what power are vultures superior to man? Is man more defenceless than a sheep?" "We have not the strength of man," returned the mother," and I am sometimes in doubt whether we have the subtlety; and the vultures would seldom feed upon his flesh had not nature, that devoted him to our uses, infused into him a strange ferocity, which I have never observed in any other creature that feeds upon the earth. Two herds of men will often meet, and shake the earth with noise, and fill the air with fire. When you hear noise, and see fire, with flashes along the ground, hasten to the place with your swiftest wing, for men are then destroying one another; you will then find the ground smoking with blood and covered with carcases, of which many are dismembered and mangled the convenience of the vultures." "But when men have killed their prey," said the pupils, "why do they not eat it ? When the wolf has killed a sheep, he suffers not the vulture to touch it till he is satisfied himself. Is not man another kind of wolf?" "Man," said the mother, "is the only beast who kills that which he does not devour, and this quality makes him so much a benefactor to our species." "If man kill our prey, and lay it in our way," said the young ones, "what need shall we have of labouring for it ourselves ?" "Because man will sometimes," replied the mother, "remain for a long time quiet in his den. The old vultures will tell you when you are to watch his motions. When you see men in great numbers moving close together like a flock of storks, you may conclude that they are hunting, and that you will soon revel in human blood." But still," said the young one, "I would gladly know the reason of this mutual slaughter. I could never kill what I could not eat." "My child,” said the mother, "this is a question which I cannot answer, though I am reckoned the most subtle bird of the mountain. When I was young, I used frequently to visit the eyrie of an old vulture who dwelt upon the Carpathian rocks; he made many observations; he knew the places that afforded prey round his habitation as far in every direction as the strongest wing can fy between the rising and setting of the summer sun; he had fed year after year on the entrails of men. His opinion was, that men had only the appearance of animal life, being really vegetables with the power of motion: and that as the boughs of an oak are dashed together by the storm, that swine may fatten upon the falling acorns, so men are, by some unatcountable power, driven one against another, till they lose their motion, that vultures may be fed. Others think they have observed something of contrivance and policy among these mischievous beings; and those that hover more closely around them, pretend that there is in every herd one that gives directions to the rest, and seems to be more eminently delighted with a wide carnage. What it is that entitles him to such pre-eminence we know not; he is seldom the biggest or the swiftest, but he shows by his eagerness and diligence that he is more than any of the others a friend to the vulture." THE GOURD AND THE PALMTREE. A GOURD wound itself around a lofty palm, and in a few weeks climbed to its very top. "How old mayest thou be?" asked the new comer. "About a hundred years" was the answer. "A hundred years! and no taller! Only look, I have grown as tall as you in fewer days than you can count years." "I know that well," replied the palm; climbed up round me, as proud as thou every summer of my life a gourd has art, and as short-lived as thou wilt be." Cabinet of Things New and Old. DANGERS OF INDECISION. To all who are halting between two opinions we offer affectionate salutation. An earnest desire for your salvation has induced us to address to you a few remarks upon the position you now occupy in reference to eternal realities. You are undecided as to whether you shall still travel on in the broad road, or enter the narrow one-as to whether you shall pursue the pleasures and favours of the world, or seek eternal joys and the friendship of Christ. If you be in this case, to you we would submit,-1st. That to be undecided is unwise. 2nd. It is unsafe. And, 3rd. It is unjust. 1st. It is unwise. Wisdom consists in a right understanding of truths, and a correct application of them. Now, if this be a correct definition of wisdom as applied to matters of religion, it will be an easy task to show that indecision is unwise. The very fact that you are undecided shows that you are discontented with the world, its pleasures, and its end that you have cast something like a longing eye towards religion, its joys and glorious issue. It bespeaks that you feel in some measure that you are a guilty and hell-deserving sinner; that you have thought of Christ as "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world ;" and seeing that you do not apply the knowledge you have thus acquired, are you not unwise? Would you not think it unwise of a slave who endured all the hardships of his unhappy situation to hesitate whether to accept his freedom? You are as unwise; for you are the bondsmen of Satan. yet you hesitate whether to accept the freedom offered you by Christ! Would you not think it folly for a starving man to refuse or hesitate about accepting proper food? Your condition shows that you feel your want, and yet you will still be undecided whether to accept the gospel manna or not. Tell me, then, ye halting, hesitating, undecided ones, are ye not pre-eminently unwise in thus continuing in a state with which you are dissatisfied, knowing of a condition which will supply your wants and make you happy? But indecision is not only unwise, it is, 2nd. Unsafe. Hear the voice of Christ, "He who is not with me is against me:" and again, "He that believeth not shall be damned. There is, then, no middle path between the broad and narrow roads; and if you, friends, are undecided, you are subjects of God's displeasure, and live beneath the curse. Be not deceived, out of Christ you are as unsafe as the man who never heard the gospel, as he who says, "I will not have Christ to reign over me." You are as unsafe as the drowning man who hesitates to grasp the proffered rope, although there is no safety without he does,-as unsafe as the shipwrecked mariner who is undecided as to whether he will enter the life-boat. If he do not, the next billow may sink K |