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a patten marked the clay: in another, the light footprint of a female, who had trodden carefully on her toes, was seen; and in a third, the hobnailed shoe of a labouring man had pressed firmly and deeply on the yielding clay. A musing fit came upon me, and I thus pursued the current of my reflections.

"This narrow neck of land, this clayey defile, sets forth no unimportant lesson for my consideration; for not only those who have passed this place, but every human being also, leaves a track behind him in the pathway he pursues through the world. It may be light and faint, or it may be heavy and strongly marked, but some trace or other he is sure to leave.

"How many a king has waded through slaughter to a throne!' ruled his subjects with a rod of iron, and oppressed those whom he ought to have governed with 'justice, judgment, and equity!' How many a 'hero' has spent his life in the destruction of his fellow men, shedding the life-blood of countless multitudes, merely to gratify vain glory and ambition! These have left a track behind them by which we trace their unworthy career.

"What a difference there is between the track left by the good man, and the track of the wicked! 'The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble;' but 'the path of

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the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day,' Prov. iv. 18, 19.

"Look at the track left by the desperately wicked man. In youth, he was idle, and a sloven, a truant, and a speaker of lies. He grew up a drunkard, a sabbath-breaker, and a blasphemer. His occupation was poaching and thieving, till at last, as a murderer, he died on the gallows. You may trace his career in his slatternly wife and vagabond children; every one that speaks of him holds his memory in abhorrence, and you may read his history in the Newgate Calendar.

"The track left behind the kind-hearted Christian is of another cast. He feared God, and delighted in obeying his will; he loved his fellowcreatures, and found pleasure in doing them good. Go to the Sunday-school; every boy knows the kind instructor who gave up so much of his time for his advantage. Go to the almshouse; the widow blesses his memory. Pay a visit to the churchyard, and read the verse inscribed upon his tombstone, Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace,' Psa. xxxvii. 37. 'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord,' Rev. xiv. 13. Trace him from his youth to his age; through life and through death. He has left a track behind him by which he is known..

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Love God, fear God,

Live the life of the

"And now, what track wilt thou leave behind thee? or, rather, what track art thou now leaving behind thee? Will thy memory be blessed or cursed? The track thou wilt leave, thou art now making; every flying day, every winged hour, is a part of thy brief career. obey God, and honour God! righteous, then shall thy latter end be like his. Love even thy enemies; 'bless them that curse thee, do good to them that hate thee, and pray for them which despitefully use thee, and persecute thee.' Do these things, and thy track may be traced with joy; neglect them, and it will be pondered with sorrow."

SINGING.

THOUGH but a poor singer, yet I have a habit of singing when alone. A little thing sets me off— a bit of green on the earth, or a bit of blue in the skies. Yes, yes; I like singing, and often sing with my heart, when my lips are silent. I like to hear a milkmaid sing in the green meadow when her heart is so happy, that she cannot help it. I love to hear a song uncalled for. Who asks the birds to sing? They sing to relieve their hearts, and this is the sort of singing that I like. I like to hear a loud Hallelujah, not by the clear musical voice of one who is paid for it, but by a thousand tongues singing with the heart and the understanding.

You shall have my favourite song. I sang it in my youth and my manhood, and now I am singing it in my years.

"When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I'm lost
In wonder, love, and praise,"

Many a green field and parched heath, many a hill and valley, have been made vocal by the humdrum voice of Old Humphrey. I have sung this song in a loud voice on lonely Salisbury Plain, and in a low voice in crowded Cheapside and in the Strand. I have sung it on the mountain top, and a hundred fathoms deep in the heart of the earth -in the ruins of Kenilworth and Tintern, and the palaces of the Tuilleries and Versailles-among the waving woods on the land, and amid the waves of the heaving ocean. Another favourite of mine is the Old Hundredth Psalm, composed by John Hopkins, the coadjutor of Thomas Sternhold. For seven years, in the days of my youth, I heard it sung on every sabbath, and instead of being weary of the words, unpoetical as they are, I like them better than ever.

song

"All people than on earth do dwell,

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice:
Him serve with fear, his praise forth tell;
Come ye before him and rejoice.

The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;
Without our aid he did us make:

We are his flock, he doth us feed,
And for his sheep he doth us take.
O enter, then, his gates with praise,
Approach with joy his courts unto;
Praise, laud, and bless his name always,
For it is seemly so to do.