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THE OLD PENSIONER.

I NEVER can make an impression on sailors' hearts so readily as I wish.

Walking near Greenwich one day, I met a redfaced old tar, who had taken more than was good for him, stumping along on a wooden leg. His locks were white, and he looked like one who had money in his pocket, and cared but little how freely he spent it. As I came up, he pulled out his tobacco-box, and we thus talked together.

"May-be you'll take a bit of 'bacco with me, my old boy! Plenty o' shot in the locker yet. Come, bear a hand!"

"No, thank you, I never chew tobacco."

"Never chew 'bacco! More's the pity; for next to a glass o' grog, I take it to be one of the best things ashore."

"There are many better things than either grog or tobacco."

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May-be you're out o' your reckoning there; but let's know what sort of things they be."

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THE OLD PENSIONER.

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Health of body, peace of mind, a quiet conscience, the Bible, and the hope of heaven."

"Avast there! That's a lingo I never learnt. Our chaplain would a' sailed with you on that tack as long as you liked."

"You have lost your leg, I see."

"Ay, and many a better ship has started a timber; but what then! I has a pension; and a bit o' bacco and a glass o' grog are a comfort to

me."

"You may, perhaps, want something to comfort you when grog and tobacco will be useless. Can you read the Bible?"

"It hurts my eye-sight, my hearty! I can't see well enough."

"Do you ever go any where to worship God?" "Don't you see that I'm lame? I've enough stumping about as it is."

"But can you hear any body talk of heaven and hell, without wishing to go to the one, and desiring to keep away from the other?"

"I don't feel afraid, my old boy! I don't feel afraid."

"If you can neither see, hear, nor feel, all that I can desire for you is, that in God's good time you may be able to do all three."

"Well, if you won't have no 'bacco, we must part company. You and the old chaplain would

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have cruised rarely together. Sea-room, and a stiff breeze, and Jack Billings will get into port yet."

Away went the sailor one way, while I proceeded the other, marvelling that "they that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters," and that see so much of "the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep," should be so little affected by the judgments and mercy of

God.

PHILIP OF MACEDON.

No warrior was ever bolder or more intrepid in the field than Philip of Macedon. Demosthenes, who cannot be suspected of having flattered him, gives the following testimony: "I saw," says this orator," this very Philip, with whom we disputed for sovereignty and empire—I saw him, though covered with wounds, his eye struck out, his collar-bone broken, maimed in his hands and feet, still resolutely rush into the midst of dangers, and ready to deliver up to fortune any part of his body she might desire, provided he might live honourably and gloriously with the rest."

Christian, see what a heathen man will endure and achieve for mortal applause and earthly fame. The warriors of the world set an example of energy to the soldiers of Christ. They are ready to make every sacrifice, to endure every evil, to run every risk, jeopardizing body and soul for the glittering bauble of this world's approbation. There is some difference between time and eternity, earth and heaven, a chaplet of fading flowers

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and a crown of eternal glory; and yet they who follow after the lesser advantage, show more ardour, self-denial, and enterprise, than those who pursue the greater.

He who would endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, should be willing to learn from friends and enemies, wise men and fools, Christians and heathens, aught that will quicken his feet, strengthen his hands, or animate his heart, in obeying the Captain of his salvation; and this being the case, we may learn a profitable lesson from what has been said of Philip of Macedon.

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