THE OLD PENSIONER.

169

"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!"

66 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."

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

"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 read the Bible ?"

you

"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

170

THE OLD PENSIONER.

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 made able to do all three."

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

PHILIP OF MACEDON.

171

orator, 'this very Philip, with whom we disputed for sovereignty and empire, I saw him, though covered with wounds, his eye struck out, his collarbone 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 bubble of this world's approbation. There is some difference between time and eternity, earth and heaven, a chaplet of fading flowers 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.

AN UNEXPECTED SERMON.

SERMONS are not always preached from the pulpit; for the other day I unexpectedly heard a very good, though a homely one under the portico of a theatre in the Strand! It was an odd place, to be sure; but a smart shower had driven me there for shelter, and soon after an old man took shelter there also, who began to talk of the best things. "Sir," said he, "I am eighty-two years of age, and God has graciously given me, among many mercies, the mercy of being made sensible of his goodness. I remember in my boyhood hearing an aged minister declare from the pulpit, that when he was forty years old he considered himself so good, that he believed the temptations of Satan had no power over him; but when he was threescore and ten, he was obliged to confess that Satan had a bait for old birds still. I am, Sir, as I told you, eighty-two; and, as the minister found at threescore years and ten, so I find at eighty-two, that I am a poor, weak, worthless creature, totally dependent on God's goodness and grace, feeling every day of my life that Satan has a bait for old birds still."

THE FIT OF ABSTRACTION.

Ir was on a sharp, frosty day at the latter end of December, when, standing up at the window to look at the trees powdered over as they were with snow, and at the poor half-famished birds that were rendered tame by the severity of the season, that I gave way to a fit of benevolent abstraction. I will endeavor to set down my ruminations.

"Oh!" thought I, "that it were possible for me to do some kindly deed to every man, woman, and child under the canopy of heaven! Oh, that I could for once in my life make every eye sparkle, every pulse throb, and every heart beat with delight! Had I the power, the poor should be made rich, the rich more affluent than they are, and the one and the other should have heavenly hopes added to their earthly enjoyments!"

Now this was all very beautiful, and I no doubt thought so, for I continued my musings of benevolence.

"How delightful it would be to comfort the af flicted, to raise the fallen, to liberate the captive, to heal the sick, to bind up the bruised and the broken, and to scatter abroad, wide as the world, the elements of peace, comfort, satisfaction, happiness, and delight."