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rather than of the man who is him- | to hate you. He is, on the whole, self convinced; Voltaire, even when in the wrong, is natural, and, in some sort, candid; you find him lie, and that often; but he does not mix up with his lies fervent apostrophes to truth and virtue. He makes victims, and boasts of doing so; Rousseau tries to make them, yet, to hear him speak, you would think there is no victim but himself. He loves to say and to believe that he is surrounded with enemies-he makes it his glory to agree with nobody; and Voltaire, on the contrary, loves to repeat that every body is of his way of thinking, except some downright fools, to whom public reason will soon have done justice. An independent and great lord, he is thankful for the services of the smallest persons; Rousseau, on the contrary, neetls help from everybody, and you cannot be of use to him, but forthwith he sets himself

not so good as his writings; Voltaire is often better than his. The same diversity, in fine, appears in the influence which they proceeded, in parallel lines, to exercise on the epoch in which they lived. Voltaire carried opinion along with him; but as he taught men only to deny, and preached, in fact, no system, he had not, and could not have, disciples properly so called. Rousseau had disciples, and even enthusiastic ones. To say the truth, he could hardly have any other, for there is no middle course with him; people love him, or they hate him; he is lis tened to as an oracle, or thrust off as a fool. Voltaire, on the contrary, will be found to have influenced even those who detested him-that clergy whom he lashed, those old magistrates who would fain have had it in their power to burn him along with his books.

Popery.

PROTESTANTISM v. POPERY.

the enemy is doing his work-not openly, not boldly-not in a manner in-guard-no visible attempt at concalculated to put a father on his trol- but by those underminings which gradually sap the foundation of all that we value most dearly.

THE following letter, from a gentleman residing in the neighbourhood of Dover, will be read with deep terest, as showing how insidiously Popery is working among us, in how many disguises it is dressed up, and

how fearful it is in its results.

"TO PROTESTANT PARENTS IN

BRITAIN.

"The time is come, when apathy in the cause of your religion is a crime! You are surrounded by enemies; the wolf has gained admission to the fold, and I believe there is scarcely a family in our once Protestant England into which the poison of Jesuitism, under the garb of Puseyism, has not made its way!-I was about to say, had not forced its way, but, alas! it is not so; by insidious, by tortuous courses,

From sad and recent circumstances, I feel I am acting an honest part in addressing you. The fires of my own domestic hearth are extinguished; and I, an old man, am left to deplore the apostacy of a child on whom my heart doted, who was like the child of the Patriarch, the only one left of her mother; me have they bereaved of her. Fathers! I tell you, that it has now come to my knowledge that every artifice is brought into operation to pervert the minds of your daughters. Your railway-trains, your steam-packets, your places of amusement-no matter how remote the district in which

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you reside, your very firesides of which the dearest ties of earthly abound with agents from Rome. life are snapped in sunder And will these agents leave a stone pure, the open-hearted, generous unturned to work out the purposes mind, contaminated by the first for which they are sent by him practice of deceit, in order to carry whose name is Antichrist? Rely out the system of perversion? not upon affection. Filial duty, "I call on you, ye Protestant faunder the guidance of the priest, thers, to be on your guard! I tell has no hold within the heart. Al- you there is not a Puseyite preacher most the first text the intended vic-in the land but is a Romanist in tim is taught is, 'That he who leav- disguise! And if you value either eth not father nor mother, for My political or spiritual freedom, suffer sake, shall not inherit the kingdom none such to hold communion of heaven.' This is the one on which among you. If ever there were a my unhappy child excuses herself dead letter in our laws, surely that to me, and from which she extracts which followed the celebrated Durtemporary consolation. Oh, sad per- ham letter, and about which the version of the holy text! And yet, time and talent of the nation was so it is one which the Church of Rome, much engrossed-surely that is one! in common with other Christian If ever the lion were bearded in his sects, may appropriate to herself. den, it is now, when the feelings of She whom I deplore, had never de- our once Protestant England are ceived me her heart was knit with outraged by every act of contempt mine; but in an ill-fated hour the and contumely on the part of the Jesuit crossed her path, saw her Romish Church! My case may tractability, her pliant mould; and, soon be yours. Your wives and step by step, unperceived by me daughters are assailed by a power (for secrecy, as to her movements, you do not see; but which, unless was enjoined on her), she fell into you are up and stirring, will eventthe meshes so skilfully, so fatally ually destroy all you hold most prepared for her. Can that religion dear." be right, to embrace the principles

The Letter Box.

VICES OF THE TONGUE.

THROUGHOUT all ages and coun- the heart. The soul of gossip is a

tries, the vices of the tongue have been matter of observation and lament to both saints and sages. All mankind have, in their turn, been sufferers from its unbridled course. There is no single subject on which the Book of Psalms and of the Proverbs display so much vehemence of denunciation and severity of reproof. The evil still continues, and obtains even where it is least to be expected, among people professing godliness.

The habit of gossipping, is a habit that degrades alike the intellect and

contemptible vanity that imagines itself, or at least would have others imagine it, superior to all that it finds of evil and absurdity in the characters of those whom it passes in review. A very little observation will serve to show any one that everybody sees his neighbours' faults, while very few open their eyes upon their own; and that not unfrequently a person condemns with the utmost vehemence in others precisely the same follies and vices in which he himself habitually in

dulges. Those who study their own characters with most care, and who best understand themselves, are apt to say least of the characters of their neighbours: they find too much to do within themselves, in curing their own defects, to have time or inclination to sit in judgment upon the defects of others.

It is impossible to indulge habitually in this vice without weakening the powers of the intellect. The heart never suffers alone from the

indulgence of any wrong passion. The intellect and the affections ever sink and rise together. Where the love of gossip becomes a confirmed habit, the mind loses its power of accurately appreciating the value of character of distinguishing truly between the good and bad. The power of discrimination is weakened and impaired, so that no confidence can be placed in the opinions of the mind in relation to character or life. In addition to this, we must bear in mind that all the mental power we bestow in criticising or ridiculing our fellow-beings is just so much taken from our mental strength, which we might have applied to some useful intellectual exercise. The strength of the mind is no more indefinite than that of the body. We have but a certain limited amount; and all that we apply to idle or bad purposes is just so much abstracted from the good and the useful.

Sarcasm is a weapon we are almost sure to find constantly used by the gossip; and whether it be shown in the coarse ridicule of the vulgar, or the keen satire of the refined, i: springs ever from the same source, and is directed to the same end; as

surely as the clumsy war-club of savage lands was invented from the same impulse and wrought with the same intent as the graceful blade of Damascus. Its source is vanity; its end to make self seem great by making others seem little. It is a weapon that, however, skilfully wielded, always cuts both ways, wounding far more deeply the hand that grasps it than the victim it strikes. Of all the powers of wit, sarcasm is the lowest. There is no

thing easier than ridicule; nothing requiring a weaker head or a colder heart.

The sincere lover of truth will never be found habitually indulging either in gossip or sarcasm; for those who are addicted to these vices never tell a story simply as they heard it, never relate a fact simply as it happened. A little is added here or left out there to give the story a more entertaining turn, or the satire a keener point. As the habit grows stronger, invention becomes more ready and copious, till at length truth is covered up and lost under an accumulation of fiction.

FRIENDSHIP.

POETS have, in every age, sung the honours of friendship; while philosophers have taxed their powers to display its principles, and their elo

quence to set forth its claims. One of the finest things that ever emanated from the genius of Cicero was his "Old Age and Friendship.”

It may be useful to suggest one or two things as guides in the choice of friends; and we trust that they may be of some benefit both to the young

before alluded is of a still higher kind. It needs a knowledge of human nature, as well as disposition to do us good. It needs a refined sense of the proprieties of life; and while the sterling good sense must not be wanting, it adds the nice perception which tact, and close observation, and experience only can impart. We scarcely need say, that it is only one who reposes a firm faith in the mercy of God, and in the Gospel of Christ, whose own breast is under the influence of devout and virtuous emotions, who can answer to our idea of a friend. From that best of Comforters, the Divine Spirit, flows the balm of consolation, which, in the days of dreariest ad

and to those of more advanced life, to parents and to children. Sincerity is a cardinal quality in a friend or companion. A candid manifestation of one's self, a frank and generous disposition, ready to admit or impart reproof, never seeking for faults, and never forgetful to correct them. Discrimination of character is yet another desirable trait in a friend; making distinctions where they exist, and none where they do not; careful in weighing the evidence, and faithful in rendering the verdict. Counsel from such a friend is worth having, for it is not to every one to whom we can thus commit, as it were, our conscience. Cordial sympathy with us in the great revolutions of life, and so far as may be, too, in every-versity, may cheer the heart, and day events; yet delicately leading out into other channels and monotonous feeling, and by the warmth of a kind heart melting down the selfish hardness which shuts us out from the participation in the thousand alleviations of misfortune and sorrow-this is a rare excellence in the true friend. There are many who can sit down by us, catch the mood we are in, rejoice in our joy, and weep when we weep, and it is often refreshing to feel such a sympathy. But that to which we have

inspire a ready acquiescence in the
allotments of his providence.
One there is, above all others,
Well deserves the name of Friend;
His is love beyond a brother's,

Costly, free, and knows no end.
They who once his kindness prove
Find it everlasting love."

Religion itself is just friendship: Abraham was called the "Friend of God;" and all his true descendants are entitled to the same appellation. But if friends of God, they are no longer enemies of one another!

The Counsel Chamber.

APPEAL TO THE YOUNG.

THE famous American preacher, the Rev. S. P. Davies, at the close of a New Year's Sermon, from Rom. xii. 2, thus addressed the young people of his flock:

"I beg leave of my promiscuous auditory to employ a few minutes in addressing myself to my important family, whom my paternal affection would always single out from

the rest, even when I am speaking whether the present, or some uncer

in general terms to a mixed crowd. Therefore, my dear charge, my pupils, my children, and every tender and endearing name! ye young immortals, ye embryo-angels or infant fiends, ye blooming, lovely, fading flowers of human nature, the hope of your parents and friends, of church and state, the hope, joy, and glory of your teachers! hear one that loves you; one that has nothing to do in the world but to promote your best interest; one that would account this the greatest blessing he could enjoy in his pilgrimage, and whose nights and days are sometimes made almost equally restless by his affectionate anxieties for you. Hear him upon a subject in which you are most intimately interested-a subject the most important that even an apostle or an angel could address you upon-and that is, the right improvement of time-the present time-and preparation for eternity. It is necessary that you in particular, you above all others, should know the time, that it is now high time for you to awake out of sleep.

"I make no doubt but you all look upon religion as an object worthy of your notice. You all as certainly believe there is a God as that there is a creature, or that yourselves exist. You all believe heaven and hell are not majestic chimeras, or fairy lands, but important realities; and that you must, in a little time, be the residents of one or the other. cannot, therefore, be a question with any of you, whether you shall mind religion at all. On that you are all determined. But the question is, What is the most proper time for it?

It

tain hereafter? And in what order you should attend to it, whether in the first place, and above all, even in your early days; or whether you should not rather indulge yourselves in the pleasures of youth for some time, and then make religion the dull business of old age.

"If any of you hesitate upon this point, it may be easily solved. This is the most convenient promising season for this purpose that you are likely to see; never will you live more free from care or more remote from temptation. When you launch out into the noise, and bustle, and hurry, and company, and business, and vice of the world, you will soon find the scene changed for the worse. He must be a tempter to himself who can find a temptation while immured under this roof, and immersed in books. Never will you see the time, in your natural state, when your sins will be so conquerable, and your hearts so tender and susceptive of good impressions; though even now, if you know yourselves, you find your sins are in. vincibly strong to you, and your hearts impenetrably hard. Therefore, now, my dear youth, now, in this inviting season, awake out of sleep; 'awake to righteousness, and sin not.' I beg you would not now commit sin with a design to repent of it afterwards; for can you be so foolish, as knowingly and deliberately to do that which you expli citly intend to repent of? that is, to do that which you intend to wish undone, and lament with broken hearts that ever you did it? Can Bedlam itself parallel the folly of this?

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