greatest and best enjoyment. Happiness must be sought not so much in a direct as an indirect way-the way which has been marked by God and by Jesus Christ. In order to be happy in any high degree, we must abandon ourselves according to His will, and after the pattern of His Son, to the temporal and spiritual welfare of mankind.-Robert Hall.

HAPPINESS, therefore, is not the end of duty, it is a constituent of it. It is in and of it; not an equivalent but an element. Make happiness once directly an end, and then duty, there is none. There may be prudence, there may be expediency, but there is no duty. Nay, make happiness once an end, and you are sure to miss it. Can you call to mind any individual who studied his own happiness, that was ever happy? Can you call to mind any individual who laboured for duty, that was ever really unhappy? I care not how false his idea of duty may have been; in fidelity to it he has had peace. But the more his idea is pure, benevolent, generous, fruitful of wholesome practice, must it fill, and raise, and gladden him. The man that intends only his own happiness defeats his intention. The man that intends right, gains the object for which he does not strive.Giles.

MAY not happiness be found in the internal goods of the mind, such as wisdom and virtue? Suppose this

granted; still that they may confer perfect felicity, they must of necessity be perfect themselves. Now, shew me the man, who, even in his own judgment, has attained to perfection in wisdom and virtue: even those who were accounted the wisest, and actually were so, acknowledged they knew nothing; nor was there one amongst the most approved philosophers, whose virtues were not allayed with many blemishes. The same must be said of piety and true religion, which, though it is the beginning of felicity, and tends directly to perfection; yet, as in this earth it is not full and complete in itself, it cannot make its possessor perfectly happy. The knowledge of the most exalted minds is very obscure, and almost quite dark, and their practice of virtue lame and imperfect. And indeed who can have the boldness to boast of perfection in this respect, when he hears the great Apostle complaining of the law of the flesh, and pathetically exclaiming, Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' &c. Besides, though wisdom and virtue or piety were perfect, so long as we have bodies, we must at the same time have all bodily advantages, in order to perfect felicity.-Leighton.

HERE God has planted us, not as inhabitants, but sojourners; for this is but our state of probation; angels had their times of trial, so have men; here He would have us aspire after, as near as we can, that life angels lead in heaven, for we are one day to be equal to them here He would have us learn and practice those

virtues which fit us for the society and enjoyment of that kingdom wherein dwells righteousness; for that is the blessed end and consummation of all our endeavours, desires, and hopes: but when we make heaven the abode, the seat of perfect happiness, we do not thereby suppose that it is banished from the earth; but rather on the contrary, if that state be the consummation of all things, it is necessary to be concluded, that every step we advance nearer to it, we mount and ascend higher, in brighter, calmer, and purer regions. Heaven is like the glorious building, whose access is full of delight and beauty for as that youth which precedes our manhood, has its sweetness, its beauty, its natural perfection, and pleasure; so has this mortal state which precedes our angelical, its proper degree of perfection and blessedness: and this is no small one neither; for as we are created little lower than the angels, in respect to the dignity of our nature, so surely our happiness begins nearly to approach and resemble theirs, when our mind, filled with divine truths, charity and hopes, becomes free, generous, resolved, constant, cheerful, meek, gentle, devout, heavenly; when it has so accustomed itself to virtue, and familiarly acquainted itself with heaven, that the sins and pleasures of the sensual part of the world look like the manners and entertainments, not only of a foreign, but barbarous and impoverished country; and when, lastly, by its frequent retirements from the body, and daily commerce with rational and spiritual pleasures, it not only asserts its sovereignty over it, but begins to live so independent of it, that at the last, when it shall in death

mount up upon the wings of pure flame to heaven, it shall not suffer as if the body needed to be torn from it; but shall let it fall as Elijah did his mantle.

Those complaints therefore which we make against our present state, and those reproaches with which we outrage and vilify our nature, are false and unjust; for we are by God created and designed for happiness, and this happiness God hath been pleased to put in our own power, to place within our reach. There is no fate, but what God has made us ourselves arbiters of; we lie under no necessity, no fatality, but what our vices betray us to: nor do we stand in need of the indulgences of fortune; the tranquillity and pleasure of a virtuous man is an image of God's own; it springs from within, not from without.-Lucas.

A MAN that looks at all things through the consideration of eternity, makes no more of a man than of a flower: that lasts some days, he lasts some years: at their period both fade. Now what difference is there to be made betwixt days and years in the thought of an eternal duration? Herein, therefore, I have a great advantage of a carnal heart; such a one, bounding his narrow conceits with the present condition, is ready to admire himself and others for what they have or are, and is therefore dejected upon every miscarriage; whereas, I behold myself, or that man, in all his glory, as vanishing; only measuring every man's felicity by the hopes and interests which he hath in a blessed eternity.Bishop Hall.

SMALL CROSSES.

Our lives through various scenes are drawn,
And vexed with trifling cares;
While Thy eternal thought moves on
Thy undisturbed affairs.-WATTS.

Father thy sovereign aid impart,

To save me from low-thoughted care!
Chase this self-will through all my heart,
Through all its latent mazes there:
Make me Thy duteous child, that I
May raise to thee a trustful cry.

TERSTEGEN-tr. J. WESLEY.

Many have sinned for a small matter.

For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning. My father, if the prophet had bid tbee do some great thing, wouldst thon not have done it?

Cast thy burden on the Lord, and Be shall sustain ther.

WE are as water, weak and of no consistence, always descending, abiding in no certain place, unless where we are detained with violence; and every little. breath of wind makes us rough and tempestuous, and troubles our faces; every trifling accident discomposes us; and as the face of the waters wafting in a storm, so wrinkles itself that it makes upon its forehead furrows deep and hollow like a grave; so do our great and little çares and trifles first make the wrinkles of old age, and