most sincerely. But is sincere hatred an innocent exercise? and is it an apology for one man's hating another, if he is sincere in it? Men do sometimes abuse one another with all their hearts, i. e., sincerely, by slanderous treatment of each other's character's. They talk out their feelings of animosity toward each other, just as they are; and their words and actions in so doing are doubtless an exact picture of their inward thoughts and feelings. And the Searcher of hearts sees that they are, really, sincere in abusing one another. But is their sincerity in so doing a sanction for so doing? Have you a right to talk and act as you please, if you will only talk and act just as you feel? Sincerity is a relative term. It asserts good or evil of a being, according to the nature of his actions. Gabriel sincerely loves God and Satan sincerely hates him. Is there any doubt that the one is holy in his sincerity, and the other sinful? A pious man sincerely believes and loves the truths of God's word; an unconverted man, in different degrees of obviousness, sincerely dislikes the same truths. Is there any doubt that the first is approved of God, and that the latter are justly held guilty and condemned?

THE STREAM OF LIFE.

LIFE bears us on like the stream of a mighty river. Our boat, at first, glides down the narrow channel, through the playful murmuring of the little brook and the winding of its grassy border. The trees shed their blossoms over our young heads, the flowers on the brink seem to offer themselves to our young hands; we are happy

in hope, and we grasp eagerly at the beauties around us--but the stream hurries on, and still our hands are empty.

Our course in youth and manhood is along a wider and deeper flood, amid objects more striking and magnificent. We are animated by the moving picture of enjoyment and industry passing before us; we are excited by some short-lived disappointment. The stream bears us on, and our joys and our griefs are alike left behind us. We may be shipwrecked, but we cannot be delayed; whether rough or smooth, the river hastens towards its home, till the roar of the ocean is in our ears, and the tossing of its waves is beneath our feet, and the land lessens in our eyes, and the floods are lifted up around us, and we take our leave of earth and its inhabitants, until our further voyage there is no witness save the infinite and eternal.

Redemption by the blood of Christ is the ground-work of the majestic triumphant song of praise in heaven, and a disposition to join in it our chief capacity for, and actual happiness in, time and eternity.

SENSIBILITY.

It is very easy to cherish, like Sterne, the sensibilities that lead to no sacrifices and to no inconvenience. Most of those that are so vain of their fine feelings are persons loving themselves very dearly, and having a violent regard for their fellow-creatures in general, though caring little or nothing for the individuals about them. Of sighs and tears they are profuse, but niggardly of their money and their time.

THE OPINION OF THE WORLD.

WHAT though the polite man count thy fashion a little odd, and too precise, it is because he knows nothing above that model of goodness which he hath set himself, and therefore approves of nothing beyond it: he knows not God, and therefore doth not discern and esteem what is most like him. When courtiers come down into the country, the common home-bred people possibly think their habits strange; but they care not for that, it is the fashion at court. What need then that Christians should be so tender-foreheaded, as to be put out of countenance, because the world looks on holiness as a singularity? It is the only fashion in the highest court, yea, of the King of kings himself.

A THOUGHT FOR THE AFFLICTED.

WHEN the traveller Park, sinking in despondency in the deserts of Africa, cast his eye on a little plant by his side, he gathered courage: "I cannot look around without seeing the works and providence of God." And thus asks the Christian : "Will God feed the young ravens ? Does he notice the falling of a sparrow? Should not I then hope in God? He that spared not his own son, but freely gave him up for us all, how shall he not, with him, freely give us all things? If comfort, therefore, were the best thing for me, he would have given me comfort."

ACTIVE BENEVOLENCE.

No man existing, be his station what it may, is exempted from the duty of inquiring what good he can do to others. That man must have seen little of mankind, who is ignorant of human misery; yet such knowledge is not to be acquired by those who converse merely with persons of their own rank; they must enter into the cottages and garrets of the poor; they must see them naked, hungry, and thirsty, exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, to the sudden attacks or slow wasting of disease; they must see the effects of their unruly passions, and their grovelling vices; they must be acquainted with all the consequences of ignorance and poverty. Evils like these must be known before they can be remedied; yet the generality of the upper ranks know little what their inferiors suffer.

BE LOWLY MINDED.

Ir thou art a vessel of gold, and thy brother but of wood, be not high-minded, it is God that maketh thee to differ; the more bounty God shows, the more humility he requires.-Those mines that are richest are deepest, those stars that are highest seem smallest, the goodliest buildings have the lowest foundations; the more God honoureth men, the more they should humble themselves; the more the fruit, the lower the branch on which it grows; pride is ever the companion of emptiO, how full was the apostle, yet how low was his language of himself,-"Least of saints, last of apostles, chief of sinners, no sufficiency to think, no ability to do;" all that he is, he is by

ness.

grace; thus humility teaches us in our doings to draw strength from God, not from ourselves; in our graces to ascribe their goodness to God, and their weakness to ourselves.

A BEAUTIFUL SIMILITUDE.

SUPPOSE a man confined in some fortress, under the doom to stay there until his death, and suppose there is for his use a dark reservoir of water, to which, it is certain, none can ever be added. He knows that the quantity is not very great; he cannot penetrate to ascertain how much, and it may be but very little. He has drawn

from it, by means of a fountain, a great while already, and draws from it every day, but how would he feel each time of thinking of it ?—Not as if he had a perennial spring to go to: not "I have a reservoir, I may be at ease." No: but. "I had water yesterday; I have water to-day; but my having had it, and my having it to-day, is the very cause that I shall not have it on some day that is approaching; and at the same time I am compelled to this fatal expenditure." So is our mortal transient life.

THE WONDERS OF CREATION.

WHAT mere assertion will make any man believe, that in one second of time, in one beat of the pendulum of a clock, a ray of light travels over 192,000 miles, and would, therefore, perform the tour of the world, in about the same time that it requires to wink with our eyelids, and in much less than a swift runner occupies in taking