he remains upon earth, some sparks of heavenly life, which though hidden from human ken, and, to appearance, perhaps, utterly extinct, are still capable of being fanned into flame, whenever the pride of man will submit to that Holy Spirit, which is ever brooding over him with the yearnings of unutterable love. Where is the man so lost in sin and folly that the recollections of childhood never recur, bringing back feelings of innocence and peace, when the love of God has warmed the best affections of the heart, and moved him even to tears? With many, such feelings may be often brought vividly to mind; sometimes to be quickly dissipated by the world, or banished by evil example; sometimes to be cherished as the last embers of a dying fire in the waste howling wilderness. The lapse of years of forgetfulness and sin, may not have extinguished the remnant of early impressions; the remains of good principles once implanted, but long obscured by folly, may yet be alive, and the remembrance of a father's instructions and a mother's love may recur in the midnight darkness of evil, and call the prodigal home.

O mother! faint not o'er thine arduous task,
When the sweet influence of maternal love,
Without fruition, seems to spend itself.
The twilight prayer, though faintly murmur'd out,
The truth that God can see the heart's intent,
That he, in love, through all the darksome night
Is watching, with outstretch'd protecting wing,

Above the slumbering infant, cradling him

With heav'nly dreams, and shedding morning dew,
To wake and freshen up his tiny sense;

These holy things young memory will retain.

To the sacred relics of right feeling preserved by the Father of Mercies in every human heart, the beauty of a Christian example seldom appeals in vain. Virtue will extort homage from vice, innocence draw tears from hardened guilt, and integrity and candour put to shame suspicion and deceit.

The Persian, Abd-ool-Kâdir, relates a tale of his childhood, which affords a beautiful illustration of the power of virtuous conduct, upon persons apparently hardened in crime. On his quitting home, when a mere child, to make

his own way in the world, his mother had given him his portion, consisting of forty dinars, and had made him promise never to tell a lie. On his journey, he met with a band of robbers, who plundered the party with which he travelled. He gives the following account of the incident :— "One fellow asked me what I had got. Forty dinars,' said I, ' are sewed under my clothes.' The fellow laughed, thinking, no doubt, I was joking with him. 'What have you got?' said another. I gave him the same answer. When they were dividing the spoil, I was called to an eminence, where the chief stood. 'What property have you got, my little fellow?' said he. 'I have told two of your people already,' I replied, 'I have got forty dinars sewed up carefully in my clothes.' He ordered them to be ript open, and found my money. 'And how came you,' said he, with surprise, 'to declare so openly, what has been so carefully hidden?' 'Because,' I replied, 'I will not be false to my mother, to whom I have promised that I will never tell a lie.' 'Child,' said the Robber, 'hast thou such a sense of thy duty to thy mother, at thy years, and am I insensible, at my age, of the duty I owe to my God? Give me thy hand, innocent boy, that I may swear repentance upon it?' He did so. His followers were all alike struck with the scene. "You have been our leader in guilt, said they to their chief, 'Be the same in the path of Virtue.' And they instantly, at his order, made restitution of their spoil, and vowed repentance upon my hand."*

The eloquence of a Massillon might have failed to fathom the bandit's heart, but there were in its dark recesses the lingering sparks of humanity and right feeling, which the sight of courageous integrity could yet cause to glow into flame.

Abash'd the devil stood;

And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely.

That there is preserved in the heart of man, even in its deepest degradation, a remnant of human affection, is often seen by those who labour as missionaries amongst the outcasts of society. Notwithstanding the hardening effects of sin and of vicious company, traces of kindness and sym

* Sir John Malcolm's Sketches in Persia.

pathy are to be found in the haunts of crime and depravity, which prove that Charity sometimes lingers where she might least be expected; that the Lord of hosts still preserves a very small remnant," and that his Spirit is ever striving with man to keep him from the cold hand of spiritual death.

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If, then, the Lord is thus long-suffering and compassionate, upbraiding not, but seeking only to save; how much is erring man bound by gratitude and duty to show the like mercy to his fellow-sinner! Not with that earthborn tenderness which would annul the connexion between vice and suffering, but with that heaven-born charity, which, for the sake of others, seeks first its own sanctification, and being itself converted, is able to strengthen the brethren with that irresistible power before which the ruffian band went backward and fell to the ground.

LIII.

THE OBJECT OF DIVINE WORSHIP.

The Lord Jesus Christ is infinite in love. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. He is infinitely wise, the Wonderful, Counsellor, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is Almighty. All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. HE therefore is both able and willing to save to the uttermost all who trust in Him. What more do we want?

Let this be deeply impressed on the mind: let us pray to the Lord Jesus Christ as Stephen did (Acts vii. 59); let us worship him as Thomas did, (John xx. 28); and let us ever remember, however obscure may be our perception of the mystery of His tri-une Divine nature, that he is our Lord and our God; the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, the First and the Last, which is, and which was, and which is to come, THE ALMIGHTY,-(Rev. i. 8, 11, 12, 13.)

LIV.

INTEMPERANCE.

An amiable and clever man wrote two books to show that Intemperance is the curse and the idolatry of Britain.* It is to be regretted that he confined his views to excess in drinking; as by looking exclusively at one form of intemperance, he failed to fathom the depth of the evil, and to apply the remedy at its source.

There can be little doubt that entire abstinence from the means of intoxication, is indispensable to the cure of drunken habits. That may be admitted as an established fact. "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." But although abstinence from intoxicating liquors be a preservative against intoxication, it by no means cures intemperance, nor prevents its indulgence in other things. The champions of temperance are as apt to fall into excess, as the drunkards they endeavour to restore; and the drunkards themselves, when rescued from the public-house, are sometimes to be seen at a temperance meeting, as drunk with self-conceit and untempered zeal, as ever they were with gin or beer. No one premeditates excess, but every one falls into it. that travelleth," step by step. sluggard; another round for the gamester; a little drop more for the drunkard. The speculator in the market of fame or money aims only at what he calls moderate gain and distinction; but for want of a standard of sobriety, firmly fixed in his mind, the boundary he contemplates is for ever flying before him. What seemed a fortune to his view when poor, is a pittance when rich. The highest promotion he dreamed of at first, is surpassed without bringing him nearer contentment. Step after step he pursues the idol of his soul, and learns too late that indulgence in

The evil comes, (6 as one "Yet a little sleep" for the

"The Curse of Britain." "Intemperance the Idolatry of Britain," by W. R. Baker.

creases lust, till a surfeit produces sickness, or intoxication, insanity.

As surfeit is the father of much fast,
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint: Our natures do pursue
(Like rats that ravin down their proper bane),
A thirsty evil; and when we drink, we die.

An historian has remarked, that "The absence of selfrestraint, with the intoxicating effects of presumptuousness, is sufficient to account for aberrations which men of regular minds construe into actual madness." The customary verdict in cases of suicide, might be returned with equal justice upon most other crimes; and would perhaps be nearer the truth, if intoxication were assigned as the cause, instead of insanity.

Judges have declared from the bench, that intemperance is the chief cause of crime. True enough: but surely it is not intemperance in drinking alone, which leads to such fearful results. The unrestrained indulgence of any lust, the immoderate devotion of mind to any object, overpowers the reason, and impels the victim of passion or infatuation, to excesses which, in sober moments, he regards with abhorrence.

It has been held that every one is mad upon some subject it should rather besaid that every one is intemperate upon some subject. Excess is the universal failing moderation the great difficulty. The error of one extreme is no sooner perceived, than, forthwith, men jump to the other. To avoid indulgence, they fall into severity; to escape from covetousness, they neglect forethought. The rake becomes a recluse, the fop a sloven, the epicurean a stoic. Diogenes treads on Plato's pride-with the greater pride of Diogenes.

Nothing is too good or too true, to be safe from intemperate abuse. Men are as often intoxicated with religion as with any thing else. The learned and ingenious and benevolent are all to be seen, at times, reeling drunk with the fumes of some book or invention or scheme of utility, and, like other drunkards, fancying themselves alone sober.