shall, as it were, serve the blessed in Heaven at their table. It is much amongst men to be seated at the table of a prince; but for a king to serve his vassal, as if himself were his servant, who ever heard it?

David, when he caused Mephibosheth (although the grandchild of a king, and the son of an excellent prince, unto whom David owed his life) to sit at his table, he thought he did him a singular honour; but this favour never extended to wait on him. The honour which God bestows upon the just, exceeds all human imaginations: who, not satisfied with crowning all the blessed with His own divinity, giving Himself to be possessed and enjoyed by them for all eternity, does also honour their victories and heroic actions with new

crowns.

The just shall shine like the stars in the firmament; and if the least saint in Heaven shall shine seven times more than the sun, what shall that light be, which shall outshine so many suns?

The honour of the just in Heaven depends not, like that of the earth, upon accidents and reports, nor is exposed to dangers, or measured by the discourse of others; but in itself contains its own glory and dignity. The world erects statues unto those whom it intends to honour, because, being mortal, there should something remain after death, to make their persons and services, which they had done to the commonweal, known to posterity; but in Heaven there is no need of this artifice, because those which are there honoured are immortal, and shall have in themselves some character engraved, as an evident and clear token of their noble victories and achievements. What greater honour, than to be the friends of God, sons, heirs, and kings in the realm of Heaven?

St. John, in his Apocalypse (Rev. iv. 4), sets forth this honour of the blessed, in the twenty-four elders, who were placed about the throne of God; and how in that honour and majesty every one was seated in His presence, and that upon a throne, clothed in white garments, in sign of their perpetual joy, and crowned with a crown of gold, in respect of their dignities. To be covered in the presence of kings is the greatest honour they confer upon the chiefest grandees; but God causes His servants to be

crowned and seated upon thrones before Him; and our Saviour in the day of judgment makes His disciples His fellow-judges. Certainly, greater honour cannot be imagined than that which the just receive in Heaven; for if we look upon Him who honours, it is God; if with what, with no less joy than His own divinity, and other most sublime gifts; if before whom, before the whole theatre of Heaven; if the continuance, for all eternity. Therefore let us so dispose of our lives here, and live so righteously and holily, that we may be thought worthy of that crown of glory which He hath prepared for all those who love and serve Him.-Bishop Taylor.

EFFECT OF EXAMPLE.

WHAT extreme advantage great persons have, especially by the influence of their practice, to bring God Himself, as it were, into credit! how much it is in their power easily to render piety a thing in fashion and request! for in what they do they never are alone, or are ill attended; whither they go, they carry the world along with them; they lead crowds of people after them, as well when they go in the right way, as when they run astray. The custom of living well, no less than other modes and garbs, will be soon conveyed and propagated from the court; the city and country will readily draw good manners thence; good manners truly so called, not only superficial forms of civility, but real practices of goodness. For the main body of men goeth not "quâ eundem, sed quâ itur," not according to rules and reasons, but after examples and authorities; especially of great persons, who are like stars, shining in high and conspicuous places, by which men steer their course; their actions are to be reckoned not as single or solitary ones, but are, like their persons, of a public and representative nature, involving the practice of others, who are by them awed, or shamed into compliance. Their good example especially hath this advantage, that men can find no excuse, can have no pretence why they should not follow it. Piety is not only beautified, but fortified by their dignity; it not only shines on them with a clear lustre, but with a mightier force and influence; a word, a look, the least intimation from them, will do more good

than others' best eloquence, clearest reasons, most earnest endeavours. For it is in them, if they would apply themselves to it, as the wisest prince implies, to "scatter iniquity with their eyes." A smile of theirs were able to enliven virtue, and diffuse it all about; a frown might suffice to mortify and dissipate wickedness. Such apparently is their power of honouring God; and in proportion thereto, surely great is their obligation to do it; of them peculiarly God expects it, and all equity exacts it.-Barrow.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT.

MEN are not easily convinced and persuaded of the deep stain of sin; and that no laver can fetch it out but the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Some that have moral resolutions of amendment, dislike at least gross sins, and purpose to avoid them, and it is to them cleanness enough to reform in those things; but they consider not what becomes of the guiltiness they have contracted already, and how that shall be purged, how their natural pollution shall be taken away. Be not deceived in this. It is not

a transient sigh, or a light word, or a wish of "God forgive me;" no, nor the highest current of repentance, nor that which is the truest evidence of repentance, amendment; it is none of these that purifies in the sight of God, and expiates wrath; they are all imperfect and stained in themselves, cannot stand and answer for themselves, much less be of value to counterpoise the former guilt of sin. The very tears of the purest repentance, unless they be sprinkled with this blood, are impure; all our washings without this are but washings of the blackamoor—it is labour in vain (Job ix. 30, 31). There is none truly purged by the blood of Christ, that doth not endeavour after purity of heart and coversation; but yet it is the blood of Christ by which they are all fair, and there is no spot in them. We are said (1 Pet. i. 2) to be "elect unto obedience;" but because that obedience is not perfect, it is added, "and to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."-Leighton.

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SCIENCE.

THE ADVANTAGES OF SCIENCE.

THE advantages conferred by the augmentation of our physical resources through the medium of increased knowledge and improved art, have this peculiar and remarkable property, that they are in their nature diffusive, and cannot be enjoyed in any exclusive manner by a few. An eastern despot may extort the riches and monopolize the art of his subjects for his own personal use; he may spread around him an unnatural splendour and luxury, and stand in strange and preposterous contrast with the general penury and discomfort of his people; he may glitter in jewels of gold and raiment of needlework; but the wonders of well contrived and executed manufacture which we use daily, and the comforts which have been invented, tried, and improved upon by thousands, in every form of domestic convenience, and for every ordinary purpose of life, can never be enjoyed by him. To produce a state of things in which the physical advantages of civilized life can exist in a high degree, the stimulus of increasing comforts and constantly-elevated desires must have been felt by millions: since it is not in the power of a few individuals to create that wide demand for useful and ingenious applications, which alone can lead to great and rapid improvements, unless backed by that arising from the speedy diffusion of the same advantages among the mass of mankind.

If this be true of physical advantages, it applies with still greater force to intellectual. Knowledge can neither be adequately cultivated nor adequately enjoyed by a few; and although the conditions of our existence on earth may be such as to preclude an abundant supply of the physical necessities of all who may be born, there is no such law of nature in force against that of our intellectual and

moral wants. Knowledge is not, like food, destroyed by use, but rather augmented and perfected. It requires not, perhaps, a greater certainty, but at least a confirmed authority and a probable duration, by universal assent; and there is no body of knowledge so complete, but that it may acquire accession, or so free from error, but that it may receive correction in passing through the minds of millions. Those who admire and love knowledge for its own sake ought to wish to see its elements made accessible to all, were it only that they may be the more thoroughly examined into, and more effectually developed in their consequences, and receive that ductility and plastic quality which the pressure of minds of all descriptions, constantly moulding them to their purposes, can alone bestow. But to this end it is necessary that it should be divested, as far as possible, of artificial difficulties, and stripped of all such technicalities as tend to place it in the light of a craft and a mystery, inaccessible without a kind of apprenticeship. Science, of course, like every thing else, has its own peculiar terms, and, so to speak, its idioms of language; and these it would be unwise, were it even possible, to relinguish: but every thing that tends to clothe it in a strange and repulsive garb, and especially everything that, to keep up an appearance of superiority in its professors over the rest of mankind, assumes an unnecessary guise of profundity and obscurity, should be sacrificed without mercy. Not to do this, is to deliberately reject the light which the natural unencumbered good sense of mankind is capable of throwing on every subject, even in the elucidation of principles: but where principles are to be applied to practical uses it becomes absolutely necessary; as all mankind have then an interest in their being so familiarly understood, that no mistakes shall arise in their application.

The same remark applies to arts. They cannot be perfected till their whole processes are laid open, and their language simplified and rendered universally intelligible. Art is the application of knowledge to a practical end. If the knowledge be merely accumulated experience, the art is empirical; but if it be experience reasoned upon and brought under general principles, it assumes a higher character, and becomes a scientific art. In the progress of mankind from barbarism to civilized life, the arts neces