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visitors that it was his custom to worship God in his family, he read and prayed in so simple and sincere a manner as to secure the esteem of the travelers. They retired to rest, slept soundly, and thought no more of attentive. watching. In the morning, our acquaintance, addressing his infidel companion, required him as an honest man to say, whether the religious exercises of the preceding evening had not dispelled every particle of distrust of their host's character, and had not enabled him to close his eyes in the most confident security? He was evidently embarrassed by the question, but at length candidly acknowledged, that the sight of the Bible had secured for him a sound night's rest. Here was a testimony extorted to the excellent moral influence of the religion which he sceptically assailed. He could not for a moment, harbor a fear of violence from one, who was in the habit of daily bending the knee before God-the very erection of the family altar, rendered the house a secure asylum.

The Love of God.

THE following lines, composed by a lunatic, were four written on the wall in his cell after his death :

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade;

To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
If stretched from sky to sky."

Two strings to our bow.

"WELL, HODGE," said a smart looking Londoner to a plain cottager, who was on his way home from church, "so you are trudging home, after taking the benefit of the fine balmy breezes in the country this morning." "Sir," said the man, "I have not been strolling about this sacred morning, wasting my time in idleness and neglect of reli

gion; but I have been at the house of God, to worshi him, and to hear his preached word." "Ah! what then, you are one of those simpletons, that, in these country places, are weak enough to believe the Bible? Believe me, my man, that book is a pack of nonsense, and none but weak and ignorant people now think it true." "Well, Mr. Stranger, but do you know, weak and ignorant as we are, we like to have two strings to our bow." "Two strings to your bow! What do you mean by that?" "Why, sir, I mean that to believe the Bible, and act up to it, is like having two strings to one's bow; for if it is not true, I shall be the better man for living according to it; and so it will be for my good in this life-that is one string; and if it should be true, it will be better for me in the next life-that is another string! and a pretty strong one it is. But, sir, if you disbelieve the Bible, and on that account do not live as it requires, you have not one string to your bow. And oh! if its tremendous threats prove TRUE, oh, think! what then, sir, will become of YOU?" This plain appeal silenced the coxcomb, and made him feel, it is hoped, that he was not quite so wise as he had supposed.

How the Christian regards Riches.

I WENT one day, says the pious John Newton, to Mrs. G————, just after she had lost all her fortune; I could not be surprised to find her in tears: but she said, "I suppose you think I am crying for my loss: but that is not the case. I am now weeping that I should feel so much uneasiness on the account." After that I never heard her speak on the subject as long as she lived. Why now this is just as it should be. Suppose a man was going to York to take possession of a large estate, and his chaise should break down a mile before he got to the city, which obliged him to walk the rest of the way; what a fool we would think him if we saw him wringing his hands and blubbering out all the remaining mile, "My chaise is broken! my chaise is broken ""

Superintending Providence.

SIR EVAN NEPEAN of the Home Department, relates the following respecting himself. One night during his office as under-secretary, he felt the most unaccountable wake fulness that could be imagined; he was in perfect health, had dined early, and had nothing whatever on his mind to keep him awake. Still he found all attempts to sleep, impossible, and from eleven till two in the morning, he never closed an eye. At length, weary of this struggle, and as the twilight was breaking, (it was in summer,) he determined to try, what would be the effect of a walk in the park. There he saw nothing but the sleepy sentinels. But in his walk, happening to pass the House office seve ral times, he thought of letting himself in with his key, though without any particular object. The Book of entries of the day before, still lay on the table, and through sheer listlessness he opened it. The first thing he saw appalled him-"A repreive to be sent to York for the coiners ordered for execution." The execution had been ordered for the next day. It struck him that he had received no return to his order to send the reprieve. He searched the "minutes." He could not find it there. In alarm he went to the house of the chief clerk, who lived in Downing-street, knocked him up, (it was then past three,) and asked him if he knew anything of the reprieve being sent. In great alarm, the chief clerk could not remember. "You are scarcely awake," said Sir Evan, "recollect yourself; it must have been sent."

The clerk said that he now recollected he had sent it to the clerk of the crown, whose business it was to forward it to York.

"Good," said Sir Evan, "but have you his receipt and certificate that it is gone?

"No."

"Then come with me to his house, we must find him it is early?" It was now four, and the clerk of the crown lived in Chancery-Lane. There was no hackney coach to be seen and they almost ran. They were just in time The clerk of the crown had a country house, and meaning to have a long holiday, he was at that moment stepping into his gig to go to his villa. Astonished at this

visit of the under secretary of state at such an hour, he was still more so at his business.

"Heavens!" cried he, "the reprieve is locked up in my desk!" It was brought. Sir Evan sent to the post office for the truest and fleetest express. The reprieve reached York next morning just at the moment the unhappy men were ascending the cart.

With Sir Evan Nepean, we fully agree in regarding this little narrative, as one of the most extraordinary that we have ever heard. We shall go further even than he acknowledged, and say, that to us it appears as striking evidence of what we should conceive a superior interposition. It is true that no ghost appears, nor is any prompting voice audible; yet the result depended upon so long a succession of seeming chances, and each of these chances was at once so improbable and so necessary, that we are almost compelled to regard the whole matter of an influence not to be attributed to man. If the link of the chain might pass for a common occurrence-as, undoubtedly, fits of wakefulness will happen without any discoverable ground, in the state of either body or mind-still, what could be less in the common course of things, than, thus waking, he should take it into his head to get up and take a walk in the park, at two in the morning? Yet, if he had, like others, contented himself with taking a walk in his chamber, or enjoying the cool air at his window, not one of the succeeding events could have occurred, and the men must have been sacrificed. Or if when he took his walk, he had been contented with getting rid of the feverishness of the night, and returned to his bed, the chain would have been broken; for what was more out of the natural course of events, than, that at two in the morning, the idea should come into the head of any man to go into his office, and sit down in the lonely rooms of his department, for no purpose of business or pleasure, but simply from not knowing what to do with himself?

Or if, when he had let himself into those solitary rooms, the book of entries had not lain on the table: (and this we presume to have been among the chances, as we can scarcely suppose books of this official importance, to be gen. erally left to their fate among the servants and messengers of the office:) or if the entry, instead of being on the first

page that opened to his eye, had been on any other, even the second, as he never might have taken the trouble of turning the page: or if he and the chief clerk had been five minutes later at the Clerk of the Cown's house, and, instead of finding him at the moment of getting into his carriage, had been compelled to incur the delay of bringing him back from the country, all the preceding events would have been useless. The people would have died at York, for, even as it was, there was not a moment to spare; they were stopped on the very verge of exc cution.

The remarkable feature of the whole is, that the chain. might have been snapped at every link, and that every link was equally important. In the calculation of the probability of any one of these occurrences, a mathematician would find the chances very hard against it; but the calculation would be prodigiously raised against the probability of the whole. If it is asked, whether a sufficient ground for this high interposition is to be discovered, in saving the lives of a few wretched culprits, who, as frequently in such cases, probably returned to their wicked trade as soon as they had escaped, and only plunged themselves into deeper iniquity; the answer is, that it is not for us, in our ignorance, to meet out the value of a human life, however criminal in the eyes of heaven.

Children must be Led to God, not Driven,

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A MOTHER, Sitting at her work in her parlor, overheard her child, whom an older sister was dressing in an adjoining bed-room, say repeatedly, as if in answer to his sister, "No, I don't want to say my prayers; I dont want to say my prayers."

"How many church members, in good standing," thought the mother to herself, "often say the same thing in heart, though they conceal even from themselves the feeling.

"Mother," said the child, appearing in a minute or two at the parlor door; the tone and look implied that it was only his morning salutation.

"Good morning, my child."

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