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for one of pain! How many blessings, for a few crosses! For one danger that surprised us, how many scores of dangers have we escaped, and some of them very narrowly? But, alas! we write our mercies in the dust, but our afflictions we engrave in marble; our memory serves us too well to remember the latter, but we are strangely forgetful of the former. And this is the greatest cause f our unthankfulness, discontent, and mourning.

Eternity.

SUPPOSE Some little insect, so small as to be imperceptible to the human eye, were to carry this world, by its tiny mouthfuls, to the most distant star the hand of God has placed in the heavens. Hundreds of millions of years are required for the performance of a single journey. The insect commences upon the leaf of a tree, and takes its load, so small that even the microscope connot discover that it is gone, and sets out upon its endless journey. After millions and millions of years have rolled away it arrives back again to take its second load. Oh what interminable ages must pass before the one leaf shall be removed! In what period of coming time would the whole tree be borne away? When would the forest be gone? And when would that insect take the last particle of this globe and bear it away in its long, long journey? Even then, eternity would but have commenced. The spirit then in existence would still look forward to eternity, endless, unchangeable, illimitable, rolling before it. The mind sinks down perfectly exhausted with such contemplations. Yes! our existence runs parrallel with that of God. So long as he endures, so long shall that flame which he has breathed into our bosoms glow and burn; but it must glow in the brilliance and the beauty of hea ven, or burn with lurid flame and unextinguishable woe.

The Founder of Tract Societies,

THE REV. T. Aveling says, in a sermon on the death of Rev. John Campbell: "It was before his visit to the south that passing one day through the streets of Edin burgh, he saw on a book-stall a small pamphlet of a religious character, which he bought and read; and finding it likely to be of great service, he conceived the idea c painting an edition to sell and to distribute gratuitously. This idea he carried out; and meeting with the story: Poor Joseph while in London, he printed that also on his return to Scotland. Thus several thousand of tracts were circulated. It then occured to a few of his friends, that something more effectual might be done, by a society for the purpose of printing and distributing tracts. The society was established, (at Edinburgh,) and. Mr. Campbell was one of the twelve who composed it. This ap pears to have been the first Tract Society the world ever saw; as the valuable one which is now formed in London, and of which Mr. Campbell was a member (from the year 1804) until his death, was instituted in the year 1799, three years afterwards. To him the world owes much for his first taking the field and commencing those operations which, although comparatively feeble at first are now exerting a gigantic influence on the world. His name deserves to be recorded as one of the founders, if not the originato' of Tract societies.

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one of the villages of France there formerly lived a by the name of John Cape, an honest and industriFile Maker.

a the same neighborhood, there lived another man by name of Gaufridy. This latter individual held sevI offices, on account of which he claimed somewhat of uence and attention beyond most other in his vicinity. a word, he was a proud man, and appeared to feel it to right that every one around him should act precisely he said.

It so happened that the File kiln of John Cape struck e fancy of Gaufridy, and from that time he determined. obtain possession of it. Accordingly he made propoals to Cape to purchase it. The sum offered was much elow its real value; so Cape thought, and without much esitation, he refused it. This sorely displeased Gaufridy. During the winter following, a man by the name of John Sevos, a neighbor of Cape, returned one day from a manufacturing town, at some distance, and entered the village in the dusk of evening. In the morning, the usual inquiries were made for him by his friends, when it was found that his family were ignorant even of his return. As several persons had surely seen him, or thought they had, alarm was soon felt, and the bustle of a search began. The greater apprehensions were entertained about him by his family, from the impression, that he expected to bring back with him a considerable sum of money. In the course of their search, suspicion of foul play was confirmed. Nothing indeed could be found of the body of Sevos, and no certain tidings were had about him; but circumstances were revealed, which confirmed the worst of conjectures. The ground at a short distance from the place, where he was last seen, was much trodden, as if by men engaged in a mortal struggle, and blood was there, and there too was a hedge-bill* partially covered with earth, and upon it were some hairs matted with dirt. It was evident that the murderer had not accomplished his work with ease a struggle had been made, and from impressions in the earth, it was inferred, that

A cutting hook used in trimming hedges.

the victim had staggered; and, after falling, had dragged himself some feet before the fatal blow was given him. No means existed of discovering the perpetrator, unless by means of the hedge-bill; but this no one appeared to own, and it had no mark, by which its proprietor could be ascertained. The search was at length given over as a vain one, and the foul deed appeared likely to remain concealed until that day, when all secrets will be disclosed.

Six months from that day, one morning, a party of soldiers, headed by an officer, surrounded the house of John Cape. The terrified inmates, excepting Cape, attempted to escape; but a bayonet was presented at every passage, and effectually prevented the escape of a single member of the family.

"Is your name John Cape ?" demanded the officer, in a rough and thundering voice.

"By what right do you ask such a question, and what means this intrusion ?" inquired Cape.

"I did not come here to answer questions," said the officer-"it is my business to ask them, and yours to answer, and now say in a word is your name John Cape?" Without however, waiting for an answer, he cried out, "Guards! seize your prisoner." In an instant Cape was seized and bound. This done, the officer turned to his wife and said "Madam, your husband has confessed his name-you have not denied you are his wife-and these children, too, are no doubt yours-I am commanded to arrest the whole-soldiers! conduct them to the street!" In an hour, the house had been abandoned to the plunder of a riotous soldiery, and the ponderous door of the dungeon in the village had closed upon John Cape, and his family.

The second day being the 29th of August, he was brought out heavily ironed, and placed in the criminal box of the Court. Antoine De Lorme. a discharged or deserted soldier of the regiment of La Sarre, lately returned from Brest, presented himself as the accuser; charging Cape with the murder of John Sevos.

The 19th of February, De Lorme said he was in the kiln, or oven room, of John Cape, when the deceased stopped, as he was passing. Cape asked him some ques

tions, as to the success of his expedition, upon which Sevos exposed a handful of half crowns; boasting that his pockets were so stuffed as to incominode him, and congratulating the other upon his better fortune in being able to travel without such an incumbrance. He added something, which the witness heard indistincly, but understood the purport of it to be that the hardest way to coin money was to broil it out of his face. What he meant by this, the witness did not know, but Cape appeared quite exasperated, and ordered the deceased to carry his unseasonable jeers, and unnecessary company, somewhere else. Sevos went off laughing, complimenting the prisoner upon his amiable temper and winning manners, which he protested were perfectly irresistible. Cape, after a moment, followed him, and at a corner of the road witness lost sight of them both.

"This" he said (touching the hedge-bill) "I once borrowed of the prisoner. I know it by a particular mark ;" (and he pointed to a small cross, cut in the handle, so filled up with dirt as to be hardly perceptible.) That night, he enlisted in the Regiment of La Sarre; and left the country early next morning. Six days since, he returned; and unable, from all he had heard, to divest himself of the belief, that the unhappy Sevos had been the victim of a sorry jest, he had been at some pains to unravel the mystery, of which he said, he then held in his hand the thread. He concluded by desiring that Claude Maurice and Pierre Vaudon might be put upon the stand.

The latter, the Forrester of M. Varambon, testified that the evening of the alleged murder, he observed a man approaching hastily in a direction from the street, where Sevos had disappeared, towards Cape's house. He seemed disturbed; his dress was disordered, and his whole appearance indicated great anxiety. He had very much the appearance of a man eluding pursuit, for he was looking back every instant. As they met, the prisoner, for it was him, started, and asking some confused question, without any attention to the answer, passed on abruptly. The Forrester thought his conduct strange, and the next morning, when Sevos was found to be absent, his suspicions were confirmed. At one time, he was upon the point of telling what he knew, and sus

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