punish offences,-gratitude is solicitous to return favours, and acknowledge obligations. 2 Kings iv. 8. 13. It is a pleasing principle which produces little commotion, besides a respectful esteem of benefactors, a delight in their happiness, and a desire to promote their interest. Complacency of countenance, humility and mildness of demeanour, modesty and pathos of language, the hand pressed on the breast, and the eyes alternately lifted to heaven and fixed on its object, are proper indications of genuine gratitude.

CONTEMPT.

When a worthless object claims the honour of superior excellence, it excites contempt; which is a propensity to mortify pride and vanity; and to lash folly, imperfections and misconduct. 2 Kings xiv. 9-10. The eyebrows knit, the forehead and cheeks wrinkled, the body drawn back, the head shaken, the looks disdainful, the voice expressive of antipathy, the eyes snatching averted views of the object, (1 Samuel xvii. 42) and the hands stretched out to oppose its approach; are proper indications of scorn and contempt.

PITY

Is composed of sorrow and benevolence. It consists in the participation of another's sufferings, (2 Kings iv. 27) generous attempts to remove them, and unaffected sorrow when efforts to afford relief prove unsuccessful. It is manifested by a compassionate tenderness of voice, a sympathetic contraction of the features, a gentle vibration, or short suspension of the hands over the suffering, thoughtless, or dejected object, (Exodus ii. 6) which either attracts the most attentive looks, or elevates the eyes to heaven in tender intercessions. 1 Peter iii. 8.

JEALOUSY.

The idea indulged, that attempts are being made to prevent our attainment, or interrupt our enjoyment of happiness, constitutes suspicion, and the supposition that they are, or will be successful, is the essence of Jealousy (1 Samuel xviii. 8. 9), which is a medley of almost

every passion that can agitate the human mind. Prov. vi. 34. To express it properly, therefore, one must be able, not only to represent all the passions separately, but also several of them in conjunction. 1 Sam. xx. 30-1, It is generally indicated by restlessness, chagrin, anxiety, and absence. Sometimes it pours forth pitious complaints, accompanied with floods of tears; then a gleam of hope lights up the countenance into a momentary smile;-immediately clouds of accumulating gloom, manifest that the mind is agitated with horrible conjectures.

LESSONS IN PROSE AND VERSE.

NEGLECT OF THE BIBLE.

The neglect of the sacred volume, is without doubt, the result of a defective education. It is impossible to calculate, the force and durability of those impressions which are received in early years. The Bible, it is true, is made a school book, to this we make no objections; for no one can become acquainted with its divine contents at a too early period. The painful circumstance is, that the Bible is made merely a school book. Is it, we ask, inculcatad on the youthful mind, that the Bible is not only to be read at school, but to be prayerfully read during life? Is the young pilgrim taught that the Bible must be his companion, counseller, and guide through the whole of his mortal sojourn? He looks on the Bible as a school book; and when he can read it fluently, he considers that his work is done: but he is not taught to revere it, to love it, and look upon his greatest treasure, He regards it, therefore, as the book of his boy-hood, but not as the guide of his youth, the framer and ruler of his man-hood, the comforter and sustainer of declining life. He regards it as the book from which he is to learn to read; but he is not instructed to view it as the one great means of his preservation from sin and folly, and of his acquiring

it as

that moral excellence essential to his present welfare, and the knowledge of salvation to eternal life. He learns to read it, and then he lays it aside; and it becomes the most neglected of all books at the very season of life in which its instruction and its influence are most wanted, But in vain (comparatively speaking) do we teach our children to read the Bible, unless we teach them also the paramount importance of its claims upon every period of their sojourn here.

THE MAJESTY OF THE SCRIPTURES.

(Remarks of a Sceptic.)

I will confess that the majesty of the scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel hath its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our Philosophers with all their pomp of diction, how mean, how contemptible are they compared with the scriptures! Is it possible that such a book, at once so simple, and so sublime should be merely the work of man? Do we find that he (Jesus) assumed the tone of an enthusiast, or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in his manner! What an affecting gracefulness in his delivery! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses! What presence of mind! What sublimity-what truth in his replies! How great the command over his passions! Where is the man-where is the philosopher, who could so live and so die? When PLATO described his imaginary good man, loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he described exactly the character of JESUS CHRIST; the resemblance was so striking, that all the Fathers perceived it. What prepossession-what blindness must it be to compare the son of SAPHRONISCUS to the Son of MARY! What an infinite disproportion is there between them! SoCRATES, dying without pain or ignominy, easily supported his character to the last; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted, whether SOCRATES, with all his wisdom, was any thing more than a vain sophist. He invented,

it is said, the theory of morals; others had, however, before put them into practice; he had only to say what they had done, and to reduce their example to precept. ARISTIDES had been just, before SOCRATES had defended justice. LEONIDAS had given up his life for his country, before SOCRATES declared patriotism to be a duty. The Spartans were a sober people, before SOCRATES recommended sobriety. Before he had ever defined virtue, Greece abounded with virtuous men.

But where could JESUS learn among his competitors, that pure and sublime morality, of which He only has given both precept and example. The greatest wisdom was made known amongst the most bigoted fanaticism, and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues did honor to the vilest people upon the earth. The death of SOCRATES, philosophising with his friends, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for: that of JESUS, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, and accursed by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be found. SOCRATES, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed indeed the weeping executioner who administered it: but JESUS, in the midst of his excruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and death of SOCRATES were those of a sage, the life and death of JESUS were those of a God! Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere fiction? Indeed, it bears not the mark of fiction; on the contrary-the history of SOCRATES, which nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of JESUS CHRIST. Such a supposition in fact only shifts the difficulty, without obviating it: it is more inconceivable that a number of persons should agree to write such a history, than that one only should furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the Gospel, the marks of whose truth are so striking and inimitable, that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero.

ROUSSEAU.

THE HON. T. ERSKINE'S ORATION OF THE BIBLE,

DELIVERED UPON THE TRIAL OF W

PUBLISHING PAINE'S " AGE OF REASON."

FOR

Gentlemen, The Defendant stands indicted for having published this book, which I have only read from the obligation of professional duty, and which I rose from the reading of with astonishment and disgust.

For my own part, Gentlemen, I have been ever deeply devoted to the truths of Christianity; and my firm belief in the Holy Gospel, is by no means owing to the prejudices of education (though I was religiously educated by the best of parents), but arises from the fullest and continued reflections of my riper years and understanding. It forms at this moment the greatest consolation of a life, which, as a shadow, must pass away; and without it, indeed, I should consider my long course of health and prosperity only as the dust which the wind must scatter, and rather as a snare than a blessing.

This publication appears to me to be as mischievous and cruel in its probable effects, as it is manifest illegal in its principles; because it strikes at the best-sometimes, alas! the only refuge and consolation, amidst the distresses and afflictions of the world. The poor and humble, whom it affects to pity, may be stabbed to the heart by it. They have more occasion for firm hopes beyond the grave, than those who have greater comforts to render life delightful. I can conceive a distressed but virtuous man, surrounded by his children, looking up to him for bread, when he has none to give them; sinking under the last day's labour, and unequal to the next, yet, still looking up with confidence to the hour when all tears shall be wiped from the eyes of affliction; bearing the burden laid upon him by a mysterious Providence, which he adores, and looking forward with exultation to the revealed promises of his Creator, when he shall be greater than the greatest, and happier than the happiest of mankind. What a change in such a mind might not be wrought by such a merciless publication.

But it seems this is an "Age of Reason," and the