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THE INFLUENCE OF HABIT.

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of business, could not be sustained. At last, becoming the victim of habitual intemperance, his respectability and means of subsistance dwindled together.

It was melancholy to witness, before the ordinary race of life was half run, his haggard looks and tottering frame. He wore the very livery of sin. Ruined in constitution and in circumstances; without the solace of religion when everything threatened approaching dissolution; who can describe his now aged mother's grief? By degrees he had become estranged from, and was now almost forsaken by every other friend; but her's was a mother's "deep, strong, deathless love." She recalled his infancy and boyhood, so full of promise-her anxious care; and how with dim and weary eyes she had watched and tended him through the sufferings of childhood—the "restless day and wakeful night;" how with patient untiring love she had soothed his pain, and prayed for his recovery. And now she lived to wish that he had died; for then she might have hoped for reunion in another world. The soul, the never dying soul, was that which caused her agony.

"Oh ! that so bright a morn so soon
Should vanish in so dark a noon !"

From the deep gloom of such a scene who would not wish to turn, nor wish to lift the veil, when "shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it." In the ways of divine justice, punishment stalks silently, but will at last overtake the guilty. Charles, her younger son, remained beneath his mother's roof, her support and comfort. His life strongly contrasted with his brother's. Happily with him the law of habit was enlisted on the side of virtue; gradually, as the opening flower, his mind had expanded to the influence of divine truth; and it was the spring whence thought and feeling issued into action, proving faith to be the seed of every grace, and holiness another name for happiness. In the deep anguish of her heart his mother turned to Charles, next to God for consolation. They read together in the sacred word, and learnt how to bow with awe and reverent submission to him, who as a sovereign says: "be still, and know that I am God." Her bleeding spirit prayed for resignation: but the youthful vigour which rebounds from the depth of useless sorrow was no longer hers. She knew that her grief would cease only with life. But though weak she felt herself sustained; and confiding in Christ when death approached, received with gratitude the promise of rest for the travel-worn, and with her latest breath triumphed in redeeming love, and implored God's blessing on her pious son.

Life's path with Charles had not been smooth; but its cares were made less heavy by the prospect of a better world. He had known disappointment. His brother's profligacy had been to him a grief and shame; and through it his property had experienced loss. But it has been truly said, "he who knows how to pray may be pressed, but cannot be overcome ;" and Charles in his tranquil hours had found enjoyment in the exercise of prayer, and in sorrow's storm had not to seek for his confidence or consolation. Diligent in the discharge of Christian duties, seeking satisfaction in that self-conquest which can alone be attained at the bidding of principle, making the heart's affection the seat of morality, and doing good to all within his sphere; he found the pleasures of religion neither attended with sickly disgust in the enjoyment, nor followed by bitter repentanct on reflection. He not only experienced that virtuous habits are right, but feel that they are delightful. He walked in his humble path, obtaining that respect which is justly paid to consistent excellence. The joy of an affectionate devoted wife, the parent of children who looked to him with love and reverence, surrounded

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by the scene of his youth and the friends who had loved him long and well; he approached life's close with the eye of faith fixed calmly on his Saviour, bequeathing to his sorrowing family their best inheritance-the rich fragrance of a holy name. His last hours were "peace"-anticipating the moment when he should join the angelic throng in ascribing glory, and honour, and power, to Him who had redeemed him with his precious blood, and exhibiting a proof that the exercise of good habits awakens corresponding feelings, which by the blessing of God's Holy Spirit leads to the formation of good principles.

"As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more; but the righteous is an everlasting foundation." Virtuous habits tend to piety; and even upon the testimony of a doubtful friend," the religion of Christ has done more to humanize the thoughts and tame the unruly passions, than all that has been tried to reform and benefit mankind besides: before it the iron scales that fence and harden the heart drop off, leaving it capable of love, of pity, of forgiveness." How much more ennobling and valuable such influence than that induced by the moral pestilence of irreligious companionships. Their paths lead to present shame and future destruction. Their's are the habits and the principles which, even if spared to old age, will make it hopeless and joyless; and to the natural pains of death will add the irritating tortures of a hopeless and immitigable remorse..

THE FAMILY ROD.

We are led into his private

SICKNESS takes up and sets us alone with God. chamber, and there converses with us face to face. The world is far off, our relish for it is gone, and we are alone with God. Many are the words of grace and truth which he then speaks to us. All our former props are struck away, and we must now lean on God alone. The things of earth are felt to be vanity; man's help useless. Man's praise and man's sympathy desert us; we are cast wholly upon God, that we may learn that his praise and his sympathy are enough. "If it was not for pain," says one, "I should spend less time with God. If I had not been kept awake with pain, I should have lost one of the sweetest experiences I ever had in my life. The disorder of my body is the very help I want from God; and if it does its work before it lays me in the dust, it will raise me up to heaven." It was thus that Job was "chastened upon his bed with pain, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain," that after being tried, he might come forth as gold." Sickness teaches us, that activity of service is not the only way in which God is glorified. "They also serve who only stand and wait.” Active duty is that which man judges most acceptable; but God shows us that in bearing and suffering he is also glorified. Perhaps we were pursuing a path of our own, and required to be arrested. Perhaps we were too much harrassed by a bustling world, and needed retirement, yet could find no way of obtaining it, till God laid us down, and drew us aside into a desert place, because of the multitude pressing upon us. No one of the family rods is more in use than this; sometimes falling lightly on us, at other times more heavily. Let us kiss the rod, seeking so to profit by each bodily ailment, slight or severe, that it may bring forth in us the peaceful fruits of righteousness. "I know," says one, "of no greater blessing than health, except pain and sickness."-Bonar.

66

* Hazlitt.

TO GOD.

POETRY.

THERE's not a breeze that fans the plain,
And cheers the laughing flowers,
There's not a cloud that skims the sky,
Distent with freshening showers,
There's not a blade of grass that springs-
There's not a rippling rill-
But speaks in tones distinct and clear
God's love and mercy still!

There's not a blast that swells the sea,

And curls the angry main-
There's not a storm that sweeps the earth
And desolates the plain-
There's not a flash of lightning gleams,
'Mid thunder's deafening roar-
But tells to every trembling soul
Thy justice and thy power!

We see Thee in the dazzling sun,
And in the moon's fair beam-
We see thee in the starry host,

And in the taper's gleam-
We see Thee in the flashing foam
That sparkles on the flood-
And every tree, and every leaf,
Displays the stamp of God!

We feel Thee when the swelling breast
Would prompt some noble deed-
We feel Thee when for others' woe

Our hearts in pity bleed

And when the tempter's snares would lure Us from the paths of good

And conscience speaks in warning tonesOh! 'tis the voice of God!

O God! Incomprehensible !

Eternal

Infinite !

How vast, how wonderful thy works-
How full of love and might!
The azure heaven thy glory speaks-
As well this earthly clod;
Oh! may we look through nature's
works,

And worship nature's God!

TO A FRIEND, AT PARTING.

Think of me !-When?

Just at the gentle twilight hour, When the dews are falling on tree and flower,

When birds to their quiet nests have gone, And the summer night comes softly on : Think on me then.

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STATISTICS

CURIOUS CALCULATION.-If the human race, beginning from one pair, were to double once in thirty years, or if the excess of births over deaths were to double the popu lation once in thirty years, then, at the end of 3000 years the population might be described as follows:-" Take men, women and children at an average height of four feet, and imagine a vast plain of the same surface as the whole earth and sea. Let each person be allowed one square foot to stand upon, and let the 'surplus population,' after the plain is full, stand upon the heads of the others, with others again upon their head, and so on. The pile would extend to a height of 3,688 times the distance from the earth to the sun, allowing the sun's distance to be 95,000,000 miles, and the earth's radius 3,956 miles.

SOCIAL AND SANITARY STATISTICS.Marriages in England are as one person in

130.

The average number of children to a marriage is four.

Öf legitimate children in Europe there

are about 106 males to 100 females.

Of illegitimate children in Europe there are about 100 males to 98 females. Illegitimate children in Europe are as one to 13 legitimate.

The illegitimacy of large cities is twice that of rural districts.

The number of children born dead in Europe is 1 to 40 of the whole population.

The number of children born dead in large cities is 1 in every 20 of the whole.

THE POST OFFICE return for the year 1851, furnishes, like its predecessors, matter worthy of careful consideration.

The number of letters was 360 millions; being nearly five times as many as the Post Office carried prior to the institution of penny postage, excluding from this computation the franks, which, while they existed, were in the proportion of about 1 to 12 of the chargeable letters.

The increase in the year 1851 was 13 millions; and judging from the results of the first three months of the current year, which are also given in the present return, the prosperity of the Post Office will not only be maintained, but steadily augmented; though Mr. Disraeli very reasonably made an estimated allowance for a deficit on 1852 as compared with 1851, in consideration of the correspondence to be ascribed to the Great Exhibition. It would be difficult, we think, to find any hypothesis to account for the rapid and steady progress of postal

communication which should discard either of two important data—augmented prosperity and improved education, both widely diffused throughout the empire.

Penny postage has now been twelve years in operation, and the habits of the people have long ago accommodated themselves to the new order of things. The increase of the latter years must therefore be attributed to other causes than the gradual relaxation of the disposition to economy in postage, so closely impressed on the mind by the former exorbitant rates.

AVERAGE SPEED OF CAMELS.-In crossing the Nubian Desert I paid considerable attention to the march of the camels, hoping it might be some service hereafter in determining our position. The number of strides in a minute with the same foot varied very little, only from thirty-seven to thirty nine, and thirty-eight was the average; but the length of the stride was more uncertain, varying from six feet six inches to seven feet six. As we were always urging the camels, who seemed, like ourselves, to know the necessity of pushing on across that fearful tract, I took seven feet as the average. This gives a speed of 2-62 geographical miles per hour, or exactly three English miles, which may be considered as the highest speed that camels lightly loaded can keep up a journey. In general, it will not be more than two and a-half English miles. My dromedary was one of the tallest, and the seat of the saddle was six feet six inches above the ground.

NUMERICAL COINCIDENCES.-The mar riage of Louis the Thirteenth of France with the Princess Anne of Austria met with many obstacles, but was ultimately brought about in consequence of the following weighty considerations:-The name of Louis, or, according to the ancient orthography, Loys de Bourbon, contained thirteen letters; he was in the thirteenth year of his age; and he was the thirteenth King of France of the name of Louis. The Princess Anne d'Autriche had also thirteen letters in her name; she, too, was in her thirteenth year; and there were thirteen princesses of the same name in the House of Spain. Nay, more, Louis and Anne were born on the same day of the same month of the same year. In short, nothing could be more obvious than that they were born for each other! Nothing was more common in former times than such puerile combinations of circum

stances.

VARIETIES.

THE WESLEYS AND WATERLOO.-While Charles Wesley, the brother of John Wesley, the Methodist, was at Westminster, under his brother, a gentleman of large fortune in Ireland, and of the same family name, wrote to the father, and inquired of him if he had a son named Charles, for, if so, he would make him his heir. Accordingly his school bills, during several years, were discharged by his unseen namesake. At length a gentleman, who is supposed to have been this Mr. Wesley, called upon him, and after some conversation, asked if he was willing to accompany him to Ireland. The youth desired to write to his father before he could make answer. The father left it to his own decision, and he, who was satisfied with the fair prospects which Christ Church opened to him, chose to stay in England. John Wesley, in his account of his brother, calls this a fair escape. The fact is more remarkable than he was aware of; for the person who inherited the property intended for Charles Wesley, and who took the name of Wesley, or Wellesley, in consequence, was the first Earl of Mornington, grandfather of the Marquess Wellesley and the Duke of Wellington. Had Charles made a different choice, there might have been no Methodists, the British Empire in India might still have been menaced from Seringapatam, and the undisputed tyrant of Europe might, at this time, have insulted and endangered us on our own shores.'

EXERCISE IN THE COUNTRY.-Walking is good; not stepping from shop to shop, or from neighbour to neighbour, but stretching out far into the country, into the freshest fields, and highest ridges, and quietest lanes. However sullen the imagination may have been among its griefs at home, here it cheers up and smiles. However listless the limbs may have been when sustaining a too heavy heart, here they are braced, and the lagging gait becomes buoyant again. However perverse the memory may have been in presenting all that was agonising, and insisting only on what cannot be retrieved, here it is first disregarded, and then it sleeps; and the sleep of the memory is the day in paradise to the unhappy. The mere breathing of the cool wind on the face in the commonest highway is rest and comfort, which must be felt at such times to be believed. It is disbelieved in the shortest intervals between its seasons of enjoyments; and every time the sufferer has resolution to go forth to meet it, it penetrates to the very heart in glad surprise. The fields are better still, for there is the lark to fill up

the time with mirthful music, or, at worst, the robin and the flocks of fieldfares, to show that the hardest day has its life and hilarity. But the calmest region is the upland, where human life is spread out beneath the bodily eye-where the eye moves from the peasant's nest to the spiry town, from the school-house to the churchyard, from the diminished team in the patch of fallow, or the fisherman's boat in the cove, to the viaduct that spans the valley or the fleet that glides, ghost-like, on the horizon. This is the perch where the spirit plumes its ruffled and drooping wings, and makes ready to let itself down any wind that heaven may send.

A VIEW OF OXFORD.-I have enjoyed the rich treat of a visit to Oxford. I should think it must present immense attractions to a student of the fine arts. To me it seemed like the fulfilment of some romantic dream. Though I went full of expectation, I found it quite as beautiful as I anticipated. The venerable monuments of antiquity, the exquisite architecture, the windows all ablaze with scriptural histories, the libraries, the galleries of pictures, the museums, and above all, the holy memories that come round you as you behold the portraits of England's best and wisest, or walk in the footprints of the martyrs, produce a species of sacred intoxication from which it is not easy to recover. As I walked round the top of the Radcliff Library, and looked down on the forest of pinnacles, the tall spires, the beautiful quadrangles interspersed with gardens and groves, the river with its bridges, and the beautiful woodland landscape glowing to the horizon in the clear light of a cloudless sky, I was lost in admiration. The modern improvements are very extensive. One of the most exquisite things in Oxford is the chapel of Magdalen College, which was restored in 1833. The window representing "The Last Judgment," and the altar-piece representing "Our Lord carrying his Cross," are things which, having been once seen, grave themselves on the memory for ever. The restorations were done on the spot by English workmen. At Queen's £30,000 were left in 1841 by Dr. Mason, to be laid out in books: this sum has been raised by subscription to £60,000, I think they told us; and the whole has been applied to the formation of the present beautiful library. The Botanic Garden has been greatly improved lately.

EPITAPH IN THE CEMETRY AT LIVERPOOL.-"What her character was will be known at the day of judgment, Reader, think what thine own will be.

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