bad eye, went one day to a holy man, who lived in a cell near Antioch, to obtain a cure. Being very young, not quite twenty-three years of age, and very fond of dress, she decked herself out in all her finery: bracelets, earrings, cosmetics; the most costly ornaments were pressed into service, to heighten her personal charms, and to add to her consequence. At the sight of all this display, the man of God conceived on the spot a desire of curing the lady of her vanity, an evil far more ruinous in its consequences than that of her eye-sight. Daughter, said the venerable religious, were a painter, uncommonly skilful in his profession, to execute a portrait according to all the rules of art, and were a man, completely ignorant of painting, take upon himself to give it some additional touches after his own fancy, to make alterations and additions, can you suppose that the limner would not feel the affront? Certainly he would, replied the lady, and with great reason. O! my daughter, continued the holy solitary, you cannot doubt but that the Creator of all things, that adorable Workman, who has modelled us, must be heinously offended at your seeming to tax his exquisite wisdom of ignorance, in wishing to reform or perfect his work in your own person. Believe me, make no alterations in this portrait, which is the image of God. Pretend not to give to yourself what his superior wisdom has denied you. Strive not to acquire a false and artificial beauty, which may draw the innocent into sin, by laying snares for your admirers. My mother, continues Theodoret, was a woman of excellent principles; and no sooner had she received this rebuke, than she cast herself at the feet of the religious, thanking him for his salutary admonition. She then solicited him with the greatest sentiments of humility, to obtain of God the cure of her eye. He resisted for a long time her importunities, through humility; but at last, overcome, he blessed her, and she was cured upon the spot. As soon as my mother returned home, she cast off all her vain ornaments, and, convinced that modesty is the greatest ornament both of wisdom and beauty, she ever after dressed herself in the same neat, simple, unaffected manner, as the man of God had prescribed her.

DREADFUL CONSEQUENCES OF IMPURITY.

Of all the enemies of salvation, there is not one which is more dangerous, causes greater disorders among Christians, or plunges more into hell, than the vice of impurity; because its attacks, very frequent, are so extremely violent, that a complete victory is seldom obtained.-Thomas Cantinprensis gives us an account of a young nobleman, of excellent dispositions, whose friendship during his studies he had sedulously cultivated. It happened that his friend, on quitting college, fell into some very dissipated and dissolute company. His virtue soon became a victim to their bad example and loose discourses. What at first from habit shocked him, soon became familiar, and afterwards agreeable. He was ashamed to appear less licentious than his companions. At first he only wished to taste of the voluptuous draught, and to go no farther; little reflecting that a single spark has frequently produced a general conflagration. This indulgence, so far from satisfying, only increased his thirst, and inflamed his desires; for lust is an insatiable passion. In a short time, every vestige of his former virtue disappeared, and so hardened did he grow in vice, that he could rival the most infamous and profligate among his companions. Our author observing his change, used every effort to recall him from the dreadful precipice, by exposing to him his danger; but all in vain. The baneful effect of bad example, joined to the new habits of vice which he had acquired, so corrupted every good sentiment, that he remained obstinately deaf to the voice of his friend. He continued indulging his impure passions, till it pleased the Almighty to make him a striking example, and a salutary warning to all young men, who, in after times shall suffer themselves to be carried away by this infamous passion.-One night, he awoke so terribly frightened, that his cries alarmed the whole house. All in haste, flocked to his bed-side. I leave you to judge what must have been their distress, when they found him in the most horrible despair, and could get no other answer from him than cries, shrieks and groans. A clergyman was sent for, who endeavored to turn his mind to God, and to solicit pardon for his crimes: no impression could be made. At last, turning

round to the assistants, who were all bathed in tears at so melancholy a spectacle, and looking on them with his haggard eyes, in a lamentable tone he exclaimed: "Wo to my seducers: in vain do you desire me to have recourse to God; there is no grace left for me: behold! hell opens wide its mouth to devour me!!!" With these horrible words, that thrilled through the inmost souls of all present, he expired.

May this example, and innumerable others, convince inexperienced youth, that there can be no other security against the repeated hostile attacks of this implacable foe than vigilance and prayer. Should any, trusting to their acquired virtue and wisdom, fancy themselves secure, let them consider the examples of a David and a Solomon; and let them with profound humility and a constant watchfulness, labor to work out their salvation, when they behold the tallest cedars of Lebanon brought low by the destructive blasts of impurity. The best remedy is to resist the very first impressions, and all improper liberties, which many, through a false peace of conscience, are pleased to call venial, although they have proved the ruin of innumerable souls. The demon of impurity having succeeded in blindfolding his victims, is careful not to excite them to any act publicly scandalous, which he knows might open their eyes, make them see their wretched state, and eventually rescue them from his detestable usurpation. The second is fasting and prayer; for this kind of devil can go out by nothing but by prayer and fasting, Mark ix. 28. If the temptation prove obstinate, to call out from the bottom of the heart: Lord save me or I perish: Lord make haste to help me: "Good Jesus! free me from my enemies by the merits of thy holy death." Or:

"My God, my Savior, and my all,,
"Come and protect me, lest I fall.”

A CURE FOR INTEMPERANCE.

A YOUNG man, who had long indulged in a ruinous propensity for liquor, became, as is generally the case with such persons, extremely gloomy and melancholy. In his pensive moments, he would argue with himself on

his conduct and infatuation, which he would acknowledge bordered upon madness, and reproach his own inconstancy in sacrificing every thing sacred, health, friends, riches, comfort and reason, at the shrine of a brutish pleasure, a more sensual gratification, that could continue but a short time, and was followed by the most distressing reflections and self-reproach. He would resolve and resolve again, but his resolutions as often bended to the solicitations or sarcasms of his dissolute and sottish companions. He would sometimes pray with the poet Thompson:

Let god-like Reason from her sovereign throne

Speak the commanding word, I will; and it is done.

But a return of his former scenes of dissipation, backed by the violence of a tyrannical evil habit soon staggered his resolutions, and plunged him once more into an ocean of miseries. Sunk into this fathomless abyss, whence he felt an unavailing wish to extricate himself, he applied to a former friend, in whose prudent counsels he had on former occasions found comfort, and solicited his assistance to conquer a passion that had so repeatedly baffled his best endeavors and resolutions. The friend, seeing him so dejected, desired him not to lose courage: and to quiet his mind, and raise his drooping spirits, he promised to entertain him with a story from his favorite and loquacious old author. Homer, in his Odyssey, tells, that Agamemnon, on his going to Troy, left one of his poets with Queen Clytemnestra, charging him at the same to impress on her memory every day the precepts of virtue and the danger of vice, in his divine song; and he assures us, that Egysihus could never succeed in his bad designs, till he had prevailed upon the queen to form the fatal determination of removing the importunate censor, whom she had so much dreaded, from her presence, and of banishing him to a desert, forlorn island. Now, the only task I shall lay upon you is, to suffer nine lines, which I shall give you framed and glazed, to hang up in your study; and all that I ask is, that you will promise me, on the word of a gentleman, to read them over every morning and night; and as often as you suffer yourself to yield to your hated and abhorred passion, you shall turn the verses near the

wall, and let them remain so, till I come. If you can have courage to submit to this censor, and will pledge your word neither to neglect nor banish him, I think I can promise you a double victory. The engagement was readily entered into; and the next day the following verses, elegantly framed and glazed, were suspended:

Recollect

What follies in your loose unguarded hour
Escap'd-For one irrevocable word,

Perhaps that meant no harm, you lose a friend;
Or in the rage of wine, your hasty hand

Performs a deed that haunts you to the grave,

Add that your means, your health, your parts decay,
Your friends avoid you; brutishly transformed,
They hardly know you; or, if one remain

To wish you well, he wishes you to heaven.

Suffice it to say, that the friend continued his frequent and charitable visits for several years, during which time, he found the frame only twice reversed.

SNUFF-TAKING, SMOKING.

CHEWING. The only plea for chewing this noxious plant, which is entitled to a serious consideration is, that it tends to preserve the teeth. This is the strong hold of tobacco chewers-not, generally when they commence the practice, but as soon as they find themselves slaves to it. Now the truth appears to be this:

When a tooth is decayed in such a manner as to leave the nerve exposed, the powerful stimulus of tobacco may perhaps diminish a little its sensibility. At least some of those, who are already slaves to this dirty practice, try to persuade themselves it is so. But all who know any thing about the matter agree that the good effect of this filthy habit is, generally speaking, purely imaginary, whilst its fatal consequences are certainly dreadful-for on one side, it is difficult to prevent some part of the saliva from going down into the stomach, which always produces disorder, and, on the other hand, this practice occasions a great loss of saliva, which weakens digestion, and often produces emaciation.