your God a great or a little God?" He is both, sir." "How can He be both?" "He is so great, sir, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him; and so little that He can dwell in my heart." Collins declared that this simple answer from the countryman had more effect upon his mind than all the volumes which learned doctors had written against him.

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canus to a friend in the eleventh century: "I would fain learn from thee, out of the testimonies of the law, and the prophets, and other Scriptures, why the Jews are thus smitten in this captivity wherein we are, which may be properly termed the perpetual anger of God, because it hath no end. For it is now above a thousand years since we were carried captive by Titus; 370. Constant Miracles.-There idols, killed the prophets, and cast and yet our fathers, who worshipped is an Eastern fable of a boy having the law behind their back, were challenged his teacher to prove to punished only with a seventy years' him the existence of a God by work- captivity, and then brought home ing a miracle. The teacher, who again; but now there is no end of was a priest, procured a large vessel our calamities, nor do the prophets filled with earth, in which he depromise any." If," says Bishop posited a kernel, in the boy's pre- Patrick, "this argument was hard sence, and bade him pay attention. to be answered then, in his days, In the place where the kernel was it is much harder in ours, who put, a green shoot soon appeared, still see them pursued by God's the shoot became a stem, the stem vengeance, which can be for nothing put forth leaves and branches, which else but rejecting and crucifying soon spread over the whole apart- the Messiah, the Saviour of the ment. It then budded with blosworld." soms, which, dropping off, left golden fruit in their place, and in the short space of an hour there appeared a noble tree in the place of The youth, overcome with amazement, exclaimed, "Now I know there is a God, for I have seen His power!" The priest smiled at him, and said, "Simple child, do you only now believe? Does not what you have just seen take place in innumerable instances, year after year, only by a slower process? But is it the less marvellous on that account ?"

the little seed.

373. God Precise." Mr. Rogers, I like you and your company very well," said a gentleman to the well known Puritan minister of that name, "only you are too precise." "O, sir," replied the good man, "I serve a precise God."

374. God's Existence Proved.— The celebrated astronomer, Athanasius Kircher, having an acquaintance who denied the existence of a Supreme Being, took the following method to convince him of his error, upon his own principles. Expecting a visit from him, he procured a very handsome globe, with a representation of the starry heavens, which was placed in a corner of the room, where it could not escape his friend's observation; who, when he came, asked from whence it came, and to whom it belonged. "Not to me," said Kircher, nor was it ever made by any person, but came here by mere chance." "That," replied his sceptical friend," is absolutely impossible: you surely jest." Kircher, however, seriously persisting

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in his assertion, took occasion to what had happened. 'Yes,' said reason with his friend on his own I carelessly, 'I see it is so, but what atheistical principles. "You will is there in this worth notice? Is it not believe," said he, "that this not mere chance?' 'It cannot be small body originated in mere so,' he said; 'somebody must have chance; and yet you would con- contrived matters so as to produce tend that those heavenly bodies, of it.' 'Look at yourself,' I replied, which it is but a faint and diminu-and consider your hands and tive resemblance, came into exist- fingers, your legs and feet; came ence without order and design." you hither by chance?' 'No,' he Pursuing this train of reasoning, answered, 'something must have his friend was at first confounded, made me.' And who is that somenext convinced, and ultimately thing?' I asked. He said, 'I don't joined in a cordial acknowledg- know.' I therefore told him the ment of the absurdity of denying the existence of a God.

Godhead, the Divine Wisdom has given us a symbol of it in the three ruling elements of sound, and as the three Divine Persons are but one God, so the trinity in music has the nature and sound of the most perfect unity."

382. True Benefactor.-A lady applied to the eminent philanthropist of Bristol, Richard Reynolds, on behalf of a little orphan boy. After he had given liberally, she said, "When he is old enough, I will teach him to name and thank his benefactor." Stop," said the good man, "thou art mistaken. We do not thank the clouds for rain. Teach him to look higher, and thank Him who giveth both the clouds and the rain."

383. "Wonderfully Made."-A Griqua, in South Africa, stated that the first thing which led him to think of religion was observing the Hottentots, who belonged to Zak River Mission, giving thanks when eating. "I went," said he,

381. Symbol of the Trinity. An old English author of the name of Simpson, a master of music of some eminence in the reign of Charles II., has, in a work entitled "The Division of the Violin," drawn from the theory of music a singular illustration of the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. "When I further consider," he says, "that three sounds, placed by the interval of a third, one above another, do constitute one entire harmony, which governs and comprises all the sounds that by art or imagination can at once be joined together in musical concordance, that I cannot but think a significant emblem of that supreme and incomprehensible Three in One, governing, comprising, and disposing the whole machine of the world, with all its included parts, in a most perfect and stupendous harmony." A more modern writer, commenting on this ingenious theory of Mr. Simpson, observes "that the matter of fact really is as Mr. Simpson has stated it will not be disputed by any man of common skill in the science of music. It is" afterwards to that settlement, a thing well known, that if any where I heard many things, but felt three notes be taken upon an organ no interest in them. But one day, or harpsichord in the order of an when alone in the fields, I looked unison, third and fifth (as expressed very seriously at a mountain, as in the scale), and struck all at once, the work of that God of whom I the sounds, though perfectly dis- had heard; then I looked to my tinct in themselves, are so blended two hands, and for the first time and lost in one another, that with noticed that there was the same this pleasing variety of different number of fingers on each. I asked, intervals you have also the simpli- Why are there not five on this hand, city and unity of a single note; and and three on that? It must be God so strict is the agreement, that pro- that made them so. Then I exvided the instrument be well in amined my feet, and wondered to tune, an inexperienced ear cannot find my soles both flat; not one readily distinguish whether there flat and the other round. God be one sound only, or two others must have done this, said I. In combined with it." After some this way I considered my whole additional observations illustrative body, which made a deep impression of this extraordinary analogy, the on my mind, and disposed me to same writer thus concludes:-"We hear the Word of God with more will rest then in this conclusion, interest, till I was brought to believe that as there is a Trinity in the that Jesus died for my sins."

GRACE.

Psalm cxvi. 5; Jonah iv. 2; John i. 17; Eph. ii. 5, 8; Rom. v. 21.

384. Divine Message to the Soul. - Mr. Nott, missionary in the South Sea Islands, was on one occasion reading a portion of the Gospel of John to a number of the natives. When he had finished the sixteenth verse of the third chapter, a native, who had listened with avidity and joy to the words, interrupted him, and said, "What words were those you read? What sounds were those I heard? Let me hear those words again." Mr. Nott read again the verse, "God so loved," &c., when the native rose from his seat, and said, "Is that true? Can that be true? God love the world, when the world not love him! God so love the world, as to give His Son to die that man might not die! Can that be true?" Mr. Nott again read the verse, "God so loved the

world," &c., told him it was true, and that it was the gracious message God had sent to them; and that whosoever believed in Him should not perish, but be happy after death. The overwhelming feelings of the wondering native were too powerful for expression or restraint. He burst into tears, and as these chased each other down his countenance, he retired to meditate in private on the great love of God which had that day

touched his soul.

385. Renewed by Grace.-Two or three years before the death of John Newton, when his sight was so dim that he was no longer able to read, an aged friend and brother in the ministry called on him to breakfast. Family prayer succeeding, the portion of Scripture for the day was read to him. It was suggested by "Bogatsky's Golden Treasury:" "By the grace of God, I am what I am." It was the good man's custom, on these

occasions, to make a few short remarks on the passage read. After the reading of this text, he paused for some moments, and then uttered the following affecting soliloquy: "I am not what I ought to be! Ah! how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be! I abhor that which is evil, and I would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be! Soon, soon, I shall put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection! Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say I am not what I once was, a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, By the grace of God, I am what I am!' Let us pray."

386. Satan and Opportunity.The pious author of "The Dairyman's Daughter" was once conversing with a brother clergyman acted inconsistently with his reon the case of a poor man who had ligious profession. After some

severe remarks on the conduct of

such persons, the gentleman with whom he was discussing the case concluded by saying, "I have no notion of such pretences; I will have nothing to do with him." "Nay, brother," said Mr. Richmond,

"let us be humble and moderate.

Remember who has said, 'making the one hand, and Satan at the a difference' with opportunity on other, and the grace of God at neither, where should you and I be?"

387. Under God's Care.-"No doubt," said the Rev. J. Brown, of Haddington, "I have met with trials as well as others, yet so kind has God been to me, that I think, if He were to give me as many years as I have already lived in the