it I certainly shall never repent of it." This affair embarrassed Dolabella, and she was sent to Areopagus. That court, having examined her very particularly for a long time, dismissed her, ordering her and her accuser to appear before them again a hundred years after from the first day of her trial!

Learned men are not agreed respecting the number of judges that composed this august court; for some limit them to thirty-one; others to fifty-one, and some say they amounted to five hundred. The truth seems to have been that their number was not fixed; but became more or less in different ages. Originally this tribunal appears to have consisted of only nine persons, of those who had discharged the office of Archon, or chief magistrate of the city, having acquitted themselves with integrity and honour in that high trust, and who could give a satisfactory account of their administration in a rigorous examination.

The Areopagites were judges for life: their salaries were paid out of the public treasury, and they received for each cause three oboli (an obolus was the sixth part of a drachma, which was equal to about seven pence halfpenny): they never sat in judgment but in the open air, and that only at night time, that their minds might be less liable to distraction by surrounding objects, and that no object of pity or aversion might influence them in relation to either the criminal or the accuser. At first, the Areopagus took cognizance of criminal cases only; but in process of time, their jurisdiction became greatly extended. Blasphemy against the popular divinities, and impropriety in the performance of the sacrifices and other mysteries, engaged their special regard.

Socrates, as some of our readers will remember, was condemned by this court of Areopagus, then consisting of five hundred judges. That extraordinary man, aeknowledged the best and wisest of the Athenians, being aware of the absurdity of the popular idolatry of Greece, inculcated upon the youth of Athens a far purer theology; on which account, he was sentenced to death by drinking the fatal hemlock!

Paul was brought into this dreadful court of Areopagus, to give an account of Jesus and the doctrine of the resurrection. On that memorable occasion, he delivered a most powerful discourse, a part of which at least is contained in Acts xvii, 22-31. That sublime and beautiful, as well as rational and evangelical apology for Christ, was lost upon most of the proud and self-wise Athenians: though one of the judges at least, received the word in meekness of wisdom. "When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them. Howbeit, certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them." Acts xvii, 32-34.

RESIGNATION AND PRAYER RECONCILED. "How does your Ladyship," said the famous Lord Bolingbroke once to Lady Huntingdon, "reconcile prayer to God for particular blessings with absolute resignation to the Divine will?” Very easily," an. swered she; "just as if I was to offer a petition to a nonarch, of whose kindness and wisdom I have the highest opinion. In such a case my language would be, I wish you to bestow on me such or such a favour; but your majesty knows better than I, how far it would be agreeable to you, or right in itself, to grant my desire. I therefore content myself with humbly presenting to you my petition, and leave the event of it entirely to you.""

FROM the most authentic accounts of this dreadful tribunal in Spain and Pórtugal, we learn, that the nobles of those countries esteemed it an honour to be familiars, who were a kind of bailiffs to the inquisitors, defending them in the execution of their office. On the testimony of one accuser only, the inquisitors had power to apprehend any native of their jurisdiction, or a foreigner who had once been a papist. The prison is called Santa Casa, the holy house: it consists of several porticoes, each of which is divided into a number of small square cells, ten feet high, all vaulted, and built over each other in two rows: the walls are five feet thick, and each cell is fastened with two doors; the inner one thick, covered with iron, the lower part having an iron gate, and the upper a small window, through which the prisoner receives his food. When the prisoners are secured, their heads are shaved, whether men or women, without regard to their birth or quality. They are not allowed even books of devotion; nor permitted to sing, pray, or moan, under the penalty of a severe beating from the keepers. Those who are confined in the lower cells, generally sit in darkness, and sometimes remain in confinement for several years, that their spirits being broken by the miseries of so dreadful an imprisonment, they may be led to confess things agreeably to the wishes of the inquisitors. Various kinds of torture are employed to extort confessions from the wretched beings, to effect their own ruin or that of others.

The place of torture in the Spanish Inquisition is generally an underground and very dark apartment, the entrance to which is through several doors. There is a tribunal erected in it, in which are seated the inquisitor, inspector, and secretary. Candles being lighted, the person to be tortured is brought in; when the executioner, dressed in black linen, his head and face except his eyes covered with a black cowl, seizes his terrified victim, who is stripped naked, without regard to sex, only women are afterwards allowed a pair of linen drawers. They torture them either with cords, or on the rack, or by some other diabolical invention.

The ordinary mode of torture will be better understood from the details of one case, which we give in the sufferings of Lady Joan Bohorquia, wife of the eminent Francis Varquius, Lord of Higuera, in Spain. Her sister, Mary Bohorquia, a young lady of great piety, who was afterwards burnt for her profession of the Protestant faith, having upon the torture declared that she had several times conversed with her sister Joan, concerning the doctrine for which she now suffered, the inquisitor caused her to be apprehended. On account of her peculiar circumstances, she was imprisoned for three months, when her child was taken from her at eight days old, and seven days after she was closely confined, and made to undergo the fate of the other prisoners. In this dreadful calamity, she had only the comfort of a fellow-prisoner, a pious young woman, for a companion, who was afterwards burnt for her religion by the sentence of the inquisitors. This young person was, on a certain day, carried out to the torture, and brought back in so dreadful a condition, that when she lay on her bed of rushes, she was unable to turn herself, and her place of repose increased the pain of her disjointed limbs. Bohorquia tenderly endeavoured to comfort her; when in a few days she herself was carried out, and tortured on the rack with such diabolical cruelty, that the cords cut through the flesh to the bones of her arms, legs, and thighs. In this state she was brought back to prison, the blood streaming from

her mouth! She died through these tortures in cight days. But as she was a person of consequence, the court published her sentence, part of it in these words: "Because this lady died in prison, and was found to be innocent upon inspecting and diligently examining her cause, therefore the Holy Tribunal pronounces her free from any further process, doth restore her both as to her innocence and reputation, and commands all her effects, which had been confiscated, to be restored to those to whom they of right belonged," &c.

This is but one example similar to all others which have been published of this horrible tribunal. People stood in such fear of its terrors, that masters delivered up their servants, parents their children, and husbands their wives, to its officers, without daring to utter the least murmur: and as soon as they were imprisoned, their friends put on mourning for them, and spoke of them as dead, not daring to solicit their pardon, lest they should be brought in as accomplices!

(To be continued.)

THOUGHTS ON THE SACRED HISTORY OF THE CREATION. (Continued from p. 165.)

THE insects and worms were the creeping things which were ordered to appear among the creations of the sixth day. The insect race are in number by far the most considerable portion of animated beings; and whoever duly studies their habits, economy, and uses, will acknowledge that they have been created by design, and will not doubt but the design was benevolent. Linnæus arranged them into seven orders, and these again into a large multiplicity of species: the real quantity of them we may conceive, when we find that three thousand species are to be found in Great Britain alone. It is not necessary to say that they are the favourite productions of the Creator, because each of his kingdoms claims and deserves the same idea. The flower and the fish have been as finely imagined and as elaborately executed as the richest butterfly and the most brilliant beetle: but we may admit that He has combined and displayed in the insect world, the beautiful and the graceful, the interesting and the alluring, the curious and the singular.

The metamorphoses of insects are their most characterising peculiarity: in these we certainly behold three distinct animals, as dissimilar from each other, as to some of them, as the bird is from the serpent, and yet united into one and the same living being, by the personal identity of their principle of life. The same animal crawls in its caterpillar shape, sleeps as a torpid chrysalis, and springs from earth into air with its new wings in the butterfly or moth configuration. What a stupendous wonder this magical transformation would be to us, if it were not so familiar! It seems like a resurrection from the tomb into a fresh life, with celestial destinations it is so analogous to that which the human spirit must undergo, that we cannot well avoid viewing it as the emblem, the token, the natural herald, and the promise of our own. The ancients, without our Christian revelation, thought so; for one of their most pleasing imaginations yet visible on some of their gravestones which have been dug up, is that of a butterfly over the name which they record: they place the insect there, as the representation of the surviving soulthe intimation that it will appear in a new form and region of being: the allusion and the applicability are so striking, that I cannot but believe that one of the great purposes of the Deity, in creating his insect kingdom, was to excite this sentiment in the human breast,

- as

to raise the contemplative mind to look forward to a revival from the tomb, as the butterfly from its sepulchral chrysalis. Like the insect, man has three changes and forms of being, but continues indestructible through all: he emerges from the womb into the figure and life of the present fleshly body; he rests in his earthy grave unextinguished, though invisible to mortal eye; and he will rise at the appointed time into his ethereal nature and immortalized capacities—always the same self in each transmutation; never dying or dissolving, but surviving to bloom in everlasting youth with an imperishable vitality. The Ay passes through such changes to its winged state; so does the gnat, and the beetle likewise.

The actions and habits of the insect world display the same kind of animal mind and feeling which the birds and quadrupeds exhibit. Indeed the ants, bees, and wasps, combine for purposes, and achieve ends, that bring them nearer to mankind than any other class of animated nature. The earwig, like the fowl, sits and hatches its young; a remarkable analogy of maternal instinct and one species of spider manifests the same care. That the mason wasp, when she deposits her egg, should also leave in the same place enough food for her young ones when they leave their shell, announces a parental foresight and provision. Beetles also evince parental care for the sustenance of their emerging brood, and exert great labour to provide it. Diminutiveness here makes no disparity the motlier is as complete in the pettiest as in the largest, in the ant as in the whale.

Insects have the same senses as other creatures, though varying in their acuteness. One of their most extraordinary properties is that which some display, of producing light within their own bodies: the brilliance of the glow-worm appears to have the usual qualities of common light, even to the effect of heat. As to their habits and occupations, they are divisible into two classes; those which lead a separate, individual life, and those which are born and live wholly in regular societies: very few have been much studied, and it requires a long, persevering, and patient attention, to perceive and understand their habits. That insects have spontaneous self-motion, we continually see: they fly about as they please. No fly comes in one straight, undeviating line, compelled to move only in that; but can and does nove in all directions, and in all degrees of quickness and slowness. Every butterfly, gnat, or beetle, does the same. We equally see the full and free exercise of individual choice and will. Try with any walking insect: it will move, not as you choose, but as it likes: check it in one path, and, unless through fear it pauses, it will take another: there is nothing like automatical agency or compulsion about them: their motions exhibit continual changes of will and selfchoosing action. They have also as clear a perception of external things as we have: the fly knows the treacle; the wasp the sugar; and the bee his hive: the bee does not go to a leaf, instead of the flower: they perceive what they want, and move to it accordingly in this conduct they judge as rightly about it as we should do and act as consistently towards it.

No human parent could exert more reasoning and affectionate foresight for the benefit of the child that was about to be born, than one species of bee uniformly displays. To assist a fellow-creature with the co-operation of our labour when it is needed, is an act both of observing mind and benevolent feeling; and such an operation is performed by the pellchafers and the ants. Insects are admitted by all to have the sense of sight in a very perfect degree: some at least show that they hear: their touch also is very nice as they select what they eat, they must have a discriminating taste. The

same agencies of light, sound, heat, cold, and moisture, which act upon our senses, act on theirs: hence it follows, not only that they have sensations as we have, but that those sensations must be like those which we experience. Our experience every moment verifies these conclusions: there seem to be reasonable grounds to infer that insects communicate their ideas and wishes to each other; and that ants perceive what another needs, and voluntarily assist him to attain his end. Dr. Franklin inferred this from a fact of his own observation. It is the opinion of Huber, that insects which live in society have a species of language by which they communicate intelligence to each other. It is clear also that they examine objects, and move from place to place to explore and to seek for what they want, and make movements with their proboscis to ascertain what is fit, as we see by the flies, and indeed by every winged or other insect that we may choose to observe.

But the insect mind peculiarly displays itself in the habitations which some tribes build for themselves or their young. The nests of birds, wonderful as they are, yet are eclipsed by the structures formed by many insects. The regular villages of the beaver must yield the palm to a wasp's nest: nor are the spider galleries, with openings like doors as moveable as any upon hinges, less ingenious. It is however in the habits of those insects which live in societies, that we perceive the most extraordinary demonstrations of intelligence; in the political communities, with established governments, social ranks, appropriated occupations, and regulations or exacted habits of conduct. All species of ants perform actions, possess and preserve institutions, and display faculties and capacities, which seem on the whole not to be inferior to those of any of the animal orders; indeed to be superior to what is known perhaps of any. They furnish another illustration of the great fact, that mind is energy within itself, and is alike independent of figure, bulk, or substance: it uses matter as its servant, but never originates from it; its source is far more exalted and celestial.

We have now surveyed distinctly all the material forms in which the living principle appears on earth, except the human frame; and it is in the phenomena of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, that we derive a larger knowledge of our Divine Sovereign and Benefactor than the common occupations and habits of life can supply. It is this fact which makes Natural History and Philosophy so important and so interesting to

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Creation is everywhere a picture and an elucidation of its Maker's conceptions, reasonings, feelings, and will. The more we study it in this light, the more we shall know of Him; and the more fully and truly we know Him, the more we shall admire what we know, and love what we admire. To explore nature without the associated idea, that it is His mind and thoughts which we are beholding, is to forego the sublimest knowledge and sensibilities which are attainable by human nature. The God is in all his works, as much as the man is in his literary compositions. God has chosen the medium of language, whenever he has deemed it proper to have recourse to it; but he holds a constant communication with us by his creations and his providence, by his course of nature and by his direction of human history and life. It is for us to learn to read them as we ought: they cannot be so studied without expanding and enriching the mind, which thus applies itself to know, feel, and appreciate them; for it is the perfect wisdom of Omnipotence that we shall contemplate; and the comprehensive study of created nature becomes to us an oracle of enlightened Theology, and will prepare the mind for better receiving and appreciating its specific and invaluable revelations, (To be continued.)

Letters to a Mother, upon Education.
LETTER XXVII.

On learning Geography, &c. continued.

IN the same familiar manner you may teach your son the first principles of popular astronomy.

You may do this by an orrery. If you do it without, you can represent the sun as central, yet turning round on its own axis. Then you can represent the different planets revolving round him at different distances, one orbit within another. Then you can teach him the doctrine of our moon revolving round this earth, and the same of Jupiter's moons revolving around Jupiter. Then that all the stars which are external to the orbit of the planet most distant from the sun are called the fixed stars.

Teach him also to distinguish the constellations: tell him how the idea of constellations originated; that the shepherds of Chaldea, who were also learned men and often kings, since flocks in their days constituted the chief property of mankind, were the first astronomers, and used to observe and study the stars. That these men, in order to know where to find any particular star when they wanted, imagined the stars to be like different things, just as your child may often have pleased himself by imagining castles and steeples in the fire; and that this imaginary grouping forms the several constellations. Make him familiar with those which are most striking, such as Orion, &c. After a lesson or two, he will point out to you the faint circle of stars which form the head, and next the bright stars which form the shoulders, the three brilliant stars which form the belt, and the numerous little stars which form the sword, and those which form the knees and the feet. Make him familiar also with the constellation called the Bear, or as others call it the Wain, or Waggon: show him the three stars which are like three horses, and the four stars which are like a square waggon. Tell him that the two last stars of the waggon are called the pointers, because they point towards the pole star that if he fancies a line drawn through these two stars and continued upwards, it will lead him to the pole star, a dim star of the third magnitude. Make him acquainted also with that beautiful constellation, the Northern Crown, or circle nearly complete of faint stars. Teach him also to distinguish Cassiopeia's Chair, or the Lady in her Chair, as others call it: the two stars which stand for the two tips of the chair's back, the three or four which constitute the seat, and the two brilliant stars for the feet.

A knowledge of these and some few others will add interest to a winter's evening. They will serve too for many reflections in after-life: when after many years and changes are gone by, should he live, he will look up to these constellations shining in all their wonted brilliance, and he will derive not merely the melancholy pleasure arising from the associations of youth and home which they suggest, but the useful lesson of the unchangeableness of the great Architect of all.

You can teach him also the reason why the pole star has its name. Thus, rectify the terrestrial globe in your parlour, and tell him, that if an iron rod, or some such thing, were to spring out of the north pole of the globe and extend to a wafer on the ceiling, then he would see that the world turns round in this slanting position, with the north pole towards this star; whence its name. You can proceed to explain the zodiac, or imaginary belt, extending 80 degrees across the heavens. He can get acquainted with the names of the signs and their order, by Dr. Watts's lines invented for the purpose.

"The Ram, the Bull, the heavenly Twins,
And next the Crab the Lion shines,
The Virgin, and the Scales;
The Archer, Scorpion, and the Goat,
The Man that holds the Water Pot,
And Fish with glittering tails."

Tell him that these are the names of the several constellations comprehended in that imaginary space called the Zodiac, and that the sun appears to pass through one after another, completing the whole journey in a year.

Examine him as to their names, thus - What sign is next to the Virgin, &c. Show him these upon the celestial globe. Make him acquainted with the Galaxy, or Milky-way it is a splendid and beautiful object.

You may then instruct him as to the alleged distances of the planets, the velocity with which light travels, &c. In another lesson you can explain the received theory of the tides that the waters being easily moved, are drawn up towards the sun or the moon when either passes over them, just as a stone at liberty is drawn towards the earth that if we could stand at a point some hundreds of miles high in the air, and could plainly see from thence, we should behold the waters of the ocean drawn into a vast heap by the attraction of the sun, thus of course drawing the waters from the shores, and making low tide; then the tide is down: and that when the sun or moon, by the earth's moving onward, ceases to attract the waters, the heap of waters gradually flows down again, and occasions what we call the high tide. Save this lesson, however, if you can, till you reach the sea-side, at a time when he can understand the subject.

I need not remind you how superficial all this is: at the same time it is needful that your child should know something of this subject when his understanding and age are sufficiently mature; and the knowledge you may thus communicate to him will be enough for all ordinary purposes for some time to come. All this you can readily teach him in a lesson of an hour every day for a month, provided that you confine yourself to the communication of principles only, and that you clearly understand them yourself: all beyond this point may be left to be made the subject of future acquisition. I am, dear Madam, yours, &c.

CLERICUS.

BRITISH AND ROMAN SLAVERY.

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SLAVERY, among the ancient Romans, was founded on the right of conquest. They seem to have usually acted," observes Mr. Blair on the Roman Slavery, "upon the rule of granting life and liberty to enemies who surrendered without a contest; but of carrying away as prisoners those who had made resistance. The most of such captives, often after the humiliation of being led in triumph, were sold into slavery, or sent to fight in the amphitheatre as gladiators or combatants with wild beasts; but some were usually retained by the state as public slaves."

"Colonial slavery," observes Mr. Halley, in his Sinfulness of Colonial Slavery, "is the bondage, not of the warrior, but of the kidnapper and man-stealer. Were we to go back to the infancy and early rudiments of the world, we could not vindicate it, even by the license of that imperfect state of morals and religion. It is not retaliation, which was then permitted, but the original and unprovoked infliction of wrong. Were we Jews, it is forbidden by Moses; were we heathens, it is condemued by the light of nature. When did the Negro race attempt to enslave us or our ancestors? When did their vessels visit our shores, and their armed men burn our villages, break up our families, carry

away our children, and doom them to cruel, hopeless, exhausting, interminable bondage?"

Mr. Blair gives the following illustrations of the system of Ronian slavery. "The most common terms for slaves are generally thought to be derived from words expressive of capturing, or of preserving; and a few examples will suffice to show how abundant a supply of bondsmen was obtained by the Romans in their wars. After the fall of the Samnites at Aquilonia, 2,553,000 (or 2,033,000) pieces of brass were realized by the sale of prisoners, who amounted to about 36,000. Lucretius brought from the Volscian war 1,250 captives; and, by the capture of one inconsiderable town, no less than 4,000 slaves were obtained. The number of the people of Epirus, taken and sold for behoof of the army under Paulus Æmilius, was 150,000. On the Romans' descent upon Africa, in the first Punic war, they took 20,000 prisoners. Gelon, prætor of Syracuse, having routed a Carthaginian army, took so many captives, that he gave 500 of them to each of several citizens of Agrigentum. On the great victory of Marius and Catullus over the Cimbri, 60,000 were captured. When Pendenissus was taken by Cicero, the inhabitants were sold for more than 100,000. Augustus, having overcome the Salassi, sold, as slaves, 36,000, of whom 8,000 were capable of bearing arins. Julius Cæsar is said, by Plutarch and Appian, to have taken, in his Gallic wars alone, no fewer than 1,000,000 of prisoners; a statement which is, no doubt, much exaggerated, but which shows that the number was considered to be great perhaps we may adopt the estimate of Velleius Paterculus, who says merely that they exceeded 400,000."

ON THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.
No. IV. THE WISDOM OF GOD.
(Concluded from p. 163.)

3. THE REDEMPTION OF THE WORLD, furnishes us with the last and the greatest display of the Wisdom of the Deity, setting forth every attribute of his nature with a vividness and a vigour to which creation had heretofore been a stranger. No man of sound sense will be disposed to deny that the grand object of every government must be the suppression of crime, and the encouragement of virtue. And if even our feeble and immature reason supposes and perceives the importance of this as a general principle, shall we suppose, nay, is it not blasphemy to think, that the Deity can wink at sin, and overlook transgression? Now, wickedness had entered the dwelling-places of the sons of men; nay, it had established itself firmly in the world, insomuch that depravity filled every heart, and the treasonflag of rebellion floated over every province of the Almighty's jurisdiction. We have the warrant of Scrip. ture in asserting, that God was moved with compassion when he beheld the wretched and lost condition of the creatures whom he had formed, and for whose eternal happiness he was most anxious. Their state of alienation grieved him, and he resolved to proclaim deliverance to the long enslaved captives of sin, and recovering of sight to the blind. But how was this to be accomplished? For God to proclaim forgiveness was impossible; for man to purchase forgiveness was equally impossible; for what offering could he have presented to the throne of the Deity, wherewith to appease the greatness of his anger, or satisfy the mighty debt which unnumbered transgressions had contracted. Had heaven been stript of its bright and glorious jewellery, and every human being piled up in huge mounds the possessions he had acquired and the riches he possessed, would that have been sufficient to procure the ransom of the prisoners? Oh no! It would only have

been giving to God what was his own, and mocking au insulted Benefactor, by striving to appease him with an offering taken out of his own treasuries. It is in this point of view that I am convinced of the utter impossibility which existed for man to atone for sin. And yet sin is to be atoned for. The gracious Parent of the Universe could not suffer the creatures whom he had formed, to go forth into a world waste and howling as a wilderness, and black with the gathering storms of his almighty wrath, and doom them to groan through weary years beneath the scorpion scourge of despair, without one glimmering hope of better days, without one peaceful prospect of a serener sky. Far be it from me to deny that man deserves this; but happy am I to be able to declare, that God determined that mercy should be heard to the utmost extent, and that of man should be exacted much less than his iniquity deserved. And truly it was not an easy task to find out a means whereby mercy might flow compatibly with justice; and had not the Deity exerted his infinite wisdom, ruined sinners might for ever have groped their dismal way, surrounded by a darkness too intense to be penetrated by any bright rays of hope. Since, therefore, the mighty secret was known only to the Deity, we may be sure that his love to our fallen race was immense, otherwise he would never have revealed that, in the execution of which, his own Son was so deeply concerned. For the fact is, that to accomplish the redemption of mankind it was indispensably necessary that the eternal Son of God should leave the throne of Omnipotence, take upon him the form of a servant, fulfil the law which man had broken, and at length suffer an ignominious and cruel death upon the cross. I am quite willing to own that I am unable to understand how the death of Christ atoned for our sins. Nor do I blush in making the confession, for I am taught to believe that it is a mystery into which angels desire to look. Nay, I have no doubt that the business of eternity will in some measure consist in discovering as much as it is possible for created and glorified beings to know concerning the death and redemption of Christ. It is quite enough for my purpose to be able to declare, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, that he has accepted the offering of Christ, and that the only obstruction to the final salvation of every human being, is their own obstinacy and hardness of heart. Here, therefore, we perceive that the apparently conflicting attributes of inercy and justice are reconciled, inasmuch as Christ paid to the last farthing of each man's debt. And here I think it will not be improper to mention the convincing proof which this fact affords of the essential divinity of our Lord. Make him a creature (I care not if you call him ten thousand times higher than the highest archangel), and you do away at once with the possibility of his offering any thing to God by way of atonement; for I must own, that to my mind there is something paradoxical in supposing that that can be called a gift or an offering, which is in fact absolutely the rightful possession of him to whom it is given.

The several parts of this subject which have now passed under consideration, rank high in their interest and importance, for they comprehend doctrines indissolubly connected with the present and eternal happiness of the human race; and much would it delight me if my feeble efforts should be the means of causing even one heart to be lifted up in adoration of that glorious and eternal Being, whose wisdom is wonderful and excellent. Of this I am quite sure, that no one can avoid perceiving the great lessons here inculcated. A few remarks of a practical nature will close the subject.

The present life is one which experience testifies to

be full of troubles. The smiles of youth and the blandishments of gaiety last not for ever: but are quickly succeeded by heavy cares and oppressing dif ficulties. Much, therefore, does it behove those who have the race of life yet to run, well to consider what it is they are entering upon. Many a wreck of youth ful promise remains, to tell the sad tale of what the end must be of those who have no better supporter than themselves. I hope, therefore, that our young readers will learn from all that has been written to fix their thoughts on God. No fear can then be entertained as to future consequences, for the Almighty is too wise ever to be outwitted by the wicked energies of man and demon. Let, therefore, fear be banished, let sorrow be laid aside; for who can fear, or who can grieve, when under the protection of One whose wisdom will be sure to order all things for the best, and will afford us every needful supply of grace. To him, therefore, let each man commit his soul in well doing. Seeing that hitherto he has worked with unerring wisdom, let us not suppose it possible that our difficulties are too mighty for him to overrule; and let us wait with patience till that final consummation of all things, when it will be permitted us to join with the heavenly host in devoutly saying, "He hath done all things well." B. Z.

CONVERSION OF THE DUKE OF LEEDS. Anecdote relating to Leslie's work, entitled "A Short and Easy Method with the Deist," first published in 1714, by the Rev. Charles Leslie, M. A.

THE history of the Tract of Leslie may teach the reader how to estimate the importance and value of the testiimony as to the truth of the Christian religion, derived from the existence of the Sacrament. The anecdote, given by Jones of Nayland, came through Dr. Delany from Captain Leslie, the son of the Author.

It was the fortune of Mr. Leslie to be acquainted with the Duke of Leeds of that time, who observed to him, that although he was a believer in the Christian religion, he was not satisfied with the common modes of proving it; that the argument was long and complicated, so that some had neither leisure nor patience to follow it, and others were not able to comprehend it; that, as it was the nature of all truth to be plain and simple, if Christianity were a truth, there must be some short way of showing it to be so and he wished Mr. Leslie would think of it. Such a hint to such a man, in the space of three days produced the rough draught of the "Short and Easy Method with the Deist," which he presented to the Duke, who read it over, and then said, "I thought I was a Christian before, but now I am sure of it: as I am indebted to you for converting me, I shall henceforth look on you as my spiritual father." And he acted accordingly, for he never came into his company afterwards without asking his blessing.

The providence of God, by the institution of the Sacrament, has afforded the gospel that short and easy proof of its truth, which it is the nature of all truth to have, which the unbeliever might have been justified in demanding, but which, now he is in possession of, renders him without excuse in his unbelief. The im portance and value attached to this testimony by the disciples of infidelity may be perceived in the eagerness they have shown to discover some fulse fact, which is accompanied with all the marks laid down as the infallible organs of truth by Leslie. Dr. Middleton is said to have inquired for twenty years, with the hope of finding some instance which might be set in opposition to the evidence of Christianity afforded by the Sacrament, and, with all his learning, inquired without success.