stition. The one is the favoured child of heaven, the other the offspring of the infernal regions. The one appears with a train of attendant graces, peace, joy, and love; the other is followed by a group of infernal harpies, discord, hatred, and oppression.

True religion is uniformly cheerful, from a consciousness of the divine favour; superstition is wrapped in gloom, with a view to recommend itself by rigid austerities; while religion is peaceable, gentle, merciful, long-suffering, and forbearing, superstition is severe, revengeful, uncharitable, and merciless. Superstition has often worn the mask of religion, and under this hypocritical disguise, she has been the parent of crimes that would make hell's inhabitants blush to see themselves so far outdone in wickedness. It was superstition that rejected and crucified the Messiah, and lighted the flames of persecution for his followers. It was superstition that reared the gloomy walls of the Inquisition, and invented the wheel and rack to overawe the consciences of men. The same superstition, in the first settlement in New-England, banished, and even put to death, the unoffending Quaker, in a land of professed Gospel light and liberty.

It is superstition that excites animosities among the professors of Christianity, and is the parent of all the unhappy divisions that have agitated the Christian world; and the same spirit of superstition that brands with opprobrious epithets the humble followers of the Redeemer, would, if the hydra were not chained by the civil law, again enkindle the flames of the auto da fé, and bind the victim to the stake. But while we view, with merited detestation, the black caricature of superstition, we are not to brand with this stigma the solemn requisitions of real devotion. The terror that sometimes fastens on an awakened mind is not the effect of superstition. It is not superstitious to believe in the solemn realities of heaven and hell, or to be suitably affected with the prospect of eternity. The idea of endless banishment from God is truly affecting; and no wonder if the dread of this gloomy separation from all good, together

the following to be inscribed on a large plate of brass enamelled, so contrived as to slide on rollers, and form the back of a wardrobe, and lock in a secret manner. At the top of the plate was painted, on the left side, himself in an infant state, and on the right, on a death bed, and underneath the lines,

I BELIEVE THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH,
AND THAT I ALSO SHALL RISE FROM

THE GRAVE.

JONAS HANWAY, ESQ.,

WHO, TRUSTING IN THAT GOOD PROVIDENCE

WHICH SO SENSIBLY GOVERNS THE WORLD,

PASSED THROUGH A VARIETY OF FORTUNES WITH PATIENCE. LIVING THE GREATEST PART OF HIS DAYS

IN FOREIGN LANDS, RULED BY ARBITRARY POWEK,

HE RECEIVED THE DEEPER IMPRESSION

OF THE HAPPY CONSTITUTION OF HIS OWN COUNTRY;

WHILST

THE PERSUASIVE LAWS CONTAINED IN THE

NEW TESTAMENT,

AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF HIS OWN DEPRAVITY,

SOFTENED HIS HEART TO A SENSE

OF THE VARIOUS WANTS OF HIS

FELLOW CREATURES.

READER,

INQUIRE NO FURTHER:

THE LORD HAVE MERCY ON HIS SOUL AND THINE.

Apprehensive of the too partial regard of his friends, and esteeming plain truth above the proudest trophies of monumental flattery, at the age of fifty he caused this plate and inscription to be made. He died September 5, 1786, aged seventy-four.

RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION.

THE inexperienced mind often imbibes a prejudice against religion, by confounding its effects with those of bigotry and superstition: but light and darkness are not more dif

stition.

The one is the favoured child of heaven, the other the offspring of the infernal regions. The one appears with a train of attendant graces, peace, joy, and love; the other is followed by a group of infernal harpies, discord, hatred, and oppression.

True religion is uniformly cheerful, from a consciousness of the divine favour; superstition is wrapped in gloom, with a view to recommend itself by rigid austerities; while religion is peaceable, gentle, merciful, long-suffering, and forbearing, superstition is severe, revengeful, uncharitable, and merciless. Superstition has often worn the mask of religion, and under this hypocritical disguise, she has been the parent of crimes that would make hell's inhabitants blush to see themselves so far outdone in wickedness. It was superstition that rejected and crucified the Messiah, and lighted the flames of persecution for his followers. It was superstition that reared the gloomy walls of the Inquisition, and invented the wheel and rack to overawe the consciences of men. The same superstition, in the first settlement in New-England, banished, and even put to death, the unoffending Quaker, in a land of professed Gospel light and liberty.

It is superstition that excites animosities among the professors of Christianity, and is the parent of all the unhappy divisions that have agitated the Christian world; and the same spirit of superstition that brands with opprobrious epithets the humble followers of the Redeemer, would, if the hydra were not chained by the civil law, again enkindle the flames of the auto da fé, and bind the victim to the stake. But while we view, with merited detestation, the black caricature of superstition, we are not to brand with this stigma the solemn requisitions of real devotion. The terror that sometimes fastens on an awakened mind is not the effect of superstition. It is not superstitious to believe in the solemn realities of heaven and hell, or to be suitably affected with the prospect of eternity. The idea of endless banishment from God is truly affecting; and no wonder if the dread of this gloomy separation from all good, together

the feelings to such a degree as to produce the keenest agony. You are not, therefore, to mistake the agonizing conviction of the awakened sinner for the effect of superstition.

It is madness to sport upon the brink of eternal ruin ; and he who can look unmoved upon the gulf of dark despair, is as void of feeling as of hope. Though cheerfulness is a characteristic of true religion, it becomes not the ungodly; and none but such as are in a state of grace and favour with God have any incentive to joy. While the sincerely pious stand before God in the endearing relation of children, and are entitled to all the privileges of their Father's house, the obstinately wicked have nothing to expect, while they continue impenitent, but the fierce indignation of the Almighty, that must for ever crush their souls beneath the weight of impending wrath!-Thayer's Letters.

THE AMERICAN OTTER.

THE otter inhabits South as well as various parts of North America, along the fresh-water streams and lakes, as far north as the Copper Mine river. In the southern, middle, and eastern States of the Union, they are comparatively scarce ; but in the western States they are in many places still found in considerable numbers. On the tributaries of the Missouri they are very common; but it is in the Hudson's Bay possessions that these animals are obtained in the greatest abundance, and supply the traders with the largest number of their valuable skins. Seventeen thousand three hundred otter skins have been sent, to England in one year by the Hudson's Bay company.

Nature appears to have intended the otter for one among her efficient checks upon the increase of the finny tribes, and every peculiarity of its conformation seems to have this great object in view. The length of body, short and flat head, abbreviated ears, dense and close fur, flattened tail, and disproportionately short legs with webbed feet, all conspire to facilitate the otter's movements through the water.

swiftly-moving and destructive animal, which unites to the qualities enabling him to swim with fish-like celerity and ease, the peculiar sagaciousness of a class of beings far superior in the intellectual scale to the proper tenants of the flood. In vain does the pike scud before this pursuer, and spring into the air in eagerness to escape; or the trout dart with the velocity of thought from shelter to shelter; in vain does the strong and supple eel seek the protection of the shelving bank, or the tangled ooze in the bed of the stream; the otter supplies by perseverance what may be wanting in swiftness, and by cunning what may be deficient in strength; and his affrighted victims, though they may for a short time delay, cannot avert their fate. When once his prey is seized, a single effort of his powerful jaws is sufficient to render its struggles unavailing; one crush with his teeth breaks the spine of the fish behind the dorsal fin, and deprives it of the ability to direct its motions, even if it still retain the least power to move.

The residence of the otter is a burrow or excavation in the bank of a stream or river, and the entrance to this retreat is under water; at some distance from the river an air-hole is generally to be found opening in the midst of a bush, or other place of concealment. The burrow is frequently to be traced for a considerable distance, and in numerous instances leads to the widely-spreading roots of large trees, underneath which the otter finds a secure and comfortable abode. The winter residence is generally chosen in the vicinity of falls or rapids, where the water is least liable to be closed from the severity of the cold, and where the otter may find the readiest access to the fish, upon which his subsistence depends. Otters have been seen during the coldest parts of winter at very considerable distances from their usual haunts, or from any known open water, as well as upon the ice of large lakes; a circumstance that appears the more singular, as this animal is not known to kill game. on land at this season. When the otter is in the woods where the snow is light and deep, it dives if pursued, and moves with considerable rapidity under the snow. But its