THE BIBLE. THE BIBLE. WHO composed the following essay on the Bible we may never know. It was found in Westminster Abbey, nameless and dateless :— A nation would be happy if it were governed by no other laws than those of this blessed book. It is so complete a system that nothing can be added to it. It affords a copy for the king, and a rule for the subject. It gives instructions to a senate, authority and directions to a magistrate. It cautions a witness, requires an impartial verdict from a jury, and furnishes the judge with his sentence. It sets the husband as lord of the household, and wife as mistress of the table-tells him how to rule, and her how to manage. It entails honour to parents, and enjoins obedience in children. It prescribes and limits the sway of the sovereign, rule of the ruler, and the authority of the master-commands the subjects to honour, and the servants to obey, and promises the blessing and protection of the Almighty to all that walk by its rules. It gives directions for weddings and burials. It promises food and raiment, and limits the use of both. It points out a faithful and eternal guardian to the departing husband and father-tells him with whom to leave his fatherless children, and whom is widow is to trust-and promises a father to the former and a husband to the latter. It teaches a man how to set his house in order and how to make his will it appoints a dowry for his wife, and entails the right of the first-born, and shows how the younger branches shall be left. It defends the right of all, and reveals vengeance to every defaulter, over-reacher and oppressor. It is the first book, the best book, and the oldest book in the world. It contains the choicest matter, gives the best instruction, affords the greatest pleasure and satisfaction that were ever enjoyed. It contains the best laws and most profound mysteries that ever were penned; it brings the best comforts to the inquiring and disconsolate. THE BIBLE. It exhibits life and immortality from everlasting, and shows them to glory. It is a brief recital of all that is to come. It settles all matter in debate, resolves all doubt, and eases the mind and conscience of their scruples. It reveals the only living and true God, and shows the way to Him; and sets aside all other gods, and describes the vanity of them, and all that trust in such; in short, is a book of laws to show right and wrong; a book of wisdom, that condemns all folly and makes the foolish wise; a book of truth, that detects all lies and confutes all errors, and a book of life that shows the way from everlasting death. It is the most compendious book in the world; the most authentic and the most entertaining history that was ever published. It contains the most ancient antiquities, strange events, wonderful occurrences, heroic deeds, unparalleled wars. It describes the celestial and internal world, and the origin of the angelic myriads, human tribes, and devilish legions. It will instruct the accomplished mechanic and the most profound artist. It reaches the best rhetorician, and exercises every power of the most skillful arithmetician, puzzles the wisest anatomist, and exercises the wisest critic. It is the best covenant that was ever agreed on; the best evidence that was ever produced; the best deed that was ever signed; the best will that was ever drawn. To understand it is to be wise indeed; to be ignorant of it, is to be destitute of wisdom. It is the king's best copy, the magistrate's best rule, the housewife's best guide, the servant's best dictionary, and the young man's best companion; it is the school boy's spelling-book, and the learned man's master-piece. It contains a choice grammar for a novice, and a profound mystery for a sage. It is the ignorant man's dictionary and the wise man's directory. It affords knowledge of witty inventions for the humorous and dark sayings for the grave, and is its own interpreter. It encourages the wise, the warrior, the swift, the overcomer, and promises an eternal reward to the excellent, the conqueror and the winner. And that which crowns all is that the Author is without partiality, and without hypocrisy-"In whom there is no variableness or shadow of turning." POETRY. Poetry. MY CHOICE. YES, I know there are stains on my carpet- Yes, I know my "black-walnut" is battered, And I know that my parlour is littered Yes, I know I have jackets that wear out, And I know there are lessons of spelling, Yes, I know there are four little bedsides Yet I would not change places with you. -Jennie Harrison. ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. Anecdotes and Selections. AFFLICTIONS AND TEMPTATIONS.-Afflictions hunt us again into God's parlour when we have leaped out. They are God's furnace, to burn up our dross; God's files, to rub off our rust; God's soap and fullersearth to fetch out our stains and spots; God's fan to blow away our chaff. The storm tries the building, and discovers which is built upon a rock, and which upon the sands. The storm tries the pilot. The touchstone tries the metal whether it be gold or copper. The furnace tries the gold whether it be pure or drossy. So afflictions and persecutions try the Christian. Paint will rub off with washing, but true beauty by washing will appear more beautiful. As the strings of an instrument make no melody till they be struck, or as the birds in spring sing most sweetly when it rains most sadly, so sufferings draw forth the activity, beauty, and fragrance of a Christian's graces. God will not spend His rods upon strangers, but upon His own children, because He loves them; and such afflictions, though bad things, are good signs. If God's people be sometimes foiled by temptations, they are hereby provoked to more watchfulness for the future in regard to themselves, and are enabled to more helpfulness towards others. As Christ said to Peter, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren; and as David promised after his recovery, then shall I teach transgressors thy ways, so of patients, they become physicians, and by having their own bones out of joint, they become skillful bone-setters unto others. When the wind blows hardest, the traveller girds his cloak to him the closest; when temptations are most violent and impetuous, we cling fastest to Christ lest we fall, and Christ clasps us fastest because we shall not fall.-Frances Roberts, 1657. THE LOVE OF CHRIST.-Oh, how shallow a soul I have to take in Christ's love; for let worlds be multiplied, according to angels' understanding, in millions, till they weary themselves, these worlds could not contain the thousandth part of His love! Oh, that I could join in among the throng of angels, and seraphim, and now glorified saints, and could raise a new love-soug to Christ, before all the world! I am pained with wondering at new-opened treasures in Christ! If every finger, member, bone and joint were a torch burning in the hottest fires in hell, I would that they could all send our love-praises, high songs of praise forevermore to that plant of renown, to that royal and high prince, Jesus my Lord! Oh, that my hairs, all my members, and all my bones were well-tuned tongues, to sing the high praises of my great and glorious king! Help me to lift up Christ upon His throne, and to lift Him up above all the thrones of the clay kings, the dying sceptrebearers of this world!-Rutherford. ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. SPOILING OUR FASCINATIONS.-Sir James Thornhill was the person who painted the inside of the cupola of St. Paul's, London. After having finished one of the compartments, he stepped back gradually to see how it would look at a distance. He receded so far (still keeping his eye intently fixed on the painting) that he was out almost to the very edge of the scaffolding without perceiving it. Had he continued to retreat, half a minute more would have completed his destruction, and he must have fallen to the pavement underneath. A person present, who saw the danger the great artist was in, had the happy presence of mind to suddenly snatch up one of the brushes and spoil the painting by rubbing it over. Sir James, transported with rage, sprang forward to save the remainder of the piece. But his rage was soon turned to thanks when the person told him, “Sir, by spoiling the painting, I have saved the life of the painter. You was advanced to the extremity of the scaffold without knowing it. Had I called out to you to apprise you of your danger, you would naturally have turned to look behind you, and the surprise of finding yourself in such a dreadful situation would have made you fall indeed. I had, therefore, no other way of retrieving you but by acting as I did." Similar, if I may so speak, is the method of God's dealing with His people. We are all naturally fond of our own legal performances. We admire them to our ruin, unless the Holy Spirit retrieve us from our folly. This He does by marring our best works,—that is, by showing us their insufficiency to justify us before God. When we are truly taught of Him, we thank Him for His grace instead of being angry at having our idols defaced. The only way by which we are saved from everlasting destruction is by being made to see that "by the deeds of the law no flesh living shall be justified."-Toplady. MAN'S AGE.-Professor Faraday believed in Flonrin's physiological theory that the age of man is one hundred years. The duration of life, he says, is to be measured by the time of growth. When once the bones and epiphyses are united, the body grows no more, and it is at twenty years this union is effected in man. In the camel it takes place at eight, in the horse at five, in the lion at four, in the dog at two, in the rabbit at one. The natural termination of life is five times that of the development period. Man being twenty years in growing, lives five times twenty years, that is to say one hundred years; the camel is eight years in growing, and lives forty years; the horse is five years in growing, and lives twenty-five years, and so with other animals. The man who does not die from disease, lives from eighty to a hundred years. Providence has given man a century of life, but he does not attain it because he inherits disease, eats unwholesome food, gives license to his passions, and permits vexation to disturb his healthy equipoise; he does not die, he kills himself. Life may be divided into two equal halves-growth and decline, and these into infancy, youth, virility, and age. Infancy extends to the twentieth year; youth to |