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passage an allusion to baptism-the sprinkling of the heart being typified by the washing of the body. In this case we are reminded of the ancient promise: "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you." And if this view be correct, there is an interesting parallelism in the

passage,

"Let us draw near with a true heart,
In full assurance of faith,

Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience,
And our bodies washed with pure water;"

as if he said, "We were rebels, and far from our Lord-conscious of rebellion, and therefore unable to draw near. But having this evil consciousness washed away by the blood of sprinkling, we may draw near as leal-hearted subjects of the King of Zion; and let us come in full and assured confidence, having received that ordinance which he has appointed to be the visible seal and pledge of all his gracious promises, and of our reconciliation.

PASSAGES FROM LUTHER.

GREAT Occasions are necessary to form great orators. You may teach a man as you will in the halls of academies, and enrich his mind with the knowledge of arts and sciences, and refresh his taste by disciplining him in rhetoric; but if there be no great movements going on in the world, he " may sheath his sword for lack of argument." Had Greece not been endangered by Philip of Macedon, we might never have been awed by the thunders of Demosthenes. Who would have heard of Cicero as an orator, had he not lived in the crisis of the republic? Now it was to be expected that at the era of the Reformation, when questions came to be agitated, of all others the most important, when the truth of Christianity burst upon the minds of men with the freshness of a first revelation, and they were awakened to an indignant sense of having been the victims of priestly tyranny-it was to be expected that the finest displays of fervid eloquence would be elicited. Nor are we disappointed. The Reformers, indeed, had no leisure, either in their pulpit addresses or in their writings, to study the artificial graces, though these not are altogether awanting, and we discover in both, so far as preserved, that they brought to the reformation of the abuses of Christianity, a style formed upon the best models of heathen antiquity.

Were we asked to single out the men who might most truly be considered as the orators of the Reformation, we could have no hesitation in pointing to John Knox and Martin Luther. They were, neither of them, so much writers as speakers. The former tells us that he never considered himself as called to edify the Church by the pen, but by "his lively voice."

The other has, no doubt, left many treatises behind him; but none would rest his fame upon them. They are written orations. His Commentary upon the Galatians, for instance, will never take its place, for connected and systematic composition, beside the productions of the great expositor of Geneva. It has all the confusion, as well as the fiery vehemence which were inseparable from his temperament. Yet the eloquence of the Scotch and that of the German Reformer were very different. There is a vehemence, no doubt, in the former, as well as in the other, but it is ever under the keeping of a severe judgment. In Knox's style there is a gravity and dignity continually observed; and even when hei s most impassioned, the understanding is still the predominating faculty. But Luther had a vast organ of imagination. He has the originality and the temperament of genius; and there is an intrinsic heroism in his sentiments, which it would be difficult to define in words, but the sublimity of which there is no contesting.

In a former paper, we adduced one or two short specimens of his style of preaching. In the following extract, his subject is the neglect of the Bible in the academies. It was superceded by Aristotle, who exercised such a baneful influence over the minds of men, that our Reformer made it one of his well-known propositions-" He that would be wise in Christ, must first be stultified in Aristotle."

But see what the devil has done in the person of his friends the Papists, who, not satisfied with casting aside this book [the Bible], and so proscribing it that few doctors of theology know its name, or read its

pages, must brand it besides as an abomination, wrapping it up as it were in a filthy and sordid cloth, that none might bring it forth, and blasphemously asserting the falsehold that it is obscure, and unintelligible without human glosses! What is this, but to give Paul the lie? (Rom. xv. 4.) He tells us that it is a book for instruction. They would persuade us that it is obscure, and will lead us into error. What punishment ought God to send upon such blasphemers and murderers of the Scripture? Should he make me one of his advisers, I would entreat him, that since they accuse the Bible of obscurity, and would hide it as pestilential reading from the eyes and from the hearts of men, he would judicially give them up to Aristotle, to Averro, and the endless laws and glosses of the pope, till driven at last to the extreme of madness, they dedicate their whole life to Aristotle-ay, and reap nothing for their pains, though afterwards they might purchase for themselves (simple asses that they are) the degree of masters of art, and doctors of theology, when not one of them has learned more than a child of five years old, or what the merest idiot knows by instinct! Indeed, Aristotle is a hundred times more obscure than the Holy Scriptures, and what he does teach is abundantly ridiculous. Have you any wish to know what he teaches? A potter can fashion a vessel of clay, which no other workman could make unless he first learned the trade! This is the most exalted piece of wisdom our eminent philosopher and abstruse volumes which they ply with so much communicates to his disciples, in any of the numerous If you find anything more sublime than

ardour.

DIVINE IMPARTIALITY.

this in all Aristotle, never trust me again; and so much I undertake to prove, whenever you wish it. I mention this just to make you aware how abundantly God has recompensed the blasphemy of the Papists in bringing contempt upon the Holy Scriptures, and branding it as a dangerous book. The effect of which has been, that it has been cast to the moles and bats, and trampled in the dust; and minds of the very first order have been crushed under the influence of that dead heathen philosopher, himself a writer of the profoundest obscurity; what I have already quoted being the very best thing he ever wrote: I say nothing of other passages in which he entertains his readers with nothing less than the rankest poison. The academies deserve to be reduced to ashes, one and all of them. Never since the creation came there into the world anything which could once be compared to this, more pestilential in its consequences, more exactly representing hell and the devil.

The passage which we subjoin is not taken from the volume of discourses; but we have translated it as containing, perhaps, the finest specimen of Luther's eloquence, and the grandeur of his spirit, which could be produced from any of his writings. It is contained in a letter by the Reformer to one of his friends, which stands prefixed to his answer to Henry VIII.

Three years and more have passed since the Papists in their frenzied rage have accused me of flying to Bohemia-areport which they swallow with wonderful eagerness-warlike men, forsooth, triumphing and "We have conquered!—the glorying in this one thing, heretic has fled to the heretics!" It is thus that this mad and unlearned beast of Popery, when it has found itself vanquished by argument and truth, and that the whole herd of their asses cannot stand before one Luther, writhing with vexation, burning with rage, has breath only for this one word, that I fly to Bohemia. No doubt, it comforts them to have cast a stigma upon another's name; and they would hold themselves out in the meantime as very terrible who, for ignorance and a bad conscience, can appear nowhere!

I have appeared now three times before them. Last of all, I entered Worms, though I knew that the emperor had broken public faith; for the princes of Germany, a nation once noted for its honour, can now in obsequiousness to the Roman idol, and to their eternal disgrace, trample the most solemn pledges under foot. Thus did this fugitive and timid Luther dare to leap into the very jaws of Behemoth. But these tremendous giants-what have they done? The third year has come, and not one has been found to undertake the discussion with me at Wittemberg, certified though they would have been of the full protection of the emperor. And these are the effeminate and heartless men who look for a triumph from my flight, and hope in this manner to wipe off the shameful cowardice for which they are sounded throughout the universe, inasmuch as they dared not, in the rawness and fearfulness of their spirits, to face one Luther! What, think you, would all these poor bulls of the pope avail them, had they to withstand the enmity of the emperor, and hosts of adversaries? Forsooth, these wretches would have fled into a thousand corners, who now in their kennels, like so many mice, are muttering, "Luther meditates a flight." The king of England, too, clatters with so much venom about my flight to Bohemia. No doubt, he is a wise man, and believes that his book must be triumphant, and well written, if Luther has fled to

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Bohemia. So fatuous and weak is the envy of a foolish
king!

Now, for my own part, I would visit Bohemia with great pleasure, and see the religion which these Popish monsters detest so much; but I have not gone yet, nor do I intend it. Not that I regard the stigma which these dregs of men, the Papists, have sought to fasten upon a noble people, for the Bohemians did well in separating themselves from these homicides and antiChristian Papists, who burned the innocent John Huss.

I fear not, then, the reproach of the Bohemian name -I glory in it before God. But Christ has placed me here, that I may vex these Popish monsters, whose envy, incredible as it may appear, can discover nothing in me upon which it can fasten. Christ would have them crucified by their own envy. Here, therefore, wait I for them, and will wait their impotent malice, that I may vex them, and torture them while I live. But, should they slay me, I shall but vex them the more; for I am set up a prodigy unto them by my Lord Jesus Christ, that whether they have me alive, or put me to the death, they shall find no peace nor comfort of conscience, the victims of a double contrition, crucified presently by envy, and doomed to suffer the eternal torment of hell. Yes; the day is come for the death of that detestable Papacy. Its inevitable fate approaches; and, as Daniel says, "It has come to its end, and none shall help it." Well, we rush upon each other-they in the extremity of their rage, and I with consummate contempt. And my boldness in Christ Jesus shall overcome the last struggle of their fury, which has already waxed pale.

DIVINE IMPARTIALITY.

A

"THERE is no respect of persons with God."
No partiality through ignorance, indifference,
injustice, or sovereignty-not from a regard to
any natural distinction of body or mind.
strong, beautiful body, has no preference for
acceptance to one weak, sickly, and deformed.
Nor does the largest understanding, the most
retentive memory, the strongest rational
powers, find favour with him, before those of
more limited faculties. Nor doth national dis-
tinction recommend to his regard; for "in
every nation, he that feareth God and worketh
righteousness, is fequally] accepted of him."
He regards no person as a Jew, or rejects any
as a Gentile. He rejected Judas, the wicked
Jew, and accepted Cornelius, the believing
Gentile. Neither doth any ciril distinction of
Nor does the
rank, office, or power, nor blood, nor birth, se-
cure his favourable notice.
acquisition of wealth, learning, or reputation
among men, afford the least spiritual pre-emi-
nence. "He regardeth not the rich more than
the poor; for they are both the work of his
hands."

No man's person is accepted, because he stands related to the righteous. Cain and Abel were brothers, Jacob and Esau, Isaac and Ishmael, confirm this truth; for in each family one was accepted and the other rejected. The Jews, who call Abraham fain vain his relation to him. He saw Abraham ther, are "cast off;" and Dives, in hell, pleaded

afar off-cried "Father Abraham!" and, "in hell, lifted up his eyes, being in torments."

1. This doctrine proves the importance of faith, without which the wicked in prosperity may think themselves the favourites of Heaven; and the righteous in adversity envy the wicked, and fear they are rejected. (Ps. xxxvii.)

2. It proves the importance of character in the sight of God, as it is the only thing he respects, as honourable to his holiness and his grace. He respected Abel and his offering, as a believer; he had respect to the faith, fear, and prayers of Cornelius; and he respects the prayers of his people in their afflictions, by supporting, improving, and delivering them.

3. It warns persons of every condition not to imagine themselves accepted of God, on account of any external or even internal superiority to others, whilst destitute of the grace of God; and directs them to seek happiness in Christ and spiritual blessings. (Heb. xi. 6.)

4. It should inspire contentment and gratitude in the poor; considering, that while external advantages are no evidence of the Divine favour, and often prove the occasion of more sin and misery, God often renders their poverty and afflictions blessings to them, but never rejects them as poor and afflicted. (James ii. 5.)

5. It teaches all to imitate God, by having respect to principle and character in poor and rich; and to esteem them as "the excellent of the earth."

6. It reproves the Churches which either admit members or choose officers for their rank, wealth, or learning; instead of showing them respect, as they are men "of faith and wisdom, and full of the Holy Spirit."

7. The folly of "looking to "-contemplating with supreme complacency" the things which are seen and temporal, and the wisdom of living under the governing power of things unseen and eternal."

the same fault, because the Galatians had been foreinstructed, and sinned against more light. In all the Bible, though it be a history of more than four thousand years, we read of but one that converted just before his death; and we do believe that he also did convert at his first convincing call.

You, as plainly as elder people, do dare God to damn you, all the while you delay your conversion. Therefore it is your duty to convert presently. I have heard of a man much accustomed to cursing in his health, that could not utter any word but a curse in his sickness; could not pronounce "Yes" or “ No;” but as oft as he spoke, in several months' time, he'l bid God to damn. "A most frightful thing!" you will say. And yet, young people, I take you to be in very like condition, all that delay your conversion.

For the language of practice is, with God and men, as significant as any; if not more. If you practically bid God damn you, you are of the same spirit with them who verbally bid him so do: and, if I know anything, delayers do bid him in deeds, as certainly as any sinners do in their words. I appeal to your very own thoughts in the case:

You are corrupted with sin, and condemned for it. The grace of God tells you to come and take your pardon and your cure; but tells you, "Now is your time;" promises you no breath of life but what is in your nostrils, nor any offer of cure or pardon after the first; in every precept, requires present coming. Your delaying, therefore, is running the venture. And that adventuring is plain saying, "Lord, if now, just now, be the time, I shall not take hold of it. Though I burn, I will not yet turn. Thou dost not promise to stay longer for me; but, if thou wilt not," damn and do thy worst with me. I would rather thou wouldest change thy word. Blot, 'Now in the days of thy youth,' out of the Bible: write, Remember thy Creator when thou art old and bedridden.' But, if this thou wilt not do, I will live under thy threatening wrath; and let its vials fall on me, if they must: I am set against present conversion for thy peace."—Burgess.

THE SALT OF THE EARTH.

This impartiality of God is perfectly consistent with the doctrine of sovereign grace, by which unmerited favours are bestowed on the chief of sinners. This is in harmony with THE religious of a nation are not its enemies, not justice, which is honoured in their salvation. the troublers of a nation, not the pests of a state, the Here the Jewish and Gentile sinners meet. disturbers of a peace, as some count them. Abub They possess no claim on Divine goodness; in indeed reviled Elijah as one "that troubled Israel" exercising which the divine will is the onlyKings xviii. 17); but David would not have said so. rule. "All that call on Jesus shall be saved." (Rom. x., xi., xii.) To the humble believer (Isa. Ixvi. 2), to the afflicted believer (Ps. exxxviii. 6), and to the praying believer (1 Kings viii. 28), God has respect.

HEAR AND FEAR.

GREATER and lesser of you, hear and fear! Hell gapes for all delaying unconverts; and, of any, is likeliest to swallow up those whose delays are against convictions. Peter Martyr says, St. Paul dealt more severely with the Galatians than the Romans for

He was a godly king, and had other thoughts of his godly subjects; he calls them "the excellent of the earth," and "all his delight" was in them. (Ps. xvi. 3.) The Jews said of the apostles, that they had "turned the world upside down;" but they were unbelieving Jews that said it. (Acts xvii. 5, 6.) The same apostles were counted "the off-scouring of all things, and the filth of the earth" (1 Cor. iv. 13); but it was by those that rather were such themselves. The idolatrous Heathens were wont to condemn the Christians as the cause of all the public calamities that befell them; but they were Heathens that did so. Yet sometimes we shall find wicked men themselves under a conviction of the contrary, and clearing them of this imputation. Sometimes they beg their prayers: sometimes wish themselves in their condition, and

A PARENT'S ANGER.

whatever they esteem them while they live, they would be like them when they die. Wicked Balaam would "die the death of the righteous." (Numb. xxiii. 10.) Thus conscience absolves whom malice had condemned; and when men come to be cool and sober, they purge the godly from those crimes with which, while they were heated with passion, or intoxicated with a concern for some contrary interest, they had groundlessly aspersed them.

True, indeed, the religious of a people almost everywhere are the occasion of divisions and distractions; and so was Christ himself. He "came to send fire on the earth;" and not "to give peace, but rather division" (Luke xii. 49, 51); nay, "a sword" (Matt. x. 34); "to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." (Matt. x. 35.) And yet nor Christ nor his saints are really the troublers of the world, nor the direct and proper causes of those broils and confusions which many times have been made on their accounts; which indeed proceed from the lusts of the wicked, not the graces of the godly. Sinners cannot endure the light of the truth, nor the power of holiness in the lives of saints; and therefore quarrel with them: but are those saints to be blamed for such troubles as, only accidentally, and by reason of the corruptions of others, arise on their doing but their duty? Is a bridge to be blamed for troubling the water, because, keeping its place, it stops the water's passage, and is the occasion of its swelling and roaring? Are sheep to be blamed for incensing the wolves? or doves, for provoking the hawks? Truly, just such incendiaries are God's children in the places where they live: they disquiet their neighbours only by the good things they enjoy, which others love and covet, and fain would get from them; or by the good they do, which wicked men hate, and fain would hinder in them. The quarrels of the ungodly world with "the holy seed" among them, are but like that of Cain with Abel: he "slew his brother, because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." (1 John iii. 12.)-Collins.

TROUBLOUS TIMES.

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WHEN Bulstrode Whitelocke was embarking, in the year 1653, as ambassador for Sweden, he was much disturbed in his mind, as he rested at Harwich on the preceding night, which was stormy, while he reflected on the distracted state of the nation. It happened that a good and confidential servant slept in an adjacent bed, who, finding that his master could not sleep, at length said, "Pray, sir, will you give me leave to ask you a question? "Certainly." "Pray, sir, don't you think that God governed the world very well before you came into it?" "Undoubtedly." "And pray, sir, don't you think he will govern it quite as well when you are gone out of it? tainly." 'Then, sir, don't you think you may trust him to govern it properly as long as you live?" To this last question Whitelocke had nothing to reply; but turning himself about, soon fell fast asleep, till

he was called to embark.

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A CHANGE FOR THE WORSE.

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WE may now walk in the streets on God's holy day, and not hear the least noise of a psalm or sound of a spiritual song. It was, not long since, the wont of

551

the Puritans, who were the most precious Christians, to echo forth the praises of the great Jehovah in this duty, especially upon the Lord's-day. Then was there a holy choir in their houses: their children were the little birds to sing the praises of their Creator; the servants likewise joining in the harmony to make up a fuller music. But, alas! now the voice of the bride, singing to her Beloved, is not heard in the places of our abode; there silence instead of singing, and prating instead of praising, frivolous discourses instead of joyous praises. It might behove us to ponder how much of heaven do we lose in neglecting this service! In singing psalms we begin the work of heaven. In heaven we read of "the song of Moses and of the Lamb," and of "a new song. And the angels, though they have not tongues, yet they have voices to sing the praises of the Most High; and, therefore, that this heavenly service is so neglected and unexercised, "is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation."-Wells.

"

A PARENT'S ANGER.'

THE wickedness of unconverted children is oftentimes occasioned by the sinful severity of their parents. They are provoked, and that to sin, by irregular passions, specially that of an inordinate and immoderate anger.

1. Rash anger.-When parents are soon angry with their children, when they will not give leave to their judgments to consider before they are angry. (James i. 19.) The wise man tells us, "The discretion of a man deferreth his anger," and that "it is his glory to pass over a transgression" (Prov. xix. 11); but brands rash anger with the mark of folly: "He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly." (Prov. xiv. 17.) It was grave advice to one, not to be angry at any time, till he had first repeated the Greek alphabet. To be angry without any cause, or upon every trivial, slight occasion; for anything that is not material in itself or in its consequent; for mere involuntary and casual offences and slips in our children, such as without great care could not have been prevented; and for these to be so far exasperated as to begin to hate or more remissly to love them; is for a father to fire the beacon of his soul for the landing of a cockboat. It is that that exposes the father to his child's contempt and God's judgment. (Matt. v. 22.)

2. When a parent's anger is too frequent, too hot, or too long. Anger must be used, as a medicine, only now and then, and that only on a just occasion; otherwise it loseth its efficacy, or hurts the patient. Again: anger, when too hot, vehement, excessive, provokes. It is true, it must be serious; there must be some life and warmth in it: but then when it swells into an excess and transport of passion, it provokes. Such an excess of anger, like a ball of wildfire, is very apt to inflame the child's breast, and to provoke him into a sinful return of wrath and strife. (Prov. xv. 18.) Lastly: anger, when too long, when it lies soaking in the breast, is apt to putrefy. If the sun arises and sets on a man in his wrath, the text tells us who is like to be his bed-fellow. (Eph. iv. 26, 27.) "Anger resteth in the bosom of fools." (Eccles. vii. 9.) And well may it provoke a child, though criminal, to see his father's bosom, where

once he lay, to be now become anger's couch and is apt to stifle our belief of it. "They believed not Satan's pillow. for joy." (Luke xxiv. 41.)-Adam.

Thus you see that irregular passions in severe parents are no little provocations and spurs to sin and wrath in their disobedient children: they are like those smart cantharides or Spanish flies-the most speedy and effectual means to raise blisters.Lye.

THE HAND OF GOD IS HERE.

MICHEL was under-sheriff to Sir Anthony Hunderford in the last year of Queen Mary. When the writ for the execution of Richard White and John Hunt was brought to Mr. Michel, instead of burning them, he burnt the writ; and before the same could be renewed, Dr. Geffrey (the bloody Chancellor of Salisbury, who had procured it), and Queen Mary were both dead, to the miraculous preservation of God's poor servants. -Fuller.

LINES ON A SAMPLER.

JESUS! permit thy gracious name to stand
As the first effort of an infant's hand;
And as her fingers on the sampler move,
Engage her tender heart to seek thy love:
With all thy children may she have a part;
And write thy name, thyself, upon her heart.

PETER'S EARLY MISTAKE.

"WHEN Simon Peter saw it (the miraculous draught of fishes), he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." (Luke v. 8.) Foolish man! to whom should the physician come but to the sick? and foolish thing, to imagine that the patient must be recovered before he comes!-Ford.

WHAT IS MAN?

I SOMETIMES see, as I sit in my pew during the service, an idle fellow saunter in. He gapes about him for a few minutes; finds nothing to interest or affect him; seems scarcely to understand what is going forward; and after a lounge or two, goes out again. I look at him and think, "You are a wonderful creature! A perfect miracle! What a machine is that body!-curiously-fearfully-wonderfully framed! An intricate, delicate, but harmonious and perfect

structure! And then, to ascend to your soul!-its nature!-its capacities!—its actual state !-its desig

Abraham sent away the sons of the concubines with | a few gifts; but he settled the inheritance upon Isaac. | (Gen. xxv. 5, 6.) God sends away the wicked with riches and honour, but makes over himself to his people. They have not only the gift, but the Giver. And what can be more? As Micah said, "What have I more?" (Judg. xviii. 24): so what hath '| God more to give than himself? What greater dowry than Deity? God is not only the saints' rewarder, but their "reward." "The Almighty shall be thy gold." (Job xxii. 25.) The sum of all is: the saints' portion lies in God: "The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup." (Ps. xvi. 5.)— Watson.

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We often want to know too much, and too soon. We want the light of to-morrow, but it will not come till to-morrow. And then a slight turn, perhaps, will throw such light on our path that we shall be astonished we saw not our way before. "I can wait," says Lavater. This is a high attainment. We must labour, therefore, to be quiet in that path from which we cannot recede without danger and evil.-Cecil.

WORLD-ITS EMPTINESS." Whoso drinketh of this water shall thirst again." (John iv. 13.)

SOCINIANS.-A band of baptized Turks.-Polhill. There are some solitary creatures, who seem to have left the rest of mankind only as Eve left Adam, to meet the devil in private.

One reason why the world is not reformed is, because every man would have others make a beginning, and never thinks of himself.-Adam.

My great controversy is with myself; and I am resolved to have none with others till I have put things upon a better footing at home.-Ibid.

that is the person of whom you ought never to speak. If there is any person to whom you feel dislike,

nation!-its eternal condition!-I am lost in amazement! While he seems to have no more conscious- The best proof of sincerity is consistency; or, as ness of all this than the brutes which perish. Archbishop Leighton has it, one action like another, and all like Jesus Christ.

Cecil.

GOD OUR PORTION.

GOD does not offer me health, long life, plenty of worldly accommodations, respect, distinction, principalities, universal empire; but, O unutterable grace! he offers me himself. The greatness of the thing, so infinitely transcending all that we can deserve, hope for, or conceive, overwhelms the understanding, and

POPERY THE UNION OF CHRISTIANITY WITH PAGANISM. There is something odd happens in the mixing of Paganism with Christianity. The appearance of Christianity remains, the substance evaporates: the appearance of Paganism vanishes, the substance remains.-Adam.

Give what thou canst, without Thee we are poor; And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away.

-Couper.

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