and valuable in their places. But these are not all the qualities requisite to form an intimate companion or friend; something more is still to be looked for: a sound understanding, a steady mind, a firm attachment to good principles, to virtue, and honour.

To give a reproof with discretion, so as to make it acceptable, well becomes both the reprover and the reproved.

Our intercourse with our neighbours cannot be conducted with comfort and cordiality, without discretion as well as sincerity.

He who has seen the glory of the Lord in Christ Jesus, will be sensible of his own unworthiness.

He that covets not to love God still more and more, never loves him enough. Much of this divine exercise is not sufficient to him who would stop there, as if he were satisfied.

The man who refers himself wholly to God is enabled thereby to do many good deeds; and rendering faithfully all honour to him, it is incredible what wonders God works by that man's means.

The spirit of a good man does not strive to undertake much, or to make a great noise and show, but in all plainness and sincerity he labours to do well what he undertakes, and that purely for the love of God.

Be not fond of thyself, and thou wilt not take up easily an ill-will to others.

Our opinion concerning ourselves and our neighbours, agreeable to the rule and temper of Christianity, is generally nearer the truth, when we sink. our idea of self rather below what seems to us to be our due, and when we raise the idea of our neighbours a little above what appears to belong to them, for they doubtless have some virtues and good qualities unknown to us, and it is certain we have some secret failings which do not usually come within our own notice.

(Pride.)-Survey the things that raise your pride; consider how vain they are. Is it silver and gold? The dust of the earth! perishing treasures! poor comforters in an hour of inward distress, of sickness or death! Is it beauty, and youth, and strength? What withering flowers are all these! what gay and dying vanities, that are wasting hourly, and may be blasted with an east wind! Is it honour and fame among men? What an empty thing is the breath of mortals! how subject to change! How unjust and feeble a foundation for pride! It is sometimes given to the worst of men without due merit; and even when it is best merited, and most justly given, it is but a sound that vanishes into empty air. Is it high birth that makes you proud and scornful? This is the honour of your ancestors more than your own, and perhaps it was not raised at first upon virtue or true merit; then it is a worthless thing indeed. Is it your wisdom and knowledge that puffs you up with conceit? It is a

sign you want one large branch of it; that is, the knowledge of yourself, for that would make you humble.-WATTS.

The busy or the pleasant scenes of this temporal life, are ever calling away our thoughts from eternal things: they conceal from us the spiritual world, and close our eyes to God, and things divine and heavenly. If the eye of the soul were but open to invisible things, what lively Christians should we be! But either the winds of worldly cares rock us to sleep, or the charms of worldly pleasures soothe us into deceitful slumbers. We are too ready to indulge in earthly delights, and while we dream of pleasure in the creatures, we lose, or at least abate, our delights in God. Even the lawful satisfactions of flesh and sense, and the enticing objects round about us, may attach our hearts so fast to them as to draw us down into a bed of carnal ease, till we fall asleep in spiritual security, and forget that we are made for heaven, and that our hope and our home is on high.-WATTS.

Oh what a blessed change does the converting grace of Christ make in the soul of a son or daughter of Adam! It is like the beauty and pleasure which the rising morning diffuses over the face of the earth after a night of storm and darkness: it is so much of heaven let into all the chambers of the soul: it is then only that we begin to know ourselves aright, and know God in his most awful and most lovely manifestations: it is in this light we see the hateful evil of every sin, the beauty of holiness, the worth of the gospel of Christ and of his salvation. It is a light that carries

divine beat and life with it: renews all the powers of the spirit, and introduces holiness, hope, and joy, in the room of folly and guilt, sin, darkness, and sorrow. -WATTS.

JUDGE HALE.-"There was remarkably conspicuous in him what Hooker designated with such beauty, 'the behaviour' of humility; one in itself of the most indubitable tokens of piety, and often best expressed by speaking sparingly of God and divine things."

"When I would," says one, "possess nothing through self-love, everything was given me without going after it." Oh, happy dying of the grain of wheat, which makes it produce a hundred-fold!

How strait is the gate which leads to a life in God! How little, and stript of everything, one must be to pass through it, it being nothing else but death to ourselves! But when passed through it, what enlargement do we find!

If all things went well even with good men in this life, they would be building tabernacles here, and set up their rest and hopes on this side Jordan, as the Reubenites did in the country of Bashan, when they found it rich and fruitful. God Almighty, therefore, in mercy makes this world unpleasing to good men by affliction, that they may set the less value upon it, and fix their hopes and desires and endeavours for that city which is above. This is the voice of the rod and of Him that hath appointed it, which every wise man ought to hear and answer with all obedience, sub

mission, and thankfulness; and when affliction has wrought this effect, its business is in a good measure ended; and for the most part it is thereupon eased or removed.-HALE.

PRAYER." Thou canst not get before the presence of the Lord of heaven, but with thy spirit and soul; and unless thy prayer be the drawing near of thy spirit to him, thy prayer is a provocation, and not a service; unprofitable and useless for thee, and unaccepted and not regarded by God."-HALE.

PRAYER.-Prayer is not a smooth expression, or well-contrived form of words: not the product of a ready memory, or of a rich invention exerting itself in the performance. These may draw a neat picture, but still the life is wanting.-It is not the gilded paper and good writing of a petition that prevails with a king, but the moving sense of it.

In the school of Christ, the first lesson of all is, selfdenial and humility; yea, it is written above the door, as the rule of entry or admission, "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart."

How much vigour and vehemence doth affliction add to prayer! The deeper the Psalmist sinks, in so much louder accents doth he cry to God, "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O, Lord."-(Psalm xxx. 1.)

The night may be dark and the wind high, but with the heavenly pilot on board we shall be brought in safety to the shore. And, oh! what a pleasing land