tory about 740 years before the advent of our Lord, as one of the powerful adversaries of Israel; and it is the opinion of Colonel Rawlinson, that his queen, Semiramis, reigned as joint monarch with Pul, or Phul, and hence the deeds of martial enterprise and conquest ascribed to her in profane writers. It is highly probable that further discoveries will ere long be made, which will furnish testimonies of the particular facts of her life, and afford additional corroboration, both of sacred and profane history.

COMFORT IN THE WORK OF

CHRIST.

THE Rev. John Brown, of Haddington, addressed this exhortation to his sons in the ministry with his dying breath :-"O labour, labour to win souls to Christ: I will say this for your encouragement, that whenever the Lord has led me out to be most diligent this way, he has poured most comfort into my heart, and given me my reward in my bosom. But he is our great example, whose life, as well as lips, said to all his disciples, Work while it is day; for the night cometh, when no man can work."

6

THE INFLUENCES OF TRADE.

The operations of trade may sharpen the intellect, but they are apt to cloud the moral sense. It is hard work to read the moral law straight, through the double lens of twelve per cent. interest; and a man will find some way to hitch his conscience to the train of profitable transaction, and keep it running in the grooves of a thriving business.

ENTERPRISE NOT ALWAYS JUST.

Justice is not always marched side by side with achievement. In the track of enterprise around the globe, there are marks of violence and spots of blood and while in so many ways it has led the march of progress, in others, at the present hour, it is the most stubborn obstacle that blocks the road.

GOOD FROM TRADE.

Good is stronger than evil in the world; and these agents of trade and commerce are opening unprecedented facilities for the operation of Christianity. "Mountains intervening," oceans rolling between, need "make enemies of nations" no more. Quick as thought throbs the communion of man with man along the electric wire. A thousand steam-paddles, like the strokes of hammers, are welding continents together. And the very air that wraps the globe may yet become a current of reciprocity, and a binding web of love.

HUMAN BRUTES.

There are men in the world, of decided talents and many excellent qualities, whose influence is greatly abridged by their uncouthness and incivility. Their qualities are sheathed in a porcupine crust. Their want of facility, of tact, in one word, of adaptedness, renders them unpleasant persons in society, and though we admire their abilities and their worth, they are so rude and cynical that we dread them. But little good is derived from the company of a highly intellectual wolf, or a moral bear. Next in importance to acting, is the method of acting, and manner is power.

THE FOP AND THE CYNIC.

Society is itself a compromise of individuals, and no one has any business in it who cannot reasonably conform. A man has no right to be outre, and to poke his personality in everybody's way. A studied revolt from general customs is often an affectation equal to any that walks in chains and bracelets; and one may be as vain of being out of the fashion as of being in it. It is a repetition of Diogenes on Plato's carpet; and the fop is little else than a cynic turned inside out.

EXTRAVAGANCE OF THE CITY.

The rampant extravagance of the city is not only fearful, as prophetic of the crash that must follow the strain, but one feels that, somewhere, there must be a sacrilegious wrong,

when the sap of such social benefit is concentrated in flowering of a selfish luxury; something incongruous in this magnificence girdled with ghast liness; this black eclipse impinging upon the orb of prosperity; this sharp contact of apoplexy and consumption; this want that crouches by marble steps and stretches out its leanness in the wintry star-light. Society thus looks like a huge ship, with music, and feasting, and splendour on its deck, and its sails all set and glistening, while down in the hold there are famine, and pestilence, and compressed agony, and silent, choking despair.

HUMAN MONEY BAGS.

Many a man there is, clothed in respectability, and proud of his hohour, whose central idea of life is interest and ease the conception that other men are merely tools to be used as will best serve him; that God has endowed him with sinew and brain merely to scramble and to get; and so, in the midst of this grand universe, which is a perpetual circulation of benefit, he lives like a sponge on a rock, to absorb, and bloat, and die. Thousands in this great city are living so who never look out of the narrow circle of selfinterest; whose decalogue is their arithmetic, whose Bible is their ledger; who have so contracted, and hardened, and stamped their natures, that in any spiritual estimate, they would only pass as so many bags of dollars.

THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL.

THROUGH all the complex interests of society, through our hard and polished customs, our hollow respectabilities, our oppression and our contempt, there beams the image of One Life perpetually unfolding itself in acts of sacritice; of one meek face, looking upwards in prayer, and downward in compassion, dropping beneath the cross, streaming with its own blood-presenting us, in our avaricious grasping and our selfish ease, not only with the ideal of individual character, but the expression of social duty.

VALUE OF THE INDIVIDUAL.

EACH man occupies an original position. Every great fact comes straight to him. Every appeal of duty must run through the alembic of his reason, his conscience, and his will. The cope of heaven bursts above him, the unfathomed depths open beneath him, the mysteries of God and immortality come streaming in with their awful splendours, and truths that have confounded the loftiest intellects, truths that in all ages have roused up the soul from its foundation, and baptized it with reverence, and kindled it with love, environ him as intensely as if he were the first-born of men, set face to face with fresh and unresolved problems.

The above are extracts from a small volume of Discourses by the Rev. E. H. Chapin.

TOBACCO.

IT is true that Dr. Parr and Robert Hall were smokers. It is true that many good men are fond of the "naughty foreign weed," and that Ralph Erskine "spiritualized it." And it may be true that, under its influence, the spirits are serene, the temper mild, and the entire man in a state of comfortable self-compla-· cency. But we prefer the temper which is independent of tobacco, and we fear that, in its self-complacency, there is something illusive;—at least we have known friends who, under its influence, fancied themselves far up Parnassus, but when the fog cleared away, it proved only a spur of the mountain; and although, among our college companions, we remember clever men who smoked, whilst their duller neighbours studied; and although, in the midst of the meerschaum, they used to espy gigantic figures, which they hailed as their own glorious future-now that the "morgana" has melted, there is a sad contrast betwixt the cloudy colossus and the slip-shod. original from which it was projected, and into which the stern daylight has resolved it again.

At all events, a minister, and much more a missionary, should deem himself a soldier, and the less dependent he is on these time-wasting enjoyments, the more lightly will he march, and the more ready will he be for instant action. Besides, a soldier must endure hardness. It is good for a man's Christianity to be the victor, even in such a contest as the battle with tobacco. Every success makes him a stronger and a happier man, yes, and a great deal richer. In this warfare there is always prize money. And if the

reader is a lover of books, or if, with a most benevolent heart, he is always lamenting his empty hand, let him attack and spoil this enemy. The cigar-case will soon fill a hand-ome book-case; and were the snuff-box of the British churches converted into a box of charity, it would maintain all our missionaries, and would soon pay the debts of our chapels and schools.

[From the Memoir of Richard Williams, Surgeon, Catechist to the Patagonian Missionary Society in Terra del Fuego].

PRAYER FOR THE ENSUING CONFERENCE-The Conference is rapidly appro ching when the ministers, and lay representatives freely chosen by the people, will assemble to review the proceedings of the year, and make arrangements for the future. The occasion is an important one, and we should rejoice to find it an eminently spiritual one Dr. Millman. in his "History of Latin Christianity," remarks respecting a general council

"It might have been supposed that nowhere would Christianity appear in such commanding majesty as in a Council, which should gather from all quarters of the world the most eminent prelates and the most distinguished clergy; that a lofty and serene piety would govern all their proceedings; profound and dispassionate investigation exhaust every subject; human passions and interests would stand rebuked before that awful assembly; the sense of their own dignity, as well as the desire of impressing their brethren with the solemnity and earnestness of their belief, would at least exclude all intemperance of manner and language. Mutual awe and mutual emulation in Christian excellence would repress, even in the most violent, all un-Christian violence; their conclusions would be giave, mature, harmonious-for, if not harmonious, the confuted party would hardly acquiesce in the wisdom of their decrees; even their condemna

tions would be so tempered with charity, as gradually to win back the wanderer to the still open fold, rather than drive him, proscribed and branded, into inflexible and irreconcileable schism."

Such, indeed, ought to have been uniformly the characteristic of ecclesiastical councils; but history shows that they have often presented a lamentable reverse of this picture. Our annual Conferences, however, have often presented a striking likeness, if not a perfect resemblance, to this picture, and we hope the approaching one will bear this honourable and happy distinction. To this end we must prepare ourselves by sober consideration and earnest prayer. We must keep our eye single, that our whole body may be full of light. We must proceed to Conference with our hearts full of love to God and man. Love gives clearness to the intellect, and largeness to the heart; it keeps down all selfish purposes, malign tempers, and unholy dispositions. Love makes the glory of God, and the good of His church, infinitely superior to all personal interests and party views. Love predisposes the mind to make all reasonable concessions where no great principles are concerned; it engenders a kind consideration for the views and feelings of others, gives softness to our words, benignity to our looks, and tenderness to our

sympathies and affections. It makes us studious to avoid giving offence to a brother, and anxious to keep the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace. It gives breadth of view, largeness of conception, and unites these with all holy desires and purposes. If this be our spirit, as we believe it will, we shall not only have a peaceful Conference, but a happy one. The various concerns and important interests of the Connexion will be calmly and wisely considered; we shall have union in our councils, and the results of our determinations will be such as will give strength to our bulwarks, and secure success to our operations. Brethren, pray for us. We need your prayers,-the prayers of all our members individually, and all our churches collectively. Besides the supplications poured forth in the closet and the family, let each society fix a period for special prayer to God for his guidance and blessing on the approaching Conference.

THE WORK OF GOD.-Our readers will be thankful to know that the work of God is still prospering in London. We have had a week's special services at Albany Road, which have been well attended, and spiritual good has been done. The members are now upwards of fifty, and the Sunday-school has upwards of one hundred scholars. At Watney Street, the chapel is filled; the prayer-meetings are seasons of power, and the number of members increased. At Brunswick we have peace, and some additional candidates for membership. Our friends at the north expect to commence religious service in the large vestry of the new chapel next Sunday (April 23); and, though not without some anxiety, their hopes preponderate over their fears, On Sunday, April 9, we opened another place as a mission station, in a most miserable part of London.

Mr.

Maughan preached in the open air, in the afternoon, to about sixty or eighty people; and again in the evening to a goodly company, in a school-room. Last Sunday, Messrs. Maughan and Booth addressed an equal number of people in

the open air in the afternoon, and Mr. Yateman in the school-room in the evening. We hope the good seed of the kingdom will take root in the hearts of this neglected people.

SCOTSWOOD, NEWCASTLE CIRCUIT. -The efforts of our friends at Scotswood, and the results, are of a gratifying kind, creditable to themselves, and encouraging both to them and the Connexion. We remember Scotswood in former days, and rejoice to find the good cause there raised to prosperity. Why cannot similar efforts be made in every part of the Connexion, until every languishing interest is invigorated with new life and energy? It may be so; it ought to be so; it would be so, if all did their duty.

THE INTENDED NEW CHAPEL AT LEEDS.—The long list of subscriptions for a new chapel indicates a good feeling among our Leeds friends. The position which Leeds holds in the history of the Connexion, should command for it a place second to none among our circuits. It is the memorable spot where the struggle for liberty was consummated, where the Connexion was formed, where the first Conference was held, where there is a population large and continually augmenting, and where sentiments and feelings favourable to Methodism abound. In such a soil the tree of our Connexion ought to thrive luxuriantly. The new chapel movement is a good one, and we trust the young men and women of our Connexion in Leeds, the hopeful scions of our cause, the descendants of the venerable men who have borne the burden and heat of the day, will throw their souls into this great work. It must be done, and sons and daughters must heartily join with their hoary-headed sires in carrying it out. If needful, they must lead the way, and there must be modern taste and enterprise combined with the judgment and pecuniary ability of mature age. This new chapel must be an honour to the Connexionin magnitude, in architectural beauty, and in freedom from pecuniary bur