ful, chosen few, then zealously striving for God's truth, styled by him "the new, pernicious sect, called Lutherans," were the especial objects of his reproach. As death drew nearer, these were forgotten, and he thought upon himself; and, oh! that thought-how full of sorrow! He looked upon his past life, and thought of his pomp and power: how poor, how abject now! Once flattered by giddy courtiers, and the friend of kings; but now deserted and alone. His spirit bent beneath its weight of grief. The cup was full of bitterness. Experience yielded him no comfort, but was a harsh reprover. "Oh!" he cried, "had I served my God as diligently as I have served my king, he would not thus have forsaken me in the hour of my extremity-he would not have given me over in my gray hairs!" Wolsey had learned this truth at last, but it was learned too late. Now his spirit struggles with his failing body. He moves his lips, but no sound is heard. The pallor deepens on his cheek. Attendants crowd round him in alarm. The deluded priest administers to the dying man the wine and broken bread, believing it his passport to the home of the redeemed. The limbs stiffen, and his hand is clasped and rigid. One strong, convulsive gasp, and Wolsey-once the proud and haughty Cardinal-once the aspiring candidate for the Papal sovereignty-is numbered with the dead! "Here is the end," writes Cavendish, his gentleman-usher, "and fall of the pride and arrogancy of such men, exalted to fortune by honour and high dignities; for I do assure you, in the time of authority and glory, he was the haughtiest man in all his proceedings that then lived, having more respect to the worldly honour of his person than he had for his spiritual profession, wherein should be all meekness, humility, and charity." GEORGE C. BELLOWS. A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE. HARDLY too many instances can be given of what I may call comfort for mothers, as to the salutary and holy influence which the example or remembrance of a good mother has even upon the bad-how the recollection of one who nursed them in infancy, and instructed them in youth, touches upon chords which, I believe, are never totally eradicated in the human heart. Time, distance, and crime may deaden the best feelings of one's nature; but let some unexpected occasion recall vividly to mind the acts of a good mother, and those feelings which were thus supposed to be extinct will be powerfully and often salutarily awakened. A striking instance of this nature was related to me in the Bush by a woman who had been confined, with several hundred others, in the Female Factory, near Sydney. This woman was a Roman Catholic, and was, when in England, under the care of Mrs. Fry, a woman whose name is endeared to every benevolent mind. In speaking of that lady, she said, “We (the Roman Catholics) looked upon her with doubt, and this fear on our part made her do less good amongst us than she otherwise would; for, bad as we were, we looked upon it as the last fall to give up our faith. Now, she had a remarkable way with her-a sort of speaking that you could hardly help was, listening to, whether you would or no; for she was not only good, but downright clever. Well, just to avoid listening when she was speaking or reading, I learnt to count twelve backwards and forwards, so that my mind might be quite taken up; and I actually went on until I could thus count six hundred with great ease. It was a pity we had such a dread. Well, she had a way of speaking to one of us alone, and I was anxious to shuffle this lecture: the fact I expected she would put many questions, and as I respected her character too much altogether to teil her a lie, I kept from the sermon, as we in derision used to call it. But when she was taking leave of us, she just called me on one side, saying she would like to speak a few words to me; so, says I to myself, says I, 'caught at last.' Well, she comes close to me, and, looking at me in a very solemn sort of way, she laid her hands upon my shoulders, and she gave me a pressure that told that shelt for me, and her thumb were set firm and hard on my shoulders, and yet her fingers seemed to have a feeling of kindness for me. But it was no lecture she gave me all she said was, 'Let not thy eyes covet.' No other words passed her lips. but then her voice was slow and awful; kind as a mother's, yet just like a judge. Well, when I got to the Colony, I went on right enough for a time, and one day I was looking into a work-box belonging to my mistress, and the gold thimble tempted me. It was on my finger and in my pocket in an instant; and just as I was going to shut down the boxlid, as sure as I am telling you, I felt Mrs. Fry's thumbs on my shouldersthe gentle pleading touch of her fingers; I looked about me-threw down the Some thimble-and trembled with terror to find I was alone in the room. Careless, insolent, and bad enough I became often in the Factory. Well, do you see, at night we used to amuse each other by telling our tricks-egging one another on in daring vice and wickedness. Well, amongst us we had one uncommon clever girl-a first-rate mimic, and she used to cause us grand sport, and was a vast favourite; she used to make us roar with laughter. Well, this fun had been going on for weeks: she had gone through most of her characters, from the governor to the turnkey, when she starts on a new tack, and commenced taking off Parson Cowper and Father Therry. way it did not take, so she went back to Newgate, and came Mrs. Fry to the very life; but it would not do: we did not seem to enjoy it-there was no fun in it for us. So then she began about the ship's leaving, and our mothers crying and begging of us to turn over a new leaf; and then, in a mimicking, jesting sport, she sobbed and bade us good-bye. Well, how it happened I know not, but one after the other we began to cry, and Stay, stay, not my mother,' said one. Let Mrs. Fry alone. Father Therry must not be brought here, nor Parson Cowper; stay, stay.' Well, she did stop; but tears were shed the whole of that night. Everything had been tried with me. Good people had sought in vain to convince me of my evil ways; but that girl's ridicule of my mother I could not stand. Her grief was brought home to me, and not to me alone, but to many. I do believe that night was a great blessing to many. I was so unhappy, that the next day I tried to get out of sight to pray, and when I got to a hiding-place, I found three girls on their knees: we comforted each other, and then how we spoke of our mothers! Mine was dead; she left this world believing me past hope, but the picture of her grief made me earnest in search of that peace which endureth for ever." GOLD HUNTING IN OLD TIMES. WASHINGTON IRVING'S "Columbus" may be profitably looked into at the present time. The following passage is just in season: It and sagacity to detect the veins of ore; "Before relating the return of Co- "Poverty soon fell upon these misguided men. They exhausted the little property they had brought from Spain. Many suffered extremely from hunger, and were obliged to exchange even their apparel for bread. Some formed connections with the old settlers of the island, but the greater part were like men lost and bewildered, and just awakened from a dream. The miseries of the mind, as usual, heightened the sufferings of the body. Some wasted away and died broken-hearted; others were hurried off by raging fevers, so that there soon perished upwards of a thousand men." The Californian contains the SONG OF THE DIRT, Song of the Shirt." DIG-dig-dig- the bowels of the earth-a labour to Wash-wash-washWith your legs and your thighs in soak; Wash-wash-washRevolving an old tin pan, And wabbling about with a shake and a splash. Till you doubt you're a Christian man! Soul, and body, and mind, Mind, and body, and soul, est aim of society, identical with the direction implanted by nature in the mind of man, towards the indefinite duration of his existence. He regards the earth, in all its limits, and the heavens, as far as his eye can scan their bright and starry depths, as inwardly his own, given to him as the Oh! can it be right when they're all con- objects of his contemplation, and as a fined To the basin and the bowl? Pile-pile-pile When it's only a little heap; Pile-pile-pile Till it "graderly" grows more deep; And stow it away in a bag, Ho! ho! I am off for a Christian land, ON THE RACES OF MAN. WHILST we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men. There are nations more susceptible of cultivation, more highly-civilized, more ennobled by mental cultivation than others; but none in themselves nobler than others. All are, in like degree, designed for freedom-a freedom which, in the ruder conditions of society, belongs only to the individual, but which, in social states, enjoying political instilations, appertains as a right to the whole body of the community. If we would indicate an idea which, throughont the whole course of history, has ever more and more widely extended its empire, or which, more than any other, testifies to the much-contested and still more decidedly misunderstood perfectibility of the whole human race, it is that of establishing our common humanity-of striving to remove the barriers which prejudice and limited views of every kind have erected amongst men, and to treat all man+ kind, without reference to religion, nation, or colour, as one fraternity, One great community, fitted for the attainment of one object-the unrestrained development of the physical powers. This is the ultimate and high field for the development of his energies. Even the child longs to pass the hills or the seas which enclose his narrow home; yet when his eager steps have borne him beyond those limits, he pines, like the plant, for his native soil; and it is by this touching and beautiful attribute of man-this longing for that which is unknown, and this fond remembrance of that which is lost, that he is spared from an exclusive attachment to the present. Thus deeply-rooted in the innermost nature of man, and even enjoined upon him by his highest tendencies, the recognition of the bond of humanity becomes one of the noblest leading principles in the history of mankind. With these words, which draw their charm from the depths of feeling, let a brother be permitted to close this general description of the natural pheno mena of the universe. From the remotest nebulæ, and from the revolting double stars, we have descended to the minutest organisms of animai creation, whether manifested in the depths of ocean, or on the surface of our globe, and to the delicate vegetable germs which clothe the naked declivity of the ice-crowned mountain summit; and here we have been able to arrange these phenomena according to partially known laws: but other laws, of a more mysterious nature, rule the higher spheres of the organic world, in which is comprised the human species in all its varied conformation, its creative intellectual power, and the languages to which it has given existence. physical delineation of nature terminates at the point where the sphere of intellect begins, and a new world of mind is opened to our view. It marks the limit, but does not pass it-Humboldt. A CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. his own tongue is unloosed-new hopes, THE practical effect of congregational singing, as distinguished from that which is only choral, is a strong argument, we conceive, in favour of its universal adoption. Perhaps it may be safely affirmed that where the practice prevails, on the principles already laid down, there will generally be found a more healthy, warm, active, spiritual Christianity, a more fervent, devotional spirit, and consequently greater enjoyment of the ordinances of the sanctuary. If religion be love, and its fruits peace and joy, it must prompt to gratitude and praise. It is the very nature of joy to have utterance; it must speak, either in rapturous ecstasy, or by the silent, but increased, throbbing of the heart. It is a well-spring that can be damned up by no artificial barriers; it will leak through, or overflow. Joy is communicative, and when it is the pure joy of vital religion, of sanctified affections fused and moulded into the image of Him who is emphatically declared to be love in all its purity, sublimity, and potency, it cannot fail to have the best effect upon those associating with its possessor. This is well known to those upon whom devolves the spiritual oversight of their fellowChristians, and who are in a certain sense responsible for the continual burning of the fire upon the altar. They see it verified in many individual cases of conversion, in the growing spirituality of any section of their congregation, and more especially in those seasons of the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit distinguished as revivals. The spirit of the new convert, or of the church more generally, diffuses itself; and while kindling new fires in hearts before cold and dead, feeds again in its turn upon the warmth it has communicated. It is thus with congregational singing. The voice of a voluntary, grateful praise soon finds its echo, and that again its response; thus the affections are called into play, the bond of union is drawn closer, while its circle is enlarged, paradoxical as this may seem; and when each finds others joining in the glad anthem, and swelling the pæn of "worship, and thanks, and blessing," new feelings, new desires, new joys are awakened, or cold ones revived, and the church becomes more earnest and active, more like a living member of the body of Christ, more prepared for war and for conquest, their united singing of one common song being their rallying point of danger, their strength in weakness, and that which unites them in the bonds of peace and of fellowship with the Head. Indeed, we can easily suppose that if congregational singing was generally introduced into the churches, ministers would not so often complain, as they now do to an alarming degree, of supineness, inactivity, and declension in every direction. We do not mean that this should be relied upon as remedial, even without vital piety and the influence of the Divine Spirit. We believe that there exists among all denominations a good substratum of practical Christianity, and that a fuller dispensation of the Spirit awaits only man's disposition to receive it. And we believe also, that the inert mass of scriptural religion--(the words, though a contradiction in terms, seem best to convey our meaning)-might be made active and operate for indescribable good if the warm spirit that prompts to and accompanies congregational singing could be made to breathe upon it. |