business with your religion? If you have a servant who is employed all day in your presence, consulting your wishes and receiving your orders, asking how this shall be done, and whether that performance is right, will his employment tend to banish you from his recollection ? So, if you consider yourself as God's steward, doing his business; if you are in all things consulting his interests and his glory; if your constant inquiry is, How will this please Him? and, Is that in accordance with his will?-will your daily duties necessitate your forgetfulness of Him? Assuredly not; they will rather keep Him in your constant remembrance. It is because you regard them through a false medium, that they appear to interpose between you and your Maker, to interrupt the services which you would render to Him. When seen in their proper light, they are recognised as the defined and appropriate work which He puts into your hands, and asks you to do out of love to Him.

Now, dear reader, survey your common-place occupations from this stand-point, and say, if they do not wear a more cheerful and inviting aspect? Religion not only improves but beautifies whatever it comes in contact with. It interweaves its silken threads with the coarsest as well as with the finest part of the web of human life. Then discard for ever from your mind the unworthy idea, that Christianity is too elevated and too ethereal in its nature and design to have any connexion with domestic life, with manual labour, or with daily toil. Confine not your religion, as in the pages of an almanack, to Sundays and Saints' days; but let it be impressed on each moment of your existence, blended with all your thoughts, feelings and affections, and exemplified in the minutest of your every-day duties.

An old minister once came unexpectedly behind a Christian of his acquaintance, who was industriously occupied in his business as a tanner. He gave him

a friendly tap on the shoulder. The good man looked behind him, started, and said, "Sir, I am ashamed that you should find me thus employed." The minister replied, "Let Christ, when He cometh, find me so doing.' "What!" exclaimed the tanner, 'doing thus ?" "Yes," said the minister, "faithfully performing the duties of my calling."

E. P. E.

EVENINGS WITH THE EDITOR.

EVENING THE SECOND.

Mar. You were talking, Mr. Editor, last time we came to see you, about getting somebody with a lantern to look for some clever books for boys. Were you not, sir?

found any

?

Ed. Something like it, Marten. Have you Mar. Yes, sir; two, which I have just finished reading: LOUIS' SCHOOL DAYS,* and EDGAR CLIFTON; OR, RIGHT AND WRONG.* I liked them very much; and so did mamma.

Mrs. M. They are both about boys at school; well narrated; the incidents sketched with considerable power; the story conceived in a kind, Christian spirit.

Ed. What is the purpose of "Louis' School Days"?

Mrs. M. To trace the gradual formation of youthful Christian character, and to show how gracious principles are ever in conflict with natural inclinations; sometimes overborne, sometimes triumphant. There is an honesty about this story which pleased me much; it sketches no romantic, ideal youthful piety; but places the hero before us in a shape which seems truly to "hold the mirror up to nature."

Ed. Does the story, as such, drag; or will boys be sure to read it through?

Mrs. M. I can answer for Marten; his interest never flagged; and a grown-up friend of mine, who writes for the " Sunday School Quarterly," acknowledged the eager interest with which even he read it, and the unusual regret with which he arrived at

* Bath: Binns and Goodwin.

the last page. The style reminded me very strongly of Mrs. Sherwood's "Henry Milner."

Ed. Indeed; that is high praise. Is the other work similar in its design?

Mrs. M. It is a story of school-days and school-boys, but is more especially intended to set forth the conceit and unpopularity of a spoiled boy, vain of his wealth. He certainly manages to make himself very disagreeable, but eventually changes into quite an opposite character. The style is interesting, but not equal in naturalness and power to that of "Louis."

Ed. It is important to put such books in the way of boys as are likely to make a deep impression upon them, and to lay a firm foundation of noble and truthful principle in their minds. But writers for boys must take care not to make them talk or act girlishly; must take them as they find them, and not idealize their portraitures beyond what one ever sees in every-day schoollife. But Teny is looking most anxiously. What book has attracted your notice?

Leo. LIVES OF THE BROTHERS HUMBOLDT.* Who were they, I wonder?

Aug. I can tell you who one of them was-the great traveller who scaled the Peak of Teneriffe, who soared to the cone of Chimborazo, who poked in the crater of Vesuvius, and burnt his boots in the fires of Cotopaxi; who, as the knight-errant of science, for weeks and months sojourned in the luxuriant forests and desert steppes of the equator, to extend our knowledge of nature and its Author; who was scorched by the sun, beaten by the storm, endangered by the current, scared by the brute, tormented by the insect, struck down by the burning fever; and yet returned to Europe a victor, with trophies and spoils, some from regions where the foot of civilization had never before trodden.

Ed. Really, Augustus, you overpower us with your rush of words.

Leo. Perhaps he got them by heart, and, so could say them so fast.

Aug. Hold your tongue, Leontine.

Mrs. M. The life of such a man cannot fail to be interesting. Is it narrated cleverly?

Leo. Tolerably; it is a translation from the German of Klencke and Schlesier; and in some parts has not been done with perspicuity.

Ed. Tell us how Humboldt came to be a traveller.

Aug. When quite a boy he became possessed with a desire

* London: Ingram and Cooke.

for foreign travel. Yet, he was a weak, sickly child, unlikely to` brave the difficulties and dangers of a traveller's life. By years of preparation, however, spent in acquiring knowledge, training the limbs and inuring the body to hardships, he became at the age of thirty a strong, hearty man.

Mrs. M. This shows, Augustus, what I have often told you to be true-that where there's a will there's a way.

Aug. You cannot expect me to go through his travels, extending as they did through various countries, and over five years. A man must have had a strong will, who for so long a period could run the risk of being devoured by savage beasts, or of perishing in noxious swamps, for no other purpose than that of collecting plants, birds, and animals; and making observations with the barometer and thermometer on the mountains. Humboldt returned to Europe in 1804, spent many years in arranging his specimens and recording the results of his explorations. This proved so gigantic a work that, though assisted by several eminent men, it has only been recently completed-a labour of forty years! In 1844, when still incomplete, the cost of the folio edition was £405.

Leo. Is Humboldt alive now?

man.

The

Aug. Yes. He is eighty-four years old; and is still a strong Walks unweariedly; writes much; and in Berlin and Potsdam is the object of universal esteem and reverence. very king is not treated more respectfully. He walks with a slow, firm step, his thoughtful head bent a little forward, with a smile of dignified calmness, and a friendly response for the numerous greetings which he receives from passers-by. It is said, that people frequently step aside for fear of disturbing him in his thoughts; and even the hardy labourer looks respectfully after him, and says to his brother workman, "There goes Humboldt."

Mrs. M. But I thought there was another Humboldt.

Aug. Certainly; but only Alexander became a traveller. His brother William settled quietly down as a Minister of State, spending his leisure in deep philological pursuits, or as ambassador to a foreign court, exhibiting shrewd diplomatic skill. He came to this country as Prussian Minister in the time of the Prince Regent.

Emm. Was Alexander ever here?

Aug. Eleven years ago; he came with the King of Prussia; and was regarded with much interest and respect by those who were fortunate enough to get into his company.

Emm.-(Looking up from a book she has been intently perusing.) Will Christians ever persecute each other again?

Ed. Professed Christians are doing so at the present

moment; witness the imprisonment of the at Florence; but those who have the same as the Lord Jesus Christ had, will never do you ask this question?

Emm. Because I am deep in Gilfillan's new book, the MARTYRS, HEROES, AND BARDS OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT.* Ed. And what do you think of it?

Emm. Think of it! The scenes are so vividly drawn, that they appear to stand out actually before me; and I have been burning with indignation, for the last hour, at the atrocious doings of Claverhouse and his myrmidons.

Ed. I am not surprised. The most common-place recital of the trials of the Covenanters could not fail to arouse strong feelings of horror and indignant amazement; but when Gilfillan tells the story in his own graphic manner, his words burning with righteous anger, or melting into passionate tenderness, the breast must be flinty indeed that does not catch some of his fire, and burn or weep in quick sympathy.

Emm. But have you read this book ?

Ed. I have; and I mark the shrewd policy (though I cannot admire it) which has secured the pen of George Gilfillan in behalf of the objects of the Anti-State Church Association. It is not, however, honest to publish what is apparently a simple History of the Covenanters, but is really, though covertly, new vehicle of controversy on the vexed question of Church Establishments. It forms one of the series called the "Library for the Times;" and, although its title-page gives no indication of it, it is designed to advance the one purpose of the entire series-the pointing out the evils of the union of Church and State. Now, the projectors of this series are quite free to choose this particular manner of conducting a controversy; but they are not free to conceal a partisan's scheme under the garb of a supposed impartial historian. They have no more right to teach Voluntaryism in this disguised manner, than the writers of "Amy Herbert," or "The Lost Brooch," have a right secretly to administer Puseyism in delicate, small doses. If the hands are the hands of Esau, it is not fit that the voice should be Jacob's. If the title-page told us that George Gilfillan had sat down to write his indignant Memories of Noble Scottish Martyrs with an earnest purpose of proving that Church Establishments are mischievous things, no one could have complained. If he has not done so, one must affirm that his book is strategic, but lacking in honesty.

Mrs. M. I agree with you; and must therefore class under

* London: Cockshaw.