the surest evidence of renovated vitality, and exhibits the most unequivocal symptoms, not only of spiritual life, but of vigorous health.

Hannah More.

TO THE MOON.

ALL hail to thee, radiant ruler of night!
Shedding round thee thy soft and thy silvery light,
Now touching the hill tops, now treading the vale,
Oh! who can behold thee, nor bid thee all hail?

The monarch of day more majestic may be,
When he rises in pomp on the verge of the sea;
When the clouds that have curtained him slowly undrawn,
His magnificence scatters the mists of the morn.

His glory at noon may be greater than thine,
More splendid and glowing his evening decline ;
When the hues of the rainbow illumine the west,
And millions of happy birds sing him to rest.

But not in his rise, in his zenith, nor even,
When his parting effulgence irradiates half heaven:
Though grand and majestic his glory be shown,
Does he shine with a loveliness sweet as thy own.

The pleasures, the cares, and the business of life,
Are ever with calm contemplation at strife :
And absorbed in our selfish pursuits, we forget
The sun and his glories, till after he's set.

But thou comest forth when the stir is subsiding,

Like an angel of light thro' the clear heav'ns gliding;

As if to remind us, ere sinking to rest,

Of worlds more delightful, of beings more blest.

Through the path which thy Maker has traced thee on high, Thou walkest in silence across the vast sky;

Suns and worlds scattered round thee, though brilliant

they be,

Appear but like humble attendants on thee.

All silent thyself, yet that stillness appears

The signal for music, as sweet as the tears

That the dews of the night o'er the landscape distil,
Which seen by thy bright beams are lovelier still.

For the softest of sounds shed their harmony round,
More musical far, in a calm so profound;
The murmur of brooks, and the nightingale's song,
And the sigh of the breeze, sweeping gently along.

These alone form thy orchestra; yet in the hour
Of thy pensive dominion, and heart touching power,
Their exquisite magic seems fraught with a tone,
To the music of gaudier daylight unknown.

Roll on then thou radiant ruler of night,
Exult in thy empire, rejoice in thy light,—
Over mountain and valley, o'er ocean and isle,
Pour down thy soft splendour, and lavish thy smile.

For thy splendour undazzling, and touchingly sweet,
Is one that e'en sorrow serenely can greet;
And thy smile glistening bright on each dew-drop appears,
Bring hope from on high, forming rainbows in tears.

B. Barton.

WHEN Saint Paul was setting out from Ephesus to Jerusalem, "bound in the Spirit, not knowing the things that should befall him," the indefinite yet cer

tain anticipations of calamity which he expressed, might have been interpreted into pusillanimous forebodings of his own apprehensive mind: he guards against this suspicion, by informing us, it was by the unerring inspiration of the Holy Ghost, he was assured "that bonds and afflictions awaited him;" so that he knew infallibly, wherever he went, it was only a change of place, not of peril, to which he was proceeding. Yet was this conviction, so far from arresting his purpose so far from inclining him to hesitate, or not to persist in the path of duty, because it was the path of danger, that his mighty faith converted duty into choice, elevated danger into joy. Hear his triumphant proclamation: "But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear, so that I may finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God." Hannah More.

THE annals of the Jews, insulated as they had been as a people, had become by Divine appointment, connected with the history of other nations. Their captivity had brought them into contact with Persia and Babylon. As they always continued a commercial people, they had, after their dispersion, by their extensive traffic, to carry their religion with their commerce into various countries. Thus their proverbial love of gain had been overruled to a providential purpose, that of carrying the knowledge of the one true God among the Gentiles. This again, by the same secret working

of Infinite Wisdom, served as a prelude to the appearance of Christianity in these countries, and would probably lessen their indisposition to receive it. By the same providential ordination of that power, who educes good from evil, the Emperor Claudius, in banishing the Christians from Rome, caused the faith to be more extensively spread by these exiles, who were dispersed throughout different countries; and, to mention another instance, by the disagreement between Paul and Barnabas, though the comfort of Christian society was mutually lost, yet their separation caused the Gospel to be preached at the same time in two places instead of one. But though the sins of the worst men, and the infirmities of the best, are made subservient to God's gracious purposes, they neither justify the resentment of the Saint, nor the crime of the Emperor.

Hannah More.

THERE was, in the divine sufferer, a veiled majesty,there was a mysterious grandeur thrown round his character,—there were glimpses of glory breaking through the obscurity in which he was shrouded, which excited a curiosity not unmingled with fear, in the great ones of the earth. It was a grand illustration of that solemn indistinctness which is said to be one cause of the sublime; both Herod and Pilate were surprised into something like an involuntary respect, mixed with a vague apprehension of they knew not what.

Hannah More.

WITH the genius of Christianity, with its peculiarities, with its applicableness to the wants of man, the whole soul of Saint Paul was singularly imbued. His acute mind, his lofty qualities, his penetrating spirit, and his renovated heart, entered profoundly into the character and essence of the Gospel. His mind was a transcript of Divine truth; his life an exemplification of it. What he conceived intimately, he imparted explicitly. To combat the rebellion of the natural man against the salvation wrought for him, is the leading object of his endeavour. He who was always looking unto Jesus, as the author and finisher of his own faith, uniformly held him out to others as the sum and substance of theirs.

IN that great and terrible day of the Lord, when the glorious Head of the church shall summon the assembled universe to judgment, among the myriads who shall tremblingly await their own definitive sentence, how will the exploring eye of men and angels be turned on the more prominent and public characters, who from rank, profession, talent, or influence, were invested with superior responsibility. What individual among these distinguished classes will be able to endure the additional load of other men's sins, brought forward to swell his personal account?

Hannah More.

MR. BOSWELL has preserved a conversation between Mary Knowles and Dr. Johnson, upon the subject of

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