Gregory's affliction: he is a worthy man." "Ah, poor fellow! I am sorry for him; but he has nobody to blame but himself." "As to that," said my uncle, "I believe he is not disposed to blame any other person, and I have equally good reason to believe that no blame rests with himself. The trials of some good men appear to arise entirely out of circumstances over which they have no control, and to be sent expressly for the trial of their faith, patience, and submission. I suspect if you had been one of Job's friends, you would have been disposed to argue as they did. They thought he was to blame for those calamities which were the distressing but wise discipline of his heavenly Father, to confirm and illustrate his graces. 'The end of the Lord' towards Job corrected their mistake; and I am not without hope of seeing yours corrected concerning our worthy friend Gregory. I can assure you that the whole of his conduct reflects on him the highest honour." My uncle, when he said this, was planning the means of assisting the person of whom he spoke. The objector, perhaps, feared that he also might be called upon to assist, (for there were circumstances which might have warranted such an appeal ;) and to justify himself to his conscience and the world, in not doing what might be expected of him, he affected to think that the man was to blame for having fallen into distress, and therefore was not to be helped out of it. It may be, that the priest and the Levite speculated upon the imprudence of the traveller in going alone on a road infested with thieves: but they passed on, and rendered no assistance. The good Samaritan's heart at once prompted his hand and excited his charity, and He who was as good a judge of prudence as he was of benevolence, said, "Go, and do thou likewise," Luke x. 37. "It was not my fault; I could not help it if it had not been for the peculiar circumstances in which I was placed, I should never have been guilty of such a fault." by which we are surrounded are arranged on purpose to try our obedience, fidelity, and firmness." Translate the guilty reasonings of our first mother. Mark the train of thought suggested by the tempter. "I should be obedient to the will of my Creator, if it were not that he has restrained me from partaking of a desirable indulgence. I should not have disobeyed; but that the forbidden fruit was in my reach, and the serpent beguiled me to eat of it." "Yes, "said her guilty partner, "and the woman whom God gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." We can discern and despise their guilty subterfuges; but we overlook our own whenever we fancy that, circumstanced as we are, we are excusable in breaking the known commands of God, or any one of them. No, A family, with whom my uncle was acquainted, was plunged into deep distress by the misconduct of a beloved son. They heard, with bitter grief, the report of his evil actions, and discovered, with horror and surprise, that his principles were corrupted, that he had imbibed infidel sentiments. The parents were highly respected, and a general and lively sympathy was excited towards them under this heavy disappointment of their fond parental hopes. My kind uncle was one who endeavoured to console them, by suggesting that no blame could attach to themselves, as they had been careful and diligent in instructing their child, and had set before him good and holy examples. But conscience spoke out, and rejected the undeserved solace. we have not satisfaction in our own reflections. We did, indeed, teach him in childhood, and endeavour to lead him in the way in which we were sincerely desirous that he should go; but we were influenced by worldly motives in choosing for him a situation, when we knew or might have known that both his principles and his morals would be in danger. We were dazzled with the prospect of wealth and high connexions; and we overlooked the one thing needful. We are to blame: that it is which adds bitterness to the affliction. We are to blame: and would that we alone were to blame; but we can neither do away the blame from ourselves, or our poor unhappy child. We both alike stand before God in our trespass." My uncle wept with the heart-broken | ancient and modern times; and could parents, and prayed fervently that both the spirit of its winds collect together they and their guilty child might be at one place all the characters they have sharers in the rich forgiveness and wafted along its surface, there is scarcely tender mercies which belong to the a single name of note written upon the Lord our God, though we have rebelled pages of history that would not be inagainst him, Dan. ix. 9. cluded in the assemblage. Upon its waters were fought the battles of Salamis, Actium, Lepanto, and the Nile. Upon its shores, or at a little distance from them, stood the cities of Jerusalem, Tyre, Troy, Athens, Alexandria, Rome, and Carthage; and among the mighty empires of the ancient world, whose wings were dipped in its waters, were Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome. It includes within its limits several minor seas, and many islands of celebrity both in sacred history and profane.-Hardy's Notices of the Holy Land. In conclusion, it may be observed, that it is a sad sign of self-ignorance, and self-delusion, when we are disposed to extenuate our faults, and to imagine that we are not to blame, or to satisfy ourselves with being less to blame than others, or with thinking that we can shift a part of the blame from ourselves to others. It were wise and safe to look upon ourselves and our actions as God regards them. When we have sincerely scrutinized them by the rule and standard prescribed the word of God-we shall still be far from discerning all the criminality in them which his omniscient eye discerns. We shall find that we have been guilty, very guilty, deeply guilty, and in deep prostration of spirit, exclaim, "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified,' Psa. cxliii. 2. "To the dear fountain of thy blood, Here let me wash my spotted soul THIS sea is called in Scripture the Great Sea, and the Sea of the Philistines. It is not much noticed in the Old Testament, except as the western boundary of the Holy Land, and the cedars used in the building of the temple were floated upon it from the foot of Lebanon to the port of Joppa. It was upon this sea that Paul was shipwrecked; and several of the other apostles sailed upon it in their voyages of mercy. It extends from the coast of Syria to the straits of Gibraltar, a distance of more than two thousand miles. It is one of the most celebrated collections of water in the world. It has been looked upon by nearly all the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, and by Jesus Christ. It has carried upon its breast almost every warrior, philosopher, and poet, both of THE TELEGRAPH.-No. II. DURING the last few years, the modes of telegraphic communication have been very carefully studied, and many new inventions have been proposed. None of these have yet been adopted by the government; but several of them are allowed to be exceedingly ingenious, and it is by no means improbable that the present imperfect system will be ultimately superseded. A brief account of the most important of these inventions will be interesting to the inquisitive reader. THE PNEUMATIC TELEGRAPH. In the pneumatic telegraph, air is, as the name implies, the communicating agent. This instrument was invented by Mr. S. Crosley, and a working model was exhibited in the Polytechnic Institution. It consists of a tube which extends from one station to another, and provided at each extremity with a vessel containing, like the tube itself, and in direct communication, a small quantity of air. These vessels are made so as to admit of enlargement or contraction like a pair of bellows, or a gas holder; for in this way any change of bulk in the air of the tube is compensated. Now if any degree of pressure be given to the reservoir at one station, the equilibrium will be soon restored, (for this is the property of all fluids,) and the same degree of pressure will be observed at the other extremity, and may be read off by means of a pressure index. Thus "with ten weights pro- | scription of its construction. Its object ducing ten degrees of compression, dis- is to communicate, and if we understand tinguished from each other numerically, the reports given of its operations, to and having a pressure index at the op- write down at a considerable distance, posite station, marked by corresponding a series of numbers, which are, as in figures, any telegraphic numbers may other telegraphic codes, the representbe transmitted, referring in the usual atives of certain fore-arranged letters, way to a code of signals, which may be words, or sentences. A complete vocaadapted to various purposes and to any bulary of all the words in the English language. The only manipulation is language are regularly numbered, and that of placing a weight of the required according to the sentence to be telefigure upon the collapsing vessel at graphed, the numbers must be chosen. either station, and the same figure will These numbers are selected in types, be represented by the index at the op- which are placed in an instrument, posite station. Previously to making a called the rule, which serves the same signal, the attention of the person, whose purpose as a printer's stick; and they are duty it is to observe it, is arrested by so connected with the opposite extremeans of a preparatory signal." mity that the numbers are there registered and may be read off at leisure. The whole arrangement is connected with a voltaic battery of sixty pairs of plates, and by passing the type beneath a lever the circuit is closed and broken. A trial was made with a tube, one inch in diameter and about two miles in length, but so fixed that the extremities were brought together, and could be observed at the same time. For the communication of a pressure from one end to the other, a period of fifteen seconds was required. This invention is one of great importance; but how far it will be found adapted for the purposes of government, cannot be determined until it has been tried on a larger scale, and submitted to the test of experiment under all the varying circumstances of constant use and public service. THE ELECTRICAL TELEGRAFH. Many attempts have been made to construct telegraphs to be set in motion by electricity. This wonderful agent has been employed in so many unexpected ways, that there is every reason to think, considering its extreme velocity of motion, which may be called instantaneous, it may be useful in telegraphic communications. Such has been the opinion generally entertained by scientific men, and many persons have consequently devoted their attention to the subject. The principal experiments, and those which have been most successful, were made by Professor Wheatstone; but before a description is given of that gentleman's inventions, it will be desirable to mention those of American origin which are the only ones that at all deserve a comparison. An electrical telegraph was invented in America by Professor Morse; but the descriptions of it, which have reached this country, are not sufficiently precise to enable us to give a full de An American journalist gives the following account of an experiment he had seen performed with this instrument :The communication which, we saw made through a distance of two miles, was the following sentence, Railway cars just arrived, three hundred and forty-five passengers.' These words were put into numbers from a dictionary; the numbers were set up in the telegraphic type in about the same time ordinarily occupied in setting up the same in a printing office. They were then all passed complete by the portrule in about half a minute, each stroke of the lever of the portrule at one extremity, marking on the register at the other, a distance of two miles instantaneously. We watched the spark at one end, and the mark of the pencil at the other, and they were as simultaneous, as if the lever itself had struck the mark. The marks or numbers were easily legible, and by means of the dictionary were resolved again into words." The first stroke of the lever causes a small alarum bell to ring, giving notice to the observer at the station to which the information is to be conveyed. At another time, we are informed, this telegraph acted through a wire, ten miles in length. The electrical telegraph, of which so much has been said in the public papers, and which is likely at no very distant period to come into general use upon railway lines, if not for government proposes, is the invention of Professor | efficiently to transmit and receive inWheatstone. Its mode of action is by formation." the transmission of electricity through wires, which are connected with a machinery that exhibits the letters required in the necessary order to complete the sentences to be communicated. An instrument of this kind has been constructed on the Great Western Railway, from London to Drayton, and the following is a description of it: "The space occupied by the case, containing the machinery, (which simply stands on a table and can be removed at pleasure to any part of the room,) is little more than that required for a gentleman's hat box. The telegraph is worked by merely pressing small brass keys, (similar to those of a keyed bugle,) which acting by means of galvanic power upon various bands placed upon a dial plate at the other end of the telegraphic line, as far as now opened, point not only to each letter of the alphabet, (as each key may be struck or pressed,) but the numerals are indicated by the same means, as well as the various points, from a comma to a colon, with notes of admiration and interrogation. There is likewise a cross upon the dial, which indicates that where this key is struck, a mistake has been committed in some part of the sentence telegraphed, and that an erasure is intended. To a question, such, for instance, as the following, 'How many passengers started from Drayton by the ten o'clock train ?' The question and answer could be transmitted from the terminus to Drayton and back in less than two minutes. This was proved on Saturday. This mode of communication is only completed as far as West Drayton station, which is about thirteen and a half miles from Paddington. There are wires communicating with each end thus far completed, passing through a hollow iron tube, not more than an inch and a half in diameter, which is fixed about six inches above the ground parallel with the railway, and about two or three feet distant from it. It is the intention of the Great Western Railway Company to carry the tube along the line as fast as the completion of the rails take place, and ultimately throughout the whole distance to Bristol. The machinery and the mode of working it are so exceedingly simple, that a child who could read would, after an hour or two's instruction, be enabled Since the above paragraph was written, Professor Wheatstone has succeeded in simplifying still more the apparatus, and a few remarks, in addition to the description already given, may be desirable for the information of the reader. The wires, which are four in number, are severally wrapped round with a well resined thread, and they are then bound together with a cord prepared in the same manner, so that they form, in appearance, a strong rope. But even in this state they are not exposed to the atmosphere, for they are enclosed in tubes, or protected above the ground by wooden cases. These wires remain in the situations where they are placed, and are quite free from any mechanical violence, being merely the conducting media between the two stations. Still with all the care that can be exercised, accidents may occur and the wires be rendered incapable of conducting the voltaic current. Should this happen, it would not be difficult to ascertain the place where the injury had been done, and by having two lines of wires no impediment would occur in the telegraphic communication. At both extremities of the line, the observers are furnished with a small galvanic battery, so that the communication may be made to or from the stations. The electricity from the batteries is conducted by the wires. Besides the wires and the batteries, there are two other parts of the apparatus upon which, in fact, the action of the telegraph depends. One of these resembles a capstan; for it consists of an upright brass pedestal, with a circular top marked round the circumference with the letters of the alphabet, from each of which a spike projects. The other parts of the apparatus consist of a beautiful combination of delicate machinery, but that part which is seen, is a disc or dial plate with a small opening sufficient to exhibit a single letter. To communicate any letter, the capstan is turned until the point projecting from it is brought into communication, and the same letter then instantly appears on the dial, whatever may be the distance of the stations. The chief advantages of this mode of telegraphic communication, are its rapidity and ease, and its trifling cost. In the common telegraph, a dic tionary or code of signals is required, but with the electrical telegraph words may be communicated, and that in less time than is required by the ordinary system to convey signs if the distance be considerable. Electricity travels with a velocity not less than that of light, which is one hundred and ninety-two thousand miles in a second, so that it would pass round the globe, the mean circumference of which is twenty-four thousand, eight hundred and sixty-nine miles, in an almost inappreciable period of time. A sentence is therefore communicated to any distance in the time required to turn the wheel, so as to bring all the letters, which form it successively to a certain point. All mistakes also are prevented by employing words instead of signs, and it may be used by night as well as by day. Supposing a telegraphic establishment to be formed between London and Liverpool, a question might be asked concerning the funds or any mercantile transaction, and an answer be returned in less than five minutes. And the same result could be obtained if the distance were twice as great; for the time required for the passage of the electricity is too small to be measured; but as the power of the electricity is weakened by passing over a long surface, the size of the batteries must be increased. The expense of the establishment is evidently confined to laying down the necessary wires; for the questions may be asked and the answers returned by children after an hour's instruction. There are few of the results of modern science more wonderful than that of the electrical telegraph; but the value it may be to society, cannot yet be even conjectured. THE HOLY SPIRIT. H. THE church itself requires conversion. We pray for the conversion of the world; but the church itself, though in another, yet in a sober and substantial sense, needs a similar blessing. The object of conversion is twofold: personal and relative; to bless us, and to make us blessings. Individual conversion accomplishes the first object, by placing us in a personal and evangelical relation to Christ. The second can only be scripturally effected by the collection and organization of those who are so related to | Christ into a church, and by that church advancing forwards, and placing itself in an evangelical relation to the Holy Spirit. Now, the prevailing sin of Christians is, that they are inclined to stop short at the first of these stages. They are, perhaps, sufficiently alive to the importance of preaching Christ as the author of redemption; for they have their own personal experience in evidence of its necessity: but they are not proportionally alive to the necessity of Divine influence as the means of usefulness; for of that they have not the same evidence. Their conversion to Christ, as individuals, was scarcely more necessary to answer the first aim of the gospel, in their own salvation, than their conversion to the Spirit, in their collective capacity, is necessary to answer the second, in the salvation of others. I say, their conversion to the Spirit; for the change necessary has all the characteristics of conversion: conviction of guilt in neglecting his agency, a perception of his necessity and suitableness, and earnest applications for his heavenly influence. That the doctrine of Divine influence has a place in the creed of the faithful, we admit; but it is one thing to assent to its truth and importance, and a very different thing to have a deep and practical persuasion of it. That the Holy Spirit is at present imparted to the church to a certain degree, is evident from its existence. For every believer is the production of the Spirit; carries about, in his own person, signatures and proofs of Divine operations; and thus forms an epitome and pledge of the eventual conversion of the world. But, as to the measure in which his Divine influence is afforded, who has not deplored its scantiness? From the earliest dawn of the Reformation to the present hour, this has been the great burden of the church. What writer, of even ordinary piety, has not bewailed and recorded it, as the standing reproach and grief of his day? Look back, and what do you behold? A procession of mourners, nearly all the living and eminent piety of the time, dressed in penitential sackcloth, moving through the cemetery of the church, as through a Golgotha, and exclaiming in tears, "Come from the four winds, O breath! and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." What do you behold? The priests, the ministers of the Lord, sanctifying a fast, calling a solemn assembly, lamenting that so few attend the |