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"On! On!" "Forward! Forward!" | do you value it? Are you blowing bubWe have all much to do, and very little bles, and balancing straws, or attending space to do it in. We have no time to to things of weighty importance? Better tarry. Will the sun delay his setting? waste money, houses, lands, pearls, and or the moon her rising? You know they diamonds, than waste time. Many trifle will not. Will the world as it turns round with years, who afterwards estimate hours. stop? Will time stop? Will life Many dream away months, who, in their stop? Will death stop? Will eternity latter day, would gladly purchase mostop? No! Then, why should we stop? ments. Be honest to your own interest, be Whatever you have to do, and wherever faithful, be decided. you have to go-" On! On!" "Forward! Forward!"

The sands run on, Time turns his glass, And winged moments swiftly pass.

is well.

Are you seeking knowledge, gaining knowledge, giving knowledge? If so, it Are you aiming at good, getting good, and doing good? If so, it is better. Are you loving God, obeying God, and glorifying God? If so, this is best of all. Keep up this course, you cannot do better; keep it up, ill or well, day or night, winter or summer. Oh! it is an excellent thing to seek knowledge, to gain knowledge, and to give knowledge; to aim at good, to get good, and to do good; to love God, to obey God, and to glorify God. But you will that I am all haste, say hurry, and rapidity; that I allow no quiet, no repose, no peace;-in this you will be wrong.

Love God, do good, from evil cease, And you shall have repose and peace. If you indulge in quietude and repose when you have active duties to perform, —say, Peace, peace, when there is no peace, can be no peace, and ought to be no peace, why then the less you have of quiet, and repose, and peace, the better; but if, in your quietude and peace, you are resting from your exertions, recruiting your powers, encouraging kindly thoughts of your fellow pilgrims, and meditating on the goodness of God; if your peace be the serene sunshine of the heart, created by love to those around you, and a reliance on the faithfulness of your heavenly Father-quiet, and repose, and peace, be yours to your heart's content. I love quietude, and repose, and peace, too well to deprive any one beneath the stars of such inestimable benefits. Let us earn quiet and repose by diligence in duty; let us seek after peace by seeking after God.

What are you doing with your time? Some do little with it, some do much ; but my question is, What do you do with it? Some value it highly, some lowly; how

account.

Alfred was a great man; Newton a wise man; Johnson a learned man; Howard a benevolent man; Watts a pious man-all of them turned time to If you wish to be great, or wise, or learned, or benevolent, or pious, see that you do the same. This is clear, this is plain, this is reasonable. Are you do this? Are you determined to do this? disposed to do this? Are you desiring to

minutes; husband your hours; improve Value your moments; measure your your years. Does a man plan without

an

object? walk in a road without knowing to what place it will lead? take medicine without calculating on its effect? spring up? or do a deed without thinksow a seed without expecting a plant to ing whether it will be for good or evil? What plan then are you Certainly not. What medicine are you taking? What forming? What road are you walking? seed are you sowing? And what deeds are you doing? Answer promptly, uprightly, energetically, and unreservedly.

As I said at first, my style is brief, and my manner abrupt, but my object is good. I will win you if I can, do good to you if you will let me, and warn you whether you will let me or not. What I say to you, say to myself. Be humble, diligent, ardent, hopeful, prayerful, and praiseful. "On! On!" "Forward! Forward!" God's word is with us, and heaven is before us. What then are you seeking? What are you fearing? What are you hoping? What are you desiring? And what are you doing with your time?

UNITY OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS.

No. I.

THERE is only one bond of real union it is, "the golden chain of love." Familiar, however, as we are now with the character and obligations of benevolence, our knowledge of it is ascribable not to our own perspicacity, but to light from heaven. Apart from revelation it was

never possessed. Benevolence breathed not in the classic mythology of Greece or Rome. No poet of antiquity attuned his lyre to its praise; no legislator made it a part of his code; no philosopher expatiated on its excellency, or enjoined its culture on one of his disciples.

The doctrine of universal philanthropy was not even taught by the economy of Moses. Judaism, so far, indeed, from being co-extensive with the world, was shut up within very narrow boundaries. A "middle wall of partition" rose between others and its adherents, which they could neither breach nor pass over. The Jews were a people dwelling alone. Their ordinary emotions were chiefly, therefore, either selfish or national; and even those of piety were concentrated on the temple towering aloft on the hill of Zion.

It was reserved for the angelic announcement of "good-will to men," to introduce the pure philanthropy of the gospel. It was peculiarly fitting that the Saviour of men should unfold its character, and enforce its claims. He taught, therefore, that he possesses a plea which ought to be irresistible, who, whatever his circumstances of need may be, can say, "I am a man;" that he is our neighbour who requires our aid; and that he who proffers the needed assistance, and he only, acts a neighbour's part. Nor have we learned the lesson conveyed by the parable of the good Samaritan, though tears have often dimmed our eyes in its perusal, unless this truth is indelibly engraven on our

hearts.

The high claim of humanity which is thus asserted by the Divine Redeemer is indicative of the highest wisdom. For the heart of man is a citadel which will never capitulate to force of arms. Power can repel, wither, crush the affections; but benevolence alone can win them to complacent and grateful exercise. Its influence is manifest in every grade of life, and even among the outcasts of humanity. The inmates of the prisonhouse, degraded as they are, have gratefully responded to acts of kindness; the tribute of thankfulness has been tendered by the inmates of lazarettoes, and often amidst paroxysms of agony, has the eye been eloquent though the lips were mute. Even the savage, that creature of God who has been described by some philosophers as the link uniting man and the brute, even he has demonstrated that he

can rise, beneath the honoured instrumentality of benevolence, to all that is noble in humanity and godlike in religion. For as the rarest gems have been brought from the deepest recesses of the earth to sparkle in the light of day, so benevolence, under the effectual blessing of the God of love, raises man from the deepest abyss of degradation, to exult in the beams of God's countenance, to wear the beauties of holiness, and to expatiate eternally in the regions of purity and blessedness. Nor can any limit be assigned for its triumphs in such circumstances but the boundaries of the globe. They will continue until the prophecies of its entire subjugation to the great and only Redeemer are entirely accomplished. In one trophy to the power of benevolence, omnipotence is displayed,-millions on millions can reveal

no more.

Within the circle of philanthropy, thus large as the circumference of the globe, there is another in which benevolence is to arise, expand, and operate, as in a peculiarly genial region. Here it is to resemble, not an exotic, breathing an unfriendly atmosphere, but a flower in its native soil, flourishing amidst kindred plants. Of this we are reminded by the apostolic injunction to "do good unto all men, but especially to them who are of the household of faith." Nor can any inculcation of this delightful duty surpass that of the Son of God, who when conversing with his disciples said, "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you," John xv. 12. It is true that their love cannot equal his, but it is to resemble it; to have the same strength and ardour is impossible, but it is to be of the same kind. The love of Christ is costly, generous, comprehensive, free; such, then, is the affection which is obligatory on every faithful follower.

Nor was it long before obedience to this injunction was strikingly apparent. In reference to the thousands of converts on the day of Pentecost it is said, "All that believed were together," thus connecting individual piety with social religion. Recognising the same exclusive authority, obeying the same statutes, and animated by the same spirit, they were associated in the same fellowship. Soothing and delightful is it to recur to the scenes which thus arose. At Jerusalem, after the descent of the Holy Ghost, there was the earliest triumph of

Christian love. There every spirit, however turbulent before, was attuned to harmony from no lip issued a jarring sound-all was truth, affection, and unity "the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul," Acts iv. 32.

Yet this was only the beginning of the conquests of benevolence. As the gospel went forth, in after times, accompanied by the power of God, men totally dissimilar in character and habits embraced it heartily and lived under its influence. The citizen of no mean city, and the slave whom his master numbered among his chattels, the most barbarous and the most refined, men alienated by repugnant institutions and deadly feuds men placed, in fact, at the widest possible extremes of separation, forgot all differences and heartburnings, and, at the command of Christ, hailed one another as friends and brethren.

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A NATURALIST'S STROLL FROM READING TO SUNNING.

MANY and beautiful are the walks round Reading. The scenery, it is true, is not bold, or romantic; there are neither heath-clad mountains, nor rocky heights; but there are winding streams purling through verdant meads; there are water-mills, always picturesque, and gently rising grounds, often richly wooded; there is a luxuriance in the foliage of the hedge-rows; winding lanes, with thick hedges of hawthorn and dog-rose, lead to farms embosomed in some sleepy dell, or shrouded amidst clustering trees;

and from many a copse and dingle, where the tall stems of elms shoot through the dense covert of hazels and crowded underwood, does the nightingale pour forth his melodious strains. Many a spot is there on the banks of the clear Kennet and winding Thames which old Izaac Walton, in his hours of recreation, might have delighted to visit, moralizing as he sat,

Thus when the apostle Paul addressed the saints and brethren in Colosse, a large and populous city of Phrygia, he said, "Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body," Col. iii. 15. In the circular letter of the same inspired messenger, a letter which was to be distributed through "the churches of Galatia,' a province of proconsular Asia, he thus conveys the same truth: "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus," Gal. iii: 26-28. In this remarkable passage, therefore, Christ appears as the great centre of unity. For what was the preparative for enjoying the richest blessings? Receiving the truth as it is in Jesus. Of what character was the sacred fellowship of believers? It was that of God's dear Son. What principle was to have dominion in their souls? The love of Christ. What was their only plea at the throne of mercy? For Christ's sake. What example were they to follow? That of their ascended Lord. What were the statutes they were constantly to observe? Those he had appointed as his commandments. Various representations of Christ and his followers entirely coincide with these facts. Is the image selected from the vegetable world? Jesus is the vine; they are the branches.

"with patient skill Attending of his trembling quill."

It was a fine day in the month of May, so celebrated by poets, the month of flowers and fragrance, that we took a stroll from Reading to Sunning, by the way of the fields. Ere leaving the town we behold the grey rubble walls of immense thickness, the remains of the once famous abbey of Reading, founded by the Beauclerc, Henry 1. At their base runs the Holy Brook, as of yore, just before merging into the Kennet; but how changed the scene! In the time of the Beauclerc, Reading was a small hamlet; and its inhabitants, a few franklins or yeomen excepted, were the serfs or vassals of the abbey, which in the course of succeeding reigns increased in power and splendour. Ruined walls on which stonecrop and wild rock-flowers bloom, and in the fissures and crevices of which sparrows and starlings build their nests, alone remain to attest the extent of that once proud pile. The very bones of the dead,

the collection of centuries, have been upturned from their lowly bed, and scattered amidst heaps of fragments, broken carved work, tessellated pavements, flints, and masses of lime harder even than stone. New buildings are encroaching within the empty spaces of desolation; and soon, perhaps, the few walls that remain will disappear entirely. Such is the mutability, the perishableness, of the grandest of man's works. Tadmor in the wilderness; mighty Babylon; and "hundred-gated Thebes," have passed away; even of Jerusalem one stone was not left on another. Yet, as in those days of antiquity, the sparrow still builds in the temples of holiness; and "the stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming."

| again, several individuals taking part in the chorus. Selby remarks that when these birds are silent, they may be roused to sing by a stone being thrown among the oziers, or reeds, which conceal them; we have observed the same thing. The sedge-warbler flits very quickly along, but only for a short distance, and mostly plunges at once into the thickest part of its covert, where indeed it may be heard, but not seen. In this covert it builds a nest, suspended between three or four of the closest adjoining stems, and above the ordinary rise of the water, whether from_a tidal cause, or from rains or floods. In this cradle, which rocks with the breeze, it rears its brood.

Passing along, a broad meadow opened before us, over which the swallows were skimming on rapid wings, and through Leaving the ruined abbey walls, we which the river made its way with easy soon come to the bank of the Kennet, windings; transparent was its water, and and a very short walk brings us to in every shallow shoals of small fish in its junction with the Thames, here flow- countless numbers were seen gliding ing through wide meadows, bounded by along with easy motion. On they pura gentle rise. We pass an establish- sued their course, phalanx after phalanx ment for preparing oziers for basket- passing by, some keeping to the shallows makers; the oziers are cut from the along the shore, others disappearing in beds, bound into large sheaves, or bun- the obscure depths of the river, and redles, and placed upright in dense array, minding us of the passage of huand half submerged in the water, along man hosts from time into eternity. the side of the banks, till wanted; here Anon, some large fish, darting amidst they flourish, and form a close covert for them, would scatter their ranks; but the the sedge-warbler, (Salicaria Phragmitis, alarm over, again they closed, and went Selby,) of which we saw several flitting along with the current, forgetful of the in and out, and heard the hurried garru- passed danger, and unsuspicious of any lous notes of others in concealment. to come. Just so, methought, is it when Along the whole of this part of the river some dire event agitates society, scatterwe observed the sedge-warbler very ing terror and confusion; but the peril abundant. This little chattering bird is over, it is soon forgotten, and the course often confounded with the reed-wren (Sa- of human operations goes on as before: licaria Arundinacea) which frequents the just so, methought, is it with the gay same places, namely, ozier beds and and heedless, swimming down the stream reeds, and is similar in habits and man- of pleasure; an unforeseen catastrophe ners. But the reed-wren has its plum-hurries some of their number to destrucage above of a uniform olive tinge, and is destitute of a white line over the eye, which in the sedge-warbler is conspicuous; the sedge-warbler, moreover, has the plumage of the upper surface varied by longitudinal dashes of dark brown. The reed-wren is a rarer bird than the sedge-warbler, especially in the midland and northern counties of our island. Both are migratory. In places where the sedge-warbler is abundant its rapid and confused notes may be heard not only during the day, but also the greater part of the night; occasionally interrupted, and anon breaking forth

tion; a panic scatters the survivors for a time, but the terror soon subsides; the past is forgotten, and on they swim, reckless of the fate that awaits them. We went on our way, as John Bunyan says, but soon stopped to gaze round upon the scene; and the lines of Davors, little known, though quoted by honest Izaac Walton, came into my mind; albeit, I count not myself one of the gentle brotherhood :"

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"Let me live harmlessly, and near the brink
Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place,
Where I may see my quill or cork down sink,
With eager bite of perch or bleak or dace,

And on the world and my Creator think;

Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t'em-
brace,

And others spend their time in base excess
Of wine, or worse, in war and wantonness.

"Let them that list these pastimes still pursue,
And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill,
So I the fields and meadows green may view,
And daily by fresh rivers walk at will,
Among the daisies and the violets blue,
Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil,
Purple narcissus like the morning rays,
Pale gander grass and azure culverkeys.

"I count it higher pleasure to behold

The stately compass of the lofty sky, And in the midst thereof, like burning gold, The flaming chariot of the world's great eye, The watery clouds that in the air uproll'd

With sundry clouds of painted colours fly, And fair Aurora lifting up her head, Still blushing rise from old Tithonus' bed.

"The hills and mountains raised from the plains, The plains extended level with the ground, The grounds divided into sundry veins,

The veins enclosed with rivers running round, These rivers making way through nature's chains, With headlong course into the sea profound— The raging sea beneath the valleys low, Where lakes, and rills, and rivulets do flow.

"The lofty woods, the forests wide and long, Adorn'd with leaves and branches fresh and green,

In whose cool bowers the birds with many a song Do welcome with their quire the summer's queen;

The meadows fair where Flora's gifts among

Are intermix'd with verdant grass between, The silver-scaled fish that softly swim Within the sweet brook's crystal watery stream.

"All these and many more of His creation

Who made the heavens, the angler oft doth see, Taking therein no little delectation

To think how strange, how wonderful they be, Framing thereof an inward contemplation

To set his heart from other fancies free; And whilst he looks on these with joyful eye, His mind is rapt above the starry sky."

Half repeating, half musing, on these verses, I was roused by the harsh monosyllabic note of the corn-crake, (Crex Pratensis,) uttered apparently but a few yards distance from the spot where I stood. It was then repeated from a more distant place, and answered, as it appeared, from the other side of the river. But not a bird was seen. Rapidly, secretly, noiselessly, does it thread the mazes of the tall grass and herbage, shifting its locality with marvellous address, but seldom showing itself, and not to be put up even by a well-trained dog without the greatest trouble and perseverance. Scarcely had we proceeded twenty yards, the note of the corn-crake still sounding, before we met with its more aquatic relation, the water-hen, Gallinula Chloropus,) swimming leisurely around a bed of reeds, and other aquatic plants, into the covert of which it hastily retreated. Close to the same spot we observed also the

one

water-rail, (Rallus Aquaticus,) and at a little distance several dab-chicks, (Podiceps Minor,) which dived the instant we came in sight. Here, too, the coot (Fulica Atra,) appeared rather numerously; for at intervals we saw several, and on occasion three or four together, which hastily left the bank for the water, and instantly plunged beneath the surface. We shall not enter into any account of the habits of these feathered tenants of the lake and river; referring our readers to a work entitled "An Introduction to the Study of Birds," published by the Religious Tract Society, in which they are sufficiently detailed. Suffice it to say that these aquatic birds are shy, wary, and very quick-sighted, and rapidly elude observation.

Pursuing our way, we came to a spot where a quantity of mud had been dredged up from the bed of the river, and spread on the bank; it was replete with fresh-water mussel-shells of the genera Unio and Anodon, namely, the Unio Pictorum, or painter's mussel, and the Anodon Fluviatilis. At a superficial glance, the distinction between these two genera is not very apparent. Look, however, at the hinge of the valves, and the difference is obvious. In Unio, besides the elastic ligament, there are strong teeth and corresponding fossettes. In the left valve there are two teeth with a depression between them; in the right valve a single tooth, which fits into the depression of the left. In Anodon, which means toothless, there are no teeth; the hinge is simple, or toothless, with an extensive and powerful ligament. Both these shells, but especially the latter, are lined with brilliant nacre, or mother of pearl, and, indeed, in some allied species, as the Unio Elongatus (Mya Margaritifera Linn.) pearls are not uncommon. one period, indeed, regular pearl fisheries were established on several of our rivers, and even patents were granted to persons, giving them the exclusive right of the fishery. Sir John Hawkins, the navigator, and an active trader in negro slaves, in the reign of Elizabeth, had a patentright over the river Irt, in Cumberland, which was celebrated for producing them. The river Esk was also famous, but more particularly the Conway. A pearl of great beauty from the latter river was presented to Catherine, wife of Charles II., by her chamberlain, sir Richard Wynn, of Gwyder, which, according to Pennant, was in his time honoured with

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