important to enquire into that which is every sabbath preached to our children, and into the character of the books (especially those of amusment) which are put into their hands. May we not consider the five principal means for Christian Education to be Example, Instruction, Correction, Faith, and Prayer? What a striking instance does the patriarch Abraham afford of consistency in this respect! Even God himself could say, "I know him, that he will command his children, and his household after him; and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." (Genesis xviii. 19.) How clearly are three of these important requisites for success marked out in this passage, "He will command," includes instruction and discipline; and "after him," points out the example which Abraham gave them. We cannot doubt either his prayer or his faith, the latter being his characteristic, and his whole life seemed occupied in communion with God.

How remarkably does success seem attached to the means, when

the Lord says, "that he may bring upon Abraham, that which he hath spoken of."

Whilst we may consider that a promise is implied in the commands of Him who is ever ready to give strength for their performance, we must not forget that his promises generally refer to some command connected with example; perhaps there is nothing more important than consistency of principle, and nothing requires more earnest prayer and watchfulness. The great evil, however, of the present day seems to be, the neglect of uniform discipline in religious families. If you can procure a

valuable American publication entitled the "Domestic Constitution," by the Rev. C. Anderson, you will find some useful hints connected with the family of Abraham. The writer introduces an illustration which is easily understood and applied to the subject in question. He says, "I remember hearing of two coaches coming from London to Newmarket, by a certain town, at a time of strong competition. The Coach which generally came in first had, I think, four greys, and upon their arrival, the people used to remark, that there was scarcely a wet hair on one of them. In the other, though last, the horses were jaded, and even heated to excess, whilst they appeared to have made great efforts. The reader perhaps understands the cause of the difference. The first man did it all by the reins: the second, unsteady in himself, or unskilful in the reins, had induced bad habits, and then employed the whip." So it will ever hold in all guidance, in all government-if obedi ence to the reins be found to be most pleasant in itself, and even the road to enjoyment, then the principle will grow into habit, and even become the choice of the governed. "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it."

Having now extended this letter beyond the usual limits, I shall reserve any further remarks to a future opportunity. May we be enabled by watchfulness and prayer to guard against the prevailing evils of inconsistency and relaxed discipline, to which I fear so many disappointments in really Christian families may be traced.

Believe me,

Your attached friend,

Bristol, Jan. 26, 1846.

not to judge of anything from its outward appearance, by the consciousness he possesses of his own value in the universe. He looks around on the massive trees, on the soaring mountains, nay, on the fabrics of human workmanship, the "gorgeous palaces" or "star-the pointing pyramid," and what is his outward form in bulk or duration compared with these? Yet when he looks within himself on the spirit which there stirs and glows, he feels that though, indeed, small in himself, he is great because he has been brought into connexion with God: that, though his space of life is but a point, it is a point fixed between two eternities; and that, though seemingly only a creature of the present, he is linked to the past by memory, and to the future by hope or by fear. So is it with this little instrument which God has placed in his hands-the pen it is insignificant to the casual glance, but deeply important to the thoughtful mind.

Through writing (of which we use a pen as the symbol) we are let into the secrets of the past. The pyramids, indeed, still stand where they have stood for several thousand years; yet are they but voiceless giants of a former world, baffling the curiosity they excite; for the traveller seeks in vain for an inscription which might explain the intention of these huge buildings. But when, as in the case of some other ancient remains some writing is discovered, when the work of something that has been made to do the office of a pen is there, the dumb mass begins to speak, and eagerly does the antiquarian catch its broken accents and hasten to study and interpret them. In many instances from a few words, legible after the lapse of centuries, facts have been elicited which the vast ruins near which they were found would have been unable to teach.

Through the pen, the souls of the great and good of other days, are still with us to comfort and instruct. Great attempts have been made to preserve the bodies of the noble dead; they have been swathed and embalmed, and placed in mausoleums, and thus some scanty relics of them have been preserved to modern times; but what are

they at most but spectacles of degradation, or heaps of dust? "In 1826 Carlo Avolta of Corneto," says Mrs. Hamilton Gray,* "had a most unexpected glimpse of a Tarquinian Lucumo. On removing a few stones from the upper part of a sepulchre, he looked through the aperture to discover the contents; and behold, extended in state before him, lay one of the mighty men of old. He saw him crowned with gold and clothed in armour. His shield, spear, and arrows were by his side, and the warrior's sleep seemed rather to be of yesterday, than to have endured well nigh thirty centuries. But a sudden change came over the scene, and startled Avolta from his astonished contemplation. A slight tremour, like that of sand in an hour glass, seemed to agitate the figure, and in a few minutes it vanished into air, and disappeared. When he entered the tomb the golden crown, some fragments of arms, and a few handfuls of dust, were all that marked the last resting-place of the Tarquinian chief." Yes, a few handfuls of dust! this is all we can hope to retain of the bodies of our greatest men; but through the pen what glorious relics do we possess of their souls! For us, still, through it David sheds tears of repentance or sweeps his harp to songs of adoration. Isaiah is "6 rapt into future times," and Paul " reasons of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come." Babylon, the lady of kingdoms, has left nothing but a mound or two of rubbish to mark the place where she stood; but the writings of her Hebrew captives, Ezekiel and Daniel, still live in pristine vigour. The site of Tyre is undeterminable; but we still read the prophecy which is foretold that it should "be sought for, yet never be found again.”+ Greece is little more than a desert, and her cities are but names; but, through the pen, the thoughts and doings of her great men are still familiar to us, and have become (to use the proud expression of one of her sons) "an everlasting possession" for the children of men. Books transmit to us the essence of the past; giving us the motives and results of actions which convulsed the

* History of Etruria, Vol 1.
† Ezek. xxvi. 21.

world; and condensing for us into a few lessons of practical wisdom the history of the ages, through them the individual man is not born into a strange and an alien world; for they may be called the genealogical registers which make out his kindredship with the "

gray fathers" of his race. They are the precious inheritance left us by the wise or good who have preceded us. Through them, the hero has conquered, the philosopher has mused, the martyr has died for us; for in them we have the record of their various words and doings brought to our homes to warn or guide us in our

own career.

We might also notice the use of the pen as a medium of intercourse between individuals at a distance from each other. And to the friend who by its means converses with some beloved one in spite of intervening seas, to the mother who weeps tears of joy over the paper bearing the well known characters of her son whom providence has fixed in foreign lands, to the wife who traces in a letter the outpourings of her husband's affection uninjured by absence-this, surely, will appear a blessing demanding many a thanksgiving to God.

But the greatest blessing of which the pen has been the instrument isthe Bible. God has there condescended to speak to us in human accents, and to clothe the utterances of eternity in the simple speech of men. He indeed never left himself without witness, in that he did good ;” but in his written word he has stooped still nearer to our humiliation. Vouchsafing to choose weak mortals as his ambassadors, he from time to time sent forth into the world prophets, charged with messages from his throne, who denounced judgment or summoned to repentance, and committed their inspired teachings to writings which were afterwards reverently collected and preserved. At length, these mysterious beings appeared no more; the written word was closed for a time, and there seemed to be as it were "silence in heaven." But it was not that man was abandoned of God, it was not that incensed at the contumacy of his creatures, the Divine Being had broken off all intercourse with them;

no, even then was the progress of the ages bringing on the period when was to be exhibited the most august proof of heavenly love that had yet been given. For "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." God had "at sundry times and in divers manners spoken in time past unto the fathers by the prophets," but then the Son of God himself stepped down from his chair of state, and coming forth from the recesses of his own eternity, trod in human form the earth which he had made, entered into the homes of his creatures to assure them of his gracious designs on their behalf, and at length died "to be the propitiation for their sins." And then when he had again ascended to the Father, it was through the pen that the marvellous history of his words and deeds was transmitted to future generations; and to the book of the law and the prophets were added the still more wondrous writings of the New Testament. And now we have the book of inspiration complete, which, when attended by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, is the only safe guide amid the intricacies of life, and reveals the only means by which man can be just with God and be admitted eternally to his presence.

Of the wondrous effects which, under providence, the pen has produced we need only say a few words. Those ancient manuscripts which lay dusty, neglected and sometimes half obliterated, in the monasteries of the fourteenth century, when brought forth by Petrarch and others, were the means of the revival of learning in Europe; and the Latin Bible which Luther accidentally, as it is called, found in the library of the monastery at Erfurt, and which brought light and truth to that reformer, was thus made the means of breaking the clouds of superstition and falsehood that had gathered so deeply over Christendom. And what effects may now be in course of production by its means, when through the printing-press its works are being spread over the world with a rapidity hitherto unexampled it were vain to conjecture! And as with nations, so with individuals. Who can tell how

often some little book, or even the fragment of one, may have shaped the future destinies of the person who met with it? How often has a man driven almost to despair by adverse circumstances, found in some production of the pen, perhaps the Bible, perhaps some holy treatise, words that have cheered his heart and made him go on his way rejoicing-invaluable words, which in his gratitude he would fain have "graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!" And so has the invalid, left neglected in his lonely chamber by the throng who were gone their several ways of business or pleasure, sometimes found in the lettered page a mighty influence opening to him visions of a happier world, clothing nature with a richer vestment, and teaching him to believe that sorrow at whose approach he had been wont to shudder, is often a messenger sent to those whom the heavenly "king delighteth to honour."

Yet as the pen is an engine of great power for good, so also it may be one of great power for evil; and that not only through our neglect and ingratitude in respect of the blessings of which it is the medium, but also through its being employed as a means for disseminating vice. Owing to our fallen state, the condition annexed to our tenure of every blessing on earth is, that in some cases it may work woe. The sun, the source of warmth and joy to creation, occasionally inflicts a death-stroke on the defenceless head; and the proclamation of the Gospel itself which is to some "the savour of life unto life" is unto others "the savour of death unto death." We cannot, therefore, be surprised to find that in some proportion to the advan

tage of good books is the danger of bad ones. The youth whom his parents have carefully shielded from improper companions and whose morals have been watched over with scrupulous care, may yet by a book, found perhaps in his father's library, receive some taint of scepticism or impurity, the consequences of which are not to be told. Even to the experienced Christian what anguish has sometimes been occasioned by the perusal of an objectionable book; in this case, the pen becomes for him a dagger piercing him with wounds not easily to be healed.* As to those who prostitute the pen to base purposes, who make use of their gigantic talents to awaken in feebler minds doubt and discontent, too apt of themselves to arise there, who envelop error in the covering of sophistry, who endeavour to shake the foundations of society by arousing dislike to legitimate authority, who scatter evil communications which "eat as doth a canker" into the youthful mind, or who in things the most venerable discover fit subjects for jest and ridicule, ill will it, we think, fare with such if they repent not; for they are making one of man's greatest blessings his deadliest curse, and are poisoning the stream at which thirsty nations are crowding to drink. But, notwithstanding its abuses, when we consider that by means of the pen the past is made present, the wisdom of the dead is in a sense immortalized, space is annihilated, and above all the glad tidings of salvation are brought to the eyes and (through God's grace) to the hearts of men, we have ample reason to say, blessed be God for the Pen!

M. N.

AN EXTRACT FROM LUTHER. THE Cross of Christ is divided over the earth, and each one has his share. Do not you refuse your part; rather receive it as a holy relic ;-not indeed in a gold and silver vase, but, what is far more preferable, in a heart of gold a heart imbued with meekIf the wood of the Cross was

ness.

so sanctified by the body and blood of Christ, that we deem it the most sacred of relics, how much more should we count as holy relics the wrongs, persecutions, sufferings, and batred of men, since they were not only touched hy Christ's flesh, but embraced, kissed, and made blessed by his boundless love.

THE religious and moral destitution of the natives of the East having, at the present peculiarly interesting juncture, attracted the anxious attention of several individuals deeply interested in their welfare, they have arrived at the conviction that one of the most effectual ways in which this deplorable destitution can be remedied, is by the foundation of a College in some district of the Mediterranean, in which a good system of education on Church of England principles, may be provided for the youth of the surrounding countries.

They have, under this strong conviction, formed themselves into a Provisional Committee for the purpose of making the necessary arrangements for the establishment of such a College. The reasons which have influenced them in coming to this determination will be found in the following Statement; and it is confidently hoped that, when the great ends which they

have incontemplation in this important undertaking are attentively considered, it will be admitted to be highly deserving of the cordial support of a great and enlightened Christian nation.

The obstacles which had hitherto impeded every effort for the Christian instruction and civilization of the nations of the East, and more especially the inhabitants of Asia and Africa, and of the districts of Europe contiguous to the Mediterranean, having, in the providence of God, been in a great degree removed, it is considered to be the paramount duty of all Christians in the United Kingdom, especially at such a period as the present, to make the most strenuous exertions to promote the moral and religious regeneration of those countries, from whence the blessings of Christian civilization, so long enjoyed by this country, were originally received.

The Church of Rome, assisted by foreign Governments, being at present