P. Regular old-fashioned notions yours, dame; but then, you don't know any better. You never were in London. Never went to St. Paul's to hear a bishop preach, as I did, and more than once too, for St. Paul's was convenient to a friend's house where husband and I often took a cup of tea. Ah! and many nice talks I had over the sermons with that young woman; she was as fond of talking sermons over as I was, but not so clever a hand at it; I always had the best of the dispute.

Dame Cox kept her thoughts to herself; she did not wish to find fault with the widow, though she was clearsighted enough, and well-instructed enough to have given her good advice, and shown her where she was wrong. But the good old dame was one of those who found that it was easier to teach her neighbours by example, than by precept. Her silence only urged the other woman on, who broke the pause by saying,

P. Well, if the rector is long away, I shall not take it so easy as you intend to do, Goody. I shall just write to my cousin, and get leave to pay her a visit. I won't stand the curate alone for more than a month or so.

C. He is not likely to take the whole duty himself; it would be too much for so young a man. I hear there is some talk of some of the rector's friends from Oxford taking the morning service.

P. Oh, indeed! You are always the first to hear the parish news. It is nice to have a nephew for clerk. But why didn't you tell me before of such a plan? just the one to suit me; a variety, and from Oxford, too; almost as good as London!

C. Well, I don't know why I didn't tell; may be I was loth to speak of it, as it wasn't to my own mind. I cannot bear the thoughts of so many new faces and strange voices, and I am afraid I sha'n't be able to understand the sermons. My nephew tells me the clergy are all so learned there; it's like Greek and Latin, I hear.

It was clear to the sharp widow, that the nephew had been playing a trick on the old dame, and amusing himself by giving her an unnecessary fright, and Pring exclaimed,

P. Oh, nonsense; I have heard Oxford and Cambridge gentlemen both, and their sermons are easy enough to understand. You know, Goody, the rector himself was once at Oxford, reading Greek and Latin books.

C. Ay, true; so he was: thank you for reminding me. But still the voices will be new, and that will make it more difficult for me to follow.

P. For you, but not for me; a new voice quickens me up. This chance of the strange clergy gives me courage to look forward to the rector's going away.

C. Oh, neighbour! it's plain you don't love and respect him as I do. It is not only the Sunday sermon that will be missed when he, good gentleman, is gone.

P. I can't be expected to feel as you do, I, who have only lived here a few years; and I tell you sermons have been my Sunday treat ever since I was married, ay, and before that; when I lived in service, it was seldom I could get ready in time for church, and I did not much care as long as I was in for the sermon; we were questioned on that, and, as I told you, great credit I got for my answers. It was lucky for me that the prayers and lessons came before the sermon.

C. Well, I often wish it was the other way; for after the sermon I think I should say my prayers more heartily, and listen to the chapters out of the Bible to more profit; often, you know, the rector preaches on one of the lessons. But, neighbour, how can you think and talk about the first part of the service so? The Psalms and lessons, gospel and epistle, are all parts of God's own word, and yet you set them aside for the sermon, which, however good, is but man's word. I ask your pardon for speaking my mind so plain.

P. And so you ought, dame. Good morning, said the widow, hastily, for she did not like this word in

season.

C. I am sorry I offended her, thought the good dame to herself. My tongue is ever an unruly member; it is all my fault. I will go in, by and by, and make it all straight between us. It is bad to sleep on ill words. "Let not the sun go down on thy wrath," is the wise saying.

J. A.

EXTRACT FROM MY FAMILY BIBLE.

MARK Xii. 35-44.

MY DEAR FAMILY,-Observe, David is here declared by our blessed Lord to have spoken by the Holy Ghost in his book of Psalms. This should make us reverence deeply, and use constantly, the writings of the inspired king of Israel. How wise is the Church of England, to divide the Psalms into stated portions for each day's service, since their inspiration stands on so high an authority as that of God manifest in the flesh; and since they are so suited to the wants of men's souls, under all circumstances, and are, many of them, direct prophecies of Christ. Happy day will that be when all the enemies of our Lord are subdued, and there shall be no more vexing of the saints of God. At present the conflict is sore between the believer and his spiritual enemy, who tries to drive him off the rock on which God has planted his feet, and from the commands of his Saviour, which are so good, so peace-giving, and so very reasonable. Satan finds in the very best a heart too ready to disbelieve God, and to follow his own wicked temptations to evil works; but the Christian's safety is in his Lord, to whom he must and does constantly pray, that He will put his foot upon the tyrant spirit that envies his hopes of salvation, and the desires after holiness which the Holy Ghost has put into his mind. The believer has no self-confidence, because he knows that Satan, though a fallen angel, is yet very powerful, and that he himself is in his flesh neither good nor strong; therefore, Jesus is his constant refuge, and in Him he hopes for victory in his own individual case, and looks hopefully forward to the day when the divine and human Son of David shall condemn to eternal torments the tempter and the accuser of the brethren. (Rev. xx. 10.) The Gospel is especially the property of the poor, whose want and misery here below require a sound hope of some state of happiness beyond the grave, and the common people will hear the Gospel gladly, and to their soul's profit, when their teachers are true and good.

In the case of the Jews, the common people were glad enough to hear our Lord put down the insolence of the unbelieving Scribes and Pharisees; but, alas! their

ministers were so faithless to divine scriptural truth, and also so wicked, that they were at last successful in making the common people cry out, "crucify Him." O my family, a faithful and godly minister is a great treasure, wherever he is found! The common people stand in great need of sound guides in the Church, otherwise they will go where, even if they hear Gospel doctrine preached, they hear too often any thing but Gospel precepts in all their wide, yet well-balanced range of duties. The common people, however, have their duties, and one of their principal duties, as it is also with all other classes, is to read and hear the blessed Bible prayerfully, that they may be led by God's Spirit to pray that faithful and holy men may be appointed to the ministry of God's word in our scriptural Church; so that both ministers and people may be blest with sound knowledge, and that neither Protestant dissent nor Popish corruption may prevail; but that the Bible, and the Church services founded upon it, may be valued, as supplying the spiritual need of sinners, as refreshing waters to their thirsty souls.

True Christianity and great bounty cannot be separated, for Christ in the gift of Himself has set an example of bounty beyond all thought! Let the rich give largely, for the glory of God, and not for show and a name; and let the poor give their mites from the same motive, and both shall be blest by Jesus; but the gifts of the poor are his delight, when they are gifts of faith and love; because they are the gifts of the needy. Yet it must never be forgotten by any, whether rich or poor, that God required of the Jews at the three great feasts, "that every man should give as he was able, according to the blessing of the Lord his God, which he had given him. None were to appear before the Lord empty." (See Deut. xvi. 16, 17.) A LAYMAN.

DRUNKENNESS.

It is most grievous for any Englishman to think of, that a habit of drinking is the disgrace of his nation. It was at one time almost the boast of an Englishman that

a company at his house should scarcely ever go home sober. This is now out of fashion with the gentry; but the poor people are now ruining themselves with drinking. The expense of it brings a family to rags, and the troubles into which it brings them are seen in the calendar of crimes brought before the judges at all the assizes. Mr. Justice Erskine, at the Salisbury assizes, when sentencing a person, who called himself a gentleman, to six months' hard labour, for a crime committed through strong drink, declared that ninety-nine out of a hundred criminal cases were from drinking. Judge Patteson, at the Norwich assizes, said to the grand jury-"If it were not for this drinking, you and I should have nothing to do."

It is calculated that the greater part of poverty, crime, and disease, in this land, may be clearly traced to habits of drinking.

Drunkenness produces no one good thing, but torments the nation, as to religion, morals, health, home comforts, and the good of society.

THE BLIND, THEIR WORKS AND WAYS.

མ.

THERE is an idea, we believe, extant among persons that the blind, as a class, are inferior in actual powers of mind, as well as in attainments, as if with their eyes their mental faculties had also become blinded, that a sort of blight had passed over the powers of mind, destroying at once both keenness and vigour. People are apt to say, "0, he is blind," just as they say, "He is an idiot." It would be easy to prove the injustice of such words at once, but we prefer leaving plain facts to speak for themselves in a following page. It is sufficient here to say that the idea is altogether erroneous, arising from ignorance of the facts of the cases, or a knowledge of the blind derived only from books.

If we trace up the characteristics of the blind as a class, we shall find them to be thoughtful and diligent, with peculiar keenness and sensibility of mind and feeling, shy of expressing their thoughts or feelings before strangers, grateful for every little kindness, and equally sensitive of the least slight. They are affectionate to