that it knows of a region wherein it can always breathe 'an ampler ether, and diviner air,' will not, on that account, be impatient of the grosser elements, by which it may habitually be surrounded. It can afford to suffer, to be annoyed, to be entrenched upon.

.....

"With all that I have said, my dear I have not touched the root of the malady, or proposed any adequate remedy. I am not anxious, then, for the removal of your depression, or desirous that you should be happy, merely on account of your personal enjoyment; I desire it, mainly, because you cannot otherwise be useful; and your Christian profession, like a sword exposed to moisture, if it do not lose its edge, will certainly lose its polish. My dear love, on this ground you must arouse from a lethargy not less destructive to the due performance of duty, than actual sin-nay, little short of actual sin itself. What! would you have a world that lieth in wickedness' a world of unalloyed felicity? Would you be a Christian Sybarite? Dare you murmur because the life of faith is not an Eastern romance? Do you, in sober truth, desire to have your year all spring—your day all noon? So did not He 'who pleased not himself;' so did not He who had learned, in whatsoever state he was, therewith to be content;' who knew how to suffer need, and, far harder abound.' My dearest and, instead of praying for which do not exist, pray to have your heart filled with joy and thankfulness for the blessings which are showered upon you. If, in the mistaken spirit of an apostle, you shrink from contact with everything that fastidiousness may call common or unclean,' where is the be

task, knew also 'how to think of these things; resignation under troubles

nevolence which bears to see, nay, which desires to see, the misery which has no recommendation beyond its reality? If, in occasional intercourse with those who are ungraced with the charms of mind and manner, you manifest cold, impatient civility, and all but cherish dislike and disdain, where is the charity which 'seeketh not her own, and endureth all things?' If, avowedly, and on system, you esteem none but the gifted, the distinguished, and the amusing, where is the spirit of Him whose gentlest words were ever to the weakest-who gave an everlasting memorial to one who had done 'what she could?' If, just entered on life and your Christian career together, you already long for some bower of ease, and sigh for two heavens instead of one, where is the faith which professes to have here no continuing city -which proclaims that it is enough for the servant to be as his master, and the disciple as his lord? Ah, my love! we all get wrong the moment we forget that this is not our rest. Midnight is not a more effectual shrowd for the landscape, than unbelief for divine things, when it interposes between them and our souls. Why else are we more anxious for seasons of enjoyment, than for opportunities of usefulness? Why else do we call God our satisfying portion, yet grieve and murmur unless he satisfy us with a portion beside ? Why else do we pronounce His favor to be life, and prove, too often, in action, that we value everything in life more than His favor?"

PHILIP AND THE ETHIOPIAN-AN EXTRACT.

ACTS VIII. 30.

"AND Philip heard him read the prophet Isaiah, and said-Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I except some man should guide me?” The place of the scripture which he read was this-" He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb, dumb before his shearers, so opened he not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth." And he said, I pray thee, of whom speakest the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man ? Then Philip opened his mouth, and BEGAN AT THE SAME SCRIPTURE, AND PREACHED UNTO HIM JESUS."

This man was a proselyte of the law of Moses, as is evident from his having been at Jerusalem to worship. And in that law he had read-" Hear O Israel! the Lord our God is ONE Lord." "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." In the book of the prophet Isaiah, which he held in his hand, he had read-" To whom will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the HOLY ONE." "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me." "The everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary; with many others of the like import. What then would have been the Ethiopian's astonishment, if, by way of beginning at the passage on which he had laid his finger, to "preach unto him Jesus," Philip had told

him that it was before all things necessary, that he should receive and keep whole and undefiled the fundamental doctrine of the trinity, as the only true interpretation of those texts which dwell so emphatically upon the exclusive unity of the God of Israel-that the deity was, in effect, a plurality of divine persons so essentially one, that none is before or after another, and that such was the God he had been worshipping-that nevertheless, the faith to which his attention was now directed, required him to believe, that the second of these uno-plural existences was the same who was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and whose life was taken from the earth—that it was he, who is very and eternal God, immortal and invisible, who was by the Jews crucified and slain—that it was the same who calleth forth the host of heaven by number, and by the greatness of his might preserves them all in their appointed stations and orbits, who hung on a cross, bleeding, groaning, dying, and was laid a lifeless corpse in a sepulchre, &c, &c. If, amazed and confounded, the African should have asked, "How can these things be?" he would have been answered, in the language of modern theology, "that God the Son, or the Son of God, (for they are convertible terms) did, in the fulness of time, take man's nature upon him, so that two whole, perfect and distinct natures, the godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition or confusion, and so, being one Christ, was and continues to be, very God, and very man, in two entire, distinct natures, and one person for ever." Is it credible that such an incoherent and entangled exposition could have guided and assisted Philip's disciple in understanding the scripture he had

read, or that he would have gone on his way rejoicing in the light and comfort he had received from this interview? Certainly not. Yet such is the method pursued by the great majority of those who profess to be, and are generally thought qualified to open the blind eyes, to be the light of them who are in darkness, instructers of the foolish, and teachers of babes! We ought, in the spirit of meekness, but with the voice of firmness, to bear our decided testimony against such lamentable departures from the simplicity of divine truth as it is in Jesus. Philadelphia.

E.

HARVEST HYMN.

GOD of nature! God of love!
Smile upon our festive rite,
Thou who bidd'st the seasons prove
Circling sources of delight.

Spring, a rainbow promise bears,

Summer decks the ripening plain,

Autumn sings amid his cares,

Guiding home the loaded wain.

Winter, with his snowy vest,

Revels in their blended spoil,
Lulls the wearied earth to rest,
Braces man for future toil.

Morning, bright with golden rays,

Evening, dark with ebon pall,
Speak in varied tones Thy praise,
Architect, and Sire of all!