for little or nothing. Now, a good book is a diamond; get a good book then when you can, whether you are seven years old, or seventy, for its contents may very valuable to you, when diamonds shall be as dust in your estimation.

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Try also to lay up good principles in your heart as well as good books on your shelves; principles that will preserve you through time, and prepare you for eternity. What is all the trumpery in the world to be compared with them?

Lastly, add to your wisdom; for laying up folly will be laying up trumpery indeed. Get a knowledge of your own hearts, and learn to know Him, whom to know is eternal life. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all they that keep his commandments. Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding."

Now, I cannot but hope that you have learned a little from the trumpery bag of Old Humphrey. It may not be very wise in me to let you know any of my weaknesses, and perhaps it might have been as well to have kept this affair of the trumpery bag all to myself, but it cannot be helped now; and surely it will be the lesser evil for me to be laughed at for my whimsicalities, than that you

should lose the benefit of a lesson of instruction.

At any time that you should be passing my way willingly will I show you my trumpery bag, on condition that you will give over laying up trumpery yourselves.

A REFRESHER.

How delightful it is when oppressed with toil and heat, to get under the wide-spreading branches of some sheltering tree; or to dip one's hand into the clear fountain by the way-side, and slake one's burning thirst! Nor less pleasant is it when, journeying on our daily course, we fall in with some act of God's providence of a heart-melting kind; some fresh proof of his tenderness for saints, or of his love for poor rebellious sinners! If we look for such sources of comfort we shall find them, for they are scattered thickly around us.

I have just had the following lines put into my hands; the production of one who, a few years ago, made the heart of England thrill again with the boldness, the utter recklessness of his impiety. They are said to have been penned in his Bible, on his birthday, and run thus :

"The proudest heart that ever beat,

Hath been subdued in me;

The wildest will that ever rose

To scorn thy cause, and aid thy foes,

Is quelled, my God! by Thee.

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Thy will, and not my will, be done;

My heart be ever Thine:
Confessing Thee, the mighty Word!

My Saviour Christ! my God! my Lord!
Thy cross shall be my sign."

Now, had these lines been written by one who, from his youth up, in a teachable spirit had been a meek disciple of the Redeemer, I should have

read them with pleasure; but as it is, I could all but weep with emotion.

When the strong become weak, and the proud humble; when the standard-bearers of the Amalekites, and the Goliaths of the Philistines fall; when the stiff neck of the wild bull is slackened, and the lion thus lies down with the lamb, I could raise a shout for joy. Talk of taming the untameable hyena, what is that to the taming of the turbulent heart, hot and headstrong in its mad and unholy career of infidelity. It is well to store up in our memory such refreshing providences, for each of them is a new confirmation of the text, "Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known," Psalm lxxvii. 19.

Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" Rom. xi. 33.

HEDGES AND DITCHES.

GIVE me thy ear, reader, and give me thy heart too, for a little space-I want, if I can, to call forth thy kindly feelings. We cannot pluck thorns out of others' bosoms without placing roses in our own.

I love to point out a source of profitable pleasure to the poor. The rich have their dainty fare and their goodly apparel; their lordly mansions, their paintings, and their statues; their carriages, their gay equipage, and their fine horses; their parks and their pleasure-grounds, and I do not begrudge them their possessions. Willingly would I increase their joys; but I had rather, much rather, cast a beam of sunshine on a poor man's brow.

And when I speak of a poor man, think not that I mean to pass by a poor woman. Oh no! I have found many of those of whom the world is not worthy, habited in the garb of poverty, walking abroad in an old red or brown cloak; or pondering the Bible at home, with an old blue or yellow handkerchief over their shoulders.

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