all Christians and all Christian churches need it just in the degree in which they are less productive than they might be of 'the

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fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and the praise of God.' To be continued.

NEW YEAR'S COUNSELS.

EXAMINE the past years of your life to see what defects are to be supplied, and what sins are to be put away for the future. Deut. viii. 2 Psalm lxxxvii. cxxxix, 23, 24. Job xxxii. 34. 2 Cor. xiii. 5.

Make a fresh surrender of yourselves to God, and renew, at the commencement of another year, your covenant engagements with God through Christ to be his peculiar people, and to shew forth his praise. Psalm iv. Rom. vi. xii. 1 Pet. iv. 1--7. Keep in mind the great end of life, and redeem the time for the purpose for which it is given and that end and purpose is to honour God by a constant pursuit of salvation, and a growing meetness for heaven and eternity. Let the purpose and plan of the Apostle be yours, and say with him, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." And of all this coming year consider every day as lost in which something is not done for the Lord that bought you. Phil. iii. 7-21.

Let it be your great concern this year to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. 2 Peter iii. 10-18.

Seek to get some spiritual good from every thing that may happen this year, and enter into the gracious design of God, which is to render every thing conducive to your real welfare. Phil. iv. Rom. viii. 28.

Let the failings of past years be instructive for the future, as shewing how you are likely to be ensnared, and to be led into temptation. Matthew xxvi. 41.

Endeavour to make the trials through which you have passed, and the help you have obtained from God, a ground of confidence and hope for the future. Psalm cxvi.

Do not anticipate evils that may never happen, but calmly and confidently trust yourselves, your concerns, your families, your all, to the care and keeping of your heavenly Father. Matt. vi. 25-34.

Remember that though you may not die this year, you must die some time, and therefore never let the subject be long absent from your minds. Live as at the

grave's mouth-die daily; feel yourself a stranger and pilgrim upon earth; and be ever looking on with faith and hope to the time when you shall die, and go home to God. Ps. xc. Eccles. xii. 2 Cor. v. 1-4

GOD EVERY WHERE.

How widely diversified, and multiplied into many thousand distinct exercises, is the attention of God! His eye is on every hour of my existence, his spirit is intimately present with every thought of my heart,his inspiration gives birth to every purpose within me, his hand impresses a direction on every footstep of my going,-every breath I inhale is drawn by an energy which God deals out to me. This body, which upon the slightest derangement, would become the prey of death, or of woeful suffering, is now at ease, because he at this moment is warding off from me a thousand dangers, and upholding the thousand movements of its complex and delicate machinery: his presiding influence keeps by me, through the whole current of my restless and ever changing history.

When I walk by the way-side, he is along with me,--when I enter into company, amid all my forgetfulness of him, he never forgets, me,-in the silent watches of the night, when my eyelids have closed, and my spirit has sunk into unconsciousness, the observant eye of him who never slumbers, is upon me; I cannot fly from his presence, go where I will; he leads me, and watches me, and cares for me; and the same Being who is now at work in the remotest domains of nature and of providence, is also at my hand to eke out to me every moment of my being, and to uphold me in the exercise of all my feelings, and of all my faculties.

A LONG LIFE AND A PIOUS ONE THE BETTER WISH.

"A SHORT life and a merry one," I know is the motto of some. But all such are regarded as fools by the wise men of this world, as well as by the candidates for a better." Let us eat and drink for to-mor

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row we die"-may be said and sung by the sensualist in his cups, with great spirit and glee among his sottish companions; but this brutish sentiment has never yet obtained currency with the mass, even of this world's votaries. It has long since been discovered, that in order to make the best of the world; in order to enjoy the most of its pleasure, and riches, and honours,-a long life of health, and vigour, and prosperity, is very important, and, in general quite essential. The poor hapless rake, whose career is cut short at the age of twenty or thirty, is commonly pitied or ridiculed even by those who indulge in the same vices, but who contrive to keep within safer limits; while he is denounced and condemned by all who aim at, what they con

ceive to be, nobler objects. A vicious young man (I use the term vicious in its worldly and worst acceptation) finds no quarter any where, except among his young and viscious associates. And even they often contemplate, with a kind of malicious compassion, one and another of their number, whose emaciated form, and haggard countenance, testify that he is not long for this world. They daily behold him wasting away, but they hurry him along, and urge him into new and greater excesses: until they literally kill him in the midst of pleasure which he has long felt to be his curse and his ruin. Such a course can have no serious advocates. It is as contemptible as it is horrible.

RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE IN EVERY

THING.

ALL proper acts may be religious. Our whole life may be imbued with the religious spirit, and even those passages in it which seem trivial and insignificant, may be elevated to the dignity, and clothed with the beauty of worship and Divine service; if we but guide ourselves constantly by the maxims of Christianity, and hold steadily in view, as the end of our efforts, the accomplishment of our work on earth as the children of God. That work is to gain our own

spiritual and permanent well-being, to bless

our families and all the creatures of God associated with us, to do what we can do to bring this fallen and wretched race into the light of the knowledge and holiness of the gospel, and thus to advance God's plans and declare his glory. Now to the accomplish ment of this work, which is one work with different departments, it is manifestly not necessary nor proper even, that we labour in one direction only, or in one circle of activity. We must provide for our subsistence and the subsistence of our families.

It is not merely our privilege to do this, but our duty, as creatures of God related to others. We must reserve and accumulate property if we honestly can, in connexion with other necessary labours, that we may disburse it again for God's glory and human welfare. This, in its place, is our religious duty; as much so as praising God in the sanctuary, or visiting the sick and the poor, and those who are in prison.

To cultivate and adorn the intellect, and store it with knowledge, to cherish the sensibility, to gain relaxation and refreshment of spirits by innocent amusement, to train the physical system for effort and endurance, to strive diligently with thought and desire in the departments of business, to gain for ourselves influence by professional application-all these are duties we owe to God; all these, if rightly discharged, as unto the Lord and not unto man, will be truly religious acts, the conditions and means of our growth in grace. In their place they are essential to the accomplishment of our whole life-work. If rightly pursued, therefore, our usual employments in life, so far from interfering with and opposing our distinctively religious duties, will fall directly into the same lines. They will themselves become religious, devotional. The saying of the old monks will be realized to us-" Work is worship." We shall find our meanest employment ennobled by its relation to the whole of which it is a part, and to the end to which it contributes. And as the temple is all built for God, and consecrated to him—not its arches merely, its spire, its choir, or its pulpit, but its whole structure in all its parts-so will our life be ALL set apart for God's service and worship, and its most common acts, will be. come acts of piety, and its familiar words, will be voices of devotion.

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FIRESIDE MUSIC.

AMONG the sweet home-influences that exert a moulding effect upon the dispositions and characters of children, and we may say of the whole household; we imagine few are more powerful and enduring, in their effect, than the habitual use of music in the family. What recollection more indelible than the simple lullaby of our infantile days? What remembrance comes back in mature years with more distinctness, exciting dearer visions, than the memory of the sweet, soft tones of a mother's voice-of that voice, perchance, now hushed? How vividly, often, does some stanza that happens to be heard recall the form of that mother, it may hap, long since sleeping 'neath the waving grass! Like the wand of the magician, does it not light up the camera of memory, and conjure up the fading lines of early scenesthe mellow lights that gather around, and

constitute the magic charm of that sweet word, Home? But while they possess this winning power, do not too many wives and mothers neglect its use, and thus lose an element of love and beauty from the atmosphere of home not easily computed?

What scene can be more delightful than the fireside circle of a gathered household, together lifting the fulness of a father's base, the swelling softness of a mother's tones, and a slender volume of childhood's voices, all blending in the simple melody of an evening hymn; together giving honour to Him who so richly crowns with good so many hearth-stones in our favoured land? How appropriate the ascription of

"Glory to thee our God this night, For all the blessings of the light;"

and how fitting from the mouth of weakness, the petition

"Keep us, oh! keep us, King of kings, Beneath the shadow of thy wings."

Can such a custom fail to grave deep lines upon the impressible tablets of children's hearts? Will not its memory abide there; and may not a remembrance of the meaning words lisped in early years, sometimes arise in the heart of a wayward child, gently recalling from the erring path; and be like the hand of John Newton's mother, which, as that eminent man has recorded, was ever, in his wildest career of sin, felt to be upon his head, while that loving mother breathed an earnest prayer for her child, as had been her wont in his boyhood's time?

THE BEREAVED MOTHER.

I MARKED a mother at the tomb of her son. Her sable garment coincided with the deep gloom that hung heavily around her heart. Her declining head, her closed clasped hands, her fixed position, her tear-bedued cheek, bespoke the intensity of her thoughts, and the sorrow of her soul. The scene struck the string of sympathy, and a correspondent tear, flowing from the impulse of a similar feeling, trickled down my cheek. Fancy lent her creative power to my mind, and methought I heard and felt the grief-inspired soliloquy of the heart-broken mother, as she revolved in her depressed mind the following thoughts; "Ah! yes, my child, thou art numbered with the dead! The curtain of my hopes has suddenly dropped, and the thick cloud of soul-rending despon

dency shuts the light of joy and tranquillity from my mind. When feeble infancy was thine, with what rapture I watched the pleasurable smile playing on thy healthflushed cheek: it was then my heart bounded with ecstacy, and antedated the joys of youth and the happiness of manhood. I thought thou wouldst have been the pillar of my old age; I thought thou wouldst have supported my tottering declining life, when the extinguished hand of time had quenched the fervour of vitality. But ah! these lovebuilt hopes are gone for ever; they are buried in the humid earth with thee. No more I hear thy voice-no more I mark thy sprightly eye; thy voice is as silent as the grave, and thine eye fixed by the rigid power of death. Scarce more than eighteen years had rolled around thy head before the 'grim monster' came and snatched thee from the world. Thou wert stricken as the tender sapling scathed by the lightening's fiery bolt. O death! thou art the destroyer of a mother's bliss. But still, amid all my

sorrow, I will say

'Worms may banquet on that frame,
And ruin feed on what was fair;
Back to the skies from whence it came
The soul recalled shall flourish there.""

With these words she ended, and taking her little daughter by the hand, she slowly retired.

NOVEL READING.

Ir is time that this nuisance of novel selling and of novel reading were abated.

1. Novelreading is an impolitic and culpable habit, in many points of view. In the first place, it consumes much valuable time. Amid all the "improvements" of the day, real or fancied, no genuine method of short-hand reading has been invented. Even the novel reader, then, must take time to regale himself with fiction. And he often does take much time. Sometimes it is stolen from sleep, sometimes from business, and in either case a serious evil is committed. Our time was given us for other and better purposes than to be whiled away over the vapid and airy scenes of sentimental fiction. Remember, too that time is money. Besides, it is morally certain that if a young man have six hours labour to perform, and he spends three of those hours in reading novels, such diversion from his business will work upon his time even greater mischief than the occupation of the three hours in something aside from his calling. The remaining three hours will not be so profitable in proportion, as the six hours would have been. If any one disbelieves this, let him not try it, but be satisfied without trying it, for he may be sure it is so, and if he is a sensible man he will be satisfied.

2. Novel reading is also a waste of money. This we have already seen, virtually, if we agree with Franklin, that "time is money." But there is also a direct and visible prodigality in the matter. The inveterate novel reader, like the drunkard, lays out his money for that which is neither food, nor clothing, nor shelter. And this needless and vicious expenditure, occasioned by his appetite for reading works of fiction, is great. At the present time we have in this country many novels sold very cheap. This only increases the sales, and tempts the purchaser to buy many more novels than he otherwise would. As one consequence, he spends more time in reading these pernicious works than he otherwise would.

3. Novels give false views of life. This is notorious. The men and women of the novelist's creation are, with a few exceptions, the antipodes of the men and women whom we meet in the walks of every-day life. I should as soon think of learning geometry or conic sections from a novel, as of learning human nature from the gene

rality of these works. They are useless and worse than useless in this respect. It is an important part of learning to unlearn what we have learned amiss,-sometimes a very difficult part. Before we learn human nature as it is we must unlearn it as we learned it from novels.

4. The morality of novels is in general of the worst kind. Even Scott is not unexceptionable in this respect. Bulwer is a great deal worse; and some others are worse yet. Novels, like the man's razors which would not shave, are made to sell; and those are observed to sell best which are liberally spiced with oaths, impurity, and a manly contempt of common, old-fashioned morality. The novel reader's imagination is polluted, his moral perceptions are dull; his compassion and love are always fictitious and romantic. In his eyes vice appears in the garb of virtue. With him a wholesome restraint is tyranny; religion a compound of needles self-mortification and of hypocrisy. Then what is more natural than for him to attempt the personification of some charming hero who has struck his fancy in a novel, and who is quite too independent and noble to endure the antiquated restrictions of frigid formality. There is enough of reading to be had which is at once true, useful, and entertaining. Let this be secured, and let the snivelling novel be laid aside. D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, for instance, is worth ten times as much as the whole of Bulwer's trash, for all good purposes for which novels are professedly read. Try it, ye novel readers; throw down your snivelling sentimentalities: try it, and see.

AN AGREEMENT MADE BETWEEN TWO PERSONS BEFORE THEIR MARRIAGE.

As in all our ways we ought to acknowledge God, that he may direct our steps; so in prospect of our proposed union, which is of great moment, it is the duty of each of us to implore the divine direction, and beg the heavenly blessing; and in entering into it to keep the following things in view:

As we should neither eat nor drink for ourselves, so in our marriage, we should eye the glory of God, and study to live together as heirs of the grace of life.