T. replied, "I have no choice about it; I am God's ser vant, and have engaged to do his business as long as he pleases to continue me therein. But now, brother, let me ask you a question. What do you think I would say, if I was to send my man into the field to plough; and if at noon I should go to the field and find him lounging under a tree, and complaining, "Master, the sun is very hot, and the ploughing hard, I am weary of the work you have appointed me, and am overdone with the heat and burden of the day. Do, master, let me return home, and be discharged from this hard service? What would I say? Why, that he was a lazy fellow, that it was his business to do the work that I had appointed him, until I should think fit to call him home."

The Carrier and his Driver.

A CARRIER in a large town in Yorkshire, heard his carter one day in the yard, swearing dreadfully at his horses. The carrier being a religious man, was shocked to hear the terrible oaths that resounded through the yard, and went up to the lad, who was just setting off for Manchester, and kindly expostulated with him on the enormity of his sin, and then added: "But if thou wilt swear, stop till thou get through the turnpike gate on Smoor, where none but God and thyself can hear." He then put the swearer's prayer into his hand, and wished him a good morning. The poor fellow cracked his whip, and pursued his journey; but he could not get over his master's words.

Αι

Some time after, his master observed him in the yard, and was very much surprised to see him so altered. There was a seriousness and quietness about him which he had never seen before; and he often seemed as if he had something to say, which he could not get out. length, his master was so struck with his manner, that he asked him if he wanted anything. "Ah, master," said he, "do you remember what you said to me about swearing, and the tract you gave me? I was thunderstruck. I went on to the road, and I got through the turnpike, and reached S-- moor; and there I thought that though I was alone, yet God was with me; and I tremble to think

how he had been with me, and had known all my sins and follies all my life long. My sins came to my remembrance; I was afraid that he would strike me dead; and I thank God that I have been roused to seek after the salvation of my poor soul." The master, as may be supposed, was greatly rejoiced to hear the young man's confession; and it is gratifying to be able to add, that his diligent attendance on the means of grace, and the reformation in his conduct, gave solid ground for hoping that he not only ceased to be a swearer, but a slave of Satan altogether.

Judgment.

WHENEVER I enter a court of human judicature, I cannot but be impressed with solemnity by the objects which arrest my attention, and the deep and touching emotions they awake in my mind. I am standing in a place venerable as the abode of justice, a place where many an unhappy fellow creature has listened to the sentence that has doomed him to perpetual exile from all that his heart holds dear-his country, his kindred, and his home; or else, to render satisfaction to the laws which he has violated by an untimely and ignominious death. Yonder sits the judge, whose appearance, whose character, whose office, all conspire to fill me with veneration and awe. On either hand are the officers of justice, whose part it is, with iron grasp, to seize and retain their victim, deaf alike to his threats and his promises, his entreaties and his tears. I now suffer my eyes to wander through the crowded court, and observe the numerous spectators, lured thither, some by curiosity, and others by motives of a more powerful character. Most are deeply attentive to the solemn proceedings-few seem unconcerned; and, as the witnesses on either side give in their evidence, and the advocates produce their arguments and pour forth their eloquence, I catch the general enthusiasm that is kindled in the assembly, and become deeply interested too. How intense, and even agonizing, is that interest, if the life of the prisoner is at stake! I imperceptibly identify myself with him, and my imagination becomes busy in realizing the horrors of his situation.

He may be guilty; his crime may be heinous; it may have been connected with circumstances of deep aggravation; he may not be a criminal to whom the monarch's clemency should be extended; but he is a man, and no consideration can destroy the feelings of humanity which the sight of a fellow-creature, at such an awful crisis, must inspire. I mark with eagerness every passage in the charge delivered by the judge to the jury, as it seems to bear upon his doom. While those are deliberating on whose verdict his fate now depends, every moment is like an hour of insufferable suspense, and my heart sickens at the voice that pronounces him guilty. The shriek that he utters enters into my soul; and, long after I have left the court, the countenance of the criminal is before my eyes, and the solemn sentence of the judge is sounding in my ears. I think of the infamy connected with a ruined charcter; the misery entailed upon the wretched partner of his bosom and his innocent babes; the fettered limbs, the condemned cell, the last agonizing interview with a wife, a mother, a sister, a child; the last rites of religion, the awful preparation, the tolling of the bell, the apparatus of death; and I shudder at the conviction that, but for the restraining grace of God, all those dreadful images that rise to my imagination might have been realized in the closing scene of my own earthly existence.

But we rise to a far higher and more dreadful tribunal; a tribunal at which not merely you and I, but all the world must stand, not as idle spectators, to listen to the doom of others, but deeply interested in its great transactions and irrevocable decrees; a tribunal at which not the actions merely, but the thoughts of men are judged; a tribunal on which not a fellow-mortal like ourselves, but the searcher of hearts presides; a tribunal from whose judicial process there is no escape, in whose proceedings there is no partiality, to whose scrutiny there is no deception, from whose decisions there is no appeal, and in whose destinies are involved, not the interests of time, or the life of the body, but the unchanging, unalterable condition of our immortal existence! Our Redeemer speaks of a day and an hour in which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall

come forth, some to the resurrection of life, and some to the resurrection of damnation. On that day and that hour your attention should be deeply fixed. The humiliating lesson of your own pollution and depravity; the cheering assurance of pardon, and peace, and eternal lie, through the perfect obedience of the Son of God; the absolute necessity of the renewing influences of the holy spirit to make you fit for heaven-may have out little in them to interest you; but the strange scenes and awful transactions of judgment will give a fearful ir terest to them all. Though you may neglect and despise them now, they will then rise again to the contemplation of your mind. The reflection that the Judge, the pomp and splendor of whose coming are bursting rapidly upon your sight, is the very Savior whom you rejected and despised, will be like an arrow dipped in the deadliest poison, that shall rankle for ever in your veins; and nothing, in all the terrible appearances of nature around you, will appear half so dreadful as your own infatuation and guilt, in neglecting this great salvation!

Waters of Eternal Life.

"WHEN in the market place," says the Rev. Jonas King, missionary in Greece, "I saw several women who had water to sell: good water here is scarce, and brought from the monastery, which is a considerable distance from the city. As I passed by them, one of them asked me to drink; I told her that I had plenty of good water at my house; still, however, she asked me again if I would not drink." I replied, "there is one who can give water, of which if we drink, we shall never thirst. He that drinks of this water, will thirst again: but the other is the water of eternal life; and he who drinks of it, will thirst no more." This reply, which I supposed would be understood, seemed to excite some wonder and curiosity; and several young men who were near, came around me to hear what I had said. "Sir, where is that water? We wish for it. Where is he who has it?" 1 said, "Come with me to my house, and I will show you. It is Jesus Christ." Still they did not seem to under

stand; and some said, "He must be a physician; he wil give us something which will prevent us from thirsting." As many began to collect, I thought it best to go away, and returned to my lodgings. Several young men, how. ever, followed me, and expressed a desire to know where that water, of which I had spoken, could be found: so I took the new Testament, and read to them a part of the fourth chapter of St. John's gospel, from the fifth to the fifteenth verse; and gave them the book to carry with them to the market place to read the whole chapter, and explain what I had said to those who were desirous of knowing. "Ah !" said one of them, after I had read the portion above mentioned, "I perceive that he is speaking in a figure;" and went explaining to others what he supposed I intended to say.

Italics.

THE late Mrs. Graham of New York, regarded with particular esteem the works of Dr. Owen, the Rev. William Romaine, and the Rev. John Newton, and read them with pleasure and profit. One day she remarked to Mr. B. that she preferred the ancient writers on theology to the modern, because they dealt more in italics. "Dear Mother," he replied, "what religion can there be in italics?" "You know," said she, "that old writers expected credit for the doctrines they taught, by proving them from the word of God to be correct; they inserted the Scripture passages in italics, and their works have been sometimes one half in italics. Modern writers on theology, on the contrary, give us a long train of reasoning to persuade us to their opinions, but very little in italics!"

The Bag of Ducats.

A CAUSE was tried before a young Cadi of Smyrna, the merits of which were as follows:-A poor man claimed a house, which a rich man usurped. The former held his deeds and documents to prove his right; but the latter had provided a number of witnesses to invalidate his title.