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life with more credit than did William Ford. He was particularly mindful of the apostolic rule, "Follow peace with all men." His excellent master yields the following honourable testimony to his diligence and fidelity:-"Ford was a good servant as to ability previous to his conversion, but subsequently he was a most faithful one; and about ten years since, on my recommendation, he received a premium of five pounds, from the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society,' for long and faithful services. Those services were continued for forty years without intermission." His industry and attention to the temporal welfare of his family, were more than ordinarily creditable. It is worthy of record, that though only a common labourer, and, for several years before he died, incapable of anything more than the cultivation of his own garden, yet at the time of his decease he had in the hands of his employer the respectable sum of forty pounds. And he was concerned for the

spiritual well-doing of his children: on his dying bed he charged his daughter to take his place in the class, and follow him to heaven. William Ford's last illness was induced by an accident, which happened to him in the beginning of September, 1845. The day before this occurrence took place, he had attended his class with his usual punctuality; and whilst the tears of joy rolled down his furrowed cheeks, he expressed his continued faith and love in a manner deeply affecting to all present. On the following Lord's day, Sept. 10th, he exchanged mortality for life. His last words were, "I want to sink into the purple flood, and rise into all the life of God." At the close of the Sabbath he calmly entered into his rest. Being highly esteemed for his consistency and excellence, his death was deemed worthy of public notice, and a funeral sermon was preached on the occasion to a crowded congregation, by the Rev. Mr. Radford.

BOOK OF LIFE.

IN Phil. iv. 3, Paul speaks of Clement and other of his fellow labourers, "whose names are "written in the book of life." On this Heinrichs (Annotat. in Ep. Philipp.) observes that as the future life is represented under the image of a πоλírɛvμa (citizenship, community, political society) just before, (iii. 20,) it is in agreement with this to suppose (as usual) a catalogue of the citizens' names, both natural and adopted, (Luke x. 20; Rev. xx. 15; xxi. 27,) and from which the unworthy are erased. (Rev. iii. 5.) Thus the names of the good are represented as registered in heaven. (Phil. iv. 3.) But this by no means implies a certainty of salvation, (nor, as Doddridge remarks, does it appear that Paul in this passage had any particular revelation,) but only that at that time the persons were on the list, from which the names of unworthy members might be erased. This explanation is sufficient and satisfactory for the other important passage in Rev. iii. 5, where the glorified Christ promises to "him that overcometh," that he will not blot his name out of the book of life. Here, however, the illustration has been sought rather in military than in civil life, and the passage has been supposed to contain an allusion to the custom according to which the names of those who were cashiered for misconduct were erased from the muster-roll.

When God threatened to destroy the Israelites altogether, and make of Moses a

great nation; the legislator implored forgiveness for them, and added, "If not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." (Exod. xxxii. 34.) By this he meant nothing so foolish or absurd as to offer to forfeit eternal life in the world to come; but only that he, and not they, should be cut off from the world, and brought to an untimely end. This has been regarded as an allusion to the records kept in the courts of justice, where the deeds of criminals are registered, and hence would signify no more than the purpose of God with reference to future events; so that to be cut off by an untimely death is to be blotted out of this book.

A sealed book (Isai. xxix. 11; Rev. v. 1-3) is a book whose contents are secret, and have for a very long time been so, and are not to be published till the seal is removed.

A book or roll written within and without, that is, on the back side, (Rev. v. 1,) may be a book containing a long series of events; it not being the custom of the ancients to write on the back side of the roll, unless when the inside would not contain the whole of the writing. (Comp. Horace, Ep. i. 20, 3.)

To eat a book signifies to consider it carefully, and digest it well in the mind. (Jer. xv. 16; Rev. x. 9.) A similar metaphor is used by Christ in John vi., where he repeatedly proposes himself as "the Bread of Life" to be eaten by his people.-Kitto. ̧

THE ASP.

THE asp is a very venomous serpent, whose poison is so subtle as to kill within a few hours with a universal gangrene.

This may well refer to the baten of the Arabians, which M. Forshall describes as spotted with black and white, about one foot in length, and nearly half an inch in thickness; oviparous: its bite is instant death. It is the aspic of the ancients, and is so called now by the literati of Cyprus, though the common people call it kufi, "deaf."

I take the opportunity of introducing here a criticism of Mr. Menich upon Psal. xci. 13:-"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet." "Bochart observes, that the most ancient interpreters, the Septuagint, the Vulgate, St. Jerome, Apollinasis, the Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, render the Hebrew word, which our translators have rendered 'lion,' the asp; and this learned critic himself thinks it probable that the Psalmist throughout this verse speaks of serpents only. He also observes that Nicander has mentioned a sort of serpent by the name of the spotted lion; and that the word translated 'young lion' is, in other places of Scripture, rendered by the Septuagint, a dragon. (See Job iv. 10; xxxviii. 39.) He likewise takes notice of the appellation of ground-lion, given to an animal well-known. The late learned Dr. Shaw, in a printed specimen of a natural history of animals which he once

showed me, conjectured that the chameleon was so called from its leaping upon its prey like a lion and it is not impossible that the name of lion might, for a like reason, be given to the serpent mentioned by Nicander; as also to the lion-lizard, which is, if I mistake not, mentioned by Mr. Catesby in his Natural History of South Carolina. Bochart himself, in the former part of his learned work, informs us that the chameleon is called also by more than one of the Arabian poets, bakira, the lioness; and that an animal, like the chameleon, is called in their language leo-iphrin, from the place where it is bred."

Were this supposition, that the Psalmist here mentions serpents only, well established, the translation of the whole verse might stand thus:

"Behold the asp, whose boiling veins
Had half the poison of the plains
Imbibed, before thee vanquish'd lie,
And close in death his languid eye:
Go, fearless on the dragon tread,

And press the wrath-swoln adder's head."

To give the highest probability to the accuracy of this translation, it needs only to be remembered that "ambulabis super leonem," seems quite improper, as men do not, in walking, tread upon lions, as they do upon serpents.

With the pethen we may compare the Python of the Greeks, which was, according to fable, a huge serpent that had an oracle at Mount Parnassus, famous for predicting future events. Apollo is said to have slain

O! 'TWAS a dark and fatal hour when man First stole his fellow, and, for sordid gold, His brother into dreadful bondage sold; For then new miseries to the race began. What untold millions have been swept away By fierce and bloody war, and scorching flame,

And endless treacheries without a name, To glut man's avarice, and become his prey! Thy plains, O Africa! are cover'd o'er With bleached bones, and relics of that host Who fell, heart-broken, ere they reach'd the

coast:

And thou, great ocean! if thy mighty roar Could speak of after-horrors, wouldst unfold A tale of crime, too fearful to be told!

S.

The star, the sceptre's gleaming gold, I only saw in vain.

I dread before the enemy

My mission to disclose,
Which still too strongly works in me
To please Jehovah's foes:
The vision, fading from me now,

Is bright for others still;

While darkness gathers round my brow,
On Balak's lofty hill.

The love of truth, or lust for gold,
How dearly must I rue!

I feel it now, it must be told,

I cannot worship Two!

Now, through the thickly-gathering night,

To Midian I am led;

And Israel, in the coming fight,

Shall find her Prophet-dead.
JOSEPH GOSTICK, JUN.

BALAAM'S LAMENT.

A HAPPY Seer I might have been,
If faithful to my God;

But now,
I only feel his rod.

for all his visions seen,

For Balak and for Midian's fear, I fain would hide his word; But how can I refuse to hear

The voice of Israel's Lord?

How cheerful, in my early days,

My mission seem'd to be! The people gladly heard my lays; My soul was calm and free. That glorious future I foretold, Yet sold for present gain;

THE FIGHT OF FAITH. "FIGHT the good fight of faith!" press on, Till crown'd with glorious victory. Your Captain has before you gone;

Your kingdom, throne, and sceptre, see. Your standard raise, and take the field, "Fight the good fight," and never yield.

Trample your foes beneath your feet;
A valiant, faithful soldier prove:
Till, summon'd to your Master's seat,
To wear the dazzling crown above;
Then, sweetly to your Saviour yield
Your spirit from the battle-field.

THOMAS MILLS.

A MELTING STORY. No other class of men in any country possess that facetious aptness of inflicting a good-humoured revenge which seems to be innate with a Green Mountain Boy.

One winter evening, a country store-keeper in the Mountain State was about closing his doors for the night; and while standing in the snow outside, putting up his window-shutters,

he saw, through the glass, a lounging, worthless fellow within, grab a pound of fresh butter from the shelf, and hastily conceal it in his hat.

The act was no sooner detected than the revenge was hit upon, and a very few moments found the Green Mountain storekeeper at once indulging his appetite for fun to the fullest extent, and paying off the thief

with a facetious sort of torture for which he might have gained a premium from the old Inquisition.

"I say, Seth," said the store-keeper, coming in and closing the door after him, slapping his hands over his shoulders, and stamping the snow off his shoes.

Seth had his hand upon the door, his hat upon his head, and the roll of new butter in his hat, anxious to make his exit as soon as possible.

"I say, Seth, sit down: I reckon, now, on such a night as this, a leetle something warm wouldn't hurt a fellow. Come, sit down."

Seth felt very uncertain: he had the butter, and was exceedingly anxious to be off; but the temptation of "something warm sadly interfered with his resolution to go. This hesitation, however, was soon settled by the right owner of the butter taking Seth by the shoulders and planting him upon a seat close to the stove, where he was in such a manner cornered in by barrels and boxes, that while the country grocer sat before him there was no possibility of his getting out; and right in this place, sure enough, the store-keeper sat down.

Seth, we'll have a little warm Santa Cruz," said the Green Mountain grocer, as he opened the stove-door, and stuffed in as many sticks as the space would admit: "without it, you'd freeze going home such a night as this."

Seth already felt the butter settling down closer to his hair, and jumped up, declaring he must go.

"Not till you have something warm, Seth: come, I've got a story to tell you, too: sit down, now ;" and Seth was again pushed into his seat by his cunning tormentor.

"O! it's confounded hot here," said the petty thief, again attempting to rise.

"Sit down-don't be in such a plaguy hurry," retorted the grocer, pushing him back in his chair.

"But I've got the cows to fodder, and some wood to split, and I must be agoin'," continued the persecuted chap.

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creation. And, Seth, don't you never use hog's fat, or common cooking-butter, to baste with fresh pound butter, just the same as you see on that shelf yonder, is the only proper thing in nature to baste a goose with. Come, take your butter-I mean, Seth, take your toddy."

Poor Seth now began to smoke as well as to melt, and his mouth was as hermetically sealed up as though he had been born dumb. Streak after streak of the butter came pouring from under his hat, and his handkerchief was already soaked with the greasy overflow. Talking away as if nothing were the matter, the grocer kept stuffing the wood into the stove, while poor Seth sat bolt upright, with his back against the counter, and his knees almost touching the red-hot furnace before him.

"Dreadful cold night this," said the grocer. Why, Seth, you seem to perspire as if you was warm! Why don't you take your hat off! Here, let me put your hat away

יי!

"No!" exclaimed poor Seth at last, with a spasmodic effort to get his tongue loose, and clapping both hands upon his hat: "No! I must go-let me out-I ain't well -let me go!" A greasy cataract was now pouring down the poor fellow's face and neck, and soaking into his clothes, and trickling down his body into his very boots, so that he was literally in a perfect bath of oil.

"Well, good night, Seth, if you will go," said the humorous Vermonter; adding, as Seth got out into the road, "Neighbour, I reckon the fun I've had out of you is worth a ninepence, so I shan't charge you for that pound of butter!"-New-Orleans Picayune.

HAZARDOUS ASCENT OF THE

ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

CAPTAIN FREMONT's ascent of the highest peak of the Wind River Mountains, (a chain projecting from the great range of the Rocky,) not far from the South Pass, is not without interest. It was a difficult and hazardous feat; at least, after passing the line of perpetual congelation. It is, however, much too long for extract, and we can only afford space for the last few lines, relating to the attainment of the peak :-" Putting hands and feet into crevices between the blocks, I succeeded in getting over it, and when I reached the top, found my companions in a small valley below. Descending to them, we continued climbing, and in a short time reached the crest. I sprang upon the summit, and another step would have precipitated me into an immense snow-field, five hundred feet below. To the edge of this field was a sheer icy precipice; and then, with a gradual fall, the field sloped off for about a mile, until it struck the foot of another lower ridge. I stood on a narrow crest, about three feet in width, with an inclination of about 20° north, 51° east. As soon as I had gratified the

first feelings of curiosity, I descended, and each man ascended in his turn; for I would only allow one at a time to mount the unstable and precarious slab, which it seemed a breath would hurl into the abyss below. We mounted the barometer in the snow of the summit, and, fixing a ramrod in a crevice, unfurled the national flag to wave in the breeze where never flag waved before. During our morning's ascent, we had met no sign of animal life, except the small sparrowlike bird already mentioned. A stillness the most profound, and a terrible solitude, forced themselves constantly on the mind as the great features of the place. Here, on the summit, where the stillness was absolute, unbroken by any sound, and the solitude complete, we thought ourselves beyond the region of animated life; but while we were sitting on the rock, a solitary bee (bromus, "the humble bee") came winging his flight from the eastern valley, and lit on the knee of one of the men. It was a strange placethe icy rock and the highest peak of the Rocky Mountains-for a lover of sunshine and flowers; so we pleased ourselves with the idea that he was the first of his species to cross the mountain barrier, a solitary pioneer to foretell the advance of civilization. believe that a moment's thought would have made us let him continue his way unharmed; but we carried out the law of this country, where all animated nature seems at war; and, seizing him immediately, put him in at least a fit place,-in the leaves of a large book, among the flowers we had collected on

I

our way. The barometer stood at 18.293, the attached thermometer at 44"; giving for the elevation of this summit 13,570 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, which may be called the highest flight of the bee. It is certainly the highest known flight of that insect. From the description given by Mackenzie of the mountains where he crossed them, with that of a French officer still farther to the north, . and Colonel Long's measurements to the south, joined to the opinion of the oldest traders of the country, it is presumed that this the highest peak of the Rocky Mountains. The day was sunny and bright, but a slight shining mist hung over the lower plains, which interfered with our view of the surrounding country. On one side we overlooked innumerable lakes and streams, the spring of the Colorado of the Gulf of California; and on the other was the Wind River valley, where were the heads of the Yellowstone branch of the Missouri; far to the north we could discover the snowy heads of just the Trois Tetons, where were the sources of the Missouri and Columbia rivers; and at the southern extremity of the ridge the peaks were plainly visible, among which were some of the springs of the Nebraska or Platte river. Around us, the whole scene had one main striking feature, which was that of terrible convulsion. Parallel to its length, the ridge was split into chasms and fissures; between which rose the thin lofty walls, terminated with slender minarets and columns."

SUNDAY-SCHOOL ADDRESSES.* I. As to the MATTER. What ought a Sunday-school address to be? Not a sermon, much less a fine speech. Not a dry essay; (our horror of such addresses has increased from our youth up, and is still increasing ;) not a profound argument; a tune well whistled would be more interesting to children; not the random recollections of an undisciplined mind; not some funny anecdote, which does not even 66 point a moral," nor, on the other hand, the dull aphorisms of a dull mind, cold as ice, and heavy as lead, provoking either sleep or mischief. A Visiter, in order to usefulness, must get and keep the attention of the children to whom he speaks; and we think the subject matter of his addresses should be,

1. Scriptural.-If we want gold, let us go to the mine. He will not need the formality

*On the Character of Sunday-School Addresses. A Lecture delivered before the Lambeth Wesleyan Sunday-School Institute. By Benjamin Gough.

of a text, but may most advantageously avail himself of the interesting narratives of sacred history, and the instructive parables and miracles of our blessed Lord, and thus illustrate Christian doctrine. Take an instance: he desires to impress his youthful audience with a full belief of the humanity and divinity of Christ; need he go to the Fathers or Divines who have tossed about the ball of controversy for centuries? No. Behold the lovely sisters of Bethany at the tomb of their brother, who had "been dead four days." Jesus is there. See how he sympathizes with them in their bitter affliction: he groans in spirit, yea, he weeps! Behold the Man! But, lo, the blaze of divinity breaks out; and he who just now wept, has power to raise the dead. The arm upon which, probably, Martha and Mary had but recently leaned, is omnipotent. He issues the almighty mandate, "Lazarus, come forth!" and he that was dead arose, and returned to life: and now we cry, "Behold your God!" Or, does the Visiter desire to show the willingness of