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ANECDOTES, SELECTIONS, AND GEMS.

give something to the Missionary Jubilee Fund, and we might give something to the Sunday-school." He wrote a letter to ask, if His Royal Highness would please to put his name in the Bible,-for it was the year of the Missionary Jubilee, and he should like it. There came back a letter to say that if he would send the Bible it should be done forthwith. "No," he said, "I shall not send it, I will go." So to London he came, found that the Royal Family were at Windsor, whither he followed them, and the old porter bade him welcome. He could not see the Prince for a day or two, but more than once he bowed his knee in domestic worship under the roof of Her Majesty. By and bye he was told that the Prince would see him, and he went in with the Bible in his hand. The Prince put his name in it, and he then said, "Do you think Her Majesty would put her name in it ?" That is what I call downward ingenuity—that is, a liberal mind devising liberal things— that is a heart in the right place, and having its eye upon the right object. With the most perfect readiness, for which I to my dying day shall honour him, His Royal Highness said, "I will ask." He took the Bible, brought it back with Her Majesty's signature, and gave it to John Smith, who returned home and asked his neigh. bours to come and look at the Bible on one condition, namely, that they should pay a shilling each, and out of that he raised from £40 to £50 for the purpose to which I have referred. I say, God speed the ploughman, and God save the Queen; and let us go and do likewise."-Rev. W. Brock; at the London Missionury Society's Anniversary.

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Just as you Had there been no

JUST AS YOU ARE.-ANXIOUS SINNER! if you would be saved from eternal death, hasten to Christ, just as you are. are; for he came to save you just as you are. sinners, he had never made atonement; he had never invited men unto himself; he had never authorised the offers of mercy. If you come in any other character than that of a guilty, ruined sinner, you mistake the grand design of the christian religion, and will assuredly never experience its blessedness. Just as you are; for you will never be better prepared. You have spent time, long or short, in trying to make yourself good, but God will never accept you, if you go about to establish your own righteousness. All you can do has no merit, and will never propitiate the favour of Him from whom alone must come your blessing. Just as you are; for he waits to be gracious to you. He has invited you as a sinner; why should you wish to present yourself in any other character? Can you doubt that such graciousness will secure your assistance as soon as you come unto him? Just as you are; for his grace is infinite, and cannot fail to cover the whole extent and enormity of your guilt. Did he not know the whole case of ruined sinners, when he undertook the work of redemption? Has he not all fulness in himself, and can there be a case so desperate that he cannot rescue and save? Just as you are; for it is only as a sinner saved,

ANECDOTES, SELECTIONS, AND GEMS.

that you will have any disposition or capacity to rejoice or to join in the blessed anthems of the redeemed. Oh! what is the theme of their present and their eternal praises, but the grace that has made them clean in the blood of the Lamb? Just as you are; for he may not wait longer if you delay. Oh! hell is peopled with those who have refused until the compassionate Saviour has turned from them, and wept over the infatuation that decided their ruin. Just as you are; for you have nothing else to give. Penances are of no account with him; all your righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and all your confessions, and lamentations, and self-reproaches, render you no more acceptable in his sight. It is only your polluted soul that he wants, and only that you have to give. Oh, then, wait no longer, but make the resolve to go to Jesus just as you are. Give yourself up to him to be saved just as he sees fit to save, and say―

"Here, Lord, I give myself away-
'Tis all that I can do."

VIRTUE EMBODIED.-The late Dr. Blair, when concluding a public discourse, in which he had descanted with his usual eloquence on the amiability of virtue, gave utterance to the following apostrophe,—“O, Virtue! if thou wert embodied, all men would love thee!" His colleague, Mr. Walker, ascended the same pulpit on a subsequent part of the same sabbath, and addressing the congregation, said," My friend observed in the morning, that if Virtue were embodied, all men would love her. Virtue has been embodied but how was she treated? Did all men love her? she was despised and rejected of men; who, after defaming, insulting, and scourging her, led her to Calvary, where they crucified her between two thieves."

No:

INSINCERE CONFESSIONS.-It is to be feared that many persons utter expressions of penitence for sin, to which the heart makes but a feeble response. He who confesses himself a great sinner, ought to show a little humility; and he who acknowledges his weakness, should not show presumption. Charles Wesley once tested the pretended penitence of a professor of religion, who came to him with the expression on her tongue,-"I am the chief of sinnersthe worst of transgressors-utterly lost and helpless." "I have no doubt," he coolly replied, "that you are bad enough." She instantly flew into a passion, declaring that she was no worse than her neighbours, scolded the preacher as a slanderer, and, it is thought, would have boxed his ears, if he had not quitted the apartment.

Eems.

"HEAVEN," says Henry, "is called a sabbath, to make those that love sabbaths long for heaven, and to make those that long for heaven love sabbaths."

THOUGH it be a christian's sorrow that he hath sin to bewail; yet 'tis his joy that he hath an heart to bewail his siu.

ANECDOTES, SELECTIONS, AND GEMS.

ALL the world cannot pull down an humble man, because God will exalt him; and all the world cannot exalt a proud man, because God will pull him down.

THOUGH it grieve a poor soul that Christ was pierced by him, yet it relieves a poor soul that Christ was pierced for him.

A SAINT will part with any thing, yea, with all things for Christ; but will not part with Christ for any thing, no, not for all things. MANY men sin with content, and are content with sin; poor souls! SOME are professors of profaneness, others are profane professors.

Facts and Hints.

TEA was hardly known in this country till after the middle of the seventeenth century. It would not be easy to trace, in a direct manner, the operation of this new agent in civilization, for tea does it spiritingly, gently. It is no vulgar conjuror, whose aim is to make the people stare. It insinuates itself into the mind, stimulates the imagination, disarms the thoughts of their coarseness, and brings up dancing to the surface a thousand beautiful and enlivening ideas. It is a bond of family love; it is the ally of a woman in the work of refinement; it throws down the conventional barrier between the two sexes, taming the one, and ennobling the other. Tea, philosophically considered, is a rival of alcohol. The desire for an agreeable and exhilirating drink is natural to man. For it exists in all states of society; and the new beverage, gratifying the taste as it does without injuring the health or maddening the brain, must be considered as a blessing to the human race. If we consider the moral consequences attending the consumption of a few additional millions pounds of tea, the arithmetical figures will be invested with more than common interest. Chambers.

FRUGALITY AND LIBERALITY.-Frugality is good, if liberality be joined with it. The first is leaving off superfluous expenses; the last is bestowing them to the benefit of others that need. The first, without the last, begets covetousness; the last, without the first, begets prodigality. Both together make an excellent thing. Happy the place where they are found!—W. Penn.

LONG LIFE.-At the present time the value of life is greater in England than in any other country in the world. Not only has the value of life been regularly increasing until it has advanced beyond that of any other country of which there is any record, but the remarkable fact is established, that the whole mass of its people live considerably longer than its higher classes did in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.—Dr. Smith's Philosophy of Health.

TEMPERANCE AND HEALTH.-"It is an interesting fact," says the Temperance Gazette, "that the experience of the Temperance Provident institution, continues, after seven years, to prove the superiority of tee-total lives."

EMIGRATION. About 1000 emigrants arrived daily at New York inthe months of April and May, 1848.

THE FIRESIDE. THE PENNY POST.

The Fireside.

ON BRINGING UP THE GIRLS.-It was a judicious resolution of a father, as well as a most pleasing compliment to his wife, when, on being asked what he intended doing with his girls, he replied, "I intend to apprentice them all to their excellent mother, that they may learn the art of improving time, and be fitted to become, like her, wives, mothers, heads of families, and useful members of society." Equally just, but bitterly painful, was the remark of the unhappy husband of a vain, thoughtless, dressy slattern: "It is hard to say it, but if my girls are to have any chance of growing up good for anything, they must be sent out of the way of their mother's example."

SMILE, AND MAKE OTHERS HAPPY.-Which will you do, smile and make others happy, or be crabbed and make every one around you miserable? You can live among beautiful flowers and singing birds, or in the mire surrounded with logs and frogs. The amount of happiness you can produce is incalculable if you show a smiling face, a kind heart, and speak pleasant words. On the other hand, by your sour looks, cross words, and fretful disposition, you make scores and hundreds wretched almost beyond endurance. Which will you do? Wear a pleasant countenance: let joy beam in your eyes, and love grow on your forehead. There is no joy so great as that which springs from a kind act or a pleasant deed; and you may feel it at night when you rest, at morning when you rise, and through all the day, when about your business.

ON ACTIVITY IN CHILDREN.-To fetter the active motions of children, as soon as they acquire the use of their limbs, is barbarous opposition to nature; and to do so under a pretence of improving their minds and manners, is an insult to common sense. It may, indeed, be the way to train up elevated puppets for short-lived prodigies of learning, but never to form healthy, well-informed, accomplished men and women. Every feeling individual must behold, with much heartfelt concern, poor little puny creatures of eight, or ten, or twelve years of age, exhibited by their silly parents as proficients in learning, or as distinguished for their early proficiency in language, elocution, music, or even some frivolous acquirement. The strength of the mind, as well as of the body, is exhausted, and the natural growth of both is checked by such untimely exertions.

The Penny Post.

A PAROCHIAL VISIT.-A short time since a village rector called on one of his flock, an aged female, and said something about her making preparation for dying; her daughter being present, said she had thought of asking him to speak to her mother about that matter, as she felt sure she was not prepared for that change. He

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THE PENNY POST.

hastily asked, "How do you know that she is not prepared? I suppose she has been christened, and brought before the bishop, and has not lived so profanely as to be unfit to die." In reply, the daughter said, "We read, 'Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' "Conversion!" he said, "I know nothing about it"and so saying he left the house. Is this a servant of the meek and lowly Jesus who preached good news to the poor, and whom they heard so gladly? Is this a successor of the apostles? Does he teach their doctrines, breathe their spirit, and exemplify their practice ? Not he!

Suffolk.

W. A.

A HINT TO PARENTS.-Passing one day through the quiet village of B- P, in D -, my attention was arrested by the sudden and unexpected voice of a little boy apparently about five years of age uttering most dreadful oaths. The circumstance, and the manner in which the words were used, occupied my thoughts for several days afterwards. I thought, what a shocking thing for a child of that tender age; and I could not but concur in a remark made by one at the time, "this wickedness is the parents fault." Fathers, are you in the habit of swearing? let me entreat you never to set before your children such an example. Mothers, surely you are not in the habit of swearing! I earnestly beseech you to leave off such a course of wickedness. How awful! for you are not only injuring yourselves, but are also leading your own children with you to destruction. Think, deeply think, of this awful sin. Pray God to forgive you all that is past, and to give you grace that you may bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that they may not have to say in future life that the wicked example of their parents was the greatest curse of their existence, but trained by you in the paths of piety and peace, they may bless your memory on earth, and then share the joys of heaven with you for ever! R. P.

A POETIC EPISTLE written by a pious young woman, who had been six years confined to her bed by affliction:

TO MY BELOVED SISTERS ESTHER AND MARTHA.

What pleasing news is this I hear
The sound has caused a joyful tear-
That you, dear sisters, have begun
To seek the Lord whilst you are young.

'Tis good to find the youthful mind
To such important things inclin'd;
For life's uncertain, and you may
Be quickly called from earth away.
You know, my dears, in Christ is found,
A healing balm for every wound;
His blood can cleanse the vilest heart,
And righteousness divine impart.
Christ has declar'd that he will hear,
All that approach in humble prayer;

Who seek salvation in his name,
Shall surely in the end obtain.

In this you say you've much delight-
May you be taught to seek aright;
And taste, by faith, immortal joys,
That draw the mind from earthly toys.
Jesus the Lord will deign to bless,
All those who humbly seek his face;
May you, my dears, be found in him,
Whose blood can cleanse from every sin.
This is the wish and earnest prayer
Of One who feels your interest dear;
And longs to hear your lips proclaim,
The praises of Immanuel's name.

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