and terrible reformer, Martin Luther, with as heavy a task as God ever laid upon a mortal man, threw his cares aside from time to time, and played on his flute, jested with his friends, gambolled elephant-like with his children, or gave himself up with extravagant delight to the songs of birds and all the joyful restorative influences of nature, he thus kept his soul sweet and his powers fresh, so as to renew at the fitting time, and finish, the work which had been given him to do.

Here we see the true place and office of amusements. They are not the business of life, but interludes, recreations, refreshments, thrown in at intervals to save us from being utterly broken down by unceasing and perpetual toil. While we study or labor, while we do our part to work or to prepare ourselves for work, we have a right, nay, it is our duty, as well as our privilege, to give ourselves up from time to time to amusements. But when amusements become the chief thing, when they take the place of the serious duties which God has imposed on every man whom he has created, then they undermine our principles, and impair our faith in whatever is noblest in virtue, or most holy in religion. The soul which lays upon itself no weightier obligations and seeks no higher ends, is lost. Even poetry and music and art, so beautiful in their place as the handmaids of religion, only lead us into the paths of death when they withdraw from her guidance and demand for themselves the worship which is due to God alone. "This, too, is the ruinous effect of an education of accomplishments. The education of the taste, and the cultivation of the feelings, in undue proportion, destroy the masculine tone of mind. An education chiefly romantic or poetical, not balanced by hard practical life, is simply the ruin of the soul."

And when such has become the character of a community, when æsthetic tastes have greater influence than the love

of truth, and amusements are allowed to stand in the place of better things, then, no matter what external show of prosperity or refinement there may be, the doom of that community is sealed. "For," in the language of an able historian,* "neither in sacred nor profane history, neither in the monarchies of the East, nor the free commonwealths of the Western world, -neither in Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, Italian, Saracenic, or any other chronicles, - could an exception be found to the law which dooms to ruin any people who, abandoning the duties for the delights of this transitory state, live only in the frivolities of life, and find only the means of a dissolute and emasculate self-indulgence in God's best gifts to man, in wealth and leisure and society, in erudition and art and science, in literature and philosophy and eloquence, in the domestic affections which should bless our existence, and in the worship by which it should be consecrated."

THE TWO BAPTISMS.

THE sunlight crowns the lofty hills,
Brightens the vale below,

And kisses into smiles the stream

That through the vale winds slow.

And smiles, as well, the tiny grass
Upon the river's brink,

And lowly bends the graceful elm,
To let its young leaves drink.

There is no cloud in earth or sky,
As glides along the way
A little band, and midst them one
Who seeks the Lord to-day ;-

*Sir James Stephen.

Some time from out the breaking heart,
Will burst the anguished cry,

That tells how human souls shrink back
The fiery baptism nigh.

I do not know, the ways are His, -
We all are in His hands;

It matters not, so He lends strength
To meet His stern commands.

But kneel and pray, yet once again,
That in His fearful day,
However deep the soul may sink,

He'll not be far away.

What! shrinking back so soon, poor heart,

With lip and cheek so pale?

There are these strong, sweet words for thee:

"My grace it shall not fail;

"My heaven shall surely wait for thee,

And there, in soft, clear light,

For evermore shall stand the soul,

That I by fire make white."

A. M. S.

"A short sentence may be oftentimes a large and a mighty prayer."

"Let him who prays bestow all that strength, fervor, and attention upon shortness and significance, that would otherwise run out and lose itself in length and luxuriancy of speech to no purpose. Let not his tongue outstrip his heart, nor presume to carry a message to the throne of grace while that stays behind."

"Nothing can be more absurd in itself, nor more unacceptable to God, than for one engaged in the great work of prayer to hold on speaking after he has left off praying, and to keep the lips at work when the spirit can do no more."

LIBERALITY OR INDIFFERENCE?

It is a good thing to be a liberal Christian, but it is a very poor thing to be an indifferent Christian. True charity is a very sweet grace, but true charity does not spring from indifference. It is easy, of course, to be very charitable, where the dividing points are not so much points of difference as of indifference. The Jews, and not the Gallios whose weary task it is to calm their theological strifes, come to bitterness and blows in the attempt to adjust them. If, therefore, we find, or think we find, that Christians are more kindly disposed towards each other than they once were, is it because the matter which they all have at heart is no longer absolutely vital to them, or because they have learned to look at it in a larger way? Is it liberality, or is it indifference?

Perhaps some may think that as yet there is no very large measure of kindliness to be accounted for, that the demands of the spirit of dogmatism are still almost as formidable as ever, and that the peculiar bitterness known as odium theologicum has lost very little of its intensity. Undoubtedly, here as everywhere else, there is a dark side to look at, and desponding persons may turn their eyes exclusively that way. Undoubtedly in this direction, as in other directions, professions outrun practice, and the most liberal in name. turn out sometimes to be the least liberal in fact. Old school and new school strive for the mastery in all denominations, and those who go from one religious home to another, seeking rest, often find that they have only been introduced to a new form of strife. The nominally religious journals often make their readers very sad with their displays of uncharitableness, and their contests, not for truth, but for individual triumphs. Here and there we even find vestiges of old persecuting opinions and practices. Now and then an eccentric Protestant, with his face turned