where peevish remarks and angry exclamations are unheard; where commands are delivered with mild good humour, and obeyed with unaffected cheerfulness. We shall have a more lively impression of the beauty of kindness, if, from the contemplation of a family like this, we turn our attention to another wherein opposite tempers prevail; where the peevish grin, the sullen scowl, and the angry, stormy contention, bespeak the absence of love and peace, and the reign of discord: in such a house, we may indeed find all the superfluities and glitter that pride can suggest, and that wealth can purchase; but we shall be convinced that these are but miserable substitutes for suavity of disposition; if this be want ing, all the rest is empty, worth less decoration. There are a thousand nameless ways of manifesting the amiable disposition we are recommending, which scarcely admit of being described, but which will be easily suggested by a kind heart. It must, however, be acknowledged, that some people's manners misrepresent their hearts: they have an unkind, or at least an unamiable method of exhibiting their kindness. If we need any direction on this point, we may obtain it in the speediest manner, by inquiring, how we should wish another person to behave towards ourselves. Now we shall discover, that we not only wish our kindness and good offices to be returned with suitable manifestations of gratitude, but we wish people to be indulgent to our mistakes and failings: we deem it hard and unjust to be punished for a mere infirmity; and though we cannot refuse to have our real faults reprehended, yet we always expect that the honesty of reproof should be combined with the tenderness of love we love the individual that can sympathize with our sorrows and sufferings, and that continually endeavours to accommodate us, though sometimes at the expense of his own convenience. In this manner, therefore, must we conduct ourselves towards our fellow creatures. "A man that has friends must show himself friendly." This is the only way to acquire and retain a friend; for love only can love beget. Some men appear to have formed the idea of forcing their way through the world by violence, and hence a gentle and forgiving disposition they despise as pusillanimous; they glory in a proud unsubmissive temper, which scorns to consult the feelings, or bend to the wishes of any. But such a person, wherever he is found, ought to be banished from civilized society, to herd with savages, to whom he is most nearly allied. A friend, he may rest assured, he will never possess; for his heart is not susceptible of friendship: he may be flattered, but never beloved; for though coercion and violence may compel involuntary submission, and make slaves; kindness alone can conquer hearts, and secure attachment. Kindness will often subdue the most formidable animosity: for, "A soft answer turneth away wrath." Do you wish to conquer your enemy? Attempt him not with hard lauguage, and injurious or insulting treatment; this will only exasperate his enmity, and make your separation still wider: but treat him with kindness, conduct yourself towards him as you would towards your friend; and if he have a spark of generous feeling, it will be impossible for him to retain his hatred. Your conduct will be coals of fire heaped upon his frozen affections, Selfishness is the greatest obstruction to the exercise of kindness; for to be uniformly kind, requires a frequent sacrifice of our own convenience; a selfish person will therefore find but few opportunities of evincing his amiable temper. He who is governed by selfishness, is actuated by an incessant desire to subordinate the interests and comforts of all other persons to his own: this detestable principle, in the more weighty transactions of life, would conduct its possessor to cruelty, injustice, and oppression; and in the confined, but diversified movements of the domestic circle, it would disgrace his conduct with every thing mean and disgusting. Nevertheless, the most selfish savage will be kind sometimes, when he happens to be pleased, or when he is prompted by natural affection, or sinister motives. And hence uniform kindness alone deserves the name of a virtue; because that alone springs from the heart. WM. ROBINSON. Rainton, near Thirsk, PERSIAN ROSARY. THIS is a beautiful compendium of oriental ethics, written by a Persian poet, whose name was Eddin Sadi; who, about the middle of the thirteenth century, when the Turks invaded Persia, withdrew from his own country, and settled at Bagdad, for the purpose of prosecuting his studies. After experiencing much vicissitude of fortune, he returned home, and compiled the book just mentioned, which he completed in the year 1257. This book, we are informed, has been universally read in the East; and has been translated into Latin, and into several modern languages. As our readers in general may not have access to the original work, which is divided into eight chapters, nor to the extracts from it, we shall here subjoin, both for their information and amusement, the following citations :— 1. Paradise will be the reward of those kings who restrain their resentment, and know how to forgive. A king, who institutes unjust laws, undermines the foundation of his kingdom. Let him, who neglects to raise the fallen, fear, lest when he himself falls, no one will stretch out his hand to lift him up. Administer justice to your people, for a day of judgment is at hand. The dishonest steward's hand will shake, when he comes to render an account of his trust. Be just, and fear not. Oppress not thy subjects, lest the sighing of the oppressed should ascend to heaven. If you wish to be great, be liberal; for, unless you sow the seed, there can be no increase. Assist and relieve the wretched, for misfortunes may happen to yourself. Wound no man unnecessarily; there are thorns enough in the path of human life. If a king take an apple from the garden of a subject, his servants will soon cut down the tree. The flock is not made for the shepherd, but the shepherd for the flock. 2. Excel in good works, and wear what you please: innocence and piety do not consist in wearing an old or coarse garment. Learn virtue from the vicious; and what offends you in their conduct, avoid in your own. If you have received an injury, bear it patiently: by pardoning the offences of others, you will wash away your own. Him, who has been every day conferring upon you new favours, pardon, if, in the space of a long life, he should have once done you an injury. Respect the memory of the good, that your good name may live for ever. 3. In your adversity, do not visit your friend with a sad countenance; for you will imbitter his cup: relate even your misfortunes with a smile; for wretchedness will never reach the heart of a cheerful man. He who lives upon the fruits of his own labour, escapes the contempt of haughty benefactors. Always encounter petulance with gentleness, and perverseness with kindness; a gentle band will lead the elephant itself by a hair. When once you have offended a man, do not presume that a hundred benefits will secure you from revenge: an arrow may be drawn out of a wound, but an injury is never forgotten. Worse than the venom of a serpent is the tongue of an enemy, who pretends to be your friend. 4. It is better to be silent upon points we understand, than to be put to shame by being questioned upon things of which we are ignorant. A wise man will not contend with a fool. It is a certain mark of folly, as well as rudeness, to speak while another is speaking. If you are wise, you will speak less than you know. 5. Although you can repeat every word of the Koran, if you suffer yourself to be enslaved by love, you have not yet learned your alphabet. The immature grape is sour; wait a few days, and it will become sweet. If you resist temptation, do not assure yourself that you shall escape slander. The reputation, which has been fifty years in building, may be thrown down by one blast of calumny. Listen not to the tale of friendship, from the man who has been capable of forgetting his friend in adversity. 6. Perseverance accomplishes more than precipitation; the patient mule, which travels slowly night and day, will in the end go farther than an Arabian courser. If you are old, leave sports ard jests to the young: the stream, which has passed away, will not return into its channel. If 7. Instruction is only profitable to those who are capable of receiving it: bring an ass to Mecca, and it will still return an ass. you would be your father's heir, learn his wisdom: his wealth you may expend in ten days. He who is tinctured with good principles while he is young, when he is grown old will not be destitute of virtue. If a man be destitute of knowledge, prudence, and virtue, his door keeper may say, Nobody is at home. Give advice where you ought; if it be not regarded, the fault is not yours. 8. Two kinds of men labour in vain: they who get riches, and do not enjoy them, and they who learn wisdom, and do not apply it to the conduct of life. A wise man, who is not at the same time virtuous, is a blind man carrying a lamp: he gives light to others, while he himself remains in darkness. If you wish to sleep soundly, provide for to morrow. Trust no man, even your best friend, with a secret; you will never find a more faithful guardian of the trust than yourself. Let your misfortunes teach you compassion: he knows the condi tion of the wretched, who has himself been wretched. Excessive vehemence creates enmity; excessive gentleness, contempt: be neither so severe, as to be hated; nor so mild, as to be insulted. He who throws away advice upon a and government without punishment. Clemency to the wicked is an injury to the good. If learning were banished from the earth, there would, notwithstanding, be conceited man, himself wants an adviser. In a single hour you may discover, whether a man has good sense; but it will require many years to discover whether he has good temper. Three things are no one who would think himself unattainable; riches without trouble, science without controversy, by Enfield, vol. ii. ignorant.-Brucker's Hist. of Phil. FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY. THE SEVEN APOCALYPTIC CHURCHES. From recent "Letters from the Levant." sion in religious fervour,* and his threat in consequence a total extinction of her ecclesiastical brightness.† After a protracted struggle with the sword of Rome and the sophism of the Gnostics, Ephesus at last gave way. The incipient indifference, censured by the warning voice of the prophet, increased to a total forgetfulness, till at length the threatenings of the Apocalypse were fulfilled, and Ephesus sunk with the general overthrow of the Greek empire, in the fourteenth century. THERE cannot possibly be placed on record a more striking example of the literal and circumstantial fulfilment of prophecy, than the instance of the denunciations direct ed against the seven Apocalyptic churches. The later events in the history of the world, the predictions of which profess to be contained in the writings of inspiration, are all cloaked in mystery, or couched in language which is impressive from its very obscurity. There is no circuitous style of allegory, and no dark forebodings dealt forth through the involutions A more thorough change can of mysticism; the words of the scarcely be conceived, than that prophet are plain, concise, and which has actually occurred at equally palpable in their enuncia- Ephesus. Once the seat of active tion and fulfilment. The accom- commerce, the very sea has shrunk plishment of some was deferred from its solitary shores; its streets but a brief period from the moment once populous with the devotees of their declaration, while the more of Diana, are now ploughed over slow, but equally certain progress by the Ottoman serf, or broused of the others, is at length com- by the sheep of the peasant. Its pleted. mouldering arches and dilapidated walls merely whisper the tale of its glory; and it requires the acumen of the geographer, and the active scrutiny of the exploring traveller, to form a probable conjecture as to the very site of the 1. EPHESUS. As the chief strong hold of Christianity in the east, and that centre from whence its rays were most brilliantly disseminated, till "all they who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks."* Ephesus is first addressed by the evangelist: his charge against her is a declen * Acts xix, 10. * Nevertheless I have something against thee, because thou hast left thy first love, Rev. ii, 4. I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, unless thou repent, Rev. ii, 5. "first wonder of the world." Nothing remains unaltered save the "eternal hills," and the mazy Cayster, the stream of which rolls on still changeless and the same. overthrown buildings and heaps of decayed walls, imbedded in high rank weeds, where the chameleon and the green metallic lizard lie basking in the sun, and where the No vestige of Christianity is snake and the jackal find a secure preserved except the ruins at Ayas- and seldom disturbed retreat. Its alook, whither many of the inba- summit commands a superb and bitants of Ephesus retired at the extensive view of the plains of the time of its destruction, from their Cayster, the site of Ephesus, the desolated and irreparable city. windings of the river, and the disAfter this period, Ayasalook suf- tant hills of Galessus and Pactyas. fered numerous vicissitudes during It is impossible to conceive a more the wars of Timourlane and Soly- depressing or melancholy prospect, man; but as its importance gra- on every side the speaking monudually died away with the departments of decay, a mouldering arch, ure of commerce and other causes, a tottering column, or a ruined it at length fell to Time, the re temple. Solitude seems to reign sistless conqueror of all, and now triumphant; the wretched inhabitretains but a faint inscription on ants of the village are seldom to the page of history, and a muti- be seen save in early morning, or lated skeleton of its edifices en- in the cool of the evening, when tombed in a sepulchre heaped they sally from their muddy habitaround them by their own decay. ations to labour in the plain, which It consists of about thirty or forty would be impossible during the wretched houses, chiefly built of burning meridian heat. Neither mud and broken marbles or frag- motion nor sound is discernible, ments from the wrecks of Ephesus. save the cry of the sea bird on the Around it in every direction spread shore, or the tinkling of a sheep extensive ruins of former edifices, bell amid the ruins: all, all is siprostrate columns and desolated lence and decay. Ephesus is no walls, while its castle in moulder- more, and such is its modern sucing pride crowns the summit of a cessor. Thus all the wealth of neighbouring hill; and these, toge- Croesus, the genius of Ctesiphon, ther with the vestiges of a church the munificence of Alexander, and dedicated to St. John, and the re- the glory of Lysimachus, (to each maining arches of its splendid aque- of whom Ephesus was indebted,) `duct, bespeak the former extent have no other representative than and importance of the widowed the mouldering castle and muḍ city. walled cottages of Ayasalook! The present inhabitants of Ayasalook are chiefly Turks and a few miserable Greeks, who have long forgotten the language of their nation, but retain the name of its religion, and earn a wretched subsistence by tilling the unhealthy plains beneath. The castle, erect ed about the year 1340, is now in total ruin, its tottering buttresses encompassing merely a mass of 2. SMYRNA. To Smyrna the message of St. John conveys at once a striking instance of the theory I am illustrating, and a powerful lesson to those who would support the shrine of Omnipotence by the arm of impotency, and fancy they can soothe the erring soul by the balm of persecution, and correct its delusions by the persuasions of intolerance. |