Full many a form, who oft beneath thy shade
In youth hath linger'd, or in childhood play'd,
Now comes no more; snatch'd in life's early bloom,
Some are now sleeping in the silent tomb:
Fair flowers of spring! the beautiful, the bright,
Transplanted to a sphere of purer light.
Many have left their home and native land,
And sever'd is the once gay household band,
To meet perhaps a solitary grave

In foreign climes, or 'neath the briny wave.
Full many an autumn, noble tree! has seen
Thy foliage change, though now so fresh and green;
And winter too thy leafless form has view'd;
But spring return'd, and all thy bloom renew'd.
Thus, then, as these their power and strength renew,
And opening beauties yearly glad the view,
So may our souls, upborne on faith's firm wing,
Rise from mortality to endless spring;
And as thy root, firm buried in the ground,
Stedfast withstands the storms that gather round,
So, though with clouds our path be overcast,
Be ours to rise unharm'd from 'neath the blast;
Be ours to root our faith in that bright way
Which leads to realms of everlasting day —
To trust in God, though tempests round us fall-
To feel, to own, that Christ is all in all!

Miscellaneous.

H.

CAMPO SANTO, IN HAVANNAH, ISLAND OF CUBA.This is the only burial-place for Roman Catholics in Havannah, and is a square enclosure of two or three acres, surrounded with a wall painted in panels, and at the corners are pyramidal shafts twelve or fifteeen feet high. The entrance is very appropriate to this field of the dead: on it are painted emblems of death, female figures with reversed torches in their hands, We entered and bearing also the cross and Bible.

the burial-ground, and walked up the central path on a pavement of flags, and saw on either hand the rank grass reaching higher than the walis, and the earth heaving up over the crowded dead. At the further end of the path was a beautiful chapel, in which, besides the funeral rites performed at the entrance, others are performed for those who can afford to pay for them, and then they are buried near it. On the stones we read the names of the most distinguished in the island-governors, nobles, and the wealthy; whilst the poorer classes are laid in trenches near the entrance to the Campo Santo, and have quicklime thrown over them. On the interior wall was a well-executed painting, a patriarch, surrounded by his weeping family, seems to be resigning himself to death, and above him is an angel sounding the last trumpet, and a holy family mounting with joy and gladness to the regions of bliss. Though the Campo Santo is much too small for such a population as the Havannah (nearly 250,000, including many thousand slaves from poor spoiled Africa, and who are cruelly treated by the Spanish), yet it is a great improvement on the old system of burying the dead in the churches, and pounding them under the floor with a heavy stone pestle, so as to make them occupy as little room as possible! What can be conceived more barbarous than this? Yet it is still practised on the South American continent. It is to the enlightened bishop that this great public improvement is owing; and though he had strong prejudices on the part of the Havanneros to overcome, yet he refused to grant Christian burial to any one in the church after the Campo Santo (consecrated or holy field) was prepared;

and has thus materially improved the health of the city by the beneficent change he has so judiciously and so resolutely introduced. When a respectable person dies in the Havannah, a lofty stage is erected in the principal apartment, covered with black drapery and tinsel ornaments; and on the top of it the open coffin is placed at an angle so as to expose the dead body, dressed in holyday clothes, to the spectators below. There is also a great display of wax-lights in the room. The volantes (carriages) of the friends of the deceased being assembled, the bier is placed across the leading one, which with the calassero (driver) and horse is covered with black cloth, and attended with slaves in long red coats, gold-laced cocked hats, and canes in their hands. The procession moves to the Campo Santo. Arrived there, the coffin is taken from the volante, the head of the corpse being uncovered, and kept in constant motion by the hasty step of the bearers. It is a ghastly sight. After the service is performed, the body is commonly tumbled unceremoniously into the shallow grave, lime and earth thrown over it, whilst the coffin is retained for the next who requires it. When children are buried, the attendants sing and play lively airs before them, as heaven (they think) is doubtless their portion. A funeral at the Havannah is conducted in a manner that the most uncivilised nation might be ashamed of; but such has been the custom from time immemorial. The Havannah is the hot-bed of disease; and one cannot long be an inhabitant of it without having the fatal effects of the yellow fever continually brought before his eyes. Opposite the town, extending from the side of the harbour into the country to the cast, is a long marsh of mangroves. The streets are narrow, and abominably dirty. Often whole ships' crews die in a few days; and, on an average, twentyfive catholics are buried in the Campo Santo daily, whilst the heretics are conveyed to a burial-ground of their own.-Alexander's Transatlantic Sketches.

MIRACLES. Avoid all absurd prejudices theoretically against miracles. They are inseparable from existence. Creation was a miracle. Its subsistence is not less so. The true idea of a miracle is, that it is an act of Divine power-an event which the material laws of nature without the greater law of the Divine agency could not effect. To describe a miracle as a violation of the laws of nature is an incorrect and an inapplicable definition; for all the laws of nature are in continual violation and counteraction by each other. Fire burns, but water extinguishes it; water is fluid, but cold converts it into a solid, and heat into air. It is the established course of nature, that all its laws should be thus violating each other. It is by such a violation that we roll yearly round the sun. This is the result of the attractive line continually violating the law of that propulsive force which every planet has received. These two laws are in a constant struggle, each violating the other, neither prevailing; and therefore the result of their increasing conflict and counteraction is that forced compromise, ever resisted by each, but maintained by their very resistance, which appears in our circuitous orbit. We now go round the sun by no willing movement: instead of flying off from it, as one law urges us to do; and instead of falling into it, to which the other is always drawing us, --this mutual violation of each other's law compels our planet into that elliptical circuit which is the artificial product of this appointed contest.-. - Sharon

Turner.

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VANTS; WITH CAUTIONARY HINTS. THE various gradations of society are of God's appointment; and if so, then the duties that spring from those relations rest upon divine sanction. The whole world may be compared to a great army, of which God is the supreme commander; he has appointed to each his rank, in keeping which is safety, honour, and reward. Eminence does not consist in rising out of any one of those stations that may be looked on as inferior into one of the higher, but in so discharging the duties of the relation wherein each finds himself, that there be no omission chargeable against him. It has been justly said, he that is not relatively good is not really good; he that breaks his rank, to get a higher and more secure place, will more probably meet with an overthrow than with elevation: we need only look to the ejection of Adam from paradise, and of the angels from heaven, to be convinced of this truth. "The world's a stage," said a Stoic philosopher; the sentiment, in the same words, was afterwards adopted and enlarged upon by an immortal poet; but neither the one nor the other confessed the obligation resting on every actor in the accountable drama of life to fulfil his part as in the sight of God. It is reported of Socrates, that when certain persons endeavoured to persuade him to abandon the instruction of youth, he laughed at them as fools, saying, "Heaven has set me in this post, and how can I leave it?" How many Christians, who lay claim to higher principles, might be put to shame by such a practical acknowledgment as this of the philoso

VOL. Y.-NO. CXIV.

for the exercise of high religious principle to guide in the right discharge of it, there is scarcely any more important than that of the Christian master of a family. It is upon such a principle, by using the argument of a direct responsibility to God,-that the Scripture enforces the duties of the relation in question. Masters are to discharge their obligations towards their households, "knowing that they also have a Master in heaven;" having a constant eye to the presence of their great Master, who, from the seat of his celestial presidency, beholds every member of the vast earthly family.. It was just this motive which swayed holy David in his resolution to walk before God in his house with a perfect heart; which influenced Abraham to instruct his family, and teach them in the fear of God. It was this which led Joshua to resolve, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

The master of a family, having thus an eye to the command of God, will enjoin nothing upon those under him but what has the warrant of the divine word. Looking, equally, for God's assistance, he will regulate his house with wisdom, meekness, and piety; assured that God stands by to direct and assist. And, also, fixing his view upon the sovereignty and justice of his great Master, the governor of the domestic circle will act righteously. He will remember that God is higher than the highest; that he has man in his hand, as clay is in the hand of the potter; that none of his " ways are unequal;" that the iniquitous procedures of man cannot pervert the course of his righteous administration; and that a day is at hand, when not

D

only masters and servants, kings and subjects, fathers and children, and all who occupy reciprocal positions in the world, must stand upon equal ground before him; but when the very decisions which their superiors have come to as the rule of conduct for their inferiors to live by, and the very sentence they have pronounced as fixing their destiny-may each be reversed at a tribunal, from which, as it is alone infallible, there can be no appeal.

In offering some suggestions relative to the duties of the master of a family, I may first give a few cautionary hints as to what he should abstain from. He must take good care to be free from the faults which he means to condemn in the household. It was by sin that man first forfeited his sovereignty over the creation; and by the same he now loses his dignity and authority over those with whom he is connected by natural or civil ties. "If you would have your servants obey your commands," said one, "you must not break God's." "Thou that teachest another," argues the Scripture unanswerably, "teachest thou not thyself?" How can a sensual master reprove intemperance; or an extravagant man require frugality; or one that is restless for pleasure expect diligence in domestic duties; or a profane man rebuke "evil-speaking, lying, and slandering?" Masters who lie under any of such charges would do well to reflect, not only that their evil example perils the souls of their inferiors and swells the amount of their own guilt, but that, even with reference to present expediency, it is unreasonable to hope that they can build up by their words that which the whole tenour of their actions is undoing; and that if their children and servants were to regard their example as a test of the sincerity with which they issue their commands, they would fairly conclude, that it was the wish of their governor to be habitually disobeyed.

Nor can a household be well regulated where the presence of the master at home does not cause his influence to be constantly felt. The maxims which regulate those who are in trade, in this respect, will equally apply to household government; and if we should predict the sure failure of that merchant or mechanic who was constantly absent from his office or his shop, with no less confidence might we pronounce, that confusion, and, ere long, total disorganisation, would enter that household from which the master, who ought to be the presiding influence for good, is often absent. He should be constantly at home, not merely nor chiefly to detect errors in the domestic economy, but to shed over the whole of it the general benefit of his patronage and counsel.

Extreme caution in the admission of servants into a family is a principal duty of the master of a household. Incalculable are the mischiefs that have been introduced into a family by remissness in taking this precaution. Evils of the most fearful kind have accrued to children, servants, and property, from the unconscious admission of servants born of a vicious stock, and who have had every species of corruption familiarised to them from early infancy; whose tuition, if they have had any, has had no reference to religion; and who cannot, therefore, feel the force of any of those motives to fidelity which spring from the knowledge of their responsibility to "Master who is in heaven." David seems

a

to have resolved to exercise such a caution as I am recommending, when he said, Ps. ci. 7, "He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house; he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight." The benefit and blessing which arise to a family where the servants are regulated by God's fear, have also been found to be great. When Joseph came into the house of Potiphar, a marked change took place in his interests; the posture of his domestic affairs seems to have been altered in a way, and to an extent, that soon became discernible: he saw that the presence of God was with Joseph, and therefore that it was his wisdom to countenance and employ him in his service. The few good men who are in a kingdom are often its preservers from those judgments which the sins of the great majority have nearly drawn down upon it, like as the ten righteous (could they have been found) would have saved Sodom from destruction. In the same way, how many evils may have been averted, and how many blessings procured, by the exertions and the prayers of a devout servant, who can know ?

The judicious ruler of a family will preserve a medium between the imposing of too much or too little employment upon the servants. If the cries of those labourers who, having reaped down the fields of the rich, had their hire fraudulently kept back, entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth," no less will their complaints ascend into the same ears who are so overloaded with tasks, that their strength and spirits are broken down. The sin of laying this ponderous burden upon the backs of servants consists principally in this, that they are incapacitated for serving God as they ought; and it is as impolitic as it is wicked, since it blunts the faculties, draws away their affections from their employers, and thus impairs the worth of their services. If God could see and avenge the hard vassalage under which the Israelites were placed by the Egyptians, how shall he not condemn those who, with greater light and higher

66

say,

principles, act so contrary to the laws of religion and humanity? Even Seneca, when writing on mercy," could "Your ser vants are the inferior, and poor friends, and are to be accounted next to children, and came not into the house for servitude and vassalage, but patronage." There is a danger, on the other hand, in too little occupation. This leads to habits of idleness, from the usual want of those resources which education can alone supply; then follow consequences positively evil,

"Since Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do."

Accordingly, it is mentioned as one of the praises of the excellent woman in the book of Proverbs, that she would suffer none in her house" to eat the bread of idleness." (Prov. xxxi. 27.)

The godly master of a household will never be guilty of oppressive treatment, either in word or deed. Such treatment generally proceeds from want of consideration; this will explain, though it cannot excuse it. Reflection would shew the man who is tempted so to use his inferiors, that he is employing unjustifiable weapons. If the "merciful man is merciful to his beast," how much more so will he be towards those who are "partakers of flesh and blood" like himself; who have feelings, probably, as sensitive as his own; whose "flesh is not iron, nor their bones brass." The recollection of the royal law (were such moments moments of recollectedness) would effectually rein in the master who should be tempted to misuse his servant. Could he then call to mind the woes denounced by God against oppressors; could he think of receiving such mercy from God's hand as he is dispensing towards his dependent; of being cursed by God when he would curse his fellow-man; of having an almighty Master deal with him according to the measures whereby he is dealing with his subject brother, surely his uplifted wrath would drop, and be exchanged for pity towards the offender.

All these laws will infallibly govern the master of a household, if he views the souls as well as the bodies of his servants as committed to his charge. The neglect of heads of families in this respect is so fearfully great, and so extensive, that it is difficult to reconcile their conduct with a charitable belief in

their own Christian sincerity. At present it will suffice to say, that the souls "for whom Christ died" are treated by them as valueless, or as if they did not exist; and the futurity which awaits their servants equally with themselves is practically declared to be an idle phantom. A neglect so common, so

THE HON. AND RIGHT REV. CHARLES JAMES STEWART, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF QUEBEC.*

THE duty and privilege of using every effort to emancipate those who are under the thraldom of Satan, and to bring them into the enjoyment of that liberty wherewith Christ maketh his people free, are beginning to be more extensively felt, and more strenuously acted on. Myriads of professing Christians, it is true, are unmindful of the obligation laid upon them to seck to impart to others the spiritual privileges they themselves enjoy. The present age, however, is unquestionably one of great missionary exertion; and though coming far short, indeed, of what is required of her, our Church is now extending her influence far and wide. Through the instrumentality of her missionaries, the truth as it is in Jesus is now publicly proclaimed amidst the wilderness of error and idolatry; and there is reason to believe that she will, under the divine blessing, be the honoured means of introducing the light of the Gospel into many a benighted region, and of establishing on a sure foundation the religion of the adorable Redeemer. By whomsoever Christ is preached, and wheresoever he is preached, therein does the Christian sincerely rejoice. Still, the extension of our own Church in foreign lands cannot but be viewed with more than ordinary interest. It is gratefully acknowledged that a fresh impulse has been given to her ministrations at home-that the light which now burns upon her altars is of a purer and holier flame than it once was wont to be-that there is an increasing conformity in the tone of her pulpit ministrations to the statements set forth in her accredited formularies; and if there be required any further proof of the holy zeal which animates many of her members, we have only to consider the various associations now formed to provide increased means of religious instruction for our home-population, and to refer to the reports of those societies, the great object of which is the extension of the kingdom of the Redeemer in foreign parts.

These remarks will not be regarded as out of place, in introducing the memoir of one of those devoted men who, during the present century, have been willing to forego many of the endearments of social life, and to renounce the hope of temporal preferment, that they might carry to distant lands the glad tidings of the Gospel of peace; whose names and memorials shall be held in grateful remembrance, not only by the Church of which they were attached members and devoted ministers, but by myriads yet unborn in other climes, who will trace to their instrumentality the sowing of that seed, which shall spring up an hundredfold to the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

The Hon. and Right Rev. Charles James Stewart, D.D., bishop of Quebec, was the third son of John, seventh Earl of Galloway and his second wife Anne, the daughter of Sir James Dashwood. After being educated privately at home, he entered the University of Oxford, and became fellow of All Souls. Having taken holy orders, and being connected with families of the highest distinction in the country, the prospect of preferment at home was rational, and almost sure Orton Longueville, Huntingdonshire; but Mr. Stewart to be fulfilled. He was presented to the rectory of

• See Stewart Missions, &c. &c,