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fessed that their attractions are more passive than active in their character, and, therefore, lacking in those grander qualities which grow out of successful conflict with evil. It is not baby beauty that we look for in our young men and maidens, but the beauty of a harmonious development, in which the appetites, the affections, and the temper are subject to an enlightened and conscientious will. If many of our pretty young ladies knew how much they spoil their beauty by haughtiness, pertness, pettishness, and wilfulness, to say nothing of more vicious propensities, they would no sooner willingly indulge in any of them than they would wash their faces with vitriol, or perfume themselves with assafœtida.

Then, benevolence and virtue are amongst the greatest beautifiers of the human face. Selfishness, malignity, and animalism degrade and distort the finest features, rendering countenances otherwise handsome, disagreeable and repellant. Who of us are not acquainted with persons admired by all at first, but who have never had power to attract the lasting affection of a single human heart? On the other hand, are there not others whom we have passed by with indifference on a slight acquaintance, but for whom subsequent intercourse has awakened the liveliest regard? The truth seems to be, that no one is wholly indifferent to beauty of character; and beauty of character will go far towards making everything beautiful. It is better than rouge or ribbons; it is better than washes and powder, and all the appliances of the toilet table. Let our fair readers take our word for it. This is the best cosmetic. "Beautiful for ever," the dream of human vanity, becomes a fact and a reality to those who, like the King's daughter, seek to grow beautiful from within.

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But the crowning resource of real loveliness remains yet to be signalised: it will be found in the enjoyment and practice of true piety. Religion is a divinely-constructed mould, in which to recast and perfectly remodel the character of its friends. All that is monstrous and excrescent it undertakes to uproot and expel from our nature, while it restores it to perfect health and faultless proportions, and covers it with the sweetness and the bloom of immaculate and immortal beauty. For this it has come to us furnished with all possible provisions. Not only does it drive the Author of all Evil from the heart, and purge it of all the defilement which he has brought with him and left there, but it commences and carries on a new creation," which is never left till it is left finished and complete. We naturally take the character of those with whom we have most to do. Persons much together become like each other, not only in manners, but in features. And this is especially the case with the more dependent and flexible, when they are much in the society of stronger, more plastic, and commanding spirits. The one is giving off and communicating a power which the other receives and appropriates. And in this way we were intended to be affected by Divine objects, but preeminently by contact with the Saviour Himself. "All we beholding with unveiled face, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit." That is the grand process. There is no other way of getting rid of our deformity and repulsiveness. Would that every reader would consider it! Would that our younger readers especially would consider it! The knowledge of Christ,-love and obedience to Christ,-above all, fel

lowship with Christ,-the conscious union and communion of our spirits with His, that is the golden way in which to acquire all that is noble in character and all that is faultless in beauty, and not only to acquire them, but to retain them for ever.

For this reconstitution of the mind is only preparatory to the reconstitution of the body. Christ is the model of both. We are to be made like Him in character now, in order that we might be made like Him in person at the resurrection. "For as we have borne the image of the earthy (ie, of the earthy Adam), so we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (i. e., of the heavenly Adam). The grave is to be the mother of a new generation, and all her children are to bear the perfect image of their Lord. The glory of the first creation shall be eclipsed and forgotten in the greater glory of the second. Sown in corruption, dishonour, and weakness, but raised in power, glory, and immortality, behold them prepared for the hea

venly Bridegroom, and worthy of His everlasting embrace! How many of them lay down there withered and shrivelled by age, or deformed and wasted by suffering, or crippled and dismembered by violence; but they spring forth from the embraces of the kindly sepulchre purged of all their infirmities, fair as the fairest of the Creator's works. Let the admirers of personal beauty reflect on this. Do they wish to possess its attractions, and to enjoy the admiration and the love which it never fails to excite? This is the only way in which fully to gratify the wish. By union with Him who is chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely, let them secure moral and spiritual excellence now, then they will rise from their graves at the Great Day, replete with every grace, faultless in every feature, lovely as the brightest angel; each different from the rest, yet each without a defect; all perfect in beauty, and all BEAUTIFUL FOR EVER.

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Offor a man of singular activity, energy, and independence of judgment. Though his literary tastes in some directions assumed the force of a passion, yet they were never suffered to confine him to his study; he laboured as diligently in public duties as if he lived for them alone. He sustained no office merely in name; whether as a Magistrate or as a Commissioner, he was conspicuous above most others for diligent attention to business. He could no more be idle than he could indolently accept conclusions not his own. Whatever opinion he advocated was sure to be in accordance with sound sense-the result of independent thought and conviction; yet, though on this account he might often find himself in antagonism with others, there was something so honest, straightforward, and good-humoured in his opposition, that he rarely, if ever, made a personal enemy. Hence, he lived in friendly association with persons whose religious and political opinions differed widely from his own, and died honoured and lamented by all classes.

The facts of his life are soon told. He was born on Tower-hill, in the year 1796, in the house in which his father carried on business as a bookseller, and which afterwards became his own. His early education he received under the Rev. T. Thomas, pastor of Devonshire-square Chapel, who conducted an academy at Islington. He attained to such skill in the art of penmanship, that he left behind him many curious performances. Among the rest, the whole of the New Testament, in shorthand so minute that none of the separate characters are perceptible to the naked eye; and a bust of Shakspere, formed entirely of writing from one of the bard's plays. He was in early life a professed Christian, a Sunday-school teacher, a fellow

labourer with the late Henry Althans, and a member of the Baptist Church at Bow. When his connexion with that church terminated, although he never again identified himself with any Christian community, he did not cease his diligent attendance upon the means of grace. For the last twenty-five years of his life, so long as health and strength permitted, he was a hearer at Mare-street Chapel, Hackney, and in all but in name identified himself with the church and congregation. He died at Grove House, Hackney, on Thursday, Aug. 4th, 1864, and consequently in the 78th year of his age, and was buried in Abney Park Cemetery on the Monday following.

The memory of Mr. Offor cannot die; his name is inseparably associated with two books, one of which, we believe, will (in spite of the tendencies of modern thought) be read as long as the world lasts; and the other will only perish, if it ever does perish, with the English language— we mean the Bible and the Pilgrim's Progress. Devotion to these two books speaks not a little in favour of a man's religious character. As to the Bible, its history was the study of his life. His library was probably the richest private collection of editions in the kingdom. There might be found whatever was rare, curious, or interesting. It was the resort of scholars and divines of all ranks and denominations. Mr. Offor was in his element when directing the attention of his visitors to the books and objects which he deemed worthy of their special notice. His courtesy and kindness on such occasions were unbounded. It is to be hoped that, before the collection is broken up, some permanent account of it will be put on record.

Apart from Mr. Offor's labours in connexion with "Bunyan and his Works," one of his best works was

"The Life of William Tyndale," which he wrote for Samuel Bagster; but the largest production of his pen is "The History of the Great Bible," which has never been published. It is a rare specimen of his caligraphic skill, and occupied a great portion of twenty years. It is contained in four folio volumes (unbound). The first embraces the history of Coverdale's translation; the second, of Tyndale's; the third, of Cranmer's; and the fourth, the Genevan-each profusely illustrated with fac-similes, carefully made by himself. All the rare editions of the Scriptures have evidence of Mr. Offor's knowledge of their contents by notes, &c., written on the fly-leaf, and some of them have small

histories of the volume neatly written by him, and bound up with the book. All these labours were by him rendered compatible with a great variety of public services-at one time an active politician, and of late years a Magistrate and Commissioner of Income-tax and of the Board of Works-and all this was done chiefly by his habit of early rising. While engaged upon Bunyan's works, he was ordinarily at his books at four o'clock in the morning, and thus secured many hours before the ordinary business of the day began. Success in life is surely no secret with men who possess the characteristics and habits of the late Mr. George Offor.

WHOLESOME WORDS.*

GOD'S CHAMPIONS.

GOD delights to call forth His cham

pions to meet with great temptations,

to make them bear crosses of more than ordinary weight. As commanders in war put men of most valour and skill upon the hardest services, God sets some strong furious trial upon a strong Christian, made strong by His own grace; and by His victory makes it appear to the world that though there is a great deal of the counterfeit coin of profession in religion, yet some there are that have the power, the reality of it; and that 'tis not an invention, but there is truth in it; that the invincible grace, the very Spirit of God dwells in the hearts of true believers; that He hath a number that do not only speak big, but do indeed and in

"Wholesome Words," edited by J. E. Ryland, M.A. London: Jackson, Walford, & Co.

good earnest despise the world, and overcome it by His strength. Some beasts fight together; but to see a men take delight to see some kind of Christian mind encountering some great affliction and conquering it,to see his valour, in not sinking at the hardest distresses of his life, nor the most affrightful end of it, the cruellest kind of death, for His sake, -this is a combat that God delights to look upon, and He is not a mere beholder in it; for 'tis the power of His own grace that enables and supports the Christian in all those conflicts and temptations.-LEIGHTON,

GIFTS, A STEWARDSHIP.

Thou art not proprietary lord of anything thou hast, but a steward, and therefore oughtest gladly to be a good steward-that is, both faithful and prudent in thy entrusted gifts, using all thou hast to the good of the household, and so to the advantage

of thy Lord and Maker. Hast thou abilities of estate, or body, or mind? Let all be thus employed. Thinkest thou that thy wealth, or power, or wit is thine, to do with them as thou wilt, to engross to thyself, either to retain useless, or to use; to hoard or wrap up, or to lavish out according as thy humour leads thee? No, all is given, as to a steward, wisely and fhfully to lay up and lay out. Not on.y thy outward and common gifts of mind, but even saving grace, which seems most intended and appropriated for thy private good, yet is not wholly for that; even thy graces are for the good of thy brethren. Oh, that we would consider this in all, and look back and mourn on the fruitlessness of all that hath been in our hand all our life hitherto. If it have not been wholly fruitless, yet how far short of that fruit we might have brought forth Any little thing done by us looks big in our eye; we view it through a magnifying glass. But who may not complain that their means, and health, and opportunities of several kinds of doing for God, and for our brethren, have been dead upon their hands in a great part? As Christians are defective in other duties of love, so most in that most important duty of advancing the spiritual good of each other. Even they that have grace do not use it to mutual edification. Many ways may a private Christian promote the good of others with whom he lives, by seasonable admonitions and advice, and reproof sweetened with meekness, but most by holy example, which is the most lively and most effectual speech.LEIGHTON.

TRAVELLERS, THE FOUR.

Four travellers were returning to their own city; a day was their limitation; they must be there before night, or else, being shut out, they

shall become a prey to the robbers. The first is assaulted by some ruffians, who so provoked him with uncivil language that he draws and fights; and in that quarrel received such hurts, that for want of a surgeon he is left behind. No city could he reach. The second meets with some boon companions, who, after the preface of their drunken compliments, show him a bush that promiseth wine. This went so liberally and merrily down, that the sun was almost set before he thought of rising. Then he would fain have reeled away, but neither he nor time could stand to it. The next hears of a mine of treasure by the way, but buried somewhat deep in the ground. He gets instruments, delves for it, and finds it. The more he digs, the more he gets; and still the more he gets, the more he digs. On a sudden it grows towards night. Now he trusseth up his gold about him, and would be gone, but the burden was so heavy that he could not travel with it, and he would not go without it. So the barred gates frustrated all hope of his entrance. The last went seriously on; and although many, flattering, still interrupted his speed, and persuaded him that he need not make such haste-he had time enough

it was but a little way home, and a great while to night-and so far importuned him that he exchanged some words and courtesies with them, took here and there a taste of their kind offers; yet, still thinking on the time, away he speeds, and make what haste he could (though toward evening he mended his pace), yet it was almost night before he arrived thither, and by staying a little longer he had been shut out for

ever.

The moral is easy and useful: The city is the heavenly Jerusalem. The four travellers are four conditions of men-the contentious, the volup

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