ROCHESTER'S CONFESSION.

The celebrated Lord Rochester had lived a long while in infidelity, but there was one argument in favour of Christianity, which he declared he could never set aside; namely, the existing state and circumstances of the Jews.

TO GOD.

With golden censers, and with incense, here
Before thy virgin altar I appear,

To pay thee that I owe, since what I see,
In or without, all, all belongs to thee.
Where shall I now begin to make, for one
Least loan of thine, half restitution?
Alas! I cannot pay a got; therefore
I'll kiss the tally, and confess the score.
Ten thousand talents lent me, thou dost write:
'Tis true, my God; but I can't pay one mite.

Herrick.

THE FALL OF AMBITION.

In some courts shall you see ambition
Sit piecing Dædalus' old waxen wings:
But being clapp'd on, and they about to fly,
Even when their hopes are busied in the clouds,
They meet again the sun of majesty,
And down they tumble to destruction.

Decker.

WISDOM.

If a man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God, who giveth freely. Therefore, O everlasting Wisdom, the Maker, Redeemer, and Governor of all things, let some comfortable beams from thy great body of heavenly light descend upon us, to illuminate our dark minds, and quicken our dead hearts; to influence us with ardent love unto thee, and to direct our steps in obedience to thy laws through the gloomy shades of this world, into that region of eternal light and bliss where thou reignest in perfect glory and majesty, one God, ever blessed, world without end.

Dr Barrow.

Wisdom doth balance in her scales those true and false pleasures which do equally invite the senses; and rejecting all such as have no solid value or lasting refreshment, doth select and take to her bosom those delights that, proving immortal, do seem to smell and taste of that paradise from which they sprung. Like the wise husbandman, who, taking the rough grain which carries in its heart the bread to sustain life, doth trample under foot the gay and idle flowers which many times destroy it.

QUICK TRANSITIONS.

The Roman widow died when she beheld
Her son, who erst she counted slain in field.

Gascoigne.

SPHERICAL AND LINEAR RELIGION.

(Said of a narrow-minded religionist.) Mr T. sees religion not as a sphere, but as a line, and it is the identical line in which he is moving. He is like an African buffalo-sees right forward, but nothing on the right hand or the left. He would not perceive a legion of angels or of devils at the distance of ten yards on the one side or the other.

Foster's Journal.

DIAMONDS.

Mr Forsyth observes in his "Italy," that pulverised diamonds are esteemed by Mahometans the most active of all poisons. It is to be feared whether unpulverised diamonds, from an inordinate love of them, have not, in all time, acted as poisons to the human soul, and thus effected much more extensive mischief.

THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.

Though the people of God are best company in heaven, yet they are very good company here on earth; and Christians should stir up one another to love and to good works. Wherever you have grace, be sure to impart it to others. Endeavour to love the holiness of saints, and be willing to impart your experience to others, for this is your duty. Do not make a monopoly of holiness; but carry company with you to heaven.

Farewell Sermon of Dr Jenkins

of Blackfriars, 1662.

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DESCRIPTION OF MAMMON.

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At last he came unto a gloomy glade,

Cover'd with boughs and shades from heaven-light:

Wherein he sitting found in secret shade,

An uncouth, salvage, and uncivil wight,

Of gusty hue, and foul ill-favour'd sight:

His face with smoke was tann'd, and eyes were blear❜d; His head and beard with soot were all bedight;

His coal-black hands did seem to have been sear'd

In smith-fire's spitting forge, and nails like claws appear'd.

His iron coat, all overgrown with rust,

Was underneath envelopéd with gold,

Whose glittering gloze darken'd with filthy dust,

Well it appear'd to have been of old

A work of rich entrail and curious mould,
Woven with antics and wild imagery;
And in his lap a mass of coin he told,
And turn'd upside down, to feed his eye,
A covetous desire with his huge treasury:
And round about him lay on every side
Great heaps of gold that never could be spent,
Of Mulciber's devouring element:

Some others were nere driven and distent

Into great ingots, and to wedges square,
Some in round plates without monument:

But some were stamp'd, and in their end all bare

The antic shapes of kings and keysars, strange and rare.

Spenser.

GATHERING QUESTIONS.

One object of life should be to accumulate a great number of grand questions to be asked and resolved in eternity. We now ask the sage, the genius, the philosopher, the divine-none can tell; but we will open our series to other respondents; we will ask angels-God. Foster's Journal.

CONSCIENCE.

The fear of conscience entereth iron walls.

No armour proof against the conscience terror.

A guilty conscience never is secure.

Drayton.

SIMONIDES' DIFFICULTY CONCERNING THE

ESSENCE OF GOD.

The marquis discoursing once of the essence of God, excellently commended the wisdom of Simonides, who, being asked of Hiero what he thought of God, asked a "seven-nights'” time to consider of it, and at the sevennights' end he asked a fortnight's time, at the fortnight's end he asked a month; at which Hiero marvelling, Simonides answered, "That the longer he thought on it, the more difficult he found it.

The Marquis of Worcester's Apophthegms.