ing sin, and the swelling fortune of his darling drunkenness, but his joys are the joys of him that knows and always remembers that he shall infallibly have the biggest damnation; and then let it be considered how forced a joy that is, that is at the end of an intemperate feast.

Certain it is, intemperance takes but nature's leavings; when the belly is full, and nature calls to take away, the pleasure that comes in afterwards is next to loathing; it is like the relish and taste of meats at the end of the third course, or sweetness of honey to him that hath eaten till he can endure to take no more.

Jeremy Taylor.

TERRORS OF A GUILTY CONSCIENCE.

Curs'd with unnumber'd groundless fears,
How pale yon shivering wretch appears!
For him the daylight shines in vain;
For him the fields no joys contain;
Nature's whole charms to him are lost:
No more the woods their music boast;
No more the meads their vernal bloom;
No more the gales their rich perfume:
Impending mists deform the sky,
And beauty withers in his eye.
In hopes his terrors to elude,
By day he mingles with the crowd,
Yet finds his soul to fears a prey,
In busy crowds and open day.

If night his lonely walks surprise,
What horrid visions round him rise!
The blasted oak which meets his way,
Shown by the meteor's sudden ray,
The midnight murderer's lone retreat,
Felt Heaven's avengeful bolt of late,
The clashing chain, the groan profound,
Loud from yon ruin'd tower resound;
And now the spot he seems to tread,
Where some self-slaughter'd corse was laid.
He feels fix'd earth beneath him bend,
Deep murmurs from her caves ascend;
Till all his soul, by fancy sway'd,
Sees livid phantoms crowd the shade.

Blacklock.

HOW DID SHE DIE?-HOW DID SHE LIVE?

The Rev. John Newton one day mentioned at his table the death of a lady. A young woman who sat opposite immediately said, "Oh, sir, how did she die?" The venerable man replied, "There is a more important question than that, my dear, which you should have asked first." "Sir," said she, "what question can be more important than 'How did she die?"" "How d she live?" was Mr Newton's answer.

DIFFERENCES IN RELIGIOUS OPINION NO GROUND FOR

IRRELIGION.

There are men in the world (who think themselves no babes neither) so deeply possessed with a spirit of atheism,

that though they will be of any religion (in show) to serve their turns, and comply with the times, yet they are resolved to be (indeed) of none, till all men be agreed of one; which yet never was, nor is ever like to be. A resolution no less desperate for the soul, if not rather much more, than it would be for the body, if a man should say he would never eat till all the clocks of the city should strike twelve together. If we look into the large volumes that have been written by philosophers, lawyers, and physicians, we shall find the greatest part of them spent in disputations, and in the routing and confuting of one another's opinions. And we allow them so to do without prejudice to their respective professions; albeit they be conversant about things measurable by sense or reason. Only in divinity great offence is taken at the multitude of controversies; wherein yet difference of opinions is by so much more tolerable than in other sciences, by how much the things about which we are conversant are of a more sublime, mysterious, and incomprehensible nature than are those of other sciences.

Bishop Sanderson.

HONOURS ARE HINDRANCES.

Give me honours: what are these
But the pleasing hindrances,
Stiles, and stops, and stays, that come
In the way 'twixt me and home?
Clear the walk, and then shall I
To my heaven less run, than fly.

Herrick.

LIKE A TALE THAT IS TOLD."

Our fond preferments are but childish toys,
And as a shadow all our pleasures pass!
As years increase, so waning are our joys,
And beauty crazed like a broken glass,
A pretty tale of that which never was.

Drayton.

CHRIST THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE.

Oh, what a melting consideration is this: that out of his agony comes our victory; out of his condemnation, our justification; out of his pain, our ease; out of his stripes, our healing; out of his gall and vinegar, our honey; out of his curse, our blessing; out of his crown of thorns, our crown of glory; out of his death, our life. If he could not be released, it was that you might. If Pilate gave sentence against him, it was that the great God might not give sentence against you. If he yielded that it should be with Christ as they required, it was that it might be with our souls as well as we can desire.

Flavel.

THE COMMON OF LITERATURE.

How large a portion of the material that books are made of, is destitute of any peculiar distinction. "It has," as Pope said of women, just no character at all." An accumulation of sentences and pages of vulgar truisms and candlelight sense, which any one was competent to write, and which no one is interested in reading, or cares to remember, or could remember if he cared. This is the common of literature-of space wide enough, of indifferent production, and open to all. The pages of some authors, on the contrary, give one the idea of enclosed gardens and orchards, and one says, "Ha! that is the man's own."

Foster.

THE MONARCH OF THE MICROCOSM.

Man in himself a little world doth bear,
His soul the monarch ever ruling there;
Wherever then his body doth remain,
He is a king that in himself doth reign,
And never feareth fortune's hot'st alarms,
That bears against her patience for her arms.

Drayton.

POSTHUMOUS FAME.

We often indulge a melancholy pleasure in thinking that we shall be remembered and regretted after our