it. As soon as ever the voice of slander is heard, a thousand echoes repeat it, and publish vices which your want of charity, or excess of injustice, attributed to your neighbour. What renders this the more deplorable is, the usual readiness of mankind to give credit to calumny: a readiness on the one part to utter calumny, and on the other to believe it, overwhelm a neighbourhood with all the misery of defamation.

3. Consider the duties which they who commit this crime bind themselves to perform: duties so hard that some would rather die than perform them; and yet duties so indispensable, that no man can expect either favour or forgiveness who neglects the discharge of them. The first law we impose on a man who hath unjustly acquired the property of a neighbour, is to restore it. The first law we impose on a man who hath injured the reputation of another, is to repair it. There is a restitution of honour as well as of fortune. Which of you, now, who hath dealt in slander, dare form the just and generous resolution of going from house to house to publish his retractions? Who is there among you, that by committing this sin does not hazard all his own reputation?

4. Consider how extremely opposite this sin is to the law of charity. You know the whole religion of Jesus Christ tends to love. The precepts he gave, the doctrines he taught, the worship he prescribed, the ordinances he instituted, the whole Gospel, is the breath of love. But what can be more incompatible with love than slander? Consequently who deserves less the name of Christian than a slanderer?

5. Consider how many different forms calumny assumes. In general, all the world agree it is one of the most hateful vices: yet it is curious to see how persons who declaim the most loudly against this crime, practise it themselves. All the world condemn it, and all the world slide into the practice of it. The reputation of our neighbour is not only injured by tales studied and set, but an air, a smile, a look, an affected abruptness, even silence, are envenomed darts shot at the same mark; and it will be impos

sible for us to avoid falling into the temptation of committing this crime, unless we keep a perpetual watch.

6. Consider the various illusions, and numberless pretexts, of which people avail themselves, in order to conceal from themselves the turpitude of this crime. One pretends he said nothing but the truth; as if charity did not oblige us to conceal the real vices of a neighbour, as well as not to attribute to him fanciful ones. Another justifies his conduct by pretending that he is animated not by hatred, but by equity; as if God had appointed every individual to exercise vengeance, and to be an executioner of his judgments; as if, supposing the allegation true, a man does not sin against his own principles (for he pretends equity) when he shows his neighbour in an unfavourable point of view, by publishing his imperfections and concealing his virtues. Another excuses himself by saying, that as the affair was public he might surely be permitted to mention it; as if charity was never violated except by discovering unknown vices; as if men were not forbidden to relish that malicious pleasure which arises from talking over the known imperfections of their neighbours.

7. Consider into what an unhappy situation calumny puts an innocent person who wishes to avoid it. What must a man do to preclude or to put down a calumny? Cherish good humour, paint pleasure in your face, endeavour by your pleasing deportment to communicate happiness to all about you; be, if I may speak so, the life and soul of society; and it will be said you are not solid, you have the unworthy ambition of becoming the amusement of mankind. Put on an austere air, engrave on your countenance, if I may speak thus, the great truths that fill your soul, and you will be taxed with Pharisaism and hypocrisy; it will be said, that you put on a fair outside to render yourself venerable, but that under all this appearance very likely you conceal an impious, irreligious heart. Take a middle way, regulate your conduct by times and places, "weep with them that weep, and rejoice with them that rejoice," and you will be accused of luke

warmness. Pick your company, confine yourself to a small circle, make it a law to speak freely only to a few select friends who will bear with your weaknesses, and who know your good qualities, and you will be accused of pride and arrogance; it will be said, that you think the rest of mankind unworthy of your company, and that you pretend wisdom and taste are excluded from all societies, except such as you deign to frequent. Go every where, and in a spirit of the utmost condescension converse with every individual of mankind, and it will be said you are unsteady; a city, a province cannot satisfy you; you lay all the universe under contribution, and oblige the whole world to try to satiate your unbounded love of pleasure.

In fine, consider what punishment the Holy Spirit has denounced against calumny, and in what class of mankind he hath placed slanderers. You who, by a prejudice, which is too general a rule of judging, imagine you possess all virtues, because you are free from one vice, to use the language of a modern author, (Flechier,) you who poison the reputation of a neighbour in company, and endeavour thus to avenge yourself on him for the pain which his virtues give you, in what list hath St. Paul put you? He hath classed you with misers, idolaters, debauchees, and adulterers." If any man be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, with such an one keep no company, no, not to eat." "Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers," (this is your place,) "nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Cor. v. 11, and vi. 9, 10.) But we judge of vices and virtue, not according to the rules laid down in the Gospel, but according to such as prevail in the world. It is not Jesus Christ, it is the world, that is our sovereign. We blush at what they censure, and we feel no remorse at committing what they think fit to tolerate. Ah! why are not Legislators more indulgent when they condemn to racks and gibbets a wretch whom excess of hunger impelled to steal our property? why do they not inflict one part of their rigour on him who, in cool blood,

and with infernal malice, robs us of our reputation and honour? Let your speech be seasoned with the salt of charity.

FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY.

POETS have sung the praises of faith, hope, charity; the painter has exhibited the holy three in all the glowing colours of his pencil; and the sculptor has given them in the pure and almost breathing forms of his marble; while the orator has employed them as the ornaments of his eloquence. But our orators, poets, sculptors, and painters have strongly misunderstood them, and too often proved that they knew nothing of them but as the abstractions of their genius what they presented to the eye were mere earthly forms, which bear no resemblance to these divine and spiritual graces; and multitudes have gazed with admiration, kindling into rapture, on the productions of the artist, who at the same time had no taste for the virtues described by them.

Religion is a thing essentially different from a regard to classic elegance: not, indeed, that it is opposed to it; for as it refines the heart, it may be supposed to exert a favourable influence on the understanding, and by correcting the moral taste, to give still clearer perception of the sublime and beautiful. It is greatly to be questioned, however, whether religion has not received more injury than benefit from the fine arts; whether men have not become carelessly familiar with the more awful realities of truth, by the exhibition of the poet, the painter, and the engraver; and whether they have not mistaken those sensibilities which have been awakened by a contemplation of the more tender and touching scenes of revelation, as described upon the canvass or the marble, for the emotions of true piety.

Perhaps the "Paradise Lost" has done very little to produce any serious concern to avoid everlasting misery; the "Descent from the Cross," by Rubens, or the “ Transfiguration," by Raphael, as little to draw the heart to the

great objects of Christianity. Innumerable representations, and many of them very splendid productions too, have been given of faith, hope, and charity; and doubtless by these means many kindly emotions have been called for awhile into exercise; which, after all, were nothing but a transient effect of the imagination upon the feelings. It is of vast consequence that we should recollect that no affections are entitled to the character of religion, but such as are excited by a distinct perception of revealed truth. It is not the emotion awakened by a picture presented to the eye, nor by a sound addressed to the ear, but by the contemplation of a fact or a statement laid before the mind, that constitutes piety.—J. A. James.

WILL O' THE WISP.

ONE of the curious phenomena of winter, the nature of which is not well understood, and still less its use in the economy of Providence, is that shining vapour which generally makes its appearance in moist weather, in marshy ground, known to the Romans by the name of ignis fatuus, and called by people in this country "Will o' the Wisp," "Jack with the lantern," and a variety of other names, all of them indicating the superstitious feelings with which it is associated in the minds of the vulgar. Before noticing the views which men of science have taken of this phenomenon, I shall quote some accounts which have been published of the various appearances which it assumes. The first is that of a writer in a public journal, who subscribes himself "A Farmer," and expresses himself with such amusing naivete in describing some of the ordinary vagaries of this reputed sprite, that the homeliness of the style seems to require no apology.

"I was riding through a wet boggy part of the road that lies between the house and the mill, when a little sleety shower, with a strong blast of wind, came suddenly upon me, and made it so very dark, that I could scarcely see my old mare's white head. I began to consider with my