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THE DOUBTFUL AND THE CERTAIN.

Ir is much better for a christian ardently and steadily to pursue the certain advantages set before him in the gospel, than to lose time in the vain endeavour to clear up those doubtful points on which godlyminded men have entertained different opinions. Sober-mindedness in reading God's holy word is of great value.

"We cannot," says an eminent servant of God, "sink too low in humility, nor yet rise too high in heavenly-mindedness; but we may soon be lost in the wilderness of needless speculations. Such as are sober-minded will keep well within their depth, and when the Lord directs us to launch forth, we may do it with safety. If we are wise according as it is written, we shall be profitably wise; but if we want to be wise beyond what is written, we shall smart for our folly."

How many a disciple of the Redeemer has robbed himself of comfort and peace by leaving the sure and certain hope of eternal life in Christ Jesus, to enter into the controversies of the professing world, about the doubtful points of less important subjects!

Surely this is tending swine for a stranger, when we might live at ease in our father's dwelling! This is feeding on husks, when the fatted calf is prepared for our repast! The words of Bishop Hall, in reference to the reign of a thousand years by the Redeemer, are well worthy to be remembered :

"O blessed Saviour, what strange variety of conceits do I find concerning thy thousand years' reign. What riddles are there in that prophecy which no human tongue can read! Where to fix the beginning of that marvellous millenary, and where the end; and what manner of reign it shall be, whether temporal or spiritual, on earth or in heaven, undergoes as many constructions as there are pens that have undertaken it; and yet, when all is done, I see thine apostle speak only of the souls of the martyrs reigning so long with thee, not of thy reigning so long on earth with those martyrs. How busy are the tongues of men, how are their brains taken up with the indeterminable construction of this enigmatical truth, when, in the mean time, the care of thy spiritual reign in their hearts is neglected! O my Saviour, while others weary themselves with the disquisition of thy personal reign here upon earth for a thousand years, let it be the whole bent and study of my soul to

make sure of my personal reign with thee in heaven to all eternity."

ETERNITY.

"EVER," a little word, but of immense signification! a child may speak it; but neither man nor angel can understand it. Oh, who can take the dimensions of eternity? The whole space between the creation of the world, and the dissolution of it, would not make a day in eternity; yea, so many years as there be days in that space, would not fill up an hour in eternity. Eternity is one entire circle, beginning and ending in itself. This present world, which is measured out by such divisions and distinctions of time is therefore mortal, and will have an end, 2 Cor. iv. 18.

If eternity did consist of finite times, though ever so large and vast, it would not be eternity, but a longer tract of time only; that which is made up of finite is finite. Eternity is but one immense, indivisible point, wherein there is neither first nor last, beginning nor ending, succession nor alteration, but is like God himself, one and the same for ever.Case.

MEDICAL properties of CAPRIFOLIA

CEOUS PLANTS AND SHRUBS.

As the members of this order receive their general name from caprifolium, by which the garden or Italian honey-suckle was long known, it would seem like a piece of good manners to commence with a species of the same genus, (Lonicera,) which shall be our own most lovely woodbine, or honey-suckle. It is reputed to be of great service in coughs and asthmatic disorders, whence it is said to be heating and drying. These qualities are due, perhaps, to its purgative properties, by which moisture is removed, instead of being dried up, according to the notion of older herbalists and lovers of simples. Dioscorides ascribes the same drying properties to another species, probably the Lonicera Xylosteum, which is found in Greece. He further states that it abates the sense of fatigue and weariness after much exertion, an effect which may be attributed to a gentle purgative quality that it possesses. For after long continued bodily effort, when the powers of nature are brought low, the consequences that result from it may often be checked, if not prevented, by 66 taking a

little medicine." The maxim that we have, often heard, namely, that hard labour requires good eating, must be accepted with many grains of allowance, and can only apply where labour is not followed by lassitude. In treating of the medical properties of certain related plants, we labour under considerable disadvantages, for in very few instances have we a sufficient number of trials on record to afford all the certainty that is to be desired, especially when we are anxious to show that a certain similarity of property accompanies a correspondence of structure. Under this point of view their medical qualities become matters of science, which are equally interesting, whether we may or may not have recourse to them. Several species of the lonicera,or honey-suckle, are found in California. Most persons are aware that honey is secreted in the tube of the honey-suckle, but it may not be wholly uninteresting to state, that one of the species found in California, was observed to have a distinct organ for the office of secretion in the shape of a little bag at the base of the flower.

safety. A mixture of this tea and spirits of wine has been recommended as a fomentation in the erysipelas. The purple juice of the berries proves a useful aperient and resolvent in recent colds, and in sundry chronical diseases, gently loosening the bowels and promoting perspiration. This juice might be most conveniently preserved, by the lover of domestic good, in the simple form of a jelly, and would, without doubt, be found to be a very grateful and effectual remedy for subduing the obstinacy of a cold. If turnips and cabbages, and even fruittrees, be whipped with the green leaves and branches of the elder, the insects will not attack them.

Sambucus Ebulus, or Dwarf Elder, or Danewort, which is found by the road sides and in neglected churchyards, has, in the estimation of Dioscorides, the same qualities as the preceding, which is confirmed by modern experience. It is easily recognised by its resemblance to the black or common elder; and the colour of its anthers, which are of a deep red or blood. The stem of a specimen which we observed growing near a churchyard at Wingfield, in Suffolk, was dyed with the same colour.

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Sambucus nigra, Common Black Elder. -The leaves, boiled like pot herbs, purge phlegm and bile, as Dioscorides asserts; The seeds of the Ebulus yield an oil, and it appears from modern trials that the which Haller applied with success in paininner bark of the stalk, when recent, is ful affections of the joints. The leaves very powerful in evacuating the primæ viæ, boiled in wine, and formed into a cataor principal passages of the body. Syden- plasm or poultice, have been recommended ham directs that three handfuls of the re- in France as a discutient application for cent bark should be taken and boiled in a bruises and tumours. The root was forquart of milk and water, till only a pint merly much employed in dropsies, which remains, of which one half is to be taken shows that our forefathers esteemed it as a night and morning, and repeated for several powerful diuretic. The odour of the green days; it operates both as an emetic and ca- leaves drives away mice. The Silesians thartic. Upon these evacuations its utility strew it as a bed for their swine, deeming depends. Among those who enjoy an aver- it as a charm to keep away diseases. age state of good health, with an occasional Viburnum Opulus, Guelder tree. A interruption from what some people call name which seems to be a corruption of "bile," or a disordered stomach, the adop-water elder-tree, since it prefers the banks tion of Sydenham's advice would prove a of ditches and damp places. The inner cheap and easy course of physic, without bark is recommended in dropsical cases. the apprehension of any untoward conse- The young shoots and buds, used as a quences. The flowers, when distilled in pickle, are said to have the same effect in large quantities with water, yield a small a lesser degree. But a wine made of the portion of butyraceous (buttery) essential juice of its berries, mixed with white wine, oil. Infusions of the fresh flowers are is reported to produce the same result with gently laxative and aperient: when dry, increased activity. The flowers are sudothey are said to promote the cuticular ex- rific and anodyne, that is, when an infusion cretion, or that discharge which passes or tea is made of them, it promotes perspithrough the pores of the skin, and to be ration and allays pain. peculiarly serviceable in erysipelatous and eruptive disorders. In cases, therefore, of St. Anthony's fire, and other derangements of the skin, a tea made of the dried flowers would be found to have a good effect, and might always be administered with perfect

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Viburnum Lantana, Wayfaring-tree, or pliant mealy-tree. This term mealy is applied to it in consequence of the hoary and downy nature of its long pliant branches. The berries are said to have an astringent and drying quality, which may be imputed

the principal towns, is copied from the Edinburgh "New Philosophical Journal." The mortality of the under-mentioned places is as follows:

London
Berlin
Geneva
Vienna
Rome

to their tendency to remove offending mat-
ters which disorder the bowels. They are
recommended also in glandular swellings
about the mouth. We see by these few
examples that there is a correspondence of
medical properties between those plants
which botanists have grouped together, and Paris.
that the common points of union are not
merely matters of artifice and curiosity.
If, for instance, we landed on an island,
and found a plant which recommended it-
self to the eye as good for food, and upon
trial it proved grateful to the taste, a refer-
ence to its Natural Order would inform us
whether it might be eaten with safety or
In ships of discovery it often hap-
pens that the seamen pick up some plant
when they come ashore on some new island:
the herb tastes like a good salad, but they
doubt its wholesomeness. If they refer
their doubts to the naturalist, he is able,
from a botanical examination, to satisfy
their doubts, though he may have never
seen the plant before.

not.

66 VANITY OF VANITIES."

AN affecting illustration of the truth of Solomon's remark, is furnished in the history of Combe, the unhappy author of "Dr. Syntax in search of the Picturesque." "We find," says a reviewer, in the "Companion to the Library," this improvident man, and all within a few years, figuring as a boy at Eton, a scholar at Oxford, a student in the Temple, with a very handsome independent fortune; a barrister pleading with success; a man of fashion intimately associating with lords and ladies, and calling himself, (from his courtly dress and splendid liveries,) "The Duke ;" and then an outcast spendthrift; a private soldier; a novice in a French Monastery, playing the Monk, to get his bread for the time being; a strolling player; a gentleman's servant; and a waiter at an inn at Swansea. It was after all these metamorphoses that he turned himself into an author. His last scene of all was the King's Bench; there he wrote "Syntax," and some other works; and there he died, not very long ago, after an imprisonment (for debt) of twenty years." We learn from this history, that talents without religious principle often will prove a snare, and often lead to misery.

DIMINISHED MORTALITY IN TOWNS. THE following table, illustrative of the increased longevity of the inhabitants of!

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Amsterdam.
Cambridge 1811 1 in 41, 1821 1 in 58
Norfolk . 1811 1 in 50, 1821 1 in 59
Manchester. 1757 1 in 25, 1821 1 in 58
Birmingham. 1811 1 in 30, 1821 1 in 43
Liverpool

1773 1 in 27, 1821 1 in 41 Portsmouth . 1800 1 in 28, 1811 1 in 38 Petersburgh. 1768 1 in 28, 1828 1 in 48

Stockholm

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Total Deaths

1763 1 in 19, 1827 1 in 26

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WHAT the condition of mankind would have been, apart from the peculiar ground on which they are placed by the intervention of the work of Christ, is a speculation on which we need not indulge. Our great business should be, to avail ourselves of the best means of providing against the evils which actually press upon us, and not to waste our time or capacity in imagining circumstances that were not to exist, or in conceiving of remedies and means of alleviation that were never to be needed. It would seem, however, to be unquestionable, that if our condemnation be a proceeding of strict equity, our redemption must be a matter of If we favour. pure

have deserved to find our home in the abodes of darkness, we cannot have been entitled to a place in the realms of light. This may sound very like a truism, yet how much is in it!

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inasmuch as they resembled, by their position, plates laid upon a breast-plate or

(Fruit of Sago Palm.)

coat of armour.

This fruit is pictured above, with the scales pointing towards the base, which is denoted by a pair of calyx leaves on which it is resting. At the top is seen a small point, which is the relic of the style. In this fruit we have a testimony to the unsparing goodness of God, who, to a tree of such extensive usefulness, has annexed these marks of beauty and recognition, by which the eye is delighted, and the judgment directed. The mailed nut, of which we have been speaking, is about the size of a pigeon's egg, and contains only one seed.

The sago palm supplies a universal article of food to the inhabitants of Amboyna, Ceram, Celebes, and the surrounding islands east of the Celebes, as well as those of Borneo. This tree propagates itself by offsets, or shoots from the roots, which for a long time appear only like bushes at the bottom of the full-grown trunk. The stem, when it begins to form itself out of the bush just mentioned, shoots up as straight as an arrow, to the height of 40 or 50 feet, forming a handsome tuft at the top, which gives an agreeable shade. These trees, when arrived at maturity, consist of nothing but a spongy substance. This spongy or cellular substance is penetrated by a number of tubes, or at least what have the appearance of tubes, which become like tough threads in time, and consequently separated from the spongy nutritive substance of the cells. A grove of these trees presents a very charming appearance, and affords a most delicious retreat from the mid-day sun. They flourish in wet, morassy situations, where abundance of nutriment is at hand to supply their prodigious wants. A tree is chosen, the pith of which has arrived at full maturity, which is ascertained by a yellowish white cast that is then seen just below the foliage. The stem is then cut through as close to the ground as possible, that none

of its farinaceous materials may be lost. The inhabitants sometimes resort to the experiment of cutting a hole in the tree, out of which they take some of the pith for examination. If it proves unripe, they either close the hole, or fell the tree immediately. When the tree has been thus felled, it is cut into two or three pieces, and the hard bark is split asunder by the application of wedges. The sago is thus laid bare and scooped (poekeled) out with an instrument resembling an adze.

The raw sago, after having been reduced to the appearance of saw-dust, is put by portions into a trough, like a canoe, and water is poured upon it, and well mixed with the sago, by which means the meal is disengaged from the filaments, or thready parts. These filaments are called ela, and are used to feed pigs, poultry, &c. The water thus impregnated with the sago-meal, after standing still for some time, till the meal has subsided by its own weight, is poured off, and replaced by a fresh quantity for further purification. After this the wet meal is laid upon flat wicker baskets to dry, and is then kneaded together, and formed into little cakes of three inches long, two inches broad, and half an inch thick. These cakes are lastly put into moulds of a corresponding size, and baked over the fire.

God, who is rich in bounty, is also rich in means, and has therefore lodged the nutritious farina or meal in the sago and manioc, as well as in the wheat and the rice. However varied his works may be, they all agree in ministering to the wants, the enjoyments, and the instruction of mankind. The sago vies with the wheat in utility, and the plantations of that stately palm, where all is freshness and luxuriance, surpass in goodliness the waving corn-fields of old England, when the ripened honours of yellow autumn invite us to joy and thankfulness.

The dried fruit and scaly fruit branches of this tree may be sometimes seen in the collections of the curious, and then the tiles upon the former are pressed close, and present a surface embrowned with a lovely chestnut colour, and smoothed with a beautiful polish. We saw, but a day or two before these observations were written, a dried fruit branch of another species of this genus, the sagus ruffia, which was eight or nine feet in length, and beautifully clustered with these polished nuts. If the inquisitive reader should at any time be shown a brown, shining, and hard nut, with various risings upon it, he will not guess wrong if

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