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present state? This is the well-known refuge of christians. Are they poor, afflicted, persecuted, or reproached? They are led to consider Him who endured the contradiction of sinners, who lived a life of poverty and ignominy, who endured persecution, and reproach, and death itself, for them, and to realize a blessed immortality in prospect. By a view of such things, their hearts are cheered, and their afflictions become tolerable. Looking unto Jesus, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of the throne of God, they run with patience the race which is set before them. But what is the comfort of unbelievers? Life being short, and having no ground of hope for any thing beyond it, if they be crossed here they become inconsolable. Hence, it is not uncommon for persons of this description, after the example of the philosophers and statesmen of Greece and Rome, when they find themselves depressed by adversity, and have no prospect of recovering their fortunes, to put a period to their lives! Unhappy inen! Is this the felicity to which ye would introduce us? Is it in guilt, shame, remorse, and desperation that ye descry such charms? Admitting that our hope of immortality is visionary, where is the injury? If it be a dream, is it not a pleasant one? To say the least, it beguiles many a melancholy hour, and can do no mischief: but if it be a reality, what will become of you?-Fuller.

GOD'S ETERNAL HATRED OF SIN. THERE can be no communion between God and unholy spirits. How is it conceivable, that God should hate the sin, and cherish the sinner, with all his filth in his bosom? that He should eternally detest the crime, and eternally fold the sinner in his arms? Can less be expected from the purity of his nature, than to separate an impure soul, so long as it remains so? Can there be any delightful communion between those whose natures are contrary? Darkness and light may as soon kiss each other, and become one nature; God and the devil may as soon enter into an eternal league and covenant together. For God to have pleasure in wickedness, and to admit evil to dwell with him, are things equally impossible to his nature, Ps. v. 4; while he hates impurity, he cannot have communion with an impure person.Charnock.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION DISPROVED BY THE PAPISTS.

From the "New York Evangelist."

Romanist. Do you admit the doctrine of transubstantiation of the consecrated bread into the real body of Christ.

Protestant. No: I see no proof of it. R. How, then, do you understand that expression, "This is my body ?" P. "This is my body,"-this represents my body. Spread out a map of New York on the table. Now, when I say 'This dark line is the Hudson river,' I do not mean that its water actually flows across the paper, or that a ship might sail to Albany in this room; but that the line stands for the river.

R. Ah! no evasion of Scripture to help out a mushroom church. The roman catholics_give the words their literal sense. However against your reason it may seem, the passage teaches our doctrine of transubstantiation: "This is my body." Admit the literal sense, take the Saviour as he says.

P. What, the literal sense exactly?
R. Yes, exactly.

P. Well: "this," then, literally means what Christ was holding in his hand; not what the romanist has handled since. "This," the bread our Saviour was then breaking, "is my body." Construe literally, take the Saviour as he says.

R. But you know, by the word "this," he did not mean that merely which he

then held.

The

P. I know there are two ways of interpreting language; an honest way, and a dishonest way. One is to take a speaker as he means, another as he says. first is the protestant rule; you reject that, and profess to construe to the letter. Follow then your principle, for it leads to an important result, namely, the wafer of the romish masses is not the body of Christ; for, by your own literal interpretation, that bread which was broken eighteen hundred years ago, and nothing else, was his body.

LIVE TO CHRIST.

A SOUL that loves Christ, will never cease to obey, till he ceases to be.

JOHN DAVIS, 56, Paternoster Row, London. Price d. each, or in Monthly Parts, containing Five Numbers in a Cover, 3d.

W. TYLER, Printer, Bolt-court, Fleet-street.

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THE ZEBRA.

THE ZEBRA.

Or the species of the genus equus, two only are domesticated, and in subjection to man: these are, the ass, (equus asmus,) and the horse, (equus caballus.) With regard to the first, it is still found wild in Tartary, where it dwells in vast herds, which roam the deserts of that immense extent of almost unknown country.

As it respects the horse, it cannot be said to be known in its aboriginal condition. True it is, that the plains of Tartary, which border the large rivers, are tenanted by troops of horses, which are born and live in a state of unsubdued freedom; but such is also the case in South America, where a wild race, the descendants of those introduced by the Spaniards, on their first colonization of the country, are largely spread over the uninhabited prairie lands. The wild horse of Tartary and of South America appears to be in the same predicament; both alike evidencing in the varieties existing among them, as to form and co

louring, that they are not to be considered in the light of aboriginals. Not, by the bye, that any one suspects the South American race to be otherwise than what it really is; while we are apt to look upon the Tartar breed as a genuine wild stock, the parent of the rest. Of this, however, there is no substantial proof.

If, then, we except the horse, of which we do not know the aboriginal race, and the ass, which is still wild in the deserts of Asia, the rest of the species of the genus equus are all unreclaimed.

None are natives originally of the American continent,-all belong to the old world,-three being peculiar to Asia, and three to Africa. The Asiatic species are the horse, the ass, and the dziggetai (equus hemionus,) of which we have given a sketch in our No. xxviii.

The African species are all more or less striped with beautiful bands of brown or black, on a white ground; a point in which they differ from their Asiatic congeners, of

which two only have a double stripe, and one (the ass) a transverse bar down the shoulders.

The three African species are, 1. The mountain zebra, or "wild" paarde of the Cape colonists, (equus zebra, Linn. ; equus montanus, Burchell.) It is also called dauw* by the Hottentots. 2. The plain zebra, or Burchell's zebra, (equus Burchelli, Gray ;) and, 3. The quagga, (equus quagga.)

The mountain zebra is by far the most beautiful of the three; being regularly striped over every part, even down to the hoofs, with black. It is never seen, like the other two species, on the plains, but inhabits the bold ranges of craggy rocks in Southern Africa; it is found in the Kamhanni mountains, &c., but it is by no means common or easily obtained.

The plain zebra, or Burchell's zebra, is much more abundant; being spread in troops over the wide plains of Southern Africa, where it enjoys a free range of pasturage. It may be distinguished at once from its mountain relative, by the absence of stripes on the legs and under surface; and by the colour of the stripes being brown. Mr. Burchell observes, that it is often seen (as is also the quagga) in company with the ostrich, a bird frequenting a wide and level country. On one occasion, he noticed two ostriches, of the largest size, feeding in company with a herd of about ten zebras. Speaking of these zebras, he adds, “I stopped to examine them with my pocket telescope; they were the most beautifully marked animals I had ever seen; their clean sleek limbs glittered in the sun, and the brightness and regularity of their striped coat presented a picture of extraordinary beauty, in which, probably, they were not surpassed by any quadruped with which we are at present acquainted. It is, indeed, equalled in this particular by the dauw, whose stripes are more defined and regular, but which do not offer to the eye so lively a colouring."

The quagga, like the preceding species, is a native of the plain, but is far inferior in beauty; its ground-colour being of a dull greyish white, clouded and striped with brown, especially on the neck and withers; the legs and under parts are white. In its habits and manners, the quagga very closely resembles the zebra of the prairies (equus Burchelli ;) but the troops of the two species do not mingle together; nor, close as is their specific affinity, are they known to produce a mixed progeny.

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These three beautiful animals are eagerly hunted by the Hottentots and other negro tribes, for the sake of their flesh, which is held in high estimation, though Mr. Burchell thought it disagreeable, and could never entirely surmount his repugnance to what he considered as "horseflesh." Instead of hunting these zebras, as is the invariable practice, it would be much better were they to be tamed, and used for the benefit of man; much as has been said respecting the difficulty of such an undertaking, there is little doubt of its being accomplished. In our own country, where they are brought as curiosities, we know of several instances in which they have been rendered perfectly tractable and obedient; a proof of its entire practicability. M.

EFFECTS OF PAPAL SUPERSTITION.

WE have often mused, and felt a gloom of dreariness spreading over the mind while we have mused, on descriptions of the aspect of a country after a pestilence has left it in desolation, or of a region where the people are perishing by famine. It has seemed a mournful thing to behold, in contemplation, the multitude of lifeless forms, occupying in silence the same abodes in which they had lived, or scattered upon the gardens, fields, and roads; and then to see the countenances of the beings, yet languishing in life, looking despair, and impressed with the signs of approaching death. We have even sometimes had the vivid and horrid picture offered to our imagination of a number of human creatures shut up by their fellow-mortals in some strong-hold, under an entire privation of sustenance; and presenting each day their imploring, or infuriated, or grimly sullen, or more calmly woeful, countenances, at the iron and impregnable grates; each succeeding day more haggard, more perfect in the image of despair; and after a while appearing each day one fewer, till at last all are gone! Now, shall we feel it a relief to turn in thought from the inhabitants of a country, or from those of such an accursed prison-house, thus pining away, to behold the different spectacle of numerous national tribes, or any small selection of persons, on whose minds are displayed the full effects of knowledge denied; who are under the process, of whatever destruction it is, that spirits can suffer from a want of the vital aliment to the intelligent nature, especially from " famine of the words of the Lord ?"

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minds are offered subsistence on their mummeries, masses, absolutions, legends, relics, mediation of saints, and corruptions, even to a complete reversal of the evangelical doctrines.-Foster on Popular Ignorance.

OUR RELIGION.

To bring the two to a close compari- | son-Suppose the case, that some of the persons thus doomed to perish in the tower were in possession of the genuine light and consolations of christianity, perhaps even had been adjudged to this fate (no extravagant supposition,) for zealously and persistingly endeavouring the restoration of the purity of that reli- THE mysteries of our religion, which gion to the deluded community. Let it were kept secret since the world began, are be supposed that numbers of that commu- now made manifest by the scriptures of nity, having conspired to obtain this the New Testament in Christ, and accordadjudgment, frequented the precincts of the ing to the commandment of the everlasting fortress, to see their victims gradually God, are to be made known to all nations perishing. It would be perfectly in the for the obedience of faith, Rom. xvi. 25, spirit of the popish superstition, that they 26. From hence the Divinity of chrisshould believe themselves to have done tianity openly appears. What wisdom of God service, and be accordingly pleased men or angels could have been able to at the sight of the more death-like aspect conceive of such hidden, such sublime of the emaciated countenances, the things, and at so great a distance from the while they might be themselves in the understanding of all creatures! What adorenjoyment of "fulness of bread." We able wisdom of God, what righteousness, can imagine them making convivial ap- holiness, truth, goodness, and love of manpointments, within sight of the prison-kind, doth here open itself, in finding out, grates, and going from the spectacle to meet at the banquet; or they might delay the festivity, in order to have the additional luxury of knowing that the tragedy was consummated; as Bishop Gardiner would not dine till the martyrs were burned. Look at these two contemporary situations; that of the persons, with truth and immortal hope in their minds, enduring this slow and painful reduction of their bodies' dissolution, and that of those who, while their bodies fared sumptuously, were thus miserably perishing in soul, through ignorance surrendering it to the curse of a delusion which envenoms it with such a deadly malignity; and say which was the more calamitous predicament.

If we have no hesitation in pronouncing, let us consider whether we have been ever grateful enough to God for the dashing in pieces, so long since, in this land, of a system which maintains to this hour much of its stability over the greater part of Christendom. If we regret that certain fragments of it are still held in veneration here, and that so tedious a length of ages should be required to work out a complete mental rescue from the infatuation which possessed our ancestors, let us at the same time look at the various states of Europe, small and great, where this superstition continues to hold the minds of the people in its odious grasp; and verify to ourselves what we have to be thankful for, by thinking how our

in giving, in perfecting, this means of our salvation ! How pleasingly doth conscience, pressed with the burden of its sins, acquiesce in such a Surety, in such an engagement; here at length observing a manner of our reconciliation, worthy of God, and secure to man! Who, contemplating these things in the light of the Holy Spirit, would not burst forth into the praise of Him who is most holy, most just, and most true. O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! O mysteries which the angels desire to look into! Glory to the Father, who hath raised up, admitted, and given to us such a Surety! Glory to the Son, who, clothing himself with our flesh, hath so willingly, so patiently, so constantly, gone through such an engagement for us! Glory to the Holy Spirit, the revealer, witness, and pledge of so great a happiness to us! All hail! O Christ Jesus, thou true and eternal God, true and holy Man, both at once; the properties of both natures preserved in the unity of thy person! Thee we acknowledge, Thee we worship, to Thee we betake ourselves, at thy feet we throw ourselves, from thy hand alone we expect salvation! Thou the only Saviour; we would be thy peculiar ones, and are so by thy grace, and for ever shall remain so. Let the whole world of thine elect know thee, acknowledge thee, and with us adore thee, and be saved by thee! This is the sum of our faith, our hope, and our prayer. Amen.-Witsius.

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FOOTMEN.

FOOTMEN were anciently kept in great numbers; and a long train of them used to walk behind their masters many centuries since. Walking behind the master to church with the prayer-book is of considerable antiquity. The footman's undress jacket of linen at home was common among the old Romans. In an old work, we find a gentleman recommending his footman to another, as follows: -"He will come when you call him, go when you bid him, and shut the door after him; he is a great enemy to all dogs, if they bark at him in his run; for I have seen him confront a huge mastiff, and knock him down. When you go a country journey, or have him running with you a hunting, you must spirit him with liquor, &c. I would not part with him, were I not to go post to the north. I send him you but for trial; if he be not for your turn, turn him over to me again when I come back."*

Of running footmen, the reader may probably but have heard mention, but not be aware of their usefulness in times when opportunities of communication were but rare, and before the establishment of posts. In the thirteenth century, running footmen were styled trotters; and in some records, date 1218, it is said, "Let every one be content with a horse and a trotter." Footmen then certainly had a particular trot, or pace. The Irish were especially noted for speed in running; and Froissart, the chronicler, says, no man at arms, however well mounted, could overtake them."Domestic Life in England.

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THE TELESCOPIC APPEARANCES OF THE PLANETS-No. III.

THE PLANET JUPITER.

JUPITER is by far the largest planet in the solar system. His diameter is about eleven times, and his bulk 1281 times greater than that of the earth. His distance from the sun is such, that that luminary will appear to his inhabitants twenty-seven times smaller than when seen from our earth; consequently, the light and heat which jupiter receives from the sun, will be only the twenty-seventh

Howel's Familiar Letters, date 1628.

+ An extraordinary story is told of the speed of an Irish footman of the Berkeley family, who, upon his lady's sickness, carried a letter from Collowden, in Warwickshire, to a physician in London, and returned with a glass bottle in his hand, compounded by the doctor, a journey of one hundred and fortyeight miles, in less than forty-two hours, notwithstanding his stay of one night at the physician's and apothecary's houses.

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this sketch. The number of these belts is very variable; sometimes only one is visible, and at others five or six: they also vary in breadth and situation, but preserve always the same general direction, and are generally parallel to each other; they have

sometimes been seen to cover the whole disc of the planet, but this phenomenon is of very rare occurrence. Their appearance occasionally continues unchanged for many weeks, and at other times new belts have been formed in a few hours. In some of the belts large spots have appeared, which moved swiftly over the disc from east to west, and returned in a short space of time to the same place; and from these, attentively watched, it is concluded that this planet revolves in the surprisingly short period of nine hours and fifty-six minutes, on an axis perpendicular to the direction of the belts. "The parallelism of the belts to the equator of jupiter, their occasional variations, and the appearances of spots seen upon them, renders it extremely probable that they subsist in the atmosphere of the planet, forming tracts of compara tively clear sky, determined by currents much more steady and decided character, analogous to our trade-winds, but of a as might indeed be expected from the immense velocity of its rotation. That it is the comparatively dark body of the planet this-that they do not come up to their which appears in the belts, is evident from strength to the edge of the disc, but fade away gradually before they reach it."

On observing jupiter through the telescope, he is seen accompanied by four little stars, which oscillate on both sides of him, and follow him in his orbit, as the moon follows the earth: on this account they are called satellites or attendants. They were first discovered by Galileo, soon after the invention of the telescope; and it was soon perceived that they re

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