when professing Christians become a more habitually prayerful people. In fine, thus only need they expect the speedy fulfilment of that prophecy in Isaiah, the conclusion of which is, "they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." RECORDS OF CREATION. FORMATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF COAL. BY THE REV. JOHN ANDERSON, THE wisdom and benevolence of God are imprinted, in legible characters, on every part of his works, which, in the minutest as well as in the greatest, in the inanimate no less than in the living departments of nature, exhibit the clearest proofs of matchless skill and contrivance. Nothing appears to have been made without some purpose or end to be served by it. The smallest atom of matter, the most irregular and shapeless mountain mass, the meanest reptile, every flower of the field, the lily of the valley, and the humblest shrub, no less than the lofty cedars of Lebanon, suggest to every reflecting mind a lesson of devotion; and every thing around us, earth, rocks, plants, trees, lakes, rivers, and seas, are all adapted, in the general scheme of things, to the production of good. We speak, indeed, of instruments and second causes in the administration of nature, but by these we mean agencies employed by God, for the accomplishment of his designs. The laws of nature signify nothing more than the order in which events succeed one another. They have no power but what God has communicated to them, and they subserve no ends but such as he foresaw they were intended to bring about. Thus, if we suppose a chain depending from heaven to earth, God, "who dwelleth on high," stands above it and asserts his supremacy as the prime agent of every change, the origin of every movement, the source of every blessing, the sole provider for the wants and comfortable accommodation of all his creatures. "As he hath thought, so shall it come to pass; and as he hath purposed, so shall it stand; and what his soul desireth, even that he doth." The department of nature which forms the subject of this paper illustrates, in the most striking and beautiful manner, the truth of these observations. Whether we consider the origin, the position, the situation, or the uses of coal, our admiration must be equally excited; and if any doubt could be entertained as to the manifestations of wisdom and design in the arrangement and distribution of the rocky strata of the earth, it will be completely dispelled by the views which are here suggested of the divine superintendence, in every thing connected with the history of this inestimable mineral treasure. A Composition. The material of which coal consists is now universally admitted to be of vegetable origin. woody fibrous structure may easily be detected by the eye in many portions of it, while the microscope has brought to light, in the most compact specimens, the delicate cellular texture, by which all plants are more or less distinguished. In the strata with which coal is invariably associated, plants abound in the greatest profusion, so that little doubt can be entertained of the existence of the material, in sufficient quantity, of which it is composed. Chemically considered, its vegetable origin is equally well established. Carbon constitutes its principal ingredient, the quality which enters most abundantly into the composition of vegetables. The most probable theory of its formation is, that vegetable matter, carried to the sea or extensive lakes, has undergone a process of decomposition, by which, while some of its principles may have escaped or been evolved in new combinations, its carbon, with a portion of hyless earthy matter, deposited at the same time by the drogen, has remained; and this, mixed with more or action of rivers, has, in its soft state, been consolidated by the force of aggregation simply, or by compression from the superincumbent strata, and thereby has formed coal. Dr Maculloch has almost detected nature in the act of producing this curious mineral. He has observed the trees of some of the ancient Scottish forests in a state of transition towards coal, where the wood, by long immersion in water, becomes first brown and then black, and at last the ligneous fibre, by slow decomposition, is converted into a jetty mould, in which carbon predominates. It is obvious that this process will be different under different circumstances, and that the result will vary according to the rapidity, the greater or less extent to which it is carried. The quantity of earthy matter that is carried along and mixes with the vegetables will, also, greatly influence the character of the deposit; and, hence, it is from these and other causes, that we have not only several kinds of coal, but considerable difference in the quality of the same bed. The stone, or splint-coal is peculiar to Scotland, and caking-coal to England, in which there is a greater proportion of bitumen than in the former. Parrot, or cannel-coal, which is of a very close and compact texture, and burns with a pure bright flame, is common to both countries, and but sparingly distributed in either. The vegetable matter, of which coal is thus formed, must have subserved, in other ages, many important purposes in nature. The residue, which still subsists in this new substance, clearly shows how abundantly the surface of the earth was then enriched with plants and trees, thereby affording shelter and food to countless millions of living creatures, whose remains are still preserved in the rocky strata. Their wants supplied, the remainder has been treasured up, and now ministers to the comfort of new races of beings. How many ages have elapsed since that period, it is impossible to determine, but certain it is that, by Him who does nothing in vain, the treasure was intended for man, as no other creature, on the face of the earth, is capable of itself of deriving the least benefit from it. He alone digs into the earth, and has skill to convert its solid materials to purposes of utility. When God laid the foundations of the earth, he foresaw the purposes to which its inward stores were to be applied, and, while other creatures were made happy among the flowers and herbage which rose so luxuriantly around them, "his delights" were even then with the children of men, whom he was to create in his own image, and who were to have more wisdom than the beasts of the field. Milton has finely imagined a tradition in heaven, long subsisting, concerning the creation of a new world, and of man, for whose habitation it was intended. And certainly nothing could shew more the dignity of the new race, or the interest taken in them by their Creator, than this tradition which ran of them before their existence. But geology, more to be relied on than poetry, furnishes demonstrative evidence of the antecedent designs and purposes of the Most High, in actually fitting up "the happy seat," and storing it beforehand with materials for the comfortable subsistence of him who was to inhabit it. Under what circumstances formed. We need not enter into any geological speculations respecting the period when the plants and vegetables, of which coal is composed, flourished upon the earth. We learn from the book of Genesis, that they constituted the first living substance in the order of the works of creation, being the work of the third day; and in this we are furnished with a striking proof of the wisdom and beneficence of God. A greater extent of soil was required for the growth of these vegetables, than man would have been willing to leave unreclaimed for his own immediate wants in an advanced period of society; nor, indeed, could he have existed, with any comfort, in the midst of a vegetation so rank and luxuriant as then covered the earth. The atmosphere now contains only about one one-thousandth part of carbonic acid, whereas, during the period referred to, it is conjectured to have been in the proportion of three to five per cent. It is well known how destructive of animal life this gas is, while on the contrary, it is as highly favourable to the production and growth of vegetables. It would be hardly credited," says Lindley, in his Fossil Flora of Great Britain, "by persons unacquainted with the evidence upon which such facts repose, that in the most dreary and desolate regions of the present day, there once flourished groves of tropical plants of coniferæ, of bananas, tree fern, huge cacti, and palms; that the marshes were filled with rushlike plants fifteen or twenty feet high, and the coverts with ferns like the undergrowth of a West India island." Accordingly, during this period, no fossil remains are found of any of the warm-blooded animals; they only occur in the higher strata, where the atmosphere seems to have been more adapted for their respiratory organs; and, last of all, man was created, after the constituents of the air were adjusted to their present proportions, and all the noxious qualities expelled, or greatly reduced. A vegetation, such as this, could only have been produced under a high temperature, arising chiefly, as has been formerly stated, from the radiation of internal heat. In proof of which, we find the same species of plants, of equally large dimensions, imbedded in the rocks, and forming coal strata, in every region of the globe; a fact utterly inconsistent with the mere distribution of heat by the solar ray, and equally at variance with the present known habits of plants and vegetables of every kind. It is also clear, that, upon the periodical decay of the vegetable matter, the greater proportion of it would speedily be wasted, and consumed by the action of the same excess of heat and moisture which occasioned its abundance, unless means were provided to protect it from their influence. Here, again, let us admire the wise contrivances of the Divine Architect, who had already provided so many lakes or inland seas for the accumulation of the vegetables which the earth so abundantly yielded. Every coal-field presents the appearance of a basin, some of smaller, others of greater dimensions, but so manifest in every case wherever the mineral is found, as clearly to shew that the materials of which it is composed were carried down by the rivers, from the higher grounds on which they grew, to the hollow places of the earth, where, under the surface of the primeval waters, they were successively deposited, and enabled to retain those qualities, which are essential to the production of a combustible substance. No problem in geology, perhaps, is of greater interest than that by which we endeavour to ascertain the state of the globe respecting the distribution of land and water, at the period of the coal formation; or when we try to restore, in imagination, the probable extent of the older formations that might then have existed as dry land, in the hollows of which so many lakes were situated, and whose lowest depths are again elevated or laid bare, for the working of the valuable treasure which they contain. How different the condition of Great Britain at that early period, both in respect to extent and appearance! Lakes or estuaries, where high table-land now exists; and extensive ridges of land, now buried beneath the waves, clothed with a luxuriant tropical vegetation, and sufficiently elevated to have given rise to the rivers and torrents, by whose agency the periodical accumulation of vegetable matter and other detritus was transported to those places in which the coal was formed! "The waters stood above the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them. The mountains saw thee, and they trembled; the overflowing of the waters passed by; the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high." 66 These words of Scripture have been understood to refer to the upheavings and disturbed condition of things which occurred at the deluge, when "the fountains of the deep were broken up." It has also been conjectured, that during this period, the continuance of which was upwards of a year, the vegetable matter was collected which was required for the formation of coal. "All these facts," says Fairholme, in his excellent treatise on the Geology of Scripture, tend, in the strongest manner, to confirm the opinions I have expressed: That the coal-beds were formed at the period of the deluge, by successive deposits of great vegetable masses, which must have been matted together, and floating ou the waters at that eventful time; and that the contents of all the basins of geologists, whether containing coal or not, must have also become deposited at the same period; the whole of these moist formations being stratified according to the common laws in constant action in the ocean; and, on the depression of the waters into their new bed, becoming, in many places, deranged by depression, and subsequently hardened into the stony masses now exhibited to our admiring view." With much deference to so competent an authority, I would venture to doubt, whether our coal beds could have been formed during the agitations which such an event as the deluge must have occasioned in the waters of the ocean. These beds are almost entirely free from foreign mixture; neither rolled blocks nor gravelly matter of any kind are found in them, the absence of which can scarcely be accounted for upon the diluvian hypothesis. There is certainly no term, in the Hebrew text of the first six chapters of the Pentateuch, which corresponds to the name of the fossil under consideration; but this by no means disproves the existence of coal during the period embraced in the narrative, nor does it amount to a proof that its uses were then unknown. There is evidence that the metals were employed in the arts,brass and iron, from the earliest period; the one a compound, and the other a simple substance; and, while it is difficult to conceive how the smelting operations could have been effected without the assistance of coal, it is a singular fact, that coal and ironstone are almost uniformly associated in the bowels of the earth. It is owing to this arrangement among the mineral strata more perhaps than to any thing else under Divine Providence, that Great Britain has become so pre-eminent, among the nations, for commercial power and enterprize. Her coal and iron works are, in fact, the foundations of her strength, existing, as these substances do, in comparatively greater abundance within this island, than in any other quarter of the world; while, from their proximity to one another, the means of excavating both are proportionally increased. As they are associated, we therefore regard them as contemporaneous deposits; and as the one had an existence antecedent to the changes produced on the earth's surface by the deluge, so we inter the other to have been a primitive formation prepared, from "the beginning," for the use of man. ON TRUST IN GOD. BY THOMAS BROWN, ESQ., Author of the "Reminiscences of an Old Traveller." ALL the rational happiness we enjoy in life is founded upon one great leading principle Trust in God. It proceeds from a consciousness of his resistless power. endless goodness, and ever renewed mercies. Without | this feeling in the human breast, life would be misery, existence insupportable. All our attempts to render ourselves independent of divine aid and succour we know to be vain and fruitless. When we look abroad and view the beauties of creation, the wonders of nature, the regularity of the planetary system, the never ceasing return of the seasons bringing forth the fruits of the earth, and supplying the wants of man and beast, how is it possible to be without confidence in that great and merciful Being, at once the Creator and Preserver of this mighty system? Wherever we contemplate the stupendous plan of Providence, we see manifestations of a power infinitely wise and good, ever working towards an end, and producing effects the result of a design, beyond the limited faculties of man to conceive or to comprehend. When we cast our eyes around and see every living thing, from the infinitely great to the infinitely small, enjoying the pleasures of existence, they afford us irresistible evidence of the goodness of the great Creator. Man, at last, was brought into existence to be, as it were, the lord of this lower world, and notwithstanding his disobedience and apostasy to his Maker, is continued, from age to age, a living monument of the mercy of God. What a source of consolation and of hope to the weary pilgrim, verging towards the confines of another world; preserved by an unseen hand in the infancy and helplessness of life; supported and protected, at a more advanced period, through the perils and cares of his probationary state; and, lastly, while his tottering frame is sinking on the borders of eternity, and about to return to those elements of which it is composed, this wonderful structure of man stands pre-eminent among the works of God, as a manifestation at once of his power, goodness, and mercy. How is it possible, then, that a being, thus favoured by Providence, should pass through life without daily reflecting on these wonderful mercies, and without prostrating himself before the throne of grace, under the deepest sense of his own unworthiness, and of the transcendent goodness of the great Creator? How can man reconcile it to his reason to live a single day without reflecting on his weakness and dependence, and without carrying his thoughts to the contemplation of that ineffable goodness which supports his frail frame, and never ceases to supply all his returning wants? Oh! that he would awake from his lethargy, and dwell for ever on the mercies of God! Now is the appointed time; now is the moment for reflection. Let us, therefore, ever have confidence in God, and as we proceed to the end of our earthly course, let us go on our way rejoicing; celebrating his praises with grateful hearts, and trusting to the God of our Salvation. Our self-love prevents us from acknowledging, openly and candidly, that our want of success has been owing to baneful habits of indolence, to unwarrantable indulgences in the outset of life, when activity and exertion are most required. We lose sight of the wisdom of the Scriptures, which teaches us that we "must bear the yoke in our youth," and we set at defiance the example of parents and the voice of experience, in every age; all which demonstrate, beyond the possibility of doubt, that without moral and physical exertion the great powers of the human mind must inevitably dwindle and decay, and the faculties of man, in his progress through life, become of no use to him. There are men who do not seem to be aware that by their idleness and indolence they are, in fact, counteracting, as far as they can, the plans of Providence, proceeding in a course, not only hurtful to themselves, but in opposition to the dictates of nature. Do we not see the whole brute creation in a constant state of activity, thus answering the end for which they were created; and is it for man, so highly gifted by his Creator, to slumber away his existence in dull and vapid indolence? At the great day, when every man's works will be weighed in a balance, when he will have to give an account of his stewardship to the mighty Judge of all, is he prepared to say, I have improved the "talents with which I have been blessed, or can he only answer, I have given way to habits of ease and indolence, have been of no use either to myself or others, and have left a melancholy example upon earth of a mind devoted to no purposes of utility whatever? Such characters, alas, are too often met with, and, like weeds in the vegetable kingdom, encumber the ground and obstruct the course of vegetation; like those weeds, also, they will be collected together, and thrown into the fire. 66 CHRISTIAN TREASURY. Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in et the strait gate.-The Church is compared to a city, and a city is great compared to a village, but what is it in respect to the earth? Are there few that shall be saved? No; there are many. "So a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and lan. guages, stood before the throne." Are there many that shall be saved? No; few: "many are called, but few are chosen." Christ's is "a little flock." The best courses have the fewest followers. God's reserve is 'a very small remnant"- -a tenth." In it shall be a tenth"-many leaves, the sap is but a tythe, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries on the top of the uppermost bough; four or five on the outmost fruitful branches. They are compared to "the gleaning of the grapes after the vintage." It was the Church's complaint, "woe is me, for I am as the gleanings." This was God's collection. "I will take you, one of a city, and two of a family."-God is a shepherd, that saves some from the lion, "taking out of his mouth two legs, or the piece of an ear," he rescues a few from the universal apostasy. Of the six hundred thousand that came out of Egypt, but two entered into Canaan, Caleb and Joshua. Even the best is but "a brand snatched out of the fire." "All flesh had corrupted their way,"-only Noah escaped. Not one righteous in Sodom but Lot. Four hundred and fifty prophets for Baal, but one for the Lord,-four hundred flatterers for Ahab, one Micaiah for the truth. "Behold I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and wonders in Israel," so few and rare, that they are gazed on for monsters. When they sat in counsel against Christ, none spake for him but Nicodemus. Paul answered before Nero,-"No man stood with me, but all men forsook me." When Pilate asked what shall be done with Jesus, all cried "crucify him." There was a general shout for Diana two hours together" Great is Diana of the Ephesians." All, "both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, received the mark of the beast in their foreheads." The children of Israel are like to "little flocks of kids ;" but the wicked, like the Syrians, fill the country. But those few innocents speed the best. "Though the number of Israel be as the sand, a remnant shall be saved." If we should divide the world into thirty parts, scarce five of them are Christian. Of these five the pope challengeth at least the half. For he says, I have one church in Italy, one in Germany, one in Spain, one in France, one in England. One in England! now the Lord one day convince him, and grant he may have none in England! Now it is a quarrel betwixt us and Antichrist, whether they or we belong to this city-we cannot agree about it. One day it will be a quarrel betwixt Antichrist and the devil, and they shall agree about it. Now, subdivide all these five parts of the world, whether theirs or ours, and scarce one is truly sincere. Hypocrisy hath one part: heresy hath another part: profaneness another part: lukewarinness a fourth: God hath least that owns all. O the small number sealed up by the spirit of the living God! Let this teach every one to suspect himself. When Christ said "one of you shall betray me," they presently all cry Master, is it I?" When he was asked whether only few should be saved? he tells them neither of many nor few; but charged them to look to themselves, that they might be of the number. Strive ye to enter in at the strait gate."-ADAMS. "I was dead."-To every Christian, the words of our Lord, "I was dead," will suggest reflections that should serve to fortify the mind against the fear of dissolution; or, at all events, to rebuke and mitigate the aversion with which it is usually contemplated.-Did the Redeemer die,-a Being who claims to himself the dignity of "the Living One,"-a Being not only of infinite dignity, but of spotless purity, and who, from the beginning to the end of his existence on earth, was the object of God's supreme complacency and approbation? And shall we complain that death is allotted as our portion also? we, who, as created beings, are insignificant,-by inheritance, mortal,--by actual guilt, polluted and debased? To us, death comes as wages earned by guilt; but even were it otherwise, did death come to us as an accident of our being, how should we complain of the hardness of our lot, when Christ himself declares, "I was dead?" Did the Redeemer die,-he in whose sympathy and care we are commanded to confide, and to whom we are taught to look, in every hour of danger or distress, for needful succour and consolation? And is it no encouragement to reflect, that he, into whose hands we commit our case, when in the extremity of mortal agony, and when vain is the help of man, has himself drunk the cup before us and felt its bitterness,-that every inch of that dark valley was trod by him, and that, from his own experience, he knows what strength and succour we need in that dreadful hour?-Did the Redeemer die, as the surety and representative of sinners: was his death a solemn expiation of our guilt, and an adequate satisfaction to God for the penalty which we had incurred? Is there no reason then to suppose, that dying, as he did, in the room, and on behalf of the guilty, death met him in a more formidable shape, and put into his hands a bitterer cup than can now fall to the lot of any of his people; and that their dissolution will be greatly less terrible than it would have been by reason of his enduring in their room the heaviest part of it? For what is it that mainly embitters death, and surrounds it, even when viewed at a distance, with innumerable terrors? Not surely the mere pain with which it is accompanied, for equal, or greater, pain we have often endured; not the mere dissolution of the tie betwixt soul and body, -for if that were all, however our sensitive nature might shrink from the shock, our rational nature might enable us to regard it with composure; not the mere separation from the society and business of the present world, for that, however it may awaken a feeling of melancholy regret, can hardly account for the forebodings and terrors of which every mind is more or less conscious when it contemplates death. No; it is something more than the mere pain of dying, or the mere dissolving of the elements of our being, or the mere separation from this world, that embitters the cup of death. "The sting of death is sin,”—the same sin which gave us over as a prey to death, makes us also slaves to the fear of death; for, by the unvarying law of conscience, sin and fear are bound up together, and it is a conscience burdened with guilt, and apprehensive of punishment, which, in our case, arrays death with terrors unknown to the inferior and irresponsible creation. But Christ died to expiate and cancel the guilt of his people; he has also endured, and by enduring, has taken away the penalty of their transgression; death remains, but its sting is taken away; so that we may "thank God, who hath given the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord," and may exclaim with the apostle, "Oh! death, where is now thy sting,-Oh! grave, where is thy victory?" REV. JAMES BUCHANAN. (Comfort in Affliction.) Know you why you came into the world?—I am sure, and you are as sure, not to eat and drink, and pass away your time in earthly business; but to get the work of your salvation well wrought and finished before death assault you. It is most uncertain, and steals upon men "as a thief in the night," when they are secure, never dreaming of such a great change; though truly my gracious Lord lets me see death still approaching nearer and nearer, that I may draw ever nearer and nearer him who is life. O! it concerns you to try whether you shall be a base miscreant, crawling in the bottomless pit with unspeakable torments in the midst of wicked men and devils, blaspheming Jehovah and the Lamb to eternity; or, a glorious saint, conformed unto the image of the Son of the eternal God, loving and praising, adoring him that sitteth on the throne, and the Lamb, for ever and ever. Consider what 1 say; the business is so weighty, so exceeding weighty, that time, with all its weal and woe, is to be overlooked, in comparison of this absolutely and only necessary thing; I tell you, there is an absolute necessity that you be holy; (let not the poor name affright you; for holiness is the sweetest and most easy thing in the world to them that are holy;) for, "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." And salvation must be nearer your heart by many degrees, than all other concernments, though they were ten thousand worlds. You must know the bargain of the new covenant, and close heartily with it in all its fulness, without the least reservation. Upon it, I recommend unto you Mr Guthrie's "Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ," and desire you to read it, till you become such an one as he describes. Believe it, "Godliness is profitable for all things; having the promise of this life and that which is to come." Though it may seem troublesome in the beginning, and though Christ's sweet and easy yoke may seem an hard wreath; yet, believe me, there is nothing in the world but it, which can give rest and full satisfaction to the soul. All things here are unsatisfying, though you had all that you can desire of them. O this is a vain world! Those who are near eternity will say so. O the vast difference betwixt time and eternity! I assure you, if you had all that your heart could wish or desire of the pomp, treasures, and pleasures of time, you would find no contentment in them. And when you shall be in such a condition as I am in, when pale death shall be staring you in the face, then all the glory of time will be in your eyes nothing but a withered flower. But alas! we are drunk with this world; and we never know well what we are doing, till death make us sober. I must say again and again, O the difference betwixt time and eternity! They that get heaven can get no more; for alas! what are all additions of time? What is a few days' eating, and drinking, and trifling? Yea, what are all the exercises of time compared with the exercises of glory? We place too much of our happiness in this side of time; and therefore death is a great disappointer. But we should be indifferent to all things in time, and have our eyes ever fixed upon the thoughts of eternity. Then it is not at all to be regarded in what time of man's life he die, if he die in the Lord. Yea, it is an invaluable blessing for the poor prisoner, or weary pilgrim, to have all his toilings by his hand, and to win to his native soil.-WELLWOOD. (Letter to his Brother.) O what a thing is faith in Christ.-A sure persua sion that he is the only Saviour of the world, but OURS in special who believe in him.-Craig's Catechism.. SACRED POETRY. KEDRON. THOU Soft-flowing Kedron! by thy limpid stream And join the full chorus that gladdens the skies! How damp were the vapours that fell on his head! And join the full chorus that gladdens the skies! Oh, garden of Olivet! dear, honour'd spot! THE POOL OF BETHESDA. AROUND Bethesda's healing wave, Among them there was one, whose eye To him its timely succour brought; Another won the boon he sought;- Would they have sought his pitying eye; But habit and tradition sway'd Their minds to trust to sense alone; Bethesda's pool has lost its power! Which with its healing waters went: BARTON. MISCELLANEOUS. Extensive Charity.-Perhaps there never was a more charitable man than John Wesley. His liberality knew no bounds but an empty pocket. He gave away, not merely a certain part of his income, but all that he had; his own wants being provided for, he devoted all the rest to the necessities of others. He entered upon this good work at a very early period. We are told that when he had thirty pounds a-year, he lived on twenty-eight, and gave away forty shillings. The next year, receiving sixty pounds, he still lived on twentyeight, and gave two and thirty. The third year he received ninety pounds, and gave away sixty-two. fourth year he received one hundred and twenty pounds. Still he lived on twenty-eight, and gave to the poor ninety-two. During the rest of his life he lived economically; and in the course of fifty years, it has been supposed, he gave away more than thirty thousand pounds. The An attempt to Purchase Heaven.-The late Rev. C. J. Latrobe visited a certain nobleman in Ireland, who devoted considerable sums to charitable purposes; and among other benevolent acts had erected an elegant church at his own expense. The nobleman, with great pleasure, showed Mr L. his estate, pointed him to the church, and said, "Now, Sir, don't you think that will merit heaven?" Mr Latrobe paused for a moment, and said, "Pray, my lord, what may your estate be worth a-year? "I imagine," said the nobleman, "about thirteen or fourteen thousand pounds." “And do you think, my lord," answered the minister," that God would sell heaven, even for thirteen or fourteen thousand pounds?" Painful, indeed, is the thought that any one, with the Bible in his hand, should be ignorant of the way of salvation by Christ Jesus; and very awful is it that persons should be found rejecting his atonement to rely on their own merits for the happiness of heaven! Trust in the Son of God is the only way in which we can be saved. Pride. The eminently great and good Howard, the philanthropist, neither wanted courage nor talent to administer reproof where he thought it was needed. A German count, governor of Upper Austria, with his countess, called one day on the man who had excited so large a share of the public attention. The count asked him the state of the prisons within his department. Mr Howard replied, "The worst in all Germany;" and advised that the countess should visit the female prisoners. "I!" said she, haughtily, "I go into prisons!" and rapidly hastened down stairs in great anger. Howard, indignant at her proud and unfeeling disposition, loudly called after her, "Madam, remember that you are a woman yourself, and you must soon, like the most miserable female prisoner in a dungeon, inhabit but a small space of that earth from which you equally originated." Separate Numbers from the commencement may at all times be had. Now ready, Volume I., elegantly bound in embossed cloth, Price 75., or in Two Parts, Price 8s. Also, Volume II., Part 1., Price 4s. 6d. Published by JOHN JOHNSTONE, at the Offices of the SCOTTISH CHRISTIAN HERALD, 2, Hunter Square, Edinburgh, and 19, Glassford Street, Glasgow; J. NISBET & Co., HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO., and R. GROOMBRIDGE, London; W. CURRY, Junior, & Co., Dublin; and W. 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