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You may almost as well have no Bible at all, if, on every occasion when you have shut it, you allow its truths to "slip." But if you have retained its say

DEFINITE AIMS.

MUCH strenuous effort in this world is lost for want of a definite aim. Much eloquent preaching is practically powerless, because not designed to achieve a definite and well-understood purpose. The animating influence of a clearly defined and absorbing object, would give point and power to many a pulpit exhortation which now falls unheeded upon listless ears. The very fact that the preacher knows not which of his efforts is to accomplish the great object for which he preaches, is the highest reason for aiming at success in every effort. As the husbandman is not to withhold his hand morning or evening, because he cannot tell whether this or that seed will prosper, the preacher's ignorance of the future history of each pulpit effort should give each the directness and adaptation needful for effect. With such a distinctly perceived aim, success would often come.

The Christian's is a high calling. The glory of his Redeemer, the good of man, the culture in his own heart of the principles, hopes, and joys of holiness, are his great mission who accepts the conditions of the gospel. How unspeakably it would subserve this great end of the Christian's life, to keep that end vividly before the mind-to make it the direct aim of every day's history. Every day should have its purpose and its plan, the execution or the failure of which should enter into our estimate of the day's results. And if that purpose be the Christian's exalted and impressive one, with what dignity and How much power would life become invested! more rapid would be the advance in the divine life. An ever-present consciousness of duty gives directness and energy to the mind, and shields the soul from the force of temptations. He who is charged with a responsible trust, or is flying upon a mighty errand, finds no time and feels no desire to dally with the flowers which strew his way. He whose everyday life is penetrated and overawed with the consciousness of a lofty and commanding pursuit, whose heart and mind are ever singing

"A charge to keep I have,

A God to glorify,"

will hardly feel the assault which will overthrow an idler. His pre-occupation not only imparts the vigour that can resist the attack, but destroys its force. It multiplies the forces within the garrison, and at the same time weakens the power by which it is threatened.

of continued and incalculable good. You may come into scenes of temptation; and then, if you do not "remember the words of the Lord Jesus," you are utterly helpless. The Bible may not be within your reach. To consult its pages may be impossible. But O! if your memory be well stored with divine truth, its directions will guide you, its promises will cheer you, and faith in it will give you the victory.

You

We propose to you as an example of an active and sanctified memory the Redeemer himself. know how Satan tempted him in the wilderness. Jesus did not pause to argue or remonstrate. He only quoted Scripture, and he quoted from memory. Once and again, and a third time, was he assaulted, and as often was the tempter defeated by Christ's recollection and use of powerful passages from the Bible. His memory supplied him with those weapons which baffled and put to flight his dark antagonist. Now, it is a remarkable fact, that all our Lord's citations at this period of trial are taken from one book of the Old Testament-the book of Deuteronomy. That treatise is an abridgement of the preceding books, and contains a brief rehearsal of early Jewish history. On this account it must have been a favourite book with the Hebrew youths, one in which they took a deep and constant interest, and which they must have read so eagerly as to remember its leading incidents, its most prominent truths, its most striking lessons. The "child Jesus " may have been early directed to the reading and recollection of this book by his mother. It fed his opening mind and stored his youthful memory; and from such juvenile lessons was he furnished with those quotations, at the recital of which the devil fled abashed. Never lay aside "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." Be ye followers of Christ.

And if, in future years, you should be afflicted and bowed down by disease-your eyes dim-your arm feeble, and your power of attention weak and fickleof what value to you will not the memory of Scripture be? Its promises will then come up to your heart in refreshing number and variety. You will be satisfied from yourselves, and your memory, se happily occupied in pouring out its consolations, will be within you 66 a well of water springing up into everlasting life." Happy is he who possesses such a treasure. Youth is the season to acquire it, age is the period to enjoy its sweets.

But, in short, at all times the remembrance of Scripture will be your best companion. The command given by Solomon, exhorting you to early and immediate piety, refers itself chiefly to your memory: "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth." The sacred injunction to keep the Sabbath throws itself on your memory in similar terms"Remember the Sabbath-day." When the Psalmist was perplexed by some mysterious events of Providence, he found comfort in the exercise of memory: "I call to remembrance my song in the night." "I will remember the years of the right hand of the

Most High; I will remember the works of the Lord." Such years are described and such works recorded in the Bible. The celebration of the Lord's Supper appeals also to the memory of the friends of Christ,Do this in remembrance of me," of ME, whose ife, actions, sufferings, and death are narrated in the New Testament. And so the remembrance of appropriate portions of Scripture will cherish and strengthen your Christian graces. If any doubts creep over your mind, they will be banished by a recolection of the promises of the covenant. "This," says he prophet, "I recall to mind; therefore I have ope." Should you "be overtaken in a fault," and will not confess your sin and mourn over it, memory ummon you to repentance: "And Peter rememered the words of Jesus-and he went out and wept itterly." Let me intreat you, then, to consider hese statements. Implore God so to strengthen and anctify your memory, as to enable you to bear upon it the truths, precepts, hopes, promises, and examples of his blessed book.-From "Lectures on the Bible," ddressed to the Young.

GOD IS HERE.

A MINISTER of the gospel was once preaching upon the character of God, showing his holiness and purity. Before him sat a man who long had resisted all the appeals of God's love, and the threatenings of his wrath, and to human view had become hardened in sin. But God sent an arrow to his heart. As the minister proceeded, an expression of thoughtfulness stole over his face, then he turned pale, and at last, unable longer to control his emotions, he exclaimed, "Carry me out, for God is here."

And did you never think, dear reader, that the eye of God was always upon you? Have you ever been able to contrive a way by which you can escape 'rom God? Is He not in all the earth? Is not And will not his eaven his presence-chamber? vengeance pursue the wicked down to hell? What then will you do? The only thing you can lo that will save you from his wrath, is to fly to Christ. This you may do. You may do it now, just where you sit. You may repent and forsake your sins, and believe on the Son of God to your everlasting salvation. This you must do, or your soul will surely perish. Come then as a poor, guilty, lost, helpless sinner, and make an unreserved surrender of yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ. Come now, and just as you are. You can never come with any worthiness or merit of your own.

Jesus came to save sinners. Come and trust in Him, and your soul shall live for ever. And the presence of God reconciled through Christ will be the source of all your joys. God is here, and God will be on the judgment-seat. Every eye shall see him then. Oh! see him now. The only way of peace is to come to Him while he invites us to return and live. Come to-day; wait no longer. God is here, waiting to be gracious.

WORK WHILE IT IS DAY.

A FRIENDLY HINT TO SABBATH-SCHOOL TEACHERS.

LOOK round your class; you may not see in one of

ON HAVING SOMETHING TO DO. HAVING in times past been so situated as to be at a loss what to do, tired of reading and study, and of my regular and somewhat monotonous work, from which I had for a season been released, I have concluded that there are few conditions in which we suffer more than when we feel or say, "I have nothing to do."

Finding myself at a railway station obliged to wait an hour or two for the cars, no books, papers, nor acquaintances to beguile the time, it has seemed to me that the punishment of "nothing to do" would be greater than I could bear. At such times I have almost envied the horse on the tread-mill turning the circular saw, and the man that fed the saw seemed to me positively happy.

One of the great secrets of happiness, and certainly one great means of freedom from numerous mental ailments, is occupation. I used to look on the labourers in the streets and in the trenches with commiseration, but now I regard every one who is regularly occupied as in many respects a happy man. We sometimes see a company of labourers, say fifteen or twenty labourers, sweeping the streets with their long birch brooms. There is many a gentleman, so called, and lady too, on the side-walks or in the carriage, who, by reason of idleness and "nothing to do," is more to be commiserated than those menial labourers. We see in children who complain that they have "nothing to do," a good picture of the misery resulting from want of occupation. They fret and murmur at every thing; they get into mischief; they give vent to their passions; and many a chastisement has come upon them for misdemeanours committed under the direful influence of “nothing to do." Parents are fortunate who are able to devise

regular and useful employment for their children. But parents themselves, and others besides children, need to watch against these moments when they feel listless and are indifferent to every form of occupation. Severe as regular toil may be, on the whole there may be less disquietude of mind in it than in state of independence. If they who have some measure of mental discipline and intelligence suffer so much from ennui, what a mercy it is that they who could not bear it so well are those who are obliged to labour for their daily bread. It is interesting to see how a kind providence provides labour for all sorts of people.

HEALTH.

TAKE care of your health! If you are better than a blank in the world, the world will need you long. Perhaps you are a Christian, and say, "I am not afraid to die." But you should be afraid to die maturely, as a consequence of your neglect of the laws of health and longevity. You have no more right to neglect the body than you have to neglect the soul. You have the charge of both, and for both you re to give account. If you say, "The cause in which I am engaged is good;" very well, then do not pollute its altar by a human sacrifice. It repudiates il such offerings. If death come in unforeseen, aud accidental to devotion to a good work, it is to be received, welcomed! But when it comes in at the invitation of a constant, known violation of the laws of life, then, to welcome it, is to welcome the ghastly form of suicide.

HERE A LITTLE, AND THERE A LITTLE.

IMPRESSIONS are made on children, as on rocks, by a constant dropping of little influences. What can one drop do? You scarcely see it fall; and presently it rolls away, or is evaporated; you cannot, even with a microscope, measure the little indentation it has made. Yet it is the constant repetition of this trifling agency which furrows, and at length hollows out the very granite?

Seize

Nothing is little in regard to children. every available opening to instruct and impress them. if you have but a moment, employ it. A sentence is sometimes better than a sermon. One word of Scripture may prove a seed of life.

When your child awakes in the morning, when he is going to school, when he comes to your knee in the evening, when he kisses you on retiring, when he lies down in bed, when he is aroused at midnight-these are moments to be seized for the inculcation of some sacred truth, the formation of some Christian habit. And in this work a short saying is better than a long one.-Am. Messenger.

AGUR'S PRAYER.

DOES not spiritual experience teach Christians that a mediocrity and competency of the things of this life best fit them for the fruits of obedience, which are the end and excellency of their being? A man may be over-mercied as well as over-afflicted.

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Thus was it that wise Agur requested of God, "Give me neither poverty nor riches, but feed me with food convenient for me; lest I be full, and deny thee, and and take the name of my God in vain."-(Prov. xxx. 6, say, Who is the Lord? or, lest I be poor, and steal, 9.) Against both he prays equally, not absolutelythat had been his sin: he prays comparatively, and submissively to the will of God. He had rather, if God see it fit, avoid both of these extremes. But what would he have then? Food convenient, or, according to the Hebrew, his prey or statute-bread, which is a metaphor from birds which fly up and down to prey for their young; and what they get they distribute among them: they bring them enough to preserve their lives, but not more than enough, to lie mouldering in the nest. Such a proportion Agur desired; and the reason why he desired it is drawn from the danger of both extremes. He measured, like a wise Christian, the convenience or inconvenience of his estate in the world by its suitableness or unsuitableness to the end of his beingwhich is the service of his God. He accounted the true excellence of his life to consist in its reference and tendency to the glory of God; and he could not earthly comforts, could fit him for that; but a middle see how a redundancy, or too great a penury, of estate, equally removed from both extremes, best fitted that end. And this was all that good Jacob,| who was led by the same Spirit, looked at. and keep me in the way that I go, and give me bread Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God."—(Gen. xxviii. 20.)-Cooper.

EDUCATION.

"And

GOOD old Roger Ascham, the instructor of the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey, says :-" It is a pity, that commonly more care is had, yea, and that among very wise men, to find out rather a cunning man for their horse than a cunning man for their children. They say nay in one word, but they do so in deed; for to one they give two hundred pounds, and to the other but two hundred shillings. God, that sitteth in heaven, laugheth their choice to scorn, and rewardeth their liberality as it should be. For he suffereth them to have tame and well-ordered horses, but wild and unfortunate children; and therefore in the end they find more pleasure in their horse than comfort in their child."

A WORD TO BOYS.

SOME one has said:-" Boys, did you ever think that this great world, with all its wealth and woe, with all its mines and mountains, its oceans, seas, and rivers, with all its shipping, its steamboats, railroads, and magnetic telegraphs, with all its millions of men, given over to the hands of the boys of the present and all the science and progress of ages, will soon be age-boys like you, assembled in school-rooms, or playing without them, on both sides of the Atlantic? Believe it, and look abroad upon your inheritance, and get ready to enter upon its possession. The kings, presidents, governors, statesmen, philosophers, ministers, teachers, men of the future, all are boys, whose feet like yours cannot reach the floor, when seated on the benches upon which they are learning to master the monosyllables of their respective languages.'

Did

THE EVILS OF PRESUMPTUOUS FAITH. FIRST, A presumptuous faith is an easy faith; it hath no enemy of Satan, or our own corrupt hearts, to oppose it, and so, like a weed, shoots up and grows rank on a sudden. The devil never hath a sinner surer, than when dreaming in this fool's paradise, and walking in his sleep, amidst his vain fantastical hopes of Christ and salvation. And therefore he is so far from waking him, that he draws the curtains close about him, that no light nor noise in his conscience may break his rest. you ever know the thief call him up in the night whom he meant to rob and kill? No, sleep is his advantage. But true faith he is a sworn enemy against; he persecutes it in the very cradle, as Herod did Christ in the manger; he pours a flood of wrath after it as soon as it betrays its own birth, by crying and lamenting after the Lord. If thy faith be legitimate, Naphtali may be its name, and thou mayest say, with with Satan and great "wrestlings have I wrestled my own base heart, and at last have prevailed. If thou canst find the like strife in thy soul, thou mayest comfort thyself, that it is from two contrary principles, faith and unbelief, which are lusting one against another; and thy unbelief, which is the elder (however now it strives for the mastery), shall serve faith the younger.

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Secondly, Presumptuous faith is lame of one hand; it hath a hand to receive pardon and heaven from God, but no hand to give up itself to God: true faith hath the use of both her hands. "My beloved is mine," there the soul takes Christ; "and I am his," there she surrenders herself to the use and service of Christ. Now, didst thou ever pass over thyself freely to Christ? I know none but will profess they do this. But the presumptuous soul, like Ananias, lies to the Holy Ghost, by keeping back part, yea, the chief part of that he promised to lay at Christ's feet. This lust he sends out of the way, when he should deliver it up to justice; and that creature enjoyment he twines about, and cannot persuade his heart to trust God with the disposure of it, but cries out when the Lord calls for it, Benjamin shall not go; his life is bound up in it, and if God will have it from him he must take it by force, for there is no hope of gaining his consent. If this is the true picture of thy faith, and temper of thy soul, then verily thou blessest thyself in an idol, and mistakest a bold face for a believing heart; but if thou art as willing to be faithful to Christ as to pitch thy faith on Christ; if thou countest it as great a privilege that Christ should have a throne in thy heart and love, as that thou shouldst have a place and room in his mercy; in a word, if thou art plain-hearted, and wouldst not hide a sin, nor lock up a creature-enjoyment from him, but desirest freely to give up thy dearest lust to the gibbet, and thy sweetest enjoyments to stay with, or go from thee, as thy God thinks fit to allow thee, though all this be with much regret and discontent, from a malignant party of the flesh within thee, thou provest thyself a sound believer. And the devil may as well say that himself believeth as thou presumest; if this be to presume, be thou the more presumptuous. Let the devil nickname thee and thy faith as he pleaseth; the rose-water is not the less sweet, because one writes wormwood-water on the glass. The Lord knows who are his, and will own them for his true children, and their graces for the sweet fruits of his Spirit, though a false title be set on them by Satan and the world, yea, sometimes by believers on themselves. The father will not deny his child because he is in a violent fit of fever, talks idle, and denies him to be his father.

Thirdly, The presumptuous faith is a sapless and unsavoury faith. When an unsound heart pretends

to greatest faith on Christ, even then it finds little savour, tastes little sweetness in Christ. No, he hath his old tooth in his head, which makes him relish still the gross food of sensual enjoyments above Christ and his spiritual dainties; would he but freely speak what he thinks, he must confess that if he were put to his choice, whether he would sit with Christ and his children, to be entertained with the pleasures that they enjoy from spiritual communion with him in his promises, ordinances, and holy ways; or had rather sit with the servants and have the scraps, while God allows the men of the world their full bags and bellies of carnal treasure; that he would prefer the latter before the former. He brags of his interest in God, but he cares not how little he is in the presence of God in any duty or ordinance; certainly, if he were such a favourite as he speaks, he would be more at court than he is. He hopes to be saved, he saith, but he draws not his wine of joy at his tap; it is not the thoughts of heaven that comfort him, but what he hath in the world, and of the world, these maintain his joy; when the world's vessel is out, and creature-joy spent, alas! the poor wretch can find little relief from, or relish in, his pretended hopes of heaven and interest in Christ, but he is still whining after the other. Whereas true faith alters the very creature's palate; no feast so sweet to the believer as Christ is; let God take all other dishes off the board, and leave but Christ, he counts his feast is not gone, he hath what he likes; but let all else stand, health, estate, friends, and what else the world sets a high value on, if Christ be withdrawn, he soon misseth his dish, and makes his moan, and saith, Alas! who hath taken away my Lord ? It is Christ that seasons these and all his enjoyments, and makes them savoury meat to his palate; but without him, they have no more taste than the white of an egg without salt.-Gurnall.

THE ROD OF LOVE.

THE child which is sick and bruised is most looked after. When a saint lies under the bruising of temptations, Christ prays, and God the Father pities. When Satan puts the soul into a fever, God comes with a cordial; which made Luther say that temptations are Christ's embraces, because he doth then most sweetly manifest himself to the soul.

Fragments.

ONE of the best sermons I ever heard violated many rules of grammar, rhetoric, and elocution; but it was not its violation of rules that made it excel

lent. Half its blunders would have wholly destroyed

the usefulness of a common discourse.

It suits not well to preach the words of life with the grave-clothes of an unregenerate state upon us. Where it is so, it is sad. It is a dreadful work to be ferrying over others with our own backs to Immanuel's land.-Boston.

"Perpetual complaints," to use the simile of an old writer, "are like unto a new cart, which creaks and cries even while it has no burden but its own wheels; whereas that which is long used, and well oiled, goes silently away with a heavy load."

If he shall have judgment without mercy who hath showed no mercy, what shall become of him who delights in malice?

They are too wise who are not content sometimes to wonder.