that one striking trait in the character of the Anglo-Saxons, was, that they took kindly to their meat. I am happy to say that in this respect I have not degenerated from so noble a stock. Share out the sandwiches, Digby. [Having done ample justice to the bread and beef, and MARVEL having lighted his cigar, they proceeded through the wood. The birds were singing their merriest songs, and millions of insects were dancing through their blithesome hour. The very rabbits seemed to know that it was Saturday afternoon, and were making holiday. After half an hour's walk they had left the wood behind them, and now the west was open to the sky. The landscape which lay before them was rich and beautiful. Near at hand was the river, with its sweet sad music, rolling on and on perpetually. Not far distant was the quiet village of Sherwood, with its old church standing on the hill, and its white cottages among the trees. In some of the fields the corn was rich and ripe, all in shock, ready for the garner, and in others, the husbandmen were surrounding the last waggon load, merrily shouting, Harvest Home.' The sun, like a mighty artist, was painting strange, fantastic, gorgeous scenes. The fleecy clouds were all tinged with gold, and as they melted away, you could read the prophecy of a bright Sabbath morn. Having found a seat, the three friends sat to drink in the beauty of the scene, when the conversation again became earnest.] (To be continued). THE CASKET. THE CLOSING SCENE. The world has seen many more ages than those assigned to it by the poet philosopher of the heathen. He traced the gradual deterioration of mankind and earth itself from the Age of Gold until it reached the Age of Iron, and though the world has grown much older than it was in the days of Ovid, we fear that its subsequent ages have not been marked by any effectual attempt to re-ascend the scale of morality. On the contrary, sad experience must teach us that we sank deeper and deeper in the abyss, till at length the Age of Reason lowered upon us, and, despite the truths of revelations, sought to enthral us in the chains of infidelity. Than this there can be nothing deeper, nothing more debasing, nothing more sickening to the reflecting mind, for it betokens ill-applied powers of the highest order, perverted, not merely hidden talents, and a mischievous misapplication of the opportunities placed within our reach by supreme wisdom for the palpable purpose of bringing man by comparison nearer to his Creator in intellects and powers of thought. Man, however, has for the most part misconceived the use of the great facts which have been graciously placed within his reach through the instrumentality of science and research. In his fond conceit he would throw aside his allegiance to God, and, arrogating to himself the command of the very elements, would, from having learned to use, fool himself into the vain imagination that he could create the world afresh, and fashion it more in accordance with his finite understanding. To this end does the Age of Reason insidiously urge its victims; nor are they few, for the plant is of rapid growth. Deadly though the poison is which lies concealed within the captivating exterior of this plant, we fear that there are few of its cultivators who have taken the trouble to analyze it, and to test its properties with patient assiduity and an earnest desire to elicit the truth. Captivated by the perfumed atmosphere which ever floats around the object of their admiration, they are dead to all its inherent defects; and pluming themselves on their own fancied superiority over those who acknowledge the trammels of loyalty, subjection, faith, and allegiance to the Supreme, they on all sides spread their toils for the waverer and wanderer from the fold of the true Shepherd. Of these there is never any lack, and many there be who fall into the net thus laid for them, for the creed of the Freethinkers is, to minds untutored by education and moral culture, a most inviting study; it can be shuffled off or on, as the humour suits, with the slightest exertion of the wearer; and, if it holds out no prospect of reward, it at least is silent as to punishment. Little matter of wonder is it, then, that during the excitement of pursuit, and at a period when the lifeblood courses through man's veins and arteries with healthy rapidity, such notions as were professed by a Bolingbroke, a Volney, or a Shelley, appear in their holiday attire. If, however, we trace these men to their hiding-places, and sift their secret. thoughts in that fearful moment when the pulse flags, and the limbs refuse their office, while the restless soul, hanging between Heaven and Hell, can find no city of refuge, and compare their last hours with those of the meek but steadfast believer and the practical Christian, the tinsel will soon drop from off the worthless theory, and the doubting disciple of a creed which begins and ends in nothing, will be rudely awakened to his danger, and fly for succour and protection from his own devices to the foot of his Saviour's cross. There, as he gazes in his mind's eye on the Son of Man, whom he has hour by hour crucified afresh, and in imagination witnesses the terrors of the "ninth hour," he will widly, yet firmly, exclaim with the watching centurion,— "Truly this was the Son of God," and renouncing the error of his past life, seek to attain to that happy state under the influence of which the saints and elect of God have been enabled to contemplate their last hour with patient submission, and to welcome its immediate approach with the earnest conviction that the grave hath no victory, and Death no sting. Young has well described the origin of Scepticism in these satirical lines: Health keeps an Atheist in the dark, A fever argues better than a Clarke; The Grecian he'll renounce, and learn to pray. REAL VIRTUE ACTIVE. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue, therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure.-Milton. THE KING AND THE SILVER-TONED BELL. There is a story told of an anonymous King, the moral of which may be well applied by all sovereigns. The old monarch, when dying, called his son to him, put in his hand the sceptre, and then asked him if he could take advice as easily as he had taken from his father the symbol of authority. The young heir, grasping the sceptre tightly, and hinting at the excellence of brevity in counsel as well as in wit, said, under the circumstances, "he could." "I will be brief as my breath," answered the abdicating monarch, "and that is short enough. You look upon the world, boy, as a house of pleasure; now, hear better from me. Woe, my lad, tumbles in pailfulls, and good luck is only distilled in drops." The son looked down at his now silent sire, and found he was dead. The new King commanded a splendid funeral, and arranged a grand hunting party for the morrow day after. He laughed at the paternal smile, and, to publish its weakness and his own felicity, he caused to be placed above his palace a large silvertoned bell a rope passed from it to each room he occupied. I will ring it," said he, "whenever I feel thoroughly happy. I have no doubt that I shall weary my own arm and deafen my people's ears." For a whole. month the bell was silent. 66 I have had my hand on the rope," said the King, "fifty times, but I felt that I was hardly happy enough to proclaim it to my people; but we have got over our first difficulties, and toOn the morrow, as he was boasting of the fidelity and friendship of one of his ministers, he learned that his friend and servant was in the habit of betraying the contents of his private despatches to a neighbouring potentate, from whom the traitor received stars and crosses in return. The King sighed. "We shall not toll the bell, then, to-day; but assuredly to-morrow.' In the morning he rode over to the house of the mistress of his heart. "There," he remarked to himself, as he went along in that pace which used to be observed by the pilgrims to Canterbury, and which in England has taken its name from the two first syllables of the city's name," there I have never found disappointment." What he did find he never told; but on his return to the palace, when his groom of the chambers looked interrogatively between him and the bell-rope, the monarch simply twisted the end of the latter into a noose, and angrily muttered, as he flung it down again, “Would to heaven that they were both hanging from it together!" On the following day he philosophically reviewed his case. "I have been unreasonable," he said; "why should I grieve because I have been betrayed by a knave, and jilted by a girl with golden hair? I have wide dominions, a full treasury, a mighty army, laughing vineyards, verdant meadows, a people who pay taxes as if they loved them, and God's free air to breathe in. I may be happy yet," added he, advancing to the window-"nay, I am!" and he reached his hand to the rope. He was on the very point of ringing at it with good will, when he saw a sight without, and heard a voice within, which made him pause. A messenger was at his feet. "Oh, Sire!" exclaimed the bringer of bad tidings, "thou seest the dust, the fires, and the gleam of arms without. The foe has broken in upon the land, and terror is before and devastation behind him!" "Now a curse upon kingship, that brings a wretched monarch evils like these!" cried the King who wanted to be happy. The courier hinted something about the miseries of the people. "By that Lady of Hate, whose church is in Brittany," cried the prince, "thou art right! I thought to pull lustily at the bell, but I will as lustily pull at my sword in the sheath, and see if there be not virtue in that. How came in the foe? and who commands them ?" The answer to this double query told him that the enemy could not have entered, had not his despatches been betrayed to the invader; and that the van of the army was under the command of a prince, whose name was no sooner uttered to the king than the latter turned red with fury, and exclaimed, "He!-then I shall ring the bell yet. I will have his life, and the lady-" He said no more, but went out, fought like a man, cleared the land of the foe, hung the traitor with all his orders on him, maimed the young leader of the hostile vanguard past sympathy from Cupid, and returned to his capital in triumph. He had so much to employ him after his return, so much to accomplish for the restoration of the fortunes of his people, so much to meditate upon for future accomplishments, that when at night he lay down upon his couch, weariness upon his brow, but a shade of honest joy upon his cheek, he had fairly forgotten the silver bell in his turret, and the ropes which depended from it. And so he grew gray and infirm, never turning from his work till the inevitable Angel looked smilingly in his face, and began to beckon him away. He was sitting upright in his uncasy chair, pale as death, but still at his ministry, till his eyes grew dim, his head sank on his breast, and there was, without, a sound of wailing. "What voices are those?" asked he softly: "what is there yet for me to do ?" His chancellor stooped over him as he now lay on a couch, and whispered, "Our father is departing from among us, and his children are at the threshold, in tears." "Let them in! let them come in!" hoarsely cried the King. "God! do they really love me?" "If there were a life to be purchased here, O worthy Sire, they would purchase thine with their blood." The crowd streamed silently in, to look once more upon the good old king, and to mourn at his departure. He stretched his hands towards them, and asked, "Have I won your love, children? have I won your love?" One universal affirmative reply, given from the heart, though given with soft expression, seemed to bestow on the dying monarch new life. He raised himself on the couch, looked like an inspired saint, and tried to speak, but failed in the attempt. None the less happy, he looked up to God, glanced to the turret where hung the bell, extended his hand to the rope, gave one pull and died with a smile on his lips as he rang his own knell.-Doran's Monarchs Retired from Business. LADIES' INFLUENCE ON ELDER LADS. There is one thing in school-work which I wish to press on you; and that is, that you should not confine your work to the girls, but bestow it as freely on those who need it more, and who (paradoxical as it may seem) will respond to it more deeply and freely-the boys. I am not going to enter into the reasons why. I only entreat you to believe me, that by helping to educate the boys, or even (when old enough) by taking a class (as I have seen done with admirable effect) of grown-up lads, you may influence for ever, not only the happiness of your pupils, but of the girls whom they will hereafter marry. It will be a boon to your own sex, as well as to ours, to teach them courtesy, self-restraint, reverence for physical weakness, admiration of tenderness and gentleness; and it is only a lady can bestow. Only by being accustomed in youth to converse with ladies, will the boy learn to treat hereafter his sweetheart or his wife like a gentleman. There is a latent chivalry, doubt it not, in the heart of every untutored clod; if it dies out in him (as it too often does), it were better for him, I often think, if he had never been born; but the only talisman which will keep it alive, much more develope it into its fulness, is friendly and revering intercourse with women of higher rank than himself.-Rev. Charles Kingsley. ADMIRATION AND ASPIRATION. one which It is a good thing to believe; it is a good thing to admire. By continually looking upwards, our minds will themselves grow upwards, and as a man, by indulging in habits of scorn and contempt for others is sure to descend to the level of what he despises, so the opposite habits of admiration and enthusiastic reverence for excellence impart to ourselves a portion of the qualities we admire. Here, as in every thing else, humility is the surest path to exaltation.-Dr. Arnold. ANECDOTE OF REV. ALBERT BARNES. The following anecdote is told of this gentleman. Being some time (as younger men might be) inclined to sleep a little during the sermon, a friend who was with him in his pew one Sunday lately, having joked him on his having nodded now and then, Barnes insisted that he had been awake all the time. "Well, then," said his friend, " can you tell me what the sermon was about?" "Yes, I can," he answered, "it was about an hour and a half too long!" THE TREES IN BLOSSOM. One day in Spring, when the weather was beautiful and the fruit trees showed one mass of blossom, Gotthold, walking in his garden, and feasting his eyes with their splendour, made the following observations to a friend: -These trees bear much more blossom than they can possibly ripen into fruit. This shows in them an inward and natural disposition to pay liberally for the ground they occupy, but afterwards they are more or less hindered by outward circumstances, from carrying into effect. It is the same with good men. Ah me! how large, how keen, how many thousandfold are often their good resolutions, and inward desires to love and serve the Lord! O God, we hear them cry, had I the love of all angels and men, it should burn for Thee alone! had I ten thousand hearts, to Thee should they be consecrated and resigned! Had I the tongues of all mankind, their only employment should be to praise and extol Thee, O God of glory. With what alacrity and joy I will henceforth serve Thee! Ah me! why did I not know Thee sooner, O Thou pure and eternal Love! "Depart from me, ye evil doers, for I will keep the commandments of my God.” (Psalm cxix. 115.) At such a time, the tree is in full blossom; and the inward impulse of the Holy Spirit, and the constraining power of the love of Christ, are powerfully felt. Scarce a tithe of the blossom, however, ripens into fruit, But as man, notwithstanding, takes pleasure in beholding it upon the tree, so does God delight in a heart overflowing with fervour, and holy resolutions, and in the fruits and works of righteousness, though these may at first be few. O Lord, my God and Father, have patience likewise with me, and be satisfied with the blossom and poor firstlings of my Christianity. Do Thou also purge me, and vouchsafe to me Thy blessing, that I may become more and more fruitful and productive. RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE. FIRST LONDON CIRCUIT. BRUNSWICK CHAPEL, DEPTFORD. THE Fifteenth Annual Tea and Public Meeting of the Tract Society, in connection with the above place of worship, was held on Wednesday, January the 28th, the Rev. R. Miller in the chair. The attendance was good, and the proceedings of the evening were of a most interesting character. The report of the committee showed that the operations of the Society during the past year had been attended by the Divine blessing, and proved instrumental in effecting considerable good; and also expressed a determination on the part of the committee to put forth every exertion, in order to promote the kingdom of Christ, by circulating more extensively the Word of God, which is able to make men wise unto salvation. Excellent addresses were given by Mr. Drake, of Woolwich, Mr. Coster, of London, Mr. Ball (City Missionary), and Mr. Warne, both of Deptford, eminently adapted to urge all those engaged in Tract distribution to increased activity, and unwearied perseverance in this important work. The pecuniary state of the Society is very satisfactory, and there is good cause to hope that under the Divine blessing, the present year may be one of great success. At the close of the meeting several persons came forward and offered themselves as distributors and subscribers. May the Lord of the harvest send more labourers, and crown their efforts with abundant prosperity. J. C. HELSTON CIRCUIT. To the Editor-Rev. and dear Sir, ON Monday evening, the 10th of November, 1856, the Annual Meeting was held at Roswick, and the following evenings at Bowywhere, at Breage, and at |