tion of its learned author. First, the nature of the Electro-Chemical Bath, and its operation on the human organism, and secondly, the practical test of his means as demonstrated on the patients who have had treatment in the Bath. The work deserves the attention of the public.

The Controversy. What results? London: FREEMAN, Fleet-street. This is a Tract written with considerable ability by John Little, B.A., on the subject of "the Controversy," now prevailing in the Independent Body. In common with most persons we deplore the necessity for such a publication.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

The Burning Spirit. London: Cooke, Warwick Lane.

Memoir of Hutton. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co.
Grammar, by W. King. London: Houlston and Stoneman.

One Hundred Psalm Tunes, by W. S. Young. London: Sunday-school Union.

SHORT SERMON UPON DIOTREPHES.

"I wrote unto the church; but Diotrephes, who loved to have the preeminence among them, received us not."-(3 John 9.)

Macknight's translation reads, "I should have written," &c. Either translation sufficiently shows us the mischievous influence of this ambitious spirit in the church.

In one case, he prevented an inspired apostle from sending the church a letter. In the other he nullified the letter actually sent.

DOCTRINE.-Many a minister's labours are nullified by a Diotrephes in his church.

I. I will first show you who is not a Diotrephes.

1. Not he whose godly walk and conversation secures for him the entire confidence of the brethren, and thus gives him great influence.

2. Nor he whose talents and education necessarily make him a man of influence.

3. Nor he whose well-known and oft proved wisdom and prudence make him much sought unto in counsel.

These men generally do not seek influence. It is unavoidable. It follows them as their shadow.

II. I proceed, in the second place, to show who Diotrephes is.

1. Sometimes he is a man who never had his will broken. As a child, he expected the whole household to give way to him. As a church member he expects the household of Christ to give way to him. He is wilful and headstrong; often as unreasonable as a mere animal.

2. Sometimes he is a man of wealth. His riches give him authority in the world, and he takes it for granted they ought to do so in the church. He cannot at all comprehend the idea that the vote and opinion of his poor brother are worth as much as his own. He is verily persuaded that because he had been a great worldling, and scraped together much wealth, the household of Christ ought to defer to him.

3. Sometimes he is a man of some learning and much volubility, who fancies that his capacity ought to give his opinion authority.

III. In the third place, I proceed to set forth Diotrephes in action. If the minister do not take him for counsellor, he is his enemy. His preaching is not right. His measures are not right. "His usefulness is at an end." In questions of policy in the church, he never suspects that there are others whose opinions should carry as much weight as his own.

The will of the majority is no rule for him. With every movement does he find fault, unless he originated it.

IV. In the next place, I remark on Diotrephes' character.

1. He is very unlike Christ, who was meek and lowly,

2. He is very forgetful of the word, "Let each esteem others better than himself."

3. He is against that equality which Christ established in his church.

PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS.

1. Diotrephes is most of the time in trouble; always looking for deference, he is seldom likely to get it.

2. The church can take no surer road to trouble than to give way to Diotrephes.

3. Diotrephes will scarce be the friend of the minister. The natural influence of the religious teacher disturbs him.

4. It is best for the hearer to look for Diotrephes in his own pew. Perhaps he may find him in his own seat.

AMBITION.

The various faculties, and feelings of man, are beautifully adapted to each other. His vast intellect enables him to discover in, and obtain from Nature's bounteous store, the food upon which he may grow, and the delicacies upon which he may luxuriate. But their qualities could not be appreciated by man, if he possessed moral and intellectual faculties only. Had he no appetite, he would never desire to taste the fruits which cluster so profusely around him. And even if he did, he could not enjoy them, unless he had a palate to relish their sweetness. But in man's intellect and heart, faculties, and feelings, co-exist, and may, and naturally do co-operate. When his eye rests upon beauty-his enamoured heart beats high with admiration. When a labyrinth is presented, he is impatient to explore its intricate windings. When he perceives aught superior to or beyond himself—he aspires, he is ambitious, to reach, to obtain it.

There is a general prejudice against ambition. Many great evils are described, as its natural and necessary developements. Some assert that it is incompatible with the first essential to happiness-contentment; some contend that, leading its victim to grasp at objects too high, too mighty, to be obtained, it urges him up to the fatal ascent, till, blinded by his Utopian fancy, he falls headlong into the gulf of ruin and despair; while others point out as its natural results, international encroachments, wars, slavery, and human degradation. Ambition is not the cause of the evils, thus instanced; for it is not a guiding, but an impelling power. It exerts the same force, whether pursuing a good or an evil object. Judgment,-enlightened by revelation, and quickened by conscience-is the pilot which should determine the course. When the proper pilot is supplanted, a wrong course is pursued, and disastrous effects ensue. And thus, although the mind may sometimes be fearfully engulphed, in the whirlpool of error and crime, yet it is not, strictly speaking, caused by ambition, for the same mind would have been impelled with an equal impetus, into the haven of virtue and truth.

Ambition depends upon imagination. From the experience of the pastits successive stages to the present,-its gradual transitions from utter ignorance to various degrees of knowledge, are collected those inferences, by which the imagination is equipped for its journey into the future, to discover better and brighter regions. To this it is prompted by ambition, which is never satisfied with what is already possessed. It continually im

pels to something new. It seems as if lured onward by some invisible attraction, some perfect beauty in some ethereal region,-immeasurably distant in the future. Let the thoughts be concentrated upon things present―endeavour but to enlist imagination in some affair of timeserving expediency—and ambition will cause throbbings, feeble at first, as though it were longing to approach some celestial choir, by whose thrilling melody it is enraptured; the impatience will increase as its wakening ear rings more and more with the exciting music, until, breaking through all resistance, it drives forward its necessary companion, imagination, to prosecute its natural exploration. So great is the mutual affinity, and love of these two powers, that they become moulded into one —inseparable in operation and success. With these in a healthy condition, man cannot stand still. They are the originators, and the pioneers of progress. They continually force him onward and upward. When unrestrained and uncorrupted, they soon pass from the dull swamps of mortal corporealities, to those genial and fruitful regions, where knowledge is sought for its own sake, and good pursued because it is right. The sensual delights, the vanities, and expediences of this grovelling world, are things, too confined, too mean, too fleeting, for an healthy ambition. It longs to rove through the universe; it would pine away, were it limited to one point of existence. It attaches itself to that which is noblest and brightest. It passes with disdain the highest eminences attained by the greatest heroes of this lower world; and aspires to stand upon the highest summit of the heavenly mountains. It passed the bounds of time, in the first stage of its existence, and is now drinking from eternal fountains. The knowledge it seeks out and imbibes, the principles it embraces, the holiness it attains, serve only to give keenness to its appetite, and enlargement to its capacity. Its visionary landscape not only lengthens but widens. It not only becomes more intense, but more diverse. Its progressive capacity can be satisfactorily supplied only from infinite plenitude, and boundless variety. In each succeeding stage of life, the loftiest apex, the brightest spot, the loveliest demesne, appear to be perfection itself; but ere they can be reached, the veil which obstructed its extended prospect is removed, disclosing summits so transcendent, centres radiating such effulgent glory, that the former gradually dwindle into complete insignificance. Ambition, then, is essentially prospective, naturally exalted, infinitely diverse, insatiable, and progressive. It developes every other glory; and is itself the crowning glory of the mind.

To what objects, then, should it be directed? What will most promote its pure, and free action? We answer, Wisdom and Holiness; for they alone require the full operation, and procure the utmost and progressive development of man's noblest and most enduring his moral and intellectualpowers. All other objects are unworthy its natural dignity, degrading to its aspiring character. When confined to the sterile soil of earth it becomes weak, shrivelled, and noxious, but in its native soil, it thrives in immortal vigour; and nourished by the "dew of Paradise," grows in majesty and beauty, a plant mystic, and immortal.

Ambition, rightly directed, is perfectly compatible with contentment" Not with that false contentment, which leads one to indulge in sloth, but that which proceeds from self-approval, satisfying realization, and confident anticipation that which results from calm security, and conscious

power.

The great mistake of mankind has been, and still is, the directing of am bition to secondary objects, pursuing what is but a means or an instrument, as though it were the end. Hence many have become prejudiced against it. Long has it been smothered beneath the dense and accumulated masses of sensuality and selfishness; but, like a hidden fire, it has been spreading

silently and surely; its penetrating flames are seen in that gradual elevation of the public mind, and amelioration of the human heart, which prognosticate some mighty outburst, some renewing conflagration, which shall consume every evil and error in the world, and purify it, till it becomes the abode of freedom and love.*

THE CASKET.

THE ELEVATION OF WOMAN.

There are some parts of Siberia where a traveller is as likely to lose his way as if he were upon the sea, but a guide has been provided for man, when one is required, even amid those pathless wilds. There is a little plant which grows upon the stems and branches of trees; and as it is always found on the north side, where moisture is most abundant, those who are acquainted with that fact can use it as a chart. The traveller can thus find his way amid difficuties which might baffle the instincts even of an American savage; and He whose goodness and wisdom are alike illimitable, is found to have provided for our safety where our own strength, would be only weakness, and our own wisdom folly.

And in the same way has the great Creator planted a guide in the heart of society, such as might largely influence it for good, and prove a preservative against many perils, were it properly employed. We refer to the influence of woman,-man's original help and second self. Trained as she was at first for present monotony and loneliness even in Eden, she has continued, from the dawn of creation till now, largely to influence the destinies of man. In her proper sphere, she has proved heaven's richest blessing out of it, she has been man's heaviest woe.

We accordingly find that her position may be viewed as the barometer of society; we can thereby measure its elevation or depression. Is woman degraded below her proper position, and made only the slave or menial of man? Do we see her, as in the domains of paganism, a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water; or the favourite of an hour, to be speedily discarded and despised? Is she the murderer of her little ones, as once in the South Sea Islands; or obliged by a horrid custom, to expire amid the flames of her husband's funeral pile, as sometimes still in India? Is she in short treated like a soulless slave in the harem, or a beast of the forest? Then man is there found to be degenerate and corrupt, possessing in some respects, perhaps, certain of the properties which prevail among the lower animals, such as courage, cunning, and strength; but devoid of all that is exalting to an immortal being-at once depraved and depraving, By this perverting his choicest blessing, man turns it into a curse, and that re-acts upom him with a terrible force. In Russia, for instance, where woman has been for centuries degraded to the rank of a chattel, some have arisen to take ample revenge upon man. Monsters of ferocity have there appeared in female form, while the morals of not a few, even among the titled and the courtly, are described by men who are neither princes nor puritans, as exhibiting "such crimes, such excesses, and so great turpitude, that a reader should shudder at the bare recital."

But on the other hand, is woman placed where the Father of all designed her to be? Has she a position neither of degrading bondage, nor of usurped supremacy, but just where God has placed her; that is side by side with man, as his helpmeet? Then society is sound, for influences which both sweeten and hallow it are there at work.

*We know the Author of this Paper to be a young man of considerable merit, but his style displays vastly too much of the principle of which he writes. His sentences require to be much more condensed.-Editor,

Nor is this wonderful. God has placed the highest influence that is known upon earth in the hands of woman. No monarch's sceptre-no human laws-no course of discipline; though stern and severe as that of La Trappe, can accomplish what she can achieve. Among the savage and the civilized alike, she wields a plastic power over man's heart, and therefore over man's destiny,-a power which is appalling when exerted on the side of evil, but beneficent as the very dew of heaven when put forth on the side of good. It is not too much to say, that as evil entered the world by woman, she will be found intimately connected with its continuance, in its worst forms and its infinite diversity; but neither is it too much to say, as has been said, that as the Saviour was born of a woman, so that she became the occasion of ten thousand blessings through him, her influence for good whenever it is exerted aright, is not less than her influence for ill.

The history of the world contains proofs enough of this. The sleepless vigils, the self sacrifices and devotion of woman at the bidding of affection, are such as to elevate our conceptions of the grandeur of our race, she lives mainly to comfort, and feels her mission only half accomplished unless she be so employed. My mother's kiss made me a painter," said Benjamin West, when referring to an incident in his early youth, and the remark manifested his fine appreciation of the truthful, while it also illustrates the ascendancy of woman. It proves how true it is that—

"Mightier far

Than strength of nerve or sinew, or sway
Of magic, potent over sun and star,

As love, though oft in agony distrest,

And though his feeble feet be feeble woman's breast,"

NOT TO BE ENVIED, AFTER ALL.

DR. TWEEDIE.

A while ago we fell in with a person, whose condition would probably be regarded by most people as peculiarly enviable; and yet we had not a whit of any such feeling toward him. He held a public office in one of our large cities-a quiet and cozy situation for a government official-and said he, "I have no wish for the least possible change in my circumstances. I have a pleasant family-they are all that heart could wish; thay are all in perfect health, and pleasantly situated; my own health is equally perfect; my income is ample, all my surroundings are agreeable; and the best wish I could utter to the Almighty himself is, that he would let me live for ever just as I am!"

Think of that. Here was a man so well to do in the world that by his own showing, he had not one aspiration beyond it; so well satisfied with his share of the comforts and pleasures of this narrow earth, and this present life, that he had not a wish for any thing higher and purer and better; and we may add, as indeed would necessarily follow, he had no good hope of anything better. The world would call him a happy man; in a certain sense he was so. Few, very few, could say as much as he did, concerning their worldly condition and circumstances. And yet, from our heart of hearts we pitied him. We were sorry for his very happiness; for we could not help thinking what the word of God says of " men of the world, who have their portion in this life;" we could not help thinking of such a declaration as "The prosperity of fools shall destroy them; we could not help thinking of the Saviour's story of the rich man and the beggar that was laid at his gate; and as we thought of all this, we say again, as we said at the time, we were sorry, deeply sorry, for the very happiness of our comfortable and contented worldly friend. We were sadly afraid of the probable issue.

For, after all, as he himself understood, his wish could not be granted.