inakes some little ones, and, withal, belongs. What others regard as a some very queer ones. Deacon Grum is star of promise, is to him only a me. constitutionally gloomy and despond- | teoric flash-a phosphoric gleam--or ing. He was dipped in nature's | perhaps a pure fancy. If few attend bluest dye. And the tinge, as is apt meetings, that, of course is badto be the case, passed to his religion. | most unpromising. If many go he He has no bump of hope. Where it does not think much of it. It may ought to be, there may certainly be be a mere matter of form. He fears found, if phrenology has a shred of it is. It is the heart God wants. It truth in it, a deep depression. It is hard is no great thing to go to meeting. for him to hope, even as a Christian. If there is manifest feeling in the While the present is very dark for church, he takes no encouragement him, the future is still darker. All from it. It inay be only animal feelthings, he fancies, are going to ruin. ing. It is not that deep feeling, he There was something of piety in days is sure, that opens the windows of gone by. There was some residuum of heaven--such as they had in the good it in his own earlier days. He believes old times. If he hears of conversions in the revivals and the good men he says, with a despairing look and a of twenty or thirty years ago. He peculiar inflection, that he hopes they especially recurs to the times of Ed are sound ones-- he hopes they will wards and Brainerd, and the holy | hold out. If he talks with the conBaxter, times not coloured by the verts, they are not apt to satisfy him. atrabiliary hues of his own nature. They are not like those of the days of But many a Jeremiade does he pour Nettleton. forth over the worldliness and ineffi It is in the time of declension that ciency of the modern church. He | you hear most from Deacon Grum. knows not what things will come to. He talks in meeting then. He is He trembles as he thinks of posterity. eloquent then. He has a theme Deacon Grum is slow to enter into then suited to his peculiar mood. any measures for the advancement of He expatiates upon it, making his religion. He sees difficulties that darkness shine ; so that men listenothers do not see. He calculates i ing to him begin to think all good nicely all the possibilities of evil. He persons hypocrites, and religion a sees all the wrong principles that may 1 phantom. But in time of revival, he be involved. He is fearful about is comparatively silent; that sunny, motives. He has his difficulties with glad occasion seems not to suit his all the plans suggested. They are idiosyncrasy. It touches not the too narrow, or they are too broad; | chords of his mournful lyre. they are too timid, or they are too Be patient with Deacon Grum. Do bold; they are too slow, or, more NOT WAIT FOR HIM. Go onward in likely, they are too fast. He is afraid the way of all duty. But deal gently of running before he is sent; of going with him. When weary with his before the Spirit, instead of follow lamentations, objurgations, and vatiing; of having too much human cinations, think of the “humour gency, and then, again, of having too which his mother gave him.” As I httle. Propose as you will, he shakes said, he is on his way to heaven. his head doubtfully. He is always in True, it has been conjectured that he position to say, if a plan does not will find something out of joint succeed, “I told you so." even there. Something in the founDeacon Grum never sees any token dation gates, key note, &c., &c. But of good in the church to which he | no! Grace will have purified him ! Words of Wisdom. INTRODUCTIONS IN HEAVEN. I will need no introductions. Like | going to a camp-meeting, so it will be. "I THINK, my brethren,” said a We know the leading saints, and pulcher,. "I think when a Bible- | shake hands about the altar, as waung Christian gets to heaven, he | though we had been acquainted all our lives-heard of them before " them in heaven! For the first time knew their standing in the church. they will hear of them, and have The fame of their piety had gone shameful need to be taught, when abroad and met us, and at first sight | now they ought to be teachers, asi we say, “This must be brother such a well as judges of angels.' Neglecters, one.' The communion of saints, my despisers of the word! But let the brethren, is peculiar to Christianity. preacher tell it :I feel like if I was to die, and to be “Now just suppose one of this sort, received up there, I would not ask as by fire or the skin of his teeth, gets any angel to take me by the hand and into heaven. He has a smattering of lead me about, and say, “This is scripture, just enough to blunder on; Abraham, or Paul, or John. My goes up to a 'shining one,' Elisha, thoughts have been so much with and essays to commune with him :-them and about them, and my Bible “You are the brother that went tells me so many things of them, I up in a chariot and horses of fire ? believe I should know them at sigbt.” "No, that was Elijah.' Something in that. Bible biography | "Oh, ah, I didn't know there was is various in incident and rich in but one of you-names very much lesson. It is a gallery for devout | alike.' study. Beyond mere interest, it has ""Had you not a Bible to read? use; hence so much of the Bible is “Yes, one of the best morocco made up of living as well as teaching. bound, with gilt clasps. Conceptions of abstract doctrines are “I dare say, brethren,” continued thereby corrected. Imagination is the preacher, “he would then see a restrained by facts. That Christian difference between having it and read is not “ thoroughly furnished” who ing it. A plain one would have better has not studied the characters of men fitted him for heaven. and women, as portrayed in his Bible. “But he goes blundering on, and His theology may be systematic, but comes up with one called Judas, and it lacks the practical touch. is sure he can't be mistaken this Then how desire after the heavenly time:state is strengthened by forming ac "“Ah, can you be here? You that quaintance here with those of whom betrayed your Master and committed the world was not worthy; patriarchs suicide? Can this be heaven, where and prophets, saints and martyrs. such as you are ? Avaunt ! Even a heathen, Socrates, when dy "r"Not so fast, friend. There was ing, solaced hiinself by calling to a “ Judas, not Iscariot;" hast not mind the noble companions death heard of him? One of the twelve. would join him to. brother of James and our Lord. Had A Bible Christian goes no stranger you no Bible? Perhaps you could not to heaven. Besides that central and read, or lived before printing was in glorious One, whom having not seen vented, when it took the wages of a yet he has loved, there are spirits of labouring màn thirteen years to get a just men made perfect he has long copy of the Holy Scriptures. Friend, been in sympathy with; companions of what century? ready for him. Their example has "6"Of the nineteenth century on stimulated him, and by considering the earth, in the time of the Bible their trials he has better endured his Society. I often gave liberally to own. send the Bible to the heathen, for How with him who has neglected Bibles were cheap, and the heathens the Bible? There are glorious careers were said to need them.' and characters in it he is a stranger " What, friend !--sent all your Bito. Are there not Christians, old and bles to the heathen, and kept none respectable, who have never read their for yourself and family? That was Bibles through? Plenty of them! | doubtful charity.' Much need they will have of intro- | "0 yes-had a splendid one at ductions. They will be slow enter- home; the old family Bible that lay ing into the joys of their fellows. on the stand.' There are truths and revelations in “Yes,” said the preacher, “it did their book-great, precious, wonder- lay on the stand, that was the misery ful things, that would be news to of it. Just think of a Christian going from this land and age so ignorant 1 “Right at last, and for once," said that he shies one of the apostles! the preacher, "and that on a matter Better quit, o Christian of the nine- of no great consequence. Brethren," teenth century. You are out of place, I he added in solemn conclusion, “I and ought to be ashamed. You that only suppose such a poor, Bible-igno. sent the Bible to others, and had half rant soul in heaven; and have spoken a dozen in one shape or other about not irreverently or lightly of heavenly your house, and yet find yourself cut things, but only in keeping with the off, as by a gulf of ignorance, from extraordinary supposition. How uncommunion with choicest spirits. As fit for the companionship of heaven very a stranger as though you had would any such be! The gulf between come up from Central Africa ? .. Dives and Lazarus is hardly wider “But he stumbles on. Encounters than that between such Bible-ignoon the banks of the river a spirit rant souls and those who delighted in small in stature, but none the less God's word, and meditated on it. glorious for that: thinks he can't be In the case of infants, and heathens, mistaken, for he overheard the name. and idiots, and those who followed Makes boldly up : the best lights they had, I can con“.You must have felt awful when ceive God's goodness using means to the angel met you in the temple, and bring them up to their company; made you dumb.? , but can those who neglected the "I was a great sinner once, but appointed means of heavenly knownever dumb.' ledge expect preternatural helps to ““Am I not speaking to the father / remedy the defects of mundane indoof John the Baptist? Pardon me.' lence ? " "No; his name was Zacharias; ! Begin to read up, brethren! Get mine Zaccheus.' .. ready for the company as well as the " O, ab, yes. Zach--something. place you profess to be going to. O yes, you are the brother that Saints have communion there as well climbed the sycamore-tree.' as here.--- American paper. ..:: Page for the Young. THE CABINET OF TREASURE certainly be better than the inside. | However, I have kept it safely, and · A YOUNG man lay on a couch, that is more than my companions can looking rather vacantly round his say.” This was true. One of his room. He was very ill, and felt lan young friends, to whom a similar guid and weak. There was nothing present had been made, had been perparticular in the furniture of the suaded by some one with whom he room except à cabinet which was had met, that it was too great a richly inlaid and carved with many | treasure for him to have in his own curious devices and inscriptions. So, keeping. So he had yielded it up to after casting a careless glance about the artful stranger, and now could him, the youth, whom we will call hardly ever get a sight of it, much Ernest, fixed his eye with a little less have any of its contents. Anomore interest on the tracery of the ther had wilfully destroyed his, deemcabinet, admiring the armour that | ing it only rubbish. was carved in one part, and the foliage While he was thus praising himself and fruit in another. for keeping his property, a friend He knew little of his parentage, entered; not one of the young and believed himself an orphan. He companions spoken of, but a had a vague idea that he had some graver, wiser man, who would connection with a Judge, who indeed have been guardian, friend, and bad sent him the cabinet, and as he | father, all in one, to the sick lay, he thought, “How very odd to youth, had he permitted it. But put a parcel of law papers into such a the foolish boy did not like him, beautiful case. The outside must | and had paid him less.and less atten yours.” ply: tion, till of late he had made various flung himself on his bed; but he could excuses for not seeing him at all. not sleep. He had felt angry with the Still the benevolent man, though paper at the time, but now that he often repulsed, had great patience, thought over it at leisure, he became and when he heard that Ernest was quite sure that it was all true. I ill, resolved to make one more effort He was miserable already; ruin to do him good. So he came in gently, seemed very near, for his property and sat down by the invalid, and see was gone, and if others had only ing how his eyes were fixed on the known him as he knew himself, his cabinet, began to speak of it. “I am character would have been lost too. glad to see you still keep it,” said he. The more he thought, the more sure “Dear me, sir,” replied the youth, he was that his condition was far too “I know you think me bad enough: | bad to be mended. Sometimes he but I am not so ungrateful to the made up his mind to lock up the giver as all that. I shall never part | cabinet which had discovered to him with his present." such ill-news, and enjoy the little “And yet how strange it is that time left him, till at last, maddened: you should never look inside it, espe by his own thoughts, he sprung up, cially now you are unwell, and have intending quite to destroy it. much time on your hands. The key But something made him look again indeed was left with me, but only till at the pages he was crushing in his you should ask for it; then it is hands. A glance showed him they were not the same, or rather, that: "I think I am dull enough without another page of the same paper was making myself stupid over a lot of now before his eyes. law-papers," was the ungracious re More than once he got up and : walked about the room, or took hold "As you have never opened it, how I of some of the furniture to assure can you tell what is inside?" himself that he was not in a dream, “Oh! I have been told there are then sat down and read more earnestly rules of life and long lists of pains and than ever, till he became aware that penalties for all who break them.” his faithful friend was close to him. “Suppose you were also to find me “Look-look,” cried he, placing his dicines for curing the sick, and many finger on first one sentence and then books for your entertainment.” another. “Can it be true? Oh, noy “Is there anything in it half so I dare not hope it. After painting good ?” exclaimed Ernest, in a sur my character faithfully, even to its prised tone. blackest lines, knowing exactly how “ These are the least valuable of its bad I am, he never would own me as contents.” his child, and promise pardon if I Whether the idea of medicines which only asked it. It cannot be true.” would effect a cure, or of employing “My young friend," said the elder, the time of his illness, which was “I have seen many of these cabinets, sufficiently wearisome, with books, | and have helped many persons, as tempted him most, we cannot tell; now I am helping you, to open them, but the young man did ask for the | and I never knew anything in them key. The door was soon unlocked, which could not be relied on. Believe and the first object which presented all this, and act upon it." itself was a beautiful lamp. The “But it was true for those others, visitor trimmed and lighted it. Its | it cannot be for me.” bright, cheerful flame revealed a “Whose is this ?” number of books, drawers, cases and “Mine, undoubtedly." papers, with other things. Ernest | “And the promise is for the owner took up the first paper which came of it?" to hand, and began reading. He was “Yes, but it must be too late now; surprised to find a description of him- it was meant for me at an earlier self as a child, showing his whole | stage when I had not grown so bad." character, and full of warning, that if “Now, I beseech you, do not trifle certain dispositions were not checked, with such an offer; try it, and you he would come to ruin and misery. will find how faithfully the promise He read on till quite wearied he / will be kept." him. "But how-what am I to do? My elder brother personally, and loved Ek Father is so far off.” “You will find that question an The very men who had professed swered too;" and after a short search themselves Ernest's friends while he a note was found, giving the direction was going on his own wild way, were of an elder brother who would for now the first to oppose him, for they ward any letter written to his father. could not bear him to be better than Before the next night a humble they were. They even assailed him petition was written by Ernest, which | with violence, the wildest of them was enclosed in a note to his brother, declaring he was mad, and ought not begging that he would plead for him, to be suffered to go about. One day and the next day he wrote again, for when they had bruised him very badly, he felt now as if his life depended on he came home and went to look among the answer. the medicines for some balm to put 3 The waiting time was not long. on the wounds. While so doing he Sooner than he expected came the found a key. He tried it in several es loving father's message of pardon, and places, and at last fitted it into a lock * a letter from his elder brother, ex at the lowest part of the furniture. & plaining that he had nothing to fear, To his great surprise there showed for that his debts were paid, and that itself a complete suit of armour. I he himself had blotted out the record “ How strange,” thought he, “ that of his crimes. I did not find this at first, and it is How different he looked now ! still more strange that it should have Happy, at ease, and nearly well, for been discovered just now when I want * the medicines in the cabinet were it so much.” From this time he went curing him fast. His old friends hardly | forth boldly, knowing that none could or gave out proper medicines to the |