GOD'S PRISON GIFTS.

BY REV. E. H GILLETT.

THERE is something hateful in the very word "Prison." In our minds it is associated with the idea of guilt. We think at once of the hardened criminal and his hard lot-of cold, damp walls and grated windows; of the narrow cell and its solitary tenant-himself only more hateful and repulsive than the desolateness of his forced retreat. Let us go back two hundred years, when Quakers and Puritans-George Fox and Richard Baxter-experienced the tender mercies of an Established Church together in the same prisons, and see what hideous and dismal places those prisons were! Or, if two hundred years is too long ago, let seventy answer, and then look at the loathsome and disgraceful scenes which Howard's philanthropy explored. The more we observe, the more we learn to hate and shudder at the name; and yet, from the days of Joseph, and perhaps before that, there have been prisons; and God has often made them glorious by the displays of a grace worthy the study of angels and of men. We might be tempted to ask, in regard to them; Can any good thing come out of Nazareth! But sometimes the gloomy, cold, damp cell has presented the scene illustrious above all others on earth, by true greatness and by heavenly beneficence towards the race. There have been associated with the prison-scene of some poor captive elements of character and experience of more than romantic interest. The prisoner's cell has become a prophet's chamber; and the light that stole in through the iron bars has illumined some of the greatest problems that concern the relation of God's providence to man's probation. The poet Grahame has said:

"And many a prayer, as pure as e'er was breathed From holy fane, is sighed from prison-walls."

He spoke more for an age that has gone by; though not, perhaps, even now altogether out of date. He might have seen and read the lines on the Edinburgh Tolbooth, and had his own suggested by them:

"A prison is a house of care,

A place where none can thrive, A touchstone true to try a friend, A grave for one alive.

Sometimes a place of right,

Sometimes a place of wrong, Sometimes a place of rogues and thieves, And honest men among."

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And sometimes, we may add, that in the prison we must look to find the Church of God on earth-to discover the seven thousand who never bent the knee to Baal. Leaving alone the records of later persecutions, by which Rome has merited that her scarlet should become crimson, what a list of godly men, recorded in the Old and New Testament, have taken the prison on the way to heaven! and what great events, often full of the largest blessing, have been associated by God's providence with their imprisonment! Joseph's false and unjust restraint, Samson grinding in the prison-house, Jeremiah's dungeon, Daniel in the den of lions, the burning fiery furnace into which the three young men were cast, John's imprisonment and murder for the rebuke of a profligate tyrant, the inner prison where Paul and Silas sang praises to God at midnight, the places from which the Apostle dates many of his precious epistles, the isle of Patmos-how each of these is associated with some memorable result, some glorious fruit of suffering, for which we are called upon every day to bless God! We see a light in all that darkness. We see the hand of Providence bending the wicked designs of men to his own glory. We learn lessons there to confirm the confidence of our faith, and the wisdom of our submission. How the history of prisons is, in a large measure, a history of the Church and of the wonderful methods of God's providence, as if he would teach us that what we deem pillars of cloud and darkness shall afterwards become pillars of fire in the night of our gloom!

What a volume might be made of the sacred literature of prisons! How affecting, and yet. how instructive would be its contents! The monk of Erfurt, in his castle of the Wartburg; the noble Lord Cobham, foregoing honors and wealth that he might have still something infinitely more precious-a conscience void of offence towards God and men; the English and Scottish martyrs, like their prototype heroes of faith in ages previous, of whom the world was not worthy-men who, when their hour had come, might say with Argyle: “I could die as a Roman, but I choose rather to die as a Christian." What a literature might be gathered out of the writings of men like these! The letters of John Huss from his prison at Constance to his flock in Bohemia, read almost like the epistles of Paul where he styles himself: "I Paul, a prisoner." Who can estimate their power and worth, so soon to be enforced by the

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heroic testimony of his martyrdom! Only a few years previous, the Archbishop of Rheims had seized and confined in one of his prisons a bold preacher, John de Varennes, whose prison hours were employed in writing out a noble and fearless testimony to the faithfulness with which he had reproved sin in high places, while he dared the vengeance of powerful persecutors. Who does not feel a generous sympathy with that noble martyr-Sanders-who, when his jailor told him that he had orders to thrust him into the closest and gloomiest prison, where he should communicate with no one, replied: "And yet will I speak with One every day, and ask you no leave." There was another of those fearless witnesses of the truth whom Queen Mary's persecution promoted, who could appreciate the privilege of enduring reproach for the name of Christ. From his prison he wrote to a friend: "A prisoner for Christ! What is this for a poor worm! Such honor have not all his saints! Both the degrees which I took in the university have not set me so high as the honor of becoming a prisoner for the Lord." The words of Renwick, the last of the Scottish martyrs, speaking of his sufferings for conscience' ,sake, throw a broad beam of light on the mysteries of that providence, of which Cowper says so beautifully that it

"ripens fast,

Unfolding every hour:

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flower."

"Enemies," he says, "think themselves satisied that we are put to wander in mosses and apon mountains; but, even amid the storms of the last two nights, I cannot express what sweet times I have had, when I had no covering but the dark curtains of night. Yea, in the silent watch my mind was led out to admire the deep and inexpressible ocean of joy, wherein the whole family of heaven swim. Each star led me to wonder what He must be who is the star of Jacob, of whom all stars borrow their -shining."

Some of my readers may have met with the name of Bernard de Palissy, a native of Agen, in France; a maker of earthenware, and yet distinguished by his knowledge and his talents. He was a Calvinist, and the French king told him one day that, although he might wish to save him, he should be compelled to give him up to his enemies, unless he changed his religion. "You have often said to me, Sire," was the undaunted reply of De Palissy, "that you pitied

me; but as for me, I pity you, who have given utterance to such words as I shall be compelled.' And I say to you, in royal phrase, that neither the Guises, nor all your people, nor yourself, are able to compel a humble manufacturer of earthenware to bend his knee before statues."

It almost reconciles us to the endurance which some of these noble witnesses of Christ were called upon to manifest, that out of their furnace of trial we are permitted to gather such gold and gems. They are God's prison-gifts to the world; unspeakably costly, but well worth all they cost. They are, like the price of our redemption, the purchase of tears and agony and blood. They furnish arguments at once for gratitude and faith. While we learn a more confiding trust in that Providence which can educe good from evil, we feel that out of the prison gloom it has brought to us treasures of piety, truth, wisdom and love, that enrich us while we gaze upon them far above all the princely domain of nobles and of kings.

Some of the most sweet and beautiful things that ever fell from the lip, or were traced by the pen, have been prison thoughts. I know not how it is, that from Cowper's translation of Madame Guyon's poems, one of the most precious gems which her prison experience gave to the Church and to the world has been left out. It is a triumphant song of holy and humble faith. It speaks the power that sustained her, and teaches us in beautiful simplicity to adore the providence that can make the sorrows of some of God's saints the source of our joy.

"A little bird I am,

Shut from the fields of air, Yet in my cage I sit and sing

To Him who placed me there; Well pleased a prisoner to be, Because, my God, it pleaseth thee.

Naught have I else to do.

I sing the whole day long,
And He whom most I love to please
Doth listen to my song.

He caught and bound my wandering wing,
And still he bends to hear me sing.

Thou hast an ear to hear,

A heart to love and bless; And though my notes were e'er so rude, Thou wouldst not love the less, Because thou knowest, as they fall. That love, sweet love inspires them all.

My cage confines me round,
Abroad I cannot fly;

But, though my wing is closely bound,
My heart's at liberty.

My prison-walls cannot control The flight, the freedom of my soul.

Oh! it is good to soar

These bolts and bars above, And all His purposes adore Whose providence I love; And in his mighty will to find

The joy, the freedom of my mind."

Let us turn now to Joseph Alleine, author of that powerful treatise, "Alarm to the Unconverted." He, too, was a prisoner for conscience' Bake. Persecution attempted to silence the godly man-the noble nonconformist; but it only gave a tongue to the very stones of his prison-walls. He turned the place of his abode into a bethel. For once, it ceased to echo the oath, and resounded with praise. What a host of ordinary volumes is the short allegory worth with which he addressed his fellow-prisoners, as the hour of release drew nigh! "God," says he, "hath sent a whole troop of you here together. Let all these go hence and sound the praises of God wherever you come, and this is the way to make his praise glorious indeed. Shall I tell you a story that I have read? There was a certain king that had a pleasant grove; and that he might make it every way delightful to him, he caused some birds to be caught and to be kept up in the cages till they had learned sundry sweet and artificial tunes; and when they were perfect in their lessons, he let them abroad out of their cages into the grove, that while he was walking in this grove he might hear them singing those pleasant tunes and teaching them to other birds that were of a wilder note. Brethren, this king is God, this grove is his Church, these birds are yourselves, this cage is the prison. God hath sent you hither that you should learn the sweet and pleasant notes of his praise, and I trust that you have learned something all this while. God forbid else. Now God opens the cage and lets you forth into the grove of his Church, that you may sing forth his praises, and that others may learn of you too. Forget not, therefore, the songs of the house of your pilgrimage. Do not return to your wild notes again; keep the mercy of God for ever in a thankful remembrance, and make mention of them humbly as long as you live. Then shall you answer the end for which you were sent hither. I trust you will not forget this place." Surely, Joseph Alleine understood the value of God's prison-gifts.

We have seen how Madame Guyon and Alleine gave their thoughts an allegorical form. Is there

something in the close and confined limits of the prison that forces the mind to adopt this peculiar form of thought as most congenial? Certainly, the wonderful allegory of Bunyan, the fruit of his prison meditations-a work that we must reckon next to the Bible for its truthful simplicity and pure evangelism-might lead us to think so. No sane man would dream for a moment of setting the burden of prolonged imprisonment and endurance against such a work as that. Little did those men who imprisoned Bunyan know what a work they didhow God would make the wrath of man to praise him, and place the name of their prisoner, who told them that he would lie in prison till the moss should grow upon his eyebrows rather than comply with their unrighteous demands, next after that of inspired men-a prisoner like Paul, and like him, too, turning his prison into a temple of praise.

Let not, then, God's prison gifts be forgotten.

PRAYER.

Go, sinner, with thy burden go,

And shed contrition's humble tear; Unbosom sin, and grief, and woe,

And pray; nor faint no more, nor fear. A Saviour's smile will sweetly meet thee, Beaming with brightness from above, And angel-voices gently greet thee, Warbling the song of Jesus' love.

Go, sorrows nursing, to that fount
Which sprang from Calvary's sacred hill;
On faith's exulting pinions mount,

Till misery's preying worm is still.
The world's affliction soon will leave thee,

And blighting storms no more will lower; The world's disdain will cease to grieve thee In pure devotion's sacred hour.

Go, orphan, joyless, friendless child,

Kneel at devotion's sacred shrine: From heaven, a voice so soft, so mild,

Shall whisper, "Hope's for ever thine !" And thou, who erst wast homeless straying, No more shalt weep, no more shalt roam; A heavenly voice is sweetly saying, "Wanderer, thou hast found a home."

Go, watchful Christian, higher soar,

Nor stop on earth, nor breathe its air; Go, count thy fears and tell them o'er,

In humble, earnest, faithful prayer. A sacred task is sent from heaven; The boon it gives, 'tis joy to win; O Christian haste ! to thee 'tis given. To guard a world from woe and sin

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HOMAGE TO FOLLY.

BY TIMOTHY OLDAKER.

TEN thousand wise and good men, and ten thousand more not quite so good, have spoken eloquently to the truth that virtue should not boast itself. It is an axiom confirmed by the highest Authority of all, and one which cannot be too reverently regarded. Not one of my readers but has personally felt that good actions, self-paraded, lose half their worth and grace in the eyes of those who hear of them. Every man's experience tells him the folly of such boastings; yet is there no foible more common, not one which even humility and modesty, how sincere soever, find it more difficult to overcome and trample under foot.

But human failings run in circles, and the essential property of the circle is, that the extremes of a line, if it be prolonged to the utmost, must meet; and the propensity to boasting of virtue forms one extremity of a line which closes, at its other end, into a habit, or vice, seemingly opposite in character, but which is, on the whole, only less mischievous because it is somewhat less common.

If it be blameworthy either to affect a virtue which we do not possess, or ostentatiously to display it when it really exists, there is another weakness which, in minds of a certain cast, and especially in early life, exhibits itself in freaks which would be ludicrous were it not for the influence for permanent evil which it exercises an influence that has blighted many a promising

career.

A great modern painter of human character has described, with effective humor, the agonies of a young gentleman on the box-seat of a stagecoach, who is undergoing the process of being "seasoned" to cigar-smoking, and, whilst ready to expire of nausea, is hopelessly attempting to impress the coachman by his side that he is enjoying all the pleasures of an experienced disciple of old Raleigh. The coachman smiles, and compliments the foolish youth on his proficiency in the "art;" the sufferer smiles too, but it is a ghastly kind of smile-a melancholy mockery of joviality; and so, at length, he is "obliged to give in."

Happy for him if the trifling penalty which he has to pay for this indulgence in a petty vanity might act as a lesson, well remembered, on the folly of affecting a bad habit-on the folly of feeling shame for not having contracted a taste

which is a burden and a stumbling-block to those who have acquired it.

But in nineteen cases out of twenty this is not the case. The vanity remains when the temporary pain is forgotten; and after going through a certain process of self-punishment, the novice becomes a practitioner, and in years to come would give much to get rid of the vicious taste which it cost him so much trouble to contract. But that is not so easily done. The world is full of Frankensteins. There are few of us who have not, at one time or another, created for ourselves plagues which accompany us to the shadow of the tomb.

Do they there always leave us?

This question is indeed a solemn one; it is one to which parents and ministers, and all to whom the training of the young is a peculiar duty, should address their earnest consideration. If there be causes which, more powerfully than others, tend to seduce young men into habits leading to the destruction of soul and bodydrinking, gambling, unthrift, libertinism-my conviction is that this miserable vanity of being "up" to every thing is amongst them.

Bacchus Vinely is a wretched sot, a filthy, bloated drunkard; one day ragged, next day clad in the equivocal garb of cast-off gentility; and he may at any hour be seen lurking in the bar or in the tap-room of the "Muddler's Arms.” Bacchus is now some forty-five years old, and has a purple, pimply face, and a nose which appears compounded from the essence of several stale raspberries; and he smokes always, and drinks whenever he can, and sometimes fasts against his will, and begs from all whom he knows, and from some whom he does not know-even though it be but a penny, "for another halfpint;" and a sight of him "afar off" prompts the precipitate flight of any who have the misfortune of having known him in former days, when, as he himself says, with maudlin pathos, “he was something." Meantime, he is approaching the certain goal of thousands like him-the workhouse for a season, and then the pauper's grave. Everywhere he is shunned, every where an intruder; even in the den where he spends his pence, and where he is the butt, the slave, the unthanked lacquey of tinkers and coalporters.

It was not always so. Some twenty-five years since it may be approaching thirty-no young man in London was better thought of by friends, connections, acquaintances, far and near, than Bacchus. Why? He was a sober young man, and was supposed to be a discreet one; and (for

tunately for him, as all thought) he had a constitutional dislike to drink. Fortunate, indeed, if he had cherished that dislike as a priceless endowment.

But no. There was sometimes a laugh at his "excessive" sobriety-at his "extreme," his "Quaker-like" regularity of in-coming and outgoing. And Bacchus would not "stand" this. In faith, were he disposed, he could take his bottle with any of them! He could be a good fellow--a gay fellow-a bold companion; and his head was as strong as that of Sam Swilsby, who imagined that he could see every jovial comrade under the table. Bacchus would go amongst them for a while; he would let them see what he could do, that he was no milk-sop, that he loved the rosy god as well as they did; and, having proved himself a man, he would leave them when he chose. But he would go a little farther than they went. All their acquaint

ances should know that he was a roving, raking blade, of strong heart and hardy nerve-a lad for this world, who could take his fling, play out his game, and then make his way in it.

With unutterable loathing he commenced his first debauch, and, to his profound amazement, got tipsy before his companions. But, pooh! it was an accident-something wrong with the stomach. Next time they should see! And next time they should see, too, that it was not their weakly potations, but something stronger and stiffer, that befitted a youth with his "headpiece." And the second attempt was little more successful than the first. But, with the obstinacy which forms a portion of the morbid vanity that consumed him, he would persist in the infatuation. He would compel people to think that his tastes were more vicious than they really were!

And in time he succeeded. I need not go through the several stages of his debasement. I have exhibited him at the opening, and at what is probably the closing scene of his deplorable career. Health, character, friends, money, all hope here and hereafter, sacrificed!-not to an original predilection for dissipation, but to the fatal weakness which led him to imagine that it would be a fine thing if people could be persuaded that he was afflicted with that predilection! It was not very long ere it did visit him, ere healthful antipathy was displaced by deserved craving. And then, when he would fly it, it pursued him.

His case presents only one phasis of the effects of the mental perversity to which I am alluding. A great number of young fellows of ordinary parts, and troubled with no particular love for

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debauchery of any kind, are led by vanity and self-conceit to take it into their unhappy heads that they can astonish the public, or the immediate circle of their friends, that they can get credit for mental and physical powers of an extraordinary and superlative kind, by doing their business as well as others, and at the same time pursuing courses quite inconsistent with business. "A wonderful fellow, this Sparrow brain! Why, he drinks deep and plays deep, and fights and roars, and 'never comes home till morning,' and still contrives, somehow, to do all that he has to do, as well as any of our stay-at-homes! How he manages is surprising. There must be some unusual gift in that young fellow. If he would but be steady, now, what a man he might become!" Such is the reputation which these foolish youths aim at. They pursue it as the deluded wayfarer pursues the ignis fatuus; and, wretched as is their ambition, they never obtain it. Those whom they try to imitate see that, like many who have gone before them, they are hurrying to their ruin. It is a fatal experiment, this playing with edged tools.

But it is not alone persons of merely average ingenuity who become the slaves of this infatuation. I have known young men, really clever, and even talented, who have fallen victims to it. In literature, in law, in medicine, in commerce, fine spirits have been immolated to this disastrous vision. There are traditions of great men, in this century and the last, who united to reckless private habits a capacity for acquiring lasting distinction; and it is grievously to be lamented that some of our popular writers have exercised their ingenuity in describing in exaggerated colors the excesses, the endeavors, and the abilities of erratic genius. In fact, riot has been painted in such cheerful colors that unthinking youth is too apt to mistake it for an accessory to, instead of a drawback from, the natural gifts of those whom, in all cases, it has brought to ends more or less unhappy. To this bad feature in our current literature must be attributed a portion of the mischief and misery against which I would raise a warning voice. Where the natural disposition contains any seeds of the weakness, they are stimulated into pestilent development by such delusive narratives.

I must here observe, that though young men of ability have sometimes been ensnared to their destruction by this vanity, the number of boobies, dunces, and blockheads, of unconscionable density of cranium, who think to hide their stupidity and incompetency under the mantle of dissipa