preparation is heard in the esquire's hall, and the country coaches are filled with the wives and daughters of the more humble, or less opulent burgher. When arrived in town, if the age of masters and lectures has passed away, the younger branches of the respective families are generally left much to themselves. If a taste for spiritual things has taken possession of the mind, those pleasures are entered into which are connected with such a desire. Religious meetings, committees for benevolent institutions, prayer meetings, sales of charitable needle-work, and scriptural expositions fill up the week; while Sunday schools, divine service, and pulpit lectures, occupy the day of rest. A variety of doctrines are heard from the pulpit, eloquent declamations are listened to from the platform, the mind is crowded with religious ideas, the body fatigued with religious labours, and the whole person kept in a constant state of religious excitement; so that if there be amidst these multifarious occupations, one last, one leisure hour, reserved at the close of day for spiritual exercise and close communion with God, the wearied body is unfitted for the first, and the exhausted spirit unqualified for the second; the victim of dissipation (falsely called religious,) eagerly seeks the repose of the night to refresh her frame for the renewed labours of the morrow. And now, perhaps, having stated the evil, I may be called upon for the antidote. 'Do you then disapprove of journies to London,' says one of my young readers? Certainly not; I look upon a journey to London as the reward of a year spent in active and useful employment in the country; and as such, it is a scheme of which I highly approve,

and wish all my readers to enjoy it as much as I do myself. 'Is it then,' rejoins the enquirer, to religious meetings and a variety of preachers that you object?' Not in the least. It is well that our benevolent feelings should be excited by the woes of others, and that we should be made acquainted with distress, which may lead us to greater activity in the relief of it. But let my enquirer remember with Solomon, "that there is a time for every thing," and let her also reflect, that the general character of a Christian female, as delineated by St. Paul, is " a keeper at home." Let other employments be pursued in their proper place, and at their proper seasons, but let it be remembered that they are not all, nor yet the most important parts of religion. True it is that preaching is an ordinance of divine appointment, but without meditation, without searching the scriptures, without earnest prayer, it is of no avail. The head may be enlightened on some points of doctrine, but the heart, and consequently the conduct, will remain unimproved. If the duties of the closet do not accompany and direct those of active life, the new man will never grow. The orator may be a Christian, but he cannot be spiritual; the mustard seed of grace may be hid under the mass of rubbish collected above it, but it is quite impossible that it can become a tree till this rubbish be removed. All I would suggest is, that a check be put upon the more exciting parts of a religious life, and its secret exercises more fostered and cherished. Spirituality is a tender plant; it is, as Leighton beautifully observes, placed in a strange and unkindly soil, and the glare and collision of the world, drive it completely in the shade; and if any thing could prove the truth of this

position, it might be constantly brought home by contrasting the appearance and conversation of two young females-the one returned fatigued and exhausted from a crowded meeting, the other refreshed and comforted from the calm atmosphere of communion with her God. I leave my reader to judge, whether the conversation of the latter would be likely to be censorious, trifling, or severe. But there is a second feature of the present day, which has equally, if not more universally brought about the change in our manners, to which I allude. And this is the immense increase of religious publications. Our forefathers pondered over the copious pages of Hopkins and of Barrow, or mused upon the folios of Taylor; but they were not in danger of forgetting, amidst the solidity of the former, or the brillant imagery of the latter, that the book of life was the only real standard of truth, the only volume by which their actions were to be judged. But in our day how great the contrast. Not only have folios been compressed into duodecimos, but the weight of sentences has been dilated into volumes. Fiction has brought in her aid to paint with her gay colouring the most solid truths; and Biography has hastened to unlock to every eye the secrets of the heart. The press teems with publications of all sorts, but perhaps with the greatest number of religious works, since, after all that can be said, religion must always be the most interesting subject, the one most opposed by the carnal mind, and consequently most defended by the sincere Christian. Ours is an age, also, of the wildest theories, and most extravagant speculations. Truths which our forefathers accepted on the simple testimony of the word of God, are now canvassed on every side,

and arguments against them, and in their favour, are sent into the world by Babes in grace, as well as by Fathers in God. This vast variety of religious reading necessarily tends to distract the mind of the young Christian, to lead him to adopt the views of the most popular authors, and to consider all those unsound, or at least very dark in their views, who differ from the (probably) crude and undigested ideas which he has collected from the great mass before him. Now the remedy which I would propose for this evil would be, to read rather less, and meditate rather more. I would not say, limit your reading entirely to the scriptures, far from it: but I would say, act with your religion as your reason dictates with respect to other studies; go to the fountain head; and if the ideas which you collect from other sources be not agreeable to those expressed in the Word of Life, reject them immediately. You will never be judged by any other standard of truth, and therefore it will be vain to assert, in the last great day, that you received or rejected an opinion upon the authority of any writer, while you had the law and the testimony to appeal to. My dear young friends, take your religious books before your God in prayer, sanctify them in this way, and then, with the word of God in your hand, and his Spirit in your hearts, you will not be permitted to fall into error; while at the same time, seeing the vast variety of opinions which prevail among the children of light, you will be very cautious in laying down the standard of sound or unsound doctrine, on any point in which you have not a "Thus saith the Lord" to direct your judgment.

C.

The Album.

ALTHOUGH he (Christ) be already gone up into heaven, nevertheless, by his nature of Godhead, and by his Spirit, he shall always be present in his church, even to the end of the world. Yet this proveth not that he is present among us in his body. For his Godhead hath one property, his manhood another. His manhood was created, his Godhead uncreated. His manhood is in some one place of heaven; his Godhead is in such sort each-where, that it filleth both heaven and earth. But to make this point plainer, by a similitude, or comparing of like to like. There is nothing that doth trulier, like a shadow, express Christ, than the sun; for it is an image of the light and brightness of Christ. The sun doth always keep the heaven, yet do we say that it is present also in the world; for, without light, there is nothing present, that is to say, nothing to be seen of any man; for the sun with his light fulfilleth all things. So, Christ is lifted up above all heavens, that he may be present with all, and fully furnish all things, as St. Paul doth say. But as touching the bodily presence of Christ here in earth (if it be lawful to place in comparison great things with small), Christ's body is present to our faith; as the sun, when it is seen, is present to the eye; the body whereof, although it do not bodily touch the eye, nor be presently with it to