"Anger refteth in the bofom of fools."-ECCL. vii. 9. from anger, and forfake wrath."-Ps. xxxvii. 6.

"Ceafe

Upon the margin of the filvery flood,
Come, fee the Lion in his wrathful mood.
His roar terrific echoing rocks rebound,
And nature trembles at the dreadful found
1;
His furious tail he works from fide to fide,
His briftly mane he shakes with awful pride;
His eyes, wild rolling, glare with ftartling light,
With paw upraised, he ftands prepared for fight.
And wherefore ftands he thus with warlike look ?
He fees his image in the quiet brook.

Man, born to reafon, like the foolish beaft,
Lets rage hot boiling fefter in his breast
The caufe as futile: he himself poffeff'd
Of evil tempers, colours all the reft.

Look! here is the Lion, the king of beafts. See where he stands, maddened with rage. The

favage monarch is alone; the beafts of the field hide themselves when he is angry; his dreadful roar makes them tremble in their dens; the echoing hills reply to the found thereof. Now he becomes hot with paffion. He lashes with his furious tail his heaving fides; he shakes thunder from his fhaggy mane; his eyes dart lightning. See, he has raised his murderous paw; he is ready to grapple with his foe. Terrible he looks in the season of his wrath.

But what has enkindled his rage? What is the cause of this fierce commotion? Nothing but his own fhadow. He fees his reflected image in the placid stream. Face answers to face; every indication of paffion is faithfully reflected. He beholds no common foe. He prepares himself for mortal combat.

The above engraving is an emblem of Anger, and of the worthless causes that oftentimes give rife to it. Anger is one of the most fierce and deadly paffions that agitate the human breaft and afflict mankind. Let anger afcend the throne of the human mind, and all other paffions, affections, and interefts are trampled under foot. A brother lies swimming in his blood; a village is depopulated with the edge of the fword; cities burn amid the conflagration of fire; and kingdoms, given over to the horrors of wrath, become defolate, pass into oblivion, and are known no more. But who can declare the miferies that flow from anger?

Anger, as a finful paffion, is never justifiable;

but it oftentimes exists without any real cause whatever. Like the lion in the picture, the man is angry at the reflection of himself; it is his own image that he fees. He imagines, and this is all; his own evil temper colours all befides. The object of his wrath is innocent, perhaps as quiet as an unruffled lake.

Be fure, before you give way to anger, that your neighbour has injured you, and then-forgive him. But even if an apparent caufe does exift, fuppofe fome one has injured me. Is not this enough? He that finneth wrongeth his own foul; shall I therefore fin and wrong mine? To have an enemy is bad; to be one is worse. And why should I inflict felf-punishment for the crime of another?

There is a degree of madness connected with anger. The angry man is brutifhly infane. This is fo wherever it is feen; whether we regard it in the conduct of Xerxes, who flogged the waves, and caft fetters into the sea to bind it, because it broke his bridge of boats,—or in its daily outbreaks around us.

But is there no cure for this contagious evil? There is. What is it? When Athenodorus was about to retire from the court of Auguftus Cæfar, he gave the emperor this advice: Remember, whenever you feel angry, that you neither fay nor do anything until you have repeated all the letters of the alphabet." This is good: but the following is better: When a man feels himself finking into the gulf of angry paffion, looking by

faith on the Lord Jefus Chrift, let him exclaim : "Lord, fave or I perifh!" The rifing storm will pass away, and all will be calm and peaceful. "The wife will let their anger cool, At least before 'tis night; But in the bofom of a fool, It burns till morning light.”

"The facrifices of God are a broken fpirit."-Ps. li. 17. "He that covereth his fins fhall not profper; but whofo confeffeth and forfaketh them fhall find mercy."-PROV. xxviii. 13.

REPENTANCE.

On bended knees, replete with godly grief,
See, where the mourner kneels to feek relief;
No" God, I thank thee," freezes on his tongue,
For works of merit that to him belong;
Deep in his foul conviction's ploughfhare rings,
And to the furface his corruption brings;
He loathes himself, in loweft duft he lies,
And all abafed, "Unclean, unclean," he cries.
From his full heart pours forth the gushing plea,
"God of the loft, be merciful to me !"
The light of life defcends in heavenly rays,
And angels fhout, and fing, "Behold, he prays."

BEHOLD here an individual on his knees, weeping. He is in great diftrefs of mind; he