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FEBRUARY, 1846.

MY EARLY DAYS.

My early days, my early days!

What mild enchantment round them plays!
Of all the joys of childhood's spring,
So sweetly borne on memory's wing.

How brightly shone those sunny hours,
When life was strew'd with smiling flowers!
A cloudless sky above, serene,

As e'er at summer's eve was seen.

The morning bird that mounts the sky,
Seem'd, as he pour'd his strains on high,
A child of grief, compared with me
In prayer beside my mother's knee.

My early days, my early days,
Illumined thus with joyous rays,
Have left a soothing power behind,

To warm the heart, and cheer the mind.

The seeds of wisdom then received,
The holy truths in heart believed,
Expanding, now excite my praise,
For all the joys of early days.

Bayswater.

W. J. B.

THE BRAZEN SERPENT.

THE children of Israel had spent many years in the desolate wilderness; and instead of praying to God, and humbling themselves, confessing that they had not obeyed his commands, as they ought to have done, they began to murmur against their heavenly Father, and against Moses his servant. When they had nothing to eat, God had supplied them with food from heaven; but now they were becoming tired of this; and when they ought to have directed their supplications to Him who alone could relieve them in their distress, they indulged in the old spirit of rebellion and revenge, thus showing that their hearts were hard, and their tempers unsubdued. Was it likely that God would permit such conduct to pass unpunished? No. He commanded the fiery flying serpents, with which the wilderness abounded, to bite them. This caused the death of many of the people. Those who escaped, were now most anxious to confess their fault, and therefore begged that Moses would intercede with God on their behalf. The Lord, ever merciful and gracious, listened to the cry of the truly penitent, and Moses received an answer of peace for the rebellious, but now sorrowful, children of Israel. He was commanded to make a serpent of brass, and put it on a pole, to raise it up high, that it might be seen from afar, and then to assure the people that whoever looked upon this brazen serpent, though he were bitten by the living ones, should not die.

How very simple, yet how suitable, is the remedy

The young were

provided for the disease! not exempted from the bite of the serpent; and how could any other remedy be applied to them when perhaps their mother was suffering under the same visitation? But even the almost dying parent, while looking wistfully upon the serpent of brass, could direct her children's eye to the bright, shining object, and returning health would soon enable them to tell how efficacious that believing glance had been.

What a striking picture is this of our miserable state by sin, and the method of our recovery by Jesus Christ!

The devil and his angels represent the fiery flying serpents, who have stung the whole human race, and the deadly poison runs through every act and thought of every one born into the world. The bitten Israelite feared the death of the body, but the immortal soul is endangered by the sting of the serpent, sin; and the only remedy by which we may escape eternal destruction, is, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The serpent of Moses possessed no poison, and bore no sting: this may remind us how the blessed Saviour appeared in the likeness only of sinful flesh, being utterly unpolluted by the deadly venom, for though he was made like unto us, he was holy and undefiled.

The serpent was lifted up on a pole, and Christ was lifted up on the accursed tree. The first was raised by Moses, the figure of the law; and Christ was by the law subjected to the cross. The serpent

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