refers, his eldest son,

was about

eighteen years of age, and till then remarkably healthy and athletic, but now was visited by a severe attack of typhus fever. The progress of the disease was rapid, and, in a comparatively short time, fatal symptoms were very evident. This information was in the evening communicated to Mr. G- and in the course of the night to his son. He received it with surprise, but entire composure. He inquired for his father; but, hearing he was asleep, chose not to awake him. Before day, however, the father was at the side of the sick bed, when a conversation commenced in nearly the following words :"Father," said the young man," the doctors tell me I must die; they say they can do no more for me." "I know it." Well, father, I have one, and but one, favour to ask you; will you grant it?" "I will, my son, if it is possible; ask me anything I can do, it shall be done." "Father, I want

you to kneel down by my bedside and pray for me." "I cannot, my son; I cannot." "Do, father, pray for me! You never prayed for me. Pray for me while I can yet hear." "I cannot, my son; oh! I cannot?" 'Dear father, you never taught me to pray to the Lord Jesus; and now I die. You never prayed for me. This once! Oh! do not let me die without my father's prayers.". In an agony of self-reproach, and weeping, the father rushed out of the room. The otherwise kind and indulgent parent had thus long neglected his own soul and also the soul of that beloved son, and now could not find a heart to grant his dying request for one father's prayer to the Father of mercies. Would that parents would remember that they must meet their children in the awful judgment! Would that they could be induced to ask themselves whether they can calmly determine to part with their children in death without having led them to the Throne of Mercy!

"who

BRADFORD TOWN MISSION. The following extract is from the last report of the Bradford Town Mission::The agents not unfrequently meet with persons who manifest great ignorance of the simplest truths of Christianity. "One man," says one of the missionaries, has buried a wife and four children, and is now on his death-bed, admitted that he had never heard of Christ. When referred to the sufferings of the Saviour, he said, 'Poor fellow poor fellow!'" Another individual, dangerously ill, was equally ignorant of the Friend of sinners. "When I told him," says the agent, "that Jesus was the Son of God, that he came to save sinners, and that the New Testament contained a history of him, he expressed surprise, and did not know what was meant by the Bible, although a copy was lying within a few yards of him." The missionaries still find intemperance a great obstaele to their labours amongst the people. This evil is more frequently referred to by the agents than any other. Many cases are recorded of the most heart-rending character. "In visiting to-day," says one agent, "I met with a number of careless families; in some of them the wife could not get out to a place of worship for want of proper clothing, the husband spending his earnings in a public-house; in others, the women being advocates for an occa

sional pint in company with their husbands their families were entirely neglected. In one house where I was urging the necessity of religion, a young woman replied that she could derive no benefit from going to chapel, for all the time she was there her mind was harassed with the thought of the abuse she would receive from her father on her return home: her mother confirmed the statement. In five successive houses, to-day, I found the men were in the habit of neglecting the house of prayer, four of whom are notorious drunkards." "In conversing with a wo man," says a second agent, "I inquired after the health of the family, especially the husband, knowing that he had been much addicted to drinking. She said, To tell the truth, sir, he is drunk in bed.' I am sorry to hear it, for I fear he will bring himself to a premature grave. reply, she said, with deep emotion, I don't care how soon; my life is miserable. We have been married for more than thirty years, and would be very comfortable were it not for his intemperate habits. This man is not driven to the public-house by an untidy wife or disobedient children. As soon as the latter are grown up, feeling shocked at their father's conduct, they leave the house and seek homes for themselves. This woman makes a point of attending a place of worship as often as

In

she possibly can.' "I called, by request," says a third agent, "to visit a woman in dying circumstances, but she expired a short time before I arrived. The husband was sitting in a chair in a state of intoxication, and had been drinking for several days. It is believed that his unnatural conduct brought his wife to a premature grave. She had been to a place of worship on the Sabbath previous to her death. He has often marked her by blows on the face for the purpose of preventing her attending the house of God. She was a member of a Christian Church, and is now 'where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest.'' scarcely necessary to state that the beerhouses are a fruitful source of everything that is demoralising. In at least twelve of these dens of iniquity prostitutes are constantly harboured, and in almost the whole of the others every facility for wickedness is afforded. Several of the public-houses are equally injurious.

A WARNING.

It is

C. B. was one of the most profligate characters in this neighbourhood. He read not God's Word, did not attend the sanctuary, nor feel any concern about his soul. He spent the Sabbath in idleness, profanity, and drunkenness. His throat was an open sepulchre. Often have I seen him staggering about the streets, and remonstrated with him. To the house of prayer I have invited him, but he made excuses, and would say, that "some day he hoped he should do better." On Saturday night he was at the public-house, drinking, cursing, and fighting. Sunday was, as usual, profaned by him. On Monday, when at his work, he was seized with the smallpox, went home, and in a few days died, calling for drink to the very last, but neglecting all preparation for eternity. Such was the end of this young man. The wicked are driven away in their wickedness.

May 16, 1852.

J. J.

THE RULE OF CONTRARIES.

A visitor, who should descend to the earth from any other planet, and never having heard or known anything of this globe or its inhabitants, should endeavour to form an impartial judgment of our character and conduct, by first examining the doctrines and precepts of our religion, and the maxims and principles of our jurisprudence, and then comparing the actions of the great mass of the community with both, instead of finding the best accordance between them, would be quite justified in coming to the conclusion, that everything

was regulated by "the rule of contraries;" that rewards and honours were bestowed in the inverse ratio of the utility of the lives of those on whom they were lavished, and the smallness of their contributions to the general stock of morality and happiness; and that the maxim, "Virtue is its own reward," meant that it was not entitled to any other than that which it could draw from its own reflections.

TOBACCO.

I regard this subject as a branch of the Temperance question; and though abstinence from the strong weed is by no means so important as the abstinence from strong drink, yet I think it deserves occasional notice. My attention is just now directed to it by a note of which the following is a copy:

"SIR,-Tobacco seems to be the dear creature. Medical men recommend it for the cure of indigestion. People say that they have not had so much occasion for doctors since they began to use tobacco. Painters say that when flatting they should fall from the scaffold senseless, but that by using tobacco they are enabled to maintain their position manfully. Plumbers, too, say they have the cholic if they do not use tobacco. Yet I can see that both health and morals are rapidly on the decline from its use."-An anxious Inquirer.

I reply, the best key to solve these difficulties that I ever found, is the 20th verse of the 44th chapter of Isaiah, "He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?"

Any medical man who prescribes it for indigestion must be too ignorant to comprehend a reason to the contrary; so far as he is concerned 'tis of no service to offer one; and those who think themselves better in health from its use must leave it off to learn their mistake. I have known smoking to make thousands of heads giddy, but not one steady; and as to cholic from handling lead, the proper preventive is a few drops of diluted sulphuric acid taken in a little clear water daily; a practice as innocent, wholesome, and cleanly, as tobacco-chewing or smoking is wicked, injurious and filthy.

"No longer we join, while sinners invite,

Nor envy the swine their brutish delight." That health and morals should decline and die under the influence of this stupifying drug is not to be wondered at ; inasmuch as it paralyses the brain and hardens the heart; and this mischief is of fearful extent, if we may judge from the number of sellers and the quantity consumed, the former being in the British Isles two hun

dred and two thousand; the latter being six thousand one hundred and twenty tons annually, at a cost of about three millions of pounds sterling !-H. Mudge, Surgeon.

FEARFUL FACTS.

THE TRAFFIC.-Is it not a fact that intemperance is the greatest source of crime, poverty, and misery? Then how can any man, aspiring to the honour of being a patriot, a philanthropist, or a Christian, favour the manufacture, sale, or use thereof?

A WORD TO DRAM DRINKERS.-Let a dram drinker dispense with his drains for one year, placing the cost of them in a safe place of deposit, and see if he will not be better off at the end of the year, in health, comfort, and purse. Just try the experiment one year, and if the plan works well continue it.

WORKS OF THE DEVIL-A clergyman in Tioga county, New York, in opposing the temperance movement, went from house to house, from school to school, and from church to church, in the hope of persuading the friends of temperance that they were doing the works of the devil. Poor fellow ! he had a hard time of it. Many intelligent persons concluded that if the devil had anything to do with either party, he stood Smilingly behind this blind guide, patting him cosily on the shoulder, ever and anon exclaiming, "You're the preacher for me!"

INSANITY.-Dr. Bingham, the able superintendent of the State Lunatic Asylum, believes that intemperance is frequently the indirect cause of insanity in many who are themselves temperate. We have no doubt of it, and when once the disturbing influence is set in motion by a drinking parent, not only his innocent offspring, but nis children's children, may reap the consequences in the horrors of madness. With the mere possibility of such results before him, the man who persists in drinking must be hardened indeed; and how much more so when those results are highly probable !

THE CASE WITH THOUSANDS." Well, Thomas, this is a beautiful bright Sunday morning; how is it that you are weeping instead of going to your much-loved school?" "Oh! sir, I am ashamed to tell you, because I must speak of my father's faults. He got drunk again last week, and pawned my Sunday clothes; and last night he got drunk again, and spent the money which should have fetched them out; so I have no clothes in which I can go to school." Query: are not thousands of children kept from Sabbath and dayschools in consequence of the intemperance of their parents?

A WIFE'S THANKS.-A drunkard in Ala bama was lately taken in hand by the temperance men, and reformed. Soon after, one of the brothers visited the humble though comfortable home of his family. He was welcomed by the wife with a joyful countenance. "God bless your society, she feelingly exclaimed, "it has made my husband a sober man, restored to our children the comforts of a home, and opened the road to the house of God." How many hundreds of wives can utter the same language? Let Christian opposers of the temperance movement visit one such home, and then ask if their opposition, if even their apathy, is justifiable.

A REPENTANT RUMSELLER.-The Boston Traveller relates an act of self-denial recently put into practice by a person engaged in the sale of spirituous liquors, whose experience of the nature and tendency of his occupation induced him to abandon the profitable business; and, with a promptness and decision that can scarcely be too much praised, he proceeded to one of the officers of the Total Abstinence Society, and signed the pledge, declaring that he could no longer be a witness of the poverty and wretchedness of his ruined customers. This is a simple fact that speaks volumes. Frightful must be the reality of those horrors, which, rather than continue to have a share in producing, a man would prefer to throw himself upon the world and begin life anew.

GLORY AND TAXATION. We can inform Jonathan, says Sydney Smith, what are the inevitable consequences of being too fond of glory. Taxes upon every article which enters the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot; taxes upon everything which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion;

taxes on everything on earth and the waters under the earth-on everything that comes from abroad or is grown at home; taxes on the raw material; taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man; taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the drug which restores him to health; on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which

hangs the criminal; on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice; on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribands of the bride; at bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay. The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent., into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent., flings himself back upon his chintz bed, which has paid twenty-two per cent., and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a licence of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then taxed from two to ten per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the church; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble; and he is then gathered to his fathers to be taxed no more.

THE HATEFULNESS OF WAR. Apart altogether, Chalmers remarks, from the evils of war, let us just take a direct look at it, and see whether we can find its character engraven on the aspect it bears to the cye of an attentive observer. The stoutest heart of this assembly would recoil, were he who owns it to behold the destruction of a single individual by some deed of violence. Were the man who at this moment stands before you, in the full play and energy of health, to be in another moment laid, by some deadly aim, a lifeless corpse at your feet, there is not one of you who would not prove how strong are the relentings of nature at a spectacle so hideous as death. There are some of you who would be haunted for whole days at the image of horror you had witnessed, who would feel the weight of a most oppressive sensation upon your heart, which nothing but time could wear away, who would be so pursued by it as to be unfit for business or enjoyment, who would think of it through the day, and it would spread a gloomy disquietude over your waking moments, who would dream of it at night, and it would turn that bed which you courted as a retreat from the torments of an ever-meddling memory into a scene of restlessness. But, generally, the death of violence is not instantaneous, and there is often a sad and gloomy interval between its final consummation and the infliction of the blow which

causes it. The winged messenger of destruction has not found its direct avenue to that spot where the principle of life is situated; and the soul, finding obstacles to its immediate egress, has to struggle for hours ere it can make its dreary way through the winding avenues of that tenement which has been torn open by a

brother's hand. Oh! my brethren, if there be something appalling in the suddenness of death, think not that, when gradual in its advances, you will alleviate the horrors of this sickening contemplation by viewing it in a milder form. Oh! tell me, if there be any relentings of pity in your bosom, how could you endure it, to behold the agonies of the dying man, as, goaded by pain, he grasps the cold ground in convulsive energy; or, faint with the loss of blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gathering paleness spreads itself over his countenance; or wrapping himself round in despair, he can only mark, by a few feeble quiverings, that life still lurks and lingers in his lacerated body; or, lifting up a faded eye, he casts on you a look of imploring helplessness for that succour which no sympathy can yield him? It may be painful to dwell on such a representation, but this is the way in which the cause of humanity is served. The eye of the sentimentalist turns away from its sufferings, and he passes on by the other side, lest he hear that pleading voice which is armed with a tone of remonstrance so vigorous as to disturb him. He cannot bear thus to pause, in imagination, on the distressing picture of one individual, but multiply it ten thousand times, say how much of all this distress has been heaped together on a single field, give us the arithmetic of this accumulated wretchedness, and lay it before us with all the accuracy of an official computation, and, strange to tell, not one sigh is lifted up among the crowd of eager listeners, as they stand on tiptoe, and catch every syllable of utterance which is read to them out of the registers of death. Oh! say what mystic spell is that which so blinds us to the sufferings of our brethren, which deafens to our ear the voice of bleeding humanity, when it is aggravated by the shriek of dying thousands, which makes the very magnitude of the slaughter throw a softening disguise over its cruelties and its horrors, which causes us to eye with indifference the field that is crowded with the most revolting abominations, and arrests that sigh which each individual would singly have drawn from us, by the report of the many who have fallen, and breathed their last in agony along with him?

THE DEATH OF A GAMBLER.

The course of "Riley, of Bath," is one not at all unsuited to our pages. The career of such a professor is a homily against his profession; and never had career so painted a moral as his. But we are compelled, reluctantly, to give way to those who have better claim to the attention of our readers. Let it suffice to say, that Riley lived a life of the most gorgeous

luxury and extravagance; that he was the companion of sovereigns; that he squandered money with a profusion amounting to insanity, and won it by a good fortune that seemed connected with the supernatural; nor was he freed from generous and daring sentiments. He, on one occasion, risked an entire colossal fortune on the hazard of the die against a Russian estate, the slaves on which he was desirous of restoring to freedom. He succeeded in his attempt, and accomplished his desire.

Subsequently, he ran a brief course of dazzling splendour; he lived in palaces, continued to play, became unlucky, and found fortune, wealth, and friends desert him. At length, the once possessor of millions was seen wandering through the streets of London, naked, famished, and penniless; and, finally, he who had feasted emperors, and fared sumptuously every day, died of absolute starvation, in one of the miserable alleys of our great metropolis. Such is the conclusion of a gamester!

PARENTS SHOULD BE DILIGENT.

Our children need to know themselves, their Maker, their fellow-men, and the natural world; and for all these branches of knowledge ample provision is made, which is accessible to all of us in this free and Christian country. The parent has only to perform his part aright, and no resort may be had to the complicated machinery which is so often called into edu

cation.

The Word of God must be our chief guide, as it will direct us in forming views from what we can see in ourselves, in others, and in creation. Good people must be our assistants in the task, by their example, advice, writings, and co-operation; and with such instruction as we may derive from our intercourse with society and the history of past generations, and such success as we may hope for from the blessing of God, we need not feel that we are deficient in means or deprived of encouragement. The objects of education are matters of fact, and we should beware how we bring falsehood into competition with truth before our children's eyes.

A father or mother may very cheaply cultivate literary taste in the family, as well as confer instruction and communicate pleasure, by the occasional use of the pen. If the father, for example, has any facility in writing poetry, nothing can be more welcome to his little circle at home than the reading of a few lines, ever so simple, on the birthday of the mother or one of the children, or descriptive of some pretty object or interesting event. The influence of such a practice I have witnessed with great pleasure in the family of an excellent friend. Prose may be so managed as to answer the purpose nearly as well; and the practice of keeping a little journal in travelling may be particularly recommended. Even if a few notes only are made, to be filled out in conversation at the fireside, several advantages may arise from it; one of which is, that the children

will perceive that the father's thoughts are often at home and on them while he is far distant. Such a composition may be easily converted into a family lesson for instruction. Notice may be given that at such a time in the evening the journal is to be produced; and, maps being opened, the father may proceed, and afterwards ask questions, and reply to queries in his turn, on geographical prints, or natural history, scenery, manners, &c.

A MOTHER TO A SON.

MY DEAR J.-The imagination that religion will make them unhappy, is one of the most common and one of the successful temptations which the adversary of souls employs with people, especially with the young, to induce them to delay the business of salvation until it is too late to attend to it at all. One of the first religious exercises I remember-I was not more than three years old-was a solemn consultation in my own mind whether it was best to become a Christian then or not. If I did not, I thought I was in a dangerous state. But then, if I did, why, I should never have any more comfort in this world. I must never laugh, never play, never enjoy myself; but be always solemn, dull, and gloomy. The result was, I concluded it best not to be a Christian yet. But, blessed be God! he pursued me with his grace, so that I found there could be no happiness nor comfort while God and I were enemies. He broke up the enchantment of Satan, and showed me that these dreams and plans of earthly delight were all false and fatal, and held up by the enemy of my soul to cheat me to perdition. What pleasures will religion deprive you of, my son? May you not play just as innocently, and with more satisfaction, with religion than without it? Depend upon it, that religion will not debar you from any reasonable and lawful