as if they really belonged to the holy office. These are the men who pass their lives in asking questions. They have a penetrating aspect, and their countenances acquire a peering, sharp expression, as if they were in the habit of peeping through keyholes into closets and drawers. They have a ravenous curiosity about trifles-and itch to be acquainted with minute details and insignificant particulars. They are indifferent as to the mental qualities of a distinguished man; but they are anxious to know how tall he is; whether he is handsome or not; whether he chews tobacco or not; how many children he has, &c. They are scrupulous in exacting geographical, chronological, and historical illustrations. They cannot enjoy an anecdote without knowing its exact date, the place where it happened, and what became of the parties after all was over. They have not the power to enjoy a good thing without any ifs or buts; they cannot open their mouths and shut their eyes with the unsuspecting good faith of childhood; they cannot relish the kernel, without knowing on what tree the nut grew. These are the bloodsuckers of society; they fasten themselves to you, but unfortunately there is no such thing as gorging them-they generally have short memories, and have consequently a never-failing resource in asking the same questions over and over again. To have the full enjoyment of one of them, it is necessary to travel with him in a stage coach. There you have no retreat, and your enemy has no mercy. You have an incessant battery opened upon you. 'Do you know who lives in that house?' 'How far is it to the next tavern?' 'Who do you think will be our next president?' 'How do cattle sell down your way?' 'Who writes Major Downing's Letters?' 'Is business pretty brisk your way?' 'Is there much doing in the shoe line?' &c. &c. It is like a continual dropping of water, and will wear away the patience of Job, or a hen-pecked husband. The wretch will take no hints—you may growl at him like a bear— you may breathe hard as if you were asleep-it all avails nothing, your doom is sealed, and you may as well make up your mind to submit to it, without a struggle, and with christian resignation.

5. The Gossiper.-The last class of social sinners I shall mention is the most numerous one. These are the gossipers, whose whole talk is about persons; tattlers, meddling busy-bodies, anxious to

know what their neighbours have for dinner, and how much they paid for it. They pass their lives in watching and speculating upon the conduct of others. They are perpetually wondering why Squire B. painted his house green-what Mrs. A. gave for her new leghorn bonnet-whether Miss C. refused Mr. D.-whether the widow E. means to marry Mr. F., a man ten years younger than she is, &c. In all subjects pertaining to love and marriage they take a peculiar interest. If a young man is seen walking twice with the same young woman, especially if he offer her his arm-whew, what a consternation is produced! What shaking of heads, what uplifting of the eyes and hands, what hints, surmises, and inuendos. There is no more peace for either of the aforesaid young persons. They must "run into the danger to avoid the apprehension,” and become actually engaged to escape the groundless imputation of being so. Two or three of these bustling busy-bodies are enough to keep a whole village in hot water, and to draw as effectual line of separation between the young people of different sexes, as if they lived in different hemispheres.

I have a perfect antipathy to these persons. They are frequently as venomous as vipers, and thrive only on the carcasses of slain reputations. At any rate, the habit of constant personal talk indicates an incurable emptiness of mind, and I know of no infliction more intolerable than that of a mind which is at once restless and vapid, which deluges you with "one weak, washy, everlasting flood" of gossip, scandal, petty details, and stale anecdotes. Better to live under the leaden, poppy-wreathed sceptre of Lethean dulness. Wordsworth has written four fine sonnets on "personal talk,” which I recommend to everybody to read-if, for nothing else, as a proof how sensibly a great genius can write. R.

THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT.

We could not easily over-rate the extent or importance of that moral and intellectual advancement which, in the course of the last thirty or forty years, has resulted directly from the diffusion of the missionary spirit in England. It has carried with it, and has conveyed to many thousands of the middle orders, a large amount and variety of general knowledge,

geographical, historical, statistical; it has vastly expanded the modes of thinking usual with these orders; it has ennobled their sentiments; it has habituated them to generous, and, in a true sense, to liberal courses of behaviour; it has thrown into discredit many frivolous or sensual employments, or amusements; it has trained thousands of young persons in the inestimably important habit of caring, in a sensitive and active manner, for the welfare of others; and has much diverted from the channel of sordid selfishness, the ordinary current of thought. If we will hear and believe it, the missionary temper, diffused as it is on all sides, although attaching but to a portion of the people, has at length educated a class of citizens which, from its breadth of feeling, its fair intelligence, its familiarity with the course of events throughout the world, and its high feeling of whatever is just, humane, and christianlike, may prove itself, in future perils of the state, the principal stay of a wise and religious government.

The influence of the missionary work, in sustaining and extending some religious communities which, years ago, were threatened with extinction, is not one of the least remarkable of its effects; and if, at an early period of these evangelizing institutions, the several evangelic bodies had so seen their corporate interests, as to have amalgamated on this ground—to have dismissed their differences as frivolous-to have consolidated their resources-to have distributed the work before them on some consistent principle of the division of labour; and in a word to have chalked their path of benevolent universal conquest, from east to west, from north to south—if these things had happened, statesmen might have seen, with amazement, the government of the world in some measure taken out of their hands, by a moral power of continually increasing energy.

No such concentration or condensation of the evangelic zeal has had place. But it is not certain that it may not in future. Whether it does or not, it is unquestionably that this benevolent care for the world, now exercised almost exclusively by the middle classes-this effective and morally real colonial administration, cannot but confer a force, real also, upon those in whose hands it rests: and therefore it does not leave the social balance between them and the upper classes altogether unaffected.

Whatever inference these considerations might suggest, it is

abundantly certain that there can be but one mode in which an influence so wide and important can be shared by those who might think a good portion of it their due. The power we are speaking of is a moral and religious power; and if we except some very transient participation of it, it can be wielded only in the mode of a sincere, ingenuous, and religious sympathy with the great purposes that are the objects of it.

No factitious zeal, no politic compliances, no stooping to conquer, could avail for the purpose intended, or beyond the term of a few months. The evangelic work, inseparable as it is from christianity when not curbed by despotism, would quickly fail, and reach its end, unless carried forward by a genuine religious impulse.

There is then a vast movement going on near to us:-it embraces the earth :-it throws back upon its originators a proportionate moral power, a power not very remote, in some of its bearings, from political power; and yet it is such as can be exercised by none but those whose religious convictions are sincere and vigorous-by none but christian men! The glare and glitter of life may conceal these realities from our view; but the more they are considered, and the better they are understood, the more will they seem to deserve the serious regard of those who would not choose to be ignorant of what may even suddenly come to press itself upon their attention.-Taylor.

CHARACTER FORMED BY CIRCUMSTANCES. Look at LUTHER! Was it in cloistered ease and quietness of life, with the church and the world all his friends, and everything gliding smoothly on, that Luther became the man he was, and accomplished all he did for the world? "No, in no wise." Luther was a man whom his Master trained for the work appointed him, amidst the convulsions of the Church of Rome, the rockings of moral earthquakes, and under the thunder of the anathemas of the Pope, with friends and priests, and diets, and councils, and cardinals to dispute with him, and denounce and curse him, and under the summonses and arraignments, and examinations and threatenings, which required the courage of a soldier, and the spirit of a martyr united.

Look at BAXTER! who went down to his grave in old age, beautiful in unwonted sanctity of character, and whose voice, in his books, is now outpreaching scores of us common ministers, and his posthumous usefulness surpassing that of many a man employing his living powers in all their efficiency. How became he the man he was? By the help of a body which lived in pain, and of spiritual trials extreme, and of enemies in the professed household of the faithful, uncounted; by the indignities, and overbearing, and haughtiness, and persecuting trials of judges; and by the gainsaying and attacks of controversialists, who kept him continually on the alert, with his pen, for the defence of the faith, while he was also devoted to preaching it. How was the character of BUNYAN formed? God, in his wise Providence, permitted, that as this man "walked through the wilderness of this world, he lighted on a certain place where was a den, in which he lay, and slept, and dreamed;" and where his soul conceived the rich and various instructions of his beautiful allegories. And although the sufferings of Bunyan, as a "prisoner of Jesus Christ," were grievous, yet many have had occasion, and many more will, we trust, have it while the world stands, to bless God that Bunyan was shut up in Bedford prison, to do work for Christ and the souls of men, which we know not that he would have done anywhere else. And, more than this, if ever a man advanced in holiness and grace under the very showers of "the fiery darts of the wicked,” amidst the temptations of the devil, and the roaring of that lion, who "walketh about seeking whom he may devour," and of whom it might be said, "the more he was afflicted the more he grew,” and increased in strength for the confounding of the wicked, -then such a man was Bunyan.

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The truth illustrated in the case of these and many other men we might mention is this, that when God will prepare men for peculiar usefulness, and make them eminently holy, he deals by them as by that "third part" of his people, of whom speaks the prophet Zechariah-he “brings them through the fire,” refines them as silver is refined," "tries them as gold is tried," carries them through a process of melting, which separates the dross and the alloy, moulds them into his own likeness, and adapted to reflect his image to the eyes of men.—

Rev. E. W. Hooker.