supply: "My soul said, he shall be satisfied when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches." Yes, an habitual fondness for secret communion with God is the finest stamp of character. "Thy Father which seeth in

secret shall reward thee openly."

P. S.

THIS CHEQUERED SCENE.

There is a most striking analogy between nature, providence, and grace, which plainly shows that the same God reigns over all. We would now glance for a moment at one illustration of the truth of this statement, in the apparent mixture of good and evil which pervades the three kingdoms. Wherever we turn our eye in this world, we behold a chequered scene. Unmixed good or evil we never see. There is war and peace, order and disorder, in the natural, providential, and spiritual world. Throughout the whole of the divine economy these contrarieties are set one against the other. There is also obscurity everywhere; there is light, but it is surrounded by darkness. It is the will of God that these facts should exist. Important ends in his moral government are answered thereby. Blessed be his name, there is enough, more than enough of good wherever we look around, to manifest his character. But there is enough of natural and moral evil to bring out and to form the character of men. There is enough of good to furnish glorious evidence of the benevolence of God; enough of evil to give an opportunity for the development of a heart of unbelief: enough of order and justice to show that God is just; enough of disorder and injustice to give scope to the doubts of all whose hearts are perverse.

We have recently seen, in the expressions gathered from three celebrated men, a remarkable exemplification of this truth. The infidel Voltaire, looking only on the dark side of the picture, uses the following language of complaint. "Who can without horror consider the whole world as the empire of destruction! It abounds with wonders; it abounds also with victims. It is a vast field of carnage and contagion. Every species is without pity pursued and torn to pieces through the earth and air and water. In man there is more wretchedness than in all

the other animals put together. He loves life, and yet he knows that he must die. If he enjoys a transient good, he suffers various evils, and is at last devoured by worms. This knowledge is his fatal prerogative—all other animals have it not. He spends the transient moments of his existence in diffusing the miseries he suffers, in cutting the throats of his fellow-creatures for pay, in cheating and being cheated, in robbing and being robbed, in serving that he might command, and in repenting of all he does. The bulk of mankind are a crowd of wretches equally criminal and unfortunate, and the globe contains rather carcases than men. I tremble on the review of this dreadful picture to find that it contains a complaint against providence itself, and I wish I had never been born."

The benevolent Paley looks chiefly at the bright side of the picture, and says: "It is a happy world, after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring morn or a summer's eve, on which ever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy and the exultation which they feel in their newly discovered faculties. If we look to what the waters produce, shoals of the fry of fish, frequent the margins of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy that they know not what to do with themselves. A child is delighted with speaking without knowing anything to say, and with walking without knowing where to go. The young are happy in enjoying pleasure, the old are happy when free from pain."

The eminently pious Halyburton, in the midst of affliction, and in the full view of death, looks on the same side and exclaims: "Oh! blessed be God that ever I was born. I have a father and mother and ten brothers and sisters in heaven, and I shall be the eleventh. Oh, there is a telling in this providence, and I shall be telling it for ever. If there be such a glory in his conduct towards me now, what will it be to see the Lamb in the midst of the throne! Blessed be God, that ever I was born."

LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.

God alone is the Lord of conscience and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are in any wise contrary to his word, or beside it in matters of faith or worship. So that to believe such doctrines or to obey such commandments out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience, and the requiring of an implicit faith and an absolute and blind obedience is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also.— Presbyterian Confession.

THE POWER OF KNOWLEDGE.

There is no power on earth, which setteth up a throne, or chair of state, in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning. And therefore we see the detestable and extreme pleasure that arch-heretics, false prophets, and impostors are transported with, when they once find in themselves that they have a superiority in the faith and consciences of men; so great, as, if they have once tasted it, it is seldom seen that any torture or persecution can make them abandon it. But as this is that which the author of the Revelation calleth the depth, or profoundness of Satan; so, by argument of contraries, the just and lawful sovereignty over men's understanding, by force of truth rightly interpreted, is that which approacheth nearest to the similitude of the divine rule.-Lord Bacon.

RIGHT VIEW OF LIFE.

I would love all that earth containeth fair,
I would remember that its fairest fades;
I would extol what will extolling bear,
Sing of life's sunshines, sing too of its shades.
I would not to this world be blind, deaf, dumb;
But sing, extol, love most the world to come.

MISS JEWSBURY.

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SONGS FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.-No. 3.

Those saints in light! Those saints in light!
What joy to them is given,

Their robes are pure, their crowns are bright,

Their peaceful home is heaven,

Their robes are cleansed from every stain

In bleeding, dying love;

On earth they served, so now they reign,

As kings and priests above.

3.

Thou heavenly friend! Thou heavenly friend!

O hear us when we pray,

Now let thy pardoning grace descend,

And take our sins away;

Be all our fresh, our youthful days,

To thy blest service given,

Then we shall meet to sing thy praise,
A ransomed band in heaven.

Tavistock.

E. R.

MILLENARIANISM.

[Paper the Second.]

The false light which has led our Millenarian brethren, by strange infatuation, into all their mournful errors, is that which they call literal interpretation. "Read prophecy," say they, "as you would read history."

Our readers will at once perceive that if every form of expression were banished from language but that which is purely literal, its beauty and its grandeur would be gone. It would not retain one half of its present power to elevate the mind, or to affect the heart; and there is no book that abounds so much as the Bible does in the richest imagery, and in figurative language of the boldest sort. Our Saviour himself used such language-not to conceal, but to adorn and to point his meaning. He even expresses surprise that his disciples should have given a literal interpretation to an expression of his own—an expression which was only employed to give the greater force to his instructions, by conveying a beautiful allusion to a process with which they were familiar. "How is it," says he, "that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees ?" "Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees." In a similar manner in the vision at Patmos, he explains prophetic language:-"The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, are the angels (or ministers) of the seven churches; and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches." There is no literal interpretation here.

The Jews adopted "the literal key," and, because their prophets represented the Messiah under the name of king, they expected him to assume the purple and to destroy their oppressors. They put no spiritual meaning to the language. They did not think that the scene of his government was the mind of man, and that his conquering weapons were truths and prayers. The prince of life did proclaim himself their king; but when they saw that he assembled no armies to expel the Romans from the land of their fathers, and invested them with no

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