Never mind how much it may puzzle you; do your best to reply to it. If your answer be satisfactory, so much the better, and if not, it may set you on "redeeming the time." Of this be assured, that the health and strength of Samson, the riches of Tyre, Babylon, and Jerusalem, and the knowledge and wisdom of king Solomon, would be altogether worthless to you unless, through God's grace and a saving faith in his Son Jesus Christ, your heart and your hope were set on heaven.

Put the question, "How do I get on?" to yourself under these several particulars: answer it faithfully, and then you will not regret my having put it to you.

THE WRECK.

CLEAR was the sky and smooth the water, when, on a beautiful day, I walked on the cliffs opposite the sea. For some time the wind had been unfavourable for outward-bound ships, but at last it had changed, and the whole surface of the deep appeared to be adorned with masts and sails. More than two hundred ships of various kinds were at once visible, each pursuing her way through the trackless waters to a distant shore.

Freighted with men and merchandise, some of these were bound for Ireland, some for France, some for America, some for the East and West Indies, some for golden Australia, and some for China. I watched them with no common attention. "Fair breezes and God's blessing," said I, as they proceeded on their several courses. It was a sight to be remembered. Crowds from the parades, the sea-beach, and the Downs above the cliffs, were gazing on the glowing scene. Hope, with sparkling eyes,

was present, cheerfulness was abroad, and joy was keeping holiday.

Not many days had passed, when from the same place was witnessed a different scene. It was high water, and the sea was exceedingly rough. The crew of a schooner which had just discharged her cargo, did their best to get her off. All was done by them that men could do, but all was in vain, for the strain upon the vessel was so severe, that the moorings were pulled up, and the shore-tackle broken; she soon broached to, and drove on to leeward with the sea breaking furiously over her.

It was a sad sight to gaze on, when in the season of their extremity, the captain and crew were dragged by ropes through the surf to land, the wind howling, the waters roaring, and the schooner driven against the sea-wall, heavily beating and pounding the shingle with her hull.

Her keel could cleave the deep no more,
For the waves had beat and bound her;
And she lay a wreck on the shingly shore,
With the white foam raging round her.

Not long could the vessel hold together, for she was fir-built, old, and crazy. While the anxious and excited spectators that crowded the shore looked on, she split right across the

middle, her masts falling and her timbers parting asunder.

As I stood gazing alone the following day on the part of the hull that remained on the beach, my attention arrested by the bulged bows, the broken bulwarks, and the shivered timbers partly buried in the shingle, the tide washed against it with great force, sometimes nearly breaking over it, as though the raging deep would not give up its prey so long as a rib or spar remained visible.

"Be satisfied," said I, addressing the roaring ocean. "Have you not done mischief enough ?— must your voracious and insatiable maw devour the last plank of the vessel you have destroyed?" But the only reply that I obtained, was a splash in the face from the next wave that broke against the wreck.

It just suited one of my disposition to muse on the shore above the broken hull whose ribs had been crushed, and whose bowsprit was deep bedded in the sea-soil, for while I was there, children came playfully to peep at the spectacle ; well dressed visitors took a hasty survey, and departed; and aged men stood awhile with serious faces at the spot. I guessed their thoughts by my own. They could not choose but think of Him who alone can control the

Y

wind and the waves: "The sea is his, and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land," Psa. xcv. 5.

"Guide us, heavenly Pilot, guide us,

Till the storms of life shall cease;
From the raging tempest hide us;
Bring us to the port of peace."

Such as live upon the coast, and are accustomed to witness shipwrecks, regard them with less emotion than strangers experience when gazing upon them. To me the scene was full of awful interest, pressing on my mind various considerations, such as the mighty power of ocean waves; the great danger to which mariners are exposed; the sympathy we ought to feel for them; and the necessity that they, and we, and all God's intelligent creatures should ever be looking to Him, in whom alone we "live and move, and have our being."

But the wreck of a vessel may suggest to our minds, also, the wreck of a soul; for many a soul that appeared to set out, like a ship on a prosperous voyage, has been wrecked, for ever wrecked, not in a storm, but in a calm: not when darkness prevailed, and the hurricanes of the earth were raging, but when all was tranquil, and sunbeams were shining around.