"Happy shall I be if I can suggest any considerations that will induce you to look upon your present circumstances with more cheerfulness. You have not placed yourself in them, therefore you are not responsible for anything but the due improvement of them. I know you too well but to be aware that to be debarred from active employment is one of the greatest trials to which you could be exposed; it is so very hard to find that we are not wanted-that whether we live or die we make no blank. Now, dear Charlotte, may not this apparent blank in your life, be the time of education for a wider sphere of usefulness than you have ever yet known; and when you enter upon it, may not you feel that to be a privilege which otherwise you would have undertaken in your own strength, with a high sense of your own importance, and with a strong predisposition to believe that you were actuated by a self-denying spirit which led you to forego your own tastes for quiet self-improvement, in order to promote the welfare of others? Mind, I do not say it would, but it might have been so, without this season of self-communing.

"What you say of your feelings with respect to the thanksgiving, comes closely home to my own. I recollect on one occasion being deeply impressed with what you mention, but a prayerful use of the latter part, brought the corrective and those who earnestly supplicate that "a due sense of God's mercies may be given, will find the catalogue increase with each new mercy.

"I quite understand your want of some definite pursuit, and I am sure that to an active mind like your own, it is indispensably necessary. And how many reflections does the use of that frequently employed word suggest!

'Man never is, but always to be blest.'

It seems essential to our nature that there should be a looking beyond the present, however happy; a chase after something not yet attained. Your acquirements in languages afford an illustration: your acquaintance with French and German gives you none of the gratification that, under existing circumstances, their pursuit should supply. The danger is, lest we overlook what is in our power, in the vain desire of possessing what is beyond our reach. I much fear that a close examination will lead you to

suspect that there is more of self in your present distress, than you are willing to imagine. God chooses his own agents for doing His active service; and if He appoint us our lot among those who are to suffer His will, we may be sure it is in love to ourselves, to give us opportunities of growth in those quiet graces, lowliness and humility, which are so difficult of culture. When

we feel that God can do without us, He may be pleased to honor that state of mind by giving us work for Him. And that is more likely to be profitable service which is engaged in from such a conviction, than any which might be rushed into, merely that "I" may be employed. You surely have not forgotten your favorite line?

'They also serve, who only stand and wait.'

Only be sure that you do wait.

"You have servants-you can put useful books into their hands; you can let them see that religion is not a mere form; that its influence pervades your whole existence. You have a numerous tenantry, and, though unable to visit them personally, you can make yourself acquainted with their histories, and their domestic circumstances. You can plan many a little scheme for doing good, either by providing employment for those who need it; education for those who are uninstructed; clothing for the destitute; medical attendance and nourishment for the sick, and mental food for the minds of all. Have you a school, or a village library? If not, plan one; and do what you can towards establishing it. Make yourself familiar with the claims of the different religious societies with which you are acquainted. Where you give, do it from conviction, and not because you are asked. Feel yourself identified with the cause, and use your influence to induce others to consider its claims also. One use of your needle I will suggest, which I think will not come within the proscribed limits. Why not occasionally make up a box of rewards for some missionary school? You can exercise your ingenuity in making things that are at once useful and attractive; or, if you prefer to let your gifts be in clothing, you can give it out to be made, reserving the pleasure of the planning for your own.

"As an intellectual resource, what say you to the study of Hebrew? You know my opinion of ladies' criticisms too well, for me to need to guard you against expecting to make discoveries

which have baffled the learning of scholars who have devoted a life time to its study; but the Bible is not in our land a sealed book to the laity, in the original, any more than in our own tongue. And the Hebrew language, dissimilar as it is from all modern ones, bears such traces of its having sprung in all its simple vigour and freshness from the Creator himself, that any acquaintance with it cannot but tend to enlarge the mind, and at any rate, to enable you to appreciate the labors of the learned in a way that you otherwise could not do. Words in Hebrew are not mere arbitrary signs: every substantive distinctly expresses its own meaning, and in this way many interesting trains of thought are opened up.

"I am now going to ask you to take the trouble of drawing up a key to a chronological table, by means of a system of artificial memory. I find I cannot recal dates as I used to do, and it is so essential to me to have those of the leading events of history constantly at command, that you will confer a real boon on me by saving me the trouble of preparing the apparatus. I have found many a wet holiday slip rapidly away when I have tried the occupation, and I strongly suspect you will find your task but half completed when the time comes for you to wing your flight to the south. The plan I allude to is as follows:figures are represented by letters, and the letters representing a particular date must be formed into a word, or words, which shall form part of a sentence expressing the fact you wish to remember. Thus the system is less arbitrary than you would fancy at first sight. The figures are represented as follows:

B, C. D, F. G, H. J, K, S. L. M, N. P, Q, Z. R. S, T,V. W, X. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 8. 9. 0.

As the vowels express nothing, they may be used in any combinations.

"By way of example, let me now suppose that I want to remember when Dr. Johnson, one of our greatest prose writers, died. The word PROSE" sufficiently indicates the year. As the thousand is generally taken for granted in modern dates, and as prose is formed of P, R, S.

or, 7, 8, 4,

I immediately recollect that Dr. Johnson died in 1784.

In like manner, I recollect that

"The first establishment for the instruction of the blind was formed at Paris in the same year—1784.

“Eddystone light house, a blessing to the PILOT, was built in 1759.

"Galvani, whose experiments on dead animals, made them Quiver, died in 1798.

"I must now draw my long epistle to a conclusion. Those who have not opportunities must make them. Thank God for the desire to be useful, and watch your own heart without intermission. The sentinel must be even more on the alert than those who have active duties to perform. There is a land-oh how sweet is the prospect! where His servants shall serve Him; and though we know not what the nature of that service may be, yet we know it will be sufficient to engross every power and faculty of an immortal spirit. Look forward, therefore, constantly to that inheritance-desire prayerfully that better country: regard all your engagements with reference to it; and while you live as a pilgrim and a sojourner upon earth, use the world as not abusing it.

"I shall be glad to hear again, and trust you will gain strength of body, and cheerfulness of mind.

"Ever, dear Charlotte,

"Your truly attached friend,

"MARY FAIRFAX."

L. N.

THE WORD, AND WHERE IS IT?

IN Anderson's "Annals of the English Bible," a laborious and deeply interesting work, occurs the following startling announcement:

"Notwithstanding all that had been printed and sold for more than two centuries and a half, the number of English Bibles and New Testaments separately, which has passed through the press within the perfect recollection of many now living, has exceeded the number of souls in Britain. It has been more than double the population in 1801. Suppose the printing press to have

been employed incessantly for three hundred and thirteen days in the year, and for ten hours daily; then has it been moving, on an average, at the rate of more than three copies of the Sacred Volume every minute; or five hundred and sixty-three thousand four hundred annually! But the speed for several years was slow, compared with that which followed. For some time past it has been nearly doubled; so that in the space of twelve months the press has sent forth more than a million of copies, or above nineteen thousand every week; above three thousand every day; three hundred every hour; or five every minute of working time. At this rate an entire volume has been produced in less than twelve seconds!"

These facts must naturally suggest to every thinking mind some such enquiries as the following. What are the character and uses of this wonderful book; why has it been so extensively printed and circulated; and what has become of the millions of copies thus called, as by the wand of a magician, into existence?

These are serious questions. This book, so lightly esteemed by thousands, is no other than the volume by which we are to shape our conduct here, and out of which we shall be judged hereafter,--it is the Christian's guide-book through the dark and dangerous labyrinth of the world; his chart upon the perilous voyage to eternity; his title to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and imperishable. But independently of these features it is a wonderful book. It contains a most minute and faithful history of an ancient, interesting, and influential people, interspersed with occasional notices of other nations, for a period of more than three thousand years, which had otherwise been without any record whatever; it is the oldest and most authentic history in existence, detailing with a correctness which all the researches of our most enlightened moderns have failed in the slightest degree to impugn, the manners, customs, arts, sciences, and religion of the first fathers of our race-the originals of every nation and kindred under heaven. Nay, it goes farther, and tells us how the world itself was made, and peopled with its myriads of living creatures, in language as sublime as it is simple, thus solving a problem, which, for ages baffled the shrewd and scrutinizing and painfully-laborious investigations of philosophers; not one among the loftiest minds of antiquity having been able