the professions to the contrary, it might be equally inconvenient. When retired to my room, I penned the memorandum you have heard; and in my last family exposition at Mr. D's. I dwelt especially on the verse, 'Thou requirest truth in the inward parts;' nor did I leave their house without earnest secret prayer, that by those observations, or by some other means, the Holy Spirit would convince its otherwise pleasing mistress, that deceit of every kind is sinful in the sight of God."

66

"If Mrs. D. understood your meaning, papa," observed Jane, how mean, how miserable, she must have felt."

"As unhappy, Jane, as we all feel when we know we have done wrong. Not only deceit, but sin of every kind, must sooner or later end in shame."

"Who is Mrs. D., papa?" enquired Henry.

"Mrs. D. is Mrs. D., Henry," was his father's answer. "Had you known more than that, you would not have heard the tale. Never will I visit in a house, receive its hospitalities, and then speak personally or by name to the disadvantage of its inhabitants. Now, who has another remnant? Or has mine been so unseasonably long, as to take up all the time?"

"Not unseasonably, or uninterestingly," replied Mrs. Harrowby; "but I fear we must not have another to-night."

“Well, then,there is one thought more, which the word 'remnant' has awakened; and with that I will conclude our evening's chat. Of the present year we have only a short remnant left. O let us endeavor so to use it, that if the former months have been wasted by any of us, it may yet become a year of blessing. Or if we have been in any measure enabled to improve these by-gone hours; let us still labor that its last days may be its best days. And since none of us know how soon the woven thread of life may end, be it our constant aim to have its texture increasingly firm and even, and its colors brighter; or to change the figure, let us pray for a continual influence from on high, to render our path like the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

"O may our remaining days

Manifest our Saviour's praise;
So the last, the closing scene,
Shall be tranquil and serene;
Ushering in those joys above,
Purchas'd by redeeming love!"

S. S. S.

EARLY SUBSTITUTES FOR PAPER.

It is curious to trace the varieties of substances made use of for the purpose of perpetuating events and ideas, from the tables of stone delivered by God to Moses (Exod. xxxi. 18,) to the paper of the present age.

The most ancient monuments of Chinese knowledge were engraven on hard and large stones. The hieroglyphics of the Egyptians are found on obelisks and stone pillars; and the decrees of Lycurgus were carved in stone. A very ancient Greek superscription is still to be seen, used as a seat before the porch of a Greek church near the site of Troy. The Jus Publicum of the Athenians was engraven on triangular stones.

In the gallery of the grand duke at Florence are numerous Etruscan inscriptions on burnt clay.

These materials were soon exchanged for the more convenient ones of metals, and lead then became the most ancient writing substance.

"O that my words were written in a book!

And engraved with an iron pen and lead;

That they were cut in the rock for ever!"-(Job. xix. 23.)

Pausanias says Hesiod's 'Opera et Dies' was written on leaden tables; and Pliny affirms that lead was used for writing, rolled up. Montfaucon notices a very ancient book of eight leaden leaves, the first and last formed the cover, and on the back were rings fastened by means of a small leaden rod, to keep them together. Such was the origin of bookbinding!—This book contained numerous mystic figures of the Basilidians, in words of partly Greek and partly Etruscan letters. "In a stone chest at Granada, in Spain, was found the Acts of the Council of Illiberis, held A. D. 304, written on plates of lead, in gothic characters.

Bronze was afterwards more frequently used than lead.

Trajan's ‘Tabula Alimentaria' was engraven on brass, and a helmet found at Cannæ, now in the grand duke's gallery at Florence is inscribed with Punic letters. The criminal, civil, and ceremonial laws of the Greeks were engraven on brass tables; and the ancient code of the Romans, called the Twelve Tables, was first written on tables of oak, and hung up over the Rostrum; but after it was approved by the people, it was engraven in brass,

The Romans generally etched their contracts and public records in brass, even under the reign of the emperors.

Not long since, at Mongheer, in Bengal, a copper plate was dug up, on which was etched in Sanscrit, a deed of gift of land from a rajah of Bengal to one of his subjects. The date showed it to have been made a hundred years before the Christian era, and proves that the Indians were then in a high state of cultivation.

The civil laws of Solon were placed in a machine, so conEven in the fourth century the

Many antiquaries think wood was the most ancient writing material; box wood, deal and ivory tables were certainly used, but their date is difficult to ascertain. Tables, or thin slices of wood were anciently used by the Jews.-Solomon says, (Prov. iii. 3.) "Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart." Isaiah writes, (xxx. 8.) "Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.”—And Habakkuk, (ii. 2.) “And the Lord answered me and said, write the vision and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it." written on boards, which were structed as to turn them easily. laws of the Roman emperors were published on wooden tables, whence the expression of Horace—“ Leges incidere ligno.” The Swedes had the same custom, and they still call the laws "Balkar," from "balkan," a piece of timber. The Greeks and Romans, at an early period, used either plain wooden boards, or boards covered with wax. They called the unwaxed ones schedule, and on these, it is thought the Hebrew gospel of St. Matthew was written. These tablets were also called codices, from 'caudes' the trunk of a tree. They were finely cut into thin slices, planed and polished, and consisted of several leaves; these were sometimes overlaid with wax and written upon with an instrument like a graver, called a style. When wills were written, these boards or tablets were bored and joined together by tape, as sheets of paper and parchment are now by our attorneys.

The rich Romans used tables of ivory, instead of board, and the existence of ivory books has been fully ascertained by Martial, Salmasius, and Schwartz.

The heaviness of wood and metal at length gave way to the lightness of leaves; and the palm, olive, and poplar were brought into the service of the learned. According to Pliny, the Egyptians were the first who wrote on palm leaves, and the Malabars, at the present time, write on these leaves with a fescue (or stile) and make them into books by joining them with a tape and framing them between two thin boards. Ray enumerates divers kinds of Indian and American trees, which bear leaves proper to be used as paper; particularly one called 'xagua,' which has something in it extraordinary; its leaves are so large and of so close a texture that they cover a man from top to toe, and shelter him from the rain, and other inclemencies of the weather like a cloak, and from the innermost substance of these leaves, a paper is taken, being a white and fine membrane like the skin of an egg, as large as a skin of vellum or parchment, and nothing inferior in beauty and goodness to the best of our papers.

Many of the eastern nations write on the leaves of the olen, a species of wild palm tree, the leaves of which are a yard and a half long and three inches wide. For extensive writings they are tied together; the letters, which are indelible, are written with an iron instrument. These leaves are now, by the Indians, preferred to our paper, because they are not only very strong, but will not decay in water.

The leaves were succeeded by the interior bark of trees, and from its Latin name 'liber,' came the term book. Elder, elm, and birch were used for this purpose; and a bark book being rolled up for convenience, was called 'volumen' whence our volume. There are many MSS. on bark, in Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and Latin, in the Vatican library.

To this succeeded the method of painting the letters with pencils, on linen and cloth, first steeped in sise or gum. Livy states that the annual registers of the Romans were written in this manner. Count Caylus remarks that in some boxes containing Egyptian mummies, were found characters written on linen. Linen being subject to become mouldy, the tanned skins of sheep, goats, and asses were called into use; and thus at length parchment was thought of. Other substances were used, as the skins of fishes, &c. In the library of Ptolemy Philadelphus, which is said to have contained seven hundred thousand Bb

volumes, were the works of Homer, written in golden letters on the skins of serpents and other animals. Isodorus affirms that the intestines of elephants were also used for writing.

We come at last to the invention of paper, for which Europe has most gratefully to thank Africa, though a vast part of that continent has endured such severe wrongs from Europe. The Egyptians severed strips of the rind of their celebrated reed papyrus, growing in the marshes of the Nile, and pasted them one over another; they then dried the mass in the sun, and beat it with a hammer, repeatedly. This invention soon superseded all others. Ptolemy Philadelphus, when he began to form his great library, caused all his books to be copied on this paper. It was exported to other countries, till Eumenes, king of Pergamos, emulous of the character of a patron of literature, resolved to collect a library which should surpass the famous Alexandrian, and Ptolemy, narrowing his mind in proportion as he enlarged the number of his books, to stop his rival's progress, forbade the exportation of paper out of Egypt. Eumenes persevered, and as he could not get paper, he had recourse to skins, and thus parchment became much used.

We come now to the invaluable invention of linen paper, which Robertson in the following remark, fixes in the eleventh century.—“The invention of paper, and the invention of printing, are two considerable events in literary history. It is remarkable that the former preceded the first dawning of letters and the improvement in knowledge, towards the close of the eleventh century; and the latter ushered in the light which spread over Europe at the era of the Reformation."-Humming Bird.

THIS IS NOT OUR REST.

A pagan moralist has represented the folly of an attachment to this world, almost as strongly as a christian would express it. “Thou art a passenger," says he, "and thy ship hath put into harbour for a few hours. The tide and wind serve, and the pilot calls thee to depart, but thou art amusing thyself, and gathering shells and pebbles upon the shore until thy ship sets sail without thee." So is every christian, who being upon his voyage to a happy eternity, delays and loiters, and thinks, and acts, as if he were to dwell here for ever and ever. JORTIN.