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THERE is a difference, and a wide one, between practising moral duties, and being a Christian. Christianity is a religion of motives. It substitutes an eternal motive for an earthly one: it substitutes the love of God for the love of self. There may be, and are, many persons who practise temperance and other virtues which Christianity inculcates, but who never think of doing so because they are so inculcated. It would be as absurd to ascribe a knowledge of mechanics to savages, because they employ the lever; or of the principles of astronomy to brutes, because, in walking, they preserve the centre of gravity; as it is to call such persons Christians. A Christian is one, whose motives are Christian faith and Christian hope, and who is, moreover, able to give a reason of the hope that is in him.-Archbishop Whately.

CONSIDER the wisdom and happiness which is found among a swarm of bees; a pattern to all human societies. There is perfect allegiance, perfect subordination; no time is lost in disputing or questioning; but business goes forward with cheerfulness at every opportunity, and the great object is the common interest. All are armed for defence and ready for work; so that in every member of the community, the two characters of the soldier and the labourer are united. If you look to the fruits of this wise economy, you find a store of honey for them to feed upon, when the summer is passed, and the days of labour are finished. Jones.

HOPE.

REFLECTED in the lake, I love
To see the star of evening glow,
So tranquil in the Heaven above,
So restless in the wave below.
Thus Heavenly Hope is all serene;
But earthly hope, how bright soe'er,
Still fluctuates o'er this changing scene,
As false, and fleeting, as 'tis fair.-Heber.

A LOVER of natural history cannot, I think, be a bad man, as the very study of it tends to promote a calmness and serenity of mind, favourable to the reception of grateful and holy thoughts of the great and good Parent of the universe. He cannot be a cruel man, because he will be unwilling wantonly to destroy even an insect, when he perceives how exquisitely each of them is contrived, and how curiously each of them is made for the station it is destined to fill in the animal world.-Jesse. IN Judea and other eastern countries, where flocks and herds constituted the riches, and the feeding of them the chief employment, of the principal inhabitants, practices prevailed very different from what we have been accustomed to see. Instead of a keeper following the sheep, and employing dogs on all occasions to drive them (for the use of dogs in Judea was to defend the flocks from the wild beasts of the field, and to give notice of their approach), the shepherd himself walked before the sheep, whether he led them to pasture, water, or the fold. The shepherd's going before the sheep, and leading them to pure waters and verdant pastures, is a very striking and beautiful representation of God's preventing grace and continual help.-Shepherd.

THE SEA.

WHEN We place ourselves upon the shore, and from thence behold that immense body of water, stretching away on all sides as far as the eye can reach; and when we consider how large a portion of the globe is covered in like manner, what a noble idea are we hereby enabled to form of the immensity of that Being in whose sight the ocean is no more than a drop!

When we see a mass of water rising up by a gradual ascent, till the sky seems to descend and close upon it, a thought immediately strikes us,-what is it which prevents these waters from breaking in upon and overflowing the land, as they appear in heaps so much above it? It is God's will that it should be so; and when he gives the word, the obedient waves bow themselves and retire. How grand and awful is the noise of the sea, even as the sound of the voice of the Almighty when He speaketh.

Pleasing is the variety of prospect which the sea at different times affords us; for one while, calm and unruffled, it reflects a bright and beautiful image on the light which shines upon it from above; at another, it is dark and cloudy, stormy and tempestuous, agitated from the very bottom, and its restless waters cast up mire and dirt.

To behold the ebbing and flowing of the tide is an amusement ever new. By this contrivance of Divine wisdom, the whole mass of sea water is kept in continual motion, which, together with the salt contained in it, preserves it from corrupting and poisoning the world. At one part of the day, therefore, the ocean seems to be leaving us, and going to other more favoured coasts, but at the stated period, as if it had only paused to recover itself, it returns again by gradual advances, till it arrives at its former height. There are an ebb and a flow in all human affairs, and a turn of events may render him happy who is now miserable; the vessel which is stranded may yet be borne upon the waters, may put out again to sea, and be blessed with a prosperous voyage.

Nor is the sea more wonderful in itself than it is beneficial to mankind. From its surface vapours are continually arising, drawn upwards by the heat of the sun, which by degrees, formed into clouds, drop fatness on our fields and gardens, causing even the wilderness to smile, and the valleys, covered with corn, to laugh and sing.

We are likewise indebted to the ocean for many springs, which have their origin from the great deep beneath, with which the sea communicates. These arising in vapour through the lower parts of the earth, break forth and issue in streams, many of which joined form rivers, and so go back again to the place from whence they came, but not till, by their innumerable turnings and windings, they have refreshed and enriched large tracts of country in their passage.

Barren and desolate as the sea appears to those who only look upon it, and search not into it, yet within its bosom are contained creatures exceeding in number those that walk and creep upon the land. The industry and ingenuity of man have found means to draw forth these inhabitants of the waters from their deep recesses; and

while they afford to some an agreeable variety of wholesome food, they support multitudes of others whose business is to procure them,-an employment, healthy, honest, carried on in peace and quietness, without tumult, noise, strife, and bloodshed, affording to those who are engaged in it continual opportunities of beholding "the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep."

By the invention of shipping, and the art of navigation, the sea is made, in reality, to join those nations which it appears to divide, the communication being often far more easy and expeditious by water than it would have been by land. The riches of both the Indies are wafted to our shores; we sit at home and feast upon the productions of every country under heaven, while the superfluity of our own commodities is disposed of to advantage abroad. A friendly intercourse is opened between the most distant lands; savages are humanized, and become proficients in the arts and sciences; the gospel is preached among them, and the light of truth made to shine upon those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death. A large vessel with all its conveniences, constructed in such a manner as to go upon the surface of the water, and to brave the fury of the winds and waves, is, perhaps, the masterpiece of human contrivance; and the psalmist, when contemplating the wonders of the ocean, cries out in admiration, "There go the ships!"

The sea may likewise be considered as an emblem of the world, and what passes therein. Under a smiling, deceitful surface, both conceal dangerous rocks and quicksands, on which the unskilful mariner will strike and be lost: both abound with creatures pursuing and devouring each other, the small and weak becoming a prey to the great and powerful, while in both there is a grand "destroyer, a Leviathan taking his pastime," and seeking the perdition of all. In the voyage of life, we may set out with a still sea and a fair sky, but, ere long, cares and sorrows, troubles and afflictions, overtake us. At God's word, either to punish or to prove us, the stormy wind ariseth and lifteth up the waves; we are carried sometimes up to heaven with hope, sometimes down to the deep with despair, and our soul melteth because of trouble.

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Then is it that our heavenly Father shows us what poor helpless creatures we are without him, and tribulation becomes the parent of devotion. If we cry unto the Lord in our trouble, He will deliver us out of our distress, and we shall arrive in safety at the desired baven, where all the tossings and agitations of human affairs shall cease, and where there shall be "no more sea."-Horne.

TO THE OCEAN.

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How oft, enchanted, have I stood,
Gazing on forest, field, and flood;
Or in the busy breathing vale,
With hamlet gemm'd and turret pale;
Ne'er dreaming (till another hour)
That more of beauty, more of power,
Than earth, in stream, vale, wood, or tower,
Could boast her own, existed still

In one broad scene of vision, till
That moment when I mutely bent
O'er thee, imperial Element!
I saw them, or in shade or sun,
Thy armies of dark waves roll on ;
In fierceness and in strength they bore
Their plumed heads,-till on the shore
Each thunder'd and was known no more.
But still where'er the glancing eye
Spans the wide sweep of shore and sky,
Yet other hosts are gathering near,
Yet other hills of foam appear;
And onward o'er the deep they roar,
To seek their brethren on the shore-
Like them to thunder, and be seen no more

Yet once I saw thee in a mood

So gentle, smiling, and subdued,
That scarcely might a streamlet lie
More calm beneath a summer's sky;
The winds were sleeping on thy breast,
Thy distant billows were at rest;
And every breaker, (fierce no more,)
Just sparkled, and then kissed the shore;

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