To lay our faults upon others and to take the merit of others to ourselves, is the nature of self-love; and these properties are its leading features. When Adam was

accused of guilt he laid the blame on Eve, and she on the serpent; nevertheless, all three were guilty, and were consequently condemned. From that time or circumstance man has been prone to attribute his faults to others, and to ascribe the merits of others to himself: and, what is more common at the present day, than for man to attribute his evils to Adam, and, on the other hand, to claim to himself the righteousness of Jesus Christ? Man in his state of perfection was guarded by Divine love, and directed by Divine wisdom; he lived in God's presence, an image and likeness of Himself; he could not have been more perfect, nor could he have been protected by a greater power, yet he fell. Now, though man had all done for him that infinite wisdom could devise, still he could not be deterred from the commission of evil, because he willed it. God could not force man, because he was free; nor could He persuade him for the same reason. Nothing could be done for him more than what was done, because he possessed free-wili, and was to live in a state of freedom, which the Lord by His providence always preserves. Yet he fell, and that freely, by voluntary disobedience. Man was created with free-will; and he can be made good only through that faculty.

God made man to be free, because God wished to be beloved by man: "Thy Maker is thy husband."-Forced love! is it not inconceivable ?

Free-will being the only origin and centre of individual life, that will, in which any action morally originates, is

the cause of that action; an action being nothing less than the continuation of a motive from its centre to extremes, as a stream is the continuation of its fountain.

S. S.

The beauty of the Christian religion is, that it carries the order and discipline of heaven into our very fancies and conceptions, and, by hallowing the first shadowy notions of our minds from which actions spring, makes our actions themselves good and holy. SYDNEY SMITH.

It is the motive that, more than anything else, renders an action good or bad. However fair the look of an action may be, if the right motive is wanting, the action is hollow; if the motive be a bad one, the action is rotten at the core. Who cares for an outward seeming or show of friendship or affection, unless the heart be also friendly and affectionate? Who does not prize a rough outside, when it covers an honest inside, more than the most fawning fondness from a heart that is cold and false? Thus it is right to insist on the principles for their own sake; because the principles give their value to the action. The metal, not the stamp, gives value to the coin.

REV. AUGUSTUS HARE.

The principles of Christianity are its gold, the love of God-God manifest in the flesh; and its silver, the love of the neighbour-God brought near in man, His image and likeness.

G

For He our life hath left unto us free

Free, that was thrall, and blessed, that was banned;
Nor ought. demands, but that we loving be-
As He Himself hath loved us aforehand,

And bound thereto with an eternal band,
Him first to love, that us so dearly bought,
And next our brethren, to His image wrought.

SPENCER.

Asia's rock-hollow'd fanes, first born of time
In sculpture's prime,

Wrought by the ceaseless toil of many a race,
Whom none may trace,

Have crumbled back to wastes of rugged stone
And formless caverns, desolate and lone.

Egypt's stern temples, whose colossal mound,
Sphinx-guarded, frown'd

From brows of granite challenges to fate
And human hate,

Are giant ruins in a desert land,

Or sunk to sculptured quarries in the sand.

The marbled miracles of Greece and Rome,
Temple and dome,

Art's master-pieces, awful in th' excess

Where are they now? Their majesty august
Grovels in dust;

Their ruins-Time on their prone altars flings

Down from its height the Druid's sacred stone
In sport is thrown.

And many a Christian fane have change and hate
Made desolate,

Prostrating saint, apostle, statue, bust,
With Pagan deities to mingle dust.

On these drear sepulchres of buried days
'Tis sad to gaze.

Yet since their substances were perishable,
And hands unstable

Uprear'd their piles; no wonder that decay

Both and monument should sweep away.

man,

Ah, me how much more sadden'd is my

How heart-subdued,

The ruins and the wreck when I behold,
By time unroll❜d,

mood,

Of all the faiths that man hath ever known-
World worshipp'd once-now spurn'd and overthrown!

Religions, from the soul deriving breath,

Should know no death.

Yet do they perish, mingling their remains
With fallen fanes-

Creeds, canons, dogmas, councils are the wreck'd

And mouldering masonry of intellect.

Alas for human reason! all is change

Ceaseless and strange;

All ages form new systems, leaving heirs
To cancel theirs ;

The future will but imitate the past;
And instability alone will last.

Is there no compass then by which to steer

This erring sphere?

No tie that may indissolubly bind

To God mankind?

No code that may defy Time's sharpest tooth?
No fixed, immutable, unerring truth ?

There is! there is! one primitive and sure
Religion pure,

Unchanged in spirit, though its form and codes
Wear myriad modes,

Contains all creeds within its mighty span
The love of God displayed in love of man.

This is the Christian's faith, when rightly read:
Oh! may it spread,

Till earth, redeemed from every hateful leaven,
Makes peace with heaven;

Below-one blessed brotherhood of love

One Father, with one voice adored-above!

HORACE SMITH.

True religious doctrine is, as it were, the body of religion-genuine religious feeling is the soul of religion. When childhood shall have been left behind, it is thislove, inspiring the reason, but not reduced to the reason, and nothing else, that can be relied upon to withstand the rashness of a youthful intellect, flushed by its first discoveries. The struggle will be great at this season in proportion to the largeness of the nature and the force of the elements at work: and, if a strong understanding should be too suddenly expanded, it is probable that there