ASTRONOMY OR, THE PERFECTIONS OF GOD DISPLAYED IN HIS WORKS. By the Rev. Cyrus Mann, author of a History of the Temperance Reformation, Mrs. Allen's Memoir, &c. 227 pp. with a frontispiece, and five astronomical plates. This book (which was announced in the last Visiter,) is divided into fourteen chapters. The first nine chapters are occupied with an account of the Creation-History of Astronomy-the Solar System-the Earth-the Moon-Eclipses-Attraction of Gravitation-and a Multitude of Worlds. Under each of these topics many practical remarks are introduced, adapted to lead the young to contemplate the Perfections of the Great Author of all things, as displayed in his Works, and to direct their thoughts from "nature up to nature's God." The remaining part of the book is taken up in showing how the works of creation, scattered through the universe, prove to us the divine perfections-the Omnipresence-Omniscience-the Omnipotence-Immutability and Truth-and the Benevolence and Justice of God. In this volume one of the most interesting sciences is made to assist in teaching, illustrating, and enforcing some of the most important and sublime truths of the Bible. JUVENILE MUSIC. Furnished for this work by LoWELL MASON, Professor in the 'Hear, oh! hear the melting story.' SABBATH SCHOOL VISITER. VOL. IV. JULY, 1836. SABBATH SCHOOL HYMN. [Translated from the Kumu Hawaii.] Now the children all appear, And when at length the night shall come, Countless pleasures too are thine, And if at length we should arrive, NO. 7. THE ORPHAN. a In-, L. C., there resided a poor family consisting of parents and five children, the eldest of whom was about eleven or twelve years of age.This family, two years before, had removed from England. Mrs. tract distributer and S. S. teacher used to call on the family to leave tracts. She noticed that the parents always laid aside their work immediately on her entering, to listen to her remarks, and she found they were members of a Church in England. In 1832, the cholera raged in, with great violence, and very suddenly cut off these parents, and subsequently two of the children. The parents were hurried to their graves without a coffin, and with only a sheet cast about them for their grave-clothes. A pious man, who was passing, as they carried out the father, saw the children wringing their hands, and heard the eldest exclaim, “How can I see my dear father buried in this way!" He went to her with words of consolation, and told her if her father was & good man his soul was in heaven, and it would make no difference with him how his body was buried. they As these poor children were now left without any relative in were scattered, and Mrs. did not see any more of them for some time. One day she went in search of a member of her class, who, the Sabbath previous, was absent, She called on the family where she lived, and found she had left, and another little girl had taken her place. She asked the mistress of the house, if this child might take the place of the other as a member of her class. She consented, and the child was introduced. She was the eldest of these orphan children! The teacher became very much interested for her, from the fact that she was left so perfectly friendless. The poor child appeared greatly afflicted, and wept as if overwhelmed with sorrow. The teacher tried to quiet her feelings, and told her "there was another friend who would be better to her than parents, if she would love him." She used to talk with her every Sabbath. One day Mrs. was told that a child had called to see her. She went down and there was this orphan child. She seized the hand of her teacher, with the greatest eagerness, and said, " Mrs. I have come to tell you that I have found my Savior. I have got no friend but you to was almost overcome, and she took her The dear child poured out her whole heart prayer to her Heavenly Father and her Sa"Mrs. - , I have found it just as you told whom I could tell it." Mrs. alone, where they both prayed. in a most affecting but simple vior. After closing, she said, me, that there is a Friend better than father and mother." She took a little lock of hair from her bosom and said, "I have no one who is so good to me as you are, and I want to give you this, and it is all I have to give you. I think I shall not live long, my health is so poor, but that does not frighten me any." Every Sabbath this orphan child expected to have something said to her particularly, and she would often stop so as to give her an opportunity to say a little to her, if it was but a word. This dear lamb of the flock has been gathered into the fold of Christ, and continues to adorn a Christian profession. She has found the Lord to be the helper, the judge, the preserver, the father of the stranger and the fatherless. When her father and her mother forsook her, then the Lord took her up. Yes, the Lord Jesus is the orphan's friend. Mrs. has a class of eleven, eight of whom are orphans, five of them bereft of both of their parents. What a reward she has already received for her self-denying labors for the good of the stranger and the fatherless! The same awful disease that made this child an orphan, made her teacher a widow, and her teacher's children fatherless! May she, who is the orphan's friend, find the Lord to be the God of the widow and the father of her own fatherless children. LETTERS FROM AFRICA. CAPE TOWN JUVENILE TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. My young friends, I have something now to tell you about a Temperance Society. It is the Juvenile Temperance Society of Cape Town. There is very little done to promote temper ance in the place, although very young persons are in the habit of drinking too much. Even girls I have seen there, (they were heathen girls indeed,) so drunk that they could not walk or stand, but lay in the street, as if dead. A Temperance Society of older persons had been formed two or three years since, but Owing to the improper conduct of some of its members, it had expired. The young were excited, I hardly know how, to do something in this cause. They united together in a Society, and when I left Cape Town, had held one meeting. It was full of interest. Some of the members spoke on the occasion.They alluded to the decease of the old society, but it seemed not to damp their ardor, it only furnished a reason why they should attempt to make their society live. They were very diligent in the work of getting signers to their constitution. One hundred and twenty-two, I hear, have joined the society.They are obtaining lectures from the ministers in town on the subject. They have caused to be printed one thousand copies of an American tract, abridged, "Address to Youth," and bear the expense themselves. It is to be hoped that their example will awaken their elders. Now this is noble. See what young persons can do. Is the cause of temperance declining in any place where you are, my young friends? I would set you to watch over it. If you have not formed a Juvenile Society, go immediately to your minister, or to some good friend of temperance, and ask his advice about a Juvenile Temperance Society. Form it under his direction, and assistance, and then live up to your principles.— Give tracts to the drinkers, and drunkards, and urge them to leave the ways of sin. Begin first, however, in your own families. Ask your parents, all about temperance, and see if they live up to the right principle, in no case to drink or use intoxicating liquor, unless recommended by a Temperate Physician. Here I will tell you what a Kaffer said to me. "Why do you English drink it, if it is not good to drink? And why do you bring it here, if you do not mean we shall drink it? We never made it. It is not in our country. We never should drink it, if you, from the world over the water, had not brought it?" Thus he reasoned, and he could not well understand any argument (for he was an ignorant heathen) that should deprive him of what he loved, and what, as he said, his friends had brought him. I am, in truth, your well wisher, E, H. |