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SELFISHNESS.-When the light of benevolence is entirely put out, man is reduced to that state of existence which is disavowed by nature and abhorred of God! Let one suppose him, I say, but once radically divested of all generous feelings, and entirely involved in himself; it will be impossible to say what deeds of shame and horror he will not readily commit; in the balance of his perverted judgment, honour, gratitude, friendship, religion-yea, even natural affection, will all be outweighed by interest. The maxim of the Roman satirist will be his rule of life-" money at any rate." If the plain and beaten paths of the world, diligence and frugality, will conduct him to that end, it is well; but if not, rather than fail of his object, I will be bold to say, he will plunge, without scruple or remorse, into the most serpentine labyrinths of fraud and iniquity. Whilst his schemes are unaccomplished, fretfulness and discontent will lower on his brow; when favourable, and even most prosperous, his unslaked and unsatisfied soul still thirsts for more. As he is insensible to the calamities of his fellow-creature, so the greatest torment he can experience is an application to his charity and compassion. Should he stumble, like the Levite, on some spectacle of woe, he will, like the Levite, hasten to the other side of the way, resist the finest movements of nature, and cling to the demon of inhumanity, as the guardian angel of his happiness. Suppose him, however, under the accidental necessity of listening to the petition of misery; he will endeavour to beat down the evidence of the case by the meanest shifts and evasions; or will cry aloud, as the brutal and insensible Nabal did to the hungry soldiers of David-"Why should I be such a fool as to give my flesh, which I have prepared for my shearers, to men that I know not from whence they be?" But, admitting that a remnant of shame, for example, in the face of a congregation like this, may goad him for once to an act of beneficence, so mean and inconsiderable, so unworthy of the great concern would it probably be, that the idol of his soul would appear more distinctly in the very relief he administers, than in the barbarous insensibility which habitually withholds it. Merciful and eternal God! what a passion! And how much ought the power and fascination of that object to be dreaded, which can turn the human heart into such a pathless and irreclaimable desert. Irreclaimable, I say; for men inflamed with any other passion, even voluptuousness, the most impure and inveterate, are sometimes enlightened and reformed by the ministry of religion, or the sober and deliberate judgment of manhood and experience. But who will say that such a wretch as I have described, in the extremity of selfishness, was ever corrected by ordinary resource or expedient? Who will say that he is at any time vulnerable by reproach, or,

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I had almost added, even convertible by grace? No; through every stage and revolution of life he remains invariably the same; or if any difference, it is only this, that as he advances into the shade of a long evening, he clings closer and closer to the object of his idolatry; and while every other passion lies dead and blasted in his heart, his desire for more pelf increases with renewed eagerness, and he holds by a sinking world with an agonizing grasp, till he drops into the earth with the increased curses of wretchedness on his head, without the tribute of a tear from child or parent, or any inscription on his memory; but that he lived to counteract the distributive justice of Providence, and died without hope or title to a blessed immortality. "Seek not your own, but every man another's wealth."-Rev. Dean Kirwan.

INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.-' -To the influence of Christianity are to be attributed those asylums for the relief of the miserable, which humanity has consecrated as monuments of beneficence. Constantine was the first who built hospitals for the reception of the sick and wounded in the different provinces of the Roman empire. These establishments were multiplied in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, in Italy, France, and Spain. They were afterwards so generally adopted, that, according, to Matthew Paris, not less than 19,000 charitable houses for leprosy alone existed in the Christian states in the tenth century. Rome contained forty hospitals for various charitable purposes. The number of similar establishments in Petersburgh is almost incredible to those who recollect the sudden growth of that capital. In Paris, besides private establishments, there were, before the revolution, fortyeight public foundations for the relief of disease and indigence."Dr. Valpy.

ORIGEN. Origen was born at Alexandria, in Egypt, A.D. 185. Leonidas, his father, early taught him to exercise himself in searching the Scriptures, enjoining it upon him as a daily task, to learn some portion of them by heart, and repeat it. This laid the foundation of an intimate acquaintance with the Holy Writings, and probably of that diligent study of them, for which he was afterwards so famed. When he was seventeen years old, his father suffered martyrdom, leaving behind a wife and six children. In his son Origen, Leonidas found a steady encourager in the faith. Gladly would the son have suffered with his father; and when, to prevent him, his mother hid his clothes, he wrote a most persuasive letter, exhorting him-" Father, take heed; let not your care for us make you change your resolution." In his eighteenth year, he was chosen master of the catechetical, or grammar school, at Alexandria. This situation he afterwards relinquished, that he might apply himself entirely to theological studies. His library, containing the works of the heathen philosophers and poets, &c., he sold to a buyer, who engaged to give him four oboli (about six

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pence) a day; and on this he subsisted for several years, sleeping on the floor, walking bare-foot, and going almost naked; devoting not only the day, but also the greater part of the night, to the study of the Holy Scriptures.

He was a most voluminous writer; but the works which have immortalized his name are his HEXAPLA, or Collation of the Septuagint version, which Father Montfaucon supposes must originally have made fifty volumes; and his Vindication of Christianity against CELSUS, the Epicurean philosopher.-Rev. J. Townley, D.D.

FRAGMENTS.-Good morals are simple, practicable, and adapted to general circumstances.-Rev. E. Grindsod.

We cannot render to God according to his benefits: we must be content to be, as it were, crushed to all eternity under an unsupportable weight of goodness.-Dr. Payson.

The fear of death is instinctive; the shuddering of nature in her thoughtful and unbiassed moods; the shivering of humanity at plunging into the cold and bitter flood, from which she is, however, well assured she must emerge with astonishing freshness and vigour. -Rev. D. McNicoll.

It is no imputation upon God that the light of the knowledge of his glory is not as universal as the light. God's design is, that the lines of nature's law, wherever written, should be interlined with Gospel discoveries!-Dr. Grosvenor.

Contingency, as the attribute of our actions, is opposed not to certainty, but to necessity.-Rev. R. Watson.

How valuable is our time, when viewed as the fruit of Christ's intercession!-Dr. Grosvenor.

Surely he is not a fool that hath unwise thoughts, but he that utters them.-Bishop Hall.

The sun seems every night to lie down in a bed of darkness; but he rises in the morning clothed with the same beauty and brightness, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course. "But man dieth, and where is he?"-Bolton.

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REVELATION OF DIVINE GRACE.

I AM ALPHA AND OMEGA, THE BEGINNING AND THE END. I WILL GIVE UNTO HIM THAT IS ATHIRST OF THE FOUNTAIN OF THE WATER OF LIFE FREELY."-Rev. xxi. 6.

THE development of that grace which "bringeth salvation" to man, is, in this instance, most sublime. Though the symbolical language of this highly prophetical book usually presents the truth of God enveloped in mystery; yet we humbly conceive that in this case the Divine will is very explicitly unfolded. The language of the text appears to bear on the origin of saving grace-the properties by which it is distinguished the characteristic of its recipients and the mode of its dispensation. Observe

H

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REVELATION OF DIVINE GRACE.

I. THE SOURCE WHENCE IT ORIGINATES.

Its origin is DIvine. "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end," saith he whose unalienable prerogative it is to grant this invaluable donation. As the language here employed denotes, the stupendous and amazing work of grace has been originated, and will be completed by the Deity. To Him alone the glory belongs; in evidence of which we would remark

1. The wisdom of the mediatorial scheme. (Ephe. iii. 10.) 2. The nature of the GREAT PROPITIATORY SACRIFICE.

iv. 4.)

3. The gift of revelation. (Heb. i. 1.)

4. The mission of the Holy Ghost. (John, xv. 26, 27.)

II. THE PROPERTIES BY WHICH IT IS DISTINGUISHED.

66

(Gal.

The water of life," by which Divine grace is indicated, is peculiar for its refreshing-cleansing-fertilizing-and vital properties. (John, iv. 13-15. Zech. xiii. 1. Ezek. xlvii. 1-12. Rev. xxii. 1, 2.)

III. THE CHARACTERISTIC OF ITS RECIPIENTS.

"I will give to him that is athirst," &c. This figurative term de

notes

1. Consciousness of moral destitution. (Ephe. ii. 12. Rev. iii. 17. 1 Cor. iv. 7.)

2. Intensity of desire for salvation. (Ps. xlii. 1.)

3. Solicitous application for spiritual enjoyment. (Gen. xxxii. 26. Matt. vii. 7.)

IV. THE MODE OF ITS DISPENSATION.

1. Spontaneous. (Titus, iii. 5. Ephe. ii. 7-9.) 2. Impartial. (Acts, ii. 39.

Rev. xxii. 17.)

3. Abundant. (Isai. xliv. 3. Titus, iii. 6.)

Have you not, while engaged in the contemplation of this delightful theme, been forcibly reminded of the folly of the human mind? Men "hew out to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water," while, from a heavenly source, "the river of God, which is full of water," flows freely for them! You that are ready to perish-who pant, and are dying for thirst, take encouragement! Lo, a spring rises in the desert! Learn, my brethren, to say of God, "All my springs are in thee." How immense is the Divine benevolence! The consolation of the saints is abundant and interminable; the Spirit within them is " a well of water springing up into everlasting life."