POETRY.

The Confraternity of Death are much to be commended for their pious zeal; but I am afraid that the familiarity with the office for the dead and other sacred things has engendered something like contempt for that, and other sacred things. At all events, they and the coffin-carriers and the cross-bearer indulged in a regular slanging match with the driver of my hack cab and the conductor of the dray laden with pumpkins. My driver gave them quite as good as they brought, and the result was the usual torrent of blasphemous Billingsgate, in the comprehension of which six months' commerce with gondola-men and cab-men has rendered me a tolerable proficient. There is a richness and fulness, a copiousness of scurrility, in the Roman allusions to the principal persons mentioned in the Scriptures, which I have not yet heard equalled. The attendant priests did not in any way reprehend this scandalous scene, but "bullyragged" the driver themselves in good set terms-quite free, however, I hasten to admit, from blasphemy. At last, the dray being enabled to move on, my hack cab got round the corner of the next street, and then the boys in red gowns began to carry the corpse, and the choristers began to swing their censors, and the old priest began to hitch up his knee-shorts, and the young priest began to stare up at the windows, and the men in green baize began to set up a yowl, so dismal, that you might have fancied them the very Dogs, and not the Confraternity, of Death. Then I got down near the post-office, and asked if there were any letters, found there were none, and, plunging into the next half-dozen streets, forthwith lost myself. G. A. Sala.

'POETRY,

O, name of Jesus! of that lowly babe
That on the sunny slopes of Nazareth strayed,
Or on the cottage floor beside the lake

With wild flowers played:

Name of the wondrous child that in the temple stood,
With brow all meekness, and with eye all light,
Who to the blinded teachers of the law

Would have given sight:

Name of the prophet, healer, master, friend,
Sorrow's chief mourner and death's perfect cure;
The fountain of new innocence for man,
That ever shall endure;

The secret, the unutterable name,

From the world's earlier ages hid so long,
Now in time's fulness given at length to be
The new creation's song.

And yet it was the scorn of Jewish lips,
And written by unholy heathen pen,
Then nailed aloft upon the awful cross
Signal to God and men;

But never written in the dust of death,
Nor cut upon the portals of the grave,
So quickly he that threshold has re-crossed,
Triumphantly to save.

It dropped from heaven like gently falling plume,
Just when the shadow of the white cloud fell
Upon the apostles' upward-turned brows:
"O, wherefore dwell,

66

Ye Galileans, gazing up so long

Into the clear blue depths ye search in vain?
Lo! this same Jesus rising to his throne,
Shall so return again."

Once more heaven sent it down upon the earth,
When from love's central fount the accents came,
And on the persecuting Saul poured down
In glory and in flame.

O, name of value infinite! and yet

Thou mov'st our spirits with a deeper thrill,
For the dear lips that have Thy music breathed,
And then grown still.

For Thou the last gift art, our lost ones leave
To be our comfort on our onward way;

"Love Jesus," "Jesus is our only hope,"

Adoringly they say.

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

As shipwrecked sailors clasp a plank, and launch
Upon the billows of a midnight sea,

These fearless souls, embracing "Jesus," plunge
Into eternity;

Then safely floated to the home of peace,
Where bright-plumed angels wait along the shore,
Still, still the name of Jesus those glad hosts
In anthems pour.

Name! that the ransomed souls forever wear,
Gemmed with pure lustre on each perfect brow,
Be Thou the radiance of our earthly lives;
Transform us even now.

O, name above all names the most beloved!
Fullest of memories and of untold peace,
Earnest of all unutterable joys!

Yet, fond heart cease;

For Jesus is the name of the bigh God:
Hushed be thy thoughts, and silently adore,
When thou shalt come to see Him as He is,
Thou shalt know more.

Anecdotes and Selections.

DR. CHALMERS WITH THE POOR.

DR. CHALMERS, with all his popularity, was never happier than when directing souls to Christ, particularly among the poor. In a low dirty hovel once, whose floor one could hardly walk without stumbling, lay a poor old woman, bed-ridden and almost blind, upon a bed opposite the fire-place, who was the object of the doctor's visit. Seating himself at her side, he entered at once, after a few inquiries as to her health, into religious conversation with her. Alas! it seemed all in vain. The mind which he strove to enlighten had been so long closed and dark that it appeared impossible to thrust into it a single ray of light. Still, on the part of the woman, there was an evident desire to lay hold on something of which he was telling her; and encouraged by this, he persevered, plying her, to use his own expression, with the offers of the Gospel, and urging her to trust in Christ; at length she said :"Ah, sir, I would do as ye bid me; but I dinna ken how; how can I trust in Christ ?"

"O woman," was his expressive reply, in the dialect of the district, "just lippen to him.”

"O, sir," was her reply, "and is that a'?"

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

"Yes, yes," was his gratified response, "just lippen to him, and lean on him, and you'll never perish.'

To some, perhaps, this language may be obscure, but to that dying woman, poor and blind, it was as light from heaven; it guided her to a knowledge of the Saviour, and there is good reason to believe it was the instrument of ultimately conducting her to heaven.

THE CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN.-He is above a mean thing. He cannot stoop to a mean fraud. He invades no secret in the keeping_of another. He betrays no secrets confided to his own keeping. He never struts in borrowed plummage. He never takes selfish advantage of our mistakes. He uses no ignoble weapons in controversy. He never stabs in the dark. He is ashamed of inuendoes. He is not one thing to a man's face and another behind his back. If by accident he comes in possession of his neighbour's counsels, he passes upon them an act of instant oblivion. He bears sealed packages without tampering with the wax. Papers not meant for his eye, whether they flutter at his window or lie open before him in unguarded exposure, are sacred to him. He professes no privacy of others, however the sentry sleeps. Bolts and bars, locks and keys, hedges and pickets, bonds and securities, notice to trespassers, are none of them for him. He may be trusted himself out of sight-near the thinnest partition-anywhere. He buys no offices, he sells none, he intrigues for none. He would rather fail of his rights than win them through dishonour. He will eat honest bread. He tramples on no sensitive feeling. He insults no man. If he have rebuke for another, he is straightforward, open, manly. He cannot descend to scurrility. In short, whatever he judges honourable, he practices towards every man.

ADVERSITY AND MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.-Hardship alone will not make a man great, but it is an important aid in the development of greatness. Ability and aspiration are doubled in power by the stimulus of want. There is an untold might in deprivation. Imprison a gill of water in a solid rock, and simply deprive it of heat, and it will burst its flinty bonds as Sampson burst the cords of the Philistines. Ignited in the free air, a spoonful of powder explodes with a harmless flash; confine it in a rifle barrel, teaze it with the minutest spark, and it carries doom to a distant life. Nature's forces crave expansion; if space is abundant, they take it quietly; if it is limited, then look out for results. It is so with developing boyhood. Character demands scope. If it finds it readily, it accepts gracefully the easy boon; if it does not find it, it takes it at whatever cost. The rich man's son has plenty of wants, but they are easily gratified; the poor man's son has the same wants, and he can only hope to gratify them by strenuous exertion of muscle and brain. Our motive power is always found in what we lack. He is strongest who lacks most; the poor boy's inheritance is in those tastes and aspirations which urge him to perpetual

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

effort. He has plenty to work for, while his rich cousin has only plenty to enjoy. The latter may be lifted into a high position as a lady is into a side-saddle, but he will generally find it convenient to ride with an attendant, or he may get thrown and hurt. The heir of wealth begins at the wrong end for permanent success. He is like a crocus, blooming in spring, blighted in summer, and in autumn nowhere. He reverses the law of nature, which gives us the unsightly husk before the tempting kernel, the sprouting acorn before the giant oak, effort before strength, struggle before achievement, pain before pleasure, the law before the gospel. The ease and refinement of his boyhood is no aid to future energy and power. He begins at the end, and generally ends at the beginning. A rudely formed but well tempered blade may be subsequently polished, but a polished blade cannot be hardened without losing all its glitter.

CAUTIOUS MEN.—Some men use words as riflemen do bullets. They say but little. The few words used go right to the mark. They let you talk, and guide with their eye and face, on and on, till what you say can be answered in a word or two, and then they launch out a sentence, pierce the matter to the quick, and have done. You never know where you stand with them. Your conversation falls into their mind as rivers into a deep chasm, and is lost from sight by its depth and darkness. They will sometimes surprise you with a few words, that go to the mark like a gunshot, and then they are silent again, as if they were reloading. Such men are safe counsellors, and true friends, in every case where they profess to be such. To them truth is more valuable than gold, while pretension is too gauzy to deceive them. Words without point, to them, are like titles without merit, only betraying the weakness of the blinded dupes who are ever used as promoters of other men's schemes.

THE INFORMER AND THE MAN-TAKER.-In the Reign of Charles the Second, many unprincipled persons obtained a living by informing against all who ventured to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences, and contrary to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England as by law established. In those troublous times lived the famous Mr. George Hammon, a man of singular independence of mind, sterling character, and great talents; possessed of considerable acquaintance with the learned languages, remarkable shrewdness of observation, and amazing powers of reasoning, qualities which eminently fitted him for the distinguished part he had to act in that disputing age. This worthy man was pastor of the General Baptist church, Biddenden, Kent, forty years, viz., from 1640 to 1680. Being engaged, on one occasion, to preach at a distant place, he was overtaken on his way thither by a violent storm, which compelled him to take shelter under a tree by the side of the road. While there, he was accosted by a stranger from a cottage opposite, who, mistaking him for a person of a very different character, called out to him, "I am an