many years' experience. There is no wish to dictate or even to instruct. The leading members of the Association state their views because they believe them to be practicable and conformable to the actual state of the denomination and they leave the subject to the consideration of Societies, Congregations and Individuals, persuaded that this appeal will be regarded at least with candour, and not without expectation that they shall receive such answers as will put the existence of the Association beyond all doubt, and place the Unitarian body in a more commanding attitude than it has yet been able to assume.

In order to ascertain the degree of support on which the General Committee can rely, by which, of course, their various proceedings will be determined and regulated, it is in the highest degree desirable that they should receive early instructions on the following points:

1. How many of the District or County Societies are disposed to unite with them, and to what extent they are prepared to offer pecuniary assistance.

2. What Congregations are willing to join the Association as distinct members. Many Congregations were connected with "The Unitarian Association for the Protection of Civil Rights," which is now dissolved in "The British and Foreign Unitarian Association," and it is not doubted that these will also join the existing and more comprehensive Society: but they are specially requested to make an early communication of their intentions in this respect, and of the amount or mode of their respective contributions.

3. With regard to Individual Subscribers, many of whom have been members of several of the societies in the metropolis, it is of importance to the General Committee to be informed at an early period whether they consider themselves subscribers to the new Association, and to what amount. The General Committee are desirous that individuals should consider themselves entitled by the plan of the Association to apply and apportion their subscriptions among the objects of the Society, ad libitum; but at the same time they trust they shall be excused for recommending, to such as may have no strong feeling or decided inclination upon the question, a general subscription in preference to an appropriated one, in order to leave those persons whom the Association shall from year to year entrust with the administration of its funds, in the full

exercise of one of the great advantages contemplated in the formation of this new and extended Institution, viz. the power of applying the resources of the Society to such objects as shall at any one time appear to them to stand in need of peculiar support: each of the objects pursued by the Association will probably be benefited in turn by this discretionary power.

Several District and County Societies, some congregations, and many individuals, have already enrolled themselves amongst the subscribers or contributors, a list of whom will be published as soon as time shall have been allowed for answers to this Circular.

In the answers which the General Committee beg earnestly to solicit, it is requested that individuals will favour them with their names and addresses in full; that congregations will give the names and addresses of their ministers and representatives; and that District and County Societies will communicate the names and addresses of their representatives and officers.

Ministers and other gentlemen who are willing to assist the Association in the country and in large towns by their correspondence, by receiving subscriptions as Local Treasurers, and by distributing communications, are earnestly requested to signify the same to the General Committee, and also to furnish any useful information with regard to the promotion of the objects of the Association in their respective neighbourhoods.

The General Committee have the pleasure of announcing that the Rev. Dr. CARPENTER, of Bristol, has kindly undertaken to preach the First Association Sermon, on the Evening of Wednesday in the Whitsun Week, May 17, and the Rev. JAMES TAYLER, of Nottingham, to preach the Second Sermon on the next morning, Thursday, May 18, 1826. Further and ample particulars of the Annual Meeting, and of all the proceedings of the Association, will be laid before the public soon, and from time to time it being the purpose of the General Committee to establish frequent communications between themselves and the subscribers and friends to the Society.

Signed on behalf of the General Committee,

ROBERT ASPLAND, Secretary.

Rizpah: a Poetical Paraphrase.

[From the United States' Literary Gazette.]

"And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord; and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest. And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night." 2 Sam. xxi. 9, 10.

HEAR what the desolate Rizpah said,
As on Gibeah's rocks she watched the dead.
The sons of Michel before her lay,

And her own fair children, dearer than they;
By a death of shame they all had died,

And were stretched on the bare rock, side by side.
And Rizpah, once the loveliest of all

That bloomed and smiled in the court of Saul,
All wasted with watching and famine now,
And scorched by the sun her haggard brow,
Sat mournfully guarding their corpses there,
And murmured a strange and solemn air;
The low, heart-broken, and wailing strain
Of a mother that mourns her children slain :
I have made the crags my home, and spread
On their desert backs my sackcloth bed:
I have eaten the bitter herb of the rocks,
And drank the midnight dew in my locks;
I have wept till I could not weep, and the pain
Of my burning eyeballs went to my brain.
Seven blackened corpses before me lie,

In the blaze of the sun and the winds of the sky.
I have watched them through the burning day,
And driven the vulture and raven away;
And the cormorant wheeled in circles round,
Yet feared to alight on the guarded ground.
And when the shadows of twilight came,
I have seen the hyena's eyes of flame,
And heard at my side his stealthy tread,
But aye at my shout the savage fled;
And I threw the lighted brand, to fright
The jackal and wolf that yelled in the night.

Ye were foully murdered, my hapless sons,
By the hands of wicked and cruel ones;
Ye fell, in your fresh and blooming prime,
All innocent, for your father's crime.

He sinned-but he paid the price of his guilt
When his blood by a nameless hand was spilt
When he strove with the heathen host in vain,
And fell with the flower of his people slain,
And the sceptre his children's hands should sway,
From his injured lineage passed away.

But I hoped that the cottage roof would be
A safe retreat for my sons and me ;

And that while they ripened to manhood fast,

They should wean my thoughts from the woes of the past.
And my bosom swelled with a mother's pride,

As they stood in their beauty and strength by my side,
Tall like their sire, with the princely grace
Of his stately form and the bloom of his face.

Oh, what an hour for a mother's heart,
When the pitiless ruffians tore us apart!
When I clasped their knees and wept and prayed,
And struggled and shrieked to Heaven for aid,
And clung to my sons with desperate strength,
Till the murderers loosed my hold at length,
And bore me breathless and faint aside,
In their iron arms while my children died.
They died—and the mother that gave them birth
Is forbid to cover their bones with earth.

The barley harvest was nodding white,
When my children died on the rocky height,
And the reapers were singing on hill and plain,
When I came to my task of sorrow and pain.
But now the season of rain is nigh,
The sun is dim in the thickening sky,
And the clouds in sullen darkness rest,
When he hides his light at the doors of the west;
I hear the howl of the wind that brings
The long drear storm on its heavy wings;
But the howling wind, and the driving rain.
Will beat on my houseless head in vain :
I shall stay, froin my murdered sons to scare
The beasts of the desert, and fowls of the air.

Bryant

Hebrew Tales.

THIS is the title of a pleasing little volume just published by Hyman Hurwitz, a learned Jew. The tales have been selected from the writings of the ancient Hebrews, who flourished in the five first centuries after the destruction of Jerusalem, and are known to the learned by the names of the Talmud, &c. There is an Essay prefixed on the uninspired Literature of the Hebrews. We can recommend the volume to our readers, especially the younger part of them. The following extracts will shew the nature of the work:

The Value of a Good Wife.

He that hath found a virtuous wife, hath a greater treasure than costly pearls.

Such a treasure had the celebrated teacher RABBI MEIR found. He sat during the whole of one Sabbath-day in the public school and instructed the people. During his absence from his house his two sons, both of them of uncommon beauty and enlightened in the law, died. His wife bore them to her bed-chamber, laid them upon the marriage-bed, and spread a white covering over their bodies. Towards evening Rabbi Meir came home. "Where are my beloved sons," he asked, "that I may give them my blessing?" "They are gone to the school," was the answer. I repeatedly looked round the school," he replied, "and I did not see them there." She reached him a goblet; he praised the Lord at the going out of the Sabbath, drank, and again asked, "Where are my sons, that they may drink of the cup of blessing?" "They will not be far off," she said, and placed food before him, that he might eat. He was in a gladsome and genial mood, and when he had said grace after the meal, she thus addressed him :-" Rabbi, with thy permission I would fain propose to thee one question." "Ask it, then, my love!" he replied. "A few days ago a person entrusted some jewels to my custody, and now he demands them again: should I give them back again?" "This is a question," said Rabbi Meir, "which my wife should not have thought it necessary to ask. What! wouldest thou hesitate or be reluctant to restore to every one his own?" "No," she replied, but yet I thought it best not to restore them without acquainting thee therewith." She then led him to their