picture of a person watching unto prayer, under a due impression that the end of all things is at hand. And here it may be well to notice the connection between sobriety and watching unto prayer. Each promotes the other. He who prays as he ought, will be sober-minded; and he that is sober-minded, will be prepared for prayer. A man of a worldly spirit cannot pray: he has no relish for prayer: he has not the requisites for it: his whole disposition is contrary to it. Prayer arises from a desire of being dead to the world, from a value of things unseen, from an impression of the unsatisfying nature of all earthly things. On the other hand, fervent prayer increases soberness of mind; for what is prayer but the desire of having a better portion than this world has to give? What is the strain of true prayer, but that we may serve God in life; that we may submit cheerfully to all the sufferings he appoints for us; that we may set our affections on things above, and not on things on the earth; that we may be anxious to please God rather than man, and may fear to offend him more than our fellowcreatures? scene, where time shall be no more, where night shall be no more, where these bodily senses shall for ever forsake us, but where we shall receive at once new senses, of which we now can form no conception. The end of all things is at hand; let us be sober, and watch unto prayer. And let us further reflect; the end of means and ordinances is at hand. Sabbaths hasten away :—yet they are all numbered. So many opportunities, and no more, for prayer will be granted. Now we are invited to embrace the mercy of God in Christ Jesus almost daily; but soon this will be over. Soon we shall hear no friendly voice of ministers praying us to be reconciled to God. And, O let us consider how soon this may be. The sabbaths of the approaching year, and perhaps only a few of them, may be the last we shall have to spend. Let us then be sober, and watch unto prayer. Lastly, let this subject impress us with a sense of the great importance of real prayer. The benefit of it may not now be seen. It may not make us more successful in the world. Many may regard the time given to it as lost time. But a day is hastening on when its value will be acknowledged. When the end of all things is come, when the last scene is disclosed, and the Judge is seen coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; when the dead are every where rising, and the earth, with all it contains, is about to be burnt up; then it will be seen that the time spent in prayer was the time spent the most usefully. What glorious benefits will it then appear to have produced! Thus have I explained the perishing nature of all things here below, and shewn the effect which it ought to have upon us. The end of all things is at hand let this be our motto at the close of another year. The end of all things is at hand. Soon will nothing remain of what we now see. Let us realize this to ourselves: let us accustom ourselves to think, soon we shall see no more the house in which we have lived, the friends who have loved us, the temple in which we have worshipped, the country to which we have been fondly at May we be enabled to begin the tached, that light which has been new year with these views. May so pleasant to our eyes, those span- we be deeply impressed by the gled heavens on which we have thought, that as the end of another often gazed with wonder and de- year is come, so in a short time will light. All these things will soon the end of life be come also. May be for ever passed away as to us. we therefore so number our days We shall find ourselves in a new as to apply our hearts unto wisdom, May those among us, who have not yet begun to attend to the salvation of their souls, or who have hitherto trifled in this great concern, at length set themselves in earnest to seek the favour of God through a Redeemer; and may those who seek, obtain, that, when time is ended, we may all have a joyful meeting above, and an abundant entrance administered unto us into the ever, lasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen, MISCELLANEOUS, To the Editor of the Christian Observer. AMONG the most powerful of the passions which agitate the human breast, is the love of fame. It is a passion which, perhaps, is more distinctly avowed, more boldly defended, more warmly praised, than any other. The desire of money is veiled by silence and secrecy. The thirst for power apologises for itself by professing to originate in solicitude for increased opportunities and means of usefulness. The love of fame disdains concealment or excuse: it claims approbation as intrinsically meritorious: it panegy rises itself as the certain indication of a liberal mind, of a high and noble spirit; as the source of discoveries in science, of attainments in art, of daring and unwearied exertion, of undertakings the most beneficial to the world. That we may duly appreciate a principle exercising such diffusive influence, and advancing such elevated pretensions, it may be useful to consider some of the general descriptions under which its votaries may be classed. The first class which I shall no tice, is composed of persons who rest their title to fame on the eminence of some object of which they happen to have had the possession. As the love of fame is a passion prospective in its very nature, it is reasonable to ask, in what manner persons of the class now under review may be mentioned some fifteen or twenty years after they have disappeared from the stage of dis play. "You remember what a roat was made at that time about that Cap, tain O'Donnell." "Captain O'Donnell " “I never heard any thing of him." "O certainly, if you consider, you will recollect having heard a vast deal about him. Every body was talking about him; at least about his horse. Tantaram belonged to him. And Tantarum, you know, ran over the four miles course at Newmarket in one minute and a quarter less than ever had been done before; and reached thirteen inches more at a stretch than any horse ever did, except Highflyer, who came within seven." tarum, do you? That man's name "O you mean the owner of Tan was not O'Donnell." "Yes, yes, it was." "I am tolerably confident it was a different name.' "What was it then?" "It was something of that sort; but it was more like-Stay, I shall have it presently—It was O'Flare" "I do believe still that it was Captain O'Donnell." "I am quite positive that it was Captain O'Flarty." "Well, O'Donnell or O'Flarty, bout such a black-legs? If it had it does not signify. Who cares not been for his horse, he might have had the good fortune to be forgotten long ago.' To this class belong also, the men who aspire to be celebrated proprietors of oxen of extraordinary fatness, or of pigs of marvellous weight; or as owners of dancing dogs; or as exhibiters of giants, or of dwarfs; or as possessors of noted pictures, or of precious stones of singular value. Their ambition, it may very generally be said, is deep ly tinctured with fraud. The renown which they would appropriate, belongs not to them; it appertains to the objects, on account of the emi nence of which they are proud. Those objects, if they occupy a place even in the lowest line of animated nature, feel, no doubt, if they are but oxen or pigs, the generous thirst for celebrity, in proportion to their measure of rational perception; and, instead of being despoiled of their right, deserve rather to be incorporated, at a subsequent period of our discussion, among the human votaries of fame. The next class consists of individuals who demand public admiration in consequence of some corporeal distinction or attainment. Under this description may be comprehended Milo of Crotona, Vestris, the Stone-eater, the Oakham Toad, which weighed two tons, the Irish Giant, the Corsican Fairy, the Durham Ox, John Lambert, Cleopatra, Rope-dancers, Leaders of Foxchases, Capital Shots, Tumblers, Jugglers, Harlequins, and numerous other characters in ancient and in modern times, who may be referred to one of the preceding prototypes, or to some analogous exemplar. Of these respectable personages, as in courtesy we desire to term them, the utility does not appear altogether to have been proportionate to their reputation. Whether the strength of Milo was ever dedicated to any beneficial purpose, is a problem which history, I fear, does not ondertake to solve. The ox, which he conveyed round the stadium on his shoulders, is not recorded as having derived any essential advantage from its mode of travelling. So far as appears, it remained, at the end of its journey, radically in the same state in which it would have been had it performed the expedition on its own legs, or within a waggon, or not at all. Had he succeeded in cleav ing with his hands the oak by whose elastic grasp he was destroyed, I know not that the fragments would have furnished more durable boards, or have kindled a hotter fire, than would have been the consequence had the tree been split by vulgar wedges. Vestris has not taught mankind to walk on the points of their toes; nor am I very confident that he would thus have introduced a more steady and a more rapid mode of progress than the oldfashioned method of walking and running with a flat foot. The Stoneeater has not established the substitution of gravel in the place of wheat. The Oakham toad seems to have contributed nothing to the aggrandisement of his own species, or of man. It would be tedious, but not difficult, to extend similar observations to the rest in the catalogue. I am not unwilling to admit, that if the distinctive qualities of some of the aforesaid respectable personages had been directed into appropriate channels, some advantage might have resulted to mankind. Whe ther the Durham ox in his characteristic state would have done as good service when yoked to the plough, as he would have performet before he was swelled into dignified pre-eminence, may be doubted. But if Milo had employed his strength in beating corn out of the ear, he might have earned quintuple wages, and might have been as useful as a parish threshing-machine. Sometimes, indeed, the misfortune seems to be, that the individuals under cousideration do not happen to be fixed in their proper sphere. That our modern Nimrods, who protect foxes for the gratification of killing them, contribute to the security of our poultry-yards, may not be selfevident. That our sportsmen, whe preserve game that they may amuse themselves with putting it to death, forward the interests of agriculture, and enlarge the mass of food for man, may not be indisputably certain. But had our hunters and our gunners been born in the interior of North America, they might have beneficially rivalled the glory of the Choctaws and Nandowessies in exterminating the wild animals of the forest, and in preparing the way for cultivation. Nay, even in England, had they luckily been born in the condition of rat-catchers, they might have exercised their houndlike and terrierlike propensities with equal gratification and equal credit to themselves, and with some advantage to their country. If the noblemen and gentlemen who mount their coachboxes, and drive their four in hand with their coachmen in the inside, could but change places permanently with these coachmen, the gain to society might be very considerable. It might not be amiss if candidates for fame, who belong to the class before us, were to become capable of discovering that they are commonly emptying water, backwards and forwards, out of one bucket into another that in proportion as they win applause from one division of society, they accumulate contempt from another. Perhaps they might then be induced to take a second step in the line of consideration; to balance, namely, the contempt against the praise, and to estimate the relative respectability of the contemners and of the applauders. Where is the individual of this class, be his renown what it may, who oes not sink into insignificance, when he is himself brought into comparison with the peasant who put together the earliest and rudest attempt at a wheelbarrow, or with the boy who first fabricated a moletrap? The next class of pursuers of fame consists of those who rest their title, if not avowedly yet in reality, on the simple possession of some mental acquisition. To this description may be allotted various Antiquarians, Lexicographers, Editors, the Knowing Horse, sundry Commentators on Classics, the Learned Pig, Bookworms of diven species; students, in a word, of whatever science, who labour in collect ing the raw materials of knowledge, proceed not to apply them to any of the purposes of wisdom, yet are wise in their own conceit, and look around for admiration. It is not, I apprehend, a point beyond the reach of discussion, whether the claim of persons of this class to reputation equals that of the wheelbarrow-maker, or of the young mole-catcher. The individuals now before us have drawn together a stock of attainments abundantly more valuable in themselves than those in the display of which men of the preceding class made their boast; a stock capable of being af terwards converted by wise men to many commendable and very im portant uses. But he who toils in detaching from the quarry a block of marble of extraordinary dimensions, in order that he may be ena bled to vaunt of possessing a mass larger than is in the hands of other men, can derive no praise from the beauty of the statue into which his more skilful neighbour may form it. These men are like their book-covers, enveloping much that is interesting, but deducing no advantage from it. They are purses unconscious of the worth of the gold which they enclose repositories of treasure to themselves unprofitable; treasure intermingled with trifles and covered with dust. Where is the title to fame? With your permission, Mr. Ob. server, I propose to resume the general subject in a future paper. M. N. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. In your volume for 1808, p. 42, &c. you justly objected to the manner in which the Matriculation Oatk of this University was framed, and you strongly urged, on those whose business it was to administer that oath, the duty of adopting such modifications of its form as would prevent it from any longer invading the rights of conscience. I am happy to inform you, that this suggestion has recently been carried into effect, and a clause has been introduced into the body of the oath, which, as it appears to me, will, in a great degree, if not entirely, remove your objections. That the nature of the change may be clearly perceived, I will first transcribe the oath, as it formerly stood: "Cancellario, Procancellarioque Academiæ Cantabrigiensis, quatenus jus fasque est, et pro ordine in quo fuerim, quamdiu in hac republica degam, comiter obtemperabo; leges, statuta, mores approbatos, et privilegia Cantabrigiensis Academiæ, quantum in me est, observabo pietatis et bonarum literarum progressum, et hujus Academiæ statum, honorem, dignitatem tuebor, quoad vivam, meoque suffragio, atque consilio rogatus et non rogatus defendam: ita me Deus adjuvet, et sancta Dei Evangelia." To the printed copy of the oath put into the hands of students on the day of matriculation was suboined the following Grace of the j Senate: "Senatus Cantabrigiensis decrevit, et declaravit eos omnes, qui monitionibus, correctionibus, mulctis et pœnis statutorum, legum, decretorum, ordinationum, injunctionum, et laudabilium consuetudinum, hujus Academiæ transgressoribus quovis modo incumbentibus, humiliter se submiserint, nec esse, nec habendos esse perjurii reos." The recent alteration consists simply in the introduction, near the close of the oath, immediately after the words "rogatus et non rogatus defendam," of the following clause: "In hæc autem verba juro, secundum tenorem senatus consulti in cautelam jurantium facti (vide infra *)." This clause was added to the The reference here made is to the Grace, a copy of which is given above, To the Editor of the Christian Observer. In the Christian Observer for October, p. 645, it is mentioned, among other articles of religious intelligence, that Dr. Vander Kemp had a design of attempting a mission in the island of Madagascar;-a design which it is to be lamented was not put in execution long be fore this, for there is every reason to conclude that the missionaries would meet with a welcome reception by the various inhabitants of that island: indeed, I am convinced in my own mind, that they would meet with every encouragement, and obtain a fair and candid hearing from the natives, from the account which I have lately perused of the island of Madagascar, by Robert Drury, who was a captive there about fifteen years, but whose youth and inexperience rendered him incapable of conversing with the natives to any advantage, however willing they were to receive instruction from him. A conversation, however, which took place between him and one of the chiefs, will, Ithink, fully evince that much good might be done among that people, by persons properly qualified to answer their various questions and arguments, which poor Drury was unable to do, as may be seen by the following extract. I remain, &c. THEOGNIS. "This prince (Deaan Mevarrow) sent for me in a very courteous manner, and desired I would spend the evening with him as usual, and sit down by him, which accordingly I did. After we had discoursed on |