cious hopes that Christianity attempts to proselyte its votaries. "In the world ye shall have tribulation," is the undisguised declaration of its divine Founder; nevertheless, we may but shrink from this initiatory course. "Tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts." Here then is a satisfying portion: here is a joy with which a stranger intermeddleth not. Here is the beginning of a blissful immortality,—the assurance of untroubled rest with those who " came out of great tribulation, and

have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." If the days of time are evil, they also are few. The race will soon be over, the goal won, and then shall we enter upon the blissful 'cycles of eternity.'

LYDIA.

THE life of a worldling may be summed up in one sentence in youth, the mercurial heart,-in manhood, the mercenary heart,-in old age, the marble heart. Grace often transforms the first, or purifies the second; but how frequently do we find that the third can be shattered only by death himself!-Rev. T. Dale.

THE NATIVITY.

What sights are beaming

On the startled shepherd's eye? What light-what light is streaming, Earthward from on high?

What sounds are pealing

On the stilly midnight's ear? Softly, sweetly stealing,

Nearer and yet more near?

Slowly swelling-swelling slowly-
When did earth such music hear,

Mute at sounds so sweet, so holy,

They listen mazed with awe and fear.

Peace we bring and tidings glorious--Death's reign is o'er,

Over death ONE reigns victorious

Let songs of praise arise,

Let the glad anthem loudly swellThe Lord, descending from the skies, Lowly deigns on earth to dwell. Scorning not the virgin's womb, Slighting the shame and Satan's hate, Fearing not an earthly tomb

The Everblest-The Uncreate!

Oh, wondrous love!

In a humble manger laid,

The Lord of Might above

Hath not where to lay his head!

Yon feeble child,

Smiling in his mother's face,

Lowly and mild,

Yet decked with more than earthly grace, He is the Lamb

Slain for sins of deepest hue;

Nor horned bull nor ram

Shall altars now bedew:

Free from spot or stain,

Sinless He on earth alone,
From the earth's foundation slain,

For sinful man to atone.

Sound, sound your songs of praise

Peace, good-will on earth we bring;

Loud, loud your anthems raise;
Israel, shout and sing.

Now the heavenly choirs descend,
Now their voices sweetly blend,
And the burden of their strain
Is love and peace, good-will to men:
Listening echoes, learn the sound,
Peace and love are hymned around.

L. H. J. T.

AN EXTRAORDINARY DISPUTE.

6

I STOOD in the city of the seven hills, the eternal city,' as her vain-glorious sons have called her; the ETERNAL RUIN would be a better name. Look where

you will, ruin meets your eye. To the east are ruins, to the west are ruins. Modern buildings rise upon the ruins of others more ancient, and many an edifice boasts of piecemeal walls, composed of the masonry of yesterday, engrafted upon the broken brick foundations of old Rome.

The sun went down; his parting beams glowed upon the palaces, the cypress-trees, the idol-temples, old and new; the pallid marble blushed beneath the red light, and the ancient brickwork blazed yet ruddier than before.

I began to meditate and to moralize, but my meditations were not of a sufficiently original order to be worth the detail here for the benefit of my readers. I wandered on, and entered the Coliseum: arch above arch, terrace above terrace, ruin above ruin, met my eye, and the wild weeds triumphantly waved high over all, as if asserting the victory of uncultivated nature over the mightiest works of man. The crimson western glow shone in gorgeously through the tall arches, as I gazed in the direction of the far distant sea; and when I turned to take a survey of this once perfect structure, splendid even in its desolation, there came through the openings on the oppo

site side the mild glance of the newly-risen moon, gliding up the cool, transparent, silvery sky of the east. It was a scene not to be forgotten.

I gazed and mused, I know not for how long a time, but the shadows among the broken masses of Vespasian's masonry grew darker and broader, the sky became bluer and more blue, and the dim twilight gradually deepened around, while the bright patches of moonshine lay richly gleaming upon the ground.

At length I became conscious that something was moving towards me. I turned and saw an extraordinary figure, of the stateliest port, and of a commanding stature. It seemed a woman, clad in scarlet, or rather in blood-colour; her dress was of the fashion usual among nuns, but she wore on her head, over her hood and veil, a high triple crown. Two enormous keys of gold hung from her girdle, with a huge rosary and cross. She bore a crucifix in one hand, and in the other a sheathless sword, with a red Scourge fastened to its hilt. Could I need to be told that I saw embodied before me the Genius of POPERY?

My Huguenot blood boiled and curdled by turns within my veins; I thought of her idolatries and impieties; of the blood of the martyrs with which her garments and her knotted scourge were so deeply imbrued; of St. Bartholomew and of Smithfield; of the Cevennes war and of the Dragonnades, and of those banished ones-among whom were my own unfortunate ancestors-driven, by her treachery and cruelty, from the homes of their native France to the shores of free and Protestant England, I slipped silently away into a darkened archway, half filled