'Dr Ballantyne is certainly no great beauty,' remarked Miss Katie; there is something strange about his eyes.' At any rate, his hair is a very ugly colour,' remarked Miss Ellen. The mind's the standard of the man,' interposed Mr Melrose. 'After all,' concluded Miss Ellen, it is a better match than Agnes Melrose could have expected; I am really glad one of them is to be so well settled, poor things!' Dr Ballantyne, it must be confessed, had no trait in common with the heroes which would-be heroines dream of. He seldom or never fell into a reverie when in company; on the contrary, he was always particularly alive to what was going on; neither had he rich brown curls, nor raven clusters of hair, shading a brow sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' His hair (alas! it is too true that facts are stubborn things') was of a decidedly sandy hue, but the expansive forehead and expressive blue eye betokened a mind both deep and quick; added to which, were a fine complexion and beautiful teeth, together with a tall well-made figure; so that even to the eyes of Miss Ellen Melrose he might have presented a passable exterior. Leaving it to the imagination of our readers to call up the liveliest ideas of matrimonial bliss, and to suppose all realized in the experience of Agnes Melrose and Robert Ballantyne, we will leave them for the present, and follow the history of another member of the family. A fortnight after the wedding Marion went to Coldame; and in the following August Ellen set out to pay a visit to Hazelbrae. She left Edinburgh with a mind quite free from care, and an intention to enjoy the change very much-and she did enjoy it; but she returned home careful about many things, to account for which it will be necessary to recapitulate some particulars concerning her visit. One day Miss Melrose proposed an excursion across the river, to spend the evening with the Russels, who have been already mentioned in the course of this narrative; and Ellen,' said Katie, 'you had better pay some little attention to your toilet, as Mr Tom is just in want of a wife, now he has got a farm of his own.' Whether Ellen had acted on Miss Katie's hint or not, is not exactly known, but certain it is that Mr Tom found his way to Hazelbrae most unaccountably often as long as Ellen was there. He wished to consult Mr Melrose on some little point, or he had a message from his sister to Miss Melrose, or he was that way at any rate, and could not think of passing without calling to inquire for them. The Melroses were invited to a party at a friend's house, four miles distant. On the appointed day Ellen felt very much disinclined to go, and at length prevailed on her cousins to carry an excuse for her. Their departure left her the entire evening at her own disposal, for it was the harvest season, and her uncle was busy in the fields; so, to take advantage of the occasion, she threw on her bonnet and shawl, and set out to have a delightful solitary stroll,' as she said to herself. Whether she had any other expectation cannot very well be determined. She pursued a little pathway that led to her favourite walk by the river side, and then turned in each direction to admire the landscape around her. She thought upon the confined alleys and dirty hovels-the many disagreeable sights and sounds which obtrude themselves upon the eyes and ears even in the vicinity of the abodes of splendour in a large city-and surveying the beautiful and peaceful scene sleeping beneath the calm rich light of a harvest moon, Truly,' she exclaimed, God made the country, man made the town. This is very delightful; I dare say if Marion had been here she would have sketched that fine old castle, with the moonbeams piercing the crumbling casements-I would really like to visit it some night by moonlight,' said she, half aloud. 'Nothing more easy,' said a voice behind her; and, dear Ellen,'-the conclusion of the sentence was whispered at her side. I have just rowed across,' said young Mr Russel; did you not hear my oars on the river?' 'I was not listening particularly,' said Ellen. ་ They were just at the place where the boat was secured; and Ellen was seated in it, rowing up the river, on her way to visit the castle, before she very well knew what she was doing. The hill on which the castle was situated was very steep, and seemed as if it had been laid out in terraces; the marks of many trees which had been cut down were still visible, and several fine old elms had been left standing here and there, as mementos of what had been. Tradition said some of them marked the graves of border chieftains, who had fallen in the frays of which the neighbourhood around had been the frequent witness. On entering the castle they were startled by the flight of a pigeon, which had been disturbed in its quiet retreat by their entry. They stood for some time in silence, under a ruined arch, gazing around them: the trees were shading into the mellow tints of autumn, the hills were dotted with sheep, and the valleys were rich with the newly cut corn; the village lay romantically embosomed among hills in the distance, while the river wound along like a vast magnifying mirror, both adding to and reflecting the beauties by which it was environed. Mr Russel was the first to break the silence. Ellen,' said he, do you see yon hill?' pointing to one he described particularly. Yes,' ,' said she, I see it quite distinctly—what about it ?' 'Well,' said he, Glenmaben just lies at the foot of that hill.' 'Glenmaben,' she slowly repeated. I never heard of it before.' Did you not? It has just newly got a master, and he wishes to know if you will be its mistress; and, dear |' Ellen,' said he, sinking his voice to an earnest whisper, can you, will you be my wife.' That evening vows of affection were exchanged beneath the ruined arch, and signed and sealed in the usual way in which such engagements are ratified. Ellen got home in safety. Against all the rules of romance, she neither fainted, nor did the boat upset in the river, nor did she even wet her feet in stepping to the bank, but she arrived just about an hour before her cousins. They had had a pleasant party, though there were not so many there as had been expected; Tom Russel for one ought to have been there, but never made his appearance. Ellen did not, in approved boarding-school fashion, sit down that night, and in a thrice-crossed epistle pour out her feelings on the occasion to some soi-disant beloved school companion; but, on her return to Edinburgh, she immediately submitted herself to her mother's direction. Mrs Melrose told her that she thought both were too young as yet to undertake the responsibilities of such a connexion, and that it would be advisable to defer their union for at least two years. Ellen bowed to her mother's decision, and Tom had nothing for it but to submit to the arrangement with the best grace he could. Six years had now elapsed since the Melroses left Hollyhurst; three of these had been spent in the bitterest struggles of poverty, and three in a state of comparative ease. Agnes had been married for a year; and Marion had been the same length of time at Coldame. Charles had ceased to regret his early sacrifice. Since he entered Mr Gardner's office he had risen gradually in responsibility; and now he was in receipt of a salary which enabled him to save a considerable sum every year, in the prospect of beginning business for himself; while the ten shillings in the pound which had been realized from the assets of the bank, proved a very welcome addition to the income of the family. Marion liked Coldame very much, but as there no longer existed any necessity for her continuing in a situation, her mother preferred having her home again; and although Mrs Irving and her governess parted with mutual regret, Marion's heart bounded at the thought of being once more among her own beloved relatives. At the time fixed, Ellen went to Glenmaben, her future happy home; and the domestic cares which such a situation brought along with it acted as a happy counterpoise to the levity of her natural disposition. The last time the Misses Melrose of Hazelbrae were in Edinburgh, they called on Mrs Dr Ballantyne : Miss Ellen said she would be much afraid that little Agnes was going to have red hair; Mrs Ballantyne, however, did not seem much alarmed about it. Miss Katie remarked that baby's eyes were as like papa's as they could look. If this comparison was not intended as a compliment, it was taken as the greatest that could be offered, and all such sympathising remarks fell pointless to the ground. Mrs Melrose, with her two daughters and son residing under her roof, enjoys an honoured and a happy old age: amply repaid in the good conduct and prosperity of her children for all her previous anxiety and exertions. ARABIAN TALES AND ANECDOTES.* DREAMS. DREAMS are regarded by the Muslims as being often true warnings or indications of future events. This belief, sanctioned by their Prophet, will be well illustrated by the following anecdote, which was related to me in Cairo, shortly after the terrible plague of the year 1835, by the Sheykh Mohammed Et-Tantawee, who had taken the trouble of investigating the fact, and had ascertained its truth. and I testify that Mohammed is God's Apostle! There is no strength nor power but in God the High! the Great! To God we belong, and to Him we must return!' He then covered himself over with his quilt, as if for protection, and lay with throbbing heart, expecting every moment to have his soul torn from him by the inexorable messenger. But moments passed away, and minutes, and hours: yet without experiencing any hope of escape; for he imagined that the Angel was waiting for him to resign himself, or had left him for a while, and was occupied in receiving first the souls of the many hundred human beings who had attained their predestined term in that same night, and in the same city; and the souls of the thousands who were doomed to employ him elsewhere. Daybreak arrived before his sufferings terminated; and his neighbours, coming according to their promise, entered his chamber, and found him still in bed; but observing that he was covered up, and motionless as a corpse, they doubted whether he were still alive, and called to him. He answered, with a faint voice, I am not yet dead; but the Angel of Death came to me in the dusk of the evening, and I expect every moment his return, to take my soul: therefore trouble me not; but see me washed and buried.'-' But why,' said his friends, was the streetdoor left unlatched?' I latched it,' he answered, 'but A tradesman, living in the quarter of El-Hanafee, in the Angel of Death may have opened it.'-' And who,' Cairo, dreamt, during the plague above mentioned, that they asked, 'is the man in the court?' He answered, eleven persons were carried out from his house to be I know of no man in the court. Perhaps the Angel, who buried, victims of this disease. He awoke in a state of is waiting for my soul, has made himself visible to you, the greatest distress and alarm, reflecting that eleven was and been mistaken in the twilight for a man.'-' He is the total number of the inhabitants of his house, including a thief,' they said, 'who has gathered together every thing himself, and that it would be vain in him to attempt, by in the house that he could carry away, and has been struck adding one or more members to his household, to elude by the plague while doing so, and now lies dead in the the decree of God, and give himself a chance of escape: court, at the foot of the stairs, grasping in his hand a so, calling together his neighbours, he informed them of silver candlestick.' The master of the house, after hearhis dream, and was counselled to submit with resignationing this, paused for a moment, and then, throwing off his to a fate so plainly foreshown, and to be thankful to God quilt, exclaimed, 'Praise be to God, the Lord of all creafor the timely notice with which he had been mercifully tures! That is the eleventh, and I am safe! No doubt favoured. On the following day, one of his children died; it was that rascal who came to me, and said that he was a day or two after, a wife; and the pestilence continued the Angel of Death. Praise be to God! Praise be to its ravages among his family until he remained in his God!' house alone. It was impossible for him now to entertain the slightest doubt of the entire accomplishment of the warning. Immediately, therefore, after the last death that had taken place among his household, he repaired to a friend at a neighbouring shop, and, calling to him several other persons from the adjoining and opposite shops, he reminded them of his dream, acquainting them with its almost complete fulfilment, and expressed his conviction that he, the eleventh, should very soon die, Perhaps,' said he, I shall die this next night: I beg of you, therefore. for God's sake, to come to my house early to-morrow morning, and the next morning, and the next if necessary, and to see if I be dead, and, when dead, that I am properly buried; for I have no one with me to wash and shroud me. Fail not to do me this service, which will procure you a recompense in heaven. I have bought my grave-linen: you will find it in a corner of the room in which I sleep. If you find the door of the house latched, and I do not answer to your knocking, break it open.' Soon after sunset, he laid himself in his lonely bed, though without any expectation of closing his eyes in sleep; for his mind was absorbed in reflections upon the awful entry into another world, and a review of his past life. As the shades of night gathered around him, he could almost fancy that he beheld, in one faint object or another in his gloomy chamber, the dreadful person of the Angel of Death: and at length he actually perceived a figure gliding in at the door, and approaching his bed. Starting up in horror, he exclaimed, Who art thou?'and a stern and solemn voice answered, Be silent! I am Azraeel, the Angel of Death!'- Alas!' cried the terrified man; 'I testify that there is no deity but God, 6 From the entertaining Notes to Mr Lane's new translation of The Thousand and One Nights,' now also published in No. XLVII. of 'Knight's Weekly Volume.' London: Charles Knight & Co. This man survived the plague, and took pleasure in relating the above story. The thief had overheard his conversation with his neighbours, and, coming to his house in the dusk, had put his shoulder to the wooden lock, and so raised the door, and displaced the latch within. There is nothing wonderful in the dream, nor in its accomplishment. The plague of 1835 entirely desolated many houses, and was most fatal to the young; and all the inhabitants of the house in question were young excepting the master. EATING SALT. The obligation which is imposed by eating another person's bread and salt, or salt alone, or eating such things with another, is well known; but the following example of it may be new to some readers:-Yaakoob, the son of El-lays Es-Suffer, having adopted a predatory life, excavated a passage one night into the palace of Dirhem the governor of Sijistan, or Seestan; and after he had made up a convenient bale of gold and jewels, and the most costly stuffs, was proceeding to carry it off, when he happened, in the dark, to strike his foot against something hard on the floor. Thinking it might be a jewel of some sort -a diamond, perhaps he picked it up and put it to his tongue, and, to his equal mortification and disappointment, found it to be a lump of rock-salt; for having thus tasted the salt of the owner, his avarice gave way to his respect for the laws of hospitality, and throwing down his precious booty, he left it behind him, and withdrew empty-handed to his habitation. The treasurer of Dirhem repairing the next day, according to custom, to inspect his charge, was equally surprised and alarmed at observing that a great part of the treasure and other valuables had been removed; but on examining the package which lay on the floor, his astonishment was not less to find that not a single article had been conveyed away. The singularity of the circumstance induced him to report it im mediately to his master; and the latter causing it to be proclaimed throughout the city, that the author of this proceeding had his free pardon, further announced, that, | on repairing to the palace, he would be distinguished by the most encouraging marks of favour. Yaakoob availed himself of the invitation, relying upon the promise, which was fulfilled to him; and from this period he gradually rose in power until he became the founder of a dynasty. THE POET'S REWARD. A whimsical story is told of a king, who denied to poets those rewards to which usage had almost given them a claim. This king, whose name is not recorded, had the faculty of retaining in his memory an ode after having only once heard it; and he had a memlook (male white slave) who could repeat an ode which he had twice heard, and a female slave who could repeat one that she had heard thrice. Whenever a poet came to compliment him with a panegyrical ode, the king used to promise him that if he found his verses to be his original composition, he would give him a sum of money equal in weight to what they were written upon. The poet, consenting, would recite his ode; and the king would say, 'It is not new; for I have known it some years;' and he would repeat it as he had heard it; after which he would add,' And this memlook also retains it in his memory ;' and would order the memlook to repeat it; which, having heard it twice, from the poet and king, he would do. The king would then say to the poet, I have also a female slave who can repeat it; and ordering her to do so, stationed behind the curtains, she would repeat what she had thus thrice heard: so the poet would go away empty-handed. The famous poet El-Asma'ee, having heard of this proceeding, and guessing the trick, determined upon outwitting the king; and accordingly composed an ode made up of very difficult words. But this was not his only preparative measure-another will be presently explained; and a third was, to assume the dress of a Bedawee, that he might not be known, covering his face, the eyes only excepted, with a litham (a piece of drapery), in accordance with a custom of Arabs of the desert. Thus disguised, he went to the palace, and, having asked permission, entered and saluted the king, who said to him, Whence art thou, O brother of the Arabs, and what dost thou desire?' The poet answered, May God increase the power of the king! I am a poet of such a tribe, and have composed an ode in praise of our lord the Sultan.'- O brother of the Arabs,' said the king, hast thou heard of our condition?' 'No,' answered the poet; and what is it, O king of the age ?' 'It is,' replied the king, that if the ode be not thine, we give thee no reward; and if it be thine, we give thee the weight in money of what it is written upon.'-'How,' said El-Asma'ee, 'should I assume to myself that which belongs to another, and knowing, too, that lying before kings is one of the basest of actions? But I agree to this condition, O our lord the Sultan.' So he repeated his ode. The king, perplexed, and unable to remember any of it, made a sign to the memlook-but he had retained nothing; and called to the female slave, but she also was unable to repeat a word. 'O brother of the Arabs,' said he, thou hast spoken truth, and the ode is thine without doubt: I have never heard it before: produce, therefore, what it is written upon, and we will give thee its weight in money, as we have promised.' 'Wilt thou,' said the poet, send one of the attendants to carry it ?'To carry what?' asked the king; 'is it not upon a paper here in thy possession ?'-'No, O our lord the Sultan,' replied the poet : at the time I composed it I could not procure a piece of paper upon which to write it, and could find nothing but a fragment of a marble column left me by my father: so I engraved it upon this; and it lies in the court of the palace.' He had brought it, wrapped up, on the back of a camel. The king, to fulfil his promise, was obliged to exhaust his treasury; and to prevent a repetition of this trick (of which he afterwards discovered El-Asma'ee to have been the author), in future rewarded the poets according to the usual custom of kings. ANECDOTE OF A CHARITABLE ISRAELITE. There was among the Children of Israel a devout man, having a family who spun cotton; and he used every day to sell the thread that they spun, and to buy fresh cotton; and with the profit that arose, he bought food for his family, which they ate that day. And he went forth one day, and sold the thread which they had spun, and there met him one of his brethren, who complained to him of his need; whereupon he gave him the price of his thread, and returned to his family without either cotton or food. So they said to him, 'Where is the cotton and the food?' And he answered them, 'Such-a-one met me, and complained to me of his need: whereupon I gave him the price of the thread.' They said, 'And what shall we do; for we have nothing to sell? But they had a broken wooden bowl, and a jar; and he took them to the market. No one, however, would buy them of him ; lat while he was in the market, there met him a man with a stinking, swollen fish, which no one would buy of him; and the owner of the fish said to him, Wilt thou sell to me thy unmarketable property for mine?' He answered, Yes; and gave the man the wooden bowl and the jar, receiving from him the fish, which he brought to his family. They said, 'What shall we do with this fish?' He answered, We will broil it, and feed upon it until God (whose name be exalted!) please to supply us with sustenance. They therefore took it, and ripped open its belly, and they found in it a pearl. So they informed the sheykh [the devotee]; and he said, 'See if it be pierced; for if so, it belongeth to some one of the people; but if it be not pierced, it is a gift which God (whose name be exalted!) hath bestowed upon you.' And they looked, and lo, it was not pierced. And when the morning came, he i went with it to one of his brethren, of those who were acquainted with pearls; and this person said, 'O such-a-one, whence gottest thou this pearl ?' He answered, 'It is a gift which God (whose name be exalted!) hath bestowed upon us.' And the man said, Verily it is worth a thousand pieces of silver, and I will give that sum; but take it to such-a-one, for he is of more wealth and knowledge than myself."' So he took it to him, and he said, 'Verily it is worth seventy thousand pieces of silver; not more than that. Then he paid him seventy thousand pieces of silver; and the sheykh called the porters, who carried for him the money until he arrived at the door of his dwelling; when a beggar came to him, and said to him, Give me of that which God (whose name be exalted!) hath given unto thee.' And he said to the beggar,We were yesterday like thee. Take half of this money.' And when he had divided the money into two equal portions, and each of them had taken his half, the beggar said to him, Keep thy money, and take it: may God bless thee in it: for verily I am a messenger of thy Lord, who hath sent me to try thee.' And the sheykh said, 'To God be praise and thanks! And he ceased not to pass a most comfortable life, he and his family, until death. 6 THE OTHER FIG. AN APOLOGUE. SOME years since, when I knew too little of the world, and thought too sensitively of its slightest opinion, I supped with an author of eminence as a wit and a poet, in the company of men of wit and genius; and much mad mirth and high-exciting talk we had,-too mad and too high for me, who could only laugh, or wonder in silence, at so many brilliant imaginations, and watch the striking out of their fiery sparks of wit, 'So nimble and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one from whom they came I was all ear to hear,' and took in jests 'which might Muslims call the Children of Israel; but the dremiers of the Messiah they call Yahood,' i. e. Jews. Such of the descendants of Jacob as hold the tre faith, the create a laugh under the ribs of death,' and thoughts and high imaginations which might lift a man to the third heaven of invention;' and thither, indeed, I was for once lifted. But there are souls of that weak wing, that so much the higher they soar above the proper level of their flight, so much the lower they fall below the level of their proper resting-ground; and as, under the excitement of wine, some men betray all their hidden foibles, and the flaws and weak parts in their characters, so, under the excitement of too much wit, I betrayed one frailty in mine. It was after supper that a small basket of most mouthmelting figs was put on the friendly board, out of which, among other fingers, I was then moderate enough to deduct only one of its compressed lumps of deliciousness; but in a short time after this, music and Mozart (which are synonymous) were proposed, and all the company left the supper-room for the music-parlour, with the exception, for two loitering moments, of the hospitable host and myself: it was in that short time that I fell from the heaven of my high exaltation, and proved myself of the ' earth earthy.' The basket of figs still stood before me: they were sweet as the lips of beauty, and tempting as the apples of Eden; and I was born of Eve, and inherited her 'pugging tooth. It is no matter where temptation comes from, whether from Turkey or Paradise; if the man Adam to be tempted is ripe for ruin, any wind may shake him off the tree of stedfastness. Every man has his moment of weakness: I had two, and in those I fell. 'I really must take the other fig,' said I, taking it before the words were out. I had no sooner possessed myself of it than I blushed with the consciousness that I had committed something like a sin against self-restraint; and this confusion was increased by observing that the eyes of mine host had followed the act, as if they would inquire into it, and ascertain its true meaning, and perhaps set it down over-against the credit side of my character. I was ever afraid that I had the weakness of too much covetousness of the creature comforts in my disposition, and that I had now betrayed it to a man who, though lenient and charitable, and inclined to think well of slight faults, would nevertheless weigh it in the balance of estimation, and think of it and me accordingly. I deserved to blush for it, and I did, to the bottom of the stairs, as I descended with him chewing the sweet fruit of my offence, and the bitter consequence of it-an uneasy sense of shame. But out of the greatest evil we may deduce good; and from the knowledge of our weakness derive strength. One thing comforted me in my disgrace: I had the courage to resist making an equivocatory apology for the act, which I was, for a moment, tempted to make; for the devil, who has his good things at his tongue's end, as well as much better beings, suggested, in a whisper, and with a nudge at my elbow, that I took it merely to have occasion for rewarding one of the wits with a 'fig for his joke,' mentioning him by name as patly as if he had it in his books. I thanked the Evil Ône for the suggestion. 'But no,' I whispered, there is more comeliness in a naked fault than in the best attired lie in the world; so I'll even let it stand naked as its mother Eve, who was the first weak creature that took the other fig.' And here the devil chuckled, for he recollected the good fortune that fell into the first trap he baited with sin, and was not disappointed that he had set one in vain for me. riousness of his living, now wants a plain dinner, I say, It is a pity; but he always would have the other fig on table.' When I see a sensible man staggering through the streets in a drunken forgetfulness of himself and of the divine property of his being, or behold him wallowing in a sensual sty,' and degrading the godlike uprightness of man to the grovelling attitude of the brute, I sigh, and say, This fellow, too, cannot refrain from the other fig. When I look on the miser, who, though possessed of gold and land, lives without money or house, using not the one as it should be used, and enjoying not the other as it should be enjoyed; and when I see that, though having more than he uses, he covets more, that he may have still more than he can use, I scorn him as a robber of the poor, not to make himself richer than they, but poorer, more thankless and comfortless; and I pity the rich poor wretch, still grasping at the other fig. When I hear of some wealthy trader with the four quarters of the world venturing forth again from the ark of safety and the home of his old age, on his promised last voyage, and perishing through the peril of the way, I cannot but pity the man who could not lie quietly in the safe harbour of home, because he still craved after the other fig. When I behold some heavy-pursed gamester enter one of those temples where fortune snatches the golden offerings from the altars of her blind fools, to fling them at the feet of her knaves who have eyes; and behold him issuing thence without a beggarly denier,' to bless him with a dinner or a rope, I cannot help pitying him, that he should risk the fortune he had for the other fig which he has lost. When I see a mighty conqueror, having many thrones under his dominion, and many sceptres in his hand, struggling for new thrones and sceptres, and one after the other losing those he held, in his rapacious eagerness to snatch at those he would have, I cannot pity him if he loses so many fine figs in the hand to possess the other fig on the tree. When I behold a rich merchant made poor by the extravagance and boldness of his trading speculations, when, if he could have been content with the wealth he had, he might have lived sumptuously and died rich, I cannot help thinking it a pity that he could not be content without the other fig. When I hear that a rich man has done a paltry action for the sake of some petty, penny-getting gain, I scorn him that should so much covet the other fig. When I see a man already high in rank, and ennobled by descent more than desert, cringing and stooping to a title-dispenser's heels for some new honour (which is but a new disgrace where it is undeserved), it is difficult not to despise him, though ever so honoured, who will so degrade himself for the sake of the other fig. And, to conclude, when I see the detected thief dragged in fetters to a dungeon, I think to myself, Ay, this is one of the probable consequences of a wilful indulgence in the other fig!' THE HEART THE SEAT OF EVIL. It is in the heart that the fool says what he fears to utter with his tongue, 'No God.' There it is that scepticism harbours its hard thoughts of God, and that our natural enmity against him finds a home. It is the treasury of sin, where all its resources are kept against the hour of opportunity; it is the hiding-place of sin, where it often lurks unknown to us, and whence it frequently steals forth, and takes us by surprise; it is the first place which sin enters, and the last which it leaves; for sin not only takes up its abode in the heart before it appears in the conduct, but how often does it occur that, after sin has been banished from the outer life, it only When I am told that a great gourmand of my acquaint-retires back again, and hides itself in the heart! Having nce has died over his dessert-table, I am not surprised, I have myself noticed that he always would eat the her fig. When I hear that a man, once celebrated for the luxu I have never forgotten this little incident of my incidental life; it has served as a moral check when I have coveted things which I did not want. And now, when I learn that some one, always famous for his covetousness, has at last been detected in a flagrant dereliction from honesty, I do not wonder at it, for I attribute it to an unrestrained habit of taking the other fig. taken up a commanding position in the heart, and fortified and intrenched itself there, it mocks every effort made to dislodge it, which does not reach and shake the very centre of our being.-Dr Harris. CHRISTIAN WEAPONS SPIRITUAL. Within the limits of his empire, Christ will have no blood to be shed but that of his own atoning sacrifice-no sword to be wielded but that weapon of ethereal temper, the 'sword of the Spirit,' whose strokes alight only on the conscience, and whose edge is anointed with a balm to heal every wound it may inflict.-Dr Harris. DEW. The dew, celebrated through all times and in every tongue for its sweet influences, presents the most beautiful and striking illustration of the agency of water in the economy of nature, and exhibits one of those wise and bountiful adaptations by which the whole system of things, animate and inanimate, is fitted and bound together. All bodies on the surface of the earth radiate, or throw out rays of heat in straight lines-every warmer body to every colder; and the entire surface is itself continually sending rays upwards through the clear air into free space. Thus on the earth's surface all bodies strive, as it were, after an equal temperature (an equilibrium of heat), while the surface as a whole tends gradually towards a cooler state. But, while the sun shines, this cooling will not take place, for the earth then receives in general more heat than it gives off; and if the clear sky be shut out by a canopy of clouds, these will arrest and again throw back a portion of the heat, and prevent it from being so speedily dissipated. At night, then, when the sun is absent, the earth will cool the most; on clear nights also more than when it is cloudy; and when clouds only partially obscure the sky, those parts will become coolest which look towards the clearest portions of the heavens. Now, when the surface cools, the air in contact with it must cool also; and, like the warm currents on the mountain side, must forsake a portion of the watery vapour it has hitherto retained. This water, like the floating mist on the hills, descends in particles almost infinitely minute. These particles collect on every leaflet, and suspend themselves from every blade of grass, in drops of pearly dew.' And mark here a beautiful adaptation. Different substances are endowed with the property of radiating their heat, and of thus becoming cool with different degrees of rapidity; and those substances which in the air become cool first, also attract first and most abundantly the particles of falling dew. Thus, in the cool of a summer's evening, the grass plot is wet while the gravel walk is dry; and the thirsty pasture and every green leaf are drinking in the descending moisture, while the naked land and the barren highway are still unconscious of its fall.-Professor Johnstone. FORMS OF INTEMPERANCE. There is the intemperance of mirth, and then its victim is a silly buffoon; the intemperance of seriousness, and then he is a gloomy ascetic; the intemperance of ambition, and then he is the laurelled hero of a hundred fights, a madcap poet, or mountebank statesman; the intemperance of love, and then he is a good-for-nothing driveller; the intemperance of anger, and then he is a frothing madman; the intemperance of dress and manners, and then he is a glittering fop; the intemperance of the purse, and then he is a sordid miser; the intemperance of the plate, and then he is a filthy glutton; the intemperance of the bowl, and then he is a reeling drunkard. : MAN. Man is but a reed, and the weakest in nature; but then he is a reed that thinks. It does need the universe to crush him a breath of air, a drop of water, will kill him. But even if the material universe should overwhelm him, man would be more noble than that which destroys him; because he knows that he dies, while the universe knows nothing of the advantage which it has over him. Our true dignity, then, consists in our capabilities of thought and affection. From thence we must derive our elevation-not from space or duration. Let us endeavour to think well: this is the principle of morals.-Pascal. PREPARATION FOR DEATH. To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege; but to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack. THE FATE OF THE EMINENT. To be at once in any great degree loved and praised is truly rare. THE COMING SWALLOW. BY THOMAS SMIBERT. The merry month thou lovest comes once more, To see and hear thee, in my bosom reigns. As oriental maiden's long and dark eye-lash. When they, from door to door, And in thy name awaken'd charity's sweet ruth. And many a tender elegiac line, Mellow'd thereby, like airs Which the mild night-breeze bears Than now by me, O! builder in the eaves, That on my brow of late have camp'd like armed men! Nor swift o'ertaking gale May ruffle thy fine plumes, and thy soft members maim. But now the slumbers of the May are done, And forth, like some great painter in his pride, With pencil dipp'd in radiance of the sun, She comes, to spread her colours far and wide, For thee and for the brood Apt at thy work as man with hands and tools; Gath'ring thy compost or from streams or pools A fountain'd liquid, fit Thy dwelling-walls to knit, And give thee tranquil ease despite the beating wind. The lessons learn'd from thee; Printed and published by JAMES HOGG, 122 Nicolson Street, Edinburgh; to whom all communications are to be addressed. Sold also by J. JOHNSTONE, Edinburgh; J. M'LEOD, Glasgow; W. M'COMB, Belfast; J. CLANCY, Dublin; G. & R. KING, Aberdeen; R. WALKER, Dundee; G. PHILIP, Liverpool; FINLAY & CHARL TON, Newcastle; WRIGHTSON & WEBB, Birmingham; GALT & Co., Manchester; R. GROOMBRIDGE & SONS, London; and all Booksellers. |