upon it, and principally of man, we cannot be ignorant or doubtful, if we be not so negligent or stupid as to let pass unobserved these innumerable signs and arguments that show it. If we look upon the frame of the animals themselves, what a number of admirable contrivances in each of them do appear for the sustenance, for the safety, for the pleasure, for the propagation, for grace and ornament, for all imaginable convenience suitable to the kind and station of each! If we look about them, what variety and abundance of convenient provisions offer themselves even to a careless view, answerable to all their needs and all their desires! wholesome and pleasant food to maintain their life, yea, to gratify all their senses; fit shelter from offence, and safe refuge from dangers; all these things provided in sufficient plenty and commodiously disposed for such a vast number of creatures! Not the least, most silly, weak, or contemptible creature, but we may see some care hath been had for its nourishment and comfort. What wonderful instincts are they endued with for procuring and distinguishing of their food, for guarding themselves and their young from danger! But for man especially, a most liberal provision hath been made to supply all his needs; to please all his appetites, to exercise with profit and satisfaction all his faculties, to content (I might say) his utmost curiosity; all things about him do minister (or may do so, if he will use the natural powers and instruments given him) to his preservation, ease, and delight. The bowels of the earth yield him treasures of metals and minerals; quarries of stone and coal serviceable to him for various uses. The vilest and commonest stones he treadeth upon are not unprofitable. The surface of the earth, what variety of delicate fruits, herbs, and grains doth it afford to nourish our bodies, and cheer our spirits, and please our tastes, and remedy our diseases! How many fragrant flowers, most beautiful and goodly in colour and in shape, for the comfort of our smell and delight of our eyes! Neither can our ears complain, since every wood hath a choir of natural musicians to entertain them with their sprightful melody! Every wood did I say? yet, too, the woods adorned with stately trees yield pleasant spectacles to our sight, shelter from offences of weather and sun, fuel for our fires, materials for our buildings (our houses and shipping), and other needful utensils. Even the barren mountains send us down fresh streams of water, so necessary for the support of our lives, so profitable for the fructification of our grounds, so commodious for conveyance and maintaining of intercourse among us. Even the wide seas themselves serve us many ways; they are commodious for our traffic and commerce: they supply the bottles of heaven with water to refresh the earth: they are in

exhaustible cisterns from whence our springs and rivers are derived they yield stores of good fish, and other conveniences of life. The very rude and disorderly winds do us no little service in brushing and cleansing the air for our health, in driving forward our ships, in scattering and spreading about the clouds, those clouds which drop fatness upon our grounds. As for our subjects, the animals, 'tis not possible to reckon the manifold utilities we receive from them: how many ways they supply our needs with pleasant food and convenient clothing; how they ease our labour; and how they promote even our sport and recreation. And are we not, not only very stupid but very ungrateful, if we do not discern the abundance of wisdom and goodness in the contrivance and ordering of all these things, so as thus to conspire for our good?-BARROW.

WE were desired to dismount, just above Bethany, to visit what the monks call the tomb of Lazarus. Without supposing it to be that, we found it to be interesting as a really ancient tomb. It was so small, that few of us went down; but I wished to see the whole of it. A few steep and difficult steps brought me down into a small vaulted chamber; and two or three more very deep and narrow steps led to the lower chamber, where the body was laid. We questioned whether there was room for more than one body. In exploring tombs in this country, whether such as this, or the more picturesque and natural burial-places in the branching caverns of the limestone rocks, I often wished that the old painters had enjoyed our opportunities-for the sake of art as well as truth; and then we should have had representations of Lazarus coming forth from chambers in the rock, instead of rising from such a grave as we see dug in European churchyards. The limestone rocks, full of caverns, now used as dwellings for men and cattle, were of old those "chambers of the grave" which puzzled our childhood by that name; and it is a great privilege to have seen them, so as to understand how the dead were said to be calling to each other; and how the stone was rolled away from the mouth of the sepulchres, and how Jesus could have cried with a loud voice for the dead to come forth. After having visited these places, how vivid is the picture of such scenes! How the voice echoes through this dim "chambers of the tomb,'

and is answered by the dead man appearing in his cerements, appearing from the end of the passage, or in the shadow of the

recess.

The monks, when taken as guides, show in the village the house of Martha and Mary, as they pretend, and that of Simon the Leper; but we did not inquire for these, having no wish to mix up anything fabulous with our observations of a place so interesting as Bethany.

Our road led us to the bottom of the valley, where there were patches of cultivation on the stony soil. We rode for three or four miles, sometimes on the one hill and sometimes on the other; and then we began to ascend the hot and rough and dreary road where began the danger of the way "from Jerusalem to Jericho," where the traveller enters among the fastnesses of the thieves who have infested the road from time immemorial. There is a hollow way which is considered the most dangerous of all. Here Sir Frederick Henniker was stripped and left for dead by robbers, in 1820. His servants fled and hid themselves on the first alarm. When they returned he was lying, naked and bleeding, on the sultry road. They put him on a horse and carried him to Jericho, where he found succour. Perhaps he was thinking of the parable of the Samaritan, when this accident befel him. I was thinking of it almost every step of the way. Another beautiful story was presently after full in my mind; a Catholic legend, which was told me by a German friend in America, when I little dreamed of ever being on the spot. Our road now gradually ascended the high ridge from which we were soon to overlook the plain of Jericho. The track was so stony and difficult, as to make our progress very slow; and the white rocks under the midday sun gave out such heat and glare, as made me enter more thoroughly into the story of Peter and the cherries, than my readers can perhaps do. And yet, the many to whom I have told the legend in conversation, have all felt its beauty. It is thus:

Jesus, and two or three of his disciples, went down one summer's day from Jerusalem to Jericho. Peter-the ardent and eager Peter-was, as usual, by the Teacher's side. On the road to Olivet lay a horse-shoe, which the Teacher desired Peter to pick up, but which Peter let lie, as he did not think it worth the trouble of stooping for. The Teacher stooped for it, and exchanged it in the village for a measure of cherries These cherries he carried (as eastern men now carry such things) in the bosomfolds of his dress. When they had to ascend the ridge, and the road lay between heated rocks, and over rugged stones, and among glaring white dust, Peter became tormented with heat and thirst,

and fell behind. Then the Teacher dropped a ripe cherry at every few steps; and Peter eagerly stooped for them. When they were all done, Jesus turned to him, and said with a smile, "He who is above stooping to a small thing, will have to bend his back to many lesser things."-H. MARTINEAU'S 'Eastern Life.

WHEN you see how much more grown people know than you, you ought to be anxious to learn all you can from those who teach you; and as there are so many wise and good things written in books, you ought to try to read early and carefully, that you may learn something of what God has made you able to know. There are libraries containing very many thousands of volumes; and all that is written in these is,-accounts of some part or other of the world which God has made, or of the thoughts which He has enabled men to have in their minds. Some books are descriptions of the earth itself, with its rocks and ground and waters, and of the air and clouds, and the stars and moon and sun, which shine so beautifully in the sky. Some tell you about the things that grow upon the ground; the many millions of plants, from little mosses and threads of grass up to great trees and forests. Some also contain accounts of living things; flies, worms, fishes, birds, and four-legged beasts. And some, which are the most, are about men, and their thoughts and doings. These are the most important of all; for men are the best and most wonderful creatures of God in the world, being the only ones able to know Him and love him, and to try of their own accord to do His will.

These books about men are also the most important to us, because we ourselves are human beings, and may learn from such books what we ought to think and to do and to try to be. Some of them describe what sort of people have lived in old times, and in other countries. By reading them, we know what is the difference between ourselves in England now, and the famous nations which lived in former days. Such were the Egyptians who built the Pyramids, which are the greatest heaps of stone upon the face of the earth; and the Babylonians, who had a city with huge walls built of bricks, having writing on them that no one in our time has been able to make out. There were also the Jews, who were the only ancient people that knew how wonderful and how good God is; and the Greeks, who were the wisest of all in thinking about men's lives and hearts, and who knew best how to

make fine statues and buildings, and to write wise books. By books also we may learn what sort of people the old Romans were, whose chief city was Rome; and how brave and skilful they were in war, and how well they could govern and teach many nations which they had conquered. It is from books, too, that you must learn what kind of men were our ancestors in the northern part of Europe, who belonged to the tribes that did the most towards pulling down the power of the Romans; and you will see, in the same way, how Christianity was sent among them by God, to make them wiser and more peaceful, and more noble in their minds; and how all the nations that now are in Europe, and especially the Italians and the Germans and the French and the English, came to be what they now are. It is well worth knowing (and it can be only by reading) how the Germans found out the printing of books, and what great changes this has made in the world. And everybody in England ought to try to understand how the English came to have their parliaments and laws, and to have fleets that sail over all the seas of the world.

Besides learning all these things, and a great many more about different times and countries, you may learn from books what is the truth of God's will, and what are the best and wisest thoughts, and the most beautiful words; and how men are able to lead very right lives, and to do a great deal to better the world. I have spent a great part of my life in reading; and I hope you will come to like it as much as I do, and to learn in this way all that I know.

But it is a still more serious matter that you should try to be obedient and gentle, and to command your temper; and to think of other people's pleasure rather than your own, and of what you ought to do, rather than what you like. If you try to be better for all you read as well as wiser, you will find books a great help towards goodness as well as knowledge, and above all other books, the Bible, which tells us of the will of God, and the love of Jesus Christ towards God and men.-JOHN STERLING.

THE cure for the greatest part of human miseries is not radical, but palliative. Infelicity is involved in corporeal nature, and interwoven with our being; all attempts, therefore, to decline it wholly are useless and vain. The armies of pain send their