which would interrupt your private intercourse with God. Make every thing give way to this. Things lawful in themselves become most ruinous to the soul, if they stand in the way of this fundamental duty. THE CITIES OF REFUGE. THREE cities of refuge were set apart by Moses (Numb. xxxv. 24-28; Deut. iv. 41-43) for the purpose of affording an asylum to any individual who had caused the death of a fellow-creature, until the circumstances of his case should be investigated, and his guilt or innocence ascertained. Their number was afterwards increased to six (Josh. xx. 7-9); and thus there were three on each side of Jordan. The Israelites were required to keep the roads leading to these cities in the best possible order, that the manslayer might flee thither without any hinderance. These roads were to be of the breadth of thirty-two cubits. Bridges were thrown over streams, which might otherwise impede the flight; and there was an inscription set up at every cross-road, with the word signifying asylum, and which pointed the way to the city. The nearest relative to the person slain was allowed to avenge his kinsman's blood, provided he could overtake the slayer before he arrived at one of the cities; but once arrived, the slayer was safe. Even at the present day, it is regarded as a point of honour in the East for the nearest relative of a person slain to seek by every means to avenge his kinsman. Vengeance is not prohibited by the Koran of Maho met. It is, in fact, a weed which luxuriates rankly in the soil of the natural heart,-" implacable, unmerciful," is the apostle's delineation of the character even of the civilised heathen in his day; and truly it is descriptive of the character of the natural man in general. It is not until brought under the sanctifying power of the Gospel that the Christian learns to lay aside the ferocious impulses of a revengeful nature, and to forbear, and to forgive every brother his trespasses. The magistrate, however, was to bring the manslayer back to the place where the deed had been committed, and there to bring him to trial. If, on due investigation, it was discovered he had not committed the deed with any malicious intention, his life was spared: only, however, on condition, that he remained in the city of refuge until the death of the high-priest; for if found without it, he might be put to death. But if the deed had been committed intentionally, then the perpetrator, even though he had fled to one of the cities, was to be put to death (Deut. xix. 11). By this appointment God was pleased to testify the value of human life, and to express his entire abhorrence of the fearful crime of murder. It was a wise and merciful institution, peculiarly adapted for the peculiar circumstances in which God's ancient people were placed. In after-ages, however, places of refuge, which were originally intended for those who killed a man by accident, were made use of as a means of escape for the greatest criminals.* Franklin tells us, "That the See an exceedingly useful and judiciously compiled work, city of Shirauz is divided into twelve districts or neighbourhoods, over each of which one of their imaums, or heads of faith, is believed to preside as a kind of guardian angel. Every Thursday night, which the Persians call the night of Friday, the criers, and other domestics of the mosques, make a gikir, that is, a recital of the life and good actions of the imaums or saints who preside over the districts, by whose influence the inhabitants hoped to obtain their wishes, and to be absolved from their sins. These imaums are alluded to by the Persians in their conversations. They swear by them, and invoke them on all occasions of distress and adversity, as well as return them thanks on any good fortune befalling them. The mosques of the imaum hadas, or descendants from the imaums, serve as sanctuaries for criminals; but the most sanctified place in Shirauz, and which no one ever violates, is the Shah Cherang, where the greatest criminal can be protected if the inhabitants of the place should receive him." In speaking of Ispahan, Dellé Vallé says: "Whatever the crime of an individual may be who flies for refuge from justice to the palace of the king, it is a sacred asylum. At the present, there is a man of quality there, whom the king was desirous of putting to death for some state treason; but being quick enough to enter the palace (although if he made but a step without the gate, he would instantly be put to death without further process), he is secure from every violence. None is refused admittance to the palace, but on passing the threshold, which he kisses, he has claim of protection." We are told by Hamilton, that whatever animal comes within the verge of a temple in Siam, it is secured from pursuit or violence. "I knew," says he, a Portuguese inhabitant of Siam, who shot a crow as it sat on the branch of a tree that grew near a temple; on which the priests raised a mob, who broke the poor man's legs and arms, and left him in the field for dead; but some Christians, coming accidentally by, carried him in a boat in that deplorable state to a French surgeon, who set his bones, and cured him." The sanctuary of altars, temples, tombs, statues, and likewise monuments of persons of distinction, where criminals sheltered themselves from the hands of justice, is very ancient. Thus the Temple of Diana at Ephesus was a refuge for debtors; the tomb of Theseus for slaves. Among the Romans a celebrated asylum was opened by Romulus, between the mounts Palatine and Capitoline, in order to people Rome, for all sorts of persons indiscriminately-fugitives, slaves, debtors, and criminals of every kind. It was customary among the heathens to allow refuge and impunity even to the vilest and most flagrant offenders: some from superstition, and others for the sake of peopling their cities. And it was by this means, and with such inhabitants, that Thebes, Athens, and Rome, were first stocked. We even read of asylums at Lyons and Vienne among the ancient Gauls; and there are some cities in Germany which still preserve the ancient right of asylum. Elucidations of interesting Passages in the Sacred Volum First Series. Edinburgh, W. Whyte and Co. 1835. We can confidently recommend it to the perusal of our readers. The Emperors Honorius and Theodosius granted the same immunities to churches; and bishops and monks laid hold of a certain tract or territory, without which they fixed the bounds of the secular jurisdiction; and, in a short time, convents became next akin to fortresses, where the most notorious villains were in safety, and braved the power of the magistrate. These privileges at length were extended not only to churches and churchyards, but also to the bishops' houses: from whence the criminals could not be removed without a legal assurance of life, and an entire remission of the crime. Plees, in his History of the Island of Jersey, says: "The highways were formerly of different widths, and were under strict regulations in this respect. There was one of these, called 'Perguage,' in each parish, and it had a peculiar destination. It began at the church, and from thence led directly to the sea. Its use was to enable those, who, for some capital crime, had taken sanctuary in the church, and had been sentenced to exile, to reach the shore in safety. If they strayed at all from the Perguage in going, they forfeited all the advantages of sanctuary, became liable to be seized, and suffer the penalties of the law. These privileged paths were abolished at the Reformation." The asylums also alluded to above have since been stripped of their immunities, because they served to make guilt more bold and daring, and gave a sanction to the commission of crime. The cities of refuge set apart by God's command were unquestionably intended, not merely to provide an asylum for the unfortunate manslayer, but as types of that security which they enjoy, who, deeply convinced of their guilt and danger, flee to that adorable Saviour who is set forth as the propitiation for human transgression, and as shielding from the punishment due to their offences all who betake themselves to him. "God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge, to lay hold upon the hope set before us." Viewed in this light, the cities of refuge become a subject of more than ordinary interest to the believer. In the freedom from punishment which they afforded, he beholds the perfect security of all those, for whom, as being in Christ Jesus, there is now no condemnation; while the ready access afforded to their sanctuary reminds him of the gracious declaration, "Whosoever cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." The eternal God is his refuge a very present help in trouble, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled. Relying on the covenant-promise of the unchanging Jehovah, he is enabled to exclaim, "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." 0. LITURGICAL HINTS.-XXIII. "Understandest thou what thou readest?”—Acts, viii. 30. FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. THE COLLECT (which is found in the Sacramentary of Gregory) belongs to that class which were retained from ancient liturgies at the Reformation. The original Latin form stands thus: "O God, from whom all good things proceed, grant to thy suppliants that, by thy inspiration, we may think those things which are right, and by thy governance may do the same." The invocation is as follows: "O Lord, from whom all good things do come." These words are founded on that declaration of St. James, "Every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights" (James, i. 17). God is the author of all good things; they come immediately from him, and are expressly provided by him. The evil that is in the world is not provided by God, as a thing wherein he delights; it exists, however, by the high permission of all-ruling Heaven:" the existence of evil under the moral government of a holy Being, is one of those deep things which we cannot scan; but which shall be one day made clear to the exalted comprehension of God's glorified servants. But we must settle it in our minds as an undoubted truth, that "God is light," moral purity; " and in him is no darkness," no moral evil "at all." To this God, the source of all good things, we pray in the latter part of this Collect, that, by his "holy inspiration, we may think those things that be good:" for we are "not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God" (2 Cor. iii. 5). But we have to carry out our good thoughts into corresponding actions; and therefore we further pray, that, by God's "merciful guiding, we may perform the same: for "it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure." The EPISTLE is James, i. 22-27. It contains, first, a warning against unprofitable hearing of God's word. They who hear God's word, and do it not, practise a profitable, it will be found to be a ruinous and an cheat upon themselves now; and if they remain uneverlasting deception. The word of God is a glass, in which the soul's complexion may be seen: they who look into it only cursorily or carelessly, as soon as they have left it, retain no valuable remembrance of the fashion of their moral countenance; but whoso looks into the word of God, and particularly into the Gospel, which is the "perfect law of liberty," a complete guide to true liberty of mind and action, and "continues therein," persevering in the knowledge, faith, and obedience of the Gospel, "this man shall be blessed in his deed;" for there is a blessing which God has annexed to the doing of that work which he has required. The government of the tongue is another duty urged upon the professors of Christianity; “if any man among you seem to be religious," pretend to be a Christian, and "bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." It is very remarkable how much is said by this apostle about the government of the tongue: the whole of the third chapter of this epistle is devoted to it. the tongue is the utterance of the heart, it cannot be expected that the language of the tongue should ever become perfectly pure, for the heart is "desperately wicked;" but the religion which cannot bridle the tongue, which cannot place an habitual restraint upon it, is "vain" it is empty in itself, and will prove ineffectual. The faith, and hope, and prayers, which will consist with the reigning evils of the tongue, are but shadows of each; they are vain and self-deceiving. The apostle, finally, gives us an eminent instance of pure and undefiled religion," consisting of charity and purity. Charity will shew itself in "visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction," in supplying their wants, and comforting them with our coun Since sel. Purity will evidence itself, by "keeping ourselves unspotted from the world." The world is a defiling place; it is scarcely possible to come in contact with it, and not be contaminated. But it must be our duty and daily endeavour to escape its infection. It is not said that those two laws of action make up the whole of religion. Religion comprises many things to be believed, as well as those which are to be done. But these are declared to be fruits which will conspicuously appear, wherever genuine religion lives. In the GOSPEL (John, xvi. 23-53) we have the continuance and conclusion of Christ's farewell address to his disciples. He first promises to secure them an answer of peace to all their prayers. "In that day," says Jesus, "ye shall ask me nothing;" ye shall have such a clear understanding of gospel mysteries, that ye shall not need to inquire. "The disciples had been used to inquire of their Lord as man, in all their difficulties; but this would speedily be terminated; and they would be taught to apply to God by prayer through his mediation. Our Lord had set before the apostles, during his whole ministry, as well as in this discourse, the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, in parables, or in short and weighty sentences, the import of which they did not fully understand; but he promises now to teach them, in plainer language, the will of the Father, and the way of access to him. They were henceforth to pray in his name to the Father, and offer their prayers through his intercession; not that there would be any need for Him to importune the Father in their behalf, as if he were reluctant to grant their requests; seeing the Father also loved them, and delighted to do them good. The apostles, on hearing this, declared that Jesus had now spoken plainly: they were satisfied of his omniscience, and fully convinced that he came forth from God.' But our Lord, foreseeing that, notwithstanding their confident profession, they would soon stumble, assured them that very soon they would be scattered from him, every man seeking for himself some place of concealment, as being afraid, or ashamed of being known to belong to him. Though he would thus be deserted by them, he should not be alone; for his Father would be with him to support him, ard bring him to his glory.' He tells them that he has spoken these things, that in the recollection of them they might have inward peace and tranquillity by faith in Him who had already overcome, and was now on his way to his triumphant throne."* The Cabinet. SACREDNESS OF SCRIPTURE.-Indecent application of the Scriptures is a mode of merriment which a good man dreads for its profaneness, and a witty man disdains for its easiness and vulgarity.—Johnson. TRUE DEVOTION.-True devotion is universal in its operation. It has various states, indeed; and commonly, progressive stages. But, in its weakest state, and in its earliest stage, it is marked by full integrity of purpose. It holds no compromise, no truce, no secret correspondence with any known sin. The pious man is at irreconcilable warfare with all the hosts of darkness. Peace, indeed, is the object of his prime solicitude. But it is, that the very God of peace may sanctify him wholly. It is, that his whole body, soul, and spirit, may be preserved blameless, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He, therefore, that in any one habitude of heart and life is deliberately sinful, by the indulgence of that one propensity bespeaks himself a stranger to all true devotion. And can the sacrifice of such a man be acceptable unto God? We may answer by another question. Would the services of such a man be acceptable to a Rev. T. Scott's Commentary. Ask a virtuous fellow-mortal? Do you not know, do you not feel, that all external service, when unprompted by the fulness of the heart, is less than nothing? good man why is he gratified by the attentions of the friend that he esteems; why is he delighted by the assiduities of the child that he loves? Will he say, that it is the bare act, the outward service, the personal accommodation, with which he is affected? No, my brethren: he will tell you, that it is the kindly feeling, the tender affection, the benevolence that beams through the countenance, the love that glistens in the eye. And thus it is, only in an infinitely higher degree, with Him who needeth no service at our hands; who seeketh not ours, but ourselves; who seeketh ourselves for our own good, to make us wise, and pure, and just, and happy. "My son, give me thy heart," is the language of our God. And, without the heart, if a man were to give the whole substance of his house, it would be utterly contemned. How many vain oblations, how many sumptuous offerings, how many dazzling acts of bounty, what a profusion of observances highly esteemed among men,-if tried by this test, would dwindle into insignificance! And the day is fast approaching, when all those splendid monuments shall crumble into dust; when no vestige shall remain, but a hideous mass of ruins, bearing this inscription: the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord!-Bishop Jebb. THE WISE MERCHANT.-No man is a better merchant than he that lays out his time upon God, and his money upon the poor.-Bp. Jeremy Taylor. CHRIST'S KINGDOM. We see that such inquiries, if pursued in a humble spirit, are productive of many blessings to the soul. Will it not tend somewhat to abate our too great anxiety for the safety of the institutions which we justly venerate, if we reflect that every existing power must at length give way; and that the kingdom of the whole earth shall be yielded up to Him, to whom, by right and purchase, the right of creation, the purchase of his own blood, it even now belongs? Will it not quicken our pace, and lend fresh wings to our activity in every work of faith and labour of love, when we reflect that the cause of our Master shall ere long prevail, and his triumph be complete? Will holiness be one day universal upon earth? and shall we not ask ourselves, whether we have that love of holiness which would prove indeed that we long for the coming of this kingdom, and are fit to dwell in it? Shall we not see the inconsistency of still praying "Thy kingdom come," while we make no efforts to hasten on its appearance by preparing the way of the Lord, and making known his saving health among the nations? Could we continue to look with curious and idle interest on the Jew, if this great truth were deeply in our minds? These men are reserved to be a mighty blessing to the world by their example; perhaps by their preaching, to sound the trumpet of the Gospel so long and clear, that whole nations shall at once wake up from the sleep of ages. Surely we should then love, we should pity, and we should learn to pray more earnestly for these outcasts of Zion.-Rev. J. B. Marsden. Poetry. "IF ANY MAN BE IN CHRIST, HE IS A NEW CREATURE." BY THE REV. T. GRINFIELD, M.A. By hands unseen the virgin soil Is with unlaboured plenty crown'd;、 But soon must Adam bow to toil, And dress the late spontaneous ground: For O, too soon the thorn appearsToo soon he blends his bread with tears! Even thus when man is born anew, And being's perfect bliss is givenLo, a new Eden starts to view, While angel harps rejoice in heaven- Then, too, the heart's unlaboured soil And dress with tears the wayward ground: Yet onward is no scene display'd, Whose bright beginnings ne'er decay? Must still the prospect ope to fade, Still clouds o'ercast the new-born day? No; see the last creation best, All clouds, all changes, there dispersed. No thorns that paradise infest No bitter tears its harvest leavenNo toils disturb its hallowed rest; Unlaboured plenty lasts in heaven: Then, O let faith, let patience, here, With hope unmurmuring persevere. MEMENTO MORI. For the Church of England Magazine. Where they are fled we soon shall fly, The crowds who earth's arena tread, Each busy in his station, Are few compared with all the dead, The world of life counts millions o'er- It is a solemn thought that we, A holy Judge-a righteous doom- Miscellaneous. THOMAS A KEMPIS. "As Thou wilt, what Thou wilt, when Thou wilt," were the emphatic expressions of the faith and resignation of this eminent Christian. GEN. xxxii. 32. "Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day."- We found the Choctaw before the door, watching the gambols of fifty or sixty of his horses, who were frolicking before him; and of more than two hundred very fine cattle, which, at sunset, were coming up, as usual, of their own accord, from different parts of the surrounding forest, where they have a boundless and luxuriant range. The whole scene reminded me strongly of pastoral and patriarchal times. He had chosen this situation, he said, for its retirement (in some directions, he had no neighbours for fifty or a hundred miles), and because it afforded him excellent pasturage and water for his cattle. He added, that occupation would give him and his family a title to it as long as they chose. He told me, that they had an obscure story, somewhat resembling that of Jacob wrestling with an angel; and that the full-blooded Indians always separate the sinew which shrank, and that it is never seen in the venison exposed for sale. He did not know what they did with it. His elder brother, whom I afterwards met, told me that they eat it as a rarity. But I have also heard, though on less respectable authority, that they refrain from it, like the ancient Jews. A gentleman, who had lived on the Indian frontier, or in the nation, for ten or fifteen years, told me that he had often been surprised that the Indians always detached this sinew, but it had never occurred to him to inquire the reason.Hodgson's Journal. JUDGES, ix. 6. "And all the men of Shechem gathered together, and all the house of Millo, and went and made Abimelech king, by the plain of the pillar that was in Shechem" (marg. by the oak of the pillar).- English councils were formerly held under wide-spreading oaks. Thus Augustine, the first archbishop of Canterbury, met the British bishops under an oak in Worcestershire, which was therefore called, as Bede tells us, Augustine's Oak. And Berkshire, or Barkshire, has its name as it were Bare-oakshire-from a large dead oak in the forest of Windsor, where they continued to hold provincial councils near its trunk, as had been done more anciently under its extensive and flourishing branches.-Hody. 2 KINGS, XX. 20. "He made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city."-In the dry season the only water with which Jerusalem is supplied, excepting what is procured from its reservoirs for rain, comes from these cisterns, and is conducted there by an aqueduct, also attributed to Solomon, which has one remarkable peculiarity, namely, that whereas the Romans, and other nations of antiquity, were ignorant of that great principle of hydraulics, the natural tendency of water to rise to its level-as appears from the useless, though enormous, expense attending the construction of their aqueducts, so as to carry water from hill to hill by arches built on arches: this conduit is never raised on arches at all, but continues generally either subterraneous, or even with the ground; and in several parts of its course decidedly ascends the hills. -Diary of an Officer of Cavalry. LONDON-Published by JAMES BURNS, 17 Portman Street, Portman Square; W. EDWARDS, 12 Ave-Maria Lane, St. Paul's; and to be procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country. PRINTED BY ROBSON, LEVEY, AND FRANKLYN, 46, ST. MARTIN'S LASE. LASE. THE ORIGINAL INNOCENCE OF MAN. IF the Bible spoke of man as the same being whom God once formed " in his image, after his likeness;" if it did not take its stand upon the ground of his being a fallen being,-there would be, comparatively, little difficulty in the way of its universal reception. But it deals with our species as a fallen race; it tells us in the outset, that we have dropped down from what we once were; and hence arises its distastefulness to the great mass of mankind. But the question may be reduced to a very simple form. We see a vast deal of sin and misery in the world; we feel it in ourselves; we witness it in others: no man ever pretended to shut his eyes to the fact. But whence came it ?- from God in the first instance? If we say so, then let us attend to what is involved in such a statement: we make God the immediate author of sin. Against such a notion as this even reason rises up in resistance; and not only reason, but the first principles of religion are alike opposed to it. As far as the mind of man is concerned, we can conceive it very possible that God might have formed him originally with powers not at all superior to those he at present possesses: there is nothing in the condition of his intellect which would compel us to confess, that he was an altered being from the man whom God at first made. His understanding is indeed limited; but, even now, it is far superior to his position relatively to the world in which he dwells; and we cannot account for its present excellence in any other way than as connecting it with man's destination to rank hereafter among exalted intelligences. It is when we look VOL. II. NO. L. PRICE 1d. at his moral condition, that we are forcibly struck with the conviction, that he could not have come at first from the hands of God in the state in which we now see him. We can easily imagine that God, after having resolved to create man, would see fit to place him at a vast distance from his own glorious perfections. It was a gratuitous act in the Divine Being to create man at all; and he was entitled, in the exercise of his sovereign pleasure, to limit the faculties of the being whom he was forming. But if God should make a creature, who was, as he came out of his hands, inclined to evil, and averse from good, when it was in his power to make him inclined to good, and averse from evil, he would do an act which would impugn his own essential nature; and evil would then have been introduced, not merely by the high permission of all-ruling heaven," but of necessity, into the creation. Any one who should hold such an opinion must be prepared to stand by this formidable position, that God made a race of beings originally bad, and that they came out of his hands vicious, and wretched, and mischievous. We shrink from such a notion; but yet the fact still stands out to our view, that the human race is corrupt; and we are therefore forced to conclude, that some disaster arose after God had created man upon the earth. Ever since the world began-at all events, ever since man began to inquire into his own condition-reason has been feeling after the explanation of this matter, and has been groping to find out, if possible, precisely when, and how, this mischief crept in. But reason never could solve the difficulty. It is very remarkable, however, how near many T |