not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation?" I cannot, my dear friend, promise to you the dignities of the church on earth; but I may endeavour to animate your faith, and to stimulate your zeal, by a reference to the glories of the church in heaven. The labours of the humble parish priest may be depreciated by the talkative professor, and despised by the gay or the profligate his name may be cast out as evil, and his character blackened by calumny-while the sheep of his own pasture say all manner of evil against him, falsely, and for Christ's sake; but let him know, that the frowns of earth shall he recompensed by the smiles of heaven; and that to be acknowledged by the Son of Man, before his Father and holy angels, will more than make up for all his sorrows, even if, like that Divine Master, we have to exclaim, “ The reproaches of them that reproached Thee have fallen upon me."

Of course you will not misunderstand me, as though I designed to magnify the ministerial office simply considered in itself, and without any regard to the consistency and holiness of the man who holds it. It is only honourable when in some good measure its obligations are felt, its duties discharged, and the grand end of its appointment answered. And how truly honourable it then is, can never be known, till the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised. Yes; when "many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt,” then "they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever."

But by what motives should the Christian minister be actuated to undertake duties so solemn and arduous, and to persist in a holy and devoted course of well-doing, even to his life's end?—I am sure you will not be surprised, that foremost among these motives I should place personal obligation for distinguishing grace. I trust, my dear sir, this is a subject with which you are experimentally acquainted, and a feeling by which you are daily influenced. Certain it is, that until the Lord our Saviour remove the enmity from our own hearts, we shall be but poorly prepared to preach the word of reconciliation. But I find that this part of the subject is too copious and important to be compressed. The motives by which you are to be influenced will furnish ample matter for my next. I regret that I cannot now enlarge further on a topic which is one of the most delightful and glorious that can occupy the tongue or pen of man. May you, my dear sir, daily receive out of that "fulness which is in Christ Jesus!" Rejoicing in a sense of his love, may you disseminate to all around you the blessings which you yourself enjoy; and, after having long and successfully laboured for your blessed Master on earth, when you rest from your labours may the children of your faith and prayers follow you to the kingdom of your Father and their Father, of your God and their God!

Believe me to remain, very faithfully yours,

[WE not unfrequently receive epistolary communications from our readers and friends-our foes either do not care to trouble us, or they know that it could be of no use if they did.-Considering that we are only a little more than a year old, and therefore scarcely yet in leading-strings, much less out of them, we cannot but feel gratified at such a communication as the following. Indeed, we should have given it in our last, had not our modesty prevented our doing so till we should have completed our first year.]

To the Editor of the Christian Review.

"SIR, I have been so much delighted with looking through your. last number, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of telling you that it is my intention to become your constant reader. When your work was first announced, I confess that my expectations were not very sanguine. I had frequently mourned over the reproach cast upon our Church, in that we seemed unable to support a proper Church Review. The taste of the age, as to Divine Truth, was so manifestly corrupted, and the fear of offending it so predominant, that I felt myself constrained to surrender all hope of ever seeing an honest, orthodox, and determined publication, the friend of truth and the men of God, and one that would defy the hosts of infidels, however modified, with which the church is beset without, and, alas! by some of whom she is infected within. Accordingly, calling last week on a clerical, friend, I found that the uppermost subject was the tone of defiance exhibited in your numbers, the last of which was put into my hands for perusal. Never having seen the book before, I was glad of the opportunity thus afforded me. It is now with extreme satisfaction that I most cordially congratulate you on the result. Torrents of abuse will, no doubt, be poured out upon you; and so they will upon every man who will dare defy an ungodly world. May the Lord arm you for the conflict! You will lose nothing by a fearless avowal of your principles; and 'many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by your bonds, will be much more bold to speak the word without fear-knowing that you are set for the defence of the Gospel. Through flattery, or fear, or the prospect of preferment, or other causes, the professing church lies in a most humiliating position. It needs a strong arm and a powerful voice to rouse her from her slumber. On the other hand, her enemies encamp around her, and she is cowed down. Many in the evangelical world are afraid to speak out. It is esteemed by hundreds so called a most capital offence, to go any further in the statement of Divine Truth than what would be allowed by the ungodly.

"I remain, yours most truly,
R

N.

INTELLIGENCE,

CLERICAL, ACADEMICAL, AND MISCELLANEOUS.

EMBALMING.--In the Hunterian Museum are preserved the two hands of Thomas Beaufort, second son of John of Gaunt. He was buried in 1424, ætat. 52. The coffin was discovered in February, 1772, at Bury St. Edmund's. It was filled with a resinous substance which perfectly excluded the air; and the body itself was most carefully embalmed and wrapped in cerecloth. The left hand was taken off, on the discovery of the body, and sent to Mr. Hunter, who preserved it in spirits. The skin presents a very beautiful silvery white appearance. The right hand has been sent to the Museum more recently, and is discoloured from having been preserved in rum. The tendons of the wrist are apparently little altered, and the general appearance is such as no one could possibly expect after an interment of four hundred and three years.

LICORICE PAPER.-A mode has been discovered in France of fabricating paper solely from the Glycyrrhiza Germanica, or licorice. plant. It is said that this paper is cheap, that it is of a whiteness superior to that generally made, and that size is not requisite in its manufacture.

NATURAL CURIOSITY. - We have seen a stone found on the shores of Lake Erie, near this place, on which are clearly to be distinguished a number of masonic emblems: the beehive, pot of incense, hour glass, ladder, candlestick, book, sun and moon, sword, plumb, twenfour-inch guage, and many other characters, having the appearance of regularity, but which we have not yet heard explained. Some persons have thought they discovered a very near resemblance of several Hebrew characters as to that, we cannot judge. The stone has some resemblance of a petrifaction--but what is most mysterious," the face is perfectly smooth, the characters of a different colour and consistence from the rest of the stone, and apparently extend to some depth. On a white spot in the centre is the appearance of an inscription. We pretend not to conjecture the origin of such a singular production; but the above description is correct, as far as it goes, as we have not mentioned one-tenth part of the characters it contains. It is about the size of a two-ounce weight, something after the form of a key stone. It would be difficult, however, to suppose this to be a work of nature, where there is so much appearance of design and yet we know of no art which could produce it.-American Paper.

NEW CARRIAGE.-An ingenious mechanic, a whitesmith, named

Woodmason, of Dartmouth, has invented a very superior travelling carriage, calculated to accommodate four persons: its construction is simple, and intended to be worked by the hands and guided by the feet; or it may be acted on vice versa ; one man, or even a boy, being enabled to impel it with ease at the rate of eight miles an hour, on level ground, and up a steep hill, without greater exertion than is necessary to row a small boat; down hill it is acted on by a regulator, and may be stopped at any part, even of a steep descent.

THE BURNING CLIFF AT HOLWORTH.-The cliff is daily becoming an object of greater interest; the late eruption of fire, to the eastward of the original orifice, has excited much additional curiosity, and will doubtless induce further scientific investigation. On the 20th of September, a large body of vapour, accompanied with strong effluvia, was observed issuing with much force from three fissures, some distance eastward from the spot where a like phenomenon occurred in March last, and, on the removal of a very trifling portion of the exterior soil, vivid fire became visible in the interstices of the lime-stone, producing an effect in every respect similar to the appearance described at the first discovery of fire in the cliff. The apertures have since increased, and smoke has exhaled lately from no less than nine at this part; in several of which flame has been occasionally excited on the application of dried sticks, or any other combustible material. On the 1st of October, the surface of red-hot stone in one of the apertures occupied a space of full three feet square, and presented an appearance like the mouth of a heated oven. A gentleman scraping off the surface for the purpose of seeing the fire, found a vertebral bone. of some animal, 3 inches in circumference, and 1 11-48 inch thick, supposed to have been detached from a skeleton of the Icthyosaurus. Several bones of that animal were found in this cliff a few years ago. Vapour has continued to exhale hitherto without intermission, since the eruption took place. The apertures abovementioned are 25 feet above the base of the cliff, and extend 20 feet in length; they are from 120 to 140 feet eastward from the original ones. Those to the westward have extended to 70 feet distance (one of them which had exhibited fire is quite on the base of the cliff), so that the entire range of apertures occupy now no less than 210 feet lineally from east to west.

FALLS OF NIAGARA.- Extract of a letter dated Buffalo, Sept. 9. "For several days previous to the 8th, the stages came crowded, as well as the canal boats, so much so that it was difficult to find a conveyance to the Falls; and such was the interest that the descent was the only topic of conversation among all classes. On Friday night, the 7th, waggons filled with country people rattled through this town all night; and on Saturday morning, Buffalo itself seemed to be a moving mass towards the grand point of attraction. To accommodate those who could not find a passage in carriages, five steam-boats had

advertised to leave here on Saturday morning, and great numbers chose this conveyance; they were the Henry Clay, William Penn, Pioneer, Niagara, and Chippewa, being all the steam-boats on the lake Erie, except the Superior. The Chippewa was appointed to tow down the pirate schooner (as she was termed), the Michigan, which service she performed. I took my passage on board this boat, and we got under way before the others, passed through the basin at Black Rock, and about a mile below the Rock took in tow the vessel destined to make the dreadful plunge. As soon as we got under way, the scene became interesting. The sun shone in full splendour, the waters of Erie were placid, there being scarcely a ruffle upon its surface, and a few miles astern of us, four steamers crowded with passengers, and with bands of music on board, were ploughing their way down the rapids of Niagara. Our little boat towed the Michigan as far as Yale's Landing on the British shore, within three miles of the Falls, where she anchored; and at this place the Chippewa landed her passengers, as well as the William Penn, and they were conveyed from thence to the Falls in vehicles of all descriptions. The three other steam-boats landed their passengers on the American side.

"Three o'clock was the hour appointed to weigh anchor on board the Michigan. The task of towing her from Yale's Landing to the rapids, and a most hazardous one it was, was entrusted to Captain Rough, the oldest captain on the lake. With a yawl-boat and five oar's-men, of stout hearts and strong arms, the old captain got the schooner under way, and towed her to within one quarter of a mile of the first rapids, and within half a mile of the tremendous precipice, as near as they dare approach; and cutting her adrift, she passed majestically on, while the oar's-men of the yawl had to pull for their lives to effect their own safety. Indeed, such were the fears of the hands, as I have understood, that on approaching near the rapids they cut the tow-line before they had received orders from their commander.

"And now we approach the interesting moments of the exhibition. The high grounds on both sides of the American and British shores were lined with people, having a full view of the rapids and the approach of the vessel: and now it was that a thousand fears and expectations were indulged, as the Michigan, unguided by human agency, approached, head on, the first rapid or descent, and apparently keeping the very course that the most skilful navigator would have pursued, having an American ensign flying from her bowsprit, and the British Jack displayed at her stern. She passed the first rapid unhurt, still head on, making a plunge, shipping a sea, and rising from it in a beautiful style, and in her descent over the second her masts went by the board at the same moment, affording those who have never witnessed a shipwreck a specimen of the sudden destruction of the spars of a ship at sea in case of a wreck. Expectation for her fate was now at the highest: she swung round and presented her broadside to the dashing and foaming waters, and after remaining stationary a