This is not bad amusement, when no other sport can be had. Around the margin of a lake, in a large plain far in the distance, may be seen a distinct line upon the short grass, like the fallen trunk of a tree. As there are no trees at hand, this must necessarily be a crocodile. Seldom can the best hand at stalking them get within eighty yards of him, before he lifts his scaly head, and, listening for a second, plunges off the bank.

DOES THE WORLD HATE PIETY?-In answer to this question, the celebrated Sidney Smith says:

"It is not true that the world hates piety. That modest and unobtrusive piety which fills the heart with all human charities, and makes a man gentle to others and severe to himself, is an object of universal love and veneration. But mankind hate the lust of power when it is vailed under the garb of piety; they hate cant and hypocrisy; they hate advertisers and quacks in piety; they do not choose to be insulted; they love to tear folly and impudence from the altars which should only be a sanctuary for the righteous and the good."

66 seems

"This," says an exchange paper, very plausible, but it is not true. There once lived a man whose 'modest and unobtrusive piety' no one doubts. It has even extorted the praise of bitter opponents. But did Jesus of Nazareth find himself the 'object of universal love and veneration?' Nay, did he not justly apply to himself the words of the Old Testament, They hated me without a cause?' "

"

REFINED CRUELTY.-By the ancient laws of Hungary, a man convicted of bigamy was compelled to live with both wives in the same house. The crime was in consequence extremely rare.

DESULTORY STUDY.-When I see a man enamored by the charms of universal knowledge, and flying from the pursuit of one science to another, I think I see a child gathering shells on the sea-shore. He first loads himself indiscriminately, with as many as he can carry: when tempted by others of a gayer appearance, he throws the former away; taking and rejecting, till, fatigued and bewildered in his choice, he has thrown all away, and returns home without a single shell.

TRUE POETRY, FROM THE PERSIAN.-The heavens are a point from the pen of God's perfection; the world is a bud from the bower of his beauty; the sun is a spark from the light of his wisdom; and the sky is a bubble on the sea of his power. His beauty is free from the spot of sin, hidden in the thick vale of darkness; he made mirrors from the atoms of the world, and threw a reflection from his face on every atom.

RELATIONSHIPS are rather far-fetched sometimes, especially in Ireland. "Do you know Tom Duffy, Pat?" "Know him, is it!" says Pat; "sure he's a near relation of mine; he once wanted to marry my sister Kate."

THE CATECHISH FOR CRITICS.-An English reviewer, after quoting rather largely from a volume before him, brings his article abruptly to a close, being reminded, as he says, of that clause in the Church of England's Catechism,

"The governments of the United States are unpardonable for not doing more to ameliorate the condition of the slaves. The laws relating to them are bad and defective; and even these, little as they would do for them, are not put in execution. The Americans say, The government would have enough to do, if it troubled itself with these things! It cannot turn spy, or do anything that might interfere with the liberty of Amer ican citizens." It seems to me, however, that the government does contrive to be informed of infractions of the law in other matters-to know which is the landlord who pours out an unlawful glass of beer on a Sunday, or who is the guest that drinks it, or when the Maine liquor law is violated; and it might, therefore, if it had a mind, keep a more watchful eye on transgressions of a much more serious character. But perhaps the crime of torturing a human being to death is thought a less heinous one than drinking an irregular glass of beer on a Sunday."

BRITISH POETS.-Two very different men appeared as poets in print for the first time in the same year-the Ayrshire ploughman and the Lombard street banker. In the year 1786 appeared at Kilmarnock that volume of "Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect," which will live as long as the English language; and in the same year appeared in London, "An Ode to Superstition," since properly included in the numerous reprints of the poems of its author. Burns published his octavo volume by subscription, among the weavers of Kilmarnock, while Rogers took his poems to Cadell, in the Strand, and left a check to pay for the cost of publication. Very different indeed were the lives in the flesh of the two men who thus commenced together their lives in poetry. Burns has been dead sixty years. Rogers has consequently outlived the poet he commenced the race of fame with by that number of years. Nay,

more nearly seventy years have passed since he who died so recently took his first ode and his check to the Murray of those days of publishing. When Rogers made his appearance as a poet, Lord Byron was unborn-and Byron has been dead thirty-one years! When Percy Bysshe Shelly was born, Rogers was in his thirtieth year-and Shelly has been dead nearly thirtyfour years! When Keats was born, "The Pleasures of Memory" was looked upon as a standard poem-and Keats has been dead thirty-five years! When this century commenced, the

man who died but yesterday, and in the latter half too of the century, had already numbered as many years as Burns and Byron had numbered when they died. Mr. Rogers was born before the following English poets: Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Moore, Campbell, Bloomfield, Cunningham, Hogg, James Montgomery, Shelley, Keats, Wilson, Tom Hood, Kirke White, Lamb, Felicia Hemans, and he outlived them all. The oldest living British poets are Walter Savage Landor, born 1775; Leigh Hunt, born 1784; and Barry Cornwall, born 1790.

THE Annual Reports of the Missionary Society, the Sunday School Union, and the Tract Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, are before us, in one large octavo pamphlet. They are full of interest to the Church at large. From the Report of the Missionary Society we learn that, during the year 1855, two additional missionaries, with their wives, were sent to China, one to Africa, one to New-Mexico, and six to the Pacific coast. A mission to India is in contemplation, and a missionary has been appointed, with the expectation of being speedily followed by two others. Northern Bengal, it is supposed, will be the head-quarters of this mission. It is gratifying to learn, from the Treasurer's Report, that the receipts for the year exceeded the expenditures nearly thirty-six thousand dollars. The amount appropriated for missionary purposes, for the year ensuing, is two hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars. We esteem this as the most interesting, as it is certainly the briefest annual report the Society has issued for many years. From the "Fragments" we copy what is called

•

"THE DEPARTED FATHER'S LEGACY. We wero busily writing in our office, when a plain-looking countryman came in, and commenced speaking to us in broken English. We soon perceived that he was a German. He said he wanted to give something to the Missionary Society. Very well,' we said, we shall be glad to receive it; what is it? My interest in my father's estate in Germany, which is about to come into my possession.' 'But you do not mean to give all of your interest in it, do you?' Yes,' he replied. 'But what have you besides?' 'Nothing,' was his answer, except a few dollars. We asked, 'Have you a wife and children? Neither,' said he. Well, we continued, how do you live?' By my daily work,' he said. Is that all your living?' said we. All,' said he. But, suppose you get sick, what then? God will provide,' said he. After sifting the whole matter, and not perceiving any trace of undue enthusiasm, we said to him: We cannot advise you to give away all your substance, even to the holy missionary cause.' He replie 'Probably, but I desire to do so.' After sufficient conversation, we said: Our conclusion is, that we will take a power of attorney, and cause your interest in Germany to be realized and remitted to us, and when it comes we will advise you of it, and the money will be yours, and you can then do as you please.' We thought by that time he might think differently. In due time the money came, namely, $498, and he was advised accordingly but he steadily adhered to his purpose, and would not take any of it. The Board urged him to take half: 'No;' then a quarter: 'No.' And he returned to his home. The Board sent him a check for the last-named proportion, and intimated that, should he ever be brought to need, they would be pleased to hear from him. This young man had been converted in one of our German missions, and was thus led to

devote all his substance to the cause of the Gospel. We shall be interested to know his history for the next ten or twenty years, should we live so long."

The Report of the Sunday-School Union is much more extended, filling about three times as many pages as that of the Missionary Society. It contains several of the speeches delivered at the anniversary, reports and resolutions adopted at conventions in various parts of the land, and a number of carefully arranged statistical tables, one of which informs us that the Number of pages of Sunday-school books printed at New-York during the year 1855, was. Pages of Sunday-School Advocate printed at New-York and Cincinnati, counted at an average of 115,000 Pages actually printed.

If to the number of pages of books printed,
viz..

We add, counting the Sunday-School Ad-
vocate page as equivalent to seven pages
of an 18mo. book
We shall find the grand equivalent of pages
to be

70,822,000

24,000,000 94,822,000

70,822,000

168,000,000

288,822,000

The total receipts into the treasury for the If to this sum be year amount to $15,425 71. added the expenditures for Sunday School purposes, which do not come into the treasury of the Union, the aggregate, says the Report, "does not fall much short of $120,000." From the tabular view of average collections in each conference during the year, it appears that the New-York East holds the first place, the average for each preacher being $8 81. In the New-Jersey Conference it was $7 60. In the New-York, $6 13.

From the Report of the Tract Society we learn that its anniversary at Pittsburgh was a meeting of great interest. Seventy-eight new publications were issued during the year, making the total of the Society's separate tracts and bound volumes seven hundred and ninety-seven. The aggregate of contributions during the year was $40,636 83, and the estimated number of pages distributed was nearly seventy millions. From only two annual conferences, the New-York and New-York East, does the amount contributed exceed one thousand dollars for the year. The Report informs us that

"The secretary has been unceasingly occupied in traveling, delivering addresses and sermons, corresponding and editing, and has performed an amount of labor which none but the most vigorous constitution could have endured. He has represented the Tract

cause in Forsyth-street and Allen-street, New-York; in Carlton Avenue, Sand-street, Pacific-street, and Fleet-street, Brooklyn; in Market-street and Halseystreet, Newark, N. J.; in West Philadelphia; in Boston-street and Common's Church, Lynn; in Salem; in High-street, Charlestown; Park-street, Chelsea; and Roxbury, Mass.; in Henry-street and Courtstreet, Binghampton; at Saratoga Springs; Geneva; and in Hedding Church and First Church, Elmira, N. Y.; in all of which he has found the most decided interest and received very liberal collections. He has visited twenty-three annual conferences, namely, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Providence, New-Jersey, New-England, New-York, Troy, New-York East, Maine, Black River, Western Virginia, Pittsburgh, Wyoming, Erie, Oneida, East Genesee, Genesee, Ohio, Rock River, Iowa, Southern Illinois, Illinois, and Missouri. At these sessions he has sometimes met with strong encouragement; sometimes with serious doubts as to the practicability of our undertaking; sometimes with the most determined opposition to our plan of employing special agencies; but always with the kindest reception and a strong desire in some way to promote the Tract cause. He has explained all sorts of difficulties, answered all kinds of questions, contended with all manner of opponents, and triumphed and yielded according to circumstances, feeling that at the close of every conference some progress had been made, in the comparison of views, the diffusion of information, and the settlement of the great practical questions which lie in the way of our complete success. Such a year, both of conflict and comfort, certainly the secretary has never before spent, and must be rare in the experience of any man."

The Stone and the Image; or, the American Republic, the Bane and Ruin of Despotism. An Exposition of the Fifth Kingdom of Daniel's Proph ecy, and of the Great Wonder in Heaven of the Apocalypse. By Joseph F. Berg, D. D. (Philadelphia: Higgins & Perkinpine.) The theory of this treatise lacks but a single element to make it highly flattering to American vanity. One of its principal objects is to show that the "stone kingdom" is no other than "OUR OWN REPUBLIC." It is a pleasant thought, especially in this day of agitation and doubt, when some of our own people are clamoring for disunion, and foreign potentates are wishing the destruction of our hated republican confederation, that we have the assurance of divine revelation, that the American Republic" is "to stand forever.” But the good doctor has not brought the proof. There is no want of assumptions, nor assertions; and there are conjectures, and assumed analogies, to spare. As a specimen of exegesis it reminds us of an interpretation which we once heard gravely put upon Isaiah xviii, 1, where the expositor, changing "woe" into "ho!" made the text as follows. "Ho! to the land shadowing with wings which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia." "Now," said he, “as the western continent is in shape like a spread eagle, this prophecy must be applied to America." The author, who thinks "it is a matter of surprise that writers on the prophecies should have so long overlooked what God has revealed respecting America's position in the world," tells us that the "stone" in Daniel symbolizes the American Republic, and thus he argues :

"Three empires (namely, Babylon, Persia, and Macedonia) covered three quarters of the globe. They included Asia, Europe, and Africa. In none of these three divisions of the world, therefore, can we expect to find the state symbolized by the stone."

Where, surely, but in America can it be found, if it is not in either of the other three quarters of the world? The critical reader will see that the logic in this case is paralleled by that in the example quoted for illustration. I

The continent of America only is shaped like a bird with spread wings, therefore America is designated by Isaiah in his prophetic description. When a philosopher had demonstrated that the earth is a hollow sphere, he asserted that the ten lost tribes were inside of the earth, and proved it by asserting, "if they are not there, where are they?"

The "stone," according to this theory, is a type of a free government, and antagonizes monarchy, under the symbol of the "image." Now a free government did not exist either in Babylon, Persia, or Macedonia, therefore it must be looked for and found in America. The reader will see that the whole theory, with its phosphoric splendor, is built upon the assumption that the "stone" is a type of a free civil state. Had this point been proved, or were it capable of proof, rhetoric and declamation would have made fine accompaniments. But in this case they do not seem to have been in the neighborhood of either facts or logic.

The Church and her Enemies; or, Practical Re flections on the Trials and Triumphs of God's afflicted People. By William S. Plummer, D. D. A neat little volume, not at all embellished by several very inferior wood-cuts, from the press of the American Baptist Publication Society. The doctor's style is sententious and antithetical. Occasionally he ventures upon the hazardous experiment of coining a new word. ing two classes of men, he says, "One includes all the Timists; the other the Eternists." A Timeist (spelled with an e) is a musician who keeps time. What may be meant by an Eternist we can only conjecture. These, however, are slight blemishes; and the book, Calvinistic of course in its doctrinal teachings, may be safely commended to the entire Christian public.

Contrast

Life of Schamyl, and Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence against Russia. By J. Milton Mackie. (Boston: Jewett & Co.) Schamyl was and was successful in several encounters with born in 1797, became leader of the Circassians,

the Russians. We have here a sketch of his early life, the several battles in which he was engaged, and facts relative to the customs and by the generality of readers. manners of a people of whom little is known

Carroll Ashton; or, the Rewards of Truthfulness, by Aunt Abbie, is a well-told tale for children and youth of both sexes. It belongs to a class of books which we are glad to see rapidly increasing, and which, presenting truth in an inviting dress, are eagerly sought by those in Sunday schools and elsewhere, for whose benefit they are written. (Baptist Publication Society.)

In works of pure fiction, the American press has been of late more than usually prolific. From Redfield we have new and revised editions of Charlemont; or, the Pride of the Village; and of Beauchamp; or, the Kentucky Tragedy; a sequel to Charlemont. These are the fourth and fifth in the series of what the author, W. Gilmore Sims, Esq., entitles the Romances of the South. J. P. Jewett & Co., of Boston, send us Ernest Limwood, by Caroline Lee Hentz. To Phillips, Sampson, & Co. we are indebted for Edith Hale, a village story, by Thrace Talmon; and Wolfsden, by

Select Lectures: Comprising some of the more valuable Lectures delivered before the Young Men's Christian Association, in Exeter Hall, London, from 1847 to 1855. Edited by Rev. D. W. Clark, D. D. (Cincinnati: Sicormstedt & Poe.) "Lectures," says Charles Lamb, " are not much to my taste, whatever the lecturer may be. If read, they are dismal flat, and you can't think why you are brought together to hear a man read his works, which you could read so much better at leisure yourself." Those who sympathize with the sentiment, and we confess ourselves among the number, unless the lecturer has more than ordinary elocutionary powers, will be thankful for this volume, containing, as it does, twelve of the best lectures delivered in London, during the past eight winters. While reading them at our leisure we marked a few passages. The first is from Dr. Cumming's Lecture on Music:

"The organ, grand as it is, is nothing to the human voice. It is a good auxiliary to bad congregational singing; but, like the use of a crutch, too long used it prevents our walking without it; or, like an ear trumpet, too much had recourse to, it renders us unable to hear without it. The human voice alone is the wonderful organ. Intellect is visible on the brow-the heart is seen shining through the eye; but the soul reveals itself in the voice. Man's soul is audible, not visible, as God gave an apocalypse of himself of old, not in the blazing fire, nor in the bursting earthquake, but in the 'still small voice.' The sound of the voice alone betrays the flowing of the inner and inexhaustible fountains of the soul, otherwise inappreciable to man. Mercury may have made the lyre, Apollo the flute, Jubal the harp and the organ; but God made the human voice, and the instrument shares in something of the perfection of the Maker."

One of our contributors, the Rev. T. H. Stockton, has already issued a prospectus for publishing the Sacred Scriptures in the manner indicated by the Rev. James Hamilton, in his lecture on the Literary Attractions of the Bible:

"For practical and devotional purposes we could desire no better version of the Bible than our n truthful and time-hallowed translation. But for the sake of its intelligent literary perusal, we have sometimes wished that some judicious editor would give us, each in a separate fasciculus, the several contributions of each sacred penman. As it is, with the sixtysix volumes of the Bible all compressed into a single tome, we are apt to regard them, not only as homogeneous inspiration, which they are, but as cotemporary compositions, which they are not. We forget that, in point of time, there is the same interval between Moses and Matthew as there is between the close of the canon and the compilation of the Augsburg Confession. And, with each portion comminuted into those numbered paragraphs, which we call verses, we are apt to lose sight of the characteristic style of the various compositions. An epistle looks like a poem, and a history reads like a collection of adages or apothegms. But allowing one book to contain the minor prophets, and another the general epistles, there would still remain upward of twenty inspired penmen whose writings might, much to their mutual illustration, be bound up in separate volumes, and preserved in their individual identity. We should thus have in one volume all that Moses wrote, and, in another, chronologically arranged, all the writings of Paul. One volume might contain all the Psalms of David; another, those Psalms-nearly as numerous-which were indited by Moses, and Asaph, and others. In one cover might be bound up the Gospel, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse of John; and in another, that divine Song, those confessions of a converted philosopher, and that ancient Wealth of Nations,' which were written down by Solomon. And under such an arrangement might we not hope that books, usually read in chapters or smaller morsels, might sometimes be read continuously, taken down from the shelf, as another attractive book would be taken, on a leisure evening, and read through at a single sitting? Might we not hope, in such a case, that while those who now read the Old and New Testaments would read them still, some who at present do not read the Bible might be tempted to

read Paul, Moses, and Isaiah? And is it too sanguine to expect that, as the searching of Scriptures and sacred knowledge thus increased, some who first resorted to the book for literary entertainment, might learn from it the lessons which make wise to life everlasting?"

Rev. William Arthur, in his lecture on Heroes, of one of the parties concerned: relates the following incidents on the authority

"A poor miner was down with his brother miner, sinking a shaft. In pursuit of that obscure labor they were blasting the solid rock. They had placed in the rock a large charge of powder, and fixed their fuse so that it could not be extricated. Their proper course was to cut the fuse with a knife; then one should ascend in their bucket, the other wait till the bucket came down again; then get into it, ignite the fuse, give the signal, and so be at the top of the shaft before negligently cut the fuse with a stone and a blunt iron the explosion. In the present case, however, they instrument. Fire was struck; the fuse was hissing; they both dashed to the bucket, and gave the signal. The man above attempted in vain to move the windlass. One could escape; both could not; and delay was death to both. Our ininer looked for a moment at his comrade, and, slipping from the bucket, said; 'Escape! I shall be in heaven in a minute!' The bucket sped up the shaft. The man was safe; eager to watch the fate of his deliverer, he bent to hear. Just then the explosion rumbled below: a splinter came up the shaft, and struck him on the brow, leaving a mark he will bear all his days, to remind him of his rescue. They soon began to burrow among the fallen rock to extricate the corpse. At last they heard a voice. Their friend was yet alive. They reached him: the pieces of rock had roofed him over-he was without injury or scratch. All he could tell was, that the moment his friend was gone, he sat down, lifted a piece of rock, and held it before his eyes. When asked what induced him to let the other escape, he replied, I knew my soul was safe; I was not so sure about his. Now, I look at this great czar, who, to build a city, called by his own name, sacrificed a hundred thousand men; and at this poor miner, who, to save the soul of his comrade, sat down there to be blasted to pieces; and I ask you, which of the two is the hero?"

The project of regulating all the time-pieces in Great Britain, by the great clock at Greenwich, is thus ridiculed in a lecture, entitled The Age we Live in:

"Some of the movements of the age, I must notice, are of a character neither good nor evil, but simply grotesque. For instance, it is proposed especially to regulate all the clocks of the empire by Greenwich time; so that the instant the great pontiff at Greenwich strikes twelve, all the clocks of the empire, like an obedient hierarchy, shall echo his voice. These people have forgotten that the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn itself round. It is, therefore, absolutely impossible, that a spot fifteen degrees further west from Greenwich can be anything short of an hour behind it. Now to make Exeter, and Plymouth, and Glasgow all preserve the same time as Greenwich, is just to make them tell lies-unblushing chronological lies -to make the church-bells tell lies, ladies' and gentlemen's chronometers to lie-in fact, to enact lying by the law of the land. I think that Pope Pius the Ninth, that cunning chieftain of the Papacy, or his friend, Dr. Pusey, must be at the bottom of this conspiracy. It is essentially Popish, for it is sacrificing truth to uniformity. It is making men tell lies, and to hide reality in order to keep up the appearance of unbroken unity with a central regulating power. Should any of you young men be placed at the head of influential establishments at a distance from London-in Glasgow, Exeter, and so on, as I hope you will be, I hope you will keep Protestant watches. Set them by the sun in the sky, which the Greenwich pontiff can not cover, and tell Londoners, upon their arrival at Glasgow, or Bristol, or Exoter, that they must keep Glasgow, Bristol, and Exeter time, that is, true time, for God never designed that we should set our creed by that of any pope, patriarch, or archbishop, at Rome, Constantinople, or London, but by the Sun of righteousness, whose rays and beams are texts in the word of God. It was plainly never meant that we should set our watches and clocks in Glasgow by those of Greenwich, as long as the sun shines and shows a gnomon on every sundial like a very Martin Luther, to stand up and protest against it."