tality, above the selfishness and malice of men, to Him who has permitted them for your good. Thus persecuted they the Saviour and the prophets. VII. "Be ye angry and sin not." The life of our Saviour, as well as the precepts of the Apostles, clearly teach us that there may be occasions on which we may have feelings of displeasure, and even of anger, without sin. Sin does not necessarily attach to anger, considered in in its nature, but in its degree. Nevertheless, anger seldom exists in fact, without becoming in its measurement inordinate and excessive. Hence it is important to watch against it, lest we be led into transgression. Make it a rule, therefore, never to give any outward expressions to angry feelings (a course which will operate as a powerful check upon their excessive action) until you have made them the subject of reflection and prayer. And thus you may hope to be kept. VIII. True peace of mind does not depend, as some seem to suppose, on the external incidents of riches and poverty, of health and sickness, of friendship and enmities. It has no necessary dependence upon society or seclusion; upon dwelling in cities or in the desert; upon the possession of temporal power, or a condition of temporal insignificance and weakness. "The kingdom of God is within you." Let the heart be right, let it be fully united with the will of God, and we shall be entirely contented with those circumstances in which Providence has seen fit to place us, however unpropitious they may be in a worldly point of view. He who gains the victory over himself, gains the victory over all his enemies. IX. Some persons think of obedience as if it were nothing else, and could be nothing else, than servitude. And it must be admitted, that constrained obedience is so. He who obeys by compulsion, and not freely, wears a chain upon his spirit, which continually frets and torments, while it confines him. But this is not Christian obedience. To obey with the whole heart-in other words, to obey as Christ would have us-is essentially the same as to be perfectly resigned to the will of God; having no will but his. And he must have strange notions of the interior and purified life, who supposes that the obedience which revolves constantly and joyfully within the limits of the Divine will, partakes of the nature of servitude. On the contrary, true obediencethat which has its seat in the affections, and which flows out like the gushing of water—may be said, in a very important sense, to possess not only the nature, but the very essence of freedom. X. A sanctified state of heart does not require to be sustained by any mere forms of bodily excitation. It gets above the dominion, at least in a very considerable degree, of the nerves and the senses. It seeks an atmosphere of calmness, of thought, of holy meditation. OPPOSITION AND TRIUMPH. AN amiable young lady, the daughter of an English nobleman, embraced the truth, and became the follower of Jesus. Her father was almost distracted at the event, and determined to divert her attention and draw her aside from her religious notions and feelings. He used angry threats, employed temptations to vanity and extravagance in dress, tried attractive literature, and travelled with her to foreign countries. and places of fashionable resort, to turn her mind from spiritual things. But her heart was fixed." length he resolved on a final and desperate experiment, by which his end should be gained, or his daughter's prospects in the present life entirely blighted. A large number of the nobility were invited to his house. It was so arranged that during the festivities the daughters of different noblemen, and among At others this one, were to entertain the company with a song, and an accompaniment on the piano. It was a trying moment, and she had utterly refused to sing those songs to which she had been accustomed before her conversion. She wished to obey her father, but she feared to offend her Saviour, and grieve the Holy Spirit. The young ladies, at the call of the company, performed their part with great applause. At length the name of the young Christian was called. Up to this time all was hilarity and mirth. Now all was stillness, and a fixed silence reigned throughout the stately hall; all were in suspense and anxious to read, in the decisions of the moment, the fate of their lovely friend. Without hesitation she arose, and, with a calm and dignified composure, took her place at the piano. After a moment spent in silent prayer, her fingers ran along the keys, and then, with a sweetness, power, and solemnity almost like angelic strains, she sung-accompanying her voice upon the instrument-the following lines: "No room for mirth or trifling here, "Nothing is worth a thought beneath, A mansion in the skies." She ceased her extraordinary performance; her faith triumphed; the grace of God was victorious in the hour of her greatest trial and temptation. The father could not withstand the power of God which accompanied the minstrel; he wept aloud, and began to pray for the salvation of his soul, became converted to Christ, and consecrated himself and all he had to the Saviour of his daughter. THE ENGLISH BIBLE. THE first version of any part of the Scriptures into the language of our own country was that of Adhelm, Bishop of Sherburn, who flourished About the year 730, Eadfrid, or Eebert, Bishop of Lindisferne, translated several of the sacred books into the same language. Venerable Bede, who died in 735, is said to have translated the whole Bible into Saxon; but Cuthbert, Bede's disciple, in enumerating the works of his master, mentions only his version of the Gospel of St. John, without saying anything of the other books. Elfric, Abbot of Malmesbury, made an Anglo-Saxon version of several books of the Bible; this work was published at Oxford in 1699. There is also an old Anglo-Saxon version of the four Gospels, published by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1571, but the author of it is not known. With regard to the English translations of the Bible, the most ancient is that of John de Trevisa, a secular priest, who translated the Old and New Testaments into English at the request of Thomas, Lord Berkley. He lived in the reign of Edward III., and finished his translation in 1357. The second author who undertook this work was the famous Wickliffe, who lived in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. Manuscripts of this version are still preserved in several libraries in England. In the year 1534 an English version of the Bible, by William Tindal and Miles Coverdale, was brought to England from Antwerp; but the bishops finding great fault with it, it was proposed in convocation to make a new translation of the Scriptures, to be placed in all the churches. The translation was begun immediately, and the whole impression was finished in two years. Fuller mentions another translation printed in 1549. the reign of Queen Elizabeth "The Bishops' Bible" appeared, so called because several prelates were engaged in its translation. In In the second year of James I.'s reign, a resolution was taken at a conference held at Hampton Court, that a new translation of the Bible should be made, which design was executed by forty-seven translators. This version is now read by authority in all the English churches. In the reign of Edward I. the price of a fairly written Bible was £27. A labourer's wages was then 13d. per day; so that the purchase of a copy of Holy Writ by such a person would have taken the earnings of fifteen years, three months. In our own times the Bible can be obtained for a mere trifle. How, then, my dear young friends, ought we to prize our privileges, and diligently study the Holy Scriptures, more especially the New Testament, for therein are contained the words of eternal life. "The Bible has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter." Lynn. R. C. CUTHBERT. A LEAF FROM A SERMON. Text-Matt. xxv. 20, 21. WHATEVER may be our position or circumstances, we are not at liberty to abandon the service of Christ, or sit at ease in Zion. According to our ability, we are to continue to serve our Master. Since I became your minister, more than one aged pilgrim has told me that his days for work are over, and that he has now entered into rest, waiting for the time when the Lord shall say, "It is enough, come up hither." If they speak comparatively, they are right; if absolutely, they are wrong. Have you any right to cease working for a Master on whom your very existence depends, and from whose hands you receive so much and expect still more? Fathers and mothers in Israel, let me speak freely to you, and I would speak as unto aged men and women. I reverence you on account of your past services and faithfulness in the cause of Christ. In you I see persons who, in days long since gone by, have had to do battle for our Master; and as the youthful soldier pays homage to the veteran warrior, so honour I you. I am but young in years, and you may count me presumptuous in addressing you; but I must be faithful. You are not to give up working for Christ. Your toil is not ended, or your Master would ere this have called you hence. You may not have the physical strength or mental vigour to labour as when you had the elasticity and buoyancy of youth; but you can yet do something for Christ, and perhaps more than you imagine. There is something in an aged man's advice or reproof that endues it with a mightier influence than when coming from youth. There are few young men now like the children of Bethel, who irreverently mocked old age, crying, "Go up, thou bald head." A respect for the aged is a feeling possessed by all. The other day Ï went to visit an aged pilgrim, destitute of sight, and never shall I cease to remember the blessing of that child of God. The first thing that led me to think seriously about my own soul and its eternal interests, was the counsel of a dying patriarch. Never shall I forget the grief I experienced and the vows I made as he took my hand in his, and exhorted me to be obedient to my parents and devoted to my Saviour. Had it not been for that counsel, perhaps, your preacher would not have been before you on this occasion, nor be engaged in the great and important duty of ministering the word of eternal truth. If you want examples for your imitation and encouragement, I can find you innumerable instances. Tradition relates of the Apostle John, that when he could no longer walk to God's house, he used to be carried; and though he could scarcely speak, yet, as the venerable patriarch sat in the midst of his charge, he would say unto them," Little children, love one another." When possessed of energy, Paul laboured, and we find him as Paul the aged, still toiling on in the service of his Master. Not unfrequently has the greatest work been reserved till old age. Moses had attained the ripe age of fourscore years ere he was appointed to the work of delivering Israel from Egyptian bondage. Aged men and women, labour on, for from the seed you now sow abundant fruit may be hereafter reaped. A. R. P. Netherton, near Dudley. TWO KINDS OF PREACHING. Do not these two words, affection and earnestness, include the very essentials of a successful ministration of the gospel? They are intimately related, for can there be affection without earnestness, or earnestness where there is no affection? In listening to some preachers of the gospel, you perceive a deplorable want of both of these. All is didactic, heartless intellectuality. The preacher is a lecturer on the gospel, and the sermon is a mere lecture; all true, perhaps clear, but there is nothing which makes the audience feel that the preacher loves them, or is preaching to them the gospel for this very purpose. No minister can be a good and effective preacher of the gospel, who does not produce on the minds of his hearers the conviction, "This man is intent on saving our souls. He would save us if he could." What can interest us like the interest manifested for us! How weighty a motive power is the exhibition of a sincere and ardent affection! To see a man rousing up all the energies of his soul to do us good, using all the powers of persuasion, the tear starting in his eye, the flush spreading over his face, the very muscles of his countenance working, till we seem to feel his very hand laying hold with a grasp of our soul to save us from perdition! Oh, the force there is in such preaching! This gives the charm, the power-in subordination to the Spirit of God-to all evangelical preaching. GRASS EVERYWHERE. In the exercise of that spirit of thankful affection with which the true naturalist surveys the world around him, the universality of grass is a fact accepted as a distinct teaching of the kindly regard for the happiness of all creatures, which is so prominent a feature in the plan of creation. In herbage and grain the grasses furnish a larger amount of sustenance to animal life than all other tribes of plants together; and 80 profusely have they been shed abroad in every conceivable variety, as climate, soil, and situation may influence their growth, that the earth has taken their colouring for a garment, and presents a firmament of green almost as unbroken as the upper firmament of blue, which is the only other prevailing tint in Nature. No matter how elevated or how barren the spot, grasses of some kind will make themselves a home in it; and when every variety of soil and climate has been furnished with its appropriate kinds, others find for themselves sites in water, carpeting the bed of the brook, or binding the shingle together on the shore of the sea; others on ruins, house-tops, and subterranean retreats, if but a glimpse of daylight reach them. In that remarkable work, "The Flora of the Colosseum," in which Mr. Deakin describes 420 plants found growing spontaneously on the ruins of the Colosseum at Rome, there are no fewer than fifty-six grasses entered as flourishing in various parts of that venerable ruin. This universality of grass is one of the most poetical of facts in the economy of the world. There is no place which it will not beautify. It climbs up the steep mountain passes which are inaccessible to man, and forms ledges of green amid the rivings of the crags: it leaps down between steep shelving precipices, and there fastens its slender roots in the dry crevices which the earthquakes had rent long ago, and into which the water trickles when the sunbeams strike the hoary snows above. There it leaps and twines in the morning light, and flings its sweet, sweet laughing greenness to the sun; there it creeps and climbs about the mazes of solitude, and weaves its fairy tassels with the wind. It beautifies even that spot, and spreads over the sightless visage of death and darkness the serene beauty of a summer smile, flinging its green lustre on the bold granite, and perfuming the lips of Morning as she stoops from heaven to kiss the green things of the earth. It makes a moist and yielding carpet over the whole earth, on which the impetuous may pass with hurried tread, or the feet of beauty linger. And from this universality of growth grass derives its specific name.- Hibberd's "Brambles and Bay Leaves." W WHAT IS THE HAPPIEST SEASON? AT a festal party of old and young, the question was proposed, which season of life was the most happy? After being freely discussed by the guests, it was referred for answer to the host, upon whom was the burden of fourscore years. He asked if they had noticed a grove of trees before his dwelling, and said, "When the spring comes, and in the soft air the buds are breaking on the trees, and they are covered with blossoms, I think how beautiful is spring! And when the summer comes and covers the trees with its heavy foliage, and singing birds are all among the branches, I think how beautiful is summer! When autumn loads them with golden fruit, and their leaves bear their gorgeous tints, I think how beautiful is autumn! And when it is sere winter, and there is neither foliage nor fruit, then I look up, and through the leafless branches-as I never could till now-I see the stars shine.-Evening of Life. A BEAUTIFUL REFLECTION. IMMORTALITY. BULWER eloquently says, "I cannot believe that earth is man's abidingplace. It cannot be that our life is cast up by the ocean of eternity to float a moment upon its waves and then sink into nothingness! Else, why is it that the glorious aspirations which leap like angels from the temple of our heart are for ever wandering about unsatisfied? Why is it that the rainbow and clouds come over us, with a beauty that is not of earth, and then pass off and leave us to muse upon their faded loveliness? Why is it that the stars, which hold their festival around the midnight throne, are set above the grasp of limited faculties, for ever mocking us with their unapproachable glory? And, finally, why is it that bright forms of human beauty are presented to our view, and then taken from us, leaving the thousand streams of our affections to flow back in Alpine torrents upon our hearts? We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth. There is a realm where the stars will be spread before us like islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beings that pass before us like shadows will stay in our presence for ever!" Memoirs and Recent Deaths. MR. SAMUEL SADLER, OLDBURY. old OUR departed brother was the son of Mr. Benjamin Sadler, a short memoir of whom appeared in the Magazine for June, 1851. He was born at Round's Green, near Oldbury, Feb. 4, 1807. There is nothing particular respecting his childhood to relate, except that when about four years he had a Darrow escape from drowning. He was a boy unusually full of life and vigour; and having received the schooling his father thought proper to give him, that he might remain under parental care, it was intended that he should stay at home, and follow the same employment as his brothers. Against this arrangement, however, he rebelled; his heart was set upon being a builder, and neither father nor mother could, by their entreaties, dissuade him from his purpose. He was, therefore, apprenticed to Mr. Cox, builder, of Tipton, a Wesleyan local preacher. This removal from home was at first to his advantage, as he was thereby separated from companions who were not doing him any good, and for some time things went on well with him. This satisfactory state of affairs was interrupted by his master entering the yeomanry, and sending him to serve in his stead. He was thereby introduced into gay and dissipated company, by which he was led astray, and brought to form habits of a debasing and ruinous |