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things, to say nothing of foolish ornaments, to relieve their distresses. But many are proud who wear plain clothes," it is said. That may be, but that is no reason why we should wear clothes that are not plain. It is not pride alone that we should avoid, but needless expense. If pride had nothing to do with fine clothes, it would still be our duty to make a better use of our money, than spending it in ornaments and costly array. Women are to be adorned with good works; but how can they adorn themselves with good works, while they spend so much in dress and ornaments?

easy

But I do not believe it is true that there is as much pride under plain clothes as under gay clothes. It is for those who love fine clothes to say so, but where is their proof? The fact is, this objection is a slander, invented on purpose to screen inexcusable extravagance. To make use of such an argument is adding sin to sin. "He that commits a fault at first, and lies to hide it makes it two." Generally speaking, fine clothes are a sign of pride, and plain clothes are a sign of humility. A person that keeps sober will feel that he acts a better part than he that gets drunk; but shall we say on that account the sober man is proud? No such thing. He may know that sobriety is better than drunkenness, and be not a whit the less humble for that. So a modestly clad woman may feel that her dress is more seemly and christian-like than the dress of the gay and extravagant, but we shall not, on that account, call her proud.

But supposing that there was pride under a plain dress, plainness in dress is a mortification of pride, and tends to destroy it altogether; whereas finery feeds pride, and makes it grow greater and more unmanageable. Those who dress plainly and cheaply, put the extinguisher on the unholy fire; but those who wear flowers and costly clothing, put fresh fuel on the fire. If they who dress plainly are proud, they show a laudable disposition in striving against it; while those who are so fond of something rich and showy, manifest a love for pride; a sort of respect for sin. Say what they will, those who dress gaily, are proud; it is pride that makes them dress gaily, and their gay dressing makes them still more proud.

I was speaking with an artless and honest young woman lately, and she declared, that fine clothes, and rings, and ornaments, did make people proud. She had tried the experiment herself, and she had proved it so. And every one that is honest, and possessed of common sense, knows it to be so. We can see it in our little children. A tassel hanging from their cap, or a pair of gaudy coloured shoes, or any piece of finery, makes them at once imagine themselves something more than they were before, and something more than their little play-fellows. And it is the same with big children as with little children; with children of twenty or thirty years of age, as with children of twenty or thirty months.

It is time there was a change among professors on this subject, and I hope my young readers will help me in endeavouring to bring about this change. Learn to despise ornaments, my young friends, and learn to despise follies and extravagancies of every kind. You are mistaken if you suppose that fine clothes, fine gloves, or flowers, or bows, will improve your looks, or make you better thought of by people. Nothing looks so well as plainness and simplicity in dress. Almost every one admires most those who dress plainest. While on the other hand, every one thinks meanly of a person that shows a fondness for ornaments, or for rich and gaudy raiment. A woman by rich and ornamental dressing may make people look at her, but she will never make people respect her. A woman sinks herself fifty per cent. the moment she shews a fondness for dress. And it is right it should be so. A fondness for dress is always the sign of something worse; and a person who is eager to be gazed on by people, is prepared to be an easy prey to the flatterer and deceiver.

"When either women or men spend much time and attention on decorating their persons," says Adam Clarke, "it affords a painful proof that there is little excellence within. It is in every case the proof of a shallow mind, or of a vain and corrupted heart.'

SOCIAL REASONING.

WHEN I observed, in my discussion with J. Campbell, the Socialist missionary in Newcastle, that there were no

hospitals for the sick, or the blind, nor any asylums for the aged, the widow, the orphan, and the destitute, before the introduction of Christianity into human society; Campbell answered-" True, there were no hospitals or infirmaries before Christianity commenced its operations, and the reason is, there was no need for them.' Could any one have believed it possible for men so far to pervert their own minds as to be able either to believe or to utter such statements? And yet these are the men that claim for themselves the exclusive title of rational, and proclaim the rest of the human race to be insane. No sick or aged people unprovided for, no blind, no widows, no orphans in necessity before Christianity came into the world! What will those wise men say next?

That a trifling falsehood bears heavier in influencing human belief against the Bible, than does gigantic truth in favour of it. A French traveller (Brydone) wrote home a description of Mount Etna. His book was published. He describes her craters and her extended slope, covered occasionally for twenty miles, or more, along the side of the mountain, with vines, villages, and luxuriance. These are sometimes destroyed by the river of melted metal, which issues from the mountain above, many feet deep, and a mile (perhaps more, sometimes legs) in width, bears all before it, until it reaches the sea and shoves back its boiling waves. After this burning stream has cooled, there is seen, instead of blooming gardens, a naked, dreary, metallic rock. Sometimes many eruptions occur in the course of a year, breaking out at different parts of the mountain, and sometimes none for half a century. The traveller found a stream of lava congealed on the side of the mountain, which attracted his notice more than others. He thought it must have been thrown out by an eruption, which was mentioned by (perhaps) Polybius, as occurring nearly seventeen hundred years since. There was no soil on it. It was as naked as when first arrested there. The particles of dust floating through the air had not fallen there, so as to furnish hold for vegetation, and these vegetables had not grown and decayed again and again, thus adding to the depth of the soil. Such work had not even commenced. He tells us that on some part of that mountain, near the foot, if you will sink a pit, you must pass through seven different strata of lava, with two feet soil between each one. Upon the supposition that two thousand years are requisite for the increase of earth just named, he asks how seven different layers could be formed in less than fourteen thousand years. The chronology of Moses makes the world not half as old. The Frenchman was jocular at this dis

covery; and his admirers were dilighted at what seemed to them a confutation of the book of heaven. How many thousands through Europe renounced their belief of Revelation with this discovery for their prop, the author of this treatise is unable even to conjecture. It seems that many parts of Europe almost rang at the news of the analogical theory. True, the traveller only conjectured that he had found the lava mentioned by the ancient writer; but no matter, supposition only was strong enough to rivet their unbelief. The author has conversed with those in America, and on her western plains, who would declare they believed not a word of the Bible, because there was no soil on a stratum of lava, which, in all probability, had been there long. A learned Englishman, an admirer of the books of Moses, wrote to those who seemed to joy so greatly in their new system. He told them that, inasmuch as they seemed fond of arguing from analogies, he wouid give them an additional one. He reminded them that the cities of Herculaneum aud Pompeii were covered up by the eruption, in which the elder Pliny lost his life, near seventeen hundred years since. Those cities have lately been discovered; and in digging down to search their streets, six different strata of lava are passed through, with two feet of earth between each one. And the famous Watson tells them, that if six different soils near Vesuvius could be formed in seventeen hundred years, perhaps seven might be made elsewhere in five thousand years. Might we not suppose, that those who had renounced their belief of Christianity, after reading some conjectures concerning Etna, would have resumed their faith as soon as these Vesuvian facts were placed before them? No, it was not so. It was easy to descend, but they never re-ascended. Men love darkness rather than light. Thousands who snatched after the objection with joyful avidity, never read the confutation. They never inquired after an answer. Those who read, were afterwards silent, but remained unaltered. A lawyer, who stood so high with his fellow-cltizens, for worth and intelligence, that he filled many offices of trust, had his credence of the sacred page shaken by reading the suppositious system, built on the surface of Etna's lava streams. He took the book to a friend, to show him what reason we have for casting off our reverence for the Bible. This friend turned over a few pages of the book, where this same traveller, after telling how many eruptions sometimes happen in the course of a month, goes on to narrate the following history, which is here presented substantially, and as exactly as recollection will permit.

The traveller gives us to understand that a small tract, or section of country, on the side of the mountain (perhaps the ancient Hybla) had, because of its extreme luxuriance, been ealled in the language of the vicinity, (Mel Passi,) the Honey Land. The red stream from the crater above overran it, and left it a spectacle of naked dreariness. It was then called, in derision, (Mal Passi,) the Mean Land. After a time there was another eruption.

Before the lava flows it is usual for an immense cloud of ashes to ascend, and to be carried to a great distance, sometimes in one direction, and sometimes in another. These ashes, Brydone states, fell several feet in depth over the surface of this ruined country; and being impregnated with the alkaline salts, as soon as rained on, they rot, and form one of the richest soils in the world. The Mean Land, he states, soon resumed its ancient fertility, and is now called (Bel Passi,) the Beautiful Land. The lawyer was asked if his difficulties were in any way obviated by this rapidity of change from soil to nakedness, and from nudity to soil again, narrated by the same original discoverer of the whole theory. He answered in the negative, and continued to cast obstinately away the book of God. Thousands of cases happen continually, where the individual is as readily and as speedily turned into the path of infidelity, and when once there, continues to track it with invincible pertinacity. Men love darkness rather than light.-Dr. Nelson on Infidelity.

Conflicting Opinions of Deists.-Go to one hundred Deists, and you will rarely find two of them believing alike. They all agree in rejecting the Bible; but on many very important considerations,-whether the soul goes out, or certainly lives on after death,—whether the world is to meet ruin, or continue for ever,— if the wicked are to be chastised, what sins are most dangerous, &c. they have no sameness in their plans. Many Deists on questions of breathless interest, will refuse to give you any answer: they will tell you they do not know,-they have no belief on the point, however interesting. At other times you will find them maintaining that man's reason was given him as a lamp to enlighten, and as a guide to direct him in these matters. But ask them what kind of conduct here will mostly add to, or diminish from, happiness hereafter; or what kind of life we may certainly look for in the next existence, and no two of them will give you the same instructions as to these inquiries. The reason of a thousand of them seems to have led in different directions. That Christian denominations should differ, appears to them exceedingly absurd and reproachful; but that Reason, which they say God has given as our only teacher, should give either no opinion, or a very different opinion amongst their own number, does not call forth a bitter remark. If the Bible is disclaimed, thus far they all agree; farther than this they do not ask after agreement, or regret it, should there be a thousand different creeds. A God according to the Bible, they do not love; one confirmed to their own proper ideas, they do not hate.-Dr. Nelson on Infidelily.

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