Varieties. CONVERSATION.-Mrs. Hannah More remarks, that "there are few occasions in life in which we are more called upon to watch ourselves narrowly, and to resist the temptations, than in conversation." Dr. Johnson also observed, that great talents for conversation required to be accompanied with great politeness; he who eclipses others, owes them great civilities, and whatever a mistaken vanity may tell us, it is better to please in conversation than to shine in it. REASON AND KINDNESS.-The language of reason, unaccompanied by kindness, will often fail of making an impression; it has no effect on the understanding, because it touches not the heart. The language of kindness, unassociated with reason, will frequently be unable to persuade; because, though it may gain upon the affections, it wants that which is necessary to convince the judgment. But let reason and kindness be united in a discovery, and seldom will even pride or prejudice find it easy to resist.-Gisborne. WOMAN'S FORTITUDE.-I have often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most overwhelming reverse of fortune. Those disasters which break down the spirit of a man, and prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation to their character, that at times it approaches to sublimity. Nothing can be morce touching than to be hold a soft and tender female, who had been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial roughness, while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force to be the comforter and supporter of her husband under misfortune, and abiding, with unshrinking firmness, the bitterest blast of adversity.-Irving. HUMAN LIFE.-Hope writes the poetry of the boy, but memory that of the man. Man look forward with smiles, but backward with sighs. Such is the wise providence of God. The cup of life is sweetest at the brim, the flavour is impaired as we drink deeper, and the dregs are made bitter that we may not struggle when it is taken from our lips. RELIGIOUS DREAMS.-A man applied to the Rev. Rowland Hill, for admission to his church, and began to give an account of his experience by relating a dream. "We will tell you" said Mr. Hill, "what we think of your dream, after we see how you go on when you are awake." CLEVER IDIOTS.-Paradoxical as this title sounds, we know not how better to entitle those cases of idiocy, which occasionally give out such vivid gleams of rationality as shine in the following anecdotes. It is said that Bossuet once offered to give an idiot an apple, if he would tell him where God was. The answer of the idiot was, "I will give you two, if you will me where he is not." A LOOKING GLASS FOR A DRUNKARD. The following lines are also attributed to an idiot. "Could we with ink the ocean fill, Nor could the scroll contain the whole MARTIN LUTHER'S ACTIVITY.-From 1517 to 1526, the first ten years of the Reformation, the number of his publications was three hundred; from 1526 to 1536, the second decade, the number was two hundred and eighty-three. His first book was published in November 1517, and he died in February 1546-an interval of twenty-nine years and four months. In this time he published seven hundred and fifteen volumes —an average of more than twenty-five a year, or twenty-five a year, or once a fortnight of his public life. He did not go through the manual labor of all this writing it is true, for many of his published works were taken down from his lips by his friends; and it is also true, that several of the volumes were small enough in size to be denominated pamphlets; but many of them, also, are large and elaborate treatises. In the circumstances in which he wrote, his translation of the Bible alone would have been a gigantic task, even if he had had a lifetime to devote to it. 15 MARTIN LUTHER'S LAST WILL AND PRAYER.-O Lord God, I thank thee that thou wouldest have me to be poor, and a beggar upon the earth. I have no house, lands, possessions, or money to leave. Thou hast given me a wife and children; to thee I return them: nourish, teach, and save them, as hitherto thou hast me, oh Father of the fatherless and Judge of the widow. Oh, my heavenly Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of all consolations, I thank thee that thou hast revealed thy Son Jesus Christ to me, me on whom, I have believed, whom I have professed, whom I have loved, whom I have celebrated; whom the Bishop of Rome, and all the multitude do persecute with reproach. I pray thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, receive my soul. My heavenly Father, although I am taken out of this life, though I must now lay down this body, yet I certainly know I shall dwell with thee for ever, neither can I by any be plucked out of thy hands. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on his name shall never perish, but have everlasting life. HUMILITY. The bird that soars on highest wing, Temperance Advocate. ALooking-glass for a Drunkard. From a Tract, published in 1652. A drunkard is the annoyance of modesty; the trouble of civility; the spoil of wealth; the destruction of reason. He is the brewer's agent; the alehouse benefactor; the beggar's companion; the constable's trouble. He is his wife's woe; his children's sorrow; his neighbor's scoffe; his own shame. In summe, a tubbe of swill; a spirit of sleep; a picture of a beast; a monster of a man. The evils of Drunkennesse. Drunkennesse confounds the memory, dulls the understanding, distempers the body, defaceth the beauty, hurts the mind. It inflames the blood; it engenders unnatural thirst, a stinking breath, redness of the eyes. It diminisheth strength; it brings woes, sorrows, wounds without cause; corrupteth the blood, drowneth the spirits. It enricheth the carcasse with surfeits; turneth blood into water; turns reason to poyson. It causeth vomiting and filthiness. By excessive drinking, come dropsies, consumptions, and cold diseases, with untimely deaths. Many, by drinking healths to others, leave none to themselves. Drunkenesse is a flattering devil, a sweet poyson, a delightsome sin, which, whoso hath in himself, hath not himself; and he that useth it, is not himself in the concrete, but sinfulness itself in the abstract; being a voluntary devil, the common shame of nature, and the prodigious disgrace of mankind. Examples laid down in Scripture, shewing how drunkenesse made some fall by the sword, others became murderers, others being drunk, were murdered, betrayed; many destroyed in the middle of their sin, sporting, &c. The Amalekites lay scattered on the earth, so that David slew them. 1 Sam. Xxx. 16. Ammon's heart was merry, so that Absalom's servants slew him. 2 Sam. xxviii. 29. tinue till night, the wine inflaming them. Isa. v. 11. Wo to them that are mighty to drink wine, and to men of strength mingling strong drinke, which causeth men to erre, and to go out of the way, being swallowed up with wine and strong drink. Isa. v. 22. chap. xxviii. 7, 8, &c. Awake now, ye drunkards, weep and howle, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it shall be pulled from your mouth. Joeli. 5, &c. Warnings and Exhortations. The drunkard shall come to poverty, rags shall be his clothing. Prov. xxiii. 21. Wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby, is not wise. Prov. xx. i. Remember Christ's admonition. take heed of drunkenesse. Luke xxi. 34, Forget not Paul's and Solomon's counsel. 1 Cor. v. 11. Prov. xxiii. 20. Company not with drunkards, &c.; and know that no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. 1 Cor. xxvi. 10, 11. Therefore be not drunken with wine, wherein is excess, but Benhadad, with 52 other kings, were by be filled with the spirit. Eph. v. 18. 1 Kings xx. 16, &c. Israel overcome. Belshazzar's countenance fell down, and the Medes took his kingdom. Dan. v. 31. David useth means to move Uriah to cover his sin committed. 2 Sam. xi. 13. Elah was, by his servant conspiring against him, murdered. 1 Kings xvi. 9, 10. Gaal, with his brethren, conspired against Abimelech. Judg. xi. 26, 27. Herod, in his drunken banquet, caused John to be beheaded. Matthew xiv. 10. The Israelites drank till they were thirsty. Hell was prepared for them. Isa. v. 12, 14. Nabal's heart was merry and suddenly died within him. 1 Sam. xxv. 26, 27. The Philistines sporting with Samson, were, by the fall of an house, slaine. Jud. xvi. 26-30. Priests and prophets stumble in judgment, and faile by vision. Isa. xxviii. 7. The Corinthians profaned the Lord's supper by their immoderate drinking before. 1 Cor. xi. 21. Threatenings to Drunkards. Wo to them that rise up early in the morning, to follow strong drink, that con Human Pulsation. An ingenious author asserts, the length of a man's life may be estimated by the number of pulsations he has strength to perform. Thus allowing 70 years for the common age of man, and 60 pulses in a minute, for the common measure of pulses in a temperate person, the number of pul sations in his whole life would amount to 2, 207, 520, 000; but if, by intemperance or the use of strong drink, he forces his blood into a more rapid motion, so as to give 75 pulses in a minute, the same number of pulses would be completed in 56 years; consequently his life would be reduced fourteen years. Temperance produces health and longevity. Printed by JOHN KENNEDY, at his Printing Office, 35, Theology. The Two Parts of which we are Composed. WHAT is man? Have you ever asked yourself this question, reader? If you have seriously done so, it has puzzled and almost confounded you. We know not what we are. All that we can learn about ourselves, is no more than the simple fact with which every child is acquainted, that we are made of a body and a soul; that we are composed of two very different parts, which became connected we know not when, and affect one another we know not how. They are called in Scripture "the dust" and "the spirit." These two united form that common, but most mysterious piece ofworkmanship which we call man. By the dust we are undoubtedly to understand the body, that part of us which may be seen and felt. The body is called by this humiliating name partly on account of its origin. "Of the dust of the ground" did the Lord God form man. He could have formed him without this dust, without any materials whatsoever; but to keep him low, to mortify the pride of his vain descendants, he took the meanest substance that the earth could furnish, and moulded that into the shape of man. Hence we are said to dwell "in houses of clay;" the habitation of our spirit is called "an earthly house;" its foundation is in "the dust," and of dust are its walls composed. This expression may refer, also, to the perishable nature of our bodies. They are not formed of materials that are strong and lasting, of brass, or iron, or stone. Then we might have defied the hand of violence, and of time. But we are dust, one of the lightest, the most unstable of all earthly substances. One moment, it lies before us in our path; the next a breath of wind removes it, and scatters it at its will. But there is one idea more comprehended under this term-meanness, worthlessness. Nothing is of less value than dust. It is rudely trodden on by every foot. It is sometimes removed as a nuisance out of our path. And what is the worth of these bodies of ours, which we pamper and adorn with so much care? True, they are the workmanship of God, monuments of the Omnipotence which could build so wondrous a fabric from materials so vile; but they still are dust, composed of the same elements as the body of the meanest reptile, as a blade of grass. They are of importance to us now, because they are the tabernacles of the immortal soul; but separate them from that soul, take them when the soul has forsaken them; what is their value then? Our friends will tell. They will bury us out of their sight. In the very houses which we now call our own, we shall be denied a lodging. Loved or hated, a grave will be dug for us, and we shall be left in it in darkness and alone, valued only by the worm that takes us for its prey. But man is not all dust. "There is a spirit in him." And it is his own spirit; it forms a part of him. And what is the spirit? None but the living God can tell. It is that strange something within us, which no human eye has ever seen, but without which we can do nothing, and are nothing, at least no more than a clod or a stone. It dwells in the body, animates and rules it; but is not confined to it. Spurning the limits of time and space, it roves among the ages that are gone, as though it had lived in them. By the wings of its powerful imagination, it flies to the remotest parts of the earth, it ranges through the orbs of the sky; nay, it soars beyond them. Guided by the light sent down from heaven, it rises to the great God himself, penetrates into that invisible eternity which he inhabits, and elevates, and expands, and transforms itself, by contemplating those glories which are at his right hand. In its nature, it is altogether different from the other part of us. We know not how C 18 THE HUMAN BODY AND SPIRIT AT DEATH. it was made, but we know that nothing on the earth was employed in the creation of it. It was altogether heavenly in its origin, brought into existence by the immediate act of God. If formed of any materials, they are such as defy our efforts to attain the faintest conception of them, such as angels were created from, such perhaps as angels cannot comprehend. It is immortal. The body is of short duration. It soon arrives at its perfection, and soon decays. It may be speedily worn out. But the soul never dies. It may change; it may be enfeebled, or polluted, or degraded; but it cannot be destroyed. Even sin, that has withered all its beauty, cannot put an end to its existence. Corruption and the worm cannot touch it. Amidst all the generations of time, all the ravages of death, all the vicissitudes of human things, it lives and acts. The wreck of a world can no more injure it, than the fall of a leaf in a distant forest, can wound the eagle that is soaring in the skies. Is not man then a mysterious being? Look at his body. How fearfully and wonderfully is it made! Composed of dust, and yet so contrived and framed, that the wisest of the sons of men cannot learn its structure! He owns himself baffled as he studies it; and the more he studies it, the more is he lost in admiration at the number and variety of its parts, Every limb, every vessel, every movement within it, is an amazing proof, we might almost say, an amazing effort, of Almighty power and skill. But this is nothing when compared with the spirit. The one excites our admiration as we think of it; the other will not let us think of it. It is out of our reach. It bewilders and overwhelms us. And then the union that exists between this moulded dust and the immortal spirit-how close is it? To affect the one is, in some degree, to affect the other. The body trembles when the mind is shaken, and the mind faints when the body droops. And this union is as strange as it is close. What is the tie which connects these two parts of us? They are held together by the breath which is every moment passing to and fro from our nostrils; at least, when that breath ceases to pass, there union ends. We need not then look around us for wonders. We ourselves are wonders. The youngest child is enough to confound and humble an inquiring world. The Different Destinations of the Human Body and Spirit at Death. THE two parts of which we are composed, though closely united, are not inseparable. A trifle can, at any time, sever them. Sooner or later they must be parted. If disease or violence do not rend them asunder, they will separate of themselves. As though weary of their union, each will bid to its loved partner a long farewell, and go to its different home; and look at their different destinations. See what becomes of the body at death. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was;" that is, the body shall become just what it was before the hand of God modelled, and the living soul animated it. It was dust, and it shall return to dust again. A humiliating and loathsome process shall mingle it with the clods of the valley, and give it to the winds of heaven. And must it really come to this? Must the forms that move around us, must the frames of our children and friends that seem so firm, thus perish? They must. They may be very dear to us, as we look on them they may appear so lovely and so strong that we can hardly deem it true that death can harm them; but they will soon be gone, gone as a dream of the night, or a shadow of the morning. We ourselves shall follow them. We may go before them. Ere we are |