curtseys in the waves, and vibrates its exploring arms, and gorges some dainty medusa, the sea-anemone goes through nearly the same round of pursuits and enjoyments with your intelligent and immortal self. Is this a life for a rational and responsible creature to lead?

Let us imagine another similar transformation. Fancy that instead of a polypus you were changed into a swallow. There you have a creature abundantly busy, up in the early morning, for ever on the wing, as graceful and sprightly in his flight as tasteful in the haunts which he selects. Look at him, zig-zagging over the clover field, skimming the limpid lake, whisking round the steeple, or dancing gaily in the sky. Behold him in high spirits, shrieking out his ecstacy as he has seized a dragon-fly, or darted through the arrow-slits of the old turret, or performed some other feat of hirundine agility. And notice how he pays his morning visits, alighting elegantly on some house-top, and twittering politely by turns to the swallow on either side him, and after five minutes' conversation, off and away to call for his friend at the castle. And now he is gone upon his travels, gone to spend the winter at Rome or Naples, to visit Egypt or the Holy Land, or perform some more recherché pilgrimage to Spain or the coast of Barbary. And when he comes home next April, sure enough he has been abroad;-charming climate,-highly delighted with the cicadas in Italy, and the bees on Hymettus ;-locusts in Africa rather scarce this season; but upon the whole much pleased with his trip, and returned in high health and spirits.

Now, dear friends, this is a very proper life for a swallow, but is it a life for you? To flit about from house to house; to pay futile visits, where, if the talk were written down, it would amount to little more than the chattering of a swallow; to bestow all your thoughts on graceful attitudes and nimble movements and polished attire; to roam from land to land with so little information in your head, or so little taste for the sublime or beautiful in your soul, that could a swallow publish his travels, and did you publish yours, we should probably find the one a counterpart of the other; the winged traveller enlarging on the discomforts of his nest, and the wingless one, on the miseries of his hotel or his chateau; you describing the places of amusement, or enlarging on the vastness of the country, and the abundance of the game; and

your rival, eloquent on the self-same things. Oh! it is a thought, not ridiculous, but appalling. If the earthly history of some of our brethren were written down; if a faithful record were kept of the way they spend their time; if all the hours of idle vacancy or idler occupancy were put together, and the very small amount of useful diligence deducted, the life of a bird or quadruped would be a nobler one; more worthy of its powers and more equal to its Creator's end in forming it. Such a register is kept. Though the trifler does not chronicle his own vain words and wasted hours, they chronicle themselves. They find their indelible place in that book of remembrance with which human hand cannot tamper, and from which no erasure save one can blot them. They are noted in the memory of God. And when once this life of wondrous opportunities and awful advantages is over-when the twenty or fifty years of probation are fled away-when mortal existence, with its facilities for personal improvement and serviceableness to others, is gone beyond recall-when the trifler looks back to the long pilgrimage, with all the doors of hope and usefulness, past which he skipped in his frisky forgetfulness—what anguish will it move to think that he has gambolled through such a world without salvation to himself, without any real benefit to his brethren, a busy trifler, a vivacious idler, a clever fool!

PROVERBS.

He that has no silver in his purse, should have silver on his tongue.

The stone that lies not in your way, need not offend you. Most things have two handles, and the wise man takes hold of the best.

Buy what you do not want, and you will sell what you cannot spare.

Laboring to please a fool, is a servile employment.

Not to oversee workmen, is to leave them with your purse open.
Plough or not plough, you must pay your rent.

A goose's quill is more dangerous than a lion's claw.
Though a good life may not silence calumny, it will disarm it.
He that shows his passion, tells his enemy where to hit him.
It is hard to live in Rome, and strive against the Pope.

SCIENCE AND SCRIPTURE.

To the Editor of the Youths' Magazine.

The remarks made in your August number on the enlightened philosophy of the Bible, in an article entitled "The Word and where is it?" have induced me to forward you a short notice of the three Hebrew words for light, the earth, and the sun, as indicating a thorough acquaintance with the true principles of

science.

"The Hebrew word for light," says Schimmelpenninck, "is aur, whence probably the Latin aurum and the French or, for gold, which is the color of light." The ideal meaning of the word is the swiftly flowing. How exact is this definition, will be seen by perusing the following extract from Prout's Bridgewater Treatise. "Light radiates or moves in straight lines with such inconceivable velocity, that it occupies only about eight minutes in travelling from the sun to our earth, so that it must move at the rate of nearly two hundred thousand miles in a second. A cannon ball when first shot from the cannon, moves with a velocity of between two and three thousand feet per second; supposing, therefore, it could retain its initial velocity, it would scarcely move in a year so much as light would move in a single second."

The name for the earth literally means the runner, or revolver. At the time the scriptures were written, the earth was generally supposed to be the centre of our system, and immoveable. How, then, can we account for the philosophical truth of expression in Sacred Writ, but by admitting that it is indeed, as it professes to be, the word of that God who created all things, and who, therefore, well knew their construction.

It may be urged against this interpretation, that the Bible mentions the rising and the setting of the sun; instead of the rising and setting of the earth, as it ought to do if it really recognize the earth's revolution round the sun. But do not the Nautical Almanac and other similar works, professedly technical and scientific, use the very same terms? Why, then, should you expect a book written for all classes to speak more correctly on an astronomical question, than a volume intended to be read, canvassed, criticised, and acted on by practical astronomers?

The word shemesh, the sun, is a substantive from a root

signifying to serve or minister to. The sun is so called because he is the great servant or minister of the solar system, and the creature of its Great Framer.

But at the very time this name was put on record in the Scriptures, almost the whole earth was plunged into idolatry— worshipping this very "servant" as their supreme Lord. An ignorance of this simple fact, led to all the errors and abominations of astrology in after ages; and when the noble science of astronomy was first reduced to form, it was by the mere amplification of this idea, expressed more than three thousand years ago, by the inspired penman.

Who, after perusing these statements, can doubt that the Bible contains prophecies in science as well as in history; or resist the proof afforded by such facts that it is in truth the Word of God? Your's

PHILOSOPHIA.

THE TRINITY.

THE plural word ELOHEEM, Gods, ( Gen. i. 1,) is the nominative to BAARAA, he created, a verb in the third person singular, preterite the phrase would therefore be rendered in Latin by Dii creavit-He, the Gods, created. Thus does the Bible open with a formal and express allusion to the doctrine of the Trinity of the Godhead. The word ELOHEEM being a noun plural, is equally opposed to the doctrine of the Socinians, to suit whose views it should be singular; and to those more modern theologians, who deny the personality of the Spirit; in which case it should have been dual, and the word would have been ELOHAYEEM; eem being the plural, and ayeem, the dual termination. It is in all cases equally contrary to Polytheism, by being connected with a verb singular. All the names of the ever blessed God present the same peculiarity; thus SHADDAI, "the exuberant pourers out of good;" ADONAI, "My Lords;" and again, the texts, “Remember thy Creators in the days of thy youth" which text is remarkable, as it exactly tallies with the text-"Let us make man in OUR own image."- Schimmelpenninck.

Enquiries and Correspondence.

True and False Peace.

(To the Editor of the Youths' Magazine.)

SIR. My earliest recollections of the Sabbath bring with them pleasing associations of your Magazine. The amusement which it first afforded me, has of late years, I trust, been turned into profit; and it is with pleasure I have noticed its increased circulation: stimulated by the example of others, I am now induced to beg your opinion upon a subject of no slight personal importance.

Brought up under an eminently pious roof, my wayward heart long refused the offers of mercy, hewing out to itself broken cisterns which too surely proved themselves incapable of holding water.

It is now nearly three years since, after a breaking up of one of these cisterns, my heart was graciously turned to God (1). Although I had steadfastly resisted the solicitations of friends, omitted all private means of grace, and had imposed silence upon all who broached the subject to me (2); still at that time I felt no sorrow for sin (3), but was rather filled with an overflowing sense of peace with God (4); divine love was so manifested to me that I could say, Abba, Father. Immediately, trusting in Him who is able to keep me from falling and as willing as He is able, I presented myself for church membership.

Too soon, alas! these blissful feelings were lost, and a state of general depression ensued (5), which affected every former object of interest, and which, with rare intermission, oppressed me for more than a year. I was enabled, I believe, to maintain a consistent course in the eyes of others, although often was private reading omitted, private prayer restrained, and the yoke of Christ felt to be a burden (6). Still I never made any doubt as to my conversion, and being in a state of pardon (7), though Christ as my Saviour was never manifested to me, as he is to some, to whom He is the chief among ten thousand and the altogether lovely: but I rather leaned upon the paternal character of God (8). Of late I have been privileged to enjoy more communion with Him: holy desires and affections are being renewed in my soul, but having read in Barrett's "Pastoral Addresses" an account of the great distress of mind which "prepares the way for other and more direct actings of the soul," and never having felt that bitterness for sin, I am anxious to know if it be a requisite for justification? An extract from Brown's Zimmermann on the "Knowledge of Christ" will explain more fully my difficulty. In order to attain to the light that is in Christ, he there says, "It is then fit therefore, for this end, that the sinner should feel