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A SCRIPTURAL SUM.

Add to your faith, virtue;
And to your virtue, knowledge;
And to knowledge, temperance;

And to temperance, patience;
And to patience, godliness;

And to godliness, brotherly kindness;

And to brotherly kindness, charity.

The Answer:-For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.-2 Peter i. 5, 8.

BIBLIOMANCY.

Bibliomancy, or divination by the Bible, had become so common in the fifth century, that several councils were obliged expressly to forbid it, as injurious to religion, and savoring of idolatry.

This kind of divination was named Sortes Sanctorum, or Sortes Sacræ, Lots of the Saints, or Sacred Lots, and consisted in suddenly opening, or dipping into, the Bible, and regarding the passage that first presented itself to the eye as predicting the future lot of the inquirer. The Sortes Sanctorum had succeeded the Sortes Homerica and Sortes Virgiliana of the Pagans; among whom it was customary to take the work of some famous poet, as Homer or Virgil, and write out different verses on separate scrolls, and afterwards draw one of them, or else, opening the book suddenly, consider the first verse that presented itself as a prognostication of future events. Even the vagrant fortune-tellers, like some of the gypsies of our own times, adopted this method of imposing upon the credulity of the ignorant. The nations of the East retain the practice to the present day. The famous usurper, Nadir Shah, twice decided upon besieging cities, by opening at random upon verses of the celebrated poet Hafiz.

This abuse, which was first introduced into the church about the third century, by the superstition of the people, afterwards gained ground through the ignorance of some of the clergy, who permitted prayers to be read in the churches for this very pur

pose. It was therefore found necessary to ordain in the Council of Vannes, held A.D. 465, "That whoever of the clergy or laity should be detected in the practice of this art should be cast out of the communion of the church." In 506, the Council of Agde renewed the decree; and in 578, the Council of Auxerre, amongst other kinds of divination, forbade the Lots of the Saints, as they were called, adding, "Let all things be done in the name of the Lord;" but these ordinances did not effectually suppress them, for we find them again noticed and condemned in a capitulary or edict of Charlemagne, in 793. Indeed, all endeavors to banish them from the Christian church appear to have been in vain for ages.

The Name of God.

Tell them I AM, JEHOVAH said

To Moses, while earth heard in dread;
And, smitten to the heart,

At once, above, beneath, around,
All nature, without voice or sound,
Replied, O LORD! THOU ART!

Written by a Lunatic, Raleigh, N.C.

Ir is singular that the name of God should be spelled with four letters in almost every known language. It is in Latin, Deus; Greek, Zeus; Hebrew, Adon; Syrian, Adad; Arabian, Alla; Persian, Syra; Tartarian, Idga; Egyptian, Aumn, or Zeut; East Indian, Esgi, or Zenl; Japanese, Zain; Turkish, Addi; Scandinavian, Odin; Wallachian, Zenc; Croatian, Doga; Dalmatian, Rogt; Tyrrhenian, Eher; Etrurian, Chur; Margarian, Oese; Swedish, Codd; Irish, Dich; German, Gott; French, Dieu; Spanish, Dios; Peruvian, Lian.

The name God in the Anglo-Saxon language means good, and this signification affords singular testimony of the AngloSaxon conception of the essence of the Divine Being. He is

goodness itself, and the Author of all goodness. Yet the idea of denoting the Deity by a term equivalent to abstract and absolute perfection, striking as it may appear, is perhaps less remarkable than the fact that the word Man, used to designate a human being, formerly signified wickedness; showing how well aware were its originators that our fallen nature had become identified with sin.

THE PARSEE, JEW, AND CHRISTIAN.

A Jew entered a Parsee temple, and beheld the sacred fire. "What!" said he to the priest, "do you worship the fire?" "Not the fire," answered the priest: "it is to us an emblem of the sun, and of his genial heat."

"Do you then worship the sun as your god?" asked the Jew. "Know ye not that this luminary also is but a work of that Almighty Creator?"

"We know it," replied the priest: "but the uncultivated man requires a sensible sign, in order to form a conception of the Most High. And is not the sun the incomprehensible source of light, an image of that invisible being who blesses and preserves all things?"

"Do your people, then," rejoined the Israelite, "distinguish the type from the original? They call the sun their god, and, descending even from this to a baser object, they kneel before an earthly flame! Ye amuse the outward but blind the inward eye; and while ye hold to them the earthly, ye draw from them the heavenly light! Thou shalt not make unto thyself any image or any likeness.'"

"How do you designate the Supreme Being?" asked the Parsce.

"We call him Jehovah Adonia, that is, the Lord who is, who was, and who will be," answered the Jew.

"Your appellation is grand and sublime," said the Parsee; "but it is awful too."

A Christian then drew nigh, and said,—

"We call him FATHER."

The Pagan and the Jew looked at each other, and said,"Here is at once an image and a reality: it is a word of the heart."

Therefore they all raised their eyes to heaven, and said, with reverence and love, "OUR FATHER!" and they took each by the hand, and all three called one another brothers!

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In rebus tantis trina conjunctio mund I
E rigit humanum sensum, laudare venust E
S ola salus nobis, et mundi summa, potesta S
Venit peccati nodum dissolvere fruct V

S umma salus cunctas nituit per secula terra S.#

The letters I. H. S. so conspicuously appended to different portions of Catholic churches, are said to have been designed by St. Bernardine of Sienna, to denote the name and mission of the Saviour. They are to be found in a circle above the principal door of the Franciscan Church of the Holy Cross, (Santa Croce,) in Florence, and are said to have been put there by the saint on the termination of the plague of 1347, after which they were commonly introduced into churches. The letters have assigned to them the following signification:Jesus hominum Salvator-Jesus, the Saviour of men. In hoc salus-In him is salvation.

In times momentous appeared the world's triple conjunction,
Encouraging human hearts to shout melodious praises.
S ole salvation for us, that power exalted 'bove measure,
Unloosed the bonds of sin through the precious atonement.
Salvation illumines all earth through ages unceasing.

A maker of playing-cards, which, like missals, were illuminated in those times, was one day remonstrated with by St. Bernardine, upon the sinfulness of his business. The card-maker pleaded the needs of his family. "Well, I will help you," said the saint, and wrote the letters I. H. S., which he advised the card-maker to paint and gild. The new card "took," and the saint himself travelled about the country as a poster of these little sacred handbills of the Church.

about REST.

THE FLOWER OF JESSE.

1520.

There is a flower sprung of a tree,
The root of it is called Jesse,
A flower of price,-

There is none such in Paradise.

Of Lily white and Rose of Ryse,

Of Primrose and of Flower-de-Lyse,
Of all flowers in my devyce,

The flower of Jesse beareth the prize,
For most of all

To help our souls both great and small.

I praise the flower of good Jesse,
Of all the flowers that ever shall be,
Uphold the flower of good Jesse,
And worship it for aye beautee;
For best of all

That ever was or ever be shall.

BEAUTIFUL LEGEND.

One day Rabbi Judah and his brethren, the seven pillars of Wisdom, sat in the Court of the Temple, on feast-day, disputing One said that it was to have attained sufficient wealth, yet without sin. The second, that it was fame and praise of all men. The third, that it was the possession of power to rule the State. The fourth, that it consisted only in a happy home. The fifth, that it must be in the old age of one who is rich, powerful, famous, surrounded by children and children's children. The sixth said that all that were vain, unless a man keep all the ritual law of Moses. And Rabbi

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