that one hour is enough for the work of salvation, is to charge God with folly in making man's life three score and ten years. Why do we live? That we may learn to live well. Time is the threshold of eternity. In childhood we start upon the pilgrimage toward's heaven's gates, and there is no time to spare. A long life well spent is not too much. How can one hour be enough? The salvation of the soul is its education in virtue and purity and faith. It is the blending of the human will with the divine, the union with God and Christ, which Christ prayed that we might obtain. It is redemption from the power of selfish and worldly principles, and adoption into the happy family which is ruled by brotherly love and disinterested kindness. Can the soul be educated in an hour! Can the stubborn human will be taught submission; taught to guide itself according to the great will of the universe, which ordains the happiness and holiness of all, in one hour? No, nor in one life. They who have lived longest and best, who have labored and prayed day and night with the earnestness of those who know both what they have to gain and what to lose, their testimony is that their reliance is upon the mercy of God alone. Sin still cleaves to them. They still feel the struggle between the flesh and spirit. They still feel, more. earnestly, the further they progress in the Christian life, that Eternity is not too long for a human soul to become one with the Infinite Father. All that a life can do, is to begin. The promise of God is gracious, on which we rely, and hope that if we labor according to our strength, we shall be accepted, though unworthy. But to crowd our probation-time into one hour, or into one year, is presumption and great folly. To encourage the hope that the soul may be born again out of the darkness of gross sin and worldly-minded unbelief, into. the light of holiness and faith, by a sudden effort, called conversion, may increase the numbers of the visible church of Christ, but it is not and cannot come to good. It is against nature, and cannot be true. God has ordained otherwise. A few hours may suffice for the slumbering soul to awake and arise from the dead, but after it has arisen, and Christ has given it light, the whole day's work of salvation remains to be performed. The effect of a year's sin cannot be undone in a moment. The exhausted energies of the soul cannot be all at once restored. If we would gain our salvation, we must work it out with fear and trembling. He who wastes the years of his strength and hopes to do all that hard work in a few days of weakness, is greatly deceiving himself. But God is not mocked. 2. We ourselves must do this work. One man cannot repent for another, nor reform for another. God will help us in the work, but he will not do it for us. Christ will guide us by his truth, and encourage us by his example, but he will not give us his righteousness as a cloak to cover over our sins. Under God and through Christ, we must save ourselves. By the action of our own minds we must learn to perceive the truth, and supply it to ourselves. Our own hearts must feel. Our spiritual nature must, by our own effort, be unfolded and established, through faith in goodness, in eternity, in Christ and in God. We must act for ourselves, according to our own consciences, independently; not in crowds, not as the creatures of circumstances, but thoughtfully, as those who shall render an account. The work of salvation is one of self-searching, self-direction, self-sacrifice. If we find it hard, it must nevertheless be done. If we need assistance, it cannot come from man, but from God. W. G. E. ART. 2.-MUSINGS IN THE OPEN AIR. "Come forth into the light of things. Let Nature be your Teacher." There are times when the intellect, like the stomach, is sated and loathes its common food; when those too commonly dead and unmeaning lines of Woodsworth live, and speak to us with a new and thrilling sense; when we adopt and of a truth understand his creed, and to our inmost souls feel that "She has a mine of ready wealth, Our minds and hearts to bless; Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, Truth breathed by cheerfulness." In such moments, with a true second-sight, we look out of our little circle of literature or politics, and see ourselves men, "born to outlive the stars;" born for eternal progress; born, not with one stride to step from this imperfect to perfection, but to rise from glory to glory; whither and how long we know In such moments we recognize the truth of that saying, not. "One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil, and of good, Than all the sages can;" for what have wise men said of human littleness and weakness, and ignorance that the stars and the earth say not more forcibly! And what of human power, that every breeze and every cloud whispers not more earnestly! What author, like the Great Author of all, can teach us truly "still to revere and still to suspect," ourselves! But thus to see at once our might and our impotence; thus to rely upon ourselves and still ever distrust ourselves; how vastly important a lesson, and how hard! Turn where you will, you find men either proud and self-relying, or vain and leaning upon others; either bigots, fast in their own faith, though all the world be against them, and the faster because it is so,-or jealous and envious, because the world speak well of other men. A bird sings merrily upon the branch above you,-how wonderful its make! how infinitely powerless are we, even to comprehend its structure. But we can love it; we can let its song wake in us holy and pure feeling, and perfect faith in Him, without whom not a sparrow falleth to the ground: and is not this being that can thus cling to the mere symbol of purity, a being to be revered? You stand upon the hill-top, and look down upon the city, as upon an ant-hill. Countless human creatures are toiling, and passing, and struggling there; the steam and the smoke go up from many furnaces; and the hum of confusion comes even to you. And yet is all this confusion, order; over this seeming chaos broodeth even the Dove of God, and not a word nor an act but does his will. But we cannot begin to compass the great work that is going on there. Yet are we not powerless, for we can raise those that now are in ignorance and woe, to light and virtue; we can be God's messengers, if we will to be; every one of us has his mission; every one of us is an ambassador from the Most High; and if we bend to the ambassadors of earthly princes, surely his ministers are to be served. There is indeed nothing more curious than the adaptation of the whole world without, to the greater world within. Nature, like the Gospel, is fitted for all men. To the Indian, the Great Spirit is present in the thunder; but the flower to his rude soul says nothing: that same flower to the poet is full of wisdom. To one the sea speaks; to another the shell or the weed it throws up. Thus do insensible things become his ministers, and their office is to wake Fear, and Hope, and Love and Faith. The study of Nature, then, differs much from the study of natural history, as usually pursued. He that spends his days in shooting birds and stuffing them; or running pins through insects, mistakes, if he thinks he is studying nature, almost as widely as one, that should think he was studying music, while busy in destroying a harp, or cutting the strings of a violin. He that nurses and sets free the bird that falls into his hands, studies nature more faithfully, than he that kills the wild songster, though he know nothing of its genus, and nothing of its structure. He that lets the emmet teach him mercy and care, as he turns from his path lest he crush her, has profited more by the insect world, than he that has beetles and flies from both the Indies, and knows each by name. Thus we see in the world about us, those whom we may choose as Teachers of very many virtues, and much true wisdom. If we will choose them, and faithfully study what they would teach the crust of habit may be broken, the purity of youth and its susceptibility may be brought back, and we can say with truth, "Thanks to the human heart, by which we live; J. H. P. ART. 4.-EXTRACT Of a Letter, dated Rome, December 20, 1835. It was with no little joy I received the other day a letter directed in your hand. It found me sick in body from the dampness of the streets, and sick at heart from the moral pollution of this great Babylon, which has beeen for ages the common sewer of the civilized world. To day is Sunday-shall I tell you what I have been doing, and what thoughts have been in and out, and to and fro in the empty chambers? I walked early to St. Peters. Here at the huge door of some barn of a palace, stood the red, glaring, gilt carriage and tawdry caparisoned horses of a cardinal; and there, just opposite, a poor shivering woman was buying a baiocco worth of brains, guts, or fish, from the frying-pan of the cook's moveable market. This is Rome-pomp and poverty for neighbors. What people I saw all along the streets! Women, whose form and features spoke of native passion and licentious habits; men whom idleness, want, and hopeless degradation had paralyzed in the fulness of fine physical and mental powers, standing, draggling about, bargaining, scolding, love making, joking, in the wet, dirty, foul-smelling streets. came out from the midst of this upon the piazza. On either side was the circular colonade, with four-fold rows of columns; the cornice crowned with statues sweeping round; the beautiful obelisk towering in the midst; and the fountains, veiled in glittering silver showers. Before me rose the showy, but illconceived front of the church, and just seen above in the blaze of sunlight the swelling dome. As I stood awed and delighted, a poor fellow-creature, holding by the hand his child, bares his head to me, begging a quatrine for charity. I gave it to him, and he passed on. He met a priest in purple robes, hastening to mass. The servant of God will surely have mercy. Oh, no; the son of Levi bows his head, touches his hat, waves his hand, and sweeps on with rustling garments. He can give a thousand years of indulgence, but silver and gold has he none. He cares for souls, not bodies. I stood next at the foot of the Scala Regia, the entrance to the Vatican. One by one, in long file the cardinal's carriages came lumbering up, the servants in silver lace and cocked hats, hanging on behind. Here was cne, new and glittering, the liveries bright. The owner was rich, or lately raised to office. Next followed a faded, rickety old box, the horses starved, and the work coats hanging loosely round the veteran servants. Their master was poor in purse, or grown gray in honors. The doors are opened. From the servants' carriages behind, out spring in bustling haste the train-bearers. His eminence; in helplessness is taken from his carriage, and got up stairs, and so in. I followed on to the Sistine Chapel. But why should I weary and disgust you with a detailed description of all the mummery worse than childish of this Grand Lama worship. The twisting or the untwisting of the cardinal's robes or tails the folding up and unfolding of the great baby's petticoats--the kissing of fingers and toes-the transmission of the holy kiss all round the circle--the bowing this way and then that--the putting on and off the crimson scullcaps. Strange, strange, it was to see old venerable men thus playing antics for no conceivable purpose, and full as strange to see the crowd of spectators. On one side of me was an old priest, his white beard sweeping his breast, the thin hairs silvering his palsied head. On the other a young keen-eyed canon-and both as much interested as a child is with Punch and Judy. My friend, can you analyze it? Each single person knew perfectly that this was a farce-and yet all felt reverence. Each saw the wires, and helped to pull them-yet bowed iu |