they carry us too high-we want not to be-but to seem. Look out of your door,-take notice of that man; see what disquieting, intriguing, and shifting, he is content to go through, merely to be thought a man of plain-dealing;-three grains of honesty would save him all this trouble;-alas! he has them not. Behold a second, under a show of piety, hiding the impurities of a debauched life ;-he is just entering the house of God:-would he were more pureor less pious!—but then he could not gain his point. Observe a third going almost in the same track, with what an inflexible sanctity of deportment he sustains himself as he advances!-every line in his face writes abstinence ;-every stride looks like a check upon his desires: see, I beseech you, how he is cloaked up with sermons, prayers, and sacraments; and so bemuffled with the externals of religion, that he has not a hand to spare for a worldly purpose ;— he has armour at least-Why does he put it on? Is there no serving God without all this? Must the garb of religion be extended so wide to the danger of its rending? Yes, truly, or it will not hide the secret-and, What is that? -That the saint has no religion at all. -But here comes Generosity, giving-not to a decayed artist, but to the arts and sciences themselves.-See, he builds not a chamber in the wall apart for the prophets; but whole schools and colleges for those who come after. Lord! how they will magnify his name!-'tis in capitals already; the first -the highest, in the gilded rent-roll of every hospital and asylum. One honest tear shed in private over the unfortunate is worth it all. What a problematic set of creatures does simulation make us! Who would divine that all the anxiety and concern so visible in the airs of one-half of that great assembly should arise from nothing else, but that the other half of it may think them to be men of consequence, penetration, parts, and conduct ?— What a noise amongst the claimants about it? Be hold humility out of mere pride-and honesty almost out of knavery:-Chastity, never once in harm's way; and courage, like a Spanish soldier upon an Italian stage-a bladder full of wind. to -Hark! at the sound of that trumpet-let not my soldier run-'tis some good Christian giving alms. O Pity, thou gentlest of human passions! soft and tender are thy notes, and ill accord they with so loud an instrument. Sterne. On the Death of the Princess Charlotte. THE long-wished for moment at length arrived; but, alas! the event anticipated with so much eager ness will form the most melancholy page in our history. It is no reflection on this amiable Princess to suppose, that in her early dawn, with the "dew of her youth" so fresh upon her, she anticipated a long series of years, and expected to be led through successive scenes of enchantment, rising above each other in fascination and beauty. It is natural to suppose she identified herself with this great nation, which she was born to govern; and that, while she contemplated its pre-eminent lustre in arts and in arms, its commerce encircling the globe, its colonies diffused through both hemispheres, and the beneficial effects of its institutions extending to the whole earth; she considered them as so many component parts of her own grandeur. Her heart, we may well conceive, would often be ruffled with emotions of trembling ecstasy, when she reflected, that it was her province to live entirely for others; to compose the felicity of a great people; to move in a sphere which would afford scope for the exercise of philanthropy, the most enlarged; of wisdom, the most enlightened; and that, while others are doomed to pass through the world in obscurity, she was to supply the materials of history, and to impart that impulse to society, which was to decide the destiny of future generations. Fired with the ambition of equalling, or surpassing, the most distinguished of her predecessors, she probably did not despair of reviving the remembrance of the brightest parts of their story, and of once more attaching the epoch of British glory to the annals of a female reign. It is needless to add, that the nation went with her, and probably outstripped her in these delightful anticipations. We fondly hoped that a life so inestimable, would be protracted to a distant period, and that, after diffusing the blessings of a just and enlightened administration, and being surrounded by a numerous progeny, she would gradually, in a good old age, sink under the horizon, amidst the embraces of her family, and the benedictions of her country. But, alas! these delightful visions are fled, and what do we behold in their room, but the funeral pall and shroud, a palace in mourning, a nation in tears, and the shadow of death settled over both like a cloud! O the unspeakable vanity of human hopes! the incurable blindness of man to futurity! ever doomed to grasp at shadows, to seize with avidity what turns to dust and ashes in his hand, "to sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind." Without the slightest warning, without the opportunity of a moment's immediate preparation, in the midst of the deepest tranquillity, at midnight a voice was heard in the palace, not of singing men, and singing women, not of revelry and mirth, but the cry, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh!" The mother in the bloom of youth, spared just long enough to hear the tidings of her infant's death, almost immediately, as if summoned by his spirit, follows him into eternity. "It is a night much to be remembered." Who foretold this event, who conjectured it, who detected at a distance the faintest presage of its approach, which, when it arrived, mocked the efforts of human skill, as much by their incapacity to prevent, as their inability to foresee it! Unmoved by the tears of conjugal affection, unawed by the presence of grandeur, and the prerogatives of power, inexo rable death hastened to execute his stern commission, leaving nothing to royalty itself, but to retire and weep. Who can fail to discern on this awful occa sion, the hand of Him who " bringeth princes to no. thing, who maketh the judges of the earth as vanity; who says they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown; yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth; and he shall blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble." But is it now any subject of regret, think you, to this amiable Princess so suddenly removed, "that her sun went down while it was yet day," or that, prematurely snatched from prospects the most brilliant and enchanting, she was compelled to close her eyes so soon on a world, of whose grandeur she form. ed so conspicuous a part? No! in the full fruition of eternal joys, for which we humbly hope religion prepared her, she is so far from looking back with lingering regret on what she has quitted, that she is surprised it had the power of affecting her so much ; -that she took so deep an interest in the scenes of this shadowy state of being, while so near to an "eternal weight of glory;" and, so far as memory may be supposed to contribute to her happiness, by associating the present with the past, it is not by the recollection of her illustrious birth, and elevated prospects -but that she visited the abodes of the poor, and learned to weep with those that weep; that, surrounded with the fascinations of pleasure, she was not inebriated by its charms; that she resisted the strongest temptations to pride, preserved her ears open to truth, was impatient of the voice of flattery; in a word, that she sought and cherished the inspirations of piety, and walked humbly with her God. The nation has certainly not been wanting in the proper expression of its poignant regret at the sudden removal of this most lamented Princess, nor of their sympathy with the royal family, deprived, by this visitation, of its brightest ornament. Sorrow is painted in every countenance, the pursuits of business and of pleasure have been suspended, and the king. dom is covered with the signals of distress. But what, my friends, if it were lawful to indulge such a thought-what would be the funeral obsequies of a lost soul? Where shall we find the tears fit to be wept at such a spectacle: or, could we realize the calamity, in all its extent, what tokens of commiseration and concern would be deemed equal to the occasion? Would it suffice for the sun to veil his light, and the moon her brightness; to cover the ocean with mourning, and the heavens with sackcloth; or, were the whole fabric of nature to become animated and vocal, would it be possible for it to utter a groan too deep, or a cry too piercing, to express the magnitude and extent of such a catastrophe ? Hall. The commanding Simplicity of the Means for the Moral Renovation of the World. THIS world is to be restored to more than it lost by the fall, by the simple annunciation of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Here we behold means, apparently the weakest, employed to effect the most magnificent of purposes. And how plainly does this bespeak the agency of the omnipotent God! The means which effect his greatest purposes in the kingdom of nature, are simple and unostentatious; while those which man employs are complicated and tumultuous. How many intellects are tasked, how many hands are wearied, how many arts exhausted, in preparing for the event of a single battle; and how great is the tumult of the moment of decision! In all this, man only imitates the inferior agents of nature. The autumnal tempest, whose sphere of action is limited to a little spot upon our little world, comes forth attended by the roar of thunder and the flash of lightning; while the attraction of gravitation, that stupendous force which |