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for wicked men, a finer compassion for the suffering poor, the luxurious rich, the sick, and the miserable? or do you inwardly purpose that each day shall be just like the last, and take its chance with the temptations of society, and the days that are gone? Now, purpose in life is gained from intelligent intercourse with Him who is unchangeable. 'He is of one mind, and who can turn him?' See how in nature His eternal thought moves on his undisturbed affairs. The thoughts of his heart endure to all generations. The common people, say the Chinese, have passions; great men alone have wills; and if you would attain to a triumphant purpose in life, a purpose which shall sweep through all the combinations of society, as a gale sweeps through the leaves of the forest, it must be through possessing a scheme of existence, in whose truth and wisdom you can heartily believe, and through a perpetual meditation, day and night,' upon the words in which God breathes forth his inmost feeling to the man who can say, 'My heart is fixed, I will sing and give praise.'

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But what is purpose without plan the practical art of doing rightly, of reducing this good purpose to execution? The possession of a good set of opinions and principles is no security that I shall live by them. The grand difficulty in this world is not so much to get men to hold sound principles as to apply them in the details of life. After listening to, and warmly approving, the clearest, loftiest statements of truth, do we not know what it is to feel at the same time that life is very flat and unprofitable? It is as if there were a powerful steam-engine, a water-wheel, in mighty action, but somehow not properly and firmly in gear with the machinery which is to drive the mill; so that while the engine goes on, the mill stops, or works at least without constancy or force. Life is made up of two parts-its regular occupations and its leisure hours. Day after day perhaps you feel that there comes the steady demand of the body-Dress me, wash me, feed me, work for me, rest me;' and this demand is inexorably made, so that life mostly passes away in breakfast, business, dinner, and sleep. The intervals are filled up by an indescribable multitude of accidental occurrences, actions, amusements, sometimes of the senses, sometimes of the mind; so that week after week runs round, and Sunday comes and goes, leaving you with the sort of impression that Robinson Crusoe had when he cut his notch on his wooden almanack, that one is very like another in its unprofitableness. There is a sense of confusion, a sense of an aim defeated, a feeling that the outward man absorbs the real energies of life, and that all the while his works and pleasures are not able to afford solid satisfaction in the review. No, indeed, they occasion a profound melancholy in the restrospect; they leave a feeling of immeasurable weariness, and even often of disgust, as if a person should throw away with horror the golden cup from which he has just drunk sweet poison. Certes, when we consider the troubles which he has to encounter, it is not to be wondered at that an outward man who suffers much and believes in nothing, sometimes takes a desperate leap from the Bridge of Sighs into the unknown world. Instead of being like

David's bright evergreen, life is like a bramble crawling on the ground without support, and forcing its thorny way through a jungle of difficulties into outer darkness. Strong, too, is the force of habit as opposed to any change in the direction of actual life. You can train and fasten twigs, but not old twisted boughs. To turn aside the current of thought which has cut its deep water-course through the rocky stratum of custom, and pours along its ample tide through the ancient channel, is like trying to divert Niagara. Yet there is hope of reform even in the worst examples. God can divert Niagara itself, and it is his power-the power which wrought amidst the darkness of chaos and produced the kosmos · which worketh in us to will and to do. That common life is all redeemable, it may all become spiritual, and mortality may be swallowed up of life.' 'His leaf shall not wither.' How much foliage of thought does wither. The ground is strewed with the sere relics of the mind. We are surrounded by souls which stand like trees in winter with their black bare boughs, from which the autumnal winds of fortune have swept all their spring verdure. But let a real union be established between the soul and God, and an earnest communion of thought by the study of the works and word of God, and an earnest communion of feeling by praying in the Holy Ghost; let a spirit of dominant intelligence and love become the reigning power within; and then the daily particulars of common life will be regulated in aim, in speed, and in dignity. You will not rush on in your course,' with the incendiary torch of a lie in your right hand; but you will 'ponder the path of your feet,' and march like a soldier in step to the inspiriting music of heaven, and at the word of command given by the Generalissimo of souls. 'Order my steps in thy word.' Give me understanding, and I will keep thy precepts! God is not the God of confusion, but of order, in all the churches of the saints, as in all the kingdoms of nature. He who originated the bee's comb and the spider's web can have no pleasure in a human life abandoned to entanglement and misrule. He who frames all things in heaven and earth according to the nicest proportions of time, space, and quantity, who weigheth the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance,' must needs desire to behold in his highest production, the life of man, a reflection of that perfect plan and arrangement by which he governs the universe. Now the source of outward confusion is confusion of feeling within, and confusion of feeling is the result of separation of spirit from the God of order, whose peace 'shed abroad in the heart' can alone enable us to 6 possess our souls' in collected forethought in the presence of the world's distractions and the devil's temptation.

Greater deliberation in life is essential to its methodical conduct. In the Scripture God has set before us an immense studio of models: our work is to imitate them in the sculpture of our own actions, and that not so much in form as in spirit. Now, to follow a model with the mallet and chisel is a work of strenuous attention in detail, even for a Michael Angelo; much more for those unpractised hands who

fill the world. Whether the sphere of duty be domestic life, or business, or literature, or administration, or religion, a study of actions one by one, in their general scheme, and in their vital connexions, can alone lead to improvement. All real improvement is improvement in detail, just as the verdure on a tree depends on the passage of the sap into each particular branch and spray. And in this case the sap will not ascend in sufficient strength unless the tree derive its living energies from the holy river of eternal truth and love.

Hence, then, is the POWER which will enable us to execute the plan which the will has purposed. 'I am the Vine; ye are the branches.' 'Without me ye can do nothing.' There is no delusion more common among the multitude than that spiritual forces are visionary or unreal, compared with the physical powers of nature. Men feel that their bodies are to them so much more tangible than their souls, that they learn to judge of existence around them by a similar canon. Gravitation is a reality, but not heavenly grace; electricity is a manifest force, but not the energy of God's Spirit. The power which moves the orbs of heaven is not to be gainsaid or denied, but the power of God unto salvation is a dream of solitary enthusiasts. 'The animal man comprehendeth not the things of the Spirit; they are foolishness to him, because they are spiritually discerned.' But he who is spiritual discerneth all things. Is it, then, true that the Supreme Cause has inspired nature with a vital plasticity through which she shapes and paints and perfumes the lily and the violet, yet refuses to created minds the interior power through which their thoughts and volitions can be fashioned after the image of Him that created them?' Doth God take care for the 'grace of the fashion' of the 'flower of the grass,' which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, so that every petal is formed and tinted with the accuracy and delicacy of an incomparable Artist's hand, and will he fail in a supply of the Spirit to those 'trees of righteousness,' which shall be planted' before the temple of heaven, and grow like the cedars of Lebanon' upon the everlasting hills? It cannot be. HE WORKETH IN US TO WILL. There is no more direct action of God in the universe than redemption in all its processes. Salvation is not the result of the laws of heaven and earth in nature, but it is supernatural in the profoundest sense: the result, therefore, of a special operation of God, both in its facts, its evidences, and its applications. Foolish men have cavilled at the miracles, and striven to reduce them to the level of the laws of the creation, not understanding that these miracles represent, in the physical sphere, the very nature of the action of grace in the spiritual, an action above and beyond constituted law, a'new creation,' and, therefore, proceeding as freshly from the hand of Omnipotence as the earth itself, when first it rose in beauty from the 'unapparent deep.' Never was the power of God more directly exercised than in all that concerned the birth, the life, the death, the resurrection, the ascension, and enthronement of Christ; and the regeneration and salvation of Christians is a portion of the same con tinuous process.

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'The power of the Highest' still 'overshadows'

them; their works are wrought within them' by the same Spirit that rested on the head of Jesus. It 'pleases the Lord to bruise' them, and to choose them in the furnace of affliction; and their resurrection is the act of the same mighty power which wrought in Christ when it raised him from the dead, and set him at the right hand of God in the heavenly places. There is, then, the best reason to anticipate a direct operation of the same Spirit in the revelation of holy truth to the man that meditates therein day and night in the suggestion of holy feeling, and in the infusion of holy energies. Yes, the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus shall make us free from the law of sin and death! The Comforter flies towards us on his chariot of salvation, and its wheels are instinct with life. It is the living God, the fountain of all the forces in creation, who dwells with his children, and 'draws nigh' to his worshippers. It is nothing less than Omnipotence which encircles them, and shines as a glory round about them; and it is, therefore, that they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.'

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E. W.

Madagascar.*

AMONGST the high honours of the London Missionary Society is the distinguished list of authors who have been her representatives. Such a bead roll of men whom the world of letters recognises and makes free of its guild does not fall to the lot of every Christian institution. Linguists and travellers are many of these authors, who need no letters of commendation from the pen of any friendly critic to introduce them to our readers. Mr. Ellis has long been before the public in both these capacities. His 'Polynesian Researches,' his 'Tour in Hawaii,' and his unfinished History of the London Missionary Society,' are too well known to require more than this allusion. But his History of Madagascar,' published some years since, pointed him out as the man, both missionary and diplomatist, to municate with the Malagassy Government, should the possibility of the thing occur, with a view to the re-establishment of friendly and commercial relations with that proud and distant people. That time at length arrived, and, with singular wisdom, the Directors of the London Missionary Society deputed to Mr. Ellis the delicate and difficult mission, the history and results of which are before us.

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Presuming an acquaintance with the missions and martyrs of Madagascar on the part of our readers, we proceed to give some out

*Three Visits to Madagascar, during the Years 1853-1854-1856,' &c. By the Rev. William Ellis, F.H.S., Author of 'Polynesian Researches.' London : Murray.

line of this remarkable and most interesting volume. Early in 1853 Mr. Ellis embarked at Southampton, hoping to be able, in conjunction with Mr. Cameron, an old Malagassy missionary, then living at the Cape, to proceed to Madagascar, to ascertain, as far as possible, the actual state of the people, and the views of the Government.'

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After a short, but needful stay in the Mauritius, where a number of Christian refugees from Madagascar reside, these gentlemen sailed for that island with hearty benedictions from all classes in the Mauritius, who were most anxious for the renewal of the trade. After seven days' unpleasant tossing in a juvenile schooner, commanded by a juvenile captain, Tamatave, the seaport nearest to the capital, Tananarivo, was safely reached, and now commence details from which we shall quote largely, merely stringing these beads together by one of our tiniest threads.

'Shortly after we had anchored, a large, clumsy, single canoe, destitute of outriggers, and paddled by a number of men, came alongside, when a middle-aged man, followed by three or four others, mounted the ship's side, and came into the cabin. They had neither shoes nor stockings, but wore white shirts under a cloth bound round their loins, with a large white scarf, the native lamba, hanging in ample and graceful folds over their shoulders, and broad brimmed hats, of neatly plaited grass or fine rushes. As soon as they had entered, the chief of the party, who we understood was the harbour-master, or captain of the port, inquired, in a very official manner, speaking imperfect English, the name of the ship, of the captain, mate, passengers, and crew, with the object of our visit, &c. The answers to all these questions were written down by one of his attendants, and he was explicitly informed that the vessel was not sent on a trading voyage, but simply to convey the letter of the merchants of Mauritius to the queen, and to wait her majesty's reply. He said, if it was only a letter, that had been sent before, and the queen had returned her answer to the effect that no trade could be allowed until the money required as compensation for the insult and the wrong perpetrated in the attack on the country in 1845 had been paid. He asked if it was right to go to a country and shoot down the people because we did not like their laws? He soon informed us also that he had been a member of the embassy sent to Europe in 1837; that he had visited France and England, and knew that whoever went to reside in either of these countries must be subject to the laws of the country so long as they remained there; that the laws of their queen were the laws of Madagascar, and if any one wanted to live there they must be subject to the queen's laws, if not, they must leave the country.'

While staying at Tamatave, waiting replies to the letters which had been sent into the capital, Mr. Ellis made the best use of his time. He photographed the harbour-master and his house; conducted important diplomatic conversations relative to the subject referred to above; and botanized most extensively in the neighbourhood. Between Tamatave and Tananarivo is almost an unbroken belt of forest, or of swamp, so impenetrable, except to the natives, that the old king Radama used to boast that he had two generals, viz. General Hazo (forest), and General Jazo (fever), in whose hands he would leave any invading army,' and in that forest swamp Mr. Ellis, being an intense enthusiast in botany, sought out and found many perfectly new and wonderful plants. They are all botanically named, but we could have wished their common names had been given, as in the case of the ‘Ouvirandra fenestralis,' the 'water-yam,' or 'lace-leaf' of the Malagassy.

A wonderful plant this, and beautifully figured in one of the

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