would draw a line of separation between religion and politics; that would legislate irrespective of God's word, and spiritualize irrespective of man's duties as a citizen and subject. Lady Rosse did not luxuriate in the comfortable security of her English home, and send an occasional donation to Ireland, as the price of exemption from farther concern in its troubles no; she was alive to the minutest particular connected with the cause of Protestantism in all its bearings; and this it was which rendered her benefactions more valuable, because more judiciously directed, than ten times the amount would have been, if scattered at random over the land. Her character was a triumphant refutation of the calumny that political zeal and Protestant consistency tend to roughen the mind and harden the heart. They regulate the one and expand the other.

Thus valuable, thus universally honoured and beloved, and to her own immediate circle of kindred and friends endeared beyond measure, this veteran in benevolence bowed beneath the weight of accumulated years, and in full peace yielded up at once her trust and her spirit to Him who had, even to hoary hairs, carried her, and taught her to glorify Him in the use of his gifts. She reposes not beneath the green sod of her own beloved land; but be her tomb where it may, her epitaph is there. It is written on the churches rebuilt from their ruins, or springing up in the wilderness, through her means; it is written on the schools where poor Erin's little ones learn to behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world: it is written on the dwelling of many a pastor, who surveys, in his restored comforts and in the renovated looks of his surrounding loved ones,

the record of her unostentatious bounty: it is written on the sheltering roofs of charitable institutions, on the widow's hut, and the orphan's cradle, and on the mud walls of the poor labourer's dilapidated cabin. It is written on the hearts of Irish Protestants, and, as an instrument of God's sovereign mercy, on the souls of Irish Papists. Above all-though the reward be not of debt but of grace, and she could but render back to the Giver a portion of his own giftswe are assured by the word which declares that he who hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the Lord, it is written in the books out of which the dead shall be judged.

THERE is an invisible but powerful chain, uniting in Jesus all those who have in their hearts a spark of love for him. All the people of Christ, from Abel to the last believer that shall be found in this world, from those new brethren who, in distant heathen lands, surrender their hearts to Jesus, even to those redeemed ones around us, whom we love, and to those who, having reached perfection, offer up their prayers at the foot of the throne of God, for their companions in salvation still fighting here below; all, all form one people in the friends of Jesus: all strive together by their prayers, all walk together towards Zion, towards the general assembly and church of the first-born, towards the centre of eternal love, which soon will re-unite them all.-Family of Bethany.

TIME.

IN the presence of eternity what a little difference in the longest or shortest life! The oldest person looks back to his earthly career as a dream that has very quickly passed away. The older we are the more rapidly does life seem to advance; in youth it is otherwise the fewer years that have been told, the slower proportionally does time appear to fly; a year, a month, a week, often appears to the young an age in anticipation. But this is only from contrast: life rolls on like the waves of the sea passing in rapid succession to the shore; the present rushes by like the gushing waters, and mingles with the past, the future will do the same, flowing rapidly on in like manner. In a few years what a change of inhabitants is observable in every neighbourhood! A few facts will prove this must be the case. A number equal to the whole population of the world is swept off into eternity every thirty years; thus in one century the human race is renewed rather more than three times; since the Christian æra this would give 54 generations, and 121 since the deluge. And let the young reflect that very considerably more persons die in youth than in older age; that in fact half of all that are born into the world, leave it before they reach the age of eighteen; that in every moment of time some soul is called away; that in Great Britain alone above 1000 individuals die daily, and

that there is scarcely a day that does not afford an instance of an immortal spirit being sent for by sudden death. God sounds the alarm "Ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." Watch, then, that ye may not have cause to say, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." Seek Christ to-day while it is called to-day; for now is the accepted time, the only time for salvation. To-morrow is not your own: in a very little while time will be no more; to us one day may appear as a thousand years; but to God who knoweth all things, a "thousand years are but as one day." Yet we must live for ever, through eternity; and what is this life with all its hopes, and cares, and possessions, compared to an endless duration of being? Still this, our very short span of existence (of an existence too so uncertain to us,) has an awful influence on our eternal state, fitting and adapting us to that world we are hereafter to inhabit; the Christian system establishes an important and close connection between our conduct here and our future happiness: Christ himself has engaged to reward all our services, and that every one of us individually shall give an account of himself to God: the rule of judgment will be his word, and all shall be judged according to his works. Even now do we stand on the portal of heaven or hell; our days are appointed: our Lord "is gone to prepare a place for us;" he has entrusted us with talents, and time is one of them he has given us precepts, promised us to reward their obedience; though merit is altogether out of the question, the reward is as much a favour as the inheritance, we are freely pardoned and saved by grace alone.

The lives of the patriarchs were prolonged to many centuries, for the more speedy replenishing the earth, and for the effectual preservation of the true knowledge of God. Oral tradition was then the only way of communicating true religion, for there was no written word till Moses, who was divinely taught to write. Adam lived with Lamech, Noah's father, sixty-six years, so that a most satisfactory account of the creation, the fall, the promised Messiah, &c., could be given by our first parent himself, and after his death by his cotemporary Methuselah, and with many others, who lived to converse with them who survived Jacob, whose fifty-first year Shem reached; so great was the care of the Almighty to preserve to his church the knowledge of his will.

E.

WE hear much of a decent pride, a becoming pride, a noble pride, and a laudable pride. Can that be decent of which we ought to be ashamed? Can that be becoming of which God hath set forth the deformity ? Can that be noble which God resists, and is determined to abase? Can that be laudable which God calls abominable?-Cecil.