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mercy. Learn wisdom from his conduct, you who have no domestic altar; who have never, like Noah, in the bosom and in the name of your family, poured out your devotions before the Lord.

The Lord accepts the offering of the patriarch; establishes with him the covenant of grace, gives him a new grant of all the creatures, and engages that the earth shall no more be drowned for the sins of man. Of this last engagement the rainbow is made by God the seal and pledge.

Of the subsequent life of Noah, we know but little. He was occupied in the engagements of husbandry, in the instruction of his children, and in the offices of devotion. He had still causes of regret, for he soon perceived that sin is so deeply rooted in the heart of man, that all the waters of the deluge were insufficient to sweep it from the world. Before he closed his eyes upon the earth, he saw it again covered with vice, and polluted with idolatry. Alas! my readers, he saw the deep depravity of human nature in himself. Noah, who had faithfully admonished the old world, who had resisted the strongest seductions to sin, who had experienced the speeial mercy of God, and had often solemnly devoted himself to the service of the Lord, is next presented to us ås lying drunken in his tent. The humiliating fact is simply related by the inspired historian, and we are left to form our own comments. Some have supposed, that not aware of the effects of wine, he was involuntarily surprised. But it can scarcely be supposed that he could be thus ignorant, after living six hundred years before the flood, in a period noted for its intemperance and dissipation. The circumstance is mentioned as a melancholy proof of human frailty. When we read such examples of frailty in the pious; when we see a Noah acting so inconsistently with the conduct of a long life: a David plunging into such guilt after such communion with God; a Solomon indulging in idolatry after so much wisdom from on high; a Peter denying his Lord after such warm protestations to him,--when we see such examples, what shall we say, my dear readers? Shall we justify their offence? Shall we be led to think lightly of sin Shall we palliate our own offences by their example ? Ah! thousands of souls now in hell, by thus abusing these his-

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tories, have undone themselves. No; let us be led to exercise a holy jealousy over our own hearts-to feel our need of constant and renewed supplies of grace and the necessity of continual watchfulness and prayer, if we would be secure-not to be confident because we have triumphed over great temptations-and to live near to God.

While Noah was in this degraded situation, he was treated with impious irreverence by his son Ham, while Shem and Japhet displayed their filial regard for him. Awaking from his sleep, and inspired by the spirit of prophecy, he uttered that remarkable prediction in which the future destinies of nations springing from his sons were represented: "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren; blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant." It is not my intention in detail to show you the accom plishment of this prediction. It cannot however, but strengthen our faith in the divine oracles, to observe briefly how perfectly it corresponds with the records of history. Does Noah declare that Canaan shall be in subjection to his brethren ? See the Canaanites subdued by the Israelites, the descendents of Shem; see the inhabitants of Syria, Tyre, and Carthage, who also sprung from Canaan, subjugated by the Greeks and Romans, the descendants of Japhet. There never," says Joseph Mede," has been a sou of Ham who has shaken a scep tre over the head of Japhet. Shem has subdued Japhet, and Japhet has subdued Shem; but Ham never subdued either." It is declared that God will in a peculiar manner be the God of Shem; the majority of true worshippers, till the coming of Christ, were among his descendauts; and from him, according to the flesh Messiah sprung. Is Japhet to be enlarged ? he was the progeni tor of more than half the human race. Was he to dwell in the tents of Shem? Under the Greek and Roman Em pires, and in subsequent ages, his offspring possessed that authority and dominion which had formerly belonged to the children of Shem. I repeat it-I only glance at these points. It would be easy, did our time permit, to show that all nations and ages concur in verifying this prediction, and that it is indeed, in abridgment, the history of the world.

After surviving theflood three hundred and fifty years. and seeing the world again peopled, Noah sunk into the, grave."

SELECT SENTENCES,

A Man's best monument is his virtuous actions. Fool ish is the hope of immortality and future praise by the cost of senseless marble. That can only report thee rich; but, for other praises, thyself must build thy monument alive, and write thy own epitaph in honest and honourable actions. Every man's heart is a tomb for the well behaved, and every man's tongue writeth an epitaph to his memory.

What is man to the whole earth? What is earth to heaven? What is heaven to its Maker? I will admire nothing in itself, but all things in God, and God in all things.

It is a fearful thing to sin; yet worse than the worst to boast of it. If, therefore, I cannot avoid sin, because I am a man; yet I will avoid the delight, defence, and boasting of sin, because I am a Christian.

If the sun should rise but once upon the earth, I doubt not every man would be a Persian, and fall down and worship it; whereas now it riseth and declineth without any regard, Extraordinary events each man can wonder at: but I will learn to note God's power and wisdom and give him praise for both, in his ordinary works; so that those things, which are but trivial to the ignorant, shall be wonders to me: and that, not for nine days, but forever.

The proud man hath no God; the envious man hath no neighbour; the angry man bath not himself; What good is it, then, to be a man, if he be either wrathful, proud, or envious?

The rich man hath many friends; although in truth, riches have them and not the man. As the ass, that carried the Egyptian goddess, had many bowed knees, yet not to the beast, but to the burthen.

A good man must not be like Hezekiah's sun, that went backwards; nor like Joshua's sun, that stood still; but like David's sun, that, like a bridegroom cometh out of

his chamber, and as a champion rejoiceth to run his

race.

FOR THE MONITOR.

"Our doubts are traitors;

And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to adventure."

To young men and women who are about to enter the busy scenes of life, it is of immense importance to cultivate a rational independence and decision of character. By independence, I mean not that spurious quality so common amongst us, which is the offspring of pride; but that consciousness of importance, that unyielding habit of self-reliance, which forms the most congenial soil of virtue, and the spring of every worthy and generous action. It is an independence of feeling and of action; which, compatible in all respects with, and almost indispensable to the Christian character, while it fits the mind for the noblest sentiment of humanity and friendship, gives to its efforts a force and brilliance, that like the lightning's flash, irresistibly strike our notice, and pave the way to the very citadel of human excellence. A habit of an opposite kind, a constant dependence on others for any thing of a moral, intellectual, or physical nature, is a direct forfeiture in a measure, of a man's dignity and freedom, and sinks him to perpetual degradation. He is the butt of the idle and profane, and the sport of the elements.

That kind of decision, which I would wish to illus-trate is founded in part on this independence; and suffers not a man, after conceiving some great or benevolent enterprize, to linger and hesitate; to resolve and repent, and perhaps abandon his pursuits in despair. It carries him forward neither blindly nor rashly; but with a steady, inflexible determination, that makes the accomplishment certain, and causes ignorance and folly, envy and malice to hide their heads. Independence and decision are usually combined, and may be either virtuous or sinful according to the temper of the heart. They. always excite interest and command respect, even in a

character the most flagrantly wicked. The picture of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost, though exhibiting nothing which a moral principle would approve, excites an interest that baffles the most vivid description. Bold, independent, and decisive, he is not bewildered in dubious hesitation about the pursuit of his purpose. With a fortitude unbroken he supports what cannot be remedied, -exerts an energy that knows no remission, and exhibits the exalted characteristics of a mind, immutable amid ehange; magnificent in ruin. While he makes allies of every surrounding object, he seems often to gather energy from the very plans laid to frustrate his designs.

Real history, while it tells us that the powers of man are equal to his boldest conceptions, represents all the most splendid achievements of the past, as the effects of such decision. Does Cromwell surp the throne of England? he wills it. Does Charles XII. fill the heart of Europe with dismay ? he wills it. Does Buonaparte with giant strides trample over nations and bandy them at pleasure? he wills it. Setting the rocks, shoals, and dangers of life at defiance, he committed his bark to the winds and rode in triumph. D Howard reform the prison discipline of Europe? he willed it. Did Roger Bacon, and Wickliffe, and Buffier, and the early reformers, like Moses on Mount Pisgah, behold in prospect the promised land of science and religion,-they put in requisition their own powers, and began the march, which has since astonished the world by its array of splendour.

The name of Washington suggests whatever is sublime to conceive or possible to execute. To aid in him the growth and expansion of this quality,-virtue conspired with the ambrosia of the camp; and these ingredients in concert perfected in the cabinet an elevation of character, which has perhaps been unexampled in the annals of mere humanity.

What, it may be asked, are the means by which this quality receives its germ and nourishment? All surely, are not heroes, statesmen, or reformers; neither are all alike affected by the objects and scenery around themas the winds that wreck the elements of heaven, often pass unheeded and harmless over the vallies.

Though this quality doubtless has some relation to our physical nature, and the original structure of the mind,

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