when he "saw the vision of the Almighty; falling into a trance, but having his eyes open;" and was unwillingly constrained by the glory and majesty of that manifestation, to bless the favoured people whom, in the covetousness of his heart, he must have felt most desirous of cursing. As I cast my eye downwards upon one of the most luxuriant districts of the land, where every thing seemed to speak of peace and plenty-of that "quietness and assurance" which a God-protected country only can enjoy—I felt constrained, though with far different feelings from the moneyseeking prophet, to exclaim, "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!" Whilst musing on these old grey stones, I could not refrain from carrying out these analogies, and endeavoring to call to mind the varied and apparently conflicting incidents and feelings developed in the sacred oracles, with reference to the character and prophecy of Balaam.

The history of this individual, though perhaps it is tinged with a deeper character of melancholy upon that account, is the more interesting to the christian, from the fact of his having been really a prophet of the most high God. This fact has been questioned, though apparently without reason, as he himself uses the appropriating epithet my God," in reference to Jehovah; and though he is several times alluded to in the bible, he is no where charged with a lying spirit. His heart, like that of too many professors in our own day, "went after covetousness," and eventually induced him to prescribe the mode by which the children of Israel were to be entangled, and involved in ruin by their idolatrous enemies. Peter's accusation is, that "he loved the wages of unrighteousness;" Jude says that he was greedy of reward; and the consummation of his wickedness is vividly set forth in the awful message to the church at Pergamos,-" He taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication."

It is not easy to imagine with what extraordinary power these considerations would come home to the mind of any individual occupying, like myself, a position among the high places of Baal; seated on the top-stone of one of our primitive altars, and looking down upon other time-discoloured relics, that tradition had for ages and generations held to be part of the same design. On the summit of the hill above me, in the days of pagan rule, might have

stood the very antitype of Balaam, when "he went forth to the meeting of enchantments," whilst the servile Balak was preparing the altar and the sacrifice, and awaiting with intensest interest the return of his unrighteous prophet. There lies an old and vaster heap of stones below me, thrown down, but by no good Josiah, within the memory of man; and standing by these monstrous ruins, the eye of a spectator, if carried over this more perfect altar, would look into the dark region of the heavens immediately surrounding the north pole, and kindle in the pale and baleful rays of that constellation, known in ancient no less than modern days,'as the malignant dragon, to whose worship stupendous temples were every where erected; and who was placated as the great destroyer, in almost every region of the world.

The stars are of all things the most perfect links between the past and present. We see them as the patriarchs saw them, and are carried back at once to the days of Abraham and of Job. And, perhaps, whilst looking upon the very asterism alluded to, we are doing just as Balaam did when he went to meet nachashim. The nachash, or serpent, it has been clearly proved, was an object of universal worship, and its form was early tracked out in imagination amongst the stars of heaven, and in that very portion of the sky to which our attention has just been directed. Was it then from the contemplation of these material lights, that the prophet passed to his absorbing view of the STAR which was to come out of Jacob, when he saw his glory and spake of Him?

Look at these deep furrows in the mossy altar-stone that forms my present resting-place, and connect them with the voice of tradition, which tells you that they once reeked with human blood. And can you now recal without new and thrilling emotions, the colloquy of Balak with the prophet of Pethor? "Remember now what Balak, king of Moab consulted"-" Wherewith shall I come before the Lord; and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings-with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousand of rivers of oil? Shall I give MY FIRST-BORN for my transgression-THE FRUIT OF MY BODY for the sin of my soul?"

And can you now hear, without a strange conflict of feelings, "what Balaam the son of Beor answered from Shittim unto Gilgal ?” "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good and what doth the

Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God!”

Well might the prophet take upon himself the name which he appropriates—“ the man whose eyes are open!” He knew the right, but pertinaciously chose the wrong. To how many amongst ourselves will the same remark apply; and in the experience of what numbers may the ejaculation of Balaam, when contemplating the Desire of nations, find an echo, “I shall see Him, but not Now; I shall behold Him, but not NIGH!"

This is still the cry of every mind that halts between two opinons -they will see Christ, but not now: they will behold him, but not nigh.

-"Not now! I have other matters to attend to.”—“ Go thy way for this time:" to-morrow I will hear you. You will? Have you read what St. James says upon this subject. "Ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that." Tomorrow? Why! to-morrow, like the great adversary himself, was a liar from the beginning. "She hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her.”

"-Not now: I have a few sins to gratify." Let me parry, if I can, a little longer, the arrows of the Almighty: let me trifle with conviction: let me "play upon the hole of the asp;" he will not be roused just yet: let me dream of the uncovenanted mercies of Jehovah; and think that he will still bear with my sins: let me not forestall the grace of the Holy Spirit, which can reach me at a greater depth than this, and revel in the "miry clay" of sense a little longer. Let me prove how far the " uttermost of Christ extends. What! Must all the God be made your enemy. Is it not the Father who commands your love "to-day!" Will you "grieve the Spirit?" And do you fear nothing from the roused “Lion of the tribe of Judah?" O!" Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye PERISH from the way, when His wrath is kindled BUT A LITTLE!"

"Not now; I am in search of wealth."-And you will die when you have obtained it--perhaps long before. "Money is a defence;" and so is wisdom: but the excellency of knowledge is, that it giveth life to them that have it. In Christ are hid all the treasures of this knowledge, and yet you are content to see without possessing!

"Not now!--I am too young." Is Christ then the Saviour of the old alone? Has he said, "Suffer the grey hairs to come to me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God !" Of all the devices of the Wicked One, this is his strongest delusion, that you are too young to see Christ now-to see him evidently set forth before you as the Saviour of children, the Redeemer of youth, the young man's Best Friend, the good Shepherd of the whole Israel of God.

"Not now: I am too ignorant." Does the starving man cry out, "I can eat nothing: I am too hungry?" Then why will you refuse instruction because you know nothing? Christ is the true Light who lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Does his gracious invitation, "Come, learn of me," imply that you are any thing better than you profess yourself to be. It is those who 66 are ignorant and out of the way," that he came down from heaven to guide and to instruct; and you can be no wiser till you have won Christ, and have felt the power of his resurrection.

-"Not now: I am ashamed to confess my views." Ashamed to confess your connexion with the great Head over all things!to own your brotherhood with Him whose name is above every name, and to whom all creatures that are in heaven and on the earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, cry continually, "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever!" The entrance of the truth into a poor fallen, ruined sinner's heart, makes him at once a god-like creature; for those are called gods, to whom the word of God comes. And yet you are ashamed to confess that it has told upon your conscience, and wrought itself into your views and feelings! If you have any thing to be ashamed of—and who has not?—it is that you have been so long satisfied with "the rudiments of the world," when you might have appropriated the majestic, and ennobling, and substantial realities of the gospel, and become partakers of the excessively-exceeding greatness of the things of God.

"Not now! I have no time." God takes you at your word"thou knewest that I was an austere man ;" and, knowing this, how can you, who have the loan only of a moment, try to cheat me out of that? "Will a man rob God: yet ye have robbed me !" Every thing that regards your eternal happiness, must be done now: the salvation of the soul is precious, and it ceaseth-FOR EVER!

- Thirty, forty, fifty generations, perhaps, had passed away since the erection of the grey old stones upon which I was resting, as these thoughts crowded upon my mind; and possibly as many more may rise and fall before the mossy pile will crumble into ruin. There was a magic in these considerations which wrought itself into my feelings, and produced a sense of gloom scarcely intelligible to myself, and which I should seek in vain to describe to others. A mysterious dread seemed for the moment to come over me, till I called to remembrance that sweet resolution of the psalmist― “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." The peace that soon flowed into my mind like a river, formed a delightful comment on the blessedness of having a Saviour nigh and now-a present and a satisfying God.

I looked once more around me on the gentlest landscape ever seen. The day was drawing to a close, and “the shadows of the evening were stretched out in great length." Only the higher points of the glorious panorama, and those opposed to the western sky, were lighted by the setting sun: the valley lay in solemn shadow, and every thing appeared to breathe of peace and rest. The birds had nestled in the fragrant hedge-rows, and, save an occasional low chirp-a faint "good night,”—had ceased their cheerful song: the cattle in the fields below me were slowly wending towards their several farms: the sheep had left the hill-side, and were out of view, though the distant tinkling of their leader's bell apprised me of the direction they had taken; and from the fallows immediately subjacent, the last of a large foraging party of rooks had taken wing. Every thing was tending homeward. I looked into my own heart; it was reading with delight the blessed invitation of the Spirit and the Bride" let him that is athirst, come!" and as it turned toward its resting-place beneath the shadow of the Almighty, was proving Christ to be a Saviour, now, and nigh―a present and an all-sufficient Friend.

EARTHQUAKE IN CORNWALL.

THE shock of an earthquake was felt in Cornwall, on Thursday morning, February 17th last,* between eight and nine o'clock. The report produced by it, appeared to come from N. W. to S. E.

By some unaccountable error, this earthquake was said, in our last number, page 134, to have happened on the 17th February, 1841; it should have been, as recorded above, on the 17th February last.