been so, and instead of doing what might be in my power to assist them in receiving their sight, I mean their mental sight, I have in point of fact made some such speech as that of Ananias. 'Thou knowest how much evil such an one has done by a false profession of zeal for Thee!”

"The subject had not struck me in this light," said Mrs. Walters, “but in future, let us think of St. Paul as a converted Jew, and it may have the desirable effect of strengthening our feelings of interest in those who are indeed for a season cast off; but for whom there are so many bright promises yet in store."

“Will you tell us, mamma, if you please," said Julia Walters, "what place Aretas was king of, for I cannot find out? In 2 Cor. xi. 32, he is mentioned, and it says there that the governor under him was desirous to apprehend Paul; but in the Acts, it only mentions the Jews as wishing to kill him, and does not say that they were supported by any authority."

"Aretas," said Mrs. Walters, "was the king of Arabia Petrea, which was at that time a tributary of the Roman empire, and Damascus was subjected to him. At this period there was war between Aretas and Herod, who, as you well know, was tetrarch of Galilee; for Herod who had married the daughter of Aretas, had put her away, in order to marry Herodias. It must have been a great trial to the apostle to have left Damascus in the way in which he did. His natural character was so bold and intrepid, that flight must have been extremely repugnant to his feelings."

"And then," said Fanny Barker, "to feel that there was such retribution in it that the Jews wanted to kill him, just as he had wanted to kill the Christians when he first came to Damascus."

"And yet both they and he were quite sincere in what they were about;" pursued Mrs. Walters. "Our Saviour had forewarned his disciples that the time would come that whosoever should kill them, would think that he was rendering an acceptable service to God. And there is no delusion more fatal than that of thinking, that if we are but sincere in our religious profession, it matters little what that profession may be. There are many sincere Mohamedans-many who are sincere believers in all the various delusions of heathenism."

"But we must always act conscientiously, must we not ma'am?" inquired Jane Grant.

"True, my dear; but the point is to ascertain whether our conscience be rightly regulated. Are its dictates such as the Word of God enjoins? If I choose to be careless about my watch, and though I am told that it is daily losing, yet neglect to have it regulated, have I any right to complain when I am going a journey, that the train has started before I arrived at the station, when the fault was obviously my own? Fancy or feeling must never be allowed to occupy the place of conscience. We must set it,' if I may be allowed the expression, by the Bible, and then we cannot err. And we must make it a constant subject of prayer, that a right judgment in all things, may be given to us.

"From the Epistle to the Galatians, we learn that Paul visited Damascus twice, and that in the interval he was in Arabia. Then he went to Jerusalem, where he again had to undergo the painful suspicions of those whose esteem he most valued. The affections of Peter seem indeed to have been drawn out in a powerful manner to him. He, too, had denied his Lord, and he felt that the grace which had forgiven him, was also sufficient to turn the heart of Saul the persecutor. But he had outward persecution to bear with at Jerusalem, as well as distrust. The Grecians, that is, Jews from the parts inhabited by Greeks, and who spoke the Greek language, conspired against his life. So once more he was constrained by the providence of God to fly.

"Cæsarea, to which place the disciples brought him, was built by Herod the Great, and was a splendid place. All the buildings, even the private houses, were of marble. He dedicated a temple there to Cæsar, whenee the town derived its name. In this temple were two statues, one of Cæsar, the other of Rome. Herod was only twelve years in building this town, so that things must have proceeded with great rapidity. It is interesting to us as having been the residence of Cornelius at the time of his conversion; it was here, too, that Philip the evangelist resided.

"From Cæsarea, Paul departed for Tarsus, his native city; but we hear nothing of the time he passed there, though he was no doubt busy in his Master's work. And at the last day there may be disclosures of fruit springing up from seed planted by him during that visit. We can form but an imperfect judgment

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as to when a person is really most useful. The greatest results often arise from the most unpremeditated actions, while at the same time the most earnest and laborious efforts of a minister may appear to be without any result at the time, but the harvest may spring up long after the hand that sowed it has mouldered into dust."

"And is it not well it should be so?" I inquired, “If cause and effect as closely followed each other in the spiritual, as in the natural world, even an apostle would scarcely have been able at all times to give to God all the glory, and to own that it is He alone who gives the increase."

"Yes," said Mrs. Walters, " Man must work as if he could do everything; but he must trust as if he could do nothing. Cheering indeed is the promise, 'In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou knowest not which shall prosper, this or that, or whether both shall be alike good.' And now, having brought the apostle to his native city again, we will not pursue his journeyings farther to-day.”

As the girls were collecting their books together, I remarked that I never read the Acts of the Apostles without thinking of the contrast which their various journeys present to those of the greater number of professing Christians in modern times.

Why," replied Mrs. Walters, "they travelled in order to fulfil a high duty; we too often travel to shun the duties with which we are surrounded at home. With them, self-indulgence was a thing unknown, while with us it is the idol to which increasingly more and more is sacrificed.

"A pilgrim-spirit;' how often we hear the words, yet, how seldom we think of all that is implied in them! Those who have ever sojourned in a foreign land, without having been there sufficiently long to form associations which bind them to it by feelings of affection, know how the heart thrills in a casual encounter with any one, with whom we accidentally meet, who knows our own beloved home and our friends, and how indifferent we feel to all the passing local circumstances, which are of so much consequence in the estimation of the resident inhabitants. We call heaven our home, yet live as if earth were ever to continue so. But now let us go out and enjoy this lovely day. I think, Mary, it is your week for supplying the bouquet; and these flowers look rather languishing."

L. N.

UNITY, THE CRY OF THE CRISIS.

(A Letter to all our Readers.)

DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS,-For many years we have been acquainted with each other, though we have probably never met face to face. Month after month I have communed with thousands of you through the medium of this Magazine, and endeavored to instruct, exhort, rebuke, or warn you in a variety of ways, and by all forms of address, by precept, by example, and illustration, that "I may by all means save some."

But I have seldom spoken to you so directly or closely, as I hope to do in the present letter, which is written not only for, but to, every reader of this Magazine, on a special subject intimately connected with the present times, and your particular duty with respect to what is passing around you at this moment.

Those of you who live in London, or any of the great towns where that spirit of disaffection, commonly known by the name of Chartism, is so unhappily rampant, will know something of the alarm that has lately prevailed on the subject of what was foolishly called the "Great Demonstration" of the 10th of April. Thanks to the all-wise and all-gracious Disposer of events, this manifestation of disloyalty has proved a most signal failure, and the hearts of all, but the very dregs of society, have been moved as the heart of one man to gather round the throne, and to pray in manly, and unwavering, and unmistakable language

"O Lord our God arise,
Scatter our enemies,

And make them fall!"

Yet though it has been doubtless a heart-cheering sight to witness this noble display of patriotism in the masses, we must rejoice in it with trembling. That danger to the government and constitution of the realm appeared imminent, was sufficiently evident to those who witnessed the preparations made in the metropolis and its neighbourhood to avert the threatened calamity. To see our public buildings garrisoned, and the Bank of England fortified as for a siege; many of the private bankinghouses in a state for ready barricade; troops marching in hundreds towards the supposed scene of disturbance; policemen by thousands, and special constables by tens of thousands, mustering as for mortal conflict with some terrible adversary-these things

were certainly enough to cause reasonable apprehension that some such scenes of violence and rebellion as have disgraced the Continent were about to be enacted here.

You have often heard, my dear young friends, that the Bible is a book for all times, and especially for troublous times like those in which we live. Indeed, as human nature is the same in all ages, you will find by a careful perusal of this great book that there are cycles in the mental and moral aspect of society, as well as in the movements of the physical world. As days, months, years, and the vaster astronomical periods of time, bring back again by their revolutions the same natural phenomena, so do the bad passions of men act and re-act in such a way to produce, over and over again, the same sad and hideous phases and conditions in the world of mind. And this last remark brings me at once to the immediate business of my letter, which is to call your attention to God's own view of times like ours, and his own directions as to your duty under such a state of things.

"Beloved," said a good old writer, imbued with that just horror of sedition which we have just shown to be the life-blood of the British Heart-" Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write to you of the Common Salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort that ye should earnestly contend for The Faith once delivered unto the saints." So spake holy Jude eighteen centuries ago; and if you read the whole of his searching and powerful epistle, you will find that its echoes, wakened up in our own day, will startle you by the truthfulness with which they give back the sad and solemn realities that now surround us.

For, dear young friends, the entire burden of this short but weighty letter, may be placed before you in one word—Disloyalty. Yes; I am speaking advisedly and solemnly, when I characterize the crying sin denounced by Jude, from first to last, as neither more nor less than that loose and latitudinarian principle, so conspicuous at the present time, which makes men murmurers and complainers," leads them to " despise dominion, to speak evil of dignities ;" and going on, as such men must, from bad to worse, to take up arms even against the Majesty of heaven, and deny the only Lord God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

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Now it is not unlikely that some of you may think I am speaking a little beside the question, when I place in such intimate