greater under the influence of their energies.This was a display of power. Other performers, again, are remarkable for vivacity of action and elocution, who, nevertheless, are felt to be feeble and ineffective in rousing an audience to emotion. Activity is their distinguishing attribute, with an absence of power. At the bar, in the pulpit, and in the senate, the same distinction prevails. Many members of the learned professions display great felicity of illustration, and fluency of elocution, surprising us with the quickness of their parts; who, nevertheless, are felt to be neither impressive nor profound. They possess acuteness without power, and ingenuity without comprehensiveness and depth of understanding. This also proceeds from activity with little vigour. There are other public speakers, again, who open heavily in debate, their faculties acting slowly but deeply, like the first heave of a mountain-wave. Their words fall like minute-guns upon the ear, and to the superficial they appear about to terminate ere they have begun their efforts. But even their first accent is one of power; it rouses and arrests attention; their very pauses are expressive, and indicate gathering energy, to be embodied in the sentence that is to come. When fairly animated, they are impetuous as the torrent, brilliant as the lightning's beam, and take possession of feebler minds, by impressing them irresistibly with a feeling of gigantic power.

Combe.

The Elder's Death-bed.

"JAMIE, thy own father has forgotten thee in thy infancy, and me in my old age; but, Jamie, forget not thou thy father, nor thy mother; for that, thou knowest and feelest, is the commandment of God."

The broken-hearted boy could give no reply. He had gradually stolen closer and closer unto the loving old man, and now was lying, worn out with sorrow,

drenched and dissolved in tears, in his grandfather's bosom. His mother had sunk down on her knees, and hid her face with her hand. "Oh! if my hus

band knew but of this-he would never, never desert his dying father!" And I now knew, that the Elder was praying on his death-bed for a disobedient and wicked son.

At this affecting time, the Minister took the family-bible on his knee, and said, "Let us sing to the praise and glory of God, part of the fifteenth psalm;" and he read, with a tremulous and broken voice, those beautiful verses,

Ere the psalm was yet over, the door was opened, and a tall, fine-looking man entered, but with a lowering and dark countenance, seemingly in sorrow, in misery, and remorse. Agitated, confounded, and awe-struck by the melancholy and dirge-like music, he sat down on a chair, and looked with a ghastly face towards his father's bed. When the psalm ceased, the Elder said, with a solemn voice, "My sonthou art come in time to receive thy father's blessing. May the remembrance of what will happen in this room, before the morning again shine over the Hazelglen, win thee from the error of thy ways! Thou art here to witness the mercy of thy God and thy Saviour, whom thou hast forgotten.”

The Minister looked, if not with a stern, yet with an upbraiding countenance, on the young man, who had not recovered his speech, and said, "William ! for three years past your shadow has not darkened the door of the house of God. They who fear not the thunder, may tremble at the still small voice

now is the hour for repentance—that your father's spirit may carry up to Heaven tidings of a contrite soul saved from the company of sinners!"

The young man, with much effort, advanced to the bed-side, and at last found voice to say, "Father! I am not without the affections of nature-and I hurried home the moment I heard the minister had been seen riding towards our house. I hope that you will yet recover, and, if I have ever made you unhappy, I ask your forgiveness-for though I may not think as you do on matters of religion, I have a human heart. Father! I may have been unkind, but I am not cruel. I ask your forgiveness."

"Come near to me, William; kneel down by the bed-side, and let my hand feel the head of my beloved son-for blindness is coming fast upon me. Thou wert my first-born, and thou art my only living son. All thy brothers and sisters are lying in the churchyard, beside her whose sweet face thine own, William, did once so much resemble. Long wert thou the joy, the pride of my soul,-aye, too much the pride, for there was not in all the parish such a man, such a son, as my own William. If thy heart has since been changed, God may inspire it again with right thoughts. I have sorely wept for theeaye, William, when there was none near me—even as David wept for Absalom-for thee, my son, my

son!"

A long deep groan was the only reply; but the whole body of the kneeling man was convulsed; and it was easy to see his sufferings, his contrition, his remorse, and his despair. The Pastor said, with a sterner voice, and austerer countenance than were natural to him, "Know you whose hand is now lying on your rebellious head? But what signifies the word father to him who has denied God, the Father of us all ?" "Oh! press him not too hardly," said his weeping wife, coming forward from a dark corner of the room, where she tried to conceal herself, in grief, fear, and shame. Spare, Oh! spare my husband-he has ever been kind to me;" and with that she knelt down beside him, with her long soft

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white arms mournfully and affectionately laid across his neck. "Go thou, likewise, my sweet little Jamie," said the Elder, "go even out of my bosom and kneel down beside thy father and thy mother, so that I may bless you all at once, and with one yearning prayer." The child did as the solemn voice yearning_prayer.” commanded, and knelt down somewhat timidly by his father's side; nor did the unhappy man decline encircling with his arm the child too much neglect. ed, but still dear to him as his own blood, in spite of the deadening and debasing influence of infidelity. "Put the word of God into the hands of my son, and let him read aloud to his dying father the 25th, 26th, and 27th verses of the eleventh chapter of the gospel according to St. John." The Pastor went up to the kneelers, and, with a voice of pity, condolence, and pardon, said, "There was a time when none, William, could read the Scriptures better than thou couldst can it be that the son of my friend hath forgotten the lessons of his youth?" He had not forgotten them-there was no need for the repentant sinner to lift up his eyes from the bed-side. The sacred stream of the gospel had worn a channel in his heart, and the waters were again flowing. With a choked voice, he said, "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: And whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die. Believest thou this? She said unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world."

The

"That is not an unbeliever's voice," said the dying man, triumphantly; "nor, William, hast thou an unbeliever's heart. Say that thou believest in what thou hast now read, and thy father, will die happy!" "I do believe! and as thou forgivest me, so may I be forgiven by my Father who is in heaven." Elder seemed like a man suddenly inspired with a new life. His faded eyes kindled-his pale cheeks glowed-his palsied hand seemed to wax strong-and his voice was clear as that of manhood in its prime. "Into thy hands, O God! I commit my spirit;" and, so saying, he gently sunk back on his pillow;

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and I thought I heard a sigh.-There was then a long deep silence, and the father, the mother, and the child, rose from their knees. The eyes of us all were turned towards the white placid face of the figure now stretched in everlasting rest; and, without lamentations, save the silent lamentations of the resigned soul, we stood around the DEATH-BED OF THE ELDER.

Wilson.

Rousseau's Testimony in Favour of the Gospel.

“I ACKNOWLEDGE," says Monsieur Rousseau, in the character of a sceptic Savoyard vicar, " at the same time, that the majesty which reigns in the sacred writings fills me with a solemn kind of astonishment, and that the sanctity of the gospel speaks in a powerful and commanding language to my heart. Cast your eye on the writings of the philosophers; behold them in all their studied pomp, and see how trifling, how insignificant they appear, when compared with the holy records of the gospel! Is it possible that a book so sublime, and yet so artless and simple, can be a production merely human?

"Will any one say that the gospel history is all mere fiction? Believe me, my friend, it is not so that impostors go to work; I see nothing here that has the air of fiction: and the facts relating to Socrates, of which no mortal entertains the least doubt, are not so well attested as those which are recorded in the

history of Christ. All your suppositions will be at tended with the same difficulty, which they only remove some steps farther off, to return again in its full force; for it is much more inconceivable and absurd to suppose that a number of persons should have laid their heads together to compose a book, than it is to grant that the subjects of it may have been taken from the real life and actions of one man. Jewish writers, with all their efforts, could never have arisen to that noble and elevated tone, to that pure and sublime