tion not being able to comprise it. I would, however, venture to call it "benevolence in trifles," or the preference of others to ourselves in little daily, hourly occurrences in the commerce of life. It is a perpetual attention to the wants of those with whom we are, by which attention we either prevent or remove them. Bowing, ceremonious, formal compliments, stiff civilities, will never be politeness-that must be easy, natural, unstudied, manly, noble; and what will give this but a mind benevolent and perpetually attentive to exert that amiable disposition in trifles to all you converse and live with.

THE SCULPTURE OF HABIT. FROM a volume entitled "Plain Parochial Sermons," recently published in London, we take this practically suggestive passage:

Did you ever watch a sculptor slowly fashioning a human countenance? It is not molded at once. It is painfully and laboriously wrought. A thousand blows rough-cast it. Ten thousand chisel-points polish and perfect it, put in the fine touches, and bring out the features and expressions. It is a work of time: but at last the full likeness comes out, and stands fixed for ever and unchanging in the solid marble. Well, so does a man, under the leading of the Spirit, or the teachings of Satan, carve out his own moral likeness. Every day he adds something to the work. A thousand acts of thought, and will, and deed, shape the features and expression of the soul; habits of love, purity, and truth, habits of falsehood, malice, and uncleanness, silently mold and fashion it, till at length it wears the likeness of God, or the image and superscription of the Evil One.

THE ABUSE OF LOVE.

THERE are those who need only a hint like that which follows, albeit the hint is a pretty broad one, to induce them to correct an evil habit into which they have fallen:

There are few families, we imagine, anywhere, in which love is not abused as furnishing the license for impoliteness. A husband, father, or brother, will speak harsh words to those whom he loves best, simply because the security of love and family pride keeps him from getting his head broken. It is a shame that a man will speak more impolitely, at times, to his wife or sister, than he would to any other female, except a-low and vicious one. It is thus that the honest affections of a man's nature prove to be a weaker protection to a woman in the family circle than the restraints of society, and that a woman is usually indebted for the kindest politeness of life to those not belonging to her own houschold. Things ought not so to be. The man who, because it will not be resented, inflicts his spleen and bad temper upon those of his own hearth-stone, is a small coward, and a very mean man. Kind words are circulating mediums between true gentlemen and ladies at home, and no polish exhibited in society can atone for the harsh language and disrespectful treatment too often indulged in by those bound together by God's own ties of blood, and still more sacred bonds of conjugal love.

GOOD INFLUENCES NEVER LOST.

AN inference as to spiritual things is here drawn from an admitted fact in the natural world:

It is a law in the material world, that nothing is absolutely lost. The place, the form, the material of objects change. Our bodies die, and turn to dust. The whole animal and vegetable creations have their period of growth and decay. The waters wear the stones, But in this change, there is no loss or destruction of elementary particles. Dissolving elements appear again in new combinations, and new forms of utility and beauty. The waters absorbed by the atmosphere, go up by the mountains, gather into clouds, and descend in showers to water the earth, and enter into the structure of all living things. And may not a law something like this exist in God's spiritual kingdom. Will He, who watches over the changing elements of senseless matter, so that no one particle is ever lost, or comes short of its destination, permit those good influences which, by grace, have originated in the faith of his people, ever to be lost, or to come short of their end? Will they not certainly enter into this glorious building, and contribute something to the completeness of its form and perfection of its beauty? The good influences exerted by pious men, often seem to men to be utterly dissipated. When the blood of the Christian martyrs was poured on the sands of Rome, their persecutors imagined that they had made an end of their doctrine. But that blood washed into the Tiber, was carried by its waters into the sea, and by the sea into the ocean, and by its waves to every kingdom of the earth; and thus became a type, not more of the spreading doctrines of Christianity, than of the aug mented and widely diffused influences of those holy

men.

BREVITIES.

A FEW, from various authors, will close the chapter:

BAD ARGUMENTS.-The best way of answering a bad argument is, not to stop it, but let it go on its course until it overleaps the boundaries of common sense.-Sydney Smith.

CHARITABLE BEQUESTS.-What are called post-mortuary charities cannot be classed among the things done in the body, to which the apostle refers. If there is any merit in the deed it belongs not to us, who in reality do it not; nor to our executors or our children, who are obliged to do it.

SATIRICAL-Coleridge says the French are a nation the very phrases of whose language are so composed, that they can scarcely speak without lying.

JESUS OF NAZARETH.-If the tale of Calvary be a fiction, the inventor is more wondrous than the hero of the narrative.-Rousseau.

AFFECTATION OF FEELING.-Better be cold than affect to feel. In truth, nothing is so cold as an assumed, noisy enthusiasm. Its best emblem is the northern blast of winter, which freezes as it roars.Channing.

ZEAL.-An old English divine says that religious zeal, though a sweet Christian grace, is exceedingly apt to sour.

REASON AND REVELATION.-He that takes away reason to make way for revelation, puts out the light of both, and is as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope.-Locke.

FAME is a revenue payable only to our ghosts; and to deny ourselves all present satisfaction for this, were as great madness as to starve ourselves, and fight desperately for food to be laid on our tombs after death. -M'Kenzie.

recently been led to Christ, and have found peace in believing, that the revival so long, and still in progress, is a delusion, or without the sanction of the great Head of the Church. It cannot be reasoned away into a mere outburst of fanaticism; nor, by those who have felt its power, can it be attributed to mere human skill and contrivance. "The whole movement," Mr. Dix tells us, "occurred among those who are without episcopal order and government, and who discard the idea of sacraments in the sense in which the Church formularies use the word." In this he speaks truly, and the inference is that the revival is a delusion and a sham, OR that what Mr. Dix calls "episcopal order and government," is not essential to the salvation of souls, and that the " in which his "Church formularies" use the "idea of sacraments" is not indispensable to the building up of Christ's kingdom upon earth.

sense

PLAGIARISM. It is bad enough for men of the world to steal, and a political writer who should be proved guilty of appropriating to himself the thoughts and the language of another, would assuredly lose caste in the republic of letters. Of course it is no palliation of the offense that the guilty party is a Christian, or even a minister of the Gospel. Indeed some people have an idea that the preacher who utters as his own what he has committed to memory from the writings of others, and the learned divine who prints in a book page after page of another's thoughts without giving him credit, is no better than the ordinary pilferer, worse, indeed, because of his position and the more extended influence of his example. The most glaring case of this kind which has recently been exposed, is that of the Rev. Dr. Breckenridge, whose work entitled, "Theology Objectively Considered " was highly eulogized at the time of its publication. Some of the papers of the doctor's own Church hailed him as the Calvin of the age; but one of them, the North Carolina Presbyterian, charges him with gross and extensive plagiarism, and— proves the charge. It is true the author's friends make a defense for him by referring to some general acknowledgments in his introduction; but, in that introduction, the doctor does not say that he has mainly made his book by copying from others, nor give any credit to STAPFER, a Swiss divine, whose Institutes of Polemical Theology were published at Zurich about a century ago. The following passages are taken from the doctor's "Preliminary Remarks." They are certainly sufficiently egotistical:

"I have not aimed to produce a compend of theology. I aim to teach theology itself." "It is this knowledge of God unto salvation, which I accept and develop, as a science of absolute truth; and these which I attempt to demonstrate, to classify, and to expound." "That for which I alone must be responsible, is that which makes the work individual, the conception, the

method, the digestion, the presentation, the order, the spirit, the impression of the whole." P. x. "I am not aware that either the conception I have of this immense subject, or the method I adopt in developing it, or the order I pursue in treating it, have been distinctly recognized hitherto as a basis either of inquiry or instruction in theology." P. xii.

After perusing the above, and counting the great I's, the reader will admire the marvelous coincidence in the thoughts and language of two

men writing a century apart, as here presented, merely by way of a sample, in parallel columns: Stapfer, ch. iii, sec. I

Dr. B., ch. xviii, p. 267. I-1. The simplest idea we can form of God is, that he is a self-existent Being, distinct from us and from the universe, who contains in himself a sufficient ground and reason for the existence of ourselves and the universe. Stated in other words: that God is a being absolutely necessary and independent, in whom and upon whom all things are contingent and dependent.

2. As it is impossible for anything to be, and not to be, it follows that a sufficient reason exists, and can be given why any particular thing is rather than is not; and why it is in a particular mode, rather than in some other. This sufficient reason being discovered and stated, nothing more can be required concerning the fact or mode of the existence of that thing.

vol. 1, p. 67.

271. By God we understand a self-existent Being, distinct from our mind and the universe, in whom there is contained a sufficient reason for the existence of this world and of our spirits; or, (a Being) that is absolutely neces sary and independent, but upon whom all things depend.

278. It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be. This is a first Truth, and therefore incapable of demonstration.

274. There exists a sufficient reason for all things; whence it is known why any particular thing is, rather than is not; why it exists in this particular mode rather than in another; and which being stated, nothing more is required to explain the existence of that thing.

BRADY'S GALLERY. -One of the most attractive places in relation to the fine arts in the city, is the gallery of Mr. Brady, 359 Broadway. Under the enterprising skill of this gentleman the photographic art has reached perfection. The most perfect representations, from the miniature to the life size, are taken in all styles. Those which have been painted, present the most perfect specimens of art we have seen. Mr. Brady has recently enriched his gallery with imperial photographs of the most distinguished divines in the different denominations in the city; and this gallery of itself would well repay a visit. The most distinguished officials in state as well as Church, from this and other countries, with a full representation of the literary men of the times, can be found in his collection. Among the photographs may be seen most exact likenesses of our bishops, with quite a number of our pulpit celebrities in New York. The whole corps editorial of the Book Concern is represented with admirable exactness. Mr. Brady is a native of New York, and among the first to introduce this beautiful art among us, and to him, perhaps, more than any other artist, is the country indebted for the perfection to which it has attained. His gallery in Washington city, as well as the one on Broadway, is one of the largest and most attractive of the kind in the country; and as they are open to access to all visitors, our friends would doubtless be gratified in looking upon his finely-executed pictures.

SLAVERY.-The New York East Conference, at their late session, adopted the following resolutions, and ordered their publication:

Resolved, That we affirm the language of our Church in 1784, namely, that the practice of holding our fellowcreatures in slavery is contrary to the golden rule of God and the inalienable rights of mankind, as well as the principles of the American Revolution; and we therefore deem it our most bounden duty to take some

effectual method to extirpate this abomination from among us.

Resolved, That it is the duty of our Church as a unit to educate her membership to the high standard of these her primitive doctrines, and to this end it is her duty to inculcate them prudently but firmly through her organs, whether press or pulpit.

Resolved, That, while we oppose slavery as citizens, and give our sympathy to those who, in the state, are maintaining the cause of freedom against the slave power, we are especially the opponents of oppression as a sin, and the supporters of emancipation as the requirement of righteousness; and we would therefore remember that our anti-slaveryism should be deeply imbued with the spirit of the Holy Gospel that it should wisely consult the honor and unity of our Church, in the full faith that the highest good will be obtained through the legitimate instrumentality of her established institutions.

Resolved, That we offer our unfeigned thanks to Almighty God, and tender our cordial congratulations to the friends of humanity, for the rapid extension of the principles of justice and freedom during the past year, as well as for the cheering prospects of the extension of free institutions in our country; and we cherish the anticipation that, with proper effort in maintaining and diffusing light and truth on the subject, all misunderstanding will disappear, and the Church will unite, as with the heart of one man, upon the ancient Wesleyan platform, and, as in the great English emancipation struggle, Methodism will be unanímous and energetic in the cause of freedom.

An official Methodist paper, one of the "Advocates," says: "Why any Methodist preacher should oppose such resolutions, we can't tell. To us they sound very fourth-of-Julyish."

Our brother is not alone in this respect. Many of those who listened to the warm discussion occasioned by their introduction, were unable to see why the resolutions were opposed with such zeal. It is gratifying to be enabled to add that the opposition was a very small minority of the Conference, and that with equal, if not greater unanimity, the New York conference, sitting in the same city, a few weeks later, adopted the following:

Whereas, There are few, if any questions agitating more deeply the public mind, or involving moral and religious principles of higher moment, than slavery, we consider it fitting and proper that we as a conference should give utterance to our convictions on the subject; therefore,

Resolved, That the system of slavery is at war with the Gospel of Christ, the rights of man, and the best interests of society.

Resolved, That we point with just pride to the position which the Methodist Episcopal Church has, from her first organization, occupied upon the subject, ever regarding it as an evil, for the extirpation of which all wise and prudent measures are to be employed.

A THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.-The Methodists are awakening to the importance of a more systematic and thorough preparation for the ministerial office and work. The Wesleyans of England have two large, well-endowed, and ablyconducted Theological Schools. The Methodists of our own land have two: one at Concord, New Hampshire; the other near Chicago, Ill. The establishment of a third is under consideration. The New York East Conference adopted the following resolutions:

Resolved, That in the opinion of this Conference the time has arrived when it is the duty of the Church to consider the necessity and propriety of establishing an institution for ministerial and missionary education, to be located in the city of New York or its vicinity, or in the city of Middletown.

Resolved, That a committee of five members of this Conference and five laymen be appointed to consider this matter and report to the Conference during its present session.

This may be regarded as initiating the movement for its due consideration will very naturally result in the determination to establish a school of the kind in one of the localities named. Indeed, the adoption of the first resolution settles the question of necessity in the opinion of the Conference; and all that remains to be done is to project a plan, and carry it out.

AN EDITORIAL CALAMITY.-The Christian Inquirer, in noticing the fact that the editor of the Churchman has retired from his post, thus gives vent to his regret:

We are afraid we shall never find another editor so interesting as this highest of all Churchmen was to us. What shall we do now for an authority in Ecclesiology? His weekly lucubrations were always looked forward to with the assurance of finding, in addition to unquestionable ability, such strange Ishmaelite arrogance, presumption, and contempt for all outside of the covenanted mercies," as were almost sublime and quite amusing. It was as healthy a laugh provoker to most of the editorial fraternity as if intended for a weekly ecclesiastical Punch, and will be much missed.

A TERRIBLE FOE.-Banker, in his work on Ceylon, states that on one occasion he came across an enormous serpent which lay in his small cocoa-nut, divided lengthways, and this path. His head was about the size of a very was raised to about eighteen inches above the forked tongue played in and out of his mouth coil. His eyes were fixed upon us, and the with a continued hiss. Aiming at his head, I fired at him with a double-barreled gun, within four paces, and blew his head to pieces. He appeared stone-dead; but, upon pulling him by self into convulsive coils, and lashing himself the tail, to stretch him out, he wreathed himout at full length, mowed down the grass in all directions. This obliged me to stand clear, for his blows were terrific, and the thickest part of his body was as thick as a man's thigh. Cutting some sharp-pointed stakes, I pinned his tail to the ground with my hunting-knife; and thrusting the pointed stake into the hole, I drove it deeply into the ground with the buttend of my rifle. The boa made some objection to this, and again commenced his former muscular contortions. I waited till they were over; and having provided myself with some tough jungle-rope, (a species of creepers,) I once more approached him, and, pinning his throat to the ground, I tied the rope through the incisions, and the united exertions of myself and three men hauled him out perfectly straight. I then drove a stake through his throat, and pinned him out. He was fifteen feet in length, and it required our united strength to tear off his skin, which shone with a variety of passing colors. On loosing his hide he tore away from the stakes; and although his head was shivered to atoms, and he had lost three feet of his neck by the ball having cut through this part, which separated in tearing off the skin, still he lashed and writhed in a frightful convulsion, continuing till I left him, bearing his hide as my trophy.

SLANDER.-Yes, you pass it along, whether you believe it or not. You don't believe the one-sided whisper against the character of another, but will use your influence to bear up the false report, and pass it on the current.

Strange creatures are mankind. How many benevolent deeds have been chilled by the shrug of a shoulder! How many individuals have been shunned by a gentle, mysterious hint! How many chaste bosoms have been wrung with grief at a single nod! How many graves have been dug by false report! Yet you will keep it above the water by a wag of your tongue, when you might sink it forever. Destroy the passion for tale-telling, we pray. Lisp not a word that may injure the character of another. Be determined to listen to no story that is repeated to the great injury of another, and, as far as you are concerned, the slander will die. | But tell it once, and it may go as on the wing of the wind, increasing with each breath, till it has circulated through the State, and has brought to the grave one who might have been a blessing to the world.

ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH.-The London Times announces that the general programme of the second, and, it is to be hoped, final attempt to submerge the Atlantic telegraph wire, has already been decided on. The four hundred miles of cable ordered to replace the three hundred and eighty-four which were lost last autumn off Valentia have been completed, and it is intended, in order to make better provision for casualties, that an additional three hundred miles shall be at once proceeded with. The Agamemnon and the Niagara are the vessels again to be employed in the attempt to lay the wire, and the operation will this year be commenced in the middle of June, in which month, it is said, there are some five or six consecutive days during which a gale in the Atlantic was seldom or never known to occur. The line will be joined and laid from the center of the ocean, the Niagara bringing her end of the cable to Ireland, and the Agamemnon conveying hers to America. The Niagara will take on board, at the Keyham Dockyard, one thousand five hundred miles of the wire. On this occasion the cable will not be piled away in one huge mass, but will be distributed equally in the fore, midship, and after part of the vessel, in three coils of five hundred miles each. As soon as the wire has been stowed away, the two steamers will proceed into deep water, when a number of experiments will be made with the paying out machinery, to ascertain practically if any difficulties exist in the proposed plan for submerging the wire from the center of the Atlantic.

ORIGIN OF SLAVERY.-Mr. Bancroft, in the first volume of his History of the United States, gives an account of the early traffic of the Europeans in slaves. In the middle ages the Venetians purchased white men, Christians, and others, and sold them to the Saracens in Sicily and Spain. In England the Anglo-Saxon nobility sold their servants as slaves to foreigners. The Portuguese first imported negro slaves from Western Africa, into Europe, in 1442. Spain soon engaged in the traffic, and negro slaves abounded in some places of that kingdom. After America was discovered, the Indians of Hispaniola were imported into Spain, and made slaves. The Spaniards visited the coast of North America and kidnapped thousands of the

Indians, whom they transported into slavery in Europe and the West Indies. Columbus himself kidnapped five hundred native Americans, and sent them into Spain, that, they might be publicly sold at Seville. The practice of selling North American Indians into foreign bondage continued for two centuries. Negro slavery was first introduced into America by Spanish slaveholders, who emigrated with their negroes. A royal edict of Spain authorized negro slavery in America in 1508. King Ferdinand himself sent from Seville fifty slaves to labor in the mines. In 1511 the direct tariff in slaves between Africa and Hispaniola was enjoined by a royal ordinance. Las Casas, who saw the Indians vanish away before the cruelties of the Spaniards, suggested that the negroes, who alone could endure severe toils, might be further employed. This was in 1518. Sir John Hawkins was the first Englishman that engaged in the slave-trade. In 1652 he transported a large cargo of Africans to Hispaniola. In 1657 another expedition was prepared, and Queen Elizabeth protected and shared in the traffic. Hawkins, in one of his expeditions, set fire to an African city, and out of three thousand inhabitants succeeded in seizing two hundred and sixty. Thomas Keyser and James Smith, of Boston, first brought the colonies to participate in slavery. In 1654 they imported a cargo of negroes. Throughout Massachusetts the cry of justice was raised against them as malefactors and murderers; the guilty men were committed for the offense, and the representatives of the people ordered the negroes to be restored to their native country at the public expense. At a later period there were both Indian and negro slaves in Massachusetts. In 1620 a Dutch ship entered James River, and landed twenty negroes for sale. This was the epoch of the introduction of slavery in Virginia. For many years the Dutch were principally concerned in the slave-trade in the market of Virginia.

POINTLESS SERMONS.-In one of his discourses John Newton has this pithy remark:

Many sermons, ingenious in their kind, may be compared to a letter put in a post-office without a direction. It is addressed to nobody, it is owned by nobody, and if a hundred people were to read it, not one

of them would think himself concerned in the contents.

Such a sermon, whatever excellences it may have, sword which has a polished blade, a jeweled hilt, and lacks the chief requisite of a sermon. It is like a a gorgeous scabbard, but yet will not cut, and therefore, to all real use, is no sword. The truth properly presented has an edge; it pierces to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit; it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

--

THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER thus speaks of a new organization which professes to collect money from Sabbath-school children. It is called the plan of Systematic Beneficence. It

says:

A communication containing a " Plan for the Sabbath School Charity Fund," will be found in another column. The plan proposes the "raising of six cents a week" for this fund "by every Sabbath-school scholar of stock to the amount of ten million dollars. Those in America." The Society proposes to issue certificates who pay six cents a week for three years are to be life members; those who do it for six years, honorary presidents; and "those who do this (from love to managers; those who do it for ten years, honorary vice Christ) while they live, will have a free admission