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4 How truly we may say of Christ as the foundation of our hopes for eternity-

" Had I ten thousand gifts beside,

I'd cleave to Jesus crucified,

And build on him alone :

For no foundation is there given

On which I'd place my hopes of heaven,

But Christ the corner-stone."

THE CONSOLATION OF SCRIPTURE.

Cowper, in the memoirs of his early life, says, " My chief affliction consisted in being singled out from all the other boys by a lad about fifteen years of age, as a proper object upon whom he might let loose the cruelty of his temper. One day, as I was sitting alone upon a bench in the school, melancholy, and almost ready to weep at the recollection of what I had already suffered, and expecting at the same time my tormentor every moment, these words of the Psalmist came into my mind, ' I will not be afraid of what man can do unto me.' I applied this to my own case, with a degree of trust and confidence in God, that would have been no disgrace to a much more experienced Christian. Instantly I perceived in myself a briskness of spirit and a cheerfulness which I had never before experienced, and took several paces up and down the room with joyful alacrity-his gift in whom I trusted. Happy would it have been for me if this early effort towards the blessed God had been frequently repeated by me."

PRACTICAL EFFECT OF CHRISTIANITY.

Lord Barrington once asked Collins, the infidel writer, how it was that, though he seemed to have very little religion himself, he took so much care that his servants should attend regularly at church. He replied, " To prevent their robbing or murderiug me. To such a character how applicable are these words, " Out of thine own month will I judge thee."

DEATH.

The mortality of the human race is an affecting subject. The thought that his vast army would be dead in a hundred years affected Xerxes even to tears ; and Dr. Johnson says that a similar effect was produced upon him, when he beheld the gay and thoughtless assemblage at Ranelagh. But it is our own mortality that should chiefly affcet us, and especially the fact, after death, the judgment.

BEN SYRA

When his preeeptor declined to instruct him in the law of