set, shaggy-maned, cantering, panting, willful, and often vicious fellow-ministers to public convenience and pleasure. Fifteen cents an hour, or a dollar a day, are the terms prescribed by law upon which you may indulge in the luxury of a ride about town, or an evening drive among the carriages that deluge the esplanade. decay. Here are English and Americans, missionaries and merchants, naval officers and common sailors, distinguished men with simple head-stones, and infants under preposterous colonnades of brick-work and marble. Below us lie the roofs of elegant dwellings, imbedded in evergreen foliage, or glimmering among thick tropical shadeThe streets of Malay Town are long, trees; beyond is the harbor, with its flowell-shaded avenues, thickly bordered tilla of junks, ships, steamers, and proas; with small inclosures, in which, a little the chime of vesper bells comes with the back from the road, cluster the rude but dying hum of the business of the day ; populous huts of the natives in the midst images of the distant living consort with of tall, ever-verdant shade trees, so numer-images of the distant dead, and throng ously interspersed as to convey the idea of the excited recollection; familiar voices a city in the woods. seem to mix with the murmurings of life rippling up from below upon the silent wastes of death, and tears mingle freely with the dew-drops wept by evening upon the graves of the lost and loved! Over the dense hedge-row is the Romish cemetery, carefully separated from the English, as if corruption could be tainted by corruption, or heresy infect the dead, or the devil, in quest of crosiers and miters, could mistake his own! Let us drive hence to the Chinese quarter. How its busy shops, built, like Pennsylvania villages, as near the curb-stone as possible, are thronged with artisans and tradesmen of every description! Why do not the cities of civilization roof in their side-walks from sun and rain by porticoes projecting from the second story, supported upon rows of slender columns, and affording secure observatories to women and children above, and safe quarters for displayed goods beneath. Awnings of canvas are miserable substitutes for the substantial coverings of the eastern bazaars. Here are fifteen thousand of the miserable victims of opium; and here are the conscienceless Europeans-there is no American house in the Recessed in one of these shady inclosures you would not notice it unless it was pointed out to you-stands the Malay Mission-chapel, in which Rev. Mr. Keasberry, formerly of the London Missionary Society, preaches twice a week to a congregation of seventy-five Malays and half-castes, twelve of whom are baptized members of the Christian Church. A square or two from the chapel are extensive "dobey" | grounds. Imagine the perspective of a winding brook, in which, for a quarter of a mile, "dobeys" stand in water up to their knees, alternately sousing linens and woolens in the running stream, and then swinging them over their heads as they beat them clean of buttons at least-upon the flat rocks that line the shore! Acres of vacant green-sward are whitened with the robes of Parsees, the turbans of Mohammedans, and the shirts and pants of Christians, indiscriminately mingled and mangled by these human washing-or rather threshing-machines, yclept "dobeys." If you reflect that quicklime is substituted for soap, in addition to "cold scalds" and rough usage, all through the East, you will not wonder if the ward-place-that enrich themselves with the robes of residents, in a climate where white is so universally worn, (even to slippers and umbrellas,) stand in need of frequent replenishment. To the elevated and beautiful grounds of the governor-the embodiment of the majesty of the East India Company-we can have no access, since the arrival, a day or two since, of his excellency, with all the pomp of banners, bands, salutes, and military display. We may, however, linger at sunset in the embowered burial-place of the Protestant dead, full of recent tombs blackened by the climate, and crumbling to premature sale of the drug. The members of the Church of England are better churchgoers than the Americans engaged in business abroad. The East India Company's chaplain reads prayers and sermons, at a salary of $400 a month, to a congregation of three hundred merchants and officials, half-castes, women and children. Malays manage the organ and orchestra ; England and America prefer buying music to making it; while Mohammedans, stationed outside, work the "punkahs," or huge fans, suspended from the ceiling of the church, neutralize the effect of a drowsy sermon, do away with the flutter of a thousand fans, and give the men, as well as women, a chance at fresh air. Such an arrangement, for summer use, would be of incalculable service to the United States, as necessary in July as stoves in January. Here they are used the year round, and glass and chimneys are alike superfluous. Singapore publishes two or three weekly newspapers, subscription price eight dollars a year! and its annual almanac and directory-a shilling pamphlet in New-York-costs a dollar and a half here. The thermometer ranges between seventy-five and eighty-five; seabreezes and frequent showers modify the heats of the climate, and render it healthful and pleasant. The roads, thanks to the rascality of British subjects, are beautiful. They are the work of convicts. Britain always builds good roads. At home, in Canada, in India, the valleys are filled and hills brought low in obedience to that principle of political economy that teaches the connection between facility of communication and national prosperity. I saw licensed carriages numbered as high as four hundred and seventy-nine; and one boat whose number figured nearly four thousand. In mine ignorance, I once happened to call Singapore a "city," and was taken to task by a good-natured church-woman for denominating that a city which had no cathedral Church and bishop are as essential to the British corporation as mayor and aldermen. The forms of social life conflict somewhat with the ideas of those Americans who have adhered to the modes of their fathers, and eschewed the European customs of " tiffin" at eight o'clock, breakfast at twelve, dinner at five, and tea at any time between that and midnight, and saying "good-morning" till sun down. The hospitalities of Singapore are generous, and life there as free from annoyances as elsewhere. Mosquitoes are no more troublesome than in New-York, Baltimore, or St. Louis; lizards sport by lamplight on the whited walls of well-furnished parlors, and tea-tables furnish their desserts of dissected reputations. The miniature crocodile is a harmless fly-catcher, and mangling the characters of the absent is not peculiar to this hemisphere. A score of missionaries have labored at Singapore. There is not one there now. Efforts for the salvation of its teeming multitudes of heathen are all those of in dividual benevolence. The temples of Romanism and heathenism are rising. The only spire of Protestantism has fallen down. Is this typical of the fate of Christian effort for the salvation of this vast people? God forbid ! THE CALIFORNIA OYSTER. OUT in California's gulf, In the deep Pacific sea, There's an Oyster ever working, Dreary, damp, and silently! Sad and lonely is his dwelling On the banks beneath the tide- In the realms of ocean wide, On the sharp and sedgy rocks, Hermit of the ocean-cave, Fathoms ten beneath the wave, Never moving, never stirring, Lock'd within his coral walls!- On each other madly prey; Never asks another's aid, Takes the spoils that round him whirl, And with patient, toilsome temper, Coins the Oyster's wealth-a Pearl! Whales are spear'd to give us light, Oily beams dispel the night; Dolphins die to glut the palate, Sharks vindictively are slain, But the daring Diver plunges Deeply in the boiling main, Dragging from their tranquil rest, Lonely STUDENTS toil forever, To the blazing light of fame, Like a pearl, enshrines his name! [For the National Magazine.] THE BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING. HE Great Teacher said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Is it? Did Jesus speak the truth? Do not be offended now, as if I were offering you an insult by asking such a question. It is most manifest that the great mass of mankind do not admit the truth of the sentiment. They do not believe a word of it. Their main object is to get all they can. They give as little as possible. Their happiness consists in accumulating. With them the saying is a paradoxical absurdity. But is it more blessed to give than to receive? Do the professing followers of the Nazarene-Christians-assent to the truth of that saying of their Saviour? Very few venture to brand it as palpably false; and yet the number of those who assent to its truth as a simple proposition, applicable to all classes and at all times, is not a great deal larger. It is true with certain qualifications. As, for instance, if a man is rich it may be more blessed to give than to receive. No doubt of it. But did you ever know a rich man? I never did. I have been nearly half a century in this world, have traveled somewhat extensively in both hemispheres, yet have I never met the man who admitted himself to be rich. I have seen some who call a large piece of the earth's surface their own, men whose signature will procure an almost fabulous amount of gold, yet they assure me that I labor under a great mistake if I suppose them rich. And thus the Saviour's saying is made a complete nullity. The wealthiest man of your acquaintance compares himself with one who is wealthier, or with some imaginary standard, and admits that it may be more blessed to give than to receive when he shall have attained the ignis faluus that dances in his vision; but not yet. I repeat the question. Is the saying of the Saviour true? Is it more blessed to give than to receive? Yes, provided we are perfectly sure that what is given will be faithfully appropriated. Here again is an impossible condition annexed to the Saviour's language. You do not know that what you give to the missionary cause, for instance, or to any other, will be used wisely. Nor are you sure VOL. VII.-36 that it will ever reach the specific object for which it is intended. But all that has nothing to do with the question. You are not responsible for the integrity or the honesty of those through whom your gift passes. Nor is it essential to the validity of the sentiment that the man should be perfectly satisfied that the object for which he is asked to give be a good one. It is right for him to use his own judgment in the matter; but I am speaking of the sentiment itself, as it fell from the lips of Christ. He does not say, It is more blessed to give to a good object than to receive. If he had said that, nobody would have questioned the truth of the saying; for human selfishness would have found flaws everywhere, and a really good object would have been, just as it is indeed, an exceedingly rare thing. Here now is an applicant for a portion, a small pittance, of that abundance wherewith God has intrusted you. His family are in want. Jesus says, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Do you believe him? Well, yes—that is, provided he and his family are sober, and honest, and industrious. Do you require all three? Very convenient that, and economical. It is about the same as saying: If no one needed charity I would give, for most certainly you may live many years without meeting a sober, and honest, and industrious beggar who will afford you an opportunity to receive the blessing which Christ assures to them who-give. When there is an opportunity of practically evincing belief in this saying of the Lord Jesus, when there is a beggar at the door, how exceedingly fearful we are of being imposed upon. Is there any guilt incurred by being deceived? Shall we lose the promised blessing if it turns out that the pauper was not half so badly off as he pretended to be? The common law regards every man as innocent until he is proved guilty. The Christianity of our day seems inclined to reverse the process, and to conclude every applicant for alms as undeserving until the contrary is made so clear that there is not a peg to hang a doubt upon. Certainly, if I know a cause to be in itself bad, or if I am quite sure that he who seeks my bounty is an impostor, I shall do wrong to give. But if I do not know; if, on the contrary, there is equal room for that disposition of heart which hopeth all things and never faileth, then the practical question for me to answer is this: Did the great teacher understand himself, mean what he said, and speak truthfully in the declaration, unlimited and unrestricted, It is more blessed to give than to receive? Do not make a mistake here by supposing the Saviour meant to speak about the payment of debts. His saying is unquestionably true so far as concerns the meeting of an obligation incurred, the payment, for instance, of a shoemaker's bill or a minister's salary. But paying debts is not giving. At least it can only be so considered by a violent figure of speech. You do not expect praise from men, as some do, for mere honesty, do you? Much less then can you suppose, that when you give value for value received you will find the amount passed to your credit in Heaven's record of deeds of benevolence. Nay, until you discharge the obligations that are against you, or at any rate until you have the disposition to pay your debts, I see not how you can come within the limits of the Saviour's benediction. You cannot give that which does not belong to you. It is dishonesty, and I am all along taking for granted that you are honest, and that you really desire to know what is duty. wearied, he went about doing good, and spent his life, his all, in acts of benevo lence; leaving, as the result of his experience, the simple, unrestricted, unqualified declaration, It is more blessed to give than to receive. And so it must be, because thus man may most resemble HIM. He was, and is, and will be forever perfectly happy. He who gives participates in the blessedness of Christ. It is a blessedness that man cannot impart to his fellow-man. It depends not on the conduct of those upon whom our gifts are conferred, nor upon the wise or unwise appropriation of our bounty. Giving is Christ-like. How full of happiness this world might be! How full of pure enjoyment it would be if men believed the Saviour's sentiment, and everywhere showed their faith by their works. And the truth of the declaration depends not merely upon the ipse dixit of the Son of God. It is more blessed to give than to receive, not because Christ said so, but he said it because it is truth, a fact eternal. We are so constituted, mentally and morally, that our enjoyment exactly accords with the nature of the desire gratified. It is so with all created beings. It cannot be otherwise with the uncreated God. The epicure has pleasure in the gratification of his appetite. He enjoys a good dinner. There is a kind of satisfaction in the display of jewels and a gay dress. The intoxicating cup produces a delirium of ecstasy.. But how low and groveling imitations of happiness. They are mere shams, and everybody knows they are, even when under their potent spell. The enjoyment arising from doing good by acts of beneficence is as high above them as the heavens are higher than the earth. The one, man has in common with the beasts that perish; the other allies him with the great Jehovah, and makes him a participant of His unalloyed bliss. HE is perfectly happy, and HE is perpetually giving. Look again, then, at the question before us. Do you say, Certainly, it is a pleasant and even a blessed thing to give to the grateful and the thankful, but the world is full of ingratitude. It is not so pleasant to give to those from whom no return, even by way of an acknowledgment, may-how base and degrading are all such be expected?" All true, very true. It has nothing, however, to do with the subject under discussion. The blessedness spoken of by the Saviour depends not upon the state of mind, the conduct, or the language of the recipient of your bounty. He may squander upon his lusts the money you designed for the purchase of bread for his children. It was not from him, was it, that you expected the blessing? Or, worse than even this, instead of the pleasing incense of gratitude for favors conferred, you may receive, even as Christ did, and does yet, reproach, contempt, hatred. They called the master of the house Beelzebub, a wine-bibber, a glutton. They said he was possessed of the devil, Gratitude to him was exceedingly rare. Very few thanked him; and yet, un And yet, once again, while all other enjoyment that can possibly arise from the temporal bounties of heaven are fleeting and transitory, the pleasure, the satisfaction that springs up in the soul from the mere fact of giving is permanent and enduring. It brings no sorrow with it. It is a source of enjoyment in the act, it is pleasant in the retrospect. It brings no disagreeable reflections even in the day of adversity or the hour of grief. Its remembrance plants no thorns in the dying pillow. At the day of judgment and forever will it be found a glorious verity that it is more blessed to give than to receive. And just here comes in the ever-ready objection relative to the orthodoxy of the sentiment under consideration. What sticklers we are for the doctrine of salvation by faith! How readily our hearts sympathize with our pockets, and we thank God that eternal life is not to be bought with money, and that the blessedness of heaven is a free gift!-ay, verily, it is a free gift. Gold and silver cannot purchase a mansion there; nor is a crown of immortality to be had in exchange for all the wealth of a created universe. And I have said nothing that may be tortured into such an absurdity, nor did Jesus. Heaven is not to be obtained by giving, but it is equally true that heaven may be lost by refusing to give. The sentence of condemnation in that day, "Ye did it not," will settle forever the oft-discussed question relative to faith and works, but will make it no clearer than it is now to the mind not willingly blinded. As a man's works are, so is his faith; and no one has a particle more than he makes visible to the world around him. How can he have? Is faith a material substance-a thing to be locked up and reserved for use when occasion calls for it? or may a man do by his faith as he does by his Sunday coat-brush it nicely on Monday morning, fold it neatly, and put it away until the dawn of the next Sabbath? Two questions here arise. They are frequently proposed, because selfish ingenuity deems them unanswerable. First, what proportion of my income should I devote to benevolent purposes? and, secondly, to what specific objects ought I to give? The answer to both is the same—just what you please. We are not under the Jewish dispensation, as saith the apostle-not under law, but under grace. To give was a duty, now it is a privilege. Christ gave no law upon the subject, and therein he acted just like himself. He simply said, It is more blessed to give than to receive; and Paul, in recording the sentiment, uses no argument to enforce it as a duty. He merely says, Remember the words of the Lord Jesus. Remember them and act. Remember them and be blessed just to what extent you choose. No man, and no body of men, have any right to dictate rules and regulations upon this subject. It would be usurping the prerogatives of Jehovah, and setting limits to the enjoyments of God's children. Christ wants them to be perfectly happy, and never said, nor authorized any one else to say to the soul panting for blessings from his hand-Thus far, but no farther. But is there not something like partiality and respect of persons here? Certainly the poor cannot give as much as the rich, and by consequence they may not expect so much blessedness, so large an amount of enjoyment. A fallacy this more specious than any to which we have adverted, and therefore I suppose it was that Christ took pains to expose and explode it. In respect of giving, and the blessedness thence arising, he placed all men upon one and the same level. This he did by teaching, if I may so speak, a new rule in arithmetic. A poor widow's farthing was the largest gift thrown into the treasury when the wealthy men of the nation were making their offerings. Many that were rich cast in much, but she gave more than they all. By consequence she was entitled to receive, and beyond all peradventure, did receive a blessing more than equivalent to theirs. You will say that the difference in the motives by which these donors were actuated justified the Lord Jesus in the judgment which he gave. Perhaps so. There is nothing said, however, about the motives of either party. I know not what their motives were, and do not care to know. I leave them with Him who looketh upon the heart, while it is mine to regard only the outward appearance. How, then, can the paltry gift of this poor widow be said to be greater than the oblations of the rich? Simply on this wise Christ estimates our gifts not by the actual amount given, but by what remains after we have made our offering. How simple, and at the same time how perfectly adapted to every situation and to every condition in life! Is it not strange that we did not think of that before? How it equalizes the rich and the poor!-nay, how it seems to give the |