nence from animal food, except fish, and that only when given them; to prepare their own victuals, and take their refections alone; to observe an almost continual silence; on no pretence to leave the monastery; to give themselves up to prayer, manual work, reading, and the transcription of books. Although they were never reformed, pretending that they never needed being so, like the other religious orders, St. Bernard complained in his day of the magnificence of their buildings; and in the seventeenth century they had accumulated immense wealth, and monas to the same rules,-a kind of life opposed alike to the | the wearing of hair cloth next the skin, entire abstiletter and the spirit of the Gospel, yet by which they vainly imagined they might earn the peculiar favour of Heaven. As this milder seclusion was much more endurable, so it became much more fashionable than the former; men liked better to be friars than hermits. St. Jerome, writing to Rusticus, when desirous to embrace a solitary life, says, "the first point to be determined is whether you should live alone, or along with others in a monastery. For myself I hold it better for a man to be with companions than to undertake the teaching of himself." While St. Anthony lived as a hermit in Upper Egypt, St. Hilary was following histeries, on the model of the great Chartreuse, appeared example in Syria and in Palestine; and touched with the great reputation of the Egyptian saint, he paid him a visit, and returned, in his own opinion, much edified. In his ardour to extend this kind of devotion, he introduced into it certain changes, by which it became so popular in Palestine, that that country, from having nothing of the sort, soon was covered with innumerable monasteries. These he visited at certain times, followed by great numbers of monks, as was afterwards the practice with the generals and superiors of the religious orders. These two fanciful men had ample time for perfecting a system for the cultivation of personal holiness, which they seemed to think far superior to anything dreamed of by our Lord and his Apostles. St. Anthony lived to his ninetieth, and St. Hilary to his eightieth year. Since their days the religious orders have multiplied, and been modified and altered, in proportion to the innumerable whims and fancies of men of ardent minds and heated imaginations, who have striven to outrun each other in the severity of the rules they have recommended, or, imputing the corruption of monasteries not to the want of true religion, but to some defect in their constitution, have endeavoured by new rules to attack evils as ancient and as deeply rooted as human nature itself. in Italy, Germany, Spain, and all other countries subject to the Papacy. It has been observed that neither they, nor the pictures and relics of their pretended martyrs, pretend to work miracles, alleging that their saints in heaven are still such lovers of silence and retirement that, to avoid attracting notice, they avoid doing miracles. A gentleman from the north of France visited the great Chartreuse in 1827, and on his return gave his friends the following striking description of the scene he had witnessed : "On leaving Grenoble you turn the point of St. Eynard, and ascend a long slope, interrupted by ravines, and leading up to Mount Sapey. On looking around you, the gray mountain-tops and irregular peaks of Dauphiny come gradually into view. But before plunging into the savage scene before you, give one look behind, Stretched out in all its loveliness at your feet, lies the vale-the rich and majestic vale of Graisivaudan, with its vine-bowers, its forests of hemp and maize, its bright-leaved mulberry trees, and that whole Italian landscape which, were it not that the frozen summits of the Alps meet the eye at every turn, might lead you to suppose that it was one of the plains of Lombardy. The Isère glides with countless windings through this verdant plain, and as it rolls along its ample bed of gravel, it laves, as it passes, the walls of many an ancient castle, and among Grenoble. On your right, another river, the Drac, seems to leap at one bound from the mountains, and hurrying straight towards the city, throws the Isère against it, where the two streams meet; thus suggesting an ancient prophecy of the country, that the serpent and the dragon are one day to destroy Grenoble. "Having passed the lesser heights of Mount Sapey, at last, after a toilsome walk of seven miles, we reached the margin of a large and regular dale, lying between two mountain ranges which close it in, by uniting together. In the hollow stood the village of Chartreuse, overlooked by its little church and spire, reflecting the light from its covering of tin. Not the least remarkable of the monastic orders is that of the Carthusians, or Chartreux, whose extraordinary head-quarters in the mountains of Dau-others that of Bayard, and then slowly advances to phiny we are about to describe. "It was instituted," says Gabriel d' Emillianne, "in the year 1080, according to some, and in 1086 according to other authors, on the occasion, it is said, of the following strange occurrence. A professor in the university of Paris, commendable alike for soundness of doctrine and moral conduct, died, and at his burial sat upright on the bier, and cried with a lamentable voice, I am accused by the just judgment of God.' This so frightened the persons present that the interment was put off for a day, when the dead again exclaimed, I am judged by the just judgment of God,' on which the interment was put off yet another day. At last, the third day being come, in the presence of a great multitude of people, the dead again cried with a terrible voice, 'By the just judgment of God I am condemned.' One Bruno being present, and taking advantage of this to address the assembly, he concluded that they could not possibly be saved unless they renounced the world and retired into deserts; and this he immediately did, along with six companions. They went to a frightful place, called the Chartreuse, among the mountains in the diocese of Grenoble, where the bishop first assisted and afterwards joined them. In that horrid desert, inhabited till then only by wild beasts, they built little cells apart from each other, and there they lived in silence and with great severity. They proposed to follow the rule of St. Benedict, only with additional severities." Hospinian relates their ancient observances, in nineteen articles, which prescribe, among other things, "As yet you neither can see the monastery, nor can guess at what point of the valley, which seems enclosed on every side, there can be an outlet for a road. You hear the roar of a mountain-torrent hard by, but as little can you guess how it makes its escape. The road now makes a sudden turn, and right before you stands the portal of St. Bruno. Two huge mountains, rising parallel to each other, leave a narrow interval between. Through the chasm thus formed rushes into hidden depths the torrent whose roar had struck your ear, and which is called the Guiers, or by some the Guiers of death, of which it is supposed to be an image. You cross this dismal gorge by a bridge thrown from rock to rock; and catch a glimpse in passing of the frightful abyss, into which the Guiers descends with a stunning roar, and rebounds in sheets of foam. Above, the mountains seem to lean over you, leaving only a narrow band of blue sky visible. Impatient, however, of being kept from the scene you are approaching by so strange a vestibule, you push on, and forthwith two ranges of mountains open at a right angle, rising on either side, gray and bolt upright, clothed only with a few sombre pines, which look as if sustained miraculously on the invisible projections from which they spring. "In the space before you you find the mountain-yew, the festooned foliage of the evergreen oak, the Scotch fir, and the larch, mingle and blend their various green hues, forming a leafy amphitheatre of a thousand galleries, whose rounded outlines cross and are lost in each other, as if several huge forests had been thrown confusedly together; while here and there you can see from under the foliage, far and high, the hoary heads of the everlasting mountains, crowned neither with herbage nor with snow, but dry and bony looking, yet enlivened by the delicate rosy tint with which the sun continues to adorn them, long after night has thrown her sombre shadows over the vale below. On the left, the Guiers, escaped from the chasm, rushes forwards with irregular impetuosity, carrying with it from the mountains stones and trees, which it knocks about or sweeps along with a dashing and crashing vehemence, Sometimes it advances from cascade to cascade, in successive leaps of thirty, forty, and fifty feet; at other times, meeting some apparently impassable barrier thrown across its bed, in the shape of an enormous rock, it rushes furiously against it, and flies up in foaming jets, but is forced at length to glide round the obstacle it cannot remove. For a certain distance your eye can follow the fantastic whirl of its waters, and even after you have lost sight of them, you can distinguish their hollow roar resounding amid the solitude, until it meets the mountain barrier, which, after forming a three-sided enclosure of about three leagues' extent, opens again to give it a passage. That passage forms the other portal to this wilderness. "Yet, wild and distant as this scene appears, a well trodden and well kept pathway informs you, as if you were traversing a nobleman's park, that you have not yet left the inhabited world, and that you are doubtless approaching the monastery. The ground opens in front, and a broad meadow gradually spreads itself out into a beautiful slope, interrupted by horizontal intervals, and covered with a bright but slightly yellowish verdure, doubly contrasting with the dark hues of the woods you have been skirting, and the gray rocks that seem to follow you. And now, right in front, you behold the Grand Chartreuse. There it is, with its hundred slated roofs, surmounted by an equal number of iron crosses. Amid this vast circle of mountains, where every object may be expected to look little, the monastery rises from a plain of turf, like a city conjured up by magic in a desert. But on a nearer approach you listen in vain for the confused hum of a city, usually borne so far on the evening air; nor do you hear any of those cries of domestic animals which commonly announce the vicinity of the habitations of man, even in the most lonely rural districts. Nothing breaks in upon the stillness of the scene-a stillness like that which freezes the heart of the traveller when he views the beautiful but forsaken ruins of Palmyra, as they rise before him on the sands of Arabia." Ir a spring be fouled on its way down the brae, it will soon brighten up again, for the clear water behind will wash away all impurities; but when the fountain-head has the foul stain in it, there is naething can purify that away,naething else but mixing it with the ocean of eternity, and then rising again to the heavens purified to dew.-HOGG. THE COUNTRY MAID AND THE PIMPERNEL FLOWER. "I'LL go and peep at the Pimpernel, And see if she thinks the clouds look well, For if the sun shine, And 'tis like to be fine, I shall go to the fair, For my sweetheart is there, So, Pimpernel, what bode the clouds and the sky? The Pimpernel flower had folded up Thus her warning said,— O'er the chequered blue of the clouded sky The maid first looked sad, and then looked cross, 66 Say you so, indeed, You mean little weed? For the blue sky is bright; To more credulous people your warnings tell, I'll a 'kerchief wear, White, chequered with pink, And then, let me think, I'll consider my gown, for I'd fain look well," So saying, she stepped o'er the Pimpernel. Now the wise little flower, wrapped safe from harm, Her red robe so bright, Though broidered with purple and starred with gold, The fair maiden then donned her best array, "Oh! would I had minded yon boding flower, Ir is not to be inquired how excellent anything is, but how proper. Those things which are helps to some, may be encumbrances to others. An unmeet good may be as inconvenient as an unaccustomed evil. If we could wish another man's honour, when we feel the weight of his cares we should be glad to be in our own coat.-BISHOP HALL. WHAT is this body? fragile, frail, And as the flashing meteor brief. Unlimited as thought's vast range, By grovelling matter unconfined; The same, while states and empires change. When long this miserable frame Has vanished from life's busy scene, This earth shall roll, that sun shall flame, As though this dust had never been. When suns have waned, and worlds sublime Their final revolutions told, This soul shall triumph over Time, As though such orbs had never rolled. -OSBORN. ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS IN WAX. This is the whole of the process as it respects the IN the Saturday Magazine, Vol. XVI., p. 23, we have primrose, for the root-leaves are generally made of given our readers some account of the method of cambric, and are supplied by the artificial flower making wax figures: we now offer them a few direc-maker; being afterwards only dipped in warm wax to tions for imitating the beautiful products of the flower improve their appearance. Several other flowers are garden, in the same material. The art of forming made with nearly the same facility, such as the snowartificial flowers of wax is a delicate and interesting drop, the violet, the heartsease, the hyacinth, pink, &c. process, well suited to form an amusement for ladies Where the petals are hollow, as in the tulip, crocus, in their leisure hours, and also to aid them in their or ranunculus, the wax is warmed in the hand till it is botanical pursuits; for, by the exact imitation of rare quite pliable, and the central part of it is gently rolled and fragile flowers in wax, they have the representa- with the sealing-wax end of the wire pin. This expands tion of all the parts of the flower before them, in a the wax, and forms it in the hollow of the hand to the much more perfect manner than can be supplied by required shape. Sometimes the petals of a flower are painting, or even by the flower itself in a dried form. wrinkled and rough, as in the gum-cistus, the redThere is little difficulty connected with the operation; poppy, &c., and in order to imitate this appearance the materials are such as ladies will find it pleasant to the wax is well rolled, so as to make it thin and warm, handle, and the expense of the articles is trifling. It and then crumpled up by the hand. If this is cleverly is not to be wondered at, therefore, that this elegant done, the wax petal on being opened will very nearly art is becoming fashionable among persons of taste, and beautifully resemble the peculiar appearance of the who have sufficient leisure to devote to such pursuits. part it is intended to represent. Where the central The following articles should be laid on the table, part of a flower is formed of a little cup, as in the before the operation commences: i.e., a pen-knife, a narcissus, it must be imitated by means of the head pair of scissors, a piece of wire about three inches long, of the wire pin, as before, and the size of the wax repointed at one end, and having a round knob of seal- quired may be ascertained by cutting open and ing-wax at the other, three or four smooth and slender measuring one of these cups. rods of wood, a few sheets of wax of different colours, some wire of different sizes, covered with green tissuepaper for stems, and some very thin tin, or brass, to cut up into patterns. Some green wax should also be at hand in a melted state. A flower must be chosen for the first attempt, whose parts are very simple and easily imitated: the common primrose of the hedges, for instance, whose petals, or flower-leaves, are five in number, having in the centre five stamens, and being supported by a green calyx, or flower-cup. Take the blossom carefully to pieces, without injuring any of its parts: make the petals and calyx perfectly smooth by flattening them between the leaves of a book, or by placing them under a warm flat-iron, and then cut out patterns of the calyx, and of one of the petals the thin tin. These patterns must correspond precisely with the originals, for the least inaccuracy here would spoil the work. The tin patterns must next be laid upon the wax, in the direction of the length of the sheets, and the five petals and the calyx cut from them. Take one of the pieces of wire, being careful that it shall resemble in size the stalk of the primrose; dip it in green melted wax, and when cool, fix on the top of it, by the pressure of the thumb and finger, fine thread-like strips of dark yellow wax, to represent the stamens. These being firmly fixed, fasten on one of the petals in the same manner by pressure; then a second petal, a third, fourth, and fifth, putting them regularly round, and bending each petal outward, so that when completed the flower shall be flat, as it is in nature. The petals being all fixed, put the calyx in the palm of the hand for a short time, that it may become pliant; then form it to its natural shape round one of the little wooden rods, and thus prepare it to be slipped on at the lower end of the stalk of the flower. When it is properly placed, press it tightly against the stem, and the whole will firmly adhere together, and form the complete flower, except that a few touches of darker yellow will be required near the centre of the petals, and these may be given in oil-colours, or in water-colours mixed with ox-gall. Instead of the patterns in tin or brass, described above, some persons use shapes or moulds, formed exactly after the pattern of the petals, &c., so that by merely pressing them on the wax, they get the part cut out much more expeditiously and also more correctly than by using the knife or scissors. Quilled flowers, such as the dahlia and chrysanthemum, must have their petals rolled up with the fingers to the proper shape, after having been previously warmed and distended by the application of the head of the pin, as before. Flowers whose tints are delicately blended with each other can only be imitated by forming the petals of white wax, and then tinting them with powder colours, put on with a short-haired brush. In this way all kinds of striped or variegated flowers may be copied, and some of our most rare and beautiful plants may be accurately represented. It is evident that many of our monopetalous flowers would be much more difficult to copy than such as we have described above, which have several petals. Our campanulas and convolvuluses, from their peculiar shape, seem to offer considerable difficulty, and in fact their representation in wax requires a greater share of patience and attention than most other flowers. The best way of making a convolvulus is to pour some plaster of Paris carefully into a natural flower, and thus get an exact mould on which to form the waxen copy. A piece of wax is then cut out, the size and shape of a convolvulus (which has been cut open on one side and flattened), and formed carefully round the mould, uniting the edges very carefully at a part of the blossom where the join will be hidden by one of the coloured rays which adorn the inside of that lovely flower. In this way bell-shaped flowers may be imitated to admiration. It is very important in copying single flowers to get the number of stamens and pistils correct, and to give them as much the appearance of nature as possible. An error in this respect is immediately detected by those who have given botany a share in their studies, and in their opinion destroys the effect of the most finely formed blossom. If the stamens are very short, they may be made of wax of the proper colour, but if they are long, they must be formed separately on fine wires, moulding the wax around the wire by means of the finger and thumb. The ends may then be dipped in gum-water and immediately after in powder, of the colour required to represent the anthers and stigma. A close observation of the natural flower, whatever it may be, will soon teach the best means of imitation in these respects, and may likewise suggest other ideas, in addition to these which we have thrown out for the benefit of beginners in this pleasing art. ON MIGRATION. "YEA, the store in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and "For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the time of Perhaps of all these habits, none is more remarkable than the periodical migration of birds and other animals from those quarters where there is no longer a supply of food for them, or the approaching season would prove fatal to their existence, and their simultaneous movement towards a more hospitable land. In the case of certain quadrupeds, the desire to migrate appears to seize them suddenly and at irregular intervals. Thus the lemmings of the frozen regions of Lapland and Norway only perform their extraordinary journeys two or three times in the course of twenty years, when an unusual increase in their numbers causes a scarcity of food in their mountain-homes, or when the season threatens to be a rigorous one*. The appearance of these animals at the time of their migration, and the ravages they commit in the country through which they pass, are thus stated in MISS ROBERTS's Sketches of Wild Animals. When emerging in Lulean Lapland from a deep pine forest, rendered pleasant by the tender leaves of the birch, we discovered on a sudden what appeared to us like a dark cloud, slowly descending the flank of a lofty mountain. It was early in the morning, and when the mists were dispersed, and the beams of the risen sun had flung their wonted splendour over the whole of that alpine district, we discovered that this unusual cloud was no other than an incredible multitude of lemmings that were marching towards the plain. Having stationed ourselves on the nearest eminence, we could readily discern the order and regularity of their course. They proceeded in a straight line, and as they passed, the ground appeared as if recently turned up with a plough; they devoured every green thing, and nothing could impede their progress: they crossed ravines, torrents, marshes, and broad lakes, and if a rock or other obstacle opposed their advance, they only swerved from the line, while they were going round it, and immediately returned to their former course. In crossing one of the lakes, some of the neighbouring farmers got into a boat, hoping to prevent them from landing on a field of But no; though their phalanx was separated by the oars, they would not recede; they kept swimming directly on, and soon fell into regular order again. The farmers pushed their boat towards the shore and endeavoured to prevent the enemy from landing. Vain was their opposition. The lemmings soon made good their footing, and on they went, devouring the green blade, and marking their progress with devastation. Some of the men attacked them, and then, driven to desperation, they rose up, uttered a kind of barking sound, flew at the legs of the assailants, and clung so fiercely to the end of their sticks, as to suffer themselves to be swung about before they would quit their hold. Very few of the vast multitude return to their native mountains; some perish in the water, and swarms of enemies, hawks, owls, and weasels, attend their progress. There can scarcely be a more beautiful spectacle than the corn. march of these pigmy armies, and the surprising perseverance with which they pursue their course. The females are often loaded with their young; some carrying them on their backs, and others in their mouths. in vast companies, and to considerable distances, but Other quadrupeds are occasionally found to migrate without much regularity of proceeding, or of period. The herds of bisons, so often described by travellers in North America, as covering the wide extended savannahs of that country for miles, feeding in the open plains, morning and evening, and retiring during the sultry time to shady rivulets and streams of clear water, where they may be seen gliding through thickets of tall canes,- —are also migrant, especially in the more southerly latitudes, where the character of the seasons renders the plains almost barren and destitute of other herbage than aloes, or such esculent plants. The peculiar form of these animals, their dark, flowing, shaggy manes; the low bellowing sound that they utter, and the vast numbers of them generally seen together, must indeed form a most imposing spectacle. The migration of the bison takes place at various periods, and seems to be owing to acciden tal causes. It is well known that fishes migrate. To this cause we are indebted for the abundant supply of salmon in our markets. Arriving from the northern seas, shoals of these fishes force their way up the rivers in autumn, sometimes for hundreds of miles, springing up cataracts, and surmounting other obstacles which come in their way, in a manner truly astonishing, till they reach a place proper for the reception of their spawn. When this is deposited in a hole, prepared by the fish in the sandy or gravelly bed of a river, the parents hasten back again to the warmer waters of the sea, leaving their offspring to be hatched in the ensuing spring. Great quantities of these fishes are taken in England and Scotland, on their first arrival in our rivers more indeed than will supply the London and other markets; so that the overplus is salted, pickled, or dried, and sent to the continent. The cod-fish spawns in the polar seas; but as soon as the more southern seas are open, it repairs to the banks for subsistence, Thus about the month of May, great numbers of cod arrive at Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New England, and find in the shallows of those extensive sand-banks the food peculiarly grateful to them, in the multitude of worms which they are able to obtain there. generally in immense shoals. They multiply beyond Most of the herring species are migratory, and all description in the northern seas, which prove a safe retreat for them from their numerous enemies. Shoals of them come out from these seas; and the immense swarm of living creatures is separated into distinct columns, five or six miles long, and three or four broad. In this order they arrive at the Shetland Isles, in June, from whence they proceed down to the Orkneys, where they divide and surround the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, uniting again in September in the British Channel, from whence they steer south-west, and are next seen in America. In the bays, rivers, and creeks of New England they deposit their spawn, continuing there till the latter end of April. They arrive at Newfoundland in May, and are no more seen in America till the ensuing spring. Some species of mackerel are migratory, making long voyages at certain seasons of the year. The same is the case with the pilchard, anchovy, &c. Migratory locusts form a dreadful scourge to the countries subject to their ravages. When the winter has been too mild to destroy their eggs, they increase to an amazing extent, and the desert of Arabia, from whence they are generally observed to come, can no longer afford food for them, so the they proceed in flights which darken the air to the various regions of Syria, Egypt, and Persia, where they totally consume the vegetation of the territory on which they alight, while their noise in feeding can be heard to a considerable distance, and resembles that of a foraging army. In those countries, how ever, the evil is happily soon repaired; for so vigorous is the sap of the trees, that new foliage appears in a few days, and even the herbaceous plants soon recover their usual appearance. A visit from these insects is much more destructive when it occurs in any part of Europe; the crops of that season being completely destroyed. But this calamity is not so frequent, nor are the swarms so formidable as in former times. Locusts have been occasionally seen in Britain, and much apprehension has been excited on that account; but the coldness and humidity of our climate, form our best defence against such invaders, and when any of them arrive in our land, they are sure to perish, without leaving a young generation behind them. The southern parts of Africa were infested with them to a dreadful extent in 1797, when an area of two thousand square miles is said to have been literally covered with them, and the waters of a wide river were scarcely visible, owing to the multitudes of carcases that floated on its surface. Butterflies have been observed to migrate in immense flights. Mr Lindley witnessed this in Brazil, in 1803 when great numbers of these insects, of white and yellow colours, proceeded in a direction from north-west to south-east for many days successively, and if they met with no obstacle to impede their course, they must have perished in the ocean. More recently, a flight of the species called painted lady has been observed near the Lake of Neufchatel in Switzerland. They were all flying close together in the same direction from south to north, and were so little intimidated when any one approached them, that they turned not to the right or left. Their flight continued for two hours, and the column was about ten or fifteen feet broad. Remarkable instances have been recorded of the migration of aphides, and of their enemies, the lady birds. Mr. White speaks of a shower of aphides which alighted at Selborne on the first of August, 1785, covering every leaf, and the dress of persons walking in the street. He supposed these swarms to have been driven from the hop plantations of Kent and Sussex, by an easterly wind which prevailed at the time. Kirby mentions the arrival of vast numbers of lady-birds at Brighton, and at all the watering places on the Kent and Sussex coast, in 1807, when they were considered by the superstitious as the forerunners of some dreadful evil; these persons being ignorant that the little visitors were merely emigrants from the neighbouring hop-grounds, where they had been rendering an essential service in the destruction of the aphides. The migration of bees and ants is a matter of common observation, and presents many curious and interesting features which will repay the attention of those who steadily watch the proceedings of the several swarms. The habitations of various species of ants may be observed to swarm, with winged insects, in warm summer weather, busily occupied in their preparations for leaving home. At length the male ants rise, as by a general impulse, into the air, and the females accompany them. The swarm rises and falls with a slow movement to the height of about ten feet, the males flying obliquely with a rapid zigzag motion, and the females, though they follow the general movement of the column, appearing suspended in the air like balloons, apparently without any individual motion. Migrations of another kind are performed by these insects; for when a heedless step has injured their little dwelling, and caused them to apprehend danger in the situation they have chosen, they immediately become uneasy and soon set about selecting a new home. They have no sooner made their choice, than the march begins in a very orderly manner, and the high road, which leads in a straight line to the new establishment, is filled with a line of ants, some bearing eggs and some carrying their companions, and the whole colony is actuated with such a spirit of persevering industry, that their new dwelling, or rather city, is speedily completed. A slight injury done to their walls they quickly repair, but they soon take the alarm if this is often repeated, and those who for experiment have frequently destroyed a part of the building have been disappointed, on coming to look at the ant hill, to find that the whole party had decamped. The migration of birds, however, affords the chief subject for our notice, and this we shall describe in a future article. FORGIVE thy foes; nor that alone; In meek forgiveness to its doom; Sheds in abundance rich perfume.-KNOWLES A WISE man hath his foibles, as well as a fool. But the Он! Only He, whose word at first That feeling's breadth and depth would scan ; The instincts of his ruder love.-HANKINSON. THERE are two channels of information, by which the Creator has enabled mankind to arrive at a knowledge of truth, namely, sight and hearing. And each has its appropriate source, from which a knowledge of the things pertaining unto God are derived into the mind. The visible world, or natural kingdom of God, is the province in which the eyes expatiate, in search of materials for contemplation; the invisible world, or spiritual kingdom of God in Jesus Christ, that which cometh by hearing. In other nature; the invisible, through hearing, to the religion of words, the visible world leads the way to the religion of grace. And that this latter method of arriving at divine truth is the surest, appears from this, that even the most stupendous miracles, although they overpowered the reason and established the fact of Divine interposition, did not enlighten the minds of those who were only spectators to and simple exposition of it, from the mouth of an apostle, the understanding of Gospel doctrine; whereas the plain made thousands wise unto salvation.-BISHOP Blomfield. |