less substantial than the Rock of Ages. To be imprudent for time is bad enough, but immeasurably worse to be imprudent for eternity. It is very possible, having said so much on the subject of prudence and imprudence, that some of my readers will set me down as a very prudent old gentleman. Alas! alas! a purse of very little value may contain a great deal of gold, and he who can repeat all the proverbs of Solomon may not be remarkable for reducing them to practice. I am not over solicitous that you should trouble yourselves to ascertain the exact extent of my prudence; better leave it to me, and then you will be the more at liberty to estimate the amount of your own. There is nothing like every one attending to his own affairs; let us see, then, if we cannot, seeking the assistance of holy influences, add to our prudence in all things. I am no great advocate for wearing ornaments; but it will hurt neither you nor me to wear a necklace composed of the following precious pearls, prudence, faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity. FRAGMENTS BY A MEDICAL TRAVELLER. THE GODDESS OF REASON. It was towards the close of the day, in the summer of the year 18—, which I passed at Naples, that I was requested by a British merchant residing in that city, to visit the master of a vessel consigned to him, who had been attacked with indisposition. The day was sultry hot, accompanied by the sirocco which passes over from the burning sands of África, bearing with it numberless saline and acrid particles, which occasioned the most oppressive and uneasy sensation; towards its close, however, a breeze had sprung up from the land, which rendered the air somewhat cooler, though it occasioned but little agitation of the clear, blue, and tideless waters of the bay. I had alighted at the inn, which was a common pot-house, in the outskirts of the city, and was just leaving it, after having prescribed for my patient, and ascertained that his ailment was trifling, when I was informed by the master of the house, that a poor woman, who was without money or friends, and whom he believed to be of English extraction, was dying in a loft over the stable. I instantly requested to be led to her, and with great difficulty ascended into the old and ruinous loft where she lay. I found her lying upon some straw in the corner; the humanity of one of the ostlers had induced him to throw an old horse-cloth over her, but in her struggles it had become displaced, and I perceived that she was habited in a rich but faded and disfigured dress of purple velvet. Her legs were enormously swollen, and the sandals of her shoes were literally buried in the flesh; the blackness of mortification, from impeded circulation, being actually visible through the thin silk stockings which covered them. She had been stricken with a coup-desoleil, which is somewhat similar in its effects to apoplexy; the left angle of the mouth was drawn down for nearly an inch, and two artificial teeth hung suspended by a wire, and were driven to a level with the lips by each deep and painful expiration of air. The eyebrows were also artificial, and one of them had been removed by the hot perspiration which rolled from her brow, and now lay directly across instead of above the eye; the cheeks, too, were painted, and the perspiration, in passing down, had formed channels through the paint, which gave her the appearance of a painted Indian savage. But I will not pursue this disgusting and humiliating picture any farther; suffice it to say, that a sight so revolting to humanity never before met my eyes. A moment's examination satisfied me that this unhappy being was in a moribund state, and past all the resources of my art; my principal duty, therefore, was to smooth her painful passage from this world. Her condition would not admit of her being removed to a proper apartment, and it was in vain that I sought to learn from those around her anything of her connexions. She had been found by the humane ostler, to whom I have already alluded, lying upon a heap of dirt in the stable-yard, evidently in a dying state, and was removed by him to the loft, that she might end her days a little more decently. She herself lay apparently unconscious of everything, though now and then she was shaken with a slight convulsion, during which she gave utterance (but with difficulty, in consequence of the distortion of her mouth,) to the wildest and most delirious expressions. Once, while I was holding her head, I thought she seemed to comprehend my question, when I asked her name and if she had any friends; for her | minating their doctrines. It was not eye appeared for an instant to brighten, surprising, under these circumstances, and her face, which was already stamped that the unformed and romantic mind of with the signet of death, showed a gleam a girl of seventeen should become vitiated, of consciouness. She spoke in French, and should imbibe the poison so liberally and said, in broken and hollow accents, that she would be an apt instrument for "I-I am the goddess of reason; let his designs, and an acceptable victim to every lover of liberty worship me.' In his lust: he therefore applied himself, a moment after this her head fell back, with all the sophistry which he possessed, and she was a corpse. to wean her affections from a young nobleman to whom she was betrothed in England, and to destroy the last remnants of her virtuous principles; the contest was unequal-all around her spoke the language of the arch-deceiver. "O Liberty! what crimes are committed in thy name!" How often has thine altar been defiled by wild and unbridled licence, which has assumed thy form and attributes! Behold another hapless victim to its excesses! Yes, the unhappy being, whose death I have described, was drawn into the vortex, and swept from the earth, by that whirlwind of destruction which commenced in the French revolution-which burst upon the world to mar the majesty of nature, and render it a stage of strife, and the seat of human misery. At the close of the scene I have described above, I left the house, and proceeded to the residence of Mr. G――, the worthy viceconsul at Naples, with a view to procure Christian burial for the unhappy deceased; and it was from him and others that I collected the following incidents of her life:: Lady the daughter of a noble ducal house, and closely connected with the venerable head of the church and the then first commoner of England, left her country under the care of a maiden aunt, for the purpose of residing a short time in Paris. This was about the beginning of the year 1789, and just at the period when the subtle successors of Voltaire were engaged in spreading their revolutionary doctrines. It is well known that these men availed themselves largely of female influence, and hence we find, from the baroness de Stael downwards, that there were few women who failed to figure in the various cabals of the day. The aunt of lady --, in particular, was a woman of strong passions and weak principles, and it was no wonder, therefore, that she quickly became an advocate for liberty, equality, the rights of man, universal benevolence, and the majesty of the people. Her house was the principal rendezvous for the revolutionary leaders, where Condorcet, Mirabeau, Abbé Siéyes, and still later, the two Robespierres, and Hebert, were constantly engaged in disse Reason, as it was called, and sophistry, triumphed over religion and virtue; and when, a short time afterwards, her aunt died from the effects of a brain fever, brought on by the indulgence of her passions, lady resisted the importunities of her friends to return to England, and ultimately sought a shelter from them in the arms of the arch-fiend. Will it be credited?—the noble, accomplished, beautiful lady L―― actually united herself to Maximilian Robespierre by the republican ceremony then in vogue of dancing unclad around the tree of liberty. The sequel of this unfortunate woman's story is soon told: she continued with Robespierre during the early part of his career, and even after he had for some time exercised supreme power, joining in all the wild excesses which marked this terrible period of human history. She identified herself with a party of women who were known by the name of Robespierre's Devotees, most of whom had been united to him by the same impious and indecent ceremony she herself had submitted to, and whom he had tutored to attend upon him at the assembly and the Jacobin clubs for the purpose of applauding the different sentiments to which he gave utterance-a scheme to which he owed much of his early popularity, as the galleries readily followed the impulse which was given to them. Repeatedly, also, was she seen with the other devotees, dancing farandoles round the permament guillotine, in mockery of the myriads of victims sacrificed by the monsters who made liberty and reason the watchwords for their crimes, and whose single enormities, such as chaining an affectionate wife to the guillotine where her husband was executed, because she presumed to implore pardon for him, would alone have handed them down to the execrations of posterity. It was lady, also, who personated, almost in a state of nudity, the Goddess of Reason at the impious fete given by Robespierre, for the worship of "Reason," and hence the expressions which I have stated as falling from her lips. Ultimately, this unhappy woman eloped from Paris with an Italian count, to whom she was married at Naples in the Roman Catholic ritual, and who deserted her as soon as he had secured the little property which remained to her. Her noble relatives in England had, as may be supposed, totally given her up; and she continued, during the rest of her life, to indulge in every species of excess, until it closed in the scene which I have described. shall leave my readers to draw the moral from what I have related. A beautiful, nobly connected, and accomplished girl, changed by circumstances into the fearful character I have described, and dying, almost on a dunghill, in a foreign land, and with appearances too frightful to contemplate. Again I say, I "O Liberty! what crimes have been committed in thy name!" Christian Guardian. ON USEFULNESS. THREE ends of thy being God hath placed before thee, to improve thyself, to glorify him, and to be useful to thy fellow-men. Neglecting the first, thou art a barren cumberer of the ground; the second, a faithless servant; and the third, a misanthrope to thy species. Our theme is usefulness, and what is thy response? Is the end of thy existence in reference to others answered? Art thou a sound connecting link in the chain of our humanity? A working bee in the hive of real industry? Dost thou add to the number and amount of the enjoyments of those around thee? Take a wide or a minute survey of creation, and thou shalt find in the material universe no useless thing, nor redundant atom-no, not one unnecessary grain of sand. All trees, and herbs, and plants, and flowers, have their varied spheres and degrees of utility. Every drop that mingleth in the waters of the vasty deep, and every ray that proceedeth from the sun, have their appropriate and destined end to fill-and answer well the purposes of Him who formed them. All living things that move in seas, or air, or earth, fill their own spheres of life and action usefully. But man, the child of reason and intelligence, perverted by the fall, runs into devious ways of sin and inutility. How many are the living curses of their dwellings! How many plague-spots on the body politic! How many, as the dire miasma spreading fumes of pestilential misery round! How many sink below the brüte, and close allied to demons! How many are as noxious weeds, and wandering stars, and empty clouds! How many who run greedily to do the tempter's bidding! How many fell devourers of the good of others, and who madly quench their own bright hopes of future good! How many, the progeny of indolence and satiated vice, and fleshly pampering! How many only gorging in their iniquities, and fattening as the ox for final slaughter! O man, be useful; diffuse some rays of knowledge, blot out some ignorance, efface some crime, dispel some wretchedness. Let others be the better for thy being, scatter abroad the seeds of truth and goodness, increase the sum of human joy and bliss. The young are rising round thee! oh, be their faithful monitor and friend, and train them up as blessings to the world, and pillars in the Saviour's rising church. The poor live near thee; devise some liberal things for them, befriend in time of need; a portion of thy plenty give, and with it words of sympathy and consolation. The sick are moaning on their beds of pain and anguish; go, solace them, weep in their tears, and rear the cross of Christ, and gently lead them to its saving shelter. The oppressed groan, and men in bondage and debasement wear their chains. Plead for the captive, assert humanity's own birthright, and cease not till the slave bursts forth a freeman in thy pre sence. The inferior animals, so called, are galled and goaded by man's cruelty: the noble horse, the toiling ass, the faithful dog, appeal to thee for mercy; open thy mouth for the dumb, and plead with earnestness their cause. Be useful, and thus be blest and happy. Be useful, and honour thine own nature. 56 THE SEXES-THERE MAY BE DANGER-PASSION-HAPPINESS. medy, that no one has escaped the taint, it is time for me to consider what is the true state of my spiritual constitution. The delirium of a fever can gift me with preternatural strength, and people my imagination with many a strange and untoward vision. The victim of consumption draws many an omen of returning health from the increased lustre of the eye and the fresh colour of the cheek, yet these are the very types of disease. May not something of the same process take place with respect to the maladies of our spiritual constitution?-may we not conclude, that it is likely to take place when we are told of the deceitfulness of our own hearts, and the insidiousness of sin? MAN might be initiated in the varieties and mysteries of needle-work, taught to have patience with the feebleness and waywardness of infancy, and to steal with noiseless step around the chamber of the sick; and the woman might be instructed to contend for the palm of science, to pour forth eloquence in senates, or to "wade through fields of slaughter-Rev. J. Brown, to a throne." Yet revoltings of the soul would attend this violence to nature, this abuse of physical and intellectual energy ; while the beauty of social order would be defaced, and the fountain of earth's felicity broken up. We arrive, then, at the conclusion, that the sexes are intended for different spheres, and constructed in conformity to their respective distinctions, by Him who bids the oak brave the fury of the tempest, and the Alpine flower to lean its cheek on the bosom of eternal snows. But disparity does not imply inferiority. The high places of the earth, with all their pomp and glory, are indeed accessible only to the march of ambition, or to the grasp of power; yet those who pass with faithful and unapplauded zeal through their humble round of duty, are not unnoticed by the "great Taskmaster's eye;" and their endowments, though accounted poverty among men, may prove durable riches in the kingdom of heaven. Mrs. Sigourney. ` THERE MAY BE DANGER. WE may be without apprehension, and really see no danger, but does this prove that none exists? Many a man has slept in peace with the deadly snake beneath his pillow-his tranquillity only depended on his unconsciousness-the danger was imminent and real. May we not, then, thus lull ourselves into a false security? And, methinks, when I hear of God giving his Son to die for the healing of the people, some fearful disease must be abroad in the world; when the Author of my being tells me, too, at the very moment he offers me the re BLINDNESS OF PASSION. FISH, which forms their chief nourishment, and which the bears procure for themselves in the river, was, some years ago, excessively scarce in Kamtschatka. A great famine consequently existed among them; and, instead of retiring to their dens, they wandered about the whole winter, even in the streets of the towns of St. Peter and St. Paul. One of them, finding the outer gate of a house open, entered, and the gate accidentally closed after him. The woman of the house had just placed a large tea-machine, full of boiling water, in the court; the bear smelt to it, and burned his nose: provoked at the pain, he vented all his fury upon the kettle, folded his fore-paws round it, pressed it with his whole strength against his breast to crush it, and burned himself, of course, still more and more. The horrible growl which rage and pain forced from him, brought all the inhabitants of the house and neighbourhood to the spot, and poor bruin was despatched by shots from the window. He has, however, immortalized his memory, and become a proverb amongst the town's-people; for when any one injures himself by his own violence, they call him "The bear with the tea-kettle."-Kotzebue. HAPPINESS. HAPPINESS is nothing but that inward sweet delight that will arise from the harmonious agreement between our will and God's will.-Cudworth. WINDSOR CASTLE. Windsor Castle. As "the silv'ry flowing Thames" passes Windsor, it presents to the eye a scene of great interest. "Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain, And where, though all things differ, all agree!" Windsor Castle is the principal country seat of the British sovereigns, and one of the most magnificent royal residences in Europe. Soon after the Conquest, William 1. founded this edifice, erected a fortified mansion and palace for a hunting-seat, and surrounded it with parks, where the game was preserved under the severest laws. Henry 1. considerably enlarged and improved the edifice, constructed several additional buildings, and, for greater security, surrounded the whole with a strong wall. During his contests with the barons, John made this his residence, and was besieged in it in the year 1216, but unsuccessfully. Edward III. was born here, and to his fondness for the place of his birth its subsequent magnitude and grandeur are to be ascribed. Edward iv. constructed the chapel of St. George, between the years 1474 and 1516, chiefly under the direction of Beauchamp, bishop of Salisbury; while Henry VII. vaulted the roof of the choir, and erected the spacious fabric adjoining the royal apartments in the Charles I. made several upper ward. improvements, and erected a gate leading to the park. Charles II. repaired and embellished the whole structure, decorated the apartments with numerous paintings, established a magazine of arms, and continued the terrace round the east and south sides of the upper courts. George III. embellished the palace, and George iv. rebuilt a large portion of it, besides greatly improving the whole structure, under the supervision of sir Jeffrey Wyatville. The castle is of an oblong figure, divided into an upper, a middle, and lower ward, the entire area comprised within its outer ward being about twelve acres. The east ward consists of a quadrangle, containing, on the north, the state apartments, which are shown to the public; on the south are those appropriated to the use of visitors; and on the east are the private apartments of the queen. The lower ward comprises the houses of the military knights, and the Garter, Bell, and Salisbury towers. north side of the castle, outside the state apartments and middle ward, is the north terrace, originally constructed by queen Elizabeth, and afterwards enlarged and improved by Charles II. On the This noble walk, resting partly on precipitous ledges of rock, and partly on masonry, rises about seventy feet above the meadows F |