B.-Why, dear me, std. a week may be spared well enough for advantages so great as these. I will at once make that assurance. But we are now talking at Bridgewater: suppose I go to London, do I lose my benefits? A.-No; you will find upon the Prospectus that the Society's chief office is in London, but it has Branches in all parts of the country, and members can go from one Branch to another without losing their benefits, or paying anything for re-entry money. B. Has the Christian Mutual Society done much business? A.-It has transacted more business than any other Society of the kind in the same period. In the first four years of its operations it has accepted 10,337 Assurances, viz., 4,126 for Life Assurance, to the amount of £92,631; 1,510 for Endowments, to the amount of £72,730; 4,499 for sickness; and 202 for Annuities; and the amount of stock is already £12,269. B. That is certainly extraordinary progress. Now tell me how I can get insured. A.-Why, write to the Secretary in London, at No. 11, Chatham-place, New Bridge-street, Blackfriars, and ask him for the necessary documents, for which you will have nothing to pay; or apply to the Secretary of the nearest Branch. Do it at once, and may you and your family derive as much comfort from your assurance as I have from mine. The Fragment Basket. HOW TO DIE IN FAITH. 1. Be careful to get faith beforehand; for death is a time to use faith, not to get it. They were foolish virgins who had their oil to buy when the bridegroom was close at hand. 2. Study to live every day in the exercise of faith, and be still improving and making use of Christ in all his offices, and for all those ends and uses which God hath given him to believers. 3. Frequently clear up your evidences for heaven, and beware of letting sin blot them to you. 4. Record and lay up the experience of God's kind dealings with you, and be often reflecting upon them, that you may have them ready at hand in the hour of death. 5. Meditate much on those promises which have been sweet and comfortable to you in the time of trial, and beg that the Lord may bring them to your remembrance when you come to die.-Willison. AIR FROM HEAVEN. An Irish schoolmaster, who, whilst poor himself, had given gratuitous instruction to certain poor children, when increased in worldly goods, began to complain of the service, and said to his wife he could not afford to give it any longer for nothing, who replied, "O James, don't; a poor scholar never came into the house that I didn't feel as if he brought fresh air from heaven with him. I never miss the bit I give them; my heart warms to the soft, homely sound of their bare feet on the floor, and the door almost opens of itself to let them in." SOW AS YOU WOULD REAP. If you should see a man digging in a snowdrift, with the expectation of finding valuable ore, or planting seeds on the rolling billows, you would say at once that he was beside himself. But in what respect does this man differ from you, while you sow the seeds of idleness and dissipation in your youth, and expect the fruits of age will be a good constitution, elevated affections, and holy principles ? A LAY FOR THE TIMES. ROм. xiii. 11-13. Poetry. AWAKE! my soul, awake, and rise, Awake! my soul, awake, come forth; Awake! my soul, awake, and act; Awake! my soul, awake and watch, Awake! my soul, awake, rejoice; Awake! lost soul, awake, and flee The Children's Gallery. JAMES WHITTON. THE FARMER AND SOLDIER. IT was a cold evening in winter. A "John, I mean to be a soldier." "Why so, James ?" "Because I have been reading the life of Alexander of Macedon, and also a good deal about Napoleon Bonaparte. I think they were the greatest men that ever lived. There is nothing in this world like the glory of the warrior." "I cannot think it is glorious to do so much harm. To destroy great multitudes of innocent men, and to make such mourning in families, and so much poverty and misery in the world, seems to me more cruel than glorious.” "Oh, but then to be so honoured, and to have so many soldiers under your command, and the fame of such mighty victories; what glory can there be to compare with this?" "James, our good minister told us, in his sermon last Sunday, that the end of life was the test of its greatness. Now, if I recollect right, Alexanderhe that you call the Great-got intoxicated, and died like a madman.” "John, your ideas are very limited. You certainly are not capable of admiring heroes. You are just fit for a farmer. I dare say that to break a pair of steers is the height of your ambition, and to spend your days in ploughing, and hoeing, and reaping, is all the glory you would desire." The voice of their father was now heard calling, "Boys, go to bed." And so ended their conversation for that night. Thirty years passed away, and the same season again returned. From the same window a bright lamp gleamed, and on the same hearth was a cheerfal fire. The building wore an unaltered appearance, but its inmates were changed. The parents who had then retired to their sleeping apartments had now gone down to the deeper rest of the grave. They were pious, and their virtues were held in sweet remembrance among the peaceful inhabitants of their native village. In the chairs which they used to occupy sat their eldest son and his wife. A babe lay in the cradle near them, and two other little ones were breathing quietly from their trundle-bed, in the profound slumber of childhood. A blast with snow beat against the casement. "I always think," said John, "a great deal about poor James at this season of the year, and especially on stormy nights. But it is now so long since we have heard from him, and his way of life has exposed him to so many dangers, that I fear there is strong reason to believe him dead." "What a pity," replied his wife, "that he would be a soldier!" A knock was heard at the door. They opened it, and a man leaning upon crutches entered wearily. His garments were thin and tattered, and his countenance haggard. They reached him a chair, and he sank into it. He gazed on each of their faces, then on the sleeping children, and then at every article of furniture, as on some recollected friend. At length, stretching out his withered arms, he said, in a voice scarcely audible, "Brother!" That tone opened the remembrances of many years. They welcomed the returning wanderer, and mingled their tears with his. "Brother! sister! I have come home to you to die." They perceived that he was too much exhausted to converse, and hastened to prepare him fitting nourishment, and to make him comfortable for the night. The next morning he was unable to rise. They sat by his bed-side, and soothed his sad heart with kindness, and told him the history of all that had befallen them in their quiet abode. I have been a prisoner in the enemy's hands, and have sometimes lain almost perishing with hunger, or parching with the thirst of fever. Then the image of my home and of my ingratitude would be with me, both when I lay down and when I rose up. Sometimes I would fancy that I saw my mother bending tenderly over me, as she used to do when I had only a headache, and my father with the Bible in his hand, out of which he used to read to us before the evening prayer. when I lifted my hands to say, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son,' I awoke, and it was all a dream. But the remembrance of my disobedience would be there, gnawing at my bosom; and how bitterly have I wept to think that the child of so many peaceful precepts and prayers had become a man of blood." But His brother assured him of the entire forgiveness of his parents, and that daily before the family altar, as well as in their private recesses of devotion, their supplications were poured out for the loved, the absent, the erring son. "Ah! those prayers followed me. But for them I should have been a reprobate. They plucked me as a brand from the burning, when I seemed forsaken both of God and man." Gradually, as strength permitted, he told them his painful history. He had been in battles by sea and land. He had heard the deep ocean echo with the thunders of war, and seen the earth drink in the strange red shower from mangled and palpitating bosoms. He had stood in the martial lists of Europe, and jeopardied his life for a foreign power, and he had pursued in his own land the hunted Indian flying at midnight from the flames of his own hut. He had gone with the bravest where dangers thickened, and had sought in every place for the glory of war, but had found only misery. "Among all my troubles," said he, and I have had many, none have so bowed my spirit down, as my sin in "That glory which so dazzled my leaving home without the knowledge boyish fancy, and which I supposed of my parents. I know it was against was always the reward of the brave, their will that I should become a continually eluded me. It is only the soldier, and many were the warnings successful leader of an army that is they gave me not to choose that pro- hailed as a hero, while the poor soldiers fession. I have felt the pain of wounds, by whose sufferings his victories are but nothing like this sting of conscience. I won, endure the hardship, that they may reap the fame. Yet how light is all the boasted glory that was ever achieved by the greatest commander, compared with the good that he forfeits, and the sorrow that he inflicts in order to obtain it! 'Sometimes, when ready for a battle, just before we rushed into it, I have felt an inexpressible reluctance and horror at the thought of butchering my fellow-creatures. But in the heat of contest all such feelings vanished, and the madness and desperation of a demon possessed me. I cared neither for heaven nor hell. You who dwell in the midst of the influences of mercy, who shrink to give pain even to an animal, can scarcely believe what hardness of heart comes with the life of a soldier. Deeds of cruelty are always before him, and he heeds neither the agony of the starving infant nor the groans of its dying mother. Of my own varieties of pain it will be of no use to speak. When I have lain on the field among the feet of trampling horses, when my wounds stiffened in the chilly night wind, and no man cared for my soul, I have thought it was no more than just, since my own hand had dealt the same violence to others. But the greatest evil of a soldier's life is not the suffering to which he is exposed, but the sin with which he is made familiar. Oaths, execrations, contempt of all sacred things everywhere surround him. The sweet and holy influences of the Sabbath, the peaceful dispositions prayed for at his mother's knee, the blessed precepts of the Gospel graven upon his young heart, are swept away. Yet amid this hardened career, though I exerted myself to appear gay and bold, my heart constantly misgave me. God grant that it may be purified by the Holy Spirit, and have part in the atonement of a Redeemer, before I am summoned to the dread bar of judgment!" His friends continued to hope that by medical skill and careful nursing, his health might be restored. But he said, "It can never be. Even now death is standing at my right hand. When I entered this valley, and my swollen limbs failed, I prayed to my God, 'Oh, hold thou me up but a little longer, that I may reach the home where I was born, confess my guilt, and, pardoned through the blood of Jesus, die there, and be buried by the side of my father and my mother, and I will ask no more."" He felt that there was much to be changed in his soul ere it could be fitted for the holy enjoyments of a realm of purity and peace. He therefore prayed and wept, and studied the Scriptures, and conversed with Christians, and laboured to apprehend clearly the magnitude of his sins and the way of salvation. He declined rapidly. Death came on with hasty strides. Laying his cold hand upon the head of the eldest little boy, he said, "Dear child, do not be a soldier. Sister! brother! you have been as angels of mercy to me. The blessing of the God of peace abide with you, and upon your house!" The venerable minister, who had instructed his childhood, and laid his parents in their grave, had continually visited him, and administered spiritual instruction and consolation in his affliction. Now he stood by his side, as he was about to go down into the valley of the shadow of death. The white-haired man of God lifted up his fervent prayer for the departing soul. He commended it to the boundless riches of Divine grace, and the infinite compassion of a Redeemer. He ceased, and the eyes of the dying were closed. There was no more gasping or heaving of the breast. They thought that the breath had forsaken the clay, and spoke of him as having passed where there is no more sin, neither sorrow nor crying. But there was a faint sigh. The pale lips slowly moved, and bowing down over his pillow, they caught the whisper of his last words on earth: "Jesus! thou whose last gift was peace, take a sinner unto thee!" A PRAYER FOR A LITTLE SUNDAY- SAVIOUR! assist a feeble child, The Cabinet. THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. THE miracles of Christ were facts; they were numerous and various; they bore the impress not only of Almighty power, but of boundless benevolence. This last characteristic deserves to be particularly noted. Inspect them all, from the first which he wrought at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, consecrated to social joy, to the last, by which he ascended to heaven; and you will perceive that they are striking manifestations of his love and mercy, as well as his power. They were the applications of human want to which he responded; and the cries of human misery and helplessness which reached his ear. It was the courtier's appeal for a suffering servant; it was the father's appeal for a dying daughter; it was the cry of the prostrate lunatic or the foaming demoniac, to which he listened. It was the orphan sisters weeping at the grave of their only brother, and the lonely widow broken-hearted for the death of her only son, with whom he sympathized. He did not seek the rich, nor overlook the poor. What he did was without fee or reward. He asked only that these beneficiaries of his benevolent power should receive the greater gift of the Gospel of his grace. See that wretched demoniac, naked and bleeding, "howling with agony as a wanderer among the tombs." "Evil spirit, I command thee to come out of him," says Jesus; and the man is "sitting at his feet, clothed, and in his right mind." Go to the lake of Genessaret, and see that loathsome and frightful form, shut out from the society of men, because “his flesh is putrefied, and inch by inch is dropping from his bones." He had laid himself down to die; but, roused by the tumult of the multitude, and told that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, he uttered the cry, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean!" Every eye was fixed on Christ, and every ear heard the prompt reply, "I will; be thou clean!" Look now at that dense crowd of human beings, pressing on every side, tossed as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind. It is a "perfect sea of faces, and rocked as if it stood upon the sea;" but it is composed of the helpless and those who help them. They are parents who were once the pride and glory of their children, and children who were once the pride and glory of their parents; the rich and the poor, the maimed, the halt, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the palsied, the leprous, and the |