"You young folks like to dress off everything with garlands, while such a plain old body as I only thinks of the substantials."

MR. AIKIN'S OPINION OF RICHES.

"I must say, I think there is a useless and senseless outcry against rich men. It comes from the ignorant, unobserving, and unreflecting. We must remember that in our country there are no fixed classes: the poor family of this generation is the rich family of the next; and more than that, the poor of to-day are the rich of to-morrow, and the rich of to-day the poor of to-morrow. The prizes are open to all, and they fall without favor. Our rich people, too, are, many of them, among the very best persons in society. I know some such: there is Mr. Beckwith; he has ten talents, and a faithful steward is he; he and his whole family are an honor and blessing to their country; doing, in every way, all the good they can. Such a rich man as Morris Finley I despise, or rather pity, as much as you or any man can; but pray do not let us envy him his riches; they are something quite independent of himself; and can a man be really poorer than he is-a poor mind, a poor heart?-that is the poverty to shun. As to rich men being at their ease, Miner, every acquisition brings a new want-a new responsibility."

"But, Aikin, Aikin; now, candidly, would you not be willing to take their wants and responsibilities with their purses?"

"I cannot say, Miner; money is the representative of power -the means of extended usefulness; and we all have dreams of the wonderful good we should do, if we had these means in our hands. But this I do know; that, till we are conscious of employing, and employing well, the means we have, we ought not to crave more. But let us look at the matter in the right point of view. We are all children of one family; all are to live here a few years; some in one station, and some in another. We are all of us, from the highest to the lowest, laborers in our Father's field; and as we sow, so shall we reap. If we labor rightly, those words of truth and immense import will sound in our ears like a promise, and not like a threat. shall work at our posts like faithful children, not like tasked slaves; and shall be sure of the riches that perish not in the using. As to all other riches, it is not worth our while to covet or envy them; except in some rare cases, we have all, in this country, gifts and means enough."

We

UNCLE PHIL AND HIS INVALID DAUGHTER.

It was a lovely morning in June when Uncle Phil set forth for New York with his invalid daughter. Ineffable happiness shone through his honest face, and there was a slight flush of hope and expectation on Charlotte's usually pale and tranquil countenance as she half rebuked Susan's last sanguine expression.

"You will come home as well as I am, I know you will, Lottie !"

"Not well-oh, no, Susy, but better, I expect-I mean, I hope."

"Better, then, if you are, that is to say, a great deal better— I shall be satisfied, sha'n't you, Harry?"

"I shall be satisfied that it was best for her to go, if she is any better."

"I trust we shall all be satisfied with God's will, whatever it may be," said Charlotte, turning her eye full of gratitude upon Harry. Harry arranged her cushions as nobody else could to support her weak back: Susan disposed her cloak so that Charlotte could draw it around her if the air proved too fresh; and then, taking her willow basket in her hand, the last words were spoken, and they set forth. Uncle Phil was in the happiest of his happy humors. He commended the wagon— "it was just like sitting at home in a rocking-chair-it is kind o' lucky that you are lame, Lottie, or may be Mrs. Sibley would not have offered to loan us her wagon. I was dreadful fraid we should have to go down the North River. I tell you, Lottie, when I crossed over it once, I was a’most scared to death—the water went swash, swash-there was nothing but a plank between me and eternity; and I thought in my heart I should have gone down, and nobody would ever have heard of me again. I wonder folks can be so foolish as to go on water when they can travel on solid land-but I suppose some do !"

"It is pleasanter," said Charlotte, "to travel at this season where you can see the beautiful fruits of the earth, as we do now, on all sides of us." Unele Phil replied, and talked on without disturbing his daughter's quiet and meditation. They travelled slowly, but he was never impatient, and she never wearied, for she was an observer and lover of nature. The earth was clothed with its richest green-was all green, but of infinitely varied tints. The young corn was shooting forth

the winter wheat already waved over many a fertile bill-sidethe gardens were newly made, and clean, and full of promiseflowers, in this month of their abundance, perfumed the woods, and decked the gardens and court-yards; and where nothing else grew, there were lilacs and peonies in plenty. The young lambs were frolicking in the fields-the chickens peeping about the barn-yards; and birds, thousands of them, singing at their work.

Our travellers were descending a mountain where their view extended over an immense tract of country, for the most part richly cultivated.

"I declare," exclaimed Uncle Phil, "how much land there is in the world, and I don't own a foot on't, only our little half-acre lot it don't seem hardly right." Uncle Phil was no agrarian, and he immediately added: "But, after all, I guess I am better off without it-it would be a dreadful care."

"Contentment with godliness is great gain," said Charlotte. "You've hit the nail on the head, Lottie; I don't know who should be contented if I ain't-I always have enough, and everybody is friendly to me-and you and Susan are worth a mint of money to me. For all what I said about the land, I really think I have got my full share."

"We can all have our share in the beauties of God's earth without owning, as you say, a foot of it," rejoined Charlotte. "We must feel it is our Father's. I am sure the richest man in the world cannot take more pleasure in looking at a beautiful prospect than I do-or in breathing this sweet, sweet air. It seems to me, father, as if everything I look upon was ready to burst forth in a hymn of praise--and there is enough in my heart to make verses of if I only knew how."

"That's the mystery, Lottie, how they do it-I can make one line, but I can never get a fellow to it."

"Well, father, as Susy would say, it's a comfort to have the feeling, though you can't express it."

Charlotte was right. It is a great comfort and happiness to have the feeling, and happy would it be if those who live in the country were more sensible to the beauties of nature; if they could see something in the glorious forest besides "good wood and timber lots"-something in the green valley besides a "warm soil"-something in a water-fall besides a "mill-privilege." There is a susceptibility in every human heart to the ever-present and abounding beauties of nature; and whose fault is it that this taste is not awakened and directed? If the poet and the painter cannot bring down their arts to the

level of the poor, are there none to be God's interpreters to them to teach them to read the great book of nature?

The laboring classes ought not to lose the pleasures that, in the country, are before them from dawn to twilight-pleasures that might counterbalance, and often do, the profits of the merchant, pent in his city counting-house, and all the honors the lawyer earns between the court-rooms and his office. We only wish that more was made of the privilege of country life; that the farmer's wife would steal some moments from her cares to point out to her children the beauties of nature, whether amid the hills and valleys of our inland country, or on the sublime shores of the ocean. Over the city, too, hangs the vault of heaven-"thick inlaid” with the witnesses of God's power and goodness-his altars are everywhere.

The rich man who "lives at home at ease," and goes irritated and fretting through the country because he misses at the taverns the luxuries of his own house--who finds the tea bad and coffee worse the food ill cooked and table ill served—no mattresses, no silver forks-who is obliged to endure the vulgarity of a common parlor-and, in spite of the inward chafing, give a civil answer to whatever questions may be put to him, cannot conceive of the luxuries our travellers enjoyed at the simplest inn.

Uncle Phil found out the little histories of all the wayfarers he met, and frankly told his own. Charlotte's pale sweet face attracted general sympathy. Country people have time for little by-the-way kindnesses; and the landlady, and her daughters, and her domestics, inquired into Charlotte's malady, suggested remedies, and described similar cases.

ALBERT BARNES.

This distinguished scholar and theologian was born at Rome, New York, December 1, 1798. He worked with his father in his tannery until he was seventeen years old, when he concluded to prepare for the profession of the law, and in 1×17 he entered Fairfield Academy, Herkimer County, New York, where he continued nearly three years, teaching a district school, in the winter, as a means of support. In 1819, he entered the senior cli in Hamilton College and graduted

in July, 1820. At college, he was the subject of a "revival of religion," and became a decided Christian. Giving up, therefore, all idea of the law, and feeling it his duty to study theology, he went to Princeton, New Jersey, and entered the Theological Seminary. He continued there four years, and was licensed to preach, April 23, 1823, by the Presbytery of New Brunswick. After preaching at various places, he received a call from the First Presbyterian Church at Morristown, New Jersey, and was ordained there, on the 25th of February, 1825. Here his ministry was highly prosperous, and his people became devotedly attached to him. In 1830, he received a call from the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, which he accepted, and was installed on the 25th of June, of that year.'

Before leaving Morristown, Mr. Barnes had commenced a series of commentaries on the New Testament, designed not for theologians, but for Sunday school teachers and family reading. The volume upon Matthew was published in 1832, and had immediately a most extensive sale. This was followed by volume after volume, until he had published editions, with like commentaries, of every book of the New Testament. These works are eminently practical, and doubtless the best of the kind in our language. The high estimation in which they are held by the religious world is clearly evinced by the numerous editions which have been published in England as well as in this country.

In 1835, Rev. Dr. Junkin preferred against Mr. Barnes, before his Presbytery, charges of heresy, based on his commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans. The Presbytery sustained Mr. Barnes, and Dr. Junkin appealed to the Synod of Pennsylvania, soon to meet at York. The Synod sustained the appeal, and suspended Mr. Barnes from the ministry "until he should give evidence of repentance!" Mr. Barnes, in his turn, appealed to the General Assembly, that met at Pittsburgh, in May, 1836, and the Assembly restored him to his clerical functions, by a large majority.2

Before leaving Morristown, he had preached a very able sermon, entitled "The Way of Salvation," which, on his being settled in Philadelphia, was attacked by the "Philadelphian," then edited by Rev. William P. Ingalls. The learned and venerable Dr. James Wilson replied to this attack, fully and ably sustaining all the theological views of the sermon.

* Some time after Mr. Barnes' suspension, and when he was accustomed to sit meekly in his own pulpit and listen to others, the Rev. George Duffield, D. D. (now of Detroit), the author of the able and profound work on "Regeneration," was invited to preach for him. Always happy in the selection of his texts upon special occasions, he was, in this instance, pre-eminently so; for, after reading it, there seemed hardly any need of the sermon, it being so pregnant with meaning itself. Isaiah lxvi. 5: Hear the word of