in all my life, knew such a troublesome child to christen !"

MISSIONS-Religious.- An attempt to produce, in distant and unenlightened nations, an uniformity of opinion on subjects upon which the missionaries themselves are at fierce and utter variance; thus submitting an European controversy of 1800 years to the decision of a synod of savages. Where the missionary begins with civilising and reclaiming the people among whom he is cast, he cannot fail to improve their temporal condition, and he is likely to contribute to their spiritual welfare; neither of which objects can be attained by the hasty zealot, who commences by attempting to teach the five points of Calvinism to barbarians unable to count their five fingers.

There is no reason to suppose, that the rapid conversion of the whole world to Christianity forms any part of the scheme of Providence, since, in eighteen centuries, so little comparative progress has been made towards its accomplishment. Still less shall we be warranted in concluding, that all those who remain in spiritual darkness will be eternally shut out from the mercy of their Creator, if we duly perpend the spirit of the Scriptures-"The Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law." Rom. ii. 14.—“God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh right

eousness, is accepted with him." Acts x. 34, 35.-" If there be a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." 2 Cor. viii. 12. And St. Paul seems to intimate that the Lord will accomplish his own work of conversion in his own time-"I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts. And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest." Heb. viii. 10, 11.

It is to be feared, that the conduct of the Europeans among savage nations, especially if we recollect the horrors of the slave trade, will plead much more powerfully than the Gospel precepts of our missionaries. Even where our example has not nullified our doctrine, it is difficult to adapt the latter to the capacities of barbarians. We learn from "Earle's Residence in New Zealand," that when some of the missionaries were expounding the horrors of Tophet and eternal fire, their auditors exclaimed-" We will have nothing to say to your religion. Such horrid punishments can only be meant for white men. We have none bad enough among us to deserve them; but, as we have listened to you patiently, perhaps you will give us a blanket!"

MODERATION- Religious. An unattainable medium, since the world seems to be divided between

the enthusiastic and the indifferent, or those who have too much and those who have too little devotion. One party make religion their business; the other make business their religion. Two commercial travellers meeting at an inn near Bristol, and conversing upon spiritual subjects, one asked the other whether he belonged to the Wesleyan Methodists. "No," replied the man of business-"what little I do in the religious way is in the Unitarian line.”

MONASTERY

A house of ill-fame, where men are seduced from their public duties, and fall naturally into guilt, from attempting to preserve an unnatural innocence. "It is as unreasonable for a man to go into a Carthusian Convent for fear of being immoral, as for a man to cut off his hands for fear he should steal. When that is done, he has no longer any merit, for though it is out of his power to steal, he may all his life be a thief in his heart. All severity that does not tend to increase good or prevent evil, is idle."

MONEY-A very good servant, but a bad master. It may be accused of injustice towards mankind, inasmuch as there are only a few who make false money, whereas money makes many men false. We hate to be cheated, not so much for the value of the commodity, as, because it makes others appear su

perior to ourselves. Being defrauded would be nothing, were it not so galling to be outwitted. Crates, the Greek philosopher, left his money in the hands of a friend, with orders to pay it to his children in case they should be fools; for, said he, if they are philosophers, they will not want it. Money is more indispensable now than it was then, but, still, a wise man will have it in his head rather than his heart.

MORALITY-Keeping up appearances in this world, or becoming suddenly devout when we imagine that we may be shortly summoned to appear in the

next.

MORAL CHOLERA.-" It is easier," says St. Gregory Nazianzen, "to contract the vices of others than to impart to them our own virtue; just as it is easier to catch their diseases than to communicate to them our own good health1." Our anxiety to avoid bodily infection can only be exceeded by our total indifference to that which is mental. There is a moral, as well as a physical cholera, and yet, while we are frightened to death at the approach of the one, we voluntarily expose ourselves, during our whole life, to the attacks of the other. One of our jails was lately emptied because it contained a single case of

1 Facilius est vitium contrahere quam virtutem impertire; quemadmodum facilius est morbo alieno infici, quam sanitatem largiri.

Asiatic cholera; all the rest are kept crowded, until the patients, labouring under moral cholera, shall have corrupted the whole mass of their fellow prisoners. It seems to be the object of these institutions to propagate and disseminate the miasmata of vice, instead of preventing their circulation. Such of our malefactors as have the disease, in the natural way, are employed to inoculate the others, and then we wonder that there is a plague in the land. If an offender have broken one of the commandments, we guard against a repetition of the crime by sending him to a place where he not only learns to break the other nine, but to break prison also, when he presently begins to exercise his newly-acquired knowledge upon the community. We hang and transport rogues on a large scale, but we produce them on a still more extensive

one.

MOTHERS. Four good mothers have given birth to four bad daughters :-Truth has produced hatred; Success, pride; Security, danger; and Familiarity, contempt. And, on the contrary, four bad mothers have produced as many good daughters, for Astronomy is the offspring of astrology; Chymistry of alchemy; Freedom, of oppression; Patience, of long-suffering.

MOUNTAINEERS- are rarely conquered, not