difference between our feelings in disputing of religion, and those we experience ten minutes afterwards in contending for the beauty of a picture, or the merits of a book?

All things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.-HEB. iv. 15.

How feel we when this thought comes to our mind—all things open-Thoughts closed up as it seems to us in the deepest recesses of our bosom, repressed, perhaps, the moment they arise, as unmeet to be indulged-Feelings forbidden so much as a sigh, lest it betray them; disowned, it may be, even to ourselves-all naked, unglossed, unvarnished-without the false covering we give our errors, the fair names and plausible excuses we make for our own and others' follies? How do we meet the thought? With careless unconcern-with fearless ef frontery—not one start of horror, that an eye too pure to look upon iniquity and let it pass, is fixed intently on every movement of our souls; then we may own the fact, but we do not believe it. None can really believe the eye of God is thus upon them, and remain indifferent.

Does the thought come to us in terror? Is it painful to us to think that our Father shares the degrading secret of our follies? Would we have it otherwise-veil, were it possible, our bosoms from him, and avert his searching glance? O then, we do not love him and trust him as we ought! We have yet to learn that his knowledge of our infirmities is the only hope we have of escaping their bitter consequence: as well might the suffering patient desire to conceal from the physician the malady he sends for him to cure. As the sick man is glad when he perceives his case is understood, so should our hearts be glad that he who alone can make us righteous knows all the hardness of his task-that faults which we should overlook or excuse, he will discover and correct; and in his mercy wipe away stains, too faint for our perception here, but strong enough to mar our happiness in heaven,

if we might take them there, Yes-tremendous as should be the idea of God's watchful presence to the impenitent, to the believing and repentant spirit it should be a source of most holy consolation. Pride would conceal our faults, and shrinks from exposure: humility, abased that they should be there, would rather lay them all before her God, and bear the shame, so he but finds the remedy. It is thus that the thought of God's omniscient eye, surveying every secret of our hearts, becomes a grateful contemplation-it is thus that at every movement of the sin we hate, we can look up with satisfaction and say, "O God, thou seest it too! Thou canst subdue it, though I cannot!"

Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. EPHES. iv. 1.

It is objected to the religious, that they make themselves particular by differing in their habits from other people. If a child is born to rank and fortune, he is reared with habits suited to the station he is expected to fill. It would be thought very strange to see him idle and unshod, loitering about the corners of the streets. So, if a man be placed in an elevated station, we deem it very scandalous to find him associated, in habits and feelings, with the canaille of the people. How then can it be that those who are the children of God, preparing for an eternity of glory, and really and joyfully expecting it, should in every practice and habit blend and intermix themselves with those who think not of a God as a Father, if they think of him at all-and as for eternity, so far from preparing for it, would gladly forget it altogether if they could?

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

LONELY embosomed in the western wave,
There lay an Island, dwelling of the brave,
Some time esteemed the world's extremest bound,
The farthest travelled, and the latest found;
Too mean to tempt the conqueror to its shore,
Till the won world could offer him no more:
But, in the all-foreseeing eye of heaven,
Marked as the spot to future glory given,
That in the lapse of quick-revolving years,
All might be proud to call that country theirs.
With salt-waves girded, bosomed in her wood,
A savage waste our future England stood,
Till, heaven-directed, Rome's victorious band
Marked hostile footsteps upon Britons' sand:
Unwelcome benefactors to a race

Rude as the wilderness, their dwelling-place.
The deepest gloom of superstition's night-
The rough-hewn temple, and the bloody rite-
The scythe-armed chariot set with murderous steel—
The painted body and the acorn meal-
To them no evils, as they felt them none,
Were worth preserving, since they were their own.
But courage fell before the Roman sword,
And Cæsar reigned, their not unworthy lord.

Transient and few their efforts to regain ⠀
Through twice two hundred years, their native reign.
Sometime Caractacus to battle led-

Thousands for injured Boadicea bled.

But Rome had left no spot in Europe free,
And vanquished Britain' shared its destiny;'
Till, ruined by success, the victor state,
All things possessing, felt herself too great;
And rendered back, without a price, the boon
So long disputed, and so hardly won.
Alas, for Britain! nursed in slavery,
Till she had grown too feeble to be free,

Bowed with the burden of the crown she wore,
She bade a second master to her shore:

In her own breast the Saxon sheathed his swordThe false ally became the country's lord.

Again four centuries passed beneath the sway
Of petty sovereigns, monarchs of a day;
Till Saxon Egbert seized the sevenfold throne,
Made Britain's long-divided realm his own,
And called it England. Welcome to the name!
Since dear to Freedom, Piety, and Fame !

But where is she, their Queen, some ages gone?
Where is great Rome, who ruled the world alone?
Has she no thought or care for England more?
No message to her long-forgotten shore?
Strange alteration! Now at Rome's command,
A second embassy approached our land,
How much unlike the first! No banner spread
O'er helmet-heads, by princely heroes led;
But a poor mendicant, in friar's weeds,
Armed with his cowl, his crosier, and his beads;
His pious embassy was news from heaven
Of mortal sins for Jesus' sake forgiven.

The eve of Christianity's first day

Was glimmering yet with Truth's declining rayHeaven prospering the news the missions bring, England's first monarch was a Christian king.

But peace was not for Britain. From the shore
Of the near Baltic, warlike numbers pour:
Succeeding Ethelwolf is vainly brave-
Vile Ethelbald is early for the grave-
Beneath the rule of hapless Ethelred,
The Dane was victor, and our country bled.
A single star of transitory light,

Rose upon England's long and fearful night-
Alfred, the brave, the generous, and the wise,
The loved of earth, and favoured of the skies;
Erst England's king, and now a menial low,
A minstrel next disguised amid the foe,
Gave peace to Britain, and bequeathed to fame
Without a stain the record of his name,
Edward to him, then Ethelstan succeeds,
Struck by a robber pious Edmund bleeds.
Despotic Dunstan shared king Edred's state.
What heart so hard, but feels for Edwy's fate?

To Edgar fair Elfrida lost and won,
Survived to be the assassin of his son.
Under the second Ethelred's command
The stain of civil blood was on the land-

Vengeance was speedy from victorious Sweyne:
The Saxon fled, the throne received the Dane.

Canute, receiving what his father won,
With the brave Edmund struggled for his throne.
Harold succeeds, and his unworthy heir;
But the lost line, still to their country dear,
Recalled by England's wishes to the throne,
Edward, the Confessor, received the crown.
The parting sceptre fell to Harold's hand,
The last of Saxon blood that ruled our land.

And now eleven centuries had sped

Since Britain's soil first heard the Roman tread.
Long since forgot the wounds of Saxon swords,
The victors had become her native lords:
Short the succession-sad their years, and few-
She was but free to be subdued anew.
And shall we hail the unjust, rapacious hand
That fixed the foreign standard on our land,
Beneath whose kindly influence has grown
The bliss our grateful country feels her own?
Unworthy hands may heaven's best blessings bring—
Britannia groaned beneath her tyrant king,
Imperious William, now, by conquest won,
Become possessor of the British crown:
He held an iron sceptre, and maintained,
As conquerors do, the lawless power he gained.
In life and death, the fate of tyrants proved-
Feared and betrayed-obeyed, but unbeloved.
When hard oppression bowed his subjects low,
His offspring proved him a less injured foe.
He found a foreign grave, and left his crown
To Rufus, his despised, unworthy son.

His father's crimes, without his glory, stain
The record of the second William's reign.
Then first, to shake the unbeliever's power,
Europe assembled upon Asia's shore-

Princes forsook their thrones-the sovereign lord
Bartered his whole possession for a sword—