and batteries poured out their wrath with tenfold fury on their enemies. Shot were incessantly glancing up the acclivity, madly ploughing across its grassy surface, while black and threatening shells appeared to hover above the work like the monsters of the air, about to stoop upon their prey.

21. Still all lay quiet and immovable within the low mounds of earth, as if none there had a stake in the issue of the bloody day. For a few moments only the tall figure of an aged man was seen slowly moving along the summit of the rampart, calmly regarding the dispositions of the English General in the more distant part of his line, and after exchanging a few words with a gentleman who joined him in his dangerous look-out, they disappeared behind the grassy banks.

22. All eyes were now watching the advance of the battalions, which once more drew nigh the point of contest. The heads of the columns were already in view of their enemies, when a man was seen swiftly ascending the hill from the burning town: he paused amid the peril, on the natural glacis, and swung his hat triumphantly, and some even fancied they heard the exulting cry, as they recognised the ungainly form of the simpleton, before it plunged into the work.

23. The right of the British once more disappeared in the orchard, and the columns in front of the redoubt again opened with all the imposing exactness of their high discipline. But the trial was too great for even the practised courage of the royal troops. Volley succeeded volley, and in a few moments they had again curtained their ranks behind the misty screen produced by their own fire.

24. Then came the terrible flash from the redoubt, and the eddying volumes from the adverse hosts rolled into one cloud, enveloping the combatants in its folds, as if to conceal their bloody work from the spectators. The result, however, was soon known.

25. The heavy bank of smoke which now even clung along the ground, was broken in fifty places, and the disordered ranks of the British were seen driven before their deliberate foes, in wild confusion. The flashing swords of the officers in vain attempted to arrest the torrent, nor did the flight cease with many of the regiments until they had even reached their boats.

SOCRATES' ADDRESS TO HIS JUDGES.

1. "I HAVE great hopes, O my judges, that it is infinitely to my advantage that I am sent to death: for it must of necessity be, that one of these two things must be the consequence. Death must take away all these senses, or convey me to another life.

2. "If all sense is to be taken away, and death is no more than that profound sleep without dreams, in which we are sometimes buried, how desirable is it to die! how many days in life do we know that are preferable to such a state

3. "But if it be true that death is but a passage to places, which they who have lived before us do now inhabit, how much happier still is it to go from those who call themselves judges, to appear before those that really are such; before Minos, Rhadamanthus and Triptolemus, and to meet those who have lived with justice and truth?

4. "Is this, do you think, no happy journey? Do you think it nothing to speak with Orpheus, Homer, and Hesiod? I would, indeed, suffer many deaths to enjoy these things. With what particular delight should I talk with Ajax and others who like me have suffered by the iniquity of their judges! I should examine the wisdom of tha great prince, who carried such mighty forces against Troy, and argue with Ulysses and Sisyphus, upon difficult points, as I have in conversation here, without being in danger of being condemned.

5. 66 But let not those among you who have pronounced me an innocent man be afraid of death. No harm can arrive at a good man whether dead or living; his affairs are always under the direction of the gods; nor will I believe the fate which is allotted to me myself this day, to have arrived by chance, nor have I aught to say either against my judges or accusers, but that they thought they did me an injury. But I detain you too long; it is time that I retire to death, which of us has the better, is known to the gods, but to no mortal man."

6. Socrates is here represented in a figure worthy his great wisdom and philosophy, worthy the greatest mere man that ever breathed. But the modern discourse is written upon a subject no less than the dissolution of nature itself. how glorious is the old age of that great man, who has

spent his time in such contemplations as has made this being, what only it should be, an education for heaven!

7. He has, according to the lights of reason and revelation, which seemed to him clearest, traced the steps of Omnipotence he has, with a celestial ambition, as far as it is consistent with humility and devotion, examined the ways of Providence, from the creation to the dissolution of the visible world.

8. How pleasing must have been the speculation, to observe nature and Providence move together, the physical and moral world march the same pace: to observe paradise and eternal spring the seat of innocence; troubled seasons and angry skies the portion of wickedness and vice.

9. When this admirable author has reviewed all that has past or is to come which relates to the habitable world, and run through the whole fate of it, how could a guardian angel, that has attended it through all its courses and changes, speak more emphatically at the end of his charge, than does our author, when he makes, as it were, a funeral oration over this globe, looking to the point where it once stood?

10. Let us take leave of this subject, and reflect, upon this occasion, on the vanity and transient glory of this habitable world. How by the force of one element breaking loose upon the rest, all the varieties of nature, all the works of art, all the labours of men are reduced to nothing. All that we admired and adored before as great and magnificent, is obliterated or vanished; and another form and face of things, plain, simple, and every where the same, overspreads the whole earth.

11. Where are now the great empires of the world, and their great imperial cities? their pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory, show me where they stood, read the inscription, tell me the victor's name. What remains, what impressions, what difference, or distinction, do you see in this mass of fire? Rome itself, eternal Rome, the great city, the empress of the world, whose domination and superstition, ancient and modern, make a great part of the history of this earth, what has become of her now?

12. She laid her foundations deep, and her palaces were strong and sumptuous: "She glorified herself, and lived deliciously, and said in her heart, I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow :" but her hour is come, she is wiped away from the face of the earth, and buried in everlasting obli

vion. But it is not cities only, and works of men's hands, but the everlasting hills, the mountains and rocks of the earth, are melted as wax before the sun, and their place is no where found.

13. Here stood the Alps, the load of the earth, that covered many countries, and reached their arms from the ocean to the Black Sea; this huge mass of stone is softened and dissolved as a tender cloud into rain.

14. Here stood the African mountains, and Atlas with his top above the clouds; there was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and yonder, towards the north, stood the Riphaen hills, clothed in ice and snow. All these are vanished, dropt away as the snow upon their heads. "Great and marvellous are thy works, just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints !""

Note. Socrates was born in Attica, near Macedonia, 476 years before Christ, and was impiously condemned to drink a poisonous potion which caused his death in the 70th year of his age.-Troy was an ancient city of Asia, near the Archipelago, and at the foot of Mount Ida. It is well known for its ten years' siege.-Atlas is a chain of mountains in the northwest of Africa, separating Barbary from Algiers.-The Black, or Euxine sea, lies north of Natolia, between Turkey in Europe and Asia.-Caucasus is a very high mountain in Africa, between the Black and Caspian Sea.

SIMPLICITY OF THE GOSPEL.

1. IT is true, that in whatever form Christian truth may prevail, it is not robbed of its lustre or power. It is one proof of its heavenly origin, that no corruptions have ever been able to hide its beauty and majesty or palsy its energy. Its light has been seen and felt amid all the thick vapours and dark clouds that have been accumulated around it.

2. But still if all could be swept away, and the luminary shine from the firmament in its own free and unobscured splendour, how far more conspicuous would be its glory, and with what new and fervent admiration would it be welcomed..

3. We cannot doubt that the simplest system of doctrines is most likely to advance the permanent glory of the Gospel. Every thing is admirable and sublime in proportion to its simplicity. The objects which are grandest in the works of Nature, are among the simplest. Of the sublime works of God, this is one of the striking characteristics.

4. What more sublime than the starry heavens, the lofty mountains, the unfathomable ocean, whether sleeping or tempestuous? Yet no objects are more simple, or offer less complication of ideas. The grandest of the works of man are also the simplest. Those admirable structures, whose ruins are the wonder of posterity, and those writings which are equally first in all ages, are for nothing so remarkable as for their noble simplicity.

5. What is complicated and intricate becomes obscure and wearisome; and the only things whose beauties are ever new, and whose attraction never ceases, are those which are plain and simple. So it is with the Gospel. Compared with the complicated systems of the heathen world, and the multitudinous observances of the Mosaic dispensation, there is an obvious majesty in its simplicity which speaks the perfected work of God.

6. If you seek to render it imposing by a profusion of gorgeous observances, you may indeed seem to succeed for a time, and among some, as has happened in the disguises which it wore in the darker ages of the Church: but you hide its divinest charms, and liken it to the theatrical display of heathen worship.

7. If you annex to it mysterious and subtle dogmas, which perplex the understanding, and are fearful to the fancy, you may seem to excite veneration and awe; but still there was a profounder awe in the false mysteries of pagan superstition; and in the schools of the philosophers, there was as great ingenuity and subtilty of solemn dogmatism, when "the world by wisdom knew not God," as has ever existed in the schools of the fathers and doctors of metaphysical christianity. It is not thus that the religion of Jesus is to be glorified.

8. It is when unadorned that it is adorned the most; when, stripped of all the dazzling and pompous accompaniments by which man would give lustre to the work of God, -it stands forth, as Jesus walked in Judea numble, unpretending, without title, or state, yet with a native mien of dignity and power, which impresses and overawes.