Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,

A torch at the great Temple's dedication.

Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations ;
The Roman empire has begun and ended,

New worlds have risen-we have lost old nations;
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled,

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold :—

A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled :—
Have children climbed those knees and kissed that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race?

Statue of flesh—immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence !

Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence,
Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment-morning,
When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning.

Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guest be lost for ever?
O let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue, that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!

HORACE SMITH.

PARDON OF SIN, THE FREE gift of GOD.

In the Holy Scriptures we find two doctrines respecting the pardon of sin, which, at first sight, appear contradictory. We are taught, on the one hand, that pardon is gratuitously

bestowed by God; and, on the other hand, that it has been purchased at the cost of the precious blood of Christ. How are these two doctrines to be reconciled? Can pardon be a free gift on the part of God, when He has actually received a price for it?

A brief consideration of the case will show us that the gratuitousness of pardon is not really lessened, but rather enhanced, by the ransom which has been exacted and paid. With whom did the plan of redemption originate? Did it originate independently of God, or against His will? Had Christ, the sinner's Surety, to go and placate a God previously relentless? On the contrary, it was God Himself who spontaneously said,—" Deliver from going down to the pit-I have found a ransom. It was God Himself who so loved the world that he gave His only-begotten Son." The ransom paid by Christ, so far from being the procuring cause of God's grace to sinners, was itself the effect of that grace.

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God, it should be remembered, stands in a twofold relation to us. He is at once our Sovereign and our Father. Now, it is quite conceivable that, though as a just Sovereign He could not suffer our offences to pass unpunished, nor absolve us from them, except on the ground of an adequate satisfaction, yet, as a loving Father, He might pity our hapless case, and even provide the means of satisfaction. This is conceivable-nay, this is the actual fact. recollect how King David felt and acted when Absalom violated his duty as a son and a subject. As a king, David could not honourably remit the penalty due to Absalom's rebellion. But as a father he longed to restore the infatuated youth to his forfeited rank. With all his heart he wished for some mediator at whose instance he might give effect to his paternal love without compromising the honour of his government; and so, when, at the instigation of Joab, the widow of Tekoah came to the royal court, and interceded in behalf of Absalom, the fond father was ready—yea, eager to admit her mediation, and give effect to it. Now, just as Absalom's restoration was thus due ultimately, not to the inter

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cession of the widow of Tekoah, but to the paternal love of David, so is our pardon due ultimately, not to the ransom paid for us by Christ, but to the free self-moved love of our Heavenly Father. As a righteous Sovereign, God must execute justice and judgment; but, from His benignity as a Father, He is inclined to exercise mercy. And it was to the very end He might be able to bestow mercy without any infraction of law and justice that He sent his Son into the world to suffer and die in the room of sinners.

Nor does it derogate from this spontaneous love of God that He laid on Christ the work of making atonement. If, indeed, Christ had been a Being less closely connected with God than He really is, then God's love in providing redemption might have been sullied by His severity to Christ; and it might have been plausibly alleged that His kindness to us was at the expense of injustice to our Surety. But when we remember that Christ is one with God—yea, God himself, we must perceive that the exactor of the price and the payer of the price were both one, and that the exaction and the payment were alike the result of love. It said much for David's paternal love that he longed to recall his son from exile, and was eager to admit any mediation in his behalf. But how much more would it have said for David's love had he, in order to the removal of every bar to his son's recall, descended from his throne, and submitted in his own person to the penalty of rebellion in Absalom's stead! Yet this, and nothing short of this, is what the most High God has done in order to the redemption of us His rebellious children. He has Himself paid our heavy debt, that He might be able to bid us go free.

HOLINESS AS NECESSARY TO SALVATION AS PARDON.

PARDON of sin is not all that we need in order to salvation. Could we suppose a sinner to be pardoned and restored to the Divine favour, while no change was effected on his character, he could derive scarcely any benefit from his pardon, because he could have no relish for the service of

God. Were he even admitted into heaven, its holy society and its spiritual service would to him be intolerable; for happiness does not result from situation, but from an agreement between faculties and objects, desires and enjoyments.

If a prisoner under sentence of death for murder or some other capital crime, were, while in prison, to be seized with the jail-fever to such a degree as to ensure his death by the disease, independently of a public execution according to his sentence, and if in this state he were to receive a pardon from his prince, of what use would it be to him? His prison-doors are set open; but the diseased man cannot leave prison; his life is spared by his prince, but it falls a victim to his malady. It is only on the supposition that his prince, at the time he pardoned, could also rebuke the malady, and restore health, that the pardon could be of any real benefit. Now, as sinners our case is precisely parallel to this. We are under a judicial sentence of condemnation ; but we are at the same time under the power of the disease of sin. We are depraved in heart, alienated from God, and utterly averse from the holy and spiritual blessings and enjoyments of His family. Though we cannot but seek happiness, we naturally seek it not in God, but in the creature. The thought of immediate fellowship with God rather pains than attracts us; and a life beyond the grave, in a state of separation from the objects of sense, we regard as the ruin of our happiness rather than its perfection.

If, then, we are not delivered from this moral malady, of what use could forgiveness be to us? We should still be miserable for sin and wretchedness are inseparable, being in the very nature of things connected together by a law as steady and invariable as that which regulates the planets. The misery consequent upon sin does not arise from the arbitrary frown of Heaven, or from the positive infliction of superior power. When the divine law denounces the infliction of punishment, it declares what will, in the very nature of things, be the effect of sin to the transgressor,-it adds its sanction to the constitution of nature.

Heaven and hell are, so to say, the names of opposite characters; the former of which is connected with happy consequences, and the latter with all that is wretched. Till spiritual health, therefore, is restored, or, in other words, till we are conformed to the character of God, we cannot be happy. Even the Almighty, with reverence be it said, cannot otherwise make us happy. RUSSELL.

LAWS OF MOTION.

OWING to that property of matter which we call inertia, no body at rest can put itself in motion. Before any body can change its place, it must be acted on either by another body already in motion, or by one or other of those natural forces which, in mechanics, are denominated prime movers. There are many such forces. There is, for example, the muscular strength of man and other animals; as we daily witness in the case of boys throwing stones, and of horses drawing waggons. There is the force of gravity, which, for instance, causes stones to fall to the ground. There is wind, which drives our ships Water, too, supplies a motive power; so does the expansive force of steam;. and there are various other mechanical agents which nature has endued with like power.

across the sea.

When a body is put in motion, it moves in the direction of the force impressed upon it, and at a rate answerable to the strength of that force. Thus, a billiard ball takes the direction given to it by the cue, and moves fast or slow according to the force of the stroke. The rate at which a body moves is termed its velocity; and velocity is said to be uniform, retarded, or accelerated, according as the motion is constant, decreasing, or increasing.

A moving body possesses impetus or momentum; and this momentum, which is just the product of its combined weight and velocity, may be increased by increasing either the weight or the velocity of the body. A light ball of