hope to refute what my antagonist has said on each apocryphal book in particular; however, I have done what I could; may the divine blessing attend my lucubrations!

"All protestant churches are fully justified in rejecting the apocryphal books from the canon of the divinely-inspired scriptures:

"First, because these books possess no internal evidence or authority whatever to procure their admission into the sacred canon. Not one of them is extant in pure ancient biblical Hebrew. They were all written subsequently to the cessation of the prophetic spirit; and not one of the writers or authors of them, in direct terms, advances any claim to inspiration. Moreover, the apocryphal books contain many things which are either fabulous, or contradictory to the canonical scriptures in facts, doctrines, and moral practice, as well as contradictory to authentic profane his

tory.

"Secondly, the apocryphal books possess no external evidence, to procure their admission into the sacred canon; for they were not received into that canon by the ancient Jewish church, and were not sanctioned by Jesus Christ, or by his divinely-inspired apostles. No subsequent Jewish writers have recognized the apocryphal books as forming part of their canon of the Old Testament. Further, these books were not admitted into the canon of scripture in any catalogue of the sacred books recognized by any council of the ancient Christian church, whose decrees were received as binding upon the universal church; neither are they to be found in any catalogues of the canonical books of scripture published by the fathers or ecclesiastical writers of the first four centuries. Moreover, we have the consentient testimony of numerous writers in regular succession, from the fifth to the fifteenth century, all of whom depose against the canonicity of the apocryphal books, besides the involuntary admissions or confessions of learned advocates of the modern church of Rome, who lived before and after the so-called council of Trent; and, though some of them, in many other matters of religion, were violently carried away with the abuses and streams of the time,' yet in this particular, which we have examined and followed through all the ages of the church, the current ran clear and smooth among them"*.

"Lastly, the apocryphal books are rejected by the oriental or Greek church from the canon of divinely-inspired scripture; so that, as bishop Burnet has well observed, we have the concur ring sense of the whole church of God in this matter'.+ Nor were these books received into the canon of scripture until the eighth day of April, 1546; when five cardinals, eight archbishops, and forty-one bishops of the Roman obedience (who were almost wholly Italians §), arrogating

Bp. Cosin, "Scholastical History of the Canon," p. 203.

+ Bp. Burnet on the Thirty-nine Articles, pp. 111, 112. Sixth edition.

I The names of these persons, together with the places or sees whence they derived their episcopal titles, are given by Labbé and Cossart, Concil. tom. xiv., col. 745, 746.

"As they had neither council, nor father, nor schoolman, nor other writer that ever spake like them in former ages, so at this very time they had none but their own small and inconsiderable number to give a suffrage to this their synodical, or (as they most untruly and vainly called it) their ecumenical decree. For, of the Greek church they had not one (a); . of the Helvetian, German, and northern churches,

to themselves the appellation of the cecumenical council of Trent, at their fourth session, presumed to place the uninspired apocryphal books in the same rank with the inspired writings, and denounced an anathema against every one who should not receive them and every part of them as sacred and canonical."

Jubenile Reading.

A LOST CHILD*.

A FEW years ago, in the parish of Sydney, in the province of New Brunswick, America, the following circumstance occurred:

A young gentleman, who had been out for some days on a hunting or shooting expedition, reached the banks of Bear Creek, which he was desirous of crossing, being anxious to make his way home before nightfall. To his disappointment, the logbridge, which he had passed the day before, had been carried away by the current, which happened to be very strong in that place. Remembering, however, having noticed a fallen tree across the stream lower down, he pursued his way. Just as he had reached the spot, and was preparing to cross over, his ear was attracted by the sound of footsteps upon the dry sticks: the sound was accompanied by a cautious rustling movement among the thicket of wild raspberries that covered the opposite space. With the alertness of a sportsman, anticipating a shot at a deer or bear, his finger rapidly found its way to the lock of his rifle; and, while his keen eye was warily fixed on the bushes, the hand apparently of a child, stained purple with the juice of the berries, was quietly raised to reach down a loaded branch of fruit: another instant, and the fatal ball had been lodged in the heart of the unconscious victim. A cry of terror and of thankfulness burst from the lips of the hunter, as he sprang with eager haste across the stream, and approached the child. It was a little girl, apparently not more than eight years old: her torn garments, soiled hands, dishevelled locks, and haggard face, betrayed the fact that she had strayed from the forest-path, and beer lost in the trackless wilderness. The child ap

none; of the French, scarce two; of the Spanish, not many" [Sleidan says five]: "all the rest we find to be Italians (and no such great number of them neither); among whom divers were the pope's pensioners, and sent thither to out-balance other men's voices; some of them titular (a), and some of them unlearned. And was it ever heard of in the world before, that forty bishops of Italy, assisted perhaps with half a score others, should make up a general council for all Christendom? Wherein, as there was not any one greatly remarkable for learnby the consent of the oriental and occidental churches were ing that voted this canonical authority to those books, which, ever held to be uncertain and apocryphal, so some of them understanding in religion. And, though other some were diwere lawyers, pe haps learned in that profession, but of little vines, yet many of them were of less than ordinary sufficience; but the greater number were courtiers, and bishops of such small places (or dignities only titular), that, supposing every one to represent the clergy and people from whom he came, it could not be said, that one of a thousand in Christendom was represented in this pretended council." (Cosin's Scholastical Hist. of the Canon pp. 215 217.)

(a) In order to keep up the semblance of mecumenicity in the list of bishops present at the fourth sssion of the Tridentine assembly, we find Melipotamensis, a titular bishop of Melipotamus, in Crete, which was an episcopal see in the early ages of the Christian church. The first bishop of Melipotamus, nominated by popes, was appointed in 1344. (Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, tom 1. col. 935).

From "Stories and Sketches for the Amsuement of Leisure Moments." London: James Burns. 1846.

peared overjoyed at the sight of the stranger, and told her artless tale with a clearness and simplicity that drew tears from the eyes of her preserver, who felt, indeed, as if he had been an instrument, in the Divine hand, sent to rescue the forlorn being before him from a melancholy and painful death. Had not the loss of the bridge led him to seek another spot whereby to gain the opposite bank, she would in all probability have perished in that lonely spot; but it was ordered otherwise, and the heart of the young man was filled with grateful emotion. He learned from the child that she had been sent by her mother to carry a basket of food to her father, who was chopping in the wood near the house; but that, by some mischance, she had strayed from the path, and, misled by the echo of her father's axe, she had wandered away in an opposite direction. Every attempt to retrace her steps only led her deeper and deeper into the wood; but still she went on. At first, she said, she cried a great deal; but, finding her tears and lamentations brought no relief, she consoled herself with eating some of the food she had brought with her. When night came on, she was overcome with weariness, and lay down to sleep in a sheltered place, and rose with the first sound of the birds, to pursue her hopeless way. When she had exhausted her provisions in the basket, she beguiled her sorrows by seeking for herbs and berries. Fortunately, it was the season of summer-fruits, or else the poor wanderer must have perished. On the third night she lay down to sleep, and heard, as she supposed, the tread of cattle near her. She said she was very glad, for she thought the dark creatures she saw moving about in the dim light must be her father's oxen; and she called to them very often, "Buck, Bright!" but they did not come nearer; and she

wondered she did not hear the ox-bell. Another night she said she saw two great black, shaggy dogs, which she thought were neighbour Hewet's dogs; but, when she called them by their names, they stood up on their hind legs, and looked hard at her, but did not come near her, and soon went away into the wood; and she knew they were dogs, for that night she heard them howling. In all probability these animals were bears, for the woods abounded with those animals, and the stream the hunter had crossed bore the name of Bear Creek the howling, most probably, arose from wolves; but her innocent heart knew no fear. The day after this she found herself near a deserted shanty: the clearing on which it stood was overgrown with strawberries and raspberrybushes; and here she remained, picking the berries, and sleeping beneath its sheltering roof at night. She led the hunter to her solitary hut; and here he proposed leaving her whilst he went in search of help to convey her home, or to some dwelling-house; but the little creature clung to him with passionate weeping, and implored him so pathetically not to leave her again alone in the dark, lonely forest, that his heart was not proof against her entreaties; and, though weary with his own wandering, he took the little foundling on his back, and proceeded on his journey, occasionally resting on the fallen timbers to ease him of his burden. The shades of night were closing in fast upon them; and the weary pair were making up their minds to pass another night

under the shade of the woods, when the sound of water and the working of mill-wheels broke upon their ears; and soon the light of the last glow of sunset broke through the trees in the distance; and the child, with a shout of joy, proclaimed they must be near a clearing at last, for she saw light through the stems of the trees. Gladly did the poor way-worn travellers hail the cheerful sight of the mill, and the neat log-house beside it; and gladly did the kind inmates of the place receive and cherish the poor lost child, who had been sought for till hope had departed from the hearts of her sorrowing friends, and she was reckoned among the dead. She had wandered away miles from her home, and been absent many days: but she had been supplied with water and fruits, and her spirits had been wonderfully sustained during her wanderings.

The Cabinet.

CAUTION TO YOUNG MINISTERS.-Do not forget that it is possible that you should lead others to a rest, into which you might fail to enter; that you should point others to a salvation, which you had only partially secured yourselves; that you should be diligent in cultivating others' vineyards, and yet mournfully neglect the proper culture of your own. The text plainly reminds us, that there may be too much "coming and going," even in doing good. The soul must have its hours of privacy, or the lamp of our spiritual life will soon have wasted away, and leave us to go to those whose spirituality we had helped to kindle, saying, "Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out." No mistake can be more dangerous than that of supposing that spiritual employments will necessarily make spiritual minds; that, because

our occupations make us much coversant with eternal and invisible realities, the soul will have little to dread from worldly influences. The very opposite is experienced and bewailed by every faithful minister of the gospel. He knows, and it is his cross and danger and humiliation while he knows it, how easy it is to slide into a mere professional piety; how great is his danger of falling into a habit of fictitious devoutness and warmth-no more than the faded fire, it may be, of happier and more spiritual days.—Moore's Cambridge University Sermons.

Poetry.

LAYS OF A PILGRIM.

No. XII.

BY MRS. H. W. RICHTER. (For the Church of England Magazine.)

SOLITUDE.

"Solitude concentrates and fortifies the mind in all its faculties. Prophets, saints, the great and the good, have all understood this truth."--LAMARTINE.

THE humble wild-flowers of the spring,
The ivy leaves around the thorn,
The hidden brooks low murmuring,
The shadowy mists that veil the morn,
To eye and ear

Bring soothing cheer,
And the calm thought, of quiet musing born.