we do good, and edify, and comfort one another were we to think in this manner!' Page 207.

In à former page, we have given a longer specimen of this really valuable book: we cannot do better than advise our readers to possess themselves of the whole.

THE BOOK OF FAMILY WORSHIP. By the Editor of the Sacred Harp. Wakeman. Dublin.

COLLECTIONS of family prayers are almost innumerable; and none quite unexceptionable. There is, however, so much of what is good in this small volume, that we could not avoid adopting it for our own use; and, of course, we feel justified in recom mending it to others. The book is quite a pocket companion, but contains morning and evening prayers for three weeks, selected from the best devotional writers and generally very choice specimens. To Christians who have not the gift of fluency in extemporaneous social prayer, such a collection may be really valuable.

POLITICS.

HAVING written a large P, and followed it up with a little o, and added a long 1, I withdrew the pen, and sat in a profound reverie, gazing on the forlorn syllable, until my uncle coming softly in, peeped, as he was wont, over my shoulder, and asked whether a Poll parrot was to be the subject of my lucubrations.

'Oh, no, uncle: 'tis the old word, Politics; but I am somewhat discouraged by a letter that has reached me from an unknown friend, who reads the magazine. Here it is.'

Humph!' said my uncle as he took out his spec tacles to peruse the offered document; after which he added, Well, it is written in a candid, christian spirit. Why should it discourage you?'

'It is not the only one that I have received; but it expresses, as you see, a decided opinion, that our papers had better be discontinued.'

Sad, sad, to be sure! and have you no letters of an opposite tendency?'

'Oh, plenty, my dear uncle; both from avowed and anonymous hands. Here is one expressing great delight, that the Political Economy is to be separately treated of, that the other subject may flow on uninterruptedly. And I can show you many others, equally gratifying.'

'Our objector here,' said my uncle, again looking at the former letter, brings two charges against us:

N

political partizanship is one-the other is, high church intolerance. Now, the question before us is twofold; first, whether such characters really belong to our remarks; and, secondly, whether we are only to enter on subjects on which every one-that is to say, every christian, is agreed.'

And how, dear uncle, do you settle these two questions?'

'Why, with regard to the first, I don't think we can plead guilty; because we have taken our stand altogether, not upon the tenets of this party or that, but on the plain scriptural command, that while we fear God, we are also to honour the king, and meddle not with them that are given to change. By political partizanship, I always understood an indiscriminate advocacy of a certain set of men, or a certain line of procedure, never considering that the person who is politically right to-day, may be politically wrong to-morrow; and that a measure which at one time may be expedient, nay necessary, may, at a different juncture, and under varied circumstances, become exceedingly injudicious; nay, positively ruinous.'

And that is what some say of us, uncle; that while others are properly yielding to the pressure from without, and conforming to the spirit of the age, we stand out, most stiffly, for whatever bears upon it the name of a national institution.'

My uncle assumed an attitude of great decision, and said, Whatsoever we can show to be based upon the declarations of holy writ, that I regard as a strong-hold which I am bound to maintain, though the pressure from without, shake its walls to their foundation, and the spirit within, stir up the whole

garrison to mutiny. whatsoever of time, circumstances, or characters, can make that really expedient, which God's word has not made lawful.'

Mark me, girl: no change

6 But we are said to be such determined tories!'

I would rather be called a conservative, as opposed to the progress of destruction, which, in its headlong course, would sweep away every remnant of our time-honoured, yea, our God-honoured fabrics, instead of cleansing, repairing, and beautifying what may have fallen into partial decay.'

"But our church-exclusiveness, uncle! Here is another letter, asking if the magazine is intended only to be useful to one portion of the church of Christ.'

If my memory does not deceive me, the Editor has occasionally thrown in a qualifying remark, where a correspondent approached too near to the high church doctrine: and I am sure that the general pieces in the magazine are equally adapted for all classes of christian readers. With regard to what passes in our conversations, if it be a mark of exclusiveness to deprecate the overthrow of what the most venerable and venerated fathers of nonconformity regarded as a national blessing, why we must be content to bear the stigma. No one, now-adays, who disapproves of a church establishment, seems backward to denounce it in terms sufficiently unequivocal: are we to be withheld from expressing our grateful attachment to that which has been, to us, the medium of every spiritual blessing? Is the fervor of dissent such, that the very fact of our acknowledging such attachment, must be a bar to the usefulness of those communications, which

never, even remotely, touch at all upon the disputed point? If so, where, I pray you, lies the alleged illiberality—with us, or with the objectors?'

I thought my dear uncle was becoming rather warm; and therefore attempted to turn the discourse into another channel; but he began slowly to rub the glasses of his spectacles with the corner of his silk handkerchief-a sure token of placidity of feeling and then resumed.

'You know, our second question has not been yet considered it was, whether we should abstain from all topics on which professed believers do not quite agree.'

'I have frequently been told, that such is the wiser way, uncle.'

Worldly wisdom at best, niece. If I believe my Christian brethren to be in danger of choosing a path, the end whereof is not good, however I may purchase popularity, and otherwise promote my own advantage, by keeping silence, and leaving them to err, I am a traitor to their interests, and cannot but wound my own conscience by so doing.'

'Then, uncle, we are to go on, as before?'

'Better than before, I hope, my dear; for experience ought to make us wiser: and these communications should render us more careful not to wound a brother's feelings, in promoting what we verily believe to be the good cause. Call me a churchman: I am one. Call me a conservative; I feel it my duty so to be: but when you see me withhold the right hand of christian-fellowship from a pious dissenter, or the cordial greeting of patriotic goodwill from an honest and consistent whig, then tax me with intolerance, denounce, me as a blind parti