228 OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.

legal dispensation, many female servants of the Lord were called to the exercise of prophetical gifts-that, of the Gospel times, the common participation of those gifts by men and woman, was one decisive mark—and that the injunctions of the apostle Paul, against the public speaking and teaching of women, can only be understood (himself being witness) of speaking and teaching which were not inspired-which were not prophesying. J. J. GURNEY.

THERE is no need of smiting a rock in the wilderness, to supply the thirst of the heart. So far as outward things are concerned, no spring-floods of good fortune are necessary for the purpose if the mind is kept in action, and the affections unchilled by selfishness, every day of life may be a festival of gladness, because, when the power of enjoyment is kept in order, the means of enjoyment are never wanting. The great truth that happiness depends on what we are and not what we have that when the spirit is kept in tune, the harmonies of nature and of life will always be listened to with delight: that, to be at peace with ourselves, with others and with God, brings out those full organ tones of glory and love on which the soul floats as on the ocean, upborne from all things unworthy, and brought continually nearer to the skies.

AT a banquet, an ambassador desired the wise men to deliver, every one of them, some sentence or parable which he might report to his King; one was silent, which the ambassador perceiving remarked. The wise man replied " report to your king. that there is one that can hold his peace."

BARON'S APOTHEGMS.

Che Wish of Co-Day.

I ASK not now for gold to gild
With mocking shine a weary frame,
The yearning of the mind is stilled-
I ask not now for Fame.

A rose-cloud, dimly seen above,

Melting in heaven's blue depths awayOh! sweet, fond dream of human Love! For thee I may not pray

But bowed in lowliness of mind, ́

I make my humble wishes known—

I only ask a will resigned,

Oh, Father, to thine own!

To-day, beneath thy chastening eye,
I crave alone for peace and rest,
Submissive in thy hand to lie,
And feel that it is best.

A marvel seems the Universe,
A miracle our Life and Death;
A mystery which I cannot pierce,
Around, above, beneath.

In vain I task my aching brain,

In vain the sage's thought I scan;

I only feel how weak and vain,

How poor and blind, is man.

And now my spirit sighs for home,
And longs for light whereby to sec,

230

THE WISH OF TO-DAY.

And, like a weary child, would come,
Oh, Father, unto Thee!

Though oft, like letters traced on sand,
My weak resolves have passed away,
In mercy lend thy helping hand

Unto my prayer to-day!

J. G. WHITTIER.

I SLEPT and dreamed that Life was Beauty.
I woke and found that Life was Duty.
Was my dream then, a shadowy lie?
Toil on, sad heart, courageously;
And thou shalt find thy dream to be,
A noon-day light and truth to thee!

LIFE-life, my friend,

May hold a not unornamented course,

Wherever it shall flow: be the bed rocky,

Yet are there flowers, and none of brighter hue,
That to the rock are native.

H. TAYLOR.

ОH SOLITUDE! how sweet are thy shades, when we have long gazed upon the blazing light of day, whirled in its deafening crowd, and lived with the mind much occupied in other things; how pleasant to go with earnest and deep searching into the chambers of the soul, disrobe and discipline, and lead it to the fountain of light, purity and joy.

Benry Martyn.

HENRY MARTYN entered on the Christian warfare with signal advantages. He could bring a cultivated intellect to the contemplation of spiritual and abstract truth. Like Justin Martyr, he has visited the schools of science and been crowned with their laurels; but he has returned dissatisfied. The spoils he has gathered in Greek and Roman fields he gladly lays down at the feet of his Redeemer. Martyn was a scholar. He had been with Newton through the Heavens, with Butler in the profound depths of the Analogy, and with Xenophon in his Retreat of the Ten Thousand. But he brought his philosophy and poetry, his history and his languages, and laid them at the feet of the Saviour. He gathered the fairest flowers of literature, and strewed them on the ascent to Calvary. No man loved his country more than Martyn. None could sympathise more sincerely in those treasured associations which will forever endear the land of Wickliffe and Cranmer, Hampden and Sydney, to all English hearts. The ties which bound him to the hills and glens of Cornwall, were of the most cherished character. Brother, sister, scholar and friend, all were merged in the exalted philanthropy which filled his soul. He looked upon the perishing millions of India, and felt, that there was his brother and sister and mother!

When we behold the lowly Henry Martyn in Persia—surrounded by captious and insulting philosophers, and contrast his humility with the lofty intellectual spirit of the Cambridge scholar, we are compelled to stop and admire the riches of that sovereign grace, which lays low everything that exalts itself against God. We love to watch the progress of that Star in the East, of which Buchanan and Schwartz and Brown and Martyn were the heralds. The best eulogy which can be written of them, is, to point to Ceylon, to the plains of Travancore, and to the garden of Shiraz. SARGENT.

A Psalm of Life.

What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist.

And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still like muffled drums are beating Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living Present!

Heart within and God o'erhead!