Che Influence of Bubit.

THE astonishing power which habit exercises over us, is scarcely credible to those who are unaccustomed to analyse the deep workings of the human mind, and who have never been called upon to change the every day routine of their proceedings. But a little observation will convince us that the chains in which habit binds every faculty of the soul, are most powerful engines of good or evil.

And while we take heed not to confound cause and effect; while we remember, that habit is not itself the holy principle of Grace within us, which, when really formed in the soul, seems as a well, springing up to eternal life: we shall yet find that habit becomes a singularly useful hedge about the spiritual vineyards; strengthening the feeble aspirations of the soul after good things, encouraging the growth of divine grace in the heart, and retaining in the service of piety all the nobler faculties of the intellectual part of our natures.

When the soul has learned to seek and receive grace from her Redeemer; when she has learned to meditate much upon the abounding mercy, the unfathomable love, the spotless purity, the majestic grandeur of his character, as exhibited to us in the Holy Scriptures, she will have formed habits of contemplation which will bring into action gratitude, love, and a pure exalted taste, capable of appreciating conceptions the most perfect and sublime. To a soul thus trained we shall perceive that cause and effect will act and react on each other; the sentiments of grateful love will lead to actions of obedience and devotion on the one hand; the habit of performing these actions, will, on the other, deepen the love by which they were originally prompted. Many of us know how the habit of rendering thanks, which spring from love to our Heavenly Father, for His never failing mercies, strengthens that love

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towards Him; how the habit of tracing the foosteps of Providence, amid the intricate paths of life, strengthens our faith. and hope from which the habit arose; how the habit of referring all events to His choice and direction, strengthens the resignation, -which gave birth to the habit. And thus we might proceed through the whole catalogue of Christian graces.

Such being the use and the power of habit, how greatly does the cultivation of good ones, prompted and assisted as it doubtless is by the Holy Spirit, prepare us for the enjoyments and happiness of glorified spirits-for the society of Heaven. Religion is not merely a sentiment, it is not a set of abstract theories, apart from our every day occupations. Like an atmosphere, it must surround, pervade and mingle with every motive and every action. Some appear to believe that Religion consists in worshipping the supreme Being; and, by consequence deem all time misspent which is devoted to secular objects; even the Creator's beautiful handiworks, the earth, which is full of His riches, and teeming with beauty, life and joyousness, are all quite beneath the contemplation of such as imbibe this narrow view of man's duty and his destiny.

I would rather define that mind as a religious one, which has acquired the habit of conducting every thing with reference to its Creator and eternity. While such a soul forgets not to worship publicly as well as in the closet; and, in the secret of the heart, to commune with its God, under an abiding sense of His omnipresence, it will also take a far wider range than the one to which I have alluded. While he traces the guiding finger of the Deity in all the minor events of life, he remembers that we are placed in this world to be trained for Heaven—that we must practice the tempers and the graces of Heaven in our every day employments-that the man of business, who, from motives which arise in a conscience enlightened and guided by the Holy Spirit of Christ, preserves an unsullied integrity amidst the contamination of the world's traffic, does exhibit the

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beauty of a religious character, as truly as another who sits in his closet and writes a devotional treatise. They are parts of a whole; and it is dangerous to separate the idea of them. "Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." We weave snares for our consciences, when we allow ourselves to believe that the lawful pursuits, the intellectual or the simple pleasures of life, necessarily carry us out of the atmosphere of Religion. They may be the very best means of bracing our minds for the highest department of religious devotional exercises, either on behalf of ourselves or others; "whoso offereth praise, glorifieth me." I believe we do offer no unacceptable praise to the Father of mercies, when with hearts peacefully reposing on His love, we enjoy the beautiful world in which He has placed us; and when we expand with glowing benevolence towards all around us, or receive with adoring thankfulness, the sweet love with which, as in silver chains, some of us are bound to each other.

Love to God and to our neighbour, we are told by the sacred lips of Truth, is the sum and substance of the Divine law; and it appears impossible to enumerate a grace which is not employed in carrying out these two principles. Are we then watching, as at the feet of Jesus, for the precious opportunities which are presented by the swiftly changing events of each day, to do His work? For, whether it be in public or in private life, each day brings with it the Christian's proper business, both towards his God and his neighbour; and by patiently persevering in its performance, we call into exercise almost every Christain grace, which we shall need in Heaven and we shall, ere long, be surprised to find how firmly these graces are engrafted on our natures, and bound about our souls with the bands of habit. The commencement of great works is generally small and insignificant the seed is minute, although the tree be of great magnitude; but the seed must be planted in the earth, or the tree will not spring up. So must we take heed that we form good habits; which though

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they at first may be feeble, and of slow growth, will surely strengthen and expand by degrees. As the tender plant is nourished by the oft descending rain and the constant dew of Heaven, so is the vital principle of divine grace within us cherished by the persevering, rather than the great, efforts of daily practice; and these efforts constitute our habits.

PHILLIPS.

Che Bohemian Coal Mines--Buckland.

THE most elaborate imitations of living foliage upon the painted ceilings of Italian palaces, bear no comparison with the beauteous profusion of extinct vegetable forms with which the galleries of those instructive coal-mines are overhung. The roof is covered as with a canopy of gorgeous tapestry, enriched with festoons of most graceful foliage, flung in wild, irregular profusion over every portion of its surface. The effect is heightened by the contrast of the coal-black colour of these vegetables, with the light groundwork of the rock to which they are attached. The spectator feels himself transported, as if by enchantment, into the forests of another world; he beholds trees, of forms and characters now unknown upon the surface of the earth, presented to his senses almost in the beauty and vigour of their primeval life, — their scaly stems and bending branches, with their delicate apparatus of foliage, are all spread forth before him, little impaired by the lapse of countless ages, and bearing faithful records of extinct systems of vegetation, which began and terminated in times of which those relics are the infallible historians.

Such are the grand natural Herbaria wherein these most ancient remains of the vegetable kingdom are preserved in a state of integrity, little short of their living perfection, under conditions. of our Planet which exist no more.

What has the Year left Wndone ?

It is not what my hands have done,
That weighs my spirit down;
That casts a shadow o'er the sun,
And over earth a frown:

It is not any heinous guilt,

Or vice by men abhorred;

For fair the fame that I have built,
A fair life's just reward:

And men would wonder if they knew,
How sad I feel, with sins so few.

Alas! they only see a part,

When thus they judge the whole;
They do not look upon the heart,
They cannot read the soul:
But I survey myself within,
And mournfully I feel,
How deep the principle of sin

Its root may there conceal,

And spread its poison through the frame,
Without a deed that men can blame.

They judge by actions which they see
Brought out before the sun;
But conscience brings reproach to me
For what I've left undone :

For opportunities of good,

In folly thrown away,

For hours misspent in solitude,

Forgetfulness to pray;

And thousand more omitted things,

Whose memory fills my breast with stings.