constantly with me as of my Father in heaven, and the mention of him or of any thing relating to heaven or the eternal world, made my heart leap within me. There was a new sunshine on the earth, a new life in all things-I was full of love for all. When calm and thoughtful, there was unutterable peace in my heart, and when actively engaged, there was an extatic enjoyment totally distinct from that arising from childish sport or buoyant health. By degrees, however, this happy condition subsided. I sank back into a state similar to my former one, and frequently my conscience reproached me for not holding fast the treasure I had obtained.

I have in later years frequently reviewed this experience of my childhood with peculiar interest, because it is an instance of a class of experiences about which a diversity of opinions exists. The Wesleyans term it conversion, and consider it necessary to salvation. Many others, whose opinions are entitled to high respect, suppose that it is merely the manifestation of an enthusiastic state of religious feeling; in short, a kind of mental disease. From my recollections of my own state, I am inclined to think that both these views are erroneous. I believe that in my own case the truths and principles of good which had been gradually infused from my infancy, (called by the New Church "remains") were at this time, by peculiar circumstances, brought into a high state of activity. Consequent on this came a truer perception of my low and unworthy state. Then came humiliation, and then prayer, or a devout aspiration after that which was pure and holy. By the same process we always enter into a more joyful and heavenly state. In strict accordance with this view, I remember that, so long as even my desire for salvation was of a strictly selfish character, I was not at all relieved. So long as I merely feared hell, or sought to secure heaven for self, I was in the same state of darkness. But when in my despair I began to lose sight of my own selfish interest altogether, and in aspirations after goodness to have a love for the Divine goodness as manifested in the person of Jesus, then, unexpectedly, the darkness fled, and a holy serenity fell upon me. The same fact is, in most cases of a similar kind, observed, as will be found in reading the lives of many Wesleyan ministers and others. It is also alluded to in some of their hymns, as in the one called "Wrestling Jacob:"

And again,

"When I am weak, then I am strong,

And when my all of strength shall fail,
I shall with the God-man prevail."

"Yield to me now, for I am weak,
But confident in self-despair."

It is when selfishness is thus reduced to its lowest point,-when it ceases to interfere with that which is of a directly opposite nature, but which it has sought to ally itself with,—it is then that the celestial influence is allowed to enter, and a calm ensues. To this extent I fully believe in the reality and spiritual nature of the experience called conversion by the Methodists. But their mistakes with respect to it are very serious. First, they suppose that the peace and joy are evidences of a forgiveness then granted. Secondly, that they are the result of faith only, i. e., of belief in the satisfaction made to Divine Justice by the death of Christ. Thirdly, that this is not a merely transient or temporary condition, but a real conversion,-the entrance into the Divine family, and a permanent securing of salvation so long as the same belief is maintained. These views are not only unscriptural and irrational, but in a high degree pernicious, because they lull men's minds into a state of satisfied indifference, and lead insensibly to the belief that the battle of life is well nigh over when this work of conversion is accomplished. No more fatal error than this is possible. The victim sinks into indolence and worldliness, thinking himself safe, and deceiving himself as well as others by an outward garb of propriety, while he is really growing like the old Pharisees, "a whited sepulchre, full of dead men's bones."

(To be continued.)

EMBLEMS.

(Concluded from page 66.)

WE must unwillingly refrain from any further detail of emblems such as those last noticed, in order that we may point out other forms, and speak of analogies not yet referred to. What a beautiful resemblance subsists, for instance, between the ruins of ancient cities and the traces of former conditions of our planet which we see in fossils! The antiquities of Memphis, Nimroud and Palenque, of Palmyra, Thebes, and Balbec, are certainly striking objects for our contemplation, but those of our coal-fields and chalk-formations are infinitely more so. The former speak to us simply of the vicissitudes of empires, but the latter speak to us of the vicissitudes of a world. For though Petra be

'A rose-red city, half as old as time!'

what is the antiquity of its marvellous sculptures compared with the antiquity of a trilobite, or of those ancient forms of life, the spirifers

of our slate-quarries; and what have been the changes and convulsions that have affected man during the whole period of his residence upon earth, compared with the throes and spasms that in old time sunk hollows for the huge sea to lie down in, and lifted up the mountains which now

their broad bare backs Upheave into the clouds'?

Botanists have attempted in vain to estimate the age of many trees in the Brazilian forests, yet what are those trees compared with the fossil plants which preceded our present vegetation! Chateaubriand, when he would illustrate the circumstance of a noble thought remaining to embellish a mind devastated by time and sorrow, points to a lofty column standing in a desert, such as may still be seen at Balbec and elsewhere. But to return to the inner contents of the earth:- How like to quicksilver is the Christian church! If a number of globules of this metal be placed in contact with one another, they instantly unite into one large drop, and so complete is the union that the aggregate mass preserves the very form of each constituent globule. But if there are particles of dust in proximity with the globules, this powerful attraction is obstructed, and the globules remain isolated and distinct, each forming its own little sphere. They repel each other rather than combine, for the metal must be cleansed before the globules will unite. So with the various parts of the Church of Christ. All are of the same substance, but the dross of the world causes discord where all would naturally be harmony and union. Thanks be to God, there is One who it is promised shall sit over it as 'a purifier and refiner.'

Contemplate, again, the various colours which embellish nature, and what agreeable harmonies with our ideas and feelings do we find them uniformly yielding! Hence we use black as the symbol of grief and mourning,' white of purity, green of hope,-green being the attribute as to colour, of spring,—and purple of whatever is superlatively grand,

a 'Quelquefois une haute colonne se montrait seule debout dans un désert, comme une grand pensée s'élève, par intervalles, dans une âme que le temps et le malheur ont dévastée.'-René.

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See Chambers' Edinburgh Journal,' No. 36, Old Series, for a list of various colours used for mourning in different countries.

Black, when so used, denotes privation of life.

White is an emblem of purity.

Yellow denotes the end of human hopes;-faded leaves.

Brown, the earth, to which the dead return.

Blue is the emblem of happiness, the colour of the skies, to which the deceased is supposed to be gone.

beautiful, or kingly, the last-named colour being that which mantles the sky during sunsets of unusual brilliancy and splendour. Filled with the enthusiasm of the analogy, the poets continually use the word purple as an epithet for such objects. Thus Virgila gives it to the sea, Horace to the swan, and Ovid to the most attractive of feminine graces; while Milton, descanting on conjugal affection, says in his own inimitable language—

'There Love his golden shaft employs; there lights

His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings.'

Hymen, the ancients' god of marriage, was represented, it will be remembered, as wearing a purple vest.

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In the changes of the seasons we have another most complete and eloquent emblem,-namely, of human life. The seasons have therefore perpetually been used by the poets to illustrate our progress from infancy to old age; in Ovid's Metamorphoses, for instance, where the resemblance is treated of at length. Hence, too, the Egyptians, in their hieroglyphics, drew the sun at the winter solstice as an infant; at the vernal equinox as a youth; at the summer solstice as a man in the highest state of vigour; and at the autumnal equinox as an old man.' Certainly no emblem suggests more pleasing, yet more pensive meditations. Thomson has introduced it with considerable elegance at the conclusion of his Winter :'

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Cicero gives expression to the same beautiful similitude in his Essay on Old Age;' (chap. xix.) while Dante uses the progress of the day in like manner, as an emblem of human life. It is from the same general analogy that we constantly associate good fortune with a fine morning, and the reverse with clouds and ungenial weather.

But by far the finest analogy yielded by the seasons is that of the development of the mind, whether we take the history of its progress in natural, intellectual, or spiritual knowledges. It is the same as the

analogy offered by the break of day, and the successive advent of morning and of high noon. It is an error to begin our reckoning of time with spring and with day-break, for the earliest state is always one of cold and darkness. We acknowledge this order in commencing our reckoning of the day with midnight: to be consistent, then, even without the teaching of natural analogies, we ought to commence the reckoning of the year with winter, as done by the ancient Egyptians; for what is spring but winter melted? Their reason for this undoubtedly lay deeper than many would suspect, but is obvious to any one who has inquired into the early spiritual history of the world. We have not room at present to do more than point out this highly beautiful and suggestive analogy, with the exception of referring our readers to the interior meaning of the first five verses of Genesis, and to our Saviour's solemn admonition- Pray that your flight be not in the winter;' i. e., that you depart not this life while your souls are yet in spiritual cold and darkness.

It is exceedingly interesting thus to find emblems of humanity meeting us at every turn. It is, however, of easy explanation. Their continual recurrence results from the simple fact that change is the only feature necessary to constitute resemblance to our mortal nature; change from an embryo state to maturity, from maturity to decrepitude, from decrepitude to conclusion and decay. The ancients were particularly fond of seeking out these likenesses of themselves, and not only as they are presented by external nature, but as yielded in the abstract productions of the mind. One of their authors tells us that Minerva having desired the Sciences to give a definition of man, Astronomy called him a planet, because he is always moving. Logic described him as an enthymeme, his birth corresponding to the antecedent, and his death to the consequent, in the form of argument so called. Geometry pointed to a circle, which ends where it began; while Rhetoric compared him to an oration, his birth being the exordium, his events of life the narration, his sighs and his joys the tropes and figures, and his death the peroration. The last is an emblem of peculiar beauty, from the elegance of the analogy preserved in the sequence of the changes. We can never think too deeply nor too much on the philosophy of change,— CHANGE, 'the great lord of the universe,' as Feltham calls it,—one of the most lovely, yet most sad; one of the most mournful, yet most animating themes that the mind can dwell upon. For there is no truth more sublime than that decay, death, and disappearance, are not annihilation, but simply the circumstances attendant on change of form. Annihilation is both a moral and a physical impossibility. Nor is there