a large sum by way of tribute. The Genoese conducted the Ambassador into a garden, and pointing out to him the herb basil, desired him to take some of that weak herb and smell it. He did so, and told them it smelt very sweet. They then requested that he would press and rub it betwixt his fingers, and smell it again. He did so. "But now," said he, "it is most nauseous." "In like manner," said the Genoese, "if the Prince deals graciously and mercifully with us, he will oblige us to all cheerfulness and readiness in his service, but if he shall proceed to grind and oppress us, he will then find the bitter and troublesome effects of it." When in the pulpit, he announced ready to faint, resolved to give her a practical reproof for her unsuitable behaviour. When the Princess, therefore, came in the evening, as usual, to read to her, and was drawing herself a chair to sit down, the Queen said, "No, my dear, you must not sit at present; for I intend to make you stand this evening as long as you suffered Lady 606. Queen Caroline and the Princess of Orange.-There are often little tendencies to cruelty 605. New Commandment.shown by children which a wise Archbishop Usher being in Scot- and cautious parent will endeavour land, and hearing much of the to weaken and destroy. Queen piety of the Rev. Samuel Ruther- Caroline, one day, observing that ford, resolved on being a witness her daughter, the Princess of of it. Disguised as a pauper, on a Orange, had kept one of the ladies Saturday evening he solicited lodg- of the Court so long standing while ing for the night. Mr. Ruther- she was talking to her on some ford received him, and directed | trivial subject, that she was almost him to be seated in the kitchen. Mrs. Rutherford catechised the servants, as a preparation for the Sabbath; and having asked the stranger the number of the Divine commandments, he answered eleven. The good woman hastily concluded him ignorant, and said, "What a shame it is for you, a man with grey hairs, in a Christian country, not to know how many commandments there are! There is not a child six years old, in this parish, but could answer the question properly." Lamenting his condition, she ordered his supper, and directed a servant to show him a bed in the garret. Mr. Ruther- 607. Savages Subdued. Mr. ford having heard him at prayer, L. C. Dehne, a Moravian missionand finding out who he was, pre-ary to South America, has left the vailed on the Archbishop to preach for him, which he agreed to do, on condition that he should not be made known. Early in the morning Mr. Rutherford changed his clothes, suffered him to depart, and afterwards introduced him to breakfast as a minister on a journey. to remain to-day in the same posture. She is a woman of the first quality, but had she been a nursery-maid, you should have remembered that she was a human being as well as yourself." following account: "In November, 1757, the Caribbee Indians set out with the intention of executing their resolution, long since determined upon, of murdering me. One day, while I sat at my dinner table, I saw fifty men approaching in their canoes, who presently after surrounded my cabin. Some were armed with iron hoes and mattocks; others carried swords and such like instruments. Going out, I spoke to them in the Arawak language, and bade them welcome in a friendly manner. They ordered their interpreter to step forth and ask me in Arawak, Who gave you permission to build and live here?' 'The Governor,' I replied. Why have you come upon the land?' I now stepped up to the chief and thus frankly addressed him I have brethren living on the other side of the ocean, who, when they heard that Indians lived here who were ignorant of their Creator, at once sent me to you in love, that I should first learn your language, and then tell you about the true God. At some future time, you may expect to see more of my brethren come here on the same errand.' I suppose you are a Spaniard?' 'No.' 'Or a Frenchman?' 'No.' Are you a Dutchman, then?' 'Yes, I came from Holland, and a good way further off. In short, I am one of the brethren that love you, and live on the other side of the ocean.' 'Well, didn't you hear that the Indians were going to kill you?' 'Yes, but I did not believe it, and you have those among you who have been to see me, and know that I love them.' 'That is true; and they have also told me that you were a Christian, very different from other white people.' 'Well, if you knew that I loved you, how could you think of killing me?' He replied, laughing, Well, indeed, I never thought of that.' Upon this, all changed their savage natures and walked off. In this manner the Saviour helped me on from day to day, insomuch that, at the close of the year, I found much cause for praise and thankfulness to the Giver of every good and perfect gift." 608. Sheltering Strangers. After the battle of Culloden, so fatal to the last hopes of the House of Stuart, Colonel Stewart, attended by his friend, Mr. Hamilton of Balgour, sought his personal safety in flight. They approached a lonely hut in the Highlands, to which Mr. Hamilton went to ask shelter for an ill-starred stranger. The good woman was opening her wattled door, and by his looks comprehending at once that a poor refugee was in distress, though she did not understand one word of English, she followed Mr. Hamil. ton to the spot where he had left Colonel Stewart, who addressed her in her native tongue, and as his case was desperate, confided to her their names and their peril. She told them the cattle were pasturing near her cottage, but if he would wait a little, she would send the herd out of view, and get him removed without exciting suspicion. Having succeeded in this, she kept them concealed for several days; and when they at length quitted their humane preserver, she loaded them with provisions, accompanied them for several miles, pointing out the unfrequented paths, or where they might venture to ask for a lodging, refusing, at the same time, the slightest remuneration. What adds to the merit of the action is, that the poor widow had lost two sons in the King's cause, to which she was strongly attached. Colonel Stewart pays a well-merited tribute to the female sex. "In all our wanderings," says he, " we have preferred applying to the gentler sex. They never rejected us, and if they could contribute to providing for our safety, after separating from them, we found they had a quick and clear perception of the means, and sympathy to stimulate their exertions, and to render them effectual. Even ladies who were keen partisans of the House o Hanover spared neither trouble nor expense in our behalf." 609. Soft Words.-Southey relates the following:-"When I wa a small boy, there was a black boy 611. Wilberforce and the Slave Trade. The name of Wilberforce is associated with the best offices of humanity, and with one of the most glorious triumphs that persevering eloquence ever accomplished-the abolition of the slavetrade. It was soon after the meeting of Parliament in 1787, that Mr. Wilberforce first gave notice of his intention to bring forward a measure respecting the slave-trade. His speech was replete with eloquence, and he described this horrible traffic in the most glowing terms. in the neighbourhood, by the name window, and many a poor fisherof Jim Dick. I and a number of man had cause to bless God for my playfellows were one evening the widow's lamp; many a crew collected together at our sports, were saved from perishing. and began tormenting the poor black, by calling him negro,' blackamoor,' and other degrading epithets; the poor fellow appeared excessively grieved at our conduct, and soon left us. We soon after made an appointment to go a-skating in the neighbourhood, and on the day of the appointment I had the misfortune to break my skates, and I could not go without borrowing Jim's skates. I went to him and asked him for them. O yes, John, you may have them, and welcome,' was his answer. When I went to return them, I found Jim sitting by the fire in the kitchen, reading the Bible. I told him I had returned his skates, and was under great obligations to him for his kindness. He looked at me as he took his skates, and with tears in his eyes, said to me, John, don't never call me blackamoor again,' and immediately left the room. The words pierced my heart, and I burst into tears, and from that time resolved never again to abuse a poor black." 610. Widow's Lamp. Some years ago there dwelt a widow in a lonely cottage on the seashore. All around her the coast was rugged and dangerous, and many a time was her heart melted by the sight of wrecked fishing boats and coasting vessels, and the piteous cries of perishing human beings. One stormy night, when the howling wind was making her loneliness more lonely, and her mind was conjuring up what the next morning's light might disclose, a happy thought occurred to her. Her cottage stood on an elevated spot, and her window looked out upon the sea; might she not place her lamp by that window, that it might be a beacon-light to warn some poor mariner off the coast? She did so. All her life after, during the winter nights, her lamp burned at the "Never," said he, "was a more complete system of injustice and cruelty exhibited to the world. To whatever portion of this odious traffic you turn your eyes, you find neither consolation nor relief. The horrors attendant on tearing the Africans from their native country are only to be compared with the horrors of the voyage; the latter are only to be equalled by the horrors of the colonial slavery itself. By a merciful dispensation of Providence, in the moral as well as the physical order of things, some degree of good generally accompanies evil: hurricanes purify the air; persecution excites enthusiasm for truth; pride, vanity, and profusion frequently contribute, indirectly, to the happiness of mankind. There is nothing, however odious, that has not its palliative; the savage is hospitable, the brigand is intrepid, violence is in general exempt from perfidy, and daring iniquity from meanness. But there is no benign concomitant here; it belongs to this hateful traffic to deteriorate alike the good and the bad, and even to pollute crime itself; it is a state of warfare undignified by courage; it is a state of peace, in which there is no security against devastation and massacre. There you find the vices of polished society without ter? What but to dethrone the the delicacy of manners by which Moral Governor of the world, and they are tempered; the primitive to fall down and worship the idol savageness of man, stripped of all of interest? What a manifesto its innocence; perverseness, pure to surrounding nations! What a and complete, full and finished, lesson to our own people! Come, destitute of every honourable sen- then, ye nations of the earth, and timent, of every advantage that learn a new code of morality from can be contemplated without in- the Parliament of Great Britain. dignation, or acknowledged with- We have discarded an old preout the deepest shame." From judice; we have discovered that this time to 1806, when Mr. Wil- religion and justice and humanberforce succeeded in erasing from ity are mere rant and rhapsody! British history that stain to our Why, these are principles which national character, his whole life Epicurus would have rejected for may be read in the progress of the impiety, and Machiavel and Borabolition of the slave-trade. Of gia would have disclaimed as too all the debates to which this sub- infamous for avowal, and too inject gave rise, that on the 2nd of jurious for the general happiness April, 1793, was the most eloquent of mankind. If God, in His anger, and interesting. The number of would punish us for this formal petitions on the table of the House renunciation of His authority, what of Commons amounted to five severer vengeance could He inflict hundred and eight; this stimu- than a successful propagation of lated and encouraged the friends of these accursed maxims? Conthe measure. The want of success sider what effects would follow hitherto seemed to have awakened from their universal prevalence; all their energies, and to have what scenes should we soon behold aroused every honourable feeling of around us. In public affairs, breach which the human heart is capable. of faith, and anarchy and bloodThe speeches of Mr. Wilberforce, shed; in private life, fraud, disMr. Fox, and Mr. Pitt, appeared trust, and perfidy, and whatever so insuperable, that it was ima- can degrade the public character, gined the question would have been and poison the comforts of social carried by acclamation. Eighty- life and domestic intercourse. five persons were only found to vote against the total abolition. But by a skilful manœuvre of Mr. Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, the word gradual" was introduced into the motion before it was passed. Mr. Wilberforce, after enumerating the evils attached to the slave-trade, and describing the interest which the subject had excited in several parts of Europe, combated the arguments of those individuals who condemned the inhuman traffic on the score of religion, justice, and humanity, but vindicated it as consistent with the national interest. "I trust," said he, "that no such argument will the purpose of supporting his elecbe used this night, for what is it tion, immense as it was, was raised but to establish a competition be- in a few days, and one moiety tween God and mammon, and to was afterwards returned to the adjudge the preference to the lat- subscribers. A similar instance of 66 Men must then retire to caves and deserts, and withdraw from a world become too bad to be endured." The exertions of Mr. Wilberforce in the cause of humanity endeared him to the public, and particularly to his constituents, the freeholders of Yorkshire, whom he represented for nearly thirty years; and in the great contest which took place in 1807, a contest which is said to have cost upwards of £300,000, his whole expenses were defrayed by public subscription. Nay, such was the public zeal manifested in his favour, that more than double the sum necessary for popular favour in behalf of a candidate has never occurred in the history of contested elections. treat. The Prince immediately ordered the horses to be taken from several pieces of cannon that were already retreating, saying that 612. Wounded Soldiers. It is these brave men were better worth on record that when the Archduke saving than a few cannon. When Charles was on his way from Bo- General Moreau, into whose hands hemia to take the command of his the cannon of course fell, heard of army, as he drew near the scene of this benevolent trait, he ordered action, he met a number of wound- them to be restored to the Austrian ed men abandoned by their com- army, observing that he would take rades on the road for want of horses no cannon that were abandoned to draw the carriages in their re-from such humane motives. LIFE. Job viii. 9; Psalm ciii. 15; John v. 40; 1 John v. 12. 613. Admonitory Inscription. It was customary in former times often to put inscriptions on the front of houses. On a house still standing between Walsall and Tretsey, in Cheshire, built in 1636, of thick oak framework filled in with brick, was this inscription, over a window in the tap-room :-" Fleres si scires unum tua tempora mensem; ridis cum non scis si sit forsitan una dies." (You would weep if you knew that your life was limited to one month; yet you laugh while you know not but that it may be restricted to a day.) 614. Ancient Simplicity.-Latimer's sermons are full of information respecting the state of England in his days, and in one of them he gives the following picture of the comfort, happiness, and industry of his father's family. "My father," says he, "was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own; only he had a farm of three or four pound by year, at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept halfa-dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the King a harness, with himself and his horse, while he came to the place that he should receive the King's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went to Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the King's majesty now. He married my sisters with five pounds, or twenty nobles, a-piece, while he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor; and all this he did of the same farm; where he that now hath it, payeth sixteen pound by the year, or more, and is not able to do anything for his Prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor. 615. Avarice Defeated. A ship freighted at Alexandria by some Turks, to bring them and their merchandise to Constantinople, met with a violent storm in the passage. The master told these freighters who were on board, that he could not save the ship nor their lives but by throwing overboard all the goods on the deck. They consented to the sacrifice, as well for themselves as for other freighters at Constantinople; but when the ship arrived there, they united to prosecute the master for the value of the goods. The Moulah of Galata, before whom he was summoned, had the case fully represented to him, and his deputy as usual had the promise of a reward. When the parties appeared, and the witnesses were examined, the Moulah reflected some time, |