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Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues

Like mere abstractions, empty sounds, to which

We join no feeling, and attach no form!
As if the soldier died without a wound;
As if the fibres of this God-like frame
Were gor'd without a pang; as if the wretch
Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds,
Pass'd off to heaven translated, and not
kill'd;

As though he had no wife to pine for him,
No God to judge him! Therefore, evil days
Are coming on us, oh! my countrymen!
And what if all-avenging Providence,
Strong and retributive, should make us know
The meaning of our words, force us to feel
The desolation and the agony

Of our fierce doings? Spare us yet awhile,
Father and God! Oh! spare us yet awhile!
COLERIDGE.

1.

GLEANINGS ON THE WAR,

PRAYER AND THE WAR.

"THE Lord reigneth." God already governs the innumerable multitude of material worlds; but He does not yet reign in all hearts. A few rejoice in His sovereignty; and those few will soon become many, and the many will become all. How beautiful is the harmony of the heavens! How dark and stormy the convulsions of the earth! Yet order, even here below, will spring out of disorder, and the Spirit of God, brooding over the dark and stormy deep, will give rise to a new moral world of light and beauty.

The great lesson which we have to learn and to practice is, that in human affairs God does not work without man, but makes him co-efficient though subordinate to himself. All great and ameliorating changes are to be preceded by prayer. Prayer is the law of the kingdom of heaven, and its motive principle. Even to the King Messiah it is said, "Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession;" and the voice of God's people to the future Subduer and Saviour of the world is, "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most Mighty;" where we see the language of prophecy is exchanged for the expression of prayer. If God's people ask, the promise will assuredly be performed, and the victory and dominion be secure.

Prayer should be the habitual language of the believer, for it is the cry of want addressed to the source and centre of plenty and power. But we do not feel our deep need in any adequate degree, till we are brought by pain and misery to cry out for relief. Hence, in order that God's people may be a praying people, they are also a poor and

afflicted people, whose faith is stimulated into constant exercise by adverse events. And thus, though war, pestilence, and famine be judgments upon God's enemies, they also serve as most merciful remembrancers to stir up God's people to a fervour of prayer unknown to their more prosperous days. We have an apparent example of this in the present war: the. chief revivals which we at present experience are connected with that war. The danger of relatives and the losses of friends have evidently raised up an earnestness of intercession, which has had power with God, and has prevailed. The careless, in many instances, have become thoughtful; the doubtful have been brought to decision; and those who have already been in the faith, but weak in the faith, have waxed strong. The war, however, bears evident tokens of God's judgments, as well as of His mercies. In many respects it has been most disastrous for Britain; and though these disasters may be traced to human incapacity, they have not less to be regarded as signs of God's displeasure.

We must look for the remedy higher than man. Our appeal must be, in the first place, to God. He has raised up, in former days, a Marlborough, a Nelson, and a Wellington, who overbalanced the incapacity of former ministries, out of weakness waxed strong, and put to flight the armies of the aliens. "I therefore exhort," says St. Paul, "that supplications be made for all men, for kings, and for all in authority." Prayer should therefore arise for the Queen morning and evening. None of our misfortunes are attributable to her, who still has the cause of Britain at heart, and who still possesses the hearts of her subjects. May she never lose them! Prayer should be made continually for the Queen's ministers. May God deliver her from hollowhearted or weak-headed men, and sur

round her with those who are fitted for as arduous a situation as man ever occupied !

Wise, upright, valiant, not a venal band,
Who are to judge of danger which they fear,
And honour which they do not understand.

Prayer, also, should be made for both Houses of Parliament, lest they be weighed in the balance and found want ing, when they come up in remembrance before God, with all other bodies to whom political power has been entrusted, before the angel pours out the fulness of his vial into the political heavens, and before the storms are let loose which will shake to their centre all the institutions of the world. Above all, prayer should be made for the people, the true heart of Britain, whence all that is vital circulates to the remotest branches of the political body, that they may maintain integrity of purpose and firmness of resolution. They have the real and ultimate power in their hands, as far as they possess the power of election and the choice of Members of Parliament. Let them never entrust men with the affairs of the nation to whom they would not commit their own private affairs. Let the elected at least be honest, and, if possible, religious-men who fear God and hate covetousness, and who will ask counsel of the Most Wise before they give advice or instruction to others, and, with God's blessing, all will yet be well.*

II.

OUTLINE FOR UNITED PRAYER FOR THE

ARMY.

O Lord God, our Heavenly Father, we come before thee in this our time of national affliction, believing that there is help for us in thee, and only in thee.

Let thine eye pity them; let thy hand help and spare them. Let them not perish miserably by famine and pestilence. Let them not be cut down by their enemies. Cover thou their heads in the day of battle. Grant them victory; and if good in thy sight, may the stronghold of the enemy yet fall into their bands.

Above all, we beseech thee, grant an outpouring of thy Holy Spirit upon them all. Make every one a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Fill them "with the Holy Ghost and with faith." Teach the sick, the wounded, and the dying, by that ever blessed Spirit, to look only to JESUS for salvation; to "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

May all who are gone forth to teach them be taught of thee, and "know nothing among them but Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

Grant these mercies also to our allies; and shew pity and mercy towards our enemies. Deal tenderly with all who are suffering the miseries of war.

Give wisdom to all those who are in authority, to see the things that are right to be done, and enable them to do such things with vigour and success.

O Lord God, the Holy Spirit, do thou teach our people to pray, and help our unbelief, that, as a nation, we may indeed believe that thou, God, dost govern the kingdoms of the earth,-that with one voice we may cry unto thee, and with one heart trust thee,—and may we know, and that speedily, that thou art a God that heareth prayer. "O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do. Defer not, for thine own sake, O our God."

We ask all for the sake of thy blessed Son, Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen,

III.

O Lord, have mercy on our country. LETTER OF GEORGE WHITEFIELD. Though our sins have been without number, yet, for thine own great mercy's "BOSTON, July 29th, 1745. sake, deal not with us after our sins. "DEAR MADAM,-You will be surTake not utterly away thy loving-kind-prised to hear that a messenger of the ness from us. Thou hast been in times Prince of Peace, especially such a weak past our strength and our shield. Oh! creature as I am, should beat up to arms. forsake us not utterly. No doubt, you have judged me, as well you may; but Providence seemed to force me to it. You have now heard of the Cape Breton Expedition, which was carried on and finished with the greatest secrecy and expedition here, before it could be scarcely known to you at home. Worthy Colonel P. was fixed upon to command. The day before he ac

Thou art full of compassion and of great kindness; oh! have mercy upon the sufferings of our poor soldiers. Look upon them in cold, and hunger, and weariness-in sickness and in death.

From the first of a series of tracts, by Mr.

Douglas of Cavers, on The Coming of the King. dom." Edinburgh: Constable and Co.

cepted of the commission, he purposed to dine with me to ask my advice. I told him that I hoped if he did undertake it, he would beg of the Lord God of armies to give him a single eye; that the means proposed to take Louisburgh, in the eye of human reason, were no more adequate to the end than the sounding of ram's horns to blow down Jericho; that the eyes of all would be upon him; and if he should not succeed in the intended enterprise, the widows and orphans of the slain soldiers would be like lions robbed of their whelps; but if it pleased God to give him success, envy would not suffer him to take the glory; and, therefore, he would take great care that his views were disinterested; and then, I doubted not, if Providence really called him, he would find his strength proportioned to the day, and would return more than conqueror! He thanked me, and his lady having giving her free consent, he commenced general.

"The sound was now, 'To arms! to arms!' New recruits were eagerly sought after, and my worthy friend Mr. S- was appointed one of the commissaries. Being at his house, he told me, one evening, that he was preparing the flag, and that I must give him the motto, and that the people must know it too. I absolutely refused, urging it would be acting out of character. He replied, that the expedition, he believed, was of God; and that if I did not encourage it, many of the serious people would not enlist. I still refused. He desired me to consider, and sleep upon it, and to give him my answer in the morning. I retired-I prayed-I slept; and upon his renewing his request in the morning, I told him, that since he was so urgent, and as I did not know

officers to act like David's worthies; then I made no manner of doubt but we should receive good news from Cape Breton. After this I preached to the general himself, who asked me if I would not be one of his chaplains? I told him, 'I should think it an honour; but believed, as I generally preached three times a-day in various places to large congregations, I could do my king, my country, and my God, more service by stirring up the people to pray, and thereby strengthen his and his soldiers' hands. Through divine grace I was enabled to persist in this practice for some weeks; but, at last, news arrived that the case was desperate; letter upon letter came from one officer and another, to those who planned the expedition, and did not know the strength of the fortress. I smiled, and told my friends that I believed now we should have Louisburgh; that all having confessed their helplessness, God would now reveal His arm, and make our extremity His opportunity. I was not disappointed of my hope; for, one day, having taken a weeping leave of dear Boston, and being about to preach a few miles out of the town, news was brought that Louisburgh was taken! Numbers flocked with great joy from all quarters, and I immediately preached to them a thanksgiving sermon from these words: BY THIS I KNOW THAT THOU FAVOUREST ME, SINCE THOU HAST NOT PERMITTED MINE ENEMIES TO TRIUMPH OVER ME. Here ends, dear Madam, my beating to arms; it is left to you to judge as you please of yours, &c.,

SONNET.

"G. W."t

but Divine Providence might intend to My grief pursues me through the land of sleep,

give us Louisburgh, therefore he might take this motto,- NIL DESPERANDUM CHRISTO DUCE." Upon this, great numbers enlisted; and, before their embarkation, their officers desired me to give them a sermon. I preached from these words: As many as were distressed, as many as were discontented, as many as were in debt, came to David, and he became a captain over them.' Officers, soldiers, and others attended. I spiritualized the subject, and told them how distressed sinners came to Jesus Christ, the son of David; and in my application, exhorted the soldiers to behave like the soldiers of David, and the

Nothing to be despaired of-CHRIST being our Leader,

It winds into the secret of my dreams,
And shapes their shadowy pomp. When
Fancy seems

To charm my fevered spirit into deep
Forgetfulness, the restless thought will creep
From its dim ambush, startling that repose;
And glooms, and spectral horrors round me
close

Like iron walls I may not overleap.
And then I seem to see thy face again;

But not, beloved! as thou wert and art,

And, with thy sweet voice tingling in my brain,
From this great agony of fear I start,
To feel the slow throb of habitual pain,
And undulled anguish grasping at my neart.
J. D. BURNS.

Extracted from a tract published by the "Soldiers' Friend and Army Scripture Readers' Society."

PRAYER FOR THE SOLDIER OR SAILOR ABROAD BY HIS RELATIONS AT HOME.

O GRACIOUS and compassionate from the arrow that flieth by day,

God! Thou art everywhere present beholding the evil and the good. To Thee all hearts are open, and all desires known. Thou knowest our frame, and rememberest we are dust, and Thy name is Love. We come to Thee through Jesus Christ, who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; who died for our sins; who ever liveth to make intercession for us; of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named; and through whom all have access by one Spirit unto Thee. We thank Thee that Thou hast graciously commanded us to be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, to make our requests known unto Thee, promising that Thy peace, which passeth understanding, shall keep our minds and hearts through Christ Jesus. To Thee, our Father, we cry in the sorrow of our hearts, supplicating Thee graciously to protect our beloved friend [husband, brother, son] amidst the tumult of this war, in which he must bear a part; and so to protect him, that he may be delivered from danger, and that we may again behold his face in the land of the

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'living. Preserve him, O Lord,

and the pestilence that walketh by night; keep his body in health and strength, and his soul in peace, through the blessed assurance of Thy presence. Oh! draw his heart mightily towards Thee, that he may have no pleasure in murder and destruction, but in Thy fear may shew love and compassion even to the enemy. Be ever with him as his shield and mighty defence from the powers of evil; let him not fall into sin, wantonness, or levity; work powerfully in him by Thy Holy Spirit; quicken him, that by earnest repentance and faith in Thy Son he may prepare himself for death; and if it be Thy will to call him away, give him a blessed ending, and let him come to Thee in Thy kingdom of glory. But while we beseech Thee to spare him, we also pray, that he may be so strengthened by Thy grace as to be made willing to lose his life in the doing of Thy will, rather than to save it by disobedience, or neglect of duty. Hear us, O Lord! We cast our care on Thee, for Thou carest for us; and we beseech Thee, Father of mercies, to answer our petitions for the sake of Him in whose words we would pray, saying: "Our Father," &c.

WANDERINGS IN CORSICA.*

MR. CONSTABLE furnishes us, month after month, with such a rapid succession of delightful volumes, that it is hardly possible to keep up with him in reading or reviewing them. The two volumes before us, entitled, Wanderings in Corsica: its History and its Heroes, are equal to any of their predecessors, and furnish a most delightful melange of the history of Corsica, wanderings through its picturesque mountains and valleys, fresh and artist-like descriptions of its scenery, with stories of its wild inhabitants and revengeful bandits, all written with singular taste and raciness of style.

There is some difficulty in gleaning extracts from its pages, as they are all worth perusing. The following may interest our readers, on the Napoleon family:

door, and a fireplace with a mantelpiece of yellow marble, ornamented with some mythological reliefs. In this room, on the 15th of August 1769, Napoleon was born. It is a strange feeling, hard to put in language, which takes possession of the soul on the spot hallowed as the birthplace of a great man. Something sacred, mystic, a consecrated atmosphere, pervades it. It is as if you were casting a glance behind the curtain of Nature, where she creates in silence the incomprehensible organs of her action. But man discerns only the phenomenal, he attempts in vain to ascertain the how. able mysteries of nature, and see with To stand in silence before the unsearch

wonder the radiant forms that ascend from the darkness-that is human religion. For the thoughtful man nothing is more deeply impressive than the starry I saw other rooms, the ballroom of the sky of night, or the starry sky of history. family, Madame Letitia's room, Napoleon's NAPOLEON'S EARLY HOME IN AJACCIO. little room where he slept, and that in which he studied. The two little wall"Bonaparte's house, which has, I am presses are still to be seen there in which assured, sustained but slight alteration, his school-books stood. Books stand in though no palace, has plainly been the them at present. With eager curiosity dwelling of a patrician family. Its ap- I took out some of them, as if they were pearance shews this, and it is without Napoleon's; they were yellow with age doubt a palace compared with the village-law-books, theological treatises, a Livy, cabin in which Pasquale Paoli was born. It is roomy, handsome, and convenient. But the rooms are destitute of furniture; the tapestries alone have been left on the walls, and they are decayed. The floor, which, as is usual in Corsica, is laid out in small hexagonal red flags, is here and there ruinous. The darkness produced in the rooms by the closed jalousies, and their emptiness, made them quite dismal. "Once, in the time of the beautiful Letitia, this house was alive with the busy stir of a numerous family, and brilliant with joyous hospitality. Now, it is like a tomb, and in vain you look around you for a single object on which fancy may hang associations with the history of its enigmatic inhabitants. The naked walls can tell no tale.

"I entered a little room with blue tapestry, and two windows, one of which, with a balcony before it, looked into a court, the other into the street. You see here a wall-press, behind a tapestried

Wanderings in Corsica: its History and its

Heroes. Translated from the German of Fer

dinand Gregorovius, by Alexander Muir. Edin

burgh: Thomas Constable & Co.

a Guicciardini, and others, probably the property of the Pietra Santa family, who are related to the Bonapartes, and to whom their house in Ajaccio now belongs.”

NAPOLEON'S INFANCY.

"Little is known of Napoleon's infancy. His mother Letitia was in church at the festival of the Assunta of the Virgin when she felt the first pangs of approaching labour. She immediately hastened home; but had not time to gain her own room, and gave birth to her child in a small cabinet, on a temporary couch of tapestry representing scenes from the Iliad. Gertrude, her sister-in-law, attended her. It was eleven o'clock in the forenoon when Napoleon came to the world.

"He was not baptized till the 21st of July 1771, nearly two years after his birth, along with his sister Maria Anna, who died soon after. It is said that he resisted vehemently when the priest was about to sprinkle the consecrated water himself, as at a later period he crowned on him; perhaps he wanted to baptize

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