savingly endeavouring to make a decent outward show; and to throw the black silk mantle, the mourning of the heart, over the wreck of beauty and respectability which they now represent; prematurely altered in person as much as in circumstances.Repeated slights, the necessity of keeping up appearances, and the high price of provisions, drive them from home. They fly to suffer where they are less known, and often close the last sad scene of a chequered life, in a land of strangers. Let the rich man read this tale, and if it move him not, useless will be the eloquence of homilies; more useless still that gold and treasure for which he must account elsewhere, when time and worldly prosperity will be no more, and when the tears of the orphan and the widow, which he has never dried up, will cease to flow. Then must his insensibility be deplored by himself, as it is now pitied by THE HERMIT IN THE COUNTRY. THE ORPHANS. ANONYMOUS. My chaise the Village Inn did gain, That mouldered round the ancient pile. many an humble green grave showed A faded beech, its shadow brown, A piece of bread between them lay, 'My little children, let me know Why you in such distress appear, "And why you wasteful from you throw "That bread which many a one might cheer ?" The little boy in accents sweet Replied, while tears each other chased,- "But sister Mary's naughty grown, Though sure I am the bread's her own, "For she has tasted none to-day." "Indeed," the wan starved Mary said, My heart did swell, my bosom heave, And clasped the clay-cold hand of each. With looks that told a tale of woe, "Before my father went away, "But then poor mother did so cry, "She kissed us both, and then she died, "We hand in hand went many a mile, "But, when we reached the sea, and found "So we returned to mother's grave, "And only long with her to be; "For Goody, when this bread she gave, "Said, father's ship was lost at sea. "Then since no parent here we have, "We'll go and search for God around, Oh-Sir! can you tell us where 66 "That God, our father, may be found. I clasped the prattlers to my breast, "And God shall be your father still, "'Twas he in mercy sent me here, "To teach you to obey his will, "Your steps to guide, your hearts to cheer." A WEEK'S CONFINEMENT. MATTHEWS.*" Diary of Invalid." RAMBLED through Voltaire, Bayle, and Rousseau.—Rousseau's "Confession of a Curate," though written, as it would seem, to invalidate the authority of Christianity, leaves behind an impression in its favour, stronger perhaps than is produced by most works written purposely to defend it. And indeed Bishop Porteus has not disdained to quote it from the pulpit to advocate the cause of religion. It is one of the most splendid specimens of eloquence extant in any language, and the whole tone of the sentiments illustrates a passage in one of Voltaire's letters to Hume. "You are mistaken (says he) in Rousseau; he has a hankering after the Bible, and is a Christian after a fashion of his own." After all, what is there that can be urged against Christianity, which may not be directed with equal force against Deism. The doubts of the Atheist, considered as a question of abstract reasoning, can only perhaps be answered-as Berkeley's reasoning against the existence of the material world was answeredby boldly begging the question at issue, and resolving the cause of our belief into an original principle of our constitution. For, the existence of an infinite first cause can never be made a matter of demonstration! The physical proof, derived from the order and arrangement of the universe, is manifestly inconclusive. The intelligence of the work can prove an intelligent contriver ;—but it cannot therefore follow that the contriver is Eternal-AlmightyInfinite-ALL, in a word, that we include in the SACRED NAME! Again, the metaphysical proof, as it is called, which, from the consciousness of our own existence, would trace it up to some necessarily existing first cause, is not a jot more satisfactory. The sum and substance of the whole argument amounts to this: I exist-therefore something exists. If something existssomething must have existed from all eternity; for, "nothing can come of nothing;" and this something is the first cause of which we are in search. But the axiom on which this argument is founded, "ex nihilo nihil fit," will cut both ways; and it is * It was in 1820 that this amiable man sought solace from disease in foreign travel; he lived to reach home, we believe, but died shortly after. perhaps more incomprehensible to human faculties, to conceive an uncaused first cause, than to meet the difficulty in the first stage, and consider the world itself as uncaused and eternal. The Atheist indeed neither affirms nor denies; but suggests that the existence of a Deity is an arbitrary hypothesis, to account for the phenomena of the universe. Can the Deist confute him by argument? must he not at last be brought to acknowledge that his own belief is founded upon faith ?-and the speculative Atheist will probably not deny that it is a faith which we all feel impelled, by the very consideration of our nature, to admit intuitively, as soon as we can comprehend the terms of the proposition;-for Atheism is a doctrine, which, however the head may be amused with its subtleties, the heart rejects. But does the faith of the Deist go far enough? Will Deism satisfy the head, or administer consolation to the heart? No. Is it not a cold and comfortless creed, alike unsatisfactory to both ?-unless indeed we could return again to Paradise. Adam might have been a Deist, and contentedly a Deist; but FALLEN MAN has need of something more. The world is no longer a happy garden. Evil assaults us on every side;-and we need not look further than our own hearts, for evidence of the continued existence of that rebellious opposition to a sense of duty, which we are taught was the cause of its introduction into the world. But, be the cause what it might-the existence of evil, in every appalling form, cannot be denied; here it is;-and how will the Deist reconcile these phenomena with his abstract idea of the Deity, without having recourse to the revelation that he denies? which not only explains the fearful mystery of our present situation, but at the same time points out the remedy; and furnishes us with assurances which unassisted reason could never have suggested, by which we are enabled to look forward with faith and hope to a better state of existence HEREAFTER! CHRISTIANITY AND DEISM CONTRASTED. DR. OLINTHUS GREGORY.*" Letters to a Friend on the Evidences, &c. of the Christian Religion." CHRISTIANITY reveals a God, glorious in holiness; Deism, though it acknowledges a God, yet in great measure overlooks *This eminent Christian and admirable Scholar was born at Yaxley, in Huntingdonshire, on the 29th of January, 1774, and died on the 1st of |