The Majesty Of The Scriptures

the scriptures astonishes me; the holiness of the gospel ís an argurnent which speaks to my heart, and which 1 should be sorry to be able to nnswer. Ilead the books of the philosophers with all their pomp; how petty they are beside this! Is a book at once so sublime and so simple the work of man ? Oan it be that He whose history it relates was Himself a mere man? Is this the ton} of an enthusiast, or of a mere secretary ? What sweetnetes, what purity in His manners ! what touching grace in His instructions ! what elevation in His maxima ! what prof ound wisdom in His discourses ! what presence of mind, what acuteness, what justnessin His replies! what empire over His passions ! Where is the man, where is the sage, who knows in this way how to act, suffer, and die, without weakness and without ostentation ? When Plato desoribes his imaginary good man, covered with the opprobrium of crime, yet meriting the rewards of virtue, he paints, trait by trait, Jesus Ohrist .... What prejudice, blindness, or bad faith does it not require to compare the son of Sophroniscus with the Son of Mary ! What distance between the two ! Sócrates dies without pain, without ignominy 1 He sustains his character easily to the end. If he had not honored his Jife with such a death, we should have thought him a sophist. They gay Sócrates invented ethics ; but others practised morality before he taught it. I Aristides was just before Sócrates described justice ; Leónidas died for his country before Sócrates taught the duty of patriotism. Sparta was températe before Sócrates praisedsobriety ; (ireece I abounded in virtuous men before he de! flned what virtue is. But Jesus - where did He find the lofty morality, of which He alone gave both the lesson and the xample 1 From the midst of a furious fanaticism proceeds the purest wisdom ; among the vilest of the people appears the most heroic and virtuous simplicity. The death of Sócrates, tranquilly phili osophizing among his friends, is the sweetest one could desire ; that of Jesus, expiring amid tomients, abusod, ridiculed, cursed by a whole people, is the most horrible which one could f e ar. Yes ; if Sócrates lives and dies like a philosopher, Jesus lives and dies like a God ! - Jean Jacques Rosseau. Looking Westward. "I love the western sky," said one who was afflicted in spirit; " it seems to carry my thoughts a way to another country and brighter morrow." There is often something so unearthly about the sunset; these golden rays darticg from behind the purple elouds, how full they seem of hope and promise ! And on stormy evenings, when " the sunset's weeping," and gives a prospect of a dreary day to come, I love to think of those distant countries whero every day he shines as yesterday in cloudless splendor, and the thought of those distant countries leads me onward to "the land which is far off," where this earthly sun will have ceased to rise and set, and where the glory of the Lord will be the light in which we shall live, and move and have our being. - Anon. An Antidote tor Trouble. The longer I live the more do I become satisfled that nothing is so good for people who are in deep trouble as real hard work - work that not only occupies the hands but the brain; work on which one lavishes the best part of the heart. I know it requires a great deal of resolution to break away from the apathy of a deep sorrow or a heavy trouble, and resolutely put one's hand to the new or the long-disused plow; but the effort once made, if there is anything in the individual, he or she will never turn back. And after work, real work, work with the hands, head and heart - nffLr fViin tx;t11 p.nmp +,rnflt. n.nr! tpï+Ii f.rnflf wiil come