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benefit of ourselves or others, is that in which all should study to glorify God. It is not only his command that we should not be slothful in business, but our health and well-being depend, under Him, upon an active and industrious life. We shall find by experience that when we have nothing to do, Satan will be busy with his temptations. It should likewise be our study to employ ourselves in such a manner that when we take a retrospective survey of our actions, our consciences may not accuse us of having lived in vain.

Eating and drinking.-The next portion of time which I shall consider, is that occupied in refreshing the body with food. This, as well as every other action of our life, ought to be done to the glory of God, and in this as well as in every other thing our duty and happiness are connected. Temperance is the grand elixir of life. The temperate man enjoys a healthful body, and if he be a christian, a tranquil mind as long as God intended the machine should last, and then calmly surrenders his soul into the hands of Him who gave it. Temperance renders the body of a christian a proper habitation for his soul, and enables him to enjoy the blessings of time and the prospects of eternity, with additional pleasure.

Recreation. It should be here promised that a morose gloominess is no part of christianity. If heirs of eternal glory have not cause for cheerfulness I know not who have. The friendship and conversation of the children of God more than balance the frothy pleasures of a vain world. Botany is an amusing and instructive science. A little reading and practice will give you a competent knowledge of it. There you will learn that the weeds you trample under your feet, and which perhaps you have looked upon as useless cumberers of the ground, are so many alembics in which the Almighty physician prepares healing juices and remedies for mankind. If you choose to be more extensively and yet as innocently qualified, endeavor to improve your knowledge in the different parts of natural philosophy. It will not be difficult for you to obtain a general knowledge of astronomy; so far at least as to excite your admiration of the wisdom of that God who created, and who governs these innumerable worlds of light. In real delights, in the most sublime pleasures, christians far, very far, surpass the most expensive prodigals. Or it ought rather to be said, they have bread to eat which the latter know nothing of.

The amount of what I intended to say concerning the use of time is this: let it be entirely spent in walking with God. Whether you are engaged in prayer, in reading the scriptures, in meditation, in labor, in eating and drinking, or in recreation, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. SELECTOR

THE AURORA BOREALIS.

To the Editor of the Youths' Magazine.

ABOUT eight o'clock on the evening of Wednesday, the 18th November, I had occasion to leave my house, when on entering the street, although lighted with gas, I was astonished at the unusual brilliancy of the evening. A strange glare appeared to fill the atmosphere like that which strikes a spectator on looking out of the window after a fall of snow; and on turning my eyes upwards, I noticed that many of the stars of inferior magnitude were wanting. The southern heavens was darkly blue; but the northern and north-western regions were illuminated by a white milky light like that of the early morning. It was brightest in the vicinity of Ursa Major, the lesser stars of which it eclipsed, and rendered the seven more conspicuous ones considerably paler.

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Between this period and nine o'clock, it presented a singularly beautiful appearance. Nearly the whole of the horizon from east to west was illuminated by this unusual light to such a degree,

that the bare trees, and other intervening objects, appeared in as bold relief against the sky as at day break The moon at the time was nearly new, and consequently not visible, or in any way the cause of this appearance. The coruscations usually accompanying this phenomenon in arctic latitudes, but very uncommon in this country, were now remarkably beautiful. Long rays of light streaming upwards almost to the zenith in every direction, flashed, flickered, and disappeared momentarily. They were as instantly replaced by others; those to the west-ward which were most conspicuous, appearing perfectly rectilinear, and preserving a degree of elevation somewhat removed from the perpendicular.

A luminous arch stretched over the northern horizon, from which these streamers seemed to rise in long pencils of various diameters, possessing the aspect of snow drifts, disposed occasionally in narrow threads, and sometimes in zones wider than the rainbow. Over head, irregular flashings of light were now and then discernible, though but very faintly, as I have seen the driven rain in a high wind.

Camberwell.

D.

FOGS.

THE fogs which hang over great towns admit of an explanation similar to that of other aqueous fogs. The air of the town being warmer than the air of the surrounding country, and being at the same time charged with moisture nearly to the point of saturation, is, in cold weather suddenly cooled, either by the radiation of its own heat, or by the admixture of the neighbouring cold air; while the superfluous moisture is condensed as a fog.

The fogs of high latitudes, more especially the fogs of the Polar Seas, are in the same manner, owing to the radiation of heat. The cooling of the warmer air, over the immense masses of floating ice, gives rise to an unequal distribution of temperature, and thus at certain seasons, to uninterrupted fogs. It is probable that in all these instances, the fogs beneficially alleviate the severity of cold, by checking great and sudden alternations of temperature; which would otherwise interfere much with the operations of organic life. Fogs have been sometimes observed of a strong odour, apparently the result of an admixture of foreign bodies.

(Prout's Bridgewater Treatise.)

YOUTH AND AGE.

OUR infancy is full of folly; youth of disorder and toil; age of infirmity. Each time hath his burden and that which may justly work our weariness. Yet infancy looketh after youth; and youth after more age; and he that is very old, as he is a child for simplicity, so would be for years. There is nothing more miserable, than an old man who would be young again. (Bishop Hall.) R. C.

MAXIMS.
LIFE.

He that is youngest, says Bishop Taylor, hath not long to live; he that is 30, 40, or 50, years old, hath spent most of his life; his dream is almost done, and in a very few months, he must be cast into his eternal portion.

PIETY IN OLD AGE.

PIETY is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying men. He that grows old without religious hopes, as he declines into imbecility and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every recollection must plunge him deeper and deeper, and where he finds only new gradations of anguish and precipices of horror.

Age should walk thoughtful on the solemn shore

Of that vast Ocean it must sail so soon.

ANECDOTE.

AT Preston, Herts, a village in which John Bunyan regularly preached, is a wood with a vale or hollow place, in which is the stump of a tree, which Bunyan had for a pulpit. The people stood around him on an eminence in the form of a crescent, here there is a private entrance, where one was placed to see when the officers approached, in order to give notice that all might make their escape. Those days are all happily passed away; but, alas, ignorance and immorality remain behind. A few days ago, a pious clergyman said to me, Religion, Sir, is indeed at a very low ebb throughout the whole county of Herts, and many of the villages are a full century behind.”

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INTELLIGENCE.

PRAYING INDIANS.

The chapel at Castricome, Essequibo, has been enlarged by the Indians, who have also added a vestry and other accommodations for the minister who visits them.

The Church now consists of forty-nine members, to whom the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered by Mr. Ketley, on his visit to this station, with peculiar pleasure. "About two years since," says Mr. K., "no house for God was found in these solitary forests; no song of praise was heard to break the surrounding stillness, and no prayers ascended to the living and true God." On the morning after Mr. Ketley's arrival, a prayer-meeting was held at six o'clock. A considerable number of persons from every quarter collected, among whom were several Indians. Two of the latter, when requested, engaged in prayer in a fervent manner; and though I could not understand their language, it being the first instance of my having heard or known of Indians in an assembly in these parts lifting up their voices in prayer to God, I could not but wonder and glorify God for what I was privileged to witness. The coloured people, (also the fruit of the Mission,) who could pray in broken English, presented appropriate petitions, which manifested that they understood what it is to have fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. After the prayermeeting as many as thirty persons were introduced, who wished to speak to me respecting the way of salvation by Jesus Christ. I first conversed with the Indians, whom Mr. Peter recommended as qualified for communion. After a long and careful examination, it appeared my duty to admit eight of the number; beside whom, nine coloured individuals, labourers and free people, were adjudged to be in a state suited to the fellowship of the Church; also a girl, about fourteen years of age.

RELIGION THE BEST CIVILIZATION.

We cannot deny ourselves the gratification of communicating the following interesting particulars, contained in a letter written by a highly respectable resident at the Cape of Good Hope, who had in person visited the Kat River Settlement in the course of last year. Adverting to the prosperity which is the result of men turning to God, he says:

"I shall confine myself to the mention of a few particulars relating to one of the locations, called the Bushman location, or Bruce Town,

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