entire male portion of the company was occupied, for the greater part of every day, and often by night as well as by day, in exploring the coast and seeking a place of rest, amidst perils from the savages, from the unknown shore, and the elements, which it makes one's heart bleed to think upon.

But this dreary waste, which we thus contemplate in imagination, and which they traversed in sad reality, is a chosen. land. It is a theatre upon which an all-glorious drama is to be enacted. On this frozen soil,-driven from the ivy-clad churches of their mother land,-escaped, at last, from loathsome prisons, -the meek fathers of a pure church will lay the spiritual basement of their temple. Here, on the everlasting rock of liberty, they will establish the foundation of a free state. Beneath its ungenial wintry sky, principles of social right, institutions of civil government, shall germinate, in which, what seemed the Utopian dreams of visionary sages, are to be more than realized.

But let us contemplate, for a moment, the instruments selected by Providence, for this political and moral creation. However unpromising the field of action, the agents must correspond with the excellence of the work. The time is truly auspicious. England is well supplied with all the materials of a generous enterprise. She is in the full affluence of her wealth of intellect and character. The age of Elizabeth has passed and garnered up its treasures. The age of the Commonwealth, silent and unsuspected, is ripening towards its harvest of great men. The Burleighs and Cecils have sounded the depths of statesmanship; the Drakes and Raleighs have run the whole round of chivalry and adventure; the Cokes and Bacons are spreading the light of their master-minds through the entire universe of philosophy and law. Out of a generation of which men like these are the guides and lights, it cannot be difficult to select the leaders of any lofty undertaking; and, through their influence, to secure to it the protection of royalty. But, alas, for New England! No, sir, happily for New England, Providence works not with human instruments. Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. The stars of human greatness, that glitter in a court, are not destined to rise on the

lowering horizon of the despised colony. The feeble company of Pilgrims is not to be marshalled by gartered statesmen, or mitred prelates. Fleets will not be despatched to convoy the little band, nor armies to protect it. Had there been honors to be won, or pleasures to be enjoyed, or plunder to be grasped hungry courtiers, mid-summer friends, godless adventurers would have eaten out the heart of the enterprise. Silken Buckinghams and Somersets would have blasted it with their patronage. But, safe amidst their unenvied perils, strong in their inoffensive weakness, rich in their untempting poverty, the patient fugitives are permitted to pursue unmolested the thorny paths of tribulation; and, landed at last on the unfriendly shore, the hosts of God, in the frozen mail of December, encamped around the dwellings of the just :

"Stern famine guards the solitary coast,

And winter barricades the realms of frost."

PROGRESS OF TOTAL ABSTINENCE.-McILVAINE.

IT is too late to say that a general adoption of the great principle of total abstinence is too much to be hoped for. A few years ago, who would not have been considered almost deranged had he predicted what has already been accomplished in this cause? Great things, wonderful things, have already been effected. The enemies of this reformation, whose pecuniary interests set them in opposition, are unable to deny this fact. It is felt from the distillery to the dram-shop. It is seen from Maine to the utmost South and West. Every traveller perceives it. Fvery vender knows it. The whole country wonders at the progress of this cause. It is rapidly and powerfully advancing One thing, and only one, can prevent its entire success. The frenzy of drunkenness cannot arrest its goings. The hundreds of thousands in the armies of intemperance cannot resist its march. But the temperate can. If backward to come up to the vital principle of this work, they will prevent its ac

complishment. But the banner of triumph will wave in peace over all the land, hailed by thousands of grateful captives from the gripe of death, in spite of all the warring of the "mighty to drink wine," if those who abhor intemperance, and think they would be willing to make a great sacrifice to save their children or friends from its blasting curse, will only come up to the little effort of entire abstinence. This is the surest and shortest way to drain off the river of fire now flowing through the land. It is the moderate use of the temperate that keeps open the smoking fountains from which that tide is poured.

INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES.-WAYLAND.

In many respects, the Nations of Christendom collectively. are becoming somewhat analogous to our own Federal republic. Antiquated distinctions are breaking away, and local animosities are subsiding. The common people of different countries are knowing each other better, esteeming each other more, and attaching themselves to each other, by various manifestations of reciprocal good will. It is true, every nation has still its separate boundaries and its individual interests; but the freedom of commercial intercourse is allowing those interests to adjust themselves to each other, and thus rendering the causes of collision of vastly less frequent occurrence. Local questions are becoming of less, and general questions of greater importance. Thanks be to God, men have at last begun to understand the rights and feel for the wrongs of each other! Mountains interposed do not so much make enemies of nations. Let the trumpet of alarm be sounded, and its notes are now heard by every nation, whether of Europe or America. Let a voice borne on the feeblest breeze tell that the rights of man are in danger, and it floats over valley and mountain, across continent and ocean, until it has vibrated on the ear of the remotest dweller in Christendom. Let the arm of Oppression be raised to crush the feeblest nation on earth, and there will be heard everywhere, if not the shout of defiance, at least the deep-toned

murmur of implacable displeasure. It is the cry of aggrieved, insulted, much-abused man. It is human nature waking in her might from the slumber of ages, shaking herself from the dust of antiquated institutions, girding herself for the combat, and going forth conquering and to conquer; and woe unto the man, woe unto the dynasty, woe unto the party, and woe unto the policy, on whom shall fall the scathe of her blighting indignation!

THE FRUITS OF INTEMPERANCE.-MCILVAINE.

IT cannot be denied that our country is most horribly scourged by intemperance. In the strong language of Scripture, "it groaneth and travaileth in pain, to be delivered from the bondage of this corruption. Our country is free; "with a great price obtained we this freedom." We feel as if all the force of Europe could not get it from our embrace. Our shores would shake into the depth of the sea the invader who should presume to seek it. One solitary citizen led away into captivity, scourged, chained by a foreign enemy, would rouse the oldest nerve in the land to indignant complaint, and league the whole nation in loud demand for redress. And yet it cannot be denied that our country is enslaved. Yes, we are groaning under a most desolating bondage. The land is trodden down under its polluting foot. Our families are continually dishonored, ravaged, and bereaved; thousands annually slain, and hundreds of thousands carried away into a loathsome slavery, to be ground to powder under its burdens, or broken upon the wheel of its

tortures.

What are the statistics of this traffic? Ask the records of madhouses, and they will answer, that one-third of all their wretched inmates were sent there by Intemperance. Ask the keepers of our prisons, and they will testify that, with scarcely an exception, their horrible population is from the schools of Intemperance. Ask the history of the two hundred thousand paupers now burdening the hands of public charity, and you

will find that two-thirds of them have been the victims, directly or indirectly, of Intemperance. Inquire at the gates of death, and you will learn that no less than thirty thousand souls are annually passed for the judgment-bar of God, driven there by Intemperance. How many slaves are at present among us? We ask not of slaves to man, but to Intemperance, in comparison with whose bondage the yoke of the tyrant is freedom. They are estimated at four hundred and eighty thousand! And what does the nation pay for the honor and happiness of this whole system of ruin? Five times as much, every year, as for the annual support of its whole system of government. These are truths, so often published, so widely sanctioned, so generally received, and so little doubted, that we need not detail the particulars by which they are made out. What, then, is the whole amount of guilt and of woe which they exhibit? Ask Him "unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid." Ask Eternity!

PAUL'S DEFENCE BEFORE KING AGRIPPA.-BIBLE.

I THINK myself happy, King Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee, touching all the things whereof I am accused of the Jews; especially because I know thee to be expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews; wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently. My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews, which knew me from the beginning (if they would testify), that after the most straitest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee. And now I stand and am judged, for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers; unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead? I verily thought with myself, that I