THE GOODNESS OF GOD,

WILL sing of mercy and judgment," is a determination of David, and, "Behold the goodness and severity of God," is an exhortation of St. Paul, which, independently of the particular occasions and connections of their first utterance, present a contrast of themes afforded by the perpetual current of this world's events, realized by every one's personal experience, and good to be much thought of by the devout Christian. Mercy and judgment, the goodness and severity of God, each presents a subject of deep interest, and fraught with spiritual profit to the contemplative mind. There is a balancing tendency, too, in the due consideration of both, well calculated to guard against the evil consequences to the religious character, of presumption on the one hand, and despair on the other-to foster that love which reverence and fear purify and chasten, and that fear which love prevents from being slavish and unworthy of the service of God-to encourage that faith which combines the sense of danger wrought by conviction of desert of punishment, with the hope and trust and grateful assurance, encouraged by the contemplation of all powerful, and infinitely willing, and constantly operating, goodness and mercy.

When he whose mind and heart are imbued with the principles of the gospel, and his character and life governed by them, celebrates the love of God, it is with a deep and abiding sense of His justice: when he reflects on His justice, it is with an awe and dread relieved by affectionate confidence in His goodness.

In connection with these principles, essential to both the faith and piety of the gospel, The Goodness of God is now proposed for the reader's consideration.

The goodness of God! Of Him Whose tender mercies are over all his works; Whose compassions fail not, being new every morning; Who is good to all; Who is love itself!

Where shall our contemplations begin? and where can they end? More in number than the hairs of our head, and quick in succession as the moments of our existence, are the tokens we have of the kindness and love of God.

The present season brings strongly and delightfully to view the mercies of God in the productions of the earth. How wonderful, in these, the divine power and goodness! The cold and heavy sod, possessing no inherent powers of nutrition, is tilled by the husbandman, and receives the seed. Here man's instrumentality ceases. He leaves his work to be perfected by his God. The stores of heaven are opened by their bountiful Proprietor to afford means conducive to the desired end. The former and the latter rain, with the seasonable intervention of the sun's nutritious heat, effect the purpose. The seed springs and grows up, we know not how. First appears the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. It is then ripe for the harvest. The reaper does his work. Thirty, sixty, an hundred fold is yielded.

The stately tree, which serves at once for ornament and use, is clad in cheerful spring, with a rich array unsurpassed by the splendor of regal attire. Bereft of this, it displays the tender fruit; which, without human care, is brought, by slow but sure progression, to maturity. Then the autumn, with full luxuriance, offers to man the bounties of his Heavenly Parent.

Wayward mortals, impatient of obligation, and with the natural heart's aversion to having God in its thoughts, are wont to bestow their sense of favor on second causes. But in the rich blessings which we now contemplate, there is such a constant, immediate, and direct exercise of almighty power, that it seems impossible to let its traces escape even the most superficial observer. Philosophy has never yet been able to fathom the deep mystery of vegetation. That philosophy which commends itself to the intelligent mind as sound in principle, and right in logic, has

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since we were born; and His preserving and protecting hand withdrawn, we sink into nothing, and then all our thoughts perish.

never failed to rest, as the only account of the mystery, on belief of its being the work and the ordering of infinite intelligence and power of God. And its conclusions, minThe delicacy of our frame, and the innugling with virtuous sensibilities and affections, merable dangers that beset us, powerfully ilhave ever led the heart towards this great lustrate the hand of God in our preservation. and good Being in gratitude, love, and devo-What but that gracious and protecting hand could have brought us safely through the tenWith what a rich variety do our Heavenlyderness, the helplessness, and the exposures, Father's bounties in the fruits of the earth of infancy and childhood? And in every peminister to our necessities, our comfort, andriod of life, how necessary to our continued our pleasure! They yield support and nou- existence, that the same hand should be conrishment to the body, and the means of the stantly over us for good! The accident of a prevention and cure of its diseases, charm the moment may break the slender thread of our senses, and open to the mind sources of the mortal existence. The least derangement of most elevated, interesting, and extensive consome of the minutest and most delicate parts templation and study. of the intricate machinery of the human To stir up men's minds to a constant and frame, may put a stop to life. The rupture of grateful sense of their dependence on God for a blood-vessel, a fit of apoplexy, or a sudden these mercies, He often proves to them that accident, may be the quick agent of the the hand which is powerful to give, is as pow-king of terrors. And when in the helpless erful to withhold. Blasting and mildew pros-state of sleep, how totally are we beyond the trate the hopes of the husbandman, and make power of being at all instrumental to our own his labors all for nought. The denial of the preservation! The posture of the body, or a rain of heaven renders the soil arid and un-breath of infected air, may prove fatal. We productive. Immoderate effusions of the may be victims of wicked and bloodthirsty watery contents of the clouds drown the in- men. We may be wrapped in flames, and fant germ. The winds of heaven, allowed to wake but to suffer the last agonies of a torrage in unwonted measure, tear from its turing death. Were not God about our path, hold the firmest root. The pernicious insects, and about our bed, we could not exist a mowhich, often made instruments of divinement. Innumerable dangers compass us judgment, are styled in Scripture God's ar-around. But He is a God at hand, a very mies, blight the vegetable kingdom. If we present Help.

have been saved from such experiences, it is Of the life thus sustained and spared, let of the Lord's mercies, because His compas-each Christian ask how numerous are his sions fail not. We should never forget, in means of comfort and enjoyment; in what our consideration of the goodness of God, measure the good things of this world are that it is manifested as well in the withhold-provided and secured to him; how the sweet ing of evil, as in the imparting of blessings. charities of domestic life are thrown around And surely no reasonable man will deny that his lot; what are his means of intellectual reflection on his own desert ought to increase and moral gratification and pleasure; what his gratitude for that goodness; thus shown in his civil and religious privileges and blessings; deliverance from evil. what enhancement his happiness derives from The daily preservation of his life is a mo-intercourse with beloved and valued friends; tive to thankfulness for the goodness of God, of which the true Christian cannot be insensible. The power that first formed us is ne-devotion to some favorite occupation; and cessary to preserve us in being. The breath which we inhale, and the food with which we are nourished, are from the rich bounty of our God. By Him we have been holden up ever

what peculiar interest and enjoyment are imparted to the passing current of his life by

what gladness of heart constantly flows from the smiles of Providential love and favor. How does the goodness of his Heavenly Parent attend him in his rising up and lying

down, in his going out and coming in; pre-ed for effecting the ends of His redeeming serving, defending, and blessing him! How love, in the sacraments, ordinances, and sermany have been healed in sickness, protected vices of that Church, and the ministrations in danger, comforted and supported in trials generally of its priesthood. He has proand afflictions, directed in difficulties, pro- vided us with rules of evangelical duty which vided for in extremities, and rescued when most effectually secure the virtue and happino hope seemed left! How many have been ness of man, and the cheering and sanctifyled by an overruling Providence, and a guiding influences of the hopes and consolations ing and protecting invisible hand, through in- of the Gospel. Thus has He called us out of tricacies and darknesses hard to be under-darkness into His marvellous light-a light stood, to the final manifestation of mercy in which not only makes His mercy plain before all this judgment, and good, precious and in- our face, and leads to the knowledge and servaluable, as the happy result of all this appa-vice of Himself, and lays before us a course rent evil! They have found that the Lord God Omnipotent ruleth. He is the Author of all good. He numbers the very hairs of our head; and without Him not even a sparrow falleth to the ground.

of duty most contributive to individual and social happiness; but also kindles a hope of future eternal glory, and illumines the path that will conduct us thither. God is the Lord by whom we escape death, and pass to our joyful resurrection.

O the unbounded goodness of our God! Himself reconciled to us miserable sinners by the mediation of His Son! Pardon and justification, on faith and repentance, sealed by the blood of atonement! Grace imparted in rich and sufficient supplies! Hence, what joy and peace to the humble, contrite, and believing heart! The glories of futurity! What a comfort on the loss of pious friends! The bright prospect of heaven! What a

incitement to cheerful perseverance in duty, and resolute resistance of all temptations to the neglect of it! Seen through the medium of a living faith in the great and precious doctrines of the Gospel, and enjoyed in connection with entire fidelity to its duties, what an increase of pure and elevated gratification flows from the temporal blessings that sur

But the goodness of our Heavenly Father has reference not only to the life that now is, but also to that which is to come. And little indeed were all the joys of time for immortal man, were there not merciful provision made for his eternity; and wretched must that eternity inevitably be, for one so unworthy of God's goodness, so justly exposed because of sin and corruption, to God's wrath and condemnation, and whose guilt, and desert of punishment, are therefore increased by all the tokens lavished on him of his Heavenly Father's love; un-support in trials and afflictions! What an less pardoning and sparing mercy, free, full, and undeserved, preside over the destiny of the immortal soul. Such mercy has been provided. Our Heavenly Father, seeing our sinfulness and depravity, our unworthiness of His grace, and our utter inability to work out our salvation, gave His Only Begotten Son to atone for our sins by sufferings and death voluntarily undergone for us; and thus to re-round us! store us to His favor, to the hope of mercy, The true enjoyment of gratitude for the to the influences of His grace, and to the love of God, is the portion only of the reprospect of heaven. He has extended to us newed and pious heart. The heart enslaved the means of knowing this mystery of love, to sin and the world has no understanding of and cherishing true faith in our Great Re-it. Pleasure fails to make it truly happy. deemer; and has promised the influences of Time and sense harden it against pure and the Holy Spirit to give us the needed guid-elevated emotion. Ungratefulness in making ance and aid in our Christian course. such returns for such love, and to such a Being, has, by Baptism, received us into His Church, brings its own malediction in the depraving and given us the spirit of adoption into the of joy, and the subjecting of all the happicovenant family of Christ; and affords us ness that is felt, to the stinting and pervertabundant access to the means He has appoint-ing influences of selfishness. From the true

He

Christian breast, gratitude for the mercies of thanks and praise with which only God will be well pleased, and which only, accepted through the merits of our Great Intercessor, can furnish the least ground of hope for His continued favor and loving kindness.

God never departs. It is refreshed by it even in the multitude of its sorrows. It delights to know and feel, that whatever of discipline } or punishment may be its lot, love is with it all, is perpetually mingling mercy with it, and ever keeps it less than is deserved. Nothing of this mingles with the trials and sufferings of the impenitent and unbelieving, the worldly and the wicked. Their past experience of God's mercies but irritates them, and makes their afflictions more galling. They are left to the unalleviated burden of sorrow, or sent to the insufficient and disappointing resources which the world affords. And false indeed are their pretensions. Miserable comforters are all refuges not blended with that love of God which faith creates, and gratitude warms and energizes, and true devotion makes operative on the character and life.

This last is an essential and most blessed qualification of gratitude for God's goodness. Our lives must show that we are grateful, and cherish grateful love. They, in faithful walking in all His commandments and ordinances, must make that practical offering of

Nor let us forget those many precepts of our gracious God and Saviour, which enjoin, as essential parts of the love of Him, the love of our neighbor as ourselves-manifested, as in a general constant desire and effort to diffuse comfort, happiness, and joy among all around us, so especially in willing, cheerful, generous contributions to their relief, whose lot has fallen in privation, or but uncomfortable and trying scanty supply, of the good things which we enjoy. And we should measure this duty, not only by their needs and our sympathy, but by the clear, full, emphatic teaching of the Bible, that it is a required offering of gratitude and faithfulness to God-a thing, of right, His due-an obli{gation which we can truly and honestly discharge, only when it is in full and fair proportion to our ability.

B. T. O.

FREAKS OF AN ELEPHANT.

fastened to one of the iron posts. Fearing that some accident might happen, the ele

A WEEK or two since an elephant was brought from Calcutta in the ship Ann and Mary. On Sunday, while the vessel was ly-phant was on the following day dispatched to ing in the Albert Dock, and when all hands London, where he will finally reside in the were ashore, the elephant, excited by hunger, gardens of the Zoological Society. A short made his way on deck, where he smashed time after the arrival of the ship in the dock, everything within his reach. He then man- one of the officials connected with it sent over aged to get on the quay, where he roared a messenger to the custom-house, with the about in a great rage, tossing over piles of astounding information that the landing waiter merchandise, trucks, buckets, &c., as easily had omitted examining the trunk of one of as if they were cricket balls. The captain, the passengers. A landing-surveyor was imin the course of the afternoon, happened to mediately sent over to the dock to discharge visit the dock with a few friends, and, to his the necessary duty, who, on arriving at his astonishment, discovered his quondam passen-destination, asked to see the passenger's ger in the state above described. Assistance trunk, upon which he was gravely referred to was in time procured, and with considerable the "elephant." The surveyor good-humordifficulty, not unattended with danger, theedly laughed at the joke, and acknowledged huge and powerful animal was at last safely himself fairly "sold."-Liverpool paper.

A FEW THOUGHTS ON

THE WRITINGS OF JEREMY TAYLOR,
(Concluded.)

s he read, or walked, or talked, if we may judge from his writings, he must have been continually employed in associating what was brought before him with all to which it bore resemblance, and with which it might be classified and arranged; the physical with the moral, and the actual with the ideal. Otherwise he could not, by the mere act of memory, have called up at the instant so many resemblances. But the fact is, he was such a thinker that his work was already done. He had only to reverse the process, and when from things he turned to trace out an idea which he had conceived, his materials were already at hand, and that in such profusion, that his main merit was not in finding what he wanted, but in turning off and dispensing with the riches which crowded upon his mind. Here is where his self-denial (already exercised in more serious ways) and judgment, so rarely coupled with youthful fancy,never failed. His recorded thoughts were selected out of many, like the wives which the Sultan loves, and if it is not being extravagant, the rejected ideas might have gone off comforted, on the principle that misery loves company. His mnemotechny was of no barren, or useless description; the mere grasping of facts, associated with no principle. But for him no fact was abstract, but everything which entered his ear, passed his eye, or was submitted to his understanding, was suggestive, and became the first of many beautiful golden links. Nothing stood alone. It was all type and antitype. The rose drops its leaves, and is forgotten; the shadow passes, and is no more seen; the arrow cleaves the air, and leaves after it no memory. But it was not so, if they had once crossed his vision. He would recall that shadow to illustrate some substance which was fleeting; and of the rose

he would say: "Lo, I have seen a rose, newly springing from the clefts of its hood, and at first it was fair as the morning, and full with the dew of heaven as a lamb's fleece, but when a ruder breath had forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its too youthful, and unripe retirements, it began to put on darkness, and to decline to softness, and the symptoms of a sickly age; it bowed the head, and broke its stalk; and at night, having lost some of its leaves, and all its beauty, it fell." If such process as we have mentioned be the secret key which opened to him his treasures, it does not follow that all, or any who know the method, can attain to the result. For this suggestive habit was the offspring of a highly poetic temperament, and was born with him. Poeta nascitur non fit. Those who had not the temperament would not probably have the habit; while those who had the habit might possibly not have the temperament. They would use it perhaps for a cold classification, and however rich the material which they might bring together, they would not be able to steep their thoughts in the hues of poetry. This is the deep and subtle mystery of style. What enchantment may be produced by culled words, placed in a certain collocation! Express the same sense exactly, in different words, or in a different collocation, and the charm is fled. Why is it that certain little cunning phrases in foreign languages, which mean after all little or nothing, cannot be translated, and the very sound of them is suggestive of something picturesque in the mind, we know not what? Why is it that a single word, by its syllabic grandeurby the very sound of it, (just as an august person by the very sight of him,) awakens, we know not what, emotions? For exemplification of this, see Milton. Shakspeare's use of English is perfectly marvellous. There is something excessively subtle in words, whether we regard the looks of them, or the sound of