fury of fighting elements, their rage does not exceed a certain limit, that the ocean does not swallow up the land, nor the land narrow the mighty ocean? Tell us, you that have seen many days, and who, in the course of them, have been witness to many pompous schemes of man blasted and broken to pieces, and noble families swept away, and the policy of kingdoms utterly changed,-in all the years that have rolled over your heads, tell us, has the sun once forgot to trace his radiant circle through the sky; is there diminution of his light or abatement of his genial heat? Has the earth ever refused to return the seed which was committed to it, with fair increase? Has it not always brought forth grass for cattle, and herbs for the service of man? Has not summer always brought with it its wonted enjoyments, and winter its accustomed comforts? Have ye never stood still to consider and admire these things; or, rather can you ever see them without fresh and growing admiration? Many seasons have passed over you, and the stated changes of nature you have long been familiar with; yet which of you ever saw the new year without emotions of delight? Which of you can contemplate nature quickening again to life and vegetation after the torpid lethargy of winter, without feeling his heart bound with transport? The frequent sight of any earthly pageant satiates and wearies the eye, but who that is most familiar with the procession of months and seasons can view their returning pomp without new sentiments of admiration Whom does not the sweet sound of the spring fill with spontaneous rapture? That pleasure, so pure, so innocent, which arises from the grateful impression of the works of nature, is the first that strikes the infant senses, and the last which cheers the gloom and languor of age. Cherish it, therefore, in your hearts; unite it with sentiments of gratitude and piety. Learn to see every thing as the work of God. This sentiment will give animation to the stillest scene, and interest to the simplest. Seek for an increase of knowledge in the wheels that move the great machine, that you may admire with more understanding; for he who knows most and considers most will adore most, and the theme, though obvious, is inexhaustible.

But you have topics to engage your attention more interesting still. Stand still and consider the salvation of God wrought in you and for you. You that have been favoured with many years, can tell of many mercies. You have not lived so long without having many personal and many family blessings to be thankful for. You can speak of dangers escaped, of temptations overcome, of sicknesses healed, and sins forgiven. You can trace back your long line of life and find many blessings in it, which at the time were cutting mortifications; many escapes, which at the time were severe disappointments. How have your characters been brought out by afflictions and mellowed by the various discipline you have been obliged to pass through! Stand still and consider, and when, from the elevated post of observation you now occupy, the various scenes of your life pass in review before you, you will see events in a light in which at the time it was impossible you should see them; you will find yourselves now thankful for scenes in which you once thought it quite enough to be patient; past trials will be present triumphs; you will see that you were led by the hand when you have been ready to think yourselves utterly forsaken. How often has the arrow been turned aside from your path while you were singing carelessly along! How many circumstances can you recollect in which a choice, seemingly casual, has influenced the colour of your future life; in which an unpremeditated meeting, a word dropped accidentally, a train of thought kindled up by some slight and obscure circumstance, has sunk into your

minds, and laid the deep foundations of habit and a course of action! If in your early years the principles of religion have taken, as I trust they have, deep root in your minds, you are now reaping its comforts. You have found by this time, or you have been little benefited by experience, that they are the best comforts. Many enjoyments and pursuits you once were eager after, begin perhaps to sicken and pall upon your mind; and you have read the inscription of vanity upon earthly goods, which younger eyes cannot discern; but have you ever found that the satisfactions of a good conscience are deceitful? Have the hopes of a future state sunk in their value?

Lastly, consider the works of God in his providences amongst the kingdoms of the world and in his church. In the course of years you have seen many changes, and can recount to the rising generation a long series of revolutions and events. You have seen the increasing light of science and religion spreading gradually over the world; a spirit of improvement, a spirit of inquiry, a spirit of humanity, visibly increasing; the monstrous edifice of superstition, the work of dark ages of cruelty and ignorance, shaken to its very foundations; and the iron rod of persecution broken. Perhaps you have been able to discern prophecies drawing towards fulfilment, and to catch a glimpse of the happy time when the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. To this country, in particular, his mercies have flowed with such a full and unabating stream, that our happiness is now reckoned by the full period of revolving centuries. Not months or years, but successive generations, have rolled away, blest by law, order, and internal peace, almost without a cloud. Our liberty, that invaluable treasure, has gained by the hard struggle of our ancestors, descended to us like a fair inheritance, sanctified by prescriptive right and the indisputable tenure of long possession, and it concerns our honour now no less than our interest to preserve the precious patrimony. Religious liberty has kept pace with civil. Its principles have been thoroughly convassed, are well understood, and placed upon the broadest basis.

Can you consider these things, and not see that they are the works of God? Let worldly politicians confine their speculations to the narrow views of a party; do you raise you mind to that great plan which is carrying on by the Ruler of the universe, and while you consider every event as his ordinance, this thought, while it will not destroy the interest we take in what passes around us, will effectually repress all corroding anxiety, and soften all our transient disappointments. The works of God are not like the works of man; every thing which he hath taken in hand will be brought to sure issues; though we may not see it, posterity will. Every plan which God has formed for the virtue and happiness of his creatures, will be completed, for he doeth all his pleasure. To associate ourselves, therefore, to his schemes, is the only sure way not to be disappointed in our own wishes.

Consider, then, these things, and when by silent meditation and holy musing a fire is kindled within you, when your hearts are warmed, and your bosoms burn, then speak as well as think of the works of God. Break forth into praise, cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice as a trumpet, tell the wonders you have seen, tell what you have felt. Be living chronicles of his acts. Upon you is devolved the honourable task of pointing out to the world and to posterity the various passages in nature or in providence which have passed under your observation; let slip, therefore, no proper opportunity of making known to others that God who has been so richly mani fested to you.

Finally, though you are to stand still and consider, you are not always to stand still. These seasons of contemplation are but the rests and pauses in an active life; in this view they invigorate and refresh our strength; but to stand still always would be to live to no purpose. We are called to cooperate with God in his works, by a vigorous discharge of the various duties which lie before us. We are not to content ourselves with being driven carelessly down the stream of time-we must strive and labour to gain the wished-for harbour. Let us be up and doing. A new year is before us. If it please God to spare our lives to the end of it, we have a new scene of action before us. Let us take care to fill, to crowd it with wise and virtuous actions. We may wish ourselves, and wish each other, a happy new year, but this is the only way we can take to make it so. We cannot discover whether this year shall be passed in health and prosperity, or whether it shall be filled with tears and mourning. We do not know whether the arrow is not already gone forth to destroy our dearest comforts; but we can determine it shall be virtuous; this is left to our own option, not made dependent on seasons or changing fortune, and this is all. Have any of your past years been spent in the blank of indolence or the dissipations of folly? Now then another year is offered you, with which to redeem the waste. Let every year be a fairer copy of the last. The preceding pages of your lives have been free from those deep blots which leave an indelible stain on the mind; I well believe it: now then be still nicer in your care; clear your conduct, your temper, your heart, from those little specks and trivial errors which still disgrace them, that they may have neither spot nor blemish, nor any such thing. Then shall this, as I sincerely wish it may to all of you, be a good new year, and this portion of time be reflected on with pleasure when all time and the name of time is lost in the boundless ocean of a happy eternity.

THE MOTHER.

MOTHER! revere God's image in thy child,-
No earthly gift thy parent arms enfold;
No mortal tongue, as yet, the worth hath told
Of that which in thy bosom, meek and mild,
Rests its weak head. Oh! not by sense beguil'd
Gaze on that form of perishable mould.
Though first by thee it liv'd, on thee it smil'd,
Yet not for thee existence must it hold.
For God's it is, not thine. Thou art but one
To whom that happy destiny is given

To see an everlasting life begun,

To watch the dawnings of the future Heav'n,
And to be such in purity and love,
As best may fit it for the realms above.

E.

JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE, BY THE “REV.

SIR,

S. WOOD.

To the Editor.

Marseilles, Nov. 29th, 1827. I HAVE often thought that they whose lot it is to go abroad are very selfish, if they do not endeavour to make others participate in the pleasure and advantage which they derive from visiting foreign parts. Nor is the force of this observation materially diminished by the great number of books of travels into every practicable region of the globe, which we already possess. In these times of improvement, every country is perpetually presenting something new; and France, especially, is at this moment offering to the eye of the philanthropist a picture which he must delight to contemplate. Besides, men travel with different views and with different tastes; one, with a hammer and a bag at his side, to break rocks and collect mineralogical specimens ; a second, with a tin box and a hortus siccus, to gather mosses; a third, to criticise statues and paintings; and a fourth, to see the world, and "catch the passing folly as it flies ;" and it is very possible that much, which is interesting to the true lover of his species, may pass before the eyes, or assail the ears, of each of these individuals, without his thinking it worth his while to treasure it up and record it for his own or for others' good. I shall, therefore, proceed, without further preface, to present your readers with an abridgment of the Journal which I kept during my late tour through the South of France.

Wednesday, Oct. 3d, left Liverpool for Dublin, where I arrived the next day, and sailed thence, in the evening of Friday the 5th, in the Leeds steamboat, for Bourdeaux. The weather, during our passage, was, upon the whole, pleasant; but the vessel was too crowded to be comfortable. We were seventy-six passengers, besides the crew, which amounted to thirty. Some were going abroad for pleasure and improvement; others for economy; and others for health. It was truly lamentable to see some of the last class, who were evidently so far gone in consumption that they could not survive many weeks. One lady died on the passage, and we committed her body to the waves, for fear of being put under quarantine on our arrival at Bourdeaux. But there seems to be a kind of infatuation, with respect to the chances of recovery from consumption, which is shared both by the patient himself and by his friends. Nothing less than this can account for so many persons, affected in this way, going out with a moral certainty of dying, away from their friends and country.* We made the mouth of the Gironde early on Tuesday morning, and anchored at Pauillac, opposite the Lazaretto, at two o'clock. Here the searching of the vessel, and the examination of our lug

To those who have a reasonable hope of recovery by removal to a warmer climate, none can be recommended in preference to that of Madeira. I spent two winters there, and neither kuow nor can conceive of any thing more truly pleasant and salubrious than the temperature which uniformly prevailed. In France, Montauban and Toulouse are decidedly the best places for an invalid to go to. They are drier than Bourdeaux, and warmer than any of the towns in the south-eastern part of this country. How such places as Lisbon and Montpelier should ever have obtained any reputation as resorts for consumptive patients, is one of those enigmas which it is very difficult to explain. I have been at both, and am sure that they are not to be recommended. The climate of the banks of the Loire is mild and soft, but too moist for some constitutions.

gage, occupied so long a time, that we were compelled to remain where we were all night, and did not reach Bourdeaux till the next morning; nor were our troubles even then at an end, for our luggage had to be again examined, and it was not till Thursday noon that we succeeded in rescuing it from the tenacious grasp of the Custom-house officers.

Sunday 14th. There are in Bourdeaux two Protestant churches, the duties of which are performed by three pastors, and one or two suffragans or assistants: I this day attended the service at the principal of these, that aux Chartrons. I was gratified to see so good a congregation, there being, I should imagine, four to five hundred persons present. The Liturgy, which was read, was that of the Genevan church, and the order of the service was the same, except that there was singing five times; nor was this in at all a better style than what I had been accustomed to hear in Switzerland. The preacher was a young man, not one of the regular pastors.

15th. Set out from Bourdeaux at eight o'clock in the morning, in the steam-boat, for Blaye, and thence in the diligence for Saintes, where, from the badness of the roads and the wretchedness of the conveyance, I did not arrive till past ten at night, though the whole distance was only seventy miles. The country through which we passed was in general rich, but not particularly interesting. I did not augur very well of the education bestowed upon the children in this part of the world, from the regular chant of the little beggars on the road; but I was glad to see "Ecole d'Enseignment Mutuel," (which is what we should denominate a Lancasterian School,) written up in the village of Mirambeau. The next day I procured a horse and a boy to take me to Soujon, on my way to Royan. It was a fine bright October morning; I had a clear blue sky above and a smiling country around me; I was in the full possession of health and strength; and I pressed forward on my way, over

"The vine-covered hills and gay regions of France,"

with a heart as light as if I had left all the cares and troubles of the world behind me. The country was, in many parts, beautiful; yet did the eye look for something which it did not find-for the badness of the roads, the straggling nature of the coppices, the poorness of the hedges, where there were any, and the want of neatness about the farm-houses, proclaimed too loudly, that it was France, not England, through which I was travelling. At Soujon I dismissed the horse and boy, and procured a man to carry my luggage, and to conduct me to Royan, where I arrived at four o'clock. This village is the Margate of Bourdeaux, by the inhabitants of which it is much resorted to in the summer time, especially since the establishment of a steam-boat, which plies regularly between the two places in the bathing season. It contains thirteen hundred inhabitants, of whom half are Protestants and half Catholics; and a most liberal spirit prevails between the members of the two communions. I was here received with the welcome of a Christian and a brother, by my friend Monsieur Jay, (the Protestant clergyman of

The most common order of the service in the French Protestant churches is the following: a chapter from the Old and another from the New Testament, singing, the Commandments, and the summary of the law from Matt. xxii. 37-40; this first part of the service is conducted by the clerk or a young minister. The pastor then enters the pulpit and begins with giving out a psalm; then the confession of sin, singing, extemporaneous prayer, the sermon, the general intercession, the Lord's Prayer, and the Apostles' Creed; singing, benediction.