in the days of those ancient writers; and the Dictionary of our late countryman, Noah Webster, is now regarded, in the mother country as well as in this, as giving us the most perfect and complete compendium of the English language.

Sarah. If the improvements made in speech are wonderful, I think great credit must be given to those people who invented letters, and produced a written language.

Papa. Yes, this is a curious and wonderful art, especially if we remember, that a few more than twenty small characters should be able to form words, by which every idea that the human mind can conceive, may be expressed and communicated.

Mamma. I think I have read that letters were first brought into Greece from Phoenicia, by Cadmus, fourteen hundred and ninety-three years before the Christian era, and it is not a little remarkable that the first letter of the ancient Hebrew is something similar to our letter A; as if that sacred alphabet were the parent of our modern ones; and the names of its first two letters, Aleph and Beth, give the names of Alpha and Beta to the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, from which the word Alphabet takes its name.

Sarah. I think, papa, that I have heard you say, that some nations have no alphabet to express their language, which really appears very strangely to me.

Papa. The Chinese have none to this day, but they make use of hieroglyphical characters, of which they have many thousands. It is supposed that the Egyptians had no letters, and when the Mexicans first beheld the Spaniards on their soil, they made drawings of those Europeans in their warlike costumes. Their horses and their armor were drawn on the spot, and sent to their monarch, to give him some idea of these new-comers. Their writings, like most of the American Indians, consisted of symbolical representations.

John. It must have been very difficult for our missionaries to have obtained such a knowledge of the language of the people among whom they labored, so as to be able freely to preach to them in their native tongue.

Papa. No set of persons have merited so truly the admiration

of right-thinking men. Elliot, styled the apostle of the Indians, had to form an original grammar for his rude hearers, and when it was completed, exclaimed, "Prayer and perseverance can accomplish everything."

Sarah. Yes, and it is also recorded of this same good and great man, when confined to his bed in his last sickness, that he had an Indian child by his bedside, that he might teach it to read; and when so engaged, a friend called upon him, and expressed his surprise that so learned a man should be so humbly employed, he replied, “I do not wish, when my Master comes, that he should find me idle."

John. I have heard the names of Carey and Morrison mentioned as men of note in the work of translating the Scriptures in the language of India and China.

Papa. Dr. Carey, the father of the English Baptist missions in the East Indies, gave the Bible to the natives in several of their dialects; and, from being a shoemaker, rose to be at the head of a college. Dr. Morrison, who was a Sabbath scholar, first translated the Bible into Chinese; which work, owing to the peculiarity of that language, consists of several volumes, but is now accessible, and can be read by the millions that compose that immense empire.

EFFECT OF THE BIBLE UPON NATIONS.

BY REV. WM. ADAMS, D. D.

TELL me where the Bible is, and where it is not, and I will write a moral geography of the world. I will show what, in all particulars, is the physical condition of that people. One glance of your eye will inform you where the Bible is, and where it is not. Go to Italy-decay, degradation, suffering, meet you on every side. Commerce droops, agriculture sickens, the useful arts languish. There is a heaviness in the air; you feel cramped by some invisible power; the people dare not speak aloud; they walk slowly; an armed soldiery is around their dwellings; the armed police take from the stranger his Bible, before he enters the

territory. Ask for the Bible in the bookstores; it is not there, or in a form so large and extensive as to be beyond the reach of the common people. The preacher takes no text from the Bible. Enter the Vatican, and inquire for a Bible, and you will be pointed to some case where it reposes among prohibited books, side by side with the works of Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire. But pass over the Alps into Switzerland, and down the Rhine into Holland, and over the Channel to England and Scotland, and what an amazing contrast meets the eye! Men look with an air of independence; there are industry, neatness, instruction for children. Why this difference? There is no brighter sky-there are no fairer scenes of nature-but they have the Bible; and happy are the people who are in such a case, for it is righteousness that exalteth a nation.

BEWARE OF BAD BOOKS.

"WHY, what harm will books do me ?" The same harm that personal intercourse would with the bad men who wrote them. That "A man is known by the company he keeps," is an old proverb; but it is no more true than that a man's character may be determined by knowing what books he reads. If a good book can be read without making one better, a bad book cannot be read without making one the worse. A person may be ruined by reading a single volume! Bad books are like ardent spirits; they furnish neither " aliment" nor "medicine:" they are "poison." Both intoxicate-one the mind, the other the body; the thirst for each increases by being fed, and is never satisfied; both ruin-one the intellect, the other the health, and together, the soul. The makers and venders of each are equally guilty and equally corruptors of the community; and the safeguard against each is the same-total abstinence from all that intoxicates mind or body,

CHRIST OUR ALL.-We cannot build too confidently on the merits of Christ as our hope; or think too much of the life of Christ as our example.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

MEMOIR OF SARAH B. JUDSON, Member of the American Mission to Burmah. By EMILY C. JUDSON. A new and revised edition, with notes by the author. New York: Lewis Colby.

A most excellent work. We were pleased with it when it first appeared; at which time we took occasion to speak of it in high terms-and we are gratified to learn that it has been so well received by the religious community -nearly twenty thousand having been disposed of already. The value of the new edition, published at the same price with the previous ones, is enhanced by the addition of some sixty pages of entirely new matter.

A NEW EDITION OF THE MEMOIRS OF DR. MILNOR, somewhat abridged, and otherwise altered, we think for the better, has just been issued by the American Tract Society. We wish a hundred thousand copies of this edition might be circulated. It will carry a blessing into every family where it is admitted as a guest.

SACRED SCENES AND CHARACTERS. By the Rev. J. T. HEADLEY. 1 vol., illustrated edition. John S. Taylor, 143 Nassau street, New York.

This is a beautiful little volume, and its appearance does credit to the publisher. The characters and scenes selected from Holy Writ are some of the most eminent; and the usually interesting manner in which they are treated by Mr. Headley cannot fail, we think, of exciting in the minds of all who read them a desire to study more fully the biography and history of the Bible, and thus draw off the minds of our youth from being contaminated by the frivolous and exceptionable productions with which the press of the present day teems so abundantly.

MISCELLANEOUS WORKS OF THE REV. J. T. HEADLEY, with a Biographical Sketch and Portrait of the Author. 2 vols. 12mo. John S. Taylor.

These two volumes are replete with subjects of the greatest interest, viz.: The Biography of Cromwell and Washington; Battles of Monmouth and Waterloo; Rambles in Paris and the Mother Country: written in Mr. Headley's usually fascinating style, and must afford a rich repast to every sensible reader; especially as the characters, places, and events are not only in themselves of thrilling interest, but they are disposed of in the distinguished author's best style.

UNION TO CHRIST-LOVE TO GOD-are the titles of two charming little books, written by Rev. RUFUS TAYLOR, and published by M. W. Dodd, of this city. They discuss topics of vital importance, in an interesting and happy manner. The author dedicates the second one, Love to God," to his mother--" whom grace early taught to devote herself and hers to God."

THE Family is a SOCIETY. "It is not good that man should be alone," said the great Creator, when he had formed him out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. God knew what was best for the promotion of human happiness. Infinite wisdom controlled and directed the destinies of the race. Hence it is said, "God setteth the solitary in families." Here are the primordial elements of the social relations. Poetically, it has been said:" Man, the hermit, sighed till woman smiled." He longed for that tender and delicate companionship, which was to constitute the chief charm of his mortal existence. Even in a state of perfect and immaculate holiness, he needed one to complete the harmony of his existence, to fill up the measure of his happiness. God only could bestow this inestimable gift. Thus was the foundation of the family laid. And the family is the foundation of civil society. The dignity, the advancement, the prosperity of society in every form depend on the same qualities and conditions in the family. The angelic state is different. VOL. XVIII.-NO. IV.-7