friend," saith Solomon, "that sticketh closer than a brother." Such a friend is God. He is very studious and inquisitive in our behalf. He hath a debating with himself, a consulting and projecting how he may do us good. He is the best friend, which may give contentment in the midst of all discourtesies of friends."-Art of Divine Contentment. TO KNOW GOD IS TO LOVE HIM.-If there be the least spiritual life in you, it came not thither by accident, but by the love wherewith he loved you. If the pure minds of the saints need to be stirred up by way of remembrance, what shall be said to the heedless part of the world, who, because they hear of a just and holy God, think of him with suspicion and dislike? "O righteous Father!" said Christ," the world hath not known thee." He who came from the Father, and was in the world, seems, in the close of his farewell prayer, to have summed up his reflections on mankind in these words: "O righteous Father! the world hath not known thee." Did they but know thee, All, then, that is asked of they could not but love thee? you is this; learn to think rightly of God, your views of all things will then be rectified; you will acquaint yourself with him, and be at peace.-Rev. H. Martyn. IMMORTALITY OR ANNIHILATION.-If there is no future state for man, death is annihilation for him, and he who has consolation for every thing else, has not the slightest comfort for the severest of all afflictions; his natural longings after immortality is then a cruel mockery practised upon him by his nature; his reason, which teaches him the foreknowledge of death, is then the most grievous of punishments; his stupendous faculties and powers are then the most senseless waste; he is then a fool to cultivate and employ them to any other purpose than sensual gratifications; every incitement to the noblest actions is then done away with; then there is no perfect administration of justice in the moral world; and the earth, and every thing in it, then exist for no ultimate end or purpose whatsoever. But if death is not annihilation for man- -if man continues to live after death, he has then for his greatest afflictions the greatest consolation; his noblest instincts, like all his other instincts, are then gratified. Reason is then the best gift that could be conferred on him. All his faculties and powers are then a master-piece of harmony. He is then wise if he diligently cultivates and applies them. He has then the strongest inducements to remain virtuous under all the circumstances of life. The most perfect administration of justice in the moral world is then to hoped for. The constitution of the earth is then the most sublime that can be imagined. In short, there is every where consistency; whereas there would be every where contradiction: consistency between the faculties and instincts of men; consistency in all the arrangements made around him for his benefit; consistency in the whole terrestrial world itself; every where the most complete, the most admirable consistency. CAUTION IS NECESSARY.-When I see the fisher bait his hook, I think on Satan's subtile malice, who sugars over his poisoned hooks with seeming pleasures. Thus Eve's apple was candied with Divine knowledge, "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." When I see the fish fast hanged, I think upon the covetous worldling, who leaps at the profit without considering the danger. Thus Achan takes the gold and the garment, and never considers that his life must answer it. If Satan be such a fisher of men, it is good to look before we leap. Honey may be eaten, so that we take heed of the sting: I will honestly enjoy my delights, but not buy them with danger.- Warwick. POETRY. LOOKING UNTO JESUS. Looking to Jesus! oh! happy the soul Affliction's dark cloud may be bursting above, Vain world! where are all the poor joys you command? Unstable as dwellings erected on sand; No comfort in sorrow-no hope you impart To the mortal who yields you his time and his heart. Oh! worldling, remember-time's verging away; Then look now to Him-for the present alone In life he will guide, and in death bear you through. Oh! arise from the slumber false peace may bestow; Come out from the world, and its pleasures resign, A. D. THE COTTAGE MAGAZINE; OR, Plain Christian's Library. MEMOIR OF A FAITHFUL SERVANT. In one of the eastern counties of England lived William Grimes, the subject of the following memorial. The parents of William were honest, industrious labourers. His father worked with a farmer in his native parish; and his mother, besides the care and labour attendant on the bringing up of a young family, assisted the different wealthy farmers of the neighbourhood in washing, and, during the summer months, employed herself in the hay and harvest-fields. They had a small cottage upon one of those slips of land which border many of the public roads in the villages of that county. This land, which belonged to the lord of the manor, and might amount to somewhat more than half an acre, furnished them with many of those little comforts which soften the condition and gladden the hearts of the labouring poor. It produced also the potatoes which form so important and useful a portion of their sustenance, and which enabled them to feed the pig, purchased by the father's industry. Nor was their cottage without its little ornaments. small slip of land in its front produced the wall-flower and the rose-tree, together with some bunches of those useful pot-herbs, which make the homely fare of the cottager more pleasant and more wholesome. The care of this little garden fell chiefly upon William's mother, who took much natural pleasure in it; and who was often SEPTEMBER, 1845. VOL. XXXIV. 2 F A gratified by the undisguised approbation of those who passed by it. As soon almost as little William could run alone, he began to be made useful; and by the time that he was six years old, he was a very great help to his poor mother, in watching the cradle of an infant brother, and by keeping his little sister, who was three years and a half old, in good humour and out of harm's way. William was very proud of the trust which was placed in him, and never seemed weary of attending to what was thus left to his care. He appeared to have a spirit of sobriety and order above his years; and his conduct, even thus early in life, was a fountain of comfort to his parents. This, however, although very pleasing, was not at all surprising; it arose out of the conduct of the parents themselves. It was the example which they placed before his young eyes, more than any formal tutoring, which produced these happy effects. His father and mother were never idle; and he never heard them murmuring or discontented. What he saw was good, and he naturally— for children are all imitators-imitated what he saw; and thus the most valuable things in his character grew up with him, and became a part of that character without his knowing or remembering how they had first been taught him. What the blessing of a good and dutiful child is, they only can fully know whose grey hairs have been almost brought down to the grave in sorrow by the conduct and character of one who is froward, profligate, and disobedient. Happy is it for such parents, if they can truly say that their own careless, idle, and dissolute habits, their own daily neglect and contempt of God's holy word and commandments, have not laid the foundation of their child's ruin, and their own bitter sorrow. But the parents of William did not, however, imagine that their good conduct, any more than their health, and their other blessings, was the product of their own wills; they had learned by times to pray unto God that "he would put |