HYPOCRISY. This is a long, hard word; but I wish it were not so needful for my young readers to be taught the nature of it, and warned against it. Hypocrisy is the sin, of making a pretence to religion ; of professing that, which we do not really feel and possess. It is the sin of which' Ananias and Sapphira werë guilty. They saw many turning to the Lord under the Apostles preaching; and the converts to the faith of Christ sold all that they

had, laid it down at the Apostles' feet, and had all things in common. Now this unhappy couple wanted to be thought religious, and perhaps they fancied that it would be for their good in some way or other. So they sold their property as the rest did; but mark their hypocrisy! They brought their money to the Apostles, wishing them to think that it was the whole ; whereas they had kept back part of it for themselves. So God was pleased early to shew to the infant Church, what a dreadful sin in his sight hypocrisy is; and Ananias and Sapphira were both struck dead within three hours of each other! You have a picture of this awful event at the head of this paper, because I wish to use every means to impress you with a just sense of this matter. You may often have been warned of the sin of lying in general, by the history of Ananias and Sapphira; but it seems chiefly to point out the dane ger of lying unto God by hypocrisy. Do you ask, what can lead people to become · hypocrites? I answer many motives may lead them. They may wish to ap

pear religious, in order to promote their worldly good; for in these days, in which much real religion abounds, good people of course wish to help those most, who seem to be heirs with themselves of the grace of life. Then again, they may put on the shew of religion from pride and self-conceit. They may wish to be thought soinebody to seem of consequence, to make a noise and a shew amongst their neighbours, like the Pharisees of old.

And I wish that my young readers also were not exposed to the danger of this dreadful sin. But if you are children in a religious family, there is a great temptation to appear religious, because you know it will please those about you. Or if you are members of a Sunday-school, it may be, that even while you remain at heart very ungodly, you may be tempted to profess great piety, because you see it pleases your teachers and gains the school rewards.

I cannot say how I was distressed by a young hypocrite, who came through our village the other day. She was a

little girl about eleven years old, and she said that her mother, who was very ill, had gone before in a carrier's cart. I was not at home when she called at my house, or I think I should have found her out, as her story was a very unlikely one; and in this case, I should have been strongly tempted to have made an example of her, and to have tried if a visit to the castle would not have brought her to her senses. But she went to one house in the village, and quite deceived the good people by her religious talk. She asked them if they were poor? And upon being told, “not very,” she begged thern to take some tracts from her, and give to their poorer neighbours. She had got these tracts at my house a few minutes before. She then begged that the family would listen to the advice of their minister, and in fact nothing could exceed the pretty way in which she talked. Alas! I afterwards found it was all talk, and that her story was a complete lie. She had most likely been trained up to this work, by some wretch of a parent ; and was enlisting into the service of her sins,

the blessings of some Sunday-school instruction !

Poor child, how I pity you! If such be your continued course, how dreadful will be your doom in the last day! It is bad enough to know your Lord's will, and not to do it: such will be beaten with many stripes. But what will it be, to have turned your knowledge into sin! May my young readers take warning, and pray to be kept sincere in all that they profess. We would not deter you from making a profession of religionfar from it. We rejoice to think that out of the mouth of many babes and sucklings, God is, in these times, perfecting praise. But the devil is sowing tares amongst young as well as old ; and we wish you to take care that you profess nothing, but what comes from the heart. I cannot do better than direct you to the example of John Hitchcock, whose history, every part of which is quite true, I now proceed to give you.''