was, at one time, deeply in debt, and was obliged to pawn her plate for five hundred pounds. The king lent her two thousand pounds out of his own priva te purse to pay her creditors. Many truly charitable persons are often very frugal in their own personal expenses, that they may be able to assist others. Elizabeth gave annuities to her sisters, who, though the children of a king, were very poor; and she gave them also mo ney on their marriage. Miss Strickland gives an amusing account of this queen's economy as to her own person. "When she needed pocket-money, sums as low as 4s., 4d., seldom more than 10s. or 20s. at a time, were sent to her from her accountant, Richard Decons, by the hands of one of her ladies, as the Lady Anne Percy, or the Lady Elizabeth Stafford, or Mrs. Lee, to be put into her majesty's purse: then her gowns were mended, turned, and new bodied; they were trimmed afresh at an expense of 4d.; they were hemmed afresh when beat out at the bottom. She wore shoes which only cost 12d., with latten or tin buckles. But the rewards she ordered for her poor affectionate subjects who brought her trifling offerings of early peas, cherries, chickens, bunches of roses, and posies of other flowers, were very high in proportion to what she paid for her own shoes." The reader will of course bear in mind the difference of the value of money in the time of king Henry VII., and that of the present time. V.

A "MAN OF GOD."

1 TIM. vi. 11, 12.

"But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life."

THERE are men who answer to the character here given. They are separate from the world, distinct from it, a peculiar people. Every one who is born of God, is a man of God, partaker of the highest nature. Often call this to mind you who have such a nature, you whose souls rise to heaven, who rest on Jesus. Often call to remembrance your character, state, and relation; and inquire, "What manner of men ought we

to

be, in all holy conversation and godliness?" How distinguished from those, whose heaven is here below! Different indeed should those be who are travelling to a glorious heaven above. Let us inquire, What is a Christian? A man of God. What are the highsounding titles of earth,-lord, duke, king, &c. They may sound well, but it means but little; but "man of God," what does that mean? Yet, high as the title is, it is descriptive of what the man is,-of God. What is the life he possesses? It is the life of God in the soul; God lives in him, and he is at last filled with all the fulness of God; "Christ in you the hope of glory," he is in union with God. This exalts the sinner: he is set apart for God-to be his portion, his delight, his companion, his friend; a monument to set forth his eternal love. The Lord claims the godly for his own, He has a peculiar regard for them; we can never fathom the love God has for them. Let not a day of your short life pass by, without a sweet meditation on this subject of your union with God; and may our union grow closer every day; may we understand it better, and enjoy it more! Having shown that the Christian is a man of God, we inquire, What manner of men ought we to be? St. Paul mentions things we must abstain from, and things we must practise. First, abstain from all the evils that are in the world; flee these things. Christian, remember thy high birth, thine infinite obligations, thy wondrous expectations; what kind of a being God will make thee in a very short time. When a few

days are gone by, where are you? On the throne with God. Then, I do ask, in travelling to this, what shouldst thou be? Of the world? Oh no, live for God, depart from the world, be of a different stamp; we do not expect perfection, we are compassed with infirmities; but we do look for consistency, for sincerity; we do not expect to see an heir of heaven grovelling in the world, in love with dust; if ye are Christians, live as Christians. But there is a harder lesson still for a Christian to practise, he must depart from the spirit of the world. "Set your affection on things above." What is your treasure? All the fulness of God. What

a degradation to spend one affection on earth! Get out from the world, Christian. This is difficult, I know, but strive for it: it is a point the Christian should daily have in view. There are three reasons why a Christian should soar above the practice and spirit of the world. Do, brethren, do think what treasures you have in the bleeding Lamb; be contented with these durable riches. You have all the fulness of God to live upon; then let not your heart turn to idols: aim at this, be contented with your rich portion. Oh, that God may help you to live upon Him, and to turn from all idols! Secondly, consider the shortness of duration of the things of earth, and that those of the other world are for ever; learn to weigh time against eternity. Thirdly, if our hearts turn away from God, we are doing ourselves the greatest injury. Who ever profited by turning from the Lord? Who has not been an unspeakable loser by it?

Next, what the Christian should follow after ;-man of God, hear! hear not only from the pulpit, but seek these things on your knees, hour after hour-Righteousness, which does not here mean justifying righteousness, but uprightness. Seek to be what God would have us to be in every thing. The Christian should have but one question in passing through the world, "Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?"

Next, godliness; try to be like thy God; the child should be like his father, try to be what Christ is; drink of his spirit; let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. This is heaven. Religion is a poor meagre thing without this. Try to live the life of faith, the only life worth living. When every other prop leaves you, this rest in Christ will remain. Fight the good fight of faith against sin, Satan, and the world. If on Christ's side, fight for your Master. Man of God, you fight not for earthly things, but for a kingdom, a crown, a city that hath foundations. Strive to overcome all that would hinder your soul from leaning on Jesus. Lay hold on eternal life as you pass through time into eternity. You must have something to live upon for ever. There is no vacancy there. Oh! lay hold: let it be the practice of thy soul day by day; you have

good warrant to do this. God commands, invites, entreats-oh, may He make you willing!-Rev. T. Jones, of Creaton. Sent by M. D.

EXTRACT FROM A SERMON ON GENESIS iii. 24.

(Concluded.)

"So he drove out the man."

AND now, for obvious reasons, and for one that is allsufficient, viz., the sovereign pleasure of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will, man is respited awhile from that sentence which must, however, in the end, take its course. In the meanwhile, sorrow in childbearing, subjection unto him who had so guiltily and so fatally hearkened unto her, are imposed upon the woman as examples and emblems, rather than as expressing the full amount of those various griefs and cares, and of that degraded scale in creation into which she must fall; having fallen from her true happiness, her heaven-born dignity, her supreme Lord. "And unto Adam God said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake." This denunciation doubtless affected the various produce of the teeming soils; possibly their quality was depraved, and their luxuriance reduced; the fruits which had hitherto ripened into perfection, must now feel the rude inclemencies of an altered and variable climate. It may be not unreasonably supposed, that many of the noblest kinds which flourished in Paradise soon perished, root and branch; at all events, we read of one which grew no longer for man's fruition, even the tree of life, which stood hard by the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that time forward, degenerate, and barren, and noxious vegetation encumbered the new-made wilderness; over the whole length and breadth, and in the depth of the soil, a principle of decay was engendered, and a change of seasons was felt, which threatened its verdure, nipping in the bud many a fair promise of spring, and thus presenting ever to the fallen race of man a true and instructive emblem

of their own frail and blighted estate. But I now speak of man himself as directly involved in this terrestrial curse: "Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life." Now although, in every case, common gratitude should make us fairly acknowledge that the intensity of this sorrow is never felt in any strict proportion to our evil desert, yet, taking an average, we cannot avoid the conviction that "man is born to trouble;" that, though God causeth his sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and his rain to descend on the just and on the unjust; although our supplies are always more than answerable to our industry, and are sometimes given in richest abundance to the spendthrift, the avaricious, and the indolent,-yet how often is the bread we eat steeped in bitter and troubled waters, sufficiently so at least to remind us of the temporal curse and of the guilty cause? What thorns also, and thistles, molest our path! thorns growing out on stems, which bear the fairest appearance of flowers; thistles springing up and multiplying their rank luxuriance, frequently in the midst and in despite of man's best cultivation, leaving him to glean where he fondly expected to reap a plenteous harvest; and that_gleaning," the herb of the field,"-which, though made wholesome by the quality which an indulgent Providence has suffered it to retain, must be tasteless and insipid, compared with the fragrance and richness of the daily food of Paradise. The next feature of the curse attendant on the fall is, painful, and fatiguing, and constantly returning labour: not only "shalt thou eat bread,-the herb of the field," but "in the sweat of thy face"- And here I would remark, if in each man's own body one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, shall not those upon whom this part of the temporal curse sits lightest, according to the disposal of Him who infallibly does right,-shall not what are called the middle and higher classes, who are of one common nature in the sight of God, shall they not sympathise with, and care for, and strive by all possible and judicious means to ameliorate the condition of those who are called to gain their own scantier livelihood by bearing the burden and heat of