OCCASIONAL MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS. UPON THE VIEW OF THE WORLD.. Ir is a good thing to see this material world; but it is a better thing to think of the intelligible of the world; this thought is the sight of the soul, whereby it discerneth things, like itself, spiritual and immortal, which are so much beyond the worth of these sensible objects as a spirit is beyond a body, a pure substance beyond a corruptible, an infinite God above a finite creature. O God, how great a word is that which the psalmist says of thee, that thou abasest thyself to behold the things both in heaven and earth! It is our glory to look up even to the meanest piece of heaven; it is an abasement to thine incomprehensible TRACT MAG., THIRD SERIES, NO. 97, JAN. 1842. B Oh, what a transcendent glory must that needs be, that is abased to behold the things of heaven! What a happiness shall it be to me that mine eyes shall be exalted to see thee, who art humbled to see the place and state of my blessedness! Yea, those very angels that see thy face, are so resplendently glorious, that we could not overlive the sight of one of their faces, who are fain to hide their faces from the sight of thine. How many millions of them attend thy throne above, and thy footstool below, in the ministration to thy saints! It is that thine invisible world, the communion wherewith can make me truly blessed. O God, if my body have fellowship here amongst beasts, of whose earthly substance it participates, let my soul be united to thee, the God of spirits, and be raised up to enjoy the insensible society of thy blessed angels. Acquaint me beforehand with those citizens and affairs of thine heaven, and make me no stranger to my future glory. majesty to look down upon the best of heaven. UPON THE SIGHT OF GOLD MELTED. THIS gold is both the fairest and most solid of all metals, yet is the soonest melted with the fire; others, as they are coarser, so more churlish, and hard to be wrought upon by a dissolution: thus a sound and good heart is most easily melted into sorrow and fear by the sense of God's judgments, whereas the carnal mind is stubborn and remorseless. All metals are but earth, yet some are of finer All hearts are of flesh, yet some are, temper than others. of through the power grace, more capable of spiritual apprehensions. O God, we are such as thou wilt be pleased to make us. Give me a heart that may be sound for the truth of grace, and melting at the terrors of thy law, can be for no other than thy sanctuary on earth or thy treasury of heaven. UPON THE SIGHT OF A LOOKING-GLASS. I WHEN I look in another man's face I see that man, and that man sees me as I do him; but when I look in my glass I do not see myself, I see only an image or representation of myself; howsoever it is like me, yet it is not I:" it is for an ignorant child to look behind the glass to find out the babe that he seeth. I know it is not there, and that the resemblance varies according to the dimness or different fashion of the glass. At our best, we do but thus see God here below. One sees him more clearly, another more obscurely, but all in a glass: hereafter we shall see him, not as he appears, but as he is; so shall we see him in the face, as he sees us. The face of our glorified spirits shall see the glorious face of him who is the God of spirits. In the meantime the proudest dame shall not more ply her glass to look upon that face of hers which she thinks beautiful, than I shall gaze upon the clearest glass of my thoughts to see that face of God which I know to be infinitely fair and glorious.-Bp. Hall. THE POOR WATERCRESSERS. WINTER may be personified in a variety of ways, but I hardly remember a more vivid representation of the season than that afforded by a group of figures, who are hardly now out of hearing. They were four watercress-gatherers, habited in cloaks of different colours, each carrying a bunch of water cresses, tied to the top of a stick. There was nothing remarkable in their appearance itself, and yet the severe frost, the cold biting north-wind, and the heavy flakes of snow that thickly fell upon them, gave them an interest which otherwise would never have been excited by them. One of them bore in her arms a young child, wrapped up in her cloak. The ditty they sang was both homely and cheerless, and it was doled forth in a most melancholy manner"We're all frozed out! We're all frozed out! We're all entirely frozed out! There they stood at the gate, their bonnets plastered with snow, and their cloaks flying about loosely in the wind, screwing up their faces in all manner of forms at the cold, and chaunting their dismal ditty very discordantly, every now and then, seemingly more by accident than design, harmonizing one with another. "We're all frozed out," cried one; "We're all frozed out," repeated another; "We're all entirely frozed out," chimed in a third; and then the whole group united their voices in the concluding chorus, "Pity poor watercressers." The wintry tale told by the group was perfect in itself, even without the assistance of their melancholy song. The falling flakes of snow sufficiently testified the inclemency of the season; the frozen watercressers brought the icy brook in the full view of the spectator; the fluttering cloaks proclaimed the strength of the searching blast, and the red and pinched-up faces of the singers confirmed the intelligence that snow-spreading, water-freezing, finger-tingling winter was abroad. If God has blessed us with abundant food and clothes, and fire, and comfortable habitations, how can we better show our thankfulness to Him than by showing kindness, in inclement seasons, to the ill-fed and ill-clad, fireless and comfortless beings, whose sickness or poverty debars them from necessary comforts! What a sweet encouragement to do deeds of mercy to the poor followers of the Redeemer is held out in the following words of Holy Scripture:-"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," Matt. xxv. 40. ANECDOTE OF MARTIN LUTHER. THE following incident in the life of Luther is related by writers of the age in which he lived, though it is not generally known. It serves to illustrate various features in the character of this great reformer, and particularly his amiable cheerfulness in social life. On the 3d March, A.D. 1522, Luther rose with the determination of quitting the Wartburg for ever. He bade adieu to its old towers and gloomy forests, passed the walls within which he had been safe from the excommunications of Pope Leo x., and from the sword of the Emperor Charles v., and descended the mountain. That world which lay at his feet, and in the midst of which he was about to re-appear, would soon perhaps clamour for his death. It mattered not; he went on with good cheer, for in the name of the Lord he was about to return among men. Luther had been two days on his way to Wittemburg, |