dialects of middle and western modern Europe; would furnish the subject of an immense work in philology. Nothing, in effect, could be more curious or more instructive, than to take the Latin language at its commencement, and to conduct it to its close across so many ages of such different characters.

The Doric-Greek language, the Etruscan and Oscan language of the hymns of the Salians, and of the Law of the Twelve Tables, whose articles, even in the days of Cicero, children sang in verse; have produced the rougher language of Duillius, Cæcilius, and Ennius; the lively language of Plautus; the satiric of Lucilius; the Grecized of Terence; the philosophic, serious, slow, and spondaic of Lucretius; the eloquent of Cicero and Livy; the clear and correct of Cæsar; the elegant of Horace; the brilliant of Ovid; the poetic and concise of Catullus; the harmonious of Tibullus; the elevated and grand, yet simple, of Virgil; the pure and wise of Phædrus.

This language of the age of Augustus (I scarcely know where to place Quintus Curtius) became, in altering itself, the energetic language of Tacitus, Lucan, Seneca, and Martial, the copious of the elder Pliny, the flowery of Pliny junior, the shameless of Suetonius, the vehement of Juvenal, the obscure of Persius, the inflated or tame of Statius and Silius Italicus. And having passed along with the grammarians Quintillian and Macrobius; with the epitomists, Florus, Velleius Paterculus, Justin, Orosius, Sulpicius Severus; with the fathers of the church, and the ecclesiastic authors, Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Hilary of Poitiers, Paulinus, Augustin, Jerome, Salvian; with the apologists, Lactantius, Arnobius, Minucius Felix; with the panegyrists, Eumenius Mamertinus, Nazairius; with the historians of the empire's decline, Ammianus Marcellinus, and the biographers of the Augustan history; with the poets of the empire's decline and fall, Ausonius, Claudian, Rutilius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Prudentius, Fortunatus; after having from the mighty change of religion, from the transformation of manners, from the invasion of Goths, Huns, Arabs, and whole tribes of scarcely elevated savages, enforced expressions for new ideas and new wants; after all these movements, this language at length

returned to a second barbarism in the first historian of those Franks who, after having destroyed the Roman empire among our fathers, originated a new language.-Chateaubriand; Essai sur la Littérature Anglaise, et Considérations sur le Génie des Hommes, des Temps, et des Révolutions.*

BRIEF LETTERS ON SPIRITUAL SUBJECTS
TO A YOUNG CONVERT.

LETTER VI.

I STILL continue to direct your attention to the allotment of a regular and sufficient portion of your time for the maintenance of personal piety, and the promotion of your personal improvement, as well as for directly seeking to do good to others. I have already assigned several reasons for this; but there are a few other considerations-I think very important ones-to which I have not yet adverted.

You desire to do good. But the Christian is to be useful in two ways, perfectly distinct from each other, and yet most harmoniously agreeing. The one may be called, the way of direct effort; the other, the way of consistent and holy example. This last, indeed, must be the foundation of the first. How can you expect others to believe you, if your practice evinces that you do not believe yourself? And if you do not yield to the persuasions by which you seek to influence others, you practically declare that their power is not so great as you allege. And this example has two aspects, under one of which I have sometimes feared that it is not sufficiently considered. It is not enough that your character be religious, in the merely ordinary sense of the word; that is, that you attend religious ordinances, can speak on religious subjects, and avoid what is grossly inconsistent with your profession. It must be religious throughout; in your spirit and temper, and in your entire conduct. Your life must preach the spirituality and purity of Christianity. You must show that

* Essay on English Literature, with Considerations on the Genius of Men, and of Times and Revolutions.

it imparts power for the avoidance of sin, and for the performance of duty; that it produces meekness and patience; that it makes you happy. You are not to be quarrelsome; not self-conceited; not pert and arrogant; not querulous and repining. And I might almost say, especially must you be attentive to the duties of your calling. Most likely you are in a subordinate condition; and therefore to your employer you must be respectful; and in your employment, punctual, honest, industrious, seeking to do what you have to do in the best manner possible, and to promote your employer's interests as though they were your own. You are to recollect the explicit injunction, "Not with eye-service, as menpleasers; but as serving the Lord Christ." Daniel laboured, and thus you must labour, that in your situation you so act that no error, no fault, be found in you; that you are not only honest, but careful and correct. If those you are under are pious, you must not think that religious union produces social equality. If not so, and they laugh at you for your profession, take all in the spirit of meekness, endeavouring to overcome opposition by well-doing.

"Let

Now this is a divinely enjoined way of doing good. your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." It is not, indeed, a way in which you are one who acts a prominent part; as if, for instance, you were the teacher of a class of children, over whom, therefore, you found yourself placed. Bear with the plain phrase; self likes to be somebody: and in the way I have been describing, you are nobody in particular. You are doing right, as seen by men, but not in order to be seen of them. You are not walking in a humanly-devised plan, but in the way of divine uprightness, as seen of God. But it is a most powerful way. The good you may thus do is immense. True, only God perhaps may know it; but he does know it, and in his book of remembrance shall the record be inscribed.

Now, for such usefulness, not only must godliness be preserved in all its living power, for which you must have your seasons of retirement; but (and this increases the necessity of such seasons) you must examine yourself. You

once.

must ask yourself how you have been behaving. You must search into your inmost soul, find out your weak points, your erring propensities, your defects, your mistakes. And then, you cannot know the whole rule of duty, in all its minutiæ, at You must read the Scriptures for the express purpose of clearing and enlarging your views in this respect. And these must be considered in their application to yourself. Here are general classes, so to call them. But, in your own condition, what particulars do they comprise? You must live soberly, righteously, and godly. Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report; nay, if there be any unenumerated virtue, or praise,—on these things, in their reference to yourself, you must meditate, that you may be prepared to do, at any time, and under any circumstances, that which for that time, and for that circumstance, may be proper. You are to be wise, understanding what the will of the Lord is.

Do you not see that for all this, yours must not be a life of hurry, covered under the name of zealous activity? You may be in too great haste. A degree of slowness is necessary, not only to security, but to real advancement. Take time, that you may make haste. Retirement is as necessary as publicity. All retirement may become selfish indolence; all publicity may become selfish presumption and conceit. Properly unite the life of both the interior and the exterior. Read your Bible much. Meditate on it. Read devotional works in connexion with it. Let not closet-duty be merely a form. Cultivate a spirit of self-recollection and self-control. Set the Lord always before you; and let your constant, definite, wellunderstood aim, be to please Him. Thus shall you be prepared for usefulness of the best sort; usefulness the most lasting, the most availing. God will bless you; and thus shall you be a blessing. PASTOR.

FACTS AND ANECDOTES IN NATURAL HISTORY.

ANTS IN AFRICA.

[THERE are many things of which man often speaks with displeasure, because he looks only at the inconveniences to

which he himself is exposed by them; when further attention would show him, that to those very properties which occasion these inconveniences, and which, after all, may be comparatively slight, he is indebted for real and great advantages. The account given of the ants of Africa, by the author of "The Journal of an African Cruiser," will illustrate this, and furnish a remarkable instance of the care of what may be called natural providence.]

As we shall soon have done with Liberia, I must not forget to insert, among the motley records of this Journal, some account of its ants. The immense number of these insects, which infect every part of the land, is a remarkable provision in the economy of Africa, as well as of other tropical countries. Though very destructive to houses, fences, and other articles of value, their ravages are far more than repaid by the benefits bestowed; for they act as scavengers in removing the great quantity of decaying vegetable matter, which would otherwise make the atmosphere intolerable. They perform their office both within-doors and without. Frequently the drivers, as they are called, enter houses in myriads, and, penetrating to the minutest recesses, destroy everything that their omnivorous appetite can render eatable. Whatever has the principle of decay in it, is got rid of at once. All vermin meet their fate from these destroyers. Food, clothing, necessaries, superfluities, mere trash, and valuable property, are alike in their regard, and equally acceptable to their digestive powers. They would devour this Journal with as little compunction as so much blank paper, and a sermon as readily as the Journal; nor would either meal lie heavy on their stomachs. They float on your coffee, crawl about on your plate, and accompany the victuals to your mouth.

The ants have a Queen, whom the colonists call, Buggabug. Her subjects are divided into three classes: the labourers, who do nothing but work; the soldiers, who do nothing but fight; and the gentry, from whom the progeny is deyied. The habitations of these insects, as specimens of mechanical ingenuity, are far superior to the houses of the