should rather say, that even that pleasure is alloyed by the feeling of regret that the work is not better proportioned to its object; not that what we have to do is so much, but that all that we can do is so little.

But as we are indulging our we have them before us, we What would we say to them? effect.

fancy in thus imagining that will go somewhat farther. Something perhaps to this

Such a class of young persons must be capable of great improvement, and that improvement must be important in no ordinary degree. We suppose it to be connected with what must be always the first thing to be secured,-spiritual growth; but, this being supposed, mental improvement, by God's blessing, which in this case would not be withheld, would issue in results of the highest value. They would have fields of pleasure which would always secure them against what our neighbours call ennui, and against indolence, and the temptation to waste time in doing nothing, or worse than nothing, in idle conversation and religious gossip; their judgment would be sound, and their minds less exposed to prejudice; their religion would not be common-place and superficial, ever at one stay, never getting beyond the rudimentary a b c; it would have a more commanding character; they would be able to meet its enemies in the gate, and to look them in the face, and to put to shame the ignorant and presumptuous by the enlightened boldness of truth and sanctified knowledge. They would exhibit that most desirable evangelical alliance, the union of fervent piety with genuine rationalism; and prove that religion is not like the owl, the emblem of Athenian wisdom, whose flights are taken in darkness; but that, on the one hand, like the eagle, it soars into the lofty, and bright, and serene; and on the other, like the lark, it springs up with alacrity, and sings most sweetly in its ascent. By and by they will occupy the positions of active duty, and make their improvement tell in beneficial operations on both the church, the family, and the world.

What would we say to them? First, be resolute in pursuing improvement. Dryness and difficulty are only

found in its earlier stages. The farther you go, the richer the country, the more delightful the views and prospects. And permit us to help you. We will try our best to indicate the paths which you may most profitably and most pleasingly pursue. We cannot give you what is at all equivalent to an encyclopædia of subjects, nor even of hints; forty-eight pages a month will not allow that; but what forty-eight pages will allow towards the last, that we will endeavour to furnish. And work with us; go along with us; and when you become young men and young women, do not throw us off entirely: allow us to regard you as friends with whom we regularly, by print, correspond, when we may no longer regard you as pupils whom we thus teach.

And here comes something else. Education is advancing. We do have the objection sometimes, "The Instructer' is rather too high for us." Surely not. We endeavour to take high ground, because the air there is so pure and bracing, and the views so rich, extensive, and delightsome. But not too high. Try, and you will be able to master the ascent. And then, again, this advancing education. You will, ere long, be heads of families. Do our papers contain nothing which, transferred to your own mind, will be matter of good and pleasing family conversation? nothing which the mother may not talk about in the nursery, so as to prepare for the school, and begin the education at home which shall be continued in the school, and enable you to converse about what is taught in the school, as those who know something of it yourselves? Just to look only at one department: do not our "Sentences for Reflection" contain maxims which, having served the father as useful seed, he may also sow in the mind of his boys, as he sits by the fire-side with them in the winter, or takes a summer-evening walk with them?

It is well we have confessed that fancy is sometimes busy with us all. We could easily fancy ourselves into very ambitious views, and projects, and hopes. And even when waking up we will not entirely banish them. We have received letters that prove that we have readers, we believe we have many, who are workers with us, and who, having gone on with us some little way, like it so well, that they are resolved to go farther.

May we, not as a part of our day-dream, but in sober, wide-awake reality, now ask them one favour? November is said to be a gloomy month. In one department of labour, let them try to make it an active one. If they like our company, let them procure themselves more companions. Much is said now about cheap books. Take all things together, ours is not a dear one. Far from it. We say this the more readily, as having nothing to do with it. We have only to furnish copy. And look at the volume at the end of the year. The small print would make several more pages, if put in the type used in the former part of the Number; and as it is, here are almost six hundred pages, equal to above six hundred, with twelve excellent engravings. No bad volume for four shillings. And as to quality and matter: we know there are some who read nothing but memoirs. But why? The real value of these is, the illustration they furnish us of the work of God in grace. But surely the works of God in nature, and in providence, deserve their attention too. What God does, ought not his children and servants to study? We will not suppose the ground of their preference is though we have heard this hinted that this kind of reading is the easiest, calls for least mental exertion. Let them read the Psalms: they will find that the devotion of the saints in those days was largely fed by what was derived from the study of every branch of the universal kingdom of God, in nature and providence, as well as grace. "They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power." And in communion with HIм they shall say, "O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all!

Do our esteemed friends think that our labours are not useless ones? that the time and thought, care and anxiety, expended in them are not thrown away? Do they wish to encourage us? Then we respectfully suggest to them that they endeavour to procure us some new readers. We have many; but there are many who know nothing about us. Our lecture-room will hold more. If each of our readers would procure us one more, we should have a goodly, and a most encouraging, increase to begin the year with. We have some new subjects in our mind. Such an increase would be

a noble stimulus to exertion. And might not great and lasting good be the result?

MINIATURE CHRISTIAN LIBRARY. No. IX.

One, on the pos

[MR. FOSTER has some valuable observations, in his second series of Lectures, on the subject of war. We will give our readers, in this department, two extracts. sible lawfulness and necessity of war, even to a Christian state; and another, showing that civilization, philosophy, letters, though they may, and do, tend to alleviate the horrors of war, and restrict its actual occasions within narrow limits, will not of themselves accomplish its extinction: a mightier influence is needed: that influence is God's evangelical government; the spread of divine truth, accompanied by the living power of the divine Spirit. We give the first extract to guard against those extreme views which, by the force of reaction, often contribute to the support of what is directly opposite. The argument that is pushed too far, is by such extension weakened, and practically effects less than, had it not been so unduly stretched, it most likely would have done. The second suggests an admonitory but cheering truth. Cheering, because it shows what Christianity can and will do. Admonitory, as showing that nothing else will do; and that all who despise, and set at nought, the peculiar and glorious doctrines of the Gospel, however much they may talk of charity, (by which they mean total indifference to truth,) yet have no power of producing any charity that is worth the name, or that will accomplish what will then only be accomplished when the knowledge of the Lord fills and covers the earth. It is only when there is the flow of all nations to the mountain of the Lord's house, that men shall learn war no more.-ED. Y. I.]

POSSIBILITY OF A WAR BEING JUST, AND NO VIOLATION OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES.-In passing, may we be allowed to advert, for a moment, to this topic. We would observe, it is most readily conceded that every principle upon which a Christian casuist would justify war, under certain possible circumstances, would not justify, perhaps, one in twenty of the wars that have

been waged. Very rare has been the instance of a war, on either side, strictly and purely defensive, of either the nation itself, or any other endangered or oppressed people, depending on its protection. But suppose any case that should answer to the strictness of this condition,-what then?

It is within the easy recollection of many of us, that, about four or five years ago, our Government in India had a war with a nation (if we may name it so) called Pindarees. In fact, they were a terrible assemblage of outlaws, robbers, and murderers, to the number of fifty thousand, occupying a strong and almost inaccessible tract on the northern frontier. Thence, with impetuous rapidity, they rushed down, all horsemen, on the country, inhabited by a population of cultivators; seized whatever could easily be carried off; and, with furious eagerness, demolished, burnt, and destroyed the rest. But far more than this. They were universally possessed with the spirit of murder; they killed the people without regard to sex or age; not only so, but, when sufficiently at leisure for such amusements, they inflicted excruciating tortures previous to death.

Now, when the Governor-General had intelligence of this, what was he to do? what, acting as a Christian? Nothing? What, as a great Magistrate, did he "bear the sword" for? What was he Governor at all for? To live in splendid state, and number and tax the people? Or was he to direct that prayers should be made in the churches for something very like a miracle? And in failure of that, prayers that the wretched people might be very resigned to their fate? and that even should the fell and fiendish legion, being unresisted, choose to pursue their way all down to Calcutta, that all the people in their track who could not escape, and at last himself and the people of the city, might be enabled calmly to submit to a sovereign dispensation of Providence?

He did not do this. He chose rather to act on the rule of his appointment to be "a terror to evil-doers,” “ a minister of God, a revenger, to execute wrath upon them that do evil.” But if war is in all possible cases wrong, he perpetrated an enormous crime against Christianity, in marching his armies with a celerity unparalleled in that climate, and encountering,