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ST. PAUL AT ATHENS.

farmer now sees the principal object of his culture, and the chief source of his riches, waiting only for the hand of the gatherer. Every fair day is now of great importance; for, when the corn is once ripe, it is liable to continual damage while standing, either from the shedding of the seeds, from the depredation of birds, or from storms. The utmost diligence is therefore used by the careful husbandman to get it in, as soon as cut down, and labourers are hired from all quarters to hasten the work. This pleasing harvest scene is beheld in its perfection only in the open-field countries, where the sight can take in at once an uninterrupted extent of land waving with corn, and a multitude of people engaged in the various parts of the labour. It is a prospect equally delightful to the eye and the heart, and which ought to inspire every sentiment of benevolence to our fellow-creatures, and of gratitude to our Creator. The rural festival of harvest home is an extremely natural one, and has been observed in almost all ages and all countries. The jovial harvest supper cheers the heart of the poor labourer, and prepares him to begin without murmuring the labours of another year. This month is the season of another kind of harvest in some parts of England, which is the hop-picking. The hop is a climbing plant, sometimes growing wild in hedges, and is cultivated on account of its use in making malt liquors. It is planted in regular rows, and poles are set for it to run upon. When the poles are covered to the top, nothing can make a more elegant appearance than one of these hop-gardens. At the time of gathering, the poles are taken up with the plants clinging to them; and the scaly flowering heads, which are the parts used, are carefully picked off. Kent, Sussex, and Worcestershire, are the counties most famous for the growth of hops.

ST. PAUL AT ATHENS.

THERE are at this present moment more than six hundred millions of the human race in the appalling

ST. PAUL AT ATHENS.

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'situation of the men whom the apostie describes as "without Christ in the world ;" and the question is, with what feelings and what purposes a Christian would survey this vast and wretched portion of the family of man. Behold St. Paul at Athens. Think of the matchless splendour which blazed upon his view, as he rolled his eye round the enchanting panorama that encircled the hill of Mars. On the one hand, as he stood upon the summit of the rock, beneath the canopy of heaven, was spread a glorious prospect of mountains, islands, seas, and skies; on the other, quite within his view, was the plain of Marathon, where the wrecks of former generations, and the tombs of departed heroes, mingled together in silent desolation. Behind him towered the lofty Acropolis, crowned with the pride of Grecian architecture. There, in the zenith of their splendour and the perfection of their beauty, stood those peerless temples, the very fragments of which are viewed by modern travellers with an idolatry almost equal to that which reared them. Stretched along the plain below him, and reclining her head on the slope of the neighbouring hills, was Athens, mother of the arts and sciences, with her noble offspring sporting by her side. The Porch, the Lyceum, and the Grove, with the stations of departed sages, and the forms of their living disciples, were all presented to the apostle's eye. What mind, possessing the slightest pretensions to classic taste, can think of his situation amid such sublime and captivating scenery, without a momentary rapture! Yet there, even there, did this accomplished scholar stand as insensible to all this grandeur as if nothing was before him but the treeless, turfless desert. Absorbed in the holy attrac tions of his own mind, he saw no charms, felt no fascinations, but, on the contrary, was pierced with the most poignant distress; and what was the cause?" He saw the city wholly given to idolatry." To him it presented nothing but a magnificent mausoleum, decorated, it is true, with the richest productions of the sculptor and the architect, but still where the souls of men lay, "dead in trespasses and sins;" while the dim light of philosophy that still glimmered in the schools, appeared but

148 THE DAW WITH BORROWED FEATHERS.

as the lamp of the sepulchre, shedding its pale and sickly ray around these gorgeous chambers of death. What must have been his indignant grief at the dishonour done by idolatry to God; what his amazement at the weakness and folly of the human mind; what his abhorrence of human impiety; and what his compassion for human wretchedness, when such stately monuments of Pagan pomp and superstition had not the smallest effect in turning away his view from the guilt that raised them, or the misery which succeeded them! Ah! how many Christian travellers and divines, whilst occupying the same spot, though they saw not a thousandth part of what the apostle saw, have had their whole minds so engrossed by scenes of earthly magnificence, as not to feel one sentiment of pity for the Pagans who formerly dwelt there, or the Mahometans who are the present proprietors of these venerable -ruins!

A PRAGMATICAL jack-daw was vain enough to ima gine, that he wanted nothing but the dress to render him as elegant a bird as the peacock. Puffed up with this wise conceit, he plumed himself with a sufficient quantity of their most beautiful feathers, and in this borrowed garb, forsaking his old companions, endeavoured to pass for a peacock. But he no sooner attempted to associate with these genteel creatures, than an affected strut betrayed the vain pretender. The offended peacocks, plucking from him their degraded feathers, soon stripped him of his genteelity, reduced him to a mere jack-daw, and drove him back to his brethren, by whom he was now equally despised and justly punished with general derision and disdain. We should never assume a character which does not belong to us; nor aspire to a society or a situation for which we are not truly qualified. Such affectation and presumption will sooner or later bring us into contempt. It is wisest and safest to pretend to nothing that is

above our reach and our circumstances, and to aim at acting well in our own proper sphere, rather than have the mere appearance of worth and beauty in the sphere which is designed for others.

O SCOTLAND! much I love thy tranquil dales;
But most on Sabbath eve, when low the sun
Slants through the upland copse, 'tis my delight,
Wandering, and stopping oft, to hear the song
Of kindred praise arise from humble roofs:
Or, when the simple service ends, to hear
The lifted latch, and mark the grey-hair'd man,
The father and the priest, walk forth alone
Into his garden plot, or little field,

To commune with his God in secret prayer,
To bless the Lord, that, in his downward years,
His children are about him: sweet, mean time,
The thrush that sings upon the aged thorn,
Brings to his view the days of youthful years,
When that same aged thorn was but a bush.
Nor is the contrast between youth and age
To him a painful thought; he joys to think
His journey near a close; Heaven is his home!

We are now to relate an event, one of the most memorable that history has conveyed to posterity, and containing at once a singular proof of the strength and weakness of the human mind; its widest departure, from morals, and most steady attachment to religious principles. 'Tis the Gunpowder Treason of which I speak; a fact as certain as it appears incredible. The Roman Catholics having expected great favour and indulgence on the accession of King James the First, were at once surprised and enraged to find him, on all

t

150

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT.

occasions, express his intention of strictly executing the laws against them. Catesby, a gentleman of good parts, and of an ancient family, thought of a most extraordinary method of revenge; and he opened his intention to Piercy, a descendant of the illustrious house of Northumberland. "To serve any good purpose," he said, "we must destroy at one blow the King, the Royal Family, the Lords, the Commons, and bury all our enemies in one common ruin. Happily they are all assembled on the first meeting of parliament, and afford us the opportunity of glorious and useful vengeance. A few of us combining may run a mine below the hall in which they meet, and chusing the very moment when the King harangues both Houses, consign over to destruction these determined foes to all piety and religion." Piercy was charmed with this project of Catesby; and they agreed to communicate the matter to a few more, and among the rest to Thomas Winter, whom they sent over to Flanders, in quest of Fawkes, an officer in the Spanish service, with whose zeal and courage they were all thoroughly acquainted. When they enlisted any new conspirator, in order to bind him to secresy, they always, together with an oath, employed the communion, the most sacred rite of their religion. All this passed in the spring and summer of the year 1604, when the conspirators also hired a house in Piercy's name adjoining to that in which the parliament was to assemble. Towards the end of that year they began their operations. Their perseverance advanced the work, and they soon pierced the wall, though three yards in thickness; but, on approaching the other side, they were somewhat startled at hearing a noise, which they knew not how to account for. Upon inquiry, they found that it came from the vault below the House of Lords; that a magazine of coals had been kept there; and that, as the coals were selling off, the vault would be let to the highest bidder. The opportunity was immediately seized; the place hired by Piercy; thirtysix barrels of powder lodged in it: the whole covered up with faggots and billets; the doors of the cellar boldly thrown open; and every body admitted as if it contained nothing dangerous. The King, the Queen, Prince Henry, were all expected to be present at the