THE CHILDREN OF VANITY. HERE is a class of persons why do you call yourselves the disciples of who need to be reminded his Son? If you do believe them, to what of the necessity of holi- part will you refer for a vindication of your ness, and who have not conduct? To what part rather will you rethe excuse either of oc-fer and not find yourselves condemned? Do cupation or ignorance to allege. I you not read, not only that the wicked shall mean the gay and fashionable, who be turned into hell, but also all they that forspend their time in one unceasing get God? Is not a woe denounced against round of vanities, and never pause those who have "the harp and viol, the tafor a moment to think whether their bret and pipe, and wine in their feasts, but course of life is pleasing in the sight of God. they regard not the work of the Lord, neiYet would they deem it highly uncharitable ther consider the operation of his hands?" to deny them the name of Christians, or to Does not our Lord inculcate on his disciples compare them to the heedless insect which poverty of spirit, sorrow for sin, purity of flutters round the flame, and cannot be driven heart, renunciation of the world? Does he away, till at last it is caught by it and con- not teach them to aim at being perfect, even sumed. How awful is it to see human be- as their Father which is in heaven is perfect? ings-beings made for immortality-beings Do not his Apostles condemn those who are possessing, in many instances, shining quali-lovers of pleasures more than lovers of ties and great cultivation, who yet go on from day to day, as if their only concern was to get to the end of life without perceiving their progress towards it, living as if there were no hereafter; living, as the Apostle expresses it, without God in the world! O that He would graciously enable the voice of truth to penetrate for once into their hearts; that some at least of these careless ones might have their attention arrested, and be persua led to consider for what they were made and whither they are going! Turn not a deaf ear, I beseech you, to the voice of instruction. Do not let the enemy of your souls persuade you that religion is a foc to cheerfulness, that you will be less happy for making God your friend; that your present hours will be clouded by the certainty of possessing eternal and unchangeable felicity. Neither let him persuade you that you are safe, because you may not be grossly sinful; that amiable tempers and engaging manners can supply the place of sanctity of heart, or that God will be satisfied with any thing less than the consecration of your souls to his service. Let me appeal to your consciences, whether you believe the Scriptures to be the word of God? If you do not believe them, why do you mock him by attending on his ordinances? God?" Do they not say, "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth? Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him?" Such undoubtedly is their language: you must therefore take your choice. You must be holy, or you must renounce the name of Christians; at least you must renounce the promises and hopes of Christianity. But perhaps, whilst I am insisting on the necessity of holiness, some will accuse me of corrupting the Gospel, and teaching men to seck for the blessings of another life by works and not by faith. God forbid that I should be guilty of so gross an error. No; it must always be contended that we are justified by faith without the deeds of the law, that our own holiness will not suffice; that our hope must rest altogether on the atonement and righteousness of Christ. Still let it be remembered, that, whom God justifies, them he also sanctifies. True faith is known by its fruits. Its constant tendency is to produce holiness of heart and life; and when they do not appear, there is too much reason to conclude that a man has not faith, and therefore that he is not justified. TO THE COCK. -"crowed the cock, with the self-same "Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter."-Longfellow. Thou crimson-crested herald of the day! Watching the earliest glimmering of the light From Dawn's broad spear-head, as he puts to flight Thy clarion notes our laggard souls invite To burst soft Sloth's embrace, the strenuous fight Of hosts embattled, or in ambush lying, Lest we, off guard surprised, be found denying The cross that marks Christ's soldiers, may we ne'er 15th January, 1848. FRIENDSHIP AND CONSANGUINITY, BEING A SEQUEL TO THE ARTICLE HEADED "CONTENTIONS OF BROTHERS." J. J. R. NDER the head of "Conten-less desirable than personal friendship with- a remark of Ciceros in none the less firm and enduring from the fact the De Amicitia, where he says, of being superadded to a tie of nature's pro"Friendship is better than consan-ducing. That friendship without consanguinity in this; that from consanguinity is a better and nobler relation, than guinity, the kind feeling can be taken consanguinity without friendship, is sufficiaway; from friendship it cannot." Upon ently exemplified, by contrasting the numerthis, we may remark, that the tie of consan- ous instances of fraternity mentioned in our guinity, even of brotherhood, unless cement-last, where the kindly feeling was lost, and ed by that of true friendship, is indeed a cold the affection deadened or estranged, with and chilling relationship. Natural relation- those splendid examples in mythology and in ship, without personal friendship, is certainly history, of undying friendship, where no tie of nature existed. Friendship, such as that Friendship such as that of C. Lælius and of Theseus and Perithous, who like faithful the younger Africanus; whose father C. comrades, aided each other throughout life in Lælius had in like manner been the friend of every project, even to the descending together the elder Africanus. A similar attachment to the world of shadows. Friendship like existed between Papus Æmilius and C. Lusthat of Achilles and Patroclus, who contract-cinus; between Manius Curius and Tiberius ed in youth an intimacy and affection that Coruncanius; between the Emperor Augusnever suffered the slightest diminution. And tus and Muræna; between Brutus and C. when to Achilles, came the woful announce-Flavius; between the Emperor Augustus and ment, that his best and dearest friend had Vipsanius Agrippa; between Atticus and the paid the debt of nature: Hear then; and as in fate and love we join, "And is it thou?' he answers: 'to my sight Friendship such as that of Orestes and Pylades, (to whom however there was a tie of) consanguinity, though no nearer than cousins;) between whom existed an unalterable attachment; and when the Priestess of Diana offered to spare the life of one, occurred the ever-memorable contest of friendship, which should sacrifice himself for the other. Friendship like that of Phintias (vulgarly called Pythias,) and Damon, the Pythagorean philosopher of Syracuse; whose attachment and devotion to each other in the hour of danger are proverbial. Ciceros; between Atticus and Cato; between Atticus and many illustrious Romans, as Hortensius, Torquatus, the younger Marius, Brutus, &c. But while we admit that true friendship and affection is much to be preferred to a brotherhood without love, we must remember, as we said before, that brothers, too, may be friends, and that a friendship of the deepest and holiest nature. Perhaps the unalterable nature of this affection, as it should exist, cannot be better illustrated than by the mythical legend of the twin brothers, Castor and Pollux, who after participating together throughout life in every great undertaking of their time, knew no abatement of their devotion after death; for Pollux who survived his brother, inconsolable for his loss, divided his offered immortality with Castor, rather than share the honors of Mars and Minerva in Olympus. Or witness, for a further exemplification, the agony of the Grecian leader, Agamemnon, at the supposed fatal wound of his own brother and fellow warrior, Menelaus. "Then, with a sigh, that heav'd his manly breast, 'Oh, dear as life! did I for this agree "He said: a leader's and a brother's fears Possess his soul, which thus the Spartan cheers: To whom the king: My brother and my friend, Proculeius, a Roman knight, furnishes a noble illustration of this fraternal regard; "Notus in fratres animi paterni ;" whose devotion extended even to the sharing of his estate with his two brothers, who had lost their all, for siding with Pompey, in the civil commotions of the state. Again, of the affectionate deference paid by the younger Scipio to his elder brother, Q. Fabius Maximus, Cicero speaks in no doubtful terms. He reverenced him as his superior, on account of his exceeding him in years, though by no means his equal, we are assured, in point of intellectual attainments. thology, not staying to dwell now on the sacred narratives of Holy Writ, "the Brothers," described by Wordsworth, will serve as our exemplification; where Leonard, after many years upon the roaring main, returned from " perils manifold" to his own native mountains, "Both for the sake Of many darling pleasures, and the love Or, we may recall another poem by the same "The royal Elidure, who leads the chase, Hath check'd his foaming courser,-can it be? We are told by Pliny, too, of P. Rupilius 'It is the king, my BROTHER!' and, by sound Long, strict, and tender, was the embrace he But, leaving the realms of history and my "Whispers of the household gods that keep "Such, O my earliest friend, B. B. G. Balt. Co., Maryland, Aug., 1850. Our Church considers Baptism as an actual grafting into the Church, without any such distinction as the one invented between a visible and an invisible society under that name. Bishop White. ROCOPIUS, a Greek histori-discovery, and to shape strange schemes of an of the sixth century, was a witness, and has left a minute description, of the great plague, which in the reign of Justinian ravaged nearly the whole of the known world. The most remarkable circumstance in this pestilence is its extraordinary length. When Evagrius of Antioch wrote his Ecclesiastical History it had lasted fiftytwo years, with alternate fits of relaxation and vigour; but during this long period the earth was never wholly free from its ravages. The account given by Procopius is as follows: natural philosophy; knowing that what they utter is not sound, but satisfied if they can cheat the vulgar into believing it. But for this particular calamity we can in no way account, either in word or thought, except by referring it to God. For it fell on no particular portion of the earth, nor race of men, nor was it confined to any season of the year, which things might have given some pretence for thinking it of natural origin, but spread over all the earth, and ravaged all nations, the most unlike and opposite to each other, sparing neither constitution or age. whether men differed in place of abode, or in "About this time a pestilence occurred, diet, or temperament, or in any thing else in which almost put an end to the human race. which they do differ from each other, in this Now it is always probable that daring men disease the variance availed nothing; and it will propose some reason to explain those fell on some in summer, on others in winter, things which come down on us direct from and on others at the other seasons. Let Heaven, as persons skilled in such matters would-be philosophers and speculators on love to deal in wonderful causes beyond man's lofty things speak then, each according to his For |