to draw your attention to, is worship, because you are GOD's creature, the work of His hand, His servant; as distinct from prayer because you are God's child. Many people say, I don't see much good in going to Church; I don't seem any better for going; I don't know what I get there. I have known many good people quite disheartened because they did not get any sensible good; because they felt discouraged that their hearts were so cold, their minds so wandering, their bodies so weak; and some feel inclined to give up going to Church at all. Now, I wish to say to such, don't do that on any account; GOD knows our weakness, "for He knoweth whereof we are made." He is acquainted with our infirmities, "for He remembereth that we are but dust." We must give Him the best we can, for He will reckon with us according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. How know you whether your mind will not wander as much, your heart be as cold in your own room? and in Church your spirit may be kindled by the sight of another whose heart is speaking to GOD. We are meant to "catch the living flame" from one another. But independent of our own comfort, or our own blessing, we owe GOD worship, i.e. acts of honour, adoration, respect, praise. He made us for His honour; He gave us all our faculties and powers; He made us to appreciate the beautiful, to love and admire what is above and beyond us; He made us to delight in beautiful forms, flowers, music, buildings, paintings, sculpture; and He gave us these tastes that we might give them back to Him, might consecrate them to His service. Some are disposed to say that there is great danger in these things. Religion does not consist in music, painting, architecture, &c.; and there is great need to watch, lest people of good taste should rest in these, feeling their minds pleasurably kindled thereby, while all the while their lives show that their heart is not turned towards GOD, and thus they are fancying themselves religious, without really being so. Now, I am free to confess there is danger in this; but where is there not danger to the weak heart of man? Still I think any amount of homage from man to GOD, is better than none. Those who dedicate their tastes are at least willing to enlist themselves on the side of right, and we in these days of boasted civilization and refinement, can hardly take the line that man is a better being for not having good taste. The true way of looking on this subject, is, are we to leave these things which confessedly have such power over us, to work for evil, and not for good? What a Christian man desires for himself and others, is to enlist our tastes, sympathies, pleasures in the service of good, and not leave them to the service of the devil. Let me ask, what is religion? The meaning of the word is a tying again, a bending back. GOD made us for Himself; to be united to Him; to be happy in Him; to live for Him, body, soul, and spirit. Satan hates GOD's work, and wants to mar it by separating us from GOD and good, and GOD having given man free will permits him to choose whom he will serve, and whom he will obey, and thereby grow like unto. A thoroughly consistent Christian man will not say, I will give GOD my heart, my affections only; my tastes are nothing to Him. No, he will say, everything GOD gave me, I will consecrate to His honour, give back to Him. So he desires to cultivate his mind, his tastes, his faculties, to the utmost; and at the same time, to dedicate them to use all his powers to God's honour. Does he build a Church ? he desires that it should be the most beautiful he can make it, that it may be an act of worship or homage to Him who, when He commanded Moses to set up a tabernacle, condescended to show him things above: "For see, saith He, that thou make it after the pattern showed to thee in the mount;" and S. Paul tells us that was the shadow of heavenly things. Does he wish to have services there? he will feel that singing and music are higher gifts from GOD to man, than mere speaking, and he will give back to GOD of his best. He will remember what David says, speaking by Divine inspiration, "I will praise GOD with the best member that I have." (Ps. cviii.) And so on of all His gifts. Shall we never get out of those poor, vile, weak, empty things, ourselves? Shall we carry our own selfish nature habitually to the very foot of God's throne ? Shall we never lose ourselves, our own wants, our own struggles, in the thought of a higher, nobler, purer being and existence, when all the while we can hope to be happy in heaven, where worship and adoration are the great employments. The word we call " Prayer," in the Hebrew and Arabic language is said to mean, in the one, "the lisping of a stammering child," in the other, "the bursting forth of a boiling heart." Both of these states the Christian man well knows; but there is yet a third he will do well to strive after, the calm spirit of adoration, contemplation, worship. When we pray,it is our own selves we speak of,our own wants. When we thank Him, it is for what He has done for us. But when we praise or worship Him, it is for a while to forget ourselves, and think only of Him, His glory, His perfections, His wonderful attributes. David thought it not too much to praise Him "seven times a day, because of His righteous judgments." How do we act in the courts of our earthly Sovereigns; in our halls of justice; in our Houses of Parliament ? Do we not feel we must keep up forms, precedence, etiquette? Do we not feel we must keep up the things that impress the mind-the imagination? that we must cultivate the feelings of awe, reverence, and veneration ? I met with some thoughts, a little while ago, which express well what I would say. "Divine Service (or public worship,) in all its particulars is essentially formal. The mistake into which we are apt to run, is not that of considering it a form. It is formal, but it is much more; it is Sacramental. Its forms are not opaque, but transparent; not dead masses, but subtle veils. As soon as we enter church, we are, as it were, at Court, and ceremony is the order of the day. State dresses, state modes of speech, strict rules of precedence, regulated movements and becoming gestures, at once take the place of the freeand-easy proceedings, the slipshod habits of common life. The importance of clinging to obsolete usages, and antiquated modes of expression, as safeguards to dignity, and securities for decorum, is fully recognized in the Se nate, at the Bar, and again in our Universities. Is it in church alone that we can afford to dispense with state forms, and court etiquettes, to be homely and unpunctilious, without risk to the interests of decency, order, and reverence? Nothing, surely, that is cheap or commonplace; nothing that savours of the earth, and reminds of the world; no vulgar forms; no chamber postures; no familiar phrases; no colloquial tones; nothing but what is choice, orderly, composed, solemn, graceful, harmonious, has its place in our LORD's sanctuary: the resort of the angels; the asylum of the sick and weary soul; the school of Divine wisdom and heavenly music." A friend of mine once gave his congregation this test, by which to try their behaviour in church. "If the great GOD of heaven and earth were to appear in bodily Presence among you, as He is in His spiritual, which of you would not have to change his posture, his look, or outward behaviour, if not the very thoughts of his mind ?" And now will you not consider my question? And I pray GOD to bless the thoughts of your heart for His glory and your good. "Take my soul and body's powers, Take my memory, mind, and will; Take my heart, and make it new." B. M. THE DANGERS OF THE DEAD SEA. FIRST and foremost among the dangers of this territory of the Curse, stands the almost total absence of the two great essentials of life-food and water. The former of the two is, of course, altogether wanting in this barren and desolate region. It is, therefore, absolutely essential that those who wish to explore the country, should carry with them all the provisions that may be wanting for the support of them and their followers. As regards the latter-fresh water it is only to be met with at certain points of the shore, known to the Arabs who inhabit the neighbourhood. In journeying, therefore, from place to place, even water must be transported across the country-otherwise death will speedily arrest the traveller's progress. It was to the neglect of these necessary precautions, that the unfortunate traveller, Costigan, owed his melancholy death, about thirty years ago. He embarked, in the middle of the heat of summer, on the waters of the Dead Sea, in an open boat, which had been constructed under his superintendence at Jericho. Ignorant of the character of the region, he went totally unprovided with either provisions or water, and accompanied only by one servant. The two voyagers succeeded in reaching, at length, the southern shore; where they remained for two or three days, without fresh water, and exposed to the fierce beams of a midsummer's sun. making great exertions, they got back to the northern shore, where they lay for two days utterly helpless, and almost unable to move. At length the servant succeeded in getting to Jericho, where Costigan's horse was; which was immediately sent to fetch him, with a supply of water. For the purpose of obtaining medical advice, he was conveyed to Jerusalem; but the journey exhausted what little strength was left, and medicine failed to recruit his wasted energies. Shortly afterwards he expired: a victim, it must be confessed, to his own rashness and indiscretion. After Another source of danger and of death to the hapless explorers of this accursed region, is the fearfully unhealthy nature of the climate. Not only is the heat of the air in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea far above that of Palestine and Asia in general-but travellers assure us that noisome and pestilential vapours abound on the coast, if they do not arise from the waters of the lake itself. To this cause more than one eminent man has fallen a sacrifice. The excessive heat of the Dead Sea, occasioned principally by the circumstance of its being inclosed on every side by mountains, is strikingly illustrated in the following extract from the diary of Lieut. Lynch, the com |