Beneath the cross of Jesus, I lay me down to feast Beneath the cross of Jesus, Beneath the cross of Jesus, I'd lay me down to die; Till in the chariot of his love, He bears me up on high. Then seize my harp of gold, And tune it loud and long; The cross of Jesus crucified, My everlasting song. HOUSES. Chapter of Varieties. The first inhabitants of England lived in caves, or in huts. The first improvement upon these could only commence when they learnt to make tools of iron. When increased knowledge had enabled to do this, comfort soon began. They then were able to construct dwelling-places of clay, or wood, or stone. They then exchanged the damp and dark caves, in which they first sheltered themselves, for drier, lighter, and more wholesome dwellings. These were, it is true, at first covered with branches of trees, and afterwards with reeds; they were without any windows or chimneys, but they were gradually made more comfortable as knowledge increased. But this progress was much more slow than is generally understood. Wood was long the only material employed. Six hundred and seventy years elapsed from the birth of our Saviour, before buildings of stone were erected in England. Another long period of nearly two hundred years elapsed before (about A.D. 886) houses were built of bricks; and it was not till about the year 1236, that they began to discard thatch from their roofs for tiles. As for chimneys, they were not generally made in English houses till about the year 1300. Glass windows were beginning to be introduced into houses about the year 1180; but window-glass was not made in England until the year 1557. The houses were at first warmed by fires of wood. Coals were not employed till about the year 1280, and they only became commonly used in London about the year 1400. If dwelling-houses were at first warmed only after this rude fashion, they were as poorly lighted. Lights were procured by burning splints of wood, repeatedly dipped in melted fat. Tallow candles were only beginning to be used in the year 1290. Wax candles were then entirely unknown. As for our present gas lights, they were not invented till centuries after, and they were only generally employed for lighting shops and streets in 1814. In whichever way, therefore, we direct our at tention around the houses in which we dwell, we perceive abundant proofs of the advantages of knowledge, and these must assure us that knowledge is the parent of household comfort.-Johnson's Rural Reader. NO TIME TO READ. Offer a good book to some people, they will give you the above reply. Or ask them to subscribe for some good periodical, they will make the same response-No time to read. This, they think, is a true and justifiable excuse for them. But very many of those same characters have, almost any time, time enough to commence, and continue, a very tedious and vain conversation. No time to read! Nevertheless they have time enough to hunt up and get their tobacco, smoke pipes and cigars, and sit together for hours every day, and raise a volume of tobacco smoke. No time to read! Yet they have time enough to spend every week a day or two in travelling about, visiting from house to house, keeping coffee and tea parties, and other feasts of pleasure, and thus killing their time in worse than idleness. No time to read! Yet they have a great relish to go to committees, meetings, elections, and other gatherings, and ofttimes will go idling and drowning their precious time away in worse than idleness. No time to read! Yet others make it almost their regular business in the evening of the day, to sit about in work-shops, store-rooms, or tippling-houses, spending their long evening hours in vain chit-chat and tattling, butchering up their time in this miserable way. THE DRUNKARD'S WILL. "I, - beginning to be enfeebled in body, and fearing I may soon be palsied in mind, and having entered upon that course of intemperance from which I have not resolution to flee, do make and publish this my last will and testament. "Having been made in the image of my Creator, capable of rational enjoyment, of imparting happiness to others, and of promoting the glory of God, I know my accountability; yet such is my fondness for sensual gratification, and my utter indisposition to resist temptation, that I give myself entirely to intemperance and its associate vices, and make the following bequests:-My property I give to be dissipated, knowing it will soon fall into the hands of those who furnish me with ardent spirits. My reputation, already tottering on a sandy foundation, I give to destruction. To my beloved wife, who has cheered me thus far through life, I give shame, poverty, sorrow, and a broken heart. To each of my children I bequeath my example, and the inheritance of the shame of their father's character. Finally, I give my body to disease, misery, and early dissolution; and my soul, that can never die, to the disposal of that God whose commands I have broken, and who has warned me by his word, that no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of heaven." Drunkard, this is your will. Miscellaneous Papers. MY OWN BIBLE. COVERDALE'S TRANSLATION, AND MATTHEWS' BIBLE. I KNOW not, young reader, whether you have ever noticed how well and wondrously God raises up one agent after another to do his work of improving and saving man. Fast as one passes another comes out upon the stage of action, and while he performs his part and fills out his day, another, in perhaps some obscure and unknown corner, is being trained and fitted to take his place when, in his turn, he falls like those before. So when Moses dies, a Joshua is ready to take his place; or when an Elijah ascends to glory, an Elisha catches his spirit and carries on the work he left. And so it ever will be. The "train fills the temple," and the servants of God who constitute it follow on in bright succession. We never tremble for the church wanting right advocates and fit instruments to advance her in the earth. The While Tyndale was pursuing his work on the Continent, God was raising up and fitting at home one, and emboldening abroad a second, to perfect what Tyndale had begun. first was Miles Coverdale, the second John Rogers, alias Thomas Matthews, and to these men and their doings in the cause of Bible translation and printing we now direct attention. The precise birthplace of Coverdale is not known, but it was probably in the romantic dale of Yorkshire bearing his name, and near the monastery of Coverham, where, in 1488, he first saw the light. If so, then there he would probably gather his first elements of learning from the monks, who would likely be at the time the only available teachers of the district. However this may be, we know that he was early sent to the Augustine monastery, at Cambridge, and soon distinguished himself for his good parts and creditable attainments in the learning of his day. It so happened that his prior was the worthy Dr. Barnes, who imbibed about this BIBLE CLASS MAGAZINE.] K [SEPTEMBER, 1851. time evangelical sentiments, and probably gave to young Coverdale the bias in their favour which he so long and usefully retained. To our young reformer the holy scriptures were a delightful source of study, with such books on divinity as he was able to command. In his profession of reformed principles he seems to have been bold, making no secret of them; but when his prior was seized and committed to the Fleet for his heresies, openly visiting him, and publicly preaching against the worship of images and other popish errors. How he escaped persecution it is hard to say, except it may be attributed to the fact of his having the well-known Thomas Cromwell, Henry the Eighth's prime minister, as his friend and patron. His known doctrinal sentiments, and his zealous labours in their propagation, brought upon him, however, much ridicule and ill-will. He saw a storm evidently gathering, from which even the arm of Cromwell might not save him, and accordingly prudently withdrew, in the year 1529, to the Continent. Where he resorted is involved in much mystery. Fox says he connected himself with Tyndale, at Hamburg, and helped him on some parts of the Old Testament. Others think he retired to Zurich, and there perfected his Bible. This much only is certain, that in some secure and secret retirement, probably well-known to both Cromwell and Cranmer, and there sustained by them, he pursued his labours of translating the entire scriptures; and that at the close of the year 1535, he brought out the first printed English Bible entire and complete. What help Coverdale received from other translations is not known. It may be that he had some of Tyndale's unpublished notes and translations, but he was a good scholar for his time, and was independent of many helps on which others might have had to rest. In the titlepage it is said to have been translated from the “Douche and Latyn," but this may only have been done by the printers from the impression that it would gain it favour with the people. The same mystery lies upon the place of the printing and the parties printing, as upon the place and time of translation; but whoever did it, or wherever they did it, it was done, and a glorious thing it was, and well received, too, by the people. Cromwell warmly patronized it, and presented it' to the king. The king committed it to the bishops for |