A SUITABLE TEXT,

Do you like sunshine? Do you love to see the heavens and the earth glittering around you? Do you desire to be defended from danger, and protected from every evil, temporal and spiritual? Are you a sinner, and does your soul yearn for forgiveness and mercy ? Is this world dark and dreary, and is the world to come the object of your constant desires? Turn to the Lord, your righteousness and strength, and see what a comforting text he has provided for your especial case. "The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly," Psal. lxxxiv. 11.

H

TO THE READER.

WHAT a number of books are now abroad in the world! New works spring up like mushrooms, so that if we made reading the business of our lives, we could read but a small part of the books which are printed. What a library would that be which should contain them! Folios, quartos, duodecimos, magazines, tracts, and children's books appear endless; yet month after month, week after week, and day after day, something new is added to the number. A book appears to be a sort of seed, which goes on producing others of the same kind, so that the more books there are, the more are there likely to be.

In such a reading age, it may not be amiss to make a few inquiries.

Do you read? I do not mean, can you read? or do you occasionally read? but, are you what is called a reader? If so, whether the hours of your leisure be few or many; whether your object be to instruct your head, or reform your heart,

you have a choice of books sufficiently extensive. Histories, travels, arts and sciences, law, physic, and divinity without end. You may weary yourself in wading through prose and poetry; you may smile over the light productions of fancy, and knit your brow while pondering the weighty arguments of graver writers. There are books to suit all dispositions; every kind of mental appetite is abundantly provided for; the table is spread, and the feast is ready; before you sit down, however, let me ask you a few questions.

When do you read? This is a more important question than at first sight it may appear to be; for, if you read when you have duties to perform, you read when you ought not to read. He who purchases amusement, or even knowledge itself, at the expense of duty, will have reason to regret his having been a reader. If you read in bed, with a lighted taper beside you, you are endangering not only your own safety, but that of all who are around you; better keep your book shut all your days, than be burnt to death in your own bed-clothes. If you sit up later at night to read than your health can endure, you are reading at the expense of your life, for he who habitually and recklessly sits up late, "not only lights the candle of life at both ends, but runs a red-hot poker through the middle of it." Do you

not see now, that the question, "When do you read?" is a very necessary one to be put to you? but we will go on to another, and that is—

How do you read? For a bad method of reading very often renders the habit of reading worse than useless. If you read carelessly, not giving yourself time to understand the meaning of the words before you; or if, understanding them, you read without reflection, your reading will yield you but little profit. If you read credulously, believing every thing that is printed, you may be led into many absurdities; and if you read sceptically, doubting, and disposed to disbelieve every sentence in your book, you will rob yourself of much knowledge, wisdom, and consolation. To read profitably, you must read with care and reflection: care will enable you to comprehend your author, reflection, to turn his observations to the best advantage. But now comes the question—

What do you read? Some read fairy tales and romances, so that enchanters, and monsters, and dwarfs, and giants, and brazen castles, and black forests, and dark dungeons, and captive ladies, and knights clad in armour, are for ever flitting before them. Some read antiquities, and think much more of what took place a thousand years past, than they do of what is taking place now, or of what will take place a thousand years

to come. Some read nothing but the newspapers; ardent after novelty, they must know every day, ay, twice a day, about all that has taken place in the wide world, from the bursting forth of a volcano in the east, to the invention of a lucifer match in the west; but the question is not what they read, but, "What do you read?" and a very important question it is.

The pleasure we enjoyed yesterday, is of little use to us to-day, and that of to-day will not benefit us much to-morrow; therefore profit, not pleasure, should be the main object of our reading.

But do you think that profit can be obtained from foolish books? You can hardly think so. The good you will derive from them will indeed go into a small compass. "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" Matt. vii. 16. If you look for honey in an ant's nest, or for money in a pauper's purse, you will not be likely to find it, but still you will be acting quite as wisely as to expect by reading foolish books to make yourself more wise and happy.

Amusing books should be read very sparingly, and not as many read them, to pass away time. think of Pass you time! Why what should away the man who would take up a pleasant story-book to pass away time, when a fearful monster was fast approaching to destroy him; or of him, who,