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humility and sorrow. In the moment of self-satisfaction, when the heart is ready to swell with vanity and pride, let memory retrace the errors of the past, and repress the rising and sinful emotion.

3. Self Examination. Do not let the feelings to which I have before alluded, be unattended by those practical effects which can alone testify their sincerity. Make it rather your express business to search for every fault and failing in your character, so that you may apply moral remedies calculated to correct and eradicate them. Begin the new year with the firm determination, that before it has reached its close, you will be a more virtuous and industrious Christian. Do not be allured into the indolent but too common practice of ascribing all your sins to the weakness of human nature, without at the same time using all the means in your power to acquire that kind of strength which will accomplish all the purposes you can desire. Do not rest satisfied with the knowledge, purity, or excellence to which you have already attained, but press forward still towards the glorious example that is ever set before you. Thus only can you be said to improve the time as it passes, and thus only can you obtain solid ground for anticipating any great degree of honour in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. These observations are intended for Christians of every age or sect-they are intended for every man who may peruse themthey have in view but one object, and that is the eternal welfare of mankind. They are framed on the religion of the Son of God. They lead to a knowledge of Him, and to know Him is life eternal.

4. Confidence. Allow me most earnestly to call your attention to the frame of mind here suggested, because it is one that bestows the largest amount of happiness on the creature, while, at the same time, it reflects the greatest honour on the Creator. Endeavour, therefore, to realize the situation in which you are now placed. Remember that an eternity lies before you that you are in utter ignorance of the events which are still future, so much so, as not to know what a day or even an hour may bring forth. How great, then, is your dependance upon God! how entirely are you the creatures of his power! Yet do not let an involuntary shudder creep over you at this solemn view of your complete subjection to the will of the Supreme. You are safe in his hands-far more so than you could be if left to your own disposal, or allowed to be the arbiter of your own destiny. Believe, therefore, with the firmest assurance, that the Deity has no object in view in any of the scenes and sorrows through which you may pass in the opening year, but the promotion of your best and eternal happiness. Should the bitterness of your cup of woe, or the obscurity of some passages of the Sacred Word, tempt you to think that there may be a doubt of the universality of the love of God, oh! believe that you are ignorant that your understanding is weak-that your experience is defective-believe any thing rather than a sentiment so opposed to the truth of nature and revelation, as to be justly chargeable with the awful name of blasphemy. God is LOVE. If, therefore, love prompts acts of hatred, if love can be consistent with indifference, you may doubt the goodness of your heavenly Father-but such is notsuch cannot be the case. Yet presume not from hence to conclude that God is a weak and impotent parent, who has not the moral firmness to compel obedience from his children. No! HE WILL BE OBEYED. Never forget the solemn fact, God loves you too well to allow you to remain undisturbed in the commission of the smallest sin.

It is over! like a dream when one awaketh, the

sorrows, anxieties, hopes, pursuits, and desires that occupied us in the past year have come to a close. So shall the present year, and so shall every suc ceeding one. Fickle and transitory are the joys of earth, lasting and eternal are the glories of heaven. Therefore let each one of us seek to obtain a place in that city, which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God. B. Z.

CHRISTIAN LADY'S FRIEND.

IMPORTANCE OF THE FEMALE
CHARACTER.

BRITISH females of distinguished personal excellences have been numerous, probably far more than in any other country, even among the nations of civilized Europe. And it is believed that, without indulging in uncharitable reflections upon the treatment of women among other people, or cherishing national vanity, this has arisen from the fact of their having been regarded in a far greater degree according to the Divine institution of marriage in the holy law of God. Since the period of the Reformation this has undoubtedly been the case: and a survey of the present condition of women throughout Europe, both Protestant and Catholic, will amply confirm the correctness of these observations.

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British ladies, among the higher ranks, have furnished some most truly noble examples of every possible virtue and royalty itself has exhibited some instructive instances of female excellence. To the importance of the female character and its influence in society, it is intended, during the present year, to devote a considerable proportion of the Christian's Penny Magazine. In fulfilling this intention, some able pens, which have been engaged, will contribute a series of valuable papers, which it is confidently believed will render it still more worthy of being regarded as a FAMILY MAGAZINE, and deserving the special patronage of Christian parents.

PRINCESS MARY'S INTELLIGENT
PROTESTANTISM.

THIS princess was the daughter of James, duke of York, afterwards king James II. Her mother was lady Ann Hyde, daughter of the earl of Clarendon. She was born April 30, 1662; married to William, prince of Orange, November 4, 1677, who landed in England, November 5, 1688, to ascend the British throne. She died of the small-pox, December 28, 1694, sincerely lamented by the whole nation.

Mary was an intelligent, a scriptural, and decided Christian. James II., her father, was a Roman Catholic: but, as bishop Burnett remarks, "She was a Protestant upon principle; and when her father, then upon the throne of Great Britain, wrote her a letter in favour of Popery, she returned him an answer, drawn up by herself, to the following purport. 'She acquainted him, that she had taken much pains to be settled in religion, that those of the church of England who had instructed her, had freely laid before her that which was good in the Romish religion, that so seeing the good and bad of both, she might judge impartially, according to the apostle's rule of proving all things, and holding fast that which was good; that though she had come young out of England, yet that she had not left behind her either the desire of being well informed, or the means for it; that she had furnished herself with books, and had those about her who might clear any

doubts to her; that she saw clearly in the Scriptures that she must work out her own salvation with fear and trembling, and that she must not believe by the faith of another, but according as things appeared to herself; that it ought to be no prejudice against the Reformation, if many of them who professed it led ill lives; and if any of them lived ill, none of the principles of their religion allowed them in it; that many of them led good lives, and that more might do it by the grace of God, but that there were many devotions in the church of Rome on which the reformed could set no value.' Thus, she concluded, she gave him the trouble of a long account of grounds upon which she was persuaded of the truth of her religion, in which she was so fully satisfied, that she trusted by the grace of God, that she should spend the rest of her days in it, and that she was so well assured of the truth of our Saviour's words, that she was confident the gates of hell should not prevail against it, but that he would be with it to the end of the world. All ended thus, that the religion she professed taught her her duty to him, so that she should ever be his obedient daughter and servant."

Bishop Burnett, from whom the above is taken, informs us, that he set down very minutely the contents of the letters passing between the king and the princess, and nearly in the same words; and adds, "That he had a high opinion of the princess's good understanding, and of her knowledge of these matters, before he saw this letter, but that the letter surprised him, and gave him an astonishing joy, to see so young a person, all on a sudden, without consulting any other person, to be able to write so solid and learned a letter, in which she mixed with the respect which she had paid her father, so great a firmness, that by it she cut off all further treaty; so that her repulsing the attack that the king had made upon her with so much resolution and force, let the Popish party see that she understood her religion as well as loved it."

"MATRIMONY AND SINGLE LIFE."

MR. EDITOR,-I have been a reader of your instructive and truly Christian Magazine, from its commencement, and I still regard it as worthy of being universally patronized, as a family periodical. I am not a little gratified, therefore, in reading in your number for to-day, in the preface to the volume for the past year, an intimation that "several series of valuable original papers, designed for the improvement and still higher elevation of British females, are being prepared" for the new year. I hope to be able to send you a few " scraps," having myself a wife, two sisters, and four daughters, in whose improvement of course I feel deeply interested. For the present I forward the following, which some anti-social soul has written and extensively circulated, I should fear to the injury of some, without any antidote ::

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Matrimony and Single Life."—Among the great men who were averse to a married life, were Newton, Locke, Bayle, Gibbon, Hume, Adam Smith, Harvey, Lebnitz Bayle, Hobbes, Hampden, Sir F. Drake, earl of Essex, Michel Angel, the three Carrache, Sir John Reynolds, Haydn, Handel, Wolsey, Pascal, Dehenry, Pope, Mackenzie, Swift, Goldsmith, Gray, Collins, Thompson, and Jeremiah Bentham. Among the ancients were Plato, Pythagoras, Democrites, Diogenes. The following, although married, had cause to repent of it: Aristotle, Socrates, Pittacus, Periandro, Euripides, and Aristophanes ; and among the moderns-Boccacio, the Dante, Mil.

ton, Steele, Addison, Dryden, Moliere, Racine, Sterne, Garrick, lord Bacon, and lord Byron."

Matrimony must be a benefit to man, or it would never have been instituted by the blessed and benevolent Creator, whose nature is LOVE; and if evils have arisen from marriage, they could not have been the fruit of that "holy state" simply; but from the corruption of human nature, and the result of evil passions.

I will not extend my own remarks on this subject, but give you a paragraph from an interesting work by a writer, who, I perceive, sometimes favours your Magazine with the aid of his active pen. The passages are from an essay on “The Importance of the Female Character."

"Woman, therefore, should clearly understand her true dignity; and never forget the merciful Restorer of her lost honours, while she contemplates the degradation and misery of females among those nations which have not been favoured with the holy precepts and sanctifying doctrines of Christianity. Happy experience has sanctioned the propriety of characterising Woman as an Angel of mercy to man;' and in all her most influential connexions in life, she should regard herself as designed to merit this appellation, continuing to shed unnumbered blessings on man, thus recommending and adorning the gospel of God our Saviour.

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'Properly to estimate the importance of WOMAN, she must be contemplated in her high relations, sanctified by pure religion. As a WIFE and MOTHER, woman appears in her most dignified character. Marriage is the means appointed by the Creator, of producing unspeakable happiness to man, both in the present world, and in the world to come: but of that felicity, while God is the infinite and overflowing source, woman is a principal promoter. This sacred connexion originates all the natural relations of human life; but woman gives them all their peculiar sweetness and their highest charms. This permanent union is the source of gentleness and the most useful human affections; but woman creates their chief excitement. Conjugal tenderness, parental love, filial piety, and brotherly and sisterly attachments, are by far the most amiable and endearing, lasting and beneficial native affections of our species. No other affections have originally any delicacy, sweetness, or loveliness. All our natural amiableness is awakened by the presence of those whom we love; and we originally love those only who constitute the domestic circle within which we were born, and from whose members we early received the va rious offices of tenderness and support. These refined delights, none of which are tasted without this honourable connexion, have their spring in woman, in her important character of Wife and Mother.

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'Marriage is also the source of industry and economy among mankind: but these two primary principles of civilization and comfort are principally promoted by woman in her most dignified relation. This divine institution is the stay of all order, peace, and safety in nations; and woman is the earliest, the most universal, and the most effectual inculcator of principles essential to subordination, and government, and national security. Marriage is the most efficient conservative of all the religion that exists in the world; and woman, in her sacred character of wife and mother, is the chief instrument for producing and promoting it. Many of the noblest patriots-of the most benevolent philanthropists-of the most profound scholars-and of the most holy ministers

"Female Biography of the New Testament, with Preliminary Notices of the Condition of Women in all Ages.”

of Christ, by whose labours the world has advanced in improvement, were stimulated to their excellence and usefulness by religious principles, derived in early years from their pious mothers.

"Deistical freethinkers, who disallow marriage, degrade themselves almost to the level of beasts; and they cannot possibly be under the influence of religion. Glowing, rational, celestial piety, can have no place in their unholy bosoms; nor can they participate the pure and elevated enjoyments of domestic and social life. Divine inspiration has righteously branded them as enemies of their species-without natural affection,'-Rom. i. 31.

I could wish that every young person who may contemplate the marriage state, with the prospect of entering it, would peruse the whole of that and the other five" Preliminary Essays." PHILO-MATRIMONIUM.

Dec. 26, 1835.

STEAM COMMUNICATION WITH INDIA.-Supposing a very rapid communication between England and India to be necessary, it would be indispensable that it should be constant. Neither by the Euphrates nor the Red Sea could this advantage be attained. For several months in the year we could not expect to navigate the former, and the latter would be unapproachable during the prevalence of the southwest monsoon. If it be not physically impossible for a steamer to make way against the monsoon, her progress must be very slow, and the wear and tear of the vessel and machinery ruinous. If effected at all, therefore, the voyage could not be performed with certainty, as to time, and the principal advantage proposed would consequently be lost. There is yet one most serious objection which applies to the two routes they both traverse countries frequently visited by the plague.-Thornton's India.

VISITATIONS ON PROFANE MEN.-Melancthon records a very dreadful example of God's righteous judgment upon a company of profane wretches, who, in a tragedy, intended to act the death of Christ upon the cross. He that acted the soldier's part, instead of piercing with his spear a bladder full of blood, concealed under the garment of the man who personated Christ, wounded him to death; who, falling down from the cross, killed him who (in a disguise) acted the 'part of the woman that stood wailing under the cross. The brother of him who was first slain, slew the murderer who acted the soldier's part, and for slaying him was hanged, by order of justice.

HANNAH MORE'S PICTURE OF FASHIONABLE HIGH LIFE." We are going back to London as soon as we have dined, to be witnesses of its follies and vanities. I was invited last Sunday to lady Charlotte Finch's, to meet the duchess dowager of Beaufort, who is pleased to say she has been seeking to be acquainted with me these two years; but it being the day when those who fear their creditors go abroad, and those who fear God stay at home, I was deaf to the honour. I was at lady Amherst's magnificent assembly last week: dull and foolish as assemblies are, yet it is diverting to see them once or twice in a year. A noble suit of rooms, filled with four hundred persons of the first rank, dressed in all the vanity of which the present fantastic fashions allow : but, alas! the eye is soon satisfied with seeing, and the ear has nothing to hear worth hearing. The duke and duchess of Cumberland came early but the prince of Wales did not arrive till near midnight. He was as usual all gaiety and gracefulness. He did

me the honour to ask for me, and to tell me that he had often wished to see me."

Those who have been accustomed to envy the great, may from this short description of one of the most magnificent assemblies, learn that there is but little to covet in such gaudy, barren, unintellectual entertainments.

PRIDE OF ANCESTRY. -A mature spinster of the illustrious house which has produced our present colonial secretary, having desired her attendant to read the Scriptures to her, the latter stumbled on a passage of Genesis, in which the word giants was rather defaced, and read: "There were Grants on the earth in those days." "Ah!" exclaimed the lady with rapture, "there is a convincing proof that my family yields to none in antiquity."

COMPAS BERG.-Dr. Smith and a party of hunters lately penetrated into the centre of Africa, and reached the summit of the Compas Berg, the highest mountain of these climes. Dr. Smith states that it is 7400 feet above the level of the sea. They found several very rare animals and some most beautiful birds.

REVIEW.

The Evangelical Almanack; or Christian's Annual Instructor, for the Year 1836, being Bissextile or Leap Year, and the Seventh of the Reign of his present Majesty: containing a correct Astronomical and Ecclesiastical Calendar. With the Church Lessons for every Sunday, Notices of Religious and other Anniversaries, and a Text of Scripture for every Day in the Year, &c. London Company of Stationers.

INDUSTRY and peculiar talent for condensation have been directed to the compilation of this exceedingly interesting Almanack, which contains, independently of the ordinary essentials of that annual diary, a surprising mass of intelligence. Amongst the various matters of information, there is a Tabular View of the British Dominions; the Royal Family; Houses of Lords and Commons; Cabinet Ministers; Great Law Officers; Lords Lieutenants of Counties; Universities of England, Scotland, and Ireland; Protestant Academical Institutions; Societies and Charitable Institutions; Stations of all the Protestant Missionary Societies, and number of Missionaries Statistics of Education; Population of the World; Number of Different Religions; Ecclesiastical Statistics; Education in Prussia; Statistics of the British Colonies; Emigration to the Colonies; Statistics of the United States; and Miscellaneous Information.

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That which makes this Almanack so peculiarly interesting and valuable at the present period, is the tabular view of the statistics of the several Religious Denominations in Great Britain and America. It is uncommonly cheap at a shilling.

The Christian Almanack for the Year 1836, being Bissextile or Leap Fear. London: Religious Tract Society.

THIS beautiful compilation is truly worthy of its title, The Christian Almanack. Besides the usual chronological and astronomical matter for the year, with a text of Scripture for every day, this Almanack contains lists of His Majesty's Ministers, Members

of both Houses of Parliament; Bank Directors London Bankers; Abstracts of Acts of Parliament of 1835; Statistics of the Population of Great Britain and our numerous Colonies; together with various useful and truly Christian papers.

The Teacher's Gift to his Pupils. 24mo. pp. vi.108. half-bound. London: Whittaker and Co. THIS unpretending volume contains seventeen Sunday School Addresses. Various expressions in different parts show that they were written in America: but they are adapted to usefulness in England. In the preface, the author says, "The following stories were written during a long connexion with a Sunday School, in which part of the plan of instruction pursued, was a general lesson delivered before the whole school. In order to secure attention and prevent repetition, the author was induced to write down the heads of his little addresses; and the increased interest excited in the minds of his pupils, by these means, has fully repaid him for any additional labour it may have cost him."

Sunday School Teachers in England may read this little work with profit, and carry the plan forward to an indefinite amount of improvement.

WINTER.

THE autumn hours, with pensiveness replete,
Forc'd by stern winter to a long retreat,
Tell sad remembrance of their beauties past,
By withered leaves that flit before the blast.
In vain, resisted beams of light essay

To shed their splendour o'er the lowering day;
Dark clouds obscure, or chilling mists arise,
And intercept the brightness of the skies.
As o'er each scene the eye desponding roves,
Whether o'er sterile fields or leafless groves,
The frigid monarch rules with gloomy sway,
Congeals the brook, or blasts the trembling spray;
And nature's energies seem buried deep
In the dull torpor of her annual sleep.
But why impressive is the scene around?
The snow-clad mountain, and the awful sound
Of storms that echo from the dreary shore,
Where foaming billows, lash'd to fury, roar.
The wretch, repell'd by wrath, who lonely flies
To some bleak hovel, and there darkly dies;
In single vision pierce the boding mind,
Or overwhelm with influence combined.
O sympathy responsive! how thy power
Acts on the fancy in the wintry hour!
Quick as the dreary days their course begin,
We feel a corresponding state within;
And nature's aspects, in the mind excite
The deep'ning darkness of a two-fold night.
But Hope, thou nymph of far excursive eye,
Who o'er the wastes of woe canst swiftly fly,
And, like the dove, some sign of peace display,
To cheer the traveller on his mournful way,
Thou tell'st of scenes that coming moments bring,
The timid modesty of blushing spring,
The snow-drop and the latent budding rose,
Which future suns shall cherish and disclose;
When nature shall her genial power regain,
Glow in the skies, and fill the fruitful plain;
And variegated groves again appear
In the luxuriance of the vernal year!

But shall we thus let Winter's scene depart,
Amuse the fancy, but neglect the heart-
Think all creation's energies and laws
Distinct from their eternal mighty cause,

Moving, by sovereign impulse, in the line
First planned and pointed by the hand Divine?
As thou hast made, O bid thy children see,
The world, "a book of symbols," filled by thee,
Dependant on thee for each power possest,
As helpless infant on the mother's breast!
Yet can bleak Winter any truth instil
To tell and illustrate thy ways and will,
Or by expressive images remind

Of mental seasons, varied or combin'd?
O ye who, taught by inspiration, know,
That man's true sphere of bliss is not below,
Who, with the piercing eye of faith, descry
Attractive glories in the world on high;
Have ye ne'er view'd the moral scene within,-—
Mark'd goodness yielding to the blast of sin,
And, when the deep conflictions of despair
The presence of infernal hosts declare,
The mind's expanse with darkness overspread,
And each consoling thought obscured or fled ?
The gloomy barrenness of winter days

The answering Christian-state with power portrays.

When earth, averted from her lord of light,
Desponding mourns his hypothetic flight,
He changeless in his centre yet remains,
And beams effulgence on approaching plains:
So, when the clouds of evil densely rise,
And specious error genuine truth defies,
We darkly think that he, whose beams impart
Perpetual bliss to each receptive heart,
Deserts his children, or forgets to bless,
And hears, unmov'd, the mournings of distress;
While far away, allur'd by inward sin,
We're the deserters kindly sought by him!
O when distrust and murmurings rebel,
And from the heart would confidence expel,
In God's behalf let nature interpose,
And some pure light of heavenly truth disclose!
As in the winter, barren fields contain
The fruitful parents of autumnal grain,
The winter of the Christian's soul conceals
Some germ of good that fostering love reveals.
Then if the wintry season find the breast
With corresponding dreariness depressed;
If guilt, repentant, glitter in the tear
That trembles in the timid eye of fear;
Let hope allay despondency's alarm,
And o'er the soul extend her gentle calm.
To Spring our inward world shall soon revolve,
And light, effulgent, all its gloom dissolve;
Long hidden seeds of good at length display,
A cheering increase in the genial ray,
Be cherish'd till our earthly course is run,
Then bloom eternally 'neath heaven's sun.

PARAPHRASE ON THE LORD'S PRAYER.

THY children, we; onr Father, thou!
Thy name we praise, and humbly bow!
To us, thy kingdom, Lord, is come,
By us, thy will, O Lord, be done:
Daily our numerous wants relieve,
And all our sins, Great God, forgive.
The kingdom thine, the power too,
To thee be all the glory due.

London: Printed and Published by JAMES S. HODSON, at 22, Poppin's Court, Fleet Street; where all communications for the Editor (post paid) are to be addressed ; sold also by Simpkin, Marshall and Co., and by all other Booksellers, Newsvendors, &c. in the Kingdom.

The trade may be supplied in London, by STBIL, Paternoster Row: BERGER, Holywell Street, Strand; in Manchester, by Ellerby; Shefeld, tunocent.

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WALTHAM CROSS-A ROYAL MONUMENT

IN MEMORY OF QUEEN ELEANOR. WALTHAM CROSS, which gives name to a small village in the parish of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, twelve miles from London, is a beautiful monument erected by king Edward I. in memory of his amiable consort, She was the only child of Ferdinand III. king of Castile Leon. State policy dictated the match, in 1265, when Edward was only fifteen years of age; but she was a truly attached and devoted wife to her princely consort during a period of

VOL. Y.

| thirty-six years, and worthy of the exemplary faithfulness, for that age, of her royal consort.

Edward appears to have been a far better man than most of his royal predecessors; and, on account of his activity, justice, and patriotism, Camden says, "That God had pitched his tabernacle in the breast of this monarch." While, however, we are willing to grant that Edward I. was distinguished by many virtues, not common among princes of that period, his invasion of Scotland, and his grievous persecutions of the Jews, though some of them were guilty of "clipping the coin," give us occasion to hesitate

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