of salvation, or who, having enjoyed the good things of this life, are in the next destined to everlasting torture.

Not far from these two I observed a beautiful child, whose rosy cheeks, laughing eyes, and careless air of buoyant happiness, formed a strange contrast to the aged women. Yet its little ears, though covered with radiant tresses of silken hair, must have heard the awful words, and perhaps even before the others, its young head may be laid in the cold grave. Happy child-" for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." I felt inclined to pray that such might be its fate, when I looked at the rich old woman near, and remembered that the child's soft downy cheeks would become hollow, the ruby lips thin and compressed, and worst of all, those soft beaming eyes, which seemed formed but to love, might in time express that fearful look of horror at the approach of death, that consciousness of an ill-spent life, and terror of a judgment to come, which render the last days of that painted dame so miserable.

CHAPTER XIV.

Reflections in Lent-Imaginary Ills-Recollections excited by the perfume of Flowers; Jasmine, or Unhappiness in Prosperity.

AMONG the festivals of our church which commemorate the different events in the history of our Lord, few call forth so much reflection as the season of Lent. Unlike the others, it does not record the events of one day, but of that long period when for our sakes "Jesus was led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil."

In that desolate place did our Lord fast forty days and forty nights; yet surely, if any human being could dispense with fasting and prayer, that Being must have been our gracious Me

diator, who knew no sin, who was by nature perfect. Yet did he condescend for our salvation to be tempted as we are. He became man -his heavenly spirit was enshrined in a body like ours-susceptible of the same pain and pleasure which we feel, subject to the same appetites-he suffered from hunger and thirst, yet he fasted forty days and forty nights!

How would our proud spirits rebel, if for one single day we were condemned to such abstinence! Alas! how totally unlike are we in everything to his blessed image! Do we even consider-do we as we sit down day after day to our plentiful meals, turn one thought towards Him, who at this very season was in the wilderness alone, far away from all the friends whom, according to his human nature, he loved, the cold ground for his pillow, and prayer his sole employment?

All this was done for us sinful mortals, who are not only forgetful of Him, but who do not even consider our own sins. We seem to live on in the same indifferent state at all times and seasons, without either calling to mind our own grievous transgressions, or seeking in any man

ner to do good to our fellow-creatures.

Yet

this latter employment would be most pleasing to our Saviour, our best friend; and at this time, when for us he suffered so much, we should seriously endeavour to do all the good we can. This would be the most effectual balm to those spirits which are deeply wounded by the remembrance of their many sins, and impart new energy to minds which the conviction of error has caused to despair and droop.

God loves not indolence-no, not even when that indolence is caused by a broken and contrite heart we may mourn over our sins, but we become selfish, and therefore uncharitable, if we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by their blackness, and our faculties to be paralysed by their contemplation. This is plain from what He says in the fifth and sixth verses of the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah: "Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have

chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free; and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh ?"

God loves a cheerful giver; and above all things he loves a charitable temper. If, by some strange intervention of Providence, we have passed through life without committing any great or heinous sins, our comparative innocence will avail nothing without charity. Oh! that we may consider well what the true spirit of charity is, and ponder over those beautiful verses in the 13th chapter of the 1st Corinthians, and then none would be helplessly cast down, or proud of having resisted temptations to evil, or of having given away a great part of their goods to the poor. Let us earnestly pray, that we may at all times feel and understand the true spirit of that divine virtue, which "covereth a multitude of sins."