not so.' But while they refused to pay such fees and taxes, they were liberal to a proverb in their contributions for all useful and benevolent purposes.

"At the end of ten years, the public lands, which they had chosen for their farms, were advertised for sale at auction. According to custom, those who had settled and cultivated the soil, were considered to have a right to bid it in at the government price; which at that time was seven shillings per acre. But the fever of land speculation then chanced to run unusually high. Adventurers from all parts of the country were flocking to the auction; and capitalists in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, were sending agents to buy up western lands. No one supposed that custom or equity would be regarded. The first day's sale showed that speculation ran to the verge of insanity. Land was eagerly bought in at seventeen, twenty-five, and forty dollars an acre. The Christian colony had small hope of retaining their farms. As first settlers, they had chosen the best land; and persevering industry had brought it into the highest cultivation. Its market-value was much greater than the acres already sold at exorbitant prices. In view of these facts, they had prepared their minds for another remove into the wilderness, perhaps to be again ejected by a similar process. But the morning their lot was offered for sale, they observed, with grateful surprise, that their neighbours were everywhere busy among the crowd, begging

and expostulating: 'Don't bid on these lands! These men have been working hard on them for ten years. During all that time they never did harm to man or brute. They are always ready to do good for evil. They are a blessing to any neighbourhood. It would be a sin and a shame to bid on their land. Let them go at the government price.'

"The sale came on; the cultivators of the soil offered seven shillings; intending to bid higher if necessary. But among all that crowd of selfish, reckless speculators, not one bid over them! Without one opposing voice, the fair acres returned to them! I do not know a more remarkable instance of evil overcome with good.”

In all these examples of the power of kindness we see the true spirit of Christianity, and the fruits of that perfect law of love, the full manifestation of which has only once been witnessed by men-in Him who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we, through his poverty, might be made rich; even our Divine Redeemer, who purchased eternal life for us by his sufferings and death. Yet this spirit of love which reigns throughout the New Testament is not wanting in the Old. Few more beautiful examples of it occur than the touching appeal to the Prophet Jonah, which closes the brief narrative of his mission to Nineveh. "And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry? Thou hast had pity on the gourd for the which thou

hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night and perished in a night and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" But, indeed, the spirit of love and mercy pervades the whole Bible; being one of the most prominent of the Divine attributes which shines through the providential dealings of God in the Old Testament history as well as in that of the New. It is a striking proof of its Divine origin, to observe how completely it secures the admiration of the most hardened and merciless of men when manifested in its true character. By such means it was that Penn secured the affections, and won the entire confidence, of the untutored Red Indians; so that peace was maintained with his settlement when all the surrounding colonies were exposed to incessant treachery and slaughter. The power of kindness has even proved potent to overcome the hardened criminal and the hopeless maniac; so that the discipline of the prison, and the conduct of the lunatic asylum, have been modelled anew, with the happiest effects, in accordance with the manifestations of Divine government visible in all God's works. Hope has once more gilded the dark prison-house and the maniac's cell; and there also it has been proved that love never fails.

OMESTIC happiness is one of the most dis

tinguishing privileges of man, compared

with the inferior creatures endowed with life by the same Divine Creator, and of civilized man, in contrast with the savage. It originates no less essentially in the law of kindness and love, which begets commiseration for the afflictions of others, than the forbearance and generous self-denial exemplified in the previous chapter. The duties of obedience and honour to parents are enforced in the same divinelyinstituted code of laws which require the rendering of love and reverent obedience to God. The Divine Redeemer, amid all the wonderful manifestations of

perfect love which he exhibited on earth, set us also an example in the rendering of obedience and untiring love to our parents. It is exhibited along with the earliest manifestation of the Divine nature of the child Jesus. "His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old,

they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. When they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. When they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. When they saw him, they were amazed : and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"

Here the reference is not to his reputed father Joseph, but to the first person of the Godhead, with whom the child Jesus was one in his Divine nature, though he had humbled himself, and for our sakes