After sipping my coffee, I turned towards the fire, while the wind roared around the house, and began to reflect how much our winter comforts depend on coal.

When the heart is softened with a sense of God's mercies, it matters but little what is the subject of its speculations; like the fabled stone of the alchymist, it turns every thing into gold. An instrument, finely strung, will produce harmonious sounds, whatever be the air that is played upon it.

I thought upon the various uses of coal in cookery, in manufactures, in steam engines, and especially in communicating warmth to the human frame, and I thanked God for "his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of

men," Psa. cvii. 8. But man is ever wondering why the operations of nature are not carried on in agreement with his own wisdom, and I, for the moment, thought what difficulty and danger man would be spared, if coal lay nearer the surface, instead of being bedded in the bosom of the earth. But had this been the case, unknown evils might have arisen from it; and we know that thousands and tens of thousands of people, now employed in obtaining this useful substance, must have laboured for subsistence in a different manner. I passed by the getting of the coal

from the mine, and the transporting of it in boats, in barges, and in ships, and considered the classes of people who purchased it for their comfort. He who is engaged in large undertakings, buys it by the barge load, and others by the boat load; but where an article is plentiful, it seldom excites that thankfulness which deprivation calls forth from the needy. It is bought in tons or chaldrons by the middle classes of society, who usually lay it in when it is sold at the cheapest rate. But, even here, the comfort it imparts is not duly estimated. Those who buy coals by the chaldron are not the most grateful for so valuable a gift of the Almighty.

Another class purchase coals by the sack : many a poor widow, slenderly provided for, many a decayed householder, and many a man of genius struggling with poverty, are included in this class. The coal is placed on the fire with care, and the lessening store regarded with anxiety: by these, the value of coal is known, and ought to be continually and gratefully acknowledged. But there is yet another class, who buy coals by the bushel, by the peck, or by two pennyworth at a time. When I contrast the heaped-up glowing hearths of the rich with the slenderly supplied fire-places of the poor, I yearn to be the owner of a coal mine. Would that I could in the drear

and dark months of winter so warm the hearts of the rich, as to move them to supply the hearths of the needy. "Blessed is he that considereth the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing, and make all his bed in his sickness," Psa. xli. 1, 3. O ye barge and boat buyers! Ye ton and chaldron purchasers! Ye who send for a sack at a time! think a moment on their deprivations who can only raise two pennyworth at a time! How many a shrivelled arm and bony finger is held shivering over the expiring spark, on a cold winter's night, in habitations where food and raiment are scanty! Think of this, and be more grateful for the gifts of God so abundantly bestowed on yourselves. Seek out the ill-supplied hearths of the poor and the miserable, light up their cheerless habitations, and warm their hearts with your bounty.

ON CAPITAL;

OR,

PLENTY MORE IN THE CELLAR.

MANY things surprise me, my good friends, in this wonderful world, and, among them, I am amazed at the small capital with which some people begin and carry on business. Were we to judge by the magnificent names that are given to many trading concerns, we might be led to suppose that they must produce a princely return.

"Original Establishment," "Grand Depôt," 66 Metropolitan Mart," and "National Institution," so amplify our expectations, that we are not, all at once, prepared to witness the slender stock, the "beggarly account of empty boxes," that too frequently compose them. We might almost think, by their hand-bills, that some small grocers, who have hardly a chest of tea on their premises, had opened a regular account with the merchants at Canton.

There is a deal of outside in this world, both in persons and things.

Some years ago I happened to know a civil, well-behaved young man, who, anxious to make his way in the world, opened a shop for the sale of cheese, butter, soap, candles, and such like things; but not possessing ten pounds of his own, it was absolutely necessary to set off the little stock he possessed to advantage. His small shop was fresh painted, and the window well piled up with such articles as he had to dispose of. The world around him considered these articles to be his samples, while, in truth, they were his stock. All that he had, with a little exception, he crowded into his window. In a back room he had a few pounds of cheese, butter, and bacon, as well as a shilling's worth or two of eggs and other articles; but the bulk of his establishment was, as I before said, exhibited in his window. Whenever any customers came in, he begged them not to take what they did not like, as he had "plenty more in the cellar."

Every now and then he ran backwards, to fetch some part of the stores he had withheld; his customers concluding, on such occasions, that he had descended to his vaults below for his supplies; for though there was in reality no cellar to the