listening to religious conversation; and, when it was possible, she used to get some of the inmates to read to her from a large Bible, which had been her father's, and which was the only vestige of his property which had descended to her. It was the most valuable legacy that could have been left. A kind lady, she told me, had expressed a wish to call occasionally, and read to her; but this had not been allowed. I took many opportunities during the next eight months -for at the end of that time she was removed to her restof reading to, and conversing with, this aged and suffering Christian. Whether she received comfort or instruction from my visits, I do not know; she seemed always heartily obliged to me for them: but of this I am quite sure, her sick-room and dying-bed gave me a yet clearer insight into the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord than I had hitherto attained; and I learned from this poor woman more practical divinity than from my various studies. The power of the Gospel was wonderfully and beautifully displayed in the effect which it had upon her heart. Here she was cheerful amidst the rackings of bodily anguish-for she could anticipate that land, where there is no more sickness, and no more pain; here she lay, a wretched and suffering creature, as far as the wasting of this sinful body was concerned; but the soul was ripening and strengthening for eternity. Her eyes had never beheld the glorious light of day, or the rich and varied beauties even of this fallen world; but God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, had shined in her heart, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; and by the eye of faith she could look forward to that glorious morning, when heaven's never-ending day should burst upon her enraptured vision, and she should behold fairer, and purer, and brighter scenes, than the eye can here behold, and the unchanging verdure of the paradise of God, and the passing glories of that city, which has no "need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." A few days before she died, she expressed her desire that I should have her father's Bible at her decease. It was a common copy, which bore many marks of having been often and diligently read. Her own birth was registered in it. I buried her next to the grave in which her father and mother lay. It was a pauper's funeral; the coffin of plain wood; no inscription to mark the name of its inmate. It was borne on the shoulders of aged men, in their coarse workhouse dress, and followed by one or two aged women. No outward mark of respect was testified to the body; the soul was with the ransomed, on the hills of the heavenly Zion. The sexton, a worthless, dissipated character, made some remarks, which I overheard, and which, to the credit of the parish, led to his expulsion. There was no sad heart around that grave; and no tear bedewed it. My own feelings were those of gratitude for her release. I have adverted to this in my first paper as the most joyous ceremony I ever performed. The name of this poor woman must be almost forgotten, even within the walls of the workhouse of which she was so long an inmate; and no stone marks the place where her weary body has ere this mouldered into dust; but a most vivid and grateful recollection of the hours I spent at her bedside is present to my mind; and when asked what I regarded as the best practical commentary on the Bible, I have been sometimes induced to say, the faith and patience of blind Grace Bennett. [Church of England Magazine.] RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. BUT what, after all, it may be asked, is meant by a religious education? We reply, that knowledge is not necessarily religion; nor is it religion to be able with emulous facility to answer religious questions. Indeed, a Christian mind must be rather shocked than gratified with the irreverent manner in which such solemn questions, as, "Who made you?" "Who redeemed you?" "Who sanctified you?" are sometimes propounded and answered in charitable schools, as if neither the teacher nor the pupil attached any greater importance to the inquiry than if it had been asked, “Who was the first King of England?" or "What are the signs of the zodiac?" The religion which ought to be inculcated on the minds of the infant poor is something far higher; it is the religion of Christianity-the religion of the Bible. They must be early instructed to view themselves as accountable beings; they must be taught the importance of consulting the dictates of conscience; they must be shown their true condition as G fallen and sinful creatures, and their need of that all-sufficient atonement which was offered upon Calvary for the transgressions of mankind. We must further unfold to them the irreversible obligations of their baptismal vow. We must endeavour to implant in their minds those principles which may subdue their evil tempers and early propensities to vice; by creating a reverential fear of God, and by teaching them to look with filial penitence and grateful hope to the sacrifice of their Redeemer, and to endeavour also to tread in his footsteps, and to copy his sacred example. Every essential idea and doctrine relative to faith, and humility, and love to God, and Christian duty, and eternal rewards and punishments, must be rendered as far as possible intelligible to their minds, and be fixed by strong and pleasing associations upon their hearts. In a word, all the details of their duty, private, social, religious, and political, must be gradually unfolded before them, and inculcated upon right principles, as the fruits of Christian faith, the evidences of the renovation of their minds and of their meetness for an eternal world. [Wilks's Correlative Claims and Duties.] Our laws and constitution, civil and ecclesiastical, go more upon a supposition of equality among mankind, than the constitution and laws of other countries. Now this plainly requires that more particular regard should be had to the religious education of the lower orders of people here than in other places, where they are born slaves of power, and made slaves of superstition. It is, I suppose, acknowledged, that they have greater liberty here than they have anywhere else in the world; but unless care be taken to implant some inward principle to prevent their abusing this greater liberty, which is their birthright, can we expect it will prove a blessing to them? Will they not, in all probability, become more dissolute, or more wild and extravagant, whatever wrong turn they happen to take, than people of the same class in other countries ?- -BISHOP BUTLER. THE BIBLE A TREASURE TO THE NATION AND TO FAMILIES. We are never afraid to ascribe to the prevalence of true religion, that unmeasured superiority in all the dignities and decencies of life, which distinguishes a Christian nation as compared with a Heathen. We ascribe it to nothing but acquaintance with the revealed will of God, that those kingdoms of the earth, which bow at the name of Jesus, have vastly outstripped in civilization every other, whether ancient or modern, which may be designated Pagan or idolatrous. If you search for the full developement of the principles of civil liberty, for the security of property, for an even-handed justice, for the rebuke of gross vices, for the cultivation of social virtues, and for the diffusion of a generous care for the suffering, you must turn to lands where the cross has been erected, as though Christianity were identified with what is fine in policy, lofty in morals, and permanent in greatness. Yea, as though the Bible were a mighty volume, containing whatever is requisite for correcting the disorders of states, and cementing the happiness of families, you find that the causing it to be received and read by a people, is tantamount to the producing a thorough revolution,-a revolution including equally the palace and the cottage, so that every rank in society, as though there had been waved over it the wand of the magician, is mysteriously elevated and furnished with new elements of dignity and comfort. Who then will refuse to confess that, even if regard were had to nothing beyond the present narrow scene, there is no gift comparable to that of the Bible; and that consequently, though a nation might throw away, as did the Jewish, the greatest of their privileges, and fail to grasp the immortality set before them in the revelation entrusted to their keeping, there would yet be proof enough of their having possessed a vast advantage over others, in the fact adduced by St. Paul, that "unto them had been committed the oracles of God?" * * * And even if the mass of a nation, privileged with the Bible, have their portion at last with the unbelieving, it must not be forgotten, that there is in every age a remnant who trust in the Saviour whom that Bible reveals. The blessings which result from the possession of the Scriptures, are not to be computed from what appears on the surface of society. There is a quiet under-current of happiness, which is generally unobserved, but which greatly swells the amount of good, to be traced to the Bible. You must go into families and see how burdens are lightened, and afflictions mitigated, by the promises of Holy Writ. You must follow men into their retirements and learn how they gather strength from the study of the sacred volume, for discharging the - various duties of life. You must be with them in their struggles with poverty, and observe how contentment is engendered, by the prospect of riches which cannot fade away. You must be with them on their death-beds, and mark how the gloom of the opening grave is scattered by a hope which is "full of immortality." And you must be with them,-if indeed the spirit could be accompanied in its heavenward flight,-as they enter the Divine presence, and prove by taking possession of the inheritance which the Bible offers to believers, that they "have not followed cunningly-devised fables." The sum of happiness conferred by Revelation can never be known, until God shall have laid open all secrets at the judgment. We must have access to the history of every individual, from his childhood up to his entering his everlasting rest, ere we have the elements from which to compute what Christianity hath done for those who receive it into the heart. And if but one or two were gathered out from a people, as a result of conveying to that people the records of Revelation, there would be, we may not doubt, such an amount of conferred benefit, as would sufficiently prove the advantageousness of possessing the oracles of God.- -Rev. HENRY MELVILL. GEORGE III. AND THE DYING GIPSY. "Do you want your fortune told, ma'am?" said one of this outcast tribe, as we met, a short time ago, on a broad heath. I shrunk instinctively from the bold, half-laughing stare of of her brilliant eyes, and, with a silent shake of the head, walked on. This was followed by a feeling of self-reproach. that I could not stifle: the circumstances were such, that 1 could not have spoken to the unhappy creature; for a number of carriages, donkeys, and disorderly persons, were there clustered together, on the occasion of some neighbouring fair or races; and I had difficulty in conducting two or three |