of taste to improve the objects of our early attachment, how reluctantly do we trace the alteration that has removed, or glossed over some remembered peculiarity! A blemish it might be; but it formed a link in the delicate chain of fond recollections; and its removal is a robbery of our treasurehouse.

The place of my birth was remarkable for its architectural relics of antiquity; and the surrounding country displayed many an old-fashioned fabric, from the venerable mansion that had cradled a long line of nobles, to the humble but substantial farmhouse, with its narrow gables, its jutting eaves, and low, wide casements set deep in frame-work of rudely carved stone. It has been my lot for many years to dwell in places as dissimilar from these early haunts, as are the elegant triflings of modern art from the laboured and enduring workmanship of former ages. Hence, when my rambles bring me suddenly within view of some time-worn edificefrom which no part of England is altogether free— the sensations excited are indescribably strong. A chord is touched, that seems to awake an echo from every little cell of slumbering memory; and I am carried back to times and scenes, thoughts and feelings, wherein it is hard to say whether the painful or the pleasurable emotion predominates.

Can the Christian then dwell with fondness on days that came and went, eaving him as they found him, living without hope and without God in the world? Ought not the retrospection to be one of unmingled shame and sorrow, while, viewed in the light of gospel truth, each event furnishes a memento of his rebellion against the Most High?

Such thoughts have troubled me, I confess; but 'there is one consideration that blends very sweetly with the reminiscences of by-gone days-it is beautifully expressed in the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, "And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness.....Thou shalt also consider in thine heart that as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee." To lose the remembrance of former days were to forget the wonders which the Lord hath wrought and to retrace them with gloomy repugnance were to rob Him of much glory due unto His name. Oh, there are many who sported with me through the airy cloisters, and snatched the long grass as they bounded by, who trifled on through maturer years, and suddenly passed away to a world where they never had sent one serious thought before them. There are others, still robust and active denizens of busy life, whose every hope is bounded by the visible earth, to the dust of which their souls tenaciously cleave, who recognize not the longsuffering of a waiting Saviour in the time thus given, nor in their occasional disappointments the chastening hand of a Father. And some there are, who, led by paths of endless variety, have reached the narrow way that tends Zionward, and, meeting with the companion of their earliest years, can take delight in raising a mutual Ebenezer of remembrances and thanksgivings with which no stranger may intermeddle. "The God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil: "--who can take up that grateful ascription of praise, without permitting his mind to

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wander back, and realise the days, wherein he was guided by One whom then he had not known!

I have been mercifully kept from running into any extreme of doctrine, fully convinced that both extremes are alike removed from the solid and simple truth; but the pre-ordaining love of God in Christ, electing from the mass of self-destroying wanderers some whom he would compel to come in, while others, to whom the door of invitation was opened equally wide, through the all-atoning efficacy of the Saviour's cross, would despise and perish - this precious fact throws a sun-beam over every chequered scene that memory can revisit. "Goodness and mercy have followed me all my life long.” I cannot name an hour, or point to a spot, where they ceased the pursuit so long eluded by the self-doomed sinner. Full well do I remember how they whispered with me in the cloistered aisle, and spoke aloud in the gracious words that were to me but as a very lovely song. My stubborn rebellion is a monument of my Lord's sparing mercy-my wilful wanderings of His pursuing goodness. If no change had passed on my, beautiful cathedral, I would hasten to revisit every haunt beneath its arching roof; and there would I recal the thoughts of other years, and own the Spirit of God to have been continually pleading with my spirit, beseeching me to turn, and I would not. Methinks I could now read aright the lesson of mortality, so strangely misinterpreted before; and find cause for double endearment, through the operation of divine grace, in what was always fondly cherished by natural feeling. Surely the blessedness of the heavenly Canaan will be enhanced by a broad, clear view of the wilderness through which the Lord

led his stiff-necked and rebellious, but finally subdued and rescued people. We rob God of much glory, when we avert our eyes from what has been. He promises to cast our sins into the depths of the sea-are we, therefore, to bury his mercies in oblivion? He says that he will remember our iniquities no more; and we, while musing on the days that are past, must give the glad response, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits!"

C. E.

ORIGINAL LETTERS FROM MRS. HANNAH MORE.

A DEAR and valued friend, who kindly takes an interest in the success of our little periodical, has given us a series of letters, addressed to her by Mrs. More. Our friend was just thirteen, when delighted by reading several of that estimable woman's works, she was induced to write to their author: her father, in franking the letter, adding a few lines of introduction, on behalf of his little girl. The letters exhibit so much of the playful grace with which Hannah More tempered and adorned the dignity of her wisdom-so much of sweet consideration for the feelings and wishes of a child, that we cannot doubt their being welcomed by such of our readers as love to obtain an endearing view of the character which has, for no inconsiderable part of a century, been regarded and prized as national property. We give the first letter.