were considered by the Jews as being of an inferior order of inspiration, and were never read in their synagogues. The Law was divided into fifty or fiftyfour readings or sections, probably by Ezra. The division into verses, or short paragraphs, for the convenience of the reader, has been ascribed also to Ezra, and very probably was by him. The divisions of the Old Testament into chapters has been ascribed to Lanfranc, but the real author was Cardinal Hugo, who, in the thirteenth century, wrote a concordance to the Latin Bible, and found it necessary to divide it thus for the sake of reference. Nathan, a Jewish Rabbi, attempted a similar concordance for the Hebrew Old Testament. The division of the New Testament into verses was made in the sixteenth century, by Robert Stephens, a celebrated printer, while riding on horseback from Paris to Lyons. His, is the division of the present authorised version, though in many places it is very defective; sometimes what should be in one verse being put into more than one, and in other places two are put into one. Other learned men have arranged the New Testament differently. When the Law of Moses was first written, it was not divided as it is now; the divisions and titles have been given since. The Jews named the books by the first word in them. The word Genesis means, "In the beginning." It is evident that the subscriptions at the end of some of the epistles were not written at the time that the epistles themselves were written; and by what is contained in some of them, it can be proved that the subscriptions are incorrect, for instance, in one of the epistles Paul says that he would come to Rome, whereas the subscription says that the epistle was written from Rome.* No Greek manuscripts in the fourth century have the subscriptions, and the earliest that have, differ from each other. The design of the writers of the subscriptions was evidently to support some false notion or doctrine. JOHN.

* The writer should have said which epistle.-ED.

THE CHILD AND THE BIRD.

My little bird how canst thou sit
And sing amidst so many thorns?
Let me but hold upon thee get,

My love with honour thee adorns.
Thou art at present little worth,

Five farthings none will give for thee:
But prithee, little bird, come forth,
Thou of more value art to me.

'Tis true it is sunshine to-day,

To-morrow birds will have a storm;

My pretty one, come thou away,

My bosom then shall keep thee warm.
Thou subject art to cold o'nights,
When darkness is thy covering;

At day thy danger's great by kites,

How canst thou then sit there and sing?

Thy food is scarce and scanty too,

'Tis worms and trash which thou dost eat,

Thy present state I pity do,

Come, I'll provide thee better meat.

I'll feed thee with white bread and milk,
And sugar-plums, if thou them crave;
I'll cover thee with finest silk,

That from the cold I may thee save.

My father's palace shall be thine,
Yea, in it thou shalt sit and sing;
My little bird, if thoul't be mine,

The whole year round shall be thy spring.
I'll teach thee all the notes at court,
Unthought-of music thou shalt play,

And all that thither do resort

Shall praise thee for it every day.

I'll keep thee safe from cat and cur,
No manner o' harm shall come to thee;
Yea, I will be thy succourer,

My bosom shall thy cabin be.

But lo, behold, the bird is gone!

These charmings would not make her yield;

The child's left at the bush alone,

The bird flies yonder o'er the field.

COMPARISON.

The child of Christ an emblem is;
The bird to sinners I compare;
The thorns are like those sins of theirs
Which do surround them everywhere.
Her songs, her food, her sunshine day,
Are emblems of those foolish toys,
Which to destruction leads the way,
The fruit of worldly, empty joys.

The arguments this child doth choose
To draw to him a bird thus wild,
Shews Christ familar speech doth use
To make the sinner reconciled.
The bird, in that she takes her wing

To speed her from him after all,
Shews us vain man loves anything
Much better than the heavenly call.
JOHN BUNYAN.

SWEDEN, with which Norway is now united, is situate in the north of Europe. The appearance of the country is mountainous and woody. Compared with other European nations it is but thinly inhabited. For a great part of the year the whole region is covered with snow and ice. On these accounts it presents a wild and dreary aspect, and many fierce animals, such as bears and wolves, roam through the forests, rendering travelling sometimes dangerous. The following is a copy of a letter from a brother to his sister:

DEAR LAURA,-I have so many things to tell you, that I know not where to begin. Our journey to this place has been through a country wilder than you can imagine: vast lakes, high mountains, dismal forests, from which at every opening I dreaded to see bears or wolves rush out upon us. A fine road was the only thing I observed like dear England. Scarcely a town to be seen-a single cottage was quite a rarity -and then our fare has been so hard, I was almost afraid of being starved. The first night we slept in a peasant's hut, built upon a barren rock, and surrounded on every side by the thickest woods. We could get nothing to eat but salted meat and Swedish bread. Oh, what bread! I wish you could taste it. They bake but twice a year, and the cakes

are so hard they are sometimes obliged to chop them with a hatchet. They do not make loaves, but large round cakes, which they file upon sticks, and then hang them up to the ceiling. They are of rye and oats, and in times of scarcity, which I suppose must often happen here, they mix the inner bark of trees, rasped to powder, with the flour, which makes the bread so black and so bitter that nothing but hunger could induce one to eat it. The houses are generally built of wood, and painted red, but the cottages are formed of logs, piled one above another, and the roofs are covered with turf, upon which I have often seen goats browsing. We have been obliged to lodge in these hovels, so I have had an opportunity of seeing how the country people live. Their beds are the

drollest things I ever beheld. To save room they are placed one above another-the women in the one on the floor, and the men in one that is placed above the top of the tester: they are obliged to get into it by the help of a ladder. But though these people are so very poor they are civil and ingenious. They contrive to make useful things of what we should fling away as worth nothing. They twist ropes from hogs' bristles, horses' manes, and the bark of trees, and use eel skins for bridles. The coarse cloth they wear is of their own making. We mostly found the wives and daughters busied in carding, spinning, or weaving. The women do everything here that men are employed about in other countries: they sow, plough, thrash, and work with the bricklayers. They all wear veils, the country people as well as the ladies, to shade their eyes from the glare of the snow in the winter, and in summer from the scorching rays of the sun, reflected from the barren rocks. Most of them have fair complexions, fine blue eyes, and golden locks.

I would not have you suppose that I have lived only amongst the peasantry, I have been with father to