Judaism had an elaborate symbolic ritual and Christianity a simple one--for in Christianity the symbolic ritual is far the more elaborate, vast, comprehensive, minute,-but that, as I have said, the ritual of the old economy was an artificial contrivance, whilst in the new and more glorious economy, all the world, with its scenes and forms and objects, all human life, with its multifarious relations, its homes and families, its kings and subjects, its sorrows, joys, sicknesses, its sleep and waking, its festivities and fastings, its birth and bridal and death, constitute one grand ritual, one noble temple symbolism for Christian souls. The ritual of Judaism was an intricate, complex system of religious symbols and exercises mechanically constructed in order to bring down truth to babes. The idea of God was embodied in a temple or sacred structure erected for His peculiar residence; of His holiness, in an awful shrine fenced off from curious gaze and unhallowed step. The notion of a Divine order pervading human life was lodged in artificial regulations for food and dress, conventional distinctions between things clean and unclean, prescriptions and rules for all the varied relations and exigences of social existence. The conceptions of sin, guilt, penitence, of atonement, pardon, purity, were formally forced on the senses, and drilled into minds otherwise incapable of rising to them, by laws of ceremonial exclusion, priests, costly sacrifices, sprinklings, lustrations, by victims dying in scenic representation of the penal desert of sin, or yielding their life's blood to be offered up on the altar in mimic expression of the self-devotion of a penitent soul to God. Without these and such like artificial shows and scenic pictures as aids to thought, spiritual ideas to such a race would have been unattainable. And just as a feeble mind may be impressed by stage effect, by the exaggerations and forced sentiments of the mimic heroes and heroines of a play, whilst it is incapable of perceiving and being moved by the far more profound pathos, the truer and more tragic interest of real life, so a race of men of feeble spiritual intelligence might be taught and impressed by the stage effect of the Jewish ceremonial, who could not have comprehended the far deeper and truer symbolism of nature and Providence and the daily life of man. a type, a symbol of God. When Christ spoke of God as a Father, when He told His disciples, “I go to my Father and your Father;" when He declares, "The Father loveth you;" when it is written, "We have had fathers of our flesh, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of our spirits, and live?" or again, "I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty;' when in these and many other passages we find the one prominent representation of God's relation to man in the New Testament to be that of "a father," what notion of God is thus intended to be conveyed to our minds? It is simply this, that in no abstract or general terms could the relation in which God stands to man be described; that ¦ we cannot rise to this high conception without a picture or symbol; but that no arbitrary or artificial symbol, no far-drawn shrine or mystic light gleaming from a holy of holies, can teach it half so well as that living portrait which every home contains. For here the ideas of God's oneness of nature with this soul within my breast, of my being as emanating from and supported by Him, of a profound and inalienable connexion of tenderest love, and interest, and guardian care on His part, and of mingled reverence, affection, trust, dependence, submission on mine,— here in every domestic circle all these ideas are grouped around the one universal relation of parent and child. That is the likest thing to God on earth-that the nobler than temple type or symbol by which He would help us to conceive of Him, to know Him, and in reverential affection to approach Him. So if we would have a visible, earthly symbol of that unfathomable tenderness, that protecting fondness, that self-devoted, self-sacrificing love which Christ bears to His own, then within every domestic circle where the light of love is burning, there is, as over the altar of the household, ever displayed to eye and contemplation, a picture, a living, breathing, acting representation of that love. For is it not written, "Christ is the head of the Church, as the husband of the wife;” “À man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife;" "This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and his Church?" And again, of the everlasting union of the glorified But this last is the true Christian symbolism- with their Lord-"Come, and I will shew thee the large, free, and natural ritualism of our spiri- the Bride, the Lamb's wife;" "Let us be glad, tual manhood. God has not now in any one land and rejoice; for the marriage of the Lamb is on earth a special fabric set apart for the scenic come, and His wife hath made herself ready?" teaching of religious ideas by shrines, and altars, And, to name no other example of this New Tesand mystic lamps, and lavers, and gorgeous vest-tament symbolism, all nature and life have been ments, and solemn postures and processions; but this is only because in all lands on earth, by the broad, natural, spontaneous actions and institutious of life, religious ideas are pictured in a nobler and universal symbolism. Every Christian home, for instance, is a temple in which, by the institution of family life, God is helping us to rise to spiritual thoughts and ideas, giving us types and pictures of Divine and heavenly things. Not by a local dwelling in a material temple does He teach us the relation and nearness of God to man; but in every earthly home, and by every earthly parent, does He typify His own fatherhood. Every wise and loving father is to his own home constructed by God so as to furnish manifold types and symbols of that great waking to immortality, that passage from death to life, that awaits every redeemed soul. The eye of Christian reverence may behold divinely-arranged pictures of Christian doctrine in "the seed that is not quickened in the earth until it die;" in the resurrection of nature, each returning spring from the winter grave; in the morning freshness with which, from the unconsciousness and stillness of night, the sleeper wakes with reinvigorated energies for the work of life. Therefore, if we have no elaborate temple services, no conventional altars, and priests, and pompous ceremonial, it is not because all out ward sensible teaching, all visible embodiment of religion has been swept away, but it is rather because, in the light of Christian knowledge, we are permitted to see the whole world transformed into one grand temple, hung round with pictures of God and heavenly things; it is because ever as we sleep or wake, as we sit within our homes or go forth to the throng and thoroughfare of life, the temple scenes and the temple services are going on around us; we breathe its incense in the living air; its mystic lights fall on us from the noontide sun and from the stars of night; our common work is transformed into its worship, and our domestic and social life into its holy sacramental rites. THE CROWDED HARBOUR. THE storm is yet fresh in our memories which wrecked the Royal Charter, strewing her rich treaFures from the Australian shores upon the sands of England, and sinking into their "dark and wandering grave" those priceless human treasures, for whose anticipated return hundreds of hearts were beating and bounding with welcomes of love-welcomes which were doomed to die down into the silence of unceasing gorrow, until the day when the ses shall give up her dead. Many a lighter craft on that rock-bound coast, for there alone, shared the fate of the full-freighted hi Many a fishing-boat never made port again. Many a brave sailor never gladdened from that night the longing heart of wife or child. Like an hospital after the day of battle, the harbour of an English sea-port, in the neighbourhood of which I was then visiting valued friends, was crowded with disabled vessels from various quarters; and frequently a foreign tongue was heard along that thickly-peopled Such an opportunity as this of sending far and wide messages of peace, was not to be lost. Cards of prayer, and little books, were heartily welcomed by the sailors, and conversation on subjects of eternal importance was eagerly sought. The captain of a large American barque courteously and cordially offered the deck of his ship for a Scripturereading. And the superintendent of police, with the hearty and earnest sympathy of a genial nature and a Christian soul, made it known along the lines of ships which filled the harbour. When the appointed hour arrived, the captains and crews of almost all the vessels there had assembled on deck, and on the pier alongside the ship. Foreigners, with their interpreters, mingled with the crowd of English and American sailors. A police. man set a tune for the hymn, beginning "Come, let us join our cheerful songs in which strong, manly voices joined with feeling and fervour; and then, reverently, with uplifted caps, the seamen listened to prayer for the presence and mighty working of God's Holy Spirit. We then read together the glorious story of Paul and Silas, with unwashen stripes, and feet fast in the stocks, in their dreary dungeon, singing with such brave glad voices songs of praise unto their God, that "the prisoners heard them." And we read of the wonderful conversion of their Philippian jailer; how his brutal nature softened into kindly tenderness— "washing their stripes," and making his house a home for them; and how his coward spirit-that inseparable companion of a cruel heart-which would geance of the magistrates, gathered courage in a mohave taken refuge in suicide from the dreaded venment to confess Christ crucified, and be "baptized, he and all his, straightway." And all this on the simple reception of the inspired answer of the apostle to the great life-question, "What must I do to be saved?" BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED." A few of the most remarkable accounts of the revivals in America, in the North of Ireland, and in parts of Scotland, were listened to with deep interest; and, as the parting prayer was concluded, many a weather-beaten face that had been hidden was raised up wet with tears. One by one they quietly approached us to receive a little book and card of prayer. A boy, with sunburnt flaxen hair, flung back from a face of truth and feeling, said to the policeman, "Tell the lady I'm not a sailor-man; but I have a soul I wish to get saved. I want to get to heaven.” God bless that earnest child!* and keep him by His power through faith unto salvation. Just then the setting sun shed over the sky a rosecrimson glory, tinting the ships, and lighting up the mass of upturned human faces, in a manner which caused the words to spring to my lips, O Sun of righteousness, shine into every darkened heart here :— "Brightness of the Father's glory!Light up every dark recess Of the heart's ungodliness." ranny of Satan and his evil ones, who now seek to entice you into sin in order that they may get you into their power to torment you for ever. Saved-for heaven. Saved-for holiness, for happiness, for life, light, and glory. Saved-not for a time, but for ever. Savedto dwell with angels and archangels, and with all the company of the redeemed. Saved-to be made a king and a priest unto your God.* Saved-to dwell for ever in the presence of your Redeemer; and "in His presence is fulness of joy." Saved-to sit with Him on His throne, when He comes in glory to reign over the earth. That day is coming soon. "THE COMING OF THE LORD DRAWETH NIGH," when He shall come to take vengeance on His enemies, and to be admired in all them that believe. Oh! are you ready? Ready, at the sound of the trumpet, to be caught up to meet the King of Glory in the air; to meet Him, not with shame and dread, but with joy and triumph. Do not, I beseech you-do not rest-do not give God any rest until you can say, as a gallant soldier and Christian said, in the one moment between receiving his death-wound and his soul passing into eternity, "I AM READY." Stand, as he did, a man acquitted before God. A man washed from every sin in the blood of a Divine Redeemer, the God-man, Jesus Christ; and clothed in the spotless robe of His righteousness. You may do so this day! 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and THOU shalt be saved." "FOR THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD" (think of having THAT for your own!)" WHICH IS BY FAITH OF JESUS CHRIST, IS UNTO ALL AND UPON ALL THEM THAT BELIEVE."S And shall a man who has received such a free salvation be ungrateful and faithless to the Saviour who bought it for Him with His own life blood? God forbid ! Henceforth, the life you live in the flesh, may you live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved you, and gave Himself for you. Henceforth LIVE! for sin is death. Be FREE!-for sin is slavery. "He is the freeman whom the truth makes free: and all are slaves beside." Remind your glorious Saviour that He has ascended on high, and led captivity captive, and received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious, also, that the Lord God might dwell amongst them. Make that your claim. Say to Him, "I have rebelled too long against Thee; give me now God the Holy Spirit, to dwell in my sinful, weak, unhappy heart, to make it holy, strong, and happy : "Come, Holy Spirit! heavonly Dove! Pray earnestly for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon your heart, upon your shipmates, upon your friends and relations at home, upon your country, and upon the world. Try to persuade your companions to begin, at once, to read the Word of God, and unite in prayer with you daily. If you can only persuade one, at first, begin with that one to-day. I give you a prayer to commence with; you will soon add more to it. O GOD, OUR FATHER, WASH US FROM ALL OUR SINS IN OUR SAVIOUR'S BLOOD, AND WE SHALL BE WHITER THAN SNOW. CREATE IN US CLEAN HEARTS, AND FILL US WITH THE HOLY GHOST THAT WE MAY NEVER BE ASHAMED TO CONFESS THE FAITH OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED, AND MANFULLY TO FIGHT UNDER HIS BANNER AGAINST SIN, THE WORLD, AND THE DEVIL; REMEMBERING THE WORDS OF THE GREAT CAPTAIN OF OUR SALVATION, "TO HIM THAT OVERCOMETH WILL I GRANT TO SIT WITH ME ON MY THRONE. ་་ WE ARE, WE MAY SERVE THE LORD WITH GLADNESS, 66 Now unto that Saviour who walked on the waters, and made the storm a calm, I commend you! In every moment of danger, lift up the prayer to Him, "LORD, SAVE!" And now, unto Him who is able (also) to keep you from falling, and to present you (body and soul) faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, I commend you, by earnest prayer; and remain, your sincere friend, C M A few days afterwards, the following answer was received: manner. Royal Harbour, 21st November 1859, On board the American barque "Linden." MADAM, I hope you will pardon the liberty I have taken in addressing you. But there has been a great desire, not on my part only, but on the part of nearly the whole of the captains and crews of other vessels in this harbour, to return you our most heartfelt and sincere thanks for your Christian consideration of us on Sabbath afternoon, the 13th inst., in speaking to us from the deck of my vessel in that most Christian And I hope it will please God to carry home the precious truths and warning to every sailor-man's heart present; and may one and all be led to say (as many are saying) what the poor jailer said, 'What shall I do to be saved?' I have every reason to believe that the meeting was productive of great good. We were truly sorry to hear you were so ill; but sincerely hope you are better. A great many of the seafaring people express a great wish to hear your Christian instruction again, and to thank you for the books and cards of prayer you so liberally distributed amongst us, and also for those precious letters which were given out to us by the inspector yesterday on board every vessel in the harbour. Again thanking you for your kindness, believe me to remain, your obedient servant, HK. One more opportunity was granted to my earnest prayers for meeting those brave, kind sons of the sea again, before the day when they and I must give account of our golden hour for telling and hearing the glad tidings of "glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men," through the birth and life and death of the Man of Sorrows. By the strong shake of the hand at parting, by the low, broken voices, the earnest expressions of contrition for sin, and of longing to find a Saviour, and peace and rest in Him, and by the willing promises from some of the captains to begin daily prayermeetings with the reading of the Word of God amongst their crews, we believe that the seed of eternal life, sown in weakness, shall be raised in power, by the mighty working of that Lord and Giver of Life, to whom it is "nothing to save (or to work), whether by many, or by them that have no power." Oh, that every reader of this brief narrative of "bread cast upon the waters" would pray, "Let each sailor who joined in prayer in that harbour become a temple of the living God." English, Americans, and foreigners alike, carried away with them, "afar off on the sea," as a parting gift, a copy of the words of eternal life. And the promise of our God holds good, "My word shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish that which I please, and prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." SKETCHES IN NATURAL HISTORY. FERNS AND TREE FERNS. THE earliest traces of vegetable life yet discovered in the most ancient fossiliferous rocks, consist of fragments of sea-weed, accompanying graptolites, or sea-pens, in the anthracite beds of the silurian system, which in all probability owed their origin to the decomposition of plants of this description, once forming submarine meadows, where zoophytes nestled and trilobites swam. So far as geological investigation has yet gone, it does not appear that a terrestrial flora flourished on the shores of the primeval sea till the age of the old red sandstone, when fishes of singular conformation,such as the pterichthys, with its wing-like arms, disported in the waters. The first indications of land plants are found in the lower beds of that series of rocks, and consist of the remains of lycopodiums or club-mosses, tree-ferns, and the wood of coniferous trees, resembling the modern araucaria, or Norfolk Island pine. The deposits of this era, both in Ireland and Scotland, have yielded fragments of the frouds or leaves of a tree-fern named Cyclopteris Hibernica, which disappeared before the dawn of the carboniferous period, when, as we have seen, ferns and of their allies prevailed over a great portion of the surface of the earth, laying up, for the use of distant ages, beds of coal, deriving their carbon from the carbonic acid gas floating in the then existing atmosphere, and their hydrogen from the decomposition of water, which, descending in rain, mottled, with its drops, the yielding sand; while, upon the same shores, the ripple of the rising and receding tide was tracing the curving and anastomosing lines now so frequently observable on slabs of building and paving stones. We thus learn, from the traces of life-history in the ancient rocks, that, however varied the forms of animals and plants existing in successive geological epochs, the conditions of life have been uniform in all ages. Geology teaches us, to use the words of Professor Owen, that "the globe allotted to man has revolved in its orbit through a period of time so vast, that the mind, in the endeavour to realise it, is strained by an effort like that by which it strives to conceive the space dividing the solar system from the most distant nebulæ." The pages of the rocky science bear evidence not less equivocal to the conditions in which organised beings existed upon the earth's surface during all the differ ent eras which it is the province of the geologist to investigate and define. The light and heat of the sun reached the earth through an atmosphere not different from that by which the surface of the globe at present receives the same vivifying influences. The eye of the trilobite was constructed upon the same optical principles, and adapted to the same conditions of light and vision, as the eye of the existing crustacean and insect. Vaporised moisture ascended from earth and sea, and became condensed in the atmosphere, whence it was precipitated in fertilising showers of rain. These showers have not only left, in the strata of successive systems, the casts of rainmarks, indicating by their slope or shape the direction from which they were blown by the wind; but the little rills formed by the gathering drops, as they rolled along the surface of the sand or mud, have also had their traces preserved-a phenomenon which has been detected in Lower Canada in rocks so early as those of the old red sandstone, contemporaneous with the first vestiges of terrestrial vegetation, and recording the most ancient showers of rain of which we have any geological memorial. The study of fossil botany shews, in like manner, that the extinct vegetables of the palæozoic flora must have existed in conditions of the air and earth, such as are still essential to the growth and development of the plant. But while we thus derive from the rocks incontestable proofs of the uniformity of the laws of nature throughout prolonged and successive epochs, we are called to contemplate an astonishing variety in the productions existing at different times in the organised world. Entire races of animals and plants were again and again extinguished, and replaced by new tribes, which have no specific representatives in our present flora and fauna. Yet amidst boundless diversity of form and function in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, viewed along the entire course of creation, we are able to discover an undeviating adherence to typical unity in the glorious plan of the Almighty's handiwork. In evolving this great central principle of the organic creation, science occupies its true position as the handmaid of religion. From the realms of living nature, and the records of past creations, it brings, as a tribute to the altar of the Christian faith, a confirmation of the personal unity of the adorable "I AM," revealed in the pages of eternal truth; and in demonstrating the unity of the Creator, by tracing through creation the archetypical idea which must have dwelt for ever in the Divine Mind, it has also enriched natural theology with fresh and vivid illustrations of the wisdom and goodness of God, in adapting the typical forms of animals and plants to an endless diversity of benevolent purposes. The science of geology is a history of successive miracles of creation. The subtle sceptic who demanded the testimony of experience to convince him of the possibility of a miracle, lived before geology had borne evidence on the subject such as no rational man will be hardy enough to gainsay. It was a shrewd remark of Hugh Miller's "Hume is at length answered by the severe truths of the stony science. He was not, according to Job, in league with the stones of the field,' and they have risen in irresistible warfare against him in the Creator's behalf." Ferns, and tree-ferns, have descended to our time from the remotest period of vegetable life, although they nowhere exist in such abundance as they appear to have done during the carboniferous era, when, although the vegetation was scanty in the variety, it was profuse in the number, of species. Of 500 plants discovered in the coal measures, 346 were ferns and their allies, nearly 300 being true ferns. Many of these are preserved in the shales of the coal mines, with their fossilised fronds and minute venation as distinctly defined as if the plants had been laid up in a botanist's herbarium. In the mines of Bohemia, Dr Buckland found the ferns and other vegetable remains of the coal exceeding in beauty the most elaborate imitations of living foliage upon the painted ceilings of Italian palaces. The roofs of the mines were covered as with a canopy of gorgeous tapestry, enriched with festoons of most graceful foliage, flung in wild, irregular profusion over every portion of the surface, the eflect being heightened by the contrast between the shining black colour of the coal plants and the light hues of the rocks to which they were attached. The ferns of the English coal-fields number about 140. The existing British species of ferns, including varieties raised to the rank of species, are under 50. In tropical countries, especially those having an insular climate, such as St Helena and the Society Islanda, ferns preponderate over flowering plants. The extra-tropical island of New Zealand is preeminently the region of ferns, many of them arbores cent, and of their allies the club-mosses, which give a luxuriant aspect to the vegetation, where flowering plants are comparatively rare. Within an area of a few acres, Dr Joseph Hooker observed thirty-six kinds of ferns, while the same space produced scarcely twelve flowering plants and trees. Hence, New Zealand is supposed to possess a climate somewhat resembling that of the carboniferous period, which is believed to have been humid, mild, and equable. The lowly ferns of this country, whose graceful fronds adorn our hillsides and valleys, and fringe the shady banks of burn and rivulet with their luxuriant verdure, are characterised by having a creeping stem, or rhizome, running along or under the surface of the ground. The stem of the tree-fern of other lands rises into the air, in the form of a slender but stately trunk, surmounted by a crown of elegant drooping fronds, and resembles a palm in its appearance and habit of growth. When fully formed, the trunk is hollow, and is marked on the outside with the scars or cicatrices left by the falling fronds, which, along with the peculiar appearance of the cellular tissue and vascular bundles of the interior, enable the botanist to identify their fossilised remains in the rocks. The stem is formed by the union of the bases of the leaves, which carry up with them the growing point; and as the fern-stem, whether horizontal or vertical, increases only by additions to the summit, this family of plants is called acrogens, or summit-growers. In the young state, the fronds are rolled up in a crosier-like manner, familiar to all who have observed the development of ferns in spring and early summer; and the fronds of tree-ferns, in their native haunts and in our conservatories, exhibit the same curious arrangement. The so-called eircinate or spiral mode in which the frond is coiled up, affords an instructive example of provident care in preserving the tender parts of the young plant from the danger they would incur by sudden exposure to the atmosphere. Each leaflet is rolled up towards the rib supporting it,-the rib again toward the midrib,-and the midrib toward the footstalk. In many species, the crosier-like coil is closely invested with brownish scales, serving still further to protect the delicate frond from the chills of early spring, as well as to bar the access of moisture and the invasion of insects. The whole arrangement presents a beautiful instance of the "packing" of plants, during the stage of venation, or when the tender leaf is in the bud; and may readily be studied by any one who will pick up a fern frond, while it is leisurely unfolding its green leaflets to the genial airs of spring. In the tropical zone of vegetation, tree-ferns grow at an elevation of two or three thousand feet above the level of the sea, and in favourable circumstances their trunks attain a height of forty or fifty feet. They can only be imported into this country in their young state, and then not without difficulty; but even in their most developed form, they exhibit, on a diminished scale, in the conservatory, the majesty and grace of their structure and habits in the warm and humid climate of tropical regions, and even the more temperate parts of the southern hemisphere, where they give a marked character to the physiog nomy of vegetation. Humboldt describes the arborescent ferns growing in the shaded clefts on the slopes of the Cordilleras, as standing out in bold relief against the azure of the sky, with their thick cylindrical trunks, and delicate lace-like foliage, and where they are associated with the cinchona tree, yielding |