CHRIST THE WAY, THE

TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.

JESUS is the way by His example, the truth by His word, and the life by His grace. He is the new and living way, wherein faith causes us to walk; the infallible truth of good things to come, for which we must hope; and the eternal life, which must be the sole object of our love. Out of this way, there is nothing but wandering; without this truth, nothing but error and deceit; and without this life, nothing but death.

By means of sin the heart has lost the life of righteousness; the understanding, the light of truth; and the senses, the assistance of the creatures which served as a way to lead us to God. All three are restored to us in Jesus Christ; the way of heaven discovered and laid open to our senses by His life and mysteries; the truth, which enlightens our understanding, and the life, which re-animates our heart.

Let us take great care not to transfer to any creature that which Christ appropriates to Himself, exclusively of everything besides. He alone is our way, as our Mediator by His blood; He alone is the truth of the promises, which are fulfilled only in Him as the Head of the elect, and in us as his members; and He alone is our life, as being the principle of the Christian life and of all the actions thereof by his grace. That man well deserves to lose himself, to be deceived, and to be deprived of life, who keeps not close to Thee alone, O eternal way, in which alone those find themselves who have gone astray; incarnate

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truth, which alone enlightenest those who are in darkness; celestial and divine life, which alone givest immortal life to the dead; thou art the divine way, which camest to weary thyself in seeking sinners ; the truth, which didst vouchsafe to descend into our darkness ; and the life, which didst humble thyself so low as to die for us.-Quesnel. THE STORY OF CERTAIN

HYMNS,

HYMNS have sometimes been curiously used in stirring times, especially about the Reformation period. More than once the Romish preachers have been compelled to abandon the pulpit by the vigorous singing of one of Luther's. They have played their part in battle. At the famous battle of Leuthen, one of Heermann's hymns was raised by a regiment before going into the fight, and one after another took it up, until all the columns were singing it as they advanced. "Shall I

silence them ?" the general asked, as he rode up to stern, tobacco-loving, heroic King Fritz. "No; with such soldiers God will give me the victory;" and leaping down among the ranks, and crying, "Now, children, in God's name," he led them into battle. When the battle was won, the field was strewn with dead and wounded; it was night, and the soldiers were weary. Then one began to sing a hymn of thanksgiving, the bands joined in, and presently it rose from the army in full and mighty chorus that reached and greatly moved the king, who turned round, excl aiming, "What a power there is in religion!" It was at the great battle of Leipzig that Gus

tavus Adolphus sang, with his army, Luther's Carmen Heroicum, and after it, that, kneeling on the field, he thanked God for the victory in a stanza of the same hymn. The Te Deum won the fight at Liegnitz; it was a "Poor Sinner's Song" of Luther's that the peasant raised before the battle of Frakenhausen, and brave Earl Oldenburg triumphed at Drakenburg by the song of Simeon.

So curiously are the lives of these hymns interwoven with fiercest human struggles and profoundest human joys, with kings and politics, and famous battles that determined the fate of kingdoms, with poor peasant, and lonely, and nameless households, with crimes that leave the reddest stains in history, and softening of rugged and wild hearts. And it is pleasant to take up a hymn that has connected itself with past events, and can be traced into many a house and heart by its comfortable thoughts. Herbert's Hymn on Sunday gains a certain mournful delicacy when we know that he sung it himself upon his deathbed; that

"Like a sweet swan he warbles as he dies,

His Maker's praise, and his own obsequies."

Gerhardt, himself, died repeating one of his own hymns, and even with the very words,

"Him no death has power to kill." And there is a touching legend which says that as King Christian of Denmark lay sick at Christmas time, an angel came to him in a dream, and told him he would live but eight days. And on New Year's Day his chaplain preached him a farewell sermon; but when his courtiers would not sing death-songs over him, he cried, "Then will I sing myself, and you with me, and it shall be said the King of Denmark sung himself to the grave." he lifted up his voice, clear and and strong, and they sang the song

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of Simeon, but as they sung he ell asleep in Jesus.-Good Words.

LYMAN BEECHER GOADED TO ELOQUENCE.

THE late Dr. Beecher was one of the few men always equal to an emergency, and the following is a good illustration of the way in which his sensitive nature could be stung into doing his best:

When, in the early years of his life, Dr. Beecher was living in Litchfield, Ct., he spent a Sab

bath in Hartford. He was accustomed to dress with great simplicity, and was very diffident in conversation; so that it was no easy matter to judge of his quality. The Rev. Dr. Strong was then settled over the Congregational Church in that city, and professional usage required that he should entertain the young clergyman at his house, and invite him into his pulpit. He looked distrustingly upon the plain country pastor, and lamented the terrible necessity; but there was no alternative but in the violation of courtesy. The morning and afternoon services passed without Mr. Beecher taking any active part in them; in the evening, Dr. Strong coolly intimated that if he chose to do so, he might preach, and was shocked by his instant acquiescence. "A man who will accept an invitation tendered in such a way as this," thought the doctor, "cannot preach a sermon fit for my congregation to hear!" He was mistaken; Mr. Beecher had hardly less pride than genius, and he keenly felt the coldness of the great man. The evening came on; the Church was brilliantly lighted and thronged with the beauty, fashion, and intelligence of that home of gentleness and learning. Dr. Strong had offered the opening prayer, and was sitting in stern illhumour, while the choir was singing the hymn to precede the sermon. Mr. Beecher became restless, and his face was flushed with a sudden

excitement. He turned to the doctor, and inquired in a low, hurried voice, if the sermon could be for a few mintues deferred-he had left his manuscript in his chamber.

"No," said the doctor, with sharpness-and grasped the Bible to select a text for himself, glad that an accident was to relieve him and his congregation from the mortifying infliction he had dreaded. He was too fast; his young brother had been stung to the heart by his manner, and recognizing the words of the last line of the hymn, sprang to the desk, and before Dr. Strong had recovered from his astonishment, announced his text for an extemporaneous discourse. "It is the will of God," thought the vexed and humble pastor, and prepared himself to listen with Christian resignation. For a few minutes the young preacher spoke with a slight hesitation, as if, while giving his introduction, he was revolving in his mind an extended argument. Soon his voice rang clear and loud, his sentences came compact and earnest, and his manner caught the glowing fervour of his thought. All was hushed but his impassioned tones; the great assembly was still as death; and leaning forward with blended wonder and admiration, the pastor felt stealing over him from the hushed air the rebuke of his Master, for his harsh judgment and cold treatment of his young brother. In after life he used to relate the story, and confess that he had never heard such eloquence as that of the homespun young Mr. Beecher.

and old school-fellow, or his kindly neighbour-the Christian on a journey from giving the little leaflet, or speaking the quiet word in season, to a fellow-travellor whom he shall never see again on this side of the judgment throne. Have you got the fervour of first love? That always opens the mouth and makes bold for Christ, and very tender is its pity for the lost. If it is yours, use it, while not abusing it; and prudent yet bold, in strong faith speak-or write the pleading letter when you cannot talk-to that loved yet still lost and leprous one. Aye, and even if you are repelled, return a kiss for the blow, and let your motto be, "Strike, but hear me!" And do not say, thou who art very feeble and unworthy in thine own eyes, humble in thine earthly station, or an obscure disciple," What can I do? Didst thou never hear what James Therral, an old carpenter on Salisbury Plain, said to a young Christian who complained that she was unworthy to serve her Lord? used to think as you do, but the Lord taught me otherwise by a crooked stick. One day my son went to a sale of timber, and in the lot he bought was a piece so twisted and bent that I said sharply, 'It will be of no use.' 'Wait a bit; dont fret; let us keep a look out; there is a place somewhere for it. And soon after I was building a house; there was a corner to turn in it not a stick in the yard would fit. I thought of the crooked one, and fetched it. It seemed as if the tree had grown aside for the purpose. Then, said 1, 'There is a place for the crooked stick after all! Then there's a place for poor James Therral. Dear Lord! show him the place into which he may fit in the building of Thy heavenly temple.' That very day, I learned that, poor and unlettered as I was, there was a work for me. And so

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there is a work for you too, and nobody else can do it.'"-British Messenger.

FACTS AND FREAKS OF CURRENCY.

MANY things have been used, at different times, as money: cowrie shells in Africa; wampum by the American Indians; cattle in ancient Greece. The Carthaginians used leather as money, probably bearing some mark or stamp. Frederic II., at the seige of Milan issued stamp leather as money. In 1360, John the Good, King of France, who was taken prisoner by the celebrated Black Prince, and sent to England until ransomed, also issued leather money, having a small silver nail in the centre. Salt is the common money in Abyssinia; cod-fish in Iceland and Newfoundland. "Living money" (slaves and oxen) passed current with the Anglo-Saxons, in payment of debts. Adam Smith says that, in his day, there was a village in Scotland where it was not uncommon for workmen to carry nails, instead of money, to the baker's shop and the ale-house. Marco Polo found, in China, money made of the bark of the mulberrytree, bearing the stamp of the sovereign, which it was death to counterfeit. Tobacco was generally used as money in Virginia up to 1660, fifty-seven years after the foundation of that colony. In 1641, the legislature of Massachusetts enacted that wheat should be received in payment of all debts; and the convention in France, during the Revolution, on a proposition of JeanBon-Saint Andre, long discussed

the propriety of adopting wheat as money, as the measure of value of all things. Platina was coined in Russia from 1828 to 1845. But the metals best adapted and most generally used as coin are copper, nickel, silver, and gold; the two first being now used for coins of small value, to make change: the two latter, commonly designated "the precious metals," as measures of value, and as legal tenders. On the continent of Europe, a composition of silver and copper, called billion, has long been used for small coins, which are made current at a much higher value than that of the metals they contain. In China, Sycee silver is the principal currency, and is merely ingot silver of an uniform fineness, paid and received by weight. Spanish dollars also circulate there, but only after they have been assayed and stamped as proof that they are of the standard fineness. As Asia Minor produced gold, its earliest coinage was of that metal. Italy and Sicily possessing copper, bronze was first coined there. Herodotus says, the Lydians were the first people known to have coined gold and silver. They had gold coin at the close of the ninth century B.C.; Greece proper only at the close of the eighth century B.C. Servius Tullius, king of Rome, made the pound weight of copper current money. The Romans first coined silver, 281 B.C., and gold, 207 B.C.-Moran on Money.

HERE brief is the sighing, And brief is the crying, For brief is the life! The life there is endless, The joy there is endless,

And ended the strife.

What joys are in heaven ?
To whom are they given?

Ah! what? and to whom?
The stars to the earth-born,
"Best robes" to the sin-worn,
The crown for the doom!

O country the fairest,
Our country the dearest,
We press toward thee!
O Sion the golden!
Our eyes now are holden,
Thy light till we see:

Thy crystalline ocean,
Unvexed by commotion,
Thy fountain of life;
Thy deep peace unspoken,
Pure, sinless, unbroken-

Thy peace beyond strife:

Thy meek saints all glorious,
Thy martyrs victorious,
Who suffer no more;
Thy halls full of singing,
Thy hymns ever ringing,
Along Thy safe shore.

Like the lily for whiteness,
Like the jewel for brightness,
Thy vestments, O Bride!
The Lamb ever with thee,
The Bridegroom is with thee-
With thee to abide.

We know not, we know not,
All human words show not,
The joys we may reach;
The mansions preparing,
The joys for our sharing,
The welcome for each.

O Sion the golden!
My eyes still are holden,
Thy light till I see ;
And deep in Thy glory,
Unveiled then before me,
My King, look on thee!
-Bernard of Clugni.

CARDIFF.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION STONE OF A NEW CHAPEL. THE Methodist Free Church in this town has commenced building an edifice in Guildford Street, which promises to be an ornament to the town, and will, we hope, be the means of promoting that higher religious feeling which every one desires who can estimate the value of moral excellence. It was determined to lay the corner-stone of this Chapel on Tuesday, Nov. 24th; and on Sunday preparatory sermons were preached by the Rev. W. Reed, of London, ExPresident of the Assembly, and Editor of the Magazines belonging to the Methodist Free Churches. For the sermons the Town Hall was kindly placed at their disposal, and both morning and evening large congregations were present. Both sermons were of a very high order, and were presented in that chaste and eloquent manner which must always commend itself to those who delight in the prac tical application of Bible teaching. At the collections the sum of £8 2s. was realised.

The ceremony of laying the cornerstone took place on Tuesday afternoon, at three o'clock, and happily the day

proved exceedingly fine, compared with the state of the weather previously. A procession was formed at the Chapel in Charles Street, when a number of ministers, belonging to other Denominations, were present. The building having been raised to the ground floor, a convenient platform was made by planks, on which a large assembly was collected, and during the whole of the proceedings the utmost decorum was observed, every one evidently enjoying the occasion which had brought them together. The corner-stone was laid at the north-east angle of the building.

The Rev. T. BARLOW, minister of the Cardiff Circuit, commenced the service by giving out the hymn, commencing,Except the Lord conduct the plan." Prayer was offered by the Rev. N. Thomas.

Mr. WARD then stated, that to mark this occasion, the members of the Free Church had determined to present a silver trowel to Mr. Cory to be used by him. It bore the following inscription : -"Cardiff United Methodist Free Church. Presented to R. Cory, Esq., on the occasion of laying the cornerstone of the New Chapel in Guildford Street, on Tuesday. November 24th