unto me." According to the above Scripture it came to pass, "Behold," saith Christ, "the hour cometh yea is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. Then all the disciples forsook him and fled." "These things have I spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace; in the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." May you and your relations have peace in Christ, which the world can neither give or take away. Your sincere friend, J. J E. THE IDOLS OF THE SAXONS. 1 SUNDAY. AT this happy period of the world, we cannot reflect on the idolatry of ancient times without some astonishment at the folly which has in various regions so sadly clouded the human mind. We feel, indeed, that it is impossible to contemplate the heavens above us; to view the planets moving in their governed order; to find comets darting from system to system in an orbit of wonderful extent; to see stars beyond stars, and to have evidence of the light of others, whose full beams have not yet reached us: we cannot meditate on these things without a feeling of awe that this grandeur of nature proclaims an Author tremendously great. But it is difficult to conceive, how the lessons of the skies should have taught that narrow and confined idolatry, which their amazing grandeur and almost endless extent seem calculated to forbid. 'He was made as here appeareth, set upon a pillar, his face as it were brightened with gleams of fire, and holding, with both his arms stretched out, a burning wheel upon his breast: the wheel being to signify the course which he runneth round about the world; and the fiery gleams and brightness, the light and heat wherewith he warmeth and comforteth the things that live and grow.' In every nation but the Jewish, a gross system of superstition was gradually established. Human folly chose out strange objects to represent the Deity; the most ancient of these were the heavenly bodies, the worship of which was so strictly forbidden to the Israelites "The sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the hosts of heaven, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven." (Deut. iv. 19.) The departed heroes and kings, belonging to heathen nations, were raised into gods. Foolish fancy soon added so many others, that the air, the sea, the rivers, the woods, and the earth, became stocked with divinities: and it was easier, as an ancient sage remarked, to find a deity than a man. When our Saxon ancestors had settled themselves in England, they had many gods, and worshipped various images. Speed, the historian of Britain, observes, As in virtues the Saxons outstripped most Pagans, so in the zeal of their heathenish superstition and idolatrous service, they equalled any of them; for besides Herthus, or mother Earth, they worshipped Mercury (or more probably Mars), under the name of Woden, as their principal god of battle, and sacrificed to him their prisoners taken in war; and of him named one of the week-days Wodensday (WEDNESDAY.) His wife, named Frea, was, by the like foolery held to be Venus, a goddess, unto whom another of their week-days was assigned for name and service, which of us is called FRIDAY.' There is, however, a beauty in the name given by the Saxon and German nations to the Deity, whom they ignorantly worshipped, which is not equalled by any other, except his hallowed Hebrew name, JEHOVAH. The Saxons call him GoD, which is literally THE GOOD; the same word signifying both the Deity and his most endearing quality. Some of the objects of their adoration, however, we find in their names for the days of the week : Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. Friday Saturday Tiw's (or Tuisco's) day. Thunre's (or THOR'S) day. Friga's (or FREA's) day. Seterne's (or SATURN's) day. We propose to give, from time to time, cuts of these seven Saxon idols; commencing with that of the Sun, we quote the description of the Sun from Richard Verstegan, a laborious English antiquary, who wrote in 1605.'-Saturday Magazine. A CATECHISM, CONTAINING A SHORT ACCOUNT OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES. To the Editor of Light from the West!' Sir, IN an old Periodical, which probably few, if any, of your readers have ever seen, 1 lately met with an article entitled, A Catechism, containing a Short Account of Christian Principles.' I was much struck with its simplicity, and thought it scriptural and very excellent. Now, sir, in these days of perpetual change and speculation, when the lowly seeker of divine things is sorely perplexed as to what to believe,-what opinions to discard and what to retain,-would not a brief summary of Christian principles, which, like their divine Author are unchanged and unchangeable, be likely, with God's blessing, to help him out of his perplexity? Hoping that the enclosed may be considered worthy of circulation, and prove acceptable,— "a word in season,"-to many of the readers of the 'Light from the West,' I am Sir, Yours, &c. J. R. SECTION I. Question. What is the first thing necessary to the practice of Christianity? Answer. Conviction of sin. Q. Whose office is it to convince of sin? A. The Holy Ghost's. Q. What is conviction of sin? A. It is a discovery made in the mind by the Holy Ghost, that, as well by nature as by thought, word, and deed, we are sinners before God, and deserve that everlasting wrath which the law denounces against all sin and also an effectual influence on the will, exciting us to flee from the wrath to come. Q. Wherein lies the sinfulness of our nature? A. In the aversion of our will from God's holiness and law; and in our choice of earthly and carnal things. Q. What are the principal effects of this aversion of man's will to God? A. A natural blindness in the understanding, and unruliness in the affections. Q. How may we know when we have a true conviction of sin ? A. It is a true conviction when our sins are present |