cause she does not hear us, ma'am," added Mary; "but if she did, perhaps it might make her feel ashamed of herself."

"But as she does not hear you, you allow that you do her no good. Now I think you do yourselves a great deal of harm. By talking thus, you are indulging a backbiting spirit. It makes you feel less charitable and kind; for all this time I think you have forgotten that poor Jane goes to no school, and that she has not a happy home."

"Oh, yes! we did indeed forget, ma'am," said Hannah; "and I see now how wrong we have been. For though we do go to school, and learn good things out of the Testament, and though you, Miss Sydney, talk with us at the school, and often tell us of these things, yet we forgot just now to do as we would be done by; for indeed, ma'am, when we do what is not right, we should not like others to talk so of us."

"I am very glad, Hannah, to hear you speak thus. Let us attend more to our own faults, and talk less of the faults of others. And now," continued Miss Sydney, "I think you will all of you like to hear something of Jane which I heard yesterday, and which shews that, though very naughty sometimes, she can at other times be a very kind, good girl. I dare say you may have heard that last week she went to stay with her grandmother for a few days, who was very ill, and suffered so dreadfully from cramp that she often screamed out with the pain. Jane is but young to turn nurse; but there was no one else that her grandmother thought she could ask to go and stay with her. Now I saw the poor old woman yesterday, and she told me, with tears in her eyes, how kind her granddaughter had been to her. She said that though Jane was but young, yet if the pain made her but moan or groan in the night, her watchful little nurse was up in an instant, getting hot flannels and hot water for her, and doing everything that was wanted, without seeming to think how her own rest was broken."

"Poor Jane!" cried out several of the girls. "And we have been talking of her," said Mary, 66 as if there was nothing good about her.”

"I wish," said another of the girls, "she could come to our school. Oh, Miss Sydney, don't you think she might be one of the scholars in our Sunday-school?"

"I think we must see what can be done," said their

kind friend. "In the mean time, I hope you will prepare yourselves (supposing she should come amongst you) to soften her by an example of kindness, and not to harden her by ill-natured remarks. But here we are just at the end of our walk."

"And we have gathered no flowers this morning," said Mary; "we have been so busy talking."

"Nor listened to the happy little birds that are rejoicing in this fine spring morning," said Miss Sydney.

"Ah, ma'am," said Hannah, almost in a whisper, on coming close up to Miss Sydney, as they entered the schoolroom door, we might find many things to talk about, besides our neighbour's faults; things that would make us feel better and happier too!"

Text-MATTHEW Vii. 1—5.

Whene'er you speak of those who are away,
Suppose them listening to all you say;
And if you cannot well with truth commend,
By silence prove yourself to be their friend;
Nor, for the sake of starting something new,
Say what you would not should be said of you.

SCRIPTURE IMAGERY.

No writings whatever abound so much with the most bold and animated figures as the sacred books. It is proper to dwell a little upon this article, as, through our early familiarity with these books-a familiarity too often with the sound of the words, rather than with their sense and meaning -beauties of style escape us in Scripture, which in any other book would draw particular attention. Metaphors, comparisons, allegories and personifications, are there particularly frequent. In order to do justice to these, it is necessary that we transport ourselves, as much as we can, into the land of Judea, and place before our eyes that scenery and those objects with which the Hebrew writers were conversant. Some attention of this kind is requisite in order to relish the writings of any poet of a foreign country and a different age; for the imagery of every good poet is copied from nature and real life. If it were

not so, it could not be lively; and therefore, in order to enter into the propriety of his images, we must endeavour to place ourselves in his situation. Now, we shall find that the metaphors and comparisons of the Hebrew poets present to us a very beautiful view of the natural objects of their own country, and of the arts and employments of their common life. Natural objects are, in some measure, common to them with poets of all ages and countries. Light and darkness, trees and flowers, the forest and the cultivated field, suggest to them many beautiful figures. But, in order to relish their figures of this kind, we must take notice that several of them arise from the particular circumstances of the land of Judea. During the summer months, little or no rain falls throughout all that region. While the heats continued, the country was intolerably parched; want of water was a great distress; and a plentiful shower falling, or a rivulet breaking forth, altered the whole face of nature, and introduced much higher ideas of refreshment and pleasure than the like causes can suggest to us. Hence, to represent distress, such frequent allusions among them to " a dry and thirsty land, where no water is ;" and hence to describe a change from distress to prosperity, their metaphors are founded on the falling of showers and the bursting out of springs in the desert. Thus in Isaiah, "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. For, in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert; and the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water; in the habitation of dragons there shall be grass, with rushes and reeds." Images of this nature are very familiar to Isaiah, and occur in many parts of his book.

Again, as Judea was a hilly country, it was, during the rainy months, exposed to frequent inundations by the rushing of torrents, which came down suddenly from the mountains, and carried everything before them; and Jordan, their only great river, annually overflowed its banks. Hence the frequent allusions to "the noise and rushings of many waters;" and hence great calamities so often compared to the overflowing torrent, which, in such a country, must have been images particularly striking. "Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts; all thy waves and billows are gone over me." The two most remarkable

mountains of the country were Lebanon and Carmel; the former noted for its height, and the woods of lofty cedars that covered it; the latter, for its beauty and fertility, the richness of its vines and olives. Hence, with great propriety, Lebanon is employed as an image of whatever is grand, strong or magnificent; Carmel, of what is smiling and beautiful. "The glory of Lebanon," says Isaiah, “shall be given to it, and the excellency of Carmel." Lebanon is often put metaphorically for the whole state or people of Israel, for the temple, for the king of Assyria; Carmel, for the blessings of peace and prosperity. "His countenance is as Lebanon," says Solomon, speaking of the dignity of man's appearance; but when he describes female beauty, "Thine head is like Mount Carmel." It is farther to be remarked, under this head, that, in the images of the awful and terrible kind with which the sacred poets abound, they plainly draw their descriptions from that violence of the elements and those concussions of nature with which their climate rendered them acquainted. Earthquakes were not unfrequent; and the tempest of hail, thunder and lightning, in Judea and Arabia, accompanied with whirlwinds and darkness, far exceed anything of that sort which happens in more temperate regions. Isaiah describes, with great majesty, "the earth reeling to and fro like a drunkard, and removed like a cottage." And in those circumstances of terror with which an appearance of the Almighty is described in the eighteenth Psalm, when "his pavilion round about him was darkness; when hailstones and coals of fire were his voice; and when, at his rebuke, the channels of the waters are said to be seen, and the foundations of the hills discovered;" -though there may be some reference, as Dr. Lowth thinks, to the history of God's descent upon Mount Sinai, yet it seems more probable that the figures were taken directly from those commotions of nature with which the author was acquainted, and which suggested stronger and nobler images than what now occur to us. Besides the natural objects of their own country, we find the rites of their religion, and the arts and employments of their common life, frequently employed as grounds of imagery among the Hebrews. They were a people chiefly occupied with agriculture and pasturage. These were arts held in high honour among them; not disdained by their patriarchs, kings and prophets. Little addicted to commerce, separated from the

rest of the world by their laws and religion, they were, during the better days of their state, strangers in a great measure to the refinements of luxury. Hence flowed, of course, the many allusions to pastoral life, to the " green pastures and the still waters," and to the care and watchfulness of a shepherd over his flock, which carry to this day so much beauty and tenderness in them, in the twentythird Psalm, and in many other passages of the poetical writings of Scripture. Hence all the images founded upon rural employments, upon the wine-press, the thrashing-floor, the stubble and the chaff. To disrelish all such images is the effect of false delicacy. What inexpressible grandeur does the following rural image in Isaiah, for instance, receive from the intervention of the Deity! "The nations shall rush, like the rushings of many waters, but God shall rebuke them, and they shall fly far off; and they shall be chased as the chaff of the mountain before the wind, and like the down of the thistle before the whirlwind." Figurative allusions, too, we frequently find to the rites and ceremonies of their religion; to the legal distinctions of things clean and unclean; to the mode of their temple service; to the dress of their priests, and to the most noted incidents recorded in their sacred history; as the destruction of Sodom, the descent of God upon Mount Sinai, and the miraculous passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea. The religion of the Hebrews included the whole of their laws and civil constitution. It was full of splendid external rites that occupied their senses; it was connected with every part of their national history and establishment; and hence all ideas founded on religion possessed, in this nation, a dignity and importance peculiar to themselves, and were uncommonly fitted to impress the imagination. From all this it results, that the imagery of the sacred poets is, in a high degree, expressive and natural; it is copied directly from real objects that were before their eyes: it has this advantage, of being more complete within itself, more entirely founded on national ideas and manners, than that of most other poets. In reading their works we find ourselves continually in the land of Judea. The palmtrees and cedars of Lebanon are ever rising in our view. The face of their territory, the circumstances of their climate, the manners of the people, and the august ceremonies of their religion, constantly pass under different forms before us.