No. XVII.

The Sibylline Books; or, The Worth of Opportunity. NINE of these books, containing predictions about the destinies of Rome, were brought by one of the Sibyls, variously named, to King Tarquin the Second. The Sibyl thus bringing them was one of a group of mysterious women who were endowed with a prophetical spirit, and who delivered oracles showing the fates and revolutions of kingdoms. The number of these women was unknown. Plato speaks of one, others of two, Pliny of three, Varro of ten, an opinion most generally adopted. This one was the most celebrated. She resided at Cumæ, in Italy, was endowed by Apollo with the gift of a life of many hundreds of years. Coming to the Roman palace, she first offers the whole of the nine volumes at an immense price. The king proudly rejects the offer. She immediately disappears. Soon she returns again, having burnt three of the volumes. She asks the same price for the remaining six. Tarquin laughs at such an

offer. She vanishes, and burns three more. Returning, she demands the same sum of money for the remaining three. This extraordinary behaviour astonishes the king. He con sults his augurs. They tell him he had done wrong in not purchasing the entire nine, and counsel him by all means to buy these three. He obtains them and the Sibyl immediately vanishes, never after appearing to the world. The books themselves proved of greatest worth, as foretelling events in Roman affairs. Two men, duumviri, were appointed to take care of them. And such reverence did the Romans entertain for these prophetical books, that they were consulted with the greatest solemnity whenever the State seemed in danger. The whole incident may illustrate the worth of opportunity.

I. THE OFFER OF OPPORTUNITY AT FIRST IS GENERALLY ABUNDANT. The whole series of nine books were put before the king for his purchase. So, many years, many powers, many possibilities are opened up to most young lives. Through young life indeed opportunities "circle

us, if we will but keep on the qui vive." The very fulness of opportunity is suggested by the great English seer in his words,

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."

The frequency of the highest opportunities that men can want or have, was declared by Jesus Christ to have been granted to Jerusalem, "How often would I have gathered thee, but ye would not."

II. THE REJECTION OF OPPORTUNITY IS OFTEN RECKLESS. First proudly disdaining the nine, and afterwards laughingly refusing the six, Tarquin is but a type of multitudes. Whether

in the realm of study, or commerce, or religion, there are golden opportunities wasted every day that might have been a fortune in each of such spheres if they had been rightly used. But men will not pay the price demanded for the use of them. That price is earnest attention, prompt_employment, sedulous care. Squandered opportunities are the reproach, the condemnation, the bitter sting in the memories of millions.

III. THE RENEWAL OF OPPORTUNITY IS LIMITED. Each time the Sibyl returned, her offer was less, though her demand was the same. And it is thus with opportunities that recur to men. They usually are more meagre than they were at first. Each time the years are fewer, gener

ally the powers are weaker and the chances are poorer. There are lessons that can only be learned in certain stages of life, as in successive forms in schools. There are victories that could only be won on the field where we were defeated. We may afterwards win others, but were for ever conquered in these. The first offers that come to us were for the whole of life, then for life minus childhood, then for life minus youth, and at last only for the poor remnant of old age.

IV. THE EMPLOYMENT EVEN OF LESSENED OPPORTUNITY IS WISE.

It was well worth Tarquin's while to have only the three remaining books. It was well worth his while indeed to pay for these the full price that had been asked for all. For these three were full of revelations of greatest importance to Rome. And had he not purchased them the information would never have been received, for the Sybil vanished never to return again. So, even lessened opportunities of learning, or of doing, or of becoming are priceless. They are worth all a man has to give. For if, having disdained early opportunities because they were so plentiful, he slights later opportunities because they are so meagre, he wastes the whole of life and imperils his destiny, since this life, like the Sibyl, does not return.

Bristol.

URIJAH R. THOMAS.

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ORIGINAL

The Unpardonable Sin. THE Bible leaves a haze over it; and I for one would not have the haziness removed. There are rocks in the ocean well known to the mariner, covered with everlasting mists, so that their outlines are never seen. The sailor knows their position and steers clear of the danger. This sin is one of those rocks in the sea of our probationary life. There is a mysterious mist enfolding it. Still we

know its whereabouts. Under the light of Divine revelation, we can see sometimes its dark shadow sleeping on the wave. We know in what moral direction it lies. All sinners are working about it and gradually approaching it. It is not far from that sceptic who wilfully shuts his eyes to evidence, from that scorner who sneers at the sacred, from that gospelhearer who is growing more and more unimpressible every Sabbath, from that backslider who, having once tasted the good word of life and the powers of the world to come, continues to fall away. Sceptic, scorner, Gospel-hardened backslider,

take care! your bark is sailing in the direction of that fatal rock; you cannot see it, it is mantled in mists: take care, you are within its shadow !

Words.

THE function of words is faithfully to represent the soul: they should be to man's inner being what the beam is to the sun, the fragrance to the flower, the stream to the fountain, the

SIMILITUDES.

fruit to the tree-faithful exponents of itself.

Hypocrisy.

So depraved is society, that it cannot afford to be sincere, to show its real heart in its language. It feels compelled to use the Divine faculty of speech, one of the choicest gifts of Heaven, to misrepresent the true state of its mind. What a change would come over society at once, were no words used but those which are the fruit of the heart! ¡Let every man in England to-morrow begin to show his real sentiments and feelings in his language, let every word be the true mirror of the soul, and English society would be shaken to its foundation. What contracts founded in deception would dissolve! What friendships based upon false professions would be ruptured! Souls which had mingled together in social intercourse, when they came by faithful speech to see each other face to face, would start asunder with mutual repulsion, and rush away with instinctive horror and indignation.

Idle Talk a Self-Injury. THE man who indulges in idle and frivolous talk, damages his own mental faculties and moral sense thereby. In such speech there is no demand for the reflective powers, and they become impotent; there is no development of the sentiments of truth, benevolence, religion, -the very stamina of our moral