Rev. Prebendary Nelson. This Institution is one of the most successful in England; last Christmas, out of twenty-two candidates seventeen were placed in the first class at their final examination. The students come from all parts of England, and are thoroughly well trained; and the real earnest practical spirit infused into the whole Training School by the good management of the head, and the thorough good understanding between him and his coadjutors, is very remarkable.—There is an Orphanage at St. Peter's, Vauxhall, under Miss Gregory, where girls are boarded, and trained in the adjoining National Schools as pupil teachers—also, it is believed, free of expense.

Annette's Answer to X. Y. Z.-The Origin of Hot Cross-buns.

'Another mystery which was practised by the Druids was that of the consecrated cake, which they offered to their idols, and broke it, and ate it as a bond of fellowship; and more strangely still, that sacrificial cake was marked, as in Egypt, with the sign of the Cross, the holy sign with which they reverently wrote the Name of God three times on their consecrated oak. The sacred cake is still preserved among us with another meaning, in the "Cross-bun" of Good Friday, the day on which we commemorate the fulfilment of the long-predicted and typified Sacrifice. It was the custom of the Bishops and Priests, who were instrumental in planting the Cross of Christ on this island, to adopt and retain as trophies of the triumph of the Cross the significant ceremonies of the heathen.'-From 'The Cross and the Serpent,' by the Rev. W. Haslam.

Acknowledged, with many thanks from the Sisters of the Poor, A Parcel of Clothing from Four Girls.

Claude Cecil.-Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints is the standard English book for all the Saints of the Western Church-i. e. of the Roman Calendar. Accounts of the black-letter Saints of the English Calendar are to be found in Bishop Mant's Prayer Book; also in a book called The Calendar of the English Church; (Burns.) also in the Calendar of The English Church Union, published annually by Masters; also in The Lesser Holydays, in Volumes V. and VI. of The Monthly Packet.

H. M.—The passage in Acts, viii. 15, 16, has always been understood to refer to the Grace of Confirmation. Regeneration, or New Birth, has always been believed by the Church to be conferred in Holy Baptism, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, but the strengthening power of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of episcopal hands. That these are not the same gifts, a reference to the Baptismal and Confirmation Services will show. An infant is first born, then strengthened.

M. suggests to J., Lessons on the Types of the Old Testament, published by The Church of England Sunday School Institute.

Adelaide will be much obliged if any of the Correspondents of The Monthly Packet can inform her where the well-known lines-

are taken from.

'Tis better to have loved and lost,

Than never to have loved at all.'

May would be very much obliged if any Correspondent of The Monthly Packet could let her know of any good books in English, giving accounts of life in Germany; and French tales, or novels in French, on the same subject; and—if of the religious typeCatholic, not Protestant.

Greta. We have a letter for you if you will again favour us with

your

address.

John and Charles Mozley, Printers, Derby.

No. IX.-FOR THE EXALTATION OF THE CROSS.

PSALM XX.

(Exaudiat Te Dominus.)

WHEN trouble darkens all thy sky,
Then the Lord hear thee;

When round thee rings the battle-cry,
The Lord be near thee.

When fainting in the heat and strife,
The Lord defend thee;

And when thou fightest for thy life,
His succour lend thee.

Thy offerings offered in His Name
The Lord remember,

And kindle for thee into flame

Each glowing ember.

The secret of thy silent prayer,
All hopes that haunt thee
When kneeling in His presence there,
May the Lord grant thee.

O well for us!-we march along,
A blood-bought nation;

The Name of Jesus is our song,

And our salvation.

Our trust is not in spear nor shield,

Nor our own doing;

We rally round Him in the field,

Faint, yet pursuing.

His Cross, the banner that we bear,

By Him appointed,

Proclaims Messiah everywhere,

The Lord's Anointed;

And when before our conquering feet

Our foes fall smitten,

We see still gleaming over it

His title written.

MOUNT NEBO.

'And the Lord spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying, Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession: and die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered

.....

unto thy people; Because ye trespassed against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel. Yet thou shalt see the land before thee.'-Deut. xxxii. 48-51.

'And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord shewed him all the land.'-Deut. xxxiv. 1.

SEEM'D it not strange and severe that the leader of Israel,
After so many long years full of anguish and travail,
After those terrible trials, and that dreary probation,
Should be but given to gaze from the summit of Pisgah
On the good land of his heart, the fair home of his fathers,
On the broad borders outstretch'd of Ephraim and Gilead,
On the great plains and fair fields of Dan and Manasseh,
On the dear place of his rest, the sweet Canaan of Promise.
Forty years softness and wealth in the courts of the Pharaohs,
Forty years travail and toil in the terrible desert,

Then but one glance on the land he would never inherit;
On the blue summits afar of the hills everlasting,
Shading the vineyards and vales of luxuriant verdure,
Heavy with harvests full ripe that he never would gather,
Track'd o'er with silvery streams that he never would drink of,
Sprinkled with glimmering lakes that he never would rest by,
Fann'd by a delicate breeze that would never refresh him:
Fair was that land and serene-'twas the glory of all lands.
Yet dare we deem that regret from the lips of the dying
Came, as he thought of his sin and the Will of Jehovah ;
Came, as with eyes gazing far with a vision prophetic,
Saw he the sin, and the shame, and the idols of Israel—
Incense, and off'rings, and groves to the gods of the nations;
Came, as he saw those free souls, the children of Abraham,
Languish as spiritless slaves in the dungeons Assyrian,
And as idolaters bow to the gods Babylonian,

Whilst retribution descends to the fourth generation.
Yet thro' that dreariest waste, like a gleam in the darkness,
Thro' the dim vista of years shone the Light of the Gentiles,
And on the midnight of sin rose the Glory of Israel.
Therefore, the Saint did not weep, for that Great Consolation
Made him rejoice for his flocks, and make haste not to linger,
But to th' Embrace of his God to depart and inherit:
Whilst like the sign of the Cross his arms were outstretched,
And on the Breast of his God was his spirit enfolded—
For he had reach'd, in his heart, to the City supernal;
And when he lifted his eyes from the Canaan terrestrial,
'Twas to repose them for aye on the Face of the Blessed.

MANY MANSIONS.

ZECHARIAH, VIII. 4, 5.

IN MEMORIAM. A. C.-C. S. L.

PART I.

'Know ye the land? 't is not an earthly home,

To which no thoughts of sorrow ever come.'

It is not possible even to tell over 'the infinite meanings that cluster round that blessed word Home.' 'The joys that crowd the household nook; the certainty of sympathy, that brings us

'Home, home, to sigh when we're sad,

Home, home, to smile when we're glad;'

the unconquerable feeling for our fatherland-the land

"Where once the father's cradle stood,

Where now his ashes rest ;'

'the strength whereby

The patriot girds himself to die;'

the young conscript's deep sadness; the exile's unutterable yearning ;these all have 'one fountain deep and clear,' in that love of home and country, which is one of the truest, holiest feelings of man's heart.

How deeply that love was felt by Him, Who took our nature, that He might show what it ought to be in its perfection, His words, His tears, will prove.*

'And when He came near, He beheld the city and wept over it. 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace!'

'Even thou! thou that killest the prophets, thou that wilt say—“This is the heir; come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. Even thou art so dear to Him still, that His farewell command to His disciples is, "Go preach the Gospel to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."†

But here we have no continuing city-we seek one to come: 'I am a stranger and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.' Day by day we learn more clearly, that this is not our home; would God we all learned, at the same time, to look on to that blessed place, of which our earthly homes are as the type and shadow, where these heart-felt affections shall receive their fullest development. For as Moses was commanded to make all things according to the pattern showed him in the Mount, so the whole

*See poem by Rev. C. Wolfe.

+ Compare Bunyan's Jerusalem Sinner Saved.