tainties. printer, and friend of Johnson, once observed that many men were kept back from trying their fortunes in London because they were born to a competency, and said, "Small certainties are the bane of men Small cer of talents." "Small debts," said Johnson, "are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger. You must, therefore, be enabled to discharge petty debts, that you may have leisure, with security, to struggle with the rest." A gentleman visited Gibson, the sculptor, not long before his death, when he found him busy with his beautiful Pandora-finished, as it seemed, but still "in the clay." There she stood - a model of refined grace her box in her hand. The old man sat before it, talking and philosophizing. As he talked, he would gaze at his figure and, wetting his finger, would Figure of now and again pass it down the surface of a limb, giving a faint depression, or scraping off a film as faint. "Bless you," he said, "there's a month's work on it yet!" Reminding one of the saying of the old Greek sculptor, answering his objector that these were trifles. "Trifles make per Pandora. SECTS AND fection, and perfection is no trifle." Ah! trifles! "How much wiser," exclaimed Lady Mary Montagu, "are all those women I have despised than myself! In placing their happiness in trifles, they have placed it in what is attainable." Bayle in his Dictionary tells us that the sect which pleased Milton most in his youth was that of the Puritans; but in his middle age he was best pleased with the Independents and Anabaptists, because they allowed more liberty to every private person, and in his opinion seemed to come. nearest to the primitive Christians but in the latter part of his life he separated himself from all communions, and did not frequent any Christian assembly, nor made use of their peculiar rites in his family. As for the rest, he expressed the profoundest reverence to God as well in deeds as words. It has been very justly said that the whole tangle of authoritative creeds. They lead a The tangle is, at the best, embarrassing. embarrass ing. man, from their nature, to try to continue in a belief which he once thought he had. They give a fossil form to what should be pliant, elastic, and alive. I believe, said Dean Swift, that thousands of men would curious, or be orthodox enough in certain points, if divines had not been too curious, or too Divines too narrow, in reducing orthodoxy within the too narrow. compass of subtleties, niceties, and distinctions, with little warrant from Scripture, and less from reason or good policy. When Theodore Hook, in the old days of the English test oath, was asked if he could swear to the XXXIX articles, he replied, "Certainly, with all my heart; I am only sorry there are not more of them." Love, in the judgment of Hunt, is the The creed only creed destined to survive all others. survive. "They who think that no church can exist without a strong spice of terror, should watch the growth of education, and see which system of it is most beloved. They should see, also, which system in the very nursery is growing the most ridiculous." destined to OF EVIL. A late commentator upon Goethe's GOOD OUT Faust is free to express the opinion that "evil, as a stimulant to deed, to creative activity, is an element of progress; as selfish indulgence, producing indolence and intellectual inactivity, tends downward, and causes cessation of spiritual life. It is in this respect comparable to poisons which in certain solutions stimulate the Material things and moral agencies vital forces of the human system and are useful as medicines, while in their undiluted state they have the directly opposite effect, causing instant cessation of the animal life. If there are material things which have this double action upon the physical system, may there not be moral agencies, too, that have analogous effects upon the moral system?" Southey, in one of his attractive biographies, tells us how Louis XIV. "by one wicked edict revoked the privileges of the French Protestants, and by another of the same day prohibited their public worship, banished their ministers, and decreed that their children. should be educated by Roman Catholic priests in the Roman Catholic faith; the better to insure obedience he quartered dragoons upon them, and left them to the mercy of his military missionaries. The The Dra- Dragonnades, as they were called, were a gonnades. fit afterpiece to the tragedy of St. Bartholomew's day. The number of persons who emigrated in consequence of this execrable persecution has been variously computed from fifty to five hundred thousand; more meritorious men were never driven from their native country, and every country which afforded them refuge was amply re emigration. warded by their talents, their arts, and their industry. Prussia received a large and most beneficial increase of useful subjects; they multiplied the looms of England, and gave Effect of new activity to the trade of Holland. Some of these refugees converted rocks into vineyards on the shores of the Leman Lake; and British Africa is indebted to others for wines which will one day rival those of the Rhine and the Garonne." Few men were more bigoted or cruel than Archbishop Laud. He sharpened the Land spiritual sword, and drew it against all sorts of offenders, intending that the discipline of the church should be felt as well as spoken of. There had not been such a crowd of business in the High Commission Court since the Reformation, nor so many large fines imposed, as under the prelate's administration. The fines, we are told, were assigned to the repairs of St. Paul's, which gave rise to the proverb, that “the church was repaired with the sins of the people." Cruelty and bigotry of Cure. John Wesley, according to his best bi- THE FAITH ographer, related remarkable cures wrought by his faith and his prayers, which he considered, and represented, as positively |