its different states; one resembles brown paper cut into very small squares, while another, of some value, is a mass of seven or eight crystals, from one to two inches long, and as thick as a child's finger. Another, again, resembles radiations of bright blacklead, while a fourth has a rough surface of lively red, purple and green.

The remaining kinds of iron must stand over to our next number.

X. Q.

BE YE SEPARATE.

'How glad I am to be, with you again, dear Aunt,' exclaimed young Alice Dawson, as she drew over a basket of work and seated herself in Miss Annesley's pretty library; ' Am I an intruder now,' she continued, or have you leisure to answer me at least a dozen questions?'

6

'You are more than usually welcome at present,' replied her aunt, as she rose from her desk; 'during your absence I have spent so much time among my voiceless companions here, that my mind is rather wearied, and change of occupation will tend to refresh me.'

In a few minutes both ladies were diligently and usefully engaged, for Miss Annesley regarding time as one of the Lord's gifts to man, for the abuse or neglect of which all must be responsible, suffered not a moment to pass into eternity in vacant or unprofitable idleness.

Now, Alice,' she said tell me what you want to know. I am always glad to give you the advantage of any knowledge or experience I possess, but beware of adopting blindly the views or opinions, even of those you greatly respect; pray for the guidance of the Spirit of truth, and weigh carefully the word that is spoken, for if there ever was a period when such caution might be remitted, it is assuredly not OCTOBER, 1844.

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the present, when so much of subtle error is interwoven with sacred truth.'

'Well, aunt,' said Alice smiling, 'I will try, though I confess, I feel a great deal more inclined to gather up your wisdom ready for my own use, than to pause and analyse it: you will find however I did weigh some of what was spoken during my visit to Mrs. Burton, last evening, especially, when, by way of a treat for me, she invited a few of her intellectual friends, as she tells them; amongst others, old Mr. Mansell, who has written several learned books, and young Mr. Newcombe, the curate of her parish, who is expected to write a great many more.'

Miss Annesley's eye fell gravely and reprovingly on her lively young companion, but she did not interrupt her, and Alice proceeded :- of course, as I was in duty bound to taste the fare provided for my mental appetite, I listened to every thing every body said, with various degrees of profit, till at last Mr. Mansell and Mr. Newcombe fell into an argument which engrossed me entirely and puzzled me no less, and now I resort to you, dear aunt, to get my twisted ideas disentangled. The conversation began by Mr. Mansell making some observations on the way in which the ends of the earth were drawn together in those locomotive days, contrasting it with the short period back, when London was considered almost inaccessible to the Irish, and a journey there, demanded not only previous settlement of all mundane affairs, but as much sea-store and preparation as if we were now starting for "Behring's Straits or Greenland's naked Isles ;" and then Mr. Newcombe said, in his mild smooth way, that he greatly rejoiced in

the change of times, in this respect, for nothing tended so much to promote feelings of brotherly love as people of different nations and tongues, mingling freely together; thus our ancestors, who knew them only by report, set no bounds to the aversion with which they regarded the giddy French, or treacherous Italian, while we, born in a brighter day, and enabled to hold personal intercourse with them, find so much that is amiable and refined, so much to exalt genius, and (ennoble intellect. Here Mr. Mansell met him, with glowing praise of foreign works of art and sculpture and painting were dwelt on, with such vivid minuteness of detail, I almost fancied I was wandering in the Florence gallery, or the scarcely less enriched Louvre. Then as their ardour cooled, and they drew towards home again, Mr. Newcombe went on to say that he trusted the enlightening spirit of the age would soon break through those barriers, which chilled the current of Christian intercourse in Ireland, and that Protestants would learn no longer to keep the members of an erring Church at arm's length, augmenting the sad divisions which rend our unhappy land, by exhibiting a degree of jealous intolerance towards the Roman Catholics scattered around them, which necessarily led them to regard them as enemies. Shut out, by a mistaken doctrine from reading the Bible where our faith was to be found, they knew Protestantism only by its effects towards themselves, and those were most unlikely to conciliate their good will, or produce Christian love.

But at this Mr. Mansell got warm, and I soon found however he might like Popery abroad, he was not prepared to welcome it at home; and though he

seemed sufficiently disposed to do at Rome as Romans do' he did not approve of Romish ways here; he plainly said, Popery was the monster grievance of Ireland, and that there should be no peace with it; but, aunt, he lost his temper, if not his argument, while Mr. Newcombe never altered the bland inflections of his modulated voice, as he pleaded that the time was past when such distinctions and animosities should be kept up-indeed, he contended, they could not be kept up now; for the upper ranks of society accustomed to see how religious differences were merged abroad, and opposing sects lived in harmony together, would learn to imitate such a Christian example, and each be satisfied to worship after the mode he thought best, receiving and granting perfect toleration. It might have done, he added, to keep up divisions of creed and party in former times, when the catholics had neither wealth, influence, or rank; but now when all this was changed, to shrink from intercourse with them, because we felt persuaded that we believed the truth, and they did not, was certainly a strange method of diffusing our knowledge. Protestant ladies, he went on to say, condemned monastic seclusion in the sisterhoods of Rome, but they continually acted in the same principle themselves: for the moment any pretended to a greater degree of seriousness amongst them, they withdrew forthwith from all those who needed good influence, and by so doing deprived themselves of a thousand opportunities of missionary usefulness; besides, this had greatly the appearance of conscious weakness or foolish cowardice, and showed nothing of the courage truth imparts; and be knew many instances in which such contact was so inter