appointments and the keenest misery. Yet men trust, and trust again, kissing with a kind of mad delight the sword that wounds them. As they increase, so does the desire for them increase. As they increase, so does a spirit of independence and self-sufficiency. As they increase, so does responsibility to glorify God by them; but just so fast also does the willingness to yield them to the glory of God grow less. As they increase, so do the objects which fasten the tendrils of the creature's love upon the earth. This power which roots the heart into the earth, how appropriately is it called the root of all evil! Before this dreadful spell, which chains the heart to treasures on earth is broken, no home-sickness after treasures in heaven is possible. How shall this be done? The Spirit knows, and has all the resources of providence at hand to accomplish its purposes. Fire, storm, earthquake, blight,-and many more instruments are in his hand by which He can in a moment sweep away dead capital! Sometimes it is done by a slow process, as by moth and rust which corrupt. Sometimes by unfaithfulness or wickedness in others, either where deceit defrauds under cover of friendship, or where bold thieves break through and steal. In this case wicked men do it, but their wrath is made to praise Him; and though his hand is not in the evil, yet it is over it for good. Sometimes their own wickedness is left to correct them; having inherited wealth, the reins are cast loose upon them and they run till their substance is wasted in riotous living, and when all is gone they come to themselves. How many have first become poor in this world before they became rich in faith! A moment's reflection will call them up in crowds from among your acquaintances around you. It is a severe process, but man must first be made poor before he will beg. Those broken to the yoke in this school generally become tame and meck Christians, and returning disappointed from such an unpropitious chase, they walk humbly on the homeward way.

The lusts of other things. This is general language, and in it the Saviour intends to comprehend all those objects of sense which have a tendency to drag downward to the earth the higher affeetions of our nature. It includes the prevailing spirit of the world, the power of things that are scen, and the allurements of temporal enjoyments, promises and hopes. In it must be included the power of mere human love, those affections which chain us to a creature, upon mere temporal considerations. How often does even the fondness of a creature's love chain the heart down to earth! Thus even the endearments of a family, may make a home for the heart on earth, and draw it from seeking its father's house above. How dangerous is this charmer to the young! At the very time when their hearts are tenderest, and when God calls upon them most ardently to remember their Creator, a creature introduces itself to the affections and disputes the ground with God! Idolatry is the consequence; but the Spirit knows how to demolish idols, and to break those which bind the heart to their worship."

This remark I understood-and it increased my home-sickness, by causing my memory immediately to stray among wicked affec tion and broken hopes, as they lay strewed thick and in melancholly confusion along the backward track of my short life!

"All men uaturally desire happiness," said the old man, "but instead of seeking it in God the source of all true happiness, they seek it in other sources according to the peculiar bent or disposition of their minds. What better way then to arrest their attention than by cutting them off from these resources. This is done by misfortunes, bereavements, and disappointments. Mark those wordsthey are the sabres of the Spirit, to demolish idols, and drive back their worshippers to their senses!

Sometimes when an individual is cut loose from one source, he flies to another so that it is frequently necessary, as in the case of Solomon, for him to run through the whole round of foolish experiment before he learns that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. He that turns into the homeward way at the first disappointment, is wise, and will save himself much bitterness and regret.

Hear yet a parable. A certain man had a vine. In order to train it to climb upward, he took away carefully all bushes near the earth lest they should spin out upon them. Though made to climb, the vine nevertheless fastened itself upon the lowest and nearest supports first; but the vine dresser was watchful; and as soon as a tendril caught hold upon some twig lying on the earth he took the tendril loose, and threw the twig away. After repeated efforts to train it to climb, there were found a few still who seemed resolutely to persevere in crawling out upon the earth. These he left at last to their own ways, first a fruitless nuisance, then trod under foot, and finally cut and east into the fire. He that hath ears to hear let him hear.

Now says God: O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard, What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes!" Yes, thought I, if all the feelings of earth's vanity which have passed through my own mind, young as I am, are the beckonings of the Spirit towards the homeward way, then verily mine be the fault if I perish in a strange land. God's blessing upon your grey hairs, my dear Gottlieb, for these words of wisdom and comfort.

"Be not surprised my dear boy," continued the old man, "if, in illustration of what I have said, an old pilgrim gives you a paragraph out of the history of his own life. Fifty years ago I lived with my father and mother in this valley. Yonder house, where three poplar trees and a willow stand yellow in the yard, was the homestead! Those trees my mother brought from Virginia, when they were scions, hanging to the horn of her saddle and-but why need I talk till I weep for an earthly home when there is a better above! Yet oh how changed!-I was then nineteen years of age. I was an only child, and neither feared God nor regarded man.

Though not outbreakingly wicked, yet a spirit of thoughtless and reckless independence was the most prominent feature in my character. God knew how to break me, and this he did by breaking off my resources. In one year my father and mother both died! In settling up the estate, the title was disputed; though it honestly belonged to my father, yet a weak place in the deed laid it open to wicked claims, which were presented by one who had been provoked by my own pride and self-sufficiency. The matter ended in a law-suit, when the homestead fell into the hands of another. God bless the hour! painful as it then was to me. The personal property barely reached to pay some scattered debts, inost of which existed by my own extravagance. So I was at once parentless and penniless. This was a hard stroke; but a sturdy oak only bends as long as the storm prevails and then springs proudly back to its old position. Thus did I-and the more easily, as I had still another home for my storm-tossed heart. It was in the affectionate heart of 'Clara! In yonder church yard she sleeps in death! In heaven she sings!"

Here the old man's lips quivered like an aspen leaf, and the fountains of his soul broke open in a gush of deepest sorrow! I now understood his weeping in the grave-yard a few Sundays before. "Thanks to the Great Disposer of all events"-he faltered out at last

"Good when he gives, supremely good-
Nor less when he denies.'

For one year our union was suspended by her and her parents, because I had not turned my attention to religion, during which time I received many warm-hearted exhortations to a pious life from her who desired more than my temporal happiness-her own heart being warm with the love of the Saviour. I promised andlived on as before! For her sake, and for mine, God took her! It was on such an autumn, and on such a Sunday evening as this, she faded away The scene is written upon my heart forever. I came to her bed-side just in time to hear from her dying lips-'MEET ME IN HEAVEN!'

Now the world was dark and desolate indeed. I was sorely in want from their last resting place my hopes of happiness were now driven. My thoughts now wandered over the earth, but found no home. I humbled myself under the mighty hand of God, recalled the exhortations of her who was now in heaven, and the Spirit was pleased to impress them with undying firmness upon my heart. I procured a stone-in yonder grave-yard it stands upon which I caused to be engraved the name, age, and last words of her whom I had lost

Not lost, but gone before.'

With my own hand I planted a rose-bush upon her tomb, and leaning upon the stone which marked the resting place of my last earthly hopes, I solemnly vowed to obey her last dying command.

Since that hour I have thought more of heaven than of earth. "Where your treasures are there shall your heart be also.'

A few weeks after this, I stood upon the top of yon mountain that bounds the western side of the valley, and looked back once more, and as I then thought for the last time, upon the scenes of my childhood-home, the place of my first joys and sorrows! Of all that happened me in the house of my pilgrimage for fifty years— we will have time to talk of that in heaven! My three score years and ten are nearly numbered, and I have returned to die whenever God shall please, in my native valley, that I may be buried, like Jacob, with my fathers. Emotions deep and tender move my spirit when I bid the past thus move before me, but above them all rises my soul's strong gratitude to my heavenly father, who has, by disappointments many, trained my spirit to look upwards to a better world as my final home. I stand already on the last hill of the homeward way; my father's house lies before the eye of my faith, and I seck to wait watchfully while the chariots of Israel tarry! In my own short history, you have an illustration of the fact that the Spirit arrests the attention by means of disappointments. You may see too the touching of which cord is the most effectual. Wealth, health, kindred, and all other forms of earthly good may be taken away, and yet the soul will refuse to bend, as long as it can find a retreat in the sympathies and affections of a kindred spirit. This is a resource strong as death, and unconquerable as the floods. Here the spirit finds a peaceful nook when chased by a thousand sorrows; to it it retires when every where else disappointed. Driven from hence it is homeless on earth, and can find peace only in the consolations of religion,

How many do you suppose there are in the world who have received their first lesson in this school of misfortune, bereavment, and disappointment? The world would be surprised could the long catalogue of their names be unrolled to their view. Not always through death are these disappointments effected; far oftener through the perfidy and unfaithfulness of the living. In such cases it is the wrath of man, but no less does it praise God, under the overruling wisdom of the Spirit." Here the old man sighed deeply, and exclaimed with much feeling: "Hail! ye quiet, sorrow-subdued,

tender, and lovely spirits, that sit in the by-paths of life and weep over broken vows and wrecked hopes! God will find you when He comes to make up His jewels! Look up to him who binds the bruised reed and heals the broken-hearted.

'Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish,

Come, to the mercy-seat fervently kneel,

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish,
Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal!'"

In these remarks of old Gottlieb I was much interested. They threw light upon my own experience, carried my heart along by a power of sympathy, and most sweetly soothed my feelings. I felt as if I belonged to that class of persons, whose feelings and affections the Spirit, by a series of mysterious providences, was training, like a fruitful vine, to climb upwards. So far as I had come, the hand of God was sufficiently seen to enable me to be heartily willing to trust him farther. I felt anxious that the old man should say more. He seemed to know my wish, and soon proceeded. What he said the reader shall hereafter know.

ST. NICHOLAS.

FROM THE GERMAN, BY THE EDITOR.

The Patron of the Christmas festivities, St. Nicholas, is also called Kriskindle, Peltznickle, Knecht Ruprecht. We give here a description of him from an old Poem:

FATHER.

It is said in the papers--now children give ear-
That the holy St. Nicholas will shortly appear.
From Moscow he comes, where he usually stays,
And is honored as Saint in a great many ways.
Even now he has left and is well on his way;
He is coming to visit the children, they say.
He will call on the girls and the boys-'tis his rule—
To see what, this year, they have learned in the school,
He will know who are pious, and nice in their play,
And how they can read, write, and cypher and pray.
He carries a sack, which is filled with a store
Of dolls, cakes, and candies, and many things more.
To pious, good children, he is friendly and pleasant,
And gives to each one a most beautiful present.

CHILD.

Come, friendly St. Nich'las, from Moscow, I pray,
And stop at our house when you travel this way.