imagination is permitted to dwell. It is not purity of action that we contend for. It is exalted purity of heart, the ethereal purity of the third Heaven; and, if it is at once settled in the heart, it brings the peace, the triunph and the untroubled serenity of Heaven along with it. I had almost said, the pride of a great moral victory over the infirmities of an earthly and accursed nature. There is a healthful harmony in the soul-a beauty which, though it effloresces in the countenance and the outward path, is itself so thoroughly internal as to make purity of heart the most distinctive evidence of a work of grace in time, the most distinctive guidance of a character that is ripening and expanding for the glories of eternity.-CHALMERS. READING. A Reading People. It can not be that the people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading. A reading people will always be a knowing people.-JOHN Wesley. The Influence of Reading. If I were to pray for a taste that would stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. I think of it, of course, only as a worldly advantage, and not in the slightest degree as superseding or derogating from the higher office and surer and stronger panoply of religious principle; but as a taste, an instrument, and as a source of pleasurable gratification. Give a man this taste and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man, unless indeed you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history, with the wisest, with the tenderest, the bravest and the purest characters that have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. It is hardly possible but the character should take a much higher and a much better tone from the constant habit of associating in thought with a class of thinkers, to say the least of it, above the average of humanity. It is morally impossible but that the manners should take a tinge of good breeding and civilization from having constantly before one's eyes the way in which the best informed and the best bred men have conducted themselves in their intercourse with each other. There is a gentle but perfectly irresistible coercion in the habit of reading which, well directed over the whole tenor of a man's character and conduct, is not the less effectual because it works insensibly, and because it is really the last thing he dreams of.--SIR JOHN HERSCHEL. More Time for Reading. As the world grows older and as civilization advances, there is likely to be more and more time given to read ing. In several parts of the earth, where mankind are most active and where the proportion of those who need to labor by their hands is less than in other countries and likely to go on becoming less, the climate is such as to confine, if it does not repress, out-of-door amusements; and, in all climates, for the lovers of ease, the delicate in health, the reserved, the fastidious and the musing, books are amongst the chief sources of delight, and such as will more probably intrench upon other joys and occupations than give way to them.-SIR ARTHUR HELPS. RELIGION. Religion Must Work by Love. Religion, from its very nature, must work its way forward only by love. Its power lies not in Legislatures, but in persuasion; and the more gently the Bible comes to people's homes and to the children, the more divine will the book appear.-SWING. Religion Has Become Beautiful. You will find that not only is Christ pouring into the soul the great democratic idea that is blooming now into new and beautiful rights of man, but that Christ has waked in the bosom a group of other feelings, scarcely visible when the world was young. Religion has passed from the terrible to the joyous-from the horrid to the beautiful. The heathen tortures himself with knives; the Christian of our day sings words and music-the sweetest that the two arts can produce. The Chinese and all the pagans kill at times innocent little ones as an act of worship; the Christian mother clasps her infant to her bosom and whispers pravers over it, mingling prayers and tears. The heathen philosopher doubted and steeled his heart to his fate; the Christian philosopher beholds the city that hath foundations, and walks calmly down life's decline. -SWING. The Religion That Is Needed. The lawyers, the statesmen, the patriots, the philanthropists, all demand a religion that shall blend with these days of earth and help it in its liberty, in its law, in its arts, its letters, its honors, its pleasures. These noble ones believe in immortality, but they believe that a good earth is the best stepping-stone to Heaven. They believe that God loved the earth, or He would not have made it and caused to pass over it such a procession of souls. They believe that the children of this world will be called, one by one, to eternity; but they believe that for thousands of years yet the earth will remain the arena of human life, and that as a mother lovingly provides for her children, though she may be on the morrow to leave them for ever, so all noble souls will toil for mankind present and to come. Out of the persecutions and desolations of the former centuries, where a million people went hungry and barefoot that one king or prince might be arrayed in splendor-out of the persecutions which made religion mean martyrdom-came a melancholy 1 But bere our charity termi which we pity and forgive. Religion Must Be Personal. "Now, dear, What do you A little girl (whom we will call Ellen) was some time ago helping to nurse a sick gentleman, whom she loved very dearly. One day he said to her: "Ellen, it is time for me to take my medicine, I think. Will you pour it out for me? You must measure just a table-spoonful, and then put it in that wine-glass close by." Ellen did so quickly, and brought it to his bedside; but, instead of taking it in his own hand, he quietly said: will you drink it for me?" "I drink it! mean? I am sure I would, in a minute, if it would cure you all the same; but you know it won't do you any good unless you take it yourself." "Won't it, really? No; I suppose it will not. But, Ellen, if you can't take my medicine for me, I can't take your salvation for you. You must go to Jesus, and believe in Him for yourself." In this way he tried to teach her that each human being must seek salvation for himself, and repent, believe and obey for himself. —SPURGEON. Energy in Religion. Now, of all pursuits in the world, the Christian profession requires the most energetic action, and it utterly fails where diligence and zeal are absent. What can a |