A MEDITATION ON VEGETABLES WHICH PRESERVE THEIR VERDURE IN WINTER.

THE earth may now be compared to a mother who has

been robbed of those children from whom she had the best hopes. She is desolate, and deprived of the charms which varied and embellished her surface; however, she is not robbed of all her children; here and there some vegetables are still to be seen, which seem to defy the severity of the winter; here the wild hawthorn shows its purple berries, and the laurestina displays its blossoms in clusters, crowned with leaves which never fade. The yew-tree rises like a pyramid, and its leaves preserve their verdure. The ivy, ever-green, still creeps along the walls, and clings immovable, while the tempest roars around it. The laurel extends its green branches, and has lost none of its summer ornaments.

The humble box shows here

and there, in the midst of the snow, its ever-green branches. These trees are emblems of the durable advantages which he possesses, whose mind is cultivated, and whose temper is sweet and serene. The most brilliant complexion will fade, and all outward beauty is of short duration; but virtue has charms which survive every thing. The man who fears the Lord is "like a tree planted by the side of a rivulet. It grows and flourishes, and its branches extend afar off. It bears fruit in due season, and its leaves fade not."

What a delightful image is this of a pious man! The storms of adversity may sometimes shake him, but they cannot overpower him; and he soon rises again above the stormy regions. If he be reduced to poverty, he is still rich in possession of the favour of God, a good conscience, and the hope of a blessed immortality.

S

The BEST Example for IMITATION.

I see the path

In His blest life

Of immortality.

YOUNG.

Of all the characters that can be held up for imitation, that of the Great Founder of Christianity certainly deserves the pre-eminence; and as it is the intention of the Publishers of The CHEAP MAGAZINE, occasionally to bring under review some of those truly illustrious persons who have immortalized themselves, in some period of their lives, by deeds honourable to human nature, they conceive they cannot do better than put at the top of this list the following delineation, by a masterly hand*, of that great pattern of every grace and virtue, whose whole life on earth was one continued scene of the most disinterested goodness.

THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST.

OUR Lord Jesus Christ had been long expected to appear in the Jewish church, as a prophet like unto Moses, and his ministry had been characterized as the most beneficial that could be imagined. The people, therefore, formed the highest expectations of his economy, and he framed it so as to exceed all description. The truths of natural religion he explained and established; the doctrines of revelation he expounded, elucidated, and enforced, and thus brought life and immortality to light by the gospel while the tempers in which he executed his ministry, were the noblest that can be conceived. He was humble, compassionate, firm, disinterested, and generous. He displayed, in all the course of his ministry, such an assortment of properties as obliged some of his auditors to VOL, I.

D

*Robinson

barst

burst into exclamatory admiration others to hang upon his lips, wondering at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth, and all to acknowledge, Never man spake like this man ! This was not a temporary tide of popularity; it was admiration founded on reason, and all ages since have admired and exclaimed in like

manner.

Add to these the simplicity and majesty of his style, the beauty of his images, the alternate softness and severity of his address, the choice of his subjects, the gracefulness of his deportment, the indefatigableness of his zealwhere shall I put the period? his perfections are inexTHE haustible, and our admiration is everlasting. CHARACTER OF CHRIST IS THE BEST BOOK ANY MAN CAN STUDY.

A little Hero in Humble Life.

From Barbauld's Evenings at Home."

THERE was a journeyman bricklayer in this townan able workman, but a very drunken idle fellow, who spent at the alehouse almost all he earned, and left his wife and children to shift for themselves as they could. This is, unfortunately, a common case; and of all the tyranny and cruelty exercised in the world, I believe that of bad husbands and fathers is by much the most frequent and the worst..

The family might have starved, but for his eldest son, whom from a child the father brought up to help him in his work; and who was so industrious and attentive, that being now at the age of thirteen or fourteen, he was able to earn pretty good wages, every farthing of which, that he could keep out of his father's bands, he brought to his mother. And when his father came home drunk, curs

ing and swearing, and in such an ill humour that his mother and the rest of the children durst not come near him for fear of a beating, this good lad (Tom was his name) kept near him, to pacify him and get him quietly to bed. His mother, therefore, justly looked upon Tom as the support of the family, and loved him dearly.

It chanced that one day, Tom, in climbing up a high ladder with a load of mortar on his head, missed his hold, and fell down to the bottom on a heap of bricks and rubbish. The bystanders ran up to him and found him all bloody, and with his thigh broken and bent quite under him. They raised him up, and sprinkled water on his face to recover him from a swoon into which he had fallen. As soon as he could speak, looking round, with a lamentable tone, he cried, "O, what will become of my poor mother!"

He was carried home. I was present while the surgeon set his thigh. His mother was hanging over him half distracted. "Don't cry, mother! (said he) I shall get well again in time." Not a word more, or a groan, escaped him while the operation lasted.

Tom was a ragged boy that could not read or writeyet Tom has always stood on my list of heroes.

A MODERN EXAMPLE OF FRUGALITY AND LAUDABLE PERSEVERANCE IN ACQUIR

ING A PROFESSION.

"In this the art of living lies

"To want no more than may suffice,

"And make that little do."

DR. ALEXANDER ADAM,

COTTON.

THE late venerable rector of the high-school of Edinburgh, before he left his father's house, occasionally ap

peared

peared in the character of a neat herd, and although the writer of his Memoir would make it appear that this was more the effect of choice than necessity, there can be no doubt, if he is correct in his other statement, that the Doctor was at one time in very straitened circumstances, er how could it be said of him, that as he had no other method of raising a sixpence, he contrived to live on the humble pittance he received as a private teacher, which amounted to only one guinea in three months! As this may appear incredible to some persons, I shall relate the manner in which it was said to be accomplished, in the words of his biographer: He lodged in a small room at Restalrig, in the north eastern suburbs; and for his accommodation he paid fourpence per week. All his meals, except dinner, uniformly consisted of oatmeal made into porridge, together with small beer, of which he only allowed himself half a bottle at a time, When he wished to dine, he purchased a penny-loaf at the nearest baker's shop; and, if the day was fair, he would dispatch his meal in a walk to the Meadows, or Hope Park, which is adjoining to the southern part of the city; but if the weather was foul, he had recourse to some long and lonely stair, which he would climb, eating his dinner at every step. By this means all expense for cookery was avoided, and he wasted neither coals nor candles; for, when he was chill, be used to run till his blood began to glow, and his evening studies were always prosecuted under the roof of some ene or other of his companions.' The particulars of his conduct which are here related, (the author says,) have not been exaggerated in any manner; for he frequently told the same story to his pupils,' and a friend who took the trouble of bringing together upon paper the various items of the Doctor's expenditure, actually found that in six months it did not amount to two guineas!

Such